William Pitt and the Great War Part 25

By parting company with the reformers, he had embittered no small section of his countrymen. In 1794, as we have seen, he was considered a reactionary and an oppressor. He therefore could not appeal to the nation, as Carnot did in France. Even his Bill of March 1794 for increasing the Militia by an extension of the old custom of the ballot or the drawing of lots produced some discontent. A similar proposal, pa.s.sed a year earlier by the Dublin Parliament for raising 16,000 additional Militiamen in Ireland, led to widespread rioting, especially in Ulster. Not until 1797 did the Scottish Militia Act ensure the adoption of similar methods by Scotland, though regiments of Fencibles were raised in the meantime.

The preparations for national defence continued to proceed in these parochial ways. Pitt's authority at Westminster was at no time more firmly founded than at the time of the meeting of the new Parliament in the autumn of 1796. Yet the piecemeal methods went on as before. He proposed to raise by means of the ballot a levy of 15,000 men in order to recruit the navy and the Line regiments; and he further asked for a levy of 60,000 men as a Supplementary Militia, one tenth being embodied by turns so as not to withdraw from work too many hands at one time. Nor was this all. For the purpose of strengthening the irregular cavalry, he proposed that every person who kept ten horses should be required to furnish one horseman and a horse for such a corps, and those who owned more than ten horses were to subscribe a proportionate sum towards its maintenance. He also required gamekeepers and those who took out licenses to shoot either to serve on horseback or to find a subst.i.tute.

In all he expected to raise 20,000 hors.e.m.e.n by these means.

The att.i.tude of the House was on the whole highly favourable to these proposals. Fox accused Ministers of raising an invasion scare in order to compa.s.s their own nefarious designs; but Pitt's first proposals pa.s.sed without a division; that on the cavalry by 140 votes to 30.

Nevertheless, Pitt did nothing towards securing cohesion in these diverse forces, except by a provision which obliged Volunteers to enrol in the Supplementary Militia, to take the oath as such, and to train by turns for twenty days at a time in any part of the country, instead of training once or twice a week in their own towns. This must have been beneficial where it was carried out; but, as the Militia was controlled by the Home Office, it is doubtful whether enough energy was thrown into the scheme to ensure success.

These arrangements are miserably inadequate in comparison with the _levee en ma.s.se_ of Carnot, which baffled the calculations of foreign statesmen, flung back the armies of the Coalition, and opened up the path of glory for Bonaparte. Here the popular armament did not become in any sense national until after the renewal of war in 1803. The possibilities open to England, even in that trying year 1795, were set forth by Major Cartwright in a suggestive pamphlet--"The Commonwealth in Danger." After pointing out that, having been deserted by Prussia and Spain, we must now depend on ourselves alone, he depicted the contrast between England and France. The French Republic, relying on the populace, had more than a million of men under arms. Great Britain was "a disarmed, defenceless, unprepared people, scarcely more capable of resisting a torrent of French invaders than the herds and flocks of Smithfield." How, then, could the danger be averted? Solely (he replied) by trusting the people and by reviving the ancient laws which compelled householders to bear arms. But this implied the concession of the franchise. Be bold, he said. Make the Kingdom a Commonwealth and the nation will be saved. He continued in these noteworthy words: "The enemy is at the gates, and we must be friends or perish. Adversity is a school of the sublime virtues. Necessity is an eloquent reconciler of differences.... By saying to Britain--Be an armed nation, she secures her defence and seals her freedom. A million of armed men, supporting the State with their purse, and defending it with their lives, will know that none have so great a stake as themselves in the Government....

Arming the people and reforming Parliament are inseparable."

At first sight this seems mere rhetoric, but on reflection it will appear the path of prudence. By the talisman of trust in the people France conjured up those armed hosts which overthrew old Europe. At the stamp of Napoleon's heel a new Europe arose, wherein the most potent defiance came from the peoples which drew upon their inmost reserves of strength. That these consist in men, not in money, is clear from the course of the struggle against the great Emperor. Spain, Russia, and Prussia adopted truly national systems of defence, and quickly forged to the front. Britain and Austria clung to their old systems, and, thanks to Wellington's genius and Metternich's diplomacy, they survived. But they did not play the decisive part which they might have done if George III and Pitt, Francis II and Thugut, had early determined to trust and arm their peoples. Unfortunately for England, she underwent no military disaster; and therefore Pitt was fain to plod along in the old paths and use the nation's wealth, not its manhood. He organized it piecemeal, on a cla.s.s basis, instead of embattling it as a whole. In the main his failure to realize the possibilities of the situation arose from his abandonment of those invigorating principles which nerved him to the achievements of the earlier and better part of his career. It is conceivable that, had he retained the idealism of his youth and discovered a British Scharnhorst, Waterloo might have been fought in 1796 and won solely by British troops.

