Part 6

The dispersion of the wen is the only real difficulty that I see in settling the affairs of the nation and restoring it to a happy state. But dispersed it _must_ be; and if there be half a million, or more, of people to suffer, the consolation is, that the suffering will be divided into half a million of parts. As if the swelling out of London, naturally produced by the Funding System, were not sufficient; as if the evil were not sufficiently great from the inevitable tendency of the system of loans and funds, our pretty gentlemen must resort to positive institutions to augment the population of the Wen. They found that the increase of the Wen produced an increase of thieves and prostitutes, an increase of all sorts of diseases, an increase of miseries of all sorts; they saw that taxes drawn up to one point produced these effects; they must have a "_penitentiary_," for instance, to check the evil, and that they must needs have in the Wen! So that here were a million of pounds, drawn up in taxes, employed not only to keep the thieves and prostitutes still in the _Wen_, but to bring up to the Wen workmen to build the penitentiary, who and whose families, amounting, perhaps, to thousands, make an addition to the cause of that crime and misery, to check which is the object of the Penitentiary! People would follow, they must follow, the million of money. However, this is of a piece with all the rest of their goings on. They and their predecessors, Ministers and _House_, have been collecting together all the materials for a dreadful explosion; and if the explosion be not dreadful, other heads must point out the means of prevention.

_Wednesday, 5 Dec._

The land on quitting Chatham is chalk at bottom; but before you reach Sittingbourne there is a vein of gravel and sand under, but a great depth of loam above. About Sittingbourne the chalk bottom comes again, and continues on to this place, where the land appears to me to be as good as it can possibly be. Mr. WILLIAM WALLER, at whose house I am, has grown, this year, Mangel-Wurzel, the roots of which weigh, I think, on an average, twelve pounds, and in rows, too, at only about thirty inches distant from each other. In short, as far as _soil_ goes, it is impossible to see a finer country than this. You frequently see a field of fifty acres, level as a die, clean as a garden and as rich. Mr. _Birkbeck_ need not have crossed the Atlantic, and Alleghany into the bargain, to look for land _too rich to bear wheat_; for here is a plenty of it. In short, this is a country of hop-gardens, cherry, apple, pear and filbert orchards, and quick-set hedges. But, alas! what, in point of _beauty_, is a country without woods and lofty trees! And here there are very few indeed. I am now sitting in a room, from the window of which I look, _first_, over a large and level field of rich land, in which the drilled wheat is finely come up, and which is surrounded by clipped quickset hedges with a row of apple trees running by the sides of them; _next_, over a long succession of rich meadows, which are here called marshes, the shortest grass upon which will fatten sheep or oxen; _next_, over a little branch of the salt water which runs up to Faversham; _beyond that_, on the Isle of Shepry (or Shepway), which rises a little into a sort of ridge that runs along it; rich fields, pastures and orchards lie all around me; and yet, I declare, that I a million times to one prefer, as a spot to _live on_, the heaths, the miry coppices, the wild woods and the forests of Sussex and Hampshire.

_Thursday, 6 Dec._

"Agricultural distress" is the great topic of general conversation. The _Webb Hallites_ seem to prevail here. The fact is, farmers in general read nothing but the newspapers; these, in the Wen, are under the control of the Corruption of one or the other of the factions; and in the country, nine times out of ten, under the control of the parsons and landlords, who are the magistrates, as they are pompously called, that is to say, Justices of the Peace. From such vehicles what are farmers to learn? They are, in general, thoughtful and sensible men; but their natural good sense is perverted by these publications, had it not been for which we never should have seen "_a sudden transition from war to peace_" lasting seven years, and more _sudden_ in its destructive effects at last than at first. _Sir Edward Knatchbull_ and _Mr. Honeywood_ are the members of the "Collective Wisdom" for this county. The former was, till of late, a _Tax-Collector_. I hear that he is a great advocate for _corn-bills_! I suppose he does not wish to let people who have _leases_ see the bottom of the evil. He may get his rents for this year; but it will be his last year, if the interest of the Debt be not very greatly reduced. Some people here think that corn is _smuggled in_ even now! Perhaps it is, _upon the whole_, best that the delusion should continue for a year longer; as that would tend to make the destruction of the system more sure, or, at least, make the cure more radical.

