Author signature. William S. Adams.
William Wilberforce.
William Wilberforce, whose name a heartfelt, enlightened, and unwearied philanthropy, directing talents of the highest order, has enrolled among those of the most illustrious benefactors of mankind, was born August 24, 1759, in Hull, England, where his ancestors had been long and successfully engaged in trade. By his father's death he was left an orphan at an early age. He received the chief part of his education at the grammar school of Pockington, in Yorkshire, and at St. John's College, Cambridge, of which he became a fellow-commoner about 1776 or 1777. When just of age, and apparently before taking his B.A. degree, he was returned for his native town at the general election of 1780. In 1784 he was returned again, but being also chosen member for Yorkshire he elected to sit for that great county, which he continued to represent until the year 1812, during six successive Parliaments. From 1812 to 1825, when he retired from Parliament, he was returned by Lord Calthorpe for the borough of Bramber. His politics were in general those of Mr. Pitt's party, and his first prominent appearance was in 1783, in opposition to Mr. Fox's India Bill. In 1786 he introduced and carried through the Commons a bill for the amendment of the criminal code, which was roughly handled by the Lord Chancellor, Thurlow, and rejected in the House of Lords without a division.
At the time when Mr. Wilberforce was rising into manhood, the inquiry into the slave trade had engaged in a slight degree the attention of the public. To the Quakers belongs the high honor of having taken the lead in denouncing that unjust and unchristian traffic. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, during the life of Penn, the Quakers of Pennsylvania passed a censure upon it, and from time to time the Society of Friends expressed their disapprobation of the deportation of negroes, until, in 1761, they completed their good work by a resolution to disown all such as continued to be engaged in it. Occasionally the question was brought before magistrates, whether a slave became entitled to his liberty upon landing in England. In 1765 Granville Sharp came forward as the protector of a negro, who, having been abandoned and cast upon the world indisease and misery by his owner, was healed and assisted through the charity of Mr. Sharp's brother. Recovering his value with his health, he was claimed and seized by his master, and would have been shipped to the colonies, as many Africans were, but for the prompt and resolute interference of Mr. Sharp. In several similar cases the same gentleman came forward successfully; but the general question was not determined, or even argued, until 1772, when the celebrated case of the negro Somerset was brought before the Court of King's Bench, which adjudged, after a deliberate hearing, that in England the right of the master over the slave could not be maintained. The general question was afterward, in 1778, decided still more absolutely by the Scotch Courts, in the case of Wedderburnvs.Knight. In 1783 an event occurred well qualified to rouse the feelings of the nation, and call its attention to the atrocities of which the slave trade was the cause and pretext. An action was brought by certain underwriters against the owners of the ship Zong, on the ground that the captain had caused 132 weak, sickly slaves to be thrown overboard for the purpose of claiming their value, for which the plaintiffs would not have been liable if the cargo had died a natural death. The fact of the drowning was admitted, and defended on the plea that want of water had rendered it necessary, though it appeared that the crew had not been put upon short allowance. It now seems incredible that no criminal proceeding should have been instituted against the perpetrators of this wholesale murder.
In 1785 the Vice-chancellor of Cambridge proposed as the subject for the Bachelor's Prize Essay, the question, Is it allowable to enslave men without their consent? Thomas Clarkson, who had gained the prize in the preceding year, again became a candidate. Conceiving that the thesis, though couched in general terms, had an especial reference to the African slave trade, he went to London to make inquiries on the subject. Investigation brought under his view a mass of cruelties and abominations which engrossed his thoughts and shocked his imagination. By night and day they haunted him; and he has described in lively colors the intense pain which this composition, undertaken solely in the spirit of honorable rivalry, inflicted on him. He gained the prize, but found it impossible to discard the subject from his thoughts. In the succeeding autumn, after great struggles of mind, he resolved to give up his plan for entering the Church, and devoted time, health, and substance (to use his own words) to "seeing these calamities to an end." In sketching the progress of this great measure, the name of Wilberforce alone will be presented to view; and it is our duty, therefore, in the first place, to make honorable mention of him who first roused Wilberforce in the cause, and whose athletic vigor and indomitable perseverance surmounted danger, difficulties, fatigues, and discouragements which few men could have endured, in the first great object of collecting evidence of the cruelties habitually perpetrated in the slave trade.
In the first stage of his proceedings, Mr. Clarkson, in the course of his application to members of Parliament, called on Mr. Wilberforce, who stated that "the subject had often employed his thoughts and was near his heart." He inquiredinto the authorities for the statements laid before him, and became not only convinced of, but impressed with, the paramount duty of abolishing so hateful a traffic. Occasional meetings of those who were alike interested were held at his house; and in May, 1787, a committee was formed, of which Wilberforce became the Parliamentary leader. Early in 1788 he gave notice of his intention to bring the subject before the House; but, owing to his severe indisposition, that task was ultimately undertaken by Mr. Pitt, who moved and carried a resolution, pledging the House in the ensuing session to enter on the consideration of the subject. Accordingly, May 12, 1789, Mr. Wilberforce moved a series of resolutions, founded on a report of the Privy Council, exposing the iniquity and cruelty of the traffic in slaves, the mortality which it occasioned among white as well as black men, and the neglect of health and morals by which the natural increase of the race in the West India islands was checked; and concluding with a declaration that if the causes by which that increase was checked were removed, no considerable inconvenience would result from discontinuing the importation of African slaves. Burke, Pitt, and Fox supported the resolutions. Mr. Wilberforce's speech was distinguished by eloquence and earnestness, and by its unanswerable appeals to the first principles of justice and religion. The consideration of the subject was ultimately adjourned to the following session. In that, and in two subsequent sessions, the motions were renewed; and the effect of pressing such a subject upon the attention of the country was to open the eyes of many who would willingly have kept them closed, yet could not deny the existence of the evils so forced on their view. In 1792 Mr. Wilberforce's motion for the abolition of the slave trade was met by a proposal to insert in it the word "gradually;" and, in pursuance of the same policy, Mr. Dundas introduced a bill to provide for its discontinuance in 1800. The date was altered to 1796, and in that state the bill passed the Commons, but was stopped in the Upper House by a proposal to hear evidence upon it. Mr. Wilberforce annually renewed his efforts, and brought every new argument to bear upon the question which new discoveries, or the events of the times, produced. In 1799 the friends of the measure resolved on letting it repose for awhile, and for five years Mr. Wilberforce contented himself with moving for certain papers; but he took an opportunity of assuring the House that he had not grown cool in the cause, and that he would renew the discussion in a future session. On May 30, 1804, he once more moved for leave to bring in his bill for the abolition of the slave trade, in a speech of great eloquence and effect. He took the opportunity of making a powerful appeal to the Irish members, before whom, in consequence of the Union, this question was now for the first time brought, and the greater part of whom supported it. The decision showed a majority of 124 to 49 in his favor; and the bill was carried through the Commons, but was again postponed in the House of Lords. In 1805 he renewed his motion; but on this occasion it was lost in the Commons by over-security among the friends of the measure. But when Mr. Fox and Lord Granville took office in 1806, the abolition was brought forward by the ministers, most of whom supported it, though it was notmade a government question in consequence of several members of the cabinet opposing it. The attorney-general (Sir A. Pigott) brought in a bill, which was passed into a law, prohibiting the slave trade in the conquered colonies, and excluding British subjects from engaging in the foreign slave trade; and Mr. Fox at Mr. Wilberforce's special request, introduced a resolution pledging the House to take the earliest measures for effectually abolishing the whole slave trade. This resolution was carried by a majority of 114 to 15; and January 2, 1807, Lord Granville brought forward, in the House of Lords, a bill for the abolition of the slave trade, which passed safely through both Houses of Parliament. As, however, the king was believed to be unfriendly to the measure, some alarm was felt by its friends, lest its fate might still be affected by the dismissal of the ministers, which had been determined upon. Those fears were groundless; for though they received orders to deliver up the seals of their offices on March 25th, the royal assent was given by commission by the Lord Chancellor Erskine on the same day; and thus the last act of the administration was to conclude a contest, maintained by prejudice and interest during twenty years, for the support of what Mr. Pitt denominated "the greatest practical evil that ever afflicted the human race."
