258 GILBERT WHITE OF SELBORNE 1793 



Those who reside in the neighbourhood of the 

 beautiful common, which lies above and includes 

 the w^ell-known Hanger, at Selborne ; and even those 

 who have only visited it, will be interested in the 

 attempt to inclose, and therefore to destroy it, as 

 far as the public are concerned ; which is described 

 in the following letter from one of the sons of 

 Benjamin White, senior. The Mr. Fisher mentioned 

 seems to have been an attorney of the baser sort, 

 who regarded property as potential costs. 



From his nephew James White. 



Fleet Street, London, 



Sunday, Feb. 12th, 1793. 



Dear Sir, — In conversation with Mr. Fisher the other 

 day, he told me that the scheme of the Selborne Inclosure 

 is at an end. Now, as you are interested in this, I hope 

 you will excuse my communicating to you Mr. Fisher's and 

 my own sentiments. Mr. Fisher told me that the Inclosure 

 Scheme was one of his own and not dictated to him by 

 Magdalen College. That it was undertaken by him under 

 an idea that they were more interested in it than has since 

 turned out. He says that he had formed a plan and 

 drawn an Act of Parliament for this purpose, but that you 

 told him, some time last Summer, that you had in your 

 possession a copy of a Decree in the Court of Chancery, 

 made in your grandfather's time, which decreed that the 

 Wood and Commons and other Waste Land in the Manor 

 belonged to the Tenants and not to the Lords of the Manor. 

 In consequence of this information from you, he says he 

 shall not pursue his scheme, because, if this is the fact, 

 the benefit which the College will receive from an Inclosure 



