“Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn; and, The labourer is worthy of his reward.”—Deuteronomy, ch. xxv, ver. 4; 1 Cor. ix, 9; 1 Tim. v, 9.
“Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn; and, The labourer is worthy of his reward.”—Deuteronomy, ch. xxv, ver. 4; 1 Cor. ix, 9; 1 Tim. v, 9.
Milton,Monday, 28th August.
I came off this morning on the Marlborough road about two miles, or three, and then turned off, over the downs, in a north-westerly direction, in search of the source of the Avon River, which goes down to Salisbury. I had once been at Netheravon, a village in this valley; but I had often heard this valley described as one of the finest pieces of land in all England; I knew that there were about thirty parish churches, standing in a length of about thirty miles, and in an average width of hardly a mile; and I was resolved to see a little into thereasonsthat could have induced our fathers to build all these churches, especially if, as the Scotch would have us believe, there were but a mere handful of people in Englanduntil of late years.
The first part of my ride this morning was by the side of Sir John Astley’s park. This man is one of the members of the county (gallon-loaf Bennet being the other). They say that he is good to the labouring people; and he ought to be good forsomething, being a member of Parliament of the Lethbridge and Dickenson stamp. However, he has got a thumping estate; though it be borne in mind, the working-people and the fund-holders and the dead-weight have each their separate mortgage upon it; of which this Baronet has, I dare say, too much justice to complain, seeing that the amount of these mortgages was absolutely necessary to carry on Pitt and Perceval and Castlereagh Wars; to support Hanoverian soldiers in England; to fight and beat the Americans on the Serpentine River; to give Wellington a kingly estate; and to defray the expenses of Manchester and other yeomanry cavalry; besides all the various charges of Power-of-Imprisonment Bills and of Six-Acts. These being the cause of the mortgages, the “worthy Baronet” has, I will engage, too much justice to complain of them.
In steering across the down, I came to a large farm, which a shepherd told me was Milton Hill Farm. This was upon the high land, and before I came to the edge of thisValley of Avon, which was my land of promise; or, at least, of great expectation; for I could not imagine that thirty churches had been builtfor nothingby the side of a brook (for it is no more duringthe greater part of the way) thirty miles long. The shepherd showed me the way towards Milton; and at the end of about a mile, from the top of a very high part of the down, with a steep slope towards the valley, I first saw thisValley of Avon; and a most beautiful sight it was! Villages, hamlets, large farms, towers, steeples, fields, meadows, orchards, and very fine timber trees, scattered all over the valley. The shape of the thing is this: on each sidedowns, very lofty and steep in some places, and sloping miles back in other places; but eachoutsideof the valley are downs. From the edge of the downs begin capitalarable fieldsgenerally of very great dimensions, and, in some places, running a mile or two back into littlecross-valleys, formed by hills of downs. After the corn-fields comemeadows, on each side, down to thebrookorriver. The farm-houses, mansions, villages, and hamlets, are generally situated in that part of the arable land which comes nearest the meadows.
Great as my expectations had been, they were more than fulfilled. I delight in this sort of country; and I had frequently seen the vale of the Itchen, that of the Bourn, and also that of the Teste, in Hampshire; I had seen the vales amongst the South Downs; but I never before saw anything to please me like this valley of the Avon. I sat upon my horse, and looked over Milton and Easton and Pewsy for half an hour, though I had not breakfasted. The hill was very steep. A road, going slanting down it, was still so steep, and washed so very deep, by the rains of ages, that I did not attempt toridedown it, and I did not like to lead my horse, the path was so narrow. So seeing a boy with a drove of pigs, going out to the stubbles, I beckoned him to come up to me; and he came and led my horse down for me. Endless is the variety in the shape of the high lands which form this valley. Sometimes the slope is very gentle, and the arable lands go back very far. At others, the downs come out into the valley almost like piers into the sea, being very steep in their sides, as well as their ends towards the valley. They have no slope at their other ends: indeed they have noback ends, but run into the main high land. There is also great variety in the width of the valley; great variety in the width of the meadows; but the land appears all to be of the very best; and it must be so, for the farmers confess it.
It seemed to me, that one way, and that not, perhaps, the least striking, of exposing the folly, the stupidity, the inanity, the presumption, the insufferable emptiness and insolence and barbarity, of those numerous wretches, who have now the audacity to propose totransportthe people of England, upon the principle of the monster Malthus, who has furnished theunfeeling oligarchs and their toad-eaters with the pretence, thatman has a natural propensity to breed faster than food can be raised for the increase; it seemed to me, that one way of exposing this mixture of madness and of blasphemy was to take a look, now that the harvest is in, at the produce, the mouths, the condition, and the changes that have taken place, in a spot like this, which God has favoured with every good that he has had to bestow upon man.
From the top of the hill I was not a little surprised to see, in every part of the valley that my eye could reach, a due, a large portion of fields of Swedish turnips, all looking extremely well. I had found the turnips, of both sorts, by no means bad, from Salt Hill to Newbury; but from Newbury through Burghclere, Highclere, Uphusband, and Tangley, I had seen but few. At and about Ludgarshall and Everley, I had seen hardly any. But when I came, this morning, to Milton Hill farm, I saw a very large field of what appeared to me to be fine Swedish turnips. In the valley, however, I found them much finer, and the fields were very beautiful objects, forming, as their colour did, so great a contrast with that of the fallows and the stubbles, which latter are, this year, singularly clean and bright.
