Rural Rides Page 13

  I cannot conclude my remarks on this Rural Ride without noticing the new sort of language that I hear every where made use of with regard to the parsons, but which language I do not care to repeat. These men may say, that I keep company with none but those who utter ‘sedition and blasphemy’, and if they do say so, there is just as much veracity in their words as I believe there to be charity and sincerity in the hearts of the greater part of them. One thing is certain; indeed, two things: the first is, that almost the whole of the persons that I have conversed with are farmers; and the second is, that they are in this respect, all of one mind! It was my intention, at one time, to go along the south of Hampshire to Portsmouth, Fareham, Botley, Southampton, and across the New-Forest into Dorsetshire. My affairs made me turn from Hambledon this way; but I had an opportunity of hearing something about the neighbourhood of Botley. Take any one considerable circle where you know every body, and the condition of that circle will teach you how to judge pretty correctly of the condition of every other part of the country. I asked about the farmers of my old neighbourhood, one by one; and the answers I received only tended to confirm me in the opinion, that the whole race will be destroyed; and that a new race will come, and enter upon farms without capital and without stock; be a sort of bailiffs to the landlord for a while, and then, if this system go on, bailiffs to the Government as trustee for the fundholders. If the account which I have received of Mr B——’s new mode of letting be true, here is one step further than has been before taken. In all probability the stock upon the farms belongs to him, to be paid for when the tenant can pay for it. Who does not see to what this tends? The man must be blind indeed, who cannot see confiscation here; and, can he be much less than blind, if he imagine that relief is to be obtained by the patience recommended by Mr Canning?

  FROM THE [LONDON] WEN ACROSS SURREY, ACROSS THE WEST OF SUSSEX, AND INTO THE SOUTH EAST OF HAMPSHIRE

  Reigate (Surrey), Saturday, 26 July, 1823

  Came from the Wen, through Croydon. It rained nearly all the way. The corn is good. A great deal of straw. The barley very fine; but all are backward; and, if this weather continue much longer, there must be that ‘heavenly blight’ for which the wise friends of ‘social order’ are so fervently praying. But, if the wet now cease, or cease soon, what is to become of the ‘poor souls of farmers’ God only knows! In one article the wishes of our wise Government appear to have been gratified to the utmost; and that, too, without the aid of any express form of prayer. I allude to the hops, of which, it is said, that there will be, according to all appearance, none at all! Bravo! Courage, my Lord Liverpool! This article, at any rate, will not choak us, will not distress us, will not make us miserable by ‘over-production’! – The other day a gentleman (and a man of general good sense too) said to me: ‘What a deal of wet we have: what do you think of the weather now?’ – ‘More rain,’ said I. – ‘D–n those farmers,’ said he, ‘what luck they have! They will be as rich as Jews!’ – Incredible as this may seem, it is a fact. But, indeed, there is no folly, if it relate to these matters, which is, now-a-days, incredible. The hop affair is a pretty good illustration of the doctrine of ‘relief’ from ‘diminished production’. Mr RICARDO may now call upon any of the hop-planters for proof of the correctness of his notions. They are ruined, for the greater part, if their all be embarked in hops. How are they to pay rent? I saw a planter, the other day, who sold his hops (Kentish) last fall for sixty shillings a hundred. The same hops will now fetch the owner of them eight pounds, or a hundred and sixty shillings. Thus the Quaker gets rich, and the poor devil of a farmer is squeezed into a gaol. The Quakers carry on the far greater part of this work. They are, as to the products of the earth, what the Jews are as to gold and silver. How they profit, or, rather, the degree in which they profit, at the expense of those who own and those who till the land, may be guessed at if we look at their immense worth, and if we, at the same time reflect, that they never work. Here is a sect of non-labourers. One would think, that their religion bound them under a curse, not to work. Some part of the people of all other sects work; sweat at work; do something that is useful to other people; but, here is a sect of buyers and sellers. They make nothing; they cause nothing to come; they breed as well as other sects; but they make none of the raiment or houses, and cause none of the food to come. In order to justify some measure for paring the nails of this grasping sect, it is enough to say of them, which we may with perfect truth, that, if all the other sects were to act like them, the community must perish. This is quite enough to say of this sect, of the monstrous privileges of whom we shall, I hope, one of these days, see an end. If I had the dealing with them, I would soon teach them to use the spade and the plough, and the musket too, when necessary.1 The rye, along the road side, is ripe enough; and some of it is reaped and in shock. At Mearstam there is a field of cabbages, which, I was told, belonged to COLONEL JOLIFFE. They appear to be early Yorks, and look very well. The rows seem to be about eighteen inches apart. There may be from 15,000 to 20,000 plants to the acre; and I dare say, that they will weigh three pounds each, or more. I know of no crop of cattle food equal to this. If they be early Yorks, they will be in perfection in October, just when the grass is almost gone. No five acres of common grass land will, during the year, yield cattle food equal, either in quantity or quality, to what one acre of land, in early Yorks, will produce during three months.

