absorbed in grief and silent prayer for nearly an hour, before any one of
the family came to me. At length my wife came to my aid, and being roused
by her I performed the sad sacred office of closing his eyes for ever.
I shall not make any apology to the reader, for having dwelt so long on
this melancholy scene. I trust that it will prove one of the most
instructive parts of my history. In fact, and in truth, I would not write
another line, if I did not fondly hope that almost every part of my life
may prove instructive, as well as entertaining, to my fellow creatures and
the rising generation; particularly to those who may embark upon the wide,
rough, boisterous, and dangerous ocean of politics. When I recite my own
errors, and it has already been seen, that I have committed many and great
ones, I am rewarded for the pain I feel in the recollection of them, by
the hope that they may prove a beacon and a warning to those young persons
who may do me the honour to read these pages; and where they find that the
impulse of honourable generous feelings, unguided by prudence, has led me
into a wrong course, I trust that the young reader will learn, from my
mistakes, how to temper his zeal with that discretion which may enable him
to steer clear of those perilous quicksands upon which I have so
frequently struck.
What a great misfortune for me was the death of my father! Before I was
yet twenty-four years of age, with a mind unformed, and I may say, in the
common acceptation of the phrase, very young of my age; here was I left in
the uncontrolled possession of one of the largest farming concerns in the
kingdom! I had a young wife, and a family of my own coming on; and had
five sisters and brothers, younger than myself, left without father or
mother. I was immediately obliged to attend to the farms, which had had no
master to look over them for the last week, that week the most busy one in
the year; and I had likewise to give orders for the funeral of my departed
father. Exertion was indispensable. It was no use for me to lie down and
cry God help me! Necessity, however painful to my feelings, compelled me
to see to every thing, because I had no friend either to do it for me, or
even to assist me. The whole lay upon the hands of myself and my wife, who
was of the greatest assistance to my poor sister, who almost sunk under
her afflicting loss.
It was fortunately fine weather, and the wheat harvest was nearly finished
before my father was buried. When the awful day of his funeral came, I
performed the last sad and solemn office for him, as I had faithfully
promised to him that I would, and saw him laid by the side of my poor
mother in the silent grave, the tomb and vault of his ancestors, in the
chancel of the parish church of Enford, in the county of Wilts.
This melancholy scene made the most lasting impression upon my memory, and
such was the effect of the kind benevolent and endearing conversations
which I had held with my father, during the four last days of his life,
after he knew that he could not survive his illness, that for seven years
afterwards, I used in my sleep to hold the most delightful converse in my
dreams with the spirit of my beloved parent; in all of which he appeared
most anxious for my welfare, and advised, admonished, and kindly cautioned
me against every impending evil; so that he was not only the best of
fathers when living, but he proved my kind and fostering guardian angel
after his death. No young man ever had better advice bestowed upon him
than I had; unceasing kind and paternal advice, as well as the best
example. Nor was any one ever more sensible of the great and irreparable
loss be had sustained than I was; or ever more sincerely deplored the loss
of a beloved parent, than I did the loss of my father. Mine was not that
sort of sorrow which puts on a gloomy outside, the garb of woe, while the
heart beats to a merry tune. But, though I did not assume any hypocritical
outward sorrow, yet I was really and truly most sad at heart. The constant
employment of the body and the full occupation of the mind is, however,
always the very best antidote to grief, and those my business furnished me
with, to the fullest extent. When my father died, what he rented, and what
he left of his own, was nearly all the tything of Littlecot, as well as
Chisenbury farm, and I was in possession of Widdington farm, about two
miles distant. All the farms were now in my occupation, and, as I thought
it proper to live more centrical, I took Chisenbury House, a large
old-fashioned, handsome mansion; and as soon as I could fit it up and
furnish it, I went to reside there. This was considered by some as being
rather an imprudent and extravagant step; for it would require a
considerable income to keep up an establishment such as a house like that
demanded. The reader will be able to estimate its size, when I inform him
that there were not less than fifty two windows in it to be paid for to
the assessed taxes; the number of them, however, I had the prudence to
reduce considerably. But, in spite of all my prudence, it could not,
considering the scale on which my arrangements were formed, be otherwise
than a very expensive residence. Still it was not more, perhaps, than I
was fairly entitled to, as the profits arising from my large well
cultivated farms enabled me to vie with men of five or six thousand a
year, in my domestic establishment. My stables were stored with hunters;
my kennels with dogs; my cellars were well stocked with wine and the best
old October; and my table always amply furnished the best of viands to my
friends. My wife, who was quite as fond of company as I was, made her
female guests uniformly welcome. We kept a hospitable house, and we never
wanted for company to fill it, or a parson to say grace to a good dinner.
