Committee on Agricultural Distress found that farmers were paying rent
out of capital (_Parliamentary Reports. Committees_, v. 71), and that
leases fixed on the basis of the high prices of the war meant ruin to
the farmer if held to his engagement.

[589] _Parliamentary Reports, Committees_, ix. 138.

[590] Cobbett, _Rural Rides_ (ed. 1885), i. 3, 16.

[591] _Report of the Committee on Agricultural Depression_ (1822), pp.
3, 4.

[592] Walpole, _History of England_, ii. 23.

[593] _Hansard_, ix. 1544.

[594] Ibid. x. 1, 2.

[595] Ibid. xii. 1.

[596] _Rural Rides_, ii. 199.

[597] Walpole, _History of England_, ii. 526. The distress was
aggravated by rot among sheep, which is said to have destroyed
one-fourth of those in the kingdom. See _Parliamentary Reports,
Commissioners_ (1836), viii (2), p. 198.

[598] Tooke, _History of Prices_, ii. 227.

[599] _Report_ of 1833, p. 6.

[600] Tooke, _History of Prices_, ii, 238.

[601] Imports fell considerably at this date; they were:

1832 1,254,351 quarters.
1833 1,166,457 "
1834 981,486 "
1835 750,808 "
1836 861,156 "
1837 1,109,492 "
1838 1,923,400 "

There were also considerable exports:

1832 289,558 quarters.
1833 96,212 "
1834 159,482 "
1835 134,076 "
1836 256,978 "
1837 308,420 "
1838 158,621 "

McCulloch, _Commercial Dictionary_ (1847), p. 438.

[602] Porter, _Progress of the Nation_, p. 151.

[603] See Duncumb, _General View of Herefordshire_, (1805).

[604] Rural Rides, ii. 348.

[605] London, _Encyclopaedia of Agriculture_ (1831), p. 1156.

[606] Cobbett, _Rural Rides_, i. 149. The average, however, now was
about 9s.; see _Parliamentary Reports_, v. 72.

[607] _A Letter to the Earl of Liverpool by an Old Tory_ (1822), p.
16.

[608] _Rural Rides_, i. 18.

[609] Moore, _History of Devonshire_, i. 430.

[610] By this Act and the various amending Acts the law of settlement,
so long a burden on the labourer, is now settled thus: a settlement
may be acquired by birth, parentage, marriage, renting a tenement, by
being bound apprentice and inhabiting, by estate, payment of taxes,
and by residence.--Stephen, _Commentaries on the Laws of England_
(1903), iii. 87.

[611] Hasbach, _op. cit._ p. 217.

[612] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (1901), p. 9.

CHAPTER XX

1837-1875

REVIVAL