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  Every thing that nature can do has been done here; and money most judiciously employed, has come to her assistance. Here are a thousand things to give pleasure to any rational mind; but, there is one thing, which, in my estimation, surpasses, in pleasure, to contemplate, all the lawns and all the groves and all the gardens and all the game and every thing else; and that is, the real, unaffected goodness of the owner of this estate. He is a member for Southampton; he has other fine estates; he has great talents; he is much admired by all who know him; but, he has done more by his justice, by his just way of thinking with regard to the labouring people, than in all other ways put together. This was nothing new to me; for I was well informed of it several years ago, though I had never heard him speak of it in my life. When he came to this place, the common wages of day-labouring men were thirteen shillings a week, and the wages of carpenters, bricklayers, and other tradesmen, were in proportion. Those wages he has given, from that time to this, without any abatement whatever. With these wages, a man can live, having, at the same time, other advantages attending the working for such a man as Mr Chamberlayne. He has got less money in his bags than he would have had, if he had ground men down in their wages; but, if his sleep be not sounder than that of the hard-fisted wretch that can walk over grass and gravel, kept in order by a poor creature that is half-starved; if his sleep be not sounder than the sleep of such a wretch, then all that we have been taught is false, and there is no difference between the man who feeds and the man who starves the poor: all the Scripture is a bundle of lies, and instead of being propagated it ought to be flung into the fire.

  It is curious enough, that those who are the least disposed to give good wages to the labouring people, should be the most disposed to discover for them schemes for saving their money! I have lately seen, I saw it at Uphusband, a prospectus, or scheme, for establishing what they call a County Friendly Society.1 This is a scheme for getting from the poor a part of the wages that they receive. Just as if a poor fellow could put any thing by out of eight shillings a week! If, indeed, the schemers were to pay the labourers twelve or thirteen shillings a week; then these might have something to lay by at some times of the year; but, then indeed, there would be no poor-rates wanted; and, it is to get rid of the poor-rates that these schemers have invented their society. What wretched drivellers they must be: to think that they should be able to make the pauper keep the pauper; to think that they shall be able to make the man that is half-starved lay by part of his loaf! I know of no county where the poor are worse treated than in many parts of this county of Hants. It is happy to know of one instance in which they are well treated; and I deem it a real honour to be under the roof of him who has uniformly set so laudable an example in this most important concern. What are all his riches to me? They form no title to my respect. ’Tis not for me to set myself up in judgment as to his taste, his learning, his various qualities and endowments; but, of these his unequivocal works, I am a competent judge. I know how much good he must do; and there is a great satisfaction in reflecting on the great happiness that he must feel, when, in laying his head upon his pillow of a cold and dreary winter night, he reflects that there are scores, aye, scores upon scores, of his country-people, of his poor neighbours, of those whom the Scripture denominates his brethren, who have been enabled, through him, to retire to a warm bed after spending a cheerful evening and taking a full meal by the side of their own fire. People may talk what they will about happiness; but I can figure to myself no happiness surpassing that of the man who falls to sleep with reflections like these in his mind. Now observe, it is a duty, on my part, to relate what I have here related as to the conduct of Mr CHAMBERLAYNE; not a duty towards him; for, I can do him no good by it, and I do most sincerely believe, that both he and his equally benevolent sister, would rather that their goodness remained unproclaimed; but, it is a duty towards my country, and particularly towards my readers. Here is a striking and a most valuable practical example. Here is a whole neighbourhood of labourers living as they ought to live; enjoying that happiness which is the just reward of their toil. And shall I suppress facts so honourable to those who are the cause of this happiness, facts so interesting in themselves, and so likely to be useful in the way of example; shall I do this, aye, and, besides this, tacitly give a false account of WESTON GROVE, and this, too, from the stupid and cowardly fear of being accused of flattering a rich man?

