Gradual loss of sight—Illness and death of Mrs. Oakes—Daily routine—A disappointment—Riots—Death of Mrs. Young—Anecdotes of Napoleon—A story of the Terror—National distress—Close of diary—The end.
In February I was obliged to take a reader as my sight was failing fast.
February 27.—For some months past I have had the comfort of seeing my debts drawing to such a conclusion that I might consider myself as free; and I have certainly thought too much of it, and rested too much satisfaction in it, and not sufficiently been thankful to God for so great a blessing. If I am so ungrateful as not to thank God sufficiently for blessings, how can I expect to avoid misfortunes? My eyes! My eyes! Is not His hand upon me here, too, for the same reason?
What has been my gratitude to Him for their preservation during sixty-seven years? and what uses have I made of them?
April 4.—How employment can be carried further than with me I am at a loss to conceive. Notwithstanding the state of my eyes I am generally up at 4 A.M., though I do not call St. Croix [his reader] before five.
Last Tuesday I read the first lecture that was, I believe, ever read on agriculture in England, my subject ‘Tillage at the Board,’ The room was well filled, and several of much ability and more of rank; but the day was a bad one, which kept others away. I found that they were well satisfied.
So many years in the habit of incessant employment has made any idleness irksome to me. But my eyes force me to have time for contemplation; and I pray to God to enable me to fill it as a Christian ought to do whose conversation is in heaven; but my mind will run out too much on worldly objects, and sometimes on sinful ones.
How much in all things do I want washing in the fountain opened for sin and uncleanness!
May 13.—Much of my time has of late been lost by people calling on the malt business.[238] I am tired of sugar and malt before the question comes into the House of Commons, which will not be till Monday. I sent another letter to Cobbett last Monday, but he did not insert it. I care little about it, and I wish that I cared less, for these questions only connect one more nearly with the world than a Christian ought to be connected with it.
However, it is in my vocation, and my conscience is not at all wounded by the part I take, for I am well persuaded that the consequences of this measure will be mischievous and tend to scarcity, which is so greatly to be guarded against for a thousand reasons. Sir John Sinclair spoke once against it in the House, and he tells me that Percival looked as black and indignant at him as if he had been talking treason.
July 25: Bradfield.—I am tired of the thoughts of such a journal; had I kept it of late it would have been employed on my departing sight. I can see to write a little, but can read scarcely anything.
Praised be the mercy of God that enables me to pay a reader; St. Croix is with me. And I have been hard at work on my ‘Elements’ to get those papers into such order as to want as little as possible my own sight in the future progress of completing them. Whenever it may be the will of God to make me quite blind, oh! may I receive His dispensation with the submission of a Christian!
1809. May 16.—April twelvemonth I read my own lectures by means of Baker’s great hand and black ink; but last month Mr. Cragg read the two, and one new one for me, for I am unable to do it; yet I can write a little, but cannot read when written. The Lord’s will be done, and may He sanctify the affliction and turn all my attention to Himself.
Mrs. Oakes arrived at Bury last Sunday fortnight; and on Sunday se’nnight she broke a blood-vessel and brought up two spoonfuls, and on Saturday evening last had another smaller attack. My own fear and opinion is that it will end fatally. Her fatigue coming from Bath and Bristol, and at London, contrary to advice, has caused it. I have prayed most earnestly for her. Oh! may the Lord of all mercy hear and grant my petitions. My thoughts are all employed on the state of her soul. The long intimacy and friendship I have had for her, and the kindness and attention I have ever received from her, now lacerate the heart with wounds that sink deep; and my conscience reproaches me that I have not done all that I might have done to turn her heart more to God.
May 18.—I am very, very unhappy, and cannot think of her without wretchedness. In every worldly respect what a loss will she be to me! A placid, sweet temper, with a good understanding; that ever recd. [received] me with kindness, and attention, and preference, with whom I was at my ease, and where I could be at any time; a resource in blindness fast coming on that would have been great. The hope has fled and a sad and dreary vacancy, which freezes me, is in its place.
May 19.—Good news though not of better health. Hastead has been with her, to be sure, by desire, which shows an attention to her soul.
Poor thing! she has been bled twice more, and the blood as highly inflamed as ever; bleeding gives relief to her lungs.
The Duke of Bedford and Mr. Coke [have written] desiring me to go to Woburn and Holkham; but all great meetings, and anything like festivity, have for some years become so insipid and disagreeable that I shall have done with them wholly. They, like so many other things, are links of that worldly harness which it is high time for me to throw down for ever.
June 1.—Read the ‘Edinburgh Review’ on ‘Cœlebs in Search of a Wife,’ by Sydney Smith. Wretched stuff; false and frivolous, reasoning on cards, assemblies, plays,[239] &c.