Having gotten to the bottom of the hill, I proceeded on to the village of Milton. I left Easton away at my right, and I did not go up to Watton Rivers where the river Avon rises, and which lies just close to the South-west corner of Marlborough Forest, and at about 5 or 6 miles from the town of Marlborough. Lower down the river, as I thought, there lived a friend, who was a great farmer, and whom I intended to call on. It being my way, however, always to begin making enquiries soon enough, I asked the pig-driver where this friend lived; and, to my surprise, I found that he lived in the parish of Milton. After riding up to the church, as being the centre of the village, I went on towards the house of my friend, which lay on my road down the valley. I have many, many times witnessed agreeable surprise; but I do not know, that I ever in the whole course of my life, saw people so much surprised and pleased as this farmer and his family were at seeing me. People oftentellyou, that they areglad to seeyou; and in general they speak truth. I take pretty good care not to approach any house, with the smallest appearance of a design to eat or drink in it, unless I bequite sureof a cordial reception; but my friend at Fifield (it is in Milton parish) and all his family really seemed to be delighted beyond all expression.
When I set out this morning, I intended to go all the way down to the city of Salisburyto-day; but, I soon found, that to refuse to sleep at Fifield would cost me a great deal moretrouble than a day was worth. So that I made my mind up to stay in this farm-house, which has one of the nicest gardens, and it contains some of the finest flowers, that I ever saw, and all is disposed with as much good taste as I have ever witnessed. Here I am, then, just going to bed after having spent as pleasant a day as I ever spent in my life. I have heard to-day, that Birkbeck lost his life by attempting to cross a river on horse-back; but if what I have heard besides be true, that life must have been hardly worth preserving; for, they say, that he was reduced to a very deplorable state; and I have heard, from what I deem unquestionable authority, that his two beautiful and accomplished daughters are married to two common labourers, one a Yankee and the other an Irishman, neither of whom has, probably, a second shirt to his back, or a single pair of shoes to put his feet into! These poor girls owe their ruin and misery (if my information be correct), and, at any rate, hundreds besides Birkbeck himself, owe their utter ruin, the most scandalous degradation, together with great bodily suffering, to the vanity, the conceit, the presumption of Birkbeck, who, observe, richly merited all that he suffered, not excepting his death; for, he sinned with his eyes open; he rejected all advice; he persevered after he saw his error; he dragged thousands into ruin along with him; and he most vilely calumniated the man, who, after having most disinterestedly, but in vain, endeavoured to preserve him from ruin, endeavoured to preserve those who were in danger of being deluded by him. When, in 1817, before he set out for America, I was, in Catherine Street, Strand, London, so earnestly pressing him not to go to the back countries, he had one of these daughters with him. After talking to him for some time, and describing the risks and disadvantages of the back countries, I turned towards the daughter and, in a sort of joking way, said: “Miss Birkbeck, take my advice: don’t let anybody getyoumore than twenty miles from Boston, New York, Philadelphia, or Baltimore.” Upon which he gave me a mostdignifiedlook, and observed: “Miss Birkbeck hasa father, Sir, whom she knows it to be her duty to obey.” This snap was enough for me. I saw, that this was a man so full of self-conceit, that it was impossible to do anything with him. He seemed to me to be bent upon his own destruction. I thought it my duty to warnothersof their danger: some took the warning; others did not; but he and his brother adventurer, Flower, never forgave me, and they resorted to all the means in their power to do me injury. They did me no injury, no thanks to them; and I have seen them most severely, but most justly, punished.
Amesbury,Tuesday, 29th August.
I set off from Fifield this morning, and got here about one o’clock, with my clothes wet. While they are drying, and while a mutton chop is getting ready, I sit down to make some notes of what I have seen since I left Enford ... but, here comes my dinner: and I must put off my notes till I have dined.
Salisbury,Wednesday, 30th August.
My ride yesterday, from Milton to this city of Salisbury, was, without any exception, the most pleasant; it brought before me the greatest number of, to me, interesting objects, and it gave rise to more interesting reflections, than I remember ever to have had brought before my eyes, or into my mind, in any one day of my life; and therefore, this ride was, without any exception, the most pleasant that I ever had in my life, as far as my recollection serves me. I got a little wet in the middle of the day; but I got dry again, and I arrived here in very good time, though I went over the Accursed Hill (Old Sarum), and went across to Laverstoke, before I came to Salisbury.
Let us now, then, look back over this part of Wiltshire, and see whether the inhabitants ought to be “transported” by order of the “Emigration Committee,” of which we shall see and say more by-and-by. I have before described this valley generally; let me now speak of it a little more in detail. The farms are all large, and, generally speaking, they were always large, I dare say; becausesheepis one of the great things here; and sheep, in a country like this, must be kept inflocks, to be of any profit. The sheep principally manure the land. This is to be done only byfolding; and, to fold, you must have aflock. Every farm has its portion of down, arable, and meadow; and, in many places, the latter are watered meadows, which is a great resource where sheep are kept in flocks; because these meadows furnish grass for the suckling ewes, early in the spring; and, indeed, because they have always food in them for sheep and cattle of all sorts. These meadows have had no part of the suffering from the drought, this year. They fed the ewes and lambs in the spring, and they are now yielding a heavy crop of hay; for I saw men mowing in them, in several places, particularly about Netheravon, though it was raining at the time.
The turnips look pretty well all the way down the valley; but, I see very few, except Swedish turnips. The early common turnips very nearly all failed, I believe. But the stubbles arebeautifully bright; and the rick-yards tell us that the crops are good, especially of wheat. This is not a country of pease and beans, nor of oats, except for home consumption. The crops are wheat, barley, wool, and lambs, and these latter not to be sold to butchers, but to be sold, at the great fairs, to those who are going to keep them for some time, whether to breed from, or finally to fat for the butcher. It is the pulse and the oats that appear to have failed most this year; and therefore this Valley has not suffered. I do not perceive that they have manypotatoes; but what they have of this base root seem to look well enough. It was one of the greatest villains upon earth (Sir Walter Raleigh), who (they say) first brought this root into England. He was hanged at last! What a pity, since he was to be hanged, the hanging did not take place before he became such a mischievous devil as he was in the latter two-thirds of his life!
