12 COEBETT'S [No. 



mentaries on the Laws of England, he says, " the law 

 not only regards life and member, and protects every 

 man in the enjoyment of them, but also furnishes 

 him icil/L < riTi/ tkln'S neC&tCtty Jar thrir tti'jjjntrt. 

 For there is no man so indigent or wretched, but he 

 may demand a supply X/////V ///// fr nil tlie necessaries 

 of life from the more opulent part of the community, 

 by means of the several statutes enacted for the re- 

 lief of the poor; a humane provision dictated by the 

 pri ' aociety" 



11. No man will contend, that the main body of 

 the people in any country upon earth, and of course 

 in England, would have consented to abandon the 

 rights of nature; to give up their right to enjoy all 

 thin^ in common : no man will believe, that the 

 main body of the people would ever have given their 

 assent to the establishing of a state of things which 

 should make all the lands, and all the trees, and all 

 the iroixN and rattle of every sort, private property ; 

 which ^iould have shut out a large part of the peo- 

 ple ('mm having such property, and which should, at 

 the same time, not have pro means of pre- 

 venting those of them. \ tail into indigence, 

 from heinir uctiinlhj stn ///< / It is impossi- 

 ble to believe this. Men never ^ave their assent to 

 enter into society on terms like these. One part 

 of the condition upon which men entered into so- 

 was, that care should be taken that no human being 

 should perish from want. When they agreed toenter in- 

 to that state of tilings, which would necessarily cause 

 some men to be rich and some men to be poor; when 

 they gave up that right, which God had given them, 

 to live as well as they could, and to take the means 

 wherever they found them, the condition clearly 1 

 the " principle of society ;" clearly w r as, as BLACK- 

 STONE defines it, that the indigent and wretched should 

 have a right to " demand from the rich a supply suf- 



:t for all the necessities of life/' 



12. If the society did not take care to act upon 

 this principle ; if it neglected to secure the legal means 

 of preserving the life of the indigent and wretched ; 



