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  Stlbomt (Hants), Thursday, 7th August, Noon

  I took leave of Mr Deller this morning, about 7 o’clock. Came back through Avington Park, through the village of Avington, and, crossing the Itchen river, came over to the village of ITCHEN ABAS. Abas means below. It is a French word that came over with Duke Rollo’s progenitors. There needs no better proof of the high descent of the Duke, and of the antiquity of his family. This is that Itchen Abas where that famous Parson-Justice, the Reverend Robert Wright, lives, who refused to hear Mr Deller’s complaint against the Duke’s servant at his own house, and who afterwards, along with Mr Poulter, bound Mr Deller over to the Quarter Sessions for the alleged assault. I have great pleasure in informing the public that Mr Deller has not had to bear the expenses in this case himself; but that they have been borne by his neighbours, very much to the credit of those neighbours. I hear of an affair between the Duke of Buckingham and a Mr BIRD, who resides in this neighbourhood. If I had had time I should have gone to see Mr Bird, of whose treatment I have heard a great deal, and an account of which treatment ought to be brought before the public. It is very natural for the Duke of Buckingham to wish to preserve that game which he calls his hobbyhorse. It is very natural for him to delight in his hobby; but, hobbies, my Lord Duke, ought to be gentle, inoffensive, perfectly harmless little creatures. They ought not to be suffered to kick and fling about them: they ought not to be rough-shod, and, above all things, they ought not to be great things like those which are ridden by the Life-guards: and, like them, be suffered to dance, and caper, and trample poor devils of farmers under foot. Have your hobbies, my Lords of the Soil, but let them be gentle; in short, let them be hobbies in character with the commons and forests, and not the high-fed hobbies from the barracks at Knightsbridge, such as put poor Mr Sheriff Waithman’s life in jeopardy. That the game should be preserved, every one that knows any thing of the country will allow; but, every man of any sense must see that it cannot be preserved by sheer force. It must be rather through love than through fear; rather through good-will than through ill-will. If the thing be properly managed, there will be plenty of game, without any severity towards any good man. Mr Deller’s case was so plain: it was so monstrous to think that a man was to be punished for being on his own ground in pursuit of wild animals that he himself had raised: this was so monstrous, that it was only necessary to name it to excite the indignation of the country. And Mr Deller has, by his spirit and perseverance, by the coolness and the good sense which he has shown throughout the whole of this proceeding, merited the commendation of every man who is not in his heart an oppressor. It occurs to me to ask here, who it is that finally pays for those ‘counsels’ opinions’ which Poulter and Wright said they took in the case of Mr Deller; because, if these counsels’ opinions are paid for by the county, and if a Justice of the Peace can take as many counsels’ opinions as he chooses, I should like to know what fellow, who chooses to put on a bobtail wig and call himself a lawyer, may not have a good living given to him by any crony Justice at the expense of the county. This never can be legal. It never can be binding on the county to pay for these counsels’ opinions. However, leaving this to be enquired into another time, we have here, in Mr Deller’s case, an instance of the worth of counsels’ opinions. Mr Deller went to the two Justices, shewed them the Register with the Act of Parliament in it, called upon them to act agreeably to that Act of Parliament; but they chose to take counsels’ opinion first. The two ‘counsel’, the two ‘lawyers’, the two ‘learned friends’, told them that they were right in rejecting the application of Mr Deller and in binding him over for the assault; and, after all, this Grand Jury threw out the Bill, and in that throwing out shewed that they thought the counsels’ opinions not worth a straw.

