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CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 3 1924 088 013 754 
 
V, 
 
 Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924088013754 
 
RURAL RIDES, &c. 
 
BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 

 J'r^rT^ ■x.J\r:c(^^ -.■► a,Ji£:diU.iwri, -^inO: ty^ reiar-jXatv' -inW^'ic 
 
RURAL RIDES 
 
 5n tbe Counties of 
 
 SURREY, KENT, SUSSEX, HANTS, BERKS, OXFORD, 
 
 BUCKS, WILTS, SOMERSET, GLOUCESTER, HEREFORD, 
 
 SALOP, WORCESTER, STAFFORD, LEICESTER, 
 
 HERTFORD, ESSEX, SUFFOLK, NORFOLK, 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, HUNTINGDON, NOTTINGHAM, LINCOLN, 
 
 YORK, LANCASTER, DURHAM, AND 
 
 NORTHUMBERLAND, 
 
 DURING THE YEARS 1821 TO 1832; 
 
 iHIlitb Economical anD ipoUtlcal ©bserrations, 
 
 BY THE LATE . 
 
 WILLIAM COBBETT, 
 
 M.P. FOR OLDHAM. 
 
 A NEW EDITION, WITH NOTES, 
 
 BY 
 
 PITT COBBETT, 
 
 VICAR OF CROFTON, HANTS. 
 
 VOL I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 REEVES AND TURNER, 196 STRAND. 
 
 1885. 
 [All Rights reserved. \ 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 It is not often that the fame of a political writer outlives 
 the age in which he writes. Men's interests are so closely 
 interwoven with the events of their own day, that few 
 have either time or inclination to devote to those of a 
 bygone generation. With respect^ however, to the influ- 
 ence which Cobbett wielded in the political world for 
 nearly half a century, it has not probably been over- 
 stated — "that the student of politics must be a student 
 of Cobbettj if he would know the beginnings out of which 
 existing tendencies have been developed^ and that the 
 statesman who does not know the Register forfeits a 
 master clue to the passions of his countrymen.'^ 
 
 One of Cobbett's works, "Rural Rides," although 
 interspersed with politics, deals largely with questions 
 of social and economical importance ; and these ques- 
 tions are of scarcely less moment to us, in this year of 
 grace, than they were to Cobbett's readers two genera- 
 tions ago. 
 
 Every one at all acquainted with Cobbett's writings, 
 must have observed his passionate sympathy with all 
 rural occupations. 
 
 ^' He wrote on such subjects (says one of his biographers) 
 
vi Preface, 
 
 with all the yearnings of first love ; the reader feels the 
 breeze fanning his cheek, he smells the heather and the 
 young hawthorn, and he hears the song of birds on every 
 side. There is nothing said or done for effect ; truth and 
 beauty are to him synonymous terms ; and there is a 
 homely vigour in his style which is perfectly delightful in 
 this age of artificial refinement.^' This is especially the 
 case with respect to the various jottings which he made 
 during his rides. Our companion throughout the book 
 is a man who thoroughly understands what he is describ- 
 ing, with all the experience of a farmer, and with all the 
 keen observation of a naturalist. 
 
 For this reason no lover of country pursuits can take 
 up ^^ Rural Rides '^ without a new interest and delight. 
 
 What would deter most men from literary drudgery, 
 had a contrary eflfect on Cobbett. A day^s ride of forty 
 miles on horseback, so invigorates him, that at its close, 
 he supplies us with the experiences of the day in the 
 stirring language of an enthusiast. 
 
 Cobbett commenced his first rural journey on 30th 
 October 1821. Leaving London, he rode through Berks, 
 Hants, Wilts, Gloucester and Hereford, returning by way 
 of Oxford. The experiment of going through the country 
 to talk with the farmers and their labourers, to examine 
 the crops, and to discuss such topics, at market dinners, 
 as were uppermost in men's minds, was just suited to his 
 inclination. 
 
 At the time referred to, agricultural distress was at its 
 worst, and the sad outlook of the farmers was the chief 
 subject of the day. 
 
Preface, vii 
 
 Before the close of the year, he made another trip, this 
 time into Kent, through Dartford, Rochester and Favers- 
 ham, and he also found opportunity to ride through 
 Norfolk and Suffolk. 
 
 In January 182:^ he selected Sussex, Kent and Surrey 
 for his journey, and when this was completed, he started 
 off for a trip through Hertford, Buckingham, and Hunt- 
 ingdon, and in the autumn, he rode through a part of 
 Hants, Berks, Surrey, and Sussex. 
 
 In 1823 he made another excursion into Surrey, 
 Sussex, and Hants, and later in the same year he again 
 visited Sussex, and returned through Kent. 
 
 His next journal is dated 19th October 1825, when he 
 gives us the results of a ride across Surrey and Hants, 
 and thence into Sussex. 
 
 On 24th August 1826, he dates his journal from Up- 
 husband in Hants. Thence he proceeds down the Valley 
 of the Avon in Wilts, and goes on, through Somerset 
 and Gloucester, into Hereford and Worcester. 
 
 In October of the same year we find him making a 
 tour through the New Forest, and thence by Botley to 
 Petersfield, returning home through Godalming. 
 
 The results of these series of Rides were collected to- 
 gether and published by him at his office (183 Fleet 
 Street) in 1830. 
 
 His next ride is dated September 1829, when he visited 
 Hertfordshire and attended a political meeting at Tring. 
 
 In the next year he commenced another series of Rides, 
 and this time northward as far as Sheffield. 
 
 The same year finds him again visiting Norfolk and 
 
viii Preface. 
 
 Suffolk^ and thence turning westward he rode through 
 Leicester and Worcester to Bristol. 
 
 In 183:^ he started again on a northern tour, and this 
 time with a distinctly political object in view, visiting 
 Newcastle, Hexham, North Shields, Sunderland and 
 Durham. The reception with which he met, and the over- 
 flowing attendances which crowded his public addresses, 
 testified to the popular and growing influence which he 
 exercised throughout the country. 
 
 The records of these later Rides were added by his 
 son, Mr. James Paul Cobbett, to those which had 
 already appeared, and were published by him (with 
 notes appended), in 1853. 
 
 If we regard these " Rural Rides '^ as a whole, we shall 
 find in them an accurate picture of social and domestic life 
 in England, which it would be difficult to find elsewhere. 
 
 Notwithstanding that the Author's language is at times 
 violent, and that his statements are sometimes exaggerated 
 and inconsistent, yet with all this, there breathes through- 
 out the whole, an. intense sympathy with the labouring 
 classes, who were at the time suffering under peculiar 
 grievances, socially and politically. 
 
 At the present day not a few useful lessons may be 
 culled from the study of these jottings by those who 
 possess the spirit of philanthropy. Even persons who 
 differ most from Cobbett's political views can scarcely 
 fail to read with delight the writings of a man who 
 was a complete master of pure Saxon English, and who 
 expressed himself in the strongest language, fortified by 
 apt illustrations, and convincing arguments. 
 
Preface. ix 
 
 The reader will perceive that the style of the Author 
 has been preserved intact^ and that the original text has 
 been rigidly adhered to. Some expressions, it is true, 
 will be found here and there, which the refinement of the 
 present day will condemn, as bordering on breaches of de- 
 corum, if not as coarse and oflFensive. It has been felt, 
 however, that to interfere in any way with the pungency 
 of the Author's style would be to destroy the accuracy of 
 the records, and would in effect reduce the present edition 
 to the level of an expurgated ^^ Shakespeare/^ Moreover, 
 it must be borne in mind, that a half century ago, exple- 
 tives and phrases, which would not now be tolerated in 
 decent society, were commonly used in ordinary conver- 
 sation. 
 
 For the kind and ready permission to re-edit the pre- 
 sent volumes, which has been accorded by the family 
 of the late Mr. Cobbett, and for their valuable assistance 
 in perusing the proof sheets of the sketch of the author's 
 life, I desire to express my extreme obligation ; my best 
 thanks are also due to the Misses Cobbett for the kind 
 use of the engraved plate from which the frontispiece 
 has been executed. 
 
 I wish to explain, that the notes to the present edition 
 are, to some extent^ a reprint of those supplied by the 
 late Mr. James Paul Cobbett, to his edition of this work. 
 Some of his notes, however, have been omitted, as pos- 
 sessing but little interest at the present day, while others 
 have been modernized. Fresh notes have likewise been 
 extensively added. 
 
 It has been thought desirable to attach to the present 
 
X Preface. 
 
 edition a short biography of the Author. In this part 
 of my work there is no pretension to any critical study 
 of Cobbett's life and writings. This has been done 
 already so ably by authors of note that any fresh attempt 
 by me, would be superfluous if not presuming. In the 
 present sketch I have striven merely to furnish an 
 anecdotal record of the leading features of Cobbett's 
 character^ and of points of interest in his life. For my 
 facts, I have been mainly indebted to his own writings 
 and to the contributions of previous authors. 
 
 In spite, however, of the paucity of new and original 
 matter, I trust that the result of my labours may be 
 found, not altogether devoid of interest as well as instruc- 
 tion to the general reader. 
 
 PITT COBBETT. 
 
 Crofton Vicarage, 
 Fareham, February 1885. 
 
SKETCH OF AUTHOR'S LIFE. 
 
 In briefly sketching the life of this extraordinary man, we 
 cannot do better than listen, in the first place, to some 
 account of his early life, with which he supplies us in a 
 pamphlet entitled *' The Life of William Cobbett, by Himself." 
 I will merely premise that he was born at Farnham in Surrey, 
 on 9th March 1762, and that his father, George Cobbett, was 
 a small farmer, who had four sons, of whom William was the 
 third. 
 
 He tells us that all he could boast of in his birth, was that 
 he was born in Old England. 
 
 His grandfather died before he was born ; but speak- 
 ing of him, Cobbett says, '' I have often slept beneath the 
 roof that had sheltered him, and where his widow dwelt for 
 many years. It was a little thatched cottage with a garden 
 before the door. It had but two windows ; a damson tree 
 shaded one, and a clump of filberts the other. Here I and 
 my brother went over every Christmas and Whitsuntide to 
 spend a week or two, and to torment the old woman with 
 our noise and dilapidations. She used to give us milk and 
 bread for breakfast, and apple-pudding for dinner, and a piece 
 of bread and cheese for supper. Her fire was made of turf 
 cut from the neighbouring heath, and her evening light was a 
 rush dipped in grease." 
 
 Cobbett's father had received little or no education, but he 
 
xii Sketch of Author s Life, 
 
 was looked upon as a " learned man " for his rank in life. 
 When a boy, whatever the village schoolmaster could teach 
 him, he had learned, and had besides taught himself the rudi- 
 ments of mathematics. He understood land-surveying, and 
 was often chosen to draw plans of disputed territory, having 
 the reputation of possessing much experience on such points. 
 He was, moreover, honest, industrious and frugal. Such a 
 father did not suffer his sons to eat the bread of idleness \ but 
 he used to boast, that he had four boys, the eldest of whom 
 was only fifteen years old, and yet they would do as much work 
 as any three men in Farnham. 
 
 William's first occupation was driving the small birds from 
 the turnip seed, and the rooks from the peas. 
 
 *' When I first trudged a field (he tells us), with my satchel 
 swung over my shoulder, I was hardly able to climb the gates 
 and styles, and at the close of the day, to reach home was a 
 task of infinite difficulty." 
 
 His next employment was weeding wheat, and leading a 
 single horse at harrowing barley. Hoeing peas followed, until 
 he arrived at the honour of joining the reapers in the harvest 
 field, and of driving the team, and of holding the plough. 
 
 During the winter evenings, the father taught his boys to read 
 and write, and gave them a tolerable knowledge of arithmetic. 
 
 " Our religion," says Cobbett, " was that of the Church of 
 England, to which I have ever remained attached. As to politics, 
 we never heard nor thought of the matter, and I do not re- 
 member having seen a newspaper in the house \ and certainly 
 this privation did not render us less industrious, happy, or free." 
 
 His father used to take one of his boys with him every year 
 to the great hop fair at Weyhill, which was held at old Michael- 
 mastide, and the journey was a sort of reward for their labours 
 during the summer. 
 
 It happened to be William's turn, the year that Long Island 
 was taken by the British, viz., 27th August 1776. A great 
 
Sketch of Author's Life. xiil 
 
 company of hop merchants and farmers were sitting down to 
 supper, as the London post arrived, bringing the Extra- 
 ordinary Gazette which announced the victory. A hop factor 
 from London, took the paper, placed his chair upon the table, 
 and began to read it aloud. He was opposed, a dispute ensued, 
 and Cobbett's father, taking his son by the hand, led him to 
 another room, where they supped with about a dozen others 
 of the same sentiments. Here Washington's health, and suc- 
 cess to the Americans, were repeatedly toasted. " This was 
 the first occasion (Cobbett mentions) that he ever heard the 
 General's name," and "he little dreamt at the time that he 
 should ever see the man, still less that he should hear some 
 of his own countrymen revile and execrate him." He tells 
 us he merely alluded to this circumstance, to show that 
 he was not nursed in the lap of aristocracy, and that he did 
 not imbibe his principles or prejudices from those who were 
 the advocates of blind submission ; for "if my father (he adds) 
 had any fault, it was not being submissive enough, and I am 
 very much afraid that my acquaintance have but too often dis- 
 covered the same fault in his son." 
 
 The recollection of incidents in his boyhood, associated with 
 frolic and mischief, was as fresh in his old age as at the time 
 when they occurred ; for instance, he thus describes the delight 
 which rural scenery and field-sports occasioned him: — "When I 
 was a very little boy in barley-sowing season, I was going along 
 by the side of afield near Waverley Abbey,^ Farnham, — the prim- 
 roses and blue bells bespangling the banks of the hedges, a thou- 
 sand linnets singing in a spreading oak overhead, while the jingle 
 of the traces, and the whistling of the ploughboy saluted my 
 ear from over the hedge, and, as it were to snatch me from the 
 enchantment, the hounds at that instant, having started a hare 
 in the hanger on the other side of the field, came scampering 
 
 * It is said that Sir Walter Scott borrowed the title of his well-known 
 novel from this place. 
 
xiv Sketch of Author s Life, 
 
 over it in full cry, taking me after them many a mile. I was 
 not more than eight years old, but this particular scene has 
 presented itself to my mind many times every year, from that 
 day to this, and I always enjoy it over again." 
 
 He narrates also an amusing episode, showing how he 
 avenged himself on a huntsman named Bradley, who had 
 brutally struck him with his whip without any provocation. 
 He says, — 
 
 " I was only about eight years old, when my mind was 
 so strongly imbued with the principles of justice, that I did 
 not rest satisfied until I could inflict upon him a just punish- 
 ment. And this I did in the following manner. 
 
 " Hounds, especially harriers, will follow the trail of a red 
 herring as eagerly as that of a hare, and rather more so, the 
 scent being stronger and more unbroken. 
 
 *' I waited till Bradley and his pack were trailing for a hare in 
 the neighbourhood of Seal Common. They were pretty sure 
 to find, in the space of half an hour, and the hare was pretty 
 sure to go up to the common and over the hill to the south. 
 
 " I placed myself ready with a red herring at the end of a 
 string, in a dry field and near a hard path, along which I was 
 pretty sure the hare would go. I waited a long time, the sun 
 was getting high, the scent was bad, but by-and-by, I heard 
 the view halloo, and full cry. I squatted down in the ferns, 
 and my heart bounded with the prospect of inflicting justice, 
 when I saw my lady come skipping by, going off towards the 
 south. In a moment I clapped down my herring, went off 
 at a right angle towards the west, climbed up a steep bank 
 very soon where the horsemen could not follow. Then on I 
 went, over the roughest part of the common that I could find 
 till I got to the pales of Moor Park, over which I went, there 
 being holes at the bottom for the letting in of the hares. 
 That part of the park was covered with short heath, and I 
 gave some twirls about to amuse Mr. Bradley for half-an-houn 
 
^f^eicn oj j±uinor s 1^2 je. xv 
 
 Then off I went, and down a hanger at last, to the bottom 
 of which no horseman could get, without riding round a 
 quarter of a mile. At the bottom of the hanger was an alder 
 moor in a swamp. There my herring ceased to perform its 
 service. The river is pretty rapid ; I tossed it in, that it might 
 go back to the sea, and relate to its brethren the exploits of 
 the land. I washed my hands in the water of the Moor, and 
 took a turn, and stood at the top of the hanger to witness 
 the winding-up of the day's sport, which terminated a httle 
 before dusk in one of the dark days of November. 
 
 "After over-running the scent a hundred times, after an 
 hour's puzzling in the dry field, after all the doubles and turns 
 that the seaborne hare had given them, down came the whole 
 posse to the swamp, the huntsman went round a millhead not 
 
 far off, and tried the other side of the river ' No ! d — her, 
 
 where can she be ? ' 
 
 *' And thus, amid conjectures, disputations, mutual blamings, 
 and swearing a plenty, they concluded, some of them half-leg 
 deep in dirt, and going soaking home at the end of a drizzHng 
 day." 
 
 At eleven years of age, he tells us, he was engaged in the 
 gardens of Farnham Castle. Here he met a man who was 
 employed at the Royal Gardens at Kew, and who gave the 
 boy such a glowing description of them, that he instantly 
 resolved to go there and see them for himself. The next 
 morning he started off, without saying a word to any one, with 
 6\d. in his pocket. After trudging through a long day, the 
 evening brought him to Richmond. Here, while passing a 
 bookseller's shop, his eye lighted upon a Httle book in the 
 window, called "The Tale of a Tub," price 3^. True! he 
 had just that amount, but then he must go without his supper. 
 In he went, however, and bought the book, which he was so 
 impatient to read, that he at once got over into a field close 
 to Kew Gardens, and read on until it was dark, without any 
 
xvi Sketch of Authors Life, 
 
 thought of supper or bed, for the book produced upon, his 
 mind a sort of intellectual birth. When he could no longer 
 see, he put his treasure into his pocket, and tumbled down 
 by the side of a haystack, where he slept till the birds of Kew 
 Gardens awoke him in the morning. The oddness of his 
 country dress, the simplicity of his manners, and his lively 
 and confident air, induced the head gardener (a Scotchman) 
 to give him food and lodging, and to set him to work. It 
 does not appear how long he stayed at Kew, but probably 
 his kind friend, the gardener, soon persuaded him to return 
 home. 
 
 With respect to his first literary treasure, he tells us, that 
 he could reUsh no other book after it, that he carried it about 
 with him wherever he went, and when, years afterwards, *'The 
 Tale of a Tub " went down to a watery grave, in a box which 
 fell overboard off the coast of North America, he grieved 
 more over its loss, than he would have grieved over the loss of a 
 thousand pounds. 
 
 And now we pass on to a new era in our hero's life. The 
 intervening time had been spent assisting his father on the 
 farm ; but we may imagine that very frequently he must have 
 resembled a caged bird longing to be free. The opportunity 
 at last arrived. Towards the autumn of 1782 Cobbett, being 
 twenty years old, went to visit a relative in the neighbourhood 
 of Portsmouth. From the top of Portsdown Hill, for the first 
 time, he saw the sea, and no sooner did he behold it than he 
 wished to become a sailor. Almost all English lads feel the 
 same inclination. Instinct impels them, like young ducks, to 
 rush on the bosom of the water. 
 
 But it was not the sea alone that he beheld for the first 
 time, but the English Fleet was riding at anchor at Spithead. 
 He tells us, " I had often heard of the wooden walls of Old 
 England. The sight of the Fleet brought into my mind all 
 the glorious deeds of admirals and of sailors of which I had 
 
Sketch of Atithors Life. xvii 
 
 read, the defeat of the Spanish Armada, and brave Rodney's 
 victories over the French and Spaniards, our natural enemies. 
 My heart was inflated with national pride. The sailors were 
 my countrymen, the fleet belonged to my country, and surely I 
 had my part in it, and in all its honours, yet these honours I 
 had not earned. I took to myself a sort of reproach for pos- 
 sessing what I had no right to, and resolved to have a just 
 claim by sharing in its hardships and dangers. I arrived al 
 my uncle's late in the evening, with my mind full of my sea- 
 faring project. Although I had walked thirty miles that day 
 and consequently was very tired, I slept not a moment. It 
 was no sooner daylight, than I rose and walked down towards 
 the Old Castle, on the beach off Spithead. For a sixpence 
 given to an invalid, I got permission to go upon the battle- 
 ments j here I had a closer view of the fleet, and at every 
 view my impatience to be on board increased. In short, I 
 went from the Castle to Portsmouth, got into a boat, and was 
 in a few minutes on board the Pegasus man of war. The 
 captain had more compassion than is generally to be met 
 with in men of his profession. He represented to me the 
 toils I must undergo, and the punishment that the least dis- 
 obedience or neglect would subject me to. He persuaded 
 me to return home, and I remember that he concluded his 
 advice by telling me, that it was better to be led to church in 
 a halter, to be tied to a girl that I did not like, than to be 
 tied to the gangway, or (as the sailors call it) to be married to 
 Miss Roper. In vain I attempted to convince him that it was 
 choice alone which had led me to the sea. He sent me on 
 shore, and I at last quitted Portsmouth, but not before I had 
 applied to the Port Admiral (Evans) to get my name enrolled 
 among those who were destined for the service. I was in 
 some sort obliged to acquaint him with what had passed on 
 board the Pegasus^ in consequence of which my request 
 was refused, and I happily escaped (sorely against my will) 
 VOL. I. b 
 
xvlil Sketch of Author's Life. 
 
 from the most toilsome and perilous profession in the 
 world." 
 
 Most unwillingly, Cobbett once more returned home, but he 
 was spoilt for all farming pursuits. The following spring a 
 circumstance occurred which led him to London, and became 
 the first link in the chain of his future adventurous life. 
 
 On the 6th May 1783, being dressed in his holiday clothes, 
 he started from home to meet some female friends, whom he 
 had promised to take to Guildford fair. Unfortunately for them, 
 on his way to the rendezvous, he had to cross the turnpike road, 
 and the London coach had just come over the summit of the 
 hill, and was rattling down towards him at a merry rate. The 
 idea of going to London had never before entered his head, 
 but by the time the coach reached him the step was determined 
 upon. He mounted the coach, and was in London by nine 
 o'clock that night. It was quite by accident that he had a 
 few crowns and half-crowns in his pocket, and these, when 
 touched by the fingers of inn-keepers and waiters, melted 
 like snow before the sun. Indeed, when he was about to leave 
 the inn yard in Ludgate Hill, he only had one half-crown 
 left. 
 
 Most provide ntally, he was preserved from ruin ; for one of 
 his fellow-passengers (with whom he had fallen into conversa- 
 tion at dinner) soon learnt that his young companion was 
 going he knew not whither, nor for what object. 
 
 This gentleman was a hop merchant in the Borough, London, 
 and upon closer inquiry it appeared that he had often dealt 
 with Cobbett's father at Weyhill fair. He knew the danger 
 the lad was in : he himself was a parent, and he naturally felt 
 for the youngster's father and mother. His house therefore 
 became Cobbett's home, and he wrote to his parents, and 
 endeavoured to prevail on him to obey his father's wishes and 
 to return home immediately. When Cobbett was grown older 
 he acknowledges, "I am ashamed to say that I was disobedient. 
 
Sketch of Author s Life, xix 
 
 It was the first time I had ever been so, and I have repented of 
 it from that moment to this. Willingly would I have returned, 
 but my pride would not suffer me to do so ; I feared the scoifs 
 of my acquaintances more than the evils that threatened me." 
 
 His generous guardian, finding him obstinate, began to 
 look out for some employment for him. He related the lad's 
 adventure to an acquaintance whose name was Holland, 
 an attorney, and who happened to want a young quill-driver. 
 The next day saw him perched on a high stool in a dark 
 office in Gray's Inn, endeavouring to decipher the crabbed 
 draughts of his employer. Looking back upon the eight or 
 nine months that he spent in this lawyer's office, Cobbett 
 declared that no part of his whole life was more totally un- 
 attended with pleasure. He tells us that he worked like a 
 galley-slave from five o'clock in the morning until eight or nine 
 o'clock at night, and sometimes all night ; and he humorously 
 calls Heaven to witness that he would rather be frozen amid 
 Iceland snows, or scorched to death amid tropical heat, than 
 be doomed to slavery at the desk of an attorney. 
 
 Cobbett, who would never allow himself to be beaten, 
 plunged headlong into the next new era in his life. Walking 
 in S. James' Park one Sunday afternoon, the only day in the 
 week when he had any leisure, he noticed an advertisement, 
 inviting all young men who thirsted for fame and glory, to 
 enlist in the Royal Marines, then stationed at Chatham, and 
 he resolved at once to join this gallant corps. Accordingly, 
 the next morning, he hastened to Chatham, and enlisted. 
 But having done so, he discovered that he had not joined 
 the Marines, but the 54th Foot Regiment, then serving in 
 Nova Scotia. 
 
 He remained at Chatham twelve months, learning drill 
 and taking his turn in the duty of the garrison. 
 
 He spent his leisure time in mastering EngHsh grammar, 
 of the knowledge of which he had already keenly felt the 
 
XX Sketch of Author s Life. 
 
 want. He procured a Lowth's Grammar, and wrote out the 
 whole book two or three times. He then committed it to 
 memory, and repeated it every morning and evening, and, 
 on all occasions when he was posted sentinel, he imposed 
 upon himself the task of repeating it from beginning to end. 
 
 To this exercise of memory, he afterwards ascribed the 
 retentiveness to which he owed, in a great degree, his 
 success as a writer. Moreover, this close study kept him 
 out of mischief; he was always sober, and punctual at his 
 duties, and being naturally sharp, he soon became a favourite 
 among the officers. 
 
 His testimony to his early moral training at home is also 
 worthy of notice. During this part of his life, he was com- 
 pelled to associate with the most inveterate of drunkards, 
 yet during the whole time he was in the army, he never tasted 
 intoxicating liquors, nor would he ever be persuaded to play 
 at cards. Referring to his almost miraculous escape from 
 these temptations, he says that his father's and mother's 
 precepts were always at hand to protect him. 
 
 While at Chatham, he had a ludicrous adventure with his 
 landlady. " I was quartered (he says) with seven of my com- 
 rades upon a most bitter vixen of a woman. 
 
 " One evening we had invested her fireside pretty closely, 
 when she began to abuse us in a way which put me in mind 
 of Fielding's Mrs. Tow-wouse, to whom she bore no weak re- 
 semblance. As it happened, I had an old torn copy of ' Joseph 
 Andrews,' which I fetched down stairs, and I began to read in 
 a loud voice the description of the termagant in the romance ; 
 but before I had half done, the landlady flew across the half- 
 moon that we had formed round her fire, and fixing one claw 
 in my hair and the other in the book, began to pull and tear 
 like a fury, swearing all the time that she would have me 
 flogged for a libel. With some difficulty I disentangled myself 
 from her clutches, and endeavoured to smooth her down by 
 
Sketch of Author's Life, xxi 
 
 convincing her that it was a printed book I was reading, a 
 book written probably before she was born, and that of course 
 it could not be her that I was reading about ! ' You lie ! young 
 dog ! (she cried) ; it was about me, — it was about me, — and 
 about nobody else ! ' And she actually went and complained of 
 me to the commanding officer, telling him that I sat in her 
 presence reading a nasty lying book, that abused her and all 
 genteel women in the parish. 
 
 " The Colonel sent for me, and having obtained an explana- 
 tion, gave me the following piece of advice : — ' Very well, 
 Cobbett, I am glad to find that you are not in fault ; but you 
 are a young soldier, and if you like feather beds better than 
 straw, and strong beer better than small, and if you would 
 rather have a smack from a landlady's lips than from her fist, 
 let me advise you, before you read to her the description of 
 Mrs. Tow-wouse, always to examine her features. ' " 
 
 In his advice to young men, speaking of the benefits of early 
 rising, he says — " I was always ready. If I had to mount guard 
 at lo, I was ready at 9 : never did any man wait for me a 
 moment Being, at an age under twenty years, raised from 
 corporal to sergeant-major at once over the heads of thirty 
 sergeants, I naturally should have been an object of their envy 
 and hatred; but this habit of early rising, and of rigid adherence 
 to the precepts now inculcated, really subdued those passions, 
 because everyone felt that what I did, he had never done, and 
 could never do. Before my promotion a clerk was wanted to 
 make out a morning report of the regiment I rendered a clerk 
 unnecessary ; and long before any other was dressed for the 
 parade, my work for the morning was all done, and I myself was 
 on the parade walking in fine weather perhaps an hour. My 
 custom was to get up in summer at day-light and in winter at 
 4 o'clock, to shave, dress, even to the putting on of my sword- 
 belt over my shoulder, and having my sword lying on the table 
 before me ready to hang by my side ; then I ate a bit of cheese, 
 
xxii Sketch of Author s Life. 
 
 or pork and bread ; then I prepared my report, which was filled 
 up as fast as the companies brought me the materials ; after 
 this I had an hour or two to read, before the time came for 
 any duty out of doors, unless when the regiment went out to 
 exercise in the morning. When this was the case, and the 
 matter left to me, I always had it on the ground in such time 
 that the bayonets glittered in the rising sun. 
 
 "When I was the commander, the men had a long day of 
 leisure before them ; they could ramble into the town or woods 
 and get raspberries, or catch birds, or fish, or pursue any other 
 recreation, and such of them as chose, and were qualified, were 
 allowed to work at their trades* So that here, arising solely 
 from the early habits of one young man, were pleasant and 
 happy days given to hundreds." 
 
 The welcome day fixed for his leaving England to join his 
 regiment at length arrived ; and after a short passage he landed 
 at Halifax, Nova Scotia, Here, and at other places in the 
 same province, he remained until September 1791. 
 
 During his service abroad he met the daughter of a sergeant 
 of artillery, stationed at New Brunswick, who was destined at 
 a future day to become his wife* His choice had been suddenly 
 made. He had seen her two or three times, and found her 
 pretty ; for beauty indeed he considered indispensable, but 
 beauty alone would never have suited him. Industry, activity, 
 and courage, were the qualities which he himself possessed, 
 and were those which he most admired in others. When 
 therefore he found this prepossessing damsel one morning, be- 
 fore it was distinctly light, scrubbing out a washtub before her 
 father's door, he cried, " That's the girl for me ! " and he kept to 
 his resolution with a fortitude which the object of his attachment 
 appreciated and merited. The courtship was continued forsome 
 time, but her father's regiment was ordered home. Cobbett's 
 regiment being stationed at some considerable distance, he 
 was unable to take a personal farewell of his betrothed, but he 
 
Sketch of Authors Life, xxili 
 
 sent her the whole of his savings, 150 guineas, and begged her 
 to use it, as he was afraid of her living with her parents in 
 Woolwich Barracks, lest she might be exposed to evil com- 
 pany. He recommended her to seek some small lodging with 
 respectable people, where she might live until his arrival in 
 England. 
 
 It was not until four years afterwards that he was able to 
 return home, and he then found the damsel, not living in idle- 
 ness, but as servant of all work in a family at ;£"$ per annum ; 
 and at their first interview, she put into his hands the 150 
 guineas which had been confided to her, untouched. Such a 
 woman had no ordinary force of character j and our author had 
 good reason afterwards to quote the old proverb, "that it is 
 better to have a portion in a wife than with a wife." 
 
 Landing at Portsmouth on 3d November 1791, Cobbett 
 obtained his discharge from the army on 19th December, having 
 passed through every rank from private to that of sergeant- 
 major, without being disgraced or even reprimanded. He 
 received a good-service testimonial, with the written thanks 
 of the General in command at Portsmouth for his conduct. 
 He was married on the 5 th of February following. 
 
 Shortly after this he brought a serious charge of fraud and 
 dishonesty against three officers of his late regiment, viz., 
 Captain Richard Powell, Lieut; Christopher Seton, and Lieut. 
 John Hall, who were in consequence summoned before a 
 Court Martial. In his Political Register^ June 1809-, he 
 explains that his object in quitting the army, to which he was 
 much attached, was that he might bring these officers to 
 justice; and that the moment he had obtained his liberty, and 
 secured his personal safety, he went straight to London, and 
 made his charge, which he dared not have done until he had 
 first obtained his freedom. 
 
 The proceedings of the Court Martial were arranged to 
 take place at the Horse Guards on 24th March. But at the 
 
xxiv Sketch of Author s Life. 
 
 last moment Cobbett did not appear to prosecute ; and as 
 many unworthy motives have been attributed to him by his 
 opponents, it will be necessary to enter somewhat into 
 detail, in order to clear his character from the shadow of 
 suspicion. 
 
 The prosecutor will be considered to have acted ^^ bona 
 Jide" in the matter if we read over his explanation of the 
 whole subject, which appeared in the Political Register before 
 mentioned. 
 
 Up to within a short time of the trial he had fully deter- 
 mined to be present ; but in a letter which he addressed to the 
 Judge Advocate he expressed his astonishment when he 
 discovered that the greatest part of the charges were to 
 be abandoned. The difficulties which surrounded him in 
 this attempt to discharge a most unpleasant duty were many 
 and serious. He says, *^ As early as 1787 an affair happened, 
 which first gave me an insight into regimental justice, which 
 was as follows : — The quartermaster, who had the issuing of 
 the men's provisions to them, kept about a fourth part of it to 
 himself. This, the old sergeant told me, had been the case for 
 many years, and they were quite astonished and terrified at 
 the idea of my complaining of it; but the reception I met 
 with convinced me that I must never make another complaint 
 till I got safe to England, out of the reach of a Court Martial. 
 From that time I began to collect materials for an exposure. 
 I had ample opportunities for doing this, being the keeper of 
 all the books of every sort in the regiment, and knowing the 
 whole of its affairs better than any other man. During the 
 winter previous to my return to England I thought it necessary 
 to make some ' extracts ' from the books, lest the books 
 should be destroyed. In order, however, to prove that these 
 extracts were correct, it was necessary that I should have a 
 witness to their being true copies. This was a very ticklish 
 point : one foolish step would have sent me down to the ranks 
 
Sketch of Author s Life. xxv 
 
 with a pair of bloody shoulders ; yet it was necessary to have 
 a witness. I hesitated many months, At last I opened my 
 project to a corporal, William Bestland, who wrote in the 
 office under me, a very honest fellow, and who was very much 
 bound to me for my goodness to him, and who was, with the 
 exception of myself, the only sober man in the whole regiment. 
 To work we went, and during a long winter, while the rest 
 were boozing and snoring, we gutted no small part of the 
 regimental books, rolls, and other documents. All these 
 papers were put into a box which I made for the purpose. 
 When we reached Portsmouth there was a talk of searching 
 all the boxes, which gave us great alarm, and induced us to take 
 out all the papers, put them into a bag, and intrust them to a 
 Custom-House officer, who conveyed them on shore, and 
 afterwards handed them to me. 
 
 *' Seeing plainly that the Government were putting every 
 obstacle in the way of a fair trial, I wrote to Mr. Pitt, the 
 Premier, representing the whole case, and giving him a history 
 of the obstacles I had met with, and concluded, * I have now 
 done, sir, all that a man can do in such a case. If I am 
 thwarted and pressed down by those whose office it is to 
 assist and support me, I cannot do it. In either case, I shall 
 be satisfied with having done my duty.' 
 
 " On 22d January I wrote to Sir George Yonge, for the ex- 
 press purpose of having the regimental books secured, i.e. taken 
 out of the hands and the reach of the parties accused. On the 
 24th January he told me that he had given directions to have 
 the documents secured ; yet it afterwards proved that it was not 
 until 15th March that any instructions had been issued on the 
 subject. This is quite enough to show what chance there 
 was of obtaining justice— all depended upon these written 
 documents as to the principal charges. Therefore, as the 
 Court Martial was to assemble on 24th March, I went down to 
 Portsmouth on the 20th, in order to know what had become of 
 
XX vl Sketch of Author s Life. 
 
 the books, and I found, as indeed I suspected, that they had 
 never been secured at all, but had been left in the hands of 
 the accused from 14th January to the very hour of trial. 
 There remained therefore nothing to rest on with safety but 
 our extracts, confirmed by the evidence of Bestland the corporal, 
 who had signed them with me ; and this I had solemnly 
 engaged not to have recourse to unless he was first out of the 
 army, and so out of the reach of the vindictive and bloody 
 lash. He had been set down for discharge when he first 
 reached England ; but there was a suspicion of his connection 
 with me, and they resolved to keep him in their power. It 
 would have been cruel, and even perfidious^ to have brought 
 him forward under such circumstances, and as there was no 
 chance of doing anything without him, I resolved not to 
 appear at the Court Martial unless the discharge of Bestland 
 were first granted. Accordingly, on the 20th March I wrote 
 from Fratton to the Judge-Advocate stating over again all the 
 obstacles that had been thrown in my way, and demanding 
 the discharge of a man whom I should name as the only 
 condition on which I would attend the Court Martial. I 
 requested him to send me an answer by the next day to my 
 lodgings ; and told him that unless such answer was received 
 he, and those to whom my repeated applications had been 
 made, might do what they pleased with their Court Martial, 
 for that I confidently trusted that a few days would place me 
 beyond the reach of their power. No answer came ; and as I 
 had learnt meanwhile that there was a design to prosecute me 
 for sedition, that was an additional motive to be quick in my 
 movements. 
 
 " As I was going down to Portsmouth I met several of the 
 sergeants coming up, and as they had none of them been to 
 America I wondered what they could be going up to London 
 for ; but upon my return I heard that they had been brought up 
 to swear, that at an entertainment given to them by me before 
 
Sketch of Author s Life, xxvii 
 
 my departure from the regiment, I had drunk destruction to 
 the House of Brunswick. This was utterly false, for I had 
 neither said nor thought anything against the King. But I 
 knew the danger, and I was told that they would send me to 
 Botany Bay. I did not, however, leave England from this 
 motive. I could not obtain a chance of success, without 
 exposing the back of my poor faithful Bestland, which I would 
 never do. It was useless to appear in Court unless I could 
 have fair play ; and besides, it seemed better to leave the whole 
 set to do as they pleased, than to be made a mortified witness 
 of what it was quite evident they had resolved to do. 
 
 " Such is the true history of an affair which, had the public 
 robbers given it as it stood, unmutilated, not a word should 
 I ever have published by way of defence or explanation." 
 
 We next hear of Cobbett in France, to which country he 
 went when he left England. Here he remained from March 
 until September, 1792, during which time he acquired a toler- 
 able acquaintance with French grammar. He describes his 
 visit to France as the happiest months of his life. He intended 
 to have staid longer, and was on his way to Paris, when he 
 heard, at Abbeville, that the king was dethroned, and his 
 guards murdered. This induced him to hasten towards the 
 coast, and he embarked at Havre de Grace for America. 
 He landed at New York in October of the same year. 
 
 And now commences, what we may call, the third epoch in 
 his life. 
 
 We find Cobbett settled with his wife in the town of Wil- 
 mington near the Quaker city of Philadelphia. Here he 
 maintained himself and wife, by teaching the English language 
 to the French refugees, who had escaped from the dangers of 
 the Revolution. 
 
 It is said that the great French statesman Talleyrand, who 
 was at that time an exile, applied to Cobbett to be taught the 
 English language, but that the latter refused most emphati- 
 
xxviii Sketch of Author s Life, 
 
 cally, for Cobbett, at the time, was a staunch supporter of the 
 English Government, and he would have no intercourse with 
 this unprincipled revolutionist, whom he suspected to be a spy. 
 Referring to the matter, Cobbett says, "I refused to go to 
 the ci-devant Bishop's house, but the lame fiend hopped over 
 the difficulty at once, by offering to come to my house, which 
 oifer also I refused." 
 
