Part 8

"I am decidedly of opinion, Gentlemen, that a Corn Bill of no description, no matter what its principles or provisions, can do either tenant or landlord any good; and I am not less decidedly of opinion, that though prices are now low, they must, all the present train of public measures continuing, be yet lower, and continue lower upon an average of years and of seasons.--As to a Corn Bill; a law to prohibit or check the importation of human food is a perfect novelty in our history, and ought, therefore, independent of the reason, and the recent experience of the case, to be received and entertained with great suspicion. Heretofore, _premiums_ have been given for the exportation, and at other times, for the importation, of corn; but of laws to prevent the importation of human food our ancestors knew nothing. And what says recent experience? When the present Corn Bill was passed, I, then a farmer, unable to get my brother farmers to join me, _petitioned singly_ against this Bill; and I stated to my brother farmers, that such a Bill could do us no good, while it would not fail to excite against us the ill-will of the other classes of the community; a thought by no means pleasant. Thus has it been. The distress of agriculture was considerable in magnitude then; but what is it now? And yet the Bill was passed; that Bill which was to remunerate and protect is still in force; the farmers got what they prayed to have granted them; and their distress, with a short interval of tardy pace, has proceeded rapidly increasing from that day to this. What, in the way of Corn Bill, can you have, Gentlemen, beyond absolute prohibition? And, have you not, since about April, 1819, had absolute prohibition? Since that time no corn has been imported, and then only thirty millions of bushels, which, supposing it all to have been wheat, was a quantity much too insignificant to produce any sensible depression in the price of the immense quantity of corn raised in this kingdom since the last bushel was imported. If your produce had fallen in this manner, if your prices had come down very low, immediately after the importation had taken place, there might have been some colour of reason to impute the fall to the importation; but it so happens, and as if for the express purpose of contradicting the crude notions of Mr. Webb Hall, that your produce has fallen in price at a greater rate, in proportion as time has removed you from the point of importation; and, as to the circumstance, so ostentatiously put forward by Mr. Hall and others, that there is still some of the imported corn _unsold_, what does it prove but the converse of what those Gentlemen aim at, that is to say, that the holders _cannot afford_ to sell it at present prices; for, if they could gain but ever so little by the sale, would they keep it wasting and costing money in warehouse? There appears with some persons to be a notion, that the importation of corn is a _new thing_. They seem to forget, that, during the last war, when agriculture was so _prosperous_, the _ports were always open_; that prodigious quantities of corn were imported during the war; that, so far from importation being prohibited, high _premiums_ were given, paid out of the taxes, partly raised upon English farmers, to induce men to import corn. All this seems to be forgotten as much as if it had never taken place; and now the distress of the English farmer is imputed to a cause which was never before an object of his attention, and a desire is expressed to put an end to a branch of commerce which the nation has always freely carried on. I think, Gentlemen, that here are reasons quite sufficient to make any man but Mr. Webb Hall slow to impute the present distress to the importation of corn; but, at any rate, what can you have beyond absolute efficient prohibition? No law, no duty, however high; nothing that the Parliament can do can go beyond this; and this you now have, in effect, as completely as if this were the only country beneath the sky. For these reasons, Gentlemen, (and to state more would be a waste of your time and an affront to your understandings,) I am convinced, that, in the way of Corn Bill, it is impossible for the Parliament to afford you any, even the smallest, portion of relief. As to the other point, Gentlemen, the tendency which the present measures and course of things have to carry prices _lower_, and considerably lower than they now are, and to keep them for a permanency at that low rate, this is a matter worthy of the serious attention of all connected with the land, and particularly of that of the renting farmer. During the _war_ no importations distressed the farmer. It was not till peace came that the cry of distress was heard. But, during the war, there was a boundless issue of paper money. Those issues were instantly narrowed by the peace, the law being, that the Bank should pay in cash six months after the peace should take place. This was the cause of that distress which led to the present Corn Bill. The disease occasioned by the preparations for cash-payments, has been brought to a crisis by Mr. Peel's Bill, which has, in effect, doubled, if not tripled, the real amount of the taxes, and violated all contracts for time; given triple gains to every lender, and placed every borrower in jeopardy.

