(FROM THE PAINTING BY F. GOODALL, R.A., IN THE
NATIONAL GALLERY OF BRITISH ART.)

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CHAPTER IV.

PROGRESS OF THE NATION DURING THE REIGN OF GEORGE III.

Growth of Material Wealth—Condition of the Working Classes—The Charity Schools—Lethargy of the Church—Proposal to abolish Subscription to the Articles—A Bill for the further Relief of Dissenters—The Test and Corporation Acts—The Efforts of Beaufoy and Lord Stanhope—Attempts to relieve the Quakers—Further Effort of Lord Stanhope—The Claims of the Roman Catholics—Failure of the Efforts to obtain Catholic Emancipation—Lay Patronage in Scotland—The Scottish Episcopalians—Illustrious Dissenters—Religion in Wales and Ireland—Literature—The Novelists: Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne—Minor and later Novelists—Scott—Historians: Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon—Minor Historians—Miscellaneous Literature—Criticism, Theology, Biography, and Science—Periodical Literature—The Drama and the Dramatists—Poetry: Collins, Shenstone, and Gray—Goldsmith and Churchill—Minor Poets—Percy's "Reliques," and Scott's "Border Minstrelsy"—Chatterton and Ossian—Johnson and Darwin—Crabbe and Cowper—Poetasters and Gifford—The Shakespeare Forgeries—Minor Satires—Burns—The Lake School: Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey—Scott, Campbell, Byron, Shelley, and Keats—Poets at the close of the Period—Improvement of Agricultural Science—Arthur Young—Drainage and Roots—Improvements in Road-making: Telford and Macadam—Brindley's and Telford's Canals—Bridges and Harbours—Iron Railways—Application of the Steam-Engine to Railways and Boats—Improvements in Machinery—Wedgwood—Manufacture of Glass—Collieries—Use of Coal in Iron-works—Improvements in various Manufactures—Scientific Discoveries—Music—Architecture—Painting—Sculpture—Engraving—Coins and Coinage—Manners and Customs.

The progress of Great Britain in commerce during the reign of George III. had been extraordinary. At the beginning of the reign the number of British vessels of all kinds amounted to only 7,075, with a tonnage of 457,316 tons; but at the end of the reign the vessels amounted to 30,000, with a tonnage of upwards of 3,000,000 tons. At the commencement of the reign the exports were £14,500,000, and the imports £9,579,159. At the end of the reign the exports had risen to £43,438,989; and the imports to £30,776,810.

A great proportion of these results had been produced by the rapid growth of manufactures. The introduction of steam, and the inventions of the spinning-jenny and other kinds of machinery, had given such a development to manufactures, that the value of these at the end of the reign made three-fourths of the whole exports. Agriculture had made considerable progress, and of this art the king was a zealous patron, especially of the improvements in the breed of sheep, importing himself merinos from Spain at great cost. There were also great promoters of improvements in stock, such as Bakewell, Culley, and others, and the high price of corn and of all kinds of agricultural produce during the war acted as stimulants to farming. The value of land also caused the enclosure of vast tracts, and much planting of trees was done, especially in Scotland, which had previously been very neglectful in that respect.

The growth of material wealth during this reign had in no degree improved the condition of the working class in any proportion to that of other classes. Landlords had greatly raised their rents, and farmers, by the high price of corn and other provisions, had grown comparatively rich, many very rich. The merchants and master manufacturers had shared liberally in the benefits of a vastly increased commerce, and the wonderful spread of manufactures; but the working manufacturers, between the high price of corn and meat, and the lowness of their wages, were in a miserable condition, and frequently, as we have seen, were driven to riot and insurrection. The handloom weavers were swamped by machinery, and those working the machinery were living in wretched houses, and in a most neglected and insanitary condition. Before the first Sir Robert Peel introduced his Bill for reforming the hours and other regulations of cotton mills, many of these worked night and day, one gang, as it was called, succeeding another at the spinning-jenny, in hot, ill-ventilated rooms. Apprentices were purchased of parishes, either children of paupers, or orphans of such, and these were kept by mill-owners, and worked long hours, one gang having to quit their beds in the morning for another gang of these poor unfortunates to turn into them. The agricultural labourers were little better off. Their habitations were of the worst description, though squires' kennels on the same estates were equal, in all sanitary conditions, to tolerable mansions. Their wages remained only some eight or ten shillings a week—when the wheat which they had raised was one hundred and thirty shillings per quarter, and a stone of flour of fourteen pounds cost a gold seven-shilling piece. This drove them in shoals to the workhouse, and produced a state of things that is hardly credible. Their mental and moral condition was equally deplorable. Education, either in town or country, was scarcely known. There was not a school in all the swarming region of Whitechapel, and many another equally poor and populous region of London, much less in country towns and agricultural parishes. It was a settled maxim amongst the landed gentry, that education, even of the most elementary kind, would totally destroy the supply of servants; and it was gravely stated in Parliament that the plot of Thistlewood was owing to the working classes being able to read.