A history of England in the eighteenth century
Royal College of Physicians of London
mWSiSk mms U-.i ) *■*•*-» V j’ii Vtf <rRSVi!*. fJj-H.r: mmmx ?TrEGMED. MDXVIH jgs TEXS^ WKtSS* ■u-jJm. LA v^Lai^K. i ;x*-^\*>4 V >\Lg# r^ r J ?)^'i ,a< JC y (Charles iwe (CJaoUum HISTOBY OF ENGLAND IN THE XVIIIth CENTURY VOL. II. LONDON : PRINTED BY 8POTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW- STREET SQUARE AND PARLIAMENT STREET A HISTORY of ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY BY WILLIAM ED WALD HARTPOLE LECKY e SECOND EDITION , REVISED VOLUME II. LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN, 1879 AND 00. All rights reserved £?7709 x \ \ ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHY3ICUAUS LIBRARY. OLAR3 c\ 4-^ I AOON 1 53 L 1 SOURCE, Sir DATE /f • "• fi CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME. •<>« • CHAPTER V. PAGE The Colonies and Scotland. The Colonies Favourable circumstances of those of America .... 1 Their early difficulties. 3 Invasion of charters under the Stuarts ...... 3 Effect of the Revolution on the Colonies 4 Forms of government 4 Rivalry with Spain, Holland, and France 6 Commercial policy of the mother country 7 Effects of the commercial laws in producing disaffection. 10 Introduction of criminals into America. .11 Introduction of slavery. First English slave-hunters. 12 Growth of the institution after the Peace of Utrecht. .12 Relations of the Home Government to slavery. 14 Hlustrations of public opinion on the subject. .16 Causes which drove American slavery southwards. 17 Puritanical customs 17 The theatre ............ 18 Inoculation j § Intellectual progress Other colonies of England Scotland Condition of the Highlands at the beginning of the eighteenth century 22 Highland superstitions 28 Illustrations of Highland fidelity. _. 20 Other Highland virtues 92 Inverness o.> VI CONTENTS OF PAGE Aberdeen 34 Educational establishments 35 The Lowlands. Edinburgh 36 Miserable state of the Lowlands 38 Religious persecution 38 Commercial disabilities. 39 Great poverty and disorder throughout Scotland .... 39 Proposals of Fletcher of Saltoun. 41 Remedial Measw'es Ecclesiastical. Establishment of the Kirk 41 The parish schools ... 43 Condition of education in Scotland. 43 The Act of Toleration 45 Discontent of the Presbyterians 49 Industrial. The Union, its commercial clauses .... 50 Measures of the Scotch tending to independence. 51 Difficulties in carrying the Union. 55 Great commercial prosperity following it 56 Comparison between the Scotch and Irish Unions .... 58 Pertinacity of Discontent at the Union in Scotland. 61 Improvement of the Highlands Decrease of the Gaelic tongue under the influence of the parish schools 65 The Highland roads .... 65 Causes lowering the position of the Highland chiefs ... 66 Abolition of hereditary jurisdiction 67 Abolition of the national dress 67 Severe measures against the Episcopalians 67 The Highland regiments 69 Transition from the feudal to the commercial conception of land- lords 69 Improvement in agriculture 71 Decline of mendicancy 72 How far legislation can civilise nations 73 Scotland in the middle of the eighteenth century still in many ways behind England 74 Torture. Serfdom. Judicial and political corruption. 74 Character of Scotch politicians 75 Character of Scotch religion 78 Narrowness and intolerance 80 Witchcraft Ascetic tendencies .......... 83 Gradual change of manners and belief 85 Scotch virtues partly due to industrial habits ..... vii CHAPTER VI. PAGE Ireland before the Eighteenth Century. Contrast between Irish and Scotch history 92 Early relations between the English and Irish 93 Ireland not thoroughly conquered before Elizabeth ... 94 Savage manner in which the country was subdued . . . . 95 How far religious considerations entered into the struggle , . 99 The Land War Spirit of adventure after the Reformation drew many speculators to Ireland 101 The Irish land system .104 The composition of Connaught . . 104 Confiscations under Mary in Leinster 105 Confiscations in Munster after Desmond’s rebellion . . . . 105 Payne’s description of Munster 106 Abolition of tanistry and gavelkind 108 Confiscations and settlements in Ulster 108 Character of the settlers 109 Description of Ulster by Sir John Davis Ill Fresh encroachments on Irish land 112 Attempt to overthrow the titles in Connaught . . . .114 The Graces 115 Violated by Wentworth 116 The settlement of Connaught deferred 117 Religious grievances State of religion in Ireland under Elizabeth 118 Disturbances under James 1 119 Growing Catholic zeal 120 Protestant intolerance 120 The Puritan Parliament threatens to extirpate Catholicism . .122 Rebellion of 1641 Summary of  Cavan 131 In the rest of Ulster ..132 The Scotch little molested 137 Crimes of the Irish. Report of the Commissioners . . . . 138 Sir Phelim O’Neil 143 Exaggerated accounts spread in England 145 Motives of exaggeration . . 146 The depositions 14.7 Temple 149 Exaggerations at the time of the Act of Settlement . . . . 151 Carte and Warner • - • 152 yin CONTENTS OF PAGE Conduct of the English Parliament and Lords Justices . . . 155 Conduct of the English soldiers ....... 157 Attempts of Irish leaders to restrain the horrors of the war . . 161  Irish Parliament of 1689. Its composition 182 Its Acts about religion and repealing Poyning’s law . . . . 