_Burghclere, Monday Morning, 31st October 1825._
We had, or I had, resolved not to breakfast at Winchester yesterday: and
yet we were detained till nearly noon. But at last off we came,
_fasting_. The turnpike-road from Winchester to this place comes through
a village called Sutton Scotney, and then through Whitchurch, which lies
on the Andover and London road, through Basingstoke. We did not take the
cross-turnpike till we came to Whitchurch. We went to King's Worthy;
that is about two miles on the road from Winchester to London; and then,
turning short to our left, came up upon the downs to the north of
Winchester race-course. Here, looking back at the city and at the fine
valley above and below it, and at the many smaller valleys that run down
from the high ridges into that great and fertile valley, I could not
help admiring the taste of the ancient kings who made this city (which
once covered all the hill round about, and which contained 92 churches
and chapels) a chief place of their residence. There are not many finer
spots in England; and if I were to take in a circle of eight or ten
miles of semi-diameter, I should say that I believe there is not one so
fine. Here are hill, dell, water, meadows, woods, corn-fields, downs:
and all of them very fine and very beautifully disposed. This country
does not present to us that sort of beauties which we see about
Guildford and Godalming, and round the skirts of Hindhead and Blackdown,
where the ground lies in the form that the surface-water in a boiling
copper would be in if you could, by word of command, _make it be still_,
the variously-shaped bubbles all sticking up; and really, to look at the
face of the earth, who can help imagining that some such process has
produced its present form? Leaving this matter to be solved by those who
laugh at mysteries, I repeat that the country round Winchester does not
present to us beauties of _this sort_; but of a sort which I like a
great deal better. Arthur Young calls the vale between Farnham and Alton
_the finest ten miles_ in England. Here is a river with fine meadows on
each side of it, and with rising grounds on each outside of the meadows,
those grounds having some hop-gardens and some pretty woods. But though
I was born in this vale I must confess that the ten miles between
Maidstone and Tunbridge (which the Kentish folks call the _Garden of
Eden_) is a great deal finer; for here, with a river three times as big,
and a vale three times as broad, there are, on rising grounds six times
as broad, not only hop-gardens and beautiful woods, but immense orchards
of apples, pears, plums, cherries and filberts, and these, in many
cases, with gooseberries and currants and raspberries beneath; and, all
taken together, the vale is really worthy of the appellation which it
bears. But even this spot, which I believe to be the very finest, as to
fertility and diminutive beauty, in this whole world, I, for my part, do
not like so well; nay, as a spot to _live on_, I think nothing at all of
it, compared with a country where high downs prevail, with here and
there a large wood on the top or the side of a hill, and where you see,
in the deep dells, here and there a farm-house, and here and there a
village, the buildings sheltered by a group of lofty trees.
This is my taste, and here, in the north of Hampshire, it has its full
gratification. I like to look at the winding side of a great down, with
two or three numerous flocks of sheep on it, belonging to different
farms; and to see, lower down, the folds, in the fields, ready to
receive them for the night. We had, when we got upon the downs, after
leaving Winchester, this sort of country all the way to Whitchurch. Our
point of destination was this village of Burghclere, which lies close
under the north side of the lofty hill at Highclere, which is called
Beacon Hill, and on the top of which there are still the marks of a
Roman encampment. We saw this hill as soon as we got on Winchester
Downs; and without any regard to _roads_, we _steered_ for it, as
sailors do for a land-mark. Of these 13 miles (from Winchester to
Whitchurch) we rode about eight or nine upon the _green-sward_, or over
fields equally smooth. And here is one great pleasure of living in
countries of this sort: no sloughs, no ditches, no nasty dirty lanes,
and the hedges, where there are any, are more for boundary marks than
for fences. Fine for hunting and coursing: no impediments; no gates to
open; nothing to impede the dogs, the horses, or the view. The water is
not _seen running_; but the great bed of chalk _holds it_, and the sun
draws it up for the benefit of the grass and the corn; and, whatever
inconvenience is experienced from the necessity of deep wells, and of
driving sheep and cattle far to water, is amply made up for by the
goodness of the water, and by the complete absence of floods, of
drains, of ditches and of water-furrows. As _things now are_, however,
these countries have one great drawback: the poor day-labourers suffer
from the want of fuel, and they have nothing but their _bare pay_. For
these reasons they are greatly worse off than those of the _woodland
countries_; and it is really surprising what a difference there is
between the faces that you see here and the round, red faces that you
see in the _wealds_ and the _forests_, particularly in Sussex, where the
labourers _will_ have a _meat-pudding_ of some sort or other; and where
they _will_ have _a fire_ to sit by in the winter.
After steering for some time, we came down to a very fine farmhouse,
which we stopped a little to admire; and I asked Richard whether _that_
was not a place to be happy in. The village, which we found to be
Stoke-Charity, was about a mile lower down this little vale. Before we
got to it, we overtook the owner of the farm, who knew me, though I did
not know him; but when I found it was Mr. Hinton Bailey, of whom and
whose farm I had heard so much, I was not at all surprised at the
fineness of what I had just seen. I told him that the word _charity_,
making, as it did, part of the name of this place, had nearly inspired
me with boldness enough to go to the farmhouse, in the ancient style,
and ask for something to eat, for that we had not yet breakfasted. He
asked us to go back; but at Burghclere we were _resolved to dine_.
