Side by side with the aspiration which uplifts a nation, there is always a tendency toward degradation, which can only be arrested by the infusion of a higher spiritual life. Strong alcoholic liquors had taken the place of beer in England (to avoid the excessive tax imposed upon it) and the grossest intemperance prevailed in the early part of this reign. John Wesley introduced a regenerative force when he went about among the people preaching "Methodism," a pure and simple religion. Not since Augustine had the hearts of men been so touched, and a new life and new spirit came into being, better than all the prosperity and territorial expansion of the time. Walpole had passed from view long before the stirring changes we have alluded to. A new hand was guiding the affairs of State; the hand of William Pitt. CHAPTER XII. At the close of the Seven Years' War, England had driven the French out of Canada,--her ships which had traversed the Pacific from one end to the other, (Capt. Cook) had wherever they touched, claimed islands for the Crown; she had projected into the heart of India English institutions and civilization. Mistress of North America, and of the Pacific Isles, and future mistress of India, she had left in comparative insignificance those European States whose power was bounded by a single Continent. And all this,--in the reign of the puniest King who had ever sat upon her throne! As if to show that England was great not through--but in spite of, her Kings. [Sidenote: George III. 1760-1820.] When in 1760, George III. came to the throne, thirteen prosperous American Colonies were a source of handsome revenue to the mother country, by whom they were regarded as receptacles for surplus population, and a good field for unsuccessful men and adventurers. These children were frequently reminded that they owed England a great debt of gratitude. They had cost her expensive Indian and French wars for which she should expect them to reimburse her as their prosperity grew. They were to make nothing themselves, not so much as a horseshoe; but to send their raw material to English mills and factories, and when it was returned to them in wares and manufactured articles, they were to pay such taxes as were imposed, with grateful hearts to the kind Government which was so good as to rule them. [Sidenote: Stamp Act, 1765.]