on, even Pitt ceasing to raise his voice against them. The lull of party
strife, and the strength of his position, enabled the minister, who was
a good financier, to alleviate what was then considered a very
threatening danger to the country, and at the same time to demonstrate
the firm and constant increase of the national wealth. He determined to
introduce a measure (1750) for the reduction of the debt, which was at
that time about £78,000,000, paying an interest of £3,000,000 a year.
This sum was at that time regarded as very formidable. But Pelham,
rightly thinking that the country could well bear the amount of debt,
directed his attention not to diminishing the capital but to lowering
the rate of interest. This plan had indeed been carried out constantly
since the time of William III., and as the operation had been always
successful, it marks the increased confidence of the nation in the
Government, and the increased wealth of the nation, since money could be
procured at gradually cheapening rates. Under William III. eight per
cent. had been given: under Queen Anne the interest had been reduced to
six: under George I. to five and to four; Pelham now proposed to reduce
it to three per cent. In spite of some natural opposition the Bill was
carried. Those who were unwilling to receive the reduced interest, and
there were few such, received their capital from money borrowed at three
per cent. The rest accepted the terms, which were three and a half, for
the next eight years, and three per cent. after 1758. The annual saving
was more than half a million, and Smollett says that Europe saw with
wonder England reducing the national obligations immediately after a war
which had almost ruined Europe. Three millions was indeed a considerable
charge upon a revenue amounting to about £8,523,540. This was derived
from four principal sources;--more than £3,800,000 from Excise and Malt
Tax, £1,900,000 and over from the customs; £1,637,608 from the Land Tax,
and the rest from the stamp duties and other small sources. The late war
had cost the nation upwards of £30,000,000, and many financiers, not
foreseeing the enormous development of the national resources which the
next half century would produce, took a gloomy view of the financial
position of England. But, as we have seen, the ease with which Pelham
completed the reduction of the interest proved that there was
considerable wealth in the country.
[Sidenote: Increase of wealth and trade.]
Indeed, although the great industrial period had not yet quite arrived,
both commerce and manufactures were making considerable strides, and
that wealth was accumulating which was to find its employment in the
next decade. Several branches of foreign trade had been relieved from
restrictions--whale and herring fisheries, the African trade and the
silk trade had all been relieved, while manufactures had been steadily
increasing. As early as 1715 silk spinning had been introduced at Derby;
and the woollen manufactures, which, with the silk, were heavily
protected, were of great and increasing importance. The use of cotton,
which was to change the whole face of Lancashire, was regarded most
unwisely as injurious, and but little use was made of it except for
mixing with silk and wool, and in a small degree for exportation.
Protection of silk and wool even went so far that penalties were laid on
the wearing and selling of calico goods. Both in Birmingham and
Sheffield metal works were largely established, and silver plated upon
other metals, which was introduced at Sheffield in 1742, was soon widely
used under the title of Sheffield plate. Improvements, too, had also
been made in the stocking-frame, and, in 1738, John Kaye had invented
his shuttle, which doubled the amount of work which could be done. But
while cotton was as yet scarcely thought of, and improvements in the old
manufactures were only introduced by degrees, the second great source of
English wealth was discovered and set to work. The quantity of iron in
the United Kingdom is very large, but keen observers complained that,
while there was plenty for our own supply and for exportation, we still
imported largely from America, where it could be worked cheaper. This
was because it had been thought necessary that iron should be smelted
with charcoal, and as carriage was as yet wholly by land and expensive,
it was only when iron occurred in woody districts, such as Surrey and
Sussex, that it could be worked with advantage. The occurrence of the
termination _Hammer_ in the name of several villages in Surrey marks
this old state of things. The railings round St. Paul's Cathedral were
regarded as the great achievement of the southern ironworks. In 1740
means were discovered of working iron with pit-coal, which at once
opened an almost unbounded sphere for industry. The discovery is
attributed to Dr. John Roebuck of Birmingham, who, in the year 1759,
established the great Carron ironworks in Stirlingshire. It is curious
that a similar plan should have been regarded as one of the bubbles of
the South Sea year. Agriculture was still in a backward condition,
especially with regard to implements. The plough was still a rude
machine, chiefly of wood. Turnips were still crushed with the beetle.