The stack-yards down this valley are beautiful to behold. They contain from five to fifteen banging wheat-ricks, besides barley-ricks, and hay-ricks, and also besides the contents of the barns, many of which exceed a hundred, some two hundred, and I saw one at Pewsey, and another at Fittleton, each of which exceeded two hundred and fifty feet in length. At a farm, which, in the old maps, is called Chissenbury Priory, I think I counted twenty-seven ricks of one sort and another, and sixteen or eighteen of them wheat-ricks. I could not conveniently get to the yard, without longer delay than I wished to make; but I could not be much out in my counting. A very fine sight this was, and it could not meet the eye without making one look round (and in vain)to see the people who were to eat all this food; and without making one reflect on the horrible, the unnatural, the base and infamous state, in which we must be, when projects are on foot, and are openly avowed, fortransportingthose who raise this food, because they want to eat enough of it to keep them alive; and when no project is on foot for transporting the idlers who live in luxury upon this same food; when no project is on foot for transporting pensioners, parsons, or dead-weight people!
A little while before I came to this farm-yard, I saw, in one piece, about four hundred acres of wheat-stubble, and I saw a sheep-fold, which, I thought, contained an acre of ground, and had in it about four thousand sheep and lambs. The fold was divided into three separate flocks; but the piece of ground was one and the same; and I thought it contained about an acre. At one farm, between Pewsey and Upavon, I counted more than 300 hogs in one stubble. This is certainly the most delightful farming in the world. No ditches, no water-furrows, no drains, hardly any hedges, no dirt and mire, even in thewettest seasons of the year: and though the downs are naked and cold, the valleys are snugness itself. They are, as to the downs, whatah-ahs!are, in parks or lawns. When you are going over the downs, you lookoverthe valleys, as in the case of theah-ah; and if you be not acquainted with the country, your surprise, when you come to the edge of the hill, is very great. The shelter, in these valleys, and particularly where the downs are steep and lofty on the sides, is very complete. Then, the trees are everywhere lofty. They are generally elms, with some ashes, which delight in the soil that they find here. There are, almost always, two or three large clumps of trees in every parish, and a rookery or two (notrag-rookery) to every parish. By the water’s edge there are willows; and to almost every farm there is a fine orchard, the trees being, in general, very fine, and, this year, they are, in general, well loaded with fruit. So that, all taken together, it seems impossible to find a more beautiful and pleasant country than this, or to imagine any life more easy and happy than men might here lead, if they were untormented by an accursed system that takes the food from those that raise it, and gives it to those that do nothing that is useful to man.
Here the farmer has always an abundance of straw. His farm-yard is never without it. Cattle and horses are bedded up to their eyes. The yards are put close under the shelter of a hill, or are protected by lofty and thick-set trees. Every animal seems comfortably situated; and, in the dreariest days of winter, these are, perhaps, the happiest scenes in the world; or, rather, they would be such, if those, whose labour makes it all, trees, corn, sheep and everything, had buttheir fair shareof the produce of that labour. What share they really have of it one cannot exactly say; but, I should suppose, that every labouringmanin this valley raises as much food as would suffice for fifty, or a hundred persons, fed like himself!
At a farm at Milton there were, according to my calculation, 600 quarters of wheat and 1200 quarters of barley of the present year’s crop. The farm keeps, on an average, 1400 sheep, it breeds and rears an usual proportion of pigs, fats the usual proportion of hogs, and, I suppose, rears and fats the usual proportion of poultry. Upon inquiry, I found that this farm was, in point of produce, about one-fifth of the parish. Therefore, the land of this parish produces annually about 3000 quarters of wheat, 6000 quarters of barley, the wool of 7000 sheep, together with the pigs and poultry. Now, then, leaving green, or moist, vegetables out of the question, as being things that human creatures, and especiallylabouringhuman creatures, ought never to useas sustenance, and saying nothing, at present, about milk and butter;leaving these wholly out of the question, let us see how many people the produce of this parish would keep, supposing the people to live all alike, and to have plenty of food and clothing. In order to come at the fact here, let us see what would be the consumption of one family; let it be a family of five persons; a man, wife, and three children, one child big enough to work, one big enough to eat heartily, and one a baby; and this is a pretty fair average of the state of people in the country. Such a family would want 5 lb. of bread a-day; they would want a pound of mutton a-day; they would want two pounds of bacon a-day; they would want, on an average, winter and summer, a gallon and a half of beer a-day; for I mean that they should live without the aid of the Eastern or the Western slave-drivers. Ifsweetswere absolutely necessary for the baby, there would be quitehoneyenough in the parish. Now, then, to begin with the bread, a pound of good wheat makes a pound of good bread; for, though the offal be taken out, the water is put in; and, indeed, the fact is, that a pound of wheat will make a pound of bread, leaving the offal of the wheat to feed pigs, or other animals, and to produce other human food in this way. The family would, then, use 1825 lb. of wheat in the year, which, at 60 lb. a bushel, would be (leaving out a fraction) 30 bushels, or three quarters and six bushels,for the year.
Next comes the mutton, 365 lb. for the year. Next the bacon, 730 lb. As to the quantity of mutton produced; the sheep are bred here, and not fatted in general; but we may fairly suppose, that each of the sheepkepthere, each of thestanding-stock, makes first, or last, half a fat sheep; so that a farm that keeps, on an average, 100 sheep, produces annually 50 fat sheep. Suppose the mutton to be 15 lb. a quarter, then the family will want, within a trifle of, seven sheep a year. Of bacon or pork, 36 score will be wanted. Hogs differ so much in their propensity to fat, that it is difficult to calculate about them: but this is a very good rule: when you see a fat hog, and know how manyscoreshe will weigh, set down to his account a sack (half a quarter) of barley for every score of his weight; for, let him have beeneducated(as the French call it) as he may, this will be about the real cost of him when he is fat. A sack of barley will make a score of bacon, and it will not make more. Therefore, the family would want 18 quarters of barley in the year for bacon.
