The Adams Letters (1773–1774)
The four Adams letters appeared in the Morning Chronicle on November 10 and 25, 1773, December 22, 1773, and January 25, 1774.1 The first of the four was attributed to Oglethorpe by Phinizy Spalding, quoting Boswell’s response after he received a copy in a letter from the general: “I am clear that I recognise the heart of General Oglethorpe.”2 Apparently Oglethorpe did not send the three subsequent Adams letters to Boswell, perhaps because he assumed that the Scot could easily find the principal English newspapers in Edinburgh. Boswell’s ascription does not guarantee that the letters were actually written by the general. Nevertheless they seem to be Oglethorpe’s. To ensure the perpetuation of the small farms offered by the Georgia Trustees, he had insisted that each should be inherited by the oldest male heir. In 1773, moreover, the topic of luxury and consequent depopulation seems to have been one of his favorite topics. This was apparently the principal topic discussed when Oglethorpe entertained Boswell, Dr. Johnson, and Goldsmith on April 13, 1773, and again on April 27, 1773. On that occasion Oglethorpe “harangued on the mischiefs of enclosing, by depopulating.” 3
As for the signature, it should evidently be read as “Adam’s” —a descendant and emulator of Adam: “When Adam delved and Eve span / Who was then the gentleman?” On December 24, 1773, a derivative letter appeared in the Morning Chronicle from “A Son of Adam.”
The Adams letters concern a problem that had plagued England since the middle of the century—the enclosure of common land by private acts of Parliament for the benefit of wealthy and influential landowners. Whether enclosure was economically necessary, as many contemporary politicians then asserted and as most economists today allege,4 was not Oglethorpe’s issue. In his last letter he admitted that enclosure if properly managed would benefit the nation. But he was concerned that enclosure as it was then practiced, unrestricted, led only too often to the destitution of those whom enclosure dispossessed. Here Oglethorpe placed himself with such a humanitarian as Oliver Goldsmith, whose Deserted Village he praises. Whether Oglethorpe’s letters had any effect in Parliament is uncertain, but parliamentary restrictions upon enclosure began during the year in which the last letter appeared.
My text is that of the Morning Chronicle.
For the MORNING CHRONICLE.
To the KING.
LETTER I.
SIRE,
MUCH has been said, and many letters have appeared, on the subject I intend to pursue in the following course of my address to your Majesty. Truly sensible that you mean to be a father to your people, to remove every obstacle to their happiness, I have chosen rather to apply to you than to the ear of an inattentive or intrusted Minister. I would wish to turn your attention to the plain tale of a plain man. I would hope, that if, in the course of explaining my meaning, I make use of terms your Majesty may think harsh, that you will impute it to the warmth of my zeal for my country and not from any disrespect to a King I sincerely honour.
Your Majesty, as a man of letters,5 has no doubt read Dr. Goldsmith’s amiable poem of the “Deserted Village.”6 On the cause of that desertion I mean to address you. I mean to endeavour, to shew that the basis of that poem is truth, and to point out the particular means which have been the cause of that general emigration from the country, and the cause of the capital being filled with objects of distress and nuisance. When I have done that, I will point out the means of restoring agriculture, and of re peopling the now deserted country. I hope to carry conviction with me, as I will advance nothing but facts; and then you, who wish to be the best of Kings, will listen to my advice, and remove what now threatens to destroy your country, and fill your capital with wretches (through misery) ripe for every mischief. Formerly, a man, with a wife, and perhaps seven or eight healthy children, occupied a small cottage on an extensive common, where by right he could feed a few sheep, rear a few calves and poultry; and his wife keep the market, and reasonably sell the produce of his labour; his children (useful members of society) assisted the neighbouring farmers; and content and happiness crowned their labours. In this situation the man of power and interest finds him, and perhaps dispersed over the common twenty more families, who all equally contribute to render labour and provisions reasonable. From a mistaken notion that the inclosing this common will operated for the public good, he applies for the inclosure, obtains it, and beggars every family on the spot. The parents, unable any longer to obtain a subsistence, either perish miserably, or betake them to a parish workhouse. The children, if boys, seek for refuge in London, and either are enticed to America, or become a public nuisance in the streets; and after insulting magistracy by every desperate act, are made terrible examples of the justice of that law they violate. The daughters, an easy prey to vice, infest our streets, and, by way of revenge, communicate disease on, perhaps, the authors of their misfortune. The markets, deprived of those who used to bring them a constant supply, become thin; the single farm, raised on the ruins of twenty, has a master whose fortune enables him to feed the market as he pleases; he will have his price, or he will not sell at all; he knows he engrosses every commodity, and that necessity must yield to his demand. Not so, when the honest smaller dealers, anxious to support their families in the necessaries (not the luxuries) of life, endeavoured to undersel each other, that they might obtain a reasonable profit, and hasten home to their expecting families. The Gentleman Farmer wants not this; his price is fixed; and as he knows the necessity, encreases his demand; his fortune will enable him to run the risque of loss, and his family are not in want.