At this time we had another daughter born, and every thing went most
prosperously with me in the world. My friend, Dr. Clare of Devizes, who
was a sporting man, purchased at Lord Audley's sale a handsome curricle,
which he offered me, and we soon struck a bargain. Curricles were all the
vogue at that time; therefore a dashing young man without a curricle was
nothing; and as my wife was a great driver, as well as a good horsewoman,
a curricle was almost indispensable.
Let no one suppose, from reading this, that I was become a careless
squanderer. The habits of economy which, almost from my infancy, I lead
imbibed in consequence of the example that I had always before my eyes,
did not desert me even under these circumstances. By management I lived as
well, kept as good a house, and had my whole establishment so arranged, as
to make quite as good an appearance for a thousand or fifteen hundred a
year as many persons make who spend more than thrice that sum. I had at
all times plenty of money, and I had every comfort and luxury about me;
but in the midst of all this apparent extravagance, I never forgot the
poor. All my servants were well paid and well fed, and I scarcely ever
failed to attend the parish pay table, to see that those who held the
office of overseer turned no one away, who was really in distress, without
affording him relief. Thus early I gained the character of being _the
friend of the poor_. I always pleaded the cause of the widow, the orphan,
the aged, and infirm; and, being the largest paymaster in the parish to
the fund of the poor, I never pleaded in vain. The idle, the indolent, and
the dissolute, I left to fight their own battles; but the infirm, the
aged, the widow, and the orphan never fruitlessly sued when I was present,
and, as I have just said, I seldom failed to attend; if I did I was sure
to hear complaints. My readers will recollect that I am writing these
Memoirs during the life-time of hundreds who can speak to this fact; and I
speak of it not as boasting, but with the firm conviction that it can be
substantiated by hundreds who lived in the parish, and that there is not
one who will contradict it. The _friend of the poor_ is a title which I
earned very early in life, and I hope that I shall deserve to carry it to
my grave. Sorry, however, as I should be to lose this honourable title, I
would ten thousand times rather lose it than lose the heart-cheering,
soul-inspiring reflection that I have always been their friend not for the
name, but for the pleasure I felt in protecting and assisting my less
fortunate fellow-creatures, when they were in distress. It may be said, if
you are really so, why not rest satisfied with the pleasure of knowing it?
Why do you sound your own trumpet, and endeavour to blazon it forth to the
world? My answer is, because my being incarcerated here for _two years and
six months_ has induced me to become my own historian, and I will
endeavour to be so faithfully; and I feel that I have need to put upon
record all my good qualities, as a set-off to balance my bad qualities. Of
the latter I have disclosed a great many already, and as I proceed I shall
have to record still more. Now, as we are told that charity covers a
multitude of sins, if I possess this good quality of charity, and if I
prove that I always exercised it, I think I should not be doing common
justice to myself or to my friends, if out of false modesty I were to keep
silence. Those who have read my work hitherto will not fail to have
discovered that, from my early days, I have proved myself to have been
animated by an ardent love of country, that I possessed a sort of inherent
patriotism, without having at all entered into politics. A patriot I
consider to be a man who is devoted to the laws and constitution of his
country in their purity; a defender of the rights and liberties of the
people, and one who does his best to promote their happiness and welfare.
Merely possessing the good quality of being charitable, by no means makes
a patriot. Therefore, I am not professing any claim to patriotism, on the
ground of my being at that period a friend to the poor. In the first
place, I believe that charity and a sympathy for the sufferings of my
fellow-creatures are inherent qualities of my breast; at any rate I know
that I felt them in all their purity as long ago as I can remember. In the
next place, I was taught to practice charity by the example of my amiable
and excellent mother, who possessed as much christian charity, as well as
piety, as any mortal that ever lived; she was, indeed the very milk of
human kindness; and although my father taught me to exercise the virtue
with more discretion, yet he never checked it.
When my father died he was the Vicar's churchwarden, as well as the
principal overseer of the parish of Enford; and, of course, as I came into
possession of his estates and farms in that parish, I continued in the
parochial offices, as his substitute, till the next Easter. During that
time it was a severe winter, and I exercised my own discretion, and
without any ceremony raised the pay of the poor, particularly of the aged
and infirm, those whose labours were done. I found their pay at two
shillings and sixpence per week each; I raised it to three and sixpence
each, and in some instances, as in cases of infirmity, still higher; and,
when some of the parishioners mentioned their objections, to the measure,
I declined to reduce the allowance, but offered to pay out of my own
pocket the advance which I had made, in case of my conduct being
disapproved of at a meeting or vestry. No meeting, was, however, called;
nor in this large parish, where the population is above six hundred, was
there any complaint made to the magistrates by any pauper against me
during the whole time I was in office.