_Kensington, Friday, 4 Jan. 1822._

Got home from _Battle_. I had no time to see the town, having entered the Inn on Wednesday in the dusk of the evening, having been engaged all day yesterday in the Inn, and having come out of it only to get into the coach this morning. I had not time to go even to see _Battle Abbey_, the seat of the Webster family, now occupied by a man of the name of _Alexander_! Thus they _replace them_! It will take a much shorter time than most people imagine to put out all the ancient families. I should think, that six years will turn out all those who receive nothing out of taxes. The greatness of the estate is no protection to the owner; for, great or little, it will soon yield him _no_ rents; and, when the produce is nothing in either case, the small estate is as good as the large one. Mr. Curteis said, that the _land_ was _immovable_; yes; but the _rents are not_. And, if freeholds cannot be seized for common contract debts, the carcass of the owner may. But, in fact, there will be no rents; and, without these, the ownership is an empty sound. Thus, at last, the burthen will, as I always said it would, fall upon the _land-owner_; and, as the fault of supporting the system has been wholly his, the burthen will fall upon the _right back_. Whether he will now call in the people to help him to shake it off is more than I can say; but, if he do not, I am sure that he must sink under it. And then, will _revolution No. I._ have been accomplished; but far, and very far indeed, will that be from being the _close_ of the drama!--I cannot quit Battle without observing, that the country is very pretty all about it. All hill, or valley. A great deal of wood-land, in which the underwood is generally very fine, though the oaks are not very fine, and a good deal covered with _moss_. This shows, that the clay ends before the _tap_-root of the oak gets as deep as it would go; for, when the clay goes the full depth, the oaks are always fine.--The woods are too large and too near each other for hare-hunting; and, as to coursing it is out of the question here. But it is a fine country for shooting and for harbouring game of all sorts.--It was rainy as I came home; but the woodmen were at work. A great many _hop-poles_ are cut here, which makes the coppices more valuable than in many other parts. The women work in the coppices, shaving the bark of the hop-poles, and, indeed, at various other parts of the business. These poles are shaved to prevent _maggots_ from breeding in the bark and accelerating the destruction of the pole. It is curious that the bark of trees should generate maggots; but it has, as well as the wood, a _sugary_ matter in it. The hickory wood in America sends out from the ends of the logs when these are burning, great quantities of the finest syrup that can be imagined. Accordingly, that wood breeds maggots, or worms as they are usually called, surprisingly. Our _ash_ breeds worms very much. When the tree or pole is cut, the moist matter between the outer bark and the wood putrifies. Thence come the maggots, which soon begin to eat their way into the wood. For this reason the bark is shaved off the hop-poles, as it ought to be off all our timber trees, as soon as cut, especially the ash.--Little boys and girls shave hop-poles and assist in other coppice work very nicely. And it is pleasant work when the weather is dry overhead. The woods, bedded with leaves as they are, are clean and dry underfoot. They are warm too, even in the coldest weather. When the ground is frozen several inches deep in the open fields, it is scarcely frozen at all in a coppice where the underwood is a good plant, and where it is nearly high enough to cut. So that the woodman's is really a pleasant life. We are apt to think that the birds have a hard time of it in winter. But we forget the warmth of the woods, which far exceeds anything to be found in farm yards. When Sidmouth started me from my farm, in 1817, I had just planted my farm yard round with a pretty coppice. But, never mind, Sidmouth and I shall, I dare say, have plenty of time and occasion to talk about that coppice, and many other things, before we die. And, can I, when I think of these things, now, _pity_ those to whom Sidmouth _owed his power_ of starting me!--But let me forget the subject for this time at any rate.--Woodland countries are interesting on many accounts. Not so much on account of their masses of green leaves, as on account of the variety of sights and sounds and incidents that they afford. Even in winter the coppices are beautiful to the eye, while they comfort the mind with the idea of shelter and warmth. In spring they change their hue from day to day during two whole months, which is about the time from the first appearance of the delicate leaves of the birch to the full expansion of those of the ash; and, even before the leaves come at all to intercept the view, what in the vegetable creation is so delightful to behold as the bed of a coppice bespangled with primroses and blue-bells? The opening of the birch leaves is the signal for the pheasant to begin to crow, for the blackbird to whistle, and the thrush to sing; and, just when the oak-buds begin to look reddish, and not a day before, the whole tribe of finches burst forth in songs from every bough, while the lark, imitating them all, carries the joyous sounds to the sky. These are amongst the means which Providence has benignantly appointed to sweeten the toils by which food and raiment are produced; these the English Ploughman could once hear without the sorrowful reflection that he himself was a _pauper_, and that the bounties of nature had, for him, been scattered in vain! And shall he never see an end to this state of things? Shall he never have the due reward of his labour? Shall unsparing taxation never cease to make him a miserable dejected being, a creature famishing in the midst of abundance, fainting, expiring with hunger's feeble moans, surrounded by a carolling creation? O! accursed paper-money! Has hell a torment surpassing the wickedness of thy inventor?

