This year I undertook a journey through the western counties, through Devon into Cornwall, returning by Somersetshire, and published the register of it in the ‘Annals of Agriculture.’ I happened to be at Exeter at the time of the quarter sessions, and dined with thirty magistrates, Mr. Leigh, clerk of the House of Commons, being chairman. I did not know him personally, and joined more warmly in a conversation on the Enclosure Bill,[165] than I should have done had I known that I was speaking to a person so much interested against it. Mr. Leigh was very decided in his opposition to the measure, asserting that there was no protection for property in any other mode of proceeding, which had been so long the established custom. I very eagerly refuted this observation till some gentleman present spoke to Mr. Leigh, alluding to his official character. This was one proof of what I had often heard, that the officers of the two Houses of Parliament were of all others the most determined opposers of that measure. The reason is obvious; they have very considerable fees on the passing of every private Act,[166] and the clerks of the House have a further benefit which might not be compensated in any equivalent that might be given them; because they solicit many of the bills. Still, as there is so plain a precedent which has existed for many years in the case of the Speaker of the House, who has 6,000_l._ per annum instead of all fees, it seems no difficult matter to give an equal equivalent to the clerks for all their profits, including what they might make as solicitors. ----- Footnote 158: Career, general course of action or procedure.—_Webster._ Footnote 159: This appears to have been the place lately known as the Thatched House Club, St. James’s Street, Piccadilly. Footnote 160: 1715-1804. Author of numerous works on speculative history, in one of which he denied the existence of Troy. Footnote 161: Probably an allusion to A. Y.’s habit of air baths. Footnote 162: Prefer, to set forth, propose.—_Webster._ Footnote 163: Israel Mauduit, son of a Dissenting minister; at first the same, afterwards merchant; published _Considerations on the German War_, 1760, &c. &c. See _Chalmers’ Biog. Dict._ Footnote 164: No note is to be found among papers concerning this visit. Footnote 165: Enclosure Bill. ‘At the Revolution of 1688 more than half the kingdom was believed to consist of moorland, forest, and fen, and vast commons and wastes covered the greater part of England north of the Humber. But the numerous Enclosure Bills which began with the reign of George II., and especially marked that of his successor, changed the whole face of the country. Ten thousand square miles of untilled land have been [? had been] added, under their operation, to the area of cultivation.’—Green’s _History of the English People_. Footnote 166: