Whilst living so much beyond his means, Shelley experienced several annoyances in the lovely neighbourhood where he had, for a brief moment, hoped to be happy for ever. Having by the end of the year exhausted the excitement of figuring before the people of Tremadoc as a benefactor, who would never desert them nor grow indifferent to their interests, he discovered in his neighbours the usual qualities of countryfolk, whether they live on the Welsh coast, or in North Devon, or in the Rapes of Sussex. By no means devoid of intellectual narrowness, they were animated with religious bigotry. Believing in Christianity, they mistrusted and disliked those who scoffed at it. Whilst the gentry were proud and grasping, the peasantry were poor and cringing. The farmers were ignorant fools, the squires were (in Shelley’s opinion) insufferably dull fellows. ‘The society in Wales,’ he wrote from Tanyrallt to Hogg, even as early as 3rd December, 1812, ‘is very stupid. They are all aristocrats and saints; but that, I tell you, I do not mind in the least; the unpleasant part of the business is, that they hunt people to death who are not so likewise.’ The result, or rather the fruitlessness, of Shelley’s excursion to London was, of course, a great disappointment to the Tremadoc populace, and to others of the gentry, besides Mr. Madocks and Mr. Williams. Instead of returning with a handsome list of subscribers, headed by his particular friend the Duke of Norfolk, he was constrained to acknowledge he had not found a single subscriber in London or Sussex. It was clear to the Welshmen that the young gentleman had been talking too fast, and that they had been taken-in by his plausible speech. Angry with themselves for being such simpletons, some of them were disposed to punish him for their own folly. In his annoyance at feeling that his Tremadoc friends had discovered the value of his grand talk, Shelley wrote bitterly, from Tanyrallt on 7th February, 1813, to Hogg of ‘the variety of discomfitures’ coming to him from ‘the embankment affairs, in which he had thoughtlessly engaged!’