18 AN AGRICULTURAL FAGGOT. 



The conclusion to which all evidence that we have points is, 

 that during the period 1785 to 1802 there was an increase 

 rather than a decrease of the yeomen proper. . . . When we 

 pass to the next period — that is, from 1802 to 1832 — there is 

 a different tale to tell. 1 



This class had been for generations the backbone of 

 rural England, and their political influence, based on 

 their sturdy independence and self-respect, was great. 

 On them fell the main burden of those public duties the 

 cheerful fulfilment of which forms the secret of that 

 genius for self-government which is the pride of the race. 

 From them Hampden and Cromwell drew their power. 



Compared with the bulk of the population they were a 

 privileged class, and stood by their own ; it was they who 

 restored the franchise to the 40s. freeholders in 1654, and 

 refused to extend it to the copyholders. But the tenure of 

 much of the land of England by men with whom, however 

 poor, no landlord or employer could interfere, set a limit to the 

 power of wealth, and made rural society at once more alert 

 and more stubborn, a field where great ideas could grow and 

 great causes find adherents. 2 



There is general agreement that there was at one time 

 a very considerable proportion of the land occupied by 

 men who owned the land they cultivated, although it 

 seems clear that the " yeomen of England " included 

 large numbers who were not freeholders, but held by 

 different forms of tenure — as, for example, leases for 

 lives and copyhold — which were, as regards security of 

 individual possession during lifetime, almost equivalent 

 to freehold. There is no sufficient evidence to show what 

 proportion they bore to the total number of cultivators 

 of the soil. It appears however, that there was a shrink- 

 ing in the number of the smaller owners somewhere between 

 the beginning of the seventeenth century and the year 

 1785, and again during tl « period of depression at the 



1 Johnson, " The Disappearance of the Small Landowner," 

 p. 144. 



2 Tawney, " The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century," 



P- 39- 