Cultivators, and other means of assisting or saving the trouble of
ploughing, were unknown. But in the east of England, at all events, the
value of frequent manuring was understood;--turnips and other root-crops
had taken the place of fallow, and a limited rotation of crops was in
vogue. The use of the drill, although invented in 1732, was little
known. All these improvements were however gradually getting introduced,
as the waste lands or great common fields were by degrees enclosed.
Suffolk, where this had been early done, was at the head of agricultural
improvement.
[Sidenote: Reform of the Calendar. 1751.]
During the period of parliamentary quiet which preceded Pelham's death,
two or three measures of permanent interest were passed. In 1751 the
reform of the Calendar was proposed and carried triumphantly through
Parliament, chiefly by the exertions of Chesterfield, Lord Macclesfield,
and Bradley the astronomer. The Julian Calendar, in which the length of
year was slightly miscalculated, had been reformed by Pope Gregory XIII.
in 1582, and this reform had been gradually adopted in all countries in
Europe except England, Russia, and Sweden. England is said to have
rejected it from hatred of the Papacy. The effect was, that while the
year in every other country began upon the 1st of January, in England it
began on the 25th of March; while, as compared with other countries,
there was a difference of eleven days in computing the days of the
month. The change proposed was, that the year 1752 should begin upon the
1st of January, and that eleven days should be suppressed between the
2nd and 14th of September, so that the third of that month should be
called the 14th, and that henceforward such changes should be introduced
as would make the solar and legal year coincident. The chief practical
difficulty was in the matter of payments. It was settled that these
should not be put forward. It is thus that the 5th of April, the 5th of
July, the 10th of October, and the 5th of January, still remain the days
on which the dividends of the public funds are paid. This change met
with a good deal of ignorant opposition. The common Opposition election
cry was, "Give us back our eleven days."
[Sidenote: Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act. 1753.]
[Sidenote: Decay of the Church.]
In 1753 a Marriage Act, usually known as Lord Hardwicke's Act, was
brought in, to decrease the number of the formal acts which constituted
a pre-engagement, in which a man might be entangled by carelessness and
against his own will, and, secondly, to check very rapid marriages. At
this time the facilities given to marriage enabled heirs and heiresses
to marry without consent of their natural guardians--a practice still
further supported by a quantity of broken and disreputable parsons who
hung about the Fleet Prison, and were known as Fleet Parsons, whose
performance of the ceremony was binding, and who could of course always
be procured for money. By the new Act marriages must be performed in the
parish church, after publication of banns, or by special licenses
granted by the Archbishop, and on payment of a heavy sum. Any clergyman
solemnizing a marriage in contravention of these restrictions is liable
to seven years' transportation. A Bill for the naturalization of Jews,
although carried, had to be repealed before the popular uproar. The
Bishops, who had supported the measure, drew upon themselves the larger
share of the popular indignation. They were indeed at this time
unusually liberal in their views. In the earlier part of the reign Queen
Caroline, in whose hands the appointments had chiefly been, had
carefully selected men of good repute and of liberal tendencies; in
opposition to the general feeling of the clergy, she confined her
appointments almost exclusively to Whigs. It is possible that this
conduct, however praiseworthy in itself, may have tended to increase the
general laxity among Churchmen and Dissenters, which had already begun
to be visible before the death of Bishop Burnet. Since that time a
variety of causes had combined to increase it. Thus, the separation of
the Church from the State in their political views, the Church being
chiefly Jacobite while the State was Whig; a similar division between
the Bishops and their clergy, and between the Universities, and the
Government, and the Bishops, all tended, by loosening the bonds of
authority, to the decay of the Church. The falling away of the
Dissenters, and the entire defeat of the Roman Catholics, had also
removed all competition; and while thus unnerved, the Church had been
called upon to answer the requirements of an increasing population and
of growing towns. It had, moreover, to combat the very general growth of
that scepticism which was so rife in France, and which was one of the
remarkable symptoms of the coming revolution.
[Sidenote: Rise of the Wesleyans. 1730.]
