for ruin, and the unparalleled misery of 1847, and the rebellion of 1848, were the consequence. [9] "Cromwell supplied the void made by his conquering sword, by pouring in numerous colonies of the Anglo-Saxon blood and of the Calvinistic faith. Strange to say, under that iron rule the conquered country began to wear an outward face of prosperity. Districts, which had recently been as wild as those where the first white settlers of Connecticut were contending with the Red Men, _were in a few years transformed into the likeness of Kent and Norfolk_. New buildings, roads, and plantations were everywhere begun. The rent of estates rose fast: and some of the English landowners began to complain that they were met in every market by the products of Ireland, and to clamour for protecting laws."--MACAULAY'S _History_, i., 130. It would be easy to carry these illustrations farther, and to trace the working of the principles we have mentioned through the whole modern system of government in Great Britain. Enough has been said to show that the system is neither founded on the principles contended for by the old Whigs, nor on any appreciation of, or attention to, the national interests, or the dictates of experience in any respect. It has arisen entirely from a blind desire of change, and an opposition to the old system of government, whether of Whig or Tory origin, and a selfish thirst for aggrandisement on the part of the moneyed and commercial classes, whom that system had elevated to riches and power. Experience was not disregarded by this school of politicians; on the contrary, it was sedulously attended to, its lessons carefully marked. But it was considered as a beacon to be avoided, not a light to be followed. Against its conclusions the whole weight of declamation and shafts of irony were directed. It had been the _cri de guerre_ of their enemies, the standard of Mr Pitt's policy; therefore the opposite system was to be inscribed on their banners. It was the ruling principle of their political opponents; and, worst of all, it was the system which, though it had raised the country to power and greatness, had for twenty years excluded themselves from power. Thence the modern system, under which the nation has suffered, and is suffering, such incalculable misfortunes. It has been said, by an enlightened Whig of the old school, that "this age appears to be one in which _every conceivable folly_ must be believed and _reduced to practice_ before it is abandoned." It is really so; and the reason is, it is an age in which the former system of government, founded on experience and brought about by necessity, has been supplanted by one based on a systematic and invariable determination to change the old system in every particular. The liberals, whether factious or moneyed, of the new school, flattered themselves they were making great advances in political science, when they were merely yielding to the same spirit