RIDE, FROM BURGHCLERE TO LYNDHURST, IN THE NEW FOREST.
“The Reformers have yet many and powerful foes; we have to contend against a host, such as never existed before in the world. Nine-tenths of the press; all the channels of speedy communication of sentiment; all the pulpits; all the associations of rich people; all the taxing-people; all the military and naval establishments; all the yeomanry cavalry tribes. Your allies are endless in number and mighty in influence. But, we have one ally worth the whole of them put together, namely, the DEBT! This is an ally, whom no honours or rewards can seduce from us. She is a steady, unrelaxing, persevering, incorruptible ally. An ally that is proof against all blandishments, all intrigues, all temptations, and all open attacks. She sets at defiance all ‘military,’ all ‘yeomanry cavalry.’ They may as well fire at a ghost. She cares no more for the sabres of the yeomanry or the Life Guards than Milton’s angels did for the swords of Satan’s myrmidons. This ally cares not a straw about spies and informers. She laughs at the employment of secret-service money. She is always erect, day and night, and is always firmly moving on in our cause, in spite of all the terrors of gaols, dungeons, halters and axes. Therefore, Mr. Jabet, be not so pert. The combat is not so unequal as you seem to imagine; and, confident and insolent as you now are, the day of your humiliation may not be far distant.”—Letter to Mr. Jabet, of Birmingham, Register, v. 31, p. 477. (Nov. 1816.)
Hurstbourn Tarrant
(commonly called Uphusband),
Wednesday, 11th October, 1826.
When quarters are good, you are apt to lurk in them; but, really it was so wet, that we could not get away from Burghclere till Monday evening. Being here, there were many reasons for our going to the great fair at Weyhill, which began yesterday, and, indeed, the day before, at Appleshaw. These two days are allotted for the selling of sheep only, though the horse-fair begins on the 10th. To Appleshaw they bring nothing but those fine curled-horned and long-tailed ewes, which bring the house-lambs and the early Easter-lambs; and these, which, to my taste, are the finest and most beautiful animals of the sheep kind, come exclusively out of Dorsetshire and out of the part of Somersetshire bordering on that county.
To Weyhill, which is a village of half a dozen houses on a down, just above Appleshaw, they bring from the down-farms in Wiltshire and Hampshire, where they are bred, the Southdown sheep; ewes to go away into the pasture and turnip countries to have lambs, wethers to be fatted and killed, and lambs (nine months old) to be kept to be sheep. At both fairs there is supposed to be about two hundred thousand sheep. It was of some consequence to ascertain how the price of these had been affected by “late panic,” which ended the “respite” of 1822; or by the “plethora of money” as loan-man Baring called it. I can assure this political Doctor, that there was no such “plethora” at Weyhill, yesterday, where, while I viewed the long faces of the farmers, while I saw consciousness of ruin painted on their countenances, I could not help saying to myself, “the loan-mongers think they are cunning; but, by ——, they will never escape the ultimate consequences of this horrible ruin!” The prices, take them on a fair average, were, at both fairs, just about one-half what they were last year. So that my friend Mr. Thwaites of the Herald, who had a lying Irish reporter at Preston, was rather hasty, about three months ago, when he told his well-informed readers, that, “those politicians were deceived, who had supposed that prices of farm produce would fall in consequence of ‘late panic’ and the subsequent measures”! There were Dorsetshire ewes that sold last year, for 50s. a head. We could hear of none this year that exceeded 25s. And only think of 25s. for one of these fine, large ewes, nearly fit to kill, and having two lambs in her, ready to be brought forth in, on an average, six weeks’ time! The average is three lambs to two of these ewes. In 1812 these ewes were from 55s. to 72s. each, at this same Appleshaw fair; and in that year I bought South-down ewes at 45s. each, just such as were, yesterday, sold for 18s. Yet the sheep and grass and all things are the same in real value. What a false, what a deceptious, what an infamous thing, this paper-money system is!
However, it is a pleasure, it is real, it is great delight, it is boundless joy to me, to contemplate this infernal system in its hour of wreck: swag here: crack there: scroop this way: souse that way: and such a rattling and such a squalling: and the parsons and their wives looking so frightened, beginning, apparently, to think that the day of judgment is at hand! I wonder what master parson of Sharncut, whose church can contain eight persons, and master parson of Draycot Foliot, who is, for want of a church, inducted under a tent, or temporary booth; I wonder what they think of South-down lambs (9 months old) selling for 6 or 7 shillings each! I wonder what the Barings and the Ricardos think of it. I wonder what those master parsons think of it, who are half-pay naval, or military officers, as well as master parsons of the church made by law. I wonder what the Gaffer Gooches, with their parsonships and military offices, think of it. I wonder what Daddy Coke and Suffield think of it; and when, I wonder, do they mean to get into their holes and barns again to cry aloud against the “roguery of reducing the interest of the Debt”; when, I wonder, do these manly, these modest, these fair, these candid, these open, and, above all things, these sensible, fellows intend to assemble again, and to call all “the House of Quidenham” and the “House of Kilmainham,” or Kinsaleham, or whatever it is (for I really have forgotten); to call, I say, all these about them, in the holes and the barns, and then and there again make a formal and solemn protest against Cobbett and against his roguish proposition for reducing the interest of the Debt! Now, I have these fellows on the hip; and brave sport will I have with them before I have done.
Mr. Blount, at whose house (7 miles from Weyhill) I am, went with me to the fair; and we took particular pains to ascertain the prices. We saw, and spoke to, Mr. John Herbert, of Stoke (near Uphusband) who was asking 20s., and who did not expect to get it, for South-down ewes, just such as he sold, last year (at this fair), for 36s. Mr. Jolliff, of Crux-Easton, was asking 16s. for just such ewes as he sold, last year (at this fair) for 32s. Farmer Holdway had sold “for less than half” his last year’s price. A farmer that I did not know, told us, that he had sold to a great sheep-dealer of the name of Smallpiece at the latter’s own price! I asked him what that “own price” was; and he said that he was ashamed to say. The horse-fair appeared to have no business at all going on; for, indeed, how were people to purchase horses, who had got only half-price for their sheep?
