1

equality" which had been established in France. The English government at first maintained a perfect neutrality, but on the 2nd of February 1793, the minister (Mr. Pitt) moved an address in parliament to the effect that peace was no longer consistent with our internal tranquillity or external safety, and it afterwards appeared that on the day preceding the National Convention had declared war against England and Holland. At this time France had become as it were one vast camp, and a source of dread and danger to the other nations, who sought security in combining against it. The parties who successively acquired supreme power in Paris, followed and proscribed each other with extraordinary rapidity, but there was no want of energy in these offshoots of the Revolution. Intellect and enterprise of every kind were enlisted in the public service. The command of the armies was given to men who, disregarding previous usages, defeated the old tacticians of Austria and Prussia, and overran Flanders and Holland. The English army which had been sent to their assistance was compelled to return, after suffering great losses and privations ; but at sea England continued to maintain her accustomed supremacy, and most of the French colonies fell into our hands. An attempt was made in 1796 to negotiate for peace, but it terminated without effect. The revolutionary armies were everywhere successful, and the Revolution itself, after going through the usual phases, attained its natural consummation in the ascendency of a dictator. Towards the end of 1799, Bonaparte Napoleon Bonaparte, the conqueror of Italy, then just sul, and returned from his expedition to Egypt, abolished the emperors Directory, assumed the supreme power as First Consul,

First Con

afterwards

and after a few years caused himself to be proclaimed emperor; and the whole of Europe, with the exception

1 See the speeches of Mr. Pitt and Mr. Burke on the 2nd and 11th of February 1793.

of England, became eventually subject to his influence or control.

Union with

and

In 1800 it was decided that the legislative union 1801. with Ireland should take effect with the commencement Ireland. of the new year, which would be also the commencement of the century; and the British Islands thenceforward bore the designation of "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland." This was declared, in the speech from the throne, to be an event which the king considered the happiest of his reign, being persuaded that nothing could so effectually contribute to the happiness of his Irish subjects, and to the strength and prosperity of the whole empire.1 The commercial and manufacturing resources of the country Imports went on increasing, notwithstanding the impediments exports. interposed by war and the frequent occurrence of unproductive seasons. In 1782, the last year of the American War, the official value of the imports was £10,341,628 and the exports £13,009,452, whilst ten years afterwards, at the commencement of the French revolutionary war, the imports amounted to £19,659,358 and the exports to £24,905,200,2 both the one and the other being thus nearly doubled in the interval of peace. In 1801, after eight years of war, the imports amounted to £31,786,262 and the exports to £35,264,650, showing a far slower rate of increase for the intervening period; but still an increase sufficiently marked to establish the continued advance of the country in wealth, and in the powers of production. The tonnage of shipping increased during the same period in a corresponding ratio.

1 For a brief summary of Irish social legislation down to the Union, and for an interesting account (on the authority of Arthur Young) of the state of the country at that epoch, see History of Irish Poor Law, pp. 57-59, 59-66.

2 These figures must be taken as indicating quantities rather than values, and are chiefly useful as affording the means of comparing one period with another.

National debt and revenue.

Popula tion.

We have seen that the national debt, at the end of the American War in 1783, amounted to £244,118,635, the annual charge being £9,302,328.1 On the 1st of February 1803, after the Peace of Amiens, the debt amounted to £520,207,101, and the annual charge to £18,643,725, exclusive of two loans amounting together to £6,220,000 (with an annual charge of £458,931) raised for the Emperor of Germany, and which the British government had eventually to pay, both principal and interest. This enormous increase in the debt was caused partly by the unavoidable expenses of the war, and partly by subsidies to Austria and the other continental states, to assist them in opposing the armies of France; but every effort which they made ended in disaster, whilst the abstraction of so much capital could not fail to operate injuriously upon the productive resources of this country. Yet the revenue levied by the State continued to increase, having risen from £17,656,418 in 1793, at the commencement of the French War, to £35,415,096 at its brief cessation in 1802.

