514 Assembly Proceedings, May 8-May 30, 1754.

L. H. J.
Liber No. 47
May 30

Ordered, That the Bill entituled, An Act for the Security of his
Majesty's Dominion, and to prevent the Growth of Popery within
this Province, be inserted in the Votes and Proceedings, and printed
with them.
Which Bill follows in these Words, viz.
An Act for the Security of his Majesty's Dominion, and to prevent
the Growth of Popery within this Province.
Whereas the Right Honourable the Earl of Holdernesse, one of
his Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State, by his Letter to the
Governor of this Province, dated Whitehall, August the 28th, Seven-
teen Hundred and Fifty Three, hath signified the March of a large
Body of French, to commit Hostilities on his Majesty's Dominions
here, and directing him to keep a Correspondence with the other
Governors of his Majesty's Territories on this Continent, in Order to
concert the needful Means for preventing any evil Consequences
therefrom; and, since which, the Indians and French have, not only
dispossessed his Majesty's Subjects of Settlements, which they had
in the Territory of Virginia, within the King's Dominions, but com-
mitted barbarous Murders, and made Prisoners of several Traders,
and taken their Effects, and are now actually fortifying themselves in
those very Places, from whence they have dispossessed his Majesty's
Subjects.

p. 461

And whereas the Insolence and Disaffection of Papists within this
Province, to his Majesty's sacred Person and Government, has been
too often manifested by many of them; and as many Popish Priests,
and Jesuits, hold sundry large Tracts of Land, Manners, and other
Tenements, within the Province, and on them, or some of them, have
Dwellings, where they live and cohabit, as in a collegiate Manner,
having public Mass-Houses, where they celebrate their Religious
Functions, in the most public Manner, perverting many of his Maj-
esty's dutiful Protestant Subjects to Popery, as also many Servants
and Slaves belonging to his Majesty's Protestant Subjects, which,
from their known Principles, in Church and State, must prove of
most dangerous Consequence to his Majesty's Dominion and his
Protestant Subjects here, as well as from the Vicinity of the French,
and their allied Indian Nations, and the manifest Incroachments,
making by them, on his Majesty's Territories adjoining to this Prov-
ince, and the Danger of their being joined and assisted by these our
domestic Enemies: To prevent, therefore, such Evils, and the further
Growth of Popery, within this Province, it is humbly prayed that it
may be enacted.

And be it Enacted, by the Right. Honourable the Lord. Proprietary,

by and with the Advice and Consent of his Lordship's Governor, and
the Upper and Lower Houses of Assembly, and the Authority of the
same, That all Manors, Lands, Tenements, and Hereditaments, which
were vested in any Popish Priest or Jesuit, or Popish Priests or