About 1744, John Wesley, the son of an Anglican clergyman, became a religious leader for mining and industrial laborers, who were crowded into the slums of industrializing cities, and largely ignored by the Church of England. He had been led to this by a profound religious experience. He led an evangelical revival with a promise of individual salvation. He lead an aesthetic life, eating bread, and sleeping on boards. The person to be saved from the horrors of eternal damnation in hell was to discipline himself to regular prayer, self-criticism, and hard work and to forsake worldly pleasures such as drinking, overeating, and even frivolous talk. This methodical regularity of living led to the movement being called Methodist. Wesley believed in witchcraft and magic. He opined that bodily diseases and insanity could be caused by devils and that some dreams are caused by occult powers of evil. The Methodists engaged increasingly in philanthropic activities. They gave to the poor, and visited the sick and the imprisoned. Wesley preached in the open air where all who wanted to attend could attend and also wear whatever clothes they had. Large crowds of poor people gathered for these meetings. Crowds of poor people were generally feared because of their mob potential. These Methodist meetings were stormed as were Quaker meetings, with shouts of "the church in danger". The Methodists' homes were invaded and their belongings destroyed or taken or their persons beaten with tacit permission of authorities. Some Justices of the Peace drafted preachers into the army or navy as vagabonds. Eventually, however, the Methodist revival imbued energy and piety into the lethargic clergy of the established church. A new moral enthusiasm and philanthropic energy grabbed the nation. Prisons were reformed, penal laws made more wise, slave trade abolished, and popular education given momentum. In the established church, charity gained precedence over theology and comfort over self-examination and guilt. Evangelist George Whitfield preached Calvinism and it split off from Methodism. Then Calvinism went into full decline. Presbyterianism collapsed into Unitarianism and a general tendency towards deism developed.
Church sanctuary was abolished for those accused of civil offenses.
There was much travel by scheduled coaches, which usually carried several passengers and were drawn by four horses. Regular service of public vehicles to and from London went four miles an hour; it took two days to go from London to Oxford. It was not unusual for a coach to bog down or overturn. Sometimes it had to detour around an impassable stretch of road or borrow a couple of oxen from a nearby farm to get out of a quagmire. Men and horses drowned in some of the potholes. Robbery was endemic and some of the roads were so unsafe from highwaymen that bands of armed horsemen were hired to accompany the coaches. It was not unusual to come across gibbets for hanging at crossroads. In London inns at coach stops, there were casual workers who were associated with gangs of thieves specializing in passengers' goods. These workers would inform their associate thieves of specific goods that had been loaded onto certain coaches, which were then robbed selectively. Traveling merchants preferred packhorses to carts because they could cross overland or through watercourses more easily. These pack horses traveled in regular caravans in single file. The leader had a bell around his neck to warn, from a distance, riders or carts coming in the opposite direction. Carts traveled about two miles an hour. In 1711 the trustee system superseded administration by the Justices of the Peace of the turnpike system, including tolls and toll booths. The toll booths were frequently attacked by riotous mobs. So anyone pulling down or destroying turnpike gates at which tolls were to be paid went to prison or was put to hard labor in a House of Correction for three months without bail. He was also whipped in the market place between 11:00 and 2:00. If he offended a second time, he was transported for seven years. Later the penalty of prison up to three years was added as an alternative. The hundred had to pay the damages up to 20 pounds. The penalty for threatening the toll collector or forcibly passing through was 5 pounds for the first offense, and 10 pounds for the second offense with imprisonment for one year for those who couldn't pay.
By 1750, about 60 miles could be made in a day. The turnpike trusts took over most of London's major highways during the 1700s. There was no travel on Sundays until 1750.
