Three main developments may be seen in Europe's relations with Asia during this period—the rise of the English East India Company as one of the strongest governments in India, the expansion of English trade further east, and the widening and deepening of European knowledge of Asia. In the struggle for power that followed the disintegration of the Mughal empire the English company emerged as the ruler of the rich and fertile provinces of Bengal and Bihar and succeeded not only in excluding the French from effective participation in Indian politics but also in meeting the challenge of its chief rivals, the Marathas and Mysore. The company was now an Indian power, ruling those provinces on behalf of the Mughal emperor and reforming the administrative system that it found there. If its reforms had the effect of excluding Indians from high office, they also gave rise to a class of Indian landholders endowed with property rights and loyal to its rule. Indian investors were among the purchasers of its bonds to finance its campaigns against Tipu Sultan of Mysore. Indian goods were exported not only to Europe but also in the expansion of British trade to the eastern seas, past Dutch opposition, and to China, thus helping to pay for its rapidly growing tea exports to Europe. Although it was disappointed in its expectations of the profits of empire in India and had to seek the home government's help and submit to a measure of control, the profits of its China trade came to over-shadow its losses elsewhere and it was saved from extinction.

As Napoleon's fortunes declined, those of his enemies rose; and a coalition, destined to be finally victorious, began to emerge in the chaotic winter of 1812–13. While remnants of the Grande Armée stumbled westward out of Russia, Tsar Alexander I decided to pursue Napoleon beyond Russian soil and out across Europe, seeking allies as Russian arms advanced. Prussia became the first by the Treaty of Kalisch of February 1813, which provided for obvious war needs, and promised to restore Prussia to her former proportions. Austria was slower in responding to Russian advances, but Great Britain signed treaties of alliance and subsidy with both Prussia and Russia at Reichenbach in June. Following a fruitless armistice and a singularly barren ‘peace’ conference at Prague they resumed the struggle against Napoleon in August, this tune in the Germanies and with Austria finally in the coalition. After several secondary engagements, the battle of Leipzig, 16–18 October 1813, demonstrated the impressive power of the coalition by smashing Napoleon's position in Central Europe. His last German allies deserted him, and his army of nearly 200,000 was utterly routed, two-thirds of it killed, wounded, sick or captured. Before the end of the year the French had been confined to territory west of the Rhine for the first time since their eruption in 1805.

The autumn of 1813, so successful in allied military affairs, was a singularly frustrating period for Britain's foreign secretary, Lord Castlereagh. Although his country had been constantly and actively in opposition to Napoleon for years, although she had driven the enemy from Spain, rendered his fleet useless and financed the coalition, scant attention was paid to her counsels by remote allies preoccupied with Napoleon in Central Europe.

The later eighteenth century saw the emergence of systematic economic analysis of a sort which was to provide the core of economics for the next century. This analysis was, in the main, conducted in the course of attacking practical problems and prescribing measures of policy. Programmes of economic policy were nothing new: what was new was their number, range and connection with a general view of the working of the economy, and with organised thought as opposed to intuition. There were economic writers of intelligence and penetration earlier in the century— Cantillon and Montesquieu for example—but in quality and range the works of the later decades of the eighteenth century are without precedent.

In France, to take the most conspicuous examples, there was Quesnay's Tableau économique (1758) and the large volume of physiocratic writing, and Turgot's Réflexions sur la formation et la distribution des richesses (written in 1766); in Spain, Campomanes, Discurso sobre el fomento de la industria popular (1774), and in Italy, Genovesi's Lezioni di economia civile (1765), and Economia nazionale (1774) by Ortes.

The development of this body of economic thought was due partly to internal developments, to a cumulative increase in intellectual capacity to analyse economic problems, and partly to the appearance of problems of a complexity which required to be dealt with in an analytical fashion. These two influences interacted; intellectual habits predisposed men to frame explanations in general terms at the same time as the problems of practical administration required to be treated in this way.

The period of warfare when it was possible for Gibbon to speak of forces as being employed in ‘temperate and undecisive contests’ came to an end in the era of Nelson and Napoleon. Wars in which decisive victories were won were now fought on an unprecedented scale. Nelson, who embodied the art of the admiral, and Napoleon who embodied that of the general, agreed on the fundamental tactical principle of the concentration of force because under prevailing conditions, as Nelson said, ‘Only numbers can annihilate’. Moreover the tactical freedom which he enjoyed now that the old Fighting Instructions had been replaced by the new signal books (notably Sir Home Popham's Marine Vocabulary) enabled him to improvise brilliantly as he did at the battle of the Nile, or plan with minute care an unusual mode of attack, as at Copenhagen and Trafalgar. His successes were made possible by the high number of officers of unusual ability in the British navy at that date. The fleets which he led to victory had been trained by Lord St Vincent, and his ‘band of brothers’ had already seen service in the War of American Independence. A new spirit of leadership atoned for whatever shortcomings there were in the administrative machine, whereas the efficiency of his enemies was impaired by their lack of combat experience and the consequences of earlier revolutionary excesses.