June 3.—Yesterday, as the ‘Edinburgh Review’ was read to me, I was much struck with a reference to Necker on the finances, saying that 7,000 pedigrees of the nobility in the archives of the old Government were destroyed in the Revolution. It occurred at once to me that this was the exact number of names of men slain in Revelations. It is in the eleventh chapter: ‘The tenth part of the city fell in a great earthquake, and 7,000, &c.’ The commentators all seem to have reckoned France as the tenth part of the city; but of the names of men they knew not what to make, but 7,000 pedigrees answer to a wonderful degree, and the coincidence of numbers is truly amazing.
June 6.—Yesterday’s letter bad. Poor thing, she has been bled eight ounces, and much inflamed; had been out twice, and I suppose took cold. She wrote herself, and there are some comfortable expressions relative to the state of her mind with regard to religion. I have little hope of her recovery.
July 4.—Betsy continues just the same, whether better or worse, the cough does not go, and therefore I conclude the case bad. But, thanks to God, her mind, I hope, goes on; she has the Testament read to her by all the four children.
July 6.—I work at the ‘Elements’ every day, and find every time they are read to me something to cancel, something to add, and much to reconsider and correct.
July 8.—The gradual declension of my sight in viewing the scenery of this place, but especially in knowing faces, makes me surprised that I can manage to write; I cannot read in the least degree, or know anything of the views in Lord Valentia’s Travels.[240] It is a very great deprivation, but much better than feeling the torture of very painful distempers, so that I am very thankful to God for the less affliction. It was, I doubt not, very necessary for me to have some heavy one, and what I am likely to suffer is comparatively a mercy to what might have been the dispensation of the Almighty.
Mrs. O. the same, and the weather as unfavourable to her; I drank tea there on Thursday.
July 19.—Drank tea with her last night. [She was] bled in the morning, and going to have a blister. All her symptoms worse, I suppose she has caught cold.
August 4.—I have been so provoked, my dear Jane,[241] with so many of my letters miscarrying that I am determined to begin a book to use some safe opportunity of conveying it to you, for I know nothing so provoking as to write twenty letters for one or two that arrive safe. In your last you made many enquiries into what I was doing? How I passed my time, &c. &c. A very short account will answer this. I rise from four to five in the morning, pray to God for half an hour, more or less, according as He affords me the spirit to do it. At half-past five I call Mr. St. Croix, who comes to me at six, and reads a chapter in Scott’s Bible with notes. I then dictate such letters as want to be written, after which we sit down to my ‘Elements of Agriculture,’ which have been more than thirty years in hand, and at which I have worked for two years past with much assiduity, wishing to finish it before my sight is quite gone. At half-past eight the servant brings me the water to shave; from nine to ten we breakfast, and sit down again to work for two or three hours, as it may happen, as I take the opportunity of sunshine for a brisk walk of an hour, very often backwards and forwards on the gravel between yours and the round garden. I wish much to have my thoughts during that hour employed upon death and the other world, but my weakness and want of resolution are lamentable, so that I sometimes think on every subject except that which I intend should occupy me. We then sit down to work again, till the boy and his dicky arrive with the letters and newspapers. When they are read we work again, but usually catch half an hour for another walk before dinner. When alone we dine at four, and always at that hour in the height of summer, but if any person be in the house, as it prevents an evening work, five is the dinner hour. What is read afterwards is usually some book not immediately connected with work. At eight we drink tea and go to bed at ten, but the Sunday is an exception; you know there is service but once a day. At the church hour, whether morning or afternoon (when no service), about thirty children from Bradfield, Stanningfield, and Cuckfield come to read in the Testament and repeat their Catechism, and undergo some examination from Mrs. Trimmer’s ‘Teacher’s Assistant.’ Whatever is well done receives a mark against the name; the girl or boy that has fewest marks receives nothing, the next a halfpenny, next a penny, and so on, all which does not amount to more than two or three shillings. I cannot boast much of their progress, though I pay for most of them as constant scholars. In the evening, between six and seven o’clock, forms are set in the hall to receive all that please to come to hear a sermon read, and the numbers who attend amount from twenty to sixty or seventy, according to weather and other circumstances. Such, my dear Jane, is the tenor of my life both in summer and winter while I am in the country.
December 1.[242]—Here is a pretty breach in the continuance of this book letter, but you are not to fail to remember that during this period I have sent off two letters to you, not short ones, which, from Smirenove’s account of the conveyance, I hope may get to you safe. I have also received two short ones from you, and another from Arthur at Odessa, describing the severity of the winter, and an escape he had of being burnt in a Tartar combustion of old grass, but, most provokingly, saying not one word of his own intentions, or a syllable of what he is about. This is very mortifying to me, for what are frost and fire to me compared with his own plans and views? Nor does he say a word about coming to England; and the idea of the possibility of your coming in autumn is now all past by, and I am precluded from the possibility of seeing you till next summer, by which time I shall have no eyes to see you.
