1785 THE STEAM-ENGINE 817 they consumed much fuel, and therefore cost too much to come into general use. James Watt, a mathematical instrument maker in Glasgow, discovered a way of lessening the cost of fuel, and of making the engine more serviceable at the same time. He entered into partnership with a capitalist named Boulton, and set up works near Birmingham. At first manufacturers distrusted the new engines, and Boulton and Watt only succeeded in inducing them to buy by offering to go without payment if the engines sold did not save their cost in the course of a year. Before long all manufacturers were anxious to get them. "I sell here," said Boulton to George III., when he visited his works, "what all the world desires-power." 31. General Results of the Growth of Manufactures.-One great result of the invention of the improved steam-engine was the transference of population from the south to the north. Hitherto the north had been poor and of little weight in the political scale. When the north had taken part in political struggles it had usually chosen the side ultimately rejected by the nation. It fought in the reign of Henry VI. for the Lancastrians; in the reign of Henry VIII. for the monasteries; in the reign of Elizabeth for the Papacy; in the reign of Charles I. for the king; in the reign of Coal, however, existed in many George I. for the Pretender. parts of the north; the steam-engine followed coal, manufactures followed the steam-engine, and population followed manufactures. In Sussex, for instance, there was in the seventeenth century a considerable population supported by the manufacture of iron, and it was from this Sussex iron that the railings round St. Paul's were made. By the middle of the eighteenth century, however, the weald of Sussex, on which had once stood the forest which had for some time blocked the way of the South Saxon conquest (see p. 27), had been denuded of its wood, in consequence of the large demands made by the furnaces for smelting iron, and now the industry of iron manufacture moved entirely to the north. At first, indeed, the transfer of labourers to the north was not followed by beneficial results. The crowds who gathered for work were for the most part ignorant, and always in haste to be rich. There was neglect of sanitary requirements, and those who rose to be masters often wore away the lives of their workmen. As yet, law did not interfere to protect the weak the women and children—from excessive labour, or to guard against the frequent occurrence of preventable accidents. It was as though a new world had opened in the north, of which Parliament knew so little that it neither desired to regulate it nor even thought of making the attempt. Books recommended for the further study of Part IX. LECKY, W. E. H. STANHOPE, Earl. History of England in the Eighteenth Century. History of England since the Peace of Utrecht. MACAULAY, Lord. Essays on Chatham and Clive. TREVELYAN, Sir George. The Early Life of C. J. Fox. MORLEY, J. Burke: an Historical Study. RUSSELL, Earl. Memorials and Correspondence of C. J. Fox. LEWIS, Sir George Cornewall. Essays on the Administrations of Great Britain, pp. 1-129. WILSON, Sir Charles. Clive. LYALL, Sir A. Warren Hastings. TROTTER, Capt. L. J. Warren Hastings. 1. Prospects of Pitt's Ministry. 1789.-The spread of manufacturing industry did much to strengthen Pitt's government, because the wealthy manufacturers were jealous of the landed aristocracy, and, therefore, supported him against the great Whig families. In the beginning of 1789 there seemed to be every prospect that Pitt's tenure of office would continue to be distinguished by a long series of gradual reforms, carried out just so far as Pitt could induce the nation to follow him. Before long, however, events took place in France which shocked the English nation, and produced a temper hostile to reform. 2. Material Antecedents of the French Revolution.—The form of government in France had long been an absolute monarchy; but, though the kings had deprived the nobles and the clergy of all political power, they had allowed them to retain privileges injurious to the rest of the community. The nobles and the clergy, for instance, who formed the first two estates, paid much lower taxes than the rest of the people, and the Third Estate, which comprised all who were not noblemen or clergymen, bore, in consequence, heavier burdens than ought to have been placed on them. Many noblemen and clergymen, again, were seigneurs, or, as would have been said in England, Lords of Manors, and though the peasants who lived on their estates were often actually proprietors of their own pieces of land, they had nevertheless to pay dues to their seigneurs on all sorts of occasions, as for instance when they sold land or brought their produce to market. The seigneurs, too, often treated the peasants harshly by riding over their crops in pursuit of game, or by keeping flocks of pigeons which devoured their corr.. People will sometimes bear injuries from those who render some public service, but in France in the eighteenth century the seigneurs did no public service, as the kings had jealously deprived them of the right of taking part-as English country gentlemen took part-in administering justice or in looking after the business of the district in which they lived. The seigneurs and the nobility in general were accordingly hated, in the first place as obnoxious to their neighbours, and in the second place as useless idlers. 3. Intellectual Antecedents of the French Revolution.-Discontent only results in revolution when there are found thinking men to lead the oppressed masses, and in France there were thinkers and writers who prepared the way for great changes. Voltaire and several other writers proclaimed the supremacy of human reason. They called upon kings and rulers to govern reasonably, attacking not only unreasonable and cruel laws, bearing hardly on individuals or injurious to the state and the institutions of civil life, but the practices and doctrines of Christianity itself. The professors of Christianity in France were certainly open to attack. Not only were the bishops and higher clergy rolling in wealth and living worldly and sometimes vicious lives, whilst the poor parish priests (curés) who did the work were in great poverty, but the bishops cried out for the persecution of Protestants and sceptics, although some of them were themselves sceptics. On one occasion Louis XVI., who had reigned since 1774, being asked to name a certain man, who was known to be a sceptic, 1772-1789 LOUIS XVI. AND THE REVOLUTION 821 as archbishop, replied that an archbishop ought at least to believe in God. Whilst Voltaire and his allies asked that all things should be done by the king and his ministers according to reason, another writer, Rousseau, taught that all had equal rights, and that the people ought to govern themselves, holding that they knew by experience their own needs far better than those who undertook to govern them, and that as the people were always good and just, they would never act tyrannically as kings and priests had too often done. 4. Louis XVI. 1774-1789. The feeling of the French people in general when Louis XVI. came to the throne was hostile not to monarchy but to the privileged orders, namely, the nobility and the clergy. If, therefore, Louis XVI. had put himself at the head of this movement, he would have become a more powerful king than even Louis XIV. Unfortunately, though he was unselfish and well intentioned, he had neither strength of will nor clearness of head, and he allowed the Government to drift into helplessness. Before long he was rushing into bankruptcy, which could only be averted if the nobles and clergy were compelled to pay taxes like the Third Estate. Louis XVI. had not the nerve to compel them to do it, and in 1789 he summoned the States-General, a body answering in some respects to our Parliament, but which had not met for a hundred and seventy-five years. He did this not because he wished to lead his people, but because he did not know any other way of procuring the money that he needed. 5. The National Assembly. 1789. When the States-General met, the work of doing justice upon the privileged orders passed out of the king's hands. Each of the Three Estates had elected its own representatives to the States-General, and those of the Third Estate successfully insisted on all the representatives sitting in one chamber and calling themselves the National Assembly. The National Assembly assumed the right of making a constitution, and when the king feebly attempted to take that work into his own hands, and gave signs of an intention to employ force to make good his claim, the mob rose on July 14 and took the Bastille, a great fortress which commanded the poorer quarters of Paris. Then the peasants rose in many parts of France, burning and sacking the country houses of the seigneurs, and, on August 4, the National Assembly swept away all the special privileges of the two privileged orders. From henceforth there was to be in France what there had for centuries been in England-equality before the law. |