_Western Grove, 18th Oct. 1826._
I broke off abruptly, under this same date, in my last Register, when
speaking of William the Conqueror's demolishing of towns and villages to
make the New Forest; and I was about to show that all the historians
have told us lies the most abominable about this affair of the New
Forest; or, that the Scotch writers on population, and particularly
Chalmers, have been the greatest of fools, or the most impudent of
impostors. I, therefore, now resume this matter, it being, in my
opinion, a matter of great interest, at a time, when, in order to
account for the present notoriously _bad living_ of the people of
England, it is asserted, that they are become greatly more numerous than
they formerly were. This would be no defence of the Government, even if
the fact were so; but, as I have, over and over again, proved, the fact
is false; and, to this I challenge denial, that either churches and
great mansions and castles were formerly made without hands; or, England
was, seven hundred years ago, much more populous than it is now. But
what has the formation of the New Forest to do with this? A great deal;
for the historians tell us that, in order to make this Forest, William
the Conqueror destroyed "many populous towns and villages, and
thirty-six parish churches!" The devil he did! How _populous_, then,
good God, must England have been at that time, which was about the year
1090; that is to say, 736 years ago! For, the Scotch will hardly contend
that the _nature of the soil_ has been changed for the worse since that
time, especially as it has not been cultivated. No, no; _brassy_ as they
are, they will not do that. Come, then, let us see how this matter
stands.
This Forest has been crawled upon by favourites, and is now much smaller
than it used to be. A time may, and _will_ come, for inquiring HOW
George Rose, and others, became _owners_ of some of the very best parts
of this once-public property; a time for such inquiry _must_ come,
before the people of England will ever give their consent to _a
reduction of the interest of the debt_! But this we know, that the New
Forest formerly extended, westward, from the Southampton Water and the
River Oux, to the River Avon, and northward, from Lymington Haven to the
borders of Wiltshire. We know that this was its utmost extent; and we
know, also, that the towns of Christchurch, Lymington, Ringwood, and
Fordingbridge, and the villages of Bolder, Fawley, Lyndhurst, Dipden,
Eling, Minsted, and all the other villages that now have churches; we
know, I say (and, pray mark it), that all these towns and villages
existed before the Norman Conquest: because the _Roman names_ of several
of them (all the towns) are in print, and because an account of them all
is to be found in _Doomsday Book_, which was made by this very William
the Conqueror. Well, then, now Scotch population-liars, and you
Malthusian blasphemers, who contend that God has implanted in man a
_principle_ that _leads him to starvation_; come, now, and face this
history of the New Forest. Cooke, in his Geography of Hampshire, says,
that the Conqueror destroyed here "many populous towns and villages, and
thirty-six parish churches." The same writer says, that, in the time of
Edward the Confessor (_just_ before the Conqueror came), "two-thirds of
the Forest was inhabited and cultivated." Guthrie says nearly the same
thing. But let us hear the two historians, who are now pitted against
each other, Hume and Lingard. The former (vol. II. p. 277) says: "There
was one pleasure to which William, as well as all the Normans and
ancient Saxons, was extremely addicted, and that was hunting: but this
pleasure he indulged more at the expense of his unhappy subjects, whose
interests he always disregarded, than to the loss or diminution of his
own revenue. Not content with those large forests, which former Kings
possessed, in all parts of England, he resolved to make a new Forest,
near Winchester, the usual place of his residence: and, for that
purpose, he _laid waste_ the county of Hampshire, _for an extent of
thirty miles, expelled the inhabitants_ from their houses, seized their
property, even _demolished churches and convents_, and made the
sufferers no compensation for the injury." Pretty well for a pensioned
Scotchman: and now let us hear Dr. Lingard, to prevent his Society from
_presenting whose work to me_, the sincere and pious Samuel Butler was
ready to go down upon his _marrow bones_; let us hear the good Doctor
upon this subject. He says (vol. I. pp. 452 and 453), "Though the King
possessed sixty-eight forests, besides parks and chases, in different
parts of England, he was not yet satisfied, but for the occasional
accommodation of his court, afforested an _extensive tract of country_
lying between the city of Winchester and the sea coast. The
_inhabitants were expelled_: the cottages and the _churches were burnt_;
and more than _thirty square miles_ of a _rich and populous_ district
were _withdrawn from cultivation_, and converted into a _wilderness_, to
afford sufficient range for the deer, and ample space for the royal
diversion. The memory of this act of despotism has been perpetuated in
the name of the New Forest, which it retains at the present day, after
the lapse of seven hundred and fifty years."
"_Historians_" should be careful how they make statements relative to
_places_ which are within the scope of the reader's _inspection_. It is
next to impossible not to believe that the Doctor has, in this case (a
very interesting one), merely _copied_ from HUME. Hume says, that the
King "_expelled_ the inhabitants;" and Lingard says "the inhabitants
_were expelled_;" Hume says that the King "_demolished_ the churches;"
and Lingard says that "the churches were _burnt_;" but Hume says,
churches "and _convents_," and Lingard _knew_ that to be a lie. The
Doctor was too learned upon the subject of "_convents_" to follow the
Scotchman here. Hume says that the King "laid _waste_ the country for an
_extent of thirty miles_." "The Doctor says that a district of _thirty
square miles_ was withdrawn from cultivation, and converted into a
_wilderness_." Now, what HUME meaned by the loose phrase, "an _extent of
thirty miles_," I cannot say; but this I know, that Dr. Lingard's
"thirty square miles" is a piece of ground only five and a half miles
each way! So that the Doctor has got here a curious "_district_," and a
not less curious "_wilderness_;" and what number of _churches_ could
WILLIAM find to _burn_, in a space five miles and a half each way? If
the Doctor meaned thirty _miles square_, instead of _square miles_, the
falsehood is so monstrous as to destroy his credit for ever; for here we
have Nine Hundred Square Miles, containing _five hundred and seventy-six
thousand acres of land_; that is to say, 56,960 acres more than are
contained in the whole of the county of Surrey, and 99,840 acres more
than are contained in the whole of the county of Berks! This is
"_history_," is it! And these are "_historians_."
The true statement is this: the New Forest, according to its ancient
state, was bounded thus: by the line, going from the river Oux to the
river Avon, and which line there separates Wiltshire from Hampshire; by
the river Avon; by the sea from Christchurch to Calshot Castle; by the
Southampton Water; and by the river Oux. These are the boundaries; and
(as any one may, by scale and compass, ascertain), there are, within
these boundaries, about 224 square miles, containing 143,360 acres of
land. Within these limits there are now remaining eleven parish
churches, all of which were in existence before the time of William the
Conqueror; so that, if he destroyed thirty-six parish churches, what a
populous country this must have been! There must have been forty-seven
parish churches; so that there was, over this whole district, one parish
church to every four and three quarters square miles! Thus, then, the
churches must have stood, on an average, at within one mile and about
two hundred yards of each other! And observe, the parishes could, on an
average, contain no more, each, than 2,966 acres of land! Not a very
large farm; so that here was a parish church to every large farm, unless
these historians are all fools and liars.
