In the year 1801, I grew twelve quarters of best oats per acre, upon eight acres of poor down land, at Widdington, the rent of which was not more than ten shillings an acre. They were sown after an uncommonly fine crop of turnips, that averaged fifty tons to an acre. The land had been very highly manured, both from the farm-yard and the fold, for the turnips, which had been hoed three times. It was the heaviest and finest crop of oats that I ever saw, and they stood full six feet high in the straw. I was sitting on horseback, looking on while they were mowing them, and I recollect that when Thomas Airs, one of the mowers, who was full six feet high, swept his scythe into the standing corn, the ears of the oats frequently struck his hat as he walked along. It was very fine weather, and they were carried in and made into a rick by themselves, without taking any rain. In the spring they were thrashed out, and all sold for seed, at three pounds a quarter. Now, as they averaged twelve quarters an acre, the sale amounted to thirty-six pounds an acre; nearly three times the value of the fee-simple of the land. There was also more than three tons of straw upon each acre, and as, during that season, straw sold at six pounds per ton, the actual value of the produce (taking off one pound a ton for the carriage of the straw) was 50_l_. per acre, while the fee-simple of the land would not have sold for 20_l_. per acre.
I have related this to shew what enormous profits were gained by good farmers at those times. About this period it was, that the late Lord Warwick, speaking in the House of Lords, of the state of insolence to which the farmers had arrived, and alluding to their extravagant course of living, assured his right honourable hearers, that some of them had reached such a pitch of luxury, that they actually drank brandy with their wine. This caused a laugh, but their lordships little knew how literally true the assertion was. His lordship alluded to a gentleman farmer, of the name of Jackson, who lived at —— farm, in the county of Warwick, and who then always took brandy with his wine. I, too, remember a humorous farmer, and a very worthy fellow, of the name of Mackerell, of Collingbourn, who frequently afterwards did the same thing, at the principal market room at the Bear, at Devizes; at the head of which table I at that time presided every week. Mackerell used to call this liquor (brandy and wine) Lord Warwick; and another farmer used always to drink a nob of white sugar in each glass of claret; for, be it known to the reader, that I have repeatedly seen drank at that table, on a market day, by twelve or fourteen farmers, two dozen of old port, and, as a finish, two dozen of claret. Then they would mount their chargers, and off they would go in a body, each of them with two or three hundred pounds in his pocket; and the Lord have mercy upon the poor fellow who interrupted them, or failed to get out of their way upon their road home! No set of men ever carried their heads higher than they did; no set of men were ever more inflated or more purse proud, than were the great body of the farmers during these times of their boundless prosperity. For many years, the average price of wheat was fifteen shillings a Winchester bushel; and as I recollect, and shall never forget, the way in which they carried themselves during these halcyon days of their happy fortune, I should like much to have a peep into Devizes market now, of a Thursday, or into Warminster market of a Saturday, just to see the contrast, just to observe how they look, and how they conduct themselves, now they are selling their best wheat for seven shillings a bushel, which is less than half the former price, while the rent is the same, the taxes the same, and the poor rates are higher, instead of lower! At that period, it only took me a hundred sacks of wheat to pay my rent of Widdington farm. How many sacks must farmer Maslen sell now to pay his rent of the same farm! I should not wonder if three hundred sacks would fall short of paying it this year. At that epoch Mr. Pocock, who rented Enford farm of Mr. Benett, could pay his rent, taxes, and poor rates, for the sum at which he could sell three hundred sacks of wheat. The present tenant, Mr. Fay[26], must, in this present year, 1821, sell one thousand sacks of wheat, to raise the money to pay his rent, taxes, and poor rates. What a falling off for the farmers! Let us hope that they will display somewhat more fortitude and patience, in the days of their adversity, than they did moderation, Christian forbearance, and temper, in their days of prosperity.
