Illness—Correspondence with Washington—The King’s gift of a ram—Anecdotes—Revising MSS.—Patriotic proposals—Death of the Earl of Orford—Agricultural schemes—Correspondence.
The year opened with a continuation of that severe illness which had confined me for some months. The following notes are from a journal I kept at that time:—
This year my daughter Elizabeth married the Rev. Samuel Hoole, son of the celebrated John Hoole, translator of Tasso and Ariosto. He is a very sensible, moral man of strict integrity, and always behaved to my daughter with much tenderness.
This same year my correspondence[139] opened with General Washington. Having been applied to to procure some implements for his husbandry, I wrote to him offering to procure any article in that line which he might have occasion for, and accordingly afterwards sent him many, amongst others the plan of a barn, which he executed, and is represented by a plate in the ‘Annals of Agriculture.’
This year his Majesty had the goodness to make me a present of a Spanish Merino ram, a portrait of which I inserted in the ‘Annals.’
How many millions of men are there that would smile if I were to mention the Sovereign of a great Empire giving a ram to a farmer as an event that merited the attention of mankind! The world is full of those who consider military glory as the proper object of the ambition of monarchs; who measure regal merit by the millions that are slaughtered; by the public robbery and plunder that are dignified by the titles of dignity and conquest, and who look down on every exertion of peace and tranquillity as unbecoming those who aim at the epithet great, and unworthy the aim of men that are born the masters of the globe.
My ideas are cast in a very different mould, and I believe the period is advancing with accelerated pace that shall exhibit characters in a light totally new, and shall rather brand than exalt the virtues hitherto admired; that shall place in full blaze of meridian lustre actions lost on the mass of mankind; that shall pay more homage to the memory of a Prince that gave a ram to a farmer than for wielding the sceptre obeyed alike on the Ganges and on the Thames.
I shall presume to offer but one other general observation. When we see his Majesty practising husbandry with that warmth that marks a favourite pursuit, and taking such steps to diffuse a foreign breed of sheep well calculated to improve those of his kingdoms; when we see the Royal pursuits take such a direction, we may safely conclude that the public measures which, in certain instances, have been so hostile to the agriculture of this country, have nothing in common with the opinions of our gracious Sovereign; such measures are the work of men, who never felt for husbandry; who never practised it; who never loved it; it is not such men that give rams to farmers.
October 21.—A letter to-day from General Washington—Gracious! from the representative of the Majesty of America, all written with his own hand. Also one from the Marquis de la Fayette desiring my assistance to get him a bailiff that understands English ornamental gardening; for both he gives fifty louis[140] a year—this is a French idea to unite what never was united, and, when gained, reward it with wages little better than a common labourer.
October 24.—Dined yesterday at Sir Thomas Gage’s to meet the Miss Fergus’s and Dr. and Mrs. Onslow. This Dr. was the youngest son of the late General Onslow, brother of my godfather, the Speaker, in whose family my dear mother was for many years upon the most intimate footing of private friendship.
When a boy I was frequently at his house, and well remember having this Arthur, a child, on my knee. Mrs. Onslow mentioned how much she had heard Mr. Boswell talk of my works. I fancy Boswell, from some things I heard of him, and it seems confirmed by various passages in his ‘Life of Johnson,’ has a sort of rage for knowing all sorts of public men, good, bad, and indifferent, all one if a man renders himself known he likes to be acquainted with him. Mrs. Onslow reported to me the following conversation which took place at the Prince’s table:—
The Prince of Wales, with a large company dining with him, said, ‘The three greatest coxcombs in England are in this room. Here is my friend Hanger,[141] the Duke of Queensberry must come in for the second;’ he made a pause, enough for the company to stare for the third, and added, ‘for the third, it is certainly myself.’
When Sir W. Courtenay asked Lord Bute for a peerage, he carried his pedigree with him. Lord Bute examined and pretended to be a good judge of those things. He told Mr. Symonds that nothing could be clearer or more unquestionable than his descent lineally from Louis le Gros of France, the relationship with the House of Bourbon which occasions the mourning of a day in the Court of France for the death of a Courtenay.[142] Lord Bute told him his demand of a barony was too modest, and that he should be a Viscount, which he was accordingly.