As to thebeer, 18 gallons to the bushel of malt is very good; but, as we allow of no spirits, no wine, and none of the slave produce, we will suppose that asixthpart of the beer isstrongstuff. This would require two bushels of malt to the 18 gallons. The whole would, therefore, take 35 bushels of malt; and abushel of barley makes a bushel of malt, and, by theincreasepays the expense of malting. Here, then, the family would want, for beer, four quarters and three bushels of barley. The annual consumption of the family, in victuals and drink, would then be as follows:
This being the case, the 3000 quarters of wheat, which the parish annually produces, would suffice for 800 families. The 6000 quarters of barley, would suffice for 207 families. The 3500 fat sheep, being half the number kept, would suffice for 500 families. So that here is, produced in the parish of Milton,breadfor 800,muttonfor 500, andbacon and beerfor 207 families. Besides victuals and drink, there are clothes, fuel, tools, and household goods wanting; but there are milk, butter, eggs, poultry, rabbits, hares, and partridges, which I have not noticed, and these are all eatables, and are all eaten too. And as to clothing, and, indeed, fuel and all other wants beyond eating and drinking, are there not 7000 fleeces of Southdown wool, weighing, all together, 21,000 lb., and capable of being made into 8400 yards of broad cloth, at two pounds and a half of wool to the yard? Setting, therefore, the wool, the milk, butter, eggs, poultry, and game against all the wants beyond the solid food and drink, we see that the parish of Milton, that we have under our eye, would give bread to 800 families, mutton to 580, and bacon and beer to 207. The reason why wheat and mutton are produced in a proportion so much greater than the materials for making bacon and beer, is, that the wheat and the mutton are more loudly demandedfrom a distance, and are much more cheaply conveyed away in proportion to their value. For instance, the wheat and mutton are wanted in the infernal Wen, and some barley is wanted there in the shape of malt; but hogs are not fatted in the Wen, and a larger proportion of the barley is used where it is grown.
Here is, then, bread for 800 families, mutton for 500, and bacon and beer for 207. Let us take the average of the three, and then we have 502 families, for the keeping of whom, and in this good manner too, the parish of Milton yields a sufficiency. In the wool, the milk, butter, eggs, poultry, and game, we have seen ample, and much more than ample, provision for all wants other than those of mere food and drink. What I have allowed in food and drink is by no means excessive. It is but a pound ofbread, and a little more than half-a-pound of meat a day to each person on an average; and the beer is not a drop too much. There are no green and moist vegetables included in my account; but, there would be some, and they would not do any harm; but, no man can say, or, at least, none but a base usurer, who would grind money out of the bones of his own father; no other man can, or will, say, that I have beentoo liberalto this family; and yet, good God! what extravagance is here, if the labourers of England be now treated justly!
Is there a family, even amongst those who live the hardest, in the Wen, that would not shudder at the thought of living upon what I have allowed to this family? Yet what do labourers’ families get, compared to this? The answer to that question ought to make us shudder indeed. The amount of my allowance, compared with the amount of the allowance that labourers now have, is necessary to be stated here, before I proceed further. The wheat 3 qrs. and 6 bushels at present price (56s.the quarter) amounts to 10l.10s.The barley (for bacon and beer) 22 qrs. 3 bushels, at present price (34s.the quarter), amounts to 37l.16s.8d.The seven sheep, at 40s.each, amount to 14l.The total is 62l.6s.8d.; and this, observe, forbare victuals and drink; just food and drink enough to keep people in working condition.
What thendothe labourers get? To what fare has this wretched and most infamous system brought them! Why such a family as I have described is allowed to have,at the utmost, only about 9s.a week. The parish allowance is only about 7s.6d.for the five people, including clothing, fuel, bedding and everything! Monstrous state of things! But let us suppose it to benine shillings. Even that makes only 23l.8s.a year, for food, drink, clothing, fuel and everything, whereas I allow 62l.6s.8d.a year for the bare eating and drinking; and that is little enough. Monstrous, barbarous, horrible as this appears, we do not, however, see it in half its horrors; our indignation and rage against this infernal system is not half roused, till we see the small number of labourers who raise all the food and the drink, and, of course, the mere trifling portion of it that they are suffered to retain for their own use.
The parish of Milton does, as we have seen, produce food, drink, clothing, and all other things, enough for 502 families, or 2510 persons upon my allowance, which is a great deal more than three times the present allowance, because the present allowance includes clothing, fuel, tools, and everything. Now, then, according to the “Population Return,” laid before Parliament, this parish contains 500 persons, or, according to my division, one hundred families. So that here are aboutonehundredfamilies to raise food and drink enough, and to raise wool and other things to pay for all other necessaries, forfive hundredandtwofamilies! Aye, and five hundred and two families fed and lodged, too, on my liberal scale. Fed and lodged according to the present scale, this one hundred families raise enough to supply more, and many more, than fifteen hundred families; or seven thousand five hundred persons! And yet those who do the work are half starved! In the 100 families there are, we will suppose, 80 able working men, and as many boys, sometimes assisted by the women and stout girls. What a handful of people to raise such a quantity of food! What injustice, what a hellish system it must be, to make those who raise it skin and bone and nakedness, while the food and drink and wool are almost all carried away to be heaped on the fund-holders, pensioners, soldiers, dead-weight, and other swarms of tax-eaters! If such an operation do not need putting an end to, then the devil himself is a saint.