On the ninth of February, in this year, peace was signed, at Luneville, between our beloved ally, Austria, and France. On the second of March, the state prisoners were liberated, some of whom had been cruelly confined for many years under the suspension bill; and, on the seventeenth of March, 1801, there was a complete change in the British ministry, by a deep juggle of Mr. Pitt, who resigned. He and his colleagues were succeeded by Mr. Addington, the Speaker of the House of Commons, and his family and friends. On the twenty-first, Sir Ralph Abercromby was killed at the bloody battle of Alexandria, in Egypt; and, on the same day, negociations for peace were entered into, between England and France, by Lord Hawkesbury and M. Otto. On the second of April, the Danish fleet of twenty-eight sail, anchored off Copenhagen, was all taken or destroyed by Lord Nelson. Such was the fury of the battle, and such was the bravery with which the Danes defended themselves, that, after great carnage on both sides, some of the English ships employed on the occasion were nearly silenced by the batteries. Nelson, perceiving this, sent in a flag of truce and offered terms, which the Danish governor accepted. On the nineteenth, the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act, and the Seditious Act, passed by a large majority, in both Houses of Parliament; and immediately afterwards, the ministerial indemnity bill also passed. On the sixth of May, the famous motion was made by Lord Temple, the present Marquis of Buckingham, for a new writ for Old Sarum, to exclude Mr. Horne Tooke from the House of Commons; he having been elected for that rotten borough by Lord Camelford, who was then the proprietor of it. The ground of his being ineligible to sit in the Honourable House was, that he had formerly taken priest's orders. This fact being proved, a law was passed, by which Mr. Horne Tooke was excluded from sitting in future. Lord Camelford was so enraged at this measure, that he threatened to return his black servant as the member; and it is thought he would have actually done so, if it had not been for the earnest entreaties of Lord Grenville, who was a relation of Lord Camelford. On the twenty-second of July, there was a grand review of the volunteer corps in Hyde Park. The number assembled was four thousand eight hundred.
On the first of October, preliminary articles of peace, fifteen in number, were signed, between England and France, by Lord Hawkesbury and M. Otto. On the 10th of October, Old Michaelmas-day, Gen. Lauriston arrived in London, with the ratifications of the Treaty of Peace between Great Britain and France; and the General was drawn through the streets by the populace. There were very violent debates in both Houses of Parliament, against the Preliminaries of Peace. The opposition dissented from calling it a Glorious Peace; but the ministers carried it by very large majorities. During this year, the price of bread and all sorts of provisions had been remarkably high; at one period the quartern loaf sold for one shilling and tenpence halfpenny, and the poor suffered very much throughout the country. The great mass of the people, therefore, hailed the approach of peace with France, in hopes of better times; and every one appeared rejoiced at the cessation of the horrible carnage of war, which had been raging with so much violence. The French ministers were very well satisfied with the Court of St. James's, who had at last formally acknowledged Napoleon as the head of the French Government. Although there were many, amongst the opposition, who denounced the preliminaries as a hollow truce, declaring that if peace was concluded upon so unsatisfactory a basis, and so disadvantageous for Great Britain, the English Government would soon be obliged to violate the treaty, which must lead to fresh hostilities; I, for one, sincerely rejoiced at the return of peace; for I had long been convinced that the war was carried on, not to preserve this country from the horrors of the French revolution; that it had never been waged for any of its avowed purposes; that it had from the beginning been a war against the principles of liberty, established by the revolution in France, which had been attacked by every despotic power in Europe; every one of which powers the French troops had, under the banners of liberty, defeated over and over again. I now looked upon the object of the war with a very different eye from what I had formerly done, and I took a more correct and dispassionate view of its cause, and the intentions of those who first declared hostilities, than what I did when I first enrolled my name amongst the members of the yeomanry cavalry. I had now had time to reflect, the six weeks which I had passed in the neighbourhood of the King's Bench, where I had access to some of the most experienced and intelligent men in the kingdom, had not been spent in vain. The time that a man spends in a prison is not always thrown away, as I have found by experience; and I shall, I trust, be able to prove by and by, to the satisfaction of my numerous