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He is opposed by Halifax.

then returned to England: but he was against absolute monarchy, and in still excluded by the Test Act from all favour of representative government. public employment; nor did the King It was in vain, he said, to think that a at first think it safe to violate a statute population, sprung from the English which the great majority of his most stock, and animated by English feelings, loyal subjects regarded as one of the would long bear to be deprived of chief securities of their religion and of English institutions. Life, he extheir civil rights. When, however, it claimed, would not be worth having in appeared, from a succession of trials, a country where liberty and property that the nation had patience to endure were at the mercy of one despotic almost anything that the government master. The Duke of York was greatly had courage to do, Charles ventured to incensed by this language, and repredispense with the law in his brother's sented to his brother the danger of favour. The Duke again took his seat retaining in office a man who appeared in the Council, and resumed the di- to be infected with all the worst notions rection of naval affairs. of Marvell and Sidney. These breaches of the constitution Some modern writers have blamed excited, it is true, some mur- Halifax for continuing in the ministry murs among the moderate while he disapproved of the manner in Tories, and were not unani- which both domestic and foreign affairs mously approved even by the King's were conducted. But this censure is ministers. Halifax in particular, now unjust. Indeed it is to be remarked a Marquess and Lord Privy Seal, had, that the word ministry, in the sense in from the very day on which the Tories which we use it, was then unknown.* had by his help gained the ascendant, The thing itself did not exist; for it begun to turn Whig. As soon as the belongs to an age in which parliamenExclusion Bill had been thrown out, tary government is fully established. he had pressed the House of Lords to At present the chief servants of the make provision against the danger to crown form one body. They are underwhich, in the next reign, the liberties stood to be on terms of friendly conand religion of the nation might be fidence with each other, and to agree exposed. He now saw with alarm the as to the main principles on which the violence of that reaction which was, executive administration ought to be in no small measure, his own work. conducted. If a slight difference of He did not try to conceal the scorn opinion arises among them, it is easily which he felt for the servile doctrines compromised: but, if one of them differs of the University of Oxford. He de- from the rest on a vital point, it is his tested the French alliance. He dis- duty to resign. While he retains his approved of the long intermission of office, he is held responsible even for Parliaments. He regretted the severity steps which he has tried to dissuade his with which the vanquished party was colleagues from taking. In the seventreated. He who, when the Whigs teenth century, the heads of the various were predominant, had ventured to branches of the administration were pronounce Stafford not guilty, ventured, bound together in no such partnership. when they were vanquished and help- Each of them was accountable for his less, to intercede for Russell. At one own acts, for the use which he made of of the last councils which Charles held his own official seal, for the documents a remarkable scene took place. The which he signed, for the counsel which charter of Massachusetts had been he gave to the King. No statesman forfeited. A question arose how, for was held answerable for what he had the future, the colony should be go- not himself done, or induced others to verned. The general opinion of the board do. If he took care not to be the was that the whole power, legislative agent in what was wrong, and if, as well as executive, should abide in when consulted, he recommended what the crown. Halifax took the opposite side, and argued with great energy

*North's Examen, 69.

