For the particular application of this doctrine, I am sorry that my native place should afford an opportunity. But since this society has called me to stand here before them, I hope no man will be offended, that I do my duty with fidelity and freedom. Truth requires, that I warn you against a species of fraud, sometimes found amongst you, and that of a very shameful and oppressive kind. When any man, whose contributions have had their due part in raising the fund for occasional relief, is reduced by disease, or hurt, to want the support which he has, perhaps, for many years, supposed himself gradually accumulating against the day of distress, and for which he has denied himself many gratifications; at the time, when he expects the beneficial effects of his prudence and parsimony; at that very time, every artifice is used to defeat his claim, and elude his right. He declares himself, perhaps, unable to work, by which nothing more can reasonably be meant, than that he is no longer capable of labour equal to his livelihood. This man is found employing the remains of his strength in some little office. For this surely he deserves to be commended. But what has been the consequence? He has been considered as an impostor, who claims the benefit of the fund by counterfeited incapacity; and that feeble diligence, which, among reasonable and equitable men, gives him a title to esteem and pity, is misapplied, and misrepresented into a pretence for depriving him of his right, and this done by judges, who vainly imagine they shall be benefited themselves by their own wicked determination.
It is always to be remembered, that a demand of support from your common fund is not a petition for charity, but a claim to justice. The relief, thus demanded, is not a gift, but a debt. He that receives it, has first purchased it. The denial of it, therefore, is a fraud and a robbery; and fraud so much the more atrocious and detestable, as, by its nature, it must always be practised on the poor. When this succour is required, there is no place for favour, or for resentment. What is due must be paid, because it
