All the public charges on 4,000 acres amounted only to 14_l._ Footnote 151: His daughter Sarah, the writer of several ingenious and interesting works.—A. Y. ----- CHAPTER X THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE, 1793 The Board of Agriculture—Secretaryship—Residence in London—Twenty-five dinners a month—The King’s bull—The Marquis de Castries—‘The Example of France’—Encomiums thereof—Correspondence. The most remarkable event of this year was the establishment of the Board of Agriculture.[152] I found that Mr. Pitt had determined that I should be secretary, and Mr. Le Blanc, of Caversham, informed me that this new board was established with a view of rewarding me for my ‘Example of France.’ In a conversation with Lord Loughborough on the attendance required, he remarked, ‘You may do what suits yourself best, I conceive, for we all consider ourselves so much obliged to you that you cannot be rewarded in a manner too agreeably.’ If the appointment of secretary be considered, as it has been by many, a reward for what I had effected, it was not a magnificent one; the salary, 400_l._ per annum, would have been desirable had it left me more time in Suffolk, but when I found a very strict attendance attached to it, with no house to assemble in except Sir John Sinclair’s, and in a room common to the clerks and all comers, I was much disposed to throw it up and go back in disgust to my farm; but the advice of others and the apprehension of family reproaches kept me to the annoyance of a situation not ameliorated till Sir John was turned out of the Presidentship by Mr. Pitt, and the Board procured a house for itself. My letter to Mr. Pitt, asking for the secretaryship of the new Board of Agriculture:— ‘Bradfield Hall: May 20, 1793. ‘Sir,—I am informed by Lord Sheffield and Sir John Sinclair that the establishment of a Board of Agriculture is determined. ‘It has been the employment of the last thirty years of my life to make myself as much a master of the practice and the political encouragement of agriculture as my talents would allow. I have examined every part of the kingdom, and have farming correspondents in all the counties. ‘It is impossible I should know what is your intention in relation to the office of the secretary; but the same wisdom that established the Board will, without doubt, give such an appointment to that office as may fill it in a manner the best adapted to the business. ‘Should I be happy enough to appear in your eyes qualified for such a post, and you would have the goodness to name me to it, it might lessen the anxieties of a life that has been passed in the service of the national agriculture; and I should feel with unvarying gratitude the obligation of the favour. ‘I have the honour to be, sir, with the greatest respect,