Thus it must be, or much about thus, all the way down this fine and beautiful and interesting valley. There are 29 agricultural parishes, the two last being in town; being Fisherton and Salisbury. Now, according to the “Population Return,” the whole of these 29 parishes contain 9,116 persons; or, according to my division, 1,823 families. There is no reason to believe, that the proportion that we have seen in the case of Milton does not hold good all the way through; that is, there is no reason to suppose, that the produce does not exceed the consumption in every other case in the same degree that it does in the case of Milton. And indeed if I were to judge from the number of houses and the number of ricks of corn, I should suppose that the excess was still greater in several of the other parishes. But, supposing it to be no greater; supposing the same proportion to continue all the way from Watton Rivers to Stratford Dean, then here are 9,116 persons raising food and raiment sufficient for 45,580 persons, fed and lodged according to my scale; and sufficient for 136,740 persons, according to the scale on which the unhappy labourers of this fine valley are now fed and lodged!
And yet there is an “Emigration Committee” sitting to devise the means of gettingrid, not of the idlers, not of the pensioners, not of the dead-weight, not of the parsons, (to “relieve” whom we have seen the poor labourers taxed to the tune of a million and a half of money) not of the soldiers; but to devise means of getting rid ofthese working people, who are grudged even the miserable morsel that they get! There is in the men calling themselves “English country gentlemen” something superlatively base. They are, I sincerely believe, the most cruel, themost unfeeling, the most brutally insolent: but I know, I can prove, I can safely take my oath, that they are the most base of all the creatures that God ever suffered to disgrace the human shape. The base wretches know well, that thetaxesamount to more thansixty millionsa year, and that thepoor-ratesamount to aboutseven millions; yet, while the cowardly reptiles never utter a word against the taxes, they are incessantly railing against the poor-rates, though it is, (and they know it) the taxes that make the paupers. The base wretches know well, that the sum of money given, even to the fellows that gather the taxes, is greater in amount than the poor-rates; the base wretches know well, that the money, given to the dead-weight (who ought not to have a single farthing), amounts to more than the poor receive out of the rates; the base wretches know well, that the common foot-soldier now receives more pay per week (7s.7d.) exclusive of clothing, firing, candle, and lodging; the base wretches know, that the common foot-soldier receives more to go down his own single throat, than the overseers and magistrates allow to a working man, his wife and three children; the base wretches know all this well; and yet their railings are confined to thepoorand thepoor-rates; and it is expected that they will, next session, urge the Parliament to pass a law to enable overseers and vestries and magistratesto transport paupers beyond the seas! They are base enough for this, or for any thing; but the whole system will go to the devil long before they will get such an act passed; long before they will see perfected this consummation of their infamous tyranny.
It is manifest enough, that thepopulationof this valley was, at one time, many times over what it is now; for, in the first place, what were the twenty-nine churches builtfor? The population of the 29 parishes is now but little more than one-half of that of the single parish of Kensington; and there are several of the churches bigger than the church at Kensington. What, then, should all these churches have been builtfor? And besides, where did the hands come from? And where did the money come from? These twenty-nine churches would now not only hold all the inhabitants, men, women, and children, but all the household goods, and tools, and implements, of the whole of them, farmers and all, if you leave out the wagons and carts. In three instances, Fifield, Milston, and Roach-Fen, thechurch-porcheswill hold all the inhabitants, even down to the bed-ridden and the babies. What then? will any man believe that these churches were built for such little knots of people? We are told about thegreatsuperstition of our fathers, and of their readiness to gratify the priests by building altars and other religious edifices. But we must think those priests to have beenmost devout creatures indeed, if we believe that they chose to have the money laid out inuselesschurches, rather than have it put into their own pockets! At any rate, we all know that Protestant Priests have no whims ofthis sort; and that they never lay out upon churches any money that they can, by any means, get hold of.
But, suppose that we were to believe that the Priests had, in old times, this unaccountable taste; and suppose we were to believe that a knot of people, who might be crammed into a church-porch, were seized, and very frequently too, with the desire of having a big church to go to; we must, after all this, believe that this knot of people were more thangiants, or that they had surprisingriches, else we cannot believe that they hadthe meansof gratifying the strange wishes of their Priests and their own not less strangepietyanddevotion. Even if we could believe that they thought that they were paving their way to heaven, by building churches which were a hundred times too large for the population, still we cannot believe, that the building could have been effected without bodily force; and, where was this force to come from, if the people were not more numerous than they now are? What, again, I ask, were these twenty-nine churches stuck up, not a mile from each other; what were twenty-nine churches madefor, if the population had been no greater than it is now?
But, in fact, you plainly see all the traces of a great ancient population. The churches are almost all large, and built in the best manner. Many of them are very fine edifices; very costly in the building; and, in the cases where the body of the church has been altered in the repairing of it, so as to make it smaller, thetower, which everywhere defies the hostility of time, shows you what the church must formerly have been. This is the case in several instances; and there are two or three of these villages which must formerly have beenmarket-towns, and particularly Pewsy and Upavon. There are now no less than nine of the parishes out of the twenty-nine, that have either no parsonage-houses, or have such as are in such a state that a Parson will not, or cannot, live in them. Three of them are without any parsonage-houses at all, and the rest are become poor, mean, falling-down places. This latter is the case at Upavon, which was formerly a very considerable place. Nothing can more clearly show, than this, that all, as far as buildings and population are concerned, has been long upon the decline and decay. Dilapidation after dilapidation have, at last, almost effaced even the parsonage-houses, and that too indefiance of the law, ecclesiastical as well as civil. The land remains; and the crops and the sheep come as abundantly as ever; but they are now sent almost wholly away,instead of remaining, as formerly, to be, in great part, consumed in these twenty-nine parishes.
