102 ENCLOSURES OF THE EIGHTEENTH 



the majority of owners which was necessary, but of tl 

 owners, who held four-fifths of the land. Those holding 

 the remaining one-fifth might be in a majority and yet 

 be overruled. 1 Moreover, those who opposed enclosure were 

 often coaxed or bribed, 2 or induced to sell, 3 or, if they were 

 copyholders or leaseholders for lives, the lord might refuse 

 to renew, so that their lands might come into his hand. 



The Act once passed, commissioners were appointed to 

 carry it out. The commissioners were named in the Act, 

 they were generally suggested by the petitioners, and 

 therefore were in the interests of the bigger men. Their 

 powers were despotic, and there was no appeal from their 

 award, until the Act of 1801, which instituted an appeal 

 to Quarter Sessions, and also disqualified persons who were 

 not likely to be impartial. A. Young himself, although a 

 strong advocate of enclosures, complained of all this. ' The 

 proprietors of large estates generally agree upon the measure, 

 adjust the principal points among themselves, and fix upon 

 their attorney before they appoint any general meeting of 

 all the proprietors. The small proprietor . . . has little or 

 no weight in regulating the clauses of the Act. The 

 property of the proprietors, especially of the poor ones, is 

 entirely at the mercy of the commissioners, for they are 

 vested with a despotic power known in no other branch of 



quoted there, especially Addington, An inquiry into reasons for and 

 against enclosing, pp. 24-5. 



1 Cf. Mantoux, p. 157. He quotes instance of Quainton, Bucks., 

 where out of thirty-four owners eight proprietors holding more than 

 four-fifths were for enclosure against twenty-two who opposed it. 



2 Cf. Victoria County Hi -t. : Oxford, p. 200, where it was alleged 

 that a commoner bartered his right for a pot of beer. 



8 So Laurence suggests in his Duty of a Steward, p. 37 ; cf. also 

 Report of Board of Agriculture, 1795, Gloucester Reporter, 'The best 

 step would be to pass a general Act ascertaining proportions according 

 to each freeholder's separate property. Speculative men would then 

 soon buy up the smaller shares.' 



