Lord Raglan was desirous that the army should push forward and make a dash at Sebastopol. But Marshal St. Arnaud rejected this enterprise, on the ground that his troops were fatigued. The truth was that the marshal himself, enfeebled by mortal illness, was within a few days of his grave. Had the general been as fit for effort as his soldiers were, Sebastopol would have fallen an easy prey. But the opportunity passed unimproved. By strenuous exertion, the defences of the city were strengthened, and the allies had no choice but to approach it in the way of regular siege. Nor is the mischance by which this occurred to be regretted. The strife could end now only by exhaustion on one side or the other. Sabastopol was easily reached by the ships of the allies, while, for the Russians, the land journey was long and painful. Nowhere else could this unhappy game be played out more advantageously for the western powers. wounded as they fell were seen to roll help-bearer how far they were to advance. Hellishmen, taken unawares and short of carlessly down the hill. But no effort which received in reply the fatal and utterly inac- tridges, baffled for hours fifty thousand Rusthe Russians made availed to stay the reso- curate explanation, that it was his duty to sians, supported by a powerful artillery, and lute advance of their enemies. As the in-charge the enemy. The Light Brigade made then, with the help of nine thousand Frenchfantry pressed them in front, Lord Raglan itself ready to attack the Russian army. men, drove them all away. brought two guns to bear upon their flank. Every man knew that some terrible mistake England was very proud of her brave solThe well-directed fire cut lanes through the was sending the brigade to destruction, but diers; and now, when it had become certain masses against which it was aimed. The no man shrunk from his duty of obedience. they must winter on those bleak heights bedismayed Russians broke, and fled. We They rode straight up the valley toward the fore Sebastopol, large provision for their had fought our first battle, and gained our wondering Russians, and in full view of the comfort was made. Thousands of tons of wood first victory. Our soldiers had behaved chiefs of their own army, powerless now to for huts were sent out; shiploads of warm nobly; but three thousand of them lay dead restrain them. As the excitement of battle clothing; food beyond their utmost powers or wounded upon the field. gained power over men and horses, the pace of consumption. The vessels which bore increased. The shot of the Russian guns these treasures arrived in safety at Balatore through their ranks, but did not abate klava. Their tall masts could be seen from the speed of their advance, the fierceness of the heights where our soldiers maintained, their attack. They galloped their horses be- amid the severities of winter, the grasp tween the Russian guns, cutting down the which had been laid upon the doomed city. gunners as they passed. They rode down But yet the men were suffered to perish for and scattered a column of infantry. And want of the comforts which had been brought then they paused, and turned back, and gal- so near them. The early weeks of the winloped toward the shelter of the British lines. ter had been unusually rainy; the miserable The Russian guns reopened upon them with road from Balaklava had become nearly imgrape and canister. Their return was beset passable. The idea of constructing a suffiby an overwhelming force of Russian cav-cient road to connect the camp and the ships alry; but they cut their way through, and had not presented itself to the minds of the reached the position they had left scarcely authorities. The extreme difficulty of keephalf an hour ago. Six hundred and seven ing up supplies under these circumstances men went forth to that memorable ride, but was enhanced by faulty administration. A only one hundred and ninety-eight came rigorous adherence to form defeated the atback. tempts of officers and surgeons to obtain the food or medicines which were so urgently required. The men were often half-fed; they were clothed in rags utterly inadequate for their protection; they might almost as well have walked barefooted for any benefit which their boots afforded; they slept on the wet ground, under the imperfect shelter of tents; they toiled for many hours every day in the trenches, ankle-deep in mud. Fuel was not to be had, and it was often impossible for them to cook their food. They sickened and died by hundreds, and the British army, always victorious over its enemies, was mouldering swiftly away under the neglect or mismanagement of its own leaders. Several regiments became literally extinct. One had but seven men left fit for duty; another had thirty. When the sick were put on board transports to be conveyed to hospital, the mortality was shocking. In some ships one man in every four died in a voyage of seven days. In some of the hospitals recovery was the rare exception. At one time four fifths of the poor fellows who underwent amputation died of hospital gangrene. During the first seven months of the siege the men perished by disease at a rate which would have extinguished the entire force in little more than a year and a half. Our total loss in this miserable war was 20,656. Of these, only 2598 were slain in battle; 18,058 died in hospital. OCTOBER 17. Within a month, the allies had been able to bring up their siege-guns to the heights on the south side of the city. Their fleets stood in near to the forts, and the newlyerected batteries opened their deadly career. Twelve or fourteen hundred pieces of heavy artillery maintained for many hours a fire such as no city ever endured before. But Sebastopol emerged from it without any sensible weakening of its defensive power, and it became clear enough' that speedy success was no longer to be hoped for. 44 OCTOBER 25. Meanwhile a Russian army was preparing to attack the besiegers in the position they had taken up. A week after the ineffective bombardment, the Russians, numbering thirty thousand, approached the allied position. Their attack was directed at first tow. ard some redoubts held by Turks, who hastened to find safety in