University of Virginia Library

LETTER IX.

To trace with precision all the
causes, great and small, which operated to
the dismemberment of John Bull's estate,
would be no easy task; some of them perhaps,
were secret, but of such, as were
open to observation, we shall endeavour
to sketch out the principal.

It is well known that he was of a choleric
habit, and that those who were acquainted
with his humor and passions,
could manage and impose upon him at
their pleasure. Had he been let alone to
pursue his own business himself, his plain,

natural good sense, and generosity of
mind, would have kept him clear of many
difficulties; but he had his advisers, his
hangers on, his levee hunters, his toad
eaters, and sycophants, forever about him,
who, like a parcel of blood suckers, could
never have enough to glut their voracity.

When the forest was first occupied by
the tenants, Bull had a wife[1] who minded
her own domestic business, and did not
concern herself with his landed interest.
The leases and grants were made out in
his name, and he was supposed to be the
owner or proprietor; but the lady whom
he had married after his second sickness
was very assuming, and insisted on having
her hand in the management of all his affairs.
She visited the compting house,
and made the clerks shew her their books;
she overhalled the steward's accounts, and
inspected his correspondence; she not
only looked after the rents and incomes
of the forest, but even intruded into the

household concerns of the tenants, and
affected to call herself their mother, because
she had taken some care of one or
two of them in their first fetting out, although
most of them scarcely ever had
seen her face, or had any acquaintance
with her, but by hearsay.

It must be observed, also, that this
woman had engaged Mr. Bull in some
expensive lawsuits and speculations, which
had got him deeply into debt, and he was
obliged to hire money of usurers to carry
her schemes into execution. Had she,
at the same time, introduced that frugality
and economy into the family, which
her duty ought to have prompted her to,
this debt might have been kept down;
but the swarm of harpies which were continually
about her, and the course of
gambling which was carried on under her
connivance and direction, swallowed up
all the profits of the trade, and incomes
of the land; while the luxury and dissi

pation of the family increased, in proportion
as the means of discharging the debt
decreased. In short, Mr. Bull was reduced
to that humiliating condition, which,
by whatever fashionable name it may now
go, was formerly called petticoat-government.

During the lawsuit with Lewis and
Lord Strut,[2] concerning the forest, there
had been a great intercourse with the
tenants. Many of Bull's servants and
retainers, who were employed as bailiffs
and attornies, and their deputies, had
been very conversant with them, and were
entertained at their houses, where they always
found wholesome victuals, jolly fire
sides, and warm beds. They took much
notice of every thing that passed, asked
many questions, and made many remarks
on the goodness of the land, the pleasant
situation of the houses, the clean and
thriving condition of the children, who

were always ready to wait them, to clean
their boots, hold their stirrups, open and
shut the gates for them, and the like little
necessary services, as well bred children
in the country are wont. The remarks
which these persons made, when they got
home, favored rather of envy, than of
gratitude or affection. Some of them
would say: “Those fellows live too well
in the forest; they thrive too fast; the
place is too good for them; they ought
to know who is their master; they can
afford to pay more rent; they ought
to pay for the help they have had; if it
had not been for Master Bull, and the
assistance which he has lent them, they
would have been turned out of doors;
and now they are to reap the benefit of
his exertions, while he, poor man, is to
pay the cost.”

There were not wanting some, in the
families of the Foresters themselves, who
had the meanness to crouch to these fellows,
and supplicate their favour and interest

with Mr. Bull, to recommend them
to some posts of profit, as understewards,
collectors of rent, clerks of receipts, and
the like pretty offices. These beggarly
curs would repeat the same language, and
hold correspondence with the bailiffs, attornies,
&c. after they had got home.
Whenever any trifling quarrel happened
in the families of the tenants, they would
magnify it and fill their letters with complaints
of the licentiousness of the people,
and plead for a tighter hand to be held
over them.

