795 no wheat remained; and the
poor of that county would have starved, had not a sum of money been
raised sufficient to buy cargoes of wheat which then reached Plymouth.

The suffering was increased by the extraordinary cold of that midsummer
which destroyed hundreds of newly-shorn sheep and blighted the corn.
Driving storms of rain in August laid the crops. On heavy land they were
utterly spoilt, so that even by October the poor felt the pinch. From
all parts there came the gloomiest reports. In Oxfordshire there was no
old wheat left, and the insatiable demands from the large towns of the
north sent up prices alarmingly. In November Lord Bateman wrote from
Leominster that the wheat crop was but two thirds of the average, and,
if Government did not import wheat directly, not through fraudulent
contractors, riots must ensue. Reports from Petworth, East Grinstead,
and Battle told of the havoc wrought by blight and rains. At Plymouth
the price of wheat exceeded all records. Lord Salisbury reported a
shortage of one third in the wheat crop of mid-Hertfordshire. Kensington
sent a better estimate for its corn lands. But the magistrates of
Enfield and Edmonton deemed the outlook so threatening that they urged
Pitt and his colleagues (1) to encourage the free importation of wheat,
(2) to facilitate the enclosure of all common fields and the conversion
of common and waste lands into tillage; (3) to pass an Act legalizing
relief of the poor in every parish by the weekly distribution of bread
and meat at reduced prices in proportion to the size of the family and
of its earnings.[425]

The protests against the Corn Laws are significant. In 1773 the bounty
system of the reign of William III was revised, the average price of
wheat being reckoned at forty-four shillings the quarter. If it fell
below that figure, a bounty of five shillings a quarter was granted on
export, so as to encourage farmers to give a wide acreage to wheat, in
the assurance that in bountiful seasons they could profitably dispose of
their surplus. But when the price rose to forty-four shillings
exportation was forbidden, and at forty-eight shillings foreign corn was
admitted on easy terms so as to safeguard the consumer; for, as Burke
said: "he who separates the interest of the consumer from the interest
of the grower starves the country." Unfortunately, in 1791, Government
raised the price at which importation was allowed to fifty-four
shillings the quarter. T