The sales of sheep, at this one fair (including Appleshaw), must have amounted, this year, to a hundred and twenty or thirty thousand pounds less than last year! Stick a pin there, master “Prosperity Robinson,” and turn back to it again anon! Then came the horses; not equal in amount to the sheep, but of great amount. Then comes the cheese, a very great article; and it will have a falling off, if you take quantity into view, in a still greater proportion. The hops being a monstrous crop, their price is nothing to judge by. But all is fallen. Even corn, though, in many parts, all but the wheat and rye have totally failed, is, taking a quarter of each of the six sorts (wheat, rye, barley, oats, pease, and beans), 11s. 9d. cheaper, upon the whole; that is to say, 11s. 9d. upon 258s. And, if the “late panic” had not come, it must and it would have been, and according to the small bulk of the crop, it ought to have been, 150s. dearer, instead of 11s. 9d. cheaper. Yet, it is too dear, and far too dear, for the working people to eat! The masses, the assembled masses, must starve, if the price of bread be not reduced; that is to say, in Scotland and Ireland; for, in England, I hope that the people will “demand and insist” (to use the language of the Bill of Rights) on a just and suitable provision, agreeably to the law; and, if they do not get it, I trust that law and justice will, in due course, be done, and strictly done, upon those who refuse to make such provision. Though, in time, the price of corn will come down without any repeal of the Corn Bill; and though it would have come down now, if we had had a good crop, or an average crop; still the Corn Bill ought now to be repealed, because people must not be starved in waiting for the next crop; and the “landowners’ monopoly,” as the son of “John with the bright sword” calls it, ought to be swept away; and the sooner it is done, the better for the country. I know very well that the landowners must lose their estates, if such prices continue, and if the present taxes continue; I know this very well; and, I like it well; for, the landowners may cause the taxes to be taken off if they will. “Ah! wicked dog!” say they, “What, then, you would have us lose the half pay and the pensions and sinecures which our children and other relations, or that we ourselves, are pocketing out of the taxes, which are squeezed, in great part, out of the labourer’s skin and bone!” Yes, upon my word, I would; but if you prefer losing your estates, I have no great objection; for it is hard that, “in a free country,” people should not have their choice of the different roads to the poor-house. Here is the rub: the vote-owners, the seat-owners, the big borough-mongers, have directly and indirectly, so large a share of the loaves and fishes, that the share is, in point of clear income, equal to, and, in some cases, greater than, that from their estates; and, though this is not the case with the small fry of jolterheads, they are so linked in with, and overawed by, the big ones, that they have all the same feeling; and that is, that to cut off half-pay, pensions, sinecures, commissionerships (such as that of Hobhouse’s father), army, and the rest of the “good things,” would be nearly as bad as to take away the estates, which, besides, are, in fact, in many instances, nearly gone (at least from the present holder) already, by the means of mortgage, annuity, rent-charge, settlement, jointure, or something or other. Then there are the parsons, who with their keen noses, have smelled out long enough ago, that, if any serious settlement should take place, they go to a certainty. In short, they know well how the whole nation (the interested excepted) feel towards them. They know well, that were it not for their allies, it would soon be queer times with them.
Here, then, is the rub. Here are the reasons why the taxes are not taken off! Some of these jolterheaded beasts were ready to cry, and I know one that did actually cry to a farmer (his tenant) in 1822. The tenant told him, that “Mr. Cobbett had been right about this matter.” “What!” exclaimed he, “I hope you do not read Cobbett! He will ruin you, and he would ruin us all. He would introduce anarchy, confusion, and destruction of property!” Oh, no, Jolterhead! There is no destruction of property. Matter, the philosophers say, is indestructible. But, it is all easily transferable, as is well-known to the base Jolterheads and the blaspheming Jews. The former of these will, however, soon have the faint sweat upon them again. Their tenants will be ruined first: and, here what a foul robbery these landowners have committed, or at least, enjoyed and pocketed the gain of! They have given their silent assent to the one-pound note abolition Bill. They knew well that this must reduce the price of farm produce one-half, or thereabouts; and yet, they were prepared to take and to insist on, and they do take and insist on, as high rents as if that Bill had never been passed! What dreadful ruin will ensue! How many, many farmers’ families are now just preparing the way for their entrance into the poor-house! How many; certainly many a score farmers did I see at Weyhill, yesterday, who came there as it were to know their fate; and who are gone home thoroughly convinced, that they shall, as farmers, never see Weyhill fair again!
When such a man, his mind impressed with such conviction, returns home and there beholds a family of children, half bred up, and in the notion that they were not to be mere working people, what must be his feelings? Why, if he have been a bawler against Jacobins and Radicals; if he have approved of the Power-of-Imprisonment Bill and of Six-Acts; aye, if he did not rejoice at Castlereagh’s cutting his own throat; if he have been a cruel screwer down of the labourers, reducing them to skeletons; if he have been an officious detecter of what are called “poachers,” and have assisted in, or approved of, the hard punishments, inflicted on them; then, in either of these cases, I say, that his feelings, though they put the suicidal knife into his own hand, are short of what he deserves! I say this, and this I repeat with all the seriousness and solemnity with which a man can make a declaration; for, had it not been for these base and selfish and unfeeling wretches, the deeds of 1817 and 1819 and 1820 would never have been attempted. These hard and dastardly dogs, armed up to the teeth, were always ready to come forth to destroy, not only to revile, to decry, to belie, to calumniate in all sorts of ways, but, if necessary, absolutely to cut the throats of, those who had no object, and who could have no object, other than that of preventing a continuance in that course of measures, which have finally produced the ruin, and threaten to produce the absolute destruction, of these base, selfish, hard and dastardly dogs themselves. Pity them! Let them go for pity to those whom they have applauded and abetted.
The farmers, I mean the renters, will not now, as they did in 1819, stand a good long emptying out. They had, in 1822, lost nearly all. The present stock of the farms is not, in one half of the cases, the property of the farmer. It is borrowed stock; and the sweeping out will be very rapid. The notion that the Ministers will “do something” is clung on to by all those who are deeply in debt, and all who have leases, or other engagements for time. These believe (because they anxiously wish) that the paper-money, by means of some sort or other, will be put out again; while the Ministers believe (because they anxiously wish) that the thing can go on, that they can continue to pay the interest of the debt, and meet all the rest of their spendings, without one-pound notes and without bank-restriction. Both parties will be deceived, and in the midst of the strife, that the dissipation of the delusion will infallibly lead to, the whole Thing is very likely to go to pieces; and that, too, mind, tumbling into the hands and placed at the mercy, of a people, the millions of whom have been fed upon less, to four persons, than what goes down the throat of one single common soldier! Please to mind that, Messieurs the admirers of select vestries! You have not done it, Messieurs Sturges Bourne and the Hampshire Parsons! You thought you had! You meaned well; but it was a coup-manqué, a missing of the mark, and that, too, as is frequently the case, by over-shooting it. The attempt will, however, produce its just consequences in the end; and those consequences will be of vast importance.
