The History of England, from the Accession of James II — Volume 1Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
History
The History of England, from the Accession of James II — Volume 1
Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
Great Britain -- History -- James II, 1685-1688; Great Britain -- History -- William and Mary, 1689-1702
night beneath the overhanging battlements of the residence, which was
known by the name of the Peel. The inmates slept with arms at their
sides. Huge stones and boiling water were in readiness to crush and
scald the plunderer who might venture to assail the little garrison. No
traveller ventured into that country without making his will. The Judges
on circuit, with the whole body of barristers, attorneys, clerks, and
serving men, rode on horseback from Newcastle to Carlisle, armed and
escorted by a strong guard under the command of the Sheriffs. It was
necessary to carry provisions; for the country was a wilderness which
afforded no supplies. The spot where the cavalcade halted to dine, under
an immense oak, is not yet forgotten. The irregular vigour with which
criminal justice was administered shocked observers whose lives had been
passed in more tranquil districts. Juries, animated by hatred and by a
sense of common danger, convicted housebreakers and cattle stealers with
the promptitude of a court martial in a mutiny; and the convicts were
hurried by scores to the gallows. [36] Within the memory of some whom
this generation has seen, the sportsman who wandered in pursuit of game
to the sources of the Tyne found the heaths round Keeldar Castle peopled
by a race scarcely less savage than the Indians of California, and heard
with surprise the half naked women chaunting a wild measure, while the
men with brandished dirks danced a war dance. [37]
Slowly and with difficulty peace was established on the border. In the
train of peace came industry and all the arts of life. Meanwhile it was
discovered that the regions north of the Trent possessed in their coal
beds a source of wealth far more precious than the gold mines of Peru.
It was found that, in the neighbourhood of these beds, almost every
manufacture might be most profitably carried on. A constant stream of
emigrants began to roll northward. It appeared by the returns of 1841
that the ancient archiepiscopal province of York contained two-sevenths
of the population of England. At the time of the Revolution that
province was believed to contain only one seventh of the population.
[38] In Lancashire the number of inhabitants appear to have increased
ninefold, while in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Northamptonshire it has hardly
doubled. [39]
Of the taxation we can speak with more confidence and precision than of
the population. The revenue of England, when Charles the Second
died, was small, when compared with the resources which she even then
possessed, or with the sums which were raised by the governments of the
neighbouring countries. It had, from the time of the Restoration, been
almost constantly increasing, yet it was little more than three fourths
of the revenue of the United Provinces, and was hardly one fifth of the
revenue of France.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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