FOOTNOTES:

[411] "Diary of a Tour through Great Britain in 1795," by W. MacRitchie (1897).

[412] "Dropmore P.," ii, 172.

[413] In "H. O.," Geo. III (Domestic), 27, are Dundas's instructions to Moira, dated 20th November 1793, appointing him Major-General in an expedition to Guernsey, with Admiral MacBride, taking with him a Hessian corps as soon as it arrives. He is to seize St. Malo or any place near it suitable for helping the Royalists and hara.s.sing the enemy. If he deems success doubtful, he is to await reinforcements. The aim is to help the cause of Louis XVII and lead to a general pacification.

[414] "Malmesbury Diaries," iii, 96-8.

[415] Chevening MSS.

[416] Pretyman MSS.

[417] "Cornwallis Corresp.," ii, 289.

[418] "Life of Wilberforce," ii, 92.

[419] Sorel, v, 41; "Wickham Corresp.," i, 269-74, 343. Some mis-statements of Sorel may be noted here. On pp. 39, 40 of vol. v he states that Pitt was intent on acquiring Malta and Egypt (though he was then in doubt whether to retain Corsica): also that, after the insult to George III in London on 29th October 1795, Pitt proposed a loan of 18,000,000 and new taxes, which Parliament refused. The facts are that Pitt asked for that loan on 7th December 1796, and it was subscribed in twenty-two hours. On the same day Parliament voted the new taxes.

CHAPTER XIII

DEARTH AND DISCONTENT

The Waste Land Bill will turn the tide of our affairs and enable us to bear without difficulty the increased burdens of the war.--SINCLAIR TO PITT, _13th March 1796_.

On 29th October 1795 occurred an event unparalleled within the memory of Englishmen then living. An immense crowd, filling the Mall, broke into loud hissing and hooting when George III left Buckingham House in the state carriage to proceed to Westminster for the opening of Parliament.

The tumult reached its climax as the procession approached the Ordnance Office, when a small pebble, or marble, or shot from an air-gun, pierced the carriage window. The King immediately said to Westmorland, who sat opposite, "That's a shot," and, with the courage of his family, coolly leaned forward to examine the round hole in the gla.s.s. Similar scenes occurred on his return to St. James's Palace. The mob pressed forward with an eagerness which the Guards could scarcely restrain, calling out "Peace, Peace; Bread, Bread; No Pitt; No Famine." With some difficulty the gates of the Horse Guards were shut against them. Opposite Spring Gardens a stone struck the woodwork of the carriage; and the intrepid monarch alighted at St. James's amidst a commotion so wild that one of the horses took fright and flung down a groom, breaking his thigh.

Thereafter the rabble set upon the state carriage, greatly damaging it; and when George later on proceeded in his private carriage to Buckingham House, he again ploughed his way through a din of curses. Pitt kept discreetly in the background, or he would have been roughly handled.

A loyalist caricature of the period gives an imaginative version of the incident. In it Pitt figures as the coachman whipping on the horses of the royal carriage amidst a shower of stones, eggs, and cats. The King sits inside absolutely pa.s.sive, with large protruding eyes; Lansdowne, Bedford, Whitbread, and others strive to stop the wheels; Fox and Sheridan, armed with bludgeons, seek to force open the door; while Norfolk fires a blunderbuss at the King. The sketch ill.u.s.trates the fierce partisans.h.i.+p of the time, which stooped to incredibly coa.r.s.e charges. But scarcely less strange was the insinuation of Lansdowne, immediately after the affair, that Ministers had themselves planned it in order to alarm the public and perpetuate their despotic rule. The same insinuation found favour with Francis Place, a rabid tailor of Holborn, and a prominent member of the London Corresponding Society, who charged Pitt with imperilling the life of George III in order to keep office. "It is a curious circ.u.mstance," he wrote, "that Pitt carried all his obnoxious measures, silenced or kept down his opponents and raised vast sums of money by means of the alarms which he and his coadjutors had created. The war was commenced after an alarm had been created, and it was kept up by the same means."[420] Fox and his followers often uttered similar taunts.

