them, these are the circumstances of the harvest of 1794 and 1795. With
regard to the harvest of 1794, in relation to the noblest grain, wheat,
it is allowed to have been somewhat short, but not excessively,--and in
quality, for the seven-and-twenty years during which I have been a
farmer, I never remember wheat to have been so good. The world were,
however, deceived in their speculations upon it,--the farmer as well as
the dealer. Accordingly the price fluctuated beyond anything I can
remember: for at one time of the year I sold my wheat at 14_l._ a load,
(I sold off all I had, as I thought this was a reasonable price,) when
at the end of the season, if I had then had any to sell, I might have
got thirty guineas for the same sort of grain. I sold all that I had, as
I said, at a comparatively low price, because I thought it a good price,
compared with what I thought the general produce of the harvest; but
when I came to consider what my own _total_ was, I found that the
quantity had not answered my expectation. It must be remembered that
this year of produce, (the year 1794,) short, but excellent, followed a
year which was not extraordinary in production, nor of a superior
quality, and left but little in store. At first, this was not felt,
because the harvest came in unusually early,--earlier than common by a
full month.
The winter, at the end of 1794 and beginning of 1795, was more than
usually unfavorable both to corn and grass, owing to the sudden
relaxation of very rigorous frosts, followed by rains, which were again
rapidly succeeded by frosts of still greater rigor than the first.
Much wheat was utterly destroyed. The clover-grass suffered in many
places. What I never observed before, the rye-grass, or coarse bent,
suffered more than the clover. Even the meadow-grass in some places was
killed to the very roots. In the spring appearances were better than we
expected. All the early sown grain recovered itself, and came up with
great vigor; but that which was late sown was feeble, and did not
promise to resist any blights in the spring, which, however, with all
its unpleasant vicissitudes, passed off very well; and nothing looked
better than the wheat at the time of blooming;--but at that most
critical time of all, a cold, dry east wind, attended with very sharp
frosts, longer and stronger than I recollect at that time of year,
destroyed the flowers, and withered up, in an astonishing manner, the
whole side of the ear next to the wind. At that time I brought to town
some of the ears, for the purpose of showing to my friends the operation
of those unnatural frosts, and according to their extent I predicted a
great scarcity. But such is the pleasure of agreeable prospects, that my
opinion was little regarded.
On threshing, I found things as I expected,--the ears not filled, some
of the capsules quite empty, and several others containing only
withered, hungry grain, inferior to the appearance of rye. My best ears
and grain were not fine; never had I grain of so low a quality: yet I
sold one load for 21_l._ At the same time I bought my seed wheat (it was
excellent) at 23_l._ Since then the price has risen, and I have sold
about two load of the same sort at 23_l._ Such was the state of the
market when I left home last Monday. Little remains in my barn. I hope
some in the rick may be better, since it was earlier sown, as well as I
can recollect. Some of my neighbors have better, some quite as bad, or
even worse. I suspect it will be found, that, wherever the blighting
wind and those frosts at blooming-time have prevailed, the produce of
the wheat crop will turn out very indifferent. Those parts which have
escaped will, I can hardly doubt, have a reasonable produce.
As to the other grains, it is to be observed, as the wheat ripened very
late, (on account, I conceive, of the blights,) the barley got the start
of it, and was ripe first. The crop was with me, and wherever my inquiry
could reach, excellent; in some places far superior to mine.
The clover, which came up with the barley, was the finest I remember to
have seen.
The turnips of this year are generally good.
The clover sown last year, where not totally destroyed, gave two good
crops, or one crop and a plentiful feed; and, bating the loss of the
rye-grass, I do not remember a better produce.
The meadow-grass yielded but a middling crop, and neither of the sown or
natural grass was there in any farmer's possession any remainder from
the year worth taking into account. In most places there was none at
all.
Oats with me were not in a quantity more considerable than in commonly
good seasons; but I have never known them heavier than they were in
other places. The oat was not only an heavy, but an uncommonly abundant
crop.
My ground under pease did not exceed an acre or thereabouts, but the
crop was great indeed. I believe it is throughout the country exuberant.
It is, however, to be remarked, as generally of all the grains, so
particularly of the pease, that there was not the smallest quantity in
reserve.
The demand of the year must depend solely on its own produce; and the
price of the spring corn is not to be expected to fall very soon, or at
any time very low.
Uxbridge is a great corn market. As I came through that town, I found
that at the last market-day barley was at forty shillings a quarter.
Oats there were literally none; and the inn-keeper was obliged to send
for them to London. I forgot to ask about pease. Potatoes were 5_s_. the
bushel.
In the debate on this subject in the House, I am told that a leading
member of great ability, _little conversant in these matters_, observed,
that the general uniform dearness of butcher's meat, butter, and cheese
could not be owing to a defective produce of wheat; and on this ground
insinuated a suspicion of some unfair practice on the subject, that
called for inquiry.
