Part 9

The Meeting and the Dinner are now over. Mr. Davies Giddy was in the Chair: the place the County Hall. A Mr. Partington, a pretty little oldish smart truss nice cockney-looking gentleman, with a yellow and red handkerchief round his neck, moved the petition, which was seconded by Lord Chichester, who lives in the neighbourhood. Much as I had read of that great Doctor of _virtual representation_ and _Royal Commissioner of Inimitable Bank Notes_, Mr. Davies Giddy, I had never seen him before. He called to my mind one of those venerable persons, who administer spiritual comfort to the sinners of the "sister-kingdom;" and, whether I looked at the dress or the person, I could almost have sworn that it was the identical _Father Luke_, that I saw about twenty-three years ago, at Philadelphia, in the farce of the Poor Soldier. Mr. Blackman (of Lewes I believe) disapproved of the petition, and, in a speech of considerable length, and also of considerable ability, stated to the meeting that the evils complained of arose from the _currency_, and not from the _importation of foreign corn_. A Mr. DONAVON, an Irish gentleman, who, it seems, is a magistrate in this "disturbed county," disapproved of discussing anything at such a meeting, and thought that the meeting should merely state its distresses, and leave it to the wisdom of Parliament to discover the remedy. Upon which Mr. Chatfield observed: "So, Sir, we are in a trap. We cannot get ourselves out though we know the way. There are others, who have got us in, and are able to get us out, but they do not know how. And we are to tell them, it seems, that we are in the trap; but are not to tell them the way to get us out. I don't like long speeches, Sir; but I like common sense." This was neat and pithy. Fifty professed orators could not, in a whole day, have thrown so much ridicule on the speech of Mr. Donavon.--A Mr. Mabbott proposed an amendment to include all classes of the community, and took a hit at Mr. Curteis for his speech at Battle. Mr. Curteis defended himself, and I thought very fairly. A Mr. Woodward, who said he was a farmer, carried us back to the necessity of the war against France; and told us of the horrors of plunder and murder and rape that the war had prevented. This gentleman put an end to my patience, which Mr. Donavon had put to an extremely severe test; and so I withdrew.--After I went away Mr. Blackman proposed some resolutions, which were carried by a great majority by show of hands. But, pieces of paper were then handed about, for the voters to write their names on for and against the petition. The greater part of the people were gone away by this time; but, at any rate, there were more _signatures_ for the petition than for the resolutions. A farmer in Pennsylvania having a visitor, to whom he was willing to show how well he treated his negroes as to food, bid the fellows (who were at dinner) _to ask for a second or third cut of pork if they had not enough_. Quite surprised at the novelty, but emboldened by a repetition of the injunction, one of them did say, "Massa, I wants another cut." He had it; but as soon as the visitor was gone away, "D--n you," says the master, while he belaboured him with the "cowskin," "I'll make you know _how to understand me_ another time!" The signers of this petition were in the dark while the show of hands was going on; but when it came to _signing_ they knew well _what Massa meant_! This is a petition to be sure; but it is no more the petition of the farmers in the Rapes of Lewes and Pevensey than it is the petition of the Mermaids of Lapland.--There was a _dinner_ after the meeting at the _Star-Inn_, at which there occurred something rather curious regarding myself. When at Battle, I had no intention of going to Lewes, till on the evening of my arrival at Battle, a gentleman, who had heard of the before-mentioned calumny, observed to me that I would do well not to go to Lewes. That very observation, made me resolve to go. I went, as a spectator, to the meeting; and I left no one ignorant of the place where I was to be found. I did not covet the noise of a dinner of from 200 to 300 persons, and I did not intend to go to it; but, being pressed to go, I finally went. After some previous common-place occurrences, Mr. Kemp, formerly a member for Lewes, was called to the chair; and he having given as a toast, "_the speedy discovery of a remedy for our distresses_," Mr. Ebenezer Johnstone, a gentleman of Lewes, whom I had never seen or heard of until that day, but who, I understand, is a very opulent and most respectable man, proposed _my health_, as that of a person likely to be able to point out the wished-for remedy.--This was the signal for the onset. Immediately upon the toast being given, a Mr. Hitchins, a farmer of Seaford, duly prepared for the purpose, got upon the table, and, with candle in one hand and _Register_ in the other, read the following garbled passage from my _Letter to Lord Egremont_.--"But, let us hear what the younger Ellman said: 'He had seen them employed in drawing beach gravel, as had been already described. One of them, the leader, worked with a bell about his neck.' Oh! the envy of surrounding nations and admiration of the world! Oh! what a 'glorious Constitution!' 'Oh! what a happy country! Impudent Radicals, to want to reform a Parliament, under which men enjoy such blessings! On such a subject it is impossible (under Six-Acts) to trust one's pen! However, this I will say; that here is much more than enough to make me rejoice in the ruin of the farmers; and I do, with all my heart, thank God for it; _seeing, that it appears absolutely necessary, that_ the present race of them should be totally broken up, in Sussex at any rate, _in order to put an end to this cruelty and insolence towards the labourers, who are by far the greater number and who are men, and a little better men too, than such employers as these, who are, in fact, monsters in human shape_!'"

