Excerpt from When London Burned: A Story of Restoration Times and the Great Fire WE are accustomed to regard the Reign of Charles II. As one of the most inglorious periods of English History but this was far from being the case. It is true that the extravagance and profligacy of the Court were carried to a point unknown before or since, forming, by the indignation they excited among the people at large, - the main cause of the overthrow of the House of Stuart. But, on the other hand, the nation made extraor dinary advances in commerce and wealth, while the valour of our sailors was as conspicuous under the Dukes of York and Albemarle, Prince Rupert and the Earl of Sandwich, as it had been under Blake himself, and their victories resulted in trans ferring the commercial as well as the naval supremacy of Holland to this country. In spite of the cruel blows inflicted on the well-being of the country, alike by the extravagance of the Court, the badness of the Government, the Great Plague, and the destruction of London by fire, an extraordinary exten sion of our trade occurred during the reign of Charles II. Such a penod, therefore, although its brilliancy was marred by dark shadows, cannot be considered as an inglorious epoch. It was ennobled by the bravery of our sailors, by the fearlessness with which the coalition of France with Holland was faced, and by the spirit of enterprise with which our merchants and traders seized the opportunity, and, in spite of national misfor tunes, raised England in the course of a few years to the rank of the greatest commercial power in the world. 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.