Thestars, in my map, mark the spots where manor-houses, or gentlemen’s mansions, formerly stood, and stood, too, only about sixty years ago. Every parish had its manor house in the first place; and then there were, down this Valley, twenty-one others; so that, in this distance of about thirty miles, there stood fifty mansion houses. Where are theynow? I believe there are but eight that are at all worthy of the name of mansion houses; and even these are but poorly kept up, and, except in two or three instances, are of no benefit to the labouring people; they employ but few persons; and, in short, do not half supply the place of any eight of the old mansions. All these mansions, all these parsonages, aye, and their goods and furniture, together with the clocks, the brass kettles, the brewing-vessels, the good bedding and good clothes and good furniture, and the stock in pigs, or in money, of the inferior classes, in this series of once populous and gay villages and hamlets; all these have been by the accursed system of taxing and funding and paper-money, by the well-known exactions of the state, and by the not less real, though less generally understood, extortions of themonopoliesarising out of paper-money; all these have been, by these accursed means, conveyed away, out of this Valley, to the haunts of the tax-eaters and the monopolizers. There are many of themansion houses, the ruins of which you yet behold. At Milton there are two mansion houses, the walls and the roofs of which yet remain, but which are falling gradually to pieces, and the garden walls are crumbling down. At Enford, Bennet, the Member for the county, had a large mansion house, the stables of which are yet standing. In several places, I saw, still remaining, indubitable traces of an ancient manor house, namely a dove-cote or pigeon-house. The poor pigeons have kept possession of their heritage, from generation to generation, and so have the rooks, in their several rookeries, while the paper-system has swept away, or rather swallowed-up, the owners of the dove-cotes and of the lofty trees, about forty families of which owners have been ousted in this one Valley, and have become dead-weight creatures, tax-gatherers, barrack-fellows, thief-takers, or, perhaps, paupers or thieves.
Senator Snip congratulated, some years ago, that preciously honourable “CollectiveWisdom” of which he is a most worthy Member; Snip congratulated it on the success of the late war in creating capital! Snip is, you must know, a greatfeelosofer, and a not less greatfeenanceer. Snip cited, as a proof of the great and glorious effects of paper-money, the new and fine houses in London, the new streets and squares, the new roads,new canals and bridges. Snip was not, I dare say, aware that this same paper-money had destroyed forty mansion houses in this Vale of Avon, and had taken away all the goods, all the substance, of the little gentry and of the labouring class. Snip was not, I dare say, aware that this same paper-money had, in this one Vale of only thirty miles long, dilapidated, and, in some cases, wholly demolished, nine out of twenty-nine even of the parsonage houses. I told Snip at the time (1821), that paper-money could create no valuable thing. I begged Snip to bear this in mind. I besought all my readers, and particularly Mr. Mathias Atwood (one of the members forLowther-town), not to believe that paper-money ever did, or ever could,createanything of any value. I besought him to look well into the matter, and assured him that he would find that though paper-money couldcreatenothing of value, it was able totransfereverything of value; able to strip a little gentry; able to dilapidate even parsonage houses; able to rob gentlemen of their estates, and labourers of their Sunday-coats and their barrels of beer; able to snatch the dinner from the board of the reaper or the mower, and to convey it to the barrack-table of the Hessian or Hanoverian grenadier; able to take away the wool, that ought to give warmth to the bodies of those who rear the sheep, and put it on the backs of those who carry arms to keep the poor, half-famished shepherds in order!
I have never been able clearly to comprehend what the beastly Scotchfeelosofersmean by their “national wealth;” but, as far as I can understand them, this is their meaning: that national wealth means that which isleftof the products of the country over and above what isconsumed, orused, by those whose labour causes the products to be. This being the notion, it follows, of course, that thefewerpoor devils you can screw the products out of, thericherthe nation is.
This is, too, the notion of Burdett as expressed in his silly and most nasty, musty aristocratic speech of last session. What, then, is to be done with thisover-produce? Who is to have it? Is it to go to pensioners, placemen, tax-gatherers, dead-weight people, soldiers, gendarmerie, police-people, and, in short, to whole millionswho do no work at all? Is this a cause of “national wealth”? Is a nation maderichby taking the food and clothing from those who create them, and giving them to those who do nothing of any use? Aye, but this over-produce may be given tomanufacturers, and to those who supply the food-raisers with what they want besides food. Oh! but this is merely anexchangeof one valuable thing for another valuable thing; it is an exchange of labour in Wiltshire for labour in Lancashire; and, upon the whole, here is noover-production. If the producebe exported, it is the same thing: it is an exchange of one sort of labour for another. Butour courseis, that there is not an exchange; that those who labour, no matter in what way, have a large part of the fruit of their labour taken away, and receive nothing in exchange. If the over-produce of this Valley of Avon were given, by the farmers, to the weavers in Lancashire, to the iron and steel chaps of Warwickshire, and to other makers or sellers of useful things, there would come an abundance of all these useful things into this valley from Lancashire and other parts: but if, as is the case, the over-produce goes to the fund-holders, the dead-weight, the soldiers, the lord and lady and master and miss pensioners and sinecure people; if the over-produce go to them, as a very great part of it does, nothing, not even the parings of one’s nails, can come back to the valley in exchange. And, can this operation, then, add to the “national wealth”? It adds to the “wealth” of those who carry on the affairs of state; it fills their pockets, those of their relatives and dependents; it fattens all tax-eaters; but it can give no wealth to the “nation,” which means the whole of the people. National Wealth means the Commonwealth or Commonweal; and these mean, the general good, or happiness, of the people, and the safety and honour of the state; and these are not to be secured by robbing those who labour, in order to support a large part of the community in idleness. Devizes is the market-town to which the corn goes from the greater part of this Valley. If, when a wagon-load of wheat goes off in the morning, the wagon came back at night loaded with cloth, salt, or something or other, equal in value to the wheat, except what might be necessary to leave with the shopkeeper as his profit; then, indeed, the people might see the wagon go off without tears in their eyes. But now they see it go to carry away, and to bring next to nothing in return.
