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86 ENCLOSURES OF TH^ EIGHTEENTH 



the cottagers complain for their want of commonage ? This 

 they cannot do, for few of them have any cattle, and 

 whether they have or not, there is recompense out of the 

 enclosures, which will more than treble their loss. Will 

 the engrossers of commons complain who eat up their own 

 share and others' too ? They dare not. Will those honest 

 men complain who live on the theft of the commons ? Not 

 at least with the least reason, for then there will be work 

 for them (in making hedges and ditches and then in the 

 tillage and pasture, which will be increased). ' l In 1744, a 

 nai've method of promoting consolidation, which was one 

 of the results of enclosure, was humbly proposed to the 

 consideration of hon. members of both Houses by an English 

 woollen manufacturer, to this effect, that all who bought 

 two lots of land should receive the title of esquire, that of 

 knight if he bought four, and that of baronet if he bought 

 eight. 2 It is true, no doubt, that some were found to take 

 the other side, but their warning voices were drowned in 

 the general enthusiasm. 3 



^ It will be noted that we are here dealing with two kinds 

 of enclosures, as in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, 

 one of the old commonable field, and the other of the waste. 

 But the movement of the eighteenth differed in two respects. 

 Firstly, whereas in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 

 the enclosures chiefly dealt with the commonable field, those 

 of the eighteenth were largely, though by no means exclu- 

 sively, concerned with the wastes. 4 Secondly, the enclosures 

 of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were often only 



1 Scruton, Commons, p. 134. 



2 Quoted, Mantoux, La Revolution industrielle, p. 155, note. 



3 Cf. especially J. Cowper, Essay proving enclosing contrary to 

 interests of the nation, 1732; Addington, Enquiry into reasons for 

 and against enclosures, 1772 ; Cursory remarks on enclosures, 1786. 



4 The proportion is two-thirds to one-third. 



