CHAP. Vaccination. the cause of popular education. The British and Foreign School Society was established by the dissenters in 1807, the National Society by churchmen in 1809, and dissenters and churchmen have thus an equal claim to the merit which belonged to the improved system. The Church may fairly claim that the new system was founded by one of her own children; the dissenters may fairly reply that it would have never been adopted but for the energetic example of a benevolent dissenter. There is some satisfaction in reflecting that religious animosity, which has brought so much evil on the world, and which in the sequel so frequently interfered with educational reform, was the first great stimulus to the spread of education. Deep, then, as was the gloom which overshadowed the land, the dawn of a better day was breaking on the horizon. Romilly was pleading the cause of the criminal classes; Bell and Lancaster were practically demonstrating the possibility of educating the poor. The recollection of what Howard had done, the knowledge of what Mrs. Fry was doing, were introducing new and beneficial reforms into the management of prisons. These improvements were directly benefiting the most miserable classes in the population. Another great man had just made a discovery, which was as grateful to the rich as to the poor. Among all the diseases which ravaged the population none was more fatal, and none was more dreaded, than the small-pox. During the last thirty years of the eighteenth century ninety-four persons out of every thousand who died within the limits of the bills of mortality died of the small-pox.1 At the close of the eighteenth century, Edward Jenner, a doctor in Glouces tershire, was struck by the accidental observation of a country farmer, that a pretty dairymaid was in no danger of the small-pox, because she had had the cow-pox. On Collated from the statistics in Porter's Progress, p. 39. pursuing his enquiries he discovered that the farmers in his neighbourhood were all aware that the milkmaids who had had the cow-pox were safe from the small-pox, and it occurred to him that the disease might easily be transferred from the udder of the cow to the human subject. Experiment proved the truth of this theory. Vaccination was the result, and man derived from it in a moment the possibility of effectually protecting himself from the worst of the diseases to which, in this climate, he was liable. The benefits which resulted from this admirable dis covery were great and immediate. Vaccination was made known in 1798. From 1800 to 1809 the proportions of death from small-pox to all others were reduced from ninety-four to seventy-three in the thousand; from 1810 to 1819 to forty-three in the thousand; from 1820 to 1829 to thirty-five in the thousand; from 1830 to 1836 to twenty-five in the thousand. Never had a single discovery done so much to promote the health and, therefore, happiness of man. A grateful legislature properly rewarded the discoverer with two grants of 10,000l. and 20,000l. each. Napoleon, in the hour of his triumph, assented to a request which Jenner preferred to him because it came from Jenner, and the discoverer's name is now regarded with even greater gratitude than that of Harvey or of Hunter. The small-pox was a disease to which all men were liable, and all men concur in honouring the man who gave them an opportunity of limiting its ravages. La Place told Mackintosh in 1814 that vaccine, when it supplants the small-pox, will add three years to the medium duration of human life.2 II. It may be necessary to supplement this sketch of the The Army. state of society in England with some account of the British army and of the British navy in 1815. The triumphs which the army had achieved, under the Duke of Wellington's guidance, both in the Peninsula and in Flanders, had 1 Porter's Progress, p. 39. 2 Mackintosh, vol. ii. p. 322. CHAP. 11. for the moment effaced the remembrance of the brilliant victories of Jervis, Hood, Duncan, and Nelson, which had made this country undisputed mistress of the seas. But even the lustre, which shone on our arms, had not reconciled the nation to the continuance of a standing army. There are few things more remarkable in modern history than the continuous protest which the English have maintained against the maintenance of an army. For nearly six centuries after the Norman Conquest no king of England ventured to engage a permanent armed body. The Plantagenets and the Lancastrians relied in their brilliant enterprises on the force which the feudal system placed at their disposal: and, though they commuted the service of their retainers for a definite sum of money, and devoted the money, which they thus obtained, to the pay of a temporary army, they never ventured to maintain a standing army within the kingdom. There, my lord,' was Elizabeth's noble reply to the Duke d'Alençon, as she pointed to the crowds who received her in the city, 'there are my guards.' It was with such guards as these that the great queen calmly awaited the invasion of the Armada. She placed herself at the head of the men of England, who were bound by the statutes of armour to provide themselves with arms, and to serve, in the case of danger, in their own immediate neighbourhood. The progress of society, however, made the continuance of the ancient system impracticable. The statutes of armour were thought to impose an irksome tax on the population; the union of Scotland and England made invasion less likely; and the statutes of armour were repealed. The feudal system survived in name for half a century longer, but finally fell on the restoration of Charles II. After the abolition of the last remnants of the feudal system, the crown had no force whatever at its disposal, and insensibly and by slow degrees the formation of a standing army began. 6 11. The position at the Restoration was peculiar. Charles, CHAP. on the one hand, was disposed to regard an army with little favour, because Clarendon had told him that the army was a body of men, who had cut off his father's head; had set up and pulled down ten several forms of government; and that it might be his own turn next.' Parliament, on the other, remembered that it was the army which had marched on London, which had purged the House of Commons, and which had enabled Cromwell to usurp all the functions of government, and to exclude the rest of the nation from participating in it. Both the king and the Parliament were then, for the moment, sincere in their resolution to dispense with an armed force. But, though the king had no need for an army, he insisted on retaining a guard. The same Act which directed the disbandment of the parliamentary forces sanctioned the continuance of what were then called guards and garrisons. The modest force was soon expanded. The companies were enlarged, new companies were added to regiments, and Charles found himself at last at the head of 5,000 men. The Dutch war afforded him an excuse for augmenting this force. Monmouth's invasion induced his successor to still further enlarge it. A camp of 20,000 men was formed at Hounslow, and Parliament took fresh alarm at a force which seemed assembled for the express purpose of overawing it. Events had tended to create a standing army during the reigns of Charles II. and James II., but Parliament had protested, at every step, against its continuance. At the commencement of Charles II.'s reign the Bill of Rights expressly declared that the raising and keeping up a standing army, without authority of Parliament, is contrary to law.' At the close of his reign the House of Commons declared that the continuance of any standing forces in this nation, other than the militia, is a great grievance and vexation to the country.' The camp, which II. James II. formed at Hounslow for his protection, was one of the many circumstances which occasioned his fall. The Revolution came, but the Revolution, instead of leading to the disbandment of the army, necessitated its increase. The Jacobites unfurled their standard in Ireland; the most powerful of continental sovereigns supported their cause; and, till the peace of Ryswick closed the strife, the country was compelled in self-defence to maintain an army which ultimately comprised some 90,000 men. The conclusion of peace led, however, to an immediate agitation for a disbandment of the army. A pamphlet-war, conducted with vigour on both sides, ensued. Moyle and Trenchard, two able members of the Whig party, recapitulated the history of standing armies, and insisted that, from the days of the Mamelukes to the days of the Commonwealth, the existence of a standing army had always led to oppression. A greater man, however, than either Moyle or Trenchard effectually disposed of all their arguments. Somers, in what he termed the balancing letter,' reduced the question from theory to practice, and defended a standing army on the ground of its utility. He showed that the dangers which had been thought inseparable from its institution might be avoided if the army were made dependent on Parliament. Parliament took the common sense view which Somers had adopted. Outside the House the Whigs had concurred in denouncing all standing armies; inside the House the most zealous Whigs only endeavoured to limit the force in 1698 to the numbers found sufficient in 1680. The principle of a standing army was conceded, and the only question in dispute was its size. From the days of Somers to the present time no one has ventured to insist on the possibility of dispensing with an army. The question has been limited to the one of degree to which Somers' balancing letter reduced it, and the increase or decrease of the army have alone been in |