John Elsee

“ Private calamity weighs but little with public men; and with some persons it may perhaps appear unimportant to state, that the anxiety and enormous expences attendant on the legal proceedings into which Mr. Elsee was plunged by the natural desire of protecting his property as far as he could, preyed so much upon the spirits of Mrs. Elsee, that there is great reason to apprehend they accelerated, and perhaps occasioned the disease which carried her to the grave.
[29] The difficulty of contending with the crown is proverbial, and the reason is obvious. ”

“ Elsee; but in the face of the proof that no legal proceedings were necessary to obtain possession of the farm, and that they were persisted in when the crown could derive no benefit from them, as if with no other object than to compel Mr. Elsee to sign the agreement, of which every advantage was ultimately taken against him, while he was obstinately denied, or cunningly deprived of the benefit of the trifling stipulations in his favor, there is a very strong inference that fair play was not intended, and that the power was sought, with a wish to abuse it. ”

“ Driver, he has been marked out for a series of wrongs and oppressions that are scarcely to be credited; but it is yet to be hoped that he may obtain redress. The blame at present may rest only with the inferior agents of the crown, and the Commissioners have the means, nor shall we doubt of their disposition to do right; but if their servants can intercept the claim for justice, there is no step left but an appeal to the legislature to expose the wrong, and prove that the boast of equal law is an idle mockery in England. ”

“ Such an award as this, when Mr. Elsee expected to receive, rather than to pay, it will be allowed was enough to startle any man; and we do not doubt of convincing every unprejudiced reader, that more atrocious injustice was never perpetrated under the form of legal proceedings. ”

“ We have heard of an instance, in which a servant of the crown became the bitter enemy of one of its tenants, after having very freely partaken of his hospitality, because the lady of the official gentleman thought herself not treated with all the respect to which she imagined herself to be entitled, by the female portion of the family of the crown tenant, although it is possible that the lady had received as much as she could fairly claim, if all the truth were stated. ”

“ The answer is, that his property was on the ground—that his crops would have been seized—that he would have had all the inconvenience to bear throughout, and all the expence in the first instance, with the difficulty of proceeding against executors, from whom he might not have been able to have recovered anything. Mr. Elsee, therefore, had no hope of escaping without injury, but by placing confidence in the professions that were made on behalf of the crown, and he was deceived. ”

“ While these men were thus proceeding in their lawful business, on the public road, and in the light of day, they were shot at, without any offence, without any warning, and without seeing the lurking assassins, who thought fit to sport in this way with human life, and who turned out to be John Laver, his majesty’s woodward, and John Giffin, well known on the forest as Black Jack, an under-keeper. ”

“ Elsee conceived the hope of obtaining the lease himself, the more especially as Mr. William Masterman, had been in a situation precisely similar, on the expiration of his landlord’s lease, and the commissioners had granted him a new lease for 31 years, charging him for the interval between the expiration of the old lease, and the day of his entering upon the new one, only the same rent which his former landlord had paid to the crown. ”

“ Ellis. In this instance, there could hardly have been any occasion for an umpire. There was but little to do, and of the commonest description of the business of valuation, and part of the business, as the valuation of the fixtures, and the stack of hay, was settled; but these arbitrators were determined to have things done regularly, and as Mr. Mee had been made umpire in the other affair, he was also made umpire in this business, and made his award one month after the time that Mr. Elsee ought to have been paid for the property. ”

“ Much injustice is frequently occasioned in such manner; but after a perusal of our narrative, we think we may fairly challenge the production of any instance in which so much pecuniary injury has been sustained, accompanied by so much outrage to the feelings of a respectable, unoffending, and highly meritorious individual;—upon one, who, during a long and active life, in public and private, has conducted himself in the most exemplary manner ”

“ Bolland ought to have decided. It was mere nonsense to go into any enquiry as to what was a load; there must be a determined standard between the things, or otherwise the condition of the agreement was a nullity, and Mr. Mee and Mr. Driver might with equal justice have demanded barge loads, or even ship loads of dung, in exchange for cart loads of hay. The obvious intention of the condition is to secure weight for weight for the straw, and double the weight, p. 67or two loads for one of hay. ”