From Weyhill I was shown, yesterday, the wood, in which took place the battle, in which was concerned poor Turner, one of the young men, who was hanged at Winchester, in the year 1822. There was another young man, named Smith, who was, on account of another game-battle, hanged on the same gallows! And this for the preservation of the game, you will observe! This for the preservation of the sports of that aristocracy for whose sake, and solely for whose sake, “Sir James Graham, of Netherby, descendant of the Earls of Monteith and of the seventh Earl of Galloway, K.T.” (being sure not to omit the K.T.); this hanging of us is for the preservation of the sports of that aristocracy, for the sake of whom this Graham, this barefaced plagiarist, this bungling and yet impudent pamphleteer, would sacrifice, would reduce to beggary, according to his pamphlet, three hundred thousand families (making, doubtless, two millions of persons), in the middle rank of life! It is for the preservation, for upholding what he insolently calls the “dignity” of this sporting aristocracy, that he proposes to rob all mortgagees, all who have claims upon land! The feudal lords in France had, as Mr. Young tells us, a right, when they came in, fatigued, from hunting or shooting, to cause the belly of one of their vassals to be ripped up, in order for the lord to soak his feet in the bowels! Sir James Graham of the bright sword does not propose to carry us back so far as this; he is willing to stop at taking away the money and the victuals of a very large part of the community; and, monstrous as it may seem, I will venture to say, that there are scores of the Lord-Charles tribe who think him moderate to a fault!
But, to return to the above-mentioned hanging at Winchester (a thing never to be forgotten by me), James Turner, aged 28 years, was accused of assisting to kill Robert Baker, gamekeeper to Thomas Asheton Smith, Esq., in the parish of South Tidworth; and Charles Smith, aged 27 years, was accused of shooting at (not killing) Robert Snellgrove, assistant gamekeeper to Lord Palmerston (Secretary at War), at Broadlands, in the parish of Romsey. Poor Charles Smith had better have been hunting after shares than after hares! Mines, however deep, he would have found less perilous than the pleasure grounds of Lord Palmerston! I deem this hanging at Winchester worthy of general attention, and particularly at this time, when the aristocracy near Andover, and one, at least, of the members for that town, of whom this very Thomas Asheton Smith was, until lately, one, was, if the report in the Morning Chronicle (copied into the Register of the 7th instant) be correct, endeavouring, at the late Meeting at Andover, to persuade people, that they (these aristocrats) wished to keep up the price of corn for the sake of the labourers, whom Sir John Pollen (Thomas Asheton Smith’s son’s present colleague as member for Andover) called “poor devils,” and who, he said, had “hardly a rag to cover them!” Oh! wished to keep up the price of corn for the good of the “poor devils of labourers who have hardly a rag to cover them!” Amiable feeling, tender-hearted souls! Cared not a straw about rents! Did not; oh no! did not care even about the farmers! It was only for the sake of the poor, naked devils of labourers, that the colleague of young Thomas Asheton Smith cared; it was only for those who were in the same rank of life as James Turner and Charles Smith were, that these kind Andover aristocrats cared! This was the only reason in the world for their wanting corn to sell at a high price? We often say, “that beats everything;” but really, I think, that these professions of the Andover aristocrats do “beat everything.” Ah! but, Sir John Pollen, these professions come too late in the day: the people are no longer to be deceived by such stupid attempts at disguising hypocrisy. However, the attempt shall do this: it shall make me repeat here that which I published on the Winchester hanging, in the Register of the 6th of April, 1822. It made part of a “Letter to Landlords.” Many boys have, since this article was published, grown up to the age of thought. Let them now read it; and I hope, that they will remember it well.
I, last fall, addressed ten letters to you on the subject of the Agricultural Report. My object was to convince you, that you would be ruined; and, when I think of your general conduct towards the rest of the nation, and especially towards the labourers, I must say that I have great pleasure in seeing that my opinions are in a fair way of being verified to the full extent. I dislike the Jews; but the Jews are not so inimical to the industrious classes of the country as you are. We should do a great deal better with the ’Squires from ’Change Alley, who, at any rate, have nothing of the ferocious and bloody in their characters. Engrafted upon your native want of feeling is the sort of military spirit of command that you have acquired during the late war. You appeared, at the close of that war, to think that you had made a conquest of the rest of the nation for ever; and, if it had not been for the burdens which the war left behind it, there would have been no such thing as air, in England, for any one but a slave to breathe. The Bey of Tunis never talked to his subjects in language more insolent than you talked to the people of England. The DEBT, the blessed Debt, stood our friend, made you soften your tone, and will finally place you where you ought to be placed.
This is the last Letter that I shall ever take the trouble to address to you. In a short time, you will become much too insignificant to merit any particular notice; but just in the way of farewell, and that there may be something on record to show what care has been taken of the partridges, pheasants, and hares, while the estates themselves have been suffered to slide away, I have resolved to address this one more Letter to you, which resolution has been occasioned by the recent putting to death, at Winchester, of two men denominated Poachers. This is a thing, which, whatever you may think of it, has not been passed over, and is not to be passed over, without full notice and ample record. The account of the matter, as it appeared in the public prints, was very short; but the fact is such as never ought to be forgotten. And, while you are complaining of your “distress,” I will endeavour to lay before the public that which will show, that the law has not been unmindful of even your sports. The time is approaching, when the people will have an opportunity of exercising their judgment as to what are called “Game-Laws;” when they will look back a little at what has been done for the sake of insuring sport to landlords. In short, landlords as well as labourers will pass under review. But, I must proceed to my subject, reserving reflections for a subsequent part of my letter.
