Rural Rides Part 3

_Bergh Apton, 22nd Dec. (night)._

After returning from Yarmouth yesterday, went to dine at Stoke-Holy-Cross, about six miles off; got home at mid-night, and came to Norwich this morning, this being market-day, and also the day fixed on for a Radical Reform Dinner at the Swan Inn, to which I was invited.

Norwich is a very fine city, and the Castle, which stands in the middle of it, on a hill, is truly majestic. The meat and poultry and vegetable market is beautiful. It is kept in a large open square in the middle, or nearly so, of the City. The ground is a pretty sharp slope, so that you see all at once. It resembles one of the French markets, only _there_ the vendors are all standing and gabbling like parrots, and the meat is lean and b.l.o.o.d.y and nasty, and the people snuffy and grimy in hands and face, the contrary, precisely the contrary of all which is the case in this beautiful market at Norwich, where the women have a sort of uniform brown great coats, with white ap.r.o.ns and _bibs_ (I think they call them) going from the ap.r.o.n up to the bosom. They equal in neatness (for nothing can surpa.s.s) the market women in Philadelphia.--The cattle-market is held on the hill by the castle, and many _fairs_ are smaller in bulk of stock. The corn-market is held in a very magnificent place, called Saint Andrew's Hall, which will contain two or three thousand persons. They tell me, that this used to be a most delightful scene; a most joyous one; and, I think, it was this scene that Mr.

CURWEN described in such glowing colours when he was talking of the Norfolk farmers, each worth so many thousands of pounds. Bear me witness, reader, that _I never was dazzled_ by such sights; that the false glare never put my eyes out; and that, even then, twelve years ago, I warned Mr. CURWEN of the _result_! Bear witness to this, my Disciples, and justify the doctrines of him for whose sakes you have endured persecution. How different would Mr. CURWEN find the scene _now_! What took place at the dinner has been already recorded in the Register; and I have only to add with regard to it, that my reception at Norfolk was such, that I have only to regret the total want of power to make those hearty Norfolk and Norwich friends any suitable return, whether by act or word.

_Kensington, Monday, 24 Dec._

Went from Bergh Apton to Norwich in the morning, and from Norwich to London during the day, carrying with me great admiration of and respect for this county of _excellent farmers_, and hearty, open and spirited men. The Norfolk people are quick and smart in their motions and in their speaking. Very neat and _trim_ in all their farming concerns, and very skilful. Their land is good, their roads are level, and the bottom of their soil is dry, to be sure; and these are great advantages; but they are diligent, and make the most of everything. Their management of all sorts of stock is most judicious; they are careful about manure; their teams move quickly; and, in short, it is a county of most excellent cultivators.--The churches in Norfolk are generally large and the towers lofty. They have all been well built at first. Many of them are of the Saxon architecture. They are, almost all (I do not remember an exception), placed on the _highest_ spots to be found near where they stand; and, it is curious enough, that the contrary practice should have prevailed in _hilly_ countries, where they are generally found in valleys and in low, sheltered dells, even in those valleys! These churches prove that the people of Norfolk and Suffolk were always a superior people in point of wealth, while the size of them proves that the country parts were, at one time, a great deal more populous than they now are. The great drawbacks on the beauty of these counties are, their flatness and their want of fine woods; but, to those who can dispense with these, Norfolk, under a wise and just government, can have nothing to ask more than Providence and the industry of man have given.

LANDLORD DISTRESS MEETINGS.

For, in fact, it is not the _farmer_, but the _Landlord_ and _Parson_, who wants relief from the "_Collective_." The tenant's remedy is, quitting his farm or bringing down his rent to what he can afford to give, wheat being 3 or 4 s.h.i.+llings a bushel. This is his remedy. What should _he_ want high prices for? They can do _him_ no good; and this I proved to the farmers last year. The fact is, the Landlords and Parsons are urging the farmers on to get _something done_ to give them high rents and high t.i.thes.

At _Hertford_ there has been a meeting at which _some_ sense was discovered, at any rate. The parties talked about the _fund-holder_, the _Debt_, the _taxes_, and so on, and seemed to be in a very warm temper.

Pray, keep yourselves _cool_, gentlemen; for you have a great deal to endure yet. I deeply regret that I have not room to insert the resolutions of this meeting.

There is to be a meeting at _Battle_ (East Suss.e.x) on the 3rd instant, at which _I mean to be_. I want to _see_ my friends on the _South Downs_. To see how they _look_ now.

[At a public dinner given to Mr. Cobbett at Norwich, on the market-day above mentioned, the company drank the toast of _Mr. Cobbett and his "Trash,"_ the name "two-penny trash," having being at one time applied by Lord Castlereagh to the _Register_. In acknowledging this toast Mr.

