DISUNION IN AMERICA

Yet each and all of these events, important as they were, grew little in

men's minds as the year 1860 drew to its close and revealed in America

the coming of a mightier quarrel. The slavery question, once supposed to

have been settled by the Missouri Compromise, had proved itself

incapable of such settlement. The forward march of democracy had in fact

made slavery an anachronism, outgrown and impossible. Even the Emperor

of Russia saw that, and in 1861 liberated all the serfs within his

territories. [Footnote: See _Emancipation of Russian Serfs_.] In the

United States alone among the great Powers of the world, did slavery

persist.

In 1854 a new political party, calling itself the Republican, was

formed, having for its main principle opposition to the extension of

slavery into the Territories. [Footnote: See _The Rise of the Republican

Party_.] Other issues might and did complicate the central question, but

it was the slavery issue that inflamed men's minds, made Kansas a

"battle-ground" between settlers from North and South, and sent John

Brown upon his reckless raid. Watching the increasing success of the

Republicans, Southern leaders began to reassert the doctrine of the

right of secession. They said openly that if a Republican president were

elected they would leave the Union.

And in 1860 a Republican president was elected. Was the long-predicted,

and to most of Europe eagerly desired, disruption of the United States

at hand? Was the break to be accomplished peacefully or in flame and

wrath? The fading year of 1860 left the advancing world of democracy in

panic over the danger to what had been its most successful stronghold.

[For the next section of this general survey, see volume XVIII.]

(1844) INVENTION OF THE TELEGRAPH, Alonzo B. Cornell

After the experiments of Franklin that did so much to advance the study

of electrical phenomena, and to suggest practical applications of

electricity, physicists in all countries occupied themselves with

investigations along lines marked out by the American philosopher. In

1749 Franklin devised the lightning-rod. But notwithstanding the labors

of many investigators, it was more than fifty years before any other

practical discovery or invention in electricity was brought into general

use. The first great achievement of the kind was Morse's improvement of

the electric telegraph. That Morse's fellow-countryman, Joseph Henry,

chiefly prepared the way for that triumph, the following account, with

just emphasis, demonstrates.

Among the European scientists and inventors to whom both Henry and Morse

were indebted was the French electrician, André Marie Ampère

(1775-1836), whose name (ampère) has been given to the practical unit of

electric-current strength. Ampère was the first and is the most famous

investigator in electrodynamics. He also invented a telegraphic

arrangement in which he used the magnetic needle and coil and the

galvanic battery. Others, in the latter part of the eighteenth century

and the earlier years of the nineteenth, devised similar arrangements.

But no strictly electromagnetic apparatus for telegraphic signalling was

put to successful use until 1836, when, in England, Charles Wheatstone,

who is commonly regarded as the first inventor of practical electric

telegraphy, constructed an apparatus whereby thirty signals were

transmitted through nearly four miles of wire. From 1837 to 1843 he had

as an associate William Fothergill Cooke, and the two worked together to

develop the electric telegraph. They afterward quarrelled over their

respective claims to credit, but in 1838-1841 telegraph lines secured by

their patents were set up on the Great Western and two other English

railways.

Meanwhile other inventors were still working for the same results, in

many parts of the world, and it has been significantly said that "the

electric telegraph had, properly speaking, no inventor; it grew up

little by little." Nevertheless with respect to the distinctive

character of Morse's improvements, and his title to a peculiar place

among those through whose labors the electric telegraph "grew," there

can be no question.

Alonzo B. Cornell, son of the founder of Cornell University, at one time

Governor of New York, was intimately connected with electrical and

telegraphic affairs for many years; therefore on the subject here

presented he speaks with professional authority. His father was the

first builder of the Morse telegraphs.

* * * * *

During the early years of the nineteenth century but slight advance was

made in the development of electrical science, although there were many

persons both here and abroad engaged in experimental work, and there was

considerable increase of literature bearing upon the subject. It was

reserved for another illustrious American to accomplish the next

important and decisive step in the pathway of progress. In 1828 Joseph

Henry, then professor of physics at the Albany Academy, afterward a

professor at Princeton, and subsequently for many years secretary of the

Smithsonian Institution at Washington, made the highly important

discovery that by winding a plain iron core with many layers of

insulated wire, through which the electric current was passed, he could

at pleasure charge and discharge the iron core with magnetic power. Thus

Henry produced the electromagnet which was the beginning of the mastery

by man of the subtle fluid. He also discovered that the intensity and

power of the electric current were materially augmented by increasing

the number of the series of battery plates without increasing the

quantity of metal used in their construction.

