Letter Ten Days in Spite of Lloyd Demanding It, and Never Asking Any

explanation or naming it to Mrs. Y., Mary, or A. I have fretted about this affair and worried myself terribly, and with reasons, for it will be the utter ruin of my son. Possibly a fine of 500l. and two years’ imprisonment if he is not able to prove it to be a jest. To avoid being punished as a rascal, he must prove himself the greatest fool in Christendom, which he certainly is, for the letter was unquestionably a humbug.

June 23rd.—I have had a roasting three weeks languishing for the country; but, however, not discontented, and bringing my mind with some success to submit cheerfully to everything I meet with. Arthur has been in Kent and procured nine or ten affidavits of the jurymen; those who refuse he never set eyes on till he made the application, so he has cleared himself to me, but whether it will do for the Attorney-General is another question. It is a sad business, and will be very expensive, when I can ill afford it.

I have been four days at Woburn with Lord Somerville—a very great meeting. The duke desired me to preside at the lower end of the table; he told me to keep Stone from it.

I have been thrice at Holwood and conversed with Mr. Pitt every time, but it is only on farming. No wonder. Reading Baxter’s ‘Serious Call to a Holy Life,’ which I have done with great pleasure, and have begun it a second time. I think it an admirable performance. Charity and a universal intention to please God in everything are recommended with great ability.

I have forgotten to add a word about my new habitation. It is an admirable house, and Mrs. Young’s only apprehension was the plan of Cragg, the first clerk, having apartments in it; but when it came to be debated, Lord Carrington procured it entirely to me, with an allowance of 90l. a year for a porter, maid, coals, &c. Upon the whole it is an arrangement which is equal in all to 100l. a year to me, and in comfort, saving me the trouble of thrice a year seeking lodgings, as good as a hundred more.

I am thankful to God for it, and may He give me His grace not to apply to ill uses the favour of His providence.

July 14th!!!—This day twelvemonth it pleased God to take to Himself my ever dear and beloved child. In the evening at the Hall, my wife and self, children, and Miss Griffith joined in prayer.

Notes from Memorandum-book

March.—A dinner for fifteen poor children, 11s. 10d.

Another dinner for thirty-seven children, 16s. 6d.

Another dinner for forty-seven children, 1l. 6s. 6d.

April.—This month seven dinners to about forty-eight children each time.

May.—Four dinners to about forty-eight children each time.

This year I sold the copyright of my ‘Travels’ for 250 guineas.

April 1799.—In London. I am alone, therefore at peace. I rise at four or five o’clock and go to bed at nine to ten P.M.

I have no pleasures, and wish for none, saving that comfort which religion gives me; and the sooner I make it my only pleasure the wiser I shall be. I go to no amusements, and read some Scripture every day; never lay aside my good books but for business. I have dined out but little, and wish for no more than I have. I get into habits of reading and writing, and don’t like to quit them; privacy, and silence, and retirement suit me, and I am content. New servants, all; and the cook, a two-handed Yahoo, and cannot boil a potato. No matter, I am passed being troubled at such things, but I like old servants, and can’t bear this change.

May 4 of this year I went to the opera with Mrs. Oakes; and that amusement which had for so many years been my delight, I met so coldly as to be almost asleep through much of the performance. What a change had taken place in my mind! This was the last public diversion at which I have been present.

I thank the Father of mercies that I have yet retained my attention to religion, that I have read few books but those of devotion, that I live very retired without any regret, that I rise at four or five o’clock, and never omit my private devotions, morn and eve, and but rarely family prayer. Thank the Almighty goodness I have almost weaned myself from the world.

June 4.—The King’s birthday. I have been in Kensington Gardens to see the King review 8,000 volunteers of London and Westminster. These corps owe their origin I may, without presumption, say to me, and I should in a former part of my life have been full of mortification and envy at the gay and brilliant situation of others, whilst I was a humble spectator lost in the crowd, ‘the mob’ as I should once have called them; but, thank God, I had no such ideas, and am more free from sin of such thoughts than I am from that of entering this note of it. My mind was much occupied in thinking of such multitudes of people of all ranks, all ages, from infancy to decrepitude, gay, lively, and running at the tilt of pleasure, followed by more splendid scenes of courts, balls, dinners and all, all to be in a few years in their graves, their souls in their eternal doom, thoughtless as they may now be.

I work myself as often as I can, and as much as I can, into meditations on the utter vanity of all such scenes and thence to the inanity.