  Worth (Sussex), Wednesday, 30 July

  Worth is ten miles from Reigate on the Brighton road, which goes through Horley. Reigate has the Surrey chalk hills close to it on the North, and sand hills along on its South, and nearly close to it also. As soon as you are over the sand hills, you come into a country of deep clay; and this is called the Weald of Surrey. This Weald winds away round, towards the West, into Sussex, and towards the East, into Kent. In this part of Surrey, it is about eight miles wide, from North to South, and ends just as you enter the parish of Worth, which is the first parish (in this part) in the county of Sussex. All across the Weald (the strong and stiff clays) the corn looks very well. I found it looking well from the WEN to Reigate, on the villanous spewy soil between the WEN and Croydon; on the chalk from Croydon to near Reigate; on the loam, sand and chalk (for there are all three) in the valley of Reigate; but, not quite so well on the sand. On the clay all the corn looks well. The wheat, where it has begun to the, is dying of a good colour, not black, nor in any way that indicates blight. It is, however, all backward. Some few fields of white wheat are changing colour; but, for the greater part, it is quite green; and, though a sudden change of weather might make a great alteration in a short time, it does appear, that the harvest must be later than usual. When I say this, however, I by no means wish to be understood as saying, that it must be so late as to be injurious to the crop. In 1816, I saw a barley-rick making in November. In 1821, I saw wheat uncut, in Suffolk, in October. If we were now to have good, bright, hot weather, for as long a time as we have had wet, the whole of the corn, in these Southern counties, would be housed, and great part of it threshed out, by the 10th of September. So that, all depends on the weather, which appears to be clearing up in spite of SAINT SWITHIN. This Saint’s birth-day is the 15th of July; and it is said, that, if rain fall on his birth-day, it will fall on forty days successively. But, I believe, that you reckon retrospectively as well as prospectively; and, if this be the case, we may, this time, escape the extreme unction; for, it began to rain on the 26th of June; so that it rained 19 days before the 15th of July; and, as it has rained 16 days since, it has rained, in the whole, 35 days, and, of course, five days more will satisfy this wet soul of a saint. Let him take his five days; and, there will be plenty of time for us to have wheat at four shillings a bushel. But, if the Saint will give us no credit for the 19 days, and will insist upon his forty daily drenchings after the fifteenth of July; if he will have such a soaking as this at the celebration of the anniversary of his birth, let us hope that he is prepared with a miracle for feeding us, and with a s
till more potent miracle for keeping the farmers from riding over us, filled as Lor’ Liverpool thinks their pockets will be by the annihilation of their crops! The upland meadow grass is, a great deal of it, not cut yet, along the Weald. So that, in these parts, there has not been a great deal of hay spoiled. The clover hay was got in very well; and only a small pan of the meadow hay has been spoiled in this part of the country. This is not the case, however, in other parts, where the grass was forwarder, and where it was cut before the rain came. Upon the whole, however, much hay does not appear to have been spoiled as yet. The farmers along here, have, most of them, begun to cut to-day. This has been a fine day; and, it is clear, that they expect it to continue. I saw but two pieces of Swedish turnips between the WEN and Reigate, but one at Reigate, and but one between Reigate and Worth. During a like distance, in Norfolk or Suffolk, you would see two or three hundred fields of this sort of root. Those that I do see here, look well. The white turnips are just up, or just sown, though there are some which have rough leaves already. This Weald is, indeed, not much of land for turnips; but, from what I see here, and from what I know of the weather, I think that the turnips must be generally good. The after-grass is surprisingly fine. The lands, which have had hay cut and carried from them, are, I think, more beautiful than I ever saw them before. It should, however, always be borne in mind, that this beautiful grass is by no means the best. An acre of this grass will not make a quarter part so much butter as an acre of rusty-looking pasture, made rusty by the rays of the sun. Sheep on the commons the of the beautiful grass produced by long-continued rains at this time of the year. Even geese, hardy as they are, the from the same cause. The rain will give quantity; but, without sun, the quality must be poor at the best. The woods have not shot much this year. The cold winds, the frosts, that we had up to Midsummer, prevented the trees from growing much. They are beginning to shoot now; but, the wood must be imperfectly ripened. – I met, at Worth, a beggar, who told me, in consequence of my asking where he belonged, that he was born in South Carolina. I found, at last, that he was born in the English army, during the American rebel-war; that he became a solther himself; and that it had been his fate to serve under the Duke of York, in Holland; under General Whitelock, at Buenos Ayres; under Sir John Moore, at Corunna; and under ‘the Greatest Captain’, at Talavera! This poor fellow did not seem to be at all aware, that, in the last case, he partook in a victory! He had never before heard of its being a victory. He, poor fool, thought that it was a defeat. ‘Why,’ said he, ‘we ran away, Sir.’ Oh, yes! said I, and so you did afterwards, perhaps, in Portugal, when Massena was at your heels; but it is only in certain cases, that running away is a mark of being defeated; or, rather, it is only with certain commanders. A matter of much more interest to us, however, is, that the wars for ‘social order’, not forgetting Gatton and Old Sarum, have filled the country with beggars, who have been, or who pretend to have been, solthers and sailors. For want of looking well into this matter, many good and just and even sensible men are led to give to these army and navy beggars, what they refuse to others. But, if reason were consulted, she would ask what pretensions these have to a preference? She would see in them men who had become solthers or sailors because they wished to live without that labour by which other men are content to get their bread. She would ask the solther-beggar, whether he did not voluntarily engage to perform services such as were performed at Manchester, and, if she pressed him for the motive to this engagement, could he assign any motive other than that of wishing to live without work upon the fruit of the work of other men? And, why should reason not be listened to? Why should she not be consulted in every such case? And, if she were consulted, which would she tell you was the most worthy of your compassion, the man, who, no matter from what cause, is become a beggar after forty years spent in the raising of food and raiment for others as well as for himself; or, the man, who, no matter again from what cause, is become a beggar after forty years living upon the labour of others, and, during the greater part of which time, he has been living in a barrack, there kept for purposes explained by Lord Palmerston, and always in readiness to answer those purposes? As to not giving to beggars, I think there is a law against giving! However, give to them people will, as long as they ask. Remove the cause of the beggary; and we shall see no more beggars; but, as long as there are boroughmongers, there will be beggars enough.

