to Norwich to be sold to the
doctor. Unfortunately, it turned out that the boy was alive and well,
and lived to give his poor mother a good deal of trouble. Another thing,
of which I have still a vivid recollection, was the mischief wrought by
Captain Swing. In Kent there had been an alarming outbreak of the
peasantry, ostensibly against the use of agricultural machinery. They
assembled in large bodies, and visited the farm buildings of the
principal landed proprietors, demolishing the threshing machines then
being brought into use. In some instances they set fire to barns and
corn-stacks. These outrages spread throughout the county, and fears were
entertained that they would be repeated in other agricultural districts.
A great meeting of magistrates and landed gentry was held in Canterbury,
the High Sheriff in the chair, when a reward was offered of 100 pounds
for the discovery of the perpetrators of the senseless mischief, and the
Lords of the Treasury offered a further reward of the same amount for
their apprehension; but all was in vain to stop the growing evil. The
agricultural interest was in a very depressed state, and the number of
unemployed labourers so large, that apprehensions were entertained that
the combinations for the destruction of machinery might, if not at once
checked, take dimensions it would be very difficult for the Government to
control. When Parliament opened in 1830, the state of the agricultural
districts had been daily growing more alarming. Rioting and incendiarism
had spread from Kent to Suffolk, Norfolk, Surrey, Hampshire, Wiltshire,
Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Huntingdonshire, and Cambridgeshire, and a
great deal of very valuable property had been destroyed. A mystery
enveloped these proceedings that indicated organization, and it became
suspected that they had a political object. Threatening letters were
sent to individuals signed 'Swing,' and beacon fires communicated from
one part of the country to the other. With the object of checking these
outrages, night patrols were established, dragoons were kept in readiness
to put down tumultuous meetings, and magistrates and clergymen and landed
gentry were all at their wits' ends. Even in our out-of-the-way corner
of East Anglia not a little consternation was felt. We were on the
highroad nightly traversed by the London and Yarmouth Royal Mail, and
thus, more or less, we had communications with the outer world. Just
outside of