July 1.—Wrote Mrs. Oakes an account of my visits to the King’s farm. I got Sir J. Banks to ask his leave to see his farm. He gave it readily, and said he would order Frost, his bailiff, to show me everything completely. I wrote, but my letter came, by mistake of the post, after I was there myself; and as Frost knew the King would like to see me, he went when likely to meet him on his return from a review. The Queen, Prince of Wales, the Princesses, &c., were in two sociables, and the King on horseback, with his train of lords, aides-de-camp, &c. He inquired who I was, and called me to him; rode up to the Queen, &c., and introduced me. The Queen said it was long since I was at Windsor, &c., not recollecting me at first; they passed on, and then the King rode with me over his farm for two and a half hours, talking farming, asking questions without number, and waiting for answers, and reasoning upon points he differed in. Explained his system of crops, his reasons, with many observations; enquired about the Board, the publications of it, the ‘Annals,’ and asked if I continued to work on my ‘Elements,’ which I have been many years about; recommended me to compress the sense of quotations in short paragraphs, ‘as there are many, Mr. Young, who catch the sense of a short paragraph, that lose the meaning of a long one;’ said the work would be highly useful. Those who read the two letters of R. R. in the last ‘Annals,’ written by his Majesty, will see how clearly he expresses himself. He enquired about my farm, grasses, sheep, &c.; he has himself only 160 lambs from 800 ewes. His strong land farm is in admirable order, and the crops all clean and fine. He was very desirous that I should see all, and ordered Frost to carry me to two or three other things next morning. I found fault with his hogs. He said I must not find fault with a present to him; the Queen was so kind as to give them from Germany, and while the intention was pleasing, we must not examine the object too critically. ‘The value of the intention, Mr. Young, is greater than a better breed.’ He told me he learned the principles of his farming from my books, and found them very just. Quoted particularly the ‘Rural Economy:’ Cattle give manure, and manure corn. ‘Well understood now, sir, but not so well before you wrote.’ When I said anything that struck him he turned about to tell it to the nobles that followed. He is the politest of men, keeps his hat off till every one is covered. An officer with a lady in a whisky drew in his horse as he saw the King crossing the road, taking his hat off. The King rode up to him, uncovered, and conversed a little, and afterwards said, ‘I think it is Captain Thorp, of such a regiment.’ What a memory!

Enquired much about the Duke of Bedford’s party at Woburn, &c. &c. I forgot three-fourths. He was in high spirits, and looks remarkably well.

My son this year married Miss Jane Berry, daughter of Edward Berry, Esq. The connection arose from her being at school with my dear Bobbin at Campden House, and afterwards visiting us at Bradfield.

Selected letters from those received this year:—

From Count Rumford on lime-kilns and cement for fire-places, &c.

‘Brompton Row: Jan. 8, 1799.

‘Dear Sir,—On my return to town last evening from Broadlands I found your letter. I beg you will present my best compliments to Lord Egremont and assure his lordship that it would give me very great pleasure to visit Petworth and see the various improvements he has, and is, introducing into the neighbourhood; but my stay in England will be but short, and, as I have more to do in the meantime than it will be possible for me to execute without being very industrious, I must devote all my time to those occupations in which I am engaged.

‘I wish it were in my power to give you any satisfactory information respecting lime-kilns, but I have not yet had leisure to complete the experiments I had projected, and which are necessary in order to enable me to form decided opinions on that subject. The kiln I had constructed at Munich not being well built, and being forced with too intense a fire before the masonry was properly dried, cracked, and burst open from top to bottom, so that no just conclusions can be drawn from the imperfect experiments that were made with it.

‘With regard to the best materials for withstanding the action of intense fire, I believe common fire-bricks, as they are called, to be one of the best. I am just now employing them in the construction of open chimney fire-places, and they seem to answer perfectly well. In laying them I have a cement of clay and brick dust instead of common mortar.

‘One of the best kinds of cement for resisting the action of fire I ever met with was composed of equal parts of brick dust, quick lime, and iron filings, mixed up with blood. It unites itself firmly to metals as to bricks and stones of all kinds, and even the most intense fire seems to have very little effect on it. It may even be made to join metals to stones, or even wood to metals. Our soap boilers in Bavaria use it to join the wooden tops of their boilers to their copper bottoms, which it does in so effectual a manner that they are very seldom found to leak. It was from them I learnt the secret of the composition of this most useful cement. I have no doubt but it would be found to answer very well for plastering the backs and covings of open chimney fire-places. I wish you would make a trial. If it should be found to answer it would be a most important discovery, for in that case bricks would certainly be as good, or even better, than fire-stones for constructing fire-places.

‘I am, dear Sir, with unfeigned regard and esteem,

‘Yours most faithfully, ‘RUMFORD.’

From the Duke of Grafton

‘Piccadilly: 1799.

‘Dear Sir,—I had but just time to cast an eye on Mr. Wilberforce’s letter last night, and seeing that the references are so many to texts of Scripture, I must desire you to leave it with me till I can have a good hour’s leisure to give it that consideration which everything from him must deserve.