flight. A large body of Russian horsemen, moving on in the direction of Balaklava, came in view of the 93d Highlanders, standing in line, two men deep. Their commander, Sir Colin Campbell, knowing the quality of his soldiers, did not think it worth while" to form them into square. The Highlanders justified well his confidence. They stood till the rushing horses came within a hundred and fifty yards, and then gave forth a fire which emptied many saddles and caused the Russians to retreat in haste. The Heavy Brigade of British cavalry stood at some distance, waiting their opportunity. A strong body of Russian cavalry advanced, but as they came near reined up and paused to observe. The trumpets rang out; the British horsemen rode at their enemies, rode through them, trampled them down, chased them away in hopeless rout. Five minutes sufficed for that magnificent cavalry to defeat the vastly more numerous force of the Russians. After these reverses the Russian army drew back, and took up position at a distance of a mile and a half from the allies. Their whole strength was gathered there, covered from_attack by thirty guns. Up to this time our Light Cavalry Brigade had not been engaged. Lord Lucan now received, by the hand of Captain Nolan, a written order to advance nearer to the enemy. On reading this order, Lord Lucan asked its But these brave lives were not spent in vain. The splendid exhibition which they furnished of the high warlike qualities of the British races, is of greater value than many of the victories which are supposed to ornament our history. No guns were brought off, no prisoners were taken; there were none of the ordinary gains of victorious battle. But deeds of rare heroism which lay upon an enemy the disabling consciousness of inferiority, may do more to terminate a war than the capture of many cities. The Russians utterly failed to shake the hold of the allies on the position which they had taken up. But some guns captured from the Turks were carried off the field, and one of the redoubts abandoned by those timid warriors was held. These trivial gains being the first which had cheered the Russians, were hailed as victories of high importance. NOVEMBER 5. A few days after, the Russians made a still more formidable attack upon the allies. They planned and effected a surprise, which must have proved fatal but for the invincibly stubborn resistance offered by the British, on whom the attack fell. About daybreak of a winter morning fifty thousand Russians advanced, their courage braced for lofty deeds by the presence of a grand duke, the blessing of the church, and a copious supply When the miseries of our soldiers were of stimulating drinks. Covered by the thick reported in England, the indignation of the fogs which wrapped valley and hill, they people was vehement. The care of the were well within striking distance before army was no longer left altogether to governtheir approach was discovered. In over- ment. All over the country vast contribuwhelming numbers they climbed the heights, tions were offered of articles fitted to proand assailed the scanty British force which mote a soldier's comfort, and agents were held the plateau of Inkermann. By all the sent out to dispense them. Miss Nightinrules of war they should have had an easy gale, armed with absolute authority, went to success; for the men they came to attack bring order out of the infinite confusion were fearfully outnumbered, and suffered which prevailed in the hospitals. M. Soyer, the still graver disadvantage of being insuffi-a cook of distinguished merit, was sent to ciently supplied with ammunition. Any teach the soldiers how to extract from the general plan of defence was impossible, as food supplied to them all the nourishment the mist shrouded the combatants from the view of their leaders. All along the hill-side were small bodies of British soldiers withstanding, sometimes by shot and sometimes by bayonet, the attack of dense masses of Russians, who strove to gain the plateau. During all those dreary months, while the For some hours they successfully resisted army was being destroyed by official incaattacks which, it may safely be said, no other pacity, the siege went on. troops in the world could have sustained. for a moment loosened their hold on the beThen the French came to their relief, and sieged city. Often their fire was intermitted the Russians were beaten off with heavy loss. because of the difficulty of conveying from The result of this battle must have brought Balaklava the huge masses of iron which it home to the Emperor Nicholas some unwel- was their business to throw into Sebastopol. come truths. Eight or nine thousand Eng-Occasionally it was discontinued for a time and enjoyment which it was fitted to yield. A railway was hastily laid between Balaklava and the camp. Henceforth abundance reigned, and the health of the army rapidly improved. The allies never that preparations might be made for greater | We preserved for one or two million Turks six hundred guns in operation, and sometimes they launched twelve thousand shells and round-shot against the enemy in the course of twenty-four hours. Gradually their trenches drew closer to the Russian works, until at one point the men were within speaking distance. One very strong earthwork, the Malakhoff, faced the French should cease. 