DECLINE OF LANDOWNING FARMERS 209 



mortgaged their farms for more than their value at the reduced 

 prices, they have been almost universally ruined." 1 This class 

 of farmers met with the same misfortune in Lincolnshire. 2 In 

 Cheshire "a great many farmers got a considerable sum of 

 money, and were made to lay it out in land. They purchased 

 land at forty years' purchase, in some instances, and borrowed 

 probably half the money," and soon after, the produce sold for 

 so much less than formerly that they could not pay the interest 

 on the money they had borrowed and were " obliged to sell their 

 properties for what they could get." 3 In Shropshire, again, 

 farmers paid high prices for land and " borrowed money, as much 

 as they could sell the property for afterwards." 4 These same 

 stories are repeated for Norfolk, 5 Hampshire, 6 Somersetshire, 7 

 Berkshire and Buckinghamshire. 8 



Improvements do not appear to have been very generally the 

 occasion of indebtedness, but in some instances the witnesses 

 before the select committee gave this as an important cause. 9 



The provision for younger children, or the paying off of the 

 other heirs when one member of the family took the estate, was 

 often the occasion of heavy indebtness. In Cumberland the 

 " statesmen " had large families and " from a miscalculation of 

 their real situation " they left their children " larger fortunes than 

 they ought to have done," and saddled the oldest son with the 

 payment of a sum of money which it was impossible for him to 



1 Parliamentary Papers, questions 12,216, 12,219. 



2 Ibid., question 7903. 5 Ibid., question 2197. 



3 Ibid., question 5S20. 6 Ibid., question 9928. 



4 Ibid., question 532. " Ibid., questions 4862-4866. 



8 Ibid., 1836, Vol. VIII, questions 1192, 1268. 



9 Ibid., 1833, Vol. V. Commencing with 5816, Lee. Cheshire, the minutes 

 read : " If a yeoman, tempted by high prices of the war, had borrowed money to 

 improve his little property, what would be the condition of that man with the 

 prices falling, the debt remaining and his own habits remaining the same ? " The 

 witness replies, " Entire ruin." Again, with Buckley from the Midland counties 

 as witness, the minutes. 8582 et seq., read as follows : " From your own knowledge, 

 were not many of these small proprietors tempted during the war to borrow 

 money to improve their lands ? No doubt about that. . . . Those parties, without 

 any fault of their own. have been by this debt, contracted for the improvement of 

 their estates, worked out of their estates ? Completely so, without the least fault 

 of their own. ... I know many who have been . . . ruined [in this way]." 



