The year 1724 was marked by party disturbances in Scotland and Ireland; the former arising out of the imposition of a malt-tax, and the latter out of a new copper coinage, called, from the name of the contractor, "Wood's halfpence," an affair only memorable from the power with which Swift, in his Drapier's Letters, turned a perfectly regular business transaction into a weapon against the ministry. To these symptoms of danger to the Whigs was added the threat of a general war, by a new confederacy formed at Vienna between Spain and the empire, supported by Russia, against England and France, to oppose which England concluded with France and Prussia the defensive Treaty of Hanover, to which Sweden and Holland acceded, Sept. 3, 1725. It is interesting to trace in this affair the names of what were henceforth the great powers of Europe. On June 3, 1727, George I. had started on his usual visit to Hanover. On the journey he was seized with apoplexy, and died in his carriage before he could reach the palace of his brother, the bishop of Osnabrück, June 11, 1727, in the sixtyeighth year of his age and the thirteenth of his reign. His death is said to have been caused by the shock of receiving a letter from his wife (who had died a few months earlier, after an imprisonment of thirty-two years), in which she summoned him to meet her within a year and a day before the tribunal of God, to answer for his conduct to her.

The reign of George I. completed the system of parliamentary antagonism between the Whig and Tory parties. The former maintained their ascendency during his whole reign; and, contrary to what has since happened, their chief strength was in the House of Lords. The clergy were generally Tories, and many of them Jacobites. The censure which they passed in convocation upon Dr. Hoadley, bishop of Bangor, for a sermon in which he advocated liberty of conscience, led to the suspension of all the powers of convocation. That body was prorogued in 1717, and each new convocation since then has been prorogued at once upon its meeting, till within the last few years.

George II., 1727-1760, was born Oct. 30, 1683. He was therefore in his thirty-first year when he came over to England with his father, and in his forty-fourth when he mounted the throne. He had learnt to speak English fluently, but in other respects he was almost as uncultured as his father.

He possessed, however, good natural sense; his habits were regular, though monotonous; and to great personal courage he added some military skill. He was subject to violent bursts of anger, and was most avaricious. His defects were in part supplied by the talents and graces of his wife, Caroline of Anspach, who had always great influence over him, and governed the country during the king's frequent visits to Hanover. They were married in 1705, and had two sons-Frederick, prince of Wales, born Jan. 20, 1707, and William Augustus, duke of Cumberland, born 1721-besides five daughters. Queen Caroline died Nov. 20, 1736. The Prince of Wales was only remarkable for his ungovernable temper, and his cabals against his father.

The reign of George II. begins with the great development of the country's resources under the peaceful administration of Walpole, and ends with the conquests effected by the military genius of the elder William Pitt. The middle of it is occupied by the war which was signalized by the victory of Dettingen, 1743, and the defeat of Fontenoy, 1745, and which ended with the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748, and by the last efforts of the Stuarts in the "rising" of 1745. The year 1736 was marked by the Porteous Riots in Edinburgh. In 1738 differences arose with Spain respecting the boundaries of the new American colony of Georgia, the right of searching vessels at sea, and the ill-treatment of British subjects. England now fought against Spain to resist the right of search, and afterward against Europe and America to maintain it. America went to war with England to resist it in 1813, and all but renewed the war to enforce it in 1861.

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Meanwhile a vast change had taken place from the peaceful policy pursued by Walpole and Fleury. The signal for a new series of European wars was given by the death of the emperor Charles VI., Oct. 20, 1740, and the almost simultaneous accession to the throne of Prussia by Frederick II., renowned in history as Frederick the Great. hereditary dominions of Charles VI.-namely, the duchy of Austria and the kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia-were secured to his daughter Maria Theresa by the Pragmatic Sanction, but disputed by several claimants. Frederick of Prussia seized Silesia and gained the battle of Molwitz. The elector of Bavaria, assuming the title of Duke of Austria, was carried by a French army to Vienna.

