ABSTRACT
The England around which Daniel Defoe was beginning to tour at the end of our period was very different from that through which James I rode in 1603. We are already in the modern world – the world of banks and cheques, budgets, the stock exchange, the periodical press, coffeehouses, clubs, coffins, microscopes, shorthand, actresses, and umbrellas. It is a world in which governments put first the promotion of production, for policy is no longer determined by aristocrats whose main economic activity is consumption. Defoe’s eye was always wide open for ways in which the national wealth could be increased: he knew this would interest his readers. The country as a whole has become far richer. The amount raised in taxes has multiplied by twenty-five. The system of taxation has been reorganised so that a higher proportion of the burden falls on landowners and the poor, less on industrialists. The great agricultural boom has begun. Casual
labour has replaced vagabondage. Political institutions have adapted themselves to this new society. The men of property are secure and unfettered in their control of local government; as taxpayers they determine government policy. Anyone rich enough can buy himself into Parliament, and once there he has good chances of winning returns on his investment. Government patronage is now dispensed by ministers responsible to the House of Commons, and has become a system of outdoor relief for far more of the ruling class than the fortunate few who profited under James I’s favourites. Money talks, at Westminster no less than in the City.