183 The repeal of the Act of Settlement 184 The Act of Attainder 188 Final ruin of the Jacobites 196 CHAPTER YII. Ireland. 1700-1760. Four Causes of Scotch Progress The establishment of the Kirk ; the parochial schools; the destruc- tion of the feudal privileges, and free trade 197 Opposite policy pw'sued in Ireland The Church was that of the rich minority 198 Supported by tithes . . . 198 The law aimed at the extirpation of the Church of the people . 199 The Charter schools established 200  Forbidden to export unmanufactured wool to the Continent  ...... 225 Chief offices all filled by Englishmen . . . . • • • 227 Scandalous pensions ......... 228 Abuses of Church patronage 229 Absence of all efficient control . . .... 237 Partial restriction of pensions 237 Letter of Lucas .... 238 Absenteeism. Its causes and extent 239 THE SECOND VOLUME. IX PAGE Its effects on agricultural economy 240 The Middlemen and Cottiers 240 Agricultural evils aggravated by the penal code 243 Spread of pasture 244 Nomadic pauperism 250 Attempts to diminish it 253 Slow growth of population. Proportion of Catholics to Protestants 255 Summary of the depressing circumstances of the country. How far due to England 256 Emigration of the more energetic Irishmen Early nomadic tendencies of the nation 258 Emigration under Elizabeth, James I., and Cromwell. 259 Accelerated by the Revolution 259 The Protestant emigration 260 The Catholic emigration ......... 262 Irishmen in foreign service 262 Effect of this emigration on the national character. 265 Religious Legislation Systematic degradation of Catholics 266 Their condition under Anne 267 Their condition in the early Hanoverian period. .271 Gradual relaxation of the religious disabilities 278 Deposition of Bishop Sweetman 279 Effects of the penal code on the respect for law. 281 On the character of Irish religion 282 On the distribution of property 284 On social life 285 Social and political effects of the confiscations Extreme dread of Catholic ascendency 286 Schism between the landlords and tenants 286 Its effect upon Irish literature 288 Upon the character of the gentry ....... 288 Many influences conspire to corrupt them. 290 Their oppression of their tenants 290 Duelling, drinking, extravagance. 292 Irish country life 294 Disregard for law 295 General character of the Irish gentry 296 Character of the Middlemen 297 Better aspects of Irish life Intellectual activity 299 Dublin Philosophical Society 300 The Dublin Society 302 Berkeley 303 Philanthropy greatly diverted to the Charter schools. 304 Lord Molesworth 305 X CONTENTS OF PAGE Synge’s Sermon on Toleration 306 Tolerant spirit of some of the higher ecclesiastics. 307 Amelioration of the position of Catholics 311 Redeeming features of the Government. 313 Character of the poor 314 Diminution of intolerance. ..317 Description of the country , Dublin. .318 Condition of the roads 326 Love of acting 327 Increase of travelling 327 Diminution of the Irish language 327 Provincial newspapers and libraries 328 Destruction of woods 328 State of agriculture 331 The linen manufacture. Growth, of Belfast 333 The fisheries 334 Cork 335 Limerick ............ 336 Waterford 337 Kilkenny 338 Galway ............ 338 The German colony 343 The Huguenots in Ireland 344 Irish crime Tories and Rapparees 346 State of Kerry and Connaught 34S The Houghers ........... xi PAGE Growing animosity 403 The Test Act 405 Motives of the Bishops in maintaining it 405 Interference with Presbyterian ministers 407 The Regiwn Donum 407 Controversies about a Toleration Act 408 And about an Indemnity Act 409 Toleration Act of 1719 409 Indemnity Act carried 409 Impossibility of repealing the Test 410 Causes of the decadence of Presbyterianism 411 The New Light schism 411 The Associate Presbytery schism 412 Conflict between the English and Irish interest The Irish interest purely colonial 412 Causes of the discontent that followed the Revolution . , .413 Jacobite project for uniting Protestants and Catholics . . . 414 Molyneux .415 Petitions for an Union 416 Patronage. Primate Boulter 417 Disputes about money bills . . 418 The jurisdiction of the Irish House of Lords taken away . . 419 Swift’s tract in favour of an exclusive use of Irish manufactures prosecuted 420 Wood’s halfpence 420 Swift’s Irish career 425 Minor Acts of the Irish Parliament 427 The surplus in 1731 428 The Viceroys 428 Lucas 429 Stone 430 Boyle 431 Conflict with the Government, 1751-1753 431 Formation of a Parliamentary Opposition 432 Events from 1753 to 1759 433 Improvement of the position of the Catholics 436 The expedition of Thurot 437 CHAPTER VIII. Death of Pelham leads to the ascendency of the Duke of New- castle 438 His character 439 Competition for the leadership of the House of Commons •. 441 Murray — Fox — Pitt 441 Appointment of Sir Thomas Robinson 442 Conduct of Pitt and Fox 442 Reconciliation of Fox and Newcastle. 442 Xll CONTENTS OF PAGE Hostilities break out between the French and English in America 443 General distrust of Newcastle 444 Recall of the French ambassador. English aggressions in America 446 Seizure of French ships 447 German subsidies 448 Opposed by Pitt 448 Dismissal of Pitt 448 Changes in the Ministry. Treaty with Prussia .... 449 Alliance between Austria, Russia, and Saxony. 