After, however, crossing the village, and beginning again to ascend the
downs, we came to a labourer's (_once a farmhouse_), where I asked the
man whether he had any _bread and cheese_, and was not a little pleased
to hear him say "_Yes_." Then I asked him to give us a bit, protesting
that we had not yet broken our fast. He answered in the affirmative at
once, though I did not talk of payment. His wife brought out the cut
loaf, and a piece of Wiltshire cheese, and I took them in hand, gave
Richard a good hunch, and took another for myself. I verily believe that
all the pleasure of eating enjoyed by all the feeders in London in a
whole year does not equal that which we enjoyed in gnawing this bread
and cheese as we rode over this cold down, whip and bridle-reins in one
hand, and the hunch in the other. Richard, who was purse bearer, gave
the woman, by my direction, about enough to buy two quartern loaves: for
she told me that they had to buy their bread _at the mill_, not being
able to bake themselves for _want of fuel_; and this, as I said before,
is one of the draw-backs in this sort of country. I wish every one of
these people had an _American fire-place_. Here they might, then, even
in these bare countries, have comfortable warmth. Rubbish of any sort
would, by this means, give them warmth. I am now, at six o'clock in the
morning, sitting in a room, where one of these fire-places, with very
light _turf_ in it, gives as good and steady a warmth as it is possible
to feel, and which room has, too, been _cured of smoking_ by this
fire-place.
Before we got this supply of bread and cheese, we, though in ordinary
times a couple of singularly jovial companions, and seldom going a
hundred yards (except going very fast) without one or the other
speaking, began to grow _dull_, or rather _glum_. The way seemed long;
and, when I had to speak in answer to Richard, the speaking was as brief
as might be. Unfortunately, just at this critical period, one of the
loops that held the straps of Richard's little portmanteau broke; and it
became necessary (just before we overtook Mr. Bailey) for me to fasten
the portmanteau on before me, upon my saddle. This, which was not the
work of more than five minutes, would, had I had _a breakfast_, have
been nothing at all, and, indeed, matter of laughter. But _now_ it was
_something_. It was his "_fault_" for capering and jerking about "_so_."
I jumped off, saying, "_Here!_ I'll carry it _myself_." And then I began
to take off the remaining strap, pulling with great violence and in
great haste. Just at this time my eyes met his, in which I saw _great
surprise_; and, feeling the just rebuke, feeling heartily ashamed of
myself, I instantly changed my tone and manner, cast the blame upon the
saddler, and talked of the effectual means which we would take to
prevent the like in future.
Now, if such was the effect produced upon me by the want of food for
only two or three hours; me, who had dined well the day before and eaten
toast and butter the over-night; if the missing of only one breakfast,
and that, too, from my own whim, while I had money in my pocket to get
one at any public-house, and while I could get one only for asking for
at any farm-house; if the not having breakfasted could, and under such
circumstances, make me what you may call "_cross_" to a child like this,
whom I must necessarily love so much, and to whom I never speak but in
the very kindest manner; if this mere absence of a breakfast could thus
put me _out of temper_, how great are the allowances that we ought to
make for the poor creatures who, in this once happy and now miserable
country, are doomed to lead a life of constant labour and of
half-starvation. I suppose that, as we rode away from the cottage, we
gnawed up, between us, a pound of bread and a quarter of a pound of
cheese. Here was about _fivepence_ worth at present prices. Even this,
which was only a mere _snap_, a mere _stay-stomach_, for us, would, for
us two, come to 3_s._ a week all but a penny. How, then, gracious God!
is a labouring man, his wife, and, perhaps, four or five small children,
to exist upon 8_s._ or 9_s._ a week! Aye, and to find house-rent,
clothing, bedding and fuel out of it? Richard and I ate here, at this
snap, more, and much more, than the average of labourers, their wives
and children, have to eat in a whole day, and that the labourer has to
_work_ on too!
When we got here to Burghclere we were again as _hungry_ as hunters.
What, then, must be the life of these poor creatures? But is not the
state of the country, is not the hellishness of the system, all depicted
in this one disgraceful and damning fact, that the magistrates, who
settle on what the _labouring poor_ ought to have to live on, ALLOW THEM
LESS THAN IS ALLOWED TO FELONS IN THE GAOLS, and allow them _nothing for
clothing and fuel, and house-rent_! And yet, while this is notoriously
the case, while the main body of the working class in England are fed
and clad and even lodged worse than felons, and are daily becoming even
worse and worse off, the King is advised to tell the Parliament, and the
world, that we are in a state of _unexampled prosperity_, and that this
prosperity must be _permanent_, because _all the_ GREAT _interests_ are
_prospering_! THE WORKING PEOPLE ARE NOT, THEN, "A _GREAT_ INTEREST"!
THEY WILL BE FOUND TO BE ONE, BY-AND-BY. What is to be the _end_ of
this? What can be the _end_ of it, but dreadful convulsion? What other
can be produced by a system, which allows the _felon_ better food,
better clothing, and better lodging than the _honest labourer_?