October 26.—In preparing my Travels [in France] for the press, I experience strongly the importance of an author’s having composed so much more than he means to print as to be able to strike out largely.
My agreement with Richardson was to have six shillings a volume for all sold of one guinea quarto volumes, but when Rackham’s compositor came to cast off the MS. he found enough for two large quarto volumes, since which discovery I had to strike out just half of what I had written; and the advantage will be very great to the work. I read the books as they are wanted for the press again and again, reducing the quantity every time till I get it tolerably to my mind, but yet not to the amount of half. The work is certainly improved by this means, and I am strongly of opinion if nine-tenths of other writers were to do the same thing their performances would be so much the better; for one reads very few quartos that would not be improved by reducing to octavo volumes.
November 23.—I was five days last week at the Duke of Grafton’s, Admiral, Mrs., and two Miss Pigots were there—she [Mrs. P.] is sister to the Duchess, the Admiral is a very worthy man—Mr. Stonehewer there also, and old Vary. I spent two days in taking the level of the Duke’s river for four miles, in order to see how much land he might water, and the improvement his estate is capable of is very great indeed. The character of this Duke is original; he is uncommonly sensible, there is no stuff in him; he is cold, silent, reserved, and even at times sullen, and he is removed from all that ease and suavity which render people agreeable; yet there is such a solid understanding, and so much learning and knowledge on certain topics, that one must value him in spite of our feelings.
Very little of the conversation interesting enough to be worth recording. I was also at a new club which Ruggles[143] has instituted at Melford, which might have been an agreeable thing had there been half a dozen only.
The following are [among] the letters preserved this year:—
From Dr. Burney, congratulations, pleasant anecdotes, and an account of a large auction of books, &c.:—
‘My dear Arthur,—The precipice on which you have so long been scrambling for life seems to be more dangerous than any one of those which I had to encounter from Sarzana to Genoa or Genoa to Final. In the first of these scrambles during three days and three nights on a mule without bridle (except that of Jack Ketch) or saddle, I had a torrent called the Magra roaring in my ears at a perpendicular distance of eight hundred or a thousand feet, and, in the second, the Mediterranean, during a storm which no vessel could weather. In the darkest night I ever saw, with the artificial lights of our lanterns extinguished by the violence of the wind, at every twenty or thirty yards the pedino (a man on foot to guide the mule) cried out, “Alla montagna! alla montagna, Signore!” which was an admonition to alight and crawl on all fours over broken roads on the ridge of a precipice.
‘Now let me play the pedino’s part to your worship, and admonish you to be very careful how you travel in the perilous way to health which you have still to pass, after your escape from the great precipice; for which escape, as an Italian would say, “io me ne congratulo non meno con me medesimo che con voi.”
‘But besides congratulating you on your amendment, I have for some time wished to tell you that in the Paitoni catalogue of Italian books now selling by auction at Robson’s room, there are many on Natural History and Agriculture. Now as you have dipped into Italian literature and farming, it struck me on seeing the catalogue that there may be several works that you would wish to purchase, particularly as the Italian books of Science have hitherto sold at this auction for almost nothing. I purchased nearly fifty volumes of poetry and miscellanies, and my bill did not amount to five pounds. The books are in exceeding good condition, and most of them such as have never appeared before in the Osburn, Payne, or Robson catalogues. I am inclined to think that this sale will enrich future catalogues in our country for many years to come. Indeed I was so tired of eternally meeting with the same book over and over again that I had no longer patience to read them.
‘If you see any you wish I will get them purchased, but as neither your Bibliomania nor mine has ever raged to such a degree as to wish to buy in at any price, it will be necessary to say that we mean not to vie with those who being more curious in books than authors procure them at any price to look at and not to read. A rich acquaintance of mine, and a customer of old Tom Payne, has often bought books in languages of which he knew not a single word, merely because they were beautifully bound or very scarce.’
From another letter:—
‘I have not time nor space to lengthen my letter, or I should tell you of a long conversation I had last Sunday at Lady Lucan’s blue-stocking conversazione with Lord Macartney about you. He has just come from Ireland and wanted to know whether you were recovered—whether you come to London this winter, as he wished to communicate some memorandums he made in perusing your “Irish Tour” while he was in Ireland. He is a charming man, to my mind.