April 9, 1810.[243]—The discovery lately made by your letter of the enormous expense of postage must limit my correspondence to private hands, and will not permit the communication of anything but topics the most immediately interesting to your future motions. My notes of the riots, therefore, are preserved for your eye by copying a letter to Mrs. Oakes:—
‘I know not what reports may have reached you relative to the state of London, nor what newspapers you read, but I have been witness to such a scene as I hope, through the blessing of God, will not occur again. On Friday night the mob was extremely agitated in Piccadilly, especially near Sir Francis Burdett’s, and they took the unaccountable whim of forcing everyone to illuminate. I lighted up as other people did, and when I went to bed left orders with the servant who sat up to be sure to keep the candles burning till daylight, instead of which, when others put out their candles, ours were extinguished also. At two o’clock the mob returned and broke many windows, and ours among the rest. The servant ran into my room and waked me out of my sleep to tell me the windows were smashing. We hurried the candles out again, and, upon examination, found the alarm exceeded the damage, for only three panes were broken. All Saturday passed in a very quiet manner, and in the evening the illumination was more general, but troops pouring into London from all quarters, we hoped to be secure without violence. The mob, however, were so determined, that by twelve o’clock we heard platoons firing in Piccadilly, and a few in other directions more remote, the Riot Act having been read. A person who saw much, and clearly, told me that orders being received by the commanding officer to fire with ball, about fifty cavalry fired twice over the heads of the people, that the whizzing of the balls might inform them what they had to expect; still, however, they were audacious, insomuch that the officer was forced to fire on them. In five minutes all Piccadilly was cleared. We afterwards heard a little more distant firing, and a party of horse scoured up Sackville Street, firing in a scattered manner at the flying mob; but, from the reports of the pieces, I believe with powder only. The reports relative to the mischief done are extremely vague and not to be depended on. Some say that one trooper was killed, others three or four; what was the loss suffered by the mob is, I believe, quite unknown, but certainly it was very inconsiderable. During Sunday the agitation of the streets threatened a bad night, but Government had brought in so many troops, that had we known it we need not have been alarmed. A train of artillery in the park, horses attached and matches lighted, two pieces of artillery in Berkeley Square, two others in Soho Square, and many more about the town, and doubtless many others of which I knew nothing, all ready at a moment’s warning, with parties of troops scouring the streets, showed such a state of preparation as effectually awed the mob, notwithstanding the efforts of Sir F. Burdett to inflame them. He was at his house ready to resist the Speaker’s warrant for commitment, and had the audacity to write to the sheriff to bring the posse comitatus to assist him in so doing, printing the letter in the Sunday’s newspaper. They say he is still at his house, and that he will not be seized before the House meets this day. It really is a tremendous moment, for if they do not carry it with a high hand, as a means of prevention, we shall have an organised mob and great mischief will follow. It is expected that the gallery of the House will to-day be cleared by acclamation and a Bill brought in to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act, and the rascally authors, printers, and publishers of those inflammatory papers which have done so much mischief seized and imprisoned; but whether the Ministry, with such a violent opposition, will have resolution enough for this will depend on the influence the Marquis of Wellesley has among his colleagues in the Cabinet. I am much inclined to expect that good will result by drawing close to the Ministry all the honest men in both Houses, with all others that might be wavering; for it is a question now whether we are to be governed by Parliament or the mob. Many circumstances, however, are unfortunate, and not the least, that though the public revenue amounts to 62,000,000l., yet the expenses of the year will rise to above 80,000,000l., and must be made good by means that will occasion the necessity of having additional taxes. This will cause a yell for peace—and such a peace as must be ruinous if made. We have also one adversary armed at all points, and whose depth of policy is such as ought ever to create alarm and the exertions of all the talents the country possesses to oppose him.’
May 3, 1811.—I do not think that for the last twenty years of my life my general health has been better than at the moment when discontent, I fear, with the will of God, induced me to oppose that will. In the most mild and merciful manner He had nearly deprived me of sight without my feeling the smallest pain. Heavy as this dreadful deprivation is and must remain to me, I feel, in proportion to my convalescence, that even blindness itself may be a temptation; as a dispensation from God, it must have been meant as a calamity, and a calamity to be deeply felt. Is there not danger then that a mind which has been accustomed to look upon the favourable side of objects, should gradually so accustom itself to its new situation as to deprive it in a good measure of the misery which might be the direct intention of the Almighty? The capacity of continuing the attention formerly given to old objects by means of the eyes of others, may leave the mind almost as full of the world as when by sight I could enjoy its visible objects; this is a circumstance which ought undoubtedly to be guarded against, that is, prayed against. For a man of seventy to be struck blind and to continue worldly-minded, with his head and heart full of objects which, though not of sight, command attention, is to tempt God to send some deeper affliction in order to bring his heart home to its true centre. This is a subject which merits great attention, and may the Lord of His mercy enable me to consider it as I ought to do!