These discoveries of Henry were, beyond all question, the most important

in real and intrinsic value ever made in the progress of electric

science, as they form the solid basis upon which all subsequent

inventors have been enabled to accomplish successful results in their

various fields of endeavor. It is conceded by all familiar with the

history of electrical progress that the name of Professor Joseph Henry

is to be honored and cherished as one of the very foremost of scientific

discoverers of any age or country, and it must remain a cause of sincere

and permanent regret that of all the fabulous wealth that has resulted

from the advancement of electrical science, this modest and unselfish

inventor should have passed hence without ever having realized any

substantial reward for his great work. Not only so, but he was never

awarded the appropriate acknowledgment to which he was so eminently

entitled for the inestimable benefits his discoveries conferred upon his

countrymen and upon the world at large.

The possibility of utilizing Professor Henry's electromagnet for the

purpose of transmitting intelligence to a distant point was conceived by

still another American, Professor Samuel Finley Breese Morse, of New

York, [Footnote: He was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, April 27,

1791.--ED.] during his passage on board the packet-ship Sully, from

Havre to New York, in the winter of 1832. Incidental discussions between

himself and Doctor Jackson, a fellow-passenger, in reference to recent

electrical improvements on both sides of the Atlantic, led Morse to the

conclusion that intelligence might be instantaneously transmitted over a

metallic circuit to a distant point, and he thereupon determined to

devote himself to the solution of the problem involved. The following

day he exhibited a rough sketch of a plan for recording electric

impulses necessary to convey and express intelligence. He pursued the

subject with great devotion during the remainder of the voyage, and

after arrival in New York began the construction of the necessary

apparatus to accomplish his purpose.

Morse was by profession a portrait painter of more than ordinary merit,

and was obliged to continue his artistic labors for a livelihood. He was

a graduate of Yale College, where his attention had first been attracted

to electrical experiments. He was thus, in a measure, prepared for

carrying forward the important work he had undertaken, and pursued his

labors with great assiduity. Devoting every spare moment to the pursuit

of his object, which was attained but slowly by reason of his lack of

mechanical skill and ingenuity, not until 1837 had he so far succeeded

in his efforts as to be prepared to make application for letters-patent

to enable him to secure and protect his rights of invention in the

electromagnetic telegraph.

In explanation of the slow progress of his experimental work, Professor

Morse, in writing to a friend, said: "Up to the autumn of 1837 my

telegraphic apparatus existed in so rude a form that I felt reluctance

to have it seen. My means were very limited, so limited as to preclude

the possibility of constructing an apparatus of such mechanical finish

as to warrant my success in venturing upon its public exhibition. I had

no wish to expose to ridicule the representative of so many hours of

laborious thought. Prior to the summer of 1837 I depended upon my pencil

for subsistence. Indeed, so straitened were my circumstances that in

order to save time to carry out my invention and to economize my scanty

means I had for months lodged and eaten in my studio, procuring food in

small quantities from some grocery, and preparing it myself. To conceal

from my friends the stinted manner in which I lived, I was in the habit

of bringing food to my room in the evenings; and this was my mode of

life for many years."

After the continuance of this heroic struggle for more than five years,

Morse found himself compelled to seek the aid of more accomplished

mechanical skill than he possessed, to perfect his apparatus, and was

obliged to surrender a quarter interest in his invention in order to

obtain pecuniary aid for this purpose.

Having thus succeeded in obtaining, at such serious sacrifice, the

requisite financial assistance to enable him to perfect the mechanism

necessary to demonstrate his invention, Professor Morse lost no time in

completing his apparatus and presenting it for public inspection. On

January 6, 1838, he first operated his system successfully, over a wire

three miles long, in the presence of a number of personal friends, at

Morristown, New Jersey. In the following month he made a similar

exhibition before the faculty of the New York University, which was an

occasion of much interest among the scientists of the metropolis.

Shortly thereafter the apparatus was taken to Philadelphia and exhibited

at the Franklin Institute, where he received the highest commendation

from the committee of science and arts, with a strong expression in

favor of government aid for the purpose of demonstrating the practical

usefulness of the system.

