CHAPTER LXIII.
ENGLAND SINCE THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA.
The Three Chief Matters.—English history since the close of the Napoleonic wars embraces a multitude of events. A short chapter covering the entire period will possess no instructive value unless it reduces the heterogeneous mass of facts to some sort of unity by placing events in relation with their causes, and thus showing how they are connected with a few broad national movements or tendencies.
Studying the period in this way, we shall find that very many of its leading events may be summed up under the three following heads: 1. Progress towards democracy; 2. Expansion of the principle of religious equality; 3. Growth of the British Empire in the East.
1. Progress towards Democracy.
Effects of the French Revolution upon Liberalism in England.—The French Revolution at first gave a fresh impulse to liberal tendencies in England. The English Liberals watched the