Unquestionably, the mere deficiency of wheat could not cause the
dearness of the other articles, which extends not only to the provisions
he mentioned, but to every other without exception.
The cause is, indeed, so very plain and obvious that the wonder is the
other way. When a properly directed inquiry is made, the gentlemen who
are amazed at the price of these commodities will find, that, when hay
is at six pound a load, as they must know it is, herbage, and for more
than one year, must be scanty; and they will conclude, that, if grass be
scarce, beef, veal, mutton, butter, milk, and cheese _must_ be dear.
But to take up the matter somewhat more in detail.--If the wheat harvest
in 1794, excellent in quality, was defective in quantity, the barley
harvest was in quality ordinary enough, and in quantity deficient. This
was soon felt in the price of malt.
Another article of produce (beans) was not at all plentiful. The crop of
pease was wholly destroyed, so that several farmers pretty early gave up
all hopes on that head, and cut the green haulm as fodder for the
cattle, then perishing for want of food in that dry and burning summer.
I myself came off better than most: I had about the fourth of a crop of
pease.
It will be recollected, that, in a manner, all the bacon and pork
consumed in this country (the far largest consumption of meat out of
towns) is, when growing, fed on grass, and on whey or skimmed milk,--and
when fatting, partly on the latter. This is the case in the dairy
countries, all of them great breeders and feeders of swine; but for the
much greater part, and in all the corn countries, they are fattened on
beans, barley-meal, and pease. When the food of the animal is scarce,
his flesh must be dear. This, one would suppose, would require no great
penetration to discover.
This failure of so very large a supply of flesh in one species naturally
throws the whole demand of the consumer on the diminished supply of all
kinds of flesh, and, indeed, on all the matters of human sustenance.
Nor, in my opinion, are we to expect a greater cheapness in that article
for this year, even though corn should grow cheaper, as it is to be
hoped it will. The store swine, from the failure of subsistence last
year, are now at an extravagant price. Pigs, at our fairs, have sold
lately for fifty shillings, which two years ago would not have brought
more than twenty.
As to sheep, none, I thought, were strangers to the general failure of
the article of turnips last year: the early having been burned, as they
came up, by the great drought and heat; the late, and those of the early
which had escaped, were destroyed by the chilling frosts of the winter
and the wet and severe weather of the spring. In many places a full
fourth of the sheep or the lambs were lost; what remained of the lambs
were poor and ill fed, the ewes having had no milk. The calves came
late, and they were generally an article the want of which was as much
to be dreaded as any other. So that article of food, formerly so
abundant in the early part of the summer, particularly in London, and
which in a great part supplied the place of mutton for near two months,
did little less than totally fail.
All the productions of the earth link in with each other. All the
sources of plenty, in all and every article, were dried or frozen up.
The scarcity was not, as gentlemen seem to suppose, in wheat only.
Another cause, and that not of inconsiderable operation, tended to
produce a scarcity in flesh provision. It is one that on many accounts
cannot be too much regretted, and the rather, as it was the sole _cause_
of a scarcity in that article which arose from the proceedings of men
themselves: I mean the stop put to the distillery.
The hogs (and that would be sufficient) which were fed with the waste
wash of that produce did not demand the fourth part of the corn used by
farmers in fattening them. The spirit was nearly so much clear gain to
the nation. It is an odd way of making flesh cheap, to stop or check the
distillery.
The distillery in itself produces an immense article of trade almost all
over the world,--to Africa, to North America, and to various parts of
Europe. It is of great use, next to food itself, to our fisheries and to
our whole navigation. A great part of the distillery was carried on by
damaged corn, unfit for bread, and by barley and malt of the lowest
quality. These things could not be more unexceptionably employed. The
domestic consumption of spirits produced, without complaints, a very
great revenue, applicable, if we pleased, in bounties, to the bringing
corn from other places, far beyond the value of that consumed in making
it, or to the encouragement of its increased production at home.
As to what is said, in a physical and moral view, against the home
consumption of spirits, experience has long since taught me very little
to respect the declamations on that subject. Whether the thunder of the
laws or the thunder of eloquence "is hurled on _gin_" always I am
thunder-proof. The alembic, in my mind, has furnished to the world a far
greater benefit and blessing than if the _opus maximum_ had been really
found by chemistry, and, like Midas, we could turn everything into gold.
