A.D. 1782.

ARTICLES OF PEACE SIGNED AT PARIS.

637

At

manded by the prince of Nassau (on board of which was also the engineer who had invented the machinery) began to smoke on the side exposed to the garrison, and it was apprehended she had taken fire. seven o'clock all our hopes vanished. Nothing now was thought of but saving the crews, and the boats of the combined fleet were immediately sent on that service. A little after midnight the floating battery which had been the first to show symptoms of conflagration, burst out into flames, upon which the fire from the rock was increased with terrific vengeance. During the night one or other of these batteries was discovered to be on fire. At five A. M., one of them blew up with a very great explosion, and soon after the whole of them, having been abandoned by their crews, were on fire fore and aft, and many of their gallant fellows were indebted to the exertions of the English for their lives." * Lord Howe entered the mouth of the Straits with his fleet on the 11th of October. The combined fleets of France and Spain avoided an engagement, and the object of landing the stores and reinforcements was partially accomplished, when a storm drove the British fleet, as well as the fleets of France and Spain, into the Mediterranean. Howe drew up in line of battle; but the enemy declined to engage, and the British admiral returned to Gibraltar, and completed the work for which he was sent. The French and Spaniards continuing to refuse a general action, Howe returned to England. The siege was languidly continued during the winter. On the 6th of February, 1783, the duc de Crillon informed general Elliott that the preliminaries of peace had been signed at Paris on the 20th of January, and that Gibraltar was to remain in the possession of Great Britain. From the commencement of the blockade to the cessation of arms, the siege had endured three years, seven months, and twelve days. The total loss of the garrison was twelve hundred, of whom only four hundred and seventy were killed, or died of their wounds, or were disabled.

The summer and part of the autumn were employed by the British envoy at Paris, and by Dr. Franklin, in discussions upon points that were essential to be settled before the basis of a treaty of peace with America could be established. Three other Commissioners were finally associated with Franklin, Mr. Jay, Mr. Adams, and Mr. Laurens. At length, on the 30th of November, preliminary articles were signed between the Commissioner of Great Britain and the Commissioners of the United States. The count de Vergennes was naturally offended at what he considered the infraction of a mutual promise not to sign articles of pacification except with the joint consent of France and the United States.

The Parliament was opened by the king on the 5th of December, the Houses having met on the previous 26th of November, and were then adjourned in the expectation of some definite result from the negotiations. His majesty declared that, adopting with decision what he collected to be the sense of his Parliament and his people, he had directed all his measures to an entire and cordial reconciliation with the colonies of North America.

Narrative of an Italian officer on board the combined fleet, quoted in Barrow's "Life of Lord Howe."

He had not hesitated to go the full length of the powers vested in him, and had offered to declare them free and independent States by an article to be inserted in the treaty of peace. The king then said, "In thus admitting their separation from the crown of these kingdoms, I have sacrificed every consideration of my own to the wishes and opinions of my people."

On the 20th of January, 1783, the Preliminaries of Peace were signed between Great Britain and France and Spain. By the treaty with France, England ceded St. Lucia and Tobago, and gained back Granada, St. Vincent's, Dominica, St. Christopher's, Nevis, and Montserrat. The French recovered some possessions in Africa, and in the East Indies. The old stipulations for the demolition of Dunkirk were given up. To Spain, Great Britain ceded Minorca and the Floridas. With Holland there was a suspension of arms; and the Preliminaries of Peace were not signed till the 2nd of September. The principle of the final treaty was on the basis of mutual restitution. On the 17th of February, the two Houses took into consideration the Preliminaries of Peace with France, Spain, and America. In the House of Lords the ministers carried the Address of Thanks to the Crown by a majority of thirteen. In the House of Commons they were defeated by a majority of sixteen. On the 21st of February, lord John Cavendish moved Resolutions of Censure on the terms of the Peace, which were carried by a majority of seventeen. A combination of parties had been entered into for the purpose of removing lord Shelburne and his ministry. Mr. Fox and Mr. Pitt were on this occasion brought into immediate conflict. On the 24th of February, lord Shelburne resigned. The fallen minister's opinions upon a liberal system of commerce were before his time. They were entirely opposed to the existing ignorance of the commercial public, and they would necessarily have failed. John Adams was the first minister of the United States accredited to Great Britain. In June, 1785, he was presented to the king, who assured him that as he "was the last to conform to the separation," the separation having been made, he "would be the first to meet the friendship of the United States as an independent power."

