historian John Brewer. Between June 12 and July 5, 1710,
Supervisor Cowperthwaite traveled 290 miles in the
Richmond district of Yorkshire. During this period he visited
263 victualers, 71 maltsters, 20 chandlers, and one
common brewer. In all, he took 81 different measurements
of production and checked the work of 9 different
excisemen who worked for him. Eight years later we find
him working just as hard, but now in the Wakefield district,
in a different part of Yorkshire. In Wakefield, he traveled
more than nineteen miles a day on average and worked six
days a week, normally inspecting four or five premises. On
his day off, Sunday, he made up his books, so we have a
complete record of his activities. Indeed, the excise tax
system had very elaborate record keeping. Officers kept
three different types of records, all of which were supposed
to match one another, and any tampering with these
records was a serious offense. This remarkable level of
state supervision of society exceeds what the governments
of most poor countries can achieve today, and this in 1710.
Also significantly, after 1688 the state began to rely more
on talent and less on political appointees, and developed a
powerful infrastructure to run the country.
T HE I NDUSTRIAL R EVOLUTION
The Industrial Revolution was manifested in every aspect of
the English economy. There were major improvements in
transportation, metallurgy, and steam power. But the most
significant area of innovation was the mechanization of
textile production and the development of factories to
produce these manufactured textiles. This dynamic process
was unleashed by the institutional changes that flowed from
the Glorious Revolution. This was not just about the
abolition of domestic monopolies, which had been
achieved by 1640, or about different taxes or access to
finance. It was about a fundamental reorganization of
economic institutions in favor of innovators and
entrepreneurs, based on the emergence of more secure
and efficient property rights.
Improvements in the security and efficiency of property
rights, for example, played a central role in the
“transportation revolution,” paving the way for the Industrial