  Being upon the subject of matter connected with the conduct of these Parson-Justices, I will here mention what is now going on in Hampshire respecting the accounts of the Treasurer of the County. At the last Quarter Sessions, or at a Meeting of the Magistrates previous to the opening of the Sessions, there was a discussion relative to this matter. The substance of which appears to have been this; that the Treasurer, Mr GEORGE HOLLIS, whose accounts had been audited, approved of, and passed, every year by the Magistrates, is in arrear to the county to the amount of about four thousand pounds. Sir Thomas BARING appears to have been the great stickler against Mr Hollis, who was but feebly defended by his friends. The Treasurer of a county is compelled to find securities. These securities have become exempted, in consequence of the annual passing of the accounts by the Magistrates! Nothing can be more just than this exemption. I am security, suppose, for a Treasurer. The Magistrates do not pass his accounts on account of a deficiency. I make good the deficiency. But, the Magistrates are not to go on year after year passing his accounts, and then, at the end of several years, come and call upon me to make good the deficiencies. Thus say the securities of Mr HOLLIS. The Magistrates, in fact, are to blame. One of the Magistrates, a Reverend Mr ORDE, said that the Magistrates were more to blame than the Treasurer; and really I think so too; for, though Mr HOLLIS has been a tool for many many years, of Old George Rose and the rest of that crew, it seems impossible to believe that he could have intended any thing dishonest, seeing that the detection arose out of an account, published by himself in the newspaper, which account he need not have published until three months later than the time when he did publish it. This is, as he himself states, the best possible proof that he was unconscious of any error or any deficiency. The fact appears to be this; that Mr HOLLIS, who has for many years been Under Sheriff as well as Treasurer of the County, who holds several other offices, and who has, besides, had large pecuniary transactions with his bankers, has for years had his accounts so blended that he has not known how this money belonging to the county stood. His own statement shows that it was all a mass of confusion. The errors, he says, have arisen, entirely from the negligence of his clerks, and from causes which produced a confusion in his accounts. This is the fact; but he has been in good fat offices too long not to have made a great many persons think that his offices would be better in their hands; and they appear resolved to oust him. I, for my part, am glad of it; for I remember his coming up to me in the Grand Jury Chamber, just after the people at St Stephen’s had passed Power-of-Imprisonment Bill in 1817; I remember his coming up to me as the Under Sheriff of Willis, the man that we now call Flemming, who has begun to build a house at North Stoneham. I remember his coming up to me, and with all the base sauciness of a thorough paced Pittite, telling me to disperse or he would take me into custody! I remember this of Mr HOLLIS, and I am therefore glad that calamity has befallen him; but I must say, that after reading his own account of the matter; after reading the debate of the Magistrates; and after hearing the observations and opinions of well-informed and impartial persons in Hampshire who dislike Mr HOLLIS as much as I do; I must say that I think him perfectly clear of all intention to commit any thing like fraud, or to make any thing worthy of the name of false account; and I am convinced that this affair, which will now prove extremely calamitous to him, might have been laughed at by him at the time when wheat was fifteen shillings a bushel. This change in the affairs of the Government; this penury now experienced by the Pittites at Whitehall, reaches, in its influence, to every part of the country. The BARINGS are now the great men in Hampshire. They were not such in the days of George Rose, while George was able to make the people believe that it was necessary to give their money freely to preserve the ‘blessed comforts of religion’. George Rose would have thrown his shield over Mr HOLLIS; his broad and brazen shield. In Hampshire the Bishop too, is changed. The present is, doubtless, as pious as the last, every bit; and has the same Bishop-like views; but it is not the same family: it is not the Garniers and Poulters and Norths and De Grays and Haygarths; it is not precisely the same set who have the power in their hands. Things, therefore, take another turn. The Pittite jolterheads are all broken-backed; and the BARINGS come forward with their well-know
n weight of metal. It was exceedingly unfortunate for Mr HOLLIS that Sir THOMAS BARING happened to be against him. However, the thing will do good altogether. The county is placed in a pretty situation: its Treasurer has had his accounts regularly passed by the Magistrates; and these Magistrates come at last and discover that they have for a long time been passing accounts that they ought not pass. These Magistrates have exempted the securities of Mr HOLLIS, but not a word do they say about making good the deficiencies. What redress, then, have the people of the county? They have no redress, unless they can obtain it by petitioning the Parliament; and if they do not petition; if they do not state their case, and that boldly, too, they deserve every thing that can befal them from similar causes. I am astonished at the boldness of the Magistrates. I am astonished that they should think of calling Mr HOLLIS to account without being prepared for rendering an account of their own conduct. However, we shall see what they will do in the end. And when we have seen that, we shall see whether the county will rest quietly under the loss which it is likely to sustain.