‘I wish Mr. Wilberforce and myself were agreed upon all points as we are on the (I fear) hopeless attempts to abolish totally the slave trade. Depend upon it that no one who knows that gentleman so little honours him more than myself; nor do I impute any opinions or dogmas to him which I have not learnt from his writings. I believe him to be an upright, sincerely pious and beneficent character, treading a road that leads to future happiness, even should he be under great but involuntary errors. Will he say the same of any one of those whom he improperly calls Socinians? For, though they honour the memory of Socinus, they do not follow his faith; far from it, for they acknowledge no masters on matters of religion but Christ and His Apostles.

‘Yours very faithfully, ‘GRAFTON.’

From Dr. Burney

‘Dover: Sept. 11, 1799.

‘My dear Sir,—Your letter [arrived] at Quarley after I had left my friend Mr. Cox, and was returned to Chelsea preparing for a journey into Kent. I have been here and hereabouts near three weeks in the thick of all the military bustle of this county. My headquarters are at my friend Mr. Crewe’s house in this town, the best it affords, and is taken for three months. Mr. Crewe, being colonel of the Second Royal Cheshire Militia, is quartered at Hythe, but comes over frequently, Mrs. and Miss Crewe being stationed here. The Duke of Portland and Lady Mary Bentinck came hither on a visit last Thursday, and remained inmates with us till yesterday morning. Being within eight or nine miles of the camp on Barham Downs and seven of Walmer Castle, we have been there several times, have dined twice at Sir Charles Grey’s, the commander-in-chief at the camp, and twice at Walmer Castle with Mr. Pitt, Mr. Dundas, and Lady Jane Dundas, who does the honours, and is a most amiable, sweet, and charming woman. Mr. Ryder and Lady Susan have a small house just by the castle, and Mr. Canning is lodged within its walls. The Duke of York was there for several days before he embarked for Holland. We, that is Mrs. and Miss Crewe, with Lady Mary Bentinck, went in one coach, and the Duke of Portland, with your humble servant, in another, at five o’clock on Sunday morning to see the third embarkation launched. The wind was furiously adverse, but it was done with wonderful dexterity, quickness, and cheerfulness, without accident. The Duke of York and Mr. Dundas were on the beach, the ladies were all in tears; the soldiers in high spirits, and all fun and jollity. We afterwards went to Walmer Castle to breakfast, and as the Duke of York was not to embark till the evening, Mr. Pitt invited Mrs. Crewe and her party to stay and take an early scrambling dinner. This was accepted, and we remained in the castle while the cannon on its ramparts were fired on his Royal Highness entering the launch in sight of a fleet of at least two hundred sail of ships, by which he was saluted; and we saw the flash of every gun, and heard the report which was brought to us by the raging east wind, forte, fortissimo. It was a glorious sight! God prosper the expedition, and grant that those brave men who are gone so cheerfully to fight our battles and those of all Europe, may come home with honour and whole bones. The Duke of Portland’s youngest son, Lord Charles Bentinck, sailed with the Duke of York, and young Crewe sails to-day with the last embarkation, being lieut.-colonel commandant of the Ninth Regiment of Infantry. The hymn to the Emperor and Souvarow’s march have been sung and played to all these great folks with good effect and applause. Lady Susan Ryder and Miss Crewe sing it admirably, and I join in the chorus. I have obliged all the ladies mentioned above, including Lady Grey, with copies of these compositions; they are all musicians, and are the personages in the world most deserving of such a favour, and where the granting of it will be of most use.

‘I congratulate you on the great events of this wonderful campaign, not forgetting the acquisition of the Dutch fleet, which, I am glad to find, is ordered to England. The Duke of Portland received a letter yesterday before he left Dover from his son, who is with Marshal Souvarow (pronounced Souvaroff), of the battle of Novi, confirming all that the French have told us of the death of their General Joubert, of Moreau’s being unhorsed, and all his staff killed, wounded, or prisoners. It has cost the Allies 5,000 men. However, it seems to put an end to all other fighting and resistance by Jacobin armies of Italy.

‘I intend returning in about ten days, but have a visit of a few days to make on the road to Sir William and Lady Fawcett, at Eltham.

‘God bless you. ‘My dear Sir, ‘CHARLES BURNEY.’