  NETLEY ABBEY ought, it seems, to be called LETLEY ABBEY, the Latin name being LÆTUS LOCUS, or PLEASANT PLACE. Letley was made up of an abbreviation of the Lætus and of the Saxon word ley, which meaned place, field, or piece of ground. This Abbey was founded by Henry III in 1239, for 12 Monks of the Benedictine order; and, when suppressed, by the wife-killer, its revenues amounted to 3,200l. a year of our present money. The possessions of these monks were by the wife-killing founder of the Church of England, given away (though they belonged to the public) to one of his court sycophants, SIR WILLIAM PAULET, a man the most famous in the whole world for sycophancy, time-serving, and for all those qualities which usually distinguish the favourites of kings like the wife-killer. This PAULET changed from the Popish to Henry the Eighth’s religion, and was a great actor in punishing the papists: when Edward VI came to the throne, this PAULET turned Protestant and was a great actor in punishing those who adhered to Henry Vlllth’s religion: when Queen Mary came to the throne, this PAULET turned back to Papist, and was one of the great actors in sending Protestants to be burnt in Smithfield: when Old Bess came to the throne, this PAULET turned back to Protestant again, and was, until the day of his death, one of the great actors in persecuting, in fining, in mulcting, and in putting to death those who still had the virtue and the courage to adhere to the religion in which they and he had been born and bred. The head of this family got, at last, to be Earl of Wiltshire, Marquis of Winchester, and DUKE OF BOLTON. This last title is now gone; or, rather, it is changed to that of ‘LORD BOLTON’, which is now borne by a man of the name of Orde, who is the son of a man of that name, who died some years ago, and who married a daughter (I think it was) of the last ‘Duke of Bolton’. Pretty curious, and not a little interesting, to look back at the origin of this Dukedom of Bolton, and, then, to look at the person now bearing the title of Bolton; and, then, to go to Abbotston, near Winchester, and survey the ruins of the proud palace, once inhabited by the Duke of Bolton, which ruins, and the estate on which they stand, are now the property of the Loan-maker, Alexander Baring! Curious turn of things! Henry the wife-killer and his confiscating successors granted the estates of NETLEY, and of many other monasteries, to the head of these PAULETS: to maintain these and other, similar, grants, a thing called a ‘Reformation’ was made: to maintain the ‘Reformation’, a ‘Glorious Revolution’, was made: to maintain the ‘Glorious Revolution’, a DEBT was made: to maintain the Debt, a large part of the rents must go to the Debt-Dealers, or Loan-makers: and, thus, at last, the BARINGS, only in this one neighbourhood, have become the successors of the WRIOTHESLEYS, the PAULETS, and the RUSSELLS, who, throughout all the reigns of confiscation, were constantly in the way, when a distribution of good things was taking place! Curious enough all this; but, the thing will not stop here. The Loan-makers think that they shall out-wit the old grantee-fellows; and, so they might, and the people too, and the devil himself; but, they cannot outwit EVENTS. Those events will have a thorough rummaging; and of this fact the ‘turn-of-the-market’ gentlemen may be assured. Can it be law (I put the question to lawyers), can it be law (I leave reason and justice out of the inquiry), can it be law, that, if I, to-day, see dressed in good clothes, and with a full purse, a man who was notoriously pennyless yesterday; can it be law, that I (being a justice of the peace) have a right to demand of that man how he came by his clothes and his purse? And, can it be law, that I, seeing with an estate a man who was notoriously not worth a crown piece a few years ago, and who is notoriously related to nothing more than one degree above beggary; can it be law, that I, a magistrate, seeing th
is, have not a right to demand of this man how he came by his estate? No matter, however; for, if both these be law now, they will not, I trust, be law in a few years from this time.

  Mr CHAMBERLAYNE has caused the ancient fish-ponds, at Netley Abbey, to be ‘reclaimed’, as they call it. What a loss, what a national loss, there has been in this way, and in the article of water fowl!. I am quite satisfied, that, in these two articles and in that of rabbits, the nation has lost, has had annihilated (within the last 250 years) food sufficient for two days in the week, on an average, taking the year throughout. These are things, too, which cost so little labour! You can see the marks of old fish-ponds in thousands and thousands of places. I have noticed, I dare say, five hundred, since I left home. A trifling expense would, in most cases, restore them; but, now-a-days, all is looked for at shops: all is to be had by trafficking: scarcely any one thinks of providing for his own wants out of his own land and other his own domestic means. To buy the thing, ready made, is the taste of the day: thousands, who are housekeepers, buy their dinners ready cooked: nothing is so common as to rent breasts for children to suck: a man actually advertised, in the London papers, about two months ago, to supply childless husbands with heirs! In this case, the articles were of course, to be ready made; for, to make them ‘to order’ would be the devil of a business; though, in desperate cases, even this is, I believe, sometimes resorted to.