I see that there has been a grand _humanity-meeting_ in Norfolk to
assure the Parliament that these humanity-people will _back_ it in any
measures that it may adopt for freeing the NEGROES. Mr. Buxton figured
here, also Lord Suffield, who appear to have been the two principal
actors, or _showers-off_. This same Mr. Buxton opposed the Bill intended
to relieve the poor in England by breaking a little into the brewers'
monopoly; and as to Lord Suffield, if he really wish to _free slaves_,
let him go to Wykham in this county, where he will see some drawing,
like horses, gravel to repair the roads for the stock-jobbers and
dead-weight and the seat-dealers to ride smoothly on. If he go down a
little further, he will see CONVICTS at PRECISELY THE SAME WORK,
harnessed in JUST THE SAME WAY; but the convicts he will find hale and
ruddy-cheeked, in dresses sufficiently warm, and bawling and singing;
while he will find the labourers thin, ragged, shivering, dejected
mortals, such as never were seen in any other country upon earth. There
is not a negro in the West Indies who has not more to eat in a day, than
the average of English labourers have to eat in a week, and of better
food too. Colonel Wodehouse and a man of the name of Hoseason (whence
came he?) who opposed this humanity-scheme talked of the sums necessary
to pay the owners of the slaves. They took special care not to tell the
humanity-men _to look at home for slaves to free_. No, no! that would
have applied to themselves, as well as to Lord Suffield and humanity
Buxton. If it were worth while to _reason_ with these people, one might
ask them whether they do not think that _another war_ is likely to
relieve them of all these cares, simply by making the colonies transfer
their allegiance or assert their independence? But to reason with them
is useless. If they can busy themselves with compassion for the negroes,
while they uphold the system that makes the labourers of England more
wretched, and beyond all measure more wretched, than any negro slaves
are, or ever were, or ever can be, they are unworthy of anything but our
contempt.
But the "education" canters are the most curious fellows of all. They
have seen "education," as they call it, and crimes, go on increasing
together, till the gaols, though six times their former dimensions, will
hardly suffice; and yet the canting creatures still cry that crimes
arise from want of what they call "education!" They see the felon better
fed and better clad than the honest labourer. They see this; and yet
they continually cry that the crimes arise from a want of "education!"
What can be the cause of this perverseness? It is not perverseness: it
is _roguery_, _corruption_, and _tyranny_. The tyrant, the unfeeling
tyrant, squeezes the labourers for gain's sake; and the corrupt
politician and literary or tub rogue find an excuse for him by
pretending that it is not want of food and clothing, but want of
education, that makes the poor, starving wretches thieves and robbers.
If the press, if only the press, were to do its duty, or but a tenth
part of its duty, this hellish system could not go on. But it favours
the system by ascribing the misery to wrong causes. The causes are
these: the tax-gatherer presses the landlord; the landlord the farmer;
and the farmer the labourer. Here it falls at last; and this class is
made so miserable that a _felon's_ life is better than that of a
_labourer_. Does there want any _other cause_ to produce crimes? But on
these causes, so clear to the eye of reason, so plain from experience,
the press scarcely ever says a single word; while it keeps bothering our
brains about education and morality; and about ignorance and immorality
leading to _felonies_. To be sure immorality leads to felonies. Who does
not know that? But who is to expect morality in a half-starved man, who
is whipped if he do not work, though he has not, for his whole day's
food, so much as I and my little boy snapped up in six or seven minutes
upon Stoke-Charity Down? Aye! but if the press were to ascribe the
increase of crimes to the true causes it must _go further back_. It must
go to the _cause of the taxes_. It must go to the debt, the
dead-weight, the thundering standing army, the enormous sinecures,
pensions, and grants; and this would suit but a very small part of a
_press_ which lives and thrives principally by one or the other of
these.
As with the press, so is it with Mr. Brougham and all such politicians.
They stop short, or, rather, they begin in the middle. They attempt to
prevent the evils of the deadly ivy by cropping off, or, rather,
bruising a little, a few of its leaves. They do not assail even its
branches, while they appear to look upon the _trunk_ as something _too
sacred_ even to be _looked at_ with vulgar eyes. Is not the injury
recently done to about _forty thousand poor families_ in and near
Plymouth, by the Small-note Bill, a thing that Mr. Brougham ought to
think about before he thinks anything more about _educating_ those poor
families? Yet will he, when he again meets the Ministers, say a word
about this monstrous evil? I am afraid that no Member will say a word
about it; but I am rather more than afraid that _he_ will not. And
_why_? Because, if he reproach the Ministers with this crying cruelty,
they will ask him first how this is to be prevented without a repeal of
the Small-note Bill (by which Peel's Bill was partly repealed); then
they will ask him, how the prices are to be kept up without the
small-notes; then they will say, "Does the honourable and learned
Gentleman _wish to see wheat at four shillings a bushel again_?"
B. No (looking at Mr. Western and Daddy Coke), no, no, no! Upon my
honour, no!
MIN. Does the honourable and learned Gentleman wish to see Cobbett again
at county meetings, and to see petitions again coming from those
meetings, calling for a reduction of the interest of the...?
B. No, no, no, upon my soul, no!
MIN. Does the honourable and learned Gentleman wish to see that
"_equitable_ adjustment," which Cobbett has a thousand times declared
can never take place without an application, to new purposes, of that
great mass of public property, commonly called Church property?
B. (Almost bursting with rage). How _dare_ the honourable gentlemen to
suppose me capable of such a thought?
MIN. We suppose nothing. We only ask the question; and we ask it,
because to put an end to the small-notes would inevitably produce all
these things; and it is impossible to have small-notes to the extent
necessary to _keep up prices_, without having, now-and-then, _breaking
banks_. Banks cannot break without _producing misery_; you must have the
_consequence_ if you will have the _cause_. The honourable and learned
Gentleman wants the feast without the reckoning. In short, is the
honourable and learned Gentleman for putting an end to "_public
credit_"?