Cobbett addressed the company in a speech, of which the following is a pa.s.sage:]

"My thanks to you for having drunk my health, are great and sincere; but much greater pleasure do I feel at the approbation bestowed on that _Trash_, which has, for so many years been a mark for the finger of scorn to be pointed at by ignorant selfishness and arrogant and insolent power. To enumerate, barely to name, all, or a hundredth part of, the endeavours that have been made to stifle this _Trash_ would require a much longer s.p.a.ce of time than that which we have now before us. But, gentlemen, those endeavours must have _cost money_; money must have been expended in the circulation of Anti-Cobbett, and the endless bale of papers and pamphlets put forth to check the progress of the _Trash_: and, when we take into view the immense sums expended in keeping down the spirit excited by the _Trash_, who of us is to tell, whether these endeavours, taken altogether, may not have added _many millions_ to that debt, of which (without any hint at a _concomitant measure_) some men have now the audacity, the unprincipled, the profligate a.s.surance to talk of reducing the interest. The Trash, Gentlemen, is now triumphant; its triumph we are now met to celebrate; proofs of its triumph I myself witnessed not many hours ago, in that scene where the best possible evidence was to be found. In walking through St. Andrew's Hall, my mind was not so much engaged on the grandeur of the place, or on the gratifying reception I met with; those hearty shakes by the hand which I so much like, those smiles of approbation, which not to see with pride would argue an insensibility to honest fame: even these, I do sincerely a.s.sure you, engaged my mind much less than the melancholy reflection, that, of the two thousand or fifteen hundred farmers then in my view, there were probably _three-fourths_ who came to the Hall with aching hearts, and who would leave it in a state of mental agony. What a thing to contemplate, Gentlemen! What a scene is here! A set of men, occupiers of the land; producers of all that we eat, drink, wear, and of all that forms the buildings that shelter us; a set of men industrious and careful by habit; cool, thoughtful, and sensible from the instructions of nature; a set of men provident above all others, and engaged in pursuits in their nature stable as the very earth they till: to see a set of men like this plunged into anxiety, embarra.s.sment, jeopardy, not to be described; and when the particular individuals before me were famed for their superior skill in this great and solid pursuit, and were blessed with soil and other circ.u.mstances to make them prosperous and happy: to behold this sight would have been more than sufficient to sink my heart within me, had I not been upheld by the reflection, that I had done all in my power to prevent these calamities, and that I still had in reserve that which, with the a.s.sistance of the sufferers themselves, would restore them and the nation to happiness."

SUSs.e.x JOURNAL: TO BATTLE, THROUGH BROMLEY, SEVEN-OAKS, AND TUNBRIDGE.

_Battle, Wednesday, 2 Jan. 1822._

Came here to-day from Kensington, in order to see what goes on at the Meeting to be held here to-morrow, of the "Gentry, Clergy, Freeholders, and Occupiers of Land in the Rape of Hastings, to take into consideration the distressed state of the Agricultural interest." I shall, of course, give an account of this meeting after it has taken place.--You come through part of _Kent_ to get to _Battle_ from the Great _Wen_ on the Surrey side of the Thames. The first town is Bromley, the next Seven-Oaks, the next Tunbridge, and between Tunbridge and this place you cross the boundaries of the two counties.--From the Surrey Wen to Bromley the land is generally a deep loam on a gravel, and you see few trees except elm. A very ugly country. On quitting Bromley the land gets poorer; clay at bottom; the wheat sown on five, or seven, turn lands; the furrows s.h.i.+ning with wet; rushes on the wastes on the sides of the road. Here there is a common, part of which has been enclosed and thrown out again, or, rather, the fences carried away.--There is a frost this morning, some ice, and the women look rosy-cheeked.--There is a very great variety of soil along this road; bottom of yellow clay; then of sand; then of sand-stone; then of solider stone; then (for about five miles) of chalk; then of red clay; then chalk again; here (before you come to Seven-Oaks) is a most beautiful and rich valley, extending from east to west, with rich corn-fields and fine trees; then comes sand-stone again; and the hop-gardens near Seven-Oaks, which is a pretty little town with beautiful environs, part of which consists of the park of _Knowle_, the seat of the d.u.c.h.ess of Dorset. It is a very fine place.

And there is another park, on the other side of the town. So that this is a delightful place, and the land appears to be very good. The gardens and houses all look neat and nice. On quitting Seven-Oaks you come to a bottom of gravel for a short distance, and to a clay for many miles.

When I say that I saw teams _carting_ gravel from this spot to a distance of nearly _ten miles_ along the road, the reader will be at no loss to know what sort of bottom the land has all along here. The bottom then becomes sand-stone again. This vein of land runs all along through the county of Suss.e.x, and the clay runs into Hamps.h.i.+re, across the forests of Bere and Waltham, then across the parishes of Ouslebury, Stoke, and pa.s.sing between the sand hills of Southampton and chalk hills of Winchester, goes westward till stopped by the chalky downs between Romsey and Salisbury.--Tunbridge is a small but very nice town, and has some fine meadows and a navigable river.--The rest of the way to Battle presents, alternately, clay and sand-stone. Of course the coppices and oak woods are very frequent. There is now and then a hop-garden spot, and now and then an orchard of apples or cherries; but these are poor indeed compared with what you see about Canterbury and Maidstone. The agricultural state of the country or, rather, the quality of the land, from Bromley to Battle, may be judged of from the fact, that I did not see, as I came along, more than thirty acres of Swedes during the fifty-six miles! In Norfolk I should, in the same distance, have seen five hundred acres! However, man was not the maker of the land; and, as to human happiness, I am of opinion, that as much, and even more, falls to the lot of the leather-legged chaps that live in and rove about amongst those clays and woods as to the more regularly disciplined labourers of the rich and prime parts of England. As "G.o.d has made the back to the burthen," so the clay and coppice people make the dress to the stubs and bushes. Under the sole of the shoe is _iron_; from the sole six inches upwards is a high-low; then comes a leather bam to the knee; then comes a pair of leather breeches; then comes a stout doublet; over this comes a smock-frock; and the wearer sets brush and stubs and thorns and mire at defiance. I have always observed, that woodland and forest labourers are best off in the main. The coppices give them pleasant and profitable work in winter. If they have not so great a corn-harvest, they have a three weeks' harvest in April or May; that is to say, in the season of barking, which in Hamps.h.i.+re is called _stripping_, and in Suss.e.x _flaying_, which employs women and children as well as men. And then in the great article of _fuel_! They _buy_ none. It is miserable work, where this is to be bought, and where, as at Salisbury, the poor take by turns the making of fires at their houses to boil four or five tea-kettles. What a winter-life must those lead, whose turn it is not to make the fire! At Launceston in Cornwall a man, a tradesman too, told me, that the people in general could not afford to have fire in ordinary, and that he himself paid 3_d._ for boiling a leg of mutton at another man's fire! The leather-legged-race know none of these miseries, at any rate. They literally get their fuel "by _hook_ or by _crook_," whence, doubtless, comes that old and very expressive saying, which is applied to those cases where people _will have a thing_ by one means or another.