SUSSEX JOURNAL: THROUGH CROYDON, GODSTONE, EAST-GRINSTEAD, AND UCKFIELD, TO LEWES, AND BRIGHTON; RETURNING BY CUCKFIELD, WORTH, AND RED-HILL.

_Lewes, Tuesday, 8 Jan., 1822._

Came here to-day, from home, to see what passes to-morrow at a Meeting to be held here of the Owners and Occupiers of Land in the Rapes of Lewes and Pevensey.--In quitting the great Wen we go through Surrey more than half the way to Lewes. From Saint _George's Fields_, which now are covered with houses, we go, towards Croydon, between rows of houses, nearly half the way, and the whole way is nine miles. There are, erected within these four years, two entire miles of stock-jobbers' houses on this one road, and the work goes on with accelerated force! To be sure; for, the taxes being, in fact, tripled by Peel's Bill, the fundlords increase in riches; and their accommodations increase of course. What an at once horrible and ridiculous thing this country would become, if this thing could go on only for a few years! And these rows of new houses, added to the Wen, are proofs of growing prosperity, are they? These make part of the increased capital of the country, do they? But how is this Wen to be _dispersed_? I know not whether it be to be done by knife or by caustic; but, dispersed it must be! And this is the only difficulty, which I do not see the _easy_ means of getting over.--Aye! these are dreadful thoughts! I know they are: but, they ought not to be banished from the mind; for they will _return_, and, at every return, they will be more frightful. The man who cannot coolly look at this matter is unfit for the times that are approaching. Let the interest of the Debt be once well reduced (and that must be sooner or later) and then what is to become of _half a million_ at least of the people congregated in this Wen? Oh! precious "Great Man now no more!" Oh! "Pilot that weathered the Storm!" Oh! "Heaven-born" pupil of Prettyman! Who, but him who can number the sands of the sea, shall number the execrations with which thy memory will be loaded!--From London to Croydon is as ugly a bit of country as any in England. A poor spewy gravel with some clay. Few trees but elms, and those generally stripped up and villanously ugly.--Croydon is a good market-town; but is, by the funds, swelled out into a _Wen_.--Upon quitting Croydon for Godstone, you come to the chalk hills, the juniper shrubs and the yew trees. This is an extension westward of the vein of chalk which I have before noticed (see page 54) between Bromley and Seven-Oaks. To the westward here lie Epsom Downs, which lead on to Merrow Downs and St. Margaret's Hill, then, skipping over Guildford, you come to the Hog's Back, which is still of chalk, and at the west end of which lies Farnham. With the Hog's Back this vein of chalk seems to end; for then the valleys become rich loam, and the hills sand and gravel till you approach the Winchester Downs by the way of Alresford.--Godstone, which is in Surrey also, is a beautiful village, chiefly of one street with a fine large green before it and with a pond in the green. A little way to the right (going from London) lies the vile rotten Borough of _Blechingley_; but, happily for Godstone, out of sight. At and near Godstone the gardens are all very neat, and at the Inn there is a nice garden well stocked with beautiful flowers in the season. I here saw, last summer, some double violets as large as small pinks, and the lady of the house was kind enough to give me some of the roots.--From Godstone you go up a long hill of clay and sand, and then descend into a level country of stiff loam at top, clay at bottom, corn-fields, pastures, broad hedgerows, coppices, and oak woods, which country continues till you quit Surrey about two miles before you reach East-Grinstead. The woods and coppices are very fine here. It is the genuine _oak-soil_; a bottom of yellow clay to any depth, I dare say, that man can go. No moss on the oaks. No dead tops. Straight as larches. The bark of the young trees with dark spots in it; sure sign of free growth and great depth of clay beneath. The wheat is here sown on five-turn ridges, and the ploughing is amongst the best that I ever saw.--At East-Grinstead, which is a rotten Borough and a very shabby place, you come to stiff loam at top with sand stone beneath. To the south of the place the land is fine, and the vale on both sides a very beautiful intermixture of woodland and corn-fields and pastures.