B. No, no, no, no!
MIN. Then would it not be better for the honourable and learned
Gentleman to _hold his tongue_?
All men of sense and sincerity will at once answer this last question in
the affirmative. They will all say that this is not _opposition_ to the
Ministers. The Ministers do not _wish_ to see 40,000 families, nor any
families at all (who give them _no real annoyance_), reduced to misery;
they do not _wish_ to cripple their own tax-payers; very far from it. If
they could carry on the debt and dead-weight and place and pension and
barrack system, without reducing any _quiet_ people to misery, they
would like it exceedingly. But they _do_ wish to carry on that system;
and he does not _oppose_ them who does not endeavour to put an end to
the system.
This is done by nobody in Parliament; and, therefore, there is, in fact,
_no opposition_; and this is felt by the whole nation; and this is the
reason why _the people_ now take so little interest in what is said and
done in Parliament, compared to that which they formerly took. This is
the reason why there is no man, or men, whom the people seem to care at
all about. A great portion of the people now clearly understand the
nature and effects of the system; they are not now to be deceived by
speeches and professions. If Pitt and Fox had _now to start_, there
would be no "Pittites" and "Foxites." Those happy days of political
humbug are gone for ever. The "gentlemen _opposite_" are opposite only
as to mere _local position_. They sit on the opposite side of the House:
that's all. In every other respect they are like parson and clerk; or,
perhaps, rather more like the rooks and jackdaws: one _caw_ and the
other _chatter_; but both have the same object in view: both are in
pursuit of the same sort of diet. One set is, to be sure, IN place, and
the other OUT; but, though the rooks keep the jackdaws on the inferior
branches, these latter would be as clamorous as the rooks themselves
against _felling the tree_; and just as clamorous would the "gentlemen
opposite" be against any one who should propose to put down the system
itself. And yet, unless you do _that_, things must go on in the present
way, and _felons_ must be _better fed_ than _honest labourers_; and
starvation and thieving and robbing and gaol-building and transporting
and hanging and penal laws must go on increasing, as they have gone on
from the day of the establishment of the debt to the present hour.
Apropos of _penal laws_, Doctor Black (of the Morning Chronicle) is now
filling whole columns with very just remarks on the new and terrible
law, which makes the taking of an apple _felony_; but he says not a
word about the _silence_ of Sir Jammy (the humane _code-softener_) upon
this subject! The "_humanity_ and _liberality_" of the Parliament have
relieved men addicted to _fraud_ and to _certain other crimes_ from the
disgrace of the pillory, and they have, since Castlereagh cut his own
throat, relieved _self-slayers_ from the disgrace of the cross-road
burial; but the same Parliament, amidst all the workings of this rare
humanity and liberality, have made it _felony to take an apple off a
tree_, which last year was a trivial trespass, and was formerly no
offence at all! However, even this _is necessary_, as long as this
bank-note system continue in its present way; and all complaints about
severity of laws, levelled at the poor, are useless and foolish; and
these complaints are even base in those who do their best to uphold a
system which has brought _the honest labourer to be fed worse than the
felon_. What, short of such laws, can prevent _starving men_ from coming
to take away the dinners of those who have plenty? "_Education_"!
Despicable cant and nonsense! What education, what moral precepts, can
quiet the gnawings and ragings of hunger?
Looking, now, back again for a minute to the little village of
_Stoke-Charity_, the name of which seems to indicate that its rents
formerly belonged wholly to the poor and indigent part of the community:
it is near to Winchester, that grand scene of ancient learning, piety,
and munificence. Be this as it may, the parish formerly contained ten
farms, and it now contains but two, which are owned by Mr. Hinton Bailey
and his nephew, and, therefore, which may probably become _one_. There
used to be ten well-fed families in this parish at any rate: these,
taking five to a family, made fifty well-fed people. And now all are
half-starved, except the curate and the two families. The _blame_ is not
the land-owner's; it is nobody's; it is due to the infernal _funding_
and _taxing_ system, which _of necessity_ drives property into large
masses in order to _save itself_; which crushes little proprietors down
into labourers; and which presses them down in that state, there takes
their wages from them and makes them _paupers_, their share of food and
raiment being taken away to support debt and dead-weight and army and
all the rest of the enormous expenses which are required to sustain this
intolerable system. Those, therefore, are fools or hypocrites who affect
to wish to better the lot of the poor labourers and manufacturers, while
they, at the same time, either actively or passively, uphold the system
which is the manifest cause of it. Here is a system which, clearly as
the nose upon your face, you see taking away the little gentleman's
estate, the little farmer's farm, the poor labourer's meat-dinner and
Sunday-coat; and while you see this so plainly, you, fool or hypocrite,
as you are, cry out for supporting the system that causes it all! Go on,
base wretch; but remember that of such a progress dreadful must be the
end. The day will come when millions of long-suffering creatures will be
in a state that they and you now little dream of. All that we now behold
of _combinations_, and the like, are mere _indications_ of what the
great body of the suffering people _feel_, and of the thoughts that are
passing in their minds. The _coaxing_ work of _schools_ and _tracts_
will only add to what would be quite enough without them. There is not a
labourer in the whole country who does not see to the bottom of this
_coaxing_ work. They are _not deceived_ in this respect. Hunger has
opened their eyes. I'll engage that there is not, even in this obscure
village of Stoke-Charity, one single creature, however forlorn, who does
not understand all about the _real motives_ of the school and the tract
and the Bible affair as well as Butterworth, or Rivington, or as Joshua
Watson himself.
