The first of these Acts repealed the Act of Settlement, and enacted that everyone was to be restored to the possession of what he or his ancestors had been lawfully in possession of on October 23rd, 1641. This enactment, therefore, did not interfere with the nine million acres which, as we have seen, had been in the possession of Protestants on that date. But it retransferred to the Catholics everything of which they had been deprived by Cromwell and by the proceedings after the Restoration dealt with in the last chapter. The loss caused to the Protestant interest therefore was equal to the amount so transferred from Catholic to Protestant hands and would therefore be at the lowest, i.e. Petty 's estimate, five million English acres. But, as has been said before, Petty 's figures cannot be relied on, and there are some grounds for believing that, of the eleven million acres held by Catholics in 1641, they had only retained or recovered something between two and a quarter and three millions. In this case at least eight million acres would now, after a lapse of nearly forty years, be retransferred to Catholic hands.
But during these forty years many of the lands in question had changed hands by bona fide sales. It was felt that compensation was due to all who had expended money on the purchase of lands which they were now to restore to the representatives of the owner in 1641. Of such purchasers many no doubt were Catholics, for under Charles II., Catholics were not impeded in purchasing landed property. All purchasers, therefore, of lands now restorable were to be compensated, and