The insults to the King were but the climax of an agitation which had previously gone to strange lengths. On 27th October 1795 the London Corresponding Society convened a monster meeting in the fields near Copenhagen House, Islington, in order to protest against the war and to press for annual Parliaments and universal suffrage. A crowd said to number nearly 150,000 persons a.s.sembled under the chairmans.h.i.+p of John Binns, and pa.s.sed an "Address to the Nation," which concluded as follows: "If ever the British nation should loudly demand strong and decisive measures, we boldly answer, 'We have lives and are ready to devote them either separately or collectively for the salvation of our country.'" Outwardly the meeting was orderly, if that epithet can be applied to a monster meeting which advocated civil war. But probably less than one tenth of the a.s.semblage heard the resolution. Equally threatening was a hand-bill circulated in London on the practice of "King-killing." Place says nothing about this, and ridicules the "Address to the Nation" as a foolish production, which he had opposed no less strongly than the convocation of the meeting. This was the usual att.i.tude of Place. He sought to figure as the apostle of reasonableness, deprecating all unwise acts and frothy talk on the part of his a.s.sociates, but minimizing the follies of British democrats, which he usually ascribed to the insidious advice of the emissaries of Pitt.

Let us enlarge our survey. From the Home Office Records it is clear that dear food and uncertain work had aggravated the political discontent of the years 1792-4, until the autumn of 1795 witnessed almost an epidemic of sedition. To take one significant episode. An inflammatory placard, dated Norwich, 16th October 1795, was widely circulated. That city, as we have seen, was a hotbed of Radicalism. There it was that the democratic clubs sought to federate with the view of forming a National Convention. One of their members, named Besey, now posted up the following placard. After stating that the prevailing misery is due to the present unjust and unnecessary war, the number of abuses and sinecures, and "the monopoly of farms which disgraces this country," it continues thus: "The Minister would gladly instigate you to riot and plunder that he might send against you those _valiant_ heroes who compose his devoted Volunteer corps.... This would accelerate his darling object of governing us by a military aristocracy. The countries which supplied us with quant.i.ties of corn now groan under the iron yoke of the Tigress of the North or lie desolate from this infernal war. We send immense stores to the emigrants and the _Chouans_. Those rebels, not satisfied with traitorously resisting the const.i.tuted authorities of their country, have desolated the face of it. These honourable Allies must be fed, as others of the kind are paid, by us." He then urges them to form popular Societies and demand redress of grievances. He concludes thus: "You may as well look for chast.i.ty and mercy in the Empress of Russia, honour and consistency from the King of Prussia, wisdom and plain dealing from the Emperor of Germany, as a single speck of virtue from our h.e.l.l-BORN MINISTER."[421]

In view of these facts, is it surprising that Ministers decided to issue a royal proclamation against seditious a.s.semblies and the circulation of treasonable papers? Sheriffs, magistrates, and all law-abiding men were charged to apprehend those who distributed such papers and to help in the suppression of seditious meetings (4th November). Six days later Grenville introduced the Treasonable Practices Bill, while Pitt in the Commons moved the Seditious Meetings Bill. The Prime Minister stated that, as soon as the Habeas Corpus Act came again into operation, the political clubs renewed their propaganda and brought about the present dangerous situation. In order to suppress gatherings of a definitely seditious character, he proposed that, before a meeting of more than fifty persons which was not convened by the local authorities, notice must be given by seven householders and sent to the magistrates. The Bill also required the presence of a magistrate, and invested him with power to stop any speech, disperse the meeting, and order the arrest of the speaker. But this was not all. The authorities had been alarmed by the popularity of Thelwall's racy discourses, resumed early in 1795, which represented Government as the source of all the country's ills.

Whether his sprightly sallies were dangerous may be doubted; but Pitt, with characteristic lack of humour, paid Thelwall the compliment of ordaining that lecture-halls must be licensed by two magistrates; and a magistrate might enter at any time. The Bill was pa.s.sed for three years.