To what can all this be owing, but the great number of inclosures? The poor farmer has no vote in the House, else they would not have passed so tamely. Every sessions produces miseries, and your Majesty (misguided) puts the cruel fiat.7 How much better must it be (and here let me apply to your interest) to have, within the space of 300 acres, thirty loyal, healthy subjects, than one single family, consisting at most of seven or eight, and to have your country markets supplied by people who must sell, than by those who will sell only at their own price? The rage of inclosing, too much encouraged, is the foundation of these evils. By these wretches, made desperate by distress, you are insulted in public, and their friends and relations curse you in private; your poor are starving, your markets empty; and your verging the miserable alternative of being very poor, or very rich, either aristocracy or despotism must be the consequence. From the first, good Lord deliver you! and from the last deliver the nation! For remember this, if you put all power into the hands of your Barons, what has happened in former reigns may happen now.8 Endeavour to preserve the middling sort of people in their independency, as the strongest support of your crown, and enrage them no further by giving your consent to inclosures; the fallacy of which shall be the subject of my future letters to expose, and from facts to prove, that every assertion I make is founded in truth.
I am, Sire,
Your Majesty’s
Most faithful subject, ADAMS.
For the MORNING CHRONICLE.
LETTER II.
To the KING.
SIRE,
THAT those who solicit for enclosures are wrong, I promised in my last to endeavour to shew, that I would try to convince them, that they had not acted for their own interest, and that every line I in future wrote, should be founded in fact. I mean to keep my word, hoping that the royal ear, ever open to redress real grievances, will not be shut to so plain a tale as I shall endeavour to lay down.
I some time ago saw a letter in this paper signed Hants, complaining that the farmers could not go to church, without being upbraided by the parson, as the cause of the dearness of corn, by not bringing it to market. I cannot help thinking the honest parson wrong; he mistook the real cause. How can the farmer be supposed to grow the same quantity of corn he did in former years, when his farm is let to him on the condition of laying a certain portion of it down in grass? he is debarred the use of the plough, and how is he then to be able to supply the market with corn? Some years ago, before the rage of inclosing took place, the corn produced in the distant counties bore such an average to the price in London, as made it worth the farmer’s while to send it up to the London market, thereby amply supplying the capital. Importation was not then necessary, but now, when almost every farm in the distant counties is injured by the enclosures, when not a third part of the corn is raised, it throws the London market into the hands of a set of men who make the basest use of it; no longer curbed by the corn being sent from the inland counties, they are left at liberty to make every advantage of importation, and raise the market at their pleasure. The farms in these counties have been, and are so disadvantageously let, that few if any can succeed. They raise but very little corn, and what they now do raise, becomes not worth their while to send to the London market, indeed scarcely supplies the want of the country round them. As a proof of which, it sells even at their own country market for two shillings per bushel, or nearly that sum upon an average, more than it will fetch at London. The printed prices of corn published in the Daily Papers, will sufficiently prove this.
Another misfortune which has arisen from these inclosures is, that even the number of cattle that used to be raised on these commons are much decreased. Let any man say, who used to travel the country, whether, instead of seeing 4 or 5000 sheep, and a number of other cattle, on these commons and fields before inclosed, he sees now more than perhaps as many hundreds, and those obliged to be sent to he market, (and by that means fall into the hands of the engrossers) to make up their rents, for rent the landlord must and will have. Our fields now, instead of being covered with the necessaries of life, are encumbered with a useless breed of horses, bred either to support our own luxuries, or to be sold to our enemies to use against ourselves. Corn,9 the natural produce of our soil is neglected; cattle, the necessaries of life, our farmers are disencouraged from breeding, and the enclosures are filled with nothing but horses, which tho’ they bring profit to individuals, can never be of any real benefit to the nation at large. How then can our great men be so wilfully blind to the natural good of their country? Would they but encourage the raising corn, and breeding cattle, with the same avidity they do that of horses, how much more profitable (and I will prove it really so) would it be to them? Plenty might once more be seen in the country, and our now “deserted villages,” be once more peopled. Suppose only the profit of raising the necessaries of life, and that of horses equal, yet let them consider how many more hands are employed in the one than in the other, and let them reflect how many families they may sustain by raising the one, when to raise the other a servant or two is only necessary. We have many well meaning men among the great, who want only to be convinced; some already are, and may their example have the wished effect!