From Philadelphia, Morse removed his apparatus to Washington, where he

was permitted to demonstrate its operation before President Van Buren

and his Cabinet. Foreign ministers and members of both Houses of

Congress, as well, also, as prominent citizens, were invited to attend

the exhibition, and manifested much interest in the novelty of the

invention. A bill was introduced in Congress making an appropriation of

thirty thousand dollars for the purpose of providing for the erection of

an experimental line of telegraph between Washington and Baltimore, to

illustrate, by practical use, its general utility. The bill was in good

time favorably reported from the committee on commerce, but made no

further progress in that Congress. Similar bills were subsequently

introduced and diligently supported in each succeeding Congress, but it

was not until the very closing hour of the expiring session of 1843 that

the necessary enactment was effected and the appropriation secured.

The plan of construction devised by Professor Morse for the experimental

line of telegraph to be erected between Washington and Baltimore, under

the Congressional appropriation, provided for placing insulated wires in

a lead pipe underground. This was to be accomplished by the use of a

specially devised plough of peculiar construction, to be drawn by a

powerful team, by which means the pipe containing the electric

conductors was to be automatically deposited in the earth. This

apparatus was entirely successful in operation, and the pipe was thus

buried to the complete satisfaction of all concerned, at a cost very

much lower than the work could have been accomplished in any other

manner. Two wires were to be used to form a complete metallic circuit,

for at that time it was not known, as was shortly afterward discovered,

that the earth could be used to form one-half of the circuit. For

purposes of insulation the wires were neatly covered with cotton-yarn

and then saturated in a bath of hot gum-shellac, but this treatment

proved defective in insulating properties, for when ten miles of line

had been completed the wires were found to be wholly useless for

electric conduction.

No mode had been devised for the treatment of india-rubber to make it

available for purposes of insulation, and gutta-percha was wholly

unknown as an article of use or commerce in this country. Twenty-three

thousand dollars of the Government appropriation had been expended, and

the work thus far accomplished was an acknowledged failure. Only seven

thousand dollars of the available fund remained unexpended, and this was

regarded as inadequate to complete the undertaking under any other plan.

The friends of the enterprise were in despair, and for some time saw no

other alternative than to apply to Congress for an additional

appropriation. This, however, was regarded as almost hopeless, and the

difficulty of the situation was extremely embarrassing.

An amusing incident was related of the means used to keep from public

knowledge the desperate situation. Professor Morse finally visited the

scene of activity where the pipe-laying was proceeding, and, calling the

superintendent aside, confided to him the fact that the work must be

stopped without the newspapers finding out the true reason of its

suspension. The quick-witted superintendent was equal to the occasion,

and, starting the ponderous machine, soon managed to run foul of a

protruding rock and break the plough. The newspapers published

sensational accounts of the accident and announced that it would require

several weeks to repair damages. Thus the real trouble was kept from the

public until new plans could be determined upon.

After long and careful consideration, Professor Morse very reluctantly

decided to erect the wires on poles. This plan was, at first, considered

wholly objectionable, under the apprehension that the structure would be

disturbed by evil-minded persons. It had, however, become manifest that

this was the only mode of construction that could be accomplished within

the remainder of the appropriation, and, finally, upon ascertaining that

pole lines had already been adopted in England, it was determined to

proceed in this manner. The line was thus completed between Washington

and Baltimore about May 1, 1844, and proved to be successful and in

every way satisfactory in its operation.

Shortly after the completion of the line the National Democratic

Convention, which nominated Polk and Dallas for President and

Vice-President, assembled in Baltimore [May, 1844]. Reports of the

convention proceedings were promptly telegraphed to the capital city,

where the telegraph office was thronged with Members of Congress

interested in the news. These reports created an immense sensation in

Washington and speedily removed all doubts as to the practical success

of the new system of communication. A despatch from the Honorable Silas

Wright, then United States Senator from New York, refusing to accept the

nomination for Vice-President, was read in the National Convention and

produced an extraordinary interest from the fact that very few of the

delegates had ever heard of the telegraph, and it required much

explanation to satisfy them of the genuineness of the alleged

communication.

Having thus established beyond all reasonable question the practical

utility of the telegraph as a superior means of public and private

communication, Professor Morse and his associates offered their patents

to the United States Government for the very moderate price of one

hundred thousand dollars, with a view of having the system adopted for

general use in connection with the postal establishment. This

proposition was referred to the Postmaster-General for consideration and

report. After due deliberation that officer reported that "Although the

invention is an agent vastly superior to any other ever devised by the

genius of man, yet the operation between Washington and Baltimore has

not satisfied me that, under any rate of postage that can be adopted,

its revenues can be made to cover its expenditures." Under the influence

of this report Congress very naturally declined the offer of the

patentees, and the telegraph was thereupon relegated to the domain of

private enterprise. The result was that the patentees finally realized

for their interests many times the amount of their offer to the

Government.