449 Acceded to by France 450 Frederick discovers the plot against him 451 Great panic in England. Fears of invasion 452 French expedition against Minorca 453 Conduct of Byng. Minorca taken by the French .... 454 Disasters in America 454 Progress of the French in India. Policy of Dupleix. 455 English triumph in the Carnatic 455 Surajah Dowlah captures Calcutta 456 Frederick takes Dresden ......... 456 Battle of Lobositz. Capitulation of Saxon Army .... 457 Resignation of Fox, .......... 457 And of Newcastle 457 Fox fails in attempting to form a Ministry 458 Ministry of Devonshire and Pitt 458 Weakness of the Ministry. Hostility of the King .... 459 Execution of Byng 460 Dismissal of Temple and Pitt. Popularity of Pitt .... 462 Interregnum ........... 462 Formation of the Coalition Ministry of Newcastle and Pitt. 462 Condition of parties in England ... .... 464 Antipathy of the King to Pitt ........ 465 Their reconciliation .......... 466 William Pitt Character of his eloquence 467 Effect of reporting on Parliamentary eloquence. 472 Nobility of the character of Pitt 473 His general sympathy with the popular sentiment. 474 His courage in opposing it 474 His inconsistencies. Retrospect of his career 475 Ingratitude to Newcastle 481 His arrogance .... 4S2 His theatrical character 482 His attitude to royalty 483 The ostentation of his virtues 484 His war policy. Disasters that preceded his Ministry. • • 485 Convention of Closterseven 486 The Duke of Cumberland. Noble conduct of Pitt towards him. 487 General despondency in the country 488 THE SECOND VOLUME. xiii PAGE Militia riots. 489 Battle of Rosbach .......... 491 Battle of Leuthen 491 The Convention of Closterseven broken ...... The Religious Revival. Causes of the Undogmatie Character of English Theology in the Eighteenth Century. Growth of physical science 523 Deism not popular among the higher intellects 524 Physical science not regarded as anti-theological .... 524 Imperfection of religious history and criticism 527  of Sunday 532 Decadence of the Universities . . 534 Neglect of the Fathers 536 Arianism in the Church 537 And among the Dissenters 538 Hutcheson 539 Revolt against articles of faith 539 The better side of the theology of the time 544 Eclipse of Evangelical doctrines 545 Traces of religious life in the beginning of the century . . . 545 Influence of Law 548 Methodism Its rise at Oxford 549 Early life of John Wesley 550 His first companions * . . 551 Visits Georgia 553 His character at this period 554 Dissensions at Georgia. Return to England 555 Moravian influence 556 Conversion of Wesley 558 Visit to Herrnhut 559 Formation of religious societies 559 Missionary work. Conflict with the clergy 560 Erection of Methodist chapels 561 THE SECOND VOLUME. xv PAGE Whitefield begins field-preaching .* 562 The Wesleys reluctantly follow 563 Character of Whitefield 563 His position in the Church 565 His eloquence 568 His influence 573 Methodism separates from Moravianism 574 Formation of a distinct society  preachers in 1 741 576 Missionary work 577 Persecution  Physical manifestations .... 582 Religious insanity 585 Asceticism 589 Belief in contemporary miracles 591 In witchcraft 593 In special judgments 594 Growing fanaticism. The earthquake of 1750 . . . . 595 Moral failings 596 Intestine discord ..........  In Wales. State of religion in the Principality .... 602 Griffith Jones 603 Howell Harris 604 Effects of Methodism in increasing Welsh Nonconformity . . . 606 Methodism in Scotland 607 And in Ireland. Wesley’s journeys there 608 Influence of Methodism on the young  classes 616 On the Church of England. The Evangelical revival . . . . 619 Berridge 620 Grimshaw 622 Romaine 625 Other early Evangelicals 626 Estimate of the work of Wesley 627 His relations to the Church ........ 632 Causes that detached Methodism  xvi CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME. PACK In mitigating the evils accompanying the growth of manufactures 636 Religious efficacy of its teaching G38 Summary of the evils that spring from it 639 Its severance from the intellect of the country 640 Its Sabbatarianism 641 Its effects on the Catholic question 642 HISTORY OF ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, CHAPTER V. THE COLONIES AND SCOTLAND. Among the British dependencies in the middle of the eighteenth century, the first place must be given to the colonies in North America. It was a signal proof of the wisdom of the English legislators of the seventeenth century that they conceded to these colonies, charters which secured them an almost absolute self-government ; while the number of the American provinces, and the diversity of the religions of the colonists, led to a much larger measure of religious liberty than existed in Europe. To these two inestimable advantages must be added a country of almost unlimited resources, and a people who, in energy, moral excellence, and practical wisdom, were probably unsurpassed upon the earth. In the present century the immigration of a large foreign population is seldom favourable to the moral condition of a nation. Emigration has become so easy and so familiar that it is the resource of multitudes but little removed from simple pauperism. Men of ordinary characters usually deteriorate when severed from the ties of home tradi- tions, associations, and opinions; and they seldom feel any strong attachment for a country which was not that of their childhood. But in the seventeenth century the