  Hambledon, Sunday, 22d Oct. 1826

  We left Weston Grove on Friday morning, and came across to BOTLEY, where we remained during the rest of the day, and until after breakfast yesterday. I had not seen ‘the BOTLEY PARSON’2 for several years, and I wished to have a look at him now, but could not get a sight of him, though we rode close before his house, at much about his breakfast time, and though we gave him the strongest of invitation that could be expressed by hallooing and by cracking of whips! The fox was too cunning for us, and, do all we could, we could not provoke him to put even his nose out of kennel. From Mr JAMES WARNER’S at Botley, we went to Mr HALLETT’S, at Arlington, and had the very great pleasure of seeing him in excellent health. We intended to go back to Botley, and then to go to Titchfield, and, in our way to this place, over Portsdown Hill, whence I intended to show George the harbour and the fleet, and (of still more importance) the spot on which we signed the ‘HAMPSHIRE PETITION’,3 in 1817; that petition which foretold that which the ‘NORFOLK PETITION’ confirmed; that petition which will be finally acted upon, or…! That petition was the very last thing that I wrote at Botley. I came to London in November 1816; the Power-of-Imprisonment Bill was passed in February, 1817; just before it was passed, the Meeting took place on Portsdown Hill; and I, on my way to the hill from London, stopped at Botley and wrote the petition. We had one meeting afterwards at Winchester, when I heard parsons swear like troopers, and saw one of them hawk up his spittle, and spit it into Lord Cochrane’s poll! Ah! my bucks, we have you now! You are got nearly to the end of your tether; and, what is more, you know it. Pay off the DEBT, parsons! It is useless to swear and spit, and to present addresses applauding Power-of-Imprisonment Bills, unless you can pay off the Debt! Pay off the Debt, parsons! They say you can lay the devil. Lay this devil, then; or, confess that he is too many for you; aye, and for Sturges Bourne, or Bourne Sturges (I forget which), at your backs!

  From ALLINGTON, we, fearing that it would rain before we could get round by Titchfield, came across the country over WALTHAM CHASE and SOBERTON DOWN. The chase was very green and fine; but the down was the very greenest thing that I have seen in the whole country. It is not a large down; perhaps not more than five or six hundred acres; but the land is good, the chalk is at a foot from the surface, or more; the mould is a hazel mould; and when I was upon the opposite hill, I could, though I knew the spot very well, hardly believe that it was a down. The green was darker than that of any pasture or even any sainfoin or clover that I had seen throughout the whole of my ride; and I should suppose that there could not have been many less than a thousand sheep in the three flocks that were feeding upon the down when I came across it. I do not speak with any thing like positiveness as to the measurement of this down; but I do not believe that it exceeds six hundred and fifty acres. They must have had more rain in this part of the country than in most other parts of it. Indeed, no part of Hampshire seems to have suffered very much from the drought. I found the turnips pretty good, of both sorts, all the way from Andover to Rumsey. Through the New Forest, you may as well expect to find loaves of bread growing in fields as turnips, where there are any fields for them to grow in. From Redbridge to Weston we had not light enough to see much about us; but when we came down to Botley, we there found the turnips as good as I had ever seen them in my life, as far as I could judge from the time I had to look at them. Mr Warner has as fine turnip fields as I ever saw him have, Swedish turnips and white also; and pretty nearly the same may be said of the whole of that neighbourhood for many miles round.

