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James II is by no means conclusive, but it is no doubt true that it was easier to pass such an Act than to enforce it. It must be remembered that, when the Act was passed, five-sixths of the Protestants in Ireland were in arms against the government, and that most of those who continued outwardly submissive were suspected, not always unjustly, of sympathising with the rebellion of their co-religionists. Under these circumstances, although Tyrconnell and his colleagues vigorously exerted themselves to secure the observance of the toleration Act, they were not always able to restrain the violence of mobs actuated much less by hatred of heresy than by love of plunder.

A series of measures conceived in the same spirit effected an equitable distribution of ecclesiastical property between the rival Churches. Two Acts transferred to the Catholic priesthood all tithes payable by members of that communion, the Protestant clergy continuing, as before, to receive the tithes of their co-religionists. The tithes of Ulster, which, from the time of the plantation, had been subject to special regulations, were dealt with by a separate statute; while yet another Act put an end to a tax of one shilling in the pound which was levied on the inhabitants of corporate towns for the support of 168