SIR JOSEPH BANKS. 377 



on each article of produce valued at an average price, such 

 as you and I think likely to be permanent ; of this sum you 

 and I allot what we think necessary for the cultivation of 

 the farm, what we think the tenant ought to have to pay 

 his household, pay his tithes, rates and taxes, and allow 

 some savings to him. if he is industrious and frugal ; the 

 rest is apportioned to me as my share, and more than that 

 portion no landlord ought to take, and in fact most land- 

 lords of gentlemen's families and liberal educations are con- 

 tented with such a proportion. 



" Those who exact higher rents, who have no feeling for 

 the oppression of their tenants, who employ attorneys as 

 their stewards, or keep lawyers in pay by retaining fees to 

 watch over their interests, and recover arrears from their 

 tenants when they can no longer support their families, and 

 who are at last compelled to deduct from their net profits 

 the cost of law charges, the losses suffered by tenants un- 

 able to pay the whole of the arrears, and the increase of 

 poor's rates on their estates, which must arise from the 

 persons who used to pay them being reduced to the neces- 

 sity of receiving them or of starving, are surely not to be 

 considered as examples which Government wishes to hold 

 up for imitation, and compel humane men to adopt. 



" If I am mistaken in the rate I have set upon my lands 

 as rent, the Commissioners will by enforcing the surcharges 

 put me right ; I must in that case raise the farms not in 

 lease to the rent they consider as a proper one : Government 

 will in that case have the credit of raising my estate very 

 much to my emolument, as I must receive 18s. for every 

 2s. they get, but the whole of the unpopularity of the mea- 

 sure must rest on their shoulders. 



" Thus much for my tenants : for the lands I hold in hand, 

 I have no objection, if the Commissioners choose to rate me 

 so, to pay at the value fixed upon it by the quality men ; 

 they acted under parliamentary sanction, and upon their 

 oaths ; they are persons over whom I have no kind of in- 

 fluence, and if I had, I should have urged them to value as 

 high as possible, because in that case I should get the greater 

 share of the Fen to be divided. I have, however, entirely 

 acquiesced in their valuation, and have received my share of 

 "Wildmore Fen at their rate : am I therefore to receive under 



