In order to remedy the deficiency of British goods, the colonists betook themselves to a variety of necessary domestic manufactures. In a little time large quantities of common cloths were brought to market; and these, though dearer and of a worse quality, were cheerfully preferred to similar articles imported from Britain. That wool might not be wanting, they entered into resolutions to abstain from eating lambs. Foreign elegancies were laid aside. The women were as exemplary as the men in various instances of self-denial. With great readiness they refused every article of decoration for their persons and luxuries for their tables. These restrictions, which the colonists had voluntarily imposed on themselves, were so well observed that multitudes of artificers in England were reduced to great distress, and some of their most flourishing manufactories were in a great measure at a stand. An association was entered into by many of the "Sons of Liberty"—the name given to those who were opposed to the Stamp Act—by which they agreed, "to march with the utmost expedition, at their own proper costs and expense, with their whole force, to the relief of those that should be in danger from the Stamp Act or its promoters and abettors, or anything relative to it, on account of anything that may have been done in opposition to its obtaining." This was subscribed by so many in New York and New England that nothing but a repeal could have prevented the immediate commencement of a civil war.

From the decided opposition to the Stamp Act which had been adopted by the colonies, it became necessary for Great Britain to enforce or to repeal it. Both methods of proceeding had supporters. The opposers of a repeal urged arguments, drawn from the dignity of the nation, the danger of giving way to the clamors of the Americans, and the consequences of weakening Parliamentary authority over the colonies. On the other hand, it was evident, from the determined opposition of the colonies, that it could not be enforced without a civil war, by which event the nation must be a loser. In the course of these discussions Dr. Franklin was examined at the bar of the House of Commons, and gave extensive information on the state of American affairs, and the impolicy of the Stamp Act, which contributed much to remove prejudices and to produce a disposition that was friendly to a repeal.

Some speakers of great weight, in both Houses of Parliament, denied their right of taxing the colonies. The most distinguished supporters of this opinion were Lord Camben, in the House of Lords, and William Pitt, in the House of Commons. The former, in strong language, said: "My position is this; I repeat it; I will maintain it to my last hour: taxation and representation are inseparable. This position is founded on the laws of nature. It is more; it is itself an eternal law of nature. For whatever is a man's own is absolutely his own. No man has a right to take it from him without his consent. Whoever attempts to do it attempts an injury. Whoever does it commits a robbery."

Pitt, with an original boldness of expression, justified the colonists in opposing the Stamp Act. "You have no right," said he, "to tax America. I rejoice that America has resisted. Three millions of our fellow-subjects, so lost to every sense of virtue as tamely to give up their liberties, would be fit instruments to make slaves of the rest." He concluded with giving his advice that the Stamp Act be repealed absolutely, totally, and immediately; that reasons for the repeal be assigned; that it was founded on an erroneous principle. "At the same time," said he, "let the sovereign authority of this country over the colonies be asserted in as strong terms as can be devised, and be made to extend to every point of legislation whatsoever, that we may bind their trade, confine their manufactures, and exercise every power except that of taking their money out of their pockets without their consent."

The approbation of this illustrious statesman, whose distinguished abilities had raised Great Britain to the highest pitch of renown, inspired the Americans with additional confidence in the rectitude of their claims of exemption from parliamentary taxation, and emboldened them to further opposition, when, at a future day, the project of an American revenue was resumed. After much debating, two protests in the House of Lords, and passing an act, "For securing the dependence of America on Great Britain," the repeal of the Stamp Act was carried, in March, 1766. This event gave great joy in London. Ships in the River Thames displayed their colors, and houses were illuminated all over the city. It was no sooner known in America, than the colonists rescinded their resolutions, and recommenced their mercantile intercourse with the mother-country. They presented their homespun clothes to the poor, and imported more largely than ever. The churches responded with thanksgivings, and public and private rejoicings knew no bounds. By letters, addresses, and other means, almost all the colonies showed unequivocal marks of acknowledgment and gratitude. So sudden a calm after so violent storm is without a parallel in history. By the judicious sacrifice of one law, the Parliament of Great Britain procured an acquiescence in all that remained.

GEORGE BANCROFT

Virginia received the plan to tax America by Parliament with consternation. At first the planters foreboded universal ruin; but soon they resolved that the act should recoil on England, and began to be proud of frugality; articles of luxury of English manufacture were banished, and threadbare coats were most in fashion. A large and embarrassing provincial debt enforced the policy of thrift.

Happily the Legislature of Virginia was then assembled; and the electors of Louisa County had just filled a sudden vacancy in their representation by making choice of Patrick Henry. He had resided among them scarcely a year, but his benignity of temper, pure life, and simplicity of habits had already won their love. Devoted from his heart to their interest, he never flattered the people and was never forsaken by them. As he took his place, not yet acquainted with the forms of business in the House, or with its members, he saw the time for the enforcement of the Stamp Tax drawing near, while all the other colonies, through timid hesitation or the want of opportunity, still remained silent, and cautious loyalty hushed the experienced statesmen of his own. More than half the assembly had made the approaching close of the session an excuse for returning home.

But Patrick Henry disdained submission. Alone, a burgess of but a few days, unadvised and unassisted, in an auspicious moment, of which the recollection cheered him to his latest day, he came forward in the committee of the whole House, and while Thomas Jefferson, a young collegian from the mountain frontier, stood outside of the closed hall, eager to catch the first tidings of resistance, and George Washington, as is believed, was in his place as a member, he maintained by resolutions that the inhabitants of Virginia inherited from the first adventurers and settlers of that dominion equal franchises with the people of Great Britain; that royal charters had declared this equality; that taxation by themselves, or by persons chosen by themselves to represent them, was the distinguishing characteristic of British freedom and of the constitution; that the people of that most ancient colony had uninterruptedly enjoyed the right of being thus governed by their own laws respecting their internal polity and taxation; that this right had never been forfeited, nor in any other way given up, but had been constantly recognized by the King and people of Great Britain.

Such was the declaration of colonial rights adopted at his instance by the Assembly of Virginia. It followed from these resolutions—and Patrick Henry so expressed it in a fifth supplementary one—that the General Assembly of the whole colony have the sole right and power to lay taxes on the inhabitants of the colony, and that any attempt to vest such power in any other persons whatever tended to destroy British as well as American freedom. It was still further set forth, yet not by Henry, in two resolutions, which, though they were not officially produced, equally embodied the mind of the younger part of the Assembly, that the inhabitants of Virginia were not bound to yield obedience to any law designed to impose taxation upon them, other than the laws of their own General Assembly, and that anyone who should, either by speaking or writing, maintain the contrary, should be deemed an enemy to the colony.

A stormy debate arose and many threats were uttered. Robinson, the speaker, already a defaulter; Peyton Randolph, the King's attorney, and the frank, honest, and independent George Wythe, a lover of classic learning, accustomed to guide the House by his strong understanding and single-minded integrity, exerted all their powers to moderate the tone of "the hot and virulent resolutions"; while John Randolph, the best lawyer in the colony, "singly" resisted the whole proceeding. But, on the other side, George Johnston, of Fairfax, reasoned with solidity and firmness, and Henry flamed with impassioned zeal. Lifted beyond himself, "Tarquin," he cried, "and Caesar, had each his Brutus; Charles the First, his Cromwell; and George the Third——" "Treason!" shouted the speaker, "treason, treason!" was echoed round the house, while Henry, fixing his eye on the first interrupter, continued without faltering, "may profit by their example!"

Swayed by his words, the committee of the whole showed its good-will to the spirit of all the resolutions enumerated; but the five offered by Patrick Henry were alone reported to the House, and on Thursday, May 30th, having been adopted by small majorities, the fifth by a vote of twenty to nineteen, they became a part of the public record. "I would have given five hundred guineas for a single vote," exclaimed the attorney-general, aloud, as he came out past young Jefferson, into whose youthful soul the proceedings of that day sank so deeply that resistance to tyranny became a part of his nature. But Henry "carried all the young members with him." That night, thinking his work done, he rode home, but the next day, in his absence, an attempt was made to strike all the resolutions off the journals, and the fifth, and the fifth only, was blotted out. The Lieutenant-Governor, though he did not believe new elections would fall on what he esteemed cool, reasonable men, dissolved the assembly; but the four resolutions which remained on the journals, and the two others, on which no vote had been taken, were published in the newspapers throughout America, and by men of all parties, by royalists in office, not less than by public bodies in the colonies, were received without dispute as the avowed sentiment of the "Old Dominion."

This is the "way the fire began in Virginia." Of the American colonies, "Virginia rang the alarum bell. Virginia gave the signal for the continent."



WATT IMPROVES THE STEAM-ENGINE

A.D. 1769

FRANCOIS ARAGO

No greater service has been rendered to the world through mechanical invention than that performed by James Watt in his improvement of the steam-engine. Watt was born at Greenock, Scotland, in 1736. During the eighty-three years of his life much progress was made in mechanics and engineering in different countries, but the name of Watt remains the most brilliant among contemporary workers in these departments of practical science.

