3. I proceed next to the rights and incapacities which appertain to a baſtard. The rights are very few, being only ſuch as he can acquire; for he can inherit nothing, being looked upon as the ſon of nobody, and ſometimes called filius nullius, ſometimes filius populi[1]. Yet he may gain a ſirname by reputation[2], though he has none by inheritance. All other children have their primary ſettlement in their father's pariſh; but a baſtard in the pariſh where born, for he hath no father[3]. However, in caſe of fraud, as if a woman be ſent either by order of juſtices, or comes to beg as a vagrant, to a pariſh which ſhe does not belong to, and drops her baſtard there; the baſtard ſhall, in the firſt caſe, be ſettled in the pariſh from whence ſhe was illegally removed[4]; or, in the latter caſe, in the mother's own pariſh, if the mother be apprehended for her vagrancy[5]. The incapacity of a baſtard conſiſts principally in this, that he cannot be heir to any one, neither can he have heirs, but of his own body; for, being nullius filius, he is therefore of kin to nobody, and has no anceſtor from whom any inheritable blood can be derived. A baſtard was alſo, in ſtrictneſs, incapable of holy orders; and, though that were diſpenſed with, yet he was utterly diſqualified from holding any dignity in the church[6]: but this doctrine ſeems now obſolete; and in all other reſpects, there is no diſtinction between a baſtard and another man. And really any other diſtinction, but that of not inheriting, which civil policy renders neceſſary, would, with regard to the innocent offspring of his parents' crimes, be odious, unjuſt, and cruel to the laſt degree: and yet the civil law, ſo boaſted of for it's equitable deciſions, made baſtards in ſome caſes incapable even of a gift from their parents[7]. A baſtard may, laſtly, be made legitimate, and capable of inheriting, by the tranſcendent power of an act of parliament, and not otherwiſe[8]: as was done in the caſe of John of Gant's baſtard children, by a ſtatute of Richard the ſecond.
