10

2.

I

floor, which is of the surprising dimen- exceedingly good in this case, that it sions of a hundred and eighty feet would be injustice in the extreme for square; and covering a statute acre of me to withhold the acknowledgment. ground all but twenty-eight rods! In Mr. MANLY is an Irishman, and his this room, which is lighted from above, generous and bold conduct has served and in the most convenient and beauti- to wipe away a large part of the inful manner, there were five hundred gratitude which I have experienced at pair of looms at work, and five hundred the hands of some of his countrymen, persons attending those looms; and, It was eight o'clock when we went owing to the goodness of the masters, to the theatre, and the audience had the the whole looking healthy and well- patience to listen to me until nearly dressed. Were I to attempt to describe eleven. Then we had to return to the our treatment here, I should do one of inn. There is no parting, in such a two things, neither of which I wish to case, without a great deal of delay. Every do fall very far short of what justice one wants to see me, and to shake me by and gratitude would demand, or give the hand; and here I must observe that I offence to the really modest characters was particularly delighted with a very of the parties. On Saturday the 16th, I fine young man, very well dressed, and went to Halifax. I should have ob- about seventeen years of age, who served before, that the boundary-line of squeezed himself through a crowd in the two counties, cuts this romantic and the lower room to get up to me, to beautiful place asunder. The parish shake hands with me, and, while he church of Todmorden stands in York- had hold of my hand, he said “I am shire; and I stepped my foot into" coom'd a purpose to tak houd of the Yorkshire for the first time, when I" fingers and the thumb that wrote the went into the Unitarian Chapel. Hali-" Advice to Young Men." Something fax stands at twelve miles distance from resembling this I have, since I have been this place. Thither I went yesterday, from home, met with in hundreds of arriving there about the middle of the instances. If this be not fame, what is day, and accompanied by one of our fame? If this be not honour, what is kind friends from Todmorden. Upon honour? And if this be not happiour arrival, great complaints of want of ness, what man is ever to expect to be due notice: great despair, amongst our happy? friends, of an audience, for want of such We did not get from Halifax until notice, especially as Halifax, they said, past twelve o'clock, and we got back to was such an aristocratical place. I be- Todmorden about three this morning; sought them not to despair; when the time and I was not up and dressed until ten. came, the very beautiful little theatre Pretty work for a man accustomed to was filled chock-full, gallery, pit, boxes, get up at four o'clock in the morning, and all; a finer audience, more opulent and go to bed at eight. However, the in appearance, better pleased, and, above rigid adherence to the milk and water all things, more attentive, I have not renders these irregularities of little conmet with. Towards the conclusion of sequence. At my outset, it was thought my barangue, I noticed what I heard necessary to have a glass of wine and about the aristocratical spirit of the water at the end of the harangue, in town, and ridiculed, with all my power, order to revive, or to do something or the silly vanity of men in the middle another; but 1 soon found it to be rank of life, who expected that they, by mischievous, rather than beneficial; I separating themselves from the lower found milk and water just as restoring class, by affecting to belong to the aris- as the wine and water: I go to sleep tocracy, could possibly accomplish any the moment I am in the bed, and I thing but the ruin of their own fortunes, rise with my head as clear and sound as and inaking themselves more the tools a bell and I join the wonen in saying of those who fill the seats. to all my male readers, if you approve

I must here make my public acknow- of my writings in other respects; if you ledgments to Mr. MANLY, who is lessee think me right in all other things; if of this theatre, as well as of that at Derby, you admire my exertions and listen to and who has behaved in a manner so my precepts, I beseech you, in this re

spect above all others, to follow my example.

change for the goods made in that very factory that I have above mentioned. Nay, Barn-Elm Farm itself will supply several of these towns with mangel wurzel seed to plant plots of ground for the raising of milk, which is the only farm produce, in this part of the country, worth naming.