Just after we had finished the bread and cheese, we crossed the turnpike
road that goes from Basingstoke to Stockbridge; and Mr. Bailey had told
us that we were then to bear away to our right, and go to the end of a
wood (which we saw one end of), and keep round with that wood, or
coppice, as he called it, to our left; but we, seeing Beacon Hill more
to the left, and resolving to go, as nearly as possible, in a straight
line to it, steered directly over the fields; that is to say, pieces of
ground from 30 to 100 acres in each. But a hill which we had to go over
had here hidden from our sight a part of this "coppice," which consists,
perhaps, of 150 or 200 acres, and which we found sweeping round, in a
crescent-like form so far, from towards our left, as to bring our
land-mark over the coppice at about the mid-length of the latter. Upon
this discovery we slackened sail; for this coppice might be a mile
across; and though the bottom was sound enough, being a coverlet of
flints upon a bed of chalk, the underwood was too high and too thick for
us to face, being, as we were, at so great a distance from the means of
obtaining a fresh supply of clothes. Our leather leggings would have
stood anything; but our coats were of the common kind; and before we saw
the other side of the coppice we should, I dare say, have been as ragged
as forest-ponies in the month of March.
In this dilemma I stopped and looked at the coppice. Luckily two boys,
who had been cutting sticks (to _sell_, I dare say, at least _I hope
so_), made their appearance, at about half a mile off, on the side for
the coppice. Richard galloped off to the boys, from whom he found that
in one part of the coppice there was a road cut across, the point of
entrance into which road they explained to him. This was to us what the
discovery of a canal across the isthmus of Darien would be to a ship in
the Gulf of Mexico wanting to get into the Pacific without doubling Cape
Horne. A beautiful road we found it. I should suppose the best part of a
mile long, perfectly straight, the surface sound and smooth, about eight
feet wide, the whole length seen at once, and, when you are at one end,
the other end seeming to be hardly a yard wide. When we got about
half-way, we found a road that crossed this. These roads are, I suppose,
cut for the hunters. They are very pretty, at any rate, and we found
this one very convenient; for it cut our way short by a full half mile.
From this coppice to Whitchurch is not more than about four miles, and
we soon reached it, because here you begin to descend into the _vale_,
in which this little town lies, and through which there runs that
_stream_ which turns the mill of 'Squire Portal, and which mill makes
the Bank of England Note-Paper! Talk of the Thames and the Hudson with
their forests of masts; talk of the Nile and the Delaware bearing the
food of millions on their bosoms; talk of the Ganges and the Mississippi
sending forth over the world their silks and their cottons; talk of the
Rio de la Plata and the other rivers, their beds pebbled with silver and
gold and diamonds. What, as to their effect on the condition of mankind,
as to the virtues, the vices, the enjoyments and the sufferings of men;
what are all these rivers put together compared with the _river of
Whitchurch_, which a man of threescore may jump across dry-shod, which
moistens a quarter of a mile wide of poor, rushy meadow, which washes
the skirts of the park and game preserves of that bright patrician who
wedded the daughter of Hanson, the attorney and late solicitor to the
Stamp-Office, and which is, to look at it, of far less importance than
any gutter in the Wen! Yet this river, by merely turning a wheel, which
wheel sets some rag-tearers and grinders and washers and re-compressers
in motion, has produced a greater effect on the condition of men than
has been produced on that condition by all the other rivers, all the
seas, all the mines and all the continents in the world. The discovery
of America, and the consequent discovery and use of vast quantities of
silver and gold, did, indeed, produce great effects on the nations of
Europe. They changed the value of money, and caused, as all such changes
must, _a transfer of property_, raising up new families and pulling down
old ones, a transfer very little favourable either to _morality_, or to
real and _substantial liberty_. But this cause worked _slowly_; its
consequences came on by slow _degrees_; it made a transfer of property,
but it made that transfer in so small a degree, and it left the
property quiet in the hands of the new possessor _for so long a time_,
that the effect was not violent, and was not, at any rate, such as to
uproot possessors by whole districts, as the hurricane uproots the
forests.
Not so the product of the little sedgy rivulet of Whitchurch! It has, in
the short space of a hundred and thirty-one years, and, indeed, in the
space of the last _forty_, caused greater changes as to property than
had been caused by all other things put together in the long course of
seven centuries, though during that course there had been a sweeping,
confiscating Protestant reformation. Let us look back to the place where
I started on this present rural ride. Poor old Baron Maseres, succeeded
at Reigate by little Parson Fellowes, and at Betchworth (three miles on
my road) by Kendrick, is no bad instance to begin with; for the Baron
was nobly descended, though from French ancestors. At Albury, fifteen
miles on my road, Mr. Drummond (a banker) is in the seat of one of the
Howards, and close by he has bought the estate, just pulled down the
house, and blotted out the memory of the Godschalls. At Chilworth, two
miles further down the same vale, and close under St. Martha's Hill, Mr.
Tinkler, a powder-maker (succeeding Hill, another powder-maker, who had
been a breeches-maker at Hounslow), has got the old mansion and the
estate of the old Duchess of Marlborough, who frequently resided in what
was then a large quadrangular mansion, but the remains of which now
serve as out farm-buildings and a farmhouse, which I found inhabited by
a poor labourer and his family, the farm being in the hands of the
powder-maker, who does not find the once noble seat good enough for him.
