Excerpt from A History of Modern England, Vol. 1 of 5 Europe. But he did more. He laid deep and strong the foundations of a commercial system which has outgrown the ideas and prospects of 1846 as much as they had surpassed the dreams of the Tudors. The greater part of the vexatious tariff which pro voked the pungent satire of Sydney Smith had been swept away, and indirect taxation was limited to a few articles which contributed a large revenue without unnecessary disturbance of business. The great Minister left the Treasury at a time of profound peace. He had little taste for military glory. His foreign policy, though firm and re solute, was essentially pacific. While cultivating friendly relations with the European Powers, 'he had the sagacity to foresee the future importance of the United States, and he attached especial value to their goodwill. In this respect also he was singularly fortunate, as he told Lord Hardinge in the next sentences to those already quoted. Two hours after this intelligence was brought, he goes on, we were ejected from power; and by another coincidence as marvellous, on the day In which I had to announce in the House of Commons the dissolution of the Government, the news arrived that we had settled the Oregon question, and that our proposals had been accepted by the United States without the alteration of a word. This disputed boundary, which highly concerned the Hudson's Bay Company and Canada, had brought the two countries to the verge of war, and its settlement is known to have been furthered by the free admission of American maize. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.