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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. France is alive to the all absorbing subject, which they perceive has given England a preeminence among the nations of the earth; the comparative 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.

* 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.

Will any one, with the whole of this absorbing topic before him, doubt, whether England could have advanced, and gained ground against the nations on the continent which had long been superior to her, without the cherishing protection and patronage which has been carefully granted to every branch of her trade and commerce? Those who are well informed on this subject, can have no remaining doubts. Home manufactures, in order to their existence and perfection, must be protected-either by prohibitory duties, or by a preference and patronage of the people; the latter mode is the most effectual and the most advisable, in the present state of American finances. And what American, who feels the importance attached to the growing interest of the United States, who will not exercise patriotism enough, so far to prefer our own manufactures as to render us entirely independent of Europe in any emergency? Are we for ever to be the dupes of European influence, and the fantastic vagaries of their customs and fashions, ever varying, for the express purpose of making merchandise of our weakness and vanity, and the faculty of imitation? Let us rather assume a national character, a national costume. If we are to be guided by fashion, let that fashion be American; the produce of American soil, of American invention and skill, and of American industry and enterprise. The day is past and gone, when any of our citizens will think it best to have our work-shops in Europe; indeed America will soon learn the extent of her resources to be such, as to render her independent of the old world, and thus establish our independence on a basis that can neither be shaken by the implements of war, nor by the stratagems of peace. For it is now avowed that those strifes are in full operation, aiming at universal conquest. A conquest made of our resources, rendering our labour and skill and raw materials ineffective, would effectually impoverish and ruin us as a people, making us the dupes of superior energy and capital. America is already alive to those circumstances, but she must never be off her watch-tower-for the enemy is ever on the alert, making a breach at every weak point, and taking advantage of our inadvertence and inactivity.

But if Americans make good use of their natural capabilities, and take advantage of their free institutions, they may cope with the whole world, in deriving the benefits of skill and enterprise; and thus establish on a permanent basis, such establishments of industry and wealth as shall render America independent of the world.

"A machine, receiving at different times and from many hands,

new combinations and improvements, and becoming at last of signal benefit to mankind, may be compared to a rivulet swelled in its course by tributary streams, until it rolls along, a majestic river, enriching in its progress provinces and kingdoms. In retracing the current, too, from where it mingles with the ocean, the pretensions of even ample subsidiary streams are merged in our admiration of the master flood, glorying, as it were, in its expansion. But as we continue to ascend, those waters which, nearer the sea, would have been disregarded as unimportant, begin to rival in magnitude, and divide our attention with, the parent stream; until at length, on our approaching the fountains of the river, it appears trickling from the rock, or oozing from among the flowers of the valley. So also, in developing the rise of a machine, a coarse instrument, or a toy, may be recognised as the germ of that production of mechanical genius, whose power and usefulness have stimulated our curiosity to mark its changes, and to trace its origin. And the same feeling of reverential gratitude, which attached holiness to the spots whence mighty rivers sprung, also clothed with divinity, and raised altars in honour of, the inventors of the saw, the plough, the potter's wheel, and the loom. To those who are familiar with modern machinery, the construction of these implements may appear to have conferred but slight claim to the reverence in which their authors were held in ancient times, yet, artless as they seem, their use first raised man above the beasts of the field; and, by incalculably diminishing the sum of human labour, added equally to the power and enjoyment of the barbarous tribes of those ages to which their discovery is referred. In their rudest form, they are nearly all the mechanical aids that were necessary for the wants of nations, of shepherds and of husbandmen. For refinement, in the formation of even these simple contrivances, or for the invention and use of more complex mechanism, we must look to communities that have made considerable advances in the career of civilisation; to those regions where men, congregating in large masses, create numerous artificial wants, and, by this peculiarity in their social position, excite the natural rivalry of individuals to devise expedients to remove them. Accordingly it is found, that the dense population of some eastern countries, had there produced a state of society eminently calculated to call forth the resources of inventive power. From a remote period, the great wealth of the Egyptians, particularly, had generated a taste for luxurious magnificence, which that people early displayed in the erection of colossal and sumptuous buildings. The remains of their vast pyramids, temples, and

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