tence, philosophers like Coleridge, and statesmen
like Canning using their columns and compelling reforms.

The impeachment of Warren Hastings, conducted by Burke, Sheridan, and
Fox, led to such an exposure of the cruelty and corruption of the East
India Company, that the gigantic monopoly was broken up. A "Board of
Control" was created for the administration of Indian affairs, thus
absorbing it into the general system of English Government (1784).

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James Watt had introduced (in 1769) steam into the life of England,
with consequences dire at first, and fraught with such tremendous
results later, changing all the industrial conditions of England and of
the world.

In 1789 England witnessed that terrific outburst of human passions in
France, which culminated in the death of a King and a Queen. An
appalling sight which made Republicanism seem odious, even to so
exalted and just a soul as Burke, who denounced it with words of
thrilling eloquence. Then came Napoleon Bonaparte, and his swift
ascent to imperial power, followed by his audacious conquest almost of
Europe, until Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, led the allied
army at Waterloo, and Napoleon's sun went down.

In 1812 the United States for a second time declared war against
England. That country had claimed the right to search for British-born
seamen upon American ships, in order to impress them into her own
service and recruit her Navy. The "right of search" was denied, and
the British {151} forces landed in Maryland, burned the Capitol and
Congressional Library at Washington, but met their "Waterloo" at New
Orleans, where they were defeated by General Andrew Jackson, and the
"right of search" is heard of no more.

Long before this time George III. had been a prey to blindness,
deafness, and insanity, and in 1820 his death came as a welcome event.
Had he not been blind, deaf, and insane, in 1775, England might not
have lost her fairest possession.

The weight of the enormous debt incurred by the long wars fell most
heavily upon the poor. One-half of their earnings went to the Crown.
The poor man lived under a taxed roof, wore taxed clothing, ate taxed
food from taxed dishes, and looked at the light of day through taxed
window-glass. Nothing was free but the ocean.

[Illustration: The British Squares at Quattre-Bras, 1815. From the
painting by Elizabeth Southerden Thompson.]

But there must not be cheap bread, for that meant reduce