1871. Fifteen years after, Russia declined to submit longer to the irritating restraints we had imposed in her hour of weakness. She required that the neutrality of the Black Sea exclusion from waters which were naturally She would no longer endure her own. The allies wisely conceded what they could scarcely have withheld, for Russia chose to make her demand while the Gerthe Black Sea involved a naval arsenal, and mans were laying siege to Paris. A fleet in a question of choice and of time. The Eastof the English. It was determined to carry these works by assault. The French, whose ern Question resumed its habitually threatentrenches were now within fifteen yards of ing aspect. We had not settled it; at enor: the enemy, were able, after a brief but vio-mous cost to ourselves and Europe, we had lent struggle, to take secure possession of the merely postponed the settlement. fought altogether seven times with Spain not till the war had continued for eight years position; another, the Redan, was in front the reconstruction of Sebastopol became only dred million sterling. It was mainly bor Malakhoff. SEPTEMBER 8, 1855. The English had a considerable space to traverse under a murderous fire. But they forced their way into the Redan, and looked eagerly for reinforcements which would en rowed, and we have paid ever since, and will long continue to pay, three million annually for our stubborn refusal to permit American independence. Early in 1793 we began to wage against During more than fifty years of the eigh-months, but did not cease till 1815. France a war which paused twice for a few teenth century Great Britain was at war with The Continental some of her neighbors. powers fought with each other so habitually that Europe scarcely ever knew the joy of unbroken peace. These wars were ordina Must we deem this bloody century to be representative of the future, as it too surely is of the past? Are men to stumble on forever in this path of mutual destruction? Or better time has come, and that we ourselves have witnessed the opening of a new and milder era? able them to hold their conquest. Incapable rily waged in quarrels which were of no real dare we hope that even now the dawn of a generalship left them without support, and they were driven out with terrible loss. concern to the European people. They sessions? What increase of power could The least hopeful must recognize the vast change which has passed upon the character Next day the attack was to have been renewed. But the Russian position had become untenable. Their whole army was conveyed across the bay, and the southern neighbor's weakness to add to his own pos- of European wars since the battle of WaterIside of the city was abandoned. The war monarchs allow any one of their number to loo. England has ceased to take any part in was virtually ended. The Emperor Nicholas had died-broken-hearted by the disasters of gain? Such were the occasions of strife in dynastic strifes. Nay, such strifes have which the men of Europe uncomplainingly ceased to occur in Europe. The growing this calamitous struggle and his son, the shed their blood and wasted their substance. power of the people has beneficently diminmore enlightened Alexander, was now will-Nor was it customary that these selfish and The right of a nation to enthrone or depose ished the intolerable pretensions of princes. ing to negotiate. He had maintained the contest in this remote corner of his domin- gnoble contentions should be confined to the its rulers is now undisputed, and the rise or disputants with whom they originated. The ions at enormous cost in men and treasure, monarch who was about to inflict invasion and he could maintain it no longer. His ships or to endure it sought to strengthen himself had been sunk to save them from the en- by alliances. And so it happened that when emy. Sebastopol-in ruins-was wrenched two kings led their subjects out to mutual away from him; his impregnable forts, his destruction, the flame quickly spread, and splendid docks, were at leisure mined and other kings with their victim people fell, as blown into the air by triumphant foes. His an expected thing, into their places on this power in the Black Sea was for the time ut-side or on that. terly overthrown. The allies had two hun- A survey of the wars which Great Britain fall of a dynasty has sunk to a just insignificance. The questions which have agitated Europe during the last sixty years have been national, and in no sense personal. The wars of that period have been waged mainly to correct the forcible and unreasonable ad justments of the Holy Alliance. That heavy task now approaches completion. With nations satisfied, and the personal ambition of sovereigns eliminated from European politics, we may anticipate a constantly growing re luctance to seek the solution of international As the allies were not unreasonable and suggestive of wasted resources and needless differences by the brutal methods heretofore their enemy was prostrate, the terms of peace were not hard to arrange. Turkey was made gracefully to promise redress of Christian wrongs, but it was carefully declared that no power was entitled to exact fulfilment of the worthless pledge. No armed vessels beyond a fixed number for purposes of maritime police were henceforth to sail the Black Sea. The czar thus endured the humiliation of being shut out from waters on which he had hitherto been supreme. He further became bound not to maintain on the Black Sea any such stronghold as the allies had just abolished. suffering. In 1702 we allied ourselves with Austria, Holland, and many smaller states, and we declared war against Spain and France. It was our high purpose to prevent the grandKing of Spain. We fought for twelve years son of the King of France from becoming to do that. All western Europe, from the borders of Russia to the Atlantic, toiled with us or against us in the vain and bloody enterprise. And after all, the French prince was King of Spain, and Europe was not per; ceptibly a greater sufferer than she would otherwise have been. employed. and, in their contrast to our earlier wars, England has been engaged in numerous wars during the last sixty years. But these have been nearly all brief and unimportant; furnish evidence that the spirit which drove vast amelioration. The only war which reus so constantly into strife has undergone calls the fighting period of our history was for the protection of Turkey. Otherwise, that which we unhappily waged with Russia we have contented ourselves with little wars and easy conquests over weak and barbarous states. We destroyed the Turkish fleet to Europe rejoiced over the close of the strugsecure the independence of Greece. We In 1715 and 1745 we were obliged to fight bombarded Acre to restore the dominion of gle. Fifty million of British money had in civil war against ill-advised persons who been expended. Twenty thousand British desired to bring back to the throne the re- the Algerines for their practice of piracy. In Turkey over Syria. We sharply chastised youth had perished; many more had come jected house of Stuart. home broken in health or mutilated by India we subdued the Goorkhas, the Pindawounds. What had we gained by these against France and Prussia, in order to de-rees, the Afghans, the Scindians, the Burcostly sacrifices? Undeniably we inflicted cide a question about the succession to the mese, the Sikhs. We were also constrained enormous evil upon Russia; but that happily Austrian throne. We fought for five years ment of its aggravated mutiny. Three times to destroy our own native army, in punishhas long ceased to be a solace to us. before we obtained the decision which we saved for the time the Ottoman government.