The first contriver of a working steam-engine is supposed to have been Edward, second Marquis of Worcester (1601-1667). No complete description of his engine is known to exist, and conjectures about it disagree; but it is not questioned that he made important contributions to the great invention, upon which others at the same time were engaged. The construction of the first actual working steam-engine is usually credited to Thomas Savery, born in England about 1650. He devised a "fire-engine," as he called it, for the raising of water, but, owing to the want of strong boilers and a suitable form of condenser, it imperfectly served its purpose, and was soon superseded by the better engine of Thomas Newcomen, here referred to by Arago.

Newcomen was an English inventor, born in 1663. With Savery and Cawley, he invented and in 1705 patented the atmospheric steam-engine by which he is known, and which, as told by Arago, gave place to the superior invention of Watt.

Arago was an eminent French physicist and astronomer (1786-1853), who is even better known through his biographies of other great workers in science. His account of "the fruitful inventions which will forever connect the name of Watt with the steam-engine" is all the more valuable for preservation because written while the steam-engine was still in an early stage of its development. Of its later improvements and varied uses, numerous descriptions are within easy reach of all readers.

In physical cabinets we find a good many machines on which industry had founded great hopes, though the expense of their manufacture or that of keeping them at work has reduced them to be mere instruments of demonstration. This would have been the final fate of Newcomen's machine, in localities at least not rich in combustibles, if Watt's efforts had not come in to give it an unhoped-for degree of perfection. This perfection must not be considered as the result of some fortuitous observation or of a single inspiration of genius; the inventor achieved it by assiduous labor, by experiments of extreme delicacy and correctness. One would say that Watt had adopted as his guide that celebrated maxim of Bacon's: "To write, speak, meditate, or act when we are not sufficiently provided with facts to stake out our thoughts is like navigating without a pilot along a coast strewed with dangers or rushing out on the immense ocean without compass or rudder."

In the collection belonging to the University of Glasgow there was a little model of a steam-engine by Newcomen that had never worked well. The professor of physics, Anderson, desired Watt to repair it. In the hands of this powerful workman the defects of its construction disappeared; from that time the apparatus was made to work annually under the inspection of the astonished students. A man of common mind would have rested satisfied with this success. Watt, on the contrary, as usual with him, saw cause in it for deep study. His researches were successively directed to all the points that appeared likely to clear up the theory of the machine. He ascertained the proportion in which water dilates in passing from a state of fluidity into that of vapor; the quantity of water that a certain weight of coal can convert into vapor; the quantity and weight of steam expended at each oscillation by one of Newcomen's engines of known dimensions; the quantity of cold water that must be injected into the cylinder to give a certain force to the piston's descending oscillation; and finally the elasticity of steam at various temperatures.

Here was enough to occupy the life of a laborious physicist, yet Watt found means to conduct all these numerous and difficult researches to a good termination, without the work of the shop suffering thereby. Dr. Cleland wished, not long since, to take me to the house, near the port of Glasgow, whither our associate[57] retired, on quitting his tools, to become an experimenter. It was razed to the ground! Our anger was keen but of short duration. Within the area still visible of the foundations ten or twelve vigorous workmen appeared to be occupied in sanctifying the cradle of modern steam-engines; they were hammering with redoubled blows various portions of boilers, the united dimensions of which certainly equalled those of the humble dwelling that had disappeared there. On such a spot, and under such circumstances, the most elegant mansion, the most sumptuous monument, the finest statue, would have awakened less reflection than those colossal boilers.

If the properties of steam are present to your mind, you will perceive at a glance that the economic working of Newcomen's engine seems to require two irreconcilable conditions. When the piston descends, the cylinder is required to be cold, otherwise it meets some steam there, still very elastic, which retards the operation very much, and diminishes the effect of the external atmosphere. Then, when steam at the temperature of 100 deg. flows into the same cylinder and finds it cold, the steam restores its heat by becoming partially fluid, and until the cylinder has regained the temperature of 100 deg. its elasticity will be found considerably attenuated; thence will ensue slowness of motion, for the counterpoise will not raise the piston until there is sufficient spring contained in the cylinder to counterbalance the action of the atmosphere; thence there will also arise an increase of expense.

No doubt will remain on the immense importance of this economical observation, when I shall have stated that the Glasgow model at each oscillation expended a volume of steam several times larger than that of the cylinder. The expense of steam, or, what comes to the same thing, the expense of fuel, or, if we like it better, the pecuniary cost of keeping on the working of the machine, would be several times less if the successive heatings and coolings, the inconveniences of which have just been described, could be avoided.

This apparently insolvable problem was solved by Watt in the most simple manner. It sufficed for him to add to the former arrangement of the engine a vessel totally distinct from the cylinder, and communicating with it only by a small tube furnished with a tap. This vessel, now known as "the condenser," is Watt's principal invention.

Still another invention by Watt deserves a word, the advantages of which will become evident to everybody. When the piston descends in Newcomen's engine, it is by the weight of the atmosphere. The atmosphere is cold; hence it must cool the sides of the metal cylinder, which is open at the top, in proportion as it expands itself over the entire surface. This cooling is not compensated during the whole ascension of the piston, without the expense of a certain quantity of steam. But there is no loss of this sort in the engines modified by Watt. The atmospheric action is totally eliminated by the following means:

The top of the cylinder is closed by a metal cover, only pierced in the centre by a hole furnished with greased tow stuffed in hard, but through which the rod of the piston has free motion, though without allowing free passage either to air or steam. The piston thus divides the capacity of the cylinder into two distinct and well-closed areas. When it has to descend, the steam from the caldron reaches freely the upper area through a tube conveniently placed, and pushes it from top to bottom as the atmosphere did in Newcomen's engine. There is no obstacle to this motion, because, while it is going on, only the base of the cylinder is in communication with the condenser, wherein all the steam from that lower area resumes its fluid state. As soon as the piston has quite reached the bottom, the mere turning of a tap suffices to bring the two areas of the cylinder, situated above and below the piston, into communication with each other, so that both shall be filled with steam at the same degree of elasticity; and the piston being thus equally acted upon, upward and downward, ascends again to the top of the cylinder, as in Newcomen's atmospheric engine, merely by the action of a slight counterpoise.

Pursuing his researches on the means of economizing steam, Watt also reduced the result of the refrigeration of the external surface of the cylinder containing the piston, almost to nothing. With this view he enclosed the metal cylinder in a wooden case of larger diameter, filling the intermediate annular space with steam.

Now the engine was complete. The improvements effected by Watt are evident; there can be no doubt of their immense utility. As a means of drainage, then, you would expect to see them substituted for Newcomen's comparatively ruinous engines. Undeceive yourselves: the author of a discovery has always to contend against those whose interest may be injured, the obstinate partisans of everything old, and finally the envious. And these three classes united, I regret to acknowledge it, form the great majority of the public. In my calculation I even deduct those who are doubly influenced to avoid a paradoxical result. This compact mass of opponents can only be disunited and dissipated by time; yet time is insufficient; it must be attacked with spirit and unceasingly; our means of attack must be varied, imitating the chemist in this respect—he learning from experience that the entire solution of certain amalgams requires the successive application of several acids. Force of character and perseverance of will, which in the long run disintegrate the best woven intrigues, are not always found conjoined with creative genius. In case of need, Watt would be a convincing proof of this. His capital invention—his happy idea on the possibility of condensing steam in a vessel separate from the cylinder in which the mechanical action goes on—was in 1765.

Two years elapsed without his scarcely making an effort to apply it on a large scale. His friends at last put him in communication with Dr. Roebuck, founder of the large works at Carron, still celebrated at the present day. The engineer and the man of projects enter into partnership; Watt cedes two-thirds of his patent to him. An engine is constructed on the new principles; it confirms all the expectations of theory; its success is complete. But in the interim Dr. Roebuck's affairs receive various checks. Watt's invention would undoubtedly have restored them; it would have sufficed to borrow money; but our associate felt more inclined to give up his discovery and change his business. In 1767, while Smeaton was carrying on some triangulations and levellings between the two rivers of the Forth and the Clyde, forerunners of the gigantic works of which that part of Scotland was to be the theatre, we find Watt occupied with similar operations along a rival line crossing the Lomond passage. Later he draws the plan of a canal that was to bring coals from Monkland to Glasgow, and superintends the execution of it. Several projects of a similar nature, and, among others, that of a navigable canal across the isthmus of Crinan, which Rennie afterward finished; some deep studies on certain improvements in the ports of Ayr, Glasgow, and Greenock; the construction of the Hamilton and Rutherglen bridges; surveys of the ground through which the celebrated Caledonian Canal was to pass, occupied our associate up to the end of 1773. Without wishing at all to diminish the merit of these enterprises, I may be permitted to say that their interest and importance were chiefly local, and to assert that neither their conception, direction, nor execution required a man called James Watt.