During the autumn of 1844 short exhibition lines were erected in Boston

and New York, for the purpose of familiarizing business men of those

cities with the characteristics of the new invention, but they attracted

little attention and the promoters had much cause of discouragement on

account of public indifference. For the purpose of arousing more

attention to the system, appeals were made to the public press for

favorable notice, which were also generally declined. The proprietor of

one of the most prominent and enterprising of the New York daily papers

distinctly refused to encourage the establishment of telegraph lines,

for the reason, as he freely acknowledged, that if the new method of

transmitting intelligence were to come into general use his competitors

could use it as well as himself, and he would therefore be deprived of

his present advantage over them for procuring early news by the use of

an expensive system of special despatch then maintained by his paper.

Two years later he refused to join other papers in receiving the

Governor's message by telegraph from Albany, and was so badly beaten by

his rivals in this instance that his paper was thenceforward one of the

most generous patrons of the telegraph.

Early in the year 1845 a corporate organization was effected for the

extension of the telegraph from Baltimore to Philadelphia and New York,

under the name of the Magnetic Telegraph Company, for which a special

act of incorporation was obtained from the Legislature of the State of

Maryland. Nearly all of the capital of this company was subscribed by

Washington people. Baltimore and Philadelphia furnished only a few

hundred dollars, while New York contributed nothing. Slow progress was

made toward the construction of the line on account of the difficulty of

obtaining the right of way either upon railways or highways, and it was

not until January, 1846, that the line was completed to the west side of

the Hudson River, which formed an impassable barrier to further progress

for a considerable period.

No method of insulation had yet been devised that would permit the

operation of an electric conductor under water, and it was doubted

whether a wire could be maintained for a span sufficient to cross the

river overhead. Finally however high masts were erected on the Palisades

near Fort Lee, and on the heights at Fort Washington on the New York

side, and a steel wire was suspended upon them. This plan was

successful, except that occasionally the wire was broken by an

extraordinary burden of sleet in the winter season. This method of

crossing the lower Hudson was continued for more than ten years, when it

was superseded by submarine cables.

During the year 1846 incorporated companies were formed, under which

telegraph lines were extended from New York to Boston, Buffalo, and

Pittsburg, and within the next three years nearly every important town

in the United States and Canada, from St. Louis and New Orleans to

Montreal and Halifax, was brought into telegraphic communication. Thus,

after fifteen years of struggle with all the pains of poverty, often

lacking even the common necessaries of life, Professor Morse and his

faithful colaborers had the supreme satisfaction, in 1847, of knowing

and realizing that the telegraph system had finally achieved, not only

scientific success, for this had been proven years before, but that

financial success, ample and complete, had come to pay them richly for

all the dark days and wearisome years through which they had passed.

Once generally established, the telegraph won its way to popular

appreciation very rapidly. It was in harmony with the spirit of the age,

and it was not long before every town of any considerable importance

regarded telegraphic facilities as an indispensable necessity. The small

cost soon induced the construction of rival lines, regardless of the

rights of the patentees, and within a very few years unwise competition

began to bring many lines to a condition of bankruptcy. The weaker

concerns soon passed through the sheriff's hands and found purchasers

only at an extreme sacrifice, at the bidding of the more provident and

conservative proprietors of competing lines. Instead of inducing a more

prudent course, these disastrous results only served to feed the spirit

of rivalry, and general insolvency seemed to threaten the permanent

prosperity of the telegraph business, in consequence of the wild and

reckless competition which appeared to be inherent in its nature.

This extremely unsatisfactory condition of telegraph rivalry drifted on

from bad to worse until 1854, when, from dire necessity of

self-preservation, a few of the more prudent and far-sighted proprietors

of telegraph property were induced to combine their interests with some

of their competitors and thus avoid the ruinous policy which had been so

rapidly exhausting their vitality. Accordingly the principal telegraph

lines in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and some of the neighboring States

were brought into fraternal relations and formed the nucleus of the

Western Union Telegraph Company.

The new policy soon brought prosperity in place of waste and

improvidence. Profits were devoted to the purchase of additional lines,

thus enlarging their domain and strengthening their position. Prosperity

increased with rapid strides; and the beneficial effects of extirpating

wasteful rivalry and building up a substantial system with superior

facilities and provident management gave the new organization a

dominating influence among the telegraph companies of America. The same

general policy has been pursued to the present time [1894], and has

resulted in the establishment of a prosperous corporation of magnificent

proportions, carrying on a useful and beneficent business under a

greater number of governmental jurisdictions, great and small, than any

other corporate organization in existence.

