A.D. 1689 
—1776. 
tll they 
were 
shecked by 
the Act of 
1662. 
570 PARLIAMENTARY COLBERTISM 
would be curtailed, while there would be a tendency for the 
numbers of this pauperised class to increase. The existence 
of this social element, and the shifting of population conse- 
quent on enclosure, gave occasion to the measure of 1662, by 
which the claims of the poor, and the responsibilities of each 
parish were more clearly defined. There had been some 
scandalous instances of towns and villages, which had tried 
bo shirk their obligations’; and it was necessary to restrain 
the vagrants from taking unfair advantage of the ratepayers 
in places where the children of the poor were cared for? 
« The necessity, number and continual increase of the poor,” 
gays the Act®, “not only within the cities of London and 
Westminster, with the Liberties of each of them, but also 
through the whole kingdom of England and Dominion of 
Wales, is very great and exceeding burdensome, being 
occasioned by reason of some defects in the law concerning 
the settling of the Poort, and for want of a due provision 
of the Regulations of Relief and Employment in such 
parishes or places where they are legally settled, which 
doth enforce many to turn incorrigible rogues, and other to 
perish for want”: it adds, “that by reason of some defects 
in the law, poor people are not restrained from going from 
one parish to another, and therefore do endeavour to settle 
themselves in those parishes where there is the best stock, 
the largest commons or wastes to build cottages, and the 
beene given and are now ceased, and very few legacies are now given to Hospitals, 
the Rents and Revenues thereunto belonging being also very ill paid; besides the 
want of bringing cloth and manufactures to London, which have formerly bin 
brought to Blackwell Hall; the hallage whereof was a great part of the poore 
children’s maintenance, which being decayed by these and other meanes, the said 
Hospitall hath not been able to take in any children for two yeares past.” True 
Report of the Great Costs and Charges of the Foure Hospitals (1644), Brit. Mus. 
569. £. 10 (2). World's Mistake in Oliver Cromwell, in Harl. Miscel. 1. 289. 
1 Eden (1. 144) quotes from a pamphlet published in 1698 that no rates were 
levied in some parishes for 20, 30, or 40 years after 1601. ‘Though the number of 
the Poore do dailie encrease, there hath beene no collection for them, no not these 
seven years, in many parishes of this land, especiallie in countrie townes, but 
many of those parishes turneth forth their Poore, yea, and their lustie labourers 
that will not worke, or for any misdemeanor want worke, * * go that the country 
is pittifully pestered with them” (Grevous Grones, by M. 8., 1622; Eden, 1. 155). 
37 James I. c. 4, § 8. The evil of vagrancy took many forms; it was 
necessary to protect well-provided commons from the depredations of Squatters 
by 28 Geo. II. c. 19, § 3. 8 13 and 14 Charles II. ¢. 12. } 
4 On the law of settlement under the Commonwealth see Inderwick, Inter 
reanum. 91-