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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Rural Rides, by William Cobbett
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Rural Rides
+
+Author: William Cobbett
+
+Release Date: November 8, 2010 [EBook #34238]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RURAL RIDES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Delphine Lettau and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  RURAL RIDES
+
+  BY WILLIAM COBBETT
+
+  T. Nelson & Sons
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+  Rural Ride from London, through Newbury, to Burghclere,
+  Hurstbourn Tarrant, Marlborough, and Cirencester, to
+  Gloucester                                                           5
+
+  Rural Ride from Gloucester, to Bollitree in Herefordshire,
+  Ross, Hereford, Abingdon, Oxford, Cheltenham, Burghclere,
+  Whitchurch, Uphurstbourn, and thence to Kensington                  21
+
+  Rural Ride from Kensington to Dartford, Rochester,
+  Chatham, and Faversham                                              40
+
+  Norfolk and Suffolk Journal                                         45
+
+  Rural Ride from Kensington to Battle, through Bromley,
+  Sevenoaks, and Tunbridge                                            54
+
+  Rural Ride through Croydon, Godstone, East Grinstead,
+  and Uckfield, to Lewes, and Brighton; returning by
+  Cuckfield, Worth, and Red-hill                                      61
+
+  Rural Ride from London, through Ware and Royston, to
+  Huntingdon                                                          73
+
+  Rural Ride from Kensington to St. Albans, through Edgware,
+  Stanmore, and Watford, returning by Redbourn, Hempstead,
+  and Chesham                                                         78
+
+  Rural Ride from Kensington to Uphusband; including a Rustic
+  Harangue at Winchester, at a Dinner with the Farmers                85
+
+  Rural Ride through Hampshire, Berkshire, Surrey, and Sussex        107
+
+  Rural Ride from Kensington to Worth, in Sussex                     148
+
+  Rural Ride from the (London) Wen across Surrey, across the
+  West of Sussex, and into the South-East of Hampshire               150
+
+  Rural Ride through the South-East of Hampshire, back
+  through the South-West of Surrey, along the Weald of
+  Surrey, and then over the Surrey Hills down to the Wen             171
+
+  Rural Ride through the North-East part of Sussex, and all
+  across Kent, from the Weald of Sussex, to Dover                    200
+
+  Rural Ride from Dover, through the Isle of Thanet, by
+  Canterbury and Faversham, across to Maidstone, up to
+  Tonbridge, through the Weald of Kent and over the Hills
+  by Westerham and Hays, to the Wen                                  221
+
+  Rural Ride from Kensington, across Surrey, and along that
+  county                                                             245
+
+  Rural Ride from Chilworth, in Surrey, to Winchester                256
+
+  Rural Ride from Winchester to Burghclere                           269
+
+  Rural Ride from Burghclere to Petersfield                          287
+
+  Rural Ride from Petersfield to Kensington                          296
+
+  Rural Ride down the Valley of the Avon in Wiltshire                327
+
+  Rural Ride from Salisbury to Warminster, from Warminster
+  to Frome, from Frome to Devizes, and from Devizes to
+  Highworth                                                          348
+
+  Rural Ride from Highworth to Cricklade, and thence to
+  Malmsbury                                                          368
+
+  Rural Ride from Malmsbury, in Wiltshire, through
+  Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, and Worcestershire                 386
+
+  Rural Ride from Ryall, in Worcestershire, to Burghclere,
+  in Hampshire                                                       405
+
+  Rural Ride from Burghclere, to Lyndhurst, in the New Forest        426
+
+  Rural Ride from Lyndhurst to Beaulieu Abbey; thence to
+  Southampton, and Weston; thence to Botley, Allington, West
+  End, near Hambledon; and thence to Petersfield, Thursley,
+  and Godalming                                                      449
+
+  Rural Ride from Weston, near Southampton, to Kensington            462
+
+  Rural Ride to Tring, in Hertfordshire                              485
+
+  Northern Tour                                                      494
+
+  Eastern Tour                                                       498
+
+  Midland Tour                                                       535
+
+  Tour in the West                                                   550
+
+  Progress in the North                                              551
+
+
+
+
+RURAL RIDES, ETC.
+
+JOURNAL: FROM LONDON, THROUGH NEWBURY, TO BERGHCLERE, HURSTBOURN
+TARRANT, MARLBOROUGH, AND CIRENCESTER, TO GLOUCESTER.
+
+
+_Berghclere, near Newbury, Hants, October 30, 1821, Tuesday (Evening)._
+
+Fog that you might cut with a knife all the way from London to Newbury.
+This fog does not _wet_ things. It is rather a _smoke_ than a fog. There
+are no two things in _this world_; and, were it not for fear of
+_Six-Acts_ (the "wholesome restraint" of which I continually feel) I
+might be tempted to carry my comparison further; but, certainly, there
+are no two things in _this world_ so dissimilar as an English and a Long
+Island autumn.--These fogs are certainly the _white clouds_ that we
+sometimes see aloft. I was once upon the Hampshire Hills, going from
+Soberton Down to Petersfield, where the hills are high and steep, not
+very wide at their base, very irregular in their form and direction, and
+have, of course, deep and narrow valleys winding about between them. In
+one place that I had to pass, two of these valleys were cut asunder by a
+piece of hill that went across them and formed a sort of bridge from one
+long hill to another. A little before I came to this sort of bridge I
+saw a smoke flying across it; and, not knowing the way by experience, I
+said to the person who was with me, "there is the turnpike road (which
+we were expecting to come to); for, don't you see the dust?" The day was
+very fine, the sun clear, and the weather dry. When we came to the pass,
+however, we found ourselves, not in dust, but in a fog. After getting
+over the pass, we looked down into the valleys, and there we saw the fog
+going along the valleys to the North, in detached parcels, that is to
+say, in clouds, and, as they came to the pass, they rose, went over it,
+then descended again, keeping constantly along just above the ground.
+And, to-day, the fog came by _spells_. It was sometimes thinner than at
+other times; and these changes were very sudden too. So that I am
+convinced that these fogs are _dry clouds_, such as those that I saw on
+the Hampshire Downs. Those did not _wet_ me at all; nor do these fogs
+wet any thing; and I do not think that they are by any means injurious
+to health.--It is the fogs that rise out of swamps, and other places,
+full of putrid vegetable matter, that kill people. These are the fogs
+that sweep off the new settlers in the American Woods. I remember a
+valley in Pennsylvania, in a part called _Wysihicken_. In looking from a
+hill, over this valley, early in the morning, in November, it presented
+one of the most beautiful sights that my eyes ever beheld. It was a sea
+bordered with beautifully formed trees of endless variety of colours. As
+the hills formed the outsides of the sea, some of the trees showed only
+their tops; and, every now-and-then, a lofty tree growing in the sea
+itself raised its head above the apparent waters. Except the setting-sun
+sending his horizontal beams through all the variety of reds and yellows
+of the branches of the trees in Long Island, and giving, at the same
+time, a sort of silver cast to the verdure beneath them, I have never
+seen anything so beautiful as the foggy valley of the Wysihicken. But I
+was told that it was very fatal to the people; and that whole families
+were frequently swept off by the "_fall-fever_."--Thus the _smell_ has a
+great deal to do with health. There can be no doubt that Butchers and
+their wives fatten upon the smell of meat. And this accounts for the
+precept of my grandmother, who used to tell me to _bite my bread and
+smell to my cheese_; talk, much more wise than that of certain _old
+grannies_, who go about England crying up "the _blessings_" of
+paper-money, taxes, and national debts.
+
+The fog prevented me from seeing much of the fields as I came along
+yesterday; but the fields of Swedish Turnips that I did see were good;
+pretty good; though not clean and neat like those in Norfolk. The
+farmers here, as every where else, complain most bitterly; but they hang
+on, like sailors to the masts or hull of a wreck. They read, you will
+observe, nothing but the country newspapers; they, of course, know
+nothing of the _cause_ of their "bad times." They hope "the times will
+mend." If they quit business, they must sell their stock; and, having
+thought this worth so much money, they cannot endure the thought of
+selling for a third of the sum. Thus they hang on; thus the landlords
+will first turn the farmers' pockets inside out; and then their turn
+comes. To finish the present farmers will not take long. There has been
+stout fight going on all this morning (it is now 9 o'clock) between the
+_sun_ and the _fog_. I have backed the former, and he appears to have
+gained the day; for he is now shining most delightfully.
+
+Came through a place called "a park" belonging to a Mr. MONTAGUE, who is
+now _abroad_; for the purpose, I suppose, of generously assisting to
+compensate the French people for what they lost by the entrance of the
+Holy Alliance Armies into their country. Of all the ridiculous things I
+ever saw in my life this place is the most ridiculous. The house looks
+like a sort of church, in somewhat of a gothic style of building, with
+_crosses_ on the tops of different parts of the pile. There is a sort of
+swamp, at the foot of a wood, at no great distance from the front of the
+house. This swamp has been dug out in the middle to show the water to
+the eye; so that there is a sort of river, or chain of diminutive lakes,
+going down a little valley, about 500 yards long, the water proceeding
+from the _soak_ of the higher ground on both sides. By the sides of
+these lakes there are little flower gardens, laid out in the Dutch
+manner; that is to say, cut out into all manner of superficial
+geometrical figures. Here is the _grand en petit_, or mock magnificence,
+more complete than I ever beheld it before. Here is a _fountain_, the
+basin of which is not four feet over, and the water spout not exceeding
+the pour from a tea-pot. Here is a _bridge_ over a _river_ of which a
+child four years old would clear the banks at a jump. I could not have
+trusted myself on the bridge for fear of the consequences to Mr.
+MONTAGUE; but I very conveniently stepped over the river, in imitation
+of the _Colossus_. In another part there was a _lion's mouth_ spouting
+out water into the lake, which was so much like the vomiting of a dog,
+that I could almost have pitied the poor Lion. In short, such fooleries
+I never before beheld; but what I disliked most was the apparent impiety
+of a part of these works of refined taste. I did not like the crosses on
+the dwelling house; but, in one of the gravel walks, we had to pass
+under a gothic arch, with a cross on the top of it, and in the point of
+the arch a niche for a saint or a virgin, the figure being gone through
+the lapse of centuries, and the pedestal only remaining as we so
+frequently see on the outsides of Cathedrals and of old Churches and
+Chapels. But, the good of it was, this gothic arch, disfigured by the
+hand of old Father Time, was composed of Scotch fir wood, as rotten as a
+pear; nailed together in such a way as to make the thing appear, from a
+distance, like the remnant of a ruin! I wonder how long this sickly,
+this childish, taste is to remain. I do not know who this gentleman is.
+I suppose he is some honest person from the 'Change or its
+neighbourhood; and that these _gothic arches_ are to denote the
+_antiquity of his origin_! Not a bad plan; and, indeed, it is one that I
+once took the liberty to recommend to those Fundlords who retire to be
+country-'squires. But I never recommended the _Crucifixes_! To be sure,
+the Roman Catholic religion may, in England, be considered as a
+_gentleman's religion_, it being the most _ancient_ in the country; and
+therefore it is fortunate for a Fundlord when he happens (if he ever do
+happen) to be of that faith.
+
+This gentleman may, for anything that I know, be a _Catholic_; in which
+case I applaud his piety and pity his taste. At the end of this scene of
+mock grandeur and mock antiquity I found something more rational;
+namely, some hare hounds, and, in half an hour after, we found, and I
+had the first hare-hunt that I had had since I wore a smock-frock! We
+killed our hare after good sport, and got to Berghclere in the evening
+to a nice farm-house in a dell, sheltered from every wind, and with
+plenty of good living; though with no gothic arches made of Scotch fir!
+
+
+_October 31. Wednesday._
+
+A fine day. Too many hares here; but our hunting was not bad; or, at
+least, it was a great treat to me, who used, when a boy, to have my legs
+and thighs so often filled with thorns in running after the hounds,
+anticipating, with pretty great certainty, a "_waling_" of the back at
+night. We had greyhounds a part of the day; but the ground on the hills
+is so _flinty_, that I do not like the country for coursing. The dogs'
+legs are presently cut to pieces.
+
+
+_Nov. 1. Thursday._
+
+Mr. BUDD has Swedish Turnips, Mangel-Wurzel, and Cabbages of various
+kinds, transplanted. All are very fine indeed. It is impossible to make
+more satisfactory experiments in _transplanting_ than have been made
+here. But this is not a proper place to give a particular account of
+them. I went to see the best cultivated parts round Newbury; but I saw
+no spot with half the "feed" that I see here, upon a spot of similar
+extent.
+
+
+_Hurstbourn Tarrant, Hants, Nov. 2. Friday._
+
+This place is commonly called _Uphusband_, which is, I think, as decent
+a corruption of names as one would wish to meet with. However, Uphusband
+the people will have it, and Uphusband it shall be for me. I came from
+Berghclere this morning, and through the park of LORD CAERNARVON, at
+Highclere. It is a fine season to look at woods. The oaks are still
+covered, the beeches in their best dress, the elms yet pretty green, and
+the beautiful ashes only beginning to turn off. This is, according to
+my fancy, the prettiest park that I have ever seen. A great variety of
+hill and dell. A good deal of water, and this, in one part, only wants
+the _colours_ of American trees to make it look like a "creek;" for the
+water runs along at the foot of a steepish hill, thickly covered with
+trees, and the branches of the lowermost trees hang down into the water
+and hide the bank completely. I like this place better than _Fonthill_,
+_Blenheim_, _Stowe_, or any other gentleman's grounds that I have seen.
+The _house_ I did not care about, though it appears to be large enough
+to hold half a village. The trees are very good, and the woods would be
+handsomer if the larches and firs were _burnt_, for which only they are
+fit. The great beauty of the place is the _lofty downs_, as steep, in
+some places, as the roof of a house, which form a sort of boundary, in
+the form of a part of a crescent, to about a third part of the park, and
+then slope off and get more distant, for about half another third part.
+A part of these downs is covered with trees, chiefly beech, the colour
+of which, at this season, forms a most beautiful contrast with that of
+the down itself, which is so green and so smooth! From the vale in the
+park, along which we rode, we looked apparently almost perpendicularly
+up at the downs, where the trees have extended themselves by seed more
+in some places than others, and thereby formed numerous salient parts of
+various forms, and, of course, as many and as variously formed glades.
+These, which are always so beautiful in forests and parks, are
+peculiarly beautiful in this lofty situation and with verdure so smooth
+as that of these chalky downs. Our horses beat up a score or two of
+hares as we crossed the park; and, though we met with no _gothic arches_
+made of Scotch fir, we saw something a great deal better; namely, about
+forty cows, the most beautiful that I ever saw, as to colour at least.
+They appear to be of the Galway-breed. They are called, in this country,
+_Lord Caernarvon's breed_. They have no horns, and their colour is a
+ground of white with black or red spots, these spots being from the size
+of a plate to that of a crown piece; and some of them have no small
+spots. These cattle were lying down together in the space of about an
+acre of ground: they were in excellent condition, and so fine a sight of
+the kind I never saw. Upon leaving the park, and coming over the hills
+to this pretty vale of Uphusband, I could not help calculating how long
+it might be before some Jew would begin to fix his eye upon Highclere,
+and talk of putting out the present owner, who, though a _Whig_, is one
+of the best of that set of politicians, and who acted a manly part in
+the case of our deeply injured and deeply lamented Queen. Perhaps his
+Lordship thinks that there is no fear of the Jews as to _him_. But does
+he think that his tenants can sell fat hogs at 7_s._ 6_d._ a score, and
+pay him more than a third of the rent that they have paid him while the
+debt was contracting? I know that such a man does not lose his estate at
+once; but, without rents, what is the estate? And that the Jews will
+receive the far greater part of his rents is certain, unless the
+interest of the Debt be reduced. LORD CAERNARVON told a man, in 1820,
+that _he did not like my politics_. But what did he mean by my
+_politics_? I have no politics but such as he _ought_ to like. I want to
+do away with that infernal _system_, which, after having beggared and
+pauperized the Labouring Classes, has now, according to the Report, made
+by the Ministers themselves to the House of Commons, plunged the owners
+of the land themselves into a state of distress, for which those
+Ministers themselves can hold out no remedy! To be sure, I labour most
+assiduously to destroy a system of distress and misery; but is that any
+reason why a _Lord_ should dislike my politics? However, dislike or like
+them, to them, to those very politics, the Lords themselves _must come
+at last_. And that I should exult in this thought, and take little pains
+to disguise my exultation, can surprise nobody who reflects on what has
+passed within these last twelve years. If the Landlords be well; if
+things be going right with them; if they have fair prospects of happy
+days; then what need they care about me and _my politics_; but, if they
+find themselves in "_distress_," and do not know how to get out of it;
+and, if they have been plunged into this distress by those who "dislike
+my politics;" is there not _some reason_ for men of sense to hesitate a
+little before they _condemn_ those politics? If no great change be
+wanted; if things could remain even; then men may, with some show of
+reason, say that I am disturbing that which ought to be let alone. But
+if things cannot remain as they are; if there must be a _great change_;
+is it not folly, and, indeed, is it not a species of idiotic
+perverseness, for men to set their faces, without rhyme or reason,
+against what is said as to this change by _me_, who have, for nearly
+twenty years, been warning the country of its danger, and foretelling
+that which has now come to pass and is coming to pass? However, I make
+no complaint on this score. People disliking my politics "neither picks
+my pocket, nor breaks my leg," as JEFFERSON said by the writings of the
+Atheists. If they be pleased in disliking my politics, I am pleased in
+liking them; and so we are both enjoying ourselves. If the country wants
+no assistance from me, I am quite sure that I want none from it.
+
+
+_Nov. 3. Saturday._
+
+Fat hogs have lately sold, in this village, at 7_s._ 6_d._ a score (but
+would hardly bring that now), that is to say, at 4-1/2_d._ a pound. The
+hog is weighed whole, when killed and dressed. The head and feet are
+included; but so is the lard. Hogs fatted on peas or barley-meal may be
+called the very best meat that England contains. At Salisbury (only
+about 20 miles off) fat hogs sell for 5_s._ to 4_s._ 6_d._ a score. But,
+then, observe, these are _dairy hogs_, which are not nearly so good in
+quality as the corn-fed hogs. But I shall probably hear more about these
+prices as I get further towards the West. Some wheat has been sold at
+Newbury-market for 6_l._ a load (40 bushels); that is, at 3_s._ a
+bushel. A considerable part of the crop is wholly unfit for bread flour,
+and is not equal in value to good barley. In not a few instances the
+wheat has been carried into the gate, or yard, and thrown down to be
+made dung of. So that, if we were to take the average, it would not
+exceed, I am convinced, 5_s._ a bushel in this part of the country; and
+the average of all England would not, perhaps, exceed 4_s._ or 3_s._
+6_d._ a bushel. However, LORD LIVERPOOL has got a _bad harvest_ at last!
+That _remedy_ has been applied! Somebody sent me some time ago that
+stupid newspaper, called the _Morning Herald_, in which its readers were
+reminded of my "_false prophecies_," I having (as this paper said)
+foretold that wheat would be at _two shillings a bushel before
+Christmas_. These gentlemen of the "_respectable_ part of the press" do
+not mind lying a little upon a pinch. [See Walter's "Times" of Tuesday
+last, for the following: "_Mr. Cobbett has thrown open the front of his
+house at Kensington, where he proposes to sell meat at a reduced
+price_."] What I said was this: that, if the crop were good and the
+harvest fine, and gold continued to be paid at the Bank, we should see
+wheat at four, not two, shillings a bushel before Christmas. Now, the
+crop was, in many parts, very much blighted, and the harvest was very
+bad indeed; and yet the average of England, including that which is
+destroyed, or not brought to market at all, will not exceed 4_s._ a
+bushel. A farmer told me, the other day, that he got _so little_ offered
+for some of his wheat, that he was resolved not to take any more of it
+to market; but to give it to hogs. Therefore, in speaking of the price
+of wheat, you are to take in the unsold as well as the sold; that which
+fetches nothing as well as that which is sold at high price.--I see, in
+the Irish papers, which have overtaken me on my way, that the system is
+working the Agriculturasses in "the sister-kingdom" too! The following
+paragraph will show that the _remedy_ of a _bad harvest_ has not done
+our dear sister much good. "A very numerous meeting of the Kildare
+Farming Society met at Naas on the 24th inst., the Duke of Leinster in
+the Chair; Robert de la Touche, Esq., M.P., Vice-President. Nothing can
+more strongly prove the BADNESS OF THE TIMES, and very _unfortunate
+state of the country_, than the necessity in which the Society finds
+itself of _discontinuing its premiums, from its present want of funds_.
+The best members of the farming classes have got so much in arrear in
+their subscriptions that they have declined to appear or to dine with
+their neighbours, and general depression damps the spirit of the most
+industrious and _hitherto prosperous_ cultivators." You are mistaken,
+Pat; it is not the _times_ any more than it is the _stars_. Bobadil, you
+know, imputed his beating to the _planets_: "planet-stricken, by the
+foot of Pharaoh!"--"No, Captain," says Welldon, "indeed it was a
+_stick_." It is not the _times_, dear Patrick: it is _the government_,
+who, having first contracted a great debt in depreciated money, are now
+compelling you to pay the interest at the rate of three for one. Whether
+this be _right_, or _wrong_, the Agriculturasses best know: it is much
+more their affair than it is mine; but, be you well assured, that they
+are only at the beginning of their sorrows. Ah! Patrick, whoever shall
+live only a few years will see a _grand change_ in your state! Something
+a _little more rational_ than "Catholic Emancipation" will take place,
+or I am the most deceived of all mankind. This _Debt_ is your best, and,
+indeed, your _only friend_. It must, at last, give the THING a _shake_,
+such as it never had before.--The accounts which my country newspapers
+give of the failure of farmers are perfectly dismal. In many, many
+instances they have put an end to their existence, as the poor deluded
+creatures did who had been ruined by the South Sea Bubble! I cannot help
+feeling for these people, for whom my birth, education, taste, and
+habits give me so strong a partiality. Who can help feeling for their
+wives and children, hurled down headlong from affluence to misery in the
+space of a few months! Become all of a sudden the mockery of those whom
+they compelled, perhaps, to cringe before them! If the Labourers exult,
+one cannot say that it is unnatural. If _Reason_ have her fair sway, I
+am exempted from all pain upon this occasion. I have done my best to
+prevent these calamities. Those farmers who have attended to me are safe
+while the storm rages. My endeavours to stop the evil in time cost me
+the earnings of twenty long years! I did not sink, no, nor _bend_,
+beneath the heavy and reiterated blows of the accursed system, which I
+have dealt back blow for blow; and, blessed be God, I now see it _reel_!
+It is staggering about like a sheep with water in the head: turning its
+pate up on one side: seeming to listen, but has no hearing: seeming to
+look, but has no sight: one day it capers and dances: the next it mopes
+and seems ready to die.
+
+
+_Nov. 4. Sunday._
+
+This, to my fancy, is a very nice country. It is continual hill and
+dell. Now and then a _chain_ of hills higher than the rest, and these
+are downs, or woods. To stand upon any of the hills and look around you,
+you almost think you see the ups and downs of sea in a _heavy swell_ (as
+the sailors call it) after what they call a gale of wind. The
+undulations are endless, and the great variety in the height, breadth,
+length, and form of the little hills, has a very delightful effect.--The
+soil, which, to look _on_ it, appears to be more than half flint stones,
+is very good in quality, and, in general, better on the tops of the
+lesser hills than in the valleys. It has great tenacity; does not _wash
+away_ like sand, or light loam. It is a stiff, tenacious loam, mixed
+with flint stones. Bears Saint-foin well, and all sorts of grass, which
+make the fields on the hills as green as meadows, even at this season;
+and the grass does not burn up in summer.--In a country so full of hills
+one would expect endless runs of water and springs. There are none:
+absolutely none. No water-furrow is ever made in the land. No ditches
+round the fields. And, even in the _deep valleys_, such as that in which
+this village is situated, though it winds round for ten or fifteen
+miles, there is no run of water even now. There is the _bed_ of a brook,
+which will run before spring, and it continues running with more or less
+water for about half the year, though, some years, it never runs at all.
+It rained all Friday night; pretty nearly all day yesterday; and to-day
+the ground is as dry as a bone, except just along the street of the
+village, which has been kept in a sort of stabble by the flocks of sheep
+passing along to and from Appleshaw fair. In the deep and long and
+narrow valleys, such as this, there are meadows with very fine herbage
+and very productive. The grass very fine and excellent in its quality.
+It is very curious that the soil is much _shallower_ in the vales than
+on the hills. In the vales it is a sort of hazle-mould on a bed of
+something approaching to gravel; but on the hills it is stiff loam, with
+apparently half flints, on a bed of something like clay first (reddish,
+not yellow), and then comes the chalk, which they often take up by
+digging a sort of wells; and then they spread it on the surface, as they
+do the clay in some countries, where they sometimes fetch it many miles
+and at an immense expense. It was very common, near Botley, to chalk
+land at an expense of sixteen pounds an acre.----The land here is
+excellent in quality generally, unless you get upon the highest chains
+of hills. They have frequently 40 bushels of wheat to the acre. Their
+barley is very fine; and their Saint-foin abundant. The turnips are, in
+general, very good at this time; and the land appears as capable of
+carrying fine crops of them as any land that I have seen. A fine country
+for sheep: always dry: they never injure the land when feeding off
+turnips in wet weather; and they can lie down on the dry; for the ground
+is, in fact, never wet except while the rain is actually falling.
+Sometimes, in spring-thaws and thunder-showers, the rain runs down the
+hills in torrents; but is gone directly. The flocks of sheep, some in
+fold and some at large, feeding on the sides of the hills, give great
+additional beauty to the scenery.--The woods, which consist chiefly of
+oak thinly intermixed with ash, and well set with underwood of ash and
+hazle, but mostly the latter, are very beautiful. They sometimes stretch
+along the top and sides of hills for miles together; and as their edges,
+or outsides, joining the fields and the downs, go winding and twisting
+about, and as the fields and downs are naked of trees, the sight
+altogether is very pretty.--The trees in the deep and long valleys,
+especially the Elm and the Ash, are very fine and very lofty; and from
+distance to distance, the Rooks have made them their habitation. This
+sort of country, which, in irregular shape, is of great extent, has many
+and great advantages. Dry under foot. Good roads, winter as well as
+summer, and little, very little, expense. Saint-foin flourishes. Fences
+cost little. Wood, hurdles, and hedging-stuff cheap. No shade in wet
+harvests. The water in the wells excellent. Good sporting country,
+except for coursing, and too many flints for that.--What becomes of all
+the _water_? There is a spring in one of the cross valleys that runs
+into this, having a basin about thirty feet over, and about eight feet
+deep, which, they say, sends up water once in about 30 or 40 years; and
+boils up so as to make a large current of water.--Not far from UPHUSBAND
+the _Wansdike_ (I think it is called) crosses the country. SIR RICHARD
+COLT HOARE has written a great deal about this ancient boundary, which
+is, indeed, something very curious. In the ploughed fields the traces of
+it are quite gone; but they remain in the _woods_ as well as on the
+downs.
+
+
+_Nov. 5. Monday._
+
+A _white frost_ this morning. The hills round about beautiful at
+sun-rise, the rooks making that noise which they always make in winter
+mornings. The Starlings are come in large flocks; and, which is deemed a
+sign of a hard winter, the Fieldfares are come at an early season. The
+haws are very abundant; which, they say, is another sign of a hard
+winter. The wheat is high enough here, in some fields, "to hide a hare,"
+which is, indeed, not saying much for it, as a hare knows how to hide
+herself upon the bare ground. But it is, in some fields, four inches
+high, and is green and gay, the colour being finer than that of any
+grass.--The fuel here is wood. Little coal is brought from Andover. A
+load of fagots does not cost above 10_s._ So that, in this respect, the
+labourers are pretty well off. The wages here and in Berkshire, about
+8_s._ a week; but the farmers talk of lowering them.--The poor-rates
+heavy, and heavy they must be, till taxes and rents come down
+greatly.--Saturday, and to-day Appleshaw sheep-fair. The sheep, which
+had taken a rise at Weyhill fair, have fallen again even below the
+Norfolk and Sussex mark. Some Southdown Lambs were sold at Appleshaw so
+low as 8_s._ and some even lower. Some Dorsetshire Ewes brought no more
+than a pound; and, perhaps, the average did not exceed 28_s._ I have
+seen a farmer here who can get (or could a few days ago) 28_s._ round
+for a lot of fat Southdown Wethers, which cost him just that money, when
+they were lambs, _two years ago_! It is impossible that they can have
+cost him less than 24_s._ each during the two years, having to be fed on
+turnips or hay in winter, and to be fatted on good grass. Here (upon one
+hundred sheep) is a loss of 120_l._ and 14_l._ in addition at five per
+cent. interest on the sum expended in the purchase; even suppose not a
+sheep has been lost by death or otherwise.--I mentioned before, I
+believe, that fat hogs are sold at Salisbury at from 5_s._ to 4_s._
+6_d._ the _score_ pounds, dead weight.--Cheese has come down in the same
+proportion. A correspondent informs me that one hundred and fifty Welsh
+Sheep were, on the 18th of October, offered for 4_s._ 6_d_, a head, and
+that they went away unsold! The skin was worth a shilling of the money!
+The following I take from the _Tyne Mercury_ of the 30th of October.
+"Last week, at Northawton fair, Mr. Thomas Cooper, of Bow, purchased
+three milch cows and forty sheep, for 18_l._ 16_s._ 6_d._!" The skins,
+four years ago, would have sold for more than the money. The _Hampshire
+Journal_ says that, on 1 November (Thursday) at Newbury Market, wheat
+sold from 88_s._ to 24_s._ the Quarter. This would make an average of
+56_s._ But very little indeed was sold at 88_s._, only the prime of the
+old wheat. The best of the new for about 48_s._, and then, if we take
+into view the great proportion that cannot go to market at all, we shall
+not find the average, even in this rather dear part of England, to
+exceed 32_s._, or 4_s._ a bushel. And if we take all England through, it
+does not come up to that, nor anything like it. A farmer very sensibly
+observed to me yesterday that "if we had had such a crop and such a
+harvest a few years ago, good wheat would have been 50_l._ a load;" that
+is to say, 25_s._ a bushel! Nothing can be truer than this. And nothing
+can be clearer than that the present race of farmers, generally
+speaking, must be swept away by bankruptcy, if they do not, in time,
+make their bow, and retire. There are two descriptions of farmers, very
+distinct as to the effects which this change must naturally have on
+them. The word _farmer_ comes from the French, _fermier_, and signifies
+_renter_. Those only who rent, therefore, are, properly speaking,
+_farmers_. Those who till their own land are _yeomen_; and when I was a
+boy it was the common practice to call the former _farmers_ and the
+latter _yeoman-farmers_. These yeomen have, for the greater part, been
+swallowed up by the paper-system which has drawn such masses of money
+together. They have, by degrees, been _bought out_. Still there are some
+few left; and these, if not in debt, will stand their ground. But all
+the present race of mere renters must give way, in one manner or
+another. They must break, or drop their style greatly; even in the
+latter case, their rent must, very shortly, be diminished more than
+two-thirds. Then comes the _Landlord's turn_; and the sooner the
+better.--In the _Maidstone Gazette_ I find the following: "Prime beef
+was sold in Salisbury market, on Tuesday last, at 4_d._ per lb., and
+good joints of mutton at 3-1/2_d._; butter 11_d._ and 12_d._ per lb.--In
+the West of Cornwall, during the summer, pork has often been sold at
+2-1/2_d._ per lb."--This is very true; and what can be better? How can
+Peel's Bill work in a more delightful manner? What nice "_general
+working of events_!" The country rag-merchants have now very little to
+do. They have _no discounts_. What they have out they _owe_: it is so
+much _debt_: and, of course, they become poorer and poorer, because they
+must, like a mortgager, have more and more to pay as prices fall. This
+is very good; for it will make them disgorge a part, at least, of what
+they have swallowed, during the years of high prices and depreciation.
+They are worked in this sort of way: the Tax-Collectors, the
+Excise-fellows, for instance, hold their sittings every six weeks, in
+certain towns about the country. They will receive the country rags, if
+the rag man can find, and will give, security for the due payment of his
+rags, when they arrive in London. For want of such security, or of some
+formality of the kind, there was a great bustle in a town in this county
+not many days ago. The Excise-fellow demanded sovereigns, or Bank of
+England notes. Precisely how the matter was finally settled I know not;
+but the reader will see that the Exciseman was only taking a proper
+precaution; for if the rags were not paid in London, the loss was his.
+
+
+_Marlborough, Tuesday noon, Nov. 6._
+
+I left Uphusband this morning at 9, and came across to this place (20
+miles) in a post-chaise. Came up the valley of Uphusband, which ends at
+about 6 miles from the village, and puts one out upon the Wiltshire
+Downs, which stretch away towards the West and South-west, towards
+Devizes and towards Salisbury. After about half a mile of down we came
+down into a level country; the flints cease, and the chalk comes nearer
+the top of the ground. The labourers along here seem very poor indeed.
+Farmhouses with twenty ricks round each, besides those standing in the
+fields; pieces of wheat 50, 60, or 100 acres in a piece; but a group of
+women labourers, who were attending the measurers to measure their
+reaping work, presented such an assemblage of rags as I never before saw
+even amongst the hoppers at Farnham, many of whom are common beggars. I
+never before saw _country_ people, and reapers too, observe, so
+miserable in appearance as these. There were some very pretty girls, but
+ragged as colts and as pale as ashes. The day was cold too, and frost
+hardly off the ground; and their blue arms and lips would have made any
+heart ache but that of a seat-seller or a loan-jobber. A little after
+passing by these poor things, whom I left, cursing, as I went, those who
+had brought them to this state, I came to a group of shabby houses upon
+a hill. While the boy was watering his horses, I asked the ostler the
+_name_ of the place; and, as the old women say, "you might have knocked
+me down with a feather," when he said, "_Great Bedwin_." The whole of
+the houses are not intrinsically worth a thousand pounds. There stood a
+thing out in the middle of the place, about 25 feet long and 15 wide,
+being a room stuck up on unhewed stone pillars about 10 feet high. It
+was the Town Hall, where the ceremony of choosing the _two Members_ is
+performed. "This place sends Members to Parliament, don't it?" said I to
+the ostler. "Yes, Sir." "Who are Members _now_?" "I _don't know_,
+indeed, Sir."--I have not read the _Henriade_ of Voltaire for these 30
+years; but in ruminating upon the ostler's answer, and in thinking how
+the world, yes, _the whole world_, has been deceived as to this matter,
+two lines of that poem came across my memory:
+
+  Representans du peuple, les Grands et le Roi:
+  Spectacle magnifique! Source sacree des lois![1]
+
+The Frenchman, for want of understanding the THING as well as I do, left
+the eulogium incomplete. I therefore here add four lines, which I
+request those who publish future editions of the Henriade to insert in
+continuation of the above eulogium of Voltaire.
+
+  Representans du peuple, que celui-ci ignore,
+  Sont fait a miracle pour garder son Or!
+  Peuple trop heureux, que le bonheur inonde!
+  L'envie de vos voisins, admire du monde![2]
+
+The first line was suggested by the ostler; the last by the words which
+we so very often hear from the bar, the bench, the _seats_, the pulpit,
+and the throne. Doubtless my poetry is not equal to that of Voltaire;
+but my rhyme is as good as his, and my _reason_ is a great deal
+better.--In quitting this villanous place we see the extensive and
+uncommonly ugly park and domain of LORD AYLESBURY, who seems to have
+tacked park on to park, like so many outworks of a fortified city. I
+suppose here are 50 or 100 farms of former days swallowed up. They have
+been bought, I dare say, from time to time; and it would be a labour
+very well worthy of reward by the public, to trace to its source the
+money by which these immense domains, in different parts of the country,
+have been formed!--MARLBOROUGH, which is an ill-looking place enough, is
+succeeded, on my road to SWINDON, by an extensive and very beautiful
+down about 4 miles over. Here nature has flung the earth about in a
+great variety of shapes. The fine short smooth grass has about 9 inches
+of mould under it, and then comes the chalk. The water that runs down
+the narrow side-hill valleys is caught, in different parts of the down,
+in basins made on purpose, and lined with clay apparently. This is for
+watering the sheep in summer; sure sign of a really dry soil; and yet
+the grass never _parches_ upon these downs. The chalk holds the
+moisture, and the grass is fed by the dews in hot and dry weather.--At
+the end of this down the high-country ends. The hill is high and steep,
+and from it you look immediately down into a level farming country; a
+little further on into the dairy-country, whence the North-Wilts cheese
+comes; and, beyond that, into the vale of Berkshire, and even to Oxford,
+which lies away to the North-east from this hill.--The land continues
+good, flat and rather wet to Swindon, which is a plain country town,
+built of the stone which is found at about 6 feet under ground about
+here.--I come on now towards Cirencester, thro' the dairy county of
+North Wilts.
+
+
+_Cirencester, Wednesday (Noon), 7 Nov._
+
+I slept at a Dairy-farm house at Hannington, about eight miles from
+Swindon, and five on one side of my road. I passed through that
+villanous hole, Cricklade, about two hours ago; and, certainly, a more
+rascally looking place I never set my eyes on. I wished to avoid it, but
+could get along no other way. All along here the land is a whitish stiff
+loam upon a bed of soft stone, which is found at various distances from
+the surface, sometimes two feet and sometimes ten. Here and there a
+field is fenced with this stone, laid together in walls without mortar
+or earth. All the houses and out-houses are made of it, and even covered
+with the thinnest of it formed into tiles. The stiles in the fields are
+made of large flags of this stone, and the gaps in the hedges are
+stopped with them.--There is very little wood all along here. The
+labourers seem miserably poor. Their dwellings are little better than
+pig-beds, and their looks indicate that their food is not nearly equal
+to that of a pig. Their wretched hovels are stuck upon little bits of
+ground _on the road side_, where the space has been wider than the road
+demanded. In many places they have not two rods to a hovel. It seems as
+if they had been swept off the fields by a hurricane, and had dropped
+and found shelter under the banks on the road side! Yesterday morning
+was a sharp frost; and this had set the poor creatures to digging up
+their little plats of potatoes. In my whole life I never saw human
+wretchedness equal to this: no, not even amongst the free negroes in
+America, who, on an average, do not work one day out of four. And this
+is "_prosperity_," is it? These, Oh, Pitt! are the fruits of thy hellish
+system! However, this _Wiltshire_ is a horrible county. This is the
+county that the _Gallon-loaf_ man belongs to. The land all along here is
+good. Fine fields and pastures all around; and yet the cultivators of
+those fields so miserable! This is particularly the case on both sides
+of Cricklade, and in it too, where everything had the air of the most
+deplorable want.--They are sowing wheat all the way from the Wiltshire
+downs to Cirencester; though there is some wheat up. Winter-Vetches are
+up in some places, and look very well.--The turnips of both kinds are
+good all along here.--I met a farmer going with porkers to Highworth
+market. They would weigh, he said, four score and a half, and he
+expected to get 7_s._ 6_d._ a score. I expect he will not. He said they
+had been fed on barley-meal; but I did not believe him. I put it to his
+honour whether whey and beans had not been their food. He looked surly,
+and pushed on.--On this stiff ground they grow a good many beans, and
+give them to the pigs with whey; which makes excellent pork for the
+_Londoners_; but which must meet with a pretty hungry stomach to swallow
+it in Hampshire. The hogs, all the way that I have come, from
+Buckinghamshire, are, without a single exception that I have seen, the
+old-fashioned black-spotted hogs. Mr. BLOUNT at Uphusband has one,
+which now weighs about thirty score, and will possibly weigh forty, for
+she moves about very easily yet. This is the weight of a good ox; and
+yet, what a little thing it is compared to an ox! Between Cricklade and
+this place (Cirencester) I met, in separate droves, about two thousand
+Welsh Cattle, on their way from Pembrokeshire to the fairs in Sussex.
+The greater part of them were heifers in calf. They were purchased in
+Wales at from 3_l._ to 4_l._ 10_s._ each! None of them, the drovers told
+me, reached 5_l._ These heifers used to fetch, at home, from 6_l._ to
+8_l._, and sometimes more. Many of the things that I saw in these droves
+did not fetch, in Wales, 25_s._ And they go to no _rising_ market! Now,
+is there a man in his senses who believes that this THING can go on in
+the present way? However, a fine thing, indeed, is this fall of prices!
+My "cottager" will easily get his cow, and a young cow too, for less
+than the 5_l._ that I talked of. These Welsh heifers will calve about
+May; and they are just the very thing for a cottager.
+
+
+_Gloucester, Thursday (morning), Nov. 8._
+
+In leaving Cirencester, which is a pretty large town, a pretty nice
+town, and which the people call _Cititer_, I came up hill into a
+country, apparently formerly a down or common, but now divided into
+large fields by stone walls. Anything so ugly I have never seen before.
+The stone, which, on the other side of Cirencester, lay a good way under
+ground, here lies very near to the surface. The plough is continually
+bringing it up, and thus, in general, come the means of making the walls
+that serve as fences. Anything quite so cheerless as this I do not
+recollect to have seen; for the Bagshot country, and the commons between
+Farnham and Haslemere, have _heath_ at any rate; but these stones are
+quite abominable. The turnips are not a _fiftieth_ of a crop like those
+of Mr. Clarke at Bergh-Apton in Norfolk, or Mr. Pym at Reigate in
+Surrey, or of Mr. Brazier at Worth in Sussex. I see thirty acres here
+that have less _food_ upon them than I saw the other day upon half an
+acre at Mr. Budd's at Berghclere. _Can_ it be good farming to plough and
+sow and hoe thirty acres to get what _may_ be got upon half an acre? Can
+that half acre cost more than a tenth part as much as the thirty acres?
+But if I were to go to this thirty-acre farmer, and tell him what to do
+to the half acre, would he not exclaim with the farmer at Botley: "What!
+_drow_ away all that 'ere ground between the _lains_! Jod's
+blood!"--With the exception of a little dell about eight miles from
+Cititer, this miserable country continued to the distance of ten miles,
+when, all of a sudden, I looked down from the top of a high hill into
+_the vale of Gloucester_! Never was there, surely, such a contrast in
+this world! This hill is called _Burlip Hill_; it is much about a mile
+down it, and the descent so steep as to require the wheel of the chaise
+to be locked; and even with that precaution, I did not think it over and
+above safe to sit in the chaise; so, upon Sir Robert Wilson's principle
+of taking care of _Number One_, I got out and walked down. From this
+hill you see the Morvan Hills in Wales. You look down into a sort of
+_dish_ with a flat bottom, the Hills are the sides of the dish, and the
+City of Gloucester, which you plainly see, at seven miles distance from
+Burlip Hill, appears to be not far from the centre of the dish. All here
+is fine; fine farms; fine pastures; all enclosed fields; all divided by
+hedges; orchards a plenty; and I had scarcely seen one apple since I
+left Berkshire.--GLOUCESTER is a fine, clean, beautiful place; and,
+which is of a vast deal more importance, the labourers' dwellings, as I
+came along, looked good, and the labourers themselves pretty well as to
+dress and healthiness. The girls at work in the fields (always my
+standard) are not in rags, with bits of shoes tied on their feet and
+rags tied round their ankles, as they had in Wiltshire.
+
+
+
+
+JOURNAL: FROM GLOUCESTER, TO BOLLITREE IN HEREFORDSHIRE, ROSS, HEREFORD,
+ABINGDON, OXFORD, CHELTENHAM, BERGHCLERE, WHITCHURCH, UPHURSTBOURN, AND
+THENCE TO KENSINGTON.
+
+
+_Bollitree Castle, Herefordshire, Friday, 9 Nov. 1821._
+
+I got to this beautiful place (Mr. WILLIAM PALMER'S) yesterday, from
+Gloucester. This is in the parish of _Weston_, two miles on the
+Gloucester side of Ross, and, if not the first, nearly the first, parish
+in Herefordshire upon leaving Gloucester to go on through Ross to
+Hereford.--On quitting Gloucester I crossed the Severne, which had
+overflowed its banks and covered the meadows with water.--The soil good
+but stiff. The coppices and woods very much like those upon the clays in
+the South of Hampshire and in Sussex; but the land better for corn and
+grass. The goodness of the land is shown by the apple-trees, and by the
+sort of sheep and cattle fed here. The sheep are a cross between the
+Ryland and Leicester, and the cattle of the Herefordshire kind. These
+would starve in the pastures of any part of Hampshire or Sussex that I
+have ever seen.--At about seven miles from Gloucester I came to hills,
+and the land changed from the whitish soil, which I had hitherto seen,
+to a red brown, with layers of flat stone of a reddish cast under it.
+Thus it continued to Bollitree. The trees of all kinds are very fine on
+the hills as well as in the bottoms.--The spot where I now am is
+peculiarly well situated in all respects. The land very rich, the
+pastures the finest I ever saw, the trees of all kinds surpassing upon
+an average any that I have before seen in England. From the house, you
+see, in front and winding round to the left, a lofty hill, called
+_Penyard Hill_, at about a mile and a half distance, covered with oaks
+of the finest growth: along at the foot of this wood are fields and
+orchards continuing the slope of the hill down for a considerable
+distance, and, as the ground lies in a sort of _ridges_ from the wood to
+the foot of the slope, the hill-and-dell is very beautiful. One of these
+dells with the two adjoining sides of hills is an orchard belonging to
+Mr. PALMER, and the trees, the ground, and everything belonging to it,
+put me in mind of the most beautiful of the spots in the North of Long
+Island. Sheltered by a lofty wood; the grass fine beneath the fruit
+trees; the soil dry under foot though the rain had scarcely ceased to
+fall; no moss on the trees; the leaves of many of them yet green;
+everything brought my mind to the beautiful orchards near Bayside,
+Little Neck, Mosquito Cove, and Oyster Bay, in Long Island. No wonder
+that this is a country of _cider_ and _perry_; but what a shame it is
+that here, at any rate, the owners and cultivators of the soil, not
+content with these, should, for mere fashion's sake, waste their
+substance on _wine_ and _spirits_! They really deserve the contempt of
+mankind and the curses of their children.--The woody hill mentioned
+before, winds away to the left, and carries the eye on to the _Forest of
+Dean_, from which it is divided by a narrow and very deep valley. Away
+to the right of Penyard Hill lies, in the bottom, at two miles distance,
+and on the bank of the river Wye, the town of Ross, over which we look
+down the vale to Monmouth and see the Welsh hills beyond it. Beneath
+Penyard Hill, and on one of the _ridges_ before mentioned, is the parish
+church of Weston, with some pretty white cottages near it, peeping
+through the orchard and other trees; and coming to the paddock before
+the house are some of the largest and loftiest trees in the country,
+standing singly here and there, amongst which is the very largest and
+loftiest walnut-tree that I believe I ever saw, either in America or in
+England. In short, there wants nothing but the autumnal _colours_ of the
+American trees to make this the most beautiful spot I ever beheld.--I
+was much amused for an hour after daylight this morning in looking at
+the _clouds_, rising at intervals from the dells on the side of Penyard
+Hill, and flying to the top, and then over the Hill. Some of the clouds
+went up in a roundish and compact form. Others rose in a sort of string
+or stream, the tops of them going over the hill before the bottoms were
+clear of the place whence they had arisen. Sometimes the clouds gathered
+themselves together along the top of the hill, and seemed to connect the
+topmost trees with the sky.----I have been to-day to look at Mr.
+PALMER'S fine crops of _Swedish Turnips_, which are, in general, called
+"_Swedes_." These crops having been raised according to _my plan_, I
+feel, of course, great interest in the matter. The Swedes occupy two
+fields: one of thirteen, and one of seventeen acres. The main part of
+the seventeen-acre field was _drilled_, on ridges, four feet apart, a
+single row on a ridge, at different times, between 16th April and 29th
+May. An acre and a half of this piece was _transplanted_ on four-feet
+ridges 30th July. About half an acre across the middle of the field was
+sown _broad-cast_ 14th April.--In the thirteen-acre field there is about
+half an acre sown _broad-cast_ on the 1st of June; the rest of the field
+was _transplanted_; part in the first week of June, part in the last
+week of June, part from the 12th to 18th July, and the rest (about three
+acres) from 21st to 23rd July. The drilled Swedes in the seventeen-acre
+field, contain full 23 tons to the acre; the transplanted ones in _that_
+field, 15 tons, and the broad-cast not exceeding 10 tons. Those in the
+thirteen-acre field which were transplanted before the 21st July,
+contain 27 if not 30 tons; and the rest of _that_ field about 17 tons to
+the acre. The broad-cast piece here (half an acre) may contain 7 tons.
+The shortness of my time will prevent us from ascertaining the weight by
+actual weighings; but such is the crop, according to the best of my
+judgment, after a very minute survey of it in every part of each
+field.--NOW, here is a little short of 800 tons of food, about a fifth
+part of which consists of _tops_; and, of course, there is about 640
+tons of _bulb_. As to the _value_ and _uses_ of this prodigious crop I
+need say nothing; and as to the time and manner of sowing and raising
+the plants for transplanting, the act of transplanting, and the after
+cultivation, Mr. PALMER has followed the directions contained in my
+"_Year's Residence in America_;" and, indeed, he is forward to
+acknowledge that he had never thought of this mode of culture, which he
+has followed now for three years, and which he has found so
+advantageous, until he read that work, a work which the _Farmer's
+Journal_ thought proper to treat as a _romance_.--Mr. PALMER has had
+some _cabbages_ of the large, drum-head kind. He had about three acres,
+in rows at four feet apart, and at little less than three feet apart in
+the rows, making _ten thousand_ cabbages on the three acres. He kept
+ninety-five wethers and ninety-six ewes (large fatting sheep) upon them
+for _five weeks_ all but two days, ending in the first week of November.
+The sheep, which are now feeding off yellow turnips in an adjoining part
+of the same field, come back over the cabbage-ground and _scoop out the
+stumps_ almost to the ground in many cases. This ground is going to be
+ploughed for wheat immediately. Cabbages are a very fine _autumn crop_;
+but it is the _Swedes_ on which you must rely for the spring, and on
+_housed_ or _stacked_ Swedes too; for they will _rot_ in many of our
+winters, if left in the ground. I have had them rot myself, and I saw,
+in March 1820, hundreds of acres rotten in Warwickshire and
+Northamptonshire. Mr. PALMER greatly prefers the _transplanting_ to the
+drilling. It has numerous advantages over the drilling; greater
+regularity of crop, greater certainty, the only _sure_ way of avoiding
+the _fly_, greater crop, admitting of two months later preparation of
+land, can come _after vetches_ cut up for horses (as, indeed, a part of
+Mr. PALMER'S transplanted Swedes did), and requiring less labour and
+expense. I asserted this in my "_Year's Residence_;" and Mr. PALMER, who
+has been very particular in ascertaining the fact, states positively
+that the expense of transplanting is not so great as the hoeing and
+setting out of the drilled crops, and not so great as the common hoeings
+of broad-cast. This, I think, settles the question. But the advantages
+of the wide-row culture by no means confine themselves to the green and
+root crop; for Mr. PALMER drills his wheat upon the same ridges, without
+ploughing, after he has taken off the Swedes. He drills it at _eight
+inches_, and puts in from eight to ten gallons to the acre. His crop of
+1820, drilled in this way, averaged 40 bushels to the acre; part drilled
+in November, and part so late as February. It was the common Lammas
+wheat. His last crop of wheat is not yet ascertained; but it was better
+after the Swedes than in any other of his land. His manner of taking off
+the crop is excellent. He first cuts off and carries away the _tops_.
+Then he has an implement, drawn by two oxen, walking on each side of the
+ridge, with which he cuts off the _tap root_ of the Swedes without
+disturbing the land of the ridge. Any child can then pull up the bulb.
+Thus the ground, clean as a garden, and in that compact state which the
+wheat is well known to like, is ready, at once, for drilling with wheat.
+As to the _uses_ to which he applies the crop, tops as well as bulbs, I
+must speak of these hereafter, and in a work of a description different
+from this. I have been thus particular here, because the _Farmer's
+Journal_ treated my book as a pack of lies. I know that my (for it is
+_mine_) system of cattle-food husbandry will finally be that of _all
+England_, as it already is that of America; but what I am doing here is
+merely in self-defence against the slanders, the malignant slanders, of
+the _Farmer's Journal_. Where is a _Whig lord_, who, some years ago,
+wrote to a gentleman that "_he_ would have _nothing to do_ with any
+_reform_ that _Cobbett_ was engaged in"? But in spite of the brutal
+_Journal_, farmers are not such fools as this lord was: they will not
+reject a good crop because they can have it only by acting upon my plan;
+and this lord will, I imagine, yet see the day when he will be less
+averse from having to do with a reform in which "Cobbett" shall be
+engaged.
+
+
+_Old Hall, Saturday night, Nov. 10._
+
+Went to Hereford this morning. It was market-day. My arrival became
+known, and, I am sure, I cannot tell how. A sort of _buz_ got about. I
+could perceive here, as I always have elsewhere, very ardent friends and
+very bitter enemies; but all full of curiosity. One thing could not fail
+to please me exceedingly: my friends were _gay_ and my enemies _gloomy_:
+the former smiled, and the latter, in endeavouring to screw their
+features into a sneer, could get them no further than the half sour and
+half sad: the former seemed in their looks to say, "Here he is," and the
+latter to respond, "Yes, G---- d---- him!"--I went into the
+market-place, amongst the farmers, with whom, in general, I was very
+much pleased. If I were to live in the county two months, I should be
+acquainted with every man of them. The country is very fine all the way
+from Ross to Hereford. The soil is always a red loam upon a bed of
+stone. The trees are very fine, and certainly winter comes later here
+than in Middlesex. Some of the oak trees are still perfectly green, and
+many of the ashes as green as in September.--In coming from Hereford to
+this place, which is the residence of Mrs. PALMER and that of her two
+younger sons, Messrs. PHILIP and WALTER PALMER, who, with their brother,
+had accompanied me to Hereford; in coming to this place, which lies at
+about two miles distance from the great road, and at about an equal
+distance from HEREFORD and from Ross, we met with something, the sight
+of which pleased me exceedingly: it was that of a very pretty
+pleasant-looking lady (and _young_ too) with two beautiful children,
+riding in a little sort of chaise-cart, drawn by _an ass_, which she was
+driving in reins. She appeared to be well known to my friends, who drew
+up and spoke to her, calling her Mrs. _Lock_, or _Locky_ (I hope it was
+not _Lockart_), or some such name. Her husband, who is, I suppose, some
+young farmer of the neighbourhood, may well call himself Mr. _Lucky_;
+for to have such a wife, and for such a wife to have the good sense to
+put up with an ass-cart, in order to avoid, as much as possible,
+feeding those cormorants who gorge on the taxes, is a blessing that
+falls, I am afraid, to the lot of very few rich farmers. Mrs. _Lock_ (if
+that be her name) is a real _practical radical_. Others of us resort to
+radical coffee and radical tea; and she has a radical carriage. This is
+a very effectual way of assailing the THING, and peculiarly well suited
+for the practice of the female sex. But the self-denial ought not to be
+imposed on the wife only: the husband ought to set the example: and let
+me hope that _Mr. Lock_ does not indulge in the use of wine and spirits
+while Mrs. Lock and her children ride in a jackass gig; for if he do, he
+wastes, in this way, the means of keeping her a chariot and pair. If
+there be to be any expense not absolutely necessary; if there be to be
+anything bordering on extravagance, surely it ought to be for the
+pleasure of that part of the family who have the least number of objects
+of enjoyment; and for a husband to indulge himself in the guzzling of
+expensive, unnecessary, and really injurious drink, to the tune,
+perhaps, of 50 or 100 pounds a year, while he preaches economy to his
+wife, and, with a face as long as my arm, talks of the low price of
+corn, and wheedles her out of a curricle into a jack-ass cart, is not
+only unjust but _unmanly_.
+
+
+_Old Hall, Sunday night, 11 Nov._
+
+We have ridden to-day, though in the rain for a great part of the time,
+over the fine farm of Mr. PHILIP PALMER, at this place, and that of Mr.
+WALTER PALMER, in the adjoining parish of PENCOYD. Everything here is
+good, arable land, pastures, orchards, coppices, and timber trees,
+especially the elms, many scores of which approach nearly to a hundred
+feet in height. Mr. PHILIP PALMER has four acres of Swedes on four-feet
+ridges, drilled on the 11th and 14th of May. The plants were very much
+injured by the _fly_; so much, that it was a question whether the whole
+piece ought not to be ploughed up. However, the gaps in the rows were
+filled up by transplanting; and the ground was twice ploughed between
+the ridges. The crop here is very fine; and I should think that its
+weight could not be less than 17 tons to the acre.--Of Mr. WALTER
+PALMER'S Swedes, five acres were drilled, on ridges nearly four feet
+apart, on the 3rd of June; four acres on the 15th of June; and an acre
+and a half transplanted (after vetches) on the 15th of August. The
+weight of the first is about twenty tons to the acre; that of the second
+not much less; and that of the last even, five or six tons. The first
+two pieces were mauled to pieces by the _fly_; but the gaps were filled
+up by transplanting, the ground being digged on the tops of the ridges
+to receive the plants. So that, perhaps, a third part or more of the
+crop is due to the _transplanting_. As to the last piece, that
+transplanted on the 15th of August, after vetches, it is clear that
+there could have been no crop without transplanting; and, after all, the
+crop is by no means a bad one.--It is clear enough to me that this
+system will finally prevail all over England. The "loyal," indeed, may
+be afraid to adopt it, lest it should contain something of "radicalism."
+Sap-headed fools! They will find something to do, I believe, soon,
+besides railing against _radicals_. We will din "_radical_" and
+"_national faith_" in their ears, till they shall dread the din as much
+as a dog does the sound of the bell that is tied to the whip.
+
+
+_Bollitree, Monday, 12 Nov._
+
+Returned this morning and rode about the farm, and also about that of
+Mr. WINNAL, where I saw, for the first time, a plough going _without
+being held_. The man drove the three horses that drew the plough, and
+carried the plough round at the ends; but left it to itself the rest of
+the time. There was a skim coulter that turned the sward in under the
+furrow; and the work was done very neatly. This gentleman has six acres
+of _cabbages_, on ridges four feet apart, with a distance of thirty
+inches between the plants on the ridge. He has weighed one of what he
+deemed an average weight, and found it to weigh fifteen pounds without
+the stump. Now, as there are 4,320 upon an acre, the weight of the acres
+is _thirty tons_ all but 400 pounds! This is a prodigious crop, and it
+is peculiarly well suited for food for sheep at this season of the year.
+Indeed it is good for any farm-stock, oxen, cows, pigs: all like these
+loaved cabbages. For hogs in yard, after the stubbles are gone; and
+before the tops of the Swedes come in. What masses of manure may be
+created by this means! But, above all things, for _sheep_ to feed off
+upon the ground. Common turnips have not half the substance in them
+weight for weight. Then they are in the ground; they are _dirty_, and in
+wet weather the sheep must starve, or eat a great deal of dirt. This
+very day, for instance, what a sorry sight is a flock of fatting sheep
+upon turnips; what a mess of dirt and stubble! The cabbage stands boldly
+up above the ground, and the sheep eats it all up without treading a
+morsel in the dirt. Mr. WINNAL has a large flock of sheep feeding on his
+cabbages, which they will have finished, perhaps, by January. This
+gentleman also has some "_radical Swedes_," as they call them in
+Norfolk. A part of his crop is on ridges _five_ feet apart with _two
+rows_ on the ridge, a part on _four_ feet ridges with _one_ row on the
+ridge. I cannot see that anything is gained in weight by the double
+rows. I think that there may be nearly twenty tons to the acre. Another
+piece Mr. WINNAL transplanted after vetches. They are very fine; and,
+altogether, he has a crop that any one but a "_loyal_" farmer might envy
+him.--This is really the _radical_ system of husbandry. _Radical_ means,
+_belonging to the root; going to the root_. And the main principle of
+this system (first taught by _Tull_) is that the _root_ of the plant is
+to be fed by _deep tillage_ while it is growing; and to do this we must
+have our _wide distances_. Our system of husbandry is happily
+illustrative of our system of politics. Our lines of movement are fair
+and straightforward. We destroy all weeds, which, like tax-eaters, do
+nothing but devour the sustenance that ought to feed the valuable
+plants. Our plants are all _well fed_; and our nations of Swedes and of
+cabbages present a happy uniformity of enjoyments and of bulk, and not,
+as in the broad-cast system of Corruption, here and there one of
+enormous size, surrounded by thousands of poor little starveling things,
+scarcely distinguishable by the keenest eye, or, if seen, seen only to
+inspire a contempt of the husbandman. The Norfolk boys are, therefore,
+right in calling their Swedes _Radical Swedes_.
+
+
+_Bollitree, Tuesday, 13 Nov._
+
+Rode to-day to see a _grove_ belonging to Mrs. WESTPHALIN, which
+contains the very finest trees, _oaks_, _chestnuts_, and _ashes_, that I
+ever saw in England. This grove is worth going from London to Weston to
+see. The Lady, who is very much beloved in her neighbourhood, is,
+apparently, of the _old school_; and her house and gardens, situated in
+a beautiful dell, form, I think, the most comfortable looking thing of
+the kind that I ever saw. If she had known that I was in her grove, I
+dare say she would have expected it to blaze up in flames; or, at least,
+that I was come to view the premises previous to confiscation! I can
+forgive persons like her; but I cannot forgive the Parsons and others
+who have misled them! Mrs. WESTPHALIN, if she live many years, will find
+that the best friends of the owners of the land are those who have
+endeavoured to produce such _a reform of the Parliament_ as would have
+prevented the ruin of tenants.--This parish of WESTON is remarkable for
+having a Rector _who has constantly resided for twenty years_! I do not
+believe that there is an instance to match this in the whole kingdom.
+However, the "_reverend_" gentleman may be assured that, before many
+years have passed over their heads, they will be very glad to reside in
+their parsonage houses.
+
+
+_Bollitree, Wednesday, 14 Nov._
+
+Rode to the forest of Dean, up a very steep hill. The lanes here are
+between high banks, and on the sides of the hills the road is a rock,
+the water having long ago washed all the earth away. Pretty works are, I
+find, carried on here, as is the case in all the other _public forests_!
+Are these things _always_ to be carried on in this way? Here is a domain
+of thirty thousand acres of the finest timber-land in the world, and
+with coal-mines endless! Is this _worth nothing_? Cannot each acre yield
+ten trees a year? Are not these trees worth a pound apiece? Is not the
+estate worth three or four hundred thousand pounds a year? And does it
+yield _anything to the public_, to whom it belongs? But it is useless to
+waste one's breath in this way. We must have a _reform of the
+Parliament_: without it the whole thing will fall to pieces.--The only
+good purpose that these forests answer is that of furnishing a place of
+being to labourers' families on their skirts; and here their cottages
+are very neat, and the people look hearty and well, just as they do
+round the forests in Hampshire. Every cottage has a pig or two. These
+graze in the forest, and, in the fall, eat acorns and beech-nuts and the
+seed of the ash; for these last, as well as the others, are very full of
+oil, and a pig that is put to his shifts will pick the seed very nicely
+out from the husks. Some of these foresters keep cows, and all of them
+have bits of ground, cribbed, of course, at different times, from the
+forest: and to what better use can the ground be put? I saw several
+wheat stubbles from 40 rods to 10 rods. I asked one man how much wheat
+he had from about 10 rods. He said more than two bushels. Here is bread
+for three weeks, or more perhaps; and a winter's straw for the pig
+besides. Are these things nothing? The dead limbs and old roots of the
+forest give _fuel_; and how happy are these people, compared with the
+poor creatures about Great Bedwin and Cricklade, where they have neither
+land nor shelter, and where I saw the girls carrying home bean and wheat
+stubble for fuel! Those countries, always but badly furnished with fuel,
+the desolating and damnable system of paper-money, by sweeping away
+small homesteads, and laying ten farms into one, has literally
+_stripped_ of all shelter for the labourer. A farmer, in such cases, has
+a whole domain in his hands, and this not only to the manifest injury of
+the public at large, but in _open violation of positive law_. The poor
+forger is hanged; but where is the prosecutor of the monopolizing
+farmer, though the _law_ is as clear in the one case as in the other?
+But it required this infernal system to render every wholesome
+regulation nugatory; and to reduce to such abject misery a people famed
+in all ages for the goodness of their food and their dress. There is one
+farmer, in the North of Hampshire, who has nearly eight thousand acres
+of land in his hands; who grows fourteen hundred acres of wheat and two
+thousand acres of barley! He occupies what was formerly 40 farms! Is it
+any wonder that _paupers increase_? And is there not here cause enough
+for the increase of _poor_, without resorting to the doctrine of the
+barbarous and impious MALTHUS and his assistants, the _feelosofers_ of
+the Edinburgh Review, those eulogists and understrappers of the
+Whig-Oligarchy? "This farmer has done nothing _unlawful_," some one will
+say. I say he has; for there is a law to forbid him thus to monopolize
+land. But no matter; the laws, the management of the affairs of a
+nation, _ought to be such as to prevent the existence of the temptation
+to such monopoly_. And, even now, the evil ought to be remedied, and
+could be remedied, in the space of half a dozen years. The disappearance
+of the paper-money would do the thing in time; but this might be
+assisted by legislative measures.--In returning from the forest we were
+overtaken by my son, whom I had begged to come from London to see this
+beautiful country. On the road-side we saw two lazy-looking fellows, in
+long great-coats and bundles in their hands, going into a cottage. "What
+do you deal in?" said I, to one of them, who had not yet entered the
+house. "In the _medical way_," said he. And I find that vagabonds of
+this description are seen all over the country with _tea-licences_ in
+their pockets. They vend _tea_, _drugs_, and _religious tracts_. The
+first to bring the body into a debilitated state; the second to finish
+the corporeal part of the business; and the third to prepare the spirit
+for its separation from the clay! Never was a system so well calculated
+as the present to degrade, debase, and enslave a people! Law, and as if
+that were not sufficient, enormous subscriptions are made; everything
+that can be done is done to favour these perambulatory impostors in
+their depredations on the ignorant, while everything that can be done is
+done to prevent them from reading, or from hearing of, anything that has
+a tendency to give them rational notions, or to better their lot.
+However, all is not buried in ignorance. Down the deep and beautiful
+valley between Penyard Hill and the Hills on the side of the Forest of
+Dean, there runs a stream of water. On that stream of water there is a
+_paper-mill_. In that paper-mill there is a set of workmen. That set of
+workmen do, I am told, _take the Register_, and have taken it for years!
+It was to these good and sensible men, it is supposed, that the _ringing
+of the bells_ of Weston church, upon my arrival, was to be ascribed; for
+nobody that I visited had any knowledge of the cause. What a subject for
+lamentation with corrupt hypocrites! That even on this secluded spot
+there should be a leaven of common-sense! No: _all_ is not enveloped in
+brute ignorance yet, in spite of every artifice that hellish Corruption
+has been able to employ; in spite of all her menaces and all her
+brutalities and cruelties.
+
+
+_Old Hall, Thursday, 15 Nov._
+
+We came this morning from Bollitree to _Ross-Market_, and, thence, to
+this place. Ross is an old-fashioned town; but it is very beautifully
+situated, and if there is little of _finery_ in the appearance of the
+inhabitants, there is also little of _misery_. It is a good, plain
+country town, or settlement of tradesmen, whose business is that of
+supplying the wants of the cultivators of the soil. It presents to us
+nothing of rascality and roguishness of look which you see on almost
+every visage in the _borough-towns_, not excepting the visages of the
+women. I can tell a borough-town from another upon my entrance into it
+by the nasty, cunning, leering, designing look of the people; a look
+between that of a bad (for _some_ are good) Methodist Parson and that of
+a pickpocket. I remember, and I never shall forget, the horrid looks of
+the villains in Devonshire and Cornwall. Some people say, "O, _poor
+fellows_! It is not _their_ fault." No? Whose fault is it, then? The
+miscreants who bribe them? True, that these deserve the halter (and some
+of them may have it yet); but are not the takers of the bribes _equally_
+guilty? If we be so very lenient here, pray let us ascribe to the
+_Devil_ all the acts of thieves and robbers: so we do; but we _hang_ the
+thieves and robbers, nevertheless. It is no very unprovoking reflection,
+that from these sinks of atrocious villany come a very considerable part
+of the men to fill places of emolument and trust. What a clog upon a
+Minister to have people, bred in such scenes, forced upon him! And why
+does this curse continue? However, its natural consequences are before
+us; and are coming on pretty fast upon each other's heels. There are the
+landlords and farmers in a state of absolute ruin: there is the Debt,
+pulling the nation down like as a stone pulls a dog under water. The
+system seems to have fairly wound itself up; to have tied itself hand
+and foot with cords of its own spinning!--This is the town to which POPE
+has given an interest in our minds by his eulogium on the "_Man of
+Ross_," a portrait of whom is hanging up in a house in which I now
+am.--The market at Ross was very _dull_. No wheat in demand. No buyers.
+It must _come down_. Lord Liverpool's _remedy_, a bad harvest, has
+assuredly failed. Fowls 2_s._ a couple; a goose from 2_s._ 6_d._ to
+3_s._; a turkey from 3_s._ to 3_s._ 6_d._ Let a turkey come down to _a
+shilling_, as in France, and then we shall soon be to rights.
+
+
+_Friday, 16 Nov._
+
+A whole day most delightfully passed a hare-hunting, with a pretty pack
+of hounds kept here by Messrs. Palmer. They put me upon a horse that
+seemed to have been made on purpose for me, strong, tall, gentle and
+bold; and that carried me either over or through everything. I, who am
+just the weight of a four-bushel sack of good wheat, actually sat on his
+back from daylight in the morning to dusk (about nine hours) without
+once setting my foot on the ground. Our ground was at Orcop, a place
+about four miles' distance from this place. We found a hare in a few
+minutes after throwing off; and in the course of the day we had to find
+four, and were never more than ten minutes in finding. A steep and naked
+ridge, lying between two flat valleys, having a mixture of pretty large
+fields and small woods, formed our ground. The hares crossed the ridge
+forward and backward, and gave us numerous views and very fine sport.--I
+never rode on such steep ground before; and really, in going up and down
+some of the craggy places, where the rains had washed the earth from the
+rocks, I did think, once or twice, of my neck, and how Sidmouth would
+like to see me.--As to the _cruelty_, as some pretend, of this sport,
+that point I have, I think, settled in one of the Chapters of my
+"_Year's Residence in America_." As to the expense, a pack, even a full
+pack of harriers, like this, costs less than two bottles of wine a day
+with their inseparable concomitants. And as to the _time_ thus spent,
+hunting is inseparable from _early rising_: and with habits of early
+rising, who ever wanted time for any business?
+
+
+_Oxford, Saturday, 17 Nov._
+
+We left OLD HALL (where we always breakfasted by candle-light) this
+morning after breakfast; returned to Bollitree; took the Hereford coach
+as it passed about noon; and came in it through Gloucester, Cheltenham,
+Northleach, Burford, Whitney, and on to this city, where we arrived
+about ten o'clock. I could not leave _Herefordshire_ without bringing
+with me the most pleasing impressions. It is not for one to descend to
+particulars in characterising one's personal friends; and, therefore, I
+will content myself with saying, that the treatment I met with in this
+beautiful county, where I saw not one single face that I had, to my
+knowledge, ever seen before, was much more than sufficient to compensate
+to me, personally, for all the atrocious calumnies, which, for twenty
+years, I have had to endure; but where is my country, a great part of
+the present hideous sufferings of which will, by every reflecting mind,
+be easily traced to these calumnies, which have been made the ground, or
+pretext, for rejecting that counsel by listening to which those
+sufferings would have been prevented; where is my country to find a
+compensation?----At _Gloucester_ (as there were no meals on the road) we
+furnished ourselves with nuts and apples, which, first a handful of nuts
+and then an apple, are, I can assure the reader, excellent and most
+wholesome fare. They say that nuts of all sorts are unwholesome; if they
+had been, I should never have written Registers, and if they were now, I
+should have ceased to write ere this; for, upon an average, I have eaten
+a pint a day since I left home. In short, I could be very well content
+to live on nuts, milk, and home-baked bread.----From _Gloucester_ to
+_Cheltenham_ the country is level, and the land rich and good. The
+fields along here are ploughed in ridges about 20 feet wide, and the
+angle of this species of _roof_ is pretty nearly as sharp as that of
+some slated roofs of houses. There is no wet under; it is the top wet
+only that they aim at keeping from doing mischief.--_Cheltenham_ is a
+nasty, ill-looking place, half clown and half cockney. The town is one
+street about a mile long; but, then, at some distance from this street,
+there are rows of white tenements, with green balconies, like those
+inhabited by the tax-eaters round London. Indeed, this place appears to
+be the residence of an assemblage of tax-eaters. These vermin shift
+about between London, Cheltenham, Bath, Bognor, Brighton, Tunbridge,
+Ramsgate, Margate, Worthing, and other spots in England, while some of
+them get over to France and Italy: just like those body-vermin of
+different sorts that are found in different parts of the tormented
+carcass at different hours of the day and night, and in different
+degrees of heat and cold.
+
+Cheltenham is at the foot of a part of that chain of hills which form
+the sides of that _dish_ which I described as resembling the vale of
+Gloucester. Soon after quitting this resort of the lame and the lazy,
+the gormandizing and guzzling, the bilious and the nervous, we proceeded
+on, between stone walls, over a country little better than that from
+Cirencester to Burlip-hill.----A very poor, dull, and uninteresting
+country all the way to Oxford.
+
+
+_Burghclere (Hants), Sunday, 18 Nov._
+
+We left Oxford early, and went on, through _Abingdon_ (Berks) to
+_Market-Ilsley_. It is a saying, hereabouts, that at Oxford they make
+the living pay for the dead, which is precisely according to the
+Pitt-System. Having smarted on this account, we were afraid to eat again
+at an Inn; so we pushed on through Ilsley towards Newbury, breakfasting
+upon the residue of the nuts, aided by a new supply of apples bought
+from a poor man, who exhibited them in his window. Inspired, like Don
+Quixote, by the _sight of the nuts_, and recollecting the last night's
+bill, I exclaimed: "Happy! thrice happy and blessed, that golden age,
+when men lived on the simple fruits of the earth and slaked their thirst
+at the pure and limpid brook! when the trees shed their leaves to form a
+couch for their repose, and cast their bark to furnish them with a
+canopy! Happy age; when no Oxford landlord charged two men, who had
+dropped into a common coach-passenger room, and who had swallowed three
+pennyworths of food, 'four shillings for _teas_,' and 'eighteen pence
+for _cold meat_,' 'two shillings for _moulds and fire_' in this common
+coach-room, and 'five shillings for _beds_!'" This was a sort of grace
+before meat to the nuts and apples; and it had much more merit than the
+harangue of Don Quixote; for he, before he began upon the nuts, had
+stuffed himself well with goat's flesh and wine, whereas we had
+absolutely _fled_ from the breakfast-table and blazing fire at
+Oxford.--Upon beholding the masses of buildings at Oxford devoted to
+what they call "_learning_," I could not help reflecting on the drones
+that they contain and the wasps they send forth! However, malignant as
+some are, the great and prevalent characteristic is _folly_: emptiness
+of head; want of talent; and one half of the fellows who are what they
+call _educated_ here, are unfit to be clerks in a grocer's or mercer's
+shop.--As I looked up at what they call _University Hall_, I could not
+help reflecting that what I had written, even since I left Kensington on
+the 29th of October, would produce more effect, and do more good in the
+world, than all that had for a hundred years been written by all the
+members of this University, who devour, perhaps, not less than _a
+million pounds a year_, arising from property, completely at the
+disposal of the "Great Council of the Nation;" and I could not help
+exclaiming to myself: "Stand forth, ye big-wigged, ye gloriously feeding
+Doctors! Stand forth, ye _rich_ of that church whose _poor_ have had
+given them _a hundred thousand pounds a year_, not out of your riches,
+but out of the _taxes_, raised, in part, from the _salt_ of the
+labouring man! Stand forth and face me, who have, from the pen of my
+leisure hours, sent, amongst your flocks, a hundred thousand sermons in
+ten months! More than you have all done for the last half century!"--I
+exclaimed in vain. I dare say (for it was at peep of day) that not a man
+of them had yet endeavoured to unclose his eyes.--In coming thro'
+Abingdon (Berks) I could not help thinking of that great financier, Mr.
+John Maberly, by whom this place has, I believe, the honour to be
+represented in the Collective Wisdom of the Nation.--In the way to
+Ilsley we came across a part of that fine tract of land, called the
+_Vale of Berkshire_, where they grow _wheat_ and _beans_, one after
+another, for many years together. About three miles before we reached
+Ilsley we came to _downs_, with, as is always the case, chalk under.
+Between Ilsley and Newbury the country is enclosed; the land middling, a
+stony loam; the woods and coppices frequent, and neither very good, till
+we came within a short distance of Newbury. In going along we saw a
+piece of wheat with cabbage-leaves laid all over it at the distance,
+perhaps, of eight or ten feet from each other. It was to catch the
+_slugs_. The slugs, which commit their depredations in the _night_,
+creep under the leaves in the morning, and by turning up the leaves you
+come at the slugs, and crush them, or carry them away. But besides the
+immense daily labour attending this, the slug, in a field sowed with
+wheat, has a _clod_ to creep under at every foot, and will not go five
+feet to get under a cabbage-leaf. Then again, if the day be _wet_, the
+slug works by day as well as by night. It is the sun and drought that he
+shuns, and not the light. Therefore the only effectual way to destroy
+slugs is to sow lime, in dust, and _not slaked_. The slug is wet, he has
+hardly any skin, his _slime_ is his covering; the smallest dust of hot
+lime kills him; and a few bushels to the acre are sufficient. You must
+sow the lime at _dusk_; for then the slugs are sure to be out. Slugs
+come after a crop that has long afforded a great deal of shelter from
+the sun; such as peas and vetches. In gardens they are nursed up by
+strawberry beds and by weeds, by asparagus beds, or by anything that
+remains for a long time to keep the summer-sun from the earth. We got
+about three o'clock to this nice, snug little farmhouse, and found our
+host, Mr. Budd, at home.
+
+
+_Burghclere, Monday, 19 Nov._
+
+A thorough wet day, the only day the greater part of which I have not
+spent out of doors since I left home.
+
+
+_Burghclere, Tuesday, 20 Nov._
+
+With Mr. Budd, we rode to-day to see the _Farm of Tull_, at _Shalborne_,
+in Berkshire. Mr. Budd did the same thing with Arthur Young twenty-seven
+years ago. It was a sort of _pilgrimage_; but as the distance was ten
+miles, we thought it best to perform it on horseback.--We passed through
+the parish of _Highclere_, where they have _enclosed commons_, worth, as
+tillage land, not one single farthing an acre, and never will and never
+can be. As a common it afforded a little picking for geese and asses,
+and in the moory parts of it, a little fuel for the labourers. But now
+it really can afford nothing. It will all fall to common again by
+degrees. This madness, this blind eagerness to gain, is now, I hope,
+pretty nearly over.--At _East Woody_ we passed the house of a Mr.
+Goddard, which is uninhabited, he residing at Bath.--At _West Woody_
+(Berks) is the estate of Mr. Sloper, a very pretty place. A beautiful
+sporting country. Large fields, small woods, dry soil. What has taken
+place here is an instance of the workings of the system. Here is a large
+gentleman's house. But the proprietor _lets it_ (it is, just now,
+empty), and resides in a _farmhouse_ and farms his own estate. Happy is
+the landlord who has the good sense to do this in time. This is a fine
+farm, and here appears to be very judicious farming. Large tracts of
+turnips; clean land; stubbles ploughed up early; ploughing with oxen;
+and a very large and singularly fine flock of sheep. Everything that you
+see, land, stock, implements, fences, buildings; all do credit to the
+owner; bespeak his sound judgment, his industry and care. All that is
+wanted here is the _radical husbandry_; because that would enable the
+owner to keep three times the quantity of stock. However, since I left
+home, I have seen but very few farms that I should prefer to that of Mr.
+Sloper, whom I have not the pleasure to know, and whom, indeed, I never
+heard of till I saw his farm. At a village (certainly named by some
+_author_) called _Inkpen_, we passed a neat little house and paddock,
+the residence of a Mr. Butler, a nephew of Dr. Butler, who died Bishop
+of Oxford, and whom I can remember hearing preach at Farnham in Surrey
+when I was a very very little boy. I have his features and his wig as
+clearly in my recollection as if I had seen them but yesterday; and I
+dare say I have not thought of Doctor Butler for forty years before
+to-day. The "loyal" (oh, the pious gang!) will say that my memory is
+good as to the face and wig, but bad as to the Doctor's _Sermons_. Why,
+I must confess that I have no recollection of them; but, then, do I not
+_make Sermons myself_?----At about two miles from Inkpen we came to the
+end of our pilgrimage. The farm, which was Mr. _Tull's_; where he used
+the first drill that ever was used; where he practised his husbandry;
+where he wrote that book, which does so much honour to his memory, and
+to which the cultivators of England owe so much; this farm is on an open
+and somewhat bleak spot in Berkshire, on the borders of Wiltshire, and
+within a very short distance of a part of Hampshire. The ground is a
+loam, mixed with flints, and has the chalk at no great distance beneath
+it. It is, therefore, free from _wet_; needs no water furrows; and is
+pretty good in its nature. The house, which has been improved by Mr.
+Blandy, the present proprietor, is still but a plain farmhouse. Mr.
+Blandy has lived here thirty years, and has brought up ten children to
+man's and woman's estate. Mr. Blandy was from home, but Mrs. Blandy
+received and entertained us in a very hospitable manner.--We returned,
+not along the low land, but along the top of the downs, and through Lord
+Caernarvon's park, and got home after a very pleasant day.
+
+
+_Burghclere, Wednesday, 21 Nov._
+
+We intended to have a hunt; but the foxhounds came across and rendered
+it impracticable. As an instance of the change which rural customs have
+undergone since the hellish paper-system has been so furiously at work,
+I need only mention the fact, that, forty years ago, there were _five_
+packs of _foxhounds_ and _ten_ packs of _harriers_ kept within _ten
+miles_ of Newbury; and that now there is _one_ of the former (kept, too,
+by _subscription_) and _none_ of the latter, except the few couple of
+dogs kept by Mr. Budd! "So much the better," says the shallow fool, who
+cannot duly estimate the difference between a resident _native_ gentry,
+attached to the soil, known to every farmer and labourer from their
+childhood, frequently mixing with them in those pursuits where all
+artificial distinctions are lost, practicing hospitality without
+ceremony, from habit and not on calculation; and a gentry, only
+now-and-then residing at all, having no relish for country-delights,
+foreign in their manners, distant and haughty in their behaviour,
+looking to the soil only for its rents, viewing it as a mere object of
+speculation, unacquainted with its cultivators, despising them and their
+pursuits, and relying for influence, not upon the good will of the
+vicinage, but upon the dread of their power. The war and paper-system
+has brought in nabobs, negro-drivers, generals, admirals, governors,
+commissaries, contractors, pensioners, sinecurists, commissioners,
+loan-jobbers, lottery-dealers, bankers, stock-jobbers; not to mention
+the long and _black list_ in gowns and three-tailed wigs. You can see
+but few good houses not in possession of one or the other of these.
+These, with the Parsons, are now the magistrates. Some of the
+_consequences_ are before us; but they have not all yet arrived. A
+taxation that sucks up fifty millions a year _must_ produce a new set of
+proprietors every twenty years or less; and the proprietors, while they
+last, can be little better than tax-collectors to the government, and
+scourgers of the people.--I must not quit _Burghclere_ without noticing
+Mr. Budd's _radical_ Swedes and other things. His is but miniature
+farming; but it is very good, and very interesting. Some time in May, he
+drilled a piece of Swedes on four feet ridges. The fly took them off. He
+had cabbage and mangel-wurzel plants to put in their stead. Unwilling to
+turn back the ridges, and thereby bring the dung to the top, he planted
+the cabbages and mangel-wurzel on the ridges where the Swedes had been
+drilled. This was done in June. Late in July, his neighbour, a farmer
+Hulbert, had a field of Swedes that he was hoeing. Mr. Budd now put some
+manure in the furrows between the ridges, and ploughed a furrow over it
+from each ridge. On this he planted Swedes, taken from farmer Hulbert's
+field. Thus his plantation consisted of rows of plants _two feet apart_.
+The result is a prodigious crop. Of the mangel-wurzel (greens and all)
+he has not less than twenty tons to the acre. He can scarcely have less
+of the cabbages, some of which are _green savoys_ as fine as I ever saw.
+And of the Swedes, many of which weigh from five to nine pounds, he
+certainly has more than twenty tons to the acre. So that here is a crop
+of, at the very least, _forty tons to the acre_. This piece is not much
+more than half an acre; but he will, perhaps, not find so much cattle
+food upon any four acres in the county. He is, and long has been,
+feeding four milch cows, large, fine, and in fine condition, upon
+cabbages sometimes, and sometimes on mangel-wurzel leaves. The butter is
+excellent. Not the smallest degree of bitterness or bad taste of any
+sort. Fine colour and fine taste. And here, upon not three quarters of
+an acre of ground, he has, if he manage the thing well, enough food for
+these four cows to the month of May! Can any system of husbandry equal
+this? What would he do with these cows, if he had not this crop? He
+could not keep one of them, except on hay. And he owes all this crop to
+transplanting. He thinks that the transplanting, fetching the Swede
+plants and all, might cost him ten or twelve shillings. It was done by
+women, who had never done such a thing before.----However, he must get
+in his crop before the hard weather comes; or my Lord Caernarvon's hares
+will help him. They have begun already; and it is curious that they have
+begun on the mangel-wurzel roots. So that hares, at any rate, have set
+the seal of merit upon this root.
+
+
+_Whitchurch, Thursday (night), 22 Nov._
+
+We have come round here, instead of going by Newbury in consequence of a
+promise to Mr. BLOUNT at Uphusband, that I would call on him on my
+return. We left Uphusband by lamp-light, and, of course, we could see
+little on our way.
+
+
+_Kensington, Friday, 23 Nov._
+
+Got home by the coach. At leaving Whitchurch we soon passed the mill
+where the Mother-Bank paper is made! Thank God, this mill is likely soon
+to want employment! Hard by is a pretty park and house, belonging to
+"_'Squire_" Portal, the _paper-maker_. The country people, who seldom
+want for sarcastic shrewdness, call it "_Rag Hall_"!--I perceive that
+they are planting oaks on the "_wastes_," as the _Agriculturasses_ call
+them, about _Hartley Row_; which is very good; because the herbage,
+after the first year, is rather increased than diminished by the
+operation; while, in time, the oaks arrive at a timber state, and add to
+the beauty and to the _real wealth_ of the country, and to the real and
+solid wealth of the descendants of the planter, who, in every such case,
+merits unequivocal praise, because he plants for his children's
+children.--The planter here is LADY MILDMAY, who is, it seems, Lady of
+the Manors about here. It is impossible to praise this act of hers too
+much, especially when one considers her _age_. I beg a thousand pardons!
+I do not mean to say that her Ladyship is _old_; but she has long had
+grand-children. If her Ladyship had been a reader of old dread-death and
+dread-devil Johnson, that teacher of moping and melancholy, she never
+would have planted an oak tree. If the writings of this time-serving,
+mean, dastardly old pensioner had got a firm hold of the minds of the
+people at large, the people would have been bereft of their very souls.
+These writings, aided by the charm of pompous sound, were fast making
+their way, till light, reason, and the French revolution came to drive
+them into oblivion; or, at least, to confine them to the shelves of
+repentant, married old rakes, and those of old stock-jobbers with young
+wives standing in need of something to keep down the unruly ebullitions
+which are apt to take place while the "dearies" are gone hobbling to
+'Change.----"After _pleasure_ comes _pain_," says Solomon; and after the
+sight of Lady Mildmay's truly noble plantations, came that of the clouts
+of the "gentlemen cadets" of the "_Royal Military College of
+Sandhurst_!" Here, close by the road side, is the _drying-ground_.
+Sheets, shirts, and all sorts of things were here spread upon lines,
+covering, perhaps, an acre of ground! We soon afterwards came to "_York_
+Place" on "_Osnaburg_ Hill." And is there never to be an _end_ of these
+things? Away to the left, we see that immense building, which contains
+children _breeding up to be military commanders_! Has this plan cost so
+little as two millions of pounds? I never see this place (and I have
+seen it forty times during the last twenty years) without asking myself
+this question: Will this thing be suffered to go on; will this thing,
+created by money _raised by loan_; will this thing be upheld by means of
+taxes, _while the interest of the Debt is reduced_, on the ground that
+the nation is _unable to pay the interest in full_?--Answer that
+question, Castlereagh, Sidmouth, Brougham, or Scarlett.
+
+
+
+
+KENTISH JOURNAL: FROM KENSINGTON TO DARTFORD, ROCHESTER, CHATHAM, AND
+FAVERSHAM.
+
+
+_Tuesday, December 4, 1821, Elverton Farm, near Faversham, Kent._
+
+This is the first time, since I went to France, in 1792, that I have
+been on this side of _Shooters' Hill_. The land, generally speaking,
+from Deptford to Dartford is poor, and the surface ugly by nature, to
+which ugliness there has been made, just before we came to the latter
+place, a considerable addition by the enclosure of a common, and by the
+sticking up of some shabby-genteel houses, surrounded with dead fences
+and things called gardens, in all manner of ridiculous forms, making,
+all together, the bricks, hurdle-rods and earth say, as plainly as they
+can speak, "Here dwell _vanity_ and _poverty_." This is a little
+excrescence that has grown out of the immense sums which have been drawn
+from other parts of the kingdom to be expended on Barracks, Magazines,
+Martello-Towers, Catamarans, and all the excuses for lavish expenditure
+which the war for the Bourbons gave rise to. All things will return;
+these rubbishy flimsy things, on this common, will first be deserted,
+then crumble down, then be swept away, and the cattle, sheep, pigs and
+geese will once more graze upon the common, which will again furnish
+heath, furze and turf for the labourers on the neighbouring
+lands.--After you leave Dartford the land becomes excellent. You come to
+a bottom of chalk, many feet from the surface, and when that is the case
+the land is sure to be good; no _wet_ at bottom, no deep ditches, no
+water furrows necessary; sufficiently moist in dry weather, and no water
+lying about upon it in wet weather for any length of time. The chalk
+acts as a filtering-stone, not as a sieve, like gravel, and not as a
+dish, like clay. The chalk acts as the soft stone in Herefordshire does;
+but it is not so congenial to trees that have tap-roots.--Along through
+Gravesend towards Rochester the country presents a sort of gardening
+scene. Rochester (the Bishop of which is, or lately was, _tax Collector
+for London and Middlesex_) is a small but crowded place, lying on the
+south bank of the beautiful Medway, with a rising ground on the other
+side of the city. _Stroud_, which you pass through before you come to
+the bridge, over which you go to enter Rochester; _Rochester_ itself,
+and _Chatham_, form, in fact, one main street of about two miles and a
+half in length.--Here I was got into the scenes of my cap-and-feather
+days! Here, at between sixteen and seventeen, I enlisted for a soldier.
+Upon looking up towards the fortifications and the barracks, how many
+recollections crowded into my mind! The girls in these towns do not seem
+to be _so pretty_ as they were thirty-eight years ago; or, am I not so
+quick in discovering beauties as I was then? Have thirty-eight years
+corrected my taste, or made me a hypercritic in these matters? Is it
+that I now look at them with the solemnness of a "professional man," and
+not with the enthusiasm and eagerness of an "amateur?" I leave these
+questions for philosophers to solve. One thing I will say for the young
+women of these towns, and that is, that I always found those of them
+that I had the great happiness to be acquainted with, evince a sincere
+desire to do their best to smooth the inequalities of life, and to give
+us, "brave fellows," as often as they could, strong beer, when their
+churlish masters of fathers or husbands would have drenched us to death
+with small. This, at the out-set of life, gave me a high opinion of the
+judgment and justice of the female sex; an opinion which has been
+confirmed by the observations of my whole life.--This Chatham has had
+some monstrous _wens_ stuck on to it by the lavish expenditure of the
+war. These will moulder away. It is curious enough that I should meet
+with a gentleman in an inn at Chatham to give me a picture of the
+house-distress in that enormous wen, which, during the war, was stuck on
+to Portsmouth. Not less than fifty thousand people had been drawn
+together there! These are now dispersing. The coagulated blood is
+diluting and flowing back through the veins. Whole streets are deserted,
+and the eyes of the houses knocked out by the boys that remain. The
+jackdaws, as much as to say, "Our turn to be inspired and to teach is
+come," are beginning to take possession of the Methodist chapels. The
+gentleman told me that he had been down to Portsea to sell half a street
+of houses, left him by a relation; and that nobody would give him
+anything for them further than as very cheap fuel and rubbish! Good God!
+And is this "prosperity?" Is this the "prosperity of the war?" Have I
+not, for twenty long years, been regretting the existence of these
+unnatural embossments; these white-swellings, these odious wens,
+produced by _Corruption_ and engendering crime and misery and slavery?
+We shall see the whole of these wens abandoned by the inhabitants, and,
+at last, the cannons on the fortifications may be of some use in
+battering down the buildings.--But what is to be the fate of the great
+wen of all? The monster called, by the silly coxcombs of the press, "the
+metropolis of the empire"? What is to become of that multitude of towns
+that has been stuck up around it? The village of Kingston was smothered
+in the town of Portsea; and why? Because taxes, drained from other
+parts of the kingdom, were brought thither.
+
+The dispersion of the wen is the only real difficulty that I see in
+settling the affairs of the nation and restoring it to a happy state.
+But dispersed it _must_ be; and if there be half a million, or more, of
+people to suffer, the consolation is, that the suffering will be divided
+into half a million of parts. As if the swelling out of London,
+naturally produced by the Funding System, were not sufficient; as if the
+evil were not sufficiently great from the inevitable tendency of the
+system of loans and funds, our pretty gentlemen must resort to positive
+institutions to augment the population of the Wen. They found that the
+increase of the Wen produced an increase of thieves and prostitutes, an
+increase of all sorts of diseases, an increase of miseries of all sorts;
+they saw that taxes drawn up to one point produced these effects; they
+must have a "_penitentiary_," for instance, to check the evil, and that
+they must needs have in the Wen! So that here were a million of pounds,
+drawn up in taxes, employed not only to keep the thieves and prostitutes
+still in the _Wen_, but to bring up to the Wen workmen to build the
+penitentiary, who and whose families, amounting, perhaps, to thousands,
+make an addition to the cause of that crime and misery, to check which
+is the object of the Penitentiary! People would follow, they must
+follow, the million of money. However, this is of a piece with all the
+rest of their goings on. They and their predecessors, Ministers and
+_House_, have been collecting together all the materials for a dreadful
+explosion; and if the explosion be not dreadful, other heads must point
+out the means of prevention.
+
+
+_Wednesday, 5 Dec._
+
+The land on quitting Chatham is chalk at bottom; but before you reach
+Sittingbourne there is a vein of gravel and sand under, but a great
+depth of loam above. About Sittingbourne the chalk bottom comes again,
+and continues on to this place, where the land appears to me to be as
+good as it can possibly be. Mr. WILLIAM WALLER, at whose house I am, has
+grown, this year, Mangel-Wurzel, the roots of which weigh, I think, on
+an average, twelve pounds, and in rows, too, at only about thirty inches
+distant from each other. In short, as far as _soil_ goes, it is
+impossible to see a finer country than this. You frequently see a field
+of fifty acres, level as a die, clean as a garden and as rich. Mr.
+_Birkbeck_ need not have crossed the Atlantic, and Alleghany into the
+bargain, to look for land _too rich to bear wheat_; for here is a plenty
+of it. In short, this is a country of hop-gardens, cherry, apple, pear
+and filbert orchards, and quick-set hedges. But, alas! what, in point
+of _beauty_, is a country without woods and lofty trees! And here there
+are very few indeed. I am now sitting in a room, from the window of
+which I look, _first_, over a large and level field of rich land, in
+which the drilled wheat is finely come up, and which is surrounded by
+clipped quickset hedges with a row of apple trees running by the sides
+of them; _next_, over a long succession of rich meadows, which are here
+called marshes, the shortest grass upon which will fatten sheep or oxen;
+_next_, over a little branch of the salt water which runs up to
+Faversham; _beyond that_, on the Isle of Shepry (or Shepway), which
+rises a little into a sort of ridge that runs along it; rich fields,
+pastures and orchards lie all around me; and yet, I declare, that I a
+million times to one prefer, as a spot to _live on_, the heaths, the
+miry coppices, the wild woods and the forests of Sussex and Hampshire.
+
+
+_Thursday, 6 Dec._
+
+"Agricultural distress" is the great topic of general conversation. The
+_Webb Hallites_ seem to prevail here. The fact is, farmers in general
+read nothing but the newspapers; these, in the Wen, are under the
+control of the Corruption of one or the other of the factions; and in
+the country, nine times out of ten, under the control of the parsons and
+landlords, who are the magistrates, as they are pompously called, that
+is to say, Justices of the Peace. From such vehicles what are farmers to
+learn? They are, in general, thoughtful and sensible men; but their
+natural good sense is perverted by these publications, had it not been
+for which we never should have seen "_a sudden transition from war to
+peace_" lasting seven years, and more _sudden_ in its destructive
+effects at last than at first. _Sir Edward Knatchbull_ and _Mr.
+Honeywood_ are the members of the "Collective Wisdom" for this county.
+The former was, till of late, a _Tax-Collector_. I hear that he is a
+great advocate for _corn-bills_! I suppose he does not wish to let
+people who have _leases_ see the bottom of the evil. He may get his
+rents for this year; but it will be his last year, if the interest of
+the Debt be not very greatly reduced. Some people here think that corn
+is _smuggled in_ even now! Perhaps it is, _upon the whole_, best that
+the delusion should continue for a year longer; as that would tend to
+make the destruction of the system more sure, or, at least, make the
+cure more radical.
+
+
+_Friday, 7 Dec._
+
+I went through _Faversham_. A very pretty little town, and just ten
+minutes' walk from the market-place up to the Dover turnpike-road. Here
+are the _powder-affairs_ that Mr. HUME so well exposed. An immensity of
+buildings and expensive things. Why are not these premises let or sold?
+However, this will never be done until there be a _reformed Parliament_.
+Pretty little VAN, that beauty of all beauties; that orator of all
+orators; that saint of all saints; that financier of all financiers,
+said that if Mr. HUME were to pare down the expenses of government to
+_his_ wish, there would be others "the Hunts, Cobbetts, and Carliles,
+who would still want the expense to be less." I do not know _how low_
+Mr. Hume would wish to go; but for myself I say that if I ever have the
+power to do it, I will reduce the expenditure, and that in quick time
+too, down to what it was in the reign of Queen Anne; that is to say, to
+less than is now paid to tax-gatherers for their labour in collecting
+the taxes; and, monstrous as VAN may think the idea, I do not regard it
+as impossible that I may have such power; which I would certainly not
+employ to do an act of _injustice_ to any human being, and would, at the
+same time, maintain the throne in more real splendour than that in which
+it is now maintained. But I would have nothing to do with any VANS,
+except as door-keepers or porters.
+
+
+_Saturday, 8 Dec._
+
+Came home very much pleased with my visit to Mr. WALKER, in whose house
+I saw no drinking of wine, spirits, or even beer; where all, even to the
+little children, were up by candle-light in the morning, and where the
+most perfect sobriety was accompanied by constant cheerfulness. _Kent_
+is in a deplorable way. The farmers are skilful and intelligent,
+generally speaking. But there is infinite _corruption_ in Kent, owing
+partly to the swarms of West Indians, Nabobs, Commissioners, and others
+of nearly the same description, that have selected it for the place of
+their residence; but owing still more to the immense sums of public
+money that have, during the last thirty years, been expended in it. And
+when one thinks of these, the conduct of the people of Dover,
+Canterbury, and other places, in the case of the ever-lamented Queen,
+does them everlasting honour. The _fruit_ in Kent is more _select_ than
+in Herefordshire, where it is raised for _cyder_, while, in Kent, it is
+raised for sale in its fruit state, a great deal being sent to the
+_Wen_, and a great deal sent to the North of England and to Scotland.
+The orchards are beautiful indeed. Kept in the neatest order, and,
+indeed, all belonging to them excels anything of the kind to be seen in
+Normandy; and as to apples, I never saw any so good in France as those
+of Kent. This county, so blessed by Providence, has been cursed by the
+System in a peculiar degree. It has been the _receiver_ of immense sums,
+raised on the other counties. This has puffed its _rents_ to an
+unnatural height; and now that the drain of other counties is stopped,
+it feels like a pampered pony turned out in winter to live upon a
+common. It is in an extremely "unsatisfactory state," and has certainly
+a greater mass of suffering to endure than any other part of the
+kingdom, the _Wens_ only excepted. Sir EDWARD KNATCHBULL, who is a child
+of the System, does appear to see no more of the cause of these
+sufferings than if he were a baby. How should he? Not very bright by
+nature; never listening but to one side of the question; being a man who
+wants high rents to be paid him; not gifted with much light, and that
+little having to strive against prejudice, false shame, and self
+interest, what wonder is there that he should not see things in their
+true light?
+
+
+
+
+NORFOLK AND SUFFOLK JOURNAL.
+
+
+_Bergh-Apton, near Norwich, Monday, 10 Dec. 1821._
+
+From the _Wen_ to Norwich, from which I am now distant seven miles,
+there is nothing in Essex, Suffolk, or this county, that can be called a
+_hill_. Essex, when you get beyond the immediate influence of the
+gorgings and disgorgings of the Wen; that is to say, beyond the demand
+for crude vegetables and repayment in manure, is by no means a fertile
+county. There appears generally to be a bottom of _clay_; not _soft
+chalk_, which they persist in calling clay in Norfolk. I wish I had one
+of these Norfolk men in a coppice in Hampshire or Sussex, and I would
+show him what _clay_ is. Clay is what pots and pans and jugs and tiles
+are made of; and not soft, whitish stuff that crumbles to pieces in the
+sun, instead of baking as hard as a stone, and which, in dry weather, is
+to be broken to pieces by nothing short of a sledge-hammer. The narrow
+ridges on which the wheat is sown; the water furrows; the water standing
+in the dips of the pastures; the rusty iron-like colour of the water
+coming out of some of the banks; the deep ditches; the rusty look of the
+pastures--all show, that here is a bottom of clay. Yet there is gravel
+too; for the oaks do not grow well. It was not till I got nearly to
+SUDBURY that I saw much change for the better. Here the bottom of chalk,
+the soft dirty-looking chalk that the Norfolk people call clay, begins
+to be the bottom, and this, with very little exception (as far as I have
+been) is the bottom of all the lands of these two fine counties of
+Suffolk and Norfolk.--SUDBURY has some fine meadows near it on the sides
+of the river Stour. The land all along to Bury Saint Edmund's is very
+fine; but no trees worth looking at. _Bury_, formerly the seat of an
+Abbot, the last of whom was, I think, hanged, or somehow put to death,
+by that matchless tyrant, Henry VIII., is a very pretty place; extremely
+clean and neat; no ragged or dirty people to be seen, and women (_young_
+ones I mean) very pretty and very neatly dressed.--On this side of Bury,
+a considerable distance lower, I saw a field of _Rape_, transplanted
+very thick, for, I suppose, sheep feed in the spring. The farming all
+along to Norwich is very good. The land clean, and everything done in a
+masterly manner.
+
+
+_Tuesday, 11 Dec._
+
+Mr. SAMUEL CLARKE, my host, has about 30 acres of _Swedes_ in rows. Some
+at 4 feet distances, some at 30 inches; and about 4 acres of the 4-feet
+Swedes were transplanted. I have seen thousands of acres of Swedes in
+these counties, and here are the largest crops that I have seen. The
+widest rows are decidedly the largest crops here; and, the
+_transplanted_, though under disadvantageous circumstances, amongst the
+best of the best. The wide rows amount to at least 20 tons to the acre,
+exclusive of the greens taken off two months ago, which weighed 5 tons
+to the acre. Then, there is the inter tillage, so beneficial to the
+land, and the small quantity of manure required in the broad rows,
+compared to what is required when the seed is drilled or sown upon the
+level. Mr. NICHOLLS, a neighbour of Mr. CLARKE, has a part of a field
+transplanted on _seven turn ridges_, put in when in the other part of
+the field, drilled, the plants were a fortnight old. He has a much
+larger crop in the transplanted than in the drilled part. But, if it had
+been a _fly-year_, he might have had _none_ in the drilled part, while,
+in all probability, the crop in the transplanted part would have been
+better than it now is, seeing that a _wet_ summer, though favourable to
+the hitting of the Swedes, is by no means favourable to their attaining
+a great size of bulb. This is the case this year with all turnips. A
+great deal of leaf and neck, but not bulbs in proportion. The advantages
+of transplanting are, _first_, you make sure of a crop in spite of fly;
+and, _second_, you have six weeks or two months longer to prepare your
+ground. And the advantages of wide rows are, _first_, that you want only
+about half the quantity of manure; and, _second_, that you _plough_ the
+ground two or three times during the summer.
+
+
+_Grove, near Holt, Thursday, 13th Dec._
+
+Came to the Grove (Mr. Withers's), near Holt, along with Mr. Clarke.
+Through _Norwich_ to _Aylsham_ and then to _Holt_. On our road we passed
+the house of the late _Lord Suffield_, who married Castlereagh's wife's
+sister, who is a daughter of the late Earl of Buckinghamshire, who had
+for so many years that thumping sinecure of eleven thousand a year in
+Ireland, and who was the son of a man that, under the name of Mr.
+Hobart, cut such a figure in supporting Lord North and afterwards Pitt,
+and was made a peer under the auspices of the latter of these two
+heaven-born Ministers. This house, which is a very ancient one, was,
+they say, the birth-place of Ann de Boleyne, the mother of Queen
+Elizabeth. Not much matter; for she married the king while his real wife
+was alive. I could have excused her, if there had been no marrying in
+the case; but hypocrisy, always bad, becomes detestable when it resorts
+to religious ceremony as its mask. She, no more than Cranmer, seems, to
+her last moments, to have remembered her sins against her lawful queen.
+Fox's "_Book of Martyrs_," that ought to be called "the _Book of
+Liars_," says that Cranmer, the recanter and re-recanter, held out his
+offending hand in the flames, and cried out "that hand, that hand!" If
+he had cried out _Catherine! Catherine!_ I should have thought better of
+him; but it is clear that the whole story is a lie, invented by the
+protestants, and particularly by the sectarians, to white-wash the
+character of this perfidious hypocrite and double apostate, who, if
+bigotry had something to do in bringing him to the stake, certainly
+deserved his fate, if any offences committed by man can deserve so
+horrible a punishment.--The present LORD SUFFIELD is that Mr. EDWARD
+HARBORD, whose father-in-law left him 500_l._ to buy a seat in
+Parliament, and who refused to carry an address to the late beloved and
+lamented Queen, because Major Cartwright and myself were chosen to
+accompany him! Never mind, my Lord; you will grow less fastidious! They
+say, however, that he is really good to his tenants, and has told them,
+that he will take anything that they can give. There is some sense in
+this! He is a great Bible Man; and it is strange that he cannot see,
+that things are out of order, when _his_ interference in this way can be
+at all _necessary_, while there is a Church that receives a tenth part
+of the produce of the earth.--There are some oak woods here, but very
+poor. Not like those, not near like the worst of those, in Hampshire and
+Herefordshire. All this eastern coast seems very unpropitious to trees
+of all sorts.--We passed through the estate of a Mr. Marsin, whose house
+is near the road, a very poor spot, and the first really poor ground I
+have seen in Norfolk. A nasty spewy black gravel on the top of a sour
+clay. It is worse than the heaths between Godalming and Liphook; for,
+while it is too poor to grow anything but heath, it is too cold to give
+you the chirping of the grasshopper in summer. However, Mr. Marsin has
+been too wise to enclose this wretched land, which is just like that
+which Lord Caernarvon has enclosed in the parishes of Highclere, and
+Burghclere, and which, for tillage, really is not worth a single
+farthing an acre.--Holt is a little, old-fashioned, substantially-built
+market-town. The land just about it, or, at least, towards the east, is
+poor, and has been lately enclosed.
+
+
+_Friday, 14th Dec._
+
+Went to see the estate of Mr. Hardy at Leveringsett, a hamlet about two
+miles from Holt. This is the first time that I have seen a _valley_ in
+this part of England. From Holt you look, to the distance of seven or
+eight miles, over a very fine valley, leaving a great deal of inferior
+hill and dell within its boundaries. At the bottom of this general
+valley, Mr. Hardy has a very beautiful estate of about four hundred
+acres. His house is at one end of it near the high road, where he has a
+malt-house and a brewery, the neat and ingenious manner of managing
+which I would detail if my total unacquaintance with machinery did not
+disqualify me for the task. His estate forms a valley of itself,
+somewhat longer than broad. The tops, and the sides of the tops of the
+hills round it, and also several little hillocks in the valley itself,
+are judiciously planted with trees of various sorts, leaving good wide
+roads, so that it is easy to ride round them in a carriage. The fields,
+the fences, the yards and stacks, the buildings, the cattle, all showed
+the greatest judgment and industry. There was really nothing that the
+most critical observer could say was _out of order_. However, the forest
+trees do not grow well here. The oaks are mere scrubs, as they are about
+Brentwood in Essex, and in some parts of Cornwall; and, for some
+unaccountable reason, people seldom plant the _ash_, which no wind will
+_shave_, as it does the oak.
+
+
+_Saturday, 15 Dec._
+
+Spent the evening amongst the Farmers, at their Market Room at Holt; and
+very much pleased at them I was. We talked over the _cause of the low
+prices_, and I, as I have done everywhere, endeavoured to convince them,
+that prices must fall a great deal lower yet; and that no man, who
+wishes not to be ruined, ought to keep or take a farm, unless on a
+calculation of best wheat at 4_s._ a bushel and a best Southdown ewe at
+15_s._ or even 12_s._ They heard me patiently, and, I believe, were well
+convinced of the truth of what I said. I told them of the correctness
+of the predictions of their great countryman, Mr. PAINE, and observed,
+how much better it would have been, to take his advice, than to burn him
+in effigy. I endeavoured (but in such a case all human powers must
+fail!) to describe to them the sort and size of the talents of the
+Stern-path-of-duty man, of the great hole-digger, of the jester, of the
+Oxford scholar, of the loan-jobber (who had just made an enormous
+grasp), of the Oracle, and so on. Here, as everywhere else, I hear every
+creature speak loudly in praise of _Mr. Coke_. It is well known to my
+readers, that I think nothing of him as a _public_ man; that I think
+even his good qualities an injury to his country, because they serve the
+knaves whom he is duped by to dupe the people more effectually; but, it
+would be base in me not to say, that I hear, from men of all parties,
+and sensible men too, expressions made use of towards him that
+affectionate children use towards the best of parents. I have not met
+with a single exception.
+
+
+_Bergh Apton, Sunday, 16 Dec._
+
+Came from Holt through Saxthorpe and Cawston. At the former village were
+on one end of a decent white house, these words, "_Queen Caroline; for
+her Britons mourn_," and a crown over all in black. I need not have
+looked to see: I might have been sure that the owner of the house was a
+_shoe-maker_, a trade which numbers more men of sense and of public
+spirit than any other in the kingdom.--At Cawston we stopped at a public
+house, the keeper of which had taken and read the Register for years. I
+shall not attempt to describe the pleasure I felt at the hearty welcome
+given us by Mr. Pern and his wife and by a young miller of the village,
+who, having learnt at Holt that we were to return that way, had come to
+meet us, the house being on the side of the great road, from which the
+village is at some distance. This is the birth-place of the famous
+_Botley Parson_, all the history of whom we now learned, and, if we
+could have gone to the village, they were prepared to _ring the bells_,
+and show us the old woman who nursed the _Botley Parson_! These Norfolk
+_baws_ never do things by halves. We came away, very much pleased with
+our reception at Cawston, and with a promise, on my part, that, if I
+visited the county again, I would write a Register there; a promise
+which I shall certainly keep.
+
+
+_Great Yarmouth, Friday (morning), 21st Dec._
+
+The day before yesterday I set out for Bergh Apton with Mr. CLARKE, to
+come hither by the way of _Beccles_ in Suffolk. We stopped at Mr.
+Charles Clarke's at Beccles, where we saw some good and sensible men,
+who see clearly into all the parts of the works of the "Thunderers," and
+whose anticipations, as to the "general working of events," are such as
+they ought to be. They gave us a humorous account of the "rabble" having
+recently crowned a Jackass, and of a struggle between them and the
+"Yeomanry Cavaltry." This _was_ a place of most ardent and blazing
+_loyalty_, as the pretenders to it call it; but, it seems it now blazes
+less furiously; it is milder, more measured in its effusions; and, with
+the help of low prices, will become bearable in time. This Beccles is a
+very pretty place, has watered meadows near it, and is situated amidst
+fine lands. What a _system_ it must be to make people wretched in a
+country like this! Could he be _heaven-born_ that invented such a
+system? GAFFER GOOCH'S father, a very old man, lives not far from here.
+We had a good deal of fun about the Gaffer, who will certainly never
+lose the name, unless he should be made a Lord.--We slept at the house
+of a friend of Mr. Clarke on our way, and got to this very fine town of
+Great Yarmouth yesterday about noon. A party of friends met us and
+conducted us about the town, which is a very beautiful one indeed. What
+I liked best, however, was the hearty welcome that I met with, because
+it showed, that the reign of calumny and delusion was passed. A company
+of gentlemen gave me a dinner in the evening, and, in all my life I
+never saw a set of men more worthy of my respect and gratitude.
+Sensible, modest, understanding the whole of our case, and clearly
+foreseeing what is about to happen. One gentleman proposed, that, as it
+would be impossible for all to go to London, there should be a
+_Provincial Feast of the Gridiron_, a plan, which, I hope, will be
+adopted--I leave Great Yarmouth with sentiments of the sincerest regard
+for all those whom I there saw and conversed with, and with my best
+wishes for the happiness of all its inhabitants; nay, even the _parsons_
+not excepted; for, if they did not come to welcome me, they collected in
+a group to _see_ me, and that was one step towards doing justice to him
+whom their order have so much, so foully, and, if they knew their own
+interest, so foolishly slandered.
+
+
+_Bergh Apton, 22nd Dec. (night)._
+
+After returning from Yarmouth yesterday, went to dine at
+Stoke-Holy-Cross, about six miles off; got home at mid-night, and came
+to Norwich this morning, this being market-day, and also the day fixed
+on for a Radical Reform Dinner at the Swan Inn, to which I was invited.
+Norwich is a very fine city, and the Castle, which stands in the middle
+of it, on a hill, is truly majestic. The meat and poultry and vegetable
+market is beautiful. It is kept in a large open square in the middle, or
+nearly so, of the City. The ground is a pretty sharp slope, so that you
+see all at once. It resembles one of the French markets, only _there_
+the vendors are all standing and gabbling like parrots, and the meat is
+lean and bloody and nasty, and the people snuffy and grimy in hands and
+face, the contrary, precisely the contrary of all which is the case in
+this beautiful market at Norwich, where the women have a sort of uniform
+brown great coats, with white aprons and _bibs_ (I think they call them)
+going from the apron up to the bosom. They equal in neatness (for
+nothing can surpass) the market women in Philadelphia.--The
+cattle-market is held on the hill by the castle, and many _fairs_ are
+smaller in bulk of stock. The corn-market is held in a very magnificent
+place, called Saint Andrew's Hall, which will contain two or three
+thousand persons. They tell me, that this used to be a most delightful
+scene; a most joyous one; and, I think, it was this scene that Mr.
+CURWEN described in such glowing colours when he was talking of the
+Norfolk farmers, each worth so many thousands of pounds. Bear me
+witness, reader, that _I never was dazzled_ by such sights; that the
+false glare never put my eyes out; and that, even then, twelve years
+ago, I warned Mr. CURWEN of the _result_! Bear witness to this, my
+Disciples, and justify the doctrines of him for whose sakes you have
+endured persecution. How different would Mr. CURWEN find the scene
+_now_! What took place at the dinner has been already recorded in the
+Register; and I have only to add with regard to it, that my reception at
+Norfolk was such, that I have only to regret the total want of power to
+make those hearty Norfolk and Norwich friends any suitable return,
+whether by act or word.
+
+
+_Kensington, Monday, 24 Dec._
+
+Went from Bergh Apton to Norwich in the morning, and from Norwich to
+London during the day, carrying with me great admiration of and respect
+for this county of _excellent farmers_, and hearty, open and spirited
+men. The Norfolk people are quick and smart in their motions and in
+their speaking. Very neat and _trim_ in all their farming concerns, and
+very skilful. Their land is good, their roads are level, and the bottom
+of their soil is dry, to be sure; and these are great advantages; but
+they are diligent, and make the most of everything. Their management of
+all sorts of stock is most judicious; they are careful about manure;
+their teams move quickly; and, in short, it is a county of most
+excellent cultivators.--The churches in Norfolk are generally large and
+the towers lofty. They have all been well built at first. Many of them
+are of the Saxon architecture. They are, almost all (I do not remember
+an exception), placed on the _highest_ spots to be found near where they
+stand; and, it is curious enough, that the contrary practice should have
+prevailed in _hilly_ countries, where they are generally found in
+valleys and in low, sheltered dells, even in those valleys! These
+churches prove that the people of Norfolk and Suffolk were always a
+superior people in point of wealth, while the size of them proves that
+the country parts were, at one time, a great deal more populous than
+they now are. The great drawbacks on the beauty of these counties are,
+their flatness and their want of fine woods; but, to those who can
+dispense with these, Norfolk, under a wise and just government, can have
+nothing to ask more than Providence and the industry of man have given.
+
+
+LANDLORD DISTRESS MEETINGS.
+
+For, in fact, it is not the _farmer_, but the _Landlord_ and _Parson_,
+who wants relief from the "_Collective_." The tenant's remedy is,
+quitting his farm or bringing down his rent to what he can afford to
+give, wheat being 3 or 4 shillings a bushel. This is his remedy. What
+should _he_ want high prices for? They can do _him_ no good; and this I
+proved to the farmers last year. The fact is, the Landlords and Parsons
+are urging the farmers on to get _something done_ to give them high
+rents and high tithes.
+
+At _Hertford_ there has been a meeting at which _some_ sense was
+discovered, at any rate. The parties talked about the _fund-holder_, the
+_Debt_, the _taxes_, and so on, and seemed to be in a very warm temper.
+Pray, keep yourselves _cool_, gentlemen; for you have a great deal to
+endure yet. I deeply regret that I have not room to insert the
+resolutions of this meeting.
+
+There is to be a meeting at _Battle_ (East Sussex) on the 3rd instant,
+at which _I mean to be_. I want to _see_ my friends on the _South
+Downs_. To see how they _look_ now.
+
+[At a public dinner given to Mr. Cobbett at Norwich, on the market-day
+above mentioned, the company drank the toast of _Mr. Cobbett and his
+"Trash,"_ the name "two-penny trash," having being at one time applied
+by Lord Castlereagh to the _Register_. In acknowledging this toast Mr.
+Cobbett addressed the company in a speech, of which the following is a
+passage:]
+
+"My thanks to you for having drunk my health, are great and sincere; but
+much greater pleasure do I feel at the approbation bestowed on that
+_Trash_, which has, for so many years been a mark for the finger of
+scorn to be pointed at by ignorant selfishness and arrogant and insolent
+power. To enumerate, barely to name, all, or a hundredth part of, the
+endeavours that have been made to stifle this _Trash_ would require a
+much longer space of time than that which we have now before us. But,
+gentlemen, those endeavours must have _cost money_; money must have been
+expended in the circulation of Anti-Cobbett, and the endless bale of
+papers and pamphlets put forth to check the progress of the _Trash_:
+and, when we take into view the immense sums expended in keeping down
+the spirit excited by the _Trash_, who of us is to tell, whether these
+endeavours, taken altogether, may not have added _many millions_ to that
+debt, of which (without any hint at a _concomitant measure_) some men
+have now the audacity, the unprincipled, the profligate assurance to
+talk of reducing the interest. The Trash, Gentlemen, is now triumphant;
+its triumph we are now met to celebrate; proofs of its triumph I myself
+witnessed not many hours ago, in that scene where the best possible
+evidence was to be found. In walking through St. Andrew's Hall, my mind
+was not so much engaged on the grandeur of the place, or on the
+gratifying reception I met with; those hearty shakes by the hand which I
+so much like, those smiles of approbation, which not to see with pride
+would argue an insensibility to honest fame: even these, I do sincerely
+assure you, engaged my mind much less than the melancholy reflection,
+that, of the two thousand or fifteen hundred farmers then in my view,
+there were probably _three-fourths_ who came to the Hall with aching
+hearts, and who would leave it in a state of mental agony. What a thing
+to contemplate, Gentlemen! What a scene is here! A set of men, occupiers
+of the land; producers of all that we eat, drink, wear, and of all that
+forms the buildings that shelter us; a set of men industrious and
+careful by habit; cool, thoughtful, and sensible from the instructions
+of nature; a set of men provident above all others, and engaged in
+pursuits in their nature stable as the very earth they till: to see a
+set of men like this plunged into anxiety, embarrassment, jeopardy, not
+to be described; and when the particular individuals before me were
+famed for their superior skill in this great and solid pursuit, and were
+blessed with soil and other circumstances to make them prosperous and
+happy: to behold this sight would have been more than sufficient to sink
+my heart within me, had I not been upheld by the reflection, that I had
+done all in my power to prevent these calamities, and that I still had
+in reserve that which, with the assistance of the sufferers themselves,
+would restore them and the nation to happiness."
+
+
+
+
+SUSSEX JOURNAL: TO BATTLE, THROUGH BROMLEY, SEVEN-OAKS, AND TUNBRIDGE.
+
+
+_Battle, Wednesday, 2 Jan. 1822._
+
+Came here to-day from Kensington, in order to see what goes on at the
+Meeting to be held here to-morrow, of the "Gentry, Clergy, Freeholders,
+and Occupiers of Land in the Rape of Hastings, to take into
+consideration the distressed state of the Agricultural interest." I
+shall, of course, give an account of this meeting after it has taken
+place.--You come through part of _Kent_ to get to _Battle_ from the
+Great _Wen_ on the Surrey side of the Thames. The first town is Bromley,
+the next Seven-Oaks, the next Tunbridge, and between Tunbridge and this
+place you cross the boundaries of the two counties.--From the Surrey Wen
+to Bromley the land is generally a deep loam on a gravel, and you see
+few trees except elm. A very ugly country. On quitting Bromley the land
+gets poorer; clay at bottom; the wheat sown on five, or seven, turn
+lands; the furrows shining with wet; rushes on the wastes on the sides
+of the road. Here there is a common, part of which has been enclosed and
+thrown out again, or, rather, the fences carried away.--There is a frost
+this morning, some ice, and the women look rosy-cheeked.--There is a
+very great variety of soil along this road; bottom of yellow clay; then
+of sand; then of sand-stone; then of solider stone; then (for about five
+miles) of chalk; then of red clay; then chalk again; here (before you
+come to Seven-Oaks) is a most beautiful and rich valley, extending from
+east to west, with rich corn-fields and fine trees; then comes
+sand-stone again; and the hop-gardens near Seven-Oaks, which is a pretty
+little town with beautiful environs, part of which consists of the park
+of _Knowle_, the seat of the Duchess of Dorset. It is a very fine place.
+And there is another park, on the other side of the town. So that this
+is a delightful place, and the land appears to be very good. The gardens
+and houses all look neat and nice. On quitting Seven-Oaks you come to a
+bottom of gravel for a short distance, and to a clay for many miles.
+When I say that I saw teams _carting_ gravel from this spot to a
+distance of nearly _ten miles_ along the road, the reader will be at no
+loss to know what sort of bottom the land has all along here. The bottom
+then becomes sand-stone again. This vein of land runs all along through
+the county of Sussex, and the clay runs into Hampshire, across the
+forests of Bere and Waltham, then across the parishes of Ouslebury,
+Stoke, and passing between the sand hills of Southampton and chalk hills
+of Winchester, goes westward till stopped by the chalky downs between
+Romsey and Salisbury.--Tunbridge is a small but very nice town, and has
+some fine meadows and a navigable river.--The rest of the way to Battle
+presents, alternately, clay and sand-stone. Of course the coppices and
+oak woods are very frequent. There is now and then a hop-garden spot,
+and now and then an orchard of apples or cherries; but these are poor
+indeed compared with what you see about Canterbury and Maidstone. The
+agricultural state of the country or, rather, the quality of the land,
+from Bromley to Battle, may be judged of from the fact, that I did not
+see, as I came along, more than thirty acres of Swedes during the
+fifty-six miles! In Norfolk I should, in the same distance, have seen
+five hundred acres! However, man was not the maker of the land; and, as
+to human happiness, I am of opinion, that as much, and even more, falls
+to the lot of the leather-legged chaps that live in and rove about
+amongst those clays and woods as to the more regularly disciplined
+labourers of the rich and prime parts of England. As "God has made the
+back to the burthen," so the clay and coppice people make the dress to
+the stubs and bushes. Under the sole of the shoe is _iron_; from the
+sole six inches upwards is a high-low; then comes a leather bam to the
+knee; then comes a pair of leather breeches; then comes a stout doublet;
+over this comes a smock-frock; and the wearer sets brush and stubs and
+thorns and mire at defiance. I have always observed, that woodland and
+forest labourers are best off in the main. The coppices give them
+pleasant and profitable work in winter. If they have not so great a
+corn-harvest, they have a three weeks' harvest in April or May; that is
+to say, in the season of barking, which in Hampshire is called
+_stripping_, and in Sussex _flaying_, which employs women and children
+as well as men. And then in the great article of _fuel_! They _buy_
+none. It is miserable work, where this is to be bought, and where, as at
+Salisbury, the poor take by turns the making of fires at their houses to
+boil four or five tea-kettles. What a winter-life must those lead, whose
+turn it is not to make the fire! At Launceston in Cornwall a man, a
+tradesman too, told me, that the people in general could not afford to
+have fire in ordinary, and that he himself paid 3_d._ for boiling a leg
+of mutton at another man's fire! The leather-legged-race know none of
+these miseries, at any rate. They literally get their fuel "by _hook_ or
+by _crook_," whence, doubtless, comes that old and very expressive
+saying, which is applied to those cases where people _will have a thing_
+by one means or another.
+
+
+_Battle, Thursday (night), 3 Jan. 1822._
+
+To-day there has been a _Meeting_ here of the landlords and farmers in
+this part of Sussex, which is called the _Rape of Hastings_. The object
+was to agree on a petition to Parliament praying for _relief_! Good God!
+Where is this to _end_? We now see the effects of those _rags_ which I
+have been railing against for the last twenty years. Here were collected
+together not less than 300 persons, principally landlords and farmers,
+brought from their homes by their distresses and by their alarms for the
+future! Never were such things heard in any country before; and, it is
+useless to hope, for terrific must be the consequences, if an effectual
+remedy be not speedily applied. The town, which is small, was in a great
+bustle before noon; and the Meeting (in a large room in the principal
+inn) took place about one o'clock. Lord Ashburnham was called to the
+chair, and there were present Mr. Curteis, one of the county members,
+Mr. Fuller, who formerly used to cut _such a figure_ in the House of
+Commons, Mr. Lambe, and many other gentlemen of landed property within
+the Rape, or district, for which the Meeting was held. Mr. Curteis,
+after Lord Ashburnham had opened the business, addressed the Meeting.
+
+Mr. Fuller then tendered some Resolutions, describing the fallen state
+of the landed interest, and proposing to pray, _generally_, for relief.
+Mr. Britton complained, that it was not proposed to pray for some
+_specific measure_, and insisted, that the cause of the evil was the
+rise in the value of money without a corresponding reduction in the
+taxes.--A Committee was appointed to draw up a petition, which was next
+produced. It merely described the distress, and prayed generally for
+relief. Mr. Holloway proposed an addition, containing an imputation of
+the distress to restricted currency and unabated taxation, and praying
+for a reduction of taxes. A discussion now arose upon two points: first,
+whether the addition were admissible at all! and, second, whether Mr.
+Holloway was qualified to offer it to the Meeting. Both the points
+having been, at last, decided in the affirmative, the addition, or
+amendment, was put, and _lost_; and then the original petition was
+adopted.
+
+After the business of the day was ended, there was a dinner in the inn,
+in the same room where the Meeting had been held. I was at this dinner;
+and Mr. Britton having proposed my health, and Mr. Curteis, who was in
+the Chair, having given it, I thought it would have looked like
+mock-modesty, which is, in fact, only another term for hypocrisy, to
+refrain from expressing my opinions upon a point or two connected with
+the business of the day. I shall now insert a substantially correct
+sketch of what the company was indulgent enough to hear from me at the
+dinner; which I take from the report contained in the _Morning
+Chronicle_ of Saturday last. The report in the Chronicle has all the
+_pith_ of what I advanced relative to _the inutility of Corn Bills_, and
+relative to _the cause of further declining prices_; two points of the
+greatest importance in themselves, and which I was, and am, uncommonly
+anxious to press upon the attention of the public.
+
+The following is a part of the speech so reported:--
+
+"I am decidedly of opinion, Gentlemen, that a Corn Bill of no
+description, no matter what its principles or provisions, can do either
+tenant or landlord any good; and I am not less decidedly of opinion,
+that though prices are now low, they must, all the present train of
+public measures continuing, be yet lower, and continue lower upon an
+average of years and of seasons.--As to a Corn Bill; a law to prohibit
+or check the importation of human food is a perfect novelty in our
+history, and ought, therefore, independent of the reason, and the recent
+experience of the case, to be received and entertained with great
+suspicion. Heretofore, _premiums_ have been given for the exportation,
+and at other times, for the importation, of corn; but of laws to prevent
+the importation of human food our ancestors knew nothing. And what says
+recent experience? When the present Corn Bill was passed, I, then a
+farmer, unable to get my brother farmers to join me, _petitioned singly_
+against this Bill; and I stated to my brother farmers, that such a Bill
+could do us no good, while it would not fail to excite against us the
+ill-will of the other classes of the community; a thought by no means
+pleasant. Thus has it been. The distress of agriculture was considerable
+in magnitude then; but what is it now? And yet the Bill was passed; that
+Bill which was to remunerate and protect is still in force; the farmers
+got what they prayed to have granted them; and their distress, with a
+short interval of tardy pace, has proceeded rapidly increasing from that
+day to this. What, in the way of Corn Bill, can you have, Gentlemen,
+beyond absolute prohibition? And, have you not, since about April, 1819,
+had absolute prohibition? Since that time no corn has been imported, and
+then only thirty millions of bushels, which, supposing it all to have
+been wheat, was a quantity much too insignificant to produce any
+sensible depression in the price of the immense quantity of corn raised
+in this kingdom since the last bushel was imported. If your produce had
+fallen in this manner, if your prices had come down very low,
+immediately after the importation had taken place, there might have been
+some colour of reason to impute the fall to the importation; but it so
+happens, and as if for the express purpose of contradicting the crude
+notions of Mr. Webb Hall, that your produce has fallen in price at a
+greater rate, in proportion as time has removed you from the point of
+importation; and, as to the circumstance, so ostentatiously put forward
+by Mr. Hall and others, that there is still some of the imported corn
+_unsold_, what does it prove but the converse of what those Gentlemen
+aim at, that is to say, that the holders _cannot afford_ to sell it at
+present prices; for, if they could gain but ever so little by the sale,
+would they keep it wasting and costing money in warehouse? There appears
+with some persons to be a notion, that the importation of corn is a _new
+thing_. They seem to forget, that, during the last war, when agriculture
+was so _prosperous_, the _ports were always open_; that prodigious
+quantities of corn were imported during the war; that, so far from
+importation being prohibited, high _premiums_ were given, paid out of
+the taxes, partly raised upon English farmers, to induce men to import
+corn. All this seems to be forgotten as much as if it had never taken
+place; and now the distress of the English farmer is imputed to a cause
+which was never before an object of his attention, and a desire is
+expressed to put an end to a branch of commerce which the nation has
+always freely carried on. I think, Gentlemen, that here are reasons
+quite sufficient to make any man but Mr. Webb Hall slow to impute the
+present distress to the importation of corn; but, at any rate, what can
+you have beyond absolute efficient prohibition? No law, no duty, however
+high; nothing that the Parliament can do can go beyond this; and this
+you now have, in effect, as completely as if this were the only country
+beneath the sky. For these reasons, Gentlemen, (and to state more would
+be a waste of your time and an affront to your understandings,) I am
+convinced, that, in the way of Corn Bill, it is impossible for the
+Parliament to afford you any, even the smallest, portion of relief. As
+to the other point, Gentlemen, the tendency which the present measures
+and course of things have to carry prices _lower_, and considerably
+lower than they now are, and to keep them for a permanency at that low
+rate, this is a matter worthy of the serious attention of all connected
+with the land, and particularly of that of the renting farmer. During
+the _war_ no importations distressed the farmer. It was not till peace
+came that the cry of distress was heard. But, during the war, there was
+a boundless issue of paper money. Those issues were instantly narrowed
+by the peace, the law being, that the Bank should pay in cash six months
+after the peace should take place. This was the cause of that distress
+which led to the present Corn Bill. The disease occasioned by the
+preparations for cash-payments, has been brought to a crisis by Mr.
+Peel's Bill, which has, in effect, doubled, if not tripled, the real
+amount of the taxes, and violated all contracts for time; given triple
+gains to every lender, and placed every borrower in jeopardy.
+
+
+_Kensington, Friday, 4 Jan. 1822._
+
+Got home from _Battle_. I had no time to see the town, having entered
+the Inn on Wednesday in the dusk of the evening, having been engaged all
+day yesterday in the Inn, and having come out of it only to get into the
+coach this morning. I had not time to go even to see _Battle Abbey_, the
+seat of the Webster family, now occupied by a man of the name of
+_Alexander_! Thus they _replace them_! It will take a much shorter time
+than most people imagine to put out all the ancient families. I should
+think, that six years will turn out all those who receive nothing out of
+taxes. The greatness of the estate is no protection to the owner; for,
+great or little, it will soon yield him _no_ rents; and, when the
+produce is nothing in either case, the small estate is as good as the
+large one. Mr. Curteis said, that the _land_ was _immovable_; yes; but
+the _rents are not_. And, if freeholds cannot be seized for common
+contract debts, the carcass of the owner may. But, in fact, there will
+be no rents; and, without these, the ownership is an empty sound. Thus,
+at last, the burthen will, as I always said it would, fall upon the
+_land-owner_; and, as the fault of supporting the system has been wholly
+his, the burthen will fall upon the _right back_. Whether he will now
+call in the people to help him to shake it off is more than I can say;
+but, if he do not, I am sure that he must sink under it. And then, will
+_revolution No. I._ have been accomplished; but far, and very far
+indeed, will that be from being the _close_ of the drama!--I cannot quit
+Battle without observing, that the country is very pretty all about it.
+All hill, or valley. A great deal of wood-land, in which the underwood
+is generally very fine, though the oaks are not very fine, and a good
+deal covered with _moss_. This shows, that the clay ends before the
+_tap_-root of the oak gets as deep as it would go; for, when the clay
+goes the full depth, the oaks are always fine.--The woods are too large
+and too near each other for hare-hunting; and, as to coursing it is out
+of the question here. But it is a fine country for shooting and for
+harbouring game of all sorts.--It was rainy as I came home; but the
+woodmen were at work. A great many _hop-poles_ are cut here, which makes
+the coppices more valuable than in many other parts. The women work in
+the coppices, shaving the bark of the hop-poles, and, indeed, at various
+other parts of the business. These poles are shaved to prevent _maggots_
+from breeding in the bark and accelerating the destruction of the pole.
+It is curious that the bark of trees should generate maggots; but it
+has, as well as the wood, a _sugary_ matter in it. The hickory wood in
+America sends out from the ends of the logs when these are burning,
+great quantities of the finest syrup that can be imagined. Accordingly,
+that wood breeds maggots, or worms as they are usually called,
+surprisingly. Our _ash_ breeds worms very much. When the tree or pole is
+cut, the moist matter between the outer bark and the wood putrifies.
+Thence come the maggots, which soon begin to eat their way into the
+wood. For this reason the bark is shaved off the hop-poles, as it ought
+to be off all our timber trees, as soon as cut, especially the
+ash.--Little boys and girls shave hop-poles and assist in other coppice
+work very nicely. And it is pleasant work when the weather is dry
+overhead. The woods, bedded with leaves as they are, are clean and dry
+underfoot. They are warm too, even in the coldest weather. When the
+ground is frozen several inches deep in the open fields, it is scarcely
+frozen at all in a coppice where the underwood is a good plant, and
+where it is nearly high enough to cut. So that the woodman's is really a
+pleasant life. We are apt to think that the birds have a hard time of it
+in winter. But we forget the warmth of the woods, which far exceeds
+anything to be found in farm yards. When Sidmouth started me from my
+farm, in 1817, I had just planted my farm yard round with a pretty
+coppice. But, never mind, Sidmouth and I shall, I dare say, have plenty
+of time and occasion to talk about that coppice, and many other things,
+before we die. And, can I, when I think of these things, now, _pity_
+those to whom Sidmouth _owed his power_ of starting me!--But let me
+forget the subject for this time at any rate.--Woodland countries are
+interesting on many accounts. Not so much on account of their masses of
+green leaves, as on account of the variety of sights and sounds and
+incidents that they afford. Even in winter the coppices are beautiful to
+the eye, while they comfort the mind with the idea of shelter and
+warmth. In spring they change their hue from day to day during two whole
+months, which is about the time from the first appearance of the
+delicate leaves of the birch to the full expansion of those of the ash;
+and, even before the leaves come at all to intercept the view, what in
+the vegetable creation is so delightful to behold as the bed of a
+coppice bespangled with primroses and blue-bells? The opening of the
+birch leaves is the signal for the pheasant to begin to crow, for the
+blackbird to whistle, and the thrush to sing; and, just when the
+oak-buds begin to look reddish, and not a day before, the whole tribe of
+finches burst forth in songs from every bough, while the lark, imitating
+them all, carries the joyous sounds to the sky. These are amongst the
+means which Providence has benignantly appointed to sweeten the toils by
+which food and raiment are produced; these the English Ploughman could
+once hear without the sorrowful reflection that he himself was a
+_pauper_, and that the bounties of nature had, for him, been scattered
+in vain! And shall he never see an end to this state of things? Shall he
+never have the due reward of his labour? Shall unsparing taxation never
+cease to make him a miserable dejected being, a creature famishing in
+the midst of abundance, fainting, expiring with hunger's feeble moans,
+surrounded by a carolling creation? O! accursed paper-money! Has hell a
+torment surpassing the wickedness of thy inventor?
+
+
+
+
+SUSSEX JOURNAL: THROUGH CROYDON, GODSTONE, EAST-GRINSTEAD, AND UCKFIELD,
+TO LEWES, AND BRIGHTON; RETURNING BY CUCKFIELD, WORTH, AND RED-HILL.
+
+
+_Lewes, Tuesday, 8 Jan., 1822._
+
+Came here to-day, from home, to see what passes to-morrow at a Meeting
+to be held here of the Owners and Occupiers of Land in the Rapes of
+Lewes and Pevensey.--In quitting the great Wen we go through Surrey more
+than half the way to Lewes. From Saint _George's Fields_, which now are
+covered with houses, we go, towards Croydon, between rows of houses,
+nearly half the way, and the whole way is nine miles. There are, erected
+within these four years, two entire miles of stock-jobbers' houses on
+this one road, and the work goes on with accelerated force! To be sure;
+for, the taxes being, in fact, tripled by Peel's Bill, the fundlords
+increase in riches; and their accommodations increase of course. What an
+at once horrible and ridiculous thing this country would become, if this
+thing could go on only for a few years! And these rows of new houses,
+added to the Wen, are proofs of growing prosperity, are they? These make
+part of the increased capital of the country, do they? But how is this
+Wen to be _dispersed_? I know not whether it be to be done by knife or
+by caustic; but, dispersed it must be! And this is the only difficulty,
+which I do not see the _easy_ means of getting over.--Aye! these are
+dreadful thoughts! I know they are: but, they ought not to be banished
+from the mind; for they will _return_, and, at every return, they will
+be more frightful. The man who cannot coolly look at this matter is
+unfit for the times that are approaching. Let the interest of the Debt
+be once well reduced (and that must be sooner or later) and then what is
+to become of _half a million_ at least of the people congregated in this
+Wen? Oh! precious "Great Man now no more!" Oh! "Pilot that weathered
+the Storm!" Oh! "Heaven-born" pupil of Prettyman! Who, but him who can
+number the sands of the sea, shall number the execrations with which thy
+memory will be loaded!--From London to Croydon is as ugly a bit of
+country as any in England. A poor spewy gravel with some clay. Few trees
+but elms, and those generally stripped up and villanously ugly.--Croydon
+is a good market-town; but is, by the funds, swelled out into a
+_Wen_.--Upon quitting Croydon for Godstone, you come to the chalk hills,
+the juniper shrubs and the yew trees. This is an extension westward of
+the vein of chalk which I have before noticed (see page 54) between
+Bromley and Seven-Oaks. To the westward here lie Epsom Downs, which lead
+on to Merrow Downs and St. Margaret's Hill, then, skipping over
+Guildford, you come to the Hog's Back, which is still of chalk, and at
+the west end of which lies Farnham. With the Hog's Back this vein of
+chalk seems to end; for then the valleys become rich loam, and the hills
+sand and gravel till you approach the Winchester Downs by the way of
+Alresford.--Godstone, which is in Surrey also, is a beautiful village,
+chiefly of one street with a fine large green before it and with a pond
+in the green. A little way to the right (going from London) lies the
+vile rotten Borough of _Blechingley_; but, happily for Godstone, out of
+sight. At and near Godstone the gardens are all very neat, and at the
+Inn there is a nice garden well stocked with beautiful flowers in the
+season. I here saw, last summer, some double violets as large as small
+pinks, and the lady of the house was kind enough to give me some of the
+roots.--From Godstone you go up a long hill of clay and sand, and then
+descend into a level country of stiff loam at top, clay at bottom,
+corn-fields, pastures, broad hedgerows, coppices, and oak woods, which
+country continues till you quit Surrey about two miles before you reach
+East-Grinstead. The woods and coppices are very fine here. It is the
+genuine _oak-soil_; a bottom of yellow clay to any depth, I dare say,
+that man can go. No moss on the oaks. No dead tops. Straight as larches.
+The bark of the young trees with dark spots in it; sure sign of free
+growth and great depth of clay beneath. The wheat is here sown on
+five-turn ridges, and the ploughing is amongst the best that I ever
+saw.--At East-Grinstead, which is a rotten Borough and a very shabby
+place, you come to stiff loam at top with sand stone beneath. To the
+south of the place the land is fine, and the vale on both sides a very
+beautiful intermixture of woodland and corn-fields and pastures.--At
+about three miles from Grinstead you come to a pretty village, called
+Forest-Row, and then, on the road to Uckfield, you cross Ashurst Forest,
+which is a heath, with here and there a few birch scrubs upon it,
+verily the most villanously ugly spot I ever saw in England. This lasts
+you for five miles, getting, if possible, uglier and uglier all the way,
+till, at last, as if barren soil, nasty spewy gravel, heath and even
+that stunted, were not enough, you see some rising spots, which instead
+of trees, presents you with black, ragged, hideous rocks. There may be
+Englishmen who wish to see the coast of _Nova Scotia_. They need not go
+to sea; for here it is to the life. If I had been in a long trance (as
+our nobility seem to have been), and had been waked up here, I should
+have begun to look about for the Indians and the Squaws, and to have
+heaved a sigh at the thought of being so far from England.--From the end
+of this forest without trees you come into a country of but poorish
+wettish land. Passing through the village of Uckfield, you find an
+enclosed country, with a soil of a clay cast all the way to within about
+three miles of Lewes, when you get to a chalk bottom, and rich land. I
+was at Lewes at the beginning of last harvest, and saw the fine farms of
+the Ellmans, very justly renowned for their improvement of the breed of
+_South-Down sheep_, and the younger Mr. John Ellman not less justly
+blamed for the part he had taken in propagating the errors of Webb Hall,
+and thereby, however unintentionally, assisting to lead thousands to
+cherish those false hopes that have been the cause of their ruin. Mr.
+Ellman may say that he _thought_ he was right; but if he had read my
+_New Year's Gift_ to the Farmers, published in the preceding January, he
+could not think that he was right. If he had not read it, he ought to
+have read it, before he appeared in print. At any rate, if no other
+person had a right to censure his publications, I _had_ that right. I
+will here notice a calumny, to which the above visit to Lewes gave rise;
+namely, that I went into the neighbourhood of the Ellmans, to find out
+whether they ill-treated their labourers! No man that knows me will
+believe this. The facts are these: the Ellmans, celebrated farmers, had
+made a great figure in the evidence taken before the Committee. I was at
+WORTH, about twenty miles from Lewes. The harvest was begun. Worth is a
+woodland country. I wished to know the state of the crops; for I was, at
+that very time, as will be seen by referring to the date, beginning to
+write my First Letter to the Landlords. Without knowing anything of the
+matter myself, I asked my host, Mr. Brazier, what good corn country was
+nearest to us. He said Lewes. Off I went, and he with me, in a
+post-chaise. We had 20 miles to go and 20 back in the same chaise. A bad
+road, and rain all the day. We put up at the White Hart, took another
+chaise, went round, and saw the farms, through the window of the chaise,
+having stopped at a little public-house to ask which were they, and
+having stopped now and then to get a sample out of the sheaves of wheat,
+came back to the White Hart, after being absent only about an hour and a
+half, got our dinner, and got back to Worth before it was dark; and
+never asked, and never intended to ask, one single question of any human
+being as to the conduct or character of the Ellmans. Indeed the evidence
+of the elder Mr. Ellman was so fair, so honest, and so useful,
+particularly as relating _to the labourers_, that I could not possibly
+suspect him of being a cruel or hard master. He told the Committee, that
+when he began business, forty-five years ago, every man in the parish
+brewed his own beer, and that now, not one man did it, unless he gave
+him the malt! Why, here was by far the most valuable part of the whole
+volume of evidence. Then, Mr. Ellman did not present a parcel of
+_estimates_ and God knows what; but a plain and honest statement of
+facts, the rate of day wages, of job wages, for a long series of years,
+by which it clearly appeared how the labourer had been robbed and
+reduced to misery, and how the poor-rates had been increased. He did
+not, like Mr. George and other Bull-frogs, sink these interesting facts;
+but honestly told the truth. Therefore, whatever I might think of his
+endeavours to uphold the mischievous errors of Webb Hall, I could have
+no suspicion that he was a hard master.
+
+
+_Lewes, Wednesday, 9 Jan. 1822._
+
+The Meeting and the Dinner are now over. Mr. Davies Giddy was in the
+Chair: the place the County Hall. A Mr. Partington, a pretty little
+oldish smart truss nice cockney-looking gentleman, with a yellow and red
+handkerchief round his neck, moved the petition, which was seconded by
+Lord Chichester, who lives in the neighbourhood. Much as I had read of
+that great Doctor of _virtual representation_ and _Royal Commissioner of
+Inimitable Bank Notes_, Mr. Davies Giddy, I had never seen him before.
+He called to my mind one of those venerable persons, who administer
+spiritual comfort to the sinners of the "sister-kingdom;" and, whether I
+looked at the dress or the person, I could almost have sworn that it was
+the identical _Father Luke_, that I saw about twenty-three years ago, at
+Philadelphia, in the farce of the Poor Soldier. Mr. Blackman (of Lewes I
+believe) disapproved of the petition, and, in a speech of considerable
+length, and also of considerable ability, stated to the meeting that the
+evils complained of arose from the _currency_, and not from the
+_importation of foreign corn_. A Mr. DONAVON, an Irish gentleman, who,
+it seems, is a magistrate in this "disturbed county," disapproved of
+discussing anything at such a meeting, and thought that the meeting
+should merely state its distresses, and leave it to the wisdom of
+Parliament to discover the remedy. Upon which Mr. Chatfield observed:
+"So, Sir, we are in a trap. We cannot get ourselves out though we know
+the way. There are others, who have got us in, and are able to get us
+out, but they do not know how. And we are to tell them, it seems, that
+we are in the trap; but are not to tell them the way to get us out. I
+don't like long speeches, Sir; but I like common sense." This was neat
+and pithy. Fifty professed orators could not, in a whole day, have
+thrown so much ridicule on the speech of Mr. Donavon.--A Mr. Mabbott
+proposed an amendment to include all classes of the community, and took
+a hit at Mr. Curteis for his speech at Battle. Mr. Curteis defended
+himself, and I thought very fairly. A Mr. Woodward, who said he was a
+farmer, carried us back to the necessity of the war against France; and
+told us of the horrors of plunder and murder and rape that the war had
+prevented. This gentleman put an end to my patience, which Mr. Donavon
+had put to an extremely severe test; and so I withdrew.--After I went
+away Mr. Blackman proposed some resolutions, which were carried by a
+great majority by show of hands. But, pieces of paper were then handed
+about, for the voters to write their names on for and against the
+petition. The greater part of the people were gone away by this time;
+but, at any rate, there were more _signatures_ for the petition than for
+the resolutions. A farmer in Pennsylvania having a visitor, to whom he
+was willing to show how well he treated his negroes as to food, bid the
+fellows (who were at dinner) _to ask for a second or third cut of pork
+if they had not enough_. Quite surprised at the novelty, but emboldened
+by a repetition of the injunction, one of them did say, "Massa, I wants
+another cut." He had it; but as soon as the visitor was gone away, "D--n
+you," says the master, while he belaboured him with the "cowskin," "I'll
+make you know _how to understand me_ another time!" The signers of this
+petition were in the dark while the show of hands was going on; but when
+it came to _signing_ they knew well _what Massa meant_! This is a
+petition to be sure; but it is no more the petition of the farmers in
+the Rapes of Lewes and Pevensey than it is the petition of the Mermaids
+of Lapland.--There was a _dinner_ after the meeting at the _Star-Inn_,
+at which there occurred something rather curious regarding myself. When
+at Battle, I had no intention of going to Lewes, till on the evening of
+my arrival at Battle, a gentleman, who had heard of the before-mentioned
+calumny, observed to me that I would do well not to go to Lewes. That
+very observation, made me resolve to go. I went, as a spectator, to the
+meeting; and I left no one ignorant of the place where I was to be
+found. I did not covet the noise of a dinner of from 200 to 300 persons,
+and I did not intend to go to it; but, being pressed to go, I finally
+went. After some previous common-place occurrences, Mr. Kemp, formerly a
+member for Lewes, was called to the chair; and he having given as a
+toast, "_the speedy discovery of a remedy for our distresses_," Mr.
+Ebenezer Johnstone, a gentleman of Lewes, whom I had never seen or heard
+of until that day, but who, I understand, is a very opulent and most
+respectable man, proposed _my health_, as that of a person likely to be
+able to point out the wished-for remedy.--This was the signal for the
+onset. Immediately upon the toast being given, a Mr. Hitchins, a farmer
+of Seaford, duly prepared for the purpose, got upon the table, and, with
+candle in one hand and _Register_ in the other, read the following
+garbled passage from my _Letter to Lord Egremont_.--"But, let us hear
+what the younger Ellman said: 'He had seen them employed in drawing
+beach gravel, as had been already described. One of them, the leader,
+worked with a bell about his neck.' Oh! the envy of surrounding nations
+and admiration of the world! Oh! what a 'glorious Constitution!' 'Oh!
+what a happy country! Impudent Radicals, to want to reform a Parliament,
+under which men enjoy such blessings! On such a subject it is impossible
+(under Six-Acts) to trust one's pen! However, this I will say; that here
+is much more than enough to make me rejoice in the ruin of the farmers;
+and I do, with all my heart, thank God for it; _seeing, that it appears
+absolutely necessary, that_ the present race of them should be totally
+broken up, in Sussex at any rate, _in order to put an end to this
+cruelty and insolence towards the labourers, who are by far the greater
+number and who are men, and a little better men too, than such employers
+as these, who are, in fact, monsters in human shape_!'"
+
+I had not the Register by me, and could not detect the garbling. All the
+words that I have put in Italics, this HITCHINS left out in the reading.
+What sort of man he must be the public will easily judge.--No sooner had
+Hitchins done, than up started Mr. Ingram, a farmer of Rottendean, who
+was the second person in the drama (for all had been duly prepared), and
+moved that I should be _put out of the room_! Some few of the Webb
+Hallites, joined by about six or eight of the dark, dirty-faced,
+half-whiskered, tax-eaters from Brighton (which is only eight miles off)
+joined in this cry. I rose, that they might see the man that they had to
+put out. Fortunately _for themselves_, not one of them attempted to
+approach me. They were like the mice that resolved that a bell should be
+put round the cat's neck!--However, a considerable hubbub took place.
+At last, however, the Chairman, Mr. Kemp, whose conduct was fair and
+manly, having given my health, I proceeded to address the company in
+substance as stated here below; and, it is curious enough, that even
+those who, upon my health being given, had taken their hats and gone out
+of the room (and amongst whom Mr. Ellman the younger was one) came back,
+formed a crowd, and were just as silent and attentive as the rest of the
+company!
+
+[NOTE, written at _Kensington, 13 Jan._--I must here, before I insert
+the speech, which has appeared in the _Morning Chronicle_, the Brighton
+papers, and in most of the London papers, except the base sinking _Old
+Times_ and the brimstone-smelling _Tramper_, or _Traveller_, which is, I
+well know, a mere tool in the hands of two snap-dragon Whig-Lawyers,
+whose greediness and folly I have so often had to expose, and which
+paper is maintained by a contrivance which I will amply expose in my
+next; I must, before I insert this speech, remark, that Mr. Ellman the
+younger has, to a gentleman whom I know to be incapable of falsehood,
+disavowed the proceeding of Hitchins; on which I have to observe, that
+the disavowal, to have any weight, must be public, or be made to me.
+
+As to the provocation that I have given the Ellmans, I am, upon
+reflection, ready to confess that I may have laid on the lash without a
+due regard to mercy. The fact is, that I have so long had the misfortune
+to be compelled to keep a parcel of badger-hided fellows, like SCARLETT,
+in order, that I am, like a drummer that has been used to flog old
+offenders, become _heavy handed_. I ought to have considered the Ellmans
+as _recruits_ and to have suited my tickler to the tenderness of their
+backs.--I hear that Mr. Ingram of Rottendean, who moved for my being
+turned out of the room, and who looked so foolish when he had to turn
+himself out, is an Officer of Yeomanry "_Gavaltry_." A ploughman
+spoiled! This man would, I dare say, have been a very good husbandman;
+but the unnatural working of the paper-system has sublimated him out of
+his senses. That greater Doctor, Mr. Peel, will bring him down
+again.--Mr. Hitchins, I am told, after going away, came back, stood on
+the landing-place (the door being open), and, while I was speaking,
+exclaimed, "Oh! the fools! How they open their mouths! How they suck it
+all in."--Suck _what_ in, Mr. Hitchins? Was it honey that dropped from
+my lips? Was it flattery? Amongst other things, I said that I liked the
+plain names of _farmer_ and _husbandman_ better than that of
+_agriculturist_; and, the prospect I held out to them, was that of a
+description to catch their applause?--But this Hitchins seems to be a
+very silly person indeed.]
+
+The following is a portion of the speech:--
+
+"The toast having been _opposed_, and that, too, in the extraordinary
+manner we have witnessed, I will, at any rate, with your permission,
+make a remark or two on that manner. If the person who has made the
+opposition had been actuated by a spirit of fairness and justice, he
+would not have confined himself to a detached sentence of the paper from
+which he has read; but, would have taken the whole together; for, by
+taking a particular sentence, and leaving out all the rest, what writing
+is there that will not admit of a wicked interpretation? As to the
+particular part which has been read, I should not, perhaps, if I had
+seen it _in print_, and had had time to cool a little [it was in a
+Register sent from Norfolk], have sent it forth in terms so very general
+as to embrace all the farmers of this county; but, as to those of them
+who put _the bell round the labourer's neck_, I beg leave to be now
+repeating, in its severest sense, every word of the passage that has
+been read.--Born in a farm-house, bred up at the plough-tail, with a
+smock-frock on my back, taking great delight in all the pursuits of
+farmers, liking their society, and having amongst them my most esteemed
+friends, it is natural, that I should feel, and I do feel, uncommonly
+anxious to prevent, as far as I am able, that total ruin which now
+menaces them. But the labourer, was I to have no feeling for him? Was
+not he my _countryman_ too? And was I not to feel indignation against
+those farmers, who had had the hard-heartedness to put the bell round
+his neck, and thus wantonly insult and degrade the class to whose toils
+they owed their own ease? The statement of the fact was not mine; I read
+it in the newspaper as having come from Mr. Ellman the younger; he, in a
+very laudable manner, expressed his _horror_ at it; and was not I to
+express _indignation_ at what Mr. Ellman felt horror? That Gentleman and
+Mr. Webb Hall may monopolize all the wisdom in matters of political
+economy; but are they, or rather is Mr. Ellman alone, to engross all the
+feeling too? [It was here denied that Mr. Ellman had said the bell had
+been put on by _farmers_.] Very well, then, the complained of passage
+has been productive of benefit to the farmers of this county; for, as
+the thing stood in the newspapers, the natural and unavoidable inference
+was, that that atrocious, that inhuman act, was an act of Sussex
+farmers."
+
+
+_Brighton, Thursday, 10 Jan., 1822._
+
+Lewes is in a valley of the _South Downs_, this town is at eight miles'
+distance, to the south south-west or thereabouts. There is a great
+extent of rich meadows above and below Lewes. The town itself is a
+model of solidity and neatness. The buildings all substantial to the
+very out-skirts; the pavements good and complete; the shops nice and
+clean; the people well-dressed; and, though last not least, the girls
+remarkably pretty, as, indeed, they are in most parts of Sussex; round
+faces, features small, little hands and wrists, plump arms, and bright
+eyes. The Sussex men, too, are remarkable for their good looks. A Mr.
+Baxter, a stationer at Lewes, showed me a _farmer's account book_ which
+is a very complete thing of the kind. The Inns are good at Lewes, the
+people civil and not servile, and the charges really (considering the
+taxes) far below what one could reasonably expect.--From Lewes to
+Brighton the road winds along between the hills of the South Downs,
+which, in this mild weather, are mostly beautifully green even at this
+season, with flocks of sheep feeding on them.--Brighton itself lies in a
+valley cut across at one end by the sea, and its extension, or _Wen_,
+has swelled up the sides of the hills and has run some distance up the
+valley.--The first thing you see in approaching Brighton from Lewes is a
+splendid _horse-barrack_ on one side of the road, and a heap of low,
+shabby, nasty houses, irregularly built, on the other side. This is
+always the case where there is a barrack. How soon a Reformed Parliament
+would make both disappear! Brighton is a very pleasant place. For a
+_wen_ remarkably so. The _Kremlin_, the very name of which has so long
+been a subject of laughter all over the country, lies in the gorge of
+the valley, and amongst the old houses of the town. The grounds, which
+cannot, I think, exceed a couple or three acres, are surrounded by a
+wall neither lofty nor good-looking. Above this rise some trees, bad in
+sorts, stunted in growth, and dirty with smoke. As to the "palace" as
+the Brighton newspapers call it, the apartments appear to be all upon
+the ground floor; and, when you see the thing from a distance, you think
+you see a parcel of _cradle-spits_, of various dimensions, sticking up
+out of the mouths of so many enormous squat decanters. Take a square
+box, the sides of which are three feet and a half, and the height a foot
+and a half. Take a large Norfolk-turnip, cut off the green of the
+leaves, leave the stalks 9 inches long, tie these round with a string
+three inches from the top, and put the turnip on the middle of the top
+of the box. Then take four turnips of half the size, treat them in the
+same way, and put them on the corners of the box. Then take a
+considerable number of bulbs of the crown-imperial, the narcissus, the
+hyacinth, the tulip, the crocus, and others; let the leaves of each have
+sprouted to about an inch, more or less according to the size of the
+bulb; put all these, pretty promiscuously, but pretty thickly, on the
+top of the box. Then stand off and look at your architecture. There!
+That's "_a Kremlin_"! Only you must cut some church-looking windows in
+the sides of the box. As to what you ought to put _into_ the box, that
+is a subject far above my cut.--Brighton is naturally a place of resort
+for _expectants_, and a shifty ugly-looking swarm is, of course,
+assembled here. Some of the fellows, who had endeavoured to disturb our
+harmony at the dinner at Lewes, were parading, amongst this swarm, on
+the cliff. You may always know them by their lank jaws, the stiffeners
+round their necks, their hidden or _no_ shirts, their stays, their false
+shoulders, hips, and haunches, their half-whiskers, and by their skins,
+colour of veal kidney-suet, warmed a little, and then powdered with
+dirty dust.--These vermin excepted, the people at Brighton make a very
+fine figure. The trades-people are very nice in all their concerns. The
+houses are excellent, built chiefly with a blue or purple brick; and
+bow-windows appear to be the general taste. I can easily believe this to
+be a very healthy place: the open downs on the one side and the open sea
+on the other. No inlet, cove, or river; and, of course, no swamps.--I
+have spent this evening very pleasantly in a company of reformers, who,
+though plain tradesmen and mechanics, know I am quite satisfied, more
+about the questions that agitate the country, than any equal number of
+Lords.
+
+
+_Kensington, Friday, 11 January, 1822._
+
+Came home by the way of Cuckfield, Worth, and Red-Hill, instead of by
+Uckfield, Grinstead and Godstone, and got into the same road again at
+Croydon. The roads being nearly parallel lines and at no great distance
+from each other, the soil is nearly the same, with the exception of the
+fine oak country between Godstone and Grinstead, which does not go so
+far westward as my homeward bound road, where the land, opposite the
+spot just spoken of, becomes more of a moor than a clay, and though
+there are oaks, they are not nearly so fine as those on the other road.
+The tops are flatter; the side _shoots_ are sometimes higher than the
+middle shoot; a certain proof that the _tap-root_ has met with something
+that it does not like.--I see (Jan. 15) that Mr. Curteis has thought it
+necessary to state in the public papers, that _he_ had _nothing to do_
+with my being at the dinner at Battle! Who the Devil thought he had?
+Why, was it not an ordinary; and had I not as much right there as he? He
+has said, too, that _he did not know_ that I was to be at the dinner.
+How should he? Why was it necessary to apprise him of it any more than
+the porter of the inn? He has said, that he did not hear of any
+deputation to invite me to the dinner, and, "_upon inquiry_," cannot
+find that there was any. Have I said that there was any invitation at
+all? There was; but I have not said so. I went to the dinner for my
+half-crown like another man, without knowing, or caring, who would be at
+it. But, if Mr. Curteis thought it necessary to say so much, he might
+have said a little more. He might have said, that he twice addressed
+himself to me in a very peculiar manner, and that I never addressed
+myself to him except in answer; and, if he had thought "_inquiry_"
+necessary upon this subject also, he might have found that, though
+always the first to speak or hold out the hand to a hard-fisted artisan
+or labourer, I never did the same to a man of rank or riches in the
+whole course of my life. Mr. Curteis might have said, too, that unless I
+had gone to the dinner, the party would, according to appearances, have
+been very _select_; that I found him at the head of one of the tables,
+with less than thirty persons in the room; that the number swelled up to
+about one hundred and thirty; that no person was at the other table;
+that I took my seat at it; and that that table became almost immediately
+crowded from one end to the other. To these Mr. Curteis, when his hand
+was in, might have added, that he turned himself in his chair and
+listened to my speech with the greatest attention; that he bade me, by
+name, good night, when he retired; that he took not a man away with him;
+and that the gentleman who was called on to replace him in the chair
+(whose name I have forgotten) had got from his seat during the evening
+to come and shake me by the hand. All these things Mr. Curteis might
+have said; but the fact is, he has been bullied by the base newspapers,
+and he has not been able to muster up courage to act the manly part, and
+which, too, he would have found to be the _wise_ part in the end. When
+he gave the toast "_more money and less taxes_," he turned himself
+towards me, and said, "That is a toast that I am sure _you approve of_,
+Mr. Cobbett." To which I answered, "It would be made good, Sir, if
+_members of Parliament would do their duty_."--I appeal to all the
+gentlemen present for the truth of what I say. Perhaps Mr. Curteis, in
+his heart, did not like to give my health. If that was the case, he
+ought to have left the chair, and retired. _Straight forward_ is the
+best course; and, see what difficulties Mr. Curteis has involved himself
+in by not pursuing it! I have no doubt that he was agreeably surprised
+when he saw and heard me. Why not _say_ then: "After all that has been
+said about Cobbett, he is a devilish pleasant, frank, and clever fellow,
+at any rate."--How much better this would have been, than to act the
+part that Mr. Curteis has acted.----The Editors of the _Brighton
+Chronicle and Lewes Express_ have, out of mere modesty, I dare say,
+fallen a little into Mr. Curteis's strain. In closing their account (in
+their paper of the 15th) of the Lewes Meeting, they say that I addressed
+the company at some length, as reported in their Supplement published on
+Thursday the 10th. And then they think it necessary to add: "For
+OURSELVES, we can say, that we never saw Mr. Cobbett until the meeting
+at Battle." Now, had it not been for pure maiden-like bashfulness, they
+would, doubtless, have added, that when they did see me, they were
+profuse in expressions of their gratitude to me for having merely _named
+their paper_ in my Register a thing, which, as I told them, I myself had
+forgotten. When, too, they were speaking, in reference to a speech made
+in the Hall, of "one of the finest specimens of oratory that has ever
+been given in any assembly," it was, without doubt, out of pure
+compassion for the perverted taste of their Lewes readers, that they
+suppressed the fact, that the agent of the paper at Lewes sent them
+word, that it was useless for them to send any account of the meeting,
+unless that account contained Mr. Cobbett's speech; that he, the agent,
+could have sold a hundred papers that morning, if they had contained Mr.
+Cobbett's speech; but could not sell one without it. I myself, by mere
+accident, heard this message delivered to a third person by their agent
+at Lewes. And, as I said before, it must have been pure tenderness
+towards their readers that made the editors suppress a fact so injurious
+to the reputation of those readers in point of _taste_! However, at
+last, these editors seem to have triumphed over all feelings of this
+sort; for, having printed off a placard, advertising their Supplement,
+in which placard no mention was made of _me_, they, grown bold all of a
+sudden, took a _painting brush_, and in large letters put into their
+placard, "_Mr. Cobbett's Speech at Lewes_;" so that, at a little
+distance, the placard seemed to relate to nothing else; and there was
+"the finest specimen of oratory" left to find its way into the world
+under the auspices of my rustic harangue. Good God! What will this world
+come to! We shall, by-and-bye, have to laugh at the workings of envy in
+the very worms that we breed in our bodies!--The fast-sinking Old Times
+news-paper, its cat-and-dog opponent the New Times, the Courier, and the
+Whig-Lawyer Tramper, called the "Traveller;" the fellows who conduct
+these vehicles; these wretched fellows, their very livers burning with
+envy, have hasted to inform their readers, that "they have authority to
+state that Lord Ashburnham and Mr. Fuller were not present at the dinner
+at Battle where Cobbett's health was drunk." These fellows have now
+"authority" to state, that there were no two men who dined at Battle,
+that I should not prefer as companions to Lord Ashburnham and Mr.
+Fuller, commonly called "Jack Fuller," seeing that I am no admirer of
+_lofty reserve_, and that, of all things on earth, I abhor a head like a
+drum, all noise and emptiness. These scribes have also "authority" to
+state, that they amuse me and the public too by declining rapidly in
+their sale from their exclusion of my country lectures, which have only
+begun. In addition to this The Tramper editor has "authority" to state,
+that one of his papers of 5th Jan. has been sent to the Register-office
+by post, with these words written on it: "This scoundrel paper has taken
+no notice of Mr. Cobbett's speech." All these papers have "authority" to
+state beforehand, that they will insert no account of what shall take
+place, within these three or four weeks, at _Huntingdon_, at _Lynn_, at
+_Chichester_, and other places where I intend to be. And, lastly, the
+editors have full "authority" to state, that they may employ, without
+let or molestation of any sort, either private or public, the price of
+the last number that they shall sell in the purchase of hemp or
+ratsbane, as the sure means of a happy deliverance from their present
+state of torment.
