‘My dear Sir,—You have applied to a very incompetent person for political consolation in addressing me, an old notorious alarmist who has long seen evils approaching even worse than those which have already arrived. I wish anything had happened to convince me that my mental eyes had been as short-sighted as those in my head. But, alas! things are going on everywhere from bad to worse. My foolish countrymen, nay, worse, the wicked and incurable democrats who inhabit the same island, so far from being cured by the savage cruelties and universal misery brought about in France by the Revolution and the treatment of other countries which she has conquered and even fraternised with, still long for a revolution here, without even wishing to avert any of the evils which have happened elsewhere, from the diabolical character and principles of her inhabitants! I have seen that a wish to break the Bank has long been formed, and I even have been advised to get all the cash I could for my notes if I had any; and the person who advised this measure, who had never been at the Bank before in his life, and was forced to inquire his way thither, had been bullying the harassed clerks to give him cash for a forty-pound note, for no other purpose than to lock it up. Seven millions of guineas were issued for notes in one week! Of this sum 300,000l., it is said, were for notes presented by the English Santerre. A banker from Norwich had collected notes to the amount of 400,000l., with which he came post to London in the same seraphic hope of breaking the Bank; but unluckily for his benevolent plan, the further issuing of cash had been stopped the night before his arrival. The favourite Jacobin plan at present is to make this nation and all Europe believe that we are really in a state of bankruptcy, and that the notes now in circulation will be soon of as little value as French assignats, reporting every day that they are at a very considerable discount, which God forbid should ever happen. For my own part, I would starve myself to death sooner than buy, even food, by the parting with a bank note for a farthing less value than it has hitherto had. But the poor Duke of Bedford, Mr. Cooke, the dissenting manufacturers, &c., are so distressed for want of cash to pay their workmen, that they are obliged to dismiss them. And this, to be sure, is not done with an intention of throwing all the blame upon Government and making furious rebels of all the persons discharged. Everything is seen and represented in the blackest colours—the French always right and the Administration wrong. For if opposition should ever be obliged to allow the present ministry to be right, why change it? And down they must pull every person and thing above them, even if, like Samson, they are crushed in the ruins, which I have not the least doubt will be the case if ever the revolution they seem so determined to bring about should happen.

‘The ballot has fallen upon me to furnish a man and a horse to the Provisional Cavalry,^[183] which has occasioned me much trouble and vexation. The expense, had it been double, I would have paid with alacrity, for the defence of everything dear to honest men, during such a war and with such enemies; but the business of recruiting, clothing, accoutring, &c., is so new to men of peace, that they know not how to go to work. Three substitutes that I had engaged have disappointed me, and the horse I have purchased I am not sure will pass muster. Had Government levied a tax of five or ten guineas upon each horse that was kept for pleasure, either in or out of harness, and done the business of raising a certain number of cavalry themselves, it would have been better done, and ladies and superannuated gentlemen (like my worship) would have escaped infinite plague and vexation.

‘I am exceedingly sorry that your dear and charming little daughter is not well.

‘Dear Sir,—I am on the point of leaving Bath, having no further hope of benefit from these waters; and as soon as I get home (if I should live to get home) should I find the papers transmitted me by your Board I shall send them faithfully to you; though, to say the truth, I do not think them of very great importance.

‘My constant opinion was, and is, that all matters relative to labour ought to be left to the conversations of the parties. That the great danger is in Government intermeddling too much. What I should have taken the liberty of addressing to you, had I possessed strength to go through it, would be to illustrate or enforce that principle.

‘I am extremely sorry that any one in the House of Commons should be found so ignorant and unadvised as to wish to revive the senseless, barbarous, and, in fact, wicked regulations made against free trade in matters of provision which the good sense of late Parliaments had removed. I am the more concerned at the measure, as I was myself the person who moved the repeal of the absurd code of statutes against the most useful of all trades, under the invidious names of forestalling and regrating. But, however, I console myself on this point by considering that it is not the only breach by which barbarism is entering upon us. It is, indeed, but a poor consolation, and one taken merely from the balance of misfortunes.

‘You have titles enough of your own to pass your name to posterity, and I am pleased that you have got spirit enough to hope that there will be such a thing as a civilised posterity to attend to things of this kind.

‘At the time, my dear sir, that I received your letter I was travelling over Italy, in order to figure in your “Annals of Agriculture;” but the state of that country has been so much bouleversé, that my head has been turned in reflecting upon it, as is most probably the case with the greater part of its inhabitants.

