That our ancestors, before their emigration to America, were the free inhabitants of the British Dominions in Europe, and possessed a right which nature has given to all men of leaving the country in which chance, not choice, had placed them, and of seeking out new habitations, and there establishing new societies, under such laws and regulations as, to them, shall seem most likely to promote public happiness. That their Saxon ancestors had, under this universal law, in like manner, left their native wilds and woods in the North of Europe, possessed themselves of the Island of Britain, then less charged with inhabitants, and established there a system of laws which has been so long the glory and protection of that country. On another and not less important point, Jefferson was indebted to his "Commonplace Book." He had taken great care to determine through historical and judicial authorities the origin of land tenures in the kingdom of England and he had found that in the good old Saxon times, "upon settling in the countries which they subdued, the victorious army divided the conquered lands. That portion which fell to every soldier he seized as a recompense due to his valour, as a settlement acquired by his own sword. He took possession of it as a freeman in full property. He enjoyed it during his own life and could dispose of it at pleasure, or transmit it as an inheritance to his children." It was not until after the fifth century that the king, because as general he was thought fittest to distribute the conquered lands to each according to his merits, assumed to himself and was quietly allowed the entire power of the partition of lands. This abominable system however was not introduced into England before the Norman Conquest, and thus was spread the false notion that all lands belonged to the crown.[34] Against this last claim, which he believed to rest on a false conception of history, Jefferson raises an emphatic protest. Backed by his knowledge of the gradual encroachment of the feudal system on the natural rights of his Anglo-Saxon ancestors, he claimed for the American colonists the same rights as belonged in the good old Anglo-Saxon days to those who had acquired a settlement by their own sword. It is time for us to lay this matter before his Majesty, and to declare, that he has no right to grant lands of himself. From the nature and purpose of civil institutions, all the lands within the limits, which any particular party has circumscribed around itself, are assumed by that society, and subject to their allotment; this may be done by themselves assembled collectively, or by their legislature, to whom they may have delegated sovereign authority; and, if they are alloted in neither of these ways, each individual of the society, may appropriate to himself such lands as he finds vacant, and occupancy will give him title.