* desired. we fought with China. Once we bombarded a considerable Japanese town. We had four wars with the Kafirs. We *The defence offered for this war by the Duke of In 1741, England and Austria went to war After a short breathing-time, we resumed Argyll and other members of the government which our accustomed toil. In 1756, leagued with was responsible for it, is to this effect: They did not Prussia, we entered upon a seven years' war wish to save Turkey, whose decay and fall were plain- against France, Russia, Sweden and Austria. ly inevitable; but, recognizing this fact, and knowing We had no apparent interest in the quarrel, that the place of the Turks had to be occupied by some power, they wished to prevent Russia from pre We had a toy war New Zealand. We waged with the Abyssinwith Persia. We subdued the natives of ians in a doubtful quarrel a war composed of one battle, and memorable chiefly for its enor mous cost. We fought victoriously against maturely deciding the question in her own favor. of Turkey was a matter of European and not merely the Ashantees. Finally, we were dragged They sought to establish the principle that the fate of Russian concern. by the unwarrantable measures of one of our own public servants into a war with the Zulus, of the origin and early conduct of which we have the deepest reason to feel ashamed. In these petty and inglorious strifes it can scarcely be said that England was at war. She was merely inflicting chastisement, more or less justifiable, upon barbarians who troubled her. That she deemed it necessary to do this is not inconsistent with the increasing prevalence of a genuinely pacific temper among her people. England and America have given to the world the first great example of the peaceful settlement of differences by reference to the judgment of impartial persons. Influenced by an unhappy sympathy with the rebel slave-owners, England permitted ships to sail from her ports to prey upon American commerce. The time came for America to sum up her losses, and call upon England to indemnify her. England proposed arbitration, but America, too angry as yet, rejected the proposal. A few years passed; more temperate counsels prevailed; the offer was renewed, and accepted. Commissioners were chosen, to whom America submitted her claims. The judges found that reason was upon her side, and ordained that England should pay three million sterling, as fitting redress for the evil which she had wrongfully permitted. The transaction is forever memorable as the earliest evidence that the differences of states can be settled on the basis of justice, and not of mere brute strength. The discontinuance of this senseless and lamentable waste is yet far in the future. But nothing in the future is more certain. History is, upon the whole, a record of human progress. It is incredible that men are not to rise above the passion for mutual destruction. War is the fitting employment of the savage. As men become civilized they will no longer attempt to settle their differences by the slaughter of one another. And gradually, as they desist from war, they will cease to maintain the costly appliances which this repulsive occupation demands. tions, and consign them to the demoralizing dustrial genius of England awoke late, but CHAPTER VII. THE VICTORIES OF PEACE.-I. THE Commercial supremacy of England is so overwhelming that we scarcely admit any foreign nation to the honors of comparison. Of the goods exported from all the foreign countries of the world, nearly one half comes to England. Our exports-produced by the labor of a population of only thirty-four million-are equal to one third of those of all the rest of the world. Of the seventy million spindles employed in the production of cotton fabrics, forty million belong to the people of the British islands. With all woven fabrics-cotton, woollen, linen-with coal, iron, machinery, and many other articles indispensable to human well-being, we have supplied mankind to their advantage and to ours. There are quarrels too deep for arbitration. There are national antagonisms which refuse to be controlled, and drive men irresistibly to mutual slaughter. Russia and Turkey could not have referred their differences to arbitration. The unquenchable hatred of This pre-eminence is of comparatively recenturies seeks its satisfaction in wasted cent origin. It is, indeed, of no higher anfields, and burning villages, and slain men. tiquity than the wars of the French revoluBut such hatred exists only among the im- tion, of which it is in some measure a prodperfectly civilized. It is scarcely possible uct. Even now it does not require an exthat a difference could arise between Eng-ceptionally prolonged life to go back almost land and America, England and Germany, to the dawn of the cotton trade. In 1785 England and France, in regard to which a peaceful solution is not attainable. our export of cotton goods was no more than £800,000. In that year our entire exports But although the English people have were under £14,000,000, and our imports made large progress in discovering the bru- only a trifle more. For many years scarcely tality and needlessness of war, they are slow any tendency to increase had been apparent. to perceive the folly of wasting their sub- England was not the birthplace of the instance on a continual preparation for it. The dustries which have attained upon her soil a traditions of many bloody centuries still ex-maturity so splendid. Calicoes were imercise a powerful influence over their minds. ported from India long before they could be Their greatest statesmen have been most made in England.