1698, but Watt did not commence those experiments which fitted it for universal application till 1763, and it was not perfected, or extensively applied to machinery, till

many years after. Spinning-to instance one branch of manufacture-in the early part of this century, was still done entirely by hand; and as an active weaver could keep three spinners in constant employ, he was therefore obliged to visit them frequently and urge them to exertion by extra wages, that he might complete the order of the wholesale dealer in time: in the woollen manufacture too, we are told that "some clothiers employed five hundred persons, who were not all collected in a factory, many of them carrying on their particular process of the manufacture under their own roofs. The weaver received materials from the clothier, and when he brought back his cloth, it was given to workmen engaged in another branch, and thus it passed through various hands till it was completed; the clothier being the capitalist who supplied the raw material, and sold the manufactured commodity." It will at once be seen, that a system like this must necessarily be driven into improvement by the pressure of demand, which soon outran any possibility of supply; and this cause undoubtedly forced into being that wonderful series of machinery in all departments, which has since so completely changed the face of the manufacturing world.

From this period, there is nothing in the history of England particularly interesting to us as American mechanics; no new principles have been developed there -the various classes have kept the same relative social position, and the mechanic therefore remains as he was. To be sure the operation of christian principles has brought improved political institutions, and the prince and peasant are equal in the eye of the law; but what

avails all this to the destitute and ignorant myriads who throng England's factories or toil in her mines? What avails it that they are surrounded by all the splendors of intellect, if their hard fate forbids one ray to reach their darkened minds? The lights of science, yea, and the blessings of liberty, are to them as though they had never been; alternating between half paid la bor and the degradation of the poor house, they struggle on through life, until worn out with fruitless toil they sink into the grave, with the bitter reflection that their children, and their children's children, are destined to the same mournful inheritance.

In leaving this sad picture to speak of our own country, I would premise, that any thing like a detailed history of the productive arts, as they have existed here, is quite beyond the limits as well as the intention of this address. I shall, therefore, confine myself to the brief notice of a few prominent facts, and to the reflections, which they will naturally suggest.

Before the revolution, the condition and business prospects of mechanics were exceedingly precarious, as an act of parliament might totally interdict many handicraft professions, and thereby greatly cramp the exer cise of all the rest. It is, perhaps, not generally supposed, that these professions were any more restricted then than now we are apt to imagine, from their perfect freedom at present, that they have always been equally free this, however, is a great mistake. The interdictory power was exercised more than once. For instance, by an act of the fifth year of George II, in 1732, the colonies were prohibited from exporting hats even from one colony to another, so that a hat made in Boston could not be sold in New-Hampshire or Connecticut; and this grievance was felt the more severely,

as they could, from the great plenty and cheapness of furs in those days, be manufactured much cheaper and better than in England; also because we had been in the habit of exporting them in large quantities, and at considerable profit, to many parts of Spain, Portugal, and the West Indies. But the act did not stop here: by another clause, no man who had not served a regular apprenticeship, was allowed to make a hat even for his own use; and no hatter was allowed to take more than two apprentices, nor those for less than seven years. Indeed the house of commons had previously, in 1719, expressly declared, that the introduction of manufactures into the colonies tended to lessen their dependence on Great Britain, and after the iron manufacture had sprung up amongst us, they had voted, in 1728, under pretence of encouraging the importation of American naval stores, that none in the plantations should manufacture iron wares of any kind whatever, to which the house of peers added a prohibition of every forge going by water for the making of bar or rod iron. In 1732, this manufacture had become so important, that there were in Massachusetts alone six furnaces and nineteen forges for the smelting of iron, and they fabricated all sorts of iron work for ships. In 1750, however, parliament enacted, that "no mill or other engine for slitting or rolling of iron, or any platting forge to work with a tilt hammer, or any furnace for making steel shall be erected or after such erection, continued, in any of his majesty's colonies in America."

This course of restriction continued to be the avowed policy of Great Britain up to the period of the revolution, and it was openly said in parliament, that America "must not be allowed to manufacture so much as a hob nail." It is evident from all this, that even the more indis

after times to change the face of the English govern

ment.

The reign of Elizabeth, though less sensual and brutal than that of her father, was quite as tyrannical: the people, although we can trace an evident improvement in their condition, were still depressed; and the parliament were her willing slaves. There is an almost impious strain of adulation running through their addresses, which sometimes leads us to suspect that they were playing with her well-known weakness in this respect, and "fooling her to the top of her bent." On one occasion, when the queen had annulled certain obnoxious monopolies, the history declares that "the gratitude of the commons for her message announcing this, was as if they had been returning thanks for some mighty interposition of Heaven: indeed, they declared the message to be nothing less than a gospel; like the Divinity, she was all truth, and like him, too, she performed all she promised." I notice this fact, not that it has any direct bearing upon our subject, but as an illustration of the modes of thinking then prevalent, and of the depth of degradation to which flattery and obsequiousness were content to descend.

The amount of human life sacrificed in these times, under the forms of law, is absolutely frightful; seventytwo thousand persons were hanged for various offences during the single reign of Henry the Eighth. And there was no great improvement under Elizabeth, since the reports of the magistrates record that forty persons were hanged, during the year 1596, in one county alone, besides thirty-five burnt in the hand, and thirtyseven whipped; one hundred and eighty-three others apprehended for robberies, thefts, and other felonies, were discharged, though most of them were probably

as bad as the others; and this was a fair sample of the remaining counties.

There were, also, in every county, three or four hundred able-bodied vagrants who lived by rapine, and who sometimes gathered in bands of fifty or sixty, robbing and plundering at will, and, by their numbers, so intimidating the magistrates and peaceable inhabitants, that they durst not attempt to enforce the laws against them. This dreadful state of society strongly illustrates the error of allowing the mere external brilliancy of the Elizabethan age to blind us to its true character, and proves, as has already been said, that what are called the good old times, have enjoyed a much better character than they deserved.

The gradual rise of trade and manufactures, which had been going on since Edward the Third, in 1331, invited over the first weavers of fine woollens from the Netherlands, still continued to operate as a constantly increasing stimulus to the national industry: labor, ingenuity and skill, began to be properly estimated and better rewarded; but the curse of inferiority, which barbarian ignorance had stamped upon useful industry, yet existed, and all men in trade, even the mercantile classes, were obliged in Scotland, to wear a distinctive dress, from which bright colors, and ornamental decorations, were excluded. This, however, like all errors, gradually faded away before the ever-advancing light of intelligence; and when the reformation threw its weight into the popular scale, by breaking down that blind reverence for antiquity and its usages under which oppressions and abuses best grow and strengthen, — and when, still more, it threw into the ranks of the people a large body of productive laborers, whose peculiar position under the ancient system had naturally