_Battle, Thursday (night), 3 Jan. 1822._

To-day there has been a _Meeting_ here of the landlords and farmers in this part of Suss.e.x, which is called the _Rape of Hastings_. The object was to agree on a pet.i.tion to Parliament praying for _relief_! Good G.o.d!

Where is this to _end_? We now see the effects of those _rags_ which I have been railing against for the last twenty years. Here were collected together not less than 300 persons, princ.i.p.ally landlords and farmers, brought from their homes by their distresses and by their alarms for the future! Never were such things heard in any country before; and, it is useless to hope, for terrific must be the consequences, if an effectual remedy be not speedily applied. The town, which is small, was in a great bustle before noon; and the Meeting (in a large room in the princ.i.p.al inn) took place about one o'clock. Lord Ashburnham was called to the chair, and there were present Mr. Curteis, one of the county members, Mr. Fuller, who formerly used to cut _such a figure_ in the House of Commons, Mr. Lambe, and many other gentlemen of landed property within the Rape, or district, for which the Meeting was held. Mr. Curteis, after Lord Ashburnham had opened the business, addressed the Meeting.

Mr. Fuller then tendered some Resolutions, describing the fallen state of the landed interest, and proposing to pray, _generally_, for relief.

Mr. Britton complained, that it was not proposed to pray for some _specific measure_, and insisted, that the cause of the evil was the rise in the value of money without a corresponding reduction in the taxes.--A Committee was appointed to draw up a pet.i.tion, which was next produced. It merely described the distress, and prayed generally for relief. Mr. Holloway proposed an addition, containing an imputation of the distress to restricted currency and unabated taxation, and praying for a reduction of taxes. A discussion now arose upon two points: first, whether the addition were admissible at all! and, second, whether Mr.

Holloway was qualified to offer it to the Meeting. Both the points having been, at last, decided in the affirmative, the addition, or amendment, was put, and _lost_; and then the original pet.i.tion was adopted.

After the business of the day was ended, there was a dinner in the inn, in the same room where the Meeting had been held. I was at this dinner; and Mr. Britton having proposed my health, and Mr. Curteis, who was in the Chair, having given it, I thought it would have looked like mock-modesty, which is, in fact, only another term for hypocrisy, to refrain from expressing my opinions upon a point or two connected with the business of the day. I shall now insert a substantially correct sketch of what the company was indulgent enough to hear from me at the dinner; which I take from the report contained in the _Morning Chronicle_ of Sat.u.r.day last. The report in the Chronicle has all the _pith_ of what I advanced relative to _the inutility of Corn Bills_, and relative to _the cause of further declining prices_; two points of the greatest importance in themselves, and which I was, and am, uncommonly anxious to press upon the attention of the public.