* Silk-weaving was taught keenly alive to the value of economy. Wil- us by the Italians and French. The Flemliam Pitt reduced the army to eighteen thou-ings brought us our fine woollen trade. The sand men, and its cost to £1,800,000. Sir Venetians showed us how to make glass. Robert Peel urged that nations ought to run France and Holland were before us in papersome risk of being imperfectly prepared making, and a German erected our first when war came, rather than weaken them- paper-mill. Cotton-printing came to us selves by huge idle armaments. Mr. Glad- from France. Although we had long made stone has frequently endeavored to awaken a coarse linens, we were indebted for the finer sentiment favorable to economy. But the varieties to Germany and Belgium. Our people continue to manifest a remarkable cloth was sent to Holland to be bleached or apathy to the ill-judged expenditure of their dyed. The Dutch caught our fish for us earnings. From a net revenue of seventy- down to the end of the eighteenth century. one million sterling,* England expends A Dutchman began our potteries. The twenty-eight million in interest on debt in-Danes and Genoese built ships for us. The curred by the wars of the past, and twentyseven million on her preparation for the wars of the future. Her civil charges are sixteen million. War has, in all the ages of her history, consumed the substance of her people, and continues to do so. If Englishmen of former generations had been contented to live peaceably; if Englishmen of this generation were able to put confidence in the good intentions of their neighbors, the cost of their government would be a sum wholly insignificant. During peace the governments of Europe withdraw three million of young men entirely, and a large additional number partially, from peaceful and productive occupaFor the year 1876-77. During the two following years it has been greatly, although it may be hoped exceptionally, larger. Dutch were our masters in engineering, and The woollen trade maintained a precarious existence, disabled by a law passed in the reign of Edward VI., which bound the manufacturers to use in their trade no better appliances than the men of the fourteenth century had used. Thus fettered, it is matter of surprise that the export of woollens reached so large a sum as two or three million sterling. Legislation sought in its blundering way to aid the struggling traders. The export of wool was forbidden, and all foreign woollens were strictly excluded. The splendors of the cotton trade were yet far in the future. For many centuries India had grown cotton and woven it into clothing. But the industry seemed to possess no element of progress, and it remained insignificant.* Down to 1790 America had not even begun to export cotton; * the trifling supply which we required came wholly from the East. So coldly did our governing powers look upon the infancy of the cotton trade, that till 1721 the weaving or selling of calicoes was penal, and till 1774 it was an offence to weave a fabric composed entirely of cotton. Only one half of the threads were suffered to be of this suspected material; the remainder must be linen. 1765. The feeble silk trade was struggling in wrath and despondency against French competition. Urgent appeals were addressed to the government, praying for the exclusion of the abhorred rival productions. prayer, after being supported by destructive riots, was at length granted. The The linen trade crept humbly on its obscure way, aided only by the very simplest *The cotton manufacture was introduced to Europe by the Mohammedan invaders of Spain, probably in crept into Italy; but it had no vitality anywhere in the tenth century. Four hundred years later it had raised it to sudden greatness. Europe till the mechanical inventions of England cotton at Liverpool, and the custom-house officers + In 1784 an American ship landed eight bags of seized them, on the ground that cotton was not a product of the United States! Fifty years later (in 1832) England received two hundred and twenty million pounds of cotton from America. mechanism, and upheld by government boun- | learned in time to understand the true foun- In every branch of textile industry growth ties. To the close of the century spinning dation of economical greatness. Adam Smith has been rapid and continuous, until, when was done by females in their own houses, was an indispensable supplement to the work the nineteenth century entered its last quarand the diminutive home production of lin- of the inventors. ter, there were seven thousand two hundred ens was supplemented by an importation There was now an insufficient production and ninety-four factories in Great Britain. from Germany and Belgium. of cotton to supply the demand which grew Besides supplying the enormous requireIn 1770 the quantity of coal raised in the apace so soon as men discovered the useful-ments of the home market, these works furcountry was six million tons. Paper was ness and cheapness of cotton fabrics. Amer-nished the world with cotton, woollen, linen, produced to the value of only three quarters ica was able to produce unlimited quantities and silk fabrics to the value of £120,000,000. of a million sterling annually. Everywhere of cotton, but she was not yet able to free we remark a commerce still in its infancy, the precious fibre from the seeds which clung 1848. and exhibiting scarcely any tendency tow- to it. Until so freed, it was not possible that Hitherto there had been obtained from ard increase. cotton should be spun and woven. So ut- South American and Russian mines a supply Shortly after the middle of the century terly were the planters frustrated by the tena- of gold and silver adequate to the requirethere arose in England a passion for the cious resistance of those seeds, that for sev-ments of existing commerce. But that supformation and improvement of canals and eral years after Crompton's spinning-mule ply would have been wholly insufficient for highways. Ultimately it passed into a had made it indispensable for England to ob- the vastly enlarged transactions of the