In 1745, shocked by the difficulty caused by bad roads in concentrating the royal army to stop the Scottish invasion, the king began systematically to improve all the roads. There was much road and highway widening and repair, and also river bank and pier repair, going on all over the country. Marsh lands were drained. Harbors were deepened. There were numerous statutes trying to adjust the needs of travel with the condition of the roads. For instance, there had to be a pole between wheel horses or double shafts. Carriages, wagons, or carts drawn by more horses, oxen, or animals, or with very heavy loads, or with wheels bound with iron tires were observed to cause more damage, so they were restricted or had to pay higher tolls. Then broad and smooth iron tires were observed to not cause the amount of damage as did narrow or irregular iron tires and their use was encouraged. From 1741, weighing machines were kept at toll gates. By 1766, turnpike roads had to be at least 30 feet wide, and hedges and fences thereon had to be taken down by their owners. Cartways to markets had to be at least 20 feet wide, and horseways 3 (later 8) feet wide. There were ditches, drains, and gutters to carry off water. Names and abodes of owners were to be put on carriages, wagons, and carts or forfeit 2-5 pounds, except for carriages or coaches of a nobleman or gentleman for his private use or those drawn by only one horse or two oxen, or those with wide wheels and a light load. There were town name signs, direction posts, and milestones. In 1773, the Surveyors and the Commissioners of Turnpikes were given authority to requisition local men, carts and draught animals for compulsory labor, or money instead, in maintaining the roads and making new ditches and drains. They could take any local sand, gravel, chalk, or stone from waste or common land or, if not needed by and satisfaction was made to the owner, from enclosed land. The surveyor was to be chosen locally for a year and could be given an allowance. New roads required the consent of the landowners and a negotiated price.
A driver of a carriage, wagon, or cart on the public highway who by negligence or misbehavior caused any hurt or damage to a person or any other carriage or hindered free passage of any other carriage was to forfeit up to 20s. Anyone leaving an empty cart or other obstruction on a public highway was to forfeit up to 20s. Any cart, wagon, or carriage driven without a person on foot or on horseback leading it had a forfeiture up to 20s. Any driver of an empty cart, wagon, or carriage who refused or neglected to make way for any coach or loaded cart, wagon, or carriage was to forfeit up to 20. Any offender could be apprehended without warrant by anyone who saw his offense, and who was then to deliver him to a constable or other peace officer.
By 1719, the mail service was well-regulated. Letter rates within 80 miles of London were 3d. per piece of paper, then 12d. per ounce. Within 60 miles of New York City in America there were 4d. per piece of paper, then 1s.4d. per ounce. Letters were still carried by post horses. From London to New York, they were 1s. per piece of paper for the first three pieces, then 4s. per ounce. In 1765, this rate was extended to all colonial ports.
In 1754, canals began to be constructed linking the main rivers. The barges were hauled by horses or men from the land near the river's edge. Now goods of many inland towns cheapened and reached a national instead of just a local market. In 1761 an almost illiterate man called James Brindley cut the first real canal at Worsley for the Duke of Bridgewater, who owned the coal deposits there. He kept the line of the canal at one level to avoid having to make locks. It crossed one river as a forty foot high aqueduct. He refused to use the beds of small rivers, whose sluggish flow gave no adequate security against silting. Coal at the destination point of Manchester fell to half its former price. After Wedgwood headed a campaign to persuade Parliament to construct a certain canal, he bought adjacent land on which he built his great factory.
In 1713, the maximum interest rate that could be charged was reduced to 5% for the advancement of trade and improvement of lands because that rate was the norm in foreign lands. Thus the maximum interest rate fell from 10 to 8 to 6 and then to 5%. When Issac Newton was Master of the Mint, he noted that too restricted a currency caused a high interest rate to prevail, which was bad for commerce and the plans to set the poor to work, but that too large a quantity of money in circulation caused interest rates to fall, which encouraged luxury imports and the export of bullion.
The Bank of England provided a safer deposit and lower interest than goldsmiths or scriveners. It also issued notes for 10 and 15 (since 1759), and 20 pounds. Outside retail trade and wages payments, business was conducted on a credit basis with a paper promise to pay at some future date. Check use was still formal and rare. Tradesmen typically authorized their apprentices to "write off or draw" from their accounts, bringing their bank books. Depositors authorized other people such as certain servants, relatives, cashiers, or company secretaries to make use of their accounts. After 1721, the Bank dividend was about 6% a year.