If sea power under sail may be said to depend on the three factors of an efficient battle fleet, a flourishing merchant marine, and overseas bases from which attacks on colonial possessions could be launched, Britain was in a favourable position at the start of the war.

In the twenty-five years which preceded the outbreak of the French Revolution, the intellectual condition of Europe was one of exceptional complexity. In some of the more backward countries, and also in some of the more backward social strata, old orthodoxies still held sway, such as the belief in the divine right of kings and in the providential character of universal history. Side by side with it there existed a new radicalism which has come to be known as the Enlightenment. It appealed above all to the intelligentsia and to the grande bourgeoisie, but made increasing inroads into the thinking of the other social classes. Its watchwords were: rationality, not tradition; happiness in this life, not salvation for the next. It was this movement, with its insistent demand for the revaluation of all social institutions, which prepared the great cataclysm of 1789. But the most interesting feature of this period is the presence within it of yet a third tendency which was both revolutionary and reactionary at the same time: revolutionary in relation to the old orthodoxies, reactionary in relation to the Enlightenment. The philosophy of the Enlightenment was essentially a rationalistic philosophy, that is to say, it regarded man as, in the first place, a rational animal, and, consistently with this, looked to abstract ratiocination for the answer to all human problems, great and small. But man is more than an animated calculating machine. The very one-sidedness of the philosophes was bound to evoke, sooner or later, a vigorous reaction which was to emphasise the non-rational elements in human nature, the power of sentiment and passion, the glory of the imaginative faculties, and the need to confront, and indeed to accept, the mysteries of existence which surround us on all sides.

Our acquaintance with musical developments in the closing decades of the Age of Enlightenment has come about only gradually and is still far from complete. Haydn and Mozart are among our best known composers, and Haydn was known internationally in his own time. But in spite of the attraction to scholar and layman alike of this great period in musical history a definitive assessment has, so far, not been achieved. This is not true of German literature, which has elicited excellent monographs on the corresponding decades of the eighteenth century. Among these H. A. Korff's Der Geist der Goethezeit makes a conspicuous contribution by stressing the importance of Rousseau and Kant for the work of Herder and Goethe. He would be a churlish musician who would deny the relevance of Goethe's poetics and aesthetics for music, the art which is so peculiarly tied to its own technique. For this reason, Korff's searching quest for the criteria of ‘classicism’, and his attempt to define the term as a uniquely balanced blend of eighteenth-century ‘enlightenment’ and nineteenth-century ‘romanticism’ deserve to be applied to music in extenso.

Of the general histories of music written since the first World War, two deal with the period of the Enlightenment. Ernst Bücken's Die Musik des Rokokos und der Klassik (Potsdam, 1931) is the relevant volume in the series known as Handbuch der Musikwissenschaft, edited by the same author. Handbuch der Musikgeschichte, edited by Guido Adler (2nd ed., 2 vols., 1930) contains several chapters on the eighteenth century, notably Adler's ‘Die Wiener klassische Schule’, Robert Haas’ ‘Die Oper im 18.

Between the years 1790 and 1830 the art of music experienced a significant shift of emphasis from the disciplined forms of the Age of Reason to patterns of considerably greater freedom and individuality, even eccentricity. The limited scope of carefully controlled early symphonies gave way, by stages, to the seductive call of Romanticism. The development was stimulated by the social emancipation of the composer, whose status advanced from that of household retainer to independent artist.

The musician of 1790 was still principally an artisan. Prince Esterhazy, often graciously described as Haydn's patron, was in reality his employer. Like the pastry cook whose products must satisfy the princely palate, Haydn had his duties as a member of the domestic staff, including the composition of suitable music for various functions. Mozart, in his rebellion against this sort of relationship, and his determination to be his own master, brought upon himself poverty, overwork, and ultimately an early death. A few years later Beethoven could support himself without any permanent attachment. This was partly due to the growing interest of the bourgeoisie, for their active support not only augmented the income from public concerts but also increased the demand for printed music and so helped to establish the artist's independent rank. At the same time, respect for the musician's role in society had reached a stage where the Viennese nobles now tolerated Beethoven's forthright behaviour which, at times, could only be described as boorish. The acceptance of the artist on his own terms was accompanied by a growing self-consciousness on the part of composers concerning their art and, as a result, many felt inclined to air their views on music and aesthetics.

Late in November 1807 a French army under General Junot crossed the frontiers of Portugal. Early in the morning of the 29th the prince regent, later King John VI, his demented mother, Queen Maria I, his termagant wife, Carlota Joaquina, the daughter of Charles IV of Spain, the rest of the royal family, and an immense crowd of courtiers, set sail from the Tagus to seek refuge in Brazil. The fleet, convoyed by British warships and carrying a great quantity of treasure, was dispersed by storm. Some of the vessels made Rio de Janeiro on 15 January. The prince regent himself, however, first touched Brazilian soil at Bahia six days later, and there, on the 28th, he issued the famous Carta Régia declaring the ports of Brazil open to the trade of all friendly nations. Once more embarking, he reached Rio de Janeiro on 7 March, to land, amid scenes of great enthusiasm, on the following day.