In the early part of 1774, after contending with Watt's indifference, his friends put him into communication with Mr. Boulton, of Soho, near Birmingham, an enterprising, active man, gifted with various talents. The two friends applied to Parliament for a prolongation of privilege, since Watt's patent, dated 1769, had only a few more years to run. The bill gave rise to the most animated discussion. The celebrated mechanic wrote as follows to his aged father: "This business could not be carried on without great expense and anxiety. Without the aid of some warm-hearted friends we should not have succeeded, for several of the most powerful in the House of Commons were opposed to us." It seemed to me interesting to search out to what class of society these Parliamentary persons belonged to whom Watt alluded, and who refused to the man of genius a small portion of the riches that he was about to create. Judge of my surprise when I found the celebrated Burke at their head. Is it possible, then, that men may devote themselves to deep studies, possess knowledge and probity, exercise to an eminent degree oratorical powers that move the feelings, and influence political assemblies, yet sometimes be deficient in plain common-sense? Now, however, owing to the wise and important modifications introduced by Lord Brougham in the laws relative to patents, inventors will no longer have to undergo the annoyances with which Watt was teased.

As soon as Parliament had granted a prolongation of twenty-five years to Watt's patent, he and Boulton together began the establishments at Soho, which have become the most useful school in practical mechanics for all England. The construction of draining-pumps of very large dimensions was soon undertaken there, and repeated experiments showed that, with equal effect, they saved three-quarters of the fuel that was consumed by Newcomen's previous engines. From that moment the new pumps were spread through all the mining counties, especially in Cornwall. Boulton and Watt received as a duty the value of one-third of the coal saved by each of their engines. We may form an opinion of the commercial importance of the invention from an authentic fact: in the Chace-water mine alone, where three pumps were at work, the proprietors found it to their advantage to buy up the inventor's rights for the annual sum of sixty thousand francs (two thousand four hundred pounds). Thus in one establishment alone, the substitution of the condenser for internal injection had occasioned an annual saving in fuel of upward of one hundred eighty thousand francs (seven thousand pounds).

Men are easily reconciled to paying the rent of a house or the price of a farm. But this good-will disappears when an idea is the subject treated of, whatever advantage, whatever profit, it may be the means of procuring. Ideas! are they not conceived without trouble or labor? Who can prove that with time the same might not have occurred to everybody? In this way days, months, and years of priority would give no force to the patent!

Such opinions, which I need not here criticise, had obtained a footing from mere routine as decided. Men of genius, the "manufacturers of ideas," it seemed, were to remain strangers to material enjoyments; it was natural that their history should continue to resemble a legend of martyrs!

Whatever may be thought of these reflections, it is certain that the Cornwall miners paid the dues that were granted to the Soho engineers with increased repugnance from year to year. They availed themselves of the very earliest difficulties raised by plagiarists, to claim release from all obligation. The discussion was serious; it might compromise the social position of our associate: he therefore bestowed his entire attention to it and became a lawyer. The long and expensive lawsuits that resulted therefrom, but which they finally gained, would not deserve to be now exhumed; but having recently quoted Burke as one of the adversaries to our great mechanic, it appears only a just compensation here to mention that the Roys, Mylnes, Herschels, Delucs, Ramsdens, Robisons, Murdocks, Rennies, Cummings, Mores, Southerns, eagerly presented themselves before the magistrates to maintain the rights of persecuted genius. It may be also advisable to add, as a curious trait in the history of the human mind, that the lawyers—I shall here prudently remark that we treat only of the lawyers of a neighboring country—to whom malignity imputes a superabundant luxury in words, reproached Watt, against whom they had leagued in great numbers, for having invented nothing but ideas. This, I may remark in passing, brought upon them before the tribunal the following apostrophe from Mr. Rous: "Go, gentlemen, go and rub yourselves against those untangible combinations, as you are pleased to call Watt's engines; against those pretended abstract ideas; they will crush you like gnats, they will hurl you up in the air out of sight!"

The persecutions which a warm-hearted man meets with, in the quarters where strict justice would lead him to expect unanimous testimonies of gratitude, seldom fail to discourage, and to sour his disposition. Nor did Watt's good-humor remain proof against such trials. Seven long years of lawsuits had excited in him such a sentiment of indignation, that it occasionally showed itself in severe expressions; thus he wrote to one of his friends: "What I most detest in this world are plagiarists! The plagiarists. They have already cruelly assailed me; and if I had not an excellent memory, their impudent assertions would have ended by persuading me that I have made no improvement in steam-engines. The bad passions of those men to whom I have been most useful (would you believe it?) have gone so far as to lead them to maintain that those improvements, instead of deserving this denomination, have been highly prejudicial to public wealth."

Watt, though greatly irritated, was not discouraged. His engines were not, in the first place, like Newcomen's, mere pumps, mere draining-pumps. In a few years he transformed them into universal motive powers, and of indefinite force. His first step in this line was the invention of a double-acting engine (a double effet).

In the engine known under this name, as well as in the one denominated the "modified" engine, the steam from the boiler, when the mechanic wishes it, goes freely above the piston and presses it down without meeting any obstacle; because at that same moment, the lower area of the cylinder is in communication with the condenser. This movement once achieved, and a certain cock having been opened, the steam from the caldron can enter only below the piston and elevates it. The steam above it, which had produced the descending movement, then goes to regain its fluid state in the condenser, with which it has become, in its turn, in free communication. The contrary arrangement of the cocks replaces all things in their primitive state, as soon as the piston has regained its maximum height. Thus similar effects are reproduced indefinitely.

Power is not the only element of success in industrial works. Regularity of action is not less important; but what regularity could be expected from a motive power engendered by fire fed by shovelfuls, and the coal itself of various qualities; and this under the direction of a workman, sometimes not very intelligent, almost always inattentive? The motive steam will be more abundant, it will flow more rapidly into the cylinder, it will make the piston work faster in proportion as the fire is more intense. Great inequalities of movement then appear to be inevitable. Watt's genius had to provide against this serious defect. The throttle-valves by which the steam issues from the boiler to enter the cylinder are constantly open. When the working of the engine accelerates, these valves partly close; a certain volume of steam must therefore occupy a longer time in passing through them, and the acceleration ceases. The aperture of the valves, on the contrary, dilates when the motion slackens. The pieces requisite for the performance of these various changes connect the valves with the axes which the engine sets to work, by the introduction of an apparatus, the principle of which Watt discovered in the regulator of the sails of some flour-mills: this he named the "governor," which is now called the "centrifugal regulator." Its efficacy is such, that a few years ago, in the cotton-spinning manufactory of a renowned mechanic, Mr. Lee, there was a clock set in motion by the engine of the establishment, and it showed no great inferiority to a common spring clock.

Watt's regulator, and an intelligent use of the revolving principle—that is the secret, the true secret, of the astonishing perfection of the industrial products of our epoch; this is what now gives to the steam-engine a rate entirely free from jerks. That is the reason why it can, with equal success, embroider muslins and forge anchors, weave the most delicate webs and communicate a rapid movement to the heavy stones of a flour-mill. This also explains how Watt had said, fearless of being reproached for exaggeration, that to prevent the comings and goings of servants, he would be served, he would have gruel brought to him, in case of illness, by tables connected with his steam-engine. I am aware it is supposed by the generality of people that this suavity of motion is obtained only by a loss of power; but it is an error, a gross error: the saying, "much noise and little work," is true, not only in the moral world, but is also an axiom in mechanics.

A few words more and we shall reach the end of our technical details. Within these few years great advantage has been found in not allowing a free access of steam from the boiler into the cylinder, during the whole time of each oscillation of the engine. This communication is interrupted, for example, when the piston has reached one-third of its course. The two remaining thirds of the cylinder's length are then traversed by virtue of the acquired velocity, and especially by the detention of the steam. Watt had already indicated such an arrangement. Some very good judges esteem the economical importance of the steam-detent as equal to that of the condenser. It seems certain that since its adoption the Cornwall engines give unhoped-for results; that with one bushel of coal they equal the labor of twenty men during ten hours. Let us keep in mind that in the coal districts a bushel of coal only costs ninepence, and it will be demonstrated that over the greater part of England Watt reduced the price of a man's day's work, a day of ten hours' labor, to less than a sou (one halfpenny).

Numerical valuations make us appreciate so well the importance of his inventions that I cannot resist the desire to present two more improvements. I borrow them from one of the most celebrated correspondents of the Academy—from Sir John Herschel.

The ascent of Mont Blanc, starting from the valley of Chamounix, is justly considered as the hardest work that a man can accomplish in two days. Thus the maximum mechanical work of which we are capable in twice twenty-four hours is measured by transporting the weight of our body to the elevation of Mont Blanc. This work or its equivalent would be accomplished by a steam-engine in the course of burning one kilogram (two pounds) of coal. Watt has, therefore, ascertained that the daily power of a man does not exceed what is contained in half a kilogram (one pound) of coal.

Herodotus records that the construction of the great Pyramid of Egypt employed 100,000 men during 20 years. The pyramid consists of calcareous stone; its volume and its weight can be easily calculated; its weight has been found to be about 5,900,000 kilograms (nearly 5,000 tons). To elevate this weight to 38 metres, which is the pyramid's centre of gravity, it would require to burn 8244 hectolitres of coal. Our English neighbors have some foundries where they consume this quantity every week.

FOOTNOTES:

[57] Watt was one of the eight foreign associates of the French Academy of Sciences, which body Arago was addressing.—ED.