  I must now go back to Itchen Abas, where, in the farm-yard of a farmer, Courtenay, I saw another wheat-rick. From Itchen Abas I came up the valley to Itchen Stoke. Soon after that I crossed the Itchen river, came out into the Alresford turnpike-road, and came on towards Alresford, having the valley now upon my left. If the hay be down all the way to Southampton in the same manner that it is along here, there are thousands of acres of hay rotting on the sides of this Itchen river. Most of the meadows are watered artificially. The crops of grass are heavy, and, they appear to have been cut precisely in the right time to be spoiled. Coming on towards Alresford, I saw a gentleman (about a quarter of a mile beyond Alresford) coming out of his gate with his hat off, looking towards the south-west, as if to see what sort of weather it was likely to be. This was no other than Mr Rolleston or Rawlinson, who, it appears, has a box and some land here. This gentleman was, when I lived in Hampshire, one of those worthy men, who, in the several counties of England, executed ‘without any sort of remuneration’, such a large portion of that justice which is the envy of surrounding nations and admiration of the world. We are often told, especially in Parliament, of the disinterestedness of these persons; of their worthiness, their piety, their loyalty, their excellent qualities of all sorts, but particularly of their disinterestedness, in taking upon them the office of Justice of the Peace; spending so much time, taking so much trouble, and all for nothing at all, but for the pure love of their King and country. And, the worst of it is, that our Ministers impose upon this disinterestedness and generosity; and, as in the case of Mr RAWLINSON, at the end of, perhaps, a dozen years of services voluntarily rendered to ‘King and country’, they force him, sorely against his will, no doubt, to become a Police Magistrate in London! To be sure, there axe five or six hundred pounds a-year of public money attached to this; but, what are these paltry pounds to a ‘country gentleman’, who so disinterestedly rendered us services for so many years? Hampshire is fertile in persons of this disinterested stamp. There is a ’Squire GREME, who lives across the country, not many miles from the spot where I saw ‘Mr Justice’ Rawlinson. This ’Squire also has served the country for nothing during a great many years; and, of late years, the ’Squire Junior, eager, apparently, to emulate his sire, has become a DISTRIBUTOR OF STAMPS for this famous county of Hants! What sons ’Squire Rawlinson may have is more than I know at present, though I will endeavour to know it, and to find out whether they also be serving us. A great deal has been said about the debt of gratitude due from the people to the Justices of the Peace. An account, containing the names and places of abode of the Justices, and of the public money, or titles, received by them and by their relations; such an account would be a very useful thing. We should then know the real amount of this debt of gratitude. We shall see such an account by-and-by; and, we should have seen it long ago, if there had been, in a certain place, only one single man disposed to do his duty.

  I came through ALRESFORD about eight o’clock, having loitered a good deal in coming up the valley. After quitting Alresford you come (on the road towards Alton), to the village of Bishop’s Sutton; and then to a place called Ropley Dean, where there is a house or two. Just before you come to Ropley Dean, you see the beginning of the Valley of ltchen. The Itchen river falls into the salt water at Southampton. It rises, or rather has its first rise, just by the roadside at Ropley Dean, which is at the foot of that very high land which lies between Alresford and Alton. All along by the Itchen river, up to its very source, there are meadows; and this vale of meadows, which is about twenty-five miles in length, and is, in some places, a mile wide, is, at the point of which I am now speaking, only about twice as wide as my horse is long! This vale of Itchen is worthy of particular attention. There are few spots in England more fertile or more pleasant; and none, I believe, more healdiy. Following the bed of the river, or, radier, the middle of the vale, it is about five-and-twenty miles in length, from Ropley Dean to the village of South Stoneham, which is just above Southampton. The average width of the meadows is, I should think, a hundred rods at the least; and if I am right in this conjecture, the vale contains about five thousand acres of meadows, large part of which is regularly watered. The sides of the vale are, until you come down to within about six or eight miles of Southampton, hills or rising grounds of chalk, covered more or less thickly with loam. Where the hills rise up very steeply from the valley, the fertility of the corn-lands is not so great; but for a considerable part of the way, the corn-lands are excellent, and the farm-houses, to which those lands belong, are for the far greater part under covert of the hills on the edge of the valley. Soon after the rising of the stream, it forms itself into some capital ponds at Alresford. These, doubtless, were augmented by art, in order to supply Winchester with fish. The fertility of this vale, and of the surrounding country, is best proved by the fact, that, besides the town of Alresford and that of Southampton, there are seventeen villages, each having its parish church, upon its borders. When we consider these things we are not surprised that a spot, situated about half way down this vale should have been chosen for the building of a city, or that that city should have been for a great number of years a place of residence for the Kings of England.