readers, that the time I have spent in this Bastile has been the most valuable part of my life. I never before knew what real leisure was. I have enjoyed retirement as much as any man in England; but then I have been always surrounded with my family and friends; I have never, before now, known what it was to have seven or eight hours of a day exclusively to myself. I am locked up in solitary confinement in my dungeon every night, at six o'clock, without my having the power to go to any one, and without any one having the power to come to me, excepting the turnkey, which, thank God! never happens now after locking-up time, though it used to be the case very frequently when I first came here. It is considered a violation of the rules to go near a prisoner, unless upon a great emergency, after he is locked up; but it was not deemed any violation of rules for the turnkey to be constantly coming to my dungeon, and, with an authoritative rattling of the lock of the door, marching in to say that Mr. Bridle, the gaoler, wanted a newspaper, &c. &c. However, that is all at an end, and I am never interrupted. I can sit down with a book or a pen at six o'clock, almost with a certainty of not being interrupted by any living creature, for six, seven, or eight hours at a time. My keepers think this the greatest punishment that can be inflicted upon me; but, on the contrary, I contrive to turn their malice to advantage, and make this the most valuable time of my life. Few men can boast such a luxury. I really enjoy it beyond description. No thanks to my persecutors; and I should not be surprised if, when they read this, which I know they all will, if they were to devise some means to deprive me of this comfort of retirement. I have made them feel, and I will continue to make them feel, that though I expose their petty tyranny, and their little acts of meanness towards me, yet, that my mind is above the reach of their vindictive malice. I understand that some of them are praying for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, that they may have me delivered over to their power; that I may be left to their unrestrained will, to inflict torture upon me in secret—well! and what then? I will laugh at their torture, and make them painfully conscious of their own insignificance, even while they stand over me and inflict it.
When I was in the King's Bench, I had none of those trials. My time passed very pleasantly, and as a great portion of it passed in the best of society, amongst some of the most intelligent men of the age, my time was not thrown away. I was induced to think for myself, and to form my own opinion of public men and public measures, without placing, as I had hitherto done, an implicit reliance upon the opinions of others whom I supposed to have had more experience, and better means of judging of such matters, than I had. I began not only to think but to act, for myself. Among the many facts that I ascertained, not the least important was, "that common fame was a common liar." Mr. Clifford had brought me acquainted with all the tricks, frauds, and deceptions of the public press; and, to convince me that almost the whole of the public press of that day was venal and corrupt, he proved to a demonstration, by some practical experiments, that for a few pounds, any thing, however absurd, might be universally promulgated; particularly if the absurdity was in favour of the ruling powers. For instance, he wrote a paragraph, the greatest hoax that ever was, in praise of the mild and amiable manners, the courtesy, and the humanity of Harry Dundas. Now, said he, to show you how this will be promulgated by the venal press, and how it will be swallowed by John Bull, give me five shillings, and I will put it into the hands of one of the runners for collecting information for the papers, and you shall see it in all the newspapers, both in London and the country. I produced the crown-piece immediately, and out it came, in one of the morning papers, the next day; and as he had predicted, it was copied into all the London and country papers. Thus the humanity and suavity of one of the most unfeeling and impudent Scotchmen that ever crossed the Tweed, was cried up to the skies, and he was eulogised by some of them as the very cream of the milk of human kindness! Then as to public opinion, and the popularity of the leading characters of the day, Mr. Fox, to wit,—Mr. Clifford has a hundred times declared to me, that this great Westminster patriot was never drawn home in his carriage from the hustings in his life, by the populace, without the persons who drew him being regularly hired and paid for it. The price was always thirty shillings, to be divided amongst twenty persons, a shilling dry, and six-pence wet, each person. Clifford assured me this office, of hiring the men to draw their candidates home, was frequently allotted to him, and that it was invariably the same with Mr. Horne Tooke, and Mr. Chamberlain, alias John Wilkes; and that he would undertake to have me or Mr. Waddington drawn through the streets of London, from Whitechapel to Piccadilly, for the same sum. At this time there was in fact very little disinterested patriotism amongst the working classes of the community. They had, for so many years, been made the regular dupes of those who were called the Opposition Members of Parliament, without that faction, denominated the Whigs, having ever done any essential service for the people at large, that public feeling, amongst the labouring classes of mechanics and manufacturers, was at a very low ebb. Nor is this to be at all wondered at, because none, not one, of these great leading public characters ever professed to accomplish any thing that would openly, tangibly, and immediately give any political rights to the people at large.