Statement of Facts, on the Injurious Treatment of J. Elsee, Esq. / Late Tenant of a Considerable Portion of Havering Park Farm, in the Forest of Hainault, in Certain Transactions with the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, and Their Agents; To Which Are Added Notes in Illustration of the Gross Abuses of the Forest Laws.

by John Elsee

Footnotes.

[8] A striking instance occurs, on the very spot where Mr. Elsee has been insulted and plundered, of the extremity to which outrage can be carried, when the poor only are concerned. About the 1st of September, 1811, Mr. Elsee expected a few friends at his house on a shooting party, and had ordered a gun to be brought from Havering Park farm to his house at Chigwell Row. One of his servants was taking the gun, in pursuance of this order, in company with another who was driving home a team of horses. While these men were thus proceeding in their lawful business, on the public road, and in the light of day, they were shot at, without any offence, without any warning, and without seeing the lurking assassins, who thought fit to sport in this way with human life, and who turned out to be John Laver, his majesty’s woodward, and John Giffin, well known on the forest as Black Jack, an under-keeper. The servant who was driving the horses was dreadfully wounded; his hand, thigh, and leg were torn by slugs and dog-shot, many of which had lodged in the flesh; and the cowardly keepers, thinking this poor fellow had suffered enough, permitted him to crawl home; but they seized the man who carried the gun, and carried him a prisoner to Hog-hill House. Mr. Elsee, after directing the man’s wounds to be dressed, procured the liberation of his other servant, and obtained a warrant against the two keepers, who were brought before the Rev. Mr. Layton for examination. The fellows admitted the servants were walking quietly along the road; but they said they had heard a gun fired about that part, an hour and a half before; a most admirable reason, it must be confessed, for shooting his majesty’s subjects in the high road! Laver admitted also that he had never seen the men before; and when the magistrate expressed some surprize at his conduct, his majesty’s woodward, who was the person who had fired the gun, coolly answered, that he knew very well when to shoot!—Laver was committed for further examination, and as there was no proof that Giffin was aiding and abetting in the murderous transaction, he was discharged. So far all was in the ordinary course of business; but the next examination was attended by Admiral Harvey, M.P. for the county, and one of the Verdurers of the Forest, who insisted upon it that the offence was bailable; and although this was pointedly denied by the Rev. Mr. Layton, his brother magistrate, the superior authority of that sapient member of the legislature prevailed, and the blood-thirsty woodward was actually bailed, and bailed too in the paltry sum of fifty pounds, to appear and take his trial for a capital offence. Here began the mockery of the law, and the conclusion was worthy of such a beginning. At the next assizes a bill was preferred before the grand jury, upon Lord Ellenborough’s act, and Admiral Harvey, being a member of the grand jury, undertook the disposal of the affair. He began by asking the man who had been wounded, and his fellow-servant, whether they had a hundred a year? The poor fellows were day labourers, and of course were obliged to answer the impartial and enlightened questioner in the negative. Upon this, the bill was thrown out, as if cutting and maiming day labourers was no sort of offence in this land of freedom; and leaving it to be inferred, by the admiring inhabitants of Hainault Forest, that persons not possessed of a hundred a year, were as fair game to the king’s woodward, and the keepers, as the vermin of the forest itself.

[15] By the exertions of Mr. Elsee, five true bills were found against the king’s woodward for stealing timber. He was convicted upon the first, and not tried upon the others. But instead of being transported, a fate which might have waited an honester man, he made interest somewhere to obtain a pardon! Nor was this all; for, in a short time he was restored to his place on the forest, as if for the express purpose of affording every facility to the progress of timber stealing. As might be expected, in the following year, as Mr. Elsee and the Deputy Surveyor were riding in the forest, they found one Wilson, who had been a witness against the convicted woodward, Cowderoy, and several others, cutting down oak pollards. In this ride alone, no less than 48 stubs, or stools, of oaks were seen, that had been recently cut down without any authority; and the Deputy Surveyor told Wilson, the way they went on outstripped all their former proceedings in this respect. Yet no notice was taken or all this; and when another person, named Smith, some time after was detected in cutting down young spear oaks, in the month of October, carting them home before daylight, and hiding them on his premises, the proper authorities were in some way or other prevented from interfering; and the law expences which were entailed upon Mr. Elsee, for his exertions to prevent such depredations, amounted to more than a thousand pounds.