The account, to which I have alluded, is this:
“Hampshire. The Lent Assizes for this county concluded on Saturday morning. The Criminal Calendar contained 58 prisoners for trial, 16 of whom have been sentenced to suffer death, but two only of that number (poachers) were left by the Judges for execution, viz.: James Turner, aged 28, for aiding and assisting in killing Robert Baker, gamekeeper to Thomas Asheton Smith, Esq., in the parish of South Tidworth, and Charles Smith, aged 27, for having wilfully and maliciously shot at Robert Snellgrove, assistant gamekeeper to Lord Palmerston, at Broadlands, in the parish of Romsey, with intent to do him grievous bodily harm. The Judge (Burrough) observed, it became necessary to these cases, that the extreme sentence of the law should be inflicted, to deter others, as resistance to gamekeepers was now arrived at an alarming height, and many lives had been lost.”
The first thing to observe here is, that there were sixteen persons sentenced to suffer death; and that the only persons actually put to death, were those who had been endeavouring to get at the hares, pheasants or partridges of Thomas Asheton Smith, and of our Secretary at War, Lord Palmerston. Whether the Judge Burrough (who was long Chairman of the Quarter Sessions in Hampshire), uttered the words ascribed to him, or not, I cannot say; but the words have gone forth in print, and the impression they are calculated to make is this: that it was necessary to put these two men to death, in order to deter others from resisting gamekeepers. The putting of these men to death has excited a very deep feeling throughout the County of Hants; a feeling very honourable to the people of that county, and very natural to the breast of every human being.
In this case there appears to have been a killing, in which Turner assisted; and Turner might, by possibility, have given the fatal blow; but in the case of Smith, there was no killing at all. There was a mere shooting at, with intention to do him bodily harm. This latter offence was not a crime for which men were put to death, even when there was no assault, or attempt at assault, on the part of the person shot at; this was not a crime punished with death, until that terrible act, brought in by the late Lord Ellenborough, was passed, and formed a part of our matchless Code, that Code which there is such a talk about softening; but which softening does not appear to have in view this Act, or any portion of the Game-Laws.
In order to form a just opinion with regard to the offence of these two men that have been hanged at Winchester, we must first consider the motives by which they were actuated, in committing the acts of violence laid to their charge. For, it is the intention, and not the mere act, that constitutes the crime. To make an act murder, there must be malice aforethought. The question, therefore, is, did these men attack, or were they the attacked? It seems to be clear that they were the attacked parties: for they are executed, according to this publication, to deter others from resisting gamekeepers!
I know very well that there is Law for this; but what I shall endeavour to show is, that the Law ought to be altered; that the people of Hampshire ought to petition for such alteration; and that if you, the Landlords, were wise, you would petition also, for an alteration, if not a total annihilation of that terrible Code, called the Game-Laws, which has been growing harder and harder all the time that it ought to have been wearing away. It should never be forgotten, that, in order to make punishments efficient in the way of example, they must be thought just by the Community at large; and they will never be thought just if they aim at the protection of things belonging to one particular class of the Community, and, especially, if those very things be grudged to this class by the Community in general. When punishments of this sort take place, they are looked upon as unnecessary, the sufferers are objects of pity, the common feeling of the Community is in their favour, instead of being against them; and it is those who cause the punishment, and not those who suffer it, who become objects of abhorrence.
Upon seeing two of our countrymen hanging upon a gallows, we naturally, and instantly, run back to the cause. First we find the fighting with gamekeepers; next we find that the men would have been transported if caught in or near a cover with guns, after dark; next we find that these trespassers are exposed to transportation because they are in pursuit, or supposed to be in pursuit, of partridges, pheasants, or hares; and then, we ask, where is the foundation of a law to punish a man with transportation for being in pursuit of these animals? And where, indeed, is the foundation of the Law, to take from any man, be he who he may, the right of catching and using these animals? We know very well; we are instructed by mere feeling, that we have a right to live, to see and to move. Common sense tells us that there are some things which no man can reasonably call his property; and though poachers (as they are called) do not read Blackstone’s Commentaries, they know that such animals as are of a wild and untameable disposition, any man may seize upon and keep for his own use and pleasure. “All these things, so long as they remain in possession, every man has a right to enjoy without disturbance; but if once they escape from his custody, or he voluntarily abandons the use of them, they return to the common stock, and any man else has an equal right to seize and enjoy them afterwards.” (Book 2, Chapter 1.)
In the Second Book and Twenty-sixth Chapter of Blackstone, the poacher might read as follows: “With regard likewise to wild animals, all mankind had by the original grant of the Creator a right to pursue and take away any fowl or insect of the air, any fish or inhabitant of the waters, and any beast or reptile of the field: and this natural right still continues in every individual, unless where it is restrained by the civil laws of the country. And when a man has once so seized them, they become, while living, his qualified property, or, if dead, are absolutely his own: so that to steal them, or otherwise invade this property, is, according to the respective values, sometimes a criminal offence, sometimes only a civil injury.”
Poachers do not read this; but that reason which is common to all mankind tells them that this is true, and tells them, also, what to think of any positive law that is made to restrain them from this right granted by the Creator. Before I proceed further in commenting upon the case immediately before me, let me once more quote this English Judge, who wrote fifty years ago, when the Game Code was mild indeed, compared to the one of the present day. “Another violent alteration,” says he, “of the English Constitution consisted in the depopulation of whole countries, for the purposes of the King’s royal diversion; and subjecting both them, and all the ancient forests of the kingdom, to the unreasonable severities of forest laws imported from the continent, whereby the slaughter of a beast was made almost as penal as the death of a man. In the Saxon times, though no man was allowed to kill or chase the King’s deer, yet he might start any game, pursue and kill it upon his own estate. But the rigour of these new constitutions vested the sole property of all the game in England in the King alone; and no man was entitled to disturb any fowl of the air, or any beast of the field, of such kinds as were specially reserved for the royal amusement of the Sovereign, without express license from the King, by a grant of a chase or free warren: and those franchises were granted as much with a view to preserve the breed of animals, as to indulge the subject. From a similar principle to which, though the forest laws are now mitigated, and by degrees grown entirely obsolete, yet from this root has sprung up a bastard slip, known by the name of the Game-Law, now arrived to and wantoning in its highest vigour: both founded upon the same unreasonable notions of permanent property in wild creatures; and both productive of the same tyranny to the commons: but with this difference; that the forest laws established only one mighty hunter throughout the land, the game-laws have raised a little Nimrod in every manor.” (Book 4, Chapter 33.)
When this was written nothing was known of the present severity of the law. Judge Blackstone says that the Game Law was then wantoning in its highest vigour; what, then, would he have said, if any one had proposed to make it felony to resist a gamekeeper? He calls it tyranny to the commons, as it existed in his time; what would he have said of the present Code; which, so far from being thought a thing to be softened, is never so much as mentioned by those humane and gentle creatures, who are absolutely supporting a sort of reputation, and aiming at distinction in Society, in consequence of their incessant talk about softening the Criminal Code?
The Law may say what it will, but the feelings of mankind will never be in favour of this Code; and whenever it produces putting to death, it will, necessarily, excite horror. It is impossible to make men believe that any particular set of individuals should have a permanent property in wild creatures. That the owner of land should have a quiet possession of it is reasonable and right and necessary; it is also necessary that he should have the power of inflicting pecuniary punishment, in a moderate degree, upon such as trespass on his lands; but his right can go no further according to reason. If the law give him ample compensation for every damage that he sustains, in consequence of a trespass on his lands, what right has he to complain?
The law authorises the King, in case of invasion, or apprehended invasion, to call upon all his people to take up arms in defence of the country. The Militia Law compels every man, in his turn, to become a soldier. And upon what ground is this? There must be some reason for it, or else the law would be tyranny. The reason is, that every man has rights in the country to which he belongs; and that, therefore, it is his duty to defend the country. Some rights, too, beyond that of merely living, merely that of breathing the air. And then, I should be glad to know, what rights an Englishman has, if the pursuit of even wild animals is to be the ground of transporting him from his country? There is a sufficient punishment provided by the law of trespass; quite sufficient means to keep men off your land altogether! how can it be necessary, then, to have a law to transport them for coming upon your land? No, it is not for coming upon the land, it is for coming after the wild animals, which nature and reason tells them, are as much theirs as they are yours.
It is impossible for the people not to contrast the treatment of these two men at Winchester with the treatment of some gamekeepers that have killed or maimed the persons they call poachers; and it is equally impossible for the people, when they see these two men hanging on a gallows, after being recommended to mercy, not to remember the almost instant pardon, given to the exciseman, who was not recommended to mercy, and who was found guilty of wilful murder in the County of Sussex!
It is said, and, I believe truly, that there are more persons imprisoned in England for offences against the game-laws, than there are persons imprisoned in France (with more than twice the population) for all sorts of offences put together. When there was a loud outcry against the cruelties committed on the priests and the seigneurs, by the people of France, Arthur Young bade them remember the cruelties committed on the people by the game-laws, and to bear in mind how many had been made galley-slaves for having killed, or tried to kill, partridges, pheasants, and hares!
However, I am aware that it is quite useless to address observations of this sort to you. I am quite aware of that; and yet, there are circumstances, in your present situation, which, one would think, ought to make you not very gay upon the hanging of the two men at Winchester. It delights me, I assure you, to see the situation that you are in; and I shall, therefore, now, once more, and for the last time, address you upon that subject. We all remember how haughty, how insolent you have been. We all bear in mind your conduct for the last thirty-five years; and the feeling of pleasure at your present state is as general as it is just. In my ten Letters to you, I told you that you would lose your estates. Those of you who have any capacity, except that which is necessary to enable you to kill wild animals, see this now, as clearly as I do; and yet you evince no intention to change your courses. You hang on with unrelenting grasp; and cry “pauper” and “poacher” and “radical” and “lower orders” with as much insolence as ever! It is always thus: men like you may be convinced of error, but they never change their conduct. They never become just because they are convinced that they have been unjust: they must have a great deal more than that conviction to make them just.
Such was what I then addressed to the Landlords. How well it fits the present time! They are just in the same sort of mess, now, that they were in 1822. But, there is this most important difference, that the paper-money cannot now be put out, in a quantity sufficient to save them, without producing not only a “late panic,” worse than the last, but, in all probability, a total blowing up of the whole system, game-laws, new trespass-laws, tread-mill, Sunday tolls, six-acts, sun-set and sun-rise laws, apple-felony laws, select-vestry laws, and all the whole Thing, root and trunk and branch! Aye, not sparing, perhaps, even the tent, or booth of induction, at Draycot Foliot! Good Lord! how should we be able to live without game-laws! And tread-mills, then? And Sunday-tolls? How should we get on without pensions, sinecures, tithes, and the other “glorious institutions” of this “mighty empire”? Let us turn, however, from the thought; but, bearing this in mind, if you please, Messieurs the game-people; that if, no matter in what shape and under what pretence; if, I tell you, paper be put out again, sufficient to raise the price of a Southdown ewe to the last year’s mark, the whole system goes to atoms. I tell you that; mind it; and look sharp about you, O ye fat parsons; for tithes and half-pay will, be you assured, never, from that day, again go in company into parson’s pocket.
In this North of Hampshire, as everywhere else, the churches and all other things exhibit indubitable marks of decay. There are along under the north side of that chain of hills, which divide Hampshire from Berkshire, in this part, taking into Hampshire about two or three miles wide of the low ground along under the chain, eleven churches along in a string in about fifteen miles, the chancels of which would contain a great many more than all the inhabitants, men, women, and children, sitting at their ease with plenty of room. How should this be otherwise, when, in the parish of Burghclere, one single farmer holds by lease, under Lord Carnarvon, as one farm, the lands that men, now living, can remember to have formed fourteen farms, bringing up, in a respectable way, fourteen families. In some instances these small farmhouses and homesteads are completely gone; in others the buildings remain, but in a tumble-down state; in others the house is gone, leaving the barn for use as a barn or as a cattle-shed; in others the out-buildings are gone, and the house, with rotten thatch, broken windows, rotten door-sills, and all threatening to fall, remains as the dwelling of a half-starved and ragged family of labourers, the grand-children, perhaps, of the decent family of small farmers that formerly lived happily in this very house.
This, with few exceptions, is the case all over England; and, if we duly consider the nature and tendency of the hellish system of taxing, of funding, and of paper-money, it must do so. Then, in this very parish of Burghclere, there was, until a few months ago, a famous cock-parson, the “Honourable and Reverend” George Herbert, who had grafted the parson upon the soldier and the justice upon the parson; for he died, a little while ago, a half-pay officer in the army, rector of two parishes, and chairman of the quarter sessions of the county of Hants!! Mr. Hone gave us, in his memorable “House that Jack built,” a portrait of the “Clerical Magistrate.” Could not he, or somebody else, give us a portrait of the military and of the naval parson? For such are to be found all over the kingdom. Wherever I go, I hear of them. And yet, there sits Burdett, and even Sir Bobby of the Borough, and say not a word upon the subject! This is the case: the King dismissed Sir Bobby from the half-pay list, scratched his name out, turned him off, stopped his pay. Sir Bobby complained, alleging, that the half-pay was a reward for past services. No, no, said the Ministers: it is a retaining fee for future services. Now, the law is, and the Parliament declared, in the case of parson Horne Tooke, that once a parson always a parson, and that a parson cannot, of course, again serve as an officer under the crown. Yet these military and naval parsons have “a retaining fee for future military and naval services!” Never was so barefaced a thing before heard of in the world. And yet there sits Sir Bobby, stripped of his “retaining fee,” and says not a word about the matter; and there sit the big Whigs, who gave Sir Bobby the subscription, having sons, brothers, and other relations, military and naval parsons, and the big Whigs, of course, bid Sir Bobby (albeit given enough to twattle) hold his tongue upon the subject; and there sit Mr. Wetherspoon (I think it is), and the rest of Sir Bobby’s Rump, toasting “the independence of the Borough and its member!”
“That’s our case,” as the lawyers say: match it if you can, devil, in all your roamings up and down throughout the earth! I have often been thinking, and, indeed, expecting, to see Sir Bobby turn parson himself, as the likeliest way to get back his half-pay. If he should have “a call,” I do hope we shall have him, for parson at Kensington; and, as an inducement, I promise him, that I will give him a good thumping Easter-offering.
In former Rides, and especially in 1821 and 1822, I described very fully this part of Hampshire. The land is a chalk bottom, with a bed of reddish, stiff loam, full of flints, at top. In those parts where the bed of loam and flints is deep the land is arable or woods: where the bed of loam and flints is so shallow as to let the plough down to the chalk, the surface is downs. In the deep and long valleys, where there is constantly, or occasionally, a stream of water, the top soil is blackish, and the surface meadows. This has been the distribution from all antiquity, except that, in ancient times, part of that which is now downs and woods was corn-land, as we know from the marks of the plough. And yet the Scotch fellows would persuade us, that there were scarcely any inhabitants in England before it had the unspeakable happiness to be united to that fertile, warm, and hospitable country, where the people are so well off that they are above having poor-rates!
The tops of the hills here are as good corn-land as any other part; and it is all excellent corn-land, and the fields and woods singularly beautiful. Never was there what may be called a more hilly country, and all in use. Coming from Burghclere, you come up nearly a mile of steep hill, from the top of which you can see all over the country, even to the Isle of Wight; to your right a great part of Wiltshire; into Surrey on your left; and, turning round, you see, lying below you, the whole of Berkshire, great part of Oxfordshire, and part of Gloucestershire. This chain of lofty hills was a great favourite with Kings and rulers in ancient times. At Highclere, at Combe, and at other places, there are remains of great encampments, or fortifications; and Kingsclere was a residence of the Saxon Kings, and continued to be a royal residence long after the Norman Kings came. King John, when residing at Kingsclere, founded one of the charities which still exists in the town of Newbury, which is but a few miles from Kingsclere.
From the top of this lofty chain, you come to Uphusband (or the Upper Hurstbourn) over two miles or more of ground, descending in the way that the body of a snake descends (when he is going fast) from the high part, near the head, down to the tail; that is to say, over a series of hill and dell, but the dell part going constantly on increasing upon the hilly part, till you come down to this village; and then you, continuing on (southward) towards Andover, go up, directly, half a mile of hill so steep, as to make it very difficult for an ordinary team with a load to take that load up it. So this Up-hurstbourn (called so because higher up the valley than the other Hurstbourns), the flat part of the road to which, from the north, comes in between two side-hills, is in as narrow and deep a dell as any place that I ever saw.
The houses of the village are, in great part, scattered about, and are amongst very lofty and fine trees; and, from many, many points round about, from the hilly fields, now covered with the young wheat, or with scarcely less beautiful sainfoin, the village is a sight worth going many miles to see. The lands, too, are pretty beyond description. These chains of hills make, below them, an endless number of lower hills, of varying shapes and sizes and aspects and of relative state as to each other; while the surface presents, in the size and form of the fields, in the woods, the hedgerows, the sainfoin, the young wheat, the turnips, the tares, the fallows, the sheep-folds and the flocks, and, at every turn of your head, a fresh and different set of these; this surface all together presents that which I, at any rate, could look at with pleasure for ever. Not a sort of country that I like so well as when there are downs and a broader valley and more of meadow; but a sort of country that I like next to that; for, here, as there, there are no ditches, no water-furrows, no dirt, and never any drought to cause inconvenience. The chalk is at bottom, and it takes care of all. The crops of wheat have been very good here this year, and those of barley not very bad. The sainfoin has given a fine crop of the finest sort of hay in the world, and, this year, without a drop of wet.
I wish, that, in speaking of this pretty village (which I always return to with additional pleasure), I could give a good account of the state of those, without whose labour there would be neither corn nor sainfoin nor sheep. I regret to say, that my account of this matter, if I give it truly, must be a dismal account indeed! For I have, in no part of England, seen the labouring people so badly off as they are here. This has made so much impression on me, that I shall enter fully into the matter with names, dates, and all the particulars in the IVth Number of the “Poor Man’s Friend.” This is one of the great purposes for which I take these “Rides.” I am persuaded, that, before the day shall come when my labours must cease, I shall have mended the meals of millions. I may over-rate the effects of my endeavours; but, this being my persuasion, I should be guilty of a great neglect of duty, were I not to use those endeavours.
Andover, Sunday,
15th October.
