Rural Rides Read online

  Before you get to Salisbury, you cross the valley that brings down a little river from Amesbury. It is a very beautiful valley. There is a chain of farm-houses and little churches all the way up it. The farms consist of the land on the flats on each side of the river, running out to a greater or less extent, at different places, towards the hills and downs. Not far above Amesbury is a little village called Netherhaven, where I once saw an acre of hares. We were coursing at Everly, a few miles off; and, one of the party happening to say, that he had seen an acre of hares at Mr Hicks Beech’s at Netherhaven, we, who wanted to see the same, or to detect our informant, sent a messenger to beg a day’s coursing, which being granted, we went over the next day. Mr BEECH received us very politely. He took us into a wheat stubble close by his paddock; his son took a gallop round, cracking his whip at the same time; the hares (which were very thickly in sight before) started all over the field, ran into a flock like sheep; and we all agreed, that the flock did cover an acre of ground. Mr Beech had an old greyhound3 that I saw lying down in the shrubbery close by the house, while several hares were sitting and skipping about, with just as much confidence as cats sit by a dog in a kitchen or a parlour. Was this instinct in either dog or hares? Then, mind, this same greyhound went amongst the rest to course with us out upon the distant hills and lands; and then he ran as eagerly as the rest, and killed the hares with as little remorse. Philosophers will talk a long while before they will make men believe, that this was instinct alone. I believe that this dog had much more reason than one half of the Cossacks have; and I am sure he had a great deal more than many a Negro that I have seen.

  In crossing this valley to go to Salisbury, I thought of Mr Beech’s hares; but, I really have neither thought of nor seen any game with pleasure, since the hanging of the two men at Winchester. If no other man will petition for the repeal of the law, under which those poor fellows suffered, I will. But, let us hope, that there will be no need of petitioning. Let us hope, that it will be repealed without any express application for it. It is curious enough, that laws of this sort should increase, while Sir James Mackintosh is so resolutely bent on ‘softening the criminal code’!

  The company at Salisbury was very numerous; not less than 500 farmers were present. They were very attentive to what I said, and, which rather surprised me, they received very docilely what I said against squeezing the labourers. A fire, in a farm-yard, had lately taken place near Salisbury; so that the subject was a ticklish one. But it was my very first duty to treat of it, and I was resolved, be the consequence what it might, not to neglect that duty.

  23 to 26 October

  At Uphusband. At this village, which is a great thoroughfare for sheep and pigs, from Wiltshire and Dorsetshire to Berkshire, Oxfordshire, and away to the North and North East, we see many farmers from different parts of the country; and, if I had had any doubts before, as to the deplorableness of their state, those would now no longer exist. I did, indeed, years ago, prove, that if we returned to cash-payments without a reduction of the Debt, and without a rectifying of contracts, the present race of farmers must be ruined. But still, when the thing actually comes, it astounds one. It is like the death of a friend or relation. We talk of its approach without much emotion. We fortel the when without much seeming pain. We know it must be. But, when it comes, we forget our foretellings, and feel the calamity as acutely as if we had never expected it. The accounts we hear, daily, and almost hourly, of the families of farmers actually coming to the parish-book, are enough to make any body but a Boroughmonger feel. That species of monster is to be moved by nothing but his own pecuniary sufferings; and, thank God, this monster is now about to be reached. I hear, from all parts, that the parsons are in great alarm! Well they may, if their hearts be too much set upon the treasures of this world4 for, I can see no possible way of settling this matter justly without resorting to their temporalities. They have long enough been calling upon all the industrious classes for ‘sacrifices for the good of the country’. The time seems to be come for them to do something in this way themselves. In a short time there will be, because there can be, no rents. And, we shall see, whether the landlords will then suffer the parsons to continue to receive a tenth part of the produce of the land! In many places the farmers have had the sense and the spirit to rate the tithes to the poor-rates. This they ought to do in all cases, whether the tithes be taken up in kind or not. This however sweats the fire-shovel hat gentleman. It ‘bothers his wig’. He does not know what to think of it. He does not know who to blames; and, where a parson finds things not to his mind, the first thing he always does is, to look about for somebody to accuse of sedition and blasphemy. Lawyers always begin, in such cases, to hunt the books, to see if there be no punishment to apply. But, the devil of it is, neither of them have now any body to lay on upon! I always told them, that there would arise an enemy, that would laugh at all their anathemas, informations, dungeons, halters and bayonets. One positive good has, however, arisen out of the present calamities, and that is, the parsons are grown more humble than they were. Cheap corn and a good thumping debt have greatly conduced to the producing of the Christian virtue, humility, necessary in us all, but doubly necessary in the priesthood. The parson is now one of the parties who is taking away the landlord’s estate and the farmer’s capital. When the farmer’s capital is gone, there will be no rents; but, without a law upon the subject, the parson will still have his tithe, and a tithe upon the taxes too, which the land has to bear! Will the landlords stand this? No matter. If there be no reform of the Parliament, they must stand it. The two sets may, for aught I care, worry each other as long as they please. When the present race of farmers are gone (and that will soon be) the landlord and the parson may settle the matter between them. They will be the only parties interested; and which of them shall devour the other appears to be of little consequence to the rest of the community. They agreed most cordially in creating the Debt. They went hand in hand in all the measures against the Reformers. They have made, actually made, the very thing that now frightens them, which now menaces them with total extinction. They cannot think it unjust, if their prayers be now treated as the prayers of the Reformers were.

  27 to 29 October

  At Burghclere. Very nasty weather. On the 28th the fox-hounds came to throw off at Penwood, in this parish. Having heard that Dundas would be out with the hounds, I rode to the place of meeting, in order to look him in the face, and to give him an opportunity to notice, on his own peculiar dunghill, what I had said of him at Newbury. He came. I rode up to him and about him; but, he said not a word. The company entered the wood, and I rode back towards my quarters. They found a fox, and quickly lost him. Then they came out of the wood and came back along the road, and met me, and passed me, they as well as I going at a foot pace. I had plenty of time to survey them all well, and to mark their looks. I watched Dundas’s eyes, but the devil a bit could I get them to turn my way. He is paid for the present. We shall see, whether he will go, or send an ambassador, or neither, when I shall be at Reading on the 9th of next month.

  30 October

  Set off for London. Wentby Alderbridge, Crookham, Brimton, Mortimer, Strathfield Say, Heckfield Heath, Eversley, Blackwater, and slept at Oakingham. This is, with trifling exceptions, a miserably poor country. Burghclere lies along at the foot of a part of that chain of hills, which, in this part, divide Hampshire from Berkshire. The parish just named is, indeed, in Hampshire, but it forms merely the foot of the Highclere and Kingsclere Hills. These hills, from which you can see all across the country, even to the Isle of Wight, are of chalk, and with them, towards the North, ends the chalk. The soil over which I have come to-day, is generally a stony sand upon a bed of gravel. With the exception of the land just round Crookham and the other villages, nothing can well be poorer or more villanously ugly. It is all first cousin to Hounslow Heath, of which it is, in fact, a continuation to the Westward. There is a clay at the bottom of the gravel; so that you have here nasty stagnant
pools without fertility of soil. The rushes grow amongst the gravel; sure sign that there is clay beneath to hold the water; for, unless there be water constantly at their roots, rushes will not grow. Such land is, however, good for oaks wherever there is soil enough on the top of the gravel for the oak to get hold, and to send its tap-root down to the clay. The oak is the thing to plant here; and, therefore, this whole country contains not one single plantation of oaks! That is to say, as far as I observed. Plenty of fir-trees and other rubbish have been recently planted; but, no oaks.