  Winchester, which is at present a mere nothing to what it once was, stands across the vale at a place where the vale is made very narrow by the jutting forward of two immense hills. From the point where the river passes through the city, you go, whether eastward or westward, a full mile up a very steep hill all the way. The city is, of course, in one of the deepest holes that can be imagined. It never could have been thought of as a place to be defended since the discovery of gunpowder; and, indeed, one would think that very considerable annoyance might be given to the inhabitants even by the flinging of the flint-stones from the hills down into the city.

  At Ropley Dean, before I mounted the hill to come on towards Rotherham Park, I baited my horse. Here the ground is precisely like that at Ashmansworth on the borders of Berkshire, which, indeed, I could see from the ground of which I am now speaking. In coming up the bill, I had the house and farm of Mr DUTHY to my right. Seeing some very fine Swedish turnips, I naturally expected that they belonged to this gentleman who is Secretary to the Agricultural Society of Hampshire; but I found that they belonged to a farmer MAYHEW. The soil is, along upon this high land, a deep loam, bordering on a clay, red in colour, and pretty full of large, rough, yellow-looking stones, very much like some of the land in Huntingdonshire; but here is a bed of chalk under this. Every thing is backward here. The wheat is perfectly green in most places; but, it is every where pretty good. I have observed, all the way along, that the wheat is good upon the stiff, strong land. It is so here; but it is very backward. The greater part of it is full three weeks behind the wheat under Portsdown Hill. But few farm-houses come within my sight along here; but in one of them there was a wheat-rick, which is the third I have seen since I quitted the Wen. In descending from this
high ground, in order to reach the village of EAST TISTED, which lies on the turnpike-road from the Wen to Gosport through Alton, I had to cross ROTHERHAM PARK. On the right of the park, on a bank of land facing the north-east, I saw a very pretty farm-house, having every thing in excellent order, with fine corn-fields about it, and with a wheat-rick standing in the yard. This farm, as I afterwards found, belongs to the owner of Rotherham Park, who is also the owner of East Tisted, who has recently built a new house in the park, who has quite metamorphosed the village of Tisted, within these eight years, who has, indeed, really and truly improved the whole country just round about here, whose name is SCOT, well known as a brickmaker at North End, Fulham, and who has, in Hampshire, supplanted a Norman of the name of Powlet. The process by which this transfer has taken place is visible enough, to all eyes but the eyes of the jolterheads. Had there been no Debt created to crush liberty in France and to keep down reformers in England, Mr Scot would not have had bricks to burn to build houses for the Jews and jobbers and other eaters of taxes; and the Norman Powlet would not have had to pay in taxes, through his own hands and those of his tenants and labourers, the amount of the estate at Tisted, first to be given to the Jews, jobbers and tax-eaters, and then by them to be given to ‘ ’Squire Scot’ for his bricks. However, it is not ’Squire Scot who has assisted to pass laws to make people pay double toll on a Sunday. ’Squire Scot had nothing to do with passing the New Game-laws and Old Ellenborough’s Act;7 ’Squire Scot never invented the New Trespass law, in virtue of which John Cockbain of Whitehaven in the county of Cumberland was, by two clergymen and three other magistrates of that county, sentenced to pay one half-penny for damages and SEVEN SHILLINGS COSTS, for going upon a field, the property of WILLIAM, EARL of LONSDALE. In the passing of this Act, which was one of the first passed in the present reign, ’Squire Scot, the brickmaker, had nothing to do. Go on, good ’Squire, thrust out some more of the Normans: with the fruits of the augmentations which you make to the Wen, go, and take from them their mansions, parks, and villages!