APPENDIX. 61
their researches and. endeavours to obtain information,
in order to discover the best remedy for existing abuses.
The one well known and respected as the President of
the late Board of Agriculture : the other, not less dis-
tinguished as a gallant Captain in his Majesty's Navy.
I allude to the Right Honourable Sir John Sinclair,
bart. and Captain E. P. Brenton. They both exactly
agree in opinion, that employment at home, whenever
it can be obtained, is far preferable to emigration, and
that the most sure and certain mode of employment,
conducive to industry, health and profit, and the most
beneficial to the interests of the nation, would be in
works of agriculture, and the produce of food for man.
The former of these authors gives his opinion in the
following words :—" Several years have elapsed since
the author of this paper was first led to discuss this
most interesting subject. His attention, however, has
of late been more particularly called to it, in conse-
quence of an application from the churchwardens and
overseers of one of the most populous parishes in
London, (St. Martin's-in-the-Fields), requesting his
opinion on the practicability, and the probable advan-
tage of directing the labour of the poor to the cultiva-
tion of the waste lands throughout the Country, and
whether a considerable number of the able poor might
not be profitably employed in carrying on some great
agricultural object, so as to render us independant of
foreign supplies for subsistence.
" In answer to that application, it was briefly stated,
that no doubt could be entertained, as a general maxim,
that the best source of occupation for the greater pro-
portion of the idle poor, is the soil. That if the poor