Equally drastic was the Treasonable Practices Bill. Declaring the planning or levying war within the kingdom to be an act of substantive treason, it imposed dire penalties on those who devised evil against the King, who sought to coerce Parliament or help the invaders. Even those who spoke or wrote against the const.i.tution came under the penalties for treason and might be transported for seven years. As Fox indignantly exclaimed, if he criticized a system which allotted two members to Old Sarum and none to Manchester, he might be sent to Botany Bay. The alarm of Pitt at the state of affairs appears in a request which he and Portland sent to the Duke of York, on 14th November, for reinforcements of cavalry. They asked him to despatch three troops of the 1st Dragoon Guards from Romford to Hackney, replacing the Pembroke Fencible Cavalry, which was utterly useless; to order up two troops of the Cornish Fencible Cavalry from Barnet to Hampstead and Highgate; to despatch the 11th Light Dragoons from Guildford to Ewell or Kingston, and the 1st Fencibles from Reading to Uxbridge. These, along with the Lancas.h.i.+re Militia at Lewisham and Greenwich, and the Guards in London, would suffice for the crisis.[422]

Such were the conditions under which the debates on the two Bills proceeded. They turned largely on the connection between the Islington meeting and the outrage on the King. Canning stoutly affirmed that connection, which Sheridan and Fox no less vehemently denied.

Wilberforce on this occasion supported the Government. Pitt showed little zeal in defending his Bill, promising to safeguard the right of public meeting when lawfully exercised. The debate in the Lords elicited from the Bishop of Rochester the significant statement that he did not know what the great ma.s.s of the people had to do with the laws except to obey them. The Earl of Lauderdale pilloried this utterance, thereby consoling himself for being in a minority of 5. In the Commons Fox mustered 22, as against 167 for the Government (6th November-14th December 1795). Meanwhile monster meetings of protest were held on 12th November and 2nd and 7th December, the two last in Marylebone Fields, which now form the greater portion of Regent's Park. The orderliness of these vast throngs, comprising perhaps a quarter of a million of men, affords a strong argument against the two Acts. Lord Malmesbury much regretted that there was no rioting, now that all was ready for its repression. After the pa.s.sing of those "barbarous bloodthirsty" measures (as Place called them) the country settled down into a sullen silence.

Reformers limited their a.s.semblies to forty-five members; but even so they did not escape the close meshes of the law. Binns and Jones, delegates of the London Corresponding Society who went to Birmingham, were arrested there; and the Society soon gave up its propaganda. All but the most resolute members fell away, and by the end of 1796 it was 185 in debt.[423]

Undoubtedly these measures mark the nadir of Pitt's political career.

Nevertheless, the coincidence between the London Corresponding Society's meeting at Islington and the attempted outrage on George III was suspiciously close in point of time; and a dangerous feeling prevailed throughout the country. Pitt, as we shall see, took steps to alleviate the distress which was its chief cause; but after the insult to the King he could not but take precautionary measures against sedition. After such an incident, a Minister who did nothing at all would be held responsible if the monarch were a.s.sa.s.sinated. Some coercive measures were inevitable; and it is clear that they cowed the more restive spirits. Among other persons who wrote to Pitt on this topic, Wilson, formerly his tutor at Burton Pynsent and Cambridge, sent him a letter from Binfield, in which occur these sentences: "The Sedition Bills also have had so good an effect. Our farmers can now go to market without being exposed to the danger of having republican principles instilled into them while they are dining." Apparently, then, the loyal efforts of Berks.h.i.+re magistrates extended to the interiors of inns. Whether the two Acts were not needlessly prolonged is open to grave question. Certainly, while driving the discontent underground, they increased its explosive force. General David Dundas, in his Report on National Defence of November 1796, states that at no time were there so many people disposed to help the invaders. Perhaps we may sum up by declaring the two Acts a disagreeable but necessary expedient during the time of alarm, and mischievous when it pa.s.sed away.[424]

The insult to the King was but one symptom of a distemper widely prevalent. Its causes were manifold. Chief among them was a feeling of disgust at the many failures of the war. The defection of Prussia and Spain, the fruitless waste of British troops in the West Indies, the insane follies of the French _emigres_, the ghastly scenes at Quiberon, and the tragi-comedy of Vendemiaire in the streets of Paris, sufficed to daunt the stoutest hearts. By the middle of the month of October 1795, Pitt decided to come to terms with France, if the Directory, newly installed in power, should found a stable Government and exhibit peaceful tendencies. His position in this autumn is pathetic. Reproached by the _emigres_ for recalling the Comte d'Artois from Yeu, taunted by Fox for not having sought peace from the Terrorists, and reviled by the populace as the cause of the dearth, he held firmly on his way, shelving the _emigres_, maintaining that this was the first opportunity of gaining a lasting peace, and adjuring the people to behave manfully in order the more speedily to win it.