Undoubtedly there may be a dangerous abuse in the excess of spirits; and
at one time I am ready to believe the abuse was great. When spirits are
cheap, the business of drunkenness is achieved with little time or
labor; but that evil I consider to be wholly done away. Observation for
the last forty years, and very particularly for the last thirty, has
furnished me with ten instances of drunkenness from other causes for one
from this. Ardent spirit is a great medicine, often to remove
distempers, much more frequently to prevent them, or to chase them away
in their beginnings. It is not nutritive in _any great_ degree. But if
not food, it greatly alleviates the want of it. It invigorates the
stomach for the digestion of poor, meagre diet, not easily alliable to
the human constitution. Wine the poor cannot touch. Beer, as applied to
many occasions, (as among seamen and fishermen, for instance,) will by
no means do the business. Let me add, what wits inspired with champagne
and claret will turn into ridicule,--it is a medicine for the mind.
Under the pressure of the cares and sorrows of our mortal condition, men
have at all times and in all countries called in some physical aid to
their moral consolations,--wine, beer, opium, brandy, or tobacco.
I consider, therefore, the stopping of the distillery, economically,
financially, commercially, medicinally, and in some degree morally too,
as a measure rather well meant than well considered. It is too precious
a sacrifice to prejudice.
Gentlemen well know whether there be a scarcity of partridges, and
whether that be an effect of hoarding and combination. All the tame race
of birds live and die as the wild do.
As to the lesser articles, they are like the greater. They have followed
the fortune of the season. Why are fowls dear? Was not this the farmer's
or jobber's fault? I sold from my yard to a jobber six young and lean
fowls for four-and-twenty shillings,--fowls for which two years ago the
same man would not have given a shilling apiece. He sold them afterwards
at Uxbridge, and they were taken to London to receive the last hand.
As to the operation of the war in causing the scarcity of provisions, I
understand that Mr. Pitt has given a particular answer to it; but I do
not think it worth powder and shot.
I do not wonder the papers are so full of this sort of matter, but I am
a little surprised it should be mentioned in Parliament. Like all great
state questions, peace and war may be discussed, and different opinions
fairly formed, on political grounds; but on a question of the present
price of provisions, when peace with the Regicides is always uppermost,
I can only say that great is the love of it.
After all, have we not reason to be thankful to the Giver of all Good?
In our history, and when "the laborer of England is said to have been
once happy," we find constantly, after certain intervals, a period of
real famine, by which a melancholy havoc was made among the human race.
The price of provisions fluctuated dreadfully, demonstrating a
deficiency very different from the worst failures of the present moment.
Never, since I have known England, have I known more than a comparative
scarcity. The price of wheat, taking a number of years together, has had
no very considerable fluctuation; nor has it risen exceedingly until
within this twelvemonth. Even now, I do not know of one man, woman, or
child that has perished from famine: fewer, if any, I believe, than in
years of plenty, when such a thing may happen by accident. This is owing
to a care and superintendence of the poor, far greater than any I
remember.
The consideration of this ought to bind us all, rich and poor together,
against those wicked writers of the newspapers who would inflame the
poor against their friends, guardians, patrons, and protectors. Not only
very few (I have observed that I know of none, though I live in a place
as poor as most) have actually died of want, but we have seen no traces
of those dreadful exterminating epidemics which, in consequence of
scanty and unwholesome food, in former times not unfrequently wasted
whole nations. Let us be saved from too much wisdom of our own, and we
shall do tolerably well.
It is one of the finest problems in legislation, and what has often
engaged my thoughts whilst I followed that profession,--What the state
ought to take upon itself to direct by the public wisdom, and what it
ought to leave, with as little interference as possible, to individual
discretion. Nothing, certainly, can be laid down on the subject that
will not admit of exceptions,--many permanent, some occasional. But the
clearest line of distinction which I could draw, whilst I had my chalk
to draw any line, was this: that the state ought to confine itself to
what regards the state or the creatures of the state: namely, the
exterior establishment of its religion; its magistracy; its revenue; its
military force by sea and land; the corporations that owe their
existence to its fiat; in a word, to everything that is _truly and
properly_ public,--to the public peace, to the public safety, to the
public order, to the public prosperity. In its preventive police it
ought to be sparing of its efforts, and to employ means, rather few,
unfrequent, and strong, than many, and frequent, and, of course, as
they multiply their puny politic race, and dwindle, small and feeble.
Statesmen who know themselves will, with the dignity which belongs to
wisdom, proceed only in this the superior orb and first mover of their
duty, steadily, vigilantly, severely, courageously: whatever remains
will, in a manner, provide for itself. But as they descend from the
state to a province, from a province to a parish, and from a parish to a
private house, they go on accelerated in their fall. They _cannot_ do
the lower duty; and in proportion as they try it, they will certainly
fail in the higher. They ought to know the different departments of
things,--what belongs to laws, and what manners alone can regulate. To
these great politicians may give a leaning, but they cannot give a law.