—Whenever the Opposition or Whigs wished to oust their opponents, or harrass them in their places, they used to call public meetings in London, Westminster, and other places; and they never failed to get the multitude to pass any Whig resolutions which they might choose to submit to them; there never being, at that time, any body to oppose or expose their factious and party measures. The people, in London and Westminster, always supported the Opposition against the Ministers; but they had nevertheless, sense enough to discover that there was no direct intention in the Opposition to render any immediate or effectual benefit to the people. Whatever the Whigs promised, it was all remote and in perspective. It cannot, therefore, excite surprise that there should have been none of that enthusiasm which has been so evidently manifested by the people within the last seven years. How many score times have I been drawn by the populace?—and yet it never, in the whole course of my life, cost me or any of my friends, the value of a pot of porter for any thing of the sort. It is easy to account for this alteration in the popular feeling. The change has been brought about in consequence of myself, and those who have acted with me, having openly avowed our determination to endeavour to obtain for the people equal political rights, which will lead to equal justice; to procure for every sane adult a vote, an equal share in the representative branch of the government, in the Commons' House of Parliament; to procure for every man that which the constitution says he is entitled to, and that which the law presumes he has, namely, a share in choosing those Members of the People's, or Commons' House of Parliament; who have a third share in making those laws, by which the lives, the liberties, and the property of the people are regulated and disposed of.
But to return to my narrative—I was now living in the zenith of thoughtlessness, if I may be permitted to call it by so mild an appellation. I had a large income, and I contrived to live nearly, though not quite, up to it, by keeping a great deal of expensive company, and an expensive establishment, both within and without doors. In all this my wife fully participated; but I attribute no blame to her for this. It was my business and my duty to know better, and to act otherwise. There is no excuse for me, as I did know that I was leading what might be fairly and justly called a dissolute life: I do not mean to admit that there was any thing which is generally termed criminal in my conduct, but I must say, if I tell the truth, which I am determined to do at all hazards, that I led a very dissipated existence.
When I look back soberly, and divest myself of fashionable prejudices, I cannot conscientiously call it by any milder name. In fact, though my habits at that period were similar to those of thousands and thousands of fashionable families in the country, who are looked upon as most respectable and correct people, I cannot look back but with regret upon the manner in which I spent this most valuable portion of my time. Hunting, shooting, coursing, or fishing all day, and every day; and then at night, instead of passing it with my family and children in the calm, serene, delightful joys of a domestic and rational fireside, I had always a large party at home, or made one amongst the number at a friend's house. Seldom were we in bed till two or three o'clock in the morning. The next day brought sporting, and the next night a ball, or a card party, or a drinking party; and thus I was hurried from one scene of dissipation to another, without ever allowing myself time scarcely to look round, seldom to look back, and never seriously to reflect. It was with me even in dissipation, as it was in every thing else that I engaged in, that I was enthusiastic. In this record of my errors and failings, the reader must therefore prepare himself to hear, at any rate, of some thumping faults; and although I do not deserve, and do not expect, to escape the deep censure of some, yet I rely upon the liberal indulgence of the more virtuous portion of the community, who know that it is the lot of man to err, but that it is godlike to make allowances for human infirmities, and to forgive them. And, after relating all my errors, I shall boldly say, in the language of our Saviour, "Let him that is without fault cast the first stone."