What atwista head must have before it can come to the conclusion that the nation gains in wealth by the government being able to cause the work to be done by those who have hardly any share in the fruit of the labour! What atwistsuch a head must have! The Scotchfeelosofers, who seem all to have been, by nature, formed for negro-drivers, have an insuperable objection to all those establishments and customs which occasionholidays. They call them a great hindrance, a great bar to industry, a great drawback from “national wealth.” I wish each of these unfeeling fellows had a spade put into his hand for ten days, only ten days, and that he were compelled to dig only just as much as one of the common labourers at Fulham. The metaphysical gentlemen would, I believe, soon discover theuse of holidays! Butwhyshould men, why shouldanymen, workhard? Why,I ask, should they work incessantly, if working part of the days of the week be sufficient? Why should the people at Milton, for instance, work incessantly, when they now raise food and clothing and fuel and every necessary to maintain well five times their number? Why should they not have some holidays? And, pray, say, thou conceited Scotch feelosofer, how the “national wealth” can be increased by making these people work incessantly, that they may raise food and clothing, to go to feed and clothe people who do not work at all?
The state of this Valley seems to illustrate the infamous and really diabolical assertion of Malthus, which is, that the human kind have a natural tendencyto increase beyond the means of sustenance for them. Hence, all the schemes of this and the other Scotch writers for what they call checking population. Now, look at this Valley of Avon. Here the people raise nearly twenty times as much food and clothing as they consume. They raise five times as much, even according to my scale of living. They have been doing this for many, many years. They have been doing it for several generations. Where, then, is their natural tendency to increase beyond the means of sustenance for them? Beyond, indeed, the means of that sustenance which a system like this will leave them. Say that, Sawneys, and I agree with you. Far beyond the means that the taxing and monopolizing system will leave in their hands: that is very true; for it leaves them nothing but the scale of the poor-book; they must cease to breed at all, or they must exceed this mark; but theearth, give them their fair share of its products, will always give sustenance in sufficiency to those who apply to it by skilful and diligent labour.
The villages down this Valley of Avon, and, indeed, it was the same in almost every part of this county, and in the North and West of Hampshire also, used to have great employment for the women and children in the carding and spinning of wool for the making of broad-cloth. This was a very general employment for the women and girls; but it is now wholly gone; and this has made a vast change in the condition of the people, and in the state of property and of manners and of morals. In 1816, I wrote and published aLetter to the Luddites, the object of which was to combat their hostility to the use of machinery. The arguments I there made use of were general. I took the matter in the abstract. Theprincipleswere all correct enough; but their application cannot be universal; and we have a case here before us, at this moment, which, in my opinion, shows that the mechanic inventions, pushed to the extent that they have been, have been productive of great calamity to this country, and that they will be productive of still greater calamity;unless, indeed, it be their brilliant destiny to be the immediate cause of putting an end to the present system.
The greater part of manufactures consists ofclothingandbedding. Now, if by using a machine, we can get our coat with less labour than we got it before, the machine is a desirable thing. But, then, mind, we must have the machine at home, and we ourselves must have the profit of it; for, if the machine be elsewhere; if it be worked by other hands; if other persons have the profit of it; and if, in consequence of the existence of the machine, we have hands at home, who have nothing to do, and whom we must keep, then the machine is an injury to us, however advantageous it may be to those who use it, and whatever traffic it may occasion with foreign States.
Such is the case with regard to this cloth-making. The machines are at Upton-Level, Warminster, Bradford, Westbury, and Trowbridge, and here are some of the hands in the Valley of Avon. This Valley raises food and clothing; but, in order to raise them, it must havelabourers. These are absolutely necessary; for without them this rich and beautiful Valley becomes worth nothing except to wild animals and their pursuers. The labourers aremenandboys. Women and girls occasionally; but the men and the boys are as necessary as the light of day, or as the air and the water. Now, if beastly Malthus, or any of his nasty disciples, can discover a mode of having men and boys without having women and girls, then, certainly, the machine must be a good thing; but if this Valley must absolutely have the women and the girls, then the machine, by leaving them with nothing to do, is a mischievous thing; and a producer of most dreadful misery. What, with regard to the poor, is the great complaint now? Why, that thesingle mandoes not receive the same, or anything like the same, wages as themarriedman. Aye, it is the wife and girls that are the burden; and to be sure a burden they must be, under a system of taxation like the present, and with no work to do. Therefore, whatever may be saved in labour by the machine is no benefit, but an injury to the mass of the people. For, in fact, all that the women and children earned was so much clear addition to what the family earns now. The greatest part of the clothing in the United States of America is made by the farm women and girls. They do almost the whole of it; and all that they do is done at home. To be sure, they might buy cheap; but they must buy for less than nothing, if it would not answer their purpose tomakethe things.
The survey of this Valley is, I think, the finest answer in the world to the “Emigration Committee” fellows, and to Jerry Curteis (one of the Members for Sussex), who has been giving“evidence” before it. I shall find out, when I can get to see thereport, what this “Emigration Committee” would beafter. I remember that, last winter, a young woman complained to one of the Police Justices that the Overseers of some parish were going to transport her orphan brother to Canada, because he became chargeable to their parish! I remember, also, that the Justice said, that the intention of the Overseers was “premature,” for that “the Bill had not yet passed”! This was rather an ugly story; and I do think that we shall find that there have been, and are, some pretty propositions before this “Committee.” We shall see all about the matter, however, by-and-by; and, when we get the transporting project fairly before us, shall we not then loudly proclaim “the envy of surrounding nations and admiration of the world”!