‘Poor Fanny[144] has been very ill indeed, and we have been in expectation of her coming to nurse, but she will risk the dying at her Majesty’s feet to show her zeal before she can be spared, I suppose.
‘I have had the great Haydn here, and think him as good a creature as great Musician. As to operas, the Pantheon advertises to open as a theatre; it is the most elegant in Europe, Pacchierotti says, but it has great enemies. The Haymarket folks have not yet obtained a licence, at which they affect surprise, though they were told so before their building was a foot high. Old Mingotti is come over with her scholar Madame Lobo, the intended first woman of the Haymarket. It will be a busy and memorable season in the history of tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee quarrels.
‘My dear Friend,—I am quite ashamed of not answering your kind and hearty letter of invitation sooner. But a listless and irresolute disposition has made my mind for some time past as flimsy as a dish-clout, and I must confess that I have invariably "left undone those things which I ought to have done"—“for there was no health in me,” indeed, not enough to enable me “to do many things which I ought not to have done.” Original sin and depravity just enabled me to read when I should have written, and to lie in bed when I should have got up, &c. I wished to commit other guess crimes than those, to have rambled over a great part of the kingdom and revelled with distant friends. But prudence, in the shape of rheumatism, and in many other hideous shapes, prevented me. Yet, in spite of all these admonitions, I had a month’s mind to accept of your hospitable offer. But we have guests at our apartments now, my two aged sisters, and, when they depart, winter will begin to show his sour face and chain me to my chimney corner till after Christmas, when I shall be unfettered, merely to be dragged into the hurry and din of London, which are every year more and more insupportable. I have long ceased to like the country, except in long days and fine weather, and, in winter, prefer London with all its horrors and fatigues to rural amusements. Indeed, autumn with all its golden glow and variegated charms for landscape painters is to me a constant memento mori, with its withered leaves tumbling about my ears; and all my most severe attacks of rheumatism have been during the equinoctial winds and rains; so that I am afraid of trusting myself far from home at this season of the year, as one can be sick and cross nowhere so comfortably as at home.
‘Having scribbled my apology, I must now hasten to congratulate you and Mrs. Young on the marriage of our dear and worthy girl Bessy.[145] The match, indeed, is not splendid for either in point of circumstances; but they are quite as likely to scramble happily through life, with good hearts and wishes limited to their means, as the richest peers and peeresses in the land, who generally outlive their income, be it what it will, and have mortifications incident to pride and disappointed ambition which little folk know nothing about. They (I mean our young couple) have my hearty benediction and good wishes. A man without family attachments is an awkward and insulated being, but a woman without a mate is still more insignificant and helpless; and, having become adventurers in the matrimonial lottery, I sincerely hope they will gain a prize in the fortuitous distribution of such happiness as reasonable mortals have a right to expect.
‘I dare not venture on French politics. What a marvellous period in the history of that nation! I think the clergy and many worthy people of the lower class of nobility have been cruelly used, and that the mob is at present too powerful and insolent. Too much has been promised them, and nothing short of an agrarian law will satisfy them. The word tax, taille, impost, are carefully avoided in the National Chart. But they must be levied under some denomination or other, and, I fancy, “contribution” will be as detestable a term in France, ere long, as “free-gift” was in England during the last century. I wish the worthy people of France may enjoy the rational liberty which seems now in their power, but I question whether the inhabitants of that kingdom in general will deserve the ample liberty which is offered them, or know how to use it. I think them so fickle and frivolous that I should not be surprised if in a few years they were as tired of their new Government as the English at the death of Oliver Cromwell. In the meantime what has happened in America and France will shake every sovereignty upon earth. The French Guards laying down their arms when ordered to fire on the mob will make mobs formidable things in every country, for whenever a similar defection happens a revolution must be the consequence.
