92 SCIENCE WITH PEACTICE, 1812 TO 1845 



vanced, bad seasons created a scarcity ; wheat rose sud- 

 denly from 52^. in January to 103s. in December; the 

 potato crop, which had recently become important in 

 England, failed ; and the perpetual floods of the spring and 

 summer were succeeded by a winter of appalling severity. 

 The army and navy had been reduced, the militia dis- 

 banded, the store, commissariat, and transport departments 

 placed upon a peace footing. To this mass of unemployed 

 labour were now added thousands of artisans and agricul- 

 turists. Starvation stared them in the face. Distress bred 

 discontent, and discontent disturbances which were fos- 

 tered by political agitators. While the Luddites broke 

 up machinery, gangs of labourers avenged the fancied 

 conspiracy of farmers by burning stacks, ricks, and 

 farmhouses, or destroying the shops of butchers and 

 bakers. 



Peace seemed only to aggravate every form of distress. 

 At such crises the currency is often made the sole scape- 

 goat for conditions which result from many causes. But 

 one great cause of the general dejDression was the paper 

 money, upon which had been built up extravagant ideas of 

 the national wealth. Till cash payments were resumed 

 financial equilibrium could not be permanently restored. 

 The process by which the paper money was withdrawn ex- 

 tended over the first twenty years after the conclusion of the 

 peace ; but its general course was directed by Lord Liver- 

 pool's adoption of the single gold standard, and Peel's Cur- 

 rency Bill of 1819, to which the House of Commons agreed 

 without a dissentient voice. The withdrawal of the paper 

 money produced the same result as a drain upon the 

 precious metals. A variety of causes combined with the 

 resumption of cash payments to send down prices with 