_Friday, 7 Dec._

I went through _Faversham_. A very pretty little town, and just ten minutes' walk from the market-place up to the Dover turnpike-road. Here are the _powder-affairs_ that Mr. HUME so well exposed. An immensity of buildings and expensive things. Why are not these premises let or sold? However, this will never be done until there be a _reformed Parliament_. Pretty little VAN, that beauty of all beauties; that orator of all orators; that saint of all saints; that financier of all financiers, said that if Mr. HUME were to pare down the expenses of government to _his_ wish, there would be others "the Hunts, Cobbetts, and Carliles, who would still want the expense to be less." I do not know _how low_ Mr. Hume would wish to go; but for myself I say that if I ever have the power to do it, I will reduce the expenditure, and that in quick time too, down to what it was in the reign of Queen Anne; that is to say, to less than is now paid to tax-gatherers for their labour in collecting the taxes; and, monstrous as VAN may think the idea, I do not regard it as impossible that I may have such power; which I would certainly not employ to do an act of _injustice_ to any human being, and would, at the same time, maintain the throne in more real splendour than that in which it is now maintained. But I would have nothing to do with any VANS, except as door-keepers or porters.

_Saturday, 8 Dec._

Came home very much pleased with my visit to Mr. WALKER, in whose house I saw no drinking of wine, spirits, or even beer; where all, even to the little children, were up by candle-light in the morning, and where the most perfect sobriety was accompanied by constant cheerfulness. _Kent_ is in a deplorable way. The farmers are skilful and intelligent, generally speaking. But there is infinite _corruption_ in Kent, owing

## partly to the swarms of West Indians, Nabobs, Commissioners, and others

of nearly the same description, that have selected it for the place of their residence; but owing still more to the immense sums of public money that have, during the last thirty years, been expended in it. And when one thinks of these, the conduct of the people of Dover, Canterbury, and other places, in the case of the ever-lamented Queen, does them everlasting honour. The _fruit_ in Kent is more _select_ than in Herefordshire, where it is raised for _cyder_, while, in Kent, it is raised for sale in its fruit state, a great deal being sent to the _Wen_, and a great deal sent to the North of England and to Scotland. The orchards are beautiful indeed. Kept in the neatest order, and, indeed, all belonging to them excels anything of the kind to be seen in Normandy; and as to apples, I never saw any so good in France as those of Kent. This county, so blessed by Providence, has been cursed by the System in a peculiar degree. It has been the _receiver_ of immense sums, raised on the other counties. This has puffed its _rents_ to an unnatural height; and now that the drain of other counties is stopped, it feels like a pampered pony turned out in winter to live upon a common. It is in an extremely "unsatisfactory state," and has certainly a greater mass of suffering to endure than any other part of the kingdom, the _Wens_ only excepted. Sir EDWARD KNATCHBULL, who is a child of the System, does appear to see no more of the cause of these sufferings than if he were a baby. How should he? Not very bright by nature; never listening but to one side of the question; being a man who wants high rents to be paid him; not gifted with much light, and that little having to strive against prejudice, false shame, and self interest, what wonder is there that he should not see things in their true light?

NORFOLK AND SUFFOLK JOURNAL.

_Bergh-Apton, near Norwich, Monday, 10 Dec. 1821._

From the _Wen_ to Norwich, from which I am now distant seven miles, there is nothing in Essex, Suffolk, or this county, that can be called a _hill_. Essex, when you get beyond the immediate influence of the gorgings and disgorgings of the Wen; that is to say, beyond the demand for crude vegetables and repayment in manure, is by no means a fertile county. There appears generally to be a bottom of _clay_; not _soft chalk_, which they persist in calling clay in Norfolk. I wish I had one of these Norfolk men in a coppice in Hampshire or Sussex, and I would show him what _clay_ is. Clay is what pots and pans and jugs and tiles are made of; and not soft, whitish stuff that crumbles to pieces in the sun, instead of baking as hard as a stone, and which, in dry weather, is to be broken to pieces by nothing short of a sledge-hammer. The narrow ridges on which the wheat is sown; the water furrows; the water standing in the dips of the pastures; the rusty iron-like colour of the water coming out of some of the banks; the deep ditches; the rusty look of the pastures--all show, that here is a bottom of clay. Yet there is gravel too; for the oaks do not grow well. It was not till I got nearly to SUDBURY that I saw much change for the better. Here the bottom of chalk, the soft dirty-looking chalk that the Norfolk people call clay, begins to be the bottom, and this, with very little exception (as far as I have been) is the bottom of all the lands of these two fine counties of Suffolk and Norfolk.--SUDBURY has some fine meadows near it on the sides of the river Stour. The land all along to Bury Saint Edmund's is very fine; but no trees worth looking at. _Bury_, formerly the seat of an Abbot, the last of whom was, I think, hanged, or somehow put to death, by that matchless tyrant, Henry VIII., is a very pretty place; extremely clean and neat; no ragged or dirty people to be seen, and women (_young_ ones I mean) very pretty and very neatly dressed.--On this side of Bury, a considerable distance lower, I saw a field of _Rape_, transplanted very thick, for, I suppose, sheep feed in the spring. The farming all along to Norwich is very good. The land clean, and everything done in a masterly manner.