Lord

was right, he was blameless. It would | Bedloe were impostors: but the Parliahave been thought strange scrupulosity ment and the country were greatly in him to quit his post, because his excited: the government had yielded advice as to matters not strictly within to the pressure; and North was not a his own department was not taken man to risk a good place for the sake by his master; to leave the Board of of justice and humanity. Accordingly, Admiralty, for example, because the while he was in secret drawing up a finances were in disorder, or the Board refutation of the whole romance of the of Treasury because the foreign rela- Popish plot, he declared in public that tions of the kingdom were in an un- the truth of the story was as plain as satisfactory state. It was, therefore, by the sun in heaven, and was not ashamed no means unusual to see in high office, to browbeat, from the seat of judgment, at the same time, men who avowedly the unfortunate Roman Catholics differed from one another as widely as who were arraigned before him for ever Pulteney differed from Walpole, their lives. He had at length reached or Fox from Pitt. the highest post in the law. But a The moderate and constitutional lawyer, who, after many years devoted counsels of Halifax were timid- to professional labour, engages in poliGuildford, ly and feebly seconded by tics for the first time at an advanced Francis North, Lord Guildford, who period of life, seldom distinguishes had lately been made keeper of the himself as a statesman; and Guildford Great Seal. The character of Guild- was no exception to the general rule. ford has been drawn at full length by He was indeed so sensible of his his brother Roger North, a most in-deficiencies that he never attended the tolerant Tory, a most affected and meetings of his colleagues on foreign pedantic writer, but a vigilant observer affairs. Even on questions relating to of all those minute circumstances which his own profession his opinion had less throw light on the dispositions of men. weight at the Council board than that It is remarkable that the biographer, of any man who has ever held the though he was under the influence of Great Seal. Such as his influence was, the strongest fraternal partiality, and however, he used it, as far as he dared, though he was evidently anxious to on the side of the laws. produce a flattering likeness, was un- The chief opponent of Halifax was able to portray the Lord Keeper other-Lawrence Hyde, who had recently been wise than as the most ignoble of man- created Earl of Rochester. Of all kind. Yet the intellect of Guildford Tories, Rochester was the most inwas clear, his industry great, his pro- tolerant and uncompromising. ficiency in letters and science respect-moderate members of his party comable, and his legal learning more than plained that the whole patronage of respectable. His faults were selfish- the Treasury, while he was First ness, cowardice, and meanness. He Commissioner there, went to noisy was not insensible to the power of female beauty, nor averse from excess in wine. Yet neither wine nor beauty could ever seduce the cautious and frugal libertine, even in his earliest youth, into one fit of indiscreet generosity. Though of noble descent, he rose in his profession by paying ignominions homage to all who possessed influence in the courts. He became Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and as such was party to some of the foulest judicial murders recorded in our history. He had sense enough to perceive from the first that Oates and

The

zealots, whose only claim to promotion was that they were always drinking confusion to Whiggery, and lighting bonfires to burn the Exclusion Bill. The Duke of York, pleased with a spirit which so much resembled his own, supported his brother-in-law passionately and obstinately.

The attempts of the rival ministers to surmount and supplant each other kept the court in incessant agitation. Halifax pressed the King to summon a Parliament, to grant a general amnesty, to deprive the Duke of York of all share in the government, to recall Monmouth from

banishment, to break with Lewis, and being told that, if he convoked the to form a close union with Holland on Houses, the secret articles of the treaty the principles of the Triple Alliance. of Dover should be published. Several The Duke of York, on the other hand, Privy Councillors were bought; and dreaded the meeting of a Parliament, attempts were made to buy Halifax, regarded the vanquished Whigs with but in vain. When he had been found undiminished hatred, still flattered incorruptible, all the art and influence himself that the design formed fourteen of the French embassy were employed years before at Dover might be accom- to drive him from office: but his plished, daily represented to his brother polished wit and his various accomthe impropriety of suffering one who plishments had made him so agreeable was at heart a Republican to hold the to his master, that the design failed.* Privy Seal, and strongly recommended Rochester for the great place of Lord Treasurer.

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 court

at the time

While the two factions were struggling, Godolphin, cautious, silent, and laborious, observed a neutrality between them. Sunderland, with his usual restless perfidy, intrigued against them both. He had been turned out of office in disgrace for having voted in favour of the Exclusion Bill, but had made his peace by employing the good offices of the Duchess of Portsmouth and by cringing to the Duke of York, and was once more Secretary of State. Nor was Lewis negligent or inactive. Policy of Everything at that moment Lewis. favoured his designs. He had nothing to apprehend from the German the Treasury. empire, which was then contending Still, however, the contest continued. against the Turks on the Danube. The event depended wholly on State of Holland could not, unsupported, venture the will of Charles: and factions in to oppose him. He was therefore at Charles could not come to a of Charles liberty to indulge his ambition and in- decision. In his perplexity he of his solence without restraint. He seized promised everything to every- death. Strasburg, Courtray, Luxemburg. He body. He would stand by France: he exacted from the republic of Genoa the would break with France: he would most humiliating submissions. The never meet another Parliament: he power of France at that time reached would order writs for a Parliament to a higher point than it ever before or be issued without delay. He assured ever after attained, during the ten cen- the Duke of York that Halifax should turies which separated the reign of Charlemagne from the reign of Napo-wrote thence to Halifax as follows:-" I find leon. It was not easy to say where her acquisitions would stop, if only England could be kept in a state of vassalage. The first object of the court of Versailles was therefore to prevent the calling of a Parliament and the reconciliation of English parties. For this end bribes, promises, and menaces were unsparingly employed. Charles was sometimes allured by the hope of a subsidy, and sometimes frightened by

* Lord Preston, who was envoy at Paris, that your lordship lies still under the same misfortune of being no favourite to this court; and Monsieur Barillon dare not do you the frowneth. They know very well your lordhonour to shine upon you, since his master ship's qualifications, which make them fear and consequently hate you; and be assured, my lord, if all their strength can send you to Rufford, it shall be employed for that end. Two things, I hear, they particularly object against you, your secrecy, and your being incapable of being corrupted. Against these two things I know they have declared." date of the letter is October 5. N.s. 1682.