Coming on to Waverley Abbey, there is Mr. Thompson, a merchant,
succeeding the Orby Hunters and Sir Robert Rich. Close adjoining, Mr.
Laing, a West India dealer of some sort, has stepped into the place of
the lineal descendants of Sir William Temple. At Farnham the park and
palace remain in the hands of a Bishop of Winchester, as they have done
for about eight hundred years: but why is this? Because they are public
property; because they cannot, without express laws, be transferred.
Therefore the product of the rivulet of Whitchurch has had no effect
upon the ownership of these, which are still in the hands of a Bishop of
Winchester; not of a William of Wykham, to be sure; but still, in those
of a bishop, at any rate. Coming on to old Alresford (twenty miles from
Farnham) Sheriff, the son of a Sheriff, who was a Commissary in the
American war, has succeeded the Gages. Two miles further on, at
Abbotston (down on the side of the Itchen) Alexander Baring has
succeeded the heirs and successors of the Duke of Bolton, the remains of
whose noble mansion I once saw here. Not above a mile higher up, the
same Baring has, at the Grange, with its noble mansion, park and estate,
succeeded the heirs of Lord Northington; and at only about two miles
further, Sir Thomas Baring, at Stratton Park, has succeeded the Russells
in the ownership of the estates of Stratton and Micheldover, which were
once the property of Alfred the Great! Stepping back, and following my
road, down by the side of the meadows of the beautiful river Itchen, and
coming to Easton, I look across to Martyr's Worthy, and there see (as I
observed before) the Ogles succeeded by a general or a colonel somebody;
but who, or whence, I cannot learn.
This is all in less than four score miles, from Reigate even to this
place, where I now am. Oh! mighty rivulet of Whitchurch! All our
properties, all our laws, all our manners, all our minds, you have
changed! This, which I have noticed, has all taken place within forty,
and most of it within _ten_ years. The _small gentry_, to about the
_third_ rank upwards (considering there to be five ranks from the
smallest gentry up to the greatest nobility), are _all gone_, nearly to
a man, and the small farmers along with them. The Barings alone have, I
should think, swallowed up thirty or forty of these small gentry without
perceiving it. They, indeed, swallow up the biggest race of all; but
innumerable small fry slip down unperceived, like caplins down the
throats of the sharks, while these latter _feel_ only the codfish. It
frequently happens, too, that a big gentleman or nobleman, whose estate
has been big enough to resist for a long while, and who has swilled up
many caplin-gentry, goes down the throat of the loan-dealer with all the
caplins in his belly.
Thus the Whitchurch rivulet goes on, shifting property from hand to
hand. The big, in order to save themselves from being "_swallowed up
quick_" (as we used to be taught to say in our Church Prayers against
Buonaparte), make use of their _voices_ to get, through place, pension,
or sinecure, something back from the taxers. Others of them _fall in
love_ with the _daughters_ and _widows_ of paper-money people, big
brewers, and the like; and sometimes their daughters _fall in love_ with
the paper-money people's sons, or the fathers of those sons; and,
whether they be _Jews_, or not, seems to be little matter with this
all-subduing passion of love. But the _small gentry_ have no resource.
While _war_ lasted, "_glorious_ war," there was a resource; but _now_,
alas! not only is there no war, but there is _no hope of war_; and not a
few of them will actually come to the _parish-book_. There is no place
for them in the army, church, navy, customs, excise, pension-list, or
anywhere else. All these are now wanted by "their _betters_." A
stock-jobber's family will not look at such penniless things. So that
while they have been the active, the zealous, the efficient
instruments, in compelling the working classes to submit to
half-starvation, they have at any rate been brought to the most abject
ruin themselves; for which I most heartily thank God. The "harvest of
war" is never to return without a total blowing up of the paper-system.
Spain must belong to France, St. Domingo must pay her tribute. America
must be paid for slaves taken away in war, she must have Florida, she
must go on openly and avowedly making a navy for the purpose of humbling
us; and all this, and ten times more, if France and America should
choose; and yet we can have _no war_ as long as the paper-system last;
and, if _that cease_, then _what is to come_!
_Burghclere, Sunday Morning, 6th November._
It has been fine all the week until to-day, when we intended to set off
for Hurstbourn-Tarrant, vulgarly called Uphusband, but the rain seems as
if it would stop us. From Whitchurch to within two miles of this place
it is the same sort of country as between Winchester and Whitchurch.
High, chalk bottom, open downs or large fields, with here and there a
farmhouse in a dell sheltered by lofty trees, which, to my taste, is the
most pleasant situation in the world.
This has been, with Richard, one whole week of hare-hunting, and with
me, three days and a half. The weather has been amongst the finest that
I ever saw, and Lord Caernarvon's preserves fill the country with hares,
while these hares invite us to ride about and to see his park and
estate, at this fine season of the year, in every direction. We are now
on the north side of that Beacon Hill for which we steered last Sunday.
This makes part of a chain of lofty chalk-hills and downs, which divides
all the lower part of Hampshire from Berkshire, though the ancient
ruler, owner, of the former took a little strip all along on the flat,
on this side of the chain, in order, I suppose, to make the ownership of
the hills themselves the more clear of all dispute; just as the owner of
a field-hedge and bank owns also the ditch on his neighbour's side. From
these hills you look, at one view, over the whole of Berkshire, into
Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, and you can see the Isle of
Wight and the sea. On this north side the chalk soon ceases, and the
sand and clay begin, and the oak-woods cover a great part of the
surface. Amongst these is the farmhouse in which we are, and from the
warmth and good fare of which we do not mean to stir until we can do it
without the chance of a wet skin.