_Tuesday, 11 Dec._

Mr. SAMUEL CLARKE, my host, has about 30 acres of _Swedes_ in rows. Some at 4 feet distances, some at 30 inches; and about 4 acres of the 4-feet Swedes were transplanted. I have seen thousands of acres of Swedes in these counties, and here are the largest crops that I have seen. The widest rows are decidedly the largest crops here; and, the _transplanted_, though under disadvantageous circumstances, amongst the best of the best. The wide rows amount to at least 20 tons to the acre, exclusive of the greens taken off two months ago, which weighed 5 tons to the acre. Then, there is the inter tillage, so beneficial to the land, and the small quantity of manure required in the broad rows, compared to what is required when the seed is drilled or sown upon the level. Mr. NICHOLLS, a neighbour of Mr. CLARKE, has a part of a field transplanted on _seven turn ridges_, put in when in the other part of the field, drilled, the plants were a fortnight old. He has a much larger crop in the transplanted than in the drilled part. But, if it had been a _fly-year_, he might have had _none_ in the drilled part, while, in all probability, the crop in the transplanted part would have been better than it now is, seeing that a _wet_ summer, though favourable to the hitting of the Swedes, is by no means favourable to their attaining a great size of bulb. This is the case this year with all turnips. A great deal of leaf and neck, but not bulbs in proportion. The advantages of transplanting are, _first_, you make sure of a crop in spite of fly; and, _second_, you have six weeks or two months longer to prepare your ground. And the advantages of wide rows are, _first_, that you want only about half the quantity of manure; and, _second_, that you _plough_ the ground two or three times during the summer.

_Grove, near Holt, Thursday, 13th Dec._

Came to the Grove (Mr. Withers's), near Holt, along with Mr. Clarke. Through _Norwich_ to _Aylsham_ and then to _Holt_. On our road we passed the house of the late _Lord Suffield_, who married Castlereagh's wife's sister, who is a daughter of the late Earl of Buckinghamshire, who had for so many years that thumping sinecure of eleven thousand a year in Ireland, and who was the son of a man that, under the name of Mr. Hobart, cut such a figure in supporting Lord North and afterwards Pitt, and was made a peer under the auspices of the latter of these two heaven-born Ministers. This house, which is a very ancient one, was, they say, the birth-place of Ann de Boleyne, the mother of Queen Elizabeth. Not much matter; for she married the king while his real wife was alive. I could have excused her, if there had been no marrying in the case; but hypocrisy, always bad, becomes detestable when it resorts to religious ceremony as its mask. She, no more than Cranmer, seems, to her last moments, to have remembered her sins against her lawful queen. Fox's "_Book of Martyrs_," that ought to be called "the _Book of Liars_," says that Cranmer, the recanter and re-recanter, held out his offending hand in the flames, and cried out "that hand, that hand!" If he had cried out _Catherine! Catherine!_ I should have thought better of him; but it is clear that the whole story is a lie, invented by the protestants, and particularly by the sectarians, to white-wash the character of this perfidious hypocrite and double apostate, who, if bigotry had something to do in bringing him to the stake, certainly deserved his fate, if any offences committed by man can deserve so horrible a punishment.--The present LORD SUFFIELD is that Mr. EDWARD HARBORD, whose father-in-law left him 500_l._ to buy a seat in Parliament, and who refused to carry an address to the late beloved and lamented Queen, because Major Cartwright and myself were chosen to accompany him! Never mind, my Lord; you will grow less fastidious! They say, however, that he is really good to his tenants, and has told them, that he will take anything that they can give. There is some sense in this! He is a great Bible Man; and it is strange that he cannot see, that things are out of order, when _his_ interference in this way can be at all _necessary_, while there is a Church that receives a tenth part of the produce of the earth.--There are some oak woods here, but very poor. Not like those, not near like the worst of those, in Hampshire and Herefordshire. All this eastern coast seems very unpropitious to trees of all sorts.--We passed through the estate of a Mr. Marsin, whose house is near the road, a very poor spot, and the first really poor ground I have seen in Norfolk. A nasty spewy black gravel on the top of a sour clay. It is worse than the heaths between Godalming and Liphook; for, while it is too poor to grow anything but heath, it is too cold to give you the chirping of the grasshopper in summer. However, Mr. Marsin has been too wise to enclose this wretched land, which is just like that which Lord Caernarvon has enclosed in the parishes of Highclere, and Burghclere, and which, for tillage, really is not worth a single farthing an acre.--Holt is a little, old-fashioned, substantially-built market-town. The land just about it, or, at least, towards the east, is poor, and has been lately enclosed.

