An Account of Denmark. Robert Molesworth

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СКАЧАТЬ the folly of his speculative investment in South Sea stock. The £2000 he invested was borrowed in the vain hope that the stock would “further rise, and in order to cheat some other buyer, fancying that it would not die in my hands.”⁹³ That the price fell two days after he had purchased the stock, as he lamented, served him right. Molesworth’s daughter had dabbled, too, in the hope of securing a fortune to relieve her family from uncomfortable dependence on the court. The prospect of “imaginary riches” had tempted, it seems, many in the Molesworth connection.⁹⁴

      The best remedy for the current crisis was “improvement” of trade. Daniel Poultney put it most succinctly when he insisted that “we must put a stop to all sort of gaming in stocks, encourage trade and manufacture, industry and frugality.”⁹⁵ Molesworth’s management of his own domestic economy reflected these values. The “sheet anchor” was his Irish estate, where he and his wife had undertaken virtuous “projects in good husbandry.”⁹⁶ Late in life he wrote in some considerable pique against the charge that he had been extravagant in matters of estate improvement in Yorkshire. The rumor that thousands of pounds had been spent was spread about by “envious fools.” As he explained, “I never exceed above 150 l. per annum, whatever you may hear to the contrary.” He admitted he had spent a considerable amount on digging a canal, but that had profited him by £300. He continued, “There is neither bench, statue, fountain of stone, stairs, urn or flower-pot here as yet, so that you may judge that mere grass, trees and hedges cannot cost much.”⁹⁷ The evidence of his correspondence with his wife, sons, and daughters suggests that Molesworth was a landowner with a keen eye to opportunity and development of his agrarian resources. This is supported by Finola O’Kane’s brilliant study of his architectural and gardening projects, which were underpinned by his enduring concern with the rental potential of the estates in Yorkshire and Ireland.⁹⁸ The decision to adjust the nature of property titles from freehold to twenty-one-year leases marked (according to his son) “a way of improvement, which it never was before.” In the same instance, he encouraged the trade in Philipstown by collaboration with two “master manufacturers” (who happened, much to the disgust of the local cleric, to be Quakers). One of these, John Pym, employed the poor to spin his wool “to the great satisfaction of all the country and increase of the market.”⁹⁹ Even toward the end of his life, Molesworth had a vision for how estate improvement could pay off the family’s debts: “the selling of woods, the setting out of St. Patrick’s well land, the Alnage revenue, and the improvement of Philipstown and Swords are groundworks to raise a new estate from.”¹⁰⁰

      Attentiveness to the potential of new rentals was matched by meticulous attention to detail over the rights and privileges of his estates. Neighbors who threatened to enclose his land, tenants who took advantage of mowing allowances, and people who exploited short-term rental rates for their private advantage and at damage to the integrity of the land, were all dealt with in no uncertain terms in order, as Molesworth put it, to “vindicate our right.”¹⁰¹ This dedication to the integrity of the estates was not simple personal advantage. Good management of tenancies (set at a reasonable price) benefited both landlord and tenant: severe measures had beneficial effects. Replacement of “unimproving idle people” by “better tenants” made the land more productive. Molesworth did not take the fixing of his rents lightly. Having researched the historical fluctuation of costs over four decades, he was aware of the range of options. He was also profoundly aware that his relationship with individual tenants necessarily involved their dependence on him. In one instance Molesworth was explicit in this regard. He was, he explained to his wife, quite against giving his “tenants at will” parchment copies of their leases: “they are so already at their own will, and it is but just they should be so at ours.” The point in refusing a material copy of the leases was not to turn out or raise the rents upon good tenants, but to “keep them in awe and hinder them from destroying our estate.” Here is an insight into the forms of dependence that Harrington theorized in his account of empire following the balance of property.¹⁰²

      Molesworth, too, theorized his experience and applied its lessons to the decay of gentlemanly cultivation in Ireland. Echoing both Cicero and Harrington, he stated that it was fundamental to his convictions that “Agriculture is not only a Science, but the most useful one to Mankind.”¹⁰³ The ablest statesmen, philosophers, and poets had devoted considerable effort to elucidating the best principles of agricultural practice, “knowing it to be that whereon the Life and well-being of the Community depends.”¹⁰⁴ Fundamental to his project was the need for honest and “improving” tenants who would enable the gentry to undertake two sorts of cultivation: of the soil and of their minds. Good tenants would allow gentlemen the leisure to improve their “natural Parts” by reading; the counterexample was the experience of the Irish gentry who were forced (in order to avoid the destruction of their estates by bad tenants) to “manage their own Lands, and turn their own Husband-men.” Such low employment and mean company meant that the gentry “degenerate by degrees; the best Education of many of their Sons, reaching no higher, than to know how to make the most of a Piece of Land.” As Molesworth made very explicit, this relationship with the land was no training ground for republican virtue. Understanding “the Business of Parliament, the Duty owing to ones Country, and the Value of Publick Liberty” was not cultivated “under such a cramp’d, and low Education.” Such gentry would become “narrow Spirited, covetous and ungenteel.”¹⁰⁵

      One remedy was to create “schools for husbandry” in each county to teach the best principles of agricultural conduct and good manners. Thriving and industrious farmers would produce more food and thereby alleviate the poverty of the nation. Reform of agricultural practices that had been distorted by religious sentiment (in particular by tithes and saints’ days) would create further benefit. Such scarcely disguised anticlericalism was mixed with economic principle when Molesworth declared, “I wish all the Saints Days were let slip, with all my Heart, and that People might be left at liberty to keep open Shop, plow, sow, reap and follow their lawful Trades on those Days; they would serve God better, and their Country and private Families, than now they do.”¹⁰⁶

      Molesworth, then, had an intimate understanding of the politics and economics of his relationship with the land, his tenants, and the status they conferred. He did, upon occasion, even turn his hand to the plough (something no self-respecting Roman senator would have considered). He was able to calculate the potential financial benefits of renegotiating rentals, but also to consider mortgaging his lands for ready cash in order to ensure that his son’s embassy in Turin was a success.

      Molesworth was a man who certainly took enormous delight and pride in the application of opificio to his estates: the correspondence is teeming with references to specific arboreal projects, agrarian developments, and piscatorial undertakings. He was clearly an expert across a range of horticultural and natural knowledge, and the pride he took in improvement is evident in his remarks about developments on the Yorkshire estate of Edlington: “all the coarse, rough, unimproved land is taken in and under fine grass of tillage, a deal of new closes and hedging and building, and repairs, and planting the town street full of new industrious tenants, the commons taken in and turned to the best profitable land.”¹⁰⁷ Here the language of improvement, industry, and profit illustrates the core values of a republican understanding of the function of landed property. Constantly anxious about the need for money to support his sons in their careers, Molesworth bemoaned that “all our care and industry cannot set us at ease in the world.” Despite these moments of despair, he continued, if somewhat compulsively, to plan improvements that would secure and advance the common benefit.¹⁰⁸

      Justin Champion

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      The edition of the Account of Denmark reproduced СКАЧАТЬ