The following is a part of the speech so reported:--

"I am decidedly of opinion, Gentlemen, that a Corn Bill of no description, no matter what its principles or provisions, can do either tenant or landlord any good; and I am not less decidedly of opinion, that though prices are now low, they must, all the present train of public measures continuing, be yet lower, and continue lower upon an average of years and of seasons.--As to a Corn Bill; a law to prohibit or check the importation of human food is a perfect novelty in our history, and ought, therefore, independent of the reason, and the recent experience of the case, to be received and entertained with great suspicion. Heretofore, _premiums_ have been given for the exportation, and at other times, for the importation, of corn; but of laws to prevent the importation of human food our ancestors knew nothing. And what says recent experience? When the present Corn Bill was pa.s.sed, I, then a farmer, unable to get my brother farmers to join me, _pet.i.tioned singly_ against this Bill; and I stated to my brother farmers, that such a Bill could do us no good, while it would not fail to excite against us the ill-will of the other cla.s.ses of the community; a thought by no means pleasant. Thus has it been. The distress of agriculture was considerable in magnitude then; but what is it now? And yet the Bill was pa.s.sed; that Bill which was to remunerate and protect is still in force; the farmers got what they prayed to have granted them; and their distress, with a short interval of tardy pace, has proceeded rapidly increasing from that day to this. What, in the way of Corn Bill, can you have, Gentlemen, beyond absolute prohibition? And, have you not, since about April, 1819, had absolute prohibition? Since that time no corn has been imported, and then only thirty millions of bushels, which, supposing it all to have been wheat, was a quant.i.ty much too insignificant to produce any sensible depression in the price of the immense quant.i.ty of corn raised in this kingdom since the last bushel was imported. If your produce had fallen in this manner, if your prices had come down very low, immediately after the importation had taken place, there might have been some colour of reason to impute the fall to the importation; but it so happens, and as if for the express purpose of contradicting the crude notions of Mr. Webb Hall, that your produce has fallen in price at a greater rate, in proportion as time has removed you from the point of importation; and, as to the circ.u.mstance, so ostentatiously put forward by Mr. Hall and others, that there is still some of the imported corn _unsold_, what does it prove but the converse of what those Gentlemen aim at, that is to say, that the holders _cannot afford_ to sell it at present prices; for, if they could gain but ever so little by the sale, would they keep it wasting and costing money in warehouse? There appears with some persons to be a notion, that the importation of corn is a _new thing_. They seem to forget, that, during the last war, when agriculture was so _prosperous_, the _ports were always open_; that prodigious quant.i.ties of corn were imported during the war; that, so far from importation being prohibited, high _premiums_ were given, paid out of the taxes, partly raised upon English farmers, to induce men to import corn. All this seems to be forgotten as much as if it had never taken place; and now the distress of the English farmer is imputed to a cause which was never before an object of his attention, and a desire is expressed to put an end to a branch of commerce which the nation has always freely carried on. I think, Gentlemen, that here are reasons quite sufficient to make any man but Mr. Webb Hall slow to impute the present distress to the importation of corn; but, at any rate, what can you have beyond absolute efficient prohibition? No law, no duty, however high; nothing that the Parliament can do can go beyond this; and this you now have, in effect, as completely as if this were the only country beneath the sky. For these reasons, Gentlemen, (and to state more would be a waste of your time and an affront to your understandings,) I am convinced, that, in the way of Corn Bill, it is impossible for the Parliament to afford you any, even the smallest, portion of relief. As to the other point, Gentlemen, the tendency which the present measures and course of things have to carry prices _lower_, and considerably lower than they now are, and to keep them for a permanency at that low rate, this is a matter worthy of the serious attention of all connected with the land, and particularly of that of the renting farmer. During the _war_ no importations distressed the farmer. It was not till peace came that the cry of distress was heard. But, during the war, there was a boundless issue of paper money. Those issues were instantly narrowed by the peace, the law being, that the Bank should pay in cash six months after the peace should take place. This was the cause of that distress which led to the present Corn Bill. The disease occasioned by the preparations for cash-payments, has been brought to a crisis by Mr.

Peel's Bill, which has, in effect, doubled, if not tripled, the real amount of the taxes, and violated all contracts for time; given triple gains to every lender, and placed every borrower in jeopardy.

_Kensington, Friday, 4 Jan. 1822._

Got home from _Battle_. I had no time to see the town, having entered the Inn on Wednesday in the dusk of the evening, having been engaged all day yesterday in the Inn, and having come out of it only to get into the coach this morning. I had not time to go even to see _Battle Abbey_, the seat of the Webster family, now occupied by a man of the name of _Alexander_! Thus they _replace them_! It will take a much shorter time than most people imagine to put out all the ancient families. I should think, that six years will turn out all those who receive nothing out of taxes. The greatness of the estate is no protection to the owner; for, great or little, it will soon yield him _no_ rents; and, when the produce is nothing in either case, the small estate is as good as the large one. Mr. Curteis said, that the _land_ was _immovable_; yes; but the _rents are not_. And, if freeholds cannot be seized for common contract debts, the carca.s.s of the owner may. But, in fact, there will be no rents; and, without these, the owners.h.i.+p is an empty sound. Thus, at last, the burthen will, as I always said it would, fall upon the _land-owner_; and, as the fault of supporting the system has been wholly his, the burthen will fall upon the _right back_. Whether he will now call in the people to help him to shake it off is more than I can say; but, if he do not, I am sure that he must sink under it. And then, will _revolution No. I._ have been accomplished; but far, and very far indeed, will that be from being the _close_ of the drama!--I cannot quit Battle without observing, that the country is very pretty all about it.

All hill, or valley. A great deal of wood-land, in which the underwood is generally very fine, though the oaks are not very fine, and a good deal covered with _moss_. This shows, that the clay ends before the _tap_-root of the oak gets as deep as it would go; for, when the clay goes the full depth, the oaks are always fine.--The woods are too large and too near each other for hare-hunting; and, as to coursing it is out of the question here. But it is a fine country for shooting and for harbouring game of all sorts.--It was rainy as I came home; but the woodmen were at work. A great many _hop-poles_ are cut here, which makes the coppices more valuable than in many other parts. The women work in the coppices, shaving the bark of the hop-poles, and, indeed, at various other parts of the business. These poles are shaved to prevent _maggots_ from breeding in the bark and accelerating the destruction of the pole.

It is curious that the bark of trees should generate maggots; but it has, as well as the wood, a _sugary_ matter in it. The hickory wood in America sends out from the ends of the logs when these are burning, great quant.i.ties of the finest syrup that can be imagined. Accordingly, that wood breeds maggots, or worms as they are usually called, surprisingly. Our _ash_ breeds worms very much. When the tree or pole is cut, the moist matter between the outer bark and the wood putrifies.