conditions of emigration were essentially different. The difficulties of the enterprise were such that those who encountered them were ** VOL. II. B 2 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUHY. ch. y. almost always men of much more than common strength of character, and they were to a very large extent men whose motive in abandoning their country was the intensity of their religious or political convictions. It is the peculiarity of the British colonies in America that they were mainly founded and governed by such men. Puritans in New England, Episcopa- lians in Virginia, Quakers in Pennsylvania, Catholics in Mary- land— each province contained numbers who, during the per- secutions of the Stuarts or of the Commonwealth, had sought in the Western world the opportunity of freely professing their faith. From the time of the Pilgrim Fathers to the time when the Salzburg Protestants flocked to the new colony of Georgia in 1732, America was pre-eminently the home of the refugees ; and this fact is, perhaps, the most important in its history. After all that can be said of material and intellectual advan- tages, it remains true that moral causes lie at the root of the greatness of nations ; and it is probable that no nation ever started on its career with a larger proportion of strong charac- ters, or a higher level of moral conviction, than the English colonies in America. Many other circumstances combined to mark them out as the predestined seat of a great free nation. Founded in nearly every case without any pecuniary assistance from the mother country, and separated from it by 3,000 miles of water, they were, during the earlier stages of their existence, practically almost beyond the knowledge and control of the Government at home ; and most of the colonists belonged to those non- episcopal Churches which, by throwing on the people the duties of ecclesiastical government, have been the best schools of political freedom. Without bishops, without peers, without a resident sovereign, without superfluous offices or endowments, with a population consisting almost wholly of freeholders scattered thinly over an immense territory and mainly occupied in agri- cultural pursuits, their politics were naturally of the simplest and freest kind ; and they almost entirely escaped the corruption that so deeply tainted the Government at home. Their progress, though les3 rapid than it afterwards became, was eminently healthy and steady. In less than eighty years after the first permanent English settlement there were twelve distinct colonial ch. y. SHADOWS OF COLONIAL LIFE. 3 governments ; and the population, which at the time of the Re- volution was estimated at about 200,000, had risen to 1,000,000 some years before the middle of the century.1 There were, no doubt, many shadows on the picture. From the nature of their population the American colonies contained a very large amount of the fiercest religious fanaticism ; and although in some provinces noble efforts were made to establish freedom of worship, these efforts were altogether exceptional. What religious liberty existed was much more the consequence of the extent of territory, and of the multiplication of provinces, which enabled each sect to find a home, than of the dispositions of the people themselves.2 The history of Salem witchcraft, of the persecution of the Quakers in Massachusetts, and of the suppres- sion of religious liberty in Maryland, as well as a crowd of savage or absurd laws regulating, in the interests of religion, not only the opinions but also the minutest actions of the people, remain to show how far the colonists were from attaining any high general standard of religious freedom. Nor were their faults exclu- sively those of saints. Their warfare and intercourse with Indians were often marked by gross cruelty or injustice. The practice of kidnapping men at the English, Scotch, or Irish ports, to sell them to American planters, continued far into the eighteenth century ; a numerous race of daring pirates found secure homes along the long-deserted seaboards of America ; and the colonial population, if it contained much of the highest excellence, con- tained also not a little of the refuse, of Europe. As numbers increased and as the condition of society became more complex, violent disputes arose in many provinces between the colonists and the proprietary, and they generally ended in an increase of the power of the Crown. The proprietary governments some- times degenerated into narrow oligarchies ; the theocratical laws of New England excited wide and general irritation, and in the last days of the Stuarts there were many conflicts between the Home Government and the colonies. Under Charles II. the charter of Massachusetts was annulled on the pretext of violation of the Navigation Act; under James II. the illegal 1 Hildreth’s 1 list, of the United religious intolerance in the colonies States (ed. 1849), ii. 127, 373. in Burke’s Account of the European 1 See two remarkable chapters on Settlement* in America. 