The

be dismissed from office, and Halifax | a few months the excesses of the gothat the Duke should be sent to Scot-vernment obliterated the impression land. In public he affected implacable which had been made on the public resentment against Monmouth, and in mind by the excesses of the opposition. private conveyed to Monmouth assur- The violent reaction which had laid ances of unalterable affection. How the Whig party prostrate was followed long, if the King's life had been pro- by a still more violent reaction in the tracted, his hesitation would have lasted, opposite direction; and signs not to be and what would have been his resolve, mistaken indicated that the great concan only be conjectured. Early in the flict between the prerogatives of the year 1685, while hostile parties were Crown and the privileges of the Parliaanxiously awaiting his determination, ment, was about to be brought to a he died, and a new scene opened. In final issue.

CHAPTER III.

taxation, absurd commercial restrictions, corrupt tribunals, disastrous wars, seditions, persecutions, conflagrations, inundations, have not been able to destroy capital as fast as the exertions

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, of private citizens have been able to must necessarily be very imperfect. Yet it may perhaps correct some false notions which would make the subsequent narrative unintelligible or uninstructive.

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 If we would study with profit the under the Plantagenets; that it was history of our ancestors, we must be greater under the Stuarts than under constantly on our guard against that the Tudors; that, in spite of battles, delusion which the well known names sieges, and confiscations, it was greater of families, places, and offices naturally on the day of the Restoration than on produce, and must never forget that the day when the Long Parliament the country of which we read was a met; that, in spite of maladministravery different country from that in tion, of extravagance, of public bankwhich we live. In every experimental ruptcy, of two costly and unsuccessful science there is a tendency towards wars, of the pestilence and of the fire, perfection. In every human being there it was greater on the day of the death is a wish to ameliorate his own con- of Charles the Second than on the day dition. These two principles have often of his Restoration. This progress, sufficed, even when counteracted by having continued during many ages, great public calamities and by bad became at length, about the middle of institutions, to carry civilisation rapidly the eighteenth century, portentously forward. No ordinary misfortune, no rapid, and has proceeded, during the ordinary misgovernment, will do so nineteenth, with accelerated velocity. much to make a nation wretched, as In consequence partly of our geograthe constant progress of physical know-phical and partly of our moral position, ledge and the constant effort of every we have, during several generations, man to better himself will do to make been exempt from evils which have a nation prosperous. It has often been elsewhere impeded the efforts and found that profuse expenditure, heavy destroyed the fruits of industry. While

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.*

tion of

every part of the Continent, from | or fens abandoned to wild ducks. We Moscow to Lisbon, has been the theatre should see straggling huts built of of bloody and devastating wars, no wood and covered with thatch, where hostile standard has been seen here we now see manufacturing towns and but as a trophy. While revolutions seaports renowned to the farthest ends have taken place all around us, our of the world. The capital itself would government has never once been sub- shrink to dimensions not much exceedverted by violence. During more than ing those of its present suburb on the a hundred years there has been in our south of the Thames. Not less strange island no tumult of sufficient import- to us would be the garb and manners ance to be called an insurrection; nor of the people, the furniture and the has the law been once borne down equipages, the interior of the shops and either by popular fury or by regal dwellings. 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 Great 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 meadows, intersected by green hedgerows, and dotted with villages and pleasant country seats, would appear as moors overgrown with furze,

change in the state

of England since 1685.

One of the first objects of an inquirer, who wishes to form a Populacorrect notion of the state of a England community at a given time, in 1685. 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 popula tion of the city had increased by two millions. Even while the ravages of

since this chapter was written, England has *During the interval which has elapsed continued to advance rapidly in material prosperity. I have left my text nearly as it originally stood; but I have added a few notes which may enable the reader to form some notion of the progress which has been made during the last nine years; and, in general, I scarcely a district which is not more populous, or a source of wealth which is not more productive, at present than in 1848. (1857.) Captain John Graunt (Sir William Petty), † Observations on the Bills of Mortality, by chap. xi.

would desire him to remember that there is

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