Imatges de pàgina
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Made in Great Britain

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PREFACE

IN any single volume dealing with the story of Europe and its world during a period of a hundred years, however it may be entitled, the chief difficulty of a writer is to judge what can best be omitted from the mass of material.

The period here treated was one of violent transition. The two conflicting agencies always controlling human stability and progress, the principle affecting social life that the community should be supreme in all directions of human effort, and the increasing tendency to a belief that advance was stayed by interference of society in the freedom of the individual, were at close grips. Throughout the century this clash becomes more marked, leading in Western Europe, and wherever the unsatisfied restlessness of Western Europe penetrated, to a searching enquiry into the principles of organized society, and to a questioning of the authority on which the society rested.

This process had been in action for a very long time, even before the Reformation movement completely wrecked the communal society of the West. But the old theories on which the social order had rested, though consistently opposed or ignored, had still remained as the expression of the social life, regulating the real or supposed interests of the community.

For instance, that social aspect of the communal life of which one may find examples in old household books and accounts of mediæval travel, the custom of entertainment at the great man's cost of an unnecessary multitude of dependents and guests, though dying out under absentee Hanoverians in commercial Britain, survived in France to the detriment of the monarchy in the crowd of great nobles and churchmen who lived on the King at Versailles. Another mischievous survival lay in the claim by the noble of a volume of little perquisites originally given by the community to the chief in return for social service which had long since ceased to be performed. Of the long growth of empirical enquiry which accompanied this contest of ideas, the eighteenth century saw the harvest,

resulting in much anarchy and confusion, and strenuous contest of half-digested theories with new conditions of active commercial life.

The century was essentially one of movement, of action, of wide travel and adventure, of infinite expansion into other continents. Hardy men brought European methods of living into the waste places of the earth and, defying hardship and rigour of climate and wild beasts and disease and hunger, cleared the forests and made settlements in savage lands, or became a ruling caste as conquerors of ancient civilities.

The vogue of deliberative assemblies, which had caused the murder of Charles I. and the substitution of William the Dutchman for James II., had on the European continent given way to dynastic rule. Here the members of the assemblies who had bought their seats were compelled to register the decrees of the sovereign. In the islands where, by an extravagance of treachery, the revolution in form of government had been successful, the powers of the community were disposed in the interests of a remorseless moneyed bureaucracy that for half a century exercised every art of corrupt and incompetent rule.

Contemporary works have been almost entirely the ground of my information, later histories only occasionally supplementing them. But ethical principles had ceased to count in this time of gross material action, so that, although there is a very great mass of material for use, its use must be guarded throughout by a watch for the selfish tendencies of nations, parties and individuals. Whether pamphlets, letters, diary or history, every word, with the rarest exception, must be treated as written for partisan purposes. An example is the treatment of the character of King George III. and his supposed part in the American Revolution. Except for spiteful suggestion and backstairs gossip there are in contemporary documents no facts that bear out in the slightest degree the obloquy with which the defeated Whigs have succeeded, through Macaulay and others, in traducing the King's character. I have tried for an impartial judgment on events: strong opinions, justified, I hope, by contemporary facts, are expressed only where it has appeared to me that history has been falsified in the interests of political parties.

Unfortunately for the historian the people in the eighteenth

century read the books and not merely the preface. At least I can only so suppose, because some of the most valuable authorities have very little guide to contents or index. For instance, Sir Robert Keith's Diary and Correspondence, two very closely printed volumes, have no Index and no key except a few names to their very varied contents, and to the Malmesbury Diaries and Correspondence, three volumes of most valuable matter containing some 1650 pages, there is neither Table of Contents nor Index. This is the more unfortunate as there are two French letters of King George III. in this collection (Vol. I., p. 265, and Vol. II., p. 480) which might bear on the question of his mental cultivation.

I have in this book tried to remedy this defect, the general Index, for which I am indebted to Miss B. E. Law, and the map Index by Mr. Cribb, F.R.G.S., rendering it easier for a reader to follow the matter of the book. There is probably some repetition, but I hope not vain repetition.

The naval and military operations have been reduced as far as may be to the proportions of a summary. In common with the majority of readers I have no technical knowledge of such affairs. A revolution took place during the century in the art of war, both at sea and on land. But there would appear to have remained certain canons of practice, at least I must conceive them to be such, as they vary little throughout the century. For an assault on a fortified position the ladders were either forgotten, or they were too short, or they were thrown away in the advance of the men. If the attack was made at night, it was an almost invariable procedure that the troops did not arrive at the position until morning, and that the guides led the attacking force to the most unassailable position. The ammunition did not fit the guns, the men in charge of the horses bolted. Sometimes some great obstacle, overlooked by those who had planned an attack, brought the assault to a stop, and as frequently the misfortune was remedied by information given by a deserter or friendly enemy of a way round. Desertions in thousands on all sides from armies in which there were no medicines, little food and drink, and extreme hardship, were not surprising, whether in Europe, Asia or America. Clive was once very nearly defeated and captured, meeting an enemy's force mostly composed of deserters speaking English.

Luck entered very largely into the fortunes of all the wars. The timely use of tarpaulin at Plassey helped to win our Indian Empire. At Louisburg Wolfe had ordered retreat, when the situation was saved by the accidental action of a subordinate. A weakly-held post, overlooked by the enemy, redeemed a desperate position at Quebec and made opening for a famous victory. And over all was a supremacy of courage and competence both of officers and men. At sea there is the same record of chance and luck, the tide which, taken at the turn, led on to fortune, our "old allies," the fog and the storm, watching alike over our dangers and our successes.

Throughout the eighteenth century from 1715, and in the nineteenth until the incubus was removed by the accession of a female sovereign to the throne of Britain, the political, military and industrial interests of the Empire were limited and harassed by the necessity of guaranteeing the frontiers of the Hanoverian electorate against the attacks of France or Prussia. When this terrible check on our imperial vitality disappeared, the national spirit, and with it the trade of the Empire, expanded in all parts of the world. We were freed from the certainty of being dragged into the periodic quarrel between the Frenchman and the German, which has been recurrent since the break-up of the Empire of Charlemagne. Considering the gross breach of faith which accompanied the cession of Lorraine to France in the eighteenth century, her fearful devastations of the Palatinate, and her later military invasion of all Europe and attempts in Egypt and Asia, it is to be hoped that we shall not raise up another Hanover by engaging ourselves beforehand to shed British blood in settlement of the quarrels of these Continental nations. We might at least learn from the eighteenth century that our business is world trade and with it world peace, and that no Empire and no supremacy in trade can ever be permanent without the support of Religion and Liberty.

June, 1925.

J. W. JEUDWINE.

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