The progress of agriculture and commerce created the want, and afforded the means of supplying it, of great internal improvements. About the time of the general establishment of turnpike roads, canals began to obtain attention, as the substitute for river navigation. The first canal, parallel to and in place of a river, was the Sankey, begun in 1753, from the Mersey to St. Helen's. The able designs of Mr. Brindley soon after began to be patronised by the Duke of Bridgewater: first, for reducing the cost of transporting the produce of the duke's coalfields to Manchester; and next, the charge of conveying mer chandise to Liverpool by Runcorn. The success of these schemes gave rise to new speculations, by other parties, for connecting by canals the great rivers, as the Trent and Mersey, and the Mersey with the Humber, Severn, and Wye. By these artificial structures the great ports on the east and west sides of the island were brought into communication with the busy internal hives of manufacturing industry.

These advances naturally led to further improvements, for internal traffic and communication could not increase without some corresponding enlargement of accommodation in the ports and harbours of the kingdom. This was particularly the case with the Port of London. Since the termination of the American war, and extension of the foreign and colonial trade, the commerce of the river Thames had greatly increased. About 13,000 vessels arrived annually in the river: their cargoes had to be landed at what were termed the legal quays, extending from London Bridge to the Tower; or, if these were insufficient, at the sufferance wharfs on the opposite side of the Thames. It was only the smaller craft that could approach the quays; all the larger vessels were obliged to deliver their cargoes by means of lighters, as

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colliers continue to do. The delay in consequence was often very great, and in particular seasons of the year, when the Pool was crowded with shipping, the confusion was indescribable. The revenue suffered, and individuals sustained immense losses from depredation and the exposure of their property on the wharfs, sugars and other valuable commodities often remaining for months unprotected upon the quays, six or eight hogsheads high. In 1796 a parliamentary committee sought to devise remedies for these disorders; but it was only in 1799 the dock system was entered upon in earnest, by the erection of the West India Docks. A year or two after, the London and East India Docks were erected, and these were followed by the East County and St. Katherine's Docks, which, with adjacent warehouses, became more adequate to the existing wants-the coal trade excepted-of the commerce of London.

Before the erection of these capacious receptacles, similar necessities and deficiencies, arising from the flux and reflux of the tide, and the sloping beds of their natural harbours, had originated costly and extensive works in Bristol, Liverpool, and Hull. Less favoured than the metropolis, which, in addition to its noble river, had always been the seat of power and the centre of the richest districts of the kingdom, the great outports had almost entirely owed their progress to the fact of their sital position, in being the entrepôts of the inland and external trade of the kingdom. Some of them, through commerce, made a greater relative progress than had London even. Liverpool, for instance, has almost been created within a century: from an insignificant fishingvillage, it has become a metropolis itself in opulence, intelligence, and influence; and for this preeminence it has been mainly indebted to its situation as the focus of in

terchange between Ireland, America, and the West Indies, and the great manufacturing districts of Lancashire and Yorkshire. The chief inland towns, as Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds, Bradford, and Huddersfield, have flourished almost as rapidly, and in some respects in a greater degree than the ports, by mere force of industry and excellence in the handicraft arts and mechanical inventions.

Although, with one or two exceptions, the leading provincial towns are considered by their native historians as nearly coeval with London in antiquity, yet the chief revolutionary epochs conducive to their advancement have been comprised within the last three centuries. The first of these epochs doubtless consisted either in a better local site for industry, or in the fact of being open and exempt from the fetters and impoverishing privileges of the old corporate cities. The second impulsive epoch was the era of geographical discoveries, and the opening of new channels of trade with Turkey, the Levant, the East Indies, the north of Europe, and America. But the most important era, and main sources of greatness, are not of older date than about ninety years; and it is to the sudden development, in the latter half of the last and the present centuries, of steam, cotton, woollen, linen, iron, and earthenware, that the commercial and manufacturing towns are indebted for their rapid expansion in wealth and population.

The progress of civilisation is inseparable from the pursuits of commerce. Success in trade and manufactures, as previously observed, is compatible only with industry, economy, order, and punctuality. But it is creditable to the rise of the inland towns, that they had no sooner tasted the sweets of prosperity than it called into activity the benevolent impulses of humanity. The

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foundation of the principal public charities of London is contemporary with the growth of its commercial opulence. As Bristol is the senior mercantile city next to the capital, it took the lead, and its institutions for indigence, disease, and education are almost innumerable, and with which the popular names of Canninge, Colston, Penn, and Queen Elizabeth are associated. Other towns followed the example; but as their flood of prosperity resulted less from commerce than the inventions of Lombe, Arkwright, and Watt, it was at a later period. About the middle of last century, hospitals and infirmaries began to be erected in Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, and Sheffield, for the reception of unfortunate workpeople, or the maladies peculiar to their respective occupations.

New developments ensued, as the opening of banks, the establishment of an exchange, of commercial rooms and chambers of commerce. A taste for science was next evinced. The Philosophical Society of Manchester, which has earned a deserved celebrity, was established in 1781; and fourteen years later had been formed an Agricultural Society in the same place,-one of the earliest of the kind in England. Liverpool erected her Athenæum in 1799, and her Lyceum in 1802, but had no Philosophical Society prior to 1814. The formation of valuable subscription libraries had preceded most of the philosophical associations. They contributed essentially to the diffusion of knowledge and literary taste, especially if aided, as they have been in some towns, by the formation of museums, botanical gardens, and annual exhibitions of the productions of the fine arts. "The highways of peaceful commerce have ever been the highways of the arts."* "Commercial states," the Abbé Raynal remarks,“ are

* Address of Cardinal Wiseman, Liverpool, August 30. 1853.

diffusive in their blessings. They not only civilise themselves, but others with which they come in contact and intercourse."* But I will add the warning of the same philosophical writer-namely, that "Commerce is finally destroyed by the riches it accumulates, as despotic power is by its own usurpations."

CHAPTER XXVIII.

GEORGE III.—THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

The Principle of Success in Revolutions. - Relative Progress of France and England.-France before her Revolution; its chief Social Ends realised, though a failure in Political Government. — Errors of the National Assembly of 1789.· Coalition of the Continental Powers. -War with England. — Reign of Terror; popular Frenzy and Extravagances of Republicanism. —Writings of Burke and Paine. Dissoluteness - State of Public Opinion; Conduct of the Church.

of Manners before the Revolution. — Negotiations of Lord Malmesbury. Mr. Pitt's Compromise of Principle in the War. - II. OLD COURTS OF EUROPE BEFORE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. - The Bourbons in Spain and Naples. - Courts of Berlin and Vienna. — Polish Nobility. - Court of St. Petersburgh; Catherine II.—Corruption of Diplomacy.· · Imitations of the Ancients.· Memoirs of the Margravine of Bareith. — Reverses of Prussia and Austria.— III. EFFECTS OF THE REVOLUTION ON EUROPEAN SOCIETY. Entry of the Allies into Paris; their Magnanimous Conduct. Character of English and French Wars. Influence of the Wars of England on Continental Institutions.- Prospects of Constitutional Government.

In all the material operations of Nature there seems a purpose, though it may be too obscure or remote for

* History of the East and West Indies.