-P
20
EXPANSION OF ENGLAND.
[lect.
would be interested in the period if he had the clue to it,
and he would find the clue if he sought it deliberately.
We are to look then at the great events of the eight
eenth century, examine each to see its precise significance,
and compare them together with a view to discovering
any general tendency there may be. I speak roughly
of course when I say the eighteenth century. More
precisely I mean the period which begins with the Revo
lution of 1688 and ends with the peace of 1815. Now
what are the great events during this period? There
are no revolutions. In the way of internal disturbance
all that we find is two abortive Jacobite insurrections
in 1715 and 1745. There is a change of dynasty, and
one of an unusual kind, but it is accomplished peacefully
by Act of Parliament. The great events are all of one
sort, they are foreign wars.
These wars are on a much larger scale than any which
England had waged before, since the Hundred Years W ar
of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. They are also
of a more formal business-like kind than earlier wars.
For England has now for the first time a standing army
and navy. The great English navy first took definite
shape in the wars of the Commonwealth, and the English
Army, founded on the Mutiny Bill, dates from the reign ot
William III. Between the Revolution and the Battle
of Waterloo it may be reckoned that we waged seven
(Treat wars, of which the shortest lasted seven years and
the longest about twelve. Out of a hundred and twenty-
six years, sixty-four years, or more than half, were spent in
That these wars were on a greater scale than any
which had preceded, may be estimated by the burden
which thev laid upon the country. Before this period
war.