10. The speed with which we can now travel, both by sea and land, would astonish our good old ancestors, who used to think it a great and dangerous undertaking to set out on a journey of twenty or thirty miles. 11. In the time of Charles the Second, the poet Cowley, who had a country house at Chertsey, which is only twenty-two miles from London, invited a friend in town to pay him a visit, saying in his letter, that as he could not perform the whole journey in one day, he might sleep at Hampton. 12. I think he would have been glad of a railway, which would have taken him all the way before breakfast. In 1706, the stage coach from York was four days coming to London; and so late as 1763, there was only a coach once a month from Edinburgh to London; and it was a whole fortnight on the road; so I think you will see the advantages of our present mode of travelling. 13. The custom of buying and selling negroes had been abolished by parliament during the reign of George the Third, but there were many thousands of slaves in the West India islands, belonging to the British planters there. 14. During the reign of William the Fourth, the British government gave twenty millions of money to buy all the slaves of their masters and then set them free. The day when the negroes became free people was the first of August, 1838. 15. I told you that the Reform Bill was passed in this reign. One consequence of this measure was, the lessening of the duties, or taxes, on many articles of necessity, thereby reducing their prices, so that the poor people could live much better than they had formerly. 16. The harvests were also plentiful for several years, so that bread was very cheap, and the prices of all kinds of clothing were less than in previous years. 17. Upon the whole, there had never been a better time in England than the seven years that William the Fourth occupied the throne. He died in 1837, and was succeeded by her present Majesty, queen Victoria, who was the daughter of his deceased brother, the Duke of Kent. 18. In 1840, she married her cousin, Prince Albert, of Saxe Coburg and Gotha. Their family now consists of eight children, four princes, and four princesses. 19. The most remarkable events that have yet happened in the reign of queen Victoria, are the wars in China and India: but I ought to have mentioned an alteration made in the last reign, with regard to the East India trade, which you, perhaps, remember was carried on solely by the East India Company, according to a charter granted by queen Elizabeth, and renewed, from time to time, by other sovereigns.