tion reigned at Paris,
dull common sense dictated the policy of Britain. In truth, our people
needed rest: we were in the first stages of an industrial revolution:
our cotton and woollen industries were passing from the cottage to the
factory; and a large part of our folk were beginning to cluster in
grimy, ill-organized townships. Population and wealth advanced by
leaps and bounds; but with them came the nineteenth-century problems
of widening class distinctions and uncertainty of employment. The
food-supply was often inadequate, and in 1801 the price of wheat in
the London market ranged from L6 to L8 the quarter; the quartern loaf
selling at times for as much as 1s. 10-1/2d.[172]

The state of the sister island was even worse. The discontent of
Ireland had been crushed by the severe repression which followed the
rising of 1798; and the bonds connecting the two countries were
forcibly tightened by the Act of Union of 1800. But rest and reform
were urgently needed if this political welding was to acquire solid
strength, and rest and reform were alike denied. The position of the
Ministry at Westminster was also precarious. The opposition of George
III. to the proposals for Catholic Emancipation, to which Pitt
believed himself in honour bound, led to the resignation in February,
1801, of that able Minister. In the following month Addington, the
Speaker of the House of Commons, with the complacence born of bland
obtuseness, undertook to fill his place. At first, the Ministry was
treated with the tolerance due to the new Premier's urbanity, but it
gradually faded away into contempt for his pitiful weakness in face of
the dangers that threatened the realm.

Certain unofficial efforts in the cause of peace had been made during
the year 1800, by a Frenchman, M. Otto, who had been charged to
proceed to London to treat with the British Government for the
exchange of prisoners. For various reasons his tentative proposals as
to an accommodation between the belligerents had had no issue: but he
continued to reside in London, and quietly sought to bring about a
good understanding. The accession of the Addington Ministry favoured
the opening of negotiations, the new Secretary for Foreign Affairs,
Lord Hawkesbury, announcing His Majesty's desire for peace. Indeed,
the one hope of the new Ministry, and of the king who supported it as
the only alternative to Catholic Emancipation, was bound up with the
cause of peace. In the next chap