This advice seemed but cold comfort to men and women whose hards.h.i.+ps were severe. Political discontent was greatly increased by dear food and uncertainty of employment. The symptoms had long been threatening. At midsummer of the year 1795 the men of Birmingham a.s.sembled in hundreds opposite a mill and bakehouse on Snow Hill, crying out: "A large loaf.

Are we to be starved to death?" They were dispersed by armed force, but not without bloodshed. At that time insubordination in the troops was met by summary executions or repression at Horsham, Brighton, and Dumfries. In July a drunken brawl at Charing Cross led to a riot, in the course of which the mob smashed Pitt's windows in Downing Street, and demolished a recruiting station in St. George's Fields, Lambeth. The country districts were deeply agitated by the shortage of corn resulting from the bad harvest of 1794. A report from Beaminster in Dorset stated that for six weeks before the harvest of 1795 no wheat remained; and the poor of that county would have starved, had not a sum of money been raised sufficient to buy cargoes of wheat which then reached Plymouth.

The suffering was increased by the extraordinary cold of that midsummer which destroyed hundreds of newly-shorn sheep and blighted the corn.

Driving storms of rain in August laid the crops. On heavy land they were utterly spoilt, so that even by October the poor felt the pinch. From all parts there came the gloomiest reports. In Oxfords.h.i.+re there was no old wheat left, and the insatiable demands from the large towns of the north sent up prices alarmingly. In November Lord Bateman wrote from Leominster that the wheat crop was but two thirds of the average, and, if Government did not import wheat directly, not through fraudulent contractors, riots must ensue. Reports from Petworth, East Grinstead, and Battle told of the havoc wrought by blight and rains. At Plymouth the price of wheat exceeded all records. Lord Salisbury reported a shortage of one third in the wheat crop of mid-Hertfords.h.i.+re. Kensington sent a better estimate for its corn lands. But the magistrates of Enfield and Edmonton deemed the outlook so threatening that they urged Pitt and his colleagues (1) to encourage the free importation of wheat, (2) to facilitate the enclosure of all common fields and the conversion of common and waste lands into tillage; (3) to pa.s.s an Act legalizing relief of the poor in every parish by the weekly distribution of bread and meat at reduced prices in proportion to the size of the family and of its earnings.[425]

The protests against the Corn Laws are significant. In 1773 the bounty system of the reign of William III was revised, the average price of wheat being reckoned at forty-four s.h.i.+llings the quarter. If it fell below that figure, a bounty of five s.h.i.+llings a quarter was granted on export, so as to encourage farmers to give a wide acreage to wheat, in the a.s.surance that in bountiful seasons they could profitably dispose of their surplus. But when the price rose to forty-four s.h.i.+llings exportation was forbidden, and at forty-eight s.h.i.+llings foreign corn was admitted on easy terms so as to safeguard the consumer; for, as Burke said: "he who separates the interest of the consumer from the interest of the grower starves the country." Unfortunately, in 1791, Government raised the price at which importation was allowed to fifty-four s.h.i.+llings the quarter. The upward trend of prices may have called for some change; but it was too drastic. In view of the increase of the manufacturing towns.h.i.+ps, Pitt should have favoured the import of foreign corn, though not in such a way as unduly to discourage agriculturists.

England, in fact, was then reaching the stage at which she needed foreign corn when nature withheld her bounties at home, and it is well to remember that 1792 was the last year in which England exported any appreciable amount of wheat. During the Great War she became an importing country, and at no time was the crisis worse than in the winter of 1795-6. Early in the year 1796 the best wheat sold at six guineas the quarter, or four times its present price; the inferior kinds were very dear, and many poor people perished from want if not from actual starvation. So grave was the crisis as to evoke a widespread demand for Free Trade in corn. This feeling pervaded even the rural districts, a report by John Shepherd of Faversham being specially significant. In the towns there was an outcry against corn merchants, who were guilty of forestalling and regrating. Possibly but for these tricks of trade the supply of home wheat might almost have sufficed.

