at the time of notice is not likely to become chargeable, else he would not venture to give it; or that, in such case, the parish would take care to remove him. But there are also other circumstances equivalent to fuch notice: therefore, 5. Renting for a year a tenement of the yearly value of ten pounds, and residing forty days in the parish, gains a settlement without notice"; upon the principle of having substance enough to gain credit for such a house. 6. Being charged to and paying the public taxes and levies of the parish; and, 7. Executing any public parochial office for a whole year in the parish, as churchwarden, &c; are both of them equivalent to notice, and gain a fettlement", when coupled with a refidence of forty days. 8. Being hired for a year, when unmarried, and serving a year in the same service; and 9. Being bound an apprentice for seven years; give the servant and apprentice a settlement, without notice*, in that place wherein they serve the last 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 case it be acquired by act of law or of a third person, as by descent, gift, devise, &c, is a sufficient settlement: but if a man acquire it by his own act, as by purchase, (in it's popular sense, in confideration of money paid) then unless the confideration advanced, bona fide, be 301. it is no settlement for any longer time, than the person shall inhabit thereon. He is in no case removeable from his own property; but he shall not, by any trifling or fraudulent purchase of his own, acquire a permanent and lasting settlement.

ALL persons, not so settled, 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 settlement, as by having hired a house of 10l. per annum, or living in an annual fervice; for then they are not removeable*. And in all other cafes, if the parish to which they belong, will grant them a certificate, acknowleging them to be their parishioners, they cannot be removed merely because likely to become chargeable, but only when they become actually chargeable. But such certificated persons can gain no settlement by any of the means above-mentioned; unless by renting a tenement of 101. per annum, or by ferving an annual office in the parish, being legally placed therein: neither can an apprentice or servant to fuch certificated person gain a fettlement by such their service.

THESE are the general heads of the laws relating to the poor, which, by the resolutions of the courts of justice thereon within a century past, are branched into a great variety. And yet, notwithstanding the pains that has been taken about them, they still remain very imperfect, and inadequate to the purposes they are designed 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 that they were difposed in by the great Alfred, there were no persons idle, confequently 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, difssolute, and unemployed; and then form visionary schemes, and at length are amazed to find, that the industry of the other half is not able to maintain the whole.

OF

CHAPTER THE ΤΕΝΤн.

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

H

AVING, in the eight preceding chapters, treated of perfons as they stand in the public relations of magiftrates, I now proceed to consider such 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. Natural-born subjects are such 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 subject 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 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 fubfifting between the lord and vasal, that the lord should protect the vasal 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 defend him against all his enemies. This obligation 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 antient 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 acknowlegement was made to the abfolute 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 swore 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 distinction was always made between fimple homage, which was only an acknowlegement of tenure; and liege homage, which included the fealty before-mentioned, and the services consequent upon it. Thus when 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 homaged. 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 necessarily 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 duties which were fimply and merely territorial. And the oath of allegiance, as ad

ministred for upwards of fix hundred years, contained a promife "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 de"fending 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 perhaps to favour too much the notion of non-resistance, the present form was introduced by the convention parliament, which is more general and indeterminate than the former; the subject only promifing "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 renuntiation 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 settlement; engaging to support him to the utmost of the juror's power; promifing to disclose all traiterous confpiracies against him; and expressly renouncing any claim of the pretender, by name, in as clear and explicit terms as the English language can furnish. This oath must be taken by all persons in any office, trust, or employment; and may be tendered by two justices of the peace to any person, whom they shall fufpect of disaffection. But 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 these express engagements, the law. also holds that there is an implied, original, and virtual allegiance, owing