 Cobbett, while at Wilmington, edited a French grammar, and 
 also translated several important French works into English. 
 
 As a caustic satire upon the ruinous effects and misery of 
 the French Revolution, and in opposition to the democratic 
 spirit of America, he also published the following Fable in the 
 vigorous style of his original model, Dean Swift : — 
 
 "In a pot shop well stocked with wares of all sorts, a 
 discontented ill-formed pitcher, unluckily bore the sway. 
 'Gentlemen,' said he, addressing himself to his brother 
 pitchers, ' with your permission, we are a set of tame fools, 
 without ambition and without courage. Condemned to the 
 vilest uses, we suffer all without murmuring : let us dare to 
 declare ourselves, and we shall see the difference. That 
 superb ewer, which like us is but earth, these gilded jars, 
 vases, china, and, in short, all these elegant nonsenses, whose 
 colour and beauty have neither weight nor solidity, must 
 yield to our strength and give place to our superior merit.' 
 This harangue was listened to with applause, and the 
 pitcher (chosen president) became the organ of the assembly. 
 Some, however, more moderate than the rest, attempted to 
 calm the minds of the multitude, but all the vulgar utensils 
 became intractable. Eager to vie with the bowls and cups, 
 they were impatient almost to madness to quit their obscure 
 abode, and to shine upon the table, kiss the lip, and to orna- 
 ment the cupboard. In vain did a wise water-jug (some say 
 it was a platter) make them a long and serious discourse upon 
 the utility of their vocation. *■ Those (said he) who are destined 
 
Sketch of Author's Life. xxlx 
 
 to get employments are rarely the most happy. We are all 
 of the same clay, 'tis true ! but he who made us, formed us 
 for different functions : one is for ornament, another for use. 
 The posts the least important are often the most necessary. Our 
 employments are extremely different and so are our talents.' 
 This had a most wonderful effect. The most stupid began 
 to open their ears. Perhaps it would have succeeded if a 
 grease pot had not cried out in a decisive tone, ' You reason 
 like an ass. To the d — 1 with you, and your silly lessons.' 
 Now the scale was turned again ; all the horde of pans and 
 pitchers applauded the superior eloquence and reasoning of the 
 grease pot. In short, they determined on an enterprise, but 
 a dispute arose who should be the chief. Every one would 
 command, but no one obey. It was then you might have 
 heard a clatter : all put themselves in motion at once, and so 
 wisely and with so much vigour were their operations con- 
 ducted that the whole was soon changed, not into china, but 
 into rubbish." 
 
 About this time an event occurred which brought 
 Cobbett more prominently before the public as a political 
 writer. 
 
 Dr. Priestly, an eminent Unitarian minister, had been com- 
 pelled to leave England on account of his publicly expressed 
 sympathy with the French Revolution. He landed in New 
 York in June 1794, and was received with great public enthu- 
 siasm. Cobbett thereupon issued an anonymous pamphlet 
 bearing the title of " Observations on Priestley's Emigration," 
 in which he traced Dr. Priestly's antecedents, and severely 
 condemned the revolutionary principles, on account of which 
 he assumed the attitude of a martyr. 
 
 The pamphlet was most popular, and created the greatest 
 excitement. It was published and republished, and although 
 Cobbett only received is. yjd. as his share of the profits, it 
 was reprinted in England, and was hailed with delight by the 
 
XXX Sketch of Author s Life. 
 
 Government party. It revealed to Cobbett the secret of his 
 own power. The pamphlet, of necessity, provoked many 
 furious rejoinders, and these were replied to by Cobbett in 
 further pamphlets bearing the titles, *'A Bone to Gnaw for 
 the Democrats," and " A Kick for a Bite," and other squibs. 
 
 In the beginning of 1795, Cobbett issued a monthly political 
 paper called Peter Porcupine^ and the publication was con- 
 tinued for nearly three years. 
 
 During the year 1796, Cobbett having quarrelled with his 
 publisher, opened a book-shop in connection with a publishing 
 office on his own account, and in accordance with his usual 
 spirit of defiance, he filled his shop windows with portraits of 
 the kings of England, and of the victories of England's army 
 and navy. 
 
 The result of all this was what might have been anticipated : 
 threats of mob-violence, and newspaper attacks of the most 
 scurrilous nature. Cobbett was accused of being in the pay of 
 the British Government, to which accusation Cobbett replied 
 by publishing "The Life and Adventures of Peter Porcupine." 
 But the violence of these attacks was fatal to their continu- 
 ance, and the combatants became weary of throwing dirt at 
 one another. 
 
 In 1799, the editor of Peter Porcupine^ who was a keen 
 satirist, was indicted "for defaming His Catholic Majesty the 
 King of Spain, his Envoy, and the Spanish nation." The 
 Grand Jury, however, threw out the Bill, and Cobbett pub- 
 lished a full account of the trial, and exposed the partial 
 manner in which Judge M'Kean (whose daughter was married 
 to the Spanish Envoy) had acted throughout it. Thereupon 
 M'Kean made it his business to watch the Porcupine Gazette 
 very narrowly. An opportunity for wreaking vengeance on its 
 editor soon occurred. 
 
 In 1793, the city of Philadelphia was attacked by yellow 
 fever, and 4000 were carried off in a few months. A Dr. 
 
Sketch of Author s Life. xxxi 
 
 Rush attempted to subdue the epidemic by copious bleed- 
 ing and violent purging, but a report was prevalent that the 
 remedy killed more than it cured. Cobbett commented on 
 the treatment in the Porcupine^ and styled Dr. Rush, Dr. 
 Sangrado. An action was again brought against Cobbett for 
 libel. The case was tried at New York. The Judge dwelt 
 strongly upon the fact that personal malice had been proved 
 in the libel, and a verdict of 5000 dollars was returned against 
 Cobbett. It was a singular comment on the truth of the libel, 
 that while the jury were defending Dr. Rush in his insane treat- 
 ment of the disease, General Washington sank under the same 
 dangerous system. 
 
 The severity of this iniquitous verdict brought about a 
 great change in Cobbett's plans. He determined to return to 
 England, and issued, in January 1800, a valedictory number 
 of his Gazette^ explaining the reasons which prompted his 
 decision to quit a country which he stigmatised *'as an 
 infamous land, where judges became felons, and felons judges.'' 
 
 On the I St June in the same year he embarked for England, 
 and landed at Falmouth on Bth July. Upon his arrival in 
 the old country, he was cordially welcomed by the sup- 
 porters of the Government, who regarded Cobbett as a 
 valuable ally. No one received him more warmly than 
 Mr. Windham, Secretary of War, in Pitt's administration. 
 Cobbett was invited to his house, and was introduced to 
 the great statesman and premier. Pitt was very gracious and 
 friendly to Cobbett, and a mutually good understanding seemed 
 to be created between them. Indeed, Cobbett promised 
 on that occasion to set up a daily paper in support of the 
 Government. Shortly afterwards, at the instigation of Wind- 
 ham, the Government offered Cobbett the management 
 of the True Briton^ one of its special organs, but Cobbett 
 declined the offer, facetiously alluding to the fable of the 
 Wolf and the Mastiff. He subsequently joined an old friend, 
 
xxxii Sketch of Author s Life, 
 
 John Morgan, in partnership, and resuscitated his American 
 paper, The Porcupine Gazette, which he now made a daily 
 paper, upon anti-Gallican, and anti-republican principles, 
 and bearing the motto, " Fear God ; honour the King," sur- 
 mounted by a Bible, crown and mitre. Lord Grenville, and 
 other members of the Ministry, occasionally contributed to it, 
 as did also Jeremy Bentham. 
 
 The success of the Porcupine was not destined, alas ! to 
 last long. Probably the expense and labour of sustaining 
 a daily paper exceeded the powers of the proprietors, but 
 whether that were so or not, on the ist January 1802, the 
 Porcupine gave way to Cobbetfs Political Register^ which 
 was issued weekly, and which was continued without inter- 
 ruption from that time (with the exception of three months) 
 until the date of the Author's death in 1835. 
 
 In March 1802, the celebrated Peace of Amiens was 
 signed ; Cobbett had published a powerful protest against it, 
 in a series of letters to Lord Hawkesbury (afterwards Earl of 
 Liverpool) and Mr. Addington. A general illumination fol- 
 lowed the signing of the Peace, but Cobbett refused to join 
 in the public demonstration of joy, and he consequently 
 suffered from the violence of the London mob, who smashed 
 his windows, and otherwise damaged his business premises. 
 Events soon justified his political foresight, for in the follow- 
 ing May, Buonaparte declared war against England. 
 
 In the Political Register for July 30th of the same year 
 appeared an anti-republican appeal to the British nation, 
 written in Cobbett's best style, called " Important Considera- 
 tions for the People of this Kingdom." It was reprinted at 
 the expense of the Government and sent to all the clergy 
 throughout the kingdom, to be read in their churches. Mr. 
 Wyndham was enthusiastic in its praise, and declared, from 
 his place in Parliament, that its author deserved a statue 
 of gold. 
 
Sketch of Author' s Life, xxxiii 
 
 Some letters appeared in the Register in the year following, 
 signed " Juverna," which spoke satirically of the Government 
 of Ireland, and especially of the Lord-Lieutenant, the Earl of 
 Harkwicke, and the Home Government prosecuted Cobbett 
 for libel; but it transpired that the letters were not from 
 Cobbett's pen, but that the real author was a lawyer named 
 Johnson, who was afterwards raised to the Bench (we may 
 suppose by another Government) and enjoyed subsequently a 
 retiring pension of ;£"i200 per annum. 
 
 In 1806, when the Whig Ministry proposed an increase of 
 allowance to the King's younger sons, the editor of the 
 Register stoutly opposed "these cheese-parings and candle- 
 ends of royalty." "I am (said he) against these things, 
 not because I am a Republican, but because I am for 
 Monarchical Government, and therefore opposed to every- 
 thing that gives Republicans occasion for sneering at it." 
 About this time, however, Cobbett's political opinions under- 
 went a gradual but a considerable change. In justice to him, 
 we must remember that the condition of the country was 
 most unsatisfactory. Rotten boroughs and miserable villages 
 returned members to Parliament, while the largest manufactur- 
 ing towns were unrepresented. The pension-list was crowded 
 with the names of the titled aristocracy and their favourites, 
 some of whom were of doubtful reputation. The taxes and 
 national debt were almost insupportable, the poor-laws were 
 so badly administered that outdoor relief formed in many 
 places a regular proportion of the wages of the agricultural 
 labourer, while the liberty of the subject was curtailed by 
 enactments harsh and tyrannical. At the same time our 
 penal code was simply infamous. It was a capital offence 
 to pick a pocket, steal a sheep, or to cut down an apple-tree. 
 While the laws thus reduced the poorer people to slavery, 
 the greatest corruption existed in buying and selling seats 
 in Parliament, and Government offices of emolument. And 
 
 VOL. I. c 
 
xxxlv Sketch of Author's Life, 
 
 amid all these wrongs and all this misery, there were many 
 persons so insane as to contend that the country was never 
 so prosperous as when engaged in war. 
 
 In the midst of this political corruption and strife of parties, 
 the circulation of the Weekly Register rapidly increased, and 
 enabled Cobbett to take a house amid country scenes and 
 pursuits, for which he so ardently longed. 
 
 The spot chosen was Botley in Hampshire, about six miles 
 from Southampton. The house and grounds were pleasantly 
 situated on a creek of the river Hamble which empties itself 
 into Southampton water. 
 
 In the same neighbourhood Cobbett also purchased Fair- 
 thorn Farm of about 300 acres, and around this farm he 
 planted a broad belt of trees, consisting of English and 
 foreign varieties, e.g.^ the acacia or American locust tree, 
 the spruce, the plane, the oak, the aspen, the willow, the 
 ash, the Italian poplar, the American hickory and walnut, and 
 many other varieties ; indeed, he imported a great quantity 
 of young trees from America, and moreover reared a large 
 nursery of seedlings for sale. 
 
 In his " Rural Rides " he mentions that he sold Lord 
 Cochrane 30,000 young trees for plantations, and also that he 
 supplied some young trees for planting in the New Forest. 
 
 The house in which Cobbett resided has been pulled down. 
 Those who remember it, describe it to have been a massive 
 square building, built with the noted Fareham red brick. Here 
 at Botley, Cobbett dispensed hospitality to his numerous friends. 
 
 There was usually a stream of visitors during the summer 
 months, coming and going; from the earl and his countess, 
 to the farmer and his dame. 
 
 There was no attempt at display. All were welcome at 
 the '' Farm-house," as Cobbett loved to call it. 
 
 His manner was genial and entertaining, while his wife has 
 been described as a *' sweet motherly woman." The house 
 
Sketch of Author s Life, 
 
 XXXV 
 
 was well appointed;, and was a pattern of excellent domestic 
 management. The stabling still remains as Cobbett left it, 
 but the clock, which in olden times ornamented the turret, has 
 been recently removed to the tower of the Parish Church, where 
 it still strikes the hours with the punctuality of former days. 
 Although no enthusiastic sportsman, Cobbett was very fond 
 of his kennel of dogs, which usually included thirty or forty of 
 the choicest breeds of greyhounds, pointers, setters, and 
 spaniels. Coursing was a very favourite pastime with him. 
 Few persons excelled him in the management of a garden, and 
 he was renowned for his fruit, vegetables, and flowers, his 
 water-melons, his Carolina beans, and his Indian-corn.^ 
 
 ^ The present Editor, on a recent visit which he made to the grounds, 
 by the kind permission of Miss Jenkyns, was shown a greengage tree, 
 trained to the wall, which was planted by Cobbett, and which, though 
 giving evidence of great age, still bears fruit. Several other trees were 
 also pointed out as having been likewise planted by Cobbett, e.g., a few 
 American hickory-trees, still bearing nuts, and acacias, also a mulberry, 
 which was a favourite tree in Cobbett's time, standing on the lawn, but 
 which has been lately removed to a more sheltered spot with great care 
 and labour. By the kindness of the present Rector of Botley (the Rev. 
 Canon Lee), the present Editor was shown the following entries in the 
 Parish Register of Baptisms : 
 
 1805. 
 
 Eleanor, 
 
 Daughter of 
 
 
 6 Dec, 
 
 
 William and Ann 
 (late Reid, spinster). 
 
 Cobbett. 
 
 1807. 
 
 Susan, 
 
 do. 
 
 do. 
 
 24 April, 
 
 
 
 
 Born 6 April. 
 
 
 
 
 Two aged parishioners, widows, were likewise discovered, who remem- 
 bered Mr. Cobbett very well. 
 
 One of them narrated an incident connected with Mr. Cobbett's release 
 from prison. He had posted down from London in triuihph, accompanied 
 by one of his daughters, and by some political friends, receiving on the 
 way many expressions of public sympathy. When his post-chaise came in 
 sight of Botley, the inhabitants went out to meet him, took out the horses, 
 and drew the carriage into the village with ropes, and when they reached 
 the house, Mr. Cobbett stood upon the seat of the carriage and made a 
 
xxxvi Sketch of Author s Life. 
 
 In the midst of his public success as a journalist and the 
 delights of his country home, a thunder-bolt was about to fall, 
 which embittered his life and ruined his prospects for many 
 years to come. 
 
 A paragraph appeared in the Government organ {The 
 Courier)^ of ist July 1809, stating "that a mutiny had broken 
 out among the Local Militia at Ely, but it was fortunately 
 suppressed by the arrival of four legions of German cavalry;" 
 also " that the ringleaders had been tried by a Court Martial 
 and sentenced to 500 lashes each." It likewise mentioned 
 " that a stoppage of their knapsacks was the ground of com- 
 plaint which excited the mutinous spirit." 
 
 In the following issue of the Political Register^ Cobbett 
 trenchantly refers to the matter, and first describes the 
 brutality of the punishment, and says, " At the flogging of a 
 man I have frequently seen seven or eight men fall slap upon 
 the ground, who swooned away, stout, hardy, and bold men, 
 they not being able to endure the sight and hear the cries and 
 groans of the men under punishment 
 
 speech to the people, and afterwards good cheer was supplied to all the 
 village to commemorate the event. 
 
 She also remembered the annual sports which Cobbett instituted, and 
 that the first prize for wrestling was for some years carried off by a lame 
 man from Wiltshire, who disappeared the moment he had accomplished 
 his feat, as the crowd wanted to have some horse-play with him, and that 
 during the sports Cobbett sat at an open window of the inn, to distribute 
 the prizes. 
 
 The other aged woman had been in the service of Mrs. Cobbett when a 
 girl. She mentioned that Mr, Cobbett built for himself a substantial 
 .■^ummer-house in his grounds, which he called his study, and that he would 
 shut himself in it for days together (with his daughter Anne), writing for 
 his Register ; that on one occasion the young servant, with pardonable 
 curiosity, thinking that her master was away, opened the door of this 
 satictum^ but she found him there, and in consequence lost her situation. 
 She mentioned that a large number of men and women were employed in 
 the grounds, attending to the plantations, barking the trees, and in carry- 
 ing out improvements on the property. 
 
Sketch of A uthors L ife. x xx v i i 
 
 "The whipcord may be large or small, the knots about the 
 size of a marrow-fat pea, and the length of the lash about fifteen 
 or sixteen inches. The drummers used to do the flogging; 
 they always stripped for the work; each by turns laid on 
 his twenty-five lashes, and then another came." 
 
 And then Cobbett comments upon this public scandal ; 
 as follows : — 
 
 '* Summary of Politics. — * Local Militia and German Legion.' 
 — See the motto, English reader, see the motto, and then do 
 pray recollect all that has been said about the way in which 
 Buonaparte raised his soldiers. Well done, Lord Castlereagh ! 
 this is just what it was thought your plan would produce. 
 Well said, Mr. Huskisson ! it was really not without reason you 
 dwelt with so much earnestness upon the great utility of the 
 foreign troops, whom Mr. Wardle appeared to think of no 
 utility at all. . . . Let Mr. Wardle look at my motto, and then 
 say whether soldiers are of no use. Five hundred lashes each ! 
 aye, that is right. Flog them ! flog them ! flog them ! they 
 deserve it, and a great deal more. They deserve a flogging at 
 every meal time. Lash them daily ! lash them daily !".... 
 
 He thus concludes his censure : — " I do not know what sort 
 of place Ely is ; but I really should like to know how the in- 
 habitants looked one another in the face, while this scene was 
 exhibiting in their town. 
 
 " I hope this will teach the loyal a lesson ; they tell us of the 
 force and cruelty which Napoleon uses to get together his 
 conscripts, and that the people of France hate him. I hope 
 the loyal will in future be more cautious, now that they see our 
 gallant defenders require a little blood drawn from their backs, 
 and that too with the aid and assistance of German soldiers.'' 
 
 The Government determined to prosecute Cobbett for libel. 
 To use Cobbett's own words, ** The Attorney-General, Sir Vicary 
 Gibbs, was set upon me. He harassed me for nearly a year, 
 then brought me to trial, which took place on 15th June 1810." 
 
xxxviii Sketch of Author s Life, 
 
 Lord Ellenborough, Chief-Justice, presided, assisted by Judges 
 Grose, Le Blanc and Bailey. 
 
 The Chief-Justice did not sum up until nearly midnight, 
 and he asked the jury, whether the tendency of the libel was 
 not to injure the military services ? At the same time, he pro- 
 nounced his own opinion on the matter, viz., that the com^ 
 ment in the Register " was a most infamous and seditious libel." 
 After such a judicial direction, it was only left for the jury to 
 record the verdict of " guilty," and Cobbett was sentenced to 
 two years' imprisonment and to pay a fine of ;2£'iooo. 
 
 Upon the severity of this sentence, a biographer remarks — 
 '' Two years' imprisonment and a fine of ;£"iooo, only wanted 
 the gentle accompaniment of ear-cropping, to have done honour 
 to the Star Chamber ; for to a man who had a newspaper and 
 a farm to carry on, imprisonment threatened to complete the 
 ruin which the fine was calculated to commence.'* 
 
 Cobbett's own opinion of it was to the same effect. He says, 
 ** Every one regarded it as a sentence of death. I lived in 
 the country, seventy miles from London — I had a farm on my 
 hands, I had a family of small children, amongst whom I had 
 constantly lived, I had a most anxious and devoted wife, who 
 was too in that state which rendered the separation more 
 painful tenfold. I was put into a place among felons, from 
 which I had to rescue myself, at the price of twelve guineas a 
 week, for the whole of the two years." 
 
 But Cobbett bore his trial manfully. His wife and children 
 frequently visited him. A hamper was sent once a week from 
 home, conveying fruits, and always flowers, from each of his 
 children, the earliest violets and primroses and cowslips, and 
 everything which they thought would delight him. 
 
 Nor was his time spent in prison wasted. His Regis fer 
 was published with regularity. Moreover, he wrote, among 
 other works, a book styled " Paper against Gold " which was 
 subsequently reprinted under the title of " Glory against 
 
Sketch of Author's L tfe. xx x i x 
 
 Prosperity " (retail price 20s. in paper money). Besides pri- 
 vate and personal friends, Cobbett was not left without public 
 sympathy. Almost every day, business acquaintances and de- 
 putations waited upon him to express the deep feeling of resent- 
 ment which the public entertained, on account of his wrongs ; 
 and the Baron of the Exchequer, Judge Maseres, made a point 
 of frequently paying him a friendly visit, but always in his 
 official robes, *' to show his abhorrence " (as he called it) of 
 the injustice of his sentence. Nor did the Sheriff omit any- 
 thing in his power to mitigate the discomfort of prison life. 
 If it could be regarded as any satisfaction to Cobbett, he did 
 not suffer in vain. In the House of Commons, Sir Francis 
 Burdett brought forward a motion to abolish flogging in the 
 army ; while Mr. Brougham spoke so highly of Mr. Cobbett's 
 action in the matter, that he was severely reprimanded by the 
 Government party. Moreover, when the news reached America, 
 Congress took up the question, and brought in an act, to 
 abolish flogging in the army of the United States. At length 
 the time of his liberty arrived, and Cobbett came out of prison, 
 a political Ishmael, somewhat older in appearance, with a debt 
 of ;£"6ooo incurred in expenses, but with a spirit more 
 defiant towards his persecutors, and his resentment against 
 his legion opponents strengthened and embittered. Un- 
 happily, the clergy generally swelled the number of his 
 traducers. They banded together as " Anti-Cobbettites," 
 writing tracts on disaffection, and doing their utmost to create 
 a prejudice against him. Is it to be wondered at, that 
 Cobbett should speak so bitterly of them, or regard them as 
 men who only served their own selfish interests ? 
 
 From 1812 to 1816 the country was convulsed by dis- 
 content and misery. Bread and Luddite riots occurred 
 continually, thousands upon thousands of workpeople wanted 
 employment, and the nation reeled under the intolerable 
 burden of taxes. Disloyalty and misgovernment went hand 
 
:1 Sketch of Author s Life, 
 
 in hand, and well might there exist a wide-spread disaffection : 
 for the Sussex labourer was only receiving as his wage is. 6d. 
 per day if married, or yd. per day for himself and a gallon 
 loaf for each of his family ; while single men only received 
 yd. per day. This was one third less than the allowance for 
 felons in jail, who were allowed ijlb. of bread per day. 
 
 Well might it be said that the Government offered a 
 premium for crime and robbery, since the honest hard- 
 working labourer received less than the convicted felon. 
 Cobbett's one cry in his Weekly Register and in his public 
 addresses was *' Reform," not revolution nor republicanism, 
 but " Parliamentary Reform," and this cry was echoed by 
 millions throughout all the manufacturing districts. So 
 alarmed were the representatives of the people at the 
 coming storm, that Cobbett was appealed to by Lord Cochrane, 
 to use his great influence in order to allay the public 
 agitation. He at once complied, by issuing '* An Address to 
 Journeyman and Labourers throughout England." ^ So wisely 
 and so magically did this powerful address operate in allaying 
 the excitement of the masses, that in a very short time the 
 riots diminished, if not ceased. 
 
 And although the Government were almost frantic with rage 
 at the exposure of their imbeciHty (which the address laid 
 bare), they searched in vain for materials in the address to 
 justify them in again prosecuting Cobbett. 
 
 In the following year, 1S17, because the cry for Reform 
 became so general, the law officers of the crown were 
 instructed " to examine all seditious and blasphemous 
 pamphlets." A Bill for the Suspension of the Habeas Corpus 
 Act was also passed ; while, in 181 9, the Six Acts were like- 
 wise passed for restraining public meetings, cheap periodicals, 
 &c., commonly called " the gagging bills." The utterances of 
 
 ^ See Political Register for 181 6, No. 18. 
 
Sketch of Author's Life, xli 
 
 the Weekly Register were especially watched, in order if possible 
 to silence once more the reformer in jail. 
 
 It was at this crisis that Cobbett displayed that keen fore- 
 sight and that decision of character for which he was so 
 remarkable. He suddenly adopted a plan, which, while it 
 frustrated the purpose of his persecutors, gave him a special 
 vantage-ground for continuing his great work. The plan 
 which Cobbett adopted was this : he determined at once to 
 proceed to America, where he could prepare his Weekly Register^ 
 and transmit it to England for publication. This he called 
 using *'his long arm," a term suggested by a fight which he 
 once witnessed at Barnet fair, between a butcher and a drover. 
 The former attempted to use his knife, but his antagonist kept 
 him at bay with a long stick, with which he belaboured his 
 blood-thirsty foe without mercy. ** Nobody (said Cobbett) called 
 the drover a coward because he did not oppose his fists to a 
 knife. My choice, as I said before (leaving all considerations 
 of personal safety out of the question), lies between silence and 
 retreat. If I remain here, all other means will be first used to 
 reduce me to silence ; and if all these means fail, then will come 
 the dungeon. Therefore, that I may still be able to write, and 
 write with freedom too, I shall write, if I live, from America." 
 
 When on the point of embarking at Liverpool, he issued 
 an address to the readers of the Weekly Register^ dated 28th 
 March 181 7, in which he explained the necessity for the step 
 he was taking, and added that his countrymen were too luke- 
 warm in his behalf, to justify the perils which he had already 
 incurred for their sakes. His next Register is dated Hamp- 
 stead Plains, Long Island, 8th May, 181 7. It was here also 
 that he wrote his ** English Grammar," which is certainly the 
 most clever and amusing book on the subject. 
 
 He had not been much more than two years in America be- 
 fore a fire occurred, which destroyed his homestead \ and now, 
 finding that he could return to England with safely, he once 
 
xlii Sketch of Author s Life. 
 
 more embarks for the old country, and lands at Liverpool in 
 November 1819. Cobbett's return to England (accompanied 
 by the remains of Thomas Paine) has been greatly misinter- 
 preted. Paine, shortly before his death, had written a pam- 
 phlet entitled, " The Decline and Fall of the English System 
 of Finance," in which he distinctly foretold the bursting of the 
 paper-money bubble. This publication so delighted Cobbett 
 that he determined to appeal to Englishmen to give Paine a 
 public funeral, for while he condemned Paine's religious 
 opinions, he admired his political foresight. But he found 
 that he had committed an error, the relics failed to produce 
 the effect he intended, and for a second time they were con- 
 signed to a private grave., 
 
 A storm of misfortune^ which had been gathering ever since 
 his imprisonment, which had been increased by severe losses on 
 his farms near Botley, and which culminated with the expenses 
 of his enforced visit to America, at last burst upon him j and 
 in 1820, Cobbett was compelled to declare himself insolvent. 
 His debts amounted to ;£"3 4,000, but his creditors behaved 
 very handsomely, and Cobbett, being at length freed from 
 money anxieties, settled down at Kensington. While residing 
 here, he still continued his management of the Weekly Register ; 
 he also brought out, in 1821-1822, his Monthly RehgiousTracts, 
 twelve sermons, and other works. In 182 1, he commenced his 
 "Rural Rides," which he continued, at intervals, until 1832.^ 
 
 In 1823, a committee was formed in London to secure for 
 Cobbett a seat in Parliament. He had, in 1806, offered him- 
 self for Honiton, but retired in favour of Lord Cochrane. 
 He next contested a seat for Coventry, but was defeated. At 
 the general election (in 1826), he was put in nomination for 
 Preston, but was again unsuccessful. He had to wait for the 
 
 ^ In 1 82 1, the Society of Arts presented Mr. Cobbett with a silver medal, 
 for the introduction of a new material, into the homes of agricultural 
 labourers, for straw-plailing. 
 
Sketch of Author s Life, xliii 
 
 days of the Reform Bill, when, in 1832, he was returned for Old- 
 ham at the top of the poll. Meantime, however, his pen was as 
 active as ever, and he wrote his celebrated "History of the Pro- 
 testant Reformation," which, though indulging in burlesque and 
 caricature, was especially written with a political object, viz., 
 to pave the way for the Roman Catholic Emancipation Bill. 
 
 He likewise wrote the *' Woodlands," " Cobbett's Poor 
 Man's Friend," "Advice to Young Men," "The English 
 Gardener," "The Emigrant's Guide," "Collection of State 
 Trials," "Elements of Roman History," "A Geographical 
 Dictionary of England and Wales," and many other works. 
 
 Cobbett was the only man who, on entering Parliament, be- 
 came at once an effective debater. He was soon a favourite with 
 the House, and was always listened to with amused attention. 
 Lord Bailing (who sat in the same Parliament with him) calls 
 him "an elderly, respectable-looking, red-faced gentleman, in 
 a dust-coloured coat and drab breeches with gaiters, tall and 
 strongly built, with sharp eyes, a round and ruddy counten- 
 ance, smallish features, and a peculiarly cynical mouth." 
 
 He commenced his first speech with the remark, " It appears 
 to me, that since I have been sitting here, I have heard a 
 great deal of vain and unprofitable conversation." 
 
 He sat in the House night after night, to the surprise of his 
 enemies, one of the meekest and most inoffensive of men. 
 His most noteworthy exploit was his motion, praying the King 
 to strike Sir Robert Peel's name out of the list of Members of 
 the Privy Council, on account of his Currency Bill of 1819; 
 but this he did more in jest than in earnest 
 
 In the general election which occurred in 1835, ^^ ^^^ again 
 elected for Oldham, but his health was already much broken. 
 He continued, however, in his place. On 25th May he persisted 
 in speaking in support of a motion on agricultural distress. 
 
 On nth June he was attacked with severe illness. A 
 it'N days after he rallied, and talked with his family with his 
 
xliv Sketch of Author's Life. 
 
 usual vivacity, and insisted upon being taken out of doors to 
 overlook some work in his grounds. 
 
 In the night of the 17th June he suddenly relapsed, and 
 gradually sank into a heavy sleep, from which he never 
 recovered. He died in the 74th year of his age. 
 
 The immediate cause of death was water on the chest. 
 
 He was buried, by his desire, in a simple manner, in the 
 Church of Farnham in Surrey. A large number of parlia- 
 mentary and public men were present at his funeral, as well 
 as private friends both rich and poor.i The news of his death 
 burst upon a great mass of his readers somewhat unexpectedly, 
 in the following announcement by his eldest son, which 
 appeared in the Weekly Register^ Friday, June 19, 1835 : — *' It 
 is my mournful duty to state that the hand which has guided this 
 work for thirty-three years has ceased to move. The readers of 
 the Register will of course look to this number for some 
 particulars of the close of my father's life, but they will, I am 
 sure, be forgiving, if they find them briefly stated," &c. &c. 
 And thus the grave closed over the remains of a public man, who, 
 during a long and laborious life, engrossed a far greater amount 
 of public attention than most men of past or present times. 
 
 His Political Register exercised a wide-spread influence 
 among all classes j and persons of every shade of opinion 
 sought the paper, on the day of publication, being sure to 
 find, amid much fiction and exaggeration, some excellent 
 common sense, and some strikingly practical arguments. 
 Cobbett was wont to ascribe his popularity to the fact that 
 "he always expressed truth in clear language." 
 
 The excuse which he oflers for the asperity of his tone was 
 this — 
 
 "I have so long had the misfortune to keep a parcel of 
 badger-hided fellows, like Scarlett, in order, that I am like a 
 
 ^ A marble tablet was subsequently erected in Farnham Church to his 
 memory by his friend and colleague in Parliament, Mr. John Fielden. 
 
Sketch of Author's Life. xlv 
 
 drummer that has been used to flog old offenders — I have 
 become heavy-handed." 
 
 It was remarkable that his never abused that which was 
 weak and oppressed, but always carried war into the camp of 
 the great and powerful. For instance, he issued a letter to the 
 nobility of England, in the following reproachful manner — 
 
 "You feel, because you must feel, that you are not the 
 men that your grandfathers were, but you have come into 
 your present state by slow degrees, and therefore you cannot 
 tell, even to yourselves, not only how the change has come 
 about, but you cannot tell what sort of change it really is. 
 You may know what it is, however, or at least you may form 
 some little notion of the nature of it, when you reflect that 
 your grandfathers would as soon have thought, aye and sooner 
 thought, of dining with a chimney-sweep than with any 
 huckstering reptile who had amassed money by watching the 
 turn of the market \ that those grandfathers would have thought 
 it no dishonour at all to sit at table with farmers, or even with 
 labourers ; but that they would have shunned the usurious 
 tribe of loan-jobbers and other notorious changers of money, as 
 they would have shunned the whirlwind or the pestilence. These 
 usurers now take precedence of you in many cases, and many 
 of you really live in awe of them. * Never (every reader of this 
 Register will say) were truer words than these put upon paper.'" ^ 
 
 Again, in a letter to the Duke of Wellington (who was 
 Premier in 1828), he says : — 
 
 *' This nation exhibits at this time every mark of a sinking 
 state, every mark that the empire of Rome exhibited when it 
 was approaching to its fall. A false and frivolous taste has 
 seized upon the people, as well as upon the Government. In 
 dress, in entertainments, in the manner of receiving our friends, 
 in our language, habits, and everything, we have become a 
 hollow and tinsel nation compared to what our fathers were. 
 
 ^ FoHHcal Register, vol. Ixi. p. 133. 1 827. 
 
xlvi Sketch of Author s Life, 
 
 *' Even in the sports of the field we have become frivolous, 
 effeminate, and senseless. Our lords and gentlemen do now 
 precisely what the old noblesse of France did, just before the 
 Revolution. It is not sporting now, the finding of game being 
 uncertain and the toil considerable, but it is going to a poultry 
 pen, with people, instead of dogs, to drive out the animals, to 
 preserve which, laws, in emulation of those existing in France, 
 have been made and executed in England ; and the at once 
 slothful, effeminate, and tyrannical * sportsmen,' as they call 
 themselves, have even adopted the phraseology, and borrowed 
 the terms of the despicable creatures of France, calling a day's 
 shooting ' a battueJ Everything solid and plain is despised, 
 the relationships between master and servant are obliterated, 
 along with the names — all is hollow and false, all is affectation 
 and unjust pretension. And as for love of country and its 
 honour, .... it really now appears to be fast approaching 
 towards that state which I described when I took my leave of 
 England in 1817, to avoid the dungeons of Sidmouth and 
 Castlereagh, or to avoid crawling at their feet. I then told my 
 countrymen that if the system were to go on for any consider- 
 able time, it is hard to say how very low this country is to be 
 sunk in the scale of nations. It would in that case become so 
 humble, so poverty-stricken, so degraded, so feeble, that it 
 would, in a few years, not have the power, even if it had the 
 inclination, to defend itself against any invader. The people 
 would become the most beggarly and slavish of mankind, and 
 nothing would be left of England but the mere name, and 
 that only, as it were, for the purpose of reminding the wretched 
 inhabitants of the valour and public spirit of their forefathers. 
 Greatly do I fear this prediction will be verified." ^ 
 
 The prevailing idea which seemed to pervade all Cobbett's 
 views (connecting his various inconsistencies together) was a 
 hatred of tyranny and a sympathy with the minority. He was 
 
 ^ Political Register ^ vol. Ixvi. p. 462. 1828. 
 
Sketch of Author's Life, xlvii 
 
 the type of a fearless Englishman, and he was always for making 
 England bold, prosperous, and free. There seemed to be in 
 him a national enthusiasm which made him popular every- 
 where ; the immense number of his publications sufficiently 
 indicate what a grasp he had obtained on the public mind. 
 His language was often violent and even offensive, but it was not 
 malicious ; while with reference to the quarrelsome style which 
 he sometimes adopted it may be said of Cobbett, as it was 
 said of a similar writer, " He does not intend to burn any one : 
 he is only poking the fire to make a blaze, in order to attract 
 public attention ; " and doubtless the corruption and abuses 
 which existed in the Government of the country urgently 
 demanded the attention of all who were jealous for the 
 honour and prosperity of England. If Cobbett lived in the 
 present times, no one would be more popular than he. The 
 intolerance of the laws from 1809 to 1822, was beyond 
 description. Writers and publishers were condemned by the 
 Government as " seditious," and were transported, imprisoned, 
 and fined, without trial or limit of conscience. 
 
 More than five hundred of these were imprisoned within six 
 years. The struggle for the freedom of the press was one of 
 life and death. Amid the din and tumult of the battle, 
 Cobbett's voice was ever to be heard, bold, clear, and defiant j 
 cheering on his small but determined band of Reformers. 
 The failure, by the Government, of their last prosecution of 
 Cobbett for libel, must claim for him the palm of victory as 
 champion of the freedom of the press. One of Cobbett's most 
 extensive publications, next to his Political Register^ was his 
 ** ParHamentary History of England, from the time of the Con- 
 quest to 3d Dec. 1803," from which date he introduced 
 "Cobbett's Parliamentary Debates," in shilling numbers. 
 This important work has been continued to the present time 
 under the title of '* Hansard's Parliamentary Debates." To 
 Cobbett therefore belongs the honour of having first estab- 
 lished printed reports of debates in Parliament. 
 
xlviii Sketch of Authoi's Life. 
 
 Cobbett himself sums up the amount of his labours, in the 
 following manner : — 
 
 " I am now at the end of thirty years of calumnies poured 
 out incessantly upon me from the poisonous mouth and pens 
 of 300 mercenary villains called newspaper editors and 
 reporters. I have written and published more than 300 
 volumes within thirty years; and more than 1000 volumes 
 (chiefly paid for out of the taxes) have been written and 
 published, for the sole purpose of impeding the progress of 
 those truths which dropped from my pen. My whole life has 
 been a life of sobriety and labour. I have invariably shown 
 that I have loved and honoured my country, and that I 
 preferred its greatness and happiness far beyond my own. At 
 four distinct periods, I might have rolled in wealth derived 
 from the public money, which I have always refused in any 
 way to touch, but for having thwarted the Government in its 
 wastefulness of the public resources, and particularly for my 
 endeavours to produce that reform of Parliament, to which 
 the Government itself has at last been compelled to resort. 
 I have been twice stripped of all my earnings, once lodged 
 in a felons' jail for two years, and once driven into exile for 
 two and a half years." 
 
 In the words of a biographer : — 
 
 " Happily his last days were of singular tranquillity. Old 
 age did not come upon him in crabbed form. Always either 
 working or sleeping, the quality of his work in his later years was 
 not excelled by that of any previous period of his life. When 
 seventy years of age he could ride across the country with the 
 youngest. An early riser, no lingerer at meals, Cobbett never 
 had any leisure time. Yet his hospitality was unbounded. He 
 was overflowing with kindness for all in distress. He was 
 always at the service of those who applied to him for advice 
 or assistance, his happiness seemed to consist in making others 
 happy. And of all this life and vigour and heartiness nothino- 
 failed him in his green old age." 
 
