be said,’ asserted Mr Brougham, ‘that without at all comprehending the waste lands wholly added to the productive tenantry of the island, not perhaps that two blades of grass now grow where one only grew before, but certainly that five grow where four used to be; and that this kingdom, which foreigners were wont to taunt as a mere manufacturing and trading country, inhabited by a shopkeeping nation, is, in reality, for its size, by far the greatest agricultural state in the world!’” Contrary, perhaps, to the general expectation, the close of the war and the return of peace operated disastrously upon the internal interests of the country. Though the manufacturing energies of the Continent had been checked, its agriculture was ready and available; and accordingly, no sooner were the ports opened than prices fell at an alarming rate. The result was not only immediate agricultural distress in Britain, but _the greatest depression in every branch of manufacture connected with the home trade_. The agricultural distress needs no explanation. The vast improvements on land had been made with borrowed money; and when prices went down, the proprietor too often found himself unable from his rents to pay the bare interest of the money expended. Yet, had these improvements not taken place, how could Britain have continued the struggle so long—how could her manufacturing population have been fed? These are questions never considered now, especially by those agitators who revile the landlords, or rather the Legislature, for the imposition of the Corn Laws; but the truth is, that, unless the corn duty had been then imposed, England must, within a very few years, either have exhibited the humiliating spectacle of a bankrupt and ruined state, or been plunged in revolution. The distress rapidly spread to the manufacturers—for example, those engaged in the silk trade, and the iron and coal-workers of Staffordshire and Wales. The fall in the price of corn produced its natural effect by limiting the consumption of everything else; and, as if to crown the calamity, the exporting manufacturers, in their eagerness for gain, committed precisely the same blunder, from the effects of which they are now suffering so severely; and by creating a glut in the Continental markets, they both annihilated their own profits, and excited such an alarm in foreign governments as to give rise to a system of prohibitory duties, which continues to the present hour. Then followed the resumption of cash payments, with all its train of ruin—a measure which, whether necessary or not in principle, could not have been carried but for the existence of a corn law, which in some degree mitigated its pressure.