It was this state of public morality which induced the Wesleys to begin
their effort at a revival of religion, and to establish and organize the
great body of Wesleyan Methodists. They began their career at Oxford,
where they collected a small band of followers, deeply impressed with
the necessity of heartfelt religion. The most prominent among them was
Whitfield, who, after a youth passed in the humble avocations of a
waiter in the "Bell Inn" at Gloucester, was now struggling to educate
himself for the Church as a servitor at Pembroke College. In his zeal
for religion, Wesley went as a missionary to Georgia. He met with no
great success there; but on his return, in 1738, he found that his
society had grown, and had reached even London. Whitfield had been
ordained, and had become renowned for his eloquence. He it was who,
while working at first among the colliers at Kingswood near Bristol,
introduced that field preaching which became the main instrument in the
spread of Methodism. It was some time before Wesley could bring himself
to adopt this custom; but it afterwards became his constant practice. A
separation soon occurred between Whitfield, who was extreme in his
views, and Wesley, who had separated himself from the Moravians, with
whom he had at first worked, but who in England at least were guilty of
many extravagances. The withdrawal of Whitfield made Wesley undisputed
chief of the new sect, and to him was left its organization. His agents
were for the most part energetic, half-educated laymen, who all looked
to Wesley as their absolute chief. His object was not to separate from
the Church, he himself said, "Our service is not such as supersedes the
Church service: we never designed it should;" and only a very little
while before his death, he said, "I declare once more that I live and
die a member of the Church of England, and that none who regard my
judgment or advice will ever separate from it." What he tried to do was
to bring religion within the reach of those who, either by character or
by the line of life they pursued, were unlikely to be reached by the
ordinary apparatus of the Church, and to excite among his hearers a more
true and enthusiastic religion than the formalism at that time
prevalent. His society was to be not the enemy, but the handmaid of the
Church. Its organization was strict and admirable. The preachers moved
on in constant succession from district to district, so that neither
preacher nor hearer should grow weary of monotonous work. A conference,
consisting of preachers whom he selected, was held every year. The
Methodists were divided into classes, with a leader to each class, and a
weekly class-meeting was held. Love-feasts were also established, and
any grave sin was visited by exclusion from the society. The effect of
this earnest and well-arranged effort at reform was very great; not only
on the Methodists themselves, who were principally among the poorer
classes, especially miners and people out of reach of ordinary Church
influences, and who at his death in England and America numbered nearly
110,000, but also on the Church, by exciting that warmth and emulation
which we have seen was at the time so much wanted. Although its
influence was thus great and excellent, it must not be concealed that,
as was natural, enthusiasm produced some eccentricities which will
explain a good deal of the opposition which Wesley undoubtedly met with
among the higher classes and among careless Churchmen.
[Sidenote: The nation asserts its opinion in opposition to Parliament.]
As in wealth and religion, so in its political tendencies, this period
was one of growth and of preparation for the more important half century
which was to follow. In that period was to begin the second phase of the
political change introduced at the Revolution:--the gradual assertion by
the nation of their right to proper representation in Parliament. There
were signs that the people at large were already growing weary of the
influence of a few great nobles, of the squabbles of aristocratic
parties for their own personal aggrandizement, and of the secresy in
which the conduct of their nominal representatives was veiled. It is
thus that the Opposition could generally rouse an almost irresistible
expression of feeling by appealing from the overwhelming majority of
Parliament to the passions of the nation. It was thus that Pitt,
regarded as a disinterested and patriotic man, without any of the usual
sources of influence, became the most popular and powerful statesman in
the country; and thus when, in 1752, Mr. Murray charged with
interrupting the high bailiff at a Westminster election, refused to
kneel to the House, and was consequently imprisoned during the session,
he was led in triumphal procession by the sheriffs of London and
Middlesex. Indeed, the privileges claimed for the members of the House
might alone have sufficed to excite opposition. We hear that the very
rabbits, fish, and footmen of the members were taken under the august
protection of the House.
[Sidenote: Pelham's death gives the Government to Newcastle. 1754.]
