1 68 HUMAN PROGRESS IN TROUBLOUS TIMES. 



out the same fact, with regard to the increase of capital 

 in our own country. 



"It has often been found," he says, "that profuse ex- 

 penditure, heavy taxation, absurd commercial restrictions, 

 corrupt tribunals, disastrous wars, persecutions, seditions, 

 conflagrations, inundations, have not been able to destroy 

 capital so fast as the exertions of private citizens have been 

 able to create it." * 



And he proceeds to remind us that throughout the long 

 civil war which was waged between Charles I. and 

 his Parliament, and also after the cessation of active 

 hostilities, when " 13 years followed, during which 

 England was, under various forms and names, really 

 governed by the sword " f this growth of material 

 prosperity was still kept up. He might with equal 

 truth have added, that notwithstanding all these infinite 

 calamities, population as well as wealth had slowly but 

 still continuously increased. He, however, confines his 

 observations here to the increase of capital: a com- 

 modity which, during such a time, might well have 

 been expected to show a decline yet in spite of 

 everything this national wealth (which after all is the 

 truest test of prosperity) kept steadily increasing; and 

 he maintains, 



" that in spite of sieges, and confiscations, it was greater 

 on the day of the Restoration than on the day when the 

 long Parliament met;" that "in spite of mal-administration, 

 of extravagance, of public bankruptcy, of two costly and 

 unsuccessful wars, of the pestilence, and of the fire, it was 

 greater on the day of the death of Charles II. than on the 

 day of his restoration." 



* History of England, by Macaulay, T866, Vol. i, pp. 279 80. 



f Ibid., p. 120. 



Ibid., pp. 279 80. 