--At about three miles from Grinstead you come to a pretty village, called Forest-Row, and then, on the road to Uckfield, you cross Ashurst Forest, which is a heath, with here and there a few birch scrubs upon it, verily the most villanously ugly spot I ever saw in England. This lasts you for five miles, getting, if possible, uglier and uglier all the way, till, at last, as if barren soil, nasty spewy gravel, heath and even that stunted, were not enough, you see some rising spots, which instead of trees, presents you with black, ragged, hideous rocks. There may be Englishmen who wish to see the coast of _Nova Scotia_. They need not go to sea; for here it is to the life. If I had been in a long trance (as our nobility seem to have been), and had been waked up here, I should have begun to look about for the Indians and the Squaws, and to have heaved a sigh at the thought of being so far from England.--From the end of this forest without trees you come into a country of but poorish wettish land. Passing through the village of Uckfield, you find an enclosed country, with a soil of a clay cast all the way to within about three miles of Lewes, when you get to a chalk bottom, and rich land. I was at Lewes at the beginning of last harvest, and saw the fine farms of the Ellmans, very justly renowned for their improvement of the breed of _South-Down sheep_, and the younger Mr. John Ellman not less justly blamed for the part he had taken in propagating the errors of Webb Hall, and thereby, however unintentionally, assisting to lead thousands to cherish those false hopes that have been the cause of their ruin. Mr. Ellman may say that he _thought_ he was right; but if he had read my _New Year's Gift_ to the Farmers, published in the preceding January, he could not think that he was right. If he had not read it, he ought to have read it, before he appeared in print. At any rate, if no other person had a right to censure his publications, I _had_ that right. I will here notice a calumny, to which the above visit to Lewes gave rise; namely, that I went into the neighbourhood of the Ellmans, to find out whether they ill-treated their labourers! No man that knows me will believe this. The facts are these: the Ellmans, celebrated farmers, had made a great figure in the evidence taken before the Committee. I was at WORTH, about twenty miles from Lewes. The harvest was begun. Worth is a woodland country. I wished to know the state of the crops; for I was, at that very time, as will be seen by referring to the date, beginning to write my First Letter to the Landlords. Without knowing anything of the matter myself, I asked my host, Mr. Brazier, what good corn country was nearest to us. He said Lewes. Off I went, and he with me, in a post-chaise. We had 20 miles to go and 20 back in the same chaise. A bad road, and rain all the day. We put up at the White Hart, took another chaise, went round, and saw the farms, through the window of the chaise, having stopped at a little public-house to ask which were they, and having stopped now and then to get a sample out of the sheaves of wheat, came back to the White Hart, after being absent only about an hour and a half, got our dinner, and got back to Worth before it was dark; and never asked, and never intended to ask, one single question of any human being as to the conduct or character of the Ellmans. Indeed the evidence of the elder Mr. Ellman was so fair, so honest, and so useful,

## particularly as relating _to the labourers_, that I could not possibly

suspect him of being a cruel or hard master. He told the Committee, that when he began business, forty-five years ago, every man in the parish brewed his own beer, and that now, not one man did it, unless he gave him the malt! Why, here was by far the most valuable part of the whole volume of evidence. Then, Mr. Ellman did not present a parcel of _estimates_ and God knows what; but a plain and honest statement of facts, the rate of day wages, of job wages, for a long series of years, by which it clearly appeared how the labourer had been robbed and reduced to misery, and how the poor-rates had been increased. He did not, like Mr. George and other Bull-frogs, sink these interesting facts; but honestly told the truth. Therefore, whatever I might think of his endeavours to uphold the mischievous errors of Webb Hall, I could have no suspicion that he was a hard master.

_Lewes, Wednesday, 9 Jan. 1822._