  At Strathfield Say is that everlasting monument of English Wisdom Collective, the Heir Loom Estate of the ‘greatest Captain of the Age’!5 In his peerage it is said, that it was wholly out of the power of the nation to reward his services fully; but, that ‘she did what she could’!. Well, poor devil! And what could any body ask for more? It was well, however, that she gave what she did while she was drunk; for, if she had held her hand till now, I am half disposed to think, that her gifts would have been very small. I can never forget that we have to pay interest on 50,000l. of the money merely owing to the coxcombery of the late Mr WHITBREAD, who actually moved that addition to one of the grants proposed by the Ministers! Now, a great part of the grants is in the way of annuity or pension. It is notorious, that, when the grants were made, the pensions would not purchase more than a third part of as much wheat as they will now. The grants, therefore, have been augmented threefold. What right, then, has any one to say, that the labourers wages ought to fall, unless he say, that these pensions ought to be reduced! The Hampshire Magistrates, when they were putting forth their manifesto about the allowances to labourers, should have noticed these pensions of the Lord Lieutenant of the County. However, real starvation cannot be inflicted to any very great extent. The present race of farmers must give way, and the attempts to squeeze rents out of the wages of labour must cease. And the matter will finally rest to be settled by the landlords, parsons, and tax-eaters. If the landlords choose to give the greatest captain three times as much as was granted to him, why, let him have it. According to all account, he is no miser at any rate; and the estates that pass through his hands may, perhaps, be full as well disposed of as they are at present. Considering the miserable soil I have passed over to-day, I am rather surprised to find Oakingham so decent a town. It has a very handsome market-place, and is by no means an ugly country-town.

  31 October

  Set oil at daylight and got to Kensington about noon. On leaving Oakingham for London, you get upon what is called Windsor Forest; that is to say, upon as bleak, as barren, and as villanous a heath as ever man set his eyes on. However, here are new enclosures without end. And here are houses too, here and there, over the whole of this execrable tract of country. ‘What!’ Mr CANNING will say, ‘will you not allow that the owners of these new enclosures and these houses know their own interests? And are not these improvements, and are they not a proof of on addition to the national capital?’ To the first I answer, May be so: to the two last No. These new enclosures and houses arise out of the beggaring of the parts of the country distant from the vortex of the funds. The farm-houses have long been growing fewer and fewer; the labourers’ houses fewer and fewer; and it is manifest to every man who has eyes to see with, that the villages are regularly wasting away. This is the case all over the parts of the kingdom where the tax-eaters do not haunt. In all the really agricultural villages and parts of the kingdom, there is a shocking decay; a great dilapidation and constant pulling down or falling down of houses. The farm-houses are not so many as they were forty years ago by three-fourths. That is to say, the infernal system of Pitt and his followers has annihilated three parts out of four of the farm houses. The labourers’ houses disappear also. And all the useful people become less numerous. While these spewy sands and gravel near London are enclosed and built on, good lands in other parts are neglected. These enclosures and buildings are a waste; they are means misapplied; they are a proof of national decline and not of prosperity. To cultivate and ornament these villanous spots the produce and the population are drawn away from the good lands. There all manner of schemes have been resorted to to get rid of the necessity of hands; and, I am quite convinced, that the population, upon the whole, has not increased, in England, one single soul since I was born; an opinion that I have often expressed, in support of which I have as often offered arguments, and those arguments have never been answered.6 As to this rascally heath, that which has ornamented it has brought misery on millions. The spot is not far distant from the Stock-Jobbing crew. The roads to it are level. They are smooth. The wretches can go to it from the ‘Change without any danger to their worthless necks. And thus it is ‘vastly improved, Ma’am!’ A set of men who can look upon this as ‘improvement’, who can regard this as a proof of the ‘increased capital of the country’, are pretty fit, it must be allowed, to get the country out of its present difficulties! At the end of this blackguard heath you come (on the road to Egham) to a little place called Sunning Hill, which is on the Western side of Windsor Park. It is a spot all made into ‘grounds’ and gardens by tax-eaters. The inhabitants of it have beggared twenty agricultural villages and hamlets.

