Note 317 — Chapter VIII · AFTER SPEENHAMLAND

‘It was during the war that the cottagers of England were chiefly deprived of the little pieces of land and garden, and made solely dependent for subsistence on the wages of their daily labour, or the poor rates. Land, and the produce of it, had become so valuable, that the labourer was envied the occupation of the smallest piece of ground which he possessed: and even “the bare-worn common” was denied.’—Kentish Chronicle, December 14, 1830.