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change in the manufactures of Europe, no less remarkable than the two foregoing circumstances produced in its commerce. Philip the Second of Spain embraced the narrow and cruel policy of his father Charles the Fifth, in attempting to extirpate the doctrines of Luther throughout his dominions; at the same time that he added a bigotry, peculiar to himself, which led him to seek the accomplishment of his purpose by measures yet more imprudent and sanguinary. The doctrines of the Reformation had been spread very universally in the Netherlands; and had been adopted with a zeal not inferior to that which appeared in any other part of Europe. Philip employed the whole force of the Spanish monarchy in order to subdue that spirit of religious innovation; and, after a long and obstinate struggle, he at last prevailed; but it was by extirpating a great part of the inhabitants, and ruining the manufactures of the country. The most independent and spirited, that is, the most active and skilful part of the manufacturers, disdaining to submit to a tyranny by which they were oppressed in their most valuable rights, fled from their native country; and, finding a refuge in other European nations, carried along with them that knowledge and dexterity in manufactures, and those habits of industry, which they possessed in so eminent a degree.

Of all the European nations, Great Britain was in a condition to reap the most immediate profit from these important changes in the state of commerce and manufactures.,

England has long enjoyed the peculiar advantage of rearing a great number of sheep, and producing larger quantities of wool, fit for manufacture, than most other parts of the world. This is probably derived from the flatness of the country, by which a great part of it is plentifully supplied with moisture, and from the moderate temperature of its climate; both of which circumstances appear favourable to the production of pasture, and to the proper cultivation of sheep. But, whatever be the causes of it, the fact is certain, that, Spain excepted, no other country can, in this particular, be brought in competition with England. Particular mention is made of the English wool, even when Britain was a Roman province; and, in the early periods of our history, the exportation of that commodity was a considerable article of commerce.

By possessing the raw material in great plenty, the English appear to have been incited, at an early period, to make some attempts toward the fabrication of it. The woollen cloth of England is taken notice of while the country was under the dominion of the Romans. The disorders which followed while the Saxons were subduing the country, and during the subsequent ravages of the Danes, gave great interruption to manufactures; but, soon after the Norman conquest, and particularly in the reigns of Henry the Third and Edward the First, that of woollen cloth appears to have become an object of attention.

The flourishing reign of Edward the Third was extremely favourable to improvements; and that enterprising monarch, notwithstanding his

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ardour in the pursuit of military glory, was attentive to reform the internal policy of the kingdom, and gave particular encouragement to the woollen manufacture. He invited and protected foreign manufacturers; and, in his reign, a number of Walloon weavers, with their families, came and settled in England. An Act of Parliament was made, which prohibited the wearing of foreign cloth; and another, by which the exportation of wool was declared to be felony. These regulations, however narrow the principles upon which they were built, were certainly framed with the best intentions; but they could have little or no effect, as the English at that time were neither capable of manufacturing the whole of their wool, nor even supplying their own demand for woollen cloth. The Crown, therefore, in virtue of its dispensing power, was accustomed to relieve the raisers of wool, by granting occasionally, to individuals, a licence for exportation; and, as a dispensation in this case was absolutely necessary to procure a market for the commodity, it became the source of a revenue to the Sovereign, who obtained a price for every licence which he bestowed.

The woollen trade of England made considerable advances in the reign of Henry the Seventh, when, after a long course of civil dissension, the people began to enjoy tranquillity under a prince who favoured and protected the arts of peace. About this time were set on foot the coarse woollen manufactures of Yorkshire; particularly at Wakefield, Leeds, and Halifax; places remarkably well adapted to that species of work, from the plenty of coal, and the numerous springs of water, with which they are supplied.

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The extension of manufactures, about this period, became so considerable as to produce an alteration in the whole face of the country; and, in particular, gave rise to improvements in husbandry, and in the different arts connected with it. The enlargement of towns and villages, composed of tradesmen and merchants, could not fail to increase the demand for provisions in the neighbourhood, and, by enhancing the value of every article raised by the farmers, to advance the profits of their employment. From this improvement of their circumstances, the tenants were soon enabled, by offering an additional rent, to procure leases for a term of years; and the master, whose daily expenses were increased by the progress of trade and luxury, was content. to receive a pecuniary compensation, for the loss of that authority over his dependents, which he was obliged to relinquish. Thus the freedom and independence, which the mercantile and manufacturing people derived from the nature of their employment, was, in some measure, communicated to the peasantry; who, instead of remaining tenants at will, were secured for a limited term in the possession of their farms.

In consequence of these changes, the number of villeins in England was greatly diminished, in the reign of Henry the Seventh; and before the accession of James the First, that class of men had entirely disappeared. Without any public law upon the subject, their condition was gradually improved by particular bargains with their master;

and, according as their opulence enabled them to purchase higher privileges, they acquired longer leases, or were converted into copyholders or freeholders.

As, from this time, the English continued, with unremitting ardour, to prosecute their improvements, and were continually advancing in opulence, as well as in skill and dexterity, and in the habits of industry, it was to be expected that, in the long run, the possession of the rude material of the woollen manufacture would give them a manifest superiority in that branch of business, and put it in their power to undersell other nations who had not the same advantage.

Upon the ruin of the Spanish Netherlands were established the fine woollen manufactures of Wiltshire, and some of the neighbouring counties; those parts of England which produced the greatest number of sheep, and in which the superior quality of the wool was most remarkable. The rapid improvements in that great branch of manufacture, which became conspicuous in England, had a natural tendency to introduce other branches, more or less connected with it; and, when a great body of the people had acquired industry and skill in one sort of employment, it was not very difficult, as occasion required, to extend their application to other trades and professions.