_Friday, 14th Dec._

Went to see the estate of Mr. Hardy at Leveringsett, a hamlet about two miles from Holt. This is the first time that I have seen a _valley_ in this part of England. From Holt you look, to the distance of seven or eight miles, over a very fine valley, leaving a great deal of inferior hill and dell within its boundaries. At the bottom of this general valley, Mr. Hardy has a very beautiful estate of about four hundred acres. His house is at one end of it near the high road, where he has a malt-house and a brewery, the neat and ingenious manner of managing which I would detail if my total unacquaintance with machinery did not disqualify me for the task. His estate forms a valley of itself, somewhat longer than broad. The tops, and the sides of the tops of the hills round it, and also several little hillocks in the valley itself, are judiciously planted with trees of various sorts, leaving good wide roads, so that it is easy to ride round them in a carriage. The fields, the fences, the yards and stacks, the buildings, the cattle, all showed the greatest judgment and industry. There was really nothing that the most critical observer could say was _out of order_. However, the forest trees do not grow well here. The oaks are mere scrubs, as they are about Brentwood in Essex, and in some parts of Cornwall; and, for some unaccountable reason, people seldom plant the _ash_, which no wind will _shave_, as it does the oak.

_Saturday, 15 Dec._

Spent the evening amongst the Farmers, at their Market Room at Holt; and very much pleased at them I was. We talked over the _cause of the low prices_, and I, as I have done everywhere, endeavoured to convince them, that prices must fall a great deal lower yet; and that no man, who wishes not to be ruined, ought to keep or take a farm, unless on a calculation of best wheat at 4_s._ a bushel and a best Southdown ewe at 15_s._ or even 12_s._ They heard me patiently, and, I believe, were well convinced of the truth of what I said. I told them of the correctness of the predictions of their great countryman, Mr. PAINE, and observed, how much better it would have been, to take his advice, than to burn him in effigy. I endeavoured (but in such a case all human powers must fail!) to describe to them the sort and size of the talents of the Stern-path-of-duty man, of the great hole-digger, of the jester, of the Oxford scholar, of the loan-jobber (who had just made an enormous grasp), of the Oracle, and so on. Here, as everywhere else, I hear every creature speak loudly in praise of _Mr. Coke_. It is well known to my readers, that I think nothing of him as a _public_ man; that I think even his good qualities an injury to his country, because they serve the knaves whom he is duped by to dupe the people more effectually; but, it would be base in me not to say, that I hear, from men of all parties, and sensible men too, expressions made use of towards him that affectionate children use towards the best of parents. I have not met with a single exception.

_Bergh Apton, Sunday, 16 Dec._

Came from Holt through Saxthorpe and Cawston. At the former village were on one end of a decent white house, these words, "_Queen Caroline; for her Britons mourn_," and a crown over all in black. I need not have looked to see: I might have been sure that the owner of the house was a _shoe-maker_, a trade which numbers more men of sense and of public spirit than any other in the kingdom.--At Cawston we stopped at a public house, the keeper of which had taken and read the Register for years. I shall not attempt to describe the pleasure I felt at the hearty welcome given us by Mr. Pern and his wife and by a young miller of the village, who, having learnt at Holt that we were to return that way, had come to meet us, the house being on the side of the great road, from which the village is at some distance. This is the birth-place of the famous _Botley Parson_, all the history of whom we now learned, and, if we could have gone to the village, they were prepared to _ring the bells_, and show us the old woman who nursed the _Botley Parson_! These Norfolk _baws_ never do things by halves. We came away, very much pleased with our reception at Cawston, and with a promise, on my part, that, if I visited the county again, I would write a Register there; a promise which I shall certainly keep.

_Great Yarmouth, Friday (morning), 21st Dec._