Our legislature has fallen into this fault, as well as other
governments: all have fallen into it more or less. The once mighty state
which was nearest to us locally, nearest to us in every way, and whose
ruins threaten to fall upon our heads, is a strong instance of this
error. I can never quote France without a foreboding sigh,--ΈΣΣΕΤΑΙ ΉΜΑΡ
Scipio said it to his recording Greek friend amidst the
flames of the great rival of his country. That state has fallen by the
hands of the parricides of their country, called the Revolutionists and
Constitutionalists of France: a species of traitors, of whose fury and
atrocious wickedness nothing in the annals of the frenzy and depravation
of mankind had before furnished an example, and of whom I can never
think or speak without a mixed sensation of disgust, of horror, and of
detestation, not easy to be expressed. These nefarious monsters
destroyed their country for what was good in it: for much good there was
in the Constitution of that noble monarchy, which, in all kinds, formed
and nourished great men, and great patterns of virtue to the world. But
though its enemies were not enemies to its faults, its faults furnished
them with means for its destruction. My dear departed friend, whose loss
is even greater to the public than to me, had often remarked, that the
leading vice of the French monarchy (which he had well studied) was in
good intention ill-directed, and a restless desire of governing too
much. The hand of authority was seen in everything and in every place.
All, therefore, that happened amiss, in the course even of domestic
affairs, was attributed to the government; and as it always happens in
this kind of officious universal interference, what began in odious
power ended always, I may say without an exception, in contemptible
imbecility. For this reason, as far as I can approve of any novelty, I
thought well of the provincial administrations. Those, if the superior
power had been severe and vigilant and vigorous, might have been of much
use politically in removing government from many invidious details. But
as everything is good or bad as it is related or combined, government
being relaxed above as it was relaxed below, and the brains of the
people growing more and more addle with every sort of visionary
speculation, the shiftings of the scene in the provincial theatres
became only preparatives to a revolution in the kingdom, and the popular
actings there only the rehearsals of the terrible drama of the Republic.
Tyranny and cruelty may make men justly wish the downfall of abused
powers, but I believe that no government ever yet perished from any
other direct cause than its own weakness. My opinion is against an
overdoing of any sort of administration, and more especially against
this most momentous of all meddling on the part of authority,--the
meddling with the subsistence of the people.
A
LETTER TO A NOBLE LORD
ON
THE ATTACKS MADE UPON MR. BURKE AND HIS PENSION, IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS,
BY
THE DUKE OF BEDFORD AND THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE,
EARLY IN THE PRESENT SESSION OF PARLIAMENT.
1796.
LETTER.
My lord,--I could hardly flatter myself with the hope that so very early
in the season I should have to acknowledge obligations to the Duke of
Bedford and to the Earl of Lauderdale. These noble persons have lost no
time in conferring upon me that sort of honor which it is alone within
their competence, and which it is certainly most congenial to their
nature and their manners, to bestow.
To be ill spoken of, in whatever language they speak, by the zealots of
the new sect in philosophy and politics, of which these noble persons
think so charitably, and of which others think so justly, to me is no
matter of uneasiness or surprise. To have incurred the displeasure of
the Duke of Orleans or the Duke of Bedford, to fall under the censure of
Citizen Brissot or of his friend the Earl of Lauderdale, I ought to
consider as proofs, not the least satisfactory, that I have produced
some part of the effect I proposed by my endeavors. I have labored hard
to earn what the noble Lords are generous enough to pay. Personal
offence I have given them none. The part they take against me is from
zeal to the cause. It is well,--it is perfectly well. I have to do
homage to their justice. I have to thank the Bedfords and the
Lauderdales for having so faithfully and so fully acquitted towards me
whatever arrear of debt was left undischarged by the Priestleys and the
Paines.
Some, perhaps, may think them executors in their own wrong: I at least
have nothing to complain of. They have gone beyond the demands of
justice. They have been (a little, perhaps, beyond their intention)
favorable to me. They have been the means of bringing out by their
invectives the handsome things which Lord Grenville has had the goodness
and condescension to say in my behalf. Retired as I am from the world,
and from all its affairs and all its pleasures, I confess it does kindle
in my nearly extinguished feelings a very vivid satisfaction to be so
attacked and so commended. It is soothing to my wounded mind to be
commended by an able, vigorous, and well-informed statesman, and at the
very moment when he stands forth, with a manliness and resolution worthy
of himself and of his cause, for the preservation of the person and
government of our sovereign, and therein for the security of the laws,
the liberties, the morals, and the lives of his people. To be in any
fair way connected with such things is indeed a distinction. No
philosophy can make me above it: no melancholy can depress me so low as
to make me wholly insensible to such an honor.
Why will they not let me remain in obscurity and inaction? Are they
apprehensive, that, if an atom of me remains, the sect has something to
fear? Must I be annihilated, lest, like old John Zisca's, my skin might
be made into a drum, to animate Europe to eternal battle against a
tyranny that threatens to overwhelm all Europe and all the human race?