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tended very much to lessen our population.
Does there then remain a doubt that by these
and similar enactments, the Legislature did in
the time of our Ancestors interfere to protect
the smaller farmer from the encroachment of
the larger; and that they considered it the
soundest policy, that the labouring poor should
have some interest in the soil which they culti-
vate? The question then comes—Is the con-
dition of the poor deteriorated by a departure
from this benevolent policy of our Ancestors ?
Indeed, I think we cannot in justice refuse to
find a Bill for the poor agricultural man, with a
recurrence to the hint given him, that the ame-
lioration of his condition will depend on his
quiet and peaceable behaviour, and his sub-
mission to those laws from which alone he can
obtain redress. I have dwelt longer on this im-
portant subject; not only to advance the great
object I have in view, but to show our legisla-
ture the necessity of changing the mode of relief,
which, by a wrong policy, they have for many
years adopted, and to revert to the more sound
and benevolent system of our ancestors.
Having, by this inquiry, found a Bill in favour
of the labouring poor; let us now see what
is the surest, safest and most immediate way
of finding a remedy for his complaints. Were
the legislature to enact an increase of his
D