‘You ask me what plan I could propose to save the country. Arm, undoubtedly, as you say; but how to do it most effectually I pretend not to determine. You justly reprobate volunteering infantry.

‘Charles Cole tells me you have something in the press upon this subject. To fill the army or navy with defenders or volunteers, is the way to pave the way to our ruin. But I should begin with proposing a scheme which would probably be heard with disdain, and which has been rejected by the King: recall Lord Camden; appoint Lord Moira, Lord Lieutenant, with full powers to emancipate the Roman Catholics. He is much respected in Ireland as well as in England, for the opinion formed of him from his civil and military knowledge and moral character. I have heard Lord Bishop Douglas, who is no mean estimator of mankind, often say, that he wished he could see Lord Moira one of the Secretaries of State.

‘Were the Catholics satisfied, Ireland might bid defiance to the French, and, perhaps, some regular infantry might thence be sent to England, which, the Duke of Grafton said lately in the House of Lords, was much wanted here. But it is in vain to speak or write about Ireland.

We govern there by a faction—the Beresfords, Fitzgibbons, and Fosters—whose emoluments, including their relations and dependents, fall not short of 100,000l. per annum; some think much more. Now the Polignacs under the old government had not more than 50,000l. per annum, including a bishopric. This the Duchess of Liancourt one day made out to me upon paper, yet she was willing enough to exaggerate the profits of that family; especially as the old duchess just before had been cast in a lawsuit with one of them.

‘Your idea of applying to Bonaparte pleases me much. He would probably do more towards effecting a peace than a hundred Malmesburys and St. Helens. It will be curious to see what terms Pitt will propose. There seems to be no doubt but that the French will insist on having all the places taken from them; and probably a restitution of twelve or fourteen ships of the line, and perhaps a sum of money by way of indemnification, for this word was always in the mouth of our Premier. After this, an ample recompense to the Dutch and Spaniards, whose interests the French will consider as their own. A fine peace indeed, after so many absurd and haughty declarations of our ministry! A peace there must be or an insurrection, if considerable taxes be proposed to continue the war. Not that these would be of any avail; for were the French merely to line their coasts from Ostend to Calais with troops, and do nothing else, their point would be carried. At the very time that a separate peace was made by the Emperor with the French, Mr. Pitt, in the House of Commons, called him “our great and good ally.” It was but two days after that the news came of his defection, which every thinking man naturally expected.

‘Mr. P. seems determined to do dirty jobs to the last; whilst our enemies are almost at our gates, the subscribers to the loyalty loan must forsooth be rewarded because many of them are his Parliamentary friends. Should you hear your knight open himself on this subject, remind him that a million or a million and a half are wanted to pay the arrears of the Civil List; that professors, whose stipends are fixed by Acts of Parliament, are in danger of losing the profits of a couple of years from an abominable clause in Burke’s Bill. Remind him of a remarkable circumstance in Sully’s memoirs. When Henry IV. was in great distress for money it was proposed to him to decline paying any stipends to the professors in the University of Paris. “No,” said he, with an honest indignation, “I will never consent to that; retrench the expense of my table instead of touching their emoluments.” Such an answer, and such conduct in conformity to it, reflected peculiar honour on a prince who had never been trained up in the study of polite lettersletters

‘Carnot^[184] cannot be too much commended for ordering your agricultural works to be translated and published. It was giving his countrymen a mass of knowledge, founded on experiment not to be procured in their own writers. He showed very good sense in sacrificing party prejudices. Would Pitt have acted thus in his situation?

‘I have not read Wilberforce’s “Practical View of Christianity,” nor am I indeed much solicitous about it, for my faith is not built upon establishments but on the New Testament, which I have considered with as much attention as most of our divines. W. is a strict Calvinist, and is therefore orthodox, for he is supported by our Articles of Religion. I who think that the Articles on this head are not founded on Scripture, am a heretic, as I take you to be also. It is very observable that the young theologians of Geneva are at this day instructed much more in Ostervald’s^[185] Catechism than in Calvin’s books. The death of that worthy man and excellent master of Italian, Isola, is an exceedingly great loss to me, for he has managed all my little concerns at Cambridge for twenty years. He can have left nothing for his family but his good example. So respected was he by every one, that when a long illness and his wife’s death prevented him from making his usual earnings, and he was unavoidably loaded with heavy debts, they not only raised for him 180l. by private subscriptions in the Colleges, but in the following year the University gave him 100l. out of the public chest. I shall be very careful in recommending his successor, for Isola always told me that most of the Italians in England were rascals, and he therefore had no communication with them when they came to Cambridge. I allowed him twenty guineas a year, as few learn Italian. The profits from teaching it are hardly sufficient to maintain one who has a family; for parents in general are so foolish as not to require of their sons the learning of that language, though their intention is to send them into Italy.