When Easter came, I being the largest paymaster in the parish, it was my
turn, by rotation, to serve the office two years longer, and my name was
placed at the head of the list that was sent in to the magistrates for
their approval. The practice is, for the parishioners, at the annual
Easter meeting, to send in a list of three or four names, to give the
magistrates a choice in the appointment of two: but as the two names that
are placed first and second are those that are considered by the resident
proprietors as the proper persons, and whose turn it is to serve the
office, the magistrates seldom or ever, without some very substantial
reason, pass them over and appoint any of the others, whose names are
placed, as a mere form, below them. In this parish, which was known to be
well conducted, the circumstance of passing over the recommendation of the
principal inhabitant was never known to have happened. My name being the
first, I had no doubt but that I should be obliged to remain in this
disagreeable and troublesome office. I was, however, deceived. My
disposition to give to the poor more liberal relief than had been
heretofore granted to them, had been too evident during the short time
that, in the winter season, I had been in office. The considerable and
permanent advance that I had made to all the old people in the parish, who
were no longer able to labour, had got wind, and this was canvassed
amongst the magistrates, who were all farmers, some of them very large
farmers in the neighbourhood; and who should be the magistrates of this
district, but the valorous officers of the gallant Everly troop, Messrs.
ASTLEY, POORE, and DYKE, the latter being nearly as large a farmer as
myself, and employing a great number of labourers! It never entered into
my head for a moment that I should be objected to; on the contrary, I
should rather have expected that this worthy bench of JUSTASSES would have
been pleased with the opportunity of fixing me in what was generally
considered a troublesome and harassing office; one which in such a large
parish would require a considerable portion of a man's time to execute it
properly: even when there was least to be done, it occupied three or four
hours every other Sunday to attend in the vestry room, at the pay table,
to hear the complaints and to relieve the wants of those who were in
distress. This I had never neglected, nor left, as others had frequently
done, to the care of servants.
The parish books were returned from the justices, and lo and behold! my
name was passed over, and a little apron farmer was appointed in my stead.
At the first view of the case, I felt a weighty responsibility and trouble
taken, as it were, off my shoulders; and I was, as I conceived, released
from a great deal of labour which I had anticipated; and I heartily
despised the petty malice, the little dirty insult, intended me by the
magistrates, who, in their desire to annoy me, had in fact rendered me a
great service. On my speaking of it in this way to my old housekeeper, who
first brought me the news, she archly addressed me as follows:--"Ah, sir!
I know your heart too well to believe that this will save you any trouble.
Though you are not in office, yet as you pay so much towards the relief of
the poor, and feel so much for them, you will not desert them. You will, I
am sure, still attend the pay table and see justice done them at any
rate." This was quite enough for me. While she was speaking, a thousand
ideas crowded my imagination, and like lightening, I resolved to put them
into execution. I said nothing, but the next Sunday, after the service of
the day was over, I attended the pay table, as I had constantly done while
I held the office. It was so unusual for any one to attend but the two
overseers, that it was instantly noticed by the poor who were in waiting.
I sat silent, but that was quite enough; every one was paid the same as
they had been the week before, when I was the paymaster; though I knew
that it had been agreed upon to dock them.
There was scarcely a single servant of my own whose name was upon the
books; for my wish was, that they should always earn sufficient by their
labour to support their families, without going to the parish. While I was
in office myself, I acted on this system, without making any remonstrance
with those farmers who paid their labourers about half price, and sent
them to the parish for the remaining sum which was required for their
support. But I now made up my mind not to bear this grievance any longer,
without an effort to remove it. I, therefore, got the overseers to call a
special meeting at the vestry, to take these matters into consideration.
At this meeting I proposed that every farmer in the parish should raise
his servants' wages, to enable them to keep their families; at any rate
those who were able bodied men. There was scarcely any objection made to
this, and it was carried unanimously. But I soon found that this measure
was eluded, and of course would not answer. Several of the farmers turned
off half their servants, and others all of them, and hired servants out of
the parish, whom they could procure for less wages. I, however, always
persisted in engaging my servants to earn enough to keep themselves and
families without going to the parish; which most of them did, till all
sorts of provisions were risen to double if not treble their usual price.