This rain has given me time to look at the newspapers of about a week
old. Oh, oh! The Cotton Lords are tearing! Thank God for that! The Lords
of the Anvil are snapping! Thank God for that too! They have kept poor
souls, then, in a heat of 84 degrees to little purpose after all. The
"great interests" mentioned in the King's Speech do not, _then_, all
continue to flourish! The "prosperity" was not, then, "permanent,"
though the King was advised to assert so positively that it was!
"Anglo-Mexican and Pasco-Peruvian" fall in price, and the Chronicle
assures me that "the respectable owners of the Mexican Mining shares
mean to take measures to protect their _property_." Indeed! Like
_protecting_ the Spanish Bonds, I suppose? Will the Chronicle be so good
as to tell us the names of these "_respectable_ persons"? Doctor Black
must know their names; or else he could not know them to be
_respectable_. If the parties be those that I have heard, these mining
works may possibly operate with them as an emetic, and make them throw
up a part at least of what they have taken down.
There has, I see, at New York, been that confusion which I, four months
ago, said would and must take place; that breaking of merchants and all
the ruin which, in such a case, spreads itself about, ruining families
and producing fraud and despair. Here will be, between the two
countries, an interchange of cause and effect, proceeding from the
dealings in _cotton_, until, first and last, two or three hundred
thousands of persons have, at one spell of paper-money work, been made
to drink deep of misery. I pity none but the poor English creatures, who
are compelled to work on the wool of this accursed weed, which has done
so much mischief to England. The slaves who cultivate and gather the
cotton are well fed. They do not suffer. The sufferers are these who
spin it and weave it and colour it, and the wretched beings who cover
with it those bodies which, as in the time of old Fortescue, ought to be
"clothed throughout in good woollens."
One newspaper says that Mr. Huskisson is gone to Paris, and thinks it
_likely_ that he will endeavour to "inculcate in the mind of the
Bourbons wise principles of _free trade_!" What the devil next! Persuade
them, I suppose, that it is for _their good_ that English goods should
be admitted into France and into St. Domingo with little or no duty?
Persuade them to make a treaty of commerce with him; and, in short,
persuade them to make _France help to pay the interest of our debt and
dead-weight_, lest our system of paper should go to pieces, and lest
that should be followed by _a radical reform_, which reform would be
injurious to "the monarchical principle!" This newspaper politician
does, however, _think_ that the Bourbons will be "too dull" to
comprehend these "_enlightened_ and _liberal_" notions; and I think so
too. I think the Bourbons, or, rather, those who will speak for them,
will say: "No thank you. You contracted your debt without our
participation; you made your _dead-weight_ for your own purposes; the
seizure of our museums and the loss of our frontier towns followed your
victory of Waterloo, though we were 'your Allies' at the time; you made
us pay an enormous Tribute after that battle, and kept possession of
part of France till we had paid it; you _wished_, the other day, to keep
us out of Spain, and you, Mr. Huskisson, in a speech at Liverpool,
called our deliverance of the King of Spain an _unjust and unprincipled
act of aggression_, while Mr. Canning _prayed to God_ that we might not
succeed. No thank you, Mr. Huskisson, no. No coaxing, Sir: we saw, then,
too clearly the _advantage we derived from your having a debt and a dead
weight_ to wish to assist in relieving you from either. 'Monarchical
principle' here, or 'monarchical principle' there, we know that your
mill-stone debt is our best security. We like to have your wishes, your
prayers, and your abuse against us, rather than your _subsidies_ and
your _fleets_: and so farewell, Mr. Huskisson: if you like, the English
may drink French wine; but whether they do or not, the French shall not
wear your rotten cottons. And as a last word, how did you maintain the
'monarchical principle,' the 'paternal principle,' or as Castlereagh
called it, the 'social system,' when you called that an unjust and
unprincipled aggression which put an end to the bargain by which the
convents and other church-property of Spain were to be transferred to
the Jews and Jobbers of London? Bon jour, Monsieur Huskisson, ci-devant
membre et orateur du club de quatre vingt neuf!"
If they do not actually say this to him, this is what they will think;
and that is, as to the effect, precisely the same thing. It is
childishness to suppose that any nation will act from a desire of
_serving all other nations, or any one other nation, as well as itself_.
It will make, unless compelled, no compact by which it does not think
itself _a gainer_; and amongst its gains it must, and always does,
reckon the injury to its rivals. It is a stupid idea that _all nations
are to gain_ by anything. Whatever is the gain of one must, in some way
or other, be a loss to another. So that this new project of "free trade"
and "mutual gain" is as pure a humbug as that which the newspapers
carried on during the "glorious days" of loans, when they told us, at
every loan, that the bargain was "equally advantageous to the
contractors and to the public!" The fact is, the "free trade" project is
clearly the effect of a _consciousness of our weakness_. As long as we
felt _strong_, we felt _bold_, we had no thought of _conciliating_ the
world; we upheld a system of _exclusion_, which long experience proved
to be founded in _sound policy_. But we now find that our debts and our
loads of various sorts cripple us. We feel our incapacity for the
_carrying of trade sword in hand_: and so we have given up all our old
maxims, and are endeavouring to persuade the world that we are anxious
to enjoy no advantages that are not enjoyed also by our neighbours.
