place wherein they ferve the laft 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 fmall the value. may be, in case 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 act, as by purchase, (in it's popular fenfe, in confideration of money. paid,) then unless the confideration advanced, bona fide, be 30. 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 fettlement. ALL perfons, not fo fettled, may be removed to their own parishes, on complaint of the overfeers, by two justices of the peace, if they fhall 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 10l. per annum, or living in an an- [365] nual fervice; for then they are not removable. And in all. other cafes, if the parifh to which they belong will grant them a certificate, acknowledging them to be their parishioners, they cannot be removed merely becaufe likely to become. chargeable, but only when they become actually chargeable f. But fuch certificated perfon can gain no fettlement by any of the means above-mentioned (31); unlefs by renting a tenement of 10l. per annum, or by serving an annual office in the parish, being legally placed therein: neither can an apprentice or feryant to fuch certificated person gain a settlement by fuch their service %. e Salk. 524. d Stat. 9 Geo. I. c. 7. e Salk. 472. f Stat. 8 & 9 W. III. c. 39. year, ceffively at one place, but alternately in two or more parishes, and (31) See note (24) of this chapter. THESE THESE are the general heads of the laws relating to the poor, which, by the refolutions of the courts of juftice thereon within a century past, are branched into a great variety (32). 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 ftatute 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 ftatute of 43 Eliz. feems 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 neceffary or more certain maxim in the frame and conftitution of fociety, than that every individual must contribute his share, 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. (32) For a full and complete knowledge of this extensive subject, recourse must be had to Burn's Juftice, and Mr. Conft's valu able edition of Bott, and the reporters there referred to. CHAPTER THE TENTH. OF THE PEOPLE, WHETHER ALIENS, AVING, in the eight preceding chapters, treated of perfons as they stand in the public relations of magiftrates, I now proceed to confider fuch perfons as fall under the denomination of the people. And herein all the inferior and fubordinate magistrates, treated of in the last 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 substantial part of it, is founded in reafon and the nature of government; the name and the form are derived to us from our Gothic ancestors. Under the feodal fyftem, every owner of lands held them in fubjection to some superior or lord, from whom or whofe ancestors the tenant or vafal had received them: and there was a mutual trust or confidence fubfifting between the lord and vafal, that the lord should protect the vafal in the enjoyment of the territory he had granted him, and, on the other hand, that the vasal should be faithful to the lord and [367] defend him against all his enemies. This obligation on the part of the vafal 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 Book I. the fame terms as our antient oath of allegiance: except that in the ufual oath of fealty there was frequently a faving or exception of the faith due to a fuperior lord by name, under whom the landlord himself was perhaps only a tenant or vafal. But when the acknowlegement was made to the abfolute fuperior himself, who was vafal to no man, it was no longer called the oath of fealty, but the oath of allegi ance; 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." 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 fovereignties, a diftinction was always made between fimple homage, which was only an acknowlegement of tenure; and liege homage, which included the fealty before-mentioned, and the fervices confequent upon it. Thus when cur 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 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 perfon 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 those duties which were fimply and merely territo[368] rial. 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 intended him, without defending him therefrom." Upon which fir Matthew Hale makes this remark; that it was fhort and plain, not entangled with long or intricate claufes or declarations, and yet is comprehenfive of the whole duty from the fubject to his fovereign. But, at the revolution, the terms of this oath being thought perhaps to favour too much the notion of non-refiftance, the prefent form was introduced by the convention parliament, which is more general and indeterminate than the former; the fubject only promifing "that he will be faithful and bear true allegiance to the "king," without mentioning " his heirs," or fpecifying 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 majefty, derived under the act of fettlement; engaging to fupport him to the utmost of the juror's power; promising to disclose all traiterous confpiracies 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, truft, or employment; and may be tendered by two juftices of the peace to any person, whom they shall suspect of difaffection". And the oath of allegiance may be tendered to all perfons above the age of twelve years, whether natives, denizens, or aliens, either in the court-leet of the manor, or in the sheriff's tourn, which is the court-leet of the county. BUT, befides thefe exprefs engagements, the law also holds that there is an implied, original, and virtual allegiance, owing from every subject to his sovereign, antecedently to any [369] exprefs promise; and although the subject never swore any faith or allegiance in form. For as the king, by the very scent of the crown, is fully invested with all the rights and bound to all the duties of fovereignty, before his coronation ; f 1 Hal. P. C. 63. de h Stat. 1Geo. I. c. 13. 6 Geo. III. c. 530 Stat. 13 W. III. c. 6. i 2 Inft. 121. Hal. P. C. 64. |