One thing I shall here _forestall_, which is the fact that I continued for
nine years afterwards to occupy a very great portion of the parish, and
consequently to pay a great portion of the parish rates; but, though my
name was placed at the head of the list and sent in to the _magistrates_,
every Easter during that time, yet I was never appointed _the overseer of
the poor_; and this because I had set an example of too great liberality
towards them when I was in office. Notwithstanding this, I never failed to
advocate, and with success, the cause of the aged, the infirm, the widow,
and the orphan, not only in my own parishes, but also in those surrounding
me; and every act of oppression that was practised in the district where I
lived was always communicated to me, and as far as I had it in my power I
obtained redress for the oppressed. I very soon, therefore became an
object of suspicion and dread amongst the petty tyrants of that district;
and by them I was denominated "a busy meddling fellow;" but as a set off
to this, I received the thanks, the blessings of the poor, and the love of
my servants, whom I looked upon as my friends and neighbours. I had as
much work done for my money as any man; I paid my servants well; but I did
what was of much more consequence to my interest. I treated them with
kindness, and addressed them as fellow-creatures and fellow-freemen;
instead of doing as many did, and which is unhappily much too frequently
the practice, to treat labourers and servants as if they were brutes and
slaves. By these means I managed a very large business with the greatest
ease imaginable. My servants looked up to me as a friend and protector; as
one who was at all times ready to stand forward to shield them from any
oppression; and, on the other hand, I placed the greatest confidence in
them to guard my property and my interest: I was seldom deceived; for I
not only found them faithful at that time, but they are grateful even to
this day. All this I attribute solely to my always treating them with
kindness and _justice_. No part of their affection did I ever obtain by
any unfair or surreptitious means. I never encouraged indolence, idleness,
or profligacy of any sort, and an habitual drunkard I never kept in my
service.
Contrary to my father's advice, I still continued in the Marlborough Troop
of Yeomanry Cavalry. His last words were, however, quite prophetic as to
the danger that I was in, by remaining amongst a set of men whose notions
were so very far from being actuated by a pure love of country. Still, as
the threat of invasion continued to be held up to the country as likely to
be executed, I could not make up my mind to quit their ranks. I felt an
ardour to be one of the first to meet a foreign foe, if ever they dared to
invade us, and I therefore continued to join the troop as often as it was
convenient; and as I was perfectly acquainted with my duty, and resolved
to perform it, I was never once fined for any breach of the rules or
regulations, which were made and agreed to for the guidance of the members
of the troop; and I was upon particular good terms with the commander of
it, Lord Bruce, the eldest son of the Earl of Aylesbury, who always
treated me with polite attention.
The officers of the Everly Troop of Yeomanry had, as they thought, offered
me an insult, and one which I had no power to resent; they were his
Majesty's Justices of the Peace, and if they chose to mix up their revenge
with their duty of conservators of the peace, I had no power to prevent
it, nor, as they kept their own council, could I ever remonstrate. Aware,
as I was, of the insult intended by their passing over my name; yet, as I
was glad to be out of the office, and had taken such a course as would
enable me to protect the poor from any partial or unjust treatment, and as
I still was appointed the Vicar's Churchwarden, I felt little or no
resentment on that account. I had expected neither candour, liberality nor
_justice_ from them, and they had not disappointed me; I was therefore
quite indifferent on that score. But as my father always had a sort of
presentiment that something would turn out unpleasant to me before I got
quit of the volunteer service, I was exceedingly guarded in all my
movements in the Marlborough troop; and was particularly careful never to
omit any part of my duty, or to do any thing in violation of the rules or
regulations; and I believe that I was almost the only man in the troop
that had not been fined over and over again. In fact, as the fines were
very moderate--for instance, I believe it was only half a crown for being
absent from the field days, and not even that if there were a reasonable
excuse for non-attendance--they did not inspire the members with much
dread. This was the only punishment for non-attendance.
In the midst of all my fancied security, a circumstance, however, occurred
that proved all my father's prognostications to be well founded. The
reader will not have forgotten that I was become an expert sportsman; and,
agreeable to my usual enthusiasm in all that I undertook, he will not be
surprised to hear that I was also become what is called a good shot.
During the month of September I had killed one hundred and twenty brace of
partridges, and I was engaged to take the first day's pheasant shooting,
on the first of October, with my friend and comrade, Mr. Thos. Hancock,
the banker, of Marlborough. Lord Aylesbury, the proprietor of Marlborough
Forest, possessed very extensive estates and large manors round this
district, almost the whole of which he made _one large preserve_ of game;
but, as it was necessary that he should keep his tools, the members of the
corporation of his rottenest of rotten close boroughs, Marlborough, in
good humour, he allotted one small manor, at a distance of several miles
from his principal preserve, where all his tenants and the inhabitants of
the town of Marlborough and their friends, were allowed to shoot and sport
without interruption, whenever they pleased. To this place my friend
Hancock had promised to take me for a day's sport; he himself being, as
will presently appear, a very poor shot. I went to Mr. Hancock's to sleep
the night previously, and, like a true and keen sportsman, I was up and
dressed, eager for the sport, before it was day-light. In fact, it was
necessary that we should be early, as there was a host of cockney and
other sportsmen, who always sallied forth from Marlborough on that day;
and as the manor was not large the ground was generally pretty thickly
occupied before sun rise on the first of October; for it will be
recollected that, on these gala days, _"tag, rag, and bobtail,"_ all had
leave, whether they were qualified or not, and all who professed to be
sportsmen hurried there, whether they had certificates or not.