Page:A Declaration of the People's Natural Right to a Share in the Legislature (1775) (IA declarationofpeo00shar).djvu/277

reminded that these conquered Countries are not inhabited by the conquered People, but chiefly by British Subjects, successors to the Conquerors, who are entitled by Birth-right to the Common Law of England, and every other privilege of Englishmen, quite as much as those English Subjects mentioned by him at the top of the same page, “For it hath been held” (says he,) “that if an uninhabited country” be discovered and planted by English Subjects, ALL THE ENGLISH LAWS THEN IN BEING, which are the BIRTH-RIGHT OF EVERY SUBJECT, are immediately THERE IN FORCE.” I Com. p. 107. This doctrine is unquestionable; and the more so because allowed by himself: And though he has been pleased so add, that “this must be understood with very many and very great restrictions;” that “such Colonists carry with them only so much of the English Law, as is applicable