I defy any one to say that I make hazardous assertions: I have plainly
described the ancient boundaries: there are _the maps_: any one can,
with scale and compass, measure the area as well as I can. I have taken
the statements of historians, as they call themselves: I have shown that
their histories, as they call them, are fabulous; OR (and mind this
_or_) that England was, at one time, and that too, eight hundred years
ago, _beyond all measure more populous than it is now_. For, observe,
notwithstanding what Dr. Lingard asserts; notwithstanding that he
describes this district as "_rich_," it is the very poorest in the whole
kingdom. Dr. Lingard was, I believe, born and bred at Winchester; and
how, then, could he be so careless; or, indeed, so regardless of truth
(and I do not see why I am to mince the matter with him), as to describe
this as a _rich district_? Innumerable persons have seen
_Bagshot-Heath_; great numbers have seen the barren heaths between
London and Brighton; great numbers, also, have seen that wide sweep of
barrenness which exhibits itself between the Golden Farmer Hill and
Black-water. Nine-tenths of each of these are less barren than
four-fifths of the land in the New Forest. Supposing it to be credible
that a man so prudent and so wise as William the Conqueror; supposing
that such a man should have pitched upon a _rich_ and _populous_
district wherewith to make a chase; supposing, in short, these
historians to have spoken the truth, and supposing this barren land to
have been all inhabited and cultivated, and the people so numerous and
so rich as to be able to build and endow a parish church upon every four
and three quarters square miles upon this extensive district; supposing
them to have been so rich in the produce of the soil as to want a priest
to be stationed at every mile and 200 yards, in order to help them to
eat it; supposing, in a word, these historians not to be the most
farcical liars that ever put pen upon paper, this country must, at the
time of the Norman conquest, have literally _swarmed_ with people; for,
_there is the land now_, and all the land, too: neither Hume nor Dr.
Lingard can change the nature of that. There it is, an acre of it not
having, upon an average, so much of productive capacity in it as one
single square rod, taking the average, of Worcestershire; and if I were
to say one single _square yard_, I should be right; there is the land;
and if that land were as these historians say it was, covered with
people and with churches, what the devil must Worcestershire have been!
To this, then, we come at last: having made out what I undertook to
show; namely, that the historians, as they call themselves, are either
the greatest fools or the greatest liars that ever existed, or that
England was beyond all measure more populous eight hundred years ago
than it is now.
Poor, however, as this district is, and culled about as it has been for
the best spots of land by those favourites who have got grants of land
or leases or something or other, still there are some spots here and
there which would grow trees; but never will it grow trees, or anything
else _to the profit of this nation_, until it become _private property_.
Public property must, in some cases, be in the hands of public officers;
but this is not an affair of that nature. This is too loose a concern;
too little controllable by superiors. It is a thing calculated for
jobbing, above all others; calculated to promote the success of
favouritism. Who can imagine that the persons employed about plantations
and farms for the public, are employed because _they are fit_ for the
employment? Supposing the commissioners to hold in abhorrence the idea
of paying for services to themselves under the name of paying for
services to the public; supposing them never to have heard of such a
thing in their lives, can they imagine that nothing of this sort takes
place, while they are in London eleven months out of twelve in the year?
I never feel disposed to cast much censure upon any of the persons
engaged in such concerns. The temptation is too great to be resisted.
The public must pay for everything _a pois d'or_. Therefore, no such
thing should be in the hands of the public, or, rather, of the
government; and I hope to live to see this thing completely taken out of
the hands of this government.
It was night-fall when we arrived at Eling, that is to say, at the head
of the Southampton Water. Our horses were very hungry. We stopped to
bait them, and set off just about dusk to come to this place (Weston
Grove), stopping at Southampton on our way, and leaving a letter to come
to London. Between Southampton and this place, we cross a bridge over
the Itchen river, and, coming up a hill into a common, which is called
Town-hill Common, we passed, lying on our right, a little park and
house, occupied by the Irish Bible-man, Lord Ashdown, I think they call
him, whose real name is French, and whose family are so very _well
known_ in the most unfortunate sister-kingdom. Just at the back of his
house, in another sort of paddock-place, lives a man, whose name I
forget, who was, I believe, a coachmaker in the East Indies, and whose
father, or uncle, kept a turnpike gate at Chelsea, a few years ago. See
the effects of "_industry_ and _enterprise_"! But even these would be
nothing, were it not for this wondrous system by which money can be
snatched away from the labourer in this very parish, for instance, sent
off to the East Indies, there help to make a mass to put into the hands
of an adventurer, and then the mass may be brought back in the pockets
of the adventurer and cause him to be called a 'Squire by the labourer
whose earnings were so snatched away! Wondrous system! Pity it cannot
last for ever! Pity that it has got a Debt of a thousand millions to
pay! Pity that it cannot turn paper into gold! Pity that it will make
such fools of Prosperity Robinson and his colleagues!
The moon shone very bright by the time that we mounted the hill; and
now, skirting the enclosures upon the edge of the common, we passed
several of those cottages which I so well recollected, and in which I
had the satisfaction to believe that the inhabitants were sitting
comfortably with bellies full by a good fire. It was eight o'clock
before we arrived at Mr. Chamberlayne's, whom I had not seen since, I
think, the year 1816; for in the fall of that year I came to London, and
I never returned to Botley (which is only about three miles and a half
from Weston) to stay there for any length of time. To those who like
water-scenes (as nineteen-twentieths of people do) it is the prettiest
spot, I believe, in all England. Mr. Chamberlayne built the house about
twenty years ago. He has been bringing the place to greater and greater
perfection from that time to this. All round about the house is in the
neatest possible order. I should think that, altogether, there cannot be
so little as _ten acres of short grass_; and when I say _that_, those
who know anything about gardens will form a pretty correct general
notion as to the _scale_ on which the thing is carried on. Until of
late, Mr. Chamberlayne was owner of only a small part, comparatively, of
the lands hereabouts. He is now the owner, I believe, of the whole of
the lands that come down to the water's edge and that lie between the
ferry over the Itchen at Southampton, and the river which goes out from
the Southampton Water at Hamble. And now let me describe, as well as I
can, what this land and its situation are.
