The War of 1812 with the United States was for England only an incident of the war with France.  England had become so powerful on the sea, as a result of the victories of Nelson, that she not only forbade vessels of a neutral power to trade with France, but she actually searched American vessels and sometimes removed their seamen, claiming that they were British deserters.  The Americans won astonishing naval victories; but the war was concluded without any very definite decision on the points involved.

The last part of the eighteenth century saw the invention of spinning and weaving machines, the introduction of steam engines to furnish power, the wider use of coal, the substitution of the factory system for the home production of cloth, and the impairment of the home by the employment of women and children for unrestricted hours in the factories.

The long reign of George III., interrupted by periods of insanity, ended in 1820.  The next two kings were his sons, George IV. (1820-1830) and William IV. (1830-1837).  During these two reigns the spirit of reform was in the air.  The most important reforms were (1) the revision of the criminal laws, which had prescribed death for some two hundred offenses, including stealing as much as five shillings; (2) the removal of political disabilities from Catholics, so that for the first time since 1673 they could hold municipal office and sit in Parliament; (3) the Reform Bill of 1832, which (a) extended the franchise to the well-to-do middle classes but not to those dependent on day labor, (b) gave a fairer apportionment of representatives in Parliament and abolished the so-called “rotten boroughs,” i.e. those districts which with few or no inhabitants had been sending members to Parliament, while the large manufacturing cities in the north were without representatives; (4) the final bill in 1833 for the abolition of slavery; (5) child labor laws, which ordered the textile factories to cease employing children under nine years of age, prescribed a legal working day of eight hours for children between nine and thirteen, and of twelve hours for those between thirteen and eighteen; (6) the improvement of the poor laws.

The increased interest in human rights and welfare is the most important characteristic of this entire period, but most especially of the reigns of George IV. and William IV.  Sir Robert Peel, the elder, although an employer of nearly a thousand children, felt the spirit of the time enough to call the attention of Parliament to the abuses of child labor.  As we shall see, this new spirit exerted a strong influence on literature.

Influence of the New Spirit on Poetry.—­The French Revolution stirred the young English poets profoundly.  They proclaimed the birth of a new humanity of boundless promise.  The possibilities of life again seemed almost as great as in Elizabethan days.  The usually sober-minded Wordsworth exclaimed:—­