The term of the existing Parliament was just over, and it seemed as if
the same quiet course would be pursued in the following one, when all
such ideas were overthrown by the unexpected death of Henry Pelham. His
death broke the tie which connected so many able men of varying
opinions, and it became evident that parliamentary and party struggles
would again occur. The King is said to have exclaimed, "Now I shall have
no more peace." Upon the Duke of Newcastle fell the task of attempting
to continue the existing Government. He himself took his brother's place
at the head of the Treasury; he appointed Henry Legge as his Chancellor
of the Exchequer. But it was not easy to supply Pelham's place as leader
of the House of Commons. The choice seemed to lie between Henry Fox, who
was Secretary at War, a friend and protégé of the Duke of Cumberland,
Pitt, who was Paymaster, and Murray, who was Attorney-General. Pitt,
personally disagreeable to the King, and moreover at this time in ill
health, was not to be thought of; Murray's ambition was confined to the
law; the Duke therefore applied to Fox. But they quarrelled about the
arrangement of patronage, of which Newcastle was very jealous; and
ultimately Sir Thomas Robinson, a man of no mark, was made Secretary,
and given the management of the House. Pitt and Fox combined to render
his position ridiculous and miserable. "The Duke might as well send his
jackboot to lead us," said Pitt to Fox. Before the new Parliament had
been assembled a month it was found necessary to make terms with Fox,
who was given a seat in the Cabinet, although remaining in his
subordinate place. This caused a permanent estrangement between the two
statesmen. With Fox's assistance Newcastle got through the year.
[Sidenote: Approaching danger from India]
[Sidenote: and America.]
But Newcastle was not the man to uphold a ministry during a time of such
difficulty as was evidently approaching. Everything pointed to a speedy
renewal of war. At the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle the limits of our
American colonies had been left undefined; while in India, where
Dupleix and Labourdonnais had inflicted heavy blows on the English
during the war, although the nations were at peace, the French and
English contrived to continue their rivalry by allying themselves with
native princes, and Clive had already rendered his name famous by the
defence of Arcot and the restoration of English power in the
Carnatic.[7] Thus there were dangers both in the East and in the West.
In America the main object of the French was to secure the valley of the
Mississippi, to connect by this channel their Canadian colonies with
those upon the Gulf of Mexico, and thus to confine the English to the
strip of country between the Alleghany mountains and the sea. The
English would thus be constantly threatened on all sides, cut off from
direct intercourse with the Indians, and from all hope of any extension
of their settlements towards the west. The French began their
encroachments by erecting forts on the Ohio river, which were to secure
the connection between the Mississippi valley and Canada. A colonial
war, in which the name of Washington first becomes prominent, arose from
these encroachments. And this local warfare continued, till it became
necessary for the Government to take the matter up. A force under
General Braddock was therefore despatched against Fort Duquesne on the
Ohio; but his careless stupidity led him into an ambush, where he
himself and a great number of his troops were killed.
[Sidenote: Newcastle tries to confine the war to the colonies.]
In spite of these hostilities, and although the existence of unsettled
questions had caused a very uneasy feeling between them, France and
England were as yet nominally at peace. And Newcastle, wholly unfit to
conduct a great war, and eager to temporize as long as possible, seems
to have tried to confine the war to matters affecting the prosperity of
the American colonies. Thus Admiral Boscawen was sent out with orders to
watch the French fleet, and attack it if it appeared bound for the Gulf
of St. Lawrence. The consequence was an engagement, in which the French
lost two ships. The rest of the fleet, to the disappointment of the
English people, reached its destination. So again, Hawke's fleet in the
Channel received strange and contradictory orders. One party in the
Council wished to act openly and declare war. Newcastle suggested that
no orders should be given to Hawke, but that he should be sent out to
cruise, and that he should be ordered not to attack the French fleet
unless he thought it worth while. Finally, instructions were given him
to attack line of battle ships, but nothing smaller, and to spare
trading vessels. He had not been gone a week when orders reached him to
destroy everything large and small between Cape Ortegal and Cape Clear.
The consequence was a large capture of prizes, and a not unfair outcry
from France and the rest of Europe against the strange conduct of the
English in seizing vessels without a declaration of war.