‘I am sorry not to be able to give your friend, Mr. Capel Lofft, an account of any Lyre in modern times having been in use that has been constructed, strung, and tuned on the principles of the antients. Innumerable volumes have been written on their division of the scale and genera. Kircher, indeed, calls a Vielle a hurdy-gurdy, Lyra mendicorum. And a Viol da Gamba, with additional strings and new tuning, was in the last century called a Lyra-Viol. Mace,[146] Playford,[147] Simpson,[148] I believe, and others describe this instrument. But though many modern instruments have had the honour of being called Lyres, yet none of them resemble the antient in their form or in the manner of playing them. The Mandoline is the only modern instrument played with anything like a plectrum. Vicenzio Galileo, the father of Galileo, in his tract, “Della Musica antica e moderna,” published at Florence 1602, speaks much of the similarity of the antient Lyre and Cythara, but gives more proof from antient authors of their difference than identity. He tells us, however, that “the modern Harp, which is nothing but the antient Cythara with many strings, was brought into Italy from Ireland.” Now the Irish harp is a single instrument of few strings, partly brass and partly steel, and of such small compass as to admit no bass, being confined to mere melody. Carolan, the celebrated modern Irish Bard, played only the treble part of tunes. And it seems to me as if this simple instrument resembled the antient Lyre and Cythara more than any other modern instrument with which I am acquainted. Pray tell Mr. Lofft that I have examined Bonanni’s description of all the musical instruments that are known, with engravings of them all, but found nothing satisfactory about a modern Lyre. This book was published at Rome 1722. I have likewise looked into Ceruti’s new edition with corrections, 1776, without success.
From Dr. John Symonds on the political state of the country—an account of a conference between Mr. Pitt and the Duke of Grafton:—
‘My dear Young,—Hope you will not expect to hear me talking on Agriculture; of that you will have a sufficient taste from seeing the wonderful knowledge exhibited by all the House of Commons in the Corn Bill. You will look for something on politics, though the newspapers themselves sufficiently show the straits to which Mr. Pitt is driven; for his majority is such as will ruin any Minister if a war be unpopular; and had the American war been so at first, it is not probable that Lord North would have dared to pursue it, though he was so strongly supported in Parliament.
‘The truth is, some of Mr. Pitt’s bosom friends absolutely refuse to vote with him on this occasion. Among these are Wilberforce and Banks. The Duke of Grafton desired his son-in-law, Mr. Smith, to tell Mr. Pitt he wished to have some conversation with him; Mr. Pitt very politely came and staid half-an-hour, and the Duke used every argument he could think of to convince him, both of the impolicy and injustice of the war, "that the augmentation of taxes coming upon the neck of the cessed ones, and malt tax, which made a great noise, would occasion universal discontent, if not worse effects; that we ought to lay no stress upon the promises of a Turkish Ministry and advantages in the Turkey trade, which must chiefly accrue to France from her situation, and other causes; that what we could do in the Baltic was merely to burn a few villages and distress individuals, as the Russian fleet would lie securely among rocks, that Russia appeared to act with moderation in desiring to retain Ockzakow only; and that to plunge this nation into a vast expense, merely to serve the King of Prussia’s views, when we could obtain no benefit from it, would expose the Ministry to very great censure, more especially as we entered into it as volunteers, not being obliged to it by the terms of the Treaty." Other things which his Grace said I omit, as every argument has been used in the House of Commons. The conference ended as conferences of this sort generally do—each of them kept to his opinion.
‘You observe probably in the papers, that on Baker’s motion, Pole Carew moved the previous question and contended “that the interests of all are closely connected even in respect to things not stipulated by treaty.” This judicious doctrine was first advanced by the Chancellor, and Mr. Pitt defended in his speech on Baker’s motion. According to this doctrine, there is no difference between defensive and offensive treaties; all the writer’s de jure gentium should be burnt, and, indeed, most of the European treaties also; and it is certain that under such circumstances England ought never to make an alliance on the Continent unless a Continental war were actually broken out; otherwise she could not foresee the consequences to which she would be exposed.
‘Charles Fox said in his speech on Baker’s motion “that Mr. Pitt dared not to enter into the war, and that he kept a majority together at present by his assurance that there would not be one.”
