Page:Armatafragment00ersk.djvu/381

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¬though they were not only void of all legal so- lemnity, but were in contempt of positive law. ¬This dangerous system of fraud was carried at last to such a height, that the great council of Armata resolved to put an end to it; and the manner they set about its destruction was just what might have been expected from the sagacity and shrewdness so visible in all their institutions. — They said by a statute, in a jew plain words, that whoever had the use of land should be taken to be the legal proprietor, and having before prohibited the clergy from re- ceiving conveyances, no other path was open to them : without the use they had nothing ; and the use now becoming the land itself, they could no longer hold it — thus the foxes" holes were completely earthed up. Now comes the extraordinary matter — which, as I could hardly myself believe when I heard it, I am almost afraid to be a suitor for belief from others; I can only promise to relate what I was told, though I cannot be confident I understood it.— ¬When ¬