_, pp. 44-196.

[62] Rose, _Life of Napoleon I._, ii., 494, 495.

[63] Oman in _English Historical Review_, xix., 693, and xxi., 132.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE FIRST YEARS OF PEACE.

When Parliament met on February 1, 1816, after a recess of unusual
length, Castlereagh was received with loud acclamations from all parts
of the house as the chief actor in the pacification of Europe. There
was, of course, a full debate upon the treaties, but the opposition
dwelt less upon the arbitrary partition of Europe than upon their
alleged tendency to guarantee sovereigns against the assertion of
popular rights and upon the manifest intention of the government to
"raise the country into a military power". From this moment dates the
whig and radical watchword of "Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform". The
nation was, in fact, entering upon a period of unprecedented depression
and discontent, which lasted through the last four years of George
III.'s reign. At the close of 1815, however, the whole horizon was
apparently bright. Great Britain had saved Europe by her example, and,
however small her army in comparison with those of continental states,
she stood foremost among the powers which had crushed the rule of
Napoleon. Her national debt, it is true, had reached the prodigious
total of L861,039,049, and the interest on it amounted L32,645,618, but
the expansion of our national resources had kept pace with it. In spite
of the continental system, the orders in council, and the American war,
the imports and exports had enormously increased, chiefly by means of an
organised contraband traffic; the carrying trade of the world had passed
into the hands of British shipowners; British manufactures were largely
fostered by warlike expenditure at home and the suspension of many
industries abroad; while population, stimulated by a vicious poor law,
was rapidly on the increase. In this last element, then considered as a
sure sign of prosperity, really consisted one of the chief national
dangers.

So long as the war lasted, low as the rate of wages might be, there was
generally employment enough in the fields or in the factories for nearly
all the hands willing to labour. When the inflated war prices came to an
end, and wheat fell below 80s. or even 70s. a quarter, until it reached
52s. 6d. early in 1816, labourers were turned off and wages cut down
still further; bread was not proportionat