11
better judgment, whether if these reasons for a
partial enclosure of these Forests existed in the
year 1818, they do not, under the present circum-
stances of the country, now appear with ten times
the force ; and whether what was thought expe-
dient in 1818, may not be said to be necessary in
1831, in order to find employment and provision
for thousands of His Majesty's subjects, who are
clamorous for work. I submit it to your lord-
ships, whether it be just or politic to signify to
the complainants, that the only place for finding
advantageous work is in foreign climes, when
many thousand acres of good land bordering on
the metropolis remain uncultivated.
These men, my Lords, by their distress, are
not only a burden to themselves and a terror to
their country, but such a pressure on all those
who contribute to the poor-rates, that the whole
must be involved in general ruin, if not speedily
relieved.*
These considerations, together with a dis-
covery of many partial encroachments which
have been permitted, but which we verderors
* At the Petty Sessions lately holden at Ilford, one of the
parishes bordering on these Forests, about fifty stout-bodied
men presented themselves before the Magistrates, and complained
of the parish officers for not providing them with work ; they were
clamorous in their complaints.
B 2