“ Driver estimated the whole produce of 108 acres of some of the best land on the farm, at only ten shillings per acre. This was about the rent paid by Mr. Elsee to Miss Ladbrook; and this serves to p. 49prove, that even in Mr. Driver’s opinion, the land was then let at its full value; and indeed the rent was fixed by valuation by parties for Miss Ladbrook, at a period when hay was at from 6l. to 8l. a load, and was therefore a rack rent in every sense of the word.
But if the rent were doubled, and the fair allowance made, the sum due to the crown would have been only 945l. ”

“ In all the proceedings the dung appears to have been a favorite consideration with Mr. Driver and Mr. Mee; and by some means or other they contrived to make Mr. Elsee pay more, in dung and money, than the crops were worth; and he would absolutely have been a considerable gainer, if he had left the hay to rot on the ground, instead of sending it to market under the conditions imposed upon him.
[57] The costs of this award are also objectionable, inasmuch as the time occupied was charged, and that exorbitantly too, in the business between Mr. Elsee and the Commissioners ”

“ Mr. Elsee is further charged with being the cause of the suit about the dung, as he refused to abide by an agreement made between him and Mr. Ellis in February, 1821, when it was agreed at Mr. Ellis’s house, in the presence of Mr. W. Masterman, that each should name a friend; but it was particularly mentioned that neither Mr. Mee, nor Mr. Driver, should have any concern in the business. Mr. Benton, of Hornchurch, and Mr. Carter of Chigwell were named, and the White Horse, Romford, fixed as a place to meet at when convenient. Mr. Ellis wrote a paper, and read it to Mr. Elsee ”

“ This also includes the homestead, farm-yard, &c. places which certainly could not be mowed for hay. In the third column is given the real quantity of land that was mowed, not including the waste land, and land newly laid down to grass.
Of the meadow laud, there were 143 acres, which was estimated by Mr. Elsee’s opponents themselves as producing 11⁄4 load per acre, and this would amount to about 178 loads. There were 81 acres, which was estimated to produce three quarters of a load per acre, and this amounts to about 60 loads. ”

“ Elsee has been insulted and plundered, of the extremity to which outrage can be carried, when the poor only are concerned. About the 1st of September, 1811, Mr. Elsee expected a few friends at his house on a shooting party, and had ordered a gun to be brought from Havering Park farm to his house at Chigwell Row. ”

“ They have more effective instruments in their hands, and instead of being called before a sheriff’s jury, Mr. Elsee was served with an exchequer process by no less a personage than his Majesty’s p. 54attorney general; and an office copy of the process cost eighteen pounds! in which it was set forth a dozen times over, that he had taken from Havering Park farm 300 loads of hay, and had not brought back 600 loads of dung, for which the crown laid its damages at six hundred pounds. ”

“ The value of this dung, at 5s. per load was 25l. and at this price any quantity could be obtained at Romford, as Mr. Elsee proved by various respectable witnesses. Yet after this statement, can it be believed that Mr. Bolland should award Mr. Elsee to pay the sum of 336l. 16s. 6d. besides all the expences of the witnesses on both sides, and half the expences of the reference! To us, this is utterly unaccountable. ”

“ Driver, to take the stack of hay previously reserved for the crown, Mr. Peake’s clerk, to prevent any misunderstanding, drew up the following.
p. 35Memorandum.
And to allow Mr. Ellis, an equivalent in good rotten dung, in lieu of the straw of the before mentioned, to be delivered upon the bean-field, No. 27, at the rate of so many cubic yards, to be ascertained after it is in a proper heap.
Mr. Ellis to purchase the straw of the following wheat crops, due allowance being made for the dung which must be brought in lieu of it, if removed from the farm by Mr. Elsee. ”

“ I shall be prepared very shortly to make some agreement with you, as to your present holding, and, for your continuing until Michaelmas next, before which time I hope and trust the whole of those farms will be disposed of in some way or other. ”