nearly all the way upon a road which From this place to Halifax, you go runs parallel with the canal; and there are mills and houses almost the whole of the way. Every now and then a cross valley comes twisting down into this main valley; the view is never the same, riding in a post-chaise, for two minutes at a time. From foot of hill to foot of hill, the main valley is not, on an average, more than from two to four hundred yards wide; and the hills rise up almost perpendicular. Sometimes they are covered with trees, of puny size, to be sure; sometimes with rough grass; but in height, width, form, and every other circumstance, the variety is endless. The buildings, whether for manufactures or for dwelling, are all of solid stone, executed in the best possible manner. The window frames and door frames are generally of stone. floors of passages to houses are of stone. The The field fences are of stone walls; and the gate posts and stiles are made of stone. When I came to the North before, I used to call the iron country. Every thing appears strong and country, on this side of Warwickshire, the hard and made to last for ever. this very interesting scenery began. That At Rochdale, town is nice and clean and solid; and it is very curious, that all along there and through serable, squalid wretches. It appears to me, this place and to Halifax, I have seen no mithat there are more rags in Preston, more

This part of England is the most interesting that I ever saw. I thought that nature was in her most sportive mood when she formed the hills and dells at Hockley and Selburne, and Thursley and Hascomb; when she formed the Devil's Punch Bowl, on the side of Hindhead, and the Devil's Jumps on the north side of that immense hill. I had admired her works in the South Downs, from which I had seen the clouds moving about in the valleys below, while others came out from the sides of the hills, like the smoke from a pipe, and went directly and shed rain upon the valleys, as I once saw them do near Petersfield, and got finely wet through while sitting on my horse and indulging in my philosophy. But it is here where nature has been sportive, indeed. Here are never-ending chains of hillocks; hill after hill, and hill upon hill, the deep valleys winding about in every direction, and every valley having river or run of water, greater or less. By the side of the river or rivulet, where it is of any considerable size, which is the case here, there is a canal. The water is made use of for all the various purposes of machinery; for the conveyance of goods of all sorts; so that you see no such thing as a team of horses or a wagon and the land being a bed of stone, one bed of solid stone, with a little slight covering of earth upon it; and there being not the slightest appearance of corn fields, barns, or ricks; not the slightest appearance of cattle being kept; I having seen, with my own eyes, more corn col-wretched persons in one single street, than are lected together, and more sheep folded to be found amongst all this immense populaon one single farm in Wiltshire, than I tion from Rochdale to Halifax, both those have seen, put all together, in all the ragged person in Todmorden, nor in any of towns included. I have not seen a single miles and miles that I have ridden in the villages all the way along this most inteLancashire and Yorkshire; this being resting valley. I am sitting at a window, and the case, one would naturally wonder this is Sunday. Hundreds of the working peo whence the food came to sustain this it is a very long time since I have seen working ple have passed by this window this day, aud immense population. But reflection people so well-dressed as they are here. Proteaches us, that this judicious applica-bably it is partly owing to the uncrowded state tion of the coal, the water, and the stone, of the people; to their being scattered in so creates things, in exchange for which the food and drink come and will come. Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, and, indeed, all the rich agricultural parts of the country, not forgetting Ireland, send hither a part of their produce in ex-own excellent example.

long a line as this valley consists of: there than in places like Blackburne and Preston, may be, and there must be, less immorality where there is such an immense mass in so small a circle; but something must also be owing to the conduct of the employers, to their conduct towards their people, and to their

To-morrow, the 18th, I go to Huddersfield, seen no such thing to the north of the town of taking a really reluctant farewell of the sensi- Derby. Of birds, I have not seen but one ble and kind friends which we shall leave here. single chaffinch since I came out of DerbyOn the 19th, I go to Dewsbury; on the 20th, shire. No rooks in the fields, or flying about; to Leeds; from Leeds I intend to go on the not a blackbird or a thrush; and I see no 23d to Barnsley; to be on the 24th at Shef-house-sparrows; just about ten thousand field, and to be at Nottingham by the 26th or 27th. From Nottingham I intend to go to Leicester or to Derby, I am not sure which; thence to Birmingham; and thence to Wolverhampton.

WM. COBBETT.

blackbird, the bullfinch, and some other birds, sang at Barn-Elm all the winter long almost every morning. But that is a very rare spot, and, from inquiries that I have made of several persons, we have the nightingale every year three weeks earlier than they have her in Hampshire and Sussex.

