119 



warning voice of fMr. Brougham, himself a giant 

 in the ranks, who when contemplating this very 

 change, which had been termed the ruin of the 

 landed interest, with equal truth and eloquence 

 observes, that it is not meant that the proprietors 

 would be destroyed, that the land would become 

 sterile or sink into the sea, and the owners exter- 

 minated. No ; what is to be understood by the 

 ruin of a great class, and by the destruction of the 

 most commanding interest, is shortly this ; a great 

 change of property, much individual misery, the 

 whole relations of the class destroyed, or the 

 relations of that class to the rest of society and its 

 numbers to each other. Such may be called the 

 destruction of a class ; when it happens to a com- 

 munity, it becomes the destruction of a state." 



Acton Hill, near Stafford, 

 February, 1834. 



| Now Lord Brougham, 



S. TILLING, Printer, Chelsea. 



