peace had thrown open the ports of all Europe to the enterprise of British merchants, the tide of national prosperity would rise still higher and higher; but never were hopes more cruelly disappointed. Exports, to an enormous amount, being suddenly thrown into countries impoverished by war, glutted the foreign market; and the consignments, in most instances, were sold for little more than half their original cost-spreading ruin throughout the commercial interests. Moreover, the opening of the European and American ports for the the supplies of grain, glutted the home market of England; and prices of every species of agricultural produce soon fell to two-thirds of what they had been during the closing scenes of the war: a season of unusual scarcity, in 1816, threatening a famine, increased the general distress, which, like a pall of gloom, enshrouded the whole kingdom.

6. Other causes, in addition to those originating in the mere transition from a state of war to one of peace, doubtless contributed to the general revulsion in business, among which may be mentioned, as the most prominent, the greatly diminished supply of the precious metals from South America,a owing to the unsettled state of that country then occupied with revolutionary wars, and the rapid contraction of the paper currency of Great Britain, in anticipation of a speedy return to specic payments. But the English Radical or Republican party attributed the difficulties to excessive taxation and the measures of a corrupt government; and a vehement outcry was raised for parliamentary reform, and retrenchment in all branches of public expenditure.

7. The English government, wiser than the continental powers, has ever had the prudence to make seasonable concessions to reasonable popular demands, before the spark of discontent has been blown into the blaze of revolution; and now, after a spirited contest, a heavy property tax, that had been patiently submitted to as a necessary war measure, was repealed, amid the universal transports of the people the remission of other taxes followed, and, in one year, a reduction of thirty-five million pounds sterling was made from the national expenditure, although strongly opposed by the ministry. Still the distress continued; the popular feeling against the govern ment increased; numerous secret political societies were organized among the disaffected; and early in the following year (1817) a com

a. From 1815 to 1816 the amount of gold and silver coin produced from the mines of South America fell from about seven million pounds sterling to five and a half million pounds.

mittee of parliament reported that an extensive conspiracy existed, chiefly in the great towns and manufacturing districts, for the overthrow of the monarchy, and the establishment of a republic in its stead.

8. In consequence of the information, greatly exaggerated, which had been communicated to the committee, ministers were enabled to carry through parliament bills for suspending the privileges of the writ of habeas corpus, and for suppressing tumultuous meetings, debating societies, and all unlawful organizations. Armed with extensive powers, government took the most active measures for putting a stop to the threatened insurrection: a few mobs were suppressed; many persons were arrested on a charge of high treason; and several were convicted, and suffered death. In 1819 a large and peaceable meeting at Manchester,' assembled to discuss the question of parliamentary reforms, was charged by the military, and many lives inhumanly sacrificed; but all attempts in parliament for an inquiry into the conduct of the Manchester magistrates, under whose orders the military had acted, were defeated. Although the people still justly complained of grievous burdens of taxation, and unequal rep resentation in parliament, those evils were not so oppressive as to induce them to incur the hazards of revolution; and government, having yielded to the point where danger was past, was sufficiently strong to carry all its important measures.

9. An event of general interest that occurred soon after the close of the European war was the merited chastisement of the piratical State of Algiers. During a long period the Barbary' powers had carried on a piratical warfare against those nations that were not suf ficiently powerful to prevent or punish their depredations. From the year 1795 to 1812 the United States of America had preserved peace with Algiers by the payment of an annual tribute; but in the latter year the Dey, believing that the war with England would render the Americans unable to protect their commerce in the Mediterranean, commenced a piractical warfare against all American vessels that fell in the way of his cruisers. In the month of June 1815, an American squadron, under the command of Commodore Decatur, being sent

1. Manchester, the great centre of the cotton manufacture of Great Britain, and the greatest manufacturing town in the world, is situated on the Irwell, an affluent of the Mersey, thirty-one miles east from Liverpool. (Map No. XVI.)

2. Barbary is the name that has been usually given, in modern times, to that portion of northern Africa bordering on the Mediterranean, and lying between the western frontier of Egypt and the Atlantic. The name Barbary is derived from that of its ancient inhabitats, the Berbers.

to the Mediterranean, after capturing several Algerine vessels, compelled Algiers, Tripoli, and Tunis, to release all American prisoners in their possession, pay large sums of money, and relinquish all future claims to tribute from the United States.

10. In the following year, the continued piracies of the Algerines upon some of the smaller European States that claimed the protec tion of England, induced the British government to send out a pow erful squadron, with directions to obtain from the Dey unqualified abolition of Christian slavery, or, in case of refusal, to destroy, if possible, the nest of pirates whose tolerance had so long been a disgrace to Christendom. On the 27th of August the British fleet, commanded by Lord Exmouth, appeared before Algiers, whose fortifications, admirably constructed, and of the hardest stone, were defended by nearly five hundred cannon and forty thousand men. No answer being returned to the demands of the British government, the attack was commenced in the afternoon of the same day; and although the defence was most spirited, by ten in the evening all the fortifications that defended the approaches by sea were totally ruined, while the shot and shells had carried destruction and death throughout the city. On the following morning the Dey submitted, agreeing to abolish Christian slavery forever, and immediately restoring twelve hundred captives to their country and friends. The total number liberated at Algiers, Tripoli, and Tunis, was more than three thousand.