RURAL RIDES, &c. 
 
 JOURNAL : FROM LONDON, THROUGH NEWBURY, TO BERGHCLERE, 
 HURSTBOURN TARRANT, MARLBOROUGH, AND CIRENCESTER, 
 TO GLOUCESTER. 
 
 Berghdere^ near Newbury^ Habits, 
 October 30. 1 821, 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-Ads^ (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 EngUsh 
 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, 
 
 ^ These ^^ Sir.- Acts" were a series of repressive measures, passed in 
 1819, called by some "the gagging bills." Their object seemed to be, to 
 strangle all freedom in the subject and in the press. Lord Chief-Justice 
 Denman stigmatized them as " the six bills which went to overthrow 
 all that was valuable in the Constitution." Buckle (in his History of 
 Civilisation) describes England " as being ruled at that time by a system of 
 absolute terror ; spies were paid, witnesses suborned, and juries packed. 
 The Habeas Corpus Act was continually suspended, and no opponent of 
 the Government was safe." 
 
 VOL. I. A 
 
Journal : London to Berghclere, 
 
 of course, deep and narrow valleys winding about between 
 them. In one place that 1 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 anything ; 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 iVmerican 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 
 
Jotirnal : London to Berghclei'e, 
 
 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 everywhere 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 rnend." 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 
 
 ^ This phrase was attributed to Judge Bailey, Baron of the Exchequer. 
 The first Sir Robert Peel contended that the National Debt was no burden 
 to the nation, because the people owed it to themselves. The National 
 Debt of the United Kingdom has arisen along with the supremacy of 
 Parliament and the necessity for a standing army. Accordingly, it was 
 when Parliament triumphed in the Revolution Settlement (1689) that 
 the National Debt began. The first regular loan consisted of the capital 
 of the newly created Bank of England, amounting to ;[^i, 200,000 in 1693. 
 This loan to the Government was in fact the price paid by the bank for its 
 privileges : — ' 
 
 After the Battle of Waterloo the National Debt 
 
 amounted to /"885,ooo,ooo 
 
 The Crimean War added to it 16,000,000 
 
 At the present time it amounts to ... . 7251689,336 
 
 The magnitude of the National Debt is steadily decreasing from year 
 to year by saving up, through taxation, from the expenditure of the 
 country. 
 
4 Journal : London to Berghclere, 
 
 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 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 j so that there is a 
 sort of river, or chain of diminutive lakes, going down a little 
 valley, about 500 hundred 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 bason 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 
 
 ^ Reference is here made to a league which was entered into on 26th 
 September 18 15, between Austria, Russia, and Prussia (after the fall of 
 Napoleon), nominally to regulate the relations of the States of Christendom 
 by the principles of Christian charity, but really for the purpose of 
 repressing all revolutionary tendencies. Most of the other European 
 nations acceded to it, and the treaty was made public on February 2 
 1816. Subsequently both England and France seceded from it and its 
 action was justly regarded with great suspicion by English statesmen. 
 
Jottrnal : London to Berghclere, 
 
 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 out- 
 sides 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 X^^^t gothic arches are to denote the antiquity of his origin I 
 Not a bad plan j 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 j 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 anti- 
 quity 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 ! 
 
Jotcrnal : Hurstbourn- Tarrant, 
 
 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 
 grey-hounds 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. T. Tliursday. 
 
 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 experi- 
 ments 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. 
 
 Hiirstbonrn 7'arrant^ Hanis, 
 Nov. 2. Friday. 
 
 This place is commonly called Uphushand^ 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 Up- 
 husband it shall be for me. I came from Berghclere this 
 morning, and through the park of Lord Carnarvon, at High- 
 clere. It is a fine season to look at woods. The oaks are 
 
 ^ Mr Budd was for many years Clerk of the Peace for the county of 
 Berks. Mr. Cobbett's work, " The Woodlands," is dedicated to him. 
 
 2 Now called Hurstbourne-Tarrant, from "bourn," a stream (the river 
 Test running through the village) ; and "hurst," a wood, through "which 
 the river trends. It is about six miles from Andover. This village is 
 frequently alluded to in this work, on account of the low rate of wages 
 there, and the miserable condition in which Cobbett found the farm 
 labourers. Formerly there was an abbey in the neighbourhood 
 called the Abbey of Tarrant, from which the village partly derives its 
 name. 
 
Journal : Hurst dourn- Tarrant, 
 
 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^ Stoive^ 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 ex- 
 tended 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 beau- 
 tiful that I ever saw, as to colour at least. They appear to be 
 of the Galway breed. They are called, in this country. Lord 
 Carnarvon's breed. They have no horns, and their colour is 
 a ground of white, with black or red spots, these spots being 
 
8 Journal : Hurstbourn-Tarrani, 
 
 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 politi- 
 cians, 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 hirn. But does 
 he think, that his tenants can sell fat hogs at 7s. 6d. 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 Carnarvon 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 pauperised the Labouring Classes, has now, according to 
 the Report (made by the Ministers themselves to the House 
 
 1 The author here refers to Queen Caroline, consort of George IV. The 
 king had long been separated from her, and she had resided on the Con- 
 tinent. On 5th July 1821, Lord Liverpool brought a bill into Parliament 
 to deprive her of the rights and title of Queen, and to dissolve the marriage. 
 She was most ably defended by Brougham, Denman, Williams, and Lush- 
 ington. There was so strong a popular feeling aroused in her favour, that 
 the Government ultimately abandoned the proceedings. On the coronation 
 of the King (19th July 1 821), she determined to participate in the ceremony, 
 and at a very early hour she went to Westminster Abbey and demanded 
 admittance, but she was refused, and the mob in her train assumed a 
 threatening attitude. The Queen's health gave way, and she died at 
 Hammersmith on 7th August 182 1. The author espoused the cause of the 
 unfortunate Queen very warmly. He went to meet her on her entry into 
 London, and he wrote for her the celebrated letter, which she sent to the 
 King " intact " as she received it. 
 
Journal: Hurstbourn- Tarrant, 
 
 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 poUtics? 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 soffie 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 hyme, 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 
 
 ^ The report to which reference is here made was upon agricultural dis- 
 tress. The commercial condition of England at the time, was most un- 
 satisfactory. War expenses had vastly increased the taxes ; the hoarding 
 of money by the people (in their dread of an invasion) led to a suspension 
 of cash payments. Bank notes were made a legal tender, except to the 
 army and navy. The monetary pressure which prevailed when the author 
 made these remarks was especially felt by the owners and occupiers of 
 land and by their dependents, and he had good reason to contrast, the then 
 existing depression, with the prosperity which prevailed prior to the French 
 Revolution. His strictures, however, on paper money (which occur here 
 and elsewhere in this work) must be received with considerable qualifi- 
 cation. 
 
lo Journal: Htij^stdourn- Tarrant, 
 
 " 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 our- 
 selves. If the country want 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 7s. 6d. a score 
 (but would hardly bring that now), that is to say, at ^Jd. 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 5s. to 4s. 6d. 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 a load (40 
 bushels) ; that is, at 3s. 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, 5s. a bushel in this part of the 
 country ; and the average of all England would not, perhaps, 
 exceed 4s. or 3s. 6d. 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 re- 
 minded of my '•^ false prophecies^'^ I having (as this paper said) 
 foretold that wheat would be at two shillings a bushel before 
 
 ^ Jefferson was the third President of the United States. On entering 
 upon the presidency in 1800, he reduced the Government to a republican 
 simpUcity, made but few removals, and resolutely refused to appoint any of 
 his own relatives to office, saying " that he could find better men for every- 
 place than his own connections." He was a Democrat in theory and 
 practice. He held "that the world is governed too much, and that 
 that Government is best, which governs least." 
 
Journal: Hurstbourn-Tarrant. ii 
 
 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 throtvn 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 4s. 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 jvay, 
 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 wants offmids. The best members 
 *' of the farming classes have got so much in arrear in their sub- 
 '* scriptions that they have decUned 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 Well- 
 don, "indeed it was a sticTc.'" It is not the times, dear Pat- 
 rick : it is the Government, who having first contracted a great 
 
12 Journal: Hurstbourn- Tarrant. 
 
 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 7nore rational than " Catholic Eman- 
 "cipation" 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 par- 
 tiality. 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 
 
 ^ This is the contemptuous epithet, which the author sarcastically applies 
 continually in this work, to the system of the prevailing Government. 
 
 2 The South Sea Bubble Scheme originated in 171 1, with the view to 
 restore public credit, and to pay off the National Debt. In 1720 the Com- 
 pany proposed to take upon themselves the whole of the National Debt 
 (amounting to upwards of ;^30, 000,000), on being guaranteed by the 
 Government 5 per cent, per annum for seven and a-half years. An Act 
 was passed (April 7th in that year) securing the acceptance of that offer. 
 The shares suddenly rose to fabulous prices, but as suddenly collapsed ; 
 for the Directors of the Company, and even some Government officials of 
 note (connected with them), were discovered to have been guilty of the 
 deepest villany and fraud, and most of them were subsequently imprisoned 
 or otherwise punished. 
 
Journal : Hurstbourn-Tarrant, 13 
 
 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 I 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 field on the 
 hills as green as meadows, even at this season j 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 
 
14 Journal: Hurst bourn- Tar rant. 
 
 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 aijd 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 falUng. 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 wind- 
 ing 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, 
 
Journal: Hurstbourn-Tarrant, 15 
 
 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 "i There is a spring, in one of the cross valleys that 
 runs into this, having a bason 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 3 but they remain in the 
 woods, as well as on the downs. 
 
 Nov. 5. Monday. 
 
 A white frost this morning. The hills round about beauti- 
 ful at sun-rise, the rooks making that noise which they always 
 make in winter mornings. The Starlings are come in large 
 flocks j 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 
 faggots does not cost above los. So that, in this respect, the 
 labourers are pretty well oE The wages here and in Berkshire, 
 about 8s. 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, 
 
1 6 Journal: Htirst bourn- Tarrant. 
 
 have fallen again even below the Norfolk and Sussex mark. 
 Some South-Down Lambs were sold at Appleshaw so low as 
 8s. and some even lower. Some Dorsetshire Ewes brought 
 no more than a pound; and, perhaps, the average did not 
 exceed 28s. I have seen a farmer here who can get (or could 
 a few days ago) 28s. round for a lot of fat Southdown Wethers, 
 which cost him just that money, when they were lambs, two 
 years ago I It is impossible that they can have cost him less 
 than 24s. 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 ;£i2o and £14 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 5s. to 4s. 6d. 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 i8th of October, offered for 4s. 6d. a head, 
 and that they went away unsold ! The skin was worth a shill- 
 ing 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 ;£"i8, i6s. 6d. !" The skins, four 
 years ago, would have sold for more than the money. The 
 Hampshire Journal says, that, on ist November (Thursday) 
 at Newbury Market, wheat sold from 88s. to 24s. the Quarter. 
 This would make an average of 56s. But, very little indeed 
 was sold at 88s., only the prime of the old wheat. The best 
 of the new for about 48s., 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 32s., or 4s. 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 £^^0 a load ; " that is to say, 25s. 
 a bushel ! Nothing can be truer than this. And nothing can 
 
Journal: Hurstbourn-Tarrant, ij 
 
 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 descrip- 
 tions of farmers, very distinct, as to the effects which this 
 change must naturally have on them. The word fariner 
 comes from the French, j^r;wzVr, 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 ioxxntr farmers 
 and the latter yeomen 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 pre- 
 sent race of mere renters must give away, 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 4d. per lb., and good joints of mutton at 
 " 3jd. ; butter iid. and 1 2d. per lb. — In the West of Cornwall, 
 " during the summer, pork has often been sold at 2 Jd. 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 
 
 1 The author in this work sarcastically styles Bank notes "rags," and 
 Bankers, and other financiers, "rag-merchants." 
 
 VOL. I. B 
 
i8 Jotirnal : Marlborough. 
 
 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 nine, 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. Farm houses, 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 ; 
 
Journal: Marlborough, 19 
 
 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 Mefnbers 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 thirty 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 : 
 
 Repr^sentans du peuple, les Grands et le Roi : 
 Spectacle magnifique ! Source sacree des lois !^ 
 
 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 ! ^ 
 
 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 
 
 ^ The Author adds, in his first edition of this work, " 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! " 
 
20 Journal: Cirencester. 
 
 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 daresay, 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 four miles over. 
 Here nature has flung the earth about in a great variety of 
 shapes. The fine short smooth grass, has about nine 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 j 
 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 six feet under ground about here. — I come on 
 now towards Cirencester, through the dairy-country 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 
 
Jozirnal : Cirencester, 21 
 
 hours agoj 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 some- 
 times 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 j/ 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 j 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 
 
 ^ Referring to Mr. John Bennett, at that time M.P. for South Wilts, who 
 had stated that the "gallon-loaf" was a sufficiency for the maintenance of 
 farm labourers, the poor-law allowance generally being 7d. per day for the 
 labourer, and a gallon-loaf per week for each of the rest of the family. 
 
2 2 Journal: Gloucester. 
 
 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 7s. 6d. 
 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 1 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 thou- 
 sand 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 to ^^4, los. 
 each ! None of them, the drovers told me, reached £^^, 
 These heifers used to fetch, at home, from ;^6 to ;^8, and 
 sometimes more. Many of the things that I saw in these 
 droves did not fetch, in Wales, 25s. 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 £^^ 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 
 
Journal: Gloucester^ 2 
 
 o 
 
 up hill into a country, apparently, formerly a down or common, 
 but now divided into large fields by stone walls. Any thing 
 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 bring- 
 ing it up, and thus, in general, come the means of making the 
 walls that serve as fences. Any thing quite so cheerless as 
 this I do not recollect to have seen ; for, the Bagshot country, 
 and the commons between Farnham and Haselmere, 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 
 lessy^^^ 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 I 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 inclosed fields ; all divided by hedges ; orchards 
 
2 4 Journal : Bollitree. 
 
 a plenty ; and I had scarcely seen one apple since I left Berk- 
 shire. — Gloucester is a fine, clean, beautiful place ; and, 
 which is of a vast deal more importance, the labourers' dwell- 
 ings, as I came along, looked good, and the labourers them- 
 selves 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 HEREFORD- 
 SHIRE, ROSS, HEREFORD, ABINGDON, OXFORD, CHELTEN- 
 HAM, BERGHCLERE, WHITCHURCH, UPHURSTBOURN, AND 
 THENCE TO KENSINGTON. 
 
 Bollitree Castle, Herefordshire, 
 Friday^ 9 Nov. 1 821. 
 
 I got to this beautiful place (Mr. William Palmer's) yes- 
 terday, 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 Glouces- 
 ter to go on, through Ross to Hereford. — On quitting Glouces- 
 ter 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 situ- 
 
Journal: Bollitree, 25 
 
 ated 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 ric^ges 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 every thing 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 3 every thing 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 2.r\di spirits / They really de- 
 serve 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 banks 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 
 
26 Journal: Bollitree. 
 
 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 plafi, 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 i6th 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 ist 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 
 1 2th to 1 8th July and the rest (about three acres) from 
 2ist 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 //^^/ 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 
 
Journal: Bollitree, 
 
 of each field. — Now, here is a Uttle 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 cultiva- 
 tion, Mr. Palmer has followed the directions contained 
 in my " Yeat'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 ro?nance. — 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 
 fattening sheep) upon them for Jive 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 immedi- 
 ately. Cabbages are a very fine autumn crop ; but it is the 
 Swedes on which they 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 
 
28 Journal: Bollitree, 
 
 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 off 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 z?iches^ 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 ioJ)s. Then he has an imple- 
 ment, 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, be- 
 cause 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 Cohbett 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 
 
Jottrnal: Hereford. 29 
 
 be less averse from having to do with a reform in which 
 " Cobbett '' shall be engaged. 
 
 Old Hall, 
 Saturday nighty Nov. lo. 
 
 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, 
 
 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 
 Hereeord 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 chil- 
 dren, 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 LocJzhart) or some such 
 name. Her husband, who is, I suppose, some young farmer 
 
30 Journal: Hereford. 
 
 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 jack-ass 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, ii N^ovember. 
 
 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. Every thing 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 nth and 14th of May. 
 The plants were very much injured by \}citfly ; so much, that 
 
Journal: Bollitree, 31 
 
 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 seventeen tons to the acre. — 
 Of Mr. Walter Palmer's Swedes, five acres were drilled, on 
 ridges nearly four feet apart, on the 3d of June; four acres on 
 the 15 th 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, per- 
 haps, a third part, or more of the crop is due to the trans- 
 planting. 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 y 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 
 
32 Journal: Bollitree, 
 
 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 4320 
 upon an acre, the weight of the acre 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. Win- 
 NAL 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 ndgQS 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 TullY 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 illus- 
 
 ^ The author of a work on husbandry. Mr. Loudon (the eminent botan- 
 ist) speaks of Tull as a novel but eccentric teacher, and says that the Scotch 
 were the first to discover the merits of his system. 
 
Journal: Bollitree, 33 
 
 trative 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 enjoy- 
 ments and of bulk, and not, as in the broad-cast system of Cor- 
 ruption, here and there one of enormous size, surrounded by 
 thousands of poor little starveling things, scarcely distinguish- 
 able by the keenest eye, or, if seen, seen only to inspire a con- 
 tempt of the husbandman. The Norfolk boys are, therefore, 
 right in calling their Swedes Radical Swedes. 
 
 Bollitree, 
 Tuesday, i^th Nov. 
 
 Rode to-day to see a grove belonging to Mrs. Westphalin, 
 which contains the very finest trees, oaks, chesniits, 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 be- 
 loved 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 hke her ; but I cannot forgive the Par. 
 sons 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 Farliaifient as would have prevented the 
 ruin of tenants. 1 — 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 ''reverejtd" gentlemen may 
 be assured, that before many years have passed over their 
 
 1 This estate subsequently came into the possession of Mi'. Baring (after- 
 wards Lord Ashburton). 
 
 VOL. I. C 
 
34 Jotcrnal : Bollitree.' 
 
 heads, they will be very glad to reside in their parsonage 
 houses.^ 
 
 Bollitree^ 
 Wednesday^ i/\th N'ffV. 
 
 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 
 ahvays 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^ Can- 
 not each acre yield ten trees a year? Are not these trees 
 worth a pound a piece ? 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 Parlia- 
 ment : 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 j 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 
 tknes, from the forest ^ : and to what better use can the ground 
 
 ^ The rector (to whom reference is here made) was Dr. Nott, who was a 
 great pluralist. He was on one occasion advertised for, by a parishioner 
 (the flock being anxious to find their shepherd), and to their amazement he 
 was discovered to be residing abroad The words in italics are a sar- 
 castic allusion to the evils of non-residence, now happily of rare occurrence. 
 
 ^ Originally every manor had its common land, or waste, over which the 
 tenants of the manor had the right to turn their beasts or to gather fuel. 
 Similar rights were probably substantially enjoyed by the other inhabitants 
 of the parish. The earlier form of enclosure was by the lord of the manor 
 
Journal: Bollitree. 35 
 
 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 be- 
 sides. Are these things nothing? The dead limbs and old 
 roots of the forest give /«(?/; 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 badly furnished with fuel, the desolat- 
 ing 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 monopolising farmer, though 
 the law is as clear in the one case as in the other? But, 
 
 against the commoners, but subject to the restriction, of leaving enough com- 
 mon land, to satisfy the requirements of the commoners. The later form 
 of enclosure was by Lords and Commons together, generally under authority 
 of special Acts of Parliament, or (later still) of the General Enclosure Acts. 
 Under these a vast amount of common land was inclosed. This inclosure 
 was supported on the ground of being conducive to agiicultural interests. 
 Modern legislation, however, would seem to lean against inclosure. The 
 area of corn is no longer so important, while inclosure seems to conflict 
 with public health and recreation. The Act of 1865 forbids further in- 
 closure within the metropolitan area. The recent decision in the " Epping 
 Forest" case has reserved for the public the greater part of what had 
 formerly been a Royal Forest. The Commons Acts of 1876 and 1879 allow 
 the Land Commissioners to regulate common land, recreation grounds, 
 and field gardens, and also put restrictions on inclosure of spaces with- 
 in the neighbourhood of large towns ; and likewise contain provisions 
 for the allotment of garden-plots for the labouring classes, but these allot- 
 ment provisions do not seem to have been hitherto very successful. With 
 regard to Forests and Crown Lands, King William III. so impoverished the 
 Crown by making grants to various subjects, that an Act was passed 
 (i Anne c. 7, s. 5) making void all grants or leases of Crown lands for a 
 period exceeding thirty-one years or three lives. Crown lands and Royal 
 Forests, in the beginning of this reign, were surrendered by the Crown 
 to the State, and are now managed for the benefit of the nation. The 
 revenues of these lands (amounting in 1883 to ;^38o,ooo) form part of the 
 Consolidated Fund. 
 
36 Journal: Bollitree. 
 
 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 M Is it 
 any wonder XX-^dX paupers increase ? And is there not here cause 
 enough for the increase of poor, without resorting to the 
 doctrines of the barbarous and impious Malthus and his 
 assistants, the feelosofers of the Edinburgh Review, those eulo- 
 gists 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 monopolise 
 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 mofiopoly. 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 
 
 * It is generally admitted that low wages are associated with large, 
 rather than with small farms, and hence the latter contribute more to the 
 benefit of the labourers. The advocates of peasant proprietorships enter- 
 tain similar views, with this difference, however, viz., that the small farms 
 (which they maintain are so well adapted for calling out the energies of 
 the occupiers) must be freehold, and not leasehold. It is the ' magic of 
 property,' which secures the prosperity, not the smallness of the holdinn-. 
 Small holdings, however, must not be confounded wiih minute sub- 
 divisions of property. 
 
Journal: Ross. 37 
 
 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 ; every thing that can be 
 done, is done, to favour these perambulatory impostors in their 
 depredations on the ignorant. While every thing that can be 
 done, is done, to prevent them from reading, or from hearing of, 
 any thing that has a tendency to give them rational notions, 
 or to better their lot. However, all is not buried in ignor- 
 ance. 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 BoUitree 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 oi 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 roguish- 
 ness of look, which you see on almost every visage in the 
 borough-towns, not excepting the visages of the women. I can 
 
38 Journal: Roh, 
 
 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 miscre- 
 ants 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, pulHng 
 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 the 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 25. a couple ; a goose from 2s. 6d. to 
 3^". ; a turkey from ^s. to 3J". 6d. 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 pur- 
 
Journal: Oxford, 39 
 
 pose for me, strong, tall, gentle and bold ; and that carried 
 me either over or through every thing. 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 " Yearns 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 
 
4-0 Journal: Oxford. 
 
 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 unwhole- 
 some ; 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 Chelten- 
 ham 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'i's, 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. — Cheltc7ihain 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, Chelten- 
 ham, Bath, Bognor, Brighton, Tunbridge, Ramsgate, Mar- 
 gate, Worthing, and other spots in England, while some of 
 them get over to France and Italy : just like those body-ver- 
 min 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. 
 
Journal: Burghclere, 41 
 
 which form the sides of that dish which I described as re- 
 sembling the vale of Gloucester. Soon after quitting this 
 resort of the lame and the lazy, the gormandising 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, i8 JVov. 
 
 We left Oxford early, and went on, through Abingdon 
 (Berks) to Market- llsley. 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 llsley 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 Hved on the simple fruits of the earth and slaked their 
 *' thirst at the pure and Hmpid 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 ?neat,' ' two shiUings 
 *' '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 
 
42 Journal: Burghclere, 
 
 '' 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 called 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 dis- 
 posal 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 alono- we 
 
Journal: Btirghclere, 43 
 
 J 
 
 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 nighty 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 farm-house, and 
 found our host, Mr. Budd, at home. 
 
 Burghclere, 
 Monday, 19 NotK 
 
 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 Fan?i of lull, 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 ejjclosed commo7i5, worth, 
 as tillage land, not one single farthing an acre, and never will 
 
44 Journal: Burghclere. 
 
 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 work- 
 ings of the system. Here is a large gentleman's house. But, 
 the proprietor lets it (it is, just now, empty), and resides in a 
 farm house 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. Every thing 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 Farn- 
 ham in Surrey, when I was a very very little boy. I have his 
 
 ^ Here the author again reprobates the system of enclosure of common 
 lands, although in his time the system was much favoured by thinkers 
 such as Bentham, as well as by many able politicians. Modern opinion, how- 
 ever, seems to have come round again to the author's views. So greatly 
 was the enclosure of common lands carried out in the author's time, that 
 from 1792 to 1820, there were no less than 2287 Bills passed, for that pur- 
 pose, the number of bills increasing in each session, with the increasing 
 price of corn. 
 
Journal: Burgkclere. 45 
 
 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 " (O, 
 the pious gang !) will say, that ray 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. TulPs ; 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 Hamp- 
 shire. 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 farm house. 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 lowland, but 
 along the top of the downs, and through the Lord Caernar- 
 von's park, and got home after a very pleasant day. 
 
 Burgkclere^ 
 Wednesday, 21 Nov. 
 
 We intended to have a hunt ; but the fox-hounds 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 
 oi 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 
 
46 Journal: Burgkclere. 
 
 shallow fool, who cannot duly estinaate 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, practising 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 specu- 
 lation, 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, pen- 
 sioners, sinecurists, commissioners, loan-jobbers, lottery-dealers, 
 bankers, stock-jobbers j 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 co7i- 
 sequences 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 proprie- 
 tors, 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 planta- 
 
Journal: Whitchurch. 47 
 
 tion 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, feed- 
 ing 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 Carnarvon'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. 
 
48 Joitrnal : Sandhurst. 
 
 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 HalV I — I perceive 
 that they are planting oaks on the " wastes^' as the Agricul- 
 iurasses 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 plantsfor 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 her's 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-cbildren. 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 
 
 1 The village in which this paper mill stands, is Laverstoke, prettily 
 situated on the River Test. The paper for the Bank of England is still 
 manufactured there, and the ownership of the mill remains in the Portal 
 family, who have lived in the neighbourhood since the 17th century. 
 
 2 Admiral Collingwood (in his published correspondence) refers in 1807 
 to the importance of oak-planting. " What I am most anxious about (he 
 says) is the plantation of oak in the country. We shall never cease to be a 
 great people while we have ships, and we cannot have ships without timber." 
 Such sentiments are a curious commentary on the great gulf which sepa- 
 rates 1807 from 1884. Nothing could illustrate this better than to behold ' 
 (what can be seen in Portsmouth Harbour any day), viz., a modern iron 
 turret-ship, lying side by side with the ancient •' Victory." 
 
Kentish Journal : Dartford. 49 
 
 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, mar- 
 ried old rakes, and those of old stock-jobbers with young wives 
 standing in need of something to keep down the unruly ebul- 
 litions 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 sp read upon lines 
 covering, perhaps, an acre of ground ! We soon afterwards 
 came to " York Place" on " Osnahurg 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 I 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 my- 
 self 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 'i 
 Answer that question, Castlereagh, Sidmouth, Brougham, or 
 Scarlett. 
 
 KENTISH JOURNAL : FROM KENSINGTON TO DARTFORD, 
 ROCHESTER, CHATHAM, AND FAVERSHAM. 
 
 Tuesday^ December^, 1821, 
 Elverton Farm, near Favershani, Kent. 
 
 This is the first time, since I went to France, in 1792, that 
 I have been on this side of' Shooter's Hill. The land, gener- 
 ally speaking, from Deptford to Dartford is poor, and the 
 surface ugly by nature, to which ugliness there has been 
 
 VOL. I. D 
 
50 Kentish J ournal : Rochester, 
 
 made, just before we came to the latter place, a considerable 
 addition by the inclosure 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 ridi- 
 culous forms, making, all together, the bricks, hurdlerods 
 and earth say, as plainly as they can speak, " Here dwell 
 va7iUy 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 Bar- 
 racks, Magazines, Martello-Towers, Catamarans, and all the 
 excuses for lavish expenditure, which the war for the Bour- 
 bons 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 M'et 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 Hereford- 
 shire 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 foj 
 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 
 
Kentish Journal : Chatham, 51 
 
 enlisted for a soldier. Upon looking up towards the fortifica- 
 tions 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, or fathers, or husbands, would have 
 drenched us to death with small. This, at the outset 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 to- 
 gether 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 jack-daws, 
 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?" 
 
52 Kentish Journal: Chatham. 
 
 Have I not, for twenty long years, been regretting the 
 existence of these unnatural embossments ; these white- 
 swelUngs, 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 afi'airs 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 pro- 
 duced 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 in- 
 crease 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 ''^ peniten- 
 
 1 To all sudden aggregations of dwellings, to a city or town, the 
 author applied the term "Wen," for he anticipated danger to the 
 community from any great increase of population. London was therefore 
 the great Wen. Similar sentiments have been also entertained by other 
 writers, e.g., Sisraondi (the eminent Italian historian) speaks of ancient 
 Rome as possessing "a parasite population," while Mercier (in his 
 lableau de Paris^ published just before the Old French Revolution) 
 calls Paris ** a wen." 
 
Kentish Journal : Sittingbourne. 53 
 
 tiary,^' ^ 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 WeUy 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 pre- 
 decessors, 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 Sitting- 
 bourne 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 gOQS^ 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 
 
 1 The Millbank Penitentiary is said to have been originally suggested 
 by Jeremy Bentham. It is cuiious to note, that most of his suggestions, 
 with regard to the punishment of offences, seem to be in the course 
 of adoption. One of them, viz., the admission of the evidence of 
 the accused in criminal cases, forms the outline of a Bill now before 
 Parliament (1884). In all Bentham's political writings, the leading 
 principle is expressed by the phrase, *'the greatest happiness of the 
 greatest number." 
 
5 4 Kentish Journal : Sittingbourne. 
 
 short, this is a country of hop-gardens, cherry, apple, pear and 
 filbert orchards, and quickset hedges. But, alas ! what, in 
 point of beauty, is a country without woods and lofty trees I 
 And here there are very few indeed. I am now sitting in a 
 room, from the window of which I XooV, 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 ; 7iext, 
 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 Sheppey (or Shep- 
 way), 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. 
 
 Thw'sday, 6 Dec. 
 "Agricultural distress" is the great topic of general conver- 
 sation. 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 controul of the Corruption of one 
 or the other of the factions ; and, in the country, nine times 
 out of ten, under the controul 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 pub- 
 lications, had it not been for which, we never should have seen 
 "^ sudden transitio7i from war to peace" lasting seven years, 
 and more sudden in its destructive effects at last than at first.^ 
 
 ^ Reference is here made to Mr. "Webb Hall, and his adherents, who as- 
 cribed agricultural distress to the importation of foreign corn. These views 
 may be said to be reflected, in the present day, by the advocates of Fair 
 Trade, and Reciprocity. 
 
 ^ The sentence in italics, is the language of Lord Liverpool when ac- 
 counting for the distress of the country in 1822. 
 
Kentish Journal : Faversham, 55 
 
 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 advo- 
 cate for corn-hills I 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 j that orator of 
 all orators ; that saint of all saints ; that financier of all finan- 
 ciers, said that, if Mr. Hume were to pare down the expences 
 of government to his wish, there would be others, " the Hunts, 
 " Cobbetts, and Carliles, who would still want the expence 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 
 
 1 Allusion is here made to the Rt. Honble. Nicholas Vansittart, Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer ; he was afterwards made Lord Bexley. 
 
56 Kentish Journal : Faversha7n. 
 
 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, Com- 
 missioners, 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/rz/zV 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 Hke a pampered 
 pony, turned out in winter, to live upon a common. It is in an 
 extremely "unsatisfactory state,'' and has certainly a greater 
 
 <( 
 
 This is moderate praise (remarks the previous editor) on our cider 
 orchards, for the modern Normans make a cider which EngHshmen 
 would despise, while some Worcestershire and Herefordshire men, boast 
 of their perry having passed for very good champagne." 
 
Norfolk Journal: Bergk-Aptojz, 57 
 
 mass of suffering to endure, than any other part of the king- 
 dom, 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 inter- 
 est, what wonder is there, that he should not see things in their 
 true light ? 
 
 NORFOLK AND SUFFOLK JOURNAL. 
 
 Bergh'Apion, near Norwich^ 
 Monday^ I o Dec. 1 82 1 . 
 
 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 shew 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 
 
5B Norfolk Journal : Bergh-Aplon. 
 
 clay, begins to be the bottom, and this, with very little excep- 
 tion (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 VIIL, 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 dis- 
 tance lower, I saw a field of I^ape, 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, ill h 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 iransplanted^ 
 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 re- 
 quired, 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 trans- 
 planted part, would have been better than it now is, seeing that 
 
Norfolk Journal : Holt, 59 
 
 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 advan- 
 tages of transplanting are,_/?rj/, 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, firsts 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, I2,th 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 birthplace of Anne de Boleyne, the 
 mother of Queen Elizabeth. Not much matter : for she mar- 
 ried the king, when 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 I should have thought better 
 of him ; but it is clear, that the whole story is a lie, invented 
 
6o Norfolk J otirnal : Holt. 
 
 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 com- 
 mitted by man, can deserve so horrible a punishment. — The 
 present Lord Suffield, is that Mr. Edward Harbord, whose 
 father-in-law left him ;£5oo 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 j you will grow 
 less fastidious ! They say, however, that he is really good to 
 his tenants, and has told them, that he will take any thing 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 any thing 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 
 Carnarvon 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, to- 
 wards the east, is poor, and has been lately enclosed. 
 
 Friday, \^th Dec. 
 Went to see the estate of Mr. Hardy at Leveringsett, a' 
 hamlet about two miles from Holt. This is the first time that 
 
Norfolk Journal : Holt, 6i 
 
 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 man- 
 aging which I would detail if my total unacquaintance with 
 machinery did not disquaHfy 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, the 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 J 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 
 every where, 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 calcu- 
 lation of best wheat at 4^. a bushel and a best South Down ewe 
 at 1 5 J", or even 12s. 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 
 
 ^ If not wearisome to the reader, it may be well, to introduce a very brief 
 sketch of the various public characters to whom the author here alludes, 
 
62 Norfolk Journal: Holt, 
 
 been to take his advice, than to burn him in effigy. I endea- 
 voured (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 
 
 and this I will do, seriatim. Tiiomas Paine was an author, famous for his 
 connection with the American and French Revolutions. In 1776 he pub- 
 lished in America a pamphlet called "Common Sense," in which he main- 
 tained the cause of the colonies, against the mother country. It won for 
 him great popularity, and he was appointed by Congress, Secretary to the 
 Committee of Foreign Affairs. In 1791 he returned to England and pub- 
 lished "The Rights of Man," in answer to Burke's "Reflections upon the 
 French Revolution," which reply, was vigorous and popular. In 1792 he 
 visited Paris, and was elected a Deputy to the National Convention. At 
 the trial of Louis XVI. he proposed (what would have done honour to 
 France, if it had been accepted), viz., "the offer to the King of an asylum 
 in America," by which he offended the extreme party ; and in 1793 Robes- 
 pierre caused him to be ejected from the Convention, and thrown into 
 prison. Here he wrote "The Age of Reason," against Atheism, and in 
 favour of Deism. After an imprisonment of fourteen months, he was released, 
 on the intercession of the American Government, and restored to his seat in 
 the Convention. Paine died in America in 1809. Cobbett extolled Paine's 
 merits "as a writer," while he condemned his religious opinions. A pam- 
 phlet which Paine wrote, styled "The Decline and Fall of the English 
 System of Finance," in which he "distinctly foretold the bursting of the 
 paper-money bubble," secured Cobbett's enthusiasm, and induced him to 
 remove Paine's bones to England, in order to emphasise the political views, 
 which he had so boldly expressed. 
 
 2 The Stern-path-of-duty man refers to Lord Liverpool, who once stated 
 in Parliament " that the Ministry was resolved, to pursue the stern path of 
 duty." The occasion of this expression was as follows : — In 1816 the 
 country was in a most disturbed state. Acts of violence were of daily 
 occurrence. Mills and frames were destroyed, and corn ricks and farm 
 implements burnt. At this crisis, Cobbett was urged to issue a public 
 address with the view to allay the public agitation. He replied, "that it 
 was impossible to prove to the people what was not the cause of their 
 misery, without proving to them what was the cause, and without pointing 
 out the remedy." Accordingly he issued in November (in a cheap edition 
 of his "Political Register") an address to Journeymen and Labourers, in 
 which he explained, as the causes of the present misery, the oppressive 
 weight of the taxes, the evils of paper-money (in reducing the value of gold 
 and silver), and the enormous expenses of the late wars, which in a great 
 measure might have been avoided. The one remedy he proposed was "a 
 Reform of Parliament." At the same time, he condemned the folly and 
 uselessness of violence, and urged the wisdom of pressing on Reform, in a 
 constitutional manner. So great was the enthusiasm with which this 
 address was received, that 44,000 copies were sold within the first month. 
 The Government, however, were paralysed with fear and alarm. They 
 adopted every available means for stopping the circulation of the address 
 stemming the flood-gates of sedition (as they termed it), and even con- 
 
Norfolk Journal: Holt, * 63 
 
 the Oxford- scholar,^ of the loan-jobbers^ (who had just made 
 
 sidered the expediency of prosecuting the editor. With this idea in view, 
 Lord Liverpool announced in the House that the Ministry was resolved 
 " to pursue the stern path of duty." The political career of Lord Liverpool 
 was entirely of a "negative" character. He persisted in opposing every 
 change in the direction of religious or political liberty. Tlie '* Pains and 
 Penalties Bill " against Queen Caroline, greatly increased his unpopularity. 
 Though his honesty of purpose was admitted beyond all question, he was 
 destitute of wide and genial sympathies, and his Home policy was at all 
 times, unfortunate and retrograde. In i8oi he was made Foreign Secre- 
 tary in Addington's Ministry, and in 1804 he became Home Secretai'y in 
 Pitt's administration, and acted as Leader of the House of Commons 
 until his elevation to the House of Peers. 
 
 ^ " The great hole-digger " referred to Lord Castlereagh, who on a 
 certain occasion proposed to provide Government work (of an unremuner- 
 ative character) for the distressed unemployed labourers, which the author 
 compared with, digging holes one day and filling them up the next. The 
 great work which marked his career was the union with Ireland, which he 
 brought about. As Chief Secretary, however, for Ireland in 1798, the 
 cruel part he adopted, for suppressing the rebellion, considerably damaged 
 his reputation. As the Leader of the Government in the Lower House, he 
 carried the Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, and the Gagging Bills, 
 measures, which will for ever stamp his name with infamy. He was also 
 one of the movers of the Bill for the prosecution of Queen Caroline in 
 1820, which was alone sufficient, to establish a bitter feud between him and 
 Mr. Cobbett. He d^ed by his own hand in a fit of temporary insanity, on 
 August I2th, 1822. 
 
 ^ The term "Jester" was applied to Mr. Canning, who was a staunch 
 supporter of Pitt. In 1796 he became Under Secretary of State. In his 
 satirical paper, "The Anti-Jacobin and Knife-grinder," he lashed the new 
 philosophy of the French Republicans. After the death of Lord Castle- 
 reagh he was called to the head of the Foreign Office. He maintained the 
 independence of England against the diplomacy of the Holy Alliance, and 
 infused a more liberal spirit into the Cabinet. Moreover, he gave a new 
 impetus to commercial affairs, by a gradual laying aside of the prohibitive 
 system. 
 
