cannot be referred to his fettlement, as other children may. But, in legitimate children, though the place of birth be prima facie the fettlement, yet it is not conclufively fo; for there are, 2. Settlements by parentage, being the fettlement of one's father or mother: All legitimate children being really fettled in the parish where their parents are fettled, until they get a new fettlement for themselves. A new fettlement may be acquired several ways; as, 3. By marriage. For a woman marrying a man that is fettled in another parifh, changes her own fettlement: The law not permitting the feparation of husband and wife. But if the man has no fettlement, her's is fufpended during his life, if he remains in England, and is able to maintain her; but, in his abfence, or after his death, or during (perhaps) his inability, fhe may be removed to her old fettlement ". The other methods of acquiring lettlements in any parish are all reducible to this one, of forty days refidence therein: But this forty days refidence (which is conftrued to be lodging or lying there) must not be by fraud, or stealth, or in any clandeftine manner; but made notorious, by one or other of the following concomitant circumftances. The next method, therefore, of gaining a fettlement, is, 4. By forty days refidence, and notice. For if a ftranger comes into a parifh, and delivers notice in writing of his place of abode, and number of his family, to one of the overfeers, (which must be read in the church and registered), and refides there unmolested for forty days after fuch notice, he is legally fettled thereby w. For the law prefumes that fuch an one, at the time of notice, is not likely to become chargeable, elfe he would not venture to give it ; or that, in fuch cafe, the parifh would take care to remove him. But there are alfo other circumftances equivalent to fuch notice: Therefore, 5. Renting for a year a tenement of the yearly value of ten pounds, and refiding forty days in the parifh, gains a fettlement, without notice; upon the principle of having substance enough s Salk. 427. t Stra. 544. Mar. c. 11. f Salk. 528. 2 Lord Raym. 1473. u Foley, 249, 251, 252. Bur. Sett. C. 370. Car. II. c. 12. 1 Jac. II. c. 17. 3 & 4 W. and x Stat. 13 and 14 Car. II. c, 12. enough to gain credit for fuch a house. 6. Being charged to and paying the publick taxes and levies of the parifh; excepting those for scavengers, highways y, and the duties on houses and windows 2: And, 7. Execut ing, when legally appointed, any publick parochial office for a whole year in the parifh, as church warden, &c. are both of them equivalent to notice, and gain a settlement, if coupled with a refidence of forty days. 8. Being hired for a year, when unmarried and childless, and ferving a year in the fame fervice; and, 9. Being bound an apprentice, give the fervant and apprentice a fettlement, without notice, in that place wherein they ferve the last forty days. This is meant to encourage application to trades, and going out to reputable fervices. 10. Laftly, The having an eftate of one's own, and refiding thereon forty days, however finall the value may be, in cafe it be acquired by act of law or of a third perfon, as by defcent, gift, devife, &c. is a fufficient fettlement: But if a man acquire it by his own a&t, as by purchase, (in its popular fense, in confideration of money paid) then, unless the confideration advanced, bona fide, be gol. it is no fettlement for any longer time than the perfon fhall inhabit thereon. He is in no cafe removable from his own property; but he fhall not, by any trifling or fraudulent purchase of his own, acquire a permanent and lasting settlement. All perfons, not fo fettled, may be removed to their own parishes, on complaint of the overseers, by two justices of the peace, if they shall adjudge them likely to become chargeable to the parish into which they have intruded Unless they are in a way of getting a legal fettlement, as by having hired a house of 10l. per annum, or living in an annual fervice; for then they are not removable. And in all other cafes, if the parish to which they belong will grant them a certificate, acknowledging them to be their parishioners, they cannot be removed merely because likely to become chargeable, y Stat. 9 Gen. 1. c. 7. §. 6. z Stat. 21 Geo. II. c. 10, 18 Geo. III. c. 26. a Stat. 3 & 4 W. and M. c. 11. but b Stat. 3 & 4 W. and M. c. 11. 8 & 9 W. III. c. 10. 