 In the early nineteenth century malthusian predictions of overpopulation seemed to be true in Europe.The disappearance of bubonic plague after the seventeenth century and the introduction of smallpox vaccine in the later eighteenth century had allowed birth rates to exceed death rates in the young, giving population growth.There was no possibility of importing food from outside of Europe at that time, so food prices had risen, and with the decline in military employment after the Napoleonic wars unemployment and hunger were widespread in the countryside.