1800. Bradfield.—I never come to this place without reaping all the pleasure which any place can give me now. It is beautiful and healthy, and is endeared to me by so many recollections, melancholy ones now, alas! that I feel more here than anywhere else. Here have I lived from my infancy, here my dear mother breathed her last, here was all I knew of a sister, and the church contains the remains of my father, mother, and ever beloved child! Here, under my window, her little garden—the shrubs and flowers she planted—the willow on the island, her room, her books, her papers. There have I prayed to the Almighty that I might join her in the next world. All that locality can give an interest to in this world is here—sweet Bradfield, to use an epithet of my dear mother fifty years ago at Bath!—the scene also of many and great sins; and of none perhaps greater than the black ingratitude of never thanking God with fervency for the blessing of such a spot till misery turned my heart to Him, and oh! how cold my thanksgivings compared with what I ought to feel!

To me it has, however, often been a source of foolish uneasiness. I have reflected on the increasing taxes and burthens on land and houses in this kingdom as the inevitable cause of ruin to all little estates; they are gone or fast going in this country, and what hope can I have that this should remain in the posterity of so poor a person as I am?

I have preserved it by a life of industry and singular success, or it had gone long ago. But such thoughts are wicked. All is in the hands of the great Preserver and Disposer of all earthly as well as all other existence.

How few years are passed since I should have pushed on eagerly to Woburn! This time twelvemonth I dined with the duke on the Sunday. The party not very numerous, but chiefly of rank; the entertainment more splendid than usual there. He expects me to-day, but I have more pleasure in resting, going twice to church and eating a morsel of cold lamb at a very humble inn, than partaking of gaiety and dissipation at a great table which might as well be spread for a company of heathens as English lords and men of fashion.

In my way from Royston to Baldock, passing a village I saw a couple of cottages which seemed very miserable. Alighted therefore and entered one. The woman said she was very unhappy. I enquired why? Her daughter was now dead in the house. How old? Thirty-eight. Married to a glazier in London. She had been down with her mother some time for health in a decline, and died two days ago. ‘I hope she died a good Christian.’ ‘I hope so,’ replied the woman, who seemed to feel very little. And it is the blessing of God that they do not—they cannot afford to grieve like their betters. It was odd that I should happen to stop and enter a cottage with a corpse in it, but nothing interesting followed. God forbid it should be for want of my sifting and enquiring more—but nothing led to it. The husband was expected soon, and the woman has a son, a miller, who keeps her, a cow, and she had a good pig feeding at the door. She was, however, thankful for the trifle I gave her.

My adventures increase and have a strange similitude. Passing through Millbrook, near Lord Ossory’s, some cottages, with corn in their gardens, on the slopes of a narrow sandy vale, caught my eye, but speedily passing it was a second thought to stop the horse and walk down to them. There are thirteen of them, and all inhabited by owners. A hemp weaver, who lives in the first I entered, gave me an account of them all, and amongst the rest he named Underwood’s, who had a large family, and was sadly poor. I went to it. Poor indeed! the cottage almost tumbling down, the wind blowing through it on every side. On a bed, which was hardly good enough for a hog, was the woman very ill and moaning; she had been lately brought to bed, and her infant was dead in a cradle by the bedside. What a spectacle! She had four children living; one, a little girl, was at home, and putting together a few embers on the hearth. My heart sank within me at the sight of so much misery, and so dark, cold, tattered and wretched a room. Merciful God, to take the little child to Himself, rather than leave it existing in such a place. What a sight! I entered another cottage, which was lately built, neat and cheerful, the Widow Scarboro’s; she earns something by washing, but her smoky chimney most uncomfortable. No wonder, with the old broad high fire-place. In the depth of winter the door must be open. I told her how to cure it, but I wished to give her a Rumford grate and see it fixed. Impossible! and her evils are nothing to poor Underwood’s.

But how strange yesterday to find a dead woman in a house, and to-day a dead child, and in such an accidental manner, as it seems, to enter just these houses. No chance; the more I see, the more I reflect, the more I am convinced that the providence of the Almighty directs everything, but in a manner utterly incomprehensible to us; and it is the more incomprehensible from our paying so very little attention to it. If every one was to be careful to observe all such apparently accidental events, they would have reason to acknowledge the hand of Omnipotence. In three days how has what the world calls chance conducted my steps!

These poor people know not by what tenure they hold their land; they say they once belonged to the duke, but that the duke has swopped them away to my lord (Lord Ossory). How little do the great know what they swop and what they receive! What would be a blessing poured into their hands if they knew how to use it. What a field is here! How very trifling the repairs to render these poor families warm and comfortable! Above their gardens on one side there is a waste fern tract now enclosed, from which small additions might be given them, yet would enable them to live from their ground at least much better than at present. What have not great and rich people to answer, for not examining into the situation of their poor neighbours?

To Woburn Abbey. Here is wealth and grandeur and worldly greatness; but I am sick of it as soon as I enter these splendid walls. I had rather be amongst the cottagers at Millbrook had I but the means of aiding them. I will see Lord Ossory, and try to do something for them.

