portion of the population, they raised the wages of labour, and consequently the profits of stock, and, by unexpectedly opening rich successions, enabled many, by the accumulation of capital, to extend their concerns, and improve their machinery. Leases of large tracts had improved the wealth of the country inhabitants *; and the demand for home manufactures, as well as for the articles of commerce, bearing a proportion to the increasing opulence, necessarily afforded employment to a number of hands, and more widely diffused wealth. While society was thus in a progressive state of improvement, in spite of much impolicy, the national prosperity was rapidly promoted by religious persecutions on the continent. Antwerp, long famous for her manufactures, had annually furnished England to a large amount; but having been sacked in the year 1585, through the furious bigotry of the Spanish court, she no longer outrivaled the English in their own market, while a great portion of her rich and industrious inhabitants, driven from their native city, sought an asylum in that country, into which they imported their skill and capitalt. Many articles formerly supplied by foreigners, were now provided at home. The demand for manufacturing labour therefore increased, and, as the number who could pur

* This is evident from Harrison; and from what Spencer says of leases in his Account of Ireland, as well as from the information we derive from various sources, I apprehend that leases were more common in England in that age than now.

+ Anderson's Hist. of Commerce, vol. ii. p. 158.

chase the necessaries of life augmented, a new spring was given to agriculture by the home consumption of the produce of the soil; while the improved state of the country population reacted in giving additional employment to the manufacturing classes.-The general prosperity was accelerated, likewise, by emigration, particularly to the American colonies, which were established under James, and which operated not only in opening an outlet to the superfluous population, but in creating a new market for manufactures.

Towns give the tone to public feeling: there only genius, though elsewhere exerted, meets with its reward. Thither resort men of intelligence and independent fortunes, who naturally canvass the measures of government, and acquire a bolder and more decided character, by the collision of sentiment. The citizens or burgesses, too, daily rising into greater independence, cultivate mental improvement, and, by the habits of public business which they acquire, in conducting the government of their city, or burgh, are naturally roused into attention to the great national affairs. This natural course of things may be counteracted; but, as in England, while the constitution was more popular than in other states, there was no standing army, and besides, after the church lands were confiscated, there remained in the crown few of those sources of influence that make it the interest of certain classes to support the administration in acts that otherwise they would oppose, the public spirit was daily invigorated by national prosperity.

The aristocracy having been reduced to a subjection to the laws, the inferior ranks had no longer an interest to encourage and support an arbitrary interference in the Crown, which was calculated to shield them from subordinate tyranny, while the wretched country population, who, cast out of employment and subsistence, had deranged the order of society, and confirmed the power of the executive, having now been either employed or gradually consumed by famine, ceased to molest, in a violent degree, the independent inhabitants, and thus no longer allowed them to view any irregularity in the executive as a necessary evil, nor prevented a union of all classes for the security of their rights. As religion had been instrumental in vastly extending the influence of the crown, it now operated in a contrary way. The rights to church lands being confirmed, the aristocracy, who perceived that they had nothing more to expect from that quar ter, were no longer alarmed by their fears of losing their lands, nor seduced by their cupidity of acquiring more, into an undue desire of supporting any proposition from the throne. The principles of the Reformation also were too deeply rooted to make people tremble with terror at the idea of a popish prince, though they still were justly apprehensive of such an evil, nor to regard a Protestant monarch with that reverence which the peculiar situation of Elizabeth inspired. Innovation, too, having become familiar, the higher classes did not, as formerly, recoil with horror at every new tenet, while, having imbibed the principles of the puritan party to the extent at least of ceremonies and wor

ship, they listened with less attention to the cry of the prelates about the tendency of popular opinions to violate the rights of property-particularly when they perceived that these High Churchmen reviled as rebellious, the justest opposition to the sovereign, and were inclined to serve the crown at the expence of every constitutional principle.

As the public spirit rose, the crown became more dependent upon parliamentary supplies, which, consequently, conferred greater influence upon that organ of the national voice. For the royal domains, which, in ancient times, had supported the ordinary expenditure of the monarch, had been successively much alienated, not, in a trifling degree by Elizabeth herself, and no fresh plunder of the church promised to replenish the royal coffers. At the commencement of his reign, James endeavoured to procure a law prohibiting further alienations of the crown lands; but the Commons, who either grudged supplies, expected a share of the domains, or foresaw the political consequences, refused the bill, and the king himself was far from pursuing in practice what he had anxiously desired to restrict himself to by law. While the permanent revenue of the crown was thus daily diminished, a more expensive establishment was introduced.

From all these circumstances, the dynasty of the Stuarts opened a new era in the Government, and their chance of enjoying the affections of the community, must have depended on their yielding to the more liberal notions of the times, and

*See Raleigh's Prerog. of Parliaments, p. 43.

never at least exceeding the limits of the constitution. But a free spirit in the people is apt to inspire an opposite one in the governors, who mistaking the expression of the public feeling for its cause, conceive that illegal severity against every indication of freedom, will quell the temper they dread; and therefore, recal to mind as a precedent for their ordinary administration, every insulated irregularity of former times, attributing obedience to any rare act of severity, when in truth the submission to the act arose from the train of events that had encouraged it. This misguided policy is not confined to princes: Even statesmen in power are frequently the last to observe the changes in society which necessarily affect the Government. Raised above the people, and occupied with intrigues for place, they either despise, or are ignorant of, the passions which agitate the general mass, and refuse concession till the hour of concili

ation is past. An ambitious priesthood, who, with as much injustice, are more impolitic, perceiving that external pomp and ceremonies impose on mankind, cannot renounce them when they provoke disgust instead of veneration*. When, therefore, a prince evinces a disposition to tyrannize, he seldom wants evil counsellors and coadjutors; and, as James shewed the first, he was plentifully supplied with the last.

At the accession of that monarch, though there was a party hostile to the hierarchy, the bulk of

* Lord Clarendon remarks, that "Clergymen understand the least, and take the worst measure of human affairs, of all mankind that can read or write."-Life, vol. i. p. 34.