IN Troth this Demand alarms me. I have endeavoured to put a good Face on the Matter; but I really dread the Consequence. A full Moiety of Fourteen Thousand Cocks of Hay, with Boot and Emblements and all! I cannot think of it with Patience. But I am told that I must think of it. My late Chums and Cronies! where are you all now? Such a Moiety to refund, and left in the Lurch! Hah Friendship! where art thou? But it was my own darling Doctrine, (and hang me for having ever preached it) not to value any man longer than he is able to serve you. My Disciples, like apt Scholars, have imbibed the Maxim, and will now play off the Argumentum ad Hominem against their poor old Democritus, without Mercy. But People so obliged, and so virtually vested with all my Influence and Authority throughout the whole Hamlet! For them, to desert me in my sorest Extremity! But Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur cum illis. Come, then, Fate, my old Divinity, stand by me! Come Fortune, hitherto propitious, and succour thy constant Favourite! But what are Fate and Fortune to a Chancery Suit for Seven Thousand Cocks of Hay? Like a huge Cake of Ice at the opening of Hudson's River, [Page 2] it advances with a slow but resistless Motion, sweeping away in its Progress, the strongest opposing House or Barn, even as the weakest—Drumstick. One half of all my Harvest! A full and complete Moiety! An equal Division of Fourteen Thousand Cocks of Hay! 'Tis unconscionable. O how I mow'd with all my might and Main against the Expiration of the Lease! And how my Friends labour'd like Emmets, to get it housed before that fatal Period! A goodly Crop it was; and never before did the same Farm produce the like. But no sooner has my Landlord's Agent entered the Close to make his Demand, but away fly my Workmen, pell mell and helter skelter, with Carts, and Waggons, and Teams, and Forks, and Rakes; leaving me, like the D— of C—, with Nobody by me but myself.—One half of the whole Crop with the Emblements and Appurtenances, and Hay-Boot, and Estovers and all! Not I, indeed. I will hold fast as long as I can. The Habendum and Tenendum, are worth all the rest of the longest Deed in the World. Possession is eleven Points of the Law. But where is the Title to be tried? Aye, that's the Devil. What a Fool was I to kick up a Dust against Juries? 'Tis the best Tryal in the World; and the grand Bulwark of English Liberty. But can it be just? Can it be right, that my Land-lord should have half of all my Earnings? A full and equal, and (oh the frightful Thought!) to-be-divided Moiety? Is it [Page 3] by Virtue of a Condition precedent, or subsequent? I remember no such Clause in the Lease. Refund! Refund! and that, an equal Moiety? I think I can prove the contrary by express Law. I raised the Crop myself. That was my own Act. If I am compelled to refund half, that will not be my own Act, but the Act of another, and consequently tortious. This Authority may be found in Judge Hale, in his Chapter of Juries. I have often thought of Action and Re-action, in a philosophical Sense; but Perdition, I say, to this Re-action, in the Law Sense. But it seems I must think of it: And truly it is not now a Time to strut and swagger. My Landlord is powerful: My Sons are his Tenants at Will: His Agent is inflexible: My Friends are shrunk into Non-Entity: And I may be called to an Account pour autros Choses. Besides, if the Moon will get in Opposition to the Sun, she may depend upon being eclipsed: And this Contest of mine will probably be considered as our Meeting in the Nodes of the Ecliptic, upon which such Obscuration always ensues. 'Tis truly an intricate Point. Would to my Stars that I could prevent this Eclipse, by driving away the Sun as the Chinese formerly attempted to do on the like Occasion, by Beat of Kettle Drum! I'm weary of Conjectures. I think I will either challenge the Array, or plead the Benefit of the Clergy. But hold—that is not the Case in Chancery. Pox on it, then I [Page 4] will convey the Whole in Trust. Aye, but the Interrogatories upon Oath! In what an inextricable Quondary am I plung'd! I really think a Trial by Juries the wisest Contrivance in the World. But this swearing—swearing—swearing! Oh for a Draught of the River Lethe, to deface the Memory of all my Receptions! Then I could answer plump, I know nothing about it. But am I obliged to discover all my Profits? Suppose I have sold my Hay for more than the Market Price. Suppose I had found the Philosopher's Stone upon the demised Premises, —What is all that to the usual, customary and annual Profits of the Farm? Is a Man to get nothing by his own Genius and Invention? Suppose again, that Neighbour Hobson, reduced to great Extremity, and obliged to move the Day before his Spouse expected to lay in, has paid me (I, do you see me? improving that Occurrence according to Custom) Twenty Shillings a Day for the Hire of my Team, when the stated Price is only Ten. Can my Landlord, upon his own Principles of a Moiety of my stated Earnings, demand more than Five? Surely he does not desire to participate in my Extortions? He cannot expect more by Reason of Goody Hobson's being within a Day of her Reckoning. 'Twas my own personal Dexterity that mounted that Day's Hire from Ten to Twenty. And if this will do, I shall secure Three-fourths [Page 5] of the greatest Part of the Matter in Controversy. For that in Fact is the Case with above Nine-tenths, of all the Profits I ever received. But one full Moiety of all! I cannot part with it. Such Re-action would be the most unprofitable Action of my Life; and such Refund, the worst of all Funds. The full Half of all my Profits! What! of every Hen, and Duck, and Chick, and Egg, and Calf, and Colt, and Pig, with a thousand Etcaeteras, which are no more appurtenant to the genuine natural Issues of the Premises, than if I had received them upon the High Way? I cannot. Positively I cannot bear the Thought. My Landlord will not insist upon it. I once had Merit; and it is not long since that I flattered myself to have been made Tenant for Life. Certain it is, that I have greatly improved the Freehold; and every Body knows that the Farm, while in my Tenure, has yielded, by the bare Dint of my Husbandry, ten fold more than ever it did before. Who then could have put him upon this new-fangled pernicious Scheme of one half of all the Profits? Surely he has heard some strange Tales to my Prejudice. Can he have learnt that I suffered one of his Servants, and merely because he was his Servant, to be turn'd out of Doors, when I could have prevented it by a single Word? In this I own, I did not consult his Interest, agreeable to my constant Professions. But then it was only the Sin of Friendship, to [Page 6] gratify those who would not be my Friends, but upon the Terms of that violent Measure. Or can he have heard that I have been bribed, to permit the Neighbours to encroach upon several of his Franchises, when it redounded to my own Emo­lument, tho' greatly to his Disadvantage? Why, it was only to oblige the very same Set of Friends; and I flattered myself that I had so glossed the Matter, with his Honour and Interest, and Power, and Dignity, and all that, (which I have constantly at my Fingers Ends) that he would never have detected me. But had I foreseen this Consequence, I can assure them, I had preferred their former Curses to their late Cringings; and followed my old Practice of making Money, Money, my sole and only Friend. But then what Reason had I to believe any Man sincere? O dear-bought Experience, of what I could so easily have read in my own Breast! O that I could once more get Possession of my sweet delightful old Tenement! A beau­tiful Spot it was; and many, many a golden Harvest has it produced me.