‘This is, perhaps, the case; but however it may be, it is certain that Faukner, Clerk of the Council, is sent to Berlin, and most persons think with a view of showing the King of Prussia the impossibility of persuading this country to enter into a Russian war. Had Mr. Pitt felt the pulse of the Parliament and people before he delivered the King’s message, he would have saved his credit, though he might have been blamed; but he has now run into the horns of a dilemma, as the logicians call it. If he prosecute the war, he will infallibly be ex-Minister, and bad consequences are to be apprehended in a country oppressed by taxes and heated by political pamphlets; if he give it ‘up, he will lose all his influence in the eyes of Europe, and teach foreign Courts that no confidence is to be placed in an English Minister. His friends lament very much this last circumstance.
A circumstance in the exploits of my public career which made, perhaps, a more general impression than any other event of my life, was the proposal in 1792 for arming the property of the Kingdom in a sort of horse militia. My first suggestion of this idea was in May (of that year). Should any have claimed it, or should any hereafter form such a claim, it ought in truth and strict candour to be absolutely rejected. The proposal was more formally made in August of the same year in the ‘Annals,’ vol. xviii. p. 495, under the title of French events.[149] In the end of 1792 and the beginning of 1793 these papers were collected and much enlarged in a pamphlet entitled, ‘The Example of France,’ &c. which ran speedily through four numerous editions, and excited a very general attention. The author was publicly thanked in resolutions of associated assemblies, and my great plea of a horse militia produced almost immediately three volunteer corps of cavalry, which multiplied rapidly through the Kingdom. It is not known that any persons or any bodies of men ever laid claim to a priority in this idea; accordingly my health was the first toast given for being the origin of those corps, which, when assembled, had this opportunity of publicly declaring their opinion. The scheme took with astonishing celerity, and became the parent of a measure of a very different complexion, which was putting arms into the hands of thousands without property, and upon whose allegiance and constitutional principle but little reliance could be placed. Government received demands for arms to the amount of above 700,000 men. The Ministers were alarmed, and saw too late the consequence of their own blindness and incapacity. They refused their consent, in many cases without properly discriminating between men with and without property, and felt themselves in so awkward a position that it is no wonder their conduct continued void of any steady adherence to the principle of the original proposition. Had my plan not only been adopted but carried into execution, strictly upon the principles I had explained, we might from that moment to the present have had a horse militia, absolutely under the command of Government, numbering from 100,000 to 200,000 men, which might, by progressive improvements, have been matured into a force efficient for every purpose. It is very seldom that so private an individual can by a happy thought become the origin of a system which, had my principles been steadily adhered to, would have been attended with inconceivable benefit, and none of those evils, real or imaginary, afterwards attributed to volunteers in general.
The pamphlet rendered the author exceedingly popular among all the friends of government and order, and as unpopular among the whole race of reformers and Jacobins. I was not content with the mere theoretical idea, but in my own person put it into practice, and enrolled myself in the ranks of a corps raised at my recommendation, in the vicinity of Bury [St. Edmunds], and commanded by the present Marquis of Cornwallis, then Lord Broome, having with this intention learnt the sword exercise at London of a sergeant, who was eminently skilled in it. My example was followed by gentlemen of fortune, several of whom were also in the ranks and refused to be officers. This was a part of the plan of particular importance, for had gentlemen accepted only the situation of officers, the spirit of entering the corps among yeomen, farmers &c. would have been much cooler; but when they saw their landlords, and men of high consideration in the neighbourhood, in the same situation, their vanity was flattered, and they enrolled themselves with great readiness, and the great object of property of such importance in case of revolutionary disturbance was thus secured.
Some years afterwards, being at the Duke of Bedford’s at Woburn, I sat at dinner by a gentleman of great property, captain of a troop of yeomanry, who told me that whenever his troop met he always drank my health after the King’s, for being the undisputed origin of all the yeomanry corps in the kingdom, possibly arising from extracts from my writings on the subject having been much circulated in the newspapers.
