the progress of truth and of liberality does not appear, in this instance at least, to have been equally rapid. The following has been stated as part of an address to the Grand Jury at the Shropshire Assizes 1795, by a judge highly respectable for his private character, and eminently distinguished by his professional abilities:1-" Since I have been in this place, gentlemen, a report has reached me, (without foundation I sincerely hope,) that a set of private individuals are plundering at the expense of public happiness, by endeavouring, in this most abundant country, to purchase the grain now growing on the soil. For the sake of common humanity, I trust it is untrue. Gentlemen, you ought to be the combatants of this hydra-headed monster. It is peculiarly your duty to see justice done to the country. In your respective districts, as watchmen be on your guard. I am convinced from my knowledge of you, that I have no occasion to point out your duty in this case; and that although the Act of Edward VI. be repealed, (whether wisely or unwisely, I take not upon me to say,) yet it still remains an offence at common law, coeval with the constitution; and be assured, gentlemen, whoever is convicted before me, (and I believe I may answer for the rest of my brethren,) when the sword of justice is drawn, it shall not be sheathed until the full vengeance of the law is inflicted upon them: neither purse nor person shall prevent it."

In a cause tried before the Court of King's Bench, 7th June 1800, the same judge is said to have expressed himself as follows:-" I am confident that the public do suffer greatly by machinations, which the Legislature cannot perhaps prevent. This is a very serious subject. Our ancestors thought it wise, in aid of the common law of our land, to enact a statute against forestalling the articles of food. This statute has been thought good policy, from the time of Edward VI. down to our memory; but which was repealed, I know not why. Certainly those who repealed it thought they were acting wisely at the same time, I rather think it might have appeared otherwise, upon

Lord Kenyon.-See Ferguson's Memorial.

more mature deliberation. Men may form fine theories in their closets, but which men of a better knowledge of the world may know to be fallacious and delusive. A very eminent author published a very celebrated, and indeed an excellent work in many respects, the treatise On the Wealth of Nations, in which that ingenious author says, 'forestalling and regrating are no more to be dreaded than witchcraft.'* Another person of high character, with some flaws in it,1 has since adopted that idea; and he was the man to whose exertion was owing the repeal of the statute of Edward against forestalling. Undoubtedly it would have been better if that statute had not been repealed. It is well the extent of the design in the repeal was not carried up to affect the common law of the land;-I wish the old statute to be re-enacted."2

What effect these doctrines have had in encouraging the common popular prejudices on this subject, we may judge from the following observations quoted literally from a Newspaper, which has a very extensive circulation in every part of this island.

"Next to the baneful influence of forestallers and regrators, we conceive the enormous farms held by individuals as one great cause of the present high price of provisions. They are a most intolerable evil, as they cause, in the first instance, the neglect of cultivation, and the unproductiveness of the land, while they enable the farmer to withhold his produce from the markets, and to speculate upon the distresses of the people. But if it be really desired to arrive at the root, and remedy this enormous evil, there can be no better device than a public register of the produce of the harvest in every parish of the kingdom, and a return of sales with the prices, the times, and the buyers' names. From Parishes, these registers should be sent and compared in the Hundreds, and from thence in the County Towns; and finally, the common aggregate return should be transmitted to the Secretary of State for the Home

* [Book IV. chap. v.; Vol. II. p. 309, tenth edition.]

1 Mr. Burke.

2 See the Newspapers of the above date.

Department. Hence, it would at once appear whether there existed scarcity, or the danger of it, and in what degree it was felt or to be apprehended: hence, it would be known what counties were able to succour others which stood in need of it: hence, importation would be encouraged in time if it were needful, by a general competition and a plain calculation; and hence would an enormous part of our capital, now employed only to oppress and starve the public, be driven into the channels of a just and profitable commerce. Perhaps our commercial principles have carried us quite far enough. If we are governed by our capital instead of governing it,—we have the words of Mr. Burke himself for it, who realized the doctrines of Smith,-that it is the greatest of all calamities. Had this extraordinary man survived, he would have been the first to repeal his own statute, and to restore the salutary laws which he abrogated.

