books produced in England, and now her people are decimated by famine
and pestilence. Twenty years since, there existed some little prospect
that the poor negroes of Jamaica and Guiana might at some future time
become civilized, but that hope has passed away, as has the value of
the land upon which they have been employed. What has been the effect
of this course of policy upon the condition of the people of England
we may now inquire.

In the days of Adam Smith it was estimated that there were in that
country 220,000 owners of land, and as a necessary consequence of this
extensive ownership of property, there was a very decided tendency
toward an increase in the freedom of man, as shown in the efforts made
but a few years later for obtaining a reform in various matters of
government. The French Revolution came, however, and now the doctrine
of "ships, colonies, and commerce" had much to do in bringing about a
state of war, during the whole of which England enjoyed almost a
monopoly of the trade of the world. Having all the woollen and cotton
machinery, and almost all the machinery for the production of iron,
she was enabled to buy produce and sell manufactures at her own
prices; and thus were the already wealthy greatly enriched. The poor-
houses were, however, everywhere filled with starving labourers, and
so rapidly did their number increase that it became at length
necessary to give to the statute of Elizabeth a new and enlarged
construction; and here do we find another coincidence in the working
of Roman and British centralization. A still further one will be found
in the fact that precisely as the labourer was losing all power of
self-government, the little proprietors of land disappeared, to be
replaced by day-labourers.

The peace, however came, and with it a desire on the part of other