I have therefore made, is only an echo of public acclamation, issuing from the first secretary of the treasury of the United States.*

Hamilton recommends, "the encouragement of new inventions and discoveries at home, and the introduction into the United States of such as may have been made in other countries, particularly those which relate to machinery. This is among the most useful and unexceptionable of the aids which can be given to manufactures. The usual means of that encouragement are pecuniary rewards, and, for a time, exclusive privileges. The first must be employed according to the occasion, and the utility of the invention or discovery. For the last, so far as respects ' authors and inventors,' provision has been made by law. But it is desirable, in regard to improvements and secrets of extraordinary value, to be able to extend the same benefit to introducers, as well as authors and inventors, a policy which has been practised with advantage in other countries. If the legislature of the Union cannot do all the good that might be wished, it is at least desirable that all may be done which is practicable. Means for promoting the introduction of foreign improvements, though less efficaciously

*The spinning machines of Arkwright and others had not been long in operation in England, until they attracted the notice of traders in Scotland, who soon attempted what was then, to many, a most lucrative branch of manufacture. But it is difficult to plant a manufacture in a new country, even where there is no secret in the process; and the difficulty was still greater in this instance, where pains were taken to keep the business involved in mystery. Many, who had been employed in the works of Arkwright, left his service, pretending to a knowledge of the business, which they did not possess; and those men were eagerly sought after by new adventurers in both kingdoms. But, in most cases, those adventurers were no gainers by the acquisition. This may easily be conceived, when we consider how very little a great proportion of the people now employed in cotton mills know, and how much less they can communicate of the construction of the machinery, or the general system of the business; and, if such be the case at present, what must it have been at the period and place of which we are speaking. It is supposed that the first cotton spun by water, in Scotland, was in the island of Bute, in what had been a lint mill, and was afterwards, for some time, the corn mill of Rothsay. But this was only by way of trial, and before the completion of the larger cotton mill.

In the year 1782 a large mill, of six stories, was erected at Johnson; there is reason to suppose this was the first in Scotland that was productive of much profit to the proprietors. Originally, it was managed by people from England, but they proved of the description alluded to above; and the proprietors were indebted to the discernment, perseverance, and mechanical genius of Mr. Robert Burns, for rescuing the concern from ruin, and rendering the business a source of affluence.

than might be accomplished with more adequate authority, will form a plan intended to be submitted in the close of this report. It is customary with manufacturing nations to prohibit, under severe penalties, the exportation of implements and machines, which they have either invented or improved. There is something in the texture of cotton, which adapts it in a peculiar degree to the application of machines. The cotton mill (the Arkwright patent) invented in England, within the last twenty years, is a signal illustration of the general proposition which has just been advanced. In consequence of it all the different processes for spinning cotton are performed by means of machines, which are put in motion by water, and attended chiefly by women and children, and by a smaller number of persons, in the whole, than are necessary in the ordinary mode of spinning. This very important circumstance recommends the fabrics of cotton, in a more particular manner, to a country in which a defect of hands constitutes the greatest obstacle to success. Among the most useful and unexceptionable of the aids which can be given to manufactures, is the encouragement of new inventions and discoveries at home, and of the introduction into the United States of such as may have been made in other countries, particularly those which relate to machinery.

"Manufactories of cotton goods, not long since established at Beverly, in Massachusetts, and at Providence in the state of Rhode Island, and conducted with a perseverance corresponding with the patriotic motives which began them, seem to have overcome the first obstacles to success, producing corduroys, velverets, fustians, jeans, and other similar articles, of a quality which will bear a comparison with the like articles brought from Manchester. Other manufactories of the same material, as regular business, have also been begun at different places in the state of Connecticut, but all upon a smaller scale than those above mentioned. Some essays are also making in the printing and staining of cotton goods. There are several small establishments of this kind already on foot. The printing and staining of cotton goods is known to be a distinct business from the fabrication of them. It is one easily accomplished, and which, as it adds materially to the value of the article in its white state, and prepares it for a variety of new uses, is of importance to be promoted."

Connected with the above report, Moses Brown states :-"The public spirit of the Massachusetts legislature on this subject, as well as Pennsylvania, are to be applauded, and in justice to the latter I mention this circumstance:--The publication of their

grant to a certain person for a certain machine in this manufactory, reaching England, and coming to the knowledge of the workmen at Arkwright's mills, occasioned the young man, Slater, before mentioned, privately coming to America, and perfecting the first water-spinning in the United States that I have heard of,-though I am informed a company from England are about to erect mills near New York, for which the machinery is making at New Haven. It is an undoubted fact, authenticated to me by divers persons from England, that the king has frequently made proclamation against any tradesmen leaving the kingdom, and called on his officers for their most vigilant watch against it, as well as against any draft of machinery being carried out. This, also, should excite our attention to those advantages, which they find of so much consequence to that country."