May 8.—Twelve o’clock at noon my dear friend Mrs. Oakes breathed her last, after a long severe illness, and many and great sufferings. Thanks to God she was attentive throughout this sad period, as I am well informed, to the state of her soul with God. Thus is terminated in this world a very intimate friendship of twenty-six years, with a temper so mild and cheerful, with manners so gentle and persuasive, that had it pleased the Almighty to have spared her, she would have been the source of great comfort to me in my melancholy state.
May 16, 1812.—At this time a new oculist appeared in town, a desideratum much wanted. The highest accounts were universally circulated of his skill and success, and the most unequivocal good effects attended his new attempts at removing cataract. I was unwilling to go to him, cherished no hope of my own case, and considered this calamity as the appointment of Providence, concerning which I had but one wish—that of submitting to it with the most unaffected resignation. But the persuasions of my friends, more sanguine than myself, and the high reputation of Mr. Adams at length prevailed, and a day was appointed finally to decide my state—to give some expectation of recovery or to destroy all hope.
The feelings of the mind may be subdued, but they cannot be destroyed. From the reluctance I showed to name the day even after resolving to go, the dread of hearing my doom, and the natural desire to enjoy a little longer the precious glimmering of hope, may be inferred. At length the long-wished-for dreaded morning came. The sun shone brightly as I walked to the house; I felt its warmth, and the thought that perhaps his light may still, ere long, ‘revisit these sad eyes,’ lent new interest to his cheering beams.
The man who has never had his mind enlivened and his senses cheered by contemplating the scenes of nature or the employment of his fellow creatures, would feel much less at the thought of learning whether this would ever be his fate or not, than he who, once having felt in every variety the extent of the blessing, loses it, learns by experience the sadness of the contrast, and goes with a throbbing heart to enquire if any hope exists of again enjoying that power he would gladly forfeit all his possessions to recover.
I was shown into a room, where I waited a few minutes (they were painful ones), and Mr. Adams appeared. ‘I wish, sir, to be informed what is the state of my eyes,’ looking very attentively at him. ‘You have not, sir, undergone an extraction for cataract?’[244] ‘That you must decide.’ ‘Why, yes, and I fear unsuccessfully.’ ‘Is there any hope of recovery?’ Mr. Adams started, and looked down with evident marks of bitter disappointment the first instant he saw me. ‘I grieve, sir, to say that the eye itself is destroyed, the cornea gone, and there has been such an excessive discharge of the vitreous humour, that the coats are collapsed.’ ‘No chance, then, of course?’ ‘I fear, sir, none;’ then, after a pause, ‘I believe I am addressing Mr. A. Young?’ I bowed. ‘I have heard your case differently reported; it was the subject of much conversation, and excited unenviable interest last spring when it happened, and I had hoped that it would have been possible to relieve you, but I now see the contrary.’ ‘I am much obliged to you, sir, good morning,’ I replied, and came away.
Mr. Adams was a young man, his aspect was pleasing and intelligent, and there was a sorrowful look when I departed that well became the sad occasion. There were two things worth repeating on that morning, one was his liberality in clearing his brother professor from the character of carelesness, which he endeavoured to do. I complained that I was sure I could not have been well prepared. But Mr. Adams replied that preparation was not necessary for extraction, that people of the worst habits had been treated in that way with no preparation and complete success; that the fault was not of the operator, but of the operation, which must always be liable to failure. Mr. Adams’ own method of removing cataract was not this ill-fated scheme of extraction. The second remark is this. It had become much the custom to use hot water for the eyes when weak or inflamed. The author of this memoir had been afflicted with a transient indisposition of them, and on application to Phipps, hot water had been recommended and used for a twelvemonth without effect.
Mr. Adams, on being questioned with regard to the expedience of its continuance, decidedly answered, that by increasing the relaxation, hot water would only augment the disease; prescribed the frequent use of the citrine ointment[245] (to be had at any druggist’s) and cold water constantly. On the way home, I was for a few moments depressed. ‘How happy,’ I cried, ‘are those beings who can see; no one can tell the misery of blindness, the dark gloom over that mind never cheered by the light of the sun, especially now with me, who am certain never to see again. If it were not for religion, I should wish to be the poor man who is to be hanged next Monday; but, thank God, I can consider the whole affair as His appointment, intended not for a curse but a blessing, and can reconcile my mind to it completely as His will. You will see,’ I added after a pause [presumably addressing Mr. Adams], smiling, ‘I shall be as cheerful and happy as ever,’ and so I was.
