WEDGWOOD'S ADDRESS TO THE YOUNG INHABITANTS. 295 



you, who are just entering into life, to think upon this subject 

 with great seriousness. 



" The evils complained of, and which it is pretended the tumults 

 were to remedy, are, if I am rightly informed 



" 1. The dearness of provisions. 



" 2. The great number of dealers in those provisions. 



"3. That no relief is given to the poor by their rich neighbours 

 unless the former rise in a body to demand it. 



" With respect to the first evil (the dearness of provisions}, it is 

 admitted that provisions are dear ; but before any censure or abuse 

 is on this account offered to people who may be as innocent as our- 

 selves, we ought first to inquire if the hand of Providence is not 

 visible to all who will see it in this dispensation ; and surely 

 that consideration may be sufficient to stop the most daring man, 

 and induce him to bear with becoming patience his share of the 

 public calamity, and submit quietly to the will of Heaven, lest he be 

 found fighting against his Maker. Let us then coolly examine into 

 the causes of this scarcity of provisions, and how we can best alleviate 

 a distress which no human power may be able entirely to remove. 



"It is well known the weather was so unfavourable the last 

 season, that the farmer with difficulty got his seed into the 

 ground ; and the following cold and the almost continual rains 

 rendered the crops so small as scarcely to pay him for that seed and 

 his own labour. We all know, likewise, that the harvest was so 

 late and so wet that nearly half of that small crop was spoiled before 

 it could be got into the barn. What can we expect from the 

 farmer in these circumstances ? He must raise the price of the 

 produce of his lands, or he can neither maintain his family nor pay 

 his rents that is, he must be ruined. Is it reasonable, then, to 

 expect, when the seasons have been so unfavourable, and the earth 

 has not yielded her wonted supply of corn and other provisions, 

 that the farmer only should suffer, and the manufacturer shield 

 himself by violence from bearing his share of the public calamity ? 



" It is an unhappy circumstance that there should, in times of 

 scarcity especially, be such an unreasonable antipathy between the 

 growers and consumers of provisions, that one party will scarcely 

 hear a word in favour of the other without accusing him who offers 

 it of too much partiality. But as there is such a natural connection 

 between them that one cannot subsist without the other, it would 

 be very desirable to have these prejudices removed ; and it must 

 argue a want of fairness in us if we do not consider the farmers' 

 situation in this case as though it were our own. For these reasons 