The Southampton Water begins at Portsmouth, and goes up by Southampton,
to Redbridge, being, upon an average, about two miles wide, having, on
the one side, the New Forest, and on the other side, for a great part of
the way, this fine and beautiful estate of Mr. Chamberlayne. Both sides
of this water have rising lands divided into hill and dale, and very
beautifully clothed with trees, the woods and lawns and fields being
most advantageously intermixed. It is very curious that, at the _back_
of each of these tracts of land, there are extensive heaths, on this
side as well as on the New Forest side. To stand here and look across
the water at the New Forest, you would imagine that it was really _a
country of woods_; for you can see nothing of the heaths from here;
those heaths over which we rode, and from which we could see a windmill
down among the trees, which windmill is now to be seen just opposite
this place. So that the views from this place are the most beautiful
that can be imagined. You see up the water and down the water, to
Redbridge one way and out to Spithead the other way. Through the trees,
to the right, you see the spires of Southampton, and you have only to
walk a mile, over a beautiful lawn and through a not less beautiful
wood, to find, in a little dell, surrounded with lofty woods, the
venerable ruins of _Netley Abbey_, which make part of Mr. Chamberlayne's
estate.
The woods here are chiefly of oak; the ground consists of a series of
hill and dale, as you go long-wise from one end of the estate to the
other, _about six miles in length_. Down almost every little valley that
divides these hills or hillocks, there is more or less of water, making
the underwood, in those parts, very thick, and dark to go through; and
these form the most delightful contrast with the fields and lawns. There
are innumerable vessels of various sizes continually upon the water;
and, to those that delight in water-scenes, this is certainly the very
prettiest place that I ever saw in my life. I had seen it many years
ago; and, as I intended to come here on my way home, I told George,
before we set out, that I would show him _another Weston_ before we got
to London. The parish in which his father's house is, is also called
Weston, and a very beautiful spot it certainly is; but I told him I
questioned whether I could not show him a still prettier Weston than
that. We let him alone for the first day. He sat in the house, and saw
great multitudes of pheasants and partridges upon the lawn before the
window: he went down to the water-side by himself, and put his foot upon
the ground to see the tide rise. He seemed very much delighted. The
second morning, at breakfast, we put it to him, which he would rather
have; this Weston or the Weston he had left in Herefordshire; but,
though I introduced the question in a way almost to extort a decision in
favour of the Hampshire Weston, he decided instantly and plump for the
other, in a manner very much to the delight of Mr. Chamberlayne and his
sister. So true it is that, when people are uncorrupted, they always
_like home best_, be it, in itself, what it may.
Everything that nature can do has been done here; and money most
judiciously employed has come to her assistance. Here are a thousand
things to give pleasure to any rational mind; but there is one thing,
which, in my estimation, surpasses, in pleasure, to contemplate, all the
lawns and all the groves and all the gardens and all the game and
everything else; and that is, the real, unaffected goodness of the owner
of this estate. He is a member for Southampton; he has other fine
estates; he has great talents; he is much admired by all who know him;
but he has done more by his justice, by his just way of thinking with
regard to the labouring people, than in all other ways put together.
This was nothing new to me; for I was well informed of it several years
ago, though I had never heard him speak of it in my life. When he came
to this place, the common wages of day-labouring men were _thirteen
shillings a week_, and the wages of carpenters, bricklayers, and other
tradesmen, were in proportion. Those wages he _has given, from that time
to this_, without any abatement whatever. With these wages, a man can
live, having, at the same time, other advantages attending the working
for such a man as Mr. Chamberlayne. He has got less money in his bags
than he would have had, if he had ground men down in their wages; but if
his sleep be not sounder than that of the hard-fisted wretch that can
walk over grass and gravel, kept in order by a poor creature that is
half-starved; if his sleep be not sounder than the sleep of such a
wretch, then all that we have been taught is false, and there is no
difference between the man who feeds and the man who starves the poor:
all the Scripture is a bundle of lies, and instead of being propagated
it ought to be flung into the fire.
It is curious enough that those who are the least disposed to give good
wages to the labouring people, should be the most disposed to discover
for them _schemes for saving their money_! I have lately seen, I saw it
at Uphusband, a prospectus, or scheme, for establishing what they call a
_County Friendly Society_. This is a scheme for getting from the poor a
part of the wages that they receive. Just as if a poor fellow could _put
anything by_ out of eight shillings a week! If, indeed, the schemers
were to pay the labourers twelve or thirteen shillings a week; then
these might have something to lay by at some times of the year; but
then, indeed, there would be _no poor-rates wanted_; and it is to _get
rid of the poor-rates_ that these schemers have invented their society.
What wretched drivellers they must be: to think that they should be able
to make the pauper keep the pauper; to think that they shall be able to
make the man that is half-starved lay by part of his loaf! I know of no
county where the poor are worse treated than in many parts of this
county of Hants. It is happy to know of one instance in which they are
well treated; and I deem it a real honour to be under the roof of him
who has uniformly set so laudable an example in this most important
concern. What are all his riches to me? They form no title to my
respect. 'Tis not for me to set myself up in judgment as to his taste,
his learning, his various qualities and endowments; but of these his
unequivocal works I am a competent judge. I know how much good he must
do; and there is a great satisfaction in reflecting on the great
happiness that he must feel, when, in laying his head upon his pillow of
a cold and dreary winter night, he reflects that there are scores, aye,
scores upon scores, of his country-people, of his poor neighbours, of
those whom the Scripture denominates his brethren, who have been
enabled, through him, to retire to a warm bed after spending a cheerful
evening and taking a full meal by the side of their own fire. People may
talk what they will about _happiness_; but I can figure to myself no
happiness surpassing that of the man who falls to sleep with reflections
like these in his mind.
Now observe, it is a duty, on my part, to relate what I have here
related as to the conduct of Mr. Chamberlayne; not a duty towards _him_;
for I can do him no good by it, and I do most sincerely believe, that
both he and his equally benevolent sister would rather that their
goodness remained unproclaimed; but it is a duty towards my country, and
particularly towards my readers. Here is a striking and a most valuable
practical example. Here is a whole neighbourhood of labourers living as
they ought to live; enjoying that happiness which is the just reward of
their toil. And shall I suppress facts so honourable to those who are
the cause of this happiness, facts so interesting in themselves, and so
likely to be useful in the way of example; shall I do this, aye, and,
besides this, _tacitly_ give a _false account_ of Weston Grove, and
this, too, from the stupid and cowardly fear of being accused of
flattering a rich man?