Pitt seems to have thought so; for he wrote to the Marquis of Stafford, stating his desire to have powers for compelling exhaustive returns of the wheat supply to be sent in. On the whole, however, he deemed such an expedient high-handed and likely to cause alarm. He therefore decided to call for a special committee to inquire into the high price of corn, and explained his reasons to the House of Commons on 3rd November 1795. He urged the need of modifying the old and nearly obsolete law relating to the a.s.size of bread, and he suggested the advisability of mixing wheat with barley, or other corn, which, while lessening the price of bread, would not render it unpalatable. As to prohibiting the distillation of whiskey, he proposed to discontinue that device after February 1796, so that the revenue might not unduly suffer. The committee was equally cautious. In presenting its report eight days later, Ryder moved that the members should pledge themselves to lessen the consumption of wheat in their households by one third. These proposals appeared wholly inadequate to Bankes and Sheridan, who urged that all cla.s.ses should be compelled to eat the same kind of bread. Francis, however, a.s.serted that the poor in his district now refused to eat any but the best wheaten bread. There was therefore every need for a law compelling bakers to make bread only two thirds of wheat. Nevertheless, the House agreed to the proposals of the committee. Members also bound themselves to forswear pastry, and by all possible means to endeavour to lessen the consumption of fine wheaten flour. History does not record how far these resolves held good, and with what hygienic results. An external sign of the patriotic mania for economy in wheat was the disuse of hair-powder, which resulted from the tax now imposed on that article. Thus Rousseau, Pitt, and Nature are largely responsible for a change which in its turn hastened the disappearance of wigs.

Pitt and his colleagues sought to check the practice of forestalling.

But, as usually happens in a struggle with human selfishness, success was doubtful. More fruitful was the expedient of attracting foreign corn by granting large bounties on imports. As if this were not enough, British wars.h.i.+ps sometimes compelled neutral corn-vessels, bound for France, to put in at our harbours and sell their cargoes at the high prices then prevailing, a high-handed practice which prepared the way for the Armed Neutrality League of 1800. These exceptional expedients seem to have been due to what Sheffield called "a sure little junto,"--Pitt, Ryder, and Jenkinson. He further accused them of taking the corn trade out of the hands of the merchants and then dropping State management prematurely. Over against this captious comment may be placed the undoubted fact that, early in the year 1796, wheat sold at six guineas the quarter, and by the month of May was down nearly to normal prices. In that month Pitt deemed the crisis past; for the King's Speech of 19th May, at the end of the last session of that Parliament, congratulated members on the success of their efforts to afford relief to the people. The harvest of 1796 was more abundant; but confidence was not restored until late in the year. As Whitbread pointed out, the increase of large farms at the expense of the little men led to the holding back of the new corn. The small farmer perforce had to sell his corn at once. The wealthy farmer could bide his time.[426]

In these years of dearth, when the troubles in Poland restricted the supply of corn from that natural granary, the importance of the United States became increasingly obvious. Pitt had consistently sought to improve the relations with our kinsmen, and in 1791 sent out the first official envoy, George Hammond. The disputes resulting from the War of Independence and those arising out of the British Maritime Code during the Great War, brought about acute friction; but the good sense of Pitt, Was.h.i.+ngton, and John Jay, his special envoy to London, led to the conclusion of an Anglo-American Treaty (7th October 1794). Though hotly opposed by the Gallophil party at Was.h.i.+ngton, it was finally ratified in September 1796, and thus postponed for sixteen years the hostilities which had at times seemed imminent. For the present the United States sent us an increased quant.i.ty of cotton wool, but mere driblets of corn except in seasons of scarcity. Lancas.h.i.+re benefited from the enhanced trade, while the British farmer did not yet discern the approach of times of ruinous compet.i.tion.[427]

Agriculture had long been an occupation equally fas.h.i.+onable and profitable. No part of the career of George III deserves more commendation than his patronage of high farming. That he felt keen interest in the subject appears from the letters which he sent to "The Annals of Agriculture" over the signature of "Ralph Robinson," one of his shepherds at Windsor. A present of a ram from the King's fine flock of merinos was a sign of high favour. Thanks to this encouragement and the efforts of that prince of agricultural reformers, Arthur Young, the staple industry of the land was in a highly flouris.h.i.+ng condition. The rise in the price of wheat now stimulated the demand for the enclosure of waste lands and of the open or common-fields which then adjoined the great majority of English villages. The reclamation of wastes and fens was an advantage to all but the very poor, who, as graziers, wood-cutters, or fishermen, dragged along a life of poverty but independence. Though they might suffer by the change to tillage, the parish and the nation at large reaped golden harvests.