In these farming tours of mine, vain ideas will too often rise in my mind on the importance of my labour to the public good; and were the improvement of agriculture alone to be considered, I believe little doubt could be entertained. But what is the tendency of all these improvements except to add to the wealth and prosperity of a country that is already under a most heavy responsibility to the Almighty for innumerable temporal blessings; repaid with the black ingratitude of irreligion, and a general contempt of everything serious or sacred. Carriers’ waggons and stage coaches are passing here every hour in open defiance of the laws of God and man; and the Sabbath is the sure day of labour for all travelling gentlemen. What horses are they that rest, that can by any means be made to work? Our fields are made to smile with cultivation for the profits of men thankless to Heaven. Can such a country continue to be thus blessed? I fear and dread some terrible reverse, and have the only hope that the prayers of religious men, Methodists as they are called, may be heard, and avert the misfortunes we deserve. It damps all vanity of public good attending such attempts as mine, to think of the use that is made of great wealth. Affliction and poverty may do something in bringing nations, like individuals, to their senses; but to increase the wealth that adds to our irreligion and ingratitude, is of a very poor importance indeed, and too questionable to permit one vain thought to be fairly founded.

July 7.—Breakfasting at Huntingdon from Kimbolton, after spending just a week with the duke and duchess. It has been so pleasant and agreeable that I am unhinged on quitting them. The duchess pleases me as much or more than any woman I have met these many years. Her character in every worldly respect is most amiable. There is a native ease, simplicity, and naïveté of character in her which delights me; and when I consider the life of the Duchess of Gordon, her mother, the great patroness of every dissipation, I am amazed at this secluded young duchess, who never goes to London, loves a retired life, and is quite contented on a fortune very moderate for the rank of her husband. She gave me her whole history, from going one summer for some weeks to drink goat’s whey on the mountains many miles beyond Gordon Castle, and running up and down the hills bare-footed, driving down the goats and milking them; and being delighted with the place and the life, though no human being within many miles except the family and an old woman of the solitary house. This was the case of all the girls; she never went to school, and laid in a fine stock of health, and with it a sweetness of temper and simplicity of character which, joined with an excellent understanding, contributed so much to form her as she is at present, calculated to be a blessing to her husband. She loves him, and behaves with a most exemplary and unexampled patience and mildness under his connection with Mrs. ——. I like her greatly, and wish I could add that she was religious. She goes to church often, she says, and brings her four lovely children up to attend it; but I see she has no sense or feeling of real religion, which I spoke of repeatedly, and earnestly recommended. The next time they come to Culford they both promised to come and see me, and will do it I have no doubt. The spectacle in this age of seeing a very plain table, a plain unaffected way of living, and everything about them modest and moderate in scale, very little company, and never at London, yet all cheerfulness and content, even under the above circumstance, speaks a good heart and an amiable temper, as much as such can be good with the Almighty coming in for so poor a share of its attentions. I do and will pray to God that He will give her His grace to change in this respect, and then she will be a pattern for her sex.

July 7.—To Huntingdon, St. Ives, and Holywell, at the Reverend Mr. Hutchinson’s, who was long at Kimbolton, and had livings given to him by the late duke; four stout, well-looking, unmarried daughters, that have been marriageable some years. A common spectacle, and everywhere from the same cause: the fornication of men with the abandoned of the sex robs thousands of such virtuous and good girls of husbands. The more I reflect, the more I see the reason of God’s wrath and denunciations against this vice in Scripture, however natural it is, and however powerful the temptation. The more the temptation the more the wickedness to throw so many into it, by depriving those of husbands to whom God has given the right, but of which the vice of man deprives them. Every man would have his wife, and every woman her husband, were it not for whores and whoremongers. Christianity is in everything consistent with reason, morals, and the religion of nature.

At St. Ives a drunken beast, a doctor of divinity, is intoxicated every day; drunk about the streets; introduced himself to me, and breathed like a puncheon of rum in my face.

Sunday, 20th: Downham.—I have had a busy week and gained a great variety of good intelligence; but what is it all but vanity and vexation of spirit if examined with view of a superior nature! However, it is my undoubted duty to do my best, and I must approve upon the whole of exerting as much industry for the Board as ever I did upon my own account. My employment is not only lawful, but useful; God grant me to render it as much so to the poor as circumstances will permit. In this week I have been at Wing’s at Thorney Abbey. A party of ladies , Mrs. Ansel of Ormsby in Lincolnshire and two daughters. They attacked me, but with politeness, on my rabbit article in the Lincoln report. I found from their conversation on Wilberforce and H. More that they are good Christians, so they might say anything; but we parted very good friends. At March: Reverend Mr. Jobson and a vulgar steward, a prating but a useful fellow, Wandby, dined with me.