Netley Abbey ought, it seems, to be called Letley Abbey, the Latin name
being Laetus Locus, or Pleasant Place. _Letley_ was made up of an
abbreviation of the _Laetus_ and of the Saxon word _ley_, which meaned
_place_, _field_, or _piece of ground_. This Abbey was founded by Henry
III. in 1239, for 12 Monks of the Benedictine order; and when suppressed
by the wife-killer, its revenues amounted to 3,200_l._ a year of our
present money. The possessions of these monks were, by the wife-killing
founder of the Church of England, given away (though they belonged to
the public) to one of his court sycophants, Sir William Paulet, a man
the most famous in the whole world for sycophancy, time-serving, and for
all those qualities which usually distinguish the favourites of kings
like the wife-killer. This Paulet changed from the Popish to Henry the
Eighth's religion, and was a great actor in punishing the papists; when
Edward VI. came to the throne, this Paulet turned protestant, and was a
great actor in punishing those who adhered to Henry VIIIth's religion:
when Queen Mary came to the throne, this Paulet turned back to papist,
and was one of the great actors in sending protestants to be burnt in
Smithfield: when Old Bess came to the throne, this Paulet turned back to
protestant again, and was, until the day of his death, one of the great
actors in persecuting, in fining, in mulcting, and in putting to death
those who still had the virtue and the courage to adhere to the religion
in which they and he had been born and bred. The _head_ of this family
got, at last, to be Earl of Wiltshire, Marquis of Winchester, and Duke
of Bolton. This last title is now _gone_; or, rather, it is changed to
that of "Lord Bolton," which is now borne by a man of the name of Orde,
who is the son of a man of that name, who died some years ago, and who
married a daughter (I think it was) of the last "Duke of Bolton."
Pretty curious, and not a little interesting, to look back at the
_origin_ of this Dukedom of Bolton, and, then, to look at the person now
bearing the title of _Bolton_; and, then, to go to Abbotston, near
Winchester, and survey the ruins of the proud palace, once inhabited by
the Duke of Bolton, which ruins, and the estate on which they stand, are
now the property of the Loan-maker, Alexander Baring! Curious turn of
things! Henry the wife-killer and his confiscating successors _granted_
the estates of Netley, and of many other monasteries, to the head of
these Paulets: to maintain these and other similar grants, a thing
called a "Reformation" was made: to maintain the "Reformation," a
"Glorious Revolution" was made: to maintain the "Glorious Revolution" a
_Debt_ was made: to maintain the Debt, a large part of the rents must go
to the Debt-Dealers, or Loan-makers: and thus, at last, the Barings,
only in this one neighbourhood, have become the successors of the
Wriothesleys, the Paulets, and the Russells, who, throughout all the
reigns of confiscation, were constantly _in the way_, when a
distribution of good things was taking place! Curious enough all this;
but, the thing will not _stop here_. The Loan-makers think that they
shall outwit the old grantee-fellows; and so they might, and the people
too, and the devil himself; but they cannot out-wit _events_. Those
events _will have a thorough rummaging_; and of this fact the
"turn-of-the-market" gentlemen may be assured. Can it be _law_ (I put
the question to _lawyers_), can it be _law_ (I leave reason and justice
out of the inquiry), can it be _law_, that, if I, to-day, see dressed in
good clothes, and with a full purse, a man who was notoriously penniless
yesterday; can it be law, that I (being a justice of the peace) have a
right to demand of that man _how he came by his clothes and his purse_?
And, can it be _law_, that I, seeing with an estate a man who was
notoriously not worth a crown piece a few years ago, and who is
notoriously related to nothing more than one degree above beggary; can
it be _law_, that I, a magistrate, seeing this, have not a right to
demand of this man how he came by his estate? No matter, however; for,
if both these be law now, they will not, I trust, be law in a few years
from this time.
Mr. Chamberlayne has caused the ancient _fish-ponds_, at Netley Abbey,
to be "reclaimed," as they call it. What a loss, what a national loss,
there has been in this way, and in the article of water fowl! I am quite
satisfied that, in these two articles and in that of _rabbits_, the
nation has lost, has had annihilated (within the last 250 years) food
sufficient for two days in the week, on an average, taking the year
throughout. These are things, too, which cost so little labour! You can
see the marks of old fish-ponds in thousands and thousands of places. I
have noticed, I dare say, five hundred, since I left home. A trifling
expense would, in most cases, restore them; but now-a-days all is looked
for at shops: all is to be had by trafficking: scarcely any one thinks
of providing for his own wants out of his own land and other his own
domestic means. To buy the thing, _ready made_, is the taste of the day;
thousands, who are housekeepers, buy their dinners ready cooked; nothing
is so common as to rent breasts for children to suck: a man actually
advertised, in the London papers, about two month ago, to supply
childless husbands with heirs! In this case the articles were, of
course, to be _ready made_; for to make them "to order" would be the
devil of a business; though in desperate cases even this is, I believe,
sometimes resorted to.
_Hambledon, Sunday, 22nd Oct. 1826._
We left Weston Grove on Friday morning, and came across to Botley, where
we remained during the rest of the day, and until after breakfast
yesterday. I had not seen "the Botley Parson" for several years, and I
wished to have a look at him now, but could not get a sight of him,
though we rode close before his house, at much about his breakfast time,
and though we gave him the strongest of invitation that could be
expressed by hallooing and by cracking of whips! The fox was too
cunning for us, and do all we could, we could not provoke him to put
even his nose out of kennel. From Mr. James Warner's at Botley we went
to Mr. Hallett's, at Allington, and had the very great pleasure of
seeing him in excellent health. We intended to go back to Botley, and
then to go to Titchfield, and, in our way to this place, over Portsdown
Hill, whence I intended to show George the harbour and the fleet, and
(of still more importance) the spot on which we signed the "Hampshire
Petition," in 1817; that petition which foretold that which the "Norfolk
Petition" confirmed; that petition which will be finally acted upon,
or.... That petition was the very _last thing that I wrote at Botley_. I
came to London in November 1816; the Power-of-Imprisonment Bill was
passed in February, 1817; just before it was passed, the Meeting took
place on Portsdown Hill; and I, in my way to the hill from London,
stopped at Botley and wrote the petition. We had one meeting afterwards
at Winchester, when I heard parsons swear like troopers, and saw one of
them hawk up his spittle, and spit it into Lord Cochrane's poll! Ah! my
bucks, we have you _now_! You are got nearly to the end of your tether;
and, what is more, _you know it_. Pay off the Debt, parsons! It is
useless to swear and spit, and to present addresses applauding
Power-of-Imprisonment Bills, unless you can pay off the Debt! Pay off
the Debt, parsons! They say you can _lay_ the devil. Lay _this_ devil,
then; or, confess that he is too many for you; aye, and for Sturges
Bourne, or Bourne Sturges (I forget which), at your backs!
