Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/423

] of course, continued the evil of vagabondism and pilfering, and time only could enable the government to bring into general operation the poor-law.



Not-withstanding the amount of pauperism, however, the nation was never in a more prosperous condition than during the government of Cromwell. All authorities admit this single fact. The author of the "World's Mistake in Oliver Cromwell" says, "When this tyrant, or protector, as some call him, turned out the Long Parliament in 1653, the kingdom had arrived at the highest pitch of trade, wealth, and honour, that it in any ago ever yet knew. The trade appeared by the greatest same offered them for the customs and excise—nine hundred thousand pounds a year being refused. The riches of the nation showed itself in the high value that land and all our native commodities bore, which are the certain marks of opulency." It was not, therefore, the pressure of their physical condition, but the perpetual political excitement and uncertainty which followed the death of Cromwell, which induced the people to receive monarchy again—the old leaven of king-worship not being thoroughly expurgated, but requiring fresh lessons of royal folly, wickedness, and oppression to compel them to put the ancient institution of kingship under proper constitutional restraint.