Among other testimonies to Mr. Wilberforce's merits, we are not inclined to omit that of Sir James Mackintosh, who in his journal, May 23, 1808, speaks thus of Wilberforce on the "Abolition." This refers to a pamphlet on the slave trade which Mr. Wilberforce had published in 1806: "Almost as much enchanted by Mr. Wilberforce's book as by his conduct. He is the very model of a reformer. Ardent without turbulence, mild without timidity or coolness; neither yielding to difficulties nor disturbed or exasperated by them; patient and meek yet intrepid; persisting for twenty years through good report and evil report; just and charitable even to his most malignant enemies; unwearied in every experiment to disarm the prejudices of his more rational and disinterested opponents, and supporting the zeal, without dangerously exciting the passions of his adherents."
The rest of Mr. Wilberforce's parliamentary conduct was consistent with his behavior on this question. In debates chiefly political he rarely took a forward part; but where religion and morals were directly concerned, points on which few cared to interfere, and where a leader was wanted, he never shrunk from the advocacy of his opinions. He was a supporter of Catholic emancipation and parliamentary reform; he condemned the encouragement of gambling, in the shape of lotteries established by government; he insisted on the cruelty of employing boys of tender age as chimney-sweepers; he attempted to procure a legislative enactment against duelling, after the hostile meeting between Pitt and Tierney; and on the renewal of the East India Company's charter in 1816, he gave his zealous support to the propagation of Christianity in Hindostan, in opposition to those who, as has been more recently done in the West Indies, represented the employment of missionaries to be inconsistent with the preservation of the British empire. It is encouraging to observe that, with the exception of the onelevelled against duelling, all these measures, however violently opposed and unfairly censured, have been carried in a more or less perfect form.
As an author, Mr. Wilberforce's claim to notice is chiefly derived from his treatise entitled "A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professing Christians in the Higher and Middle Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity." The object of it was to show that the standard of life generally adopted by those classes not only fell short of, but was inconsistent with, the doctrines of the gospel. It has justly been applauded as a work of no common courage, not from the asperity of its censures, for it breathes throughout a spirit of gentleness and love, but on the joint consideration of the unpopularity of the subject and the writer's position. The Bishop of Calcutta, in his introductory essay, justly observes that "the author, in attempting it, risked everything dear to a public man and a politician as such, consideration, weight, ambition, reputation." And Scott, the divine, one of the most fearless and ardent of men, viewed the matter in the same light; for he wrote: "Taken in all its probable effects, I do sincerely think such a stand for vital Christianity has not been made in my memory. He has come out beyond my expectations." Of a work so generally known we shall not describe the tendency more at large. It is said to have gone through about twenty editions in Britain, since the publication in 1797, and more in America; and to have been translated into most European languages.
In the discharge of his parliamentary duties, Mr. Wilberforce was punctual and active beyond his apparent strength; and those who further recollect his diligent attendance on a vast variety of public meetings and committees connected with religious and charitable purposes, will wonder how a frame naturally weak should so long have endured the wear of such exertion. In 1788, when his illness was a matter of deep concern to the Abolitionists, Dr. Warren said that he had not stamina to last a fortnight. No doubt his bodily powers were greatly aided by the placid and happy frame of mind which he habitually enjoyed; but it is important to relate his own opinion, as delivered by an ear-witness, on the physical benefits which he derived from a strict abstinence from temporal affairs on Sundays: "I have often heard him assert that he never could have sustained the labor and stretch of mind required in his early political life, if it had not been for the rest of his Sabbath; and that he could name several of his contemporaries in the vortex of political cares, whose minds had actually given way under the stress of intellectual labor so as to bring on a premature death or the still more dreadful catastrophe of insanity and suicide, who, humanly speaking, might have been preserved in health, if they would but conscientiously have observed the Sabbath."
In 1797 Mr. Wilberforce married Miss Spooner, daughter of an eminent banker at Birmingham. Four sons survived him. He died, after a gradual decline, July 29, 1833, in Cadogan Place. He directed that his funeral should be conducted without the smallest pomp; but his orders were disregarded, in compliance with a memorial addressed to his relatives by many of the most distinguishedmen of all parties, and couched in the following terms: "We, the undersigned Members of both Houses of Parliament, being anxious, upon public grounds, to show our respect for the memory of the late William Wilberforce, and being also satisfied that public honors can never be more fitly bestowed than upon such benefactors of mankind, earnestly request that he may be buried in Westminster Abbey, and that we and others who may agree with us in these sentiments may have permission to attend his funeral." The attendance of both Houses was numerous. Mr. Wilberforce was interred within a few yards of his great contemporaries, Pitt, Fox, and Canning.[Back to Contents]
Sir Humphry Davy.
The boyhood of Davy has been sketched in some of the most fascinating pieces of biography ever written: the annals of science do not furnish us with any record that equals the school-days and self-education of the boy, Humphry, in popular interest; and, unlike many bright mornings, this commencement in a few years led to a brilliant meridian, and, by a succession of discoveries, accomplished more in relation to change of theory and extension of science, than in the most ardent and ambitious moments of youth he could either hope to effect or imagine possible.
Humphry Davy was born at Penzance, in 1778; was a healthy, strong, and active child, and could speak fluently before he was two years old; copied engravings before he learned to write, and could recite part of the "Pilgrim's Progress" before he could well read it. At the age of five years, he could gain a good account of the contents of a book while turning over the leaves; and he retained this remarkable faculty through life. He excelled in telling stories to his playmates; loved fishing, and collecting, and painting birds and fishes; he had his own little garden; and recorded his impressions of romantic scenery in verse of no ordinary merit. To his self-education, however, he owed almost everything. He studied with intensity mathematics,metaphysics, and physiology; before he was nineteen he began to study chemistry, and in four months proposed a new hypothesis on heat and light, to which he won over the experienced Dr. Beddoes. With his associate, Gregory Watt (son of the celebrated James Watt) he collected specimens of rocks and minerals. He made considerable progress in medicine; he experimented zealously, especially on the effects of the gases in respiration; at the age of twenty-one he had breathed nitrous oxide, and nearly lost his life from breathing carburetted hydrogen. Next year he commenced the galvanic experiments which led to some of his greatest discoveries. In 1802 he began his brilliant scientific career at the Royal Institution, where he remained till 1812; here he constructed his great voltaic battery of 2,000 double plates of copper and zinc, and commenced the mineralogical collection now in the Museum. His lectures were often attended by one thousand persons: his youth, his simplicity, his natural eloquence, his chemical knowledge, his happy illustrations and well-conducted experiments, and the auspicious state of science, insured Davy great and instant success.