+
+
+
+
+HUNTINGDON JOURNAL: THROUGH WARE AND ROYSTON, TO HUNTINGDON.
+
+
+_Royston, Monday morning, 21st Jan., 1822._
+
+Came from London, yesterday noon, to this town on my way to Huntingdon.
+My road was through Ware. Royston is just within the line (on the
+Cambridgeshire side), which divides Hertfordshire from Cambridgeshire.
+On this road, as on almost all the others going from it, the enormous
+_Wen_ has swelled out to the distance of about six or seven miles.--The
+land till you come nearly to Ware which is in Hertfordshire, and which
+is twenty-three miles from the _Wen_, is chiefly a strong and deep loam,
+with the gravel a good distance from the surface. The land is good
+wheat-land; but I observed only three fields of Swedish turnips in the
+23 miles, and no wheat drilled. The wheat is sown on ridges of great
+width here-and-there; sometimes on ridges of ten, at others on ridges of
+seven, on those of five, four, three, and even two, feet wide. Yet the
+bottom is manifestly not very wet generally; and that there is not a
+bottom of clay is clear from the poor growth of the oak trees. All the
+trees are shabby in this country; and the eye is incessantly offended by
+the sight of _pollards_, which are seldom suffered to disgrace even the
+meanest lands in Hampshire or Sussex. As you approach Ware the bottom
+becomes chalk of a dirtyish colour, and, in some parts, far below the
+surface. After you quit Ware, which is a mere market town, the land
+grows by degrees poorer; the chalk lies nearer and nearer to the
+surface, till you come to the open common-fields within a few miles of
+Royston. Along here the land is poor enough. It is not the stiff red
+loam mixed with large blue-grey flints, lying upon the chalk, such as
+you see in the north of Hampshire; but a whitish sort of clay, with
+little yellow flattish stones amongst it; sure signs of a hungry soil.
+Yet this land bears wheat sometimes.--Royston is at the foot of this
+high poor land; or, rather in a dell, the open side of which looks
+towards the North. It is a common market town. Not mean, but having
+nothing of beauty about it; and having on it, on three of the sides out
+of the four, those very ugly things, common-fields, which have all the
+nakedness, without any of the smoothness, of Downs.
+
+
+_Huntingdon, Tuesday morning, 22nd Jan., 1822._
+
+Immediately upon quitting Royston, you come along, for a considerable
+distance, with enclosed fields on the left and open common-fields on the
+right. Here the land is excellent. A dark, rich loam, free from stones,
+on chalk beneath at a great distance. The land appears, for a mile or
+two, to resemble that at and near Faversham in Kent, which I have before
+noticed. The fields on the left seem to have been enclosed by Act of
+Parliament; and they certainly are the most beautiful tract of _fields_
+that I ever saw. Their extent may be from ten to thirty acres each.
+Divided by quick-set hedges, exceedingly well planted and raised. The
+whole tract is nearly a perfect level. The cultivation neat, and the
+stubble heaps, such as remain out, giving a proof of great crops of
+straw, while, on land with a chalk bottom, there is seldom any want of a
+proportionate quantity of grain. Even here, however, I saw but few
+Swedish turnips, and those not good. Nor did I see any wheat drilled;
+and observed that, in many parts, the broad-cast sowing had been
+performed in a most careless manner, especially at about three miles
+from Royston, where some parts of the broad lands seemed to have had the
+seed flung along them with a shovel, while other parts contained only
+here and there a blade; or, at least, were so thinly supplied as to make
+it almost doubtful whether they had not been wholly missed. In some
+parts the middles only of the ridges were sown thickly. This is shocking
+husbandry. A Norfolk or a Kentish farmer would have sowed a bushel and
+a half of seed to the acre here, and would have had a far better plant
+of wheat.--About four miles, I think it is, from Royston you come to the
+estate of Lord Hardwicke. You see the house at the end of an avenue
+about two miles long, which, however, wants the main thing, namely, fine
+and lofty trees. The soil here begins to be a very stiff loam at top;
+clay beneath for a considerable distance; and, in some places, beds of
+yellow gravel with very large stones mixed in it. The land is generally
+cold; a great deal of draining is wanted; and yet the bottom is such as
+not to be favourable to the growth of the _oak_, of which sort I have
+not seen one _handsome_ tree since I left London. A grove, such as I saw
+at Weston in Herefordshire, would, here, be a thing to attract the
+attention of all ranks and all ages. What, then, would they say, on
+beholding a wood of Oaks, Hickories, Chestnuts, Walnuts, Locusts,
+Gum-trees, and Maples in America!--Lord Hardwicke's avenue appears to be
+lined with Elms chiefly. They are shabby. He might have had _ash_; for
+the ash will grow _anywhere_; on sand, on gravel, on clay, on chalk, or
+in swamps. It is surprising that those who planted these rows of trees
+did not observe how well the ash grows here! In the hedge-rows, in the
+plantations, everywhere the ash is fine. The ash is the _hardiest_ of
+all our large trees. Look at trees on any part of the sea coast. You
+will see them all, even the firs, lean from the sea breeze, except the
+ash. You will see the oak _shaved up_ on the side of the breeze. But the
+ash stands upright, as if in a warm woody dell. We have no tree that
+attains a greater height than the ash; and certainly none that equals it
+in beauty of leaf. It bears pruning better than any other tree. Its
+timber is one of the most useful; and as underwood and fire-wood it far
+exceeds all others of English growth. From the trees of an avenue like
+that of Lord Hardwicke a hundred pounds worth of fuel might, if the
+trees were ash, be cut every year in prunings necessary to preserve the
+health and beauty of the trees. Yet, on this same land, has his lordship
+planted many acres of larches and firs. These appear to have been
+planted about twelve years. If instead of these he had planted ash, four
+years from the seed bed and once removed; had cut them down within an
+inch of the ground the second year after planting; and had planted them
+at four feet apart, he would now have had about six thousand ash-poles,
+on an average twelve feet long, on each acre of land in his plantation;
+which, at three-halfpence each, would have been worth somewhere nearly
+forty pounds an acre. He might now have cut the poles, leaving about 600
+to stand upon an acre to come to trees; and while these were growing to
+timber, the underwood would, for poles, hoops, broom-sticks, spars,
+rods, and faggots, have been worth twenty-five or thirty pounds an acre
+every ten years. Can beggarly stuff, like larches and firs, ever be
+profitable to this extent? Ash is timber, fit for the wheelwright, at
+the age of twenty years, or less. What can you do with a rotten fir
+thing at that age?----This estate of Lord Hardwicke appears to be very
+large. There is a part which is, apparently, in his own hands, as,
+indeed, the whole must soon be, unless he give up all idea of rent, or,
+unless he can _choack off_ the fundholder or get again afloat on the sea
+of paper-money. In this part of his land there is a fine piece of
+_Lucerne_ in rows at about eighteen inches distant from each other. They
+are now manuring it with _burnt-earth_ mixed with some dung; and I see
+several heaps of burnt-earth hereabouts. The directions for doing this
+are contained in my _Year's Residence_, as taught me by Mr. William
+Gauntlet, of Winchester.--The land is, all along here, laid up in those
+wide and high ridges, which I saw in Gloucestershire, going from
+Gloucester to Oxford, as I have already mentioned. These ridges are
+ploughed _back_ or _down_; but they are ploughed up again for every
+sowing.--At an Inn near Lord Hardwicke's I saw the finest parcel of
+dove-house pigeons I ever saw in my life.--Between this place and
+Huntingdon is the village of Caxton, which very much resembles almost a
+village of the same size in _Picardy_, where I saw the women dragging
+harrows to harrow in the corn. Certainly this village resembles nothing
+English, except some of the rascally rotten boroughs in Cornwall and
+Devonshire, on which a just Providence seems to have entailed its curse.
+The land just about here does seem to be really bad. The face of the
+country is naked. The few scrubbed trees that now-and-then meet the eye,
+and even the quick-sets, are covered with a yellow moss. All is bleak
+and comfortless; and, just on the most dreary part of this most dreary
+scene, stands almost opportunely, "_Caxton Gibbet_," tendering its
+friendly one arm to the passers-by. It has recently been fresh-painted,
+and written on in conspicuous characters, for the benefit, I suppose, of
+those who cannot exist under the thought of wheat at four shillings a
+bushel.--Not far from this is a new house, which, the coachman says,
+belongs to a Mr. Cheer, who, if report speaks truly, is not, however,
+notwithstanding his name, guilty of the sin of making people either
+drunkards or gluttons. Certainly the spot, on which he has built his
+house, is one of the most ugly that I ever saw. Few spots have
+everything that you could wish to find; but this, according to my
+judgment, has everything that every man of ordinary taste would wish to
+avoid.--The country changes but little till you get quite to Huntingdon.
+The land is generally quite open, or in large fields. Strong,
+wheat-land, that wants a good deal of draining. Very few turnips of any
+sort are raised; and, of course, few sheep and cattle kept. Few trees,
+and those scrubbed. Few woods, and those small. Few hills, and those
+hardly worthy of the name. All which, when we see them, make us cease to
+wonder, that this country is so famous for _fox-hunting_. Such it has
+doubtless been in all times, and to this circumstance Huntingdon, that
+is to say, Huntingdun, or Huntingdown, unquestionably owes its name;
+because _down_ does not mean _unploughed_ land, but open and
+_unsheltered_ land, and the Saxon word is _dun_.--When you come down
+near to the town itself, the scene suddenly, totally, and most
+agreeably, changes. The _River Ouse_ separates Godmanchester from
+Huntingdon, and there is, I think, no very great difference in the
+population of the two. Both together do not make up a population of more
+than about five thousand souls. Huntingdon is a slightly built town,
+compared with Lewes, for instance. The houses are not in general so
+high, nor made of such solid and costly materials. The shops are not so
+large and their contents not so costly. There is not a show of so much
+business and so much opulence. But Huntingdon is a very clean and nice
+place, contains many elegant houses, and the environs are beautiful.
+Above and below the bridge, under which the Ouse passes, are the most
+beautiful, and by far the most beautiful, meadows that I ever saw in my
+life. The meadows at Lewes, at Guildford, at Farnham, at Winchester, at
+Salisbury, at Exeter, at Gloucester, at Hereford, and even at
+Canterbury, are nothing, compared with those of Huntingdon in point of
+beauty. Here are no reeds, here is no sedge, no unevennesses of any
+sort. Here are _bowling-greens_ of hundreds of acres in extent, with a
+river winding through them, full to the brink. _One_ of these meadows is
+the _race-course_; and so pretty a spot, so level, so smooth, so green,
+and of such an extent I never saw, and never expected to see. From the
+bridge you look across the valleys, first to the West and then to the
+East; the valleys terminate at the foot of rising ground, well set with
+trees, from amongst which church spires raise their heads
+here-and-there. I think it would be very difficult to find a more
+delightful spot than this in the world. To my fancy (and every one to
+his taste) the prospect from this bridge far surpasses that from
+Richmond Hill.--All that I have yet seen of Huntingdon I like
+exceedingly. It is one of those pretty, clean, unstenched, unconfined
+places that tend to lengthen life and make it happy.
+
+
+
+
+JOURNAL: HERTFORDSHIRE, AND BUCKINGHAMSHIRE: TO ST. ALBANS, THROUGH
+EDGWARE, STANMORE, AND WATFORD, RETURNING BY REDBOURN, HEMPSTEAD, AND
+CHESHAM.
+
+
+_Saint Albans, June 19, 1822._
+
+From Kensington to this place, through Edgware, Stanmore, and Watford,
+the crop is almost entirely hay, from fields of permanent grass, manured
+by dung and other matter brought from the _Wen_. Near the Wen, where
+they have had the _first haul_ of the Irish and other perambulating
+labourers, the hay is all in rick. Some miles further down it is nearly
+all in. Towards Stanmore and Watford, a third, perhaps, of the grass
+remains to be cut. It is curious to see how the thing regulates itself.
+We saw, all the way down, squads of labourers, of different departments,
+migrating from tract to tract; leaving the cleared fields behind them
+and proceeding on towards the work to be yet performed; and then, as to
+the classes of labourers, the _mowers_, with their scythes on their
+shoulders, were in front, going on towards the standing crops, while the
+_haymakers_ were coming on behind towards the grass already cut or
+cutting. The weather is fair and warm; so that the public-houses on the
+road are pouring out their beer pretty fast, and are getting a good
+share of the wages of these thirsty souls. It is an exchange of beer for
+sweat; but the tax-eaters get, after all, the far greater part of the
+sweat; for, if it were not for the tax, the beer would sell for
+three-halfpence a pot instead of fivepence. Of this threepence-halfpenny
+the Jews and Jobbers get about twopence-halfpenny. It is curious to
+observe how the different labours are divided as to the _nations_. The
+mowers are all _English_; the haymakers all _Irish_. Scotchmen toil hard
+enough in Scotland; but when they go from home it is not to _work_, if
+you please. They are found in gardens, and especially in gentlemen's
+gardens. Tying up flowers, picking dead leaves off exotics, peeping into
+melon-frames, publishing the banns of marriage between the "_male_" and
+"_female_" blossoms, tap-tap-tapping against a wall with a hammer that
+weighs half an ounce. They have backs as straight and shoulders as
+square as heroes of Waterloo; and who can blame them? The digging, the
+mowing, the carrying of loads, all the break-back and sweat-extracting
+work, they leave to be performed by those who have less _prudence_ than
+they have. The great purpose of human art, the great end of human study,
+is to obtain _ease_, to throw the burden of labour from our own
+shoulders, and fix it on those of others. The crop of hay is very large,
+and that part which is in, is in very good order. We shall have hardly
+any hay that is not fine and sweet; and we shall have it, carried to
+London, at less, I dare say, than 3_l._ a load, that is 18 cwt. So that
+here the _evil_ of "_over-production_" will be great indeed! Whether we
+shall have any projects for taking hay into _pawn_ is more than any of
+us can say; for, after what we have seen, need we be surprised if we
+were to hear it proposed to take butter and even milk into pawn. In
+after times, the mad projects of these days will become proverbial. The
+Oracle and the over-production men will totally supplant the
+_March-hare_.--This is, all along here, and especially as far as
+Stanmore, a very dull and ugly country: flat, and all grass-fields and
+elms. Few _birds_ of any kind, and few _constant_ labourers being
+wanted; scarcely any cottages and gardens, which form one of the great
+beauties of a country. Stanmore is on a hill; but it looks over a
+country of little variety, though rich. What a difference between the
+view here and those which carry the eye over the coppices, the
+corn-fields, the hop-gardens and the orchards of Kent! It is miserable
+land from Stanmore to Watford, where we get into Hertfordshire. Hence to
+Saint Albans there is generally chalk at bottom with a red tenacious
+loam at top, with flints, grey on the outside and dark blue within.
+Wherever this is the soil, the wheat grows well. The crops, and
+especially that of the barley, are very fine and very forward. The
+wheat, in general, does not appear to be a heavy crop; but the ears seem
+as if they would be full from bottom to top; and we have had so much
+heat, that the grain is pretty sure to be plump, let the weather, for
+the rest of the summer, be what it may. The produce depends more on the
+weather, previous to the coming out of the ear, than on the subsequent
+weather. In the Northern parts of America, where they have, some years,
+not heat enough to bring the Indian Corn to perfection, I have observed
+that, if they have about fifteen days with the thermometer at _ninety_,
+before the ear makes its appearance, the crop never fails, though the
+weather may be ever so unfavourable afterwards. This allies with the old
+remark of the country people in England, that "_May_ makes or mars the
+wheat;" for it is in May that the ear and the grains are _formed_.
+
+
+_Kensington, June 24, 1822._
+
+Set out at four this morning for Redbourn, and then turned off to the
+Westward to go to High Wycombe, through Hempstead and Chesham. The
+_wheat_ is good all the way. The barley and oats good enough till I came
+to Hempstead. But the land along here is very fine: a red tenacious
+flinty loam upon a bed of chalk at a yard or two beneath, which, in my
+opinion, is the very best _corn land_ that we have in England. The
+fields here, like those in the rich parts of Devonshire, will bear
+perpetual grass. Any of them will become upland meadows. The land is, in
+short, excellent, and it is a real corn-country. The _trees_, from
+Redbourn to Hempstead are very fine; oaks, ashes, and beeches. Some of
+the finest of each sort, and the very finest ashes I ever saw in my
+life. They are in great numbers, and make the fields look most
+beautiful. No villanous things of the _fir-tribe_ offend the eye here.
+The custom is in this part of Hertfordshire (and I am told it continues
+into Bedfordshire) to leave a _border_ round the ploughed part of the
+fields to bear grass and to make hay from, so that, the grass being now
+made into hay, every corn field has a closely mowed grass walk about ten
+feet wide all round it, between the corn and the hedge. This is most
+beautiful! The hedges are now full of the shepherd's rose, honeysuckles,
+and all sorts of wild flowers; so that you are upon a grass walk, with
+this most beautiful of all flower gardens and shrubberies on your one
+hand, and with the corn on the other. And thus you go from field to
+field (on foot or on horseback), the sort of corn, the sort of underwood
+and timber, the shape and size of the fields, the height of the
+hedge-rows, the height of the trees, all continually varying. Talk of
+_pleasure-grounds_ indeed! What, that man ever invented, under the name
+of pleasure-grounds, can equal these fields in Hertfordshire?--This is a
+profitable system too; for the ground under hedges bears little corn,
+and it bears very good grass. Something, however, depends on the nature
+of the soil: for it is not all land that will bear grass, fit for hay,
+perpetually; and, when the land will not do that, these headlands would
+only be a harbour for weeds and couch-grass, the seeds of which would
+fill the fields with their mischievous race.--Mr. TULL has observed upon
+the great use of headlands.--It is curious enough, that these headlands
+cease soon after you get into Buckinghamshire. At first you see
+now-and-then a field _without_ a grass headland; then it comes to
+now-and-then a field _with_ one; and, at the end of five or six miles,
+they wholly cease. Hempstead is a very pretty town, with beautiful
+environs, and there is a canal that comes near it, and that goes on to
+London. It lies at the foot of a hill. It is clean, substantially built,
+and a very pretty place altogether. Between Hempstead and Chesham the
+land is not so good. I came into Buckinghamshire before I got into the
+latter place. Passed over two commons. But, still, the land is not bad.
+It is drier; nearer the chalk, and not so red. The wheat continues good,
+though not heavy; but the barley, on the land that is not very good, is
+light, begins to look _blue_, and the backward oats are very short. On
+the still thinner lands the barley and oats must be a very short
+crop.--People do not sow _turnips_, the ground is so dry, and, I should
+think, that the _Swede-crop_ will be very short; for _Swedes_ ought to
+be _up_ at least by this time. If I had Swedes to sow, I would sow them
+now, and upon ground very deeply and finely broken. I would sow directly
+after the plough, not being half an hour behind it, and would roll the
+ground as hard as possible. I am sure the plants would come up, even
+without rain. And, the moment the rain came, they would grow
+famously.--Chesham is a nice little town, lying in a deep and narrow
+valley, with a stream of water running through it. All along the country
+that I have come the labourers' dwellings are good. They are made of
+what they call _brick-nog_; that is to say, a frame of wood, and a
+single brick thick, filling up the vacancies between the timber. They
+are generally covered with tile. Not _pretty_ by any means; but they are
+good; and you see here, as in Kent, Susses, Surrey, and Hampshire, and,
+indeed, in almost every part of England, that most interesting of all
+objects, that which is such an honour to England, and that which
+distinguishes it from all the rest of the world, namely, those _neatly
+kept and productive little gardens round the labourers' houses_, which
+are seldom unornamented with more or less of flowers. We have only to
+look at these to know what sort of people English labourers are: these
+gardens are the answer to the _Malthuses_ and the _Scarletts_. Shut your
+mouths, you Scotch Economists; cease bawling, Mr. Brougham, and you
+Edinburgh Reviewers, till _you_ can show us something, not _like_, but
+approaching towards a likeness of _this_!
+
+The orchards all along this country are by no means bad. Not like those
+of Herefordshire and the north of Kent; but a great deal better than in
+many other parts of the kingdom. The cherry-trees are pretty abundant
+and particularly good. There are not many of the _merries_, as they call
+them in Kent and Hampshire; that is to say, the little black cherry, the
+name of which is a corruption from the French, _merise_, in the
+singular, and _merises_ in the plural. I saw the little boys, in many
+places, set to keep the birds off the cherries, which reminded me of the
+time when I followed the same occupation, and also of the toll that I
+used to take in payment. The children are all along here, I mean the
+little children, locked out of the doors, while the fathers and mothers
+are at work in the fields. I saw many little groups of this sort; and
+this is one advantage of having plenty of room on the outside of a
+house. I never saw the country children better clad, or look cleaner and
+fatter than they look here, and I have the very great pleasure to add,
+that I do not think I saw three acres of _potatoes_ in this whole tract
+of fine country, from St. Albans to Redbourn, from Redbourn to
+Hempstead, and from Hempstead to Chesham. In all the houses where I have
+been, they use the roasted rye instead of coffee or tea, and I saw one
+gentleman who had sown a piece of rye (a grain not common in this part
+of the country) for the express purpose. It costs about three farthings
+a pound, roasted and ground into powder.--The pay of the labourers
+varies from eight to twelve shillings a-week. Grass mowers get two
+shillings a-day, two quarts of what they call strong beer, and as much
+small beer as they can drink. After quitting Chesham, I passed through a
+wood, resembling, as nearly as possible, the woods in the more
+cultivated parts of Long Island, with these exceptions, that there the
+woods consist of a great variety of trees, and of more beautiful
+foliage. Here there are only two sorts of trees, beech and oak: but the
+wood at bottom was precisely like an American wood: none of that stuff
+which we generally call underwood: the trees standing very thick in some
+places: the shade so complete as never to permit herbage below: no
+bushes of any sort; and nothing to impede your steps but little
+spindling trees here and there grown up from the seed. The trees here
+are as lofty, too, as they generally are in the Long Island woods, and
+as straight, except in cases where you find clumps of the tulip-tree,
+which sometimes go much above a hundred feet high as straight as a line.
+The oaks seem here to vie with the beeches, in size as well as in
+loftiness and straightness. I saw several oaks which I think were more
+than eighty feet high, and several with a clear stem of more than forty
+feet, being pretty nearly as far through at that distance from the
+ground as at bottom; and I think I saw more than one, with a clear stem
+of fifty feet, a foot and a half through at that distance from the
+ground. This is by far the finest _plank oak_ that I ever saw in
+England. The road through the wood is winding and brings you out at the
+corner of a field, lying sloping to the south, three sides of it
+bordered by wood and the field planted as an orchard. This is precisely
+what you see in so many thousands of places in America. I had passed
+through Hempstead a little while before, which certainly gave its name
+to the Township in which I lived in Long Island, and which I used to
+write _Hampstead_, contrary to the orthography of the place, never
+having heard of such a place as _Hempstead_ in England. Passing through
+Hempstead I gave my mind a toss back to Long Island, and this beautiful
+wood and orchard really made me almost conceit that I was there, and
+gave rise to a thousand interesting and pleasant reflections. On
+quitting the wood I crossed the great road from London to Wendover,
+went across the park of Mr. Drake, and up a steep hill towards the great
+road leading to Wycombe. Mr. Drake's is a very beautiful place, and has
+a great deal of very fine timber upon it. I think I counted pretty
+nearly 200 oak trees, worth, on an average, five pounds a-piece, growing
+within twenty yards of the road that I was going along. Mr. Drake has
+some thousands of these, I dare say, besides his beech; and, therefore,
+_he_ will be able to stand a tug with the fundholders for some time.
+When I got to High Wycombe, I found everything a week earlier than in
+the rich part of Hertfordshire. High Wycombe, as if the name was
+ironical, lies along the bottom of a narrow and deep valley, the hills
+on each side being very steep indeed. The valley runs somewhere about
+from east to west, and the wheat on the hills facing the south will, if
+this weather continue, be fit to reap in ten days. I saw one field of
+oats that a bold farmer would cut next Monday. Wycombe is a very fine
+and very clean market town; the people all looking extremely well; the
+girls somewhat larger featured and larger boned than those in Sussex,
+and not so fresh-coloured and bright-eyed. More like the girls of
+America, and that is saying quite as much as any reasonable woman can
+expect or wish for. The Hills on the south side of Wycombe form a park
+and estate now the property of Smith, who was a banker or stocking-maker
+at Nottingham, who was made a Lord in the time of Pitt, and who
+purchased this estate of the late Marquis of Landsdowne, one of whose
+titles is Baron Wycombe. Wycombe is one of those famous things called
+Boroughs, and 34 votes in this Borough send Sir John Dashwood and Sir
+Thomas Baring to the "collective wisdom." The landlord where I put up
+"_remembered_" the name of Dashwood, but had "_forgotten_" who the
+"_other_" was! There would be no forgettings of this sort, if these
+thirty-four, together with _their_ representatives, were called upon to
+pay the share of the National Debt due from High Wycombe. Between High
+Wycombe and Beaconsfield, where the soil is much about that last
+described, the wheat continued to be equally early with that about
+Wycombe. As I approached Uxbridge I got off the chalk upon a gravelly
+bottom, and then from Uxbridge to Shepherd's Bush on a bottom of clay.
+Grass-fields and elm-trees, with here and there a wheat or a bean-field,
+form the features of this most ugly country, which would have been
+perfectly unbearable after quitting the neighbourhoods of Hempstead,
+Chesham and High Wycombe, had it not been for the diversion I derived
+from meeting, in all the various modes of conveyance, the cockneys going
+to _Ealing Fair_, which is one of those things which nature herself
+would almost seem to have provided for drawing off the matter and
+giving occasional relief to the overcharged _Wen_. I have traversed
+to-day what I think may be called an average of England as to
+corn-crops. Some of the best, certainly; and pretty nearly some of the
+worst. My observation as to the wheat is, that it will be a fair and
+average crop, and extremely early; because, though it is not a heavy
+crop, though the ears are not long they will be full; and the earliness
+seems to preclude the possibility of blight, and to ensure plump grain.
+The barley and oats must, upon an average, be a light crop. The peas a
+light crop; and as to beans, unless there have been rains where beans
+are mostly grown, they cannot be half a crop; for they will not endure
+heat. I tried masagan beans in Long Island, and could not get them to
+bear more than a pod or two upon a stem. Beans love cold land and shade.
+The earliness of the harvest (for early it must be) is always a clear
+advantage. This fine summer, though it may not lead to a good crop of
+turnips, has already put safe into store such a crop of hay as I believe
+England never saw before. Looking out of the window, I see the harness
+of the Wiltshire wagon-horses (at this moment going by) covered with the
+chalk-dust of that county; so that the fine weather continues in the
+West. The saint-foin hay has all been got in, in the chalk countries,
+without a drop of wet; and when that is the case, the farmers stand in
+no need of oats. The grass crops have been large everywhere, as well as
+got in in good order. The fallows must be in excellent order. It must be
+a sloven indeed that will sow his wheat in foul ground next autumn; and
+the sun, where the fallows have been well stirred, will have done more
+to enrich the land than all the dung-carts and all the other means
+employed by the hand of man. Such a summer is a great blessing; and the
+only draw-back is, the dismal apprehension of not seeing such another
+for many years to come. It is favourable for poultry, for colts, for
+calves, for lambs, for young animals of all descriptions, not excepting
+the game. The partridges will be very early. They are now getting into
+the roads with their young ones, to roll in the dust. The first broods
+of partridges in England are very frequently killed by the wet and cold;
+and this is one reason why the game is not so plenty here as it is in
+countries more blest with sun. This will not be the case this year; and,
+in short, this is one of the finest years that I ever knew.
+
+WM. COBBETT.
+
+
+
+
+RURAL RIDE, OF 104 MILES, FROM KENSINGTON TO UPHUSBAND; INCLUDING A
+RUSTIC HARANGUE AT WINCHESTER, AT A DINNER WITH THE FARMERS, ON THE 28TH
+SEPTEMBER.
+
+
+_Chilworth, near Guildford, Surrey, Wednesday, 25th Sept., 1822._
+
+This morning I set off, in rather a drizzling rain, from Kensington, on
+horseback, accompanied by my son, with an intention of going to
+Uphusband, near Andover, which is situated in the North West corner of
+Hampshire. It is very true that I could have gone to Uphusband by
+travelling only about 66 miles, and in the space of about eight hours.
+But my object was not to see inns and turnpike-roads, but to see the
+_country_; to see the farmers at home, and to see the labourers in the
+fields; and to do this you must go either on foot or on horse-back. With
+a gig you cannot get about amongst bye-lanes and across fields, through
+bridle-ways and hunting-gates; and to _tramp it_ is too slow, leaving
+the labour out of the question, and that is not a trifle.
+
+We went through the turnpike-gate at Kensington, and immediately turned
+down the lane to our left, proceeded on to Fulham, crossed Putney bridge
+into Surrey, went over Barnes Common, and then, going on the upper side
+of Richmond, got again into Middlesex by crossing Richmond bridge. All
+Middlesex is _ugly_, notwithstanding the millions upon millions which it
+is continually sucking up from the rest of the kingdom; and, though the
+Thames and its meadows now-and-then are seen from the road, the country
+is not less ugly from Richmond to Chertsey bridge, through Twickenham,
+Hampton, Sunbury, and Sheperton, than it is elsewhere. The soil is a
+gravel at bottom with a black loam at top near the Thames; further back
+it is a sort of spewy gravel; and the buildings consist generally of
+tax-eaters' showy, tea-garden-like boxes, and of shabby dwellings of
+labouring people who, in this part of the country, look to be about half
+_Saint Giles's_: dirty, and have every appearance of drinking gin.
+
+At Chertsey, where we came into Surrey again, there was a Fair for
+horses, cattle, and pigs. I did not see any sheep. Everything was
+exceedingly _dull_. Cart colts, two and three years old, were selling
+for _less than a third_ of what they sold for in 1813. The cattle were
+of an inferior description to be sure; but the price was low almost
+beyond belief. Cows, which would have sold for 15_l._ in 1813, did not
+get buyers at 3_l._ I had no time to inquire much about the pigs, but a
+man told me that they were dirt-cheap. Near Chertsey is _Saint Anne's
+Hill_ and some other pretty spots. Upon being shown this hill I was put
+in mind of Mr. Fox; and that brought into my head a grant that he
+obtained of _Crown lands_ in this neighbourhood, in, I think, 1806. The
+Duke of York obtained, by Act of Parliament, a much larger grant of
+these lands, at Oatlands, in 1804, I think it was. But this was natural
+enough; this is what would surprise nobody. Mr. Fox's was another
+affair; and especially when taken into view with what I am now going to
+relate. In 1804 or 1805, Fordyce, the late Duchess of Gordon's brother,
+was Collector General (or had been) of taxes in Scotland, and owed a
+large arrear to the public. He was also Surveyor of Crown lands. The
+then Opposition were for hauling him up. Pitt was again in power. Mr.
+Creevey was to bring forward the motion in the House of Commons, and Mr.
+Fox was to support it, and had actually spoken once or twice, in a
+preliminary way on the subject. Notice of the motion was regularly
+given; it was put off from time to time, and, at last, _dropped_, Mr.
+Fox _declining_ to support it. I have no books at hand; but the affair
+will be found recorded in the Register. It was not owing to Mr. Creevey
+that the thing did not come on. I remember well that it was owing to Mr.
+Fox. Other motives were stated; and those others might be the real
+motives; but, at any rate, the next year, or the year after, Mr. Fox got
+transferred to him a part of that estate, which belongs to the _public_,
+and which was once so great, called the _Crown lands_; and of these
+lands Fordyce long had been, and then was, the Surveyor. Such are the
+facts: let the reader reason upon them and draw the conclusion.
+
+This county of Surrey presents to the eye of the traveller a greater
+contrast than any other county in England. It has some of the very best
+and some of the worst lands, not only in England, but in the world. We
+were here upon those of the latter description. For five miles on the
+road towards Guildford the land is a rascally common covered with poor
+heath, except where the gravel is so near the top as not to suffer even
+the heath to grow. Here we entered the enclosed lands, which have the
+gravel at bottom, but a nice light, black mould at top; in which the
+trees grow very well. Through bye-lanes and bridle-ways we came out into
+the London road, between Ripley and Guildford, and immediately crossing
+that road, came on towards a village called Merrow. We came out into the
+road just mentioned, at the lodge-gates of a Mr. Weston, whose mansion
+and estate have just passed (as to occupancy) into the hands of some new
+man. At Merrow, where we came into the Epsom road, we found that Mr.
+Webb Weston, whose mansion and park are a little further on towards
+London, had just walked out, and left it in possession of another new
+man. This gentleman told us, last year, at the _Epsom Meeting_, that he
+was _losing his income_; and I told him _how it was_ that he was losing
+it! He is said to be a very worthy man; very much respected; a very good
+landlord; but, I dare say, he is one of those who approved of yeomanry
+cavalry to keep down the "Jacobins and Levellers;" but who, in fact, as
+I always told men of this description, have _put down_ themselves and
+their landlords; for without them this thing never could have been done.
+To ascribe the whole to _contrivance_ would be to give to Pitt and his
+followers too much credit for profundity; but if the knaves who
+assembled at the Crown and Anchor in the Strand, in 1793, to put down,
+by the means of prosecutions and spies, those whom they called
+"Republicans and Levellers;" if these knaves had said, "Let us go to
+work to induce the owners and occupiers of the land to convey their
+estates and their capital into our hands," and if the Government had
+corresponded with them in views, the effect could not have been more
+complete than it has, thus far, been. The yeomanry actually, as to the
+effect, drew their swords to keep the reformers at bay, while the
+tax-eaters were taking away the estates and the capital. It was the
+sheep surrendering up the dogs into the hands of the wolves.
+
+Lord Onslow lives near Merrow. This is the man that was, for many years,
+so famous as a driver of four-in-hand. He used to be called _Tommy
+Onslow_. He has the character of being a very good landlord. I know he
+called me "a d----d _Jacobin_" several years ago, only, I presume,
+because I was labouring to preserve to him the means of still driving
+four-in-hand, while he, and others like him, and their yeomanry cavalry,
+were working as hard to defeat my wishes and endeavours. They say here,
+that, some little time back, his Lordship, who has, at any rate, had the
+courage to retrench in all sorts of ways, was at Guildford in a gig with
+one horse, at the very moment, when Spicer, the Stock-broker, who was a
+Chairman of the Committee for prosecuting Lord Cochrane, and who lives
+at Esher, came rattling in with four horses and a couple of out-riders!
+They relate an observation made by his Lordship, which may, or may not,
+be true, and which therefore, I shall not repeat. But, my Lord, there is
+another sort of courage; courage other than that of retrenching, that
+would become you in the present emergency: I mean _political_ courage,
+and especially the courage of _acknowledging your errors_; confessing
+that you were wrong when you called the reformers Jacobins and
+levellers; the courage of now joining them in their efforts to save
+their country, to regain their freedom, and to preserve to you your
+estate, which is to be preserved, you will observe, by no other means
+than that of a Reform of the Parliament. It is now manifest, even to
+fools, that it has been by the instrumentality of a base and fraudulent
+paper-money that loan-jobbers, stock-jobbers and Jews have got the
+estates into their hands. With what eagerness, in 1797, did the
+nobility, gentry, and clergy rush forward to give their sanction and
+their support to the system which then began, and which has finally
+produced, what we now behold! They assembled in all the counties, and
+put forth declarations that they would take the paper of the Bank, and
+that they would support the system. Upon this occasion the county of
+Surrey was the very first county; and on the list of signatures the very
+_first_ name was _Onslow_! There may be sales and conveyances; there may
+be recoveries, deeds, and other parchments; but this was the real
+transfer; this was the real signing away of the estates.
+
+To come to Chilworth, which lies on the south side of St. Martha's Hill,
+most people would have gone along the level road to Guildford and come
+round through Shawford under the hills; but we, having seen enough of
+streets and turnpikes, took across over Merrow Down, where the Guildford
+race-course is, and then mounted the "Surrey Hills," so famous for the
+prospects they afford. Here we looked back over Middlesex, and into
+Buckinghamshire and Berkshire, away towards the North-West, into Essex
+and Kent towards the East, over part of Sussex to the South, and over
+part of Hampshire to the West and South-West. We are here upon a bed of
+chalk, where the downs always afford good sheep food. We steered for St.
+Martha's Chapel, and went round at the foot of the lofty hill on which
+it stands. This brought us down the side of a steep hill, and along a
+bridle-way, into the narrow and exquisitely beautiful vale of Chilworth,
+where we were to stop for the night. This vale is skirted partly by
+woodlands and partly by sides of hills tilled as corn fields. The land
+is excellent, particularly towards the bottom. Even the arable fields
+are in some places, towards their tops, nearly as steep as the roof of a
+tiled house; and where the ground is covered with woods the ground is
+still more steep. Down the middle of the vale there is a series of
+ponds, or small _lakes_, which meet your eye, here and there, through
+the trees. Here are some very fine farms, a little strip of meadows,
+some hop-gardens, and the lakes have given rise to the establishment of
+powder-mills and paper-mills. The trees of all sorts grow well here; and
+coppices yield poles for the hop-gardens and wood to make charcoal for
+the powder-mills.
+
+They are sowing wheat here, and the land, owing to the fine summer that
+we have had, is in a very fine state. The rain, too, which, yesterday,
+fell here in great abundance, has been just in time to make a really
+good wheat-sowing season. The turnips, all the way that we have come,
+are good. Rather backward in some places; but in sufficient quantity
+upon the ground, and there is yet a good while for them to grow. All the
+fall fruit is excellent, and in great abundance. The grapes are as good
+as those raised under glass. The apples are much richer than in ordinary
+years. The crop of hops has been very fine here, as well as everywhere
+else. The crop not only large, but good in quality. They expect to get
+_six_ pounds a hundred for them at Weyhill fair. That is _one_ more than
+I think they will get. The best Sussex hops were selling in the Borough
+of Southwark at three pounds a hundred a few days before I left London.
+The Farnham hops _may_ bring double that price; but that, I think, is as
+much as they will; and this is ruin to the hop-planter. The _tax_, with
+its attendant inconveniences, amounts to a pound a hundred; the picking,
+drying, and bagging, to 50_s._ The carrying to market not less than
+5_s._ Here is the sum of 3_l._ 10_s._ of the money. Supposing the crop
+to be half a ton to the acre, the bare tillage will be 10_s._ The poles
+for an acre cannot cost less than 2_l._ a-year; that is another 4_s._ to
+each hundred of hops. This brings the outgoings to 82_s._ Then comes the
+manure, then come the poor-rates, and road-rates, and county rates; and
+if these leave one single farthing for _rent_ I think it is strange.
+
+I hear that Mr. Birkbeck is expected home from America! It is said that
+he is coming to receive a large legacy; a thing not to be overlooked by
+a person who lives in a country where he can have _land for nothing_!
+The truth is, I believe, that there has lately died a gentleman, who has
+bequeathed a part of his property to pay the creditors of a relation of
+his who some years ago became a bankrupt, and one of whose creditors Mr.
+Birkbeck was. What the amount may be I know not; but I have heard, that
+the bankrupt had a _partner_ at the time of the bankruptcy; so that
+there must be a good deal of difficulty in settling the matter in an
+equitable manner. The _Chancery_ would drawl it out (supposing the
+present system to continue) till, in all human probability, there would
+not be as much left for Mr. Birkbeck as would be required to pay his way
+back again to the Land of Promise. I hope he is coming here to remain
+here. He is a very clever man, though he has been very abusive and very
+unjust with regard to me.
+
+
+_Lea, near Godalming, Surrey, Thursday, 26 Sept._
+
+We started from Chilworth this morning, came down the vale, left the
+village of Shawford to our right, and that of Wonersh to our left, and
+crossing the river Wey, got into the turnpike-road between Guildford and
+Godalming, went on through Godalming, and got to Lea, which lies to the
+north-east snugly under Hindhead, about 11 o'clock. This was coming only
+about eight miles, a sort of rest after the 32 miles of the day before.
+Coming along the road, a farmer overtook us, and as he had known me from
+seeing me at the Meeting at Epsom last year, I had a part of my main
+business to perform, namely, to talk politics. He was going to
+_Haslemere_ fair. Upon the mention of that sink-hole of a Borough, which
+sends, "_as clearly as the sun at noonday_," the celebrated Charles
+Long, and the scarcely less celebrated Robert Ward, to the celebrated
+House of Commons, we began to talk, as it were, spontaneously, about
+Lord Lonsdale and the Lowthers. The farmer wondered why the Lowthers,
+that were the owners of so many farms, should be for a system which was
+so manifestly taking away the estates of the landlords and the capital
+of the farmers, and giving them to Jews, loan-jobbers, stock-jobbers,
+placemen, pensioners, sinecure people, and people of the "dead weight."
+But his wonder ceased; his eyes were opened; and "his heart seemed to
+burn within him as I talked to him on the way," when I explained to him
+the nature of _Crown lands_ and "_Crown tenants_," and when I described
+to him certain districts of property in Westmoreland and other parts. I
+had not the book in my pocket, but my memory furnished me with quite a
+sufficiency of matter to make him perceive that, in supporting the
+present system, the Lowthers were by no means so foolish as he appeared
+to think them. From the Lowthers I turned to Mr. Poyntz, who lives at
+Midhurst in Sussex, and whose name as a "_Crown tenant_" I find in a
+Report lately laid before the House of Commons, and the particulars of
+which I will state another time for the information of the people of
+Sussex. I used to wonder myself what made Mr. Poyntz call me a Jacobin.
+I used to think that Mr. Poyntz must be a fool to support the present
+system. What I have seen in that Report convinces me that Mr. Poyntz is
+no fool, as far as relates to his own interest, at any rate. There is a
+mine of wealth in these "_Crown lands_." Here are farms, and manors, and
+mines, and woods, and forests, and houses, and streets, incalculable in
+value. What can be so proper as to apply this public property towards
+the discharge of a part, at least, of that public debt, which is
+hanging round the neck of this nation like a mill-stone? Mr. Ricardo
+proposes to seize upon a part of the private property of every man, to
+be given to the stock-jobbing race. At an act of injustice like this the
+mind revolts. The foolishness of it, besides, is calculated to shock
+one. But in the _public property_ we see the suitable thing. And who can
+possibly object to this, except those, who, amongst them, now divide the
+possession or benefit of this property? I have once before mentioned,
+but I will repeat it, that _Marlborough House_ in Pall Mall, for which
+the Prince of Saxe Coburg pays a rent to the Duke of Marlborough of
+three thousand pounds a-year, is rented of this generous public by that
+most Noble Duke at the rate of less than _forty pounds_ a-year. There
+are three houses in Pall Mall, the whole of which pay a rent _to the
+public_ of about fifteen pounds a-year, I think it is. I myself,
+twenty-two years ago, paid three hundred pounds a-year for one of them,
+to a man that I thought was the owner of them; but I now find that these
+houses belong to the public. The Duke of Buckingham's house in Pall
+Mall, which is one of the grandest in all London, and which is not worth
+less than seven or eight hundred pounds a-year, belongs to the public.
+The Duke is the tenant; and I think he pays for it much less than twenty
+pounds a-year. I speak from memory here all the way along; and therefore
+not positively; I will, another time, state the particulars from the
+books. The book that I am now referring to is also of a date of some
+years back; but I will mention all the particulars another time. Talk of
+_reducing rents_, indeed! Talk of _generous landlords_! It is the public
+that is the generous landlord. It is the public that lets its houses and
+manors and mines and farms at a cheap rate. It certainly would not be so
+good a landlord if it had a Reformed Parliament to manage its affairs,
+nor would it suffer so many snug _Corporations_ to carry on their
+snugglings in the manner that they do, and therefore it is obviously the
+interest of the rich tenants of this poor public, as well as the
+interest of the snugglers in Corporations, to prevent the poor public
+from having such a Parliament.
+
+We got into free-quarter again at Lea; and there is nothing like
+free-quarter, as soldiers well know. Lea is situated on the edge of that
+immense heath which sweeps down from the summit of Hindhead across to
+the north over innumerable hills of minor altitude and of an infinite
+variety of shapes towards Farnham, to the north-east, towards the Hog's
+Back, leading from Farnham to Guildford, and to the east, or nearly so,
+towards Godalming. Nevertheless, the enclosed lands at Lea are very good
+and singularly beautiful. The timber of all sorts grows well; the land
+is light, and being free from stones, very pleasant to work. If you go
+southward from Lea about a mile you get down into what is called, in the
+old Acts of Parliament, the _Weald_ of Surrey. Here the land is a stiff
+tenacious loam at top with blue and yellow clay beneath. This Weald
+continues on eastward, and gets into Sussex near East Grinstead: thence
+it winds about under the hills, into Kent. Here the oak grows finer than
+in any part of England. The trees are more spiral in their form. They
+grow much faster than upon any other land. Yet the timber must be
+better; for, in some of the Acts of Queen Elizabeth's reign, it is
+provided, that the oak for the Royal Navy shall come out of the Wealds
+of Surrey, Sussex, or Kent.
+
+
+_Odiham, Hampshire, Friday, 27 Sept._
+
+From Lea we set off this morning about six o'clock to get free-quarter
+again at a worthy old friend's at this nice little plain market-town.
+Our direct road was right over the heath through Tilford to Farnham; but
+we veered a little to the left after we came to Tilford, at which place
+on the Green we stopped to look at an _oak tree_, which, when I was a
+little boy, was but a very little tree, comparatively, and which is now,
+take it altogether, by far the finest tree that I ever saw in my life.
+The stem or shaft is short; that is to say, it is short before you come
+to the first limbs; but it is full _thirty feet round_, at about eight
+or ten feet from the ground. Out of the stem there come not less than
+fifteen or sixteen limbs, many of which are from five to ten feet round,
+and each of which would, in fact, be considered a decent stick of
+timber. I am not judge enough of timber to say anything about the
+quantity in the whole tree, but my son stepped the ground, and as nearly
+as we could judge, the diameter of the extent of the branches was
+upwards of ninety feet, which would make a circumference of about three
+hundred feet. The tree is in full growth at this moment. There is a
+little hole in one of the limbs; but with that exception, there appears
+not the smallest sign of decay. The tree has made great shoots in all
+parts of it this last summer and spring; and there are no appearances of
+_white_ upon the trunk, such as are regarded as the symptoms of full
+growth. There are many sorts of oak in England; two very distinct; one
+with a pale leaf, and one with a dark leaf: this is of the pale leaf.
+The tree stands upon Tilford-green, the soil of which is a light loam
+with a hard sand stone a good way beneath, and, probably, clay beneath
+that. The spot where the tree stands is about a hundred and twenty feet
+from the edge of a little river, and the ground on which it stands may
+be about ten feet higher than the bed of that river.
+
+In quitting Tilford we came on to the land belonging to Waverly Abbey,
+and then, instead of going on to the town of Farnham, veered away to the
+left towards Wrecklesham, in order to cross the Farnham and Alton
+turnpike-road, and to come on by the side of Crondall to Odiham. We went
+a little out of the way to go to a place called the _Bourn_, which lies
+in the heath at about a mile from Farnham. It is a winding narrow
+valley, down which, during the wet season of the year, there runs a
+stream beginning at the _Holt Forest_, and emptying itself into the
+_Wey_ just below Moor-Park, which was the seat of Sir William Temple
+when Swift was residing with him. We went to this Bourn in order that I
+might show my son the spot where I received the rudiments of my
+education. There is a little hop-garden in which I used to work when
+from eight to ten years old; from which I have scores of times run to
+follow the hounds, leaving the hoe to do the best that it could to
+destroy the weeds; but the most interesting thing was a _sand-hill_,
+which goes from a part of the heath down to the rivulet. As a due
+mixture of pleasure with toil, I, with two brothers, used occasionally
+to _desport_ ourselves, as the lawyers call it, at this sand-hill. Our
+diversion was this: we used to go to the top of the hill, which was
+steeper than the roof of a house; one used to draw his arms out of the
+sleeves of his smock-frock, and lay himself down with his arms by his
+sides; and then the others, one at head and the other at feet, sent him
+rolling down the hill like a barrel or a log of wood. By the time he got
+to the bottom, his hair, eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, were all full of
+this loose sand; then the others took their turn, and at every roll
+there was a monstrous spell of laughter. I had often told my sons of
+this while they were very little, and I now took one of them to see the
+spot. But that was not all. This was the spot where I was receiving my
+_education_; and this was the sort of education; and I am perfectly
+satisfied that if I had not received such an education, or something
+very much like it; that, if I had been brought up a milksop, with a
+nursery-maid everlastingly at my heels, I should have been at this day
+as great a fool, as inefficient a mortal, as any of those frivolous
+idiots that are turned out from Winchester and Westminster Schools, or
+from any of those dens of dunces called Colleges and Universities. It is
+impossible to say how much I owe to that sand-hill; and I went to return
+it my thanks for the ability which it probably gave me to be one of the
+greatest terrors, to one of the greatest and most powerful bodies of
+knaves and fools, that ever were permitted to afflict this or any other
+country.
+
+From the Bourn we proceeded on to Wrecklesham, at the end of which we
+crossed what is called the river Wey. Here we found a parcel of
+labourers at parish-work. Amongst them was an old playmate of mine. The
+account they gave of their situation was very dismal. The harvest was
+over early. The hop-picking is now over; and now they are employed _by
+the Parish_; that is to say, not absolutely digging holes one day and
+filling them up the next; but at the expense of half-ruined farmers and
+tradesmen and landlords, to break stones into very small pieces to make
+nice smooth roads lest the jolting, in going along them, should create
+bile in the stomachs of the overfed tax-eaters. I call upon mankind to
+witness this scene; and to say, whether ever the like of this was heard
+of before. It is a state of things, where all is out of order; where
+self-preservation, that great law of nature, seems to be set at
+defiance; for here are farmers _unable_ to pay men for working for them,
+and yet compelled to pay them for working in doing that which is really
+of no use to any human being. There lie the hop-poles unstripped. You
+see a hundred things in the neighbouring fields that want doing. The
+fences are not nearly what they ought to be. The very meadows, to our
+right and our left in crossing this little valley, would occupy these
+men advantageously until the setting in of the frost; and here are they,
+not, as I said before, actually digging holes one day and filling them
+up the next; but, to all intents and purposes, as uselessly employed. Is
+this Mr. Canning's "_Sun of Prosperity_?" Is this the way to increase or
+preserve a nation's wealth? Is this a sign of wise legislation and of
+good government? Does this thing "work well," Mr. Canning? Does it prove
+that we want no change? True, you were born under a Kingly Government;
+and so was I as well as you; but I was not born under _Six-Acts_; nor
+was I born under a state of things like this. I was not born under it,
+and I do not wish to live under it; and, with God's help, I will change
+it if I can.
+
+We left these poor fellows, after having given them, not "religious
+Tracts," which would, if they could, make the labourer content with half
+starvation, but something to get them some bread and cheese and beer,
+being firmly convinced that it is the body that wants filling and not
+the mind. However, in speaking of their low wages, I told them that the
+farmers and hop-planters were as much objects of compassion as
+themselves, which they acknowledged.
+
+We immediately, alter this, crossed the road, and went on towards
+Crondall upon a soil that soon became stiff loam and flint at top with a
+bed of chalk beneath. We did not go to Crondall; but kept along over
+Slade Heath, and through a very pretty place called Well. We arrived at
+Odiham about half after eleven, at the end of a beautiful ride of about
+seventeen miles, in a very fine and pleasant day.
+
+
+_Winchester, Saturday, 28th September._
+
+Just after daylight we started for this place. By the turnpike we could
+have come through Basingstoke by turning off to the right, or through
+Alton and Alresford by turning off to the left. Being naturally disposed
+towards a middle course, we chose to wind down through Upton-Gray,
+Preston-Candover, Chilton-Candover, Brown-Candover, then down to
+Ovington, and into Winchester by the north entrance. From Wrecklesham to
+Winchester we have come over roads and lanes of flint and chalk. The
+weather being dry again, the ground under you, as solid as iron, makes a
+great rattling with the horses' feet. The country where the soil is
+stiff loam upon chalk is never bad for corn. Not rich, but never poor.
+There is at no time anything deserving to be called dirt in the roads.
+The buildings last a long time, from the absence of fogs and also the
+absence of humidity in the ground. The absence of dirt makes the people
+habitually cleanly; and all along through this country the people appear
+in general to be very neat. It is a country for sheep, which are always
+sound and good upon this iron soil. The trees grow well, where there are
+trees. The woods and coppices are not numerous; but they are good,
+particularly the ash, which always grows well upon the chalk. The oaks,
+though they do not grow in the spiral form, as upon the clays, are by no
+means stunted; and some of them very fine trees; I take it that they
+require a much greater number of years to bring them to perfection than
+in the _Wealds_. The wood, perhaps, may be harder; but I have heard that
+the oak, which grows upon these hard bottoms, is very frequently what
+the carpenters call _shaky_. The underwoods here consist, almost
+entirely, of hazle, which is very fine, and much tougher and more
+durable than that which grows on soils with a moist bottom. This hazle
+is a thing of great utility here. It furnishes rods wherewith to make
+fences; but its principal use is, to make _wattles_ for the folding of
+sheep in the fields. These things are made much more neatly here than in
+the south of Hampshire and in Sussex, or in any other part that I have
+seen. Chalk is the favourite soil of the _yew-tree_; and at
+Preston-Candover there is an avenue of yew-trees, probably a mile long,
+each tree containing, as nearly as I can guess, from twelve to twenty
+feet of timber, which, as the reader knows, implies a tree of
+considerable size. They have probably been a century or two in growing;
+but, in any way that timber can be used, the timber of the yew will
+last, perhaps, ten times as long as the timber of any other tree that we
+grow in England.
+
+Quitting the Candovers, we came along between the two estates of the two
+Barings. Sir Thomas, who has supplanted the Duke of Bedford, was to our
+right, while Alexander, who has supplanted Lord Northington, was on our
+left. The latter has enclosed, as a sort of outwork to his park, a
+pretty little down called Northington Down, in which he has planted,
+here and there, a clump of trees. But Mr. Baring, not reflecting that
+woods are not like funds, to be made at a heat, has planted his trees
+_too large_; so that they are covered with moss, are dying at the top,
+and are literally growing downward instead of upward. In short, this
+enclosure and plantation have totally destroyed the beauty of this part
+of the estate. The down, which was before very beautiful, and formed a
+sort of _glacis_ up to the park pales, is now a marred, ragged,
+ugly-looking thing. The dying trees, which have been planted long enough
+for you not to perceive that they have been planted, excite the idea of
+sterility in the soil. They do injustice to it; for, as a down, it was
+excellent. Everything that has been done here is to the injury of the
+estate, and discovers a most shocking want of taste in the projector.
+Sir Thomas's plantations, or, rather, those of his father, have been
+managed more judiciously.
+
+I do not like to be a sort of spy in a man's neighbourhood; but I will
+tell Sir Thomas Baring what I have heard; and if he be a man of sense I
+shall have his thanks, rather than his reproaches, for so doing. I may
+have been misinformed; but this is what I have heard, that he, and also
+Lady Baring, are very charitable; that they are very kind and
+compassionate to their poor neighbours; but that they tack a sort of
+condition to this charity; that they insist upon the objects of it
+adopting their notions with regard to religion; or, at least, that where
+the people are not what they deem _pious_, they are not objects of their
+benevolence. I do not say, that they are not perfectly sincere
+themselves, and that their wishes are not the best that can possibly be;
+but of this I am very certain, that, by pursuing this principle of
+action, where they make one good man or woman, they will make one
+hundred hypocrites. It is not little books that can make a people good;
+that can make them moral; that can restrain them from committing crimes.
+I believe that books of any sort never yet had that tendency. Sir Thomas
+does, I dare say, think me a very wicked man, since I aim at the
+destruction of the funding system, and what he would call a robbery of
+what he calls the public creditor; and yet, God help me, I have read
+books enough, and amongst the rest, a great part of the religious
+tracts. Amongst the labouring people, the first thing you have to look
+after is, _common honesty_, _speaking the truth_, and _refraining from
+thieving_; and to secure these, the labourer must have _his belly-full_
+and be _free from fear_; and this belly-full must come to him from out
+of his _wages_, and not from benevolence of any description. Such being
+my opinion, I think Sir Thomas Baring would do better, that he would
+discover more real benevolence, by using the influence which he must
+naturally have in his neighbourhood, to prevent a diminution in the
+wages of labour.
+
+
+_Winchester, Sunday Morning, 29 Sept._
+
+Yesterday was market-day here. Everything cheap and falling instead of
+rising. If it were _over-production_ last year that produced the
+_distress_, when are our miseries to have an end! They will end when
+these men cease to have sway, and not before.
+
+I had not been in Winchester long before I heard something very
+interesting about the _manifesto_, concerning the poor, which was lately
+issued here, and upon which I remarked in my last Register but one, in
+my Letter to Sir Thomas Baring. Proceeding upon the true military
+principle, I looked out for free-quarter, which the reader will
+naturally think difficult for _me_ to find in a town containing a
+_Cathedral_. Having done this, I went to the Swan Inn to dine with the
+farmers. This is the manner that I like best of doing the thing.
+_Six-Acts_ do not, to be sure, prevent us from _dining_ together. They
+do not authorize Justices of the Peace to kill us, because we meet to
+dine without their permission. But I do not like Dinner-Meetings on _my_
+account. I like much better to go and fall in with the lads of the land,
+or with anybody else, at their own places of resort; and I am going to
+place myself down at Uphusband, in excellent free-quarter, in the midst
+of all the great fairs of the West, in order, before the winter campaign
+begins, that I may see as many farmers as possible, and that they may
+hear my opinions, and I theirs. I shall be at Weyhill fair on the 10th
+of October, and, perhaps, on some of the succeeding days; and, on one or
+more of those days, I intend to dine at the White Hart, at Andover. What
+other fairs or places I shall go to I shall notify hereafter. And this I
+think the frankest and fairest way. I wish to see many people, and to
+talk to them: and there are a great many people who wish to see and to
+talk to me. What better reason can be given for a man's going about the
+country and dining at fairs and markets?
+
+At the dinner at Winchester we had a good number of opulent yeomen, and
+many gentlemen joined us after the dinner. The state of the country was
+well talked over; and, during the _session_ (much more sensible than
+some other _sessions_ that I have had to remark on), I made the
+following
+
+_RUSTIC HARANGUE._
+
+GENTLEMEN,--Though many here are, I am sure, glad to _see me_, I am not
+vain enough to suppose that anything other than that of wishing to hear
+my opinions on the prospects before us can have induced many to choose
+to be here to dine with me to-day. I shall, before I sit down, propose
+to you a _toast_, which you will drink, or not, as you choose: but I
+shall state one particular wish in that shape, that it may be the more
+distinctly understood, and the better remembered.
+
+The wish to which I allude relates to the _tithes_. Under that word I
+mean to speak of all that mass of wealth which is vulgarly called
+_Church property_: but which is, in fact, _public property_, and may, of
+course, be disposed of as the Parliament shall please. There appears at
+this moment an uncommon degree of anxiety on the part of the parsons to
+see the farmers enabled to pay _rents_. The business of the parsons
+being only with _tithes_, one naturally, at first sight, wonders why
+they should care so much about _rents_. The fact is this: they see
+clearly enough, that the landlords will never long go without rents, and
+suffer them to enjoy the tithes. They see, too, that there must be a
+struggle between the _land_ and the _funds_: they see that there is such
+a struggle. They see, that it is the taxes that are taking away the rent
+of the landlord and the capital of the farmer. Yet the parsons are
+afraid to see the taxes reduced. Why? Because, if the taxes be reduced
+in any great degree (and nothing short of a great degree will give
+relief), they see that the interest of the Debt cannot be paid; and they
+know well, that the interest of the Debt can never be reduced, until
+their tithes have been reduced. Thus, then, they find themselves in a
+great difficulty. They wish the taxes to be kept up and rents to be paid
+too. Both cannot be, unless some means or other be found out of putting
+into, or keeping in, the farmer's pocket, money that is not now there.
+
+The scheme that appears to have been fallen upon for this purpose is the
+strangest in the world, and it must, if attempted to be put into
+execution, produce something little short of open and general commotion;
+namely, that of reducing the wages of labour to a mark so low as to make
+the labourer a walking skeleton. Before I proceed further, it is right
+that I communicate to you an explanation, which, not an hour ago, I
+received from Mr. Poulter, relative to the _manifesto_, lately issued in
+this town by a Bench of Magistrates of which that gentleman was
+Chairman. I have not the honour to be personally acquainted with Mr.
+Poulter, but certainly, if I had misunderstood the manifesto, it was
+right that I should be, if possible, made to understand it. Mr. Poulter,
+in company with another gentleman, came to me in this Inn, and said,
+that the bench did not mean that their resolutions should have the
+effect of _lowering the wages_: and that the sums, stated in the paper,
+were sums to be given in the way of _relief_. We had not the paper
+before us, and, as the paper contained a good deal about relief, I, in
+recollection, confounded the two, and said, that I had understood the
+paper agreeably to the explanation. But upon looking at the paper again,
+I see, that, as to the _words_, there was a clear recommendation to make
+the _wages_ what is there stated. However, seeing that the Chairman
+himself disavows this, we must conclude that the bench put forth words
+not expressing their meaning. To this I must add, as connected with the
+manifesto, that it is stated in that document, that such and such
+justices were present, and a large and respectable number of yeomen who
+had been invited to attend. Now, Gentlemen, I was, I must confess,
+struck with this addition to the bench. These gentlemen have not been
+accustomed to treat farmers with so much attention. It seemed odd, that
+they should want a set of farmers to be present, to give a sort of
+sanction to their acts. Since my arrival in Winchester, I have found,
+however, that having them present was not all; for that the names of
+some of these yeomen were actually inserted in the manuscript of the
+manifesto, and that those names were expunged _at the request of the
+parties named_. This is a very singular proceeding, then, altogether. It
+presents to us a strong picture of the diffidence, or modesty (call it
+which you please) of the justices; and it shows us, that the yeomen
+present did not like to have _their names_ standing as giving sanction
+to the resolutions contained in the manifesto. Indeed, they knew well,
+that those resolutions never could be acted upon. They knew that they
+could not live in safety even in the same village with labourers, paid
+at the rate of 3, 4, and 5 shillings a-week.
+
+To return, now, Gentlemen, to the scheme for squeezing rents out of the
+bones of the labourer, is it not, upon the face of it, most monstrously
+absurd, that this scheme should be resorted to, when the plain and easy
+and just way of insuring rents must present itself to every eye, and can
+be pursued by the Parliament whenever it choose? We hear loud outcries
+against the poor-rates; the _enormous_ poor-rates; the _all-devouring_
+poor-rates; but what are the facts? Why, that, in Great Britain, _six
+millions_ are paid in poor-rates, _seven millions_ (or thereabouts) in
+_tithes_, and _sixty millions_ to the fund-people, the army, placemen,
+and the rest. And yet nothing of all this seems to be thought of but the
+_six_ millions. Surely the other and so much larger sums might to be
+thought of. Even the _six_ millions are, for the far greater part,
+_wages_ and not poor-rates. And yet all this outcry is made about these
+_six_ millions, while not a word is said about the other _sixty-seven_
+millions.
+
+Gentlemen, to enumerate all the ways, in which the public money is
+spent, would take me a week. I will mention two classes of persons who
+are receivers of taxes: and you will then see with what _reason_ it is,
+that this outcry is set up against the poor-rates and against the amount
+of wages. There is a thing called the _Dead Weight_. Incredible as it
+may seem, that such a vulgar appellation should be used in such a way
+and by such persons, it is a fact, that the Ministers have laid before
+the Parliament an account, called the account of the _Dead Weight_. This
+account tells how five millions three hundred thousand pounds are
+distributed annually amongst half-pay officers, pensioners, retired
+commissaries, clerks, and so forth, employed during the last war. If
+there were nothing more entailed upon us by that war, this is pretty
+smart-money. Now unjust, unnecessary as that war was, detestable as it
+was in all its principles and objects, still, to every man, who really
+did _fight_, or who performed a soldier's duty abroad, I would give
+_something_: he should not be left destitute. But, Gentlemen, is it
+right for the nation to keep on paying for life crowds of young fellows
+such as make up the greater part of this _dead weight_? This is not all,
+however, for, there are the widows and the children, who have, and are
+to have, _pensions too_. You seem surprised, and well you may; but this
+is the fact. A young fellow who has a pension for life, aye, or an old
+fellow either, will easily get a wife to enjoy it with him, and he will,
+I'll warrant him, take care that _she_ shall not be _old_. So that here
+is absolutely a premium for entering into the holy state of matrimony.
+The husband, you will perceive, cannot prevent the wife from having the
+pension after his death. She is _our widow_, in this respect, not his.
+She marries, in fact, with a jointure settled on her. The more children
+the husband leaves the better for the widow; for each child has a
+pension for a certain number of years. The man, who, under such
+circumstances, does not marry, must be a woman-hater. An old man
+actually going into the grave, may, by the mere ceremony of marriage,
+give any woman a pension for life. Even the widows and children of
+insane officers are not excluded. If an officer, now insane, but at
+large, were to marry, there is nothing, as the thing now stands, to
+prevent his widow and children from having pensions. Were such things as
+these ever before heard of in the world? Were such premiums ever before
+given for breeding gentlemen and ladies, and that, too, while all sorts
+of projects are on foot to check the breeding of the labouring classes?
+Can such a thing _go on_? I say it cannot; and, if it could, it must
+inevitably render this country the most contemptible upon the face of
+the earth. And yet, not a word of complaint is heard about these five
+millions and a quarter, expended in this way, while the country rings,
+fairly resounds, with the outcry about the six millions that are given
+to the labourers in the shape of poor-rates, but which, in fact, go, for
+the greater part, to pay what ought to be called _wages_. Unless, then,
+we speak out here; unless we call for redress here; unless we here seek
+relief, we shall not only be totally ruined, but we shall _deserve it_.
+
+The other class of persons, to whom I have alluded, as having taxes
+bestowed on them, are the _poor clergy_. Not of the _church_ as by _law_
+established, to be sure, you will say! Yes, Gentlemen, even to the poor
+clergy of the established Church. We know well how _rich_ that Church
+is; we know well how many millions it annually receives; we know how
+opulent are the bishops, how rich they die; how rich, in short, a body
+it is. And yet _fifteen hundred thousand pounds_ have, within the same
+number of years, been given, out of the taxes, partly raised on the
+labourers, for the relief of the _poor_ clergy of that Church, while it
+is notorious that the livings are given in numerous cases by twos and
+threes to the same person, and while a clamour, enough to make the sky
+ring, is made about what is given in the shape of _relief to the
+labouring classes_! Why, Gentlemen, what do we want more than this one
+fact? Does not this one fact sufficiently characterize the system under
+which we live? Does not this prove that a change, a great change, is
+wanted? Would it not be more natural to propose to get this money back
+from the Church, than to squeeze so much out of the bones of the
+labourers? This the Parliament can do if it pleases; and this it will
+do, if you do your duty.
+
+Passing over several other topics, let me, Gentlemen, now come to what,
+at the present moment, most nearly affects you; namely, the _prospect as
+to prices_. In the first place, this depends upon whether Peel's Bill
+will be repealed. As this depends a good deal upon the Ministers, and as
+I am convinced, that they know no more what to do in the present
+emergency than the little boys and girls that are running up and down
+the street before this house, it is impossible for me, or for any one,
+to say what will be done in this respect. But my opinion is decided,
+that the Bill will _not_ be repealed. The Ministers see, that, if they
+were _now_ to go back to the paper, it would not be the paper of 1819;
+but a paper never to be redeemed by gold; that it would be _assignats_
+to all intents and purposes. That must of necessity cause the complete
+overthrow of the Government in a very short time. If, therefore, the
+Ministers see the thing in this light, it is impossible, that they
+should think of a repeal of Peel's Bill. There appeared, last winter, a
+strong disposition to repeal the Bill; and I verily believe, that a
+repeal in effect, though not in name, was actually in contemplation. A
+Bill was brought in, which was described beforehand as intended to
+prolong the issue of small notes, and also to prolong the time for
+making Bank of England notes a legal tender. This would have been a
+repealing of Peel's Bill in great part. The Bill, when brought in, and
+when passed, as it finally was, contained no clause relative to legal
+tender; and without that clause it was perfectly nugatory. Let me
+explain to you, Gentlemen, what this Bill really is. In the seventeenth
+year of the late King's reign, an act was passed for a time limited, to
+prevent the issue of notes payable to bearer on demand, for any sums
+less than five pounds. In the twenty-seventh year of the late King's
+reign, this Act was made _perpetual_; and the preamble of the Act sets
+forth, that it is made perpetual, because the _preventing of small notes
+being made has been proved to be for the good of the nation_.
+Nevertheless, in just ten years afterwards; that is to say, in the year
+one thousand seven hundred and ninety-seven, when the Bank stopped
+payment, this salutary Act was _suspended_; indeed, it was absolutely
+necessary, for there was no gold to pay with. It continued suspended
+until 1819, when Mr. Peel's Bill was passed, when a Bill was passed to
+suspend it still further, until the year 1825. You will observe, then,
+that, last winter there were yet three years to come, during which the
+banks might make small notes if they would. Yet this new Bill was passed
+last winter to authorize them to make small notes until the year 1833.
+The measure was wholly uncalled for. It appeared to be altogether
+unnecessary; but, as I have just said, the intention was to introduce
+into this Bill a clause to continue the _legal tender_ until 1833; and
+that would, indeed, have made a great alteration in the state of things;
+and, if extended to the Bank of England, would have been, in effect, a
+complete repeal of Peel's Bill.
+
+It was fully expected by the country bankers, that the legal tender
+clause would have been inserted; but, before it came to the trial, the
+Ministers gave way, and the clause was not inserted. The reason for
+their giving way, I do verily believe, had its principal foundation in
+their perceiving, that the public would clearly see, that such a
+measure would make the paper-money merely assignats. The legal tender
+not having been enacted, the Small-note Bill can do nothing towards
+augmenting the quantity of circulating medium. As the law now stands,
+Bank of England notes are, in effect, a _legal tender_. If I owe a debt
+of twenty pounds, and tender Bank of England notes in payment, the law
+says that you shall not arrest me; that you may bring your action, if
+you like; that I may pay the notes into Court; that you may go on with
+your action; that you shall pay all the costs, and I none. At last you
+gain your action; you obtain judgment and execution, or whatever else
+the everlasting law allows of. And what have you got then? Why the
+_notes_; the same identical notes the Sheriff will bring you. You will
+not take them. Go to law with the Sheriff then. He pays the _notes_ into
+Court. More costs for you to pay. And thus you go on; but without ever
+touching or seeing gold!
+
+Now, Gentlemen, Peel's Bill puts an end to all this pretty work on the
+first day of next May. If you have a handful of a country banker's rags
+_now_, and go to him for payment, he will tender you Bank of England
+notes; and if you like the paying of costs you may go to law for gold.
+But when the first of next May comes, he must put gold into your hands
+in exchange for your notes, if you choose it; or you may clap a
+bailiff's hand upon his shoulder: and if he choose to pay into Court, he
+must pay in gold, and pay your costs also as far as you have gone.
+
+This makes a strange alteration in the thing! And everybody must see,
+that the Bank of England, and the country bankers; that all, in short,
+are preparing for the first of May. It is clear that there must be a
+farther diminution of the paper-money. It is hard to say the precise
+degree of effect that this will have upon prices; but that it must bring
+them down is clear; and, for my own part, I am fully persuaded, that
+they will come down to the standard of prices in France, be those prices
+what they may. This, indeed, was acknowledged by Mr. Huskisson in the
+Agricultural Report of 1821. That two countries so near together, both
+having gold as a currency or standard, should differ very widely from
+each other, in the prices of farm-produce, is next to impossible; and
+therefore, when our legal tender shall be completely done away, to the
+prices of France you must come; and those prices cannot, I think, in the
+present state of Europe, much exceed three or four shillings a bushel
+for good wheat.
+
+You know, as well as I do, that it is impossible, with the present taxes
+and rates and tithes, to pay any rent at all with prices upon that
+scale. Let loan-jobbers, stock-jobbers, Jews, and the whole tribe of
+tax-eaters say what they will, you know that it is impossible, as you
+also know it would be cruelly unjust to wring from the labourer the
+means of paying rent, while those taxes and tithes remain. Something
+must be taken off. The labourers' wages have already been reduced as low
+as possible. All public pay and salaries ought to be reduced; and the
+tithes also ought to be reduced, as they might be to a great amount
+without any injury to religion. The interest of the debt ought to be
+largely reduced; but, as none of the others can, with any show of
+justice, take place, without a reduction of the tithes, and as I am for
+confining myself to one object at present, I will give you as a Toast,
+leaving you to drink it or not, as you please, _A large Reduction of
+Tithes_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Somebody proposed to drink this Toast with _three times three_, which
+was accordingly done, and the sound might have been heard down to the
+close.--Upon some Gentleman giving _my health_, I took occasion to
+remind the company that the last time I was at Winchester we had the
+memorable fight with Lockhart "the Brave" and his sable friends. I
+reminded them that it was in that same room that I told them that it
+would not be long before Mr. Lockhart and those sable gentlemen would
+become enlightened; and I observed that, if we were to judge from a
+man's language, there was not a land-owner in England that more keenly
+felt than Mr. Lockhart the truth of those predictions which I had put
+forth at the Castle on the day alluded to. I reminded the company that I
+sailed for America in a few days after that meeting; that they must be
+well aware that, on the day of the meeting, I knew that I was taking
+leave of the country, but, I observed, that I had not been in the least
+depressed by that circumstance; because I relied, with perfect
+confidence, on being in this same place again, to enjoy, as I now did, a
+triumph over my adversaries.
+
+After this, Mr. Hector gave a _Constitutional Reform in the Commons'
+House of Parliament_, which was drunk with great enthusiasm; and Mr.
+Hector's health having been given, he, in returning thanks, urged his
+brother yeomen and freeholders to do their duty by coming forward in
+county meeting and giving their support to those noblemen and gentlemen
+that were willing to stand forward for a reform and for a reduction of
+taxation. I held forth to them the example of the county of Kent, which
+had done itself so much honour by its conduct last spring. What these
+gentlemen in Hampshire will do it is not for me to say. If nothing be
+done by them, they will certainly be ruined, and that ruin they will
+certainly deserve. It was to the farmers that the Government owed its
+strength to carry on the war. Having them with it, in consequence of a
+false and bloated prosperity, it cared not a straw for anybody else. If
+they, therefore, now do their duty; if they all, like the yeomen and
+farmers of Kent, come boldly forward, everything will be done necessary
+to preserve themselves and their country; and if they do not come
+forward, they will, as men of property, be swept from the face of the
+earth. The noblemen and gentlemen who are in Parliament, and who are
+disposed to adopt measures of effectual relief, cannot move with any
+hope of success unless backed by the yeomen and farmers, and the
+middling classes throughout the country generally. I do not mean to
+confine myself to yeomen and farmers, but to take in all tradesmen and
+men of property. With these at their back, or rather, at the back of
+these, there are men enough in both Houses of Parliament to propose and
+to urge measures suitable to the exigency of the case. But without the
+middling classes to _take the lead_, those noblemen and gentlemen can do
+nothing. Even the Ministers themselves, if they were so disposed (and
+they must be so disposed at last) could make none of the reforms that
+are necessary, _without being actually urged on by the middle classes of
+the community_. This is a very important consideration. A new man, as
+Minister, might indeed propose the reforms himself; but these men,
+Opposition as well as Ministry, are so _pledged_ to the things that have
+brought all this ruin upon the country, that they absolutely stand in
+need of an overpowering call from the people to justify them in doing
+that which they themselves may think just, and which they may know to be
+necessary for the salvation of the country. They dare not take the lead
+in the necessary reforms. It is too much to be expected of any men upon
+the face of the earth, pledged and situated as these Ministers are; and
+therefore, unless the people will do their duty, they will have
+themselves, and only themselves, to thank for their ruin, and for that
+load of disgrace, and for that insignificance worse than disgrace which
+seems, after so many years of renown, to be attaching themselves to the
+name of England.
+
+
+_Uphusband, Sunday Evening, 29 Sept. 1822._
+
+We came along the turnpike-road, through Wherwell and Andover, and got
+to this place about 2 o'clock. This country, except at the village and
+town just mentioned, is very open, a thinnish soil upon a bed of chalk.
+Between Winchester and Wherwell we came by some hundreds of acres of
+ground that was formerly most beautiful down, which was broken up in
+dear-corn times, and which is now a district of thistles and other
+weeds. If I had such land as this I would soon make it down again. I
+would for once (that is to say if I had the money) get it quite clean,
+prepare it as for sowing turnips, get the turnips if possible, feed them
+off early, or plough the ground if I got no turnips; sow thick with
+Saint-foin and meadow-grass seeds of all sorts, early in September; let
+the crop stand till the next July; feed it then slenderly with sheep,
+and dig up all thistles and rank weeds that might appear; keep feeding
+it, but not too close, during the summer and the fall; and keep on
+feeding it for ever after as a down. The Saint-foin itself would last
+for many years; and as it disappeared, its place would be supplied by
+the grass; that sort which was most congenial to the soil, would at last
+stifle all other sorts, and the land would become a valuable down as
+formerly.
+
+I see that some plantations of ash and of hazle have been made along
+here; but, with great submission to the planters, I think they have gone
+the wrong way to work, as to the mode of preparing the ground. They have
+planted _small trees_, and that is right; they have _trenched_ the
+ground, and that is also right; but they have brought the bottom soil to
+the top; and that is _wrong_, always; and especially where the bottom
+soil is gravel or chalk, or clay. I know that some people will say that
+this is a _puff_; and let it pass for that; but if any gentleman that is
+going to plant trees will look into my _Book on Gardening_, and into the
+Chapter on _Preparing the Soil_, he will, I think, see how conveniently
+ground may be trenched without bringing to the top that soil in which
+the young trees stand so long without making shoots.
+
+This country, though so open, has its beauties. The homesteads in the
+sheltered bottoms with fine lofty trees about the houses and yards form
+a beautiful contrast with the large open fields. The little villages,
+running straggling along the dells (always with lofty trees and
+rookeries) are very interesting objects, even in the winter. You feel a
+sort of satisfaction, when you are out upon the bleak hills yourself, at
+the thought of the shelter which is experienced in the dwellings in the
+valleys.
+
+Andover is a neat and solid market-town. It is supported entirely by the
+agriculture around it; and how the makers of _population returns_ ever
+came to think of classing the inhabitants of such a town as this under
+any other head than that of "_persons employed in agriculture_," would
+appear astonishing to any man who did not know those population return
+makers as well as I do.
+
+The village of Uphusband, the legal name of which is Hurstbourn
+Tarrant, is, as the reader will recollect, a great favourite with me,
+not the less so certainly on account of the excellent free-quarter that
+it affords.
+
+
+
+
+THROUGH HAMPSHIRE, BERKSHIRE, SURREY, AND SUSSEX, BETWEEN 7th OCTOBER
+AND 1ST DECEMBER, 1822, 327 MILES.
+
+
+_7th to 10th Oct. 1822._
+
+At Uphusband, a little village in a deep dale, about five miles to the
+North of Andover, and about three miles to the South of the Hills at
+_Highclere_. The wheat is sown here, and up, and, as usual, at this time
+of the year, looks very beautiful. The wages of the labourers brought
+down to _six shillings a week_! a horrible thing to think of; but, I
+hear, it is still worse in Wiltshire.
+
+
+_11th October._
+
+Went to Weyhill fair, at which I was about 46 years ago, when I rode a
+little pony, and remember how proud I was on the occasion; but I also
+remember that my brothers, two out of three of whom were older than I,
+thought it unfair that my father selected me; and my own reflections
+upon the occasion have never been forgotten by me. The 11th of October
+is the Sheep-fair. About 300,000_l._ used, some few years ago, to be
+carried home by the sheep-sellers. To-day, less, perhaps, than
+70,000_l._, and yet the _rents_ of these sheep-sellers are, perhaps, as
+high, on an average, as they were then. The countenances of the farmers
+were descriptive of their ruinous state. I never, in all my life, beheld
+a more mournful scene. There is a horse-fair upon another part of the
+down; and there I saw horses keeping pace in depression with the sheep.
+A pretty numerous group of the tax-eaters, from Andover and the
+neighbourhood, were the only persons that had smiles on their faces. I
+was struck with a young farmer trotting a horse backward and forward to
+show him off to a couple of gentlemen, who were bargaining for the
+horse, and one of whom finally purchased him. These _gentlemen_ were two
+of our "_dead-weight_," and the horse was that on which the farmer had
+pranced in the _Yeomanry Troop_! Here is a turn of things! Distress;
+pressing distress; dread of the bailiffs alone could have made the
+farmer sell his horse. If he had the firmness to keep the tears out of
+his eyes, his heart must have paid the penalty. What, then, must have
+been his feelings, if he reflected, as I did, that the purchase-money
+for the horse had first gone from his pocket into that of the
+_dead-weight_! And, further, that the horse had pranced about for years
+for the purpose of subduing all opposition to those very measures, which
+had finally dismounted the owner!
+
+From this dismal scene, a scene formerly so joyous, we set off back to
+Uphusband pretty early, were overtaken by the rain, and got a pretty
+good soaking. The land along here is very good. This whole country has a
+chalk bottom; but, in the valley on the right of the hill over which you
+go from Andover to Weyhill, the chalk lies far from the top, and the
+soil has few flints in it. It is very much like the land about Malden
+and Maidstone. Met with a farmer who said he must be ruined, unless
+another "good war" should come! This is no uncommon notion. They saw
+high prices _with_ war, and they thought that the war was the _cause_.
+
+
+_12 to 16 of October._
+
+The fair was too dismal for me to go to it again. My sons went two of
+the days, and their account of the hop-fair was enough to make one
+gloomy for a month, particularly as my townsmen of Farnham were, in this
+case, amongst the sufferers. On the 12th I went to dine with and to
+harangue the farmers at Andover. Great attention was paid to what I had
+to say. The crowding to get into the room was a proof of nothing,
+perhaps, but _curiosity_; but there must have been a _cause_ for the
+curiosity, and that cause would, under the present circumstances, be
+matter for reflection with a wise government.
+
+
+_17 October._
+
+Went to Newbury to dine with and to harangue the farmers. It was a
+fair-day. It rained so hard that I had to stop at Burghclere to dry my
+clothes, and to borrow a great coat to keep me dry for the rest of the
+way; so as not to have to sit in wet clothes. At Newbury the company was
+not less attentive or less numerous than at Andover. Some one of the
+tax-eating crew had, I understand, called me an "incendiary." The day is
+passed for those tricks. They deceive no longer. Here, at Newbury, I
+took occasion to notice the base accusation of _Dundas_, the Member for
+the County. I stated it as something that I had heard of, and I was
+proceeding to charge him conditionally, when Mr. Tubb of Shillingford
+rose from his seat, and said, "I myself, Sir, heard him say the words."
+I had heard of his vile conduct long before; but I abstained from
+charging him with it till an opportunity should offer for doing it in
+his own country. After the dinner was over I went back to Burghclere.
+
+
+_18 to 20 October._
+
+At Burghclere, one half the time writing, and the other half
+hare-hunting.
+
+
+_21 October._
+
+Went back to Uphusband.
+
+
+_22 October._
+
+Went to dine with the farmers at Salisbury, and got back to Uphusband by
+ten o'clock at night, two hours later than I have been out of bed for a
+great many months.
+
+In quitting Andover to go to Salisbury (17 miles from each other) you
+cross the beautiful valley that goes winding down amongst the hills to
+Stockbridge. You then rise into the open country that very soon becomes
+a part of that large tract of downs, called Salisbury Plain. You are not
+in Wiltshire, however, till you are about half the way to Salisbury. You
+leave Tidworth away to your right. This is the seat of Asheton Smith;
+and the fine _coursing_ that I once saw there I should have called to
+recollection with pleasure, if I could have forgotten the hanging of the
+men at Winchester last Spring for resisting one of this Smith's
+game-keepers! This Smith's son and a Sir John Pollen are the members for
+Andover. They are chosen by the Corporation. One of the Corporation, an
+Attorney, named Etwall, is a Commissioner of the Lottery, or something
+in that way. It would be a curious thing to ascertain how large a
+portion of the "public services" is performed by the voters in Boroughs
+and their relations. These persons are singularly kind to the nation.
+They not only choose a large part of the "representatives of the
+people;" but they come in person, or by deputy, and perform a very
+considerable part of the "_public services_." I should like to know how
+many of them are employed about the _Salt-Tax_, for instance. A list of
+these public-spirited persons might be produced to show the _benefit_ of
+the Boroughs.
+
+Before you get to Salisbury, you cross the valley that brings down a
+little river from Amesbury. It is a very beautiful valley. There is a
+chain of farmhouses and little churches all the way up it. The farms
+consist of the land on the flats on each side of the river, running out
+to a greater or less extent, at different places, towards the hills and
+downs. Not far above Amesbury is a little village called Netherhaven,
+where I once saw an _acre of hares_. We were coursing at Everly, a few
+miles off; and one of the party happening to say, that he had seen "an
+acre of hares" at Mr. Hicks Beech's at Netherhaven, we, who wanted to
+see the same, or to detect our informant, sent a messenger to beg a
+day's coursing, which being granted, we went over the next day. Mr.
+Beech received us very politely. He took us into a wheat stubble close
+by his paddock; his son took a gallop round, cracking his whip at the
+same time; the hares (which were very thickly in sight before) started
+all over the field, ran into a _flock_ like sheep; and we all agreed,
+that the flock did cover _an acre of ground_. Mr. Beech had an old
+greyhound, that I saw lying down in the shrubbery close by the house,
+while several hares were sitting and skipping about, with just as much
+confidence as cats sit by a dog in a kitchen or a parlour. Was this
+_instinct_ in either dog or hares? Then, mind, this same greyhound went
+amongst the rest to course with us out upon the distant hills and lands;
+and then he ran as eagerly as the rest, and killed the hares with as
+little remorse. Philosophers will talk a long while before they will
+make men believe, that this was _instinct alone_. I believe that this
+dog had much more reason than half of the Cossacks have; and I am sure
+he had a great deal more than many a Negro that I have seen.
+
+In crossing this valley to go to Salisbury, I thought of Mr. Beech's
+hares; but I really have neither thought of nor seen any _game_ with
+pleasure, since the hanging of the two men at Winchester. If no other
+man will petition for the repeal of the law, under which those poor
+fellows suffered, I will. But let us hope, that there will be no need of
+petitioning. Let us hope, that it will be repealed without any express
+application for it. It is curious enough that laws of this sort should
+_increase_, while _Sir James Mackintosh_ is so resolutely bent on
+"_softening the criminal code_!" The company at Salisbury was very
+numerous; not less than 500 farmers were present. They were very
+attentive to what I said, and, which rather surprised me, they received
+very docilely what I said against squeezing the labourers. A fire in a
+farmyard had lately taken place near Salisbury; so that the subject was
+a ticklish one. But it was my very first duty to treat of it, and I was
+resolved, be the consequence what it might, not to neglect that duty.
+
+
+_23 to 26 October._
+
+At Uphusband. At this village, which is a great thoroughfare for sheep
+and pigs, from Wiltshire and Dorsetshire to Berkshire, Oxfordshire, and
+away to the North and North East, we see many farmers from different
+parts of the country; and, if I had had any doubts before, as to the
+deplorableness of their state, those would now no longer exist. I did,
+indeed, years ago, prove, that if we returned to cash payments without a
+reduction of the Debt, and without a rectifying of contracts, the
+present race of farmers must be ruined. But still, when the thing
+actually comes, it astounds one. It is like the death of a friend or
+relation. We talk of its approach without much emotion. We foretell the
+_when_ without much seeming pain. We know it _must be_. But, when it
+comes, we forget our foretellings, and feel the calamity as acutely as
+if we had never expected it. The accounts we hear, daily, and almost
+hourly, of the families of farmers actually coming to the _parish-book_,
+are enough to make any body but a Boroughmonger feel. That species of
+monster is to be moved by nothing but his own pecuniary sufferings; and,
+thank God, the monster is now about to be _reached_. I hear, from all
+parts, that the parsons are in great alarm! Well they may, if their
+hearts be too much set upon the treasures of this world; for I can see
+no possible way of settling this matter justly, without resorting to
+their temporalities. They have long enough been calling upon all the
+industrious classes for "sacrifices for the good of the country." The
+time seems to be come for them to do something in this way themselves.
+In a short time there will be, because there can be, no rents. And, we
+shall see, whether the landlords will then suffer the parsons to
+continue to receive a tenth part of the produce of the land! In many
+places the farmers have had the sense and the spirit to _rate_ the
+tithes to the _poor-rates_. This they _ought_ to do in all cases,
+whether the tithes be taken up in kind or not. This, however, sweats the
+fire-shovel hat gentleman. It "bothers his wig." He does not know what
+to think of it. He does not know _who to blame_; and, where a parson
+finds things not to his mind, the first thing he always does is, to look
+about for somebody to accuse of sedition and blasphemy. Lawyers always
+begin, in such cases, to hunt the books, to see if there be no
+_punishment_ to apply. But the devil of it is, neither of them have now
+any body to lay on upon! I always told them, that there would arise an
+enemy, that would laugh at all their anathemas, informations, dungeons,
+halters and bayonets. One positive good has, however, arisen out of the
+present calamities, and that is, the _parsons_ are grown more _humble_
+than they were. Cheap corn and a good thumping debt have greatly
+conduced to the producing of the Christian virtue, _humility_, necessary
+in us all, but doubly necessary in the priesthood. The parson is now one
+of the parties who is taking away the landlord's estate and the farmer's
+capital. When the farmer's capital is gone, there will be no rents; but,
+without a law upon the subject, the parson will still have his tithe,
+and a tithe upon the _taxes_ too, which the land has to bear! Will the
+landlords stand this? No matter. If there be no reform of the
+Parliament, they must stand it. The two sets may, for aught I care,
+worry each other as long as they please. When the present race of
+farmers are gone (and that will soon be) the landlord and the parson may
+settle the matter between them. They will be the only parties
+interested; and which of them shall devour the other appears to be of
+little consequence to the rest of the community. They agreed most
+cordially in creating the Debt. They went hand in hand in all the
+measures against the Reformers. They have made, actually made, the very
+thing that now frightens them, which now menaces them with _total
+extinction_. They cannot think it unjust, if their prayers be now
+treated as the prayers of the Reformers were.
+
+
+_27 to 29 October._
+
+At Burghclere. Very nasty weather. On the 28th the fox-hounds came to
+throw off at _Penwood_, in this parish. Having heard that _Dundas_ would
+be out with the hounds, I rode to the place of meeting, in order to look
+him in the face, and to give him an opportunity to notice, on his own
+peculiar dunghill, what I had said of him at Newbury. He came. I rode up
+to him and about him; but he said not a word. The company entered the
+wood, and I rode back towards my quarters. They found a fox, and quickly
+lost him. Then they came out of the wood and came back along the road,
+and met me, and passed me, they as well as I going at a foot pace. I had
+plenty of time to survey them all well, and to mark their looks. I
+watched Dundas's eyes, but the devil a bit could I get them to turn _my
+way_. He is _paid_ for the present. We shall see, whether he will go, or
+send an ambassador, or neither, when I shall be at Reading on the 9th of
+next month.
+
+
+_30 October._
+
+Set off for London. Went by Alderbridge, Crookham, Brimton, Mortimer,
+Strathfield Say, Heckfield Heath, Eversley, Blackwater, and slept at
+Oakingham. This is, with trifling exceptions, a miserably poor country.
+Burghclere lies along at the foot of a part of that chain of hills,
+which, in this part, divide Hampshire from Berkshire. The parish just
+named is, indeed, in Hampshire, but it forms merely the foot of the
+Highclere and Kingsclere Hills. These hills, from which you can see all
+across the country, even to the Isle of Wight, are of chalk, and with
+them, towards the North, ends the chalk. The soil over which I have come
+to-day, is generally a stony sand upon a bed of gravel. With the
+exception of the land just round Crookham and the other villages,
+nothing can well be poorer or more villanously ugly. It is all first
+cousin to Hounslow Heath, of which it is, in fact, a continuation to the
+Westward. There is a clay at the bottom of the gravel; so that you have
+here nasty stagnant pools without fertility of soil. The rushes grow
+amongst the gravel; sure sign that there is clay beneath to hold the
+water; for, unless there be water constantly at their roots, rushes will
+not grow. Such land is, however, good for _oaks_ wherever there is soil
+enough on the top of the gravel for the oak to get hold, and to send its
+tap-root down to the clay. The oak is the thing to plant here; and,
+_therefore_, this whole country contains not one single plantation of
+oaks! That is to say, as far as I observed. Plenty of _fir_-trees and
+other rubbish have been recently planted; but no oaks.
+
+At _Strathfield Say_ is that everlasting monument of English Wisdom
+Collective, the _Heir Loom Estate_ of the "_greatest Captain of the
+Age_!" In his peerage it is said, that it was wholly out of the power of
+the nation to reward his services fully; but, that "she did what she
+could!" Well, poor devil! And what could any body ask for more? It was
+well, however, that she give what she did while she was drunk; for, if
+she had held her hand till now, I am half disposed to think, that her
+gifts would have been very small. I can never forget that we have to pay
+interest on 50,000_l._ of the money merely owing to the coxcombery of
+the late Mr. Whitbread, who actually moved that _addition_ to one of the
+grants proposed by the Ministers! Now, a great part of the grants is in
+the way of annuity or pension. It is notorious, that, when the grants
+were made, the pensions would not purchase more than a third part of as
+much wheat as they will now. The grants, therefore, have been augmented
+threefold. What right, then, has any one to say, that the _labourers'
+wages_ ought to fall, unless he say, that these pensions ought to be
+reduced! The Hampshire Magistrates, when they were putting forth their
+_manifesto_ about the allowances to labourers, should have noticed these
+pensions of the Lord Lieutenant of the County. However, real starvation
+cannot be inflicted to any very great extent. The present race of
+farmers must give way, and the attempts to squeeze rents out of the
+wages of labour must cease. And the matter will finally rest to be
+settled by the landlords, parsons, and tax-eaters. If the landlords
+choose to give the greatest captain three times as much as was granted
+to him, why, let him have it. According to all account, he is no _miser_
+at any rate; and the estates that pass through his hands may, perhaps,
+be full as well disposed of as they are at present. Considering the
+miserable soil I have passed over to-day, I am rather surprised to find
+Oakingham so decent a town. It has a very handsome market-place, and is
+by no means an ugly country-town.
+
+
+_31 October._
+
+Set off at daylight and got to Kensington about noon. On leaving
+Oakingham for London, you get upon what is called _Windsor Forest_; that
+is to say, upon as bleak, as barren, and as villanous a heath as ever
+man set his eyes on. However, here are new enclosures without end. And
+here are houses too, here and there, over the whole of this execrable
+tract of country. "What!" Mr. Canning will say, "will you not allow that
+the owners of these new enclosures and these houses know their own
+interests? And are not these _improvements_, and are they not a proof of
+an addition to the national capital?" To the first I answer, _May be
+so_; to the two last, _No_. These new enclosures and houses arise out of
+the beggaring of the parts of the country distant from the vortex of the
+funds. The farmhouses have long been growing fewer and fewer; the
+labourers' houses fewer and fewer; and it is manifest to every man who
+has eyes to see with, that the villages are regularly wasting away. This
+is the case all over the parts of the kingdom where the tax-eaters do
+not haunt. In all the really agricultural villages and parts of the
+kingdom, there is a _shocking decay_; a great dilapidation and constant
+pulling down or falling down of houses. The farmhouses are not so many
+as they were forty years ago by three-fourths. That is to say, the
+infernal system of Pitt and his followers has annihilated three parts
+out of four of the farm houses. The labourers' houses disappear also.
+And all the _useful_ people become less numerous. While these spewy
+sands and gravel near London are enclosed and built on, good lands in
+other parts are neglected. These enclosures and buildings are a _waste_;
+they are means _misapplied_; they are a proof of national decline and
+not of prosperity. To cultivate and ornament these villanous spots the
+produce and the population are drawn away from the good lands. There all
+manner of schemes have been resorted to to get rid of the necessity of
+_hands_; and, I am quite convinced, that the population, upon the whole,
+has not increased, in England, one single soul since I was born; an
+opinion that I have often expressed, in support of which I have as often
+offered arguments, and those arguments have _never been answered_. As to
+this rascally heath, that which has ornamented it has brought misery on
+millions. The spot is not far distant from the Stock-Jobbing crew. The
+roads to it are level. They are smooth. The wretches can go to it from
+the 'Change without any danger to their worthless necks. And thus it is
+"_vastly improved, Ma'am_!" A set of men who can look upon this as
+"improvement," who can regard this as a proof of the "increased capital
+of the country," are pretty fit, it must be allowed, to get the country
+out of its present difficulties! At the end of this blackguard heath you
+come (on the road to Egham) to a little place called _Sunning Hill_,
+which is on the Western side of Windsor Park. It is a spot all made into
+"grounds" and gardens by tax-eaters. The inhabitants of it have beggared
+twenty agricultural villages and hamlets.
+
+From this place you go across a corner of Windsor Park, and come out at
+Virginia Water. To Egham is then about two miles. A much more ugly
+country than that between Egham and Kensington would with great
+difficulty be found in England. Flat as a pancake, and, until you come
+to Hammersmith, the soil is a nasty stony dirt upon a bed of gravel.
+Hounslow-heath, which is only a little worse than the general run, is a
+sample of all that is bad in soil and villanous in look. Yet this is now
+enclosed, and what they call "cultivated." Here is a fresh robbery of
+villages, hamlets, and farm and labourers' buildings and abodes! But
+here is one of those "_vast improvements, Ma'am_," called _Barracks_.
+What an "improvement!" What an "addition to the national capital!" For,
+mind, Monsieur de Snip, the Surrey Norman, actually said, that the new
+buildings ought to be reckoned an addition to the national capital!
+What, Snip! Do you pretend that the nation is _richer_, because the
+means of making this barrack have been drawn away from the people in
+taxes? Mind, Monsieur le Normand, the barrack did not drop down from the
+sky nor spring up out of the earth. It was not created by the unhanged
+knaves of paper-money. It came out of the people's labour; and, when you
+hear Mr. Ellman tell the Committee of 1821, that forty-five years ago
+every man in his parish brewed his own beer, and that now not one man in
+that same parish does it; when you hear this, Monsieur de Snip, you
+might, if you had brains in your skull, be able to estimate the effects
+of what has produced the barrack. Yet, barracks there must be, or
+_Gatton_ and _Old Sarum_ must fall; and the fall of these would break
+poor Mr. Canning's heart.
+
+
+_8 November._
+
+From London to Egham in the evening.
+
+
+_9 November._
+
+Started at day-break in a hazy frost, for Reading. The horses' manes and
+ears covered with the hoar before we got across Windsor Park, which
+appeared to be a blackguard soil, pretty much like Hounslow Heath, only
+not flat. A very large part of the Park is covered with heath or rushes,
+sure sign of execrable soil. But the roads are such as might have been
+made by Solomon. "A greater than Solomon is here!" some one may exclaim.
+Of that I know nothing. I am but a traveller; and the roads in this park
+are beautiful indeed. My servant, whom I brought from amongst the hills
+and flints of Uphusband, must certainly have thought himself in Paradise
+as he was going through the Park. If I had told him that the buildings
+and the labourers' clothes and meals, at Uphusband, were the _worse_ for
+those pretty roads with edgings cut to the line, he would have wondered
+at me, I dare say. It would, nevertheless, have been perfectly true; and
+this is _feelosofee_ of a much more useful sort than that which is
+taught by the Edinburgh Reviewers.
+
+When you get through the Park you come to Winkfield, and then (bound for
+Reading) you go through Binfield, which is ten miles from Egham and as
+many from Reading. At Binfield I stopped to breakfast, at a very nice
+country inn called the _Stag and Hounds_. Here you go along on the North
+border of that villanous tract of country that I passed over in going
+from Oakingham to Egham. Much of the land even here is but newly
+enclosed; and it was really not worth a straw before it was loaded with
+the fruit of the labour of the people living in the parts of the country
+distant from the _Fund-Wen_. What injustice! What unnatural changes!
+Such things cannot be, without producing convulsion in the end! A road
+as smooth as a die, a real stock-jobber's road, brought us to Reading by
+eleven o'clock. We dined at one; and very much pleased I was with the
+company. I have seldom seen a number of persons assembled together,
+whose approbation I valued more than that of the company of this day.
+Last year the prime Minister said, that his speech (the grand speech)
+was rendered necessary by the "pains that had been taken, in different
+parts of the country," to persuade the farmers, that the distress had
+arisen out of the _measures of the government_, and _not from
+over-production_! To be sure I had taken some pains to remove that
+stupid notion about over-production, from the minds of the farmers; but
+did the stern-path-man _succeed_ in counteracting the effect of my
+efforts? Not he, indeed. And, after his speech was made, and sent forth
+cheek by jowl with that of the sane Castlereagh, of hole-digging memory,
+the truths inculcated by me were only the more manifest. This has been a
+fine meeting at Reading! I feel very proud of it. The morning was fine
+for me to ride in, and the rain began as soon as I was housed.
+
+I came on horse-back 40 miles, slept on the road, and finished my
+harangue at the end of _twenty-two hours_ from leaving Kensington; and,
+I cannot help saying, that is pretty well for "_Old_ Cobbett." I am
+delighted with the people that I have seen at Reading. Their kindness to
+me is nothing in my estimation compared with the sense and spirit which
+they appear to possess. It is curious to observe how things have
+_worked_ with me. That combination, that sort of _instinctive_ union,
+which has existed for so many years, amongst all the parties, to _keep
+me down_ generally, and particularly, as the _County-Club_ called it, to
+keep me out of Parliament "_at any rate_," this combination has led to
+the present _haranguing_ system, which, in some sort, supplies the place
+of a seat in Parliament. It may be said, indeed, that I have not the
+honour to sit in the same room with those great Reformers, Lord John
+Russell, Sir Massey Lopez, and his guest, Sir Francis Burdett; but man's
+happiness here below is never perfect; and there may be, besides, people
+to believe, that a man ought not to break his heart on account of being
+shut out of such company, especially when he can find such company as I
+have this day found at Reading.
+
+
+_10 November._
+
+Went from Reading, through Aldermaston for Burghclere. The rain has been
+very heavy, and the water was a good deal out. Here, on my way, I got
+upon Crookham Common again, which is a sort of continuation of the
+wretched country about Oakingham. From Highclere I looked, one day, over
+the flat towards Marlborough; and I there saw some such rascally heaths.
+So that this villanous tract, extends from East to West, with more or
+less of exceptions, from Hounslow to Hungerford. From North to South it
+extends from Binfield (which cannot be far from the borders of
+Buckinghamshire) to the South Downs of Hampshire, and terminates
+somewhere between Liphook and Petersfield, after stretching over
+Hindhead, which is certainly the most villanous spot that God ever made.
+Our ancestors do, indeed, seem to have ascribed its formation to another
+power; for the most celebrated part of it is called "_the Devil's Punch
+Bowl_." In this tract of country there are certainly some very beautiful
+spots. But these are very few in number, except where the chalk-hills
+run into the tract. The neighbourhood of Godalming ought hardly to be
+considered as an exception; for there you are just on the outside of the
+tract, and begin to enter on the _Wealds_; that is to say, clayey
+woodlands. All the part of Berkshire, of which I have been recently
+passing over, if I except the tract from Reading to Crookham, is very
+bad land and a very ugly country.
+
+
+_11 November._
+
+Uphusband _once more_, and, for the sixth time this year, over the North
+Hampshire Hills, which, notwithstanding their everlasting flints, I like
+very much. As you ride along, even in a _green lane_, the horses' feet
+make a noise like _hammering_. It seems as if you were riding on a mass
+of iron. Yet the soil is good, and bears some of the best wheat in
+England. All these high, and indeed, all chalky lands, are excellent for
+sheep. But, on the top of some of these hills, there are as fine meadows
+as I ever saw. Pasture richer, perhaps, than that about Swindon in the
+North of Wiltshire. And the singularity is, that this pasture is on the
+_very tops_ of these lofty hills, from which you can see the Isle of
+Wight. There is a stiff loam, in some places twenty feet deep, on a
+bottom of chalk. Though the grass grows so finely, there is no apparent
+wetness in the land. The wells are more than three hundred feet deep.
+The main part of the water, for all uses, comes from the clouds; and,
+indeed, these are pretty constant companions of these chalk hills, which
+are very often enveloped in clouds and wet, when it is sunshine down at
+Burghclere or Uphusband. They manure the land here by digging _wells_ in
+the fields, and bringing up the chalk, which they spread about on the
+land; and which, being free-chalk, is reduced to powder by the frosts. A
+considerable portion of the land is covered with wood; and as, in the
+clearing of the land, the clearers followed the good soil, without
+regard to shape of fields, the forms of the woods are of endless
+variety, which, added to the never-ceasing inequalities of the surface
+of the whole, makes this, like all the others of the same description, a
+very pleasant country.
+
+
+_17 November._
+
+Set off from Uphusband for Hambledon. The first place I had to get to
+was Whitchurch. On my way, and at a short distance from Uphusband, down
+the valley, I went through a village called _Bourn_, which takes its
+name from the water that runs down this valley. A _bourn_, in the
+language of our forefathers, seems to be a river, which is, part of the
+year, _without water_. There is one of these bourns down this pretty
+valley. It has, generally, no water till towards Spring, and then it
+runs for several months. It is the same at the Candovers, as you go
+across the downs from Odiham to Winchester.
+
+The little village of _Bourn_, therefore, takes its name from its
+situation. Then there are two _Hurstbourns_, one above and one below
+this village of Bourn. _Hurst_ means, I believe, a Forest. There were,
+doubtless, one of those on each side of Bourn; and when they became
+villages, the one above was called _Up_-hurstbourn, and the one below,
+_Down_-hurstbourn; which names have become _Uphusband_ and
+_Downhusband_. The lawyers, therefore, who, to the immortal honour of
+high-blood and Norman descent, are making such a pretty story out for
+the Lord Chancellor, relative to a Noble Peer who voted for the Bill
+against the Queen, ought to leave off calling the seat of the noble
+person _Hursperne_; for it is at Downhurstbourn where he lives, and
+where he was visited by Dr. Bankhead!
+
+Whitchurch is a small town, but famous for being the place where the
+paper has been made for the _Borough-Bank_! I passed by the _mill_ on my
+way out to get upon the downs to go to Alresford, where I intended to
+sleep. I hope the time will come, when a monument will be erected where
+that mill stands, and when on that monument will be inscribed _the curse
+of England_. This spot ought to be held accursed in all time henceforth
+and for evermore. It has been the spot from which have sprung more and
+greater mischiefs than ever plagued mankind before. However, the evils
+now appear to be fast recoiling on the merciless authors of them; and,
+therefore, one beholds this scene of paper-making with a less degree of
+rage than formerly. My blood used to boil when I thought of the wretches
+who carried on and supported the system. It does not boil now, when I
+think of them. The curse, which they intended solely for others, is now
+falling on themselves; and I smile at their sufferings. Blasphemy!
+Atheism! Who can be an Atheist, that sees how _justly_ these wretches
+are treated; with what exact measure they are receiving the evils which
+they inflicted on others for a time, and which they intended to inflict
+on them for ever! If, indeed, the monsters had continued to prosper, one
+might have been an Atheist. The true history of the rise, progress and
+fall of these monsters, of their _power_, their _crimes_ and their
+_punishment_, will do more than has been done before to put an end to
+the doubts of those who have doubts upon this subject.
+
+Quitting Whitchurch, I went off to the left out of the Winchester-road,
+got out upon the high-lands, took an "observation," as the sailors call
+it, and off I rode, in a straight line, over hedge and ditch, towards
+the rising ground between Stratton Park and Micheldever-Wood; but,
+before I reached this point, I found some wet meadows and some running
+water in my way in a little valley running up from the turnpike road to
+a little place called _West Stratton_. I, therefore, turned to my left,
+went down to the turnpike, went a little way along it, then turned to my
+left, went along by Stratton Park pales down East Stratton-street, and
+then on towards the Grange Park. Stratton Park is the seat of Sir Thomas
+Baring, who has here several thousands of acres of land; who has the
+living of Micheldever, to which, I think, Northington and Swallowfield
+are joined. Above all, he has Micheldever Wood, which, they say,
+contains a thousand acres, and which is one of the finest oak-woods in
+England. This large and very beautiful estate must have belonged to the
+Church at the time of Henry the Eighth's "_reformation_." It was, I
+believe, given by him to the family of _Russell_; and it was, by them,
+sold to Sir Francis Baring about twenty years ago. Upon the whole, all
+things considered, the change is for the better. Sir Thomas Baring would
+not have moved, nay, he _did not_ move, for the pardon of _Lopez_, while
+he left Joseph Swann in gaol for _four years and a half_, without so
+much as hinting at Swann's case! Yea, verily, I would rather see this
+estate in the hands of Sir Thomas Baring than in those of Lopez's
+friend. Besides, it seems to be acknowledged that any title is as good
+as those derived from the old wife-killer. Castlereagh, when the Whigs
+talked in a rather rude manner about the sinecure places and pensions,
+told them, that the title of the sinecure man or woman was _as good as
+the titles of the Duke of Bedford_! this was _plagiarism_, to the sure;
+for _Burke_ had begun it. He called the Duke the _Leviathan of grants_;
+and seemed to hint at the propriety of _over-hauling_ them a little.
+When the men of Kent petitioned for a "_just_ reduction of the National
+Debt," Lord John Russell, with that wisdom for which he is renowned,
+reprobated the prayer; but, having done this in terms not sufficiently
+unqualified and strong, and having made use of a word of equivocal
+meaning, the man, that cut his own throat at North Cray, pitched on upon
+him and told him, that the fundholder had as much right to his
+dividends, as _the Duke of Bedford had to his estates_. Upon this the
+noble reformer and advocate for Lopez mended his expressions; and really
+said what the North Cray philosopher said he ought to say! Come, come:
+Micheldever Wood is in very proper hands! A little girl, of whom I asked
+my way down into East Stratton, and who was dressed in a camlet gown,
+white apron and plaid cloak (it was Sunday), and who had a book in her
+hand, told me that Lady Baring gave her the clothes, and had her taught
+to read and to sing hymns and spiritual songs.
+
+As I came through the Strattons, I saw not less than a dozen girls clad
+in this same way. It is impossible not to believe that this is done with
+a good motive; but it is possible not to believe that it is productive
+of good. It must create hypocrites, and hypocrisy is the great sin of
+the age. Society is in a _queer_ state when the rich think, that they
+must _educate_ the poor in order to insure their _own safety_: for this,
+at bottom, is the great motive now at work in pushing on the education
+scheme, though in this particular case, perhaps, there may be a little
+enthusiasm at work. When persons are glutted with riches; when they have
+their fill of them; when they are surfeited of all earthly pursuits,
+they are very apt to begin to think about the next world; and, the
+moment they begin to think of that, they begin to look over the
+_account_ that they shall have to present. Hence the far greater part of
+what are called "charities." But it is the business of _governments_ to
+take care that there shall be very little of this _glutting_ with
+riches, and very little need of "charities."
+
+From Stratton I went on to Northington Down; then round to the South of
+the Grange Park (Alex. Baring's), down to Abbotson, and over some pretty
+little green hills to Alresford, which is a nice little town of itself,
+but which presents a singularly beautiful view from the last little hill
+coming from Abbotson. I could not pass by the Grange Park without
+thinking of _Lord and Lady Henry Stuart_, whose lives and deaths
+surpassed what we read of in the most sentimental romances. Very few
+things that I have met with in my life ever filled me with sorrow equal
+to that which I felt at the death of this most virtuous and most amiable
+pair.
+
+It began raining soon after I got to Alresford, and rained all the
+evening. I heard here, that a Requisition for a County Meeting was in
+the course of being signed in different parts of the county. They mean
+to petition for Reform, I hope. At any rate, I intend to go to see what
+they do. I saw the _parsons_ at the county meeting in 1817. I should
+like, of all things, to see them at another meeting _now_. These are the
+persons that I have most steadily in my eye. The war and the debt were
+for the _tithes_ and the _boroughs_. These must stand or fall together
+now. I always told the parsons, that they were the greatest fools in the
+world to put the tithes on board _the same boat_ with the boroughs. I
+told them so in 1817; and, I fancy, they will soon see all about it.
+
+
+_November 18._
+
+Came from Alresford to Hambledon, through Titchbourn, Cheriton,
+Beauworth, Kilmston, and Exton. This is all a high, hard, dry,
+fox-hunting country. Like that, indeed, over which I came yesterday. At
+Titchbourn, there is a park, and "great house," as the country-people
+call it. The place belongs, I believe, to a Sir somebody _Titchbourne_,
+a family, very likely half as old as the name of the village, which,
+however, partly takes its name from the _bourn_ that runs down the
+valley. I thought, as I was riding alongside of this park, that I had
+heard _good_ of this family of Titchbourne, and, I therefore saw the
+park _pales_ with sorrow. There is not more than one pale in a yard, and
+those that remain, and the rails and posts and all, seem tumbling down.
+This park-paling is perfectly typical of those of the landlords who are
+_not tax-eaters_. They are wasting away very fast. The tax-eating
+landlords think to swim out the gale. They are deceived. They are
+"deluded" by their own greediness.
+
+Kilmston was my next place after Titchbourn, but I wanted to go to
+Beauworth, so that I had to go through Cheriton; a little, hard, iron
+village, where all seems to be as old as the hills that surround it. In
+coming along you see Titchbourn church away to the right, on the side of
+the hill, a very pretty little view; and this, though such a hard
+country, is a pretty country.
+
+At Cheriton I found a grand camp of _Gipsys_, just upon the move towards
+Alresford. I had met some of the scouts first, and afterwards the
+advanced guard, and here the main body was getting in motion. One of the
+scouts that I met was a young woman, who, I am sure, was six feet high.
+There were two or three more in the camp of about the same height; and
+some most strapping fellows of men. It is curious that this race should
+have preserved their dark skin and coal-black straight and coarse hair,
+very much like that of the American Indians. I mean the hair, for the
+skin has nothing of the copper-colour as that of the Indians has. It is
+not, either, of the Mulatto cast; that is to say, there is no yellow in
+it. It is a black mixed with our English colours of pale, or red, and
+the features are small, like those of the girls in Sussex, and often
+singularly pretty. The tall girl that I met at Titchbourn, who had a
+huckster basket on her arm, had most beautiful features. I pulled up my
+horse, and said, "Can you tell me my fortune, my dear?" She answered in
+the negative, giving me a look at the same time, that seemed to say, it
+was _too late_; and that if I had been thirty years younger she might
+have seen a little what she could do with me. It is, all circumstances
+considered, truly surprising, that this race should have preserved so
+perfectly all its distinctive marks.
+
+I came on to Beauworth to inquire after the family of a worthy old
+farmer, whom I knew there some years ago, and of whose death I had heard
+at Alresford. A bridle road over some fields and through a coppice took
+me to Kilmston, formerly a large village, but now mouldered into two
+farms, and a few miserable tumble-down houses for the labourers. Here is
+a house, that was formerly the residence of the landlord of the place,
+but is now occupied by one of the farmers. This is a fine country for
+fox-hunting, and Kilmston belonged to a Mr. Ridge who was a famous
+fox-hunter, and who is accused of having spent his fortune in that way.
+But what do people mean? He had a right to spend his _income_, as his
+fathers had done before him. It was the Pitt-system, and not the
+fox-hunting, that took away the principal. The place now belongs to a
+Mr. Long, whose origin I cannot find out.
+
+From Kilmston I went right over the downs to the top of a hill called
+_Beacon Hill_, which is one of the loftiest hills in the country. Here
+you can see the Isle of Wight in detail, a fine sweep of the sea; also
+away into Sussex, and over the New Forest into Dorsetshire. Just below
+you, to the East, you look down upon the village of Exton; and you can
+see up this valley (which is called a _Bourn_ too) as far as West Meon,
+and down it as far as Soberton. Corhampton, Warnford, Meon-Stoke and
+Droxford come within these two points; so that here are six villages on
+this bourn within the space of about five miles. On the other side of
+the main valley down which the bourn runs, and opposite Beacon Hill, is
+another such a hill, which they call _Old Winchester Hill_. On the top
+of this hill there was once a camp, or, rather fortress; and the
+ramparts are now pretty nearly as visible as ever. The same is to be
+seen on the Beacon Hill at Highclere. These ramparts had nothing of the
+principles of modern fortification in their formation. You see no signs
+of salliant angles. It was a _ditch_ and _a bank_, and that appears to
+have been all. I had, I think, a full mile to go down from the top of
+Beacon Hill to Exton. This is the village where that _Parson Baines_
+lives who, as described by me in 1817, bawled in Lord Cochrane's ear at
+Winchester in the month of March of that year. Parson _Poulter_ lives at
+Meon-Stoke, which is not a mile further down. So that this valley has
+something in it besides picturesque views! I asked some countrymen how
+Poulter and Baines did; but their answer contained too much of
+_irreverence_ for me to give it here.
+
+At Exton I crossed the Gosport turnpike road, came up the cross valley
+under the South side of Old Winchester Hill, over Stoke down, then over
+West-End down, and then to my friend's house at West-End in the parish
+of Hambledon.
+
+Thus have I crossed nearly the whole of this country from the North-West
+to the South-East, without going five hundred yards on a turnpike road,
+and, as nearly as I could do it, in a straight line.
+
+The whole country that I have crossed is loam and flints, upon a bottom
+of chalk. At Alresford there are some watered meadows, which are the
+beginning of a chain of meadows that goes all the way down to
+Winchester, and hence to Southampton; but even these meadows have, at
+Alresford, chalk under them. The water that supplies them comes out of
+_a pond_, called Alresford Pond, which is fed from the high hills in the
+neighbourhood. These counties are purely agricultural; and they have
+suffered most cruelly from the accursed Pitt-system. Their hilliness,
+bleakness, roughness of roads, render them unpleasant to the luxurious,
+effeminate, tax-eating crew, who never come near them, and who have
+pared them down to the very bone. The villages are all in a state of
+_decay_. The farm-buildings dropping down, bit by bit. The produce is,
+by a few great farmers, dragged to a few spots, and all the rest is
+falling into decay. If this infernal system could go on for forty years
+longer, it would make all the labourers as much slaves as the negroes
+are, and subject to the same sort of discipline and management.
+
+
+_November 19 to 23._
+
+At West End. Hambledon is a long, straggling village, lying in a little
+valley formed by some very pretty but not lofty hills. The environs are
+much prettier than the village itself, which is not far from the North
+side of Portsdown Hill. This must have once been a considerable place;
+for here is a church pretty nearly as large as that at Farnham in
+Surrey, which is quite sufficient for a large town. The means of living
+has been drawn away from these villages, and the people follow the
+means. Cheriton and Kilmston and Hambledon and the like have been
+beggared for the purpose of giving tax-eaters the means of making "_vast
+improvements, Ma'am_," on the villanous spewy gravel of Windsor Forest!
+The thing, however, must go _back_. Revolution here or revolution there:
+bawl, bellow, alarm, as long as the tax-eaters like, _back_ the thing
+must go. Back, indeed, _it is going_ in some quarters. Those scenes of
+glorious loyalty, the sea-port places, are beginning to be deserted. How
+many villages has that scene of all that is wicked and odious,
+Portsmouth, Gosport, and Portsea; how many villages has that hellish
+assemblage beggared! It is now being scattered _itself_! Houses which
+there let for forty or fifty pounds a-year each, now let for three or
+four shillings a-week each; and thousands, perhaps, cannot be let at all
+to any body capable of paying rent. There is an absolute tumbling down
+taking place, where, so lately, there were such "vast improvements,
+Ma'am!" Does Monsieur de Snip call those improvements, then? Does he
+insist, that those houses form "an addition to the national capital?" Is
+it any wonder that a country should be miserable when such notions
+prevail? And when they can, even in the Parliament, be received with
+cheering?
+
+
+_Nov. 24, Sunday._
+
+Set off from Hambledon to go to Thursley in Surrey, about five miles
+from Godalming. Here I am at Thursley, after as interesting a day as I
+ever spent in all my life. They say that "_variety_ is charming," and
+this day I have had of scenes and of soils a variety indeed!
+
+To go to Thursley from Hambledon the plain way was up the downs to
+Petersfield, and then along the turnpike-road through Liphook, and over
+Hindhead, at the north-east foot of which Thursley lies. But, I had been
+over that sweet Hindhead, and had seen too much of turnpike-road and of
+heath, to think of taking another so large a dose of them. The map of
+Hampshire (and we had none of Surrey) showed me the way to Headley,
+which lies on the West of Hindhead, down upon the flat. I knew it was
+but about five miles from Headley to Thursley; and I, therefore,
+resolved to go to Headley, in spite of all the remonstrances of friends,
+who represented to me the danger of breaking my neck at Hawkley and of
+getting buried in the bogs of Woolmer Forest. My route was through
+East-Meon, Froxfield, Hawkley, Greatham, and then over Woolmer Forest (a
+_heath_ if you please), to Headley.
+
+Off we set over the downs (crossing the bottom sweep of Old Winchester
+Hill) from West-End to East-Meon. We came down a long and steep hill
+that led us winding round into the village, which lies in a valley that
+runs in a direction nearly east and west, and that has a rivulet that
+comes out of the hills towards Petersfield. If I had not seen anything
+further to-day, I should have dwelt long on the beauties of this place.
+Here is a very fine valley, in nearly an eliptical form, sheltered by
+high hills sloping gradually from it; and not far from the middle of
+this valley there is a hill nearly in the form of a goblet-glass with
+the foot and stem broken off and turned upside down. And this is clapped
+down upon the level of the valley, just as you would put such goblet
+upon a table. The hill is lofty, partly covered with wood, and it gives
+an air of great singularity to the scene. I am sure that East-Meon has
+been a _large place_. The church has a _Saxon Tower_, pretty nearly
+equal, as far as I recollect, to that of the Cathedral at Winchester.
+The rest of the church has been rebuilt, and, perhaps, several times;
+but the _tower_ is complete; it has had _a steeple_ put upon it; but it
+retains all its beauty, and it shows that the church (which is still
+large) must, at first, have been a very large building. Let those, who
+talk so glibly of the increase of the population in England, go over the
+country from Highclere to Hambledon. Let them look at the size of the
+churches, and let them observe those numerous small enclosures on every
+side of every village, which had, to a certainty, _each its house_ in
+former times. But let them go to East-Meon, and account for that church.
+Where did the hands come from to make it? Look, however, at the downs,
+the many square miles of downs near this village, all bearing the _marks
+of the plough_, and all out of tillage for many many years; yet, not one
+single inch of them but what is vastly superior in quality to any of
+those great "improvements" on the miserable heaths of Hounslow, Bagshot,
+and Windsor Forest. It is the destructive, the murderous paper-system,
+that has transferred the fruit of the labour, and the people along with
+it, from the different parts of the country to the neighbourhood of the
+all-devouring _Wen_. I do not believe one word of what is said of the
+increase of the population. All observation and all reason is against
+the fact; and, as to the _parliamentary returns_, what need we more than
+this: that _they_ assert, that the population of Great Britain has
+increased from ten to fourteen millions in the last _twenty years_! That
+is enough! A man that can suck that in will believe, literally believe,
+that the moon is made of green cheese. Such a thing is too monstrous to
+be swallowed by any body but Englishmen, and by any Englishman not
+brutified by a Pitt-system.
+
+
+TO MR. CANNING.
+
+_Worth (Sussex), 10 December, 1822._
+
+SIR,
+
+The agreeable news from France, relative to the intended invasion of
+Spain, compelled me to break off, in my last Letter, in the middle of my
+_Rural Ride_ of Sunday, the 24th of November. Before I mount again,
+which I shall do in this Letter, pray let me ask you what _sort of
+apology_ is to be offered to the nation, if the French Bourbons be
+permitted to take quiet possession of Cadiz and of the Spanish naval
+force? Perhaps you may be disposed to answer, when you have taken time
+to reflect; and, therefore, leaving you to _muse_ on the matter, I will
+resume my ride.
+
+
+_November 24._
+
+(Sunday.) From Hambledon to Thursley (continued).
+
+From East-Meon, I did not go on to Froxfield church, but turned off to
+the left to a place (a couple of houses) called _Bower_. Near this I
+stopped at a friend's house, which is in about as lonely a situation as
+I ever saw. A very pleasant place however. The lands dry, a nice
+mixture of woods and fields, and a great variety of hill and dell.
+
+Before I came to East-Meon, the soil of the hills was a shallow loam
+with flints, on a bottom of chalk; but on this side of the valley of
+East-Meon; that is to say, on the north side, the soil on the hills is a
+deep, stiff loam, on a bed of a sort of gravel mixed with chalk; and the
+stones, instead of being grey on the outside and blue on the inside, are
+yellow on the outside and whitish on the inside. In coming on further to
+the North, I found, that the bottom was sometimes gravel and sometime
+chalk. Here, at the time when _whatever it was_ that formed these hills
+and valleys, the stuff of which Hindhead is composed seems to have run
+down and mixed itself with the stuff of which _Old Winchester Hill_ is
+composed. Free chalk (which is the sort found here) is excellent manure
+for stiff land, and it produces a complete change in the nature of
+_clays_. It is, therefore, dug here, on the North of East-Meon, about in
+the fields, where it happens to be found, and is laid out upon the
+surface, where it is crumbled to powder by the frost, and thus gets
+incorporated with the loam.
+
+At Bower I got instructions to go to Hawkley, but accompanied with most
+earnest advice not to go that way, for that it was impossible to get
+along. The roads were represented as so bad; the floods so much out; the
+hills and bogs so dangerous; that, really, I began to _doubt_; and, if I
+had not been brought up amongst the clays of the Holt Forest and the
+bogs of the neighbouring heaths, I should certainly have turned off to
+my right, to go over Hindhead, great as was my objection to going that
+way. "Well, then," said my friend at Bower, "if you _will_ go that way,
+by G--, you must go down _Hawkley Hanger_;" of which he then gave me
+_such_ a description! But, even this I found to fall short of the
+reality. I inquired simply, whether _people were in the habit_ of going
+down it; and, the answer being in the affirmative, on I went through
+green lanes and bridle-ways till I came to the turnpike-road from
+Petersfield to Winchester, which I crossed, going into a narrow and
+almost untrodden green lane, on the side of which I found a cottage.
+Upon my asking the way to _Hawkley_, the woman at the cottage said,
+"Right up the lane, Sir: you'll come to a _hanger_ presently: you must
+take care, Sir: you can't ride down: will your horses _go alone_?"
+
+On we trotted up this pretty green lane; and indeed, we had been coming
+gently and generally up hill for a good while. The lane was between
+highish banks and pretty high stuff growing on the banks, so that we
+could see no distance from us, and could receive not the smallest hint
+of what was so near at hand. The lane had a little turn towards the
+end; so that, out we came, all in a moment, at the very edge of the
+hanger! And never, in all my life, was I so surprised and so delighted!
+I pulled up my horse, and sat and looked; and it was like looking from
+the top of a castle down into the sea, except that the valley was land
+and not water. I looked at my servant, to see what effect this
+unexpected sight had upon him. His surprise was as great as mine, though
+he had been bred amongst the North Hampshire hills. Those who had so
+strenuously dwelt on the dirt and dangers of this route, had said not a
+word about beauties, the matchless beauties of the scenery. These
+hangers are woods on the sides of very steep hills. The trees and
+underwood _hang_, in some sort, to the ground, instead of _standing on_
+it. Hence these places are called _Hangers_. From the summit of that
+which I had now to descend, I looked down upon the villages of Hawkley,
+Greatham, Selborne and some others.
+
+From the south-east, round, southward, to the north-west, the main
+valley has cross-valleys running out of it, the hills on the sides of
+which are very steep, and, in many parts, covered with wood. The hills
+that form these cross-valleys run out into the main valley, like piers
+into the sea. Two of these promontories, of great height, are on the
+west side of the main valley, and were the first objects that struck my
+sight when I came to the edge of the hanger, which was on the south. The
+ends of these promontories are nearly perpendicular, and their tops so
+high in the air, that you cannot look at the village below without
+something like a feeling of apprehension. The leaves are all off, the
+hop-poles are in stack, the fields have little verdure; but, while the
+spot is beautiful beyond description even now, I must leave to
+imagination to suppose what it is, when the trees and hangers and hedges
+are in leaf, the corn waving, the meadows bright, and the hops upon the
+poles!
+
+From the south-west, round, eastward, to the north, lie the _heaths_, of
+which Woolmer Forest makes a part, and these go gradually rising up to
+Hindhead, the crown of which is to the north-west, leaving the rest of
+the circle (the part from north to north-west) to be occupied by a
+continuation of the valley towards Headley, Binstead, Frensham and the
+Holt Forest. So that even the _contrast_ in the view from the top of the
+hanger is as great as can possibly be imagined. Men, however, are not to
+have such beautiful views as this without some trouble. We had had the
+view; but we had to go down the hanger. We had, indeed, some roads to
+get along, as we could, afterwards; but we had to get down the hanger
+first. The horses took the lead, and crept partly down upon their feet
+and partly upon their hocks. It was extremely slippery too; for the
+soil is a sort of marle, or, as they call it here, maume, or mame, which
+is, when wet, very much like _grey soap_. In such a case it was likely
+that I should keep in the rear, which I did, and I descended by taking
+hold of the branches of the underwood, and so letting myself down. When
+we got to the bottom, I bade my man, when he should go back to
+Uphusband, tell the people there, that _Ashmansworth Lane_ is not the
+_worst_ piece of road in the world. Our worst, however, was not come
+yet, nor had we by any means seen the most novel sights.
+
+After crossing a little field and going through a farm-yard, we came
+into a lane, which was, at once, road and river. We found a hard bottom,
+however; and when we got out of the water, we got into a lane with high
+banks. The banks were quarries of white stone, like Portland-stone, and
+the bed of the road was of the same stone; and, the rains having been
+heavy for a day or two before, the whole was as clean and as white as
+the steps of a fund-holder or dead-weight door-way in one of the Squares
+of the _Wen_. Here were we, then, going along a stone road with stone
+banks, and yet the underwood and trees grew well upon the tops of the
+banks. In the solid stone beneath us, there were a horse-track and
+wheel-tracks, the former about three and the latter about six inches
+deep. How many many ages it must have taken the horses' feet, the
+wheels, and the water, to wear down this stone, so as to form a hollow
+way! The horses seemed alarmed at their situation; they trod with fear;
+but they took us along very nicely, and, at last, got us safe into the
+indescribable dirt and mire of the road from Hawkley Green to Greatham.
+Here the bottom of all the land is this solid white stone, and the top
+is that _mame_, which I have before described. The hop-roots penetrate
+down into this stone. How deep the stone may go I know not; but, when I
+came to look up at the end of one of the piers, or promontories,
+mentioned above, I found that it was all of this same stone.
+
+At Hawkley Green, I asked a farmer the way to Thursley. He pointed to
+one of two roads going from the green; but it appearing to me, that that
+would lead me up to the London road and over Hindhead, I gave him to
+understand that I was resolved to get along, somehow or other, through
+the "low countries." He besought me not to think of it. However, finding
+me resolved, he got a man to go a little way to put me into the Greatham
+road. The man came, but the farmer could not let me go off without
+renewing his entreaties, that I would go away to Liphook, in which
+entreaties the man joined, though he was to be paid very well for his
+trouble.
+
+Off we went, however, to Greatham. I am thinking, whether I ever did
+see _worse_ roads. Upon the whole, I think, I have; though I am not sure
+that the roads of New Jersey, between Trenton and Elizabeth-Town, at the
+breaking up of winter, be worse. Talk of _shows_, indeed! Take a piece
+of this road; just a cut across, and a rod long, and carry it up to
+London. That would be something like a _show_!
+
+Upon leaving Greatham we came out upon Woolmer Forest. Just as we were
+coming out of Greatham, I asked a man the way to Thursley. "You _must_
+go to _Liphook_, Sir," said he. "But," I said, "I _will not_ go to
+Liphook." These people seemed to be posted at all these stages to turn
+me aside from my purpose, and to make me go over that _Hindhead_, which
+I had resolved to avoid. I went on a little further, and asked another
+man the way to Headley, which, as I have already observed, lies on the
+western foot of Hindhead, whence I knew there must be a road to Thursley
+(which lies at the North East foot) without going over that miserable
+hill. The man told me, that I must go across the _forest_. I asked him
+whether it was a _good_ road: "It is a _sound_ road," said he, laying a
+weighty emphasis upon the word _sound_. "Do people _go_ it?" said I.
+"_Ye-es_," said he. "Oh then," said I, to my man, "as it is a _sound_
+road, keep you close to my heels, and do not attempt to go aside, not
+even for a foot." Indeed, it was a _sound_ road. The rain of the night
+had made the fresh horse tracks visible. And we got to Headley in a
+short time, over a sand-road, which seemed so delightful after the
+flints and stone and dirt and sloughs that we had passed over and
+through since the morning! This road was not, if we had been benighted,
+without its dangers, the forest being full of quags and quicksands. This
+is a tract of Crown lands, or, properly speaking, _public lands_, on
+some parts of which our Land Steward, Mr. Huskisson, is making some
+plantations of trees, partly fir, and partly other trees. What he can
+plant the _fir_ for, God only knows, seeing that the country is already
+over-stocked with that rubbish. But this _public land_ concern is a very
+great concern.
+
+If I were a Member of Parliament, I _would_ know what timber has been
+cut down, and what it has been sold for, since year 1790. However, this
+matter must be _investigated_, first or last. It never can be omitted in
+the winding up of the concern; and that winding up must come out of
+wheat at four shillings a bushel. It is said, hereabouts, that a man who
+lives near Liphook, and who is so mighty a hunter and game pursuer, that
+they call him _William Rufus_; it is said that this man is _Lord of the
+Manor of Woolmer Forest_. This he cannot be without _a grant_ to that
+effect; and, if there be a grant, there must have been a _reason_ for
+the grant. This _reason_ I should very much like to know; and this I
+would know if I were a Member of Parliament. That the people call him
+the _Lord of the Manor_ is certain; but he can hardly make preserves of
+the plantations; for it is well known how marvellously _hares_ and
+_young trees_ agree together! This is a matter of great public
+importance; and yet, how, in the present state of things, is an
+_investigation_ to be obtained? Is there a man in Parliament that will
+call for it? Not one. Would a dissolution of Parliament mend the matter?
+No; for the same men would be there still. They are the same men that
+have been there for these thirty years; and the _same men_ they will be,
+and they _must be_, until there be _a reform_. To be sure when one dies,
+or cuts his throat (as in the case of Castlereagh), another _one_ comes;
+but it is the _same body_. And, as long as it is that same body, things
+will always go on as they now go on. However, as Mr. Canning says the
+body "_works well_," we must not say the contrary.
+
+The soil of this tract is, generally, a black sand, which, in some
+places, becomes _peat_, which makes very tolerable fuel. In some parts
+there is clay at bottom; and there the _oaks_ would grow; but not while
+there are _hares_ in any number on the forest. If trees be to grow here,
+there ought to be no hares, and as little hunting as possible.
+
+We got to Headly, the sign of the Holly-Bush, just at dusk, and just as
+it began to rain. I had neither eaten nor drunk since eight o'clock in
+the morning; and as it was a nice little public-house, I at first
+intended to stay all night, an intention that I afterwards very
+indiscreetly gave up. I had _laid my plan_, which included the getting
+to Thursley that night. When, therefore, I had got some cold bacon and
+bread, and some milk, I began to feel ashamed of stopping short of my
+_plan_, especially after having so heroically persevered in the "stern
+path," and so disdainfully scorned to go over Hindhead. I knew that my
+road lay through a hamlet called _Churt_, where they grow such fine
+_bennet-grass_ seed. There was a moon; but there was also a hazy rain. I
+had heaths to go over, and I might go into quags. Wishing to execute my
+plan, however, I at last brought myself to quit a very comfortable
+turf-fire, and to set off in the rain, having bargained to give a man
+three shillings to guide me out to the Northern foot of Hindhead. I took
+care to ascertain, that my guide knew the road perfectly well; that is
+to say, I took care to ascertain it as far as I could, which was,
+indeed, no farther than his word would go. Off we set, the guide mounted
+on his own or master's horse, and with a white smock frock, which
+enabled us to see him clearly. We trotted on pretty fast for about half
+an hour; and I perceived, not without some surprise, that the rain,
+which I knew to be coming from the _South_, met me full in the face,
+when it ought, according to my reckoning, to have beat upon my right
+cheek. I called to the guide repeatedly to ask him if he was _sure that
+he was right_, to which he always answered "Oh! yes, Sir, I know the
+road." I did not like this, "_I know the road_." At last, after going
+about six miles in nearly a Southern direction, the guide turned short
+to the left. That brought the rain upon my right cheek, and, though I
+could not very well account for the long stretch to the South, I
+thought, that, at any rate, we were _now_ in the right track; and, after
+going about a mile in this new direction, I began to ask the guide _how
+much further we had to go_; for I had got a pretty good soaking, and was
+rather impatient to see the foot of Hindhead. Just at this time, in
+raising my head and looking forward as I spoke to the guide, what should
+I see, but a long, high, and steep _hanger_ arising before us, the trees
+along the top of which I could easily distinguish! The fact was, we were
+just getting to the outside of the heath, and were on the brow of a
+steep hill, which faced this hanging wood. The guide had begun to
+descend, and I had called to him to stop; for the hill was so steep,
+that, rain as it did and wet as my saddle must be, I got off my horse in
+order to walk down. But, now behold, the fellow discovered, that he _had
+lost his way_!--Where we were I could not even guess. There was but one
+remedy, and that was to get back, if we could. I became guide now; and
+did as Mr. Western is advising the Ministers to do, _retraced_ my steps.
+We went back about half the way that we had come, when we saw two men,
+who showed us the way that we ought to go. At the end of about a mile,
+we fortunately found the turnpike-road; not, indeed, at the _foot_, but
+on the _tip-top_ of that very Hindhead, on which I had so repeatedly
+_vowed_ I would not go! We came out on the turnpike some hundred yards
+on the Liphook side of the buildings called _the Hut_; so that we had
+the whole of three miles of hill to come down at not much better than a
+foot pace, with a good pelting rain at our backs.
+
+It is odd enough how differently one is affected by the same sight,
+under different circumstances. At the "_Holly Bush_" at Headly there was
+a room full of fellows in white smock frocks, drinking and smoking and
+talking, and I, who was then dry and warm, _moralized_ within myself on
+their _folly_ in spending their time in such a way. But, when I got down
+from Hindhead to the public-house at Road-Lane, with my skin soaking and
+my teeth chattering, I thought just such another group, whom I saw
+through the window sitting round a good fire with pipes in their mouths,
+the _wisest assembly_ I had ever set my eyes on. A real _Collective
+Wisdom_. And, I most solemnly declare, that I felt a greater veneration
+for them than I have ever felt even for the _Privy Council_,
+notwithstanding the Right Honorable Charles Wynn and the Right Honorable
+Sir John Sinclair belong to the latter.
+
+It was now but a step to my friend's house, where a good fire and a
+change of clothes soon put all to rights, save and except the having
+come over Hindhead after all my resolutions. This mortifying
+circumstance; this having been _beaten_, lost the guide the _three
+shillings_ that I had agreed to give him. "Either," said I, "you did not
+know the way well, or you did: if the former, it was dishonest in you to
+undertake to guide me: if the latter, you have wilfully led me miles out
+of my way." He grumbled; but off he went. He certainly deserved nothing;
+for he did not know the way, and he prevented some other man from
+earning and receiving the money. But, had he not caused me to _get upon
+Hindhead_, he would have had the three shillings. I had, at one time,
+got my hand in my pocket; but the thought of having been _beaten_ pulled
+it out again.
+
+Thus ended the most interesting day, as far as I know, that I ever
+passed in all my life. Hawkley-hangers, promontories, and stone-roads
+will always come into my mind when I see, or hear of, picturesque views.
+I forgot to mention, that, in going from Hawkley to Greatham, the man,
+who went to show me the way, told me at a certain fork, "That road goes
+to _Selborne_." This put me in mind of a book, which was once
+recommended to me, but which I never saw, entitled "_The History and
+Antiquities of Selborne_," (or something of that sort) written, I think,
+by a parson of the name of _White_, brother of Mr. _White_, so long a
+Bookseller in Fleet-street. This parson had, I think, the living of the
+parish of Selborne. The book was mentioned to me as a work of great
+curiosity and interest. But, at that time, the THING was biting _so very
+sharply_ that one had no attention to bestow on antiquarian researches.
+Wheat at 39_s._ a quarter, and Southdown ewes at 12_s._ 6_d._ have so
+weakened the THING'S jaws and so filed down its teeth, that I shall now
+certainly read this book if I can get it. By-the-bye if _all the
+parsons_ had, for the last thirty years, employed their leisure time in
+writing the histories of their several parishes, instead of living, as
+many of them have, engaged in pursuits that I need not here name,
+neither their situation nor that of their flocks would, perhaps, have
+been the worse for it at this day.
+
+
+_Thursley (Surrey), Nov. 25._
+
+In looking back into Hampshire, I see with pleasure the farmers
+bestirring themselves to get a County Meeting called. There were, I was
+told, nearly five hundred names to a Requisition, and those all of
+land-owners or occupiers.--Precisely what they mean to petition for I do
+not know; but (and now I address myself to you, Mr. Canning,) if they do
+not petition _for a reform of the Parliament_, they will do worse than
+nothing. You, Sir, have often told us, that the HOUSE, however got
+together, "works well." Now, as I said in 1817, just before I went to
+America to get out of the reach of our friend, the _Old Doctor_, and to
+use my _long arm_; as I said then, in a Letter addressed to Lord
+Grosvenor, so I say now, show me the inexpediency of reform, and I will
+hold my tongue. Show us, prove to us, that the House "works well," and
+I, for my part, give the matter up. It is not the construction or the
+motions of a machine that I ever look at: all I look after is _the
+effect_. When, indeed, I find that the effect is deficient or evil, I
+look to the construction. And, as I now see, and have for many years
+seen, evil effect, I seek a remedy in an alteration in the machine.
+There is now nobody; no, not a single man, out of the regions of
+Whitehall, who will pretend, that the country can, without the risk of
+some great and terrible convulsion, go on, even for twelve months
+longer, unless there be a great change of some sort in the mode of
+managing the public affairs.
+
+Could you see and hear what I have seen and heard during this Rural
+Ride, you would no longer say, that the House "works well." Mrs. Canning
+and your children are dear to you; but, Sir, not more dear than are to
+them the wives and children of, perhaps, two hundred thousand men, who,
+by the Acts of this same House, see those wives and children doomed to
+beggary, and to beggary, too, never thought of, never regarded as more
+likely than a blowing up of the earth or a falling of the sun. It was
+reserved for this "working well" House to make the fire-sides of farmers
+scenes of gloom. These fire-sides, in which I have always so delighted,
+I now approach with pain. I was, not long ago, sitting round the fire
+with as worthy and as industrious a man as all England contains. There
+was his son, about 19 years of age; two daughters from 15 to 18; and a
+little boy sitting on the father's knee. I knew, but not from him, that
+there was _a mortgage_ on his farm. I was anxious to induce him _to sell
+without delay_. With this view I, in an hypothetical and round-about
+way, approached _his case_, and at last I came to final consequences.
+The deep and deeper gloom on a countenance, once so cheerful, told me
+what was passing in his breast, when turning away my looks in order to
+seem not to perceive the effect of my words, I saw the eyes of his wife
+full of tears. She had made the application; and there were her children
+before her! And am I to be _banished for life_ if I express what I felt
+upon this occasion! And does this House, then, "work well?" How many
+men, of the most industrious, the most upright, the most exemplary, upon
+the face of the earth, have been, by this one Act of this House, driven
+to despair, ending in madness or self-murder, or both! Nay, how many
+scores! And, yet, are we to be banished for life, if we endeavour to
+show, that this House does not "work well?"--However, banish or banish
+not, these facts are notorious: _the House_ made all the _Loans_ which
+constitute the debt: _the House_ contracted for the Dead Weight: _the
+House_ put a stop to gold-payments in 1797: _the House_ unanimously
+passed Peel's Bill. Here are _all_ the causes of the ruin, the misery,
+the anguish, the despair, and the madness and self-murders. Here they
+are _all_. They have all been Acts of this House; and yet, we are to be
+banished if we say, in words suitable to the subject, that this House
+does not "_work well_!"
+
+This one Act, I mean this _Banishment Act_, would be enough, with
+posterity, to characterize this House. When they read (and can believe
+what they read) that it actually passed a law to banish for life any one
+who should write, print, or publish anything having a _tendency_ to
+bring it into _contempt_; when posterity shall read this, and believe
+it, they will want nothing more to enable them to say what sort of an
+assembly it was! It was delightful, too, that they should pass this law
+just after they had passed _Peel's Bill_! Oh, God! thou art _just_! As
+to _reform_, it _must come_. Let what else will happen, it must come.
+Whether before, or after, all the estates be transferred, I cannot say.
+But, this I know very well; that the later it come, the _deeper_ will it
+go.
+
+I shall, of course, go on remarking, as occasion offers, upon what is
+done by and said in this present House; but I know that it can do
+nothing efficient for the relief of the country. I have seen some men of
+late, who seem to think, that even a reform, enacted, or begun, by this
+House, would be an evil; and that it would be better to let the whole
+thing go on, and produce its natural consequence. I am not of this
+opinion: I am for a reform as soon as possible, even though it be not,
+at first, precisely what I could wish; because, if the debt blow up
+before the reform take place, confusion and uproar there must be; and I
+do not want to see confusion and uproar. I am for a reform of _some
+sort_, and _soon_; but, when I say of _some sort_, I do not mean of Lord
+John Russell's sort; I do not mean a reform in the Lopez way. In short,
+what I want is, to see the _men_ changed. I want to see _other men_ in
+the House; and as to _who_ those other men should be, I really should
+not be very nice. I have seen the Tierneys, the Bankeses, the
+Wilberforces, the Michael Angelo Taylors, the Lambs, the Lowthers, the
+Davis Giddies, the Sir John Sebrights, the Sir Francis Burdetts, the
+Hobhouses, old or young, Whitbreads the same, the Lord Johns and the
+Lord Williams and the Lord Henries and the Lord Charleses, and, in
+short, all _the whole family_; I have seen them all there, all the same
+faces and names, all my life time; I see that neither adjournment nor
+prorogation nor dissolution makes any change in _the men_; and, caprice
+let it be if you like, I want to see a change _in the men_. These have
+done enough in all conscience; or, at least, they have done enough to
+satisfy me. I want to see some fresh faces, and to hear a change of some
+sort or other in the sounds. A "_hear, hear_," coming everlastingly from
+the same mouths, is what I, for my part, am tired of.
+
+I am aware that this is not what the "_great reformers_" in the House
+mean. They mean, on the contrary, no such thing as a change of men. They
+mean that _Lopez_ should sit there for ever; or, at least, till
+succeeded by a legitimate heir. I believe that Sir Francis Burdett, for
+instance, has not the smallest idea of an Act of Parliament ever being
+made without his assistance, if he chooses to assist, which is not very
+frequently the case. I believe that he looks upon a seat in the House as
+being his property; and that the other seat is, and ought to be, held as
+a sort of leasehold or copyhold under him. My idea of reform, therefore;
+my change of faces and of names and of sounds will appear quite horrible
+to him. However, I think the nation begins to be very much of my way of
+thinking; and this I am very sure of, that we shall never see that
+change in the management of affairs, which we most of us want to see,
+unless there be a pretty complete change of men.
+
+Some people will blame me for speaking out so broadly upon this subject.
+But I think it the best way to disguise nothing; to do what is _right_;
+to be sincere; and to let come what will.
+
+
+_Godalming, November 26 to 28._
+
+I came here to meet my son, who was to return to London when we had done
+our business.--The turnips are pretty good all over the country, except
+upon the very thin soils on the chalk. At Thursley they are very good,
+and so they are upon all these nice light and good lands round about
+Godalming.
+
+This is a very pretty country. You see few prettier spots than this. The
+chain of little hills that run along to the South and South-East of
+Godalming, and the soil, which is a good loam upon a sand-stone bottom,
+run down on the South side, into what is called the _Weald_. This Weald
+is a bed of clay, in which nothing grows well but oak trees. It is first
+the Weald of Surrey and then the Weald of Sussex. It runs along on the
+South of Dorking, Reigate, Bletchingley, Godstone, and then winds away
+down into Kent. In no part of it, as far as I have observed, do the oaks
+grow finer than between the sand-hill on the South of Godstone and a
+place called Fellbridge, where the county of Surrey terminates on the
+road to East Grinstead.
+
+At Godalming we heard some account of a lawsuit between Mr. Holme Sumner
+and his tenant, Mr. Nash; but the particulars I must reserve till I have
+them in black and white.
+
+In all parts of the country, I hear of landlords that begin to _squeak_,
+which is a certain proof that they begin to feel the bottom of their
+tenants' pockets. No man can pay rent; I mean any rent at all, except
+out of capital; or, except under some peculiar circumstances, such as
+having a farm near a spot where the fundholders are building houses.
+When I was in Hampshire, I heard of terrible breakings up in the Isle of
+Wight. They say, that the general rout is very near at hand there. I
+heard of one farmer, who held a farm at seven hundred pounds a-year, who
+paid his rent annually, and punctually, who had, of course, seven
+hundred pounds to pay to his landlord last Michaelmas; but who, before
+Michaelmas came, thrashed out and sold (the harvest being so early) the
+whole of his corn; sold off his stock, bit by bit; got the very goods
+out of his house, leaving only a bed and some trifling things; sailed
+with a fair wind over to France with his family; put his mother-in-law
+into the house to keep possession of the house and farm, and to prevent
+the landlord from entering upon the land for a year or better, unless he
+would pay to the mother-in-law a certain sum of money! Doubtless the
+landlord had already sucked away about three or four times seven hundred
+pounds from this farmer. He would not be able to enter upon his farm
+without a process that would cost him some money, and without the farm
+being pretty well stocked with thistles and docks, and perhaps laid half
+to common. Farmers on the coast opposite France are not so firmly
+bounden as those in the interior. Some hundreds of these will have
+carried their allegiance, their capital (what they have left), and their
+skill, to go and grease the fat sow, our old friends the Bourbons. I
+hear of a sharp, greedy, hungry shark of a landlord, who says that "some
+law must be passed;" that "Parliament must do something to prevent
+this!" There is a pretty fool for you! There is a great jackass (I beg
+the real jackass's pardon), to imagine that the people at Westminster
+can do anything to prevent the French from suffering people to come with
+their money to settle in France! This fool does not know, perhaps, that
+there are Members of Parliament that live in France more than they do in
+England. I have heard of one, who not only lives there, but carries on
+vineyards there, and is never absent from them, except when he comes
+over "to attend to his duties in Parliament." He perhaps sells his wine
+at the same time, and that being genuine, doubtless brings him a good
+price; so that the occupations harmonize together very well. The Isle of
+Wight must be rather peculiarly distressed; for it was the scene of
+monstrous expenditure. When the _pure_ Whigs were in power, in 1806, it
+was proved to them and to the Parliament, that in several instances, _a
+barn_ in the Isle of Wight was rented by the "envy of surrounding
+nations" for more money than the rest of the whole farm! These barns
+were wanted as _barracks_; and, indeed, such things were carried on in
+that Island as never could have been carried on under anything that was
+not absolutely "the admiration of the world." These sweet pickings,
+caused, doubtless, a great rise in the rent of the farms; so that, in
+this Island, there is not only the depression of price, and a greater
+depression than anywhere else, but also the loss of the pickings, and
+these together leave the tenants but this simple choice; beggary or
+flight; and as most of them have had a pretty deal of capital, and will
+be likely to have some left as yet, they will, as they perceive the
+danger, naturally flee for succour to the Bourbons. This is, indeed,
+something new in the History of English Agriculture; and were not Mr.
+Canning so positive to the contrary, one would almost imagine that the
+thing which has produced it does not work so very well. However, that
+gentleman seems resolved to prevent us, by his _King of Bohemia_ and his
+two _Red Lions_, from having any change in this thing; and therefore the
+landlords, in the Isle of Wight, as well as elsewhere, must make the
+best of the matter.
+
+
+_November 29._
+
+Went on to Guildford, where I slept. Everybody, that has been from
+Godalming to Guildford, knows, that there is hardly another such a
+pretty four miles in all England. The road is good; the soil is good;
+the houses are neat; the people are neat: the hills, the woods, the
+meadows, all are beautiful. Nothing wild and bold, to be sure, but
+exceedingly pretty; and it is almost impossible to ride along these four
+miles without feelings of pleasure, though you have rain for your
+companion, as it happened to be with me.
+
+
+_Dorking, November 30._
+
+I came over the high hill on the south of Guildford, and came down to
+Chilworth, and up the valley to Albury. I noticed, in my first Rural
+Ride, this beautiful valley, its hangers, its meadows, its hop-gardens,
+and its ponds. This valley of Chilworth has great variety, and is very
+pretty; but after seeing Hawkley, every other place loses in point of
+beauty and interest. This pretty valley of Chilworth has a run of water
+which comes out of the high hills, and which, occasionally, spreads into
+a pond; so that there is in fact a series of ponds connected by this run
+of water. This valley, which seems to have been created by a bountiful
+providence, as one of the choicest retreats of man; which seems formed
+for a scene of innocence and happiness, has been, by ungrateful man, so
+perverted as to make it instrumental in effecting two of the most
+damnable of purposes; in carrying into execution two of the most
+damnable inventions that ever sprang from the minds of man under the
+influence of the devil! namely, the making of _gunpowder_ and of
+_banknotes_! Here in this tranquil spot, where the nightingales are to
+be heard earlier and later in the year than in any other part of
+England; where the first bursting of the buds is seen in Spring, where
+no rigour of seasons can ever be felt; where everything seems formed for
+precluding the very thought of wickedness; here has the devil fixed on
+as one of the seats of his grand manufactory; and perverse and
+ungrateful man not only lends him his aid, but lends it cheerfully! As
+to the gunpowder, indeed, we might get over that. In some cases that may
+be innocently, and, when it sends the lead at the hordes that support a
+tyrant, meritoriously employed. The alders and the willows, therefore,
+one can see, without so much regret, turned into powder by the waters of
+this valley; but, the _Bank-notes_! To think that the springs which God
+has commanded to flow from the sides of these happy hills, for the
+comfort and the delight of man; to think that these springs should be
+perverted into means of spreading misery over a whole nation; and that,
+too, under the base and hypocritical pretence of promoting its _credit_
+and maintaining its _honour_ and its _faith_! There was one
+circumstance, indeed, that served to mitigate the melancholy excited by
+these reflections; namely, that a part of these springs have, at times,
+assisted in turning rags into _Registers_! Somewhat cheered by the
+thought of this, but, still, in a more melancholy mood than I had been
+for a long while, I rode on with my friend towards _Albury_, up the
+valley, the sand-hills on one side of us and the chalk-hills on the
+other. Albury is a little village consisting of a few houses, with a
+large house or two near it. At the end of the village we came to a park,
+which is the residence of Mr. Drummond.--Having heard a great deal of
+this park, and of the gardens, I wished very much to see them. My way to
+Dorking lay through Shire, and it went along on the outside of the park.
+I _guessed_, as the Yankees say, that there must be a way through the
+park to Shire; and I fell upon the scheme of going into the park as far
+as Mr. Drummond's house, and then asking his leave to go out at the
+other end of it. This scheme, though pretty bare-faced, succeeded very
+well. It is true that I was aware that I had not a _Norman_ to deal
+with; or, I should not have ventured upon the experiment. I sent in word
+that, having got into the park, I should be exceedingly obliged to Mr.
+Drummond if he would let me go out of it on the side next to Shire. He
+not only granted this request, but, in the most obliging manner,
+permitted us to ride all about the park, and to see his gardens, which,
+without any exception, are, to my fancy, the prettiest in England; that
+is to say, that I ever saw in England.
+
+They say that these gardens were laid out for one of the Howards, in the
+reign of Charles the Second, by Mr. Evelyn, who wrote the _Sylva_. The
+mansion-house, which is by no means magnificent, stands on a little flat
+by the side of the parish church, having a steep, but not lofty, hill
+rising up on the south side of it. It looks right across the gardens,
+which lie on the slope of a hill which runs along at about a quarter of
+a mile distant from the front of the house. The gardens, of course, lie
+facing the south. At the back of them, under the hill, is a high wall;
+and there is also a wall at each end, running from north to south.
+Between the house and the gardens there is a very beautiful run of
+water, with a sort of little wild narrow sedgy meadow. The gardens are
+separated from this by a hedge, running along from east to west. From
+this hedge there go up the hill, at right angles, several other hedges,
+which divide the land here into distinct gardens, or orchards. Along at
+the top of these there goes a yew hedge, or, rather, a row of small yew
+trees, the trunks of which are bare for about eight or ten feet high,
+and the tops of which form one solid head of about ten feet high, while
+the bottom branches come out on each side of the row about eight feet
+horizontally. This hedge, or row, is _a quarter of a mile long_. There
+is a nice hard sand-road under this species of umbrella; and, summer and
+winter, here is a most delightful walk! Behind this row of yews, there
+is a space, or garden (a quarter of a mile long you will observe) about
+thirty or forty feet wide, as nearly as I can recollect. At the back of
+this garden, and facing the yew-tree row, is a wall probably ten feet
+high, which forms the breastwork of a _terrace_; and it is this terrace
+which is the most beautiful thing that I ever saw in the gardening way.
+It is a quarter of a mile long, and, I believe, between thirty and forty
+feet wide; of the finest green sward, and as level as a die.
+
+The wall, along at the back of this terrace, stands close against the
+hill, which you see with the trees and underwood upon it rising above
+the wall. So that here is the finest spot for fruit trees that can
+possibly be imagined. At both ends of this garden the trees in the park
+are lofty, and there are a pretty many of them. The hills on the south
+side of the mansion-house are covered with lofty trees, chiefly beeches
+and chestnut: so that a warmer, a more sheltered, spot than this, it
+seems to be impossible to imagine. Observe, too, how judicious it was to
+plant the row of yew trees at the distance which I have described from
+the wall which forms the breastwork of the terrace: that wall, as well
+as the wall at the back of the terrace, are covered with fruit trees,
+and the yew tree row is just high enough to defend the former from
+winds, without injuring it by its shade. In the middle of the wall, at
+the back of the terrace, there is a recess about thirty feet in front
+and twenty feet deep, and here is a _basin_, into which rises a spring
+coming out of the hill. The overflowings of this basin go under the
+terrace and down across the garden into the rivulet below. So that here
+is water at the top, across the middle, and along at the bottom of this
+garden. Take it altogether, this, certainly, is the prettiest garden
+that I ever beheld. There was taste and sound judgment at every step in
+the laying out of this place. Everywhere utility and convenience is
+combined with beauty. The terrace is by far the finest thing of the sort
+that I ever saw, and the whole thing altogether is a great compliment to
+the taste of the times in which it was formed. I know there are some
+ill-natured persons who will say that I want a revolution that would
+turn Mr. Drummond out of this place and put me into it. Such persons
+will hardly believe me, but upon my word I do not. From everything that
+I hear, Mr. Drummond is very worthy of possessing it himself, seeing
+that he is famed for his justice and his kindness _towards the labouring
+classes_, who, God knows, have very few friends amongst the rich. If
+what I have heard be true, Mr. Drummond is singularly good in this way;
+for, instead of hunting down an unfortunate creature who has exposed
+himself to the lash of the law; instead of regarding a crime committed
+as proof of an inherent disposition to commit crime; instead of
+rendering the poor creatures desperate by this species of
+_proscription_, and forcing them on to the _gallows_, merely because
+they have once merited the _Bridewell_; instead of this, which is the
+common practice throughout the country, he rather seeks for such
+unfortunate creatures to take them into his employ, and thus to reclaim
+them, and to make them repent of their former courses. If this be true,
+and I am credibly informed that it is, I know of no man in England so
+worthy of his estate. There may be others to act in like manner; but I
+neither know nor have heard of any other. I had, indeed, heard of this,
+at Alresford in Hampshire; and, to say the truth, it was this
+circumstance, and this alone, which induced me to ask the favour of Mr.
+Drummond to go through his park. But, besides that Mr. Drummond is very
+worthy of his estate, what chance should I have of getting it if it came
+to a _scramble_? There are others who like pretty gardens as well as I;
+and if the question were to be decided according to the law of the
+strongest, or, as the French call it, by the _droit du plus fort_, my
+chance would be but a very poor one. The truth is, that you hear nothing
+but _fools_ talk about revolutions _made for the purpose of getting
+possession of people's property_. They never have their spring in any
+such motives. They are _caused by Governments themselves_; and though
+they do sometimes cause a new distribution of property to a certain
+extent, there never was, perhaps, one single man in this world that had
+anything to do, worth speaking of, in the causing of a revolution, that
+did it with any such view. But what a strange thing it is, that there
+should be men at this time to fear _the loss of estates_ as the
+consequence of a convulsive revolution; at this time, when the estates
+are actually passing away from the owners before their eyes, and that,
+too, in consequence of measures which have been adopted for what has
+been called the _preservation of property_, against the designs of
+Jacobins and Radicals! Mr. Drummond has, I dare say, the means of
+preventing his estate from being actually taken away from him; but I am
+quite certain that that estate, except as a place to live at, is not
+worth to him, at this moment, one single farthing. What could a
+revolution do for him _more_ than this? If one could suppose the power
+of doing what they like placed in the hands of the labouring classes; if
+one could suppose such a thing as this, which never was yet seen; if one
+could suppose anything so monstrous as that of a revolution that would
+leave no public authority anywhere; even in such a case, it is against
+nature to suppose that the people would come and turn him out of his
+house and leave him without food; and yet that they must do, to make
+him, as a landholder, worse off than he is; or, at least, worse off than
+he must be in a very short time. I saw, in the gardens at Albury Park,
+what I never saw before in all my life; that is, some plants of the
+_American Cranberry_. I never saw them in America; for there they grow
+in those swamps, into which I never happened to go at the time of their
+bearing fruit. I may have seen the plant, but I do not know that I ever
+did. Here it not only grows, but bears; and there are still some
+cranberries on the plants now. I tasted them, and they appeared to me to
+have just the same taste as those in America. They grew in a long bed
+near the stream of water which I have spoken about, and therefore it is
+clear that they may be cultivated with great ease in this country. The
+road, through Shire along to Dorking, runs up the valley between the
+chalk-hills and the sand-hills; the chalk to our left and the sand to
+our right. This is called the Home Dale. It begins at Reigate and
+terminates at Shalford Common, down below Chilworth.
+
+
+_Reigate, December 1._
+
+I set off this morning with an intention to go across the Weald to
+Worth; but the red rising of the sun and the other appearances of the
+morning admonished me to keep upon _high ground_; so I crossed the Mole,
+went along under Boxhill, through Betchworth and Buckland, and got to
+this place just at the beginning of a day of as heavy rain, and as
+boisterous wind, as, I think, I have ever known in England. _In_ one
+rotten borough, one of the most rotten too, and with another still more
+rotten _up upon the hill_, in Reigate, and close by Gatton, how can I
+help reflecting, how can my mind be otherwise than filled with
+reflections on the marvellous deeds of the Collective Wisdom of the
+nation! At present, however (for I want to get to bed) I will notice
+only one of those deeds, and that one yet "_incohete_," a word which Mr.
+Canning seems to have coined for the _nonce_ (which is not a coined
+word), when Lord Castlereagh (who cut his throat the other day) was
+accused of making a _swap_, as the horse-jockeys call it, of a
+_writer-ship_ against a _seat_. It is _barter_, _truck_, _change_,
+_dicker_, as the Yankees call it, but as our horse-jockeys call it
+_swap_, or _chop_. The case was this: the chop had been _begun_; it had
+been entered on; but had not been completed; just as two jockeys may
+have _agreed_ on a chop and yet not actually _delivered_ the horses to
+one another. Therefore, Mr. Canning said that the act was _incohete_,
+which means, without cohesion, without consequence. Whereupon the House
+entered on its Journals a solemn resolution, that it was its duty to
+_watch over its purity with the greatest care_; but that the said act
+being "_incohete_" the House did not think it necessary to proceed any
+further in the matter! It unfortunately happened, however, that in a
+very few days afterwards--that is to say, on the memorable eleventh of
+June, 1809--Mr. Maddocks accused the very same Castlereagh of having
+actually sold and delivered a seat to Quintin Dick for three thousand
+pounds. The accuser said he was ready to bring to the bar proof of the
+fact; and he moved that he might be permitted so to do. Now, then, what
+did Mr. Canning say? Why, he said that the reformers were a low degraded
+crew, and he called upon the House to make a stand against democratical
+encroachment? And the House did not listen to him, surely? Yes, but it
+did! And it voted by a thundering majority, that it would not hear the
+evidence. And this vote was, by the leader of the Whigs, justified upon
+the ground that the deed complained of by Mr. Maddocks was according to
+a practice which was as notorious as _the sun at noon day_. So much for
+the word "_incohete_," which has led me into this long digression. The
+deed, or achievement, of which I am now about to speak is not the
+Marriage Act; for that is _cohete_ enough: that has had plenty of
+consequences. It is the New Turnpike Act, which, though passed, is as
+yet "incohete;" and is not to be cohete for some time yet to come. I
+hope it will become _cohete_ during the time that Parliament is sitting,
+for otherwise it will have _cohesion_ pretty nearly equal to that of the
+Marriage Act. In the first place this Act makes _chalk_ and _lime_
+everywhere liable to turnpike duty, which in many cases they were not
+before. This is a monstrous oppression upon the owners and occupiers of
+clay lands; and comes just at the time, too, when they are upon the
+point, many of them, of being driven out of cultivation, or thrown up to
+the parish, by other burdens. But it is the provision with regard to the
+_wheels_ which will create the greatest injury, distress and confusion.
+The wheels which this law orders to be used on turnpike roads, on pain
+of enormous toll, cannot be used on the _cross-roads_ throughout more
+than nine-tenths of the kingdom. To make these roads and the
+_drove-lanes_ (the private roads of farms) fit for the cylindrical
+wheels described in this Bill, would cost a pound an acre, upon an
+average, upon all the land in England, and especially in the counties
+where the land is poorest. It would, in these counties, cost a tenth
+part of the worth of the fee-simple of the land. And this is enacted,
+too, at a time when the wagons, the carts, and all the dead stock of a
+farm; when the whole is falling into a state of irrepair; when all is
+actually perishing for want of means in the farmer to keep it in repair!
+This is the time that the Lord Johns and the Lord Henries and the rest
+of that Honourable body have thought proper to enact that the whole of
+the farmers in England shall have new wheels to their wagons and carts,
+or, that they shall be punished by the payment of heavier tolls! It is
+useless, perhaps, to say anything about the matter; but I could not help
+noticing a thing which has created such a general alarm amongst the
+farmers in every part of the country where I have recently been.