The enclosure of common fields was a different matter. Though on them the traditional rotation of crops was stupid and the husbandry slipshod, yet the semi-communal tillage of the three open strips enabled Hodge to jog along in the easy ways dear to him. In such cases a change to more costly methods involves hards.h.i.+p to the poor, who cannot, or will not, adopt the requirements of a more scientific age. Recent research has also shown that villagers depended mainly on their grazing rights. Now, a small grazier does not readily become a corn-grower. Even if he can buy a plough and a team, he lacks the experience needful for success in corn-growing. Accordingly, the small yeomen could neither compete with the large farmers nor imitate their methods. While the few who succeeded became prosperous, the many sank into poverty. These results may also be ascribed to the expense and injustice too often attending the enclosures of this period. Far from striking off at one blow the fetters of the old system, as happened in France in 1789, English law required each parish to procure its own Enclosure Act. Thus, when the paris.h.i.+oners at the village meeting had decided to enclose the common fields and waste, there occurred a long and costly delay until the parochial charter was gained.

Then again, the difficult task of re-allotting the wastes and open fields in proportion to the rights of the lord of the manor, the t.i.the-owner, and the paris.h.i.+oners, sometimes furnished an occasion for downright robbery of the poor. That staunch champion of high-farming and enclosures, Arthur Young, names many instances of shameful extortion on the part of landlord and attorneys. Where the village carried out its enclosure fairly and cheaply, the benefits were undoubtedly great. The wastes then became good pasture or tolerable tillage; and the common fields, previously cut up into small plots, and worked on a wasteful rotation, soon testified to the magic of individual owners.h.i.+p. A case in point was Snettisham, near Sandringham, where, as the result of the new wealth, the population increased by one fifth, while the poor-rate diminished by one half. Young also declared that large parts of Norfolk, owing to judicious enclosures, produced glorious crops of grain and healthy flocks fed on turnips and mangolds, where formerly there had been dreary wastes, miserable stock, and underfed shepherds.

The dearth of the year 1795 brought to the front the question of a General Enclosure Act, for enabling parishes to adopt this reform without the expense of separately applying to Parliament. To devise a measure suitable to the wide diversities of tenure prevalent in English villages was a difficult task; but it had been carried out successfully in Scotland by the Act of 1695; and now, a century later, a similar boon was proposed for England by one of the most enterprising of Scotsmen.

Sir John Sinclair was born in 1754 at Thurso Castle. Inheriting large estates in the county of Caithness, he determined to enter political life, and became member for Lostwithiel, in Cornwall. Differing sharply from Pitt over the Warren Hastings affair, he adopted the independent line of conduct natural to his tastes, and during the Regency dispute joined the intermediate party known as the Armed Neutrality.

Above all he devoted himself to the development of Scottish agriculture, and began in 1790 a work ent.i.tled "A Statistical Account of Scotland."

He also founded a society for improving the quality of British wool, and in May 1793 he urged the Prime Minister to incorporate a Board of Agriculture. Young bet that Pitt would refuse; for, while favouring commerce and manufactures, he had hitherto done nothing for the plough.

He lost his bet. Pitt gave a conditional offer of support, provided that the House of Commons approved. The proposal won general a.s.sent, despite the insinuations of Fox and Sheridan that its purpose was merely to increase the patronage at the disposal of the Cabinet. Sinclair became president, with Young as secretary.[428] The Englishman complained that Sinclair's habit of playing with large schemes wasted the scanty funds at their disposal. But the Board did good work, for instance, in setting on foot experiments as to the admixture of barley, beans, and rice in the partly wheaten bread ordained by Parliament in 1795.

With the view of framing a General Enclosure Act, Sinclair sought to extract from parochial Enclosure Acts a medicine suitable to the myriad needs and ailments of English rural life. His survey of typical enactments is of high interest. He summarizes the treatment accorded to the lord of the manor, the rector or other t.i.the owner, and the paris.h.i.+oners. Thus, in the case of three parishes near Hull, namely, Hessle, Anlaby, and Tranley, the wastes and open fields, comprising 3,640 acres, were divided by an act of the year 1792 in a way which seems to have given satisfaction. Commissioners appointed by the local authorities divided the soil among the lords of the manors, the t.i.the-owners, and the paris.h.i.+oners, the landlords retaining half of their portions in trust for the poor. Other instances, however, reveal the difficulty of the question of t.i.thes. Young and Sinclair felt bitterly on this subject, as their recent proposal to give a detailed description of the lands of every parish in England was successfully opposed by Dr. Moore, Archbishop of Canterbury.