In 1815, Napoleon was defeated and confined to the island of St. Helena for the remainder of his days. After the long period of bloody conflicts, peace was restored, resulting in a general jubilation. But optimism and high hopes were quickly shattered. The end of war plunged England into the most ruinous depression the nation had ever suffered. The working classes placed the blame for their woes on the landlords and industrialists.
Once again violence and destruction swept the land, with the inevitable retaliation by the authorities. A climax was reached with the "Peterloo Massacre." In St. Peter's Fields, Manchester, on August 16, 1819, a regiment of cavalry charged an orderly assembly of citizens, killing eleven and injuring four hundred. Fierce public indignation followed the outrage, but officials openly gave support to the action.
For a long time, one of England's major problems had been the support of paupers, whose numbers steadily increased. Direct relief had been in operation since the days of Queen Elizabeth. This outlay came to require the imposition of crushing parish taxes. Abuses became rampant; many of the able-bodied preferred to live at public expense rather than to seek work. When the practice of supplementing starvation wages with relief payments developed, unscrupulous employers took advantage of the situation by lowering wages, and the independent worker who wanted to be self-supporting was frustrated in his efforts. After the defeat of Napoleon, 400,000 veterans were added to the hordes of the unemployed, aggravating the crisis.
In contrast to ugly appearances on the surface, there was an undercurrent of strong forces striving for improvement. The pressure of public opinion supported the efforts of reformers to rectify many old abuses.