+
+
+_Worth (Sussex), December 2._
+
+I set off from Reigate this morning, and after a pleasant ride of ten
+miles, got here to breakfast.--Here, as everywhere else, the farmers
+appear to think that their last hour is approaching.--Mr. _Charles
+B----'s farms_; I believe it is _Sir_ Charles B----; and I should be
+sorry to withhold from him his title, though, being said to be a very
+good sort of a man, he might, perhaps, be able to shift without it: this
+gentleman's farms are subject of conversation here. The matter is
+curious in itself, and very well worthy of attention, as illustrative of
+the present state of things. These farms were, last year, taken into
+hand by the owner. This was stated in the public papers about a
+twelvemonth ago. It was said that his tenants would not take the farms
+again at the rent which he wished to have, and that therefore he took
+the farms into hand. These farms lie somewhere down in the west of
+Sussex. In the month of August last I saw (and I think in one of the
+Brighton newspapers) a paragraph stating that Mr. B----, who had taken
+his farms into hand the Michaelmas before, had already got in his
+harvest, and that he had had excellent crops! This was a sort of
+bragging paragraph; and there was an observation added which implied
+that the farmers were great fools for not having taken the farms! We now
+hear that Mr. B---- has let his farms. But, now, mark how he has let
+them. The custom in Sussex is this: when a tenant quits a farm, he
+receives payment, according to valuation, for what are called the
+dressings, the half-dressings, for seeds and lays, and for the growth of
+underwood in coppices and hedge-rows; for the dung in the yards; and, in
+short, for whatever he leaves behind him, which, if he had stayed, would
+have been of value to him. The dressings and half-dressings include not
+only the manure that has been recently put into the land, but also the
+summer ploughings; and, in short, everything which has been done to the
+land, and the benefit of which has not been taken out again by the
+farmer. This is a good custom; because it ensures good tillage to the
+land. It ensures, also, a fair start to the new tenant; but then,
+observe, it requires some money, which the new tenant must pay down
+before he can begin, and therefore this custom presumes a pretty deal of
+capital to be possessed by farmers. Bearing _these_ general remarks in
+mind, we shall see, in a moment, the case of Mr. B----. If my
+information be correct, he has let his farms: he has found tenants for
+his farms; but not tenants to pay him anything for dressings,
+half-dressings, and the rest. He was obliged to pay the out-going
+tenants for these things. Mind that! He was obliged to pay them
+according to the custom of the country; but he has got nothing of this
+sort from his in-coming tenants! It must be a poor farm, indeed, where
+the valuation does not amount to some hundreds of pounds. So that here
+is a pretty sum sunk by Mr. B----; and yet even on conditions like
+these, he has, I dare say, been glad to get his farms off his hands.
+There can be very little security for the payment of rent where the
+tenant pays no in-coming; but even if he get no rent at all, Mr. B----
+has done well to get his farms off his hands. Now, do I wish to
+insinuate that Mr. B---- asked too much for his farms last year, and
+that he wished to squeeze the last shilling out of his farmers? By no
+means. He bears the character of a mild, just, and very considerate man,
+by no means greedy, but the contrary. A man very much beloved by his
+tenants; or, at least, deserving it. But the truth is, he could not
+believe it possible that his farms were so much fallen in value. He
+could not believe it possible that his estate had been taken away from
+him by the legerdemain of the Pitt System, which he had been supporting
+all his life: so that he thought, and very naturally thought, that his
+old tenants were endeavouring to impose upon him, and therefore resolved
+to take his farms into hand. Experience has shown him that farms yield
+no rent, in the hands of the landlord at least; and therefore he has put
+them into the hands of other people. Mr. B----, like Mr. Western, has
+not read the _Register_. If he had, he would have taken any trifle from
+his old tenants, rather than let them go. But he surely might have read
+the speech of his neighbour and friend Mr. Huskisson, made in the House
+of Commons in 1814, in which that gentleman said that, with wheat at
+less than double the price that it bore before the war, it would be
+impossible for any rent at all to be paid. Mr. B---- might have read
+this; and he might, having so many opportunities, have asked Mr.
+Huskisson for an explanation of it. This gentleman is now a great
+advocate for _national faith_; but may not Mr. B---- ask him whether
+there be no faith to be kept with the landlord? However, if I am not
+deceived, Mr. B---- or Sir Charles B---- (for I really do not know which
+it is) is a member of the Collective! If this be the case he has had
+something to do with the thing himself; and he must muster up as much as
+he can of that "patience" which is so strongly recommended by our great
+new state doctor Mr. Canning.
+
+I cannot conclude my remarks on this Rural Ride without noticing the new
+sort of language that I hear everywhere made use of with regard to the
+parsons, but which language I do not care to repeat. These men may say
+that I keep company with none but those who utter "sedition and
+blasphemy;" and if they do say so, there is just as much veracity in
+their words as I believe there to be charity and sincerity in the hearts
+of the greater part of them. One thing is certain; indeed, two things:
+the first is, that almost the whole of the persons that I have conversed
+with are farmers; and the second is, that they are in this respect all
+of one mind! It was my intention, at one time, to go along the south of
+Hampshire to Portsmouth, Fareham, Botley, Southampton, and across the
+New Forest into Dorsetshire. My affairs made me turn from Hambledon this
+way; but I had an opportunity of hearing something about the
+neighbourhood of Botley. Take any one considerable circle where you know
+everybody, and the condition of that circle will teach you how to judge
+pretty correctly of the condition of every other part of the country. I
+asked about the farmers of my old neighbourhood, one by one; and the
+answers I received only tended to confirm me in the opinion that the
+whole race will be destroyed; and that a new race will come, and enter
+upon farms without capital and without stock; be a sort of bailiffs to
+the landlords for a while, and then, if this system go on, bailiffs to
+the Government as trustee for the fundholders. If the account which I
+have received of Mr. B----'s new mode of letting be true, here is one
+step further than has been before taken. In all probability the stock
+upon the farms belongs to him, to be paid for when the tenant can pay
+for it. Who does not see to what this tends? The man must be blind
+indeed who cannot see confiscation here; and can he be much less than
+blind if he imagine that relief is to be obtained by the _patience_
+recommended by Mr. Canning?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus, Sir, have I led you about the country. All sorts of things have I
+talked of, to be sure; but there are very few of these things which have
+not their interest of one sort or another. At the end of a hundred miles
+or two of travelling, stopping here and there; talking freely with
+everybody; hearing what gentlemen, farmers, tradesmen, journeymen,
+labourers, women, girls, boys, and all have to say; reasoning with some,
+laughing with others, and observing all that passes; and especially if
+your manner be such as to remove every kind of reserve from every class;
+at the end of a tramp like this, you get impressed upon your mind a true
+picture, not only of the state of the country, but of the state of the
+people's minds throughout the country. And, Sir, whether you believe me
+or not, I have to tell you that it is my decided opinion that the
+people, high and low, with one unanimous voice, except where they live
+upon the taxes, _impute their calamities to the House of Commons_.
+Whether they be right or wrong is not so much the question in this case.
+That such is the fact I am certain; and having no power to make any
+change myself, I must leave the making or the refusing of the change to
+those who have the power. I repeat, and with perfect sincerity, that it
+would give me as much pain as it would give to any man in England, to
+see a change _in the form of the Government_. With _King_, _Lords_, and
+_Commons_, this nation enjoyed many ages of happiness and of glory.
+_Without Commons_, my opinion is, it never can again see anything but
+misery and shame; and when I say Commons I _mean_ Commons; and by
+Commons, I mean men elected by the free voice of the untitled and
+unprivileged part of the people, who, in fact as well as in law, are the
+Commons of England.
+
+I am, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
+
+WM. COBBETT.
+
+
+
+
+JOURNAL: RIDE FROM KENSINGTON TO WORTH, IN SUSSEX.
+
+
+_Monday, May 5, 1823._
+
+From London to Reigate, through Sutton, is about as villanous a tract as
+England contains. The soil is a mixture of gravel and clay, with big
+yellow stones in it, sure sign of really bad land. Before you descend
+the hill to go into Reigate, you pass _Gatton_ ("Gatton and Old Sarum"),
+which is a very rascally spot of earth. The trees are here a week later
+than they are at Tooting. At Reigate they are (in order to save a few
+hundred yards length of road) cutting through a hill. They have lowered
+a little hill on the London side of Sutton. Thus is the money of the
+country actually thrown away: the produce of labour is taken from the
+industrious, and given to the idlers. Mark the process; the town of
+Brighton, in Sussex, 50 miles from the Wen, is on the seaside, and is
+thought by the stock-jobbers to afford a _salubrious air_. It is so
+situated that a coach, which leaves it not very early in the morning,
+reaches London by noon; and, starting to go back in two hours and a half
+afterwards, reaches Brighton not very late at night. Great parcels of
+stock-jobbers stay at Brighton with the women and children. They skip
+backward and forward on the coaches, and actually carry on
+stock-jobbing, in 'Change Alley, though they reside at Brighton. This
+place is, besides, a place of great resort with the _whiskered_ gentry.
+There are not less than about twenty coaches that leave the Wen every
+day for this place; and there being three or four different roads, there
+is a great rivalship for the custom. This sets the people to work to
+shorten and to level the roads; and here you see hundreds of men and
+horses constantly at work to make pleasant and quick travelling for the
+Jews and jobbers. The Jews and jobbers pay the turnpikes, to be sure;
+but they get the money from the land and labourer. They drain these,
+from John-a-Groat's House to the Land's End, and they lay out some of
+the money on the Brighton roads! "Vast _improvements_, ma'am!" as Mrs.
+_Scrip_ said to Mrs. _Omnium_, in speaking of the new enclosures on the
+villanous heaths of Bagshot and Windsor.--Now, some will say, "Well, it
+is only a change from hand to hand." Very true, and if Daddy Coke of
+Norfolk like the change, I know not why I should dislike it. More and
+more new houses are building as you leave the Wen to come on this road.
+_Whence come_ the means of building these new houses and keeping the
+inhabitants? Do they come out of _trade_ and _commerce_? Oh, no! they
+come from _the land_; but if Daddy Coke like this, what has any one else
+to do with it? Daddy Coke and Lord Milton like "national faith;" it
+would be a pity to disappoint their liking. The best of this is, it will
+bring _down to the very dirt_; it will bring down their faces to the
+very earth, and fill their mouths full of sand; it will thus pull down a
+set of the basest lick-spittles of power and the most intolerable
+tyrants towards their inferiors in wealth that the sun ever shone on. It
+is time that these degenerate dogs were swept away at any rate. The
+Blackthorns are in full bloom, and make a grand show. When you quit
+Reigate to go towards Crawley, you enter on what is called the _Weald of
+Surrey_. It is a level country, and the soil is a very, very strong
+loam, with clay beneath to a great depth. The fields are small, and
+about a third of the land covered with oak-woods and coppice-woods. This
+is a country of wheat and beans; the latter of which are about three
+inches high, the former about seven, and both looking very well. I did
+not see a field of bad-looking wheat from Reigate-hill foot to Crawley,
+nor from Crawley across to this place, where, though the whole country
+is but poorish, the wheat looks very well; and if this weather hold
+about twelve days, we shall recover the lost time. They have been
+stripping trees (taking the bark off) about five or six days. The
+nightingales sing very much, which is a sign of warm weather. The
+house-martins and the swallows are come in abundance; and they seldom do
+come until the weather be set in for mild.
+
+
+_Wednesday, 7th May._
+
+The weather is very fine and warm; the leaves of the _Oaks_ are coming
+out very fast: some of the trees are nearly in half-leaf. The _Birches_
+are out in leaf. I do not think that I ever saw the wheat look, take it
+all together, so well as it does at this time. I see in the stiff land
+no signs of worm or slug. The winter, which destroyed so many turnips,
+must, at any rate, have destroyed these mischievous things. The oats
+look well. The barley is very young; but I do not see anything amiss
+with regard to it.--The land between this place and Reigate is stiff.
+How the corn may be in other places I know not; but in coming down I met
+with a farmer of Bedfordshire, who said that the wheat looked very well
+in that county; which is not a county of clay, like the Weald of Surrey.
+I saw a Southdown farmer, who told me that the wheat is good there, and
+that is a fine corn-country. The bloom of the fruit trees is the finest
+I ever saw in England. The pear-bloom is, at a distance, like that of
+the _Gueldre Rose_; so large and bold are the bunches. The plum is
+equally fine; and even the Blackthorn (which is the hedge-plum) has a
+bloom finer than I ever saw it have before. It is rather _early_ to
+offer any opinion as to the crop of corn; but if I were compelled to bet
+upon it, I would bet upon a good crop. Frosts frequently come after this
+time; and if they come in May, they cause "things to come about" very
+fast. But if we have no more frosts: in short, if we have, after this, a
+good summer, we shall have a fine laugh at the Quakers' and the Jews'
+press. Fifteen days' sun will bring _things about_ in reality. The wages
+of labour in the country have taken a rise, and the poor-rates an
+increase, since first of March. I am glad to hear that the _Straw
+Bonnet_ affair has excited a good deal of attention. In answer to
+applications upon the subject, I have to observe, that all the
+information on the subject will be published in the first week of June.
+Specimens of the _straw_ and _plat_ will then be to be seen at No. 183,
+Fleet Street.
+
+
+
+
+FROM THE (LONDON) WEN ACROSS SURREY, ACROSS THE WEST OF SUSSEX, AND INTO
+THE SOUTH EAST OF HAMPSHIRE.
+
+
+_Reigate (Surrey), Saturday, 26 July, 1823._
+
+Came from the Wen, through Croydon. It rained nearly all the way. The
+corn is good. A great deal of straw. The barley very fine; but all are
+backward; and if this weather continue much longer, there must be that
+"heavenly blight" for which the wise friends of "social order" are so
+fervently praying. But if the wet now cease, or cease soon, what is to
+become of the "poor souls of farmers" God only knows! In one article the
+wishes of our wise Government appear to have been gratified to the
+utmost; and that, too, without the aid of any express form of prayer. I
+allude to the hops, of which it is said that there will be, according
+to all appearance, none at all! Bravo! Courage, my Lord Liverpool! This
+article, at any rate, will not choak us, will not distress us, will not
+make us miserable by "over-production!"--The other day a gentleman (and
+a man of general good sense too) said to me: "What a deal of wet we
+have: what do you think of the weather _now_?"--"More rain," said I.
+"D--n those farmers," said he, "what luck they have! They will be as
+rich as Jews!"--Incredible as this may seem, it is a fact. But, indeed,
+there is no folly, if it relate to these matters, which is, now-a-days,
+incredible. The hop affair is a pretty good illustration of the doctrine
+of "relief" from "diminished production." Mr. Ricardo may now call upon
+any of the hop-planters for proof of the correctness of his notions.
+They are ruined, for the greater part, if their all be embarked in hops.
+How are they to pay rent? I saw a planter the other day who sold his
+hops (Kentish) last fall for sixty shillings a hundred. The same hops
+will now fetch the owner of them eight pounds, or a hundred and sixty
+shillings.
+
+Thus the _Quaker_ gets rich, and the poor devil of a farmer is squeezed
+into a gaol. The _Quakers_ carry on the far greater part of this work.
+They are, as to the products of the earth, what the _Jews_ are as to
+gold and silver. How they profit, or, rather, the degree in which they
+profit, at the expense of those who own and those who till the land, may
+be guessed at if we look at their immense worth, and if we at the same
+time reflect that they never work. Here is a sect of non-labourers. One
+would think that their religion bound them under a curse not to work.
+Some part of the people of all other sects work; sweat at work; do
+something that is useful to other people; but here is a sect of buyers
+and sellers. They make nothing; they cause nothing to come; they breed
+as well as other sects; but they make none of the raiment or houses, and
+cause none of the food to come. In order to justify some measure for
+paring the nails of this grasping sect, it is enough to say of them,
+which we may with perfect truth, that if all the other sects were to act
+like them, _the community must perish_. This is quite enough to say of
+this sect, of the monstrous privileges of whom we shall, I hope, one of
+these days, see an end. If I had the dealing with them, I would soon
+teach them to use the _spade_ and the _plough_, and the _musket_ too
+when necessary.
+
+The rye along the road side is ripe enough; and some of it is reaped and
+in shock. At Mearstam there is a field of cabbages, which, I was told,
+belonged to Colonel Joliffe. They appear to be early Yorks, and look
+very well. The rows seem to be about eighteen inches apart. There may be
+from 15,000 to 20,000 plants to the acre; and I dare say that they will
+weigh three pounds each, or more. I know of no crop of cattle food equal
+to this. If they be early Yorks, they will be in perfection in October,
+just when the grass is almost gone. No five acres of common grass land
+will, during the year, yield cattle food equal, either in quantity or
+quality, to what one acre of land in early Yorks will produce during
+three months.
+
+
+_Worth (Sussex), Wednesday, 30 July._
+
+Worth is ten miles from Reigate on the Brighton-road, which goes through
+Horley. Reigate has the Surrey chalk hills close to it on the North, and
+sand-hills along on its South, and nearly close to it also. As soon as
+you are over the sand-hills, you come into a country of _deep_ clay; and
+this is called the _Weald_ of Surrey. This Weald winds away round,
+towards the West, into Sussex, and towards the East, into Kent. In this
+part of Surrey it is about eight miles wide, from North to South, and
+ends just as you enter the parish of Worth, which is the first parish
+(in this part) in the county of Sussex. All across the Weald (the strong
+and stiff clays) the corn looks very well. I found it looking well from
+the Wen to Reigate, on the villanous spewy soil between the Wen and
+Croydon; on the chalk from Croydon to near Reigate; on the loam, sand
+and chalk (for there are all three) in the valley of Reigate; but not
+quite so well on the sand. On the clay all the corn looks well. The
+wheat, where it has begun to die, is dying of a good colour, not black,
+nor in any way that indicates blight. It is, however, all backward. Some
+few fields of white wheat are changing colour; but for the greater part
+it is quite green; and though a sudden change of weather might make a
+great alteration in a short time, it does appear that the harvest must
+be later than usual. When I say this, however, I by no means wish to be
+understood as saying that it must be so late as to be injurious to the
+crop. In 1816, I saw a barley-rick making in November. In 1821, I saw
+wheat uncut, in Suffolk, in October. If we were now to have good,
+bright, hot weather, for as long a time as we have had wet, the whole of
+the corn in these Southern counties would be housed, and great part of
+it threshed out, by the 10th of September. So that all depends on the
+weather, which appears to be clearing up in spite of Saint Swithin. This
+Saint's birth-day is the 15th of July; and it is said that if rain fall
+on his birth-day it will fall on _forty days_ successively. But I
+believe that you reckon retrospectively as well as prospectively; and if
+this be the case, we may, this time, escape the extreme unction; for it
+began to rain on the 26th of June; so that it rained 19 days before the
+15th of July; and as it has rained 16 days since, it has rained, in the
+whole, 35 days, and, of course, five days more will satisfy this wet
+soul of a saint. Let him take his five days; and there will be plenty of
+time for us to have wheat at four shillings a bushel. But if the Saint
+will give us no credit for the 19 days, and will insist upon his forty
+daily drenchings _after_ the fifteenth of July; if he will have such a
+soaking as this at the celebration of the anniversary of his birth, let
+us hope that he is prepared with a miracle for feeding us, and with a
+still more potent miracle for keeping the farmers from riding over us,
+filled, as Lord Liverpool thinks their pockets will be, by the
+annihilation of their crops!
+
+The upland meadow grass is, a great deal of it, not cut yet along the
+Weald. So that in these parts there has been not a great deal of hay
+spoiled. The clover hay was got in very well; and only a small part of
+the meadow hay has been spoiled in this part of the country. This is not
+the case, however, in other parts, where the grass was forwarder, and
+where it was cut before the rain came. Upon the whole, however, much hay
+does not appear to have been spoiled as yet. The farmers along here,
+have, most of them, begun to cut to-day. This has been a fine day; and
+it is clear that they expect it to continue. I saw but two pieces of
+Swedish turnips between the Wen and Reigate, but one at Reigate, and but
+one between Reigate and Worth. During a like distance in Norfolk or
+Suffolk, you would see two or three hundred fields of this sort of root.
+Those that I do see here look well. The white turnips are just up, or
+just sown, though there are some which have rough leaves already. This
+Weald is, indeed, not much of land for turnips; but from what I see
+here, and from what I know of the weather, I think that the turnips must
+be generally good. The after-grass is surprisingly fine. The lands which
+have had hay cut and carried from them are, I think, more _beautiful_
+than I ever saw them before. It should, however, always be borne in mind
+that this _beautiful_ grass is by no means the _best_. An acre of this
+grass will not make a quarter part so much butter as an acre of
+rusty-looking pasture, made rusty by the rays of the sun. Sheep on the
+commons _die_ of the _beautiful_ grass produced by long-continued rains
+at this time of the year. Even geese, hardy as they are, die from the
+same cause. The rain will give quantity; but without sun the quality
+must be poor at the best. The woods have not shot much this year. The
+cold winds, the frosts, that we had up to Midsummer, prevented the trees
+from growing much. They are beginning to shoot now; but the wood must be
+imperfectly ripened.
+
+I met at Worth a beggar, who told me, in consequence of my asking where
+he belonged, that he was born in South Carolina. I found, at last, that
+he was born in the English army, during the American rebel-war; that he
+became a soldier himself; and that it had been his fate to serve under
+the Duke of York, in Holland; under General Whitelock, at Buenos Ayres;
+under Sir John Moore, at Corunna; and under "the Greatest Captain," at
+Talavera! This poor fellow did not seem to be at all aware that in the
+last case he partook in _a victory_! He had never before heard of its
+being a victory. He, poor fool, thought that it was _a defeat_. "Why,"
+said he, "we _ran away_, Sir." Oh, yes! said I, and so you did
+afterwards, perhaps, in Portugal, when Massena was at your heels; but it
+is only in certain cases that running away is a mark of being defeated;
+or, rather, it is only with certain commanders. A matter of much more
+interest to us, however, is that the wars for "social order," not
+forgetting Gatton and Old Sarum, have filled the country with beggars,
+who have been, or who pretend to have been, soldiers and sailors. For
+want of looking well into this matter, many good and just, and even
+sensible men are led to give to these army and navy beggars what they
+refuse to others. But if reason were consulted, she would ask what
+pretensions these have to a preference? She would see in them men who
+had become soldiers or sailors because they wished to live without that
+labour by which other men are content to get their bread. She would ask
+the soldier beggar whether he did not voluntarily engage to perform
+services such as were performed at Manchester; and if she pressed him
+for _the motive_ to this engagement, could he assign any motive other
+than that of wishing to live without work upon the fruit of the work of
+other men? And why should reason not be listened to? Why should she not
+be consulted in every such case? And if she were consulted, which would
+she tell you was the most worthy of your compassion, the man who, no
+matter from what cause, is become a beggar after forty years spent in
+the raising of food and raiment for others as well as for himself; or
+the man who, no matter again from what cause, is become a beggar after
+forty years living upon the labour of others, and during the greater
+part of which time he has been living in a barrack, there kept for
+purposes explained by Lord Palmerston, and always in readiness to answer
+those purposes? As to not giving to beggars, I think there is a law
+against giving! However, give to them people will, as long as they ask.
+Remove the _cause_ of the beggary, and we shall see no more beggars; but
+as long as there are _boroughmongers_ there will be beggars enough.
+
+
+_Horsham (Sussex), Thursday, 31 July._
+
+I left Worth this afternoon about 5 o'clock, and am got here to sleep,
+intending to set off for Petworth in the morning, with a view of
+crossing the South Downs and then going into Hampshire through Havant,
+and along at the southern foot of Portsdown Hill, where I shall see the
+earliest corn in England. From Worth you come to Crawley along some
+pretty good land; you then turn to the left and go two miles along the
+road from the Wen to Brighton; then you turn to the right, and go over
+six of the worst miles in England, which miles terminate but a few
+hundred yards before you enter Horsham. The first two of these miserable
+miles go through the estate of Lord Erskine. It was a bare heath, with
+here and there, in the better parts of it, some scrubby birch. It has
+been, in part, planted with fir-trees, which are as ugly as the heath
+was: and, in short, it is a most villanous tract. After quitting it, you
+enter a forest; but a most miserable one; and this is followed by a
+large common, now enclosed, cut up, disfigured, spoiled, and the
+labourers all driven from its skirts. I have seldom travelled over eight
+miles so well calculated to fill the mind with painful reflections. The
+ride has, however, this in it: that the ground is pretty much elevated,
+and enables you to look about you. You see the Surrey hills away to the
+North; Hindhead and Blackdown to the North West and West; and the South
+Downs from the West to the East. The sun was shining upon all these,
+though it was cloudy where I was. The soil is a poor, miserable,
+clayey-looking sand, with a sort of sandstone underneath. When you get
+down into this town, you are again in the Weald of Sussex. I believe
+that _Weald_ meant _clay_, or low, wet, stiff land. This is a very nice,
+solid, country town. Very clean, as all the towns in Sussex are. The
+people very clean. The Sussex women are very nice in their dress and in
+their houses. The men and boys wear smock-frocks more than they do in
+some counties. When country people do not they always look dirty and
+comfortless. This has been a pretty good day; but there was a little
+rain in the afternoon; so that St. Swithin keeps on as yet, at any rate.
+The hay has been spoiled here, in cases where it has been cut; but a
+great deal of it is not yet cut. I speak of the meadows; for the
+clover-hay was all well got in. The grass, which is not cut, is
+receiving great injury. It is, in fact, in many cases rotting upon the
+ground. As to corn, from Crawley to Horsham there is none worth speaking
+of. What there is is very good, in general, considering the quality of
+the soil. It is about as backward as at Worth: the barley and oats
+green, and the wheat beginning to change colour.
+
+
+_Billingshurst (Sussex), Friday Morning, 1 Aug._
+
+This village is 7 miles from Horsham, and I got here to breakfast about
+seven o'clock. A very pretty village, and a very nice breakfast in a
+very neat little parlour of a very decent public-house. The landlady
+sent her son to get me some cream, and he was just such a chap as I was
+at his age, and dressed just in the same sort of way, his main garment
+being a blue smock-frock, faded from wear, and mended with pieces of new
+stuff, and, of course, not faded. The sight of this smock-frock brought
+to my recollection many things very dear to me. This boy will, I dare
+say, perform his part at Billingshurst, or at some place not far from
+it. If accident had not taken me from a similar scene, how many villains
+and fools, who have been well teazed and tormented, would have slept in
+peace at night, and have fearlessly swaggered about by day! When I look
+at this little chap; at his smock-frock, his nailed shoes, and his
+clean, plain, and coarse shirt, I ask myself, will anything, I wonder,
+ever send this chap across the ocean to tackle the base, corrupt,
+perjured Republican Judges of Pennsylvania? Will this little, lively,
+but, at the same time, simple boy, ever become the terror of villains
+and hypocrites across the Atlantic? What a chain of strange
+circumstances there must be to lead this boy to thwart a miscreant
+tyrant like Mackeen, the Chief Justice and afterwards Governor of
+Pennsylvania, and to expose the corruptions of the band of rascals,
+called a "Senate and a House of Representatives," at Harrisburgh, in
+that state!
+
+I was afraid of rain, and got on as fast as I could: that is to say, as
+fast as my own diligence could help me on; for, as to my horse, he is to
+go only _so fast_. However, I had no rain; and got to Petworth, nine
+miles further, by about ten o'clock.
+
+
+_Petworth (Sussex), Friday Evening, 1 Aug._
+
+No rain, until just at sunset, and then very little. I must now look
+back. From Horsham to within a few miles of Petworth is in the Weald of
+Sussex; stiff land, small fields, broad hedge-rows, and invariably
+thickly planted with fine, growing oak trees. The corn here consists
+chiefly of wheat and oats. There are some bean-fields, and some few
+fields of peas; but very little barley along here. The corn is very good
+all along the Weald; backward; the wheat almost green; the oats quite
+green; but, late as it is, I see no blight; and the farmers tell me that
+there is no blight. There may be yet, however; and therefore our
+Government, our "_paternal_ Government," so anxious to prevent "over
+production," need not _despair_ as yet, at any rate. The beans in the
+Weald are not very good. They got lousy before the wet came; and it came
+rather too late to make them recover what they had lost. What peas there
+are look well. Along here the wheat, in general, may be fit to cut in
+about 16 days' time; some sooner; but some later, for some is perfectly
+green. No Swedish turnips all along this country. The white turnips are
+just up, coming up, or just sown. The farmers are laying out lime upon
+the wheat fallows, and this is the universal practice of the country. I
+see very few sheep. There are a good many orchards along in the Weald,
+and they have some apples this year; but, in general, not many. The
+apple trees are planted very thickly, and, of course, they are small;
+but they appear healthy in general; and in some places there is a good
+deal of fruit, even this year. As you approach Petworth, the ground
+rises and the soil grows lighter. There is a hill which I came over,
+about two miles from Petworth, whence I had a clear view of the Surrey
+chalk-hills, Leithhill, Hindhead, Blackdown, and of the South Downs,
+towards one part of which I was advancing. The pigs along here are all
+black, thin-haired, and of precisely the same sort of those that I took
+from England to Long Island, and with which I pretty well stocked the
+American states. By-the-by, the trip, which Old Sidmouth and crew gave
+me to America, was attended with some interesting consequences; amongst
+which were the introducing of the Sussex pigs into the American
+farmyards; the introduction of the Swedish turnip into the American
+fields; the introduction of American apple trees into England; and the
+introduction of the making, in England, of the straw plat, to supplant
+the Italian; for, had my son not been in America, this last would not
+have taken place; and in America he would not have been, had it not been
+for Old Sidmouth and crew. One thing more, and that is of more
+importance than all the rest, Peel's Bill arose out of the "puff-out"
+Registers; these arose out of the trip to Long Island; and out of Peel's
+Bill has arisen the best bothering that the wigs of the Boroughmongers
+ever received, which bothering will end in the destruction of the
+Boroughmongering. It is curious, and very _useful_, thus to trace events
+to their causes.
+
+Soon after quitting Billingshurst I crossed the river Arun, which has a
+canal running alongside of it. At this there are large timber and coal
+yards, and kilns for lime. This appears to be a grand receiving and
+distributing place. The river goes down to Arundale, and, together with
+the valley that it runs through, gives the town its name. This valley,
+which is very pretty, and which winds about a good deal, is the dale of
+the Arun: and the town is the town of the Arun-dale. To-day, near a
+place called Westborough Green, I saw a woman bleaching her home-spun
+and home-woven linen. I have not seen such a thing before, since I left
+Long Island. There, and, indeed, all over the American States, North of
+Maryland, and especially in the New England States, almost the whole of
+both linen and woollen used in the country, and a large part of that
+used in towns, is made in the farmhouses. There are thousands and
+thousands of families who never use either, except of their own making.
+All but the weaving is done by the family. There is a loom in the house,
+and the weaver goes from house to house. I once saw about three thousand
+farmers, or rather country people, at a horse-race in Long Island, and
+my opinion was, that there were not five hundred who were not dressed in
+home-spun coats. As to linen, no farmer's family thinks of buying linen.
+The Lords of the Loom have taken from the land, in England, this part of
+its due; and hence one cause of the poverty, misery, and pauperism that
+are becoming so frightful throughout the country. A national debt and
+all the taxation and gambling belonging to it have a natural tendency to
+draw wealth into great masses. These masses produce a power of
+_congregating_ manufactures, and of making the many work at them, for
+the _gain of a few_. The taxing Government finds great convenience in
+these congregations. It can lay its hand easily upon a part of the
+produce; as ours does with so much effect. But the land suffers greatly
+from this, and the country must finally feel the fatal effects of it.
+The country people lose part of their natural employment. The women and
+children, who ought to provide a great part of the raiment, have nothing
+to do. The fields _must_ have men and boys; but where there are men and
+boys there will be _women_ and _girls_; and as the Lords of the Loom
+have now a set of real slaves, by the means of whom they take away a
+great part of the employment of the countrywomen and girls, these must
+be kept by poor-rates in whatever degree they lose employment through
+the Lords of the Loom. One would think that nothing can be much plainer
+than this; and yet you hear the _jolterheads_ congratulating one another
+upon the increase of Manchester, and such places! My straw affair will
+certainly restore to the land some of the employment of its women and
+girls. It will be impossible for any of the "rich ruffians;" any of the
+horse-power or steam-power or air-power ruffians; any of these greedy,
+grinding ruffians, to draw together bands of men, women and children,
+and to make them slaves, in the working of straw. The raw material comes
+of itself, and the hand, and the hand alone, can convert it to use. I
+thought well of this before I took one single step in the way of
+supplanting the Leghorn bonnets. If I had not been certain that no rich
+ruffian, no white slave holder, could ever arise out of it, assuredly
+one line upon the subject never would have been written by me. Better a
+million times that the money should go to Italy; better that it should
+go to enrich even the rivals and enemies of the country; than that it
+should enable these hard, these unfeeling men, to draw English people
+into crowds and make them slaves, and slaves too of the lowest and most
+degraded cast.
+
+As I was coming into this town I saw a new-fashioned sort of
+stone-cracking. A man had a sledge-hammer, and was cracking the heads of
+the big stones that had been laid on the road a good while ago. This is
+a very good way; but this man told me that he was set at this because
+the farmers had _no employment_ for many of the men. "Well," said I,
+"but they pay you to do this!" "Yes," said he. "Well, then," said I, "is
+it not better for them to pay you for working _on their land_?" "I can't
+tell, indeed, Sir, how that is." But only think; here is half the
+haymaking to do: I saw, while I was talking to this man, fifty people in
+one hay-field of Lord Egremont, making and carrying hay; and yet, at a
+season like this, the farmers are so poor as to be unable to pay the
+labourers to work on the land! From this cause there will certainly be
+some falling off in production. This will, of course, have a tendency to
+keep prices from falling so low as they would do if there were no
+falling off. But can this _benefit_ the farmer and landlord? The poverty
+of the farmers is seen in their diminished stock. The animals are sold
+_younger_ than formerly. Last year was a year of great slaughtering.
+There will be less of everything produced; and the quality of each thing
+will be worse. It will be a lower and more mean concern altogether.
+Petworth is a nice market town; but solid and clean. The great abundance
+of _stone_ in the land hereabouts has caused a corresponding liberality
+in paving and wall building; so that everything of the building kind has
+an air of great strength, and produces the agreeable idea of durability.
+Lord Egremont's house is close to the town, and, with its out-buildings,
+garden walls, and other erections, is, perhaps, nearly as big as the
+town; though the town is not a very small one. The Park is very fine,
+and consists of a parcel of those hills and dells which Nature formed
+here when she was in one of her most sportive modes. I have never seen
+the earth flung about in such a wild way as round about Hindhead and
+Blackdown; and this Park forms a part of this ground. From an elevated
+part of it, and, indeed, from each of many parts of it, you see all
+around the country to the distance of many miles. From the South East to
+the North West, the hills are so lofty and so near, that they cut the
+view rather short; but for the rest of the circle you can see to a very
+great distance. It is, upon the whole, a most magnificent seat, and the
+Jews will not be able to get it from the _present_ owner; though, if he
+live many years, they will give even him a _twist_. If I had time, I
+would make an actual survey of one whole county, and find out how many
+of the old gentry have lost their estates, and have been supplanted by
+the Jews, since Pitt began his reign. I am sure I should prove that in
+number they are one-half extinguished. But it is _now_ that they go. The
+little ones are, indeed, gone; and the rest will follow in proportion as
+the present farmers are exhausted. These will keep on giving rents as
+long as they can beg or borrow the money to pay rents with. But a little
+more time will so completely exhaust them that they will be unable to
+pay; and as that takes place, the landlords will lose their estates.
+Indeed many of them, and even a large portion of them, have, in fact, no
+estates now. They are _called_ theirs; but the mortgagees and annuitants
+receive the rents. As the rents fall off, sales must take place, unless
+in cases of entails; and if this thing go on, we shall see Acts passed
+to _cut off entails_, in order that the Jews may be put into full
+possession. Such, thus far, will be the result of our "glorious
+victories" over the French! Such will be, in part, the price of the
+deeds of Pitt, Addington, Perceval, and their successors. For having
+applauded such deeds; for having boasted of the Wellesleys; for having
+bragged of battles won by _money_ and by money _only_, the nation
+deserves that which it will receive; and as to the landlords, they,
+above all men living, deserve punishment. They put the power into the
+hands of Pitt and his crew to torment the people; to keep the people
+down; to raise soldiers and to build barracks for this purpose. These
+base landlords laughed when affairs like that of Manchester took place.
+They laughed at the _Blanketteers_. They laughed when Canning jested
+about Ogden's rupture. Let them, therefore, now take the full benefit of
+the measures of Pitt and his crew. They would fain have us believe that
+the calamities they endure do not arise from the acts of the Government.
+What do they arise from, then? The Jacobins did not contract the _Debt_
+of 800,000,000_l._ sterling. The Jacobins did not create a _Dead Weight_
+of 150,000,000_l._ The Jacobins did not cause a pauper-charge of
+200,000,000_l._ by means of "new enclosure bills," "vast improvements,"
+paper-money, potatoes, and other "proofs of prosperity." The Jacobins
+did not do these things. And will the Government pretend that
+"Providence" did it? That would be "blasphemy" indeed.----Poh! These
+things are the price of efforts to crush freedom in France, _lest the
+example of France should produce a reform in England_. These things are
+the price of that undertaking; which, however, has not yet been crowned
+with _success_; for the question is _not yet decided_. They boast of
+their victory over the French. The Pitt crew boast of their achievements
+in the war. They boast of the battle of Waterloo. Why! what fools could
+not get the same, or the like, if they had as much _money_ to get it
+with? Shooting with a _silver gun_ is a saying amongst game-eaters. That
+is to say, _purchasing_ the game. A waddling, fat fellow that does not
+know how to prime and load will, in this way, beat the best shot in the
+country. And this is the way that our crew "beat" the people of France.
+They laid out, in the first place, six hundred millions which they
+borrowed, and for which they mortgaged the revenues of the nation. Then
+they contracted for a "dead weight" to the amount of one hundred and
+fifty millions. Then they stripped the labouring classes of the commons,
+of their kettles, their bedding, their beer-barrels; and, in short, made
+them all paupers, and thus fixed on the nation a permanent annual charge
+of about 8 or 9 millions, or a gross debt of 200,000,000_l._ By these
+means, by these anticipations, our crew did what they thought would keep
+down the French nation for ages; and what they were sure would, for the
+present, enable them to keep up the _tithes_ and other things of the
+same sort in England. But the crew did not reflect on the _consequences_
+of the anticipations! Or, at least, the landlords, who gave the crew
+their power, did not thus reflect. These consequences are now come, and
+are coming; and that must be a base man indeed who does not see them
+with pleasure.
+
+
+_Singleton (Sussex), Saturday, 2 Aug._
+
+Ever since the middle of March I have been trying remedies for the
+_hooping-cough_, and have, I believe, tried everything, except riding,
+wet to the skin, two or three hours amongst the clouds on the South
+Downs. This remedy is now under trial. As Lord Liverpool said, the other
+day, of the Irish Tithe Bill, it is "under experiment." I am treating my
+disorder (with better success, I hope) in somewhat the same way that the
+pretty fellows at Whitehall treat the disorders of poor Ireland. There
+is one thing in favour of this remedy of mine, I shall _know_ the effect
+of it, and that, too, in a short time. It rained a little last night. I
+got off from Petworth without baiting my horse, thinking that the
+weather looked suspicious; and that St. Swithin meaned to treat me to a
+dose. I had no great-coat, nor any means of changing my clothes. The
+hooping-cough made me anxious; but I had fixed on going along the South
+Downs from Donnington Hill down to Lavant, and then to go on the flat to
+the South foot of Portsdown Hill, and to reach Fareham to-night. Two
+men, whom I met soon after I set off, assured me that it would not rain.
+I came on to Donnington, which lies at the foot of that part of the
+South Downs which I had to go up. Before I came to this point, I crossed
+the Arun and its canal again; and here was another place of deposit for
+timber, lime, coals, and other things. White, in his history of
+Selborne, mentions a hill, which is one of the Hindhead group, from
+which two springs (one on each side of the hill) send water into the
+_two seas_: the _Atlantic_ and the _German Ocean_! This is big talk: but
+it is a fact. One of the streams becomes the _Arun_, which falls into
+the Channel; and the other, after winding along amongst the hills and
+hillocks between Hindhead and Godalming, goes into the river _Wey_,
+which falls into the Thames at Weybridge. The soil upon leaving
+Petworth, and at Petworth, seems very good; a fine deep loam, a sort of
+mixture of sand and soft chalk. I then came to a sandy common; a piece
+of ground that seemed to have no business there; it looked as if it had
+been tossed from Hindhead or Blackdown. The common, however, during the
+rage for "improvements," has been _enclosed_. That impudent fellow, Old
+Rose, stated the number of Enclosure Bills as an indubitable proof of
+"national prosperity." There was some _rye_ upon this common, the sight
+of which would have gladdened the heart of Lord Liverpool. It was, in
+parts, not more than eight inches high. It was ripe, and, of course, the
+straw dead; or I should have found out the owner, and have bought it to
+make _bonnets_ of! I defy the Italians to grow worse rye than this. The
+reader will recollect that I always said that we could grow _as poor_
+corn as any Italians that ever lived. The village of Donton lies at the
+foot of one of these great chalk ridges which are called the South
+Downs. The ridge in this place is, I think, about three-fourths of a
+mile high, by the high road, which is obliged to go twisting about, in
+order to get to the top of it. The hill sweeps round from about West
+North West, to East South East; and, of course, it keeps off all the
+heavy winds, and especially the South West winds, before which, in this
+part of England (and all the South and Western part of it) even the oak
+trees seem as if they would gladly flee; for it shaves them up as
+completely as you see a quickset hedge shaved by hook or shears. Talking
+of hedges reminds me of having seen a box-hedge, just as I came out of
+Petworth, more than twelve feet broad, and about fifteen feet high. I
+dare say it is several centuries old. I think it is about forty yards
+long. It is a great curiosity.
+
+The apple trees at Donnington show their gratitude to the hill for its
+shelter; for I have seldom seen apple trees in England so large, so
+fine, and, in general, so flourishing. I should like to have, or to see,
+an orchard of American apples under this hill. The hill, you will
+observe, does not shade the ground at Donnington. It slopes too much for
+that. But it affords complete shelter from the mischievous winds. It is
+very pretty to look down upon this little village as you come winding up
+the hill.
+
+From this hill I ought to have had a most extensive view. I ought to
+have seen the Isle of Wight and the sea before me; and to have looked
+back to Chalk Hill at Reigate, at the foot of which I had left some
+bonnet-grass bleaching. But, alas! _Saint Swithin_ had begun his works
+for the day before I got to the top of the hill. Soon after the two
+turnip-hoers had assured me that there would be no rain, I saw,
+beginning to poke up over the South Downs (then right before me) several
+parcels of those white, curled clouds that we call _Judges' Wigs_. And
+they are just like Judges' wigs. Not the _parson-like_ things which the
+Judges wear when they have to listen to the dull wrangling and duller
+jests of the lawyers; but those _big_ wigs which hang down about their
+shoulders, when they are about to tell you a little of _their
+intentions_, and when their very looks say, "_Stand clear_!" These
+clouds (if rising from the South West) hold precisely the same language
+to the great-coatless traveller. Rain is _sure_ to follow them. The sun
+was shining very beautifully when I first saw these Judges' wigs rising
+over the hills. At the sight of them he soon began to hide his face! and
+before I got to the top of the hill of Donton, the white clouds had
+become black, had spread themselves all around, and a pretty decent and
+sturdy rain began to fall. I had resolved to come to this place
+(Singleton) to breakfast. I quitted the turnpike road (from Petworth to
+Chichester) at a village called Upwaltham, about a mile from Donnington
+Hill; and came down a lane, which led me first to a village called
+Eastdean; then to another called Westdean, I suppose; and then to this
+village of Singleton, and here I am on the turnpike road from Midhurst
+to Chichester. The lane goes along through some of the finest farms in
+the world. It is impossible for corn land and for agriculture to be
+finer than these. In cases like mine, you are pestered to death to find
+out the way to _set out_ to get from place to place. The people you have
+to deal with are innkeepers, ostlers, and post-boys; and they think you
+mad if you express your wish to avoid turnpike roads; and a great deal
+more than half mad if you talk of going, even from necessity, by any
+other road. They think you a strange fellow if you will not ride six
+miles on a turnpike road rather than two on any other road. This plague
+I experienced on this occasion. I wanted to go from Petworth to Havant.
+My way was through Singleton and Funtington. I had no business at
+Chichester, which took me too far to the South; nor at Midhurst, which
+took me too far to the West. But though I stayed all day (after my
+arrival) at Petworth, and though I slept there, I could get no
+directions how to set out to come to Singleton, where I am now. I
+started, therefore, on the Chichester road, trusting to my enquiries of
+the country people as I came on. By these means I got hither, down a
+long valley, on the South Downs, which valley winds and twists about
+amongst hills, some higher and some lower, forming cross dells, inlets,
+and ground in such a variety of shapes that it is impossible to
+describe; and the whole of the ground, hill as well as dell, is fine,
+most beautiful corn land, or is covered with trees or underwood. As to
+St. Swithin, I set him at defiance. The road was flinty, and very
+flinty. I rode a foot pace; and got here wet to the skin. I am very glad
+I came this road. The corn is all fine; all good; fine crops, and no
+appearance of blight. The barley extremely fine. The corn not forwarder
+than in the Weald. No beans here; few oats comparatively; chiefly wheat
+and barley; but great quantities of Swedish turnips, and those very
+forward. More Swedish turnips here upon one single farm than upon all
+the farms that I saw between the Wen and Petworth. These turnips are, in
+some places, a foot high, and nearly cover the ground. The farmers are,
+however, plagued by this St. Swithin, who keeps up a continual drip,
+which prevents the thriving of the turnips and the killing of the weeds.
+The _orchards_ are good here in general. Fine walnut trees, and an
+abundant crop of walnuts. This is a series of villages all belonging to
+the Duke of Richmond, the outskirts of whose park and woods come up to
+these farming lands, all of which belong to him; and I suppose that
+every inch of land that I came through this morning belongs either to
+the Duke of Richmond or to Lord Egremont. No _harm_ in that, mind, if
+those who till the land have _fair play_; and I should act unjustly
+towards these noblemen if I insinuated that the husbandmen have not fair
+play as far as the landlords are concerned; for everybody speaks well of
+them. There is, besides, _no misery_ to be seen here. I have seen no
+wretchedness in Sussex; nothing to be at all compared to that which I
+have seen in other parts; and as to these villages in the South Downs,
+they are beautiful to behold. Hume and other historians rail against the
+_feudal_-system; and we, "enlightened" and "free" creatures as we are,
+look back with scorn, or, at least, with surprise and pity, to the
+"vassalage" of our forefathers. But if the matter were well enquired
+into, not slurred over, but well and truly examined, we should find that
+the people of these villages were _as free_ in the days of William Rufus
+as are the people of the present day; and that vassalage, only under
+other names, exists now as completely as it existed then. Well; but out
+of this, if true, arises another question: namely, Whether the millions
+would derive any benefit from being transferred from these great Lords
+who possess them by hundreds, to Jews and jobbers who would possess them
+by half-dozens, or by couples? One thing we may say with a certainty of
+being right: and that is, that the transfer would be bad for the Lords
+themselves. There is an appearance of comfort about the dwellings of the
+labourers all along here that is very pleasant to behold. The gardens
+are neat, and full of vegetables of the best kinds. I see very few of
+"Ireland's lazy root;" and never, in this country, will the people be
+base enough to lie down and expire from starvation under the operation
+of the _extreme unction_! Nothing but a _potato-eater_ will ever do
+that. As I came along between Upwaltham and Eastdean, I called to me a
+young man, who, along with other turnip-hoers, was sitting under the
+shelter of a hedge at breakfast. He came running to me with his victuals
+in his hand; and I was glad to see that his food consisted of a good
+lump of household bread and not a very small piece of _bacon_. I did not
+envy him his appetite, for I had at that moment a very good one of my
+own; but I wanted to know the distance I had to go before I should get
+to a good public-house. In parting with him, I said, "You do get some
+_bacon_ then?" "Oh, yes! Sir," said he, and with an emphasis and a swag
+of the head which seemed to say, "We _must_ and _will_ have _that_." I
+saw, and with great delight, a pig at almost every labourer's house. The
+houses are good and warm; and the gardens some of the very best that I
+have seen in England. What a difference, good God! what a difference
+between this country and the neighbourhood of those corrupt places
+_Great Bedwin_ and _Cricklade_. What sort of _breakfast_ would this man
+have had in a mess of _cold potatoes_? Could he have _worked_, and
+worked in the wet, too, with such food? Monstrous! No society ought to
+exist where the labourers live in a hog-like sort of way. The _Morning
+Chronicle_ is everlastingly asserting the mischievous consequences of
+the want of _enlightening_ these people "_i' th a Sooth_;" and telling
+us how well they are off in the North. Now this I know, that in the
+North the "enlightened" people eat _sowens_, _burgoo_, _porridge_, and
+_potatoes_: that is to say, _oatmeal and water_, or the root of _extreme
+unction_. If this be the effect of their _light_, give me the _darkness_
+"o' th a Sooth." This is according to what I have heard. If, when I go
+to the North, I find the labourers _eating more meat_ than those of the
+"Sooth," I shall then say that "enlightening" is a very good thing; but
+give me none of that "light," or of that "grace," which makes a man
+content with oatmeal and water, or that makes him patiently lie down and
+die of starvation amidst abundance of food. The _Morning Chronicle_
+hears the labourers crying out in Sussex. They are right to cry out in
+time. When they are actually brought down to the extreme unction it is
+useless to cry out. And next to the extreme unction is the _porridge_ of
+the "enlightened" slaves who toil in the factories for the Lords of the
+Loom. Talk of _vassals_! Talk of _villains_! Talk of _serfs_! Are there
+any of these, or did feudal times ever see any of them, so debased, so
+absolutely slaves, as the poor creatures who, in the "enlightened"
+North, are compelled to work fourteen hours in a day, in a heat of
+eighty-four degrees; and who are liable to punishment for looking out at
+a window of the factory!
+
+This is really a soaking day, thus far. I got here at nine o'clock. I
+stripped off my coat, and put it by the kitchen fire. In a parlour just
+eight feet square I have another fire, and have dried my shirt on my
+back. We shall see what this does for a hooping-cough. The clouds fly so
+low as to be seen passing by the sides of even little hills on these
+downs. The Devil is said to be busy in a _high_ wind; but he really
+appears to be busy now in this South West wind. The Quakers will, next
+market day, at Mark Lane, be as busy as he. They and the Ministers and
+St. Swithin and Devil all seem to be of a mind.
+
+I must not forget the _churches_. That of Donnington is very small for a
+church. It is about twenty feet wide and thirty long. It is, however,
+sufficient for the population, the amount of which is two hundred and
+twenty-two, not one half of whom are, of course, ever at church at one
+time. There is, however, plenty of room for the whole: the "tower" of
+this church is about double the size of a _sentry-box_. The parson,
+whose name is Davidson, did not, when the Return was laid before
+Parliament, in 1818, reside in the parish. Though the living is a large
+living, the parsonage house was let to "a lady and her three daughters."
+What impudence a man must have to put this into a Return! The church at
+Upwaltham is about such another, and the "tower" still less than that at
+Donnington. Here the population is seventy-nine. The parish is a
+rectory, and in the Return before mentioned, the parson (whose name was
+Tripp) says that the church will hold the population, but that the
+parsonage house will not hold him! And why? Because it is "a miserable
+cottage." I looked about for this "miserable cottage," and could not
+find it. What on impudent fellow this must have been! And, indeed, what
+a state of impudence have they not now arrived at! Did he, when he was
+ordained, talk anything about a fine house to live in? Did Jesus Christ
+and Saint Paul talk about fine houses? Did not this priest most solemnly
+vow to God, upon the altar, that he would be constant, in season and out
+of season, in watching over the souls of his flock? However, it is
+useless to remonstrate with this set of men. Nothing will have any
+effect upon them. They will keep grasping at the tithes as long as they
+can reach them. "_A miserable cottage!_" What impudence! What, Mr.
+Tripp, is it a fine house that you have been appointed and ordained to
+live in? Lord Egremont is the patron of Mr. Tripp; and he has a _duty_
+to perform too; for the living is _not his_: he is, in this case, only
+an hereditary _trustee_ for the public; and he ought to see that this
+parson resides in the parish, which, according to his own Return, yields
+him 125_l._ a-year. Eastdean is a Vicarage, with a population of 353, a
+church which the parson says will hold 200, and which I say will hold
+600 or 700, and a living worth 85_l._ a-year, in the gift of the Bishop
+of Chichester.
+
+Westdean is united with Singleton, the living is in the gift of the
+Church at Chichester and the Duke of Richmond alternately; it is a large
+living, it has a population of 613, and the two churches, says the
+parson, will hold 200 people! What careless, or what impudent fellows
+these must have been. These two churches will hold a thousand people,
+packed much less close than they are in meeting houses.
+
+At Upwaltham there is a toll gate, and when the woman opened the door of
+the house to come and let me through, I saw some _straw plat_ lying in a
+chair. She showed it me; and I found that it was made by her husband, in
+the evenings, after he came home from work, in order to make him a hat
+for the harvest. I told her how to get better straw for the purpose; and
+when I told her that she must cut the grass, or the grain, _green_, she
+said, "Aye, I dare say it is so: and I wonder we never thought of that
+before; for we sometimes make hats out of rushes, cut green, and dried,
+and the hats are very durable." This woman ought to have my _Cottage
+Economy_. She keeps the toll-gate at Upwaltham, which is called Waltham,
+and which is on the turnpike road from Petworth to Chichester. Now, if
+any gentleman who lives at Chichester will call upon my Son, at the
+Office of the Register in Fleet Street, and ask for a copy of _Cottage
+Economy_, to be given to this woman, he will receive the copy, and my
+thanks, if he will have the goodness to give it to her, and to point to
+her the Essay on Straw Plat.
+
+
+_Fareham (Hants), Saturday, 2 August._
+
+Here I am in spite of St. Swithin!--The truth is, that the Saint is
+like most other oppressors; _rough_ him! _rough_ him! and he relaxes.
+After drying myself, and sitting the better part of four hours at
+Singleton, I started in the rain, boldly setting the Saint at defiance,
+and expecting to have not one dry thread by the time I got to Havant,
+which is nine miles from Fareham, and four from Cosham. To my most
+agreeable surprise, the rain ceased before I got by Selsey, I suppose it
+is called, where Lord Selsey's house and beautiful and fine estate is.
+On I went, turning off to the right to go to Funtington and Westbourn,
+and getting to Havant to bait my horse, about four o'clock.
+
+From Lavant (about two miles back from Funtington) the ground begins to
+be a sea side flat. The soil is somewhat varied in quality and kind; but
+with the exception of an enclosed common between Funtington and
+Westbourn, it is all good soil. The corn of all kinds good and earlier
+than further back. They have begun cutting peas here, and near Lavant I
+saw a field of wheat nearly ripe. The Swedish turnips very fine, and
+still earlier than on the South Downs. Prodigious crops of walnuts; but
+the apples bad along here. The South West winds have cut them off; and,
+indeed, how should it be otherwise, if these winds happen to prevail in
+May, or early in June?
+
+On the new enclosure, near Funtington, the wheat and oats are both
+nearly ripe.
+
+In a new enclosure, near Westbourn, I saw the only really blighted wheat
+that I have yet seen this year. "Oh!" exclaimed I, "that my Lord
+Liverpool, that my much respected stern-path-of-duty-man, could but see
+that wheat, which God and the seedsman intended to be _white_; but which
+the Devil (listening to the prayers of the Quakers) has made _black_!
+Oh! could but my Lord see it, lying flat upon the ground, with the
+May-weed and the Couch-grass pushing up through it, and with a whole
+flock of rooks pecking away at its ears! Then would my much valued Lord
+say, indeed, that the 'difficulties' of agriculture are about to receive
+the 'greatest abatement!'"
+
+But now I come to one of the great objects of my journey: that is to
+say, to see the state of the corn along at the South foot and on the
+South side of Portsdown Hill. It is impossible that there can be,
+anywhere, a better corn country than this. The hill is eight miles long,
+and about three-fourths of a mile high, beginning at the road that runs
+along at the foot of the hill. On the hill-side the corn land goes
+rather better than half way up; and on the sea-side the corn land is
+about the third (it may be half) a mile wide. Portsdown Hill is very
+much in the shape of an oblong tin cover to a dish. From Bedhampton,
+which lies at the Eastern end of the hill, to Fareham, which is at the
+Western end of it, you have brought under your eye not less than eight
+square miles of corn fields, with scarcely a hedge or ditch of any
+consequence, and being, on an average, from twenty to forty acres each
+in extent. The land is excellent. The situation good for manure. The
+spot the _earliest in the whole kingdom_. Here, if the corn were
+backward, then the harvest must be backward. We were talking at Reigate
+of the prospect of a backward harvest. I observed that it was a rule
+that if no _wheat were cut_ under Portsdown Hill on the hill _fair-day_,
+26th July, the harvest must be generally backward. When I made this
+observation the fair-day was passed; but I determined in my mind to come
+and see how the matter stood. When, therefore, I got to the village of
+Bedhampton, I began to look out pretty sharply. I came on to Wimmering,
+which is just about the mid-way along the foot of the hill, and there I
+saw, at a good distance from me, five men reaping in a field of wheat of
+about 40 acres. I found, upon enquiry, that they began this morning, and
+that the wheat belongs to Mr. Boniface, of Wimmering. Here the first
+sheaf is cut that is cut in England: that the reader may depend upon. It
+was never known that the average even of Hampshire was less than ten
+days behind the average of Portsdown Hill. The corn under the hill is as
+good as I ever saw it, except in the year 1813. No beans here. No peas.
+Scarcely any oats. Wheat, barley, and turnips. The Swedish turnips not
+so good as on the South Downs and near Funtington; but the wheat full as
+good, rather better; and the barley as good as it is possible to be. In
+looking at these crops one wonders whence are to come the hands to clear
+them off.
+
+A very pleasant ride to-day; and the pleasanter for my having set the
+wet Saint at defiance. It is about thirty miles from Petworth to
+Fareham; and I got in in very good time. I have now come, if I include
+my _boltings_, for the purpose of looking at farms and woods, a round
+hundred miles from the Wen to this town of Fareham; and in the whole of
+the hundred miles I have not seen one single wheat-rick, though I have
+come through as fine corn countries as any in England, and by the
+homesteads of the richest of farmers. Not one single wheat-rick have I
+seen, and not one rick of any sort of corn. I never saw nor heard of the
+like of this before; and if I had not witnessed the fact with my own
+eyes I could not have believed it. There are some farmers who have corn
+in their barns, perhaps; but when there is no _rick_ left, there is very
+little corn in the hands of farmers. Yet the markets, St. Swithin
+notwithstanding, do not rise. This harvest must be three weeks later
+than usual, and the last harvest was three weeks earlier than usual. The
+last crop was begun upon at once, on account of the badness of the wheat
+of the year before. So that the last crop will have had to give food
+for thirteen months and a half. And yet the markets do not rise! And yet
+there are men, farmers, mad enough to think that they have "got past the
+bad place," and that things will come about, and are coming about! And
+Lethbridge, of the Collective, withdraws his motion because he has got
+what he wanted: namely, a return of good and "_remunerating_ prices!"
+The _Morning Chronicle_ of this day, which has met me at this place, has
+the following paragraph. "The weather is much improved, though it does
+not yet assume the character of being fine. At the Corn Exchange since
+Monday the arrivals consist of 7,130 quarters of wheat, 450 quarters of
+barley, 8,300 quarters of oats, and 9,200 sacks of flour. The demand for
+wheat is next to Zero, and for oats it is extremely dull. To effect
+sales, prices are not much attended to, for the demand cannot be
+increased at the present currency. The farmers should pay attention to
+oats, for the foreign new, under the King's lock, will be brought into
+consumption, unless a decline takes place immediately, and a weight will
+thereby be thrown over the markets, which under existing circumstances
+will be extremely detrimental to the agricultural interests. Its
+distress however does not deserve much sympathy, for as soon as there
+was a prospect of the payment of rents, the cause of the people was
+abandoned by the Representatives of Agriculture in the Collected Wisdom,
+and Mr. Brougham's most excellent measure for increasing the consumption
+of Malt was neglected. Where there is no sympathy, none can be expected,
+and the land proprietors need not in future depend on the assistance of
+the mercantile and manufacturing interests, should their own distress
+again require a united effort to remedy the general grievances." As to
+the mercantile and manufacturing people, what is the land to expect from
+them? But I agree with the _Chronicle_ that the landlords deserve ruin.
+They abandoned the public cause the moment they thought that they saw a
+prospect of getting rents. That prospect will soon disappear, unless
+they pray hard to St. Swithin to insist upon forty days wet _after_ his
+birth-day. I do not see what the farmers can do about the price of oats.
+They have no power to do anything, unless they come with their cavalry
+horses and storm the "King's lock." In short, it is all confusion in
+men's minds as well as in their pockets. There must be something
+completely out of joint when the Government are afraid of the effects of
+a good crop. I intend to set off to-morrow for Botley, and go thence to
+Easton; and then to Alton and Crondall and Farnham, to see how the
+_hops_ are there. By the time that I get back to the Wen I shall know
+nearly the real state of the case as to crops; and that, at this time,
+is a great matter.
+
+
+
+
+THROUGH THE SOUTH-EAST OF HAMPSHIRE, BACK THROUGH THE SOUTH-WEST OF
+SURREY, ALONG THE WEALD OF SURREY, AND THEN OVER THE SURREY HILLS DOWN
+TO THE WEN.
+
+
+_Batley (Hampshire), 5th August, 1823._
+
+I got to Fareham on Saturday night, after having got a soaking on the
+South Downs on the morning of that day. On the Sunday morning, intending
+to go and spend the day at Titchfield (about three miles and a half from
+Fareham), and perceiving, upon looking out of the window, about 5
+o'clock in the morning, that it was likely to rain, I got up, struck a
+bustle, got up the ostler, set off and got to my destined point before 7
+o'clock in the morning. And here I experienced the benefits of early
+rising; for I had scarcely got well and safely under cover, when St.
+Swithin began to pour down again, and he continued to pour during the
+whole of the day. From Fareham to Titchfield village a large part of the
+ground is a common enclosed some years ago. It is therefore amongst the
+worst of the land in the country. Yet I did not see a bad field of corn
+along here, and the Swedish turnips were, I think, full as fine as any
+that I saw upon the South Downs. But it is to be observed that this land
+is in the hands of dead-weight people, and is conveniently situated for
+the receiving of manure from Portsmouth. Before I got to my friend's
+house, I passed by a farm where I expected to find a wheat-rick
+standing. I did not, however; and this is the strongest possible proof
+that the stock of corn is gone out of the hands of the farmers. I set
+out from Titchfield at 7 o'clock in the evening, and had seven miles to
+go to reach Botley. It rained, but I got myself well furnished forth as
+a defence against the rain. I had not gone two hundred yards before the
+rain ceased; so that I was singularly fortunate as to rain this day; and
+I had now to congratulate myself on the success of the remedy for the
+hooping-cough which I used the day before on the South Downs; for
+really, though I had a spell or two of coughing on Saturday morning when
+I set out from Petworth, I have not had, up to this hour, any spell at
+all since I got wet upon the South Downs. I got to Botley about nine
+o'clock, having stopped two or three times to look about me as I went
+along; for I had, in the first place, to ride, for about three miles of
+my road, upon a turnpike road of which I was the projector, and, indeed,
+the maker. In the next place I had to ride, for something better than
+half a mile of my way, along between fields and coppices that were mine
+until they came into the hands of the mortgagee, and by the side of
+cottages of my own building. The only matter of much interest with me
+was the state of the inhabitants of those cottages. I stopped at two or
+three places, and made some little enquiries; I rode up to two or three
+houses in the village of Botley, which I had to pass through, and just
+before it was dark I got to a farmhouse close by the church, and what
+was more, not a great many yards from the dwelling of that delectable
+creature, the Botley parson, whom, however, I have not seen during my
+stay at this place.
+
+Botley lies in a valley, the soil of which is a deep and stiff clay. Oak
+trees grow well; and this year the wheat grows well, as it does upon all
+the clays that I have seen. I have never seen the wheat better in
+general, in this part of the country, than it is now. I have, I think,
+seen it heavier; but never clearer from blight. It is backward compared
+to the wheat in many other parts; some of it is quite green; but none of
+it has any appearance of blight. This is not much of a barley country.
+The oats are good. The beans that I have seen, very indifferent.
+
+The best news that I have learnt here is, that the Botley parson is
+become quite a gentle creature, compared to what he used to be. The
+people in the village have told me some most ridiculous stories about
+his having been hoaxed in London! It seems that somebody danced him up
+from Botley to London, by telling him that a legacy had been left him,
+or some such story. Up went the parson on horseback, being in too great
+a hurry to run the risk of coach. The hoaxers, it appears, got him to
+some hotel, and there set upon him a whole tribe of applicants,
+wet-nurses, dry-nurses, lawyers with deeds of conveyance for borrowed
+money, curates in want of churches, coffin-makers, travelling
+companions, ladies' maids, dealers in Yorkshire hams, Newcastle coals,
+and dealers in dried night-soil at Islington. In short, if I am rightly
+informed, they kept the parson in town for several days, bothered him
+three parts out of his senses, compelled him to escape, as it were, from
+a fire; and then, when he got home, he found the village posted all over
+with handbills giving an account of his adventure, under the pretence of
+offering 500_l._ reward for a discovery of the hoaxers! The good of it
+was the parson ascribed his disgrace _to me_, and they say that he
+perseveres to this hour in accusing me of it. Upon my word, I had
+nothing to do with the matter, and this affair only shows that I am not
+the only friend that the parson has in the world. Though this may have
+had a tendency to produce in the parson that amelioration of deportment
+which is said to become him so well, there is something else that has
+taken place, which has, in all probability, had a more powerful
+influence in this way; namely, a great reduction in the value of the
+parson's living, which was at one time little short of five hundred
+pounds a year, and which, I believe, is now not the half of that sum!
+This, to be sure, is not only a natural but a necessary consequence of
+the change in the value of money. The parsons are neither more nor less
+than another sort of landlords. They must fall, of course, in their
+demands, or their demands will not be paid. They may take in kind, but
+that will answer them no purpose at all. They will be less people than
+they have been, and will continue to grow less and less, until the day
+when the whole of the tithes and other Church property, as it is called,
+shall be applied to public purposes.
+
+
+_Easton (Hampshire), Wednesday Evening, 6th August._
+
+This village of Easton lies at a few miles towards the north-east from
+Winchester. It is distant from Botley, by the way which I came, about
+fifteen or sixteen miles. I came through Durley, where I went to the
+house of farmer Mears. I was very much pleased with what I saw at
+Durley, which is about two miles from Botley, and is certainly one of
+the most obscure villages in this whole kingdom. Mrs. Mears, the
+farmer's wife, had made, of the crested dog's tail grass, a bonnet which
+she wears herself. I there saw girls platting the straw. They had made
+plat of several degrees of fineness; and they sell it to some person or
+persons at Fareham, who, I suppose, makes it into bonnets. Mrs. Mears,
+who is a very intelligent and clever woman, has two girls at work, each
+of whom earns per week as much (within a shilling) as her father, who is
+a labouring man, earns per week. The father has at this time only 7_s._
+per week. These two girls (and not very stout girls) earn six shillings
+a week each: thus the income of this family is, from seven shillings a
+week, raised to nineteen shillings a week. I shall suppose that this may
+in some measure be owing to the generosity of ladies in the
+neighbourhood, and to their desire to promote this domestic manufacture;
+but if I suppose that these girls receive double compared to what they
+will receive for the same quantity of labour when the manufacture
+becomes more general, is it not a great thing to make the income of the
+family nineteen shillings a week instead of seven? Very little, indeed,
+could these poor things have done in the field during the last forty
+days. And, besides, how clean; how healthful; how everything that one
+could wish is this sort of employment! The farmer, who is also a very
+intelligent person, told me that he should endeavour to introduce the
+manufacture as a thing to assist the obtaining of employment, in order
+to lessen the amount of the poor-rates. I think it very likely that this
+will be done in the parish of Durley. A most important matter it is,
+_to put paupers in the way of ceasing to be paupers_. I could not help
+admiring the zeal as well as the intelligence of the farmer's wife, who
+expressed her readiness to teach the girls and women of the parish, in
+order to enable them to assist themselves. I shall hear, in all
+probability, of their proceedings at Durley, and if I do, I shall make a
+point of communicating to the Public an account of those interesting
+proceedings. From the very first, from the first moment of my thinking
+about this straw affair, I regarded it as likely to assist in bettering
+the lot of the labouring people. If it has not this effect, I value it
+not. It is not worth the attention of any of us; but I am satisfied that
+this is the way in which it will work. I have the pleasure to know that
+there is one labouring family, at any rate, who are living well through
+my means. It is I, who, without knowing them, without ever having seen
+them, without even now knowing their names, have given the means of good
+living to a family who were before half-starved. This is indisputably my
+work; and when I reflect that there must necessarily be, now, some
+hundreds of families, and shortly, many thousands of families, in
+England, who are and will be, through my means, living well instead of
+being half-starved, I cannot but feel myself consoled; I cannot but feel
+that I have some compensation for the sentence passed upon me by
+Ellenborough, Grose, Le Blanc, and Bailey; and I verily believe, that in
+the case of this one single family in the parish of Durley I have done
+more good than Bailey ever did in the whole course of his life,
+notwithstanding his pious Commentary on the Book of Common Prayer. I
+will allow nothing to be good, with regard to the labouring classes,
+unless it make an addition to their victuals, drink, or clothing. As to
+their _minds_, that is much too sublime matter for me to think about. I
+know that they are in rags, and that they have not a belly-full; and I
+know that the way to make them good, to make them honest, to make them
+dutiful, to make them kind to one another, is to enable them to live
+well; and I also know that none of these things will ever be
+accomplished by Methodist sermons, and by those stupid, at once stupid
+and malignant things, and roguish things, called Religious Tracts.
+
+It seems that this farmer at Durley has always read the Register, since
+the first appearance of little _Two-penny Trash_. Had it not been for
+this reading, Mrs. Mears would not have thought about the grass; and had
+she not thought about the grass, none of the benefits above mentioned
+would have arisen to her neighbours. The difference between this affair
+and the spinning-jenny affairs is this: that the spinning-jenny affairs
+fill the pockets of "rich ruffians," such as those who would have
+murdered me at Coventry; and that this straw affair makes an addition
+to the food and raiment of the labouring classes, and gives not a penny
+to be pocketed by the rich ruffians.
+
+From Durley I came on in company with farmer Mears through Upham. This
+Upham is the place where Young, who wrote that bombastical stuff, called
+"Night Thoughts," was once the parson, and where, I believe, he was
+born. Away to the right of Upham lies the little town of Bishop's
+Waltham, whither I wished to go very much, but it was too late in the
+day. From Upham we came on upon the high land, called Black Down. This
+has nothing to do with that Black-down Hill, spoken of in my last ride.
+We are here getting up upon the chalk hills, which stretch away towards
+Winchester. The soil here is a poor blackish stuff, with little white
+stones in it, upon a bed of chalk. It was a down not many years ago. The
+madness and greediness of the days of paper-money led to the breaking of
+it up. The corn upon it is miserable; but as good as can be expected
+upon such land.
+
+At the end of this tract we come to a spot called Whiteflood, and here
+we cross the old turnpike road which leads from Winchester to Gosport
+through Bishop's Waltham. Whiteflood is at the foot of the first of a
+series of hills over which you come to get to the top of that lofty
+ridge called Morning Hill. The farmer came to the top of the first hill
+along with me; and he was just about to turn back, when I, looking away
+to the left, down a valley which stretched across the other side of the
+down, observed a rather singular appearance, and said to the farmer,
+"What is that coming up that valley? is it smoke, or is it a cloud?" The
+day had been very fine hitherto; the sun was shining very bright where
+we were. The farmer answered, "Oh, it's smoke; it comes from Ouselberry,
+which is down in that bottom behind those trees." So saying, we bid each
+other good day; he went back, and I went on. Before I had got a hundred
+and fifty yards from him, the cloud which he had taken for the
+Ouselberry smoke came upon the hill and wet me to the skin. He was not
+far from the house at Whiteflood; but I am sure that he could not
+entirely escape it. It is curious to observe how the clouds sail about
+in the hilly countries, and particularly, I think, amongst the
+chalk-hills. I have never observed the like amongst the sand-hills, or
+amongst rocks.
+
+From Whiteflood you come over a series of hills, part of which form a
+rabbit-warren called Longwood warren, on the borders of which is the
+house and estate of Lord Northesk. These hills are amongst the most
+barren of the downs of England; yet a part of them was broken up during
+the rage for improvements; during the rage for what empty men think was
+an augmenting of the _capital_ of the country. On about twenty acres of
+this land, sown with wheat, I should not suppose that there would be
+twice twenty bushels of grain! A man must be mad, or nearly mad, to sow
+wheat upon such a spot. However, a large part of what was enclosed has
+been thrown out again already, and the rest will be thrown out in a very
+few years. The down itself was poor; what, then, must it be as
+corn-land! Think of the destruction which has here taken place. The
+herbage was not good, but it was something; it was something for every
+year, and without trouble. Instead of grass it will now, for twenty
+years to come, bear nothing but that species of weeds which is hardy
+enough to grow where the grass will not grow. And this was "augmenting
+the capital of the nation." These new enclosure-bills were boasted of by
+George Rose and by Pitt as proofs of national prosperity! When men in
+power are ignorant to this extent, who is to expect anything but
+consequences such as we now behold.
+
+From the top of this high land called _Morning Hill_, and the real name
+of which is _Magdalen Hill_, from a chapel which once stood there
+dedicated to Mary Magdalen; from the top of this land you have a view of
+a circle which is upon an average about seventy miles in diameter; and I
+believe in no one place so little as fifty miles in diameter. You see
+the Isle of Wight in one direction, and in the opposite direction you
+see the high lands in Berkshire. It is not a pleasant view, however. The
+fertile spots are all too far from you. Descending from this hill, you
+cross the turnpike-road (about two miles from Winchester), leading from
+Winchester to London through Alresford and Farnham. As soon as you cross
+the road, you enter the estate of the descendant of Rollo, Duke of
+Buckingham, which estate is in the parish of Avington. In this place the
+Duke has a farm, not very good land. It is in his own hands. The corn is
+indifferent, except the barley, which is everywhere good. You come a
+full mile from the roadside down through this farm, to the Duke's
+mansion-house at Avington, and to the little village of that name, both
+of them beautifully situated, amidst fine and lofty trees, fine meadows,
+and streams of clear water. On this farm of the Duke I saw (in a little
+close by the farmhouse) several hens in coops with broods of pheasants
+instead of chickens. It seems that a gamekeeper lives in the farmhouse,
+and I dare say the Duke thinks much more of the pheasants than of the
+corn. To be very solicitous to preserve what has been raised with so
+much care and at so much expense is by no means unnatural; but, then,
+there is a measure to be observed here; and that measure was certainly
+outstretched in the case of Mr. Deller. I here saw, at this gamekeeping
+farmhouse, what I had not seen since my departure from the Wen; namely,
+a wheat-rick! Hard, indeed, would it have been if a Plantagenet, turned
+farmer, had not a wheat-rick in his hands. This rick contains, I should
+think, what they call in Hampshire ten loads of wheat, that is to say,
+fifty quarters, or four hundred bushels. And this is the only rick, not
+only of wheat, but of any corn whatever, that I have seen since I left
+London. The turnips upon this farm are by no means good; but I was in
+some measure compensated for the bad turnips by the sight of the Duke's
+turnip-hoers, about a dozen females, amongst whom there were several
+very pretty girls, and they were as merry as larks. There had been a
+shower that had brought them into a sort of huddle on the road side.
+When I came up to them, they all fixed their eyes upon me, and, upon my
+smiling, they bursted out into laughter. I observed to them that the
+Duke of Buckingham was a very happy man to have such turnip-hoers, and
+really they seemed happier and better off than any work-people that I
+saw in the fields all the way from London to this spot. It is curious
+enough, but I have always observed that the women along this part of the
+country are usually tall. These girls were all tall, straight, fair,
+round-faced, excellent complexion, and uncommonly gay. They were well
+dressed too, and I observed the same of all the men that I saw down at
+Avington. This could not be the case if the Duke were a cruel or hard
+master; and this is an act of justice due from me to the descendant of
+Rollo. It is in the house of Mr. Deller that I make these notes, but as
+it is _injustice_ that we dislike, I must do Rollo justice; and I must
+again say that the good looks and happy faces of his turnip-hoers spoke
+much more in his praise than could have been spoken by fifty lawyers,
+like that Storks who was employed, the other day, to plead against the
+Editor of the _Bucks Chronicle_, for publishing an account of the
+selling-up of farmer Smith, of Ashendon, in that county. I came through
+the Duke's Park to come to Easton, which is the next village below
+Avington. A very pretty park. The house is quite in the bottom; it can
+be seen in no direction from a distance greater than that of four or
+five hundred yards. The river Itchen, which rises near Alresford, which
+runs down through Winchester to Southampton, goes down the middle of
+this valley, and waters all its immense quantity of meadows. The Duke's
+house stands not far from the river itself. A stream of water is brought
+from the river to feed a pond before the house. There are several
+avenues of trees which are very beautiful, and some of which give
+complete shelter to the kitchen garden, which has, besides,
+extraordinarily high walls. Never was a greater contrast than that
+presented by this place and the place of Lord Egremont. The latter is
+all loftiness. Everything is high about it; it has extensive views in
+all directions. It sees and can be seen by all the country around. If I
+had the ousting of one of these noblemen, I certainly, however, would
+oust the Duke, who, I dare say, will by no means be desirous of seeing
+arise the occasion of putting the sincerity of the compliment to the
+test. The village of Easton is, like that of Avington, close by the
+waterside. The meadows are the attraction; and, indeed, it is the
+meadows that have caused the villages to exist.
+
+
+_Selborne (Hants), Thursday, 7th August, Noon._
+
+I took leave of Mr. Deller this morning, about 7 o'clock. Came back
+through Avington Park, through the village of Avington, and, crossing
+the Itchen river, came over to the village of Itchen Abas. _Abas_ means
+_below_. It is a French word that came over with Duke Rollo's
+progenitors. There needs no better proof of the high descent of the
+Duke, and of the antiquity of his family. This is that Itchen Abas where
+that famous Parson-Justice, the Reverend Robert Wright, lives, who
+refused to hear Mr. Deller's complaint against the Duke's servant at his
+own house, and who afterwards, along with Mr. Poulter, bound Mr. Deller
+over to the Quarter Sessions for the alleged assault. I have great
+pleasure in informing the public that Mr. Deller has not had to bear the
+expenses in this case himself; but that they have been borne by his
+neighbours, very much to the credit of those neighbours. I hear of an
+affair between the Duke of Buckingham and a Mr. Bird, who resides in
+this neighbourhood. If I had had time I should have gone to see Mr.
+Bird, of whose treatment I have heard a great deal, and an account of
+which treatment ought to be brought before the public. It is very
+natural for the Duke of Buckingham to wish to preserve that game which
+he calls his hobby-horse; it is very natural for him to delight in his
+hobby; but _hobbies_, my Lord Duke, ought to be gentle, inoffensive,
+perfectly harmless little creatures. They ought not to be suffered to
+kick and fling about them: they ought not to be rough-shod, and, above
+all things, they ought not to be great things like those which are
+ridden by the Life-guards: and, like them, be suffered to dance, and
+caper, and trample poor devils of farmers under foot. Have your hobbies,
+my Lords of the Soil, but let them be gentle; in short, let them be
+hobbies in character with the commons and forests, and not the high-fed
+hobbies from the barracks at Knightsbridge, such as put poor Mr. Sheriff
+Waithman's life in jeopardy. That the game should be preserved, every
+one that knows anything of the country will allow; but every man of any
+sense must see that it cannot be preserved by sheer force. It must be
+rather through love than through fear; rather through good-will than
+through ill-will. If the thing be properly managed, there will be plenty
+of game without any severity towards any good man. Mr. Deller's case was
+so plain: it was so monstrous to think that a man was to be punished for
+being on his own ground in pursuit of wild animals that he himself had
+raised: this was so monstrous, that it was only necessary to name it to
+excite the indignation of the country. And Mr. Deller has, by his spirit
+and perseverance, by the coolness and the good sense which he has shown
+throughout the whole of this proceeding, merited the commendation of
+every man who is not in his heart an oppressor. It occurs to me to ask
+here, who it is that finally _pays_ for those "counsels' opinions" which
+Poulter and Wright said they took in the case of Mr. Deller; because, if
+these counsels' opinions are paid for by the county, and if a Justice of
+the Peace can take as many counsels' opinions as he chooses, I should
+like to know what fellow, who chooses to put on a bobtail wig and call
+himself a lawyer, may not have a good living given to him by any crony
+Justice at the expense of the county. This never can be legal. It never
+can be binding on the county to pay for these counsels' opinions.
+However, leaving this to be enquired into another time, we have here, in
+Mr. Deller's case, an instance of the worth of counsels' opinions. Mr.
+Deller went to the two Justices, showed them the Register with the Act
+of Parliament in it, called upon them to act agreeably to that Act of
+Parliament; but they chose to take counsels' opinion first. The two
+"counsel," the two "lawyers," the two "learned friends," told them that
+they were right in rejecting the application of Mr. Deller and in
+binding him over for the assault; and, after all, this Grand Jury threw
+out the Bill, and in that throwing out showed that they thought the
+counsels' opinions not worth a straw.
+
+Being upon the subject of matter connected with the conduct of these
+Parson-Justices, I will here mention what is now going on in Hampshire
+respecting the accounts of the _Treasurer of the County_. At the last
+Quarter Sessions, or at a Meeting of the Magistrates previous to the
+opening of the Sessions, there was a discussion relative to this matter.
+The substance of which appears to have been this; that the Treasurer,
+Mr. George Hollis, whose accounts had been audited, approved of, and
+passed every year by the Magistrates, is in arrear to the county to the
+amount of about four thousand pounds. Sir Thomas Baring appears to have
+been the great stickler against Mr. Hollis, who was but feebly defended
+by his friends. The Treasurer of a county is compelled to find
+securities. These securities have become _exempted_, in consequence of
+the annual passing of the accounts by the Magistrates! Nothing can be
+more just than this exemption. I am security, suppose, for a Treasurer.
+The Magistrates do not pass his accounts on account of a deficiency. I
+make good the deficiency. But the Magistrates are not to go on year
+after year passing his accounts, and then, at the end of several years,
+come and call upon me to make good the deficiencies. Thus say the
+securities of Mr. Hollis. The Magistrates, in fact, are to blame. One of
+the Magistrates, a Reverend Mr. Orde, said that the Magistrates were
+more to blame than the Treasurer; and really I think so too; for, though
+Mr. Hollis has been a tool for many many years, of Old George Rose and
+the rest of that crew, it seems impossible to believe that he could have
+intended anything dishonest, seeing that the detection arose out of an
+account published by himself in the newspaper, which account he need not
+have published until three months later than the time when he did
+publish it. This is, as he himself states, the best possible proof that
+he was unconscious of any error or any deficiency. The fact appears to
+be this; that Mr. Hollis, who has for many years been Under Sheriff as
+well as Treasurer of the County, who holds several other offices, and
+who has, besides, had large pecuniary transactions with his bankers, has
+for years had his accounts so blended that he has not known how this
+money belonging to the county stood. His own statement shows that it was
+all a mass of confusion. The errors, he says, have arisen entirely from
+the negligence of his clerks, and from causes which produced a confusion
+in his accounts. This is the fact; but he has been in good fat offices
+too long not to have made a great many persons think that his offices
+would be better in _their_ hands; and they appear resolved to oust him.
+I, for my part, am glad of it; for I remember his coming up to me in the
+Grand Jury Chamber, just after the people at St. Stephen's had passed
+Power-of-Imprisonment Bill in 1817; I remember his coming up to me as
+the Under Sheriff of Willis, the man that we now call Flemming, who has
+_begun_ to build a house at North Stoneham; I remember his coming up to
+me, and with all the base sauciness of a thorough-paced Pittite,
+_telling me to disperse or he would take me into custody_! I remember
+this of Mr. Hollis, and I am therefore glad that calamity has befallen
+him; but I must say that after reading his own account of the matter;
+after reading the debate of the Magistrates; and after hearing the
+observations and opinions of well-informed and impartial persons in
+Hampshire who dislike Mr. Hollis as much as I do; I must say that I
+think him perfectly clear of all intention to commit anything like
+fraud, or to make anything worthy of the name of false account; and I am
+convinced that this affair, which will now prove extremely calamitous to
+him, might have been laughed at by him at the time when wheat was
+fifteen shillings a bushel. This change in the affairs of the
+Government; this penury now experienced by the Pittites at Whitehall,
+reaches, in its influence, to every part of the country. The Barings are
+now the great men in Hampshire. They were not such in the days of George
+Rose while George was able to make the people believe that it was
+necessary to give their money freely to preserve the "blessed comforts
+of religion." George Rose would have thrown his shield over Mr. Hollis;
+his broad and brazen shield. In Hampshire the _Bishop_, too, is changed.
+The present is doubtless as pious as the last, every bit; and has the
+same Bishop-like views; but it is not the same family; it is not the
+Garniers and Poulters and Norths and De Grays and Haygarths; it is not
+precisely the same set who have the power in their hands. Things,
+therefore, take another turn. The Pittite jolter-heads are all
+broken-backed; and the Barings come forward with their well-known weight
+of metal. It was exceedingly unfortunate for Mr. Hollis that Sir Thomas
+Baring happened to be against him. However, the thing will do good
+altogether. The county is placed in a pretty situation: its Treasurer
+has had his accounts regularly passed by the Magistrates; and these
+Magistrates come at last and discover that they have for a long time
+been passing accounts that they ought not to pass. These Magistrates
+have exempted the securities of Mr. Hollis, but not a word do they say
+about making good the deficiencies. What redress, then, have the people
+of the county? They have no redress, unless they can obtain it by
+petitioning the Parliament; and if they do not petition, if they do not
+state their case, and that boldly too, they deserve everything that can
+befall them from similar causes. I am astonished at the boldness of the
+Magistrates. I am astonished that they should think of calling Mr.
+Hollis to account without being prepared for rendering an account of
+their own conduct. However, we shall see what they will do in the end.
+And when we have seen that, we shall see whether the county will rest
+quietly under the loss which it is likely to sustain.
+
+I must now go back to Itchen Abas, where, in the farm-yard of a farmer,
+Courtenay, I saw another wheat-rick. From Itchen Abas I came up the
+valley to Itchen Stoke. Soon after that I crossed the Itchen river, came
+out into the Alresford turnpike road, and came on towards Alresford,
+having the valley now upon my left. If the hay be down all the way to
+Southampton in the same manner that it is along here, there are
+thousands of acres of hay rotting on the sides of this Itchen river.
+Most of the meadows are watered artificially. The crops of grass are
+heavy, and they appear to have been cut precisely in the right time to
+be spoiled. Coming on towards Alresford, I saw a gentleman (about a
+quarter of a mile beyond Alresford) coming out of his gate with his hat
+off, looking towards the south-west, as if to see what sort of weather
+it was likely to be. This was no other than Mr. Rolleston or Rawlinson,
+who, it appears, has a box and some land here. This gentleman was, when
+I lived in Hampshire, one of those worthy men, who, in the several
+counties of England, executed "without any sort of remuneration" such a
+large portion of that justice which is the envy of surrounding nations
+and admiration of the world. We are often told, especially in
+Parliament, of the _disinterestedness_ of these persons; of their
+worthiness, their piety, their loyalty, their excellent qualities of all
+sorts, but particularly of their _disinterestedness_, in taking upon
+them the office of Justice of the Peace; spending so much time, taking
+so much trouble, and all for nothing at all, but for the pure love of
+their King and country. And the worst of it is, that our Ministers
+_impose_ upon this disinterestedness and generosity; and, as in the case
+of Mr. Rawlinson, at the end of, perhaps, a dozen years of _services_
+voluntarily rendered to "King and country," they force him, sorely
+against his will, no doubt, to become a Police Magistrate in London! To
+be sure there are five or six hundred pounds a-year of public money
+attached to this; but what are these paltry pounds to a "country
+gentleman," who so disinterestedly rendered us services for so many
+years? Hampshire is fertile in persons of this disinterested stamp.
+There is a _'Squire_ Greme, who lives across the country, not many miles
+from the spot where I saw "Mr. Justice" Rawlinson. This 'Squire also has
+served the country for nothing during a great many years; and of late
+years, the 'Squire Junior, eager, apparently to emulate his sire, has
+become a distributor of stamps for this famous county of Hants! What
+_sons_ 'Squire Rawlinson may have is more than I know at present, though
+I will endeavour to know it, and to find out whether they also be
+_serving_ us. A great deal has been said about the debt of gratitude due
+from the people to the Justices of the Peace. An account, containing the
+names and places of abode of the Justices, and of the public money, or
+titles, received by them and by their relations; such an account would
+be a very useful thing. We should then know the real amount of this debt
+of gratitude. We shall see such an account by-and-by; and we should have
+seen it long ago if there had been, in a certain place, only one single
+man disposed to do his duty.
+
+I came through Alresford about eight o'clock, having loitered a good
+deal in coming up the valley. After quitting Alresford you come (on the
+road towards Alton) to the village of Bishop's Sutton; and then to a
+place called Ropley Dean, where there is a house or two. Just before you
+come to Ropley Dean, you see the beginning of the Valley of Itchen. The
+_Itchen_ river falls into the salt water at Southampton. It rises, or
+rather has its first rise, just by the road side at Ropley Dean, which
+is at the foot of that very high land which lies between Alresford and
+Alton. All along by the Itchen river, up to its very source, there are
+meadows; and this vale of meadows, which is about twenty-five miles in
+length, and is in some places a mile wide, is, at the point of which I
+am now speaking, only about twice as wide as my horse is long! This vale
+of Itchen is worthy of particular attention. There are few spots in
+England more fertile or more pleasant; and none, I believe, more
+healthy. Following the bed of the river, or, rather, the middle of the
+vale, it is about five-and-twenty miles in length, from Ropley Dean to
+the village of South Stoneham, which is just above Southampton. The
+average width of the meadows is, I should think, a hundred rods at the
+least; and if I am right in this conjecture, the vale contains about
+five thousand acres of meadows, large part of which is regularly
+watered. The sides of the vale are, until you come down to within about
+six or eight miles of Southampton, hills or rising grounds of chalk,
+covered more or less thickly with loam. Where the hills rise up very
+steeply from the valley the fertility of the corn-lands is not so great;
+but for a considerable part of the way the corn-lands are excellent, and
+the farmhouses, to which those lands belong, are, for the far greater
+part, under covert of the hills on the edge of the valley. Soon after
+the rising of the stream, it forms itself into some capital ponds at
+Alresford. These, doubtless, were augmented by art, in order to supply
+Winchester with fish. The fertility of this vale, and of the surrounding
+country, is best proved by the fact that, besides the town of Alresford
+and that of Southampton, there are seventeen villages, each having its
+parish church, upon its borders. When we consider these things we are
+not surprised that a spot situated about half way down this vale should
+have been chosen for the building of a city, or that that city should
+have been for a great number of years a place of residence for the Kings
+of England.
+
+Winchester, which is at present a mere nothing to what it once was,
+stands across the vale at a place where the vale is made very narrow by
+the jutting forward of two immense hills. From the point where the river
+passes through the city, you go, whether eastward or westward, a full
+mile up a very steep hill all the way. The city is, of course, in one of
+the deepest holes that can be imagined. It never could have been thought
+of as a place to be defended since the discovery of gunpowder; and,
+indeed, one would think that very considerable annoyance might be given
+to the inhabitants even by the flinging of the flint-stones from the
+hills down into the city.
+
+At Ropley Dean, before I mounted the hill to come on towards Rotherham
+Park, I baited my horse. Here the ground is precisely like that at
+Ashmansworth on the borders of Berkshire, which, indeed, I could see
+from the ground of which I am now speaking. In coming up the hill, I had
+the house and farm of Mr. Duthy to my right. Seeing some very fine
+Swedish turnips, I naturally expected that they belonged to this
+gentleman, who is Secretary to the Agricultural Society of Hampshire;
+but I found that they belonged to a farmer Mayhew. The soil is, along
+upon this high land, a deep loam, bordering on a clay, red in colour,
+and pretty full of large, rough, yellow-looking stones, very much like
+some of the land in Huntingdonshire; but here is a bed of chalk under
+this. Everything is backward here. The wheat is perfectly green in most
+places; but it is everywhere pretty good. I have observed, all the way
+along, that the wheat is good upon the stiff, strong land. It is so
+here; but it is very backward. The greater part of it is full three
+weeks behind the wheat under Portsdown Hill. But few farmhouses come
+within my sight along here; but in one of them there was a wheat-rick,
+which is the third I have seen since I quitted the Wen. In descending
+from this high ground, in order to reach the village of East Tisted,
+which lies on the turnpike road from the Wen to Gosport through Alton, I
+had to cross Rotherham Park. On the right of the park, on a bank of land
+facing the north-east, I saw a very pretty farmhouse, having everything
+in excellent order, with fine corn-fields about it, and with a
+wheat-rick standing in the yard. This farm, as I afterwards found,
+belongs to the owner of Rotherham Park, who is also the owner of East
+Tisted, who has recently built a new house in the park, who has quite
+metamorphosed the village of Tisted within these eight years, who has,
+indeed, really and truly improved the whole country just round about
+here, whose name is Scot, well known as a brickmaker at North End,
+Fulham, and who has, in Hampshire, supplanted a Norman of the name of
+Powlet. The process by which this transfer has taken place is visible
+enough, to all eyes but the eyes of the jolterheads. Had there been no
+Debt created to crush liberty in France and to keep down reformers in
+England, Mr. Scot would not have had bricks to burn to build houses for
+the Jews and jobbers and other eaters of taxes; and the Norman Powlet
+would not have had to pay in taxes, through his own hands and those of
+his tenants and labourers, the amount of the estate at Tisted, first to
+be given to the Jews, jobbers, and tax-eaters, and then by them to be
+given to "'Squire Scot" for his bricks. However, it is not 'Squire Scot
+who has assisted to pass laws to make people pay double toll on a
+Sunday. 'Squire Scot had nothing to do with passing the New Game-laws
+and Old Ellenborough's Act; 'Squire Scot never invented the New Trespass
+law, in virtue of which John Cockbain of Whitehaven in the county of
+Cumberland was, by two clergymen and three other magistrates of that
+county, sentenced to pay one half-penny for damages and seven shillings
+costs, for going upon a field, the property of William, Earl of
+Lonsdale. In the passing of this Act, which was one of the first passed
+in the present reign, 'Squire Scot, the brickmaker, had nothing to do.
+Go on, good 'Squire, thrust out some more of the Normans: with the
+fruits of the augmentations which you make to the Wen, go, and take from
+them their mansions, parks, and villages!
+
+At Tisted I crossed the turnpike road before mentioned, and entered a
+lane which, at the end of about four miles, brought me to this village
+of Selborne. My readers will recollect that I mentioned this Selborne
+when I was giving an account of Hawkley Hanger, last fall. I was
+desirous of seeing this village, about which I have read in the book of
+Mr. White, and which a reader has been so good as to send me. From
+Tisted I came generally up hill till I got within half a mile of this
+village, when, all of a sudden, I came to the edge of a hill, looked
+down over all the larger vale of which the little vale of this village
+makes a part. Here Hindhead and Black-down Hill came full in my view.
+When I was crossing the forest in Sussex, going from Worth to Horsham,
+these two great hills lay to my west and north-west. To-day I am got
+just on the opposite side of them, and see them, of course, towards the
+east and the south-east, while Leith Hill lies away towards the
+north-east. This hill, from which you descend down into Selborne, is
+very lofty; but, indeed, we are here amongst some of the highest hills
+in the island, and amongst the sources of rivers. The hill over which I
+have come this morning sends the Itchen river forth from one side of it,
+and the river Wey, which rises near Alton, from the opposite side of it.
+Hindhead which lies before me, sends, as I observed upon a former
+occasion, the Arun forth towards the south and a stream forth towards
+the north, which meets the river Wey, somewhere above Godalming. I am
+told that the springs of these two streams rise in the Hill of Hindhead,
+or, rather, on one side of the hill, at not many yards from each other.
+The village of Selborne is precisely what it is described by Mr. White.
+A straggling irregular street, bearing all the marks of great antiquity,
+and showing, from its lanes and its vicinage generally, that it was once
+a very considerable place. I went to look at the spot where Mr. White
+supposes the convent formerly stood. It is very beautiful. Nothing can
+surpass in beauty these dells and hillocks and hangers, which last are
+so steep that it is impossible to ascend them, except by means of a
+serpentine path. I found here deep hollow ways, with beds and sides of
+solid white stone; but not quite so white and so solid, I think, as the
+stone which I found in the roads at Hawkley. The churchyard of Selborne
+is most beautifully situated. The land is good, all about it. The trees
+are luxuriant and prone to be lofty and large. I measured the yew-tree
+in the churchyard, and found the trunk to be, according to my
+measurement, twenty-three feet, eight inches, in circumference. The
+trunk is very short, as is generally the case with yew-trees; but the
+head spreads to a very great extent, and the whole tree, though probably
+several centuries old, appears to be in perfect health. Here are several
+hop-plantations in and about this village; but for this once the prayers
+of the over-production men will be granted, and the devil of any hops
+there will be. The bines are scarcely got up the poles; the bines and
+the leaves are black, nearly, as soot; full as black as a sooty bag or
+dingy coal-sack, and covered with lice. It is a pity that these
+hop-planters could not have a parcel of Spaniards and Portuguese to
+louse their hops for them. Pretty devils to have liberty, when a
+favourite recreation of the Donna is to crack the lice in the head of
+the Don! I really shrug up my shoulders thinking of the beasts. Very
+different from such is my landlady here at Selborne, who, while I am
+writing my notes, is getting me a rasher of bacon, and has already
+covered the table with a nice clean cloth. I have never seen such
+quantities of grapes upon any vines as I see upon the vines in this
+village, badly pruned as all the vines have been. To be sure, this is a
+year for grapes, such, I believe, as has been seldom known in England,
+and the cause is the perfect ripening of the wood by the last beautiful
+summer. I am afraid, however, that the grapes come in vain; for this
+summer has been so cold, and is now so wet, that we can hardly expect
+grapes which are not under glass to ripen. As I was coming into this
+village, I observed to a farmer who was standing at his gateway, that
+people ought to be happy here, for that God had done everything for
+them. His answer was, that he did not believe there was a more unhappy
+place in England: for that there were always quarrels of some sort or
+other going on. This made me call to mind the King's proclamation,
+relative to a reward for discovering the person who had recently _shot
+at the parson of this village_. This parson's name is Cobbold, and it
+really appears that there was a shot fired through his window. He has
+had law-suits with the people; and I imagine that it was these to which
+the farmer alluded. The hops are of considerable importance to the
+village, and their failure must necessarily be attended with
+consequences very inconvenient to the whole of a population so small as
+this. Upon inquiry, I find that the hops are equally bad at Alton,
+Froyle, Crondall, and even at Farnham. I saw them bad in Sussex; I hear
+that they are bad in Kent; so that hop-planters, at any rate, will be,
+for once, free from the dreadful evils of abundance. A correspondent
+asks me what is meant by the statements which he sees in the _Register_,
+relative to the _hop-duty_? He sees it, he says, continually falling in
+amount; and he wonders what this means. The thing has not, indeed, been
+properly explained. It is a _gamble_; and it is hardly right for me to
+state, in a publication like the _Register_, anything relative to a
+gamble. However, the case is this: a taxing system is necessarily a
+system of gambling; a system of betting; stock-jobbing is no more than a
+system of betting, and the wretched dogs that carry on the traffic are
+little more, except that they are more criminal, than the waiters at an
+_E O Table_, or the markers at billiards. The hop duty is so much per
+pound. The duty was imposed at two separate times. One part of it,
+therefore, is called the Old Duty, and the other part the New Duty. The
+old duty was a penny to the pound of hops. The amount of this duty,
+which can always be ascertained at the Treasury as soon as the hopping
+season is over, is the surest possible guide in ascertaining the total
+amount of the growth of hops for the year. If, for instance, the duty
+were to amount to no more than eight shillings and fourpence, you would
+be certain that only a hundred pounds of hops had been grown during the
+year. Hence a system of gambling precisely like the gambling in the
+funds. I bet you that the duty will not exceed so much. The duty has
+sometimes exceeded two hundred thousand pounds. This year it is supposed
+that it will not exceed twenty, thirty, or forty thousand. The gambling
+fellows are betting all this time; and it is, in fact, an account of the
+betting which is inserted in the _Register_.
+
+This vile paper-money and funding-system; this system of Dutch descent,
+begotten by Bishop Burnet, and born in hell; this system has turned
+everything into a gamble. There are hundreds of men who live by being
+the agents to carry on gambling. They reside here in the Wen; many of
+the gamblers live in the country; they write up to their gambling agent,
+whom they call their stockbroker; he gambles according to their order;
+and they receive the profit or stand to the loss. Is it possible to
+conceive a viler calling than that of an agent for the carrying on of
+gambling? And yet the vagabonds call themselves gentlemen; or, at least,
+look upon themselves as the superiors of those who sweep the kennels. In
+like manner is the hop-gamble carried on. The gambling agents in the Wen
+make the bets for the gamblers in the country; and, perhaps, millions
+are betted during the year, upon the amount of a duty, which, at the
+most, scarcely exceeds a quarter of a million. In such a state of things
+how are you to expect young men to enter on a course of patient
+industry? How are you to expect that they will seek to acquire fortune
+and fame by study or by application of any kind?
+
+Looking back over the road that I have come to-day, and perceiving the
+direction of the road going from this village in another direction, I
+perceive that this is a very direct road from Winchester to Farnham. The
+road, too, appears to have been, from ancient times, sufficiently wide;
+and when the Bishop of Winchester selected this beautiful spot whereon
+to erect a monastery, I dare say the roads along here were some of the
+best in the country.
+
+
+_Thursley (Surrey), Thursday, 7th August._
+
+I got a boy at Selborne to show me along the lanes out into Woolmer
+forest on my way to Headley. The lanes were very deep; the wet _malme_
+just about the colour of rye-meal mixed up with water, and just about as
+clammy, came in many places very nearly up to my horse's belly. There
+was this comfort, however, that I was sure that there was a bottom,
+which is by no means the case when you are among clays or quick-sands.
+After going through these lanes, and along between some fir-plantations,
+I came out upon Woolmer Forest, and, to my great satisfaction, soon
+found myself on the side of those identical plantations which have been
+made under the orders of the smooth Mr. Huskisson, and which I noticed
+last year in my ride from Hambledon to this place. These plantations are
+of fir, or, at least, I could see nothing else, and they never can be of
+any more use to the nation than the sprigs of heath which cover the rest
+of the forest. Is there nobody to inquire what becomes of the income of
+the Crown lands? No, and there never will be, until the whole system be
+changed. I have seldom ridden on pleasanter ground than that which I
+found between Woolmer Forest and this beautiful village of Thursley. The
+day has been fine, too; notwithstanding I saw the Judges' terrific wigs
+as I came up upon the turnpike road from the village of Itchen. I had
+but one little scud during the day: just enough for St. Swithin to swear
+by; but when I was upon the hills I saw some showers going about the
+country. From Selborne, I had first to come to Headley, about five
+miles. I came to the identical public-house where I took my blind guide
+last year, who took me such a dance to the southward, and led me up to
+the top of Hindhead at last. I had no business there. My route was
+through a sort of hamlet called Churt, which lies along on the side and
+towards the foot of the north of Hindhead, on which side, also, lies the
+village of Thursley. A line is hardly more straight than is the road
+from Headley to Thursley; and a prettier ride I never had in the course
+of my life. It was not the less interesting from the circumstance of its
+giving me all the way a full view of Crooksbury Hill, the grand scene of
+my exploits when I was a taker of the nests of crows and magpies.
+
+At Churt I had, upon my left, three hills out upon the common, called
+the _Devil's Jumps_. The Unitarians will not believe in the Trinity,
+because they cannot account for it. Will they come here to Churt, go and
+look at these "Devil's Jumps," and account to me for the placing of
+these three hills, in the shape of three rather squat sugar-loaves,
+along in a line upon this heath, or the placing of a rock-stone upon the
+top of one of them as big as a church tower? For my part, I cannot
+account for this placing of these hills. That they should have been
+formed by mere chance is hardly to be believed. How could waters rolling
+about have formed such hills? How could such hills have bubbled up from
+beneath? But, in short, it is all wonderful alike: the stripes of loam
+running down through the chalk-hills; the circular parcels of loam in
+the midst of chalk-hills; the lines of flint running parallel with each
+other horizontally along the chalk-hills; the flints placed in circles
+as true as a hair in the chalk-hills; the layers of stone at the bottom
+of hills of loam; the chalk first soft, then some miles further on,
+becoming chalk-stone; then, after another distance, becoming burr-stone,
+as they call it; and at last becoming hard, white stone, fit for any
+buildings; the sand-stone at Hindhead becoming harder and harder till it
+becomes very nearly iron in Herefordshire, and quite iron in Wales; but,
+indeed, they once dug iron out of this very Hindhead. The clouds, coming
+and settling upon the hills, sinking down and creeping along, at last
+coming out again in springs, and those becoming rivers. Why, it is all
+equally wonderful, and as to not believing in this or that, because the
+thing cannot be proved by logical deduction, why is any man to believe
+in the existence of a God any more than he is to believe in the doctrine
+of the Trinity? For my part, I think the "Devil's jumps," as the people
+here call them, full as wonderful and no more wonderful than hundreds
+and hundreds of other wonderful things. It is a strange taste which our
+ancestors had, to ascribe no inconsiderable part of these wonders of
+nature to the Devil. Not far from the Devil's jumps is that singular
+place which resembles a sugar-loaf inverted, hollowed out, and an
+outside rim only left. This is called the "_Devil's Punch Bowl_;" and it
+is very well known in Wiltshire, that the forming, or, perhaps, it is
+the breaking up, of Stonehenge is ascribed to the Devil, and that the
+mark of one of his feet is now said to be seen in one of the stones.
+
+I got to Thursley about sunset, and without experiencing any
+inconvenience from the wet. I have mentioned the state of the corn as
+far as Selborne. On this side of that village I find it much forwarder
+than I found it between Selborne and Ropley Dean. I am here got into
+some of the very best barley-land in the kingdom; a fine, buttery,
+stoneless loam, upon a bottom of sand or sand-stone. Finer barley and
+turnip-land it is impossible to see. All the corn is good here. The
+wheat not a heavy crop; but not a light one; and the barley all the way
+along from Headley to this place as fine, if not finer, than I ever saw
+it in my life. Indeed I have not seen a bad field of barley since I left
+the Wen. The corn is not so forward here as under Portsdown Hill; but
+some farmers intend to begin reaping wheat in a few days. It is
+monstrous to suppose that the price of corn will not come down. It must
+come down, good weather or bad weather. If the weather be bad, it will
+be so much the worse for the farmer, as well as for the nation at large,
+and can be of no benefit to any human being but the Quakers, who must
+now be pretty busy, measuring the crops all over the kingdom. It will be
+recollected that in the Report of the Agricultural Committee of 1821, it
+appeared, from the evidence of one Hodgson, a partner of Cropper,
+Benson, and Co. Quakers, of Liverpool, that these Quakers sent a set of
+corn-gaugers into the several counties, just before every harvest; that
+these fellows stopped here and there, went into the fields, measured off
+square yards of wheat, clipped off the ears, and carried them off. These
+they afterwards packed up and sent off to Cropper and Co. at Liverpool.
+When the whole of the packets were got together, they were rubbed out,
+measured, weighed, and an estimate made of the amount of the coming
+crop. This, according to the confession of Hodgson himself, enabled
+these Quakers to speculate in corn, with the greater chance of gain.
+This has been done by these men for many years. Their disregard of
+worldly things; their desire to lay up treasures in heaven; their
+implicit yielding to the Spirit; these have induced them to send their
+corn-gaugers over the country regularly year after year; and I will
+engage that they are at it at this moment. The farmers will bear in mind
+that the New Trespass-law, though clearly not intended for any such
+purpose, enables them to go and seize by the throat any of these gaugers
+that they may catch in their fields. They could not do this formerly; to
+cut off standing corn was merely a trespass, for which satisfaction was
+to be attained by action at law. But now you can seize the caitiff who
+is come as a spy amongst your corn. Before, he could be off and leave
+you to find out his name as you could; but now you can lay hold of him,
+as Mr. Deller did of the Duke's man, and bring him before a Magistrate
+at once. I do hope that the farmers will look sharp out for these
+fellows, who are neither more nor less than so many spies. They hold a
+great deal of corn; they want blight, mildew, rain, hurricanes; but
+happy I am to see that they will get no blight, at any rate. The grain
+is formed; everywhere everybody tells me that there is no blight in any
+sort of corn, except in the beans.
+
+I have not gone through much of a bean country. The beans that I have
+seen are some of them pretty good, more of them but middling, and still
+more of them very indifferent.
+
+I am very happy to hear that that beautiful little bird, the American
+partridge, has been introduced with success to this neighbourhood, by
+Mr. Leech at Lea. I am told that they have been heard whistling this
+summer; that they have been frequently seen, and that there is no doubt
+that they have broods of young ones. I tried several times to import
+some of these birds; but I always lost them, by some means or other,
+before the time arrived for turning them out. They are a beautiful
+little partridge, and extremely interesting in all their manner. Some
+persons call them _quail_. If any one will take a quail and compare it
+with one of these birds, he will see that they cannot be of the same
+sort. In my "Year's Residence in America," I have, I think, clearly
+proved that these birds are partridges, and not quails. In the United
+States, north of New Jersey, they are called quail: south and south-west
+of New Jersey they are called partridges. They have been called quail
+solely on account of their size; for they have none of the manners of
+quail belonging to them. Quails assemble in flocks like larks,
+starlings, or rooks. Partridges keep in distinct coveys; that is to say,
+the brood lives distinct from all other broods until the ensuing spring,
+when it forms itself into pairs and separates. Nothing can be a
+distinction more clear than this. Our own partridges stick to the same
+spot from the time that they are hatched to the time that they pair off,
+and these American partridges do the same. Quails, like larks, get
+together in flocks at the approach of winter, and move about according
+to the season, to a greater or less distance from the place where they
+were bred. These, therefore, which have been brought to Thursley, are
+partridges; and if they be suffered to live quietly for a season or two,
+they will stock the whole of that part of the country, where the
+delightful intermixture of corn-fields, coppices, heaths, furze-fields,
+ponds, and rivulets is singularly favourable to their increase.
+
+The turnips cannot fail to be good in such a season and in such land;
+yet the farmers are most dreadfully tormented with the weeds, and with
+the superabundant turnips. Here, my Lord Liverpool, is over production
+indeed! They have sown their fields broad-cast; they have no means of
+destroying the weeds by the plough; they have no intervals to bury them
+in; and they _hoe_, or _scratch_, as Mr. Tull calls it; and then comes
+St. Swithin and sets the weeds and the hoed-up turnips again. Then there
+is another hoeing or scratching; and then comes St. Swithin again: so
+that there is hoe, hoe, muddle, muddle, and such a fretting and stewing;
+such a looking up to Hindhead to see when it is going to be fine; when,
+if that beautiful field of twenty acres, which I have now before my
+eyes, and wherein I see half a dozen men hoeing and poking and muddling,
+looking up to see how long it is before they must take to their heels to
+get under the trees to obtain shelter from the coming shower; when, I
+say, if that beautiful field had been sowed upon ridges at four feet
+apart, according to the plan in my _Year's Residence_, not a weed would
+have been to be seen in the field, the turnip-plants would have been
+three times the size that they now are, the expense would have not been
+a fourth part of that which has already taken place, and all the
+muddling and poking about of weeds, and all the fretting and all the
+stewing would have been spared; and as to the amount of the crop, I am
+now looking at the best land in England for Swedish turnips, and I have
+no scruple to assert that if it had been sown after my manner, it would
+have had a crop double the weight of that which it now will have. I
+think I know of a field of turnips, sown much later than the field now
+before me, and sown in rows at nearly four feet apart, which have a crop
+double the weight of that which will be produced in yon beautiful field.
+
+
+_Reigate (Surrey), Friday, 8th August._
+
+At the end of a long, twisting-about ride, but a most delightful ride, I
+got to this place about nine o'clock in the evening. From Thursley I
+came to Brook, and there crossed the turnpike-road from London to
+Chichester through Godalming and Midhurst. Thence I came on, turning
+upon the left upon the sand-hills of Hambledon (in Surrey, mind). On one
+of these hills is one of those precious jobs, called "_Semaphores_." For
+what reason this pretty name is given to a sort of Telegraph house,
+stuck up at public expense upon a high hill; for what reason this
+outlandish name is given to the thing, I must leave the reader to guess;
+but as to the thing itself; I know that it means this: a pretence for
+giving a good sum of the public money away every year to some one that
+the Borough-system has condemned this labouring and toiling nation to
+provide for. The Dead Weight of nearly about six millions sterling a
+year; that is to say, this curse entailed upon the country on account of
+the late wars against the liberties of the French people, this Dead
+Weight is, however, falling, in part, at least, upon the landed
+jolterheads who were so eager to create it, and who thought that no part
+of it would fall upon themselves. Theirs has been a grand mistake. They
+saw the war carried on without any loss or any cost to themselves. By
+the means of paper-money and loans, the labouring classes were made to
+pay the whole of the expenses of the war. When the war was over, the
+jolterheads thought they would get gold back again to make all secure;
+and some of them really said, I am told, that it was high time to put an
+end to the gains of the paper-money people. The jolterheads quite
+overlooked the circumstance that, in returning to gold, they doubled and
+trebled what they had to pay on account of the debt, and that, at last,
+they were bringing the burden upon themselves. Grand, also, was the
+mistake of the jolterheads when they approved of the squanderings upon
+the Dead Weight. They thought that the labouring classes were going to
+pay the whole of the expenses of the Knights of Waterloo, and of the
+other heroes of the war. The jolterheads thought that they should have
+none of this to pay. Some of them had relations belonging to the Dead
+Weight, and all of them were willing to make the labouring classes toil
+like asses for the support of those who had what was called "fought and
+bled" for Gatton and Old Sarum. The jolterheads have now found, however,
+that a pretty good share of the expense is to fall upon themselves.
+Their mortagees are letting them know that _Semaphores_ and such pretty
+things cost something, and that it is unreasonable for a loyal country
+gentleman, a friend of "social order" and of the "blessed comforts of
+religion" to expect to have Semaphores and to keep his estate too.
+
+This Dead Weight is, unquestionably, a thing, such as the world never
+saw before. Here are not only a tribe of pensioned naval and military
+officers, commissaries, quartermasters, pursers, and God knows what
+besides; not only these, but their wives and children are to be
+pensioned, after the death of the heroes themselves. Nor does it
+signify, it seems, whether the hero were married before he became part
+of the Dead Weight or since. Upon the death of the man, the pension is
+to begin with the wife, and a pension for each child; so that, if there
+be a large family of children, the family, in many cases, actually gains
+by the death of the father! Was such a thing as this ever before heard
+of in the world? Any man that is going to die has nothing to do but to
+marry a girl to give her a pension for life to be paid out of the sweat
+of the people; and it was distinctly stated, during the Session of
+Parliament before the last, that the widows and children of insane
+officers were to have the same treatment as the rest! Here is the envy
+of surrounding nations and the admiration of the world! In addition,
+then, to twenty thousand parsons, more than twenty thousand
+stock-brokers and stock-jobbers perhaps; forty or fifty thousand
+tax-gatherers; thousands upon thousands of military and naval officers
+in full pay; in addition to all these, here are the thousands upon
+thousands of pairs of this Dead Weight, all busily engaged in breeding
+gentlemen and ladies; and all while Malthus is wanting to put a check
+upon the breeding of the labouring classes; all receiving a _premium for
+breeding_! Where is Malthus? Where is this check-population parson?
+Where are his friends, the Edinburgh Reviewers? Faith, I believe they
+have given him up. They begin to be ashamed of giving countenance to a
+man who wants to check the breeding of those who labour, while he says
+not a word about those two hundred thousand breeding pairs, whose
+offspring are necessarily to be maintained at the public charge. Well
+may these fatteners upon the labour of others rail against the Radicals!
+Let them once take the fan to their hand, and they will, I warrant it,
+thoroughly purge the floor. However, it is a consolation to know, that
+the jolterheads who have been the promoters of the measures that have
+led to these heavy charges; it is a consolation to know that the
+jolterheads have now to bear part of the charges, and that they cannot
+any longer make them fall exclusively upon the shoulders of the
+labouring classes. The disgust that one feels at seeing the whiskers,
+and hearing the copper heels rattle, is in some measure compensated for
+by the reflection, that the expense of them is now beginning to fall
+upon the malignant and tyrannical jolterheads who are the principal
+cause of their being created.
+
+Bidding the _Semaphore_ good-bye, I came along by the church at
+Hambledon, and then crossed a little common and the turnpike-road from
+London to Chichester through Godalming and Petworth; not Midhurst, as
+before. The turnpike-road here is one of the best that I ever saw. It is
+like the road upon Horley Common, near Worth, and like that between
+Godstone and East Grinstead; and the cause of this is, that it is made
+of precisely the same sort of stone, which, they tell me, is brought, in
+some cases, even from Blackdown Hill, which cannot be less, I should
+think, than twelve miles distant. This stone is brought, in great lumps,
+and then cracked into little pieces. The next village I came to after
+Hambledon was Hascomb, famous for its _beech_, insomuch that it is
+called _Hascomb Beech_.
+
+There are two lofty hills here, between which you go out of the sandy
+country down into the Weald. Here are hills of all heights and forms.
+Whether they came in consequence of a boiling of the earth, I know not;
+but, in form, they very much resemble the bubbles upon the top of the
+water of a pot which is violently boiling. The soil is a beautiful loam
+upon a bed of sand. Springs start here and there at the feet of the
+hills; and little rivulets pour away in all directions. The roads are
+difficult merely on account of their extreme unevenness; the bottom is
+everywhere sound, and everything that meets the eye is beautiful; trees,
+coppices, corn-fields, meadows; and then the distant views in every
+direction. From one spot I saw this morning Hindhead, Blackdown Hill,
+Lord Egremont's house and park at Petworth, Donnington Hill, over which
+I went to go on the South Downs, the South Downs near Lewes; the forest
+at Worth, Turner's Hill, and then all the way round into Kent and back
+to the Surrey Hills at Godstone. From Hascomb I began to descend into
+the low country. I had Leith Hill before me; but my plan was, not to go
+over it or any part of it, but to go along below it in the real Weald of
+Surrey. A little way back from Hascomb, I had seen _a field of carrots_;
+and now I was descending into a country where, strictly speaking, only
+three things will grow well,--grass, wheat, and oak trees. At Goose
+Green I crossed a turnpike-road leading from Guildford to Horsham and
+Arundel. I next came, after crossing a canal, to a common called
+Smithwood Common. Leith Hill was full in front of me, but I turned away
+to the right, and went through the lanes to come to Ewhurst, leaving
+Crawley to my right. Before I got to Ewhurst, I crossed another
+turnpike-road, leading from Guildford to Horsham, and going on to
+Worthing or some of those towns.
+
+At Ewhurst, which is a very pretty village, and the Church of which is
+most delightfully situated, I treated my horse to some oats, and myself
+to a rasher of bacon. I had now to come, according to my project, round
+among the lanes at about a couple of miles distance from the foot of
+Leith Hill, in order to get first to Ockley, then to Holmwood, and then
+to Reigate. From Ewhurst the first three miles was the deepest clay that
+I ever saw, to the best of my recollection. I was warned of the
+difficulty of getting along; but I was not to be frightened at the sound
+of clay. Wagons, too, had been dragged along the lanes by some means or
+another; and where a wagon-horse could go, my horse could go. It took
+me, however, a good hour and a half to get along these three miles. Now,
+mind, this is the real _weald_, where the clay is _bottomless_; where
+there is no stone of any sort underneath, as at Worth and all along from
+Crawley to Billingshurst through Horsham. This clayey land is fed with
+water soaking from the sand-hills; and in this particular place from the
+immense hill of Leith. All along here the oak-woods are beautiful. I saw
+scores of acres by the road-side, where the young oaks stood as
+regularly as if they had been planted. The orchards are not bad along
+here, and, perhaps, they are a good deal indebted to the shelter they
+receive. The wheat very good, all through the weald, but backward.
+
+At Ockley I passed the house of a Mr. Steer, who has a great quantity of
+hay-land, which is very pretty. Here I came along the turnpike-road that
+leads from Dorking to Horsham. When I got within about two or three
+miles of Dorking, I turned off to the right, came across the Holmwood
+into the lanes leading down to Gadbrook Common, which has of late years
+been enclosed. It is all clay here; but in the whole of my ride I have
+not seen much finer fields of wheat than I saw here. Out of these lanes
+I turned up to "Betchworth" (I believe it is), and from Betchworth came
+along a chalk-hill to my left and the sand-hills to my right, till I got
+to this place.
+
+
+_Wen, Sunday, 10th August._
+
+I stayed at Reigate yesterday, and came to the Wen to-day, every step of
+the way in a rain; as good a soaking as any devotee of St. Swithin ever
+underwent for his sake. I promised that I would give an account of the
+effect which the soaking on the South Downs, on Saturday the 2nd
+instant, had upon the hooping-cough. I do not recommend the remedy to
+others; but this I will say, that I had a spell of the hooping-cough,
+the day before I got that soaking, and that I have not had a single
+spell since; though I have slept in several different beds, and got a
+second soaking in going from Botley to Easton. The truth is, I believe,
+that rain upon the South Downs, or at any place near the sea, is by no
+means the same thing with rain in the interior. No man ever catches cold
+from getting wet with sea-water; and, indeed, I have never known an
+instance of a man catching cold at sea. The air upon the South Downs is
+saltish, I dare say; and the clouds may bring something a little
+partaking of the nature of sea-water.
+
+At Thursley I left the turnip-hoers poking and pulling and muddling
+about the weeds, and wholly incapable, after all, of putting the turnips
+in anything like the state in which they ought to be. The weeds that had
+been hoed up twice were growing again, and it was the same with the
+turnips that had been hoed up. In leaving Reigate this morning, it was
+with great pleasure that I saw a field of Swedish turnips, drilled upon
+ridges at about four feet distance, the whole field as clean as the
+cleanest of garden ground. The turnips standing at equal distances in
+the row, and having the appearance of being, in every respect, in a
+prosperous state. I should not be afraid to bet that these turnips, thus
+standing in rows at nearly four feet distance, will be a crop twice as
+large as any in the parish of Thursley, though there is, I imagine, some
+of the finest turnip-land in the kingdom. It seems strange that men are
+not to be convinced of the advantage of the row-culture for turnips.
+They will insist upon believing that there is some _ground lost_. They
+will also insist upon believing that the row-culture is the most
+expensive. How can there be ground lost if the crop be larger? And as to
+the expense, take one year with another, the broad-cast method must be
+twice as expensive as the other. Wet as it has been to-day, I took time
+to look well about me as I came along. The wheat, even in this
+ragamuffin part of the country, is good, with the exception of one
+piece, which lies on your left hand as you come down from Banstead Down.
+It is very good at Banstead itself, though that is a country
+sufficiently poor. Just on the other side of Sutton there is a little
+good land, and in a place or two I thought I saw the wheat a little
+blighted. A labouring man told me that it was where the heaps of dung
+had been laid. The barley here is most beautiful, as, indeed, it is all
+over the country.
+
+Between Sutton and the Wen there is, in fact, little besides houses,
+gardens, grass plats and other matters to accommodate the Jews and
+jobbers, and the mistresses and bastards that are put out a-keeping.
+But, in a dell, which the turnpike-road crosses about a mile on this
+side of Sutton, there are two fields of as stiff land, I think, as I
+ever saw in my life. In summer time this land bakes so hard that they
+cannot plough it unless it be wet. When you have ploughed it, and the
+sun comes again, it bakes again. One of these fields had been thus
+ploughed and cross-ploughed in the month of June, and I saw the ground
+when it was lying in lumps of the size of portmanteaus, and not very
+small ones either. It would have been impossible to reduce this ground
+to small particles, except by the means of sledge hammers. The two
+fields, to which I alluded just now, are alongside of this ploughed
+field, and they are now in wheat. The heavy rain of to-day, aided by the
+south-west wind, made the wheat bend pretty nearly to lying down; but
+you shall rarely see two finer fields of wheat. It is red wheat; a
+coarsish kind, and the straw stout and strong; but the ears are long,
+broad and full; and I did not perceive anything approaching towards a
+speck in the straw. Such land as this, such very stiff land, seldom
+carries a very large crop; but I should think that these fields would
+exceed four quarters to an acre; and the wheat is by no means so
+backward as it is in some places. There is no corn, that I recollect,
+from the spot just spoken of, to almost the street of Kensington. I came
+up by Earl's Court, where there is, amongst the market gardens, a field
+of wheat. One would suppose that this must be the finest wheat in the
+world. By no means. It rained hard, to be sure, and I had not much time
+for being particular in my survey; but this field appears to me to have
+some blight in it; and as to crop, whether of corn or of straw, it is
+nothing to compare to the general run of the wheat in the wealds of
+Sussex or of Surrey; what, then, is it, if compared with the wheat on
+the South Downs, under Portsdown Hill, on the sea-flats at Havant and at
+Tichfield, and along on the banks of the Itchen!
+
+Thus I have concluded this "rural ride," from the Wen and back again to
+the Wen, being, taking in all the turnings and windings, as near as can
+be, two hundred miles in length. My objects were to ascertain the state
+of the crops, both of hops and of corn. The hop-affair is soon settled,
+for there will be no hops. As to the corn, my remark is this: that on
+all the clays, on all the stiff lands upon the chalk; on all the rich
+lands, indeed, but more especially on all the stiff lands, the wheat is
+as good as I recollect ever to have seen it, and has as much straw. On
+all the light lands and poor lands the wheat is thin, and, though not
+short, by no means good. The oats are pretty good almost everywhere; and
+I have not seen a bad field of barley during the whole of my ride;
+though there is no species of soil in England, except that of the fens,
+over which I have not passed. The state of the farmers is much worse
+than it was last year, notwithstanding the ridiculous falsehoods of the
+London newspapers, and the more ridiculous delusion of the jolterheads.
+In numerous instances the farmers, who continue in their farms, have
+ceased to farm for themselves, and merely hold the land for the
+landlords. The delusion caused by the rise of the price of corn has
+pretty nearly vanished already; and if St. Swithin would but get out of
+the way with his drippings for about a month, this delusion would
+disappear, never to return. In the meanwhile, however, the London
+newspapers are doing what they can to keep up the delusion; and in a
+paper called _Bell's Weekly Messenger_, edited, I am told, by a
+place-hunting lawyer; in that stupid paper of this day I find the
+following passage:--"So late as January last, the average price of wheat
+was 39_s._ per quarter, and on the 29th ult. it was above 62_s._ As it
+has been rising ever since, it may _now be quoted as little under 65s._
+So that in this article alone there is a rise of more than _thirty-five_
+per cent. Under these circumstances, it is not likely that we shall hear
+anything of _agricultural distress_. A writer of considerable talents,
+but no prophet, had _frightened_ the kingdom by a confident prediction
+that wheat, after the 1st of May, would sink to 4_s._ per bushel, and
+that under the effects of Mr. Peel's Bill, and the payments in cash by
+the Bank of England, it would _never again exceed that price_! Nay, so
+assured was Mr. Cobbett of the mathematical certainty of his deductions
+on the subject, that he did not hesitate to make use of the following
+language: 'And farther, if what I say do not come to pass, I will give
+any one leave to broil me on a gridiron, and for that purpose I will get
+one of the best gridirons I can possibly get made, and it shall be hung
+out as near to my premises as possible, in the Strand, so that it shall
+be seen by everybody as they pass along.' The 1st of May has now passed,
+Mr. Peel's Bill has not been repealed, and the Bank of England has paid
+its notes in cash, and yet wheat has risen nearly 40 per cent."
+
+Here is a tissue of falsehoods! But only think of a country being
+"_frightened_" by the prospect of a low price of provisions! When such
+an idea can possibly find its way even into the shallow brain of a
+cracked-skull lawyer; when such an idea can possibly be put into print
+at any rate, there must be something totally wrong in the state of the
+country. Here is this lawyer telling his readers that I had frightened
+the kingdom by saying that wheat would be sold at four shillings a
+bushel. Again I say that there must be something wrong, something
+greatly out of place, some great disease at work in the community, or
+such an idea as this could never have found its way _into print_. Into
+the head of a cracked-skull lawyer it might, perhaps, have entered at
+any time; but for it to find its way into print there must be something
+in the state of society wholly out of joint. As to the rest of this
+article, it is a tissue of downright lies. The writer says that the
+price of wheat is sixty-five shillings a quarter. The fact is that, on
+the second instant, the price was fifty-nine shillings and seven-pence:
+and it is now about two shillings less than that. Then again, this
+writer must know that I never said that wheat would not rise above four
+shillings a bushel; but that, on the contrary, I always expressly said
+that the price would be affected by the seasons, and that I thought that
+the price would vibrate between three shillings a bushel and seven
+shillings a bushel. Then again, Peel's Bill has, in part, been repealed;
+if it had not, there could have been no small note in circulation at
+this day. So that this lawyer is "_All Lie_." In obedience to the wishes
+of a lady, I have been reading about the plans of Mr. Owen; and though I
+do not as yet see my way clear as to how we can arrange matters with
+regard to the young girls and the young fellows, I am quite clear that
+his institution would be most excellent for the disposal of the lawyers.
+One of his squares would be at a great distance from all other
+habitations; in the midst of _Lord Erskine's estate_ for instance,
+mentioned by me in a former ride; and nothing could be so fitting, his
+Lordship long having been called _the father of the Bar_; in the midst
+of this estate, with no town or village within miles of them, we might
+have one of Mr. Owen's squares, and set the bob-tailed brotherhood most
+effectually at work. Pray can any one pretend to say that a spade or
+shovel would not become the hands of this blunder-headed editor of
+_Bell's Messenger_ better than a pen? However, these miserable
+falsehoods can cause the delusion to exist but for a very short space of
+time.
+
+The quantity of the harvest will be great. If the quality be bad, owing
+to wet weather, the price will be still lower than it would have been in
+case of dry weather. The price, therefore, must come down; and if the
+newspapers were conducted by men who had any sense of honour or shame,
+those men must be covered with confusion.
+
+
+
+
+RIDE THROUGH THE NORTH-EAST PART OF SUSSEX, AND ALL ACROSS KENT, FROM
+THE WEALD OF SUSSEX, TO DOVER.
+
+
+_Worth (Sussex), Friday, 29 August 1823._
+
+I have so often described the soil and other matters appertaining to the
+country between the Wen and this place that my readers will rejoice at
+being spared the repetition here. As to the harvest, however, I find
+that they were deluged here on Tuesday last, though we got but little,
+comparatively, at Kensington. Between Mitcham and Sutton they were
+making wheat-ricks. The corn has not been injured here worth notice. Now
+and then an ear in the butts _grown_; and grown wheat is a sad thing!
+You may almost as well be without wheat altogether. However, very little
+harm has been done here as yet.
+
+At Walton Heath I saw a man who had suffered most terribly from the
+_game-laws_. He saw me going by, and came out to tell me his story; and
+a horrible story it is, as the public will find, when it shall come
+regularly and fully before them. Apropos of game-works: I asked who was
+_the Judge_ at the Somersetshire Assizes the other day. A correspondent
+tells me that it was Judge Burrough. I am well aware that, as this
+correspondent observes, "gamekeepers ought not to be _shot at_." This is
+not the point. It is not a _gamekeeper_ in the usual sense of that word;
+it is a man seizing another without a warrant. That is what it is; and
+this, and Old Ellenborough's Act, are _new things_ in England, and
+things of which the laws of England, "the birthright of Englishmen,"
+knew nothing. Yet farmer Voke ought not to have shot at the gamekeeper,
+or seizer, without warrant: he ought not to have shot at him; and he
+would not had it not been for the law that put him in danger of being
+transported on the evidence of this man. So that it is clearly the
+terrible law that, in these cases, produces the violence. Yet, admire
+with me, reader, the singular turn of the mind of Sir James Mackintosh,
+whose whole soul appears to have been long bent on the "amelioration of
+the Penal Code," and who has never said one single word about this new
+and most terrible part of it! Sir James, after years of incessant toil,
+has, I believe, succeeded in getting a repeal of the laws for the
+punishment of "witchcraft," of the very existence of which laws the
+nation was unacquainted. But the devil a word has he said about the
+_game-laws_, which put into the gaols a full third part of the
+prisoners, and to hold which prisoners the gaols have actually been
+enlarged in all parts of the country! Singular turn of mind! Singular
+"humanity!" Ah! Sir James knows very well what he is at. He understands
+the state of his constituents at Knaresborough too well to meddle with
+game-laws. He has a "friend," I dare say, who knows more about game-laws
+than he does. However, the poor _witches_ are safe: thank Sir James for
+that. Mr. Carlile's sister and Mrs. Wright are in gaol, and may be there
+for life! But the poor witches are safe. No hypocrite: no base pretender
+to religion; no atrocious, savage, _black_-hearted wretch, who would
+murder half mankind rather than not live on the labours of others; no
+monster of this kind can now persecute the poor witches, thanks to Sir
+James who has obtained security for them in all their rides through the
+air, and in all their sailings upon the horseponds!
+
+
+_Tonbridge Wells (Kent), Saturday, 30 August._
+
+I came from Worth about seven this morning, passed through East
+Grinstead, over Holthigh Common, through Ashurst, and thence to this
+place. The morning was very fine, and I left them at Worth, making a
+wheat-rick. There was no show for rain till about one o'clock, as I was
+approaching Ashurst. The shattering that came at first I thought nothing
+of; but the clouds soon grew up all round, and the rain set in for the
+afternoon. The buildings at Ashurst (which is the first parish in Kent
+on quitting Sussex) are a mill, an alehouse, a church, and about six or
+seven other houses. I stopped at the alehouse to bait my horse; and, for
+want of bacon, was compelled to put up with bread and cheese for myself.
+I waited in vain for the rain to cease or to slacken, and the _want of
+bacon_ made me fear as to a _bed_. So, about five o'clock, I, without
+great coat, got upon my horse, and came to this place, just as fast and
+no faster than if it had been fine weather. A very fine soaking! If the
+South Downs have left any little remnant of the hooping-cough, _this_
+will take it away to be sure. I made not the least haste to get out of
+the rain, I stopped, here and there, as usual, and asked questions about
+the corn, the hops, and other things. But the moment I got in I got a
+good fire, and set about the work of drying in good earnest. It costing
+me nothing for drink, I can afford to have plenty of fire. I have not
+been in the house an hour; and all my clothes are now as dry as if they
+had never been wet. It is not getting wet that hurts you, if you keep
+moving while you are wet. It is the suffering of yourself to be
+_inactive_ while the wet clothes are on your back.
+
+The country that I have come over to-day is a very pretty one. The soil
+is a pale yellow loam, looking like brick earth, but rather sandy; but
+the bottom is a softish stone. Now-and-then, where you go through hollow
+ways (as at East Grinstead) the sides are solid rock. And, indeed, the
+rocks sometimes (on the sides of hills) show themselves above ground,
+and, mixed amongst the woods, make very interesting objects. On the road
+from the Wen to Brighton, through Godstone and over Turner's Hill, and
+which road I crossed this morning in coming from Worth to East
+Grinstead; on that road, which goes through Lindfield, and which is by
+far the pleasantest coach-road from the Wen to Brighton; on the side of
+this road, on which coaches now go from the Wen to Brighton, there is a
+long chain of rocks, or, rather, rocky hills, with trees growing
+amongst the rocks, or apparently out of them, as they do in the woods
+near Ross in Herefordshire, and as they do in the Blue Mountains in
+America, where you can see no earth at all; where all seems rock, and
+yet where the trees grow most beautifully. At the place of which I am
+now speaking, that is to say, by the side of this pleasant road to
+Brighton, and between Turner's Hill and Lindfield, there is a rock,
+which they call "_Big-upon-Little_;" that is to say, a rock upon
+another, having nothing else to rest upon, and the top one being longer
+and wider than the top of the one it lies on. This big rock is no
+trifling concern, being as big, perhaps, as a not very small house. How,
+then, _came_ this big upon little? What lifted up the big? It balances
+itself naturally enough; but what tossed it up? I do not like to _pay_ a
+parson for teaching me, while I have "_God's own word_" to teach me;
+but, if any parson will tell me _how_ big _came_ upon little, I do not
+know that I shall grudge him a trifle. And if he cannot tell me this: if
+he say, All that we have to do is to _admire_ and _adore_; then I tell
+him that I can admire and adore without his _aid_, and that I will keep
+my money in my pocket.
+
+To return to the soil of this country, it is such a loam as I have
+described with this stone beneath; sometimes the top soil is lighter and
+sometimes heavier; sometimes the stone is harder and sometimes softer;
+but this is the general character of it all the way from Worth to
+Tonbridge Wells. This land is what may be called the _middle kind_. The
+wheat crop about 20 to 24 bushels to an acre, on an average of years.
+The grass fields not bad, and all the fields will grow grass; I mean
+make upland meadows. The woods good, though not of the finest. The land
+seems to be about thus divided: 3-tenths _woods_, 2-tenths _grass_, a
+tenth of a tenth _hops_, and the rest _corn-land_. These make very
+pretty surface, especially as it is a rarity to see a _pollard tree_,
+and as nobody is so beastly as to _trim trees up_ like the elms near the
+Wen. The country has no _flat_ spot in it; yet the hills are not high.
+My road was a gentle rise or a gentle descent all the way. Continual new
+views strike the eye; but there is little variety in them: all is
+pretty, but nothing strikingly beautiful. The labouring people look
+pretty well. They have pigs. They invariably do best in the _woodland_
+and _forest_ and _wild_ countries. Where the mighty grasper has _all
+under his eye_, they can get but little. These are cross-roads, mere
+parish roads; but they are very good. While I was at the alehouse at
+Ashurst, I heard some labouring men talking about the roads; and they
+having observed that the parish roads had become so wonderfully better
+within the last seven or eight years, I put in my word, and said: "It is
+odd enough, too, that the parish roads should become _better and
+better_ as the farmers become _poorer and poorer_!" They looked at one
+another, and put on a sort of _expecting_ look; for my observation
+seemed to _ask for information_. At last one of them said, "Why, it is
+because the farmers _have not the money to employ men_, and so they are
+put on the roads." "Yes," said I, "but they must pay them there." They
+said no more, and only _looked hard at one another_. They had, probably,
+never thought about this before. They seemed puzzled by it, and well
+they might, for it has bothered the wigs of boroughmongers, parsons and
+lawyers, and will bother them yet. Yes, this country now contains a body
+of occupiers of the land, who suffer the land to go to decay for want of
+means to pay a sufficiency of labourers; and, at the same time, are
+compelled to pay those labourers for doing that which is of no use to
+the occupiers! There, Collective Wisdom! Go: brag of that! Call that
+"the envy of surrounding nations and the admiration of the world."
+
+This is a great _nut_ year. I saw them hanging very thick on the
+way-side during a great part of this day's ride; and they put me in mind
+of the old saying, "That a great _nut_ year is a great year for that
+class whom the lawyers, in their Latin phrase, call the 'sons and
+daughters of nobody.'" I once asked a farmer, who had often been
+overseer of the poor, whether he really thought that there was any
+ground for this old saying, or whether he thought it was mere banter? He
+said that he was sure that there were good grounds for it; and he even
+cited instances in proof, and mentioned one particular year, when there
+were four times as many of this class as ever had been born in a year in
+the parish before; an effect which he ascribed solely to the crop of
+nuts of the year before. Now, if this be the case, ought not Parson
+Malthus, Lawyer Scarlett, and the rest of that tribe, to turn their
+attention to the nut-trees? The _Vice Society_, too, with that holy man
+Wilberforce at its head, ought to look out sharp after these mischievous
+nut-trees. A law to cause them all to be grubbed up, and thrown into the
+fire, would, certainly, be far less unreasonable than many things which
+we have seen and heard of.
+
+The corn, from Worth to this place, is pretty good. The farmers say it
+is a small crop; other people, and especially the labourers, say that it
+is a good crop. I think it is not large and not small; about an average
+crop; perhaps rather less, for the land is rather light, and this is not
+a year for light lands. But there is no blight, no mildew, in spite of
+all the prayers of the "loyal." The wheat about a third cut, and none
+carried. No other corn begun upon. Hops very bad till I came within a
+few miles of this place, when I saw some which I should suppose would
+bear about six hundredweight to the acre. The orchards no great things
+along here. Some apples here and there; but small and stunted. I do not
+know that I have seen to-day any one _tree_ well loaded with fine
+apples.
+
+
+_Tenterden (Kent), Sunday, 31 August._
+
+Here I am after a most delightful ride of twenty-four miles, through
+Frant, Lamberhurst, Goudhurst, Milkhouse Street, Benenden, and
+Rolvenden. By making a great stir in rousing waiters and "boots" and
+maids, and by leaving behind me the name of "a d--d noisy, troublesome
+fellow," I got clear of "_the Wells_," and out of the contagion of its
+Wen-engendered inhabitants, time enough to meet the first rays of the
+sun, on the hill that you come up in order to get to Frant, which is a
+most beautiful little village at about two miles from "_the Wells_."
+Here the land belongs, I suppose, to Lord Abergavenny, who has a mansion
+and park here. A very pretty place, and kept, seemingly, in very nice
+order. I saw here what I never saw before: the bloom of the _common
+heath_ we wholly overlook; but it is a very pretty thing; and here, when
+the plantations were made, and as they grew up, heath was _left to grow_
+on the sides of the roads in the plantations. The heath is not so much
+of a dwarf as we suppose. This is four feet high; and, being in full
+bloom, it makes the prettiest border that can be imagined. This place of
+Lord Abergavenny is, altogether, a very pretty place; and, so far from
+grudging him the possession of it, I should feel pleasure at seeing it
+in his possession, and should pray God to preserve it to him, and from
+the unholy and ruthless touch of the Jews and jobbers; but I cannot
+forget this Lord's _sinecure_! I cannot forget that he has, for doing
+nothing, received of the public money more than sufficient to buy such
+an estate as this. I cannot forget that this estate may, perhaps, have
+actually been bought with that money. Not being able to forget this, and
+with my mind filled with reflections of this sort, I got up to the
+church at Frant, and just by I saw a _School-house_ with this motto on
+it: "_Train up a child as he should walk_," &c. That is to say, try to
+breed up the Boys and Girls of this village in such a way that they may
+never know anything about Lord Abergavenny's sinecure; or, knowing about
+it, that they may think it _right_ that he should roll in wealth coming
+to him in such a way. The projectors deceive nobody but themselves! They
+are working for the destruction of their own system. In looking back
+over "_the Wells_" I cannot but admire the operation of the gambling
+system. This little _toad-stool_ is a thing created entirely by the
+gamble; and the means have, hitherto, come out of the wages of labour.
+These means are _now_ coming out of the farmer's capital and out of the
+landlord's estate; the labourers are stripped; they can give no more:
+the saddle is now fixing itself upon the right back.
+
+In quitting Frant I descended into a country more woody than that behind
+me. I asked a man whose fine woods those were that I pointed to, and I
+fairly gave _a start_ when he said the Marquis Camden's. Milton talks of
+the _Leviathan_ in a way to make one draw in one's shoulders with fear;
+and I appeal to any one, who has been at sea when a whale has come near
+the ship, whether he has not, at the first sight of the monster, made a
+sort of involuntary movement, as if to _get out of the way_. Such was
+the movement that I now made. However, soon coming to myself, on I
+walked my horse by the side of my pedestrian informant. It is Bayham
+Abbey that this great and awful sinecure placeman owns in this part of
+the county. Another great estate he owns near Sevenoaks. But here alone
+he spreads his length and breadth over more, they say, than ten or
+twelve thousand acres of land, great part of which consists of
+oak-woods. But, indeed, what estates might he not purchase? Not much
+less than thirty years he held a place, a sinecure place, that yielded
+him about thirty thousand pounds a-year! At any rate, he, according to
+Parliamentary accounts, has received, of public money, little short of a
+million of guineas. These, at 30 guineas an acre, would buy thirty
+thousand acres of land. And what did he have all this money _for_?
+Answer me that question, Wilberforce, you who called him a "bright
+star," when he gave up _a part_ of his enormous sinecure. He gave up all
+but the _trifling_ sum of nearly three thousand pounds a-year! What a
+bright star! And _when_ did he give it up? When the _Radical_ had made
+the country ring with it. When his name was, by their means, getting
+into every mouth in the kingdom; when every Radical speech and petition
+contained the name of Camden. Then it was, and not till then, that this
+"bright star" let fall part of its "brilliancy." So that Wilberforce
+ought to have thanked the _Radicals_, and not Camden. When he let go his
+grasp, he talked of the merits of his father. His father was a lawyer,
+who was exceedingly well paid for what he did without a million of money
+being given to his son. But there is something rather out of
+common-place to be observed about this father. This father was the
+contemporary of Yorke, who became Lord Hardwicke. Pratt and Yorke, and
+the merit of Pratt was that he was constantly opposed to the principles
+of Yorke. Yorke was called a _Tory_ and Pratt a _Whig_; but the devil of
+it was, both got to be Lords; and, in one shape or another, the families
+of both have, from that day to this, been receiving great parcels of the
+public money! Beautiful system! The Tories were for _rewarding Yorke_;
+the Whigs were for _rewarding Pratt_. The Ministers (all in good time!)
+humoured both parties; and the stupid people, divided into _tools of two
+factions_, actually applauded, now one part of them, and now the other
+part of them, the squandering away of their substance. They were like
+the man and his wife in the fable, who, to spite one another, gave away
+to the cunning mumper the whole of their dinner bit by bit. _This
+species_ of folly is over at any rate. The people are no longer fools
+enough to be _partisans_. They make no distinctions. The nonsense about
+"court party" and "country party" is at an end. Who thinks anything more
+of the name of _Erskine_ than of that of _Scott_? As the people told the
+two factions at Maidstone when they, with Camden at their head, met to
+congratulate the Regent on the marriage of his daughter, "they are all
+tarred with the same brush;" and tarred with the same brush they must
+be, until there be a real reform of the Parliament. However, the people
+are no longer deceived. They are not duped. They _know_ that the thing
+is that which it is. The people of the present day would laugh at
+disputes (carried on with so much gravity!) about the _principles_ of
+Pratt and the _principles_ of Yorke. "You are all tarred with the same
+brush," said the sensible people of Maidstone; and, in those words, they
+expressed the opinion of the whole country, borough-mongers and
+tax-eaters excepted.
+
+The country from Frant to Lamberhurst is very woody. I should think
+five-tenths woods and three grass. The corn, what there is of it, is
+about the same as farther back. I saw a hop-garden just before I got to
+Lamberhurst, which will have about two or three hundredweight to the
+acre. This Lamberhurst is a very pretty place. It lies in a valley with
+beautiful hills round it. The pastures about here are very fine; and the
+roads are as smooth and as handsome as those in Windsor Park.
+
+From the last-mentioned place I had three miles to come to Goudhurst,
+the tower of the church of which is pretty lofty of itself, and the
+church stands upon the very summit of one of the steepest and highest
+hills in this part of the country. The church-yard has a view of about
+twenty-five miles in diameter; and the whole is over a very fine
+country, though the character of the country differs little from that
+which I have before described.
+
+Before I got to Goudhurst, I passed by the side of a village called
+Horsenden, and saw some very large hop-grounds away to my right. I
+should suppose there were fifty acres; and they appeared to me to look
+pretty well. I found that they belonged to a Mr. Springate, and people
+say that it will grow half as many hops as he grew last year, while
+people in general will not grow a tenth part so many. This hop growing
+and dealing have always been a _gamble_; and this puts me in mind of
+the horrible treatment which Mr. Waddington received on account of what
+was called his _forestalling_ in hops! It is useless to talk: as long as
+that gentleman remains uncompensated for his sufferings there can be no
+hope of better days. Ellenborough was his counsel; he afterwards became
+Judge; but nothing was ever done to undo what Kenyon had done. However,
+Mr. Waddington will, I trust, yet live to obtain justice. He has, in the
+meanwhile, given the thing now-and-then a blow; and he has the
+satisfaction to see it reel about like a drunken man.
+
+I got to Goudhurst to breakfast, and as I heard that the Dean of
+Rochester was to preach a sermon in behalf of the _National Schools_, I
+stopped to hear him. In waiting for his Reverence I went to the
+Methodist Meeting-house, where I found the Sunday School boys and girls
+assembled, to the almost filling of the place, which was about thirty
+feet long and eighteen wide. The "Minister" was not come, and the
+Schoolmaster was reading to the children out of a _tract-book_, and
+shaking the brimstone bag at them most furiously. This schoolmaster was
+a _sleek_-looking young fellow: his skin perfectly tight: well fed, I'll
+warrant him: and he has discovered the way of living, without work, on
+the labour of those that do work. There were 36 little fellows in
+smock-frocks, and about as many girls listening to him; and I dare say
+he eats as much meat as any ten of them. By this time the _Dean_, I
+thought, would be coming on; and, therefore, to the church I went; but
+to my great disappointment I found that the parson was operating
+_preparatory_ to the appearance of the Dean, who was to come on in the
+afternoon, when I, agreeably to my plan, must be off. The sermon was
+from 2 Chronicles, ch. 31. v. 21., and the words of this text described
+King Hezekiah as a most _zealous man_, doing whatever he did _with all
+his heart_. I write from _memory_, mind, and, therefore, I do not
+pretend to quote exact words; and I may be a little in error, perhaps,
+as to chapter or verse. The object of the preacher was to hold up to his
+hearers the example of Hezekiah, and particularly in the case of the
+school affair. He called upon them to subscribe with all their hearts;
+but, alas! how little of _persuasive power_ was there in what he said!
+No effort to make them see _the use of the schools_. No inducement
+_proved_ to exist. No argument, in short, nor anything to move. No
+appeal either to the _reason_, or to the _feeling_. All was general,
+common-place, cold observation; and that, too, in language which the far
+greater part of the hearers could not understand. This church is about
+110 feet long and 70 feet wide in the clear. It would hold _three
+thousand people_, and it had in it 214, besides 53 Sunday School or
+National School boys; and these sat together, in a sort of lodge, up in
+a corner, 16 feet long and 10 feet wide. Now, will any Parson Malthus,
+or anybody else, have the impudence to tell me that this church was
+built for the use of a population not more numerous than the present? To
+be sure, when this church was built, there could be no idea of a
+Methodist meeting coming to _assist_ the church, and as little, I dare
+say, was it expected that the preachers in the church would ever call
+upon the faithful to subscribe money to be sent up to one Joshua Watson
+(living in a Wen) to be by him laid out in "promoting Christian
+knowledge;" but, at any rate, the Methodists cannot take away above four
+or five hundred; and what, then, was this great church built _for_, if
+there were no more people, in those days, at Goudhurst, than there are
+now? It is very true that the _labouring_ people have, in a great
+measure, ceased to go to church. There were scarcely any of that class
+at this great country church to-day. I do not believe there were _ten_.
+I can remember when they were so numerous that the parson could not
+attempt to begin till the rattling of their nailed shoes ceased. I have
+seen, I am sure, five hundred boys and men in smock-frocks coming out of
+church at one time. To-day has been a fine day: there would have been
+many at church to-day, if ever there are; and here I have another to add
+to the many things that convince me that the labouring classes have, in
+great part, ceased to go to church; that their way of thinking and
+feeling with regard to both church and clergy are totally changed; and
+that there is now very little _moral hold_ which the latter possess.
+This preaching for money to support the schools is a most curious affair
+altogether. The King sends a _circular letter_ to the bishops (as I
+understand it) to cause subscriptions for the schools; and the bishops
+(if I am rightly told) tell the parish clergy to send the money, when
+collected, to Joshua Watson, the Treasurer of a Society in the Wen, "for
+promoting Christian Knowledge!" What! the church and all its clergy put
+into motion to get money from the people to send up to one Joshua
+Watson, a wine-merchant, or, late a wine-merchant, in Mincing Lane,
+Fenchurch Street, London, in order that the said wine-merchant may apply
+the money to the "promoting of Christian Knowledge!" What! all the
+deacons, priests, curates perpetual, vicars, rectors, prebends, doctors,
+deans, archdeacons and fathers in God, right reverend and most reverend;
+all! yea all, engaged in getting money together to send to a
+wine-merchant that he may lay it out in the promoting of Christian
+knowledge _in their own flocks_! Oh, brave wine-merchant! What a prince
+of godliness must this wine-merchant be! I say wine-merchant, or late
+wine-merchant, of Mincing Lane, Fenchurch Street, London. And, for God's
+sake, some good parson, do send me up a copy of the King's circular,
+and also of the bishop's order to send the money to Joshua Watson; for
+some precious sport we will have with Joshua and his "Society" before we
+have done with them!
+
+After "service" I mounted my horse and jogged on through Milkhouse
+Street to Benenden, where I passed through the estate, and in sight of
+the house of Mr. Hodges. He keeps it very neat and has planted a good
+deal. His _ash_ do very well; but the _chestnut_ do not, as it seems to
+me. He ought to have the American chestnut, if he have any. If I could
+discover _an everlasting hop-pole_, and one, too, that would grow faster
+even than the ash, would not these Kentish hop-planters put me in the
+Kalendar along with their famous Saint Thomas of Canterbury? We shall
+see this one of these days.
+
+Coming through the village of Benenden, I heard a man at my right
+talking very loud about _houses! houses! houses!_ It was a Methodist
+parson, in a house close by the roadside. I pulled up, and stood still,
+in the middle of the road, but looking, in silent soberness, into the
+window (which was open) of the room in which the preacher was at work. I
+believe my stopping rather disconcerted him; for he got into shocking
+_repetition_. "Do you _know_," said he, laying great stress on the word
+_know_: "do you _know_, that you have ready for you houses, houses I
+say; I say do you know; do you know that you have houses in the heavens
+not made with hands? Do you know this from _experience_? Has the blessed
+Jesus _told you so_?" And on he went to say that, if Jesus had told them
+so, they would be saved, and that if He had not, and did not, they would
+be damned. Some girls whom I saw in the room, plump and rosy as could
+be, did not seem at all daunted by these menaces; and, indeed, they
+appeared to me to be thinking much more about getting houses for
+themselves _in this world first_; just to _see a little_ before they
+entered, or endeavoured to enter, or even thought much about, those
+"_houses_" of which the parson was speaking: _houses_ with pig-styes and
+little snug gardens attached to them, together with all the other
+domestic and conjugal circumstances, these girls seemed to me to be
+preparing themselves for. The truth is, these fellows have no power on
+the minds of any but the miserable.
+
+Scarcely had I proceeded a hundred yards from the place where this
+fellow was bawling, when I came to the very situation which he ought to
+have occupied, I mean the _stocks_, which the people of Benenden have,
+with singular humanity, fitted up with a _bench_, so that the patient,
+while he is receiving the benefit of the remedy, is not exposed to the
+danger of catching cold by sitting, as in other places, upon the ground,
+always damp, and sometimes actually wet. But I would ask the people of
+Benenden what is the _use_ of this humane precaution, and, indeed, what
+is the use of the stocks themselves, if, while a fellow is ranting and
+bawling in the manner just described, at the distance of a hundred yards
+from the stocks, the stocks (as is here actually the case) are almost
+hidden by grass and nettles? This, however, is the case all over the
+country; not nettles and grass indeed smothering the stocks, but I never
+see any feet peeping through the holes anywhere, though I find Methodist
+parsons everywhere, and though _the law compels the parishes to keep up_
+all the pairs of stocks that exist in all parts of them; and, in some
+parishes, they have to keep up several pairs. I am aware that a good
+part of the use of the stocks is the _terror_ they ought to produce. I
+am not supposing that they are of no use because not continually
+furnished with legs. But there is a wide difference between _always_ and
+_never_; and it is clear that a fellow who has had the stocks under his
+eye all his lifetime, and has _never_ seen a pair of feet peeping
+through them, will stand no more in awe of the stocks than rooks do of
+an old shoyhoy, or than the Ministers or their agents do of Hobhouse and
+Burdett. Stocks that never pinch a pair of ankles are like Ministerial
+responsibility; a thing to talk about, but for no other use; a mere
+mockery; a thing laughed at by those whom it is intended to keep in
+check. It is time that the stocks were again _in use_, or that the
+expense of keeping them up were put an end to.
+
+This mild, this gentle, this good-humoured sort of correction is _not
+enough_ for our present rulers. But mark the consequence; gaols ten
+times as big as formerly; houses of correction; tread-mills; the hulks;
+and the country filled with _spies_ of one sort and another,
+_game-spies_, or other spies, and if a hare or pheasant come to an
+untimely death, _police-officers_ from the Wen are not unfrequently
+called down to find out and secure the bloody offender! _Mark this_,
+Englishmen! Mark how we take to those things which we formerly ridiculed
+in the French; and take them up too just as that brave and spirited
+people have shaken them off! I saw, not long ago, an account of a Wen
+police-officer being sent into the country, where he assumed _a
+disguise_, joined some poachers (as they are called), got into their
+secrets, went out in the night with them, and then (having laid his
+plans with the game-people) assisted to take them and convict them.
+What! is this _England_! Is this the land of "manly hearts?" Is this the
+country that laughed at the French for their submissions? What! are
+police-officers kept for this? Does the law say so? However, thank God
+Almighty, the estates are passing away into the hands of those who have
+had borrowed from them the money to uphold this monster of a system. The
+Debt! The blessed Debt, will, at last, restore to us freedom.
+
+Just after I quitted Benenden, I saw some bunches of _straw_ lying upon
+the quickset hedge of a cottage garden. I found upon inquiry, that they
+were bunches of the straw of grass. Seeing a face through the window of
+the cottage, I called out and asked what that straw was for. The person
+within said, it was to make _Leghorn-plat_ with. I asked him (it was a
+young man) how he knew how to do it. He said he had got a little book
+that had been made by Mr. Cobbett. I told him that I was the man, and
+should like to see some of his work; and asked him to bring it out to
+me, I being afraid to tie my horse. He told me that he was a _cripple_,
+and that he could not come out. At last I went in, leaving my horse to
+be held by a little girl. I found a young man, who has been a cripple
+for fourteen years. Some ladies in the neighbourhood had got him the
+book, and his family had got him the grass. He had made some very nice
+plat, and he had knitted the greater part of the crown of a bonnet, and
+had done the whole very nicely, though, as to the knitting, he had
+proceeded in a way to make it very tedious. He was knitting upon a
+block. However, these little matters will soon be set to rights. There
+will soon be persons to teach knitting in all parts of the country. I
+left this unfortunate young man with the pleasing reflection that I had,
+in all likelihood, been the cause of his gaining a good living, by his
+labour, during the rest of his life. How long will it be before my
+calumniators, the false and infamous London press, will, take the whole
+of it together, and leave out its evil, do as much good as my pen has
+done in this one instance! How long will it be ere the ruffians, the
+base hirelings, the infamous traders who own and who conduct that press;
+how long ere one of them, or all of them together, shall cause a cottage
+to smile; shall add one ounce to the meal of the labouring man!
+
+Rolvenden was my next village, and thence I could see the lofty church
+of Tenterden on the top of a hill at three miles distance. This
+Rolvenden is a very beautiful village; and, indeed, such are all the
+places along here. These villages are not like those in the _iron_
+counties, as I call them; that is, the counties of flint and chalk. Here
+the houses have gardens in front of them as well as behind; and there is
+a good deal of show and finery about them and their gardens. The high
+roads are without a stone in them; and everything looks like
+_gentility_. At this place I saw several _arbutuses_ in one garden, and
+much finer than we see them in general; though, mind, this is no proof
+of a mild climate; for the arbutus is a native of one much colder than
+that of England, and indeed than that of Scotland.
+
+Coming from Benenden to Rolvenden I saw some Swedish turnips, and,
+strange as the reader will think it, the first I saw after leaving
+Worth! The reason I take to be this: the farms are all furnished with
+grass-fields as in Devonshire about Honiton. These grass-fields give hay
+for the sheep and cattle in winter, or, at any rate, they do all that is
+not done by the white turnips. It may be a question whether it would be
+more _profitable_ to break up and sow Swedes; but this is the reason of
+their not being cultivated along here. White turnips are more easily got
+than Swedes; they may be sown later; and, with good hay, they will fat
+cattle and sheep; but the Swedes will do this business without hay. In
+Norfolk and Suffolk the land is not generally of a nature to make
+hay-fields. Therefore the people there resort to Swedes. This has been a
+sad time for these hay-farmers, however, all along here. They have but
+just finished haymaking; and I see, all along my way, from East
+Grinstead to this place, hay-ricks the colour of dirt and _smoking_ like
+dung-heaps.
+
+Just before I got to this place (Tenterden), I crossed a bit of marsh
+land, which I found, upon inquiry, is a sort of little branch or spray
+running out of that immense and famous tract of country called _Romney
+Marsh_, which, I find, I have to cross to-morrow, in order to get to
+Dover, along by the sea-side, through Hythe and Folkestone.
+
+This Tenterden is a market town, and a singularly bright spot. It
+consists of one street, which is, in some places, more, perhaps, than
+two hundred feet wide. On one side of the street the houses have gardens
+before them, from 20 to 70 feet deep. The town is upon a hill; the
+afternoon was very fine, and, just as I rose the hill and entered the
+street, the people had come out of church and were moving along towards
+their houses. It was a very fine sight. _Shabbily-dressed people do not
+go to church._ I saw, in short, drawn out before me, the dress and
+beauty of the town; and a great many very, very pretty girls I saw; and
+saw them, too, in their best attire. I remember the girls in the _Pays
+de Caux_, and, really, I think those of Tenterden resemble them. I do
+not know why they should not; for there is the _Pays de Caux_ only just
+over the water, just opposite this very place.
+
+The hops about here are not so very bad. They say that one man, near
+this town, will have eight tons of hops upon ten acres of land! This is
+a great crop any year: a very great crop. This man may, perhaps, sell
+his hops for 1,600 pounds! What a _gambling_ concern it is! However,
+such hop-growing always was and always must be. It is a thing of perfect
+hazard.
+
+The church at this place is a very large and fine old building. The
+tower stands upon a base thirty feet square. Like the church at
+Goudhurst, it will hold three thousand people. And let it be observed
+that, when these churches were built, people had not yet thought of
+cramming them with _pews_, as a stable is filled with stalls. Those who
+built these churches had no idea that worshipping God meant going to
+_sit_ to hear a man talk out what he called preaching. By _worship_ they
+meant very different things; and, above all things, when they had made a
+fine and noble building, they did not dream of disfiguring the inside of
+it by filling its floor with large and deep boxes made of deal boards.
+In short, the floor was the place for the worshippers to stand or to
+kneel; and there was _no distinction_; no _high_ place and no _low_
+place; all were upon a level _before God_ at any rate. Some were not
+stuck into pews lined with green or red cloth, while others were crammed
+into corners to stand erect or sit on the floor. These odious
+distinctions are of Protestant origin and growth. This lazy lolling in
+pews we owe to what is called the _Reformation_. A place filled with
+benches and boxes looks like an eating or a drinking place; but
+certainly not like a place of worship. A Frenchman, who had been driven
+from St. Domingo to Philadelphia by the Wilberforces of France, went to
+church along with me one Sunday. He had never been in a Protestant place
+of _worship_ before. Upon looking round him, and seeing everybody
+comfortably seated, while a couple of good stoves were keeping the place
+as warm as a slack oven, he exclaimed: "_Pardi! On sert Dieu bien a son
+aise ici?_" That is: "Egad! they serve God very much at their ease
+here!" I always think of this, when I see a church full of pews; as,
+indeed, is now always the case with our churches. Those who built these
+churches had no idea of this: they made their calculations as to the
+people to be contained in them, not making any allowance for _deal
+boards_. I often wonder how it is that the present parsons are not
+ashamed to call the churches _theirs_! They must know the origin of
+them; and how they can look at them, and at the same time revile the
+Catholics, is astonishing to me.
+
+This evening I have been to the Methodist Meeting-house. I was
+attracted, fairly drawn all down the street, by the _singing_. When I
+came to the place the parson was got into prayer. His hands were
+clenched together and held up, his face turned up and back so as to be
+nearly parallel with the ceiling, and he was bawling away, with his "do
+thou," and "mayest thou," and "may we," enough to stun one. Noisy,
+however, as he was, he was unable to fix the attention of a parcel of
+girls in the gallery, whose eyes were all over the place, while his eyes
+were so devoutly shut up. After a deal of this rigmarole called prayer,
+came the _preachy_, as the negroes call it; and a _preachy_ it really
+was. Such a mixture of whining cant and of foppish affectation I
+scarcely ever heard in my life. The text was (I speak from memory) one
+of Saint Peter's epistles (if he have more than one) the 4th Chapter and
+18th Verse. The words were to this amount: that, _as the righteous
+would be saved with difficulty, what must become of the ungodly and the
+sinner_! After as neat a dish of nonsense and of impertinences as one
+could wish to have served up, came the distinction between the _ungodly_
+and the _sinner_. The sinner was one who did moral wrong; the ungodly,
+one who did no moral wrong, but who was not regenerated. _Both_, he
+positively told us, were to be damned. One was just as bad as the other.
+Moral rectitude was to do nothing in saving the man. He was to be damned
+unless born again, and how was he to be born again unless he came to the
+regeneration-shop and gave the fellows money? He distinctly told us that
+a man perfectly moral might be damned; and that "the vilest of the vile
+and the basest of the base" (I quote his very words) "would be saved if
+they became regenerate; and that colliers, whose souls had been as black
+as their coals, had by regeneration become bright as the saints that
+sing before God and the Lamb." And will the _Edinburgh Reviewers_ again
+find fault with me for cutting at this bawling, canting crew? Monstrous
+it is to think that the Clergy of the Church really encourage these
+roving fanatics. The Church seems aware of its loss of credit and of
+power. It seems willing to lean even upon these men; who, be it
+observed, seem, on their part, to have taken the Church under their
+protection. They always pray for the _Ministry_; I mean the ministry at
+_Whitehall_. They are most "loyal" souls. The THING _protects them_; and
+they lend their aid _in upholding the_ THING. What silly; nay, what base
+creatures those must be who really give their money, give their pennies,
+which ought to buy bread for their own children; who thus give their
+money to these lazy and impudent fellows, who call themselves ministers
+of God, who prowl about the country living easy and jovial lives upon
+the fruit of the labour of other people. However, it is, in some
+measure, these people's fault. If they did not give, the others could
+not receive. I wish to see every labouring man well fed and well clad;
+but, really, the man who gives any portion of his earnings to these
+fellows deserves to want: he deserves to be pinched with hunger: misery
+is the just reward of this worst species of prodigality.
+
+The _singing_ makes a great part of what passes in these meeting-houses.
+A number of women and girls singing together make very sweet sounds. Few
+men there are who have not felt _the power_ of sounds of this sort. Men
+are sometimes pretty nearly bewitched without knowing how. _Eyes_ do a
+good deal, but _tongues_ do more. We may talk of sparkling eyes and
+snowy bosoms as long as we please; but what are these with a croaking,
+masculine voice? The parson seemed to be fully aware of the importance
+of this part of the "service." The subject of his hymn was something
+about _love_: Christian love; love of Jesus; but still it was about
+_love_; and the parson read, or gave out, the verses in a singularly
+_soft_ and _sighing_ voice, with his head on one side, and giving it
+rather a swing. I am satisfied that the singing forms great part of the
+_attraction_. Young girls like to sing; and young men like to hear them.
+Nay, old ones too; and, as I have just said, it was the singing that
+_drew_ me three hundred yards down the street at Tenterden, to enter
+this meeting-house. By-the-by, I wrote some Hymns myself, and published
+them in "_Twopenny Trash_." I will give any Methodist parson leave to
+put them into his hymn-book.
+
+
+_Folkestone (Kent), Monday (Noon), 1 Sept._
+
+I have had a fine ride, and, I suppose, the Quakers have had a fine time
+of it at Mark Lane.
