he reforms mentioned in the preceding chapter were the last measures of
the reign of William IV. In the summer of the next year, 1837, he died,
and was succeeded in his British, though not in his Hanoverian,
dominions by our present gracious sovereign, who had only just arrived
at the age which entitled her to exercise the full authority of the
crown. The change was calculated to strengthen the crown, by enlisting
the chivalrous feelings of all that was best in the nation in the
support of a youthful Queen, and in a lesser degree it for a time
strengthened the ministry also; but, with respect to the latter, the
feeling did not last long. For the next three years the summers were
very unfavorable to the farmer; the harvests were bad; the inevitable
accompaniment of a rise in prices had caused severe and general
distress, and distress had produced clamorous discontent, and in some
districts formidable riots. It had been greatly aggravated in the
manufacturing counties by the operations of the trades-unions, which had
gradually put forth pretensions to regulate the wages and other
conditions of work, and had enforced them with such tyrannical violence,
not flinching from the foulest crimes, that in many instances they had
driven the masters to close their factories rather than submit to their
mandates; and in others had compelled the workmen themselves to
discontinue their labors, thus spreading destitution among thousands
whose earnings, if they had been allowed to consult their own wishes,
would have been amply sufficient for the support of their families;[245]
and the evil had grown to such a height, that in 1838 a committee was
appointed by the House of Commons to investigate the whole subject of
trade combinations. But the turbulent spirit excited by this distress
did not now confine itself to single outbreaks of violence, but, under
the guidance of some demagogues of a more methodical turn of mind than
usual, developed itself in a systematic organization having for its
object what they called "the people's charter," which aimed at a total
revolution of the existing parliamentary system, with the avowed design
that, when adopted, it should eventually lead to an entire
reconstruction of the government. The Chartists, as they called
themselves, had advocates even in Parliament, who presented their
petitions to the House of Commons, and tried, though unsuccessfully, to
give them importance by the appointment of a committee