walked the face of the earth; | neighbourhood of New York, just and that will be a most filial and before I came home. He told me charitable way of thinking of them; his Canada story. I showed him for, it is not from ignorance that all the kindness in my power, and they have sinned, but from exces- he went away, knowing that I was sive baseness; and when any of just then coming to England. I them now complain of those acts had hardly got home, before the of the Government which strip Scotch newspapers contained them, (as the late Order in Coun- communications from a person, cil does) of a fifth part of their pretending to derive his informaproperty in an hour, let them re- tion from GOURLAY, relating to collect their own base and malig- what GOURLAY had described as nant conduct towards those perse- having passed between him and cuted reformers, who, if they had me; and which description was a not been suppressed by these very tissue of most abominable falseyeomen, would, long ago, have hoods, all having a direct tendency put an end to the cause of that to do injury to me, who had never, ruin of which these yeomen now either by word or deed, done any complain. When they complain thing that could possibly have a of their ruin, let them remember tendency to do injury to this the toasts which they drank in GOURLAY. What the vile Scotch anti-jacobin times; let them re-newspapers had begun, the mamember their base and insulting lignant reptile himself continued exultations on the occasion of the after his return to England, and, 16th of August at Manchester; let in an address to LORD BATHURST, them remember their cowardly endeavoured to make his court to abuse of men, who were endeavouring to free their country from that horrible scourge which they themselves now feel. the Government by the most foul, false and detestable slanders upon me, from whom, observe, he had never received any injury, or atJust close by this Deptford Inn tempt at injury, in the whole is the farm-house of the farm course of his life; whom he had where that GoURLAY lived, who visited; to whose house he had gone, has long been making a noise in of his own accord, and that, too, as the Court of Chancery, and who he said, out of respect for me; is now, I believe, confined in endeavoured, I say, to make his some place or other for having as- court to the Government by the saulted MR. BROUGHAM. This most abominable slanders against fellow, who is confined, the news-me. papers tell us, on a charge of being insane, is certainly one of the most malignant devils that I ever knew any thing of in my life. He went to Canada about the time that I went last to the United States. He got into a quarrel with the Government there about something, I know not what. He came to see me, at my house in the He is now, even now, putting forth, under the form of letters to me, a revival of what he pretends was a conversation that passed between us at my house near New York. Even if what he says were true, none but caitiffs as base as those who conduct the English newspapers, would give circulation to his letters, containing as they must, the substance of А conversation purely private. | and threw himself upon the parish. But, I never had any conversa- The overseers, who recollected tion with him: I never talked to what a swaggering blade it was, him at all about the things that he when it came here to teach the is now bringing forward: I heard moon-rakers "hoo to farm, mon," the fellow's stories about Canada: did not see the sense of keeping I thought he told me lies; and, him like a gentleman; so, they besides, I did not care a straw set him to crack stones upon the whether his stories were true or highway; and that set him off not; I looked upon him as a sort again, pretty quickly. The farm of gambling adventurer; but I that he rented is a very fine farm, treated him as is the fashion of the with a fine large farm-house to it. country in which I was, with great It is looked upon as one of the civility and hospitality. There are best farms, in the country: the two fellows of the name of JACOB present occupier is a farmer born and JOHNSON at WINCHESTER, in the neighbourhood; a man such and two fellows at Salisbury of the as ought to occupy it; and GoURname of BRODIE and DOWDING. LAY, who came here with his These reptiles publish, each Scotch impudence to teach others couple of them, a newspaper; how to farm, is much about where and in these newspapers they and how he ought to be. JACOB seem to take particular delight in and Jonsson, of Winchester, calumniating me. The two Win-know perfectly well that all the chester fellows insert the letters fellow says about me is lies: they of this half crazy, half cunning, know also, that their parson Scotchman, GoURLAY; the other readers know that it is a mass of fellows insert still viler slanders; lies: they further know, that the and, if I had seen one of their papers, before I left Salisbury, which I have seen since, I certainly would have given Mr. BRODIE something to make him remember me. This fellow, who was a little coal-merchant but a short while ago, is now, it seems, a paper-money maker, as well as a newspaper maker. Stop, Master BRODIE, till I go to Salisbury again, and see whether I do not give you a check, even such as you did not receive during the late run!-GoURLAY, amongst other whims, took it into his head to write against the poor laws, saying that they were a bad thing. He found, however, at last, that they were necessary to keep him from starving; for he came down to Wyly, three or four years ago, parsons know that they know that it is a mass of lies; but they know, that their paper will sell the better for that; they know that to circulate lies about me will get them money, and this is what they do it for, and such is the character of English newspapers, and of a great part of the readers of those newspapers. Therefore, when I hear of people "suffering;" when I hear of people being "ruined;" when I hear of "unfortunate families; " when I hear a talk of this kind, I stop, before I either express or feel compassion, to ascertain who and what the sufferers are; and whether they have or have not participated in, or approved of, acts like those of JACOB and JOHNSON and BRODIE and DOWDING; for, if they have, if they have malig- of these nutters, and I am quite nantly calumniated those, who convinced, not that the cloth makhave been labouring to preventing is at an end; but that it never their ruin and misery, then a will be again what it has been. crushed earwig, or spider, or Before last Christmas these maeft, or toad, is as much entitled to nufacturers had full work, at one the compassion of a just and sen- shilling and three-pence a yard, sible man. Let the reptiles pe- at broad-cloth weaving. They rish it would be injustice; it have now a quarter work, at one would be to fly in the face of shilling a yard! One and threemorality and religion to express pence a yard for this weaving has sorrow for their ruin. They them- been given at all times within the selves have felt for no man, and memory of man! Nothing can for the wife and children of no show more clearly than this, and man, if that man's public virtues in a stronger light, the great thwarted their own selfish views, change which has taken place in or even excited their groundless the remuneration for labour. fears. They have signed addresses, applauding every thing tyrannical and inhuman. They have seemed to glory in the shame of their country, to rejoice in its degradation, and even to exult in the shedding of innocent blood, if these things did but tend, as they thought, to give them permanent security in the enjoyment of their unjust gains. Such has been their conduct; they are numerous: they are to be found in all parts of the kingdom: therefore, again I say, when I hear of “ruin" or " misery," I must know what the conduct of the sufferers has been before I bestow my compassion. There was a turn out last winter, when the price was reduced to a shilling a yard; but it was put an end to in the usual way: the constable's staff, the bayonet, the gaol. These poor nutters were extremely ragged. I saved my supper, and I fasted instead of breakfasting. That was three shillings, which I had saved, and I added five to them, with a resolution to save them afterwards, in order to give these chaps a breakfast for once in their lives. There were eight of them, six men and two boys; and I gave them two quartern loaves, two pounds of cheese, and eight pints of strong beer. The fellows were very WARMINSTER (Wilts) FRIDAY, thankful, but the conduct of the 1st SEPT. 1 set out from Hey- landlord and landlady pleased me tesbury this morning about six exceedingly. When I came to o'clock. Last night, before I went pay my bill, they had said nothing to bed, I found that there were about my bed, which had been a some men and boys in the house, very good one; and, when I asked who had come all the way from why they had not put the bed into BRADFORD, about twelve miles, the bill, they said they would not in order to get nuts. These peo- charge any thing for the bed since ple were men and boys that had I had been so good to the poor been employed in the cloth fac- men. Yes, said I, but I must not tories at Bradford and about Brad-throw the expense upon you. I ford. I had some talk with some had no supper, and I have had no breakfast; and, therefore, I (and of which returns I shall am not called upon to pay for speak more particularly by-andthem; but I have had the bed. by), stated to be such miserable It ended by my paying for the bed, dwellings, as to be unfit for a and coming off, leaving the nut-parson to reside in. Two of them, ters at their breakfast, and very however, are gone. There are no much delighted with the landlord parsonage-houses in those two and his wife; and I must here parishes: there are the scites; observe, that I have pretty ge- there are the glebes; but the nerally found a good deal of com- houses have been suffered to fall passion for the poor people to down and to be totally carried prevail amongst publicans and away. The tithes remain, intheir wives. deed, and the parson sacks the From Heytesbury to Warmin-amount of them. A journeyman ster is a part of the country sin-parson comes and works in three gularly bright and beautiful. or four churches of a Sunday: From Salisbury up to very near but the master parson is not there. Heytesbury, you have the valley, He generally carries away the as before described by me. Mea-produce to spend it in London, at dows next the water; then arable Bath, or somewhere else, to show land; then the downs; but, when off his daughters; and the overyou come to Heytesbury, and in-seers, that is to say, the farmers, deed, a little before, in looking manage the poor in their own forward you see the vale stretch way, instead of having, according out, from about three miles wide to the ancient law, a third-part of to ten miles wide, from high land all the tithes to keep them with. to high land. From a hill before The falling down and the beggary you come down to Heytesbury, of these parsonage-houses prove you see through this wide opening beyond all question the decayed into Somersetshire. You see a state of the population. And, round hill rising in the middle of indeed, the mansion-houses are the opening; but all the rest a gone, except in a very few inflat enclosed country, and appa-stances. There are but five left, rently full of wood. In looking that I could perceive, all the way back down this vale one cannot from Salisbury to Warminster, help being struck with the innu- though the country is the most merable proofs that there are of pleasant that can be imagined. a decline in point of population. Here is water, here are meadows; In the first place, there are twenty- plenty of fresh-water fish; hares four parishes, each of which takes and partridges in abundance, and a little strip across the valley, and it is next to impossible to destroy runs up through the arable land them. Here are shooting, coursinto the down. There are twenty-ing, hunting; hills of every height, four parish churches, and there size, and form; valleys the same; ought to be as many parsonage- lofty trees and rookeries in every houses; but seven of these, out of mile; roads always solid and the twenty-four, that is to say, good; always pleasant for exernearly one-third of them, are, in cise; and the air must be of the the returns laid before Parliament best in the world. Yet it is ma nifest, that four-fifths of the man-house and the yard and the trees, sions have been swept away. most completely, from every There is a parliamentary return, wind but the south. The arable to prove that nearly a third of the land goes down before the house, parsonage houses have become and spreads along the edge of the beggarly holes or have disap-down, going, with a gentle slope, peared. I have now been in down to the meadows. So that, nearly three score villages, and going along the turnpike road, in twenty or thirty or forty ham- which runs between the lower lets of Wiltshire; and I do not fields of the arable land, you see know that I have been in one, the large and beautiful flocks of however small, in which I did sheep upon the sides of the down, not see a house or two, and some- while the horn-cattle are up to times more, either tumbled down, their eyes in grass in the meaor beginning to tumble down. It dows. Just when I was coming is impossible for the eyes of man along here, the sun was about to be fixed on a finer country than half an hour high: it shined that between the village of CoD- through the trees most brilliantly; FORD and the town of WARMIN- and, to crown the whole, I met, STER; and it is not very easy for just as I was entering the village, the eyes of man to discover la- a very pretty girl, who was, apbouring people more miserable. parently, going a gleaning in the There are two villages, one called fields. I asked her the name of NORTON BOVANT, and the other the place, and when she told me BISHOPSTROW, which I think form, it was Bishopstrow, she pointed to together, one of the prettiest spots the situation of the church, which, that my eyes ever beheld. The she said, was on the other side of former village belongs to BEN- the river. She really put me in NETT, the member for the county, mind of the pretty girls at Preswho has a mansion there, in which ton, who spat upon the "inditwo of his sisters live, I am told. vidual" of the Derby family, and There is a farm at Bishopstrow, I made her a bow accordingly. standing at the back of the arable The whole of the population of land, up in a vale, formed by two the twenty-four parishes down very lofty hills, upon each of this vale, amounts to only 11,195 which there was formerly a Ro-souls, according to the Official man Camp, in consideration of return to Parliament; and, mind, which farm, if the owner would I include, the parish of FISHERgive it me, I would almost consent to let OTTIWELL Woon remain quiet in his seat, and suffer the pretty gentlemen of Whitehall to go on without note or comment till they had fairly blowed up their concern. The farm-yard is surrounded by lefty and beautiful trees. In the rick-yard I counted twenty-two ricks of one sort and another. The hills shelter the TON ANGER (a suburb of the city of Salisbury), which contains 893 of the number. I include the town of HEYTESBURY, with its 1,023 souls; and I further include this very good and large markettown of WARMINSTER, with its population of 5,000! So that I leave, in the other twenty-one parishes, only 4,170 souls, men, women and children! That is to |