FIRST PARTITION OF POLAND

A.D. 1772

JAMES FLETCHER

Of the three partitions which Poland underwent in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, the first was due to the jealousies of European powers. It was an event of great significance for the Polish kingdom, ominous of future spoliations, which indeed followed, to the destruction of its political life. It had been long since Poland passed her golden age—two centuries and more. In the mean time she had undergone many vicissitudes, yet had preserved her identity as a state.

When Russia had won successes in the war of 1768-1774 with Turkey, she seized the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia. Austria, seeing in this acquisition a menace to her eastern frontier, opposed it. Russia, in order to appease Austria, looked about for territory that might be obtained for her in compensation. The state of affairs in Poland presented a tempting opportunity for interference which might lead to a division of the kingdom. Stanislaus II, King of Poland, had been elected in 1764, mainly through the influence of Russia—he was one of Catharine II's lovers. His people had risen against him when Russia adopted her policy of spoliation. Prussia, as well as Austria, advanced territorial claims, and the partition of 1772, really planned by Frederick the Great, was consummated on the basis of a secret treaty of those powers with Catharine's government.

Some writers, possessed with the love of reducing political transactions to one rigid scale of cause and effect, and at the same time of exhibiting their acumen by threading the mazes of events up to remote circumstances, pretend to trace the design of the partition of Poland for more than a century back. Rulhiere seems to plume himself on the idea. "The projects executed in our days against Poland," he observes, "were proposed more than a hundred years ago. I have discovered this important and hitherto unknown circumstance in the archives of foreign affairs of France." This point had been canvassed under the reign of John Casimir; and it only remains to be remarked that such very subtle analysis of the motives and progress of actions generally overshoots the mark, since no men can act always according to rule, but are in some degree influenced by circumstances and caprice. It would be equally absurd to imagine that Frederick, in the complicated intrigues which preceded the first partition, was actuated by one deeply laid scheme of policy to arrive at one end: the possession of Polish Prussia. It was, indeed, absolutely essential for him to obtain this province, to consolidate and open a communication between his scattered dominions, which then, as Voltaire says, were stretched out like a pair of gaiters; but it remained a desideratum rather than a design, since he knew that neither Russia nor Austria would be inclined to permit the aggression; for the former had evidently marked out the whole of Poland for herself, and would consider Frederick an unwelcome intruder; while Austria, which had lately experienced the Prussian King's encroachments, was more jealous than ever of his obtaining the slightest aggrandizement, and had openly declared that she would not allow the seizure of the least Polish village. His views, however, widened as he advanced, and no doubt he spoke with sincerity when he told the Emperor Joseph that "he had never followed a plan in war, much less any plan in policy, and that events alone had suggested all his resolutions." Admitting the truth of this, we proceed to trace out the circumstances which produced this crisis.

The relations of the three courts, at the commencement of the war between Russia and Turkey (1768), did not portend anything like a coalition; Frederick, indeed, was in alliance with Russia, but also secretly favored the Sultan; Austria was all but an open enemy of both Russia and Prussia. Circumstances, however, obliged Austria to forget her hatred to Prussia, and Frederick thus became the mediator between the courts of Vienna and St. Petersburg. Frederick had every reason to wish to lull the suspicions and jealousies of Austria, that he might be left in undisputed possession of Silesia; and that power, moreover, was no longer an object of dread or jealousy to him, for the Seven Years' War had reduced its resources to the lowest ebb. The dispositions of the court of Vienna cannot be comprised in so few words: its situation was much more complicated, its policy more embarrassed, and the persons who governed it will be much more difficult to make known.

Maria Theresa was now not very far from the tomb, and after all the arduous struggles she had undergone for the defence of her states, vicissitudes she had experienced, and the exhaustion of her resources, she determined to end her days in peace. She devoted almost the whole of her time to superstitious devotions in a gloomy chamber hung round with death's heads, and a portrait of her late husband in the act of expiring. She yet cherished, however, some of the feelings of mortality, implacable hatred to Frederick, and contempt mingled with hate for Catharine II, of whom she never spoke but with disdain, calling her "that woman." Besides, she could sometimes also silence the reproaches of conscience, so as to seize for the public use the bequests of the pious for religious purposes, and to confiscate the revenues of rich monasteries apparently without any compunction. Men fancied, says our author, that they could foresee in all this conduct that if this just and religious Princess had power enough over herself to silence her generosity and even sometimes her piety, she might perhaps be capable in some state crisis of incurring still greater remorse and silence justice.

Her minister, Kaunitz, to whom she intrusted all the management of affairs, is not the least important personage in this drama, nor did he underrate his own consequence. "Heaven," said he, "is a hundred years in forming a great mind for the restoration of an empire, and it then rests another hundred years; on this account I tremble for the fate which awaits this monarchy after me." Throughout a long and arduous ministry he had shown himself the most subtle and refined politician, unfettered in his schemes by any remorse or feeling, and making a boast that he had no friends. Such a man was well fitted to play the part allotted to him. After the conclusion of the long war, he had made it his policy to repair the damages the empire had sustained by alliances, and even his opposition to Frederick daily subsided.

But it was another agent who commenced the connection between Austria and Prussia. Joseph, Maria Theresa's son and coregent with his mother, detested this pacific policy and longed for war. He was, however, obliged to submit; for Maria dreaded the effects of this warlike propensity, and kept the government in the hands of her ministers. He had continual contentions with the Empress, and urged her to improve her finances by conquest or aggression; but all the power he could obtain was the command of the troops, which he augmented to two hundred thousand men, and organized them under the counsel of his field marshal, Lacy. In his mania for military matters he visited in 1768 all the fields of battle of the last war, and after traversing Bohemia and Saxony, and learning from his generals the causes of the defeats and victories, he approached in the course of his tour the borders of Prussian Silesia, where Frederick was engaged in his annual reviews. The King sent a polite message, and expressed a great desire to be personally acquainted with him. The young Prince could not pay a visit to the former enemy of his family without previously consulting his mother, the Empress; and the interview was deferred till the next year; when it took place on August 25th, at Neisse, a town in Silesia.

At this period the war between Russia and Turkey engrossed general attention, and seems to have formed the principal subject of the conference; but no resolutions of any importance were agreed to. The flattering manner in which Frederick received the young Prince must have made a great impression on his mind; and the extravagant compliments which were lavished on him were highly gratifying to youthful vanity, from such a great man. Frederick frequently repeated that Joseph would surpass Charles V; and though it has the appearance of irony to those acquainted with the denouement of this youthful monarch's character, it was probably not intended so, for Frederick, we have seen before, could stoop to the most servile adulation when it answered his purpose. Be that as it may, the effect on Joseph was the same, for on his return he spoke of the Prussian monarch with the highest enthusiasm.

Maria Theresa was growing old, and the Austrian ministers began to turn to the rising sun; the eyes of Kaunitz were opened to the policy of cultivating a friendship with Prussia; and the correspondence between the two courts became every day more frequent. This led to another conference between the two princes at Neustadt, in Moravia, which was held on September 3, 1770, and at which Kaunitz was present. The King was more courteous than ever; he appeared in the military uniform of Austria, and continued to wear it as long as he remained in the Austrian territory. He made use of every species of compliment. One day, as they were leaving the dining-room and the Emperor made a motion to give him the precedence, he stepped back, saying with a significant smile and double entendre, not lost on Joseph, "Since your imperial majesty begins to manoeuvre, I must follow wherever you lead." Nor did he spare his civilities to Kaunitz, with the view of removing the rankling feeling which had often made that conceited minister exclaim, "The King of Prussia is the only man who denies me the esteem which is due to me."

Kaunitz insisted on the necessity of opposing the ambitious views of Russia, and stated that the Empress would never allow Catharine to take possession of Moldavia and Wallachia, which would make her states adjoin those of Austria; nor permit her to penetrate farther into Turkey. He added that an alliance between Austria and Prussia was the only means of checking Catharine's overbearing power. To this Frederick replied that being in alliance with the court of St. Petersburg, his only practicable measure was to prevent the war from becoming general by conciliating the friendly feelings of Catharine toward Austria. On the day after this conference a courier arrived from Constantinople, with the news of the destruction of the Turkish fleet and the rout of their army, and to request the mediation of the courts of Vienna and Berlin. To this both readily assented, but without agreeing upon any terms.

Frederick did not forget to follow up his former mode of tactics with the Emperor; he pretended to make him the confidant of all his designs, a species of flattery most gratifying to a young prince. On his return to Berlin, also, the King affected to imitate the Austrian manners, and uttered several pompous panegyrics on the talents of Joseph, who had recited to him some of Tasso's verses, and nearly a whole act of the Pastor Fido.

Thus did Frederick avail himself of circumstances to commence an amicable correspondence with Austria, and he thus became the medium of communication between the hostile courts of Vienna and St. Petersburg. No more direct intelligence, however, existed between these two states than before; for great as was Theresa's hatred against Catharine, Catharine's was no less violent; and even when Austria made friendly overtures, through Frederick, concerning mediation between Turkey and Russia, she desired Frederick to desist, and rejected the interference.

