“... I know your good-nature will have suggested to you, and accepted as an excuse for my long delay of writing, the various business which my present situation occasions. My long and very melancholy confinement much affected my health and spirits. The fresh air and constant exercise at Sandleford proved of great service to me, and encouraged me to venture on a much longer journey. On the 30th of June, I set out on my expedition to Northumberland, and, on the 3d of July, at noon, I got as far as my estate at Burniston. Exactly opposite to some of my land, there is a tolerable inn. I eat a hasty dinner, and taking my steward with me, went over as many of the farms as I could that night, and sent invitations to my tenants to dine with me the next day.
“Mine Host, by sending to the neighbouring markets, assembled together sirloins of beef, legs of mutton, loins of veal, chickens, ducks, and green peas, which, with ham, pigeon-pie, tarts, and custard, fill’d up every chink of table, and, I believe, of stomach. Unfortunately, there was not a room large enough to contain all my good friends, so the women and the young lasses dined with me, and the men with the steward.
“As Mr. Montagu had been always a very good landlord, I thought it right to show the good people they would have a kind landlady, and therefore I would not pass by without taking notice of them. Several of them enquired after the young gentlemen that came from Horton to Allerthorpe. I assured them Mr. William Robinson was a profound divine, and Mr. Charles a sage counsellor at law. They rejoyced that Master Willie was happy in a good and rich wife, and had three fine Bairns. In the evening I went on to Darlington, where part of my estates come down to the turnpike road. I stopped at a tenant’s who has a pretty large house, desired them to dress a dinner the next day for me and my tenants.... Darlington was rather too far for the women to reach. I lay at Darlington, and early ye next day went over to this Estate, and passed the whole day there with great pleasure. A fine, rapid river, woody bank, and some of the most stately oaks and beech in Yorkshire, would recommend it sufficiently to the eye that does not behold it with the complacency of a proprietor, and you will believe it loses nothing of its charms by that circumstance. After dinner I wandered again about the place, visited most of my tenants’ houses, and did not take leave of Eryholme (?) till night drew her sable curtain, which gave me occasion to recollect that the day of my life must soon close, and all these things be hid from me; but if I make a proper use of them while they are mine, it is all I ought to be solicitous for, as I am not amongst those unhappy Persons whose views are bounded to the short day of human life.
“I was much pleased with all my tenants in Yorkshire. They are a very different sort of people from the farmers in ye south. They are alert in their business and interests, and far from the stupid state of savage. At the same time, they do not ape the manners nor imitate the dress of the fine folks. The farmer’s wife spins her husband’s shirts, and the daughters make butter and cheese at the hours our southern women work catgut and dress wire caps. Some of my tenants have been about fifty years on the estate; have married their sons to girls worth many hundred pounds, and have got their sons into their farms, and they are retired on a decent subsistance, gained by many years of frugal industry. They all pay duely on their rent-days. No complaint, on the part of the tenants, of poverty; or, on the landlord, of arrears. The land is in good condition, and by having been long settled, they have acquired an affection for the farm they are placed upon, and will always give as good a rent as it deserves; and they know the nature of the undertaking too well to give more. It is a folly to let farms too cheap; and it is both wickedness and folly to let them too dear. This year has been particularly unfavourable to my tenants, as the estates are chiefly meadow and pasture; and yet, though these estates had been lately raised, they did not ask any indulgence or favour. They said there had not been such a dry season these fifty years; and, with great good-humour, said they hoped the next would be better. Indeed, the drought is terrible for the dairy-farms. Hay here will be at an excessive price. The coal-owners who are not provident with stocks of it will be at vast expenses. I have always two years’ stock in hand. The further north, the greater the drought. I believe there has not been any material rain since the 18th of March. Cows there (and here) are obliged to be driven to the rivers to drink. Our little streams are all dry’d. My cows go every day to the Tyne to get drink. The Tyne Vale, where I live, used to look green and pleasant. The whole country is now a brown crust, with here and there a black hole of a coal-pit, so that I cannot boast of the beauty of our prospects. As to Denton, it has mightily the air of an ant-hill: a vast many black animals for ever busy. Near fourscore families are employ’d on my concerns here. Boys work in the colliery from seven years of age. I used to give my colliery people a feast when I came hither, but as the good souls (men and women) are very apt to get drunk, and, when drunk, very joyful, and sing, and dance, and hollow, and whoop, I dare not, on this occasion, trust their discretion to behave with proper gravity; so I content myself with killing a fat beast once a week, and sending to each family, once, a piece of meat. It will take time to get round to all my black friends. I had fifty-nine boys and girls to sup in the courtyard last night on rice pudding and boil’d beef; to-morrow night I shall have as many. It is very pleasant to see how the poor things cram themselves, and the expense is not great. We buy rice cheap, and skimmed milk and coarse beef serve the occasion. Some have more children than their labour will cloathe, and on such I shall bestow some apparel. Some benefits of this sort, and a general kind behaviour, gives to the coal-owner, as well as to them, a good deal of advantage. Our pitmen are afraid of being turned off, and that fear keeps an order and regularity amongst them that is very uncommon.
“The general coal trade and my concerns in it are, at present, in a thriving way, and if all goes on so well two years longer, and I live till then, I will establish a spinning, knitting, and sewing-school for ye girls. When I say establish, I mean for my life, for one cannot be charitable longer. When the night cometh, no man can work. Charitable institutions soon fall into neglect and abuse. I made a visit at Burniston to my Uncle Robinson’s almshouses. I gave each of the old people a guinea. I have sometimes sent them money; for what my uncle appointed near a hundred years ago is hardly a subsistence. Indeed, they would starve if they had not some helps.
“I have not been one moment ill since I set out on my journey. I walk about my farms, and down to my colliery, like a country gentlewoman of the last century. I rejoyce in the great improvement of my land here by good cultivation, but I do not like my tenants so well as those in Yorkshire. We are here a little too rustick, and speak a dialect that is dreadful to the auditor’s nerves; and as to the colliery, I cannot yet reconcile myself to seeing my fellow creatures descend into the dark regions of the earth; tho’, to my great comfort, I hear them singing in the pits.... If I did not think you kindly interested yourself, I would not trouble you with this long history of myself.
“I had the pleasure of seeing my neice in great good-humour, beauty, and health; and these are the fairest features of youth. Long may they dimple and bloom on her cheek. I approve much of my little nephews going to a school of a private sort at first. I think boys of a gentle and bashful disposition are discouraged at being thrust at once into the prodigious racket of a great school....
“I think my sister Scott greatly mended by James’s powders. I was very uneasy about her before she went to Bath, but Doctor Moisy has done great things for her.... I have not seen her look so well for some years.... I expect Doctor Beattie and his wife every day. I propose to return to the south the end of this month, in order to take some weeks at Tunbridge.... I believe I shall pass the winter in the south of France, but have not yet determined, as all human projects are uncertain; but it is my wish to do so.”
Illness delayed the realisation of this wish. Mrs. Montagu was in Hill Street in November, receiving only a few of her most intimate friends. “I called on Mrs. Montagu,” writes Mrs. Boscawen to Mrs. Delany, in the above month; “only Lady Townshend was there, and in her best way, very chatty.”