 ^ Sir Robert Peel is here styled " The Oxford Scholar," because he was 
 educated at Oxford, taking a double first class. Afterwards he represented 
 the University in Parliament from 1818 to 1822. He commenced his poli- 
 tical life by adopting the strong Tory principles of his father. In 181 1 he 
 became Under Secretary for the Colonies. From 1812 to 1818 he was 
 Secretary for Ireland, and displayed so strong an anti-Catholic spirit, that 
 the Irish nicknamed him " Orange Peel." In 1819 he was Chairman of the 
 Bank Committee, and moved the Bill for the resumption of cash payments. 
 In 1822 he became Home Secretary, and reorganised the London Police 
 force, since popularly called " Peelers," and " Bobbies." In 1829 his views 
 were so far modified that he brought forward the ever-memorable CathoHc 
 Emancipation Bill. In 1842 he introduced his "sliding scale," for the im- 
 position of a moderate duty on for/sign corn. Pie also brought in an 
 Income Tax of 7d. in the £ for three years. The potato disease in Ireland 
 
64 N 07'f oik Journal : Bergh-Apton. 
 
 an enormous grasp), of the Oracle/ and so on. Here, as 
 every where 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, expres- 
 sions made use of towards him that affectionate children use 
 towards the best of parents. I have not met with a single 
 exception. 
 
 Bergh Apton, 
 Siuiday^ 16 Dec. 
 
 Came from Holt through Saxthorpe and Cawston. At the 
 former village were on one end of a decent white house, these 
 
 in 1845, followed by a frightful famine, rendered cheap corn a necessity, if 
 millions were not to starve. Cobden and his League redoubled their exer- 
 tions, and Peel (yielding to the inevitable) brought in a measure for the 
 total repeal of the Corn Laws, which was carried. He afterwards sup- 
 ported a measure, for the repeal of the Jewish disabilities. He was regarded 
 by the working and middle classes generally with gratitude and respect. 
 He met with his death by being thrown from his horse, on 2d July 1850, 
 aged 62 years. 
 
 *» The firm of Baring Brothers are here styled the " loan-jobbers.'' It 
 has been for upwards of a century, one of the greatest commercial houses in 
 the world. Its founder was John Baring, a German, who carried on a 
 small business in Exeter, in the former half of the eighteenth century. Two 
 of his sons (Francis and John) established the house now in London. 
 Francis became a Director of the East India Company, and was a staunch 
 supporter of Pitt in the House of Commons. He took an active part in 
 the Bank Restriction Act of 1797. His son, Lord Ashburton, was President 
 of the Board of Trade in 1834, and was appointed Special Ambassador to 
 the United States in 1842 to settle the North-West Boundary question. 
 The firm has always been engaged, to a large extent, in the negociation of 
 national loans, and in exchange and money broking ; hence the " sohriqtietr 
 
 7 The term " Oracle " is applied to David Ricardo, who was a member 
 of the Stock Exchange. In 18 10 he produced a great sensation by a pam- 
 phlet called "The High Price of Bullion, a Proof of the Depreciation of 
 Bank Notes," in which he explained the principle of the metallic basis, and 
 the propensity that a paper currency always has to redundance, if it be not 
 in some measure restrained, by the operation of such a basis. This was 
 followed in 1817 by his principal work " On the Principles of Political 
 Economy and Taxation." He entered Parliament in 1818. In all matters 
 of trade and money, his speeches in the House had more weight than those 
 of any other member. 
 
Norfolk Journal : Great Yarmouth, 65 
 
 words, " Quee?i 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 plea- 
 sure 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 Pa7'son} all the history of whom we now 
 learned, and, if we could have gone to the village, they were 
 prepared to ring tlie bells, and show us the old woman, who 
 nursed the Bailey Parson I These Norfolk barns'^ 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. 
 
 G7eat Yarmouth, 
 Friday {morning), 2ist Dec. 
 
 The day before yesterday I set out for Bergh Apton with 
 
 1 The author seems to have been greatly at variance (at the time he 
 wrote "Rural Rides") with the Reverend Richard Baker, Rector of 
 Botley (to whom reference is here made). The present editor paid a visit 
 to Botley, very recently, and with the kind assistance of the much-respected 
 Rector (the Reverend Canon Morley Lee), discovered two aged parishioners 
 who distinctly remembered Mr. Cobbett. With reference to the disagree- 
 ments with Mr. Baker, one of the informants (whose father was the parish 
 clerk at the time) stated that the quarrels arose in consequence of the 
 Rector's sermons, which were doubtless strongly political ; for Mr. Cobbett 
 had frequently told him in public " that he longed to horsewhip him in the 
 pulpit for talking such nonsense." This is at least evidence that Cobbett 
 attended the church services. Unhappily, the clergy generally, in those 
 days, violently opposed every attempt at Reform, and appeared on all sides 
 as anti-Cobbettiles, writing tracts against "disaffection," and shouting him 
 down at public meetings. Such unjustifiable conduct made Cobbett their 
 enemy as long as he lived. 
 
 2 In Norfolk, baws means boys or lads j while, maws means girls or 
 lasses. 
 
 VOL. I. E 
 
66 Norfolk Journal : Great Yarmouth. 
 
 Mr. Clarke, to come hither by the way of Becdes 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 Jack-ass, and of a struggle between 
 them and the " Yeomanry Cavalry." 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 wel- 
 come 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 
 
 ^ This refers to what has been called " Cobbett's gridiron prophecy.'' 
 The author had predicted that it would be impossible to carry Peel's Bill 
 of 1819, for the return to cash payments, and for the withdrawal of small 
 paper money from circulation ; and he wound up his prophecy with this 
 offer to Lord Castlereagh, viz., that if it proved untrue, his political oppo- 
 nents might lay him on a gridiron and broil him alive, while Lord Sid- 
 
Norfolk Journal : Norwich, 67 
 
 plan, which, I hope, will be adopted. — I leave Great Yarmouth 
 with sentiments of the sincerest regard for all those whom 1 
 there saw and conversed with, and with my best wishes for 
 the happiness of all its inhabitants ; nay, even the J>arsons not 
 excepted ; for, if they did not come to welcome me, they col- 
 lected 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 foohshly slandered. 
 
 Bergh Apion, 
 22nd Dec. [night). 
 
 After returning from Yarmouth yesterday, went to dine at 
 Stoke-Holy-Cross, about six miles off; got home at midnight, 
 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 beau- 
 tiful. 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 (here the vendors are all standing and gabbling like parrots, 
 and the meat is lean, and bloody, and nasty, and the people 
 snuify, 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 
 coat, 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 ; 
 
 mouth stirred the coals, and Canniog stood by and laughed at his dying 
 groans. The author afterwards adopted the gridiron as his trade mark, 
 and suspended a gridiron over his house, 183 Fleet Street. 
 
68 N 07' folk Journal : Norwich, 
 
 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 Nor- 
 folk 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. 
 
 Kensmgion^ 
 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 speak- 
 ing. 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 every 
 thing. 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 culti- 
 vators. — 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 thould have prevailed in hilly 
 countries, where they are generally found in valleys and in 
 low, sheltered dells, even in those valleys ! These churches 
 
Landlord Distress Meetings, 69 
 
 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 j 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 three or four 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, gentle- 
 men ; 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 / 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 '' twopenny 
 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 
 
7 o La ndlo rd Distress Meeting s. 
 
 and sincere : but, much greater pleasure do I feel, at the 
 approbation bestowed on that Trashy 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 usj a set of men industrious and careful by 
 habit; cool, thoughtful, and sensible from the instructions 
 
Sussex Journal : Battle. 71 
 
 of nature : a set of men provident above all others, and 
 engaged in pursuits, in their nature, stable as the very earth 
 they till j 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.Ja7i. 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 dis- 
 " tressed 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 
 
72 Sussex Journal : Battle, 
 
 road. Here, there is a common, part of which has been in- 
 closed 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 j 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 sandstone again. This vein of land runs all along 
 through the county of Sussex, and the clay runs into Hamp- 
 shire, 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 
 
Stts:ex Journal : Battle. jTf 
 
 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 irofi: 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 ^mssq^x, Jlaying, which 
 employs women and children as well as men. And, then in 
 the great article oi 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^. 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 things 
 by one means or another. 
 
74 S2i s sex Journal : Battle. 
 
 Battle, 
 Thursday {night), 3 ^an. 1S22. 
 
 To-day there has been a Meeting here of the landlords and 
 farmers in this part of Sussex, which is called the J^ape of 
 Hastings. The object was to agree on a petition to parliament 
 praying for relief! Good God! Where is this to ^;/^/ 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 prin- 
 cipal 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 Asburnham 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 Com- 
 mittee was appointed, to draw up a petition, which was next 
 produced. It merely described the distress, and prayed 
 generally for relief. Mr. HoUoway proposed an addition, 
 containing an imputation of the distress to restricted cur- 
 rency, and unabated taxation, and praying for a reduc- 
 tion of taxes. A discussion now arose upon two points : 
 first, whether the addition were admissible at all ! and, 
 second, whether Mr. Hollo way was qualified to offer it 
 
Sussex Journal: Battle, 75 
 
 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 substan- 
 tially 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 pro- 
 visions, 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 con- 
 tinuing, 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 pre- 
 vent the importation of human food, our ancestors knew 
 nothing. And what says recent experience ? When the 
 
76 Sussex Jour }ial: Battle, 
 
 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 pro- 
 tect, 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 pro- 
 duce 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 propor- 
 tion 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 im- 
 ported 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 wast- 
 ing, and costing money in warehouse? There appears with 
 some persons to be a notion, that the importation of corn is 
 a neio thing. They seem to forget, that, during the last 
 
Stcs sex Journal : Battle, 77 
 
 war, when agriculture was so prosperous, the ports were 
 always open: that prodigious quantities of corn were im- 
 ported 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 com- 
 pletely 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 pre- 
 parations 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 
 
78 Sussex J otirnal: Battle. 
 
 time; given triple gains to every lender, and placed every 
 borrower in jeopardy/ 
 
 Kensington^ Friday, ^ fan, 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 I 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 im7noveable ; 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 owner- 
 ship is an empty sound. Thus, at last, the burthen will, as I 
 always said it would, fall upon the landowner ; 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 
 
 ^ This refers to a feature of the old law of debt, by which only half a 
 man's freehold could be seized "in execution." Although under the law 
 of insolvency then existing the person of the debtor might be imprisoned 
 until the debt was satisfied. In both these respects, the law has been 
 amended. 
 
Stissex Jotirnal: Battle. 79 
 
 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 j 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 j 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. Accord- 
 ingly, 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, over head. 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 181 7, 1 had just planted 
 
8o Sussex Journal : Battle. 
 
 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 crea- 
 tion, is so delightful to behold, as the bed of a coppice be- 
 spangled 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 Pro- 
 vidence has benignantly appointed to sweeten the toils, by 
 which food and raiment are produced ; these the Enghsh 
 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 ! Is there a torment surpassing 
 the wickedness of thy inventor ! 
 
Stcssex Journal : Lewes. 8i 
 
 SUSSEX JOURNAL : THROUGH CROYDON, GODSTONE, EAST- 
 GRINSTEAD, AND UCKFIELD, TO LEWES, AND BRIGHTON ; 
 RETURNING BY CUCKFIELD, WORTH, AND RED-HILL. 
 
 Lewes, Tuesday, 8 yiin., 1S22. 
 
 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 is to be done 
 by knife or by caustic j 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) 
 
 ^ If such were the author's fears on account of the growth of London in 
 1822, what would be his amazement, were he to see London at the present 
 day, extending, as it does, from E. to W. for upwards of 13 miles and 
 from N. to S. for upwards of 10 miles, and having a population, within 
 the area of the Metropolitan and City Police Districts, of nearly Five 
 millions ? 
 
 VOL. I. F 
 
82 Sussex J ou7''nal : Lewes. 
 
 and then what is to become of haif 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 He 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 
 We?i. — 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 72) 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 
 
 ^ This epithet is applied to Pitt, owing to his having been at the helm 
 of affairs during the French Revolutionary war. 
 
 Prettyman had been Pitt's private tutor, and was afterwards made Bishop 
 of Lincohi. The relations between the Author and the " Heaven-born 
 minister " had greatly changed of late. Upon Cobbett's return to England 
 from America in 1800, he met Pitt at dinner at Windham's house (Wind- 
 ham being at that time Secretary of War). The meeting was a cordial one ; 
 indeed there seemed to be so much sympathy of views that Cobbett ex- 
 pressed his resolution to Pitt, to start a daily paper in support of the 
 Government, but subsequent events led him to abandon the project. 
 Indeed, five years later, we find that Cobbett, in his Political Register, charges 
 Pitt with having deserted his principles, and he points out the discrepancy 
 which existed between his profession and his practice. He explains that 
 the Mr. Pill, whom he had once described as the " Heaven-born minister " 
 " was at that time the corner-stone of the Confederacy against Republican 
 France till the political balance of Europe was completely restored," not 
 the " Mr. Pitt who advised and upheld the peace of Amiens ; " moreover, 
 "that the Mr. Pitt whom he praised, was the I\Ir. Pitt who declared that 
 he would carry on war for any length of time without the creation of any 
 new debt, not the Mr. Pitt, who two years later justified the peace as 
 necessary, and created new debt to the extent of about ;^70,ooo,ooo 
 
 sterling The Author, however, somewhat overlooked the fact 
 
 that subsequent events had of necessity led Pitt to modify his opinions, 
 and moreover that his own views had undergone a considerable chancre 
 since he dined with the 'Heaven-born minister' at Secretary Windham's." 
 
Sussex Journal: Lewes, 83 
 
 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, 
 liappily 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 hedge- 
 rows, coppices, and oak woods, which country continues till 
 you quit Surrey about two miles before you reach East-Grin- 
 stead. 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-Grin- 
 stead, 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 ail 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, present you with black, ragged, hideous 
 
84 Sussex Journal : Lewes. 
 
 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-Doivn 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. Ell- 
 man may say, that he thought he was right ; but if he had read 
 my New Year's Gift to the Farmers, published in the pre- 
 ceding 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 referrino- 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. 
 
Sussex Journal : Lewes. 85 
 
 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. EUman 
 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. EUman did not 
 present a parcel oi esthtiates 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, 
 
 Lewis, Wednesday, gjan. 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 representatioji and Royal 
 
86 Sussex Journal: Lewes. 
 
 Commissioner of Inimitable Bank Notes, Mr. Davies Gidd)', 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 Lewis I believe) disapproved of the petition, 
 and, in a speech of considerable length, and also of consider- 
 able 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 any thing 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 
 
Sussex Journal : Lewes. 87 
 
 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 seconder 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 — 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 Lap- 
 land. — 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 
 healthy 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 
 
88 Sussex Journal : Lewes, 
 
 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 
 Egrejnont : — '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 ; seei?ig, 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 member ; and 
 ' 2vho are men^ and a little better 7nen too^ than such employers as 
 " these^ who are, in fact, mo7isters i7i human shape P 
 
 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 
 roofn f 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 con- 
 siderable 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 
 
Sussex Journal: Lewes. 89 
 
 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. EUman 
 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, be- 
 fore 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- 
 smelhng 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 ex- 
 pose 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 EUmans, 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 
 EUmans as reci'uits and to have suited my tickler to the 
 tenderness of their backs. — I hear that Mr. Ingram of Rotten- 
 dean, 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 husband- 
 man ; but the unnatural working of the paper-system has 
 subhmated 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 
 
QO Stissex Journal: Lewes, 
 
 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 pros- 
 pect 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 extra- 
 ordinary 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 /;/ /;-/;//, 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 hell 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, tha^ \q\.2X ruin which now menaces them. But, the 
 labourer, was I to have no feeling for him ? Was not he my 
 countrynia?i 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 state- 
 ment of the fact was not mine ; I read it in the newspaper as 
 having come from Mr. Ellman the younger ; he, in a very 
 
Sti^ssex Journal : Lewes. 91 
 
 laudable manner, expressed his horror at it j 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 
 Deen put on hy 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 in- 
 human act, was an act of Sussex farmers.^ 
 
 Brighton, Thursday^ \oth ^an., 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 outskirts ; the pave- 
 ments good and complete ; the shops nice and clean ; the 
 people well-dressed ; and, though last not least, the girls re- 
 markably 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, 
 shewed 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 
 
 ^ This story of Cobbett's may seem incredible in modern times, yet it 
 would appear that the practice was alluded to by some of the Poor Law 
 Commissioners, and on a Motion in the Upper House for an inquiry into 
 the state of the Country (March i8th, 1830), the Duke of Richmond said 
 " that he had remonstrated against putting men to draught- work like 
 horses in Sussex, with a man over them to drive them." 
 
92 Sussex Journal: Lewes, 
 
 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, 
 Hes 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 
 
 ^ The name of the Russian Emperor's palace at Moscow. The Pavilion, 
 thus styled the Kremlin, consists of a Marine Palace, a fantastic Oriental 
 structure, with domes, minarets, pinnacles, and Moorish stables. — It was 
 commenced, as a sea-side residence for the Prince of "Wales, in 1784, and 
 was not completed until 1827. 
 
 It is now the property of the Corporation of Brighton, and with its 
 fine pleasure-garden of about 7 acres, is devoted to the recreation of the 
 inhabitants. 
 
Journal: Brighto7t, 93 
 
 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 Kre?filtn / " 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^ \\ 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 
 
94 Journal: Battle, 
 
 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 pubHc papers, that he had nothing to 
 do with my being at the dinner at Battle ! Who the D — 
 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 apprize 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, with- 
 out 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 ad- 
 dressed himself to me in a very peculiar manner, and that I 
 never addressed myself to him except in answer; and, if he 
 had thought ^^i?iquiry" 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 artizan 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 appear- 
 ances, 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 
 
Journal: Battle, 95 
 
 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 metnbers of pai'liament 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 deviUsh 
 " 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 Lewis Express " have, out of mere modesty, I dare say, 
 fallen a little into Mr. Curteis's straia In closing their 
 account (in their paper of the 15th) of the Lewis Meeting, 
 they say, that I addressed the company at some length, as 
 reported in their Supplement published on Thursday the loth. 
 And then they think it necessary to add ; " For ourselves, 
 *f we can say, that we never saw Mr. Cobbett until the meeting 
 *' at Battle." Now, had it not been for pure maiden-like bash- 
 fulness, 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 
 
96 Journal: Battle. 
 
 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 brushy and in large 
 letters, put into their placard, ^^ Mr. Cobbetfs 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 G — ! 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 newspaper, 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 reseiue^ 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, 
 
Htmtingdon Journal : Roys ton. 97 
 
 that they amuse me and the public too by dedining 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 Hunting- 
 don^ 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 77iorniiig, O-lstyan.^ 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 Hert- 
 fordshire, and which is twenty-three miles from the Wen^ is 
 chiefly a strong and deep loam, with the gravel a good dis- 
 tance 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 w^de. Yet the bottom is manifestly not very 
 
 VOL. I. G 
 
98 Journal: Huntingdon. 
 
 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 dis- 
 grace 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 sur- 
 face, 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 Hamp- 
 shire ; 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. 
 
 IIuntbigdo7ii 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 re- 
 semble that, at and near Faversham in Kent, which I have 
 before noticed. The fields on the left seem to have been en- 
 closed by act of parliament ; and they certainly are the most 
 beautiful tract oi 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 
 
Journal: Himtingdon, 99 
 
 ™ ' ■ " — — - ■ U ■ , I ■ ... „ . 
 
 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 con- 
 tained 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, Chesnuts, Walnuts, 
 Locusts, Gum-trees and Maples in America ! — Lord Hard- 
 wicke's avenue appears to be lined with Elms chiefly. They 
 are shabby. He might have had ash ; for the ash will grow 
 any where ; 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, every where the ash is fine. The ash is the 
 hardiest of all our large trees. Look at trees on any part of 
 
TOO Journal: Huntingdon, 
 
 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 lord- 
 ship 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 grow- 
 ing 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 oj^ihc 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 hurni-earih mixed with some dung ; and I see several 
 
Journal: Huntingdon, lOi 
 
 heaps of burnt-earth hereabouts. The directions for doing this 
 are contained in my Yearns 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 hack ox 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 re- 
 sembles 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, notwith- 
 standing 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 every thing that you could wish to find \ but this, 
 according to my judgment, has every thing 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. 
 
I02 Journal: Himtingdort. 
 
 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 \2Sidi^ 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 Godman- 
 chester 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 Farnhara, at Win- 
 chester, 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 unevenness of any sort. Here are boivling-grceus 
 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 
 
Hertfo7'd Journal : St. Albans. 103 
 
 from this bridge far surpasses that from Richmond Hill. — All 
 that I have yet seen of Huntingdon I Hke 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 EDGEWARE, STANMORE, AND WATFORD, 
 RETURNING BY REDBURN, HEMPSTEAD, AND CHESHAM. 
 
 Saint Albans, yune 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 
 hay -makers 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. 
 
I04 Journal: St. Albans. 
 
 Scotchmen toil hard enough iij Scotland ; but when they go 
 from home, it is not to woi% 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 ^^fe7nale" 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 carry- 
 ing of loads ; all the break-back and sweat-extracting work, 
 they leave to be performed by those who have Xt?^^ 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 jQ-t^ a load, that is i8 cwt. So that here 
 the evil of ^'■over-production " will be great indeed ! ^ Whether 
 we shall have any projects for taking hay mXo paivn 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 ; fiat, and all grass-fields and elms. 
 Few birds of any kind, and few consia7it 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- 
 
 ^ In spite, however, of Cobbeti's satire, there can be no doubt that over- 
 production, has been frequently the cause of commercial depression, 
 although it contains in itself the specific for its own cure. 
 
Journal: Kensington, 105 
 
 gardens and the orchards of Kent ! It is miserable land from 
 Stanmore to Watford, where we get into Hertfordshire. 
 Hence to St. 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 tallies 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?- 
 
 Kensinglofii yune 24, 1822. 
 
 Set out at four this morning for Redbourn, and then turned 
 off to the Westward to go to High Wycombe, through Hemp- 
 stead 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 
 
 1 It is an old saying in the country, " that drought never brought 
 dearth into England," and the author was accustomed to remark "that 
 uheat never wanted a drop of rain, from sowing until harvest." 
 
io6 Joicrnal: Hempstead, 
 
 corn-country. The trees from Redburne to Hempstead are 
 very fine j 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-iribe 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 in- 
 vented, 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 head- 
 lands would only be a harbour for weeds and couch-grass, the 
 seeds of whicli would fill the fields with their mischievous 
 race. — Mr. Tull has observed upon the great use of head- 
 lands. — It is curious enough, that these headlands cease soon 
 after you get into Buckinghamshire. At first you see now-and- 
 then a field witJiout 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. 
 
Journal: Chesham, 107 
 
 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 w^ater 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, Sussex, 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 a?id 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 I 
 
 The orchards all along this country are by no means bad. 
 
io8 Journal: Che sham. 
 
 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 fnerises in the plural. I saw the little boys, in 
 many places, set to keep the birds off the cherries, which re- 
 minded 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 j 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 n9t 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 
 
 ^ Buckle, in his " History of Civilization," remarks " that the population of 
 a country, though affected by many other circumstances, does undoubtedly 
 fluctuate with the supply of food .... that there is only one instance of 
 a great European people possessing a very cheap national food, viz. the 
 Irish .... that in Ireland the labouring classes have, for more than 200 
 years, been fed principally upon potatoes, which were introduced into that 
 country by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1610 . . . . that one acre of average 
 land, sown with potatoes, will support twice as many people as the same 
 quantity of land sown with wheat. That the consequence is, wherever 
 people live on potatoes, the population will (if otlier things are tolerably 
 equal) increase twice as fast as in a country where they live on wheat ; and 
 so it has actually occurred. Until a few years ago, the population of 
 Ireland was increasing (in round numbers) 3 per cent. ; while the popula- 
 tion of England (during the same time) was increasing only i^ per cent. 
 .... The result was that in these two countries the distribution of 
 wealth was altogether different. Even in England the growth of popu- 
 lation is somewhat too rapid, and the labour market (being overstocked), 
 the working classes are not sufficiently paid for their labour. But their 
 condition is one of sumptuous splendour, compared with that, in which, 
 only a {e\w years ago, the Irish Avere forced to live, and this evil condition 
 was the natural result of that cheap and abundant food, which encouraged 
 the people to so rapid an increase, that the labour maiket was constantly 
 
Journal: Chesham. 109 
 
 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 the 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 
 
 gorged." Again (the same writer remarks in another place), "that the 
 terrible potato famine in Ireland (1846 and 1847) was owing to the 
 excess, to which its cultivation had been carried." Moreover, he says, 
 "The results confirmed two great laws, viz., 1st, that plants long, and 
 almost exclusively, cultivated in any district are sure to fail at last ; and 
 2nd, that the almost exclusive dependence of a people on one source, or 
 means of support, is unfavourable to their welfare, in respect to all their 
 interests," 
 
iio Journal: High Wycombe, 
 
 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 ortho- 
 graphy 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 reflec- 
 tions. 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 fiandholders 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 con- 
 tinue, 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 
 
Journal : Uxb^ndge. 1 1 1 
 
 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 Lansdowne, 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 Dash- 
 wood and Sir Thomas Baring to the "collective wisdom."^ 
 The landlord where I put up, ^^ re??tembered" the name of 
 Dashwood, but had "forgoiien^^ 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 neigh- 
 bourhoods 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 over-charged 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 possibihty 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 
 
 1 A satirical allusion to the Houses of Parliament. 
 
112 Journal: Uxbridge. 
 
 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 earhness 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. Look- 
 ing 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 every where, 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 j and, 
 in short, this is one of the finest years that I ever knew. 
 
 Wm. cobbett. 
 
Kensingto7i to Uphusband, 1 1 3 
 
 RURAL RIDE, OF I04 MILES, FROM KENSINGTON TO UPHUSEAND ; 
 INCLUDING A RUSTIC HARANGUE AT WINCHESTER, AT A 
 DINNER WITH THE FARMERS, ON THE 28TH SEPTEMBER. 
 
 Chilworth^ near Guildford^ Surrey^ 
 Wednesday^ i^th Sept., 1822. 
 
 This morning I set off, in rather a diizzUng 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 Rich- 
 mond, 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 Saiiit Giles's : 
 dirty, and have every appearance of drinking gin. 
 
 At Chertsey, where we came into Surrey again, there was 
 
 VOL. I. H 
 
114 Rural Ride from 
 
 a Fair for horses, cattle and pigs. 1 did not see any sheep. 
 Every thing 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 beHef. Cows, 
 which would have sold for 15/. in 18 13, did not get buyers 
 at 3/. 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. 
 
Kensington to Uphusband, 1 1 5 
 
 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 Meetings that he was loosing his income ; and I told 
 him how it was that he was loosing 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, 
 
 ^ The author is here referring to a society of Government and political 
 agents, who styled themselves "The Loyal and Constitutional Asssocia- 
 tion." Their object was to issue political pamphlets supporting Pitt's 
 Ministry through thick and thin, and to repress Republicanism. The chair- 
 man was Mr. John Reeves, a barrister, who was afterwards raised to the 
 Bench. Cobbett averred, that the members were all more or less dependents 
 
1 1 6 Rural Ride fro77i 
 
 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 thera 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 
 
 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 en- 
 deavours. They say here, that, some little time back, his Lord- 
 ship, 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 there- 
 fore, 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 /<?////rj/ cour- 
 age, 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 
 
 on the Government, and he humorously describes the various kinds of 
 support that they received j e.g., that the chairman was joint patentee of 
 the King's printer, and pocketed ;i{^4000 per annum ; that another shared 
 in ihe profits of a newspaper paid for by the Treasury ; and that a third 
 ^\•as a *' Commissioner of Scotch herrings" &c. &:c. 
 
Kensington to Uphusband. 1 1 7 
 
 their efiforts 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 ParUament. 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 1 There may be sales and 
 conveyances ; there may be recoveries, deeds, and other parch- 
 ments ; 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 turn- 
 pikes, 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. The 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 
 
1 1 8 Rural Ride from 
 
 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. Rathei 
 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 every where 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 South wark 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^-. The 
 carrying to market not less than 5X. Here is the sum of 3/. 
 
 ^ The previous editor mentions that in the 12th century the Vale of 
 Gloucester produced as good wine as many provinces in France ; that 
 Domesday Book gives the number of barrels produced on each estate ; and 
 that the reason why the cultivation of the vine has been dropped has been 
 traced by some authorities, to our treaties with foreign nations, to take 
 wine in exchange for our manufactures. 
 
Kensington to Uphusband, 1 1 9 
 
 \os. of the money. Supposing the crop to be half a ton to 
 the acre, the bare tillage will be lox. The poles for an acre 
 cannot cost less than 2/. a-year ; that is another 45. to each 
 hundred of hops. This brings the outgoings to Z2S. 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 2^ 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, Surtey, 
 Thursday, 26 Sept. 
 
 We started from Chil worth 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 
 
 1 The Mr. Birkbeck to whom reference is here made, had been a pros- 
 perous farmer in the old country, and had emigrated to the United States 
 and settled in Illinois. From his new home, he published some letters 
 with the view of inducing English farmers to follow his example. On a 
 journey back to the coast on his way to England he was unfortunately 
 drowned while crossing a river. 
 
1 2 o Rural Ride from 
 
 the turnpike-road between Guildford and Godalming, went 
 on through Godalming, and got to Lea, which lies to the 
 north-east snugly under Hind-Head, about ii 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 dearly as the sun at 
 ^ioo?tday" ^ the celebrated Charles Long, and the scarcely less 
 celebrated Robert Ward, to the celebrated House of Com- 
 mons, 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 
 
 ^ These words are quoted from a speech by Mr. Ponsonby, M.P., ia the 
 House (nth May 1809), respectmg Parliamentary " seat-selliiig^^ by Minis- 
 ters. Mr. Maddocks, M.P., had accused Lord Castlereagh of having sold a 
 seat to a Mr. Quinton Dick for ^^3000, and stated that when Mr. Dick had 
 intimated that he should vote upon a certain Government question, accord- 
 ing to the dictates of his conscience, Lord Castlereagh put before him the 
 alternative of either voting with the Government or of resigning his seat, 
 and that Mr. Dick had chosen the latter course. Mr. Ponsonby said 
 *'such things were known to be done by hundreds, and why therefore 
 inquire into this transaction ? The practice of trafficking in seats had become 
 as glaring as the noonday sun." Nor was there any exaggeration in this 
 statement. Seats in Parliament were daily advertised for, in Whig papers ; 
 e.g.^ in Norning Post (ist May 1807) the following appears : — " Seat in a 
 certain Assembly : any gentleman having the disposal of a close one may 
 apply," &c. &c. Also in Morning Chronicle (21st May 1807) appeared the 
 following : — " A certain great Assembly. 1400 guineas per annum will be 
 given for a seat in the above Assembly. Letters addressed to," &c. This 
 shameful practice was put an end to, by the Reform Bill of 1832. It may 
 be remarked that while this barefaced corruption was being countenanced 
 by the Government, a poor tinman, named Hamlin, at Plymouth, was 
 prosecuted by the Attorney-General for having offered a sum of money 
 for an appoiiitment in the Customs. He was fined and imprisoned, and 
 soon afterwards died from grief and misery, although he solemnly declared 
 his ignorance of the crime, and asserted that he had seen, for years past, 
 Government places publicly advertised for sale 
 
Kensington to Uphusband. 1 2 1 
 
 them to Jews, loan-jobbers, stock-jobbers, placemen, pen- 
 sioners, sinecure people, and people of the " dead weight." ^ 
 But, his wonder ceased j 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 
 *' Ci'own-Tenants" and when I described to him certain dis- 
 tricts 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 informa- 
 tion 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 
 
 ^ This was the name given by Lord Casllereagh to the annual pensions 
 of half-pay officers and other servants of the Government. In 1805 Cobbett 
 printed " An Account of Places, Pensions, Sinecures, &c., being a complete 
 exposure of the cost, influence, patronage and corruption of the Borough 
 Government." The plan was copied by others, and the list swelled to 
 enormous proportions under different hands. 
 
 What would Cobbett say if he saw the following items in the Army Esti- 
 mates for 1883-1884? viz. : — 
 
 Rewards for distinguished services .... ;i^25,8oo 
 
 Half-pay 93, 500 
 
 Retired pay, pensions, &c 1,314,500 
 
 Widows' pensions ....... 143,200 
 
 Pensions for wounds 16,500 
 
 Chelsea and Kilmainham in-pensions . . . 33>377 
 
 Out-pensions I>777,900 
 
 Superannuation allowances . t ^ » . 195,000 
 
 ;^3. 599, 777 
 
12 2 Rttral Ride from 
 
 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 dis- 
 charge 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 \}i\^ public property 
 we see the suitable thing. And who can possibly object to 
 this, except those, who, amongst them, now divide the posses- 
 sion or benefit of this property? I have once before men- 
 tioned, 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 j 
 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 re- 
 ducing refits^ 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 
 
Kensington to Uphusbmid, 12'' 
 
 J 
 
 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 ^weeps down from the 
 summit of Hind-Head across to the north over innumerable 
 hills of minor altitude and of an infinite variety of shapes to- 
 wards 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 inclosed 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 bf England. 
 The trees are more spiral in their form. They grow much 
 faster than upon any other land. Yet, the timber must be 
 better J 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, HampsJiire, 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 
 
 1 These Reforms were, after all, not so long delayed. In 1832 was 
 passed the first Reform Bill, which cured some of the defects of our repre- 
 sentative system j while in 1835 was passed the Municipal Reform Bills 
 (5 and 6 William IV. c. 76), which rectified many of the abuses of our 
 municipal system. 
 
 2 The "old friend" he referred to was Mr. Nicholls of Odiham, North 
 Hants. The late editor says, that having been a large holder of lay tithes, 
 the author applied to Mr. Nicholls the name of " the grey-coated parson." 
 
124 R^t ral Ride fro7n 
 
 plain market-town. Our direct road was right over the heath 
 through Tilford to Farnham ; but we veered a Uttle 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 any thing 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 be- 
 neath 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 
 
Kensington to Uphusband, r 2 5 
 
 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 
 disport 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 j 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 educa- 
 tion ; 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 School, 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 
 
1 2 6 Rural Ride from 
 
 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 We)'. 
 /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 abso- 
 lutely 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 advan- 
 tageously 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.y Is this Mr. Canning's '' Sun of Pro- 
 sperity V 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 
 
Kensington to Uphusband, 127 
 
 you;^ bat I was not bom 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, 
 T 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 con- 
 vinced, 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 com- 
 passion as themselves, which they acknowledged. 
 
 We immediately after 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 
 
 ^ The author elsewhere expresses the following sentiments relative to 
 the respective ''forms of government " in England and America : — 
 
 "I have observed before, and I beseech you to attend to it, that the words 
 liberty, freedom, rights, and the rest of the catalogue which hypocritical 
 knaves send rolling oflf the tongue, are worth nothing at all : it is things 
 that we want. Those men who make a fuss about sorts of government, 
 and who tell us about the good things which arise from the Republican 
 Government of America, deceive themselves, or deceive others. It is not 
 because the government is Republican, but because it is cheap ; and it is 
 cheap, not because it is Republican, but because the people choose those 
 who make the laws and vote the taxes." 
 
 *' If the President of America were called King of America (instead of 
 being called President) it would be of no consequence to the people, if the 
 King cost no more than the President now costs. Nothing is worth look- 
 ing after, nothing is worth talking about, but the cost \ because it is this 
 that comes and takes the dinner from the labourer, and that takes the coat 
 from his back. We have had during this last winter (1830 to 1831) a 
 clear proof that we never can have relief except through the means of a 
 Reform in Parliament.^ During the winter before, Sir James Graham 
 proved that one hundred and thirteen of the aristocracy of England 
 received out of the taxes ;^650,ooo per annum, a sum equal in amount 
 to a year's poor-rates of the five counties of Bedford, Berks, Bucks, 
 Cambridge, and Cumberland.^ 
 
 1 Alluding to the ricts which took place at the time of the parsing of the " Reform 
 Bill." 
 
 2 Some modern politicians contend that, in spite of the Reform of Parliament, the cost 
 of Government is s,till excessive. I'he average cost per head of the population increases. 
 
12 8 Ru7^al Ride from 
 
 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, 2%th September. 
 
 Just after day-light we started for this place. By the turn- 
 pike 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-Can- 
 dover, Chilton- Candover, Brown- Can dover, 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 any thing 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 j 
 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 
 
Kensington to Uphusband. 129 
 
 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 \k\^ 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 reflect- 
 
 ^ The former Editor remarks, "tliat some yews, growing at Fountain 
 Abbey, Yorkshire, are supposed to be more than 1200 years old." The 
 "Yew" was much used in ^ery early times for making bows, and the 
 reason why the yew is generally found in our ancient churchyards, has 
 been supposed to be in order to protect its growth, at the time when the 
 " bow " was the principal weapon of warfare. A more probable reason, 
 however, appears to be, that the yew (on account of its extreme tenacity to 
 life) was regarded as an emblem of immortality ; hence it was planted 
 among the dead, to inspire mourners with hope. Jesse (in his " Gleanings 
 in Natural History ") refers to the prodigious size of some of the trees in tlie 
 Royal Parks, e.g., he speaks of two elms in Hampton Court Park (called 
 the Giants), the trunk of one measuring 28 feet in circumference ; also of 
 an oak in Windsor Park which was 38 feet in circumference, and likewise 
 of a beech measuring 36 feet. Moreover, he mentions an oak, which grew 
 at Newport in Monmouthshire, and which was purchased for the 
 Plymouth Dockyard in 1810. It overspread 452 square yards of ground, 
 and measured 2426 feet of timber, and was valued at upwards of ;i^6oo. 
 He also refers to some oaks in Sherwood Forest, which, when sawn up, 
 revealed the letters K. I. with a crown distinctly in the centre. If the 
 letters referred to King John (who reigned from 1 199 to 1216), and sup- 
 posing that the trees would have lived 200 or 300 years longer, it brings 
 the age of the oak to nearly looo years. 
 
 VOL. I. I 
 
130 Ricral Ride from 
 
 ing 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. Every thing 
 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 pur- 
 suing 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. 
 
 ^ The remarks of the author are true, so far as they go ; but the results 
 of the w oiking of the Elementary Education Act seem to point out that in 
 
Kensington to Uphusband, 131 
 
 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, 
 commo7i honesty J speaking the truth, and refraining frofti thiev- 
 ing ; and to secure these, the labourer must have his belly-full 
 2ix\(l he 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 
 vie to find in a town containing a Cathedral. Having done 
 
 order to secure the moral improvement of a nation, religious and secular 
 education must go hand-in-hand. 
 
 Buckle in his " History of Civilization " says — " That there is an intimate 
 connection between the religious opinions of a people and their knowledge, 
 and that the religion of mankind is the ^effect'' of their improvement, 
 not ihe ^ cause'' Qi'\\.." And again, he says — "The savage can never experience 
 the deeper and inward change of religion which alone is durable, while 
 he is sunk in an ignorance that levels him with the brutes." Remove 
 the ignorance, and then the religion can enter. 
 
