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sated, he now began to reflect upon the inexorable temper of the governor of the place. Under this apprehension he had not composure enough to fly to a sanctuary, which was near the place where he committed the fact; but ran into the street, frantic and distracted, proclaiming himself a criminal by crying out, "Hide me! hide me!"

The wretched fate and poor behaviour of Licenciado, in flying his country to avoid the same person whom he had before treated with so much insolence, and the high resentment of a man so inconsiderable as Aguire, when much injured, are good admonitions to little spirits in exalted stations, to take care how they treat brave men in low condition.

N° 9. SATURDAY, MARCH 21, 1712-13. In tantas brevi creverant opes, seu maritimis seu terrestribus fructibus, seu multitudinis incremento, seu sanctitate disciplinæ.-Liv. They rose in a short time to that pitch of wealth and grandeur, by means of an extensive commerce both by sea and land, by an increase of the people, and by the reverence of their laws and discipline.

MANY of the I gathered from the conversation, or

[ANY of the subjects of my papers will consist of such

learned from the conduct of a gentleman, who has been very conversant in our family, by name Mr. Charwell.* This person was formerly a merchant in this city, who, by exact economy, great frugality, and very fortunate adventures, was, about twenty years since, and the fortieth year of his age, arrived to the estate which we usually call a plum. This was a sum so much beyond his first ambition, that he then resolved to retire from the town, and the business of it together. Accordingly he laid out one half of his money upon the purchase of a nobleman's estate, not many miles distant from the country seat of my Lady Lizard. From this neighbourhood, our first acquaintance began, and has ever since been continued with equal ap

The person here alluded to under the name of Mr. Charwell, is said have been the charitable Edward Colston of Bristol, member of Parliament for that city, who died unmarried in October, 1721, about the close of his 85th year, "without decay in his understanding, without labour or sorrow." † 100,000l.

plication on both sides. Mr. Charwell visits very few gen. tlemen in the country; his most frequent airings in the summer time are visits to my Lady Lizard. And if ever his affairs bring him to town during the winter, as soon as these are dispatched, he is sure to dine at her house, or to make one at her tea-table, to take her commands for the country.

I shall hardly be able to give an account how this gentleman has employed the twenty years since he made the purchase I have mentioned, without first describing the conditions of the estate.

The estate then consisted of a good large old house, a park of 2000 acres, 8000 acres more of land divided into farms. The land not barren, but the country very thin of people, and these the only consumers of the wheat and barley that grew upon the premises. A river running by the house, which was in the centre of the estate, but the same not navigable, and the rendering it navigable had been opposed by the generality of the whole country. The roads excessive bad, and no possibility of getting off the tenants' corn, but at such a price of carriage as would exceed the whole value when it came to market. The underwoods all destroyed, to lay the country open to my lord's pleasures; but there was indeed the less want of this fuel, there being some large coal-pits in the estate, within two miles of the house, and such a plenty of coals* as was sufficient for whole counties. But then the want of watercarriage made these also a mere drug, and almost every man's for fetching. Many timber trees were still standing only for want of chapmen, very little being used for building in a country so thin of people, and those at a greater distance being in no likelihood of buying pennyworths, if they must be at the charge of land carriage. Yet every tree was valued at a much greater price than would be given for it in the place; so was every acre of land in the park; and as for the tenants they were all racked to extremity, and almost every one of them beggars. All these things Mr. Charwell knew very well, yet was not discouraged from going on with his purchase.

But in the first place he resolved that a hundred in faThe scene is ill-chosen, for the country yields none; in Northamptonhire the inhabitants are supplied with coals from other counties.

mily should not ruin him, as it had done his predecessor. Therefore pretending to dislike the situation of the old house, he made choice of another at a mile distance higher up the river, at the corner of the park, where, at the expense of 4 or 50001. and all the ornaments of the old house, he built a new one, with all convenient offices more suitable to his revenues, yet not much larger than my lord's dog-kennel, and a great deal less than his lordship's stables.

The next thing was to reduce his park. He took down a great many pales, and with these enclosed only 200 acres of it near adjoining to his new house. The rest he converted to breeding cattle, which yielded greater profit.

