This great expansion could not have been accomplished if England had not been blessed with internal peace. Had Scotland declined in 1702 to accept a German line of kings and decided to pursue, as a large faction wished, her own independent way with her own king, England would have been in constant danger of invasion from the north on behalf of the Stuarts, or of intervention from an unfriendly kingdom. The Scots having been shut out of the best trading parts of the world, tried to establish themselves on the Isthmus of Darien, but met with disastrous failure, a failure which they laid at the door of England. In England this undertaking aroused a great fear of ulti mate Scottish success in this particular line of commerce. It seemed better to absorb the Scots than have them as rivals. England was also anxious to secure the assent of the Scottish to the House of Brunswick as the ruler of the two kingdoms and she accordingly offered them a share in the whole of the English trade if they would acquiesce to a union. The Scottish who were most anxious to get a part of the English trade monopoly, assented. The union of the two kingdoms was thus accomplished, the Scottish sending members to the English Parliament and giving up their own, but preserving freedom in matters of religion. Scotland thus merged her individuality in that of England and accepted English trade privi leges as a setoff against a German king.
Ireland was less fortunate. There was not the same necessity for conciliating her. The Irish Parliament was dependent on England, and when the Irish tried to set up their own king — James II — they suffered crushing de feat at the battle of the Boyne. The English were not afraid of Ireland as they were afraid of Scotland. Ireland was a conquered country and as such must take the conditions imposed.
She was, moreover, Roman Catholic, and Eng land could not absorb her in the same way as she had Scotland. Hence Ireland was deliber ately prevented from becoming prosperous by a series of laws which shut her out of the colonial trade and destroyed her woollen manu factures and cattle trade. At the same time a series of penal laws against the Roman Cath olics were instituted which gave the power into the hands of the Protestant minority.
Both trade disabilities and religious oppres sion were successful in preventing Ireland from being a danger to England till the revolt of the American colonies gave Ireland the opportunity of claiming an independent Parliament, which demand was conceded in 1782. It became a question then of settling the trade relations be tween the two kingdoms and of the Irish con tribution toward Imperial defence. No satis factory solution had been reached when civil war broke out between the Irish Protestants and Roman Catholics. England felt that the Protestant interests in Ireland needed protec tion. Moreover the Irish finances became very involved, and it seemed as if Ireland was on the verge of national bankruptcy. The Eng lish manufacturers wished to secure the Irish market whereas the Irish Parliament showed a disposition to impose protective duties even as against England. It seemed best to the states men of the time to solve all these various prob lems by a complete union of the two countries.
Scotland had come into the English system when the era of Whig protection was beginning, and she prospered exceedingly. It was hoped that Ireland would do the same. But Ireland came in just when England was engaged in a life and death struggle with France. She felt all the effects of the dislocation of trade and of the great financial strain. Later on her nascent industries were exposed to the overwhelming competition of the English machine-made pro ducts, .and her provision and corn trade were vitally and injuriously affected by the English free-trade reforms, while she had no compen sation as England had in her manufacturing prosperity.
Vast indeed are the changes recorded in the history of the 18th century. At the beginning of that century Scotland, jealous, sullen and separate, was a constant menace to the expan sion of England; at the end she had become united with her southern neighbor in a political union cemented by identical trade interests. Ireland also had been united in a common Parliament, but cannot be said to have been absorbed in the same way. William III, like his predecessor on the English throne, acted as his own prime minister. Long before the death of George III the monarch had given place to one of his powerful ministers as the real head of the executive government. In the early years of the century party ties sat lightly upon ministers; at the end of it a cabinet which was not homogeneous would have been an anomaly. At the beginning of the century France seemed destined to inherit the riches of the Spanish Main and the East Indies. The end of the century saw French commerce swept from the seas in East and West and India under British rule. England's colonial empire of the first part of the 18th century was Eng lish speaking and not extensive. By the end of the century her principal English speaking possessions had cut themselves adrift; but had been replaced by a scattered empire of many races; and the foundations had been laid of that wide empire, the superstructure of which is not even yet complete.
LecIcy, 'History of England in the Eighteenth Century' ; Stanhope, 'A His tory of England Comprising the Reign of Queen Anne until the Peace of Utrecht' ; Coxe, 'Memoirs of Sir R. Walpole' ; Stanhope, 'His tory of England from the Peace of Utrecht' ; Massey, 'History of England during the Reign of George III' ; Lecky, 'A History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century' • Burton, 'History of Scotland' ; Seeley, 'The 'Expansion of Eng land' ; and his 'The Growth of British Policy' ; Lucas, 'The Historical Geography of the Brit ish Colonies' ; Mill, 'History of British Hallam, 'Constitutional History of England from the Accession of Henry VII to the Death of George II' ; May, 'Constitutional History of England' ; Lewis, 'Administration of Great Britain' ; Koch and Schoell, 'Histoire abregee des Trait& de Paix.> For the lives of minis ters, etc., consult the 'Dictionary of National Biography> (ed. S. Lee). For the original au-' thonties of the period consult Gardiner and Mullinger, An Introduction to the Study of English History.' Consult bibliographies under the special articles.