Thence come the maggots, which soon begin to eat their way into the wood. For this reason the bark is shaved off the hop-poles, as it ought to be off all our timber trees, as soon as cut, especially the ash.--Little boys and girls shave hop-poles and a.s.sist in other coppice work very nicely. And it is pleasant work when the weather is dry overhead. The woods, bedded with leaves as they are, are clean and dry underfoot. They are warm too, even in the coldest weather. When the ground is frozen several inches deep in the open fields, it is scarcely frozen at all in a coppice where the underwood is a good plant, and where it is nearly high enough to cut. So that the woodman's is really a pleasant life. We are apt to think that the birds have a hard time of it in winter. But we forget the warmth of the woods, which far exceeds anything to be found in farm yards. When Sidmouth started me from my farm, in 1817, I had just planted my farm yard round with a pretty coppice. But, never mind, Sidmouth and I shall, I dare say, have plenty of time and occasion to talk about that coppice, and many other things, before we die. And, can I, when I think of these things, now, _pity_ those to whom Sidmouth _owed his power_ of starting me!--But let me forget the subject for this time at any rate.--Woodland countries are interesting on many accounts. Not so much on account of their ma.s.ses of green leaves, as on account of the variety of sights and sounds and incidents that they afford. Even in winter the coppices are beautiful to the eye, while they comfort the mind with the idea of shelter and warmth. In spring they change their hue from day to day during two whole months, which is about the time from the first appearance of the delicate leaves of the birch to the full expansion of those of the ash; and, even before the leaves come at all to intercept the view, what in the vegetable creation is so delightful to behold as the bed of a coppice bespangled with primroses and blue-bells? The opening of the birch leaves is the signal for the pheasant to begin to crow, for the blackbird to whistle, and the thrush to sing; and, just when the oak-buds begin to look reddish, and not a day before, the whole tribe of finches burst forth in songs from every bough, while the lark, imitating them all, carries the joyous sounds to the sky. These are amongst the means which Providence has benignantly appointed to sweeten the toils by which food and raiment are produced; these the English Ploughman could once hear without the sorrowful reflection that he himself was a _pauper_, and that the bounties of nature had, for him, been scattered in vain! And shall he never see an end to this state of things? Shall he never have the due reward of his labour? Shall unsparing taxation never cease to make him a miserable dejected being, a creature famis.h.i.+ng in the midst of abundance, fainting, expiring with hunger's feeble moans, surrounded by a carolling creation? O! accursed paper-money! Has h.e.l.l a torment surpa.s.sing the wickedness of thy inventor?

SUSs.e.x JOURNAL: THROUGH CROYDON, G.o.dSTONE, EAST-GRINSTEAD, AND UCKFIELD, TO LEWES, AND BRIGHTON; RETURNING BY CUCKFIELD, WORTH, AND RED-HILL.

_Lewes, Tuesday, 8 Jan., 1822._

Came here to-day, from home, to see what pa.s.ses to-morrow at a Meeting to be held here of the Owners and Occupiers of Land in the Rapes of Lewes and Pevensey.--In quitting the great Wen we go through Surrey more than half the way to Lewes. From Saint _George's Fields_, which now are covered with houses, we go, towards Croydon, between rows of houses, nearly half the way, and the whole way is nine miles. There are, erected within these four years, two entire miles of stock-jobbers' houses on this one road, and the work goes on with accelerated force! To be sure; for, the taxes being, in fact, tripled by Peel's Bill, the fundlords increase in riches; and their accommodations increase of course. What an at once horrible and ridiculous thing this country would become, if this thing could go on only for a few years! And these rows of new houses, added to the Wen, are proofs of growing prosperity, are they? These make part of the increased capital of the country, do they? But how is this Wen to be _dispersed_? I know not whether it be to be done by knife or by caustic; but, dispersed it must be! And this is the only difficulty, which I do not see the _easy_ means of getting over.--Aye! these are dreadful thoughts! I know they are: but, they ought not to be banished from the mind; for they will _return_, and, at every return, they will be more frightful. The man who cannot coolly look at this matter is unfit for the times that are approaching. Let the interest of the Debt be once well reduced (and that must be sooner or later) and then what is to become of _half a million_ at least of the people congregated in this Wen? Oh! precious "Great Man now no more!" Oh! "Pilot that weathered the Storm!" Oh! "Heaven-born" pupil of Prettyman! Who, but him who can number the sands of the sea, shall number the execrations with which thy memory will be loaded!--From London to Croydon is as ugly a bit of country as any in England. A poor spewy gravel with some clay. Few trees but elms, and those generally stripped up and villanously ugly.--Croydon is a good market-town; but is, by the funds, swelled out into a _Wen_.--Upon quitting Croydon for G.o.dstone, you come to the chalk hills, the juniper shrubs and the yew trees. This is an extension westward of the vein of chalk which I have before noticed (see page 54) between Bromley and Seven-Oaks. To the westward here lie Epsom Downs, which lead on to Merrow Downs and St. Margaret's Hill, then, skipping over Guildford, you come to the Hog's Back, which is still of chalk, and at the west end of which lies Farnham. With the Hog's Back this vein of chalk seems to end; for then the valleys become rich loam, and the hills sand and gravel till you approach the Winchester Downs by the way of Alresford.--G.o.dstone, which is in Surrey also, is a beautiful village, chiefly of one street with a fine large green before it and with a pond in the green. A little way to the right (going from London) lies the vile rotten Borough of _Blechingley_; but, happily for G.o.dstone, out of sight. At and near G.o.dstone the gardens are all very neat, and at the Inn there is a nice garden well stocked with beautiful flowers in the season. I here saw, last summer, some double violets as large as small pinks, and the lady of the house was kind enough to give me some of the roots.--From G.o.dstone you go up a long hill of clay and sand, and then descend into a level country of stiff loam at top, clay at bottom, corn-fields, pastures, broad hedgerows, coppices, and oak woods, which country continues till you quit Surrey about two miles before you reach East-Grinstead. The woods and coppices are very fine here. It is the genuine _oak-soil_; a bottom of yellow clay to any depth, I dare say, that man can go. No moss on the oaks. No dead tops. Straight as larches.

