1. We are here taught not to invade another man's right, though we can
find ways of doing it ever so secretly and plausibly, clandestinely and
by fraud, without any open force. Let not property in general be
entrenched upon, by robbing men of their liberties and privileges, or
of any just ways of maintaining them. Let not the property of
particular persons be encroached upon. The land-marks, or meer-stones,
are standing witnesses to every man's right; let not those be removed
quite away, for thence come wars, and fightings, and endless disputes;
let them not be removed so as to take from thy neighbour's lot to thy
own, for that is downright robbing him and entailing the fraud upon
posterity. 2. We may infer hence that a deference is to be paid, in all
civil matters, to usages that have prevailed time out of mind and the
settled constitutions of government, in which it becomes us to
acquiesce, lest an attempt to change it, under pretence of changing it
for the better, prove of dangerous consequence.