4 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. CH. T. Declaration of Indulgence was published in the colonies, and the constitutions of Ehode Island, of Connecticut, and of Plymouth were invaded. They were re-established at the Revolution, but that great event was on the whole not favourable to America. While it greatly lowered the royal authority at home, it rather increased it beyond the Atlantic ; for the commercial classes who rose to power viewed with extreme jealousy the growing independence of the colonies, and were especially anxious to secure for themselves the most rigid monopoly of trade. William more than once exercised his power of veto against declaratory Acts of the colonial Assemblies tending towards independence, and there was a great desire on the part of the Grovernment to bring all the colonies under the direct management of the Crown. The disputes in some colonies between the colonists and the proprietaries, the embarrassment resulting in time of war from distinct forms of government, the Jacobitism of Penn who had founded one great colony, and the Catholicism of Lord Baltimore, who had established another, assisted in the trans- formation. The charter of Massachusetts was not restored, but a new charter was granted much more favourable to the Crown. Bills were brought in, in 1701 and in 1721, for the resumption of all the colonial charters ; and although these bills were not carried, several charters were surrendered in the thirty years that followed the Revolution, and a new system was established more favourable to the supremacy of the Crown.1 It is not necessary here to follow in detail these changes, which have now lost most of their interest, and it is sufficient to indicate their general scope. In the old proprietary and charter colonies the forms of government were very various, but the great principle was the division of power, in widely differing proportions, between the proprietary and the freeholders; and the colonial legislatures, though restricted in their sphere, were in that sphere almost supreme. In the proprietary colonies, which consisted, at the time of the Revolution, of Maryland, Pennsylvania, Carolina, ami Delaware, certain individuals called proprietaries appointed the governors and authorised them to summon legislative assemblies. In the other charter colonies, which then consisted of Massachu- setts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, nearly all power resided 1 See Bancroft, iii. 68-70, 107, 108. Hildreth, ii. pp. 123-124. ch. v. CONSTITUTIONS OF THE AMERICAN PROVINCES. with the freemen. In the Crown colonies, on the other hand, the government was a faint copy of the English constitution. Every Bill, in order to become law, had to be read three times by the Council and Assembly, and assented to by the Governor. The Governor and the Council, as well as the judges, were appointed by the Crown, but the Assembly was a representative body elected by the colonists. The members of the Council were nominated from among the chief persons in the colony. They discharged the functions not only of a House of Lords but also of a Privy Council to the Governor, and in some cases of a Court of Chancery, but they only held office during pleasure. The Crown did not consider itself bound by the colonial Acts, and reserved to itself a power of subsequent veto in the case of measures which had received the assent of the Governor ; and civil cases of the more important kind might be carried on appeal to England. In 1696 a law was passed modifying the condition of the charter colonies, enjoining that no proprietors should dispose of their land, without license from the sovereign, to any but British subjects, conferring on the Crown a negative upon the Governors, who were nominated by the proprietors, and asserting the nullity of any colonial Act or usage that was repugnant to English Acts relating to the colonies.1 To maintain the complete ascendancy of the British Parliament over all colonial authorities became a fundamental maxim, and each change in government was in- tended to strengthen the influence of the Crown. During the peaceful administration of Walpole, however, the moderation of the Government extended to the colonies, and the happy neglect of Newcastle, to whose department they belonged, was probably on the whole very conducive to their prosperity.2 They had long eclipsed all rivals in North America. The 1 Bancroft, iii. 105. Macpherson’s Annals of Commerce, ii. 683-684. 2 Walpole gives a curious descrip- tion of ‘ the extreme ignorance in which the English Court had kept themselves of the affairs of America.’ ‘ The Board of Trade during Sir It. Walpole’s administration had very faultily been suffered to lapse almost into a sinecure, and during all that period the Duke of Newcastle had been Secretary of State. It would not be credited what reams of paper, representations, memorials, petitions from that quarter of the world lay mouldering and unopened in his office. . . . He knew as little of the geography of his province as of the state of it. When General Ligonier hinted some defence to him for Annapolis, he replied with his evasive lisping hurry : “ Annapolis, Anna- polis ? Oh, yes ! Annapolis must be defended, to be sure Annapolis should be defehded — Where is Annapolis ? ” ’ Memoirs of George TJ. i. p. 396. 