But something, they say, must be done; and speedily done. For the Agent is in full Chace; and after a few Doublings more, the old Fox will certainly be out of Wind. Why, and something I should be willing to do. But the Half of all my Profits! Skin for [Page 7] Skin, what will not a Man do to save his Money? An equal Division! There is not a more nauseous Bolus in the whole Dispensatory. I have read, when I lately commenced com­mon Pleader, of the Moiety of an Advowson, and of the Ad­vowson of a Moiety, and of fifty other Moieties; but never a Syllable of the Moiety of my Profits, nor of the Profits of my Moiety. Melchizedek, I have heard my Father say, was sa­tisfied with a Tenth of the Spoil; and Decimation would make no great Hole in the Reckoning, But a full, equal, perfect, absolute, entire, compleat, whole and total Moiety! There is no such Thing in all Hobb's Leviathan. But then in Case of Refusal, who will stand by me? Aye, that's the Question. My greatest Beneficiaries have abandoned me. Most of the Tenants remember my old Pranks, as how I have told his Honor a thousand Fibs about them, and endeavoured to spirit him up to raise his Rent-roll. The Lawyers, whom I have so scurrilously treated, cannot in Honour be for me: And against me are the Powers, the Powers, the Powers. O the Vicissitude of human Affairs! Surely mortal Man is a Drumstick! Sic transit Gloria Mundi.

