Note 356:1 — Chapter VIII

It was in the most aristocratic quarters that these innovating doctrines were best received; for in them was the greatest amount of education, and its influence was not at that time paralyzed by general prejudices against innovation. They were more in favour with the Tories than with the Whigs. Indeed, Archdeacon Tucker, one of the boldest speculators on the economy of trade, was in state politics one of the most uncompromising Tories of his age. Fox, on the other hand, said of the "Wealth of Nations," that "there was something in all these subjects which passed his comprehension, something so wide that he could never embrace them himself, or find any one who did." But in the French treaty, and in other measures regarding trade, Pitt was in the fair way of putting them into legislative practice, when, being arrested by the French revolution, he entertained thenceforward a bitter enmity of innovation; an enmity to which, in the department of political economy, his party became the heirs, preserving the succession down nearly to the present day, when, at least by their leader, old prejudices have been already in a great measure, and are likely soon to be altogether repudiated.