+
+From Tenterden I set off at five o'clock, and got to Appledore after a
+most delightful ride, the high land upon my right, and the low land on
+my left. The fog was so thick and white along some of the low land, that
+I should have taken it for water, if little hills and trees had not
+risen up through it here and there. Indeed, the view was very much like
+those which are presented in the deep valleys, near the great rivers in
+New Brunswick (North America) at the time when the snows melt in the
+spring, and when, in sailing over those valleys, you look down from the
+side of your canoe and see the lofty woods beneath you! I once went in a
+log-canoe across a _sylvan sea_ of this description, the canoe being
+paddled by two Yankees. We started in a stream; the stream became a wide
+water, and that water got deeper and deeper, as I could see by the trees
+(all was woods), till we got to sail amongst the _top branches of the
+trees_. By-and-by we got into a large open space; a piece of water a
+mile or two, or three or four wide, with _the woods under us_! A fog,
+with the tops of trees rising through it, is very much like this; and
+such was the fog that I saw this morning in my ride to Appledore. The
+church at Appledore is very large. Big enough to hold 3,000 people; and
+the place does not seem to contain half a thousand old enough to go to
+church.
+
+In coming along I saw a wheat-rick making, though I hardly think the
+wheat can be dry under the bands. The corn is all good here; and I am
+told they give twelve shillings an acre for reaping wheat.
+
+In quitting this Appledore I crossed a canal and entered on Romney
+Marsh. This was grass-land on both sides of me to a great distance. The
+flocks and herds immense. The sheep are of a breed that takes its name
+from the marsh. They are called Romney Marsh sheep. Very pretty and
+large. The wethers, when fat, weigh about twelve stone; or, one hundred
+pounds. The faces of these sheep are white; and, indeed, the whole sheep
+is as white as a piece of writing-paper. The wool does not look dirty
+and oily like that of other sheep. The cattle appear to be all of the
+_Sussex_ breed. Red, loosed-limbed, and, they say, a great deal better
+than the Devonshire. How curious is the _natural economy_ of a country!
+The _forests_ of Sussex; those miserable tracts of heath and fern and
+bushes and sand, called Ashdown Forest and Saint Leonard's Forest, to
+which latter Lord Erskine's estate belongs; these wretched tracts and
+the not much less wretched farms in their neighbourhood, _breed the
+cattle_, which we see _fatting_ in Romney Marsh! They are calved in the
+spring; they are weaned in a little bit of grass-land; they are then put
+into stubbles and about in the fallows for the first summer; they are
+brought into the yard to winter on rough hay, peas-haulm, or
+barley-straw; the next two summers they spend in the rough woods or in
+the forest; the two winters they live on straw; they then pass another
+summer on the forest or at _work_; and then they come here or go
+elsewhere to be fatted. With cattle of this kind and with sheep such as
+I have spoken of before, this Marsh abounds in every part of it; and the
+sight is most beautiful.
+
+At three miles from Appledore I came through Snargate, a village with
+five houses, and with a church capable of containing two thousand
+people! The vagabonds tell us, however, that we have a wonderful
+increase of population! These vagabonds will be hanged by-and-by, or
+else justice will have fled from the face of the earth.
+
+At Brenzett (a mile further on) I with great difficulty got a rasher of
+bacon for breakfast. The few houses that there are are miserable in the
+extreme. The church here (only a _mile_ from the last) nearly as large;
+and nobody to go to it. What! will the _vagabonds_ attempt to make us
+believe that these churches were _built for nothing_! "_Dark ages_"
+indeed those must have been, if these churches were erected without
+there being any more people than there are now. But _who_ built them?
+Where did the _means_, where did the hands come from? This place
+presents another proof of the truth of my old observation: _rich land_
+and _poor labourers_. From the window of the house, in which I could
+scarcely get a rasher of bacon, and not an egg, I saw numberless flocks
+and herds fatting, and the fields loaded with corn!
+
+The next village, which was two miles further on, was Old Romney, and
+along here I had, for great part of the way, corn-fields on one side of
+me and grass-land on the other. I asked what the amount of the crop of
+wheat would be. They told me better than five quarters to the acre. I
+thought so myself. I have a sample of the red wheat and another of the
+white. They are both very fine. They reap the wheat here nearly two feet
+from the ground; and even then they cut it three feet long! I never saw
+corn like this before. It very far exceeds the corn under Portsdown
+Hill, that at Gosport and Tichfield. They have here about eight hundred
+large, very large, sheaves to an acre. I wonder how long it will be
+after the end of the world before Mr. Birbeck will see the American
+"Prairies" half so good as this Marsh. In a garden here I saw some very
+fine onions, and a prodigious crop; sure sign of most excellent land. At
+this Old Romney there is a church (two miles only from the last, mind!)
+fit to contain one thousand five hundred people, and there are, for the
+people of the parish to live in, twenty-two, or twenty-three, houses!
+And yet the _vagabonds_ have the impudence to tell us that the
+population of England has vastly increased! Curious system that
+depopulates Romney Marsh and peoples Bagshot Heath! It is an unnatural
+system. It is the _vagabond's_ system. It is a system that must be
+destroyed, or that will destroy the country.
+
+The rotten borough of New Romney came next in my way; and here, to my
+great surprise, I found myself upon the sea-beach; for I had not looked
+at a map of Kent for years, and, perhaps, never. I had got a list of
+places from a friend in Sussex, whom I asked to give me a route to
+Dover, and to send me through those parts of Kent which he thought would
+be most interesting to me. Never was I so much surprised as when I saw
+_a sail_. This place, now that the _squanderings_ of the THING are over,
+is, they say, become miserably poor.
+
+From New Romney to Dimchurch is about four miles: all along I had the
+sea-beach on my right, and, on my left, sometimes grass-land and
+sometimes corn-land. They told me here, and also further back in the
+Marsh, that they were to have 15s. an acre for reaping wheat.
+
+From Dimchurch to Hythe you go on the sea-beach, and nearly the same
+from Hythe to Sandgate, from which last place you come over the hill to
+Folkestone. But let me look back. Here has been the squandering! Here
+has been the pauper-making work! Here we see some of these causes that
+are now sending some farmers to the workhouse and driving others to flee
+the country or to cut their throats!
+
+I had baited my horse at New Romney, and was coming jogging along very
+soberly, now looking at the sea, then looking at the cattle, then the
+corn, when my eye, in swinging round, lighted upon a great round
+building standing upon the beach. I had scarcely had time to think about
+what it could be when twenty or thirty others, standing along the
+coast, caught my eye; and, if any one had been behind me, he might have
+heard me exclaim, in a voice that made my horse bound, "The _Martello
+Towers_ by ----!" Oh, Lord! To think that I should be destined to behold
+these monuments of the wisdom of Pitt and Dundas and Perceval! Good God!
+Here they are, piles of bricks in a circular form about three hundred
+feet (_guess_) circumference at the base, about forty feet high, and
+about one hundred and fifty feet circumference at the top. There is a
+door-way, about midway up, in each, and each has two windows. Cannons
+were to be fired from the top of these things in order to defend the
+country against the French Jacobins!
+
+I think I have counted along here upwards of thirty of these ridiculous
+things, which, I dare say, cost five, perhaps ten, thousand pounds each;
+and one of which was, I am told, _sold_ on the coast of Sussex the other
+day for two hundred pounds! There is, they say, a chain of these things
+all the way to Hastings! I dare say they cost millions. But far indeed
+are these from being all, or half, or a quarter of the squanderings
+along here. Hythe is half _barracks_; the hills are covered with
+barracks; and barracks most expensive, most squandering, fill up the
+side of the hill. Here is a canal (I crossed it at Appledore) made for
+the length of thirty miles (from Hythe, in Kent, to Rye, in Sussex) to
+_keep out the French_; for those armies who had so often crossed the
+Rhine and the Danube were to be kept back by a canal, made by Pitt,
+thirty feet wide at the most! All along the coast there are works of
+some sort or other; incessant sinks of money; walls of immense
+dimensions; masses of stone brought and put into piles. Then you see
+some of the walls and buildings falling down; some that have never been
+finished. The whole thing, all taken together, looks as if a spell had
+been, all of a sudden, set upon the workmen; or, in the words of the
+Scripture, here is the "_desolation of abomination, standing in high
+places_." However, all is right. These things were made with the hearty
+good will of those who are now coming to ruin in consequence of the
+Debt, contracted for the purpose of making these things! This is all
+_just_. The load will come, at last, upon the right shoulders.
+
+Between Hythe and Sandgate (a village at about two miles from Hythe) I
+first saw the French coast. The chalk cliffs at Calais are as plain to
+the view as possible, and also the land, which they tell me is near
+Boulogne.
+
+Folkestone lies under a hill here, as Reigate does in Surrey, only here
+the sea is open to your right as you come along. The corn is very early
+here, and very fine. All cut, even the beans; and they will be ready to
+cart in a day or two. Folkestone is now a little place; probably a
+quarter part as big as it was formerly. Here is a church one hundred and
+twenty feet long and fifty feet wide. It is a sort of little Cathedral.
+The church-yard has evidently been three times as large as it is now.
+
+Before I got into Folkestone I saw no less than eighty-four men, women,
+and boys and girls gleaning or leasing, in a field of about ten acres.
+The people all along here complain most bitterly of the _change of
+times_. The truth is, that the squandered millions are gone! The nation
+has now to suffer for this squandering. The money served to silence
+some; to make others bawl; to cause the good to be oppressed; to cause
+the bad to be exalted; to "crush the Jacobins:" and what is the
+_result_? What is the _end_? The _end_ is not yet come; but as to the
+result thus far, go, ask the families of those farmers who, after having
+for so many years threatened to shoot Jacobins, have, in instances not a
+few, shot themselves! Go, ask the ghosts of Pitt and of Castlereagh what
+has thus far been the _result_! Go, ask the Hampshire farmer, who, not
+many months since, actually blowed out his own brains with one of those
+very pistols which he had long carried in his Yeomanry Cavalry holsters,
+to be ready "to keep down the Jacobins and Radicals!" Oh, God!
+inscrutable are Thy ways; but Thou art just, and of Thy justice what a
+complete proof have we in the case of these very Martello Towers! They
+were erected to keep out the Jacobin French, lest they should come and
+assist the Jacobin English. The _loyal_ people of this coast were
+fattened by the building of them. Pitt and his loyal _Cinque Ports_
+waged interminable war against Jacobins. These very towers are now used
+to keep these _loyal_ Cinque Ports themselves in order. These towers are
+now used to lodge men, whose business it is to sally forth, not upon
+Jacobins, but upon _smugglers_! Thus, after having sucked up millions of
+the nation's money, these loyal Cinque Ports are squeezed again: kept in
+order, kept down, by the very towers which they rejoiced to see rise to
+keep down the Jacobins.
+
+
+_Dover, Monday, Sept. 1st, Evening._
+
+I got here this evening about six o'clock, having come to-day thirty-six
+miles; but I must defer my remarks on the country between Folkestone and
+this place; a most interesting spot, and well worthy of particular
+attention. What place I shall date from after Dover I am by no means
+certain; but be it from what place it may, the continuation of my
+Journal shall be published in due course. If the Atlantic Ocean could
+not cut off the communication between me and my readers, a mere strip
+of water, not much wider than an American river, will hardly do it. I
+am, in real truth, undecided, as yet, whether I shall go on to France or
+back to the _Wen_. I think I shall, when I go out of this Inn, toss the
+bridle upon my horse's neck, and let him decide for me. I am sure he is
+more fit to decide on such a point than our Ministers are to decide on
+any point connected with the happiness, greatness, and honour of this
+kingdom.
+
+
+
+
+RURAL RIDE FROM DOVER, THROUGH THE ISLE OF THANET, BY CANTERBURY AND
+FAVERSHAM, ACROSS TO MAIDSTONE, UP TO TONBRIDGE, THROUGH THE WEALD OF
+KENT, AND OVER THE HILLS BY WESTERHAM AND HAYS, TO THE WEN.
+
+
+_Dover, Wednesday, Sept. 3, 1823 (Evening)._
+
+On Monday I was balancing in my own mind whether I should go to France
+or not. To-day I have decided the question in the negative, and shall
+set off this evening for the Isle of Thanet, that spot so famous for
+corn.
+
+I broke off without giving an account of the country between Folkestone
+and Dover, which is a very interesting one in itself, and was peculiarly
+interesting to me on many accounts. I have often mentioned, in
+describing the parts of the country over which I have travelled; I have
+often mentioned the _chalk-ridge_ and also the _sand-ridge_, which I had
+traced, running parallel with each other from about Farnham, in Surrey,
+to Sevenoaks, in Kent. The reader must remember how particular I have
+been to observe that, in going up from Chilworth and Albury, through
+Dorking, Reigate, Godstone, and so on, the two chains, or ridges,
+approach so near to each other, that, in many places, you actually have
+a chalk-bank to your right and a sand-bank to your left, at not more
+than forty yards from each other. In some places, these chains of hills
+run off from each other to a great distance, even to a distance of
+twenty miles. They then approach again towards each other, and so they
+go on. I was always desirous to ascertain whether these chains, or
+ridges, continued on thus _to the sea_. I have now found that they do.
+And, if you go out into the channel, at Folkestone, there you see a
+sand-cliff and a chalk-cliff. Folkestone stands upon the sand, in a
+little dell about seven hundred or eight hundred yards from the very
+termination of the ridge. All the way along, the chalk-ridge is the
+most lofty, until you come to Leith Hill and Hindhead; and here, at
+Folkestone, the sand-ridge tapers off in a sort of flat towards the sea.
+The land is like what it is at Reigate, a very steep hill; a hill of
+full a mile high, and bending exactly in the same manner as the hill at
+Reigate does. The turnpike-road winds up it and goes over it in exactly
+the same manner as that at Reigate. The land to the south of the hill
+begins a poor, thin, white loam upon the chalk; soon gets to be a very
+fine rich loam upon the chalk; goes on till it mingles the chalky loam
+with the sandy loam; and thus it goes on down to the sea-beach, or to
+the edge of the cliff. It is a beautiful bed of earth here, resembling
+in extent that on the south side of Portsdown Hill rather than that of
+Reigate. The crops here are always good if they are good anywhere. A
+large part of this fine tract of land, as well as the little town of
+Sandgate (which is a beautiful little place upon the beach itself), and
+also great part of the town of Folkestone belong, they tell me, to Lord
+Radnor, who takes his title of Viscount from Folkestone. Upon the hill
+begins, and continues on for some miles, that stiff red loam,
+approaching to a clay, which I have several times described as forming
+the soil at the top of this chalk-ridge. I spoke of it in the Register
+of the 16th of August last, page 409, and I then said, that it was like
+the land on the top of this very ridge at Ashmansworth in the north of
+Hampshire. At Reigate you find precisely the same soil upon the top of
+the hill, a very red, clayey sort of loam, with big yellow flint stones
+in it. Everywhere, the soil is the same upon the top of the high part of
+this ridge. I have now found it to be the same, on the edge of the sea,
+that I found it on the north-east corner of Hampshire.
+
+From the hill, you keep descending all the way to Dover, a distance of
+about six miles, and it is absolutely six miles of down hill. On your
+right, you have the lofty land which forms a series of chalk cliffs,
+from the top of which you look into the sea; on your left, you have
+ground that goes rising up from you in the same sort of way. The
+turnpike-road goes down the middle of a valley, each side of which, as
+far as you can see, may be about a mile and a half. It is six miles
+long, you will remember; and here, therefore, with very little
+interruption, very few chasms, there are _eighteen square miles of
+corn_. It is a patch such as you very seldom see, and especially of corn
+so good as it is here. I should think that the wheat all along here
+would average pretty nearly four quarters to the acre. A few oats are
+sown. A great deal of barley, and that a very fine crop.
+
+The town of Dover is like other sea-port towns; but really much more
+clean, and with less blackguard people in it than I ever observed in any
+sea-port before. It is a most picturesque place, to be sure. On one
+side of it rises, upon the top of a very steep hill, the Old Castle,
+with all its fortifications. On the other side of it there is another
+chalk-hill, the side of which is pretty nearly perpendicular, and rises
+up from sixty to a hundred feet higher than the tops of the houses,
+which stand pretty nearly close to the foot of the hill.
+
+I got into Dover rather late. It was dusk when I was going down the
+street towards the quay. I happened to look up, and was quite astonished
+to perceive cows grazing upon a spot apparently fifty feet above the
+tops of the houses, and measuring horizontally not, perhaps, more than
+ten or twenty feet from a line which would have formed a continuation
+into the air. I went up to the same spot, the next day, myself; and you
+actually look down upon the houses, as you look out of a window upon
+people in the street. The valley that runs down from Folkestone is, when
+it gets to Dover, crossed by another valley that runs down from
+Canterbury, or, at least, from the Canterbury direction. It is in the
+gorge of this cross valley that Dover is built. The two chalk-hills jut
+out into the sea, and the water that comes up between them forms a
+harbour for this ancient, most interesting, and beautiful place. On the
+hill to the north stands the Castle of Dover, which is fortified in the
+ancient manner, except on the sea-side, where it has the steep _Cliff_
+for a fortification. On the south side of the town, the hill is, I
+believe, rather more lofty than that on the north side; and here is that
+Cliff which is described by Shakspeare in the Play of King Lear. It is
+fearfully steep, certainly. Very nearly perpendicular for a considerable
+distance. The grass grows well, to the very tip of the cliff; and you
+see cows and sheep grazing there with as much unconcern as if grazing in
+the bottom of a valley.
+
+It was not, however, these natural curiosities that took me over _this_
+hill; I went to see, with my own eyes, something of the sorts of means
+that had been made use of to squander away countless millions of money.
+Here is a hill containing, probably, a couple of square miles or more,
+hollowed like a honeycomb. Here are line upon line, trench upon trench,
+cavern upon cavern, bomb-proof upon bomb-proof; in short the very sight
+of the thing convinces you that either madness the most humiliating, or
+profligacy the most scandalous must have been at work here for years.
+The question that every man of sense asks, is: What reason had you to
+suppose that the _French could ever come to this hill_ to attack it,
+while the rest of the country was so much more easy to assail? However,
+let any man of good plain understanding go and look at the works that
+have here been performed, and that are now all tumbling into ruin. Let
+him ask what this cavern was for; what that ditch was for; what this
+tank was for; and why all these horrible holes and hiding-places at an
+expense of millions upon millions? Let this scene be brought and placed
+under the eyes of the people of England, and let them be told that Pitt
+and Dundas and Perceval had these things done to prevent the country
+from being conquered; with voice unanimous the nation would instantly
+exclaim: Let the French or let the devil take us, rather than let us
+resort to means of defence like these. This is, perhaps, the only set of
+fortifications in the world ever framed for mere _hiding_. There is no
+appearance of any intention to annoy an enemy. It is a parcel of holes
+made in a hill, to hide Englishmen from Frenchmen. Just as if the
+Frenchmen would come to this hill! Just as if they would not go (if they
+came at all) and land in Romney Marsh, or on Pevensey Level, or anywhere
+else, rather than come to this hill; rather than come to crawl up
+Shakspeare's cliff. All the way along the coast, from this very hill to
+Portsmouth, or pretty nearly all the way, is a flat. What the devil
+should they come to this hill for, then? And, when you ask this
+question, they tell you that it is to have an army here _behind_ the
+French, after they had marched into the country! And for a purpose like
+this; for a purpose so stupid, so senseless, so mad as this, and withal,
+so scandalously disgraceful, more brick and stone have been buried in
+this hill than would go to build a neat new cottage for every labouring
+man in the counties of Kent and of Sussex!
+
+Dreadful is the scourge of such Ministers. However, those who supported
+them will now have to suffer. The money must have been squandered
+purposely, and for the worst ends. Fool as Pitt was; unfit as an old
+hack of a lawyer, like Dundas, was to judge of the means of defending
+the country, stupid as both these fellows were, and as their brother
+lawyer, Perceval, was too: unfit as these lawyers were to judge in any
+such a case, they must have known that this was an useless expenditure
+of money. They must have known that; and, therefore, their general
+folly, their general ignorance, is no apology for their conduct. What
+they wanted, was to prevent the landing, not of Frenchmen, but of French
+principles; that is to say, to prevent the example of the French from
+being alluring to the people of England. The devil a bit did they care
+for the Bourbons. They rejoiced at the killing of the king. They
+rejoiced at the atheistical decree. They rejoiced at everything
+calculated to alarm the timid and to excite horror in the people of
+England in general. They wanted to keep out of England those principles
+which had a natural tendency to destroy borough-mongering, and to put an
+end to peculation and plunder. No matter whether by the means of
+Martello Towers, making a great chalk-hill a honey-comb, cutting a canal
+thirty feet wide to stop the march of the armies of the Danube and the
+Rhine: no matter how they squandered the money, so that it silenced some
+and made others bawl to answer their great purpose of preventing French
+example from having an influence in England. Simply their object was
+this: to make the French people miserable; to force back the Bourbons
+upon them as a _means_ of making them miserable; to degrade France, to
+make the people wretched; and then to have to say to the people of
+England, Look there: _see what they have got by their attempts to obtain
+liberty_! This was their object. They did not want Martello Towers and
+honey-combed chalk-hills, and mad canals: they did not want these to
+keep out the French armies. The borough-mongers and the parsons cared
+nothing about the French armies. It was the French example that the
+lawyers, borough-mongers, and parsons wished to keep out. And what have
+they done? It is impossible to be upon this honey-combed hill, upon this
+enormous mass of anti-jacobin expenditure, without seeing the
+chalk-cliffs of Calais and the corn-fields of France. At this season, it
+is impossible to see those fields without knowing that the farmers are
+getting in their corn there as well as here; and it is impossible to
+think of that fact without reflecting, at the same time, on the example
+which the farmers of France hold out to the farmers of England. Looking
+down from this very anti-jacobin hill, this day, I saw the parsons'
+shocks of wheat and barley, left in the field after the farmer had taken
+his away. Turning my head, and looking across the Channel, "There," said
+I, pointing to France, "There the spirited and sensible people have
+ridded themselves of this burden, of which our farmers so bitterly
+complain." It is impossible not to recollect here, that, in numerous
+petitions, sent up, too, by the _loyal_, complaints have been made that
+the English farmer has to carry on a competition against the French
+farmer who has _no tithes to pay_! Well, _loyal gentlemen_, why do not
+you petition, then, to be relieved from tithes? What do you mean else?
+Do you mean to call upon our big gentlemen at Whitehall for them to
+compel the French to pay tithes? Oh, you loyal fools! Better hold your
+tongues about the French not paying tithes. Better do that, at any rate;
+for never will they pay tithes again.
+
+Here is a large tract of _land_ upon these hills at Dover, which is the
+property of the public, having been purchased at an enormous expense.
+This is now let out as pasture land to people of the town. I dare say
+that the letting of this land is a curious affair. If there were a
+Member for Dover who would do what he ought to do, he would soon get
+before the public a list of the tenants, and of the rents paid by them.
+I should like very much to see such list. Butterworth, the bookseller in
+Fleet-street; he who is a sort of metropolitan of the methodists, is
+one of the Members for Dover. The other is, I believe, that Wilbraham or
+Bootle or Bootle Wilbraham, or some such name, that is a Lancashire
+magistrate. So that Dover is prettily set up. However, there is nothing
+of this sort, that can in the present state of things, be deemed to be
+of any real consequence. As long as the people at Whitehall can go on
+paying the interest of the Debt in full, so long will there be no change
+worth the attention of any rational man. In the meanwhile, the French
+nation will be going on rising over us; and our Ministers will be
+cringing and crawling to every nation upon earth who is known to possess
+a cannon or a barrel of powder.
+
+This very day I have read Mr. Canning's Speech at Liverpool, with a
+Yankee Consul sitting on his right hand. Not a word now about the bits
+of bunting and the fir frigates; but now, America is the lovely
+daughter, who, in a moment of excessive love, has gone off with a lover
+(to wit, the French) and left the tender mother to mourn! What a fop!
+And this is the man that talked so big and so bold. This is the clever,
+the profound, the blustering, too, and, above all things, "the high
+spirited" Mr. Canning. However, more of this, hereafter. I must get from
+this Dover, as fast as I can.
+
+
+_Sandwich, Wednesday, 3rd Sept. Night._
+
+I got to this place about half an hour after the ringing of the eight
+o'clock bell, or Curfew, which I heard at about two miles' distance from
+the place. From the town of Dover you come up the Castle-Hill, and have
+a most beautiful view from the top of it. You have the sea, the chalk
+cliffs of Calais, the high land at Boulogne, the town of Dover just
+under you, the valley towards Folkestone, and the much more beautiful
+valley towards Canterbury; and, going on a little further, you have the
+Downs and the Essex or Suffolk coast in full view, with a most beautiful
+corn country to ride along through. The corn was chiefly cut between
+Dover and Walmer. The barley almost all cut and tied up in sheaf.
+Nothing but the beans seemed to remain standing along here. They are not
+quite so good as the rest of the corn; but they are by no means bad.
+When I came to the village of Walmer, I enquired for the Castle; that
+famous place, where Pitt, Dundas, Perceval, and all the whole tribe of
+plotters against the French Revolution had carried on their plots. After
+coming through the village of Walmer, you see the entrance of the Castle
+away to the right. It is situated pretty nearly on the water's edge, and
+at the bottom of a little dell, about a furlong or so from the
+turnpike-road. This is now the habitation of our Great Minister, Robert
+Bankes Jenkinson, son of Charles of that name. When I was told, by a
+girl who was leasing in a field by the road side, that that was Walmer
+Castle, I stopped short, pulled my horse round, looked steadfastly at
+the gateway, and could not help exclaiming: "Oh, thou who inhabitest
+that famous dwelling; thou, who hast always been in place, let who might
+be out of place! Oh, thou everlasting placeman! thou sage of
+'over-production,' do but cast thine eyes upon this barley-field, where,
+if I am not greatly deceived, there are from seven to eight quarters
+upon the acre! Oh, thou whose _Courier_ newspaper has just informed its
+readers that wheat will be seventy shillings the quarter, in the month
+of November: oh, thou wise man, I pray thee come forth, from thy Castle,
+and tell me what thou wilt do if wheat should happen to be, at the
+appointed time, thirty-five shillings, instead of seventy shillings, the
+quarter. Sage of over-production, farewell. If thou hast life, thou wilt
+be Minister, as long as thou canst pay the interest of the Debt in full,
+but not one moment longer. The moment thou ceasest to be able to squeeze
+from the Normans a sufficiency to count down to the Jews their full
+tale, that moment, thou great stern-path-of-duty man, thou wilt begin to
+be taught the true meaning of the words _Ministerial Responsibility_."
+
+Deal is a most villanous place. It is full of filthy-looking people.
+Great desolation of abomination has been going on here; tremendous
+barracks, partly pulled down and partly tumbling down, and partly
+occupied by soldiers. Everything seems upon the perish. I was glad to
+hurry along through it, and to leave its inns and public-houses to be
+occupied by the tarred, and trowsered, and blue-and-buff crew whose very
+vicinage I always detest. From Deal you come along to Upper Deal, which,
+it seems, was the original village; thence upon a beautiful road to
+Sandwich, which is a rotten Borough. Rottenness, putridity is excellent
+for land, but bad for Boroughs. This place, which is as villanous a hole
+as one would wish to see, is surrounded by some of the finest land in
+the world. Along on one side of it, lies a marsh. On the other sides of
+it is land which they tell me bears _seven quarters_ of wheat to an
+acre. It is certainly very fine; for I saw large pieces of radish-seed
+on the road side; this seed is grown for the seedsmen in London; and it
+will grow on none but rich land. All the corn is carried here except
+some beans and some barley.
+
+
+_Canterbury, Thursday Afternoon, 4th Sept._
+
+In quitting Sandwich, you immediately cross a river up which vessels
+bring coals from the sea. This marsh is about a couple of miles wide. It
+begins at the sea-beach, opposite the Downs, to my right hand, coming
+from Sandwich, and it wheels round to my left and ends at the sea-beach,
+opposite Margate roads. This marsh was formerly covered with the sea,
+very likely; and hence the land within this sort of semi-circle, the
+name of which is Thanet, was called an _Isle_. It is, in fact, an island
+now, for the same reason that Portsea is an island, and that New York is
+an island; for there certainly is the water in this river that goes
+round and connects one part of the sea with the other. I had to cross
+this river, and to cross the marsh, before I got into the famous Isle of
+Thanet, which it was my intention to cross. Soon after crossing the
+river, I passed by a place for making salt, and could not help
+recollecting that there are no excisemen in these salt-making places in
+France, that, before the Revolution, the French were most cruelly
+oppressed by the duties on salt, that they had to endure, on that
+account, the most horrid tyranny that ever was known, except, perhaps,
+that practised in an _Exchequer_ that shall here be nameless; that
+thousands and thousands of men and women were every year sent to the
+galleys for what was called smuggling salt; that the fathers and even
+the mothers were imprisoned or whipped if the children were detected in
+smuggling salt: I could not help reflecting, with delight, as I looked
+at these salt-pans in the Isle of Thanet; I could not help reflecting,
+that in spite of Pitt, Dundas, Perceval, and the rest of the crew, in
+spite of the caverns of Dover and the Martello Towers in Romney Marsh:
+in spite of all the spies and all the bayonets, and the six hundred
+millions of Debt and the hundred and fifty millions of dead-weight, and
+the two hundred millions of poor-rates that are now squeezing the
+borough-mongers, squeezing the farmers, puzzling the fellows at
+Whitehall and making Mark-lane a scene of greater interest than the
+Chamber of the Privy Council; with delight as I jogged along under the
+first beams of the sun, I reflected, that, in spite of all the malignant
+measures that had brought so much misery upon England, the gallant
+French people had ridded themselves of the tyranny which sent them to
+the galleys for endeavouring to use without tax the salt which God sent
+upon their shores. Can any man tell why we should still be paying five,
+or six, or seven shillings a bushel for salt, instead of one? We did pay
+fifteen shillings a bushel, tax. And why is two shillings a bushel kept
+on? Because, if they were taken off, the salt-tax-gathering crew must be
+discharged! This tax of two shillings a bushel, causes the consumer to
+pay five, at the least, more than he would if there were no tax at all!
+When, great God! when shall we be allowed to enjoy God's gifts, in
+freedom, as the people of France enjoy them?
+
+On the marsh I found the same sort of sheep as on Romney Marsh; but the
+cattle here are chiefly Welsh; black, and called runts. They are nice
+hardy cattle; and, I am told, that this is the description of cattle
+that they fat all the way up on this north side of Kent.----When I got
+upon the corn land in the Isle of Thanet, I got into a garden indeed.
+There is hardly any fallow; comparatively few turnips. It is a country
+of corn. Most of the harvest is in; but there are some fields of wheat
+and of barley not yet housed. A great many pieces of lucerne, and all of
+them very fine. I left Ramsgate to my right about three miles, and went
+right across the island to Margate; but that place is so thickly settled
+with stock-jobbing cuckolds, at this time of the year, that, having no
+fancy to get their horns stuck into me, I turned away to my left when I
+got within about half a mile of the town. I got to a little hamlet,
+where I breakfasted; but could get no corn for my horse, and no bacon
+for myself! All was corn around me. Barns, I should think, two hundred
+feet long; ricks of enormous size and most numerous; crops of wheat,
+five quarters to an acre, on the average; and a public-house without
+either bacon or corn! The labourers' houses, all along through this
+island, beggarly in the extreme. The people dirty, poor-looking; ragged,
+but particularly _dirty_. The men and boys with dirty faces, and dirty
+smock-frocks, and dirty shirts; and, good God! what a difference between
+the wife of a labouring man here, and the wife of a labouring man in the
+forests and woodlands of Hampshire and Sussex! Invariably have I
+observed, that the richer the soil, and the more destitute of woods;
+that is to say, the more purely a corn country, the more miserable the
+labourers. The cause is this, the great, the big bull frog grasps all.
+In this beautiful island every inch of land is appropriated by the rich.
+No hedges, no ditches, no commons, no grassy lanes: a country divided
+into great farms; a few trees surround the great farm-house. All the
+rest is bare of trees; and the wretched labourer has not a stick of
+wood, and has no place for a pig or cow to graze, or even to lie down
+upon. The rabbit countries are the countries for labouring men. There
+the ground is not so valuable. There it is not so easily appropriated by
+the few. Here, in this island, the work is almost all done by the
+horses. The horses plough the ground; they sow the ground; they hoe the
+ground; they carry the corn home; they thresh it out; and they carry it
+to market: nay, in this island, they _rake_ the ground; they rake up the
+straggling straws and ears; so that they do the whole, except the
+reaping and the mowing. It is impossible to have an idea of anything
+more miserable than the state of the labourers in this part of the
+country.
+
+After coming by Margate, I passed a village called Monckton, and another
+called Sarr. At Sarr there is a bridge, over which you come out of the
+island, as you go into it over the bridge at Sandwich. At Monckton they
+had _seventeen men working on the roads_, though the harvest was not
+quite in, and though, of course, it had all to be threshed out; but, at
+Monckton, they had _four threshing machines_; and they have three
+threshing machines at Sarr, though there, also, they have several men
+upon the roads! This is a shocking state of things; and, in spite of
+everything that the Jenkinsons and the Scots can do, this state of
+things must be changed.
+
+At Sarr, or a little way further back, I saw a man who had just begun to
+reap a field of canary seed. The plants were too far advanced to be cut
+in order to be bleached for the making of plat; but I got the reaper to
+select me a few green stalks that grew near a bush that stood on the
+outside of the piece. These I have brought on with me, in order to give
+them a trial. At Sarr I began to cross the marsh, and had, after this,
+to come through the village of Up-street, and another village called
+Steady, before I got to Canterbury. At Up-street I was struck with the
+words written upon a board which was fastened upon a pole, which pole
+was standing in a garden near a neat little box of a house. The words
+were these. "PARADISE PLACE. _Spring guns and steel traps are set
+here._" A pretty idea it must give us of Paradise to know that spring
+guns and steel traps are set in it! This is doubtless some
+stock-jobber's place; for, in the first place, the name is likely to
+have been selected by one of that crew; and, in the next place, whenever
+any of them go to the country, they look upon it that they are to begin
+a sort of warfare against everything around them. They invariably look
+upon every labourer as a thief.
+
+As you approach Canterbury, from the Isle of Thanet, you have another
+instance of the squanderings of the lawyer Ministers. Nothing equals the
+ditches, the caverns, the holes, the tanks, and hiding-places of the
+hill at Dover; but, considerable as the City of Canterbury is, that city
+within its gates stands upon less ground than those horrible erections,
+the barracks of Pitt, Dundas, and Perceval. They are perfectly enormous;
+but thanks be unto God, they begin to crumble down. They have a sickly
+hue: all is lassitude about them: endless are their lawns, their gravel
+walks, and their ornaments; but their lawns are unshaven, their gravel
+walks grassy, and their ornaments putting on the garments of ugliness.
+You see the grass growing opposite the door-ways. A hole in the window
+strikes you here and there. Lamp-posts there are, but no lamps. Here are
+horse-barracks, foot-barracks, artillery-barracks, engineer-barracks: a
+whole country of barracks; but, only here and there a soldier. The thing
+is actually perishing. It is typical of the state of the great Thing of
+things. It gave me inexpressible pleasure to perceive the gloom that
+seemed to hang over these barracks, which once swarmed with soldiers and
+their blithe companions, as a hive swarms with bees. These barracks now
+look like the environs of a hive in winter. Westminster Abbey Church is
+not the place for the monument of Pitt; the statue of the great snorting
+bawler ought to be stuck up here, just in the midst of this hundred or
+two of acres covered with barracks. These barracks, too, were erected in
+order to compel the French to return to the payment of tithes; in order
+to bring their necks again under the yoke of the lords and the clergy.
+That has not been accomplished. The French, as Mr. Hoggart assures us,
+have neither tithes, taxes, nor rates; and the people of Canterbury know
+that they have a _hop-duty_ to pay, while Mr. Hoggart, of Broad-street,
+tells them that he has farms to let, in France, where there are
+hop-gardens and where there is no hop-duty. They have lately had races
+at Canterbury; and the Mayor and Aldermen, in order to get the Prince
+Leopold to attend them, presented him with the Freedom of the City; but
+it rained all the time and he did not come! The Mayor and Aldermen do
+not understand things half so well as this German Gentleman, who has
+managed his matters as well, I think, as any one that I ever heard of.
+
+This fine old town, or, rather, city, is remarkable for cleanliness and
+niceness, notwithstanding it has a Cathedral in it. The country round it
+is very rich, and this year, while the hops are so bad in most other
+parts, they are not so very bad just about Canterbury.
+
+
+_Elverton Farm, near Faversham, Friday Morning, Sept. 5._
+
+In going through Canterbury, yesterday, I gave a boy six-pence to hold
+my horse, while I went into the Cathedral, just to thank St. Swithin for
+the trick that he had played my friends, the Quakers. Led along by the
+wet weather till after the harvest had actually begun, and then to find
+the weather turn fine, all of a sudden! This must have soused them
+pretty decently; and I hear of one, who, at Canterbury, has made a
+bargain by which he will certainly lose two thousand pounds. The land
+where I am now is equal to that of the Isle of Thanet. The harvest is
+nearly over, and all the crops have been prodigiously fine. In coming
+from Canterbury, you come to the top of a hill, called Baughton Hill,
+at four miles from Canterbury on the London road; and you there look
+down into one of the finest flats in England. A piece of marsh comes up
+nearly to Faversham; and, at the edge of that marsh lies the farm where
+I now am. The land here is a deep loam upon chalk; and this is also the
+nature of the land in the Isle of Thanet and all the way from that to
+Dover. The orchards grow well upon this soil. The trees grow finely, the
+fruit is large and of fine flavour.
+
+In 1821 I gave Mr. William Waller, who lives here, some American
+apple-cuttings; and he has now some as fine Newtown Pippins as one would
+wish to see. They are very large of their sort; very free in their
+growth; and they promise to be very fine apples of the kind. Mr. Waller
+had cuttings from me off several sorts, in 1822. These were cut down
+last year; they have, of course, made shoots this summer; and great
+numbers of these shoots have fruit-spurs, which will have blossom, if
+not fruit, next year. This very rarely happens, I believe; and the state
+of Mr. Waller's trees clearly proves to me that the introduction of
+these American trees would be a great improvement.
+
+My American apples, when I left Kensington, promised to be very fine;
+and the apples, which I have frequently mentioned as being upon cuttings
+imported last Spring, promised to come to perfection; a thing which, I
+believe, we have not an instance of before.
+
+
+_Merryworth, Friday Evening, 5th Sept._
+
+A friend at Tenterden told me that, if I had a mind to know Kent, I must
+go through Romney Marsh to Dover, from Dover to Sandwich, from Sandwich
+to Margate, from Margate to Canterbury, from Canterbury to Faversham,
+from Faversham to Maidstone, and from Maidstone to Tonbridge. I found
+from Mr. Waller, this morning, that the regular turnpike route, from his
+house to Maidstone, was through Sittingbourne. I had been along that
+road several times; and besides, to be covered with dust was what I
+could not think of, when I had it in my power to get to Maidstone
+without it. I took the road across the country, quitting the London
+road, or rather, crossing it, in the dell, between Ospringe and
+Green-street. I instantly began to go up hill, slowly, indeed; but up
+hill. I came through the villages of Newnham, Doddington, Ringlestone,
+and to that of Hollingbourne. I had come up hill for thirteen miles,
+from Mr. Waller's house. At last, I got to the top of this hill, and
+went along, for some distance, upon level ground. I found I was got upon
+just the same sort of land as that on the hill at Folkestone, at
+Reigate, at Ropley, and at Ashmansworth. The red clayey loam, mixed up
+with great yellow flint stones. I found fine meadows here, just such as
+are at Ashmansworth (that is to say, on the north Hampshire hills.) This
+sort of ground is characterized by an astonishing depth that they have
+to go for the water. At Ashmansworth, they go to a depth of more than
+three hundred feet. As I was riding along upon the top of this hill in
+Kent, I saw the same beautiful sort of meadows that there are at
+Ashmansworth; I saw the corn backward; I was just thinking to go up to
+some house, to ask how far they had to go for water, when I saw a large
+well-bucket, and all the chains and wheels belonging to such a concern;
+but here was also the tackle for a _horse_ to work in drawing up the
+water! I asked about the depth of the well; and the information I
+received must have been incorrect; because I was told it was three
+hundred yards. I asked this of a public-house keeper farther on, not
+seeing anybody where the farm-house was. I make no doubt that the depth
+is, as near as possible, that of Ashmansworth. Upon the top of this
+hill, I saw the finest field of beans that I have seen this year, and,
+by very far, indeed, the _finest piece of hops_. A beautiful piece of
+hops, surrounded by beautiful plantations of young ash, producing poles
+for hop-gardens. My road here pointed towards the west. It soon wheeled
+round towards the south; and, all of a sudden, I found myself upon the
+edge of a hill, as lofty and as steep as that at Folkestone, at Reigate,
+or at Ashmansworth. It was the same famous chalk-ridge that I was
+crossing again. When I got to the edge of the hill, and before I got off
+my horse to lead him down this more than mile of hill, I sat and
+surveyed the prospect before me, and to the right and to the left. This
+is what the people of Kent call the _Garden of Eden_. It is a district
+of meadows, corn-fields, hop-gardens, and orchards of apples, pears,
+cherries and filberts, with very little if any land which cannot, with
+propriety, be called good. There are plantations of Chestnut and of Ash
+frequently occurring; and as these are cut when long enough to make
+poles for hops, they are at all times objects of great beauty.
+
+At the foot of the hill of which I have been speaking, is the village of
+Hollingbourne; thence you come on to Maidstone. From Maidstone to this
+place (Merryworth) is about seven miles, and these are the finest seven
+miles that I have ever seen in England or anywhere else. The Medway is
+to your left, with its meadows about a mile wide. You cross the Medway,
+in coming out of Maidstone, and it goes and finds its way down to
+Rochester, through a break in the chalk-ridge. From Maidstone to
+Merryworth I should think that there were hop-gardens on one half of
+the way on both sides of the road. Then looking across the Medway, you
+see hop-gardens and orchards two miles deep, on the side of a gently
+rising ground: and this continues with you all the way from Maidstone to
+Merryworth. The orchards form a great feature of the country; and the
+plantations of Ashes and of Chestnuts that I mentioned before, add
+greatly to the beauty. These gardens of hops are kept very clean, in
+general, though some of them have been neglected this year owing to the
+bad appearance of the crop. The culture is sometimes mixed: that is to
+say, apple-trees or cherry-trees or filbert-trees and hops, in the same
+ground. This is a good way, they say, of raising an orchard. I do not
+believe it; and I think that nothing is gained by any of these mixtures.
+They plant apple-trees or cherry-trees in rows here; they then plant a
+filbert-tree close to each of these large fruit-trees; and then they
+cultivate the middle of the ground by planting potatoes. This is being
+too greedy. It is impossible that they can gain by this. What they gain
+one way they lose the other way; and I verily believe, that the most
+profitable way would be, never to mix things at all. In coming from
+Maidstone I passed through a village called Teston, where Lord Basham
+has a seat.
+
+
+_Tonbridge, Saturday morning, 6th Sept._
+
+I came off from Merryworth a little before five o'clock, passed the seat
+of Lord Torrington, the friend of Mr. Barretto. This Mr. Barretto ought
+not to be forgotten so soon. In 1820 he sued for articles of the peace
+against Lord Torrington, for having menaced him, in consequence of his
+having pressed his Lordship about some money. It seems that Lord
+Torrington had known him in the East Indies; that they came home
+together, or soon after one another; that his Lordship invited Mr.
+Barretto to his best parties in India; that he got him introduced at
+Court in England by Sidmouth; that he got him made a _Fellow of the
+Royal Society_; and that he tried to get him introduced into Parliament.
+His Lordship, when Barretto rudely pressed him for his money, reminded
+him of all this, and of the many difficulties that he had had to
+overcome with regard to his _colour_ and so forth. Nevertheless, the
+dingy skinned Court visitant pressed in such a way that Lord Torrington
+was obliged to be pretty smart with him, whereupon the other sued for
+articles of the peace against his Lordship; but these were not granted
+by the Court. This Barretto issued a hand-bill at the last election as a
+candidate for St. Albans. I am truly sorry that he was not elected. Lord
+Camelford threatened to put in his black fellow; but he was a sad
+swaggering fellow; and had, at last, too much of the borough-monger in
+him to do a thing so meritorious. Lord Torrington's is but an
+indifferent looking place.
+
+I here began to see Southdown sheep again, which I had not seen since
+the time I left Tenterden. All along here the villages are at not more
+than two miles' distance from each other. They have all large churches,
+and scarcely anybody to go to them. At a village called Hadlow, there is
+a house belonging to a Mr. May, the most singular looking thing I ever
+saw. An immense house stuck all over with a parcel of chimneys, or
+things like chimneys; little brick columns, with a sort of caps on them,
+looking like carnation sticks, with caps at the top to catch the
+earwigs. The building is all of brick, and has the oddest appearance of
+anything I ever saw. This Tonbridge is but a common country town, though
+very clean, and the people looking very well. The climate must be pretty
+warm here; for in entering the town, I saw a large Althea Frutex in
+bloom, a thing rare enough, any year, and particularly a year like this.
+
+
+_Westerham, Saturday, Noon, 6th Sept._
+
+Instead of going on to the Wen along the turnpike road through
+Sevenoaks, I turned to my left when I got about a mile out of Tonbridge,
+in order to come along that tract of country called the Weald of Kent;
+that is to say, the solid clays, which have no bottom, which are unmixed
+with chalk, sand, stone, or anything else; the country of dirty roads
+and of oak trees. I stopped at Tonbridge only a few minutes; but in the
+Weald I stopped to breakfast at a place called Leigh. From Leigh I came
+to Chittingstone causeway, leaving Tonbridge Wells six miles over the
+hills to my left. From Chittingstone I came to Bough-beach, thence to
+Four Elms, and thence to this little market-town of Westerham, which is
+just upon the border of Kent. Indeed, Kent, Surrey, and Sussex form a
+joining very near to this town. Westerham, exactly like Reigate and
+Godstone, and Sevenoaks, and Dorking, and Folkestone, lies between the
+sand-ridge and the chalk-ridge. The valley is here a little wider than
+at Reigate, and that is all the difference there is between the places.
+As soon as you get over the sand hill to the south of Reigate, you get
+into the Weald of Surrey; and here, as soon as you get over the sand
+hill to the south of Westerham, you get into the Weald of Kent.
+
+I have now, in order to get to the Wen, to cross the chalk-ridge once
+more, and, at a point where I never crossed it before. Coming through
+the Weald I found the corn very good; and, low as the ground is, wet as
+it is, cold as it is, there will be very little of the wheat which will
+not be housed before Saturday night. All the corn is good, and the
+barley excellent. Not far from Bough-beach, I saw two oak trees, one of
+which was, they told me, more than thirty feet round, and the other more
+than twenty-seven; but they have been hollow for half a century. They
+are not much bigger than the oak upon Tilford Green, if any. I mean in
+the trunk; but they are hollow, while that tree is sound in all its
+parts, and growing still. I have had a most beautiful ride through the
+Weald. The day is very hot; but I have been in the shade; and my horse's
+feet very often in the rivulets and wet lanes. In one place I rode above
+a mile completely arched over by the boughs of the underwood, growing in
+the banks of the lane. What an odd taste that man must have who prefers
+a turnpike-road to a lane like this.
+
+Very near to Westerham there are hops: and I have seen now and then a
+little bit of hop garden, even in the Weald. Hops will grow well where
+lucerne will grow well; and lucerne will grow well where there is a rich
+top and a dry bottom. When therefore you see hops in the Weald, it is on
+the side of some hill, where there is sand or stone at bottom, and not
+where there is real clay beneath. There appear to be hops, here and
+there, all along from nearly at Dover to Alton, in Hampshire. You find
+them all along Kent; you find them at Westerham; across at Worth, in
+Sussex; at Godstone, in Surrey; over to the north of Merrow Down, near
+Guildford; at Godalming; under the Hog's-back, at Farnham; and all along
+that way to Alton. But there, I think, they end. The whole face of the
+country seems to rise, when you get just beyond Alton, and to keep up.
+Whether you look to the north, the south, or west, the land seems to
+rise, and the hops cease, till you come again away to the north-west, in
+Herefordshire.
+
+
+_Kensington, Saturday night, 6 Sept._
+
+Here I close my day, at the end of forty-four miles. In coming up the
+chalk hill from Westerham, I prepared myself for the red stiff clay-like
+loam, the big yellow flints and the meadows; and I found them all. I
+have now gone over this chalk-ridge in the following places: at Coombe
+in the north-west of Hampshire; I mean the north-west corner, the very
+extremity of the county. I have gone over it at Ashmansworth, or
+Highclere, going from Newbury to Andover; at King's Clere, going from
+Newbury to Winchester; at Ropley, going from Alresford to Selborne; at
+Dippinghall, going from Crondall to Thursly; at Merrow, going from
+Chertsey to Chilworth; at Reigate; at Westerham, and then, between
+these, at Godstone; at Sevenoaks, going from London to Battle; at
+Hollingbourne, as mentioned above, and at Folkestone. In all these
+places I have crossed this chalk-ridge. Everywhere, upon the top of it,
+I have found a flat, and the soil of all these flats I have found to be
+a red stiff loam mingled up with big yellow flints. A soil difficult to
+work; but by no means bad, whether for wood, hops, grass, orchards, or
+corn. I once before mentioned that I was assured that the pasture upon
+these bleak hills was as rich as that which is found in the north of
+Wiltshire, in the neighbourhood of Swindon, where they make some of the
+best cheese in the kingdom. Upon these hills I have never found the
+labouring people poor and miserable, as in the rich vales. All is not
+appropriated where there are coppices and wood, where the cultivation is
+not so easy and the produce so very large.
+
+After getting up the hill from Westerham, I had a general descent to
+perform all the way to the Thames. When you get to Beckenham, which is
+the last parish in Kent, the country begins to assume a cockney-like
+appearance; all is artificial, and you no longer feel any interest in
+it. I was anxious to make this journey into Kent, in the midst of
+harvest, in order that I might _know_ the real state of the crops. The
+result of my observations and my inquiries, is, that the crop is a _full
+average_ crop of everything except barley, and that the barley yields a
+great deal more than an average crop. I thought that the beans were very
+poor during my ride into Hampshire; but I then saw no real bean
+countries. I have seen such countries now; and I do not think that the
+beans present us with a bad crop. As to the quality, it is, in no case
+(except perhaps the barley), equal to that of last year. We had, last
+year, an Italian summer. When the wheat, or other grain has to _ripen in
+wet weather_, it will not be _bright_, as it will when it has to ripen
+in fair weather. It will have a dingy or clouded appearance; and perhaps
+the flour may not be quite so good. The wheat, in fact, will not be so
+heavy. In order to enable others to judge, as well as myself, I took
+samples from the fields as I went along. I took them very fairly, and as
+often as I thought that there was any material change in the soil or
+other circumstances. During the ride I took sixteen samples. These are
+now at the Office of the Register, in Fleet-street, where they may be
+seen by any gentleman who thinks the information likely to be useful to
+him. The samples are numbered, and there is a reference pointing out the
+place where each sample was taken. The opinions that I gather amount to
+this: that there is an average crop of everything, and a little more of
+barley.
+
+Now then we shall see how all this tallies with the schemes, with the
+intentions and expectations of our matchless gentlemen at Whitehall.
+These wise men have put forth their views in the _Courier_ of the 27th
+of August, and in words which ought never to be forgotten, and which, at
+any rate, shall be recorded here.
+
+"GRAIN.--During the present unsettled state of the weather, it is
+impossible for the best informed persons to anticipate upon good grounds
+what will be the future price of agricultural produce. Should the season
+even yet prove favourable for the operations of the harvest, there is
+every probability of the average price of grain continuing at that exact
+price which will prove most conducive to the interests of the corn
+growers, and at the same time encouraging to the agriculture of our
+colonial possessions. We do not speak lightly on this subject, for we
+are aware that His Majesty's Ministers have been fully alive to the
+inquiries from all qualified quarters as to the effect likely to be
+produced on the markets from the addition of the present crops to the
+stock of wheat already on hand. The result of these inquiries is, that
+in the highest quarters there exists the full expectation, that towards
+the month of November, the price of wheat will nearly approach to
+seventy shillings, a price which, while it affords the extent of
+remuneration to the British farmer recognized by the corn laws, will at
+the same time admit of the sale of the Canadian bonded wheat; and the
+introduction of this foreign corn, grown by British colonists, will
+contribute to keeping down our markets, and exclude foreign grain from
+other quarters."
+
+There's nice gentlemen of Whitehall! What pretty gentlemen they are!
+"_Envy of surrounding nations_," indeed, to be under command of pretty
+gentlemen who can make calculations so nice, and put forth predictions
+so positive upon such a subject! "_Admiration of the world_," indeed, to
+live under the command of men who can so control seasons and markets;
+or, at least, who can so dive into the secrets of trade, and find out
+the contents of the fields, barns, and ricks, as to be able to balance
+things so nicely as to cause the Canadian corn to find a market, without
+injuring the sale of that of the British farmer, and without admitting
+that of the French farmer and the other farmers of the continent! Happy,
+too happy, rogues that we are, to be under the guidance of such pretty
+gentlemen, and right just is it that we should be banished for life, if
+we utter a word _tending_ to bring such pretty gentlemen into contempt.
+
+Let it be observed, that this paragraph _must_ have come from Whitehall.
+This wretched paper is the demi-official organ of the Government. As to
+the owners of the paper, Daniel Stewart, that notorious fellow, Street,
+and the rest of them, not excluding the brother of the great Oracle,
+which brother bought, the other day, a share of this vehicle of
+baseness and folly; as to these fellows, they have no control other than
+what relates to the expenditure and the receipts of the vehicle. They
+get their news from the offices of the Whitehall people, and their paper
+is the mouth-piece of those same people. Mark this, I pray you, reader;
+and let the French people mark it, too, and then take their revenge for
+the Waterloo insolence. This being the case, then; this paragraph
+proceeding from the pretty gentlemen, what a light it throws on their
+expectations, their hopes, and their fears. They see that wheat at
+seventy shillings a quarter is _necessary_ to them! Ah! pray mark that!
+They see that wheat at seventy shillings a quarter is necessary to them;
+and, therefore, they say that wheat will be at seventy shillings a
+quarter, the price, as they call it, necessary to remunerate the British
+farmer. And how do the conjurers at Whitehall know this? Why, they have
+made full inquiries "in qualified quarters." And the qualified quarters
+have satisfied the "highest quarters," that, "towards the month of
+November, the price of wheat will nearly approach to seventy shillings
+the quarter!" I wonder what the words towards the "end of November," may
+mean. Devil's in't if middle of September is not "_towards_ November;"
+and the wheat, instead of going on towards seventy shillings, is very
+fast coming down to forty. The beast who wrote this paragraph; the
+pretty beast; this "envy of surrounding nations" wrote it on the 27th of
+August, _a soaking wet Saturday_! The pretty beast was not aware, that
+the next day was going to be fine, and that we were to have only the
+succeeding Tuesday and half the following Saturday of wet weather until
+the whole of the harvest should be in. The pretty beast wrote while the
+rain was spattering against the window; and he did "not speak lightly,"
+but was fully aware that the highest quarters, having made inquiries of
+the qualified quarters, were sure that wheat would be at seventy
+shillings during the ensuing year. What will be the price of wheat it is
+impossible for any one to say. I know a gentleman, who is a very good
+judge of such matters, who is of opinion that the average price of wheat
+will be thirty-two shillings a quarter, or lower, before Christmas; this
+is not quite half what the _highest quarters_ expect, in consequence of
+the inquiries which they have made of the _qualified quarters_. I do not
+say, that the average of wheat will come down to thirty-two shillings;
+but this I know, that at Reading, last Saturday, about forty-five
+shillings was the price; and, I hear, that, in Norfolk, the price is
+forty-two. The _highest quarters_, and the infamous London press, will,
+at any rate, be prettily exposed, before Christmas. Old Sir Thomas
+Lethbridge, too, and Gaffer Gooch, and his base tribe of Pittites at
+Ipswich; Coke and Suffield, and their crew; all these will be prettily
+laughed at; nor will that "tall soul," Lord Milton, escape being
+reminded of his profound and patriotic observation relative to "this
+self-renovating country." No sooner did he see the wheat get up to sixty
+or seventy shillings than he lost all his alarms; found that all things
+were right, turned his back on Yorkshire Reformers, and went and toiled
+for Scarlett at Peterborough: and discovered, that there was nothing
+wrong, at last, and that the "self-renovating country" would triumph
+over all its difficulties!--So it will, "tall soul;" it will triumph
+over all its difficulties; it will renovate itself; it will purge itself
+of rotten boroughs, of vile borough-mongers, their tools and their
+stopgaps; it will purge itself of all the villanies which now corrode
+its heart; it will, in short, free itself from those curses, which the
+expenditure of eight or nine hundred millions of English money took
+place in order to make perpetual: it will, in short, become free from
+oppression, as easy and as happy as the gallant and sensible nation on
+the other side of the Channel. This is the sort of renovation, but not
+renovation by the means of wheat at seventy shillings a quarter.
+Renovation it will have: it will rouse and will shake from itself curses
+like the pension which is paid to Burke's executors. This is the sort of
+renovation, "tall soul;" and not wheat at 70_s._ a quarter, while it is
+at twenty-five shillings a quarter in France. Pray observe, reader, how
+the "tall soul" _catched_ at the rise in the price of wheat: how he
+_snapped_ at it: how quickly he ceased his attacks upon the Whitehall
+people and upon the System. He thought he had been deceived: he thought
+that things were coming about again; and so he drew in his horns, and
+began to talk about the self-renovating country. This was the tone of
+them _all_. This was the tone of all the borough-mongers; all the
+friends of the System; all those, who, like Lethbridge, had begun to be
+staggered. They had deviated, for a moment, into our path! but they
+popped back again the moment they saw the price of wheat rise! All the
+enemies of Reform, all the calumniators of Reformers, all the friends of
+the System, most anxiously desired a rise in the price of wheat. Mark
+the curious fact, that all the vile press of London; the whole of that
+infamous press; that newspapers, magazines, reviews: the whole of the
+base thing; and a baser surely this world never saw; that the whole of
+this base thing rejoiced, exulted, crowed over me, and told an impudent
+lie, in order to have the crowing; crowed, for what? _Because wheat and
+bread were become dear!_ A newspaper hatched under a corrupt Priest, a
+profligate Priest, and recently espoused to the hell of Pall Mall; even
+this vile thing crowed because wheat and bread had become dear! Now, it
+is notorious, that, heretofore, every periodical publication in this
+kingdom was in the constant habit of lamenting, when bread became dear,
+and of rejoicing, when it became cheap. This is notorious. Nay, it is
+equally notorious, that this infamous press was everlastingly assailing
+bakers, and millers, and butchers, for not selling bread, flour, and
+meat cheaper than they were selling them. In how many hundreds of
+instances has this infamous press caused attacks to be made by the mob
+upon tradesmen of this description! All these things are notorious.
+Moreover, notorious it is that, long previous to every harvest, this
+infamous, this execrable, this beastly press, was engaged in stunning
+the public with accounts of the _great crop_ which was just coming
+forward! There was always, with this press, a prodigiously large crop.
+This was invariably the case. It was never known to be the contrary.
+
+Now these things are perfectly well known to every man in England. How
+comes it, then, reader, that the profligate, the trading, the lying, the
+infamous press of London, has now totally changed its tone and bias. The
+base thing never now tells us that there is a great crop or even a good
+crop. It never now wants cheap bread and cheap wheat and cheap meat. It
+never now finds fault of bakers and butchers. It now always endeavours
+to make it appear that corn is dearer than it is. The base _Morning
+Herald_, about three weeks ago, not only suppressed the fact of the fall
+of wheat, but asserted that there had been a rise in the price. Now _why
+is all this_? That is a great question, reader. That is a very
+interesting question. Why has this infamous press, which always pursues
+that which it thinks its own interest; why has it taken this strange
+turn? This is the reason: stupid as the base thing is, it has arrived at
+a conviction, that if the price of the produce of the land cannot be
+kept up to something approaching ten shillings a bushel for good wheat,
+the hellish system of funding must be blown up. The infamous press has
+arrived at a conviction, that that cheating, that fraudulent system by
+which this press lives, must be destroyed unless the price of corn can
+be kept up. The infamous traders of the press are perfectly well
+satisfied, that the interest of the Debt must be reduced, unless wheat
+can be kept up to nearly ten shillings a bushel. Stupid as they are, and
+stupid as the fellows down at Westminster are, they know very well, that
+the whole system, stock-jobbers, Jews, cant and all, go to the devil at
+once, as soon as a deduction is made from the interest of the Debt.
+Knowing this, they want wheat to sell high; because it has, at last,
+been hammered into their skulls, that the interest cannot be paid in
+full, if wheat sells low. Delightful is the dilemma in which they are.
+Dear bread does not suit their manufactories, and cheap bread does not
+suit their Debt. "_Envy of surrounding nations_," how hard it is that
+Providence will not enable your farmers to sell dear and the consumers
+to buy cheap! These are the things that you want. Admiration of the
+world you are; but have these things you will not. There may be those,
+indeed, who question whether you yourself know what you want; but, at
+any rate, if you want these things, you will not have them.
+
+Before I conclude, let me ask the reader to take a look at the
+_singularity_ of the tone and tricks of this Six-Acts Government. Is it
+not a novelty in the world to see a Government, and in ordinary seasons,
+too, having its whole soul absorbed in considerations relating to the
+price of corn? There are our neighbours, the French, who have got a
+Government engaged in taking military possession of a great neighbouring
+kingdom to free which from these very French, we have recently expended
+a _hundred and fifty millions of money_. Our neighbours have got a
+Government that is thus engaged, and we have got a Government that
+employs itself in making incessant "inquiries in all the qualified
+quarters" relative to the price of wheat! Curious employment for a
+Government! Singular occupation for the Ministers of the Great George!
+They seem to think nothing of Spain, with its eleven millions of people,
+being in fact added to France. Wholly insensible do they appear to
+concerns of this sort, while they sit thinking, day and night, upon the
+price of the bushel of wheat!
+
+However, they are not, after all, such fools as they appear to be.
+Despicable, indeed, must be that nation, whose safety or whose happiness
+does, in any degree, depend on so fluctuating a thing as the price of
+corn. This is a matter that we must take as it comes. The seasons will
+be what they will be; and all the calculations of statesmen must be made
+wholly independent of the changes and chances of seasons. This has
+always been the case, to be sure. What nation could ever carry on its
+affairs, if it had to take into consideration the price of corn?
+Nevertheless, such is the situation of _our Government_, that its very
+existence, in its present way, depends upon the price of corn. The
+pretty fellows at Whitehall, if you may say to them: Well, but look at
+Spain; look at the enormous strides of the French; think of the
+consequences in case of another war; look, too, at the growing marine of
+America. See, Mr. Jenkinson, see, Mr. Canning, see, Mr. Huskisson, see,
+Mr. Peel, and all ye tribe of Grenvilles, see, what tremendous dangers
+are gathering together about us! "_Us!_" Aye, about _you_; but pray
+think what tremendous dangers wheat at four shillings a bushel will
+bring about _us_! This is the git. Here lies the whole of it. We laugh
+at a Government employing itself in making calculations about the price
+of corn, and in employing its press to put forth market puffs. We laugh
+at these things; but we should not laugh, if we considered, that it is
+on the price of wheat that the duration of the power and the profits of
+these men depends. They know what they want; and they wish to believe
+themselves, and to make others believe, that they shall have it. I have
+observed before, but it is necessary to observe again, that all those
+who are for the System, let them be Opposition or not Opposition, feel
+as Whitehall feels about the price of corn. I have given an instance, in
+the "tall soul;" but it is the same with the whole of them, with the
+whole of those who do not wish to see this infernal System changed. I
+was informed, and I believe it to be true, that the Marquis of Lansdowne
+said, last April, when the great rise took place in the price of corn,
+that he had always thought that the cash-measures had but little effect
+on prices; but that he was now satisfied that those measures had no
+effect at all on prices! Now, what is our situation; what is the
+situation of this country, if we must have the present Ministry, or a
+Ministry of which the Marquis of Lansdowne is to be a Member, if the
+Marquis of Lansdowne did utter these words? And again, I say, that I
+verily believe he did utter them.
+
+Ours is a Government that now seems to depend very much upon the
+_weather_. The old type of a ship at sea will not do now, ours is a
+weather Government; and to know the state of it, we must have recourse
+to those glasses that the Jews carry about. Weather depends upon the
+winds, in a great measure; and I have no scruple to say, that the
+situation of those two Right Honourable youths, that are now gone to the
+Lakes in the north; that their situation, next winter, will be rendered
+very irksome, not to say perilous, by the present easterly wind, if it
+should continue about fifteen days longer. Pitt, when he had just made a
+monstrous issue of paper, and had, thereby, actually put the match which
+blowed up the old She Devil in 1797--Pitt, at that time, congratulated
+the nation, that the wisdom of Parliament had established a solid system
+of finance. Anything but solid it assuredly was; but his system of
+finance was as worthy of being called solid, as that system of
+Government which now manifestly depends upon the weather and the winds.
+
+Since my return home (it is now Thursday, 11th September), I have
+received letters from the east, from the north, and from the west. All
+tell me that the harvest is very far advanced, and that the crops are
+free from blight. These letters are not particular as to the weight of
+the crop; except that they all say that the barley is excellent. The
+wind is now coming from the east. There is every appearance of the fine
+weather continuing. Before Christmas, we shall have the wheat down to
+what will be a fair average price in future. I always said that the late
+rise was a mere puff. It was, in part, a scarcity rise. The wheat of
+1821 was grown and bad. That of 1822 had to be begun upon in July. The
+crop has had to last thirteen months and a half. The present crop will
+have to last only eleven months, or less. The crop of barley, last year,
+was so very bad; so very small; and the crop of the year before so very
+bad in quality that wheat was malted, last year, in great quantities,
+instead of barley. This year, the crop of barley is prodigious. All
+these things considered wheat, if the cash-measures had had no effect,
+must have been a hundred and forty shillings a quarter, and barley
+eighty. Yet the first never got to seventy, and the latter never got to
+forty! And yet there was a man who calls himself a statesman to say that
+that mere puff of a rise satisfied him that the cash-measures had never
+had any effect! Ah! they are all _afraid_ to believe in the effect of
+those cash-measures: they tremble like children at the sight of the rod,
+when you hold up before them the effect of those cash-measures. Their
+only hope, is, that I am wrong in my opinions upon that subject;
+because, if I am right, their System is condemned to speedy destruction!
+
+I thus conclude, for the present, my remarks relative to the harvest and
+the price of corn. It is the great subject of the day; and the comfort
+is, that we are now speedily to see whether I be right or whether the
+Marquis of Lansdowne be right. As to the infamous London press, the
+moment the wheat comes down to forty shillings; that is to say, an
+average Government return of forty shillings, I will spend ten pounds in
+placarding this infamous press, after the manner in which we used to
+placard the base and detestable enemies of the QUEEN. This infamous
+press has been what is vulgarly called "running its rigs," for several
+months past. The _Quakers_ have been urging it on, under-handed. They
+have, I understand, been bribing it pretty deeply, in order to
+calumniate me, and to favour their own monopoly, but, thank God, the
+cunning knaves have outwitted themselves. They won't play at cards; but
+they will play at _Stocks_; they will play at Lottery Tickets, and they
+will play at Mark-lane. They have played a silly game, this time. Saint
+Swithin, that good old Roman Catholic Saint, seemed to have set a trap
+for them: he went on, wet, wet, wet, even until the harvest began. Then,
+after two or three days' sunshine, shocking wet again. The ground
+soaking, the wheat growing, and the "_Friends_;" the gentle Friends,
+seeking the Spirit, were as busy amongst the sacks at Mark-lane as the
+devil in a high wind. In short they bought away, with all the gain of
+Godliness, _and a little more_, before their eyes. All of a sudden,
+Saint Swithin took away his clouds; out came the sun; the wind got
+round to the east; just sun enough and just wind enough; and as the
+wheat ricks everywhere rose up, the long jaws of the Quakers dropped
+down; and their faces of slate became of a darker hue. That sect will
+certainly be punished, this year; and, let us hope, that such a change
+will take place in their concerns as will compel a part of them to
+labour, at any rate; for, at present, their sect is a perfect monster in
+society; a whole sect, not one man of whom earns his living by the sweat
+of his brow. A sect a great deal worse than the Jews; for some of them
+do work. However, GOD send us the easterly wind, for another fortnight,
+and we shall certainly see some of this sect at work.
+
+
+
+
+RURAL RIDE: FROM KENSINGTON, ACROSS SURREY, AND ALONG THAT COUNTY.
+
+
+_Reigate, Wednesday Evening, 19th October, 1825._
+
+Having some business at Hartswood, near Reigate, I intended to come off
+this morning on horseback, along with my son Richard, but it rained so
+furiously the last night, that we gave up the horse project for to-day,
+being, by appointment, to be at Reigate by ten o'clock to-day: so that
+we came off this morning at five o'clock, in a post-chaise, intending to
+return home and take our horses. Finding, however, that we cannot quit
+this place till Friday, we have now sent for our horses, though the
+weather is dreadfully wet. But we are under a farmhouse roof, and the
+wind may whistle and the rain fall as much as they like.
+
+
+_Reigate, Thursday Evening, 20th October._
+
+Having done my business at Hartswood to-day about eleven o'clock, I went
+to a sale at a farm, which the farmer is quitting. Here I had a view of
+what has long been going on all over the country. The farm, which
+belongs to _Christ's Hospital_, has been held by a man of the name of
+Charington, in whose family the lease has been, I hear, a great number
+of years. The house is hidden by trees. It stands in the Weald of
+Surrey, close by the _River Mole_, which is here a mere rivulet, though
+just below this house the rivulet supplies the very prettiest flour-mill
+I ever saw in my life.
+
+Everything about this farmhouse was formerly the scene of _plain
+manners_ and _plentiful living_. Oak clothes-chests, oak bedsteads, oak
+chests of drawers, and oak tables to eat on, long, strong, and well
+supplied with joint stools. Some of the things were many hundreds of
+years old. But all appeared to be in a state of decay and nearly of
+_disuse_. There appeared to have been hardly any _family_ in that house,
+where formerly there were, in all probability, from ten to fifteen men,
+boys, and maids: and, which was the worst of all, there was a _parlour_.
+Aye, and a _carpet_ and _bell-pull_ too! One end of the front of this
+once plain and substantial house had been moulded into a "_parlour_;"
+and there was the mahogany table, and the fine chairs, and the fine
+glass, and all as bare-faced upstart as any stock-jobber in the kingdom
+can boast of. And there were the decanters, the glasses, the
+"dinner-set" of crockery-ware, and all just in the true stock-jobber
+style. And I dare say it has been _'Squire_ Charington and the _Miss_
+Charington's; and not plain Master Charington, and his son Hodge, and
+his daughter Betty Charington, all of whom this accursed system has, in
+all likelihood, transmuted into a species of mock gentlefolks, while it
+has ground the labourers down into real slaves. Why do not farmers now
+_feed_ and _lodge_ their work-people, as they did formerly? Because they
+cannot keep them _upon so little_ as they give them in wages. This is
+the real cause of the change. There needs no more to prove that the lot
+of the working classes has become worse than it formerly was. This fact
+alone is quite sufficient to settle this point. All the world knows,
+that a number of people, boarded in the same house, and at the same
+table, can, with as good food, be boarded much cheaper than those
+persons divided into twos, threes, or fours, can be boarded. This is a
+well-known truth: therefore, if the farmer now shuts his pantry against
+his labourers, and pays them wholly in money, is it not clear, that he
+does it because he thereby gives them a living _cheaper_ to him; that is
+to say, a _worse_ living than formerly? Mind, he has _a house_ for them;
+a kitchen for them to sit in, bed rooms for them to sleep in, tables,
+and stools, and benches, of everlasting duration. All these he has: all
+these _cost him nothing_; and yet so much does he gain by pinching them
+in wages, that he lets all these things remain as of no use, rather than
+feed labourers in the house. Judge, then, of the _change_ that has taken
+place in the condition of these labourers! And be astonished, if you
+can, at the _pauperism_ and the _crimes_ that now disgrace this once
+happy and moral England.
+
+The land produces, on an average, what it always produced; but there is
+a new distribution of the produce. This 'Squire Charington's father
+used, I dare say, to sit at the head of the oak-table along with his
+men, say grace to them, and cut up the meat and the pudding. He might
+take a cup of _strong beer_ to himself, when they had none; but that was
+pretty nearly all the difference in their manner of living. So that
+_all_ lived well. But the _'Squire_ had many _wine-decanters_ and
+_wine-glasses_ and "a _dinner set_" and a "_breakfast set_," and
+"_desert knives_:" and these evidently imply carryings on and a
+consumption that must of necessity have greatly robbed the long oak
+table if it had remained fully tenanted. That long table could not share
+in the work of the decanters and the dinner set. Therefore, it became
+almost untenanted; the labourers retreated to hovels, called cottages;
+and, instead of board and lodging, they got money; so little of it as to
+enable the employer to drink wine; but, then, that he might not reduce
+them to _quite starvation_, they were enabled to come to him, in the
+_king's name_, and demand food _as paupers_. And, now, mind, that which
+a man receives in the _king's name_, he knows well he has _by force_;
+and it is not in nature that he should _thank_ anybody for it, and least
+of all the party _from whom it is forced_. Then, if this sort of force
+be insufficient to obtain him enough to eat and to keep him warm, is it
+surprising, if he think it no great offence against God (who created no
+man to starve) to use another sort of FORCE more within his own control?
+Is it, in short, surprising, if he resort to _theft_ and _robbery_?
+
+This is not only the _natural_ progress, but it _has been_ the progress
+in England. The blame is not justly imputed to 'Squire Charington and
+his like: the blame belongs to the infernal stock-jobbing system. There
+was no reason to expect, that farmers would not endeavour to keep pace,
+in point of show and luxury, with fund-holders, and with all the tribes
+that _war_ and _taxes_ created. Farmers were not the authors of the
+mischief; and _now_ they are compelled to shut the labourers out of
+their houses, and to pinch them in their wages in order to be able to
+pay their own taxes; and, besides this, the manners and the principles
+of the working class are so changed, that a sort of self-preservation
+bids the farmer (especially in some counties) to keep them from beneath
+his roof.
+
+I could not quit this farmhouse without reflecting on the thousands of
+scores of bacon and thousands of bushels of bread that had been eaten
+from the long oak-table which, I said to myself, is now perhaps, going
+at last, to the bottom of a bridge that some stock-jobber will stick up
+over an artificial river in his cockney garden. "_By ---- it shan't_,"
+said I, almost in a real passion: and so I requested a friend to buy it
+for me; and if he do so, I will take it to Kensington, or to
+Fleet-street, and keep it for the good it has done in the world.
+
+When the old farmhouses are down (and down they must come in time) what
+a miserable thing the country will be! Those that are now erected are
+mere painted shells, with a Mistress within, who is stuck up in a place
+she calls a _parlour_, with, if she have children, the "young ladies and
+gentlemen" about her: some showy chairs and a sofa (a _sofa_ by all
+means): half a dozen prints in gilt frames hanging up: some swinging
+book-shelves with novels and tracts upon them: a dinner brought in by a
+girl that is perhaps better "educated" than she: two or three nick-nacks
+to eat instead of a piece of bacon and a pudding: the house too neat for
+a dirty-shoed carter to be allowed to come into; and everything
+proclaiming to every sensible beholder, that there is here a constant
+anxiety to make a _show_ not warranted by the reality. The children
+(which is the worst part of it) are all too clever to _work_: they are
+all to be _gentlefolks_. Go to plough! Good God! What, "young gentlemen"
+go to plough! They become _clerks_, or some skimmy-dish thing or other.
+They flee from the dirty _work_ as cunning horses do from the bridle.
+What misery is all this! What a mass of materials for producing that
+general and _dreadful convulsion_ that must, first or last, come and
+blow this funding and jobbing and enslaving and starving system to
+atoms!
+
+I was going, to-day, by the side of a plat of ground, where there was a
+very fine flock of _turkeys_. I stopped to admire them, and observed to
+the owner how fine they were, when he answered, "We owe them entirely
+_to you_, Sir, for we never raised one till we read your _Cottage
+Economy_." I then told him, that we had, this year, raised two broods at
+Kensington, one black and one white, one of nine and one of eight; but,
+that, about three weeks back, they appeared to become dull and pale
+about the head; and, that, therefore, I sent them to a farmhouse, where
+they recovered instantly, and the broods being such a contrast to each
+other in point of colour, they were now, when prowling over a grass
+field amongst the most agreeable sights that I had ever seen. I intended
+of course, to let them get their full growth at Kensington, where they
+were in a grass plat about fifteen yards square, and where I thought
+that the feeding of them, in great abundance, with lettuces and other
+greens from the garden, together with grain, would carry them on to
+perfection. But I found that I was wrong; and that, though you may raise
+them to a certain size, in a small place and with such management, they
+then, if so much confined, begin to be sickly. Several of mine began
+actually to droop: and, the very day they were sent into the country,
+they became as gay as ever, and, in three days, all the colour about
+their heads came back to them.
+
+This town of Reigate had, in former times, a Priory, which had
+considerable estates in the neighbourhood; and this is brought to my
+recollection by a circumstance which has recently taken place in this
+very town. We all know how long it has been the fashion for us to take
+it for _granted_, that the monasteries were _bad things_; but, of late,
+I have made some hundreds of thousands of very good Protestants begin to
+suspect, that monasteries were better than _poor-rates_, and that monks
+and nuns, who _fed the poor_, were better than sinecure and pension men
+and women, who _feed upon the poor_. But, how came the monasteries! How
+came this that was at Reigate, for instance? Why, it was, if I recollect
+correctly, _founded by a Surrey gentleman_, who gave this spot and other
+estates to it, and who, as was usual, provided that masses were to be
+said in it for his soul and those of others, and that it should, as
+usual, give aid to the poor and needy.
+
+Now, upon the face of the transaction, what _harm_ could this do the
+community? On the contrary, it must, one would think, do it _good_; for
+here was this estate given to a set of landlords who never could quit
+the spot; who could have no families; who could save no money; who could
+hold no private property; who could make no will; who must spend all
+their income at Reigate and near it; who as was the custom, fed the
+poor, administered to the sick, and taught some, at least, of the
+people, _gratis_. This, upon the face of the thing, seems to be a very
+good way of disposing of a rich man's estate.
+
+"Aye, but," it is said, "he left his estate away from his relations."
+That is not _sure_, by any means. The contrary is fairly to be presumed.
+Doubtless, it was the custom for Catholic Priests, before they took
+their leave of a dying rich man, to advise him to think of the _Church
+and the Poor_; that is to say to exhort him to bequeath something to
+them; and this has been made a monstrous charge against that Church. It
+is surprising how blind men are, when they have a mind to be blind; what
+despicable dolts they are, when they desire to be cheated. We, of the
+Church of England, must have a special deal of good sense and of
+modesty, to be sure, to rail against the Catholic Church on this
+account, when our Common Prayer Book, copied from an Act of Parliament,
+_commands our Parsons to do just the same thing_!
+
+Ah! say the Dissenters, and particularly the Unitarians; that queer
+sect, who will have all the wisdom in the world to themselves; who will
+believe and won't believe; who will be Christians and who won't have a
+_Christ_; who will laugh at you, if you believe in the Trinity, and who
+would (if they could) boil you in oil if you do not believe in the
+Resurrection: "Oh!" say the Dissenters, "we know very well, that your
+_Church Parsons_ are commanded to get, if they can, dying people to
+give their money and estates to the Church and _the poor_, as they call
+the concern, though the _poor_, we believe, come in for very little
+which is got in this way. But what is _your Church_? We are the real
+Christians; and we, upon our souls, never play such tricks; never, no
+never, terrify old women out of their stockings full of guineas." "And,
+as to us," say the Unitarians, "we, the most _liberal_ creatures upon
+earth; we, whose virtue is indignant at the tricks by which the Monks
+and Nuns got legacies from dying people to the injury of heirs and other
+relations; we, who are the really enlightened, the truly consistent, the
+benevolent, the disinterested, the exclusive patentees of the _salt of
+the earth_, which is sold only at, or by express permission from our old
+and original warehouse and manufactory, Essex-street, in the Strand,
+first street on the left, going from Temple Bar towards Charing Cross;
+we defy you to show that Unitarian Parsons...."
+
+Stop your protestations and hear my Reigate anecdote, which, as I said
+above, brought the recollection of the Old Priory into my head. The
+readers of the Register heard me, several times, some years ago, mention
+Mr. Baron Maseres, who was, for a great many years, what they call
+Cursitor Baron of the Exchequer. He lived partly in London and partly at
+Reigate, for more, I believe, than half a century; and he died, about
+two years ago, or less, leaving, I am told, _more than a quarter of a
+million of money_. The Baron came to see me, in Pall Mall, in 1800. He
+always came frequently to see me, wherever I was in London; not by any
+means omitting to _come to see me in Newgate_, where I was imprisoned
+for two years, with a thousand pounds fine and seven years heavy bail,
+for having expressed my indignation at the flogging of Englishmen, in
+the heart of England, under a guard of German bayonets; and to Newgate
+he always came in _his wig and gown_, in order, as he said, to show his
+abhorrence of the sentence. I several times passed a week, or more, with
+the Baron at his house, at Reigate, and might have passed many more, if
+my time and taste would have permitted me to accept of his invitations.
+Therefore, I knew the Baron well. He was a most conscientious man; he
+was when I first knew him, still a very clever man; he retained all his
+faculties to a very great age; in 1815, I think it was, I got a letter
+from him, written in a firm hand, correctly as to grammar, and ably as
+to matter, and he must then have been little short of ninety. He never
+was a bright man; but had always been a very sensible, just and humane
+man, and a man too who always cared a great deal for the public good;
+and he was the only man that I ever heard of, who refused to have his
+salary augmented, when an augmentation was offered, and when all other
+such salaries were augmented. I had heard of this: I asked him about it
+when I saw him again; and he said: "There was no _work_ to be added, and
+I saw no justice in adding to the salary. It must," added he, "be _paid
+by somebody_, and the more I take, the less that somebody must have."
+
+He did not save money for money's sake. He saved it because his habits
+would not let him spend it. He kept a house in Rathbone Place, chambers
+in the Temple, and his very pretty place at Reigate. He was by no means
+stingy, but his scale and habits were cheap. Then, consider, too, a
+bachelor of nearly a hundred years old. His father left him a fortune,
+his brother (who also died a very old bachelor), left him another; and
+the money lay in the funds, and it went on doubling itself over and over
+again, till it became that immense mass which we have seen above, and
+which, when the Baron was making his will, he had neither Catholic
+priest nor Protestant parson to exhort him to leave to the church and
+the poor, instead of his relations; though, as we shall presently see,
+he had somebody else to whom to leave his great heap of money.
+
+The Baron was a most implacable enemy of the Catholics, as Catholics.
+There was rather a peculiar reason for this, his grand-father having
+been a _French Hugonot_ and having fled with his children to England, at
+the time of the revocation of the Edict of Nantz. The Baron was a very
+humane man; his humanity made him assist to support the French emigrant
+priests; but, at the same time, he caused Sir Richard Musgrave's book
+against the Irish Catholics to be published at his own expense. He and I
+never agreed upon this subject; and this subject was, with him, a
+_vital_ one. He had no asperity in his nature; he was naturally all
+gentleness and benevolence; and, therefore, he never _resented_ what I
+said to him on this subject (and which nobody else ever, I believe,
+ventured to say to him): but he did not like it; and he liked it less
+because I certainly beat him in the argument. However, this was long
+before he visited me in Newgate: and it never produced (though the
+dispute was frequently revived) any difference in his conduct towards
+me, which was uniformly friendly to the last time I saw him before his
+memory was gone.
+
+There was great excuse for the Baron. From his very birth he had been
+taught to hate and abhor the Catholic religion. He had been told, that
+his father and mother had been driven out of France by the Catholics:
+and there was _that mother_ dinning this in his ears, and all manner of
+horrible stories along with it, during all the tender years of his life.
+In short, the prejudice made part of his very frame. In the year 1803,
+in August, I think it was, I had gone down to his house on a Friday,
+and was there on a Sunday. After dinner he and I and his brother walked
+to the Priory, as is still called the mansion house, in the dell at
+Reigate, which is now occupied by Lord Eastnor, and in which a Mr.
+Birket, I think, then lived. After coming away from the Priory, the
+Baron (whose native place was Betchworth, about two or three miles from
+Reigate) who knew the history of every house and every thing else in
+this part of the country, began to tell me why the place was called _the
+Priory_. From this he came to the _superstition_ and _dark ignorance_
+that induced people to found monasteries; and he dwelt particularly on
+the _injustice to heirs and relations_; and he went on, in the usual
+Protestant strain, and with all the bitterness of which he was capable,
+against those _crafty priests_, who thus _plundered families_ by means
+of the influence which they had over people in their dotage, or who were
+naturally weak-minded.
+
+Alas! poor Baron! he does not seem to have at all foreseen what was to
+become of his own money! What would he have said to me, if I had
+answered his observations by predicting, that _he_ would give his great
+mass of money to a little parson for that parson's own private use;
+leave only a mere pittance to his own relations; leave the little parson
+his house in which we were then sitting (along with all his other real
+property); that the little parson would come into the house and take
+possession; and that his own relations (two nieces) would walk out! Yet,
+all this has actually taken place, and that, too, after the poor old
+Baron's four score years of jokes about the tricks of _Popish_ priests,
+practised, in the _dark ages_, upon the _ignorant_ and _superstitious_
+people of Reigate.
+
+When I first knew the Baron he was a staunch _Church of England man_. He
+went to church every Sunday once, at least. He used to take me to
+Reigate church; and I observed, that he was very well versed in his
+prayer book. But a decisive proof of his zeal as a Church of England man
+is, that he settled an annual sum on the incumbent of Reigate, in order
+to induce him to preach, or pray (I forget which), in the church, twice
+on a Sunday, instead of once; and, in case this additional preaching, or
+praying, were not performed in Reigate church, the annuity was to go
+(and sometimes it does now go) to the poor of an adjoining parish, and
+not to those of Reigate, lest I suppose, the parson, the overseers, and
+other rate-payers, might happen to think that the Baron's annuity would
+be better laid out in food for the bodies than for the souls of the
+poor; or, in other words, lest the money should be taken annually and
+added to the poor-rates to ease the purses of the farmers.
+
+It did not, I dare say, occur to the poor Baron (when he was making
+this settlement), that he was now giving money to make a church parson
+put up additional prayers, though he had, all his lifetime, been
+laughing at those, who, in the _dark_ ages, gave money, for this
+purpose, to Catholic priests. Nor did it, I dare say, occur, to the
+Baron, that, in his contingent settlement of the annuity on the poor of
+an adjoining parish, he as good as declared his opinion, that he
+distrusted the piety of the parson, the overseers, the churchwardens,
+and, indeed, of all the people of Reigate: yes, at the very moment that
+he was providing additional prayers for them, he in the very same
+parchment, put a provision, which clearly showed that he was thoroughly
+convinced that they, overseers, churchwardens, people, parson and all,
+loved money better than prayers.
+
+What was this, then? Was it hypocrisy; was it ostentation? No: mistake.
+The Baron thought that those who could not go to church in the morning
+ought to have an opportunity of going in the afternoon. He was aware of
+the power of money; but, when he came to make his obligatory clause, he
+was compelled to do that which reflected great discredit on the very
+church and religion, which it was his object to honour and uphold.
+
+However, the Baron _was_ a staunch churchman as this fact clearly
+proves: several years he had become what they call an _Unitarian_. The
+first time (I think) that I perceived this, was in 1812. He came to see
+me in Newgate, and he soon began to talk about _religion_, which had not
+been much his habit. He went on at a great rate, laughing about the
+Trinity; and I remember that he repeated the Unitarian distich, which
+makes _a joke_ of the idea of there being a devil, and which they all
+repeat to you, and at the same time laugh and look as cunning and as
+priggish as Jack-daws; just as if they were wiser than all the rest of
+the world! I hate to hear the conceited and disgusting prigs, seeming to
+take it for granted, that they only are wise, because others _believe_
+in the incarnation, without being able to reconcile it to _reason_. The
+prigs don't consider, that there is no more _reason_ for the
+_resurrection_ than for the _incarnation_; and yet having taken it into
+their heads to _come up again_, they would murder you, if they dared, if
+you were to deny the _resurrection_. I do most heartily despise this
+priggish set for their conceit and impudence; but, seeing that they want
+_reason_ for the incarnation; seeing that they will have _effects_,
+here, ascribed to none but _usual causes_, let me put a question or two
+to them.
+
+     1. _Whence_ comes the _white clover_, that comes up and covers all
+     the ground, in America, where hard-wood trees, after standing for
+     thousands of years, have been burnt down?
+
+     2. _Whence_ come (in similar cases as to self-woods) the
+     hurtleberries in some places, and the raspberries in others?
+
+     3. _Whence_ come fish in new made places where no fish have ever
+     been put?
+
+     4. _What causes_ horse-hair to become living things?
+
+     5. _What causes_ frogs to come in drops of rain, or those drops of
+     rain to turn to frogs, the moment they are on the earth?
+
+     6. _What causes_ musquitoes to come in rain water caught in a
+     glass, covered over immediately with oil paper, tied down and so
+     kept till full of these winged torments?
+
+     7. _What causes_ flounders, real little _flat fish_, brown on one
+     side, white on the other, mouth side-ways, with tail, fins, and
+     all, _leaping alive_, in the _inside_ of a rotten sheep's, and of
+     every rotten sheep's, _liver_?
+
+There, prigs; answer these questions. Fifty might be given you; but
+these are enough. Answer these. I suppose you will not deny the facts?
+They are all notoriously true. The _last_, which of itself would be
+quite enough for you, will be attested on oath, if you like it, by any
+farmer, ploughman, and shepherd, in England. Answer this question 7, or
+hold your conceited gabble about the "_impossibility_" of that which I
+need not here name.
+
+Men of sense do not attempt to discover that which it is _impossible_ to
+discover. They leave things pretty much as they find them; and take
+care, at least, not to make changes of any sort, without very evident
+necessity. The poor Baron, however, appeared to be quite eaten up with
+his "_rational_ Christianity." He talked like a man who has made a
+_discovery_ of his _own_. He seemed as pleased as I, when I was a boy,
+used to be, when I had just found a rabbit's stop, or a black-bird's
+nest full of young ones. I do not recollect what I said upon this
+occasion. It is most likely that I said nothing in contradiction to him.
+I saw the Baron many times after this, but I never talked with him about
+religion.
+
+Before the summer of 1822, I had not seen him for a year or two,
+perhaps. But, in July of that year, on a very hot day, I was going down
+Rathbone Place, and, happening to cast my eye on the Baron's house, I
+knocked at the door to ask how he was. His man servant came to the door,
+and told me that his master was at dinner. "Well," said I, "never mind;
+give my best respects to him." But the servant (who had always been with
+him since I knew him) begged me to come in, for that he was sure his
+master would be glad to see me. I thought, as it was likely that I might
+never see him again, I would go in. The servant announced me, and the
+Baron said, "Beg him to walk in." In I went, and there I found the Baron
+at dinner; but _not quite alone_; nor without _spiritual_ as well as
+carnal and vegetable nourishment before him: for, there, on the opposite
+side of his _vis-a-vis_ dining table, sat that nice, neat, straight,
+prim piece of mortality, commonly called the Reverend Robert Fellowes,
+who was the Chaplain to the unfortunate Queen until Mr. Alderman Wood's
+son came to supply his place, and who was now, I could clearly see, in a
+fair way enough. I had dined, and so I let them dine on. The Baron was
+become quite a child, or worse, as to mind, though he ate as heartily as
+I ever saw him, and he was always a great eater. When his servant said,
+"Here is Mr. Cobbett, Sir;" he said, "How do you do, Sir? I have read
+much of your writings, Sir; but _never had the pleasure to see your
+person before_." After a time I made him recollect me; but he, directly
+after, being about to relate something about America, turned towards me,
+and said, "_Were you ever in America_, Sir?" But I must mention one
+proof of the state of his mind. Mr. Fellowes asked me about the news
+from Ireland, where the people were then in a state of starvation
+(1822), and I answering that, it was likely that many of them would
+actually be starved to death, the Baron, quitting his green goose and
+green pease, turned to me and said, "_Starved_, Sir! Why don't they go
+to _the parish_?" "Why," said I, "you know, Sir, that there are no
+poor-rates in Ireland." Upon this he exclaimed, "What! no poor-rates in
+Ireland! Why not? I did not know that; I can't think how that can be."
+And then he rambled on in a childish sort of way.
+
+At the end of about half an hour, or, it might be more, I shook hands
+with the poor old Baron for the last time, well convinced that I should
+never see him again, and not less convinced, that I had seen his _heir_.
+He died in about a year or so afterwards, left to his own family about
+20,000_l._, and to his ghostly guide, the Holy Robert Fellowes, all the
+rest of his immense fortune, which, as I have been told, amounts to more
+than a quarter of a million of money.
+
+Now, the public will recollect that, while Mr. Fellowes was at the
+Queen's, he was, in the public papers, charged with being an
+_Unitarian_, at the same time that he officiated _as her chaplain_. It
+is also well known, that he never publicly contradicted this. It is,
+besides, the general belief at Reigate. However, this we know well, that
+he is a parson, of one sort or the other, and that he is not a Catholic
+priest. That is enough for me. I see this poor, foolish old man leaving
+a monstrous mass of money to this little Protestant parson, whom he had
+not even known more, I believe, than about three or four years. When the
+will was made I cannot say. I know nothing at all about that. I am
+supposing that all was perfectly fair; that the Baron had his senses
+when he made his will; that he clearly meant to do that which he did.
+But, then, I must insist, that, if he had left the money to a _Catholic
+priest_, to be by him expended on the endowment of a convent, wherein to
+say masses and to feed and teach the poor, it would have been a more
+sensible and public-spirited part in the Baron, much more beneficial to
+the town and environs of Reigate, and beyond all measure more honourable
+to his own memory.
+
+
+_Chilworth, Friday Evening, 21st Oct._
+
+It has been very fine to-day. Yesterday morning there was _snow_ on
+Reigate Hill, enough to look white from where we were in the valley. We
+set off about half-past one o'clock, and came all down the valley,
+through Buckland, Betchworth, Dorking, Sheer and Aldbury, to this place.
+Very few prettier rides in England, and the weather beautifully fine.
+There are more meeting-houses than churches in the vale, and I have
+heard of no less than five people, in this vale, who have gone crazy on
+account of religion.
+
+To-morrow we intend to move on towards the West; to take a look, just a
+look, at the Hampshire Parsons again. The turnips seem fine; but they
+cannot be large. All other things are very fine indeed. Everything seems
+to prognosticate a hard winter. All the country people say that it will
+be so.
+
+
+
+
+RIDE: FROM CHILWORTH, IN SURREY, TO WINCHESTER.
+
+
+_Thursley, four miles from Godalming, Surrey, Sunday Evening, 23rd
+October, 1825._
+
+We set out from Chilworth to-day about noon. This is a little hamlet,
+lying under the South side of St. Martha's Hill; and, on the other side
+of that hill, a little to the North West, is the town of Guilford, which
+(taken with its environs) I, who have seen so many, many towns, think
+the prettiest, and, taken, all together, the most agreeable and most
+happy-looking, that I ever saw in my life. Here are hill and dell in
+endless variety. Here are the chalk and the sand, vieing with each other
+in making beautiful scenes. Here is a navigable river and fine meadows.
+Here are woods and downs. Here is something of everything but _fat
+marshes_ and their skeleton-making _agues_. The vale, all the way down
+to Chilworth from Reigate, is very delightful.
+
+We did not go to Guildford, nor did we cross the _River Wey_, to come
+through Godalming; but bore away to our left, and came through the
+village of Hambleton, going first to Hascomb, to show Richard the South
+Downs from that high land, which looks Southward over the _Wealds_ of
+Surrey and Sussex, with all their fine and innumerable oak trees. Those
+that travel on turnpike roads know nothing of England.--From Hascomb to
+Thursley almost the whole way is across fields, or commons, or along
+narrow lands. Here we see the people without any disguise or
+affectation. Against a _great road_ things are made for _show_. Here we
+see them _without any show_. And here we gain real knowledge as to their
+situation.--We crossed to-day, three turnpike roads, that from Guildford
+to Horsham, that from Godalming to Worthing, I believe, and that from
+Godalming to Chichester.
+
+
+_Thursley, Wednesday, 26th Oct._
+
+The weather has been beautiful ever since last Thursday morning; but
+there has been a white frost every morning, and the days have been
+coldish. _Here_, however, I am quite at home in a room, where there is
+one of my _American Fire Places_, bought, by my host, of Mr. Judson of
+Kensington, who has made many a score of families comfortable, instead
+of sitting shivering in the cold. At the house of the gentleman, whose
+house I am now in, there is a good deal of _fuel-wood_; and here I see
+in the parlours, those fine and cheerful fires that make a great part of
+the happiness of the Americans. But these fires are to be had only in
+this sort of fire-place. Ten times the fuel; nay, no quantity, would
+effect the same object, in any other fire-place. It is equally good for
+coal as for wood; but, for _pleasure_, a wood-fire is the thing. There
+is, round about almost every gentleman's or great farmer's house, more
+wood suffered to rot every year, in one shape or another, than would
+make (with this fire-place) a couple of rooms constantly warm, from
+October to June. _Here_, peat, turf, saw-dust, and wood, are burnt in
+these fire-places. My present host has three of the fire-places.
+
+Being out a-coursing to-day, I saw a queer-looking building upon one of
+the thousands of hills that nature has tossed up in endless variety of
+form round the skirts of the lofty Hindhead. This building is, it seems,
+called a _Semaphore_, or _Semiphare_, or something of that sort. What
+this word may have been hatched out of I cannot say; but it means _a
+job_, I am sure. To call it an _alarm-post_ would not have been so
+convenient; for people not endued with Scotch _intellect_ might have
+wondered why the devil we should have to pay for alarm-posts; and might
+have thought, that, with all our "glorious victories," we had "brought
+our hogs to a fine market," if our dread of the enemy were such as to
+induce us to have alarm-posts all over the country! Such unintellectual
+people might have thought that we had "conquered France by the immortal
+Wellington," to little purpose, if we were still in such fear as to
+build alarm-posts; and they might, in addition, have observed, that, for
+many hundred of years, England stood in need of neither signal posts nor
+standing army of mercenaries; but relied safely on the courage and
+public spirit of the people themselves. By calling the thing by an
+outlandish name, these reflections amongst the unintellectual are
+obviated. _Alarm-post_ would be a nasty name; and it would puzzle people
+exceedingly, when they saw one of these at a place like Ashe, a little
+village on the north side of the chalk-ridge (called the Hog's Back)
+going from Guildford to Farnham. What can this be _for_? Why are these
+expensive things put up all over the country? Respecting the movements
+of _whom_ is wanted this _alarm-system_? Will no member ask this in
+Parliament? Not one: not a man: and yet it is a thing to ask about. Ah!
+it is in vain, THING, that you thus are _making your preparations_; in
+vain that you are setting your trammels! The DEBT, the blessed debt,
+that best ally of the people, will break them all; will snap them, as
+the hornet does the cobweb; and, even these very "Semaphores,"
+contribute towards the force of that ever-blessed debt. Curious to see
+how things _work_! The "glorious revolution," which was made for the
+avowed purpose of maintaining the Protestant ascendancy, and which was
+followed by such terrible persecution of the Catholics; that "glorious"
+affair, which set aside a race of kings, because they were Catholics,
+served as the _precedent_ for the American revolution, also called
+"glorious," and this second revolution compelled the successors of the
+makers of the first, to begin to cease their persecutions of the
+Catholics! Then, again, the debt was made to raise and keep armies on
+foot to prevent reform of Parliament, because, as it was feared by the
+Aristocracy, reform would have humbled them; and this debt, created for
+this purpose, is fast sweeping the Aristocracy out of their estates, as
+a clown, with his foot, kicks field-mice out of their nests. There was a
+hope, that the debt could have been reduced by stealth, as it were; that
+the Aristocracy could have been saved in this way. That hope now no
+longer exists. In all likelihood the funds will keep going down. What is
+to prevent this, if the interest of Exchequer Bills be raised, as the
+broad sheet tells us it is to be? What! the funds fall in time of peace;
+and the French funds not fall, in time of peace! However, it will all
+happen just as it ought to happen. Even the next session of Parliament
+will bring out matters of some interest. The thing is now working in the
+surest possible way.
+
+The great business of life, in the country, appertains, in some way or
+other, to the _game_, and especially at this time of the year. If it
+were not for the game, a country life would be like an _everlasting
+honey-moon_, which would, in about half a century, put an end to the
+human race. In towns, or large villages, people make a shift to find the
+means of rubbing the rust off from each other by a vast variety of
+sources of contest. A couple of wives meeting in the street, and giving
+each other a wry look, or a look not quite civil enough, will, if the
+parties be hard pushed for a ground of contention, do pretty well. But
+in the country, there is, alas! no such resource. Here are no walls for
+people to take of each other. Here they are so placed as to prevent the
+possibility of such lucky local contact. Here is more than room of every
+sort, elbow, leg, horse, or carriage, for them all. Even _at Church_
+(most of the people being in the meeting-houses) the pews are
+surprisingly too large. Here, therefore, where all circumstances seem
+calculated to cause never-ceasing concord with its accompanying
+dullness, there would be no relief at all, were it not for the _game_.
+This, happily, supplies the place of all other sources of alternate
+dispute and reconciliation; it keeps all in life and motion, from the
+lord down to the hedger. When I see two men, whether in a market-room,
+by the way-side, in a parlour, in a church-yard, or even in the church
+itself, engaged in manifestly deep and most momentous discourse, I will,
+if it be any time between September and February, bet ten to one, that
+it is, in some way or other, about _the game_. The wives and daughters
+hear so much of it, that they inevitably get engaged in the disputes;
+and thus all are kept in a state of vivid animation. I should like very
+much to be able to take a spot, a circle of 12 miles in diameter, and
+take an exact account of all the _time_ spent by each individual, above
+the age of ten (that is the age they begin at), in talking, during the
+game season of one year, about the game and about sporting exploits. I
+verily believe that it would amount, upon an average, to six times as
+much as all the other talk put together; and, as to the anger, the
+satisfaction, the scolding, the commendation, the chagrin, the
+exultation, the envy, the emulation, where are there any of these in the
+country, unconnected with _the game_?
+
+There is, however, an important distinction to be made between _hunters_
+(including coursers) and _shooters_. The latter are, as far as relates
+to their exploits, a disagreeable class, compared with the former; and
+the reason of this is, their doings are almost wholly their own; while,
+in the case of the others, the achievements are the property of the
+dogs. Nobody likes to hear another talk _much_ in praise of his own
+acts, unless those acts have a manifest tendency to produce some good to
+the hearer; and shooters do talk _much_ of their own exploits, and those
+exploits rather tend to _humiliate_ the hearer. Then, a _great shooter_
+will, nine times out of ten, go so far as almost to _lie a little_; and,
+though people do not tell him of it, they do not like him the better for
+it; and he but too frequently discovers that they do not believe him:
+whereas, hunters are mere followers of the dogs, as mere spectators;
+their praises, if any are called for, are bestowed on the greyhounds,
+the hounds, the fox, the hare, or the horses. There is a little
+rivalship in the riding, or in the behaviour of the horses; but this has
+so little to do with the personal merit of the sportsmen, that it never
+produces a want of good fellowship in the evening of the day. A shooter
+who has been _missing_ all day, must have an uncommon share of good
+sense, not to feel mortified while the slaughterers are relating the
+adventures of that day; and this is what cannot exist in the case of the
+hunters. Bring me into a room, with a dozen men in it, who have been
+sporting all day; or, rather let me be in an adjoining room, where I can
+hear the sound of their voices, without being able to distinguish the
+words, and I will bet ten to one that I tell whether they be hunters or
+shooters.
+
+I was once acquainted with a _famous shooter_ whose name was William
+Ewing. He was a barrister of Philadelphia, but became far more renowned
+by his gun than by his law cases. We spent scores of days together
+a-shooting, and were extremely well matched, I having excellent dogs and
+caring little about my reputation as a shot, his dogs being good for
+nothing, and he caring more about his reputation as a shot than as a
+lawyer. The fact which I am going to relate respecting this gentleman,
+ought to be a warning to young men, how they become enamoured of this
+species of vanity. We had gone about ten miles from our home, to shoot
+where partridges were said to be very plentiful. We found them so. In
+the course of a November day, he had, just before dark, shot, and sent
+to the farmhouse, or kept in his bag, _ninety-nine_ partridges. He made
+some few _double shots_, and he might have a _miss_ or two, for he
+sometimes shot when out of my sight, on account of the woods. However,
+he said that he killed at every shot; and, as he had counted the birds,
+when we went to dinner at the farmhouse and when he cleaned his gun, he,
+just before sun-set, knew that he had killed _ninety-nine_ partridges,
+every one upon the wing, and a great part of them in woods very thickly
+set with largish trees. It was a grand achievement; but, unfortunately,
+he wanted to make it _a hundred_. The sun was setting, and, in that
+country, darkness comes almost at once; it is more like the going out
+of a candle than that of a fire; and I wanted to be off, as we had a
+very bad road to go, and as he, being under strict petticoat government,
+to which he most loyally and dutifully submitted, was compelled to get
+home that night, taking me with him, the vehicle (horse and gig) being
+mine. I, therefore, pressed him to come away, and moved on myself
+towards the house (that of old John Brown, in Bucks county, grandfather
+of that General Brown, who gave some of our whiskered heroes such a
+rough handling last war, which was waged for the purpose of "deposing
+James Madison"), at which house I would have stayed all night, but from
+which I was compelled to go by that watchful government, under which he
+had the good fortune to live. Therefore I was in haste to be off. No: he
+would kill the _hundredth_ bird! In vain did I talk of the bad road and
+its many dangers for want of moon. The poor partridges, which we had
+scattered about, were _calling_ all around us; and, just at this moment,
+up got one under his feet, in a field in which the wheat was three or
+four inches high. He shot and _missed_. "That's it," said he, running as
+if to _pick up_ the bird. "What!" said I, "you don't think you _killed_,
+do you? Why there is the bird now, not only alive, but _calling_ in that
+wood;" which was at about a hundred yards distance. He, in that _form of
+words_ usually employed in such cases, asserted that he shot the bird
+and saw it fall; and I, in much about the same form of words, asserted,
+that he had _missed_, and that I, with my own eyes, saw the bird fly
+into the wood. This was too much! To _miss_ once out of a hundred times!
+To lose such a chance of immortality! He was a good-humoured man; I
+liked him very much; and I could not help feeling for him, when he said,
+"Well, _Sir_, I killed the bird; and if you choose to go away and take
+your dog away, so as to prevent me from _finding_ it, you must do it;
+the dog is _yours_, to be sure." "The _dog_," said I, in a very mild
+tone, "why, Ewing, there is the spot; and could we not see it, upon this
+smooth green surface, if it were there?" However, he began to _look
+about_; and I called the dog, and affected to join him in the search.
+Pity for his weakness got the better of my dread of the bad road. After
+walking backward and forward many times upon about twenty yards square
+with our eyes to the ground, looking for what both of us knew was not
+there, I had passed him (he going one way and I the other), and I
+happened to be turning round just after I had passed him, when I saw
+him, putting his hand behind him, _take a partridge out of his bag and
+let it fall upon the ground_! I felt no temptation to detect him, but
+turned away my head, and kept looking about. Presently he, having
+returned to the spot where the bird was, called out to me, in a most
+triumphant tone; "_Here! here!_ Come here!" I went up to him, and he,
+pointing with his finger down to the bird, and looking hard in my face
+at the same time, said, "There, Cobbett; I hope that will be a _warning_
+to you never to be obstinate again"! "Well," said I, "come along:" and
+away we went as merry as larks. When we got to Brown's, he told them the
+story, triumphed over me most clamorously; and, though he often repeated
+the story to my face, I never had the heart to let him know, that I knew
+of the imposition, which puerile vanity had induced so sensible and
+honourable a man to be mean enough to practise.
+
+A _professed shot_ is, almost always, a very disagreeable brother
+sportsman. He must, in the first place, have a head rather of the
+emptiest to _pride himself_ upon so poor a talent. Then he is always out
+of temper, if the game fail, or if he miss it. He never participates in
+that great delight which all sensible men enjoy at beholding the
+beautiful action, the docility, the zeal, the wonderful sagacity of the
+pointer and the setter. He is always thinking about _himself_; always
+anxious to surpass his companions. I remember that, once, Ewing and I
+had lost our dog. We were in a wood, and the dog had gone out, and found
+a covey in a wheat stubble joining the wood. We had been whistling and
+calling him for, perhaps, half an hour, or more. When we came out of the
+wood we saw him pointing, with one foot up; and, soon after, he, keeping
+his foot and body unmoved, gently turned round his head towards the spot
+where he heard us, as if to bid us come on, and, when he saw that we saw
+him, turned his head back again. I was so delighted, that I stopped to
+look with admiration. Ewing, astonished at my want of alacrity, pushed
+on, shot one of the partridges, and thought no more about the conduct of
+the dog than if the sagacious creature had had nothing at all to do with
+the matter. When I left America, in 1800, I gave this dog to Lord Henry
+Stuart, who was, when he came home, a year or two afterwards, about to
+bring him to astonish the sportsmen even in England; but those of
+Pennsylvania were resolved not to part with him, and, therefore they
+_stole_ him the night before his Lordship came away. Lord Henry had
+plenty of pointers after his return, and he _saw_ hundreds; but always
+declared, that he never saw any thing approaching in excellence this
+American dog. For the information of sportsmen I ought to say, that this
+was a small-headed and sharp-nosed pointer, hair as fine as that of a
+greyhound, little and short ears, very light in the body, very long
+legged, and swift as a good lurcher. I had him a puppy, and he never had
+any _breaking_, but he pointed staunchly at once; and I am of opinion,
+that this sort is, in all respects, better than the heavy breed. Mr.
+Thornton, (I beg his pardon, I believe he is now a Knight of some sort)
+who was, and perhaps still is, our Envoy in Portugal, at the time here
+referred to was a sort of partner with Lord Henry in this famous dog;
+and gratitude (to the memory of _the dog_ I mean), will, I am sure, or,
+at least, I hope so, make him bear witness to the truth of my character
+of him; and, if one could hear an Ambassador _speak out_, I think that
+Mr. Thornton would acknowledge, that his calling has brought him in
+pretty close contact with many a man who was possessed of most
+tremendous political power, without possessing half the sagacity, half
+the understanding, of this dog, and without being a thousandth part so
+faithful to his trust.
+
+I am quite satisfied, that there are as many _sorts_ of men as there are
+of dogs. Swift was a man, and so is Walter the base. But is the _sort_
+the same? It cannot be _education_ alone that makes the amazing
+difference that we see. Besides, we see men of the very same rank and
+riches and education, differing as widely as the pointer does from the
+pug. The name, _man_, is common to all the sorts, and hence arises very
+great mischief. What confusion must there be in rural affairs, if there
+were no names whereby to distinguish hounds, greyhounds, pointers,
+spaniels, terriers, and sheep dogs, from each other! And, what pretty
+work, if, without regard to the _sorts_ of dogs, men were to attempt to
+_employ them_! Yet, this is done in the case of _men_! A man is always
+_a man_; and, without the least regard as to the _sort_, they are
+promiscuously placed in all kinds of situations. Now, if Mr. Brougham,
+Doctors Birkbeck, Macculloch and Black, and that profound personage,
+Lord John Russell, will, in their forth-coming "London University,"
+teach us how to divide men _into sorts_, instead of teaching us to
+"augment the capital of the nation," by making paper-money, they will
+render us a real service. That will be _feelosofy_ worth attending to.
+What would be said of the 'Squire who should take a fox-hound out to
+find partridges for him to shoot at? Yet, would this be _more_ absurd
+than to set a man to law-making who was manifestly formed for the
+express purpose of sweeping the streets or digging out sewers?
+
+
+_Farnham, Surrey, Thursday, Oct. 27th._
+
+We came over the heath from Thursley, this morning, on our way to
+Winchester. Mr. Wyndham's fox-hounds are coming to Thursley on Saturday.
+More than three-fourths of all the interesting talk in that neighbourhood,
+for some days past, has been about this anxiously-looked-for event. I
+have seen no man, or boy, who did not talk about it. There had been a
+false report about it; the hounds did _not come_; and the anger of the
+disappointed people was very great. At last, however, the _authentic_
+intelligence came, and I left them all as happy as if all were young and
+all just going to be married. An abatement of my pleasure, however, on
+this joyous occasion was, that I brought away with me _one_, who was as
+eager as the best of them. Richard, though now only 11 years and 6
+months old, had, it seems, one fox-hunt, in Herefordshire, last winter;
+and he actually has begun to talk rather _contemptuously_ of hare
+hunting. To show me that he is in no _danger_, he has been leaping his
+horse over banks and ditches by the road side, all our way across the
+country from Reigate; and he joined with such glee in talking of the
+expected arrival of the fox-hounds, that I felt some little pain at
+bringing him away. My engagement at Winchester is for Saturday; but, if
+it had not been so, the deep and hidden ruts in the heath, in a wood in
+the midst of which the hounds are sure to find, and the immense
+concourse of horsemen that is sure to be assembled, would have made me
+bring him away. Upon the high, hard and open countries, I should not be
+afraid for him; but here the danger would have been greater than it
+would have been right for me to suffer him to run.
+
+We came hither by the way of Waverley Abbey and Moore Park. On the
+commons I showed Richard some of my old hunting scenes, when I was of
+his age, or younger, reminding him that I was obliged to hunt on foot.
+We got leave to go and see the grounds at Waverley, where all the old
+monks' garden walls are totally gone, and where the spot is become a
+sort of lawn. I showed him the spot where the strawberry garden was, and
+where I, when sent to gather _hautboys_, used to eat every remarkably
+fine one, instead of letting it go to be eaten by Sir Robert Rich. I
+showed him a tree, close by the ruins of the Abbey, from a limb of which
+I once fell into the river, in an attempt to take the nest of a _crow_,
+which had artfully placed it upon a branch so far from the trunk as not
+to be able to bear the weight of a boy eight years old. I showed him an
+old elm tree, which was hollow even then, into which I, when a very
+little boy, once saw a cat go, that was as big as a middle-sized spaniel
+dog, for relating which I got a great scolding, for standing to which I,
+at last, got a beating; but stand to which I still did. I have since
+many times repeated it; and I would take my oath of it to this day. When
+in New Brunswick I saw the great wild grey cat, which is there called a
+_Lucifee_; and it seemed to me to be just such a cat as I had seen at
+Waverley. I found the ruins not very greatly diminished; but it is
+strange how small the mansion, and ground, and everything but the trees,
+appeared to me. They were all great to my mind when I saw them last; and
+that early impression had remained, whenever I had talked or thought,
+of the spot; so that, when I came to see them again, after seeing the
+sea and so many other immense things, it seemed as if they had all been
+made small. This was not the case with regard to the trees, which are
+nearly as big here as they are anywhere else; and the old cat-elm, for
+instance, which Richard measured with his whip, is about 16 or 17 feet
+round.
+
+From Waverley we went to Moore Park, once the seat of Sir William
+Temple, and when I was a very little boy, the seat of a Lady, or a Mrs.
+Temple. Here I showed Richard Mother Ludlum's Hole; but, alas! it is not
+the enchanting place that I knew it, nor that which Grose describes in
+his Antiquities! The semicircular paling is gone; the basins, to catch
+the never-ceasing little stream, are gone; the iron cups, fastened by
+chains, for people to drink out of, are gone; the pavement all broken to
+pieces; the seats, for people to sit on, on both sides of the cave, torn
+up and gone; the stream that ran down a clean paved channel, now making
+a dirty gutter; and the ground opposite, which was a grove, chiefly of
+laurels, intersected by closely mowed grass-walks, now become a poor,
+ragged-looking alder-coppice. Near the mansion, I showed Richard the
+hill, upon which Dean Swift tells us he used to run for exercise, while
+he was pursuing his studies here; and I would have showed him the
+garden-seat, under which Sir William Temple's heart was buried,
+agreeably to his will; but the seat was gone, also the wall at the back
+of it; and the exquisitely beautiful little lawn in which the seat
+stood, was turned into a parcel of divers-shaped cockney-clumps, planted
+according to the strictest rules of artificial and refined vulgarity.
+
+At Waverley, Mr. Thompson, a merchant of some sort, has succeeded (after
+the monks) the Orby Hunters and Sir Robert Rich. At Moore Park, a Mr.
+Laing, a West Indian planter or merchant, has succeeded the Temples; and
+at the castle of Farnham, which you see from Moore Park, Bishop
+Prettyman Tomline has, at last, after perfectly regular and due
+gradations, succeeded William of Wykham! In coming up from Moore Park to
+Farnham town, I stopped opposite the door of a little old house, where
+there appeared to be a great parcel of children. "There, Dick," said I,
+"when I was just such a little creature as that, whom you see in the
+door-way, I lived in this very house with my grand-mother Cobbett." He
+pulled up his horse, and looked _very hard at it_, but said nothing, and
+on we came.
+
+
+_Winchester, Sunday noon, Oct. 30._
+
+We came away from Farnham about noon on Friday, promising Bishop
+Prettyman to notice him and his way of living more fully on our return.
+At Alton we got some bread and cheese at a friend's, and then came to
+Alresford by Medstead, in order to have fine turf to ride on, and to
+see, on this lofty land that which is, perhaps, the finest _beech-wood_
+in all England. These high down-countries are not garden plats, like
+Kent; but they have, from my first seeing them, when I was about _ten_,
+always been my delight. Large sweeping downs, and deep dells here and
+there, with villages amongst lofty trees, are my great delight. When we
+got to Alresford it was nearly dark, and not being able to find a room
+to our liking, we resolved to go, though in the dark, to Easton, a
+village about six miles from Alresford down by the side of the Hichen
+River.
+
+Coming from Easton yesterday, I learned that Sir Charles Ogle, the
+eldest son and successor of Sir Chaloner Ogle, had sold to some
+_General_, his mansion and estate at Martyr's Worthy, a village on the
+North side of the Hichen, just opposite Easton. The Ogles had been here
+for _a couple of centuries_ perhaps. They are _gone off now_, "for good
+and all," as the country people call it. Well, what I have to say to Sir
+Charles Ogle upon this occasion is this: "It was _you_, who moved at the
+county meeting, in 1817, that _Address to the Regent_, which you brought
+ready engrossed upon parchment, which Fleming, the Sheriff, declared to
+have been carried, though a word of it never was heard by the meeting;
+which address _applauded the power of imprisonment bill, just then
+passed_; and the like of which address, you will not in all human
+probability, ever again move in Hampshire, and, I hope, nowhere else.
+So, you see, Sir Charles, there is one consolation, at any rate."
+
+I learned, too, that Greame, a famously loyal 'squire and justice, whose
+son was, a few years ago, made a Distributor of Stamps in this county,
+was become so modest as to exchange his big and ancient mansion at
+Cheriton, or somewhere there, for a very moderate-sized house in the
+town of Alresford! I saw his household goods advertised in the Hampshire
+newspaper, a little while ago, to be sold by public auction. I rubbed my
+eyes, or, rather, my spectacles, and looked again and again; for I
+remembered the loyal 'Squire; and I, with singular satisfaction, record
+this change in his scale of existence, which has, no doubt, proceeded
+solely from that prevalence of mind over matter, which the Scotch
+_feelosofers_ have taken such pains to inculcate, and which makes him
+flee from greatness as from that which diminishes the quantity of
+"_intellectual_ enjoyment;" and so now he,
+
+  "Wondering man can want the larger pile,
+  Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile."
+
+And they really tell me, that his present house is not much bigger than
+that of my dear, good old grandmother Cobbett. But (and it may not be
+wholly useless for the 'Squire to know it) she never burnt _candles_;
+but _rushes_ dipped in grease, as I have described them in my _Cottage
+Economy_; and this was one of the means that she made use of in order to
+secure a bit of good bacon and good bread to eat, and that made her
+never give me _potatoes_, cold or hot. No bad hint for the 'Squire,
+father of the distributor of Stamps. Good bacon is a very nice thing, I
+can assure him; and, if the quantity be small, it is all the sweeter;
+provided, however, it be not _too small_. This 'Squire used to be a
+great friend of Old George Rose. But his patron's taste was different
+from his. George preferred a big house to a little one; and George
+_began_ with a little one, and _ended_ with a big one.
+
+Just by Alresford, there was another old friend and supporter of Old
+George Rose, 'Squire Rawlinson, whom I remember a very great 'squire in
+this county. He is now a _Police_-'squire in London, and is one of those
+guardians of the Wen, respecting whose proceedings we read eternal
+columns in the broad-sheet.
+
+This being Sunday, I heard, about 7 o'clock in the morning, a sort of a
+jangling, made by a bell or two in the _Cathedral_. We were getting
+ready to be off, to cross the country to Burghclere, which lies under
+the lofty hills at Highclere, about 22 miles from this city; but hearing
+the bells of the cathedral, I took Richard to show him that ancient and
+most magnificent pile, and particularly to show him the tomb of that
+famous bishop of Winchester, William of Wykham; who was the Chancellor
+and the Minister of the great and glorious King, Edward III.; who sprang
+from poor parents in the little village of Wykham, three miles from
+Botley; and who, amongst other great and most munificent deeds, founded
+the famous College, or School, of Winchester, and also one of the
+Colleges at Oxford. I told Richard about this as we went from the inn
+down to the cathedral; and, when I _showed him the tomb_, where the
+bishop lies on his back, in his Catholic robes, with his mitre on his
+head, his shepherd's crook by his side, with little children at his
+feet, their hands put together in a praying attitude, he looked with a
+degree of inquisitive earnestness that pleased me very much. I took him
+as far as I could about the cathedral. The "service" was now begun.
+There is a _dean_, and God knows how many _prebends_ belonging to this
+immensely rich bishopric and chapter; and there were, at this "service,"
+_two or three men and five or six boys_ in white surplices, with a
+congregation of _fifteen women_ and _four men_! Gracious God! If William
+of Wykham could, at that moment, have been raised from his tomb! If
+Saint Swithin, whose name the cathedral bears, or Alfred the Great, to
+whom St. Swithin was tutor: if either of these could have come, and had
+been told, that _that_ was _now_ what was carried on by men, who talked
+of the "_damnable_ errors" of those who founded that very church! But it
+beggars one's feelings to attempt to find words whereby to express them
+upon such a subject and such an occasion. How, then, am I to describe
+what I felt, when I yesterday saw in Hyde Meadow, a _county bridewell_,
+standing on the very spot, where stood the Abbey which was founded and
+endowed by Alfred, which contained the bones of that maker of the
+English name, and also those of the learned monk, St. Grimbald, whom
+Alfred brought to England _to begin the teaching at Oxford_!
+
+After we came out of the cathedral, Richard said, "Why, Papa, nobody can
+build such places _now_, can they?" "No, my dear," said I. "That
+building was made when there were no poor wretches in England, called
+_paupers_; when there were no _poor-rates_; when every labouring man was
+clothed in good woollen cloth; and when all had a plenty of meat and
+bread and beer." This talk lasted us to the inn, where, just as we were
+going to set off, it most curiously happened, that a parcel which had
+come from Kensington by the night coach, was put into my hands by the
+landlord, containing, amongst other things, a pamphlet, sent to me from
+Rome, being an Italian translation of No. I. of the "_Protestant
+Reformation_." I will here insert the title for the satisfaction of
+Doctor Black, who, some time ago, expressed his utter astonishment, that
+"_such_ a work should be published in the _nineteenth_ century." Why,
+Doctor? Did you want me to stop till the _twentieth_ century? That would
+have been a little too long, Doctor.
+
+                   Storia
+                    Della
+               Riforma Protestante
+          In Inghilterra ed in Irlanda
+               La quale Dimostra
+     Come un tal' avvenimento ha impoverito
+  E degradato il grosso del popolo in que' paesi
+       in una serie di lettere indirizzate
+        A tutti i sensati e guisti inglesi
+                      Da
+              Guglielmo Cobbett
+                       E
+         Dall' inglese recate in italiano
+                      Da
+               Dominico Gregorj.
+                   Roma 1825.
+            Presso Francesco Bourlie.
+                Con Approvazione.
+
+There, Doctor Black. Write _you_ a book that shall be translated into
+_any_ foreign language; and when you have done that, you may _again_
+call mine "pig's meat."
+
+
+
+
+RURAL RIDE: FROM WINCHESTER TO BURGHCLERE.
+
+
+_Burghclere, Monday Morning, 31st October 1825._
+
+We had, or I had, resolved not to breakfast at Winchester yesterday: and
+yet we were detained till nearly noon. But at last off we came,
+_fasting_. The turnpike-road from Winchester to this place comes through
+a village called Sutton Scotney, and then through Whitchurch, which lies
+on the Andover and London road, through Basingstoke. We did not take the
+cross-turnpike till we came to Whitchurch. We went to King's Worthy;
+that is about two miles on the road from Winchester to London; and then,
+turning short to our left, came up upon the downs to the north of
+Winchester race-course. Here, looking back at the city and at the fine
+valley above and below it, and at the many smaller valleys that run down
+from the high ridges into that great and fertile valley, I could not
+help admiring the taste of the ancient kings who made this city (which
+once covered all the hill round about, and which contained 92 churches
+and chapels) a chief place of their residence. There are not many finer
+spots in England; and if I were to take in a circle of eight or ten
+miles of semi-diameter, I should say that I believe there is not one so
+fine. Here are hill, dell, water, meadows, woods, corn-fields, downs:
+and all of them very fine and very beautifully disposed. This country
+does not present to us that sort of beauties which we see about
+Guildford and Godalming, and round the skirts of Hindhead and Blackdown,
+where the ground lies in the form that the surface-water in a boiling
+copper would be in if you could, by word of command, _make it be still_,
+the variously-shaped bubbles all sticking up; and really, to look at the
+face of the earth, who can help imagining that some such process has
+produced its present form? Leaving this matter to be solved by those who
+laugh at mysteries, I repeat that the country round Winchester does not
+present to us beauties of _this sort_; but of a sort which I like a
+great deal better. Arthur Young calls the vale between Farnham and Alton
+_the finest ten miles_ in England. Here is a river with fine meadows on
+each side of it, and with rising grounds on each outside of the meadows,
+those grounds having some hop-gardens and some pretty woods. But though
+I was born in this vale I must confess that the ten miles between
+Maidstone and Tunbridge (which the Kentish folks call the _Garden of
+Eden_) is a great deal finer; for here, with a river three times as big,
+and a vale three times as broad, there are, on rising grounds six times
+as broad, not only hop-gardens and beautiful woods, but immense orchards
+of apples, pears, plums, cherries and filberts, and these, in many
+cases, with gooseberries and currants and raspberries beneath; and, all
+taken together, the vale is really worthy of the appellation which it
+bears. But even this spot, which I believe to be the very finest, as to
+fertility and diminutive beauty, in this whole world, I, for my part, do
+not like so well; nay, as a spot to _live on_, I think nothing at all of
+it, compared with a country where high downs prevail, with here and
+there a large wood on the top or the side of a hill, and where you see,
+in the deep dells, here and there a farm-house, and here and there a
+village, the buildings sheltered by a group of lofty trees.
+
+This is my taste, and here, in the north of Hampshire, it has its full
+gratification. I like to look at the winding side of a great down, with
+two or three numerous flocks of sheep on it, belonging to different
+farms; and to see, lower down, the folds, in the fields, ready to
+receive them for the night. We had, when we got upon the downs, after
+leaving Winchester, this sort of country all the way to Whitchurch. Our
+point of destination was this village of Burghclere, which lies close
+under the north side of the lofty hill at Highclere, which is called
+Beacon Hill, and on the top of which there are still the marks of a
+Roman encampment. We saw this hill as soon as we got on Winchester
+Downs; and without any regard to _roads_, we _steered_ for it, as
+sailors do for a land-mark. Of these 13 miles (from Winchester to
+Whitchurch) we rode about eight or nine upon the _green-sward_, or over
+fields equally smooth. And here is one great pleasure of living in
+countries of this sort: no sloughs, no ditches, no nasty dirty lanes,
+and the hedges, where there are any, are more for boundary marks than
+for fences. Fine for hunting and coursing: no impediments; no gates to
+open; nothing to impede the dogs, the horses, or the view. The water is
+not _seen running_; but the great bed of chalk _holds it_, and the sun
+draws it up for the benefit of the grass and the corn; and, whatever
+inconvenience is experienced from the necessity of deep wells, and of
+driving sheep and cattle far to water, is amply made up for by the
+goodness of the water, and by the complete absence of floods, of
+drains, of ditches and of water-furrows. As _things now are_, however,
+these countries have one great drawback: the poor day-labourers suffer
+from the want of fuel, and they have nothing but their _bare pay_. For
+these reasons they are greatly worse off than those of the _woodland
+countries_; and it is really surprising what a difference there is
+between the faces that you see here and the round, red faces that you
+see in the _wealds_ and the _forests_, particularly in Sussex, where the
+labourers _will_ have a _meat-pudding_ of some sort or other; and where
+they _will_ have _a fire_ to sit by in the winter.
+
+After steering for some time, we came down to a very fine farmhouse,
+which we stopped a little to admire; and I asked Richard whether _that_
+was not a place to be happy in. The village, which we found to be
+Stoke-Charity, was about a mile lower down this little vale. Before we
+got to it, we overtook the owner of the farm, who knew me, though I did
+not know him; but when I found it was Mr. Hinton Bailey, of whom and
+whose farm I had heard so much, I was not at all surprised at the
+fineness of what I had just seen. I told him that the word _charity_,
+making, as it did, part of the name of this place, had nearly inspired
+me with boldness enough to go to the farmhouse, in the ancient style,
+and ask for something to eat, for that we had not yet breakfasted. He
+asked us to go back; but at Burghclere we were _resolved to dine_.
+After, however, crossing the village, and beginning again to ascend the
+downs, we came to a labourer's (_once a farmhouse_), where I asked the
+man whether he had any _bread and cheese_, and was not a little pleased
+to hear him say "_Yes_." Then I asked him to give us a bit, protesting
+that we had not yet broken our fast. He answered in the affirmative at
+once, though I did not talk of payment. His wife brought out the cut
+loaf, and a piece of Wiltshire cheese, and I took them in hand, gave
+Richard a good hunch, and took another for myself. I verily believe that
+all the pleasure of eating enjoyed by all the feeders in London in a
+whole year does not equal that which we enjoyed in gnawing this bread
+and cheese as we rode over this cold down, whip and bridle-reins in one
+hand, and the hunch in the other. Richard, who was purse bearer, gave
+the woman, by my direction, about enough to buy two quartern loaves: for
+she told me that they had to buy their bread _at the mill_, not being
+able to bake themselves for _want of fuel_; and this, as I said before,
+is one of the draw-backs in this sort of country. I wish every one of
+these people had an _American fire-place_. Here they might, then, even
+in these bare countries, have comfortable warmth. Rubbish of any sort
+would, by this means, give them warmth. I am now, at six o'clock in the
+morning, sitting in a room, where one of these fire-places, with very
+light _turf_ in it, gives as good and steady a warmth as it is possible
+to feel, and which room has, too, been _cured of smoking_ by this
+fire-place.
+
+Before we got this supply of bread and cheese, we, though in ordinary
+times a couple of singularly jovial companions, and seldom going a
+hundred yards (except going very fast) without one or the other
+speaking, began to grow _dull_, or rather _glum_. The way seemed long;
+and, when I had to speak in answer to Richard, the speaking was as brief
+as might be. Unfortunately, just at this critical period, one of the
+loops that held the straps of Richard's little portmanteau broke; and it
+became necessary (just before we overtook Mr. Bailey) for me to fasten
+the portmanteau on before me, upon my saddle. This, which was not the
+work of more than five minutes, would, had I had _a breakfast_, have
+been nothing at all, and, indeed, matter of laughter. But _now_ it was
+_something_. It was his "_fault_" for capering and jerking about "_so_."
+I jumped off, saying, "_Here!_ I'll carry it _myself_." And then I began
+to take off the remaining strap, pulling with great violence and in
+great haste. Just at this time my eyes met his, in which I saw _great
+surprise_; and, feeling the just rebuke, feeling heartily ashamed of
+myself, I instantly changed my tone and manner, cast the blame upon the
+saddler, and talked of the effectual means which we would take to
+prevent the like in future.
+
+Now, if such was the effect produced upon me by the want of food for
+only two or three hours; me, who had dined well the day before and eaten
+toast and butter the over-night; if the missing of only one breakfast,
+and that, too, from my own whim, while I had money in my pocket to get
+one at any public-house, and while I could get one only for asking for
+at any farm-house; if the not having breakfasted could, and under such
+circumstances, make me what you may call "_cross_" to a child like this,
+whom I must necessarily love so much, and to whom I never speak but in
+the very kindest manner; if this mere absence of a breakfast could thus
+put me _out of temper_, how great are the allowances that we ought to
+make for the poor creatures who, in this once happy and now miserable
+country, are doomed to lead a life of constant labour and of
+half-starvation. I suppose that, as we rode away from the cottage, we
+gnawed up, between us, a pound of bread and a quarter of a pound of
+cheese. Here was about _fivepence_ worth at present prices. Even this,
+which was only a mere _snap_, a mere _stay-stomach_, for us, would, for
+us two, come to 3_s._ a week all but a penny. How, then, gracious God!
+is a labouring man, his wife, and, perhaps, four or five small children,
+to exist upon 8_s._ or 9_s._ a week! Aye, and to find house-rent,
+clothing, bedding and fuel out of it? Richard and I ate here, at this
+snap, more, and much more, than the average of labourers, their wives
+and children, have to eat in a whole day, and that the labourer has to
+_work_ on too!
+
+When we got here to Burghclere we were again as _hungry_ as hunters.
+What, then, must be the life of these poor creatures? But is not the
+state of the country, is not the hellishness of the system, all depicted
+in this one disgraceful and damning fact, that the magistrates, who
+settle on what the _labouring poor_ ought to have to live on, ALLOW THEM
+LESS THAN IS ALLOWED TO FELONS IN THE GAOLS, and allow them _nothing for
+clothing and fuel, and house-rent_! And yet, while this is notoriously
+the case, while the main body of the working class in England are fed
+and clad and even lodged worse than felons, and are daily becoming even
+worse and worse off, the King is advised to tell the Parliament, and the
+world, that we are in a state of _unexampled prosperity_, and that this
+prosperity must be _permanent_, because _all the_ GREAT _interests_ are
+_prospering_! THE WORKING PEOPLE ARE NOT, THEN, "A _GREAT_ INTEREST"!
+THEY WILL BE FOUND TO BE ONE, BY-AND-BY. What is to be the _end_ of
+this? What can be the _end_ of it, but dreadful convulsion? What other
+can be produced by a system, which allows the _felon_ better food,
+better clothing, and better lodging than the _honest labourer_?
+
+I see that there has been a grand _humanity-meeting_ in Norfolk to
+assure the Parliament that these humanity-people will _back_ it in any
+measures that it may adopt for freeing the NEGROES. Mr. Buxton figured
+here, also Lord Suffield, who appear to have been the two principal
+actors, or _showers-off_. This same Mr. Buxton opposed the Bill intended
+to relieve the poor in England by breaking a little into the brewers'
+monopoly; and as to Lord Suffield, if he really wish to _free slaves_,
+let him go to Wykham in this county, where he will see some drawing,
+like horses, gravel to repair the roads for the stock-jobbers and
+dead-weight and the seat-dealers to ride smoothly on. If he go down a
+little further, he will see CONVICTS at PRECISELY THE SAME WORK,
+harnessed in JUST THE SAME WAY; but the convicts he will find hale and
+ruddy-cheeked, in dresses sufficiently warm, and bawling and singing;
+while he will find the labourers thin, ragged, shivering, dejected
+mortals, such as never were seen in any other country upon earth. There
+is not a negro in the West Indies who has not more to eat in a day, than
+the average of English labourers have to eat in a week, and of better
+food too. Colonel Wodehouse and a man of the name of Hoseason (whence
+came he?) who opposed this humanity-scheme talked of the sums necessary
+to pay the owners of the slaves. They took special care not to tell the
+humanity-men _to look at home for slaves to free_. No, no! that would
+have applied to themselves, as well as to Lord Suffield and humanity
+Buxton. If it were worth while to _reason_ with these people, one might
+ask them whether they do not think that _another war_ is likely to
+relieve them of all these cares, simply by making the colonies transfer
+their allegiance or assert their independence? But to reason with them
+is useless. If they can busy themselves with compassion for the negroes,
+while they uphold the system that makes the labourers of England more
+wretched, and beyond all measure more wretched, than any negro slaves
+are, or ever were, or ever can be, they are unworthy of anything but our
+contempt.
+
+But the "education" canters are the most curious fellows of all. They
+have seen "education," as they call it, and crimes, go on increasing
+together, till the gaols, though six times their former dimensions, will
+hardly suffice; and yet the canting creatures still cry that crimes
+arise from want of what they call "education!" They see the felon better
+fed and better clad than the honest labourer. They see this; and yet
+they continually cry that the crimes arise from a want of "education!"
+What can be the cause of this perverseness? It is not perverseness: it
+is _roguery_, _corruption_, and _tyranny_. The tyrant, the unfeeling
+tyrant, squeezes the labourers for gain's sake; and the corrupt
+politician and literary or tub rogue find an excuse for him by
+pretending that it is not want of food and clothing, but want of
+education, that makes the poor, starving wretches thieves and robbers.
+If the press, if only the press, were to do its duty, or but a tenth
+part of its duty, this hellish system could not go on. But it favours
+the system by ascribing the misery to wrong causes. The causes are
+these: the tax-gatherer presses the landlord; the landlord the farmer;
+and the farmer the labourer. Here it falls at last; and this class is
+made so miserable that a _felon's_ life is better than that of a
+_labourer_. Does there want any _other cause_ to produce crimes? But on
+these causes, so clear to the eye of reason, so plain from experience,
+the press scarcely ever says a single word; while it keeps bothering our
+brains about education and morality; and about ignorance and immorality
+leading to _felonies_. To be sure immorality leads to felonies. Who does
+not know that? But who is to expect morality in a half-starved man, who
+is whipped if he do not work, though he has not, for his whole day's
+food, so much as I and my little boy snapped up in six or seven minutes
+upon Stoke-Charity Down? Aye! but if the press were to ascribe the
+increase of crimes to the true causes it must _go further back_. It must
+go to the _cause of the taxes_. It must go to the debt, the
+dead-weight, the thundering standing army, the enormous sinecures,
+pensions, and grants; and this would suit but a very small part of a
+_press_ which lives and thrives principally by one or the other of
+these.
+
+As with the press, so is it with Mr. Brougham and all such politicians.
+They stop short, or, rather, they begin in the middle. They attempt to
+prevent the evils of the deadly ivy by cropping off, or, rather,
+bruising a little, a few of its leaves. They do not assail even its
+branches, while they appear to look upon the _trunk_ as something _too
+sacred_ even to be _looked at_ with vulgar eyes. Is not the injury
+recently done to about _forty thousand poor families_ in and near
+Plymouth, by the Small-note Bill, a thing that Mr. Brougham ought to
+think about before he thinks anything more about _educating_ those poor
+families? Yet will he, when he again meets the Ministers, say a word
+about this monstrous evil? I am afraid that no Member will say a word
+about it; but I am rather more than afraid that _he_ will not. And
+_why_? Because, if he reproach the Ministers with this crying cruelty,
+they will ask him first how this is to be prevented without a repeal of
+the Small-note Bill (by which Peel's Bill was partly repealed); then
+they will ask him, how the prices are to be kept up without the
+small-notes; then they will say, "Does the honourable and learned
+Gentleman _wish to see wheat at four shillings a bushel again_?"
+
+B. No (looking at Mr. Western and Daddy Coke), no, no, no! Upon my
+honour, no!
+
+MIN. Does the honourable and learned Gentleman wish to see Cobbett again
+at county meetings, and to see petitions again coming from those
+meetings, calling for a reduction of the interest of the...?
+
+B. No, no, no, upon my soul, no!
+
+MIN. Does the honourable and learned Gentleman wish to see that
+"_equitable_ adjustment," which Cobbett has a thousand times declared
+can never take place without an application, to new purposes, of that
+great mass of public property, commonly called Church property?
+
+B. (Almost bursting with rage). How _dare_ the honourable gentlemen to
+suppose me capable of such a thought?
+
+MIN. We suppose nothing. We only ask the question; and we ask it,
+because to put an end to the small-notes would inevitably produce all
+these things; and it is impossible to have small-notes to the extent
+necessary to _keep up prices_, without having, now-and-then, _breaking
+banks_. Banks cannot break without _producing misery_; you must have the
+_consequence_ if you will have the _cause_. The honourable and learned
+Gentleman wants the feast without the reckoning. In short, is the
+honourable and learned Gentleman for putting an end to "_public
+credit_"?
+
+B. No, no, no, no!
+
+MIN. Then would it not be better for the honourable and learned
+Gentleman to _hold his tongue_?
+
+All men of sense and sincerity will at once answer this last question in
+the affirmative. They will all say that this is not _opposition_ to the
+Ministers. The Ministers do not _wish_ to see 40,000 families, nor any
+families at all (who give them _no real annoyance_), reduced to misery;
+they do not _wish_ to cripple their own tax-payers; very far from it. If
+they could carry on the debt and dead-weight and place and pension and
+barrack system, without reducing any _quiet_ people to misery, they
+would like it exceedingly. But they _do_ wish to carry on that system;
+and he does not _oppose_ them who does not endeavour to put an end to
+the system.
+
+This is done by nobody in Parliament; and, therefore, there is, in fact,
+_no opposition_; and this is felt by the whole nation; and this is the
+reason why _the people_ now take so little interest in what is said and
+done in Parliament, compared to that which they formerly took. This is
+the reason why there is no man, or men, whom the people seem to care at
+all about. A great portion of the people now clearly understand the
+nature and effects of the system; they are not now to be deceived by
+speeches and professions. If Pitt and Fox had _now to start_, there
+would be no "Pittites" and "Foxites." Those happy days of political
+humbug are gone for ever. The "gentlemen _opposite_" are opposite only
+as to mere _local position_. They sit on the opposite side of the House:
+that's all. In every other respect they are like parson and clerk; or,
+perhaps, rather more like the rooks and jackdaws: one _caw_ and the
+other _chatter_; but both have the same object in view: both are in
+pursuit of the same sort of diet. One set is, to be sure, IN place, and
+the other OUT; but, though the rooks keep the jackdaws on the inferior
+branches, these latter would be as clamorous as the rooks themselves
+against _felling the tree_; and just as clamorous would the "gentlemen
+opposite" be against any one who should propose to put down the system
+itself. And yet, unless you do _that_, things must go on in the present
+way, and _felons_ must be _better fed_ than _honest labourers_; and
+starvation and thieving and robbing and gaol-building and transporting
+and hanging and penal laws must go on increasing, as they have gone on
+from the day of the establishment of the debt to the present hour.
+Apropos of _penal laws_, Doctor Black (of the Morning Chronicle) is now
+filling whole columns with very just remarks on the new and terrible
+law, which makes the taking of an apple _felony_; but he says not a
+word about the _silence_ of Sir Jammy (the humane _code-softener_) upon
+this subject! The "_humanity_ and _liberality_" of the Parliament have
+relieved men addicted to _fraud_ and to _certain other crimes_ from the
+disgrace of the pillory, and they have, since Castlereagh cut his own
+throat, relieved _self-slayers_ from the disgrace of the cross-road
+burial; but the same Parliament, amidst all the workings of this rare
+humanity and liberality, have made it _felony to take an apple off a
+tree_, which last year was a trivial trespass, and was formerly no
+offence at all! However, even this _is necessary_, as long as this
+bank-note system continue in its present way; and all complaints about
+severity of laws, levelled at the poor, are useless and foolish; and
+these complaints are even base in those who do their best to uphold a
+system which has brought _the honest labourer to be fed worse than the
+felon_. What, short of such laws, can prevent _starving men_ from coming
+to take away the dinners of those who have plenty? "_Education_"!
+Despicable cant and nonsense! What education, what moral precepts, can
+quiet the gnawings and ragings of hunger?
+
+Looking, now, back again for a minute to the little village of
+_Stoke-Charity_, the name of which seems to indicate that its rents
+formerly belonged wholly to the poor and indigent part of the community:
+it is near to Winchester, that grand scene of ancient learning, piety,
+and munificence. Be this as it may, the parish formerly contained ten
+farms, and it now contains but two, which are owned by Mr. Hinton Bailey
+and his nephew, and, therefore, which may probably become _one_. There
+used to be ten well-fed families in this parish at any rate: these,
+taking five to a family, made fifty well-fed people. And now all are
+half-starved, except the curate and the two families. The _blame_ is not
+the land-owner's; it is nobody's; it is due to the infernal _funding_
+and _taxing_ system, which _of necessity_ drives property into large
+masses in order to _save itself_; which crushes little proprietors down
+into labourers; and which presses them down in that state, there takes
+their wages from them and makes them _paupers_, their share of food and
+raiment being taken away to support debt and dead-weight and army and
+all the rest of the enormous expenses which are required to sustain this
+intolerable system. Those, therefore, are fools or hypocrites who affect
+to wish to better the lot of the poor labourers and manufacturers, while
+they, at the same time, either actively or passively, uphold the system
+which is the manifest cause of it. Here is a system which, clearly as
+the nose upon your face, you see taking away the little gentleman's
+estate, the little farmer's farm, the poor labourer's meat-dinner and
+Sunday-coat; and while you see this so plainly, you, fool or hypocrite,
+as you are, cry out for supporting the system that causes it all! Go on,
+base wretch; but remember that of such a progress dreadful must be the
+end. The day will come when millions of long-suffering creatures will be
+in a state that they and you now little dream of. All that we now behold
+of _combinations_, and the like, are mere _indications_ of what the
+great body of the suffering people _feel_, and of the thoughts that are
+passing in their minds. The _coaxing_ work of _schools_ and _tracts_
+will only add to what would be quite enough without them. There is not a
+labourer in the whole country who does not see to the bottom of this
+_coaxing_ work. They are _not deceived_ in this respect. Hunger has
+opened their eyes. I'll engage that there is not, even in this obscure
+village of Stoke-Charity, one single creature, however forlorn, who does
+not understand all about the _real motives_ of the school and the tract
+and the Bible affair as well as Butterworth, or Rivington, or as Joshua
+Watson himself.
+
+Just after we had finished the bread and cheese, we crossed the turnpike
+road that goes from Basingstoke to Stockbridge; and Mr. Bailey had told
+us that we were then to bear away to our right, and go to the end of a
+wood (which we saw one end of), and keep round with that wood, or
+coppice, as he called it, to our left; but we, seeing Beacon Hill more
+to the left, and resolving to go, as nearly as possible, in a straight
+line to it, steered directly over the fields; that is to say, pieces of
+ground from 30 to 100 acres in each. But a hill which we had to go over
+had here hidden from our sight a part of this "coppice," which consists,
+perhaps, of 150 or 200 acres, and which we found sweeping round, in a
+crescent-like form so far, from towards our left, as to bring our
+land-mark over the coppice at about the mid-length of the latter. Upon
+this discovery we slackened sail; for this coppice might be a mile
+across; and though the bottom was sound enough, being a coverlet of
+flints upon a bed of chalk, the underwood was too high and too thick for
+us to face, being, as we were, at so great a distance from the means of
+obtaining a fresh supply of clothes. Our leather leggings would have
+stood anything; but our coats were of the common kind; and before we saw
+the other side of the coppice we should, I dare say, have been as ragged
+as forest-ponies in the month of March.
+
+In this dilemma I stopped and looked at the coppice. Luckily two boys,
+who had been cutting sticks (to _sell_, I dare say, at least _I hope
+so_), made their appearance, at about half a mile off, on the side for
+the coppice. Richard galloped off to the boys, from whom he found that
+in one part of the coppice there was a road cut across, the point of
+entrance into which road they explained to him. This was to us what the
+discovery of a canal across the isthmus of Darien would be to a ship in
+the Gulf of Mexico wanting to get into the Pacific without doubling Cape
+Horne. A beautiful road we found it. I should suppose the best part of a
+mile long, perfectly straight, the surface sound and smooth, about eight
+feet wide, the whole length seen at once, and, when you are at one end,
+the other end seeming to be hardly a yard wide. When we got about
+half-way, we found a road that crossed this. These roads are, I suppose,
+cut for the hunters. They are very pretty, at any rate, and we found
+this one very convenient; for it cut our way short by a full half mile.
+
+From this coppice to Whitchurch is not more than about four miles, and
+we soon reached it, because here you begin to descend into the _vale_,
+in which this little town lies, and through which there runs that
+_stream_ which turns the mill of 'Squire Portal, and which mill makes
+the Bank of England Note-Paper! Talk of the Thames and the Hudson with
+their forests of masts; talk of the Nile and the Delaware bearing the
+food of millions on their bosoms; talk of the Ganges and the Mississippi
+sending forth over the world their silks and their cottons; talk of the
+Rio de la Plata and the other rivers, their beds pebbled with silver and
+gold and diamonds. What, as to their effect on the condition of mankind,
+as to the virtues, the vices, the enjoyments and the sufferings of men;
+what are all these rivers put together compared with the _river of
+Whitchurch_, which a man of threescore may jump across dry-shod, which
+moistens a quarter of a mile wide of poor, rushy meadow, which washes
+the skirts of the park and game preserves of that bright patrician who
+wedded the daughter of Hanson, the attorney and late solicitor to the
+Stamp-Office, and which is, to look at it, of far less importance than
+any gutter in the Wen! Yet this river, by merely turning a wheel, which
+wheel sets some rag-tearers and grinders and washers and re-compressers
+in motion, has produced a greater effect on the condition of men than
+has been produced on that condition by all the other rivers, all the
+seas, all the mines and all the continents in the world. The discovery
+of America, and the consequent discovery and use of vast quantities of
+silver and gold, did, indeed, produce great effects on the nations of
+Europe. They changed the value of money, and caused, as all such changes
+must, _a transfer of property_, raising up new families and pulling down
+old ones, a transfer very little favourable either to _morality_, or to
+real and _substantial liberty_. But this cause worked _slowly_; its
+consequences came on by slow _degrees_; it made a transfer of property,
+but it made that transfer in so small a degree, and it left the
+property quiet in the hands of the new possessor _for so long a time_,
+that the effect was not violent, and was not, at any rate, such as to
+uproot possessors by whole districts, as the hurricane uproots the
+forests.
+
+Not so the product of the little sedgy rivulet of Whitchurch! It has, in
+the short space of a hundred and thirty-one years, and, indeed, in the
+space of the last _forty_, caused greater changes as to property than
+had been caused by all other things put together in the long course of
+seven centuries, though during that course there had been a sweeping,
+confiscating Protestant reformation. Let us look back to the place where
+I started on this present rural ride. Poor old Baron Maseres, succeeded
+at Reigate by little Parson Fellowes, and at Betchworth (three miles on
+my road) by Kendrick, is no bad instance to begin with; for the Baron
+was nobly descended, though from French ancestors. At Albury, fifteen
+miles on my road, Mr. Drummond (a banker) is in the seat of one of the
+Howards, and close by he has bought the estate, just pulled down the
+house, and blotted out the memory of the Godschalls. At Chilworth, two
+miles further down the same vale, and close under St. Martha's Hill, Mr.
+Tinkler, a powder-maker (succeeding Hill, another powder-maker, who had
+been a breeches-maker at Hounslow), has got the old mansion and the
+estate of the old Duchess of Marlborough, who frequently resided in what
+was then a large quadrangular mansion, but the remains of which now
+serve as out farm-buildings and a farmhouse, which I found inhabited by
+a poor labourer and his family, the farm being in the hands of the
+powder-maker, who does not find the once noble seat good enough for him.
+Coming on to Waverley Abbey, there is Mr. Thompson, a merchant,
+succeeding the Orby Hunters and Sir Robert Rich. Close adjoining, Mr.
+Laing, a West India dealer of some sort, has stepped into the place of
+the lineal descendants of Sir William Temple. At Farnham the park and
+palace remain in the hands of a Bishop of Winchester, as they have done
+for about eight hundred years: but why is this? Because they are public
+property; because they cannot, without express laws, be transferred.
+Therefore the product of the rivulet of Whitchurch has had no effect
+upon the ownership of these, which are still in the hands of a Bishop of
+Winchester; not of a William of Wykham, to be sure; but still, in those
+of a bishop, at any rate. Coming on to old Alresford (twenty miles from
+Farnham) Sheriff, the son of a Sheriff, who was a Commissary in the
+American war, has succeeded the Gages. Two miles further on, at
+Abbotston (down on the side of the Itchen) Alexander Baring has
+succeeded the heirs and successors of the Duke of Bolton, the remains of
+whose noble mansion I once saw here. Not above a mile higher up, the
+same Baring has, at the Grange, with its noble mansion, park and estate,
+succeeded the heirs of Lord Northington; and at only about two miles
+further, Sir Thomas Baring, at Stratton Park, has succeeded the Russells
+in the ownership of the estates of Stratton and Micheldover, which were
+once the property of Alfred the Great! Stepping back, and following my
+road, down by the side of the meadows of the beautiful river Itchen, and
+coming to Easton, I look across to Martyr's Worthy, and there see (as I
+observed before) the Ogles succeeded by a general or a colonel somebody;
+but who, or whence, I cannot learn.
+
+This is all in less than four score miles, from Reigate even to this
+place, where I now am. Oh! mighty rivulet of Whitchurch! All our
+properties, all our laws, all our manners, all our minds, you have
+changed! This, which I have noticed, has all taken place within forty,
+and most of it within _ten_ years. The _small gentry_, to about the
+_third_ rank upwards (considering there to be five ranks from the
+smallest gentry up to the greatest nobility), are _all gone_, nearly to
+a man, and the small farmers along with them. The Barings alone have, I
+should think, swallowed up thirty or forty of these small gentry without
+perceiving it. They, indeed, swallow up the biggest race of all; but
+innumerable small fry slip down unperceived, like caplins down the
+throats of the sharks, while these latter _feel_ only the codfish. It
+frequently happens, too, that a big gentleman or nobleman, whose estate
+has been big enough to resist for a long while, and who has swilled up
+many caplin-gentry, goes down the throat of the loan-dealer with all the
+caplins in his belly.
+
+Thus the Whitchurch rivulet goes on, shifting property from hand to
+hand. The big, in order to save themselves from being "_swallowed up
+quick_" (as we used to be taught to say in our Church Prayers against
+Buonaparte), make use of their _voices_ to get, through place, pension,
+or sinecure, something back from the taxers. Others of them _fall in
+love_ with the _daughters_ and _widows_ of paper-money people, big
+brewers, and the like; and sometimes their daughters _fall in love_ with
+the paper-money people's sons, or the fathers of those sons; and,
+whether they be _Jews_, or not, seems to be little matter with this
+all-subduing passion of love. But the _small gentry_ have no resource.
+While _war_ lasted, "_glorious_ war," there was a resource; but _now_,
+alas! not only is there no war, but there is _no hope of war_; and not a
+few of them will actually come to the _parish-book_. There is no place
+for them in the army, church, navy, customs, excise, pension-list, or
+anywhere else. All these are now wanted by "their _betters_." A
+stock-jobber's family will not look at such penniless things. So that
+while they have been the active, the zealous, the efficient
+instruments, in compelling the working classes to submit to
+half-starvation, they have at any rate been brought to the most abject
+ruin themselves; for which I most heartily thank God. The "harvest of
+war" is never to return without a total blowing up of the paper-system.
+Spain must belong to France, St. Domingo must pay her tribute. America
+must be paid for slaves taken away in war, she must have Florida, she
+must go on openly and avowedly making a navy for the purpose of humbling
+us; and all this, and ten times more, if France and America should
+choose; and yet we can have _no war_ as long as the paper-system last;
+and, if _that cease_, then _what is to come_!
+
+
+_Burghclere, Sunday Morning, 6th November._
+
+It has been fine all the week until to-day, when we intended to set off
+for Hurstbourn-Tarrant, vulgarly called Uphusband, but the rain seems as
+if it would stop us. From Whitchurch to within two miles of this place
+it is the same sort of country as between Winchester and Whitchurch.
+High, chalk bottom, open downs or large fields, with here and there a
+farmhouse in a dell sheltered by lofty trees, which, to my taste, is the
+most pleasant situation in the world.
+
+This has been, with Richard, one whole week of hare-hunting, and with
+me, three days and a half. The weather has been amongst the finest that
+I ever saw, and Lord Caernarvon's preserves fill the country with hares,
+while these hares invite us to ride about and to see his park and
+estate, at this fine season of the year, in every direction. We are now
+on the north side of that Beacon Hill for which we steered last Sunday.
+This makes part of a chain of lofty chalk-hills and downs, which divides
+all the lower part of Hampshire from Berkshire, though the ancient
+ruler, owner, of the former took a little strip all along on the flat,
+on this side of the chain, in order, I suppose, to make the ownership of
+the hills themselves the more clear of all dispute; just as the owner of
+a field-hedge and bank owns also the ditch on his neighbour's side. From
+these hills you look, at one view, over the whole of Berkshire, into
+Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, and you can see the Isle of
+Wight and the sea. On this north side the chalk soon ceases, and the
+sand and clay begin, and the oak-woods cover a great part of the
+surface. Amongst these is the farmhouse in which we are, and from the
+warmth and good fare of which we do not mean to stir until we can do it
+without the chance of a wet skin.
+
+This rain has given me time to look at the newspapers of about a week
+old. Oh, oh! The Cotton Lords are tearing! Thank God for that! The Lords
+of the Anvil are snapping! Thank God for that too! They have kept poor
+souls, then, in a heat of 84 degrees to little purpose after all. The
+"great interests" mentioned in the King's Speech do not, _then_, all
+continue to flourish! The "prosperity" was not, then, "permanent,"
+though the King was advised to assert so positively that it was!
+"Anglo-Mexican and Pasco-Peruvian" fall in price, and the Chronicle
+assures me that "the respectable owners of the Mexican Mining shares
+mean to take measures to protect their _property_." Indeed! Like
+_protecting_ the Spanish Bonds, I suppose? Will the Chronicle be so good
+as to tell us the names of these "_respectable_ persons"? Doctor Black
+must know their names; or else he could not know them to be
+_respectable_. If the parties be those that I have heard, these mining
+works may possibly operate with them as an emetic, and make them throw
+up a part at least of what they have taken down.
+
+There has, I see, at New York, been that confusion which I, four months
+ago, said would and must take place; that breaking of merchants and all
+the ruin which, in such a case, spreads itself about, ruining families
+and producing fraud and despair. Here will be, between the two
+countries, an interchange of cause and effect, proceeding from the
+dealings in _cotton_, until, first and last, two or three hundred
+thousands of persons have, at one spell of paper-money work, been made
+to drink deep of misery. I pity none but the poor English creatures, who
+are compelled to work on the wool of this accursed weed, which has done
+so much mischief to England. The slaves who cultivate and gather the
+cotton are well fed. They do not suffer. The sufferers are these who
+spin it and weave it and colour it, and the wretched beings who cover
+with it those bodies which, as in the time of old Fortescue, ought to be
+"clothed throughout in good woollens."
+
+One newspaper says that Mr. Huskisson is gone to Paris, and thinks it
+_likely_ that he will endeavour to "inculcate in the mind of the
+Bourbons wise principles of _free trade_!" What the devil next! Persuade
+them, I suppose, that it is for _their good_ that English goods should
+be admitted into France and into St. Domingo with little or no duty?
+Persuade them to make a treaty of commerce with him; and, in short,
+persuade them to make _France help to pay the interest of our debt and
+dead-weight_, lest our system of paper should go to pieces, and lest
+that should be followed by _a radical reform_, which reform would be
+injurious to "the monarchical principle!" This newspaper politician
+does, however, _think_ that the Bourbons will be "too dull" to
+comprehend these "_enlightened_ and _liberal_" notions; and I think so
+too. I think the Bourbons, or, rather, those who will speak for them,
+will say: "No thank you. You contracted your debt without our
+participation; you made your _dead-weight_ for your own purposes; the
+seizure of our museums and the loss of our frontier towns followed your
+victory of Waterloo, though we were 'your Allies' at the time; you made
+us pay an enormous Tribute after that battle, and kept possession of
+part of France till we had paid it; you _wished_, the other day, to keep
+us out of Spain, and you, Mr. Huskisson, in a speech at Liverpool,
+called our deliverance of the King of Spain an _unjust and unprincipled
+act of aggression_, while Mr. Canning _prayed to God_ that we might not
+succeed. No thank you, Mr. Huskisson, no. No coaxing, Sir: we saw, then,
+too clearly the _advantage we derived from your having a debt and a dead
+weight_ to wish to assist in relieving you from either. 'Monarchical
+principle' here, or 'monarchical principle' there, we know that your
+mill-stone debt is our best security. We like to have your wishes, your
+prayers, and your abuse against us, rather than your _subsidies_ and
+your _fleets_: and so farewell, Mr. Huskisson: if you like, the English
+may drink French wine; but whether they do or not, the French shall not
+wear your rotten cottons. And as a last word, how did you maintain the
+'monarchical principle,' the 'paternal principle,' or as Castlereagh
+called it, the 'social system,' when you called that an unjust and
+unprincipled aggression which put an end to the bargain by which the
+convents and other church-property of Spain were to be transferred to
+the Jews and Jobbers of London? Bon jour, Monsieur Huskisson, ci-devant
+membre et orateur du club de quatre vingt neuf!"
+
+If they do not actually say this to him, this is what they will think;
+and that is, as to the effect, precisely the same thing. It is
+childishness to suppose that any nation will act from a desire of
+_serving all other nations, or any one other nation, as well as itself_.
+It will make, unless compelled, no compact by which it does not think
+itself _a gainer_; and amongst its gains it must, and always does,
+reckon the injury to its rivals. It is a stupid idea that _all nations
+are to gain_ by anything. Whatever is the gain of one must, in some way
+or other, be a loss to another. So that this new project of "free trade"
+and "mutual gain" is as pure a humbug as that which the newspapers
+carried on during the "glorious days" of loans, when they told us, at
+every loan, that the bargain was "equally advantageous to the
+contractors and to the public!" The fact is, the "free trade" project is
+clearly the effect of a _consciousness of our weakness_. As long as we
+felt _strong_, we felt _bold_, we had no thought of _conciliating_ the
+world; we upheld a system of _exclusion_, which long experience proved
+to be founded in _sound policy_. But we now find that our debts and our
+loads of various sorts cripple us. We feel our incapacity for the
+_carrying of trade sword in hand_: and so we have given up all our old
+maxims, and are endeavouring to persuade the world that we are anxious
+to enjoy no advantages that are not enjoyed also by our neighbours.
+Alas! the world sees very clearly the cause of all this; and the world
+_laughs at us_ for our imaginary cunning. My old doggrel, that used to
+make me and my friends laugh in Long Island, is precisely pat to this
+case.
+
+  When his maw was stuffed with paper,
+  How JOHN BULL did prance and caper!
+  How he foam'd and how he roar'd:
+  How his neighbours all he gored!
+  How he scrap'd the ground and hurl'd
+  Dirt and filth on all the world!
+  But JOHN BULL of paper empty,
+  Though in midst of peace and plenty,
+  Is modest grown as worn-out sinner,
+  As Scottish laird that wants a dinner;
+  As WILBERFORCE, become content
+  A rotten burgh to represent;
+  As BLUE and BUFF, when, after hunting
+  On Yankee coasts their "_bits of bunting_,"
+  Came softly back across the seas,
+  And silent were as mice in cheese.
+
+Yes, the whole world, and particularly the French and the Yankees, see
+very clearly the _course_ of this fit of modesty and of liberality into
+which we have so recently fallen. They know well that a _war_ would play
+the very devil with our national faith. They know, in short, that no
+Ministers in their senses will think of supporting the paper-system
+through another war. They know well that no Ministers that now exist, or
+are likely to exist, will venture to endanger the paper-system; and
+therefore they know that (for England) they may now do just what they
+please. When the French were about to invade Spain, Mr. Canning said
+that his last despatch on the subject was to be understood as a
+_protest_ on the part of England against permanent occupation of any
+part of Spain by France. There the French are, however; and at the end
+of two years and a half he says that he knows nothing about any
+intention that they have to quit Spain, or any part of it.
+
+Why, Saint Domingo _was_ independent. We had traded with it as an
+independent state. Is it not clear that if we had said the word (and had
+been known to be able to _arm_), France would not have attempted to
+treat that fine and rich country as a colony? Mark how wise this measure
+of France! How _just_, too; to obtain by means of a tribute from the St.
+Domingoians compensation for the _loyalists_ of that country! Was this
+done with regard to the loyalists of _America_ in the reign of the good
+jubilee George III.? Oh, no! Those loyalists had to be paid, and many of
+them have even yet, at the end of more than half a century, to be paid
+out of taxes raised on _us_, for the losses occasioned by their
+disinterested loyalty! This was a masterstroke on the part of France;
+she gets about seven millions sterling in the way of tribute; she makes
+that rich island yield to her great commercial advantages; and she, at
+the same time, paves the way for effecting one of two objects; namely,
+getting the island back again, or throwing our islands into confusion
+whenever it shall be her interest to do it.
+
+This might have been prevented by _a word_ from us if we had been ready
+for _war_. But we are grown _modest_; we are grown _liberal_; we do not
+want to engross that which fairly belongs to our neighbours! We have
+undergone a change somewhat like that which marriage produces on a
+blustering fellow who while single can but just clear his teeth. This
+change is quite surprising, and especially by the time that the second
+child comes the man is _loaded_; he looks like a loaded man; his voice
+becomes so soft and gentle compared to what it used to be. Just such are
+the effects of _our load_: but the worst of it is our neighbours are
+_not_ thus loaded. However, far be it from me to _regret_ this, or any
+part of it. The load is the people's best friend. If that could,
+_without reform_: if that could be shaken off, leaving the seat-men and
+the parsons in their present state, I would not live in England another
+day! And I say this with as much seriousness as if I were upon my
+death-bed.
+
+The wise men of the newspapers are for a repeal of the _Corn Laws_. With
+all my heart. I will join anybody in a petition for their repeal. But
+this will not be done. We shall stop short of this extent of
+"liberality," let what may be the consequence to the manufacturers. The
+Cotton Lords must all go, to the last man, rather than a repeal, these
+laws will take place: and of this the newspaper wise men may be assured.
+The farmers can but just rub along now, with all their high prices and
+low wages. What would be their state, and that of their landlords, if
+the wheat were to come down again to 4, 5, or even 6 shillings a
+bushels? Universal agricultural bankruptcy would be the almost instant
+consequence. Many of them are now deep in debt from the effects of 1820,
+1821, and 1822. One more year like 1822 would have broken the whole
+mass up, and left the lands to be cultivated, under the overseers, for
+the benefit of the paupers. Society would have been nearly dissolved,
+and the state of nature would have returned. The Small-Note Bill,
+co-operating with the Corn Laws, have given a respite, and nothing more.
+This Bill must remain _efficient_, paper-money must cover the country,
+and the corn-laws must remain in force; or an "equitable adjustment"
+must take place; or, to a state of nature this country must return.
+What, then, as _I want_ a repeal of the corn-laws, and also _want_ to
+get rid of the paper-money, I must want to see this return to a state of
+nature? By no means. I want the "equitable adjustment," and I am quite
+sure that no adjustment can be _equitable_ which does not apply _every
+penny's worth of public property_ to the payment of the fund-holders and
+dead-weight and the like. Clearly just and reasonable as this is,
+however, the very mention of it makes the FIRE-SHOVELS, and some others,
+half mad. It makes them storm and rant and swear like Bedlamites. But it
+is curious to hear them talk of the impracticability of it; when they
+all know that, by only two or three Acts of Parliament, Henry VIII. did
+ten times as much as it would now, I hope, be necessary to do. If the
+duty were imposed _on me_, no statesman, legislator or lawyer, but a
+simple citizen, I think I could, in less than twenty-four hours, draw up
+an Act that would give satisfaction to, I will not say _every man_, but
+to, at least, ninety-nine out of every hundred; an Act that would put
+all affairs of money and of religion to rights at once; but that would,
+I must confess, soon take from us that amiable _modesty_, of which I
+have spoken above, and which is so conspicuously shown in our works of
+free trade and liberality.
