‘You observe probably in the papers, that on Baker’s motion, Pole Carew moved the previous question and contended “that the interests of all are closely connected even in respect to things not stipulated by treaty.” This judicious doctrine was first advanced by the Chancellor, and Mr. Pitt defended in his speech on Baker’s motion. According to this doctrine, there is no difference between defensive and offensive treaties; all the writer’s de jure gentium should be burnt, and, indeed, most of the European treaties also; and it is certain that under such circumstances England ought never to make an alliance on the Continent unless a Continental war were actually broken out; otherwise she could not foresee the consequences to which she would be exposed.

‘Charles Fox said in his speech on Baker’s motion “that Mr. Pitt dared not to enter into the war, and that he kept a majority together at present by his assurance that there would not be one.”

‘This is, perhaps, the case; but however it may be, it is certain that Faukner, Clerk of the Council, is sent to Berlin, and most persons think with a view of showing the King of Prussia the impossibility of persuading this country to enter into a Russian war. Had Mr. Pitt felt the pulse of the Parliament and people before he delivered the King’s message, he would have saved his credit, though he might have been blamed; but he has now run into the horns of a dilemma, as the logicians call it. If he prosecute the war, he will infallibly be ex-Minister, and bad consequences are to be apprehended in a country oppressed by taxes and heated by political pamphlets; if he give it ‘up, he will lose all his influence in the eyes of Europe, and teach foreign Courts that no confidence is to be placed in an English Minister. His friends lament very much this last circumstance.

‘Adieu!

John Symonds.’

A circumstance in the exploits of my public career which made, perhaps, a more general impression than any other event of my life, was the proposal in 1792 for arming the property of the Kingdom in a sort of horse militia. My first suggestion of this idea was in May (of that year). Should any have claimed it, or should any hereafter form such a claim, it ought in truth and strict candour to be absolutely rejected. The proposal was more formally made in August of the same year in the ‘Annals,’ vol. xviii. p. 495, under the title of French events.[[149]] In the end of 1792 and the beginning of 1793 these papers were collected and much enlarged in a pamphlet entitled, ‘The Example of France,’ &c. which ran speedily through four numerous editions, and excited a very general attention. The author was publicly thanked in resolutions of associated assemblies, and my great plea of a horse militia produced almost immediately three volunteer corps of cavalry, which multiplied rapidly through the Kingdom. It is not known that any persons or any bodies of men ever laid claim to a priority in this idea; accordingly my health was the first toast given for being the origin of those corps, which, when assembled, had this opportunity of publicly declaring their opinion. The scheme took with astonishing celerity, and became the parent of a measure of a very different complexion, which was putting arms into the hands of thousands without property, and upon whose allegiance and constitutional principle but little reliance could be placed. Government received demands for arms to the amount of above 700,000 men. The Ministers were alarmed, and saw too late the consequence of their own blindness and incapacity. They refused their consent, in many cases without properly discriminating between men with and without property, and felt themselves in so awkward a position that it is no wonder their conduct continued void of any steady adherence to the principle of the original proposition. Had my plan not only been adopted but carried into execution, strictly upon the principles I had explained, we might from that moment to the present have had a horse militia, absolutely under the command of Government, numbering from 100,000 to 200,000 men, which might, by progressive improvements, have been matured into a force efficient for every purpose. It is very seldom that so private an individual can by a happy thought become the origin of a system which, had my principles been steadily adhered to, would have been attended with inconceivable benefit, and none of those evils, real or imaginary, afterwards attributed to volunteers in general.

The pamphlet rendered the author exceedingly popular among all the friends of government and order, and as unpopular among the whole race of reformers and Jacobins. I was not content with the mere theoretical idea, but in my own person put it into practice, and enrolled myself in the ranks of a corps raised at my recommendation, in the vicinity of Bury [St. Edmunds], and commanded by the present Marquis of Cornwallis, then Lord Broome, having with this intention learnt the sword exercise at London of a sergeant, who was eminently skilled in it. My example was followed by gentlemen of fortune, several of whom were also in the ranks and refused to be officers. This was a part of the plan of particular importance, for had gentlemen accepted only the situation of officers, the spirit of entering the corps among yeomen, farmers &c. would have been much cooler; but when they saw their landlords, and men of high consideration in the neighbourhood, in the same situation, their vanity was flattered, and they enrolled themselves with great readiness, and the great object of property of such importance in case of revolutionary disturbance was thus secured.

Some years afterwards, being at the Duke of Bedford’s at Woburn, I sat at dinner by a gentleman of great property, captain of a troop of yeomanry, who told me that whenever his troop met he always drank my health after the King’s, for being the undisputed origin of all the yeomanry corps in the kingdom, possibly arising from extracts from my writings on the subject having been much circulated in the newspapers.

This year my valuable and very sincere friend, the Earl of Orford, died. The public papers that have announced the death of this noble lord have recorded the ancestry from which he was descended, the heirs of his honours, and the inheritors of his wealth, and have dwelt upon the titles that are extinct or devolved, together with all the posts and employments that are vacant. To me be the melancholy duty of noting what is of much more moment than the descent of a peerage or the transfer of an estate—the loss of an animated improver; of one who gave importance to cultivation by a thorough knowledge of political economy, and bent all his endeavours towards making mankind happy by seconding the pursuits of the farmer and the enquiries of the experimentalist. I leave the lieutenancy of a county, the rangership of a park, and the honours of the bedchamber to those in whose eyes such baubles are respectable. I would rather dwell on the merit of the first importer of Southdown sheep into Norfolk; on the merit of sending to the most distant regions for breeds of animals, represented as useful, not indeed always with success, but never without liberality in the motive; on the patron and friend of the common farmer, not the lord of a little circle of tenants, but the general and diffusive encourager of every species of agricultural improvement. Nor did he associate with the useful men because he was not qualified for the company of higher classes, for his mind was fraught with a great extent of knowledge; it was decorated by no trivial stores of classical learning, which exercised and set off the powers of a brilliant imagination, and thus qualified, alike for a Court or an Academy of Science, he felt no degradation in attending to THE PLOUGH. By the death of this noble personage the ‘Annals’ have lost a valuable correspondent, and their editor a warm friend. Notwithstanding the immense list of Peers, seven or eight only have become correspondents in this work. The insects of a drawing-room, the patrons of faro, the luminaries of Newmarket, are spared; while the hand of death deprives the farmer of a friend, Norfolk of a protector, and England of a real patriot.

Lord Loughborough was the Judge at the Summer Assizes this year at Bury, and I being on the Grand Jury, he sent a note to inform me that he was alone at his lodgings, and desired me to come and chat with him. This I did, of course, and in our conversation he mentioned that there was an estate of 4,400 acres of land in Yorkshire on the moors, in the vicinity of Paitley Bridge, to be sold for 4,000l., that it was chiefly freehold, and enclosed with a ring fence, also that there was a neat shooting-box on it built by the Duke of Devonshire, who hired the grouse. I assured his Lordship that he must be mistaken, for it was impossible that such a tract of land under several circumstances which he named could be on sale for half an hour without being purchased. He answered that nobody would buy it, as the land was all moor or peat, and covered with ling, but that some neighbouring farmers gave, he believed, 100l. per annum for the whole as a walk for mountain sheep. I told him that it seemed so extraordinary to me that I would go immediately to view it. He said the proper persons to apply to to view it were Sir Cecil Wray, Dr. Kilvington, and another gentleman. I accordingly went immediately to Yorkshire, and, taking up my quarters at Paitley Bridge, enquired till I found a person who knew the whole estate perfectly well, and engaged him early the next morning in order to make the tour of the whole property. It appeared to me to be wonderfully improvable, and that very considerable tracts to the amount of some hundred acres were palpably capable of irrigation and improvement, evidently applicable from the case of a small watercourse for conducting the water to an old smelting mill, but long neglected. This course had overflowed and converted the ling, over about fifteen acres, to grass. I asked my conductor what this grass would let for with a small cottage and stable for cows; he said, ‘Certainly fifteen shillings an acre.’ It was sufficiently evident that improvements might be wrought at a very small expense, and that building was remarkably cheap, from every material except timber being found on the spot, and lime at a small distance. There was a small farm in cultivation to produce oats, and the appearance not unfavourable. As I knew that a land surveyor well acquainted with all this country resided at Leeds, I determined to go thither to bring him over to view, and give his opinion as to the value of the property. This I did, brought him over in a postchaise, and rode with him over the principal part of the estate. His opinion confirmed my own, nor must I forget to mention that this estate was to be purchased without money as it was offered on its own security in mortgage.