The bark of the young trees with dark spots in it; sure sign of free growth and great depth of clay beneath. The wheat is here sown on five-turn ridges, and the ploughing is amongst the best that I ever saw.--At East-Grinstead, which is a rotten Borough and a very shabby place, you come to stiff loam at top with sand stone beneath. To the south of the place the land is fine, and the vale on both sides a very beautiful intermixture of woodland and corn-fields and pastures.--At about three miles from Grinstead you come to a pretty village, called Forest-Row, and then, on the road to Uckfield, you cross Ashurst Forest, which is a heath, with here and there a few birch scrubs upon it, verily the most villanously ugly spot I ever saw in England. This lasts you for five miles, getting, if possible, uglier and uglier all the way, till, at last, as if barren soil, nasty spewy gravel, heath and even that stunted, were not enough, you see some rising spots, which instead of trees, presents you with black, ragged, hideous rocks. There may be Englishmen who wish to see the coast of _Nova Scotia_. They need not go to sea; for here it is to the life. If I had been in a long trance (as our n.o.bility seem to have been), and had been waked up here, I should have begun to look about for the Indians and the Squaws, and to have heaved a sigh at the thought of being so far from England.--From the end of this forest without trees you come into a country of but poorish wettish land. Pa.s.sing through the village of Uckfield, you find an enclosed country, with a soil of a clay cast all the way to within about three miles of Lewes, when you get to a chalk bottom, and rich land. I was at Lewes at the beginning of last harvest, and saw the fine farms of the Ellmans, very justly renowned for their improvement of the breed of _South-Down sheep_, and the younger Mr. John Ellman not less justly blamed for the part he had taken in propagating the errors of Webb Hall, and thereby, however unintentionally, a.s.sisting to lead thousands to cherish those false hopes that have been the cause of their ruin. Mr.

Ellman may say that he _thought_ he was right; but if he had read my _New Year's Gift_ to the Farmers, published in the preceding January, he could not think that he was right. If he had not read it, he ought to have read it, before he appeared in print. At any rate, if no other person had a right to censure his publications, I _had_ that right. I will here notice a calumny, to which the above visit to Lewes gave rise; namely, that I went into the neighbourhood of the Ellmans, to find out whether they ill-treated their labourers! No man that knows me will believe this. The facts are these: the Ellmans, celebrated farmers, had made a great figure in the evidence taken before the Committee. I was at WORTH, about twenty miles from Lewes. The harvest was begun. Worth is a woodland country. I wished to know the state of the crops; for I was, at that very time, as will be seen by referring to the date, beginning to write my First Letter to the Landlords. Without knowing anything of the matter myself, I asked my host, Mr. Brazier, what good corn country was nearest to us. He said Lewes. Off I went, and he with me, in a post-chaise. We had 20 miles to go and 20 back in the same chaise. A bad road, and rain all the day. We put up at the White Hart, took another chaise, went round, and saw the farms, through the window of the chaise, having stopped at a little public-house to ask which were they, and having stopped now and then to get a sample out of the sheaves of wheat, came back to the White Hart, after being absent only about an hour and a half, got our dinner, and got back to Worth before it was dark; and never asked, and never intended to ask, one single question of any human being as to the conduct or character of the Ellmans. Indeed the evidence of the elder Mr. Ellman was so fair, so honest, and so useful, particularly as relating _to the labourers_, that I could not possibly suspect him of being a cruel or hard master. He told the Committee, that when he began business, forty-five years ago, every man in the parish brewed his own beer, and that now, not one man did it, unless he gave him the malt! Why, here was by far the most valuable part of the whole volume of evidence. Then, Mr. Ellman did not present a parcel of _estimates_ and G.o.d knows what; but a plain and honest statement of facts, the rate of day wages, of job wages, for a long series of years, by which it clearly appeared how the labourer had been robbed and reduced to misery, and how the poor-rates had been increased. He did not, like Mr. George and other Bull-frogs, sink these interesting facts; but honestly told the truth. Therefore, whatever I might think of his endeavours to uphold the mischievous errors of Webb Hall, I could have no suspicion that he was a hard master.

_Lewes, Wednesday, 9 Jan. 1822._

The Meeting and the Dinner are now over. Mr. Davies Giddy was in the Chair: the place the County Hall. A Mr. Partington, a pretty little oldish smart truss nice c.o.c.kney-looking gentleman, with a yellow and red handkerchief round his neck, moved the pet.i.tion, which was seconded by Lord Chichester, who lives in the neighbourhood. Much as I had read of that great Doctor of _virtual representation_ and _Royal Commissioner of Inimitable Bank Notes_, Mr. Davies Giddy, I had never seen him before.