The enthusiastic admiration with which he was hailed can hardly be imagined now. Not only men of the highest rank—men of science, men of letters, and men of trade—but women of fashion and blue-stockings, old and young, pressed into the theatre of the Institution to cover him with applause. His greatest labors were his discovery of the decomposition of the fixed alkalies, and the re-establishment of the simple nature of chlorine; his other researches were the investigation of astringent vegetables in connection with the art of tanning; the analysis of rocks and minerals in connection with geology; the comprehensive subject of agricultural chemistry; and galvanism and electro-chemical science. He was also an early, but unsuccessful, experimenter in the photographic art.
Of the lazy conservative spirit and ludicrous indolence in science, which at this time attempted to hoodwink the public, a quaint instance is recorded of a worthy professor of chemistry at Aberdeen. He had allowed some years to pass since Davy's brilliant discovery of potassium and its congeneric metals, without a word about them in his lectures. At length the learned doctor was concussed by his colleagues on the subject, and he condescended to notice it. "Both potash and soda are now said to be metallic oxides," said he; "the oxides, in fact, of two metals, called potassium and sodium by the discoverer of them, one Davy, in London, a verra troublesome person in chemistry."
Turn we, however, to the brightest event in our chemical philosopher's career. By his unrivalled series of practical discoveries, Davy acquired such a reputation for success among his countrymen, that his aid was invoked on every great occasion. The properties of fire-damp, or carburetted hydrogen, in coal-mines had already been ascertained by Dr. Henry. When this gas is mingled in certain proportions with atmospheric air, it forms a mixture which kindles upon the contact of a lighted candle, and often explodes with tremendous violence, killing the men and horses, and projecting much of the contents of the mine through the shafts or apertures like an enormous piece of artillery. At this time, a detonation offire-damp occurred within a coal-mine in the north of England, so dreadful that it destroyed more than a hundred miners. A committee of the proprietors besought our chemist to provide a method of preparing for such tremendous visitations; and he did it. He tells us that he first turned his attention particularly to the subject in 1815; but he must have been prepared for it by the researches of his early years. Still, there appeared little hope of finding an efficacious remedy. The resources of modern mechanical science had been fully applied in ventilation. The comparative lightness of fire-damp was well understood; every precaution was taken to preserve the communications open; and the currents of air were promoted or occasioned, not only by furnaces, but likewise by air-pumps and steam apparatus. We may here mention that, for giving light to the coal-miner or pitman, where the fire-damp was apprehended, the primitive contrivance was a steel-mill, the light of which was produced by contact of a flint with the edge of a wheel kept in rapid motion. A "safety-lamp" had already, in 1813, been constructed by Dr. Clanny, the principle of which was forcing in air through water by bellows; but the machine was ponderous and complicated, and required a boy to work it. M. Humboldt had previously, in 1796, constructed a lamp for mines upon the same principle as that of Dr. Clanny.
Davy, having conceived that flame and explosion may be regulated and arrested, began a minute chemical examination of fire-damp. He found that carburetted-hydrogen gas, even when mixed with fourteen times its bulk of atmospheric air, was still explosive. He ascertained that explosions of inflammable gases were incapable of being passed through long, narrow metallic tubes; and that this principle of security was still obtained by diminishing their length and diameter at the same time, and likewise diminishing their length and increasing their number, so that a great number of small apertures would not pass explosion when their depth was equal to their diameter. This fact led to trials upon sieves of wire-gauze; he found that if a piece of wire-gauze was held over the flame of a lamp, or coal-gas, it prevented the flame from passing; and he ascertained that a flame confined in a cylinder of very fine wire-gauze did not explode even in a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen, but that the gases burned in it with great vivacity. These experiments served as the basis of the safety-lamp.
Sir Humphry Davy presented his first communication respecting his discovery of the safety-lamp to the Royal Society in 1815. This was followed by a series of papers, crowned by that read on January 11, 1816, when the principle of the safety-lamp was announced, and Sir Humphry presented to the society a model made by his own hands, which is to this day preserved in the collection of the Royal Society at Burlington House.
There have been several modifications of the safety-lamp, and the merit of the discovery has been claimed by others, among whom was Mr. George Stephenson; but the question was set at rest in 1817 by an examination, attested by Sir Joseph Banks, P.R.S., Mr. Brande, Mr. Hatchett, and Dr. Wollaston, and awarding the independent merit to Davy.
It should be explained that Stephenson's lamp was formed on the principle ofadmitting the fire-damp by narrow tubes, and "in such small detached portions that it would be consumed by combustion." The two lamps were doubtless distinct inventions; though Davy, in all justice, appears to be entitled to precedence, not only in point of date, but as regards the long chain of inductive reasoning concerning the nature of flame by which his result was arrived at.
Meanwhile, the Report by the Parliamentary Committee "cannot admit that the experiments (made with the lamp) have any tendency to detract from the character of Sir Humphry Davy, or to disparage the fair value placed by himself upon his invention. The improvements are probably those which longer life and additional facts would have induced him to contemplate as desirable, and of which, had he not been the inventor, he might have become the patron."
"I value it," Davy used to say, with the kindliest exultation, "more than anything I ever did; it was the result of a great deal of investigation and labor; but if my directions be attended to, it will save the lives of thousands of poor men."
The principle of the invention may be thus summed up: In the safety-lamp, the mixture of the fire-damp and atmospheric air within the cage of wire-gauze explodes upon coming in contact with the flame; but the combustion cannot pass through the wire-gauze; and being there imprisoned, cannot impart to the explosive atmosphere of the mine any of its force. This effect has been attributed to the cooling influence of the metal; but, since the wires may be brought to a degree of heat but little below redness without igniting the fire-damp, this does not appear to be the cause.
Professor Playfair has elegantly characterized the safety-lamp of Davy as a present from philosophy to the arts, a discovery in no degree the effect of accident or chance, but the result of patient and enlightened research, and strongly exemplifying the great use of an immediate and constant appeal to experiment. After characterizing the invention as theshutting-up in a net of the most slender textureof a most violent and irresistible force, and a power that in its tremendous effects seems to emulate the lightning and the earthquake, Professor Playfair thus concludes: "When to this we add the beneficial consequences, and the saving of the lives of men, and consider that the effects are to remain as long as coal continues to be dug from the bowels of the earth, it may be fairly said that there is hardly in the whole compass of art or science a single invention of which one would rather wish to be the author.... This," says Professor Playfair, "is exactly such a case as we should choose to place before Bacon, were he to revisit the earth; in order to give him, in a small compass, an idea of the advancement which philosophy has made since the time when he had pointed out to her the route which she ought to pursue."