[Page 8]From the Zenith of Favour, to the Nadir of Neglect.— I shall even be forced to make a Leg to the Profession, tho' I have so often represented the whole Body as a Pack of Vil­lains. But hold.—There is one whom I never abused; and who in Token of his Honesty, has got Squire Fielding's Certi­ficate of his good Behaviour. He served me once in a fa­vourite Point. But this Moiety is a knotty Business. O that I could leave the Controversy to twelve Men! 'Tis the best Trial in the World. 'Tis the Bulwark of English Liberty. For defend I must at all Events. For who can voluntarily part with seven thousand Cocks of Hay? But defend against whom? Aye, that's the Rub. Why, then I must not defend. But that's a Rub without any Chance. Where now are the Friends of the Mammon of Unrighteousness? Alas they dare not receive me into their Houses! And

Like King Lear in the Play, the very Elements war against me, Nay,

[Page 9]But can't I keep the Matter pending, as the Lawyers call it Why should a Thing that crawls like a Snail with respect to others, fly like a Whirligig, or pounce like an Eagle, with re­spect to me? Faggs! I will instruct my Counsel to plead, ans­wer, and demur. They shall put in Replications, and Rejoin­ders, and Rebutters, and—Sur—Sur—Re—Ri—but—Sur— Surrebutters, and all, and all Manner of Butter, and Butters, whatsoever and wheresoever. I will instruct them to frame, form devise, advise, conceit, conceive, construct, fabricate, make, do, execute, and suffer; and cause and procure to be made, done, executed, and suffered, all and singular, and each and every, and all Sorts, Species and Kinds of dilatory, cuncta­tory, postponitory, procrastinatory, and circumlocutory Act and Acts, Thing and Things, Machination and Machinations, past, present, and to come, and World without End. Thus before the Complainant can have a Decree, the Defendant will be, non inventus. Zuks, this is a bright Thought! 'Tis the very Primrose of all Invention. No, No, it is not worth a Farthing. They would call upon Posterity. Yes, upon Posterity. But what of all that? Pray, what has Pos­terity ever done for me? But then I don't chuse that the Money should go from me, even after I am gone from the Money. There is a certain Connection that subsists, and will subsist, even post mortem. Why now again, I am as far from [Page 10] the Mark as ever. I shall as soon discover the Longitude, as an Extrication out of my Difficulties! Indeed a Trial by Ju­ries, is the best Trial in the World. 'Tis the grand Bul­wark and Paladium of our Liberties.—But after all, why can't I, for the first Time in my Life, do that which is right, and pay the Gentleman his Money without any Litigation? I know very well that there is such a Clause in the Lease; and that I took the Farm upon that express Condition. But then as it would be the first, so it would also be the last Time in my Life, that I gave up a Point, especially concerning the ready Rhino, before I had wrangled it out to the End. For it would instantly kill me as dead as a Herring.

But stay, stay, I think I have it. Yes, positively I have it.—Strike up the Drums! Huzza! Long live the King! I have it, I have it.—I will even take Refuge in a Petition of Dolence; for in a most daleful Condition I am. I will blazon my old Services, and conceal my recent Iniquities. My Landlord is bountiful; and at Representation, aye and at Misrepresenta­tion too, who a greater Adept than myself? Let us try what they'll amount to.

I. In the Year 1747, I stood by a favourite Tenant of my Landlord's, who had got the ill-will of the whole Hamlet; and took the sole Management of his Business upon myself. [Page 11] In this I certainly have Merit. Unless his Honour should have heard that I received Ten Shillings a Day for the Service.

II. I once took it into my Head from a Hint in a Letter of one of my Landlord's Attornies (which by the Way I knew meant no such Thing) to embark in a very troublesome Af­fair, which I was certain would greatly aggrandize his Power; and indeed render him the Sovereign Arbiter of all the Pro­perty of his Tenants. It was this. I pretended that it was his positive Order, in meer Affection to them, and for the greater Security of their Estates, that he should re-examine all their Quarrels and Disputes, after having before been set­tled by their Neighbours. To induce their Compliance, which I knew in point of Time and Expence, would reduce them to Beggary, I vilified all the usual Arbitrators in that Part of the Country, and insisted that no Person in the World ex­cept my Landlord alone, could possibly give a right Judg­ment in any Case. I was upon the very Verge of carrying the Point, when the Lawyers set themselves in Array against me; and compelled me to drop the Project, after the generality of the Tenants appeared to acquiesce in it. I did not however tamely yield the Dispute. No, No, that was never any fail­ing of mine, when I intended to ingratiate myself with his Honor. I determined to see it out to the Butt's End. I bor­rowed Law Books. I studied Law. I wrested Authorities. [Page 12] I pleaded. I twisted and turned. I fretted and foamed. In short I toil'd and moil'd, and tore and swore, and thunder'd and blunder'd, and discharged my Law as a Conjuror spits Fire. But all to no Manner of Purpose. That detestable Nest of Hornets, (whom I have hated ever since) persuaded the whole Village, (which by the bye, was the real Truth of the Matter) that my Measure, if carried into Execution, would not leave a single Tenant so much as Salt to his Por­ridge. This was surely Merit, unless my Landlord knows that my secret View was only to please him, in Expectation of securing a Lease for Life.

