PREFACE TO VOLUME VII. THE Sixth Volume of this work embraced the History of England from the Accession of George I. to the close of the American War in 1783. The SEVENTH VOLUME opens with a view of the rapid Industrial Progress of the country, from the Accession of George III., to 1783, and onwards to the war of the French Revolution. The extraordinary development of the agricultural and manufacturing resources of Great Britain are fully detailed in three chapters. In pursuance of the general plan of the Popular History, a view of the Fine Arts, of Literature, and of Manners, is also given in three more chapters. A retrospect of Indian affairs introduces us to the India Bill of Mr. Fox, the defeat of which ended in establishing Mr. Pitt as Prime Minister, in 1784. A few years of peace, and of internal improvement, were interrupted by the agitations of the French Revolution. The early stages of this eventful story are detailed with as much fulness as is compatible with a limited space; and then we arrive at the war with France, which commenced in 1793. With the short interval of the Peace of Amiens, the stirring passages of twenty-one years of the greatest warfare ever waged in the world occupy the remainder of the Volume, to the Peace of Paris, in 1814. This is the History of the French Republic; of the supremacy of Napoleon Bonaparte during the Consulate and the Empire; of the gigantic struggle of Great Britain against the ambition which aimed at universal conquest; of her splendid naval victories; of her ill-concerted military expeditions; and of her final triumph in the great war of the Peninsula, under the one commander who was worthy to be matched against Napoleon. This is unquestionably the grandest story in our annals; and I cannot but feel how inadequately it can be told in one volume of about six hundred pages, whilst other histories of the same period occupy more than as many thousand pages. I have aimed at the utmost possible condensation consistent with maintaining the interest of the narrative; and I may venture to say, that of the vast accession of authentic materials for this narrative, which have been published up to the present time, I have left very few unconsulted. After the first abdication of Bonaparte, and his removal to Elba, there was an interval of ten months before his arrival at Paris, and before the commencement of those Hundred Days which terminated with his second abdication after the Battle of Waterloo. During that interval all the political and territorial arrangements of Europe were settled in the Congress of Vienna. This brief period properly belongs to the Eighth and concluding volume of the Popular History, so that the settlement of 1815 may be referred to in connexion with the events which terminated in those changes of European affairs in 1848, which were again to unsettle institutions and principles, opposed to the progress of mankind in freedom and intelligence. The writer of history who is desirous that his narrative should have a more artistical connexion than can be presented by mere Annals, must sometimes seek for a higher order than that of a juxtaposition of dates. For this reason I have postponed to the next volume any detail of the occurrences of the unhappy war with the United States of America, which commenced in 1812, and was not ended till 1815. For the same reason, many great attempts to legislate for improvement of the Laws, especially of the Criminal Laws, and for other important ameliorations, will not be found in this Volume at the years in which the reforms were proposed, rejected, or carried; but they will combine, in a retrospective view, with the account of the Condition of the People which the Eighth Volume will furnish. Matters also, in which legislative action was less called into operation than the power of association for public objects-such as Education under the rival systems of Bell and Lancaster ; Bible and Tract Societies; Institutions for Charitable and Sanitary objects-matters which have been now thought worthy to be classed as Social Science, however incapable of being treated with scientific precision-these will also find a place in the general survey of the characteristics of the long era of peace which allowed England to think how much she had neglected during the turmoil of war. If I am permitted, by that Power which disposes of what man proposes, to finish the task which I have assigned myself, I shall have reached the verge of a new struggle for a better state of society in Europe than the early promises of the French Revolution, and the long duration of a respite from hostilities, had been able to realize. Surely, the time would come when nations would have learnt, out of the terrible experience of a quarter of a century, to know the value of Order conjoined with Liberty, PREFACE. and of Equality before the Law instead of an impossible striving after Equality of rank and wealth. Surely, the time would come when Governments would have learnt that the freedom, the intelligence, and the prosperity of the People are the only safeguards of a State. May we not hope that in Europe there is a dawning of that happier day? For my own country, I shall have to trace, in the coming volume, that gradual but vast amelioration of our political and social condition, which has produced an enormous increase of national wealth, accompanied by the general diffusion of comforts, and of consequent content, under a Sovereign towards whom the term Loyalty but imperfectly expresses an amount of reverence and affection unexampled in the history of the thousand years which I have endeavoured to shadow out. This happy condition of our country best shows how gradual improvement is built upon the solid foundation of the Past; how what we thus win in the Present adds to the strength of the edifice for the Future. No one who attempts, however inadequately, to discharge the responsible duties of the historian of England, can approach his task without a pervading sense of the Divine Government of the world, as revealed in the gradual manifestation of the destinies of his country. Emerging slowly from barbarism into civilization; struggling with enemies without and with tyranny within; sustained by the character of her people and the spirit of her laws in a condition opposed to violent revolutions but favorable to progressive reforms-she sees confided to her "the prerogative of teaching the nations how to live," and the duty of advancing the good of millions under an empire on which the sun never sets. MAY 11, 1861. CHARLES KNIGHT. |