132 Rural Ride from 
 
 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-Ads 
 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 loth 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 
 
 R USTIC HARANG UE, 
 
 Gentlemen, — Though many here, are, I am sure, glad to 
 see ine^ I am not vain enough to suppose that any thing 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. 
 
Kensington to Upkusband, 133 
 
 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 
 
 ^ As the author speaks here, and elsewhere, of " Tithes '' being public 
 property, it may be well briefly to refer to the history of Tithes ; and also 
 to allude to the views of the author, expressed in his celebrated " Call upon 
 the Clergy," which appeared in his Political Register 28th December 1816. 
 " In speaking of the Revenues of the Church" (says a writer of the present 
 day on the State and the Church *) "it is necessary to point out that the 
 Church includes a number of Corporations, vv^ithout being a Corporation 
 itself. Each Bishop, Dean, and Chapter, or Parson of the Parish, is a 
 distinct Corporation, but there is no body of Persons known to the Common 
 Law capable of owning property on behalf of the Church at large. In 
 the main the wealth oj the Church consists of Lands, and of the Tithe-Rent 
 charge (for Pew rents are of modern origin, introduced during the present 
 ceniury by the Church Building Acts). 
 
 "Both were acquired in very early times ; but there is this very impor- 
 tant distinction between them, viz., that the Landed Estates are due to 
 Royal and private benefactions ; for no general territorial Endowment of 
 the Church was ever made by Law ; while the Tithes vi^ere a legal piovi- 
 sion expressly made for the maintenance of the national religion. 
 
 *' The extensive estates that came into the possession of the Episcopate 
 and of the Deans and Chapters, prove the generosity and piety of the 
 Sovereigns of England and the more wealthy among their subjects. It 
 was during the two centuries following the Norman Conquest that the 
 largest alienation of lands to the ecclesiastics took place, these lands 
 becoming freed from feudal services, from contributing to the defence of 
 the country, and from the liability to forfeiture and escheat. 
 
 " Tithes are defined as ' the tenth part of the increase yearly arising and 
 renewing from the profits of lands, the stock upon lands, and the personal 
 industry of the inhabitants. Tillies are generally classed under the divi- 
 sion of great tithes and small tithes ; the first, or prsedial tithes, consisting 
 of crops and woods ; the small or personal tithes consisting of the tenth part 
 of the profits of certain trades and fisheries. Generally, the Rector is held 
 entitled to the great, and the Vicar to the small tithes. Hence, it often 
 happens that very poor livings are found in combination with the finest 
 and largest parish churches, which in the days before the Reformation had 
 belonged to some wealthy Abbey or Priory. But now the scale of Endow- 
 ment is no longer proportionate to the magnificence of the Church, the 
 great Tithes, on the suppression of the old religious houses, having been 
 acquired and being still enjoyed by some layman, who, so far as parochial 
 endowments are concerned, is in law the rector of the parish. 
 
 "The payment of tithe was ordered in this country by Ecclesiastical 
 
 * The State and the Church, by Hon. Arthur Elliott, M.P. Macmillan & Co., 1882. 
 
134 Rural Ride from 
 
 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 la7id 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 re- 
 duced 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. 
 
 Councils at the end of the eighth century. In the middle of the ninth century 
 a General Council for the whole of England, Lay and Ecclesiastical, was 
 held at Winchester, at which were present the various kings and magnates 
 of the land, and by this assembly a general tithe was ordered to be levied 
 in perpetuity for the maintenance of religion. Thus the claim of the 
 Church to tithes is older than the Monarchy. 
 
 " In modern times (even before the passing of the general Act) a money 
 composition was in practice, paid in most parishes, instead of tithes in kind. 
 Some two thousand Acts of Parliament are said to have been passed for this 
 purpose. 
 
 "In 1836 the Tithe Commutation Act was passed, by which Commis- 
 sioners were appointed to calculate the average value of tithes in each 
 parish of England by the value of corn during the preceding seven years, and 
 upon this basis to commute the tithes into an annual money payment. 
 Hence the value of tithes increases as the price of corn increases, and 
 dmiinishes as the price of corn diminishes." 
 
 The author's remarks upon Tithes in his " Call upon the Clergy " are 
 as follow : — 
 
 " There are persons who have told your people that your tithes are a tax, 
 that they are a heavy burden upon the farmer and the poor, and that they 
 are one of the great causes of the miseries of the people, but who are these 
 persons ? not the Reformers. So far from joining in this deceptions out- 
 cry against you, so far from putting the tithes upon the level of the taxes, 
 I have taken no inconsiderable pains to show the fallacy of such a notion. 
 I have reminded my readers that it would be difficult to show how the 
 mass of the people can suffer, because the rent of the landlord is divided 
 with the parson ; I have reminded them that if the tithes were abolished 
 to-morrow, they would only be added to the farmer's rent, and go to add 
 to the already immense estates of the landlords." 
 
Kensington to Uphusband. 135 
 
 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 
 
 1 This gentleman (the Rev. Edmund Poulter) was at the time Preben 
 dary of Winchester, and Rector of Meon Stoke and Soberton, 
 
136 Rural Ride from 
 
 confess, struck with this addition to the bench. These gentle- 
 men 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 proceed- 
 ing, 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 navies standing as giving sanction to the resolutions con- 
 tained 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 j but, what are the facts ? Why, that, in 
 Great Britain, six millions are paid in poor-rates, seven ?nillio?is 
 (or thereabouts) in tithes, and sixty millions to the fund-people, 
 the army, placemen, and the rest.^ And yet, nothing of all 
 
 1 The Poor Laws is a question so interwoven with difficulties, that it is 
 not too much to say that up to the present time, there has not been found 
 a perfectly satisfactory solution of the problem. In the middle ages, the 
 great body of the labouring classes were in a state of bondage, and looked 
 to their feudal lords for maintenance. — The obligation to provide for their 
 slaves, or serfs, seems to have been fully recognised. The "villeins "in 
 Saxon England were attached to the soil, and received from their lord a 
 portion of land for the support of themselves, and their families. The 
 Church constituted herself the great receiver and dispenser of alms. The 
 rich monasteries and abbeys distributed doles to the poor. The Laws of 
 different countries vary (i) as to the degree of want entitling a pauper to 
 
Kensington to Uphtisband, 1 3 7 
 
 this seems to be thought of but the six millions. Surely the 
 other and so much larger sums ought 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 pub- 
 lic 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 Minis- 
 ters have laid before the Parliament an account, called the 
 
 relief, (2) the extent to which the relief is a positive right, (3) the condi- 
 tions which give rise to a claim of relief, and (4) the incidence of taxation. 
 The annals of the poor in England are tedious and intricate. Up to the 
 reign of Richard II. (1377) paupers were treated as criminals. The 12th 
 Richard II. (1388) c. 7, is the first statute that makes provision for the 
 impotent poor ; many and various were the statutes enacted from time to 
 time, to effect the same object, up to the year i6or, when an Act was 
 passed (43rd Elizabeth c. 2), which has formed the basis of the Poor Law 
 system ever since. By it, every parishioner was taxed for the relief of the 
 poor. The 36th Geo. III., c. 10 & 23 (1796), extended the application of 
 relief, and allowed relief to be given in aid of wages. The complaint was 
 justly made that the Poor Laws were used as a mode for payment of wages. 
 In i8gi the Poor Rates amounted to ;^4, 000,000. In 1820 they had risen 
 to ;[^7, 330,254. The independence, industry, and honesty of the labouring 
 classes were being gradually undermined. A Commission to inquire into 
 the operation of the Poor Laws was appointed in 1832. The evidence 
 brought before this Commission revealed a disastrous state of things. 
 Farmers turned ofif their men, and then took them back from the parish, 
 at reduced wages paid out of the rates. There were many parishes, in 
 which every labourer was a pauper, paid more for idleness than he could 
 get for labour, paid more if he took a pauper wife, and still more for every 
 pauper child. The modest girl might starve, while her shameless neighbour 
 received one shilling and sixpence per week for every illegitimate child. 
 Paupers married at seventeen or eighteen, and claimed parish relief the day 
 after their marriage. By the New Poor Law Act, 4th and 5th William 
 IV., c. 76 (1834), all these abuses were remedied, and the expenditure was 
 reduced 20 per cent. In 1848, the whole system was placed under a public 
 Board, with a President, who is a Crown Minister. We shall have occasion 
 to return to this subject later on in this work^ 
 
138 Rural Ride from 
 
 account of the Dead Weight. This account tells how five 
 millions three hundred thousand pounds are distributed 
 annually amongst half-pay officers, pensioners, retired com- 
 missaries, 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, how- 
 ever, for there are the widows and the children, who have, 
 and are to have, pensio7is 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 ofi&cers 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. 
 
 ^ The present amount of "Dead Weight" as returned "in the Army 
 and Navy Estimates 1883-1884, under the head of "non-effective services," 
 is as follows : — 
 
 In Army Estimates jC3^S99f777 
 
 In Navy ,, 2,072,050 
 
 Total, ;^5,67i,827 
 
Kensington to Uphusband, 139 
 
 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 j 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 w^ell how rich that Church is : we know 
 
 ^ The term " Established Church " has given rise to a mistaken idea, 
 very prevalent, that at sometime or other the Church has been "estab- 
 lished " by Act of Parliament, and hence has been styled by some ** the 
 creature of the State." "The Church (says an eminent authoi-ity) never 
 was established, in the sense in which the Education Department or the 
 Post Office has been established. It is as much part of the original consti- 
 tution of the country as the Monarchy, which, in pomt of fact, it long preceded. 
 Its position is of course defined and regulated by Law, but it does not owe its 
 origin, as an Institution, to any definite act of the legislature or other sovereign 
 authority." It is a generally accepted fact that a Christian Church existed 
 among the several kingdoms of the Saxon Heptarchy long before the arrival 
 of S. Augustine, and that Christianity originally came to us through the 
 Church of Gaul. There was indeed no Church of England, because there 
 was no England, but <x number of separate kingdoms perpetually at war 
 with one another. S. Augustine and his forty companions landed in the 
 Isle of Thanet on 7th August 596, A.D. Ethelbert, King of Kent, was a 
 Pagan, although his queen (Bertha, daughter of Caiibert, King of Paris) 
 was a Christian. The missionaries, through her influence, were favourably 
 received, and Ethelbert himself soon became a convert, together with his 
 subjects. Otherkingdoms also followed his example. To Archbishop Theo- 
 dore (like S. Paul, a Greekof Tarsus), 673 A.D., we owe the present organisa- 
 tion of the Church of England, but it was not until A.l). 828 that Egbert 
 
1 40 Rural Ride fro7it 
 
 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 Hvings 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 I ^ Wliy, Gentlemen, what do we want more than this 
 
 King of Wessex, by conquest, became the first King of England, so that the 
 Church preceded the monarchy by 1 50 years. By the end of the eighth 
 century we find that the payment of tithes was ordered to be made by a 
 Legatine Council, with the sanction of the king. During this period, how- 
 ever, and down to the reign of King John, the usurpation of the Pope 
 increased ; so much so, that the first chapter of " Magna Charta " stipu- 
 lates "that the Church of England shall be free, and shall have her whole 
 rights and liberties inviolable, and shall also elect her own bishops and 
 abbots," Down to the time of the Reformation, the supreme authority in 
 ecclesiastical matters was vested in (i) the King and his Parliament, (2) the 
 Pope, and (3) the Church of England. In pre-Reformation times, therefore, 
 the Church of England was not merely " a part of the natiojt but was the 
 nation itself ''"' (in its religious aspect), for tlie only persons who did not 
 belong to the state religion were the Jews, who were foreigners as well 
 as infidels. The policy of Henry VIII. was to destroy the Pope's power 
 in England, not to attack the doctrines of the Roman Church, for he lived 
 and died a papist, and received from the Pope the title of Defender of the 
 Faith. The relations between Church and State have of late considerably 
 changed, not by reason of any changes in the Church, but in the attitude 
 towards the Church of those who are politically opposed to her. The 
 Church is no longer (in the original sense) the church of the nation, since 
 her ministrations are rejected and her doctrines disputed by a large portion 
 of the subjects of the crown. She remains however, " national," inasmuch 
 as all may alike enter the national churches and use the national church- 
 yards, and the poorest subject in the most remote parish of the kingdom 
 is under the spiritual care of her clergy, equally with the most exalted in 
 the land. 
 
 - The extreme poverty of a large portion of the countiy Clergy, for a 
 century and a half after the Reformation, was owing to the unscrupulous 
 manner in which Henry VIII., by aid of the acts of suppression 1535 & 
 1540, seized the endowments of the monasteries and priories, by which the 
 rural clergy had hitherto been supported. In the reign of Queen Anne it 
 was reckoned that 6000 Livings were of no greater value than ;i^5o per 
 annum, while there were hundreds worth less than ;(£"20. It was therefore 
 determined by the Queen (upon the advice of Bishop Burnet) to give up, 
 in perpetuity, her revenues in "First fruits and Tenths" (which before the 
 
Kensinglon to Uphtcsband. 141 
 
 one fact ? Does not this one fact sufficiently characterise 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, \\\^ 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 con- 
 vinced, 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 181 9; 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, there- 
 fore, 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 
 
 Reformation were claimed by the Pope and afterwards were appropriated 
 by Henry VIII.) for the augmentation and sustentation of the poor clergy. 
 A body called the Governors of Queen Anne's Bounty was incorporated, 
 which from that time to the present, with the assistance of private bene- 
 factions and Government grants, have greatly improved the value of the 
 poorest livings. 
 
 The present Annual Revenues of the Church, as given by Mr. Mulhall 
 in his statistics, are as follow : — 
 
 Tithes _;^4,o54,ooo 
 
 Committee Grants ,.,,.. 776,000 
 
 Other Sources 973,000 
 
 Total, ;^5; 803.000 
 
142 Rural Ride from 
 
 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 TCi2,dQ perpetual ; and the preamble 
 of the Act sets forth, that it is made perpetual, because the 
 preve?ittng 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 authorise 
 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 altera- 
 tion 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.i 
 
 ^ The difficulties to which the author here refers commenced in 1797, 
 when the Bank of England found itself likely to be obliged to suspend pay- 
 ments. The subject has been already commented on (see page 9, note l). 
 A legal tender clause was afterwards enacted in 3 & 4 William IV., c. 98 
 (August 1833). 
 
Kensington to Uphusband, 143 
 
 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 augment- 
 ing 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 every 
 body 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 
 
144 Rural Ride from 
 
 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 thoss 
 prices what they may. This, indeed, was acknowledged by 
 Mr. Huskisson in the Agricultural Report of 182 1. 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 
 i?iy 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 
 
Kensington to Upkusband, 145 
 
 them, that it was in that same room that I told them, that it 
 would not be long before Mr. Lockhart and those sable gentle- 
 men 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 circum- 
 stance; 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 any 
 body else. If they, therefore, now do their duty ; if they all, 
 like the yeomen and farmers of Kent, come boldly forward, 
 every thing 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 
 
 VOL. I. K 
 
1 46 Rural Ride from 
 
 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 noble- 
 men 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 deing 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 him- 
 self; 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 dis- 
 grace, and for that insignificance worse than disgrace, which 
 seems, after so many years of renown, to be attaching them- 
 selves to the name of England. 
 
 Uphusband, Sunday Evenings 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 
 
 ^ The truth of this remark was afterwards admirably illustrated in the 
 Parliamentary debate on the Reform Bill. 
 
Kensington to Uphusband, 147 
 
 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 sain-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 sain- 
 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 hazel 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 sfuall irees, 
 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 wrongs 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 Gardenings 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 home- 
 steads 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 
 
148 
 
 Rural Ride through 
 
 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 inhabi- 
 tants 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 author is anxious to prove that the Agricultural Interests are the 
 most important in the kingdom. His son (the late Mr. James Paul Cobbett, 
 Editor of the last Edition of Rural Rides), with the view to strengthen the 
 author's opinion, has inserted in his notes the following important analysis 
 of occupations, taken from Mr. Marshall's " Statistics of the British Empire " 
 (1837), and adds that gentleman's testimony to the correctness of the 
 author's views as follows : — 
 
 " Notwithstanding the prevailing notion of ' Manufacturing * being the 
 predominant interest of Great Britain, the analysis of the Population 
 Returns shows, that five-sixths of the whole are dependent on * Agricul- 
 ture ' for subsistence.'* 
 
 Of the Population of Great Britain. 
 
 Analysis of Occupations. 
 
 Num 
 Fami 
 1821. 
 
 Der of 
 lies in 
 1831. 
 
 Total No. of 
 
 Persons in 
 
 1831. 
 
 1. Agricultural Occupiers .... 
 
 2. Ditto. Labourers .... 
 
 3. Mining Ditto 
 
 4. Millers, Bakers, Butchers . . . 
 
 5. Artificers, Builders, &c. . . . 
 
 6. Manufacturers 
 
 7. Tailors, Shoemakers, and Hatter. 
 
 8. Shopkeepers 
 
 9. Seamen and Soldiers . . . , 
 
 10. Clerical. Legal, and Medical . 
 
 11. Disabled Paupers 
 
 12. Proprietors, Annuitants . . 
 
 5 
 
 250,000 
 728,956 
 110,000 
 160,000 
 200,000 
 340,000 
 1 50,000 
 310,239 
 319,300 
 80,000 
 100,000 
 192,888 
 
 250,000 
 800,000 
 120,000 
 180,000 
 230,000 
 400,000 
 180,000 
 350,000 
 277,017 
 90,000 
 110,000 
 316,487 
 
 1,500,000 
 
 4,800,000 
 
 600,000 
 
 900,000 
 
 650,000 
 
 2,400,000 
 
 1,080,000 
 
 2,100,000 
 
 831,000 
 
 450,000 
 
 110,000 
 
 1,116,398 
 
 Totals . . 
 
 
 2,941,383 
 
 3,303,504 
 
 16,537,398 
 
 The relative proportion of the Agricultural and Manufacturing Interests 
 has, since that time, greatly changed. 
 
 Mr. Mulhall, in his valuable work on Statistics supplies a statement 
 
Hampshire, Surrey and Sussex, 149 
 
 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, BE- 
 TWEEN 7TH OCTOBER AND 1ST DECEMBER, 1822. 327 MILES. 
 
 *jt7i to lOth 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 Highdere. The wheat sown here is 
 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 I a horrible thing to think of; but I hear it is still worse 
 in Wiltshire. 
 
 showing the number of persons depending on the various trades and pro- 
 fessions in the United Kingdom, of which the following is an extract.* 
 
 Occupations in United Kingdom. 
 
 Professional . . . 
 Commercial . . . 
 Agricultural . . . 
 Manufacturing . . 
 Various . . 
 
 Total . . 
 Children .... 
 
 Population . . 
 
 Thousands. 
 
 Ratio. 
 
 1851. 
 
 1861. 
 
 1871. 
 
 1851. 
 
 I86I. 
 
 1 
 
 1871. 
 
 387 
 
 759 
 
 3,922 
 
 4,254 
 8,539 
 
 599 
 
 822 
 
 3,436 
 5,842 
 8,299 
 
 794 
 1,038 
 2,989 
 6,241 
 
 9,457 
 
 2-2 
 
 4-3 
 21-8 
 
 23-8 
 47-9 
 
 31 
 
 4'3 
 i8-i 
 
 307 
 43-8 
 
 39 
 
 51 
 14-6 
 
 30*4 
 460 
 
 17,861 
 9,651 
 
 18,998 
 10,066 
 
 20,519 
 11,139 
 
 lOO'O 
 
 loo-o 
 
 lOO'O 
 
 27,512 
 
 29,064 
 
 3^658 
 
 ... 
 
 ... 
 
 ... 
 
 * Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, p. 331. Routledge and Sons, 1884. 
 
1 50 Rural Ride through 
 
 nth 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 nth of 
 October is the Sheep-fair. About ;2^3oo,ooo used, some few 
 years ago, to be carried home by the sheep-sellers, to-day, 
 perhaps less than ^'j 0,000, and yet the renfs 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 gent/emen 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 
 
Hampshire^ Surrey and Sttssex. 
 
 i^i 
 
 very good. This whole country has a chalk bottom j 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 
 Maiden 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 1 6 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 1 2 th 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 cui-iosity ; but there must have been a cause for 
 the curiosity, and that cause would, under the present circum- 
 stances, 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 
 
 ^ "The base accusation'' appears to have been, that Cobbett had been 
 associated in the conspiracy with Thistlewood and his associates, better 
 known as the Cato Street Conspiracy, in 1820. Thistlewood was a man of 
 
152 Rural Ride through 
 
 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. 
 
 \Z 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 Salis- 
 bury. You leave Tidworth away to your right. This is the 
 seat of Asheton Smith j 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 
 
 profligate habits, and the gang who were banded together with him were 
 men of desperate character. Their plot to assassinate the ministers of the 
 Crown, and to seize London, was to have been carried out on the occasion 
 of the funeral of George III., when the troops were withdrawn from London 
 to Windsor. The conspirators were, however, surprised at their meetino-- 
 place in Cato Street, Edgeware Road, and four of the ringleaders suffered 
 the extreme penalty of the law. Of course the accusation against the 
 Author was as false as it was infamous. 
 
Hampshire^ Surrey and Sussex. 153 
 
 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 farm-houses 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 2. 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 
 
154 Rural Ride through 
 
 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 applica- 
 tion 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 I " ^ 
 
 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 farm-yard 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 thorough- 
 fare 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; 
 
 ^ The Author shortly afterwards petitioned the House of Commons 
 against the severity of the Game Laws. At that time, half the criminal 
 conviction^ in Hampshire Avere for poaching. Attempts had been repeatedly 
 made in the House by Sir Samuel Romilly, and Sir James Mackintosh, 
 to ameliorate the severity of the Criminal Code, which attached the penalty 
 of death to many offences now considered comparatively venial. Not- 
 withstanding all that has been done, however, the Game Laws are still far 
 too stringent, and are often badly administered by interested Justices. 
 They are, moreover, opposed to the moral sentiments of the agricultural 
 labourers, many of whom still persist in treating "poaching" as venial, if 
 not praisewortliy. 
 
Hampshire, Surrey and Sussex, 155 
 
 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 Xht 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 resort- 
 ing to their temporahties. They have long enough been call- 
 ing 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, how- 
 ever, 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 
 
156 Rural Ride through 
 
 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 j 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 extindion. 
 They cannot think it unjust, if their prayers be now treated as 
 the prayers of the Reformers were. 
 
 27 /i? 29 October, 
 
 At Burghclere. Very nasty weather. On the 28th the fox- 
 hounds came to throw off at Fenwood^ 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 dung- 
 hill, 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 
 
Hampshire, Sttrrey and Sussex, 157 
 
 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, Ever- 
 sley, 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 excep- 
 tion 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 con- 
 tinuation to the Westward. There is a clay at the bottom of 
 the gravel ; so that you have here nasty stagnant pools with- 
 out 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 con- 
 tains not one single plantation of oaks ! That is to say, as 
 far as I observed. Plenty of/r-trees and other rubbish have 
 been recently planted \ but no oaks. 
 
1 5 8 Rural Ride through 
 
 At Sirathfield 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 anybody ask for more? It was 
 well, however, that she gave what she did while she was 
 drunk ; for, if she had held her hand till now, I am half dis- 
 posed to think that her gifts would have been very small. 
 I can never forget that we have to pay interest on ;£"5 0,000 
 of the money merely owing to the coxcombry 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 and 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 
 labourer's luages ought to fall, unless he say, that these pen- 
 sions ought to be reduced ! The Hampshire Magistrates, 
 when they were putting forth their manifesto about the allow- 
 ances to labourers, should have noticed these pensions to 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 
 
 ^ The name given to the Duke of Wellington by Sir Francis Burdett. 
 The military fame and glory of the '* Iron Duke " are too well known to 
 need any comment. He received pensions to the amount of ;;^4000 per 
 annum, and grants to the amount of £']Qo^ooo. In his political career he 
 was a strong Tory. He was*, however, the first minister to cede to the 
 growing popular power. While Prime Minister, in 1828, he proposed as 
 the first measure, the repeal of Roman Catholic disabilities. However, 
 afterwards he strenuously opposed the Reform Bill, and a London mob 
 broke the windows of Apsley House and pelted him in the streets. He 
 subsequently became Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. His last speech 
 in the House of Lords was in support of the ''Militia Bill," when he 
 declared that England had been carrying on war in all parts of the world, 
 with an insufficient peace establishment. He died at Walmer Castle on 
 Sept. 14, 1852. 
 
Hampshire, Surrey and Sussex, 159 
 
 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 accounts, 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 im- 
 ^^ provements, and are they not a proof of an addition to the 
 " national capital?" To the first I answer, May he 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 farm-houses have long been growing 
 fewer and fewer j 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 farm-houses 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. 
 
i6o 
 
 Rural Ride through 
 
 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 ras- 
 cally 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, and they are smooth. 
 The wretches can go to it from the 'Change without any 
 danger to their worthless necks. And thus it is ''^vastly im- 
 proved, Ma^a77i I " A set of men who can look upon this as 
 ** improvement," who can regard this as a proof of the " in- 
 creased 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 
 
 ^ The Author is here labouring under error, which the census returns 
 clearly indicate. The first census of Great Britain and Ireland was made 
 in 1 82 1, and it has been repeated at every decade. The population of 
 England and Wales in 1801 was computed at only 9,168,000. The popu- 
 lation of Great Britain and Ireland since the census has been taken was as 
 follows : — 
 
 June 1821 
 
 }j 
 j> 
 >> 
 
 M 
 
 1 u^l. • . a 
 I83I 
 
 24,409,311 
 
 I84I 
 
 27,049,575 
 
 I85I 
 
 27,737,363 
 
 I86I 
 
 29,334,710 
 
 i87i 
 
 31,857.338 
 
 1881 
 
 36,200,000 
 
Hampshirey Surrey, and Sussex, i6i 
 
 " 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 " culti- 
 "vated." Here is a fresh robbery of villages, hamlets, and 
 farm and labourers' buildings and abodes ! But here is one 
 of those " vast improvements, Mdam^' 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. EUman 
 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 N'ffvember, 
 From London to Egham in the evening. 
 
 ^ This referred to Mr. John Maberly, M.P., and his interest in contracts 
 for army clothing. 
 
 VOL. I. L 
 
1 62 Ru7^al Ride through 
 
 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 hke 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 zvorse 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 Bin- 
 field 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 be- 
 fore 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 can- 
 not 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, 
 
Hampshire^ Surrey, and Sussex, 163 
 
 o 
 
 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 goverfi- 
 7Jie?it^ and not from over-production I To be sure I had taken 
 some pains to remove that stupid notion about over-produc- 
 tion 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 forty 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 com- 
 pany, as I have this day found at Reading, 
 
1 64 Rural Ride through 
 
 10 October. 
 
 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 Hind- 
 head, which is certainly the most villanous spot that God ever 
 made. Our ancesters do, indeed, seem to have ascribed its 
 formation to another power ; for the most celebrated part of 
 it is called " the Devil's Punch BowlP 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 Read- 
 ing to Crookham, is very bad land and a very ugly country. 
 
 II November. 
 Uphusband once more^ and, for the sixth time this year, over 
 the North Hampshire Hills, which, notwithstanding their ever- 
 lasting 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, 
 
Hampshire, Surrey^ and Sussex, 165 
 
 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 bring- 
 ing 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 j 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, hke 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 Bourjt, which takes its name from the water that 
 runs down this valley. A bourn, in the language of our fore- 
 fathers, seems to be a river, which is, part of the year, 7viihout 
 water. There is one of these bourns down this pretty valley. 
 It has, generally, no water till towards Spring, and than 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 
 C^-hurstbourn, and the one below, Z>^a//2-hurstbourn ; which 
 
1 66 Rural Ride through 
 
 names have become Uphusha7id 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 I 
 passed by the viill on my way to get out 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 mischief than ever plagued 
 mankind before. However, the evils now appear to be fast 
 recoiling on the merciless authors of them j and, therefore, one 
 beholds this scene of papermaking 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 
 
 ^ Here the Author would seem to refer again to the issue of Paper money, 
 upon which as usual he pours out the vials of his wrath. — In the second 
 edition of Kural Rides, Mr. James Paul Cobbett, the editor, adds as a 
 note in loco, " that there seems to be good reason for believing that our 
 paper mills were also once employed, about 1790 or soon after, in making 
 paper for the forgery of French *assignats ' at the time of the Revolution." 
 
 After appropriating to national purposes the land belonging to the 
 Church, the French National Assembly, instead of bringing the land into 
 market at a time of insecurity, issued bonds, on the security of the land, 
 which were called " assignats,"as representing land assigned to the holder. 
 These "assignats " ranged from the value of 100 francs down to 10 or even 
 5 francs. — A great many of these '* assignats " were forged in England, on the 
 North Tyne and elsewhere. At one time " assignats," to the value of 45, 578 
 million francs, were in circulation. The effect was to raise the price of all 
 commodities to a fictitious value. At length their worth declined almost 
 to nothing, and in 1 796 they were withdrawn from the currency, and 
 redeemed at -^^ of their nominal value. 
 
Hampshire^ Surrey, a7td Sussex. T67 
 
 smile at their sufferings. Blasphemy ! Atheism-^'er^'^'TJ can 
 be an Atheist, that sees h.ovf justly these wretdxaJTare 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, 
 oi \\\q\x power^ their crimes and t\iQ\x pU7iishment, will do more 
 than has been done before, to put an end to the doubts of those 
 who have doubts upon the subject. 
 
 Quitting ^\'hitchurch, I went off to the left out of the 
 Winchester-road, got out upon the high-lands, took an "obser- 
 "vation,"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 j 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 of the time of Henry 
 the Eighth's " reformation.'^ It was, I beUeve, 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 iox four 
 
 1 This was Sir Moses Manasseh Lopez, M.P., who was convicted of 
 bribery and corruption, and suffered imprisonment. 
 
RiLral Ride through 
 
 \^\alf^ without so much as hinting at Swann's case ! 
 f-''^ /o^oould rather see this estate in the hands of Sir 
 Thomas Barmg, 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 Bedfo?'d I this 
 was plagiarism, to be sure; for Burke had begun it. He 
 called the Duke the Leviathan of grants ; and seemed to hint 
 at the propriety of the 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 
 
Hampshire, Surrey y and Sussex. 169 
 
 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 Stewart^ whose 
 lives and deaths surpassed what we read of, in the most senti- 
 mental 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 181 7. 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 sanie boat with the boroughs. I told them so in 
 1817 j and, I fancy, they will soon see all about it.^ 
 
 1 Lord Henry Stuart was associated with Mr. Robert Listen when the 
 latter was English ambassador in America in 1 798. A close intimacy sprang 
 up between him and the Author in America, which continued after they 
 had both returned to England. 
 
 2 The Author seems to imply that the Clergy of his day had identified 
 
1 70 Rural Ride through 
 
 Noveviber 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 Tiichbourtie} a family, 
 very likely half as old as the name of the village, which, how- 
 ever, 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 there- 
 fore 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 
 
 themselves with some of the worst abuses of the times. His strictures, 
 although too sweeping, were not altogether undeserved. The great bulk 
 of the Clergy were blind supporters of the Government. John Keble, in 
 his noted Sermon at Oxford, in 1833, on National Apostacy, gave the 
 signal for that great religious revival throughout the Church, which has 
 continued to the present time. It gave prominence to the sacramental 
 system and to the corporate powers of the Church, and enlisted a new 
 class of energies in its service. So great was the zeal evoked for Church- 
 building and Church restoration, that within the period of thirty years a sum 
 of Thirty millions was raised for these purposes alone, while Church School- 
 Houses were provided for almost every country village, and the Church 
 claimed by her zeal and charity to be the Church of the poor, and the 
 Church of the nation. 
 
 ^ This estate has been rendered notorious of late years by reason of an 
 extraordinary and long-continued claim to it having been made, by one 
 (supposed to be) Artliur Orton, who (after many years' absence from 
 England) returned in 1869 and represented himself to be Sir Roger 
 Tichborne, the long-lost heir. He was indicted for perjury, and after a 
 trial which lasted from May 1873 to February 1874, he was sentenced to 
 fourteen years' penal servitude. He has only recently been released on 
 ticket of leave. 
 
Hampshire^ Surrey, and Sussex, 171 
 
 m I I ™ ■■- - .1——. . I .. ■. ■ ■ I - 
 
 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 gipsies, 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 dis- 
 tinctive 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, for- 
 merly a large village, but now mouldered into two farms, 
 and a i^^ miserable tumble-down houses for the labourers. 
 Here is a house, that was formerly the residence of the land- 
 lord of the place, but is now occupied by one of the farmers. 
 
172 Rural Ride through 
 
 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 or 
 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 j 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, Warn- 
 ford, 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 htll, 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 ram- 
 parts had nothing of the principles of modern fortification in 
 their formation. You see no signs of salient 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 181 7, 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, 
 
Hampshire, Surrey, and Sussex, 173 
 
 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- We St 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 Aresford 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, rough- 
 ness 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 manage- 
 ment. 
 
 November ig io 2^. 
 
 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 
 
1 74 Rural Ride through 
 
 Hambleton and the like have been beggared for the purpose 
 of giving tax-eaters the means of making '■''vast i77iprovementSy 
 " 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, Ports- 
 mouth, 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 improve- 
 " ments. Ma'am ! " Does Monsieur de Snip call those improve- 
 ments, 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. 
 
 ^ This was absolutely the case in the suburbs of London during the dis- 
 tress of 1825 and 1826. 
 
Hampshirey Surrey, and Sussex, 175 
 
 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 repre- 
 sented 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 any thing 
 further to-day, I should have dwelt long on the beauties of 
 this place. Here is a very fine valley, in nearly an elliptical 
 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 Saxoji 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 j 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 in closures 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 
 
176 Rural Ride through 
 
 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 
 i\\Q _pa?'liamentary 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 I 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 English- 
 men, 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 ray 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 ?^ 
 
 ^ Cadiz, a fortified city of Spain and one of its principal seaports, has 
 the following eventful history. It was taken by the Spaniards from the 
 Goths and Moors in 1262. In 1587 Admiral Drake destroyed the 
 
Hampshire, Surrey and Sussex, 1 7 7 
 
 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. 
 
 Novcviher 24. 
 
 (Sunday.) From Hambledon to Thursley (continued.) 
 From East-Meon, I did not go on to Froxfield church, but 
 turned ofif 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 sometimes 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. 
 
 Spanish fleet in its Bay, In 1596 the city was pillaged and burnt by Lord 
 Essex, After the Revolution of 1808 it became the head-quarters of the 
 Insurrectionary Junta, by whom it was separated from the mainland. In 
 18 10 the French commenced a blockade, which was vigorously carried on 
 , until August 25th, 1812, when the victories of Wellington forced them to 
 abandon it. At the time referred to by the author (1823), it was besieged 
 and taken by the Bourbons, and held by them until 1828. The strength of 
 the garrison in 1 823 was 14,000 men. 
 
 VOL. I. M 
 
178 Rural Ride through 
 
 At Bower I got instructions to go to Hawkley, but accom- 
 panied with most earnest advice not to go that way, for that 
 it was impossible to get along. The roads were represented 
 as so bad j 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 descrip- 
 tion ! 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 7 " 
 
 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 
 
Hampshire^ Surrey and Sussex. 1 79 
 
 scenery. These hangers are woods on the sides of very steep 
 hills. The trees and underwood Jiangs 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 perpen- 
 dicular, 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 j 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, how- 
 ever, 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 well 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 
 
1 8o Rural Ride through 
 
 too ; for the soil is a sort of marl, 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 Ashma7is~ 
 worth La7ie 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 si2;hts. 
 
 After crossing a little field and going through a farmyard, 
 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-tracts, 
 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 situa- 
 tion ; 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 
 mamey which I have before described. The hop-roots pene- 
 trate down into this stone. How deep the stone may be I 
 know not j 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 
 
Hampshire, Sttrrey and Sussex. 1 8 1 
 
 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, some how 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 T 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 shoiv / 
 
 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 Hind- 
 head^ 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 \.\\t 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 deUghtful after 
 the flints and stone and dirt and sloughs that we had passed 
 
1 8 2 Rural Ride ihrouo^k 
 
 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-latids, on some parts of which our 
 Land Steward, Mr. Huskisson,i 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 Rufiis ; it is said 
 that this man is Lord of the Manor of Woohner 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 j 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 
 
 ^ The Honourable William Huskisson, M.P., is here referred to. At the 
 time mentioned he was Chief Commissioner of Woods and Forests. In 
 1822 he was President of the Board of Trade. In 1827 he was Secretary 
 of State for the Colonies. Through his exertions, the old restrictions on 
 the trade of the Colonies with foreign countries were removed. He also 
 obtained the removal or reduction of many import dudes, considerable 
 relaxation of the Navigation Laws, and is allowed to have been the great 
 pioneer of Free Trade. 
 
H amp shire y Surrey and Sussex. 183 
 
 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 " tvorks 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 Headley, 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 pubhc-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 heroic- 
 ally 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 
 
1 84 Rural Ride throtcgh 
 
 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 1 
 "yes, Sir, I know the road." I did not like this, *' I k7iow 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 inuch 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 I — 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 thtfoot, but on the tiJ>-top of that very Hind- 
 head, 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. 
 
Hampshire, Surrey afid Sussex, 185 
 
 It is odd enough how differently one is affected by the 
 same sight, under different circumstances. At the '•''Holly 
 " Bush " at Headley 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 \^€\x 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 Frivy Council, notwith- 
 standing the Right Honourable Charles Wynn and the Right 
 Honourable 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 j 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. H a wkley-h angers, pro- 
 montories, 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, 
 
I S6 Rtii^al Ride throitgh 
 
 which was once recommended to me, but which I never saw, 
 entitled " The History and Antiquities of Selborne" (or some- 
 thing 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^. a quarter, and 
 South-Down ewes at 12s. 6d. 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. 
 
 Nov. 25. 
 Thursley {Siirjey). 
 
 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 Parliai7ient, 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 18 1 7, just before I went to America, to get out of the 
 reach of our friend, the Old Doctor^ and to use my long 
 
 1 This was the nickname given in Pailiament to Lord Sidmouth, because 
 his father, Dr. Anthony Addington, had been Lord Chatham's medical 
 adviser. Henry Addington was on intimate terms with William Pitt, and 
 was elected member for Devizes in 1784. He attached himself (as was 
 natural) to Pitt's party. His fidelity to his leader was speedily rewarded. 
 He was elected Speaker of the House in May 1789, and in iSoi, when 
 
Hampshire, Szirrey and Sussex. 1 8 7 
 
 arm ; ^ as I said then, in a Letter addressed to Lord Gros- 
 venor, 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 construc- 
 tion. 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 pubHc 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 
 
 Pitt resigned, Addington succeeded him as Prime Minister and Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer. In 1812 he was made Home Secretary, and held that 
 appointment for 10 years. The part which he took in the Peterloo massacre, 
 in 1819, rendered him very unpopular. He was created Lord Sidmouth, 
 and resigned office in 1822. 
 
 ^ The country was in a state of the greatest excitement at the time here re- 
 ferred to ; 600 Petitions to the House of Commons (on behalf of Reform) were 
 presented in one day. The Ministry introduced the Habeas Corpus Sus- 
 pension Bill, and also a Bill for preventing " Seditious Meetings and Assem- 
 blies," both of which measures had for their object the silencing of Cobbett. 
 
