After the dinner was over, the room became fuller and fuller; guests came in from the other inns, where they had been dining, till, at last, the room became as full as possible in every part, the door being opened, the door-way blocked up, and the stairs, leading to the room, crammed from bottom to top. In this state of things, Mr. Knowles, who was our chairman, gave my health, which, of course, was followed by a speech; and, as the reader will readily suppose, to have an opportunity of making a speech was the main motive for my going to dine at an inn, at any hour, and especially at seven o’clock at night. In this speech, I, after descanting on the present devastating ruin, and on those successive acts of the Ministers and the Parliament by which such ruin had been produced; after remarking on the shuffling, the tricks, the contrivances from 1797 up to last March, I proceeded to offer to the company my reasons for believing, that no attempt would be made to relieve the farmers and others, by putting out the paper-money again, as in 1822, or by a bank-restriction. Just as I was stating these my reasons, on a prospective matter of such deep interest to my hearers, amongst whom were land-owners, land-renters, cattle and sheep dealers, hop and cheese producers and merchants, and even one, two or more, country bankers; just as I was engaged in stating my reasons for my opinion on a matter of such vital importance to the parties present, who were all listening to me with the greatest attention; just at this time, a noise was heard, and a sort of row was taking place in the passage, the cause of which was, upon inquiry, found to be no less a personage than our landlord, our host Sutton, who, it appeared, finding that my speech-making had cut off, or, at least, suspended, all intercourse between the dining, now become a drinking, room and the bar; who, finding that I had been the cause of a great “restriction in the exchange” of our money for his “neat” “genuine” commodities downstairs, and being, apparently, an ardent admirer of the “liberal” system of “free trade”; who, finding, in short, or, rather, supposing, that, if my tongue were not stopped from running, his taps would be, had, though an old man, fought, or, at least, forced his way up the thronged stairs and through the passage and door-way, into the room, and was (with what breath the struggle had left him) beginning to bawl out to me, when some one called to him, and told him that he was causing an interruption, to which he answered, that that was what he had come to do! And then he went on to say, in so many words, that my speech injured his sale of liquor!
The disgust and abhorrence, which such conduct could not fail to excite, produced, at first, a desire to quit the room and the house, and even a proposition to that effect. But, after a minute or so, to reflect, the company resolved not to quit the room but to turn him out of it who had caused the interruption; and the old fellow, finding himself tackled, saved the labour of shoving, or kicking, him out of the room, by retreating out of the door-way with all the activity of which he was master. After this I proceeded with my speech-making; and, this being ended, the great business of the evening, namely, drinking, smoking, and singing, was about to be proceeded in by a company, who had just closed an arduous and anxious week, who had before them a Sunday morning to sleep in, and whose wives were, for the far greater part, at a convenient distance. An assemblage of circumstances more auspicious to “free trade” in the “neat” and “genuine,” has seldom occurred! But, now behold, the old fustian-jacketed fellow, whose head was, I think, powdered, took it into that head not only to lay “restrictions” upon trade, but to impose an absolute embargo; cut off entirely all supplies whatever from his bar to the room, as long as I remained in that room. A message to this effect, from the old fustian man, having been, through the waiter, communicated to Mr. Knowles, and he having communicated it to the company, I addressed the company in nearly these words: “Gentlemen, born and bred, as you know I was, on the borders of this county, and fond, as I am of bacon, Hampshire hogs have, with me, always been objects of admiration rather than of contempt; but that which has just happened here, induces me to observe, that this feeling of mine has been confined to hogs of four legs. For my part, I like your company too well to quit it. I have paid this fellow six shillings for the wing of a fowl, a bit of bread, and a pint of small beer. I have a right to sit here; I want no drink, and those who do, being refused it here, have a right to send to other houses for it, and to drink it here.”
However, Mammon soon got the upper hand downstairs, all the fondness for “free trade” returned, and up came the old fustian-jacketed fellow, bringing pipes, tobacco, wine, grog, sling, and seeming to be as pleased as if he had just sprung a mine of gold! Nay, he, soon after this, came into the room with two gentlemen, who had come to him to ask where I was. He actually came up to me, making me a bow, and, telling me that those gentlemen wished to be introduced to me, he, with a fawning look, laid his hand upon my knee! “Take away your paw,” said I, and, shaking the gentlemen by the hand, I said, “I am happy to see you, gentlemen, even though introduced by this fellow.” Things now proceeded without interruption; songs, toasts, and speeches filled up the time, until half-past two o’clock this morning, though in the house of a landlord who receives the sacrament, but who, from his manifestly ardent attachment to the “liberal principles” of “free trade,” would, I have no doubt, have suffered us, if we could have found money and throats and stomachs, to sit and sing and talk and drink until two o’clock of a Sunday afternoon instead of two o’clock of a Sunday morning. It was not politics; it was not personal dislike to me; for the fellow knew nothing of me. It was, as I told the company, just this: he looked upon their bodies as so many gutters to drain off the contents of his taps, and upon their purses as so many small heaps from which to take the means of augmenting his great one; and, finding that I had been, no matter how, the cause of suspending this work of “reciprocity,” he wanted, and no matter how, to restore the reciprocal system to motion. All that I have to add is this: that the next time this old sharp-looking fellow gets six shillings from me, for a dinner, he shall, if he choose, cook me, in any manner that he likes, and season me with hand so unsparing as to produce in the feeders thirst unquenchable.
