Faseley, near Tamworth. From Birmingham to the Staffordshire canal is 22 miles, and to Faseley 15. In the 22 miles from hence to Wolverhampton only three locks; but down to Faseley there are 44 locks.

A glimpse of the rapidly growing machine manufacture in the northern counties, and of at least one of the evils connected with it, can be obtained from the following letter written in the same year as the last extract, 1791.

from Glouces

A gentleman from York passed through this city a few days 372. A letter ago, who gave us a new confirmation of the flourishing state of ter (Septemthe woolen trade in that county. He says that although so ber 12, 1791) many machines have been erected, yet the trade has thereby been increased to that degree that at this time no less than seventy additional machines are now setting up in the neighborhood of Leeds, Bradford, and Huddersfield. One manufacturer assured this gentleman that he was in such want of hands as to be driven to the expedient of procuring from the workhouses of London 500 poor children to be employed in his workshops.

The following notice of the death of Sir Richard Arkwright, inventor of the most important machine for spinning by power, is taken from a contemporary newspaper. Although it gives a mistaken statement of the origin of his machine, yet it shows the prominence to which he had risen, and the influence of the new manufactures, even as early as 1792.

the inventor

At his seat at Cromford, in Derbyshire, Sir Richard Ark- 373. Notice of wright, knt.; who, by uncommon genius and persevering indus- the death of try, invented and perfected a system of machinery for spinning, of machine that had been in vain attempted by many of the first mechan- spinning icks of the last and present centuries; which, by giving per- (1792) petual employment to many thousand families, has increased

A mistaken account

374. The work of James

Watt

the population, and been productive of great commercial advantages to this country. He has died immensely rich, and has left manufactories the income of which is greater than that of most German principalities, though derived from very opposite circumstances, those that promote the prosperity of a country. His real and personal property is estimated at little short of half a million. From the humble station of a barber at a village near Manchester, he gradually rose in the acquisition of this vast wealth by the accidental purchase of a single piece of mechanism, called the Spinning Jenny, the invention of an ingenious carpenter, who, as report says, offered it for sale from mere necessity.

The following estimate of the importance of the invention of the steam engine was written in 1819, after that power had been applied to various kinds of manufacturing, but before it had been used for locomotives, and the many other uses to which it was afterward applied. This extract is taken from an article by Francis Jeffrey in the Edinburgh Review.

We have said that Mr. Watt was the great improver of the steam engine; but, in truth, as to all that is admirable in its structure, or vast in its utility, he should rather be described as its inventor. It was by his inventions that its action was so regulated as to make it capable of being applied to the finest and most delicate manufactures, and its power so increased as to set weight and solidity at defiance. By his admirable contrivance it has become a thing stupendous alike for its force. and its flexibility, for the prodigious power which it can exert and the ease and precision and ductility with which it can be varied, distributed, and applied. The trunk of an elephant, that can pick up a pin or rend an oak, is as nothing to it. It can engrave a seal and crush masses of obdurate metal before it; draw out, without breaking, a thread as fine as a gossamer, and lift a ship of war like a bauble in the air. It can embroider muslin and forge anchors, cut steel into ribbons, and impel loaded vessels against the fury of the winds and waves.

steam power

great taxes

It would be impossible to estimate the value of the benefits The wealth which these inventions have conferred upon this country. There created by is no branch of industry that has not been indebted to them; has enabled and, in all the most material, they have not only widened most the governmagnificently the field of its exertions, but multiplied a thou- ment to raise sandfold the amount of its productions. It is our improved and support steam-engine that has fought the battles of Europe, and exalted great armies and sustained, through the late tremendous contest, the political greatness of our land. It is the same great power which enables us now to pay the interest of our debt, and to maintain the arduous struggle in which we are still engaged with the skill and capital of countries less oppressed with taxation.

But these are poor and narrow views of its importance. It has increased indefinitely the mass of human comforts and enjoyments, and rendered cheap and accessible, all over the world, the materials of wealth and prosperity. It has armed the feeble hand of man, in short, with a power to which no limits can be assigned; completed the dominion of mind over the most refractory qualities of matter; and laid a sure foundation for all those future miracles of mechanic power which are to aid and reward the labors of after generations.