I had not the Register by me, and could not detect the garbling. All the words that I have put in Italics, this HITCHINS left out in the reading. What sort of man he must be the public will easily judge.--No sooner had Hitchins done, than up started Mr. Ingram, a farmer of Rottendean, who was the second person in the drama (for all had been duly prepared), and moved that I should be _put out of the room_! Some few of the Webb Hallites, joined by about six or eight of the dark, dirty-faced, half-whiskered, tax-eaters from Brighton (which is only eight miles off) joined in this cry. I rose, that they might see the man that they had to put out. Fortunately _for themselves_, not one of them attempted to approach me. They were like the mice that resolved that a bell should be put round the cat's neck!--However, a considerable hubbub took place. At last, however, the Chairman, Mr. Kemp, whose conduct was fair and manly, having given my health, I proceeded to address the company in substance as stated here below; and, it is curious enough, that even those who, upon my health being given, had taken their hats and gone out of the room (and amongst whom Mr. Ellman the younger was one) came back, formed a crowd, and were just as silent and attentive as the rest of the company!

[NOTE, written at _Kensington, 13 Jan._--I must here, before I insert the speech, which has appeared in the _Morning Chronicle_, the Brighton papers, and in most of the London papers, except the base sinking _Old Times_ and the brimstone-smelling _Tramper_, or _Traveller_, which is, I well know, a mere tool in the hands of two snap-dragon Whig-Lawyers, whose greediness and folly I have so often had to expose, and which paper is maintained by a contrivance which I will amply expose in my next; I must, before I insert this speech, remark, that Mr. Ellman the younger has, to a gentleman whom I know to be incapable of falsehood, disavowed the proceeding of Hitchins; on which I have to observe, that the disavowal, to have any weight, must be public, or be made to me.

As to the provocation that I have given the Ellmans, I am, upon reflection, ready to confess that I may have laid on the lash without a due regard to mercy. The fact is, that I have so long had the misfortune to be compelled to keep a parcel of badger-hided fellows, like SCARLETT, in order, that I am, like a drummer that has been used to flog old offenders, become _heavy handed_. I ought to have considered the Ellmans as _recruits_ and to have suited my tickler to the tenderness of their backs.--I hear that Mr. Ingram of Rottendean, who moved for my being turned out of the room, and who looked so foolish when he had to turn himself out, is an Officer of Yeomanry "_Gavaltry_." A ploughman spoiled! This man would, I dare say, have been a very good husbandman; but the unnatural working of the paper-system has sublimated him out of his senses. That greater Doctor, Mr. Peel, will bring him down again.--Mr. Hitchins, I am told, after going away, came back, stood on the landing-place (the door being open), and, while I was speaking, exclaimed, "Oh! the fools! How they open their mouths! How they suck it all in."--Suck _what_ in, Mr. Hitchins? Was it honey that dropped from my lips? Was it flattery? Amongst other things, I said that I liked the plain names of _farmer_ and _husbandman_ better than that of _agriculturist_; and, the prospect I held out to them, was that of a description to catch their applause?--But this Hitchins seems to be a very silly person indeed.]

The following is a portion of the speech:--

"The toast having been _opposed_, and that, too, in the extraordinary manner we have witnessed, I will, at any rate, with your permission, make a remark or two on that manner. If the person who has made the opposition had been actuated by a spirit of fairness and justice, he would not have confined himself to a detached sentence of the paper from which he has read; but, would have taken the whole together; for, by taking a particular sentence, and leaving out all the rest, what writing is there that will not admit of a wicked interpretation? As to the