The effects of this royal hegira, of the arrival of the court, and of the opening of the ports, were immediate and profound. An impulse of fresh and vigorous life was transfused throughout the colony. ‘New people, new capital, and ideas entered.’ A bank was founded, a printing press introduced, a royal library opened, a gazette established. Foreigners were invited to enter the country, industry was encouraged. European diplomats, English merchants, German scientists, even a colony of Chinese tea-planters arrived at Rio de Janeiro, now the British South American naval base as well as the metropolitan seat of government.

The brief period of thirty years from 1763 to 1793 marks an important phase in the history of science and technology, especially in the foundation of modern chemistry, and in the improvement of the steam-engine by the invention of the separate condenser, an improvement that led directly to the development of steam-power. The bases of the quantitative study of three great departments of physics, namely, heat, electricity and magnetism, were firmly established in these years; and there was much progress in geology and in biology. At the beginning of the period Newtonianism had not only permeated scientific thought but had also already passed beyond the boundaries of the world of science into general thought and literature through the writings of Henry Pemberton in England and of Voltaire and Mme du Châtelet in France. Sciences other than astronomy and mechanics were, however, not so well advanced; and chemistry still explained the material complexity of the world in terms of a small number of ultimate elementary components.

In mathematics and mechanics the researches of this period were characterised by generalisation and deduction. Joseph-Louis Lagrange (1736–1813) continued the work of the earlier half of the century on the calculus; he extended mathematical analysis and the theory of equations; and in 1788 he published his Mécanique analytique, a work second only to Newton's Principia in the history of mechanics. Adrien-Marie Legendre (1752–1833) made further studies on the calculus of variations and other branches of mathematics, as well as contributing to the study of mechanics.

The successive coalitions organised to resist French expansion during the period of the Revolution and the Empire followed a general pattern and policy which had well-established precedents in European diplomacy. Since the close of the Middle Ages any dynasty or state that threatened to achieve a dominant position on the continent had been checked by a coalition of its neighbours. This traditional response, often described as the policy of maintaining a balance of power, operated in an intermittent fashion. It was not a consistent policy but rather a collective response to a recurrent danger. During the intervals when the states of Europe existed in an uneasy equilibrium the balance of power as a principle attracted little attention. Only when some powerful and militant state, by a dynamic expansion of its influence and territory, created a manifest imbalance in the European system, did the remaining states compose then: differences sufficiently to co-operate in restoring a balance. How unstable such coalitions might prove, and how vulnerable they were to dissolution after a defeat or a victory, the vicissitudes of the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars repeatedly demonstrated.

Throughout most of the eighteenth century the European system remained fairly stable. From the early years of that century, when the War of the Spanish Succession finally checked the ascendancy France had gained under Louis XIV, until the final decade when the victories of the revolutionary armies again made France a threat, the balance of power in Europe was not seriously disturbed. It is true that the naval, commercial and colonial successes won by Great Britain made the eighteenth century a period of British ascendancy.

POPULATION GROWTH

The estimates of European population in the eighteenth century are subject to a very wide margin of error; direct censuses were few and imperfect, and most of the figures are derived from enumerations of households, which, besides being incomplete, can be translated into total population only by making necessarily arbitrary assumptions about the size of households. While such estimates give a reasonably reliable indication of the approximate size of a country's population, they are a poor guide to the rates of growth within a country, since they reflect changes in administrative efficiency, and their general effect is probably to exaggerate the speed with which population was increasing. There can, nevertheless, be little doubt that population was growing in most parts of Europe in the eighteenth century and that, for Europe as a whole, it was growing more rapidly after 1760 than before.

It is natural in retrospect to interpret this increase of population as the first stage of the sustained and cumulative increase which has marked the last two hundred years, and to seek an explanation in the operation of new influences, such as higher standards of living or improvements in medicine and public health. It should be observed, however, that the population growth in the second half of the century was rapid only in certain parts of Scandinavia and the Low Countries, in Russia, England and Wales and Ireland, and in parts of Germany. Even in these countries the rate of growth in the later eighteenth century was probably not more than 1 per cent per annum except in Russia, certain Prussian provinces, Finland and Ireland.

The fact that the French Revolution was something unprecedented, exceptional, and portentous for the future of Europe and perhaps the world did not escape the notice of some contemporaries. Edmund Burke, its fiercest antagonist, perceived as early as 1790 that he was witnessing the first ‘complete revolution’. Kant predicted in 1798 that such a phenomenon could never be obliterated from the memory of mankind. Some twenty-five years later, Stendhal declared: ‘In the two thousand years of recorded world history so sharp a revolution in customs, ideas, and beliefs has perhaps never occurred before.’ Even so critical an observer as the German nationalist Arndt had to admit in retrospect: ‘I should be very ungrateful and also a hypocrite if I did not avow that we owe an immense amount to that savage and crazy revolution … and that it has put ideas into people's heads and hearts which twenty or thirty years before the event most men would have shuddered to conceive of.’

From the very outset the Revolution had a profound impact on Europe's intellectuals. At that early stage delight by far prevailed upon dismay. Indeed, it was widely felt that a new world was opening to the astonished sight. William Wordsworth immortalised that frame of mind in The Prelude: