In committee Fawcett opposed the existing system. The Enclosure Commissioners and their supporters were content with the doctrine, that ‘the final cause of an enclosure commission is naturally to enclose,’ and considered it advantageous to get rid of common rights which obstructed a more profitable employment of the land. Surely, they claimed, it is a hardship to prevent the owners of any piece of property from distributing their various rights on terms upon which they all agree. Fawcett argued that the agreement was illusory. Country gentlemen and farmers had looked after themselves, but the cottager had been put off with some trifle, spent as soon as received. [Sidenote: Withypool Parish Clerk.] Fawcett was particularly delighted with the evidence given by Mr. J. Reed, parish clerk of Withypool. When asked how far people would have to go for an open space, the witness replied, ‘They could not find one for miles except they did go on the common.’ ‘Is there no common within reach of an ordinary walk?’ ‘No, he would not want any more recreation by the time he came to any other common. The people say they will be as badly off as in a town.’ ‘Are there no fields where they can walk?’ ‘Yes, they can trespass, if they like that.’ The committee’s report, after vigorous discussion, accepted the chief principles advocated by Fawcett; ‘Parliamentary scrutiny was to become real and searching.’ Bills should be more carefully prepared in future. It was even admitted to be questionable whether enclosures were always beneficial. Thus was a first great battle won for the safety of the commons. Others had felt the wrong as well as Fawcett, and supported him loyally, but it was his bulldog tenacity and his doing the disagreeable thing that finally throttled the Annual Enclosures Bill and stopped the mechanical process by which so many harmful enclosures were made. [Sidenote: Sir Robert Hunter.] Fawcett made a notable speech against this Bill. The late Sir Robert Hunter, who saw much of Fawcett at this time, says: ‘Mr. Fawcett’s memory was very remarkable, apart from the recognition of voices. I remember an instance of this which struck me very much. He was making a stand against the enclosure of rural commons; the question arose whether certain enclosures which had been commenced should be carried out or abandoned. There were some twenty or thirty cases, and Mr. Fawcett in a speech to the House of Commons gave figured details of each case, the whole area of each common, the extent of the allotments for fields, for gardens and a host of other particulars. [Sidenote: The Style for the House.]