They were not halcyon days in England that succeeded the termination of the long struggle for liberty and existence, which, during more than twenty years, had taxed to the uttermost all the resources of the country; and which, as a whole, must always be regarded by Britons with pride and exultation. We had given peace to the world; but we were unable to preserve tranquillity at home. War is, at the best, a bad education, if sometimes a necessary one, for a young people; and a mature nation will find that its costs are not only money and men. It is a lottery on the grandest scale, both of fortune and life, inducing waste of the one, and recklessness of the other; removing, therefore, in a great measure, the vulgar motives of action, and importing a general laxity of principle. In various ways a long war produces an intestinal feverishness, aggravating any incidental disorder, and favourable to the designs of incendiaries. The peace was followed by a general fall in wages. It was a result beyond the control of legislation; and it would probably have been unfelt, if prices also had fallen, as naturally they should have done. But the legislature was able in part to prevent this decline, and exercised its power in favour of agricultural produce. Flaming homesteads and shattered machinery soon proclaimed the discontent of the labouring population. Political agitators sought to turn this discontent into disaffection. Parliamentary reform was demanded with a considerable show of violence. There was much fierce speaking; numbers of clubs started into existence; individuals disfigured themselves with strange costumes; mobs collected in great multitudes. Presently budding Lafayettes discussed the most convenient length for pikes, and would-be Buonapartes mustered their platoons by moonlight.