These remarks of Moses Brown show that he was a man of enlarged and sagacious views of the importance of the cotton manufacture, and in his joining with the introducer in his endeavours to establish it, as appears also by his further remarks:-"I have been lengthy on this subject, not only because my family have engaged in it, but because I conceive from the advantage of the mills, and other machines, and the raising of the raw materials among ourselves, this country may avail itself of one of the most valuable manufactories, from which every part of the Union may be supplied. I apprehend this subject would have been laid before congress, by the united representation of the cotton manufacturers, had not some states liberally contributed to the promotion of it, particularly Massachusetts, and the incorporated company at Beverly have partaken largely of their bounty, in proportion to what they have done. Whether under an idea that the assistance they had received would have enabled them to go on, while others would be under a necessity of discontinuing the business, (as some have in fact, which they would not have done but for want of that assistance in the same government, namely, the factory at Worcester,) or whatever other reason the Beverly company may have, they have not come forward as expected. I have mentioned yarn, as the importation of that article from India has been suggested by the late manufacturing committee in Philadelphia, at which time, no good yarn had been made fit for warps. But, as the manufactory of the mill yarn (meaning the Arkwright patent) is done by children from eight to fourteen years old, it is as nearly a total saving of labour to the country as perhaps any other that can be named, and therefore no importation of the yarn ought to be admitted without a large impost, if at all-as the

secretary may be assured that mills and machines may be erected in different places, in one year, sufficient to make all the cotton yarn that may be wanted in the United States, both for warps and for knitting and weaving stockings, were encouragement given to protect the manufactures from being intercepted in the sale, by foreign importation." Such was the confidence that Moses Brown had in the skill and enterprise of Samuel Slater, in July 1791, that he believed he would cause to be erected sufficient machinery to supply the whole continent with yarn, in a year from that time. "There are also cotton and linen goods manufactured at East Greenwich; their cotton warps are made at the aforesaid mills, (meaning by Almy, Brown and Slater) the quantities manufactured by those several persons, and others, in the common way of family work, I expect will be given an account of by themselves, or collected by the mechanical and manufacturing society of this town; I therefore refer to them. For the degree of maturity our cotton manufacture has obtained, and their different qualities, I refer to the patterns of the mill yarn, and goods made from warps of it herewith sent; the prices sold at are also marked."

Some of Mr. Slater's first yarn, and some of the first cotton cloth made in America, from the same warp, was sent to the secretary of the treasury, the 15th October, 1791, and may possibly be preserved in the secretary's office, as Mr. Clay says he has some of the first yarn, which is said to be as fine as No. 40. As to the impediments under which this business laboured, Moses Brown observes," No encouragement has been given by any laws of this state, nor by any donations of any society or individuals, but wholly begun, carried on, and thus far perfected, at private expense." I have never heard of any premium or advantage conferred on Mr. Slater, for his introducing the cotton manufacture, or for his establishing it on a permanent basis; but his own money and time were pledged to the object. "The manufacture of iron into blistered steel, equal in quality to English, has been begun, within about a year, in North Providence, and is carried on by Oziel Wilkinson, who informed me he can make a good business at ten per cent. for the steel in blister, returning weight for weight with the iron manufactured; the drawing into bars of any shape, being an additional charge. I thought of speaking, also, of pig and bar iron, slitting it into nail rods, rolling into hoops and plates, making it into spades and shovels, hot and cold nails, anchors, &c. all in this district."

Little more than sixty years since, every thread used in the manufacture of cotton, wool, worsted, and flax, throughout the

world, was spun singly, by the fingers of the spinner, with the aid of that classical instrument, the domestic spinning-wheel. In 1767 an eight-handed spinster sprung from the genius of Hargreaves; and the jenny, with still increasing power, made its way into common use, in spite of all opposition. Two years afterwards, the more wonderful invention of Wyatt, which claims a much earlier origin, but which had disappeared, like a river that sinks into a subterraneous channel, and now rose again under the fortunate star of Arkwright, claimed yet higher admiration, as founded on principles of more extensive application. Five years later, the happy thought of combining the principles of these two inventions, to produce a third, much more efficient than either, struck the mind of Crompton, who, by a perfectly original contrivance, effected the union. From twenty spindles, this machine was brought, by more finished mechanism, to admit of a hundred spindles, and thus to exercise a Briarean power. Kelly relinquished the toilsome method of turning the machine by hand, and yoked to it the strength of the rapid Clyde. Watt, with the subtler and more potent agency of steam, moved an iron arm that never slackens or tires, which whirls round two thousand spindles in a single machine. Finally, to consummate the wonder, Roberts dismisses the spinner, and leaves the machine to its own infallible guidance. So that, in the year 1834, several thousand spindles may be seen in a single room, revolving with inconceivable rapidity, with no hand to urge their progress or to guide their operations,-drawing out, twisting, and winding up, as many thousand threads, with unfailing precision, and indefatigable patience and strength; a scene as magical to the eye which is not familiarised with it, as the effects have beeen marvelous in augmenting the wealth and population of the country. If the thought should cross any mind, that, after all, the so much vaunted genius of our mechanics has been expended in the insignificant object of enabling men better to pick out, arrange, and twist together the fibres of a vegetable wool,— that it is for the performance of this minute operation that so many energies have been exhausted, so much capital employed, such stupendous structures reared, and so vast a population trained up; we reply-an object is not insignificant because the operation by which it is effected is minute. The first want of men in this life, after food, is clothing; and as this art enables them to supply it far more easily and cheaply than the old methods of manufacturing, and to bring cloths of great elegance and durability within the use of the humble classes, it is an art whose utility is inferior only to that of agriculture. It contributes directly, and most