freespecies of mania a miniature of that more tain abundant cotton America did not supply trade period; and grave inconveniences must violent frenzy under the influence of which a single pound. But in 1793 Eli Whitney, a have resulted if the commerce of the world the men of a later generation created New England mechanic, came to the rescue had been suffered to outgrow the precious for themselves more perfect methods of of the strangled industry. He perfected a metals, on which the security of all monetary communication. The first great enterprise machine which easily and cheaply separated systems depends. These evils were averted of this description which was successfully the fibre from the seed. The deliverance by an opportune discovery. The provision accomplished was the Duke of Bridge- which he brought was immediate and com- for the want anticipated even our knowledge water's canal, connecting Liverpool with plete. During the next year America sent of its existence. It was found that gold Manchester. Many similar works followed. to England one million six hundred thousand abounded in California, then recently ac In the fourteen years from 1760 to 1773 four pounds of cotton. The quantity rapidly in- quired by the United States. A little later hundred and fifty-two acts were passed for creased. In 1801 it had grown to twenty-one gold was discovered in our Australian colothe formation or improvement of highways. million pounds; in 1815 to eighty-three mill-nies. Still later, as the requirements of the Before the century closed, England had pro- ion; in 1830 to over two hundred million. world grew, it was found that the Rocky vided herself with such length of canal and In 1875 the total import of cotton from all Mountains, throughout the larger portion of had so amended her roads that commerce was countries was sixteen hundred million their vast area, were richly charged with the no longer repressed by difficulty of trans-pounds. precious metals. The annual production of port. A vast expansion of traffic was the gold and silver rose from ten million sterling immediate result. to thirty-five million. In thirty years the store of precious metals available for the business of the world had received the huge addition of one thousand million sterling. But various obstacles still barred the progress of England to manufacturing greatness. In especial, she had no better motive power for her machinery than water. Dur- abundant. She alone of all the world en- Vast quantities of coal became necessary ing many centuries little thought had been given to mechanical invention. Of what avail was it to possess machines which there was no power to put in motion? But that disability was now to be removed, and the first condition of greatness in the industrial arts-an adequate moving power-was to be bestowed. On the 5th January, 1769, James Watt announced his patent for a method of lessening the consumption of steam and fuel in fire-engines." That may be regarded as the birthday of our manufacturing supremacy. Without Watt's improvements, the steam-engine was scarcely of practical value. Now it became the source and sustaining power of mechanical energy, whose action quickly changed the face of the world. The value of Watt's great invention was soon illustrated by improvements in cotton machinery, which without it would have been comparatively worthless. In 1767 Hargreaves had invented the spinning-jenny. Two years later Arkwright's frame superseded the earlier invention, and was itself in six years more superseded by the mule of Crompton. In 1787 Mr. Cartwright, a clergyman of Kent, invented the power-loom.* These machines increased the efficacy of each workman two or three hundredfold. But the mercantile legislation of European countries was fitted to intercept and destroy the good which those beneficent inventions offered to the world. The system in use was one of regulation and restraint. Nothing was left to the free action of natural laws. Every industry was subjected to the operation of artificial encouragements or hindrances which enfeebled its energies and impeded its progress. Right across the path to which Watt and Crompton and Cartwright pointed mankind there lay obstacles which the ignorance and selfishness of ages had piled up. These had to be removed, and an appropriate provision for their removal was disclosed at the fitting moment. In 1776 Adam Smith published his Wealth of Nations," a book from which Great Britain Mr. Cartwright's success as an inventor is very remarkable, in view of his own statement that he had not previously turned his thoughts to anything mechanical, and had never seen a loom at work. Before the century closed England was thus in possession of the most perfect appliances for spinning and weaving cotton-of ample power to put these in movement-and of raw material cheap and inexhaustibly joyed these priceless advantages. England to supply the innumerable steam-engines proved herself worthy of the great oppor- which now gave movement to the productive tunity afforded to her. Her cotton manu- machinery of the country. Mining took facture the youngest, but soon to become rank as one of the largest and most lucrative the greatest, of her industries-grew with a of our industries. So great was the conrapidity to which the world has no parallel.sumption of coal that in time a fear seized Its progress reads like Oriental romance em- the public mind that the supply would soon bodied in solid Western fact. In 1751 the be exhausted; and this fear was not allayed English export of cotton goods to other till the report of a royal commission concountries was no more than £45,000. In veyed the soothing assurance that centuries 1764 it had increased, but only to the trivial of mining on the present scale would be reamount of £200,000. In 1785 it had crept quired to exhaust our enormous coal-fields. up to £860,000. In 1810 the amount had The quantity of coal annually raised is over swelled out to £18,000,000, and in 1833 to one hundred and thirty million tons-a pro£46,000,000. In 1874 it was £75,000,000.* duction almost as great as that of all the The home consumption of cotton goods had world besides. at the same time increased enormously.