From Arlington, we, fearing that it would rain before we could get round
by Titchfield, came across the country over Waltham Chase and Soberton
Down. The chase was very green and fine; but the down was the very
greenest thing that I have seen in the whole country. It is not a large
down; perhaps not more than five or six hundred acres; but the land is
good, the chalk is at a foot from the surface, or more; the mould is a
hazel mould; and when I was upon the opposite hill, I could, though I
knew the spot very well, hardly believe that it was a down. The green
was darker than that of any pasture or even any sainfoin or clover that
I had seen throughout the whole of my ride; and I should suppose that
there could not have been many less than a thousand sheep in the three
flocks that were feeding upon the down when I came across it. I do not
speak with anything like positiveness as to the measurement of this
down; but I do not believe that it exceeds six hundred and fifty acres.
They must have had more rain in this part of the country than in most
other parts of it. Indeed, no part of Hampshire seems to have suffered
very much from the drought. I found the turnips pretty good, of both
sorts, all the way from Andover to Rumsey. Through the New Forest, you
may as well expect to find loaves of bread growing in fields as turnips,
where there are any fields for them to grow in. From Redbridge to
Weston, we had not light enough to see much about us; but when we came
down to Botley, we there found the turnips as good as I had ever seen
them in my life, as far I could judge from the time I had to look at
them. Mr. Warner has as fine turnip fields as I ever saw him have,
Swedish turnips and white also; and pretty nearly the same may be said
of the whole of that neighbourhood for many miles round.
After quitting Soberton Down, we came up a hill leading to Hambledon,
and turned off to our left to bring us down to Mr. Goldsmith's at West
End, where we now are, at about a mile from the village of Hambledon. A
village it _now_ is; but it was formerly a considerable market-town, and
it had three fairs in the year. There is now not even the name of market
left, I believe; and the fairs amount to little more than a couple or
three gingerbread-stalls, with dolls and whistles for children. If you
go through the place, you see that it has been a considerable town. The
church tells the same story; it is now a tumble-down rubbishy place; it
is partaking in the fate of all those places which were formerly a sort
of rendezvous for persons who had things to buy and things to sell.
_Wens_ have devoured market-towns and villages; and _shops_ have
devoured _markets and fairs_; and this, too, to the infinite injury of
the most numerous classes of the people. Shop-keeping, merely as
shop-keeping, is injurious to any community. What are the shop and the
shop-keeper for? To receive and distribute the produce of the land.
There are other articles, certainly; but the main part is the produce of
the land. The shop must be paid for; the shop-keeper must be kept; and
the one must be paid for and the other must be kept by the consumer of
the produce; or, perhaps, partly by the consumer and partly by the
producer.
When fairs were very frequent, shops were not needed. A manufacturer of
shoes, of stockings, of hats; of almost any thing that man wants, could
manufacture at home in an obscure hamlet, with cheap house-rent, good
air, and plenty of room. He need pay no heavy rent for shop; and no
disadvantages from confined situation; and, then, by attending three or
four or five or six fairs in a year, he sold the work of his hands,
unloaded with a heavy expense attending the keeping of a shop. He would
get more for ten shillings in a booth at a fair or market, than he would
get in a shop for ten or twenty pounds. Of course he could afford to
sell the work of his hands for less; and thus a greater portion of their
earnings remained with those who raised the food and the clothing from
the land. I had an instance of this in what occurred to myself at
Weyhill fair. When I was at Salisbury, in September, I wanted to buy a
whip. It was a common hunting-whip, with a hook to it to pull open gates
with, and I could not get it for less than seven shillings and sixpence.
This was more than I had made up my mind to give, and I went on with my
switch. When we got to Weyhill fair, George had made shift to lose his
whip some time before, and I had made him go without one by way of
punishment. But now, having come to the fair, and seeing plenty of
whips, I bought him one, just such a one as had been offered me at
Salisbury for seven and sixpence, for four and sixpence; and, seeing the
man with his whips afterwards, I thought I would have one myself; and he
let me have it for three shillings. So that, here were two whips,
precisely of the same kind and quality as the whip at Salisbury, bought
for the money which the man at Salisbury asked me for one whip. And yet,
far be it from me to accuse the man at Salisbury of an attempt at
extortion: he had an expensive shop, and a family in a town to support,
while my Weyhill fellow had been making his whips in some house in the
country, which he rented, probably for five or six pounds a year, with a
good garden to it. Does not every one see, in a minute, how this
exchanging of fairs and markets for shops creates _idlers and
traffickers_; creates those locusts, called middle-men, who create
nothing, who add to the value of nothing, who improve nothing, but who
live in idleness, and who live well, too, out of the labour of the
producer and the consumer. The fair and the market, those wise
institutions of our forefathers, and with regard to the management of
which they were so scrupulously careful; the fair and the market bring
the producer and the consumer in contact with each other. Whatever is
gained is, at any rate, gained by one or the other of these. The fair
and the market bring them together, and enable them to act for their
mutual interest and convenience. The shop and the trafficker keeps them
apart; the shop hides from both producer and consumer the real state of
matters. The fair and the market lay everything open: going to either,
you see the state of things at once; and the transactions are fair and
just, not disfigured, too, by falsehood, and by those attempts at
deception which disgrace traffickings in general.
Very wise, too, and very just, were the laws against _forestalling_ and
_regrating_. They were laws to prevent the producer and the consumer
from being cheated by the trafficker. There are whole bodies of men;
indeed, a very large part of the community, who live in idleness in this
country, in consequence of the whole current of the laws now running in
favour of the trafficking monopoly. It has been a great object with all
wise governments, in all ages, from the days of Moses to the present
day, to confine trafficking, mere trafficking, to as few hands as
possible. It seems to be the main object of this government to give all
possible encouragement to traffickers of every description, and to make
them swarm like the lice of Egypt. There is that numerous sect, the
Quakers. This sect arose in England: they were engendered by the Jewish
system of usury. Till _excises_ and _loanmongering_ began, these vermin
were never heard of in England. They seem to have been hatched by that
fraudulent system, as maggots are bred by putrid meat, or as the
flounders come in the livers of rotten sheep. The base vermin do not
pretend to work: all they talk about is dealing; and the government, in
place of making laws that would put them in the stocks, or cause them to
be whipped at the cart's tail, really seem anxious to encourage them and
to increase their numbers; nay, it is not long since Mr. Brougham had
the effrontery to move for leave to bring in a bill to make men liable
to be hanged upon the bare word of these vagabonds. This is, with me,
something never to be forgotten. But everything tends the same way: all
the regulations, all the laws that have been adopted of late years, have
a tendency to give encouragement to the trickster and the trafficker,
and to take from the labouring classes all the honour and a great part
of the food that fairly belonged to them.
