138 EVIDENCES AS TO DATE OF 



that if enclosing continues we may expect to see all great 

 estates engrossed in a few hands. 1 Massie, writing in 175 

 speaks of the monopoly of farms of one to 600 acres in l< 

 counties : Lincoln, Notts., Leicester, Rutland, Warwick, 

 Worcester, Northampton, Bedford, Bucks., Oxon., Berks., 

 Isle of Wight, Herts., Cambridge the counties especially 

 mentioned in the statute 27 Henry VIII with regard to 

 enclosures. 2 Roger North, in his Discourse of the Poor, 

 1753, tells us of the ' vast number of small parchments, 

 deeds, being feoffment and releases to houses, cottages, 

 tenements, and small scattered pieces of land (which one 

 may find among the archives of the chief landowners), 

 where now perhaps only lives one shepherd or farmer under 

 a single proprietor '. 3 Addington, writing in 1767, says it 

 is not uncommon to find 5 or 6 farmers where once there 

 were 30 or 40, though this refers to consolidation of farms 

 rather than to ownership. 4 



So again, Hewlett, though an apologist for enclosure, 

 admits that between 1740 and 1788, 4 or 5 on an average 

 were absorbed in each parish, which, if it were true of all 

 England, would amount to some 40,000 to 50,000, 5 while 

 A. Young (1773) deplores their disappearance : their lands 

 are now in the hands of big men, 6 and it is surely signi- 

 ficant that Goldsmith's Deserted Village was written in 

 1770. Finally, Sir T. Bunbury says that the yeomanry, 

 once the pride of the nation, were, by influx of riches and 

 change of manners, nearly annihilated in 1750. 7 



1 J. Cowper, Enclosing contrary to interest of Nation, quoted by 

 Slater, Enclosures, p. 110. 



2 J. Massie, Plea for Charity Houses, p. 83. 



3 Quoted, Transactions Royal Hist. Soc., xix. 120. 



4 S. Addington, Enquiry into reasons, p. 88 ; Levy, Entstehung des 

 landwirthschaftl. Grossbetriebes, p. 37, and authorities quoted. 



6 T. Hewlett, Insufficiency of causes to which increase of poor rates 

 has been attributed, p. 42. 6 Quoted, Mantoux, p. 126. 



7 Cf. Diet, of Pol. Econ., Article Yeomanry. 