  After quitting Soberton Down, we came up a hill leading to Hambledon, and turned off to our left to bring us down to Mr Goldsmith’s at West End, where we now are, at about a mile from the village of Hambledon. A village it now is; but it was formerly a considerable market-town, and it had diree fairs in the year. There is now not even the name of market left, I believe; and the fairs amount to little more than a couple or three ginger-bread stalls, with dolls and whisdes for children. If you go through the place, you see that it has been a considerable town. The church tells the same story; it is now a tumbledown rubbishy place; it is partaking in the fate of all those places which were formerly a sort of rendezvous for persons who had things to buy and things to sell. Wens have devoured market-towns and villages; and shops have devoured markets and fairs; and this, too, to the infinite injury of the most numerous classes of the people. Shop-keeping, merely as shop-keeping, is injurious to any community. What are the shop and the shop-keeper for? To receive and distribute the produce of the land. There are other articles, certainly; but the main part is the produce of the land. The shop must be paid for; the shop-keeper must be kept; and the one must be paid for and the other must be kept by the consumer of the produce; or, perhaps, partly by the consumer and partly by the producer. When fairs were very frequent, shops were not needed. A manufacturer of shoes, of stockings, of hats; of almost any thing that man wants, could manufacture at home in an obscure hamlet, with cheap house-rent, good air, and plenty of room. He need pay no heavy rent for shop; and no disadvantages from confined situation; and, then, by attending three or four or five or six fairs in a year, he sold the work of his hands, unloaded with a heavy expense attending the keeping of a shop. He would get more for ten shillings in a booth at a fair or market, than he would get in a shop for ten or twenty pounds. Of course he could afford to sell the work of his hands for less; and thus a greater portion of their earnings remained with those who raised the food and the clothing from the land. I had an instance of this in what occurred to myself at Weyhill fair. When I was at Salisbury, in September, I wanted to buy a whip. It was a common hunting-whip, with a hook to it to pull open gates with, and I could not get it for less than seven shillings and sixpence. This was more than I had made up my mind to give, and I went on with my switch. When we got to Weyhill fair, George had made shift to lose his whip some time before, and I had made him go without one by way of punishment. But now, having come to the fair, and seeing plenty of whips, I bought him one, just such a one as had been offered me at Salisbury for seven and sixpence, for four and sixpence; and, seeing the man with his whips afterwards, I thought I would have one myself; and he let me have it for three shillings. So that, here were two whips, precisely of the same kind and quality as the whip at Salisbury, bought for the money which the man at Salisbury asked me for one whip; and yet, far be it from me to accuse the man at Salisbury of an attempt at extortion: he had an expensive shop, and a family in a town to support, while my Weyhill fellow had been making his whips in some house in the country, which he rented, probably, for f
ive or six pounds a year, with a good garden to it. Does not every one see, in a minute, how this exchanging of fairs and markets for shops creates idlers and traffickers; creates those locusts, called middle-men, who create nothing, who add to the value of nothing, who improve nothing, but who live in idleness, and who live well, too, out of the labour of the producer and the consumer. The fair and the market, those wise institutions of our forefathers, and with regard to the management of which they were so scrupulously careful; the fair and the market bring the producer and the consumer in contact with each other. Whatever is gained is, at any rate, gained by one or the other of these. The fair and the market bring them together, and enable them to act for their mutual interest and convenience. The shop and the trafficker keeps them apart; the shop hides from both producer and consumer the real state of matters. The fair and the market lay every thing open: going to either, you see the state of things at once; and the transactions are fair and just, not disfigured, too, by falsehood, and by those attempts at deception which disgrace traffickings in general. Very wise too, and very just, were the laws against forestalling and regretting. They were laws to prevent the producer and the consumer from being cheated by the trafficker. There are whole bodies of men; indeed, a very large part of the community, who live in idleness in this country, in consequence of the whole current of the laws now running in favour of the trafficking monopoly. It has been a great object with all wise governments, in all ages, from the days of Moses to the present day, to confine trafficking, mere trafficking, to as few hands as possible. It seems to be the main object of this government to give all possible encouragement to traffickers of every description, and to make them swarm like the lice of Egypt. There is that numerous sect, the Quakers. This sect arose in England: they were engendered by the Jewish system of usury. Till excises and loanmongering began, diese vermin were never heard of in England. They seem to have been hatched by that fraudulent system, as maggots are bred by putrid meat, or as the flounders come in the livers of rotten sheep. The base vermin do not pretend to work: all they talk about is dealing; and the government, in place of making laws that would put them in the stocks, or cause them to be whipped at the cart’s tail, really seem anxious to encourage them and to increase their numbers; nay, it is not long since Mr Brougham had the effrontery to move for leave to bring in a bill to make men liable to be hanged upon the bare words of diese vagabonds. This is, with me, something never to be forgotten. But, every thing tends the same way: all the regulations, all the laws that have been adopted of late years, have a tendency to give encouragement to the trickster and the trafficker, and to take from the labouring classes all the honour and a great part of the food that fairly belonged to them.