Some little time since, I had a conversation with a gentleman, from whose discourse I gathered, that he had some connection with the Duke of Marlborough;10 he seemed to intimate that his Grace had seen his error, and was determined to let his estates in smaller farms, and encourage by every means the use of the plough, and the breed of cattle. If his Grace does so, a few years will convince him of the truth of my assertions. He will see plenty once more smile on his estates; they will be peopled, and that not with wretches worn out with misery, ready to raise commotions at every turn, and offend those laws that prevent them from a maintenance, but with a set of honest, industrious men, and their families, contentedly raising the necessaries of life, and happy in themselves. Should this method be adopted by those in power, the number of useful subjects would be increased; husbandry encouraged, and the capital not be so pestered with country vagabonds; in the country every member of the family is useful, but send that family to London, and they become pests to society: it is therefore your Majesty’s interest, as the Father of your People, to keep them there, and to have a number of subjects contentedly pursuing their own business, rather than have a number of desperate wretches, insulting you in public, and in private plotting every mischief.
I am, SIRE,
Your Majesty’s most faithful subject,
ADAMS.
For the MORNING CHRONICLE.
To the KING.
LETTER III.
SIRE,
DETERMINED at every leisure hour to pursue a subject that, in my poor opinion, must redound to the happiness and ease of your people, as well as to the honour of yourself; your plain subject pursues, as he promised, his plain tale. In my last I think I proved that the breeding horses, instead of cattle, were prejudicial to this kingdom: would it not then be certainly better to stop the exportation of them, at least till there was in this kingdom a proper and sufficient stock of store cattle raised? Our enemies would not then be able to fight us on any future war with our own horses, and the kingdom you govern would not be, as now, starving for want of food; we have had the blessing of the Heaven’s mild winters and plentiful summers, yet we complain of want of provisions: where can this want arise? I endeavour to point it out; read then, I humbly beseech your Majesty, these letters with attention; they may shew the means of obtaining plenty, peace, and happiness, and I am sure you wish them to be obtained.
The gentry have been at a great expence in inclosing; they might make them useful, but as they now manage, they only help to starve us, and throw both country and capital into confusion: they should lessen their farms, and plough up at least two parts in three of the old usually ploughed land, instead of laying it down for grass. It always must be admitted, that three inclosed acres will produce as much corn as four acres in a common field, and what with the old land being ploughed up as well as the former, the useless, barren, common land, producing corn, clover, or other fodder; they might make three acres produce as much as six before inclosed; they might still feed as many useful cattle as might be sufficient for the consumption of the kingdom, or even more. The farmer will then have a sufficient stock to supply the market, and be better able to pay his rent; he will have it in his power to employ more hands; the labourer need not then seek a miserable shelter in a workhouse, or, what is worse, in London; dairying would revive, and notwithstanding the seeming encreased expence for labour, the profits would more than equal it, and happiness and content would return again to the door of the cottager. But this can never be done unless the farms are lessened; two hundred pounds per annum ought to be the largest; if smaller, it would still be the better.
And here let me intreat your Majesty to consider the petty deputy tyrant of a county, the original landlord, for the sake of letting one farm for more than he could do when divided into twenty, consents to the suffering one man to rent the whole; this man has but one family, and the other nineteen must remove from the spot, because they become needless on it; how nearly approaching to aristocracy is this, and where will be your power and authority supported, if you thus negligently depopulate your country, and create, by suffering inclosures, a set of absolute tyrants, who deprive you by every inclosure of a number of useful subjects? The Duke of Marlborough, I am informed (to his credit) is so sensible of this, that he is determined to lessen his farms; nay surely the example of that worthy man, Sir George Savile, in Ireland,11 would be a sufficient lesson, his tenants there are numerous and well supplied with all the necessaries of life; they have not joined the rioters, but are happy and contented; can this arise from any other than a conviction that his method is right? his farms are small, the culture of the country is considered, and plenty and peace are the consequence.