Honors were showered upon Davy. He received from the Royal Society the Copley, Royal, and Rumford Medals, and several times delivered the Bakerian Lecture. He also received Napoleon's prize for the advancement of galvanic researches from the French Institute. The invention of the safety-lamp brought him the public gratitude of the united colliers of Whitehaven, of the coal proprietors of the north of England, of the grand jury of Durham, of the Chamberof Commerce at Mons, of the coal-miners of Flanders, and, above all, of the coal-owners of the Wear and the Tyne, who presented him (it was his own choice) with a dinner-service of silver worth £2,500. On the same occasion, Alexander, the Emperor of all the Russias, sent him a vase, with a letter of commendation. In 1817, he was elected to the dignity of an associate of the Institute of France; next year, at the age of forty, he was created a baronet.
Davy's discoveries form a remarkable epoch in the history of the Royal Society during the early part of this century; and from 1821 to 1829 almost every volume of theTransactionscontains a communication by him. He was president of the Royal Society from 1820 to 1827.
Fond of travel, geology, and sport, Davy visited, for the purpose of mineralogy and angling, almost every county of England and Wales. He was provided with a portable laboratory, that he might experiment when he chose, as well as fish and shoot. In 1827, upon resigning the presidency of the Royal Society, he retired to the continent; in 1829, at Geneva, his palsy-stricken body returned to the dust. They buried him at Geneva, where a simple monument stands at the head of the hospitable grave. There is a tablet to his memory in Westminster Abbey; there is a monument at Penzance; and his widow founded a memorial chemical prize in the University of Geneva. His public services of plate, his imperial vases, his foreign prizes, his royal medals, shall be handed down with triumph to his collateral posterity as trophies won from the depths of nescience; but his work, designed by his own genius, executed by his own hand, tracery and all, and every single stone signalized by his own private mark, indelible, characteristic, and inimitable—his work is the only record of his name. How deeply are its foundations rooted in space, and how lasting its materials for time![Back to Contents]
"Seras lo que debes ser,Y sino, no seras nada."San Martin.
San Martin, the ideal liberator of South America from the long and tyrannical rule of Spanish viceroys, was one of the most remarkable men of his own or of any age. From a moral point of view he stands in the first rank of the world's heroes. "He was not a man," said a student of South American history, "he was a mission." Cincinnatus, after serving the state, returned to the plough, and Washington to the retirement of Mt. Vernon; but San Martin for the peace of his country wentinto voluntary exile. His country crowned him dead and made for his dead body a tomb of Peace, surrounded by the marble angels of the arts of human progress, more beautiful in its meaning than any tomb on the Appian Way, and one of the most wonderful memorials on earth.
The Battle of Maipú, of which San Martin was the victor, completed the emancipation of South America, and made the achievements of Bolivar easy in the Northern Andes. Said the hero of Maipú—and what words of man under the circumstances ever equalled the declaration in moral sublimity!—
"The presence of a fortunate general, however disinterested he may be, is dangerous to a newly founded state. I have achieved the independence of Peru: I have ceased to be a public man!" He died at Boulogne, France, in poverty, after nearly thirty years of exiled and fameless life. His career seems like that of some hero of fiction, such as the imagination of a Plato, a Bacon, or a Sir Thomas More might create for an Utopia. He is the one perfectly unselfish man in history, and his fame has grown steadily in Spanish America, since Argentina built a tomb-palace for his remains, and decreed for him one of the most splendid funerals ever known to the Western World.
General Don Joachim de la Pezuela, the last Spanish ruler of Peru, was the forty-fourth viceroy from Pizarro. "The Indians," he said, "love the memory of the Incas—the country is ready to rise." The banner of Argentina was putting to flight the condors of the Andes, and the last viceroy saw in its advance the end of Spain in the New World.
The Argentine hero who had created the army of the Andes for universal liberty was San Martin. He was born on February 25, 1778, at Yapeyu, in Misiones. His father was a South American officer under the last rule of the viceroys. The family removed to Spain in his boyhood, and he became for two years a pupil in the Seminary of Nobles, at Madrid. At the age of twelve he became a cadet, wearing a uniform of blue and white, which he made in manhood the colors of South American emancipation.
He fought in the war against the Moors, and in the campaign against France, in 1793. In 1800 he took part in the so-called "War of the Oranges against Portugal."
In the early part of the nineteenth century there began to be formed in Spain secret societies for the purpose of advancing the cause of liberty and human progress. One of these associations, calledCaballeros Racionales, became very influential, and corresponded with the society of the Grand Reunion of America (Gran Reunion Americana) of London. This society was pledged "to recognize no government in America as legitimate unless it was elected by the free will of the people." San Martin joined this society. The London society was established by Miranda, the Spanish patriot, a friend of Bolivar, by whose inspirations San Martin became a disciple of liberty, and whose dreams he fulfilled long after the patriot was dead.
San Martin won honors and a medal in the Spanish resistance to the victorious eagles of Napoleon. In that campaign he fought under a banner of theSun, having this motto in Latin: "We bear this aloft dispersing the clouds." He made this banner the flag of the army of the Andes.
In 1812, San Martin, as a disciple of the principles of the Spanish apostle of liberty, Miranda, returned to South America, and in March went to Buenos Ayres, and offered his sword to the Argentine patriots for the cause of independence. The country was in revolution against the Spanish rule. San Martin was not only an American, but a Creole; he was unselfish, truthful, the soul of honor, and of all men in the world the one that would seem best fitted to lead the cause of the South American patriots. He was destined to become "the greatest of the Creoles of the New World."
Soon after the arrival of San Martin in Buenos Ayres he married Doña Remedios Esculada, and Mercedes, a daughter of this marriage, shared with him his voluntary exile after the conquest of Peru.
Appointed at once to a high military position under the Argentine Government, he conceived the plan of creating an army of the Andes, of crossing the Cordillera, and of driving the Spaniards from Chile.
Mendoza, with which Buenos Ayres is now connected by railroad, lies on an elevation under the snowy Cordilleras. San Martin made his military camp here. On January 17, 1817, he began his march up the Andes, one of the most perilous achievements of modern warfare. The summit of the Uspallata Pass, over which the army was to climb, is 12,500 feet above the level of the sea, or 4,000 feet higher than the Pass of St. Bernard.
The 17th, on which the army set forth, was a high holiday in Mendoza. The plaza was gay with banners, and the streets with patriotic decorations. The ladies of the city presented an embroidered flag to San Martin. The general, above whose head gleamed the snowy heights of the Andes, ascended a platform in the plaza, and waved this flag over his head, and shouted:
"Soldiers, behold the first flag of independence!"
There arose a great shout of "Viva la Patria!"
"Soldiers, swear to sustain it."
"We swear," answered the army, as one man.
