144 BECOBDS AND BEMINISCENCES OF GOODWOOD 



distress of the labourers, stating that they were loyal 

 to their King and obedient to the laws, and sought 

 not to intimidate, but asked from their Lordships for 

 that inquiry which it seemed to him they had an 

 actual right to demand. 



He declared that statements appeared every day 

 in the newspapers that peasants, guiltless of crime, 

 were harnessed to waggons and degraded to the labour 

 of brutes. This cruel occurrence was frequently 

 witnessed, not only in Chester, but in the very county 

 where the head of the Government was one of the 

 principal land-owners and the Lord-Lieutenant ; to 

 which the Duke of Wellington replied in a most 

 dignified manner, deprecating personal attacks, which 

 could do no good to the cause they all had at heart. 



The Duke of Eichmond replied that the noble 

 Duke must know but little of him if he supposed 

 that anything which he had said had been dictated 

 by personal feeling. He had served under the noble 

 Duke's banner, and had passed some of the happiest 

 days of his life with him, and if he were to act as 

 his personal feelings dictated, it would be in every 

 case to support the noble Duke. He had alluded to 

 an occurrence in which the noble Duke had a pre- 

 ponderating influence, only to corroborate his assertions 

 that the English peasantry were men in a most 

 impoverished and degraded state. 



Upon the accession of William lY. to the throne, 