+
+The weather is clearing up; our horses are saddled, and we are off.
+
+
+
+
+RIDE, FROM BURGHCLERE TO PETERSFIELD.
+
+
+_Hurstbourne Tarrant (or Uphusband), Monday, 7th November 1825._
+
+We came off from Burghclere yesterday afternoon, crossing Lord
+Caernarvon's park, going out of it on the west side of Beacon Hill, and
+sloping away to our right over the downs towards Woodcote. The afternoon
+was singularly beautiful. The downs (even the poorest of them) are
+perfectly green; the sheep on the downs look, this year, like fatting
+sheep: we came through a fine flock of ewes, and, looking round us, we
+saw, all at once, seven flocks, on different parts of the downs, each
+flock on an average containing at least 500 sheep.
+
+It is about six miles from Burghclere to this place; and we made it
+about twelve; not in order to avoid the turnpike-road, but because we do
+not ride about to _see_ turnpike-roads; and, moreover, because I had
+seen this most monstrously hilly turnpike-road before. We came through a
+village called Woodcote, and another called Binley. I never saw any
+inhabited places more recluse than these. Yet into these the
+all-searching eye of the taxing Thing reaches. Its Exciseman can tell it
+what is doing even in the little odd corner of Binley; for even there I
+saw, over the door of a place, not half so good as the place in which my
+fowls roost, "_Licensed to deal in tea and tobacco_." Poor, half-starved
+wretches of Binley! The hand of taxation, the collection for the
+sinecures and pensions, must fix its nails even in them, who really
+appeared too miserable to be called by the name of _people_. Yet there
+was one whom the taxing Thing had licensed (good God! _licensed!_) to
+serve out cat-lap to these wretched creatures! And our impudent and
+ignorant newspaper scribes talk of the _degraded state of the people of
+Spain_! Impudent impostors! Can they show a group so wretched, so
+miserable, so truly enslaved as this, in all Spain? No: and those of
+them who are not sheer fools know it well. But there would have been
+misery equal to this in Spain if the Jews and Jobbers could have carried
+the Bond-scheme into effect. The people of Spain were, through the
+instrumentality of patriot loan-makers, within an inch of being made as
+"enlightened" as the poor, starving things of Binley. They would soon
+have had people "licensed" to make them pay the Jews for permission to
+chew tobacco, or to have a light in their dreary abodes. The people of
+Spain were preserved from this by the French army, for which the Jews
+cursed the French army; and the same army put an end to those "bonds,"
+by means of which _pious_ Protestants hoped to be able to get at the
+convents in Spain, and thereby put down "idolatry" in that country.
+These bonds seem now not to be worth a farthing; and so after all the
+Spanish people will have no one "licensed" by the Jews to make them pay
+for turning the fat of their sheep into candles and soap. These poor
+creatures that I behold here _pass their lives amidst flocks of sheep_;
+but never does a morsel of mutton enter their lips. A labouring man told
+me, at Binley, that he had not tasted meat since harvest; and his looks
+vouched for the statement. Let the Spaniards come and look at this poor,
+shotten-herring of a creature; and then let them estimate what is due
+to a set of "enlightening" and loan-making "patriots." Old Fortescue
+says that "the English are clothed in good woollens throughout," and
+that they have "plenty of flesh of all sorts to eat." Yes; but at this
+time the nation was not mortgaged. The "enlightening" patriots would
+have made Spain what England now is. The people must never more, after a
+few years, have tasted mutton, though living surrounded with flocks of
+sheep.
+
+
+_Easton, near Winchester, Wednesday Evening, 9th Nov._
+
+I intended to go from Uphusband to Stonehenge, thence to Old Sarum, and
+thence through the New Forest, to Southampton and Botley, and thence
+across into Sussex, to see Up-Park and Cowdry House. But, then, there
+must be no loss of time: I must adhere to a certain route as strictly as
+a regiment on a march. I had written the route: and Laverstock, after
+seeing Stonehenge and Old Sarum, was to be the resting-place of
+yesterday (Tuesday); but when it came, it brought rain with it after a
+white frost on Monday. It was likely to rain again to-day. It became
+necessary to change the route, as I must get to London by a certain day;
+and as the first day, on the new route, brought us here.
+
+I had been three times at Uphusband before, and had, as my readers will,
+perhaps, recollect, described the bourn here, or the _brook_. It has, in
+general, no water at all in it from August to March. There is the bed of
+a little river; but no water. In March, or thereabouts, the water begins
+to boil up in thousands upon thousands of places, in the little narrow
+meadows, just above the village; that is to say a little higher up the
+valley. When the chalk hills are full; when the chalk will hold no more
+water; then it comes out at the lowest spots near these immense hills
+and becomes a rivulet first, and then a river. But until this visit to
+Uphusband (or Hurstbourne Tarrant, as the map calls it), little did I
+imagine that this rivulet, dry half the year, was the head of the river
+Teste, which, after passing through Stockbridge and Rumsey, falls into
+the sea near Southampton.
+
+We had to follow the bed of this river to Bourne; but there the water
+begins to appear; and it runs all the year long about a mile lower down.
+Here it crosses Lord Portsmouth's out-park, and our road took us the
+same way to the village called Down Husband, the scene (as the
+broad-sheet tells us) of so many of that Noble Lord's ringing and
+cart-driving exploits. Here we crossed the London and Andover road, and
+leaving Andover to our right and Whitchurch to our left, we came on to
+Long Parish, where, crossing the water, we came up again on that high
+country which continues all across to Winchester. After passing
+Bullington, Sutton, and Wonston, we veered away from Stoke-Charity, and
+came across the fields to the high down, whence you see Winchester, or
+rather the Cathedral; for at this distance you can distinguish nothing
+else clearly.
+
+As we had to come to this place, which is three miles _up_ the river
+Itchen from Winchester, we crossed the Winchester and Basingstoke road
+at King's Worthy. This brought us, before we crossed the river, along
+through Martyr's Worthy, so long the seat of the Ogles, and now, as I
+observed in my last Register, sold to a general or colonel. These Ogles
+had been deans, I believe; or prebends, or something of that sort: and
+the one that used to live here had been, and was when he died, an
+"admiral." However, this last one, "Sir Charles," the loyal address
+mover, is my man for the present. We saw, down by the water-side,
+opposite to "Sir Charles's" _late_ family mansion, a beautiful
+strawberry garden, capable of being watered by a branch of the Itchen
+which comes close by it, and which is, I suppose, brought there on
+purpose. Just by, on the greensward, under the shade of very fine trees,
+is an alcove, wherein to sit to eat the strawberries, coming from the
+little garden just mentioned, and met by bowls of cream coming from a
+little milk-house, shaded by another clump a little lower down the
+stream. What delight! What a terrestrial paradise! "Sir Charles" might
+be very frequently in this paradise, while that Sidmouth, whose Bill he
+so applauded, had many men shut up in loathsome dungeons! Ah, well! "Sir
+Charles," those very men may, perhaps, at this moment, envy neither you
+nor Sidmouth; no, nor Sidmouth's son and heir, even though Clerk of the
+Pells. At any rate it is not likely that "Sir Charles" will sit again in
+this paradise contemplating another _loyal address_, to carry to a
+county meeting ready engrossed on parchment, to be presented by Fleming
+and supported by Lockhart and the "Hampshire parsons."
+
+I think I saw, as I came along, the new owner of the estate. It seems
+that he bought it "stock and fluke" as the sailors call it; that is to
+say, that he bought moveables and the whole. He appeared to me to be a
+keen man. I can't find out where he comes from, or what he or his father
+has been. I like to see the revolution going on; but I like to be able
+to trace the parties a little more _closely_. "Sir Charles," the loyal
+address gentleman, lives in London, I hear. I will, I think, call upon
+him (if I can find him out) when I get back, and ask how he does now?
+There is one Hollest, a George Hollest, who figured pretty bigly on that
+same loyal address day. This man is become quite an inoffensive harmless
+creature. If we were to have another county meeting, he would not, I
+think, threaten to put the sash down upon anybody's head! Oh! Peel,
+Peel, Peel! Thy Bill, oh, Peel, did sicken them so! Let us, oh, thou
+offspring of the great Spinning Jenny promoter, who subscribed ten
+thousand pounds towards the late "glorious" war; who was, after that,
+made a Baronet, and whose biographers (in the Baronetage) tell the world
+that he had a "presentiment that he should be the founder of a family."
+Oh, thou, thou great Peel, do thou let us have only two more years of
+thy Bill! Or, oh, great Peel, Minister of the interior, do thou let us
+have repeal of Corn Bill! Either will do, great Peel. We shall then see
+such _modest_ 'squires, and parsons looking so queer! However, if thou
+wilt not listen to us, great Peel, we must, perhaps (and only perhaps),
+wait a little longer. It is sure to come _at last_, and to come, too, in
+the most efficient way.
+
+The water in the Itchen is, they say, famed for its clearness. As I was
+crossing the river the other day, at Avington, I told Richard to look at
+it, and I asked him if he did not think it very clear. I now find that
+this has been remarked by very ancient writers. I see, in a newspaper
+just received, an account of dreadful fires in New Brunswick. It is
+curious that in my Register of the 29th October (dated from Chilworth in
+Surrey) I should have put a question relative to the White-Clover, the
+Huckleberries, or the Raspberries, which start up after the burning down
+of woods in America. These fires have been at two places which I saw
+when there were hardly any people in the whole country; and if there
+never had been any people there to this day it would have been a good
+thing for England. Those colonies are a dead expense, without a
+possibility of their ever being of any use. There are, I see, a church
+and a barrack destroyed. And why a barrack? What! were there bayonets
+wanted already to keep the people in order? For as to an _enemy_, where
+was he to come from? And if there really be an enemy anywhere there
+about, would it not be a wise way to leave the worthless country to him,
+to use it after his own way? I was at that very Fredericton, where they
+say thirty houses and thirty-nine barns have now been burnt. I can
+remember when there was no more thought of there ever being a barn there
+than there is now thought of there being economy in our Government. The
+English money used to be spent prettily in that country. What do _we_
+want with armies and barracks and chaplains in those woods? What does
+anybody want with them; but _we_, above all the rest of the world? There
+is nothing there, no house, no barrack, no wharf, nothing, but what is
+bought with taxes raised on the half-starving people of England. What do
+_we_ want with these wildernesses? Ah! but they are wanted by creatures
+who will not work in England, and whom this fine system of ours sends
+out into those woods to live in idleness upon the fruit of English
+labour. The soldier, the commissary, the barrack-master, all the whole
+tribe, no matter under what _name_; what keeps them? They are paid "by
+Government;" and I wish that we constantly bore in mind that the
+"Government" pays _our_ money. It is, to be sure, sorrowful to hear of
+such fires and such dreadful effects proceeding from them; but to me it
+is beyond all measure _more sorrowful_ to see _the labourers of England
+worse fed than the convicts in the gaols_; and I know very well that
+these worthless and jobbing colonies have assisted to bring England into
+this horrible state. The honest labouring man is allowed (aye, by the
+magistrates) less food than the felon in the gaol; and the felon is
+clothed and has fuel; and the labouring man has nothing allowed for
+these. These worthless colonies, which find places for people that the
+Thing provides for, have helped to produce this dreadful state in
+England. Therefore, any _assistance_ the sufferers should never have
+from me, while I could find an honest and industrious English labourer
+(unloaded with a family too) fed worse than a felon in the gaols; and
+this I can find in every part of the country.
+
+
+_Petersfield, Friday Evening, 11th November._
+
+We lost another day at Easton; the whole of yesterday, it having rained
+the whole day; so that we could not have come an inch but in the wet. We
+started, therefore, this morning, coming through the Duke of
+Buckingham's Park, at Avington, which is close by Easton, and on the
+same side of the Itchen. This is a very beautiful place. The house is
+close down at the edge of the meadow land; there is a lawn before it,
+and a pond, supplied by the Itchen, at the end of the lawn, and bounded
+by the park on the other side. The high road, through the park, goes
+very near to this water; and we saw thousands of wild-ducks in the pond,
+or sitting round on the green edges of it, while, on one side of the
+pond, the hares and pheasants were moving about upon a gravel walk on
+the side of a very fine plantation. We looked down upon all this from a
+rising ground, and the water, like a looking-glass, showed us the trees,
+and even the animals. This is certainly one of the very prettiest spots
+in the world. The wild water-fowl seem to take particular delight in
+this place. There are a great many at Lord Caernarvon's; but there the
+water is much larger, and the ground and wood about it comparatively
+rude and coarse. Here, at Avington, everything is in such beautiful
+order; the lawn before the house is of the finest green, and most neatly
+kept; and the edge of the pond (which is of several acres) is as smooth
+as if it formed part of a bowling-green. To see so many _wild_-fowl in
+a situation where everything is in the _parterre_-order has a most
+pleasant effect on the mind; and Richard and I, like Pope's cock in the
+farmyard, could not help _thanking_ the Duke and Duchess for having
+generously made such ample provision for our pleasure, and that, too,
+merely to please us as we were passing along. Now this is the advantage
+of going about on _horseback_. On foot the fatigue is too great, and you
+go too slowly. In any sort of carriage you cannot get into the _real
+country places_. To travel in stage coaches is to be hurried along by
+force, in a box, with an air-hole in it, and constantly exposed to
+broken limbs, the _danger_ being much greater than that of ship-board,
+and the _noise_ much more disagreeable, while the _company_ is
+frequently not a great deal more to one's liking.
+
+From this beautiful spot we had to mount gradually the downs to the
+southward; but it is impossible to quit the vale of the Itchen without
+one more look back at it. To form a just estimate of its real value, and
+that of the lands near it, it is only necessary to know that from its
+source at Bishop's Sutton this river has, on its two banks, in the
+distance of nine miles (before it reaches Winchester) thirteen parish
+churches. There must have been some _people_ to erect these churches. It
+is not true, then, that Pitt and George III. _created the English
+nation_, notwithstanding all that the Scotch _feelosofers_ are ready to
+swear about the matter. In short, there can be no doubt in the mind of
+any rational man that in the time of the Plantagenets England was, out
+of all comparison, more populous than it is now.
+
+When we began to get up towards the downs, we, to our great surprise,
+saw them covered with _Snow_. "Sad times coming on for poor Sir Glory,"
+said I to Richard. "Why?" said Dick. It was too cold to talk much; and,
+besides, a great sluggishness in his horse made us both rather serious.
+The horse had been too hard ridden at Burghclere, and had got cold. This
+made us change our route again, and instead of going over the downs
+towards Hambledon, in our way to see the park and the innumerable hares
+and pheasants of Sir Harry Featherstone, we pulled away more to the
+left, to go through Bramdean, and so on to Petersfield, contracting
+greatly our intended circuit. And, besides, I had never seen Bramdean,
+the spot on which, it is said, Alfred fought his last great and glorious
+battle with the Danes. A fine country for a battle, sure enough! We
+stopped at the village to bait our horses; and while we were in the
+public-house an Exciseman came and rummaged it all over, taking an
+account of the various sorts of liquor in it, having the air of a
+complete master of the premises, while a very pretty and modest girl
+waited on him to produce the divers bottles, jars, and kegs. I wonder
+whether Alfred had a thought of anything like this when he was clearing
+England from her oppressors?
+
+A little to our right, as we came along, we left the village of
+Kingston, where 'Squire Graeme once lived, as was before related. Here,
+too, lived a 'Squire Ridge, a famous fox-hunter, at a great mansion, now
+used as a farmhouse; and it is curious enough that this 'Squire's
+son-in-law, one Gunner, an attorney at Bishop's Waltham, is steward to
+the man who now owns the estate.
+
+Before we got to Petersfield we called at an old friend's and got some
+bread and cheese and small beer, which we preferred to strong. In
+approaching Petersfield we began to descend from the high chalk-country,
+which (with the exception of the valleys of the Itchen and the Teste)
+had lasted us from Uphusband (almost the north-west point of the county)
+to this place, which is not far from the south-east point of it. Here we
+quit flint and chalk and downs, and take to sand, clay, hedges, and
+coppices; and here, on the verge of Hampshire, we begin again to see
+those endless little bubble-formed hills that we before saw round the
+foot of Hindhead. We have got in in very good time, and got, at the
+Dolphin, good stabling for our horses. The waiters and people at inns
+_look so hard at us_ to see us so liberal as to horse-feed, fire,
+candle, beds, and room, while we are so very very sparing in the article
+of _drink_! They seem to pity our taste. I hear people complain of the
+"exorbitant charges" at inns; but my wonder always is how the people can
+live with charging so little. Except in one single instance, I have
+uniformly, since I have been from home, thought the charges too low for
+people to live by.
+
+This long evening has given me time to look at the Star newspaper of
+last night; and I see that, with all possible desire to disguise the
+fact, there is a great "_panic_" brewing. It is impossible that this
+thing can go on, in its present way, for any length of time. The talk
+about "speculations"; that is to say, adventurous dealings, or, rather,
+commercial gamblings; the talk about _these_ having been the cause of
+the breakings and the other symptoms of approaching convulsion is the
+most miserable nonsense that ever was conceived in the heads of idiots.
+These are _effect_; not _cause_. The cause is the _Small-note Bill_,
+that last brilliant effort of the joint mind of Van and Castlereagh.
+That Bill was, as I always called it, a _respite_; and it was, and could
+be, nothing more. It could only put off the evil hour; it could not
+prevent the final arrival of that hour. To have proceeded with Peel's
+Bill was, indeed, to produce total convulsion. The land must have been
+surrendered to the overseers for the use of the poor. That is to say,
+without an "Equitable Adjustment." But that adjustment as prayed for by
+Kent, Norfolk, Hereford, and Surrey, might have taken place; it _ought_
+to have taken place: and it must, at last, take place, or, convulsion
+must come. As to the _nature_ of this "adjustment," is it not most
+distinctly described in the Norfolk Petition? Is not that memorable
+petition now in the Journals of the House of Commons? What more is
+wanted than to act on the prayer of that very petition? Had I to draw up
+a petition again, I would not change a single word of that. It pleased
+Mr. Brougham's "best public instructor" to abuse that petition, and it
+pleased Daddy Coke and the Hickory Quaker, Gurney, and the wise
+barn-orator, to calumniate its author. They succeeded; but their success
+was but shame to them; and that author is yet destined to triumph over
+them. I have seen no London paper for ten days until to-day; and I
+should not have seen this if the waiter had not forced it upon me. I
+know _very nearly_ what will happen by _next May_, or thereabouts; and
+as to the manner in which things will work in the meanwhile, it is of
+far less consequence to the nation than it is what sort of weather I
+shall have to ride in to-morrow. One thing, however, I wish to observe,
+and that is, that, if any attempt be made to repeal the _Corn-Bill_, the
+main body of the farmers will be crushed into total ruin. I come into
+_contact_ with few who are not gentlemen or very substantial farmers;
+but I know the state of the _whole_; and I know that, even with present
+prices, and with _honest labourers fed worse than felons_, it is
+_rub-and-go_ with nineteen-twentieths of the farmers; and of this fact I
+beseech the ministers to be well aware. And with this fact staring them
+in the face! with that other horrid fact, that, by the regulations of
+the _magistrates_ (who cannot avoid it, mind,), the honest labourer is
+fed worse than the convicted felon; with the breakings of merchants, so
+ruinous to confiding foreigners, so disgraceful to the name of England;
+with the thousands of industrious and care-taking creatures reduced to
+beggary by bank-paper; with panic upon panic, plunging thousands upon
+thousands into despair: with all this notorious as the Sun at noon-day,
+will they again advise their Royal Master to tell the Parliament and the
+world that this country is "in a state of unequalled prosperity," and
+that this prosperity "must be permanent, because _all_ the great
+interests are _flourishing_?" Let them! That will not alter the
+_result_. I had been, for several weeks, saying that the _seeming
+prosperity_ was _fallacious_; that the cause of it must lead to
+_ultimate_ and shocking ruin; that it could not last, because it arose
+from causes so manifestly _fictitious_; that, in short, it was the
+fair-looking, but poisonous, fruit of a miserable expedient. I had been
+saying this for several weeks, when, out came the King's Speech and
+gave me and my doctrines the _lie direct_ as to every point. Well: now,
+then, we shall _soon see_.
+
+
+
+
+RURAL RIDE FROM PETERSFIELD TO KENSINGTON.
+
+
+_Petworth, Saturday, 12th Nov. 1825._
+
+I was at this town in the summer of 1823, when I crossed Sussex from
+Worth to Huntington in my way to Titchfield in Hampshire. We came this
+morning from Petersfield, with an intention to cross to Horsham, and go
+thence to Worth, and then into Kent; but Richard's horse seemed not to
+be fit for so strong a bout, and therefore we resolved to bend our
+course homewards, and first of all to fall back upon our resources at
+Thursley, which we intend to reach to-morrow, going through North
+Chapel, Chiddingfold, and Brook.
+
+At about four miles from Petersfield we passed through a village called
+Rogate. Just before we came to it I asked a man who was hedging on the
+side of the road how much he got a day. He said, 1_s._ 6_d._: and he
+told me that the _allowed_ wages was 7_d._ a day for the man _and a
+gallon loaf a week for the rest of his family_; that is to say, one
+pound and two and a quarter ounces of bread for each of them; and
+nothing more! And this, observe, is one-third short of the bread
+allowance of gaols, to say nothing of the meat and clothing and lodging
+of the inhabitants of gaols. If the man have full work; if he get his
+eighteen-pence a day, the whole nine shillings does not purchase a
+gallon loaf each for a wife and three children, and two gallon loaves
+for himself. In the gaols the convicted felons have a pound and a half
+each of bread a day to begin with: they have some meat generally, and it
+has been found absolutely necessary to allow them meat when they work at
+the tread-mill. It is impossible to make them work at the tread-mill
+without it. However, let us take the bare allowance of bread allowed in
+the gaols. This allowance is, for five people, fifty-two pounds and a
+half in the week; whereas the man's nine shillings will buy but
+fifty-two pounds of bread; and this, observe, is a vast deal better than
+the state of things in the north of Hampshire, where the day-labourer
+gets but eight shillings a week. I asked this man how much a day they
+gave to a young able man who had no family, and who was compelled to
+come to the parish-officers for work. Observe that there are a great
+many young men in this situation, because the farmers will not employ
+single men _at full wages_, these full wages being wanted for the
+married man's family, just to keep them alive according to the
+calculation that we have just seen. About the borders of the north of
+Hampshire they give to these single men two gallon loaves a week, or, in
+money, two shillings and eight-pence, and nothing more. Here, in this
+part of Sussex, they give the single man seven-pence a day, that is to
+say, enough to buy two pounds and a quarter of bread for six days in the
+week, and as he does not work on the Sunday there is no seven-pence
+allowed for the Sunday, and of course nothing to eat: and this is the
+allowance, settled by the magistrates, for a young, hearty, labouring
+man; and that, too, in the part of England where, I believe, they live
+better than in any other part of it. The poor creature here has
+seven-pence a day for six days in the week to find him food, clothes,
+washing, and lodging! It is just seven-pence, less than one half of what
+the meanest foot soldier in the standing army receives; besides that the
+latter has clothing, candle, fire, and lodging into the bargain! Well
+may we call our happy state of things the "envy of surrounding nations,
+and the admiration of the world!" We hear of the efforts of Mrs. Fry,
+Mr. Buxton, and numerous other persons, to improve the situation of
+felons in the gaols; but never, no never, do we catch them ejaculating
+one single pious sigh for these innumerable sufferers, who are doomed to
+become felons or to waste away their bodies by hunger.
+
+When we came into the village of Rogate, I saw a little group of persons
+standing before a blacksmith's shop. The church-yard was on the other
+side of the road, surrounded by a low wall. The earth of the church-yard
+was about four feet and a half higher than the common level of the
+ground round about it; and you may see, by the nearness of the church
+windows to the ground, that this bed of earth has been made by the
+innumerable burials that have taken place in it. The group, consisting
+of the blacksmith, the wheelwright, perhaps, and three or four others,
+appeared to me to be in a deliberative mood. So I said, looking
+significantly at the church-yard, "It has taken a pretty many thousands
+of your fore-fathers to raise that ground up so high." "Yes, Sir," said
+one of them. "And," said I, "for about nine hundred years those who
+built that church thought about religion very differently from what we
+do." "Yes," said another. "And," said I, "do you think that all those
+who made that heap there are gone to the devil?" I got no answer to
+this. "At any rate," added I, "they never worked for a pound and a half
+of bread a day." They looked hard at me, and then looked hard at one
+another; and I, having trotted off, looked round at the first turning,
+and saw them looking after us still. I should suppose that the church
+was built about seven or eight hundred years ago, that is to say, the
+present church; for the first church built upon this spot was, I dare
+say, erected more than a thousand years ago. If I had had time, I should
+have told this group that, before the Protestant Reformation, the
+labourers of Rogate received four-pence a day from Michaelmas to
+Lady-day; five-pence a day from Lady-day to Michaelmas, except in
+harvest and grass-mowing time, when able labourers had seven-pence a
+day; and that, at this time, bacon was _not so much as a halfpenny a
+pound_: and, moreover, that the parson of the parish maintained out of
+the tithes all those persons in the parish that were reduced to
+indigence by means of old age or other cause of inability to labour. I
+should have told them this, and, in all probability a great deal more,
+but I had not time; and, besides, they will have an opportunity of
+reading all about it in my little book called the _History of the
+Protestant Reformation_.
+
+From Rogate we came on to Trotten, where a Mr. Twyford is the squire,
+and where there is a very fine and ancient church close by the squire's
+house. I saw the squire looking at some poor devils who were making
+"wauste improvements, ma'am," on the road which passes by the squire's
+door. He looked uncommonly hard at me. It was a scrutinizing sort of
+look, mixed, as I thought, with a little surprise, if not of jealousy,
+as much as to say, "I wonder who the devil you can be?" My look at the
+squire was with the head a little on one side, and with the cheek drawn
+up from the left corner of the mouth, expressive of anything rather than
+a sense of inferiority to the squire, of whom, however, I had never
+heard speak before. Seeing the good and commodious and capacious church,
+I could not help reflecting on the intolerable baseness of this
+description of men, who have remained mute as fishes, while they have
+been taxed to build churches for the convenience of the Cotton-Lords and
+the Stock-Jobbers. First, their estates have been taxed to pay interest
+of debts contracted with these Stock-jobbers, and to make wars for the
+sale of the goods of the Cotton-Lords. This drain upon their estates has
+collected the people into great masses, and now the same estates are
+taxed to build churches for them in these masses. And yet the tame
+fellows remain as silent as if they had been born deaf and dumb and
+blind. As towards the labourers, they are sharp and vigorous and brave
+as heart could wish; here they are bold as Hector. They pare down the
+wretched souls to what is below gaol allowance. But, as towards the
+taxers, they are gentle as doves. With regard, however, to this Squire
+Twyford, he is not, as I afterwards found, without some little
+consolation; for one of his sons, I understand, is, like squire
+Rawlinson of Hampshire, _a police justice in London_! I hear that Squire
+Twyford was always a distinguished champion of loyalty; what they call a
+staunch friend of Government; and it is therefore natural that the
+Government should be a staunch friend to him. By the taxing of his
+estate, and paying the Stock-Jobbers out of the proceeds, the people
+have been got together in great masses, and, as there are Justices
+wanted to keep them in order in those masses, it seems but reasonable
+that the squire should, in one way or another, enjoy some portion of the
+profits of keeping them in order. However, this cannot be the case with
+every loyal squire; and there are many of them who, for want of a share
+in the distribution, have been totally extinguished. I should suppose
+Squire Twyford to be in the second rank upwards (dividing the whole of
+the proprietors of land into five ranks). It appears to me that pretty
+nearly the whole of this second rank is gone; that the Stock-Jobbers
+have eaten them clean up, having less mercy than the cannibals, who
+usually leave the hands and the feet; so that this squire has had pretty
+good luck.
+
+From Trotten we came to Midhurst, and, having baited our horses, went
+into Cowdry Park to see the ruins of that once noble mansion, from which
+the Countess of Salisbury (the last of the Plantagenets) was brought by
+the tyrant Henry the Eighth to be cruelly murdered, in revenge for the
+integrity and the other great virtues of her son, Cardinal Pole, as we
+have seen in Number Four, paragraph 115, of the "History of the
+Protestant Reformation." This noble estate, one of the finest in the
+whole kingdom, was seized on by the king, after the possessor had been
+murdered on his scaffold. She had committed no crime. No crime was
+proved against her. The miscreant Thomas Cromwell, finding that no form
+of trial would answer his purpose, invented a new mode of bringing
+people to their death; namely, a Bill, brought into Parliament,
+condemning her to death. The estate was then granted to a Sir Anthony
+Brown, who was physician to the king. By the descendants of this Brown,
+one of whom was afterwards created Lord Montague, the estate has been
+held to this day; and Mr. Poyntz, who married the sole remaining heiress
+of this family, a Miss Brown, is now the proprietor of the estate,
+comprising, I believe, _forty or fifty manors_, the greater part of
+which are in this neighbourhood, some of them, however, extending more
+than twenty miles from the mansion. We entered the park through a great
+iron gateway, part of which being wanting, the gap was stopped up by a
+hurdle. We rode down to the house and all round about and in amongst the
+ruins, now in part covered with ivy, and inhabited by innumerable
+starlings and jackdaws. The last possessor was, I believe, that Lord
+Montague who was put an end to by the celebrated _nautical adventure_ on
+the Rhine along with the brother of Sir Glory. These two sensible
+worthies took it into their heads to go down a place something
+resembling the waterfall of an overshot mill. They were drowned just as
+two young kittens or two young puppies would have been. And as an
+instance of the truth that it is an ill wind that blows nobody good, had
+it not been for this sensible enterprise, never would there have been a
+Westminster Rump to celebrate the talents and virtues of Westminster's
+Pride and England's Glory. It was this Lord Montague, I believe, who had
+this ancient and noble mansion completely repaired, and fitted up as a
+place of residence: and a few days, or a very few weeks, at any rate,
+after the work was completed, the house was set on fire (by accident, I
+suppose), and left nearly in the state in which it now stands, except
+that the ivy has grown up about it and partly hidden the stones from our
+sight. You may see, however, the hour of the day or night at which the
+fire took place; for there still remains the brass of the face of the
+clock, and the hand pointing to the hour. Close by this mansion there
+runs a little river which runs winding away through the valleys, and at
+last falls into the Arron. After viewing the ruins, we had to return
+into the turnpike road, and then enter another part of the park, which
+we crossed, in order to go to Petworth. When you are in a part of this
+road through the park you look down and see the house in the middle of a
+very fine valley, the distant boundary of which, to the south and
+south-west, is the South Down Hills. Some of the trees here are very
+fine, particularly some most magnificent rows of the Spanish chestnut. I
+asked the people at Midhurst where Mr. Poyntz himself lived; and they
+told me at the _lodge_ in the park, which lodge was formerly the
+residence of the head keeper. The land is very good about here. It is
+fine rich loam at top, with clay further down. It is good for all sorts
+of trees, and they seem to grow here very fast.
+
+We got to Petworth pretty early in the day. On entering it you see the
+house of Lord Egremont, which is close up against the park-wall, and
+which wall bounds this little vale on two sides. There is a sort of
+town-hall here, and on one side of it there is the bust of Charles the
+Second, I should have thought; but they tell me it is that of Sir
+William Wyndham, from whom Lord Egremont is descended. But there is
+_another building_ much more capacious and magnificent than the
+town-hall; namely, the Bridewell, which, from the modernness of its
+structure, appears to be one of those "wauste improvements, Ma'am,"
+which distinguish this _enlightened_ age. This structure vies, in point
+of magnitude with the house of Lord Egremont itself, though that is one
+of the largest mansions in the whole kingdom. The Bridewell has a wall
+round it that I should suppose to be twenty feet high. This place was
+not wanted, when the labourer got twice as much instead of half as much
+as the common standing soldier. Here you see the true cause why the
+young labouring man is "_content_" to exist upon 7_d._ a day, for six
+days in the week, and nothing for Sunday. Oh! we are a most free and
+enlightened people; our happy constitution in church and state has
+supplanted Popery and slavery; but we go to a Bridewell unless we
+quietly exist and work upon 7_d._ a day!
+
+
+_Thursley, Sunday, 13th Nov._
+
+To our great delight we found Richard's horse quite well this morning,
+and off we set for this place. The first part of our road, for about
+three miles and a half, was through Lord Egremont's Park. The morning
+was very fine; the sun shining; a sharp frost after a foggy evening; the
+grass all white, the twigs of the trees white, the ponds frozen over;
+and everything looking exceedingly beautiful. The spot itself being one
+of the very finest in the world, not excepting, I dare say, that of the
+father of Saxe Cobourg itself, who has, doubtless, many such fine
+places.
+
+In a very fine pond, not far from the house and close by the road, there
+are some little artificial islands, upon one of which I observed an
+arbutus loaded with its beautiful fruit (quite ripe), even more thickly
+than any one I ever saw even in America. There were, on the side of the
+pond, a most numerous and beautiful collection of water-fowl, foreign as
+well as domestic. I never saw so great a variety of water-fowl collected
+together in my life. They had been ejected from the water by the frost,
+and were sitting apparently in a state of great dejection: but this
+circumstance has brought them into a comparatively small compass; and we
+facing our horses about, sat and looked at them, at the pond, at the
+grass, at the house, till we were tired of admiring. Everything here is
+in the neatest and most beautiful state. Endless herds of deer, of all
+the varieties of colours; and, what adds greatly to your pleasure in
+such a case, you see comfortable retreats prepared for them in different
+parts of the woods. When we came to what we thought the end of the park,
+the gate-keeper told us that we should find other walls to pass through.
+We now entered upon woods, we then came to another wall, and there we
+entered upon farms to our right and to our left. At last we came to a
+third wall, and the gate in that let us out into the turnpike road. The
+gate-keeper here told us, that the whole enclosure was _nine miles
+round_; and this, after all, forms, probably, not a quarter part of what
+this nobleman possesses. And is it wrong that one man should possess so
+much? By no means; but in my opinion it is wrong that a system should
+exist which compels this man to have his estate taken away from him
+unless he throw the junior branches of his family for maintenance upon
+the public.
+
+Lord Egremont bears an excellent character. Everything that I have ever
+heard of him makes me believe that he is worthy of this princely estate.
+But I cannot forget that his two brothers, who are now very old men,
+have had, from their infancy, enormous revenues in sinecure places in
+the West Indies, while the general property and labour of England is
+taxed to maintain those West Indies in their state of dependence upon
+England; and I cannot forget that the burden of these sinecures are
+amongst the grievances of which the West Indians justly complain. True,
+the taxing system has taken from the family of Wyndham, during the lives
+of these two gentlemen, as much, and even more, than what that family
+has gained by those sinecures; but then let it be recollected, that it
+is not the helpless people of England who have been the cause of this
+system. It is not the fault of those who receive 7_d._ a day. It is the
+fault of the family of Wyndham and of such persons; and, if they have
+chosen to suffer the Jews and jobbers to take away so large a part of
+their income, it is not fair for them to come to the people at large to
+make up for the loss.
+
+Thus it has gone on. The great masses of property have, in general, been
+able to take care of themselves: but the little masses have melted away
+like butter before the sun. The little gentry have had not even any
+disposition to resist. They merit their fate most justly. They have vied
+with each other in endeavours to ingratiate themselves with power, and
+to obtain compensation for their losses. The big fishes have had no
+feeling for them; have seen them sink with a sneer, rather than with
+compassion; but, at last, the cormorant threatens even themselves; and
+they are struggling with might and main for their own preservation. They
+everywhere "most liberally" take the Stock-jobber or the Jew by the
+hand, though they hate him mortally at the same time for his power to
+outdo them on the sideboard, on the table, and in the equipage. They
+seem to think nothing of the extinguishment of the small fry; they hug
+themselves in the thought that they escape; and yet, at times, their
+minds misgive them, and they tremble for their own fate. The country
+people really gain by the change; for the small gentry have been
+rendered, by their miseries, so niggardly and so cruel, that it is quite
+a blessing, in a village, to see a rich Jew or Jobber come to supplant
+them. They come, too, with far less cunning than the half-broken gentry.
+Cunning as the Stock-Jobber is in Change Alley, I defy him to be cunning
+enough for the country people, brought to their present state of
+duplicity by a series of cruelties which no pen can adequately describe.
+The Stock-Jobber goes from London with the _cant of humanity_ upon his
+lips, at any rate; whereas the half-broken Squire takes not the least
+pains to disguise the hardness of his heart.
+
+It is impossible for any just man to regret the sweeping away of this
+base race of Squires; but the sweeping of them away is produced by
+causes that have a wider extent. These causes reach the good as well as
+the bad: all are involved alike: like the pestilence, this horrible
+system is no respecter of persons; and decay and beggary mark the whole
+face of the _country_.
+
+North Chapel is a little town in the Weald of Sussex where there were
+formerly post-chaises kept; but where there are none kept now. And here
+is another complete revolution. In almost every country town the
+post-chaise houses have been lessened in number, and those that remain
+have become comparatively solitary and mean. The guests at inns are not
+now gentlemen, but _bumpers_, who, from being called (at the inns)
+"riders," became "travellers," and are now "commercial gentlemen," who
+go about in _gigs_, instead of on horseback, and who are in such numbers
+as to occupy a great part of the room in all the inns, in every part of
+the country. There are, probably, twenty thousand of them always out,
+who may perhaps have, on an average throughout the year, three or four
+thousand "ladies" travelling with them. The expense of this can be
+little short of fifteen millions a year, all to be paid by the
+country-people who consume the goods, and a large part of it to be drawn
+up to the Wen.
+
+From North Chapel we came to Chiddingfold, which is in the Weald of
+Surrey; that is to say, the country of oak-timber. Between these two
+places there are a couple of pieces of that famous commodity, called
+"Government property." It seems that these places, which have extensive
+buildings on them, were for the purpose of making gunpowder. Like most
+other of these enterprises, they have been given up, after a time, and
+so the ground and all the buildings, and the monstrous fences, erected
+at enormous expense, have been sold. They were sold, it seems, some time
+ago, in lots, with the intention of being pulled down and carried away,
+though they are now nearly new, and built in the most solid,
+substantial, and expensive manner; brick walls eighteen inches through,
+and the buildings covered with lead and slate. It appears that they have
+been purchased by a Mr. Stovell, a Sussex banker; but for some reason or
+other, though the purchase was made long ago, "Government" still holds
+the possession; and, what is more, it keeps people there to take care of
+the premises. It would be curious to have a complete history of these
+pretty establishments at Chiddingford; but this is a sort of history
+that we shall never be treated with until there be somebody in
+Parliament to rummage things to the bottom. It would be very easy to
+call for a specific account of the cost of these establishments, and
+also of the quantity of powder made at them. I should not be at all
+surprised, if the concern, all taken together, brought the powder to a
+hundred times the price at which similar powder could have been
+purchased.
+
+When we came through Chiddingfold, the people were just going to church;
+and we saw a carriage and pair conveying an old gentleman and some
+ladies to the churchyard steps. Upon inquiry, we found that this was
+Lord Winterton, whose name, they told us, was Turnour. I thought I had
+heard of all the Lords, first or last; but, if I had ever heard of this
+one before, I had forgotten him. He lives down in the Weald, between the
+gunpowder establishments and Horsham, and has the reputation of being a
+harmless, good sort of man, and that being the case I was sorry to see
+that he appeared to be greatly afflicted with the gout, being obliged to
+be helped up the steps by a stout man. However, it is as broad, perhaps,
+as it is long: a man is not to have all the enjoyments of making the
+gout, and the enjoyments of abstinence too: that would not be fair play;
+and I dare say that Lord Winterton is just enough to be content with the
+consequences of his enjoyments.
+
+This Chiddingfold is a very pretty place. There is a very pretty and
+extensive green opposite the church; and we were at the proper time of
+the day to perceive that the modern system of education had by no means
+overlooked this little village. We saw _the schools_ marching towards
+the church in military order. Two of them passed us on our road. The
+boys looked very hard at us, and I saluted them with "There's brave
+boys, you'll all be parsons or lawyers or doctors." Another school
+seemed to be in a less happy state. The scholars were too much in
+uniform to have had their clothes purchased by their parents; and they
+looked, besides, as if a little more victuals and a little less
+education would have done as well. There were about twenty of them
+without one single tinge of red in their whole twenty faces. In short I
+never saw more deplorable looking objects since I was born. And can it
+be of any use to expend money in this sort of way upon poor creatures
+that have not half a bellyful of food? We had not breakfasted when we
+passed them. We felt, at that moment, what hunger was. We had some bits
+of bread and meat in our pockets, however; and these, which, were merely
+intended as stay-stomachs, amounted, I dare say, to the allowance of
+any half-dozen of these poor boys for the day. I could, with all my
+heart, have pulled the victuals out of my pocket and given it to them;
+but I did not like to do that which would have interrupted the march,
+and might have been construed into a sort of insult. To quiet my
+conscience, however, I gave a poor man that I met soon afterwards
+sixpence, under pretence of rewarding him for telling me the way to
+Thursley, which I knew as well as he, and which I had determined, in my
+own mind, not to follow.
+
+We had now come on the Turnpike road from my Lord Egremont's Park to
+Chiddingfold. I had made two or three attempts to get out of it, and to
+bear away to the north-west, to get through the oak-woods to Thursley;
+but I was constantly prevented by being told that the road which I
+wished to take would lead me to Haslemere. If you talk to ostlers, or
+landlords, or post-boys; or, indeed, to almost anybody else, they mean
+by a _road_ a _turnpike road_; and they positively will not talk to you
+about any other. Now, just after quitting Chiddingfold, Thursley lies
+over fine woods and coppices, in a north-west direction, or thereabouts;
+and the Turnpike road, which goes from Petworth to Godalming, goes in a
+north-north-east direction. I was resolved, be the consequences what
+they might, not to follow the Turnpike road one single inch further; for
+I had not above three miles or thereabouts to get to Thursley, through
+the woods; and I had, perhaps, six miles at least to get to it the other
+way; but the great thing was to see the interior of these woods; to see
+the stems of the trees, as well as the tops of them. I saw a lane
+opening in the right direction; I saw indeed, that my horses must go up
+to their knees in clay; but I resolved to enter and go along that lane,
+and long before the end of my journey I found myself most amply
+compensated for the toil that I was about to encounter. But talk of
+toil! It was the horse that had the toil; and I had nothing to do but to
+sit upon his back, turn my head from side to side and admire the fine
+trees in every direction. Little bits of fields and meadows here and
+there, shaded all over, or nearly all over, by the surrounding trees.
+Here and there a labourer's house buried in the woods. We had drawn out
+our luncheons and eaten them while the horses took us through the clay;
+but I stopped at a little house, and asked the woman, who looked very
+clean and nice, whether she would let us dine with her. She said "Yes,"
+with all her heart, but that she had no place to put our horses in, and
+that her dinner would not be ready for an hour, when she expected her
+husband home from church. She said they had a bit of bacon and a pudding
+and some cabbage; but that she had not much bread in the house. She had
+only one child, and that was not very old, so we left her, quite
+convinced that my old observation is true, that people in the woodland
+countries are best off, and that it is absolutely impossible to reduce
+them to that state of starvation in which they are in the corn-growing
+part of the kingdom. Here is that great blessing, abundance of fuel at
+all times of the year, and particularly in the winter.
+
+We came on for about a mile further in these clayey lanes, when we
+renewed our inquiries as to our course, as our road now seemed to point
+towards Godalming again. I asked a man how I should get to Thursley? He
+pointed to some fir-trees upon a hill, told me I must go by them, and
+that there was no other way. "Where then," said I, "is Thursley?" He
+pointed with his hand, and said, "Right over those woods; but there is
+no road there, and it is impossible for you to get through those woods."
+"Thank you," said I; "but through those woods we mean to go." Just at
+the border of the woods I saw a cottage. There must be some way to that
+cottage; and we soon found a gate that let us into a field, across which
+we went to this cottage. We there found an old man and a young one. Upon
+inquiry we found that it was _possible_ to get through these woods.
+Richard gave the old man threepence to buy a pint of beer, and I gave
+the young one a shilling to pilot us through the woods. These were
+oak-woods with underwood beneath; and there was a little stream of water
+running down the middle of the woods, the annual and long overflowings
+of which has formed a meadow sometimes a rod wide, and sometimes twenty
+rods wide, while the bed of the stream itself was the most serpentine
+that can possibly be imagined, describing, in many places, nearly a
+complete circle, going round for many rods together, and coming within a
+rod or two of a point that it had passed before. I stopped the man
+several times, to sit and admire this beautiful spot, shaded in great
+part by lofty and wide-spreading oak trees. We had to cross this brook
+several times, over bridges that the owner had erected for the
+convenience of the fox-hunters. At last, we came into an ash-coppice,
+which had been planted in regular rows, at about four feet distances,
+which had been once cut, and which was now in the state of six years'
+growth. A road through it, made for the fox-hunters, was as straight as
+a line, and of so great a length, that, on entering it, the farther end
+appeared not to be a foot wide. Upon seeing this, I asked the man whom
+these coppices belonged to, and he told me to Squire Leech, at Lea. My
+surprise ceased, but my admiration did not.
+
+A piece of ordinary coppice ground, close adjoining this, and with no
+timber in it, and upon just the same soil (if there had been such a
+piece), would, at ten years' growth, be worth, at present prices, from
+five to seven pounds the acre. This coppice, at ten years' growth, will
+be worth twenty pounds the acre; and, at the next cutting, when the
+stems will send out so many more shoots, it will be worth thirty pounds
+the acre. I did not ask the question when I afterwards saw Mr. Leech,
+but, I dare say, the ground was trenched before it was planted; but what
+is that expense when compared with the great, the permanent profit of
+such an undertaking? And, above all things, what a convenient species of
+property does a man here create. Here are no tenants' rack, no anxiety
+about crops and seasons; the rust and the mildew never come here; a man
+knows what he has got, and he knows that nothing short of an earthquake
+can take it from him, unless, indeed, by attempting to vie with the
+stock-jobber in the expense of living, he enable the stock-jobber to
+come and perform the office of the earthquake. Mr. Leech's father
+planted, I think it was, forty acres of such coppice in the same manner;
+and, at the same time, he _sowed the ground with acorns_. The acorns
+have become oak trees, and have begun and made great progress in
+diminishing the value of the ash, which have now to contend against the
+shade and the roots of the oak. For present profit, and, indeed, for
+permanent profit, it would be judicious to grub up the oak; but the
+owner has determined otherwise. He cannot endure the idea of destroying
+an oak wood.
+
+If such be the profit of planting ash, what would be the profit of
+planting locust, even for poles or stakes? The locust would outgrow the
+ash, as we have seen in the case of Mr. Gunter's plantation, more than
+three to one. I am satisfied that it will do this upon any soil, if you
+give the trees fifteen years to grow in; and, in short, that the locusts
+will be trees when the ash are merely poles, if both are left to grow up
+in single stems. If in coppice, the locust will make as good poles; I
+mean as large and as long poles in six years, as the ash will in ten
+years: to say nothing of the superior durability of the locust. I have
+seen locusts, at Mr. Knowles's, at Thursley, sufficient for a hop-pole,
+for an ordinary hop-pole, with only five years' growth in them, and
+leaving the last year's growth to be cut off, leaving the top of the
+pole three-quarters of an inch through. There is nothing that we have
+ever heard of, of the timber kind, equal to this in point of quickness
+of growth. In parts of the county where hop-poles are not wanted,
+espalier stakes, wood for small fencing, hedge stakes, hurdle stakes,
+fold-shores, as the people call them, are always wanted; and is it not
+better to have a thing that will last twenty years, than a thing that
+will last only three? I know of no English underwood which gives a hedge
+stake to last even _two years_. I should think that a very profitable
+way of employing the locust would be this. Plant a coppice, the plants
+two feet apart. Thus planted, the trees will protect one another against
+the wind. Keep the side shoots pruned off. At the end of six years, the
+coppice, if well planted and managed, will be, at the very least, twenty
+feet high to the tips of the trees. Not if the grass and weeds are
+suffered to grow up to draw all the moisture up out of the ground, to
+keep the air from the young plants, and to intercept the gentle rains
+and the dews; but trenched ground, planted carefully, and kept clean;
+and always bearing in mind that hares and rabbits and young locust trees
+will never live together; for the hares and rabbits will not only bite
+them off, but will gnaw them down to the ground, and, when they have
+done that, will scratch away the ground to gnaw into the very root. A
+gentleman bought some locust trees of me last year, and brought me a
+dismal account in the summer of their being all dead; but I have since
+found that they were all eaten up by the hares. He saw some of my
+refuse; some of those which were too bad to send to him, which were a
+great deal higher than his head. His ground was as good as mine,
+according to his account; but I had no hares to fight against; or else
+mine would have been all dead too.
+
+I say, then, that a locust plantation, in pretty good land, well
+managed, would be twenty feet high in six years; suppose it, however, to
+be only fifteen, there would be, at the bottom, wood to make two locust
+PINS for ship-building; two locust pins at the bottom of each tree. Two
+at the very least; and here would be twenty-two thousand locust pins to
+the acre, probably enough for the building of a seventy-four gun ship.
+These pins are about eighteen inches long, and, perhaps, an inch and
+half through; and there is this surprising quality in the wood of the
+locust, that it is just as hard and as durable at five or six years'
+growth as it is at fifty years' growth. Of which I can produce an
+abundance of instances. The _stake_ which I brought home from America,
+and which is now at Fleet-street, had stood as a stake for about eight
+and twenty years, as certified to me by Judge Mitchell, of North
+Hampstead in Long Island, who gave me the stake, and who said to me at
+the time, "Now are you really going to take that crooked miserable stick
+to England!" Now it is pretty well known, at least, I have been so
+informed, that our Government have sent to America in consequence of my
+writings about the locust, to endeavour to get locust pins for the navy.
+I have been informed that they have been told that the American
+Government has bought them all up. Be this as it may, I know that a
+waggon load of these pins is, in America itself, equal in value to a
+waggon load of barrels of the finest flour. This being undeniable, and
+the fact being undeniable that we can grow locust pins here, that I can
+take a seed to-day, and say that it shall produce two pins in seven
+years' time, will it not become an article of heavy accusation against
+the Government if they neglect even one day to set about tearing up
+their infernal Scotch firs and larches in Wolmer Forest and elsewhere,
+and putting locust trees in their stead, in order, first to provide this
+excellent material for ship-building; and next to have some fine
+plantations in the Holt Forest, Wolmer Forest, the New Forest, the
+Forest of Dean, and elsewhere, the only possible argument against doing
+which being, that I may possibly take a ride round amongst their
+plantations, and that it may be everlastingly recorded that it was I who
+was the cause of the Government's adopting this wise and beneficial
+measure?
+
+I am disposed to believe, however, that the Government will not be
+brutish enough, obstinately to reject the advice given to them on this
+head, it being observed, however, that I wish to have no hand in their
+proceedings, directly or indirectly. I can sell all the trees that I
+have for sale to other customers. Let them look out for themselves; and
+as to any reports that their creatures may make upon the subjects I
+shall be able to produce proofs enough that such reports, if
+unfavourable, are false. I wrote, in a Register from Long Island, that I
+could if I would tell insolent Castlereagh, who was for making
+Englishmen dig holes one day and fill them up the next, how he might
+_profitably put something into those holes_, but that I would not tell
+him as long as the Borough-mongers should be in the state in which they
+then were. They are no longer in that state, I thank God. There has been
+no positive law to alter their state, but it is manifest that there must
+be such law before it be long. Events are working together to make the
+country worth living in, which, for the great body of the people, is at
+present hardly the case. Above all things in the world, it is the duty
+of every man, who has it in his power, to do what he can to promote the
+creation of materials for the building of ships in the best manner; and
+it is now a fact of perfect notoriety, that, with regard to the building
+of ships, it cannot be done in the best manner without the assistance of
+this sort of wood.
+
+I have seen a specimen of the locust wood used in the making of
+furniture. I saw it in the posts of a bed-stead; and any thing more
+handsome I never saw in my life. I had used it myself in the making of
+rules; but I never saw it in this shape before. It admits of a polish
+nearly as fine as that of box. It is a bright and beautiful yellow. And
+in bedsteads, for instance, it would last for ever, and would not become
+loose at the joints, like oak and other perishable wood; because, like
+the live oak and the red cedar, no worm or insect ever preys upon it.
+There is no fear of the quantity being too great. It would take a
+century to make as many plantations as are absolutely wanted in England.
+It would be a prodigious creation of real and solid wealth. Not such a
+creation as that of paper money, which only takes the dinner from one
+man and gives it to another, which only gives an unnatural swell to a
+city or a watering place by beggaring a thousand villages; but it would
+be a creation of money's worth things. Let any man go and look at a
+farmhouse that was built a hundred years ago. He will find it, though
+very well built with stone or brick, actually falling to pieces, unless
+very frequently repaired, owing entirely to the rotten wood in the
+window-sills, the door-sills, the plates, the pins, the door frames, the
+window frames, and all those parts of the beams, the joists, and the
+rafters, that come in contact with the rain or the moisture. The two
+parts of a park pailing which give way first, are, the parts of the post
+that meet the ground, and the pins which hold the rails to the post.
+Both these rot long before the pailing rots. Now, all this is avoided by
+the use of locust as sills, as joists, as posts, as frames, and as pins.
+Many a roof has come down merely from the rotting of the pins. The best
+of spine oak is generally chosen for these pins. But after a time, the
+air gets into the pin-hole. The pin rots from the moist air, it gives
+way, the wind shakes the roof, and down it comes, or it swags, the wet
+gets in, and the house is rotten. In ships, the pins are the first
+things that give way. Many a ship would last twenty years after it is
+broken up, if put together with locust pins. I am aware that some
+readers will become tired of this subject; and, nothing but my
+conviction of its being of the very first importance to the whole
+kingdom could make me thus dwell upon it.
+
+We got to Thursley after our beautiful ride through Mr. Leech's
+coppices, and the weather being pretty cold, we found ourselves most
+happily situated here by the side of an _American fire-place_, making
+extremely comfortable a room which was formerly amongst the most
+uncomfortable in the world. This is another of what the malignant
+parsons call Cobbett's Quackeries. But my real opinion is that the whole
+body of them, all put together, have never, since they were born,
+conferred so much benefit upon the country, as I have conferred upon it
+by introducing this fire-place. Mr. Judson of Kensington, who is the
+manufacturer of them, tells me that he has a great demand, which gives
+me much pleasure; but really, coming to conscience, no man ought to sit
+by one of these fire-places that does not go the full length with me
+both in politics and religion. It is not fair for them to enjoy the
+warmth without subscribing to the doctrines of the giver of the warmth.
+However, as I have nothing to do with Mr. Judson's affair, either as to
+the profit or the loss, he must sell the fire-places to whomsoever he
+pleases.
+
+
+_Kensington, Sunday, 20th Nov._
+
+Coming to Godalming on Friday, where business kept us that night, we had
+to experience at the inn the want of our American fire-place. A large
+and long room to sit in, with a miserable thing called a screen to keep
+the wind from our backs, with a smoke in the room half an hour after the
+fire was lighted, we, consuming a full bushel of coals in order to keep
+us warm, were not half so well off as we should have been in the same
+room, and without any screen, and with two gallons of coals, if we had
+our American fire-place. I gave the landlord my advice upon the subject,
+and he said he would go and look at the fire-place at Mr. Knowles's.
+That was precisely one of those rooms which stand in absolute need of
+such a fire-place. It is, I should think, five-and-thirty, or forty feet
+long, and pretty nearly twenty feet wide. I could sooner dine with a
+labouring man upon his allowance of bread, such as I have mentioned
+above, than I would, in winter time, dine in that room upon turbot and
+sirloin of beef. An American fire-place, with a good fire in it, would
+make every part of that room pleasant to dine in in the coldest day in
+winter. I saw a public-house drinking-room, where the owner has tortured
+his invention to get a little warmth for his guests, where he fetches
+his coals in a waggon from a distance of twenty miles or thereabouts,
+and where he consumes these coals by the bushel, to effect that which he
+cannot effect at all, and which he might effect completely with about a
+fourth part of the coals.
+
+It looked like rain on Saturday morning, we therefore sent our horses on
+from Godalming to Ripley, and took a post-chaise to convey us after
+them. Being shut up in the post-chaise did not prevent me from taking a
+look at a little snug house stuck under the hill on the road side, just
+opposite the old chapel on St. Catherine's-hill, which house was not
+there when I was a boy. I found that this house is now occupied by the
+family Molyneux, for ages the owners of Losely Park, on the out-skirts
+of which estate this house stands. The house at Losely is of great
+antiquity, and had, or perhaps has, attached to it the great manors of
+Godalming and Chiddingfold. I believe that Sir Thomas More lived at
+Losely, or, at any rate, that the Molyneuxes are, in some degree,
+descended from him. The estate is, I fancy, theirs yet; but here they
+are, in this little house, while one Gunning (an East Indian, I
+believe) occupies the house of their ancestors. At Send, or Sutton,
+where Mr. Webb Weston inhabited, there is a Baron somebody, with a De
+before his name. The name is German or Dutch, I believe. How the Baron
+came there I know not; but as I have read his name amongst the _Justices
+of the Peace_ for the county of Surrey, he must have been born in
+England, or the law has been violated in making him a Justice of the
+Peace, seeing that no person not born a subject of the king, and a
+subject in this country too, can lawfully hold a commission under the
+crown, either civil or military. Nor is it lawful for any man born
+abroad of Scotch or Irish parents, to hold such commission under the
+crown, though such commissions have been held, and are held, by persons
+who are neither natural-born subjects of the king, nor born of English
+parents abroad. It should also be known and borne in mind by the people,
+that it is unlawful to grant any pension from the crown to any foreigner
+whatever. And no naturalization act can take away this disability. Yet
+the Whigs, as they call themselves, granted such pensions during the
+short time that they were in power.
+
+When we got to Ripley, we found the day very fine, and we got upon our
+horses and rode home to dinner, after an absence of just one month,
+agreeably to our original intention, having seen a great deal of the
+country, having had a great deal of sport, and having, I trust, laid in
+a stock of health for the winter, sufficient to enable us to withstand
+the suffocation of this smoking and stinking Wen.
+
+But Richard and I have done something else, besides ride, and hunt, and
+course, and stare about us, during this month. He was eleven years old
+last March, and it was now time for him to begin to know something about
+letters and figures. He has learned to work in the garden, and having
+been a good deal in the country, knows a great deal about farming
+affairs. He can ride anything of a horse, and over anything that a horse
+will go over. So expert at hunting, that his first teacher, Mr. Budd,
+gave the hounds up to his management in the field; but now he begins to
+talk about nothing but _fox-hunting_! That is a dangerous thing. When he
+and I went from home, I had business at Reigate. It was a very wet
+morning, and we went off long before daylight in a post-chaise,
+intending to have our horses brought after us. He began to talk in
+anticipation of the sport he was going to have, and was very inquisitive
+as to the probability of our meeting with fox-hounds, which gave me
+occasion to address him thus: "Fox-hunting is a very fine thing, and
+very proper for people to be engaged in, and it is very desirable to be
+able to ride well and to be in at the death; but that is not ALL; that
+is not everything. Any fool can ride a horse, and draw a cover; any
+groom or any stable-fellow, who is as ignorant as the horse, can do
+these things; but all gentlemen that go a fox-hunting [I hope God will
+forgive me for the lie] are scholars, Richard. It is not the riding, nor
+the scarlet coats, that make them gentlemen; it is their scholarship."
+What he thought I do not know; for he sat as mute as a fish, and I could
+not see his countenance. "So," said I, "you must now begin to learn
+something, and you must begin with arithmetic." He had learned from mere
+play, to read, being first set to work of his own accord, to find out
+what was said about Thurtell, when all the world was talking and reading
+about Thurtell. This had induced us to give him Robinson Crusoe; and
+that had made him a passable reader. Then he had scrawled down letters
+and words upon paper, and had written letters to me, in the strangest
+way imaginable. His knowledge of figures he had acquired from the
+necessity of knowing the several numbers upon the barrels of seeds
+brought from America, and the numbers upon the doors of houses. So that
+I had pretty nearly a blank sheet of paper to begin upon; and I have
+always held it to be stupidity to the last degree to attempt to put
+book-learning into children who are too young to reason with.
+
+I began with a pretty long lecture on the utility of arithmetic; the
+absolute necessity of it, in order for us to make out our accounts of
+the trees and seeds that we should have to sell in the winter, and the
+utter impossibility of our getting paid for our pains unless we were
+able to make out our accounts, which accounts could not be made out
+unless we understood something about arithmetic. Having thus made him
+understand the utility of the thing, and given him a very strong
+instance in the case of our nursery affairs, I proceeded to explain to
+him the meaning of the word arithmetic, the power of figures, according
+to the place they occupied. I then, for it was still dark, taught him to
+add a few figures together, I naming the figures one after another,
+while he, at the mention of each new figure said the amount, and if
+incorrectly, he was corrected by me. When we had got a sum of about 24,
+I said now there is another line of figures on the left of this, and
+therefore you are to put down the 4 and carry 2. "What is _carrying_?"
+said he. I then explained to him the _why_ and the _wherefore_ of this,
+and he perfectly understood me at once. We then did several other little
+sums; and, by the time we got to Sutton, it becoming daylight, I took a
+pencil and set him a little sum upon paper, which, after making a
+mistake or two, he did very well. By the time we got to Reigate he had
+done several more, and at last, a pretty long one, with very few errors.
+We had business all day, and thought no more of our scholarship until
+we went to bed, and then we did, in our post-chaise fashion, a great
+many lines in arithmetic before we went to sleep. Thus we went on mixing
+our riding and hunting with our arithmetic, until we quitted Godalming,
+when he did a sum very nicely in _multiplication of money_, falling a
+little short of what I had laid out, which was to make him learn the
+four rules in whole numbers first, and then in money, before I got home.
+
+Friends' houses are not so good as inns for executing a project like
+this; because you cannot very well be by yourself; and we slept but four
+nights at inns during our absence. So that we have actually stolen the
+time to accomplish this job, and Richard's Journal records that he was
+more than fifteen days out of the thirty-one coursing or hunting.
+Nothing struck me more than the facility, the perfect readiness with
+which he at once performed addition of money. There is a _pence table_
+which boys usually learn, and during the learning of which they usually
+get no small number of thumps. This table I found it wholly unnecessary
+to set him. I had written it for him in one of the leaves of his journal
+book. But, upon looking at it, he said, "I don't want this, because, you
+know, I have nothing to do but to _divide by twelve_." That is right,
+said I, you are a clever fellow, Dick; and I shut up the book.
+
+Now, when there is so much talk about education, let me ask how many
+pounds it generally costs parents to have a boy taught this much of
+arithmetic; how much time it costs also; and, which is a far more
+serious consideration, how much mortification, and very often how much
+loss of health, it costs the poor scolded broken-hearted child, who
+becomes dunder-headed and dull for all his life-time, merely because
+that has been imposed upon him as a task which he ought to regard as an
+object of pleasant pursuit. I never even once desired him to stay a
+moment from any other thing that he had a mind to go at. I just wrote
+the sums down upon paper, laid them upon the table, and left him to
+tackle them when he pleased. In the case of the multiplication-table,
+the learning of which is something of a job, and which it is absolutely
+necessary to learn perfectly, I advised him to go up into his bed-room
+and read it twenty times over out loud every morning before he went a
+hunting, and ten times over every night after he came back, till it all
+came as pat upon his lips as the names of persons that he knew. He did
+this, and at the end of about a week he was ready to set on upon
+multiplication. It is the irksomeness of the thing which is the great
+bar to learning of every sort. I took care not to suffer irksomeness to
+seize his mind for a moment, and the consequence was that which I have
+described. I wish clearly to be understood as ascribing nothing to
+extraordinary _natural_ ability. There are, as I have often said, as
+many _sorts_ of men as there are of dogs; but I do not pretend to be of
+any peculiarly excellent sort, and I have never discovered any
+indications of it. There are, to be sure, sorts that are naturally
+stupid; but, the generality of men are not so; and I believe that every
+boy of the same age, equally healthy, and brought up in the same manner,
+would (unless of one of the stupid kinds) learn in just the same sort of
+way; but not if begun to be thumped at five or six years old, when the
+poor little things have no idea of the utility of anything; who are
+hardly sensible beings, and have but just understanding enough to know
+that it will hurt them if they jump down a chalk pit. I am sure, from
+thousands of instances that have come under my own eyes, that to begin
+to teach children book-learning before they are capable of reasoning, is
+the sure and certain way to enfeeble their minds for life; and, if they
+have natural genius, to cramp, if not totally to destroy that genius.
+
+I think I shall be tempted to mould into a little book these lessons of
+arithmetic given to Richard. I think that a boy of sense, and of age
+equal to that of my scholar, would derive great profit from such a
+little book. It would not be equal to my verbal explanations, especially
+accompanied with the other parts of my conduct towards my scholar; but
+at any rate, it would be plain; it would be what a boy could understand;
+it would encourage him by giving him a glimpse at the reasons for what
+he was doing: it would contain principles; and the difference between
+principles and rules is this, that the former are persuasions and the
+latter are commands. There is a great deal of difference between
+carrying 2 for such and such a reason, and carrying 2 because you _must_
+carry 2. You see boys that can cover reams of paper with figures, and do
+it with perfect correctness too; and at the same time, can give you not
+a single reason for any part of what they have done. Now this is really
+doing very little. The rule is soon forgotten, and then all is
+forgotten. It would be the same with a lawyer that understood none of
+the principles of law. As far as he could find and remember cases
+exactly similar in all their parts to the case which he might have to
+manage, he would be as profound a lawyer as any in the world; but if
+there was the slightest difference between his case and the cases he had
+found upon record, there would be an end of his law.
+
+Some people will say, here is a monstrous deal of vanity and egotism;
+and if they will tell me, how such a story is to be told without
+exposing a man to this imputation, I will adopt their mode another
+time. I get nothing by telling the story. I should get full as much by
+keeping it to myself; but it may be useful to others, and therefore I
+tell it. Nothing is so dangerous as supposing that you have eight
+wonders of the world. I have no pretensions to any such possession. I
+look upon my boy as being like other boys in general. Their fathers can
+teach arithmetic as well as I; and if they have not a mind to pursue my
+method, they must pursue their own. Let them apply to the outside of the
+head and to the back, if they like; let them bargain for thumps and the
+birch rod; it is their affair and not mine. I never yet saw in my house
+a child that was _afraid_; that was in any fear whatever; that was ever
+for a moment under any sort of apprehension, on account of the learning
+of anything; and I never in my life gave a command, an order, a request,
+or even advice, to look into any book; and I am quite satisfied that the
+way to make children dunces, to make them detest books, and justify that
+detestation, is to tease them and bother them upon the subject.
+
+As to the _age_ at which children ought to begin to be taught, it is
+very curious, that, while I was at a friend's house during my ride, I
+looked into, by mere accident, a little child's abridgment of the
+History of England: a little thing about twice as big as a crown-piece.
+Even into this abridgment the historian had introduced the circumstance
+of Alfred's father, who, "through a _mistaken notion_ of kindness to his
+son, had suffered him to live to the age of twelve years without any
+attempt being made to give him education." How came this writer to know
+that it was a _mistaken notion_? Ought he not rather, when he looked at
+the result, when he considered the astonishing knowledge and great deeds
+of Alfred--ought he not to have hesitated before he thus criticised the
+notions of the father? It appears from the result that the notions of
+the father were perfectly correct; and I am satisfied, that if they had
+begun to thump the head of Alfred when he was a child, we should not at
+this day have heard talk of Alfred the Great.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Great apologies are due to the OLD LADY from me, on account of my
+apparent inattention towards her, during her recent, or rather, I may
+say, her present, fit of that tormenting disorder which, as I observed
+before, comes upon her by _spells_. Dr. M'CULLOCH may say what he
+pleases about her being "_wi' bairn_." I say it's the wet gripes; and I
+saw a poor old mare down in Hampshire in just the same way; but God
+forbid the catastrophe should be the same, for they shot poor old Ball
+for the hounds. This disorder comes by spells. It sometimes seems as if
+it were altogether going off; the pulse rises, and the appetite returns.
+By-and-by a fresh grumbling begins to take place in the bowels. These
+are followed by acute pains; the patient becomes tremulous; the pulse
+begins to fall, and the most gloomy apprehensions begin again to be
+entertained. At every spell the pulse does not cease falling till it
+becomes lower than it was brought to by the preceding spell; and thus,
+spell after spell, finally produces the natural result.
+
+It is useless at present to say much about the equivocating and
+blundering of the newspapers, relative to the cause of the fall. They
+are very shy, extremely cautious; become wonderfully _wary_, with regard
+to this subject. They do not know what to make of it. They all remember,
+that I told them that their prosperity was delusive; that it would soon
+come to an end, while they were telling me of the falsification of all
+my predictions. I told them the Small-note Bill had only given a
+_respite_. I told them that the foreign loans, and the shares, and all
+the astonishing enterprises, arose purely out of the Small-note Bill;
+and that a short time would see the Small-note Bill driving the gold out
+of the country, and bring us back to another restriction, OR, to wheat
+at four shillings a bushel. They remember that I told them all this; and
+now, some of them begin to _regard me as the principal cause of the
+present embarrassments_! This is pretty work indeed! What! I! The poor
+deluded creature, whose predictions were all falsified, who knew nothing
+at all about such matters, who was a perfect pedlar in political
+economy, who was "a conceited and obstinate old dotard," as that polite
+and enlightened paper, the _Morning Herald_, called me: is it possible
+that such a poor miserable creature can have had the power to produce
+effects so prodigious? Yet this really appears to be the opinion of one,
+at least, of these Mr. Brougham's best possible public instructors. The
+_Public Ledger_, of the 16th of November, has the following passage:--
+
+"It is fully ascertained that the Country Banking Establishments in
+England have latterly been compelled to limit their paper circulation,
+for the writings of Mr. COBBETT are widely circulated in the
+Agricultural districts, and they have been so successful as to induce
+the _Boobies_ to call for gold in place of country paper, a circumstance
+which has _produced a greater effect on the currency than any
+exportation of the precious metals_ to the Continent, either of Europe
+or America, could have done, although it too must have contributed to
+render money for a season scarce."
+
+And, so, the "_boobies_" call for gold instead of country bank-notes!
+Bless the "_boobies_"! I wish they would do it to a greater extent,
+which they would, if they were not so dependent as they are upon the
+ragmen. But, does the _Public Ledger_ think that those unfortunate
+creatures who suffered the other day at Plymouth, would have been
+"_boobies_," if they had gone and got sovereigns before the banks broke?
+This brother of the broad sheet should act justly and fairly as I do. He
+should ascribe these demands for gold to Mr. Jones of Bristol and not to
+me. Mr. Jones taught the "boobies" that they might have gold for asking
+for, or send the ragmen to jail. It is Mr. Jones, therefore, that they
+should blame, and not me. But, seriously speaking, what a mess, what a
+pickle, what a horrible mess, must the thing be in, if any man, or any
+thousand of men, or any hundred thousand of men, can change the value of
+money, unhinge all contracts and all engagements, and plunge the
+pecuniary affairs of a nation into confusion? I have been often accused
+of wishing to be thought the cleverest man in the country; but surely it
+is no vanity (for vanity means unjust pretension) for me to think myself
+the cleverest man in the country, if I can of my own head, and at my own
+pleasure, produce effects like these. Truth, however, and fair dealing
+with my readers, call upon me to disclaim so haughty a pretension. I
+have no such power as this public instructor ascribes to me. Greater
+causes are at work to produce such effects; causes wholly uncontrollable
+by me, and, what is more, wholly uncontrollable in the long run by the
+Government itself, though heartily co-operating with the bank directors.
+These united can do nothing to arrest the progress of events. Peel's
+Bill produced the horrible distresses of 1822; the part repeal of that
+bill produced a respite, that respite is now about to expire; and
+neither Government nor bank, nor both joined together, can prevent the
+ultimate consequences. They may postpone them for a little; but mark,
+every postponement will render the catastrophe the more dreadful.
+
+I see everlasting attempts by the "Instructor" to cast blame upon the
+bank. I can see no blame in the bank. The bank has issued no small
+notes, though it has liberty to do it. The bank pays in gold agreeably
+to the law. What more does anybody want with the bank. The bank lends
+money I suppose when it chooses; and is not it to be the judge when it
+shall lend and when it shall not? The bank is blamed for putting out
+paper and causing high prices; and blamed at the same time for not
+putting out paper to accommodate merchants and keep them from breaking.
+It cannot be to blame for both, and, indeed, it is blameable for
+neither. It is the fellows that put out the paper and then break that do
+the mischief. However, a breaking merchant, whom the bank will no
+longer prop up, will naturally blame the bank, just as every insolvent
+blames a solvent that will not lend him money.
+
+When the foreign loans first began to go on, Peter M'Culloch and all the
+Scotch were cock o' whoop. They said that there were prodigious
+advantages in lending money to South America, that the interest would
+come home to enrich us; that the amount of the loans would go out
+chiefly in English manufactures; that the commercial gains would be
+enormous; and that this country would thus be made rich, and powerful,
+and happy, by employing in this way its "surplus capital," and thereby
+contributing at the same time to the uprooting of despotism and
+superstition, and the establishing of freedom and liberality in their
+stead. Unhappy and purblind, I could not for the life of me see the
+matter in this light. My perverted optics could perceive no _surplus
+capital_ in bundles of bank-notes. I could see no gain in sending out
+goods which somebody in England was to pay for, without, as it appeared
+to me, the smallest chance of ever being paid again. I could see no
+chance of gain in the purchase of a bond, nominally bearing interest at
+six per cent., and on which, as I thought, no interest at all would ever
+be paid. I despised the idea of paying bits of paper by bits of paper. I
+knew that a bond, though said to bear six per cent. interest, was not
+worth a farthing, unless some interest were paid upon it. I declared,
+when Spanish bonds were at seventy-five, that I would not give a crown
+for a hundred pounds in them, if I were compelled to keep them unsold
+for seven years; and I now declare, as to South American bonds, I think
+them of less value than the Spanish bonds now are, if the owner be
+compelled to keep them unsold for a year. It is very true, that these
+opinions agree with my _wishes_; but they have not been created by those
+wishes. They are founded on my knowledge of the state of things, and
+upon my firm conviction of the folly of expecting that the interest of
+these things will ever come from the respective countries to which they
+relate.
+
+Mr. Canning's despatch, which I shall insert below, has, doubtless, had
+a tendency (whether expected or not) to prop up the credit of these
+sublime speculations. The propping up of the credit of them can,
+however, do no sort of good. The keeping up the price of them for the
+present may assist some of the actual speculators, but it can do nothing
+for the speculation in the end, and this speculation, which was wholly
+an effect of the Small-note Bill, will finally have a most ruinous
+effect. How is it to be otherwise? Have we ever received any evidence,
+or anything whereon to build a belief, that the interest on these bonds
+will be paid? Never; and the man must be mad; mad with avarice or a love
+of gambling, that could advance his money upon any such a thing as these
+bonds. The fact is, however, that it was not _money_: it was paper: it
+was borrowed, or created, for the purpose of being advanced. Observe,
+too, that when the loans were made, money was at a lower value than it
+is now; therefore, those who would have to pay the interest, would have
+too much to pay if they were to fulfil their engagement. Mr. Canning's
+State Paper clearly proves to me, that the main object of it is to make
+the loans to South America finally be paid, because, if they be not
+paid, not only is the amount of them lost to the bond-holders, but there
+is an end, at once, to all that brilliant _commerce_ with which that
+shining Minister appears to be so much enchanted. All the silver and
+gold, all the Mexican and Peruvian dreams vanish in an instant, and
+leave behind the wretched Cotton-Lords and wretched Jews and Jobbers to
+go to the workhouse, or to Botany Bay. The whole of the loans are said
+to amount to about twenty-one or twenty-two millions. It is supposed,
+that twelve millions have actually been sent out in goods. These goods
+have perhaps been paid for here, but they have been paid for out of
+English money or by English promises. The money to pay with has come
+from those who gave money for the South American bonds, and these
+bond-holders are to be repaid, if repaid at all, _by the South
+Americans_. If not paid at all, then England will have sent away twelve
+millions worth of goods for nothing; and this would be the Scotch way of
+obtaining enormous advantages for the country by laying out its
+"_surplus capital_" in foreign loans. I shall conclude this subject by
+inserting a letter which I find in the _Morning Chronicle_, of the 18th
+instant. I perfectly agree with the writer. The Editor of the _Morning
+Chronicle_ does not, as appears by the remark which he makes at the head
+of it; but I shall insert the whole, his remark and all, and add a
+remark or two of my own.--[See _Register_, vol. 56, p. 556.]
+
+"This is a pretty round sum--a sum, the very naming of which would make
+anybody but half-mad Englishmen stare. To make comparisons with _our own
+debt_ would have little effect, that being so monstrous that every other
+sum shrinks into nothingness at the sight of it. But let us look at the
+United States, for they have _a debt_, and a debt is a debt; and this
+debt of the United States is often cited as an apology for ours, even
+the parsons having at last come to cite the United States as presenting
+us with a system of perfection. What, then, is this debt of the United
+States? Why, it was on the 1st of January, 1824, this 90,177,962; that
+is to say dollars; that is to say, at four shillings and sixpence the
+dollar, just _twenty millions sterling_; that is to say, 594,000 pounds
+_less_ than our 'surplus capital' men have lent to the South Americans!
+But now let us see what is the net revenue of this same United States.
+Why, 20,500,755, that is to say, in sterling money, three millions,
+three hundred and thirty thousand, and some odd hundreds; that is to
+say, almost to a mere fraction, a _sixth part_ of the whole gross amount
+of the debt. Observe this well, that the whole of the debt amounts to
+only six times as much as one single year's net revenue. Then, again,
+look at the exports of the United States. These exports, in one single
+year, amount to 74,699,030 dollars, and in pounds sterling L16,599,783.
+Now, what can the South American State show in this way? Have they any
+exports? Or, at least, have they any that any man can speak of with
+certainty? Have they any revenue wherewith to pay the interest of a
+debt, when they are borrowing the very means of maintaining themselves
+now against the bare name of their king? We are often told that the
+Americans borrowed their money to carry on their Revolutionary war with.
+_Money!_ Aye; a farthing is money, and a double sovereign is no more
+than money. But surely some regard is to be had to the _quantity_; some
+regard is to be had to the amount of the money; and is there any man in
+his senses that will put the half million, which the Americans borrowed
+of the Dutch, in competition, that will name on the same day, this half
+million, with the twenty-one millions and a half borrowed by the South
+Americans as above stated? In short, it is almost to insult the
+understandings of my readers, to seem to institute any comparison
+between the two things; and nothing in the world, short of this
+gambling, this unprincipled, this maddening paper-money system, could
+have made men look with patience for one single moment at loans like
+these, tossed into the air with the hope and expectation of re-payment.
+However, let the bond-owners keep their bonds. Let them feel the sweets
+of the Small-note Bill, and of the consequent puffing up of the English
+funds. The affair is theirs. They have rejected my advice; they have
+listened to the broad sheet; and let them take all the consequences. Let
+them, with all my heart, die with starvation, and as they expire, let
+them curse Mr. BROUGHAM'S best possible public Instructor."
+
+
+_Uphusband (Hampshire), Thursday, 24th Aug. 1826._
+
+We left Burghclere last evening, in the rain; but as our distance was
+only about seven miles, the consequence was little. The crops of corn,
+except oats, have been very fine hereabouts; and there are never any
+pease, nor any beans, grown here. The sainfoin fields, though on these
+high lands, and though the dry weather has been of such long
+continuance, look as green as watered meadows, and a great deal more
+brilliant and beautiful. I have often described this beautiful village
+(which lies in a deep dell) and its very variously shaped environs, in
+my _Register_ of November, 1822. This is one of those countries of chalk
+and flint and dry-top soil and hard roads and high and bare hills and
+deep dells, with clumps of lofty trees, here and there, which are so
+many rookeries: this is one of those countries, or rather, approaching
+towards those countries, of downs and flocks of sheep, which I like so
+much, which I always get to when I can, and which many people seem to
+flee from as naturally as men flee from pestilence. They call such
+countries _naked_ and _barren_, though they are, in the summer months,
+actually covered with meat and with corn.
+
+I saw, the other day, in the Morning Herald London "best public
+instructor," that all those had _deceived themselves_, who had expected
+to see the price of agricultural produce brought down by the lessening
+of the quantity of paper-money. Now, in the first place, corn is, on an
+average, a seventh lower in price than it was last year at this time;
+and what would it have been, if the crop and the stock had now been
+equal to what they were last year? All in good time, therefore, good Mr.
+Thwaites. Let us have a little time. The "best public instructors" have,
+as yet, only fallen, in number sold, about a third, since this time last
+year. Give them a little time, good Mr. Thwaites, and you will see them
+come down to your heart's content. Only let us fairly see an end to
+small notes, and there will soon be not two daily "best public
+instructors" left in all the "entire" great "British Empire."
+
+But, as man is not to live on bread alone, so corn is not the _only_
+thing that the owners and occupiers of the land have to look to. There
+are timber, bark, underwood, wool, hides, pigs, sheep, and cattle. All
+those together make, in amount, four times the corn, at the very least.
+I know that _all_ these have greatly fallen in price since last year;
+but I am in a sheep and wool country, and can speak positively as to
+them, which are two articles of very great importance. As to sheep; I am
+speaking of Southdowns, which are the great stock of these counties; as
+to sheep they have fallen one-third in price since last August, lambs as
+well as ewes. And, as to the wool, it sold, in 1824, at 40_s._ a tod: it
+sold last year, at 35_s._ a tod; and it now sells at 19_s._ a tod! A tod
+is 28lb. avoirdupois weight; so that the price of Southdown wool now is
+8_d._ a pound and a fraction over; and this is, I believe, cheaper than
+it has ever been known within the memory of the oldest man living! The
+"best public instructor" may, perhaps, think, that sheep and wool are a
+trifling affair. There are many thousands of farmers who keep each a
+flock of at least a thousand sheep. An ewe yields about 3lb. of wool, a
+wether 4lb., a ram 7lb. Calculate, good Mr. Thwaites, what a difference
+it is when this wool becomes 8_d._ a pound instead of 17_d._, and
+instead of 30_d._ as it was not many years ago! In short, every middling
+sheep farmer receives, this year, about 250_l._ less, as the produce of
+sheep and wool, than he received last year; and, on an average, 250_l._
+is more than half his rent.
+
+There is a great falling off in the price of horses, and of all cattle
+except fat cattle; and, observe, when the prospect is good, it shows a
+rise in the price of lean cattle; not in that of the meat which is just
+ready to go into the mouth. Prices will go on gradually falling, as they
+did from 1819 to 1822 inclusive, unless upheld by untoward seasons, or
+by an issue of assignats; for, mind, it would be no joke, no sham, _this
+time_; it would be an issue of as real, as _bona fide_ assignats as ever
+came from the mint of any set of rascals that ever robbed and enslaved a
+people in the names of "liberty and law."
+
+
+_East Everley (Wiltshire), Sunday, 27th August, Evening._
+
+We set off from Uphusband on Friday, about ten o'clock, the morning
+having been wet. My sons came round, in the chaise, by Andover and
+Weyhill, while I came right across the country towards Ludgarshall,
+which lies in the road from Andover to this place. I never knew the
+_flies_ so troublesome, in England, as I found them in this ride. I was
+obliged to carry a great bough, and to keep it in constant motion, in
+order to make the horse peaceable enough to enable me to keep on his
+back. It is a country of fields, lanes, and high hedges; so that no
+_wind_ could come to relieve my horse; and, in spite of all I could do,
+a great part of him was covered with foam from the sweat. In the midst
+of this, I got, at one time, a little out of my road, in, or near, a
+place called Tangley. I rode up to the garden-wicket of a cottage, and
+asked the woman, who had two children, and who seemed to be about thirty
+years old, which was the way to Ludgarshall, which I knew could not be
+more than about _four miles_ off. She did _not know_! A very neat,
+smart, and pretty woman; but she did not know the way to this rotten
+borough, which was, I was sure, only about four miles off! "Well, my
+dear good woman," said I, "but you _have been_ at
+LUDGARSHALL?"--"No."--"Nor at Andover?" (six miles another
+way)--"No."--"Nor at Marlborough?" (nine miles another
+way)--"No."--"Pray, were you born in this house?"--"Yes."--"And how far
+have you ever been from this house?"--"Oh! I have been _up in the
+parish_ and over _to Chute_." That is to say, the utmost extent of her
+voyages had been about two and a half miles! Let no one laugh at her,
+and, above all others, let not me, who am convinced, that the
+_facilities_, which now exist, of _moving human bodies from place to
+place_, are amongst the _curses_ of the country, the destroyers of
+industry, of morals, and, of course, of happiness. It is a great error
+to suppose, that people are rendered stupid by remaining always in the
+same place. This was a very acute woman, and as well behaved as need to
+be. There was, in July last (last month) a Preston-man, who had never
+been further from home than Chorley (about eight or ten miles), and who
+started off, _on foot_, and went, _alone_, to Rouen, in France, and back
+again to London, in the space of about ten days; and that, too, without
+being able to speak, or to understand, a word of French. N.B. Those
+gentlemen, who, at Green-street, in Kent, were so kind to this man,
+_upon finding that he had voted for me_, will be pleased to accept of my
+best thanks. Wilding (that is the man's name) was full of expressions of
+gratitude towards these gentlemen. He spoke of others who were good to
+him on his way; and even at Calais he found friends on my account; but
+he was particularly loud in his praises of the gentlemen in Kent, who
+had been so good and so kind to him, that he seemed quite in an extasy
+when he talked of their conduct.
+
+Before I got to the rotten-borough, I came out upon a Down, just on the
+border of the two counties, Hampshire and Wiltshire. Here I came up with
+my sons, and we entered the rotten-borough together. It contained some
+rashers of bacon and a very civil landlady; but it is one of the most
+mean and beggarly places that man ever set his eyes on. The curse
+attending corruption seems to be upon it. The look of the place would
+make one swear, that there never was a clean shirt in it, since the
+first stone of it was laid. It must have been a large place once, though
+it now contains only 479 persons, men, women, and children. The borough
+is, as to all practical purposes, as much private property as this pen
+is my private property. Aye, aye! Let the petitioners of Manchester
+bawl, as long as they like, against all other evils; but, until they
+touch this _master-evil_, they do nothing at all.
+
+Everley is but about three miles from Ludgarshall, so that we got here
+in the afternoon of Friday: and, in the evening a very heavy storm came
+and drove away all flies, and made the air delightful. This is a real
+_Down_-country. Here you see miles and miles square without a tree, or
+hedge, or bush. It is country of green-sward. This is the most famous
+place in all England for _coursing_. I was here, at this very inn, with
+a party eighteen years ago; and the landlord, who is still the same,
+recognized me as soon as he saw me. There were forty brace of greyhounds
+taken out into the field on one of the days, and every brace had one
+course, and some of them two. The ground is the finest in the world;
+from two to three miles for the hare to run to cover, and not a stone
+nor a bush nor a hillock. It was here proved to me, that the hare is, by
+far, the swiftest of all English animals; for I saw three hares, in one
+day, _run away_ from the dogs. To give dog and hare a fair trial, there
+should be but _one_ dog. Then, if that dog got so close as to compel the
+hare _to turn_, that would be a proof that the dog ran fastest. When the
+dog, or dogs, never get near enough to the hare to induce her to _turn_,
+she is said, and very justly, to "_run away_" from them; and, as I saw
+three hares do this in one day, I conclude, that the hare is the
+swiftest animal of the two.
+
+This inn is one of the nicest, and, in summer, one of the pleasantest,
+in England; for, I think, that my experience in this way will justify me
+in speaking thus positively. The house is large, the yard and the
+stables good, the landlord _a farmer_ also, and, therefore, no cribbing
+your horses in hay or straw and yourself in eggs and cream. The garden,
+which adjoins the south side of the house, is large, of good shape, has
+a terrace on one side, lies on the slope, consists of well-disposed
+clumps of shrubs and flowers, and of short-grass very neatly kept. In
+the lower part of the garden there are high trees, and, amongst these,
+the tulip-tree and the live-oak. Beyond the garden is a large clump of
+lofty sycamores, and in these a most populous rookery, in which, of all
+things in the world, I delight. The village, which contains 301 souls,
+lies to the north of the inn, but adjoining its premises. All the rest,
+in every direction, is bare down or open arable. I am now sitting at one
+of the southern windows of this inn, looking across the garden towards
+the rookery. It is nearly sun-setting; the rooks are skimming and
+curving over the tops of the trees; while, under the branches, I see a
+flock of several hundred sheep, coming nibbling their way in from the
+Down, and going to their fold.
+
+Now, what ill-natured devil could bring Old Nic Grimshaw into my head in
+company with these innocent sheep? Why, the truth is this: nothing is
+_so swift_ as _thought_: it runs over a life-time in a moment; and,
+while I was writing the last sentence of the foregoing paragraph,
+_thought_ took me up at the time when I used to wear a smock-frock and
+to carry a wooden bottle like that shepherd's boy; and, in an instant,
+it hurried me along through my no very short life of adventure, of toil,
+of peril, of pleasure, of ardent friendship and not less ardent enmity;
+and after filling me with wonder, that a heart and mind so wrapped up in
+everything belonging to the gardens, the fields and the woods, should
+have been condemned to waste themselves away amidst the stench, the
+noise, and the strife of cities, it brought me _to the present moment_,
+and sent my mind back to what I have yet to perform about Nicholas
+Grimshaw and his _ditches_!
+
+My sons set off about three o'clock to-day, on their way to
+Herefordshire, where I intend to join them, when I have had a pretty
+good ride in this country. There is no pleasure in travelling, except on
+horse-back, or on foot. Carriages take your body from place to place;
+and if you merely want to be _conveyed_, they are very good; but they
+enable you to see and to know nothing at all of the country.
+
+
+_East Everley, Monday Morning, 5 o'clock, 28th Aug. 1826._
+
+A very fine morning; a man, _eighty-two years of age_, just beginning to
+mow the short-grass, in the garden: I thought it, even when I was young,
+the _hardest work_ that man had to do. To _look on_, this work seems
+nothing; but it tries every sinew in your frame, if you go upright and
+do your work well. This old man never knew how to do it well, and he
+stoops, and he hangs his scythe wrong; but, with all this, it must be a
+surprising man to mow short-grass, as well as he does, at _eighty_. _I
+wish I_ may be able to mow short-grass at eighty! That's all I have to
+say of the matter. I am just setting off for the source of the Avon,
+which runs from near Marlborough to Salisbury, and thence to the sea;
+and I intend to pursue it as far as Salisbury. In the distance of thirty
+miles, here are, I see by the books, more than thirty churches. I wish
+to see, with my own eyes, what evidence there is that those thirty
+churches were built without hands, without money, and without a
+congregation; and thus to find matter, if I can, to justify the mad
+wretches, who, from Committee-Rooms and elsewhere, are bothering this
+half-distracted nation to death about a "surplus popalashon, mon."
+
+My horse is ready; and the rooks are just gone off to the
+stubble-fields. These rooks rob the pigs; but they have _a right_ to do
+it. I wonder (upon my soul I do) that there is no lawyer, Scotchman, or
+Parson-Justice, to propose a law to punish the rooks for _trespass_.
+
+
+
+
+RIDE DOWN THE VALLEY OF THE AVON IN WILTSHIRE.
+
+     "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn; and,
+     The labourer is worthy of his reward."--Deuteronomy, ch. xxv, ver.
+     4; 1 Cor. ix, 9; 1 Tim. v, 9.
+
+
+_Milton, Monday, 28th August._
+
+I came off this morning on the Marlborough road about two miles, or
+three, and then turned off, over the downs, in a north-westerly
+direction, in search of the source of the Avon River, which goes down to
+Salisbury. I had once been at Netheravon, a village in this valley; but
+I had often heard this valley described as one of the finest pieces of
+land in all England; I knew that there were about thirty parish
+churches, standing in a length of about thirty miles, and in an average
+width of hardly a mile; and I was resolved to see a little into the
+_reasons_ that could have induced our fathers to build all these
+churches, especially if, as the Scotch would have us believe, there were
+but a mere handful of people in England _until of late years_.
+
+The first part of my ride this morning was by the side of Sir John
+Astley's park. This man is one of the members of the county (gallon-loaf
+Bennet being the other). They say that he is good to the labouring
+people; and he ought to be good for _something_, being a member of
+Parliament of the Lethbridge and Dickenson stamp. However, he has got a
+thumping estate; though it be borne in mind, the working-people and the
+fund-holders and the dead-weight have each their separate mortgage upon
+it; of which this Baronet has, I dare say, too much justice to complain,
+seeing that the amount of these mortgages was absolutely necessary to
+carry on Pitt and Perceval and Castlereagh Wars; to support Hanoverian
+soldiers in England; to fight and beat the Americans on the Serpentine
+River; to give Wellington a kingly estate; and to defray the expenses of
+Manchester and other yeomanry cavalry; besides all the various charges
+of Power-of-Imprisonment Bills and of Six-Acts. These being the cause of
+the mortgages, the "worthy Baronet" has, I will engage, too much justice
+to complain of them.
+
+In steering across the down, I came to a large farm, which a shepherd
+told me was Milton Hill Farm. This was upon the high land, and before I
+came to the edge of this _Valley of Avon_, which was my land of promise;
+or, at least, of great expectation; for I could not imagine that thirty
+churches had been built _for nothing_ by the side of a brook (for it is
+no more during the greater part of the way) thirty miles long. The
+shepherd showed me the way towards Milton; and at the end of about a
+mile, from the top of a very high part of the down, with a steep slope
+towards the valley, I first saw this _Valley of Avon_; and a most
+beautiful sight it was! Villages, hamlets, large farms, towers,
+steeples, fields, meadows, orchards, and very fine timber trees,
+scattered all over the valley. The shape of the thing is this: on each
+side _downs_, very lofty and steep in some places, and sloping miles
+back in other places; but each _outside_ of the valley are downs. From
+the edge of the downs begin capital _arable fields_ generally of very
+great dimensions, and, in some places, running a mile or two back into
+little _cross-valleys_, formed by hills of downs. After the corn-fields
+come _meadows_, on each side, down to the _brook_ or _river_. The
+farm-houses, mansions, villages, and hamlets, are generally situated in
+that part of the arable land which comes nearest the meadows.
+
+Great as my expectations had been, they were more than fulfilled. I
+delight in this sort of country; and I had frequently seen the vale of
+the Itchen, that of the Bourn, and also that of the Teste, in Hampshire;
+I had seen the vales amongst the South Downs; but I never before saw
+anything to please me like this valley of the Avon. I sat upon my horse,
+and looked over Milton and Easton and Pewsy for half an hour, though I
+had not breakfasted. The hill was very steep. A road, going slanting
+down it, was still so steep, and washed so very deep, by the rains of
+ages, that I did not attempt to _ride_ down it, and I did not like to
+lead my horse, the path was so narrow. So seeing a boy with a drove of
+pigs, going out to the stubbles, I beckoned him to come up to me; and he
+came and led my horse down for me. Endless is the variety in the shape
+of the high lands which form this valley. Sometimes the slope is very
+gentle, and the arable lands go back very far. At others, the downs come
+out into the valley almost like piers into the sea, being very steep in
+their sides, as well as their ends towards the valley. They have no
+slope at their other ends: indeed they have no _back ends_, but run into
+the main high land. There is also great variety in the width of the
+valley; great variety in the width of the meadows; but the land appears
+all to be of the very best; and it must be so, for the farmers confess
+it.
+
+It seemed to me, that one way, and that not, perhaps, the least
+striking, of exposing the folly, the stupidity, the inanity, the
+presumption, the insufferable emptiness and insolence and barbarity, of
+those numerous wretches, who have now the audacity to propose to
+_transport_ the people of England, upon the principle of the monster
+Malthus, who has furnished the unfeeling oligarchs and their
+toad-eaters with the pretence, that _man has a natural propensity to
+breed faster than food can be raised for the increase_; it seemed to me,
+that one way of exposing this mixture of madness and of blasphemy was to
+take a look, now that the harvest is in, at the produce, the mouths, the
+condition, and the changes that have taken place, in a spot like this,
+which God has favoured with every good that he has had to bestow upon
+man.
+
+From the top of the hill I was not a little surprised to see, in every
+part of the valley that my eye could reach, a due, a large portion of
+fields of Swedish turnips, all looking extremely well. I had found the
+turnips, of both sorts, by no means bad, from Salt Hill to Newbury; but
+from Newbury through Burghclere, Highclere, Uphusband, and Tangley, I
+had seen but few. At and about Ludgarshall and Everley, I had seen
+hardly any. But when I came, this morning, to Milton Hill farm, I saw a
+very large field of what appeared to me to be fine Swedish turnips. In
+the valley, however, I found them much finer, and the fields were very
+beautiful objects, forming, as their colour did, so great a contrast
+with that of the fallows and the stubbles, which latter are, this year,
+singularly clean and bright.
+
+Having gotten to the bottom of the hill, I proceeded on to the village
+of Milton. I left Easton away at my right, and I did not go up to Watton
+Rivers where the river Avon rises, and which lies just close to the
+South-west corner of Marlborough Forest, and at about 5 or 6 miles from
+the town of Marlborough. Lower down the river, as I thought, there lived
+a friend, who was a great farmer, and whom I intended to call on. It
+being my way, however, always to begin making enquiries soon enough, I
+asked the pig-driver where this friend lived; and, to my surprise, I
+found that he lived in the parish of Milton. After riding up to the
+church, as being the centre of the village, I went on towards the house
+of my friend, which lay on my road down the valley. I have many, many
+times witnessed agreeable surprise; but I do not know, that I ever in
+the whole course of my life, saw people so much surprised and pleased as
+this farmer and his family were at seeing me. People often _tell_ you,
+that they are _glad to see_ you; and in general they speak truth. I take
+pretty good care not to approach any house, with the smallest appearance
+of a design to eat or drink in it, unless I be _quite sure_ of a cordial
+reception; but my friend at Fifield (it is in Milton parish) and all his
+family really seemed to be delighted beyond all expression.
+
+When I set out this morning, I intended to go all the way down to the
+city of Salisbury _to-day_; but, I soon found, that to refuse to sleep
+at Fifield would cost me a great deal more trouble than a day was
+worth. So that I made my mind up to stay in this farm-house, which has
+one of the nicest gardens, and it contains some of the finest flowers,
+that I ever saw, and all is disposed with as much good taste as I have
+ever witnessed. Here I am, then, just going to bed after having spent as
+pleasant a day as I ever spent in my life. I have heard to-day, that
+Birkbeck lost his life by attempting to cross a river on horse-back; but
+if what I have heard besides be true, that life must have been hardly
+worth preserving; for, they say, that he was reduced to a very
+deplorable state; and I have heard, from what I deem unquestionable
+authority, that his two beautiful and accomplished daughters are married
+to two common labourers, one a Yankee and the other an Irishman, neither
+of whom has, probably, a second shirt to his back, or a single pair of
+shoes to put his feet into! These poor girls owe their ruin and misery
+(if my information be correct), and, at any rate, hundreds besides
+Birkbeck himself, owe their utter ruin, the most scandalous degradation,
+together with great bodily suffering, to the vanity, the conceit, the
+presumption of Birkbeck, who, observe, richly merited all that he
+suffered, not excepting his death; for, he sinned with his eyes open; he
+rejected all advice; he persevered after he saw his error; he dragged
+thousands into ruin along with him; and he most vilely calumniated the
+man, who, after having most disinterestedly, but in vain, endeavoured to
+preserve him from ruin, endeavoured to preserve those who were in danger
+of being deluded by him. When, in 1817, before he set out for America, I
+was, in Catherine Street, Strand, London, so earnestly pressing him not
+to go to the back countries, he had one of these daughters with him.
+After talking to him for some time, and describing the risks and
+disadvantages of the back countries, I turned towards the daughter and,
+in a sort of joking way, said: "Miss Birkbeck, take my advice: don't let
+anybody get _you_ more than twenty miles from Boston, New York,
+Philadelphia, or Baltimore." Upon which he gave me a most _dignified_
+look, and observed: "Miss Birkbeck has _a father_, Sir, whom she knows
+it to be her duty to obey." This snap was enough for me. I saw, that
+this was a man so full of self-conceit, that it was impossible to do
+anything with him. He seemed to me to be bent upon his own destruction.
+I thought it my duty to warn _others_ of their danger: some took the
+warning; others did not; but he and his brother adventurer, Flower,
+never forgave me, and they resorted to all the means in their power to
+do me injury. They did me no injury, no thanks to them; and I have seen
+them most severely, but most justly, punished.
+
+
+_Amesbury, Tuesday, 29th August._
+
+I set off from Fifield this morning, and got here about one o'clock,
+with my clothes wet. While they are drying, and while a mutton chop is
+getting ready, I sit down to make some notes of what I have seen since I
+left Enford ... but, here comes my dinner: and I must put off my notes
+till I have dined.
+
+
+_Salisbury, Wednesday, 30th August._
+
+My ride yesterday, from Milton to this city of Salisbury, was, without
+any exception, the most pleasant; it brought before me the greatest
+number of, to me, interesting objects, and it gave rise to more
+interesting reflections, than I remember ever to have had brought before
+my eyes, or into my mind, in any one day of my life; and therefore, this
+ride was, without any exception, the most pleasant that I ever had in my
+life, as far as my recollection serves me. I got a little wet in the
+middle of the day; but I got dry again, and I arrived here in very good
+time, though I went over the Accursed Hill (Old Sarum), and went across
+to Laverstoke, before I came to Salisbury.
+
+Let us now, then, look back over this part of Wiltshire, and see whether
+the inhabitants ought to be "transported" by order of the "Emigration
+Committee," of which we shall see and say more by-and-by. I have before
+described this valley generally; let me now speak of it a little more in
+detail. The farms are all large, and, generally speaking, they were
+always large, I dare say; because _sheep_ is one of the great things
+here; and sheep, in a country like this, must be kept in _flocks_, to be
+of any profit. The sheep principally manure the land. This is to be done
+only by _folding_; and, to fold, you must have a _flock_. Every farm has
+its portion of down, arable, and meadow; and, in many places, the latter
+are watered meadows, which is a great resource where sheep are kept in
+flocks; because these meadows furnish grass for the suckling ewes, early
+in the spring; and, indeed, because they have always food in them for
+sheep and cattle of all sorts. These meadows have had no part of the
+suffering from the drought, this year. They fed the ewes and lambs in
+the spring, and they are now yielding a heavy crop of hay; for I saw men
+mowing in them, in several places, particularly about Netheravon, though
+it was raining at the time.
+
+The turnips look pretty well all the way down the valley; but, I see
+very few, except Swedish turnips. The early common turnips very nearly
+all failed, I believe. But the stubbles are beautifully bright; and the
+rick-yards tell us that the crops are good, especially of wheat. This is
+not a country of pease and beans, nor of oats, except for home
+consumption. The crops are wheat, barley, wool, and lambs, and these
+latter not to be sold to butchers, but to be sold, at the great fairs,
+to those who are going to keep them for some time, whether to breed
+from, or finally to fat for the butcher. It is the pulse and the oats
+that appear to have failed most this year; and therefore this Valley has
+not suffered. I do not perceive that they have many _potatoes_; but what
+they have of this base root seem to look well enough. It was one of the
+greatest villains upon earth (Sir Walter Raleigh), who (they say) first
+brought this root into England. He was hanged at last! What a pity,
+since he was to be hanged, the hanging did not take place before he
+became such a mischievous devil as he was in the latter two-thirds of
+his life!
+
+The stack-yards down this valley are beautiful to behold. They contain
+from five to fifteen banging wheat-ricks, besides barley-ricks, and
+hay-ricks, and also besides the contents of the barns, many of which
+exceed a hundred, some two hundred, and I saw one at Pewsey, and another
+at Fittleton, each of which exceeded two hundred and fifty feet in
+length. At a farm, which, in the old maps, is called Chissenbury Priory,
+I think I counted twenty-seven ricks of one sort and another, and
+sixteen or eighteen of them wheat-ricks. I could not conveniently get to
+the yard, without longer delay than I wished to make; but I could not be
+much out in my counting. A very fine sight this was, and it could not
+meet the eye without making one look round (and in vain) _to see the
+people who were to eat all this food_; and without making one reflect on
+the horrible, the unnatural, the base and infamous state, in which we
+must be, when projects are on foot, and are openly avowed, for
+_transporting_ those who raise this food, because they want to eat
+enough of it to keep them alive; and when no project is on foot for
+transporting the idlers who live in luxury upon this same food; when no
+project is on foot for transporting pensioners, parsons, or dead-weight
+people!
+
+A little while before I came to this farm-yard, I saw, in one piece,
+about four hundred acres of wheat-stubble, and I saw a sheep-fold,
+which, I thought, contained an acre of ground, and had in it about four
+thousand sheep and lambs. The fold was divided into three separate
+flocks; but the piece of ground was one and the same; and I thought it
+contained about an acre. At one farm, between Pewsey and Upavon, I
+counted more than 300 hogs in one stubble. This is certainly the most
+delightful farming in the world. No ditches, no water-furrows, no
+drains, hardly any hedges, no dirt and mire, even in the wettest
+seasons of the year: and though the downs are naked and cold, the
+valleys are snugness itself. They are, as to the downs, what _ah-ahs!_
+are, in parks or lawns. When you are going over the downs, you look
+_over_ the valleys, as in the case of the _ah-ah_; and if you be not
+acquainted with the country, your surprise, when you come to the edge of
+the hill, is very great. The shelter, in these valleys, and particularly
+where the downs are steep and lofty on the sides, is very complete.
+Then, the trees are everywhere lofty. They are generally elms, with some
+ashes, which delight in the soil that they find here. There are, almost
+always, two or three large clumps of trees in every parish, and a
+rookery or two (not _rag_-rookery) to every parish. By the water's edge
+there are willows; and to almost every farm there is a fine orchard, the
+trees being, in general, very fine, and, this year, they are, in
+general, well loaded with fruit. So that, all taken together, it seems
+impossible to find a more beautiful and pleasant country than this, or
+to imagine any life more easy and happy than men might here lead, if
+they were untormented by an accursed system that takes the food from
+those that raise it, and gives it to those that do nothing that is
+useful to man.
+
+Here the farmer has always an abundance of straw. His farm-yard is never
+without it. Cattle and horses are bedded up to their eyes. The yards are
+put close under the shelter of a hill, or are protected by lofty and
+thick-set trees. Every animal seems comfortably situated; and, in the
+dreariest days of winter, these are, perhaps, the happiest scenes in the
+world; or, rather, they would be such, if those, whose labour makes it
+all, trees, corn, sheep and everything, had but _their fair share_ of
+the produce of that labour. What share they really have of it one cannot
+exactly say; but, I should suppose, that every labouring _man_ in this
+valley raises as much food as would suffice for fifty, or a hundred
+persons, fed like himself!
+
+At a farm at Milton there were, according to my calculation, 600
+quarters of wheat and 1200 quarters of barley of the present year's
+crop. The farm keeps, on an average, 1400 sheep, it breeds and rears an
+usual proportion of pigs, fats the usual proportion of hogs, and, I
+suppose, rears and fats the usual proportion of poultry. Upon inquiry, I
+found that this farm was, in point of produce, about one-fifth of the
+parish. Therefore, the land of this parish produces annually about 3000
+quarters of wheat, 6000 quarters of barley, the wool of 7000 sheep,
+together with the pigs and poultry. Now, then, leaving green, or moist,
+vegetables out of the question, as being things that human creatures,
+and especially _labouring_ human creatures, ought never to use _as
+sustenance_, and saying nothing, at present, about milk and butter;
+leaving these wholly out of the question, let us see how many people the
+produce of this parish would keep, supposing the people to live all
+alike, and to have plenty of food and clothing. In order to come at the
+fact here, let us see what would be the consumption of one family; let
+it be a family of five persons; a man, wife, and three children, one
+child big enough to work, one big enough to eat heartily, and one a
+baby; and this is a pretty fair average of the state of people in the
+country. Such a family would want 5 lb. of bread a-day; they would want
+a pound of mutton a-day; they would want two pounds of bacon a-day; they
+would want, on an average, winter and summer, a gallon and a half of
+beer a-day; for I mean that they should live without the aid of the
+Eastern or the Western slave-drivers. If _sweets_ were absolutely
+necessary for the baby, there would be quite _honey_ enough in the
+parish. Now, then, to begin with the bread, a pound of good wheat makes
+a pound of good bread; for, though the offal be taken out, the water is
+put in; and, indeed, the fact is, that a pound of wheat will make a
+pound of bread, leaving the offal of the wheat to feed pigs, or other
+animals, and to produce other human food in this way. The family would,
+then, use 1825 lb. of wheat in the year, which, at 60 lb. a bushel,
+would be (leaving out a fraction) 30 bushels, or three quarters and six
+bushels, _for the year_.
+
+Next comes the mutton, 365 lb. for the year. Next the bacon, 730 lb. As
+to the quantity of mutton produced; the sheep are bred here, and not
+fatted in general; but we may fairly suppose, that each of the sheep
+_kept_ here, each of the _standing-stock_, makes first, or last, half a
+fat sheep; so that a farm that keeps, on an average, 100 sheep, produces
+annually 50 fat sheep. Suppose the mutton to be 15 lb. a quarter, then
+the family will want, within a trifle of, seven sheep a year. Of bacon
+or pork, 36 score will be wanted. Hogs differ so much in their
+propensity to fat, that it is difficult to calculate about them: but
+this is a very good rule: when you see a fat hog, and know how many
+_scores_ he will weigh, set down to his account a sack (half a quarter)
+of barley for every score of his weight; for, let him have been
+_educated_ (as the French call it) as he may, this will be about the
+real cost of him when he is fat. A sack of barley will make a score of
+bacon, and it will not make more. Therefore, the family would want 18
+quarters of barley in the year for bacon.
+
+As to the _beer_, 18 gallons to the bushel of malt is very good; but, as
+we allow of no spirits, no wine, and none of the slave produce, we will
+suppose that a _sixth_ part of the beer is _strong_ stuff. This would
+require two bushels of malt to the 18 gallons. The whole would,
+therefore, take 35 bushels of malt; and a bushel of barley makes a
+bushel of malt, and, by the _increase_ pays the expense of malting.
+Here, then, the family would want, for beer, four quarters and three
+bushels of barley. The annual consumption of the family, in victuals and
+drink, would then be as follows:
+
+           Qrs.  Bush.
+  Wheat     3      6
+  Barley   22      3
+           ----------
+  Sheep     7
+
+This being the case, the 3000 quarters of wheat, which the parish
+annually produces, would suffice for 800 families. The 6000 quarters of
+barley, would suffice for 207 families. The 3500 fat sheep, being half
+the number kept, would suffice for 500 families. So that here is,
+produced in the parish of Milton, _bread_ for 800, _mutton_ for 500, and
+_bacon and beer_ for 207 families. Besides victuals and drink, there are
+clothes, fuel, tools, and household goods wanting; but there are milk,
+butter, eggs, poultry, rabbits, hares, and partridges, which I have not
+noticed, and these are all eatables, and are all eaten too. And as to
+clothing, and, indeed, fuel and all other wants beyond eating and
+drinking, are there not 7000 fleeces of Southdown wool, weighing, all
+together, 21,000 lb., and capable of being made into 8400 yards of broad
+cloth, at two pounds and a half of wool to the yard? Setting, therefore,
+the wool, the milk, butter, eggs, poultry, and game against all the
+wants beyond the solid food and drink, we see that the parish of Milton,
+that we have under our eye, would give bread to 800 families, mutton to
+580, and bacon and beer to 207. The reason why wheat and mutton are
+produced in a proportion so much greater than the materials for making
+bacon and beer, is, that the wheat and the mutton are more loudly
+demanded _from a distance_, and are much more cheaply conveyed away in
+proportion to their value. For instance, the wheat and mutton are wanted
+in the infernal Wen, and some barley is wanted there in the shape of
+malt; but hogs are not fatted in the Wen, and a larger proportion of the
+barley is used where it is grown.
+
+Here is, then, bread for 800 families, mutton for 500, and bacon and
+beer for 207. Let us take the average of the three, and then we have 502
+families, for the keeping of whom, and in this good manner too, the
+parish of Milton yields a sufficiency. In the wool, the milk, butter,
+eggs, poultry, and game, we have seen ample, and much more than ample,
+provision for all wants other than those of mere food and drink. What I
+have allowed in food and drink is by no means excessive. It is but a
+pound of bread, and a little more than half-a-pound of meat a day to
+each person on an average; and the beer is not a drop too much. There
+are no green and moist vegetables included in my account; but, there
+would be some, and they would not do any harm; but, no man can say, or,
+at least, none but a base usurer, who would grind money out of the bones
+of his own father; no other man can, or will, say, that I have been _too
+liberal_ to this family; and yet, good God! what extravagance is here,
+if the labourers of England be now treated justly!
+
+Is there a family, even amongst those who live the hardest, in the Wen,
+that would not shudder at the thought of living upon what I have allowed
+to this family? Yet what do labourers' families get, compared to this?
+The answer to that question ought to make us shudder indeed. The amount
+of my allowance, compared with the amount of the allowance that
+labourers now have, is necessary to be stated here, before I proceed
+further. The wheat 3 qrs. and 6 bushels at present price (56_s._ the
+quarter) amounts to 10_l._ 10_s._ The barley (for bacon and beer) 22
+qrs. 3 bushels, at present price (34_s._ the quarter), amounts to 37_l._
+16_s._ 8_d._ The seven sheep, at 40_s._ each, amount to 14_l._ The total
+is 62_l._ 6_s._ 8_d._; and this, observe, for _bare victuals and drink_;
+just food and drink enough to keep people in working condition.
+
+What then _do_ the labourers get? To what fare has this wretched and
+most infamous system brought them! Why such a family as I have described
+is allowed to have, _at the utmost_, only about 9_s._ a week. The parish
+allowance is only about 7_s._ 6_d._ for the five people, including
+clothing, fuel, bedding and everything! Monstrous state of things! But
+let us suppose it to be _nine shillings_. Even that makes only 23_l._
+8_s._ a year, for food, drink, clothing, fuel and everything, whereas I
+allow 62_l._ 6_s._ 8_d._ a year for the bare eating and drinking; and
+that is little enough. Monstrous, barbarous, horrible as this appears,
+we do not, however, see it in half its horrors; our indignation and rage
+against this infernal system is not half roused, till we see the small
+number of labourers who raise all the food and the drink, and, of
+course, the mere trifling portion of it that they are suffered to retain
+for their own use.
+
+The parish of Milton does, as we have seen, produce food, drink,
+clothing, and all other things, enough for 502 families, or 2510 persons
+upon my allowance, which is a great deal more than three times the
+present allowance, because the present allowance includes clothing,
+fuel, tools, and everything. Now, then, according to the "Population
+Return," laid before Parliament, this parish contains 500 persons, or,
+according to my division, one hundred families. So that here are about
+_one hundred_ families to raise food and drink enough, and to raise
+wool and other things to pay for all other necessaries, for _five
+hundred_ and _two_ families! Aye, and five hundred and two families fed
+and lodged, too, on my liberal scale. Fed and lodged according to the
+present scale, this one hundred families raise enough to supply more,
+and many more, than fifteen hundred families; or seven thousand five
+hundred persons! And yet those who do the work are half starved! In the
+100 families there are, we will suppose, 80 able working men, and as
+many boys, sometimes assisted by the women and stout girls. What a
+handful of people to raise such a quantity of food! What injustice, what
+a hellish system it must be, to make those who raise it skin and bone
+and nakedness, while the food and drink and wool are almost all carried
+away to be heaped on the fund-holders, pensioners, soldiers,
+dead-weight, and other swarms of tax-eaters! If such an operation do not
+need putting an end to, then the devil himself is a saint.
+
+Thus it must be, or much about thus, all the way down this fine and
+beautiful and interesting valley. There are 29 agricultural parishes,
+the two last being in town; being Fisherton and Salisbury. Now,
+according to the "Population Return," the whole of these 29 parishes
+contain 9,116 persons; or, according to my division, 1,823 families.
+There is no reason to believe, that the proportion that we have seen in
+the case of Milton does not hold good all the way through; that is,
+there is no reason to suppose, that the produce does not exceed the
+consumption in every other case in the same degree that it does in the
+case of Milton. And indeed if I were to judge from the number of houses
+and the number of ricks of corn, I should suppose that the excess was
+still greater in several of the other parishes. But, supposing it to be
+no greater; supposing the same proportion to continue all the way from
+Watton Rivers to Stratford Dean, then here are 9,116 persons raising
+food and raiment sufficient for 45,580 persons, fed and lodged according
+to my scale; and sufficient for 136,740 persons, according to the scale
+on which the unhappy labourers of this fine valley are now fed and
+lodged!
+
+And yet there is an "_Emigration Committee_" sitting to devise the means
+of getting _rid_, not of the idlers, not of the pensioners, not of the
+dead-weight, not of the parsons, (to "relieve" whom we have seen the
+poor labourers taxed to the tune of a million and a half of money) not
+of the soldiers; but to devise means of getting rid of _these working
+people_, who are grudged even the miserable morsel that they get! There
+is in the men calling themselves "English country gentlemen" something
+superlatively base. They are, I sincerely believe, the most cruel, the
+most unfeeling, the most brutally insolent: but I know, I can prove, I
+can safely take my oath, that they are the most base of all the
+creatures that God ever suffered to disgrace the human shape. The base
+wretches know well, that the _taxes_ amount to more than _sixty
+millions_ a year, and that the _poor-rates_ amount to about _seven
+millions_; yet, while the cowardly reptiles never utter a word against
+the taxes, they are incessantly railing against the poor-rates, though
+it is, (and they know it) the taxes that make the paupers. The base
+wretches know well, that the sum of money given, even to the fellows
+that gather the taxes, is greater in amount than the poor-rates; the
+base wretches know well, that the money, given to the dead-weight (who
+ought not to have a single farthing), amounts to more than the poor
+receive out of the rates; the base wretches know well, that the common
+foot-soldier now receives more pay per week (7_s._ 7_d._) exclusive of
+clothing, firing, candle, and lodging; the base wretches know, that the
+common foot-soldier receives more to go down his own single throat, than
+the overseers and magistrates allow to a working man, his wife and three
+children; the base wretches know all this well; and yet their railings
+are confined to the _poor_ and the _poor-rates_; and it is expected that
+they will, next session, urge the Parliament to pass a law to enable
+overseers and vestries and magistrates _to transport paupers beyond the
+seas_! They are base enough for this, or for any thing; but the whole
+system will go to the devil long before they will get such an act
+passed; long before they will see perfected this consummation of their
+infamous tyranny.
+
+It is manifest enough, that the _population_ of this valley was, at one
+time, many times over what it is now; for, in the first place, what were
+the twenty-nine churches built _for_? The population of the 29 parishes
+is now but little more than one-half of that of the single parish of
+Kensington; and there are several of the churches bigger than the church
+at Kensington. What, then, should all these churches have been built
+_for_? And besides, where did the hands come from? And where did the
+money come from? These twenty-nine churches would now not only hold all
+the inhabitants, men, women, and children, but all the household goods,
+and tools, and implements, of the whole of them, farmers and all, if you
+leave out the wagons and carts. In three instances, Fifield, Milston,
+and Roach-Fen, the _church-porches_ will hold all the inhabitants, even
+down to the bed-ridden and the babies. What then? will any man believe
+that these churches were built for such little knots of people? We are
+told about the _great_ superstition of our fathers, and of their
+readiness to gratify the priests by building altars and other religious
+edifices. But we must think those priests to have been most devout
+creatures indeed, if we believe that they chose to have the money laid
+out in _useless_ churches, rather than have it put into their own
+pockets! At any rate, we all know that Protestant Priests have no whims
+of _this sort_; and that they never lay out upon churches any money that
+they can, by any means, get hold of.
+
+But, suppose that we were to believe that the Priests had, in old times,
+this unaccountable taste; and suppose we were to believe that a knot of
+people, who might be crammed into a church-porch, were seized, and very
+frequently too, with the desire of having a big church to go to; we
+must, after all this, believe that this knot of people were more than
+_giants_, or that they had surprising _riches_, else we cannot believe
+that they had _the means_ of gratifying the strange wishes of their
+Priests and their own not less strange _piety_ and _devotion_. Even if
+we could believe that they thought that they were paving their way to
+heaven, by building churches which were a hundred times too large for
+the population, still we cannot believe, that the building could have
+been effected without bodily force; and, where was this force to come
+from, if the people were not more numerous than they now are? What,
+again, I ask, were these twenty-nine churches stuck up, not a mile from
+each other; what were twenty-nine churches made _for_, if the population
+had been no greater than it is now?
+
+But, in fact, you plainly see all the traces of a great ancient
+population. The churches are almost all large, and built in the best
+manner. Many of them are very fine edifices; very costly in the
+building; and, in the cases where the body of the church has been
+altered in the repairing of it, so as to make it smaller, the _tower_,
+which everywhere defies the hostility of time, shows you what the church
+must formerly have been. This is the case in several instances; and
+there are two or three of these villages which must formerly have been
+_market-towns_, and particularly Pewsy and Upavon. There are now no less
+than nine of the parishes out of the twenty-nine, that have either no
+parsonage-houses, or have such as are in such a state that a Parson will
+not, or cannot, live in them. Three of them are without any
+parsonage-houses at all, and the rest are become poor, mean,
+falling-down places. This latter is the case at Upavon, which was
+formerly a very considerable place. Nothing can more clearly show, than
+this, that all, as far as buildings and population are concerned, has
+been long upon the decline and decay. Dilapidation after dilapidation
+have, at last, almost effaced even the parsonage-houses, and that too in
+_defiance of the law_, ecclesiastical as well as civil. The land
+remains; and the crops and the sheep come as abundantly as ever; but
+they are now sent almost wholly away, instead of remaining, as
+formerly, to be, in great part, consumed in these twenty-nine parishes.
+
+The _stars_, in my map, mark the spots where manor-houses, or
+gentlemen's mansions, formerly stood, and stood, too, only about sixty
+years ago. Every parish had its manor house in the first place; and then
+there were, down this Valley, twenty-one others; so that, in this
+distance of about thirty miles, there stood fifty mansion houses. Where
+are they _now_? I believe there are but eight that are at all worthy of
+the name of mansion houses; and even these are but poorly kept up, and,
+except in two or three instances, are of no benefit to the labouring
+people; they employ but few persons; and, in short, do not half supply
+the place of any eight of the old mansions. All these mansions, all
+these parsonages, aye, and their goods and furniture, together with the
+clocks, the brass kettles, the brewing-vessels, the good bedding and
+good clothes and good furniture, and the stock in pigs, or in money, of
+the inferior classes, in this series of once populous and gay villages
+and hamlets; all these have been by the accursed system of taxing and
+funding and paper-money, by the well-known exactions of the state, and
+by the not less real, though less generally understood, extortions of
+the _monopolies_ arising out of paper-money; all these have been, by
+these accursed means, conveyed away, out of this Valley, to the haunts
+of the tax-eaters and the monopolizers. There are many of the _mansion
+houses_, the ruins of which you yet behold. At Milton there are two
+mansion houses, the walls and the roofs of which yet remain, but which
+are falling gradually to pieces, and the garden walls are crumbling
+down. At Enford, Bennet, the Member for the county, had a large mansion
+house, the stables of which are yet standing. In several places, I saw,
+still remaining, indubitable traces of an ancient manor house, namely a
+dove-cote or pigeon-house. The poor pigeons have kept possession of
+their heritage, from generation to generation, and so have the rooks, in
+their several rookeries, while the paper-system has swept away, or
+rather swallowed-up, the owners of the dove-cotes and of the lofty
+trees, about forty families of which owners have been ousted in this one
+Valley, and have become dead-weight creatures, tax-gatherers,
+barrack-fellows, thief-takers, or, perhaps, paupers or thieves.
+
+Senator Snip congratulated, some years ago, that preciously honourable
+"Collective _Wisdom_" of which he is a most worthy Member; Snip
+congratulated it on the success of the late war in creating capital!
+Snip is, you must know, a great _feelosofer_, and a not less great
+_feenanceer_. Snip cited, as a proof of the great and glorious effects
+of paper-money, the new and fine houses in London, the new streets and
+squares, the new roads, new canals and bridges. Snip was not, I dare
+say, aware that this same paper-money had destroyed forty mansion houses
+in this Vale of Avon, and had taken away all the goods, all the
+substance, of the little gentry and of the labouring class. Snip was
+not, I dare say, aware that this same paper-money had, in this one Vale
+of only thirty miles long, dilapidated, and, in some cases, wholly
+demolished, nine out of twenty-nine even of the parsonage houses. I told
+Snip at the time (1821), that paper-money could create no valuable
+thing. I begged Snip to bear this in mind. I besought all my readers,
+and particularly Mr. Mathias Atwood (one of the members for
+_Lowther_-town), not to believe that paper-money ever did, or ever
+could, _create_ anything of any value. I besought him to look well into
+the matter, and assured him that he would find that though paper-money
+could _create_ nothing of value, it was able to _transfer_ everything of
+value; able to strip a little gentry; able to dilapidate even parsonage
+houses; able to rob gentlemen of their estates, and labourers of their
+Sunday-coats and their barrels of beer; able to snatch the dinner from
+the board of the reaper or the mower, and to convey it to the
+barrack-table of the Hessian or Hanoverian grenadier; able to take away
+the wool, that ought to give warmth to the bodies of those who rear the
+sheep, and put it on the backs of those who carry arms to keep the poor,
+half-famished shepherds in order!
+
+I have never been able clearly to comprehend what the beastly Scotch
+_feelosofers_ mean by their "national wealth;" but, as far as I can
+understand them, this is their meaning: that national wealth means that
+which is _left_ of the products of the country over and above what is
+_consumed_, or _used_, by those whose labour causes the products to be.
+This being the notion, it follows, of course, that the _fewer_ poor
+devils you can screw the products out of, the _richer_ the nation is.
+
+This is, too, the notion of Burdett as expressed in his silly and most
+nasty, musty aristocratic speech of last session. What, then, is to be
+done with this _over-produce_? Who is to have it? Is it to go to
+pensioners, placemen, tax-gatherers, dead-weight people, soldiers,
+gendarmerie, police-people, and, in short, to whole millions _who do no
+work at all_? Is this a cause of "national wealth"? Is a nation made
+_rich_ by taking the food and clothing from those who create them, and
+giving them to those who do nothing of any use? Aye, but this
+over-produce may be given to _manufacturers_, and to those who supply
+the food-raisers with what they want besides food. Oh! but this is
+merely an _exchange_ of one valuable thing for another valuable thing;
+it is an exchange of labour in Wiltshire for labour in Lancashire; and,
+upon the whole, here is no _over-production_. If the produce be
+exported, it is the same thing: it is an exchange of one sort of labour
+for another. But _our course_ is, that there is not an exchange; that
+those who labour, no matter in what way, have a large part of the fruit
+of their labour taken away, and receive nothing in exchange. If the
+over-produce of this Valley of Avon were given, by the farmers, to the
+weavers in Lancashire, to the iron and steel chaps of Warwickshire, and
+to other makers or sellers of useful things, there would come an
+abundance of all these useful things into this valley from Lancashire
+and other parts: but if, as is the case, the over-produce goes to the
+fund-holders, the dead-weight, the soldiers, the lord and lady and
+master and miss pensioners and sinecure people; if the over-produce go
+to them, as a very great part of it does, nothing, not even the parings
+of one's nails, can come back to the valley in exchange. And, can this
+operation, then, add to the "national wealth"? It adds to the "wealth"
+of those who carry on the affairs of state; it fills their pockets,
+those of their relatives and dependents; it fattens all tax-eaters; but
+it can give no wealth to the "nation," which means the whole of the
+people. National Wealth means the Commonwealth or Commonweal; and these
+mean, the general good, or happiness, of the people, and the safety and
+honour of the state; and these are not to be secured by robbing those
+who labour, in order to support a large part of the community in
+idleness. Devizes is the market-town to which the corn goes from the
+greater part of this Valley. If, when a wagon-load of wheat goes off in
+the morning, the wagon came back at night loaded with cloth, salt, or
+something or other, equal in value to the wheat, except what might be
+necessary to leave with the shopkeeper as his profit; then, indeed, the
+people might see the wagon go off without tears in their eyes. But now
+they see it go to carry away, and to bring next to nothing in return.
+
+What a _twist_ a head must have before it can come to the conclusion
+that the nation gains in wealth by the government being able to cause
+the work to be done by those who have hardly any share in the fruit of
+the labour! What a _twist_ such a head must have! The Scotch
+_feelosofers_, who seem all to have been, by nature, formed for
+negro-drivers, have an insuperable objection to all those establishments
+and customs which occasion _holidays_. They call them a great hindrance,
+a great bar to industry, a great drawback from "national wealth." I wish
+each of these unfeeling fellows had a spade put into his hand for ten
+days, only ten days, and that he were compelled to dig only just as much
+as one of the common labourers at Fulham. The metaphysical gentlemen
+would, I believe, soon discover the _use of holidays_! But _why_ should
+men, why should _any_ men, work _hard_? Why, I ask, should they work
+incessantly, if working part of the days of the week be sufficient? Why
+should the people at Milton, for instance, work incessantly, when they
+now raise food and clothing and fuel and every necessary to maintain
+well five times their number? Why should they not have some holidays?
+And, pray, say, thou conceited Scotch feelosofer, how the "national
+wealth" can be increased by making these people work incessantly, that
+they may raise food and clothing, to go to feed and clothe people who do
+not work at all?
+
+The state of this Valley seems to illustrate the infamous and really
+diabolical assertion of Malthus, which is, that the human kind have a
+natural tendency _to increase beyond the means of sustenance for them_.
+Hence, all the schemes of this and the other Scotch writers for what
+they call checking population. Now, look at this Valley of Avon. Here
+the people raise nearly twenty times as much food and clothing as they
+consume. They raise five times as much, even according to my scale of
+living. They have been doing this for many, many years. They have been
+doing it for several generations. Where, then, is their natural tendency
+to increase beyond the means of sustenance for them? Beyond, indeed, the
+means of that sustenance which a system like this will leave them. Say
+that, Sawneys, and I agree with you. Far beyond the means that the
+taxing and monopolizing system will leave in their hands: that is very
+true; for it leaves them nothing but the scale of the poor-book; they
+must cease to breed at all, or they must exceed this mark; but the
+_earth_, give them their fair share of its products, will always give
+sustenance in sufficiency to those who apply to it by skilful and
+diligent labour.
+
+The villages down this Valley of Avon, and, indeed, it was the same in
+almost every part of this county, and in the North and West of Hampshire
+also, used to have great employment for the women and children in the
+carding and spinning of wool for the making of broad-cloth. This was a
+very general employment for the women and girls; but it is now wholly
+gone; and this has made a vast change in the condition of the people,
+and in the state of property and of manners and of morals. In 1816, I
+wrote and published a _Letter to the Luddites_, the object of which was
+to combat their hostility to the use of machinery. The arguments I there
+made use of were general. I took the matter in the abstract. The
+_principles_ were all correct enough; but their application cannot be
+universal; and we have a case here before us, at this moment, which, in
+my opinion, shows that the mechanic inventions, pushed to the extent
+that they have been, have been productive of great calamity to this
+country, and that they will be productive of still greater calamity;
+unless, indeed, it be their brilliant destiny to be the immediate cause
+of putting an end to the present system.
+
+The greater part of manufactures consists of _clothing_ and _bedding_.
+Now, if by using a machine, we can get our coat with less labour than we
+got it before, the machine is a desirable thing. But, then, mind, we
+must have the machine at home, and we ourselves must have the profit of
+it; for, if the machine be elsewhere; if it be worked by other hands; if
+other persons have the profit of it; and if, in consequence of the
+existence of the machine, we have hands at home, who have nothing to do,
+and whom we must keep, then the machine is an injury to us, however
+advantageous it may be to those who use it, and whatever traffic it may
+occasion with foreign States.
+
+Such is the case with regard to this cloth-making. The machines are at
+Upton-Level, Warminster, Bradford, Westbury, and Trowbridge, and here
+are some of the hands in the Valley of Avon. This Valley raises food and
+clothing; but, in order to raise them, it must have _labourers_. These
+are absolutely necessary; for without them this rich and beautiful
+Valley becomes worth nothing except to wild animals and their pursuers.
+The labourers are _men_ and _boys_. Women and girls occasionally; but
+the men and the boys are as necessary as the light of day, or as the air
+and the water. Now, if beastly Malthus, or any of his nasty disciples,
+can discover a mode of having men and boys without having women and
+girls, then, certainly, the machine must be a good thing; but if this
+Valley must absolutely have the women and the girls, then the machine,
+by leaving them with nothing to do, is a mischievous thing; and a
+producer of most dreadful misery. What, with regard to the poor, is the
+great complaint now? Why, that the _single man_ does not receive the
+same, or anything like the same, wages as the _married_ man. Aye, it is
+the wife and girls that are the burden; and to be sure a burden they
+must be, under a system of taxation like the present, and with no work
+to do. Therefore, whatever may be saved in labour by the machine is no
+benefit, but an injury to the mass of the people. For, in fact, all that
+the women and children earned was so much clear addition to what the
+family earns now. The greatest part of the clothing in the United States
+of America is made by the farm women and girls. They do almost the whole
+of it; and all that they do is done at home. To be sure, they might buy
+cheap; but they must buy for less than nothing, if it would not answer
+their purpose to _make_ the things.
+
+The survey of this Valley is, I think, the finest answer in the world to
+the "Emigration Committee" fellows, and to Jerry Curteis (one of the
+Members for Sussex), who has been giving "evidence" before it. I shall
+find out, when I can get to see the _report_, what this "Emigration
+Committee" would be _after_. I remember that, last winter, a young woman
+complained to one of the Police Justices that the Overseers of some
+parish were going to transport her orphan brother to Canada, because he
+became chargeable to their parish! I remember, also, that the Justice
+said, that the intention of the Overseers was "premature," for that "the
+Bill had not yet passed"! This was rather an ugly story; and I do think
+that we shall find that there have been, and are, some pretty
+propositions before this "Committee." We shall see all about the matter,
+however, by-and-by; and, when we get the transporting project fairly
+before us, shall we not then loudly proclaim "the envy of surrounding
+nations and admiration of the world"!
+
+But, what ignorance, impudence, and insolence must those base wretches
+have, who propose to transport the labouring people, as being too
+numerous, while the produce, which is obtained by their labour, is more
+than sufficient for three, four, or five, or even ten times their
+numbers! Jerry Curteis, who has, it seems, been a famous witness on this
+occasion, says that the poor-rates, in many cases, amount to as much as
+the rent. Well: and what then, Jerry? The rent may be high enough too,
+and the farmer may afford to pay them both; for a very large part of
+what you call _poor-rates_ ought to be called _wages_. But, at any rate,
+what has all this to do with the necessity of emigration? To make out
+such necessity, you must make out that you have more mouths than the
+produce of the parish will feed. Do then, Jerry, tell us, another time,
+a little about the quantity of food annually raised in four or five
+adjoining parishes; for, is it not something rather damnable, Jerry, to
+talk of _transporting_ Englishmen, on account of the _excess of their
+numbers_, when the fact is notorious that their labour produces five or
+ten times as much food and raiment as they and their families consume!
+
+However, to drop Jerry, for the present, the baseness, the foul, the
+stinking, the carrion baseness, of the fellows that call themselves
+"country gentlemen," is, that the wretches, while railing against the
+poor and the poor-rates; while affecting to believe that the poor are
+wicked and lazy; while complaining that the poor, the working people,
+are too numerous, and that the country villages are too populous: the
+carrion baseness of these wretches is, that, while they are thus _bold_
+with regard to the working and poor people, they never even whisper a
+word against pensioners, placemen, soldiers, parsons, fundholders,
+tax-gatherers, or tax-eaters! They say not a word against the prolific
+dead-weight to whom they give a premium for breeding, while they want to
+check the population of labourers! They never say a word about the too
+great populousness of the Wen; nor about that of Liverpool, Manchester,
+Cheltenham, and the like! Oh! they are the most cowardly, the very
+basest, the most scandalously base reptiles that ever were warmed into
+life by the rays of the sun!
+
+In taking my leave of this beautiful vale, I have to express my deep
+shame, as an Englishman, at beholding the general _extreme poverty_ of
+those who cause this vale to produce such quantities of food and
+raiment. This is, I verily believe it, the _worst used labouring people
+upon the face of the earth_. Dogs and hogs and horses are treated with
+more civility; and as to food and lodging, how gladly would the
+labourers change with them! This state of things never can continue many
+years! _By some means or other_ there must be an end to it; and my firm
+belief is, that that end will be dreadful. In the meanwhile I see, and I
+see it with pleasure, that the common people know that they are ill
+used; and that they cordially, most cordially, hate those who ill-treat
+them.
+
+During the day I crossed the river about fifteen or sixteen times, and
+in such hot weather it was very pleasant to be so much amongst meadows
+and water. I had been at Netheravon about eighteen years ago, where I
+had seen a great quantity of hares. It is a place belonging to Mr. Hicks
+Beach, or Beech, who was once a member of parliament. I found the place
+altered a good deal; out of repair; the gates rather rotten; and (a very
+bad sign!) the roof of the dog-kennel falling in! There is a church, at
+this village of Netheravon, large enough to hold a thousand or two of
+people, and the whole parish contains only 350 souls, men, women and
+children. This Netheravon was formerly a great lordship, and in the
+parish there were three considerable mansion-houses, besides the one
+near the church. These mansions are all down now; and it is curious
+enough to see the former _walled gardens_ become _orchards_, together
+with other changes, all tending to prove the gradual decay in all except
+what appertains merely to _the land_ as a thing of production for the
+distant market. But, indeed, the people and the means of enjoyment must
+go away. They are _drawn_ away by the taxes and the paper-money. How are
+_twenty thousand new houses_ to be, all at once, building in the Wen,
+without people and food and raiment going from this valley towards the
+Wen? It must be so; and this unnatural, this dilapidating, this ruining
+and debasing work must go on, until that which produces it be destroyed.
+
+When I came down to Stratford Dean, I wanted to go across to Laverstoke,
+which lay to my left of Salisbury; but just on the side of the road
+here, at Stratford Dean, rises the _Accursed Hill_. It is very lofty.
+It was originally a hill in an irregular sort of sugar-loaf shape: but
+it was so altered by the Romans, or by somebody, that the upper
+three-quarter parts of the hill now, when seen from a distance, somewhat
+resemble _three cheeses_, laid one upon another; the bottom one a great
+deal broader than the next, and the top one like a Stilton cheese, in
+proportion to a Gloucester one. I resolved to ride over this Accursed
+Hill. As I was going up a field towards it, I met a man going home from
+work. I asked how he _got on_. He said, very badly. I asked him what was
+the cause of it. He said the _hard times_. "What _times_," said I; "was
+there ever a finer summer, a finer harvest, and is there not an _old_
+wheat-rick in every farm-yard?" "Ah!" said he, "_they_ make it bad for
+poor people, for all that." "_They?_" said I, "who is _they_?" He was
+silent. "Oh, no, no! my friend," said I, "it is not _they_; it is that
+Accursed Hill that has robbed you of the supper that you ought to find
+smoking on the table when you get home." I gave him the price of a pot
+of beer, and on I went, leaving the poor dejected assemblage of skin and
+bone to wonder at my words.
+
+The hill is very steep, and I dismounted and led my horse up. Being as
+near to the top as I could conveniently get, I stood a little while
+reflecting, not so much on the changes which that hill had seen, as on
+the changes, the terrible changes, which, in all human probability, it
+had _yet to see_, and which it would have greatly _helped to produce_.
+It was impossible to stand on this accursed spot, without swelling with
+indignation against the base and plundering and murderous sons of
+corruption. I have often wished, and I, speaking out loud, expressed the
+wish now: "May that man perish for ever and ever, who, having the power,
+neglects to bring to justice the perjured, the suborning, the insolent
+and perfidious miscreants, who openly sell their country's rights and
+their own souls."
+
+From the Accursed Hill I went to Laverstoke where "Jemmy Burrough" (as
+they call him here), the Judge, lives. I have not heard much about
+"Jemmy" since he tried and condemned the two young men who had wounded
+the game-keepers of Ashton Smith and Lord Palmerston. His Lordship
+(Palmerston) is, I see, making a tolerable figure in the newspapers as a
+_share-man_! I got into Salisbury about half-past seven o'clock, less
+tired than I recollect ever to have been after so long a ride; for,
+including my several crossings of the river and my deviations to look at
+churches and farm-yards, and rick-yards, I think I must have ridden
+nearly forty miles.
+
+
+
+
+RIDE FROM SALISBURY TO WARMINSTER, FROM WARMINSTER TO FROME, FROM FROME
+TO DEVIZES, AND FROM DEVIZES TO HIGHWORTH.
+
+     "Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor
+     of the land to fail: saying, When will the new moon be gone that
+     we may sell corn? And the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheat,
+     making the Ephah small and the Shekel great, and falsifying the
+     balances by deceit; that we may buy the poor for silver, and the
+     needy for a pair of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat?
+     Shall not the land tremble for this; and every one mourn that
+     dwelleth therein? I will turn your feasting into mourning, saith
+     the Lord God, and your songs into lamentations."--Amos, chap.
+     viii. ver. 4 to 10.
+
+
+_Heytesbury (Wilts), Thursday, 31st August, 1826._
+
+This place, which is one of the rotten boroughs of Wiltshire, and which
+was formerly a considerable town, is now but a very miserable affair.
+Yesterday morning I went into the Cathedral at Salisbury about 7
+o'clock. When I got into the nave of the church, and was looking up and
+admiring the columns and the roof, I heard a sort of _humming_, in some
+place which appeared to be in the transept of the building. I wondered
+what it was, and made my way towards the place whence the noise appeared
+to issue. As I approached it, the noise seemed to grow louder. At last,
+I thought I could distinguish the sounds of the human voice. This
+encouraged me to proceed; and, still following the sound, I at last
+turned in at a doorway to my left, where I found a priest and his
+congregation assembled. It was a parson of some sort, with a white
+covering on him, and five women and four men: when I arrived, there were
+five couple of us. I joined the congregation, until they came to the
+_litany_; and then, being monstrously hungry, I did not think myself
+bound to stay any longer. I wonder what the founders would say, if they
+could rise from the grave, and see such a congregation as this in this
+most magnificent and beautiful cathedral? I wonder what they would say,
+if they could know _to what purpose_ the endowments of this Cathedral
+are now applied; and above all things, I wonder what they would say, if
+they could see the half-starved labourers that now minister to the
+luxuries of those who wallow in the wealth of those endowments. There is
+one thing, at any rate, that might be abstained from, by those that
+revel in the riches of those endowments; namely, to abuse and
+blackguard those of our forefathers, from whom the endowments came, and
+who erected the edifice, and carried so far towards the skies that
+beautiful and matchless spire, of which the present possessors have the
+impudence to boast, while they represent as ignorant and benighted
+creatures, those who conceived the grand design, and who executed the
+scientific and costly work. These fellows, in big white wigs, of the
+size of half a bushel, have the audacity, even within the walls of the
+Cathedrals themselves, to rail against those who founded them; and
+Rennell and Sturges, while they were actually, literally, fattening on
+the spoils of the monastery of St. Swithin, at Winchester, were
+publishing abusive pamphlets against that Catholic religion which had
+given them their very bread. For my part, I could not look up at the
+spire and the whole of the church at Salisbury, without _feeling_ that I
+lived in degenerate times. Such a thing never could be made _now_. We
+_feel_ that as we look at the building. It really does appear that if
+our forefathers had not made these buildings, we should have forgotten,
+before now, what the Christian religion was!
+
+At Salisbury, or very near to it, four other rivers fall into the
+Avon--the Wyly river, the Nadder, the Born, and another little river
+that comes from Norrington. These all become one, at last, just below
+Salisbury, and then, under the name of the Avon, wind along down and
+fall into the sea at Christchurch. In coming from Salisbury, I came up
+the road which runs pretty nearly parallel with the river Wyly, which
+river rises at Warminster and in the neighbourhood. This river runs down
+a valley twenty-two miles long. It is not so pretty as the valley of the
+Avon; but it is very fine in its whole length from Salisbury to this
+place (Heytesbury). Here are watered meadows nearest to the river on
+both sides; then the gardens, the houses, and the corn-fields. After the
+corn-fields come the downs; but, generally speaking, the downs are not
+so bold here as they are on the sides of the Avon. The downs do not come
+out in promontories so often as they do on the sides of the Avon. The
+_Ah-ah!_ if I may so express it, is not so deep, and the sides of it not
+so steep, as in the case of the Avon; but the villages are as frequent;
+there is more than one church in every mile, and there has been a due
+proportion of mansion houses demolished and defaced. The farms are very
+fine up this vale, and the meadows, particularly at a place called
+Stapleford, are singularly fine. They had just been mowed at Stapleford,
+and the hay carried off. At Stapleford, there is a little cross valley,
+running up between two hills of the down. There is a little run of water
+about a yard wide at this time, coming down this little vale across the
+road into the river. The little vale runs up three miles. It does not
+appear to be half a mile wide; but in those three miles there are four
+churches; namely, Stapleford, Uppington, Berwick St. James, and
+Winterborne Stoke. The present population of these four villages is 769
+souls, men, women, and children, the whole of whom could very
+conveniently be seated in the chancel of the church at Stapleford.
+Indeed, the church and parish of Uppington seem to have been united with
+one of the other parishes, like the parish in Kent which was united with
+North Cray, and not a single house of which now remains. What were these
+four churches _built for_ within the distance of three miles? There are
+three parsonage houses still remaining; but, and it is a very curious
+fact, neither of them good enough for the parson to live in! Here are
+seven hundred and sixty souls to be taken care of, but there is no
+parsonage house for a soul-curer to stay in, or at least that he _will_
+stay in; and all the three parsonages are, in the return laid before
+Parliament, represented to be no better than miserable labourers'
+cottages, though the parish of Winterborne Stoke has a church sufficient
+to contain two or three thousand people. The truth is, that the parsons
+have been receiving the revenues of the livings, and have been suffering
+the parsonage houses to fall into decay. Here were two or three mansion
+houses, which are also gone, even from the sides of this little run of
+water.
+
+To-day has been exceedingly hot. Hotter, I think, for a short time, than
+I ever felt it in England before. In coming through a village called
+Wishford, and mounting a little hill, I thought the heat upon my back
+was as great as I had ever felt it in my life. There were thunder storms
+about, and it had rained at Wishford a little before I came to it.
+
+My next village was one that I had lived in for a short time, when I was
+only about ten or eleven years of age. I had been sent down with a horse
+from Farnham, and I remember that I went by _Stone-henge_, and rode up
+and looked at the stones. From Stone-henge I went to the village of
+Steeple Langford, where I remained from the month of June till the fall
+of the year. I remembered the beautiful villages up and down this
+valley. I also remembered, very well, that the women at Steeple Langford
+used to card and spin dyed wool. I was, therefore, somewhat filled with
+curiosity to see this Steeple Langford again; and, indeed, it was the
+recollection of this village that made me take a ride into Wiltshire
+this summer. I have, I dare say, a thousand times talked about this
+Steeple Langford and about the beautiful farms and meadows along this
+valley. I have talked of these to my children a great many times; and I
+formed the design of letting two of them see this valley this year, and
+to go through Warminster to Stroud, and so on to Gloucester and
+Hereford. But, when I got to Everley, I found that they would never get
+along fast enough to get into Herefordshire in time for what they
+intended; so that I parted from them in the manner I have before
+described. I was resolved, however, to see Steeple Langford myself, and
+I was impatient to get to it, hoping to find a public-house, and a
+stable to put my horse in, to protect him, for a while, against the
+flies, which tormented him to such a degree, that to ride him was work
+as hard as threshing. When I got to Steeple Langford, I found no
+public-house, and I found it a much more miserable place than I had
+remembered it. The _Steeple_, to which it owed its distinctive
+appellation, was gone; and the place altogether seemed to me to be very
+much altered for the worse. A little further on, however, I came to a
+very famous inn, called Deptford Inn, which is in the parish of Wyly. I
+stayed at this inn till about four o'clock in the afternoon. I
+remembered Wyly very well, and thought it a gay place when I was a boy.
+I remembered a very beautiful garden belonging to a rich farmer and
+miller. I went to see it; but, alas! though the statues in the water and
+on the grass-plat were still remaining, everything seemed to be in a
+state of perfect carelessness and neglect. The living of this parish of
+Wyly was lately owned by Dampier (a brother of the Judge), who lived at,
+and I believe had the living of, Meon Stoke in Hampshire. This fellow, I
+believe, never saw the parish of Wyly but once, though it must have
+yielded him a pretty good fleece. It is a Rectory, and the great tithes
+must be worth, I should think, six or seven hundred pounds a year, at
+the least.
+
+It is a part of our system to have certain _families_, who have no
+particular merit, but who are to be maintained, without why or
+wherefore, at the public expense, in some shape, or under some name, or
+other, it matters not much what shape or what name. If you look through
+the old list of pensioners, sinecurists, parsons, and the like, you will
+find the same names everlastingly recurring. They seem to be a sort of
+creatures that have an _inheritance in the public carcass_, like the
+maggots that some people have in their skins. This family of Dampier
+seems to be one of these. What, in God's name, should have made one of
+these a Bishop and the other a Judge! I never heard of the smallest
+particle of talent that either of them possessed. This Rector of Wyly
+was another of them. There was no harm in them that I know of, beyond
+that of living upon the public; but where were their merits? They had
+none, to distinguish them, and to entitle them to the great sums they
+received; and, under any other system than such a system as this, they
+would, in all human probability, have been gentlemen's servants or
+little shopkeepers. I dare say there is some of the _breed_ left; and,
+if there be, I would pledge my existence, that they are, in some shape
+or other, feeding upon the public. However, thus it must be, until that
+change come which will put an end to men paying _fourpence_ in tax upon
+a pot of beer.
+
+This Deptford Inn was a famous place of meeting for the _Yeomanry
+Cavalry_, in glorious anti-jacobin times, when wheat was twenty
+shillings a bushel, and when a man could be crammed into gaol for years,
+for only _looking_ awry. This inn was a glorious place in the days of
+Peg Nicholson and her Knights. Strangely altered now. The shape of the
+garden shows you what revelry used to be carried on here. Peel's Bill
+gave this inn, and all belonging to it, a terrible souse. The unfeeling
+brutes, who used to brandish their swords, and swagger about, at the
+news of what was called "a victory," have now to lower their scale in
+clothing, in drink, in eating, in dress, in horseflesh, and everything
+else. They are now a lower sort of men than they were. They look at
+their rusty sword and their old dusty helmet and their once gay
+regimental jacket. They do not hang these up now in the "parlour" for
+everybody to see them: they hang them up in their bedrooms, or in a
+cockloft; and when they meet their eye, they look at them as a cow does
+at a bastard calf, or as the bridegroom does at a girl that the
+overseers are about to compel him to marry. If their children should
+happen to see these implements of war twenty or thirty years hence, they
+will certainly think that their fathers were the greatest fools that
+ever walked the face of the earth; and that will be a most filial and
+charitable way of thinking of them; for it is not from ignorance that
+they have sinned, but from excessive baseness; and when any of them now
+complain of those acts of the Government which strip them, (as the late
+Order in Council does), of a fifth part of their property in an hour,
+let them recollect their own base and malignant conduct towards those
+persecuted reformers, who, if they had not been suppressed by these very
+yeomen, would, long ago, have put an end to the cause of that ruin of
+which these yeomen now complain. When they complain of their ruin, let
+them remember the toasts which they drank in anti-jacobin times; let
+them remember their base and insulting exultations on the occasion of
+the 16th of August at Manchester; let them remember their cowardly abuse
+of men, who were endeavouring to free their country from that horrible
+scourge which they themselves now feel.
+
+Just close by this Deptford Inn is the farm-house of the farm where that
+Gourlay lived, who has long been making a noise in the Court of
+Chancery, and who is now, I believe, confined in some place or other for
+having assaulted Mr. Brougham. This fellow, who is confined, the
+newspapers tell us, on a charge of being insane, is certainly one of
+the most malignant devils that I ever knew anything of in my life. He
+went to Canada about the time that I went last to the United States. He
+got into a quarrel with the Government there about something, I know not
+what. He came to see me, at my house in the neighbourhood of New York,
+just before I came home. He told me his Canada story. I showed him all
+the kindness in my power, and he went away, knowing that I was just then
+coming to England. I had hardly got home, before the Scotch newspapers
+contained communications from a person, pretending to derive his
+information from Gourlay, relating to what Gourlay had described as
+having passed between him and me; and which description was a tissue of
+most abominable falsehoods, all having a direct tendency to do injury to
+me, who had never, either by word or deed, done anything that could
+possibly have a tendency to do injury to this Gourlay. What the vile
+Scotch newspapers had begun, the malignant reptile himself continued
+after his return to England, and, in an address to Lord Bathurst,
+endeavoured to make his court to the Government by the most foul, false
+and detestable slanders upon me, from whom, observe, he had never
+received any injury, or attempt at injury, in the whole course of his
+life; whom he had visited; to whose house he had gone, of his own
+accord, and that, too, as he said, out of _respect_ for me; endeavoured,
+I say, to make his court to the Government by the most abominable
+slanders against me. He is now, even now, putting forth, under the form
+of letters to me, a revival of what he pretends was a _conversation_
+that passed between us at my house near New York. Even if what he says
+were true, none but caitiffs as base as those who conduct the English
+newspapers, would give circulation to his letters, containing, as they
+must, the substance of a conversation purely private. But I never had
+any conversation with him: I never talked to him at all about the things
+that he is now bringing forward. I heard the fellow's stories about
+Canada: I thought he told me lies; and, besides, I did not care a straw
+whether his stories were true or not; I looked upon him as a sort of
+gambling adventurer; but I treated him as is the fashion of the country
+in which I was, with great civility and hospitality. There are two
+fellows of the name of Jacob and Johnson at Winchester, and two fellows
+at Salisbury of the name of Brodie and Dowding. These reptiles publish,
+each couple of them, a newspaper; and in these newspapers they seem to
+take particular delight in calumniating me. The two Winchester fellows
+insert the letters of this half crazy, half cunning, Scotchman, Gourlay;
+the other fellows insert still viler slanders; and, if I had seen one of
+their papers, before I left Salisbury, which I have seen since, I
+certainly would have given Mr. Brodie something to make him remember me.
+This fellow, who was a little coal-merchant but a short while ago, is
+now, it seems, a paper-money maker, as well as a newspaper maker. Stop,
+Master Brodie, till I go to Salisbury again, and see whether I do not
+give you a _check_, even such as you did not receive during the late
+run! Gourlay, amongst other whims, took it into his head to write
+against the poor laws, saying that they were a bad thing. He found,
+however, at last, that they were necessary to keep him from starving;
+for he came down to Wyly, three or four years ago, and threw himself
+upon the parish. The overseers, who recollected what a swaggering blade
+it was, when it came here to teach the moon-rakers "hoo to farm, mon,"
+did not see the sense of keeping him like a gentleman; so they set him
+to crack stones upon the highway; and that set him off again, pretty
+quickly. The farm that he rented is a very fine farm, with a fine large
+farm-house to it. It is looked upon as one of the best farms in the
+country: the present occupier is a farmer born in the neighbourhood; a
+man such as ought to occupy it; and Gourlay, who came here with his
+Scotch impudence to teach others how to farm, is much about where and
+how he ought to be. Jacob and Johnson, of Winchester, know perfectly
+well that all the fellow says about me is lies; they know also that
+their parson readers know that it is a mass of lies: they further know
+that the parsons know that they know that it is a mass of lies; but they
+know that their paper will sell the better for that; they know that to
+circulate lies about me will get them money, and this is what they do it
+for, and such is the character of English newspapers, and of a great
+part of the readers of those newspapers. Therefore, when I hear of
+people "suffering;" when I hear of people being "ruined;" when I hear of
+"unfortunate families;" when I hear a talk of this kind, I stop, before
+I either express or feel compassion, to ascertain _who_ and _what_ the
+sufferers are; and whether they have or have not participated in, or
+approved of, acts like those of Jacob and Johnson and Brodie and
+Dowding; for if they have, if they have malignantly calumniated those
+who have been labouring to prevent their ruin and misery, then a crushed
+ear-wig, or spider, or eft, or toad, is as much entitled to the
+compassion of a just and sensible man. Let the reptiles perish: it would
+be injustice; it would be to fly in the face of morality and religion to
+express sorrow for their ruin. They themselves have felt for no man, and
+for the wife and children of no man, if that man's public virtues
+thwarted their own selfish views, or even excited their groundless
+fears. They have signed addresses, applauding everything tyrannical and
+inhuman. They have seemed to glory in the shame of their country, to
+rejoice in its degradation, and even to exult in the shedding of
+innocent blood, if these things did but tend, as they thought, to give
+them permanent security in the enjoyment of their unjust gains. Such has
+been their conduct; they are numerous: they are to be found in all parts
+of the kingdom: therefore again I say, when I hear of "ruin" or
+"misery," I must know what the conduct of the sufferers has been before
+I bestow my compassion.
+
+
+_Warminster (Wilts), Friday, 1st Sept._
+
+I set out from Heytesbury this morning about six o'clock. Last night,
+before I went to bed, I found that there were some men and boys in the
+house, who had come all the way from Bradford, about twelve miles, in
+order to get _nuts_. These people were men and boys that had been
+employed in the _cloth factories_ at Bradford and about Bradford. I had
+some talk with some of these nutters, and I am quite convinced, not that
+the cloth making is at _an end_; but that it _never will be again what
+it has been_. Before last Christmas these manufacturers had full work,
+at one shilling and threepence a yard at broad-cloth weaving. They have
+now a quarter work, at one shilling a yard! One and three-pence a yard
+for this weaving has been given at all times within the memory of man!
+Nothing can show more clearly than this, and in a stronger light, the
+great change which has taken place in the _remuneration of labour_.
+There was a turn out last winter, when the price was reduced to a
+shilling a yard; but it was put an end to in the usual way; the
+constable's staff, the bayonet, the gaol. These poor nutters were
+extremely ragged. I saved my supper, and I fasted instead of
+breakfasting. That was three shillings, which I had saved, and I added
+five to them, with a resolution to save them afterwards, in order to
+give these chaps a breakfast for once in their lives. There were eight
+of them, six men and two boys; and I gave them two quartern loaves, two
+pounds of cheese, and eight pints of strong beer. The fellows were very
+thankful, but the conduct of the landlord and landlady pleased me
+exceedingly. When I came to pay my bill, they had said nothing about my
+bed, which had been a very good one; and, when I asked why they had not
+put the bed into the bill, they said they would not charge anything for
+the bed since I had been so good to the poor men. Yes, said I, but I
+must not throw the expense upon you. I had no supper, and I have had no
+breakfast; and, therefore, I am not called upon to pay for them: but _I
+have had_ the bed. It ended by my paying for the bed, and coming off,
+leaving the nutters at their breakfast, and very much delighted with the
+landlord and his wife; and I must here observe that I have pretty
+generally found a good deal of compassion for the poor people to
+prevail amongst publicans and their wives.
+
+From Heytesbury to Warminster is a part of the country singularly bright
+and beautiful. From Salisbury up to very near Heytesbury, you have the
+valley, as before described by me. Meadows next the water; then arable
+land; then the downs; but when you come to Heytesbury, and indeed a
+little before, in looking forward you see the vale stretch out, from
+about three miles wide to ten miles wide, from high land to high land.
+From a hill before you come down to Heytesbury, you see through this
+wide opening into Somersetshire. You see a round hill rising in the
+middle of the opening; but all the rest a flat enclosed country, and
+apparently full of wood. In looking back down this vale one cannot help
+being struck with the innumerable proofs that there are of a decline in
+point of population. In the first place, there are twenty-four parishes,
+each of which takes a little strip across the valley, and runs up
+through the arable land into the down. There are twenty-four parish
+churches, and there ought to be as many _parsonage-houses_; but seven of
+these, out of the twenty-four, that is to say, nearly one-third of them,
+are, in the returns laid before Parliament (and of which returns I shall
+speak more particularly by-and-by), stated to be such miserable
+dwellings as to be unfit for a parson to reside in. Two of them,
+however, are gone. There are no parsonage-houses in those two parishes:
+there are the scites; there are the glebes; but the houses have been
+suffered to fall down and to be totally carried away. The tithes remain,
+indeed, and the parson sacks the amount of them. A journeyman parson
+comes and works in three or four churches of a Sunday; but the master
+parson is not there. He generally carries away the produce to spend it
+in London, at Bath, or somewhere else, to show off his daughters; and
+the overseers, that is to say, the farmers, manage the poor in their own
+way, instead of having, according to the ancient law, a third-part of
+all the tithes to keep them with.
+
+The falling down and the beggary of these parsonage-houses prove beyond
+all question the decayed state of the population. And, indeed, the
+mansion-houses are gone, except in a very few instances. There are but
+five left, that I could perceive, all the way from Salisbury to
+Warminster, though the country is the most pleasant that can be
+imagined. Here is water, here are meadows; plenty of fresh-water fish;
+hares and partridges in abundance, and it is next to impossible to
+destroy them. Here are shooting, coursing, hunting; hills of every
+height, size, and form; valleys, the same; lofty trees and rookeries in
+every mile; roads always solid and good; always pleasant for exercise;
+and the air must be of the best in the world. Yet it is manifest that
+four-fifths of the mansions have been swept away. There is a
+parliamentary return, to prove that nearly a third of the parsonage
+houses have become beggarly holes or have disappeared. I have now been
+in nearly threescore villages, and in twenty or thirty or forty hamlets
+of Wiltshire; and I do not know that I have been in one, however small,
+in which I did not see a house or two, and sometimes more, either
+tumbled down, or beginning to tumble down. It is impossible for the eyes
+of man to be fixed on a finer country than that between the village of
+Codford and the town of Warminster; and it is not very easy for the eyes
+of man to discover labouring people more miserable. There are two
+villages, one called Norton Bovant, and the other Bishopstrow, which I
+think form, together, one of the prettiest spots that my eyes ever
+beheld. The former village belongs to Bennet, the member for the county,
+who has a mansion there, in which two of his sisters live, I am told.
+There is a farm at Bishopstrow, standing at the back of the arable land,
+up in a vale, formed by two very lofty hills, upon each of which there
+was formerly a Roman Camp, in consideration of which farm, if the owner
+would give it to me, I would almost consent to let Ottiwell Wood remain
+quiet in his seat, and suffer the pretty gentlemen of Whitehall to go on
+without note or comment till they had fairly blowed up their concern.
+The farm-yard is surrounded by lofty and beautiful trees. In the
+rick-yard I counted twenty-two ricks of one sort and another. The hills
+shelter the house and the yard and the trees, most completely, from
+every wind but the south. The arable land goes down before the house,
+and spreads along the edge of the down, going, with a gentle slope, down
+to the meadows. So that, going along the turnpike road, which runs
+between the lower fields of the arable land, you see the large and
+beautiful flocks of sheep upon the sides of the down, while the
+horn-cattle are up to their eyes in grass in the meadows. Just when I
+was coming along here, the sun was about half an hour high; it shined
+through the trees most brilliantly; and, to crown the whole, I met, just
+as I was entering the village, a very pretty girl, who was apparently
+going a gleaning in the fields. I asked her the name of the place, and
+when she told me it was Bishopstrow, she pointed to the situation of the
+church, which, she said, was on the other side of the river. She really
+put me in mind of the pretty girls at Preston who spat upon the
+"individual" of the Derby family, and I made her a bow accordingly.
+
+The whole of the population of the twenty-four parishes down this vale,
+amounts to only 11,195 souls, according to the Official return to
+Parliament; and, mind, I include the parish of Fisherton Anger (a suburb
+of the city of Salisbury), which contains 893 of the number. I include
+the town of Heytesbury, with its 1,023 souls; and I further include this
+very good and large market town of Warminster, with its population of
+5,000! So that I leave, in the other twenty-one parishes, only 4,170
+souls, men, women, and children! That is to say, a hundred and
+ninety-eight souls to each parish; or, reckoning five to a family,
+thirty-nine families to each parish. Above one half of the population
+never could be expected to be in the church at one time; so that here
+are one-and-twenty churches built for the purpose of holding two
+thousand and eighty people! There are several of these churches, any one
+of which would conveniently contain the whole of these people, the two
+thousand and eighty! The church of Bishopstrow would contain the whole
+of the two thousand and eighty very well indeed; and it is curious
+enough to observe that the churches of Fisherton Anger, Heytesbury, and
+Warminster, though quite sufficient to contain the people that go to
+church, are none of them nearly so big as several of the village
+churches. All these churches are built long and long before the reign of
+Richard the Second; that is to say, they were founded long before that
+time, and if the first churches were gone, these others were built in
+their stead. There is hardly one of them that is not as old as the reign
+of Richard the Second; and yet that impudent Scotchman, George Chalmers,
+would make us believe that, in the reign of Richard the Second, the
+population of the country was hardly anything at all! He has the
+impudence, or the gross ignorance, to state the population of England
+and Wales at _two millions_, which, as I have shown in the last Number
+of the Protestant Reformation, would allow only twelve able men to every
+parish church throughout the kingdom. What, I ask, for about the
+thousandth time I ask it; what were these twenty churches built for?
+Some of them stand within a quarter of a mile of each other. They are
+pretty nearly as close to each other as the churches in London and
+Westminster are.
+
+What a monstrous thing, to suppose that they were built without there
+being people to go to them; and built, too, without money and without
+hands! The whole of the population in these twenty-one parishes could
+stand, and without much crowding too, in the bottoms of the towers of
+the several churches. Nay, in three or four of the parishes, the whole
+of the people could stand in the church porches. Then the _church-yards_
+show you how numerous the population must have been. You see, in some
+cases, only here and there the mark of a grave, where the church-yard
+contains from half an acre to an acre of land, and sometimes more. In
+short, everything shows that here was once a great and opulent
+population; that there was an abundance to eat, to wear, and to spare;
+that all the land that is now under cultivation, and a great deal that
+is not now under cultivation, was under cultivation in former times. The
+Scotch beggars would make us believe that _we_ sprang from beggars. The
+impudent scribes would make us believe that England was formerly nothing
+at all till they came to enlighten it and fatten upon it. Let the
+beggars answer me this question; let the impudent, the brazen scribes,
+that impose upon the credulous and cowed-down English; let them tell me
+_why_ these twenty-one churches were built; what they were built FOR;
+why the large churches of the two Codfords were stuck up within a few
+hundred yards of each other, if the whole of the population could then,
+as it can now, be crammed into the chancel of either of the two
+churches? Let them answer me this question, or shut up their mouths upon
+this subject, on which they have told so many lies.
+
+As to the produce of this valley, it must be at least ten times as great
+as its consumption, even if we include the three towns that belong to
+it. I am sure I saw produce enough in five or six of the farm-yards, or
+rick-yards, to feed the whole of the population of the twenty-one
+parishes. But the infernal system causes it all to be carried away. Not
+a bit of good beef, or mutton, or veal, and scarcely a bit of bacon is
+left for those who raise all this food and wool. The labourers here
+_look_ as if they were half-starved. They answer extremely well to the
+picture that Fortescue gave of the French in his day.