This year my valuable and very sincere friend, the Earl of Orford, died. The public papers that have announced the death of this noble lord have recorded the ancestry from which he was descended, the heirs of his honours, and the inheritors of his wealth, and have dwelt upon the titles that are extinct or devolved, together with all the posts and employments that are vacant. To me be the melancholy duty of noting what is of much more moment than the descent of a peerage or the transfer of an estate—the loss of an animated improver; of one who gave importance to cultivation by a thorough knowledge of political economy, and bent all his endeavours towards making mankind happy by seconding the pursuits of the farmer and the enquiries of the experimentalist. I leave the lieutenancy of a county, the rangership of a park, and the honours of the bedchamber to those in whose eyes such baubles are respectable. I would rather dwell on the merit of the first importer of Southdown sheep into Norfolk; on the merit of sending to the most distant regions for breeds of animals, represented as useful, not indeed always with success, but never without liberality in the motive; on the patron and friend of the common farmer, not the lord of a little circle of tenants, but the general and diffusive encourager of every species of agricultural improvement. Nor did he associate with the useful men because he was not qualified for the company of higher classes, for his mind was fraught with a great extent of knowledge; it was decorated by no trivial stores of classical learning, which exercised and set off the powers of a brilliant imagination, and thus qualified, alike for a Court or an Academy of Science, he felt no degradation in attending to THE PLOUGH. By the death of this noble personage the ‘Annals’ have lost a valuable correspondent, and their editor a warm friend. Notwithstanding the immense list of Peers, seven or eight only have become correspondents in this work. The insects of a drawing-room, the patrons of faro, the luminaries of Newmarket, are spared; while the hand of death deprives the farmer of a friend, Norfolk of a protector, and England of a real patriot.
Lord Loughborough was the Judge at the Summer Assizes this year at Bury, and I being on the Grand Jury, he sent a note to inform me that he was alone at his lodgings, and desired me to come and chat with him. This I did, of course, and in our conversation he mentioned that there was an estate of 4,400 acres of land in Yorkshire on the moors, in the vicinity of Paitley Bridge, to be sold for 4,000l., that it was chiefly freehold, and enclosed with a ring fence, also that there was a neat shooting-box on it built by the Duke of Devonshire, who hired the grouse. I assured his Lordship that he must be mistaken, for it was impossible that such a tract of land under several circumstances which he named could be on sale for half an hour without being purchased. He answered that nobody would buy it, as the land was all moor or peat, and covered with ling, but that some neighbouring farmers gave, he believed, 100l. per annum for the whole as a walk for mountain sheep. I told him that it seemed so extraordinary to me that I would go immediately to view it. He said the proper persons to apply to to view it were Sir Cecil Wray, Dr. Kilvington, and another gentleman. I accordingly went immediately to Yorkshire, and, taking up my quarters at Paitley Bridge, enquired till I found a person who knew the whole estate perfectly well, and engaged him early the next morning in order to make the tour of the whole property. It appeared to me to be wonderfully improvable, and that very considerable tracts to the amount of some hundred acres were palpably capable of irrigation and improvement, evidently applicable from the case of a small watercourse for conducting the water to an old smelting mill, but long neglected. This course had overflowed and converted the ling, over about fifteen acres, to grass. I asked my conductor what this grass would let for with a small cottage and stable for cows; he said, ‘Certainly fifteen shillings an acre.’ It was sufficiently evident that improvements might be wrought at a very small expense, and that building was remarkably cheap, from every material except timber being found on the spot, and lime at a small distance. There was a small farm in cultivation to produce oats, and the appearance not unfavourable. As I knew that a land surveyor well acquainted with all this country resided at Leeds, I determined to go thither to bring him over to view, and give his opinion as to the value of the property. This I did, brought him over in a postchaise, and rode with him over the principal part of the estate. His opinion confirmed my own, nor must I forget to mention that this estate was to be purchased without money as it was offered on its own security in mortgage.
In the enclosure of this immense waste, called forest, there were two allotments purchased by the proprietors, one of 1,638 acres, and another of 1,113, in all 2,751 acres, which were a copyhold tenure, at a small fine certain. In addition to which they hired, at the same time, on a long lease, 1,614 acres more, being an allotment to the King, at a rent of 50l. in money, and 50l. to be laid out on improvements. The whole, situated half-way between Knaresboro’ and Skipton, I found walled in; three farm-houses built, with barns and offices of various sorts, and lands annexed, and partly subdivided, to the amount of about 400 acres; the remaining 4,000 in one vast waste. These farms produced the rent of 44l. 5s. The game was let at 30l. with the use of a handsome shooting-box, sufficient for the residence of a small family. Peat dug from the bogs produced from 6l. to 8l. a year; and the great waste was let at 100l. a year, which, for 4,000 acres, is at the rate of sixpence per acre. The annual rental was therefore about 181l. per annum. From these circumstances it appeared clear to me that the purchase could not well be an unfavourable speculation. 2,750 acres (throwing the leasehold entirely out of the question) for 4,400l. is exactly 32l. an acre fee simple for land that paid a mere trifle in poor rates and land tax,[150] and tithe free; it did not seem therefore to be necessary that the produce should amount to three shillings, for if the rent was reckoned only at one shilling it was but thirty-two years’ purchase. I determined, therefore, to make it, and concluded the transaction as soon as possible.
