Thomas Beddoes to Davies Giddy, 11 November 1791
As I have the most ample supply of franks at hand & an amanuensis, I enclose some reflections by Day upon the infamous wool bill, which disclosed, in all its native meanness & duplicity the Jesuitical character of the present Grand Vizir of Great Britain. It is not by any means the best, but it is one of the most insulated passages I can recollect. The author was equally master of the arms of indignant ridicule & profound reasoning. He every where breathes the free strain as right & truth inspire.
I find that contagion has discharged a full blast of her pestilential breath over this country. Putrid fever & sore throats abound. I am not myself much afraid of the danger that walketh in darkness, but it has laid violent hold of one of our apothecaries. The idea of your father is so connected in my mind with that of health that I forgot to enquire after the success of my prescription. If the power of gravity persists, I will enclose a paper on iron which you may bestow upon Dick Edwards, à moins que vous connoissez quelqu’un de plus digne dans votre voisinage.
[Enclosure:]
The extraordinary prosperity of the woolen trade has raised the price of wool, & enabled the selfish farmer to share in those profits which the liberal manufacturer would wish to retain himself. He, perhaps, ascends the lofty battlements of his mansion, & beholds the neighbouring rustic white washing his cottage; amid the delights of a table which exhibits the collected dainties of twenty climates, he hears of a farmer’s consuming his own goose at Christmas, or indulging in a pint of ale at the next market town: such instances of undeserved prosperity pierce him to the soul, & stimulate him to new enterprises. Should such corruption be endured, who can tell how far the contagion may reach? The farmer has not, indeed, formed conspiracies for advancing the price of his commodity, or forced his <discontented> murmurs upon the Representatives of the people: he has not claimed the natural rights of all the species, that of selling the produce of his labors to the best advantage: he has neither written pamphlets, nor caballed, nor attended public meetings, nor made speeches: but he has dared, with most intolerable presumption, to accept his scanty share of national prosperity, & to rattle the chains which <his> sovereign the manufacturers, had imposed. To check this dangerous spirit of independency before it rise too high, the nation must be alarmed with fictitious terrors, & the legislature imposed upon by interested representations. There is a party in the metropolis, always ready to join in every clamour against the farmer, & to patronize every measure which tends to his oppression. The worthy citizens of London are many of them, deeply versed in all the labyrinths of political economy. They have proved by irrefragable argument, that a nation can never enjoy plenty, or a metropolis be fed, while a single cultivator is allowed to fix a value upon his own productions. Liberty & property, indeed, are valuable things, but they are the exclusive claim of the citizens of London. The miserable peasants, who toil all the year, to supply the luxury of grocers, mercers, & haberdashers, no more than the slaves of Sparta, must dare to repeat the sounds appropriated to their masters: it is enough for them to have honour of feeding their superiors: their barns, their granaries, their yards, their fatting-pens, should always be open to the inspection of a committee of citizens, invested with absolute power to fix the price of every commodity by rules of their own caprice. No wonder, in a metropolis, where doctrines nearly resembling these are the common creed of thousands, if every ridiculous & interested cry is reverberated till the undulations reach the ears of the legislature. Such, I imagine, has been the origin & progress of this celebrated Bill: founded upon the meanest self-interest, & desire of robbing the farmer alike of property & freedom, it has been patronized alike by Ignorance & Folly, & nursed to a degree of maturity which ought to inspire a general alarm. – Should it succeed the most intolerable yoke is riveted upon the necks of all the cultivators who are wretched enough to live within a certain distance of the sea; nor will any discerning person believe, that the influence of monopolization is intended to be confined within these boundaries.
The present scheme is only an experiment to ascertain the credulity of government, & the patience of a nation. Should it succeed, pretexts can never be wanting to extend it farther & farther, till it comprehend the whole extent of Britain. When once this salutary reformation is compleat, it is evident that every farmer will hold a precarious existence, at the mercy of the manufacturer. As it is impossible not to offend, where endless formalities are prescribed, & restraints imposed, where even the most innocent actions of life are directed by penal laws, & the most necessary submitted to the caprice of interested inspectors, it is plain that every man who shears a sheep will at one time or <an> other become a culprit. In vain will he plead his innocence, his ignorance of the law, his want of every intention to offend; he will feel himself caught within the inextricable snare, & must either be ruined by a severe exertion of the laws, or owe his safety to the supercilious forbearance of his tyrants. In the mean time a body of men, who have already, by their interested clamours, robbed him of an <annual> profit of three millions, are to be entrusted with the management of his chains, introduced to a knowledge of all his affairs, authorized to demand an account of every fleece he shears; & the legislature submitting to be a pander to their avarice, they are to regulate the price of his commodities by the dictates of their own liberality.
Address: : D. Giddy Esq / Tredrea / Marazion / Cornwall // Shifnall November Eleventh 1791 / J. Reynolds
Stamped: BATH
Endorsement: Dr Beddoes / 1791 / Novr the 11th
MS: Cornish Archives MS DG 41/10, and 41/8 (the enclosure)