Alberoni's preparations for an invasion of England... 496 The Pretender arrives in Spain Sailing of the expedition........ THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND FROM THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. CHAPTER I. I. 1713. THE era of the Georges in England may be com- CHAP. pared to the era of the Antonines at Rome. It was a period combining happiness and glory—a period of kind rulers and a prosperous people. While improvement was advancing at home with gigantic strides, while great wars were waged abroad, the domestic repose and enjoyment of the nation were scarcely ever for a moment broken through. The current was strong and rapid, but the surface remained smooth and unruffled. Lives were seldom lost, either by popular breaches of the law or by its rigorous execution. The population augmented fast, but wealth augmented faster still; comforts became more largely diffused, and knowledge more generally cultivated. Unlike the era of the Antonines, this prosperity did not depend "on the character of a single man.”* Its founda See the remarks of Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap. iii. vol. i. p. 127. ed. 1820. B CHAP. tions were laid on ancient and free institutions, I. which, good from the first, were still gradually 1713. improving, and which alone, amongst all others since the origin of civil society, had completely solved the great problem how to combine the greatest security to property with the greatest freedom of action. It is true, however, that this golden period by no means affords us unmixed cause for self-congratulation, and contains no small alloy of human frailties and of human passions. Some of the quiet I have mentioned may be imputed to corruption, as much as some of the troubles to faction. Our pride as legislators may sink when we discover that our constitutional pre-eminence has arisen still more from happy accident than from skilful design. We may likewise blush to think that even those years which, on looking back, are universally admitted as most prosperous, and those actions now considered irreproachable, were not free at the time from most loud and angry complaints. How ungratefully have we murmured against Providence at the very moment when most enjoying its bounty! How much has prosperity been felt, but how little acknowledged! How sure a road to popularity has it always been to tell us, that we are the most wretched and illused people upon the face of the earth! To such an extent, in fact, have these outcries proceeded, that a very acute observer has founded a new theory upon them; and, far from viewing them as |