1814.—This year I paid much attention to the ‘Elements.’
My son came from Russia.
1815.—Arthur, Jane, and myself went post to London the last day of January, Mary remained at Bradfield with Mrs. Young, who was unable to move.
About this time ‘Baxteriana’[246] was published. Through the following spring I was, at various times, too apt to fall into reflections which tended, more than they ought to have done, to discontent; but in thirteen weeks to the present day I have not once entered the doors of any other person than those of Mr. Wilberforce, and I have not dined once with him, having been only at breakfast for the pleasure of hearing his Exposition and Prayer; for the conversation at and after breakfast has been entirely desultory, and not once on any religious question. And as to any Christian calling on me, John Babbington, from Peterborough, once breakfasted here, and is, I believe, never in town without calling. Mrs. Strachey, who was in town a month, was so kind as to call three or four times; Mrs. John Wayland twice, and here, I think, except Miss Francis,[247] dining once a week, is the whole amount of my communication with those whose conversation would please me.
It would be natural to suppose that a poor old blind man who, through the blessing of God, retains his health and strength might have received something more of friendly attention than this, but such discontent should be banished, for let me not a single moment forget the great mercies of God to me; and while many are on beds of torment from dreadful diseases, I am free from bodily pain. These are points that should give a perpetual spring of gratitude in my bosom, and if the neglect which I have been apt to think of too much turns my attention more to the Lord Jesus, it is a benefit and not a misfortune. Let me only take care to be looking unto Jesus, and then I shall esteem, in the manner it deserves, all that the world can do for me.
Monday, March 6, most execrable riots began in London, on account of the Corn Bill, then in the House of Commons, attended with circumstances proving decisively the abominable effects (sufficiently proved before) of printing in all the newspapers those violent and mischievous speeches which are made as much to the Gallery as to the House, and can be intended for nothing else but to inflame the people, which they have done to a degree of desperation. Petitions from a multitude of cities and towns pour in to the Houses every day they meet, and, in fact, the prayer of them all is to beg that they, the petitioners, may be starved, which would probably be the result of granting their desire. 600,000 qrs. of French wheat of an excellent quality have been poured into our markets to meet a crop generally mildewed; this has reduced the price on an average of the kingdom to 59s. per quarter, and that average taken in so preposterous a way that the real price fairly ascertained would not amount to 50s.; 90s. per qr. [quarter] would not pay the farmer in so bad a year. If importation was to be continued, at least half the farmers in England would be ruined, and wheat consequently must rise in a year or two to scarcity, and if importation should be prevented, by many probable events to famine. Country labourers throughout the kingdom are in the greatest distress, as I know from many correspondents. For want of employment they go to the parish, but these poor families never petition, even when starving, and a Legislature which attended not to their interest would deserve the abuse now vomited forth by towns. From thirty to forty houses at London have had their windows broken, many their doors forced, and everything in them destroyed; and after much mischief, with general anxiety and apprehensionapprehension, the military were called forth; but it was the last day of the week before their numbers were sufficient to secure any tolerable tranquillity.
Monday, March 13.—I breakfasted with Mr. Wilberforce: a file of soldiers in his house, because his servants had been violently threatened that it should be speedily attacked.
The bawler bearing[248] last week, in the House, read a denunciation in a petition from Carlisle against the Board of Agriculture, which made it necessary for me to hire a bedchamber elsewhere, as blindness would not permit an escape by the roof of the house.
I wrote to Mr. Vansittart, transcribing a resolution of the Committee of 1774, proposing to lay the millers under an assize. The Bill for that purpose passed the Commons, but was lost in the Lords.
In Mr. Vansittart’s answer to me, he mentioned the difficulties in the way, but observed that as Mr. Franklin Lewis had taken up the business of bread and flour in the House, he would mention to him what I proposed. From Lord Sidmouth’s speech it seems they intend to remove the assize of bread, which will leave in case of scarcity the bakers without protection in case of riots, and also leave the millers in full possession of their rascality.
At Mr. Wilberforce’s I met Miss Francis and Mr. Legh Richmond, who read to us, with Lord Calthorpe and General Macaulay, a most interesting letter from a Russian Princess, describing her conversion to vital Christianity by Mr. Pinkerton instructing her children, and her translating into Russian the ‘Dairyman’s Daughter,’ and thanking Mr. Richmond for his other tracts sent her for the same purpose. Her English extremely good, and real Christianity, with expressions of the deepest humility, breathing in every line.
