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Browsing: Legal Papers of John Adams, Volume 1
Docno: ADMS-05-01-02-0008-0004-0003
Date: 1768-11
Adams' Notes of Authorities1
Suffolk Court of General Sessions, Boston, November 1768
Brooklyne vs. Roxbury.
Prov. Law. Page 23. Names returned.2
2. Salk. 482. Anonimous. 3 Men and families.3
2 Salk 485. Sylvanus Johnson.4
Foleys Poor Laws 427. Lenham vs. Peckham.5
Foley 426. Flixton vs. Roston.6
Form of an order of Removal, Burn V. 3, P. 378. V. 3, Page 377.7
{ 307 } 13 [&] 14 Car. 2, Chap. 12, cited in Burn V. 3, P. 375.8
Prov. Law, 4 W. & M. c. 12.9
Justice shall not act in his Town.
2 Strange 1173 Great Charte and Kennington. Foley Page 104. Statute, 16 G[eorge] 2d, c. 18. Act to impower Justices.10
1. In JA's hand. Adams Papers, Microfilms, Reel No. 185. The present dating is based on the fact that the MS appears on a leaf with cases decided in April 1768 and May 1769 at Plymouth.
2. The reference is to the Act of 16 Nov. 1692, c. 28, §9, 1 A&R 67. JA is here citing Acts and Laws, Of His Majesty's Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England 23 (Boston, 1742). Compare the citation to the same act in the 1759 edition, No.
24, note 134. The section cited, set out in full in No. 25, note 42, provided that persons remaining in the town for more than three months without being
warned to leave, “and the names of such persons with the time of their abode there,
and when such warning was given them, returned unto the court of quarter sessions,”
should be reputed inhabitants for relief purposes. The time period was extended to
twelve months in 1701 and eliminated altogether in an Act of 1767 passed too late
to be applicable to this case. Ibid.
4. Case of Sylvanus Johnson, 2 Salk. 485, 91 Eng. Rep. 417 (K.B. ca. 1698). At sessions, “ordered that Johnson and his Wife and Family, should be removed to Sandherst, which was quashed; because
Non constat what is meant by his Family, and some of them may have a legal Settlement [in the
town removing], tho' J. had not.”
5. Robert Foley, Laws Relating to the Poor 427 (London, 4th edn., 1758), citing the unreported case of Inhabitants of Lenham
v. Inhabitants of Peckham (Q.B. 1711): “Upon Complaint that A. was likely to become chargeable, the Justices make
an Order to remove the Pauper, his Wife and Family; quash'd as to the Family.” There
follow citations of the cases in notes 213 and 224 above.
6. Foley, Laws Relating to the Poor 426, citing the unreported case of Flixton v. Roston (Q.B. 1710): “This was a Motion to quash an Order of two Justices, which was made for the
Removal of one Jane Smith and her five children. Exception. It's too uncertain; for it neither tells the Name or Ages of the Children: Wherefore
the Order was quash'd as to the Children.”
7. The precise edition of Richard Burn, The Justice of the Peace and Parish Officer, cited by JA has not been located. “The form of a general order of removal” appears both in the
6th edition, London 1758, at 3:83–84, and in the 11th edition, London, 1769, at 3:432–433.
It is here set out from the latter:
“Westmorland. To the churchwardens and overseers of the poor of the parish of Orton in the said county of Westmorland, and to the churchwardens and overseers of the poor of the parish of Penrith in the county of Cumberland, and to each and every of them.
“Upon the complaint of the churchwardens and overseers of the poor of the parish of Orton aforesaid in the said county of Westmorland, unto us whose names are hereunto set and seals affixed, being two of his majesty's
justices of the peace in and for the said county of Westmorland, and one of us of the quorum, that John Thomson, Mary his wife, Thomas their son aged eight years, and Agnes their daughter aged four years, have come to inhabit in the said parish of Orton, not having gained a legal settlement there, nor produced any certificate owning them
or any of them to be settled elsewhere, and that the said John Thomson, Mary his wife, and Thomas and Agnes their children, are likely to be chargeable to the said parish of Orton; We the said justices, upon due proof made thereof, as well upon the examination of
the said John Thomson upon oath, as otherwise, and likewise upon due consideration had of the premisses,
do adjudge the same to be true; and we do likewise adjudge, that the lawful settlement
of them the said John Thomson, Mary his wife, and Thomas and Agnes their children, is in the said parish of Penrith in the said county of Cumberland: We do therefore require you the said churchwardens and overseers of the poor of the
said parish of Orton, or some or one of you, to convey the said John Thomson, Mary his wife, and Thomas and Agnes their children, from and out of the said parish of Orton, to the said parish of Penrith, and them to deliver to the churchwardens and overseers of the poor there, or to some
or one of them, together with this our order, or a true copy thereof, at the same
time shewing to them the original; And we do also hereby require you the said churchwardens
and overseers of the said parish of Penrith, to receive and provide for them as inhabitants of your parish. Given under our hands
and seals the [] day of [] in the [] year of the reign of his said majesty king George the third.”
On the preceding pages are forms of summonses to paupers lacking settlement and to
the churchwardens of a parish to which removal is sought to appear before a justice
or justices for examination and adjudication of removal. Id. at 430–432.
9. That is, the Act of 16 Nov. 1692, c. 28, 1 A&R 64–68, the basic Province poor law. Sections pertinent to removal are set out in
No. 24, note 134; No. 25, notes 42, 64. JA's point here and at note 268 above seems to be that the English forms cited in note 257 above are not dictated by statute, because the English and Massachusetts acts are
similarly general in their language.
10. For the case of Greate Charte v. Kennington, set out from Strange's Reports in Foley, Laws Relating to the Poor 104, see No. 25, note 53. The statute, 16 Geo. 2, c. 18, §1 (1743), noted by the reporter as passed “to remedy
this” (i.e. the ruling in the case that the order of a Justice was void when it concerned
his own town) is set out here from a copy in JA's hand in the Adams Papers:
At the “&c.” JA has omitted provisions covering vagrants, highways, and taxes. JA must have argued or assumed that this Act was not applicable in the colonies. For
a similar Province Act, passed in 1772, see note 14 above.
“16 G. 2, c. 18. Statutes at large. V. 6th, Page 501. An Act to impower Justices of
the Peace to act in certain Cases relating to Parishes and Places, to the Rates and
Taxes of which they are rated or chargeable. [§1][ . . . ] 'It shall be lawfull to and for all and every Justice or Justices of the Peace for
any County, Riding, City, Liberty, Franchise, Borough, or Town Corporate within their
respective Jurisdictions, to make, do, and execute all and every Act or Acts, Matter
or Matters, Thing or Things, appertaining to their office, as Justice or Justices
of the Peace, so far as the same relates to the Laws for the Relief, Maintenance and
settlement of Poor Persons, &c. Not with standing any such Justice or Justices of
the Peace is or are rated to or chargeable with the Taxes, Levies, or Rates within
any such Parish Township or Place affected by any such Act or Acts of such Justice
or Justices as afore Said.'”
Cite web page as: Founding Families: Digital Editions of the Papers of the Winthrops and the Adamses, ed.C. James Taylor. Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 2017.
http://www.masshist.org/apde2/
http://www.masshist.org/apde2/