Looking, in the first place, at the active world, the great fact of the time is the series of changes to which we give the name of the industrial revolution. The growth of commercial and manufacturing enterprise which had been going on quietly and continuously had been suddenly accelerated. Glasgow and Liverpool and Manchester and Birmingham were becoming great towns, and the factory system was being developed, profoundly modifying the old relation of the industrial classes. England was beginning to aim at commercial supremacy, and politics were to be more than ever dominated by the interests of the 'moneyed man,' or, as we now call them, 'capitalists.' Essentially connected with these changes is another characteristic development. Social problems were arising. The growth of the manufactory system and the accumulation of masses of town population, for example, forced attention to the problem of pauperism, and many attempts of various kinds were being made to deal with it. The same circumstances were beginning to rouse an interest in education; it had suddenly struck people that on Sundays, at least, children might be taught their letters so far as to enable them to spell out their Bible. The inadequacy of the police and prison systems to meet the new requirements roused the zeal of many, and led to some reforms. As the British Empire extended we began to become sensible of certain correlative duties; the impeachment of Warren Hastings showed that we had scruples about treating India simply as a place where 'nabobs' are to accumulate fortunes; and the slave-trade suggested questions of conscience which at the end of the period were to prelude an agitation in some ways unprecedented.