ABSTRACT
The proper task of the eighteenth century was the work of pacification. The problem forced by the circumstances of the time upon thinkers and upon statesmen was, how best to terminate feuds originally generated by religious differences, and to open, a path for peaceful progress. The Revolution Settlement, while establishing theological peace, laid the basis of national greatness. When, in 1765, Blackstone published the first volume of his Commentaries, there were men still living who remembered the victories of Marlborough, and no one had forgotten the glories of the last war with France. The first quarter of the nineteenth century belongs to the era of legislative stagnation, and is till towards its close characterised by the absence of essential change in the law of the land. Legislative stagnation, or rather the prevalent dislike to all innovation of which it was the result, is indeed exemplified by the toleration of such public abuses as are denounced in the Black Book.