This was an eventful year, for my poor wife breathed her last after a long illness, and it gives me great comfort to be informed that she showed great marks of resignation and piety. My daughter was with her to the last.
May 12.—A few days ago, writing to Miss Francis, I used the expression, ‘If a Christian was to call on me it should be entered in a pocket-book with a mark of exclamation.’ Mr. Wilberforce saw this note, and yesterday morning Mr. Pakenham called on me, and introduced himself by saying that he came for some conversation with me, by desire of Mr. W. He was quite unknown to me, but I found that he was the grandson of that Lord Longford with whom I was in Ireland in 1776, forty years ago, which lord was in the Navy; and the present gentleman is also in that employment, about twenty-six or twenty-seven years of age; his father living and an admiral. I soon found that he was a firmly established Christian, ready to converse on the good subject, which he did with good sense and no inconsiderable energy.
He is in mourning for General Pakenham, and the Duchess of Wellington is his first cousin. Mentioning Miss Francis, he said he met her twice at Mr. Wilberforce’s, and speaking in commendation of her, I told him that she was to dine with me at five o’clock, and that it would give me much pleasure if he would meet her; this he readily complied with, and came accordingly.
I have not had so much religious conversation for an age past; and had not Dr. Halliday from Moscow called between seven and eight, expecting to see my son, this conversation would have been uninterrupted. I wish he had come on some other day. Remarking that I had some apprehension of the ensuing war, because we should be, in fact, fighting for the restoration of the Pope, the Jesuits, and the Inquisition, Mr. P. replied, that Lord Liverpool had informed Mr. Wilberforce that Bonaparte was reconciled to the Pope, pretending to be a most dutiful son of the Church. It seems agreed by all that the first victory gained on either side will have most decisive consequences. I hope I shall hear more of this young man, whose determined avowal of his religious principles pleases me much.
May 15.—Breakfasted at Mr. Wilberforce’s. General Macaulay there; he told me that in his late tour in France, travelling from Lyons to Geneva, he met with a Monsieur Michaud, who, speaking much of his farm and offering to show it, the general accompanied him to view it, and found everything in the highest state of management, and so much superior to all the rest of the country, that he enquired into the origin of such great superiority. The answer was, ‘My cultivation is entirely that of Monsieur Arthur Young, whose recommendations I have carried into practice with the success you see.’
Much conversation about Bonaparte; the general is well persuaded that the allies will be entirely successful, as B. is, and must be, very badly provided to resist them, and that the first campaign will carry them to Paris.
May 17.—Last night, being at West Street Chapel, Mr. Gurney, after the sermon, came into the pew, when I told him he had not performed his promise, by calling, on which he came home with me, and gave us a long account of his life and conversion, beginning at four years old with a magpie which his father found in a nest, in a haunted wood, where he went at night in search of a reputed ghost, and which proved to be only a white pony. This magpie was, by a strange series of little events, his introduction to Drummond, the banker, and to procuring himself a school and college education, a knowledge of several of the nobility, and eventually, through Lord Exeter, the appointment to the Rectory of St. Clement Danes; and all this from having been no more than a poor country labourer’s son, and one of twenty-two children. The detail was very interesting, from being not only well told, but, from the providence of God, clearly marked in many little circumstances, and attended by what to him were great events. These were so remarkable as to induce him to make many memoranda, and to think at times that they ought to be published, but on this point he does not seem to be at all determined. I urged it strongly as a sort of duty. He is uncommonly lively and animated in conversation, and contrived to talk with little interruption, from drinking tea and smoking several pipes, till twelve o’clock at night. I much hope that we shall see him often.
1816.—This was a very barren year, for the memoranda made are uncommonly few, but among them is the preparation for the publication of ‘Oweniana.’[249] The extraction from my religious papers of those published under the titles of ‘Baxteriana’ and ‘Oweniana’ has greatly diminished the mass, but the remainder is considerable, and increases every year.
February.—Last Tuesday se’nnight Sir John Seabright, coming up to me, said: ‘Mr. Young, the Archdukes of Austria desire to be introduced to you,’ and the Archduke John, who Seabright said was the farmer, began a conversation on agriculture which, as many persons were around, was very short. Some days afterwards Mr. Ackerman, of the Strand, called to inform me that his Imperial Highness Archduke John desired to have more conversation with me, and in three or four days he called and made many enquiries into those points upon which, I suppose, he had most doubts, contrasting many circumstances with the system of Austrian peasants, who, by his account, are in general the proprietors of their little farms even to the amount of as little as three or four acres. In the conversation I took occasion to mention my son being in the Crimea, and intending to return to England by Vienna. In a most obliging manner he desired me to write to him to tell him to be sure not to pass Vienna without making himself known to him (the Archduke), as he would show him everything worth attending to in agriculture. The conversation was in French, for he speaks no English. It is a pity that he will go away without seeing anything of Norfolk or Suffolk.