The first census was taken in 1801, when the returns for England and Wales exhibited a population of 9,172,980. Twenty years previously we have assumed that it amounted to little short of 8,000,000,* and it had gone on steadily increasing from the Revolution in 1688. A continually increasing population would naturally require increased means of subsistence and communication, and we accordingly find that in the thirty years between 1769 and 1799, upwards of two millions and a half acres of land were brought into cultivation, and that between 1785 and 1801 no less than 1874 Acts were passed for making 1 Ante, p. 78.

2 See Pictorial History of the Reign of George III., book ii. p. 626.

3 In the nine years including 1794 and 1802 the enormous amount of £200,734,743 was raised by loan. See M'Culloch's British Empire, vol. ii. p. 432. 4 Ante, p. 78.

canals, harbours, roads, and bridges, and for draining, paving, and other local improvements.

corn and

The variableness of the seasons, and the consequent Prices of fluctuations in the price of corn and the other neces- provisions. saries of life, during the first fifteen years of George the Third's reign, have already been noticed.1 Similar fluctuations continued down to 1795, in which year the cold was so severe in the month of June, as to kill great numbers of sheep which had been newly shorn, and the price of wheat rose in the spring of 1796 to above 100s. a quarter. Importation was encouraged by large bounties, and neutral vessels laden with corn were seized and compelled to sell their cargoes. The scarcity continued during the four succeeding years, and in 1799 and 1800 the harvest was so very deficient, as to cause wheat to reach the price of 134s. a quarter in June of the latter year, and the almost famine price of 156s. 2d. a quarter in the spring of 1801. Proclamations were issued enjoining strict economy in the use of flour and bread. Large bounties on importation were granted. Distillation from grain was prohibited, and the cultivation of the potato was greatly extended. "The sufferings of the bulk of the community under this severe visitation of dearth were very great. The expression of them broke out in tumultuous meetings and riotous proceedings in different parts of the kingdom in the autumn of 1800, and the peace of the metropolis was with difficulty preserved.” Happily, however, the next harvest proved abundant, and by the end of the year the price of wheat fell to 75s. 6d.

The frequent occurrence of bad seasons and deficient crops, caused a general tendency to a rise in price; and we accordingly find the pivot or turning-price below which exporters were entitled to a 5s. bounty, and 1 Ante, p. 74.

VOL. II.-9

2 See Tooke's History of Prices.

Rate of

wages.

above which importation was permitted free of the 6d. a quarter duty, successively raised from 44s. to 48s. and 54s. The average price of the quarter of wheat between 1785 and 1794 was about 49s. 9d., and between the latter year and 1801 it was 87s., or very nearly double. Yet Arthur Young represents the average price of wheat in the seventeenth century to have been 38s. 2d. a quarter, and in the eighteenth century 38s. 7d. a quarter,' a very trifling difference. between the entire periods; but we nevertheless see that the occasional advances which had taken place, some of which were excessive, gave rise at the beginning of the nineteenth century to a general upward tendency, as is manifested by the successive raising of the price by which the law of import and export was governed.

Assuming the price of corn to be an index to the prices of all other articles necessary for human subsistence, it follows that the rise of price which had taken place, and more especially in the latter years of the eighteenth century, must have caused great privation and suffering to the labouring classes, unless it had been met by a corresponding rise in the rate of wages; and even then the rise would not go beyond what the average range of prices might warrant, whilst the extreme elevations would necessarily still bear hard upon the labourers. We have seen that in the case of the London tailors, a considerable advance did take place in 1768, under the sanction of a legislative enactment, and there is reason to believe that there was likewise an advance in all other trades and handicrafts more or less proportionate to the advance in the price of provisions. With respect to agricultural and other day labourers, there must have been also an advance in some shape or other, either as wages, or as an allowance from the parish in aid of wages, since 1 See Tooke's History of Prices, vol. i. p. 83. 2 Ante, p. 71.

2