He called to my mind one of those venerable persons, who administer spiritual comfort to the sinners of the "sister-kingdom;" and, whether I looked at the dress or the person, I could almost have sworn that it was the identical _Father Luke_, that I saw about twenty-three years ago, at Philadelphia, in the farce of the Poor Soldier. Mr. Blackman (of Lewes I believe) disapproved of the pet.i.tion, and, in a speech of considerable length, and also of considerable ability, stated to the meeting that the evils complained of arose from the _currency_, and not from the _importation of foreign corn_. A Mr. DONAVON, an Irish gentleman, who, it seems, is a magistrate in this "disturbed county," disapproved of discussing anything at such a meeting, and thought that the meeting should merely state its distresses, and leave it to the wisdom of Parliament to discover the remedy. Upon which Mr. Chatfield observed: "So, Sir, we are in a trap. We cannot get ourselves out though we know the way. There are others, who have got us in, and are able to get us out, but they do not know how. And we are to tell them, it seems, that we are in the trap; but are not to tell them the way to get us out. I don't like long speeches, Sir; but I like common sense." This was neat and pithy. Fifty professed orators could not, in a whole day, have thrown so much ridicule on the speech of Mr. Donavon.--A Mr. Mabbott proposed an amendment to include all cla.s.ses of the community, and took a hit at Mr. Curteis for his speech at Battle. Mr. Curteis defended himself, and I thought very fairly. A Mr. Woodward, who said he was a farmer, carried us back to the necessity of the war against France; and told us of the horrors of plunder and murder and rape that the war had prevented. This gentleman put an end to my patience, which Mr. Donavon had put to an extremely severe test; and so I withdrew.--After I went away Mr. Blackman proposed some resolutions, which were carried by a great majority by show of hands. But, pieces of paper were then handed about, for the voters to write their names on for and against the pet.i.tion. The greater part of the people were gone away by this time; but, at any rate, there were more _signatures_ for the pet.i.tion than for the resolutions. A farmer in Pennsylvania having a visitor, to whom he was willing to show how well he treated his negroes as to food, bid the fellows (who were at dinner) _to ask for a second or third cut of pork if they had not enough_. Quite surprised at the novelty, but emboldened by a repet.i.tion of the injunction, one of them did say, "Ma.s.sa, I wants another cut." He had it; but as soon as the visitor was gone away, "D--n you," says the master, while he belaboured him with the "cowskin," "I'll make you know _how to understand me_ another time!" The signers of this pet.i.tion were in the dark while the show of hands was going on; but when it came to _signing_ they knew well _what Ma.s.sa meant_! This is a pet.i.tion to be sure; but it is no more the pet.i.tion of the farmers in the Rapes of Lewes and Pevensey than it is the pet.i.tion of the Mermaids of Lapland.--There was a _dinner_ after the meeting at the _Star-Inn_, at which there occurred something rather curious regarding myself. When at Battle, I had no intention of going to Lewes, till on the evening of my arrival at Battle, a gentleman, who had heard of the before-mentioned calumny, observed to me that I would do well not to go to Lewes. That very observation, made me resolve to go. I went, as a spectator, to the meeting; and I left no one ignorant of the place where I was to be found. I did not covet the noise of a dinner of from 200 to 300 persons, and I did not intend to go to it; but, being pressed to go, I finally went. After some previous common-place occurrences, Mr. Kemp, formerly a member for Lewes, was called to the chair; and he having given as a toast, "_the speedy discovery of a remedy for our distresses_," Mr.

Ebenezer Johnstone, a gentleman of Lewes, whom I had never seen or heard of until that day, but who, I understand, is a very opulent and most respectable man, proposed _my health_, as that of a person likely to be able to point out the wished-for remedy.--This was the signal for the onset. Immediately upon the toast being given, a Mr. Hitchins, a farmer of Seaford, duly prepared for the purpose, got upon the table, and, with candle in one hand and _Register_ in the other, read the following garbled pa.s.sage from my _Letter to Lord Egremont_.--"But, let us hear what the younger Ellman said: 'He had seen them employed in drawing beach gravel, as had been already described. One of them, the leader, worked with a bell about his neck.' Oh! the envy of surrounding nations and admiration of the world! Oh! what a 'glorious Const.i.tution!' 'Oh!

what a happy country! Impudent Radicals, to want to reform a Parliament, under which men enjoy such blessings! On such a subject it is impossible (under Six-Acts) to trust one's pen! However, this I will say; that here is much more than enough to make me rejoice in the ruin of the farmers; and I do, with all my heart, thank G.o.d for it; _seeing, that it appears absolutely necessary, that_ the present race of them should be totally broken up, in Suss.e.x at any rate, _in order to put an end to this cruelty and insolence towards the labourers, who are by far the greater number and who are men, and a little better men too, than such employers as these, who are, in fact, monsters in human shape_!'"

I had not the Register by me, and could not detect the garbling. All the words that I have put in Italics, this. .h.i.tCHINS left out in the reading.

What sort of man he must be the public will easily judge.--No sooner had Hitchins done, than up started Mr. Ingram, a farmer of Rottendean, who was the second person in the drama (for all had been duly prepared), and moved that I should be _put out of the room_! Some few of the Webb Hallites, joined by about six or eight of the dark, dirty-faced, half-whiskered, tax-eaters from Brighton (which is only eight miles off) joined in this cry. I rose, that they might see the man that they had to put out. Fortunately _for themselves_, not one of them attempted to approach me. They were like the mice that resolved that a bell should be put round the cat's neck!--However, a considerable hubbub took place.

At last, however, the Chairman, Mr. Kemp, whose conduct was fair and manly, having given my health, I proceeded to address the company in substance as stated here below; and, it is curious enough, that even those who, upon my health being given, had taken their hats and gone out of the room (and amongst whom Mr. Ellman the younger was one) came back, formed a crowd, and were just as silent and attentive as the rest of the company!

[NOTE, written at _Kensington, 13 Jan._--I must here, before I insert the speech, which has appeared in the _Morning Chronicle_, the Brighton papers, and in most of the London papers, except the base sinking _Old Times_ and the brimstone-smelling _Tramper_, or _Traveller_, which is, I well know, a mere tool in the hands of two snap-dragon Whig-Lawyers, whose greediness and folly I have so often had to expose, and which paper is maintained by a contrivance which I will amply expose in my next; I must, before I insert this speech, remark, that Mr. Ellman the younger has, to a gentleman whom I know to be incapable of falsehood, disavowed the proceeding of Hitchins; on which I have to observe, that the disavowal, to have any weight, must be public, or be made to me.

As to the provocation that I have given the Ellmans, I am, upon reflection, ready to confess that I may have laid on the lash without a due regard to mercy. The fact is, that I have so long had the misfortune to be compelled to keep a parcel of badger-hided fellows, like SCARLETT, in order, that I am, like a drummer that has been used to flog old offenders, become _heavy handed_. I ought to have considered the Ellmans as _recruits_ and to have suited my tickler to the tenderness of their backs.--I hear that Mr. Ingram of Rottendean, who moved for my being turned out of the room, and who looked so foolish when he had to turn himself out, is an Officer of Yeomanry "_Gavaltry_." A ploughman spoiled! This man would, I dare say, have been a very good husbandman; but the unnatural working of the paper-system has sublimated him out of his senses. That greater Doctor, Mr. Peel, will bring him down again.--Mr. Hitchins, I am told, after going away, came back, stood on the landing-place (the door being open), and, while I was speaking, exclaimed, "Oh! the fools! How they open their mouths! How they suck it all in."--Suck _what_ in, Mr. Hitchins? Was it honey that dropped from my lips? Was it flattery? Amongst other things, I said that I liked the plain names of _farmer_ and _husbandman_ better than that of _agriculturist_; and, the prospect I held out to them, was that of a description to catch their applause?--But this. .h.i.tchins seems to be a very silly person indeed.]

The following is a portion of the speech:--

"The toast having been _opposed_, and that, too, in the extraordinary manner we have witnessed, I will, at any rate, with your permission, make a remark or two on that manner. If the person who has made the opposition had been actuated by a spirit of fairness and justice, he would not have confined himself to a detached sentence of the paper from which he has read; but, would have taken the whole together; for, by taking a particular sentence, and leaving out all the rest, what writing is there that will not admit of a wicked interpretation? As to the particular part which has been read, I should not, perhaps, if I had seen it _in print_, and had had time to cool a little [it was in a Register sent from Norfolk], have sent it forth in terms so very general as to embrace all the farmers of this county; but, as to those of them who put _the bell round the labourer's neck_, I beg leave to be now repeating, in its severest sense, every word of the pa.s.sage that has been read.--Born in a farm-house, bred up at the plough-tail, with a smock-frock on my back, taking great delight in all the pursuits of farmers, liking their society, and having amongst them my most esteemed friends, it is natural, that I should feel, and I do feel, uncommonly anxious to prevent, as far as I am able, that total ruin which now menaces them. But the labourer, was I to have no feeling for him? Was not he my _countryman_ too? And was I not to feel indignation against those farmers, who had had the hard-heartedness to put the bell round his neck, and thus wantonly insult and degrade the cla.s.s to whose toils they owed their own ease? The statement of the fact was not mine; I read it in the newspaper as having come from Mr. Ellman the younger; he, in a very laudable manner, expressed his _horror_ at it; and was not I to express _indignation_ at what Mr. Ellman felt horror? That Gentleman and Mr. Webb Hall may monopolize all the wisdom in matters of political economy; but are they, or rather is Mr. Ellman alone, to engross all the feeling too? [It was here denied that Mr. Ellman had said the bell had been put on by _farmers_.] Very well, then, the complained of pa.s.sage has been productive of benefit to the farmers of this county; for, as the thing stood in the newspapers, the natural and unavoidable inference was, that that atrocious, that inhuman act, was an act of Suss.e.x farmers."

_Brighton, Thursday, 10 Jan., 1822._

Lewes is in a valley of the _South Downs_, this town is at eight miles'

distance, to the south south-west or thereabouts. There is a great extent of rich meadows above and below Lewes. The town itself is a model of solidity and neatness. The buildings all substantial to the very out-skirts; the pavements good and complete; the shops nice and clean; the people well-dressed; and, though last not least, the girls remarkably pretty, as, indeed, they are in most parts of Suss.e.x; round faces, features small, little hands and wrists, plump arms, and bright eyes. The Suss.e.x men, too, are remarkable for their good looks. A Mr.