 He stood at this time in the forefront of the battle of Reform. His 
 Register had a larger circulation than ever, and in his articles he boldly 
 points out that the Home Secretary (Addington) was the real revolutionist, 
 since "not he who demands rights, but he who abjures them, is an 
 anarchist." 
 
 Everything seemed to conspire to put the law into force against Cobbett. 
 The public were looking, as usual, for its weekly " oracle " on Saturday, 5th 
 April, when the news came (which took the whole country by surprise) 
 that Cobbett had sailed for America. The Register of that day contained 
 his farewell, the motives which prompted him in leaving the country so 
 suddenly, and his determination to continue the weekly Register imme- 
 diately upon his arrival at New Ycrk. 
 
 The plan which he adopted, in thus preparing his Register in New York, 
 where he would be free from molestation, and sending it to England for 
 publication, he calls his ^Uong army 
 
1 88 Rural Ride through 
 
 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 Weidit : 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 suit- 
 able to the subject, that this House does not '^work tvelll''' 
 
Hampshire y Surrey and Sussex, 189 
 
 This one Act, I mean this Banishment Aci^ 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 PeeTs Bill ! Oh, God ! thou Kxt 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 soJiie 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 
 
I go Rural Ride through 
 
 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 assist- 
 ance, 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 think- 
 ing ; 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. 
 
 Godalmiiig. 
 Novembet- 26 to 28. 
 
 I came here to meet my son, who was to return to London 
 when we had done our busmess. — 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 
 
ITampshire, Surrey and Sussex, 1 9 1 
 
 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, God- 
 stone, 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 par' 
 ticulars I must reserve till I have them in black and white. 
 
 In all parts of the country, I hear of landlords that begin 
 to squeaky 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 fund-holders are building houses. When I was 
 in Hampshire, I heard of terrible breakings up in the Isle of 
 Wight. They say, that the general route 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 punc- 
 tually, who had, of course, seven hundred pounds to pay to his 
 landlord last Michaelmas j 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 land- 
 lord 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 
 
192 Rural Ride through 
 
 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 1 " 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 West- 
 minster 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 genu- 
 ine, 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 pick- 
 ings, 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 any where 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, natu- 
 rally flee for succour to the Bourbons. This is, indeed, 
 
Hampshire^ Surrey, and Sussex. 193 
 
 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 land- 
 lords, in the Isle of Wight, as well as elsewhere, must make 
 the best of the matter. 
 
 N(n>ember 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. No- 
 thing 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. 
 
 DorM7ig, November 30. 
 
 I came over the high hill on the south of Guildford, and 
 came down to Chil worth, 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 ungrate- 
 ful man, so perverted as to make it instrumental in effecting 
 two of the most damnable of purposes ; in carrying into exe- 
 cution two of the most damnable inventions that ever sprang 
 from the minds of man under the influence of the devil ! 
 
 VOL. I. N 
 
1 94 Rural Ride through 
 
 namely, the making of gunpowder and of hank-notes I Here 
 in this tranquil spot, where the nightingales are to be heard 
 earlier and later in the year than in any other part of Eng- 
 land j where the first bursting of the bud is seen in Spring, 
 where no rigour of seasons can ever be felt; where every 
 thing 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 spread- 
 ing 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 cir- 
 cumstance, 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 m\.o 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 
 
Hampshire, Surrey and Stissex. 195 
 
 »*■ m i- ~ ■ » I IMI IMMMMIIIM ^^ ^1 ^^^ I IIBMI^MI II I ■ ^ ^M 
 
 then asking his leave to go out at the other end of it. This 
 scheme, though pretty barefaced, 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 exceed- 
 ingly 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 ex- 
 ception, 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 um- 
 brella; 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 
 
196 Rural Ride through 
 
 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 this back of the 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 breast- 
 work 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. Every where 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 
 
H amp shire y Surrey and Sussex, 197 
 
 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 wayj for, instead of hunting down an unfortunate 
 creature who has exposed himself to the lash of the law j in- 
 stead of regarding a crime committed as proof of an inherent 
 disposition to commit crime j instead of rendering the poor 
 creatures desperate by this species oi 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 revo- 
 lutions 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 cer- 
 tain 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 
 
198 Rural Ride through 
 
 ■ ■■■!■■■■■ ■-! .■»^ ■ ,. ,,,--■ ■ ■ ■ I m% 
 
 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 convul- 
 sive 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 de- 
 signs 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 piore 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 mon- 
 strous as that of a revolution that would leave no public au- 
 thority any where ; 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 be- 
 fore 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 ter- 
 minates at Shalford Common, down below Chilworth. 
 
Hampshire^ Surrey and Sussex, 199 
 
 Reigate, December I. 
 
 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 hiil, in Reigate, and close by 
 Gatton, how can I help reflecting, how can my mind be other- 
 wise 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^ trucks 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 ivatch over 
 its purity with the greatest care ; but that the said act being 
 " incohete" the House did not think it necessary to proceed 
 any farther in the matter ! It unfortunately happened, how- 
 ever, 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 
 
200 Rural Ride through 
 
 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 Sim 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 
 sometime yet to come. I hope it will become cohete during the 
 time that Parliament is sitting, for otherwise it will have cohe- 
 sion pretty nearly equal to that of the Marriage Act. In the 
 first place this Act makes chalk and lime every where 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 cultiva- 
 tion, 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 
 
 ^ The history of Turnpike roads is, that Tolls were considered the only 
 way of paying the cost of new roads made for the greater convenience of 
 the public, or of repairing some roads already existing. The first Toll was 
 taken in London for repairing the road between S. Giles and Temple Bar 
 about 1267. Another Toll was demanded for repairing the highways 
 of Holborn Inn Lane, and Martin's Lane (now Aldersgate Street) in 1346. 
 In 1827, twenty-seven Turnpikes were removed near London, by Act of 
 Parliament; eighty-one were removed in 1864; sixty-one in 1865, and 
 many others in 1871 and 1872. The 1st General Turnpike Act was 13 
 Geo. in. c. 84. The new Turnpike Act, to which reference is here made, 
 was (probably) 3 Geo. IV. c. 126. 
 
Hampshire y Surrey and Sussex. 201 
 
 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 those coun- 
 ties, cost a tenth part of the worth of the fee-simple of the 
 land. And this is enacted, too, at a time, when the waggons, 
 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 waggons and carts, or, that they shall be pun- 
 ished 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 ap- 
 proaching. — Mr. Charles B 'j 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 
 
 ^ Reference is here supposed to be made to Sir Charles Burrell, Bart., 
 M.P., who was one of those who afterwards attacked the Author as the 
 instigator of the incendiaries which raged in 1830. The most serious 
 riots occurred at Bristol, called the Gordon riots. The Mansion House, 
 Custom House, Bishop's Palace, gaols, and a large number of private 
 residences were burnt. 
 
 It is needless to say that in lieu of aiding and abetting such unlawful 
 acts, Cobbett used his utmost influence (both personally and by his pen) 
 to dissuade the infatuated people from such acts of madness. Again and 
 again he warned them against violence. " Poverty (he told them) even at 
 its worst, gave no man a right to view his rich neighbour with an evil eye, 
 much less to do him mischief.'' 
 
202 Rural Ride through 
 
 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 para- 
 graph; 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, accord- 
 ing 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 
 staid, 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 informa- 
 tion 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- 
 
H amp shire y Surrey and Sussex. 203 
 
 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 j 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. Huskis- 
 son, made in the House of Commons in 18 14, 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 land- 
 
204 Rural Ride 
 
 lord ? 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 every where 
 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, South- 
 ampton, 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 
 every body, 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 landlord 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 
 
From Kensington to Worth, 205 
 
 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 t\iQ 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 every body. 
 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 j 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 Co?nmons. 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 Cofnmons, 
 this nation enjoyed many ages of happiness and of glory. 
 Without Cominons, my opinion is, it never can again see any 
 thing 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. 
 
2o6 Rural Ride 
 
 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 sea- 
 side, 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 con- 
 stantly at work to make pleasant and quick travelHng 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. 
 
From Kensington to Worth. 207 
 
 W ■ ■!— ■ I ■ I ■ r -.1, _^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ , .1 .— .-I ,1 . ■ - -,. 
 
 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 came out of trade 
 and commerce 1 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 Black- 
 thorns 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 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 strip- 
 ping 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. 
 
2o8 Rural Ride 
 
 Wednesday^ *]th 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 any thing amiss with regard to it. — The land be- 
 tween 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 M^ell 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 
 afifair 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. Speciniens of the straw and//«^ will then be to be 
 seen at No. 83, Fleet Street. 
 
From Kensington to Worth, 209 
 
 FROM THE WEN [LONDON] ACROSS THE WEST OF SUSSEX, AND 
 INTO THE SOUTH EAST OF HAMPSHIRE. 
 
 Reigate {Surrey,) 
 Saturday, 26 yuly, 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 " c/wak us/' will not distress us, 
 will not " make us miserable by over-production ! " — The other 
 day a gentleman (and a man of general goodsense too) said to 
 me : " What a deal of wet we have : what do you think of the 
 weather nowV — More rain," said I. "D — those farmers,'' 
 said he, '* what luck they have 1 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 goal. The Quakers carry on the far 
 
 VOL. I. O 
 
2 lo Rural Ride across 
 
 greater part of the 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 pei'ish. 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 r^'e, along the road side, is ripe enough ; and some of 
 it is reaped and in shock. At Mearstara 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 former Editor draws attention to the circumstance that the 
 Author, notM'ithstanding his severe strictures here, on the whole body of 
 Quakers, yet elsewhere notices the difference to be observed between the 
 Quakers in trade^ and those engaged in rural pursuits ; {par ex.) Cobbett 
 had two friends in Pennsylvania, Messrs. James and Thomas Paul, who 
 were Quaker farmers, whom he visited and whom he highly respected. 
 
Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire. 211 
 
 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 be- 
 tween the Wen and Croydon j 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 182 1, 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 loth of 
 September. So that, all depends on the weather, which ap- 
 
2 1 2 Rural Ride across 
 
 pears to be clearing up in spite of Saint Swithin.^ This 
 Saint's birthday is the 15th of July; and it is said, that, 
 if rain '.fall on his birth-day, it will fall on forty days suc- 
 cessively. 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 not been 
 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 
 
 1 The legend is, that S. Svvithen, who was Tutor to King Alfred, and 
 afterwards became Chancellor of England and Bishop of Winchester, died 
 A.D. 862. He was buried, according to his desire, in the churchyard of 
 the Minster of Winchester, "that the sweet rain of heaven might fall 
 upon his grave." A century later he was canonised, and the monks 
 thought to honour the saint by removing his body into the choir, and 
 fixed the 15th July for the ceremony; but it rained day after day for forty 
 days, so that the monks saw that the saints were averse to their project, 
 and they wisely abandoned it. Out of this circumstance arose the still 
 current belief, that if the rain fall on 15th July, it will continue to rain for 
 forty days. 
 
 An old writer describes the Bishop *' to be a rich treasure of all virtues, 
 and those in which he took most delight were humility and charity to the 
 poor. He built several churches, and travelled through his diocese on foot, 
 and for the most part by night, to avoid the appearance of ostentation." 
 
Surrey^ Sussex and Hampshire. 2 1 3 
 
 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 grow- 
 ing 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 
 
214 Rural Ride across 
 
 victory I 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 I said I, and so you did after- 
 wards, 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 look- 
 ing 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 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, 
 
 ^Alluding to what is generally known as the " Peterloo Massacre," 
 July i6, 1819. A large body of operatives met on St, Peter's Field, 
 Manchester, in favour of Parliamentary Reform, and the chair (on open 
 hustings), was taken by Mr. Henry Hunt. The crowd, however, was 
 dispersed by order of the magistrates, several troops of horse being used 
 on the occasion. Some women among the crowd were cut down by the 
 sabres of the soldiers. Five or six lives were lost, and some hundreds 
 were wounded. 
 
Surrey y Sussex and Hampshire, 2 1 5 
 
 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 
 boroughmojjgerSf 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 sand-stone underneath. When you get down into 
 
2 1 6 Rural Ride across 
 
 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 com- 
 fortless. This has been a pretty good day ; but there was a 
 litde 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. 
 
 Billifigshurst {SJlss^x)^ 
 Friday Morning, i 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 teased and tormented, would 
 have slept in peace at night, and have fearlessly swaggered 
 about by day ! When I look at this little chap j at his smock- 
 frock, his nailed shoes, and his clean, plain, and coarse shirt, I 
 
Surrey, Sttssex and Hampshire. 2 1 7 
 
 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 Httle 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 mis- 
 creant tyrant like M'Kean, 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 Repre- 
 sentatives," 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. 
 
 Fe f worth {Sussex) 
 Friday Evening, 1st 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 ; stiif land, small fields, 
 broad hedgerows, 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 ; 
 
 ^ The Chief Justice of Pennsylvania (to whom allusion is here made) 
 was a violent democrat and a man of notoriously bad character. At the 
 time of the Revolution, he is said to have been the means of condemning 
 to death two worthy citizen Quakers, because they showed some trifling 
 act of kindness to British soldiers. 
 
 "Peter Porcupine " boldly and publicly condemned his infamous conduct, 
 and for this, and for some strictures which he made respecting the public 
 character of the Spanish Envoy (who had married M'Kean's daughter), 
 Cobbett was prosecuted for "libel against the King of Spain and his 
 Ambassador." The trial came on in November 1798, but the Grand Jury 
 threw out the Bill. In 1818, when Cobbett again visited America, he 
 memorialized the Pennsylvanian Government for compensation, and the 
 Chief Justice (at that time), stated that the proceedings complained of 
 were illegal, and that compensation ought to be made. 
 
2 1 8 Rural Ride across 
 
 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 produc- 
 tion," 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, iu general, may be fit to cut in about i6 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 j 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, 
 Leith-hill, 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 
 farm-yards ; the introduction of the Swedish turnip into the 
 American fields ; the introduction of American apple-trees 
 into England j 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- 
 
Surrey^ Sussex and Hampshire. 2ig 
 
 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 Borough mongering. 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 Mary- 
 land, 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 farm-houses. , 
 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 con- 
 venience in these congregations. It can lay its hand easily 
 
2 20 Rural Ride across 
 
 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 7nust 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 employ 
 ment of the country-women and girls, these must be kept up 
 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 
 girl-s. 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 sup- 
 planting 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 
 
Surrey^ Sussex and Hampshire, 221 
 
 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 produc- 
 tion. This will, of course, have a tendency to keep prices 
 from falling so low as they would do if there were no falling 
 ofi". 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 every 
 thing produced j 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 every thing 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 j 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 moods. 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, 
 
2 2 2 Rural Ride across 
 
 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 <?;z/y, 
 the nation deserves that which it will receive j 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, there- 
 
 ^ This term arose from the common story that large numbers of people 
 from the North, during the distress of 1816 and 1817, were said to be on 
 the tramp towards London each carrying his blanket, the only thing that 
 he could call his own. 
 
Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire, 223 
 
 fore, 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 con- 
 tract the Debt of ;£"8oo, 000,000, sterling. The Jacobins did 
 not create a Dead Weight of ;£i 50,000,000. The Jacobins 
 did not cause a pauper-charge of ;^20o,ooo,ooo, by means of 
 "new inclosure 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 Fra7ice should produce a 
 reform in England. These things are the price of that under- 
 taking ; 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 waddhng, 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 miUions. 
 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 per- 
 manent annual charge of about 8 or 9 millions, or, a gross 
 debt of ;£2oo,ooo,ooo. By these means, by these anticipa- 
 tions, 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 
 
2 24 Rural Ride across 
 
 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 greatcoat 
 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 Don- 
 nington, 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 
 
 1 The Rev. Gilbert White, the Author of this delightful book, lived for 
 forty years in the sequestered village of Selborne (his native place), ** dili- 
 gently observing the appearances of nature, and recording them in letters 
 to his friends." He died in 1793. No work on Natural History has been 
 more frequently reprinted. Among the various editions, one by Frank 
 Buckland, with a chapter of Antiquities by Lord Selborne (1875), is worthy 
 of note. 
 
Surrey y Sussex and Hampshire, 225 
 
 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 leav- 
 ing Petworth, and at Petworth, seems very good; a fine deep 
 loam, a sore 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 Hind- 
 head or Blackdown. The common, however, during the rage 
 for '' Improvements," has been inclosed. That impudent fellow, 
 Old Rose ^ stated the number of Inclosure Bills as an indubi- 
 table 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 CQxxi 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 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 
 
 1 Reference is here made to the Right Hon. George Rose, M.P., a 
 Government Official, who (among his other appointments) was Secretary 
 to the Treasury. He is said to have held situations worth ;{^ 10,000 per 
 annum, and to have received, in principal and interest, nearly two millions 
 of public money. 
 
 VOL. I. P 
 
2 26 Rural Ride across 
 
 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 hiU. 
 
 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 work 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 Q,2iS\. Judged 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 ^/^ 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, ^' Stafid dear / " These clouds (if rising from the South- 
 West) hold precisely the same language to the greatcoatless 
 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 re- 
 solved to come to this place (Singleton) to breakfast. I quitted 
 
Surrey^ Sussex and Hampshire, 227 
 
 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 j then to another called Westdean, I suppose j and 
 then to this village of Singleton, and here I am on the turn- 
 pike 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 j 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 staid 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 inquiries 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 j all good ; fine 
 crops, and no appearance of blight. The barley extremely 
 fine. The corn not forwarder, than in the Weald. No beans 
 
2 28 Rural Ride across 
 
 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 out- 
 skirts 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 hdiWQ fair play ; and I 
 should act unjustly towards these noblemen, if I insinuated 
 that the husbandmen have not fair play, as far as the land- 
 lords 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 they^?^^^/-system ; and 
 we, "enlightened " and '^free " creatures as we are, look back 
 with scorn, or, at least, with surprise and pity, to the "vas- 
 salage" 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 miUions 
 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 
 
Surrey^ Sussex and Hampshire, 229 
 
 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 vege- 
 tables 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 2. potatoe-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 " / tha 
 Sooth ;^^ and telling us how well they are off, in the North. 
 Now, this I know, that, in the North, the " enlightened " 
 people eat sowans, burgoo, porridge, and potatoes : that is to 
 say, oatmeal and zvater, or the root of extreme unction. If this 
 be the effect of their lighty give me the darkness *' 0' tha 
 
2 30 Rural Ride across 
 
 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 starva- 
 tion, 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 I Talk of villains I 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 se?ttry- 
 box. The parson, whose name is Davidson, did not, when 
 
Surrey, Stcssex and Hampshire, 231 
 
 the Return was laid before Parliament, in 18 18, 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 parson- 
 age 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 an 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 efiect 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 ;£"i25 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 
 jQZ^ 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 
 
232 Rural Ride across 
 
 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 even- 
 ings, 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 good- 
 ness to give it to her, and to point to her the Essay on Straw 
 Plat. 
 
 Fareham {Hants,) Saturday^ 2 Jugust 
 
 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 
 Plavant to bait my horse, about four o'clock. 
 
 From Lavant (about two miles back from Funtington) the 
 
Surrey^ Sussex and Hampshire. 233 
 
 ground begins to be a sea side flat. The soil is somewhat 
 varied in quality and kind ; but, with the exception of an en- 
 closed 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 other- 
 wise, 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 ! " ex- 
 claimed 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 I 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 ' difficidties 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 impos- 
 sible that there can be, any where, 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 t^-e 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, 
 
2 34 Rural Ride across 
 
 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 Wymering, 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 inquiry, that they began this morning, 
 and that the wheat belongs to Mr. Boniface, of Wymering. 
 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 18 13. 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 Petwarth to Fareham \ and I got in, in very good time. 
 I have now come, if I include my boltings, for the purpose of 
 
 ^ This saying is still common in the neighbourhood. Standing most 
 conspicuously on Poitsdown Hill is Nelson's Monument, which is a noted 
 land and sea mark. The Survivors of the Fleet after the Battle of Trafal- 
 gar (21st Oct. 1805), each contributed two days' pay towards the erection 
 of this memorial of one of England's greatest victories. 
 
Surrey^ Sussex and Hampshire, 235 
 
 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. S within 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 Kings'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 ex- 
 ' tremely detrimental to the agricultural interests. Its distress, 
 
236 Rural Ride through 
 
 *' 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 manu- 
 " facturing 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 any thing, 
 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 V^EALD OF 
 SURREY, AND THEN OVER THE SURREY HILLS DOWN TO 
 THE WEN. 
 
 Botley {Hampshire), ^ih August, 1823. 
 
 I GOT to Fareham on Saturday night, after having got a 
 soaking on the South Downs, on the morning of that day. 
 
Hampshire and Surrey. 237 
 
 On the Sunday morning, intending to go and spend the day 
 at Titchfield (about two 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 j fof 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, 
 
238 Rural Ride through 
 
 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 inquiries ; 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 farm-house close by the Church, and what was 
 more, not a great many yards from the dwelling of that delect- 
 able creature, the Botley Parson, whom, however, I have not 
 seen during my stay at this place. 
 
 Botley hes 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 IsHngton. In short, if I am rightly in- 
 formed, 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 
 
Hampshire and Surrey, 239 
 
 he found the village posted all over with handbills giving an 
 account of his adventure, under the pretence of offering ;£^5oo 
 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 appHed to 
 public purposes. 
 
 Easion {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 
 
 1 This anecdote has been very recently repeated to the present Editor, 
 by an aged widow still living at Botley, whose father was parish clerk 
 during the incumbency of the ** Botley Parson.*' 
 
 She well remembers the occurrence, and mentioned two gentlemen 
 who, in conjunction with Mr. Cobbett, were believed to be the authors of 
 the hoax, for although the latter may not have been the originator he 
 probably was a "sleeping partner" in the matter. The informant alluded 
 to, also mentioned other practical jokes of a similar nature ; to wit, a 
 large crate of rubbish that was forwarded from London as a present to the 
 Botley Parson, and also that the latter gentleman was once blistered and 
 confined to his bed for several days, for some imaginary illness insisted 
 uj)on by his medical adviser. 
 
2 40 Rural Ride throiigk 
 
 wliich 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 fine- 
 ness ; and, they sell it to some person or persons at Fareham, 
 who, I suppose, makes or make 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 7s. 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 thirteen shillings a week instead of seven 1 Very little, 
 indeed, could these poor things have done in the field during 
 the last forty days. And, besides, hovv clean ; how healthful ; 
 how every thing that one could wish, is this sort of employ- 
 ment ! 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 VQxy likely 
 that this will be done in the parish of Durley. A most im- 
 portant 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 
 
Hampshire and Surrey, 241 
 
 their proceedings at Durley, and if I do, I shall make a point 
 of communicating to the Public an account of those interest- 
 ing 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 atten- 
 tion 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 con- 
 soled j I cannot but feel that I have some compensation for 
 the sentence passed upon me by EUenborough, Grose, Le 
 Blanc and Bailey ; -^ and I verily believe, that, in the case 
 
 1 These were the names of the Judges who, on 9th July 1810, passed 
 the iniquitous sentence of " Two years imprisonment in Newgate and a 
 Fine 0/ £1000," upon Cobbett for some comments which he published 
 in his Political Register^ of 1st July 1809, upon the public flogging of some 
 soldiers at Ely. 
 
 The circumstances were as follow : — The Government paper of the day 
 ( The Courier) thus alludes to them, 24th June 1809 : — " The mutiny among 
 the Local Militia, whLch broke out at Ely, was fortunately suppressed on 
 "Wednesday, by the arrival of Four Squadrons of the German Legion- 
 Cavalry from Bury. Five of the ringleaders were tried by a Court Martial 
 and sentenced to 500 lashes each. A stoppage for their knapsacks was the 
 ground of complaint that excited this mutinous spi;it," &c. &c. Cobbett's 
 Weekly Register of ist July 1809 contained some very strong (but not too 
 strong) strictures upon the severity and the degrading circumstances of the 
 punishment. The article was headed " Local Militia and German Legion" 
 The following is an extract : — " Five hundred lashes each ! aye, that is 
 right, Flog them, flog them ! They deserve it, and a great deal more. They 
 deserve a flogging at every meal time. Lash them daily. What ! Shall the 
 rascals dare to mutiny ? And that, too, when the German Legion is so near 
 at hand ! Base dogs ! What 1 mutiny for the price of a knapsack ? Mutiny 
 for the price of a goat skin? and then, upon the appearance of the German 
 soldiers, they take a flogging as quietly as so many trunks of trees ; our 
 
 VOL. I. Q 
 
242 Rural Ride throtiS[h 
 
 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 ?ninds, 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 difi'erence between this affair and the 
 spinning-jenny affairs is this, that the spinning-jenny affairs fill 
 the pockets of " rich rufifians," 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 rufifians. 
 
 From Durley I came on in company with farmer Mears 
 through Upham. This Upham is the place where Young, who 
 
 gallant defenders require a little blood drawn from their backs and that 
 too with the assistance of German troops." 
 
 The Government determined to prosecute the Author for Libel. They 
 allowed a whole year to elapse before they did so. Meanwhile their partisan 
 papers excited in the public mind a prejudice against Cobbett. The trial 
 came on 15th June 1810, and the Attorney General (Sir Vicary Gibbs) 
 opened the prosecution in the Court of King's Bench. In doing so he 
 used his power vindictively and relentlessly. Lord Ellenborough s'ummed 
 up (not before midnight), and pronounced Cobbett's eomments " a most 
 infamous and seditious libel." A verdict of guilty was returned. Some 
 prominent members of the Ministry had openly boasted that they would 
 crush this bold patriot, and they believed they had succeeded. 
 
Hampshire and Surrey. 243 
 
 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 White- 
 flood, and here we cross the old turnpike-road which leads 
 from Winchester to Gosport through Bishop's Waltham. 
 Whitefiood 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 hiljl 
 along with me j 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 appear- 
 ance, 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 Ousel- 
 berry smoke, came upon the hill and wet me to the skin. He 
 was not far from the house at Whitefiood ; 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 Whitefiood you come over a series of hills, part of 
 
244 Rural Ride through 
 
 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 sup- 
 pose 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 some- 
 thing : 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 " augment- 
 "ing 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 j 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, how- 
 ever. 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 Buckinf^- 
 ham, which estate is in the parish of Avington. In this place 
 
Hampshire and Surrey. 245 
 
 the Duke has a farm, not very good land. It is in his own 
 hands. The corn is indifferent, except the barley, which is 
 every where good. You come a full mile from the roadside 
 down through this farm, to the Duke's mansion-house at 
 Avington, and to the Httle 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 farm-house), several hens in coops with 
 broods of pheasants instead of chickens. It seems that a 
 gamekeeper lives in the farm-house, 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 farm-house, 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 
 roadside. 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 
 
246 Rural Ride through 
 
 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 
 RoUo. 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. 
 Every thing 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. 
 
Hampshire and Stcrrey. 247 
 
 Selborne {Hants), 
 Thursday, *]th 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. A has means below. It is a French 
 word that came over with Duke RoUo'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 after- 
 wards, 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 aifair between the Duke of Bucking- 
 ham 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 crea- 
 tures. 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 pre- 
 
248 Rural Ride through 
 
 served, 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 fmdWy 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 inquired 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 appHcation 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 con- 
 
Hampshire and Surrey. 249 
 
 duct 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 Magis- 
 trates, 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 com- 
 pelled 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 Magis- 
 trates 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 
 
 ^ The appointment of Parson Justices is happily at the present day very 
 much diminished. The functions of Justices of the Peace are exceedingly 
 multifarious ; for the last century there has been a continual addition to 
 their duties created by successive Acts of Pailiament, and hence the duties 
 of a Justice are clearly incompatible with those of a Parish Priest, whose 
 higher prerogative is that of a Father of his parishioners, and not of a Judge. 
 Perhaps the same remark might apply to some "Bishops" whose attitude 
 towards their clergy sometimes resembles Fathers-in-law rather than 
 fathers in God, 
 
250 Rural Ride through 
 
 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 181 7 ; I remember his coming 
 up to me as the Under Sheriff of Willis, the man that we now 
 call Flemming, who has begu7i 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 Magis- 
 trates ; 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 
 
Hampshire and Surrey, 251 
 
 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 Magis- 
 trates ; 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 befal them from similar 
 causes. I am astonished at the boldness of the Magistrates. 
 
 ^ The Bishop of Winchester was George J. Tomline, who was translated 
 from Lincoln in 1820. He was the eightieth Bishop of Winchester. In 
 the Report of the Commissioners (appointed by King William IV. 1831), 
 the net yearly income of the Bishopric is stated to be ;^i 1,151, but this 
 amount has been at times greatly augmented by the falling in of Leases 
 and the receipts of heavy fines. In 1836 an Ecclesiastical Commission was 
 appointed, to which was handed over the property of the Bishops and 
 Deans and Chapters, to be regulated and distributed ; first for the proper 
 maintenance of the dignitaries of the Church, and second for the increase 
 of smaller Livings. An Act of Parliament now fixes the Income attached 
 to each Bishopric throughout England and Wales. 
 
252 Rtcral Ride through 
 
 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, m-c 
 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 Aires- 
 ford 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. 
 RoUeston 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 disinterestedfiess of these 
 persons; of their worthiness, their piety, their loyalty, their 
 excellent qualities of all sorts, but particularly of their dis- 
 interestedness, 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 oi services 
 voluntarily rendered to " King and country," they force him, 
 
Hampshire and Surrey, 253 
 
 sorely against his will, no doubt, to become a Police Magis- 
 trate 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 " Rawlin- 
 son. 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 fi:om 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 j 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 Bishops 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 roadside at Roply 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 j and this vale of meadows, which is about twenty- 
 five miles in length, and is, in some places, a mile wide, is, 
 
2 54 Rtcral Ride through 
 
 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 con- 
 siderable part of the way, the corn-lands are excellent, and 
 the farm-houses, 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 resi- 
 dence 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 
 
Hampshire and Surrey. 255 
 
 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. 
 Every thing is backward here. Thq wheat is perfectly green 
 in most places ; but, it is every where 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 farm-houses 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 turn-pike 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 farm-house, having every thing 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 
 
256 Rural Ride th rough 
 
 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 jolter-heads. Had there been no Debt created to 
 crush liberty in France and to keep down reformers in Eng- 
 land, 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 taxeaters, 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 pass- 
 ing 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 
 
Hampshire and Surrey. 257 
 
 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, 1 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 church-yard, and found the trunk to be, 
 VOL. I. R 
 
258 Rural Ride through 
 
 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 
 
 ^ The great enemy of the hop-grower is the Hop-fly, a species of aphis 
 or plant-louse. It is the principal cause of the failure of the hop crop, 
 producing the great variations in price, and the gambling speculations in 
 the hop trade. A few winged females appear at the end of May, and 
 wingless myriads are soon found, on the under side of the hop leaves and 
 on the stems, and hitherto no remedy has been found to arrest their ravages. 
 Ladybirds render important service, however, by depositing their eggs 
 in them, the larva feeds upon the living aphis, out of which at last it eats 
 its way. Women and children are sometimes employed to pick off the 
 winged aphides on their first appearance, but all their efforts can but 
 slightly diminish the number. There is also the hop-flea, a very small 
 insect, about one-tenth of an inch in length (of the same genus as the 
 turnip fly), which devours the tender tops of the young shoots early in 
 spring. 
 
 The cultivation of the Hop was introduced into England from Flanders 
 in the reign of Henry VHI. For some time after hops began to be used 
 in brewing, a strong prejudice existed against them, and Parliament was 
 petitioned against hops, " as a wicked weed that would spoil the taste of 
 the drink, and endanger the people." In England about 60,000 acres are 
 now planted with hops, chiefly in Kent, Sussex, Hampshire, and Worcester, 
 and in these gardens are grown the finest hops in the world. The duty on 
 hops was repealed in 1862. 
 
Hampshire and Surrey. 259 
 
 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 ex- 
 pect 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 every thing 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 pro- 
 clamation, relative to a reward for discovering the person who 
 had recently i-y^i?/ 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 popu- 
 lation 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 j 
 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^ any thing 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 dXzxi E O Table, or the markers at 
 
26o Rural Ride through 
 
 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 gambUng 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 gamb- 
 ling 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 every thing 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 
 
 ^ The great solace of Cobbett's prison life appears to have been the 
 production of his famous work on the currency question called, "Paper 
 against Gold." He argued that the Bank could never again pay in gold, 
 or in paper, at par, until the Interest on the Funds was reduced. The 
 first article on the subject appeared in the Political Register^ ist September 
 1810. The several articles were afterwards collected and published under 
 the following title, ** Paper against Gold, and Glory against Prosperity (retail 
 price 20s. in paper money)." To the end of his life the Author waged war 
 "to the knife" against the system of the Paper currency, and ascribed 
 most of the evils of tlie time to it. 
 
Hampshire and Surrey, 26 1 
 
 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 ex- 
 ceeds 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 ac- 
 quire 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^ ^th 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 
 
262 Rural Ride through 
 
 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 'y notwithstanding I saw the Judge's 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 pubHc-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 
 
 ^ The accounts of the Woods and Forests are now published annually. 
 They are divided into capital and income. In 1882, under capital, a total 
 sum of ;i^32i,4o8 (including a balance of ^^128,183) was received from 
 sales of lands, and from moiety of net proceeds from mines, &c., while the 
 expenditure showed a total sum of ;!^24,895 for the purchase of estates and 
 in permanent improvements, and a sum of ;[Ci90jO32 for the purchase of 
 stock, leaving a cash balance of ;^73,285. There was also a balance of 
 ;^i28,l83 in stock. The expenditure included — salaries, &c., ;^5i,238; 
 Windsor Park, £^l.^^\ ', Royal Forests, ;^I9,987 ; Consolidated fund, 
 ,^380,000; leaving a balance (ist April 1882) of ;^5762. 
 
 In ancient times the principal part of the Royal revenues consisted of 
 the rents and profits of the crown lands. Under a statute of George III., 
 however, the system was first introduced of the Crown surrendering the 
 greater part of these lands to be consolidated with the rest of the public 
 revenues, out of which the Royal Civil List is paid. " The Commissioners 
 of Woods and Forests" act under the control of the Treasury, and are 
 required to transmit periodical accounts of the receipt and expenditure of 
 their department. I'he annual receipts amount on an average of about 
 ;^375'000. The annuities to the various members of the Royal Family 
 amount to about ;i^556,ooo. The Queen, however, still retains the revenues 
 of the Duchy of Lancaster, amounting (in 1882) to ;!^78,ooo (gross), and 
 the Prince of Wales still retains the revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall, 
 amounting (in 1881) to ;^io5,052 gross. 
 
Hampshire and Surrey, 263 
 
 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 Devirs 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 those 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 be- 
 lieved. 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 j and at last, becoming hard white stone, fit for any build- 
 ings j 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, be- 
 cause 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 
 
264 Rural Ride through 
 
 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 ^^ DeviPs 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 182 1, 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 
 
Hampsh ire and Su rrey, 265 
 
 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 dis- 
 regard of worldly things ; their desire to lay up treasures in 
 heaven ; their implicit yielding to the Spirit ; these have in- 
 duced them to send their corn-gaugers over the country regu- 
 larly 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 gangers 
 that they may catch in their fields. They could not do this 
 formerly j 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 has 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 ; 
 
 1 The present Law on Trespass allows the owner of land (if a stranger 
 enter without leave, and do not quit at the request of the owner) to eject 
 the intruder by force, but in doing so he must not use more force than is 
 necessary to overcome the resistance offered. It is therefore a popular 
 delusion to suppose "that it is a ^ criminaV offence for a stranger to tres- 
 pass upon lands, and that such stranger can be given into custody for doing 
 so," — hence to stick up a notice with the words " Trespassers will be 
 prosecuted " is an empty threat, for the fact that there is such a notice or 
 of there being a fence to the land, does not make any difference with regard 
 to the trespasser, who is just as much liable to an "action of damages" 
 (but to nothing ^zt)for the trespass, whether he knew of the notice or not. 
 If, however, the trespasser do any wilful damage, or be in pursuit of game, 
 he may be liable to be apprehended. 
 
266 Rural Ride through 
 
 everywhere, every body 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 manners. Some persons call them quail. If anyone 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 dis- 
 tance 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 
 
Hampshire and Surrey, 267 
 
 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 scratchy as Mr. Tull calls it j and then comes 
 St. Swithinand sets the weeds and the hoed-up turnips growing 
 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 beau- 
 tiful 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 not have 
 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 
 
 1 These birds are generally called Virginian colins ; they are abundant 
 in most parts of North America, in some places being called quails, and 
 in others partridges. In size they are between the quail and the partridge ; 
 the plumage is brownish red and the under parts whitish. Great numbers 
 are killed by guns and taken in snares. They are easily domesticated, and 
 seem well fitted for the poultry yard. They have been introduced into 
 some parts of Europe, but they are still rare in England. There are 
 several varieties of the species in Mexico and California ; the Californian 
 colin is noted for its long and beautiful black crest. 
 
268 Rural Ride throttgh 
 
 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 will have a crop double the weight of that which 
 will be produced in yon beautiful field. 
 
 Reigate {Surrey), 
 
 Friday, %th 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 God- 
 aiming 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 ''''Sema- 
 phores.''^ 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 jolter-heads 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 jolter-heads 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 jolter-heads quite overlooked 
 the circumstance, that, in returning to gold, they doubled and 
 
Hampshire and Surrey, 269 
 
 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 jolter-heads, 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 jolter-heads 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 jolter-heads have now found, however, that a 
 pretty good share of the expense is to fall upon themselves. 
 Their mortgagees are letting them know that Sejnaphores 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 Sema- 
 phores 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, quarter-masters, 
 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, 
 
2 JO Rural Ride through 
 
 more than twenty thousand stock-brokers and stock-jobbers 
 perhaps ; forty or fifty thousand tax-gatherers ; thousands upon 
 thousands of mihtary 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 breedi7ig! 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 
 
 ^ As the Author is continually referring to "Malthus,'' and condemning 
 his opinions, it may be well, here briefly to allude to him and to the char- 
 acter of his writings. He was the founder of those opinions concerning the 
 relation of population to the means of subsistence called "malthusian." 
 He was born in Surrey in the year 1766. He was educated at Cambridge, 
 and was Fellow of Jesus College. In I799 he commenced his foreign 
 travels, " to observe mankind under a variety of conditions," and wandered 
 through Sweden, Norway, Finland, and part of Russia making notes of 
 what he observed ; he afterwards visited France and other parts of central 
 Europe. His first work was an Essay on the Principles of Population as 
 it affects the future improvement of society. His theory was, that "popula- 
 tion tends to increase in a greater ratio than the means of subsistence." 
 This work was greatly enlarged and republished in 1826. 
 
 He set himself to find out how the relation of population to the means of 
 subsistence could affect the future of the world. The result appeared to 
 be most appalling. The population of the world was found to increase at 
 something like geometrical progression, nearly doubling itself every twenty- 
 five years ; while the fertility of land, by bringing in waste land and 
 improving the methods of agriculture, only increased in something like an 
 arithmetical progression. Hence if populations were permitted to increase 
 at their natural rate, they would soon outstrip the means of subsistence. 
 The theory, however, overlooked the element of Free trade. It involved 
 a general pauperism for England, if her people depended entirely upon the 
 produce of her own soil ; but it overlooked the possibility that England might 
 one day draw upon the resources of the world. The author is very severe 
 upon the theory of Malthus, because it seemed to press only upon the poor, 
 and not upon the rich. But Malthus treated the subject as an abstract 
 reasoning on political economy. His single precept was simply summed 
 up thus : '• Do not many until you are able to support a family." 
 