  From this place you go across a corner of Windsor Park, and come out at Virginia Water. To Egham is then about two miles. A much more ugly country than that between Egham and Kensington would with great difficulty be found in England. Flat as a pancake, and, until you come to Hammersmith, the soil is a nasty stony dirt upon a bed of gravel. Hounslow-heath, which is only a little worse than the general run, is a sample of all that is bad in soil and villanous in look. Yet this is now enclosed, and what they call ‘cultivated’. Here is a fresh robbery of villages, hamlets, and farm and labourers’ buildings and abodes! But, here is one of those ‘vast improvements, Ma‘am’, called Barracks. What an ‘improvement’! What an ‘addition to the national capital’! For, mind, Monsieur de Snip,7 the Surrey Norman, actually said, that ‘the new buildings ought to be reckoned an addition to the national capital’.! What, Snip! Do you pretend drat the nation is richer, because the means of making this barrack have been drawn away from the people in taxes? Mind, Monsieur le Normand, the barrack did not drop down from the sky nor spring up out of the earth. It was not created by the unhanged knaves of paper-money. It came out of the people’s labour; and, when you hear Mr ELLMAN tell the Committee of 1821, that forty-five years ago every man in his parish brewed his own beer, and that now not one man in that same parish does it; when you hear this, Monsieur de Snip, you might, if you had brains in skull, be able to estimate the effects of what has produced the barrack. Yet, barracks there must be, or Gatton and Old Sarum8 must fall; and the fall of these would break poor Mr Canning’s heart.

  8 November

  From London to Egham in the evening.

  9 November

  Started at day-break in a hazy frost, for Reading. The horses’ manes and ears covered with the hoar before we got across Windsor Park, which appeared to be a blackguard soil, pretty much like Hounslow Heath, only not flat. A very large part of the Park is covered with heath or rushes, sure sign of execrable soil. But the roads are such as might have been made by Solomon. ‘A greater than Solomon is here!’9 some one may exclaim. Of that I know nothing. I am but a traveller; and the roads in this park are beautiful indeed. My servant, whom I brought from amongst the hills and flints of Uphusband, must certainly have thought himself in Paradise as he was going through the Park. If I had told him that the buildings and the labourers’ clothes and meals, at Uphusband, were the worse for those pretty roads with edgings cut to the line, he would have wondered at me, I dare say. It would, nevertheless, have been perfectly true; and this is feelosofee of a much more useful sort than that which is taught by the Edinburgh Reviewers.10

  When you get through the Park you come to Winkfield, and then (bound for Reading) you go through Binfield, which is ten miles from Egham and as many from Reading. At Binfield I stopped to breakfast, at a very nice country inn calle
d the Stag and Hounds. Here you go along on the North border of that villanous tract of country that I passed over in going from Oakingham to Egham. Much of the land even here is but newly enclosed; and, it was really not worth a straw before it was loaded with the fruit of the labour of the people living in the parts of the country distant from the Fund Wen. What injustice! What unnatural changes! Such things cannot be, without producing convulsion in the end! A road as smooth as a the, a real stock-jobber’s road, brought us to Reading by eleven o’clock. We dined at one; and very much pleased I was with the company. I have seldom seen a number of persons assembled together, whose approbation I valued more than that of the company of this day. Last year the prime Minister said, that his speech (the grand speech) was rendered necessary by the ‘pains that had been taken, in different parts of the country’, to persuade the farmers, that the distress had arisen out of the measures of the government, and not from over-production! To be sure I had taken some pains to remove that stupid notion about over-production, from the minds of the farmers; but, did the stern-path-man succeed in counteracting the effect of my efforts? Not he, indeed. And, after his speech was made, and sent forth cheek by jowl with that of the sane Castlereagh of hole-digging memory, the truths inculcated by me were only the more manifest. This has been a fine meeting at Reading! I feel very proud of it. The morning was fine for me to ride in, and the rain began as soon as I was housed.

  I came on horse-back 40 miles, slept on the road, and finished my harangue at the end of twenty-two hours from leaving Kensington; and, I cannot help saying, that is pretty well for ‘Old Cobbett’. I am delighted with the people that I have seen at Reading. Their kindness to me is nothing in my estimation compared with the sense and spirit which they appear to possess. It is curious to observe how things have worked with me. That combination, that sort of instinctive union, which has existed for so many years, amongst all the parties, to keep me down generally, and particularly, as the County-Cub called it, to keep me out of Parliament ‘at any rate’, this combination has led to the present haranguing system, which, in some sort, supplies the place of a seat in Parliament. It may be said, indeed, that I have not the honour to sit in the same room with those great Reformers, Lord John Russell, Sir Massey Lopez and his guest, Sir Francis Burdett; but man’s happiness here below is never perfect; and there may be, besides, people to believe, that a man ought not to break his heart on account of being shut out of such company, especially when he can find such company as I have this day found at Reading.