11. The humiliation of the piratical Barbary powers by the Ameri cans in 1815, and the battle of Algiers in the following year, were events highly important to the general interests of humanity, not only from their immediate results, but as the beginning of the decisive ascendency of the Christian over the Mohammedan world. Former triumphs of the cross over the crescent had averted subjugation from Christendom, or had been obliterated by subsequent disasters; but since the battle of Algiers, the followers of the prophet have seen, and mournfully submitted to, their destiny; Algiers has since become a province of a Christian State; and the Ottoman en pire is only saved from dissolution by the jealousies of its Christian neighbors.

III. FRANCE.

12. The situation of France at the time of the second restoration of Louis XVIII., with a vast foreign army quartered upon her people, an empty treasury, and an unsettled government, was gloomy in the extreme. With a vacillation peculiar

to the French people, public opinion had already turned against the Bonapartists and the Republicans, who were regarded as the authors of all the evils under which the nation suffered; and the king soon found himself seriously embarrassed by the ardor of his own friends. Punishment of the Revolutionists, and a restoration of the powers and privileges of the nobility and the clergy, were violently demand. ed by the Royalists; but, fortunately, the extreme danger of any violent reactionary movement was too manifest to permit the king to intrust the government to the ultraists of his own party.

13. Had it not been for the presence of a large foreign army, France might again have been doomed to the horrors of civil war: as it was, the party feuds of centuries between the Roman Catholics aud Protestants, revived by the imbittered feelings of the moment, broke forth anew in the south of France: the Royalists demanded vengeance against the Republicans; and political zeal combined with religious enthusiasm to arouse the worst passions of the people, and incited to numerous massacres, which recalled the memory of the bloodiest period of the Revolution. Although the king denounced these atrocities, and called upon the magistrates to bring the guilty parties to justice, the latter were screened from arrest, or, if taken, were acquitted in face of the clearest evidence of their guilt.

14. The Chamber of Deputies, at its first meeting, in the autumn of 1815, urgently demanded of the king that those "who had im perilled alike the throne and the nation should be delivered over to the just severity of the tribunals:" stringent laws were passed punishing seditious words; courts martial were established for trying politi. cal offences; and when the king, after the execution of Ney, Labedoyére, and a few others, proposed a general amnesty, the chamber had prepared, and demanded the proscription of, a list of twelve hundred additional victims; and in order to secure the amnesty the king was compelled, against his inclination for moderate measures, to assent to an amendment providing for the perpetual banishment of all those who had voted for the death of his brother, the unfortunate Louis XVI. France presented the singular spectacle of an ascendant Roy. alist party arrayed in opposition to the king, who, in order to check their undue zeal, was compelled to ally himself with the Republi cans, the natural enemies of his cause.

15. Although the ultra Royalists controlled the action of the leg. islature, there was still a powerful party of ultra Revolutionists among the peope; and it was the policy of the king and his ministry

to guard against the danger of the ascendency of either, by conform ing to the general principles which the Revolution had impressed upon the nation. As the legislative body continually thwarted the government, it was determined to alter the composition of the representatives by a coup d'etat, or arbitrary ordinance of the king; and accordingly, on the 5th of September, 1816, a royal ordinance was published, which dissolved the Chamber of Deputies, arbitrarily diminished the number of representatives, and secured the election of a majority of those who were attached to the measures of the minis terial party.

16. The royal ordinance of September, although conferring the right of suffrage upon only one hundred thousand out of thirty mil lions of the population of France, was far more democratic than accorded with the wishes of the Royalists, who feared that the new representatives, chosen mostly from the middle classes of landed proprietors, would incline towards a republican form of government, under which they might most effectually secure their own rights, and divide among themselves the honors and emoluments of office. And such, indeed, was the result. The electoral law proclaimed by the king, and the subsequent creation of a large body of peers taken from the Liberals and Bonapartists, soon placed the control of govern ment in the hands of the democratic party, which was naturally antagonistic to the power which had given it influence; but the Royal ists, who at the restoration had seemed the ruling party, were unwilling to resign the control of the government; and the struggle continued to increase in violence between them and the Liberals, until it finally resulted in the Revolution of 1830, and the overthrow of the mon archy.

II. REVOLUTIONS IN SPAIN, PORTUGAL, NAPLES, PIEDMONT, GREECE, FRANCE, BELGIUM, AND POLAND: 1820-1831.

I. SPAIN. 1. During the period of general peace, from 1815 to 1820, Spain, under the rule of the restored Ferdinand, was in a state of constant political agitation; and in 1820 an insurrection of the soldiery compelled the king to restore to his subjects the free and almost republican constitution of 1812. The Republicans, however,

a. By the ordinance of Sept. 5th, 1816, the right of suffrage was established on the basis of the payment of three hundred francs direct taxes to the government.

b. March 5th, 1819.