Hampshire aud Surrey, 1 7 1 
 
 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 jolter- 
 heads who have been the promoters of the measures that have 
 led to these heavy charges j it is a consolation to know that 
 the jolter-heads 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 jolter-heads who are the principal 
 cause of their being created. 
 
 Bidding the Se7naphore 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 ever I 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 every where sound, and everything that meets the 
 
272 Rural Ride through 
 
 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 
 Hascombe 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 Hascombe, I had seen afield 
 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 Guild- 
 ford to Horsham, and going on to Worthing or some of those 
 towns. 
 
 At Ewhurstj, 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. Waggons, too, had 
 been dragged along the lanes by some means or another ; and 
 where a waggon-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 
 
Hampshire and Surrey, 273 
 
 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 inclosed. 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, loth August. 
 
 I STAID 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 efi"ect 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 
 
 VOL. I. s 
 
2 74 Rural Ride throtcgh 
 
 instance of a man catching cold at sea. The air upon the 
 South-Downs is saltish, I daresay ; 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 ragamufiin part of the country, is good, with the 
 exception of one piece, which lies on your left hand as you 
 come down from Ban stead Down. It is very good at Ban- 
 stead 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 bfighted. 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 
 
Hampshire and Surrey. 275 
 
 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 portman- 
 teaus, 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 j a coarseish kind, and the straw stout and strong ; 
 but the ears are long, broad and full j 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 back- 
 ward as it is in some places. There is no corn, that I recollect, 
 from the spot just spoken of, to almost the street of Kensing- 
 ton. 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 Titchfield, 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 
 
276 Rural Ride through 
 
 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 every where ; 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 jolter-heads. 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 mean while, how- 
 ever, the London newspapers are doing what they can to keep 
 up the delusion ; and, in a paper called BeWs 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 39s. per quarter, 
 " and on the 29th ult. it was above 62s. As it has been rising 
 *' ever since, it may now be quoted as little under d^s. So that 
 '* in this article alone, there is a rise of more than thii'ty-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 ist 
 *' of May, would sink to 4s. per bushel, and that under the 
 " effects of Mr. Peel's bill, and the payments in cash by the 
 " Bank of England, it would tiever again exceed that price f 
 
 (C 
 
Hampshire and Surrey. 277 
 
 ' Nay, so assured was Mr. Cobbett of the mathematical cer- 
 ' tainty 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 ist 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 
 
278 Rtiral Ride through 
 
 been no small notes in circulation at this day.^ So that this 
 lawyer is "^// 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 Erskifie'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 pre- 
 tend to say that a spade or shovel would not become the hands 
 of this blunder-headed editor of BeWs 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. 
 
 ^ The previous Editor states that at the time to which the Author referred, 
 Sir Robert Peel concurred in a similar opinion. Allusion is also made to 
 an opinion expressed by Lord Western (in 1835) in the following terms : 
 "Mr. Cobbett foretold as early as 1818, certainly more distinctly than any- 
 body else at the time, that a gold standard at £l, 17s. lO^d. would inevit- 
 ably reduce the price of wheat to 4s. 6d. or 5s. tlie bushel on an average, 
 and other commodities in a similar ratio ; nor would it have risen, upon 
 an average, since 1819, but for the different means that were found to pre- 
 vent the full operation of Peel's Bill. Our statesmen were as little informed 
 as babies of what Mr. Cobbett understood so well, or otherwise fancied they 
 could counteract the effect which that adjustment of the metallic standard 
 would induce." 
 
Sussex and Kent, to Dover, 279 
 
 RIDE THROUGH THE NORTH-EAST PART OF SUSSEX, AND ALL 
 ACROSS KENT, FROM THE WEALD OF SUSSEX, TO DOVER. 
 
 Worth {Sussex), 
 FHday, 29 August, 1823. 
 
 I have so often described the soil and other matters, apper- 
 taining 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, "game- 
 keepers 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 EUenborough^s Act, are new things in 
 England, and things of which the Laws of England, " the 
 birthright of Englishmen," knew nothing. Yet farmer Yoke 
 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 
 
2 8o Rural Ride through 
 
 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, 
 not 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 under- 
 stands 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. How- 
 ever, 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 Hve on the labours of others ;2 no monster of this kind 
 
 1 The previous Editor mentions that after the dale of this Ride, " there 
 was passed the ' Night Poaching Act,' commonly called * Lord Lansdowne's 
 Act,' and that besides the Forest's Charters there were nearly a hundred 
 Game Laws on the Statute Book (some of which had been repealed) ; more- 
 over, that eighty of these were passed since 1509, and that thirty-two were 
 passed in the reign of George IIL" 
 
 The peculiar penalties attached to the taking and killing of game were 
 (until very recently) arbitrary and severe. In 1869 the convictions under the 
 Game Laws were 10,345. By the Ground Game Act (1882), however, all 
 tenants or holders of land and their servants are allowed to shoot "ground 
 game " with an ordinary gun license, and the tenant cannot contract himself 
 out of this right. 
 
 ^ The Author had probably in mind the class of wretches who (with 
 Matthew Hopkins at their head) sprang up in England about the middle 
 of the seventeenth century, and took the professional name of '\witch- 
 finders." The practice of these miscreants was to move from place to 
 place, *'to clear each town of all suspected persons," charging the stated 
 fee of one pound for doing so. All suspected persons were stripped and 
 shaven, while pins were thrust into their bodies, to discover the witch's 
 
Sussex and Kent, to Dover, 2 8 1 
 
 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 saiHngs upon the horseponds ! 
 
 Tollbridge 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 approach- 
 ing 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 greatcoat, got upon my 
 horse, and came to this place, just as fast and no faster 
 
 mark ; they were then tied up in sheets and dragged through ponds or 
 rivers, where, if they sank, it was held as a sign that they were innocent ; 
 but if they floated (as they usually would do for a time) they were con- 
 demned as guilty. The greatest cruelties were inflicted to induce them to 
 confess, so that many innocent persons gladly proclaimed themselves guilty 
 to escape from torture by death. 
 
 During the period of the Long Parliament, the greatest number of execu- 
 tions for witchcraft occurred in England. Three thousand persons are said to 
 have perished in Germany, in Geneva, in France, and in other countries of 
 Europe the same cruel frenzy raged. At length the world began to awaken 
 from the horrid nightmare, the feelings of the humane were shocked by the 
 incessant butchery, while the more intelligent began to inquire into the exist- 
 ence of witchcraft. The laws against witchcraft were formally mitigated in 
 England in 1736, and finally repealed at the time to which the Author alludes. 
 It is strange, however, that a vague belief in witchcraft seems still to haunt 
 the minds of the ignorant. Not longer ago than 1863, a suspected wizard 
 was drowned in a pond at Hedingham, in Essex, and '* wise men " and 
 "wise women" {i.e., white witches, as they are called), are occasionally 
 still to be found in rural places to dupe the ignorant and superstitious. 
 
282 Rural Ride through 
 
 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-upo?i-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 
 
Sussex and Kent ^ to Dover, 283 
 
 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 j 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 2iX\6. adore ; then I tell him, that I can admire and adore 
 without his atd^ 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 maybe 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 2l 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 
 
284 Rural Ride through 
 
 should become better and better as the farmers become 
 poorer and poorer ! '' They looked at one another, and put on 
 a sort oi expecting look j for my observation seemed to ask for 
 ififormatmi. 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 o?ie 
 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 borough-mongers, 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 atten- 
 tion to the nut-trees ? The Vice Society too, with that holy man 
 Wilberforce at its head, ought to look out sharp after these mis- 
 chievous nut-trees. A law to cause them all to be grubbed up, 
 and thrown into the fire, would, certainly, be far less unreason- 
 able than many things which we have seen and heard of. 
 
Sussex and Kent, to Dover, 285 
 
 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 hundred 
 weight 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. 
 
 ■ 7 :-' :" Tenierden {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 — noisy, troublesome fellow," I got clear of 
 " the Wet/s" 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 "t/ie 
 Wells.'" Here the land belongs, I suppose, to Lord Aber- 
 gavenny, 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 
 
286 Rural Ride through 
 
 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 \.ox^?> 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 any thing 
 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 de- 
 struction of their own system. In looking back over " the 
 Wells " I cannot but admire the operation of the gambling 
 system. This Httle 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 
 
 ^ This Marquis of Camden was son of Charles Pratt, who was Chief 
 Justice of the Court of Common Pleas in 1761. Judge Pratt's name has 
 been rendered famous in consequence of his having presided at the trial of 
 John Wilkes, Editor of the " North Briton" and Member for Aylesbury. In 
 his paper (April 1763) Wilkes charged the King with having uttered a 
 falsehood from the throne, and in consequence his papers were seized, and 
 he was committed to the Tower, on a " general warrant," by Grenville the 
 Under Secretary of State, Wilkes subsequently brought an action for false 
 imprisonment against Grenville, and obtained a verdict of ;^looo damages. 
 On that occasion Chief Justice Pratt used these memorable words in refer- 
 ence to " general warrants " — " If the other judges and the highest authority 
 
Sussex and Kent y to Dover, 287 
 
 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 Seven- 
 oaks. 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 Radicals 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 
 
 in this kingdom (the House of Peers) should pronounce my opinion 
 erroneous, I submit, as will become me, and kiss the rod ; but I must say 
 that I shall always consider it as a rod of iron for the chastisement of the 
 people of Great Britain." 
 
288 Rural Ride through 
 
 common-place to be observed about this father. This father 
 was the contemporary of Yorke, who became Lord Hard- 
 wicke. " Pratt and Yorke ; " 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 d 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 factionSy 
 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, give 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 any thing 
 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 priftcipks 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 ex- 
 pressed the opinion of the whole country, borough-mont^ers 
 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 
 
Sussex and Kent, to Dover, 289 
 
 have about two or three hundred weight 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. Wad- 
 dington received on account of what was called \i\.^ forestallitig 
 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. EUenborough was his counsel ; he after- 
 wards 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 satis- 
 faction to see it reel about hke 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 
 Natio7ial 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 
 
290 Rural Ride through 
 
 and eighteen wide. Tiie " 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-XooYmg young fellow : his skin per- 
 fectly 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 daresay 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, agree- 
 ably 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 iuemory, mind, and, there- 
 fore, 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 
 i\ie feeling. All was general, commonplace, cold observation; 
 and that, too, in language which the far greater part of the 
 hearers could not understand. This church is about no 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 
 
 ^ The exact words are as follows : — " And in every work that he began 
 in the service of the house of God, and in the law, and in the command- 
 ments, to seek his God, he did it with all his heart and prospered." The 
 Author's memory, at the time he wrote this, must have been very clear, 
 while his observations on the whole subject have, unfortunately, too much 
 foundation for fact, even at the present day. 
 
Sussex and Kent, to Dover, 291 
 
 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 popula- 
 tion 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 daresay, 
 w^as 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 j 
 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, 1 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 
 
292 
 
 Rural Ride through 
 
 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 I 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!^ 
 
 ^ The Author here speaks of the relation of the Church of England to 
 national education rather too flippantly. Up to the time of the Ele- 
 mentary Education Act in 1870, the Church of England was carrying on 
 four-fifths of the education of the poor throughout the country, for the 
 Church had even then 12,000 national schools depending upon her sup- 
 port, while all the Denominational schools together amounted to only 
 2000. Nor has the Church relaxed her eflforts since that date, in spite of 
 the keen and powerful competition of Board Schools, for the following 
 statement (taken from the published return of the Education Department) 
 shows the position which the Church still maintains in the great work of 
 national education during the last three years. 
 
 Accommodation. 
 
 
 1881. 1882. 
 
 1883. 
 
 Church .... 
 Denominational . 
 Board .... 
 
 2,351,235 
 844,130 
 
 1,194,268 
 
 2,385,374 
 854,200 
 
 1,298,746 
 
 2,413,676 
 
 860,163 
 
 1,396,604 
 
 4,389,633 
 
 4,538,320 
 
 4,670,443 
 
 Average Attendance. 
 
 Church .... 
 Denominational . 
 Board .... 
 
 1,490.429 
 
 516,755 
 856,351 
 
 1,538,408 
 531,512 
 945,231 
 
 1,562,507 
 
 535,803 
 
 1,028,904 
 
 2,863,53s 
 
 3,015.151 
 
 3,127,214 
 
 So that the Church is educating half as many children again as are being 
 
Sussex and Kent, to Dover, 293 
 
 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 I 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 knowy* 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, 
 
 educated by Board Schools, while her members (besides paying their com- 
 pulsory rates towards Board Schools) contribute annually nearly ;i^58o,ooo 
 for the education of the poor in Church schools. 
 
2 94 Rural Ride through 
 
 together with all the other domestic and conjugal circum- 
 stances, 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 pre- 
 caution, 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 tip 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 shoy-hoy, or than 
 the Ministers or their agents do of Hobhouse and Burdett. 
 
 ^ The period of the first introduction of stocks is uncertain. By a statute 
 (1350) provision is made for applying the stocks " to unruly artificers," and 
 in 1376 the Commons prayed the King that stocks should be established in 
 every village. The last in London was removed from St. Clements Danes 
 Churchyard, Strand, 4th August 1S26. 
 
Stissex and Kent ^ to Dover, 295 
 
 Stocks that never pinch a pair of ancles 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 correc- 
 tion is not enough for our present rulers. But, mark the con- 
 sequence ; 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, English- 
 men ! 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 d 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 submis- 
 sions % 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. 
 
 1 The former Editor remarks, that the "rural police" in some places 
 have "been considered expensive, and of but little use exceptmg acting as 
 gamekeepers.'''' As a general rule, however, the police force throughout the 
 kingdom is a most efficient body of men. 
 
 2 The ^*ruse" which is sometimes adopted by the police, viz., to asso- 
 ciate (under disguise) with the suspected, and almost to become accom- 
 plices, is most reprehensible and un-English; as is also the use of secret- 
 service money, for the purchase of evidence against accused persons. 
 
296 Rural Ride through 
 
 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 neigh- 
 bourhood 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 Hving, 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 j 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 hke those in the iron counties, as I call them ; that 
 
Sussex and Kent ^ to Dover, 297 
 
 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 every thing 
 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 j 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 Suff"olk 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 Marshy 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 
 
298 Rztral Ride through 
 
 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 Fays 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 build- 
 ing. 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 viiih. 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 
 
 ^ Those who have watched the habits of the labouring class, are aware 
 that when they are induced to attend regularly any concourse of strangers 
 (where those of a higher class are present), it will invariably be attended 
 by an improvement in dress and manners. There are some cases, indeed, 
 in which the direst poverty forbids such improvement ; but generally speak- 
 ing, those who are habitually slatternly and dirty are so through sloth 
 and the natural degradation of vice, and not by the necessity of circum- 
 stances. Hence I would hesitate to adopt the opinion of the Author, 
 ** that shabbily dressed people do not go to church ; " but I would rather 
 say "that one of the lesser benefits of 'church-going' is the general 
 improvement in dress and manners." 
 
Szissex and Kent y to Dover, 299 
 
 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 j 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 Pro- 
 testant place of worship before. Upon looking round him, 
 and seeing every body comfortably seated, while a couple of 
 good stoves were keeping the place as warm as a slack oven, 
 he exclaimed : ^^ Fardi / On sert Dieu Hen d 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 I 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 sifiging. 
 
 ^ There is a good deal of truth in these observations — Churches in the 
 Author's day {and also since that time) resembled far more the Meeting 
 House for preaching, than the Hospital for sin-burdened souls, the Sanc- 
 tuary where especially the one great Sacrifice for the sins of the whole 
 world is pleaded before God. Luxurious and well-cushioned pews do not 
 seem to correspond with the confessions which the worshippers make, 
 that they are " lost sheep " and "miserable sinners." 
 
''oo Rural Ride through 
 
 o 
 
 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) ist St. Peter iv. i8. 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 sinjier. 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 ih,^ 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 Ministiy ; 
 
Sussex and Kenty to Dover, 301 
 
 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 meet- 
 ing-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 sing- 
 ing 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. 
 
o 
 
 02 Rural Ride through 
 
 Folkestone {Kent), 
 Monday {Noon), I Sep. 
 
 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 
 rot 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 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. 
 
Sussex and Kent^ to Dover, 303 
 
 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, loose-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 Leonards 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 
 in 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 con- 
 taining two thousand people ! The vagabonds tell us, how- 
 ever, 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 
 
 ^ The previous Editor mentions the fact *' that in 1851 a quarter of one 
 of the Cotswold sheep was exhibited, as a curiosity, in the market of New 
 York, which weighed 63lbs. It had been sent from Devizes in Wilts," 
 The Lincoln is a still heavier sheep. 
 
304 Ru7'al Ride through. 
 
 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 2Xi^ poor labourers. 
 From the window of the house, in which I could scarcely 
 get a rasher of bacon, and not an ^gg^ 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 Titchfield. 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. Birkbeck 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 
 Bag-shot Heath ! It is an unnatural system. It is the vaga- 
 bond'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 ; 
 
Sussex and Kent^ to Dover, 305 
 
 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, some- 
 times 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 those 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 look- 
 ing 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 
 G — . 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 circum- 
 ference at the top. There is a door- way, about midway up, 
 in each, and each has two windows. Cannons were to be 
 
 VOL. I. u 
 
3o6 Rtiral Ride through 
 
 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 Fi^ench; 
 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 fall- 
 ing 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 Scrip- 
 ture, here is the *' desolation of abomination, standi?ig 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 2^ just. The load will come, 
 at last, upon the right shoulders. 
 
 1 The walls of these Martello Towers were 5^ feet thick, which were 
 supposed to be bomb proof. The base formed the magazine. Above 
 were two rooms for the garrison, and over these the flat roof, with a brick 
 parapet. On this roof a swivel gun was placed to command shipping, 
 while howitzers (on each side) were to form a flanking defence in con- 
 nection with the neighbouring towers. The name " Martello " is taken 
 from the Italian towers built on that coast when piracy was common in 
 the Mediterranean, for giving warning if a pirate ship was seen approach- 
 ing. The warning was sounded by striking on a bell with a "hammer" 
 (Ital. martello), and hence these towers were called " Torri da Martello.'''' 
 
Sussex and Keniy to Dover, 307 
 
 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 squan- 
 dered 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 them- 
 selves ! 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 aud 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 
 
3o8 Rural Ride from 
 
 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. isf, 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 
 
Dover to the Wen. 309 
 
 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 parti- 
 cular 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 ihe 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 termina- 
 tion 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 
 
3 1 o Rural Ride from 
 
 of Portsdown Hill rather than that of Reigate. The crops 
 here are always good if they are good any where. 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 
 1 6th 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. Every where, the 
 soil is the same upon the top of the high part of this ridge. I 
 have DOW 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 inter- 
 ruption, 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 pictur- 
 esque place, to be sure. On one side of it rises, upon the top 
 
Dover to the Wen. 3 1 1 
 
 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 Shakespeare, 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.^ 
 
 ^ Twenty years before this date, Mr. Perceval, as Attorney General, 
 when prosecuting the Author for hbel, contemptuously exclaimed, " Who 
 is Mr. Cobbett ? Is he a man of family in this country ? Is he a man 
 writing purely from motives of patriotism ? Quis homo hie est ? Quo 
 patre natus? He seems to imagine himself a species of Censor who, 
 elevated to the solemn seat of judgment, is to deal about his decisions, for 
 the instruction of mankind ! He casts his eye downward like the character 
 
3 1 2 Rural Ride from 
 
 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 milUons of money. Here is a hill containing, 
 probably, a couple of square miles or more, hollowed like a 
 honey-comb. 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 would ever co??ie to this hill to attack it, while the 
 rest of the country was so much more easy to assail ? How- 
 ever, 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 pre- 
 vent 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 
 
 represented by the poet of nature, from Dover Cliff, and looks upon the 
 inferior world below, as pigmies beneath him." 
 
 ^ The Author is here speaking, not without a certain knowledge of 
 military science. While in his regiment in Nova Scotia and New Bruns- 
 wick he made some large plans of military fortifications, drawn with pen 
 and ink, most exact in every line and geometrically accurate. He thus 
 describes his 'chef-d'oeuvre' on fortification : — "My place was a regular 
 sexagon, with every description of outwork ; then I set to work to lay 
 down the plan of a siege, made my line of circumvallation, fixed my 
 batteries and cantonments, opened my trenches, made my approaches, 
 covered by my gabions and fascines — at last effected a mine, and had all 
 prepared for blowing up the citadel." On one occasion, when three or 
 
Dover to the Wen, 3 1 3 
 
 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 any where else, rather than come to 
 this hill; rather than come to crawl up Shakespeare'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, 
 
 four Commissioners had been sent out from England to examine into the 
 state of the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, an important 
 Report was required to be drawn up of a very extensive nature, and one 
 of Serjeant-Major Cobbetl's superior officers induced him to undertake the 
 labour, while others were to obtain the credit of it. The Report drew 
 forth a great deal of admiration ; and some years later the Duke of Kent 
 (who was then Commander-in-Chief at that station) showed Cobbett the 
 copy, which he had kept as a curiosity ; and when he heard the w hole story, 
 he asked Cobbett, " how much the Commissioners gave him ? " He replied, 
 '* Not a farthing, " at which the Duke exclaimed most bitterly, and said, " that 
 first and last, thousands of pounds had been paid by the country for the 
 Report which Cobbett had done gratuitously." 
 
 ^ Although reference has already been made to the policy of Pitt, and 
 to the reasons why the Author ceased to believe in **the heaven-born 
 minister," it may be well here briefly to allude to some leading features 
 in his political career. Of his transcendent ability there can be no doubt, 
 •'but he was unequal to surprising and terrible emergencies, and he was 
 liable at such times to err both on the side of weakness and on the side 
 of violence." When he made his first speech in the House in 17S1, in 
 favour of economical reform, vi^e are told, that Burke, moved to tears, 
 exclaimed, ** It is not a chip of the old block : it is the old block itself! " 
 At the age of 25, he was the most powerful subject that England had seen 
 for centuries — he ruled absolutely over the Cabinet, and was at once the 
 
3 1 4 Ru ral Ride from 
 
 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 expendi- 
 ture 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 
 
 favourite of the King, the Parliament, and the nation. His policy was liberal 
 beyond his time. He resigned office because he could not carry the 
 Roman Catholic Emancipation. He was more deeply imbued with the 
 doctrines of Free Trade than either Fox or Grey. He could not pretend 
 that there was any occasion for gagging bills, or for the suspension of the 
 Habeas Corpus Act. He liked neither war nor arbitrary government. 
 He laboured hard to avert the European war, and indeed for a time he 
 stood alone in his opposition to the growing cry for war. The court, 
 the nobility, the gentry, the merchants and manufacturers, in short nine- 
 tenths of the whole population, cried aloud for war against France (at the 
 close of 1792). In the House of Lords he had but ten or twelve adherents left. 
 Pressed on all sides, he abandoned slowly and reluctantly the policy which 
 was dear to him ; he yielded to the current, and from that day his mis- 
 fortunes began. He went to war, but he could not understand the peculiar 
 character of the war, and therefore his war policy was eminently dis- 
 astrous. For after eight years of war, after a vast destruction of life, and 
 after an expenditure of wealth far exceeding the cost of the American war, 
 the English army, under Pitt's administration, was the laughing-stock of all 
 Europe. It could not boast of a single victory ; but it had been again and 
 again beaten, chased, forced to embark, or forced to capitulate. Added to 
 this, in 1803, Napoleon threatened to invade England, and formed a 
 great camp on the French coast opposite Dover. The war-scare aroused 
 the whole nation, and vast public expenses were incurred to put the coast 
 in a state of defence. Meanwhile, the finances of the country were greatly 
 strained. When the war with France broke out additional excise and 
 custom duties were levied, and during every successive year, further taxes 
 were imposed, till at length there was hardly any article that was not taxed. 
 In the year 1802 the revenue reached ^^34,415,096, while the national 
 debt amounted to ;^5 37,65 3,008. There were consequently good reasons 
 for the Author's condemnation of the lavish expenditure of the Government. 
 Pitt's death, which occurred in 1806, was doubtless hastened by the stupen- 
 dous successes of Napoleon on the Continent. The high tone of his private 
 life added to the dignity of his public career. Though millions passed 
 through his hands, his worst enemy did not dare to accuse him of touching 
 unlawful gain. 
 
Dover to the Wen, 3 1 5 
 
 Bourbons, They rejoiced at the killing of the king. They 
 rejoiced at the atheistical decree. They rejoiced at every thing 
 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 in- 
 fluence 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 I 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-comed hill j 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 
 
3 1 6 Rti7^al Ride from 
 
 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 daresay 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 Wilbrahara 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. ^ 
 
 Elsewhere the Author makes these perthient observations on the true 
 spirit of national independence : " It is on the warlike spirit of a nation that 
 her honour, security, and happiness must chiefly depend, and this spirit is 
 generally found to exist in an inverse proportion to the magnitude of her 
 purse. Much as I abhor cuttings and stabbings, I have a still greater 
 
Dover io the Wen, 3 1 7 
 
 This very day I have read Mr. Canning's Speech at Liver- 
 pool, 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, 3 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 
 
 abhorrence of submission to a foreign yoke. . . . Commerce, opulence, 
 luxury, effeminacy, cowardice, slavery, these are the stages of national 
 degradation. We are in the fourth. " Again, in a letter to the Quakers, he 
 says, " I have told you (as General Washington told a great branch of your 
 combination) that those were not entitled to any of the rights of citizens 
 or subjects who, under whatever pretence, refuse to take up arms in the 
 defence of their country, or of the legal powers of the state, including, in 
 your case, the office and person of the King. I have told you, that if we 
 Englishmen were all to act upon your principles, the King might be 
 dragged from his throne, and the country torn to pieces or enslaved by 
 invaders ; and that these would be the inevitable results." At the present 
 day, however, I think it is an undisputed axiom with our leading politicians, 
 ** that the greatest security for a nation and pledge of peace, is always to 
 be prepared for war." 
 
3 1 8 Rural Ride from 
 
 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 stead- 
 fastly 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 shiUings 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 
 " hfe, 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 T 
 
 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. Every 
 
Dover to the Wen. 319 
 
 thing seems upon the perish. I was glad to Imrry along 
 
 through it, and to leave its inns and public-houses to be 
 
 occupied by the tarred, and trovvsered, 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 side 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 seedmen 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^ Ofth 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 Hkely ; 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 
 
3 2 o Rural Ride from 
 
 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 them- 
 selves 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 P^ 
 
 ^ The famous Saltmines, near Cracow in Poland, have been worked 600 
 years. The Saltmines of Staffordshire were discovered about 1670. Salt 
 duties were first exacted in 1702 ; they were renewed in 1732 ; and during 
 the French war were as high as 15s. per bushel, or ;^30 per ton. At the 
 time when the author wrote, they were, however, reduced to 2s. per 
 bushel. Now, happily, there is no duty whatever on salt. The con- 
 sumption of salt, in the United Kindom, at the present time, averages 40 
 
Dover to the Wen, 321 
 
 On the marsh I found the same sort of sheep as on Rom- 
 ney 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 j 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 fme. 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 hun- 
 dred 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.G — 1 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 
 
 lbs. per inhabitant. Reduced death-rate and higher efficiency of workmen 
 are some of the results of the greater consumption of salt. The present 
 average price in England is about I2s. per ton. A heavy tax on salt still 
 exists in France, Germany, Russia, Austria, Italy, and India. In the last- 
 named country, in 1881, it produced ;^6,75O,0OO. 
 
 VOL. I. X 
 
32 2 Rural Ride from 
 
 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 
 7vorking 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 f?iachines ; 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 j 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 gar- 
 
Dover to the Wen. 323 
 
 den 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 
 stockjobber'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 every 
 thing 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 per- 
 fectly 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 blythe com- 
 panions, as a hive swarms with bees. These barracks now 
 look like the environs of a hive in winter. Westminster 
 
 '' By the Statute 24 and 25 Vict. c. 100, s. 31 (which is now in force) 
 it is illegal to set spring guns and steel traps, except to protect dwelling- 
 houses. 
 
324 Rural Ride from 
 
 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 Alder- 
 men, 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 Alder- 
 men 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 clean- 
 liness 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. 
 
 Elver ion Farm, near Faversham, 
 Friday Morning, Sept. 5. 
 
 In going through Canterbury, yesterday, I gave a boy 
 sixpence 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 thou- 
 sand pounds. The land where I am now is equal to that 
 of the Isle of Thanet. The harvest is nearly over, and all 
 
Dover to the Wen. 325 
 
 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 Eng- 
 land. 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 1 82 1 I gave Mr. William Waller, who lives here, some 
 American apple-cuttings ; and he has now some as fine New- 
 town 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 of several sorts, in 1882. 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 men- 
 tioned, as being upon cuttings imported last Spring, promised 
 to come to perfection ; a thing which, I beHeve, we have not 
 an instance of before. 
 
 Merrywortk, 
 Friday eveniiig, ^th 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 
 
326 Rural Ride from 
 
 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, Ringle- 
 stone, 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 in- 
 correct; because I was told it was three hundred yards. I 
 asked this of a public-house keeper further on, not seeing any 
 body 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, 
 
Dover to the Wen. 327 
 
 or at Ashraansworth. 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 of 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 
 
328 Rti ral Ride from 
 
 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. 
 
 Tonhridge^ 
 Saturday morning, 6th Sept. 
 
 I came off from Merry worth 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 Tor- 
 rington 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 Fellozv 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 over- 
 come with regard to his colo2ir2.v^A 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 Torring- 
 ton's is but an indifferent looking place. 
 
 r here began to see South Down 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 
 
Dover to the Wen. 329 
 
 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, leav- 
 ing 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, 
 
 ^ This plant is of the hollyhock and marsh mallow tribe ; its botanical 
 name is Hibiscus. The flower is very beautiful ; the fruit of some of the 
 varieties is mucilaginous, and is used, in the West Indies, as an article of 
 food. It is an annual plant, with a soft herbaceous stem three to five feet 
 high ; the fruit is often eaten in an unripe state ; a tree of the same tribe 
 is found in the South Sea Islands (twenty feel high), which so abounds in 
 mucilage, that the natives, in times of scarcity, live upon it, and they also 
 make cordage and matting from the fibres. 
 
2,3^ Rttral Ride fro^n 
 
 exactly like Reigate and Godstone, and Sevenoaks, and Dork- 
 ing, 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-beech, 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 
 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 AVeald, 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 j you find them 
 at Westerham \ across at Worth, in Sussex ; at Godstone, in 
 
Dover to the We7t. 331 
 
 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 Ashmans- 
 worth, 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 Thursley; 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 Folke- 
 stone. In all these places I have crossed this chalk-ridge. 
 Every where, 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. 
 
332 Rural Ride from 
 
 After getting up the hill from Westerham, I had a general 
 descent to perfornci 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 Hkely 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 every thing, 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 gentle- 
 men at Whitehall. These wise men have put forth their views 
 in the C^/^r/Vrof the 27th of August, and in words which ought 
 never to be forgotten, and which, at any rate, shall be recorded 
 here. 
 
Dover to the Wen, 333 
 
 " 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 agricul- 
 " tural 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 quahfied 
 *' 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 to- 
 '' wards 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 ! nice gentlemen of Whitehall ! What pretty gentle- 
 men they are ! ^^ Envy of suri'ounding 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 controul 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 
 
334 Rural Ride from 
 
 utter a word tending to bring such pretty gentlemen into 
 contempt. 
 
 Let it be observed, that this paragraph uiust 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 had 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 expecta- 
 tions, their hopes, and their fears. They see that wheat at 
 seventy shillings a quarter is necessary to them ! Ah ! pray 
 ;nark 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 
 conjurors 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 " I wonder what the words 
 towards the " end of November," may mean. D — ^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 para- 
 graph ; the pretty beast; this "envy of surrounding nations" 
 wrote it on the 27 th 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 
 
Dover to the Wen. 335 
 
 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 con- 
 sequence 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 Leth- 
 bridge, too, and Gaffer Gooch, and his base tribe of Pittites at 
 Ipswich ; Coke and Sufifield, 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 observa- 
 tion 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 as free from oppres- 
 sion, as easy and as happy as the gallant and sensible nation 
 on the other side of the Channel. This is the sort of renova- 
 tion, but not renovation by the means of wheat at seventy 
 
336 Rural Ride from 
 
 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 70s. 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 I 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 con- 
 stant 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. 
 
 ^ Probably alluding to the "Courier,'' which was for many years the 
 Tory ministerialists' evening organ. 
 
Dover to the Wen, 337 
 
 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 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 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 
 
 1 For example, the Luddites (so called from "Ned Lud, " an idiotic 
 fanatic, their leader) marched about the neighbourhood of Nottingham 
 breaking machinery and stocking-frames, which led to a serious skirmish 
 with the military, 29th Jan. 1812, Serious riots occurred again in 1814 and 
 1816, when several Luddites were tried and executed. The Author here 
 alludes to these and similar outbreaks, and traces them to the conduct of 
 the press. 
 
 VOL. I. Y 
 
338 Rural Ride from 
 
 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. Delight- 
 ful 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 Govern- 
 ment. 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 mo7uy} Our 
 
 ^ In 1808, nearly the whole continent of Europe was under the control 
 of Napoleon. He had made the King of Spain a prisoner in France, and 
 placed his brother Joseph Buonaparte on the throne of Madrid. The 
 Spanish people (exasperated by the cruelties of the French in Madrid) 
 declared war against France, and sent deputies to England to implore 
 assistance. An expedition of 10,000 men was sent to their assistance under 
 Sir Arthur Wellesley, vvho in the first instance attacked the French army, 
 which were in possession of Lisbon ; and a Convention was ultimately 
 entered into, by which the French withdrew from Portugal to Spain. 
 Subsequently Sir John Moore (with a reinforcement of 12,000 men) attacked 
 the French position in Spain, but that gallant General fell in battle, and 
 
Dover to the Wen, 339 
 
 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 considera- 
 tion 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 con- 
 sequences 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 to- 
 gether about us ! ^'' Usl " Aye, about you ; but pray think 
 what tremendous dangers wheat at four shillings a bushel will 
 bring about us ! This is the gist. Here lies the whole of it. 
 We laugh at a Government employing itself in making calcula- 
 tions 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 
 
 the English were obliged to retire. It was not until 1813 that Sir Arthur 
 (now Lord Wellington) was able, after many severe struggles, to drive the 
 French out of the Peninsula. 
 
3 40 Rural Ride from 
 
 wheat, that the duration of the power and the profits of these 
 men depends. They know what they want ; and they wish to 
 beheve 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 Opposition not, 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 Parhament had established a solid system of finance. 
 
 * Allusion is here supposed to be made to Mr. Canning and Mr, 
 Huskisson, who about this time (according to the records of the Political 
 Register) were entertained at a public banquet at Liverpool. 
 
Dover to the Wen, 341 
 
 Any thing 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, nth Septem- 
 ber), 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 182 1 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 beheve 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 
 
342 Rttral Ride 
 
 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, underhanded. They have, I under- 
 stand, 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 v/ont 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 awaj^, with all the gain of God- 
 liness, a?id a Utile viore^ 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. 
 
Across Surrey, 34 
 
 •^ 
 
 RURAL RIDE : FROM KENSINGTON, ACROSS SURREY, AND 
 
 ALONG THAT COUNTY. 
 
 Reigate^ Wednesday Evening, 
 l^tk October, 1825. 
 
 Having some business at Hartswood, near Reigate, I in 
 tended 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 farm-house roof, and the wind may whistle, and the 
 rain fall, as much as they like. 
 
 Reigate, Thursday Eve7iing, 
 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 Chrisfs 
 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 farm-house was formerly the scene 
 of plain manners and plentiful livifig. 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 2iX\y family in that house, where 
 formerly there were, in all probability, from ten to fifteen 
 
344 Rural Ride 
 
 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 maho- 
 gany 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 daresay it has been ^Squire Charington 
 and the Miss Charingtons ; and not plain Master Charington, 
 and his son Hodge, and his daughter Betty Charington, all 
 of whom this accursed system has, in all likelihood, trans- 
 muted 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 : there- 
 fore, 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, bedrooms for 
 them to sleep in, tables, and stools, and benches, of ever- 
 lasting 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 pauperisfu and the crimes that 
 now disgrace this once happy and moral England. 
 
Across Surrey, 
 
 345 
 
 The land produces, on an average, what it always pro- 
 duced ; ^ 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 j 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 
 
 ^ According to Mr. MuUhall's Statistics, the average price of wheat 
 in England per quarter — 
 
 between 1821-30 was 60s. 
 1831-40 „ 56s. 
 „ 1841-50 „ 53s. 4d. 
 „ 1851-60 „ 54s. 8d. 
 „ 1861-70 „ 54s. 
 „ 1871-80 „ 47s. 4d. 
 It may interest the reader to insert here, from the same source, the follow- 
 ing valuable information showing the millions of bushels of wheat produced 
 and consumed, in various corn-growing countries in 1880 : — 
 
 
 Millions of Bushels. 
 
 Produc- 
 
 Consump- 
 
 United Kingdom 
 
 tion. 
 
 tion. 
 
 322 
 
 607 
 
 France .... 
 
 726 
 
 895 
 
 Germany .... 
 
 634 
 
 750 
 
 Russia .... 
 
 1,710 
 
 1,500 
 
 Austria .... 
 
 548 
 
 516 
 
 Italy 
 
 293 
 
 298 
 
 Spain and Portugal . 
 
 325 
 
 325 
 
 Belgium and Holland 
 
 105 
 
 145 
 
 Scandinavia 
 
 170 
 
 160 
 
 Roumania .... 
 Europe . 
 
 225 
 
 205 
 
 5,058 
 
 5.401 
 
 United States . 
 
 2,470 
 
 1,740 
 
 Canada .... 
 
 130 
 
 120 
 
 Australia .... 
 
 60 
 
 40 
 
 Algeria .... 
 
 20 
 
 15 
 
 Argentine Republic . 
 
 16 
 
 12 
 
 Other Countries 
 
 Total 
 
 643 
 
 1,069 
 
 8,397 
 
 8,397 
 
346 Rural Ride 
 
 and wine-glasses and "a dinner set'' and a *' breakfast set,'' and 
 "^^j-^r/ 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 Httle 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 kin^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 ^d^ity frojn 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 
 
 ■^ Other writers have adopted a similar line of argument, and have urged 
 that it is essentially unjust to punish with severity, attacks on property 
 while you leave a starving wretch with no reasonable prospect of earning 
 adequate food ; and that it is practically impossible to prevent the abso- 
 lutely destitute (if left unrelieved) from preying upon society in some shape 
 or other ; as beggars, vagrants, thieves or felons. There seems to be 
 (sometimes) but an invisible line of demarcation between the pangs of 
 hunger and the commission of crime. 
 
 The miserable history of strikes in our manufacturing towns, affords 
 abundant illustrations of this, while it reveals the startling reality that a 
 starving mob is a desperate and dangerous mob. 
 
Across Stirrey, 347 
 
 the labourers out of their houses, and to pinch them in their 
 wages in order to be able to pay their own taxes ; and, be- 
 sides 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 farm house without reflecting on the 
 thousands of scores of bacon, and thousand 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 shant^^ 
 
 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 Kensing- 
 ton, or to Fleet-street, and keep it for the good it has done in 
 the world. 
 