On the 4th of December, 1782, Washington bade farewell to the principal officers of his army, and on the 20th he resigned his commission to a deputation from Congress.

CHAPTER XLIX.

"

IN 1784, marshal Conway wrote to his brother, "the sums spent in losing America are a blow we shall never recover. The statesmen and economists who predicted absolute ruin from any increase of the public debt beyond a certain maximum-seventy-five millions, or a hundred millions-never appear to have adequately contemplated the possibility of the productive power of the country keeping pace with the additional load of taxation. From the accession of George I. to the war with the North

A.D. 1760-1783.

STATE OF AGRICULTURE.

639

American Colonies-a period of sixty years-the country had been steadily progressing in a course of improvement; in partial inclosures of cultivable waste land, in better methods of husbandry, in extension of manufactures, in more complete means of internal communication. The shutting up of one portion of British commerce by the war with America had no permanent effect upon the development of the general prosperity of the country; although we are in no condition to judge how far that development might have been impeded by the waste of capital in war. The common notions of the decline of England that prevailed during the first and second decades of the reign of George III. were associated with the vehement assertion that her population was decreasing. A comparison of the excess of baptisms over burials shows that from 1751 to 1781 the population increased nearly a million and a-quarter. There was a still larger increase, of more than a million and a-half, in the twenty years from 1781 to 1801. Comparing an estimate made by Arthur Young in 1770 with the census of 1851, the farmers would appear to have doubled in eighty years; the labourers to have almost trebled. In 1770, whilst one man was cultivating the land, two men were engaged in other occupations. In 1851, whilst one man was cultivating the land, three men were engaged in other occupations. The ascendancy of scientific theory over traditional practice has produced this striking change; and that ascendancy has been called forth more and more by the certainty of the profitable application of capital to agricultural enterprise. This application of capital, in the first twenty years of the reign of George III., may be in some degree indicated by the circumstance that the Inclosure Bills passed from 1760 to 1779 were more than a thousand in number. Improved methods of husbandry were concurrent with this extension of the area of cultivation.

Norfolk, and its neighbour Suffolk, were the nurseries of what was termed "the new husbandry." Mr. Coke, a gentleman of large fortune and high connections, who came into his estate at Holkham in 1776, "converted West Norfolk from a rye-growing to a corn-growing district." But he did something even better. Unable to let his estate, even at five shillings an acre, he determined to become a farmer himself. He gathered about him all the practical agriculturists of his district, who came once a year to partake his hospitality, and to communicate their experience to the spirited young man who wanted to learn. He very soon was enabled to become an instructor himself. His example pointed the way to that continued course of improvement which has effected such marvels since the British agriculturist became self-reliant, and saw that his prosperity needed no protective laws to maintain a supply of food quite commensurate with the rapid multiplication of the people. The agriculture of many parts of Suffolk is described by Arthur Young as emphatically "true husbandry." Sir John Cullum, in 1784, describes the drainage of the arable lands as the great improvement that had fertilized spots that before produced but little. The farmer knew nothing of draining-tiles; but he cut drains two feet deep, and wedgeshaped, filling them with bushes, and with haulm over the bushes. Arthur Young found the husbandry of Buckinghamshire almost as bad as the land is good. The poverty of the crops was chiefly imputed to the want of

draining, and to the open fields, and large tracts of waste. That fertile county has now discovered the value of large dairy farms. It is held that there are 120,000 acres in Buckinghamshire devoted to dairying, on which, with the aid of some arable land, 30,000 cows are kept, producing annually the almost incredible amount of 6,000,000 lbs. of butter, chiefly sent to the London market by railway. Arthur Young laments that, "if a person, the least skilled in agriculture, looks around for implements that deserve to be called complete, how few will he meet with." Norfolk and Suffolk are now the principal seats of the manufacture of those implements which, in 1851, were held to have saved one-half of the outlay of a period only twelve years previous, in the cultivation of a definite amount of crop. The application of machinery and chemical science to the production of food has produced results as important as in any other branch of manufacture, under which term we must now include the modern achievements of the spirited farmer.