In coming along yesterday, from Waltham Chase to Soberton Down, we
passed by a big white house upon a hill that was, when I lived at
Botley, occupied by one Goodlad, who was a cock justice of the peace,
and who had been a chap of some sort or other, in _India_. There was a
man of the name of Singleton, who lived in Waltham Chase, and who was
deemed to be a great poacher. This man, having been forcibly ousted by
the order of this Goodlad and some others from an encroachment that he
had made in the forest, threatened revenge. Soon after this, a horse (I
forget to whom it belonged) was stabbed or shot in the night-time in a
field. Singleton was taken up, tried at Winchester, convicted and
_transported_. I cannot relate exactly what took place. I remember that
there were some curious circumstances attending the conviction of this
man. The people in that neighbourhood were deeply impressed with these
circumstances. Singleton was transported; but Goodlad and his wife were
both dead and buried, in less, I believe, than three months after the
departure of poor Singleton. I do not know that any injustice really was
done; but I do know that a great impression was produced, and a very
sorrowful impression, too, on the minds of the people in that
neighbourhood.
I cannot quit Waltham Chase without observing, that I heard, last year,
that a Bill was about to be petitioned for, to enclose that Chase! Never
was so monstrous a proposition in this world. The Bishop of Winchester
is Lord of the Manor over this Chase. If the Chase be enclosed, the
timber must be cut down, young and old; and here are a couple of hundred
acres of land, worth ten thousand acres of land in the New Forest. This
is as fine timber land as any in the wealds of Surrey, Sussex or Kent.
There are two enclosures of about 40 acres each, perhaps, that were
simply surrounded by a bank being thrown up about twenty years ago, only
twenty years ago, and on the poorest part of the Chase, too; and these
are now as beautiful plantations of young oak trees as man ever set his
eyes on; many of them as big or bigger round than my thigh! Therefore,
besides the sweeping away of two or three hundred cottages; besides
plunging into ruin and misery all these numerous families, here is one
of the finest pieces of timber land in the whole kingdom, going to be
cut up into miserable clay fields, for no earthly purpose but that of
gratifying the stupid greediness of those who think that they must gain,
if they add to the breadth of their private fields. But if a thing like
this be permitted, we must be prettily furnished with Commissioners of
woods and forests! I do not believe that they will sit in Parliament and
see a Bill like this passed and hold their tongues; but if they were to
do it, there is no measure of reproach which they would not merit. Let
them go and look at the two plantations of oaks, of which I have just
spoken; and then let them give their consent to such a Bill if they can.
_Thursley, Monday Evening, 23rd October._
When I left Weston, my intention was, to go from Hambledon to Up Park,
thence to Arundel, thence, to Brighton, thence to East-bourne, thence to
Wittersham in Kent, and then by Cranbrook, Tunbridge, Godstone and
Reigate to London; but when I got to Botley, and particularly when I got
to Hambledon, I found my horse's back so much hurt by the saddle, that I
was afraid to take so long a stretch, and therefore resolved to come
away straight to this place, to go hence to Reigate, and so to London.
Our way, therefore, this morning, was over Butser-hill to Petersfield,
in the first place; then to Lyphook and then to this place, in all about
twenty-four miles. Butser-hill belongs to the back chain of the South
Downs; and, indeed, it terminates that chain to the westward. It is the
highest hill in the whole country. Some think that Hindhead, which is
the famous sand-hill over which the Portsmouth road goes at sixteen
miles to the north of this great chalk-hill; some think that Hindhead is
the highest hill of the two. Be this as it may, Butser-hill, which is
the right-hand hill of the two between which you go at three miles from
Petersfield going towards Portsmouth; this Butser-hill, is, I say, quite
high enough; and was more than high enough for us, for it took us up
amongst clouds that wet us very nearly to the skin. In going from Mr.
Goldsmith's to the hill, it is all up hill for five miles. Now and then
a little stoop; not much; but regularly, with these little exceptions,
up hill for these five miles. The hill appears, at a distance, to be a
sharp ridge on its top. It is, however, not so. It is, in some parts,
half a mile wide or more. The road lies right along the middle of it
from west to east, and, just when you are at the highest part of the
hill, it is very narrow from north to south; not more, I think, than
about a hundred or a hundred and thirty yards.
This is as interesting a spot, I think, as the foot of man ever was
placed upon. Here are two valleys, one to your right and the other to
your left, very little less than half a mile down to the bottom of them,
and much steeper than a tiled roof of a house. These valleys may be,
where they join the hill, three or four hundred yards broad. They get
wider as they get farther from the hill. Of a clear day you see all the
north of Hampshire; nay, the whole county, together with a great part of
Surrey and of Sussex. You see the whole of the South Downs to the
eastward as far as your eye can carry you; and, lastly, you see over
Portsdown Hill, which lies before you to the south; and there are spread
open to your view the isle of Portsea, Porchester, Wimmering, Fareham,
Gosport, Portsmouth, the harbour, Spithead, the Isle of Wight and the
ocean.
But something still more interesting occurred to me here in the year
1808, when I was coming on horseback over the same hill from Botley to
London. It was a very beautiful day and in summer. Before I got upon the
hill (on which I had never been before), a shepherd told me to keep on
in the road in which I was, till I came to the London turnpike road.
When I got to within a quarter of a mile of this particular point of the
hill, I saw, at this point, what I thought was a cloud of dust; and,
speaking to my servant about it, I found that he thought so too; but
this cloud of dust disappeared all at once. Soon after, there appeared
to arise another cloud of dust at the same place, and then that
disappeared, and the spot was clear again. As we were trotting along, a
pretty smart pace, we soon came to this narrow place, having one valley
to our right and the other valley to our left, and, there, to my great
astonishment, I saw the clouds come one after another, each appearing to
be about as big as two or three acres of land, skimming along in the
valley on the north side, a great deal below the tops of the hills; and
successively, as they arrived at our end of the valley, rising up,
crossing the narrow pass, and then descending down into the other valley
and going off to the south; so that we who sate there upon our horses,
were alternately in clouds and in sunshine. It is an universal rule,
that if there be a fog in the morning, and that fog go from the valleys
to the tops of the hills, there will be rain that day; and if it
disappear by sinking in the valley, there will be no rain that day. The
truth is, that fogs are clouds, and clouds are fogs. They are more or
less full of water; but they are all water; sometimes a sort of steam,
and sometimes water that falls in drops. Yesterday morning the fogs had
ascended to the tops of the hills; and it was raining on all the hills
round about us before it began to rain in the valleys. We, as I observed
before, got pretty nearly wet to the skin upon the top of Butser-hill;
but we had the pluck to come on and let the clothes dry upon our backs.