Sir J. Sinclair just come from Paris. He saw Sylvestre[250] there, the secretary to the Royal Society of Agriculture, who told him that agriculture saved his life in the Revolution. He was in prison and brought to trial, and told that his life should be saved if he could show that he had ever done anything really useful to the Republic. He replied that he had unquestionably done good, for Arthur Young’s ‘Travels through France’ contained much highly important information, and in order to spread it through the Republic in a cheap form, ‘I published a useful abridgement,’ he said, ‘which has been much read, and has had important effects. I was pardoned and set at liberty,’ and then, turning to Sir John, he said, ‘Tell your friend, Mr. Young, that he was thus the means of saving my life.’
February 17.—The Board met for the first time last Tuesday, but had no business whatever before them. I suggested the propriety of sending a circular letter throughout the kingdom, in order to ascertain by facts the real state of the farming world. They approved the proposal, observing that not a moment should be lost, and I retired in order to draw out a letter with Queries. This they examined and altered to their mind; it was immediately despatched to the printer, and all the rest of the week has been employed in drawing out lists of persons from the reports, to whom these letters have been addressed, post paid, to the amount of 12l., and many yet to despatch on Monday.
The replies have just begun to come in; by two valuable ones from Maxwell, near Peterborough, and from Page, of Cobham, the probability is that much important information will be gained, and a basis laid for a very interesting publication, but I greatly question whether they will permit any public use to be made of the information, and I suspect that it will disclose so lamentable a state of distress, that it may prove somewhat dangerous, or, at least, questionable to make it public. What are we to think of the infatuation of Government in laying on a property tax at such a moment, rather than borrow a few millions to avoid the necessity, one of the great evils resulting from our Government being in all money matters little better than a Committee of the Bank?
Answers to the circular letter of the Board, which was despatched throughout the kingdom the first week in February, flowed in rapidly till about April 10, and they describe such a state of agricultural misery and ruin as to be almost inconceivable to those who do not connect such a defect with the utter want of circulating medium; the ruin of the country banks, and the great want of confidence in those that remain, with an issue of Bank of England notes utterly insufficient to fill up the vacuity thus occasioned, has made the want of money so great as to cripple every species of demand.
It is difficult to pronounce what the consequence of the present ruined state of agriculture will prove, but I must confess that I dread a scarcity, which must have dreadful effects, coming at a period when such multitudes are almost starving for want of employment, even with such cheap bread. What must be their situation should it be dear? To my astonishment, Government seems utterly insensible of the danger, and has not taken one single step to prevent it, or to meet it should it come.
March.—Lord Winchilsea, who I have not seen for some time, called on me yesterday and mentioned his having been long absent in France, Spain, &c. He was at Marseilles when Bonaparte landed from Elba, in Provence; every circumstance was previously arranged. Messina, at Marseilles, kept everything quiet on his left, and the [garrison?] at Grenoble was prepared to receive him; of all this there was no doubt. Uncertain of what might be the event in France, his lordship embarked instantly for Barcelona; from thence he crossed Spain to Lisbon, and throughout the whole of his Spanish journey he did not pass through a town that was not in a state of ruin and desolation. He everywhere enquired the cause, and was always told ‘that the French had done all the mischief,’ with many expressions of cordial detestation. He would not have conceived a country to be in a more wretched and deplorable state.
April 24.—Miss Way and Miss Neve, daughter of the late Sir Richard Neve, both high Calvinists and constant hearers of Mr. Wilkinson, called on me the other day in order to converse on religion. They appear to me to be perfectly sincere, but seem wedded to the high Calvinistic notions of that preacher. Miss Way lent me two manuscript sermons of his full of predestination, and the impossibility of falling from grace; her sister took them in shorthand. This day Miss Neve called on me again, bringing with her a Miss Johnson, another Calvinistic lady, who, being in Italy with some relations, went to Elba to see Bonaparte, and had much conversation with him. He had told somebody, who told the Johnsons, that he wanted to see my ‘Travels in France,’ which he had often thought of reading, but came to Elba without them. Mr. Johnson had these ‘Travels,’ and took them with him to Elba and presented them to the Emperor, who expressed much pleasure at receiving them, and Mr. Johnson afterwards heard that he had read them eagerly and with much approbation. His countenance indicates a steadfast, resolute, determined mind, and he is known to abhor all doubtful and hesitating answers that do not come immediately to the point in question. In the very short interview that took place he was standing with his hands in his breeches pockets clinking the money in them; but she observed that his nails as well as his teeth were dirty. He enquired, when they were in Provence, and especially on the coast, whether there were troops at Antibes or at Nice. This conversation took place on the Thursday, and he left the island on the Sunday following. He asked her name, and on the reply of Helen, ‘Oh! I am to be sent to St. Helena,[251] this is ominous of my voyage.’ The interview was very short with him, but with the Bertrands the conversation was rather longer.
