PREFACE.

In want of facts, it appears to have been a common propensity of our race to resort to fiction. The ancients, thus influenced, were prone to recur to fabulous ancestry, and to attribute all their improvements and inventions to deified powers. So, instead of awarding to merit its due, and creating a spirit of enquiry and emulation, all their arts were gratuitously attributed to their fabled Apollo. At this distant period of the world we can perceive at once, that this was done by a prevailing ignorance and through a defect of a suitable means for conveying useful and permanent information.

We know enough of human nature to conclude that it will be nearly the same under similar circumstances, and that so far as it is acted upon by them, similar results may be expected from similar causes.*

"The Rhode Island papers announce the death, on Monday last, of Samuel Slater, Esq.-long known as one of the most enterprising and respected citizens of that state, and as the father of the cotton manufacturing business in this country. The first cotton-mill built in the United States was erected by him, in Pawtucket, and was yet in operation at the time of our last visit. There is a curious anecdote, connected with the original machinery of this factory, which, as it is strictly true, we will relate for the edification of Doctors Abercrombie and Macnish, and other enquirers into the philosophy of dreams. Mr. Slater was an ingenious mechanist, and all the machinery was constructed under his immediate direction. Of course, in the earliest infancy of the business, and before the machinery to be constructed was itself thoroughly understood, or the means for making it as ample as could have been desired, imperfections to a greater or less extent were to be anticipated. At length, however, the work was complete, and high were the hopes of the artist and his employers. All was ready, but the machinery would not move, or at least it would not move as intended, or to any purpose.

Ignorance and superstition produce precisely the same dark and dangerous disguises and consequences, in our day, as they did anciently.

With the aid of letters, and every facility for printing, as yet not a single publication has been presented to the American public to give an account, and perpetuate the rise and progress, of the cotton and other manufactures in this country.

To such an extent have they advanced and probably will advance, without correct information the liability is, for the whole account of their rise and progress at some future period to run into fiction and fable; and the man who was most instrumental in introducing them, instead of being viewed as a plain practical mechanic, using honest means for his own benefit, and at the same time promoting the best interests of this country, to be ranked among fictitious characters, and to have his name and fame some way mysteriously associated with the business which he has permanently established.

Information is surely needed on these points, and this is the author's apology for collecting, compiling, and presenting to the public, a work, including the Memoir of Samuel Slater, and giving a general account of the rise and progress of manufactures in this country. In going into this unoccupied field much labour was requisite to collect materials. They have been obtained from a variety of sources, all of which the author wishes to acknowledge with due deference.

General credit is due to the following writers:-Hamilton's Report to Congress, 1790; Niles's Register; Edinburgh Encyclopedia;

The disappointment was great, and the now deceased mechanist was in great perplexity. Day after day did he labour to discover, that he might remedy the defect-but in vain. But what he could not discover waking was revealed to him in his sleep.

"It was perfectly natural that the subject which engrossed all his thoughts by day, should be dancing through his uncurbed imagination by night, and it so happened that on one occasion, having fallen into slumber with all the shafts and wheels of his mill whirling in his mind with the complexity of Ezekiel's vision, he dreamed of the absence of an essential band upon one of the wheels. The dream was fresh in his mind on the following morning, and repairing bright and early to his works, he in an instant detected the deficiency!

"The revelation was true, and in a few hours afterwards, the machinery was in full and successful operation. Such is one feature in the history of American manufactures. The machinist has since led an active and useful life-sustaining in all the relations of society an unblemished reputation."— Com. Advertiser.

Baines's History of the Cotton Manufactures; "Spinning Master's Assistant;" Results of Machinery; Babbage's Economy of Manuactures; History of Derbyshire; Zec. Allen on Mechanics, and his Practical Tourist and Ure's Philosophy of Manufactures. To others I am indebted for very important assistance and encouragement, whose names I do not feel at liberty to publish; but the impression of their kindness is recorded on a tablet that but one event can erase.

With all the help afforded me, I have considered it little short of presumption, for one, whose studies have been so devoted to another department, to attempt mechanics. I have been led into the subject gradually and accidentally; at first I only intended a memoir of my friend; but finding his whole life so connected with manufactures, it became necessary that I should have a general knowledge of the subject. Those whose opinions had weight with me, said, the public needed an historical essay on the rise and progress of manufactures; at last a volume is produced. Whether the public will receive my labours in good part, remains to be proved.

The difficulty of understanding the processes of manufactures, has unfortunately been greatly overrated. To examine them with the eye of a manufacturer, so as to be able to direct others to repeat them, does undoubtedly require much skill and previous acquaintance with the subject; but merely to apprehend their general principles and mutual relations, is within the power of almost every person possessing a tolerable education. Those who possess rank in a manufacturing country can scarcely be excused if they are entirely ignorant of principles whose developement has produced its greatness. The possessors of wealth can scarcely be indifferent to processes which nearly or remotely have been the fertile source of their possessions. Those who enjoy leisure can scarcely find a more interesting and instructive pursuit than the examination of the workshops of their own country, which contain within them a rich mine of knowledge, too generally neglected by the wealthier classes.