III. I have great Merit in the many Letters I have wrote to his Attornies, containing Schemes for encreasing his Emo­luments; and more than doubling his Rental. I remember I once projected to him how his Tenants might be made to burn Brick without Fuel; and that I could extract Gold-dust from their Urine. Nay, at a particular Time I went so far as to assure him, that if he would furnish me with sufficient Force to protect the Workmen, against those who I feared, might dispute the Title, I would undertake to open a Mine in his Manor, that should nett him above ten thousand Pounds Sterling per Annum. At other Times I endeavoured to con­ciliate his Favour, by traducing the most faithful of his Te­nants: [Page 13] As that they were debauched and disaffected.—That they would often make free with his Name over their Liquor; and drink the Health of his greatest Enemy, Le Chevalier Wou'd be. Surely all this must be real substantial Merit: and I well remember that Neighbour Frank for less than half of the Rodomontades I have transmitted, was lately made a Justice of the Quorun; and now struts with his new Cockade so as scarcely to know his old Acquaintance. And though in these Measures Self-interest was my only Motive, I think it impossible he should have seen through my Design.

Lastly, and Finis coronat opus. My Landlord once took a Notion of having all the Horses and Cattle of his Tenants marked and branded, they paying so much a Head to the Agents whom he appointed for that Purpose. But on send­ing the Marking-irons, the Tenants rose in a Body; and at­tempted to seize and destroy the notarial Instruments, stock and block. Upon this, in sheer Fidelity to his Interest (expecting however a small Gratuity in the End, if his Honor should be so minded) I took all the Irons into my own Tenement. To rescue them out of my Possession, they attacked the Mes­suage. Determined to repel the Assault, I threw up Trenches, fortified the Passes, covered the Fences with Brush, and fur­nished up every Sword, Pistol, Bayonet, and Fowling-piece in [Page 14] the House. I pierced the Garret for threescore Muskets. I ordered a Chauldron of boiling Water into the third Story; and disposed of my Dung-cart, ready loaded, to defend the Postern. I cast four pewter Urinals into Bullets; and con­verted an old Frying-pan into a Breast-plate. I turned two Spits into Spiers, and six Brass Kettles into as many Drums. Of my Mustard-grinder I made an excellent Bomb; and a very comfortable Helmet of an half worn Iron Chafing-dish. Thus fortified and accoutred, and looking like Mars, as one Egg is like another. I called to my Assistance a trusty Band of his Dependents; and threatened to return the Attack, by set­ting Fire to every Hut, Cottage, Barn, Hovel, Cow-pen, Dove-house, Hen-roost, Barrack, and Stable, on the whole Estate. In short, I displayed the most heroic Conduct; and though I never had any Connection with military Affairs, save in a certain Capacity that requires neither Powder nor Ball, I exhibited both the Skill and Bravery of the most experienced General; and finally preserved all the Irons from the medita­ted Destruction. To revenge their Disappointment, the In­surgents carried off, and burnt my Wheel-barrow; and con­signed to the same Fate two of my Family Pictures, the Devil's and my own. But effectually to prevent their renewing the Siege, I ordered a Detachment in the dead of Night, to take off the Locks, and p—s in the Barrels of every Musket in the Vicinity.

[Page 15]Now all these sundry and divers and supernumery merito­rious Services and Sufferings, Losses and Crosses, Writings and Fightings, well-dressed and coloured, (as I very well know how) and humbly presented in a most humble Petition of Dolence, will undoubtedly so mollify a good-natured Landlord, as to quit all farther Claim upon the Moiety of my Crop. 'Tis however the only Chance left. Fortune, I once more invoke thee! If thou desertest me now, thou art a Vixen. For it must not go. I can never—never—never part with it.