A channel of communication, however, was opened between the three conspiring powers; and the next step was for one of the triumvirate to broach the iniquitous partition plot. It is made a matter of much dispute which of them started the project, and they all equally disclaim the infamy of being its author. The fact, no doubt, was, that in this, as in all other unjust coalitions, they did not, in the first instance, act on a preconcerted plan; but each individual power cherished secretly its design, and like designing villains, who understand one another, almost

"Without eyes, ears, and harmful sound of words,"

the conspiring parties were naturally drawn together by the similarity of reckless atrocity in their designs.

It cannot be imagined that the scheme of partition originated with Catharine; she had long been the real mistress of Poland, the King was nothing more than her tenant at will, and it required only a little time for the whole kingdom to sink into a Russian province. The intentions of the other powers began to evince themselves more plainly in 1770. Frederick began to throw out hints of claims on certain Polish districts; he obliged the Polish Prussians to furnish his troops with horses and corn in exchange for debased money, which was either forged Polish silver coin, only one-third of its nominal value, or false Dutch ducats, 17 per cent. under the proper value. By this disgraceful species of swindling it is calculated he gained seven million dollars.

The young Poles were enrolled in the armies by force; and every town and village in Posnania was taxed at a stated number of marriageable girls, who were sent to stock the districts of the Prussian dominions depopulated by the long wars. Each girl's portion was to be a bed, two pigs, a cow, and three ducats of gold. It is said that one town alone was obliged to furnish the Prussian general, Belling, with fifty girls. Under pretence that the magistrates of Dantzic prevented the levies, troops were marched into the territories of the city, a contribution of one hundred thousand ducats was exacted, and one thousand young men were pressed for the Prussian service. Frederick's military possession of Posnania, as well as the greater part of Polish Prussia, seemed to be but too consonant with his hinted claims, and his arbitrary levies evinced not merely intended, but actual possession.

Austria, too, was playing a similar part on the south. In the spring of 1769 Birzynski, at the head of a small troop of confederates, entered Lubowla, one of the towns in the starosty or district of Zips, or Spiz, with the intention of levying contributions, as he was accustomed, in a disorderly manner. This little district is situated to the south of the palatinate of Cracow, among the Carpathian Mountains, and has been originally a portion of the kingdom of Hungary. The confederates were followed by the Russians, and took refuge in Hungary, as was their custom. This near approach of the Russians to the imperial frontiers was made a pretext by the court of Vienna for concentrating a body of troops there; and at the same time hints were thrown out of Austria's claims, not only to this but some of the adjacent districts. Researches were ordered to be made into old records, to establish these pretensions; the Austrian troops seized the territory of Zips, and engineers were employed by the Empress to mark out the frontier. They advanced the boundary line along the districts of Sandecz, Nowitarg, and Czorsztyn, and marked it out with posts furnished with the imperial eagle. Stanislaus had complained of this proceeding in a letter of October 28, 1770; to which the Empress returned for answer, in January, 1771, that she would willingly make an amicable arrangement, after peace was established, to settle the disputed frontier, but that she was determined to claim her right to the district of Zips, and that for the present it was requisite to pursue the operation of demarcation.

The Empress seems to have been instigated not only by the characteristic avidity of Austrian policy, but by jealousies awakened by the near approaches of the Russian troops. Besides, it is a point of some consequence to be remembered—though it seems to have escaped the observation of most historians—that she had before her eyes a fearful proof of the danger of an uncertain frontier in the affair of Balta, which was the ostensible cause of the war between Turkey and Russia.

This open encroachment on the Polish territory, however, was a fatal precedent; Catharine and Frederick could advance, as excuses for their proceedings, that they were solely intended to restore tranquillity to Poland; and that their possession was only temporary, whereas Theresa's was a permanent seizure. Frederick, therefore, endeavors strenuously in his writings to exonerate his intentions from censure, and shifts the odium of this step on Austria; but whether he is absolutely innocent of the "injustice," as he himself calls it, or adds to his guilt by the height of hypocrisy and cant, is a question not very difficult of solution.

The three powers could now readily understand each other's designs; but the first communication which took place between them on the subject occurred in December, 1770, and January, 1771. In the former month Catharine invited Prince Henry, Frederick's brother, who had before been a personal acquaintance, to her court; and the wily despot of Prussia urged him earnestly to accept the invitation. He reached St. Petersburg in the midst of the festivities and rejoicings for the victories over the Turks; and having, like his brother, abundant flattery at will, he seized the opportunity of loading Catharine with compliments. It would be absurd to suppose that the Empress, masculine as her mind was, could be insensible to this species of attack; she, like all other followers of ambition and conquest, made the applause and admiration, even of the vulgar, the aim of her life; and it can only be affectation in those who pretend to despise the adulation which they so eagerly labor for. Henry was admitted to confidential conferences, and so well did he avail himself of his opportunities and influence that he succeeded in persuading the Empress to accept the mediation of Austria between Turkey and Russia—a commission with which he was charged by his brother.

It was in these conferences that the fate of Poland was decided. While Catharine was hesitating about accepting the terms Austria proposed, which were that she should renounce her design upon Moldavia and Wallachia, the news arrived at St. Petersburg that the Austrian troops had taken possession of Zips. Catharine was much astonished at the proceeding, and remarked that if Austria seized the Polish territory, the two other neighboring powers must imitate her example until she desisted. This hint suggested to Henry a mode of removing those objections of Austria which impeded the negotiation. He knew that the court of Vienna was as eager for aggrandizement as Russia, and that all her jealousies would be allayed by a similar accession of territory; that at the same time she would never consent to have the Russians as her neighbors in Moldavia and Wallachia, but would have no objection to their making an equal increase to that immense empire elsewhere. Frederick's consent, also, must be purchased by an equal allotment; where, then, he thought, were there three such portions to be found but where Austria pointed out? Catharine approved of the plan after a few moments' reflection, but mentioned two impediments: first, that when her troops had entered Poland she had solemnly declared that she would maintain the integrity of the kingdom; the next, that Austria would not receive such a proposal from her without suspicion. These difficulties were readily removed—the first by breaking the engagement, and the second by making Frederick the negotiator with the court of Vienna.

Frederick's admirers pretend that he was unacquainted with this intrigue, and, when the plan was made known to him, opposed it strenuously; "but that on the following day, having reflected on the misfortunes of the Poles, and on the impossibility of reestablishing their liberty, he showed himself more tractable." It is to be hoped that, for the sake of Frederick's remnant of character, that is not true; after the singular manner in which he had evinced his concern for "the misfortunes of the Poles," and his solicitude for their "liberty" in Polish Prussia, such pretensions would have been the very height of hypocrisy. His scruples, at any rate, if any such existed, were soon dispelled; and he exerted himself in persuading the court of Vienna to enter into the plot.

Austria was but too ready to fall into the design; the conflicting views, indeed, between Maria Theresa, Joseph, and their minister Kaunitz gave rise to some complication of politics and consequent delay. Frederick, strongly as he is said to have disclaimed the plan in the present instance, was now the only party impatient to conclude it. "The slowness and irresolution of the Russians," he says in his Memoires, "protracted the conclusion of the treaty of partition; the negotiation hung chiefly on the possession of the city of Dantzic. The Russians pretended they had guaranteed the liberty of this little republic, but it was in fact the English, who, jealous of the Prussians, protected the liberty of this maritime town, and who prompted the Empress of Russia not to consent to the demands of his Prussian majesty. It was requisite, however, for the King to determine; and as it was evident that the master of the Vistula and the port of Dantzic would, in time, subject that city, he decided that it was not necessary to stop such an important negotiation, for an advantage which in fact was only deferred; therefore his majesty relaxed in this demand. After so many obstacles had been removed this secret contract was signed at St. Petersburg, February 17, 1772. The month of June was fixed on for taking possession, and it was agreed that the Empress-Queen should be invited to join the two contracting powers and share in the partition."

It now remained to persuade Austria to join the coalition. Joseph and Kaunitz were soon won over, but Maria Theresa's conscience made a longer resistance. The fear of hell, she said, restrained her from seizing another's possessions. It was represented to her, however, that her resistance could not prevent the other two powers from portioning out Poland, but might occasion a war which would cost the valuable lives of many; whereas the peaceable partition would not spill a drop of blood. She was thus, she imagined, placed in a dilemma between two sins; and forgetting the command, "Do not evil that good may come," she endeavored to persuade herself that she was doing her duty in choosing the least. She yielded at length with the air of some religious devotee who exclaims to her artful seducer, "May God forgive you!" and at the same time sinks into his arms. The contract was signed between Prussia and Austria on March 4th, and the definite treaty of partition which regulated the three portions was concluded on August 5, 1772.

Russia was to have, by this first partition, the palatinates of Polotsk, Vitebsk, and Mstislavl, as far as the rivers of Dwina and Dnieper, more than three thousand square leagues; Austria had for her share Red Russia (Galicia), and a portion of Podolia and Little Poland as far as the Vistula, about twenty-five hundred square leagues; and Prussia was to be contented with Polish Prussia (excepting Dantzic and Thorn with their territory), and part of Great Poland as far as the river Notec (or Netze), comprising about nine hundred square leagues. All the rest of the kingdom was to be insured to Stanislaus under the old constitution.

