-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.