give the fervant, and apprentice a fettlement without notice 4, in that place wherein they serve the laft forty days. This is meant to encourage application to trades, and going out to reputable services. 10. Lastly, the having an estate of one's own, and refiding thereon forty days, however small the value may be, in cafe it be acquired by act of law or of a third perfon, as by defcent, gift, devise, &c. is a fufficient fettlement 5: but if a man acquire it by his own act, as by purchase, (in it's popular fenfe, in confideration of money paid) then unless the confideration advanced, bona fide, be 30l. it is no fettlement for any longer time, than the person shall inhabit thereon 6. He is in no cafe removeable from his own property; but he shall not, by any trifling or fraudulent purchase of his own, acquire a permanent and lafting

fettlement.

All persons, not so settled, may be removed to their own parifbes, on complaint of the overseers, by two juftices 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 houfe of 101. per annum, or living in an annual service; for then they are not removeable". 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, but only when they become aqually chargeable 8. But fuch certificated perfon can gain no settlement by any of the means above-mentioned; unless by renting a tenement of iol. 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 fervice9.

These are the general heads of the laws relating to the poor, which, by the resolutions of the courts

4 Stat. 3 & 4 W. and M. c.

11.8 & 9 W. III. c. 10.

Geo. II. c. II.

$ Salk. 524.

31

Stat. 9 Geo. I. c. 7.

7 Salk. 472.
8 Stat. 8 & 9 W. III. c. 30.
9 Stat, 12 Ann. c. 18.

of justice thereon within a century past, 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 purposes 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 shires, the hundreds, and the tithings, were kept in the fame admirable order in which they were disposed by the great Alfred, there were no persons idle, consequently none but the impotent that needed relief: and the statute of 43 Eliz. seems entirely founded on the fame principle. But when this excellent scheme was neglected and departed from, we cannot but observe with concern, what miferable shifts 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 necessary or more certain maxim in the frame and constitution of society, than that every individual must contribute his share, in order to the well-being of the community: and surely 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 THE TENTH.

OF THE PEOPLE, WHETHER ALIENS, DENIZENS, OR NATIVES.

HAVING, in the eight preceding chapters,

treated of persons as they stand in the public relations of magiftrates, I now proceed to confider fuch persons as fall under the denomination of the people. And herein all the inferior and fubordinate magiftrates, treated of in the last chapter, are included.

The first and most obvious division of the people is into aliens and natural-born subjects. Naturalborn subjects 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, such 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 subject. The thing itself, or substantial part of it, is founded in reason and the nature of government; the name and the form are derived to us from our Gothic ancestors. Under the feodal system, every owner of lands held them in subjection to fome fuperior or lord, from whom or whose ancestors the tenant or vafal had received them and there was a mutual trust or confidence subsisting between the lord and vasal, that the lord should protect the vafal in the enjoyment of the territory he had granted him, and, on the other hand,

that the vafal should be faithful to the lord and defend him againft all his enemies. This obligation

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on the part of the vasal 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 same terms as our ancient oath of allegiance: except that in the usual oath of fealty there was frequently a saving or exception of the faith due to a fuperior lord by name, under whom the landlord himself was perhaps only a tenant or vasal. But when the acknowledgment was made to the absolute superior himself, who was vasal 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 opposition to all men, without any faving or exception: contra omnes homines fidelitatem fecit." Land held by this exalted species of fealty was called feudum ligium, a liege fee; the vasals homines ligii, 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 respective sovereignties, a diftinction was always made between fimple homage, which was only an acknowledgement of tenure 3; 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 difputed of what species the homage was to be, whether liege or fimple homage 4. 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 perfon of the king alone. By an easy analogy the term of allegiance was foon brought to fignify all other engagements, which are due from subjects to their prince, as well as those

to be true and faithful to

duties which were fimply and merely territorial And the oath of allegiance, as administered for upwards of fix hundred years, contained a promife 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 intended him, without defending him therefrom." Upon which fir Matthew Hale makes this remark; that it was short and plain, not entangled with long or intricate clauses or declarations, and yet is comprehenfive of the whole duty from the subject to his fovereign. But at the revolution, the terms of this oath being thought per Laps to favour too much the notion of non-refiftance, the present form was introduced by the convention parliament, which is more general and indeterminate than the former; the subject only promising "that

he will be faithful and bear true allegiance to the king," without mentioning "his heirs," or specifying in the least wherein that allegiance confifts. The oath of fupremacy is principally calculated as a renunciation of the pope's pretended authority: and the oath of abjuration, introduced in the reign of king William", very amply supplies the loose and general texture of the oath of allegiance; it recognizing the right of his majesty, derived under the act of fettlement; engaging to support him to the utmost of the juror's power; promifing to disclose all traiterous conspiracies against him; and expressly renouncing any claim of the defcendants of the late pretender, in as clear and explicit terms as the English language can furnish. This oath must be taken by all perfons in any office, trust, or employment; and may be tendered by two justices of the peace to any person, whom they shall suspect of difaffection 8. And the oath of allegiance may be tendered to all persons above the age of twelve years,