I must here relate something that appears very interesting to me, and
something, which, though it must have been seen by every man that has
lived in the country, or, at least, in any hilly country, has never been
particularly mentioned by anybody as far as I can recollect. We
frequently talk of clouds coming from _dews_; and we actually see the
heavy fogs become clouds. We see them go up to the tops of hills, and,
taking a swim round, actually come and drop down upon us and wet us
through. But I am now going to speak of clouds coming out of the sides
of hills in exactly the same manner that you see smoke come out of a
tobacco pipe, and rising up, with a wider and wider head, like the smoke
from a tobacco-pipe, go to the top of the hill or over the hill, or very
much above it, and then come over the valleys in rain. At about a mile's
distance from Mr. Palmer's house at Bollitree, in Herefordshire, there
is a large, long beautiful wood, covering the side of a lofty hill,
winding round in the form of a crescent, the bend of the crescent being
towards Mr. Palmer's house. It was here that I first observed this mode
of forming clouds. The first time I noticed it, I pointed it out to Mr.
Palmer. We stood and observed cloud after cloud come out from different
parts of the side of the hill, and tower up and go over the hill out of
sight. He told me that that was a certain sign that it would rain that
day, for that these clouds would come back again, and would fall in
rain. It rained sure enough; and I found that the country people, all
round about, had this mode of the forming of the clouds as a sign of
rain. The hill is called Penyard, and this forming of the clouds they
call Old Penyard's _smoking his pipe_; and it is a rule that it is sure
to rain during the day if Old Penyard smokes his pipe in the morning.
These appearances take place, especially in warm and sultry weather. It
was very warm yesterday morning: it had thundered violently the evening
before: we felt it hot even while the rain fell upon us at Butser-hill.
Petersfield lies in a pretty broad and very beautiful valley. On three
sides of it are very lofty hills, partly downs and partly covered with
trees: and, as we proceeded on our way from the bottom of Butser-hill to
Petersfield, we saw thousands upon thousands of clouds, continually
coming puffing out from different parts of these hills and towering up
to the top of them. I stopped George several times to make him look at
them; to see them come puffing out of the chalk downs as well as out of
the woodland hills; and bade him remember to tell his father of it when
he should get home, to convince him that the hills of Hampshire could
smoke their pipes as well as those of Herefordshire. This is a really
curious matter. I have never read, in any book, anything to lead me to
suppose that the observation has ever found its way into print before.
Sometimes you will see only one or two clouds during a whole morning,
come out of the side of a hill; but we saw thousands upon thousands,
bursting out, one after another, in all parts of these immense hills.
The first time that I have leisure, when I am in the high countries
again, I will have a conversation with some old shepherd about this
matter; if he cannot enlighten me upon the subject, I am sure that no
philosopher can.
We came through Petersfield without stopping, and baited our horses at
Lyphook, where we stayed about half an hour. In coming from Lyphook to
this place, we overtook a man who asked for relief. He told me he was a
weaver, and, as his accent was northern, I was about to give him the
balance that I had in hand arising from our savings in the fasting way,
amounting to about three shillings and sixpence; but, unfortunately for
him, I asked him what place he had lived at as a weaver; and he told me
that he was a Spitalfields weaver. I instantly put on my glove and
returned my purse into my pocket, saying, go, then, to Sidmouth and Peel
and the rest of them "and get relief; for I have this minute, while I
was stopping at Lyphook, read in the _Evening Mail_ newspaper, an
address to the King from the Spitalfields' weavers, for which address
they ought to suffer death from starvation. In that address those base
wretches tell the King, that they were loyal men: that they detested the
designing men who were guilty of seditious practices in 1817; they, in
short, express their approbation of the Power-of-imprisonment Bill, of
all the deeds committed against the Reformers in 1817 and 1819; they, by
fair inference, express their approbation of the thanks given to the
Manchester Yeomanry. You are one of them; my name is William Cobbett,
and I would sooner relieve a dog than relieve you." Just as I was
closing my harangue, we overtook a country-man and woman that were going
the same way. The weaver attempted explanations. He said that they only
said it in order to get relief; but that they did not mean it in their
hearts. "Oh, base dogs!" said I: "it is precisely by such men that ruin
is brought upon nations; it is precisely by such baseness and
insincerity, such scandalous cowardice, that ruin has been brought upon
them. I had two or three shillings to give you; I had them in my hand: I
have put them back into my purse: I trust I shall find somebody more
worthy of them: rather than give them to you, I would fling them into
that sand-pit and bury them for ever."
How curiously things happen! It was by mere accident that I took up a
newspaper to read: it was merely because I was compelled to stay a
quarter of an hour in the room without doing anything, and above all
things it was miraculous that I should take up the _Evening Mail_, into
which, I believe, I never before looked, in my whole life. I saw the
royal arms at the top of the paper; took it for the _Old Times_, and, in
a sort of lounging mood, said to George, "Give me hold of that paper,
and let us see what that foolish devil Anna Brodie says." Seeing the
words "_Spitalfields_," I read on till I got to the base and scoundrelly
part of the address. I then turned over, and looked at the title of the
paper and the date of it, resolving, in my mind, to have satisfaction,
of some sort or other, upon these base vagabonds. Little did I think
that an opportunity would so soon occur of showing my resentment against
them, and that, too, in so striking, so appropriate, and so efficient a
manner. I dare say, that it was some tax-eating scoundrel who drew up
this address (which I will insert in the Register, as soon as I can find
it); but that is nothing to me and my fellow sufferers of 1817 and 1819.
This infamous libel upon us is published under the name of the
Spitalfields weavers; and, if I am asked what the poor creatures were to
do, being without bread as they were, I answer by asking whether they
could find no knives to cut their throats with; seeing that they ought
to have cut their throats ten thousand times over, if they could have
done it, rather than sanction the publication of so infamous a paper as
this.
It is not thus that the weavers in the north have acted. Some scoundrel
wanted to inveigle them into an applauding of the Ministers; but they,
though nothing so infamous as this address was proposed to them,
rejected the proposition, though they were ten times more in want than
the weavers of Spitalfields have ever been. They were only called upon
to applaud the Ministers for the recent Orders in Council; but they
justly said that the Ministers had a great deal more to do, before they
would merit their applause. What would these brave and sensible men have
said to a tax-eating scoundrel, who should have called upon them to
present an address to the King, and in that address to applaud the
terrible deeds committed against the people in 1817 and 1819! I have
great happiness in reflecting that this baseness of the Spitalfields
weavers will not bring them one single mouthful of bread. This will be
their lot; this will be the fruit of their baseness: and the nation, the
working classes of the nation, will learn, from this, that the way to
get redress of their grievances, the way to get food and raiment in
exchange for their labour, the way to ensure good treatment from the
Government, is not to crawl to that Government, to lick its hands, and
seem to deem it an honour to be its slaves.
Before we got to Thursley, I saw three poor fellows getting in turf for
their winter fuel, and I gave them a shilling apiece. To a boy at the
bottom of Hindhead, I gave the other sixpence, towards buying him a pair
of gloves; and thus I disposed of the money which was, at one time,
actually out of my purse, and going into the hand of the loyal
Spitalfields weaver.
