The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 1 by Thomas Babington Macaulay (diy ebook reader .txt) π
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so agreeable to
his master, that the design failed.25
Halifax was not content with standing on the defensive. He openly
accused Rochester of malversation. An inquiry took place. It
appeared that forty thousand pounds had been lost to the public
by the mismanagement of the First Lord of the Treasury. In
consequence of this discovery he was not only forced to
relinquish his hopes of the white staff, but was removed from the
direction of the finances to the more dignified but less
lucrative and important post of Lord President. "I have seen
people kicked down stairs," said Halifax; "but my Lord Rochester
is the first person that I ever saw kicked up stairs." Godolphin,
now a peer, became First Commissioner of the Treasury.
Still, however, the contest continued. The event depended wholly
on the will of Charles; and Charles could not come to a decision.
In his perplexity he promised everything to everybody. He would
stand by France: he would break with France: he would never meet
another Parliament: he would order writs for a Parliament to be
issued without delay. He assured the Duke of York that Halifax
should be dismissed from office, and Halifax that the Duke should
be sent to Scotland. In public he affected implacable resentment
against Monmouth, and in private conveyed to Monmouth assurances
of unalterable affection. How long, if the King's life had been
protracted, his hesitation would have lasted, and what would have
been his resolve, can only be conjectured. Early in the year
1685, while hostile parties were anxiously awaiting his
determination, he died, and a new scene opened. In a few mouths
the excesses of the government obliterated the impression which
had been made on the public mind by the excesses of the
opposition. The violent reaction which had laid the Whig party
prostrate was followed by a still more violent reaction in the
opposite direction; and signs not to be mistaken indicated that
the great conflict between the prerogatives of the Crown and the
privileges of the Parliament, was about to be brought to a final
issue.
CHAPTER III.
I INTEND, in this chapter, to give a description of the state in
which England was at the time when the crown passed from Charles
the Second to his brother. Such a description, composed from
scanty. and dispersed materials, must necessarily be very
imperfect. Yet it may perhaps correct some false notions which
would make the subsequent narrative unintelligible or
uninstructive.
If we would study with profit the history of our ancestors, we
must be constantly on our guard against that delusion which the
well known names of families, places, and offices naturally
produce, and must never forget that the country of which we read
was a very different country from that in which we live. In every
experimental science there is a tendency towards perfection. In
every human being there is a wish to ameliorate his own
condition. These two principles have often sufficed, even when
counteracted by great public calamities and by bad institutions,
to carry civilisation rapidly forward. No ordinary misfortune, no
ordinary misgovernment, will do so much to make a nation
wretched, as the constant progress of physical knowledge and the
constant effort of every man to better himself will do to make a
nation prosperous. It has often been found that profuse
expenditure, heavy taxation, absurd commercial restrictions,
corrupt tribunals, disastrous wars, seditions, persecutions,
conflagrations, inundations, have not been able to destroy
capital so fast as the exertions of private citizens have been
able to create it. It can easily be proved that, in our own land,
the national wealth has, during at least six centuries, been
almost uninterruptedly increasing; that it was greater under the
Tudors than under the Plantagenets; that it was greater under the
Stuarts than under the Tudors; that, in spite of battles, sieges,
and confiscations, it was greater on the day of the Restoration
than on the day when the Long Parliament met; that, in spite of
maladministration, of extravagance, of public bankruptcy, of two
costly and unsuccessful wars, of the pestilence and of the fire,
it was greater on the day of the death of Charles the Second than
on the day of his Restoration. This progress, having continued
during many ages, became at length, about the middle of the
eighteenth century, portentously rapid, and has proceeded, during
the nineteenth, with accelerated velocity. In consequence partly
of our geographical and partly of our moral position, we have,
during several generations, been exempt from evils which have
elsewhere impeded the efforts and destroyed the fruits of
industry. While every part of the Continent, from Moscow to
Lisbon, has been the theatre of bloody and devastating wars, no
hostile standard has been seen here but as a trophy. While
revolutions have taken place all around us, our government has
never once been subverted by violence. During more than a hundred
years there has been in our island no tumult of sufficient
importance to be called an insurrection; nor has the law been
once borne down either by popular fury or by regal tyranny:
public credit has been held sacred: the administration of justice
has been pure: even in times which might by Englishmen be justly
