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should occupy the ground where the rich harvest 

 lately smiled, or the monarch of the forest stood. It 

 would be far better that the restless and impatient 

 desire of the commercialist for gain should be checked, 

 and that luxury should be abridged, than that the 

 owners of the soil, who have a deeply vested interest 

 in the well-being of their country, should lose their 

 preponderance, and that the yeomanry of the 

 kingdom, whose interests are, notwithstanding the 

 assertions of political economists, identified with the 

 interests of the owners of the soil, and who are 

 perhaps the most loyal subjects in the King's do- 

 minions, and who are even ready to defend the inte- 

 rests of property from popular violence, that this 

 class too should be ruined ; that the peasantry also, 

 who unfortunately have in a great measure lost those 

 elements of character which made them " their 

 country's pride," should be entirely pauperised. Can 

 it be expedient, or right, that the interests of these 

 important portions of the community should be still 

 farther impaired, these classes which have hitherto 

 opposed a bold front to faction, which have stood 

 as a breakwater to resist the storms and boisterous 

 waves of factious discontent, and have preserved in 

 safety the vessel of the state. " Trade indeed," says 

 Lord Chatham , " increases the wealth and glory of a 

 country ; but its real strength and stamina are to be 

 looked for among the cultivators of the soil ; in their 

 simplicity of life is found the simpleness of virtue, the 

 integrity and courage of freedom. These true ge- 

 nuine sons of earth are invincible ; and they surround 