[Sidenote: George's anxiety for Hanover.]
[Sidenote: He makes subsidiary treaties against Prussia. 1755.]
It was plain that war could not much longer be delayed; and the King's
thoughts turned as usual to his continental dominions. Although the
importance of the crisis was universally felt, he was content to leave
England in the hands of a regency; and as soon as Parliament was over,
just before Boscawen sailed, he hurried to Hanover. Next to France, the
object of George's dread was Prussia. More than one cause of quarrel had
arisen with that country. Frederick had refused to assist in securing
the election of the Archduke Joseph (afterwards Joseph II.) as King of
the Romans, a project which Newcastle and George had deeply at heart,
believing that it would preserve the European balance and strengthen
Austria against the French. Deprived of Frederick's assistance, the plan
came to nothing. In 1753, again, a dispute had arisen about some ships
captured in the late war, and condemned, as Frederick asserted, unjustly
by the English Admiralty courts. To such an extent had the irritation
against Prussia increased, that it was confidently believed that
Frederick intended to assist the Pretender in another attack upon
England, taking advantage of the disturbance to secure Hanover for
himself. Against Prussia, therefore, George began contracting great
subsidiary treaties with the continental princes. The most important of
these were with Hesse and with the Czarina of Russia. A factory, says
Horace Walpole, was opened at Herrnhausen, where every prince that could
muster and clothe a regiment might traffic with it to advantage.
[Sidenote: They are opposed by Pitt.]
It became Newcastle's duty to carry these contracts through Parliament.
He knew the opposition they were certain to meet with, and the necessity
of finding some strong support in the Lower House; but his Cabinet was
there represented by no man of mark. He had recourse to Pitt, who held
the office of Paymaster, but he positively refused to support the
subsidies. His colleague Legge went further, and refused to sign the
warrants which were to open the Treasury. Newcastle had then recourse to
Fox, and succeeded in securing his services by removing Robinson, and
making Fox Secretary of State. But the introduction of the address at
the opening of Parliament in the autumn, when the Russian and Hessian
subsidies were recommended, was the signal for an open mutiny in the
ministerial camp. It was attacked in vehement words by Pitt, who, in a
well-known passage, likened the new coalition to the junction he had
once seen of the Rhone and the Saône; the one a gentle, feeble, languid
stream of no depth, and the other a boisterous, impetuous torrent.
Newcastle had no alternative but to discharge both Pitt and Legge from
their offices.
[Sidenote: The French capture Minorca. May 1756.]
Meanwhile the courage of the nation had sunk very low. There was a dread
of an immediate French invasion; and the Government so thoroughly lost
heart as to request the King to garrison England with Hanoverian troops.
This dread was kept alive by a simulated collection of French troops in
the north. But, under cover of this threat, a fleet was being collected
at Toulon, with the real design of capturing Minorca. The ministry were
at last roused to this danger, and Byng was despatched with ten sail of
the line to prevent it. Three days after he set sail the Duke de
Richelieu, with 16,000 men, slipped across into the island, and
compelled General Blakeney, who was somewhat old and infirm, to withdraw
into the castle of St. Philip, which was at once besieged. On the 19th
of May--much too late to prevent the landing of Richelieu--Byng arrived
within view of St. Philip, which was still in the possession of the
English. The French Admiral, La Galissonnière, sailed out to cover the
siege, and Byng, who apparently felt himself unequally matched--although
West, his second in command, behaved with gallantry and success--called
a council of war, and withdrew. Blakeney, who had defended his position
with great bravery, had to surrender.
[Sidenote: Newcastle resigns. Nov. 1756.]
The failure of Byng, and the general weakness and incapacity of the
ministry, roused the temper of the people to rage; and Newcastle,
trembling for himself, threw all the blame upon the Admiral, hoping by
this means to satisfy the popular cry. But Fox, his chief supporter, was
in no mood to risk anything by fidelity to so weak a chief. He therefore
resigned the Seals; and as Murray insisted upon either resigning or
being made Lord Chief Justice (which office was given him), Newcastle,
without support in the Commons, found himself obliged to resign also.
[Sidenote: Pitt's vigorous government. 1757.]