We got to this place (Mr. Knowles's of Thursley) about 5 o'clock in the
evening, very much delighted with our ride.
_Kensington, Thursday, 26th Oct._
We left Mr. Knowles's on Thursday morning, came through Godalming,
stopped at Mr. Rowland's at Chilworth, and then came on through Dorking
to Colley Farm, near Reigate, where we slept. I have so often described
the country from Hindhead to the foot of Reigate Hill, and from the top
of Reigate Hill to the Thames, that I shall not attempt to do it again
here. When we got to the river Wey, we crossed it from Godalming
Pismarsh to come up to Chilworth. I desired George to look round the
country, and asked him if he did not think it was very pretty. I put the
same question to him when we got into the beautiful neighbourhood of
Dorking, and when we got to Reigate, and especially when we got to the
tip-top of Reigate Hill, from which there is one of the finest views in
the whole world; but ever after our quitting Mr. Knowles's, George
insisted that that was the prettiest country that we had seen in the
course of our whole ride, and that he liked Mr. Knowles's place better
than any other place that he had seen. I reminded him of Weston Grove;
and I reminded him of the beautiful ponds and grass and plantations at
Mr. Leach's; but he still persisted in his judgment in favour of Mr.
Knowles's place, in which decision, however, the greyhounds and the
beagles had manifestly a great deal to do.
From Thursley to Reigate inclusive, on the chalk-side as well as on the
sand-side, the crops of turnips, of both kinds, were pretty nearly as
good as I ever saw them in my life. On a farm of Mr. Drummond's at
Aldbury, rented by a farmer Peto, I saw a piece of cabbages, of the
large kind, which will produce, I should think, not much short of five
and twenty tons to the acre; and here I must mention (I do not know
_why_ I must, by the bye) an instance of my own skill in measuring land
by the eye. The cabbages stand upon half a field and on the part of it
furthest from the road where we were. We took the liberty to open the
gate and ride into the field, in order to get closer to the cabbages to
look at them. I intended to notice this piece of cabbages, and I asked
George how much ground he thought there was in the piece. He said, _two
acres_: and asked me how much I thought. I said that there were _above
four acres_, and that I should not wonder if there were _four acres and
a half_. Thus divided in judgment, we turned away from the cabbages to
go out of the field at another gate, which pointed towards our road.
Near this gate we found a man turning a heap of manure. This man, as it
happened, had hoed the cabbages by the acre, or had had a hand in it. We
asked him how much ground there was in that piece of cabbages, and he
told us, _four acres and a half_! I suppose it will not be difficult to
convince the reader that George looked upon me as a sort of conjuror. At
Mr. Pym's, at Colley farm, we found one of the very finest pieces of
mangel wurzel that I had ever seen in my life. We calculated that there
would be little short of _forty tons to the acre_; and there being three
acres to the piece, Mr. Pym calculates that this mangel wurzel, the
produce of these three acres of land, will carry his ten or twelve
milch-cows nearly, if not wholly, through the winter. There did not
appear to be a spurious plant, and there was not one plant that had gone
to seed, in the whole piece. I have never seen a more beautiful mass of
vegetation, and I had the satisfaction to learn, after having admired
the crop, that the seed came from my own shop, and that it had been
saved by myself.
Talking of the shop, I came to it in a very few hours after looking at
this mangel wurzel; and I soon found that it was high time for me to get
home again; for here had been pretty devils' works going on. Here I
found the "Greek cause," and all its appendages, figuring away in grand
style. But I must make this matter of separate observation.
I have put an end to my Ride of August, September, and October, 1826,
during which I have travelled five hundred and sixty-eight miles, and
have slept in thirty different beds, having written three monthly
pamphlets, called the "Poor Man's Friend," and have also written
(including the present one) eleven Registers. I have been in three
cities, in about twenty market towns, in perhaps five hundred villages;
and I have seen the people nowhere so well off as in the neighbourhood
of Weston Grove, and nowhere so badly off as in the dominions of the
Select Vestry of Hurstbourn Tarrant, commonly called Uphusband. During
the whole of this ride, I have very rarely been a-bed after day-light; I
have drunk neither wine nor spirits. I have eaten no vegetables, and
only a very moderate quantity of meat; and, it may be useful to my
readers to know, that the riding of twenty miles was not so fatiguing to
me at the end of my tour as the riding of ten miles was at the beginning
of it. Some ill-natured fools will call this "_egotism_." Why is it
egotism? Getting upon a good strong horse, and riding about the country
has no merit in it; there is no conjuration in it; it requires neither
talents nor virtues of any sort; but _health_ is a very valuable thing;
and when a man has had the experience which I have had in this instance,
it is his duty to state to the world and to his own countrymen and
neighbours in particular, the happy effects of early rising, sobriety,
abstinence and a resolution to be active. It is his duty to do this: and
it becomes imperatively his duty, when he has seen, in the course of his
life, so many men; so many men of excellent hearts and of good talents,
rendered prematurely old, cut off ten or twenty years before their time,
by a want of that early rising, sobriety, abstinence and activity from
which he himself has derived so much benefit and such inexpressible
pleasure. During this ride I have been several times wet to the skin. At
some times of my life, after having indulged for a long while in codling
myself up in the house, these soakings would have frightened me half out
of my senses; but I care very little about them: I avoid getting wet if
I can; but it is very seldom that rain, come when it would, has
prevented me from performing the day's journey that I had laid out
beforehand. And this is a very good rule: to stick to your intention
whether it be attended with inconveniences or not; to look upon yourself
as _bound_ to do it. In the whole of this ride, I have met with no one
untoward circumstance, properly so called, except the wounding of the
back of my horse, which grieved me much more on his account than on my
own. I have a friend, who, when he is disappointed in accomplishing
anything that he has laid out, says that he has been _beaten_, which is
a very good expression for the thing. I was beaten in my intention to go
through Sussex and Kent; but I will retrieve the affair in a very few
months' time, or, perhaps, few weeks. The COLLECTIVE will be here now in
a few days; and as soon as I have got the Preston Petition fairly before
them, and find (as I dare say I shall) that the petition will not be
_tried_ until February, I shall take my horse and set off again to that
very spot, in the London turnpike-road, at the foot of Butser-hill,
whence I turned off to go to Petersfield, instead of turning the other
way to go to Up Park: I shall take my horse and go to this spot, and,
with a resolution not to be beaten next time, go along through the whole
length of Sussex, and sweep round through Kent and Surrey till I come to
Reigate again, and then home to Kensington; for I do not like to be
beaten by horse's sore back, or by anything else; and, besides that,
there are several things in Sussex and Kent that I want to see and give
an account of. For the present, however, farewell to the country, and
now for the Wen and its villanous corruptions.