31 Geo. II. c. 11. but only when they become actually chargeable f. But fuch certificated person can gain no fettlement by any of the means abovementioned; unless by renting a tenement of 10l. per annum, or by ferving an annual office in the parish, being legally placed therein: Neither can an apprentice or fervant to fuch certificated perfon gain a fettlement by fuch their service %. These are the general heads of the laws relating to the poor, which, by the refolutions of the courts of justice thereon within a century paft, are branched into a great variety. And yet, notwithstanding the pains that have been taken about them, they still remain very imperfect and inadequate to the purpofes they are defigned for: A. fate that has generally attended most of our statute laws, where they have not the foundation of the common law to build on. When the fhires, the hundreds, and the tithings, were kept in the fame admirable order in which they were difpofed by the great Alfred, there were no perfons idle, confequently none but the impotent that needed relief: And the statute of 43 Eliz. feems entirely founded on the fame principle. But when this excellent fcheme was neglected and departed from, we cannot but observe with concern, what miferable fhifts and lame expedients have from time to time been adopted, in order to patch up the flaws occafioned by this neglect. There is not a more neceffary or more certain maxim in the frame and constitution of fociety, than that every individual must contribute his fhare, in order to the well being of the community: And furely they must be very deficient in found policy, who fuffer one half of a parish to continue idle, diffolute, and unemployed; and at length are amazed to find that the industry of the other half is not able to maintain the whole. CHAPTER f Stat. 8 & 9. W. III. c. 30. g Stat. 12 Ann. c. 18. CHAPTER THE TENTH. OF THE PEOPLE, WHETHER ALIENS, DENIZENS, OR NATIVES. HAVING, in the eight preceding chap-. ters, treated of perfons as they ftand in the publick relations of magiftrates, I now proceed to confider such perfons as fall under the denomination of the people. And: herein all the inferior and subordinate magiftrates, treated of in the laft chapter, are included. The first and most obvious divifion of the people is into aliens and natural born fubjects. Natural born fubjects are fuch as are born within the dominions of the crown of England; that is, within the ligeance, or, as it is generally called, the allegiance of the king: And aliens, fuch as are born out of it. Allegiance is the tie, or ligamen, which binds the fubject to the king, in return for that protection which the king affords the fubject. The thing itself, or fubftantial part of it, is founded in reason and the nature of government; the name and the form are derived to us from our Gothick ancestors. Under the feodal fyftem, every owner of lands held them in fubjection to fome fuperior or lord, from whom or whofe ancestors the tenant or vaffal had -received them: And there was a mutual trust or confi. dence fubfifting between the lord and vaffal, that the lord fhould protect the vaffal in the enjoyment of the territory he had granted him; and, on the other hand, that the vaffal fhould be faithful to the lord, and defend him against all his enemies. This obligation on the part of a vaffal was called his fidelitas, or fealty; and an oath of fealty was required by the feodal law, to be taken by all tenants to their landlord, which is couched in almost the fame terms as our ancient oath of alle giance : a giance Except that, in the usual oath of fealty, there was frequently a faving or exception of the faith due to a fuperior lord by name, under whom the landlord him-felf was perhaps only a tenant or vaffal. But when the acknowledgement was made to the abfolute superior himself, who was vaffal to no man, it was no longer called the oath of fealty, but the oath of allegiance; and therein the tenant fwore to bear faith to his fovereign lord, in oppofition to all men, without any faving or exception: "Contra omnes homines fidelitatem fecit b." Land held by this exalted species of fealty, was called feudum ligium, a liege fee; the vaffals homines ligi, or liege men; and the fovereign their dominus ligius, or liege lord. And when fovereign princes did homage to each other, for lands held under their refpe&tive fovereignties, a diftinction was always made between fimple homage, which was only an acknowledgement of tenure; and liege homage, which included the fealty before mentioned, and the fervices confequent upon it. Thus when our Edward III, in 1329, did homage to Philip VI, of France, for his ducal dominions on that - continent, it was warmly disputed of what species the homage was to be, whether liege or fimple homage d. But with us in England, it becoming a fettled principle of tenure, that all lands in the kingdom are holden of the king, as their fovereign and lord paramount, no oath but that of fealty could ever be taken to inferior lords, and the oath of allegiance was neceffarily confined to the person of the king alone. By an eafy analogy, the term of allegiance was foon brought to fignify all other engagements, which are due from fubjects to their prince, as well as thofe duties which were fimply and merely territorial. And the oath of allegiance, as adminiftered for upwards of fix hundred years, contained a promise to be true and faithful to the king and his heirs, and truth and faith to bear of life and limb and terrene "honour, and not to know or hear of any ill or damage 66 intended a 2 Feud. 5, 6, 7. c7 Rep. Calvin's cafe. 7. b 2 Feud. 99. d 2 Carte, 401. Mod. Un, Hist. xxiii. 420. e Mirror. c. 3. §. 35. Fieta. 3. 16. Britton. 6. 29. 7 Rep. Calvin's cafe. 6. |