All the three powers thought it necessary to publish some defence of their conduct; and, in separate pamphlets, they attempted to prove that they had legitimate claims on Poland, and that their present violent seizures were only just resumptions of their own territory or equivalent to it.

Rulhiere says that Catharine only made her claim as a just indemnification for the trouble and expense which she had devoted to Poland; this, however, it will be found by referring to her defence, is not the case. She sets forth the great kindness she had shown the republic by insuring the election of a Piast (Stanislaus), and uses these remarkable words on the subject: "That event was necessary to restore the Polish liberty to its ancient lustre, to insure the elective right of the monarchy, and to destroy foreign influence, which was so rooted in the state, and which was the continual source of trouble and contest." She then exclaims against the confederates:

"Their ambition and cupidity, veiled under the phantom of religion and the defence of their laws, pervade and desolate this vast kingdom, without the prospect of any termination of this madness but its entire ruin." She then proceeds with her "Deduction," endeavoring to prove, from old authors, that it was not till 1686 that the Polish limits were extended beyond the mouth of the Dwina and the little town of Stoika on the Dnieper, five miles below Kiow. The following is a specimen of the lawyer-like sophistry which the Empress employs to establish her claim to the Russian territory, which remained in the hands of the Poles after the treaty in 1686:

"The design of such a concession being only to put an end to a bloody war more promptly, and by a remedy as violent as a devastation (aussi violent qu'une devastation), to insure tranquillity of neighborhood between two rival and newly reconciled nations, it necessarily follows that every act on the part of the subjects of the republic of Poland, contrary to such intention, has, ipso facto, revived Russia's indisputable and unalienated right to all that extent of territory. It must be observed, also, that this arrangement about the frontier was only provisional and temporary, since it is expressly said that it shall only remain so until it has been otherwise amicably settled.

"The object was, therefore, to give the nations time to lay aside their inveterate hatred; and to remove immediate causes of dispute between the different subjects, and consequent rupture between the two states. Russia sacrificed for a time the possession of the territory which extends from the fertile town of Stoika to the river Tecmine, and from the right bank of the Dnieper, fifty versts in breadth along the frontiers of Poland. There is no idea of cession here on the part of Russia; it is a pledge (gage) which she advances for the solidity of the peace, which ought to be returned to her when the object of it is effected. This is the only reasonable construction which can be put upon the stipulation, 'until it has been otherwise amicably settled.' Russia is not to be a loser because the confusion of the internal affairs of Poland has never allowed that country to come to a definite agreement on this subject, notwithstanding the requests of Russia."

It does not demand much acumen to unveil such impudent sophistry as this. The assertion that the arrangement was only provisional and temporary is false; the treaty indeed left the detail of the boundary line to be drawn out by commissioners, as must always be the case in arrangements of this kind, and as was meant to be implied by the words which the Russian minister transforms into "until it has been otherwise amicably arranged."

Such was the weak manner in which the Russian diplomatists imagined to deceive Europe; their defence indeed is as triumphant a proof of the badness of their cause as the most earnest friend of Poland could desire. Our surprise may well be excited at the weakness of the argument, particularly when we remember that Catharine's servants had long been trained in glossing over the basest and most shameful transactions. "The ministers of St. Petersburg," said a contemporary writer, "are accustomed to appear without blushing at the tribunal of the public in defence of any cause; the death of Peter and assassination of Prince John inured them to it."

Such a work hardly requires refutation. Every sophism and every falsehood is a damning argument against the Russian cause. Truth, in fact, is outraged in every page of the writing; and one striking instance will suffice. Catharine states that the Polish Government would never make any arrangement about the frontier; but the fact is that even as late as 1764 commissioners were appointed at the diet of coronation for this very purpose, but the Russians refused to nominate theirs; again in 1766, when Count Rzewinski, Polish ambassador to St. Petersburg, made a similar application, he was answered that the affairs of the dissidents must be first settled.

The Austrian pretensions were even more elaborately drawn up than those of Russia. In the first place, the district of Zips, the first sacrifice to Austrian rapacity, came under consideration. Sigismund, who came to the Hungarian throne in 1387, mortgaged this district to Wladislas II (Jagello), King of Poland, in 1412, for a stipulated sum of money. It is commonly called the "Thirteen Towns of Zips," but the district contains sixteen. No reclamation of it had been made till the present time; it had then been in the undisputed possession of Poland nearly three hundred sixty years. The chief demur which the Austrians now made to the mortgage was that the King of Hungary was restricted by the constitution, as expressed in the coronation-oath, from alienating any portion of the kingdom. But even this plea, weak as it is under such circumstances, is not available; since it is proved that this article was never made a part of the coronation-oath until the accession of Ferdinand I in 1527.

The Austrian minister endeavored also to establish the right of his mistress to Galicia and Podolia, as Queen of Hungary, and the duchies of Oswiecim and Zator, as Queen of Bohemia. "What lastly establishes indisputably the ancient claim of Hungary to the provinces in question is that in several seals and documents of the ancient kings of Hungary preserved in our archives, the titles and arms of Galicia are always used." After exhausting the records, and stating that the crown of Hungary has never in any way renounced its rights and pretensions, the author modestly winds up his arguments in the following way: "Consequently, after such a long delay, the house of Austria is well authorized in establishing and reclaiming the lawful rights and pretensions of her crowns of Hungary and Bohemia, and to obtain satisfaction by the means which she now employs; in the use of which she has exhibited the greatest moderation possible, by confining herself to a very moderate equivalent for her real pretensions to the best provinces of Poland, such as Podolia, etc."

Frederick argues his cause on the general principles of civil law. "Since then," he says, "the crown of Poland cannot prove express cessions, which are the only good titles between sovereigns to confer a legitimate possession of disputed provinces, it will perhaps have recourse to prescription and immemorial possession. We all know the famous dispute among the learned on the question of prescription and natural right, whether it obtains between sovereigns and free nations. The affirmative is founded only on that very weak argument that he who for a long time has not made use of his rights is presumed to have abandoned them; a presumption which is at best doubtful, and cannot destroy the right and established property of a monarch. Besides, even this presumption altogether vanishes when the superior strength of a usurper has prevented the lawful proprietor from claiming his rights, which has been the case in the present instance.

"Time alone cannot render a possession just which has not been so from its origin; and as there is no judge between free nations, no one can decide if the time past is sufficient to establish prescription, or if the presumption of the desertion [of rights] is sufficiently proved. But even leaving this point undetermined, the prescription which the republic of Poland could allege in the present case has not any of the qualities which the advocates of prescription require, to render it valid between free states."

We do not imagine that our readers will coincide with Frederick in the following opinion: "We flatter ourselves that when the impartial public has weighed without prejudice all that has just been detailed in this expose, they will not find in the step which his majesty has taken anything which is not conformable to justice, to natural right, to the general use of nations, and, lastly, to the example which the Poles themselves have given in seizing all these countries by simple matter of fact. We trust also that the Polish nation will eventually recover from its prejudices; that it will acknowledge the enormous injustice which it has done to the house of Brandenburg, and that it will bring itself to repair it by a just and honorable arrangement with which his majesty will willingly comply, sincerely wishing to cultivate the friendship and good-fellowship of this illustrious nation, and to live with the republic in good union and harmony."

We have thus given the three monarchs liberty to plead for themselves; and no one can rise from the perusal of their "Defences" without feeling additional conviction of their injustice, and resentment at their hypocrisy. We must own we are almost inclined to interpret Frederick's appeal as a sneering parody on the cant of diplomacy in general; but, in whatever light it be viewed, it gives additional insight into the heart and head of that military despot and disciple of Machiavelli.

Iniquity almost invariably pays virtue the compliment of attempting to assume her semblance; and the three wholesale plunderers—Russia, Austria, and Prussia—therefore determined to give some show of justice to their violent seizure, by wringing from their victims a ratification of their claims. But "the children of this world" with all their wisdom cannot always preserve consistency, and, cunning as the villain may sometimes be, he will, at some time or other, make the most disgraceful mistakes.

By requiring further ratification, the three powers admitted that their anterior claims were not well founded; and common-sense ought to have told them that, if the former claims were not just, the latter, depending on the same title, were rendered still less so by aggravated violence. Every show of justice in a villainous action rises up in sterner judgment against the perpetrator, inasmuch as it evinces design, and makes him responsible for the motive.

These remarks might be applied to Catharine, Frederick, Maria Theresa, or Joseph; for though they may shield themselves from personal accusation by acting under the vague titles of "powers," "states," or "governments," the evasion is mean and cowardly; for particularly in such despotic governments as theirs the passions and wills of the rulers are the directors of every political scheme.

The three powers fixed on April 19, 1773, for the opening of a diet at Warsaw to ratify their claims. Their troops were in possession of all Poland; the capital in particular was strongly invested; and Rewiski, Benoit, and Stakelberg, the Austrian, Prussian, and Russian ministers, were on the spot to overrule and direct all the debates. They declared that every deputy who opposed their proposals should be treated as an enemy of his country and of the three powers. Frederick himself states, in his description of this transaction, that the deputies were informed if they continued refractory that the whole kingdom would be dismembered; but, on the contrary, that if they were submissive the foreign troops would evacuate by degrees the territory they intended to leave to the republic. The Diet was to be confederated, that the Poles might be deprived of their last resource, the liberum veto.

