Trunk Drainage. 
25 
who begin to find that tlieir prosperity, progress, nay even 
existence, is dependent upon a perfect clearing and opening of the 
channels to sea. 
The largest work undertaken by any company was the drainage 
of 310,000 acres, under the Earl of Bedford, in the reign of 
(Charles I. — a district since denominated the "Bedford Level" — 
which from its position as the greatest field on which arterial 
works have received, as it were, their cultivation and principal 
development, must have a word or two of reminiscence in this 
paper. This immense tract, a portion of it continually under 
water, while some parts yielded large crops of hay to tlie sur- 
rounding and the island uplands, and all more or less valuable 
to many classes of people for its turf, fuel, fish, wild fowl, reeds, 
osiers, and other fen products, was to be made " summer land," 
or free from inundation during that season. And the recom- 
pense for the work was to be 95,000 acres of land set out from 
all parts of the plain, of which 43,000 were to pay for the first 
excavations, »Scc., 40,000 to be set aside for the perpetual main- 
tenance of the works, and 12,000 allotted to the King (Charles I.) 
as lord of very extensive manors in the Level. What power had 
the Crown or the Commissioners of Sewers thus to sever and 
alienate this great proportion of the property of others ? The 
statute of 23rd Henry Vin. gave them this authority as far as 
regards the land of the King, or any other person ; but as the 
greater part of the Level consisted of very extensive open com- 
mons, there was still the difficulty of enforcing a division of 
these lands. The General Drainage Act of the 43rd Elizabeth,^ 
to which I have alluded, gave " the lord or lords of the wastes 
and commons, and the most of the commoners for the particular 
commons," power to contract with undertakers for part of such 
commons, &c., " the conveyances thereupon made to be good and 
available in law." So that the Commissioners of Sewers, the 
owners of fen-lands, and the Earl of Bedford, having united 
under the King's commission, the contract being duly enrolled 
in the High Court of Chancery became an effective law. How- 
ever, the country people in general did not sanction such a pro- 
ceeding, and exhibited all tlie greater repugnance when the new 
drains and rivers proved ineffectual from the uprising of their 
soft shallow bottoms, and when the shrinlang of the light peaty 
embankments let the floods soak through. During the Common- 
wealth the Fen-men forcibly re-entered upon their 95,000 acres, and 
when the Earl sought the assistance of parliament, the Commons 
decided that under colour of a statute of improvement the drainers 
had abstracted a large quantity of lands and common feeding- 
grounds from their rightful possessors, and voted out his bill as 
" an injustice, oppression, violence, project, and grievance." 
