Page:A century of Birmingham life- or, A chronicle of local events, from 1741 to 1841 (IA centuryofbirming01lang).pdf/113



changes made in the aspect of the town were, until the last fifty years, of very slow growth. Our forefathers were a steady-going, plodding, and contented race. Novelty had no especial charms for them. They liked the old ways, the old streets, the old houses, and the old habits. "Better bear the ills we have, than fly to others that we know not of," seems to have been the sentiment which they tacitly adopted. They were tolerably well-to-do, and had the same trust in the Government which for so many years made the people of Birmingham such earnest and devoted Church-and-King men. As if they wished to atone for the part they had taken in resisting Charles 1., and in siding with the Parliament. they were in the reigns of the Georges, and especially in that of the third of that name, as violent and uncompromising Tories as could be found in England. The town grew in extent and population quietly and soberly, and industry made an equally quiet and sober progress until the days of Boulton and Watt revolutionised the trade of the country. Thus we need not be surprised at the evidences we meet of the length of time it took Birmingham to grow out of a quiet, pretty country town to the large hive of industry which it is now. Writing of the Birmingham of Charles the Second's days, Macaulay says: "Birmingham had not been thought of sufficient importance to send a member to Oliver's Parliament. Yet the manufacturers of Birmingham were already a busy and thriving race. They boasted that their hardware was highly esteemed, not indeed as now, at Pekin and Lima, at Bokhara and Timbuctoo, but in London, and even as far off as Ireland. They had acquired a less honourable renown as coiners of bad money. In allusion to their spurious groats, the Tory part had fixed on demagogues who hypocritically affected zeal