Some few patriots still raised their voices, even in the midst of the united armies of Russia, Austria, and Prussia; and among these Reyten was the most distinguished. He was a Lithuanian by descent, had acted a good part in the confederacy of Bar, and had earned a character which made the electors of Nowogrodek select him for their representative in the present memorable Diet. His colleague was Samuel Korsak, a worthy coadjutor, who did not turn a deaf ear to his father's parting words: "My son, I send you to Warsaw accompanied by my oldest domestics; I charge them to bring me your head if you do not oppose with all your might what is now plotting against your country."

Poninski, a creature of the allied powers, was the marshal of the Diet, appointed by the intervention of the ambassadors; and when the session opened one of the deputies nominated him, and he was immediately proceeding to take the seat, without waiting for the election; but several members rose to protest against this breach of privilege, and Reyten exclaimed: "Gentlemen, the marshal cannot be thus self-appointed; the whole Assembly must choose him; I protest against the nomination of Poninski; name him who is to be your president." Some voices instantly shouted, "Long live the true son of his country, Marshal Reyten!" Poninski retired, adjourning the session to the next day.

On the following morning Poninski again made his appearance, merely to postpone the Assembly one day more. When this period arrived he went to the hall with a guard of foreign soldiers, to station some of his faction at the doors and to prevent the entrance of the public. Reyten, Korsak, and their little band of patriots were soon at their posts, when Reyten, perceiving that the people were not allowed to enter, exclaimed: "Gentlemen, follow me. Poninski shall not be marshal of the Diet to-day, if I live!" It was already twelve o'clock, and Poninski did not appear, but a messenger arrived to state that he adjourned the meeting. "We do not acknowledge Poninski for marshal," replied Reyten; and seeing many of the members about to retire, he placed himself before the door with his arms crossed, and attempted to stop the deserters. But his exertions proving useless he threw himself along the doorway, exclaiming, with a wearied but determined voice, "Go, go, and seal your own eternal ruin, but first trample on the breast which will only beat for honor and liberty."

There were now only fifteen members in the hall, and of these but six persevered in their patriotic determination; namely, Reyten, Korsak, Durin, Terzmanowski, Kozuchowski, and Penczkowski. At ten a message arrived from the Russian ambassador, inviting the resolute deputies to a conference at his house. Four of them, among whom was Korsak, accordingly went; and Stakelberg at first addressed them mildly, but, finding them resolute, began to threaten them with confiscation of their estates. On this Korsak rose and declared, since they wished to seize his possessions—which were already, however, mostly plundered by the Russian armies—there was no occasion for so many preliminaries; and he actually put into his hands a list of all his property, adding: "This is all I have to sacrifice to the avarice of the enemies of my country. I know that they also can dispose of my life; but I do not know any despot on earth rich enough to corrupt or powerful enough to intimidate me!"

Reyten remained still at his post, and the four patriots on returning found the doors closed, and lay down without for the night. On the following day the ministers of the three powers repaired to the King's palace, and Stakelberg threatened him with the immediate destruction of his capital unless he gave his sanction to the forced confederation. Stanislaus demanded the advice of his council, but received no reply; and taking their silence for an assent, and not knowing how to evade a direct answer, he yielded to the ministers' demands. The corrupt Diet held their assembly without the hall, because Reyten was still at his post—such was their dread of even one patriotic individual.

On April 23d, when Poninski and the confederates entered, they found Reyten stretched senseless on the floor, in which state he must have lain thirty-six hours. Such was the determination with which he resisted the oppression of his country, and so entirely were all the energies of his mind devoted to the cause, that when he learned its fall he lost his reason.

The allies began to redouble their threats, and signified to the deputies their intention of portioning out the whole of the kingdom, if any more opposition were offered; but, notwithstanding, the Diet continued stormy, and many bold speeches were made. Of all situations the King's must have been the most perplexing and irksome; but no person was better adapted to act such a part than Stanislaus. He made the most pathetic appeals to his subjects, and frequently spoke in a strain more fit for an unfortunate but patriotic hero than for one who had done nothing but affect a few tears—for we can hardly doubt that they were hypocritical—over the misfortunes which he had brought on his country. The following sentence must have sounded strangely in his mouth: "Fecimus quod potuimus, omnia tentavimus, nihil omisimus." Again, on May 10th, he absolutely had the audacity to defend his political conduct, stating that he had always done his duty whenever any business depended on him.

On May 17th the Diet agreed to Poninski's motion to appoint a commission that, in conjunction with the three ambassadors, should regulate the limits of the four countries, and determine upon the changes in the Polish Government. On the 18th the commissioners were nominated by the King and Poninski.

Some small remains of liberty lingered even among the commissioners, and called for fresh threats and violence from the allied powers. At length they agreed to ratify the treaty of August 5th, and establish a permanent council in whom the executive power was to be vested. This council consisted of forty members, and was divided into four departments, which engrossed every branch of administration. The King was the nominal president, but the real authority was possessed by the Russian ambassador. The partition was not fully arranged till 1774, and then Prussia and Austria began to extend their bounds beyond the agreed limits. L'appetit vient en mangeant, and these encroachments were a sad augury of future partitions to the Poles.

The indifference with which other states regarded this partition was indeed surprising. France, in particular, might have been expected to protest against it; but the imbecility and dotage of Louis XV, and the weakness of his minister, paid too little attention to the interests of their own nation to be likely to think of others. They made the most frivolous excuses, and even had the meanness to attempt to shift the blame on the shoulders of their ambassador at Vienna, pretending that he amused himself with hunting instead of politics, and had no knowledge of the design of partition until it was consummated. Louis contented himself with saying, with an affectation of rage, "It would not have happened if Choiseul had been here!" Some few patriots in England declaimed on the injustice of the proceeding; but the spirit of the ministry, which was occupied in wrangling with the American colonies about the imposition of taxes, was not likely to be very attentive to the cries of oppressed liberty.

The partition is not one of those equivocal acts which seem to vibrate between right and wrong, justice and injustice, and demand the most accurate analysis to ascertain on which side they preponderate. Argument is thrown away on such a subject; for to doubt about the nature of a plain decisive act like this must necessarily proceed from something even worse than uncertainty and scepticism concerning the simple fundamental principles of moral action. A little reflection, however, will not be lost on so memorable a portion of history, which opens a wider field for instruction than the "thousand homilies" on the ambition and glory and other commonplaces of Greek and Roman history.

Such great political crimes reveal a corresponding system of motives of as black a hue, and even the narrowest experience teaches us that motives are never so well traced as in their results. The corrupt principle which prompts injustice and deceit in foreign transactions would operate equally in domestic affairs; and the minister who uses hypocrisy and falsehood in manifestoes and treaties would not scruple to do the same in matters of private life. An implicit confidence in enemies like these was one of the amiable "crimes" for which "Sarmatia fell unwept."



THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY

A.D. 1773

GEORGE BANCROFT

One of the most famous demonstrations of the purpose of the American colonies to resist what they regarded as the unjust taxation laid upon them by Great Britain was this unique occurrence in Boston harbor. Everywhere in the colonies the people had begun to go without articles that were subject to taxes. They ceased to import goods for clothing, and wore homespun. It was not easy to find a substitute for tea, but various plants and leaves were used instead of it, and "store tea" became a popular designation of real tea as distinguished from domestic herbs. At last the English Government abandoned all taxes except that laid on tea; this the Government insisted upon laying as strictly as ever. Ships with cargoes of tea were sent with the expectation that the colonists would pay the tax. What followed upon the arrival of the tea-ships at Boston and Charlestown, and gave to American history the "Boston Tea-party," is fully told in Bancroft's pages.

On Sunday, November 28th, the ship Dartmouth appeared in Boston harbor with one hundred fourteen chests of the East India Company's tea. To keep the Sabbath strictly was the New England usage. But hours were precious; let the tea be entered, and it would be beyond the power of the consignees to send it back. The selectmen held one meeting by day and another in the evening, but they sought in vain for the consignees, who had taken sanctuary in the Castle.

The committee of correspondence was more efficient. They met also on Sunday, and obtained from the Quaker Rotch, who owned the Dartmouth, a promise not to enter his ship till Tuesday; and authorized Samuel Adams to invite the committees of the five surrounding towns, Dorchester, Roxbury, Brookline, Cambridge, and Charlestown, with their own townsmen and those of Boston, to hold a mass meeting the next morning. Faneuil Hall could not contain the people that poured in on Monday. The concourse was the largest ever known. Adjourning to "the Old South" Meeting-house, Jonathan Williams did not fear to act as moderator, nor Samuel Adams, Hancock, Molineux, and Warren to conduct the business of the meeting. On the motion of Samuel Adams, who entered fully into the question, the assembly, composed of upward of five thousand persons, resolved unanimously that "the tea should be sent back to the place from whence it came at all events, and that no duty should be paid on it." "The only way to get rid of it," said Young, "is to throw it overboard." The consignees asked for time to prepare their answer; and "out of great tenderness" the body postponed receiving it to the next morning. Meantime the owner and master of the ship were converted and forced to promise not to land the tea. A watch was also proposed. "I," said Hancock, "will be one of it, rather than that there should be none," and a party of twenty-five persons, under the orders of Edward Proctor as its captain, was appointed to guard the tea-ship during the night.

