A

LETTER

ΤΟ

A FRIEND IN DEVONSHIRE,

ON THE

Present Situation of the Country.

BY A. H. HOLDSWORTH, ESQ.

M. P. FOR DARTMOUTH.

LONDON.

TO THE READER.

Ar the request of some friends, who, viewing the subject in the same light as myself, are anxious to place it before the public, I have been induced to have the following letter printed in the PAMPHLETEER. As 'it may fall into the hands of persons unacquainted with circumstances to which the letter refers, I have added a few notes for their information.

T

MY DEAR

HE miseries we anticipated are now finding their way to the city of London. 1 yesterday learned from a friend there, to whom I was talking on the subject, that the wholesale dealers, who have been round the neighbouring districts for orders, are scarcely able to procure any, "as the farmers," they are told, "are no longer able to purchase any luxuries." To him who will look into this remark, who knows all the points on which it touches, it is a volume on the state of the nation; on the melancholy change which we have seen for the last eighteen months taking place.

It tells you, that till now, London had to learn into what state we had fallen: pointing out the height of luxury to which all ranks had risen, it shows to the statesman whence his indirect taxes were procured to us, it but confirms the first part of the gloomy picture we had drawn, to the finishing of which we have looked with so much fear and anxiety.

But what could any men of thinking minds expect, when they

saw so many estates untenanted, and in the hands of the landlord; others turned into pasture, or tilled without manure; stock every day decreasing; farmers paying their taxes from their capital; and those who have not any,' leaving their farms in the night; covenants no longer of any service,-binding only the landlord; cattle sold to pay rates and taxes, making scarcely any3 return; all improvements in estates naturally at an end; and in consequence4 labourers of all ages on the pay of the parish; the circulation of money decreased to one-third; and much of that on the western coast taken to France' for brandy: what, I say, with such a picture as this before their eyes, could any thinking men expect, but that the tradesman must stop his payments or shut up his shop; and that with him the London trader, the import merchant, and the custom house, must inevitably fall?

The landlord, whose sole dependance is on his rents, living in the midst of his tenantry, the bulwark of our country, must cut down his establishment, diminishing his direct taxes on the one hand, but his indirect taxes ten-fold on the other; or fly, as too many have felt compelled, to spend his small remaining rents in a foreign

Many men who have been thus obliged improvidently to dispose of their stock, have so contrived as to get their neighbours to assist them with their carts; and in one night have removed every thing portable to another part of the country; this is known by the familiar term of "going clear off." 2 Covenants cannot be any longer of service when the tenant has not any thing which you can seize for your rent.

13 A friend of mine sent a man to the fair at Brent, in Devonshire, to buy him one or two good colts, and gave him twenty pounds for the purpose: the man bought seven, and returned two pounds ten shillings in exchange. 4 In many parishes in Devonshire this is the case, the men receiving five shillings per week from the parish funds, and employing themselves in the most unproductive of all labour-breaking stones on the road.

5 There is a very large and increasing trade at this time carried on from our coast with the town of Roscow, near Morlaix, where the spirits are paid for in English Bank notes.