+
+Talk of "liberty," indeed; "civil and religious liberty": the
+Inquisition, with a belly full, is far preferable to a state of things
+like this. For my own part, I really am ashamed to ride a fat horse, to
+have a full belly, and to have a clean shirt upon my back, while I look
+at these wretched countrymen of mine; while I actually see them reeling
+with weakness; when I see their poor faces present me nothing but skin
+and bone, while they are toiling to get the wheat and the meat ready to
+be carried away to be devoured by the tax-eaters. I am ashamed to look
+at these poor souls, and to reflect that they are my countrymen; and
+particularly to reflect that we are descended from those amongst whom
+"beef, pork, mutton, and veal, were the food of the poorer sort of
+people." What! and is the "Emigration Committee" sitting, to invent the
+means of getting rid of some part of the thirty-nine families that are
+employed in raising the immense quantities of food in each of these
+twenty-one parishes? Are there _schemers_ to go before this conjuration
+Committee; Wiltshire _schemers_, to tell the Committee how they can get
+rid of a part of these one hundred and ninety-eight persons to every
+parish? Are there schemers of this sort of work still, while no man, no
+man at all, not a single man, says a word about getting rid of the
+dead-weight, or the supernumerary parsons, both of whom have actually a
+premium given them for breeding, and are filling the country with
+idlers? We are reversing the maxim of the Scripture: our laws almost
+say, that those that work shall not eat, and that those who do not work
+shall have the food. I repeat, that the baseness of the English
+land-owners surpasses that of any other men that ever lived in the
+world. The cowards know well that the labourers that give value to their
+land are skin and bone. They are not such brutes as not to know that
+this starvation is produced by taxation. They know well, how unjust it
+is to treat their labourers in this way. They know well that there goes
+down the common foot soldier's single throat more food than is allowed
+by them to a labourer, his wife, and three children. They know well that
+the present standing army in time of peace consumes more food and
+raiment than a million of the labourers consume; aye, than two millions
+of them consume; if you include the women and the children; they well
+know these things; they know that their poor labourers are taxed to keep
+this army in fatness and in splendour. They know that the dead-weight,
+which, in the opinion of most men of sense, ought not to receive a
+single farthing of the public money, swallow more of good food than a
+third or a fourth part of the real labourers of England swallow. They
+know that a million and a half of pounds sterling was taken out of the
+taxes, partly raised upon the labourers, to enable the poor Clergy of
+the Church of England to marry and to breed. They know that a regulation
+has been recently adopted, by which an old dead-weight man is enabled to
+sell his dead-weight to a young man; and that thus this burden would, if
+the system were to be continued, be rendered perpetual. They know that a
+good slice of the dead-weight money goes _to Hanover_; and that even
+these Hanoverians can sell their dead-weight claim upon us. The "country
+gentlemen" fellows know all this: they know that the poor labourers,
+including all the poor manufacturers, pay one-half of their wages in
+taxes to support all these things; and yet not a word about these things
+is ever said, or even hinted, by these mean, these cruel, these
+cowardly, these carrion, these dastardly reptiles. Sir James Graham, of
+Netherby, who, I understand, is a young fellow instead of an old one,
+may invoke our pity upon these "ancient families," but he will invoke in
+vain. It was their duty to stand forward and prevent
+Power-of-Imprisonment Bills, Six Acts, Ellenborough's Act, Poaching
+Transportation Act, New Trespass Act, Sunday Tolls, and the hundreds of
+other things that could be named. On the contrary, _they were the cause
+of them all_. They were the cause of all the taxes, and all the debts;
+and now let them take the consequences!
+
+
+_Saturday, September 2nd._
+
+After I got to Warminster yesterday, it began to rain, which stopped me
+in my way to Frome in Somersetshire, which lies about seven or eight
+miles from this place; but, as I meant to be quite in the northern part
+of the county by to-morrow noon, or there-abouts, I took a post-chaise
+in the afternoon of yesterday and went to Frome, where I saw, upon my
+entrance into the town, between two and three hundred weavers, men and
+boys, cracking stones, moving earth, and doing other sorts of work,
+towards making a fine road into the town. I drove into the town, and
+through the principal streets, and then I put my chaise up a little at
+one of the inns.
+
+This appears to be a sort of little Manchester. A very small Manchester,
+indeed; for it does not contain above ten or twelve thousand people, but
+it has all the _flash_ of a Manchester, and the innkeepers and their
+people look and behave like the Manchester fellows. I was, I must
+confess, glad to find proofs of the irretrievable decay of the place. I
+remembered how ready the bluff manufacturers had been to _call in the
+troops_ of various descriptions. "Let them," said I to myself, "call the
+troops in now, to make their trade revive. Let them now resort to their
+friends of the yeomanry and of the army; let them now threaten their
+poor workmen with the gaol, when they dare to ask for the means of
+preventing starvation in their families. Let them, who have, in fact,
+lived and thriven by the sword, now call upon the parson-magistrate to
+bring out the soldiers to compel me, for instance, to give thirty
+shillings a yard for the superfine black broad cloth (made at Frome),
+which Mr. Roe, at Kensington, offered me at seven shillings and sixpence
+a yard just before I left home! Yes, these men have ground down into
+powder those who were earning them their fortunes: let the grinders
+themselves now be ground, and, according to the usual wise and just
+course of Providence, let them be crushed by the system which they have
+delighted in, because it made others crouch beneath them." Their poor
+work-people cannot be worse off than they long have been. The parish
+pay, which they now get upon the roads, is 2_s._ 6_d._ a week for a man,
+2_s._ for his wife, 1_s._ 3_d._ for each child under eight years of age,
+3_d._ a week, in addition, to each child above eight, who can go to
+work: and, if the children above eight years old, whether girls or boys,
+do not go to work upon the road, they have _nothing_! Thus, a family of
+five people have just as much, and eight pence over, as goes down the
+throat of one single foot soldier; but, observe, the standing soldier;
+that "truly English institution" has clothing, fuel, candle, soap, and
+house-rent, over and above what is allowed to this miserable family! And
+yet the base reptiles, who are called "country gentlemen," and whom Sir
+James Graham calls upon us to commit all sorts of acts of injustice in
+order to _preserve_, never utter a whisper about the expenses of keeping
+the soldiers, while they are everlastingly railing against the working
+people, of every description, and representing them, and them only, as
+the cause of the loss of their estates!
+
+These poor creatures at Frome have pawned all their things, or nearly
+all. All their best clothes, their blankets and sheets; their looms; any
+little piece of furniture that they had, and that was good for anything.
+Mothers have been compelled to pawn all the tolerably good clothes that
+their children had. In case of a man having two or three shirts, he is
+left with only one, and sometimes without any shirt; and, though this is
+a sort of manufacture that cannot very well come to a complete end,
+still it has received a blow from which it cannot possibly recover. The
+population of this Frome has been augmented to the degree of one-third
+within the last six or seven years. There are here all the usual signs
+of accommodation bills and all false paper stuff, called money: new
+houses, in abundance, half finished; new gingerbread "places of
+worship," as they are called; great swaggering inns; parcels of
+swaggering fellows going about, with vulgarity imprinted upon their
+countenances, but with good clothes upon their backs.
+
+I found the working people at Frome very intelligent; very well informed
+as to the cause of their misery; not at all humbugged by the canters,
+whether about religion or loyalty. When I got to the inn, I sent my
+post-chaise boy back to the road, to tell one or two of the weavers to
+come to me at the inn. The landlord did not at first like to let such
+ragged fellows upstairs. I insisted, however, upon their coming up, and
+I had a long talk with them. They were very intelligent men; had much
+clearer views of what is likely to happen than the pretty gentlemen of
+Whitehall seem to have; and, it is curious enough, that they, these
+common weavers, should tell me, that they thought that the trade never
+would come back again to what it was before; or, rather, to what it has
+been for some years past. This is the impression everywhere; that the
+_puffing is over_; that we must come back again to something like
+reality. The first factories that I met with were at a village called
+Upton Lovell, just before I came to Heytesbury. There they were a-doing
+not more than a quarter work. There is only one factory, I believe, here
+at Warminster, and that has been suspended, during the harvest, at any
+rate. At Frome they are all upon about a quarter work. It is the same at
+Bradford and Trowbridge; and, as curious a thing as ever was heard of
+in the world is, that here are, through all these towns, and throughout
+this country, weavers from the North, singing about the towns ballads of
+Distress! They had been doing it at Salisbury, just before I was there.
+The landlord at Heytesbury told me that people that could afford it
+generally gave them something; and I was told that they did the same at
+Salisbury. The landlord at Heytesbury told me, that every one of them
+had a _license to beg_, given them, he said, "by the Government." I
+suppose it was some _pass_ from a Magistrate; though I know of no law
+that allows of such passes; and a pretty thing it would be, to grant
+such licenses, or such passes, when the law so positively commands, that
+the poor of every parish shall be maintained in and by every such
+parish.
+
+However, all law of this sort, all salutary and humane law, really seems
+to be drawing towards an end in this now miserable country, where the
+thousands are caused to wallow in luxury, to be surfeited with food and
+drink, while the millions are continually on the point of famishing. In
+order to form an idea of the degradation of the people of this country,
+and of the abandonment of every English principle, what need we of more
+than this one disgraceful and truly horrible fact, namely, that _the
+common soldiers, of the standing army in time of peace, subscribe, in
+order to furnish the meanest of diet to keep from starving the
+industrious people who are taxed to the amount of one-half of their
+wages, and out of which taxes the very pay of these soldiers comes_! Is
+not this one fact; this disgraceful, this damning fact; is not this
+enough to convince us, that _there must be a change_; that there must be
+a complete and radical change; or, that England must become a country of
+the basest slavery that ever disgraced the earth?
+
+
+_Devizes, (Wilts), Sunday Morning, 3rd Sept._
+
+I left Warminster yesterday at about one o'clock. It is contrary to my
+practice to set out at all, unless I can do it early in the morning; but
+at Warminster I was at the South-West corner of this county, and I had
+made a sort of promise to be to-day at Highworth, which is at the
+North-East corner, and which parish, indeed, joins up to Berkshire. The
+distance, including my little intended deviations, was more than fifty
+miles; and, not liking to attempt it in one day, I set off in the middle
+of the day, and got here in the evening, just before a pretty heavy rain
+came on.
+
+Before I speak of my ride from Warminster to this place, I must once
+more observe, that Warminster is a very nice town; everything belonging
+to it is _solid_ and _good_. There are no villanous gingerbread houses
+running up, and no nasty, shabby-genteel people; no women trapesing
+about with showy gowns and dirty necks; no jew-looking fellows with
+dandy coats, dirty shirts, and half-heels to their shoes. A really nice
+and good town. It is a great corn-market: one of the greatest in this
+part of England; and here things are still conducted in the good, old,
+honest fashion. The corn is brought and pitched in the market before it
+is sold; and, when sold, it is paid for on the nail; and all is over,
+and the farmers and millers gone home by day-light. Almost everywhere
+else the corn is sold by sample; it is sold by juggling in a corner; the
+parties meet and drink first; it is night work; there is no fair and
+open market; the mass of the people do not know what the prices are; and
+all this favours that _monopoly_ which makes the corn change hands many
+times, perhaps, before it reaches the mouth, leaving a profit in each
+pair of hands, and which monopoly is, for the greater part, carried on
+by the villanous tribe of _Quakers_, _none of whom ever work_, and all
+of whom prey upon the rest of the community, as those infernal devils,
+the wasps, prey upon the bees. Talking of the Devil, puts one in mind of
+his imps; and talking of _Quakers_, puts one in mind of Jemmy Cropper of
+Liverpool. I should like to know precisely (I know pretty nearly) what
+effect "late panic" has had, and is having, on Jemmy! Perhaps the reader
+will recollect, that Jemmy told the public, through the columns of base
+Bott Smith, that "Cobbett's prophecies were falsified as soon as
+spawned." Jemmy, canting Jemmy, has now had time to ruminate on that!
+But does the reader remember James's project for "making Ireland as
+happy as England"? It was simply by introducing cotton-factories,
+steam-engines, and power-looms! That was all; and there was Jemmy in
+Ireland, speech-making before such Lords and such Bishops and such
+'Squires as God never suffered to exist in the world before: there was
+Jemmy, showing, proving, demonstrating, that to make the Irish
+cotton-workers would infallibly make them _happy_! If it had been now,
+instead of being two years ago, he might have produced the reports of
+the starvation-committees of Manchester to confirm his opinions. One
+would think, that this instance of the folly and impudence of this
+canting son of the monopolizing sect, would cure this public of its
+proneness to listen to cant; but nothing will cure it; the very
+existence of this sect, none of whom ever work, and the whole of whom
+live like fighting-cocks upon the labour of the rest of the community;
+the very _existence_ of such a sect shows, that the nation is, almost in
+its nature, _a dupe_. There has been a great deal of railing against
+the King of Spain; not to becall the King of Spain is looked upon as a
+proof of want of "liberality," and what must it be, then, to _applaud_
+any of the acts of the King of Spain! This I am about to do, however,
+think Dr. Black of it what he may.
+
+In the first place, the mass of the people of Spain are better off,
+better fed, better clothed, than the people of any other country in
+Europe, and much better than the people of England are. That is one
+thing; and that is almost enough of itself. In the next place, the King
+of Spain has refused to mortgage the land and labour of his people for
+the benefit of an infamous set of Jews and Jobbers. Next, the King of
+Spain has most essentially thwarted the Six-Acts people, the Manchester
+16th of August, the Parson Hay, the Sidmouth's Circular, the Dungeoning,
+the Ogden's rupture people; he has thwarted, and most cuttingly annoyed,
+these people, who are also the poacher-transporting people, and the new
+trespass law, and the apple-felony and the horse-police (or gendarmerie)
+and the Sunday-toll people: the King of Spain has thwarted all these,
+and he has materially assisted in blowing up the brutal big fellows of
+Manchester; and therefore I applaud the King of Spain.
+
+I do not much like weasels; but I hate rats; and therefore I say success
+to the weasels. But there is one act of the King of Spain which is
+worthy of the imitation of every King, aye, and of every republic too;
+his edict for taxing traffickers, which edict was published about eight
+months ago. It imposes a pretty heavy annual tax on every one who is a
+_mere buyer and seller_, and who neither produces nor consumes, nor
+makes, nor changes the state of, the article, or articles, that he buys
+and sells. Those who bring things into the kingdom are deemed producers,
+and those who send things out of the kingdom are deemed changers of the
+state of things. These two classes embrace all _legitimate merchants_.
+Thus, then, the farmer, who produces corn and meat and wool and wood, is
+not taxed; nor is the coach-master who buys the corn to give to his
+horses, nor the miller who buys it to change the state of it, nor the
+baker who buys the flour to change its state; nor is the manufacturer
+who buys the wool to change its state; and so on: but the Jew or Quaker,
+the _mere dealer_, who buys the corn of the producer to sell it to the
+miller, and to deduct _a profit_, which must, at last, fall upon the
+consumer; this Jew, or Quaker, or self-styled Christian, who acts the
+part of Jew or Quaker, is taxed by the King of Spain; and for this I
+applaud the King of Spain.
+
+If we had a law like this, the pestiferous sect of non-labouring, sleek
+and fat hypocrites could not exist in England. But ours is, altogether,
+_a system of monopolies_, created by taxation and paper-money, from
+which monopolies are inseparable. It is notorious that the brewer's
+monopoly is the master even of the Government; it is well known to all
+who examine and reflect that a very large part of our bread comes to our
+mouths loaded with the profit of nine or ten, or more, different
+dealers; and I shall, as soon as I have leisure, prove as clearly as
+anything ever was proved, that the people pay two millions of pounds a
+year in consequence of the Monopoly in tea! that is to say, they pay two
+millions a year more than they would pay were it not for the monopoly;
+and, mind, I do not mean the monopoly of the East India Company, but the
+monopoly of the Quaker and other Tea Dealers, who buy the tea of that
+Company! The people of this country are eaten up by monopolies. These
+compel those who labour to maintain those who do not labour; and hence
+the success of the crafty crew of Quakers, the very _existence_ of which
+sect is a disgrace to the country.
+
+Besides the corn market at Warminster, I was delighted, and greatly
+surprised, to see the _meat_. Not only the very finest veal and lamb
+that I had ever seen in my life, but so exceedingly beautiful that I
+could hardly believe my eyes. I am a great connoisseur in joints of
+meat; a great judge, if five-and-thirty years of experience can give
+sound judgment. I verily believe that I have bought and have roasted
+more whole sirloins of beef than any man in England; I know all about
+the matter; a very great visitor of Newgate market; in short, though a
+little eater, I am a very great provider. It is a fancy, I like the
+subject, and therefore I understand it; and with all this knowledge of
+the matter, I say I never saw veal and lamb half so fine as what I saw
+at Warminster. The town is famed for fine meat; and I knew it, and,
+therefore, I went out in the morning to look at the meat. It was, too,
+2_d._ a pound cheaper than I left it at Kensington.
+
+My road from Warminster to Devizes lay through Westbury, a nasty odious
+rotten-borough, a really rotten place. It has cloth factories in it, and
+they seem to be ready to tumble down as well as many of the houses.
+God's curse seems to be upon most of these rotten-boroughs. After coming
+through this miserable hole, I came along, on the north side of the
+famous hill, called Bratton Castle, so renowned in the annals of the
+Romans and of Alfred the Great. Westbury is a place of great ancient
+grandeur; and it is easy to perceive that it was once ten or twenty
+times its present size. My road was now the line of separation between
+what they call South Wilts and North Wilts, the former consisting of
+high and broad downs and narrow valleys with meadows and rivers running
+down them; the latter consisting of a rather flat, enclosed country:
+the former having a chalk bottom; the latter a bottom of marl, clay, or
+flat stone: the former a country for lean sheep and corn; and the latter
+a country for cattle, fat sheep, cheese, and bacon: the former by far,
+to my taste, the most beautiful; and I am by no means sure that it is
+not, all things considered, the most rich. All my way along, till I came
+very near to Devizes, I had the steep and naked downs up to my right,
+and the flat and enclosed country to my left.
+
+Very near to Bratton Castle (which is only a hill with deep ditches on
+it) is the village of Eddington, so famed for the battle fought here by
+Alfred and the Danes. The church in this village would contain several
+thousands of persons; and the village is reduced to a few straggling
+houses. The land here is very good; better than almost any I ever saw;
+as black, and, apparently, as rich, as the land in the market-gardens at
+Fulham. The turnips are very good all along here for several miles; but
+this is, indeed, singularly fine and rich land. The orchards very fine;
+finely sheltered, and the crops of apples and pears and walnuts very
+abundant. Walnuts _ripe now_, a month earlier than usual. After
+Eddington I came to a hamlet called Earl's Stoke, the houses of which
+stand at a few yards from each other on the two sides of the road; every
+house is white; and the front of every one is covered with some sort or
+other of clematis, or with rose-trees, or jasmines. It was easy to guess
+that the whole belonged to one owner; and that owner I found to be a Mr.
+Watson Taylor, whose very pretty seat is close by the hamlet, and in
+whose park-pond I saw what I never saw before; namely, some _black
+swans_. They are not nearly so large as the white, nor are they so
+stately in their movements. They are a meaner bird.
+
+
+_Highworth (Wilts), Monday, 4th Sept._
+
+I got here yesterday, after a ride, including my deviations, of about
+thirty-four miles, and that, too, _without breaking my fast_. Before I
+got into the rotten-borough of Calne, I had two _tributes_ to pay to the
+Aristocracy; namely, two _Sunday tolls_; and I was resolved that the
+country in which these tolls were extorted should have not a farthing of
+my money that I could by any means keep from it. Therefore I fasted
+until I got into the free-quarters in which I now am. I would have made
+my horse fast too, if I could have done it without the risk of making
+him unable to carry me.
+
+
+
+
+RIDE FROM HIGHWORTH TO CRICKLADE AND THENCE TO MALMSBURY.
+
+
+_Highworth (Wilts), Monday, 4th Sept. 1826._
+
+When I got to Devizes on Saturday evening, and came to look out of the
+inn-window into the street, I perceived that I had seen that place
+before, and always having thought that I should like to _see_ Devizes,
+of which I had heard so much talk as a famous corn-market, I was very
+much surprised to find that it was not new to me. Presently a
+stage-coach came up to the door, with "Bath and London" upon its panels;
+and then I recollected that I had been at this place on my way to
+Bristol last year. Devizes is, as nearly as possible, in the centre of
+the county, and the _canal_ that passes close by it is the great channel
+through which the produce of the country is carried away to be devoured
+by the idlers, the thieves, and the prostitutes, who are all tax-eaters,
+in the Wens of Bath and London. Pottern, which I passed through in my
+way from Warminster to Devizes, was once a place much larger than
+Devizes; and it is now a mere ragged village, with a church large, very
+ancient, and of most costly structure. The whole of the people here
+might, as in most other cases, be placed in the _belfry_, or the
+church-porches.
+
+All the way along the mansion-houses are nearly all gone. There is now
+and then a great place, belonging to a borough-monger, or some one
+connected with borough-mongers; but all the _little gentlemen_ are gone;
+and hence it is that parsons are now made justices of the peace! There
+are few other persons left who are at all capable of filling the office
+in a way to suit the system! The monopolizing brewers and rag-rooks are,
+in some places, the "magistrates;" and thus is the whole thing
+_changed_, and England is no more what it was. Very near to the sides of
+my road from Warminster to Devizes there were formerly (within a hundred
+years) 22 mansion-houses of sufficient note to be marked as such in the
+county-map then made. There are now only seven of them remaining. There
+were five parish-churches nearly close to my road; and in one parish out
+of the five the parsonage-house is, in the parliamentary return, said to
+be "too small" for the parson to live in, though the church would
+contain two or three thousand people, and though the living is a
+Rectory, and a rich one too! Thus has the church-property, or, rather,
+that public property which is called church property, been dilapidated!
+The parsons have swallowed the _tithes_ and the rent of the glebes; and
+have, successively, suffered the parsonage-houses to fall into decay.
+But these parsonage-houses were, indeed, not intended for large
+families. They were intended for a priest, a main part of whose business
+it was to distribute the tithes amongst the poor and the strangers! The
+parson, in this case, at Corsley, says, "too small for an incumbent with
+a family." Ah! there is the mischief. It was never intended to give men
+tithes as a premium for breeding! Malthus does not seem to see any harm
+in _this_ sort of increase of population. It is the _working_
+population, those who raise the food and the clothing, that he and
+Scarlett want to put a stop to the breeding of!
+
+I saw, on my way through the down-countries, hundreds of acres of
+ploughed land in _shelves_. What I mean is, the side of a steep hill
+made into the shape of _a stairs_, only the rising parts more sloping
+than those of a stairs, and deeper in proportion. The side of the hill,
+in its original form, was too steep to be ploughed, or, even, to be
+worked with a spade. The earth, as soon as moved, would have rolled down
+the hill; and besides, the rains would have soon washed down all the
+surface earth, and have left nothing for plants of any sort to grow in.
+Therefore the sides of hills, where the land was sufficiently good, and
+where it was wanted for the growing of corn, were thus made into a sort
+of steps or shelves, and the horizontal parts (representing the parts of
+the stairs that we put our feet upon) were ploughed and sowed, as they
+generally are, indeed, to this day. Now no man, not even the hireling
+Chalmers, will have the impudence to say that these shelves, amounting
+to thousands and thousands of acres in Wiltshire alone, were not made by
+the hand of man. It would be as impudent to contend that the churches
+were formed by the flood, as to contend that these shelves were formed
+by that cause. Yet thus the Scotch scribes must contend; or they must
+give up all their assertions about the ancient beggary and want of
+population in England; for, as in the case of the churches, what were
+these shelves made _for_? And could they be made at all without a great
+abundance of hands? These shelves are everywhere to be seen throughout
+the down-countries of Sussex, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Dorsetshire,
+Devonshire, and Cornwall; and besides this, large tracts of land,
+amounting to millions of acres, perhaps, which are now downs, heaths, or
+woodlands, still, if you examine closely, bear the marks of the plough.
+The fact is, I dare say, that the country has never varied much in the
+gross amount of its population; but formerly the people were pretty
+evenly spread over the country, instead of being, as the greater part of
+them now are, collected together in great masses, where, for the
+greater part, the idlers live on the labour of the industrious.
+
+In quitting Devizes yesterday morning I saw, just on the outside of the
+town, a monstrous building, which I took for _a barrack_; but upon
+asking what it was, I found it was one of those other marks of the
+JUBILEE REIGN; namely, _a most magnificent gaol_! It seemed to me
+sufficient to hold one-half of the able-bodied men in the county! And it
+would do it too, and do it well! Such a system must come to an end, and
+the end must be dreadful. As I came on the road, for the first three or
+four miles, I saw great numbers of labourers either digging potatoes for
+their Sunday's dinner, or coming home with them, or going out to dig
+them. The land-owners, or occupiers, let small pieces of land to the
+labourers, and these they cultivate with the spade for their own use.
+They pay in all cases a high rent, and in most cases an enormous one.
+The practice prevails all the way from Warminster to Devizes, and from
+Devizes to nearly this place (Highworth). The rent is, in some places, a
+shilling a rod, which is, mind, 160_s._ or 8_l._ an acre! Still the poor
+creatures like to have the land: they work in it at their spare hours;
+and on Sunday mornings early: and the overseers, sharp as they may be,
+cannot ascertain precisely how much they get out of their plat of
+ground. But, good God! what a life to live! What a life to see people
+live; to see this sight in our own country, and to have the base vanity
+to _boast_ of that country, and to talk of our "constitution" and our
+"liberties," and to affect to _pity_ the Spaniards, whose working people
+live like gentlemen, compared with our miserable creatures. Again I say,
+give me the Inquisition and well-healed cheeks and ribs, rather than
+"civil and religious liberty," and skin and bone. But the fact is that,
+where honest and laborious men can be compelled to starve quietly,
+whether all at once or by inches, with old wheat ricks, and fat cattle
+under their eye, it is a mockery to talk of their "liberty," of any
+sort; for the sum total of their state is this, they have "liberty" to
+choose between death by starvation (quick or slow) and death by the
+halter!
+
+Between Warminster and Westbury I saw thirty or more men _digging_ a
+great field of I dare say twelve acres. I thought, "surely that
+'humane,' half-mad fellow, Owen, is not got at work here; that Owen who,
+the _feelosofers_ tell us, went to the Continent to find out how to
+prevent the increase of the labourers' children." No: it was not Owen:
+it was the overseer of the parish, who had set these men to dig up this
+field previously to its being sown with wheat. In short, it was a
+digging instead of a ploughing. The men, I found upon inquiry, got
+9_d._ a day for their work. Plain digging in the market gardens near
+London is, I believe, 3_d._ or 4_d._ a rod. If these poor men, who were
+chiefly weavers or spinners from Westbury, or had come home to their
+parish from Bradford or Trowbridge; if they digged six rods each in a
+day, and _fairly_ did it, they must work well. This would be 1-1/2_d._ a
+rod, or 20_s._ an acre; and that is as cheap as ploughing, and four
+times as good. But how much better to give the men higher wages, and let
+them do more work? If married, how are their miserable families to live
+on 4_s._ 6_d._ a week? And, if single, they must and will have more,
+either by poaching, or by taking without leave. At any rate, this is
+better than the _road work_: I mean better for those who pay the rates;
+for here is something which they get for the money that they give to the
+poor; whereas, in the case of the road-work, the money given in relief
+is generally wholly so much lost to the rate-payer. What a curious
+spectacle this is: the manufactories _throwing the people back again
+upon the land_! It is not above eighteen months ago that the Scotch
+FEELOSOFERS, and especially Dr. Black, were calling upon _the farm
+labourers to become manufacturers_! I remonstrated with the Doctor at
+the time; but he still insisted that such a transfer of hands was the
+only remedy for the distress in the farming districts. However (and I
+thank God for it), the _feelosofers_ have enough to do at _home_ now;
+for the poor are crying for food in dear, cleanly, warm, fruitful
+Scotland herself, in spite of a' the Hamiltons and a' the Wallaces and
+a' the Maxwells and a' the Hope Johnstones and a' the Dundases and a'
+the Edinbro' Reviewers and a' the Broughams and Birckbecks. In spite of
+all these, the poor of Scotland are now helping themselves, or about to
+do it, for want of the means of purchasing food.
+
+From Devizes I came to the vile rotten borough of Calne leaving the park
+and house of Lord Lansdown to my left. This man's name is Petty, and,
+doubtless, his ancestors "came in with the Conqueror;" for _Petty_ is,
+unquestionably, a corruption of the French word _Petit_; and in this
+case there appears to have been not the least degeneracy; a thing rather
+rare in these days. There is a man whose name was Grimstone (that is, to
+a certainty, _Grindstone_), who is now called Lord Verulam, and who,
+according to his pedigree in the Peerage, is descended from a
+"standard-bearer of the Conqueror!" Now, the devil a bit is there the
+word Grindstone, or Grimstone, in the Norman language. Well, let them
+have all that their French descent can give them, since they will insist
+upon it, that they are not of this country. So help me God, I would, if
+I could, _give them Normandy_ to live in, and, if the people would let
+them, to possess.
+
+This Petty family began, or, at least, made its first _grand push_, in
+poor, unfortunate Ireland! The _history_ of that push would amuse the
+people of Wiltshire! Talking of Normans and high-blood, puts me in mind
+of Beckford and his "Abbey"! The public knows that the _tower_ of this
+thing fell down some time ago. It was built of Scotch-fir and cased with
+stone! In it there was a place which the owner had named, "The Gallery
+of Edward III., the frieze of which (says the account) contains the
+achievements of seventy-eight Knights of the Garter, from whom the owner
+is lineally descended"! Was there ever vanity and impudence equal to
+these! the negro-driver brag of his high blood! I dare say that the old
+powder-man, Farquhar, had as good pretension; and I really should like
+to know whether he took out Beckford's name and put in his own, as the
+lineal descendant of the seventy-eight Knights of the Garter.
+
+I could not come through that villanous hole, Calne, without cursing
+Corruption at every step; and when I was coming by an ill-looking,
+broken-winded place, called the town-hall, I suppose, I poured out a
+double dose of execration upon it. "Out of the frying-pan into the
+fire;" for in about ten miles more I came to another rotten-hole, called
+Wotton-Basset! This also is a mean, vile place, though the country all
+round it is very fine. On this side of Wotton-Basset I went out of my
+way to see the church at Great Lyddiard, which in the parliamentary
+return is called Lyddiard _Tregoose_. In my old map it is called
+_Tregose_; and to a certainty the word was _Tregrosse_; that is to say,
+_tres grosse_, or _very big_. Here is a good old mansion-house and large
+walled-in garden and a park belonging, they told me, to Lord
+Bolingbroke. I went quite down to the house, close to which stands the
+large and fine church. It appears _to have been_ a noble place; the land
+is some of the finest in the whole country; the trees show that the land
+is excellent; but all, except the church, is in a state of irrepair and
+apparent neglect, if not abandonment. The parish is large, the living is
+a rich one, it is a Rectory; but though the incumbent has the great and
+small tithes, he, in his return, tells the Parliament that the
+parsonage-house is "worn out and incapable of repair!" And observe that
+Parliament lets him continue to sack the produce of the tithes and the
+glebe, while they know the parsonage-house to be crumbling-down, and
+while he has the impudence to tell them that he does not reside in it,
+though the law says that he shall! And while this is suffered to be, a
+_poor_ man may be transported for being in pursuit of a hare! What
+coals, how hot, how red, is this flagitious system preparing for the
+backs of its supporters!
+
+In coming from Wotton-Basset to Highworth, I left Swindon a few miles
+away to my left, and came by the village of Blunsdon. All along here I
+saw great quantities of hops in the hedges, and very fine hops, and I
+saw at a village called Stratton, I think it was, the finest _campanula_
+that I ever saw in my life. The main stalk was more than four feet high,
+and there were four stalks, none of which were less than three feet
+high. All through the country, poor, as well as rich, are very neat in
+their gardens, and very careful to raise a great variety of flowers. At
+Blunsdon I saw a clump, or, rather, a sort of orchard, of as fine
+walnut-trees as I ever beheld, and loaded with walnuts. Indeed I have
+seen great crops of walnuts all the way from London. From Blunsdon to
+this place is but a short distance, and I got here about two or three
+o'clock. This is a _cheese country_; some corn, but, generally speaking,
+it is a country of dairies. The sheep here are of the large kind; a sort
+of Leicester sheep, and the cattle chiefly for milking. The ground is a
+stiff loam at top, and a yellowish stone under. The houses are almost
+all built of stone. It is a tolerably rich, but by no means a gay and
+pretty country. Highworth has a situation corresponding with its name.
+On every side you go up-hill to it, and from it you see to a great
+distance all round and into many counties.
+
+
+_Highworth, Wednesday, 6th Sept._
+
+The great object of my visit to the Northern border of Wiltshire will be
+mentioned when I get to Malmsbury, whither I intend to go to-morrow, or
+next day, and thence through Gloucestershire, in my way to
+Herefordshire. But an additional inducement was to have a good long
+political _gossip_ with some excellent friends, who detest the
+borough-ruffians as cordially as I do, and who, I hope, wish as
+anxiously to see their fall effected, and no matter by what means. There
+was, however, arising incidentally a third object, which, had I known of
+its existence, would of itself have brought me from the south-west to
+the north-east corner of this county. One of the parishes adjoining to
+Highworth is that of Coleshill, which is in Berkshire, and which is the
+property of Lord Radnor, or Lord Folkestone, and is the seat of the
+latter. I was at Coleshill twenty-two or three years ago, and twice at
+later periods. In 1824 Lord Folkestone bought some Locust trees of me;
+and he has several times told me that they were growing very finely; but
+I did not know that they had been planted at Coleshill; and, indeed, I
+always thought that they had been planted somewhere in the south of
+Wiltshire. I now found, however, that they were growing at Coleshill,
+and yesterday I went to see them, and was, for many reasons, more
+delighted with the sight than with any that I have beheld for a long
+while. These trees stand in clumps of 200 trees in each, and the trees
+being four feet apart each way. These clumps make part of a plantation
+of 30 or forty acres, perhaps 50 acres. The rest of the ground; that is
+to say, the ground where the clumps of Locusts do not stand, was, at the
+same time that the Locust clumps were, planted with chestnuts, elms,
+ashes, oaks, beeches, and other trees. These trees were stouter and
+taller than the Locust trees were, when the plantation was made. Yet, if
+you were now to place yourself at a mile's distance from the plantation,
+you would not think that there was any plantation at all except the
+clumps. The fact is that the other trees have, as they generally do,
+made as yet but very little progress; are not, I should think, upon an
+average, more than 4-1/2 feet, or 5 feet, high; while the clumps of
+Locusts are from 12 to 20 feet high; and I think that I may safely say
+that the average height is sixteen feet. They are the most beautiful
+clumps of trees that I ever saw in my life. They were indeed planted by
+a clever and most trusty servant, who, to say all that can be said in
+his praise, is, that he is worthy of such a master as he has.
+
+The trees are, indeed, in good land, and have been taken good care of;
+but the other trees are in the same land; and, while they have been
+taken the same care of since they were planted, they had not, I am sure,
+worse treatment before planting than these Locust trees had. At the time
+when I sold them to my Lord Folkestone, they were in a field at Worth,
+near Crawley, in Sussex. The history of their transport is this. A
+Wiltshire wagon came to Worth for the trees on the 14th of March 1824.
+The wagon had been stopped on the way by the snow; and though the snow
+was gone off before the trees were put upon the wagon, it was very cold,
+and there were sharp frosts and harsh winds. I had the trees taken up,
+and tied up in hundreds by withes, like so many fagots. They were then
+put in and upon the wagon, we doing our best to keep the roots inwards
+in the loading, so as to prevent them from being exposed but as little
+as possible to the wind, sun, and frost. We put some fern on the top,
+and, where we could, on the sides; and we tied on the load with ropes,
+just as we should have done with a load of fagots. In this way they were
+several days upon the road; and I do not know how long it was before
+they got safe into the ground again. All this shows how hardy these
+trees are, and it ought to admonish gentlemen to make pretty strict
+enquiries, when they have gardeners, or bailiffs, or stewards, under
+whose hands Locust trees die, or do not thrive.
+
+N.B. Dry as the late summer was, I never had my Locust trees so fine as
+they are this year. I have some, they write me, five feet high, from
+seed sown just before I went to Preston the first time, that is to say,
+on the 13th of May. I shall advertise my trees in the next Register. I
+never had them so fine, though the great drought has made the number
+comparatively small. Lord Folkestone bought of me 13,600 trees. They are
+at this moment worth the money they cost him, and, in addition the cost
+of planting, and in addition to that, they are worth the fee simple of
+the ground (very good ground) on which they stand; and this I am able to
+demonstrate to any man in his senses. What a difference in the value of
+Wiltshire if all its Elms were Locusts! As fuel, a foot of Locust-wood
+is worth four or five of any English wood. It will burn better green
+than almost any other wood will dry. If men want woods, beautiful woods,
+and _in a hurry_, let them go and see the clumps at Coleshill. Think of
+a wood 16 feet high, and I may say 20 feet high, in twenty-nine months
+from the day of planting; and the plants, on an average, not more than
+two feet high when planted! Think of that: and any one may see it at
+Coleshill. See what efforts gentlemen make _to get a wood_! How they
+look at the poor slow-growing things for years; when they might, if they
+would, have it at once: really almost at a wish; and, with due
+attention, in almost any soil; and the most valuable of woods into the
+bargain. Mr. Palmer, the bailiff, showed me, near the house at
+Coleshill, a Locust tree, which was planted about 35 years ago, or
+perhaps 40. He had measured it before. It is eight foot and an inch
+round at a foot from the ground. It goes off afterwards into two
+principal limbs; which two soon become six limbs, and each of these
+limbs is three feet round. So that here are six everlasting gate-posts
+to begin with. This tree is worth 20 pounds at the least farthing.
+
+I saw also at Coleshill the most complete farmyard that I ever saw, and
+that I believe there is in all England, many and complete as English
+farmyards are. This was the contrivance of Mr. Palmer, Lord Folkestone's
+bailiff and steward. The master gives all the credit of plantation and
+farm to the servant; but the servant ascribes a good deal of it to the
+master. Between them, at any rate, here are some most admirable objects
+in rural affairs. And here, too, there is no misery amongst those who do
+the work; those without whom there could have been no Locust-plantations
+and no farmyard. Here all are comfortable; gaunt hunger here stares no
+man in the face. That same disposition which sent Lord Folkestone to
+visit John Knight in the dungeons at Reading keeps pinching hunger away
+from Coleshill. It is a very pretty spot all taken together. It is
+chiefly grazing land; and though the making of cheese and bacon is, I
+dare say, the most profitable part of the farming here, Lord Folkestone
+fats oxen, and has a stall for it, which ought to be shown to
+foreigners, instead of the spinning jennies. A fat ox is a finer thing
+than a cheese, however good. There is a dairy here too, and beautifully
+kept. When this stall is full of oxen, and they all fat, how it would
+make a French farmer stare! It would make even a Yankee think that "Old
+England" was a respectable "mother" after all. If I had to show this
+village off to a Yankee, I would blindfold him all the way to, and after
+I got him out of, the village, lest he should see the scare-crows of
+paupers on the road.
+
+For a week or ten days before I came to Highworth I had, owing to the
+uncertainty as to where I should be, had no newspapers sent me from
+London; so that, really, I began to feel that I was in the "dark ages."
+Arrived here, however, the _light_ came bursting in upon me, flash after
+flash, from the Wen, from Dublin, and from Modern Athens. I had, too,
+for several days, had nobody to enjoy the light with. I had no sharers
+in the "_anteelactual_" treat, and this sort of enjoyment, unlike that
+of some other sorts, is augmented by being divided. Oh! how happy we
+were, and how proud we were, to find (from the "instructor") that we had
+a king, that we were the subjects of a sovereign, who had graciously
+sent twenty-five pounds to Sir Richard Birnie's poor-box, there to swell
+the amount of the munificence of fined delinquents! Aye, and this, too,
+while (as the "instructor" told us) this same sovereign had just
+bestowed, unasked for (oh! the dear good man!), an annuity of 500_l._ a
+year on Mrs. Fox, who, observe, and whose daughters, had already a
+banging pension, paid out of the taxes, raised in part, and in the
+greatest part, upon a people who are half-starved and half-naked. And
+our admiration at the poor-box affair was not at all lessened by the
+reflection that more money than sufficient to pay all the poor-rates of
+Wiltshire and Berkshire will, this very year, have been expended on new
+palaces, on pullings down and alterations of palaces before existing,
+and on ornaments and decorations in and about Hyde Park, where a bridge
+is building, which, I am told, must cost a hundred thousand pounds,
+though all the water that has to pass under it would go through a
+sugar-hogshead; and does, a little while before it comes to this bridge,
+go through an arch which I believe to be smaller than a sugar-hogshead!
+besides, there was a bridge here before, and a very good one too.
+
+Now will Jerry Curteis, who complains so bitterly about the poor-rates,
+and who talks of the poor working people as if their poverty were the
+worst of crimes; will Jerry say anything about this bridge, or about the
+enormous expenses at Hyde Park Corner and in St. James's Park? Jerry
+knows, or he ought to know, that this bridge alone will cost more money
+than half the poor-rates of the county of Sussex. Jerry knows, or he
+ought to know, that this bridge must be paid for out of the taxes. He
+must know, or else he must be what I dare not suppose him, that it is
+the taxes that make the paupers; and yet I am afraid that Jerry will not
+open his lips on the subject of this bridge. What they are going at at
+Hyde Park Corner nobody that I talk with seems to know. The "great
+Captain of the age," as that nasty palaverer, Brougham, called him,
+lives close to this spot, where also the "English ladies'" naked
+Achilles stands, having on the base of it the word WELLINGTON in great
+staring letters, while all the other letters are very, very small; so
+that base tax-eaters and fund-gamblers from the country, when they go to
+crouch before this image, think it is the image of the Great Captain
+himself! The reader will recollect that after the battle of Waterloo,
+when we beat Napoleon with nearly a million of foreign bayonets in our
+pay, pay that came out of that _borrowed money_, for which we have _now_
+to wince and howl; the reader will recollect that at that "glorious"
+time, when the insolent wretches of tax-eaters were ready to trample us
+under foot; that, at that time, when the Yankees were defeated on the
+Serpentine River, and before they had thrashed Blue and Buff so
+unmercifully on the ocean and on the lakes; that, at that time, when the
+creatures called "English ladies" were flocking from all parts of the
+country to present rings, to "Old Blucher"; that, at that time of
+exultation with the corrupt, and of mourning with the virtuous, the
+Collective, in the hey-day, in the delirium, of its joy, resolved to
+expend three millions of money on triumphal arches, or columns, or
+monuments of some sort or other, to commemorate the glories of the war!
+Soon after this, however, low prices came, and they drove triumphal
+arches out of the heads of the Ministers, until "prosperity,
+unparalleled prosperity" came! This set them to work upon palaces and
+streets; and I am told that the triumphal-arch project is now going on
+at Hyde Park Corner! Good God! If this should be true, how apt will
+everything be! Just about the time that the arch, or arches, will be
+completed; just about the time that the scaffolding will be knocked
+away, down will come the whole of the horrid borough-mongering system,
+for the upholding of which the vile tax-eating crew called for the war!
+All these palaces and other expensive projects were hatched two years
+ago; they were hatched in the days of "prosperity," the plans and
+contracts were made, I dare say, two or three years ago! However, they
+will be completed much about in the nick of time! They will help to
+exhibit the system in its true light.
+
+The "best possible public instructor" tells us that Canning is going to
+Paris. For what, I wonder? His brother, Huskisson, was there last year;
+and he did nothing. It is supposed that the "revered and ruptured Ogden"
+orator is going to try the force of his oratory in order to induce
+France and her allies to let Portugal alone. He would do better to arm
+some ships of war! Oh! no: never will that be done again; or, at least,
+there never will again be war for three months as long as this borough
+and paper system shall last! This system has run itself out. It has
+lasted a good while, and has done tremendous mischief to the people of
+England; but it is over; it is done for; it will live for a while, but
+it will go about drooping its wings and half shutting its eyes, like a
+cock that has got the pip; it will never crow again; and for that I most
+humbly and fervently thank God! It has crowed over us long enough: it
+has pecked us and spurred us and slapped us about quite long enough. The
+nasty, insolent creatures that it has sheltered under its wings have
+triumphed long enough: they are now going to the workhouse; and thither
+let them go.
+
+I _know_ nothing of the politics of the Bourbons; but though I can
+easily conceive that they would not like to see an end of the paper
+system and a consequent Reform in England; though I can see very good
+reasons for believing this, I do not believe that Canning will induce
+them to sacrifice their own obvious and immediate interests for the sake
+of preserving our funding system. He will not get them out of Cadiz, and
+he will not induce them to desist from interfering in the affairs of
+Portugal, if they find it their interest to interfere. They know that we
+_cannot go to war_. They know this as well as we do; and every sane
+person in England seems to know it well. No war for us _without Reform_!
+We are come to this at last. No war with _this Debt_; and this Debt
+defies every power but that of _Reform_. Foreign nations were, as to our
+real state, a good deal enlightened by "late panic." They had hardly any
+notion of our state before that. That opened their eyes, and led them to
+conclusions that they never before dreamed of. It made them see that
+that which they had always taken for a mountain of solid gold was only a
+great heap of rubbishy, rotten paper! And they now, of course, estimate
+us accordingly. But it signifies not what _they_ think, or what _they_
+do; unless they will subscribe and pay off this _Debt_ for the people at
+Whitehall. The foreign governments (not excepting the American) all hate
+the English Reformers; those of Europe, because our example would be so
+dangerous to despots; and that of America, because we should not suffer
+it to build fleets and to add to its territories at pleasure. So that we
+have not only our own borough-mongers and tax-eaters against us; but
+also all foreign governments. Not a straw, however, do we care for them
+all, so long as we have for us the ever-living, ever-watchful,
+ever-efficient, and all-subduing _Debt_! Let our foes subscribe, I say,
+and pay off that _Debt_; for until they do that we snap our fingers at
+them.
+
+
+_Highworth, Friday, 8th Sept._
+
+"The best public instructor" of yesterday (arrived to-day) informs us
+that "A number of official gentlemen connected with finance have waited
+upon Lord Liverpool"! Connected with finance! And "a number" of them
+too! Bless their numerous and united noddles! Good God! what a state of
+things it is altogether! There never was the like of it seen in this
+world before. Certainly never; and the end must be what the far greater
+part of the people anticipate. It was this very Lord Liverpool that
+ascribed the _sufferings_ of the country to a _surplus of food_; and
+that, too, at the very time when he was advising the King to put forth a
+begging proclamation to raise money to prevent, or, rather, put a stop
+to, starvation in Ireland; and when, at the same time, public money was
+granted for the causing of English people to emigrate to Africa! Ah!
+Good God! who is to record or recount the endless blessings of a
+Jubilee-Government! The "instructor" gives us a sad account of the state
+of the working classes in Scotland. I am not glad that these poor people
+suffer: I am very sorry for it; and if I could relieve them out of my
+own means, without doing good to and removing danger from the insolent
+borough-mongers and tax-eaters of Scotland, I would share my last
+shilling with the poor fellows. But I must be glad that something has
+happened to silence the impudent Scotch quacks, who have been, for six
+years past, crying up the doctrine of Malthus, and railing against the
+English poor-laws. Let us now see what _they_ will do with their poor.
+Let us see whether they will have the impudence to call upon _us_ to
+maintain their poor! Well, amidst all this suffering, there is one good
+thing; the Scotch political economy is blown to the devil, and the
+Edinburgh Review and Adam Smith along with it.
+
+
+_Malmsbury (Wilts), Monday, 11th Sept._
+
+I was detained at Highworth partly by the rain and partly by company
+that I liked very much. I left it at six o'clock yesterday morning, and
+got to this town about three or four o'clock in the afternoon, after a
+ride, including my deviations, of 34 miles; and as pleasant a ride as
+man ever had. I got to a farmhouse in the neighbourhood of Cricklade, to
+breakfast, at which house I was very near to the source of the river
+Isis, which is, they say, the first branch of the Thames. They call it
+the "Old Thames," and I rode through it here, it not being above four or
+five yards wide, and not deeper than the knees of my horse.
+
+The land here and all round Cricklade is very fine. Here are some of the
+very finest pastures in all England, and some of the finest dairies of
+cows, from 40 to 60 in a dairy, grazing in them. Was not this _always_
+so? Was it created by the union with Scotland; or was it begotten by
+Pitt and his crew? Aye, it was always so; and there were formerly two
+churches here, where there is now only one, and five, six, or ten times
+as many people. I saw in one single farmyard here more food than enough
+for four times the inhabitants of the parish; and this yard did not
+contain a tenth, perhaps, of the produce of the parish; but while the
+poor creatures that raise the wheat and the barley and cheese and the
+mutton and the beef are living upon potatoes, an accursed _Canal_ comes
+kindly through the parish to convey away the wheat and all the good food
+to the tax-eaters and their attendants in the Wen! What, then, is this
+"an improvement?" is a nation _richer_ for the carrying away of the food
+from those who raise it, and giving it to bayonet men and others, who
+are assembled in great masses? I could broom-stick the fellow who would
+look me in the face and call this "an improvement." What! was it not
+better for the consumers of the food to live near to the places where it
+was grown? We have very nearly come to the system of Hindostan, where
+the farmer is allowed by the _Aumil_, or tax-contractor, only so much of
+the produce of his farm to eat in the year! The thing is not done in so
+undisguised a manner here: here are assessor, collector, exciseman,
+supervisor, informer, constable, justice, sheriff, jailor, judge, jury,
+jack-ketch, barrack-man. Here is a great deal of ceremony about it; all
+is done according to law; it is the _free-est_ country in the world: but
+somehow or other the produce is, at last, _carried away_; and it is
+eaten, for the main part, by those who do not work.
+
+I observed some pages back that when I got to Malmsbury I should have to
+explain my main object in coming to the North of Wiltshire. In the year
+1818 the Parliament, by _an Act_, ordered the bishops to cause the
+beneficed clergy to give in an account of their livings, which account
+was to contain the following particulars relating to each parish:
+
+    1. Whether a Rectory, Vicarage, or what.
+    2. In what rural Deanery.
+    3. Population.
+    4. Number of Churches and Chapels.
+    5. _Number of persons they_ (the churches and chapels) _can contain_.
+
+In looking into this account as it was finally made up and printed by
+the parliamentary officers, I saw that it was impossible for it to be
+true. I have always asserted, and, indeed, I have clearly proved, that
+one of the two last population returns is false, barefacedly false; and
+I was sure that the account of which I am now speaking was equally
+false. The falsehood consisted, I saw principally, in the account of the
+capacity of the church to contain people; that is, under the head No. 5,
+as above stated. I saw that in almost every instance this account must
+of necessity be false, though coming from under the pen of a beneficed
+clergyman. I saw that there was a constant desire to make it appear that
+the church was now become too small! And thus to help along the opinion
+of a great recent increase of population, an opinion so sedulously
+inculcated by all the tax-eaters of every sort, and by the most brutal
+and best public instructor. In some cases the falsehood of this account
+was impudent almost beyond conception; and yet it required going to the
+spot to get unquestionable proof of the falsehood. In many of the
+parishes, in hundreds of them, the population is next to nothing, far
+fewer persons than the church porch would contain. Even in these cases
+the parsons have seldom said that the church would contain more than the
+population! In such cases they have generally said that the church can
+contain "the population!" So it can; but it can contain ten times the
+number! And thus it was that, in words of truth, a lie in meaning was
+told to the Parliament, and not one word of notice was ever taken of it.
+Little Langford, or Landford, for instance, between Salisbury and
+Warminster, is returned as having a population under twenty, and a
+church that "can contain the population." This church, which I went and
+looked at, can contain, very conveniently, two hundred people! But there
+was one instance in which the parson had been singularly impudent; for
+he had stated the population at eight persons, and had stated that the
+church could contain eight persons! This was the account of the parish
+of Sharncut, in this county of Wilts. It lies on the very northermost
+edge of the county, and its boundary, on one side, divides Wiltshire
+from Gloucestershire. To this Sharncut, therefore, I was resolved to go,
+and to try the fact with my own eyes. When, therefore, I got through
+Cricklade, I was compelled to quit the Malmsbury road and go away to my
+right. I had to go through a village called Ashton Keines, with which
+place I was very much stricken. It is now a straggling village; but to a
+certainty it has been a large market town. There is a market-cross still
+standing in an open place in it; and there are such numerous lanes,
+crossing each other, and cutting the land up into such little bits, that
+it must, at one time, have been a large town. It is a very curious
+place, and I should have stopped in it for some time, but I was now
+within a few miles of the famous Sharncut, the church of which,
+according to the parson's account, _could_ contain eight persons!
+
+At the end of about three miles more of road, rather difficult to find,
+but very pleasant, I got to Sharncut, which I found to consist of a
+church, two farmhouses, and a parsonage-house, one part of the buildings
+of which had become a labourer's house. The church has no tower, but a
+sort of crowning-piece (very ancient) on the transept. The church is
+sixty feet long, and, on an average, twenty-eight feet wide; so that the
+area of it contains one thousand six hundred and eighty square feet; or,
+one hundred and eighty-six square yards! I found in the church eleven
+pews that would contain, that were made to contain, eighty-two people;
+and these do not occupy a third part of the area of the church; and thus
+more than two hundred persons at the least might be accommodated with
+perfect convenience in this church, which the parson says "_can_ contain
+_eight_"! Nay, the church porch, on its two benches, would hold twenty
+people, taking little and big promiscuously. I have been thus particular
+in this instance, because I would leave no doubt as to the barefacedness
+of the lie. A strict inquiry would show that the far greater part of the
+account is a most impudent lie, or, rather, string of lies. For as to
+the subterfuge that this account was true, because the church "_can_
+contain _eight_," it is an addition to the crime of lying. What the
+Parliament meant was, what "is the greatest number of persons that the
+church can contain at worship;" and therefore to put the figure of 8
+against the church of Sharncut was to tell the Parliament a wilful lie.
+This parish is a rectory; it has great and small tithes; it has a glebe,
+and a good solid house, though the parson says it is unfit for him to
+live in! In short, he is not here; a curate that serves, perhaps, three
+or four other churches, comes here at five o'clock in the afternoon.
+
+The _motive_ for making out the returns in this way is clear enough. The
+parsons see that they are getting what they get in a declining and a
+mouldering country. The size of the church tells them, everything tells
+them, that the country is a mean and miserable thing, compared with
+what it was in former times. They feel the facts; but they wish to
+disguise them, because they know that they have been one great cause of
+the country being in its present impoverished and dilapidated state.
+They know that the people look at them with an accusing eye: and they
+wish to put as fair a face as they can upon the state of things. If you
+talk to them, they will never acknowledge that there is any misery in
+the country; because they well know how large a share they have had in
+the cause of it. They were always haughty and insolent; but the
+anti-jacobin times made them ten thousand times more so than ever. The
+cry of Atheism, as of the French, gave these fellows of ours a fine time
+of it: they became identified with loyalty, and what was more, with
+property; and at one time, to say, or hint, a word against a parson, do
+what he would, was to be an enemy of God and of all property! Those were
+the glorious times for them. They urged on the war: they were the
+loudest of all the trumpeters. They saw their tithes in danger. If they
+did not get the Bourbons restored, there was no chance of
+re-establishing tithes in France; and then the example might be fatal.
+But they forgot that, to restore the Bourbons, a debt must be
+contracted; and that, when the nation could not pay the interest of that
+debt, it would, as it now does, begin to look hard at the tithes! In
+short, they over-reached themselves; and those of them who have common
+sense now see it: each hopes that the thing will last out his time; but
+they have, unless they be half-idiots, a constant dread upon their
+minds: this makes them a great deal less brazen than they used to be;
+and I dare say that, if the parliamentary return had to be made out
+again, the parson of Sharncut would not state that the church "_can_
+contain _eight persons_."
+
+From Sharncut I came through a very long and straggling village, called
+Somerford, another called Ocksey, and another called Crudwell. Between
+Somerford and Ocksey I saw, on the side of the road, more _goldfinches_
+than I had ever seen together; I think fifty times as many as I had ever
+seen at one time in my life. The favourite food of the goldfinch is the
+seed of the _thistle_. This seed is just now dead ripe. The thistles are
+all cut and carried away from the fields by the harvest; but they grow
+alongside the roads; and, in this place, in great quantities. So that
+the goldfinches were got here in flocks, and as they continued to fly
+along before me for nearly half a mile, and still sticking to the road
+and the banks, I do believe I had, at last, a flock of ten thousand
+flying before me. _Birds_ of every kind, including partridges and
+pheasants and all sorts of poultry, are most abundant this year. The
+fine, long summer has been singularly favourable to them; and you see
+the effect of it in the great broods of chickens and ducks and geese and
+turkeys in and about every farm-yard.
+
+The churches of the last-mentioned villages are all large, particularly
+the latter, which is capable of containing very conveniently 3 or 4,000
+people. It is a very large church; it has a triple roof, and is nearly
+100 feet long; and master parson says, in his return, that it "_can_
+contain _two hundred_ people"! At Ocksey the people were in church as I
+came by. I heard the singers singing; and, as the church-yard was close
+by the road-side, I got off my horse and went in, giving my horse to a
+boy to hold. The fellow says that his church "_can_ contain _two
+hundred_ people." I counted pews for about 450; the singing gallery
+would hold 40 or 50; two-thirds of the area of the church have no pews
+in them. On benches these two-thirds would hold 2,000 persons, taking
+one with another! But this is nothing rare; the same sort of statement
+has been made, the same kind of falsehoods, relative to the whole of the
+parishes throughout the country, with here and there an exception.
+Everywhere you see the indubitable marks of _decay_ in mansions, in
+parsonage-houses and in people. Nothing can so strongly depict the great
+decay of the villages as the state of the parsonage-houses, which are so
+many parcels of public property, and to prevent the dilapidation of
+which there are laws so strict. Since I left Devizes, I have passed
+close by, or very near to, thirty-two parish churches; and in fifteen
+out of these thirty-two parishes the parsonage-houses are stated, in the
+parliamentary return, either as being unfit for a parson to live in, or,
+as being wholly tumbled down and gone! What, then, are there Scotch
+vagabonds; are there Chalmerses and Colquhounds, to swear, "mon," that
+Pitt and Jubilee George _begat_ all us Englishmen; and that there were
+only a few stragglers of us in the world before! And that our dark and
+ignorant fathers, who built Winchester and Salisbury Cathedrals, had
+neither hands nor money!
+
+When I got in here yesterday, I went at first to an inn; but I very soon
+changed my quarters for the house of a friend, who and whose family,
+though I had never seen them before, and had never heard of them until I
+was at Highworth, gave me a hearty reception, and precisely in _the
+style_ that I like. This town, though it has nothing particularly
+engaging in itself, stands upon one of the prettiest spots that can be
+imagined. Besides the river Avon, which I went down in the south-east
+part of the country, here is another river Avon, which runs down to
+Bath, and two branches, or sources, of which meet here. There is a
+pretty ridge of ground, the base of which is a mile, or a mile and a
+half wide. On each side of this ridge a branch of the river runs down
+through a flat of very fine meadows. The town and the beautiful remains
+of the famous old Abbey stand on the rounded spot which terminates this
+ridge; and just below, nearly close to the town, the two branches of the
+river meet; and then they begin to be called _the Avon_. The land round
+about is excellent, and of a great variety of forms. The trees are lofty
+and fine: so that what with the water, the meadows, the fine cattle and
+sheep, and, as I hear, the absence of _hard_-pinching poverty, this is a
+very pleasant place. There remains more of the Abbey than, I believe, of
+any of our monastic buildings, except that of Westminster, and those
+that have become Cathedrals. The church-service is performed in the part
+of the Abbey that is left standing. The parish church has fallen down
+and is gone; but the tower remains, which is made use of for the bells;
+but the Abbey is used as the church, though the church-tower is at a
+considerable distance from it. It was once a most magnificent building;
+and there is now a _door-way_, which is the most beautiful thing I ever
+saw, and which was nevertheless built in Saxon times, in "the _dark_
+ages," and was built by men who were not begotten by Pitt nor by
+Jubilee-George.--What _fools_, as well as ungrateful creatures, we have
+been and are! There is a broken arch, standing off from the sound part
+of the building, at which one cannot look up without feeling shame at
+the thought of ever having abused the men who made it. No one need
+_tell_ any man of sense; he _feels_ our inferiority to our fathers upon
+merely beholding the remains of their efforts to ornament their country
+and elevate the minds of the people. We talk of our skill and learning,
+indeed! How do we know how skilful, how learned _they_ were? If in all
+that they have left us we see that they surpassed us, why are we to
+conclude that they did not surpass us in all other things worthy of
+admiration?
+
+This famous Abbey was founded, in about the year 600, by Maidulf, a
+Scotch Monk, who upon the suppression of a Nunnery here at that time
+selected the spot for this great establishment. For the great
+magnificence, however, to which it was soon after brought it was
+indebted to Aldhelm, a Monk educated within its first walls by the
+founder himself; and to St. Aldhelm, who by his great virtues became
+very famous, the Church was dedicated in the time of King Edgar. This
+Monastery continued flourishing during those _dark_ ages, until it was
+sacked by the great enlightener, at which time it was found to be
+endowed to the amount of 16,077_l._ 11_s._ 8_d._ of the money of the
+present day! Amongst other, many other, great men produced by this Abbey
+of Malmsbury was that famous scholar and historian, William de
+Malmsbury.
+
+There is a _market-cross_ in this town, the sight of which is worth a
+journey of hundreds of miles. Time, with his scythe, and "enlightened
+Protestant piety," with its pick-axes and crow-bars; these united have
+done much to efface the beauties of this monument of ancient skill and
+taste and proof of ancient wealth; but in spite of all their destructive
+efforts, this Cross still remains a most beautiful thing, though
+possibly, and even probably, nearly, or quite, a thousand years old.
+There is a _market-cross_ lately erected at Devizes, and intended to
+imitate the ancient ones. Compare that with this, and then you have
+pretty fairly a view of the difference between us and our forefathers of
+the "dark ages."
+
+To-morrow I start for Bollitree, near Ross, Herefordshire, my road being
+across the county, and through the city of Gloucester.
+
+
+
+
+RIDE, FROM MALMSBURY, IN WILTSHIRE, THROUGH GLOUCESTERSHIRE,
+HEREFORDSHIRE, AND WORCESTERSHIRE.
+
+
+_Stroud (Gloucestershire), Tuesday Forenoon, 12th Sept. 1826._
+
+I set off from Malmsbury this morning at 6 o'clock, in as sweet and
+bright a morning as ever came out of the heavens, and leaving behind me
+as pleasant a house and as kind hosts as I ever met with in the whole
+course of my life, either in England or America; and that is saying a
+great deal indeed. This circumstance was the more pleasant, as I had
+never before either seen or heard of these kind, unaffected, sensible,
+_sans facons_, and most agreeable friends. From Malmsbury I first came,
+at the end of five miles, to Tutbury, which is in Gloucestershire, there
+being here a sort of dell, or ravine, which, in this place, is the
+boundary line of the two counties, and over which you go on a bridge,
+one-half of which belongs to each county. And now, before I take my
+leave of Wiltshire, I must observe that, in the whole course of my life
+(days of _courtship_ excepted, of course), I never passed seventeen
+pleasanter days than those which I have just spent in Wiltshire. It is,
+especially in the southern half, just the sort of country that I like;
+the weather has been pleasant; I have been in good houses and amongst
+good and beautiful gardens; and in _every_ case I have not only been
+most kindly entertained, but my entertainers have been of just the stamp
+that I like.
+
+I saw again this morning large flocks of _goldfinches_ feeding on the
+thistle-seed on the roadside. The French call this bird by a name
+derived from the thistle, so notorious has it always been that they live
+upon this seed. _Thistle_ is, in French, _Chardon_; and the French call
+this beautiful little bird _Chardonaret_. I never could have supposed
+that such flocks of these birds would ever be seen in England. But it is
+a great year for all the feathered race, whether wild or tame: naturally
+so, indeed; for every one knows that it is the _wet_, and not the
+_cold_, that is injurious to the breeding of birds of all sorts, whether
+land-birds or water-birds. They say that there are this year double the
+usual quantity of ducks and geese: and, really, they do seem to swarm in
+the farmyards, wherever I go. It is a great mistake to suppose that
+ducks and geese _need_ water, except to drink. There is, perhaps, no
+spot in the world, in proportion to its size and population, where so
+many of these birds are reared and fatted as in Long Island; and it is
+not in one case out of ten that they have any ponds to go to, or, that
+they ever see any water other than water that is drawn up out of a well.
+
+A little way before I got to Tutbury I saw a woman digging some potatoes
+in a strip of ground, making part of a field, nearly an oblong square,
+and which field appeared to be laid out in strips. She told me that the
+field was part of a farm (to the homestead of which she pointed); that
+it was by the farmer _let out_ in strips to labouring people; that each
+strip contained a rood (or quarter of a statute acre); that each married
+labourer rented one strip; and that the annual rent was _a pound_ for
+the strip. Now the taxes being all paid by the farmer; the fences being
+kept in repair by him; and, as appeared to me, the land being
+exceedingly good: all these things considered, the rent does not appear
+to be too high.--This fashion is certainly a _growing_ one; it is a
+little step towards a coming back to the ancient small life and lease
+holds and common-fields! This field of strips was, in fact, a sort of
+common-field; and the "agriculturists," as the conceited asses of
+landlords call themselves at their clubs and meetings, might, and they
+would if their skulls could admit any thoughts except such as relate to
+high prices and low wages; they might, and they would, begin to suspect
+that the "dark age" people were not so very foolish when they had so
+many common-fields, and when almost every man that had a family had also
+a bit of land, either large or small. It is a very curious thing that
+the enclosing of commons, that the shutting out of the labourers _from
+all share_ in the land; that the prohibiting of them to look at a wild
+animal, almost at a lark or a frog; it is curious that this hard-hearted
+system should have gone on, until, at last, it has produced effects so
+injurious and so dangerous to the grinders themselves that they have, of
+their own accord, and for their own safety, begun to make a step towards
+the ancient system, and have, in the manner I have observed, made the
+labourers sharers in some degree in the uses at any rate of the soil.
+The far greater part of these strips of land have potatoes growing in
+them; but in some cases they have borne wheat, and in others barley,
+this year; and these have now turnips; very young, most of them, but in
+some places very fine, and in every instance nicely hoed out. The land
+that will bear 400 bushels of potatoes to the acre will bear 40 bushels
+of wheat; and the ten bushels of wheat to the quarter of an acre would
+be a crop far more valuable than a hundred bushels of potatoes, as I
+have proved many times in the Register.
+
+Just before I got into Tutbury I was met by a good many people, in twos,
+threes, or fives, some running and some walking fast, one of the first
+of whom asked me if I had met an "old man" some distance back. I asked
+what _sort_ of a man: "A _poor_ man." "I don't recollect, indeed; but
+what are you all pursuing him for?" "He has been _stealing_." "What has
+he been stealing?" "Cabbages." "Where?" "Out of Mr. Glover, the
+hatter's, garden." "What! do you call that _stealing_; and would you
+punish a man, a poor man, and, therefore, in all likelihood, a hungry
+man too, and, moreover an old man; do you set up a hue-and-cry after,
+and would you punish, such a man for taking a few cabbages, when that
+Holy Bible, which, I dare say, you profess to believe in, and perhaps
+assist to circulate, teaches you that the hungry man may, without
+committing any offence at all, go into his neighbour's vineyard and eat
+his fill of grapes, one bunch of which is worth a sack-full of
+cabbages?" "Yes; but he is a very bad character." "Why, my friend, very
+poor and almost starved people are apt to be 'bad characters;' but the
+Bible, in both Testaments, commands us to be merciful to the poor, to
+feed the hungry, to have compassion on the aged; and it makes no
+exception as to the 'character' of the parties." Another group or two of
+the pursuers had come up by this time; and I, bearing in mind the fate
+of Don Quixote when he interfered in somewhat similar cases, gave my
+horse the hint, and soon got away; but though doubtless I made no
+converts, I, upon looking back, perceived that I had slackened the
+pursuit! The pursuers went more slowly; I could see that they got to
+talking; it was now the step of deliberation rather than that of
+decision; and though I did not like to call upon Mr. Glover, I hope he
+was merciful. It is impossible for me to witness scenes like this; to
+hear a man called _a thief_ for such a cause; to see him thus eagerly
+and vindictively pursued for having taken some cabbages in a garden: it
+is impossible for me to behold such a scene, without calling to mind the
+practice in the United States of America, where, if a man were even to
+talk of prosecuting another (especially if that other were poor, or old)
+for taking from the land, or from the trees, any part of a growing crop,
+for his own personal and immediate use; if any man were even to talk of
+prosecuting another for such an act, such talker would be held in
+universal abhorrence: people would hate him; and, in short, if rich as
+Ricardo or Baring, he might live by himself; for no man would look upon
+him as a neighbour.
+
+Tutbury is a very pretty town, and has a beautiful ancient church. The
+country is high along here for a mile or two towards Avening, which
+begins a long and deep and narrow valley, that comes all the way down to
+Stroud. When I got to the end of the high country, and the lower country
+opened to my view, I was at about three miles from Tutbury, on the road
+to Avening, leaving the Minching-hampton road to my right. Here I was
+upon the edge of the high land, looking right down upon the village of
+Avening, and seeing, just close to it, a large and fine mansion-house, a
+beautiful park, and, making part of the park, one of the finest, most
+magnificent woods (of 200 acres, I dare say), lying facing me, going
+from a valley up a gently-rising hill. While I was sitting on my horse
+admiring this spot, a man came along with some tools in his hand, as if
+going somewhere to work as plumber. "Whose beautiful place is that?"
+said I. "One 'Squire Ricardo, I think they call him, but ..."--You might
+have "knocked me down with a feather," as the old women say,... "but"
+(continued the plumber) "the Old Gentleman's dead, and" ... "God ---- the
+old gentleman and the young gentleman too!" said I; and, giving my horse
+a blow, instead of a word, on I went down the hill. Before I got to the
+bottom, my reflections on the present state of the "market" and on the
+probable results of "watching the turn of it," had made me better
+humoured; and as one of the first objects that struck my eye in the
+village was the sign of the CROSS, and of the Red, or Bloody, Cross too,
+I asked the landlord some questions, which began a series of joking and
+bantering that I had with the people, from one end of the village to the
+other. I set them all a laughing; and, though they could not know my
+name, they will remember me for a long while.--This estate of Gatcomb
+belonged, I am told, to a Mr. Shepperd, and to his fathers before him. I
+asked where this Shepperd was NOW? A tradesman-looking man told me that
+he did not know where he was; but that he had heard that he was living
+somewhere near to Bath! Thus they go! Thus they are squeezed out of
+existence. The little ones are gone; and the big ones have nothing left
+for it but to resort to the bands of holy matrimony with the turn of the
+market watchers and their breed. This the big ones are now doing apace;
+and there is this comfort at any rate; namely, that the connection
+cannot make them baser than they are, a boroughmonger being, of all
+God's creatures, the very basest.
+
+From Avening I came on through Nailsworth, Woodchester, and Rodborough,
+to this place. These villages lie on the sides of a narrow and deep
+valley, with a narrow stream of water running down the middle of it, and
+this stream turns the wheels of a great many mills and sets of machinery
+for the making of _woollen-cloth_. The factories begin at Avening, and
+are scattered all the way down the valley. There are steam-engines as
+well as water powers. The work and the trade is so flat that in, I
+should think, much more than a hundred acres of ground which I have seen
+to-day covered with rails or racks for the drying of cloth, I do not
+think that I have seen one single acre where the racks had cloth upon
+them. The workmen do not get half wages; great numbers are thrown on the
+parish; but overseers and magistrates in this part of England do not
+presume that they are to leave anybody to starve to death; there is law
+here; this is in England, and not in "the North," where those who ought
+to see that the poor do not suffer talk of their dying with hunger as
+Irish 'Squires do; aye, and applaud them for their patient resignation!
+
+The Gloucestershire people have no notion of dying with hunger; and it
+is with great pleasure that I remark that I have seen no woe-worn
+creature this day. The sub-soil here is a yellowish ugly stone. The
+houses are all built with this; and, it being ugly, the stone is made
+_white_ by a wash of some sort or other. The land on both sides of the
+valley, and all down the bottom of it, has plenty of trees on it; it is
+chiefly pasture land, so that the green and the white colours, and the
+form and great variety of the ground, and the water and altogether make
+this a very pretty ride. Here are a series of spots, every one of which
+a lover of landscapes would like to have painted. Even the buildings of
+the factories are not ugly. The people seem to have been constantly well
+off. A pig in almost every cottage sty; and that is the infallible mark
+of a happy people. At present, indeed, this valley suffers; and though
+cloth will always be wanted, there will yet be much suffering even here,
+while at Uly and other places they say that the suffering is great
+indeed.
+
+
+_Huntley, Between Gloucester and Ross._
+
+From Stroud I came up to Pitchcomb, leaving Painswick on my right. From
+the lofty hill at Pitchcomb I looked down into that great flat and
+almost circular vale, of which the city of Gloucester is in the centre.
+To the left I saw the Severn, become a sort of arm of the sea; and
+before me I saw the hills that divide this county from Herefordshire and
+Worcestershire. The hill is a mile down. When down, you are amongst
+dairy-farms and orchards all the way to Gloucester, and this year the
+orchards, particularly those of pears, are greatly productive. I
+intended to sleep at Gloucester, as I had, when there, already come
+twenty-five miles, and as the fourteen, which remained for me to go in
+order to reach Bollitree, in Herefordshire, would make about nine more
+than either I or my horse had a taste for. But when I came to Gloucester
+I found that I should run a risk of having no bed if I did not bow very
+low and pay very high; for what should there be here but one of those
+scandalous and beastly fruits of the system called a "Music-Meeting!"
+Those who founded the Cathedrals never dreamed, I dare say, that they
+would have been put to such uses as this! They are, upon these
+occasions, made use of as _Opera-Houses_; and I am told that the money
+which is collected goes, in some shape or another, to the Clergy of the
+Church, or their widows, or children, or something. These assemblages of
+player-folks, half-rogues and half-fools, began with the small
+paper-money; and with it they will go. They are amongst the profligate
+pranks which idleness plays when fed by the sweat of a starving people.
+From this scene of prostitution and of pocket-picking I moved off with
+all convenient speed, but not before the ostler made me pay 9_d._ for
+merely letting my horse _stand_ about ten minutes, and not before he had
+_begun_ to abuse me for declining, though in a very polite manner, to
+make him a present in addition to the 9_d._ How he ended I do not know;
+for I soon set the noise of the shoes of my horse to answer him. I got
+to this village, about eight miles from Gloucester, by five o'clock: it
+is now half past seven, and I am going to bed with an intention of
+getting to Bollitree (six miles only) early enough in the morning to
+catch my sons in bed if they play the sluggard.
+
+
+_Bollitree, Wednesday, 13th Sept._
+
+This morning was most beautiful. There has been rain here now, and the
+grass begins (but only begins) to grow. When I got within two hundred
+yards of Mr. Palmer's I had the happiness to meet my son Richard, who
+said that he had been up an hour. As I came along I saw one of the
+prettiest sights in the _flower_ way that I ever saw in my life. It was
+a little orchard; the grass in it had just taken a start, and was
+beautifully fresh; and very thickly growing amongst the grass was the
+purple flowered _Colchicum_ in full bloom. They say that the leaves of
+this plant, which come out in the spring and die away in the summer, are
+poisonous to cattle if they eat much of them in the spring. The flower,
+if standing by itself, would be no great beauty; but contrasted thus
+with the fresh grass, which was a little shorter than itself, it was
+very beautiful.
+
+
+_Bollitree, Saturday, 23rd Sept._
+
+Upon my arrival here, which, as the reader has seen, was ten days ago, I
+had a parcel of _letters_ to open, amongst which were a large lot from
+Correspondents, who had been good enough to set me right with regard to
+that conceited and impudent plagiarist, or literary thief, "Sir James
+Graham, Baronet of Netherby." One correspondent says that I have
+reversed the rule of the Decalogue by visiting the sins of the son upon
+the father. Another tells me anecdotes about the "Magnus Apollo." I
+hereby do the father justice by saying that, from what I have now heard
+of him, I am induced to believe that he would have been ashamed to
+commit flagrant acts of plagiarism, which the son has been guilty of.
+The whole of this plagiarist's pamphlet is bad enough. Every part of it
+is contemptible; but the passage in which he says that there was "no man
+of any authority who did not under-rate the distress that would arise
+out of Peel's Bill;" this passage merits a broom-stick at the hands of
+any Englishman that chooses to lay it on, and particularly from me.
+
+As to _crops_ in Herefordshire and Gloucestershire, they have been very
+bad. Even the wheat here has been only a two-third part crop. The barley
+and oats really next to nothing. _Fed off_ by cattle and sheep in many
+places, partly for want of grass and partly from their worthlessness.
+The cattle have been nearly starved in many places; and we hear the same
+from Worcestershire. In some places one of these beautiful calves (last
+spring calves) will be given for the wintering of another. Hay at Stroud
+was six pounds a ton: last year it was 3_l._ a ton: and yet meat and
+cheese are lower in price than they were last year. Mutton (I mean
+alive) was last year at this time 7-1/2_d._; it is now 6_d._ There has
+been in North Wilts and in Gloucestershire half the quantity of cheese
+made this year, and yet the price is lower than it was last year. Wool
+is half the last year's price. There has, within these three weeks or a
+month, been a prodigious increase in the quantity of cattle food; the
+grass looks like the grass late in May; and the late and stubble-turnips
+(of which immense quantities have been sown) have grown very much, and
+promise large crops generally; yet lean sheep have, at the recent fairs,
+fallen in price; they have been lessening in price, while the facility
+of keeping them has been augmenting! Aye; but the paper-money has not
+been augmenting, notwithstanding the Branch-Bank at Gloucester! This
+bank is quite ready, they say, to take deposits; that is to say, to keep
+people's spare money for them; but to lend them none, without such
+security as would get money, even from the claws of a miser. This trick
+is, then, what the French call a _coup-manque_; or a missing of the
+mark. In spite of everything, as to the season, calculated to cause lean
+sheep to rise in price, they fell, I hear, at Wilton fair (near
+Salisbury) on the 12th instant, from 2_s._ to 3_s._ a head. And
+yesterday, 22nd Sept., at Newent fair, there was a fall since the last
+fair in this neighbourhood. Mr. Palmer sold, at this fair, sheep for
+23_s._ a head, rather better than some which he sold at the same fair
+last year for 34_s._ a head: so that here is a falling off of a third!
+Think of the dreadful ruin, then, which must fall upon the renting
+farmers, whether they rent the land, or rent the money which enables
+them to call the land their own! The recent Order in Council _has_
+ruined many. I was, a few days after that Order reached us, in
+Wiltshire, in a rick yard, looking at the ricks, amongst which were two
+of beans. I asked the farmer how much the Order would take out of his
+pocket; and he said it had already taken out more than a hundred pounds!
+This is a pretty state of things for a man to live in! The winds are
+less uncertain than this calling of a farmer is now become, though it is
+a calling the affairs of which have always been deemed as little liable
+to accident as anything human.
+
+The "best public instructor" tells us, that the Ministers are about to
+give the _Militia-Clothing_ to the poor Manufacturers! Coats,
+waistcoats, trousers, shoes and stockings! Oh, what a kind as well as
+wise "envy of surrounding nations" this is! Dear good souls! But what
+are the _women_ to do? No _smocks_, pretty gentlemen! No royal
+commission to be appointed to distribute smocks to the suffering
+"females" of the "_disturbed_ districts!" How fine our "manufacturing
+population" will look all dressed in _red_! Then indeed will the farming
+fellows have to repent, that they did not follow the advice of Dr.
+Black, and fly to the "_happy_ manufacturing districts," where
+employment, as the Doctor affirmed, was so abundant and so permanent,
+and where wages were so high! Out of evil comes good; and this state of
+things has blown the Scotch _poleeteecal ecoonoomy_ to the devil, at any
+rate. In spite of all their plausibility and persevering brass, the
+Scotch writers are now generally looked upon as so many tricky humbugs.
+Mr. Sedgwick's affair is enough, one would think, to open men's eyes to
+the character of this greedy band of _invaders_; for invaders they are,
+and of the very worst sort: they come only to live on the labour of
+others; never to work themselves; and, while they do this, they are
+everlastingly publishing essays, the object of which is, to keep the
+Irish out of England! Dr. Black has, within these four years, published
+more than a hundred articles, in which he has represented the invasion
+of the Irish as being ruinous to England! What monstrous impudence! The
+Irish come to help do the work; the Scotch to help eat the taxes; or, to
+tramp "_aboot mon_" with a pack and licence; or, in other words, to
+cheat upon a small scale, as their superiors do upon a large one. This
+tricky and greedy set have, however, at last, overreached themselves,
+after having so long overreached all the rest of mankind that have had
+the misfortune to come in contact with them. They are now smarting under
+the scourge, the torments of which they have long made others feel. They
+have been the principal inventors and executors of all that has been
+damnable to England. They are _now_ bothered; and I thank God for it. It
+may, and it must, finally deliver us from their baleful influence.
+
+To return to the kind and pretty gentlemen of Whitehall, and their
+_Militia-Clothing_: if they refuse to supply the women with smocks,
+perhaps they would have no objection to hand them over some petticoats;
+or at any rate, to give their husbands a _musket_ a piece, and a little
+powder and ball; just to amuse themselves with, instead of the
+employment of "digging holes one day and filling them up the next," as
+suggested by "the great statesman, now no more," who was one of that
+"noble, honourable, and venerable body" the Privy Council (to which
+Sturges Bourne belongs), and who cut his own throat at North Cray, in
+Kent, just about three years after he had brought in the bill, which
+compelled me to make the Register contain two sheets and a quarter, and
+to compel printers to give, before they began to print, bail to pay any
+fines that might be inflicted on them for anything that they might
+print. Let me see: where was I? Oh! the muskets and powder and ball
+ought, certainly, to go with the red clothes; but how strange it is,
+that the _real relief_ never seems to occur, even for one single moment,
+to the minds of these pretty gentlemen; namely, _taking off the taxes_.
+What a thing it is to behold poor people receiving taxes, or alms, to
+prevent them from starving; and to behold one half, at least, of what
+they receive, taken from them in taxes! What a sight to behold soldiers,
+horse and foot, employed to prevent a distressed people from committing
+acts of violence, when the _cost_ of the horse and foot would,
+probably, if applied in the way of relief to the sufferers, prevent the
+existence of the distress! A cavalry horse has, I think, ten pounds of
+oats a day and twenty pounds of hay. These at present prices, cost
+16_s._ a week. Then there is stable room, barracks, straw, saddle and
+all the trappings. Then there is the wear of the horse. Then the pay of
+them. So that one single horseman, with his horse, do not cost so little
+as 36_s._ a week; and that is more than the parish allowance to five
+labourers' or manufacturers' families, at five to a family; so that one
+horseman and his horse cost what would feed twenty-five of the
+distressed creatures. If there be ten thousand of these horsemen, they
+cost as much as would keep, at the parish rate, two hundred and fifty
+thousand of the distressed persons. Aye; it is even so, parson Hay,
+stare at it as long as you like. But, suppose it to be only half as
+much: then it would maintain a hundred and twenty-five thousand persons.
+However, to get rid of all dispute, and to state one staring and
+undeniable fact, let me first observe, that it is notorious, that the
+poor-rates are looked upon as enormous; that they are deemed an
+insupportable burden; that Scarlett and Nolan have asserted, that they
+threaten to swallow up the land; that it is equally notorious that a
+large part of the poor-rates ought to be called _wages_; all this is
+undeniable, and now comes the damning fact; namely, that the whole
+amount of these poor-rates falls far short of the cost of the standing
+army in time of peace! So that, take away this army, which is to keep
+the distressed people from committing acts of violence, and you have, at
+once, ample means of removing all the distress and all the danger of
+acts of violence! _When_ will this be done? Do not say, "_Never_,"
+reader: if you do, you are not only a slave, but you ought to be one.
+
+I cannot dismiss this _militia-clothing_ affair, without remarking, that
+I do not agree with those who _blame_ the Ministers for having let in
+the foreign corn _out of fear_. Why not do it from that motive? "The
+fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." And what is meaned by
+"fear of the Lord," but the fear of doing wrong, or of persevering in
+doing wrong? And whence is this fear to arise? From thinking of the
+_consequences_, to be sure: and, therefore if the Ministers did let in
+the foreign corn for fear of popular commotion, they acted rightly, and
+their motive was as good and reasonable as the act was wise and just. It
+would have been lucky for them if the same sort of motive had prevailed,
+when the Corn Bill was passed; but that _game-cock_ statesman, who at
+last, sent a spur into his own throat, was then in high feather, and he,
+while soldiers were drawn up round the Honourable, Honourable,
+Honourable House, said, that he did not for his part, care much about
+the Bill; but, since the mob had clamoured against _it_, he was resolved
+to support it! Alas! that such a _cock_ statesman should have come to
+such an end! All the towns and cities in England petitioned against that
+odious Bill. Their petitions were rejected, and that rejection is
+_amongst_ the causes of the present embarrassments. Therefore I am not
+for blaming the Ministers for acting from _fear_. They did the same in
+the case of the poor Queen. Fear taught them wisely, then, also. What!
+would you never have people act from _fear_? What but fear of the law
+restrains many men from committing crimes? What but fear of exposure
+prevents thousands upon thousands of offences, moral as well as legal?
+Nonsense about "acting from fear." I always hear with great suspicion
+your eulogists of "_vigorous_" government; I do not like your vigorous
+governments; your game-cock governments. We saw enough of these, and
+_felt_ enough of them too, under Pitt, Dundas, Perceval, Gibbs,
+Ellenborough, Sidmouth and Castlereagh. I prefer governments like those
+of Edward I. of England and St. Louis of France; _cocks_ as towards
+their enemies and rivals, and _chickens_ as towards their own people:
+precisely the reverse of our modern "country gentlemen," as they call
+themselves; very lions as towards their poor, robbed, famishing
+labourers, but more than lambs as towards tax-eaters, and especially as
+towards the fierce and whiskered _dead-weight_, in the presence of any
+of whom they dare not say that their souls are their own. This base race
+of men, called "country gentlemen" must be speedily changed by almost a
+miracle; or they, big as well as little, must be swept away; and if it
+should be desirable for posterity to have a just idea of them, let
+posterity take this one fact; that the tithes are now, in part, received
+by men, who are Rectors and Vicars, and who, at the same time receive
+half-pay as naval or military officers; and that not one English
+"country gentleman" has had the courage even to complain of this, though
+many gallant half-pay officers have been dismissed and beggared, upon
+the ground, that the half-pay is not a reward for past services, but a
+retaining fee for future services; so that, put the two together, they
+amount to this; that the half-pay is given to church parsons, that they
+may be, when war comes, ready to serve as officers in the army or navy!
+Let the world match that if it can! And yet there are scoundrels to say,
+that we do not want a _radical reform_! Why there must be such a reform,
+in order to prevent us from becoming a mass of wretches too corrupt and
+profligate and base even to carry on the common transactions of life.
+
+
+_Ryall, near Upton on Severn (Worcestershire), Monday, 25th Sept._
+
+I set off from Mr. Palmer's yesterday, after breakfast, having his son
+(about 13 years old) as my travelling companion. We came across the
+country, a distance of about 22 miles, and, having crossed the Severn at
+Upton, arrived here, at Mr. John Price's, about two o'clock. On our road
+we passed by the estate and park of _another Ricardo_! This is Osmond;
+the other is David. This one has ousted two families of Normans, the
+Honeywood Yateses, and the Scudamores. They suppose him to have ten
+thousand pounds a year in rent here! Famous "watching the turn of the
+market"! The Barings are at work down in this country too. They are
+everywhere, indeed, depositing their eggs about, like cunning old
+guinea-hens, in sly places, besides the great, open showy nests that
+they have. The "instructor" tells us, that the Ricardos have received
+sixty-four thousand pounds Commission, on the "Greek Loans," or, rather,
+"Loans to the Greeks." Oh, brave Greeks, to have such patriots to aid
+you with their financial skill; such patriots as Mr. Galloway to make
+engines of war for you, while his son is making them for the Turks; and
+such patriots as Burdett and Hobhouse to talk of your political
+relations! Happy Greeks! Happy Mexicans, too, it seems; for the "best
+instructor" tells us, that the Barings, whose progenitors came from
+Dutchland about the same time as, and perhaps in company with, the
+Ricardos; happy Mexicans too; for, the "instructor" as good as swears,
+that the Barings will see that the dividends on your loans are paid in
+future! Now, therefore, the riches, the loads, the shiploads of silver
+and gold are now to pour in upon us! Never was there a nation so foolish
+as this! But, and this ought to be well understood, it is not _mere_
+foolishness; not mere harmless folly; it is foolishness, the offspring
+of _greediness_ and of a _gambling_, which is little short of a
+_roguish_ disposition; and this disposition prevails to an enormous
+extent in the country, as I am told, more than in the monstrous Wen
+itself. Most delightfully, however, have the greedy, mercenary, selfish,
+unfeeling wretches, been bit by the _loans_ and _shares_! The King of
+Spain gave the wretches a sharp bite, for which I always most cordially
+thank his Majesty. I dare say, that his sponging off of the roguish
+Bonds has reduced to beggary, or caused to cut their throats, many
+thousands of the greedy, fund-loving, stock-jobbing devils, who, if they
+regard it likely to raise their "securities" one per cent., would
+applaud the murder of half the human race. These vermin all, without a
+single exception, approved of, and rejoiced at, Sidmouth's
+_Power-of-Imprisonment Bill_, and they applauded his _Letter of Thanks
+to the Manchester Yeomanry Cavalry_. No matter what it is that puts an
+end to a system which engenders and breeds up vermin like these.
+
+Mr. Hanford, of this county, and Mr. Canning of Gloucestershire, having
+dined at Mr. Price's yesterday, I went, to-day, with Mr. Price to see
+Mr. Hanford at his house and estate at Bredon Hill, which is, I believe,
+one of the highest in England. The ridge, or, rather, the edge of it,
+divides, in this part, Worcestershire from Gloucestershire. At the very
+highest part of it there are the remains of an encampment, or rather, I
+should think, citadel. In many instances, in Wiltshire, these marks of
+fortifications are called castles still; and, doubtless, there were once
+castles on these spots. From Bredon Hill you see into nine or ten
+counties; and those curious bubblings-up, the Malvern Hills, are right
+before you, and only at about ten miles' distance, in a straight line.
+As this hill looks over the counties of Worcester, Gloucester, Hereford
+and part of Warwick and the rich part of Stafford; and, as it looks over
+the vales of Esham, Worcester, and Gloucester, having the Avon and the
+Severn, winding down them, you certainly see from this Bredon Hill one
+of the very richest spots of England, and I am fully convinced, a richer
+spot than is to be seen in any other country in the world; I mean
+_Scotland excepted_, of course, for fear Sawney should cut my throat,
+or, which is much the same thing squeeze me by the hand, from which last
+I pray thee to deliver me, O Lord!
+
+The Avon (this is the _third_ Avon that I have crossed in this Ride)
+falls into the Severn just below Tewkesbury, through which town we went
+in our way to Mr. Hanford's. These rivers, particularly the Severn, go
+through, and sometimes overflow, the finest meadows of which it is
+possible to form an idea. Some of them contain more than a hundred acres
+each; and the number of cattle and sheep, feeding in them, is
+prodigious. Nine-tenths of the land, in these extensive vales, appears
+to me to be pasture, and it is pasture of the richest kind. The sheep
+are chiefly of the Leicester breed, and the cattle of the Hereford,
+white face and dark red body, certainly the finest and most beautiful of
+all horn-cattle. The grass, after the fine rains that we have had, is in
+its finest possible dress; but, here, as in the parts of Gloucestershire
+and Herefordshire that I have seen, there are no turnips, except those
+which have been recently sown; and, though amidst all these thousands
+upon thousands of acres of the finest meadows and grass land in the
+world, hay is, I hear, seven pounds a ton at Worcester. However, unless
+we should have very early and even hard frosts, the grass will be so
+abundant, that the cattle and sheep will do better than people are apt
+to think. But, be this as it may, this summer has taught us, that our
+climate is the _best for produce_, after all; and that we cannot have
+Italian sun and English meat and cheese. We complain of the _drip_; but
+it is the drip that makes the beef and the mutton.
+
+Mr. Hanford's house is on the side of Bredon Hill; about a third part up
+it, and is a very delightful place. The house is of ancient date, and it
+appears to have been always inhabited by and the property of Roman
+Catholics; for there is, in one corner of the very top of the building,
+up in the very roof of it, a Catholic chapel, as ancient as the roof
+itself. It is about twenty-five feet long and ten wide. It has
+arch-work, to imitate the roof of a church. At the back of the altar
+there is a little room, which you enter through a door going out of the
+chapel; and, adjoining this little room, there is a closet, in which is
+a trapdoor made to let the priests down into one of those hiding places,
+which were contrived for the purpose of evading the grasp of those
+greedy Scotch minions, to whom that pious and tolerant Protestant, James
+I., delivered over those English gentlemen, who remained faithful to the
+religion of their fathers, and, to set his country free from which
+greedy and cruel grasp, that honest Englishman, Guy Fawkes, wished, as
+he bravely told the King and his Scotch council, "_to blow the Scotch
+beggars back to their mountains again_." Even this King has, in his
+works (for James was an author), had the justice to call him "the
+English Scaevola"; and we Englishmen, fools set on by knaves, have the
+folly, or the baseness, to burn him in effigy on the 5th November, the
+anniversary of his intended exploit! In the hall of this house there is
+the portrait of Sir Thomas Winter, who was one of the accomplices of
+Fawkes, and who was killed in the fight with the sheriff and his party.
+There is also the portrait of his lady, who must have spent half her
+life-time in the working of some very curious sacerdotal vestments,
+which are preserved here with great care, and are as fresh and as
+beautiful as they were the day they were finished.
+
+A parson said to me, once, by letter: "Your religion, Mr. Cobbett, seems
+to me to be altogether _political_." "Very much so, indeed," answered I,
+"and well it may, since I have been furnished with a creed which makes
+part of an Act of Parliament." And, the fact is, I am no Doctor of
+Divinity, and like a religion, any religion, that tends to make men
+innocent and benevolent and happy, by taking the best possible means of
+furnishing them with plenty to eat and drink and wear. I am a Protestant
+of the Church of England, and, as such, blush to see, that more than
+half the parsonage-houses are wholly gone, or are become mere hovels.
+What I have written on the "Protestant Reformation," has proceeded
+entirely from a sense of justice towards our calumniated Catholic
+forefathers, to whom we owe all those of our institutions that are
+worthy of our admiration and gratitude. I have not written as a
+Catholic, but as an Englishman; yet a sincere Catholic must feel some
+little gratitude towards me; and, if there was an ungrateful reptile in
+the neighbourhood of Preston, to give, as a toast, "Success to Stanley
+and Wood," the conduct of those Catholics that I have seen here has, as
+far as I am concerned, amply compensated for his baseness.
+
+This neighbourhood has witnessed some pretty thumping transfers from the
+Normans. Holland, one of Baring's partners, or clerks, has recently
+bought an estate of Lord Somers, called Dumbleton, for, it is said,
+about eighty thousand pounds. Another estate of the same Lord, called
+Strensham, has been bought by a Brummigeham Banker of the name of
+Taylor, for, it is said, seventy thousand pounds. "Eastnor Castle," just
+over the Malvern Hills, is still building, and Lord Eastnor lives at
+that pretty little warm and snug place, the priory of Reigate, in
+Surrey, and close by the not less snug little borough of the same name.
+MEMORANDUM. When we were petitioning _for reform_, in 1817, my Lord
+Somers wrote and published a pamphlet, under his own name, condemning
+our conduct and our principles, and insisting that we, if let alone,
+should produce "_a revolution_, and _endanger all property_!" The
+Barings are adding field to field and tract to tract in Herefordshire;
+and, as to the Ricardos, they seem to be animated with the same laudable
+spirit. This Osmond Ricardo has a park at one of his estates, called
+Broomsborough, and that park has a new porter's lodge, upon which there
+is a span new cross as large as life! Aye, big enough and long enough to
+crucify a man upon! I had never seen such an one before; and I know not
+what sort of thought it was that seized me at the moment; but, though my
+horse is but a clumsy goer, I verily believe I got away from it at the
+rate of ten or twelve miles an hour. My companion, who is always upon
+the look-out for cross-ditches, or pieces of timber, on the road-side,
+to fill up the time of which my jog-trot gives him so wearisome a
+surplus, seemed delighted at this my new pace; and, I dare say he has
+wondered ever since what should have given me wings just for that once
+and that once only.
+
+
+_Worcester, Tuesday, 26th Sept._
+
+Mr. Price rode with us to this city, which is one of the cleanest,
+neatest, and handsomest towns I ever saw: indeed, I do not recollect to
+have seen any one equal to it. The _cathedral_ is, indeed, a poor thing,
+compared with any of the others, except that of Hereford; and I have
+seen them all but those of Carlisle, Durham, York, Lincoln, Chester, and
+Peterborough; but the _town_ is, I think, the very best I ever saw; and
+which is, indeed, the greatest of all recommendations, the _people_ are,
+upon the whole, the most suitably dressed and most decent looking
+people. The town is precisely in character with the beautiful and rich
+country, in the midst of which it lies. Everything you see gives you the
+idea of real, solid wealth; aye! and thus it was, too, before, long
+before, Pitt, and even long before "good Queen Bess" and her military
+law and her Protestant racks, were ever heard or dreamed of.
+
+At Worcester, as everywhere else, I find a group of cordial and sensible
+friends, at the house of one of whom, Mr. George Brooke, I have just
+spent a most pleasant evening, in company with several gentlemen, whom
+he had had the goodness to invite to meet me. I here learned a fact,
+which I must put upon record before it escape my memory. Some few years
+ago (about seven, perhaps), at the public sale by auction of the goods
+of a then recently deceased Attorney of the name of Hyde, in this city,
+there were, amongst the goods to be sold, the portraits of _Pitt_,
+_Burdett_, and _Paine_, all framed and glazed. Pitt, with hard driving
+and very lofty praises, fetched fifteen shillings; Burdett fetched
+twenty-seven shillings. Paine was, in great haste, knocked down at five
+pounds; and my informant was convinced, that the lucky purchaser might
+have had fifteen pounds for it. I hear Colonel Davies spoken of here
+with great approbation: he will soon have an opportunity of showing us
+whether he deserve it.
+
+The hop-picking and bagging is over here. The crop, as in the other
+hop-countries, has been very great, and the quality as good as ever was
+known. The average price appears to be about 75_s._ the hundred weight.
+The reader (if he do not belong to a hop-country) should be told, that
+hop-planters, and even all their neighbours, are, as hop-ward, _mad_,
+though the most sane and reasonable people as to all other matters. They
+are ten times more jealous upon this score than men ever are of their
+wives; aye, and than they are of their mistresses, which is going a
+great deal farther. I, who am a _Farnham_ man, was well aware of this
+foible; and therefore, when a gentleman told me, that he would not brew
+with Farnham hops, if he could have them as a gift, I took special care
+not to ask him how it came to pass, that the Farnham hops always sold at
+about double the price of the Worcester; but, if he had said the same
+thing to any other Farnham man that I ever saw, I should have preferred
+being absent from the spot: the hops are bitter, but nothing is their
+bitterness compared to the language that my townsman would have put
+forth.
+
+This city, or this neighbourhood, at least, being the birth-place of
+what I have called, the "Little-Shilling project," and Messrs. Atwood
+and Spooner being the originators of the project, and the project having
+been adopted by Mr. Western, and having been by him now again recently
+urged upon the Ministers, in a Letter to Lord Liverpool, and it being
+possible that some worthy persons may be misled, and even ruined, by the
+confident assertions and the pertinacity of the projectors; this being
+the case, and I having half an hour to spare, will here endeavour to
+show, in as few words as I can, that this project, if put into
+execution, would produce injustice the most crying that the world ever
+heard of, and would, in the present state of things, infallibly lead to
+a violent revolution. The project is to "lower the standard," as they
+call it; that is to say, to make a _sovereign pass for more than 20s._
+In what _degree_ they would reduce the standard they do not say; but a
+vile pamphlet writer, whose name is Crutwell, and who is a beneficed
+parson, and who has most foully abused me, because I laugh at the
+project, says that he would reduce it one half; that is to say, that he
+would make a sovereign pass for two pounds. Well, then, let us, for
+plainness' sake, suppose that the present sovereign is, all at once, to
+pass for two pounds. What will the consequences be? Why, here is a
+parson, who receives his tithes in kind and whose tithes are, we will
+suppose, a thousand bushels of wheat in a year, on an average; and he
+owes a thousand pounds to somebody. He will pay his debt with 500
+sovereigns, and he will still receive his thousand bushels of wheat a
+year! I let a farm for 100_l._ a year, by the year; and I have a
+mortgage of 2000_l._ upon it, the interest just taking away the rent.
+Pass the project, and then I, of course, raise my rent to 200_l._ a
+year, and I still pay the mortgagee 100_l._ a year! What can be plainer
+than this? But, the Banker's is the fine case. I deposit with a banker a
+thousand whole sovereigns to-day. Pass the project to-morrow, and the
+banker pays me my deposit with a thousand half sovereigns! If, indeed,
+you could double the quantity of corn and meat and all goods by the same
+Act of Parliament, then, all would be right; but that quantity will
+remain what it was before you passed the project; and, of course, the
+money being doubled in nominal amount, the price of the goods would be
+doubled. There needs not another word upon the subject; and whatever may
+be the national inference respecting the intellects of Messrs. Atwood
+and Spooner, I must say, that I do most sincerely believe, that there is
+not one of my readers, who will not feel astonishment, that any men,
+having the reputation of men of sound mind, should not clearly see, that
+such a project must almost instantly produce a revolution of the most
+dreadful character.
+
+
+_Stanford Park, Wednesday, 27th Sept. (Morning)._
+
+In a letter which I received from Sir Thomas Winnington (one of the
+Members for this county), last year, he was good enough to request that
+I would call upon him, if I ever came into Worcestershire, which I told
+him I would do; and accordingly here we are in his house, situated,
+certainly, in one of the finest spots in all England. We left Worcester
+yesterday about ten o'clock, crossed the Severn, which runs close by the
+town, and came on to this place, which lies in a north-western direction
+from Worcester, at 14 miles distance from that city, and at about six
+from the borders of Shropshire. About four miles back we passed by the
+park and through the estate of Lord Foley, to whom is due the praise of
+being a most indefatigable and successful _planter of trees_. He seems
+to have taken uncommon pains in the execution of this work; and he has
+the merit of disinterestedness, the trees being chiefly oaks, which he
+is _sure_ he can never see grow to timber. We crossed the Teme River
+just before we got here. Sir Thomas was out shooting; but he soon came
+home, and gave us a very polite reception. I had time, yesterday, to see
+the place, to look at trees, and the like, and I wished to get away
+early this morning; but, being prevailed on to stay to breakfast, here I
+am, at six o'clock in the morning, in one of the best and best-stocked
+private libraries that I ever saw; and, what is more, the owner, from
+what passed yesterday, when he brought me hither, convinced me that he
+was acquainted with the _insides_ of the books. I asked, and shall ask,
+no questions about who got these books together; but the collection is
+such as, I am sure, I never saw before in a private house.
+
+The house and stables and courts are such as they ought to be for the
+great estate that surrounds them; and the park is everything that is
+beautiful. On one side of the house, looking over a fine piece of water,
+you see a distant valley, opening between lofty hills: on another side
+the ground descends a little at first, then goes gently rising for a
+while, and then rapidly, to the distance of a mile perhaps, where it is
+crowned with trees in irregular patches, or groups, single and most
+magnificent trees being scattered all over the whole of the park; on
+another side, there rise up beautiful little hills, some in the form of
+barrows on the downs, only forty or a hundred times as large, one or two
+with no trees on them, and others topped with trees; but, on one of
+these little hills, and some yards higher than the lofty trees which are
+on this little hill, you see rising up the tower of the parish church,
+which hill is, I think, taken all together, amongst the most delightful
+objects that I ever beheld.
+
+"Well, then," says the devil of laziness, "and could you not be
+contented to live here all the rest of your life; and never again pester
+yourself with the cursed politics?" "Why, I think I have laboured
+enough. Let others work now. And such a pretty place for coursing and
+for hare-hunting and woodcock shooting, I dare say; and then those
+pretty wild-ducks in the water, and the flowers and the grass and the
+trees and all the birds in spring and the fresh air, and never, never
+again to be stifled with the smoke that from the infernal Wen ascendeth
+for ever more and that every easterly wind brings to choke me at
+Kensington!" The _last word_ of this soliloquy carried me back, slap, to
+my own study (very much unlike that which I am in), and bade me think of
+the GRIDIRON; bade me think of the complete triumph that I have yet to
+enjoy: promised me the pleasure of seeing a million of trees of my own,
+and sown by my own hands this very year. Ah! but the hares and the
+pheasants and the wild ducks! Yes, but the delight of seeing Prosperity
+Robinson hang his head for shame: the delight of beholding the
+tormenting embarrassments of those who have so long retained crowds of
+base miscreants to revile me; the delight of ousting spitten-upon
+Stanley and bound-over Wood! Yes, but, then, the flowers and the birds
+and the sweet air! What, then, shall Canning never again hear of the
+"revered and ruptured Ogden!" Shall he go into his grave without being
+again reminded of "driving at the whole herd, in order to get at "the
+_ignoble animal_!" Shall he never again be told of Six-Acts and of his
+wish "to extinguish that _accursed torch of discord for ever_!" Oh! God
+forbid! farewell hares and dogs and birds! what, shall Sidmouth, then,
+never again hear of his _Power of Imprisonment Bill_, of his _Circular_,
+of his _Letter of Thanks to the Manchester Yeomanry_! I really jumped up
+when this thought came athwart my mind, and, without thinking of the
+breakfast, said to George who was sitting by me, "Go, George, and tell
+them to saddle the horses;" for, it seemed to me, that I had been
+meditating some crime. Upon George asking me, whether I would not stop
+to breakfast? I bade him not order the horses out yet; and here we are,
+waiting for breakfast.
+
+
+_Ryall, Wednesday Night, 27th Sept._
+
+After breakfast we took our leave of Sir Thomas Winnington, and of
+Stanford, very much pleased with our visit. We wished to reach Ryall as
+early as possible in the day, and we did not, therefore, stop at
+Worcester. We got here about three o'clock, and we intend to set off, in
+another direction, early in the morning.
+
+
+
+
+RIDE FROM RYALL, IN WORCESTERSHIRE, TO BURGHCLERE, IN HAMPSHIRE.
+
+  "Alas, the country! How shall tongue or pen
+  Bewail her now, _un_country gentlemen!
+  The last to bid the cry of warfare cease,
+  The first to make a malady of peace!
+  For what were all these country patriots born?
+  To hunt, and vote, and raise the price of corn.
+  But corn, like ev'ry mortal thing, must fall:
+  Kings, conquerors, and, _markets most of all_."
+
+  LORD BYRON.
+
+
+_Ryall, Friday Morning, 29th September, 1826._
+
+I have observed, in this country, and especially near Worcester, that
+the working people seem to be better off than in many other parts, one
+cause of which is, I dare say, that _glove manufacturing_, which cannot
+be carried on by fire or by wind or by water, and which is, therefore,
+carried on by the _hands_ of human beings. It gives work to women and
+children as well as to men; and that work is, by a great part of the
+women and children, done in their cottages, and amidst the fields and
+hop-gardens, where the husbands and sons must live, in order to raise
+the food and the drink and the wool. This is a great thing for the land.
+If this glove-making were to cease, many of these women and children,
+now not upon the parish, must instantly be upon the parish. The
+glove-trade is, like all others, slack from this last change in the
+value of money; but there is no horrible misery here, as at Manchester,
+Leeds, Glasgow, Paisley, and other Hell-Holes of 84 degrees of heat.
+There misery walks abroad in skin, bone and nakedness. There are no
+subscriptions wanted for Worcester; no militia-clothing. The working
+people suffer, trades'-people suffer, and who is to escape, except the
+monopolizers, the Jews, and the tax-eaters, when the Government chooses
+to raise the value of money, and lower the price of goods? The whole of
+the industrious part of the country must suffer in such a case; but,
+where manufacturing is mixed with agriculture, where the wife and
+daughters are at the needle, or the wheel, while the men and the boys
+are at plough, and where the manufacturing, of which one or two towns
+are the centres, is spread over the whole country round about, and
+particularly where it is, in very great part, performed by females at
+their _own homes_, and where the earnings come _in aid of the man's
+wages_; in such case the misery cannot be so great; and accordingly,
+while there is an absolute destruction of life going on in the
+hell-holes, there is no _visible_ misery at, or near, Worcester; and I
+cannot take my leave of this county without observing, that I do not
+recollect to have seen one miserable object in it. The working people
+all seem to have good large gardens, and pigs in their styes; and this
+last, say the _feelosofers_ what they will about her "antallectual
+enjoyments," is the _only_ security for happiness in a labourer's
+family.
+
+Then, this glove-manufacturing is not like that of cottons, a mere
+gambling concern, making Baronets to-day and Bankrupts to-morrow, and
+making those who do the work slaves. Here are no masses of people,
+called together by a _bell_, and "kept _to it_" by a driver; here are no
+"patriots," who, while they keep Englishmen to it by fines, and almost
+by the scourge, in a heat of 84 degrees, are petitioning the Parliament
+to "give freedom" to the South Americans, who, as these "patriots" have
+been informed, use a great quantity of _cottons_!
+
+The dilapidation of parsonage-houses and the depopulation of villages
+appears not to have been so great just round about Worcester, as in some
+other parts; but they have made great progress even here. No man appears
+to fat an ox, or hardly a sheep, except with a view of sending it to
+London, or to some other infernal resort of monopolizers and tax-eaters.
+Here, as in Wiltshire and Gloucestershire and Herefordshire, you find
+plenty of large churches without scarcely any people. I dare say, that,
+even in this county, more than one half of the parishes have either no
+parsonage-houses at all; or, have not one that a parson thinks fit for
+him to live in; and, I venture to assert, that one or the other of these
+is the case in four parishes out of every five in Herefordshire! Is not
+this a monstrous shame? Is this "a church"? Is this "law"? The parsons
+get the tithes and the rent of the glebe-lands, and the parsonage-houses
+are left to tumble down, and nettles and brambles to hide the spot where
+they stood. But, the fact is, the Jew-system has swept all the little
+gentry, the small farmers, and the domestic manufacturers away. The land
+is now used to raise food and drink for the monopolizers and the
+tax-eaters and their purveyors and lackeys and harlots; and they get
+together in Wens.
+
+Of all the mean, all the cowardly reptiles, that ever crawled on the
+face of the earth, the _English land-owners_ are the most mean and the
+most cowardly: for, while they support the churches in their several
+parishes, while they see the population drawn away from their parishes
+to the Wens, while they are taxed to keep the people in the Wens, and
+while they see their own Parsons pocket the tithes and the glebe-rents,
+and suffer the parsonage-houses to fall down; while they see all this,
+they, without uttering a word in the way of complaint, suffer
+themselves and their neighbours to be taxed, to build new churches for
+the monopolizers and tax-eaters in those Wens! Never was there in this
+world a set of reptiles so base as this. Stupid as many of them are,
+they must clearly see the flagrant injustice of making the depopulated
+parishes pay for the aggrandizement of those who have caused the
+depopulation, aye, actually pay taxes _to add to_ the Wens, and, of
+course, to cause a further depopulation of the taxed villages; stupid
+beasts as many of them are, they must see the flagrant injustice of
+this, and mean and cowardly as many of them are, some of them would
+remonstrate against it; but, alas! the far greater part of them are,
+themselves, getting, or expecting, _loaves and fishes_, either in their
+own persons, or in those of their family. They smouch, or want to
+smouch, some of the taxes; and, therefore, they must not complain. And
+thus the thing goes on. These landowners see, too, the churches falling
+down and the parsonage-houses either tumbled down or dilapidated. But,
+then, mind, they have, amongst them, the giving away of the benefices!
+Of course, all they want is the income, and, the less the
+parsonage-house costs, the larger the spending income. But, in the
+meanwhile, here is a destruction of public property; and also, from a
+diversion of the income of the livings, a great injury, great injustice,
+to the middle and the working classes.
+
+Is this, then, is this "church" a thing to remain untouched? Shall the
+widow and the orphan, whose money has been borrowed _by the land-owners_
+(including the Parsons) to purchase "victories" with; shall they be
+stripped of their interest, of their very bread, and shall the Parsons,
+who have let half the parsonage-houses fall down or become unfit to live
+in, still keep all the tithes and the glebe-lands and the immense landed
+estates, called Church Lands? Oh, no! Sir James Graham "of Netherby,"
+though you are a descendant of the Earls of Monteith, of John of the
+bright sword, and of the Seventh Earl of Galloway, K.T. (taking care,
+for God's sake, not to omit the K.T.); though you may be the _Magnus
+Apollo_; and, in short, be you what you may, you shall never execute
+your project of sponging the fund-holders and of leaving Messieurs the
+Parsons untouched! In many parishes, where the livings are good too,
+there is neither parsonage-house nor church! This is the case at Draycot
+Foliot, in Wiltshire. The living is a Rectory; the Parson has, of
+course, both great and small tithes; these tithes and the glebe-land are
+worth, I am told, more than three hundred pounds a year; and yet there
+is neither church nor parsonage-house; both have been suffered to fall
+down and disappear; and, when a new Parson comes to take possession of
+the living, there is, I am told, a temporary tent, or booth, erected,
+upon the spot where the church ought to be, for the performance of the
+_ceremony of induction_! What, then!--Ought not this church to be
+repealed? An Act of Parliament made this church; an Act of Parliament
+can unmake it; and is there any but a monster who would suffer this
+Parson to retain this income, while that of the widow and the orphan was
+taken away? Oh, no? Sir James Graham of Netherby, who, with the
+_gridiron before you_, say, that there was "no man, of any authority,
+who foresaw the effects of Peel's Bill;" oh, no! thou stupid, thou
+empty-headed, thou insolent aristocratic pamphleteer, the widow and the
+orphan _shall not_ be robbed of their bread, while this Parson of
+Draycot Foliot keeps the income of his living!
+
+On my return from Worcester to this place, yesterday, I noticed, at a
+village called Severn Stoke, a very curiously-constructed grape house;
+that is to say a hot-house for the raising of grapes. Upon inquiry, I
+found, that it belonged to a Parson of the name of St. John, whose
+parsonage house is very near to it, and who, being _sure_ of having the
+benefice when the then Rector should die, bought a piece of land, and
+erected his grapery on it, just facing, and only about 50 yards from,
+the windows, out of which the _old parson_ had to look until the day of
+his death, with a view, doubtless, of piously furnishing his aged
+brother with a _memento mori_ (remember death), quite as significant as
+a death's head and cross-bones, and yet done in a manner expressive of
+that fellow-feeling, that delicacy, that abstinence from
+self-gratification, which are well known to be characteristics almost
+peculiar to "the cloth"! To those, if there be such, who may be disposed
+to suspect that the grapery arose, upon the spot where it stands, merely
+from the desire to have the vines in bearing state, against the time
+that the old parson should die, or, as I heard the Botley Parson once
+call it, "kick the bucket;" to such persons I would just put this one
+question; did they ever either from Scripture or tradition, learn that
+any of the Apostles or their disciples, erected graperies from motives
+such as this? They may, indeed, say, that they never heard of the
+Apostles erecting any graperies at all, much less of their having
+erected them from such a motive. Nor, to say the truth, did I ever hear
+of any such erections on the part of those Apostles and those whom they
+commissioned to preach the word of God; and, Sir William Scott (now a
+_lord_ of some sort) never convinced me, by his parson-praising speech
+of 1802, that to give the church-clergy a due degree of influence over
+the minds of the people, to make the people revere them, it was
+necessary that the parsons and their wives should shine at _balls_ and
+in _pump-rooms_. On the contrary, these and the like have taken away
+almost the whole of their spiritual influence. They never had much; but,
+lately, and especially since 1793, they have had hardly any at all; and,
+wherever I go, I find them much better known as _Justices of the Peace_
+than as Clergymen. What they would come to, if this system could go on
+for only a few years longer, I know not: but go on, as it is now going,
+it cannot much longer; there must be _a settlement of some sort_: and
+that settlement never can leave that mass, that immense mass, of public
+property, called "church property," to be used as it now is.
+
+I have seen, in this country, and in Herefordshire, several pieces of
+Mangel Wurzel; and, I hear, that it has nowhere failed, as the turnips
+have. Even the Lucerne has, in some places, failed to a certain extent;
+but Mr. Walter Palmer, at Pencoyd, in Herefordshire, has cut a piece of
+Lucerne four times this last summer, and, when I saw it, on the 17th
+Sept. (12 days ago), it was got a foot high towards another cut. But,
+with one exception (too trifling to mention), Mr. Walter Palmer's
+Lucerne is on the Tullian plan; that is, it is in rows at four feet
+distance from each other; so that you plough between as often as you
+please, and thus, together with a little hand weeding between the
+plants, keep the ground, at all times, clear of weeds and grass. Mr.
+Palmer says, that his acre (he has no more) has kept two horses all the
+summer; and he seems to complain, that it has done no more. Indeed! A
+stout horse will eat much more than a fatting ox. This grass will fat
+any ox, or sheep; and would not Mr. Palmer like to have ten acres of
+land that would fat a score of oxen? They would do this, if they were
+managed well. But is it _nothing_ to keep a team of four horses, for
+five months in the year, on the produce of two acres of land? If a man
+say that, he must, of course, be eagerly looking forward to another
+world; for nothing will satisfy him in this. A good crop of early
+cabbages may be had between the rows of Lucerne.
+
+_Cabbages_ have, generally, wholly failed. Those that I see are almost
+all too backward to make much of heads; though it is surprising how fast
+they will grow and come to perfection as soon as there is _twelve hours
+of night_. I am here, however, speaking of the large sorts of cabbage;
+for the smaller sorts will loave in summer. Mr. Walter Palmer has now a
+piece of these, of which I think there are from 17 to 20 _tons_ to the
+acre; and this, too, observe, after a season which, on the same farm,
+has not suffered a turnip of any sort to come. If he had had 20 acres of
+these, he might have almost laughed at the failure of his turnips, and
+at the short crop of hay. And this is a crop of which a man may always
+be _sure_, if he take proper pains. These cabbages (Early Yorks or some
+such sort) should, if you want them in June or July, be sown early in
+the previous August. If you want them in winter, sown in April, and
+treated as pointed out in my _Cottage Economy_. These small sorts stand
+the winter better than the large; they are more nutritious; and they
+occupy the ground little more than half the time. _Dwarf Savoys_ are the
+finest and richest and most nutritious of cabbages. Sown early in April,
+and planted out early in July, they will, at 18 inches apart each way,
+yield a crop of 30 to 40 tons by Christmas. But all this supposes land
+very good, or, very well manured, and plants of a good sort, and well
+raised and planted, and the ground well tilled after planting; and a
+crop of 30 tons is worth all these and all the care and all the pains
+that a man can possibly take.
+
+I am here amongst the finest of cattle, and the finest sheep of the
+Leicester kind, that I ever saw. My host, Mr. Price, is famed as a
+breeder of cattle and sheep. The cattle are of the Hereford kind, and
+the sheep surpassing any animals of the kind that I ever saw. The
+animals seem to be made for the soil, and the soil for them.
+
+In taking leave of this county, I repeat, with great satisfaction, what
+I before said about the apparent comparatively happy state of the
+labouring people; and I have been very much pleased with the tone and
+manner in which they are spoken to and spoken of by their superiors. I
+hear of no _hard_ treatment of them here, such as I have but too often
+heard of in some counties, and too often witnessed in others; and I quit
+Worcestershire, and particularly the house in which I am, with all those
+feelings which are naturally produced by the kindest of receptions from
+frank and sensible people.
+
+
+_Fairford (Gloucestershire), Saturday Morning, 30th Sept._
+
+Though we came about 45 miles yesterday, we are up by day-light, and
+just about to set off to sleep at Hayden, near Swindon, in Wiltshire.
+
+
+_Hayden, Saturday Night, 30th Sept._
+
+From Ryall, in Worcestershire, we came, yesterday (Friday) morning,
+first to Tewksbury in Gloucestershire. This is a good, substantial town,
+which, for many years, sent to Parliament that sensible and honest and
+constant hater of Pitt and his infernal politics, James Martin, and
+which now sends to the same place his son, Mr. John Martin, who, when
+the memorable _Kentish Petition_ was presented, in June 1822, proposed
+that it should not be received, or that, if it were received, "the House
+should not separate, until it had resolved, that the interest of the
+Debt should never be reduced"! Castlereagh abused the petition; but was
+for _receiving_ it, in _order to fix on it a mark of the House's
+reprobation_. I said, in the next Register, that this fellow was _mad_;
+and, in six or seven weeks from that day, he cut his own throat, and was
+declared to have been mad at the time when this petition was presented!
+The mess that "_the House_," will be in will be bad enough as it is; but
+what would have been its mess, if it had, in its strong fit of "good
+faith," been furious enough to adopt Mr. Martin's "resolution"!
+
+The Warwickshire Avon falls into the Severn here, and on the sides of
+both, for many miles back, there are the finest meadows that ever were
+seen. In looking over them, and beholding the endless flocks and herds,
+one wonders what can become of all the meat! By riding on about eight or
+nine miles farther, however, this wonder is a little diminished; for
+here we come to one of the devouring Wens; namely, Cheltenham, which is
+what they call a "watering place;" that is to say, a place, to which
+East India plunderers, West India floggers, English tax-gorgers,
+together with gluttons, drunkards, and debauchees of all descriptions,
+female as well as male, resort, at the suggestion of silently laughing
+quacks, in the hope of getting rid of the bodily consequences of their
+manifold sins and iniquities. When I enter a place like this, I always
+feel disposed to squeeze up my nose with my fingers. It is nonsense, to
+be sure; but I conceit that every two-legged creature, that I see coming
+near me, is about to cover me with the poisonous proceeds of its
+impurities. To places like this come all that is knavish and all that is
+foolish and all that is base; gamesters, pickpockets, and harlots; young
+wife-hunters in search of rich and ugly and old women, and young
+husband-hunters in search of rich and wrinkled or half-rotten men, the
+former resolutely bent, be the means what they may, to give the latter
+heirs to their lands and tenements. These things are notorious; and Sir
+William Scott, in his speech of 1802, in favour of the non-residence of
+the Clergy, expressly said, that they and their families ought to appear
+at watering places, and that this was amongst the means of making them
+respected by their flocks! Memorandum: he was a member for Oxford when
+he said this!
+
+Before we got into Cheltenham, I learned from a coal-carter which way we
+had to go, in order to see "_The New Buildings_," which are now nearly
+at a stand. We rode up the main street of the town, for some distance,
+and then turned off to the left, which soon brought us to the
+"desolation of abomination." I have seldom seen anything with more
+heartfelt satisfaction. "Oh!" said I to myself, "the accursed THING has
+certainly got a _blow_, then, in every part of its corrupt and
+corrupting carcass!" The whole town (and it was now ten o'clock) looked
+delightfully dull. I did not see more than four or five carriages, and,
+perhaps, twenty people on horse-back; and these seemed, by their
+hook-noses and round eyes, and by the long and sooty necks of the women,
+to be, for the greater part, _Jews and Jewesses_. The place really
+appears to be sinking very fast; and I have been told, and believe the
+fact, that houses, in Cheltenham, will now sell for only just about
+one-third as much as the same would have sold for only in last October.
+It is curious to see the names which the vermin owners have put upon the
+houses here. There is a new row of most gaudy and fantastical dwelling
+places, called "Colombia Place," given it, doubtless, by some dealer in
+_Bonds_. There is what a boy told us was the "_New Spa_;" there is
+"_Waterloo-house_!" Oh! how I rejoice at the ruin of the base creatures!
+There is "_Liverpool-Cottage_," "_Canning-Cottage_," "_Peel-Cottage_;"
+and the good of it is, that the ridiculous beasts have put this word
+_cottage_ upon scores of houses, and some very mean and shabby houses,
+standing along, and making part of an unbroken street! What a figure
+this place will cut in another year or two! I should not wonder to see
+it nearly wholly deserted. It is situated in a nasty, flat, stupid spot,
+without anything pleasant near it. A putting down of the one pound notes
+will soon take away its _spa_-people. Those of the notes, that have
+already been cut off, have, it seems, lessened the quantity of ailments
+very considerably; another brush will cure all the complaints!
+
+They have had some rains in the summer not far from this place; for we
+saw in the streets very fine turnips for sale as vegetables, and
+broccoli with heads six or eight inches over! But as to the meat, it was
+nothing to be compared with that of Warminster, in Wiltshire; that is to
+say, the veal and lamb. I have paid particular attention to this matter,
+at Worcester and Tewksbury as well as at Cheltenham; and I have seen no
+veal and no lamb to be compared with those of Warminster. I have been
+thinking, but cannot imagine how it is, that the Wen-Devils, either at
+Bath or London, do not get this meat away from Warminster. I hope that
+my observations on it will not set them to work; for, if it do, the
+people of Warminster will never have a bit of good meat again.
+
+After Cheltenham we had to reach this pretty little town of Fairford,
+the regular turnpike road to which lay through Cirencester; but I had
+from a fine map, at Sir Thomas Winnington's, traced out a line for us
+along through a chain of villages, leaving Cirencester away to our
+right, and never coming nearer than seven or eight miles to it. We came
+through Dodeswell, Withington, Chedworth, Winston, and the two Colnes.
+At Dodeswell we came up a long and steep hill, which brought us out of
+the great vale of Gloucester and up upon the Cotswold Hills, which name
+is tautological, I believe; for I think that _wold_ meaned _high lands
+of great extent_. Such is the Cotswold, at any rate, for it is a tract
+of country stretching across, in a south-easterly direction from
+Dodeswell to near Fairford, and in a north-easterly direction, from
+Pitchcomb Hill, in Gloucestershire (which, remember, I descended on the
+12th September) to near Witney in Oxfordshire. Here we were, then, when
+we got fairly up upon the Wold, with the vale of Gloucester at our back,
+Oxford and its vale to our left, the vale of Wiltshire to our right, and
+the vale of Berkshire in our front: and from one particular point, I
+could see a part of each of them. This Wold is, in itself, an ugly
+country. The soil is what is called a _stone brash_ below, with a
+reddish earth mixed with little bits of this brash at top, and, for the
+greater part of the Wold, even this soil is very shallow; and as fields
+are divided by walls made of this brash, and as there are, for a mile or
+two together, no trees to be seen, and as the surface is not smooth and
+green like the downs, this is a sort of country, having less to please
+the eye than any other that I have ever seen, always save and except the
+_heaths_ like those of Bagshot and Hindhead. Yet, even this Wold has
+many fertile dells in it, and sends out, from its highest parts, several
+streams, each of which has its pretty valley and its meadows. And here
+has come down to us, from a distance of many centuries, a particular
+race of sheep, called the _Cotswold_ breed, which are, of course, the
+best suited to the country. They are short and stocky, and appear to me
+to be about half way, in point of size, between the Rylands and the
+South Downs. When crossed with the Leicester, as they are pretty
+generally in the North of Wiltshire, they make very beautiful and even
+large sheep; quite large enough, and, people say, very profitable.
+
+A _route_, when it lies through _villages_, is one thing on a _map_, and
+quite another thing on the ground. Our line of villages, from Cheltenham
+to Fairford was very nearly straight upon the map; but, upon the ground,
+it took us round about a great many miles, besides now and then a little
+going back, to get into the right road; and, which was a great
+inconvenience, not a public-house was there on our road, until we got
+within eight miles of Fairford. Resolved that not one single farthing of
+my money should be spent in the Wen of Cheltenham, we came through that
+place, expecting to find a public-house in the first or second of the
+villages; but not one was there, over the whole of the Wold; and though
+I had, by pocketing some slices of meat and bread at Ryall, provided
+against this contingency, as far as related to ourselves, I could make
+no such provision for our horses, and they went a great deal too far
+without baiting. Plenty of farm-houses, and, if they had been in
+America, we need have looked for no other. Very likely (I hope it at any
+rate) almost any farmer on the Cotswold would have given us what we
+wanted, if we had asked for it; but the fashion, the good old fashion,
+was, by the hellish system of funding and taxing and monopolizing,
+driven across the Atlantic. And is England _never_ to see it return! Is
+the hellish system to last _for ever_!
+
+Doctor Black, in remarking upon my Ride down the vale of the Salisbury
+Avon, says, that there has, doubtless, been a falling off in the
+population of the villages, "lying amongst the chalk-hills;" aye, and
+lying everywhere else too; or, how comes it, that four-fifths of the
+parishes of Herefordshire, abounding in rich land, in meadows, orchards,
+and pastures, have either no parsonage-houses at all, or have none that
+a Parson thinks fit for him to live in? I vouch for the fact; I will,
+whether in Parliament or not, prove the fact to the Parliament: and, if
+the fact be such, the conclusion is inevitable. But how melancholy is
+the sight of these decayed and still decaying villages in the dells of
+the Cotswold, where the building materials, being stone, the ruins do
+not totally disappear for ages! The village of Withington (mentioned
+above) has a church like a small cathedral, and the whole of the
+population is now only 603 persons, men, women, and children! So that,
+according to the Scotch fellows, this immense and fine church, which is
+as sound as it was 7 or 800 years ago, was built by and for a
+population, containing, at most, only about 120 grown up and
+able-abodied men! But here, in this once populous village, or I think
+town, you see _all_ the indubitable marks of most melancholy decay.
+There are several lanes, crossing each other, which _must_ have been
+_streets_ formerly. There is a large open space where the principal
+streets meet. There are, against this open place, two large, old, roomy
+houses, with gateways into back parts of them, and with large stone
+_upping-blocks_ against the walls of them in the street. These were
+manifestly considerable _inns_, and, in this open place, markets or
+fairs, or both used to be held. I asked two men, who were threshing in a
+barn, how long it was since their public-house was put down, or dropped?
+They told me about sixteen years. One of these men, who was about fifty
+years of age, could remember _three_ public-houses, one of which was
+what was called an _inn_! The place stands by the side of a little
+brook, which here rises, or rather issues, from a high hill, and which,
+when it has winded down for some miles, and through several villages,
+begins to be called the River Colne, and continues on, under this name,
+through Fairford and along, I suppose, till it falls into the Thames.
+Withington is very prettily situated; it was, and not very long ago, a
+gay and nappy place; but it now presents a picture of dilapidation and
+shabbiness scarcely to be equalled. Here are the yet visible remains of
+two gentlemen's houses. Great farmers have supplied their place, as to
+inhabiting; and, I dare say, that some tax-eater, or some blaspheming
+Jew, or some still more base and wicked loan-mongering robber is now the
+owner of the land; aye, and all these people are his _slaves_ as
+completely, and more to their wrong, than the blacks are the slaves of
+the planters in Jamaica, the farmers here, acting, in fact, in a
+capacity corresponding with that of the negro-drivers there.
+
+A part, and, perhaps, a considerable part, of the decay and misery of
+this place, is owing to the use of _machinery_, and to the
+_monopolizing_, in the manufacture of Blankets, of which fabric the town
+of Witney (above mentioned) was the centre, and from which town the wool
+used to be sent round to, and the yarn, or warp, come back from, all
+these Cotswold villages, and quite into a part of Wiltshire. This work
+is all now gone, and so the women and the girls are a "surplus
+_popalashon, mon_," and are, of course, to be dealt with by the
+"Emigration Committee" of the "Collective Wisdom"! There were, only a
+few years ago, above thirty blanket-manufacturers at Witney: twenty-five
+of these have been swallowed up by the five that now have all the
+manufacture in their hands! And all this has been done by that system of
+gambling and of fictitious money, which has conveyed property from the
+hands of the many into the hands of the few. But wise Burdett _likes_
+this! He wants the land to be cultivated by few hands, and he wants
+machinery, and all those things, which draw money into _large masses_;
+that make a nation consist of a few of very rich and of millions of very
+poor! Burdett must look sharp; or this system will play him a trick
+before it come to an end.
+
+The crops on the Cotswold have been pretty good; and I was very much
+surprised to see a scattering of early turnips, and, in some places,
+decent crops. Upon this Wold I saw more early turnips in a mile or two,
+than I saw in all Herefordshire and Worcestershire and in all the rich
+and low part of Gloucestershire. The high lands always, during the year,
+and especially during the summer, receive much more of rain than the low
+lands. The clouds hang about the hills, and the dews, when they rise,
+go, most frequently, and cap the hills.
+
+Wheat-sowing is yet going on on the Wold; but the greater part of it is
+sown, and not only sown, but up, and in some places, high enough to
+"hide a hare." What a difference! In some parts of England, no man
+thinks of sowing wheat till November, and it is often done in March. If
+the latter were done on this Wold there would not be a bushel on an
+acre. The ploughing and other work, on the Wold, is done, in great part,
+by oxen, and here are some of the finest ox-teams that I ever saw.
+
+All the villages down to Fairford are pretty much in the same dismal
+condition as that of Withington. Fairford, which is quite on the border
+of Gloucestershire, is a very pretty little market-town, and has one of
+the prettiest churches in the kingdom. It was, they say, built in the
+reign of Henry VII.; and one is naturally surprised to see, that its
+windows of beautiful stained glass had the luck to escape, not only the
+fangs of the ferocious "good Queen Bess;" not only the unsparing
+plundering minions of James I.; but even the devastating ruffians of
+Cromwell.
+
+We got in here about four o'clock, and at the house of Mr. Iles, where
+we slept, passed, amongst several friends, a very pleasant evening. This
+morning, Mr. Iles was so good as to ride with us as far as the house of
+another friend at Kempsford, which is the last Gloucestershire parish in
+our route. At this friend's, Mr. Arkall, we saw a fine dairy of about 60
+or 80 cows, and a cheese loft with, perhaps, more than two thousand
+cheeses in it; at least there were many hundreds. This village contains
+what are said to be the remnants and ruins of a mansion of John of
+Gaunt. The church is very ancient and very capacious. What tales these
+churches do tell upon us! What fools, what lazy dogs, what presumptuous
+asses, what lying braggarts, they make us appear! No people here, "_mon,
+teel the Scots cam to seevelize_" us! Impudent, lying beggars! Their
+stinking "_kelts_" ought to be taken up, and the brazen and insolent
+vagabonds whipped back to their heaths and their rocks. Let them go and
+thrive by their "cash-credits," and let their paper-money poet, Walter
+Scott, immortalize their deeds. That conceited, dunderheaded fellow,
+George Chalmers, _estimated_ the whole of the population of England and
+Wales at a few persons more than _two millions_, when England was just
+at the highest point of her power and glory, and when all these churches
+had long been built and were resounding with the voice of priests, who
+resided in their parishes, and who relieved all the poor out of their
+tithes! But this same Chalmers signed his _solemn conviction_, that
+Vortigern and the other Ireland-manuscripts, which were written by a lad
+of sixteen, were written by SHAKSPEARE.
+
+In coming to Kempsford we got wet, and nearly to the skin. But our
+friends gave us coats to put on, while ours were dried, and while we ate
+our breakfast. In our way to this house, where we now are, Mr. Tucky's,
+at Heydon, we called at Mr. James Crowdy's, at Highworth, where I was
+from the 4th to the 9th of September inclusive; but it looked rainy,
+and, therefore, we did not alight. We got wet again before we reached
+this place; but, our journey being short, we soon got our clothes dry
+again.
+
+
+_Burghclere (Hampshire), Monday, 2nd October._
+
+Yesterday was a really _unfortunate day_. The morning promised fair; but
+its promises were like those of Burdett! There was a little snivelling,
+wet, treacherous frost. We had to come through Swindon, and Mr. Tucky
+had the kindness to come with us, until we got three or four miles on
+this side (the Hungerford side) of that very neat and plain and solid
+and respectable market town. Swindon is in Wiltshire, and is in the real
+fat of the land, all being wheat, beans, cheese, or fat meat. In our way
+to Swindon, Mr. Tucky's farm exhibited to me what I never saw before,
+four score oxen, all grazing upon one farm, and all nearly fat! They
+were, some Devonshire and some Herefordshire. They were fatting on the
+grass only; and, I should suppose, that they are worth, or shortly will
+be, thirty pounds each. But the great pleasure, with which the
+contemplation of this fine sight was naturally calculated to inspire me,
+was more than counterbalanced by the thought, that these fine oxen, this
+primest of human food, was, aye, every mouthful of it, destined to be
+devoured in the Wen, and that, too, for the far greater part, by the
+Jews, loan-jobbers, tax-eaters, and their base and prostituted
+followers, dependents, purveyors, parasites and pimps, literary as well
+as other wretches, who, if suffered to live at all, ought to partake of
+nothing but the offal, and ought to come but one cut before the dogs and
+cats!
+
+Mind you, there is, in my opinion, no land in England that surpasses
+this. There is, I suppose, as good in the three last counties that I
+have come through; but _better_ than this is, I should think,
+impossible. There is a pasture-field, of about a hundred acres, close to
+Swindon, belonging to a Mr. Goddard, which, with its cattle and sheep,
+was a most beautiful sight. But everything is full of riches; and, as
+fast as skill and care and industry can extract these riches from the
+land, the unseen grasp of taxation, loan-jobbing and monopolizing takes
+them away, leaving the labourers not half a belly-full, compelling the
+farmer to pinch them or to be ruined himself, and making even the
+landowner little better than a steward, or bailiff, for the tax-eaters,
+Jews and jobbers!
+
+Just before we got to Swindon, we crossed a canal at a place where there
+is a wharf and a coal-yard, and close by these a gentleman's house, with
+coach-house, stables, walled-in-garden, paddock _orne_, and the rest of
+those things, which, all together, make up _a villa_, surpassing the
+second and approaching towards the first class. Seeing a man in the
+coal-yard, I asked him to what gentleman the house belonged: "to the
+_head un_ o' the canal," said he. And, when, upon further inquiry of
+him, I found that it was the villa of the chief manager, I could not
+help congratulating the proprietors of this aquatic concern; for, though
+I did not ask the name of the canal, I could readily suppose, that the
+profits must be prodigious, when the residence of the manager would
+imply no disparagement of dignity, if occupied by a Secretary of State
+for the Home, or even for the Foreign, department. I mean an _English_
+Secretary of State; for, as to an _American_ one, his salary would be
+wholly inadequate to a residence in a mansion like this.
+
+From Swindon we came up into the _down-country_; and these downs rise
+higher even than the Cotswold. We left Marlborough away to our right,
+and came along the turnpike road towards Hungerford, but with a view of
+leaving that town to our left, further on, and going away, through
+Ramsbury, towards the northernmost Hampshire hills, under which
+Burghclere (where we now are) lies. We passed some fine farms upon these
+downs, the houses and homesteads of which were near the road. My
+companion, though he had been to London, and even to France, had never
+seen _downs_ before; and it was amusing to me to witness his surprise at
+seeing the immense flocks of sheep, which were now (ten o'clock) just
+going out from their several folds to the downs for the day, each having
+its shepherd, and each shepherd his dog. We passed the homestead of a
+farmer Woodman, with _sixteen_ banging wheat-ricks in the rick-yard, two
+of which were old ones; and rick-yard, farm-yard, waste-yard,
+horse-paddock, and all round about, seemed to be swarming with fowls,
+ducks, and turkeys, and on the whole of them not one feather but what
+was white! Turning our eyes from this sight, we saw, just going out from
+the folds of this same farm, three separate and numerous flocks of
+sheep, one of which (the _lamb_-flock) we passed close by the side of.
+The shepherd told us, that his flock consisted of thirteen score and
+five; but, apparently, he could not, if it had been to save his soul,
+tell us how many hundreds he had: and, if you reflect a little, you will
+find, that his way of counting is much the easiest and best. This was a
+most beautiful flock of lambs; short legged, and, in every respect,
+what they ought to be. George, though born and bred amongst sheep-farms,
+had never before seen sheep with dark-coloured faces and legs; but his
+surprise, at this sight, was not nearly so great as the surprise of both
+of us, at seeing numerous and very large pieces (sometimes 50 acres
+together) of very good early turnips, Swedish as well as White! All the
+three counties of Worcester, Hereford and Gloucester (except on the
+Cotswold) do not, I am convinced, contain as great a weight of turnip
+bulbs, as we here saw in one single _piece_; for here there are, for
+miles and miles, no hedges, and no fences of any sort.
+
+Doubtless they must have had _rain_ here in the months of June and July;
+but, as I once before observed (though I forget _when_) a chalk bottom
+does not suffer the surface to burn, however shallow the top soil may
+be. It seems to me to absorb and to _retain_ the water, and to keep it
+ready to be drawn up by the heat of the sun. At any rate the fact is,
+that the surface above it does not burn; for there never yet was a
+summer, not even this last, when the downs did not _retain their
+greenness to a certain degree_, while the rich pastures, and even the
+meadows (except actually _watered_) were burnt so as to be as brown as
+the bare earth.
+
+This is a most pleasing circumstance attending the down-countries; and
+there are no _downs_ without a chalk bottom.
+
+Along here, the country is rather _too bare_: here, until you come to
+Auborne, or Aldbourne, there are _no meadows_ in the valleys, and no
+trees, even round the homesteads. This, therefore, is too naked to
+please me; but I love _the downs_ so much, that, if I had to choose, I
+would live even here, and especially I would _farm_ here, rather than on
+the banks of the Wye in Herefordshire, in the vale of Gloucester, of
+Worcester, or of Evesham, or, even in what the Kentish men call their
+"garden of Eden." I have now seen (for I have, years back, seen the
+vales of Taunton, Glastonbury, Honiton, Dorchester and Sherburne) what
+are deemed the richest and most beautiful parts of England; and, if
+called upon to name the spot, which I deem the brightest and most
+beautiful and, of its extent, _best_ of all, I should say, the villages
+of _North Bovant and Bishopstrow_, between Heytesbury and Warminster in
+Wiltshire; for there is, as appertaining to rural objects, _everything_
+that I delight in. Smooth and verdant downs in hills and valleys of
+endless variety as to height and depth and shape; rich corn-land,
+unencumbered by fences; meadows in due proportion, and those watered at
+pleasure; and, lastly, the homesteads, and villages, sheltered in winter
+and shaded in summer by lofty and beautiful trees; to which may be
+added, roads never dirty and a stream never dry.
+
+When we came to Auborne, we got amongst trees again. This is a _town_,
+and was, manifestly, once a large town. Its church is as big as three of
+that of Kensington. It has a market now, I believe; but, I suppose, it
+is, like many others, become merely nominal, the produce being nearly
+all carried to Hungerford, in order to be forwarded to the Jew-devils
+and the tax-eaters and monopolizers in the Wen, and in small Wens on the
+way. It is a _decaying place_; and, I dare say, that it would be nearly
+depopulated, in twenty years' time, if this hellish jobbing system were
+to last so long.
+
+A little after we came through Auborne, we turned off to our right to go
+through Ramsbury to Shallburn, where Tull, the father of the
+drill-husbandry, began and practised that husbandry at a farm called
+"Prosperous." Our object was to reach this place (Burghclere) to sleep,
+and to stay for a day or two; and, as I knew Mr. Blandy of Prosperous, I
+determined upon this route, which, besides, took us out of the
+turnpike-road. We stopped at Ramsbury, to bait our horses. It is a
+large, and, apparently, miserable village, or "town" as the people call
+it. It was in remote times a _Bishop's See_. Its church is very large
+and very ancient. Parts of it were evidently built long and long before
+the Norman Conquest. Burdett owns a great many of the houses in the
+village (which contains nearly two thousand people), and will, if he
+live many years, own nearly the whole; for, as his eulogist, William
+Friend, the Actuary, told the public, in a pamphlet, in 1817, he has
+resolved, that his numerous _life-holds shall run out_, and that those
+who were life-holders under his Aunt, from whom he got the estate, shall
+become _rack-renters to him_, or quit the occupations. Besides this, he
+is continually purchasing lands and houses round about and in this
+place. He has now let his house to a Mr. Acres; and, as the _Morning
+Herald_ says, is safe landed at Bordeaux, with his family, for the
+winter! When here, he did not occupy a square inch of his land! He let
+it all, park and all; and only reserved "a right of road" from the
+highway to his door. "He had and has _a right_ to do all this." A
+_right_? Who denies that? But is this giving us a specimen of that
+"liberality and generosity and hospitality" of those "English Country
+Gentlemen," whose praises he so loudly sang last winter? His name is
+Francis Burdett _Jones_, which last name he was obliged to take by his
+Aunt's will; and he actually used it for some time after the estate came
+to him! "Jones" was too common a name for him, I suppose! Sounded too
+much of the _vulgar_!
+
+However, what I have principally to do with, is, his _absence from the
+country_ at a time like this, and, if the newspapers be correct, his
+intended absence during the whole of next winter; and such a winter,
+too, as it is likely to be! He, for many years, complained, and justly,
+of the _sinecure placemen_; and, are we to suffer him to be, thus, a
+sinecure Member of Parliament! This is, in my opinion, a great deal
+worse than a sinecure placeman; for this is shutting an active Member
+out. It is a dog-in-manger offence; and, to the people of a place such
+as Westminster, it is not only an injury, but a most outrageous insult.
+If it be true, that he intends to stay away, during the coming session
+of Parliament, I trust, not only, that he never will be elected again;
+but, that the people of Westminster will call upon him to resign; and
+this, I am sure they will do too. The next session of Parliament _must_
+be a most important one, and that he knows well. Every member will be
+put to the test in the next session of Parliament. On the question of
+Corn-Bills every man must declare, for, or against, the people. He would
+declare against, if he dared; and, therefore, he gets out of the way!
+Or, this is what we shall have a clear right to presume, if he be absent
+from the next session of Parliament. He knows, that there must be
+something like a struggle between the land-owners and the fund-holders.
+His interest lies with the former; he wishes to support the law-church
+and the army and all sources of aristocratical profit; but, he knows,
+that the people of Westminster would be on the other side. It is better,
+therefore, to hear at Bordeaux, about this struggle, than to be engaged
+in it! He must know of the great embarrassment, distress, and of the
+great bodily suffering, now experienced by a large part of the people;
+and has he _a right_, after having got himself returned a member for
+such a place as Westminster, to go out of the country, at such a time
+and leave his seat vacant? He must know that, during the ensuing winter,
+there _must_ be great distress in Westminster itself; for there will be
+a greater mass of the working people out of employ than there ever was
+in any winter before; and this calamity will, too, be owing to that
+infernal system, which he has been supporting, to those paper-money
+Rooks, with whom he is closely connected, and the existence of whose
+destructive rags he expressed his wish to prolong: he knows all this
+very well: he knows that, in every quarter the distress and danger are
+great; and is it not, then, his duty to be here? Is he, who, at his own
+request, has been intrusted with the representing of a great city to get
+out of the way at a time like this, and under circumstances like these?
+If this be so, then is this great, and _once_ public-spirited city,
+become more contemptible, and infinitely more mischievous, than the
+"accursed hill" of Wiltshire: but this is _not so_; the _people_ of
+Westminster are what they always were, full of good sense and public
+spirit: they have been cheated by a set of bribed intriguers; and _how_
+this has been done, I will explain to them, when I _punish_ Sir Francis
+Burdett Jones for the sins, _committed for him_, by a hired Scotch
+writer. I shall dismiss him, for the present, with observing, that, if I
+had in me a millionth part of that malignity and vindictiveness, which
+he so basely showed towards me, I have learned anecdotes sufficient to
+enable me to take ample vengeance on him for the stabs which he, in
+1817, knew, that he was sending to the hearts of the defenceless part of
+my family!
+
+While our horses were baiting at Ramsbury, it began to rain, and by the
+time that they had done, it rained pretty hard, with every appearance of
+continuing to rain for the day; and it was now about eleven o'clock, we
+having 18 or 19 miles to go before we got to the intended end of our
+journey. Having, however, for several reasons, a very great desire to
+get to Burghclere that night, we set off in the rain; and, as we carry
+no great coats, we were wet to the skin pretty soon. Immediately upon
+quitting Ramsbury, we crossed the River Kennet, and, mounting a highish
+hill, we looked back over friend Sir Glory's park, the sight of which
+brought into my mind the visit of Thimble and Cowhide, as described in
+the "intense comedy," and, when I thought of the "baker's being starved
+to death," and of the "heavy fall of snow," I could not help bursting
+out a laughing, though it poured of rain and though I already felt the
+water on my skin.--MEM. To ask, when I get to London, what is become of
+the intense "Counsellor Bric;" and whether he have yet had the justice
+to put the K to the end of his name. I saw a lovely female shoy-hoy,
+engaged in keeping the rooks from a newly-sown wheat field on the
+Cotswold Hills, that would be a very _suitable match_ for him; and, as
+his manners appear to be mended; as he now praises to the skies those
+40_s._ freeholders, whom, in my hearing, he asserted to be "_beneath
+brute beasts_;" as he does, in short, appear to be rather less offensive
+than he was, I should have no objection to promote the union; and, I am
+sure, _the farmer_ would like it of all things; for, if Miss _Stuffed o'
+straw_ can, when _single_, keep the devourers at a distance, say, you
+who know him, whether the sight of the _husband's head_ would leave a
+rook in the country!
+
+Turning from viewing the scene of Thimble and Cowhide's cruel
+disappointment, we pushed through coppices and across fields, to a
+little village, called Froxfield, which we found to be on the great
+Bath-Road. Here, crossing the road and also a run of water, we, under
+the guidance of a man, who was good enough to go about a mile with us,
+and to whom we gave a shilling and the price of a pot of beer, mounted
+another hill, from which, after twisting about for awhile, I saw, and
+recognised the out-buildings of Prosperous farm, towards which we pushed
+on as fast as we could, in order to keep ourselves in motion so as to
+prevent our catching cold; for it rained, and incessantly, every step of
+the way. I had been at Prosperous before; so that I knew Mr. Blandy, the
+owner, and his family, who received us with great hospitality. They took
+care of our horses, gave us what we wanted in the eating and drinking
+way, and clothed us, shirts and all, while they dried all our clothes;
+for not only the things on our bodies were soaked, but those also which
+we carried in little thin leather rolls, fastened on upon the saddles
+before us. Notwithstanding all that could be done in the way of
+dispatch, it took more than three hours to get our clothes dry. At last,
+about three quarters of an hour before sunset, we got on our clothes
+again and set off: for, as an instance of real bad luck, it ceased to
+rain the moment we got to Mr. Blandy's. Including the numerous angles
+and windings, we had nine or ten miles yet to go; but I was so anxious
+to get to Burghclere, that, contrary to my practice as well as my
+principle, I determined to encounter the darkness for once, though in
+cross-country roads, presenting us, at every mile, with ways crossing
+each other; or forming a Y; or kindly giving us the choice of three,
+forming the upper part of a Y and a half. Add to this, that we were in
+an enclosed country, the lanes very narrow, deep-worn, and banks and
+hedges high. There was no moon; but it was starlight, and, as I could
+see the Hampshire Hills all along to my right, and knew that I must not
+get above a mile or so from them, I had a guide that could not deceive
+me; for, as to _asking_ the road, in a case like this, it is of little
+use, unless you meet some one at every half mile: for the answer is,
+_keep right on_; aye, but in ten minutes, perhaps, you come to a Y, or
+to a T, or to a +.
+
+A fellow told me once, in my way from Chertsey to Guildford, "Keep
+_right on_, you can't miss your way." I was in the perpendicular part of
+the T, and the top part was only a few yards from me. "_Right on_," said
+I, "what over _that bank_ into the wheat?" "No, no," said he, "I mean
+_that road_, to be sure," pointing to the road that went off to the
+_left_. In _down-countries_, the direction of shepherds and pig and bird
+boys is always in precisely the same words; namely, "_right_ over the
+down," laying great stress upon the word _right_. "But," said I, to a
+boy, at the edge of the down at King's Worthy (near Winchester), who
+gave me this direction to Stoke Charity; "but, what do you mean by
+_right_ over the down?" "Why," said he, "_right_ on to Stoke, to be
+sure, Zur." "Aye," said I, "but how am I, who was never here before, to
+know _what is_ right, my boy?" That posed him. It set him to thinking:
+and after a bit he proceeded to tell me, that, when I got up the hill, I
+should see _some trees_; that I should go along by them; that I should
+then see _a barn_ right before me; that I should go down to that barn;
+and that I should then see a _wagon track_ that would lead me all down
+to Stoke. "Aye!" said I, "_now_ indeed you are a real clever fellow."
+And I gave him a shilling, being part of my savings of the morning.
+Whoever tries it will find, that the _less they eat and drink_, when
+travelling, the better they will be. I act accordingly. Many days I have
+no breakfast and no dinner. I went from Devizes to Highworth without
+breaking my fast, a distance, including my deviations, of more than
+_thirty miles_. I sometimes take, from a friend's house, a little bit of
+meat between two bits of bread, which I eat as I ride along; but
+whatever I save from this fasting work, I think I have a clear right to
+give away; and, accordingly, I generally put the amount, in copper, into
+my waistcoat pocket, and dispose of it during the day. I know well,
+_that I am the better_ for not stuffing and blowing myself out, and with
+the savings I make many and many a happy boy; and, now-and-then, I give
+a whole family a good meal with the cost of a breakfast, or a dinner,
+that would have done me mischief. I do not do this because I grudge
+inn-keepers what they charge; for my surprise is, how they can live
+without charging _more_ than they do in general.
+
+It was dark by the time that we got to a village, called East Woodhay.
+Sunday evening is the time _for courting_, in the country. It is not
+convenient to carry this on before faces, and, at farmhouses and
+cottages, there are no spare apartments; so that the pairs turn out, and
+pitch up, to carry on their negociations, by the side of stile or a
+gate. The evening was auspicious; it was _pretty dark_, the _weather
+mild_, and _Old Michaelmas_ (when yearly services end) was fast
+approaching; and, accordingly, I do not recollect ever having before
+seen so many negociations going on, within so short a distance. At West
+Woodhay my horse _cast a shoe_, and, as the road was abominably flinty,
+we were compelled to go at a snail's pace: and I should have gone crazy
+with impatience, had it not been for these ambassadors and
+ambassadresses of Cupid, to every pair of whom I said something or
+other. I began by asking the fellow _my road_; and, from the tone and
+manner of his answer, I could tell pretty nearly what prospect he had of
+success, and knew what to say to draw something from him. I had some
+famous sport with them, saying to them more than I should have said by
+daylight, and a great deal less than I should have said, if my horse had
+been in a condition to carry me away as swiftly as he did from Osmond
+Ricardo's terrific cross! "There!" exclaims Mrs. Scrip, the
+stock-jobber's young wife, to her old hobbling wittol of a spouse, "You
+see, my love, that this mischievous man could not let even these poor
+_peasants_ alone." "_Peasants!_ you dirty-necked devil, and where got
+you that word? You, who, but a few years ago, came, perhaps, up from the
+country in a wagon; who _made_ the bed you now _sleep_ in; and who got
+the husband by helping him to get his wife out of the world, as some
+young party-coloured blade is to get you and the old rogue's money by a
+similar process!"
+
+We got to Burghclere about eight o'clock, after a very disagreeable day;
+but we found ample compensation in the house, and all within it, that we
+were now arrived at.
+
+
+_Burghclere, Sunday, 8th Sept._
+
+It rained steadily this morning, or else, at the end of these six days
+of hunting for George, and two for me, we should have set off. The rain
+gives me time to give an account of Mr. Budd's crop of Tullian Wheat. It
+was sown in rows and on ridges, with very wide intervals, ploughed all
+summer. If he reckon that ground only which the wheat grew upon, he had
+one hundred and thirty bushels to the acre; and even if he reckoned the
+whole of the ground, he had 28 bushels all but two gallons to the acre!
+But the best wheat he grew this year was dibbled in between rows of
+Swedish Turnips, in November, four rows upon a ridge, with an
+eighteen-inch interval between each two rows, and a five-feet interval
+between the outside rows on each ridge. It is the white cone that Mr.
+Budd sows. He had ears with 130 grains in each. This would be the
+farming for labourers in their little plots. They might grow thirty
+bushels of wheat to the acre, and have crops of cabbages, in the
+intervals, at the same time; or, of potatoes, if they liked them better.
+
+Before my arrival here, Mr. Budd had seen my description of the state of
+the labourers in Wiltshire, and had, in consequence, written to my son
+James (not knowing where I was) as follows: "In order to see how the
+labourers are now _screwed down_, look at the following facts: Arthur
+Young, in 1771 (55 years ago) allowed for a man, his wife and three
+children 13_s._ 1_d._ a week, according to present money-prices. By the
+Berkshire Magistrates' table, made in 1795, the allowance was, for such
+family, according to the present money-prices, 11_s._ 4_d._ Now it is,
+according to the same standard, 8_s._ According to your father's
+proposal, the sum would be (supposing there to be no malt tax) 18_s._ a
+week; and little enough too." Is not that enough to convince any one of
+the hellishness of this system? Yet Sir Glory applauds it. Is it not
+horrible to contemplate millions in this half-starving state; and, is
+it not the duty of "England's Glory," who has said that his estate is
+"_a retaining fee_ for defending the rights of the people;" is it not
+his duty to stay in England and endeavour to restore the people, the
+millions, to what their fathers were, instead of going abroad; selling
+off his carriage horses, and going abroad, there to spend some part, at
+least, of the fruits of English labour? I do not say, that he has _no
+right_, generally speaking, to go and spend his money abroad; but, I do
+say, that having got himself elected for such a city as Westminster, he
+had no right, at a time like this, to be absent from Parliament.
+However, what cares he? His "retaining fee" indeed! He takes special
+care to augment that fee; but I challenge all his shoe-lickers, all the
+base worshippers of twenty thousand acres, to show me one single thing
+that he has ever done, or, within the last twelve years, attempted to
+do, for his _clients_. In short, this is a man that must now be brought
+to book; he must not be suffered to insult Westminster any longer: he
+must turn-to or turn out: he is a sore to Westminster; a set-fast on its
+back; a cholic in its belly; a cramp in its limbs; a gag in its mouth:
+he is a nuisance, a monstrous nuisance, in Westminster, and he must be
+abated.
+
+
+
+
+RIDE, FROM BURGHCLERE TO LYNDHURST, IN THE NEW FOREST.
+
+
+"The Reformers have yet many and powerful foes; we have to contend
+against a host, such as never existed before in the world. Nine-tenths
+of the press; all the channels of speedy communication of sentiment; all
+the pulpits; all the associations of rich people; all the taxing-people;
+all the military and naval establishments; all the yeomanry cavalry
+tribes. Your allies are endless in number and mighty in influence. But,
+we have _one ally_ worth the whole of them put together, namely, the
+DEBT! This is an ally, whom no honours or rewards can seduce from us.
+She is a steady, unrelaxing, persevering, incorruptible ally. An ally
+that is proof against all blandishments, all intrigues, all temptations,
+and all open attacks. She sets at defiance all '_military_,' all
+'_yeomanry cavalry_.' They may as well fire at a ghost. She cares no
+more for the sabres of the yeomanry or the Life Guards than Milton's
+angels did for the swords of Satan's myrmidons. This ally cares not a
+straw about _spies_ and _informers_. She laughs at the employment of
+_secret-service money_. She is always erect, day and night, and is
+always firmly moving on in our cause, in spite of all the terrors of
+gaols, dungeons, halters and axes. Therefore, Mr. JABET, be not so pert.
+The combat is not so unequal as you seem to imagine; and, confident and
+insolent as you now are, the day of your humiliation may not be far
+distant."--LETTER TO MR. JABET, of Birmingham, _Register_, v. 31, p.
+477. (Nov. 1816.)
+
+
+_Hurstbourn Tarrant (commonly called Uphusband), Wednesday, 11th October,
+1826._
+
+When quarters are good, you are apt to _lurk_ in them; but, really it
+was so wet, that we could not get away from Burghclere till Monday
+evening. Being here, there were many reasons for our going to the great
+fair at Weyhill, which began yesterday, and, indeed, the day before, at
+Appleshaw. These two days are allotted for the selling of sheep only,
+though the horse-fair begins on the 10th. To Appleshaw they bring
+nothing but those fine curled-horned and long-tailed ewes, which bring
+the house-lambs and the early Easter-lambs; and these, which, to my
+taste, are the finest and most beautiful animals of the sheep kind, come
+exclusively out of Dorsetshire and out of the part of Somersetshire
+bordering on that county.
+
+To Weyhill, which is a village of half a dozen houses on a down, just
+above Appleshaw, they bring from the down-farms in Wiltshire and
+Hampshire, where they are bred, the Southdown sheep; ewes to go away
+into the pasture and turnip countries to have lambs, wethers to be
+fatted and killed, and lambs (nine months old) to be kept to be sheep.
+At both fairs there is supposed to be about two hundred thousand sheep.
+It was of some consequence to ascertain how the _price_ of these had
+been affected by "_late_ panic," which ended the "respite" of 1822; or
+by the "plethora of money" as loan-man Baring called it. I can assure
+this political Doctor, that there was no such "plethora" at Weyhill,
+yesterday, where, while I viewed the long faces of the farmers, while I
+saw consciousness of ruin painted on their countenances, I could not
+help saying to myself, "the loan-mongers think they are _cunning_; but,
+by ----, they will never escape the ultimate consequences of this
+horrible ruin!" The prices, take them on a fair average, were, at both
+fairs, just about one-half what they were last year. So that my friend
+Mr. Thwaites of the _Herald_, who had a lying Irish reporter at Preston,
+was rather hasty, about three months ago, when he told his
+_well-informed_ readers, that, "those politicians were deceived, who had
+supposed that prices of farm produce would fall in consequence of
+'_late_ panic' and the subsequent measures"! There were Dorsetshire ewes
+that sold last year, for 50_s._ a head. We could hear of none this year
+that exceeded 25_s._ And only think of 25_s._ for one of these fine,
+large ewes, nearly fit to kill, and having two lambs in her, ready to be
+brought forth in, on an average, six weeks' time! The average is _three
+lambs_ to _two of these ewes_. In 1812 these ewes were from 55_s._ to
+72_s._ each, at this same Appleshaw fair; and in that year I bought
+South-down ewes at 45_s._ each, just such as were, yesterday, sold for
+18_s._ Yet the sheep and grass and all things are the same in _real
+value_. What a false, what a deceptious, what an infamous thing, this
+paper-money system is!
+
+However, it is a pleasure, it is real, it is great delight, it is
+boundless joy to me, to contemplate this infernal system in its hour of
+_wreck_: swag here: crack there: scroop this way: souse that way: and
+such a rattling and such a squalling: and the parsons and their wives
+looking so frightened, beginning, apparently, to think that the day of
+_judgment_ is at hand! I wonder what master parson of Sharncut, whose
+church _can_ contain _eight persons_, and master parson of Draycot
+Foliot, who is, for want of a church, inducted under a _tent_, or
+temporary _booth_; I wonder what they think of South-down lambs (9
+months old) selling for 6 or 7 shillings each! I wonder what the Barings
+and the Ricardos think of it. I wonder what those master parsons think
+of it, who are half-pay naval, or military officers, as well as master
+parsons of the church made by _law_. I wonder what the Gaffer Gooches,
+with their parsonships and military offices, think of it. I wonder what
+Daddy Coke and Suffield think of it; and when, I wonder, do they mean to
+get into their holes and barns again to cry aloud against the "roguery
+of reducing the interest of the Debt"; when, I wonder, do these manly,
+these modest, these fair, these candid, these open, and, above all
+things, these _sensible_, fellows intend to assemble again, and to call
+all "the House of Quidenham" and the "House of Kilmainham," or
+_Kinsaleham_, or whatever it is (for I really have forgotten); to call,
+I say, all these about them, in the holes and the barns, and then and
+there again make a formal and solemn protest against COBBETT and against
+his roguish proposition for reducing the interest of the Debt! Now, I
+have these fellows on the hip; and brave sport will I have with them
+before I have done.
+
+Mr. Blount, at whose house (7 miles from Weyhill) I am, went with me to
+the fair; and we took particular pains to ascertain the prices. We saw,
+and spoke to, Mr. John Herbert, of Stoke (near Uphusband) who was
+_asking_ 20_s._, and who did not expect to _get_ it, for South-down
+ewes, just such as he _sold_, last year (at this fair), for 36_s._ Mr.
+Jolliff, of Crux-Easton, was _asking_ 16_s._ for just such ewes as he
+sold, last year (at this fair) for 32_s._ Farmer Holdway had sold "for
+less than half" his last year's price. A farmer that I did not know,
+told us, that he had sold to a great sheep-dealer of the name of
+Smallpiece at the latter's own price! I asked him what that "own price"
+was; and he said that he was ashamed to say. The horse-fair appeared to
+have no business at all going on; for, indeed, how were people to
+purchase horses, who had got only half-price for their sheep?
+
+The sales of sheep, at this one fair (including Appleshaw), must have
+amounted, this year, to a hundred and twenty or thirty thousand pounds
+less than last year! Stick a pin there, master "Prosperity Robinson,"
+and turn back to it again anon! Then came the horses; not equal in
+amount to the sheep, but of great amount. Then comes the cheese, a very
+great article; and it will have a falling off, if you take quantity into
+view, in a still greater proportion. The hops being a monstrous crop,
+their _price_ is nothing to judge by. But all is fallen. Even corn,
+though, in many parts, all but the wheat and rye have totally failed,
+is, taking a quarter of each of the _six sorts_ (wheat, rye, barley,
+oats, pease, and beans), 11_s._ 9_d._ cheaper, upon the whole; that is
+to say, 11_s._ 9_d._ upon 258_s._ And, if the "_late_ panic" had not
+come, it must and it would have been, and according to the small bulk of
+the crop, it ought to have been, 150_s._ _dearer_, instead of 11_s._
+9_d._ cheaper. Yet, it is too dear, and far too dear, for the working
+people to eat! The masses, the assembled masses, must starve, if the
+price of bread be not reduced; that is to say, in Scotland and Ireland;
+for, _in England_, I hope that the people will "_demand_ and _insist_"
+(to use the language of the Bill of Rights) on a just and suitable
+provision, agreeably to the law; and, if they do not get it, I trust
+that law and justice will, in due course, be done, and strictly done,
+upon those who refuse to make such provision. Though, in time, the price
+of corn will come down without any repeal of the Corn Bill; and though
+it would have come down now, if we had had a good crop, or an average
+crop; still the Corn Bill ought now to be repealed, because people must
+not be _starved_ in waiting for the next crop; and the "landowners'
+monopoly," as the son of "John with the bright sword" calls it, ought to
+be swept away; and the sooner it is done, the better for the country. I
+know very well that the landowners must lose their estates, if such
+prices continue, and if the present taxes continue; I know this very
+well; and, I like it well; for, the landowners _may cause the taxes to
+be taken off if they will_. "Ah! wicked dog!" say they, "What, then, you
+would have us lose the half pay and the pensions and sinecures which our
+children and other relations, or that we ourselves, are pocketing out of
+the taxes, which are squeezed, in great part, out of the labourer's
+skin and bone!" Yes, upon my word, I would; but if you prefer losing
+your estates, I have no great objection; for it is hard that, "in a free
+country," people should not have their choice of the different roads to
+the poor-house. Here is the _rub_: the vote-owners, the seat-owners, the
+big borough-mongers, have directly and indirectly, so large a share of
+the loaves and fishes, that the share is, in point of clear income,
+equal to, and, in some cases, greater than, that from their estates;
+and, though this is not the case with the small fry of jolterheads, they
+are so linked in with, and overawed by, the big ones, that they have all
+the same feeling; and that is, that to cut off half-pay, pensions,
+sinecures, commissionerships (such as that of Hobhouse's father), army,
+and the rest of the "good things," would be nearly as bad as to take
+away the estates, which, besides, are, in fact, in many instances,
+nearly gone (at least from the present holder) already, by the means of
+mortgage, annuity, rent-charge, settlement, jointure, or something or
+other. Then there are the parsons, who with their keen noses, have
+smelled out long enough ago, that, if any serious settlement should take
+place, _they go_ to a certainty. In short, they know well how the whole
+nation (the interested excepted) feel towards them. They know well, that
+were it not for their allies, it would soon be queer times with them.
+
+Here, then, is the _rub_. Here are the reasons why the taxes are not
+taken off! Some of these jolterheaded beasts were ready to cry, and I
+know one that did actually cry to a farmer (his tenant) in 1822. The
+tenant told him, that "Mr. Cobbett had been _right_ about this matter."