Salvos of musketry and artillery followed. Mitre, in his "Life of San Martin," as presented to us in the condensed translation of Pilling, eloquently says that this flag rose "for the redemption of one-half of South America, passed the Cordilleras, waved in triumph along the Pacific coast, floated over the foundations of two new republics, aided in the liberation of another, and after sixty-four years served as a funeral pall to the body of the hero, who thus delivered it to the care of the immortal Army of the Andes."
The mountains rose above the departing army, piercing the sky in the fading day. Up they climbed, putting to flight the condors. The men suffered greatly from the rarefaction of the air. Even many of the animals of the expedition perished. Out of 9,261 mules, only 4,300 ever reached Chile.
"What spoils my sleep," said San Martin, on surveying the Andes at the outset of the expedition, "is not the strength of the enemy, but how to pass thoseimmense mountains." He might well say that, for before him gleamed peaks 21,000 feet high.
The army, with all its sufferings, triumphantly crossed the lower passes of the Cordilleras, and entered Chile. This march decided the fate of South America.
The army encamped upon the Sierra of Chacubuco, from the summit of which the whole of the magnificent country could be seen. Here rose the flag of liberation. The flower of the Spanish army, inferior in numbers, was near. On February 12th a battle was fought, and the royalists were defeated with a loss of 500 men killed, 600 taken prisoners, and all of their artillery.
The way was now open to Santiago, the capital. The army entered the city amid the acclamations of the people. The Chilian assembly met and offered San Martin the office of governor, with dictatorial power. But San Martin was not fighting for power, or honor, but for the liberties of his countrymen, and he nobly declined the office.
The guns of Buenos Ayres roared, and the city was turned into a festival when the news of the triumph of the army of the Andes reached the coast. The Argentine Government offered to bestow on San Martin its highest honors, but the latter declined them, lest his work should be retarded and his motives of life should be misconstrued. It awarded to his daughter a life pension, which he devoted to her education.
Santiago offered to him 10,000 ounces of gold. He refused the splendid purse which he had so well won, but recommended that the money be used for the cause of popular education in the form of a public library.
Chile and Argentina now formed an alliance in defence of their liberties.
But the royal army was gathering force and unity. On March 31st, it numbered 5,500 men, and was prepared to make a final stand against the army of liberation.
There is a river in Chile which divides the country, named the Maipó, or Maipú. On its banks the royal army encamped on the first days of April, 1818. The patriot army was close at hand, and each army felt that the battle to follow would decide the fate of the movement for the independence of the South American empire.
It is April 5, 1818. The royal army is ready for action, and the patriots occupy the heights of Loma Blanca, overlooking the plains of the Maipú.
"Do not await a charge to-day," ordered San Martin; "but chargealways within fifty paces!"
At the beginning of the action he said,
"I take the sun to witness that the day is ours."
Just then the sun, which had been clouded, shone from the heavens.
The royal army was defeated. That night of May 5th covered their flight, and the War of Independence was won.
San Martin began now to plan the liberation of Peru, and to create a navy for the purpose of commanding the ports of the golden mountains and rich plateaus of the incarial realms.
In August, 1820, he had gathered a patriot force of 4,500 men at Valparaiso, and was ready to embark for the conquest by sea. The army was composed of Argentines and Chilians. A former expedition had made the way of victory clear to the patriots. The fleet left Valparaiso August 21, 1820. The army landed in Peru and began operations near Lima.
San Martin began his Chilian campaign by the liberation of the slaves, whom he afterward found trusty soldiers. He began the Peruvian war by issuing a most noble manifesto to his countrymen, in which he said: "Ever since I came back to my native land, the independence of Peru has been present in my mind."
And again he grandly announced his future policy in nearly these words: "From the time that a government is established by the people of Peru, the army of the Andes will obey its orders."
The army of liberation was as successful in Peru as in Chile. The empire of the viceroys crumbled and fell. Amid the roar of cannon, the shouts of the people, and strewing of flowers, the independence of Peru was proclaimed on July 20, 1821, in the great square of Lima. San Martin, as in Chile, was offered the supreme authority under the title of the Protector of Peru. He made use of the office merely for the pacification of the country. He convened the first Congress in Peru, and to the new government he addressed the words, or words like those, that we have quoted at the beginning of this article. He saw that Bolivar was the man to complete the liberation and bring about the unity of South America. The cause was all to him: he was nothing.
To Bolivar he wrote: "My decision is irrevocable. I have convened the first Congress of Peru. The day of its installation I shall leave for Chile, convinced that my presence is the only obstacle that prevents you from coming to Peru."
He sent to Bolivar a parting gift, saying, "Receive this memento from the first of your admirers, and with my desire that you have the glory of finishing the war for the independence of South America."
The history of chivalry has no match for the character of San Martin. Bolivar united patriotism and vanity; San Martin's glory was self-abnegation. At a banquet where the two were present, Bolivar once offered the following toast: "To the two greatest men in South America—San Martin andmyself."
San Martin followed with his toast. "To the speedy end of the war; to the establishment of the republics, and to the health of the Liberator of Colombia!"
The two toasts were photographs. Time is lifting the character of San Martin into its true place among glorious men. He was a man who fought for peace. His life fulfilled his own motto: "Thou shalt be what thou oughtest to be, or else thou shalt be nothing."
On critical occasions, his magnanimous soul rose to the sublimity of this motto, and to the end of his life of glory and poverty he was always able to say, "I have been what I ought!"[Back to Contents]
Author signature. Hezekiah Butterworth
Steam engine.
Far in the north of England, near the Scottish border, by the shore of the German Ocean, is the county of brown and barren hills called Northumberland, and its principal city, Newcastle, famous for its coal. There is another Newcastle near the centre of England, so this one is often distinguished by the name "Newcastle-on-Tyne"—Tyne being the blackest and dirtiest of all rivers.
A few miles from Newcastle, up the Tyne, is the little mining village of Wylam, where, a hundred years ago, lived Robert Stephenson and his wife Mabel. There was no style about Wylam, and few evidences of wealth or culture. The houses straggled about near the outlets of the coal-mines, and everything was as uninviting as it well could be. Stephenson's house, or rather "shanty," had but one room, and that had an earthen floor. Robert and Mabel were about as ill-furnished as their house; for neither could read, they had not a book nor a print, and neither knew much more of the world than could be seen, as they stood on the bank of the Tyne and looked about on the neighboring hills and down toward Newcastle. In 1892 I rode down the valley of the Tyne, past Wylam, through Newcastle, and over the high bridge that our fireman's grandson, Robert, built in later days. Few valleys are less attractive, and few seem less likely to be the birthplace of epoch-making men.
Robert Stephenson, the father of our hero, was a fireman, earning two shillings a day. He was sober and industrious, but as would be expected, he never "got on." He was a good story-teller, and transmitted to his children healthy bodies and clear heads. George was the second of six children, and he was born June 9, 1781, during our war for independence. His boyhood was uneventful enough. When the weather was cold he was cooped up in their narrow home; he was out of doors whenever the weather would permit. He played in the street, ran errands, carried his father's dinner, and herded cows, as soon as he was big enough, for four cents per day. At fourteen he was assistant-fireman, earning twenty-five cents a day, and at seventeen he was "plugman." He was thus in contact with much that had been achieved in the way of building engines and transporting materials on cars. But I must describe the engines then in use, and explain what it was to be a "plugman."
