AT the beginning of the 1800s, the British Isles had become deeply embroiled in a bitter war with her French neighbours and Napoleon had introduced what was later to become known as the Continental Blockade. This took the form of a French fleet patrolling the offshore waters around Portsmouth and Southampton, designed to prevent both imports and exports from either leaving or arriving at the British coast, although Britain was still secretly trading in armaments with her French enemies.
As a result of this sustained campaign of economic interference, British trade - particularly the cotton and textile industries - began to experience dislocation and massive financial losses as overseas customers began to look elsewhere for more reliable trading partners. The problems caused by Napoleon’s blockade led to Britain losing her trading position in the international economic marketplace, the importation of agricultural and industrial goods, and a rise in the number of people out of work - with many of the newly-dispossessed workers being forced to join the Army and fight in the Napoleonic Wars. Needless to say, when the war finally came to an end in 1815, 120,000 soldiers were made unemployed and the country went through a serious depression. In the 1820s the situation worsened and many agricultural labourers began to look upon the spread of machine technology as a major cause of unemployment, and when between three and four million handloom weavers lost their jobs through technological displacement this feeling eventually culminated in the rise of the Luddites. Another major economic factor affecting Britain at the time was the amount of money she owed to the usurious banking houses for financing the cost of the war effort against Napoleon.
From approximately 1815 until 1837, unemployment became long-term and social instability began to take its toll on the British working classes. In the past unemployment had only been very temporary, and this was usually due to the