"In consequence of this, in 1844 it was found that there were in France at least five millions and a half of families, or about twenty-seven millions of souls, who were proprietary families, and that of these about four millions of families had each less than nine English acres to the family on the average. Of course, a vast majority of these twenty-seven millions of persons, though they might be interested in some small portion of the soil, were really poor, and multitudes of them were dependent.
"Now, therefore, the results began to appear in a practical form. One third of all the rental of France was discovered to be absolutely mortgaged, and another third was swallowed up by other encumbrances, leaving but one third free for the use and benefit of its owners. In other words, a great proportion of the people of France were embarrassed and poor, and a great proportion of the remainder were fast becoming so.
"Such a state of things produced, of course, a wide-spread social uneasiness. Part of this uneasiness was directed against the existing government; another and more formidable portion was directed against all government, and against the very institution of property. The convulsion of 1848 followed; France is still unsettled; and Mr. Webster's prophecy seems still to be in the course of a portentous fulfilment."
In the London Quarterly Review for 1846 there is an interesting discussion on so much of the matter as relates to the subdivision of real estate for agricultural purposes in France, as far as it had then advanced, and from which many of the facts here alluded to are taken.
[Footnote 1: An interesting account of the Rock may be found in Dr.
Thacher's History of the Town of Plymouth, pp. 29, 198, 199.]
[Footnote 2: See Note A, at the end of the Discourse.]
[Footnote 3: For notices of Carver, Bradford, Standish, Brewster, and
Allerton, see Young's Chronicles of Plymouth and Massachusetts; Morton's
Memorial, p. 126; Belknap's American Biography, Vol. II.; Hutchinson's
History, Vol. II., App., pp. 456 et seq.; Collections of the
Massachusetts Historical Society; Winthrop's Journal; and Thacher's
History.]
[Footnote 4: For the original name of what is now Plymouth, see Lives of
American Governors, p. 38, note, a work prepared with great care by J.B.
Moore, Esq.]
[Footnote 5: The twenty-first is now acknowledged to be the true anniversary. See the Report of the Pilgrim Society on the subject.]
[Footnote 6: Herodot. VI. § 109.]