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To remove a man who has committed no misdemeanour, from the

parish where he chooses to reside, is an evident violation of

natural liberty and justice. The common people of England,

however, so jealous of their liberty, but like the common people

of most other countries, never rightly understanding wherein it

consists, have now, for more than a century together, suffered

themselves to be exposed to this oppression without a remedy.

Though men of reflection, too, have sometimes complained of the

law of settlements as a public grievance; yet it has never been

the object of any general popular clamour, such as that against

general warrants, an abusive practice undoubtedly, but such a one

as was not likely to occasion any general oppression. There is

scarce a poor man in England, of forty years of age, I will

venture to say, who has not, in some part of his life, felt

himself most cruelly oppressed by this ill-contrived law of

settlements.