A.D. 1689 
1776. 
The ex- 
venses of 
mclosure 
were great 
ind Lhe 
procedure 
inflicted 
much 
hardship 
PARLIAMENTARY COLBERTISM 
»een pressed on with such rapidity in the seventeenth! and 
arly part of the eighteenth century as was the case toward 
ts close. Even though the advantage to agriculture was 
~onsiderable?, the small farmers could not afford to have 
any part in this boon. It undoubtedly was not easy to 
re-allot the lands fairly, so that each of the landholders 
should have such a piece as was really the equivalent of the 
scattered strips and patch of meadow and pasture rights 
which he had previously possessed. This was a difficult duty, 
and one which was generally assigned to strangers, who 
might be supposed to make an award unbiassed by personal 
friendship, Apart from parliamentary and law expenses, 
the change was costly. The new farms were permanently 
separated from one another, and it was necessary to fence 
them; a very heavy burden was imposed on the village, 
and the shares of the poorer inhabitants for these expenses, 
involved many of them in debt and led to their ruin® 
It appears to have been the usual procedure, in the 
seventeenth century, to procure an agreement among those 
concerned, and to have this agreement authorised by a 
decision in Chancery or the Exchequer®. In the eighteenth 
century the method of proceeding by private bills came into 
vogue®; these were often passed through Parliament without 
sufficient enquiry, and when many of the inhabitants were 
quite unaware of the impending change or were at all events 
258 
I Houghton estimated in 1692 that a third of all the kingdom was in common 
iclds. Dr Plot had made this calculation for Staffordshire, and Houghton ap- 
parently generalised it for the kingdom as & whole: how rough his calculation is, 
may be gathered from the fact that he corrected his estimate of the acreage of 
England from 29,000,000 to 40,000,000 acres. Honghton, Collection of Letters for 
Improvement of Husbandry and Trade, 1 June, 1692. 
% Burke, Works, mm. 347. The enquiries of the Board of Agriculture, embodied 
in their General Report on Enclosures published in 1808, appear to be decisive on 
this point. See also the Report from the Select Committee on Enclosing Commons, 
1844, v. 3. 
3 A. Young, Northern Tour, 1. 223. 
} Leonard, op. cit. 108. 
$ In the reign of Anne there were 8 private bills for enclosure; in that of 
“eorge L, 16; under George IL., 226; and in the reign of George III., from 1760- 
1775, there were 734 ; from 1776-97, 805 ; from 1797-1810, 956 ; and from 1810-20, 
771; besides this, there was a general enclosure Act in 1801 (Tooke, I. 72; 
Prothero, Pioneers and Progress of English Farming, 257). See also Clifford, 
Private Bill Legislation, 1. p. 21. The period of parliamentary enclosing has 
heen investigated in great detail by Dr Slater, English Leasantiy.