90 SCIENCE WITH PEACTICE, 1812 TO 1845 



than other countries. Its termination found her with a 

 national debt of over 900,000,000/., an excessive taxation 

 levied to meet the war expenditure, falling prices and 

 dwindling industries, a disordered currency, a fictitious 

 credit, and a mass of unemployed labour. ' Peace and 

 plenty ' proved a ghastly mockery. Distress had always 

 succeeded the close of war. In 1764 and again in 1784 

 farmers suffered severely from the sudden diminution of 

 the demand for their produce. In 1815 the distress was 

 proportionately increased by the length of the struggle and 

 the exertions which the country had made. England lost 

 the monopoly of trade which she had enjoyed during the 

 war; her manufactures exceeded the demand ; warehouses 

 were overloaded, markets overstocked ; produce was unsold 

 or unpaid for ; iron furnaces were blown out, cotton mills 

 closed ; the coal trade languished ; the shuttles stood still 

 in Lancashire and Yorkshire. Distrust and speculation 

 replaced wholesome and natural commerce. Side by side 

 with commercial depression went agricultural distress. The 

 bitter cry of the landowners was heard in the House of Com- 

 mons, and in 1815 the monopoly of the home market was 

 secured to British growers unless wheat was above 80s. 

 But the sudden fall of prices in 1814 and 1815, consequent 

 on over-production and the diminished value of the cur- 

 rency, had already spread ruin and bankruptcy among the 

 agricultural classes. In 1816 the Board of Agrriculture 

 issued a circular letter inquiring into the general conditions 

 of agricultui-e.' The answers, to which reference has been 

 already made, reveal the gravity of the crisis. Landlords 

 lost, by reductions alone, 9,000,000/. on their rentals of the 

 preceding years ; many farms were thrown up ; notices to 

 quit poured in. Large tenants, farming on borrowed capi- 

 ' See Appendix VI., Questions of the Board of Agriculture. 