† The woollen trade felt the quickening impulse which had inspired the sister industry. The old restraints by which this manufacture had been disabled for centuries were now thrown aside. Manufacturers were at length permitted to use those mechanical appliances which were best adapted for their purposes. The devices whose use had so signally advanced the cotton trade were found to be substantially applicable to woollens. At once a development began second only in importance to that which the cotton trade enjoyed. In 1874 we imported 344,000,000 pounds of wool, and exported woollen manufactures to the value of £28,000,000. About the close of the century machinery £50,696,000, and exported cotton manufactures to the The progress from 1833 to 1874 is really much It was inevitable that a vast expansion of the demand for iron should attend the growth of our manufacturing system. When the French revolution broke out England was an importer of iron, and her own production did not exceed seventy thousand tons.* Now it is close on seven million tons. So vast were the natural advantages enjoyed by England, so great the energy applied to their development, that we were quickly enabled to supply foreign countries with iron instead of receiving it from them. many competitors in the production of iron, England has but the quantity which they unitedly produce still falls short of hers. Fifty years after James Watt gave his steam-engine to the world, the wind was still the only motive power at sea, and men still depended upon the horse to convey themselves and their productions on land. The large dimensions which the manufactures of the country had now attained called for greater facility of transport. The canalboat or the carrier's cart, moving at its leisurely two or three miles an hour, was inade * In the earlier years of this century, our home production of iron was 150,000 tons; our import was 6,750,000 tons. The iron trade received an immense 40.000 tons. In 1872 the production had risen to stimulus after 1824, by a very simple improvement then made in the process of smelting. Hitherto a blast of cold air had been directed into the furnace while the ore was being smelted. Now the blast was heated to a very high temperature-600 or 800 degrees-before being admitted to the furnace. An economy to the extent of two thirds of the coal previously consumed was at once effected. quate to the requirements of a traffic which | established, and has been steadily continued, Commercial intercourse was now fully emancipated from the restraints which were laid upon it by insufficient means of transport. How largely this welcome liberty was made use of may be estimated from the circumstance that in 1875 the railways conveyed goods to the extent of two hundred million tons from the localities where they were produced to those where they were to be consumed. The idea of the steamship is older than the idea of the steam-carriage. In the sixteenth century, some forgotten genius made a feeble and fruitless attempt to apply steam to navigation. The imperfect mechanical skill of that early time was unable to give embodiment to so high a conception. A cen- Still more remarkable was the growth tury later (1736), a patent was actually taken among the people of a disposition to travel. for a boat which was to be driven by steam. During the early portion of the century men Toward the close of the century a small had scarcely the means to go from home besteamer was sailing on a loch in Dumfries-yond such trivial distance as they were able shire at the speed of seven miles an hour. to accomplish on foot. Human society was In 1807 a steamer, devised by Fulton, sailed composed of a multitude of little communiup the Hudson from New York to Albany. ties, dwelling apart, mutually ignorant, and After the crowning success of that voyage, therefore cherishing mutual antipathies. At steam navigation grew apace. A little later once the causes of separation were withthere were steamboats on the Clyde, and drawn. Men of different towns, of different steamboats plying from Glasgow to London countries, were permitted freely to meet; to and from Holyhead to Dublin. In 1838 the learn how little there was on either side to Atlantic was crossed by steamers. Then hate, how much to love; to establish ties of the final triumph of steam was assured, and commercial relationship; to correct errors of the distant places of the earth were bound opinion by friendly conflict of mind. The together by a new and closer tie than they dormant love of travelling by which nature protects men from the evils of isolation wakened into life so vehement that in 1875 the railways conveyed six hundred million passengers. Ancient prejudice melts away under the fuller knowledge gained by this extended acquaintance. Peculiarities of dialect, of manners, of belief, grow indistinct, and the unity of the people becomes every had known before. 1830. But still, while steam had become a moving power by river and sea, the land communications of all countries were maintained by the agency of the horse. From the earlier years of the century a steam-carriage was the dream of mechanicians. Men of inven-year more perfect. tive genius, withdrawing themselves from the vain and bloody enterprise which then absorbed the national care, sought to find an adequate mechanical embodiment for the splendid conception of steam locomotion, Many efforts, partially successful, were made, culminating at length in the final triumph of George Stephenson. The engine constructed by Stephenson for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway solved all doubts, silenced all objections, and inaugurated victoriously one of the grandest of industrial revolutions. But a still more wonderful mastery over the secrets of nature was now to crown the patient researches of science, and yet more closely to unite the scattered families of men. It was found that the same mysterious and terrible power which flashes out of the heavens in storm was ready to traverse continent and sea with the speed of thought, bearing the messages which men desired to convey to each other. 1837. 