Protfs, Sfc. 29 



for political information, (Lord Auckland), delivered a speech in the 

 House of Lords, which was afterwards published, and of which the 

 following is an extract : 



" To what, under the protection and favour of Divine Providence, 

 shall such prosperity he ascribed ? to our naval superiority and suc- 

 cesses ; to our conquests in the East and West Indies ; to the acqui- 

 sition of new markets ; to the enterprising spirit of our merchants ; 

 to the improvements of our manufacturers ; to the energy of our coun- 

 trymen in arts and in arms ; to the union of liberty with law ; to the 

 national character, cherished by, and cherishing the principles of our 

 inestimable constitution ; that constitution which it has been the ob- 

 ject of our enemies to destroy, by means and effects utterly destructive 

 to themselves ; that constitution, which it is the great purpose of 

 our struggles, in this just and necessary war, to preserve and to main- 

 tain *." 



Not one word of agriculture in this whole paragraph, intended to 

 enumerate the causes to which our prosperity was to be ascribed. 

 We have hitherto indeed been too much considered as a mere com- 

 mercial nation ; whereas every country possessed of an extensive and 

 fertile territory, ought to account the cultivation of its soil, as the 

 surest foundation of its prosperity, and the best entitled, of all the 

 sources of that prosperity, to the peculiar attention of an enlightened 

 government. Such a government will be ready, at all times, to re- 

 move every obstacle to improvement ; if not to promote, by public 

 encouragement, those unceasing exertions, by which alone, the whole 

 territory of a great country, can be rendered, what it ought to be 

 one uninterrupted scene of industry and cultivation. 



No. VI. 



EVIDENCE OF THE GREAT ADVANTAGES DERIVED FROM THE ES- 

 TABLISHMENT OF A BOARD OF AGRICULTURE, FROM AN ACCOUNT 



OF THE BILLS OF ENCLOSURE PASSED IN THE COURSE OF FORTY 

 YEARS, IN TWO PERIODS, OF TWENTY YEARS EACH, NAMELY, 

 FROM 1774 TO 1793, PRIOR, AND FROM 1794 TO 1813 INCLUSIVE, 

 POSTERIOR TO, THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRI- 

 CULTURE. 



See the substance of Lord Auckland's Speech in the House of Lords, the 

 2d day of May 1796. London : printed for J. Walter, Charing- Cross. 



