144 EVIDENCES AS TO DATE OF VII 



200 a year but is purchased by farmers, who can certainly 

 give more for them than almost any other person, as they 

 turn them to the highest advantage by their own cultiva- 

 tion/ i 



Of Westmoreland I am informed that it was a common 

 practice for younger sons who had returned with fortunes 

 made in trade (in India or the colonies) to invest their 

 savings in land, which was then handed over to the head of 

 the family. He then by agreement proceeded to execute 

 an ordinary family settlement, by which the newly acquired 

 property was settled on himself and his heirs in tail, charges 

 on the estate being by the same deed made for the benefit 

 of these Jacobs. By this means the nominal holding of the 

 family was increased, while a large part of the proceeds 

 was settled on the younger sons. 2 



Thus the conclusion to which all evidence that we have 

 points is that, during the period 1785 to 1802, there was 

 an increase rather than a decrease of the yeomen proper in 

 all parts of England, except those like Lancashire which 

 were more directly and rapidly affected by the industrial 

 revolution, and that, if there was consolidation of property 

 among owners who did not farm their lands, this was 

 rather at the expense of other owners or squires than of 

 yeomen. 3 The reasons for this increase of yeomen I have 

 already suggested. The years were good, and the small 

 occupying owners were tempted to hold on and even to 

 increase the size of their properties, although such a policy 

 often involved them in debt. 



When we pass to the next period, that is from 1802 to 



1 Young, Essex, p. 23, quoted Contemporary ,.44, p. 548. 



2 Wordsworth attributes the later decline of Westmoreland to the 

 destruction of the smaller domestic industries : Description of the 

 Lakes, ed. 1822, pp. 63, 100. 



3 H. Beeke, Observations on Income Tax, p 21, says there were, in 

 1800, 200.000 proprietors in England. 