1850. human invention which is obviously final. In the race of improvement, steam may give place to some yet mightier power; gas may be superseded by some better method of lighting. No agency for conveying intelligence can ever excel that which is instantaneous. Here, for the first time, the human mind has reached the utmost limit of its progress. The union of distant localities by railway and telegraph quickened the interest which men felt in the concerns of each other, and awakened an incessant thirst for news. 1855. The weekly journals which had hitherto satisfied the desires of the limited number who cared to read them were now utterly insufficient. It became necessary that the daily history of the world should be compiled, in such hasty manner as might be possible, and printed every morning in newspapers. It was further indispensable that these newspapers should be cheap, and yet of high intelligence and literary excellence. The abolition of the tax which had hitherto fettered newspapers, and, in a few years more, the abolition of the tax on paper, made both of these things possible. 1861. * duced to one penny-a charge so low that The price of nearly all newspapers was reeven poor men could afford the indulgence there resulted an increase of newspaper cirof a daily paper. From these circumstances culation which there are no means to compute, but which we know to be enormous. With increased revenues came a higher excellence of literary workmanship, and a consequent increase of influence over the minds of men. Every morning the same topics are presented to all minds, generally with moderation and intelligence, often with consummate skill. These topics furnish themes of thought and conversation for the day. Public opinion, which is now the governing power of the empire, is thus formed, excharge of the great function which it has as pressed, intensified, and guided to the dis sumed. The enormous increase of the demand for newspapers rendered it indispensable that swifter methods of printing should be found. From the date of the invention down to the close of 1814 there had been almost no improvement on the printing-press. A rude machine, yielding at its best no more than 150 copies per hour, was still universally employed. In 1814 the Times set up a press of German construction, worked by steam, and giving 1100 copies per hour. Many years The urgent necessity arose for more rapid printing. By various steps we have at length attained to machines which satisfy every requirement. A machine, driven by steam, is fed with huge rolls of paper, and gives out newspapers, cut and folded, at the rate of 25,000 copies per hour. A simple process of stereotyping makes it easy to supply from one set of types an indefinite number of such machines.t For several years the railway system ex- After many experiments, with constantly tended itself with a timidity which the growing success, a line of telegraph was conproved value of the invention did not war- structed on the Blackwall Railway and used rant. Fifteen years after the opening of the for the transmission of railway signals. A Liverpool and Manchester line, there were little later the telegraph was taught to print only two thousand four hundred miles of the messages which it bore. The railway railway in the United Kingdom; and the companies hastened to construct telegraphs amount of capital invested in these under-beside their lines, at first for their own pur-passed without further notable improvement. takings was only eighty-eight million ster-poses only, but soon for those of the public ling. So slowly had the people been edu- also. cated to a love of travelling that passengers numbered only thirty-three million annually. The uses of this marvellous invention But in 1845 the British people were smitten spread with rapidity, and soon extended with a wild and irrational passion for specu- across the sea. lation in railways. The frenzy possessed London; Dover with Calais. Dublin was connected with In a short every rank from peer to peasant. The most time there followed the bold conception of extravagant proposals were eagerly supported by a people too greedy of gain to examine stretching an electric pathway in the depths the character of the enterprises on which of the Atlantic, and uniting Europe with they hastened to stake all they claimed as their own and often very much more. For a time advancing prices filled all speculative Erelong all civilized countries were thus hearts with joy, and every one could tell a connected. Across all lands and seas, the pleasant tale of profits gained by a few mysterious agency which man had subjustrokes of his pen. But the inevitable revul- gated obediently carried his commands. sion came in due time; and the receding waves swept remorselessly away the easy gains of the deluded crowd. Under the impulse given by this mania the construction of new railroads was so rapid that in two years the capital embarked in these undertakings was doubled. In four years it had swelled out from eighty-eight million to two hundred and thirty million. A more judicious rate of progress was then America. 1866. 1868. In England the state acquired, by purchase, all telegraphs, and so extended the system that soon every village in the kingdom enjoyed the inestimable privilege of instantaneous communication with every part of the inhabited globe. This use of electricity possesses for us an interest especial and unique. It is the first 1829. The shipping which conveyed the emancipated commerce of Great Britain with foreign countries grew with the traffic to which it ministered. At the beginning of the cen *We can tell the increase in the number of journals, although not the increase of circulation. In 1857 there dom. In 1876 there were 1754. The annual circulation were 711 newspapers published in the United Kinghas been estimated, or it may more correctly be said guessed, at one thousand million. Forty years ago the post-office carried 36,000,000 newspapers; now it car ries 250,000,000. + Perhaps the most striking contrast in the Philadel. phia Exhibition of 1876 was the press at which Benjaimin Franklin once labored, and near it the Walter machine, throwing off its hourly seventeen thousand copies of a newspaper. |