, which earned little
gratitude, by the consolidation of the British and Irish exchequers.
Ireland was virtually insolvent before this measure was passed. With the
union of the exchequers the union of the countries was completed. The
administration, discredited by its financial policy, was strengthened in
June by the acquisition of Canning, who succeeded Buckinghamshire as
president of the board of control. In September, 1814, Wellesley Pole, a
brother of the Marquis Wellesley and the Duke of Wellington, had been
admitted to the cabinet as master of the mint, so that with Castlereagh,
Vansittart, and Bragge-Bathurst, there were now five members of the
cabinet in the lower house.

[Pageheading: _INDUSTRIAL RIOTS._]

The disturbances which broke out again and again during the years
1816-19 were partly the outcome of sheer destitution among the working
classes, and partly of a growing demand for reform, whether
constitutional or revolutionary. The statesmen of the regency must not
be too severely judged if they often confounded these causes of
seditious movements, and failed to distinguish between the moderate and
violent sections of reformers. Those who remembered the bloodthirsty
orgies of the French revolution, ushered in by quixotic visions of
liberty, equality, and fraternity, may perhaps be excused for
distrusting the moderate professions of demagogues who deliberately
inflamed the passions of ignorant mobs. Moreover, the whigs and moderate
reformers, who privately condemned the excesses of their violent
followers, made light of these in their public utterances, and reserved
all their censures for the repressive policy of the government. Bread
riots had begun before the harvest, which proved a total failure. The
price of wheat, which was as low as 52s. 6d. a quarter in January, 1816,
rose to 103s. 1d. in January, 1817, and to 111s. 6d. in June, 1817. And
when rickburning set in as a consequence of agricultural depression,
tumultuary processions as a consequence of enforced idleness in the coal
districts, and a revival of Luddism as a consequence of stagnation in
the various textile industries, itself due to a glut of British goods on
the continent, the reform party, now raising its head, was held
responsible by the government for a great part of these disorders.[64]
The writings of Cobbett, especially his _Weekly Register_, certainly had
a wide influence in stirring up discontent against existing
institutions, but