134 THE ALBJON MILLS. PART VII. 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE ALBION MILLS MR. KENNIE EXTENSIVELY EMPLOYED AS 

 AN ENGINEER. 



Rennie arrived in London in 1785, the country 

 was in a state of serious depression in consequence of the 

 unsuccessful termination of the American War. Parlia- 

 ment was engaged in defraying the heavy cost of the 

 recent struggle with the revolted colonies. The people 

 were ill at ease, and grumbled at the increase of the 

 debt and taxes. The unruly population of the capital 

 could with difficulty be kept in order. The police and 

 local government were most inefficient. Only a few 

 years before, London had, during the Gordon riots, been 

 for several days in the hands of the mob, and blackened 

 ruins in different parts of the city still marked the track 

 of the rioters. Though the largest city in Europe, the 

 population was scarcely more than a third of what it is 

 now ; yet it was thought that it had become so vast as to 

 be unmanageable. Its northern threshold was at Hicks' s 

 Hall, in Olerkenwell. Somers Town, Camden Town, 

 and Tyburnia w r ere as yet green fields ; and Kensington, 

 Chelsea, Marylebone, and Bermondsey were outlying 

 villages. Fields and hedgerows led to the hills of High- 

 gate and Hampstead. The' West End of London was 

 a thinly-inhabited suburb, Fitzroy Square having only 

 been commenced in 1793. The westernmost building 

 in Westminster was Millbank, a wide tract of marshy 

 ground extending opposite Lambeth. Executions were 

 conducted in Tyburn fields, long since covered with hand- 

 some buildings, down to 1783. Oxford Street, from 

 Princes Street eastward as far as High Street, St. Giles's, 