The more knowledge is accumulated and perfected, the more easily it is acquired and recollected. I find this to be the case in the study of mechanics; what appeared complex and obscure to me at first, now appears pleasing and easy to be understood. The subject is not so inexplicable as many imagine.

Arnott says: "The laws of physics have an influence so extensive, that it need not excite surprise that all classes of society are at last discovering the deep interest they have to

understand them. The lawyer finds that in many of the causes tried in his courts, an appeal must be made to physics,-as in the cases of disputed inventions: accidents in navigation, or among carriages, steam engines, and machines generally: questions arising out of the agency of winds, rains, water currents, &c. The statesman is constantly listening to discussions respecting bridges, roads, canals, docks, and mechanical industry of the nation. The clergyman finds ranged among the beauties of nature, the most intelligible and striking proofs of God's wisdom and goodness: the sailor in his ship has to deal with one of the most admirable machines in existence: soldiers, in using their projectiles, in marching where rivers have to be crossed, woods to be cut down, roads to be made, towns to be besieged, &c., are trusting chiefly to their knowledge of physics: the land-owner, in making improvements on his estates, building, draining, irrigating, road making, &c. The farmer equally in these particulars, and in all the machinery of agriculture: the manufacturer of course; the merchant who selects and distributes over the world the products of manufacturing industry-all are interested in physics; then also the man of letters, that he may not, in drawing illustrations from the material world, repeat the scientific heresies and absurdities, which have heretofore prevailed. It is for such reasons, that natural philosophy is becoming daily more and more a part of common education. In our cities now, and even in an ordinary dwelling house, men are surrounded by prodigies of mechanic art, and cannot submit to use these, as regardless of how they are produced, as a horse is regardless of how the corn falls into his manger. A general diffusion of knowledge, owing greatly to the increased commercial intercourse of nations, and therefore to the improvements in the physical departments of astronomy, navigation, &c., is changing every where the condition of man, and elevating the human character in all ranks of society."

It is my design to make this work permanently interesting and valuable, and render it subservient to the cause of domestic industry. I have raised an argument in favour of the immense importance of manufacturing establishments of every description; and I think the work is calculated to promote a patriotic attention. to the general enterprise and prosperity of the country.

The following remarks, first made in reference to Edmund Burke, are not inapplicable to one who was his great admirer :—

"Few things interest the curiosity of mankind more, or prove so instructive in themselves, as to trace the progress of a powerful mind, by the honourable exertion of its native energies, rising, in

the teeth of difficulties, from a very private condition to important standing in society, with power to influence the destiny of nations. Such a person, as sprung not from the privileged few, but from among the mass of the people, we feel to be one of ourselves. Our sympathies go along with him in his career. The young imagine that it may possibly be their own case; the old, that with a little more of the favour of fortune it might have been theirs ; and, at any rate, we are anxious to ascertain the causes of his superiority, to treasure up his experience, to profit by what he experienced to be useful, to avoid what he found to be disadvantageous. And the lesson becomes doubly instructive to that large class of society who are born to be the architects of their own fortune; when it impresses the great moral truth, that natural endowments, however great, receive their highest polish and power, their only secure reward, from diligent study-from continued, unwearied application: a plain, homely faculty, within the reach of all men, one which is certain to wear well, and whose fruits bear testimony to the industry of the possessor, and to the intrinsic value of the possession."

Should the present attempt enable the citizens of the United States to appreciate more justly the powers of one to whom this country is under very important obligations, the writer will not deem his labour misapplied. His testimony at least is impartial. He has no party purpose to answer, no influence to court, no interest to push; except it be the common interest felt by every generous mind, of rendering to a distinguished and deserving character those honours which are its due.*

The great importance of manufactures, is exciting a vast interest in England, and on the continent of Europe; this year has produced valuable publications in this new department of literature, and a series of volumes are promised by Dr. Ure, the author of the Philosophy of Manufactures. absorbing subject, which they perceive eminence among the nations of the advantages between the two nations are nicely drawn, but in view of these, England boasts that she shall be able to maintain her superiority, against France and the world.

France is alive to the all has given England a preearth; the comparative

* At Grand Cairo in Egypt, they have such a profound respect to new inventions, that whoever is the discoverer of any new art or invention is immediately clad in cloth of gold, and carried in triumph throughout the whole city, with trumpets and other musical instruments playing before him, and presented to every shop to receive the joyful acclamations and generous presents of his fellow citizens.