"So far as regards the interference of authority with private property, we must observe, that individuals have only a qualified property in articles of general use and necessity. The whole corn of a province cannot belong to a private granary by any sale or conveyance whatsoever. He can have no right or title to lock up his warehouses while his fellow-creatures perish with hunger. The public safety supersedes every private privilege ; and the first duty of a government is to feed its people. The whole corn of the kingdom in the first instance is the property of the grower; but it is a qualified property, for it is not to be withheld from the people. He has undertaken to sell as well as to grow, and to provide corn for the mechanic and the soldier, who clothe and defend him and his family. He has then no right to detain his stacks from the market, nor to extort a price equivalent to detention. A just and free competition would induce every grower to seek a priority of sale, in order to lay out his profits upon his farms; when in steps a third man, who buys it in his barns, in order to withhold it from the market. But what better right can this interloper have than the proprietor himself, from whom he purchased, who has committed to him the care of regulating prices, and

supplying with commodities that he does not produce? What pretence has he to interfere between the grower and the consumer? And if he has a pretence, how can Government want one, whose duty nay, whose first duty, is to fill the mouths of its subjects?"-[But this doctrine was not unopposed.]

"For some time past, some creatures of some of our ministers have been attempting to direct the discontents of the public, at the high price of provisions, against various useful classes of the community, in order to withdraw the odium from themselves and their ruinous measures. They want to devote to execration those very men who feed the public, tossing them overboard without remorse, as a tub to the whale, which they feared might threaten themselves. In the course of this project the most senseless arguments, and, at the same time, the most dangerous principles, have been avowed. These Jacobins have had recourse to everything absurd, and everything wicked, which the economical system of Robespierre ever enacted. The law of the maximum is but a part of what our Jacobins would establish.

"One of their writers who has broached an infinite deal of inflammatory nonsense on these points, now complains of large farms as the cause of the scarcity. He proposes registers of produce, buyers and sellers, &c., to be kept in parishes, hundreds, and so forth, till they are transmitted to the Secretary of State's office. This is neither more nor less than to make the Secretary of State corn merchant general for the whole kingdom. These people tell us, likewise, of qualified property in articles of the first necessity, and so forth. We are tempted to think, that the fools who circulated such stuff are not quite aware of the extent to which their principles may justly be carried. If there be but a qualified property in corn, it is quite easy to show that there can only be a qualified property in that which raises corn,-land. Thus it is easy to prove, that large estates (more necessarily than large farms) are the cause of the scarcity, till the ignorant are at length convinced, by their false and absurd doctrines,

1 From the Star for 4th August 1800; but at second hand, but from what original newspaper is not stated.

that it would be just to rob the Marquis of Buckingham of his property, and to establish an agrarian law, because large estates are not favourable to cultivation. We notice these consequences of the monstrous speculations sent abroad, merely to show certain persons that they should have a care how they venture, for a temporary purpose, to teach doctrines and to enact laws which are in the worst spirit of Jacobinism. If the rage for interfering with all sorts of trade in articles of food be continued, a check will be given to all enterprise and improvement in agriculture; we shall see revived the ridiculous restrictions which ignorance established in the ages of barbarism. It will then be seen whether these speculators can feed the nation with parchment and wax, and their paper regulations, after they have banished all industry, capital, and enterprise from those trades on which the supply of the market depends.”1

From a late decision it would appear, that the rules of English law on this head are extended, by the judges, at present beyond the articles which constituted the necessaries of life when they were first introduced, to whatever articles have since come under that description, in consequence of the progress of luxury. During the last winter,* (according to the report of the newspapers,) a rule for a criminal information. was granted in the Court of King's Bench against Samuel Ferrand Waddington, accused of monopolizing hops. On this occasion, it was stated by the counsel for the prosecution, that "buying hops on the poles is an offence against the common law of this land ;" and, in support of this position, the authority of Lord Coke is quoted, who says, "it is against the common law of England to buy corn in sheaves, for that the market is thereby forestalled." Lord Coke adds, that "the forestaller should not be allowed to live in the habitations of mankind, being the oppressor of the poor, and the enemy of the community."

The opinion of one of the judges is thus reported :-“I am glad that this motion is made. I know an idea has prevailed

From the Morning Chronicle, August, 1800.

[1800? No reference for this case has been given.]