The coal-mines were so deep that, in spite of the valleys, they could be drained only by pumps, and it was often more difficult to keep the water outthan it was to lift the coal out. The steam-engine was then in a very incomplete condition, and both pumping-and lifting-engines were crude and clumsy affairs. To be sure Watt, the mathematical instrument-maker, had invented the double-acting steam-engine, but few had been manufactured, and those in common use were "atmospheric" engines, known as "Newcomen's" engines. A pumping-engine had a long, vertical cylinder, with arrangements for admitting steam at the top. The weight of the piston, piston-rod, and pump-rod, which ran down a shaft to the lowest point in the mine, being balanced by a counter-weight on a sort of well-sweep, the steam, admitted by hand, forced the piston to the bottom of the cylinder. The steam was then shut off, and a spray of water was turned on within the cylinder. This water condensed the steam and reduced the pressure within to almost nothing, so that the air pressure on the exterior face of the piston (which amounted to over a ton for every square foot of surface) drove the piston to the top of the cylinder, and lifted the full length of the stroke a large quantity of water.
It is evident that the office of engineer was not an easy one. It was all he could do to take care of the steam end of the pump; another man was needed to look after the lower end, where the pump-valve worked in another vertical cylinder. The water entered this cylinder through holes in the sides, some higher, some lower, according to the stage of water in the mine. The pumps did not run continuously, but they lowered the water to the bottom as often as it was necessary. As the level of the water in the mine fell, it was necessary to plug the upper holes in the pump cylinder; the man who watched the lower end and plugged those holes was known as the "plugman." It is difficult to conceive of a less inspiring occupation than that to which George Stephenson was promoted at the age of seventeen. Alone in the dark, chilled by the damp air, and wet by the black water, he was forced, by lack of other occupation, to note every mechanical detail of the machinery, and to study methods of improving it.
At the age of eighteen he heard of some wonderful engines made by Watt & Boulton, at their new factory, and was told that the engines were fully described and illustrated in books. So he determined to learn to read. He was encouraged in this resolve by stories that a French soldier, by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte, was sweeping everything before him on the continent of Europe, and that he was planning the subjugation of Great Britain. Information about Napoleon could be gained from printed newspapers if one could only read.
But where should he learn? There was no public school in Wylam; none of our hero's companions went to school; none of the people he associated with could read or write. However, he found a teacher in a young man by the name of Robert Cowens, of whom he took three lessons per week in the evening. He earned money for books and instruction by mending shoes and repairing clocks. He was handy with tools, and quick at seeing the relations of things. As soon as he could read and write he learned to cipher, taking a slateful of "sums," set by his teacher, to his work in the morning, to be "done" duringodd moments while watching his pump or engine, for he was soon advanced to the care of the steam end of the machine.
While young Stephenson, now grown a man, is thus busy with his primer, his copy-book, and "four rules," let us reflect upon the uncanny circumstances of his early life. He had no luxuries, few real comforts. The people around him lived half the time underground in mines that were dark, damp, and dangerous—in constant war with water and a poisonous, explosive, natural gas, known as "fire-damp." Above ground there was little that was attractive or educative. The young men had their games, at which George was fairly successful, for he was strong and active. The ale-house stood near by, and it absorbed most of the spare time and scant earnings of the miners; but it is said that young Stephenson avoided the saloon, and was never known to leave his work for a drink of liquor. On off days he took his engine to pieces, examined its parts and the functions of each, and remedied small defects and devised improvements. Naturally clear-headed and ingenious, every circumstance tended to develop his executive powers. He soon was known in the Tyne valley as a good engine-doctor.
An incident, when he was about twenty years of age, did much to shape his career. He heard that a neighboring mine had been flooded on account of the inability of the engine to pump fast enough. No engineer could make the engine efficient. One Sunday he went down and looked at it. After a thorough examination he said he could make it work in a week's time if he could have authority to make changes as he saw fit. Authority was given him. In four days the engine was repaired and set to work. In spite of jeers from old engine-men, who were jealous of a mere boy, the pump worked well and the mine was soon dry. George's reputation was made, and he soon received appointment as engineer at a large mine at Killingworth, an important place near by.
Meanwhile Stephenson added exact instrumental drawing to his three R's. He found, as every artisan finds, that exact drawing is necessary not only to the study of existing mechanical devices, but particularly to the successful design of new parts. The successful inventor generally invents at his drawing-board.
When twenty-one years of age Stephenson married Fanny Henderson, a respectable country girl living at Ballast Hill. He brought the bride home behind him on a pillion, a wedding journey of fifteen miles. Robert Stephenson, who became his father's partner, and one of the first of England's civil engineers, was born in 1803. In 1812, when Stephenson was thirty-one years old, he was made engine-wright of a large colliery at Killingworth, at a salary of $500. The position was one of profit and fine opportunity. All the engines and machinery were in his hands, and all the repair-and construction-shops were available for such new designs as he saw fit to make. He at once set about making his first locomotive.
Locomotives and railroads of certain sorts and fashions were already in existence, but they were rough and clumsy affairs.
The rails were at first angle-irons, then flat bars of wrought iron, then cast-iron bars. In 1800 Benjamin Outram used stones for sleepers, and improvedrails—hence "tramways." Over these tramways cars were drawn by horses, or by ropes from stationary engines. Murduck made a locomotive in 1784, and by 1812 several types of engines were used for hauling coal-cars. Stephenson saw one of Blenkinsop's engines. Gear-wheels connected the crank-shaft with the axles, and the driving-wheels were geared with the track, while of course, the coal-cars ran on different rails.
This Blenkinsop's engine was a fearful machine. All the teeth rattled, and as there were no springs and the road was very uneven, the shocks were heavy and frequent, even though its speed was only four miles an hour.
Stephenson's first engine, "My Lord," in honor of his patron, Lord Ravensworth, was finished in 1814. Some experiments on the friction of smooth wheels on iron rails led him to omit the teeth on the drivers, though everyone laughed at him, declaring that the engine would not run an "up grade," much less draw a load. His faith, however, resisted all arguments; it was based on experiments and careful calculations. Stephensonknewthat his engine would run up hill and draw a load, and it did so triumphantly.
But the engine lacked steam. The boiler was small, and the fire was applied only on the exterior of the shell, and the draft was very poor, for the chimney was of necessity short. Only very low steam-pressure was possible, and little or no expansion was practicable. Consequently the exhaust was noisy and forcible. Stephenson turned it into the chimney and found that it increased the draft considerably; he at once thought that a steady jet of steam could be so directed as to make a strong draft even when the engine was not in motion. Thus the "blast" was invented, which about doubled the capacity of the machine.
Stephenson's second locomotive, built in 1815, had no noisy gears, but instead, chain-belts to the driving-axles. It had, however, no springs, and the shocks were so great that only a low speed was possible. In 1816 he built locomotives with springs, some of which were in use for hauling coals for forty years.