The tenants began now to be very much dissatisfied with the loss of my lord's family, which had been a constant market for great quantities of their corn; and with the disparking so much land, by which provisions were likely to be increased in so dispeopled a country. They were afraid they must be obliged themselves to consume the whole product of their farms, and that they should be soon undone by the economy and frugality of this gentleman.

Mr. Charwell was sensible their fears were but too just; and that, if neither their goods could be carried off to distant markets, nor the markets brought home to their goods, his tenants must run away from their farms. He had no hopes of making the river navigable, which was a point that could not be obtained by all the interest of his predecessor, and was therefore not likely to be yielded up to a man who was not yet known in the country. All that was left for him was to bring the market home to his tenants, which was the very thing he intended before he ventured upon his purchase, He had even then projected in his thoughts the plan of a great town just below the old house; he therefore presently set himself about the execution of his project.

The thing has succeeded to his wish. In the space of twenty years he is so fortunate as to see 1000 new houses upon his estate, and at least 5000 new people, men, women, and children, inhabitants of those houses, who are comfortably subsisted by their own labour, without charge to Mr. Charwell, and to the great profit of his tenants.

It cannot be imagined that such a body of people can

be subsisted at less than 57. per head, or 25,000l. per annum, the greatest part of which sum is annually expended for provisions among the farmers of the next adjacent lands. And as the tenants of Mr. Charwell are nearest of all others to the market, they have the best prices for their goods by all that is saved in the carriage.

But some provisions are of that nature, that they will not bear a much longer carriage than from the extreme parts of his lands; and I think I have been told that for the single article of milk, at a pint every day for every house, his tenants take from this town not much less than 5001. per annum.

The soil of all kinds, which is made every year by the consumption of so great a town, I have heard has been valued at 2001. per annum. If this be true, the estate of Mr. Charwell is so much improved in this very article, since all this is carried out upon his lands by the back carriage of those very carts which were loaden by his tenants with provisions and other necessaries for the people.

A hundred thousand bushels of coals are necessary to supply so great a multitude with yearly fuel. And as these are taken out of the coal-pits of Mr. Charwell, he receives a penny for every bushel; so that this very article is an addition of 400l. per annum to his revenues. And as the town and people are every year increasing, the revenues in the above-mentioned, and many other articles, are increasing in proportion.

There is now no longer any want of the family of the predecessor. The consumption of 5000 people is greater than can be made by any fifty of the greatest families in Great Britain. The tenants stand in no need of distant markets, to take off the product of their farms. The people near their own doors are already more than they are able to supply; and what is wanting at home for this purpose is supplied from places at greater distance, at whatsoever price of carriage.

All the farmers every where near the river are now, in their turn, for an act of parliament to make it navigable, that they may have an easy carriage for their corn to so good a market. The tenants of Mr. Charwell, that they may have the whole market to themselves, are almost the only persons against it. But they will not be long able to

oppose it their leases are near expiring and as they are grown very rich, there are many other persons ready to take their farms at more than double the present rents, even though the river should be made navigable, and distant people let in to sell their provisions together with these farmers.

As for Mr. Charwell himself, he is in no manner of pain lest his lands should fall in their value by the cheap carriage of provisions from distant places to his town. He knows very well the cheapness of provisions was one great means of bringing together so great numbers, and that they must be held together by the same means. He seems to have nothing more in his thoughts than to increase his town to such an extent, that all the country for ten miles round about shall be little enough to supply it. He considers that at how great a distance soever provisions shall be brought thither, they must end at last in so much soil for his estate, and that the farmers of other lands, will by this means contribute to the improvement of his own.

But by what encouragements and rewards, by what arts and policies, and what sort of people he has invited to live upon his estate, and how he has enabled them to subsist by their own labour, to the great improvement of his lands, will be the subjects of some of my future precautions.

66

"SIR,

"To THE GUARDIAN.

March 16.

By your paper of Saturday last, you give the town hopes that you will dedicate that day to religion. You could not begin it better than by warning your pupils of the poison vented under a pretence of freethinking. If you can spare room in your next Saturday's paper for a few lines on the same subject, these are at your disposal.

"I happened to be present at a public conversation of some of the defenders of this discourse of freethinking, and others that differed from them; where I had the diversion of hearing the same man in one breath persuade us to freedom of thought, and in the next offer to demonstrate that we had no freedom in any thing. One would think men should blush to find themselves entangled in a

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