ERRATA. In Page 20, line 10, for appaling read appalling. In Page 20, line 23, for Anteus read Antieus. In Page 30, line 21, for Voila ce que l'histoire, read Voila c'est que c'est que l'histoire. This observation is, in the hurry of composition, erroneously attributed to Louis the 14th. It was made by Henry the 4th of France, after the Battle of Aumale, where he was wounded. In Page 41, line 9, for exhiling read exiling. CHAPTER I. National and General Importance of the Cotton Manufacture. THE present age is distinguished beyond all others by the rapid progress of human discovery. Man respired the air of his atmosphere for many ages, before he discovered it to be a substance possessing weight and the other properties of material bodies; but it was reserved for our own times to ascertain that it and the other æriform fluids, which from their subtlety and invisibility would seem to elude human scrutiny, were chiefly compound bodies susceptible of Analysis and Classification. The science of Aerostation-the means of enabling miners to work in safety in the midst of an inflammable atmosphere, and the illuminating of our Streets and Houses with subterraneous fire, have followed. Water and Fire have been brought to flow in peaceful association under the feet of the inhabitants of our towns, to administer to their wants and promote their pleasures. The double condensing Steam Engine, and its application to Navigation, may almost claim the merit of original inventions, and will in their consequences to Man, perhaps not be second to the boast of former ages-the discoveries of the Magnet, of Gunpowder, and of Printing. They have subjected to Man a Giant, by whose assistance he can obtain the treasures of mines hitherto unapproachable by reason of subterraneous waters-draw ponderous loads of fuel, limestone or other substances, along rail ways without the help of beasts-set in motion machinery, to which mere human strength was unequal-cross the seas independent, and even in despite of winds and tides, and with a rapidity before unknown. To these might be added the Voltaic Pile, Vaccination and others equally splendid and original. One, however, which would seem to merit the attention of the Philosopher from its ingenuity, the Englishman from its having brought an immense increase of wealth and population to his territory, and all from its economizing human labour and enabling many articles of clothing to be obtained at a less expensive B rate, has obtained comparatively little attention. While admiration has been unboundedly lavished on other triumphs of the mind, the successive inventions and improvements of the Machinery employed in the Cotton Manufacture, have obtained neither the notice which their own ingenuity, nor their national importance required. They have been the great means of increasing the population of the county of Lancaster, in the first ten years of the present century, from 672,731 to 810,539, and, in the subsequent ten years, from that number to 1,052,859, (a rate of more than doubling itself in half a century,) and of producing a corresponding increase of wealth and intelligence. Under the influence of the manufacture of which they have been the promoters, the town of Manchester has, from an unimportant provincial town, become the second in extent and population in England, and Liverpool has become in opulence, magnitude, elegance and commerce, the second Seaport in Europe. That Liverpool is a consequence of the Cotton Manufacture, and indebted to Manchester and its dependencies for its greatness, is evident on general principles. The origin of a Manufacturing town is this: a Manufactory is established, a number of labourers and artizans are collected-these have wants which must be supplied by the Corn Dealer, the Butcher, the Builder, the Shopkeeper the latter when added to the Colony have themselves need of the Draper, the Grocer, &c. Fresh multitudes of every various trade and business, whether conducive to the wants or luxury of the inhabitants, are superadded, and thus is the Manufacturing town formed. The causes of its increase and greatness rest within itself—they are primary and original. But the formation and increase of a Seaport town, proceed from secondary causes. A commercial Seaport pre-supposes, that the inhabitants of the interior have wants to be supplied through it, or that they have a superfluity of their own productions to exchange for the commodities of other nations. The Seaport may decline without injuring the Manufacturing town, but if the demand of the Manufacturing town for foreign produce should diminish, or if it should no longer have productions of its own to export, or if that commerce of which it is the cause and the nucleus, should flow into another channel, the business of the Seaport is at an end. These two great Towns, then, which, with their connections and dependencies, are almost an equipoize to the Metropolis, are a consequence of the Cotton Manufacture. The Machinery employed in the Cotton Manufacture is little known except to the manufacturers themselves, and the History of its progressive improvements, perhaps, scarcely to them. For the greatest improvements we are indebted to a man in humble life, whose poverty and want of patronage prevented him from repu either reaping the pecuniary benefit, or establishing his claims to that fame to which his ingenuity entitled him. By borrowing his ingenious inventions the late Sir Richard Arkwright lived to acquire a princely fortune, and died with the tation of being one of the most eminent of those individuals, who have enlarged the resources of their native country, and made her manufactures and machinery the wonder of surrounding nations; while the man to whose painful labours and ingenious contrivances Sir Richard was indebted for these honours, lived in obscurity, and died in indigence: Sic vos non vobis mellificatis apes, Sic vos non vobis fertis aratra boves.-Virgil. To him Sir Richard in his greatness held out no fostering hand-he not only reaped the harvest himself, but assumed the reputation of having sown the grain; and whether from shame, from vanity, or indifference, left the author of his fame to languish in his original poverty. Early Modes of Spinning and Weaving. The original Mode of converting the fleecy contents of the fruit of the cotton tree into Thread, for the purpose of being woven into Cloth, was the distaff and spindle, and this mode is still used in Hindostan.* The distaff is a wooden rod, with a bundle or fleece of cotton wool tied loosely round the top of it. The spinner holds the distaff between the left arm and the body, his left hand is nearer to the distaff than the right, the hands are kept about two inches asunder, and pull from the fleece a continuous lock of cotton wool, the right hand drawing out and twisting so much of the lock as is between it and the left hand into a fine thread, which is farther twisted by a pendent spindle, or bobbin, which is kept constantly twirling round, and on which the thread is afterwards wound. See plate 1. This tedious process was the one used from the earliest ages, and might be the occupation to which Hector sends Andromache: ̓Αλλ ̓ εἰς οἶκον ἰοῦσα τὰ σαυτῆς έργα κόμιζε, Ἱστόν τ', ἠλακάτην τε, καὶ ἀμφιπόλοισι κέλευε The general likeness between a mast, which is another sense of IoT, and the distaff, favours the supposition.† The state of the Cotton Manufacture in the county of Lancaster, at the commencement of the last century, was as follows: The warp, or longitudinal * The superiority of texture and the durability of the India Nankeens, and Long Cloths, are owing to this mode of spinning, which disposes the fibres of the cotton more evenly, and twists them more into the body of the thread than the spinning machines do. + For this criticism, I am indebted to my friend Mr. Littler, Solicitor, Leigh. |