But, what ignorance, impudence, and insolence must those base wretches have, who propose to transport the labouring people, as being too numerous, while the produce, which is obtained by their labour, is more than sufficient for three, four, or five, or even ten times their numbers! Jerry Curteis, who has, it seems, been a famous witness on this occasion, says that the poor-rates, in many cases, amount to as much as the rent. Well: and what then, Jerry? The rent may be high enough too, and the farmer may afford to pay them both; for a very large part of what you callpoor-ratesought to be calledwages. But, at any rate, what has all this to do with the necessity of emigration? To make out such necessity, you must make out that you have more mouths than the produce of the parish will feed. Do then, Jerry, tell us, another time, a little about the quantity of food annually raised in four or five adjoining parishes; for, is it not something rather damnable, Jerry, to talk oftransportingEnglishmen, on account of theexcess of their numbers, when the fact is notorious that their labour produces five or ten times as much food and raiment as they and their families consume!
However, to drop Jerry, for the present, the baseness, the foul, the stinking, the carrion baseness, of the fellows that call themselves “country gentlemen,” is, that the wretches, while railing against the poor and the poor-rates; while affecting to believe that the poor are wicked and lazy; while complaining that the poor, the working people, are too numerous, and that the country villages are too populous: the carrion baseness of these wretches is, that, while they are thusboldwith regard to the working and poor people, they never even whisper a word against pensioners, placemen, soldiers, parsons, fundholders, tax-gatherers, or tax-eaters! They say not a word against the prolific dead-weight to whom they give a premium for breeding, while they want to check the population of labourers!They never say a word about the too great populousness of the Wen; nor about that of Liverpool, Manchester, Cheltenham, and the like! Oh! they are the most cowardly, the very basest, the most scandalously base reptiles that ever were warmed into life by the rays of the sun!
In taking my leave of this beautiful vale, I have to express my deep shame, as an Englishman, at beholding the generalextreme povertyof those who cause this vale to produce such quantities of food and raiment. This is, I verily believe it, theworst used labouring people upon the face of the earth. Dogs and hogs and horses are treated with more civility; and as to food and lodging, how gladly would the labourers change with them! This state of things never can continue many years!By some means or otherthere must be an end to it; and my firm belief is, that that end will be dreadful. In the meanwhile I see, and I see it with pleasure, that the common people know that they are ill used; and that they cordially, most cordially, hate those who ill-treat them.
During the day I crossed the river about fifteen or sixteen times, and in such hot weather it was very pleasant to be so much amongst meadows and water. I had been at Netheravon about eighteen years ago, where I had seen a great quantity of hares. It is a place belonging to Mr. Hicks Beach, or Beech, who was once a member of parliament. I found the place altered a good deal; out of repair; the gates rather rotten; and (a very bad sign!) the roof of the dog-kennel falling in! There is a church, at this village of Netheravon, large enough to hold a thousand or two of people, and the whole parish contains only 350 souls, men, women and children. This Netheravon was formerly a great lordship, and in the parish there were three considerable mansion-houses, besides the one near the church. These mansions are all down now; and it is curious enough to see the formerwalled gardensbecomeorchards, together with other changes, all tending to prove the gradual decay in all except what appertains merely tothe landas a thing of production for the distant market. But, indeed, the people and the means of enjoyment must go away. They aredrawnaway by the taxes and the paper-money. How aretwenty thousand new housesto be, all at once, building in the Wen, without people and food and raiment going from this valley towards the Wen? It must be so; and this unnatural, this dilapidating, this ruining and debasing work must go on, until that which produces it be destroyed.
When I came down to Stratford Dean, I wanted to go across to Laverstoke, which lay to my left of Salisbury; but just on the side of the road here, at Stratford Dean, rises theAccursedHill. It is very lofty. It wasoriginallya hill in an irregular sort of sugar-loaf shape: but it was so altered by the Romans, or by somebody, that the upper three-quarter parts of the hill now, when seen from a distance, somewhat resemblethree cheeses, laid one upon another; the bottom one a great deal broader than the next, and the top one like a Stilton cheese, in proportion to a Gloucester one. I resolved to ride over this Accursed Hill. As I was going up a field towards it, I met a man going home from work. I asked how hegot on. He said, very badly. I asked him what was the cause of it. He said thehard times. “Whattimes,” said I; “was there ever a finer summer, a finer harvest, and is there not anoldwheat-rick in every farm-yard?” “Ah!” said he, “theymake it bad for poor people, for all that.” “They?” said I, “who isthey?” He was silent. “Oh, no, no! my friend,” said I, “it is notthey; it is that Accursed Hill that has robbed you of the supper that you ought to find smoking on the table when you get home.” I gave him the price of a pot of beer, and on I went, leaving the poor dejected assemblage of skin and bone to wonder at my words.
The hill is very steep, and I dismounted and led my horse up. Being as near to the top as I could conveniently get, I stood a little while reflecting, not so much on the changes which that hill had seen, as on the changes, the terrible changes, which, in all human probability, it hadyet to see, and which it would have greatlyhelped to produce. It was impossible to stand on this accursed spot, without swelling with indignation against the base and plundering and murderous sons of corruption. I have often wished, and I, speaking out loud, expressed the wish now: “May that man perish for ever and ever, who, having the power, neglects to bring to justice the perjured, the suborning, the insolent and perfidious miscreants, who openly sell their country’s rights and their own souls.”
From the Accursed Hill I went to Laverstoke where “Jemmy Burrough” (as they call him here), the Judge, lives. I have not heard much about “Jemmy” since he tried and condemned the two young men who had wounded the game-keepers of Ashton Smith and Lord Palmerston. His Lordship (Palmerston) is, I see, making a tolerable figure in the newspapers as ashare-man! I got into Salisbury about half-past seven o’clock, less tired than I recollect ever to have been after so long a ride; for, including my several crossings of the river and my deviations to look at churches and farm-yards, and rick-yards, I think I must have ridden nearly forty miles.