The Dutch who formerly only occasionally supplied our markets, now become every year necessary to us; ’tis a melancholy truth that, happen but a scarce season, and without importation, we starve; will they not take advantage of our indolence, and from factors become the masters of our markets? Those counties which formerly had large numbers of ricks,12 which on an unfavourable season they would have thrashed out, and supplied the markets, now have few or none; and what must be the consequence of a real scarcity, your own good sense can too easily foresee: discourage then the breed of horses, stop inclosing (unless under certain limitations) and you may restore your subjects to their homes, and your nation to plenty; the contrary you have experienced in part, and may your wisdom and love for the people, prevent the dreadful alternative of perishing by famine, or violating the laws.
I am, Sire,
Your most faithful subject,
ADAMS.
For the MORNING CHRONICLE.
To the KING.
LETTER IV.
SIRE,
THAT your Majesty’s wisdom may prevent your people from the dreadful alternative of perishing by famine, or for violating the laws, is my most sincere wish; to prevent it my endeavour; in which attempt I still persevere, and continue a series of letters, which I hope will, one time or other, meet your Royal attention; and that the King who wishes to be the Father of his people, will one day listen to the advice of a faithful subject.
That inclosing would be of service to the public, if properly managed, there is no doubt; it would employ more poor people, especially if plowed, and be worth more in proportion than before inclosed; but not if managed as now, when the breed of horses destroy that provender, which ought to be preserved for the more useful part of the creation. Was the land in-closed to be parcelled into small farms, and a certain portion of the farm tied down by the lease to be plowed, we must have a larger quantity of corn at market, the lesser farmer would breed more sheep, more oxen, more calves, and more poultry than the larger farmer, and, of consequence, the larger number of them being brought to market, would lessen the price.
Our men of property deceive themselves; anxious only to squeeze from their tenants a certain yearly sum, that they may figure in the greater splendor at the Pantheon, Ranelagh, and the more infa—s C—’s.13 They neglect the proper management of their estates, and delegate their power to a steward, who, as I said before, is the Deputy Tyrant of a county, he must furnish his master with a yearly sum, and if he can squeeze more, it is his own. Honesty and industry has no chance here; the farms of 500, 600, or 1000l. a year, are taken by men whose payment is certain, because their property enables them to keep up the markets and sell at their own price. The landlord here is well paid; but the poor have the price of provisions set above their reach: they may complain, but their refuge is a parish workhouse. Now, were but the farms reduced to 100l. 150l. or even 200l. a year, and one half of it plowed, it would enable the small farmer to pay his rent as well as the larger, and I will maintain it, that one small farm, the smaller farm, would bring, in the course of a year, more useful, necessary provisions to market, than one of a 1000l. a year It would not answer for a small farmer to breed more horses than what might be necessary for his own use; or if he did, it would only be of that sort which are really useful, not a set of creatures bred and kept for the use of luxury only, who eat the bread of idleness, and consume that provinder which would suffice to maintain those animals, whose flesh the poor of our days seldom get the taste of. His wife (not the luxurious pride of the village, whose Sunday dress creates the envy of the poor) would not be above the management of the dairy; she would sell her own produce, keep the market herself, and in consequence sell cheaper than when she delegates the honor of selling, to a servant. Her family, instead of seeking a supply of clothes from London, would be contented with what they met with at a country town. Pride and ostentation would set far from her door, and while she sold by retail her wholesome provisions, she would in her bargains feel for the distresses of the poor. Not so the unfeeling larger farmer, who contracts by wholesale with the London dealers; he feels for no distress, his fortune prevents him from being sensible of misery, and he considers not how many families he starves, if he returns but the gain into his own pocket.
From what I have now said, let your Majesty judge, if I do not set the misery of the poor in a fair light? If inclosing ought to be suffered, unless tied down to parcel the inclosure out into small farms? If the breed of horses ought to be encouraged, and whether the breed of the more useful cattle ought to be neglected? Your Majesty’s wisdom will tell you the contrary*. I have endeavoured to point out the means of prevention; may it succeed: if not, I have done my duty, as your Majesty’s sincere well wisher.
And I am, Sire,
Your Majesty’s most faithful subject,
ADAMS.
Jan. 21, 1774.
*Your Majesty will please to observe, that on the trial of the late unfortunate Cox,14 a person appeared as an evidence there, who acknowledged himself an agent from the King of France, to procure horses for remounting the French cavalry.