Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 2.djvu/203

Rh his successor, and which was brought to a close soon after the commencement of the new reign, we were in the enjoyment of peace with all the world;—the second, the space embraced by the general war which broke out in 1739, and continued to rage till the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748;—and the third, consisting of the remaining twelve years of the reign, the first eight of which were years of peace, the last four of war.

The general condition of the country at the commencement of the reign mis undoubtedly one of considerable actual prosperity; and the rate of our economical advancement was probably also both higher and steadier than it had ever been before. Anderson has collected under the year 1729 the various evidences by which Walpole and the friends of his administration supported their assertion of the thriving circumstances of the time in reply to the factious declarations of their opponents:—the low rate of interest, demonstrating the plenty of money; the rise that had taken place in the price of land, from twenty or twenty-one years' to twenty-five, twenty-six, and twenty-seven years' purchase; the great sums that had been of late years expended in the enclosing and improving of lands and in the opening and working of mines; "the great increase of jewels, plate, and other rich movables, much beyond elder times;" the increased value of our general exports, and especially of our exports of the great staple articles of produce and manufacture, wool, coal, lead, and tin; and, lastly, the increase that had taken place in the quantity of our mercantile shipping.

The progress of the two last-mentioned measures of the activity of our manufactures and commerce may be stated as follows for the whole of the reign:—The total estimated annual value of our exports, which, on the average of the three years 1726, 1727, and 1728, was, as we have seen, 7,891,739l., had grown to be on the average of 1736, 1737, and 1738, the three last years of the peace, 9,933,232l.; on that of 1739, 1740, and