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UNDER THE

REVOLUTION AND THE HOUSE OF HANOVER,

1688 TO 1820 :

AN HISTORICAL MANUAL

EXPRESSLY ARRANGED AND ANALYSED FOR THE USE OF STUDENTS.

BY JAMES BIRCHALL,

Honorary Secretary of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool; formerly
Government Lecturer in History, Training College, York; and Author of
"England under the Normans and Plantagenets;" "The Tudors; "
"The Stuarts;" &c.

LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND CO.
MANCHESTER: ABEL HEYWOOD AND SON, OLDHAM STREET.

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PREFACE.

THE series of Historical Manuals, to which this volume is now added, is designed expressly for the use of students, teachers, and candidates for examination.

Each Manual, therefore, presents the following distinctive features:

1. A text which serves as a mirror and epitome of the best historical authorities, so copiously illustrated with notes and references that the student can always ascertain the exact sources whence the information is derived.

2. A logical arrangement of the matter upon the basis of historical epochs; and the subdivision of these into sections and paragraphs, devoted to each event or group of events, with the salient points of each paragraph specified in marginal notes.

3. An index so full and elaborate as to present, under their respective heads, an abstract of each reign, the life of every important personage, a connected history of political parties and movements, and of all countries having transactions with England; a list of battles and sieges with dates and results; an enumeration of all Acts of Parliament; and in fine, an epitome of all such matters whose history is necessarily scattered throughout the body of the work.

4. A fuller account of the constitution and laws, and of the national progress in arts, literature and civilization than has yet been given in any scholastic manual, with special attention to what is styled the Philosophy of History, so that the mind of the student is elevated above mere memory work, and he is taught, for example, to think out and unfold the origin, growth, and results of all great movements, and the principles that influenced the men who directed them.

The present volume continues the history from the fall of the Stuarts to the end of the reign of George the Third. Beyond this point the examinations for which the Manuals were originally intended do not extend; while the events which have since transpired have not yet passed into that domain of history where they can be fully and calmly discussed apart from controversial politics.

The subjects which will be found most amply treated in the following pages are-in Constitutional and Political History, the rise and progress of the first agitation for Parliamentary Reform, the Union of England and Scotland, and of Great Britain and Ireland, the growth of Party Government, and the political principles of leading statesmen: in Social History, the marvellous growth of manufacturing industry, the progress of scientific and maritime discovery, and the great social and religious reforms of the eighteenth century. The history of literature and of literary men also occupies a considerable space. The great wars in which England was engaged for the maintenance of her maritime and colonial supremacy have been narrated with as much minuteness as was requisite to a clear intelligence of the connection of the various operations. The plan of every great battle field has been plainly set out, and the movements which decided the fortunes of the day have been distinctly explained. In "getting up" these portions of the work, the student should not fail to have a good military atlas before him for Marlborough's Campaigns, that published to illus

trate Coxe's Memoirs, in Bohn's series; and for Napoleon's and Wellington's Campaigns, Keith Johnston's Atlas to Alison's History of Europe.

Writing this Preface in the year which marks the Hundredth Anniversary of American Independence, the author feels bound to direct the student's attention to the full account he will find herein of the origin, growth, and final issue of the conflict which secured that Independence.

In conclusion, all these and many other important matters contained in the following pages have been treated with the same carefulness as to facts and principles which marks the preceding volumes; and the author has endeavoured always to keep steadily in view the one great aim with which he set out to write these Manuals-namely, to present the history of England on such a simple and methodical plan, that a youth of ordinary ability would readily comprehend the story; while the student of robust intellect would find abundant matter for thought, and for a philosophical survey of the great drama of our national history.

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