He was soon afterwards elected emperor by the title of Charles VII. Maria Theresa fled to Hungary with her infant son (afterwards the emperor Joseph II.), and threw herself upon the loyalty of the nobles assembled in their diet, who responded with flashing swords and cries of "Moriamur pro Rege nostro, Maria Theresa." They expelled Charles from Bohemia and Austria, and he soon died in poverty at Munich, 1745.

England had espoused the cause of Maria Theresa, and voted her a subsidy of £500,000, in addition to a supply of £5,000,000 for the war, 1742. The Earl of Stair was placed at the head of an army composed of British, Hessians, and Hanoverians, to co-operate with the Dutch; but nothing was done this year, and Maria Theresa had to cede Silesia to Frederick by the Treaty of Breslau. In 1743 George II. joined the army in person, just in time to extricate it from a dangerous blockade in the valley of the Main, by the victory of Dettingen over the French and Bavarians under the Duc de Noailles, June 27, 1743. This battle gained the young Duke of Cumberland high honor for his courage, and it was the last fought by an English king in person. It delivered Germany from the French, but it led to a declaration of war from France, March 20, 1744. XV. took the field in person with Marshal Saxe in Flanders, while Frederick attempted to conquer Bohemia and Moravia, as the ally of Charles VII. At length by the effort of England a peace was concluded with Prussia at Dresden.

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The campaign of the year 1745, in Flanders, was marked by the great battle of Fontenoy. Marshal Saxe had invested Tournay; and the English, Dutch, and Austrians under the Duke of Cumberland marched to its relief. The column of guards charged the French centre, broke through two lines of infantry, and were advancing upon the village of Antoning, occupied by Louis XIV., and the dauphin in person, when they found themselves abandoned by their allies. They left 9,000 men upon the field, and the remnant of the army made good their retreat to Ath, May 11, 1745. This victory gave Flanders to the French. In America the English took Louisbourg, the capital of Cape Breton.

In the month of June, Charles Edward Stewart, -the eldest son of the prince, who, from the suspi

cions attending his birth, was called the Pretender -landed in one of the most distant of the Western Isles, with no followers but the few friends who had accompanied him in a small privateering vessel. Having gained a few of the Highland chiefs, whose interests as the leaders of a turbulent and unproductive people, were opposed to those of the empire at large, he marched southwards; his followers gathering as he went, so that he crossed the Forth with about 3,000 men. This attempt against the House of Hanover, undertaken by the heir of the Stuart family in person, was undoubtedly an ill-conducted, as it was ultimately an unsuccessful, enterprise; though to call it altogether a weak one would be contrary to historical truth. Its commencement, indeed, had all the appearance of the most romantic infatuation, but in its progress it became so formidable, as even to threaten the capital of England, and the parliamentary settlement of the crown; nor was it subdued without great efforts and exertions on the part of the king's forces, so unavailing and disheartening at first, as to render the issue of the contest extremely problematical. It was, in fact, at the beginning, despised and neglected by the lords of the regency, in the absence of the king, who was then at Hanover, so that time was given for such an accession of friends and adherents to the cause of the Pretender, while the English army was left without any adequate reinforcements, that the rebels not only got possession of Edinburgh, after a very severe but most successful action with the English at Preston Pans, but were able to march, unmolested, far into England, and even to retreat, in the face of a powerful army, under circumstances peculiarly creditable to the prowess, humanity, and military skill of the Scottish commander.

Had the young prince met with the encouragement he expected on his march to the south, he might have possessed himself of the English, as he had done of the Scottish, capital; but his hopes of aid were, considering all things, strangely and cruelly disappointed. He obtained few followers and none of any importance, though he had advanced nearly to the very centre of the kingdom; while the French failed to fulfil their engagement of invading the southern parts of the island, in order to divide and occupy the English army, so that his retreat became a point of prudence perfectly inevitable,

however mortifying and grating to the gallant spirit of Charles, who undoubtedly manifested a strong disposition to proceed against all obstacles.