It is to the genius of one man, too, that all this is mainly owing; and certainly no man ever bestowed such a gift on his kind. The blessing is not only universal, but unbounded; and the fabled inventors of the plough and loom, who were deified by the erring gratitude of their rude contemporaries, conferred less important benefits on 'mankind than the inventor of our present steam-engines. This will be the fame of Watt with future generations; and it is sufficient for his race and his country.

III. THE OPPOSITION TO THE GOVERNMENT

The weekly journal, The North Briton, whose fortyfifth issue was so outspoken in its opposition to the ministers, and through them to George III, as to give such deep offense, seems to us in more modern times a very moderate and respectful document. This will be seen

375. The North Briton,

No. 45 (April 23, 1763)

from the following extracts, which contain its strongest expressions. It angered the king because it represented an opposition entirely outside of the government, and because it appeared just when he was adopting a policy of greater royal authority, and most deeply resented attacks on ministers who were satisfactory to him, and whom he therefore felt should be free from attack.

The king's speech has always been considered by the legis lature, and by the public at large, as the speech of the minister. It has regularly, at the beginning of every session of parliament, been referred by both houses to the consideration of a committee, and has been generally canvassed with the utmost freedom, when the minister of the crown has been obnoxious to the nation. The ministers of this free country, conscious of the undoubted privileges of so spirited a people, and with the terrors of parliament before their eyes, have ever been cautious, no less with regard to the matter than to the expression of speeches which they have advised the sovereign to make from the throne, at the opening of each session. They well know that an honest house of parliament, true to their trust, could not fail to detect the fallacious arts, or to remonstrate against the daring acts of violence committed by any minister. The speech at the close of the session has ever been considered as the most secure method of promulgating the favorite courtcreed among the vulgar; because the parliament, which is the constitutional guardian of the liberties of the people, has in this case no opportunity of remonstrating, or of impeaching any wicked servant of the crown.

This week has given the public the most abandoned instance of ministerial effrontery ever attempted to be imposed on mankind. The minister's speech of last Tuesday is not to be paralleled in the annals of this country. I am in doubt whether the imposition is greater on the sovereign or on the nation. Every friend of his country must lament that a prince of so many great and amiable qualities, whom England truly reveres, can be brought to give the sanction of his sacred name to the

most odious measures and to the most unjustifiable public declarations from a throne ever renowned for truth, honor, and unsullied virtue. . .

A despotic minister will always endeavor to dazzle his prince The misrep

resentations

with high-flown ideas of the prerogative and honor of the crown, of the prime which the minister will make a parade of firmly maintaining. minister I wish as much as any man in the kingdom to see the honour of the crown maintained in a manner truly becoming royalty. I lament to see it sunk even to prostitution. What a shame was it to see the security of this country, in point of military force, complimented away, contrary to the opinion of royalty itself, and sacrificed to the prejudices and to the ignorance of a set of people the most unfit, from every consideration, to be consulted on a matter relative to the security of the house of Hanover.

...

The king of England is only the first magistrate of this A warning to country, but is invested by the law with the whole executive the king power. He is, however, responsible to his people for the due execution of the royal functions, in the choice of ministers, etc.; equal with the meanest of his subjects in his particular duty. The personal character of our present amiable sovereign makes us easy and happy that so great a power is lodged in such hands; but the favorite has given too just cause for him to escape the general odium. The prerogative of the crown is to exert the constitutional powers entrusted to it in a way not of blind favor and partiality, but of wisdom and judgment. This is the spirit of our constitution. The people, too, have their prerogative, and I hope the fine words of Dryden will be engraven on our hearts, "Freedom is the English subject's prerogative."

The occurrences in parliament and in the city of London connected with the Wilkes matter, from 1763 to 1768, are reflected in the following three vivacious letters of Horace Walpole, now becoming an old man. The fact that a man of such contemptible personal life and character as Wilkes should become a popular