‘Adieu! You will repent provoking me to write.

‘Dear Sir,—It was but the other day that I became master of a complete series of your “Annals of Agriculture;” accept my confession and record my penitence. Having on my return from my long peregrination on the Continent lent to a friend—who had lent to another friend, whom we neither of us could recollect—the twenty-five or thirty numbers which I had taken in before that period, I postponed from time to time the completion of the series in hopes of recovering the commencement of it. When at last shame and necessity got the better of procrastination, what a treasure of information burst upon me. No—so long as power without ——— and without ——— shall have left an annual guinea in my pocket (blanks are better here than words) not a number of the “Annals” shall ever be wanting to my shelves. Hold—don’t take me for a Jacobin now, nor even for a croaker. What I allude to is not any common burden, such as you land-owners and land-holders grunt under, but my own ten thousand pound tax—my privilegium—a thing as new to English language as it is to English practice—sole and peculiar fruit of the very particular notice with which I have been honoured by ———.

‘This waits upon you with a proof of a blank pauper population table, framed for the purpose of collecting an account of them in as many parishes as I can. Knowing so well your zeal for all zeal-worthy objects, and mindful of your often experienced kindness, I cannot on this occasion harbour a doubt of your assistance. Is it worth while to give the table the indiscriminate circulation of your "Annals"? At any rate your editorial Majesty will, I hope, be pleased graciously to grant unto me your royal letters, patent or close, or both, addressed to all, and if need be, singular, your loving subjects my fellow correspondents; charging and exhorting them, each in his parish—and as many other parishes as may be—to fill my tables and send in their contributions.

‘Along with the table you will find a MS. paper, exhibiting the importance of the information I am thus labouring to collect; you will print it or suppress it as you think best. I also send in MS. a table of cases calling for relief; a general map of pauper land with all the roads to it. Few, if any, of the projects I have seen but what have appeared (the arch-project not excepted) to bear an exclusive—at least a predilective—reference to some of these cases, overlooking or slighting the rest. I send it in the state in which I propose printing it for my own book; but, in the meantime, if it be worthy the honour of a place in the “Annals,” it is altogether at your service. This preparatory insertion will turn to the advantage of the work itself, if any of your correspondents (not forgetting their editor) would have the goodness to contribute their remarks to the emendation of it. You will not easily conceive—few heads, at least, but yours are qualified to conceive—the labour it has cost me to bring the two tables to this state. As to the work at large, it will occupy two independent, though connected volumes. Pauper systems compared; pauper management improved—the last the romance, the Utopia, to which I had once occasion to allude. Romance? How could it be anything less? I mean to an author’s partial eye. In proportion as a thing is excellent, when established, is it anything but romance, and theory, and speculation, till the touch of the seal or the sceptre has converted it into practice. Distress, at least, distress, the very life and soul of romance, cannot be denied to mine; for in this short and close-packed specimen already you behold it in all its shapes. Magnanimous president! accomplished secretary! ye, too, have your romance. Heaven send you a happy catastrophe and a fettered land “a happy deliverance.” Patience! patience! ye too, before you are comforted, must bear to be tormented.

‘Apropos of presidents. The high priest of Ceres, having divined or not divined my recent occupations, has been pleased to send me a mandate in form, summoning me to devote myself to this branch of his goddess’s service, that the fruit of my labours may be consecrated in her temple at Whitehall; so that whatever other requisites may fail me, I shall be in no want of auspices.

‘I fear you will say to yourself that the Observations^[186] I have sent you are a sad farrago, but your miscellany, how superior soever to others in subject-matter and contents, has this in common with them, that half-formed ideas, so they have but matter in them, are not prohibited from presenting themselves. It is part of the character of your correspondents to have more of substance about them than of form; and of the many recommendations which join in drawing so much good company to your conversazione, one, nor that the least, is the convenience of being admitted to it in boots. Mine (you will say) have hobnails in them; for, somehow or other, the very idea of the person to whom I am addressing myself has insensibly betrayed me into that sort of playful confidence—that épanchement, as I think the French call it—which I have always felt in his company.