DRAINAGE. 69 



quarters of oats on one acre." Vermuden and Co. received 

 their stipulated remuneration in the shape of 24,500 acres 

 of the reclaimed land. On this they built a town called 

 Sandtoft, erected a church, and introduced as settlers 200 

 families of Walloon and French refugee Protestants. For 

 eighteen years they held quiet possession. According to 

 Dugdale's representation, Lilburne gathered round him 

 three classes of malcontents : 1st, those patriots to whom 

 a royal grant under the great seal was an unjustifiable 

 exercise of prerogative ; 2ndly, the jealous John Bull, to 

 whom the vicinity of a foreigner and a Frenchman was an 

 offence ; and 3rdly, the unreclaimed man,* who even in 

 civilized societies, lingers on the margin of the waste and 

 of the fen. These parties, " taking advantage of the 

 present distractions," broke down the sea-banks, let the 

 water in on the houses, crops, and cattle, and destroyed 

 works which had cost 200,0002. in the erection. They 

 seized by force the property, which they did not destroy, 

 and Lilburne appropriated to himself the parsonage house 

 at Sandtoft (using the church as a barn) and several thou- 



* All writers on marsh-land affairs afford abundant evidence of the 

 existence and of the turbulence of this class. In James I.'s time they 

 adopted a new mode of warfare, " by bringing of turbulent suits in law, 

 and making of libellous songs to disparage the work," of which kind I 

 have here thought fit to insert one, called " The Powtes Complaint," a 

 dozen stanzas, of which probably a couple will suffice for our readers : 

 " They '11 sow both beans and oats where never man yet thought it, 

 Where men did row in boats, ere undertakers bought it : 

 For they do mean all fens to drain, and waters overmaster, 

 All will be dry, and we must die, 'cause Essex calves want pasture. 



" Wherefore let us entreat our ancient water nurses 

 To shew their power so great, as t' help to drain their purses ; 

 And send us good old Captain Flood to lead us out to battle, 

 Then two-penny Jack, with scales on 's back, will drive out all their 



cattle." 



We knew a clergyman of the old school who complained vehemently 

 when a marsh was drained in the vicinity of his parsonage. He said it 

 had been worth several pounds a year to him in pike and wild ducks. 

 Our reverend friend was a most expert snarer of woodcocks. A neigh- 

 bouring squire gave him a quarter of beef every Christmas on condition 

 that he should not set springes on his estate. 