While these circumstances bestowed upon England a superiority in manufactures, she began to enjoy advantages no less conspicuous, with regard to navigation and commerce. When the people of Europe had become qualified for extensive naval undertakings, the distance of Britain from the Continent, and her situation as an island, afforded her a superiority to most other countries in the number of such harbours as have a free communication with all parts of the globe. Her insular situation was, at the same time, no less advantageous with respect to inland trade, from the numerous bays and rivers, which, by intersecting the country in different places, extended the benefit of water-carriage to the greater part of the inhabitants. As the bulk of the people became thus familiar with the dangers and vicissitudes incident to those who live upon water, they acquired habits which fitted them for a seafaring life, and rendered them dexterous in those arts which are subservient to navigation, the great instrument of

commerce.

These advantages, however, were rendered more stable and permanent by the great extent of this island, superior to that of most others upon the globe; and that the government of England, in that period, had also a peculiar tendency to promote her trade and manufactures, it is impossible to doubt. As the inhabitants were better secured in their property, and protected from oppressive taxes, than in any other European kingdom, it is natural to suppose that their industry was excited by the certain prospect of enjoying whatever they should acquire. Though the English constitution was then destitute of many improvements which it has now happily received, yet, compared with the other extensive governments of Europe in that age, it may be regarded as a system of liberty.

ABORIGINAL BRITONS.

By Richards.

YE sons of Albion, who with venturous sails
In distant oceans caught Antarctic gales;
Dared with bold prow the boisterous main explore,
Where never keel had ploughed the wave before;
Saw stars unnamed illuminé other skies,
Which ne'er had shone on European eyes;
Viewed on the coast the wondering savage stand,
Unclad, and fresh from his Creator's hand;
While woods and tangling brakes, where wild he ran,
Bore a rough semblance of primeval man :—
A form like this, illustrious souls, of yore
Your own Britannia's sea-girt island wore ;
Ere Danish lances blushed with Ælla's blood;
Or blue-eyed Saxons sailed on Medway's flood;
Or Dover's towering cliff from high descried
Cæsar's bold barks, which stemmed a deep untried.
Rude as the wilds around his sylvan home,
In savage grandeur, see the Briton roam!
Bare were his limbs, and strung with toil and cold,
By untamed nature cast in giant mould:
O'er his broad brawny shoulders loosely flung,
Shaggy and long his yellow ringlets hung:
His waist an iron-belted falchion bore,
Massy, and purpled deep with human gore:
His scarred and rudely-painted limbs around
Fantastic horror-striking figures frowned,
Which, monster-like, e'en to the confines ran
Of nature's work, and left him hardly man.
His knitted brows and rolling eyes impart
A direful image of his ruthless heart;
Where war and human bloodshed brooding lie,
Like thunders lowering in a gloomy sky.

Such was the race, who drank the light of day
When lost in western waves Britannia lay.
Content, they wandered o'er their heaths and moors,
Nor thought that ocean rolled round other shores.
Viewing the fires, that blazed around their skies,
'Mid the wide world of waters set and rise,
They vainly deemed the twinkling orbs of light
For them alone illumed the vault of night;

For them alone the golden lamp of day

Held its bright progress through the heaven's high way. In these rough days of Albion, 'midst her snows, Hardy and hold, immortal Freedom rose.

She roamed the sounding margin of the deep,
Conway's wild bank, and Cader's craggy steep:
A bloody wolf-skin o'er her back was spread;
An axe she bore; and wild weeds graced her head.
On Snowdon's cliffs reclined, she watched on high
The tempest-driven clouds, that crossed the sky;
Or caught with listening ear the sounding gale,
When the dread war-song shook the distant dale.
At battle's close she roamed the ensanguined plain,
And gazed the threatening aspects of the slain.
Now from ignoble sloth she rarely rose,

For savage freedom sinks to mute repose;
Now to wild joys, and the bowl's maddening powers,
Gave up the torpid sense and listless hours;
Now joyful saw the naked sword displayed,

Though brother's blood flowed reeking from the blade.
By tyrants sunk she rose more proudly great,
As ocean swells indignant in the strait;

And, borne in chains from Cambria's mountains bleak,
Raised virtue's generous blush on Cæsar's cheek.
But ah! full many a dark and stormy year
She dropped o'er Albion's isle the patriot tear.
Retired to mountains, from the craggy dell
She caught the Norman curfew's tyrant knell.
Sad to her view the baron's castle frowned
Bold from the steep, and awed the plains around.
She sorrowing heard the papal thunders roll,
And mourned the ignoble bondage of the soul.
She blushed, O Cromwell, blushed at Charles's doom;
And wept, misguided Sydney, o'er thy tomb.

But now, revived, she boasts a purer cause,
Refined by science, formed by generous laws;
High hangs her helmet in the bannered hall,
Nor sounds her clarion, but at honour's call:
Now walks the land with olive chaplets crowned,
Exalting worth and beaming safety round:
With secret joy, and conscious pride, admires
The patriot spirit, which herself inspires;
Sees barren wastes with unknown fruitage bloom;
Sees labour bending patient o'er the loom;
Sees science rove through academic bowers,
And peopled cities lift their spiry towers;
Trade swells her sails, wherever ocean rolls,
Glows at the line, and freezes at the poles :
While through unwatered plains and wondering meads,
Waves not its own the obedient river leads.

But chief the godlike mind, which bears imprest Its Maker's glorious image full confessed;

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