Meanwhile Robert was growing into a manly, useful lad. Knowing something of the value of education, both of the head and of the hand, his father determined that Robert should have the best of both. He was sent to Edinburgh for scientific culture, and when at home his father taught him drawing, mechanical processes, and the theory of machines as far as he was able—and his ability was considerable, for George Stephenson was more of a student than many whose early advantages were far better than his. The broad dual training given Robert appears to have been fully successful. Even before he became a man he was of great value to his father. Together they worked out plans for modifying and improving the locomotive and the road it was to run upon. He could soon draw and calculate better than his father, but he never excelled him in the solution of practical problems which depended upon a knowledge of materials and the simple laws of physics and mechanics.
Thus far all railroads had been short, leading from mines to piers for shipping by water. The success of Stephenson's locomotive, the best working locomotiveever built at that time, led the proprietors of the Hetton Colliery, a few miles south of the Tyne valley, to propose a road, some eight miles long, over high hills and on steep grades. Stephenson planned and superintended the construction of the road as their engineer. There were several steep inclines where loaded cars going down drew empty cars up. There were two heavy stationary engines drawing cars by a rope, and five of Stephenson's locomotives for the easy grades. Each locomotive drew seventeen wagons, weighing about sixty-four tons, at the rate of four miles per hour. This was the best done as yet, and was considered a great success. It thoroughly established the reputation of George Stephenson as an engineer. This road was opened in 1822.
Before the Hetton Railway was opened Stephenson was busy on a larger work. Parliament had given a franchise for a railway in Durham County, some twenty miles long, through Darlington to Stockton. The function of the road was to carry coal to a shipping pier, and it was not at all settled that horses would not be used to draw the cars. While not much was known about railways, and very little about locomotives, there was a growing conviction that there was great economy in the use of tramways and the steam-engine, and the prospect brightened for building the road.
The charming biographer, Smiles, tells how George Stephenson called on Mr. Edward Pease, the president of the proposed railway, and offered his services in building and equipping the road. Mr. Pease was at once pleased with the man. "There was," said he later, "such an honest, sensible look about him, and he seemed so modest and unpretending. He spoke in the strong Northumbrian dialect, and described himself as 'only the engine-wright at Killingworth.'"
Stephenson urged at once that the road be built for locomotives. Mr. Pease had never seen a locomotive at work, and had taken it for granted that horses would be used; but he went up to Killingworth and rode on the "Blucher" with Stephenson, while it hauled a train of loaded cars. Seeing was believing, and Mr. Pease was in favor of both Stephenson and his locomotive.
So Stephenson was made chief engineer. He and his son Robert surveyed the line, changed the location, avoiding certain territory where people were hostile to a road of any sort, and built new and improved locomotives for the line. What we now call good tools were not to be had, and skilled workmen were not easy to find, but Stephenson made a great advance in the quality of the workmanship.
The amended Act of Parliament gave the Stockton and Darlington line the right to carry passengers in cars drawn by locomotives. This was the first instance of such a grant. Stephenson met Mr. Pease in 1821; the road was opened to the public in 1825. People came in crowds to see the locomotives and to ride on thefirst public railway. There had been bitter opposition to the road and a vast amount of incredulity as to the ability of the locomotives to do practical work.
Imagine the excitement of the first ride. The train consisted of 6 cars loaded with coal and other freight; then a short passenger coach filled with directorsand friends; then 21 open cars or wagons fitted for excursionists; lastly came 6 more cars loaded with coal—making 38 cars in all!
Mr. Stephenson was proud to be on the locomotive and to run it himself. It seemed to spectators incredible that the locomotive could start such a load, but it did start it, and it drew it 8-3/4 miles in 65 minutes, the speed at times reaching 12 miles per hour! More cars were added at Darlington, and then the train drew on to Stockton, all cars being crowded with passengers.
The success was complete, and all doubts seemed to vanish. From that day the traffic over the road continued without interruption. To the surprise of all, the passenger business became a very important item, and better cars were quickly in demand.
The road is in use to-day, and I had the pleasure last year of riding over a part of it. Of course it now looks in all respects like a modern English road, but I was deeply moved by the thought that it was there that George Stephenson built his first public railway and achieved his first public triumph.
Stephenson was not unmindful of the importance of that step. He said, on that occasion, to some young men, "Now, lads, I will tell you that I think you will live to see the day (though I may not live so long), when railways will come to supersede almost all other methods of conveyance—when mail coaches will go by railway. The time is coming when it will be cheaper for a working-man to ride than to go on foot." He lived to see all that himself, and far more.
It is difficult for us to appreciate the popular surprise and delight at that first railway excursion. We are so accustomed to splendid engines, luxurious cars, and high speed, that we think nothing of them; but when all were new—when coaches and carts on highways were the sole reliance for passengers and freight—it was astonishing indeed to see a "travelling engine," in charge of two men, draw a train of forty cars and six hundred people!
Many men would have been satisfied with the result, but Stephenson was not. He said there was no limit to the speed but the strength of the machinery and the supply of steam. He saw there was no limit to the load but the strength and weight of the locomotive, and no limit to the weight but the strength of the rails and the character of the road-bed; thus he early saw how progress was to be made.
But Stephenson's greatest triumph was yet to come. The Darlington road was chiefly for coals, between small towns in a rough northern county. The vast majority of English people heard nothing, and knew nothing about it. Consequently when it was proposed to connect the great commercial city of Liverpool with the great manufacturing city of Manchester, forty miles away, by a railway, it was taken for granted that the cars were to be drawn by horses. Nevertheless a tram-road was opposed, first, by the Duke of Bridgewater, who had a canal between the two cities; and, secondly, by those who owned the coaches and the inns. Though proposed in 1821, the opposition was so great that it was laid over for several years. In 1824 a committee of interested parties went to Darlington and Killingworth to see Stephenson's road and locomotives. The Darlingtonline was not yet in operation, but the old locomotives were at work at Killingworth. The committee decided that they must have a double track for cars, whatever might be the motive power.
Accordingly Stephenson was invited to make surveys and estimates, as he was said to be a man of great energy and the only man in England with the necessary experience.
The surveys were made in 1825 with the greatest difficulty, on account of the opposition of landowners. The surveyors were ordered off the grounds, threatened with arrest and violence. Stephenson testified before a Parliamentary Committee that the duke's manager threatened to have him thrown into the mill-pond if he trespassed. Stephenson kept on as good terms as he could with the hostiles, and surveyed their grounds by stealth.
The chief points of difficulty were a tunnel at Liverpool, and a vast and treacherous morass known as "Chat Moss."
Early in 1825, before the Darlington road was opened, Parliament was considering the railway bill and Stephenson was called before the committee as a most important witness. All the opposition was out in force and every means was used to ridicule the undertaking and defeat the bill.
The spectacle presented by plain, blunt, unlettered George Stephenson before the lawyers and members of the House of Commons was strange and interesting, and no wonder it has become historical.