I went to Weyhill, yesterday, to see the close of the hop and of the cheese fair; for, after the sheep, these are the principal articles. The crop of hops has been, in parts where they are grown, unusually large and of super-excellent quality. The average price of the Farnham hops has been, as nearly as I can ascertain, seven pounds for a hundredweight; that of Kentish hops, five pounds, and that of the Hampshire and Surrey hops (other than those of Farnham), about five pounds also. The prices are, considering the great weight of the crop, very good; but, if it had not been for the effects of “late panic” (proceeding, as Baring said, from a “plethora of money,”) these prices would have been a full third, if not nearly one half, higher; for, though the crop has been so large and so good, there was hardly any stock on hand; the country was almost wholly without hops.
As to cheese, the price, considering the quantity, has been not one half so high as it was last year. The fall in the positive price has been about 20 per cent., and the quantity made in 1826 has not been above two-thirds as great as that made in 1825. So that, here is a fall of one-half in real relative price; that is to say, the farmer, while he has the same rent to pay that he paid last year, has only half as much money to receive for cheese, as he received for cheese last year; and observe, on some farms, cheese is almost the only saleable produce.
After the fair was over, yesterday, I came down from the Hill (3 miles) to this town of Andover; which has, within the last 20 days, been more talked of, in other parts of the kingdom, than it ever was before from the creation of the world to the beginning of those 20 days. The Thomas Asheton Smiths and the Sir John Pollens, famous as they have been under the banners of the Old Navy Purser, George Rose, and his successors, have never, even since the death of poor Turner, been half so famous, they and this Corporation, whom they represent, as they have been since the Meeting which they held here, which ended in their defeat and confusion, pointing them out as worthy of that appellation of “Poor Devils,” which Pollen thought proper to give to those labourers without whose toil his estate would not be worth a single farthing.
Having laid my plan to sleep at Andover last night, I went with two Farnham friends, Messrs. Knowles and West, to dine at the ordinary at the George Inn, which is kept by one Sutton, a rich old fellow, who wore a round-skirted sleeved fustian waistcoat, with a dirty white apron tied round his middle, and with no coat on; having a look the eagerest and the sharpest that I ever saw in any set of features in my whole life-time; having an air of authority and of mastership, which, to a stranger, as I was, seemed quite incompatible with the meanness of his dress and the vulgarity of his manners; and there being, visible to every beholder, constantly going on in him a pretty even contest between the servility of avarice and the insolence of wealth. A great part of the farmers and other fair-people having gone off home, we found preparations made for dining only about ten people. But, after we sat down, and it was seen that we designed to dine, guests came in apace, the preparations were augmented, and as many as could dine came and dined with us.
After the dinner was over, the room became fuller and fuller; guests came in from the other inns, where they had been dining, till, at last, the room became as full as possible in every part, the door being opened, the door-way blocked up, and the stairs, leading to the room, crammed from bottom to top. In this state of things, Mr. Knowles, who was our chairman, gave my health, which, of course, was followed by a speech; and, as the reader will readily suppose, to have an opportunity of making a speech was the main motive for my going to dine at an inn, at any hour, and especially at seven o’clock at night. In this speech, I, after descanting on the present devastating ruin, and on those successive acts of the Ministers and the Parliament by which such ruin had been produced; after remarking on the shuffling, the tricks, the contrivances from 1797 up to last March, I proceeded to offer to the company my reasons for believing, that no attempt would be made to relieve the farmers and others, by putting out the paper-money again, as in 1822, or by a bank-restriction. Just as I was stating these my reasons, on a prospective matter of such deep interest to my hearers, amongst whom were land-owners, land-renters, cattle and sheep dealers, hop and cheese producers and merchants, and even one, two or more, country bankers; just as I was engaged in stating my reasons for my opinion on a matter of such vital importance to the parties present, who were all listening to me with the greatest attention; just at this time, a noise was heard, and a sort of row was taking place in the passage, the cause of which was, upon inquiry, found to be no less a personage than our landlord, our host Sutton, who, it appeared, finding that my speech-making had cut off, or, at least, suspended, all intercourse between the dining, now become a drinking, room and the bar; who, finding that I had been the cause of a great “restriction in the exchange” of our money for his “neat” “genuine” commodities downstairs, and being, apparently, an ardent admirer of the “liberal” system of “free trade”; who, finding, in short, or, rather, supposing, that, if my tongue were not stopped from running, his taps would be, had, though an old man, fought, or, at least, forced his way up the thronged stairs and through the passage and door-way, into the room, and was (with what breath the struggle had left him) beginning to bawl out to me, when some one called to him, and told him that he was causing an interruption, to which he answered, that that was what he had come to do! And then he went on to say, in so many words, that my speech injured his sale of liquor!
The disgust and abhorrence, which such conduct could not fail to excite, produced, at first, a desire to quit the room and the house, and even a proposition to that effect. But, after a minute or so, to reflect, the company resolved not to quit the room but to turn him out of it who had caused the interruption; and the old fellow, finding himself tackled, saved the labour of shoving, or kicking, him out of the room, by retreating out of the door-way with all the activity of which he was master. After this I proceeded with my speech-making; and, this being ended, the great business of the evening, namely, drinking, smoking, and singing, was about to be proceeded in by a company, who had just closed an arduous and anxious week, who had before them a Sunday morning to sleep in, and whose wives were, for the far greater part, at a convenient distance. An assemblage of circumstances more auspicious to “free trade” in the “neat” and “genuine,” has seldom occurred! But, now behold, the old fustian-jacketed fellow, whose head was, I think, powdered, took it into that head not only to lay “restrictions” upon trade, but to impose an absolute embargo; cut off entirely all supplies whatever from his bar to the room, as long as I remained in that room. A message to this effect, from the old fustian man, having been, through the waiter, communicated to Mr. Knowles, and he having communicated it to the company, I addressed the company in nearly these words: “Gentlemen, born and bred, as you know I was, on the borders of this county, and fond, as I am of bacon, Hampshire hogs have, with me, always been objects of admiration rather than of contempt; but that which has just happened here, induces me to observe, that this feeling of mine has been confined to hogs of four legs. For my part, I like your company too well to quit it. I have paid this fellow six shillings for the wing of a fowl, a bit of bread, and a pint of small beer. I have a right to sit here; I want no drink, and those who do, being refused it here, have a right to send to other houses for it, and to drink it here.”