## particular part which has been read, I should not, perhaps, if I had

seen it _in print_, and had had time to cool a little [it was in a Register sent from Norfolk], have sent it forth in terms so very general as to embrace all the farmers of this county; but, as to those of them who put _the bell round the labourer's neck_, I beg leave to be now repeating, in its severest sense, every word of the passage that has been read.--Born in a farm-house, bred up at the plough-tail, with a smock-frock on my back, taking great delight in all the pursuits of farmers, liking their society, and having amongst them my most esteemed friends, it is natural, that I should feel, and I do feel, uncommonly anxious to prevent, as far as I am able, that total ruin which now menaces them. But the labourer, was I to have no feeling for him? Was not he my _countryman_ too? And was I not to feel indignation against those farmers, who had had the hard-heartedness to put the bell round his neck, and thus wantonly insult and degrade the class to whose toils they owed their own ease? The statement of the fact was not mine; I read it in the newspaper as having come from Mr. Ellman the younger; he, in a very laudable manner, expressed his _horror_ at it; and was not I to express _indignation_ at what Mr. Ellman felt horror? That Gentleman and Mr. Webb Hall may monopolize all the wisdom in matters of political economy; but are they, or rather is Mr. Ellman alone, to engross all the feeling too? [It was here denied that Mr. Ellman had said the bell had been put on by _farmers_.] Very well, then, the complained of passage has been productive of benefit to the farmers of this county; for, as the thing stood in the newspapers, the natural and unavoidable inference was, that that atrocious, that inhuman act, was an act of Sussex farmers."

_Brighton, Thursday, 10 Jan., 1822._

Lewes is in a valley of the _South Downs_, this town is at eight miles' distance, to the south south-west or thereabouts. There is a great extent of rich meadows above and below Lewes. The town itself is a model of solidity and neatness. The buildings all substantial to the very out-skirts; the pavements good and complete; the shops nice and clean; the people well-dressed; and, though last not least, the girls remarkably pretty, as, indeed, they are in most parts of Sussex; round faces, features small, little hands and wrists, plump arms, and bright eyes. The Sussex men, too, are remarkable for their good looks. A Mr. Baxter, a stationer at Lewes, showed me a _farmer's account book_ which is a very complete thing of the kind. The Inns are good at Lewes, the people civil and not servile, and the charges really (considering the taxes) far below what one could reasonably expect.--From Lewes to Brighton the road winds along between the hills of the South Downs, which, in this mild weather, are mostly beautifully green even at this season, with flocks of sheep feeding on them.--Brighton itself lies in a valley cut across at one end by the sea, and its extension, or _Wen_, has swelled up the sides of the hills and has run some distance up the valley.--The first thing you see in approaching Brighton from Lewes is a splendid _horse-barrack_ on one side of the road, and a heap of low, shabby, nasty houses, irregularly built, on the other side. This is always the case where there is a barrack. How soon a Reformed Parliament would make both disappear! Brighton is a very pleasant place. For a _wen_ remarkably so. The _Kremlin_, the very name of which has so long been a subject of laughter all over the country, lies in the gorge of the valley, and amongst the old houses of the town. The grounds, which cannot, I think, exceed a couple or three acres, are surrounded by a wall neither lofty nor good-looking. Above this rise some trees, bad in sorts, stunted in growth, and dirty with smoke. As to the "palace" as the Brighton newspapers call it, the apartments appear to be all upon the ground floor; and, when you see the thing from a distance, you think you see a parcel of _cradle-spits_, of various dimensions, sticking up out of the mouths of so many enormous squat decanters. Take a square box, the sides of which are three feet and a half, and the height a foot and a half. Take a large Norfolk-turnip, cut off the green of the leaves, leave the stalks 9 inches long, tie these round with a string three inches from the top, and put the turnip on the middle of the top of the box. Then take four turnips of half the size, treat them in the same way, and put them on the corners of the box. Then take a considerable number of bulbs of the crown-imperial, the narcissus, the hyacinth, the tulip, the crocus, and others; let the leaves of each have sprouted to about an inch, more or less according to the size of the bulb; put all these, pretty promiscuously, but pretty thickly, on the top of the box. Then stand off and look at your architecture. There! That's "_a Kremlin_"! Only you must cut some church-looking windows in the sides of the box. As to what you ought to put _into_ the box, that is a subject far above my cut.--Brighton is naturally a place of resort for _expectants_, and a shifty ugly-looking swarm is, of course, assembled here. Some of the fellows, who had endeavoured to disturb our harmony at the dinner at Lewes, were parading, amongst this swarm, on the cliff. You may always know them by their lank jaws, the stiffeners round their necks, their hidden or _no_ shirts, their stays, their false shoulders, hips, and haunches, their half-whiskers, and by their skins, colour of veal kidney-suet, warmed a little, and then powdered with dirty dust.--These vermin excepted, the people at Brighton make a very fine figure. The trades-people are very nice in all their concerns. The houses are excellent, built chiefly with a blue or purple brick; and bow-windows appear to be the general taste. I can easily believe this to be a very healthy place: the open downs on the one side and the open sea on the other. No inlet, cove, or river; and, of course, no swamps.--I have spent this evening very pleasantly in a company of reformers, who, though plain tradesmen and mechanics, know I am quite satisfied, more about the questions that agitate the country, than any equal number of Lords.

_Kensington, Friday, 11 January, 1822._