I have finished reading the first volume of ‘Gibbon’s Miscellaneous Works,’ published by Lord Sheffield. Of mere worldly production, it is the most interesting that I have read for many years, more especially Gibbon’s own memoirs of himself. I have been acquainted with Lord Sheffield above forty years, and more than once met Gibbon at his house; and, if I remember rightly, the first time I was at Sheffield Place, which, I think, was in 1770, being invited by him on my advertising the intentions of the Eastern tour. Mr. Foster and Lady Elizabeth his wife, daughter of the Earl of Bristol, were there. I thought her a most fascinating woman—an opinion many times afterwards confirmed by often meeting her at Ickworth. I was not therefore surprised to find such advantageous mention made of her by Gibbon, but, alas! the whole volume has not one word of Christianity in it, though many which mark the infidelity of the whole gang. Lord Sheffield never had a grain of religion, and his intimate connections with Gibbon would alone account for it. Of course he took no pains to instil it into his family, and if Mrs. Clinton and Lady Stanley have any, they are not indebted for it to their father or to his friend. A great number of persons of high rank, extraordinary talents, and great celebrity thus passing in review, and all of them (Burke alone excepted) without the least suspicion of religion attaching to their characters, yield a melancholy impression on the mind of a Christian. Nineteen in twenty of the persons mentioned are gone to their eternal state, and of what account is it at present whether they were celebrated authors, splendid orators, great ministers, or successful generals or admirals? Whatever might be their worldly greatness how little are they to be compared at present to the case of a poor Christian whose employment was sweeping the streets! Without doubt the propriety of such observations depends entirely on Christianity being true; but what a dreadful situation is that man in whose safety is attached solely to the falsehood of that religion. The reflection makes my blood almost run cold, and old and blind as I am, and scarcely exchanging in six weeks a single word with more than one or two persons out of my family, I feel a comfort and consolation, and I will add a measure of happiness, not one atom of which would be found in my bosom if I were not most perfectly convinced of the absolute truth and importance of that blessed religion which forms the sole enjoyment of my life.
June.—Lord Winchilsea called here and chatted with me upon cottagers’ land for cows, which he is well persuaded, and most justly, is the only remedy for the evil of poor rates.
1817.—The death of the Princess Charlotte this year created the greatest sensation ever known.
1818.—On coming to London in February, five-and-twenty claims for the premium on the [summary of] the state of the poor, the causes of their distress, and the means of remedying it, were received, and it afforded me continued employment for many weeks in reading and giving a character of them. Much the greater part of the authors who drew up these memoirs were of the same opinion as to the cause of the national distress, attributing it to the peace having thrown a vast number of men out of employment who were in the Army or Navy, or working in the manufactures immediately supported by military demands; and this evil concurring with a general stagnation from the failure of a multitude of country banks, had materially affected the industry of the whole kingdom. The remedies proposed were various, and many of them visionary; the most rational advised the issuing of Exchequer Bills in payment of various sorts of public works, such as canals, roads, harbours, fisheries, and many other employments. Such suggestions had been proposed to Government, but unfortunately the ministers in England have very rarely indeed listened to any such propositions. My friend Mr. Attwood, of Birmingham, in a work publicly addressed to me, wrote upon the subject with great ability, and most justly remarked upon dismissing at once both the Army and the Navy, and turning such numbers loose upon the public when it was perfectly well known that they could not find employment was highly mischievous. This ought to have been done slowly and gradually, as the expense would have been an evil far less deplorable than that which was insured by a contrary conduct. It was the beginning of 1818 before the kingdom was decidedly found to be in a reviving state, and in the mean time the infinite number of offences against the peace and property of the people arose to an alarming height in every part of the kingdom. The first week in January I received half a year’s rents, and it was a great comfort to me to find that the tenants continued their regular payments without running the least in arrears, and this at a time when complaints on the non-payment of rents were very general over the greater part of the kingdom. I attributed this effect, which was very general around Bury and through all Suffolk, to the stability and flourishing state of our country banks, whose paper passed readily current, and formed a perfect contrast to the deficiencies and distress so generally felt in various other countries; nor can anything be more lamentable than for gentlemen of small estates finding their tenants running in arrears of rent.
This was much experienced in the counties of Cambridge, Huntingdon, and part of Bedford. Sir George Leeds informed me that he had farms in the former counties abandoned and lying absolutely waste.