On the same day the council who had been solicited by the Governor and the consignees to assume the guardianship of the tea, coupled their refusal with a reference to the declared opinion of both branches of the General Court that the tax upon it by Parliament was unconstitutional. The next morning the consignees jointly gave as their answer: "It is utterly out of our power to send back the teas; but we now declare to you our readiness to store them until we shall receive further directions from our constituents"; that is, until they could notify the British Government. The wrath of the meeting was kindling, when the sheriff of Suffolk entered with a proclamation from the Governor, "warning, exhorting, and requiring them, and each of them there unlawfully assembled, forthwith to disperse, and to surcease all further unlawful proceedings, at their utmost peril." The words were received with hisses, derision, and a unanimous vote not to disperse. "Will it be safe for the consignees to appear in the meeting?" asked Copley; and all with one voice responded that they might safely come and return; but they refused to appear. In the afternoon Rotch, the owner, and Hall, the master, of the Dartmouth, yielding to an irresistible impulse, engaged that the tea should return as it came, without touching land or paying a duty. A similar promise was exacted of the owners of the other tea-ships whose arrival was daily expected. In this way "it was thought the matter would have ended." "I should be willing to spend my fortune and life itself in so good a cause," said Hancock, and this sentiment was general; they all voted "to carry their resolutions into effect at the risk of their lives and property."

Every shipowner was forbidden, on pain of being deemed an enemy to the country, to import or bring as freight any tea from Great Britain till the unrighteous act taxing it should be repealed, and this vote was printed and sent to every seaport in the province and to England.

Six persons were chosen as post-riders to give due notice to the country towns of any attempt to land the tea by force, and the committee of correspondence, as the executive organ of the meeting, took care that a military watch was regularly kept up by volunteers armed with muskets and bayonets, who at every half-hour in the night regularly passed the word "All is well," like sentinels in a garrison. Had they been molested by night, the tolling of the bells would have been the signal for a general uprising. An account of all that had been done was sent into every town in the province.

The ships, after landing the rest of their cargo, could neither be cleared in Boston with the tea on board nor be entered in England, and on the twentieth day from their arrival would be liable to seizure. "They find themselves," said Hutchinson, "involved in invincible difficulties." Meantime in private letters he advised to separate Boston from the rest of the province; and to begin criminal prosecutions against its patriot sons.

The spirit of the people rose with the emergency. Two more tea-ships which arrived were directed to anchor by the side of the Dartmouth at Griffin's wharf, that one guard might serve for all. The people of Roxbury, on December 3d, voted that they were bound by duty to themselves and posterity to join with Boston and other sister-towns to preserve inviolate the liberties handed down by their ancestors. The next day the men of Charlestown, as if foreseeing that their town was destined to be a holocaust, declared themselves ready to risk their lives and fortunes. On Sunday, the 5th, the committee of correspondence wrote to Portsmouth in New Hampshire, to Providence, Bristol, and Newport in Rhode Island, for advice and cooperation. On the 6th they entreat New York, through MacDougall and Sears; Philadelphia, through Mifflin and Clymer, to insure success by "a harmony of sentiment and concurrence in action." As for Boston itself, the twenty days are fast running out; the consignees conspire with the revenue officers to throw on the owner and master of the Dartmouth the whole burden of landing the tea, and will neither agree to receive it nor give up their bill of lading nor pay freight. Every movement was duly reported, and "the town became furious as in the time of the Stamp Act."

On the 9th there was a vast gathering at Newburyport of the inhabitants of that and the neighboring towns, and, none dissenting, they agreed to assist Boston, even at the hazard of their lives. "This is not a piece of parade," they say, "but if an occasion should offer, a goodly number from among us will hasten to join you."

On Saturday, the 11th, Rotch, the owner of the Dartmouth, is summoned before the Boston committee with Samuel Adams in the chair, and asked why he has not kept his engagement to take his vessel and the tea back to London within twenty days of its arrival. He pleaded that it was out of his power. "The ship must go," was the answer; "the people of Boston and the neighboring towns absolutely require and expect it;" and they bade him ask for a clearance and pass, with proper witnesses of his demand. "Were it mine," said a leading merchant, "I would certainly send it back." Hutchinson acquainted Admiral Montagu with what was passing; on which the Active and the Kingfisher, though they had been laid up for the winter, were sent to guard the passages out of the harbor. At the same time orders were given by the Governor to load guns at the Castle, so that no vessel, except coasters, might go to sea without a permit. He had no thought of what was to happen; the wealth of Hancock, Phillips, Rowe, Dennie, and so many other men of property seemed to him a security against violence; and he flattered himself that he had increased the perplexities of the committee.

The decisive day draws nearer and nearer; on the morning of Monday, the 13th, the committees of the five towns are at Faneuil Hall, with that of Boston. Now that danger was really at hand, the men of the little town of Malden offered their blood and their treasure; for that which they once esteemed the mother-country had lost the tenderness of a parent and become their great oppressor. "We trust in God," wrote the men of Lexington, "that should the state of our affairs require it, we shall be ready to sacrifice our estates and everything dear in life, yea, and life itself, in support of the common cause." Whole towns in Worcester County were on tiptoe to come down. "Go on as you have begun," wrote the committee of Leicester on the 14th; "and do not suffer any of the teas already come or coming to be landed or pay one farthing of duty. You may depend on our aid and assistance when needed."

The line of policy adopted was, if possible, to get the tea carried back to London uninjured in the vessel in which it came. A meeting of the people on Tuesday afternoon directed and, as it were, "compelled" Rotch, the owner of the Dartmouth, to apply for a clearance. He did so, accompanied by Kent, Samuel Adams, and eight others as witnesses. The collector was at his lodgings, and refused to answer till the next morning; the assemblage, on their part, adjourned to Thursday, the 16th, the last of the twenty days before it would become legal for the revenue officers to take possession of the ship and so land the teas at the Castle. In the evening the Boston committee finished their preparatory meetings. After their consultation on Monday with the committees of the five towns, they had been together that day and the next, both morning and evening; but during the long and anxious period their journal has only this entry: "No business transacted; matter of record."

At ten o'clock on the 15th, Rotch was escorted by his witnesses to the custom-house, where the collector and comptroller unequivocally and finally refused to grant his ship a clearance till it should be discharged of the teas.

Hutchinson began to clutch at victory; "for," said he, "it is notorious the ship cannot pass the Castle without a permit from me, and that I shall refuse." On that day the people of Fitchburg pledged their word "never to be wanting according to their small ability"; for "they had indeed an ambition to be known to the world and to posterity as friends to liberty." The men of Gloucester also expressed their joy at Boston's glorious opposition, cried with one voice that "no tea subject to a duty should be landed" in their town, and held themselves ready for the last appeal.

The morning of Thursday, December 16, 1773, dawned upon Boston, a day by far the most momentous in its annals. Beware, little town; count the cost, and know well, if you dare defy the wrath of Great Britain, and if you love exile and poverty and death rather than submission. The town of Portsmouth held its meeting on that morning, and, with six only protesting, its people adopted the principles of Philadelphia, appointed their committee of correspondence, and resolved to make common cause with the colonies. At ten o'clock the people of Boston, with at least two thousand men from the country, assembled in the Old South. A report was made that Rotch had been refused a clearance from the collector. "Then," said they to him, "protest immediately against the custom-house, and apply to the Governor for his pass, so that your vessel may this very day proceed on her voyage for London."

The Governor had stolen away to his country house at Milton. Bidding Rotch make all haste, the meeting adjourned to three in the afternoon. At that hour Rotch had not returned. It was incidentally voted, as other towns had already done, to abstain totally from the use of tea; and every town was advised to appoint its committee of inspection, to prevent the detested tea from coming within any of them. Then, since the Governor might refuse his pass, the momentous question recurred, "Whether it be the sense and determination of this body to abide by their former resolutions with respect to the not suffering the tea to be landed." On this question Samuel Adams and Young addressed the meeting, which was become far the most numerous ever held in Boston, embracing seven thousand men. There was among them a patriot of fervid feeling, passionately devoted to the liberty of his country, still young, his eye bright, his cheek glowing with hectic fever. He knew that his strength was ebbing. The work of vindicating American freedom must be done soon, or he will be no party to the great achievement. He rises, but it is to restrain, and being truly brave and truly resolved he speaks the language of moderation: "Shouts and hosannas will not terminate the trials of this day, nor popular resolves, harangues, and acclamations vanquish our foes. We must be grossly ignorant of the value of the prize for which we contend, of the power combined against us, of the inveterate malice and insatiable revenge which actuate our enemies, public and private, abroad and in our bosom, if we hope that we shall end this controversy without the sharpest conflicts. Let us consider the issue before we advance to those measures which must bring on the most trying and terrible struggle this country ever saw." Thus spoke the younger Quincy. "Now that the hand is to the plough," said others, "there must be no looking back," and the whole assembly of seven thousand voted unanimously that the tea should not be landed.