About 1700 he made a tour through Holland, Flanders, and part of France, and embodied his observations in a series of letters to Anthony Ashley Cooper, third earl of Shaftesbury, whose friendship and patronage he enjoyed.
[3] In later life Shaw settled at Epsom in Surrey, and devoted himself to legal study.
Shortly before his death he published a companion volume entitled Parish Law, dedicated to his personal friend, Sir John Fortescue Aland, justice of common pleas, which remained a standard work on the subject.
Presumably he was contrasting him with those writers who were recognised by the courts as authoritative sources of the law, for example, William Blackstone or Richard Burn.
Shaw died at Clapham on 24 October 1733, leaving a son Joseph, who later lived at Epsom.