called evil times, we have enjoyed what almost every other nation
in the world would have considered as an ample measure of civil
and religious freedom. Every man has felt entire confidence that
the state would protect him in the possession of what had been
earned by his diligence and hoarded by his selfdenial. Under the
benignant influence of peace and liberty, science has flourished,
and has been applied to practical purposes on a scale never
before known. The consequence is that a change to which the
history of the old world furnishes no parallel has taken place in
our country. Could the England of 1685 be, by some magical
process, set before our eyes, we should not know one landscape in
a hundred or one building in ten thousand. The country gentleman
would not recognise his own fields. The inhabitant of the town
would not recognise his own street. Everything has been changed,
but the great features of nature, and a few massive and durable
works of human art. We might find out Snowdon and Windermere, the
Cheddar Cliffs and Beachy Head. We might find out here and there
a Norman minster, or a castle which witnessed the wars of the
Roses. But, with such rare exceptions, everything would be
strange to us. Many thousands of square miles which are now rich
corn land and meadow, intersected by green hedgerows and dotted
with villages and pleasant country seats, would appear as moors
overgrown with furze, or fens abandoned to wild ducks. We should
see straggling huts built of wood and covered with thatch, where
we now see manufacturing towns and seaports renowned to the
farthest ends of the world. The capital itself would shrink to
dimensions not much exceeding those of its present suburb on the
south of the Thames. Not less strange to us would be the garb and
manners of the people, the furniture and the equipages, the
interior of the shops and dwellings. Such a change in the state
of a nation seems to be at least as well entitled to the notice
of a historian as any change of the dynasty or of the ministry.26
One of the first objects of an inquirer, who wishes to form a
correct notion of the state of a community at a given time, must
be to ascertain of how many persons that community then
consisted. Unfortunately the population of England in 1685,
cannot be ascertained with perfect accuracy. For no great state
had then adopted the wise course of periodically numbering the
people. All men were left to conjecture for themselves; and, as
they generally conjectured without examining facts, and under the
influence of strong passions and prejudices, their guesses were
often ludicrously absurd. Even intelligent Londoners ordinarily
talked of London as containing several millions of souls. It was
confidently asserted by many that, during the thirty-five years
which had elapsed between the accession of Charles the First and
the Restoration the population of the City had increased by two
millions.27 Even while the ravages of the plague and fire were
recent, it was the fashion to say that the capital still had a
million and a half of inhabitants.28 Some persons, disgusted by
these exaggerations, ran violently into the opposite extreme.
Thus Isaac Vossius, a man of undoubted parts and learning,
strenuously maintained that there were only two millions of human
beings in England, Scotland, and Ireland taken together.29
We are not, however, left without the means of correcting the
wild blunders into which some minds were hurried by national
vanity and others by a morbid love of paradox. There are extant
three computations which seem to be entitled to peculiar
attention. They are entirely independent of each other: they
proceed on different principles; and yet there is little
difference in the results.
One of these computations was made in the year 1696 by Gregory
King, Lancaster herald, a political arithmetician of great
acuteness and judgment. The basis of his calculations was the
number of houses returned in 1690 by the officers who made the
last collection of the hearth money. The conclusion at which he
arrived was that the population of England was nearly five
millions and a half.30
About the same time King William the Third was desirous to
ascertain the comparative strength of the religious sects into
which the community was divided. An inquiry was instituted; and
reports were laid before him from all the dioceses of the realm.
According to these reports the number of his English subjects
must have been about five million two hundred thousand.31
Lastly, in our own days, Mr. Finlaison, an actuary of eminent
skill, subjected the ancient parochial registers of baptisms,
marriages, and burials, to all the tests which the modern
improvements in statistical science enabled him to apply. His
opinion was, that, at the close of the seventeenth century, the
population of England was a little under five million two hundred
thousand souls.32
Of these three estimates, framed without concert by different
persons from different sets of materials, the highest, which is
that of King, does not exceed the lowest, which is that of
Finlaison, by one twelfth. We may, therefore, with confidence
pronounce that, when James the Second reigned, England contained
between five million and five million five hundred thousand
inhabitants. On the very highest supposition she then had less
than one third of her present population, and less than three
times the population which is now collected in her gigantic
capital.