At Downham: Lemon, Dashwood, and a poor fen man Talbot. I have gone on well for the object of my journey; would that I went on as well in the great journey to the next world! At church twice; Mr. Dashwood in his sermon spoke very properly on a topic which I have often thought should be inveighed upon vigorously: the great indecency of people sitting when they should kneel, which is now everywhere so common; but in the afternoon a better congregation and no sermon! For a clergyman to have an audience collected ready to hear him and yet quit the church without preaching, how very lukewarm he must be in care of souls who can bring himself without violence to such a conduct! Is this the way with Methodists as they are called? God forbid! With a church thus filled as that of England is, who can wonder at Sectaries increasing? All is poor work when men are not in earnest—when they are not as animated and eager in their sacred calling as others are in their business and shops. A parson should always think: what would St. Paul do on this occasion?

Sunday, August 3.—Dined last Tuesday with the Grand Jury at Cambridge, and in the afternoon Lord Hardwicke took me with him to Wimpole. On the Thursday, a great public day, seventy-three at dinner, turtle, venison, and everything that could be. A Lord Lieutenant’s gala which has not been these four years. Lady Cotton, Sir Wm. Rowley’s sister, there all the week, and a Miss Coburn. Lady Margaret Fordyce has uncommon talents, and reading and languages, French, Italian and German, but I mistake if she is not a bit of a fury when she has a mind. I don’t like her countenance. Lady H. pleases me better. Lord H. is very clever, has very good parts and a clear head, a man of business. I was pleased to find that he went twice to church, and read a long prayer at night to all the family, taken from the Liturgy. I shall be here a week, and have idled none of it away, but beat the country well for enclosures. I have not, however, broken my resolution of passing Sunday alone without being [misled], for even in such a family I had a farming expedition to the next parish, and conversation is never religious—I hope I shall do it no more.

Night.—Lord Hardwicke had all the family together, and read a long prayer taken from the Liturgy, from almost every part of it. I am glad to find a great Lord who is not ashamed of praying to God. May there be many such!

4th.—I left Wimpole, and the 9th came to Bradfield after a journey of eight weeks, thanks to the Almighty, in health and safety. There passed a week, staying two Sundays. Mrs. Y. in great health, and when that is the case in too much irritation—God forgive her—life is a scene of worrying, time trifled with, a book never looked in, quarrels and irritation never subsiding. My daughter and daughter-in-law reading cart loads of novels. While at Bradfield I received from Sir J. Banks, confidentially, many enquiries about the means of encouraging the culture of hemp; they are therefore apprehensive of a war with Russia. At the time of the Russian armament I was consulted on the same subject by Lord Liverpool, but they do nothing except on the spur of the moment, and then never effectually. Heaven avert more wars, those scourges of humanity! This first week of my second journey I have laboured very hard in my enquiries, and travelled many miles on bad roads, not finishing the day till six in the evening, and then dining and having much writing. Such a life I should earnestly wish to avoid if I had a home tolerably comfortable, but mine is so far from that description in almost every respect that I submit the better to being ever in harness. It is the will of God, and my duty is to submit with cheerfulness.

October 6th: Hounslow.—Found near twenty letters at the post-office, and, among the rest, two from Parker of Ripon, attorney to Sir Cecil Wray, Kilvington, and Allanson, to inform he had orders to hold me to bail on my bond to them on buying Knaresboro’ Forest, as Abbey of Northampton has not paid one shilling rent or interest. This is a fine affair; it is true there is land security for the 4,000l. of double the value, but who am I to get to bail me? I fear this is the hand of God working against me, and that He means me chastisement. The Lord’s will be done! I shall pray earnestly to be spared, but if it is His will, be it done, and may He grant me resignation, patience, and submission to His correction. It comes heavy at the moment, for I was much injured at Enfield by coffee out of copper, as I suppose, with a violent purging colic and vomiting, and left by it in a state of great debility of body; this stroke of fresh anxiety cuts therefore. May God be appeased and spare me the affliction.

Last Sunday I read much in Hale’s ‘Contemplations: Moral and Divine,’ in which the Providence of God is treated more to my mind than in any other book I have read. I have derived on various occasions, as well as the present, much consolation from that most excellent work, which I now earnestly recommend to my children, and hope if they should ever read these words, they will think of their father and follow his advice to make that great lawyer’s book their constant companion.

On the close of this century it may not be improper to look back through the period of my own recollections in order to reflect on some eminent names that may be mentioned as forming the principal constellation of talents which have distinguished the period; and the more readily because I have had the honour of conversing with most of them, and being well known to several. In minuting such a list I may name the following, viz.: Burke, Pitt, Fox, Johnson, Reynolds, Barry, Burney, Miss Burney, H. More, Wilberforce, Soame.