In Bedfordshire, Francis, duke of Bedford, laboured at Woburn to accomplish results similar to those which Mr. Coke produced at Holkham. "No one that lived in or near the times of the duke of Bedford, can be ignorant of the efforts which that nobleman put forth to arouse the torporstricken agriculturists of his day.” The duke did not live to see the triumphs of improved farming; by which, according to a report in the "Royal Agricultural Journal," "there are scores of farms now producing 50 per cent. more corn than in 1794, and supplying the metropolitan markets with a stone of meat for every pound supplied at the former period." To Robert Bakewell, a yeoman of Leicestershire, independently of his merit as the founder of the famous breed of Leicester sheep, is to be ascribed the great impulse which raised the occupation of the grazier into an art. This progress, concurrent with the turnip husbandry, the general improvement in the cultivation of arable land, and the conversion of barren sands and drowned fens into rich corn-bearing districts, has enabled the supply of an improved quality of meat constantly to keep pace with the increase of population. The average weight of the ox and the sheep has been doubled since the beginning of the eighteenth century. The number produced has increased in a greater ratio.

The consumption of animal food in England has always been a matter of surprise to foreigners. An intelligent Frenchman, M. Grosley, who came to this country in 1765, speaks of the large export of grain, under the bounty-system, as exciting his astonishment, being compared with the extent of cultivation. He attributes this to the small consumption of corn by the English, who "live chiefly upon animal food." M. Grosley had not seen the labourers of the South eating their rye-bread with their hard cheese, and rarely tasting animal food; nor those of the North, satisfied with their oat-meal feast of crowdie or parritch. Rye-bread, barley-bread, and oat-cake, supplied the usual food of the rural population. Notwithstanding this limitation of the consumption of wheat, the increasing numbers of the people could not have been adequately fed without an extension of the area of cultivation. The steady as well as rapid conversion of "barrens" into fertile fields, is strikingly illustrated in the agricultural county of Cambridge. It contains about 536,000 acres of land.

A.D. 1760-1783.

IMPROVED CULTIVATION.

641 In 1794, 112,500 acres were fens, commons, and sheep-walks. In 1806, 63,000 acres of these wastes had been inclosed and cultivated. In 1846 only 10,000 acres of these "barrens" remained uninclosed, and of these, 5000 were mown and fed in the summer. The fen district is that which offers the most remarkable example of improvement. This great morass extended from Cambridge to Lincoln; and was inhabited in the time of Elizabeth by men who walked upon stilts, fishing and fowling, and keeping a little stock upon the hay which they secured out of the fat grass when the streams had retired under the summer drought. In the reign of Elizabeth, and in that of James I., several attempts were made to bring a part of this district under cultivation. In 1630 the undertaking was vigorously set about by Francis earl of Bedford; and a company of adventurers was formed who undertook to drain the land, having ninety-five thousand acres for their recompense. They engaged Cornelius Vermuyden, a Dutch engineer, as the director of the works. They embanked the Welland river, the Nene river, and the Ouse. They made deep cuts, of sufficient length to obtain the name of rivers. The Lincolnshire fens were undertaken to be drained by other companies, about the same period. Various local Acts were passed, and the work went on, more or less prosperously. But Mr. Pusey considers that "though the body of stagnant water was greatly reduced, still it was not subdued, so that the fen land was worth little, even when George III. came to the throne. Mr. Rennie looked upon the wide waste with the comprehensive glance of science, and saw that the outfall to the sea was not sufficient to carry off both the waters of the low lands, and of the rising slope which surrounded the whole margin of the Fen. He made a separate channel to carry off the upland waters. The great invention of Watt pumped out the water into the artificial rivers, instead of the feeble wind-mills that did the work imperfectly in the eighteenth century, a plan first introduced in the reign of George I. The whole land has been made dry, and bears splendid crops of corn.

In Berkshire, king George III. was setting a good example to the agricultural portion of his subjects, and earning the honourable name of "Farmer George." In the Great Park of Windsor he had his "Flemish Farm," and his "Norfolk Farm." He was a contributor to Young's "Annals of Agriculture," under the signature of "Ralph Robinson." Meanwhile the Forest of Windsor exhibited one of the many examples of a vast tract wholly neglected or imperfectly cultivated. In the small farms scattered about the seventeen parishes of the Forest the agriculture was of a very unscientific character. The manners of the farmers and their in-door labourers were as primitive as their turf-fires. It was not till 1813 that an Act was passed for the inclosure of Windsor Forest. Much of this district has been turned into arable; more has been devoted to the growth of timber, under the direction of the Office of Woods and Forests.

The Western and Northern Counties, including Wales, contained a population of about two millions and a half at the end of the seventeenth century; of four millions and a half at the end of the eighteenth century; and of ten millions and a half at the end of the first half of the nineteenth

"Journal of Royal Agricultural Society."

TT