Such speeches as those were frequently
made, and such letters read, in the hearing
of Mr. Bull's wife and steward.
Their language grew by degrees to be
the current language of the family, and
Bull himself listened to it. His choler
rose upon the occasion, and when his
hangers on observed it, they plied him
with stronger doses, till his jealousy and
hatred were excited, and a complete revolution
in his temper, with regard to

his tenants, took place, agreeably to the
most sanguine and malevolent wishes of
his and their enemies.

The first effect of this change was, that
his clerks were ordered to charge not only
the prices of the goods, which the tenants
should purchase, but to make them
pay for the paper[3] on which their bills of
parcels and notes of hand were written,
and that at a very exorbitant rate. This
was so intolerable an abuse, and withal so
mean, pitiful, and beggarly an expedient
to pick their pockets, that they held a
meeting among themselves, and resolved
not to buy any more of his goods, as long
as this imposition lasted; and by way of
contempt, they hanged and burned the
effigies of the steward, and other persons
who were suspected of having advised to
these new measures.

The resentment shewn by the tenants
on this occasion was quite unexpected.

The secret favourers, and real authors of
the mischief, began to be afraid that they
had gone too far for the first attempt.
Bull's journeymen were in an uproar about
it, left by the failure of his trade,
they should be out of bread; and to
shorten the story, he was obliged to give
up the point of making them pay for the
paper, though Madam had the singular
modesty to make a declaration, that it was
a mere matter of expediency, and that she
had the sole power and right of dominion
over them, notwithstanding Mr. Bull's
most gracious concession at that time.[4]

This was considered by the tenants as
a most impudent and barefaced assumption;
for whatever rights Mr. Bull might
pretend to have, as their old master and
landlord, yet they never had any idea of
a mistress over them; and though they
very complaisantly returned him their
thanks for his present goodness, yet as

they suspected that there was more mischief
hatching, they began to inquire more
narrowly than ever into his right and title
to the land, on which they lived.
They looked over old parchments and
memorandums, consulted council learned
in the law, and after due deliberation,
they were fully convinced, that their own
title was, at least, as good as his, and that
they had a right to refuse him any rent or
acknowledgment, if it were prudent for
them to exercise it.

Mr. Bull's jealousy was now increased
with regard to their intentions, and his
scribbling retainers frequently accused
them of ingratitude and disobedience, and
a long premeditated design to set up for
independence; a thing which they had
not yet thought of, and probably never
would, if this abusive treatment had not
put it into their heads.

But though by those means they were
led into an inquiry, and a train of thinking,

which were quite new to them; yet
as old habits are not easily broken, and
their affection for their master was very
strong, they endeavoured, with a candor
which did them honor, to transfer the
blame from him to his wife and steward,
to whose machinations they knew he was
a dupe. These bad counsellors soon renewed
their attempts in another shape, by
raising the rent, and putting an advanced
price upon the goods, and by means of
additional clerks, packers, porters, watchmen,
draymen, &c. who were continually
in waiting, and to all of whom fees were
to be paid, the trade laboured under great
embarrassments, and some of the foresters
were quite discouraged, others were vexed
and impatient, while some of the better
tempered of them, endeavoured to persuade
the rest to keep up the communication
as long as they could. They were
loth to quarrel with their old master, and
yet could not pocket the affronts and abuses
to which they were daily exposed.

During this sullen interval, many letters
passed, many books and precedents
were examined, and much ink was shed, in
a controversy, which, however incapable
of a decision in this way, might have been
compromised, if Mr. Bull's first thoughts
had been as good as his second; but he
was so completely under management, as
not to see his true interest. It was a common
saying among his neighbors, “John
Bull's wit comes afterward;” and in fact
it did not come in this case, till too late,
for, when a cause once gets into the law,
there are so many quirks, evasions, demurs,
and procrastinations, that it is impossible
to make a retreat, till one or both
of the parties have severely smarted for
their temerity.