The following are the selection of this year’s letters:—

From Jeremy Bentham, Esq., queries sent from the Treasury to the Board of Agriculture

‘Queen’s Square Place, Westminster; June 14, 1800.

‘Dear Sir,—Underneath is a question, which I have just been calling in Sackville Street to beg the favour of your answer to, for my own information. It is in contemplation to make the purport of it the subject of a reference to the Board of Agriculture from the Treasury. The occasion seemed to be of a nature particularly favourable to the enabling the public to avail itself of the services of the Board, and may perhaps have the effect of placing the utility of that Institution in a new and additional point of view; while the dignity of its members, and the manner in which it is composed, will give such a title to public confidence, in respect of the grand point of superiority to all personal considerations, as would in vain be looked for in any other quarter capable of being applied to for such a purpose. In this light I have just been mentioning the matter to Mr. Nepean, who entered so thoroughly into it as to say he would himself propose it to the Treasury to make such reference.

‘On enquiring I had the mortification of learning that the Board had adjourned to some day in November: but would there be no such thing as the calling an extra meeting, if not to the Board at large, of a Committee for the purpose of receiving a reference from such a quarter, and making a Report? If not, possibly the opinion of the Secretary might be accepted of as the only obtainable succedaneum to the opinion of the Board; for where else could any other equally competent opinion be obtained? But howsoever the matter may stand with regard to the Board and Mr. Secretary, I hope Mr. Young will not refuse an old correspondent the favour of an answer for his own guidance, and that as speedy as possible; for it is for this answer that I wait to enable me to fill up a blank with figures, the propriety of which is what is proposed as above to be made the subject of reference to the Board. If you are unable to guess my reason for interfering in the business, so much the better, but if you have your conjectures, all I can do is to beg (which I do with the utmost sincerity) that you would forbear letting them find their way, directly or indirectly, to any person to whose lot it may fall to concur in making the Report. It was at Mr. Nepean’s express recommendation that I called in Sackville Street for the purpose of conversing with you in person: but, if your absence be not fatal to the business, I shall be much better pleased with the opportunity of transacting it in this manner without any other communication than what will show itself in black and white. I am not sure but the Report from the Board might be waited for without much inconvenience till their regular time of reassembling: but till Mr. Young’s answer is obtained, or is known to be unobtainable, everything is at a stand. And a business in which the public has an interest of no inconsiderable magnitude, and for the conclusion of which all parties are impatient, sleeps, and, in short, if it does not come at farthest before this week is at an end, the hopes entertained of an answer from a quarter thus respectable must be deserted. But these matters are so perfectly A.B.C. to Mr. Young that I am sanguine enough to hope, if not for a definitive solution, at least for an answer with an approximation, and announcing a definitive solution in a few days, by return of post.

‘I am, dear Sir, with all respect, ‘Your faithful humble servant, ‘Jeremy Bentham.

‘Now for my question—A sum having been allotted in March, 1793, for the maintenance of a certain number of persons, of the lowest rank of life, in provisions, clothing, bedding, washing, firing, and lighting, how much, if anything, per cent. ought to be the additional allowance made at present in consideration of the intervening rise of prices? The calculation to be grounded not on the prices of a particularly bad year (such as the present), but on the probable average of a future term—say of twelve years.

‘P.S.—Relative to the "Annals"—I have got a titbit for your “Dragon” (the name Dr. Hawksworth used to give his magazine), some facts which to me are as new as they are interesting, relative to the effect of the rise of prices on the wages of the self-maintaining labourers in agriculture, and the mode of provision for the burthensome. The author, a very intelligent and respectable clergyman, Mr. North, Rector of Ashdon in Essex. They are contained in two or three letters: the moral of them appears to lean to two practical results, both of them I believe as alien to your notions as to mine, viz. rating wages and restricting the size of farms. At the same time what they indicate is certainly a disease, the mischief of which, however, would, I am inclined to think, be much exceeded by that of the least mischievous of the above two remedies. But if capable of an answer, they are, at the same time, highly deserving of one; and this not only on account of the facts themselves, but on account of the good sense as well as candour with which they are delivered.

‘J. B.’

From J. Symonds, Esq., to the Speaker of the House of Commons, &c.

‘Euston: November 30, 1800.

