_Battle, Wednesday, 2 Jan. 1822._
Came here to-day from Kensington, in order to see what goes on at the
Meeting to be held here to-morrow, of the "Gentry, Clergy, Freeholders,
and Occupiers of Land in the Rape of Hastings, to take into
consideration the distressed state of the Agricultural interest." I
shall, of course, give an account of this meeting after it has taken
place.--You come through part of _Kent_ to get to _Battle_ from the
Great _Wen_ on the Surrey side of the Thames. The first town is Bromley,
the next Seven-Oaks, the next Tunbridge, and between Tunbridge and this
place you cross the boundaries of the two counties.--From the Surrey Wen
to Bromley the land is generally a deep loam on a gravel, and you see
few trees except elm. A very ugly country. On quitting Bromley the land
gets poorer; clay at bottom; the wheat sown on five, or seven, turn
lands; the furrows shining with wet; rushes on the wastes on the sides
of the road. Here there is a common, part of which has been enclosed and
thrown out again, or, rather, the fences carried away.--There is a frost
this morning, some ice, and the women look rosy-cheeked.--There is a
very great variety of soil along this road; bottom of yellow clay; then
of sand; then of sand-stone; then of solider stone; then (for about five
miles) of chalk; then of red clay; then chalk again; here (before you
come to Seven-Oaks) is a most beautiful and rich valley, extending from
east to west, with rich corn-fields and fine trees; then comes
sand-stone again; and the hop-gardens near Seven-Oaks, which is a pretty
little town with beautiful environs, part of which consists of the park
of _Knowle_, the seat of the Duchess of Dorset. It is a very fine place.
And there is another park, on the other side of the town. So that this
is a delightful place, and the land appears to be very good. The gardens
and houses all look neat and nice. On quitting Seven-Oaks you come to a
bottom of gravel for a short distance, and to a clay for many miles.
When I say that I saw teams _carting_ gravel from this spot to a
distance of nearly _ten miles_ along the road, the reader will be at no
loss to know what sort of bottom the land has all along here. The bottom
then becomes sand-stone again. This vein of land runs all along through
the county of Sussex, and the clay runs into Hampshire, across the
forests of Bere and Waltham, then across the parishes of Ouslebury,
Stoke, and passing between the sand hills of Southampton and chalk hills
of Winchester, goes westward till stopped by the chalky downs between
Romsey and Salisbury.--Tunbridge is a small but very nice town, and has
some fine meadows and a navigable river.--The rest of the way to Battle
presents, alternately, clay and sand-stone. Of course the coppices and
oak woods are very frequent. There is now and then a hop-garden spot,
and now and then an orchard of apples or cherries; but these are poor
indeed compared with what you see about Canterbury and Maidstone. The
agricultural state of the country or, rather, the quality of the land,
from Bromley to Battle, may be judged of from the fact, that I did not
see, as I came along, more than thirty acres of Swedes during the
fifty-six miles! In Norfolk I should, in the same distance, have seen
five hundred acres! However, man was not the maker of the land; and, as
to human happiness, I am of opinion, that as much, and even more, falls
to the lot of the leather-legged chaps that live in and rove about
amongst those clays and woods as to the more regularly disciplined
labourers of the rich and prime parts of England. As "God has made the
back to the burthen," so the clay and coppice people make the dress to
the stubs and bushes. Under the sole of the shoe is _iron_; from the
sole six inches upwards is a high-low; then comes a leather bam to the
knee; then comes a pair of leather breeches; then comes a stout doublet;
over this comes a smock-frock; and the wearer sets brush and stubs and
thorns and mire at defiance. I have always observed, that woodland and
forest labourers are best off in the main. The coppices give them
pleasant and profitable work in winter. If they have not so great a
corn-harvest, they have a three weeks' harvest in April or May; that is
to say, in the season of barking, which in Hampshire is called
_stripping_, and in Sussex _flaying_, which employs women and children
as well as men. And then in the great article of _fuel_! They _buy_
none. It is miserable work, where this is to be bought, and where, as at
Salisbury, the poor take by turns the making of fires at their houses to
boil four or five tea-kettles. What a winter-life must those lead, whose
turn it is not to make the fire! At Launceston in Cornwall a man, a
tradesman too, told me, that the people in general could not afford to
have fire in ordinary, and that he himself paid 3_d._ for boiling a leg
of mutton at another man's fire! The leather-legged-race know none of
these miseries, at any rate. They literally get their fuel "by _hook_ or
by _crook_," whence, doubtless, comes that old and very expressive
saying, which is applied to those cases where people _will have a thing_
by one means or another.
_Battle, Thursday (night), 3 Jan. 1822._
To-day there has been a _Meeting_ here of the landlords and farmers in
this part of Sussex, which is called the _Rape of Hastings_. The object
was to agree on a petition to Parliament praying for _relief_! Good God!
Where is this to _end_? We now see the effects of those _rags_ which I
have been railing against for the last twenty years. Here were collected
together not less than 300 persons, principally landlords and farmers,
brought from their homes by their distresses and by their alarms for the
future! Never were such things heard in any country before; and, it is
useless to hope, for terrific must be the consequences, if an effectual
remedy be not speedily applied. The town, which is small, was in a great
bustle before noon; and the Meeting (in a large room in the principal
inn) took place about one o'clock. Lord Ashburnham was called to the
chair, and there were present Mr. Curteis, one of the county members,
Mr. Fuller, who formerly used to cut _such a figure_ in the House of
Commons, Mr. Lambe, and many other gentlemen of landed property within
the Rape, or district, for which the Meeting was held. Mr. Curteis,
after Lord Ashburnham had opened the business, addressed the Meeting.
Mr. Fuller then tendered some Resolutions, describing the fallen state
of the landed interest, and proposing to pray, _generally_, for relief.
Mr. Britton complained, that it was not proposed to pray for some
_specific measure_, and insisted, that the cause of the evil was the
rise in the value of money without a corresponding reduction in the
taxes.--A Committee was appointed to draw up a petition, which was next
produced. It merely described the distress, and prayed generally for
relief. Mr. Holloway proposed an addition, containing an imputation of
the distress to restricted currency and unabated taxation, and praying
for a reduction of taxes. A discussion now arose upon two points: first,
whether the addition were admissible at all! and, second, whether Mr.
Holloway was qualified to offer it to the Meeting. Both the points
having been, at last, decided in the affirmative, the addition, or
amendment, was put, and _lost_; and then the original petition was
adopted.
After the business of the day was ended, there was a dinner in the inn,
in the same room where the Meeting had been held. I was at this dinner;
and Mr. Britton having proposed my health, and Mr. Curteis, who was in
the Chair, having given it, I thought it would have looked like
mock-modesty, which is, in fact, only another term for hypocrisy, to
refrain from expressing my opinions upon a point or two connected with
the business of the day. I shall now insert a substantially correct
sketch of what the company was indulgent enough to hear from me at the
dinner; which I take from the report contained in the _Morning
Chronicle_ of Saturday last. The report in the Chronicle has all the
_pith_ of what I advanced relative to _the inutility of Corn Bills_, and
relative to _the cause of further declining prices_; two points of the
greatest importance in themselves, and which I was, and am, uncommonly
anxious to press upon the attention of the public.