6o RELIGION, COLONISING AND TRADE 
tinued to lead plantations ; and those colonies which 
were plantations in the true sense, human plantations, 
if not considered, as they were by not a few English- 
men, to be a net loss to the Mother Country, were 
valued in terms of trade. The British Empire overseas 
inspired Chatham to appeal to British patriotism and 
to the nobler instincts of his countrymen, but its 
economic value expressed itself to him no less than to 
Walpole in terms of trade. The eighteenth century 
was -for England a century of exceptionally strong 
contrasts, of immense gains and losses, a century of 
force, of conquest 2nd defeat, on the face of it a most 
materialist century. Amidst its many wars there 
was one long interlude of comparative peace, when 
Robert Walpole was in power, and Walpole was pre- 
eminently an embodiment of materialism and a high 
ptiest of trade. Yet it was an age which produced 
William Law, Oglethorpe and John Wesley. The 
eatly years of the century, which saw the victories of 
Matlbotrough, saw also two very notable and most 
salutary coalitions. The first was the Union of 
England and Scotland, dating from May 1, 1707. 
It is true that Scottish sentiment resented the Union, 
and sore feeling at the loss of legislative independence 
lasted long in Scotland. But the Union put an end 
once for all to ruinous national competition between the 
two peoples, and it obviously promoted the interests 
of the Lowlands and the trading classes, bringing 
immense expansion to Glasgow as an Atlantic port.1 
1 ¢ The opening a free trade, not only with England, but with the 
plantations, and the protection of the fleet of England, drew in those 
who understood these matters and saw there was no other way in 
view to make the nation rich and considerable. Those who had