‘My dear Sir,—I came hither on Friday and shall go home next Saturday. I hear there are three pamphlets lately published that command much attention—Lord Sheffield’s, Sir Thomas Sturton’s, and “Candid Enquiries,” etc. When does your Board intend to enter the lists? The Duke says it has shown him great politeness by the attention it has paid to a proposal of his. If you have not got “Islington on Forestalling,” &c. you should buy it, for several statutes, absurd as they are, you will find set forth clearly and methodically—I should not properly say clearly (but this is no fault of the editor), for we do not know what statutes may be said to be declaratory of the common law, or not. Did you not rejoice with me that Sheridan animadverted on those judges who had thundered their anathemas against forestallers, &c.? I am persuaded that some of the riots owed their origin to the intemperate language so extra-judicially used. I was sorry to see the turn which affairs took upon the Report of the Committee. Had Pitt been silent about the Jacobins, and had your friend Wilberforce abstained from abusing Grey’s connections and Sir Francis Burdett’s speech, there would probably have been a great unanimity. The more Wilberforce endeavoured to exculpate himself, the deeper he seemed to plunge. He was well advised by Sir F. B., who seldom harangues with any propriety, “to think more, and speak less.”

‘When I mentioned agricultural books I ought not to have appeared insensible to the pleasure I received from perusing the greater part of Burke’s pamphlet, very lately published by Dr. Lawrence. You, I find, make there a distinguished figure in the foreground. Do you approve of what Burke says about the distilleries?

‘A few minutes before I came hither on Friday a very melancholy event took place. Winterton, the Groom of the Chambers, had been seen walking by the side of the river near the mill, not far from the house, and was never heard of afterwards till his body was found in the river. The Coroner is expected to-day, and he will probably instruct the jury to bring in their verdict, “lunacy,” as some of the servants had observed in him marks of insanity a few days preceding.

‘If you can spare five minutes from the service you pay to the Board and to the public, favour me with a few lines. You live now more with politicians than with farmers.

‘What will be the result of our breaking with the Emperor of Russia, whose conduct Mr. Pitt truly calls "strange versatility and caprice"?

‘Tell me a good deal, for the Duke has no regular correspondent in Town now that Stonehewer is here.

‘I was with you at Bradfield when Buonaparte’s first offers for a peace were published.

‘You said you thought the Ministry would pay attention to them, and do you think that, upon the whole, we can make as good a peace as them, the French having been almost driven out of Italy?

‘Adieu. ‘Yours sincerely, ‘J. SYMONDS.’

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Footnote 187:

Assessed taxes. On December 4, 1797, Mr. Pitt introduced a Bill for trebling the amount of assessed taxes. This was again debated in the House of Commons in January 1798, and finally passed. See Hansard’s Parliamentary History.

Footnote 188:

In a memorandum-book of the preceding year occur the following entries: ‘Receipts, 901l.; debts, Dec. 31, 986l.’ Debts seem to have been a burden throughout A. Y.’s long life.

Footnote 189:

A. O’Connor, concerned with others in an address to the Directory France; tried for treason at Maidstone, 1798; found not guilty. See Annual Register, 1798.

Footnote 190:

These dinners to poor children were given in memory of Bobbin.

Footnote 191:

Née Betsy Plampin.

Footnote 192:

Referring to a long letter from the great Wilberforce on ‘Original Sin.’

Footnote 193:

The Letters of Maria Josepha Holroyd give an amusing account of the events here described.

Footnote 194:

On November 4, 1794, Souvarow took Warsaw, when 8,000 soldiers and 12,000 men, women, and children were massacred in cold blood. See L’histoire générale de Lavisse et Rambaud, vol. viii. p. 358. It is to be hoped that Dr. Burney was in ignorance of this.

Footnote 195:

Note by A. Y. at close of year’s diary: ‘In the summer,’ in consequence of much conversation with Lord Carrington on the importance of enclosures, I proposed to him that I should take a tour expressly for the purpose of ascertaining what the effect had really been in practice. He approved of the idea, and desired me to execute it; and, in regard to the expense, I told him that if he would allow 100l., I would expend it in travelling, and report to him the country travelled and the enclosures examined, and then he might extend or not the undertaking at his pleasure. He approved the plan, and I accordingly employed twenty weeks on the journey.’

Footnote 196:

In the Annals of Agriculture, vol. xxxv. p. 432, occurs the following: ‘If a farming traveller comes to Kimbolton, and forgets its mistress, may his sheep rot and crops blight! A young duchess, ever in the country, loving it, and free from a wish for London—a character that, if I was to give my pen scope, it would run wild on such a subject.’

Footnote 197:

Full accounts of these tours are given in the Annals of Agriculture.

Footnote 198:

These letters are inserted in the Annals of Agriculture, vol. xxxv. p. 459.

Footnote 199:

Lord Sheffield published Remarks on the Deficiency of Grain 1799-1800, and Observations on the Exportation of Wool from Great Britain to Ireland. 1800.

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