Alas! the world sees very clearly the cause of all this; and the world
_laughs at us_ for our imaginary cunning. My old doggrel, that used to
make me and my friends laugh in Long Island, is precisely pat to this
case.
When his maw was stuffed with paper,
How JOHN BULL did prance and caper!
How he foam'd and how he roar'd:
How his neighbours all he gored!
How he scrap'd the ground and hurl'd
Dirt and filth on all the world!
But JOHN BULL of paper empty,
Though in midst of peace and plenty,
Is modest grown as worn-out sinner,
As Scottish laird that wants a dinner;
As WILBERFORCE, become content
A rotten burgh to represent;
As BLUE and BUFF, when, after hunting
On Yankee coasts their "_bits of bunting_,"
Came softly back across the seas,
And silent were as mice in cheese.
Yes, the whole world, and particularly the French and the Yankees, see
very clearly the _course_ of this fit of modesty and of liberality into
which we have so recently fallen. They know well that a _war_ would play
the very devil with our national faith. They know, in short, that no
Ministers in their senses will think of supporting the paper-system
through another war. They know well that no Ministers that now exist, or
are likely to exist, will venture to endanger the paper-system; and
therefore they know that (for England) they may now do just what they
please. When the French were about to invade Spain, Mr. Canning said
that his last despatch on the subject was to be understood as a
_protest_ on the part of England against permanent occupation of any
part of Spain by France. There the French are, however; and at the end
of two years and a half he says that he knows nothing about any
intention that they have to quit Spain, or any part of it.
Why, Saint Domingo _was_ independent. We had traded with it as an
independent state. Is it not clear that if we had said the word (and had
been known to be able to _arm_), France would not have attempted to
treat that fine and rich country as a colony? Mark how wise this measure
of France! How _just_, too; to obtain by means of a tribute from the St.
Domingoians compensation for the _loyalists_ of that country! Was this
done with regard to the loyalists of _America_ in the reign of the good
jubilee George III.? Oh, no! Those loyalists had to be paid, and many of
them have even yet, at the end of more than half a century, to be paid
out of taxes raised on _us_, for the losses occasioned by their
disinterested loyalty! This was a masterstroke on the part of France;
she gets about seven millions sterling in the way of tribute; she makes
that rich island yield to her great commercial advantages; and she, at
the same time, paves the way for effecting one of two objects; namely,
getting the island back again, or throwing our islands into confusion
whenever it shall be her interest to do it.
This might have been prevented by _a word_ from us if we had been ready
for _war_. But we are grown _modest_; we are grown _liberal_; we do not
want to engross that which fairly belongs to our neighbours! We have
undergone a change somewhat like that which marriage produces on a
blustering fellow who while single can but just clear his teeth. This
change is quite surprising, and especially by the time that the second
child comes the man is _loaded_; he looks like a loaded man; his voice
becomes so soft and gentle compared to what it used to be. Just such are
the effects of _our load_: but the worst of it is our neighbours are
_not_ thus loaded. However, far be it from me to _regret_ this, or any
part of it. The load is the people's best friend. If that could,
_without reform_: if that could be shaken off, leaving the seat-men and
the parsons in their present state, I would not live in England another
day! And I say this with as much seriousness as if I were upon my
death-bed.
The wise men of the newspapers are for a repeal of the _Corn Laws_. With
all my heart. I will join anybody in a petition for their repeal. But
this will not be done. We shall stop short of this extent of
"liberality," let what may be the consequence to the manufacturers. The
Cotton Lords must all go, to the last man, rather than a repeal, these
laws will take place: and of this the newspaper wise men may be assured.
The farmers can but just rub along now, with all their high prices and
low wages. What would be their state, and that of their landlords, if
the wheat were to come down again to 4, 5, or even 6 shillings a
bushels? Universal agricultural bankruptcy would be the almost instant
consequence. Many of them are now deep in debt from the effects of 1820,
1821, and 1822. One more year like 1822 would have broken the whole
mass up, and left the lands to be cultivated, under the overseers, for
the benefit of the paupers. Society would have been nearly dissolved,
and the state of nature would have returned. The Small-Note Bill,
co-operating with the Corn Laws, have given a respite, and nothing more.
This Bill must remain _efficient_, paper-money must cover the country,
and the corn-laws must remain in force; or an "equitable adjustment"
must take place; or, to a state of nature this country must return.
What, then, as _I want_ a repeal of the corn-laws, and also _want_ to
get rid of the paper-money, I must want to see this return to a state of
nature? By no means. I want the "equitable adjustment," and I am quite
sure that no adjustment can be _equitable_ which does not apply _every
penny's worth of public property_ to the payment of the fund-holders and
dead-weight and the like. Clearly just and reasonable as this is,
however, the very mention of it makes the FIRE-SHOVELS, and some others,
half mad. It makes them storm and rant and swear like Bedlamites. But it
is curious to hear them talk of the impracticability of it; when they
all know that, by only two or three Acts of Parliament, Henry VIII. did
ten times as much as it would now, I hope, be necessary to do. If the
duty were imposed _on me_, no statesman, legislator or lawyer, but a
simple citizen, I think I could, in less than twenty-four hours, draw up
an Act that would give satisfaction to, I will not say _every man_, but
to, at least, ninety-nine out of every hundred; an Act that would put
all affairs of money and of religion to rights at once; but that would,
I must confess, soon take from us that amiable _modesty_, of which I
have spoken above, and which is so conspicuously shown in our works of
free trade and liberality.
The weather is clearing up; our horses are saddled, and we are off.