The conduct of the son of the Pretender was certainly that of a brave but inconsiderate young man. Sanguine in his expectations, beyond what any circumstances of the case would completely justify, he, in more instances than one, committed himself too far, and at the very last exposed himself to a defeat, which might, at least, have been suspended or mitigated, if not totally avoided. He made a stand against the king's forces commanded by the young Duke of Cumberland at Culloden, while his troops. were in a bad condition for fighting, and when it would obviously have been better policy to have acted on the defensive; to have retired before his adversary, till he had led him into the more impracticable parts of the Highlands, where all his military means would have been crippled, and a retreat, perhaps, at least, have been rendered indispensably necessary; but by risking the battle of Culloden, April 16, 1746, he lost everything. The Duke of Cumberland gained a most decisive victory; and so completely subdued the hopes and spirits of his young opponent, that he offered no further resistance, and indeed never again was at the head of an armed force. After wandering about the country for a considerable time, with the price of £30,000 ($150,000) set on his head, and enduring incredible hardships and difficulties, he embarked for France; and thus terminated for ever the struggles of that exiled and deposed family to recover its ancient dominions. The very remarkable instances of attachment, fidelity, and pure hospitality, by which, after the battle of Culloden, the unfortunate fugitive was preserved from the hands of his pursuers, surpass anything of the kind recorded in history, and reflect indelible credit on the high and disinterested feelings and principles of those who assisted him in his escape. The details of this romantic "rising" will be found in Scotland.

No serious effort was again made by the exiled family. James Francis, the "Old Pretender," died at the age of seventy-seven in 1765. His son Charles Edward, the "Young Pretender," sank into sottishness, and died on the fatal anniversary of January 30, 1788, just a century after the Revolution. His only brother, Henry Benedict, assumed the empty title of Henry IX.; but lived quietly at Rome as

Cardinal York, on a pension provided by George III. The ancient and ill-fated line of Stuart died with him in 1807.

After some further successes of the French in Flanders and of the English at sea, the war was ended by the general Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, on the basis of the mutual restitution of conquests; but Frederick was allowed to keep Silesia, Oct. 1748. The peace lasted barely seven years. Besides the disputes in India, to be mentioned presently, serious collisions had occurred between the French and English in America; the French fleet at Brest was suspected to be destined for the St. Lawrence, and Sir Edward Hawke was directed to destroy every French ship between Cape Ortegal and Cape Clear.

Even while perpetrating this outrage on national law, the Duke of Newcastle's government were blind to the preparations of the French for attacking Minorca, and Port Mahon was already invested, when Admiral Byng arrived with a badly equipped squadron of ten ships, May 19, 1756. After a par

tial action with the French fleet, Byng retired to Gibraltar. Fort St. Philip, the key to Port Mahon, surrendered on June 27, and Minorca was lost. The popular indignation demanded a victim. Byng was condemned to death by a court-martial, and shot on the quarter-deck of the Monarque, for not having done his best against the enemy, March 14, 1757.

The celebrated Charles James Fox was now paymaster of the forces. Meanwhile the ambition of Frederick II. had provoked an European coalition, of which the mainspring was the prime minister of Maria Theresa. A secret treaty was made with France, May 1, 1756, and another with Russia, Poland, Saxony, and Sweden, for the partition of Prussia. The plot was revealed to Frederick, who at once seized Dresden, the capital of Saxony, and so began the Seven Years' War.

While the king of Prussia retrieved his affairs by the victories of Rossbach and Leuthen, which obtained for him in England a subsidy of £670,000 ($3,350,000) and the title of the Champion of Protestantism, Pitt was planning vast campaigns in Europe, Africa, America and India. In August, 1759, was fought the battle of Minden, when the French were only saved from destruction by the misconduct of Lord George Sackville, who com