At the turn of the 19th century, however, only a relatively small sector of the British economy had been directly affected by the Industrial Revolution.

For each of the three major countries of western Europe – Britain, France, and Germany- the closing decades of the 18th century were years of increasing economic prosperity, and the pace of economic development in Britain far outdid that of the others.

It would be a mistake to call the other two countries underdeveloped – in terms of cultural achievement, especially literature, art, and philosophy, they outstripped Britain – but they lagged behind in terms of economic development.

 Even two decades later, the picture was little different, except that cotton had become the country’s leading manufacturing industry. It was not until the middle of the century that it could be properly described as an industrial society.

However, the potential for crime is enormous. Some experts believe that American financial systems are losing up to $5 billion a year to computer fraud. Once a hacker has got into the bank’s system, he or she can order it to transfer large sums of money to a foreign account.

Any computer network connected to the telephone system is vulnerable because the hacker needs only to discover the coded password in order to gain entry to the network. All it takes is intelligent guesswork, trial and error, and perseverance.

At first, this appeared to be a perfect example of electronic spying, but it turned out to be a bunch of talented computer buffs doing it for fun. If they had wanted to create real problems, they could have altered files or deleted them altogether.

A German student sitting at home at a computer terminal connected to the telephone system managed to hack into NASA’s computers and read top secret files. He and a group of other students in Hamburg had also got into about thirty other restricted computer networks.

Habeas corpus, a law by which a prisoner could demand to be brought before the courts and have his case heard, was a well-established right in England, but the authorities had found a number of ways of getting round its use where political prisoners were concerned.

The new act put a stop to such abuses and deprived the executive of powers it might have used to support oppressive and arbitrary government.

In 1679, what became known as the first Exclusionist Parliament passed at least one useful piece of legislation: on the day parliament was suspended, the King gave his assent to a Habeas Corpus Act.

 James Harrington, the philosopher, is a good example. When his sisters applied for habeas corpus, he was taken from the Tower of London to a barren island where habeas corpus could not be imposed.