LINCOLN COUNTY MEETING.

of which are every day to be seen in my farm-yard at Barn-Elm. I suppose that these feathered gentry, who travel very quickly, do just as they do in America; that is to say, get off to the south in the winter, and come back again in the summer. The nightingale, I believe, has never been seen or heard to the P.S. I forgot to observe, that the weather north of Staffordshire; so that those persons has been pretty nearly constant freezing ever who delight in birds, have, in the south, some since I left London, which is now exactly a compensation for the loss of the coals and the calendar month, I having left it on the eight-water. In the winter of 1828, the thrush, the teenth of December. The snow is not very deep, though it has frequently snowed; and, as to the suffering occasioned by the cold, it is experienced in this country only where there is not a sufficiency of clothing or of bedding. Almost the whole of the people are employed within doors, and there can be no want of warmth when the brightest and most beautiful of coals cost only about four-pence the hundred weight. But, from want of a sufficiency of clothing, and a sufficiency of bedding, the suffering of the working classes, particularly of I AM about to insert the petition agreed ou the hand-loom weavers, is very great indeed. The day before I arrived at Preston, there at this famous County Meeting, and also the had been the beginning of a visitation of speeches that were made. These things form an the poor, and the visitors had found upwards of 500 families destitute of even a blanket. epoch in the history of this terrible system of It must be nearly the same at Bolton and debt and taxation. Great praise is due to all Blakborne, and many other places; and even the gentlemen who took part in these proceedhere the hand-loom weavers, who live about in detached hamlets upon or amongst the hills, ings; but particularly to CoL. JOHNSON, by are, on account of the very low wages, in an whom the petition was drawn up and moved; extremely destitute state. It is truly lament- and on whose sincerity the country may rely, able to behold so many thousands of men who fomerly earned from twenty to thirty shillings having a guarantee in his long-continued exa week, now compelled to live upon five, four, cellent conduct as a member of Parliament. or even less. The miserable potatoes are I was afraid that the landowners had in view cheap, to be sure, but even of those, they have not a sufficiency. It is the more sor- that which Mr. WESTERN had in view in 1822; rowful to behold these men in this state, as namely, to drive back the Government to the they still retain the frank and bold charac ter formed in the days of their independence. base paper-money. It appears that the genIt is very curious that not only the solid tlemen in Lincolushire are in earnest to obtain provisions, these miserable potatoes, are, a reduction of the taxes, which is the only real for the far greater part, brought from a distance; but, even at Rochdale, which is about cure for the disorders of the country. Everya dozen miles to the north of Manchester, where where I have been, I have endeavoured there are scarcely any leguminous articles; that is to say, garden-stuff, which do not to root out of the minds of the manufacturers, Come through Manchester from Cheshire! particularly the labouring part of them, the The conveyance is by the canal, and it is truly stupid notion that the distress arises either surprising that this immense population should be supplied with all these things with from Corn-bills, or from the greediness of cut the sinallest appearance of bustle or effort. their own masters. They have, laid before You see market-carts in Manchester and other towns; and now and then a cart upon the them, the true causes, namely, double taxes ; toad, plenty of carts and wagons in the double salaries; double pay; double interest towns carrying bales of cotton about, and bales of debt; effected by a doubling of the value of goods lifting the things from factory to factory, or from store-house to store-house; of money. I have brushed away all the rub→ but, on the high-road, at any distance from a bishy causes assigned by the Ministers at town, I have not seen any thing of this sort

Since I entered Lancashire; and as to what various times; I have exposed the folly of sur we, in the south, call a team of horses, I have plus population, and all the follies of Malthus

and Wilmot Horton. With these I have made asked them whether they wanted any such

therefore, to open that trade, as it is called, factures, and effectually relieve all this dis would cause a great outlet to English manutress. I asked my hearers at Halifax, whether free trade to India, as it is called, had been they could possibly believe, that the want of a the cause of plunging into distress and ruin the farmers of Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Kent