+"What!" exclaimed he, "I hope you do not read Cobbett! He will ruin you,
+and he would ruin us all. He would introduce anarchy, confusion, and
+destruction of property!" Oh, no, Jolterhead! There is no _destruction_
+of property. Matter, the philosophers say, is _indestructible_. But, it
+is all easily _transferable_, as is well-known to the base Jolterheads
+and the blaspheming Jews. The former of these will, however, soon have
+the faint sweat upon them again. Their tenants will be ruined _first_:
+and, here what a foul robbery these landowners have committed, or at
+least, enjoyed and pocketed the gain of! They have given their silent
+assent to the one-pound note abolition Bill. They knew well that this
+must reduce the price of farm produce _one-half_, or thereabouts; and
+yet, they were prepared to take and to insist on, and they do take and
+insist on, as high rents as if that Bill had never been passed! What
+dreadful ruin will ensue! How many, many farmers' families are now just
+preparing the way for their entrance into the poor-house! How many;
+certainly many a score farmers did I see at Weyhill, yesterday, who
+came there as it were _to know their fate_; and who are gone home
+thoroughly convinced, that they shall, as farmers, never see Weyhill
+fair again!
+
+When such a man, his mind impressed with such conviction, returns home
+and there beholds a family of children, half bred up, and in the notion
+that they were _not_ to be mere working people, what must be his
+_feelings_? Why, if he have been a bawler against Jacobins and Radicals;
+if he have approved of the Power-of-Imprisonment Bill and of Six-Acts;
+aye, if he did not rejoice at Castlereagh's cutting his own throat; if
+he have been a cruel screwer down of the labourers, reducing them to
+skeletons; if he have been an officious detecter of what are called
+"poachers," and have assisted in, or approved of, the hard punishments,
+inflicted on them; then, in either of these cases, I say, that his
+feelings, though they put the suicidal knife into his own hand, are
+short of what he deserves! I say this, and this I repeat with all the
+seriousness and solemnity with which a man can make a declaration; for,
+had it not been for these base and selfish and unfeeling wretches, the
+deeds of 1817 and 1819 and 1820 would never have been attempted. These
+hard and dastardly dogs, armed up to the teeth, were always ready to
+come forth to destroy, not only to revile, to decry, to belie, to
+calumniate in all sorts of ways, but, if necessary, absolutely to cut
+the throats of, those who had no object, and who could have no object,
+other than that of preventing a continuance in that course of measures,
+which have finally produced the ruin, and threaten to produce the
+absolute destruction, of these base, selfish, hard and dastardly dogs
+themselves. _Pity_ them! Let them go for pity to those whom they have
+applauded and abetted.
+
+The farmers, I mean the renters, will not now, as they did in 1819,
+stand a good long emptying out. They had, in 1822, lost nearly all. The
+present stock of the farms is not, in one half of the cases, the
+property of the farmer. It is borrowed stock; and the sweeping out will
+be very rapid. The notion that the Ministers will "do something" is
+clung on to by all those who are deeply in debt, and all who have
+leases, or other engagements for time. These _believe_ (because they
+anxiously _wish_) that the paper-money, by means of some sort or other,
+will be put out again; while the Ministers _believe_ (because they
+anxiously _wish_) that the thing can go on, that they can continue to
+pay the interest of the debt, and meet all the rest of their spendings,
+without one-pound notes and without bank-restriction. Both parties will
+be deceived, and in the midst of the strife, that the dissipation of the
+delusion will infallibly lead to, the whole THING is very likely to go
+to pieces; and that, too, _mind_, tumbling into the hands and placed at
+the mercy, of a people, the millions of whom have been fed upon less,
+to four persons, than what goes down the throat of one single common
+soldier! Please to _mind_ that, Messieurs the admirers of select
+vestries! You have _not done it_, Messieurs Sturges Bourne and the
+Hampshire Parsons! You _thought_ you had! You meaned well; but it was a
+_coup-manque_, a missing of the mark, and that, too, as is frequently
+the case, by over-shooting it. The attempt will, however, produce its
+just consequences in the end; and those consequences will be of vast
+importance.
+
+From Weyhill I was shown, yesterday, the wood, in which took place the
+battle, in which was concerned poor Turner, one of the young men, who
+was hanged at Winchester, in the year 1822. There was another young man,
+named Smith, who was, on account of another game-battle, hanged on the
+same gallows! And this for the preservation of the _game_, you will
+observe! This for the preservation of the _sports_ of that aristocracy
+for whose sake, and solely for whose sake, "Sir James Graham, of
+Netherby, descendant of the Earls of Monteith and of the seventh Earl of
+Galloway, K.T." (being sure not to omit the K.T.); this hanging of us is
+for the preservation of the sports of that aristocracy, for the sake of
+whom this Graham, this barefaced plagiarist, this bungling and yet
+impudent pamphleteer, would _sacrifice_, would reduce to beggary,
+according to his pamphlet, _three hundred thousand families_ (making,
+doubtless, _two millions_ of persons), in the middle rank of life! It is
+for the preservation, for upholding what he insolently calls the
+"dignity" of this sporting aristocracy, that he proposes to rob all
+mortgagees, all who have claims upon land! The feudal lords in France
+had, as Mr. Young tells us, a right, when they came in, fatigued, from
+hunting or shooting, to cause the belly of one of their vassals to be
+ripped up, in order for the lord to soak his feet in the bowels! Sir
+James Graham of the bright sword does not propose to carry us back so
+far as this; he is willing to stop at taking away the money and the
+victuals of a very large part of the community; and, monstrous as it may
+seem, I will venture to say, that there are scores of the Lord-Charles
+tribe who think him moderate to a fault!
+
+But, to return to the above-mentioned hanging at Winchester (a thing
+never to be forgotten by me), James Turner, aged 28 years, was accused
+of assisting to kill Robert Baker, gamekeeper to Thomas Asheton Smith,
+Esq., in the parish of South Tidworth; and Charles Smith, aged 27 years,
+was accused of shooting at (not killing) Robert Snellgrove, assistant
+gamekeeper to Lord Palmerston (Secretary at War), at Broadlands, in the
+parish of Romsey. Poor Charles Smith had better have been hunting after
+_shares_ than after _hares_! _Mines_, however _deep_, he would have
+found less perilous than the pleasure grounds of Lord Palmerston! I
+deem this hanging at Winchester worthy of general attention, and
+particularly at this time, when the aristocracy near Andover, and one,
+at least, of the members for that town, of whom this very Thomas Asheton
+Smith was, until lately, one, was, if the report in the _Morning
+Chronicle_ (copied into the Register of the 7th instant) be correct,
+endeavouring, at the late Meeting at Andover, to persuade people, that
+they (these aristocrats) wished to keep up the price of corn for the
+sake of the labourers, whom Sir John Pollen (Thomas Asheton Smith's
+son's present colleague as member for Andover) called "poor devils," and
+who, he said, had "hardly a rag to cover them!" Oh! wished to keep up
+the price of corn for the good of the "poor devils of labourers who have
+hardly a rag to cover them!" Amiable feeling, tender-hearted souls!
+Cared not a straw about _rents_! Did not; oh no! did not care even about
+the farmers! It was only for the sake of the poor, naked devils of
+labourers, that the colleague of young Thomas Asheton Smith cared; it
+was only for those who were in the same rank of life as James Turner and
+Charles Smith were, that these kind Andover aristocrats cared! This was
+the only reason in the world for their wanting corn to sell at a high
+price? We often say, "_that_ beats everything;" but really, I think,
+that these professions of the Andover aristocrats do "_beat
+everything_." Ah! but, Sir John Pollen, these professions come _too
+late_ in the day: the people are no longer to be deceived by such stupid
+attempts at disguising hypocrisy. However, the attempt shall do this: it
+shall make me repeat here that which I published on the Winchester
+hanging, in the _Register_ of the 6th of April, 1822. It made part of a
+"Letter to Landlords." Many boys have, since this article was published,
+grown up to the age of thought. Let them now read it; and I hope, that
+they will _remember it well_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I, last fall, addressed ten letters to you on the subject of the
+_Agricultural Report_. My object was to convince you, that you would be
+ruined; and, when I think of your general conduct towards the rest of
+the nation, and especially towards the labourers, I must say that I have
+great pleasure in seeing that my opinions are in a fair way of being
+verified to the full extent. I dislike the _Jews_; but the Jews are not
+so inimical to the industrious classes of the country as you are. We
+should do a great deal better with the 'Squires from 'Change Alley, who,
+at any rate, have nothing of the ferocious and bloody in their
+characters. Engrafted upon your native want of feeling is the sort of
+military spirit of command that you have acquired during the late war.
+You appeared, at the close of that war, to think that you had made a
+_conquest_ of the rest of the nation for ever; and, if it had not been
+for the burdens which the war left behind it, there would have been no
+such thing as air, in England, for any one but a slave to breathe. The
+Bey of Tunis never talked to his subjects in language more insolent than
+you talked to the people of England. The DEBT, the blessed Debt, stood
+our friend, made you soften your tone, and will finally place you where
+you ought to be placed.
+
+This is the last Letter that I shall ever take the trouble to address to
+you. In a short time, you will become much too insignificant to merit
+any particular notice; but just in the way of _farewell_, and that there
+may be something on record to show what care has been taken of the
+partridges, pheasants, and hares, while the estates themselves have been
+suffered to slide away, I have resolved to address this one more Letter
+to you, which resolution has been occasioned by the recent _putting to
+death_, at Winchester, of two men denominated _Poachers_. This is a
+thing, which, whatever you may think of it, has not been passed over,
+and is not to be passed over, without full notice and ample record. The
+account of the matter, as it appeared in the public prints, was very
+short; but the fact is such as never ought to be forgotten. And, while
+you are complaining of your "distress," I will endeavour to lay before
+the public that which will show, that the _law_ has not been unmindful
+of even your _sports_. The time is approaching, when the people will
+have an opportunity of exercising their judgment as to what are called
+"Game-Laws;" when they will look back a little at what has been done for
+the sake of insuring sport to landlords. In short, landlords as well as
+labourers will _pass under review_. But, I must proceed to my subject,
+reserving reflections for a subsequent part of my letter.
+
+The account, to which I have alluded, is this:
+
+"HAMPSHIRE. The Lent Assizes for this county concluded on Saturday
+morning. The Criminal Calendar contained 58 prisoners for trial, 16 of
+whom have been sentenced to suffer death, but two only of that number
+(_poachers_) were left by the Judges for execution, viz.: James Turner,
+aged 28, for aiding and assisting in killing Robert Baker, gamekeeper to
+Thomas Asheton Smith, Esq., in the parish of South Tidworth, and Charles
+Smith, aged 27, for having wilfully and maliciously shot at Robert
+Snellgrove, assistant gamekeeper to Lord Palmerston, at Broadlands, in
+the parish of Romsey, with intent to do him grievous bodily harm. The
+Judge (Burrough) observed, it became _necessary to these cases_, that
+the _extreme sentence of the law should be inflicted_, to _deter others,
+as resistance to gamekeepers was now arrived at an alarming height_,
+and many lives had been lost."
+
+The first thing to observe here is, that there were _sixteen_ persons
+sentenced to suffer death; and that the only persons actually put to
+death, were those who had been endeavouring to get at the hares,
+pheasants or partridges of Thomas Asheton Smith, and of our Secretary at
+War, Lord Palmerston. Whether the Judge Burrough (who was long Chairman
+of the Quarter Sessions in Hampshire), uttered the words ascribed to
+him, or not, I cannot say; but the words have gone forth in print, and
+the impression they are calculated to make is this: that it was
+necessary to put these two _men to death_, in order to deter others from
+resisting gamekeepers. The putting of these men to death has excited a
+very deep feeling throughout the County of Hants; a feeling very
+honourable to the people of that county, and very natural to the breast
+of every human being.
+
+In this case there appears to have been a killing, in which Turner
+_assisted_; and Turner might, by possibility, have given the fatal blow;
+but in the case of Smith, there was no killing at all. There was a mere
+_shooting at_, with intention to do him bodily harm. This latter offence
+was not a crime for which men were put to death, even when there was no
+assault, or attempt at assault, on the part of the person shot at; this
+was not a crime punished with death, until that terrible act, brought in
+by the late Lord Ellenborough, was passed, and formed a part of our
+matchless Code, that Code which there is such a talk about _softening_;
+but which softening does not appear to have in view this Act, or any
+portion of the Game-Laws.
+
+In order to form a just opinion with regard to the offence of these two
+men that have been hanged at Winchester, we must first consider the
+motives by which they were actuated, in committing the acts of violence
+laid to their charge. For, it is the intention, and not the mere act,
+that constitutes the crime. To make an act murder, there must be _malice
+aforethought_. The question, therefore, is, did these men attack, or
+were they the attacked? It seems to be clear that they were the attacked
+parties: for they are executed, according to this publication, to deter
+others from _resisting_ gamekeepers!
+
+I know very well that there is Law for this; but what I shall endeavour
+to show is, that the Law ought to be altered; that the people of
+Hampshire ought to petition for such alteration; and that if you, the
+Landlords, were wise, you would petition also, for an alteration, if not
+a total annihilation of that terrible Code, called the Game-Laws, which
+has been growing harder and harder all the time that it ought to have
+been wearing away. It should never be forgotten, that, in order to make
+punishments efficient in the way of example, they must be thought just
+by the Community at large; and they will never be thought just if they
+aim at the protection of things belonging to one particular class of the
+Community, and, especially, if those very things be grudged to this
+class by the Community in general. When punishments of this sort take
+place, they are looked upon as unnecessary, the sufferers are objects of
+pity, the common feeling of the Community is in their favour, instead of
+being against them; and it is those who cause the punishment, and not
+those who suffer it, who become objects of abhorrence.
+
+Upon seeing two of our countrymen hanging upon a gallows, we naturally,
+and instantly, run back to the cause. First we find the fighting with
+gamekeepers; next we find that the men would have been transported if
+caught in or near a cover with guns, after dark; next we find that these
+trespassers are exposed to transportation because they are in pursuit,
+or supposed to be in pursuit, of partridges, pheasants, or hares; and
+then, we ask, where is the foundation of a law to punish a man with
+transportation for being in pursuit of these animals? And where, indeed,
+is the foundation of the Law, to take from any man, be he who he may,
+the right of catching and using these animals? We know very well; we are
+instructed by mere feeling, that we have a right to live, to see and to
+move. Common sense tells us that there are some things which no man can
+reasonably call his property; and though poachers (as they are called)
+do not read _Blackstone's Commentaries_, they know that such animals as
+are of a wild and untameable disposition, any man may seize upon and
+keep for his own use and pleasure. "All these things, so long as they
+remain in possession, every man has a right to enjoy without
+disturbance; but if once they escape from his custody, or he voluntarily
+abandons the use of them, they return to the common stock, and any man
+else has an equal right to seize and enjoy them afterwards." (Book 2,
+Chapter 1.)
+
+In the Second Book and Twenty-sixth Chapter of _Blackstone_, the poacher
+might read as follows: "With regard likewise to wild animals, all
+mankind had by the original grant of the Creator a right to pursue and
+take away any fowl or insect of the air, any fish or inhabitant of the
+waters, and any beast or reptile of the field: and this natural right
+still continues in every individual, unless where it is restrained by
+the civil laws of the country. And when a man has once so seized them,
+they become, while living, his qualified property, or, if dead, are
+absolutely his own: so that to steal them, or otherwise invade this
+property, is, according to the respective values, sometimes a criminal
+offence, sometimes only a civil injury."
+
+Poachers do not read this; but that reason which is common to all
+mankind tells them that this is true, and tells them, also, _what to
+think_ of any positive law that is made to restrain them from this right
+granted by the Creator. Before I proceed further in commenting upon the
+case immediately before me, let me once more quote this English Judge,
+who wrote fifty years ago, when the Game Code was mild indeed, compared
+to the one of the present day. "Another violent alteration," says he,
+"of the English Constitution consisted in the depopulation of whole
+countries, for the purposes of the King's royal diversion; and
+subjecting both them, and all the ancient forests of the kingdom, to the
+unreasonable severities of forest laws imported from the continent,
+whereby the slaughter of a beast was made almost as penal as the death
+of a man. In the Saxon times, though no man was allowed to kill or chase
+the King's deer, yet he might start any game, pursue and kill it upon
+his own estate. But the rigour of these new constitutions vested the
+sole property of all the game in England in the King alone; and no man
+was entitled to disturb any fowl of the air, or any beast of the field,
+of such kinds as were specially reserved for the royal amusement of the
+Sovereign, without express license from the King, by a grant of a chase
+or free warren: and those franchises were granted as much with a view to
+preserve the breed of animals, as to indulge the subject. From a similar
+principle to which, though the forest laws are now mitigated, and by
+degrees grown entirely obsolete, yet from this root has sprung up a
+bastard slip, known by the name of the Game-Law, now arrived to and
+wantoning in its highest vigour: both founded upon the same unreasonable
+notions of permanent property in wild creatures; and both productive of
+the same tyranny to the commons: but with this difference; that the
+forest laws established only one mighty hunter throughout the land, the
+game-laws have raised a little Nimrod in every manor." (Book 4, Chapter
+33.)
+
+When this was written nothing was known of the present severity of the
+law. Judge Blackstone says that the Game Law was then wantoning in its
+_highest vigour_; what, then, would he have said, if any one had
+proposed to make it _felony_ to resist a gamekeeper? He calls it tyranny
+to the commons, as it existed in his time; what would he have said of
+the present Code; which, so far from being thought a thing to be
+_softened_, is never so much as mentioned by those humane and gentle
+creatures, who are absolutely supporting a sort of reputation, and
+aiming at distinction in Society, in consequence of their incessant talk
+about softening the Criminal Code?
+
+The Law may say what it will, but the feelings of mankind will never be
+in favour of this Code; and whenever it produces putting to death, it
+will, necessarily, excite horror. It is impossible to make men believe
+that any particular set of individuals should have a permanent property
+in wild creatures. That the owner of land should have a quiet possession
+of it is reasonable and right and necessary; it is also necessary that
+he should have the power of inflicting pecuniary punishment, in a
+moderate degree, upon such as trespass on his lands; but his right can
+go no further according to reason. If the law give him ample
+compensation for every damage that he sustains, in consequence of a
+trespass on his lands, what right has he to complain?
+
+The law authorises the King, in case of invasion, or apprehended
+invasion, to call upon all his people to take up arms in defence of the
+country. The Militia Law compels every man, in his turn, to become a
+soldier. And upon what ground is this? There must be some reason for it,
+or else the law would be tyranny. The reason is, that every man has
+_rights_ in the country to which he belongs; and that, therefore, it is
+his duty to defend the country. Some rights, too, beyond that of merely
+living, merely that of breathing the air. And then, I should be glad to
+know, what rights an Englishman has, if the pursuit of even wild animals
+is to be the ground of transporting him from his country? There is a
+sufficient punishment provided by the law of trespass; quite sufficient
+means to keep men off your land altogether! how can it be necessary,
+then, to have a law to transport them for coming upon your land? No, it
+is not for coming upon the land, it is for coming after the wild
+animals, which nature and reason tells them, are as much theirs as they
+are yours.
+
+It is impossible for the people not to contrast the treatment of these
+two men at Winchester with the treatment of some gamekeepers that have
+killed or maimed the persons they call poachers; and it is equally
+impossible for the people, when they see these two men hanging on a
+gallows, after being recommended to mercy, not to remember the almost
+instant pardon, given to the exciseman, who was not recommended to
+mercy, and who was found guilty of wilful murder in the County of
+Sussex!
+
+It is said, and, I believe truly, that there are more persons imprisoned
+in England for offences against the game-laws, than there are persons
+imprisoned in France (with more than twice the population) for all sorts
+of offences put together. When there was a loud outcry against the
+cruelties committed on the priests and the seigneurs, by the people of
+France, Arthur Young bade them remember the cruelties committed on the
+people by the game-laws, and to bear in mind how many had been made
+galley-slaves for having killed, or tried to kill, partridges,
+pheasants, and hares!
+
+However, I am aware that it is quite useless to address observations of
+this sort to you. I am quite aware of that; and yet, there are
+circumstances, in your present situation, which, one would think, ought
+to make you _not very gay_ upon the hanging of the two men at
+Winchester. It delights me, I assure you, to see the situation that you
+are in; and I shall, therefore, now, once more, and for the last time,
+address you upon that subject. We all remember how haughty, how insolent
+you have been. We all bear in mind your conduct for the last thirty-five
+years; and the feeling of pleasure at your present state is as general
+as it is just. In my _ten Letters_ to you, I told you that you would
+lose your estates. Those of you who have any capacity, except that which
+is necessary to enable you to kill wild animals, see this now, as
+clearly as I do; and yet you evince no intention to change your courses.
+You hang on with unrelenting grasp; and cry "pauper" and "poacher" and
+"radical" and "lower orders" with as much insolence as ever! It is
+always thus: men like you may be convinced of error, but they never
+change their conduct. They never become just because they are convinced
+that they have been unjust: they must have a great deal more than that
+conviction to make them just.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Such was what I _then_ addressed to the Landlords. How well it fits the
+_present_ time! They are just in the same sort of _mess_, now, that they
+were in 1822. But, there is this most important difference, that the
+paper-money cannot _now_ be put out, in a quantity sufficient to save
+them, without producing not only a "_late_ panic," worse than the last,
+but, in all probability, a total blowing up of the whole system,
+game-laws, new trespass-laws, tread-mill, Sunday tolls, six-acts,
+sun-set and sun-rise laws, apple-felony laws, select-vestry laws, and
+all the whole THING, root and trunk and branch! Aye, not sparing,
+perhaps, even the tent, or booth of induction, at Draycot Foliot! Good
+Lord! how should we be able to live without game-laws! And tread-mills,
+then? And Sunday-tolls? How should we get on without pensions,
+sinecures, tithes, and the other "glorious institutions" of this "mighty
+_empire_"? Let us turn, however, from the thought; but, bearing this in
+mind, if you please, Messieurs the game-people; that if, no matter in
+what shape and under what pretence; if, I tell you, paper be put out
+again, sufficient to raise the price of a Southdown ewe to the last
+year's mark, the whole system goes to atoms. I tell you that; mind it;
+and look sharp about you, O ye fat parsons; for tithes and half-pay
+will, be you assured, never, from that day, again go in company into
+parson's pocket.
+
+In this North of Hampshire, as everywhere else, the churches and all
+other things exhibit indubitable marks of decay. There are along under
+the north side of that chain of hills, which divide Hampshire from
+Berkshire, in this part, taking into Hampshire about two or three miles
+wide of the low ground along under the chain, eleven churches along in a
+string in about fifteen miles, the chancels of which would contain a
+great many more than all the inhabitants, men, women, and children,
+sitting at their ease with plenty of room. How should this be otherwise,
+when, in the parish of Burghclere, one single farmer holds by lease,
+under Lord Carnarvon, as one farm, the lands that men, now living, can
+remember to have formed fourteen farms, bringing up, in a respectable
+way, fourteen families. In some instances these small farmhouses and
+homesteads are completely gone; in others the buildings remain, but in a
+tumble-down state; in others the house is gone, leaving the barn for use
+as a barn or as a cattle-shed; in others the out-buildings are gone, and
+the house, with rotten thatch, broken windows, rotten door-sills, and
+all threatening to fall, remains as the dwelling of a half-starved and
+ragged family of labourers, the grand-children, perhaps, of the decent
+family of small farmers that formerly lived happily in this very house.
+
+This, with few exceptions, is the case all over England; and, if we duly
+consider the nature and tendency of the hellish system of taxing, of
+funding, and of paper-money, it must do so. Then, in this very parish of
+Burghclere, there was, until a few months ago, a famous cock-parson, the
+"Honourable and Reverend" George Herbert, who had grafted the _parson_
+upon the _soldier_ and the _justice_ upon the parson; for he died, a
+little while ago, a half-pay officer in the army, rector of two
+parishes, and chairman of the quarter sessions of the county of Hants!!
+Mr. HONE gave us, in his memorable "_House that Jack built_," a portrait
+of the "Clerical Magistrate." Could not he, or somebody else, give us a
+portrait of the _military_ and of the _naval parson_? For such are to be
+found all over the kingdom. Wherever I go, I hear of them. And yet,
+there sits Burdett, and even Sir Bobby of the Borough, and say not a
+word upon the subject! This is the case: the King dismissed Sir Bobby
+from the half-pay list, scratched his name out, turned him off, stopped
+his pay. Sir Bobby complained, alleging, that the half-pay was a reward
+for past services. No, no, said the Ministers: it is a _retaining fee_
+for _future_ services. Now, the law is, and the Parliament declared, in
+the case of parson Horne Tooke, that once a parson always a parson, and
+that a parson cannot, of course, again serve as an officer under the
+crown. Yet these military and naval parsons have "a retaining fee for
+future military and naval services!" Never was so barefaced a thing
+before heard of in the world. And yet there sits Sir Bobby, stripped of
+his "retaining fee," and says not a word about the matter; and there sit
+the _big Whigs_, who gave Sir Bobby the subscription, having sons,
+brothers, and other relations, military and naval parsons, and the _big
+Whigs_, of course, bid Sir Bobby (albeit given enough to twattle) hold
+his tongue upon the subject; and there sit Mr. Wetherspoon (I think it
+is), and the rest of Sir Bobby's Rump, toasting "the _independence_ of
+the Borough and its member!"
+
+"That's our case," as the lawyers say: match it if you can, devil, in
+all your roamings up and down throughout the earth! I have often been
+thinking, and, indeed, expecting, to see Sir Bobby turn parson himself,
+as the likeliest way to get back his half-pay. If he should have "a
+call," I do hope we shall have him, for parson at Kensington; and, as an
+inducement, I promise him, that I will give him a good thumping
+Easter-offering.
+
+In former RIDES, and especially in 1821 and 1822, I described very fully
+this part of Hampshire. The land is a chalk bottom, with a bed of
+reddish, stiff loam, full of flints, at top. In those parts where the
+bed of loam and flints is deep the land is arable or woods: where the
+bed of loam and flints is so shallow as to let the plough down to the
+chalk, the surface is downs. In the deep and long valleys, where there
+is constantly, or occasionally, a stream of water, the top soil is
+blackish, and the surface meadows. This has been the distribution from
+all antiquity, except that, in ancient times, part of that which is now
+downs and woods was _corn-land_, as we know from the _marks of the
+plough_. And yet the Scotch fellows would persuade us, that there were
+scarcely any inhabitants in England before it had the unspeakable
+happiness to be united to that fertile, warm, and hospitable country,
+where the people are so well off that they are _above_ having
+poor-rates!
+
+The tops of the hills here are as good corn-land as any other part; and
+it is all excellent corn-land, and the fields and woods singularly
+beautiful. Never was there what may be called a more _hilly_ country,
+and _all in use_. Coming from Burghclere, you come up nearly a mile of
+steep hill, from the top of which you can see all over the country, even
+to the Isle of Wight; to your right a great part of Wiltshire; into
+Surrey on your left; and, turning round, you see, lying below you, the
+whole of Berkshire, great part of Oxfordshire, and part of
+Gloucestershire. This chain of lofty hills was a great favourite with
+Kings and rulers in ancient times. At Highclere, at Combe, and at other
+places, there are remains of great encampments, or fortifications; and
+Kingsclere was a residence of the Saxon Kings, and continued to be a
+royal residence long after the Norman Kings came. KING JOHN, when
+residing at Kingsclere, founded one of the charities which still exists
+in the town of Newbury, which is but a few miles from Kingsclere.
+
+From the top of this lofty chain, you come to Uphusband (or the Upper
+Hurstbourn) over two miles or more of ground, descending in the way that
+the body of a snake descends (when he is going fast) from the high part,
+near the head, down to the tail; that is to say, over a series of hill
+and dell, but the dell part going constantly on increasing upon the
+hilly part, till you come down to this village; and then you, continuing
+on (southward) towards Andover, go up, directly, half a mile of hill so
+steep, as to make it very difficult for an ordinary team with a load to
+take that load up it. So this _Up_-hurstbourn (called so because _higher
+up the valley_ than the other Hurstbourns), the flat part of the road to
+which, from the north, comes in between two side-hills, is in as narrow
+and deep a dell as any place that I ever saw.
+
+The houses of the village are, in great part, scattered about, and are
+amongst very lofty and fine trees; and, from many, many points round
+about, from the hilly fields, now covered with the young wheat, or with
+scarcely less beautiful sainfoin, the village is a sight worth going
+many miles to see. The lands, too, are pretty beyond description. These
+chains of hills make, below them, an endless number of lower hills, of
+varying shapes and sizes and aspects and of relative state as to each
+other; while the surface presents, in the size and form of the fields,
+in the woods, the hedgerows, the sainfoin, the young wheat, the turnips,
+the tares, the fallows, the sheep-folds and the flocks, and, at every
+turn of your head, a fresh and different set of these; this surface all
+together presents that which I, at any rate, could look at with pleasure
+for ever. Not a sort of country that I like so well as when there are
+_downs_ and a _broader valley_ and _more of meadow_; but a sort of
+country that I like next to that; for, here, as there, there are no
+ditches, no water-furrows, no dirt, and never any drought to cause
+inconvenience. The chalk is at bottom, and it takes care of all. The
+crops of wheat have been very good here this year, and those of barley
+not very bad. The sainfoin has given a fine crop of the finest sort of
+hay in the world, and, this year, without a drop of wet.
+
+I wish, that, in speaking of this pretty village (which I always return
+to with additional pleasure), I could give _a good account_ of the state
+of _those, without whose labour there would be neither corn nor sainfoin
+nor sheep_. I regret to say, that my account of this matter, if I give
+it truly, must be a dismal account indeed! For I have, in no part of
+England, seen the labouring people so badly off as they are here. This
+has made so much impression on me, that I shall enter fully into the
+matter with names, dates, and all the particulars in the IVth Number of
+the "POOR MAN'S FRIEND." This is one of the great purposes for which I
+take these "Rides." I am persuaded, that, before the day shall come when
+my labours must cease, _I shall have mended the meals of millions_. I
+may over-rate the effects of my endeavours; but, this being my
+persuasion, I should be guilty of a great neglect of duty, were I not to
+use those endeavours.
+
+
+_Andover, Sunday, 15th October._
+
+I went to Weyhill, yesterday, to see the close of the hop and of the
+cheese fair; for, after the sheep, these are the principal articles. The
+crop of hops has been, in parts where they are grown, unusually large
+and of super-excellent quality. The average price of the Farnham _hops_
+has been, as nearly as I can ascertain, seven pounds for a
+hundredweight; that of Kentish hops, five pounds, and that of the
+Hampshire and Surrey hops (other than those of Farnham), about five
+pounds also. The prices are, considering the great weight of the crop,
+very good; but, if it had not been for the effects of "_late_ panic"
+(proceeding, as Baring said, from a "plethora of money,") these prices
+would have been a full third, if not nearly one half, higher; for,
+though the crop has been so large and so good, there was hardly any
+stock on hand; the country was almost wholly without hops.
+
+As to cheese, the price, considering the quantity, has been not one half
+so high as it was last year. The fall in the positive price has been
+about 20 per cent., and the quantity made in 1826 has not been above
+two-thirds as great as that made in 1825. So that, here is a fall of
+_one-half_ in real relative price; that is to say, the farmer, while he
+has the same rent to pay that he paid last year, has only half as much
+money to receive for cheese, as he received for cheese last year; and
+observe, on some farms, cheese is almost the only saleable produce.
+
+After the fair was over, yesterday, I came down from the Hill (3 miles)
+to this town of Andover; which has, within the last 20 days, been more
+talked of, in other parts of the kingdom, than it ever was before from
+the creation of the world to the beginning of those 20 days. The Thomas
+Asheton Smiths and the Sir John Pollens, famous as they have been under
+the banners of the Old Navy Purser, George Rose, and his successors,
+have never, even since the death of poor Turner, been half so famous,
+they and this Corporation, whom they represent, as they have been since
+the Meeting which they held here, which ended in their defeat and
+confusion, pointing them out as worthy of that appellation of "Poor
+Devils," which Pollen thought proper to give to those labourers without
+whose toil his estate would not be worth a single farthing.
+
+Having laid my plan to sleep at Andover last night, I went with two
+Farnham friends, Messrs. Knowles and West, to dine at the ordinary at
+the George Inn, which is kept by one Sutton, a rich old fellow, who wore
+a round-skirted sleeved fustian waistcoat, with a dirty white apron tied
+round his middle, and with no coat on; having a look the _eagerest_ and
+the _sharpest_ that I ever saw in any set of features in my whole
+life-time; having an air of authority and of mastership, which, to a
+stranger, as I was, seemed quite incompatible with the meanness of his
+dress and the vulgarity of his manners; and there being, visible to
+every beholder, constantly going on in him a pretty even contest between
+the servility of avarice and the insolence of wealth. A great part of
+the farmers and other fair-people having gone off home, we found
+preparations made for dining only about ten people. But, after we sat
+down, and it was seen that we designed to dine, guests came in apace,
+the preparations were augmented, and as many as could dine came and
+dined with us.
+
+After the dinner was over, the room became fuller and fuller; guests
+came in from the other inns, where they had been dining, till, at last,
+the room became as full as possible in every part, the door being
+opened, the door-way blocked up, and the stairs, leading to the room,
+crammed from bottom to top. In this state of things, Mr. Knowles, who
+was our chairman, gave _my health_, which, of course, was followed by a
+_speech_; and, as the reader will readily suppose, to have an
+opportunity of making a speech was the main motive for my going to dine
+at _an inn_, at any hour, and especially at _seven o'clock_ at night. In
+this speech, I, after descanting on the present devastating ruin, and on
+those successive acts of the Ministers and the Parliament by which such
+ruin had been produced; after remarking on the shuffling, the tricks,
+the contrivances from 1797 up to last March, I proceeded to offer to the
+company _my reasons_ for believing, that no attempt would be made to
+relieve the farmers and others, by putting out the paper-money again, as
+in 1822, or by a bank-restriction. Just as I was stating these my
+reasons, on a prospective matter of such deep interest to my hearers,
+amongst whom were land-owners, land-renters, cattle and sheep dealers,
+hop and cheese producers and merchants, and even one, two or more,
+country bankers; just as I was engaged in stating _my reasons_ for my
+opinion on a matter of such vital importance to the parties present, who
+were all listening to me with the greatest attention; just at this time,
+a noise was heard, and a sort of row was taking place in the passage,
+the cause of which was, upon inquiry, found to be no less a personage
+than our landlord, our host Sutton, who, it appeared, finding that my
+speech-making had cut off, or, at least, suspended, all intercourse
+between the dining, now become a drinking, room and the _bar_; who,
+finding that I had been the cause of a great "restriction in the
+exchange" of our money for his "neat" "genuine" commodities downstairs,
+and being, apparently, an ardent admirer of the "liberal" system of
+"free trade"; who, finding, in short, or, rather, supposing, that, if my
+tongue were not stopped from running, his taps would be, had, though an
+old man, fought, or, at least, forced his way up the thronged stairs and
+through the passage and door-way, into the room, and was (with what
+breath the struggle had left him) beginning to bawl out to me, when some
+one called to him, and told him that he was causing an interruption, to
+which he answered, that that was what he had come to do! And then he
+went on to say, in so many words, that my speech injured his sale of
+liquor!
+
+The disgust and abhorrence, which such conduct could not fail to excite,
+produced, at first, a desire to quit the room and the house, and even a
+proposition to that effect. But, after a minute or so, to reflect, the
+company resolved not to quit the room but to turn him out of it who had
+caused the interruption; and the old fellow, finding himself _tackled_,
+saved the labour of shoving, or kicking, him out of the room, by
+retreating out of the door-way with all the activity of which he was
+master. After this I proceeded with my speech-making; and, this being
+ended, the great business of the evening, namely, drinking, smoking, and
+singing, was about to be proceeded in by a company, who had just closed
+an arduous and anxious week, who had before them a Sunday morning to
+sleep in, and whose wives were, for the far greater part, at a
+convenient distance. An assemblage of circumstances more auspicious to
+"free trade" in the "neat" and "genuine," has seldom occurred! But, now
+behold, the old fustian-jacketed fellow, whose head was, I think,
+_powdered_, took it into that head not only to lay "restrictions" upon
+trade, but to impose an absolute embargo; cut off entirely all supplies
+whatever from his bar to the room, _as long as I remained in that room_.
+A message to this effect, from the old fustian man, having been, through
+the waiter, communicated to Mr. Knowles, and he having communicated it
+to the company, I addressed the company in nearly these words:
+"Gentlemen, born and bred, as you know I was, on the borders of this
+county, and fond, as I am of bacon, _Hampshire hogs_ have, with me,
+always been objects of admiration rather than of contempt; but that
+which has just happened here, induces me to observe, that this feeling
+of mine has been confined to hogs of _four legs_. For my part, I like
+your company too well to quit it. I have paid this fellow _six
+shillings_ for the wing of a fowl, a bit of bread, and a pint of small
+beer. I have a right to sit here; I want no drink, and those who do,
+being refused it here, have a right to send to other houses for it, and
+to drink it here."
+
+However, Mammon soon got the upper hand downstairs, all the fondness for
+"free trade" returned, and up came the old fustian-jacketed fellow,
+bringing pipes, tobacco, wine, grog, sling, and seeming to be as pleased
+as if he had just sprung a mine of gold! Nay, he, soon after this, came
+into the room with two gentlemen, who had come to him to ask where I
+was. He actually came up to me, making me a bow, and, telling me that
+those gentlemen wished to be introduced to me, he, with a fawning look,
+laid his hand upon my knee! "Take away your _paw_," said I, and, shaking
+the gentlemen by the hand, I said, "I am happy to see you, gentlemen,
+even though introduced by this fellow." Things now proceeded without
+interruption; songs, toasts, and speeches filled up the time, until
+half-past two o'clock this morning, though in the house of a landlord
+who receives the sacrament, but who, from his manifestly ardent
+attachment to the "liberal principles" of "free trade," would, I have no
+doubt, have suffered us, if we could have found money and throats and
+stomachs, to sit and sing and talk and drink until two o'clock of a
+Sunday afternoon instead of two o'clock of a Sunday morning. It was not
+politics; it was not _personal_ dislike to me; for the fellow knew
+nothing of me. It was, as I told the company, just this: he looked upon
+their bodies as so many gutters to drain off the contents of his taps,
+and upon their purses as so many small heaps from which to take the
+means of augmenting his great one; and, finding that I had been, no
+matter how, the cause of suspending this work of "reciprocity," he
+wanted, and no matter how, to restore the reciprocal system to motion.
+All that I have to add is this: that the next time this old
+sharp-looking fellow gets _six shillings_ from me, for a dinner, he
+shall, if he choose, _cook me_, in any manner that he likes, and season
+me with hand so unsparing as to produce in the feeders thirst
+unquenchable.
+
+To-morrow morning we set off for the New Forest; and, indeed, we have
+lounged about here long enough. But, as some apology, I have to state,
+that, while I have been in a sort of waiting upon this great fair, where
+one hears, sees, and learns so much, I have been writing No. IV. of the
+"_Poor Man's Friend_," which, price twopence, is published once a month.
+
+I see, in the London newspapers, accounts of _dispatches from Canning_!
+I thought that he went solely "on a party of pleasure!" So, the
+"dispatches" come to tell the King how the pleasure party gets on! No:
+what he is gone to Paris for is to endeavour to prevent the "_Holy_
+Allies" from doing anything which shall sink the English Government in
+the eyes of the world, and _thereby favour the radicals_, who are
+enemies of _all_ "regular Government," and whose success in England
+would _revive republicanism_ in France. This is my opinion. The subject,
+if I be right in my opinion, was too ticklish to be committed to paper:
+Granville Levison Gower (for that is the man that is now Lord Granville)
+was, perhaps, not thought quite a match for the French as _a talker_;
+and, therefore, the Captain of Eton, who, in 1817, said, that the "ever
+living luminary of British prosperity was only hidden behind a cloud;"
+and who, in 1819, said, that "Peel's Bill had set the currency question
+at rest for ever;" therefore the profound Captain is gone over to see
+what _he_ can do.
+
+But, Captain, a word in your ear: we do not care for the Bourbons any
+more than we do for you! My real opinion is, that there is nothing that
+can put England to rights, that will not shake the Bourbon Government.
+This is my opinion; but I defy the Bourbons to save, or to assist in
+saving, the present system in England, unless they and their friends
+will subscribe and pay off your debt for you, Captain of toad-eating and
+nonsensical and shoe-licking Eton! Let them pay off your debt for you,
+Captain; let the Bourbons and their allies do that; or they cannot save
+you; no, nor can they help you, even in the smallest degree.
+
+
+_Rumsey (Hampshire), Monday Noon, 16th Oct._
+
+Like a very great fool, I, out of senseless complaisance, waited, this
+morning, to breakfast with the friends, at whose house we slept last
+night, at Andover. We thus lost two hours of dry weather, and have been
+justly punished by about an hour's ride in the rain. I settled on
+Lyndhurst as the place to lodge at to-night; so we are here, feeding our
+horses, drying our clothes, and writing the account of our journey. We
+came, as much as possible, all the way through the villages, and, almost
+all the way, avoided the turnpike-roads. From Andover to Stockbridge
+(about seven or eight miles) is, for the greatest part, an open corn and
+sheep country, a considerable portion of the land being downs. The wheat
+and rye and vetch and sainfoin fields look beautiful here; and, during
+the whole of the way from Andover to Rumsey, the early turnips of both
+kinds are not bad, and the stubble turnips very promising. The downs are
+green as meadows usually are in April. The grass is most abundant in all
+situations, where grass grows. From Stockbridge to Rumsey we came nearly
+by the river side, and had to cross the river several times. This, the
+River Teste, which, as I described, in my Ride of last November, begins
+at Uphusband, by springs, bubbling up, in March, out of the bed of that
+deep valley. It is at first a bourn, that is to say, a stream that runs
+only a part of the year, and is the rest of the year as dry as a road.
+About 5 miles from this periodical source, it becomes a stream all the
+year round. After winding about between the chalk hills, for many miles,
+first in a general direction towards the south-east, and then in a
+similar direction towards the south-west and south, it is joined by the
+little stream that rises just above and that passes through the town of
+Andover. It is, after this, joined by several other little streams, with
+names; and here, at Rumsey, it is a large and very fine river, famous,
+all the way down, for trout and eels, and both of the finest quality.
+
+
+_Lyndhurst (New Forest), Monday Evening, 16th October._
+
+I have just time, before I go to bed, to observe that we arrived here,
+about 4 o'clock, over about 10 or 11 miles of the best road in the
+world, having a choice too, for the great part of the way, between these
+smooth roads and green sward. Just as we came out of Rumsey (or Romsey),
+and crossed our River Teste once more, we saw to our left, the sort of
+park, called _Broadlands_, where poor Charles Smith, who (as mentioned
+above) was hanged for _shooting at_ (_not killing_) one Snellgrove, an
+assistant-gamekeeper of Lord Palmerston, who was then our Secretary at
+War, and who is in that office, I believe, now, though he is now better
+known as a Director of the grand Mining Joint-Stock Company, which shows
+the great _industry_ of this Noble and "Right Honourable person," and
+also the great scope and the various nature and tendency of his talents.
+What would our old fathers of the "dark ages" have said, if they had
+been told, that their descendants would, at last, become so enlightened
+as to enable Jews and loan-jobbers to take away noblemen's estates by
+mere "watching the turn of the market," and to cause members, or, at
+least, one Member, of that "most Honourable, Noble, and Reverend
+Assembly," the King's Privy Council, in which he himself sits: so
+_enlightened_, I say, as to cause one of this "most Honourable and
+Reverend body" to become a Director in a mining speculation? How one
+_pities_ our poor, "dark-age, bigoted" ancestors, who would, I dare
+say, have been as ready to _hang_ a man for proposing such a "liberal"
+system as this, as they would have been to hang him for _shooting at_
+(not killing) an assistant game-keeper! Poor old fellows! How much they
+lost by not living in our enlightened times! I am here close by the Old
+Purser's son George Rose's!
+
+
+
+
+RIDE: FROM LYNDHURST (NEW FOREST) TO BEAULIEU ABBEY; THENCE TO
+SOUTHAMPTON AND WESTON; THENCE TO BOTLEY, ALLINGTON, WEST END, NEAR
+HAMBLEDON; AND THENCE TO PETERSFIELD, THURSLEY, GODALMING.
+
+  But where is now the goodly audit ale?
+  The purse-proud tenant, never known to fail?
+  The farm which never yet was left on hand?
+  The marsh reclaim'd to most improving land?
+  The impatient hope of the expiring lease?
+  The doubling rental? What an evil's peace!
+  In vain the prize excites the ploughman's skill,
+  In vain the Commons pass their patriot Bill;
+  The _Landed Interest_--(you may understand
+  The phrase much better leaving out the _Land_)--
+  The land self-interest groans from shore to shore,
+  For fear that plenty should attain the poor.
+  Up, up again, ye rents! exalt your notes,
+  Or else the Ministry will lose their votes,
+  And patriotism, so delicately nice,
+  Her loaves will lower to the market price.
+
+  LORD BYRON, _Age of Bronze_.
+
+
+_Weston Grove, Wednesday, 18 Oct., 1826._
+
+Yesterday, from Lyndhurst to this place, was a ride, including our
+round-abouts, of more than forty miles; but the roads the best in the
+world, one half of the way green turf; and the day as fine an one as
+ever came out of the heavens. We took in a breakfast, calculated for a
+long day's work, and for no more eating till night. We had slept in a
+room, the access to which was only through another sleeping room, which
+was also occupied; and, as I had got up about _two o'clock_ at Andover,
+we went to bed, at Lyndhurst, about _half-past seven_ o'clock. I was,
+of course, awake by three or four; I had eaten little over night; so
+that here lay I, not liking (even after day-light began to glimmer) to
+go through a chamber, where, by possibility, there might be "a lady"
+actually _in bed_; here lay I, my bones aching with lying in bed, my
+stomach growling for victuals, imprisoned by my _modesty_. But, at last,
+I grew impatient; for, modesty here or modesty there, I was not to be
+penned up and starved: so, after having shaved and dressed and got ready
+to go down, I thrusted George out a little before me into the other
+room; and through we pushed, previously resolving, of course, not to
+look towards _the bed_ that was there. But, as the devil would have it,
+just as I was about the middle of the room, I, like Lot's wife, turned
+my head! All that I shall say is, first, that the consequences that
+befel her did not befal me, and, second, that I advise those, who are
+likely to be hungry in the morning, not to sleep in _inner rooms_; or,
+if they do, to take some bread and cheese in their pockets. Having got
+safe downstairs, I lost no time in inquiry after the means of obtaining
+a breakfast to make up for the bad fare of the previous day; and finding
+my landlady rather tardy in the work, and not, seemingly, having a
+proper notion of the affair, I went myself, and, having found a
+butcher's shop, bought a loin of small, fat, wether mutton, which I saw
+cut out of the sheep and cut into chops. These were brought to the inn;
+George and I ate about 2lb. out of the 5lb., and, while I was writing a
+letter, and making up my packet, to be ready to send from Southampton,
+George went out and found a poor woman to come and take away the rest of
+the loin of mutton; for our _fastings_ of the day before enabled us to
+do this; and, though we had about forty miles to go, to get to this
+place (through the route that we intended to take), I had resolved, that
+we would go without any more _purchase_ of victuals and drink this day
+also. I beg leave to suggest to my _well-fed_ readers; I mean, those who
+have at their command more victuals and drink than they can possibly
+swallow; I beg to suggest to such, whether this would not be a good way
+for them all to find the means of bestowing charity? Some poet has said,
+that that which is given in _charity_ gives a blessing on both sides; to
+the giver as well as the receiver. But I really think that if, _in
+general_, the food and drink given, came out of food and drink
+_deducted_ from the usual quantity swallowed by the giver, the
+_blessing_ would be still greater, and much more certain. I can speak
+for myself, at any rate. I hardly ever eat more than _twice_ a day; when
+at home, never; and I never, if I can well avoid it, eat any meat later
+than about one or two o'clock in the day. I drink a little tea, or milk
+and water at the usual tea-time (about 7 o'clock); I go to bed at eight,
+if I can; I write or read, from about four to about eight, and then
+hungry as a hunter, I go to breakfast, eating _as small a parcel_ of
+cold meat and bread as I can prevail upon my teeth to be satisfied with.
+I do just the same at dinner time. I very rarely taste _garden-stuff_ of
+any sort. If any man can show me, that he has done, or can do, _more
+work_, bodily and mentally united; I say nothing about good health, for
+of that the public can know nothing; but I refer to _the work_: the
+public know, they see, what I can do, and what I actually have done, and
+what I do; and when any one has shown the public, that he has done, or
+can do, more, then I will advise my readers attend to him, on the
+subject of diet, and not to me. As to _drink_, the less the better; and
+mine is milk and water, or _not-sour_ small beer, if I can get the
+latter; for the former I always can. I like the milk and water best; but
+I do not like much water; and, if I drink much milk, it loads and
+stupefies and makes me fat.
+
+Having made all preparations for a day's ride, we set off, as our first
+point, for a station, in the Forest, called New Park, there to see
+something about _plantations_ and other matters connected with the
+affairs of our prime cocks, the Surveyors of Woods and Forests and Crown
+Lands and Estates. But, before I go forward any further, I must just
+step back again to Rumsey, which we passed rather too hastily through on
+the 16th, as noticed in the RIDE that was published last week. This town
+was, in ancient times, a very grand place, though it is now nothing more
+than a decent market-town, without anything to entitle it to particular
+notice, except its church, which was the church of an Abbey Nunnery
+(founded more, I think, than a thousand years ago), and which church was
+the burial place of several of the Saxon Kings, and of "Lady
+Palmerstone," who, a few years ago, "died in child-birth"! What a
+mixture! But there was another personage buried here, and who was, it
+would seem, a native of the place; namely, Sir William Petty, the
+ancestor of the present Marquis of Lansdown. He was the son of _a
+cloth-weaver_, and was, doubtless, himself a weaver when young. He
+became a surgeon, was first in the service of Charles I.; then went into
+that of Cromwell, whom he served as physician-general to his army in
+Ireland (alas! poor Ireland), and, in this capacity, he resided at
+Dublin till Charles II. came, when he came over to London (having become
+very rich), was knighted by that profligate and ungrateful King, and he
+died in 1687, leaving a fortune of 15,000_l._ a year! This is what his
+biographers say. He must have made pretty good use of his time while
+physician-general to Cromwell's army, in poor Ireland! _Petty_ by nature
+as well as by name, he got, from Cromwell, a "patent for
+_double-writing_, invented by him;" and he invented a "_double-bottomed
+ship to sail against wind and tide_, a model of which is still preserved
+in the library of the Royal Society," of which he was a most worthy
+member. His great art was, however, the amassing of money, and the
+getting of _grants of lands in poor Ireland_, in which he was one of the
+most successful of the English adventurers. I had, the other day,
+occasion to observe that the word _Petty_ manifestly is the French word
+_Petit_, which means _little_; and that it is, in these days of
+degeneracy, pleasing to reflect that there is _one family_, at any rate,
+that "Old England" still boasts one family, which retains the character
+designated by its pristine name; a reflection that rushed with great
+force into my mind, when, in the year 1822, I heard the present noble
+head of the family say, in the House of Lords, that he thought that a
+currency of paper, convertible into gold, was the best and most solid
+and safe, especially since _Platina_ had been discovered! "Oh, God!"
+exclaimed I to myself, as I stood listening and admiring "below the
+bar;" "Oh, great God! there it is, there it is, still running in the
+blood, that genius which discovered the art of double writing, and of
+making ships with double-bottoms to sail against wind and tide!" This
+noble and profound descendant of Cromwell's army-physician has now seen
+that "paper, convertible into gold," is not quite so "solid and safe" as
+he thought it was! He has now seen what a "late panic" is! And he might,
+if he were not so very well worthy of his family name, openly confess
+that he was deceived, when, in 1819, he, as one of the Committee, who
+reported in favour of Peel's Bill, said that the country could pay the
+interest of the debt in gold! Talk of a _change of Ministry_, indeed!
+What is to be _gained_ by putting this man in the place of any of those
+who are in power now?
+
+To come back now to Lyndhurst, we had to go about three miles to New
+Park, which is a _farm_ in the New Forest, and nearly in the centre of
+it. We got to this place about nine o'clock. There is a good and large
+mansion-house here, in which the "Commissioners" of Woods and Forests
+reside, when they come into the Forest. There is a garden, a farm-yard,
+a farm, and a nursery. The place looks like a considerable gentleman's
+seat; the house stands in a sort of _park_, and you can see that a great
+deal of expense has been incurred in levelling the ground, and making it
+pleasing to the eye of my lords "the Commissioners." My business here
+was to see, whether anything had been done towards the making of _Locust
+plantations_. I went first to Lyndhurst to make inquiries; but I was
+there told that New Park was the place, and the only place, at which to
+get information on the subject; and I was told, further, that the
+Commissioners were now at New Park; that is to say those experienced
+tree planters, Messrs. Arbuthnot, Dawkins, and Company. Gad! thought I,
+I am here coming in close contact with a branch, or at least a twig, of
+the great THING itself! When I heard this, I was at breakfast, and, of
+course, dressed for the day. I could not, out of my extremely limited
+wardrobe, afford a clean shirt for the occasion; and so, off we set,
+just as we were, hoping that their worships, the nation's tree planters,
+would, if they met with us, excuse our dress, when they considered the
+nature of our circumstances. When we came to the house, we were stopped
+by a little fence and fastened gate. I got off my horse, gave him to
+George to hold, went up to the door, and rang the bell. Having told my
+business to a person, who appeared to be a foreman, or bailiff, he, with
+great civility, took me into a nursery which is at the back of the
+house; and I soon drew from him the disappointing fact that my lords,
+the tree-planters, had departed the day before! I found, as to
+_Locusts_, that a patch were sowed last spring, which I saw, which are
+from one foot to four feet high, and very fine and strong, and are, in
+number, about enough to plant two acres of ground, the plants at four
+feet apart each way. I found that, last fall, some few Locusts had been
+put out into plantations of other trees already made; but that they had
+_not thriven_, and had been _barked_ by the hares! But a little bunch of
+these trees (same age), which were planted in the nursery, ought to
+convince my lords, the tree-planters, that, if they were to do what they
+ought to do, the public would very soon be owners of fine plantations of
+Locusts, for the use of the navy. And, what are the _hares_ kept _for_
+here? _Who_ eats them? What _right_ have these Commissioners to keep
+hares here, to eat up the trees? Lord Folkestone killed his hares before
+he made his plantation of Locusts; and, why not kill the hares in the
+_people's_ forest; for the _people's_ it is, and that these
+Commissioners ought always to remember. And then, again, why this farm?
+What is it _for_? Why, the pretence for it is this: that it is necessary
+to give the deer _hay_, in winter, because the lopping down of limbs of
+trees for them to _browse_ (as used to be the practice) is injurious to
+the growth of timber. That will be a very good reason for having a
+_hay-farm_, when my lords shall have proved two things; first, that hay,
+in quantity equal to what is raised here, could not be bought for a
+twentieth part of the money that this farm and all its trappings cost;
+and, second, that there ought to be any deer kept! What are these deer
+_for_? Who are to _eat_ them? Are they for the Royal Family? Why, there
+are more deer bred in Richmond Park alone, to say nothing of Bushy Park,
+Hyde Park, and Windsor Park; there are more deer bred in Richmond Park
+alone, than would feed all the branches of the Royal Family and all
+their households all the year round, if every soul of them ate as hearty
+as ploughmen, and if they never touched a morsel of any kind of meat but
+venison! For what, and _for whom_, then, are deer kept, in the New
+Forest; and why an expense of hay-farm, of sheds, of racks, of keepers,
+of lodges, and other things attending the deer and the game; an expense,
+amounting to more money annually than would have given relief to all the
+starving manufacturers in the North! And again I say, _who_ is all this
+venison and game _for_? There is more game even in Kew Gardens than the
+Royal Family can want! And, in short, do they ever taste, or even hear
+of, any game, or any venison, from the New Forest?
+
+What a pretty thing here is, then! Here is another deep bite into us by
+the long and sharp-fanged Aristocracy, who so love Old Sarum! Is there a
+man who will say that this is right? And that the game should be kept,
+too, to eat up trees, to destroy plantations, to destroy what is first
+paid for the planting of! And that the public should pay keepers to
+preserve this game! And that the _people_ should be _transported_ if
+they go out by night to catch the game that they pay for feeding!
+Blessed state of an Aristocracy! It is pity that it has got a nasty,
+ugly, obstinate DEBT to deal with! It might possibly go on for ages,
+deer and all, were it not for this DEBT. This New Forest is a piece of
+property, as much belonging _to the public_ as the Custom-House at
+London is. There is no man, however poor, who has not a right in it.
+Every man is owner of a part of the deer, the game, and of the money
+that goes to the keepers; and yet, any man may be _transported_, if he
+go out by night to catch any part of this game! We are compelled to pay
+keepers for preserving game to eat up the trees that we are compelled to
+pay people to plant! Still however there is comfort; we _might_ be worse
+off; for the Turks made the Tartars pay a tax called _tooth-money_; that
+is to say, they eat up the victuals of the Tartars, and then made them
+pay for the _use of their teeth_. No man can say that we are come quite
+to that yet: and, besides, the poor Tartars had no DEBT, no blessed Debt
+to hold out hope to them.
+
+The same person (a very civil and intelligent man) that showed me the
+nursery, took me, in my way, back, through some plantations of _oaks_,
+which have been made amongst fir-trees. It was, indeed, a plantation of
+Scotch firs, about twelve years old, in rows, at six feet apart. Every
+third row of firs was left, and oaks were (about six years ago) planted
+instead of the firs that were grubbed up; and the winter shelter, that
+the oaks have received from the remaining firs, has made them grow very
+finely, though the land is poor. Other oaks planted in the _open, twenty
+years_ ago, and in land deemed better, are not nearly so good. However,
+these oaks, between the firs, will take fifty or sixty good years to
+make them timber, and, until they be _timber_, they are of very little
+use; whereas the same ground, planted with Locusts (and the _hares_ of
+"my lords" kept down), would, at this moment, have been worth fifty
+pounds an acre. What do "my lords" care about this? _For them_, for "my
+lords," the New Forest would be no better than it is now; no, nor _so
+good_ as it is now; for there would be no hares for them.
+
+From New Park, I was bound to Beaulieu Abbey, and I ought to have gone
+in a south-easterly direction, instead of going back to Lyndhurst, which
+lay in precisely the opposite direction. My guide through the
+plantations was not apprised of my intended route, and, therefore, did
+not instruct me. Just before we parted, he asked me _my name_: I thought
+it lucky that he had not asked it before! When we got nearly back to
+Lyndhurst, we found that we had come three miles out of our way; indeed,
+it made six miles altogether; for we were, when we got to Lyndhurst,
+three miles further from Beaulieu Abbey than we were when we were at New
+Park. We wanted, very much, to go to the site of this ancient and famous
+Abbey, of which the people of the New Forest seemed to know very little.
+They call the place _Bewley_, and even in the maps it is called
+_Bauley_. _Ley_, in the Saxon language, means _place_, or rather _open
+place_; so that they put _ley_ in place of _lieu_, thus beating the
+Normans out of some part of the name at any rate. I wished, besides, to
+see a good deal of this New Forest. I had been, before, from Southampton
+to Lyndhurst, from Lyndhurst to Lymington, from Lymington to Sway. I had
+now come in on the north of Minstead from Romsey, so that I had seen the
+north of the Forest and all the west side of it, down to the sea. I had
+now been to New Park and had got back to Lyndhurst; so that, if I rode
+across the Forest down to Beaulieu, I went right across the middle of
+it, from north-west to south-east. Then, if I turned towards
+Southampton, and went to Dipten and on to Ealing, I should see, in fact,
+the whole of this Forest, or nearly the whole of it.
+
+We therefore started, or, rather, turned away from Lyndhurst, as soon as
+we got back to it, and went about six miles over a heath, even worse
+than Bagshot-Heath; as barren as it is possible for land to be. A little
+before we came to the village of Beaulieu (which, observe, the people
+call _Beuley_), we went through a wood, chiefly of beech, and that beech
+seemingly destined to grow food for pigs, of which we saw, during this
+day, many, many thousands. I should think that we saw at least a hundred
+hogs to one deer. I stopped, at one time, and counted the hogs and pigs
+just round about me, and they amounted to 140, all within 50 or 60 yards
+of my horse. After a very pleasant ride, on land without a stone in it,
+we came down to the Beaulieu river, the highest branch of which rises at
+the foot of a hill, about a mile and a half to the north-east of
+Lyndhurst. For a great part of the way down to Beaulieu it is a very
+insignificant stream. At last, however, augmented by springs from the
+different sand-hills, it becomes a little river, and has, on the sides
+of it, lands which were, formerly, very beautiful meadows. When it comes
+to the village of Beaulieu, it forms a large pond of a great many acres;
+and on the east side of this pond is the spot where this famous Abbey
+formerly stood, and where the external walls of which, or a large part
+of them, are now actually standing. We went down on the western side of
+the river. The Abbey stood, and the ruins stand, on the eastern side.
+
+Happening to meet a man, before I got into the village, I, pointing with
+my whip across towards the Abbey, said to the man, "I suppose there is a
+bridge down here to get across to the Abbey." "That's not the Abbey,
+Sir," says he: "the Abbey is about four miles further on." I was
+astonished to hear this; but he was very positive; said that some people
+called it the Abbey; but that the Abbey was further on; and was at a
+farm occupied by farmer John Biel. Having chapter and verse for it, as
+the saying is, I believed the man; and pushed on towards farmer John
+Biel's, which I found, as he had told me, at the end of about four
+miles. When I got there (not having, observe, gone over the water to
+ascertain that the other was the spot where the Abbey stood), I really
+thought, at first, that this must have been the site of the Abbey of
+Beaulieu; because, the name meaning _fine place_, this was a thousand
+times finer place than that where the Abbey, as I afterwards found,
+really stood. After looking about it for some time, I was satisfied that
+it had not been an Abbey; but the place is one of the finest that ever
+was seen in this world. It stands at about half a mile's distance from
+the water's edge at high-water mark, and at about the middle of the
+space along the coast, from Calshot castle to Lymington haven. It
+stands, of course, upon a rising ground; it has a gentle slope down to
+the water. To the right, you see Hurst castle, and that narrow passage
+called the Needles, I believe; and, to the left, you see Spithead, and
+all the ships that are sailing or lie anywhere opposite Portsmouth. The
+Isle of Wight is right before you, and you have in view, at one and the
+same time, the towns of Yarmouth, Newton, Cowes and Newport, with all
+the beautiful fields of the island, lying upon the side of a great bank
+before, and going up the ridge of hills in the middle of the island.
+Here are two little streams, nearly close to the ruin, which filled
+ponds for fresh-water fish; while there was the Beaulieu river at about
+half a mile or three quarters of a mile to the left, to bring up the
+salt-water fish. The ruins consist of part of the walls of a building
+about 200 feet long and about 40 feet wide. It has been turned into a
+barn, in part, and the rest into cattle-sheds, cow-pens, and inclosures
+and walls to inclose a small yard. But there is another ruin, which was
+a church or chapel, and which stands now very near to the farm-house of
+Mr. John Biel, who rents the farm of the Duchess of Buccleugh, who is
+now the owner of the abbey-lands and of the lands belonging to this
+place. The little church or chapel, of which I have just been speaking,
+appears to have been a very beautiful building. A part only of its walls
+is standing; but you see, by what remains of the arches, that it was
+finished in a manner the most elegant and expensive of the day in which
+it was built. Part of the outside of the building is now surrounded by
+the farmer's garden: the interior is partly a pig-stye and partly a
+goose-pen. Under that arch which had once seen so many rich men bow
+their heads, we entered into the goose-pen, which is by no means one of
+the _nicest_ concerns in the world. Beyond the goose-pen was the
+pig-stye, and in it a hog, which, when fat, will weigh about 30 score,
+actually rubbing his shoulders against a little sort of column which had
+supported the font and its holy water. The farmer told us that there was
+a hole, which, indeed, we saw, going down into the wall, or rather, into
+the column where the font had stood. And he told us that many attempts
+had been made to bring water to fill that hole, but that it never had
+been done.
+
+Mr. Biel was very civil to us. As far as related to us, he performed the
+office of hospitality, which was the main business of those who formerly
+inhabited the spot. He asked us to dine with him, which we declined, for
+want of time; but, being exceedingly hungry, we had some bread and
+cheese and some very good beer. The farmer told me that a great number
+of gentlemen had come there to look at that place; but that he never
+could find out what the place had been, or what the place at Beuley had
+been. I told him that I would, when I got to London, give him an account
+of it; that I would write the account down, and send it down to him. He
+seemed surprised that I should make such a promise, and expressed his
+wish not to give me so much trouble. I told him not to say a word about
+the matter, for that his bread and cheese and beer were so good that
+they deserved a full history to be written of the place where they had
+been eaten and drunk. "God bless me, Sir, no, no!" I said, I will, upon
+my soul, farmer. I now left him, very grateful on our part for his
+hospitable reception, and he, I dare say, hardly being able to believe
+his own ears, at the generous promise that I had made him, which
+promise, however, I am now about to fulfil. I told the farmer a little,
+upon the spot, to begin with. I told him that the name was all wrong:
+that it was no _Beuley_ but _Beaulieu_; and that Beaulieu meant _fine
+place_; and I proved this to him, in this manner. You know, said I,
+farmer, that when a girl has a sweet-heart, people call him her _beau_?
+Yes, said he, so they do. Very well. You know, also, that we say,
+sometimes, you shall have this in _lieu_ of that; and that when we say
+_lieu_, we mean in _place_ of that. Now the _beau_ means _fine_, as
+applied to the young man, and the _lieu_ means _place_; and thus it is,
+that the name of this place is _Beaulieu_, as it is so fine as you see
+it is. He seemed to be wonderfully pleased with the discovery; and we
+parted, I believe, with hearty good wishes on his part, and, I am sure,
+with very sincere thanks on my part.
+
+The Abbey of Beaulieu was founded in the year 1204, by King John, for
+thirty monks of the reformed Benedictine Order. It was dedicated to the
+blessed Virgin Mary; it flourished until the year 1540, when it was
+suppressed, and the lands confiscated, in the reign of Henry VIII. Its
+revenues were, at that time, _four hundred and twenty-eight pounds, six
+shillings and eight pence a year_, making, in money of the present day,
+upwards of _eight thousand five hundred pounds_ a year. The lands and
+the abbey, and all belonging to it, were granted by the king, to one
+Thomas Wriothesley, who was a court-pander of that day. From him it
+passed by sale, by will, by marriage or by something or another, till,
+at last, it has got, after passing through various hands, into the hands
+of the Duchess of Buccleugh. So much for the abbey; and, now, as for the
+ruins on the farm of Mr. John Biel: they were the dwelling-place of
+Knights' Templars, or Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. The building
+they inhabited was called an Hospital, and their business was to relieve
+travellers, strangers, and persons in distress; and, if called upon, to
+accompany the king in his wars to uphold christianity. Their estate was
+also confiscated by Henry VIII. It was worth, at the time of being
+confiscated, upwards of _two thousand pounds a year_, money of the
+present day. This establishment was founded a little before the Abbey of
+Beaulieu was founded; and it was this foundation and not the other that
+gave the name of Beaulieu to both establishments. The Abbey is not
+situated in a very fine place. The situation is low; the lands above it
+rather a swamp than otherwise; pretty enough altogether; but by no means
+a fine place. The Templars had all the reason in the world to give the
+name of Beaulieu to their place. And it is by no means surprising that
+the monks were willing to apply it to their Abbey.
+
+Now, farmer John Biel, I dare say that you are a very good Protestant;
+and I am a monstrous good Protestant too. We cannot bear the Pope, nor
+"they there priests that makes men confess their sins and go down upon
+their marrow-bones before them." But, master Biel, let us give the devil
+his due; and let us not act worse by those Roman Catholics (who
+by-the-bye were our forefathers) than we are willing to act by the devil
+himself. Now then, here were a set of monks, and also a set of Knights'
+Templars. Neither of them could marry; of course, neither of them could
+have wives and families. They could possess no private property; they
+could bequeath nothing; they could own nothing; but that which they
+owned in common with the rest of their body. They could hoard no money;
+they could save nothing. Whatever they received, as rent for their
+lands, they must necessarily spend upon the spot, for they never could
+quit that spot. They did spend it all upon the spot: they kept all the
+poor; Beuley, and all round about Beuley, saw no misery, and had never
+heard the damned name of pauper pronounced, as long as those monks and
+Templars continued! You and I are excellent Protestants, farmer John
+Biel; you and I have often assisted on the 5th of November to burn Guy
+Fawkes, the Pope and the Devil. But, you and I, farmer John Biel, would
+much rather be life holders under monks and Templars, than rack-renters
+under duchesses. The monks and the knights were the _lords_ of their
+manors; but the farmers under them were not rack-renters; the farmers
+under them held by lease of lives, continued in the same farms from
+father to son for hundreds of years; they were real yeomen, and not
+miserable rack-renters, such as now till the land of this once happy
+country, and who are little better than the drivers of the labourers,
+for the profit of the landlords. Farmer John Biel, what the Duchess of
+Buccleugh does, you know, and I do not. She may, for anything that I
+know to the contrary, leave her farms on lease of lives, with rent so
+very moderate and easy, as for the farm to be half as good as the
+farmer's own, at any rate. The Duchess may, for anything that I know to
+the contrary, feed all the hungry, clothe all the naked, comfort all the
+sick, and prevent the hated name of _pauper_ from being pronounced in
+the district of Beuley; her Grace may, for anything that I know to the
+contrary, make poor-rates to be wholly unnecessary and unknown in your
+country; she may receive, lodge, and feed the stranger; she may, in
+short, employ the rents of this fine estate of Beuley, to make the whole
+district happy; she may not carry a farthing of the rents away from the
+spot; and she may consume, by herself, and her own family and servants,
+only just as much as is necessary to the preservation of their life and
+health. Her Grace may do all this; I do not say or insinuate that she
+does not do it all; but, Protestant here or Protestant there, farmer
+John Biel, this I do say, that unless her Grace do all this, the monks
+and the Templars were better for Beuley than her Grace.
+
+From the former station of the Templars, from real Beaulieu of the New
+Forest, we came back to the village of Beaulieu, and there crossed the
+water to come on towards Southampton. Here we passed close along under
+the old abbey walls, a great part of which are still standing. There is
+a mill here which appears to be turned by the fresh water, but the fresh
+water falls, here, into the salt water, as at the village of Botley. We
+did not stop to go about the ruins of the abbey; for you seldom make
+much out by minute inquiry. It is the political history of these places;
+or, at least, their connexion with political events, that is
+interesting. Just about the banks of this little river, there are some
+woods and coppices, and some corn-land; but, at the distance of half a
+mile from the water-side, we came out again upon the intolerable heath,
+and went on for seven or eight miles over that heath, from the village
+of Beaulieu to that of Marchwood. Having a list of trees and enclosed
+lands away to our right all the way along, which list of trees from the
+south-west side of that arm of the sea which goes from Chalshot castle
+to Redbridge, passing by Southampton, which lies on the north-east side.
+Never was a more barren tract of land than these seven or eight miles.
+We had come seven miles across the forest in another direction in the
+morning; so that a poorer spot than this New Forest, there is not in all
+England; nor, I believe, in the whole world. It is more barren and
+miserable than Bagshot heath. There are less fertile spots in it, in
+proportion to the extent of each. Still, it is so large, it is of such
+great extent, being, if moulded into a circle, not so little, I believe,
+as 60 or 70 miles in circumference, that it must contain some good spots
+of land, and, if properly and honestly managed, those spots must produce
+a prodigious quantity of timber. It is a pretty curious thing, that,
+while the admirers of the paper-system are boasting of our "_waust
+improvements Ma'am_," there should have been such a visible and such an
+enormous dilapidation in all the solid things of the country. I have, in
+former parts of this ride, stated, that, in some counties, while the
+parsons have been pocketing the amount of the tithes and of the glebe,
+they have suffered the parsonage-houses either to fall down and to be
+lost, brick by brick, and stone by stone, or to become such miserable
+places as to be unfit for anything bearing the name of a gentleman to
+live in; I have stated, and I am at any time ready to prove, that, in
+some counties, this is the case in more than one half of the parishes!
+
+And now, amidst all these "waust improvements," let us see how the
+account of timber stands in the New Forest! In the year 1608, a survey
+of the timber, in the New Forest, was made, when there were loads of oak
+timber fit for the navy, 315,477. Mark that, reader. Another survey was
+taken in the year 1783; that is to say, in the glorious Jubilee reign.
+And, when there were, in this same New Forest, loads of oak timber fit
+for the navy, 20,830. "Waust improvements, Ma'am," under "the Pilot that
+weathered the storm," and in the reign of Jubilee! What the devil, some
+one would say, could have become of all this timber? Does the reader
+observe that there were three hundred and fifteen thousand, four hundred
+and seventy-seven _loads_? and does he observe that a load is _fifty-two
+cubic feet_? Does the reader know what is the price of this load of
+timber? I suppose it is now, taking in lop, top and bark, and bought
+upon the spot (timber fit for the navy, mind!), ten pounds a load at the
+least. But let us suppose that it has been, upon an average, since the
+year 1608, just the time that the Stuarts were mounting the throne; let
+us suppose that it has been, on an average, four pounds a load. Here is
+a pretty tough sum of money. This must have gone into the pockets of
+somebody. At any rate, if we had the same quantity of timber now that we
+had when the Protestant Reformation took place, or even when Old Betsy
+turned up her toes, we should be now three millions of money richer than
+we are; not in _bills_; not in notes payable to bearer on demand; not in
+Scotch "cash credits;" not, in short, in lies, falseness, impudence,
+downright blackguard cheatery and mining shares and "Greek cause" and
+the devil knows what.
+
+I shall have occasion to return to this New Forest, which is, in
+reality, though, in general, a very barren district, a much more
+interesting object to Englishmen than are the services of my Lord
+Palmerston, and the warlike undertakings of Burdett, Galloway and
+Company; but I cannot quit this spot, even for the present, without
+asking the Scotch population-mongers and Malthus and his crew, and
+especially George Chalmers, if he should yet be creeping about upon the
+face of the earth, what becomes of all their notions of the scantiness
+of the ancient population of England; what becomes of all these notions,
+of all their bundles of ridiculous lies about the fewness of the people
+in former times; what becomes of them all, if historians have told us
+one word of truth, with regard to the formation of the New Forest, by
+William the Conqueror. All the historians say, every one of them says,
+that this King destroyed several populous towns and villages in order to
+make this New Forest.
+
+
+
+
+RIDE: FROM WESTON, NEAR SOUTHAMPTON, TO KENSINGTON.
+
+
+_Western Grove, 18th Oct. 1826._
+
+I broke off abruptly, under this same date, in my last Register, when
+speaking of William the Conqueror's demolishing of towns and villages to
+make the New Forest; and I was about to show that all the historians
+have told us lies the most abominable about this affair of the New
+Forest; or, that the Scotch writers on population, and particularly
+Chalmers, have been the greatest of fools, or the most impudent of
+impostors. I, therefore, now resume this matter, it being, in my
+opinion, a matter of great interest, at a time, when, in order to
+account for the present notoriously _bad living_ of the people of
+England, it is asserted, that they are become greatly more numerous than
+they formerly were. This would be no defence of the Government, even if
+the fact were so; but, as I have, over and over again, proved, the fact
+is false; and, to this I challenge denial, that either churches and
+great mansions and castles were formerly made without hands; or, England
+was, seven hundred years ago, much more populous than it is now. But
+what has the formation of the New Forest to do with this? A great deal;
+for the historians tell us that, in order to make this Forest, William
+the Conqueror destroyed "many populous towns and villages, and
+thirty-six parish churches!" The devil he did! How _populous_, then,
+good God, must England have been at that time, which was about the year
+1090; that is to say, 736 years ago! For, the Scotch will hardly contend
+that the _nature of the soil_ has been changed for the worse since that
+time, especially as it has not been cultivated. No, no; _brassy_ as they
+are, they will not do that. Come, then, let us see how this matter
+stands.
+
+This Forest has been crawled upon by favourites, and is now much smaller
+than it used to be. A time may, and _will_ come, for inquiring HOW
+George Rose, and others, became _owners_ of some of the very best parts
+of this once-public property; a time for such inquiry _must_ come,
+before the people of England will ever give their consent to _a
+reduction of the interest of the debt_! But this we know, that the New
+Forest formerly extended, westward, from the Southampton Water and the
+River Oux, to the River Avon, and northward, from Lymington Haven to the
+borders of Wiltshire. We know that this was its utmost extent; and we
+know, also, that the towns of Christchurch, Lymington, Ringwood, and
+Fordingbridge, and the villages of Bolder, Fawley, Lyndhurst, Dipden,
+Eling, Minsted, and all the other villages that now have churches; we
+know, I say (and, pray mark it), that all these towns and villages
+existed before the Norman Conquest: because the _Roman names_ of several
+of them (all the towns) are in print, and because an account of them all
+is to be found in _Doomsday Book_, which was made by this very William
+the Conqueror. Well, then, now Scotch population-liars, and you
+Malthusian blasphemers, who contend that God has implanted in man a
+_principle_ that _leads him to starvation_; come, now, and face this
+history of the New Forest. Cooke, in his Geography of Hampshire, says,
+that the Conqueror destroyed here "many populous towns and villages, and
+thirty-six parish churches." The same writer says, that, in the time of
+Edward the Confessor (_just_ before the Conqueror came), "two-thirds of
+the Forest was inhabited and cultivated." Guthrie says nearly the same
+thing. But let us hear the two historians, who are now pitted against
+each other, Hume and Lingard. The former (vol. II. p. 277) says: "There
+was one pleasure to which William, as well as all the Normans and
+ancient Saxons, was extremely addicted, and that was hunting: but this
+pleasure he indulged more at the expense of his unhappy subjects, whose
+interests he always disregarded, than to the loss or diminution of his
+own revenue. Not content with those large forests, which former Kings
+possessed, in all parts of England, he resolved to make a new Forest,
+near Winchester, the usual place of his residence: and, for that
+purpose, he _laid waste_ the county of Hampshire, _for an extent of
+thirty miles, expelled the inhabitants_ from their houses, seized their
+property, even _demolished churches and convents_, and made the
+sufferers no compensation for the injury." Pretty well for a pensioned
+Scotchman: and now let us hear Dr. Lingard, to prevent his Society from
+_presenting whose work to me_, the sincere and pious Samuel Butler was
+ready to go down upon his _marrow bones_; let us hear the good Doctor
+upon this subject. He says (vol. I. pp. 452 and 453), "Though the King
+possessed sixty-eight forests, besides parks and chases, in different
+parts of England, he was not yet satisfied, but for the occasional
+accommodation of his court, afforested an _extensive tract of country_
+lying between the city of Winchester and the sea coast. The
+_inhabitants were expelled_: the cottages and the _churches were burnt_;
+and more than _thirty square miles_ of a _rich and populous_ district
+were _withdrawn from cultivation_, and converted into a _wilderness_, to
+afford sufficient range for the deer, and ample space for the royal
+diversion. The memory of this act of despotism has been perpetuated in
+the name of the New Forest, which it retains at the present day, after
+the lapse of seven hundred and fifty years."
+
+"_Historians_" should be careful how they make statements relative to
+_places_ which are within the scope of the reader's _inspection_. It is
+next to impossible not to believe that the Doctor has, in this case (a
+very interesting one), merely _copied_ from HUME. Hume says, that the
+King "_expelled_ the inhabitants;" and Lingard says "the inhabitants
+_were expelled_;" Hume says that the King "_demolished_ the churches;"
+and Lingard says that "the churches were _burnt_;" but Hume says,
+churches "and _convents_," and Lingard _knew_ that to be a lie. The
+Doctor was too learned upon the subject of "_convents_" to follow the
+Scotchman here. Hume says that the King "laid _waste_ the country for an
+_extent of thirty miles_." "The Doctor says that a district of _thirty
+square miles_ was withdrawn from cultivation, and converted into a
+_wilderness_." Now, what HUME meaned by the loose phrase, "an _extent of
+thirty miles_," I cannot say; but this I know, that Dr. Lingard's
+"thirty square miles" is a piece of ground only five and a half miles
+each way! So that the Doctor has got here a curious "_district_," and a
+not less curious "_wilderness_;" and what number of _churches_ could
+WILLIAM find to _burn_, in a space five miles and a half each way? If
+the Doctor meaned thirty _miles square_, instead of _square miles_, the
+falsehood is so monstrous as to destroy his credit for ever; for here we
+have Nine Hundred Square Miles, containing _five hundred and seventy-six
+thousand acres of land_; that is to say, 56,960 acres more than are
+contained in the whole of the county of Surrey, and 99,840 acres more
+than are contained in the whole of the county of Berks! This is
+"_history_," is it! And these are "_historians_."
+
+The true statement is this: the New Forest, according to its ancient
+state, was bounded thus: by the line, going from the river Oux to the
+river Avon, and which line there separates Wiltshire from Hampshire; by
+the river Avon; by the sea from Christchurch to Calshot Castle; by the
+Southampton Water; and by the river Oux. These are the boundaries; and
+(as any one may, by scale and compass, ascertain), there are, within
+these boundaries, about 224 square miles, containing 143,360 acres of
+land. Within these limits there are now remaining eleven parish
+churches, all of which were in existence before the time of William the
+Conqueror; so that, if he destroyed thirty-six parish churches, what a
+populous country this must have been! There must have been forty-seven
+parish churches; so that there was, over this whole district, one parish
+church to every four and three quarters square miles! Thus, then, the
+churches must have stood, on an average, at within one mile and about
+two hundred yards of each other! And observe, the parishes could, on an
+average, contain no more, each, than 2,966 acres of land! Not a very
+large farm; so that here was a parish church to every large farm, unless
+these historians are all fools and liars.
+
+I defy any one to say that I make hazardous assertions: I have plainly
+described the ancient boundaries: there are _the maps_: any one can,
+with scale and compass, measure the area as well as I can. I have taken
+the statements of historians, as they call themselves: I have shown that
+their histories, as they call them, are fabulous; OR (and mind this
+_or_) that England was, at one time, and that too, eight hundred years
+ago, _beyond all measure more populous than it is now_. For, observe,
+notwithstanding what Dr. Lingard asserts; notwithstanding that he
+describes this district as "_rich_," it is the very poorest in the whole
+kingdom. Dr. Lingard was, I believe, born and bred at Winchester; and
+how, then, could he be so careless; or, indeed, so regardless of truth
+(and I do not see why I am to mince the matter with him), as to describe
+this as a _rich district_? Innumerable persons have seen
+_Bagshot-Heath_; great numbers have seen the barren heaths between
+London and Brighton; great numbers, also, have seen that wide sweep of
+barrenness which exhibits itself between the Golden Farmer Hill and
+Black-water. Nine-tenths of each of these are less barren than
+four-fifths of the land in the New Forest. Supposing it to be credible
+that a man so prudent and so wise as William the Conqueror; supposing
+that such a man should have pitched upon a _rich_ and _populous_
+district wherewith to make a chase; supposing, in short, these
+historians to have spoken the truth, and supposing this barren land to
+have been all inhabited and cultivated, and the people so numerous and
+so rich as to be able to build and endow a parish church upon every four
+and three quarters square miles upon this extensive district; supposing
+them to have been so rich in the produce of the soil as to want a priest
+to be stationed at every mile and 200 yards, in order to help them to
+eat it; supposing, in a word, these historians not to be the most
+farcical liars that ever put pen upon paper, this country must, at the
+time of the Norman conquest, have literally _swarmed_ with people; for,
+_there is the land now_, and all the land, too: neither Hume nor Dr.
+Lingard can change the nature of that. There it is, an acre of it not
+having, upon an average, so much of productive capacity in it as one
+single square rod, taking the average, of Worcestershire; and if I were
+to say one single _square yard_, I should be right; there is the land;
+and if that land were as these historians say it was, covered with
+people and with churches, what the devil must Worcestershire have been!
+To this, then, we come at last: having made out what I undertook to
+show; namely, that the historians, as they call themselves, are either
+the greatest fools or the greatest liars that ever existed, or that
+England was beyond all measure more populous eight hundred years ago
+than it is now.
+
+Poor, however, as this district is, and culled about as it has been for
+the best spots of land by those favourites who have got grants of land
+or leases or something or other, still there are some spots here and
+there which would grow trees; but never will it grow trees, or anything
+else _to the profit of this nation_, until it become _private property_.
+Public property must, in some cases, be in the hands of public officers;
+but this is not an affair of that nature. This is too loose a concern;
+too little controllable by superiors. It is a thing calculated for
+jobbing, above all others; calculated to promote the success of
+favouritism. Who can imagine that the persons employed about plantations
+and farms for the public, are employed because _they are fit_ for the
+employment? Supposing the commissioners to hold in abhorrence the idea
+of paying for services to themselves under the name of paying for
+services to the public; supposing them never to have heard of such a
+thing in their lives, can they imagine that nothing of this sort takes
+place, while they are in London eleven months out of twelve in the year?
+I never feel disposed to cast much censure upon any of the persons
+engaged in such concerns. The temptation is too great to be resisted.
+The public must pay for everything _a pois d'or_. Therefore, no such
+thing should be in the hands of the public, or, rather, of the
+government; and I hope to live to see this thing completely taken out of
+the hands of this government.
+
+It was night-fall when we arrived at Eling, that is to say, at the head
+of the Southampton Water. Our horses were very hungry. We stopped to
+bait them, and set off just about dusk to come to this place (Weston
+Grove), stopping at Southampton on our way, and leaving a letter to come
+to London. Between Southampton and this place, we cross a bridge over
+the Itchen river, and, coming up a hill into a common, which is called
+Town-hill Common, we passed, lying on our right, a little park and
+house, occupied by the Irish Bible-man, Lord Ashdown, I think they call
+him, whose real name is French, and whose family are so very _well
+known_ in the most unfortunate sister-kingdom. Just at the back of his
+house, in another sort of paddock-place, lives a man, whose name I
+forget, who was, I believe, a coachmaker in the East Indies, and whose
+father, or uncle, kept a turnpike gate at Chelsea, a few years ago. See
+the effects of "_industry_ and _enterprise_"! But even these would be
+nothing, were it not for this wondrous system by which money can be
+snatched away from the labourer in this very parish, for instance, sent
+off to the East Indies, there help to make a mass to put into the hands
+of an adventurer, and then the mass may be brought back in the pockets
+of the adventurer and cause him to be called a 'Squire by the labourer
+whose earnings were so snatched away! Wondrous system! Pity it cannot
+last for ever! Pity that it has got a Debt of a thousand millions to
+pay! Pity that it cannot turn paper into gold! Pity that it will make
+such fools of Prosperity Robinson and his colleagues!
+
+The moon shone very bright by the time that we mounted the hill; and
+now, skirting the enclosures upon the edge of the common, we passed
+several of those cottages which I so well recollected, and in which I
+had the satisfaction to believe that the inhabitants were sitting
+comfortably with bellies full by a good fire. It was eight o'clock
+before we arrived at Mr. Chamberlayne's, whom I had not seen since, I
+think, the year 1816; for in the fall of that year I came to London, and
+I never returned to Botley (which is only about three miles and a half
+from Weston) to stay there for any length of time. To those who like
+water-scenes (as nineteen-twentieths of people do) it is the prettiest
+spot, I believe, in all England. Mr. Chamberlayne built the house about
+twenty years ago. He has been bringing the place to greater and greater
+perfection from that time to this. All round about the house is in the
+neatest possible order. I should think that, altogether, there cannot be
+so little as _ten acres of short grass_; and when I say _that_, those
+who know anything about gardens will form a pretty correct general
+notion as to the _scale_ on which the thing is carried on. Until of
+late, Mr. Chamberlayne was owner of only a small part, comparatively, of
+the lands hereabouts. He is now the owner, I believe, of the whole of
+the lands that come down to the water's edge and that lie between the
+ferry over the Itchen at Southampton, and the river which goes out from
+the Southampton Water at Hamble. And now let me describe, as well as I
+can, what this land and its situation are.
+
+The Southampton Water begins at Portsmouth, and goes up by Southampton,
+to Redbridge, being, upon an average, about two miles wide, having, on
+the one side, the New Forest, and on the other side, for a great part of
+the way, this fine and beautiful estate of Mr. Chamberlayne. Both sides
+of this water have rising lands divided into hill and dale, and very
+beautifully clothed with trees, the woods and lawns and fields being
+most advantageously intermixed. It is very curious that, at the _back_
+of each of these tracts of land, there are extensive heaths, on this
+side as well as on the New Forest side. To stand here and look across
+the water at the New Forest, you would imagine that it was really _a
+country of woods_; for you can see nothing of the heaths from here;
+those heaths over which we rode, and from which we could see a windmill
+down among the trees, which windmill is now to be seen just opposite
+this place. So that the views from this place are the most beautiful
+that can be imagined. You see up the water and down the water, to
+Redbridge one way and out to Spithead the other way. Through the trees,
+to the right, you see the spires of Southampton, and you have only to
+walk a mile, over a beautiful lawn and through a not less beautiful
+wood, to find, in a little dell, surrounded with lofty woods, the
+venerable ruins of _Netley Abbey_, which make part of Mr. Chamberlayne's
+estate.
+
+The woods here are chiefly of oak; the ground consists of a series of
+hill and dale, as you go long-wise from one end of the estate to the
+other, _about six miles in length_. Down almost every little valley that
+divides these hills or hillocks, there is more or less of water, making
+the underwood, in those parts, very thick, and dark to go through; and
+these form the most delightful contrast with the fields and lawns. There
+are innumerable vessels of various sizes continually upon the water;
+and, to those that delight in water-scenes, this is certainly the very
+prettiest place that I ever saw in my life. I had seen it many years
+ago; and, as I intended to come here on my way home, I told George,
+before we set out, that I would show him _another Weston_ before we got
+to London. The parish in which his father's house is, is also called
+Weston, and a very beautiful spot it certainly is; but I told him I
+questioned whether I could not show him a still prettier Weston than
+that. We let him alone for the first day. He sat in the house, and saw
+great multitudes of pheasants and partridges upon the lawn before the
+window: he went down to the water-side by himself, and put his foot upon
+the ground to see the tide rise. He seemed very much delighted. The
+second morning, at breakfast, we put it to him, which he would rather
+have; this Weston or the Weston he had left in Herefordshire; but,
+though I introduced the question in a way almost to extort a decision in
+favour of the Hampshire Weston, he decided instantly and plump for the
+other, in a manner very much to the delight of Mr. Chamberlayne and his
+sister. So true it is that, when people are uncorrupted, they always
+_like home best_, be it, in itself, what it may.
+
+Everything that nature can do has been done here; and money most
+judiciously employed has come to her assistance. Here are a thousand
+things to give pleasure to any rational mind; but there is one thing,
+which, in my estimation, surpasses, in pleasure, to contemplate, all the
+lawns and all the groves and all the gardens and all the game and
+everything else; and that is, the real, unaffected goodness of the owner
+of this estate. He is a member for Southampton; he has other fine
+estates; he has great talents; he is much admired by all who know him;
+but he has done more by his justice, by his just way of thinking with
+regard to the labouring people, than in all other ways put together.
+This was nothing new to me; for I was well informed of it several years
+ago, though I had never heard him speak of it in my life. When he came
+to this place, the common wages of day-labouring men were _thirteen
+shillings a week_, and the wages of carpenters, bricklayers, and other
+tradesmen, were in proportion. Those wages he _has given, from that time
+to this_, without any abatement whatever. With these wages, a man can
+live, having, at the same time, other advantages attending the working
+for such a man as Mr. Chamberlayne. He has got less money in his bags
+than he would have had, if he had ground men down in their wages; but if
+his sleep be not sounder than that of the hard-fisted wretch that can
+walk over grass and gravel, kept in order by a poor creature that is
+half-starved; if his sleep be not sounder than the sleep of such a
+wretch, then all that we have been taught is false, and there is no
+difference between the man who feeds and the man who starves the poor:
+all the Scripture is a bundle of lies, and instead of being propagated
+it ought to be flung into the fire.
+
+It is curious enough that those who are the least disposed to give good
+wages to the labouring people, should be the most disposed to discover
+for them _schemes for saving their money_! I have lately seen, I saw it
+at Uphusband, a prospectus, or scheme, for establishing what they call a
+_County Friendly Society_. This is a scheme for getting from the poor a
+part of the wages that they receive. Just as if a poor fellow could _put
+anything by_ out of eight shillings a week! If, indeed, the schemers
+were to pay the labourers twelve or thirteen shillings a week; then
+these might have something to lay by at some times of the year; but
+then, indeed, there would be _no poor-rates wanted_; and it is to _get
+rid of the poor-rates_ that these schemers have invented their society.
+What wretched drivellers they must be: to think that they should be able
+to make the pauper keep the pauper; to think that they shall be able to
+make the man that is half-starved lay by part of his loaf! I know of no
+county where the poor are worse treated than in many parts of this
+county of Hants. It is happy to know of one instance in which they are
+well treated; and I deem it a real honour to be under the roof of him
+who has uniformly set so laudable an example in this most important
+concern. What are all his riches to me? They form no title to my
+respect. 'Tis not for me to set myself up in judgment as to his taste,
+his learning, his various qualities and endowments; but of these his
+unequivocal works I am a competent judge. I know how much good he must
+do; and there is a great satisfaction in reflecting on the great
+happiness that he must feel, when, in laying his head upon his pillow of
+a cold and dreary winter night, he reflects that there are scores, aye,
+scores upon scores, of his country-people, of his poor neighbours, of
+those whom the Scripture denominates his brethren, who have been
+enabled, through him, to retire to a warm bed after spending a cheerful
+evening and taking a full meal by the side of their own fire. People may
+talk what they will about _happiness_; but I can figure to myself no
+happiness surpassing that of the man who falls to sleep with reflections
+like these in his mind.
+
+Now observe, it is a duty, on my part, to relate what I have here
+related as to the conduct of Mr. Chamberlayne; not a duty towards _him_;
+for I can do him no good by it, and I do most sincerely believe, that
+both he and his equally benevolent sister would rather that their
+goodness remained unproclaimed; but it is a duty towards my country, and
+particularly towards my readers. Here is a striking and a most valuable
+practical example. Here is a whole neighbourhood of labourers living as
+they ought to live; enjoying that happiness which is the just reward of
+their toil. And shall I suppress facts so honourable to those who are
+the cause of this happiness, facts so interesting in themselves, and so
+likely to be useful in the way of example; shall I do this, aye, and,
+besides this, _tacitly_ give a _false account_ of Weston Grove, and
+this, too, from the stupid and cowardly fear of being accused of
+flattering a rich man?
+
+Netley Abbey ought, it seems, to be called Letley Abbey, the Latin name
+being Laetus Locus, or Pleasant Place. _Letley_ was made up of an
+abbreviation of the _Laetus_ and of the Saxon word _ley_, which meaned
+_place_, _field_, or _piece of ground_. This Abbey was founded by Henry
+III. in 1239, for 12 Monks of the Benedictine order; and when suppressed
+by the wife-killer, its revenues amounted to 3,200_l._ a year of our
+present money. The possessions of these monks were, by the wife-killing
+founder of the Church of England, given away (though they belonged to
+the public) to one of his court sycophants, Sir William Paulet, a man
+the most famous in the whole world for sycophancy, time-serving, and for
+all those qualities which usually distinguish the favourites of kings
+like the wife-killer. This Paulet changed from the Popish to Henry the
+Eighth's religion, and was a great actor in punishing the papists; when
+Edward VI. came to the throne, this Paulet turned protestant, and was a
+great actor in punishing those who adhered to Henry VIIIth's religion:
+when Queen Mary came to the throne, this Paulet turned back to papist,
+and was one of the great actors in sending protestants to be burnt in
+Smithfield: when Old Bess came to the throne, this Paulet turned back to
+protestant again, and was, until the day of his death, one of the great
+actors in persecuting, in fining, in mulcting, and in putting to death
+those who still had the virtue and the courage to adhere to the religion
+in which they and he had been born and bred. The _head_ of this family
+got, at last, to be Earl of Wiltshire, Marquis of Winchester, and Duke
+of Bolton. This last title is now _gone_; or, rather, it is changed to
+that of "Lord Bolton," which is now borne by a man of the name of Orde,
+who is the son of a man of that name, who died some years ago, and who
+married a daughter (I think it was) of the last "Duke of Bolton."
+
+Pretty curious, and not a little interesting, to look back at the
+_origin_ of this Dukedom of Bolton, and, then, to look at the person now
+bearing the title of _Bolton_; and, then, to go to Abbotston, near
+Winchester, and survey the ruins of the proud palace, once inhabited by
+the Duke of Bolton, which ruins, and the estate on which they stand, are
+now the property of the Loan-maker, Alexander Baring! Curious turn of
+things! Henry the wife-killer and his confiscating successors _granted_
+the estates of Netley, and of many other monasteries, to the head of
+these Paulets: to maintain these and other similar grants, a thing
+called a "Reformation" was made: to maintain the "Reformation," a
+"Glorious Revolution" was made: to maintain the "Glorious Revolution" a
+_Debt_ was made: to maintain the Debt, a large part of the rents must go
+to the Debt-Dealers, or Loan-makers: and thus, at last, the Barings,
+only in this one neighbourhood, have become the successors of the
+Wriothesleys, the Paulets, and the Russells, who, throughout all the
+reigns of confiscation, were constantly _in the way_, when a
+distribution of good things was taking place! Curious enough all this;
+but, the thing will not _stop here_. The Loan-makers think that they
+shall outwit the old grantee-fellows; and so they might, and the people
+too, and the devil himself; but they cannot out-wit _events_. Those
+events _will have a thorough rummaging_; and of this fact the
+"turn-of-the-market" gentlemen may be assured. Can it be _law_ (I put
+the question to _lawyers_), can it be _law_ (I leave reason and justice
+out of the inquiry), can it be _law_, that, if I, to-day, see dressed in
+good clothes, and with a full purse, a man who was notoriously penniless
+yesterday; can it be law, that I (being a justice of the peace) have a
+right to demand of that man _how he came by his clothes and his purse_?
+And, can it be _law_, that I, seeing with an estate a man who was
+notoriously not worth a crown piece a few years ago, and who is
+notoriously related to nothing more than one degree above beggary; can
+it be _law_, that I, a magistrate, seeing this, have not a right to
+demand of this man how he came by his estate? No matter, however; for,
+if both these be law now, they will not, I trust, be law in a few years
+from this time.
+
+Mr. Chamberlayne has caused the ancient _fish-ponds_, at Netley Abbey,
+to be "reclaimed," as they call it. What a loss, what a national loss,
+there has been in this way, and in the article of water fowl! I am quite
+satisfied that, in these two articles and in that of _rabbits_, the
+nation has lost, has had annihilated (within the last 250 years) food
+sufficient for two days in the week, on an average, taking the year
+throughout. These are things, too, which cost so little labour! You can
+see the marks of old fish-ponds in thousands and thousands of places. I
+have noticed, I dare say, five hundred, since I left home. A trifling
+expense would, in most cases, restore them; but now-a-days all is looked
+for at shops: all is to be had by trafficking: scarcely any one thinks
+of providing for his own wants out of his own land and other his own
+domestic means. To buy the thing, _ready made_, is the taste of the day;
+thousands, who are housekeepers, buy their dinners ready cooked; nothing
+is so common as to rent breasts for children to suck: a man actually
+advertised, in the London papers, about two month ago, to supply
+childless husbands with heirs! In this case the articles were, of
+course, to be _ready made_; for to make them "to order" would be the
+devil of a business; though in desperate cases even this is, I believe,
+sometimes resorted to.
+
+
+_Hambledon, Sunday, 22nd Oct. 1826._
+
+We left Weston Grove on Friday morning, and came across to Botley, where
+we remained during the rest of the day, and until after breakfast
+yesterday. I had not seen "the Botley Parson" for several years, and I
+wished to have a look at him now, but could not get a sight of him,
+though we rode close before his house, at much about his breakfast time,
+and though we gave him the strongest of invitation that could be
+expressed by hallooing and by cracking of whips! The fox was too
+cunning for us, and do all we could, we could not provoke him to put
+even his nose out of kennel. From Mr. James Warner's at Botley we went
+to Mr. Hallett's, at Allington, and had the very great pleasure of
+seeing him in excellent health. We intended to go back to Botley, and
+then to go to Titchfield, and, in our way to this place, over Portsdown
+Hill, whence I intended to show George the harbour and the fleet, and
+(of still more importance) the spot on which we signed the "Hampshire
+Petition," in 1817; that petition which foretold that which the "Norfolk
+Petition" confirmed; that petition which will be finally acted upon,
+or.... That petition was the very _last thing that I wrote at Botley_. I
+came to London in November 1816; the Power-of-Imprisonment Bill was
+passed in February, 1817; just before it was passed, the Meeting took
+place on Portsdown Hill; and I, in my way to the hill from London,
+stopped at Botley and wrote the petition. We had one meeting afterwards
+at Winchester, when I heard parsons swear like troopers, and saw one of
+them hawk up his spittle, and spit it into Lord Cochrane's poll! Ah! my
+bucks, we have you _now_! You are got nearly to the end of your tether;
+and, what is more, _you know it_. Pay off the Debt, parsons! It is
+useless to swear and spit, and to present addresses applauding
+Power-of-Imprisonment Bills, unless you can pay off the Debt! Pay off
+the Debt, parsons! They say you can _lay_ the devil. Lay _this_ devil,
+then; or, confess that he is too many for you; aye, and for Sturges
+Bourne, or Bourne Sturges (I forget which), at your backs!
+
+From Arlington, we, fearing that it would rain before we could get round
+by Titchfield, came across the country over Waltham Chase and Soberton
+Down. The chase was very green and fine; but the down was the very
+greenest thing that I have seen in the whole country. It is not a large
+down; perhaps not more than five or six hundred acres; but the land is
+good, the chalk is at a foot from the surface, or more; the mould is a
+hazel mould; and when I was upon the opposite hill, I could, though I
+knew the spot very well, hardly believe that it was a down. The green
+was darker than that of any pasture or even any sainfoin or clover that
+I had seen throughout the whole of my ride; and I should suppose that
+there could not have been many less than a thousand sheep in the three
+flocks that were feeding upon the down when I came across it. I do not
+speak with anything like positiveness as to the measurement of this
+down; but I do not believe that it exceeds six hundred and fifty acres.
+They must have had more rain in this part of the country than in most
+other parts of it. Indeed, no part of Hampshire seems to have suffered
+very much from the drought. I found the turnips pretty good, of both
+sorts, all the way from Andover to Rumsey. Through the New Forest, you
+may as well expect to find loaves of bread growing in fields as turnips,
+where there are any fields for them to grow in. From Redbridge to
+Weston, we had not light enough to see much about us; but when we came
+down to Botley, we there found the turnips as good as I had ever seen
+them in my life, as far I could judge from the time I had to look at
+them. Mr. Warner has as fine turnip fields as I ever saw him have,
+Swedish turnips and white also; and pretty nearly the same may be said
+of the whole of that neighbourhood for many miles round.
+
+After quitting Soberton Down, we came up a hill leading to Hambledon,
+and turned off to our left to bring us down to Mr. Goldsmith's at West
+End, where we now are, at about a mile from the village of Hambledon. A
+village it _now_ is; but it was formerly a considerable market-town, and
+it had three fairs in the year. There is now not even the name of market
+left, I believe; and the fairs amount to little more than a couple or
+three gingerbread-stalls, with dolls and whistles for children. If you
+go through the place, you see that it has been a considerable town. The
+church tells the same story; it is now a tumble-down rubbishy place; it
+is partaking in the fate of all those places which were formerly a sort
+of rendezvous for persons who had things to buy and things to sell.
+_Wens_ have devoured market-towns and villages; and _shops_ have
+devoured _markets and fairs_; and this, too, to the infinite injury of
+the most numerous classes of the people. Shop-keeping, merely as
+shop-keeping, is injurious to any community. What are the shop and the
+shop-keeper for? To receive and distribute the produce of the land.
+There are other articles, certainly; but the main part is the produce of
+the land. The shop must be paid for; the shop-keeper must be kept; and
+the one must be paid for and the other must be kept by the consumer of
+the produce; or, perhaps, partly by the consumer and partly by the
+producer.
+
+When fairs were very frequent, shops were not needed. A manufacturer of
+shoes, of stockings, of hats; of almost any thing that man wants, could
+manufacture at home in an obscure hamlet, with cheap house-rent, good
+air, and plenty of room. He need pay no heavy rent for shop; and no
+disadvantages from confined situation; and, then, by attending three or
+four or five or six fairs in a year, he sold the work of his hands,
+unloaded with a heavy expense attending the keeping of a shop. He would
+get more for ten shillings in a booth at a fair or market, than he would
+get in a shop for ten or twenty pounds. Of course he could afford to
+sell the work of his hands for less; and thus a greater portion of their
+earnings remained with those who raised the food and the clothing from
+the land. I had an instance of this in what occurred to myself at
+Weyhill fair. When I was at Salisbury, in September, I wanted to buy a
+whip. It was a common hunting-whip, with a hook to it to pull open gates
+with, and I could not get it for less than seven shillings and sixpence.
+This was more than I had made up my mind to give, and I went on with my
+switch. When we got to Weyhill fair, George had made shift to lose his
+whip some time before, and I had made him go without one by way of
+punishment. But now, having come to the fair, and seeing plenty of
+whips, I bought him one, just such a one as had been offered me at
+Salisbury for seven and sixpence, for four and sixpence; and, seeing the
+man with his whips afterwards, I thought I would have one myself; and he
+let me have it for three shillings. So that, here were two whips,
+precisely of the same kind and quality as the whip at Salisbury, bought
+for the money which the man at Salisbury asked me for one whip. And yet,
+far be it from me to accuse the man at Salisbury of an attempt at
+extortion: he had an expensive shop, and a family in a town to support,
+while my Weyhill fellow had been making his whips in some house in the
+country, which he rented, probably for five or six pounds a year, with a
+good garden to it. Does not every one see, in a minute, how this
+exchanging of fairs and markets for shops creates _idlers and
+traffickers_; creates those locusts, called middle-men, who create
+nothing, who add to the value of nothing, who improve nothing, but who
+live in idleness, and who live well, too, out of the labour of the
+producer and the consumer. The fair and the market, those wise
+institutions of our forefathers, and with regard to the management of
+which they were so scrupulously careful; the fair and the market bring
+the producer and the consumer in contact with each other. Whatever is
+gained is, at any rate, gained by one or the other of these. The fair
+and the market bring them together, and enable them to act for their
+mutual interest and convenience. The shop and the trafficker keeps them
+apart; the shop hides from both producer and consumer the real state of
+matters. The fair and the market lay everything open: going to either,
+you see the state of things at once; and the transactions are fair and
+just, not disfigured, too, by falsehood, and by those attempts at
+deception which disgrace traffickings in general.
+
+Very wise, too, and very just, were the laws against _forestalling_ and
+_regrating_. They were laws to prevent the producer and the consumer
+from being cheated by the trafficker. There are whole bodies of men;
+indeed, a very large part of the community, who live in idleness in this
+country, in consequence of the whole current of the laws now running in
+favour of the trafficking monopoly. It has been a great object with all
+wise governments, in all ages, from the days of Moses to the present
+day, to confine trafficking, mere trafficking, to as few hands as
+possible. It seems to be the main object of this government to give all
+possible encouragement to traffickers of every description, and to make
+them swarm like the lice of Egypt. There is that numerous sect, the
+Quakers. This sect arose in England: they were engendered by the Jewish
+system of usury. Till _excises_ and _loanmongering_ began, these vermin
+were never heard of in England. They seem to have been hatched by that
+fraudulent system, as maggots are bred by putrid meat, or as the
+flounders come in the livers of rotten sheep. The base vermin do not
+pretend to work: all they talk about is dealing; and the government, in
+place of making laws that would put them in the stocks, or cause them to
+be whipped at the cart's tail, really seem anxious to encourage them and
+to increase their numbers; nay, it is not long since Mr. Brougham had
+the effrontery to move for leave to bring in a bill to make men liable
+to be hanged upon the bare word of these vagabonds. This is, with me,
+something never to be forgotten. But everything tends the same way: all
+the regulations, all the laws that have been adopted of late years, have
+a tendency to give encouragement to the trickster and the trafficker,
+and to take from the labouring classes all the honour and a great part
+of the food that fairly belonged to them.
+
+In coming along yesterday, from Waltham Chase to Soberton Down, we
+passed by a big white house upon a hill that was, when I lived at
+Botley, occupied by one Goodlad, who was a cock justice of the peace,
+and who had been a chap of some sort or other, in _India_. There was a
+man of the name of Singleton, who lived in Waltham Chase, and who was
+deemed to be a great poacher. This man, having been forcibly ousted by
+the order of this Goodlad and some others from an encroachment that he
+had made in the forest, threatened revenge. Soon after this, a horse (I
+forget to whom it belonged) was stabbed or shot in the night-time in a
+field. Singleton was taken up, tried at Winchester, convicted and
+_transported_. I cannot relate exactly what took place. I remember that
+there were some curious circumstances attending the conviction of this
+man. The people in that neighbourhood were deeply impressed with these
+circumstances. Singleton was transported; but Goodlad and his wife were
+both dead and buried, in less, I believe, than three months after the
+departure of poor Singleton. I do not know that any injustice really was
+done; but I do know that a great impression was produced, and a very
+sorrowful impression, too, on the minds of the people in that
+neighbourhood.
+
+I cannot quit Waltham Chase without observing, that I heard, last year,
+that a Bill was about to be petitioned for, to enclose that Chase! Never
+was so monstrous a proposition in this world. The Bishop of Winchester
+is Lord of the Manor over this Chase. If the Chase be enclosed, the
+timber must be cut down, young and old; and here are a couple of hundred
+acres of land, worth ten thousand acres of land in the New Forest. This
+is as fine timber land as any in the wealds of Surrey, Sussex or Kent.
+There are two enclosures of about 40 acres each, perhaps, that were
+simply surrounded by a bank being thrown up about twenty years ago, only
+twenty years ago, and on the poorest part of the Chase, too; and these
+are now as beautiful plantations of young oak trees as man ever set his
+eyes on; many of them as big or bigger round than my thigh! Therefore,
+besides the sweeping away of two or three hundred cottages; besides
+plunging into ruin and misery all these numerous families, here is one
+of the finest pieces of timber land in the whole kingdom, going to be
+cut up into miserable clay fields, for no earthly purpose but that of
+gratifying the stupid greediness of those who think that they must gain,
+if they add to the breadth of their private fields. But if a thing like
+this be permitted, we must be prettily furnished with Commissioners of
+woods and forests! I do not believe that they will sit in Parliament and
+see a Bill like this passed and hold their tongues; but if they were to
+do it, there is no measure of reproach which they would not merit. Let
+them go and look at the two plantations of oaks, of which I have just
+spoken; and then let them give their consent to such a Bill if they can.
+
+
+_Thursley, Monday Evening, 23rd October._
+
+When I left Weston, my intention was, to go from Hambledon to Up Park,
+thence to Arundel, thence, to Brighton, thence to East-bourne, thence to
+Wittersham in Kent, and then by Cranbrook, Tunbridge, Godstone and
+Reigate to London; but when I got to Botley, and particularly when I got
+to Hambledon, I found my horse's back so much hurt by the saddle, that I
+was afraid to take so long a stretch, and therefore resolved to come
+away straight to this place, to go hence to Reigate, and so to London.
+Our way, therefore, this morning, was over Butser-hill to Petersfield,
+in the first place; then to Lyphook and then to this place, in all about
+twenty-four miles. Butser-hill belongs to the back chain of the South
+Downs; and, indeed, it terminates that chain to the westward. It is the
+highest hill in the whole country. Some think that Hindhead, which is
+the famous sand-hill over which the Portsmouth road goes at sixteen
+miles to the north of this great chalk-hill; some think that Hindhead is
+the highest hill of the two. Be this as it may, Butser-hill, which is
+the right-hand hill of the two between which you go at three miles from
+Petersfield going towards Portsmouth; this Butser-hill, is, I say, quite
+high enough; and was more than high enough for us, for it took us up
+amongst clouds that wet us very nearly to the skin. In going from Mr.
+Goldsmith's to the hill, it is all up hill for five miles. Now and then
+a little stoop; not much; but regularly, with these little exceptions,
+up hill for these five miles. The hill appears, at a distance, to be a
+sharp ridge on its top. It is, however, not so. It is, in some parts,
+half a mile wide or more. The road lies right along the middle of it
+from west to east, and, just when you are at the highest part of the
+hill, it is very narrow from north to south; not more, I think, than
+about a hundred or a hundred and thirty yards.
+
+This is as interesting a spot, I think, as the foot of man ever was
+placed upon. Here are two valleys, one to your right and the other to
+your left, very little less than half a mile down to the bottom of them,
+and much steeper than a tiled roof of a house. These valleys may be,
+where they join the hill, three or four hundred yards broad. They get
+wider as they get farther from the hill. Of a clear day you see all the
+north of Hampshire; nay, the whole county, together with a great part of
+Surrey and of Sussex. You see the whole of the South Downs to the
+eastward as far as your eye can carry you; and, lastly, you see over
+Portsdown Hill, which lies before you to the south; and there are spread
+open to your view the isle of Portsea, Porchester, Wimmering, Fareham,
+Gosport, Portsmouth, the harbour, Spithead, the Isle of Wight and the
+ocean.
+
+But something still more interesting occurred to me here in the year
+1808, when I was coming on horseback over the same hill from Botley to
+London. It was a very beautiful day and in summer. Before I got upon the
+hill (on which I had never been before), a shepherd told me to keep on
+in the road in which I was, till I came to the London turnpike road.
+When I got to within a quarter of a mile of this particular point of the
+hill, I saw, at this point, what I thought was a cloud of dust; and,
+speaking to my servant about it, I found that he thought so too; but
+this cloud of dust disappeared all at once. Soon after, there appeared
+to arise another cloud of dust at the same place, and then that
+disappeared, and the spot was clear again. As we were trotting along, a
+pretty smart pace, we soon came to this narrow place, having one valley
+to our right and the other valley to our left, and, there, to my great
+astonishment, I saw the clouds come one after another, each appearing to
+be about as big as two or three acres of land, skimming along in the
+valley on the north side, a great deal below the tops of the hills; and
+successively, as they arrived at our end of the valley, rising up,
+crossing the narrow pass, and then descending down into the other valley
+and going off to the south; so that we who sate there upon our horses,
+were alternately in clouds and in sunshine. It is an universal rule,
+that if there be a fog in the morning, and that fog go from the valleys
+to the tops of the hills, there will be rain that day; and if it
+disappear by sinking in the valley, there will be no rain that day. The
+truth is, that fogs are clouds, and clouds are fogs. They are more or
+less full of water; but they are all water; sometimes a sort of steam,
+and sometimes water that falls in drops. Yesterday morning the fogs had
+ascended to the tops of the hills; and it was raining on all the hills
+round about us before it began to rain in the valleys. We, as I observed
+before, got pretty nearly wet to the skin upon the top of Butser-hill;
+but we had the pluck to come on and let the clothes dry upon our backs.
+
+I must here relate something that appears very interesting to me, and
+something, which, though it must have been seen by every man that has
+lived in the country, or, at least, in any hilly country, has never been
+particularly mentioned by anybody as far as I can recollect. We
+frequently talk of clouds coming from _dews_; and we actually see the
+heavy fogs become clouds. We see them go up to the tops of hills, and,
+taking a swim round, actually come and drop down upon us and wet us
+through. But I am now going to speak of clouds coming out of the sides
+of hills in exactly the same manner that you see smoke come out of a
+tobacco pipe, and rising up, with a wider and wider head, like the smoke
+from a tobacco-pipe, go to the top of the hill or over the hill, or very
+much above it, and then come over the valleys in rain. At about a mile's
+distance from Mr. Palmer's house at Bollitree, in Herefordshire, there
+is a large, long beautiful wood, covering the side of a lofty hill,
+winding round in the form of a crescent, the bend of the crescent being
+towards Mr. Palmer's house. It was here that I first observed this mode
+of forming clouds. The first time I noticed it, I pointed it out to Mr.
+Palmer. We stood and observed cloud after cloud come out from different
+parts of the side of the hill, and tower up and go over the hill out of
+sight. He told me that that was a certain sign that it would rain that
+day, for that these clouds would come back again, and would fall in
+rain. It rained sure enough; and I found that the country people, all
+round about, had this mode of the forming of the clouds as a sign of
+rain. The hill is called Penyard, and this forming of the clouds they
+call Old Penyard's _smoking his pipe_; and it is a rule that it is sure
+to rain during the day if Old Penyard smokes his pipe in the morning.
+These appearances take place, especially in warm and sultry weather. It
+was very warm yesterday morning: it had thundered violently the evening
+before: we felt it hot even while the rain fell upon us at Butser-hill.
+Petersfield lies in a pretty broad and very beautiful valley. On three
+sides of it are very lofty hills, partly downs and partly covered with
+trees: and, as we proceeded on our way from the bottom of Butser-hill to
+Petersfield, we saw thousands upon thousands of clouds, continually
+coming puffing out from different parts of these hills and towering up
+to the top of them. I stopped George several times to make him look at
+them; to see them come puffing out of the chalk downs as well as out of
+the woodland hills; and bade him remember to tell his father of it when
+he should get home, to convince him that the hills of Hampshire could
+smoke their pipes as well as those of Herefordshire. This is a really
+curious matter. I have never read, in any book, anything to lead me to
+suppose that the observation has ever found its way into print before.
+Sometimes you will see only one or two clouds during a whole morning,
+come out of the side of a hill; but we saw thousands upon thousands,
+bursting out, one after another, in all parts of these immense hills.
+The first time that I have leisure, when I am in the high countries
+again, I will have a conversation with some old shepherd about this
+matter; if he cannot enlighten me upon the subject, I am sure that no
+philosopher can.
+
+We came through Petersfield without stopping, and baited our horses at
+Lyphook, where we stayed about half an hour. In coming from Lyphook to
+this place, we overtook a man who asked for relief. He told me he was a
+weaver, and, as his accent was northern, I was about to give him the
+balance that I had in hand arising from our savings in the fasting way,
+amounting to about three shillings and sixpence; but, unfortunately for
+him, I asked him what place he had lived at as a weaver; and he told me
+that he was a Spitalfields weaver. I instantly put on my glove and
+returned my purse into my pocket, saying, go, then, to Sidmouth and Peel
+and the rest of them "and get relief; for I have this minute, while I
+was stopping at Lyphook, read in the _Evening Mail_ newspaper, an
+address to the King from the Spitalfields' weavers, for which address
+they ought to suffer death from starvation. In that address those base
+wretches tell the King, that they were loyal men: that they detested the
+designing men who were guilty of seditious practices in 1817; they, in
+short, express their approbation of the Power-of-imprisonment Bill, of
+all the deeds committed against the Reformers in 1817 and 1819; they, by
+fair inference, express their approbation of the thanks given to the
+Manchester Yeomanry. You are one of them; my name is William Cobbett,
+and I would sooner relieve a dog than relieve you." Just as I was
+closing my harangue, we overtook a country-man and woman that were going
+the same way. The weaver attempted explanations. He said that they only
+said it in order to get relief; but that they did not mean it in their
+hearts. "Oh, base dogs!" said I: "it is precisely by such men that ruin
+is brought upon nations; it is precisely by such baseness and
+insincerity, such scandalous cowardice, that ruin has been brought upon
+them. I had two or three shillings to give you; I had them in my hand: I
+have put them back into my purse: I trust I shall find somebody more
+worthy of them: rather than give them to you, I would fling them into
+that sand-pit and bury them for ever."
+
+How curiously things happen! It was by mere accident that I took up a
+newspaper to read: it was merely because I was compelled to stay a
+quarter of an hour in the room without doing anything, and above all
+things it was miraculous that I should take up the _Evening Mail_, into
+which, I believe, I never before looked, in my whole life. I saw the
+royal arms at the top of the paper; took it for the _Old Times_, and, in
+a sort of lounging mood, said to George, "Give me hold of that paper,
+and let us see what that foolish devil Anna Brodie says." Seeing the
+words "_Spitalfields_," I read on till I got to the base and scoundrelly
+part of the address. I then turned over, and looked at the title of the
+paper and the date of it, resolving, in my mind, to have satisfaction,
+of some sort or other, upon these base vagabonds. Little did I think
+that an opportunity would so soon occur of showing my resentment against
+them, and that, too, in so striking, so appropriate, and so efficient a
+manner. I dare say, that it was some tax-eating scoundrel who drew up
+this address (which I will insert in the Register, as soon as I can find
+it); but that is nothing to me and my fellow sufferers of 1817 and 1819.
+This infamous libel upon us is published under the name of the
+Spitalfields weavers; and, if I am asked what the poor creatures were to
+do, being without bread as they were, I answer by asking whether they
+could find no knives to cut their throats with; seeing that they ought
+to have cut their throats ten thousand times over, if they could have
+done it, rather than sanction the publication of so infamous a paper as
+this.
+
+It is not thus that the weavers in the north have acted. Some scoundrel
+wanted to inveigle them into an applauding of the Ministers; but they,
+though nothing so infamous as this address was proposed to them,
+rejected the proposition, though they were ten times more in want than
+the weavers of Spitalfields have ever been. They were only called upon
+to applaud the Ministers for the recent Orders in Council; but they
+justly said that the Ministers had a great deal more to do, before they
+would merit their applause. What would these brave and sensible men have
+said to a tax-eating scoundrel, who should have called upon them to
+present an address to the King, and in that address to applaud the
+terrible deeds committed against the people in 1817 and 1819! I have
+great happiness in reflecting that this baseness of the Spitalfields
+weavers will not bring them one single mouthful of bread. This will be
+their lot; this will be the fruit of their baseness: and the nation, the
+working classes of the nation, will learn, from this, that the way to
+get redress of their grievances, the way to get food and raiment in
+exchange for their labour, the way to ensure good treatment from the
+Government, is not to crawl to that Government, to lick its hands, and
+seem to deem it an honour to be its slaves.
+
+Before we got to Thursley, I saw three poor fellows getting in turf for
+their winter fuel, and I gave them a shilling apiece. To a boy at the
+bottom of Hindhead, I gave the other sixpence, towards buying him a pair
+of gloves; and thus I disposed of the money which was, at one time,
+actually out of my purse, and going into the hand of the loyal
+Spitalfields weaver.
+
+We got to this place (Mr. Knowles's of Thursley) about 5 o'clock in the
+evening, very much delighted with our ride.
+
+
+_Kensington, Thursday, 26th Oct._
+
+We left Mr. Knowles's on Thursday morning, came through Godalming,
+stopped at Mr. Rowland's at Chilworth, and then came on through Dorking
+to Colley Farm, near Reigate, where we slept. I have so often described
+the country from Hindhead to the foot of Reigate Hill, and from the top
+of Reigate Hill to the Thames, that I shall not attempt to do it again
+here. When we got to the river Wey, we crossed it from Godalming
+Pismarsh to come up to Chilworth. I desired George to look round the
+country, and asked him if he did not think it was very pretty. I put the
+same question to him when we got into the beautiful neighbourhood of
+Dorking, and when we got to Reigate, and especially when we got to the
+tip-top of Reigate Hill, from which there is one of the finest views in
+the whole world; but ever after our quitting Mr. Knowles's, George
+insisted that that was the prettiest country that we had seen in the
+course of our whole ride, and that he liked Mr. Knowles's place better
+than any other place that he had seen. I reminded him of Weston Grove;
+and I reminded him of the beautiful ponds and grass and plantations at
+Mr. Leach's; but he still persisted in his judgment in favour of Mr.
+Knowles's place, in which decision, however, the greyhounds and the
+beagles had manifestly a great deal to do.
+
+From Thursley to Reigate inclusive, on the chalk-side as well as on the
+sand-side, the crops of turnips, of both kinds, were pretty nearly as
+good as I ever saw them in my life. On a farm of Mr. Drummond's at
+Aldbury, rented by a farmer Peto, I saw a piece of cabbages, of the
+large kind, which will produce, I should think, not much short of five
+and twenty tons to the acre; and here I must mention (I do not know
+_why_ I must, by the bye) an instance of my own skill in measuring land
+by the eye. The cabbages stand upon half a field and on the part of it
+furthest from the road where we were. We took the liberty to open the
+gate and ride into the field, in order to get closer to the cabbages to
+look at them. I intended to notice this piece of cabbages, and I asked
+George how much ground he thought there was in the piece. He said, _two
+acres_: and asked me how much I thought. I said that there were _above
+four acres_, and that I should not wonder if there were _four acres and
+a half_. Thus divided in judgment, we turned away from the cabbages to
+go out of the field at another gate, which pointed towards our road.
+Near this gate we found a man turning a heap of manure. This man, as it
+happened, had hoed the cabbages by the acre, or had had a hand in it. We
+asked him how much ground there was in that piece of cabbages, and he
+told us, _four acres and a half_! I suppose it will not be difficult to
+convince the reader that George looked upon me as a sort of conjuror. At
+Mr. Pym's, at Colley farm, we found one of the very finest pieces of
+mangel wurzel that I had ever seen in my life. We calculated that there
+would be little short of _forty tons to the acre_; and there being three
+acres to the piece, Mr. Pym calculates that this mangel wurzel, the
+produce of these three acres of land, will carry his ten or twelve
+milch-cows nearly, if not wholly, through the winter. There did not
+appear to be a spurious plant, and there was not one plant that had gone
+to seed, in the whole piece. I have never seen a more beautiful mass of
+vegetation, and I had the satisfaction to learn, after having admired
+the crop, that the seed came from my own shop, and that it had been
+saved by myself.
+
+Talking of the shop, I came to it in a very few hours after looking at
+this mangel wurzel; and I soon found that it was high time for me to get
+home again; for here had been pretty devils' works going on. Here I
+found the "Greek cause," and all its appendages, figuring away in grand
+style. But I must make this matter of separate observation.
+
+I have put an end to my Ride of August, September, and October, 1826,
+during which I have travelled five hundred and sixty-eight miles, and
+have slept in thirty different beds, having written three monthly
+pamphlets, called the "Poor Man's Friend," and have also written
+(including the present one) eleven Registers. I have been in three
+cities, in about twenty market towns, in perhaps five hundred villages;
+and I have seen the people nowhere so well off as in the neighbourhood
+of Weston Grove, and nowhere so badly off as in the dominions of the
+Select Vestry of Hurstbourn Tarrant, commonly called Uphusband. During
+the whole of this ride, I have very rarely been a-bed after day-light; I
+have drunk neither wine nor spirits. I have eaten no vegetables, and
+only a very moderate quantity of meat; and, it may be useful to my
+readers to know, that the riding of twenty miles was not so fatiguing to
+me at the end of my tour as the riding of ten miles was at the beginning
+of it. Some ill-natured fools will call this "_egotism_." Why is it
+egotism? Getting upon a good strong horse, and riding about the country
+has no merit in it; there is no conjuration in it; it requires neither
+talents nor virtues of any sort; but _health_ is a very valuable thing;
+and when a man has had the experience which I have had in this instance,
+it is his duty to state to the world and to his own countrymen and
+neighbours in particular, the happy effects of early rising, sobriety,
+abstinence and a resolution to be active. It is his duty to do this: and
+it becomes imperatively his duty, when he has seen, in the course of his
+life, so many men; so many men of excellent hearts and of good talents,
+rendered prematurely old, cut off ten or twenty years before their time,
+by a want of that early rising, sobriety, abstinence and activity from
+which he himself has derived so much benefit and such inexpressible
+pleasure. During this ride I have been several times wet to the skin. At
+some times of my life, after having indulged for a long while in codling
+myself up in the house, these soakings would have frightened me half out
+of my senses; but I care very little about them: I avoid getting wet if
+I can; but it is very seldom that rain, come when it would, has
+prevented me from performing the day's journey that I had laid out
+beforehand. And this is a very good rule: to stick to your intention
+whether it be attended with inconveniences or not; to look upon yourself
+as _bound_ to do it. In the whole of this ride, I have met with no one
+untoward circumstance, properly so called, except the wounding of the
+back of my horse, which grieved me much more on his account than on my
+own. I have a friend, who, when he is disappointed in accomplishing
+anything that he has laid out, says that he has been _beaten_, which is
+a very good expression for the thing. I was beaten in my intention to go
+through Sussex and Kent; but I will retrieve the affair in a very few
+months' time, or, perhaps, few weeks. The COLLECTIVE will be here now in
+a few days; and as soon as I have got the Preston Petition fairly before
+them, and find (as I dare say I shall) that the petition will not be
+_tried_ until February, I shall take my horse and set off again to that
+very spot, in the London turnpike-road, at the foot of Butser-hill,
+whence I turned off to go to Petersfield, instead of turning the other
+way to go to Up Park: I shall take my horse and go to this spot, and,
+with a resolution not to be beaten next time, go along through the whole
+length of Sussex, and sweep round through Kent and Surrey till I come to
+Reigate again, and then home to Kensington; for I do not like to be
+beaten by horse's sore back, or by anything else; and, besides that,
+there are several things in Sussex and Kent that I want to see and give
+an account of. For the present, however, farewell to the country, and
+now for the Wen and its villanous corruptions.
+
+
+
+
+RURAL RIDE: TO TRING, IN HERTFORDSHIRE.
+
+
+_Barn-Elm Farm, 23rd Sept. 1829._
+
+As if to prove the truth of all that has been said in _The Woodlands_
+about the impolicy of cheap planting, as it is called, Mr. Elliman has
+planted another and larger field with a mixture of ash, locusts, and
+larches; not upon _trenched_ ground, but upon ground moved with the
+plough. The larches made great haste to _depart this life_, bequeathing
+to Mr. Elliman a very salutary lesson. The ash appeared to be alive, and
+that is all: the locusts, though they had to share in all the
+disadvantages of their neighbours, appeared, it seems, to be doing
+pretty well, and had made decent shoots, when a neighbour's sheep
+invaded the plantation, and, being fond of the locust leaves and shoots,
+as all cattle are, reduced them to mere stumps, as it were to put them
+upon a level with the ash. In _The Woodlands_, I have strongly pressed
+the necessity of effectual fences; without these, you plant and sow in
+vain: you plant and sow the plants and seeds of disappointment and
+mortification; and the earth, being always grateful, is sure to reward
+you with a plentiful crop. One half acre of Mr. Elliman's plantation of
+locusts before-mentioned, time will tell him, is worth more than the
+whole of the six or seven acres of this _cheaply_ planted field.
+
+Besides the 25,000 trees which Mr. Elliman had from me, he had some (and
+a part of them fine plants) which he himself had raised from seed, in
+the manner described in _The Woodlands_ under the head "Locust." This
+seed he bought from me; and, as I shall sell but a very few more locust
+plants, I recommend gentlemen to sow the seed for themselves, according
+to the directions given in _The Woodlands_, in paragraphs 383 to 386
+inclusive. In that part of _The Woodlands_ will be found the most minute
+directions for the sowing of this seed, and particularly in the
+preparing of it for sowing; for, unless the proper precautions are taken
+here, one seed out of one hundred will not come up; and, with the proper
+precautions, one seed in one hundred will not fail to come up. I beg the
+reader, who intends to sow locusts, to read with great care the latter
+part of paragraph 368 of _The Woodlands_.
+
+At this town of Tring, which is a very pretty and respectable place, I
+saw what reminded me of another of my endeavours to introduce useful
+things into this country. At the door of a shop I saw a large _case_,
+with the lid taken off, containing _bundles of straw for platting_. It
+was straw of spring wheat, tied up in small bundles, with the ear on;
+just such as I myself have grown in England many times, and bleached for
+platting, according to the instructions so elaborately given in the last
+edition of my _Cottage Economy_; and which instructions I was enabled to
+give from the information collected by my son in America. I asked the
+shopkeeper where he got this straw: he said, that it came from Tuscany;
+and that it was manufactured there at Tring, and other places, for, as I
+understood, some single individual master-manufacturer. I told the
+shopkeeper, that I wondered that they should send to Tuscany for the
+straw, seeing that it might be grown, harvested, and equally well
+bleached at Tring; that it was now, at this time, grown, bleached, and
+manufactured into bonnets in Kent; and I showed to several persons at
+Tring a bonnet, made in Kent, from the straw of wheat grown in Kent, and
+presented by that most public-spirited and excellent man, Mr. John Wood,
+of Wettersham, who died, to the great sorrow of the whole country round
+about him, three or four years ago. He had taken infinite pains with
+this matter, had brought a young woman from Suffolk at his own expense,
+to teach the children at Wettersham the whole of this manufacture from
+beginning to end; and, before he died, he saw as handsome bonnets made
+as ever came from Tuscany. At Benenden, the parish in which Mr. Hodges
+resides, there is now a manufactory of the same sort, begun, in the
+first place, under the benevolent auspices of that gentleman's
+daughters, who began by teaching a poor fellow who had been a cripple
+from his infancy, who was living with a poor widowed mother, and who is
+now the master of a school of this description, in the beautiful
+villages of Benenden and Rolvenden, in Kent. My wife, wishing to have
+her bonnet cleaned some time ago, applied to a person who performs such
+work, at Brighton, and got into a conversation with her about the
+_English Leghorn_ bonnets. The woman told her that they looked very well
+at first, but that they would not retain their colour, and added, "They
+will not clean, ma'am, like this bonnet that you have." She was left
+with a request to clean that; and the result being the same as with all
+Leghorn bonnets, she was surprised upon being told that that was an
+"English Leghorn." In short, there is no difference at all in the two;
+and if these people at Tring choose to grow the straw instead of
+importing it from Leghorn; and if they choose to make plat, and to make
+bonnets just as beautiful and as lasting as those which come from
+Leghorn, they have nothing to do but to read my Cottage Economy,
+paragraph 224 to paragraph 234, inclusive, where they will find, as
+plain as words can make it, the whole mass of directions for taking the
+seed of the wheat, and converting the produce into bonnets. There they
+will find directions, first, as to the sort of wheat; second, as to the
+proper land for growing the wheat; third, season for sowing; fourth,
+quantity of seed to the acre, and manner of sowing; fifth, season for
+cutting the wheat; sixth, manner of cutting it; seventh, manner of
+bleaching; eighth, manner of housing the straw; ninth, platting; tenth,
+manner of knitting; eleventh, manner of pressing.
+
+I request my correspondents to inform me, if any one can, where I can
+get some spring wheat. The botanical name of it is, _Triticum AEstivum_.
+It is sown in the spring, at the same time that barley is; these Latin
+words mean _summer wheat_. It is a small-grained, bearded wheat. I know,
+from experience, that the little brown-grained winter wheat is just as
+good for the purpose: but that must be sown earlier; and there is danger
+of its being thinned on the ground, by worms and other enemies. I should
+like to sow some this next spring, in order to convince the people of
+Tring, and other places, that they need not go to Tuscany for the straw.
+
+Of "_Cobbett's Corn_" there is no considerable piece in the
+neighbourhood of Tring; but I saw some plants, even upon the high hill
+where the locusts are growing, and which is very backward land, which
+appeared to be about as forward as my own is at this time. If Mr.
+Elliman were to have a patch of good corn by the side of his locust
+trees, and a piece of spring wheat by the side of the corn, people might
+then go and see specimens of the three great undertakings, or rather,
+great additions to the wealth of the nation, introduced under the name
+of _Cobbett_.
+
+I am the more desirous of introducing this manufacture at Tring on
+account of the very marked civility which I met with at that place. A
+very excellent friend of mine, who is professionally connected with that
+town, was, some time ago, apprised of my intention of going thither to
+see Mr. Elliman's plantation. He had mentioned this intention to some
+gentlemen of that town and neighbourhood; and I, to my great surprise,
+found that a _dinner had been organized_, to which I was to be invited.
+I never like to disappoint anybody; and, therefore, to this dinner I
+went. The company consisted of about forty-five gentlemen of the town
+and neighbourhood; and, certainly, though I have been at dinners in
+several parts of England, I never found, even in Sussex, where I have
+frequently been so delighted, a more sensible, hearty, entertaining, and
+hospitable company than this. From me, something in the way of speech
+was expected, as a matter of course; and though I was, from a cold, so
+hoarse as not to be capable of making myself heard in a large place, I
+was so pleased with the company, and with my reception, that, first and
+last, I dare say I addressed the company for an hour and a half. We
+dined at two, and separated at nine; and, as I declared at parting, for
+many, many years, I had not spent a happier day. There was present the
+editor, or some other gentleman, from the newspaper called _The Bucks
+Gazette and General Advertiser_, who has published in his paper the
+following account of what passed at the dinner. As far as the report
+goes, it is substantially correct; and, though this gentleman went away
+at a very early hour, that which he has given of my speech (which he has
+given very judiciously) contains matter which can hardly fail to be
+useful to great numbers of his readers.
+
+
+MR. COBBETT AT TRING.
+
+"Mr. Elliman, a draper at Tring, has lately formed a considerable
+plantation of the locust tree, which Mr. Cobbett claims the merit of
+having introduced into this country. The number he has planted is about
+30,000, on five acres and a half of very indifferent land, and they have
+thrived so uncommonly well, that not more than 500 of the whole number
+have failed. The success of the plantation being made known to Mr.
+Cobbett, induced him to pay a visit to Tring to inspect it, and during
+his sojourn it was determined upon by his friends to give him a dinner
+at the Rose and Crown Inn. Thursday was fixed for the purpose; when
+about forty persons, agriculturists and tradesmen of Tring and the
+neighbouring towns, assembled, and sat down to a dinner served up in
+very excellent style, by Mr. Northwood, the landlord: Mr. Faithful,
+solicitor, of Tring, is the chair.
+
+"The usual routine toasts having been given,
+
+"The Chairman said he was sure the company would drink the toast with
+which he should conclude what he was about to say, with every mark of
+respect. In addressing the company, he rose under feelings of no
+ordinary kind, for he was about to give the health of a gentleman who
+had the talent of communicating to his writings an energy and
+perspicuity which he had never met with elsewhere; who conveyed
+knowledge in a way so clear, that all who read could understand. He (the
+Chairman) had read the Political Register, from the first of them to the
+last, with pleasure and benefit to himself, and he would defy any man to
+put his finger upon a single line which was not in direct support of a
+kingly government. He advocated the rights of the people, but he always
+expressed himself favourable to our ancient form of government; he
+certainly had strongly, but not too strongly, attacked the corruption of
+the government; but had never attacked its form or its just powers. As a
+public writer, he considered him the most impartial that he knew. He
+well recollected--he knew not if Mr. Cobbett himself recollected it--a
+remarkable passage in his writings: he was speaking of the pleasure of
+passing from censure to praise, and thus expressed himself. 'It is
+turning from the frowns of a surly winter, to welcome a smiling spring
+come dancing over the daisied lawn, crowned with garlands, and
+surrounded with melody.' Nature had been bountiful to him; it had
+blessed him with a constitution capable of enduring the greatest
+fatigues; and a mind of superior order. Brilliancy, it was said, was a
+mere meteor; it was so: it was the solidity and depth of understanding
+such as he possessed, that were really valuable. He had visited this
+place in consequence of a gentleman having been wise and bold enough to
+listen to his advice, and to plant a large number of locust trees; and
+he trusted he would enjoy prosperity and happiness, in duration equal to
+that of the never-decaying wood of those trees. He concluded by giving
+Mr. Cobbett's health."
+
+"Mr. Cobbett returned thanks for the manner in which his health had been
+drunk, and was certain that the trees which had been the occasion of
+their meeting would be a benefit to the children of the planter. Though
+it might appear like presumption to suppose that those who were
+assembled that day came solely in compliment to him, yet it would be
+affectation not to believe that it was expected he should say something
+on the subject of politics. Every one who heard him was convinced that
+there was something wrong, and that a change of some sort must take
+place, or ruin to the country would ensue. Though there was a diversity
+of opinions as to the cause of the distress, and as to the means by
+which a change might be effected, and though some were not so deeply
+affected by it as others, all now felt that a change must take place
+before long, whether they were manufacturers, brewers, butchers, bakers,
+or of any other description of persons, they had all arrived at the
+conviction that there must be a change. It would be presumptuous to
+suppose that many of those assembled did not understand the cause of the
+present distress, yet there were many who did not; and those gentlemen
+who did, he begged to have the goodness to excuse him if he repeated
+what they already knew. Politics was a science which they ought not to
+have the trouble of studying; they had sufficient to do in their
+respective avocations, without troubling themselves with such matters.
+For what were the ministers, and a whole tribe of persons under them,
+paid large sums of money from the country but for the purpose of
+governing its political affairs. Their fitness for their stations was
+another thing. He had been told that Mr. Huskisson was so ignorant of
+the cause of the distress, that he had openly said, he should be glad if
+any practical man would tell him what it all meant. If any man present
+were to profess his ignorance of the cause of the distress it would be
+no disgrace to him; he might be a very good butcher, a very good farmer,
+or a very good baker: he might well understand the business by which he
+gained his living; and if any one should say to him, because he did not
+understand politics, 'You are a very stupid fellow!' he might fairly
+reply, 'What is that to you?' But it was another thing to those who were
+so well paid to manage the affairs of the country to plead ignorance of
+the cause of the prevailing distress.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Mr. Goulburn, with a string of figures as long as his arm, had
+endeavoured to prove in the House of Commons that the withdrawal of the
+one-pound notes, being altogether so small an amount, little more than
+two millions, would be of no injury to the country, and that its only
+effect would be to make bankers more liberal in discounting with their
+fives. He would appeal to the company if they had found this to be the
+case. Mr. Goulburn had forgotten that the one-pound notes were the legs
+upon which the fives walked. He had heard the Duke of Wellington use the
+same language in the other House. Taught, as they now were, by
+experience, it would scarcely be believed, fifty years hence, that a set
+of men could have been found with so little foresight as to have devised
+measures so fraught with injury.
+
+"He felt convinced that if he looked to the present company, or any
+other accidentally assembled, that he would find thirteen gentlemen more
+fit to manage the affairs of the kingdom than were those who now
+presided at the head of Government; not that he imputed to them any
+desire to do wrong, or that they were more corrupt than others; it was
+clear, that with the eyes of the public upon them they must wish to do
+right; it was owing to their sheer ignorance, their entire unfitness to
+carry on the Government, that they did no better. Ignorance and
+unfitness were, however, pleas which they had no business to make. It
+was nothing to him if a man was ignorant and stupid, under ordinary
+circumstances; but if he entrusted a man with his money, thinking that
+he was intelligent, and was deceived, then it was something; he had a
+right to say, 'You are not what I took you for, you are an ignorant
+fellow; you have deceived me, you are an impostor.' Such was the
+language proper to all under such circumstances: never mind their
+titles!
+
+"A friend had that morning taken him to view the beautiful vale of
+Aylesbury, which he had never before seen; and the first thought that
+struck him, on seeing the rich pasture, was this, 'Good God! is a
+country like this to be ruined by the folly of those who govern it?'
+When he was a naughty boy, he used to say that if he wanted to select
+Members for our Houses of Parliament, he would put a string across any
+road leading _into_ London, and that the first 1000 men that ran against
+his string, he would choose for Members, and he would bet a wager that
+they would be better qualified than those who now filled those Houses.
+That was when he was a naughty boy; but since that time a Bill had been
+passed which made it banishment for life to use language that brought
+the Houses of Parliament into contempt, and therefore he did not say so
+now. The Government, it should be recollected, had passed all these Acts
+with the hearty concurrence of both Houses of Parliament; they were thus
+backed by these Houses, and they were backed by ninety-nine out of one
+hundred of the papers, which affected to see all their acts in
+rose-colour, for no one who was in the habit of reading the papers,
+could have anticipated, from what they there saw, the ruin which had
+fallen on the country. Thus we had an ignorant Government, an ignorant
+Parliament, and something worse than an ignorant press; the latter being
+employed (some of them with considerable talent) to assail and turn into
+ridicule those who had the boldness and honesty to declare their dissent
+from the opinion of the wisdom of the measures of Government. It was no
+easy task to stand, unmoved, their ridicule and sarcasms, and many were
+thus deterred from expressing the sentiments of their minds. In this
+country we had all the elements of prosperity; an industrious people,
+such as were nowhere else to be found; a country, too, which was once
+called the finest and greatest on the earth (for whatever might be said
+of the country in comparison with others, the turnips of England were
+worth more, this year, than all the vines of France). It was a glorious
+and a great country until the Government had made it otherwise; and it
+ought still to be what it once was, and to be capable to driving the
+Russians back from the country of our old and best ally--the Turks.
+During the time of war, we were told that it was necessary to make great
+sacrifices to save us from disgrace. The people made those sacrifices;
+they gave up their all. But had the Government done its part; had it
+saved us from disgrace? No: we were now the laughing-stock of all other
+countries. The French and all other nations derided us; and by and by it
+would be seen that they would make a partition of Turkey with the
+Russians, and make a fresh subject for laughter. Never since the time of
+Charles had such disgrace been brought upon the country; and why was
+this? When were we again to see the labourer receiving his wages from
+the farmer instead of being sent on the road to break stones? Some
+people, under this state of things, consoled themselves by saying things
+would come about again; they had come about before, and would come about
+again. They deceived themselves, things did not come about; the seasons
+came about, it was true; but something must be _done_ to bring things
+about. Instead of the _neuter_ verb (to speak as a grammarian) they
+should use the _active_; they should not say things will _come_ about,
+but things must be _put_ about. He thought that the distress would
+shortly become so great, perhaps, about Christmas, that the
+Parliamentary gentlemen, finding they received but a small part of their
+rents, without which they could not do, any more than the farmer,
+without his crops, would endeavour to bring them about; and the measures
+they would propose for that purpose, as far as he could judge, would be
+Bank restriction, and the re-issue of one-pound notes, and what the
+effect of that would be they would soon see. One of those persons who
+were so profoundly ignorant, would come down to the House prepared to
+propose a return to Bank restriction and the issue of small notes, and a
+bill to that effect would be passed. If such a bill did pass, he would
+advise all persons to be cautious in their dealings; it would be
+perilous to make bargains under such a state of things. Money was the
+measure of value; but if this measure was liable to be three times as
+large at one time as at another, who could know what to do? how was any
+one to know how to purchase wheat, if the bushel was to be altered at
+the pleasure of the Government to three times its present size? The
+remedy for the evils of the country was not to be found in palliatives;
+it was not to be found in strong measures. The first step must be taken
+in the House of Commons, but that was almost hopeless; for although many
+persons possessed the right of voting, it was of little use to them;
+whilst a few great men could render their votes of no avail. If we had
+possessed a House of Commons that represented the feelings and wishes of
+the people, they would not have submitted to much of what had taken
+place; and until we had a reform we should never, he believed, see
+measures emanating from that House which would conduce to the glory and
+safety of the country. He feared that there would be no improvement
+until a dreadful convulsion took place, and that was an event which he
+prayed God to avert from the country.
+
+"The Chairman proposed '_Prosperity to Agriculture_,' when
+
+"Mr. Cobbett again rose, and said the Chairman had told him he was
+entitled to give a sentiment. He would give prosperity to the towns of
+Aylesbury and Tring; but he would again advise those who calculated upon
+the return of prosperity, to be careful. Until there was an equitable
+adjustment, or Government took off part of the taxes, which was the same
+thing, there could be no return of prosperity."
+
+After the reporter went away, we had a great number of toasts, most of
+which were followed by more or less of speech; and, before we separated,
+I think that the seeds of common sense, on the subject of our
+distresses, were pretty well planted in the lower part of Hertfordshire,
+and in Buckinghamshire.
+
+The gentlemen present were men of information, well able to communicate
+to others that which they themselves had heard; and I endeavoured to
+leave no doubt in the mind of any man that heard me, that the cause of
+the distress was the work of the Government and House of Commons, and
+that it was nonsense to hope for a cure until the people had a real
+voice in the choosing of that House. I think that these truths were well
+implanted; and I further think that if I could go to the capital of
+every county in the kingdom, I should leave no doubt in the minds of any
+part of the people. I must not omit to mention, in conclusion, that
+though I am no eater or drinker, and though I tasted nothing but the
+breast of a little chicken, and drank nothing but water, the dinner was
+the best that ever I saw called a _public dinner_, and certainly
+unreasonably cheap. There were excellent joints of meat of the finest
+description, fowls and geese in abundance; and, finally, a very fine
+haunch of venison, with a bottle of wine for each person; and all for
+_seven shillings and sixpence per head_. Good waiting upon; civil
+landlord and landlady; and, in short, everything at this very pretty
+town pleased me exceedingly. Yet, what is Tring but a fair specimen of
+English towns and English people? And is it right, and is it to be
+suffered, that such a people should be plunged into misery by the acts
+of those whom they pay so generously, and whom they so loyally and
+cheerfully obey?
+
+As far as I had an opportunity of ascertaining the facts, the farmers
+feel all the pinchings of distress, and the still harsher pinchings of
+anxiety for the future; and the labouring people are suffering in a
+degree not to be described. The shutting of the male paupers up in
+pounds is common through Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire. Left at large
+during the day, they roam about and maraud. What are the farmers to do
+with them? God knows how long the peace is to be kept, if this state of
+things be not put a stop to. The natural course of things is, that an
+attempt to impound the paupers in cold weather will produce resistance
+in some place; that those of one parish will be joined by those of
+another; that a formidable band will soon be assembled; then will ensue
+the rummaging of pantries and cellars; that this will spread from parish
+to parish; and that, finally, mobs of immense magnitude will set the law
+at open defiance. Jails are next to useless in such a case: their want
+of room must leave the greater part of the offenders at large; the
+agonizing distress of the farmers will make them comparatively
+indifferent with regard to these violences; and, at last, general
+confusion will come. This is by no means an unlikely progress, or an
+unlikely result. It therefore becomes those who have much at stake, to
+join heartily in their applications to Government, for a timely remedy
+for these astounding evils.
+
+
+
+
+NORTHERN TOUR.
+
+
+_Sheffield, 31st January 1830._
+
+On the 26th instant I gave my third lecture at Leeds. I should in vain
+endeavour to give an adequate description of the pleasure which I felt
+at my reception, and at the effect which I produced in that fine and
+opulent capital of this great county of York; for the _capital_ it is in
+fact, though not in name. On the first evening, the play-house, which is
+pretty spacious, was not completely filled in all its parts; but on the
+second and the third, it was filled brim full, boxes, pit and gallery;
+besides a dozen or two of gentlemen who were accommodated with seats on
+the stage. Owing to a cold which I took at Huddersfield, and which I
+spoke of before, I was, as the players call it, not in very good
+_voice_; but the audience made allowance for that, and very wisely
+preferred sense to sound. I never was more delighted than with my
+audience at Leeds; and what I set the highest value on, is, that I find
+I produced a prodigious effect in that important town.
+
+There had been a meeting at Doncaster, a few days before I went to Leeds
+from Ripley, where one of the speakers, a Mr. Becket Denison, had said,
+speaking of the taxes, that there must be an application of the _pruning
+hook_ or of the _sponge_. This gentleman is a banker, I believe; he is
+one of the Beckets connected with the Lowthers; and he is a brother, or
+very near relation of that Sir John Becket who is the Judge Advocate
+General. So that, at last, others can talk of the pruning hook and the
+sponge, as well as I.
+
+From Leeds I proceeded on to this place, not being able to stop at
+either Wakefield or Barnsley, except merely to change horses. The people
+in those towns were apprised of the time that I should pass through
+them; and, at each place, great numbers assembled to see me, to shake me
+by the hand, and to request me to stop. I was so hoarse as not to be
+able to make the post-boy hear me when I called to him; and, therefore,
+it would have been useless to stop; yet I promised to go back if my time
+and my voice would allow me. They do not; and I have written to the
+gentlemen of those places to inform them, that when I go to Scotland in
+the spring, I will not fail to stop in those towns, in order to express
+my gratitude to them. All the way along, from Leeds to Sheffield, it is
+coal and iron, and iron and coal. It was dark before we reached
+Sheffield; so that we saw the iron furnaces in all the horrible
+splendour of their everlasting blaze. Nothing can be conceived more
+grand or more terrific than the yellow waves of fire that incessantly
+issue from the top of these furnaces, some of which are close by the
+way-side. Nature has placed the beds of iron and the beds of coal
+alongside of each other, and art has taught man to make one to operate
+upon the other, as to turn the iron-stone into liquid matter, which is
+drained off from the bottom of the furnace, and afterwards moulded into
+blocks and bars, and all sorts of things. The combustibles are put into
+the top of the furnace, which stands thirty, forty, or fifty feet up in
+the air, and the ever blazing mouth of which is kept supplied with coal
+and coke and iron stone, from little iron wagons forced up by steam, and
+brought down again to be re-filled. It is a surprising thing to behold;
+and it is impossible to behold it without being convinced that, whatever
+other nations may do with cotton and with wool, they will never equal
+England with regard to things made of iron and steel. This Sheffield,
+and the land all about it, is one bed of iron and coal. They call it
+black Sheffield, and black enough it is; but from this one town and its
+environs go nine-tenths of the knives that are used in the whole world;
+there being, I understand, no knives made at Birmingham; the manufacture
+of which place consists of the larger sort of implements, of locks of
+all sorts, and guns and swords, and of all the endless articles of
+hardware which go to the furnishing of a house. As to the land, viewed
+in the way of agriculture, it really does appear to be very little
+worth. I have not seen, except at Harewood and Ripley, a stack of wheat
+since I came into Yorkshire; and even there, the whole I saw; and all
+that I have seen since I came into Yorkshire; and all that I saw during
+a ride of six miles that I took into Derbyshire the day before
+yesterday; all put together would not make the one-half of what I have
+many times seen in one single rick-yard of the vales of Wiltshire. But
+this is all very proper: these coal-diggers, and iron-melters, and
+knife-makers, compel us to send the food to them, which, indeed, we do
+very cheerfully, in exchange for the produce of their rocks, and the
+wondrous works of their hands.
+
+The trade of Sheffield has fallen off less in proportion than that of
+the other manufacturing districts. North America, and particularly the
+United States, where the people have so much victuals to cut, form a
+great branch of the custom of this town. If the people of Sheffield
+could only receive a tenth part of what their knives sell for by retail
+in America, Sheffield might pave its streets with silver. A _gross_ of
+knives and forks is sold to the Americans for less than three knives and
+forks can be bought at retail in a country store in America. No fear of
+rivalship in this trade. The Americans may lay on their tariff, and
+double it, and triple it; but as long as they continue to _cut_ their
+victuals, from Sheffield they must have the things to cut it with.
+
+The ragged hills all round about this town are bespangled with groups of
+houses inhabited by the working cutlers. They have not suffered like the
+working weavers; for, to make knives, there must be the hand of man.
+Therefore, machinery cannot come to destroy the wages of the labourer.
+The home demand has been very much diminished; but still the depression
+has here not been what it has been, and what it is, where the machinery
+can be brought into play. We are here just upon the borders of
+Derbyshire, a nook of which runs up and separates Yorkshire from
+Nottinghamshire. I went to a village, the day before yesterday, called
+_Mosborough_, the whole of the people of which are employed in the
+making of _sickles_ and _scythes_; and where, as I was told, they are
+very well off even in these times. A prodigious quantity of these things
+go to the United States of America. In short, there are about twelve
+millions of people there continually consuming these things; and the
+hardware merchants here have their agents and their stores in the great
+towns of America, which country, as far as relates to this branch of
+business, is still a part of old England.
+
+Upon my arriving here on Wednesday night, the 27th instant, I by no
+means intended to lecture until I should be a little recovered from my
+cold; but, to my great mortification, I found that the lecture had been
+advertised, and that great numbers of persons had actually assembled. To
+send them out again, and give back the money, was a thing not to be
+attempted. I, therefore, went to the Music Hall, the place which had
+been taken for the purpose, gave them a specimen of the state of my
+voice, asked them whether I should proceed, and they, answering in the
+affirmative, on I went. I then rested until yesterday, and shall
+conclude my labours here to-morrow, and then proceed to "_fair
+Nottingham_," as we used to sing when I was a boy, in celebrating the
+glorious exploits of "Robin Hood and Little John." By the by, as we went
+from Huddersfield to Dewsbury, we passed by a hill which is celebrated
+as being the burial-place of the famed Robin Hood, of whom the people in
+this country talk to this day.
+
+At Nottingham, they have advertised for my lecturing at the play-house,
+for the 3rd, 4th, and 5th of February, and for a public breakfast to be
+given to me on the first of those days, I having declined a dinner
+agreeably to my original notification, and my friends insisting upon
+something or other in that sort of way. It is very curious that I have
+always had a very great desire to see Nottingham. This desire certainly
+originated in the great interest that I used to take, and that all
+country boys took, in the history of Robin Hood, in the record of whose
+achievements, which were so well calculated to excite admiration in the
+country boys, this Nottingham, with the word "_fair_" always before it,
+was so often mentioned. The word _fair_, as used by our forefathers,
+meant fine; for we frequently read in old descriptions of parts of the
+country of such a district or such a parish, containing a _fair_
+mansion, and the like; so that this town appears to have been celebrated
+as a very fine place, even in ancient times; but within the last thirty
+years, Nottingham has stood high in my estimation, from the conduct of
+its people; from their public spirit; from their excellent sense as to
+public matters; from the noble struggle which they have made from the
+beginning of the French war to the present hour: if only forty towns in
+England equal in size to Nottingham had followed its bright example,
+there would have been no French war against liberty; the Debt would have
+been now nearly paid off, and we should have known nothing of those
+manifold miseries which now afflict, and those greater miseries which
+now menace, the country. The French would not have been in Cadiz; the
+Russians would not have been at Constantinople; the Americans would not
+have been in the Floridas; we should not have had to dread the combined
+fleets of America, France, and Russia; and, which is the worst of all,
+we should not have seen the jails four times as big as they were; and
+should not have seen Englishmen reduced to such a state of misery as for
+the honest labouring man to be fed worse than the felons in the jails.
+
+
+
+
+EASTERN TOUR.
+
+     "You permit the Jews openly to preach in their synagogues, and call
+     Jesus Christ an impostor; and you send women to jail (to be brought
+     to bed there, too), for declaring their unbelief in
+     Christianity."--_King of Bohemia's Letter to Canning, published in
+     the Register, 4th of January, 1823._
+
+
+_Hargham, 22nd March, 1830._
+
+I set off from London on the 8th of March, got to Bury St. Edmund's that
+evening; and, to my great mortification, saw the county-election and the
+assizes both going on at Chelmsford, where, of course, a great part of
+the people of Essex were met. If I had been aware of that, I should
+certainly have stopped at Chelmsford in order to address a few words of
+sense to the unfortunate constituents of Mr. Western. At Bury St.
+Edmund's I gave a lecture on the ninth and another on the tenth of
+March, in the playhouse, to very crowded audiences. I went to Norwich on
+the 12th, and gave a lecture there on that evening, and on the evening
+of the 13th. The audience here was more numerous than at Bury St.
+Edmund's, but not so numerous in proportion to the size of the place;
+and, contrary to what has happened in most other places, it consisted
+more of town's people than of country people.
+
+During the 14th and 15th, I was at a friend's house at Yelverton, half
+way between Norwich and Bungay, which last is in Suffolk, and at which
+place I lectured on the 16th to an audience consisting chiefly of
+farmers, and was entertained there in a most hospitable and kind manner
+at the house of a friend.
+
+The next day, being the 17th, I went to Eye, and there lectured in the
+evening in the neat little playhouse of the place, which was crowded in
+every part, stage and all. The audience consisted almost entirely of
+farmers, who had come in from Diss, from Harleston, and from all the
+villages round about, in this fertile and thickly-settled neighbourhood.
+I stayed at Eye all the day of the 18th, having appointed to be at
+Ipswich on the 19th. Eye is a beautiful little place, though an
+exceedingly rotten borough.
+
+All was harmony and good humour: everybody appeared to be of one mind;
+and as these friends observed to me, so I thought, that more effect had
+been produced by this one lecture in that neighbourhood, than could have
+been produced in a whole year, if the Register had been put into the
+hands of every one of the hearers during that space of time; for though
+I never attempt to put forth that sort of stuff which the "intense"
+people on the other side of St. George's Channel call "_eloquence_," I
+bring out strings of very interesting facts; I use pretty powerful
+arguments; and I hammer them down so closely upon the mind, that they
+seldom fail to produce a lasting impression.
+
+On the 19th I proceeded to Ipswich, not imagining it to be the fine,
+populous, and beautiful place that I found it to be. On that night, and
+on the night of the 20th, I lectured to boxes and pit, crowded
+principally with opulent farmers, and to a gallery filled, apparently,
+with journeymen tradesmen and their wives. On the Sunday before I came
+away, I heard, from all quarters, that my audiences had retired deeply
+impressed with the truths which I had endeavoured to inculcate. One
+thing, however, occurred towards the close of the lecture of Saturday,
+the 20th, that I deem worthy of particular attention. In general it
+would be useless for me to attempt to give anything like _a report_ of
+these speeches of mine, consisting as they do of words uttered pretty
+nearly as fast as I can utter them, during a space of never less than
+two, and sometimes of nearly three hours. But there occurred here
+something that I must notice. I was speaking of _the degrees_ by which
+the established church had been losing its _legal influence_ since the
+peace. First, the _Unitarian Bill_, removing the penal act which forbade
+an impugning of the doctrine of the Trinity; second, the repeal of the
+_Test Act_, which declared, in effect, that the religion of any of the
+Dissenters was as good as that of the church of England; third, the
+repeal of the penal and excluding laws with regard to the _Catholics_;
+and this last act, said I, does in effect declare that the thing called
+"the _Reformation_" was _unnecessary_. "No," said one gentleman, in a
+very loud voice, and he was followed by four or five more, who said "No,
+No." "Then," said I, "we will, if you like, put it _to the vote_.
+Understand, gentlemen, that _I do not say_, whatever I may think, that
+the Reformation was unnecessary; but I say that _this act amounts to a
+declaration_ that it was unnecessary; and, without losing our good
+humour, we will, if that gentleman choose, put this question to the
+vote." I paused a little while, receiving no answer, and perceiving that
+the company were with me, I proceeded with my speech, concluding with
+the complete demolishing blow which the church would receive by the bill
+for giving civil and political power for training to the bar, and
+seating on the bench, for placing in the commons and amongst the peers,
+and for placing in the council, along with the King himself, _those who
+deny that there ever existed a Redeemer_; who give the name of
+_impostor_ to him whom _we worship as God_, and who boast of having
+hanged him upon the cross. "Judge you, gentlemen," said I, "of the
+figure which England will make, when its laws will seat on the bench,
+from which people have been sentenced to suffer most severely for
+denying the truth of Christianity; from which bench it has been held
+that _Christianity is part and parcel of the law of the land_; judge you
+of the figure which England will make amongst Christian nations, when a
+Jew, a blasphemer of Christ, a professor of the doctrines of those who
+murdered him, shall be sitting upon that bench; and judge, gentlemen,
+what we must think of _the clergy_ of this church of ours, _if they
+remain silent_ while such a law shall be passed."
+
+We were entertained at Ipswich by a very kind and excellent friend,
+whom, as is generally the case, I had never seen or heard of before. The
+morning of the day of the last lecture, I walked about five miles, then
+went to his house to breakfast, and stayed with him and dined. On the
+Sunday morning, before I came away, I walked about six miles, and
+repeated the good cheer at breakfast at the same place. Here I heard the
+first singing of the birds this year; and I here observed an instance of
+that _petticoat government_, which, apparently, pervades the whole of
+animated nature. A lark, very near to me in a ploughed field, rose from
+the ground, and was saluting the sun with his delightful song. He was
+got about as high as the dome of St. Paul's, having me for a motionless
+and admiring auditor, when the hen started up from nearly the same spot
+whence the cock had risen, flew up and passed close by him. I could not
+hear what she said; but supposed that she must have given him a pretty
+smart reprimand; for down she came upon the ground, and he, ceasing to
+sing, took a twirl in the air, and came down after her. Others have, I
+dare say, seen this a thousand times over; but I never observed it
+before.
+
+About twelve o'clock, my son and I set off for this place (Hargham),
+coming through Needham Market, Stowmarket, Bury St. Edmund's, and
+Thetford, at which latter place I intended to have lectured to-day and
+to-morrow, where the theatre was to have been the scene, but the mayor
+of the town thought it best not to give his permission until the assizes
+(which commence to-day the 22nd) should be over, lest the judge should
+take offence, seeing that it is the custom, while his Lordship is in the
+town, to give up the civil jurisdiction to him. Bless his worship! what
+in all the world should he think would take me to Thetford, _except it
+being a time for holding the assizes_? At no _other_ time should I have
+dreamed of finding an audience in so small a place, and in a country so
+thinly inhabited. I was attracted, too, by the desire of meeting some of
+my "_learned friends_" from the Wen; for I deal in arguments founded on
+the _law of the land_, and on _Acts of Parliament_. The deuce take this
+mayor for disappointing me; and, now, I am afraid that I shall not fall
+in with this learned body during the whole of my spring tour.
+
+Finding Thetford to be forbidden ground, I came hither to Sir Thomas
+Beevor's, where I had left my two daughters, having, since the 12th
+inclusive, travelled 120 miles, and delivered six lectures. Those 120
+miles have been through a fine _farming country_, and without my seeing,
+until I came to Thetford, but one spot of waste or common land, and that
+not exceeding, I should think, from fifty to eighty acres. From this
+place to Norwich, and through Attleborough and Wymondham, the land is
+all good, and the farming excellent. It is pretty nearly the same from
+Norwich to Bungay, where we enter Suffolk. Bungay is a large and fine
+town, with three churches, lying on the side of some very fine meadows.
+Harleston, on the road to Eye, is a very pretty market-town: of Eye, I
+have spoken before. From Eye to Ipswich, we pass through a series of
+villages, and at Ipswich, to my great surprise, we found a most
+beautiful town, with a population of about twelve thousand persons; and
+here our profound Prime Minister might have seen most abundant evidence
+of prosperity; for the _new houses_ are, indeed, very numerous. But if
+our famed and profound Prime Minister, having Mr. Wilmot Horton by the
+arm, and standing upon one of the hills that surround this town, and
+which, each hill seeming to surpass the other hill in beauty, command a
+complete view of every house, or, at least, of the top of every house,
+in this opulent town; if he, thus standing, and thus accompanied, were
+to hold up his hands, clap them together, and bless God for the proofs
+of prosperity contained in the new and red bricks, and were to cast his
+eye southward of the town, and see the numerous little vessels upon the
+little arm of the sea which comes up from Harwich, and which here finds
+its termination; and were, in those vessels, to discover an additional
+proof of prosperity; if he were to be thus situated, and to be thus
+feeling, would not some doubts be awakened in his mind; if I, standing
+behind him, were to whisper in his ear, "Do you not think that the
+greater part of these new houses have been created by taxes, which went
+to pay the about 20,000 _troops_ that were stationed here for pretty
+nearly 20 years during the war, and some of which are stationed here
+still? Look at that immense building, my Lord Duke: it is fresh and
+_new_ and fine and splendid, and contains indubitable marks of opulence;
+but it is a BARRACK; aye, and the money to build that barrack, and to
+maintain the 20,000 troops, has assisted to beggar, to dilapidate, to
+plunge into ruin and decay, hundreds upon hundreds of villages and
+hamlets in Wiltshire, in Dorsetshire, in Somersetshire, and in other
+counties who shared not in the ruthless squanderings of the war. But,"
+leaning my arm upon the Duke's shoulder, and giving Wilmot a poke in the
+poll to make him listen and look, and pointing with my fore-finger to
+the twelve large, lofty, and magnificent churches, each of them at least
+700 years old, and saying, "Do you think Ipswich was not larger and far
+more populous 700 years ago than it is at this hour?" Putting this
+question to him, would it not check his exultation, and would it not
+make even Wilmot begin to reflect?
+
+Even at this hour, with all the unnatural swellings of the war, there
+are not two thousand people, _including the bed-ridden and the babies_,
+to each of the magnificent churches. Of adults, there cannot be more
+than about 1400 to a church; and there is one of the churches which,
+being well filled, as in ancient times, would contain from four to seven
+thousand persons, for the nave of it appears to me to be larger than St.
