by no means equal to the affording us the necessary supplies. Raw silk we might possibly be supplied with from other parts, though not so cheap as from India; and India wrought silks serve us instead of so much Italian or French silks, which would cost us almost treble the price of Indian silks, to the kingdom's loss of above £20,000 a year. Calicoes serve instead of the like quantity of French, Dutch, and Flemish linen, which would cost us thrice as much; hereby £200,000 or £300,000 is saved to the nation."
Amongst the articles of the greatest luxury which the company imported was tea. So long as we procured tea from the Dutch merchants it was too dear for general use. So late as 1666—that is, six years after the restoration—it cost fifty shillings a pound from the Dutch East India Company; but the English company soon after made its way to China, in 1678, and imported four thousand seven hundred pounds of it; and from this period we may date the more frequent use of it. It was long, however, before it became the formidable rival of beef and beer to breakfast, or supeseded these articles altogether at the afternoon meal. It was at first sold in the liquid state in London, and it was long in making its way through the country; many ladies, in their ignorance of its true use, committing the mistake of boiling the leaves, and serving them up as greens, throwing away the liquid.
In 1677, under the privilege of a new charter from Charles, the company began to earn money in their Indian territories. These privileges were again extended by a fresh charter from Charles in 1683, and by James in 1686. In 1687 they laid the foundations of Calcutta, and went on rapidly acquiring trade and territory, to be noticed in our future reviews.
Meantime, the trade with our American and West Indian colonies was becoming valuable. During the latter years of the Stuart dynasty, the exports to these colonies had risen to the amount of about £400,000 per annum, in different manufactures, provisions, household furniture, &c.; and the imports thence in tobacco, sugar, ginger, cotton wool, fustic, indigo, cocoa, fish, furs, and timber, to nearly a million. Thus the trade and wealth of England at the close of this period were in a condition of healthy and rapid development, and our colonial system beginning to attract the "envy and admiration of the world." What this has grown to by a steady progression in our time may be seen by comparing the revenue of the country now with what it was then. Then it amounted to about £1,500,000; now, including the revenue of India and the colonies, it amounts to £100,000,000.
CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE.
Notwithstanding the rapid growth of the country in commerce and internal wealth, it would be a false indication that the body of the working class was well off. They were a body without education, without political rights, and, consequently, without that intelligence and union which can alone insure the fair reward of their labour; nor was the humanity of the most civilised portion of the community at that period of a degree which regarded the sufferings of others with much feeling. All our accounts of it leave the impression that it was a hard and cruel age; as is generally the case, sensuality and barbarity went hand in hand. The sanguinary vengeance which Charles took on the leaders of the commonwealth, immediately on his restoration; the savage persecutions for religion in England and Scotland;
The Finger Pillory
the terrible use of the iron boot and the thumbscrew in the latter country; the bloody campaign of Jeffreys in England; the sale of convicts, and the kidnapping of innocent people for the plantations;
The Drunkard's Cloak.
public whippings, pilloryings, brandings, and tongue-borings, as in the case of James Naylor—all designate a brutal and unfeeling tone of society.
The Ducking Stool for Scolds.
Macaulay quotes from writers of the age many other revolting traits of this stamp. "Whigs were disposed to murmur because Stafford was suffered to die without seeing his bowels burned before his face. Tories reviled and insulted Russell as his coach passed from the Tower to the scaffold in Lincoln's Inn
