ABSTRACT
I myself, in the early part of my writing life was deceived […] but, when, in [1804], I revisited the English Labourer’s dwelling, and that, too, aer having so recently witnessed the happiness of labourers in America; when I saw that the clock was gone; that even the Sunday-coat was gone; when I saw those whom I had known the most neat, chearful and happy beings on earth, and these my own countrymen too, had become the most wretched and forlorn of human beings, I looked seriously and inquired patiently into the matter; and this inquiry into the causes of an eect which had so deep an impression on my mind, led to that series of exertions, which have occupied my whole life, since that time, to better the lot of the Labourers.
[Political Register, 19 May 1821.]