My plan was, to let my farm in Suffolk, of about 300 acres, and transfer the capital, with some additions, to the gradual improvement of this large tract; and, in doing this, I should have begun with one farm on the Southern extremity, near the turnpike road, of three or four hundred acres, let separately for 20l. a year, but all a waste, and, in addition to this, have run a watering canal from one of the streams, till from 100 to 200 acres were below the level, walling such tract in. Thus prepared, I found myself at last in a situation to realise the speculations I had so long been busy in—when a new scene of a very different kind opened upon me—but of that hereafter.
The following are the letters of this year reserved. From J. Symonds, Esq., an account of the Duke of Grafton’s illness:—
‘So you tell me that I know not how to stay at home! but this is a visit of pure friendship, for the duke likes very well to chat with me, though he is so nervous as hardly to bear with strangers. Yesterday Lord Clermont, who is very intimate with him, came hither, but he was too much for the duke, and had he not gone away this morning, the duchess would have hinted it gently to him. What would you do with such nerves?
‘Last night, insteadinstead of reading a sermon or charge, I read to the whole company (by the duke’s desire) your essays on the placeplace of corn and capital employed in the French husbandry, with which he had been so pleased. Lord Clermont, who has lived much in France, and though a man of pleasure, had inquired much into the state of that country, was not more delighted than surprised with them. “Well, then,” said the duke, “as you like them so much and intend to buy the book, recommend it as much as possible to your friends in the great world.” This he engaged to do. His Lordship gave a pressing invitation for you and I to pass two or three days with him; he fixed upon the month of May, which will suit me, and, I hope, you.
‘As an inducement I was to tell you that he has marled four hundred and fifty acres with a hundred and twenty loads an acre—this is an object.
J. W. Coke, Esq., M.P., proposing some laws for the benefit of the poor in their present distress:—
‘Dear Sir,—I have no better motive to urge for addressing myself to you upon the subject of this letter than that I know of no man so well qualified as yourself to give me the information I stand in need of, should my plan be thought practicable and useful by you, otherwise I should take shame to myself to intrude for a moment on your time, which I esteem so precious, as it is always most usefully employed in the most laudable pursuits.
‘Having turned my thoughts much of late to the most probable causes of the discontent among the lower classes of people in this country, I find that the high price of provisions, especially of bread, has been invariably the motive assigned by them whenever they have assembled in a tumultuous manner. And this is not surprising, as the existence of a poor man’s family must depend upon that last-mentioned necessary article, most truly his staff of life. It is surely, then, the interest, as well as the duty, of the landed proprietors to endeavour by every means that can be devised that the poor may never suffer in this respect. Now, it has occurred to me that perhaps a Bill might be framed to fix an assize on flour according to the average price of wheat.
‘That millers should be obliged to grind for all persons at a certain sum per bushel instead of toll; persons being at liberty to inspect their corn whilst grinding, and that allowance should be made to millers for any alleged deficiency in grinding. All complaints to be heard in a summary way before a Justice of the Peace, and the complaint to be made within six days. The average price of wheat to be taken from the nearest market at the discretion of the Justice. Penal clauses should also be enacted against millers adulterating wheat and mixing water with the meal to increase its weight.
‘These loose hints I submit to your superior judgment and better information; but, from my own observation, I do suspect the poor suffer greatly from the shameful practices and combinations of the millers, which I should be proud to check by bringing a Bill into Parliament as one of the representatives of the great arable county, should you approve the idea and would have the goodness to lend me your assistance in framing the Bill.
‘I must also mention another cruel grievance to the poor, that there is no legal restraint on shopkeepers in villages respecting their weights and measures.
‘Could no means be devised to protect the buyer from the artifices of the seller without injury to the latter in their honest gains? Why might not magistrates have the power of punishing for short weights and measures, complaint to be made within six days?
From Dr. Burney on my ‘Travels’ and his own engagements:—
‘My dear Friend,—Your very kind and hearty invitation to Bradfield came at a time when I was utterly unable to answer it. I was just emerged from the sick room into daily hurry and business, for which I was but little fit, and am still detained here by an unusual number of engagements for this time of year, the end of which I am not able to see. If my patients had walked off as early as I wished them, or if, like other doctors, I could have them put to their long home by a dash of my pen, I really believe I should not have been able to resist the lure you threw out; but now, if I am able to travel, or fit for any house but my own, I have two positive engagements on my hands of long standing: the first to Mickleham, to my daughter, Phillips, where I promised, as soon as I could pronounce myself a convalescent, to go and complete my cure; the other is to Crewe Hall, in Cheshire, whither I have been going more than twice seven years; and at which place I was so sure of arriving last August, that my correspondents, at my request, addressed their letters to me there. This year the claims upon me and Fanny have been so powerfully renewed by Mrs. Crewe that nothing but increased indisposition can resist them. She has promised to carry us down by slow journeys, and, if it should be necessary for me to go to Buxton for my confounded rheumatism (which, though less painful, still deprives me of all use of my left paw), she will even accompany me thither. My poor wife is also in sad health, and we are neither of us fit for anything but to con ailments with those who are as old and infirm as ourselves. But we send you a splinter[151] from us, before we were quite broke up and unfit for service. It is not sufficient to improve your fire of a wet day, but may perhaps be of some little use in the way of kindling.
‘I thank you heartily for your very interesting book of “Travels.” It is in public perusal of an evening, and has fastened on us. The parts of France which you have traversed were to me almost unknown. I never saw the Loire or the Garonne. No one can accuse you of drowsiness, like old Homer and such folks; you are always awake, and keep your readers so. We are now in the midst of that most astonishing of all events, the French Revolution, and like your narrative extremely. Though an enemy to the old tyranny, you neither reason about the rights of man like Wat Tyler or even Tom Payne. You saw coming on all the evils which anarchy has occasioned. You have long seen the futility of theory without practice among French agriculturists, and the political philosophers who think themselves wiser than the experiences of all antiquity, and not content with anything already done, must needs set about inventing an entire new government, and you see what a fine mess they have made of it.
From Miss Burney, afterwards Mdme. d’Arblay, writing on some traits of my character, &c.:—
‘Nay, if you talk of your difficulties in fabricating an epistle to me, please to consider how much greater are mine in attempting to answer it. You! a country farmer, the acknowledged head of “the only art worth cultivating,” as you tell us,—the contemner of every other pursuit, the scorner of all old customs, the defier of all musty authorities, the derider of all fogrum superiors,—in one word a Jacobin. You afraid? and of whom? a Chelsea pensioner? One who, maimed in the royal service, ignobly forbears, spurning royal reparation? One who, though flying a court, degenerately refrains from hating or even reviling kings, queens, and princesses? One who presumes to wish as well to manufactures for her outside, as to agriculture for her inside? One who has the ignorance to reverence commerce, and who cannot think of a single objection to the Wool Bill? One, in short, and to say all that is abominable at once, one who in theory is an aristocrat, and in practice a ci-devant courtier?
‘And shall a creature of this description, the willing advocate of every opinion, every feeling you excommunicate from “your business and bosom,” dare to write to you? Impossible!
‘Whether I shall come and see you all or not is another matter. If I can I will.
‘P.S. Will Honeycomb says if you would know anything of a lady’s meaning (always providing she has any) when she writes to you, look at her postscript. Now pray, dear sir, how came you ever to imagine what you are pleased to blazon to the world with all the confidence of self-belief, that you think farming the only thing worth manly attention? You, who, if taste rather than circumstance had been your guide, might have found wreaths and flowers almost any way you had turned, as fragrant as those of Ceres.’
My reply:—