+Andrew's Hall at Norwich, which Hall was formerly the church of the
+Benedictine Priory. And, perhaps, the great church here might have
+belonged to some monastery; for here were three Augustine priories, one
+of them founded in the reign of William the Conqueror, another founded
+in the reign of Henry the Second, another in the reign of King John,
+with an Augustine friary, a Carmelite friary, an hospital founded in the
+reign of King John; and here, too, was the college founded by Cardinal
+Wolsey, the gateway of which, though built in brick, is still preserved,
+being the same sort of architecture as that of Hampton Court, and St.
+James's Palace.
+
+There is no doubt but that this was a much greater place than it is now.
+It is the great outlet for the immense quantities of corn grown in this
+most productive county, and by farmers the most clever that ever lived.
+I am told that wheat is worth six shillings a quarter more, at some
+times, at Ipswich than at Norwich, the navigation to London being so
+much more speedy and safe. Immense quantities of flour are sent from
+this town. The windmills on the hills in the vicinage are so numerous
+that I counted, whilst standing in one place, no less than seventeen.
+They are all painted or washed white; the sails are black; it was a fine
+morning, the wind was brisk, and their twirling altogether added greatly
+to the beauty of the scene, which, having the broad and beautiful arm of
+the sea on the one hand, and the fields and meadows, studded with
+farm-houses, on the other, appeared to me the most beautiful sight of
+the kind that I had ever beheld. The town and its churches were down in
+the dell before me, and the only object that came to disfigure the scene
+was THE BARRACK, and made me utter involuntarily the words of
+BLACKSTONE: "The laws of England recognise no distinction between the
+citizen and the soldier; they know of no standing soldier: no inland
+fortresses; no barracks." "Ah!" said I to myself, but loud enough for
+any one to have heard me a hundred yards, "such _were_ the laws of
+England when mass was said in those magnificent churches, and such they
+continued until a _septennial_ Parliament came and deprived the people
+of England of their rights."
+
+I know of no town to be compared with Ipswich, except it be Nottingham;
+and there is this difference in the two; that Nottingham stands high,
+and, on one side, looks over a very fine country; whereas Ipswich is in
+a dell, meadows running up above it, and a beautiful arm of the sea
+below it. The town itself is substantially built, well paved, everything
+good and solid, and no wretched dwellings to be seen on its outskirts.
+From the town itself, you can see nothing; but you can, in no direction,
+go from it a quarter of a mile without finding views that a painter
+might crave, and then, the country round about it, so well cultivated;
+the land in such a beautiful state, the farm-houses all white, and all
+so much alike; the barns, and everything about the homesteads so snug:
+the stocks of turnips so abundant everywhere; the sheep and cattle in
+such fine order; the wheat all drilled; the ploughman so expert; the
+furrows, if a quarter of a mile long, as straight as a line, and laid as
+truly as if with a level: in short, here is everything to delight the
+eye, and to make the people proud of their country; and this is the case
+throughout the whole of this county. I have always found Suffolk farmers
+great boasters of their superiority over others; and I must say that it
+is not without reason.
+
+But, observe, this has been a very _highly-favoured county_: it has had
+poured into it millions upon millions of money, drawn from Wiltshire,
+and other inland counties. I should suppose that Wiltshire alone has,
+within the last forty years, had two or three millions of money drawn
+from it, _to be given to Essex and Suffolk_. At one time there were not
+less than sixty thousand men kept on foot in these counties. The
+increase of London, too, the swellings of the immortal Wen, have
+assisted to heap wealth upon these counties; but, in spite of all this,
+the distress pervades all ranks and degrees, except those who live on
+the taxes. At Eye, butter used to sell for eighteen-pence a pound: it
+now sells for nine-pence halfpenny, though the grass has not yet begun
+to spring; and eggs were sold at thirty for a shilling. Fine times for
+me, whose principal food is eggs, and whose sole drink is milk, but very
+bad times for those who sell me the food and the drink.
+
+Coming from Ipswich to Bury St. Edmund's, you pass through
+Needham-market and Stowmarket, two very pretty market towns; and, like
+all the other towns in Suffolk, free from the drawback of shabby and
+beggarly houses on the outskirts. I remarked that I did not see in the
+whole county one single instance of paper or rags supplying the place of
+glass in any window, and did not see one miserable hovel in which a
+labourer resided. The county, however, is _flat_: with the exception of
+the environs of Ipswich, there is none of that beautiful variety of hill
+and dale, and hanging woods, that you see at every town in Hampshire,
+Sussex, and Kent. It is curious, too, that though the people, I mean the
+poorer classes of people, are extremely neat in their houses, and though
+I found all their gardens dug up and prepared for cropping, you do not
+see about their cottages (and it is just the same in Norfolk) that
+_ornamental gardening_; the walks, and the flower borders, and the
+honey-suckles, and roses, trained over the doors, or over arched sticks,
+that you see in Hampshire, Sussex, and Kent, that I have many a time
+sitten upon my horse to look at so long and so often, as greatly to
+retard me on my journey. Nor is this done for show or ostentation. If
+you find a cottage in those counties, by the side of a _by lane_, or in
+the midst of a forest, you find just the same care about the garden and
+the flowers. In those counties, too, there is great taste with regard
+_to trees_ of every description, from the hazel to the oak. In Suffolk
+it appears to be just the contrary: here is the great dissight of all
+these three eastern counties. Almost every bank of every field is
+studded with _pollards_, that is to say, trees that have been
+_beheaded_, at from six to twelve feet from the ground, than which
+nothing in nature can be more ugly. They send out shoots from the head,
+which are lopped off once in ten or a dozen years for fuel, or other
+purposes. To add to the deformity, the ivy is suffered to grow on them,
+which, at the same time, checks the growth of the shoots. These pollards
+become hollow very soon, and, as timber, are fit for nothing but
+gate-posts, even before they be hollow. Upon a farm of a hundred acres
+these pollards, by root and shade, spoil at least six acres of the
+ground, besides being most destructive to the fences. Why not plant six
+acres of the ground with timber and underwood? Half an acre a year
+would most amply supply the farm with poles and brush, and with
+everything wanted in the way of fuel; and why not plant hedges to be
+unbroken by these pollards? I have scarcely seen a single farm of a
+hundred acres without pollards, sufficient to find the farm-house in
+fuel, without any assistance from coals, for several years.
+
+However, the great number of farm-houses in Suffolk, the neatness of
+those houses, the moderation in point of extent which you generally see,
+and the great store of the food in the turnips, and the admirable
+management of the whole, form a pretty good compensation for the want of
+beauties. The land is generally as clean as a garden ought to be; and,
+though it varies a good deal as to lightness and stiffness, they make it
+all bear prodigious quantities of Swedish turnips; and on them pigs,
+sheep, and cattle, all equally thrive. I did not observe a single poor
+miserable animal in the whole county.
+
+To conclude an account of Suffolk, and not to sing the praises of Bury
+St. Edmund's, would offend every creature of Suffolk birth; even at
+Ipswich, when I was praising _that place_, the very people of that town
+asked me if I did not think Bury St. Edmund's the nicest town in the
+world. Meet them wherever you will, they have all the same boast; and
+indeed, as a town _in itself_, it is the neatest place that ever was
+seen. It is airy, it has several fine open places in it, and it has the
+remains of the famous abbey walls and the abbey gate entire; and it is
+so clean and so neat that nothing can equal it in that respect. It was a
+favourite spot in ancient times; greatly endowed with monasteries and
+hospitals. Besides the famous Benedictine Abbey, there were once a
+college and a friary; and as to the abbey itself, it was one of the
+greatest in the kingdom; and was so ancient as to have been founded only
+about forty years after the landing of Saint Austin in Kent. The land
+all round about it is good; and the soil is of that nature as not to
+produce much dirt at any time of the year; but the country about it is
+_flat_, and not of that beautiful variety that we find at Ipswich.
+
+After all, what is the reflection now called for? It is that this fine
+county, for which nature has done all that she can do, soil, climate,
+sea-ports, people; everything that can be done, and an internal
+government, civil and ecclesiastical, the most complete in the world,
+wanting nothing but to _be let alone_, to make every soul in it as happy
+as people can be upon earth; the peace provided for by the county rates;
+property protected by the law of the land; the poor provided for by the
+poor-rates; religion provided for by the tithes and the church-rates;
+easy and safe conveyance provided for by the highway-rates;
+extraordinary danger provided against by the militia-rates; a complete
+government in itself; _but having to pay a portion of sixty millions a
+year in taxes, over and above all this; and that, too, on account of
+wars carried on, not for the defence of England_, not for the upholding
+of _English liberty and happiness_, but for the purpose of crushing
+liberty and happiness in other countries; and all this because, and only
+because, a septennial Parliament has deprived the people of their
+rights.
+
+That which we _admire_ most is not always that which would be _our
+choice_. One might imagine, that after all that I have said about this
+fine county, I should certainly prefer it as a place of residence. I
+should not, however: my choice has been always very much divided between
+the woods of Sussex and the downs of Wiltshire. I should not like to be
+compelled to decide; but if I were compelled, I do believe that I should
+fix on some vale in Wiltshire. Water meadows at the bottom, corn-land
+going up towards the hills, those hills being _Down land_, and a
+farm-house, in a clump of trees, in some little cross vale between the
+hills, sheltered on every side but the south. In short, if Mr. Bennet
+would give me a farm, the house of which lies on the right-hand side of
+the road going from Salisbury to Warminster, in the parish of Norton
+Bovant, just before you enter that village; if he would but be so good
+as to do that, I would freely give up all the rest of the world to the
+possession of whoever may get hold of it. I have hinted this to him once
+or twice before, but I am sorry to say that he turns a deaf ear to my
+hinting.
+
+
+_Cambridge, 28th March, 1830._
+
+I went from Hargham to Lynn on Tuesday, the 23rd; but owing to the
+disappointment at Thetford, everything was deranged. It was market-day
+at Lynn, but no preparations of any sort had been made, and no
+notification given. I therefore resolved, after staying at Lynn on
+Wednesday, to make a short tour, and to come back to it again. This tour
+was to take in _Ely_, Cambridge, St. Ives, Stamford, Peterborough,
+Wisbeach, and was to bring me back to Lynn, after a very busy ten days.
+I was particularly desirous to have a little political preaching at Ely,
+the place where the flogging of the English local militia under a guard
+of German bayonets cost me so dear.
+
+I got there about noon on Thursday, the 25th, being market-day; but I
+had been apprised even before I left Lynn, that no place had been
+provided for my accommodation. A gentleman at Lynn gave me the name of
+one at Ely, who, as he thought, would be glad of an opportunity of
+pointing out a proper place, and of speaking about it; but just before I
+set off from Lynn, I received a notification from this gentleman, that
+he could do nothing in the matter. I knew that Ely was a small place,
+but I was determined to go and see the spot where the militia-men were
+flogged, and also determined to find some opportunity or other of
+relating that story as publicly as I could at Ely, and of describing the
+_tail_ of the story; of which I will speak presently. Arrived at Ely, I
+first walked round the beautiful cathedral, that honour to our Catholic
+forefathers, and that standing disgrace to our Protestant selves. It is
+impossible to look at that magnificent pile without _feeling_ that we
+are a fallen race of men. The cathedral would, leaving out the palace of
+the bishop, and the houses of the dean, canons, and prebendaries, weigh
+more, if it were put into a scale, than all the houses in the town, and
+all the houses for a mile round the neighbourhood if you exclude the
+remains of the ancient monasteries. You have only to open your eyes to
+be convinced that England must have been a far greater and more wealthy
+country in those days than it is in these days. The hundreds of
+thousands of loads of stone, of which this cathedral and the monasteries
+in the neighbourhood were built, must all have been brought by sea from
+distant parts of the kingdom. These foundations were laid more than a
+thousand years ago; and yet there are vagabonds who have the impudence
+to say that it is the Protestant religion that has made England a great
+country.
+
+Ely is what one may call a miserable little town: very prettily
+situated, but poor and mean. Everything seems to be on the decline, as,
+indeed, is the case everywhere, where the clergy are the masters. They
+say that this bishop has an income of L18,000 a year. He and the dean
+and chapter are the owners of all the land and tithes, for a great
+distance round about, in this beautiful and most productive part of the
+country; and yet this famous building, the cathedral, is in a state of
+disgraceful irrepair and disfigurement. The great and magnificent
+windows to the east have been shortened at the bottom, and the space
+plastered up with brick and mortar, in a very slovenly manner, for the
+purpose of saving the expense of keeping the glass in repair. Great
+numbers of the windows in the upper part of the building have been
+partly closed up in the same manner, and others quite closed up. One
+door-way, which apparently had stood in need of repair, has been rebuilt
+in modern style, because it was cheaper; and the churchyard contained a
+flock of sheep acting as vergers for those who live upon the immense
+income, not a penny of which ought to be expended upon themselves while
+any part of this beautiful building is in a state of irrepair. This
+cathedral was erected "to the honour of God and the Holy Church." My
+daughters went to the service in the afternoon, in the choir of which
+they saw God honoured by the presence of _two old men_, forming the
+whole of the congregation. I dare say, that in Catholic times, five
+thousand people at a time have been assembled in this church. The
+cathedral and town stand upon a little hill, about three miles in
+circumference, raised up, as it were, for the purpose, amidst the rich
+fen land by which the hill is surrounded, and I dare say that the town
+formerly consisted of houses built over a great part of this hill, and
+of, probably, from fifty to a hundred thousand people. The people do not
+now exceed above four thousand, including the bedridden and the babies.
+
+Having no place provided for lecturing, and knowing no single soul in
+the place, I was thrown upon my own resources. The first thing I did was
+to walk up through the market, which contained much more than an
+audience sufficient for me; but, leaving the market people to carry on
+their affairs, I picked up a sort of labouring man, asked him if he
+recollected when the local militia-men were flogged under the guard of
+the Germans; and, receiving an answer in the affirmative, I asked him to
+go and show me the spot, which he did; he showed me a little common
+along which the men had been marched, and into a piece of pasture-land,
+where he put his foot upon the identical spot where the flogging had
+been executed. On that spot, I told him what I had suffered for
+expressing my indignation at that flogging. I told him that a large sum
+of English money was now every year sent abroad to furnish half pay and
+allowances to the officers of those German troops, and to maintain the
+widows and children of such of them as were dead; and I added, "You have
+to work to help to pay that money; part of the taxes which you pay on
+your malt, hops, beer, leather, soap, candles, tobacco, tea, sugar, and
+everything else, goes abroad every year to pay these people: it has thus
+been going abroad ever since the peace; and it will thus go abroad for
+the rest of your life, if this system of managing the nation's affairs
+continue;" and I told him that about one million seven hundred thousand
+pounds had been sent abroad on this account, _since the peace_.
+
+When I opened, I found that this man was willing to open too; and he
+uttered sentiments that would have convinced me, if I had not before
+been convinced of the fact, that there are very few, even amongst the
+labourers, who do not clearly understand the cause of their ruin. I
+discovered that there were two Ely men flogged upon that occasion, and
+that one of them was still alive and residing near the town. I sent for
+this man, who came to me in the evening when he had done his work, and
+who told me that he had lived seven years with the same master when he
+was flogged, and was bailiff or head man to his master. He has now a
+wife and several children; is a very nice-looking, and appears to be a
+hard-working, man, and to bear an excellent character.
+
+But how was I to harangue? For I was determined not to quit Ely without
+something of that sort. I told this labouring man who showed me the
+flogging spot, my name, which seemed to surprise him very much, for he
+had heard of me before. After I had returned to my inn, I walked back
+again through the market amongst the farmers; then went to an inn that
+looked out upon the market-place, went into an up-stairs room, threw up
+the sash, and sat down at the window, and looked out upon the market.
+Little groups soon collected to survey me, while I sat in a very
+unconcerned attitude. The farmers had dined, or I should have found out
+the most numerous assemblage, and have dined with them. The next best
+thing was, to go and sit down in the room where they usually dropped in
+to drink after dinner; and, as they nearly all smoke, to take a pipe
+with them. This, therefore, I did; and, after a time, we began to talk.
+
+The room was too small to contain a twentieth part of the people that
+would have come in if they could. It was hot to suffocation; but,
+nevertheless, I related to them the account of the flogging, and of my
+persecution on that account; and I related to them the account above
+stated with regard to the English money now sent to the Germans, at
+which they appeared to be utterly astonished. I had not time sufficient
+for a lecture, but I explained to them briefly the real cause of the
+distress which prevailed; I warned the farmers particularly against the
+consequences of hoping that this distress would remove itself. I
+portrayed to them the effects of the taxes; and showed them that we owe
+this enormous burden to the want of being fairly represented in the
+Parliament. Above all things, I did that which I never fail to do,
+showed them the absurdity of grumbling at the six millions a year given
+in relief to the poor, while they were silent, and seemed to think
+nothing of the sixty millions of taxes collected by the Government at
+London, and I asked them how any man of property could have the
+impudence to call upon the labouring man to serve in the militia, and to
+deny that that labouring man had, in case of need, a clear right to a
+share of the produce of the land. I explained to them how the poor were
+originally relieved; told them that the revenues of the livings, which
+had their foundation in _charity_, were divided amongst the poor. The
+demands for repair of the churches, and the clergy themselves; I
+explained to them how church-rates and poor-rates came to be introduced;
+how the burden of maintaining the poor came to be thrown upon the people
+at large; how the nation had sunk by degrees ever since the event called
+the Reformation; and, pointing towards the cathedral, I said, "Can you
+believe, gentlemen, that when that magnificent pile was reared, and when
+all the fine monasteries, hospitals, schools, and other resorts of piety
+and charity, existed in this town and neighbourhood; can you believe,
+that Ely was the miserable little place that it now is; and that that
+England which had never heard of the name of _pauper_, contained the
+crowds of miserable creatures that it now contains, some starving at
+stone-cracking by the way-side, and others drawing loaded wagons on that
+way?"
+
+A young man in the room (I having come to a pause) said: "But, Sir, were
+there no poor in Catholic times?" "Yes," said I, "to be sure there were.
+The Scripture says, that the poor shall never cease out of the land; and
+there are five hundred texts of Scripture enjoining on all men to be
+good and kind to the poor. It is necessary to the existence of civil
+society, that there should be poor. Men have two motives to industry and
+care in all the walks of life: one, to acquire wealth; but the other and
+stronger, to avoid poverty. If there were no poverty, there would be no
+industry, no enterprise. But this poverty is not to be made a punishment
+unjustly severe. Idleness, extravagance, are offences against morality;
+but they are not offences of that heinous nature to justify the
+infliction of starvation by way of punishment. It is, therefore, the
+duty of every man that is able; it is particularly the duty of every
+government, and it was a duty faithfully executed by the Catholic
+Church, to take care that no human being should perish for want in a
+land of plenty; and to take care, too, that no one should be deficient
+of a sufficiency of food and raiment, not only to sustain life, but also
+to sustain health." The young man said: "I thank you, Sir; I am
+answered."
+
+I strongly advised the farmers to be well with their work-people; for
+that, unless their flocks were as safe in their fields as their bodies
+were in their beds, their lives must be lives of misery; that if their
+sacks and barns were not places of as safe deposit for their corn as
+their drawers were for their money, the life of the farmer was the most
+wretched upon earth, in place of being the most pleasant, as it ought to
+be.
+
+
+_Boston, Friday, 9th April, 1830._
+
+Quitting Cambridge and Dr. Chafy and Serjeant Frere, on Monday, the 29th
+of March, I arrived at St. Ives, in Huntingdonshire, about one o'clock
+in the day. In the evening I harangued to about 200 persons, principally
+farmers, in a wheelwright's shop, that being the only _safe_ place in
+the town, of sufficient dimensions and sufficiently strong. It was
+market-day; and this is a great cattle-market. As I was not to be at
+Stamford in Lincolnshire till the 31st, I went from St. Ives to my
+friend Mr. Wells's, near Huntingdon, and remained there till the 31st in
+the morning, employing the evening of the 30th in going to Chatteris, in
+the Isle of Ely, and there addressing a good large company of farmers.
+
+On the 31st, I went to Stamford, and, in the evening, spoke to about 200
+farmers and others, in a large room in a very fine and excellent inn,
+called Standwell's Hotel, which is, with few exceptions, the nicest inn
+that I have ever been in. On the 1st of April, I harangued here again,
+and had amongst my auditors some most agreeable, intelligent, and
+public-spirited yeomen, from the little county of Rutland, who made,
+respecting the _seat in Parliament_, the proposition, the details of the
+purport of which I communicated to my readers in the last Register.
+
+On the 2nd of April, I met my audience in the playhouse at Peterborough;
+and though it had snowed all day, and was very wet and sloppy, I had a
+good large audience; and I did not let this opportunity pass without
+telling my hearers of the part that their _good_ neighbour, Lord
+Fitzwilliam, had acted with regard to the _French war_, with regard to
+_Burke and his pension_; with regard to the _dungeoning law_, which
+drove me across the Atlantic in 1817, and with regard to the putting
+into the present Parliament, aye, and for that very town, that very
+Lawyer Scarlett, whose state prosecutions are now become so famous.
+"Never," said I, "did I say that behind a man's back that I would not
+say to his face. I wish I had his face before me: but I am here as near
+to it as I can get: I am before the face of his friends: here,
+therefore, I will say what I think of him." When I had described his
+conduct, and given my opinion on it, many applauded, and not one
+expressed disapprobation.
+
+On the 3rd, I speechified at Wisbeach, in the playhouse, to about 220
+people, I think it was; and that same night, went to sleep at a friend's
+(a total stranger to me, however) at St. Edmund's, in the heart of the
+Fens. I stayed there on the 4th (Sunday), the morning of which brought a
+hard frost: ice an inch thick, and the total destruction of the apricot
+blossoms.
+
+After passing Sunday and the greater part of Monday (the 5th) at St.
+Edmund's, where my daughters and myself received the greatest kindness
+and attention, we went, on Monday afternoon, to Crowland, where we were
+most kindly lodged and entertained at the houses of two gentlemen, to
+whom also we were personally perfect strangers; and in the evening, I
+addressed a very large assemblage of most respectable farmers and
+others, in this once famous town. There was another hard frost on the
+Monday morning; just, as it were, to _finish_ the apricot bloom.
+
+On the 6th I went to Lynn, and on that evening and on the evening of the
+7th, I spoke to about 300 people in the playhouse. And here there was
+more _interruption_ than I have ever met with at any other place. This
+town, though containing as good and kind friends as I have met with in
+any other, and though the people are generally as good, contains also,
+apparently, a large proportion of _dead-weight_, the offspring, most
+likely, of the _rottenness of the borough_. Two or three, or even _one_
+man, may, if not tossed out at once, disturb and interrupt everything in
+a case where constant attention to _fact_ and _argument_ is requisite,
+to insure utility to the meeting. There were but _three_ here; and
+though they were finally silenced, it was not without great loss of
+time, great noise and hubbub. Two, I was told, were _dead-weight_ men,
+and one a sort of _higgling merchant_.
+
+On the 8th I went to Holbeach, in this noble county of Lincoln; and,
+gracious God! what a _contrast_ with the scene at Lynn! I knew not a
+soul in the place. Mr. Fields, a bookseller and printer, had invited me
+by letter, and had, in the nicest and most unostentatious manner, made
+all the preparations. Holbeach lies in the midst of some of the richest
+land in the world; a small market-town, but a parish more than twenty
+miles across, larger, I believe, than the county of Rutland, produced an
+audience (in a very nice room, with seats prepared) of 178, apparently
+all wealthy farmers, and men in that rank of life; and an audience so
+_deeply_ attentive to the dry matters on which I had to address it, I
+have very seldom met with. I was delighted with Holbeach; a neat little
+town; a most beautiful church with a spire, like that of "the man of
+Ross, pointing to the skies;" gardens very pretty; fruit-trees in
+abundance, with blossom-buds ready to burst; and land, dark in colour,
+and as fine in substance as flour, as fine as if sifted through one of
+the sieves with which we get the dust out of the clover seed; and when
+cut deep down into with a spade, precisely, as to substance, like a
+piece of hard butter; yet nowhere is the _distress_ greater than here. I
+walked on from Holbeach, six miles, towards Boston; and seeing the
+fatness of the land, and the fine grass and the never-ending sheep lying
+about like _fat hogs_, stretched in the sun, and seeing the abject state
+of the labouring people, I could not help exclaiming, "God has given us
+the best country in the world; our brave and wise and virtuous fathers,
+who built all these magnificent churches, gave us the best government in
+the world, and we, their cowardly and foolish and profligate sons, have
+made this once-paradise what we now behold!"
+
+I arrived at Boston (where I am now writing) to-day, (Friday, 9th April)
+about ten o'clock. I must arrive at Louth before I can say _precisely_
+what my future route will be. There is an immense fair at Lincoln next
+week; and a friend has been _here_ to point out the proper days to be
+there; as, however, this Register will not come from the press until
+after I shall have had an opportunity of writing something at Louth,
+time enough to be inserted in it. I will here go back, and speak of the
+country that I have travelled over, since I left Cambridge on the 29th
+of March.
+
+From Cambridge to St. Ives the land is generally in open, unfenced
+fields, and some common fields; generally stiff land, and some of it not
+very good, and wheat, in many places, looking rather thin. From St. Ives
+to Chatteris (which last is in the Isle of Ely), the land is better,
+particularly as you approach the latter place. From Chatteris I came
+back to Huntingdon and once more saw its beautiful meadows, of which I
+spoke when I went thither in 1823. From Huntingdon, through Stilton, to
+Stamford (the two last in Lincolnshire), is a country of rich arable
+land and grass fields, and of beautiful meadows. The enclosures are very
+large, the soil red, with a whitish stone below; very much like the soil
+at and near Ross in Herefordshire, and like that near Coventry and
+Warwick. Here, as all over this country, everlasting fine sheep. The
+houses all along here are built of the stone of the country: you seldom
+see brick. The churches are large, lofty, and fine, and give proof that
+the country was formerly much more populous than it is now, and that the
+people had a vast deal more of wealth in their hands and at their own
+disposal. There are three beautiful churches at Stamford, not less, I
+dare say, than three [_quaere_] hundred years old; but two of them (I did
+not go to the other) are as perfect as when just finished, except as to
+the _images_, most of which have been destroyed by the ungrateful
+Protestant barbarians, of different sorts, but some of which (_out of
+the reach_ of their ruthless hands) are still in the niches.
+
+From Stamford to Peterborough is a country of the same description, with
+the additional beauty of _woods_ here and there, and with meadows just
+like those at Huntingdon, and not surpassed by those on the Severn near
+Worcester, nor by those on the Avon at Tewkesbury. The cathedral at
+Peterborough is exquisitely beautiful, and I have great pleasure in
+saying, that, contrary to the _more magnificent_ pile at Ely, it is kept
+in good order; the Bishop (Herbert Marsh) residing a good deal on the
+spot; and though he _did_ write a pamphlet to justify and urge on the
+war, the ruinous war, and though he _did_ get a _pension_ for it, he is,
+they told me, very good to the poor people. My daughters had a great
+desire to see, and I had a great desire they should see, the
+burial-place of that ill-used, that savagely-treated, woman, and that
+honour to woman-kind, Catherine, queen of the ferocious tyrant, Henry
+the Eighth. To the infamy of that ruffian, and the shame of after ages,
+there is no _monument_ to record her virtues and her sufferings; and the
+remains of this daughter of the wise Ferdinand and of the generous
+Isabella, who sold her jewels to enable Columbus to discover the new
+world, lie under the floor of the cathedral, commemorated by a short
+inscription on a plate of brass. All men, Protestants or not
+Protestants, feel as I feel upon this subject; search the _hearts_ of
+the bishop and of his dean and chapter, and these feelings are there;
+but to do _justice_ to the memory of this illustrious victim of tyranny,
+would be to cast a reflection on that event to which they owe their rich
+possessions, and, at the same time, to suggest ideas not very favourable
+to the descendants of those who divided amongst them the plunder of the
+people arising out of that event, and which descendants are their
+patrons, and give them what they possess. From this cause, and no other,
+it is, that the memory of the virtuous Catherine is unblazoned, while
+that of the tyrannical, the cruel, and the immoral Elizabeth, is
+recorded with all possible veneration, and all possible varnishing-over
+of her disgusting amours and endless crimes.
+
+They relate at Peterborough, that the same sexton who buried Queen
+Catherine, also buried here Mary, Queen of Scots. The remains of the
+latter, of very questionable virtue, or, rather, of unquestionable vice,
+were removed to Westminster Abbey by her son, James the First; but those
+of the virtuous Queen were suffered to remain unhonoured! Good God! what
+injustice, what a want of principle, what hostility to all virtuous
+feeling, has not been the fruit of this Protestant Reformation; what
+plunder, what disgrace to England, what shame, what misery, has that
+event not produced! There is nothing that I address to my hearers with
+more visible effect than a statement of _the manner in which the
+poor-rates and the church-rates came_. This, of course, includes an
+account of _how the poor were relieved in Catholic times_. To the far
+greater part of people this is information _wholly new_; they are
+_deeply interested_ in it; and the impression is very great. Always
+before we part, Tom Cranmer's church receives a considerable blow.
+
+There is in the cathedral a very ancient monument, made to commemorate,
+they say, the murder of the abbot and his monks by the Danes. Its date
+is the year 870. Almost all the cathedrals, were, it appears, originally
+churches of monasteries. That of Winchester and several others,
+certainly were. There has lately died, in the garden of the bishop's
+palace, a tortoise that had been _there_ more, they say, than two
+hundred years; a fact very likely to be known; because, at the end of
+thirty or forty, people would begin to talk about it as something
+remarkable; and thus the record would be handed down from father to son.
+
+From Peterborough to Wisbeach, the road, for the most part, lies through
+the _Fens_, and here we passed through the village of Thorney, where
+there was a famous abbey, which, together with its valuable domain, was
+given by the savage tyrant, Henry VIII., to John Lord Russell (made a
+lord by that tyrant), the founder of the family of that name. This man
+got also the abbey and estate at Woburn; the priory and its estate at
+Tavistock; and in the next reign he got Covent Garden and other parts
+adjoining; together with other things, all then _public property_. A
+history, a _true history_ of this family (which I hope I shall find time
+to write) would be a most valuable thing. It would be a nice little
+specimen of the way in which these families became possessed of a great
+part of their estates. It would show how the poor-rates and the
+church-rates came. It would set the whole nation _right_ at once. Some
+years ago I had a set of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ (Scotch), which
+contained an account of every other _great family_ in the kingdom; but I
+could find in it no account of _this_ family, either under the word
+Russell or the word Bedford. I got into a passion with the book, because
+it contained no account of the mode of raising the birch-tree; and it
+was sold to _a son_ (as I was told) of Mr. Alderman Heygate; and if that
+gentleman look into the book, he will find what I say to be true; but if
+I should be in error about this, perhaps he will have the goodness to
+let me know it. I shall be obliged to any one to point me out any
+printed account of this family; and particularly to tell me where I can
+get an old folio, containing (amongst other things) Bulstrode's argument
+and narrative in justification of the sentence and execution of Lord
+William Russell, in the reign of Charles the Second. It is impossible to
+look at the now-miserable village of Thorney, and to think of its
+once-splendid abbey; it is impossible to look at the _twenty thousand
+acres_ of land around, covered with fat sheep, or bearing six quarters
+of wheat or ten of oats to the acre, without any manure; it is
+impossible to think of these without feeling a desire that the whole
+nation should know all about the _surprising merits_ of the possessors.
+
+Wisbeach, lying farther up the arm of the sea than Lynn, is, like the
+latter, a little town of commerce, chiefly engaged in exporting to the
+south, _the corn_ that grows in this productive country. It is a good
+solid town, though not handsome, and has a large market, particularly
+for corn.
+
+To Crowland, I went, as before stated, from Wisbeach, staying two nights
+at St. Edmund's. Here I was in the heart of the Fens. The whole country
+as _level_ as the table on which I am now writing. The horizon like the
+sea in a dead calm: you see the morning sun come up, just as at sea; and
+see it go down over the rim, in just the same way as at sea in a calm.
+The land covered with beautiful grass, with sheep lying about upon it,
+as fat as hogs stretched out sleeping in a stye. The kind and polite
+friends, with whom we were lodged, had a very neat garden, and fine
+young orchard. Everything grows well here: earth without a stone so big
+as a pin's head; grass as thick as it can grow on the ground; immense
+bowling-greens separated by ditches; and not the sign of dock or thistle
+or other weed to be seen. What a contrast between these and the
+heath-covered sand-hills of Surrey, amongst which I was born! Yet the
+labourers, who spuddle about the ground in the little _dips_ between
+those sand-hills, are better off than those that exist in this fat of
+the land. _Here_ the grasping system takes _all_ away, because it has
+the means of coming at the value of all: _there_, the poor man enjoys
+_something_, because he is thought too poor to have anything: he is
+there allowed to have what is deemed _worth nothing_; but here, where
+every inch is valuable, not one inch is he permitted to enjoy.
+
+At Crowland also (still in the Fens) was a great and rich _abbey_, a
+good part of the magnificent ruins of the church of which are still
+standing, one corner or part of it being used as the _parish church_, by
+the worms, which have crept out of the dead bodies of those who lived in
+the days of the founders;
+
+  "And wond'ring man could want the larger pile,
+  Exult, and claim the corner with a smile."
+
+They tell you, that all the country at and near Crowland was a mere
+swamp, a mere bog, _bearing nothing_, bearing nothing worth naming,
+until the _modern drainings_ took place! The thing called the
+"Reformation," has lied common sense out of men's minds. So _likely_ a
+thing to choose a barren swamp whereon, or wherein, to make the site of
+an abbey, and of a benedictine abbey too! It has been always observed,
+that the monks took care to choose for their places of abode, pleasant
+spots, surrounded by productive land. The likeliest thing in the world
+for these monks to choose a swamp for their dwelling-place, surrounded
+by land that produced nothing good! The thing gives the lie to itself:
+and it is impossible to reject the belief, that these Fens were as
+productive of corn and meat a thousand years ago, and more so, than they
+are at this hour. There is a curious triangular bridge here, on one part
+of which stands the statue of one of the ancient kings. It is all of
+great age; and everything shows that Crowland was a place of importance
+in the earliest times.
+
+From Crowland to Lynn, through Thorney and Wisbeach, is all Fens, well
+besprinkled, formerly, with monasteries of various descriptions, and
+still well set with magnificent churches. From Lynn to Holbeach you get
+out of the real Fens, and into the land that I attempted to describe,
+when, a few pages back, I was speaking of Holbeach. I say attempted; for
+I defy tongue or pen to make the description adequate to the matter: to
+know what the thing is, you must _see_ it. The same land continues all
+the way on to Boston: endless grass and endless fat sheep; not a stone,
+not a weed.
+
+
+_Boston, Sunday, 11th April, 1830._
+
+Last night, I made a speech at the playhouse to an audience, whose
+appearance was sufficient to fill me with pride. I had given notice that
+I should perform _on Friday_, overlooking the circumstance that it was
+Good Friday. In apologising for this inadvertence, I took occasion to
+observe, that even if I had persevered, the clergy of the church could
+have nothing to object, seeing that they were now silent while a bill
+was passing in Parliament to put _Jews_ on a level with _Christians_; to
+enable Jews, the blasphemers of the Redeemer, to sit on the bench, to
+sit in both Houses of Parliament, to sit in council with the King, and
+to be kings of England, if entitled to the Crown, which, by possibility,
+they might become, if this bill were to pass; that to this bill _the
+clergy had offered no opposition_; and that, therefore, how could they
+hold sacred the anniversary appointed to commemorate the crucifixion of
+Christ by the hands of the blaspheming and bloody Jews? That, at any
+rate, if this bill passed; if those who called Jesus Christ an
+_impostor_ were thus declared to be _as good_ as those who adored him,
+there was not, I hoped, a man in the kingdom who would pretend, that it
+would be just to compel the people to pay tithes, and fees, and
+offerings, to men for _teaching Christianity_. This was a _clincher_;
+and as such it was received.
+
+This morning I went out at six, looked at the town, walked three miles
+on the road to Spilsby, and back to breakfast at nine. Boston (_bos_ is
+Latin for _ox_) though not above a fourth or fifth part of the size of
+its _daughter_ in New England, which got its name, I dare say, from some
+persecuted native of this place, who had quitted England and all her
+wealth and all her glories, to preserve that _freedom_, which was still
+more dear to him; though not a town like New Boston, and though little
+to what it formerly was, when agricultural produce was the great staple
+of the kingdom and the great subject of foreign exchange, is,
+nevertheless, a very fine town; good houses, good shops, pretty gardens
+about it, a fine open place, nearly equal to that of Nottingham, in the
+middle of it a river and a canal passing through it, each crossed by a
+handsome and substantial bridge, a fine market for sheep, cattle, and
+pigs, and another for meat, butter, and fish; and being, like Lynn, a
+great place for the export of corn and flour, and having many fine
+mills, it is altogether a town of very considerable importance; and,
+which is not to be overlooked, inhabited by people none of whom appear
+to be in misery.
+
+The great pride and glory of the Bostonians, is _their church_, which
+is, I think, 400 feet long, 90 feet wide, and has a tower (or steeple,
+as they call it) 300 feet high, which is both a land-mark and a
+sea-mark. To describe the richness, the magnificence, the symmetry, the
+exquisite beauty of this pile, is wholly out of my power. It is
+impossible to look at it without feeling, first, admiration and
+reverence and gratitude to the memory of our fathers who reared it; and
+next, indignation at those who affect to believe, and contempt for those
+who do believe, that, when this pile was reared, the age was _dark_, the
+people rude and ignorant, and the country _destitute of wealth_ and
+_thinly peopled_. Look at this church, then; look at the heaps of white
+rubbish that the parsons have lately stuck up under the "_New-church
+Act_," and which, after having been built with money forced from the
+nation by odious taxes, they have stuffed full of _locked-up pens_,
+called _pews_, which they let for money, as cattle- and sheep- and
+pig-pens are let at fairs and markets; nay, after having looked at this
+work of the "_dark_ ages," look at that great, heavy, ugly, unmeaning
+mass of stone called St. PAUL'S, which an American friend of mine, who
+came to London from Falmouth and had seen the cathedrals at Exeter and
+Salisbury, swore to me, that when he first saw it, he was at a loss to
+guess whether it were a _court-house_ or a _jail_; after looking at
+Boston Church, go and look at that great, gloomy lump, created by a
+Protestant Parliament, and by taxes wrung by force from the whole
+nation; and then say which is the age really meriting the epithet
+_dark_.
+
+St. Botolph, to whom this church is dedicated, while he (if saints see
+and hear what is passing on earth) must lament that the piety-inspiring
+mass has been, in this noble edifice, supplanted by the monotonous
+hummings of an oaken hutch, has not the mortification to see his church
+treated in a manner as if the new possessors sighed for the hour of its
+destruction. It is taken great care of; and though it has cruelly
+suffered from _Protestant repairs_; though the images are gone and the
+stained glass; and though the glazing is now in squares instead of
+lozenges; though the nave is stuffed with _pens_ called pews; and
+though other changes have taken place detracting from the beauty of the
+edifice, great care is taken of it as it now is, and the inside is not
+disfigured and disgraced by a _gallery_, that great and characteristic
+mark of Protestant taste, which, as nearly as may be, makes a church
+like a playhouse. Saint Botolph (on the supposition before mentioned)
+has the satisfaction to see, that the base of his celebrated church is
+surrounded by an iron fence, to keep from it all offensive and corroding
+matter, which is so disgusting to the sight round the magnificent piles
+at Norwich, Ely and other places; that the churchyard, and all
+appertaining to it, are kept in the neatest and most respectable state;
+that no money has been spared for these purposes; that here the eye
+tells the heart, that gratitude towards the fathers of the Bostonians is
+not extinguished in the breasts of their sons; and this the Saint will
+know that he owes to the circumstances, that the parish is a poor
+vicarage, and that the care of his church is in the hands of _the
+industrious people_, and not in those of a fat and luxurious dean and
+chapter, wallowing in wealth derived from the people's labour.
+
+
+_Horncastle, 12th April._
+
+A fine, soft, showery morning saw us out of Boston, carrying with us the
+most pleasing reflections as to our reception and treatment there by
+numerous persons, none of whom we had ever seen before. The face of the
+country, for about half the way, the soil, the grass, the endless sheep,
+the thickly-scattered and magnificent churches, continue as on the other
+side of Boston; but, after that, we got out of the low and level land.
+At Sibsey, a pretty village five miles from Boston, we saw, for the
+first time since we left Peterborough, land rising above the level of
+the horizon; and, not having seen such a thing for so long, it had
+struck my daughters, who overtook me on the road (I having walked on
+from Boston), that the sight had an effect like that produced by the
+first _sight of land_ after a voyage across the Atlantic.
+
+We now soon got into a country of hedges and dry land and gravel and
+clay and stones; the land not bad, however; pretty much like that of
+Sussex, lying between the forest part and the South Downs. A good
+proportion of woodland also; and just before we got to Horncastle, we
+passed the park of that Mr. Dymock who is called "the Champion of
+England," and to whom, it is said hereabouts, that we pay out of the
+taxes eight thousand pounds a year! This never can be, to be sure; but
+if we pay him only a hundred a year, I will lay down my _glove_ against
+that of the "Champion," that we do not pay him even _that_ for five
+years longer.
+
+It is curious, that the moment you get out of the _rich land_, the
+churches become _smaller_, _mean_, and with scarcely anything in the way
+of _tower_ or _steeple_. This town is seated in the middle of a large
+valley, not, however, remarkable for anything of peculiar value or
+beauty; a purely agricultural town; well built, and not mean in any part
+of it. It is a great rendezvous for horses and cattle, and
+sheep-dealers, and for those who sell these; and accordingly, it suffers
+severely from the loss of the small paper-money.
+
+
+_Horncastle, 13th April, Morning._
+
+I made a speech last evening to from 130 to 150, almost all farmers, and
+most men of apparent wealth to a certain extent. I have seldom been
+better pleased with my audience. It is not the clapping and huzzaing
+that I value so much as the _silent attention_, the _earnest look_ at me
+from _all eyes_ at once, and then when the point is concluded, the _look
+and nod at each other_, as if the parties were saying, "_Think of
+that!_" And of these I had a great deal at Horncastle. They say that
+there are _a hundred parish churches within six miles of this town_. I
+dare say that there was one farmer from almost every one of those
+parishes. This is sowing the seeds of truth in a very sure manner: it is
+not scattering broadcast; it is really _drilling the country_.
+
+There is one deficiency, and that, with me, a great one, throughout this
+country of corn and grass and oxen and sheep, that I have come over
+during the last three weeks; namely, the want of _singing birds_. We are
+now just in that season when they sing most. Here, in all this country,
+I have seen and heard only about four sky-larks, and not one other
+singing bird of any description, and, of the small birds that do not
+sing, I have seen only one _yellow-hammer_, and it was perched on the
+rail of a pound between Boston and Sibsey. Oh! the thousands of linnets
+all singing together on one tree, in the sand-hills of Surrey! Oh! the
+carolling in the coppices and the dingles of Hampshire and Sussex and
+Kent! At this moment (5 o'clock in the morning) the groves at Barn Elm
+are echoing with the warblings of thousands upon thousands of birds. The
+_thrush_ begins a little before it is light; next the _black-bird_; next
+the _larks_ begin to rise; all the rest begin the moment the sun gives
+the signal; and, from the hedges, the bushes, from the middle and the
+topmost twigs of the trees, comes the singing of endless variety; from
+the long dead grass comes the sound of the sweet and soft voice of the
+_white-throat_ or _nettle-tom_, while the loud and merry song of the
+_lark_ (the songster himself out of sight) seems to descend from the
+skies. MILTON, in his description of paradise, has not omitted the "song
+of earliest birds." However, everything taken together, here, in
+Lincolnshire, are more good things than man could have had the
+conscience to _ask_ of God.
+
+And now, if I had time and room to describe the state of _men's affairs_
+in the country through which I have passed, I should show that the
+people at Westminster would have known, how to turn paradise itself into
+hell. I must, however, defer this until my next, when I shall have been
+at Hull and Lincoln, and have had a view of the whole of this rich and
+fine country. In the meanwhile, however, I cannot help congratulating
+that _sensible_ fellow, Wilmot Horton, and his co-operator, Burdett,
+that Emigration is going on at a swimming rate. Thousands are going, and
+that, too, _without mortgaging the poor-rates_. But, _sensible_ fellows!
+it is not the _aged_, the _halt_, the _ailing_; it is not the _paupers_
+that are going; but men with from 200_l._ to 2,000_l._ in their pocket!
+This very year, from two to five millions of pounds sterling will
+actually be carried _from England_ to the United States. The Scotch, who
+have money to pay their passages, go to New York; those who have none
+get carried to Canada, that they may thence get into the United States.
+I will inquire, one of these days, what _right_ Burdett has to live in
+England more than those whom he proposes to send away.
+
+
+_Spittal, near Lincoln, 19th April 1830._
+
+Here we are, at the end of a pretty decent trip since we left Boston.
+The next place, on our way to Hull, was Horncastle, where I preached
+politics in the playhouse to a most respectable body of farmers, who had
+come in the wet to meet me. Mr. John Peniston, who had invited me to
+stop there, behaved in a very obliging manner, and made all things very
+pleasant.
+
+The country _from_ Boston continued, as I said before, flat for about
+half the way to Horncastle, and we then began to see the high land. From
+Horncastle I set off two hours before the carriage, and going through a
+very pretty village called Ashby, got to another at the foot of a hill,
+which, they say, forms part of the _Wolds_; that is, a ridge of hills.
+This second village is called Scamblesby. The vale in which it lies is
+very fine land. A hazel mould, rich and light too. I saw a man here
+ploughing for barley, after turnips, with _one horse_: the horse did not
+seem to work hard, and the man was _singing_: I need not say that he was
+young; and I dare say he had the good sense to keep his legs under
+another man's table, and to stretch his body on another man's bed.
+
+This is a very fine _corn country_: chalk at bottom: stony near the
+surface, in some places: here and there a chalk-pit in the hills: the
+shape of the ground somewhat like that of the broadest valleys in
+Wiltshire; but the fields not without fences as they are there: fields
+from fifteen to forty acres: the hills not downs, as in Wiltshire; but
+cultivated all over. The houses white and thatched, as they are in all
+chalk countries. The valley at Scamblesby has a little rivulet running
+down it, just as in all the chalk countries. The land continues nearly
+the same to Louth, which lies in a deep dell, with beautiful pastures on
+the surrounding hills, like those that I once admired at Shaftesbury, in
+Dorsetshire, and like that near St. Austle, in Cornwall, which I
+described in 1808.
+
+At Louth the wise corporation had _refused_ to let us have the
+playhouse; but my friends had prepared a very good place; and I had an
+opportunity of addressing crowded audiences two nights running. At no
+place have I been better pleased than at Louth. Mr. Paddison, solicitor,
+a young gentleman whom I had the honour to know slightly before, and to
+know whom, whether I estimate by character or by talent, would be an
+honour to any man, was particularly attentive to us. Mr. Naull,
+ironmonger, who had had the battle to fight for me for twenty years,
+expressed his exultation at my triumph in a manner that showed that he
+justly participated it with me. I breakfasted at Mr. Naull's with a
+gentleman 88 or 89 years of age, whose joy at shaking me by the hand was
+excessive. "Ah!" said he, "where are _now_ those savages who, at Hull,
+threatened to kill me for raising my voice against this system?" This is
+a very fine town, and has a beautiful church, nearly equal to that at
+Boston.
+
+We left Louth on the morning of Thursday the 15th, and got to Barton on
+the Humber by about noon, over a very fine country, large fields, fine
+pastures, flocks of those great sheep, of from 200 to 1,000 in a flock;
+and here at Barton, we arrived at the northern point of this noble
+county, having never seen one single acre of waste land, and not one
+acre that would be called bad land, in the south of England. The
+_Wolds_, or high-lands, lie away to our right, from Horncastle to near
+Barton; and on the other side of the Wolds lie the _Marshes of
+Lincolnshire_, which extend along the coast from Boston to the mouth of
+the Humber, on the bank of which we were at Barton, Hull being on the
+opposite side of the river, which is here about five miles wide, and
+which we had to cross in a steam-boat.
+
+But let me not forget Great Grimsby, at which we changed horses, and
+breakfasted, in our way from Louth to Barton. "What the devil!" the
+reader will say, "should you want to recollect _that_ place for? Why do
+you want not to forget that sink of corruption? What could you find
+there to be snatched from everlasting oblivion, except for the purpose
+of being execrated?" I did, however, find something there worthy of
+being made known, not only to every man in England but to every man in
+the world; and not to mention it here would be to be guilty of the
+greatest injustice.
+
+To my surprise I found a good many people assembled at the inn-door,
+evidently expecting my arrival. While breakfast was preparing, I wished
+to speak to the bookseller of the place, if there were one, and to give
+him a list of my books and writings, that he might place it in his shop.
+When he came, I was surprised to find that he had it already, and that
+he, occasionally, sold my books. Upon my asking him how he got it, he
+said that it was brought down from London and given to him by a Mr.
+Plaskitt, who, he said, had all my writings, and who, he said, he was
+sure would be very glad to see me; but that he lived above a mile from
+the town. A messenger, however, had gone off to carry the news, and Mr.
+Plaskitt arrived before we had done breakfast, bringing with him a son
+and a daughter. And from the lips of this gentleman, a man of as kind
+and benevolent appearance and manners as I ever beheld in my life, I had
+the following facts; namely, "that one of his sons sailed for New York
+some years ago; that the ship was cast away on the shores of Long
+Island; that the captain, crew, and passengers all perished; that the
+wrecked vessel was taken possession of by people on the coast; that his
+son had a watch in his trunk, or chest, a purse with fourteen shillings
+in it, and divers articles of wearing apparel; that the Americans, who
+searched the wreck, _sent all these articles safely to England to him_";
+"and," said he, "I keep the purse and the money at home, and _here is
+the watch in my pocket_"!
+
+It would have been worth the expense of coming from London to Grimsby,
+if for nothing but to learn this fact, which I record, not only in
+justice to the free people of America, and particularly in justice to my
+late neighbours in Long Island, but in justice to the character of
+mankind. I publish it as something to counterbalance the conduct of the
+atrocious monsters who plunder the wrecks on the coast of Cornwall, and,
+as I am told, on the coasts here in the east of the island.
+
+Away go, then, all the accusations upon the character of the Yankees.
+People may call them _sharp_, _cunning_, _overreaching_; and when they
+have exhausted the vocabulary of their abuse, the answer is found in
+this one fact, stated by Mr. Joshua Plaskitt, of Great Grimsby, in
+Lincolnshire, Old England. The person who sent the things to Mr.
+Plaskitt was named Jones. It did not occur to me to ask his christian
+name, nor to inquire what was the particular place where he lived in
+Long Island. I request Mr. Plaskitt to contrive to let me know these
+particulars; as I should like to communicate them to friends that I have
+on the north side of that island. However, it would excite no surprise
+there, that one of their countrymen had acted this part; for every man
+of them, having the same opportunity, would do the same. Their
+forefathers carried to New England the nature and character of the
+people of Old England, before national debts, paper-money, septennial
+bills, standing armies, dead-weights, and jubilees, had beggared and
+corrupted the people.
+
+At Hull I _lectured_ (I laugh at the word) to about seven hundred
+persons on the same evening that I arrived from Louth, which was on
+Thursday the 15th. We had what they call the summer theatre, which was
+crowded in every part except on the stage; and the next evening the
+stage was crowded too. The third evening was merely accidental, no
+previous notice having been given of it. On the Saturday I went in the
+middle of the day to Beverley; saw there the beautiful minster, and some
+of the fine horses which they show there at this season of the year;
+dined with about fifty farmers; made a speech to them and about a
+hundred more, perhaps; and got back to Hull time enough to go to the
+theatre there.
+
+The country round Hull appears to exceed even that of Lincolnshire. The
+three mornings that I was at Hull I walked out in three different
+directions, and found the country everywhere fine. To the east lies the
+Holderness country. I used to wonder that Yorkshire, to which I, from
+some false impression in my youth, had always attached the idea of
+_sterility_, should send us of the south those beautiful cattle with
+short horns and straight and deep bodies. You have only to see the
+country to cease to wonder at this. It lies on the north side of the
+mouth of the Humber; is as flat and fat as the land between Holbeach and
+Boston, without, as they tell me, the necessity of such numerous
+ditches. The appellation "Yorkshire _bite_"; the acute sayings ascribed
+to Yorkshiremen; and their quick manner, I remember, in the army. When
+speaking of what country a man was, one used to say, in defence of the
+party, "York, but honest." Another saying was that it was a bare common
+that a Yorkshireman would go over without taking a bite. Every one knows
+the story of the gentleman who, upon finding that a boot-cleaner in the
+south was a Yorkshireman, and expressing his surprise that he was not
+become master of the inn, received for answer, "Ah, sir, but master is
+York too!" And that of the Yorkshire boy who, seeing a gentleman eating
+some eggs, asked the cook to give him a little _salt_; and upon being
+asked what he could want with salt, he said, "Perhaps that gentleman may
+give me an egg presently."
+
+It is surprising what effect sayings like these produce upon the mind.
+From one end to the other of the kingdom, Yorkshiremen are looked upon
+as being keener than other people; more eager in pursuit of their own
+interests; more sharp and more selfish. For my part, I was cured with
+regard to the _people_ long before I saw Yorkshire. In the army, where
+we see men of all counties, I always found Yorkshiremen distinguished
+for their frank manners and generous disposition. In the United States,
+my kind and generous friends of Pennsylvania were the children and
+descendants of Yorkshire parents; and, in truth, I long ago made up my
+mind that this hardness and sharpness ascribed to Yorkshiremen arose
+from the sort of envy excited by that quickness, that activity, that
+buoyancy of spirits, which bears them up through adverse circumstances,
+and their conquent success in all the situations of life. They, like the
+people of Lancashire, are just the very reverse of being _cunning_ and
+_selfish_; be they farmers, or be they what they may, you get at the
+bottom of their hearts in a minute. Everything they think soon gets to
+the tongue, and out it comes, heads and tails, as fast as they can pour
+it. Fine materials for Oliver to work on! If he had been sent to the
+_west_ instead of the north, he would have found people there on whom he
+would have exercised his powers in vain. You are not to have every
+valuable quality in the same man and the same people: you are not to
+have prudent caution united with quickness and volubility.
+
+But though, as to the character of the _people_, I, having known so many
+hundreds of Yorkshiremen, was perfectly enlightened, and had quite got
+the better of all prejudices many years ago, I still, in spite of the
+matchless horses and matchless cattle, had a general impression that
+Yorkshire was a _sterile_ county, compared with the counties in the
+south and the west; and this notion was confirmed in some measure by my
+seeing the moory and rocky parts in the West Riding last winter. It was
+necessary for me to come and see the country on the banks of the Humber.
+I have seen the vale of Honiton, in Devonshire, that of Taunton and of
+Glastonbury, in Somersetshire: I have seen the vales of Gloucester and
+Worcester, and the banks of the Severn and the Avon: I have seen the
+vale of Berkshire, that of Aylesbury, in Buckinghamshire: I have seen
+the beautiful vales of Wiltshire; and the banks of the Medway, from
+Tunbridge to Maidstone, called the Garden of Eden: I was born at one end
+of Arthur Young's "finest ten miles in England:" I have ridden my horse
+across the Thames at its two sources; and I have been along every inch
+of its banks, from its sources, to Gravesend, whence I have sailed out
+of it into the channel; and having seen and had ability to judge of the
+goodness of the land in all these places, I declare that I have never
+seen any to be compared with the land on the banks of the Humber, from
+the Holderness country included, and with the exception of the land from
+Wisbeach to Holbeach, and Holbeach to Boston. Really, the single parish
+of Holbeach, or a patch of the same size in the Holderness country,
+seems to be equal in value to the whole of the county of Surrey, if we
+leave out the little plot of hop-garden at Farnham.
+
+Nor is the town of Hull itself to be overlooked. It is a little city of
+London: streets, shops, everything like it; clean as the best parts of
+London, and the people as bustling and attentive. The town of Hull is
+_surrounded_ with commodious docks for shipping. These docks are
+separated, in three or four places, by draw-bridges; so that, as you
+walk round the town, you walk by the side of the docks and the ships.
+The town on the outside of the docks is pretty considerable, and the
+walks from it into the country beautiful. I went about a good deal, and
+I nowhere saw marks of beggary or filth, even in the outskirts: none of
+those nasty, shabby, thief-looking sheds that you see in the approaches
+to London: none of those off-scourings of pernicious and insolent
+luxury. I hate commercial towns in general: there is generally something
+so loathsome in the look, and so stern and unfeeling in the manners of
+seafaring people, that I have always, from my very youth, disliked
+sea-ports; but really the sight of this nice town, the manners of its
+people, the civil, and kind and cordial reception that I met with, and
+the clean streets, and especially the pretty gardens in every direction,
+as you walk into the country, has made Hull, though a sea-port, a place
+that I shall always look back to with delight.
+
+Beverley, which was formerly a very considerable city, with three or
+four gates, one of which is yet standing, had a great college, built in
+the year 700 by the Archbishop of York. It had three famous hospitals
+and two friaries. There is one church, a very fine one, and the minster
+still left; of which a bookseller in the town was so good as to give me
+copper-plate representations. It is still a very pretty town; the market
+large; the land all round the country good; and it is particularly
+famous for horses; those for speed being shown off here on the
+market-days at this time of the year. The farmers and gentlemen assemble
+in a very wide street, on the outside of the western gate of the town;
+and at a certain time of the day the grooms come from their different
+stables to show off their beautiful horses; blood horses, coach horses,
+hunters, and cart horses; sometimes, they tell me, forty or fifty in
+number. The day that I was there (being late in the season) there were
+only seven or eight, or ten at the most. When I was asked at the inn to
+go and see "_the horses_," I had no curiosity, thinking it was such a
+parcel of horses as we see at a market in the south; but I found it a
+sight worth going to see; for besides the beauty of the horses, there
+were the adroitness, the agility, and the boldness of the grooms, each
+running alongside of his horse, with the latter trotting at the rate of
+ten or twelve miles an hour, and then swinging him round, and showing
+him off to the best advantage. In short, I was exceedingly gratified by
+the trip to Beverley: the day was fair and mild; we went by one road and
+came back by another, and I have very seldom passed a pleasanter day in
+my life.
+
+I found, very much to my surprise, that at Hull I was very nearly as far
+north as at Leeds, and, at Beverley, a little farther north. Of all
+things in the world, I wanted to speak to Mr. Foster of the _Leeds
+Patriot_; but was not aware of the relative situation till it was too
+late to write to him. Boats go up the Humber and the Ouse to within a
+few miles of Leeds. The Holderness country is that piece of land which
+lies between Hull and the sea: it appears to be a perfect flat; and is
+said to be, and I dare say is, one of the very finest spots in the whole
+kingdom. I had a very kind invitation to go into it; but I could not
+stay longer on that side of the Humber without neglecting some duty or
+other. In quitting Hull, I left behind me but one thing, the sight of
+which had not pleased me; namely, a fine gilded equestrian statue of the
+Dutch "_Deliverer_," who gave to England the national debt, that
+fruitful mother of mischief and misery. Until this statue be replaced by
+that of Andrew Marvell, that real honour of this town, England will
+never be what it ought to be.
+
+We came back to Barton by the steam-boat on Sunday in the afternoon of
+the 18th, and in the evening reached this place, which is an inn, with
+three or four houses near it, at the distance of ten miles from Lincoln,
+to which we are going on Wednesday, the 21st. Between this place and
+Barton we passed through a delightfully pretty town called Brigg. The
+land in this, which is called the high part of Lincolnshire, has
+generally stone, a solid bed of stone of great depth, at different
+distances from the surface. In some parts this stone is of a yellowish
+colour, and in the form of very thick slate; and in these parts the soil
+is not so good; but, generally speaking, the land is excellent; easily
+tilled; no surface water; the fields very large; not many trees; but
+what there are, particularly the ash, very fine, and of free growth;
+and innumerable flocks of those big, long-woolled sheep, from one
+hundred to a thousand in a flock, each having from eight to ten pounds
+of wool upon its body. One of the finest sights in the world is one of
+these thirty or forty-acre fields, with four or five or six hundred
+ewes, each with her one or two lambs skipping about upon grass, the most
+beautiful that can be conceived, and on lands as level as a
+bowling-green. I do not recollect having seen a mole-hill or an ant-hill
+since I came into the country; and not one acre of waste land, though I
+have gone the whole length of the country one way, and am now got nearly
+half way back another way.
+
+Having seen this country, and having had a glimpse at the Holderness
+country, which lies on the banks of the sea, and to the east and
+north-east of Hull, can I cease to wonder that those devils, the Danes,
+found their way hither so often. There were the fat sheep then, just as
+there are now, depend upon it; and these numbers of noble churches, and
+these magnificent minsters, were reared because the wealth of the
+country remained _in the country_, and was not carried away to the
+south, to keep swarms of devouring tax-eaters, to cram the maws of
+wasteful idlers, and to be transferred to the grasp of luxurious and
+blaspheming Jews.
+
+You always perceive that the churches are large and fine and lofty, in
+proportion to the richness of the soil and the extent of the parish. In
+many places where there are _now_ but a very few houses, and those
+comparatively miserable, there are churches that look like cathedrals.
+It is quite curious to observe the difference in the style of the
+churches of Suffolk and Norfolk, and those of Lincolnshire, and of the
+other bank of the Humber. In the former two counties the churches are
+good, large, and with a good, plain, and pretty lofty tower. And in a
+few instances, particularly at Ipswich and Long Melford, you find
+magnificence in these buildings; but in Lincolnshire the magnificence of
+the churches is surprising. These churches are the indubitable proof of
+great and solid wealth, and formerly of great population. From
+everything that I have heard, the _Netherlands_ is a country very much
+resembling Lincolnshire; and they say that the church at Antwerp is like
+that at Boston; but my opinion is, that Lincolnshire alone contains more
+of these fine buildings than the whole of the continent of Europe.
+
+Still, however, there is the almost total want of the _singing birds_.
+There had been a shower a little while before we arrived at this place;
+it was about six o'clock in the evening; and there is a thick wood,
+together with the orchards and gardens, very near to the inn. We heard a
+little twittering from one thrush; but at that very moment, if we had
+been as near to just such a wood in Surrey, or Hampshire, or Sussex, or
+Kent, we should have heard ten thousand birds singing altogether; and
+the thrushes continuing their song till twenty minutes after sunset.
+When I was at Ipswich, the gardens and plantations round that beautiful
+town began in the morning to ring with the voices of the different
+birds. The nightingale is, I believe, _never heard_ anywhere on the
+eastern side of Lincolnshire; though it is sometimes heard in the same
+latitude in the dells of Yorkshire. How ridiculous it is to suppose that
+these frail birds, with their slender wings and proportionately heavy
+bodies, _cross the sea_, and come back again! I have not yet heard more
+than half a dozen skylarks; and I have, only last year, heard ten at a
+time make the air ring over one of my fields at Barn-Elm. This is a
+great drawback from the pleasure of viewing this fine country.
+
+It is time for me now, withdrawing myself from these objects visible to
+the eye, to speak of the state of _the people_, and of the manner in
+which their affairs are affected by the workings of the system. With
+regard to the labourers, they are, everywhere, miserable. The wages for
+those who are employed on the land are, through all the counties that I
+have come, twelve shillings a week for married men, and less for single
+ones; but a large part of them are not even at this season employed on
+the land. The farmers, for want of means of profitable employment,
+suffer the men to fall upon the parish; and they are employed in digging
+and breaking stone for the roads; so that the roads are nice and smooth
+for the sheep and cattle to walk on in their way to the all-devouring
+jaws of the Jews and other tax-eaters in London and its vicinity. None
+of the best meat, except by mere accident, is consumed here. To-day (the
+20th of April) we have seen hundreds upon hundreds of sheep, as fat as
+hogs, go by this inn door, their toes, like those of the foot-marks at
+the entrance of the lion's den, all pointing towards the Wen; and the
+landlord gave us for dinner a little skinny, hard leg of old ewe mutton!
+Where the man got it I cannot imagine. Thus it is: every good thing is
+literally driven or carried away out of the country. In walking out
+yesterday, I saw three poor fellows digging stone for the roads, who
+told me that they never had anything but bread to eat, and water to wash
+it down. One of them was a widower with three children; and his pay was
+eighteen-pence a-day; that is to say, about three pounds of bread a day
+each, for six days in the week; nothing for Sunday, and nothing for
+lodging, washing, clothing, candle-light, or fuel! Just such was the
+state of things in France at the eve of the revolution! Precisely such;
+and precisely the same were the _causes_. Whether the effect will be
+the same I do not take upon myself positively to determine. Just on the
+other side of the hedge, while I was talking to these men, I saw about
+two hundred fat sheep in a rich pasture. I did not tell them what I
+might have told them; but I explained to them why the farmers were
+unable to give them a sufficiency of wages. They listened with great
+attention; and said that they did believe that the farmers were in great
+distress themselves.
+
+With regard to the farmers, it is said here that the far greater part,
+if sold up, would be found to be insolvent. The tradesmen in country
+towns are, and must be, in but little better state. They all tell you
+they do not sell half so many goods as they used to sell; and, of
+course, the manufacturers must suffer in the like degree. There is a
+diminution and deterioration, every one says, in the stocks upon the
+farms. _Sheep-washing_ is a sort of business in this country; and I
+heard at Boston that the sheep-washers say that there is a gradual
+falling off in point of the numbers of sheep washed.
+
+The farmers are all gradually sinking in point of property. The very
+rich ones do not feel that ruin is absolutely approaching; but they are
+all alarmed; and as to the poorer ones, they are fast falling into the
+rank of paupers. When I was at Ely a gentleman who appeared to be a
+great farmer told me, in presence of fifty farmers at the White Hart
+inn, that he had seen that morning _three men_ cracking stones on the
+road as paupers of the parish of Wilbarton; and that all these men had
+been _overseers of the poor of that same parish within the last seven
+years_. Wheat keeps up in price to about an average of seven shillings a
+bushel; which is owing to our two successive bad harvests; but fat beef
+and pork are at a very low price, and mutton not much better. The beef
+was selling at Lynn for five shillings the stone of fourteen pounds, and
+the pork at four and sixpence. The wool (one of the great articles of
+produce in these countries) selling for less than half of its former
+price.
+
+And here let me stop to observe that I was well informed before I left
+London that merchants were exporting our long wool to France, where it
+paid _thirty per cent. duty_. Well, say the landowners, but we have to
+thank Huskisson for this at any rate; and that is true enough; for the
+law was most rigid against the export of wool; but what will the
+_manufacturers_ say? Thus the collective goes on, smashing one class and
+then another; and, resolved to adhere to the taxes, it knocks away, one
+after another, the props of the system itself. By every measure that it
+adopts for the sake of obtaining security, or of affording relief to the
+people, it does some act of crying injustice. To save itself from the
+natural effects of its own measures, it knocked down the country
+bankers, in direct violation of the law in 1822. It is now about to lay
+its heavy hand on the big brewers and the publicans, in order to pacify
+the call for a reduction of taxes, and with the hope of preventing such
+reduction in reality. It is making a trifling attempt to save the West
+Indians from total ruin, and the West India colonies from revolt; but by
+that same attempt it reflects injury on the British distillers, and on
+the growers of barley. Thus it cannot do justice without doing
+injustice; it cannot do good without doing evil; and thus it must
+continue to do, until it take off, in reality, more than one half of the
+taxes.
+
+One of the great signs of the poverty of people in the middle rank of
+life is the falling off of the audiences at the playhouses. There is a
+playhouse in almost every country town, where the players used to act
+occasionally; and in large towns almost always. In some places they have
+of late abandoned acting altogether. In others they have acted, very
+frequently, to not more than _ten or twelve persons_. At Norwich the
+playhouse had been shut up for a long time. I heard of one manager who
+has become a porter to a warehouse, and his company dispersed. In most
+places the insides of the buildings seem to be tumbling to pieces; and
+the curtains and scenes that they let down seem to be abandoned to the
+damp and the cobwebs. _My_ appearance on the boards seemed to give new
+life to the drama. I was, until the birth of my third son, a constant
+haunter of the playhouse, in which I took great delight; but when _he_
+came into the world I said, "Now, Nancy, it is time for us to leave off
+going to the play." It is really melancholy to look at things now, and
+to think of things then. I feel great sorrow on account of these poor
+players; for, though they are made the tools of the Government and the
+corporations and the parsons, it is not their fault, and they have
+uniformly, whenever I have come in contact with them, been very civil to
+me. I am not sorry that they are left out of the list of vagrants in the
+new Act; but in this case, as in so many others, the men have to be
+grateful to the _women_; for who believes that this merciful omission
+would have taken place, if so many of the peers had not contracted
+matrimonial alliances with players; if so many playeresses had not
+become peeresses. We may thank God for disposing the hearts of our
+law-makers to be guilty of the same sins and foibles as ourselves; for
+when a lord had been sentenced to the pillory, the use of that ancient
+mode of punishing offences was abolished: when a lord (CASTLEREAGH), who
+was also a minister of state, had cut his own throat, the degrading
+punishment of burial in cross-roads was abolished; and now, when so many
+peers and great men have taken to wife play-actresses, which the law
+termed _vagrants_, that term, as applied to the children of Melpomene
+and Thalia, is abolished! Laud we the Gods that our rulers cannot after
+all divest themselves of flesh and blood! For the Lord have mercy upon
+us if their great souls were once to soar above that tenement!
+
+Lord Stanhope cautioned his brother peers a little while ago against the
+angry feeling which was _rising up in the poor against the rich_. His
+Lordship is a wise and humane man, and this is evident from all his
+conduct. Nor is this angry feeling confined to the counties in the
+south, where the rage of the people, from the very nature of the local
+circumstances, is more formidable; woods and coppices and dingles and
+bye-lanes and sticks and stones ever at hand, being resources unknown in
+counties like this. When I was at St. Ives, in Huntingdonshire, an open
+country, I sat with the farmers, and smoked a pipe by way of preparation
+for evening service, which I performed on a carpenter's bench in a
+wheelwright's shop; my friends, the players, never having gained any
+regular settlement in that grand mart for four-legged fat meat, coming
+from the Fens, and bound to the Wen. While we were sitting, a hand-bill
+was handed round the table, advertising _farming stock_ for sale; and
+amongst the implements of husbandry "an _excellent fire-engine, several
+steel traps, and spring guns_"! And that is the life, is it, of an
+_English farmer_? I walked on about six miles of the road from Holbeach
+to Boston. I have before observed upon the inexhaustible riches of this
+land. At the end of about five miles and three quarters I came to a
+public-house, and thought I would get some breakfast; but the poor
+woman, with a tribe of children about her, had not a morsel of either
+meat or bread! At a house called an inn, a little further on, the
+landlord had no meat except a little bit of chine of bacon; and though
+there were a good many houses near the spot, the landlord told me that
+the people were become so poor that the butchers had left off killing
+meat in the neighbourhood. Just the state of things that existed in
+France on the eve of the Revolution. On that very spot I looked round
+me, and counted more than two thousand fat sheep in the pastures! How
+long; how long, good God! is this state of things to last? How long will
+these people starve in the midst of plenty? How long will fire-engines,
+steel traps, and spring guns be, in such a state of things, a protection
+to property? When I was at Beverley a gentleman told me, it was Mr.
+Dawson of that place, that some time before a farmer had been sold up by
+his landlord; and that, in a few weeks afterwards, the farmhouse was on
+fire, and that when the servants of the landlord arrived to put it out
+they found the handle of the pump taken away, and that the homestead
+was totally destroyed. This was told me in the presence of several
+gentlemen, who all spoke of it as a fact of perfect notoriety.
+
+Another respect in which our situation so exactly resembles that of
+France on the eve of the Revolution is the _fleeing from the country_ in
+every direction. When I was in Norfolk there were four hundred persons,
+generally young men, labourers, carpenters, wheelwrights, millwrights,
+smiths, and bricklayers; most of them with some money, and some farmers
+and others with good round sums. These people were going to Quebec in
+timber-ships, and from Quebec by land into the United States. They had
+been told that they would not be suffered to land in the United States
+from on board of ship. The roguish villains had deceived them: but no
+matter; they will get into the United States; and going through Canada
+will do them good, for it will teach them to detest everything belonging
+to it. From Boston, two great barge loads had just gone off by canal to
+Liverpool, most of them farmers; all carrying some money, and some as
+much as two thousand pounds each. From the North and West Riding of
+Yorkshire numerous wagons have gone carrying people to the canals
+leading to Liverpool; and a gentleman, whom I saw at Peterboro', told me
+that he saw some of them; and that the men all appeared to be
+respectable farmers. At Hull the scene would delight the eyes of the
+wise Burdett; for here the emigration is going on in the "Old Roman
+Plan." Ten large ships have gone this spring, laden with these fugitives
+from the fangs of taxation; some bound direct to the ports of the United
+States; others, like those at Yarmouth, for Quebec. Those that have most
+money go direct to the United States. The single men, who are taken for
+a mere trifle in the Canada ships, go that way, have nothing but their
+carcasses to carry over the rocks and swamps, and through the myriads of
+place-men and pensioners in that miserable region; there are about
+fifteen more ships going from this one port this spring. The ships are
+fitted up with berths as transports for the carrying of troops. I went
+on board one morning, and saw the people putting their things on board
+and stowing them away. Seeing a nice young woman, with a little baby in
+her arms, I told her that she was going to a country where she would be
+sure that her children would never want victuals; where she might make
+her own malt, soap, and candles without being half put to death for it,
+and where the blaspheming Jews would not have a mortgage on the life's
+labour of her children.
+
+There is at Hull one farmer going who is seventy years of age; but who
+takes out five sons and fifteen hundred pounds! Brave and sensible old
+man! and good and affectionate father! He is performing a truly
+parental and sacred duty; and he will die with the blessing of his sons
+on his head for having rescued them from this scene of slavery, misery,
+cruelty, and crime. Come, then, Wilmot Horton, with your sensible
+associates, Burdett and Poulett Thomson; come into Lincolnshire,
+Norfolk, and Yorkshire; come and bring Parson Malthus along with you;
+regale your sight with this delightful "stream of emigration";
+congratulate the "greatest captain of the age," and your brethren of the
+Collective: congratulate the "noblest assembly of free men," on these
+the happy effects of their measures. Oh! no, Wilmot! Oh! no, generous
+and sensible Burdett, it is not the aged, the infirm, the halt, the
+blind, and the idiots that go: it is the youth, the strength, the
+wealth, and the spirit, that will no longer brook hunger and thirst in
+order that the maws of tax-eaters and Jews may be crammed. You want the
+Irish to go, and so they will _at our expense_, and all the bad of them,
+to be kept at our expense on the rocks and swamps of Nova Scotia and
+Canada. You have no money to send them away with: the tax-eaters want it
+all; and thanks to the "improvements of the age," the steam-boats will
+continue to bring them in shoals in pursuit of the orts of the food that
+their task-masters have taken away from them.
+
+After evening lecture at Horncastle a very decent farmer came to me and
+asked me about America, telling me that he was resolved to go, for that
+if he stayed much longer he should not have a shilling to go with. I
+promised to send him a letter from Louth to a friend at New York, who
+might be useful to him there and give him good advice. I forgot it at
+Louth; but I will do it before I go to bed. From the Thames, and from
+the several ports down the Channel, about two thousand have gone this
+spring. All the flower of the labourers of the east of Sussex and west
+of Kent will be culled out and sent off in a short time. From Glasgow
+the sensible Scotch are pouring out amain. Those that are poor and
+cannot pay their passages, or can rake together only a trifle, are going
+to a rascally heap of sand and rock and swamp, called Prince Edward's
+Island, in the horrible Gulf of St. Lawrence; but when the American
+vessels come over with Indian corn and flour and pork and beef and
+poultry and eggs and butter and cabbages and green pease and asparagus
+for the soldier-officers and other tax-eaters, that we support upon that
+lump of worthlessness; for the lump itself bears nothing but potatoes;
+when these vessels come, which they are continually doing, winter and
+summer; towards the fall, with apples and pears and melons and
+cucumbers; and, in short, everlastingly coming and taking away the
+amount of taxes raised in England; when these vessels return, the
+sensible Scotch will go back in them for a dollar a head, till at last
+not a man of them will be left but the bed-ridden. Those villanous
+colonies are held for no earthly purpose but that of furnishing a
+pretence of giving money to the relations and dependents of the
+aristocracy; and they are the nicest channels in the world through which
+to send English taxes to enrich and strengthen the United States.
+Withdraw the English taxes, and, except in a small part in Canada, the
+whole of those horrible regions would be left to the bears and the
+savages in the course of a year.
+
+This emigration is a famous blow given to the borough-mongers. The way
+to New York is now as well known and as easy, and as little expensive as
+from old York to London. First, the Sussex parishes sent their paupers;
+they invited over others that were not paupers; they invited over people
+of some property; then persons of greater property; now substantial
+farmers are going; men of considerable fortune will follow. It is the
+letters written across the Atlantic that do the business. Men of fortune
+will soon discover that to secure to their families their fortunes, and
+to take these out of the grasp of the inexorable tax-gatherer, they must
+get away. Every one that goes will take twenty after him; and thus it
+will go on. There can be no interruption but _war_; and war the Thing
+dares not have. As to France or the Netherlands, or any part of that
+hell called Germany, Englishmen can never settle there. The United
+States form another England without its unbearable taxes, its insolent
+game-laws, its intolerable dead-weight, and its tread-mills.
+
+
+
+
+EASTERN TOUR ENDED, MIDLAND TOUR BEGUN.
+
+
+_Lincoln, 23rd April 1830._
+
+From the inn at Spittal we came to this famous ancient Roman station,
+and afterwards grand scene of Saxon and Gothic splendour, on the 21st.
+It was the third or fourth day of the _Spring fair_, which is one of the
+greatest in the kingdom, and which lasts for a whole week. Horses begin
+the fair; then come sheep; and to-day, the horned-cattle. It is supposed
+that there were about 50,000 sheep, and I think the whole of the space
+in the various roads and streets, covered by the cattle, must have
+amounted to ten acres of ground or more. Some say that they were as
+numerous as the sheep. The number of horses I did not hear; but they say
+that there were 1,500 fewer in number than last year. The sheep sold
+5_s._ a head, on an average, lower than last year; and the cattle in the
+same proportion. High-priced horses sold well; but the horses which are
+called tradesmen's horses were very low. This is the natural march of
+the Thing: those who live on the taxes have money to throw away; but
+those who _pay_ them are ruined, and have, of course, no money to lay
+out on horses.
+
+The country from Spittal to Lincoln continued to be much about the same
+as from Barton to Spittal. Large fields, rather light loam at top, stone
+under, about half corn-land and the rest grass. Not so many sheep as in
+the richer lands, but a great many still. As you get on towards Lincoln,
+the ground gradually rises, and you go on the road made by the Romans.
+When you come to the city you find the ancient castle and the
+magnificent cathedral on the _brow_ of a sort of ridge which ends here;
+for you look all of a sudden down into a deep valley, where the greater
+part of the remaining city lies. It once had _fifty-two churches_; it
+has now only eight, and only about 9,000 inhabitants! The cathedral is,
+I believe, the _finest building in the whole world_. All the others that
+I have seen (and I have seen all in England except Chester, York,
+Carlisle, and Durham) are little things compared with this. To the task
+of describing a thousandth-part of its striking beauties I am
+inadequate; it surpasses greatly all that I had anticipated; and oh! how
+loudly it gives the lie to those brazen Scotch historians who would have
+us believe that England was formerly a _poor_ country! The whole revenue
+raised from Lincolnshire, even by this present system of taxation, would
+not rear such another pile in two hundred years. Some of the city gates
+are down; but there is one standing, the arch of which is said to be two
+thousand years old; and a most curious thing it is. The sight of the
+cathedral fills the mind alternately with wonder, admiration,
+melancholy, and rage: wonder at its grandeur and magnificence;
+admiration of the zeal and disinterestedness of those who here devoted
+to the honour of God those immense means which they might have applied
+to their own enjoyments; melancholy at its present neglected state; and
+indignation against those who now enjoy the revenues belonging to it,
+and who creep about it merely as a pretext for devouring a part of the
+fruit of the people's labour. There are no men in England who ought to
+wish for _reform_ so anxiously as the working clergy of the church of
+England; we are all oppressed; but they are oppressed and insulted more
+than any men that ever lived in the world. The clergy in America; I mean
+in free America, not in our beggarly colonies, where clerical insolence
+and partiality prevail still more than here; I mean in the United
+States, where every man gives what he pleases, and no more: the clergy
+of the episcopal church are a hundred times better off than the working
+clergy are here. They are, also, much more respected, because their
+_order_ has not to bear the blame of enormous exactions; which exactions
+here are swallowed up by the aristocracy and their dependents; but which
+swallowings are imputed to every one bearing the name of parson.
+Throughout the whole country I have maintained the necessity and the
+justice of resuming the church property; but I have never failed to say
+that I know of no more meritorious and ill-used men than the working
+clergy of the established church.
+
+
+_Leicester, 26th April 1830._
+
+At the famous ancient city of Lincoln I had crowded audiences,
+principally consisting of farmers, on the 21st and 22nd; exceedingly
+well-behaved audiences; and great impression produced. One of the
+evenings, in pointing out to them the wisdom of explaining to their
+labourers the cause of their distress, in order to ward off the effects
+of the resentment which the labourers now feel everywhere against the
+farmers, I related to them what my labourers at Barn-Elm had been doing
+since I left home: and I repeated to them the complaints that my
+labourers made, stating to them, from memory, the following parts of
+that spirited petition:
+
+"That your petitioners have recently observed that many great sums of
+the money, part of which we pay, have been voted to be given to persons
+who render no services to the country; some of which sums we will
+mention here; that the sum of 94,900_l._ has been voted for disbanded
+_foreign_ officers, their _widows_ and _children_; that your petitioners
+know that ever since the peace this charge has been annually made; that
+it has been on an average 110,000_l._ a-year, and that, of course, this
+band of foreigners have actually taken away out of England, since the
+peace, one million and seven hundred thousand pounds; partly taken from
+the fruit of our labour; and if our dinners were actually taken from our
+table and carried over to Hanover, the process could not be to our eyes
+more visible than it now is; and we are astonished that those who fear
+that we, who make the land bring forth crops, and who make the clothing
+and the houses, shall swallow up the rental, appear to think nothing at
+all of the swallowings of these Hanoverian men, women, and children, who
+may continue thus to swallow for half a century to come.
+
+"That the advocates of the project for sending us out of our country to
+the rocks and snows of Nova Scotia, and the swamps and wilds of Canada,
+have insisted on the necessity of _checking marriages_ amongst us, in
+order to cause a decrease in our numbers; that, however, while this is
+insisted on in your honourable House, we perceive a part of our own
+earnings voted away to encourage marriage amongst those who do not work,
+and who live at our expense; and that to your petitioners it does seem
+most wonderful, that there should be persons to fear that we, the
+labourers, shall, on account of our numbers, swallow up the rental,
+while they actually vote away our food and raiment to increase the
+numbers of those who never have produced, and who never will produce,
+anything useful to man.
+
+"That your petitioners know that more than one-half of the whole of
+their wages is taken from them by the taxes; that these taxes go chiefly
+into the hands of idlers; that your petitioners are the bees, and that
+the tax-receivers are the drones; and they know, further, that while
+there is a project for sending the bees out of the country, no one
+proposes to send away the drones; but that your petitioners hope to see
+the day when the checking of the increase of the drones, and not of the
+bees, will be the object of an English Parliament.
+
+"That, in consequence of taxes, your petitioners pay six-pence for a pot
+of worse beer than they could make for one penny; that they pay ten
+shillings for a pair of shoes that they could have for five shillings;
+that they pay seven-pence for a pound of soap or candles that they could
+have for three-pence; that they pay seven-pence for a pound of sugar
+that they could have for three-pence; that they pay six shillings for a
+pound of tea that they could have for two shillings; that they pay
+double for their bread and meat of what they would have to pay if there
+were no idlers to be kept out of the taxes; that, therefore, it is the
+taxes that make their wages insufficient for their support, and that
+compel them to apply for aid to the poor-rates; that, knowing these
+things, they feel indignant at hearing themselves described as
+_paupers_, while so many thousands of idlers, for whose support they pay
+taxes, are called _noble Lords_ and _Ladies_, _honourable Gentlemen_,
+_Masters_, and _Misses_; that they feel indignant at hearing themselves
+described as a nuisance to be got rid of, while the idlers who live upon
+their earnings are upheld, caressed and cherished, as if they were the
+sole support of the country."
+
+Having repeated to them these passages, I proceeded: "My workmen were
+induced thus to petition in consequence of the information which I,
+their master, had communicated to them; and, Gentlemen, why should not
+your labourers petition in the same strain? Why should you suffer them
+to remain in a state of ignorance relative to the cause of their misery?
+The eye sweeps over in this county more riches in one moment than are
+contained in the whole county in which I was born, and in which the
+petitioners live. Between Holbeach and Boston, even at a public-house,
+neither bread nor meat was to be found; and while the landlord was
+telling me that the people were become so poor that the butchers killed
+no meat in the neighbourhood. I counted more than two thousand fat sheep
+lying about in the pastures in that richest spot in the whole world.
+Starvation in the midst of plenty; the land covered with food, and the
+working people without victuals: everything taken away by the tax-eaters
+of various descriptions: and yet you take no measures for redress; and
+your miserable labourers seem to be doomed to expire with hunger,
+without an effort to obtain relief. What! cannot you point out to them
+the real cause of their sufferings; cannot you take a piece of paper and
+write out a petition for them; cannot your labourers petition as well as
+mine; are God's blessings bestowed on you without any spirit to preserve
+them; is the fatness of the land, is the earth teeming with food for the
+body and raiment for the back, to be an apology for the want of that
+courage for which your fathers were so famous; is the abundance which
+God has put into your hands, to be the excuse for your resigning
+yourselves to starvation? My God! is there no spirit left in England
+except in the miserable sand-hills of Surrey?" These words were not
+uttered without effect I can assure the reader. The assemblage was of
+that stamp in which thought goes before expression; but the effect of
+this example of my men in Surrey will, I am sure, be greater than
+anything that has been done in the petitioning way for a long time past.
+
+We left Lincoln on the 23rd about noon, and got to Newark, in
+Nottinghamshire, in the evening, where I gave a lecture at the theatre
+to about three hundred persons. Newark is a very fine town, and the
+Castle Inn, where we stopped, extraordinarily good and pleasantly
+situated. Here I was met by a parcel of the printed petitions of the
+labourers at Barn-Elm.
+
+I shall continue to _sow these_, as I proceed on my way. It should have
+been stated at the head of the printed petition that it was presented to
+the House of Lords by his Grace the Duke of Richmond, and by Mr. Pallmer
+to the House of Commons.
+
+The country from Lincoln to Newark (sixteen miles) is by no means so
+fine as that which we have been in for so many weeks. The land is clayey
+in many parts. A pleasant country; a variety of hill and valley; but not
+that richness which we had so long had under our eye: fields smaller;
+fewer sheep, and those not so large, and so manifestly loaded with
+flesh. The roads always good. Newark is a town very much like
+Nottingham, having a very fine and spacious market-place; the buildings
+everywhere good; but it is in the villages that you find the depth of
+misery.
+
+Having appointed positively to be at Leicester in the evening of
+Saturday, the 24th, we could not stop either at Grantham or at Melton
+Mowbray, not even long enough to view their fine old magnificent
+churches. In going from Newark to Grantham, we got again into
+Lincolnshire, in which last county Grantham is. From Newark nearly to
+Melton Mowbray, the country is about the same as between Lincoln and
+Newark; by no means bad land, but not so rich as that of Lincolnshire,
+in the middle and eastern parts; not approaching to the Holderness
+country in point of riches; a large part arable land, well tilled; but
+not such large homesteads, such numerous great stacks of wheat, and such
+endless flocks of lazy sheep.
+
+Before we got to Melton Mowbray the beautiful pastures of this little
+verdant county of Leicester began to appear. Meadows and green fields,
+with here and there a corn field, all of smaller dimensions than those
+of Lincolnshire, but all very beautiful; with gentle hills and woods
+too; not beautiful woods, like those of Hampshire and of the wilds of
+Surrey, Sussex and Kent; but very pretty, all the country around being
+so rich. At Mowbray we began to get amongst the Leicestershire sheep,
+those fat creatures which we see the butchers' boys battering about so
+unmercifully in the streets and the outskirts of the Wen. The land is
+warmer here than in Lincolnshire; the grass more forward, and the wheat,
+between Mowbray and Leicester, six inches high, and generally looking
+exceedingly well. In Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire I found the wheat
+in general rather thin, and frequently sickly; nothing like so promising
+as in Suffolk and Norfolk.
+
+We got to Leicester on the 24th at about half-after five o'clock; and
+the time appointed for the lecture was six. Leicester is a very fine
+town; spacious streets, fine inns, fine shops, and containing, they say,
+thirty or forty thousand people. It is well stocked with jails, of which
+a new one, in addition to the rest, has just been built, covering three
+acres of ground! And, as if _proud_ of it, the grand portal has little
+turrets in the castle style, with _embrasures_ in miniature on the caps
+of the turrets. Nothing speaks the want of reflection in the people so
+much as the self-gratulation which they appear to feel in these edifices
+in their several towns. Instead of expressing shame at these indubitable
+proofs of the horrible increase of misery and of crime, they really
+boast of these "improvements," as they call them. Our forefathers built
+abbeys and priories and churches, and they made such use of them that
+jails were nearly unnecessary. We, their sons, have knocked down the
+abbeys and priories; suffered half the parsonage-houses and churches to
+pretty nearly tumble down, and make such uses of the remainder, that
+jails and tread-mills and dungeons have now become the most striking
+edifices in every county in the kingdom.
+
+Yesterday morning (Sunday the 25th) I walked out to the village of
+Knighton, two miles on the Bosworth road, where I breakfasted, and then
+walked back. This morning I walked out to Hailstone, nearly three miles
+on the Lutterworth road, and got my breakfast there. You have nothing to
+do but to walk through these villages, to see the cause of the increase
+of the jails. Standing on the hill at Knighton, you see the three
+ancient and lofty and beautiful spires rising up at Leicester; you see
+the river winding down through a broad bed of the most beautiful meadows
+that man ever set his eyes on; you see the bright verdure covering all
+the land, even to the tops of the hills, with here and there a little
+wood, as if made by God to give variety to the beauty of the scene, for
+the river brings the coal in abundance, for fuel, and the earth gives
+the brick and the tile in abundance. But go down into the villages;
+invited by the spires, rising up amongst the trees in the dells, at
+scarcely ever more than a mile or two apart; invited by these spires, go
+down into these villages, view the large, and once the most beautiful,
+churches; see the parson's house, large, and in the midst of
+pleasure-gardens; and then look at the miserable sheds in which the
+labourers reside! Look at these hovels, made of mud and of straw; bits
+of glass, or of old off-cast windows, without frames or hinges,
+frequently, but merely stuck in the mud wall. Enter them, and look at
+the bits of chairs or stools; the wretched boards tacked together to
+serve for a table; the floor of pebble, broken brick, or of the bare
+ground; look at the thing called a bed; and survey the rags on the backs
+of the wretched inhabitants; and then wonder, if you can, that the jails
+and dungeons and tread-mills increase, and that a standing army and
+barracks are become the favourite establishments of England!
+
+At the village of Hailstone, I got into the purlieu, as they call it in
+Hampshire, of a person well known in the Wen; namely, the Reverend
+Beresford, rector of that fat affair, St. Andrew's, Holborn! In walking
+through the village, and surveying its deplorable dwellings, so much
+worse than the cow-sheds of the cottagers on the skirts of the forests
+in Hampshire, my attention was attracted by the surprising contrast
+between them and the house of their religious teacher. I met a labouring
+man. Country people _know everything_. If you have ever made a _faux
+pas_, of any sort of description; if you have anything about you of
+which you do not want all the world to know, never retire to a village,
+keep in some great town; but the Wen, for your life, for there the
+next-door neighbour will not know even your name; and the vicinage will
+judge of you solely by the quantity of money that you have to spend.
+This labourer seemed not to be in a very great hurry. He was digging in
+his garden; and I, looking over a low hedge, _pitched him up_ for a
+gossip, commencing by asking him whether that was the parson's house.
+Having answered in the affirmative, and I, having asked the parson's
+name, he proceeded thus: "His name is Beresford; but though he lives
+there, he has not this living now, he has got the living of St.
+Andrew's, Holborn; and they say it is worth a great many thousands a
+year. He could not, they say, keep this living and have that too,
+because they were so far apart. And so this living was given to Mr.
+Brown, who is the rector of Hobey, about seven miles off." "Well," said
+I, "but _how comes Beresford to live here now_, if the living be given
+to another man?" "Why, Sir," said he, "this Beresford married a daughter
+of Brown; and so, you know (smiling and looking very archly), Brown
+comes and takes the payment for the tithes, and pays a curate that lives
+in that house there in the field; and Beresford lives at that fine house
+still, just as he used to do." I asked him what the living was worth,
+and he answered twelve hundred pounds a year. It is a rectory, I find,
+and of course the parson has great tithes as well as small.
+
+The people of this village know a great deal more about Beresford than
+the people of St. Andrew's, Holborn, know about him. In short, the
+country people know all about the whole thing. They will be long before
+they act; but they will make no noise as a signal for action. They will
+be moved by nothing but actual want of food. This the Thing seems to be
+aware of; and hence all the innumerable schemes for keeping them quiet:
+hence the endless jails and all the terrors of hardened law: hence the
+schemes for coaxing them, by letting them have bits of land: hence the
+everlasting bills and discussions of committees about the state of the
+poor, and the state of the poor-laws: all of which will fail; and at
+last, unless reduction of taxation speedily take place, the schemers
+will find what the consequences are of reducing millions to the verge of
+starvation.
+
+The labourers here, who are in need of parochial relief, are formed into
+what are called _roundsmen_; that is to say, they are sent round from
+one farmer to another, each maintaining a certain number for a certain
+length of time; and thus they go round from one to the other. If the
+farmers did not pay three shillings in taxes out of every six shillings
+that they give in the shape of wages, they could afford to give the men
+four and sixpence in wages, which would be better to the men than the
+six. But as long as this burden of taxes shall continue, so long the
+misery will last, and it will go on increasing with accelerated pace.
+The march of circumstances is precisely what it was in France, just
+previous to the French revolution. If the aristocracy were wise, they
+would put a stop to that march. The middle class are fast sinking down
+to the state of the lower class. _A community of feeling_ between these
+classes, and that feeling an angry one, is what the aristocracy has to
+dread. As far as the higher clergy are concerned, this community of
+feeling is already complete. A short time will extend the feeling to
+every other branch; and then, the hideous consequences make their
+appearance. Reform; a radical reform of the Parliament; this reform _in
+time_; this reform, which would reconcile the middle class to the
+aristocracy, and give renovation to that which has now become a mass of
+decay and disgust; this reform, given with a good grace, and not taken
+by force, is the only refuge for the aristocracy of this kingdom. Just
+as it was in France. All the tricks of financiers have been tried in
+vain; and by-and-by some trick more pompous and foolish than the rest;
+Sir Henry Parnell's trick, perhaps, or something equally foolish, would
+blow the whole concern into the air.
+
+
+_Worcester, 18th May, 1830._
+
+In tracing myself from Leicester to this place, I begin at Lutterworth,
+in Leicestershire, one of the prettiest country towns that I ever saw;
+that is to say, prettiest _situated_. At this place they have, in the
+church (they say), the identical _pulpit_ from which Wickliffe preached!
+This was not his birth-place; but he was, it seems, priest of this
+parish.
+
+I set off from Lutterworth early on the 29th of April, stopped to
+breakfast at Birmingham, got to Wolverhampton by two o'clock (a distance
+altogether of about 50 miles), and lectured at six in the evening. I
+repeated, or rather continued, the lecturing, on the 30th, and on the
+3rd of May. On the 6th of May went to Dudley, and lectured there: on the
+10th of May, at Birmingham; on the 12th and 13th, at Shrewsbury; and on
+the 14th, came here.
+
+Thus have I come through countries of corn and meat and iron and coal;
+and from the banks of the Humber to those of the Severn, I find all the
+people, who do not share in the taxes, in a state of distress, greater
+or less, _Mortgagers_ all frightened out of their-wits; _fathers_
+trembling for the fate of their children; and _working people_ in the
+most miserable state, and, as they ought to be, in the _worst of
+temper_. These will, I am afraid, be the _state-doctors_ at last! The
+farmers are cowed down: the poorer they get, the more cowardly they are.
+Every one of them sees the cause of his suffering, and sees general ruin
+at hand; but every one hopes that by some trick, some act of meanness,
+some contrivance, _he shall escape_. So that there is no hope of any
+change for the better but from the _working people_. The farmers will
+sink to a very low state; and thus the Thing (barring _accidents_) may
+go on, until neither farmer nor tradesman will see a joint of meat on
+his table once in a quarter of a year. It appears likely to be precisely
+as it was in France: it is now just what France was at the close of the
+reign of Louis XV. It has been the fashion to ascribe the _French
+Revolution_ to the writings of Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, and others.
+These writings had _nothing at all_ to do with the matter: no, _nothing
+at all_. The _Revolution_ was produced by _taxes_, which at last became
+unbearable; by debts of the State; but, in fact, by the despair of the
+people, produced by the weight of the taxes.
+
+It is curious to observe how ready the supporters of tyranny and
+taxation are to ascribe rebellions and revolutions to disaffected
+leaders; and particularly to writers; and, as these supporters of
+tyranny and taxation have had the press at their command; have had
+generally the absolute command of it, they have caused this belief to go
+down from generation to generation. It will not do for them to ascribe
+revolutions and rebellions to the true cause; because then the
+rebellions and revolutions would be justified; and it is their object to
+cause them to be condemned. Infinite delusion has prevailed in this
+country, in consequence of the efforts of which I am now speaking.
+Voltaire was just as much a cause of the French Revolution as I have
+been the cause of imposing these sixty millions of taxes. The French
+Revolution was produced by the grindings of taxation; and this I will
+take an opportunity very soon of proving, to the conviction of every man
+in the kingdom who chooses to read.
+
+In the iron country, of which Wolverhampton seems to be a sort of
+central point, and where thousands, and perhaps two or three hundred
+thousand people, are assembled together, the _truck_ or _tommy_ system
+generally prevails; and this is a very remarkable feature in the state
+of this country. I have made inquiries with regard to the origin, or
+etymology, of this word _tommy_, and could find no one to furnish me
+with the information. It is certainly, like so many other good things,
+to be ascribed to _the army_; for, when I was a recruit at Chatham
+barracks, in the year 1783, we had brown bread served out to us twice in
+the week. And, for what reason God knows, we used to call it _tommy_.
+And the sergeants, when they called us out to get our bread, used to
+tell us to come and get our _tommy_. Even the officers used to call it
+tommy. Any one that could get white bread, called it bread; but the
+brown stuff that we got in lieu of part of our pay was called _tommy_;
+and so we used to call it when we got abroad. When the soldiers came to
+have bread served out to them in the several towns in England, the name
+of "tommy" went down by tradition; and, doubtless, it was taken up and
+adapted to the truck system in Staffordshire and elsewhere.
+
+Now, there is nothing wrong, nothing _essentially_ wrong, in this system
+of barter. Barter is in practice in some of the happiest communities in
+the world. In the new settled parts of the United States of America, to
+which money has scarcely found its way, to which articles of wearing
+apparel are brought from a great distance, where the great and almost
+sole occupations are, the rearing of food, the building of houses, and
+the making of clothes, barter is the rule and money payment the
+exception. And this is attended with no injury and with very little
+inconvenience. The bargains are made, and the accounts kept _in money_;
+but the payments are made in produce or in goods, the price of these
+being previously settled on. The store-keeper (which we call
+shop-keeper) receives the produce in exchange for his goods, and
+exchanges that produce for more goods; and thus the concerns of the
+community go on, every one living in abundance, and the sound of misery
+never heard.
+
+But when this tommy system; this system of barter; when this makes its
+appearance where money has for ages been the medium of exchange, and of
+payments for labour; when this system makes its appearance in such a
+state of society, there is something wrong; things are out of joint; and
+it becomes us to inquire into the real cause of its being resorted to;
+and it does not become us to join in an outcry against the employers who
+resort to it, until we be perfectly satisfied that those employers are
+guilty of oppression.
+
+The manner of carrying on the tommy system is this: suppose there to be
+a master who employs a hundred men. That hundred men, let us suppose, to
+earn a pound a week each. This is not the case in the iron-works; but no
+matter, we can illustrate our meaning by one sum as well as by another.
+These men lay out weekly the whole of the hundred pounds in victuals,
+drink, clothing, bedding, fuel, and house-rent. Now, the master finding
+the profits of his trade fall off very much, and being at the same time
+in want of money to pay the hundred pounds weekly, and perceiving that
+these hundred pounds are carried away at once, and given to shopkeepers
+of various descriptions; to butchers, bakers, drapers, hatters,
+shoemakers, and the rest; and knowing that, on an average, these
+shopkeepers must all have a profit of thirty _per cent._, or more, he
+determines to _keep this thirty per cent. to himself_; and this is
+thirty pounds a week gained as a shop-keeper, which amounts to 1,560_l._
+a year. He, therefore, sets up a tommy shop: a long place containing
+every commodity that the workman can want, liquor and house-room
+excepted. Here the workman takes out his pound's worth; and his
+house-rent he pays in truck, if he do not rent of his master; and if he
+will have liquor, beer, or gin, or anything else, he must get it by
+trucking with the goods that he has got at the tommy shop.
+
+Now, there is nothing essentially unjust in this. There is a little
+inconvenience as far as the house-rent goes; but not much. The tommy is
+easily turned into money; and if the single saving man does experience
+some trouble in the sale of his goods, that is compensated for in the
+more important case of the married man, whose wife and children
+generally experience the benefit of this payment in kind. It is, to be
+sure, a sorrowful reflection, that such a check upon the drinking
+propensities of the fathers should be necessary; but _the necessity
+exists_; and, however sorrowful the fact, the fact, I am assured, is,
+that thousands upon thousands of mothers have to bless this system,
+though it arises from a loss of trade and the poverty of the masters.
+
+I have often had to observe on the cruel effects of the suppression of
+markets and fairs, and on the consequent power of extortion possessed by
+the country shop-keepers. And what a thing it is to reflect on, that
+these shopkeepers have the whole of the labouring men of England
+constantly in their debt; have on an average a mortgage on their wages
+to the amount of five or six weeks, and make them pay any price that
+they choose to extort. So that, in fact, there is a tommy system in
+every village, the difference being, that the shop-keeper is the tommy
+man instead of the farmer.
+
+The only question is in this case of the manufacturing tommy work,
+whether the master charges a higher price than the shop-keepers would
+charge; and, while I have not heard that the masters do this, I think it
+improbable that they should. They must desire to avoid the charge of
+such extortion; and they have little temptation to it; because they buy
+at best hand and in large quantities; because they are sure of their
+customers, and know to a certainty the quantity that they want; and
+because the distribution of the goods is a matter of such perfect
+regularity, and attended with so little expense, compared with the
+expenses of the shopkeeper. Any farmer who has a parcel of married men
+working for him, might supply them with meat for four-pence the pound,
+when the butcher must charge them seven-pence, or lose by his trade; and
+to me, it has always appeared astonishing, that farmers (where they
+happen to have the power completely in their hands) do not compel their
+married labourers to have a sufficiency of bread and meat for their
+wives and children. What would be more easy than to reckon what would be
+necessary for house-rent, fuel, and clothing; to pay that in money once
+a month, or something of that sort, and to pay the rest in meat, flour,
+and malt? I may never occupy a farm again; but if I were to do it, to
+any extent, the East and West Indies, nor big brewer, nor distiller,
+should ever have one farthing out of the produce of my farm, except he
+got it through the throats of those who made the wearing apparel. If I
+had a village at my command, not a tea-kettle should sing in that
+village: there should be no extortioner under the name of country
+shop-keeper, and no straight-backed, bloated fellow, with red eyes,
+unshaven face, and slip-shod till noon, called a publican, and generally
+worthy of the name of _sinner_. Well-covered backs and well-lined
+bellies would be my delight; and as to talking about controlling and
+compelling, what a controlling and compelling are there now! It is
+everlasting control and compulsion. My bargain should be so much in
+money, and so much in bread, meat, and malt.
+
+And what is the bargain, I want to know, _with yearly servants_? Why, so
+much in money and the rest in bread, meat, beer, lodging and fuel. And
+does any one affect to say that this is wrong? Does any one say that it
+is wrong to exercise control and compulsion over these servants; such
+control and compulsion is not only the master's right, but they are
+included in his bounden _duties_. It is his duty to make them rise
+early, keep good hours, be industrious, and careful, be cleanly in their
+persons and habits, be civil in their language. These are amongst the
+uses of the means which God has put into his hands; and are these means
+to be neglected towards married servants any more than towards single
+ones?
+
+Even in the well-cultivated and thickly-settled parts of the United
+States of America, it is the general custom, and a very good custom it
+is, to pay the wages of labour _partly in money and partly in kind_; and
+this practice is extended to carpenters, bricklayers, and other workmen
+about buildings, and even to tailors, shoemakers, and weavers, who go (a
+most excellent custom) to farm-houses to work. The bargain is, so much
+money _and found_; that is to say, found in food and drink, and
+sometimes in lodging. The money then used to be, for a common labourer,
+in Long Island, at common work (not haying or harvesting), three York
+shillings a day, and found; that is to say, three times seven-pence
+halfpenny of our money; and three times seven-pence halfpenny a day,
+which is eleven shillings and three-pence a week, and found. This was
+the wages of the commonest labourer at the commonest work. And the wages
+of a good labourer now, in Worcestershire, _is eight shillings a week,
+and not found_. Accordingly, they are miserably poor and degraded.
+
+Therefore, there is in this mode of payment nothing _essentially_
+degrading; but the tommy system of Staffordshire, and elsewhere, though
+not unjust in itself, indirectly inflicts great injustice on the whole
+race of shop-keepers, who are necessary for the distribution of
+commodities in great towns, and whose property is taken away from them
+by this species of monopoly, which the employers of great numbers of men
+have been compelled to adopt for their own safety. It is not the fault
+of the masters, who can have no pleasure in making profit in this way:
+it is the fault of the taxes, which, by lowering the price of their
+goods, have compelled them to resort to this means of diminishing their
+expenses, or to quit their business altogether, which a great part of
+them cannot do without being left without a penny; and if a law could be
+passed and enforced (which it cannot) to put an end to the tommy system,
+the consequence would be, that instead of a fourth part of the furnaces
+being let out of blast in this neighbourhood, one-half would be let out
+of blast, and additional thousands of poor creatures would be left
+solely dependent on parochial relief.
+
+A view of the situation of things at Shrewsbury, will lead us in a
+minute to the real cause of the tommy system. Shrewsbury is one of the
+most interesting spots that man ever beheld. It is the capital of the
+county of Salop, and Salop appears to have been the original name of the
+town itself. It is curiously enclosed by the river Severn, which is here
+large and fine, and which, in the form of a _horse-shoe_, completely
+surrounds it, leaving, of the whole of the two miles round, only one
+little place whereon to pass in and out on land. There are two bridges,
+one on the east, and the other on the west; the former called the
+English, and the other, the Welsh bridge. The environs of this town,
+especially on the Welsh side, are the most beautiful that can be
+conceived. The town lies in the midst of a fine agricultural country, of
+which it is the great and almost only mart. Hither come the farmers to
+sell their produce, and hence they take, in exchange, their groceries,
+their clothing, and all the materials for their implements and the
+domestic conveniences. It was fair-day when I arrived at Shrewsbury.
+Everything was on the decline. Cheese, which four years ago sold at
+sixty shillings the six-score pounds, would not bring forty. I took
+particular pains to ascertain the fact with regard to the cheese, which
+is a great article here. I was assured that shop-keepers in general did
+not now sell half the quantity of goods in a month that they did in that
+space of time four or five years ago. The _ironmongers_ were not selling
+a fourth-part of what they used to sell five years ago.
+
+Now, it is impossible to believe that a somewhat similar falling off in
+the sale of iron must not have taken place all over the kingdom; and
+need we then wonder that the iron in Staffordshire has fallen, within
+these five years, from thirteen pounds to five pounds a ton, or perhaps
+a great deal more; and need we wonder that the _iron-masters_, who have
+the same rent and taxes to pay that they had to pay before, have
+resorted to the tommy system, in order to assist in saving themselves
+from ruin! Here is the real cause of the tommy system; and if Mr.
+Littleton really wishes to put an end to it, let him prevail upon the
+Parliament to take off taxes to the amount of forty millions a year.
+
+Another article had experienced a still greater falling off at
+Shrewsbury; I mean the article of corn-sacks, of which there has been a
+falling off of _five-sixths_. The sacks are made by weavers in the
+North; and need we wonder, then, at the low wages of those industrious
+people, whom I used to see weaving sacks in the miserable cellars at
+Preston!
+
+Here is the true cause of the tommy system, and of all the other evils
+which disturb and afflict the country. It is a great country; an immense
+mass of industry and resources of all sorts, _breaking up_; a prodigious
+mass of enterprise and capital diminishing and dispersing. The enormous
+taxes co-operating with the Corn-bill, which those taxes have
+engendered, are driving skill and wealth out of the country in all
+directions; are causing iron-masters to make France, and particularly
+Belgium, blaze with furnaces, in the lieu of those which have been
+extinguished here; and that have established furnaces and cotton-mills
+in abundance. These same taxes and this same Corn-bill are sending the
+long wool from Lincolnshire to France, there to be made into those
+blankets which, for ages, were to be obtained nowhere but in England.
+
+This is the true state of the country, and here are the true causes of
+that state; and all that the corrupt writers and speakers say about
+over-population and poor-laws, and about all the rest of their shuffling
+excuses, is a heap of nonsense and of lies.
+
+I cannot quit Shrewsbury without expressing the great satisfaction that
+I derived from my visit to that place. It is the only town into which I
+have gone, in all England, without knowing, beforehand, something of
+some person in it. I could find out no person that took the Register;
+and could discover but one person who took the _Advice to Young Men_.
+The number of my auditors was expected to be so small, that I doubled
+the price of admission, in order to pay the expense of the room. To my
+great surprise, I had a room full of gentlemen, at the request of some
+of whom I repeated the dose the next night; and if my audience were as
+well pleased with me as I was with them, their pleasure must have been
+great indeed. I saw not one single person in the place that I had ever
+seen before; yet I never had more cordial shakes by the hand; in
+proportion to their numbers, not more at Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale,
+Halifax, Leeds, or Nottingham, or even Hull. I was particularly pleased
+with the conduct of the _young_ gentlemen at Shrewsbury, and especially
+when I asked them, whether they were prepared to act upon the insolent
+doctrine of Huskisson, and quietly submit to this state of things
+"_during the present generation_"?
+
+
+
+
+TOUR IN THE WEST.
+
+
+_3rd July, 1830._
+
+Just as I was closing my third Lecture (on Saturday night), at Bristol,
+to a numerous and most respectable audience, the news of the above event
+[the death of George IV.] arrived. I had advertised, and made all the
+preparations, for lecturing at Bath on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday;
+but, under the circumstances, I thought it would not be proper to
+proceed thither, for that purpose, until after the burial of the King.
+When that has taken place, I shall, as soon as may be, return to Bath,
+taking Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire in my way; from Bath, through
+Somerset, Devon, and into Cornwall; and back through Dorset, South
+Wilts, Hants, Sussex, Kent, and then go into Essex, and, last of all,
+into my native county of Surrey. I shall then have seen all England with
+my own eyes, except Rutland, Westmoreland, Durham, Cumberland, and
+Northumberland; and these, if I have life and health till next spring, I
+shall see, in my way to Scotland. But never shall I see another place to
+interest me, and so pleasing to me, as Bristol and its environs, taking
+the whole together. A good and solid and wealthy city: a people of plain
+and good manners; private virtue and public spirit united; no empty
+noise, no insolence, no flattery; men very much like the Yorkers and
+Lancastrians. And as to the seat of the city and its environs, it
+surpasses all that I ever saw. A great commercial city in the midst of
+corn-fields, meadows and woods, and the ships coming into the centre of
+it, miles from anything like sea, up a narrow river, and passing between
+two clefts of a rock probably a hundred feet high; so that from the top
+of these clefts, you _look down_ upon the main-top gallant masts of
+lofty ships that are gliding along!
+
+
+
+
+PROGRESS IN THE NORTH.
+
+
+_Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 23rd September, 1832._
+
+From Bolton, in Lancashire, I came, through Bury and Rochdale, to
+Todmorden, on the evening of Tuesday, the 18th September. I have
+formerly described the valley of Todmorden as the most curious and
+romantic that was ever seen, and where the water and the coal seemed to
+be engaged in a struggle for getting foremost in point of utility to
+man. On the 19th I staid all day at Todmorden to write and to sleep. On
+the 20th I set off for Leeds by the stage coach, through Halifax and
+Bradford; and as to _agriculture_, certainly the poorest country that I
+have ever set my eyes on, except that miserable _Nova Scotia_, where
+there are the townships of Horton and of Wilmot, and whither the
+sensible suckling statesman, Lord Howick, is wanting to send English
+country girls, lest they should breed if they stay in England! This
+country, from Todmorden to Leeds, is, however, covered over with
+population, and the two towns of Halifax and Bradford are exceedingly
+populous. There appears to be nothing produced by the earth but the
+natural grass of the country, which, however, is not bad. The soil is a
+sort of yellow-looking, stiffish stuff, lying about a foot thick, upon a
+bed of rocky stone, lying upon solid rock beneath. The grass does not
+seem to burn here; nor is it bad in quality; and all the grass appears
+to be wanted to rear milk for this immense population, that absolutely
+covers the whole face of the country. The only grain crops that I saw
+were those of very miserable oats; some of which were cut and carried;
+some standing in _shock_, the sheaves not being more than about a foot
+and a half long; some still standing, and some yet _nearly green_. The
+land is very high from Halifax to Bradford, and proportionably cold.
+Here are some of those "Yorkshire Hills" that they see from Lancashire
+and Cheshire.
+
+I got to Leeds about four o'clock, and went to bed at eight precisely.
+At five in the morning of the 21st, I came off by the coach to
+Newcastle, through Harrowgate, Ripon, Darlington, and Durham. As I never
+was in this part of the country before, and can, therefore, never have
+described it upon any former occasion, I shall say rather more about it
+now than I otherwise should do. Having heard and read so much about the
+"Northern Harvest," about the "Durham ploughs," and the "Northumberland
+system of husbandry," what was my surprise at finding, which I verily
+believe to be the fact, that there is not as much corn grown in the
+North-Riding of Yorkshire, which begins at Ripon, and in the whole
+county of Durham, as is grown in the Isle of Wight alone. A very small
+part, comparatively speaking, is _arable_ land; and all the outward
+appearances show that that which is arable was formerly pasture. Between
+Durham and Newcastle there is a pretty general division of the land into
+grass fields and corn fields; but, even here, the absence of
+_homesteads_, the absence of barns, and of labourers' cottages, clearly
+show that agriculture is a sort of novelty; and that nearly all was
+pasturage not many years ago, or at any rate only so much of the land
+was cultivated as was necessary to furnish straw for the horses kept for
+other purposes than those of agriculture, and oats for those horses, and
+bread corn sufficient for the graziers and their people. All along the
+road from Leeds to Durham I saw hardly any wheat at all, or any wheat
+stubble, no barley, the chief crops being oats and beans mixed with
+peas. These everywhere appeared to be what we should deem most miserable
+crops. The oats, tied up in sheaves, or yet uncut, were scarcely ever
+more than two feet and a half long, the beans were about the same
+height, and in both cases the land so full of grass as to appear to be
+_a pasture_, after the oats and the beans were cut.
+
+The land appears to be divided into very extensive farms. The corn, when
+cut, you see put up into little stacks of a circular form, each
+containing about _three_ of our southern wagon-loads of sheaves, which
+stacks are put up round about the stone house and the buildings of the
+farmer. How they thrash them out I do not know, for I could see nothing
+resembling a barn or a barn's door. By the corn being put into such
+small stacks, I should suppose the thrashing places to be very small,
+and capable of holding only one stack at a time. I have many times seen
+one single rick containing a greater quantity of sheaves than fifteen or
+twenty of these stacks; and I have seen more than twenty stacks, each
+containing a number of sheaves equal to, at least, fifteen of these
+stacks; I have seen more than twenty of these large stacks, standing at
+one and the same time, in one single homestead in Wiltshire. I should
+not at all wonder if Tom Baring's farmers at Micheldever had a greater
+bulk of wheat-stacks standing now than any one would be able to find of
+that grain, especially, in the whole of the North-Riding of Yorkshire,
+and in one half of Durham.
+
+But this by no means implies that these are beggarly counties, even
+exclusive of their waters, coals, and mines. They are not _agricultural_
+counties; they are not counties for the producing of bread, but they are
+counties made for the express purpose of producing meat; in which
+respect they excel the southern counties, in a degree beyond all
+comparison. I have just spoken of the _beds of grass_ that are
+everywhere seen after the oats and the beans have been out. Grass is the
+natural produce of this land, which seems to have been made on purpose
+to produce it; and we are not to call land _poor_ because it will
+produce nothing but meat. The size and shape of the fields, the sort of
+fences, the absence of all homesteads and labourers' cottages, the
+thinness of the country churches, everything shows that this was always
+a country purely of pasturage. It is curious, that, belonging to every
+farm, there appears to be a large quantity of turnips. They are sowed in
+drills, cultivated between, beautifully clean, very large in the bulb,
+even now, and apparently having been sowed early in June, if not in May.
+They are generally the white globe turnip, here and there a field of the
+Swedish kind. These turnips are not fed off by sheep and followed by
+crops of barley and clover, as in the South, but are raised, I suppose,
+for the purpose of being carried in and used in the feeding of oxen,
+which have come off the grass lands in October and November. These
+turnip lands seem to take all the manure of the farm; and, as the reader
+will perceive, they are merely an adjunct to the pasturage, serving,
+during the winter, instead of hay, wherewith to feed the cattle of
+various descriptions.
+
+This, then, is not a country of farmers, but a country of graziers; a
+country of pasture, and not a country of the plough; and those who
+formerly managed the land here were not husbandmen, but herdsmen.
+Fortescue was, I dare say, a native of this country; for he describes
+England as a country of shepherds and of herdsmen, not working so very
+hard as the people of France did, having more leisure for contemplation,
+and, therefore, more likely to form a just estimate of their rights and
+duties; and he describes them as having, at all times, in their houses,
+plenty of flesh to eat, and plenty of woollen to wear. St. Augustine, in
+writing to the Pope an account of the character and conduct of his
+converts in England, told him that he found the English an exceedingly
+good and generous people; but they had one fault, their fondness for
+flesh-meat was so great, and their resolution to have it so determined,
+that he could not get them to abstain from it, even on the fast-days;
+and that he was greatly afraid that they would return to their state of
+horrible heathenism, rather than submit to the discipline of the church
+in this respect. The Pope, who had more sense than the greater part of
+bishops have ever had, wrote for answer: "Keep them within the pale of
+the church, at any rate, even if they slaughter their oxen in the
+churchyards: let them make shambles of the churches, rather than suffer
+the devil to carry away their souls." The taste of our fathers was by no
+means for the potato; for the "nice _mealy_ potato." The Pope himself
+would not have been able to induce them to carry "cold potatoes in their
+bags" to the plough-field, as was, in evidence before the special
+commissions, proved to have been the common practice in Hampshire and
+Wiltshire, and which had been before proved by evidence taken by
+unfeeling committees of the boroughmonger House of Commons. Faith! these
+old papas of ours would have burnt up not only the stacks, but the
+ground itself, rather than have lived upon miserable roots, while those
+who raised none of the food were eating up all the bread and the meat.
+
+Brougham and Birkbeck, and the rest of the Malthusian crew, are
+constantly at work preaching _content to the hungry and naked_. To be
+sure, they themselves, however, are not content to be hungry and naked.
+Amongst other things, they tell the working-people that the
+working-folks, especially in the North, used to have no bread, except
+such as was made of oats and of barley. That was better than potatoes,
+even the "nice mealy ones;" especially when carried cold to the field in
+a bag. But these literary impostors, these deluders, as far as they are
+able to delude; these vagabond authors, who thus write and publish for
+the purpose of persuading the working-people to be quiet, while they
+sack luxuries and riches out of the fruit of their toil; these literary
+impostors take care not to tell the people, that these oatcakes and this
+barley-bread were always associated with great lumps of flesh-meat; they
+forget to tell them this, or rather these half-mad, perverse, and
+perverting literary impostors suppress the facts, for reasons far too
+manifest to need stating.
+
+The cattle here are the most beautiful by far that I ever saw. The sheep
+are very handsome; but the horned cattle are the prettiest creatures
+that my eyes ever beheld. My sons will recollect that when they were
+little boys I took them to see the "Durham Ox," of which they drew the
+picture, I dare say, a hundred times. That was upon a large scale, to be
+sure, the model of all these beautiful cattle: short horns, strait back,
+a taper neck, very small in proportion where it joins on the small and
+handsome head, deep dewlap, small-boned in the legs, hoop-ribbed,
+square-hipped, tail slender. A great part of them are white, or
+approaching very nearly to white: they all appear to be half fat, cows
+and oxen and all; and the meat from them is said to be, and I believe it
+is, as fine as that from Lincolnshire, Herefordshire, Romney Marsh, or
+Pevensey Level; and I am ready, at any time, to swear, if need be, that
+one pound of it fed upon this grass is worth more, to me at least, than
+any ten pounds or twenty pounds fed upon oil-cake, or the stinking stuff
+of distilleries; aye, or even upon turnips. This is all _grass-land_,
+even from Staffordshire to this point. In its very nature it produces
+grass that fattens. The little producing-land that there is even in
+Lancashire and the West-Riding of Yorkshire, produces grass that would
+fatten an ox, though the land be upon the tops of hills. Everywhere,
+where there is a sufficiency of grass, it will fatten an ox; and well do
+we Southern people know that, except in mere vales and meadows, we have
+no land that will do this; we know that we might put an ox up to his
+eyes in our grass, and that it would only just keep him from growing
+worse: we know that we are obliged to have turnips and meal and cabbages
+and parsnips and potatoes, and then, with some of our hungry hay for
+them to _pick their teeth with_, we make shift to put fat upon an ox.
+
+Yet, so much are we like the beasts which, in the fable, came before
+Jupiter to ask him to endow them with faculties incompatible with their
+divers frames and divers degrees of strength, that we, in this age of
+"_waust improvements, Ma'um_," are always hankering after laying fields
+down in pasture, in the South, while these fellows in the North, as if
+resolved to rival us in "improvement" and perverseness, must needs break
+up their pasture-lands, and proclaim defiance to the will of Providence,
+and, instead of rich pasture, present to the eye of the traveller
+half-green starveling oats and peas, some of them in blossom in the last
+week of September. The land itself, the earth, of its own accord, as if
+resolved to vindicate the decrees of its Maker, sends up grass under
+these miserable crops, as if to punish them for their intrusion; and,
+when the crops are off, there comes a pasture, at any rate, in which the
+grass, like that of Herefordshire and Lincolnshire, is not (as it is in
+our Southern countries) mixed with weeds; but, standing upon the ground
+as thick as the earth can bear it, and fattening everything that eats of
+it, it forbids the perverse occupier to tear it to pieces. Such is the
+land of this country; all to the North of Cheshire, at any rate, leaving
+out the East-Riding of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, which are adapted for
+corn in some spots and for cattle in others.
+
+These Yorkshire and Durham cows are to be seen in great numbers in and
+about London, where they are used for the purpose of giving milk, of
+which I suppose they give great quantities; but it is always an
+observation that if you have these cows you must _keep them exceedingly
+well_: and this is very true; for, upon the food which does very well
+for the common cows of Hampshire and Surrey, they would dwindle away
+directly and be good for nothing at all; and these sheep, which are as
+beautiful as even imagination could make them, so round and so loaded
+with flesh, would actually perish upon those downs and in those folds
+where our innumerable flocks not only live but fatten so well, and with
+such facility are made to produce us such quantities of fine mutton and
+such bales of fine wool. There seems to be something in the soil and
+climate, and particularly in the soil, to create everywhere a sort of
+cattle and of sheep fitted to it; Dorsetshire and Somersetshire have
+sheep different from all others, and the nature of which it is to have
+their lambs in the fall instead of having them in the spring. I remember
+when I was amongst the villages on the Cotswold-hills, in
+Gloucestershire, they showed me their sheep in several places, which are
+a stout big-boned sheep. They told me that many attempts had been made
+to cross them with the small-boned Leicester breed, but that it had
+never succeeded, and that the race always got back to the Cotswold breed
+immediately.
+
+Before closing these rural remarks, I cannot help calling to the mind of
+the reader an observation of LORD JOHN SCOTT ELDON, who, at a time when
+there was a great complaint about "agricultural distress" and about the
+fearful increase of the poor-rates, said, "that there was no such
+distress _in Northumberland_, and no such increase of the poor-rates:"
+and so said my dignitary, Dr. Black, at the same time: and this, this
+wise lord, and this not less wise dignitary of mine, ascribed to "the
+bad practice of the farmers o' the Sooth paying the labourers their
+wages out of the poor-rates, which was not the practice in the North." I
+thought that they were telling what the children call _stories_; but I
+now find that these observations of theirs arose purely from that want
+of knowledge of the country which was, and is, common to them both. Why,
+Lord John, there are no such persons here as we call farmers, and no
+such persons as we call farm-labourers. From Cheshire to Newcastle, I
+have never seen _one single labourer's cottage by the side of the road_!
+Oh, Lord! if the good people of this country could but see the endless
+strings of vine-covered cottages and flower-gardens of the labourers of
+Kent, Sussex, Surrey, and Hampshire; if they could go down the vale of
+the Avon in Wiltshire, from Marlborough Forest to the city of Salisbury,
+and there see _thirty_ parish churches in a distance of thirty miles; if
+they could go up from that city of Salisbury up the valley of Wylly to
+Warminster, and there see one-and-thirty churches in the space of
+twenty-seven miles; if they could go upon the top of the down, as I did,
+not far (I think it was) from St. Mary Cotford, and there have under the
+eye, in the valley below, _ten parish churches within the distance of
+eight miles_, see the downs covered with innumerable flocks of sheep,
+water meadows running down the middle of the valley, while the sides
+rising from it were covered with corn, sometimes a hundred acres of
+wheat in one single piece, while the stack-yards were still well stored
+from the previous harvest; if John Scott Eldon's countrymen could behold
+those things, their quick-sightedness would soon discover why poor-rates
+should have increased in the South and not in the North; and, though
+their liberality would suggest an apology for my dignitary, Dr. Black,
+who was freighted to London in a smack, and has ever since been
+impounded in the Strand, relieved now and then by an excursion to
+Blackheath or Clapham Common; to find an apology for their countryman,
+Lord John, would be putting their liberality to an uncommonly severe
+test; for he, be it known to them, has chosen his country abode, not in
+the Strand like my less-informed dignitary, Dr. Black, nor in his native
+regions in the North; but has, in the beautiful county of Dorset, amidst
+valleys and downs precisely like those of Wiltshire, got as near to the
+sun as he could possibly get, and there, from the top of his mansion he
+can see a score of churches, and from his lofty and ever-green downs,
+and from his fat valleys beneath, he annually sends his flocks of
+long-tailed ewes to Appleshaw fair, thence to be sold to all the
+southern parts of the kingdom, having L. E. marked upon their beautiful
+wool; and, like the two factions at Maidstone, all tarred with the same
+brush. It is curious, too, notwithstanding the old maxim, that we all
+try to get as nearly as possible in our old age to the spot whence we
+first sprang. Lord John's brother William (who has some title that I
+have forgotten) has taken up his quarters on the healthy and I say
+beautiful Cotswold of Gloucestershire, where, in going in a postchaise
+from Stowe-in-the-Wold to Cirencester, I thought I should never get by
+the wall of his park; and I exclaimed to Mr. Dean, who was along with
+me, "Curse this Northumbrian ship-broker's son, he has got one half of
+the county;" and then all the way to Cirencester I was explaining to Mr.
+Dean _how the man had got his money_, at which Dean, who is a Roman
+Catholic, seemed to me to be ready to cross himself several times.
+
+No, there is no apology for Lord John's observations on the difference
+between the poor-rates of the South and the North. To go from London to
+his country-houses he must go across Surrey and Hampshire, along one of
+the vales of Wiltshire, and one of the vales of Dorsetshire, in which
+latter county he has many a time seen in one single large field _a
+hundred wind-rows_ (stacks made in the field in order that the corn may
+get quite dry before it be put into great stacks); he has many a time
+seen, on one farm, two or three hundred of these, each of which was very
+nearly as big as the stacks which you see in the stack-yards of the
+North Riding of Yorkshire and of Durham, where a large farm seldom
+produces more than ten or a dozen of these stacks, and where the
+farmer's property consists of his cattle and sheep, and where little,
+very little, agricultural labour is wanted. Lord John ought to have
+known the cause of the great difference, and not to have suffered such
+nonsense to come out of a head covered with so very large a wig.
+
+I looked with particular care on the sides of the road all the way
+through Yorkshire and Durham. The distance, altogether, from Oldham in
+Lancashire, to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, is about a hundred and fifty miles;
+and, leaving out the _great_ towns, I did not see so many churches as
+are to be seen in any twenty miles of any of the valleys of Wiltshire.
+All these things prove that these are by nature counties of pasturage,
+and that they were formerly used solely for that purpose. It is curious
+that there are none of those lands here which we call "meadows." The
+rivers run in _deep beds_, and have generally very steep sides; no
+little rivulets and occasional overflowings that make the meadows in the
+South, which are so very beautiful, but the grass in which is not of the
+rich nature that the grass is in these counties in the North: it will
+produce milk enough, but it will not produce beef. It is hard to say
+which part of the country is the most valuable gift of God; but every
+one must see how perverse and injurious it is to endeavour to produce in
+the one that which nature has intended to confine to the other. After
+all the unnatural efforts that have been made here to ape the farming of
+Norfolk and Suffolk, it is only _playing at farming_, as stupid and
+"loyal" parents used to set their children _to play at soldiers during
+the last war_.
+
+If any of these sensible men of Newcastle were to see the farming in the
+South Downs, and to see, as I saw in the month of July last, four teams
+of large oxen, six in a team, all ploughing in one field in preparation
+for wheat, and several pairs of horses, in the same field, dragging,
+harrowing, and rolling, and had seen on the other side of the road from
+five to six quarters of wheat standing upon the acre, and from nine to
+ten quarters of oats standing alongside of it, each of the two fields
+from fifty to a hundred statute acres; if any of these sensible men of
+Newcastle could see these things, they would laugh at the childish work
+that they see going on here under the name of farming; the very sight
+would make them feel how imperious is the duty on the law-giver to
+prevent distress from visiting the fields, and to take care that those
+whose labour produced all the food and all the raiment, shall not be fed
+upon potatoes and covered with rags; contemplating the important effects
+of their labour, each man of them could say as I said when this mean and
+savage faction had me at my trial, "I would see all these labourers
+hanged, and be hanged along with them, rather than see them live upon
+potatoes."
+
+
+_Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 24th September, 1832._
+
+Since writing the above I have had an opportunity of receiving
+information from a very intelligent gentleman of this county, who tells
+me, that in Northumberland there are some lands which bear very heavy
+crops of wheat; that the agriculture in this county is a great deal
+better than it is farther south; that, however, it was a most lamentable
+thing that the paper-money price of corn tempted so many men to break up
+these fine pastures; that the turf thus destroyed cannot be restored
+probably in a whole century; that the land does not now, with present
+prices, yield a clear profit, anything like what it would have yielded
+in the pasture; and that thus was destroyed the _goose with the golden
+eggs_. Just so was it with regard to the _downs_ in the south and the
+west of England, where there are hundreds of thousands of acres, where
+the turf was the finest in the world, broken up for the sake of the
+paper-money prices, but now left to be _downs again_; and which will not
+be _downs_ for more than a century to come. Thus did this accursed
+paper-money cause even the fruitful qualities of the earth to be
+anticipated, and thus was the soil made _worth less_ than it was before
+the accursed invention appeared! This gentleman told me that this
+breaking up of the pasture-land in this country had made the land,
+though covered again with artificial grasses, unhealthy for sheep; and
+he gave as an instance the facts, that three farmers purchased a hundred
+and fifty sheep each, out of the same flock; that two of them, who put
+their sheep upon these recently broken-up lands, lost their whole flocks
+by the rot, with the exception of four in the one case and four in the
+other, out of the three hundred: and that the third farmer, who put his
+sheep upon the old pastures, and kept them there, lost not a single
+sheep out of the hundred and fifty! These, ever accursed paper-money,
+are amongst thy destructive effects!
+
+I shall now, laying aside for the present these rural affairs, turn to
+the politics of this fine, opulent, solid, beautiful, and important
+town; but as this would compel me to speak of particular transactions
+and particular persons, and as this _Register_ will come back to
+Newcastle before I am likely to quit it, the reader will see reasons
+quite sufficient for my refraining to go into matters of this sort,
+until the next _Register_, which will in all probability be dated from
+Edinburgh.
+
+While at Manchester, I received an invitation to lodge while here at the
+house of a friend, of whom I shall have to speak more fully hereafter;
+but every demonstration of respect and kindness met me at the door of
+the coach in which I came from Leeds, on Friday, the 21st September. In
+the early part of Saturday, the 22nd, a deputation waited upon me with
+_an address_. Let the readers, in my native county and parish, remember
+that I am now at the end of thirty years of calumnies poured out
+incessantly upon me from the poisonous mouths and pens of three hundred
+mercenary villains, called newspaper editors and reporters; that I have
+written and published more than a hundred volumes in those thirty years;
+and that more than a thousand volumes (chiefly paid for out of the
+taxes) have been written and published for the sole purpose of impeding
+the progress of those truths that dropped from my pen; that my whole
+life has been a life of sobriety and labour; that I have invariably
+shown that I loved and honoured my country, and that I preferred its
+greatness and happiness far beyond my own; that, at four distinct
+periods, I might have rolled in wealth derived from the public money,
+which I always refused on any account to touch; that, for having
+thwarted this Government in its wastefulness of the public resources,
+and particularly for my endeavours to produce that Reform of the
+Parliament which the Government itself has at last been compelled to
+resort to; that, for having acted this zealous and virtuous part, I have
+been twice stripped of all my earnings by the acts of this Government;
+once lodged in a felon's jail for two years, and once driven into exile
+for two years and a half; and that, after all, here I am on a spot
+within a hundred miles of which I never was before in my life; and here
+I am receiving the unsolicited applause of men amongst the most
+intelligent in the whole kingdom, and the names of some of whom have
+been pronounced accompanied with admiration, even to the southernmost
+edge of the kingdom.
+
+
+_Hexham, 1st Oct., 1832._
+
+I left Morpeth this morning pretty early, to come to this town, which
+lies on the banks of the Tyne, at thirty-four miles distant from
+Morpeth, and at twenty distant from Newcastle. Morpeth is a great
+market-town, for cattle especially. It is a solid old town; but it has
+the disgrace of seeing an enormous new jail rising up in it. From
+cathedrals and monasteries we are come to be proud of our jails, which
+are built in the grandest style, and seemingly as if to imitate the
+Gothic architecture.
+
+From Morpeth to within about four miles of Hexham, the land is but very
+indifferent; the farms of an enormous extent. I saw in one place more
+than a hundred corn-stacks in one yard, each having from six to seven
+Surrey wagon-loads of sheaves in a stack; and not another house to be
+seen within a mile or two of the farmhouse. There appeared to be no such
+thing as barns, but merely a place to take in a stack at a time, and
+thrash it out by a machine. The country seems to be almost wholly
+destitute of people. Immense tracks of corn-land, but neither cottages
+nor churches. There is here and there a spot of good land, just as in
+the deep valleys that I crossed; but, generally speaking, the country
+is poor; and its bleakness is proved by the almost total absence of the
+oak tree, of which we see scarcely one all the way from Morpeth to
+Hexham. Very few trees of any sort, except in the bottom of the warm
+valleys; what there are, are chiefly the _ash_, which is a very hardy
+tree, and will live and thrive where the _oak_ will not grow at all,
+which is very curious, seeing that it comes out into leaf so late in the
+spring, and sheds its foliage so early in the fall. The trees which
+stand next in point of hardiness are the _sycamore_, the _beech_, and
+the _birch_, which are all seen here; but none of them fine. The _ash_
+is the most common tree, and even it flinches upon the hills, which it
+never does in the South. It has generally become yellow in the leaf
+already; and many of the trees are now bare of leaf before any frost has
+made its appearance.
+
+The cattle all along here are of a coarse kind; the cows swag-backed and
+badly shaped; Kiloe oxen, except in the dips of good land by the sides
+of the bourns which I crossed. Nevertheless, even here, the fields of
+turnips, of both sorts, are very fine. Great pains seem to be taken in
+raising the crops of these turnips: they are all cultivated in rows, are
+kept exceedingly clean, and they are carried in as winter food for all
+the animals of a farm, the horses excepted.
+
+As I approached Hexham, which, as the reader knows, was formerly the
+seat of a famous abbey, and the scene of a not less famous battle, and
+was, indeed, at one time the _see_ of a bishop, and which has now
+churches of great antiquity and cathedral-like architecture; as I
+approached this town, along a valley down which runs a small river that
+soon after empties itself into the Tyne, the land became good, the ash
+trees more lofty, and green as in June; the other trees proportionably
+large and fine; and when I got down into the vale of Hexham itself,
+there I found the _oak_ tree, certain proof of a milder atmosphere; for
+the _oak_, though amongst the hardest _woods_, is amongst the tenderest
+of plants known as natives of our country. Here everything assumes a
+different appearance. The Tyne, the southern and northern branches of
+which meet a few miles above Hexham, runs close by this ancient and
+celebrated town, all round which the ground rises gradually away towards
+the hills, crowned here and there with the remains of those castles
+which were formerly found necessary for the defence of this rich and
+valuable valley, which, from tip of hill to tip of hill, varies,
+perhaps, from four to seven miles wide, and which contains as fine
+corn-fields as those of Wiltshire, and fields of turnips, of both kinds,
+the largest, finest, and best cultivated, that my eyes ever beheld. As a
+proof of the goodness of the land and the mildness of the climate here,
+there is, in the grounds of the gentleman who had the kindness to
+receive and to entertain me (and that in a manner which will prevent me
+from ever forgetting either him or his most amiable wife); there is,
+standing in his ground, _about an acre of my corn_, which will ripen
+perfectly well; and in the same grounds, which, together with the
+kitchen-garden and all the appurtenances belonging to a house, and the
+house itself, are laid out, arranged, and contrived, in a manner so
+judicious, and to me so original, as to render them objects of great
+interest, though, in general, I set very little value on the things
+which appertain merely to the enjoyments of the rich. In these same
+grounds (to come back again to the climate), I perceived that the rather
+tender evergreens not only lived but throve perfectly well, and (a
+criterion infallible) the _biennial stocks_ stand the winter without any
+covering or any pains taken to shelter them; which, as every one knows,
+is by no means always the case, even at Kensington and Fulham.
+
+At night I gave a lecture at an inn, at Hexham, in the midst of the
+domains of that impudent and stupid man, Mr. Beaumont, who, not many
+days before, in what he called a speech, I suppose, made at Newcastle,
+thought proper, as was reported in the newspapers, to utter the
+following words with regard to me, never having, in his life, received
+the slightest provocation for so doing. "The liberty of the press had
+nothing to fear from the Government. It was the duty of the
+administration to be upon their guard to prevent extremes. There was a
+crouching servility on the one hand, and an excitement to
+disorganization and to licentiousness on the other, which ought to be
+discountenanced. The company, he believed, as much disapproved of that
+political traveller who was now going through the country--he meant
+Cobbett--as they detested the servile effusions of the Tories."
+Beaumont, in addition to his native stupidity and imbecility, might have
+been drunk when he said this, but the servile wretch who published it
+was not drunk; and, at any rate, Beaumont was my mark, it not being my
+custom to snap at the stick, but at the cowardly hand that wields it.
+
+Such a fellow cannot be an object of what is properly called _vengeance_
+with any man who is worth a straw; but, I say, with SWIFT, "If a _flea_
+or a _bug_ bite me, I will kill it if I can;" and, acting upon that
+principle, I, being at Hexham, put my foot upon this contemptible
+creeping thing, who is offering himself as a candidate for the southern
+division of the county, being so eminently fitted to be a maker of the
+laws!
+
+The newspapers have told the whole country that Mr. John Ridley, who is
+a tradesman at Hexham, and occupies some land close by, has made a stand
+against the demand for tithes; and that the tithe-owner recently broke
+open, in the night, the gate of his field, and carried away what he
+deemed to be the tithe; that Mr. Ridley applied to the magistrates, who
+could only refer him to a court of law to recover damages for the
+trespass. When I arrived at Hexham, I found this to be the case. I
+further found that Beaumont, that impudent, silly and slanderous
+Beaumont, is the _lay-owner_ of the tithes in and round about Hexham; he
+being, in a right line, doubtless, the heir or successor of the abbot
+and monks of the Abbey of Hexham; or, the heir of the donor, Egfrid,
+_king of Northumberland_. I found that Beaumont had leased out his
+tithes to _middle men_, as is the laudable custom with the pious bishops
+and clergy of the law-church in Ireland.
+
+
+_North Shields, 2nd Oct., 1832._
+
+These sides of the Tyne are very fine: corn-fields, woods, pastures,
+villages; a church every four miles, or thereabouts; cows and sheep
+beautiful; oak trees, though none very large; and, in short, a fertile
+and beautiful country, wanting only the gardens and the vine-covered
+cottages that so beautify the counties in the South and the West. All
+the buildings are of stone. Here are coal-works and railways every now
+and then. The working people seem to be very well off; their dwellings
+solid and clean, and their furniture good; but the little gardens and
+orchards are wanting. The farms are all large; and the people who work
+on them either live in the farmhouse, or in buildings appertaining to
+the farmhouse; and they are all well fed, and have no temptation to acts
+like those which sprang up out of the ill-treatment of the labourers in
+the South. Besides, the mere country people are so few in number, the
+state of society is altogether so different, that a man who has lived
+here all his life-time, can form no judgment at all with regard to the
+situation, the wants, and the treatment of the working people in the
+counties of the South.
+
+They have begun to make a railway from Carlisle to Newcastle; and I saw
+them at work at it as I came along. There are great _lead mines_ not far
+from Hexham; and I saw a great number of little one-horse carts bringing
+down the _pigs of lead_ to the point where the Tyne becomes navigable to
+Newcastle; and sometimes I saw loads of these _pigs_ lying by the
+road-side, as you see parcels of timber lying in Kent and Sussex, and
+other timber counties. No fear of their being stolen: their weight is
+their security, together with their value compared with that of the
+labour of carrying. Hearing that Beaumont was, somehow or other,
+connected with this lead-work, I had got it into my head that he was a
+pig of lead himself, and half expected to meet with him amongst these
+groups of his fellow-creatures; but, upon inquiry, I found that some of
+the lead-mines belonged to him; descending, probably, in that same right
+line in _which the tithes descended to him_; and as the Bishop of Durham
+is said to be the owner of great lead-mines, Beaumont and the bishop may
+possibly be in the _same boat_ with regard to the subterranean estate as
+well as that upon the surface; and if this should be the case, it will,
+I verily believe, require all the piety of the bishop, and all the
+wisdom of Beaumont, to keep the boat above water for another five years.
+
+
+_North Shields, 3rd Oct., 1832._
+
+I lectured at South Shields last evening, and here this evening. I came
+over the river from South Shields about eleven o'clock last night, and
+made a very firm bargain with myself never to do the like again. This
+evening, after my lecture was over, some gentlemen presented an address
+to me upon the stage, before the audience, accompanied with the valuable
+and honourable present of the late Mr. Eneas Mackenzie's _History of the
+County of Northumberland_; a very interesting work, worthy of every
+library in the kingdom.
+
+From Newcastle to Morpeth; from Morpeth to Hexham; and then all the way
+down the Tyne; though everywhere such abundance of fine turnips, and in
+some cases of mangel-wurzel, you see scarcely any _potatoes_: a certain
+sign that the working people do not live like hogs. This root is raised
+in Northumberland and Durham, to be used merely as garden stuff; and,
+used in that way, it is very good; the contrary of which I never
+thought, much less did I ever say it. It is the using of it as a
+_substitute_ for bread and for meat, that I have deprecated it; and when
+the Irish poet, Dr. Drennen, called it "the lazy root, and the root of
+misery," he gave it its true character. Sir Charles Wolseley, who has
+travelled a great deal in France, Germany and Italy, and who, though
+Scott-Eldon scratched him out of the commission of the peace, and though
+the sincere patriot Brougham will not put him in again, is a very great
+and accurate observer as to these interesting matters, has assured me
+that, in whatever proportion the cultivation of potatoes prevails in
+those countries, in that same proportion the working-people are
+wretched.
+
+From this degrading curse; from sitting round a dirty board, with
+potatoes trundled out upon it, as the Irish do: from going to the field
+with cold potatoes in their bags, as the working-people of Hampshire and
+Wiltshire _did_, but which they have not done since the appearance of
+certain _coruscations_, which, to spare the feelings of the "Lambs, the
+Broughams, the Greys, and the Russells," and their dirty
+bill-of-indictment-drawer Denman, I will not describe, much less will I
+eulogize; from this degrading curse the county of Northumberland is yet
+happily free!
+
+
+_Sunderland, 4th Oct., 1832._
+
+This morning I left North Shields in a post-chaise, in order to come
+hither through Newcastle and Gateshead, this affording me the only
+opportunity that I was likely to have of seeing a plantation of Mr.
+Annorer Donkin, close in the neighbourhood of Newcastle; which
+plantation had been made according to the method prescribed in my book,
+called the "Woodlands;" and to see which plantation I previously
+communicated a request to Mr. Donkin. That gentleman received me in a
+manner which will want no describing to those who have had the good luck
+to visit Newcastle. The plantation is most advantageously circumstanced
+to furnish proof of the excellence of my instructions as to planting.
+The predecessor of Mr. Donkin also made plantations upon the same spot,
+and consisting precisely of the same sort of trees. The two plantations
+are separated from each other merely by a road going through them. Those
+of the predecessor have been made _six-and-twenty years_; those of Mr.
+Donkin _six years_; and, incredible as it may appear, the trees in the
+latter are full as lofty as those in the former; and, besides the equal
+loftiness, are vastly superior in point of shape, and, which is very
+curious, retain all their freshness at this season of the year, while
+the old plantations are brownish and many of the leaves falling off the
+trees, though the sort of trees is precisely the same. As a sort of
+reward for having thus contributed to this very rational source of his
+pleasure, Mr. Donkin was good enough to give me an elegant copy of the
+fables of the celebrated Bewick, who was once a native of Newcastle and
+an honour to the town, and whose books I had had from the time that my
+children began to look at books, until taken from me by that sort of
+rapine which I had to experience at the time of my memorable flight
+across the Atlantic, in order to secure the use of that long arm which I
+caused to reach them from Long Island to London.
+
+In Mr. Donkin's kitchen-garden (my eyes being never closed in such a
+scene) I saw what I had never seen before in any kitchen-garden, and
+which it may be very useful to some of my readers to have described to
+them. _Wall-fruit_ is, when destroyed in the spring, never destroyed by
+_dry-cold_; but ninety-nine times out of a hundred, by wet-frosts, which
+descend always perpendicularly, and which are generally fatal if they
+come between the expansion of the blossom and the setting of the fruit;
+that is to say, if they come after the bloom is quite open, and before
+it has disentangled itself from the fruit. The great thing, therefore,
+in getting _wall-fruit_, is to keep off these frosts. The French make
+use of boards, in the neighbourhood of Paris, projecting from the tops
+of the walls and supported by poles; and some persons contrive to have
+curtains to come over the whole tree at night and to be drawn up in the
+morning. Mr. Donkin's walls have a top of stone; and this top, or cap,
+projects about eight inches beyond the face of the wall, which is quite
+sufficient to guard against the wet-frosts which always fall
+perpendicularly. This is a country of stone to be sure; but those who
+can afford to build walls for the purpose of having wall-fruit, can
+afford to cap them in this manner: to rear the wall, plant the trees,
+and then to save the expense of the cap, is really like the old
+proverbial absurdity, "of losing the ship for the sake of saving a
+pennyworth of tar."
+
+At Mr. Donkin's I saw a portrait of Bewick, which is said to be a great
+likeness, and which, though imagination goes a great way in such a case,
+really bespeaks that simplicity, accompanied with that genius, which
+distinguished the man. Mr. Wm. Armstrong was kind enough to make me a
+present of a copy of the last performance of this so justly celebrated
+man. It is entitled "_Waits for Death_," exhibiting a poor old horse
+just about to die, and preceded by an explanatory writing, which does as
+much honour to the heart of Bewick as the whole of his designs put
+together do to his genius. The sight of the picture, the reading of the
+preface to it, and the fact that it was the last effort of the man;
+altogether make it difficult to prevent tears from starting from the
+eyes of any one not uncommonly steeled with insensibility.
+
+You see nothing here that is pretty; but everything seems to be abundant
+in value; and one great thing is, the working people live well. Theirs
+is not a life of ease to be sure, but it is not a life of hunger. The
+pitmen have twenty-four shillings a week; they live rent-free, their
+fuel costs them nothing, and their doctor cost them nothing. Their work
+is terrible, to be sure; and, perhaps, they do not have what they ought
+to have; but, at any rate, they live well, their houses are good and
+their furniture good; and though they live not in a beautiful scene,
+they are in the scene where they were born, and their lives seem to be
+as good as that of the working part of mankind can reasonably expect.
+Almost the whole of the country hereabouts is owned by that curious
+thing called the _Dean and Chapter_ of Durham. Almost the whole of South
+Shields is theirs, granted upon leases with fines at stated periods.
+This Dean and Chapter are the _lords of the Lords_. Londonderry, with
+all his huffing and strutting, is but a tenant of the Dean and Chapter
+of Durham, who souse him so often with their _fines_ that it is said
+that he has had to pay them more than a hundred thousand pounds within
+the last ten or twelve years. What will Londonderry bet that, he is not
+the _tenant of the public_ before this day five years? There would be no
+difficulty in these cases, but on the contrary a very great convenience;
+because all these tenants of the Dean and Chapter might then purchase
+out-and-out, and make that property freehold, which they now hold by a
+tenure so uncertain and so capricious.
+
+
+_Alnwick, 7th Oct., 1832._
+
+From Sunderland I came, early in the morning of the 5th of October, once
+more (and I hope not for the last time) to Newcastle, there to lecture
+on the paper-money, which I did, in the evening. But before I proceed
+further, I must record something that I heard at Sunderland respecting
+that babbling fellow Trevor! My readers will recollect the part which
+this fellow acted with regard to the "liberal Whig prosecution;" they
+will recollect that it was he who first mentioned the thing in the House
+of Commons, and suggested to the wise Ministers the propriety of
+prosecuting me; that Lord Althorp and Denman _hummed_ and _ha'd_ about
+it; that the latter had _not read it_, and that the former would offer
+no opinion upon it; that Trevor came on again, encouraged by the works
+of the curate of Crowhurst, and by the bloody old _Times_, whose former
+editor and now printer is actually a candidate for Berkshire, supported
+by that unprincipled political prattler, Jephthah Marsh, whom I will
+call to an account as soon as I get back to the South. My readers will
+further recollect that the bloody old _Times_ then put forth another
+document as a confession of Goodman, made to Burrell, Tredcroft, and
+Scawen Blunt, while the culprit was in Horsham jail with a halter
+actually about his neck. My readers know the _result_ of this affair;
+but they have yet to learn some circumstances belonging to its progress,
+which circumstances are not to be stated here. They recollect, however,
+that from the very first I treated this TREVOR with the utmost disdain;
+and that at the head of the articles which I wrote about him I put these
+words, "TREVOR AND POTATOES;" meaning that he hated me because I was
+resolved, fire or fire not, that working men should not live upon
+potatoes in my country. Now, mark; now, chopsticks of the South, mark
+the sagacity, the justice, the promptitude, and the excellent taste of
+these lads of the North! At the last general election, which took place
+after the "liberal Whig prosecution" had been begun, Trevor was a
+candidate for the city of Durham, which is about fourteen miles from
+this busy town of Sunderland. The freemen of Durham are the voters in
+that city, and some of these freemen reside at Sunderland. Therefore
+this fellow (I wish to God you could _see_ him!) went to Sunderland to
+canvass these freemen residing there; and they pelted him out of the
+town; and (oh appropriate missiles!) pelted him out with the "accursed
+root," hallooing and shouting after him--"_Trevor and potatoes!_" Ah!
+stupid coxcomb! little did he imagine, when he was playing his game with
+Althorp and Denman, what would be the ultimate effect of that game!
+
+From Newcastle to Morpeth (the country is what I before described it to
+be). From Morpeth to this place (Alnwick), the country, generally
+speaking, is very poor as to land, scarcely any trees at all; the farms
+enormously extensive; only two churches, I think, in the whole of the
+twenty miles; scarcely anything worthy the name of a tree, and not one
+single dwelling having the appearance of a labourer's house. Here
+appears neither hedging nor ditching; no such thing as a sheep-fold or a
+hurdle to be seen; the cattle and sheep very few in number; the farm
+servants living in the farm-houses, and very few of them; the thrashing
+done by machinery and horses; a country without people. This is a pretty
+country to take a minister from to govern the South of England! A pretty
+country to take a Lord Chancellor from to prattle about _Poor Laws_ and
+about _surplus population_! My Lord Grey has, in fact, spent his life
+here, and Brougham has spent his life in the Inns of Court, or in the
+botheration of speculative books. How should either of them know
+anything about the eastern, southern, or western counties? I wish I had
+my dignitary Dr. Black here; I would soon make him see that he has all
+these number of years been talking about the bull's horns instead of his
+tail and his buttocks. Besides the indescribable pleasure of having seen
+Newcastle, the Shieldses, Sunderland, Durham, and Hexham, I have now
+discovered the true ground of all the errors of the Scotch _feelosofers_
+with regard to population, and with regard to poor-laws. The two
+countries are as different as any two things of the same nature can
+possibly be; that which applies to the one does not at all apply to the
+other. The agricultural counties are covered all over with parish
+churches, and with people thinly distributed here and there.
+
+Only look at the two counties of Dorset and Durham. Dorset contains
+1,005 square miles; Durham contains 1,061 square miles. Dorset has 271
+_parishes_; Durham has 75 parishes. The population of Dorset is
+scattered over the whole of the county, there being no town of any
+magnitude in it. The population of Durham, though larger than that of
+Dorset, is almost all gathered together at the mouths of the Tyne, the
+Wear, and the Tees. Northumberland has 1,871 square miles; and Suffolk
+has 1,512 square miles. Northumberland has _eighty-eight parishes_; and
+Suffolk has _five hundred and ten parishes_. So that here is a county
+one third part smaller than that of Northumberland with six times as
+many villages in it! What comparison is there to be made between states
+of society so essentially different? What rule is there, with regard to
+population and poor-laws, which can apply to both cases? And how is my
+Lord Howick, born and bred up in Northumberland, to know how to judge of
+a population suitable to Suffolk? Suffolk is a county teeming with
+production, as well as with people; and how brutal must that man be who
+would attempt to reduce the agricultural population of Suffolk to that
+of the number of Northumberland! The population of Northumberland,
+larger than Suffolk as it is, does not equal it in total population by
+nearly one-third, notwithstanding that one half of its whole population
+have got together on the banks of the Tyne. And are we to get rid of our
+people in the South, and supply the places of them by horses and
+machines? Why not have the people in the fertile counties of the South,
+where their very existence causes their food and their raiment to come?
+Blind and thoughtless must that man be who imagines that all but _farms_
+in the South are unproductive. I much question whether, taking a strip
+three miles each way from the road, coming from Newcastle to Alnwick, an
+equal quantity of what is called _waste ground_, together with the
+cottages that skirt it, do not exceed such strip of ground in point of
+produce. Yes, the cows, pigs, geese, poultry, gardens, bees and fuel
+that arise from those _wastes_, far exceed, even in the capacity of
+sustaining people, similar breadths of ground, distributed into these
+large farms in the poorer parts of Northumberland. I have seen not less
+than ten thousand geese in one tract of common, in about six miles,
+going from Chobham towards Farnham in Surrey. I believe these geese
+alone, raised entirely by care and by the common, to be worth more than
+the clear profit that can be drawn from any similar breadth of land
+between Morpeth and Alnwick. What folly is it to talk, then, of applying
+to the counties of the South, principles and rules applicable to a
+country like this!
+
+To-morrow morning I start for "Modern Athens"! My readers will, I dare
+say, perceive how much my "_antalluct_" has been improved since I
+crossed the Tyne. What it will get to when I shall have crossed the
+Tweed, God only knows. I wish very much that I could stop a day at
+Berwick, in order to find some _feelosofer_ to ascertain, by some
+chemical process, the exact degree of the improvement of the
+"_antalluct_." I am afraid, however, that I shall not be able to manage
+this; for I must get along; beginning to feel devilishly home-sick
+since I have left Newcastle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They tell me that Lord Howick, who is just married by-the-by, made a
+speech here the other day, during which he said, "that the Reform was
+only the means to an end; and that the end was cheap government." Good!
+stand to that, my Lord, and, as you are now married, pray let the
+country fellows and girls marry too: let us have _cheap government_, and
+I warrant you that there will be room for us all, and plenty for us to
+eat and drink. It is the drones, and not the bees, that are too
+numerous; it is the vermin who live upon the taxes, and not those who
+work to raise them, that we want to get rid of. We are keeping fifty
+thousand tax-eaters to breed gentlemen and ladies for the industrious
+and laborious to keep. These are the opinions which I promulgate; and
+whatever your flatterers may say to the contrary, and whatever
+_feelosofical_ stuff Brougham and his rabble of writers may put forth,
+these opinions of mine will finally prevail. I repeat my anxious wish (I
+would call it a _hope_ if I could) that your father's resolution may be
+equal to his sense, and that he will do that which is demanded by the
+right which the people have to insist upon measures necessary to restore
+the greatness and happiness of the country; and, if he show a
+disposition to do this, I should deem myself the most criminal of all
+mankind, if I were to make use of any influence that I possess to render
+his undertaking more difficult than it naturally must be; but, if he
+show not that disposition, it will be my bounden duty to endeavour to
+drive him from the possession of power; for, be the consequences to
+individuals what they may, the greatness, the freedom, and the happiness
+of England must be restored.
+
+
+END.
+
+
+
+
+ESTABLISHED 1798
+
+T. NELSON AND SONS
+
+PRINTERS AND PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+THE NELSON CLASSICS.
+
+_Uniform with this Volume and Same Price._
+
+DESCRIPTIVE NOTES ON SOME OF THE VOLUMES.
+
+
+Shakespeare (6 vols.).
+
+This is a complete edition of the plays and poems of the greatest of the
+world's writers. It is printed from a carefully selected fount of type,
+and is one of the prettiest, as well as one of the cheapest, editions of
+Shakespeare ever published.
+
+
+The Count of Monte-Cristo (2 vols.). ALEXANDRE DUMAS.
+
+In "Monte-Cristo" Dumas left the path of historical fiction for the
+romance of his own time. It is the most famous of the world's treasure
+stories, and tells how a young man, imprisoned on a false charge in a
+French fortress, learns from a fellow-prisoner the secret of great
+wealth hidden on a Mediterranean island; how he finds the treasure, and
+spends his remaining years rewarding his friends and avenging himself on
+his enemies.
+
+
+Scenes of Clerical Life. GEORGE ELIOT.
+
+With the three stories in this volume--"Amos Barton," "Mr. Gilfil's Love
+Story," and "Janet's Repentance"--George Eliot made her first entry into
+fiction, and they still remain perhaps her most characteristic and
+delightful work.
+
+
+Wild Wales. GEORGE BORROW.
+
+This book was the result of Borrow's wanderings after the publication of
+"Lavengro" and "The Romany Rye." He tramped on foot throughout the
+country, and the work is a classic of description, both of the scenery
+and people.
+
+
+Toilers of the Sea. VICTOR HUGO.
+
+The Laughing Man. VICTOR HUGO.
+
+Les Miserables (2 Vols.). VICTOR HUGO.
+
+'Ninety-Three. VICTOR HUGO.
+
+Victor Hugo took the romantic novel as invented by Sir Walter Scott and
+gave it a new and philosophic interest. All his great romances have a
+purpose. "Les Miserables" exposes the tyranny of human laws; "The
+Toilers of the Sea" shows the conflict of man with nature; "The Laughing
+Man" expounds the tyranny of the aristocratic ideal as exemplified in
+England. But being a great artist as well as a great thinker, he never
+turned his romances into pamphlets. Drama is always his aim, and no
+novelist has attained more often the supreme dramatic moment.
+
+     The cheapest books in the world. Produced in the same excellent
+     form and convenient size as the other Nelson Libraries, they
+     contain works which are out of copyright. Full List on application.
+
+
+  THOMAS NELSON AND SONS,
+  London, Edinburgh, Dublin, New York, Paris, and Leipzig.
+
+
+
+THE NELSON CLASSICS.
+
+_Uniform with this Volume and Same Price._
+
+
+CONDENSED LIST.
+
+    1. A Tale of Two Cities.
+    2. Tom Brown's Schooldays.
+    3. The Deerslayer.
+    4. Henry Esmond.
+    5. Hypatia.
+    6. The Mill on the Floss.
+    7. Uncle Tom's Cabin.
+    8. The Last of the Mohicans.
+    9. Adam Bede.
+   10. The Old Curiosity Shop.
+   11. Oliver Twist.
+   12. Kenilworth.
+   13. Robinson Crusoe.
+   14. The Last Days of Pompeii.
+   15. Cloister and the Hearth.
+   16. Ivanhoe.
+   17. East Lynne.
+   18. Cranford.
+   19. John Halifax, Gentleman.
+   20. The Pathfinder.
+   21. Westward Ho!
+   22. The Three Musketeers.
+   23. The Channings.
+   24. The Pilgrim's Progress.
+   25. Pride and Prejudice.
+   26. Quentin Durward.
+   27. Villette.
+   28. Hard Times.
+   29. Child's History of England.
+   30. The Bible in Spain.
+   31. Gulliver's Travels.
+   32. Sense and Sensibility.
+   33. Kate Coventry.
+   34. Silas Marner.
+   35. Notre Dame.
+   36. Old St. Paul's.
+   37. Waverley.
+   38. 'Ninety-Three.
+   39. Eothen.
+   40. Toilers of the Sea.
+   41. Children of the New Forest.
+   42. The Laughing Man.
+   43. A Book of Golden Deeds.
+   44. Great Expectations.
+   45. Guy Mannering.
+   46. Modern Painters (Selections)
+   47. Les Miserables--I.
+   48. Les Miserables--II.
+   49. Monastery.
+   50. Romola.
+   51. The Vicar of Wakefield.
+   52. Emma.
+   53. Lavengro.
+   54. Emerson's Essays.
+   55. The Bride of Lammermoor.
+   56. The Abbot.
+   57. Tom Cringle's Log.
+   58. Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare.
+   59. The Scarlet Letter.
+   60. Old Mortality.
+   61. The Romany Rye.
+   62. Hans Andersen.
+   63. The Black Tulip.
+   64. Little Women.
+   65. The Talisman.
+   66. Scottish Life and Character.
+   67. The Woman in White.
+   68. Tales of Mystery.
+   69. Fair Maid of Perth.
+   70. Parables from Nature.
+   71. Peg Woffington.
+   72. Windsor Castle.
+   73. Edmund Burke.
+   74. Ingoldsby Legends.
+   75. Pickwick Papers--I.
+   76. Pickwick Papers--II.
+   77. Verdant Green.
+   78. The Heir of Redclyffe.
+   79. Wild Wales.
+   80. Two Years Before the Mast.
+   81. Jane Eyre.
+   82. David Copperfield--I.
+   83. David Copperfield--II.
+   84. Hereward the Wake.
+   85. Wide Wide World.
+   86. Michael Strogoff.
+   87. Shirley.
+   88. Jack Sheppard.
+   89. Masterman Ready.
+   90. Martin Chuzzlewit--I.
+   91. Martin Chuzzlewit--II.
+   92. Twenty Years After.
+   93. Lorna Doone--I.
+   94. Lorna Doone--II.
+   95. Marguerite de Valois.
+   96. The Old Lieutenant and his Son.
+   97. Sylvia's Lovers.
+   98. Rob Roy.
+   99. Shakespeare--I.
+  100. Shakespeare--II.
+  101. Shakespeare--III.
+  102. Shakespeare--IV.
+  103. Shakespeare--V.
+  104. Shakespeare--VI.
+  105. Sybil.
+  106. Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World.
+  107. Nicholas Nickleby--I.
+  108. Nicholas Nickleby--II.
+  109. Christmas Books.
+  110. Book of Snobs, and Barry Lyndon.
+  111. The Golden Treasury.
+  112. The Fortunes of Nigel.
+  113. Scenes of Clerical Life.
+  114. Tales of the Gods and Heroes.
+  115. Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles.
+  116. House of the Seven Gables.
+  117. Barchester Towers.
+  118. Tales of the West.
+  119. Lays of Ancient Rome, and other Poems.
+  120. Coral Island.
+  121. First Love and Last Love.
+  122. Count of Monte-Cristo--I.
+  123. Count of Monte-Cristo--II.
+  124. Dombey and Son--I.
+  125. Dombey and Son--II.
+  126. Vanity Fair--I.
+  127. Vanity Fair--II.
+  128. The Antiquary.
+  129. Martin Rattler.
+  130. The Smuggler.
+  131. Ravenshoe.
+  132. Ecce Homo.
+  133. Framley Parsonage.
+  134. Coningsby.
+  135. Chronicles of the Schoenberg-Cotta Family.
+  136. Rural Rides.
+  137. Anna Karenina--I.
+  138. Anna Karenina--II.
+  139. Voyage of the "Beagle."
+  140. The Daisy Chain.
+  141. Eugenie Grandet.
+  142. Elsie Venner.
+  143. The Phantom Regiment.
+  144. Salem Chapel.
+  145. Longfellow's Poems--I.
+  146. Longfellow's Poems--II.
+  147. Tom Brown at Oxford.
+  148. The Essays of Elia.
+
+THOMAS NELSON AND SONS.
+
+
+
+
+Footnotes:
+
+[1] I will not swear to the very _words_; but this is the meaning of
+Voltaire: "Representatives of the people, the Lords and the King:
+_Magnificent_ spectacle! _Sacred_ source of the Laws!"
+
+[2] "Representatives of the people, of whom the people know nothing,
+must be miraculously well calculated to have the care of their money!
+Oh! People too happy! overwhelmed with blessings! The _envy_ of _your
+neighbours_, and _admired_ by the _whole world_!"
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_.
+
+Punctuation has been corrected without note.
+
+The following misprints have been corrected:
+  "nore" corrected to "more" (page 34)
+  "practi ing" corrected to "practicing" (page 37)
+  "1852" corrected to "1822" (page 68)
+  "grews" corrected to "grows" (page 79)
+  "shillings-day" corrected to "shillings a-day" (page 82)
+  "turnip" corrected to "turnips" (page 164)
+  "then" corrected to "them" (page 246)
+  "orginally" corrected to "originally" (page 347)
+  "conmissioners" corrected to "commissioners" (page 466)
+  "Lincolshire" corrected to "Lincolnshire" (page 555)
+  "laboureres" corrected to "labourers" (page 558)
+
+Other than the corrections listed above, inconsistencies in spelling and
+hyphenation have been retained from the original.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Rural Rides, by William Cobbett
+
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