PREFACE. Vll 



all the various professions and trades ; these are 

 necessarily chosen to decide upon questions which, 

 it is supposed, are within their knowledge. 



These kinds of Inquiries are instituted in En- 

 gland at intervals only, and always for some spe- 

 cial object, to which the persons interested have, 

 by their petitions and claims, succeeded in drawing 

 the attention of one of the Houses of Parliament. 



The various revolutions which have taken place 

 in France, excited the censure, and we may say 

 the scandal, of almost the whole of England ; thus 

 the war against France, or the different states 

 which the French had stirred up to revolution, was 

 popular, notwithstanding its long duration and the 

 immense sacrifices which it required. Perhaps in 

 truth that war was never more popular than in 

 1814, the period when the peace was made. 



From the moment, however, that peace was 

 concluded, the English, after having been shut 

 out for so long a time, made an irruption on the 

 Continent. Travelling was no longer confined, as 

 formerly, to the highest rank of society ; all classes 

 of English, from the highest to the lowest, were 

 anxious to visit France. They went expecting to 

 see there great prosperity, and were astonished at 

 a superabundance of wealth which they themselves 

 carried thither. They identified themselves suc- 

 cessively with the democratic opinions, the more 



