298 Memoir of Arthur Young, Esq. 



sometimes be esteemed in his own country ; upon this occasion 

 he united with Sir Joseph Banks, who was also deputed by 

 the county of Lincoln, for the same object. As an account of 

 this bill is to be found amply detailed in the Annals of Agri- 

 culture, I shall merely observe in this place, that its object was 

 to prevent wool, of British growth, from being smuggled to 

 France, this, at least, was the ostensible and avowed object, 

 but Mr. Young always considered the real wish of the manu- 

 facturers was to reduce the price, by laying it under heavy 

 restrictions. He was examined at the bars of the Lords and 

 Commons, and published two pamphlets on the subject; he 

 however only succeeded in moderating some of the more hos- 

 tile clauses ; the zeal which he displayed upon the occasion 

 gave great offence to the manufacturers, and Sir Joseph Banks, 

 in a letter to him, at about this period, gives him joy of his 

 having been burnt in eflEgy at Norwich, on so laudable an oc- 

 casion : on the other hand, he received from the pens of the 

 most eminent political economists, tributes of praise for his 

 manly and disinterested exertions, and a pamphlet was ad- 

 dressed to him upon the subject, by Thomas Day, Esq., a 

 gentleman well known as the author of Sandford and Merton, 

 and who has more recently been brought before the public eye, 

 by tlie notice taken of him in the " Mejnoirs of Richard Lovel 

 Edgeworth, Esq." In this pamphlet he says, " If we are de- 

 livered from the present danger, I know no one who has so 

 great a claim to the public gratitude as yourself; as soon as 

 the storm began to gather, your active eye remarked the curling 

 of the waters, and the blackening of the horizon, while every 

 other Palinurus was quietly slumbering around : distinguished, 

 therefore, as you long have been by literary talent, you have 

 now added a nobler wreath, and a sublimer praise to all you 

 merited before." 



In the following July, he set out, alone, on his second journey 

 to France,but he had not proceeded more than an hundred miles, 

 before his mare fell blind ; not however discouraged by this 

 accident, he travelled with her 1,700 miles, and brought her 

 safe back to Bradtield. Still finding that his survey of France 



