James II. mistakenly depended for the success of his anti-Protestant and arbitrary schemes."-Wade's British Chronology. Such is the most concise history that we could lay before the reader, in quotations, of the politics of English landed property. We shall show, presently, what a momentous change is recorded in this little history; but, before proceeding to any remarks of our own, we must advert to another change in the disposition of a large portion of the soil of England. "In the course of the fourteenth century, the demand for wool to supply not only the markets of the Netherlands, but also the infant manufacturers of our own country, rapidly increased. This circumstance brought about an important change in the distribution of the population. The owners of land, finding sheep-feeding more profitable than husbandry, commenced the same system which we have all witnessed in full operation in the Highlands of Scotland. The peasantry, previously employed in tillage, were turned adrift upon the world; the allotments of arable land, which had afforded them and their families the means of subsistence, were enclosed, consolidated, and converted into sheep-walks; and the policy of Henry VII. greatly accelerated a social revolution which had commenced before his accession. The misery and suffering which this change of system inflicted upon the ejected peasantry, have been depicted in beautiful and glowing language by Sir Thomas More, in his Utopia. "Your sheep,' says he, 'which were wont to be so meek and tame, and so small eaters, now become so great devourers, and so wild, that they eat up and swallow down the very men themselves. They con sume, destroy, and devour whole fields, houses, and cities; for, look in what part of the realm doth grow the finest, and therefore dearest wool; there, noblemen and gentlemen-yea, and certain abbots, holy men, God wot! - not contenting themselves with the yearly revenues and profits that were wont to grow to their forefathers and predecessors of their lands, nor being content that they live in rest and pleasure, nothing profiting, yea, much annoying, the weal public, leave no ground for tillage. They enclose all into pastures, they throw down houses, they pluck down towns, and leave nothing standing but only the church, to be made a sheep-house. And, as though you lost no small quantity of ground by forests, chases, lands, and parks, those good, holy men, turn all dwelling-places and all glebe lands into desolation and wilderness, "Therefore, that one covetous, and unsatiable cormorant and very plague of his native country may compass about and enclose many thousand acres of ground together within one pale or hedge, the husbandmen be thrust out of their own, or else, either by cozen and fraud, or by violent oppression, they be put beside it, or by wrongs and injuries they be so wearied that they be compelled to sell all, By one means, therefore, or other, either by hook or by crook, — they must needs depart away, poor, silly, wretched souls! men, women, husbands, wives, fatherless children, widows, woful mothers with their young babes and their whole household, small in substance and much in number, as husbandry requireth many hands; for one shepherd or herdsman is enough to eat up that ground with cattle, to the occupying whereof about husbandry many hands were requisite. After that so much ground was enclosed for pasture, an infinite multitude of sheep died of the rot; such vengeance God took of their inordinate, unsatiable covetousness sending among the sheep that pestiferous murrain, which much more justly should have fallen on the chief masters' own heads. . . . . .... "A very considerable portion of the discarded occupiers were thus absorbed; but the remainder, amounting, as it appears from all the records of the period, to no inconsiderable number, either unable to find a small spot of land to rent and occupy, or unwilling to submit to the confinement of towns and manufactories, became wandering beggars, infesting the roads and villages of the country. Hence the English poor-laws. During this memorable period in the history of our peasantry, various laws were enacted for the suppression of vagrancy, and these were finally amended and consolidated in the celebrated act of 43 Elizabeth. But another revolution was now approaching, and one which has affected their (the peasantry.) welfare more extensively, as well as more intensely, than even the momentous change wrought under the dominion of the Tudors. The numerous small farms which had escaped consolidation, and consequently supplied an asylum for the peasantry discarded from the larger estates, were now doomed to undergo a similar revolution. Through the operation of too obvious causes, several of the smaller farms in each parish had come to be the property of one landlord. It was then discovered that the division and enclosure of the common fields and wastes of the parish would render this property more profitable, by facilitating the introduction of an improved system of tillage. In 1709, an application was made to Parliament for an act to divide and enclose the common fields and wastes belonging to the parish of Ropley. This served as an encouragement and example, and applications of the same kind became annually more frequent. It appears that, since that period, very nearly 4000 bills of enclosure have been passed; and it is also well known that, in numer ous instances, the same end has been reached without legislative interference, by private agreement among the parties interested. In a word, we have scarcely a doubt that about 5000 parishes (a moiety of the whole territory of England) have been subjected to the operation of these measures in the space of about one hundred and twenty years; and as little (however beneficial the division and consequent improvement of this vast territory may have proved to the owners, and to some other classes) that the change has been a woful one for our peasantry. We believe that the final extinction of the class of small occupiers and crofters has, in almost every instance, followed the division of common field parishes."-Quarterly Review, July, 1829. The political history of landed property in England, therefore, appears to have been as follows: 1st. The lands were accorded by the king to persons who were to undertake the military service of the kingdom. 2d. The performance of this military service was the condition on which individuals held the national land. 3d. The lands were at first held for life, and afterwards were made hereditary. 4th. The military service was abolished by the law, and a standing army introduced. 5th. This standing army was paid by the king. 6th. The king, having abolished the military services of the individuals who held the national land, resorted to the taxation of articles of consumption for the payment of the army. The lands of England, therefore, instead of being held on condition of performing the military service of the kingdom, became the property of the individuals who held them, and thus the state of England lost the lands of England. And the military service of the kingdom, instead of being performed by those individuals who held the national land, was henceforth (after the reign of Charles II.) to be paid for by the general taxation of the inhabitants of the country. Therefore the present system of taxation, and the national debt, the interest of which is procured by the forcible taxation of the general inhabitants of England, are both due to the alienation of the lands from the state, inasmuch as the national debt (incurred for war expenses) would have been a debt upon the lands, and not a debt upon the people of England.* If, * Total Expense of the Army, Navy, and Ordnance, from 1790 to 1815, inclusive, in millions sterling, (round numbers.) To this it may be added, that the war charges of the kingdom, from the year 1815 to 1848, amounted to 484 millions sterling; and the advantage to the country of an aristocratic House of Commons, having an unlimited power to tax the labors of the community, may be inferred from the fact, that from 1835 to 1847, (inclusive,) the expenses of the war establishments increased rather more than a |