clean work as I have gone. To prove to my permission after landing our goods at New hearers the monstrous error, York or Philadelphia. I put this question: If that the Corn Bill the goods are wanted in the interior of the cannot produce distress like this, I have only country, would there not be found persons to had to remind them, that they have had seve- it would be the manifest interest of the East carry them into the interior for sale, when ral spells of prosperity since the year 1815; India Company that such traffic should be and that the Corn Bill has been in existence carried on to the greatest possible extent? from that day to this. I have asked them, at at one another, as if they were whispering When I put these questions my hearers looked the same time, whether it could have been the "How we have been humbugged!" I find Corn Bill that had reduced to the state of that nine out of ten of the people have hitherto beggary, farmers and labourers of Lincoln-pany could send goods to India; and that, believed that nobody but the East India Comshire and Kent. It has given me infinite pleasure to observe, during these representations of mine, masters as well as workmen, turning their heads and looking at each other, as much as to say, "How we have been deceived!" I have nowhere blinked any question; I have nowhere fostered delusion; I I repeat, that if the manufacturers be wise have nowhere endeavoured to obtain popula- and spirited, they will, unless they wish to be rity by flattering the prejudices and errors of totally ruined, send up short petitions, in my hearers; but have everywhere maintained that is to say, praying for a repeal of the malt substance similar to that of Lincolnshire; 'doctrines directly opposed to those prejudices and the beer taxes: then they will be listened and errors; and not one single mark of disap-free trade to India; stuff about spinners and to; but, on the silly stuff about corn bills, probation have I received since I left London. The people of the North, whose frankness and quick-sightedness, and warm heartedness, have, ever since I first knew them, been subjects of admiration with me, such men need not to be flattered.

and Sussex.

weavers, calculated only to set one class of the the tax-eaters to fatten upon both, if they community against the other, and to enable this path of crookedness and of folly, them look forward to an addition to their sufferings.

Pursue

LINCOLN COUNTY MEETING. '

If the manufacturers and their men now cordially join the landowners, and farmers, and labourers: if the makers of the clothes spectably signed by the freeholders of the SOME few weeks ago a requisition, most rejoin with the rearers of the food, we shall now county of Lincoln, was presented to Richard see relief and renovation without confusion requesting him to convene a public meeting Thorold, Esq., the High Sheriff of the county, All the manufacturers ought to copy the peti- of the inhabitants, in order that they might tion of the county of Lincolu, and send their have an opportunity of petitioning Parliament petitions up to Parliament signed by hun- beer. The High Sheriff, as most of our readers respecting the duties imposed upon malt aud dreds and thousands of men. If they do this remember, declined calling any meeting of we are all relieved, and the country is saved: the county, on the ground that any such petiif they do not, no one can tell what is to be tion was calculated to embarrass his Majesty's the result, but who is to imagine that there Government in the course it proposed to purwill not be turmoil without end, and final cou-sue in the next Session of Parliament. This vulsion?

some of the more active of them being magisrefusal being signified to the requisitionists, trates, called a meeting of the county by the following notice :

Amongst other rubbish that I have thought it necessary to sweep away in my course, I began at Halifax (I had forgotten it before) to brush away the rubbish relative to a remedy from free trade to India. I assured my undersigned, request that you will convene a "To the Sheriff of Lincolnshire.-We, the hearers that Manchester goods are selling at County Meeting, to take into consideration Calcutta cheaper than at Manchester; that the propriety of petitioning the Legislature every one who had made a shipment to India on the subject of the Malt and Beer Duties:for years past, had lost a great deal by that Richard Sutton, Chas. Anderson, Robert Heron, shipment; that there was already perfectly Wm. Hutton, W. A. Johnson, Chas. Allix, free trade to India; that any man might send Fred. Peel, Edw. Wright, Russel Callet, J. H. a ship to India, and send in her whatsoever Thorold, Richard Empsom, Richard Ellis, goods he pleased; that, as to want of permis- W. J. Cholmeley, H. W. Sibthorpe, Andrew sion to prowl about the country with goods, I Balfour, John Buntt, John Bratton, John

Brown, J. Coultass, Samuel Slater, J. L. Milner, J. G. Stevenson, T. Luard, Richard Healy, Wm. Shield, Charles Reesby, S. E. Hopkinson, B. Broomhead, W.E. Welby, Robert Cracroft, Bacon Hickman, Henry Handley, Benj. Handley, James L. Nixon, Lewis Watson, G. F. Heneage, C. D. W. Sibthorpe, J. C. L. Calcraft, Wm. Musson, John Hardy, Wm. Robinson, W. Dolby, Thos. Lowry, Jos. Roberts, J. C. Beasley, R. Duckle, W. Bright more, G. Parnel, W. Mercer, John Garfite, James Cross, and Thos. Duckle.

any one who might offer himself to their notice. If things were stated which they did not wish to bear, they must be opposed by argu ment, and not by clamour, by which they would give that tone and character to the meeting which could not fail to impress on the country, the Parliament, and the Ministers, that the county of Lincoln had a right to be heard. He would not detain them further that cold day from the business of the meeting, and he trusted that every speaker would confine himself to that business, in order to prevent the introduction of any unnecessary mat

"And the Sheriff having thought proper to refuse to call a County Meeting, we the under-ter. (Hear.) signed Magistrates of this County, do hereby convene a Meeting to be held at the Castle Hill, Lincoln, at Twelve o'clock precisely, on Friday, the 8th day of January, 1830, in conformity with the above Requisition: Robert Heron, Frederick Peel, Charles Allix, Henry Handley."