The increase of the people has been great in every part of the
kingdom, but generally much greater in
his master, that the design failed.25
Halifax was not content with standing on the defensive. He openly
accused Rochester of malversation. An inquiry took place. It
appeared that forty thousand pounds had been lost to the public
by the mismanagement of the First Lord of the Treasury. In
consequence of this discovery he was not only forced to
relinquish his hopes of the white staff, but was removed from the
direction of the finances to the more dignified but less
lucrative and important post of Lord President. "I have seen
people kicked down stairs," said Halifax; "but my Lord Rochester
is the first person that I ever saw kicked up stairs." Godolphin,
now a peer, became First Commissioner of the Treasury.
Still, however, the contest continued. The event depended wholly
on the will of Charles; and Charles could not come to a decision.
In his perplexity he promised everything to everybody. He would
stand by France: he would break with France: he would never meet
another Parliament: he would order writs for a Parliament to be
issued without delay. He assured the Duke of York that Halifax
should be dismissed from office, and Halifax that the Duke should
be sent to Scotland. In public he affected implacable resentment
against Monmouth, and in private conveyed to Monmouth assurances
of unalterable affection. How long, if the King's life had been
protracted, his hesitation would have lasted, and what would have
been his resolve, can only be conjectured. Early in the year
1685, while hostile parties were anxiously awaiting his
determination, he died, and a new scene opened. In a few mouths
the excesses of the government obliterated the impression which
had been made on the public mind by the excesses of the
opposition. The violent reaction which had laid the Whig party
prostrate was followed by a still more violent reaction in the
opposite direction; and signs not to be mistaken indicated that
the great conflict between the prerogatives of the Crown and the
privileges of the Parliament, was about to be brought to a final
issue.
CHAPTER III.
I INTEND, in this chapter, to give a description of the state in
which England was at the time when the crown passed from Charles
the Second to his brother. Such a description, composed from
scanty. and dispersed materials, must necessarily be very
imperfect. Yet it may perhaps correct some false notions which
would make the subsequent narrative unintelligible or
uninstructive.
If we would study with profit the history of our ancestors, we
must be constantly on our guard against that delusion which the
well known names of families, places, and offices naturally
produce, and must never forget that the country of which we read
was a very different country from that in which we live. In every
experimental science there is a tendency towards perfection. In
every human being there is a wish to ameliorate his own
condition. These two principles have often sufficed, even when
counteracted by great public calamities and by bad institutions,
to carry civilisation rapidly forward. No ordinary misfortune, no
ordinary misgovernment, will do so much to make a nation
wretched, as the constant progress of physical knowledge and the
constant effort of every man to better himself will do to make a
nation prosperous. It has often been found that profuse
expenditure, heavy taxation, absurd commercial restrictions,
corrupt tribunals, disastrous wars, seditions, persecutions,
conflagrations, inundations, have not been able to destroy
capital so fast as the exertions of private citizens have been
able to create it. It can easily be proved that, in our own land,
the national wealth has, during at least six centuries, been
almost uninterruptedly increasing; that it was greater under the
Tudors than under the Plantagenets; that it was greater under the
Stuarts than under the Tudors; that, in spite of battles, sieges,
and confiscations, it was greater on the day of the Restoration
than on the day when the Long Parliament met; that, in spite of
maladministration, of extravagance, of public bankruptcy, of two
costly and unsuccessful wars, of the pestilence and of the fire,
it was greater on the day of the death of Charles the Second than
on the day of his Restoration. This progress, having continued
during many ages, became at length, about the middle of the
eighteenth century, portentously rapid, and has proceeded, during
the nineteenth, with accelerated velocity. In consequence partly
of our geographical and partly of our moral position, we have,
during several generations, been exempt from evils which have
elsewhere impeded the efforts and destroyed the fruits of
industry. While every part of the Continent, from Moscow to
Lisbon, has been the theatre of bloody and devastating wars, no
hostile standard has been seen here but as a trophy. While
revolutions have taken place all around us, our government has
never once been subverted by violence. During more than a hundred
years there has been in our island no tumult of sufficient
importance to be called an insurrection; nor has the law been
once borne down either by popular fury or by regal tyranny:
public credit has been held sacred: the administration of justice
has been pure: even in times which might by Englishmen be justly
called evil times, we have enjoyed what almost every other nation
in the world would have considered as an ample measure of civil