6 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. CH. V. great extent of Spanish territory which spread to the south of the British colonies was afflicted with that political atrophy which had passed over the other parts of the once mighty empire to which it belonged ; and the Dutch, who in so many quarters rivalled or surpassed the colonial enterprise of England, had been long driven from North America. New Netherlands, captured by the English in 1664, was confirmed as a British possession by the Peace of 1667, the Dutch retaining, as a compensation, the colony of Surinam, in Guiana, which they had taken from the English. New Amsterdam, the capital of the Dutch settlement in North America, consisted chiefly of small thatched houses, and was so poor and so mean that the English general com- plained that he was unable to find in the town bedding for his soldiers. In compliment to the brother of the King, it was called by its conquerors New York — a name destined to occupy a great space in the eyes of the world. The French settlements were more important, but they were dwarfed and stunted by a re- strictive and centralised, though not unskilful, system of govern- ment ; 1 and when the Revolution involved the two nations in war, the superior force of the English colonies was so manifest that William refused the offer of colonial neutrality which had been made by Lewis. The French settlers at the time of the Revolution were officially reckoned at not more than 11,249 per- sons, about a twentieth part of the population of the English colonies.2 They were scattered over Canada, Acadia, Newfound- land, and the borders of Hudson’s Bay; they laid claim to large tracts of almost uninhabited territory, which were under British rule ; and though each nation possessed, beyond dispute, tracts immeasurably greater than it could occupy, a keen competi- tion existed between them. A long series of wars, rendered very horrible by the employment on both sides of Indian auxiliaries, ensued. a much more favourable judgment is CH. Y. RIVALRY OF FRENCH AND ENGLISH. 7 frontier. The Peace of Utrecht advanced greatly the English power, for Newfoundland, Acadia, now called Nova Scotia, and the borders of Hudson’s Bay, passed into their possession, but the frontier line continued ill-defined, and a subject of per- petual dispute. The French endeavoured with great energy to repair their disasters. They occupied Cape Breton, which commanded the St. Lawrence, and erected there the powerful fortifications of Louisburg. They strengthened their new colony of Louisiana, founded New Orleans in 1718, and encroached steadily on what was claimed as English territory along the Ohio and the Alleghany. The establishment of Georgia brought the English colonists into closer connection with the Spaniards ; and during the war of the Austrian succession Oglethorpe carried on hostilities with skill and daring along the disputed frontiers of Georgia and Florida. In the north the English colonists obtained a brilliant triumph by the capture of Louis- burg and consequent subjugation of Cape Breton ; and, by a singular stroke of good fortune, a great French expedition against Nova Scotia in 1746 was dispersed and shattered by two furious storms. The Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle left the American frontiers almost unchanged, for Cape Breton was restored to the French in compensation for Madras, but the foundation of Halifax contributed much to strengthen the great ascendancy of England ; and the whole white population of French America, about the middle of this century, was said not to have been more than 52,000, while that of British America was reckoned at 1,051,000. The real evil of the colonies lay in the commercial policy of the mother country — in the system of restrictions intended to secure for England a monopoly of the colonial trade, and to crush every manufacture that could compete with English industry. It was a policy which sprang, in a great degree, from that mercantile theory which denied the possibility of a commerce mutually beneficial to the parties engaged in it. It was strengthened by the Revolution, which gave commercial interests and the commercial classes a new pre-eminence in Eng- lish legislation, and it had political consequences of the gravest character. In a very few instances, it is true, it was considered an English interest to encourage colonial produce. Thus 8 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. CH. V. Virginia, though afterwards forbidden to export her tobacco to any foreign country, had obtained under the first two Stuarts, in conjunction with Bermuda, a monopoly of the English market, and the cultivation of tobacco at home was absolutely for- bidden.1 For a long time the tar and pitch of the British navy had come chiefly from Sweden, but that power having conferred the monopoly of the trade upon a mercantile company the price was inordinately raised. Under these circumstances the Ministers resolved to secure the materials for the navy from the British colonies, and Acts were accordingly passed, in 1703 and 1711, encouraging by bounties the import from the American colonies of tar, pitch, hemp, masts, and yards, and at the same time reserving all pine-trees of certain specified dimen- sions, that were not private property, for his Majesty’s navy.2 But with these exceptions, the laws were almost wholly restrictive. The famous Navigation Acts, intended to exclude foreigners from the trade, provided that all vessels trading to or from the plantations should be built in England or the plantations, and limited both the export and import trade, as far as the most important articles were concerned, to the British dominions.3 Another measure declared in its preamble that the woollen manufacture, which had begun to rise among the colonists, ‘ would inevitably sink the value of lands ’ in England ; and it proceeded utterly to destroy the inter-colonial trade by enacting that, ‘after the 1st of December, 1699, no wool or manufacture made or mixed with wool, being the pro- duce of any of the English plantations in America, shall be loaden in any ship or vessel, upon any pretence whatever, nor loaden upon any horse, cart, or other carriage, to be carried out of the English plantations to any other of the said plantations, or to any other place whatever.’4 In 1719 the House of Com- mons resolved ‘ that the erecting of manufactories in the colonies tended to lessen their dependence upon Great Britain.’ In 1721 George I., when opening Parliament, recommended the policy of deriving the naval stores from the North American 1 Macpherson’s Annals of Com- II. c. vii. ; 22 & 23 Charles II. c. xxvi. ; merce , ii. 329, 332, 486. 26 Charles II. c. vii. ; 7 & 8 William 2 3 & 4 Anne, c. x. ; 9 Anne, c. xvii. 4 10 & 11 William III. c. x. (ab- * 12 Charles II. c. xviii. ; 15 Charles ridged). CH. V. COMMERCIAL RESTRICTIONS. 9 colonies, on the express ground that c the cultivation of this useful and advantageous branch of commerce would divert the colonies from setting up manufactures which directly interfered with those of Great Britain.’ Iron existed largely in the colonies ; and in a new country covered with unfelled timber, and depending mainly on ship-building, the trade of the smith was of pre-eminent importance. But the English House of Commons, in the interests of the English manufacturer, passed a measure in 1719 that none of the American colonies should manufacture iron of any kind ; that no smith might make so much as a bolt, a spike, or a nail ; and the House of Lords added a clause to the effect that no forge should be erected in any of the colonies for making £ sows, pigs, or cast iron into bar or rod iron.’ 1 Such a measure would have hopelessly ruined the colonies, and it raised so vehement an opposition that it was dropped ; but the export of American iron to the mother country was restrained by heavy duties till 1750. The in- troduction of pig and bar iron was then freely admitted ; but in order that the American manufacture should never rise above the most rudimentary stage, it was provided that no mill or other engine for rolling iron, or furnace for making steel, should be permitted in the colonies.2 No part of the world possessed furs in greater abundance, or of finer quality, than North America ; and it was therefore obviously absurd that all hats should be imported from the mother country; but no sooner had the colonists begun to make their own hats than the English hatters took the alarm, and Parliament in 1732 made a law forbidding the exportation of American hats, not only to foreign countries and to the mother country, but even from one colony to another, and at the same time pro- viding that no colonist should pursue the trade unless he had served a seven years’ apprenticeship, should have more than two apprentices at a time, or should teach the industry to negroes.3 The measure was successful, and an industry in which the colonies were naturally peculiarly fitted to excel speedily lan- guished. 8 Ibid. iii. 280. 3 5 George II. c. xxii. 10 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. CH. V. colonies, and to bring back in return rum, sugar, and molasses. The English sugar colonies complained, and a law was passed in 1733 imposing heavy penalties on all rum, sugar, and molasses imported into America except from the British colonies.1 It was, indeed, found impossible to enforce this law, but it long remained unrepealed upon the statute book. In this manner England made it a fixed maxim of her com- mercial policy to repress the prosperity of her colonies by crushing every rising industry that could possibly compete with the home market. On the other hand, it must be admitted that she hitherto abstained from deriving from them a direct revenue, and it must be added that some system of commer- cial restraint was universally pursued, and that the English system was not sufficiently severe to counteract the great material and political advantages of her colonies* Farm- ing and ship-building, the trade in furs, provisions, tar, and pitch, the magnificent cod fisheries of Newfoundland, and the whale fishery, which had received a new impulse through the invention of a gun by which the harpoon could be plunged from a great distance into the body of the fish, were the chief sources of colonial wealth ; and there was also a considerable linen manufacture created by Irish emigrants, and a large smuggling trade which it was happily impossible to suppress. The country was growing rapidly richer, though its progress was seriously retarded, and though many of its natural capacities were paralysed by law. But the political alienation which was the inevitable and most righteous consequence of these laws had already begun, and it is to the antagonism of interests they created, much more than to the Stamp Act or to any isolated instances of misgovernment, that the subsequent disruption must be ascribed.2 To a sagacious observer of colonial politics two facts were becoming evident. The one was that the delibe- rate and malignant selfishness of English commercial legislation 1 6 George II. c. xiii. 2 As Arthur Young very justly said, ‘ Nothing can be more idle than to say that this set of men, or the other administration, or that great minister occasioned the American war. It was not the Stamp Act nor the repeal of the Stamp Act ; it was neither Lord Rockingham nor Lord North, but it was that baleful spirit of commerce that wished to govern great nations on the maxims of the counter.’ — Preface to the Tour in Ireland. See, too, Huskisson's Speech on the Navigation laws. CH. V. THEIR POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES. 11 was digging a chasm between the mother country and the colo- nies which mnst inevitably, when the latter had become suffi- ciently strong, lead to separation. The other was that the presence of the French in Canada was an essential condition of the maintenance of the British Empire in America. It was a perpetual danger to the colonists, and as long as the French Cana- dians were assisted by France it was impossible for the British colonists to dispense with the assistance of England. By ordi- nary statesmen these things appear to have been altogether unper- ceived, but even at the time we are considering there were those who foretold them. In 1748 the Swedish traveller Kalm, having described in vivid colours the commercial oppression under which the colonists were suffering, and the growing coldness of their feelings towards the mother country, added these remark- able words : — e I have been told, not only by native Americans, but by English emigrants publicly, that within thirty or fifty years the English colonies in North America may constitute a separate State entirely independent of England. But as this whole country towards the sea is unguarded, and on the frontier is kept uneasy by the French, these dangerous neighbours are the reason why the love of these colonies for their metropolis does not utterly decline. The English Government has, there- fore, reason to regard the French in North America as the chief power which urges their colonies to submission.’ 1 The commercial disabilities were not the only grievances under which the colonies laboured. Another — which, however, never attained any very serious proportions — was the influx of English criminals. The system of selling English criminals to the colonists for a limited period of servitude may, indeed, be traced back to a much earlier period, but it was revived or increased by a statute of George I.,2 and it introduced a very pernicious element into colonial life.3 Another, and a much more terrible evil was the rapid multiplication of negro slaves. Of all the many forms of suffering which man has inflicted upon man, with the exception of war, and, perhaps, of religious perse- cution, the slave trade has probably added most largely to the 1 Quoted by Bancroft, iii. '164, 465. 7 4 George I. c. xi. 3 See Colquhoun on the Police of the Metropolis (7th ed. 1806), pp. 436, 437. Harris’s Life of Lord Hard- /incite, i. p. 156. 12 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. CH. V. sum of human misery, and in the first half of the eighteenth century it occupied the very foremost place in English com- merce. The first Englishman who took part in it appears to have been John Hawkins, who sailed in 1562 with three ships to Sierra Leone, where he secured, ‘ partly by the sworde and partly by other meanes,’ some 300 negroes, whom he transported to His- paniola. The enterprise proving successful, he made a much more considerable expedition in 1564 to the coast of Guinea, the English ‘ going every day on shore to take the inhabitants with burning and spoiling their towns,’ and the achievement was so highly considered at home that he was knighted by Elizabeth, and selected for his crest a manacled negro. It is a slight fact, hut full of a ghastly significance as illustrating the state of feel- ing prevailing at the time, that the ship in which Hawkins sailed on his second expedition to Open the English slave trade was called ‘The Jesus.’ 1 The traffic in human flesh speedily became popular. A monopoly of it was granted to the African Com- pany, hut it was invaded by numerous interlopers, and in 1698 the trade was thrown open to all British subjects. It is worthy of notice that while by the law of 1698 a certain percentage was exacted from other African cargoes for the maintenance of the forts along that coast, cargoes of negroes were especially exempted, for the Parliament of the Revolution desired above all things to encourage the trade.2 Nine years before, a conven- tion had been made between England and Spain for supplying the Spanish West Indies with slaves from the island of Jamaica,3 and it has been computed that between 1680 and 1700 the English tore from Africa about 300,000 negroes, or about 15,000 every year.4 The great period of the English slave trade had, however, not yet arrived. It was only in 1713 that it began to attain its full dimensions. One of the most important and most popular parts of the Treaty of Utrecht was the contract known as the Assiento, by which the British Government secured for its subjects during thirty years an absolute monopoly of the supply of slaves to the Spanish colonies. The traffic was regulated by 1 Hakluyt’s Voyages, vol. iii. 3 Macpherson, ii. 688. 