208 BANSTEAB COMMONS. 



would have succeeded. With these rights their case was 

 complete, and indeed overwhelming. The case was also 

 a thorough and final vindication of the principles laid 

 down by the Committee of 1865, and always insisted 

 upon by the Commons Society namely, that practically 

 it is not possible to inclose a Common under the Statute 

 of Merton without the sanction of Parliament, and that if 

 contested in the Courts of Law with adequate resources, 

 such attempted inclosures would certainly prove to be 

 invalid and would be abated. 



In this case the policy of buying up and ex- 

 tinguishing rights with a view to such inclosure, was 

 carried out with a pertinacit}^ and with a disregard of 

 expense, exceeding that in any other attempted 

 inclosure. Sir John Hartopp spared no exertions and 

 no money. He expended many thousands of pounds, 

 and gave up enfranchisement dues, valued at many 

 more thousands. He thought he had left so few 

 Commoners outstanding that they might be safely 

 defied. The result showed that all this was to no 

 purpose. The rights still subsisting proved, after full 

 inquiry, to be far more than enough to prevent 

 inclosure of a single rood of the Commons. 



Sir John Hartopp, who had originally embarked on 

 this policy, and the mortgagees, who advanced their 

 thousands upon it, must have cursed the day when 

 they acted upon the advice of their lawyers. The 

 Commoners would gladly have compromised with the 

 mortgagees after the failure of Sir John Hartopp, by 

 paying a few thousand pounds, in order to secure 