and religious freedom. Every man has felt entire confidence that
the state would protect him in the possession of what had been
earned by his diligence and hoarded by his selfdenial. Under the
benignant influence of peace and liberty, science has flourished,
and has been applied to practical purposes on a scale never
before known. The consequence is that a change to which the
history of the old world furnishes no parallel has taken place in
our country. Could the England of 1685 be, by some magical
process, set before our eyes, we should not know one landscape in
a hundred or one building in ten thousand. The country gentleman
would not recognise his own fields. The inhabitant of the town
would not recognise his own street. Everything has been changed,
but the great features of nature, and a few massive and durable
works of human art. We might find out Snowdon and Windermere, the
Cheddar Cliffs and Beachy Head. We might find out here and there
a Norman minster, or a castle which witnessed the wars of the
Roses. But, with such rare exceptions, everything would be
strange to us. Many thousands of square miles which are now rich
corn land and meadow, intersected by green hedgerows and dotted
with villages and pleasant country seats, would appear as moors
overgrown with furze, or fens abandoned to wild ducks. We should
see straggling huts built of wood and covered with thatch, where
we now see manufacturing towns and seaports renowned to the
farthest ends of the world. The capital itself would shrink to
dimensions not much exceeding those of its present suburb on the
south of the Thames. Not less strange to us would be the garb and
manners of the people, the furniture and the equipages, the
interior of the shops and dwellings. Such a change in the state
of a nation seems to be at least as well entitled to the notice
of a historian as any change of the dynasty or of the ministry.26
One of the first objects of an inquirer, who wishes to form a
correct notion of the state of a community at a given time, must
be to ascertain of how many persons that community then
consisted. Unfortunately the population of England in 1685,
cannot be ascertained with perfect accuracy. For no great state
had then adopted the wise course of periodically numbering the
people. All men were left to conjecture for themselves; and, as
they generally conjectured without examining facts, and under the
influence of strong passions and prejudices, their guesses were
often ludicrously absurd. Even intelligent Londoners ordinarily
talked of London as containing several millions of souls. It was
confidently asserted by many that, during the thirty-five years
which had elapsed between the accession of Charles the First and
the Restoration the population of the City had increased by two
millions.27 Even while the ravages of the plague and fire were
recent, it was the fashion to say that the capital still had a
million and a half of inhabitants.28 Some persons, disgusted by
these exaggerations, ran violently into the opposite extreme.
Thus Isaac Vossius, a man of undoubted parts and learning,
strenuously maintained that there were only two millions of human
beings in England, Scotland, and Ireland taken together.29
We are not, however, left without the means of correcting the
wild blunders into which some minds were hurried by national
vanity and others by a morbid love of paradox. There are extant
three computations which seem to be entitled to peculiar
attention. They are entirely independent of each other: they
proceed on different principles; and yet there is little
difference in the results.
One of these computations was made in the year 1696 by Gregory
King, Lancaster herald, a political arithmetician of great
acuteness and judgment. The basis of his calculations was the
number of houses returned in 1690 by the officers who made the
last collection of the hearth money. The conclusion at which he
arrived was that the population of England was nearly five
millions and a half.30
About the same time King William the Third was desirous to
ascertain the comparative strength of the religious sects into
which the community was divided. An inquiry was instituted; and
reports were laid before him from all the dioceses of the realm.
According to these reports the number of his English subjects
must have been about five million two hundred thousand.31
Lastly, in our own days, Mr. Finlaison, an actuary of eminent
skill, subjected the ancient parochial registers of baptisms,
marriages, and burials, to all the tests which the modern
improvements in statistical science enabled him to apply. His
opinion was, that, at the close of the seventeenth century, the
population of England was a little under five million two hundred
thousand souls.32
Of these three estimates, framed without concert by different
persons from different sets of materials, the highest, which is
that of King, does not exceed the lowest, which is that of
Finlaison, by one twelfth. We may, therefore, with confidence
pronounce that, when James the Second reigned, England contained
between five million and five million five hundred thousand
inhabitants. On the very highest supposition she then had less
than one third of her present population, and less than three
times the population which is now collected in her gigantic
capital.
The increase of the people has been great in every part of the
kingdom, but generally much greater in
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