In the cross-examination, every effort was made to confuse and discredit the witness, but he bore himself remarkably well. He had built or superintended half a dozen short railways, and had constructed sixteen locomotives, and he could speak on the details of his plans with certainty and confidence. Two things embarrassed him; the consciousness of awkwardness of manner and speech among men some of whom were inclined to sneer at his northern dialect and lack of polish; secondly, the necessity of restraining himself in stating what his locomotives could do. He fully believed they could draw long trains at the speed of twenty miles, but he was told by the friends of the bill that if he made that claim before the committee, he would be called a madman, and the bill would be killed; accordingly he promised to hold himself down to ten miles per hour.
The evidence brought in against the bill was remarkable, and to-day it sounds strange enough. It was urged that the rails would bend under the locomotive at high speed; that the engine would run off the track on curves; that if the engine got round the curves the cars would go off; that the driving-wheels would "spin," if they went fast, without drawing the train; that the noise and sight of the train would frighten horses and cattle; that hens would not lay and cows would cease to give milk along by the road; that the smoke would poison the air and blast the fields and parks; that the coach lines would be ruined, horses would no longer be of value, and coach-makers, harness-makers, inn-keepers and others along the great roads would have nothing to do, etc., etc. In the face of ignorance, ridicule, contempt, and self-interest, Stephenson firmly maintained the safety of a good road, the stability of his engines and cars, theharmlessness of smoke and noise, and the facility with which animals became indifferent to trains. He said that at Killingworth cattle would not stop feeding as the trains went by. As to the effect of speed, he boldly asserted that at twelve miles per hour the load on a rail would be no more than at six, and in support of his position he appealed to skaters who go swiftly over thin ice. As to the "spinning" of the wheels, he was positive that no such thing ever had happened or could happen. The enemies of the bill caught at his suggestion of twelve miles per hour, and so pressed and led him on that he declared his honest conviction that his trains could run on such a road as he could make twelve miles per hour. This rashness alarmed his friends, and they tried in vain to smooth it over by declaring such speed to be purely "hypothetical."
In spite of all that could be said in its favor, in spite of the pressing need of better transportation for coal, cotton, merchandise, and passengers, the bill failed. Such was the blindness, and ignorance, and prejudice of the House of Commons! Think of calling George Stephenson "an ignoramus, a fool, a maniac," in Parliament, yet such was done.
The friends of the bill were not discouraged; they determined to apply again the next year; but poor Stephenson was discredited, Mr. George Rennie, the great bridge engineer, was employed to make a new survey, and Mr. Stephenson was not called before the committee. Meanwhile, the Darlington line was opened, and reports of its success had reached London. It seemed to be admitted that theroadwas a good thing, but there was great scepticism in regard to the locomotive. However, the bill passed in the spring of 1826, and the directors were not long in deciding that the only competent man to build the road was George Stephenson, and he was elected principal engineer at a salary of $5,000.
The building of the road seemed to be, and was at the time, a tremendous undertaking. Bridges, viaducts, tunnels, and above all, Chat Moss, a yielding bog four miles across and of unknown depth, all taxed the engineer and the company to the utmost. The road was finished in 1830. With the exception of bridges and rails it was very much as it exists to-day.
For a long time the directors were undecided as to the method of propelling the cars. Nearly every engineer except Stephenson was opposed to the locomotive, or travelling engine.
It seems incredible that Telford and the two Rennies, road-makers and bridge-builders, lacked faith in the locomotive, and preferred stationary engines and long cables. Their main objection to the locomotive appears to have been based on the fact that the steam capacity was small, and that it was impracticable to build a locomotive large enough to furnish all the steam that was needed. Stephenson insisted that already his locomotives were better than stationary engines, and yet they could be greatly improved. He said, "Offer a generous prize for the best locomotive, and inventors and builders will greatly improve their machines, and we will have a far better locomotive than now." He said he felt sure he could make a much better one himself. By that time Stephensonwas part owner in new locomotive works at Newcastle, and Robert was in general charge there.
The puzzled directors decided to adopt Stephenson's suggestion, and offered $2,500 as a prize for the best locomotive. The specifications required:
1. The engine (without tender) must not weigh more than six tons.
2. The ordinary steam pressure must not exceed 50 pounds above that of the atmosphere.
3. It must be well supplied with safety-valves and pressure-gauges.
4. It must not exceed fifteen feet in height.
5. It must rest on springs.
6. It must be able (if weighing six tons) to draw twenty tons continuously ten miles per hour.
7. It must not cost more than $2,750.
8. The boiler must stand a pressure, when tested, of 150 pounds per square inch.
9. It must be ready for trial October 1, 1829.
The publication of these conditions and the offer of the prize excited great interest, and caused no small amount of comment.[11]The Stephensons at once began the construction of "The Rocket," without doubt the most famous locomotive ever built. The improved feature it was to have was increased heating surface, so that without increased weight it could generate more steam. This was effected by putting fire-tubes through the water in the boiler. Boiler-tubes had already been used by different people, and some of Stephenson's locomotives which he had sent to France had been fitted with tubes. At the suggestion of Mr. James Booth, Stephenson decided to use a large number of tubes. Modern boilers have smaller tubes and more of them, but "The Rocket" was the first to typify the modern multitubular boiler. In other respects "The Rocket" was like Stephenson's other locomotives built ten or twelve years earlier.
A brief description of "The Rocket" will not be out of place: The boiler was 6 feet long, 3 feet 4 inches in diameter, and was furnished with 25 copper tubes 3 inches in diameter. The fire-box was at the rear end of the boiler, 2 feet wide and 3 feet high, surrounded by water. The cylinders were high on the sides, pointing down to the forward wheels, which were the only drivers. Stephenson had used coupling rods between two sets of "drivers," but "The Rocket" was made for speed chiefly. Its weight when furnished with water was onlyfour and a half tons! On trial at Killingworth "The Rocket" worked finely and its capacity for steam was marvellous. It was sent by wagon to Carlisle and by boat to Liverpool.
On the day set for the trial there were four engines on hand: 1. The "Novelty," built by young Ericsson, who afterward in New York built the famous"Monitor." 2. The "Sanspareil," by Timothy Hackworth. 3. The "Perseverance," by a Mr. Burstall. 4. "The Rocket," by Stephenson and Booth.
The programme of test fixed by the judges was to run over a level piece of the road at Rainhill, two miles long, forty times during a day, at a rate not less than ten miles per hour. The train was to weigh three and one-third times as much as the locomotive. Each engine was to have a day for trial.
The "Perseverance" proved slow; its best speed was not more than six miles per hour; so it was quickly withdrawn.
The "Sanspareil" was made by one of Stephenson's own foremen, and differed little from the Killingworth style of locomotive. It was rather over weight, but it ran at times as fast as fourteen miles per hour. Its machinery was defective, however, and it was ruled out by the judges.
The "Novelty" ran at times in good style, but its bellows, for making a fire-blast, were defective and repeatedly gave out, causing delay. It failed to make the required speed with a full load; by itself it is said to have run at the rate of twenty-eight miles per hour. Ericsson claimed that he had not had time to properly construct his locomotive, and the claim was probably just. As it was, the time was extended six days.