[19] In the printed conditions for the letting of these farms, a very extraordinary difference was observable between that in the possession of Mr. Elsee, and the rest. This difference consisted in a stipulation respecting a certain proportion of dung to be brought in return for the hay and straw carried off the farm; a stipulation not extended to two other farms, let at the same time, and to the same person; and this stipulation had been made without consulting Mr. Elsee, although he was then merely a tenant at will, holding the land to suit the convenience of the crown, which had no claim on him for any thing beyond the rent; and as he had paid for the dung on his entrance upon the farm, it was as much his property as the hay and corn, and he had an undoubted right to take away or sell all crops, dung, &c. up to the period of his leaving the farm; nor could the crown have interfered in any way to prevent his disposing as he pleased of his own property; but Mr. Driver, under promise of some advantages and accommodations, which were never realized, induced him to sign an agreement which left him at the mercy of Mr. Driver, and the consequences were indeed disastrous to the interests of Mr. Elsee.

[23] This seems extraordinary language for the lips of an agent of a public board; and particularly after his letter, as given in page [18], where he states that he was commissioned to receive offers for the letting of the farms, which he after pretended to say had not been surrendered. Whether this was merely a contrivance to get Mr. Elsee into the dilemma in which he afterwards found himself so fatally involved, we must leave our readers to determine for themselves.

[25] The condition proposed was that two load of rotten spit dung was to be brought on to the farm for every load of hay carried off, and one load of spit dung for every load of straw carried off the farm. With this condition, as we have shewn, Mr. Elsee had no right to comply; but when he had been deceived into the signature of the agreement, he became bound for its performance, and was prepared to carry this condition into effect. He was, however, prevented from doing this, as we shall shew hereafter, by the extraordinary conduct of the arbitrators, and their umpire, and was then compelled to pay more for the dung required under this condition than the hay and straw sold for, in addition to the cost of an exchequer process. This is being a tenant of crown land to some purpose.

[26] This fact would almost afford conclusive evidence in a court of equity, that the condition about the dung was one of the meshes of the net intentionally framed to prevent Mr. Elsee from escaping the “ruin,” that had been threatened. And such a conclusion would be further strengthened, by the total disregard of every consideration and stipulation in behalf of Mr. Elsee’s interests. We shall hereafter shew the difference observed when Mr. Elsee had to pay, and when he had to receive; and if the reader be a tenant of crown lands, he may make some use of the lesson afforded him, in similar cases.

[27] This purpose, it might be harsh to guess was a determination to do any wanton injury to Mr. Elsee; but in the face of the proof that no legal proceedings were necessary to obtain possession of the farm, and that they were persisted in when the crown could derive no benefit from them, as if with no other object than to compel Mr. Elsee to sign the agreement, of which every advantage was ultimately taken against him, while he was obstinately denied, or cunningly deprived of the benefit of the trifling stipulations in his favor, there is a very strong inference that fair play was not intended, and that the power was sought, with a wish to abuse it.

[28] Private calamity weighs but little with public men; and with some persons it may perhaps appear unimportant to state, that the anxiety and enormous expences attendant on the legal proceedings into which Mr. Elsee was plunged by the natural desire of protecting his property as far as he could, preyed so much upon the spirits of Mrs. Elsee, that there is great reason to apprehend they accelerated, and perhaps occasioned the disease which carried her to the grave.

[29] The difficulty of contending with the crown is proverbial, and the reason is obvious. The crown has always a host of legal assistants arrayed on its side, and those who in any way contest the claims set up by its agents on its behalf, are looked upon rather as culprits by certain persons, than as parties in a cause. Because the crown has no interest in harrassing the subject, it is too hastily concluded that its agents are never influenced by improper, personal, and vindictive motives; and many a man has been ruined at the suit of the crown, for no other offence than that of not bowing low enough, or bidding high enough, to its servants. We have heard of an instance, in which a servant of the crown became the bitter enemy of one of its tenants, after having very freely partaken of his hospitality, because the lady of the official gentleman thought herself not treated with all the respect to which she imagined herself to be entitled, by the female portion of the family of the crown tenant, although it is possible that the lady had received as much as she could fairly claim, if all the truth were stated. Now an offence of this sort, committed hard upon the expiration of a lease, against one who had the ear of the great men, might produce a great many difficulties about a renewal that would otherwise have been the easiest matter in the world. If nothing could be said against the individual as a tenant, it might be hinted that his politics were not of the right orthodox description, and that his rent was a great deal too low for a friend of liberal opinions. And if any dispute should arise, out of which a law-suit could be picked, no better revenge could be devised, if every one were as unfortunate at law as Mr. Elsee.