 When the old farm-houses 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 z. 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 proclaim- 
 ing 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 1 Good 
 
 G ! 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 pro- 
 ducing that general and dreadful convulsion that must, first or 
 
34^ Rural Ride 
 
 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 farm house, 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 \\\2^\ poor-rates, and that 
 monks and nuns, \^\\Q) fed the poor, were better than sinecure 
 and pension men and women, ^hofeed upon the poor. But how 
 
Across Surrey, 349 
 
 came the monasteries ! How came this that was at Reisate, 
 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 
 
 1 The monasteries were in fact hospitals for the poor and needy, as well 
 as schools for the young. Many of them (by the terms of their charter) 
 were obliged to relieve a certain number of poor every day. They likewise 
 dispensed hospitality to all travellers. For instance, in the Priory of 
 Norwich 1500 quarters of malt and 800 quarters of wheat, and other viands 
 in proportion, were consumed every year. 
 
 But when Henry VIII,, in his rapacity, seized their endowments, he 
 robbed the poor of their accustomed charity. The present poor laws, 
 which had their origin in the Enactment 43 Elizabeth c. 2. (1579), recog- 
 nises the principle that every destitute person shall be entitled to relief. 
 The number of paupers in the United Kingdom (in 1880) was 1,017,000, 
 and the Poor ReHef amounted to ;^io,o52,ooo. 
 
350 Rural Ride 
 
 special deal of good sense and of modesty, to be sure, to rail 
 against the Catholic Church on this account, when our own 
 Common Prayer Book, copied from an Act of Parliament, 
 commands our Parsons to do just the same thing 1^ 
 
 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 beHeve 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 
 *' thepoor^ as they call the concern, though the/(?^r, we beHeve, 
 " 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 j 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 
 
 ^ The author refers to the Rubric in the Visitation of the Sick, which 
 directs "that the minister should not omit earnestly to move such sick 
 persons as are of ability, to be liberal to the poor." It would be well if 
 the Clergy of the Church would make it a matter of conscience to obey 
 this direction more frequently, both for the good of the sick persons, and 
 also for the benefit of the poor. 
 
Across Surrey, 351 
 
 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 flog- 
 ging 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 : 
 
 "• He was a man of high culture and great moral worth. In politics he 
 was a moderate reformer, and occasionally contributed to some, or other, 
 of Cobbett's periodicals on his favourite subject, viz., English Consti- 
 tutional History. He showed great sympathy with the Author, during 
 his cruel imprisonment in Newgate. He frequently visited him there, and 
 invariably appeared, on those occasions, in his wig and gown, to express his 
 abhorrence (as he termed it) of the iniquitous sentence passed upon the 
 fearless champion of freedom. 
 
352 Rural Ride 
 
 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 
 grandfather having been a French Huguenot 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 sub- 
 ject ; 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 the 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 
 
Across Surrey, 353 
 
 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 faini- 
 lies 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 fore- 
 seen 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 
 
 VOL. I. z 
 
354 Rural Ride 
 
 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 ageSy 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 ob- 
 served, 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 j 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 con- 
 tingent 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 church-wardens, 
 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 ostenta- 
 
Ac7^oss Surrey, 355 
 
 tion ? 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 Unitariati, The first time (I think) that I perceived this, 
 was in 181 2. 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 in the world 1 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 impud- 
 ence ; 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 
 hurtle-berries in some places, and the raspberries in others? 
 
 3. Whence come fish in new made places where no fish have 
 ever been put ? 
 
1 
 
 56 Rural Ride 
 
 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 X\\.\\q fiat fish, brown on one 
 side, white on the other, mouth side-ways, with tail, fins, and 
 all, leapijig alive, in the inside of a rotten sheep's, and of 
 every rotten sheep's, liver 7'^ 
 
 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 dis- 
 covery of his own. He seemed as pleased as I, when I was a 
 
 ^ Commonly called Flukes or Fluke-worms. They produce the disease 
 called " rot," often causing great mortality among sheep in wet seasons 
 and in ill-drained lands. The fluke is not quite an inch long, of an oval 
 form, its breadth about half its length. It has no eyes nor other organs 
 of sense. It is hermaphrodite. By a sucker with which it is supplied, it 
 imbibes the bile of the liver. An infinite number of flukes are often 
 found in the liver of a sheep. It is supposed that the larvse are originally 
 deposited by an insect on the leaves of the herbage on which the sheep 
 feed, and in this manner they find their way to the liver. Instances have 
 occurred of their having been found in the human liver, and a similar 
 species of worm has been found in great numbers in the human intestines 
 in Egypt. 
 
Across Surrey. 357 
 
 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; not without spiritual zs, 
 well as carnal and vegetable nourishment before him : for, 
 there, on the opposite side of his vis-d-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 there were then in a state of 
 starvation (1822), and I answering that, it was likely that many 
 
^;8 Rural Ride 
 
 o:) 
 
 >' 
 
 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 ;j^2o,ooo, 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 be- 
 ing a Unitarian, at the same time that he officiated as her 
 chaplain. It is also well known, that he never publicly con- 
 tradicted 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 
 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. 
 
Across Surrey, 359 
 
 Chilworth, Friday Evenings 
 2isi Oct. 
 
 It has been very fine to-day. Yesterday morning there was 
 s/iow on Reigate Hill, enough to look wlnte 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. Every thing seems to prog- 
 nosticate a hard winter All the country people say that it 
 will be so. 
 
 RIDE: FROM CHILV^ORTH, IN SURREY, TO WINCHESTER. 
 
 Thiers ley, four miles from 
 Godalming, Surrey, 
 Sunday Evening, T-yd 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 Httle to the north-west, 
 is the town of Guildford, 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 Hfe. 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- 
 
360 Rural Ride from 
 
 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 Hambledon, 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 situa- 
 tion. — 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, 26ih 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 oi 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, 
 
Chilworth to Winchester, 361 
 
 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 Se7naphore, 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 alartn-post would not have been so convenient ; 
 for, people not endued with Scotch intellect, might have won- 
 dered why the d — 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- 
 
 ^ Semaphore (from sema, a sign, and phero, I bear) was the name 
 applied to the system of telegraphy in use, before the application of the 
 electric current to telegraph wires. Semaphores consisted of towers, built 
 at intervals of from five to ten miles on elevated positions. On the top 
 of the tower was the semaphore apparatus, at first consisting of wooden 
 arms, as signals, which opened and closed. The hour of one, by Green- 
 wich time, was always communicated to Portsmouth when the ball fell 
 at Greenwich, and this was so quickly done by the semaphores, that the 
 sign from Greenwich to Portsmouth and back again to Greenwich, only 
 occupied three-fourths of a minute. The semaphore was first erected in 
 London over the Admiralty Office in 1816. In calm weather, when flags 
 will not extend, semaphores are still used on board ship as a means of 
 signalling. 
 
362 Rural Ride from 
 
 ridge (called the Hog's Back) going from Guildford to Farn- 
 ham ! What can this be for ? Why are these expensive 
 things put up all over the country ? Respecting the move- 
 ments 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 pre;parations ; in vain that you are setting 
 your trammels ! The debt, the blessed debt, that best ally 
 of tlie people, will break them all ; will snap them, as the 
 hornet does the cob-web ; and, even these very " Semaphores," 
 contribute towards the force of that ever-blessed debt. Curious 
 to see how things wo^'k ! The '' glorious revolution," which 
 was made for the avowed purpose of maintaining the Protes- 
 tant ascendancy, and which was followed by such terrible per- 
 secution 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 likeUhood 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 the 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 
 
Chilworth to Winchestey. 363 
 
 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 to cause people to run against one another. 
 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 circum- 
 stances 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 inevi- 
 tably 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 often 
 (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 beheve 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 ? 
 
364 Ru ral Ride from 
 
 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 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 grey- 
 hounds, 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 fellow- 
 ship 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 renowed 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 
 
Chilworth to Winchester, 365 
 
 respecting this gentleman, ought to be a warning to young 
 men, how they become enamoured of his 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 farm-house, or kept in his bag, nmety- 
 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 farm-house and when he 
 cleaned his gun, he, just before sunset, 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, there- 
 fore, pressed him to come away, and moved on myself to- 
 wards 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. 
 
 ^ Mr. James Madison was the fourth President of the United States (in 
 1809). He held the post of Secretary of State for eight years previously. 
 He vainly endeavoured to avoid the war with England, which was declared 
 in 1812, and continued two years, at a cost of 30,000 lives, and 100,000,000 
 dollars. He was a statesman of eminent ability and purity of character. 
 
366 Rural Ride from 
 
 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 forin 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 hag 
 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 I 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,'* 
 
Chilworth to Winchester. 367 
 
 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 in- 
 duced 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 u'gon 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 anything approaching in 
 excellence, this American dog. For the information of sports- 
 
^68 Rural Ride from 
 
 o 
 
 men 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 mis- 
 chief. 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 oi 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 
 
Chilworth to Winchester, 369 
 
 to "augment the capital of the nation," by making paper- 
 money, they will render us a real service. That will htfeelo- 
 sofy 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 y Oct. TTjih. 
 
 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 abate- 
 ment 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 
 
 VOL. I. 2 A 
 
3 70 Rural Ride from 
 
 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 re- 
 lating 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, ap- 
 peared to me. They were all great to my mind when I saw 
 
 1 Reference is here probably made to the Canadian Lynx, commonly 
 called the "American wild cat." It is generally of a greyish colour, wiih 
 the back blackish brown. The "wild cat " is still to be found in a few 
 of tlie woods of England, and in some of the mountain districts of Wales, 
 Scotland, and Ireland. It may be said to be the only wild beast remaining 
 in the United Kingdom, for it is very savage, and it is not safe for any one 
 to attack it unless well armed. The colour is yellowish grey, with a band 
 of black spots about the muzzle. Its length is sometimes nearly two feet, 
 exclusive of the tail, which is bushy, like the fox. The fur is long, soft, 
 and thick, and is much valued by the furriers. 
 
Ckilworth to Winchester, 371 
 
 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 im- 
 mense 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 any where 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 j 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 India 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 grada- 
 
3 7 2 Rural Ride from 
 
 tions, 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 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 ify 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 Med- 
 stead, 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 
 Itchen 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 
 AVorthy, a village on the north side of the Itchen, just 
 opposite Easton. The Ogles had been here for a couple of 
 centuries perhaps. They are gone off 7iow, "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 wasjj^^?^, 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, 
 
Chilworth to Winchester, 373 
 
 " 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 ia all 
 " human probability, ever again move in Hampshire, and, 
 " I hope, no where 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 ex- 
 change 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 news- 
 paper, a little while ago to be sold by pubUc 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 exist- 
 ence, which has, no doubt, proceeded solely from that pre- 
 valence 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 
 "/;//^//(f^^««/ 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 
 
3 74 Rural Ride from 
 
 preferred a big house to a little one ; and George begayi with 
 a little one, and ended with a big one. 
 
 Just by Alresford, there was another old friend and sup- 
 porter of old George Rose, 'Squire Rawlinson, whom I re- 
 member a very great 'squire in this county. He is now a 
 Folice-?>Q^\xt 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 morn- 
 ing, a sort of a jangling, made by a bell or two in the Cathe- 
 dral. 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 HI. ; 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 toinb 
 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 7nen, and five or six boys in white 
 surplices, with a congregation oi fifteen women a.nd four men, 
 Gracious God ! If William of Wykham could, at that moment 
 have been raised from his tomb ! If Saint Swithin, whose 
 
 ^ New College, founded June 30th, 1379 
 
Chilworth to Winchester. 375 
 
 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 begtJi 
 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 ^' Frotesfa?tt 
 Reforviation.'*^ 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. 
 
 1 The date of the original Cathedral of Winchester is uncertain. It is 
 supposed to have been first built A.D. 177 ; but it has been destroyed and 
 rebuilt on several occasions. Alfred the Great rebuilt it A.D. 880. The 
 present Cathedral was built by Bishop Walkalin (the work occupying four- 
 teen years) A.D. 1097. William of Wykeham was Bishop from 1367 to 
 1404, and greatly enlarged and beautified the building;. 
 
2,']6 Rural Ride from 
 
 Storia 
 
 Delia 
 
 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." ^ 
 
 1 Mr. John Black, a Scotchman (nicknamed "Doctor Black" by the Author) 
 was a remarkable character. His father was merely a shepherd on the 
 Lammermoors, near Dunse. Having been left an orphan at twelve years 
 of age, John Black commenced his life as a writer's clerk first in Dunse and 
 afterwards in Edinburgh. At the age of twenty-seven he was parliamentary 
 reporter for the Morning Chronicle {\%\o)^o{\\\\\q}^ paper he afterwards be- 
 came editor. Under his management of the Morning Chronicle Charles 
 Dickens was a reporter. His paper was celebrated for independence and 
 freedom. There was, however, continual war going on between it and the 
 Political Register^ especially on the question of the New Poor Law: not long 
 afterwards it adopted the views held by Mr. Cobbett. Mr. Black was always 
 an honest and good-humoured opponent. The triumphant manner in which 
 Cobbett speaks of the popularity of his " History of the Reformation " was 
 fully justified. The History was first issued in numbers in 1825 ; 50,000 each 
 of many of the numbers, even of the first edition, and of one number even 
 61,000 copies, were sold. The character of the work has been much mis- 
 understood and misrepresented. It had, from first to last, a political object, viz., 
 to strengthen the cause of the Roman Catholic Emancipation Bill, which was 
 
Winchester to Burghclere, ^yy 
 
 RURAL RIDE : FROM WINCHESTER TO BURGHCLERE. 
 
 Burghclere, Monday Morning^ 
 2,ist 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, fasti?ig. The turnpike road from Win- 
 chester 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 j 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 
 
 subsequently carried by the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel, on 
 13th April 1829. There is a great deal of burlesque and extravagance in the 
 style and language ; but Cobbett wanted to show that the Reformation in 
 England had its very dark side, as well as its very bright side, and while 
 the people heard so much about the emancipation of the slaves, Cobbett 
 thought that they ought to hear something about the emancipation (civil, 
 religious, and political) of their Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen. 
 
 1 White, in his history of Hampshire, mentions that in ancient times 
 Winchester is said to have had as many as sixty churches and chapels, 
 including those attached to its monastic institutions, colleges, hospitals, 
 &c. But only eleven of the city parish churches now remain, the others 
 having been swept away by the effects of time and wars. He also alludes 
 to the following interesting points of history respecting the city, viz., that 
 " Winchester is said by legends to have been founded 800 years before Christ. 
 It certainly was the most important city under the rule of the ancient Britons, 
 the Romans, and the Saxons. 
 
 ** During the Heptarchy, it was the capital of the kingdom of Wessex ; 
 and on Egbert conquering the other Saxon kingdoms, Winchester became 
 the metropolis of England, a.d. 802. Alfred the Great rebuilt and enlarged 
 
378 Rural Ride from 
 
 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 Black- 
 down, where the ground lies in the form that the surface- 
 water in a boiUng copper would be in, if you could, by word 
 of command, make it be stilly 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 
 
 tlie city (a.d. 880), and was buried there (a.d, 901). Canute summoned his 
 nobles at Winchester (a.d. 1016), when many wise laws were enacted. It 
 is said to have been at Southampton Water (which is twelve miles distant) 
 that the monarch reproved his flattering courtiers; after which he commanded 
 that his royal crown should be suspended over the great crucifix of the high 
 altar in Winchester Cathedral. William the Conqueror (upon his defeat of 
 Harold, A.D. 1066) marched to Winchester, where he held his court, seized 
 the abbey, and erected a castle at the west end of the city. It is said that 
 the celebrated Domesday Book was compiled on the model of the ^ Book 
 of Winchester^'' vvliich was drawn up by Alfred the Great. Domesday 
 Book was finished in 1086, afier a labour of six years, and was a national 
 record of all the lands in the kingdom, the names of the proprietors, the 
 tenure by which they were held, and the value at which they were assessed. 
 After the death of Heniy I. (a.d. 1135) Winchester began to decline, and 
 London became the seat of government. Edward I., however, held a 
 Parliament at Winchester in 1285, at which the celebrated 'Statutes of 
 Winchester' were enacted, for the better security of persons and property. 
 When Heniy VIII. brought about the Reformation (for a political, rather 
 than for a religious purpose) he seized the revenues, plate, and other valuables 
 of more than 600 ablieys, more than 2000 chantries, chapels, &c., and more 
 than 100 hospitals, and among these were the monasteries, religious house 
 and hospitals, in Winchester. The inmates of these institutions were 
 turned out to suffer beggary, if they escaped with their lives, whether they 
 upheld the Pope's power or were opposed to it ; for, as a witty foreigner 
 once observed, those who were * for the Pope,' Henry hanged ; those who 
 were 'against the Pope,' he burnt." 
 
Winchester to Burghclere. 379 
 
 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 there, 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 j 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 shel- 
 tered 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 Win- 
 chester, 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 greensward, or over fields equally 
 smooth. And, here is one great pleasure of living in countries 
 
380 Rural Ride from 
 
 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 impedi- 
 ments \ 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 incon- 
 venience 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 draw-back : 
 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 
 farm-house, which we stopped a little to admire j 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 sur- 
 prised 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 farm-house, in the ancient style, and ask for something 
 to eat ; for, that we had not yet breakfasted. He asked us to 
 go back j 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 fa7'ni hotise)^ where 
 I asked the man, whether he had any bread and cheese^ and 
 
Winchester to Burghclere, 381 
 
 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 \iy 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) with- 
 out 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 ^^fauW* for capering and jerking about "j^." I 
 
;^S2 Rural Ride from 
 
 o 
 
 jumped off, saying, ^^ Here I I'll carry it myself." And then 
 1 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, 
 feehng 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 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 
 five-pence worth at present prices. Even this, which was only 
 a mere snap^ a mere stay-stomach, for us, would, for us two 
 come to 3J-. 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 8s. or 95. 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 
 
Winchester to Burghclere. 383 
 
 creatures? But is not the state of the country, is not the 
 curse 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 clotJmig and fuel^ and house rent I 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 dread- 
 ful convulsion ? What other can be produced by a system, 
 which allows i^t felon better food, better clothing, and better 
 lodging than the honest labourer 1 ^ 
 
 ^ The previous Editor, in a note upon this subject, expresses the 
 following opinion on the subject of Emigration : — 
 
 " We are now (1853) full of apprehensions that there may not be sufficient 
 numbers of the woiking interest spared from the tide of Emigration 10 
 maintain the other interests of the country; " and he states, " ihat it was 
 reported that the number of emigrants, in that year, amounted to 1000 per 
 diem." As a question in political economy, opinions respecting emigration 
 have oscillated violently. The conclusion, however, at which we are 
 arriving, on this, and on many other questions, is that whatever is good for 
 the " individual " is also good for the "community." If people can improve 
 their condition by emigrating, it is well that they should emigrate ; if they, 
 on the other hand, are doing well at home, it is better for them to stay at 
 home. The great difficulty is the want of adjustment of Capital to Labour. 
 This is increased by the circumstance that those who wish 10 emigrate are 
 generally persons feeling the pressure of poverty. Such persons, therefore, 
 who go to a new country, where there is no capital with which to employ 
 them, are just in the position of shipwrecked mariners cast on a desolate 
 shore. And the sufferings of many such persons have been enhanced by 
 reason of their being perfectly unfitted for the skill required to earn their 
 daily bread. 
 
 The temptations and the imposition practiced in the Emigration Trade 
 have been so great, that the Government have appointed an Emigration 
 Commission (under the Passenger Act of 1849) which regulates the character 
 
384 Rtcral Ride from 
 
 I see that there has been a grand humanity-meeting in 
 Norfolk, to assure the ParUament 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 wished X-ofree 
 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 con- 
 victs 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 Wode- 
 house 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 
 
 of the vessel, limits the number of emigrants which it may carry, requires 
 the provisions and other stores to be certified, and provides for a medical 
 officer to sail with the emigrants ; moreover, upon the arrival of the vessel 
 at the port of destination, a depot is provided for the emigrants, in which 
 they remain until they are able to secure some employment. With 
 respect to the fears entertained, that the labour market at home may 
 suffer by this constant drain upon our population, it is well to remember 
 that almost every branch of industry is more than sufficiently supplied with 
 labour, and that this competition has the tendency to reduce wages ; more- 
 over, that every man who emigrates leaves a place in the labour market for 
 some one else to occupy, and that if the emigrant goes to an English 
 colony and thrives, he becomes immediately a customer, in a. hundred 
 ways, for goods imported from England. 
 
 Mr Mulhall, in his Statistics, shows the number of emigrants who 
 
Winchester to Burghclere, 
 
 385 
 
 as to Lord Suffield and humanity Buxton. ^ If it were worth 
 while to reason ^'I'&i 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 
 
 have left the United Kingdom during the last thirty years, their ratio to the 
 population, and their destination. 
 
 From United Kingdom 
 
 Emigrants- 
 
 Ratio to Pop. 
 
 1851 
 
 to 
 
 i860. 
 
 i86t 
 
 to 
 
 1870. 
 
 1871 
 
 to 
 
 1880. 
 
 1851 
 
 to 
 
 i860. 
 
 1861 
 
 to 
 
 1870. 
 
 1871 
 
 to 
 
 1880. 
 
 2,054,000 
 
 1,675,000 
 
 1,679,000 
 
 7 '3 
 
 5 '5 
 
 4-8 
 
 Emigrants. 
 
 To United States . . 
 „ Canada .... 
 „ Australia . . 
 ,, Cape, &c. . . 
 
 1851 
 
 to 
 
 i860. 
 
 1861 
 to 
 
 1870 
 
 I87I 
 
 to 
 
 1880. 
 
 Total, 
 30 years. 
 
 1,257,000 
 
 222,000 
 
 494,000 
 
 81,000 
 
 1,185,000 
 
 136,000 
 
 27^,000 
 
 82,000 
 
 1,088,000 
 178,000 
 303,000 
 1 10,000 
 
 3,530,000 
 536,000 
 
 1,069,000 
 273,000 
 
 2,054,000 
 
 1,675,000 
 
 1,679,000 
 
 5,408,000 
 
 ^ Thomas Fowell Buxton, though no genius, was a man of singular 
 earnestness and force of character. He entered Parliament in 1818 as 
 member for Weymouth, and was nicknamed " Elephant Buxton," on 
 account of his great stature (6 feet 4 in.). He took a prominent part in every 
 debate touching the amelioration of criminal law, prison discipline, widow- 
 burning, and particularly slave emancipation. 
 
 The emancipation of slaves throughout the British Colonies took place 
 on 1st August 1834, when 780,993 slaves became free. The amount of 
 indemnity paid by the Government was ;^20,ooo,ooo, at the rate of ;^26 
 per slave. 
 
 The abolition of slavery by the Senate of the United States was declared 
 on i8th December 1865, at the close of the war of emancipation, which 
 was effected at the loss of 655,000 men killed, and an outlay of 555 
 millions sterling, or £\^^ per slave. Negro equality with the whites was 
 completely recognized in February 1870. 
 
 VOL. I. 2 B 
 
386 Rural Ride from 
 
 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 
 limes 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 Sifelon^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 j and about ignorance and immorality 
 
 1 Although the Author's remarks respecting education and crime are most 
 pertinent, even at the present time, nevertheless, the result has proved 
 that while education has made great progress during the past twenty years 
 crime has certainly decreased. Thus, for instance, in 1865, the average 
 number of children in attendance in Great Britain (at schools inspected 
 under the Education Act) was 1,057,745 J while in 1881 the number of 
 children in attendance was 3,848,01 1. The annual average of criminal 
 convictions, however, from i860 to 1869 was 19,911 ; while from 1870 to 
 1879 it was 16,402, and this notwithstanding the great increase of pooula- 
 tion. ^ ^ 
 
Winchester to Burghclere. 387 
 
 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 vawst 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 stopped 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 somethijig 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 any thing more about educating t\iOzt poor 
 families ? ^ Yet, will he, when he again meets the Ministers, 
 
 ^ This has reference to the failure of a leading Bank at Plymouth, brought 
 about, as the Author implies, by an inordinate issue of small notes wiih- 
 out a sufficiency of gold to meet the demand made upon it. 
 
 ^ Mr. Brougham first attracted public notice by his admirable appear- 
 ance at the Bar of the House of Commons on behalf of certain Liverpool 
 merchants, praying for a Repeal of the Orders in Council. In 1810 he 
 entered Parliament, where, in accordance with a resolution that he made, he 
 remained silent for a month, but it has been humorously remarked that 
 " he commenced speaking on the day that the month expired, and entered 
 into every debate for the next fifty years. His public life extended over a 
 period of nearly sixty years, during which he was prominent in law, litera- 
 ture, politics, and science. He was appointed upon the Charity Commission 
 in 1816 (the result of his agitation on the subject of National Education), 
 and the Commission, of which Brougham was chairman, continued their 
 labours for three years, and published their reports, which occupied thirty- 
 seven vols, folio. It was mainly owing to his activity that the London 
 University was established, and also the first Mechanics' Institution and 
 the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. He was among the fore- 
 
388 Rural Ride from 
 
 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 national debt ? 
 
 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 pubHc property, com- 
 monly called Church property P^ 
 
 most in the battle for the emancipation of slaves. Moreover, as a law 
 reformer he laboured most assiduously, striving to give effect to the 
 ameliorations suggested by Bentham, and continuing his efforts in this 
 direction from 1816 to 1830. 
 
 1 Such appear to have been the Author's views at the time that he wrote 
 One cannot help thinking, however (in view of the altered relation in which 
 the Church now stands to the people), whether his opinions, founded as 
 they generally were upon a rough basis of justice, would not have under- 
 gone a considerable modification at the present time. 
 
 It may not be inopportune here, briefly to allude to the recent public 
 opmion of the Right. Hon. William Ewart Gladstone {the Premier) respect- 
 ing the present circumstances and prospects of the Church of England (dated 
 October 19th, 1884) :-'« When it is said that the Church is comprehensive, 
 the true meanmg seems to be, that her history, which has of course 
 determmed her character, has tended to comprise within her limits a greater 
 diversity of views than have usually been so brought together. The 
 Church of England has been peculiarly liable, on the one side, and on the 
 other, both to attack and to defection, and the probable cause is to be 
 
Winchester to Bztrghclere, 389 
 
 B. (Almost bursting with rage) How dare the honourable 
 gentleman 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 ^\\\\Q)VX 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 hotd his tongue 1 
 
 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 
 
 found in the degree in which it was attempted, in her case, to combine 
 divergent elements within her borders." 
 
 Mr. Gladstone expresses his opinion that disestablishment is improb- 
 able ; but that if it should come, " it would be the failure and waste to 
 the country of noble and astonishing eflforts, — it would be the break-up and 
 collapse of a great and cheap system, by which light and human kindliness 
 and intelligence are carried to vast tracts, that without its presence must 
 soon become as stagnant and hopeless as many of the rural communes of 
 France." What Mr. Gladstone most dreads is, " that internal dissensions 
 should create the risk of disestablishment," and hence he contends that ** the 
 great maxim, in omnibus caritas^ ought to apply with a tenfold force to the 
 members of the Church of England." 
 
390 Rural Ride from 
 
 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 
 no7u to starts there would be no "Pittites" and "Foxites." 
 Those happy days of poHtical humbug are gone for ever. 
 The "gentleman 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 3iga.inst felling- 
 the tree; and just as clamorous would the "gentlemen op- 
 posite''' 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, diWd felons must be better fed than 
 honest labourer's ; 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 
 oi 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 di^^Xt felony ; but, 
 he says not a word about the silence of Sir Jammy (the humane 
 code-softener) upon this subject! The ^^ humanity and liberal- 
 ity" of the Parliament have relieved men addicted to fraud 
 and to certain other crirnes 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 
 
Winchester to Burghclere. 391 
 
 and liberality, have made \t felony to take an apple off a treCy 
 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 " / Des- 
 picable 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-owners ; it is nobody's ; 
 it is due to the infermX funding and taxi^ig system, which of 
 necessity drives property into large masses in order to save 
 
 ^ The Act to which reference is here made, was repealed by Statute 9 
 & 10 George IV., 1829 (called Peel's Acts). — The laws respecting thefts 
 were subsequently consolidated in 1862. Our criminal code had, previ- 
 ously to the year 1808, existed in all its barbarous rigour. For instance, 
 to pick a person's pocket of property to the amount of 5s., or to steal 
 goods from a shop or house to the same amount, on a second conviction, 
 were crimes for which persons were liable to death. Thus, in 1785, ninety- 
 seven persons were executed for shop-lifting, and the awful spectacle was fre- 
 quently exhibited of twenty executions on the same occasion. Sir Samuel 
 Romilly carried a bill in 1808, abolishing the punishment of death for 
 stealing from the person to the value of 5s. ; but it was only by very slow 
 degrees that this sanguinary code was abolished. During the first twenty 
 years of this century the average number of executions was eighty-five 
 annually ; from 183 1 to 1850 the number was eighteen. 
 
392 Rural Ride from 
 
 itself; which crushes little proprietors down into labourers; 
 and which presses them down in that state, then 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 miUions 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 
 fed, 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 Butter- 
 worth, 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 Stockbrido-e ; 
 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 
 
Winchester to Burgkclere, 393 
 
 line to itj 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 any thing ; 
 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 Gulph of Mexico, wanting to get into the 
 Pacific without doubling Cape Home. A beautiful road we 
 found it. I should suppose the best part of a mile long, per- 
 fectly 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 con- 
 venient ; 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 
 
394 
 
 Rural Ride from 
 
 through which there runs that stream, which turns the mill of 
 'Squire Portal, and which mill makes the Bank of England 
 Note-Paper ! i Talk of the Thames and the Hudson, wi<:h 
 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 man- 
 kind, as to the virtues, the vices, the enjoyments and the 
 sufferings of men ; what are all these rivers put together, com- 
 pared with the river of Whitchurch, which a man of three- 
 score 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 pro- 
 duced a greater effect on the condition of men, than has been 
 produced on that condition by all the other rivers, all the 
 
 1 The Bank of England issue of notes for 1878 was as follows (according 
 to Mulhalls' statistics) : — 
 
 Value of Note. 
 
 Number, 
 
 Amount- 
 
 Ratio 
 per Cent. 
 
 ;^io 
 
 £20, £S0, ;^IOO . 
 
 ;^200, ;^300, ;^500 
 ;l^IO0O .... 
 
 2,208,000 
 
 507,000 
 
 160,000 
 
 7,000 
 
 2,000 
 
 ;^ I 1,040,000 
 5,070,000 
 8,030,000 
 2,120,000 ' 
 2,000,000 
 
 39 
 
 18 
 
 28 
 
 8 
 
 7 
 
 2,884,000 
 
 ;^28, 260,000 
 
 100 
 
 The Bank notes cost one halfpenny each. The life of a Bank note (in 
 1880) was under seventy days, the number issued during the year having 
 been 15,260,000 for an aggregate amount of 338 millions, say ;!^22 each. 
 The average in the above table is only jC^^ each. 
 
Winchester to Burghclere. 395 
 
 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 sloivly ; 
 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, con- 
 fiscating 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 Kenrick, is no 
 bad instance to begin with; for, the Baron was nobly des- 
 cended, though from French ancestors. At Albury, fifteen 
 miles on ray 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 farm-house, which I found inhabited by a 
 
2,g6 Rzcral Ride from 
 
 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, some- 
 body ; 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 Whit- 
 church ! 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 
 
Winchester to Burghclere, 397 
 
 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 latterj^<f/ only the cod-fish. 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^// 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 any where 
 else. All these are now wanted by "their betters^ A stock- 
 jobber's family will not look at such pennyless 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 
 
393 Rural Ride fivm 
 
 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 lasts j and, if that cease, then 
 what is to come J ^ 
 
 Burgclere, 
 Sunday Morning, 6M November. 
 
 It has been fine all the week, until to-day, when we intended 
 to set off for Hurstburn-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 farm-house 
 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 previous Editor makes the following remarks on the unsatisfactory 
 results to England of arbitrations with America. "Many readers will 
 observe that of late years, the Americans have been doing pretty much as 
 they pleased, as witness the Boundary-Line, Texas, Oregon, Mexico, and 
 their recent stubbornness respecling Cuba. California was first discovered 
 by our Admiral (Sir Francis Drake), and some writers have insisted that 
 we had no right to suffer the United States to assume any power in that 
 country." May we not add the Alabama Claims, in which, although Judge 
 Cockburn opposed some of the awards by the arbitrators, yet he counselled 
 submission to their judgment (29lh Sep. 1872), and thus about ;^i, 250, 000 
 too much were paid by Great Britain ; the damages claimed were 
 ;^9,476,i66, while the damages awarded were ;^3,229,i66. 
 
Winchester to Burghclere, 399 
 
 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 Oxford- 
 shire, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, and you can see the Isle 
 of Wight and the sea. On this north side the chalk soon 
 ceases, the sand and clay begin, and the oak-woods cover a 
 great part of the surface. Amongst these is the farm-house 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, ihen^ all 
 continue to flourish! The "prosperity'* was not, then, *' per- 
 manent," 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 \.\iQ\x 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 j or else he could not know 
 them to be respectable. If the parties be those that I have 
 heard of 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 inter- 
 
400 Rural Ride from 
 
 change 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 those 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 oifree 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 
 liber aV^ 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 
 
Winchester to Burghclere. 401 
 
 "coaxing, Sir: we saw, then, too clearly, the advantage we 
 " derived from your having a debt and a dead-weighty 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 
 '•''yoMx subsidies 2Ji^ yoMX 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 !"^ 
 
 ^ In agreement with this and the passage next following, is the Author's 
 noted *' Letter to the People of Kent " [Registery vol. Ivii. p. 614), in which 
 he says: — "Nations are essentially enemies of each other: they talk as friends, 
 they make treaties of amity, they make, in the most solemn names, com- 
 pacts of perpetual friendship ; but in framing these very treaties each party 
 has an ultimate eye to war." With reference to Mr. Huskisson's term 
 *' reciprocity " the author used to add the phrase " all on one side." Public 
 opinion, however, on this subject, has of late years been considerably 
 modified. This country can no longer be regarded as an agricultural, ** but 
 as a manufacturing country," while the maxim asserted by Sir Robert 
 Peel must be admitted by all, viz., "that we should buy in the cheapest 
 market, and sell in the dearest." In contrast vi'ith the Author's views on 
 the subject of reciprocity is the opinion of Adam Smith. In his "Wealth of 
 Nations" (vol. ii. p. 245) he says : — "The wealth of a neighbouring nation, 
 however dangerous in war, is certainly advantageous in trade. As a rich 
 man is likely to be a. better customer to the industrious people in his 
 neighbourhood, than a poor man, so is likewise a rich nation. If England 
 and France were to consider their real interest, without mercantile jealousy 
 or national animosity, the commerce of France might be more advantageous 
 to Great Britain than that of any other country, and, for the same reason, 
 that of Great Britain to France. *' For France is the nearest neighbour to 
 Great Britain. In the trade between the south coast of England and the 
 northern and north-western coasts of France, the returns might be ex. 
 pected in the same manner as in the inland trade — four, five, or six 
 times in the year. The ca])ital therefore employed could, in each of the 
 two countries, keep in motion four, five, or six times the number of 
 
 VOL. I. 2 C 
 
402 
 
 Rural Ride from 
 
 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 ail other nations^ or any one other nation, as 
 well as itself. It will make, unless compelled, no compact, by 
 which it does not think \\.-$>t\i 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. What- 
 ever 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 news- 
 papers 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 
 
 people, which an equal capital could do, in many other branches of the 
 foreign trade." Generally speaking, however, in the Free Trade policy of 
 Great Britain with foreign nations, reciprocity has been too much (as 
 Cobbett says) all on one side. Notwithstanding, however, the disadvantage 
 from which our country suffers by reason of our system of recip'ocity not 
 being fully adopted by foreign nations, our Customs revenue far exceeds 
 that of any nation in Europe, and (with the exception of America) that of 
 any nation in the world. By the aid of Mr. Mulhall's statistics we can 
 compare our Customs revenue with that of the three greatest trading 
 nations, viz., the United States, France, and Russia : — 
 
 Customs Revenue. 
 
 United States . 
 United Kingdom 
 France . . , 
 Russia . . 
 
 1871-80. 
 
 £ 
 26,030,000 
 
 20,110,000 
 
 10,320,000 
 
 10,525,000 
 
 1881. 
 
 Ratio to total 
 
 Commerce, 
 
 1881. 
 
 £ 
 40,590,000 
 
 19,184,000 
 12,615,000 
 12,170,000 
 
 13-10 
 
 3'36 
 378 
 
 I0'02 
 
 Shillin 
 
 Inhab 
 
 1871-80. 
 
 gsper 
 itant, 
 1881. 
 
 120 
 
 i6-6 
 
 125 
 
 1 1 -6 
 
 57 
 3'o 
 
 7 '5 
 31 
 
 The Customs revenue of the United Kingdom amounted in 18S2-1S83 to 
 ^19,657,000; and in 1 883- 1884 to ;,^i 9,701,000. In 1823 Mr. Huskisson 
 brought in his Reciprocity of Duties Bill, by winch all duties and drawbacks 
 were to be imposed and allowed on all merchandize equally, whether 
 carried in and out by British or foreign vessels. The duties on wool and 
 silk were reduced in 1824 ; and in 1825 the existing law was enacted which 
 legalizes combinations of masters and men, for settling wages and the hours of 
 labour, but prohibits the violation of contracts, and the use of intimidation. 
 
Winchester to Btirghclere. 403 
 
 fact is, the ^'free trade" project is clearly the effect of a con- 
 sciousness of our weakness. As long as we felt strong, we felt 
 bold, we had no thought of conciliating the world ; we upheld a 
 system oi 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 borough to represent ; 
 As Blue and Buff, when after hunting 
 On Yankee coasts, their " bits of bimting^^ 
 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 
 
404 Rural Ride from 
 
 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 q. 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 arjti)^ 
 France would not have attempted to treat that fine and rich 
 country as a colony? Mark how wise this measure of France! 
 Yiow just, tooj 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 master-stroke 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 
 
Winchester to Burghclere. 405 
 
 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 Ure for a repeal of the 
 Corn Laws. With all my heart. I will join any body 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 of these laws 
 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 bushel % Universal agri- 
 cultural 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 
 
 ^ The following are the steps which were taken in the repeal of the 
 Com Laws but a few years afier this opinion was expressed. In 1828 
 the Act, called the Sliding Scale, was passed, whereby wheat was allowed 
 to be imported, on payment of a duty of 25s. 8d. per quarter, whenever 
 the average price of wheat was under 62s., and to be gradually reduced to is. 
 when the average price was 73s. and upwards. 
 
 In 1842, the Act 5 Vic. c. 14 reduced the duty on wheat, with sliding 
 duties, to 20s. when the average price of wheat was under 51s., and down 
 to IS. when the average price of corn was 73s. and upwards. In 
 1846, the Act 9 and 10 Vic. c. 2. (introduced by Sir Robert Peel) was 
 passed, by which the duty of wheat was reduced to 4s. when imported 
 at or above 53s., until 1st February 1849, after which day the duty 
 on all kinds of grain was to be reduced to is. per quarter. In 1869 the 
 small remaining duty of Is. was abolished, since which time the importation 
 of corn into the United Kingdom has been absolutely free. 
 
4o6 Rural Ride from Winchester to Burghclere. 
 
 would have returned. The Small-iSrote 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 / 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 ^.'^'^Xy every pen7iy'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 Parlia- 
 ment, 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. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO. 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON. 
 

 
 
 
 
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