  Horsham (Sussex), Thursday, 31 July

  I left Worth this afternoon about 5 o’clock, and am got here to sleep, intending to set off for Petworth in the morning, with a view of crossing the South Downs and then going into Hampshire through Havant, and along at the southern foot of Portsdown Hill, where I shall see the earliest com in England. From Worth you come to CRAWLEY along some pretty good land; you then turn to the left and go two miles along the road from the Wen to Brighton; then you turn to the right, and go over six of the worst miles in England, which miles terminate but a few hundred yards before you enter Horsham. The first two of these miserable miles go through the estate of Lord ERSKINE. It was a bare heath with here and there, in the better parts of it, some scrubby birch. It has been, in part, planted with fir-trees, which are as ugly as the heath was; and, in short, it is a most villanous tract. After quitting it, you enter a forest; but a most miserable one; and this is followed by a large common, now enclosed, cut up, disfigured, spoiled, and the labourers all driven from its skirts. I have seldom travelled over eight miles so well calculated to fill the mind with painful reflections. The ride has, however, this in it; that the ground is pretty much elevated, and enables you to look about you. You see the Surrey Hills away to the North; Hindhead and Blackdown to the North West and West; and the South Downs from the West to the East. The sun was shining upon all these, though it was cloudy where I was. The soil is a poor, miserable, clayey-looking sand, with a sort of sandstone underneath. When you get down into this town, you are again in the Weald of Sussex. I believe that Weald meant clay, or low, wet, stiff land. This is a very nice, solid, country town. Very clean, as all the towns in Sussex are. The people very clean. The Sussex women are very nice in their dress and in their houses. The men and boys wear smock-frocks more than they do in some counties. When country people do not, they always look dirty and comfortless. This has been a pretty good day; but there was a little rain in the afternoon; so that St Swithin keeps on as yet, at any rate. The hay has been spoiled here, in cases where it has been cut; but, a great deal of it is not yet cut. I speak of the meadows; for the clover-hay was all well got in. The grass, which is not cut, is receiving great injury. It is, in fact, in many cases, rotting upon the ground. As to corn, from Crawley to Horsham, there is none worth speaking of. What there is is very good, in general, considering the quality of the soil. It is about as backward as at Worth: the barley and oats green, and the wheat beginning to change colour.

  Billingshurst (Sussex), Friday Morning, 1 Aug.

  This village is 7 miles from Horsham, and I got here to breakfast about seven o’clock. A very pretty village, and a very nice breakfast, in a very neat little parlour of a very decent public-house. The landlady sent her son to get me some cream, and he was just such a chap as I was at his age, and dressed just in the same sort of way, his main garment being a blue smock-frock, faded from wear, and mended with pieces of new stuff, and, of course, not faded. The sight of this smock-frock brought to my recollection many things very dear to me. This boy will, I dare say, perform his part at Billingshurst or at some place not far from it. If accident had not taken me from a similar scene, how many villains and fools, who have been well teazed and tormented, would have slept in peace at night, and have fearlessly swaggered about by day! When I look at this little chap; at his smock-frock, his nailed shoes, and his clean, plain and coarse shirt, I ask myself, will any thing, I wonder, ever send this chap across the ocean to tackle the base, corrupt, perjured Republican Judges of Pennsylvania? Will this little lively, but, at the same time, simple boy, ever become the terror of villains and
hypocrites across the Adantic? What a chain of strange circumstances there must be to lead this boy to thwart a miscreant tyrant like MACKEEN, the Chief Justice and afterwards Governor of Pennsylvania, and to expose the corruptions of the band of rascals, called a ‘Senate and a House of Representatives', at Harrisburgh, in that State!