Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/629

] knowledge, he made a pica for extorting money from them.

To understand, however, the immense difference betwixt the England of that day and of the present, we hare only to state that the population of neither of these pre-eminent towns amounted to thirty thousand, few county towns exceeded four or five thousand, and the whole population of England was, according to various calculations, at the most five millions and a half instead of twenty-two millions, as at present.

To protect the trade of England, Charles II. immediately passed an act, statute 12 Car. II., c. 18, commonly called the navigation act, carrying out the principle of the act of the commonwealth already referred to, confining the import of all commodities from Asia, Africa, or America to English bottoms, and also all goods from Europe to English ships, or the ships of the particular country. The next year a similar act was passed by the Scottish parliament. The act of the commonwealth had effected its purpose—the depression of the Dutch carrying trade, and it was now time to relax these restrictions; but we have seen that even in our own time it has required a struggle to repeal these laws, and convince the public, by the subsequent immense increase of foreign commerce, of their impolicy. Charles's government went further, and, in 1662, forbade any wine but Rhenish, or any spirits, grocery, tobacco, potashes, pitch, tar, salt, rosin, deals, firs, timber, or olive oil, to be imported from Germany or the Netherlands. In 1677, alarmed at the vast importation of French goods and produce, his government prohibited every French article for three years; but the act remained unrepealed till the 1st of James II., by which our merchants and shopkeepers were deprived of great profits on these silks, wines, fruits, and manufactured articles, and the public of the comfort of them.

Calcutta in the 17th Century.—From an Engraving of the Period.

Another evidence of the growth of the country was the growth of the business of the post-office. The origin of the English post-office is duo to Charles I., who, at the commencement of his disputes with the parliament, established system of posts and relays. This the civil war put an end to; but the commonwealth, in 1656, established the post-office, with correspondent improvements. At the accession of Charles, a new act. was passed, 12 Car. II., c. 25; and three years after, the proceeds of this office and of the wine duties were settled on the duke of York and his heirs male. The duke farmed it out at £21,500, but on his accession the revenue amounted to £65,000. By this post a single letter was carried eighty miles for twopence; beyond eighty miles threepence was charged, and there was an advance according to the weight of packets. The privilege of franking was allowed, though not expressly granted in the act, to peers and members of parliament. There were mails, however, only on alternate days, and in distant and difficult parts of the country, as on the borders of Cornwall and the fens of Lincolnshire, only once a week. Wherever the court went mails were sent daily; this was the case, also, to the Downs, and in the season to Bath and Tunbridge Wells. Where coaches did not run, men on horseback carried the bags. The increasing business of London soon demanded a more frequent delivery, and the penny post was first started by William Dockwray, which delivered letters six times a day in the city, and four times in the outskirts. At this time the post-office business included the furnishing of all post-horses, whence the name; and the governments on the continent generally retain more or less of this practice. The growth of England from the time of the Stuarts till now receives a significant proof in the present gross receipts for letters, letter-stamps, and other post-office business being upwards of a million and a half.

The transmission of the mails necessitated an improvement of the roads, and hence commenced the toll-bar system, by an act of 15 Car. II., which ordered the repairing of