To-morrow morning we set off for the New Forest; and, indeed, we have lounged about here long enough. But, as some apology, I have to state, that, while I have been in a sort of waiting upon this great fair, where one hears, sees, and learns so much, I have been writing No. IV. of the “Poor Man’s Friend,” which, price twopence, is published once a month.
I see, in the London newspapers, accounts of dispatches from Canning! I thought that he went solely “on a party of pleasure!” So, the “dispatches” come to tell the King how the pleasure party gets on! No: what he is gone to Paris for is to endeavour to prevent the “Holy Allies” from doing anything which shall sink the English Government in the eyes of the world, and thereby favour the radicals, who are enemies of all “regular Government,” and whose success in England would revive republicanism in France. This is my opinion. The subject, if I be right in my opinion, was too ticklish to be committed to paper: Granville Levison Gower (for that is the man that is now Lord Granville) was, perhaps, not thought quite a match for the French as a talker; and, therefore, the Captain of Eton, who, in 1817, said, that the “ever living luminary of British prosperity was only hidden behind a cloud;” and who, in 1819, said, that “Peel’s Bill had set the currency question at rest for ever;” therefore the profound Captain is gone over to see what he can do.
But, Captain, a word in your ear: we do not care for the Bourbons any more than we do for you! My real opinion is, that there is nothing that can put England to rights, that will not shake the Bourbon Government. This is my opinion; but I defy the Bourbons to save, or to assist in saving, the present system in England, unless they and their friends will subscribe and pay off your debt for you, Captain of toad-eating and nonsensical and shoe-licking Eton! Let them pay off your debt for you, Captain; let the Bourbons and their allies do that; or they cannot save you; no, nor can they help you, even in the smallest degree.
Rumsey (Hampshire),
Monday Noon, 16th Oct.
Like a very great fool, I, out of senseless complaisance, waited, this morning, to breakfast with the friends, at whose house we slept last night, at Andover. We thus lost two hours of dry weather, and have been justly punished by about an hour’s ride in the rain. I settled on Lyndhurst as the place to lodge at to-night; so we are here, feeding our horses, drying our clothes, and writing the account of our journey. We came, as much as possible, all the way through the villages, and, almost all the way, avoided the turnpike-roads. From Andover to Stockbridge (about seven or eight miles) is, for the greatest part, an open corn and sheep country, a considerable portion of the land being downs. The wheat and rye and vetch and sainfoin fields look beautiful here; and, during the whole of the way from Andover to Rumsey, the early turnips of both kinds are not bad, and the stubble turnips very promising. The downs are green as meadows usually are in April. The grass is most abundant in all situations, where grass grows. From Stockbridge to Rumsey we came nearly by the river side, and had to cross the river several times. This, the River Teste, which, as I described, in my Ride of last November, begins at Uphusband, by springs, bubbling up, in March, out of the bed of that deep valley. It is at first a bourn, that is to say, a stream that runs only a part of the year, and is the rest of the year as dry as a road. About 5 miles from this periodical source, it becomes a stream all the year round. After winding about between the chalk hills, for many miles, first in a general direction towards the south-east, and then in a similar direction towards the south-west and south, it is joined by the little stream that rises just above and that passes through the town of Andover. It is, after this, joined by several other little streams, with names; and here, at Rumsey, it is a large and very fine river, famous, all the way down, for trout and eels, and both of the finest quality.
Lyndhurst (New Forest),
Monday Evening, 16th October.
I have just time, before I go to bed, to observe that we arrived here, about 4 o’clock, over about 10 or 11 miles of the best road in the world, having a choice too, for the great part of the way, between these smooth roads and green sward. Just as we came out of Rumsey (or Romsey), and crossed our River Teste once more, we saw to our left, the sort of park, called Broadlands, where poor Charles Smith, who (as mentioned above) was hanged for shooting at (not killing) one Snellgrove, an assistant-gamekeeper of Lord Palmerston, who was then our Secretary at War, and who is in that office, I believe, now, though he is now better known as a Director of the grand Mining Joint-Stock Company, which shows the great industry of this Noble and “Right Honourable person,” and also the great scope and the various nature and tendency of his talents. What would our old fathers of the “dark ages” have said, if they had been told, that their descendants would, at last, become so enlightened as to enable Jews and loan-jobbers to take away noblemen’s estates by mere “watching the turn of the market,” and to cause members, or, at least, one Member, of that “most Honourable, Noble, and Reverend Assembly,” the King’s Privy Council, in which he himself sits: so enlightened, I say, as to cause one of this “most Honourable and Reverend body” to become a Director in a mining speculation? How one pities our poor, “dark-age, bigoted” ancestors, who would, I dare say, have been as ready to hang a man for proposing such a “liberal” system as this, as they would have been to hang him for shooting at (not killing) an assistant game-keeper! Poor old fellows! How much they lost by not living in our enlightened times! I am here close by the Old Purser’s son George Rose’s!