However, Mammon soon got the upper hand downstairs, all the fondness for “free trade” returned, and up came the old fustian-jacketed fellow, bringing pipes, tobacco, wine, grog, sling, and seeming to be as pleased as if he had just sprung a mine of gold! Nay, he, soon after this, came into the room with two gentlemen, who had come to him to ask where I was. He actually came up to me, making me a bow, and, telling me that those gentlemen wished to be introduced to me, he, with a fawning look, laid his hand upon my knee! “Take away your paw,” said I, and, shaking the gentlemen by the hand, I said, “I am happy to see you, gentlemen, even though introduced by this fellow.” Things now proceeded without interruption; songs, toasts, and speeches filled up the time, until half-past two o’clock this morning, though in the house of a landlord who receives the sacrament, but who, from his manifestly ardent attachment to the “liberal principles” of “free trade,” would, I have no doubt, have suffered us, if we could have found money and throats and stomachs, to sit and sing and talk and drink until two o’clock of a Sunday afternoon instead of two o’clock of a Sunday morning. It was not politics; it was not personal dislike to me; for the fellow knew nothing of me. It was, as I told the company, just this: he looked upon their bodies as so many gutters to drain off the contents of his taps, and upon their purses as so many small heaps from which to take the means of augmenting his great one; and, finding that I had been, no matter how, the cause of suspending this work of “reciprocity,” he wanted, and no matter how, to restore the reciprocal system to motion. All that I have to add is this: that the next time this old sharp-looking fellow gets six shillings from me, for a dinner, he shall, if he choose, cook me, in any manner that he likes, and season me with hand so unsparing as to produce in the feeders thirst unquenchable.
To-morrow morning we set off for the New Forest; and, indeed, we have lounged about here long enough. But, as some apology, I have to state, that, while I have been in a sort of waiting upon this great fair, where one hears, sees, and learns so much, I have been writing No. IV. of the “Poor Man’s Friend,” which, price twopence, is published once a month.
I see, in the London newspapers, accounts of dispatches from Canning! I thought that he went solely “on a party of pleasure!” So, the “dispatches” come to tell the King how the pleasure party gets on! No: what he is gone to Paris for is to endeavour to prevent the “Holy Allies” from doing anything which shall sink the English Government in the eyes of the world, and thereby favour the radicals, who are enemies of all “regular Government,” and whose success in England would revive republicanism in France. This is my opinion. The subject, if I be right in my opinion, was too ticklish to be committed to paper: Granville Levison Gower (for that is the man that is now Lord Granville) was, perhaps, not thought quite a match for the French as a talker; and, therefore, the Captain of Eton, who, in 1817, said, that the “ever living luminary of British prosperity was only hidden behind a cloud;” and who, in 1819, said, that “Peel’s Bill had set the currency question at rest for ever;” therefore the profound Captain is gone over to see what he can do.
But, Captain, a word in your ear: we do not care for the Bourbons any more than we do for you! My real opinion is, that there is nothing that can put England to rights, that will not shake the Bourbon Government. This is my opinion; but I defy the Bourbons to save, or to assist in saving, the present system in England, unless they and their friends will subscribe and pay off your debt for you, Captain of toad-eating and nonsensical and shoe-licking Eton! Let them pay off your debt for you, Captain; let the Bourbons and their allies do that; or they cannot save you; no, nor can they help you, even in the smallest degree.
Rumsey (Hampshire),
Monday Noon, 16th Oct.
Like a very great fool, I, out of senseless complaisance, waited, this morning, to breakfast with the friends, at whose house we slept last night, at Andover. We thus lost two hours of dry weather, and have been justly punished by about an hour’s ride in the rain. I settled on Lyndhurst as the place to lodge at to-night; so we are here, feeding our horses, drying our clothes, and writing the account of our journey. We came, as much as possible, all the way through the villages, and, almost all the way, avoided the turnpike-roads. From Andover to Stockbridge (about seven or eight miles) is, for the greatest part, an open corn and sheep country, a considerable portion of the land being downs. The wheat and rye and vetch and sainfoin fields look beautiful here; and, during the whole of the way from Andover to Rumsey, the early turnips of both kinds are not bad, and the stubble turnips very promising. The downs are green as meadows usually are in April. The grass is most abundant in all situations, where grass grows. From Stockbridge to Rumsey we came nearly by the river side, and had to cross the river several times. This, the River Teste, which, as I described, in my Ride of last November, begins at Uphusband, by springs, bubbling up, in March, out of the bed of that deep valley. It is at first a bourn, that is to say, a stream that runs only a part of the year, and is the rest of the year as dry as a road. About 5 miles from this periodical source, it becomes a stream all the year round. After winding about between the chalk hills, for many miles, first in a general direction towards the south-east, and then in a similar direction towards the south-west and south, it is joined by the little stream that rises just above and that passes through the town of Andover. It is, after this, joined by several other little streams, with names; and here, at Rumsey, it is a large and very fine river, famous, all the way down, for trout and eels, and both of the finest quality.
Lyndhurst (New Forest),
Monday Evening, 16th October.
I have just time, before I go to bed, to observe that we arrived here, about 4 o’clock, over about 10 or 11 miles of the best road in the world, having a choice too, for the great part of the way, between these smooth roads and green sward. Just as we came out of Rumsey (or Romsey), and crossed our River Teste once more, we saw to our left, the sort of park, called Broadlands, where poor Charles Smith, who (as mentioned above) was hanged for shooting at (not killing) one Snellgrove, an assistant-gamekeeper of Lord Palmerston, who was then our Secretary at War, and who is in that office, I believe, now, though he is now better known as a Director of the grand Mining Joint-Stock Company, which shows the great industry of this Noble and “Right Honourable person,” and also the great scope and the various nature and tendency of his talents. What would our old fathers of the “dark ages” have said, if they had been told, that their descendants would, at last, become so enlightened as to enable Jews and loan-jobbers to take away noblemen’s estates by mere “watching the turn of the market,” and to cause members, or, at least, one Member, of that “most Honourable, Noble, and Reverend Assembly,” the King’s Privy Council, in which he himself sits: so enlightened, I say, as to cause one of this “most Honourable and Reverend body” to become a Director in a mining speculation? How one pities our poor, “dark-age, bigoted” ancestors, who would, I dare say, have been as ready to hang a man for proposing such a “liberal” system as this, as they would have been to hang him for shooting at (not killing) an assistant game-keeper! Poor old fellows! How much they lost by not living in our enlightened times! I am here close by the Old Purser’s son George Rose’s!