Rural Rides Part 9

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 pa.s.ses; and especially if your manner be such as to remove every kind of reserve from every cla.s.s; 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 unt.i.tled 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 SUSs.e.x.

_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 pa.s.s _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 Suss.e.x, 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 rivals.h.i.+p 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 c.o.ke 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 c.o.ke like this, what has any one else to do with it? Daddy c.o.ke 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 Bedfords.h.i.+re, 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 SUSs.e.x, AND INTO THE SOUTH EAST OF HAMPs.h.i.+RE.

_Reigate (Surrey), Sat.u.r.day, 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" G.o.d 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 ill.u.s.tration 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 s.h.i.+llings a hundred. The same hops will now fetch the owner of them eight pounds, or a hundred and sixty s.h.i.+llings.

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 gra.s.s is almost gone. No five acres of common gra.s.s land will, during the year, yield cattle food equal, either in quant.i.ty or quality, to what one acre of land in early Yorks will produce during three months.

_Worth (Suss.e.x), 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 Suss.e.x, 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 Suss.e.x. 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 s.h.i.+llings 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 gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s 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-gra.s.s 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_ gra.s.s is by no means the _best_. An acre of this gra.s.s will not make a quarter part so much b.u.t.ter as an acre of rusty-looking pasture, made rusty by the rays of the sun. Sheep on the commons _die_ of the _beautiful_ gra.s.s 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 quant.i.ty; 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 Ma.s.sena 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 a.s.sign any motive other than that of wis.h.i.+ng 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 compa.s.sion, 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 (Suss.e.x), 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 Hamps.h.i.+re 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 s.h.i.+ning 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 Suss.e.x. 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 Suss.e.x are. The people very clean. The Suss.e.x 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 gra.s.s, 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 (Suss.e.x), 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 coa.r.s.e s.h.i.+rt, 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 circ.u.mstances 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 (Suss.e.x), 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 Suss.e.x; 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 Suss.e.x 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 ca.n.a.l 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 ma.s.ses. These ma.s.ses 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, a.s.suredly 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-fas.h.i.+oned 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 pa.s.sed 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 cla.s.ses 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 antic.i.p.ations, 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 _t.i.thes_ and other things of the same sort in England. But the crew did not reflect on the _consequences_ of the antic.i.p.ations! 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 (Suss.e.x), Sat.u.r.day, 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 t.i.the 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, a.s.sured me that it would not rain.