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John came to the help of the fen-men, and drew up the so-called 'Pretended Ordinance' of 1649, which was a compromise between Vermuyden and the adventurers, so able and useful that Charles II.'s Government were content to call it 'pretended' and let it stand, because it was actually draining the fens; and how Sir Cornelius Vermuyden, after doing mighty works, and taking mighty moneys, died a beggar, writing petitions which never got answered; how William, Earl of Bedford, added, in 1649, to his father's 'old Bedford River' that noble parallel river, the Hundred foot, both rising high above the land between dykes and 'washes, i.e. waste spaces right and left, to allow for flood water; how the Great Bedford Rivers silted up the mouth of the Ouse, and backed the floods up the Cam; how Denver sluice was built to keep them back; and so forth, all is written, or rather only half or quarter written, in the histories of the fens.
They meant kindly. But the country-folk came of an obstinate stock, fierce to resent what they could not understand. Half a century before, a Dutchman, Cornelius Vermuyden by name, had arrived and drained their country for them; in return they had cursed him, fired his crops, and tried to drown out his settlers and workmen by smashing the dams and laying the land under water.
The Russells had patched it up with Vermuyden, and the work was resumed a third time.
They were in possession when, towards the end of Elizabeth's reign, in 1600, was passed the General Draining Act. It was a generous and a broad Act: it was to apply not only to the Great Level, but to all the marshes of the realm. It was soon bent to apply to the family. Seven years later a Dutchman of the name of Cornelius Vermuyden was sent for, that the work might be begun.
The discovery of gold being the principal object of the adventure of Vermuyden, he landed frequently in different places, and proceeded to wash the sand, and examine the rocks.
All the adventurers who first attempted the draining of the Fens were ruined but not that permanent Russell-Francis, the Earl of Bedford, surnamed "the Incomparable." The story of Vermuyden by him is intricate, but every Englishman now living on another man's land should study it. Vermuyden was to drain the Great Level and to have 95,000 acres for his pains.
Vermuyden says, they were ill pleased, or unacquainted with any companions in these watery regions, and at all events, he was convinced that his men were not very proper companions for them.
"Up the buffing stream," says Vermuyden, "with sad labour we wrought," and when he had ascended further up the stream, the sailors were often obliged to strip themselves naked, and get into the water.
The next attempt was made by Vermuyden, an opulent merchant, on the Gambia, about the year 1660 or 1665, who equipped a boat abundantly stored with bacon, beef, biscuit, rice, strong waters, and other comfortable supplies, the weight of which, however, was so great, that on arriving at the flats and shallows, the vessel could not proceed on her voyage without the greatest danger.
Before their long struggle for freedom against the Stuart dynasty was ended, the peasants had been taught their place, Vermuyden was out of the way, the ditches were all dug, the land acquired.
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