Sir R. HERON thought that there could be but one opinion on the point of the Sheriff's thinking proper to give a flat denial to a requisition the most numerous and (after the withdrawal of his own name) the most respectable that had ever been presented on any subject to any sheriff. On what ground could he have In consequence of this notice, a meeting was refused? Was it on the strength of his own held on that day in the Castle yard, in the opinions? He (Sir Robert) hoped by this time city of Lincoln. The High Sheriff, though he that he had repented of such presumption. Was refused to take any part in the meeting, offer-it by the advice of others? He (Sir Robert) ed the requisitionists the use of either the would tell him that all he could have called to Castle-yard or the Session-house; the latter his counsel ought not to have had a tenth part being thought too small to accommodate the of the weight of such a requisition as that number expected to attend the meeting, a presented to him. (Applause.) He trusted that scaffold on waggons was erected in the Castle- the meeting would receive the High Sheriff's yard, and on this spot the meeting took place. conduct with the indiguation that was due to The meeting has, we believe, excited con- it (applause); for, had they tamely submitted siderable attention in the county, but, owing to his arbitrary decision, an example would be to the unfavourable state of the weather, it set, by which the people of England might was not so numerously attended as was antici- hereafter be deprived of their dearest rights; pated. At half-after twelve, when the meet- those of assembling for the consideration of ing commenced, there were about 800 per- their grievances, and of petitioning Parliament. sons present; but this number subsequent- There were persons who thought (and from ly increased to nearly 2,000. On the Com- the answer of the Sheriff he supposed that that mittee, &c., coming upon the hustings, we gentleman was one of the number) that the observed among the Gentlemen present, Sir meeting ought to have been called for the purR. Heron, Sir W. Ingleby, Sir E. F. Broom-pose of considering the general distress of the head, Colonel Sibthorpe, M.P., Colonel Johnson, Mr. Handley, Mr. Chaplin, M.P., &c. Mr. Handley was unanimously called upon to take the Chair.

The CHAIRMAN then addressed the meeting. He said that under any other circumstances, he should probably have shrunk from the task imposed upon him, but from the peculiar nature of the case, he did not feel warranted in doing so, nor would he, after the extraordinary conduct of the High Sheriff, say that he was nafit to represent an office which that gentleman had deserted. (Hear, hear.) It was unnecessary for him to tell the meeting, that the High Sheriff had, in the exercise of his privilege rather than that of his courtesy, refused to comply with a requisition most numerously sigued, and a more respectable one had never been presented from that or any other county. (Hear, hear.) Not agreeing with the arguments which that gentleman had just put forth, relative to the embarrassments such a meeting would impose upon the Ministers, be (the Chairman) was one of four who had signed the requisition, in conformity with which they were there assembled. Having said thus much, he would not detain them longer from the more important business of the day, than to request them to hear with attention

nation, but could any one in his senses be of such an opinion? Was not the subject before them large enough? (Hear, hear.) What ridicule would not have been thrown upon the meeting, what clamour would not have been made, if they had attempted to set themselves up as a sort, of Lincoln Convention, for the purpose of superseding the duties of the British Parliament; or if they had attempted to regulate without books, papers, or documents, the affairs of the navy, the army, and the country, in the course of four hours; a thing which the Parliament, with all its advantages, found it difficult enough to perform in the course of four Sessions? Under these circumstances, he intended to move the resolution which he held in his hand, and he trusted that it would be generally confirmed by the meeting. It would, however, be necessary for him before concluding, to say a few words on the important subject on which they were assembled; but he could assure them that he would endeavour to be as concise as possible. The object for which they had met was one of the most important topics that had ever attracted the attention of the county of Lincoln. It would not, however, be necessary for him to trouble them with details respecting the tax on malt and beer; suffice it to say, that the