12 COBBETT'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 with every thing necessary for their support. 

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

 may demand a supply sufficient for all the 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 

 principles of society" 



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 

 things 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 goods and cattle of every sort, private property ; 

 which should have shut out a large part of the peo- 

 ple from having such property, and which should, at 

 the same time, not have provided the means of pre- 

 venting those of them, who might fall into indigence, 

 from being actually starved to death ! It is impossi- 

 ble to believe this. Men never gave their assent to 

 enter into society on terms life these. One part 

 of the condition upon which men entered into society 

 was, that care should be taken that no human being 

 should perish from want. When they agreed to enter in- 

 to that state of things, 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 was, 

 the "principle of society;" clearly was, as BLACK- 

 STONE defines it, that the indigent and wretched should 

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

 ficient 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 ; 