“ Bolland is a better lawyer than he is a farmer.
Mr. Elsee attended to prove that he had carried a large quantity of dung, which he estimated, and proved by his witnesses, left 130 ton p. 63to his credit, after deducting the quantity in return for the wheat straw. ”

“ If the arbitrators and umpire had done their duty at a proper time, Mr. Elsee’s presence might not have been requisite; but against this underhanded proceeding at such a rime, he has a right to protest.
[67] Mr. French, in 1805, when estimating the value of farming stock, &c. in Essex, (the same county) rates the dung in the yard, as worth only 2s. 6d. per load; and when carted and turned over, at but 3s. 6d. As he was calculating the full cost of every thing, this may be taken as a fair average of the price for the county; yet witnesses were found to rate it at 20s. per load ”

“ Driver.
Besides these losses, Mr. Elsee is a considerable loser by Mr. Mee’s valuing 94 acres of oat and bean straw, namely all the straw upon the farm, when no such thing was ever mentioned, or thought of, either by the new tenant or Mr. Elsee; as the wheat straw and the field are particularly mentioned in the memorandum made at the time, July 14, so that instead p. 71of making an allowance for dung upon 96 acres of wheat, at what they call a load, at 2 load to an acre, or 192 load of dung, they have deducted from the valuation of Mr. Elsee’s property 392 load of dung at 12s. ”

“ Driver would allow p. 34the fields to be worth no more than ten shillings an acre, although the grass fields contained the whole years crop. Yet this same gentleman, required from these very fields, so valued by himself at ten shillings an acre, a return in dung and rent of about five pounds an acre!—So different were his powers of appreciation, when employed for and against Mr. Elsee.
It was, however, agreed at this meeting, that Mr. Ellis should buy five fields of wheat straw, there being none in the farm upon which he had entered, which was to be paid for at Michaelmas, 1819 ”

“ The farms not being to be sold, as Mr. Elsee p. 19had been induced to hope they would be, and the conditions in some printed particulars forwarded to him by Mr. Driver, not appearing to leave room for any advantageous holding under the crown, he declined making any proposals, and was only anxious to get extricated as speedily as possible from the farm, which he had continued to hold at the earnest request of Mr. Driver, and with a view to facilitate any arrangements on the part of the crown; as every day’s holding was injurious to Mr. ”

“ Elsee. Having realized a considerable property, he retired from business, and having spent the earlier portion of his life in agricultural business, he purchased a freehold in the neighbourhood before mentioned, and became also the lessee of part of Havering Park farm. This farm, containing altogether about 1000 acres, was p. 12held under the crown, by a lease granted in the time of King William and Queen Mary, to John Hampden, and Thomas Lovell, at a nominal rent; it afterwards became the property of the Ladbrook family, and was divided into two farms, one being let by Ladbrook to a Mr. ”

“ Ellis wanted to settle, and he wanted his money, if p. 72the umpire would look into his books, and say the value of the two hay-stacks, and the wheat straw, although valued ever so low, he would, according to his agreement, take the money, and settle with the new tenant, but that he had no right to mix the things to be paid for by the crown with the other property ”

“ Those petty interests that sow dissentions between individuals ought not to exist in transactions between individuals and the representatives of the national authority; and, certainly, no prejudiced motives, or personal feeling, should be permitted to operate to the prejudice of the weaker party. Unfortunately, however, persons who ought to rise p. 6infinitely superior to all paltry hostility, and mean jealousies, do not always separate their prejudices from their duties ”

“ Elsee embarked solely with a view of accommodating all parties, and of carrying into effect the wishes of the Commissioners, as expressed by their surveyor, was upwards of five hundred pounds; the sum which was ultimately paid him he did not receive for three years, in consequence of the unauthorised transfer of the debt of the crown to Mr. Ellis, and which might have been lost altogether, if any misfortune had befallen the latter gentleman; and these things, coupled with the order to pay down the enormous sum awarded to the commissioners, render it impossible to conclude that Mr. ”