James Hurde a poor labourer stated that for these two years last past he had dwelt in the parish of Westernemore “In a house wch he hired for his monie” and had taken great pains to maintain himself, his wife and two children, wherewith he never yet charged the said parish nor hopeth ever to do. And yet the parishioners and churchwardens there, do “indeavour” and threaten to turn him out of the parish unless he will put in sufficient sureties not to charge the said parish which he cannot by reason he is but a poor labourer; he humbly requests that he may quietly inhabit in the said parish so long as he doth not charge the same, otherwise he and his family are like to perish. (_Ibid._, Vol. I, p. 94, 1612.) The Justices were shocked at the consequent demoralization and generally supported the demands of the labourers as regards their settlement and housing. One writes to the clerk of the Peace: “I have sent you enclosed the recognizance of William Worster and William Smith, of Bovindon, for contempt of an order of sessions ... in the behalfe of one, John Yorke, formerly a vagrant, but now parishionir of Bovingdon. Yet I believe the rest of the inhabitants will doe their utmost to gett him thence though they force him to turn vagrant againe. Yorke will be with you to prove that he was in the parish halfe-a-year or more before they gave him any disturbance, and that not privately, for he worked for severall substantiall men and was at church, and paid rent.”[159] Footnote 159: _Hertford Co. Rec._, Vol. I., p. 321, 1681. Letter from Francis Leigh to Clerk of Peace. But the Justices never suspected that the rate of wages which they themselves had fixed below subsistence level was at the root of the settlement difficulty. The overseers believed that all the troubles might be solved if only young people would not marry imprudently, and they petitioned the Justices begging that overseers of parishes might not be compelled to provide houses for such young persons “as will marry before they have provided themselves with a settling.”[160] Footnote 160: _Hist. MSS. Com. Var. Coll._, Vol. I., p. 322. _Worcestershire Q.S. Rec._, 1661.