In the midst of this life of thoughtless gaiety and pleasure, I was always greatly attached to female society, and I gave the preference to those amusements where females were of the party, such as dancing, music, and those card parties where they could join. In consequence of this, I frequently escaped those Bacchanalian carousals to which many of my intimate friends and companions were strongly addicted. Not that I mean to pretend, that, when I made one of those parties, I ever flinched. No; I took my bottle as freely as any of them; but, thanks to a good constitution, never to excess, or rather never so as to become inebriated. Dancing I enjoyed, and participated in to excess. My partiality to female society led me into many extravagancies, and into some difficulties; for I could not pay moderate attention to a lady. My partner, if I admired her, received my enthusiastic attention; for, though I was a married man, yet I suffered no single man to outdo me in polite assiduities to my partner. This sometimes drew down upon me the anger, and upon one occasion the unjust suspicion, of Mrs. Hunt. A young lady, who was upon a visit in our family, had attracted my particular notice. She was handsome, elegant, lively, and fascinating, and I was at first led to pay her more marked respect, because I discovered that it excited the envy of a widow lady of Andover, who came with her on a visit to our house. She, like many of her fellows, because she never possessed any of those personal charms, or acquired accomplishments, that please all who come within the reach of their influence, was uncommonly envious of those who did; and, setting herself up as a sort of duenna to this young lady, undertook to take her to task, for receiving with so much ease and unconcern, my extremely marked attention, which she declared made my wife very unhappy.—This was, at that moment, a barefaced falsehood of the old hag, though she contrived afterwards by her arts, insinuations, and fabrications, to produce that effect in the breast of Mrs. Hunt. The old widow, whom I shall for convenience sake call Mrs. Butler, at first was successful in thwarting, as she said, her young friend's amusement, and in rendering miserable the person whom she affected to pity; but at last, by carrying her calumnies too far, she failed altogether in her diabolical schemes; for, having represented to Mrs. Hunt that she had seen me take a gross and indecent liberty with the young lady, the falsehood struck my wife so forcibly, that the object of it was very visible even to her jaundiced eye, and without ceremony she ordered her carriage, and packed the slanderer off to her own home, very properly forbidding her ever entering her door again.
Though my wife behaved with becoming spirit upon this occasion, by banishing such a fiend in human form from her house, yet the latent sparks of jealousy which had been lodged in her breast were still too visible to be concealed. I was stung by being subject to such unjust suspicions, and, instead of taking the prudent and proper course, conscious of the purity and innocence of my feelings with respect to our young visitor, I continued, nay, redoubled, my zealous devotion. Instead of healing the breach that this fracas had made, I braved it out; and what before was only the polite attention, which I was always in the habit of paying to an interesting female, became now, to all outward appearance, an enthusiastic attachment. Unfortunately, too, the young lady, feeling indignant at the groundless and unjust ideas of Mrs. Hunt, too readily fell into my views, and appeared to be very much pleased with my open and increased assiduities. This added fuel to the fire; it led to the most unpleasant consequences, and laid the foundation for those little bickerings which are too apt to create, at length, a mutual indifference. However, after having braved the affair out for a few days, the young lady returned amongst her friends, who had the sincerity and candour to represent to her the imprudence of her conduct; and this flirtation, which was so innocent in fact, but so injurious in its result, was at once put an end to. I have related this seemingly uninteresting affair, first to shew and admit the folly of which I was guilty, for folly it was, to say the least of it; and next, as a warning to my young readers, to avoid the rock of tampering with and irritating the feelings of those whom they ought to love and cherish. I sincerely believe if a man once excites jealousy in the breast of his wife, whether well founded or not, the virus that it engenders is of such a corroding nature that it is seldom, if ever, totally eradicated. Married persons, therefore, can never be too circumspect in their conduct. Though I never offered the most distant insult, or ever took even the most innocent liberty, with this young lady, yet I admit that I was guilty of an act of gross and wanton imprudence. I was guilty of great injustice to the young lady, and of greater injustice to Mrs. Hunt; and I feel at this moment, that, to induce the reader to forgive this faulty part of my conduct, will require a considerable portion of liberality and good nature, and of that amiable Christian virtue which teaches a person conscious of his own innocence, to look with charity upon the failings of others.