For the development of the telegraph enterprise in America no thanks are

due to the wealthy capitalists. As a rule they would not listen to

suggestions of investing their money in what was contemptuously termed

rotten poles and rusty wires. They wanted something more substantial and

conservative as the basis of their investments. An early pioneer and

builder of telegraph lines, whose name is now held in grateful memory

for deeds of philanthropic beneficence visited the city of Chicago in

1847 to solicit subscriptions to the capital stock of a company then

engaged in construction of the first line of telegraph between that

place and the city of Buffalo. He presented a carefully prepared

prospectus showing an estimated earning capacity of the projected line

of one hundred dollars per day. The merits of the contemplated

enterprise were freely canvassed at a meeting of bankers, at which one

of the most prominent declared that any man who ever expected to see one

hundred dollars per day paid for telegraphing west of Buffalo must be

crazy and unworthy of belief. This oracular declaration prevailed, and

the project was ignominiously rejected by the wise men of Chicago.

Fortunately, citizens of smaller towns, like Ypsilanti, Kalamazoo, South

Bend, Kenosha, and Racine, took a more sensible view of the proposed

enterprise, and the line was built despite the contempt of Chicago

capitalists. Now, however, the men of Chicago pay more than five

thousand dollars a day for telegraphing at rates far lower than would

have been thought possible in that early day.

The true spirit of enterprise, which has so grandly developed the

resources of our imperial domain, has generally been found to prevail

among people of modest means. Thus, nearly every dollar of capital

contributed toward the establishment of telegraph lines in this country

came from the offerings of people in very moderate circumstances. In

this connection, therefore, it is extremely gratifying to state that

very few enterprises of any kind have returned such generous recompense

for the amount of capital invested as the telegraph and telephone lines

in America. Considering the apparently temporary and short-lived

character of the structures erected for these purposes, it seems

difficult to comprehend the truth of this statement.

The method of telegraphic communication devised by Professor Morse has

been continued in general use in this country, but instead of requiring

separate wire for each circuit as formerly, six independent circuits are

now operated simultaneously over a single wire by the use of the

sextuplex apparatus.

(1846) REPEAL OF THE ENGLISH CORN LAWS, Justin McCarthy

After the repeal of the corn laws the tariff legislation of Great

Britain was guided by a new policy, that of free trade, and it has been

followed ever since. The reactionary tendencies of Continental Europe

after the fall of Napoleon reached also to England, where they

controlled the conduct of political affairs until Canning, in 1822,

became Secretary for Foreign Affairs. His policy was liberal and did

much in forming the public opinion that at length found voice in

Catholic emancipation (1829), in the Reform Bill (1832), and in the

abolition of slavery in the English colonies (1833). Then followed

important amendments of the poor-laws, extension of local governmental

powers in the towns, improvement of popular education, and other

reforms.

Through all this gradual progress in liberal government and public

amelioration, the need of another reform had been pointed out by some

thinkers and statesmen, and at last the condition of the country favored

the views of its advocates. The corn laws protected the English

producers by imposing heavy duties on imported grain. At one time these

duties practically prohibited such importation. McCarthy shows how the

laws operated upon the people, and his story of the memorable agitation

for their repeal and of the accomplishment of that object could not have

been better told.

In 1815 the celebrated Corn Law was passed, which was itself moulded on

the Corn Law of 1670. By the Act of 1815 wheat might be exported upon a

payment of one shilling per quarter customs duty, but the importation of

foreign grain was practically prohibited until the price of wheat in

England had reached eighty shillings a quarter, that is to say, until a

certain price had been secured for the grower of grain at the expense of

all the consumers in this country. It was not permitted to Englishmen to

obtain their supplies from any foreign land, unless on conditions that

suited the English corn-grower's pocket.

We may perhaps make this principle a little more clear, if it be

necessary, by illustrating its working on a small scale and within

narrow limits. In a particular street in London, let us say, a law is

passed declaring that no one must buy a loaf of bread out of that

street, or even round the corner, until the price of bread has risen so

high in the street itself as to secure to its two or three bakers a

certain enormous scale of profit on their loaves. When the price of

bread has been forced up so high as to pass this scale of profit, then

it would be permissible for those who stood in need of bread to go round

the corner and buy their loaves of the baker in the next street; but the

moment that their continuing to do this caused the price of the baker's

bread in their own street to fall below the prescribed limit, they must

instantly take to buying bread within their own bounds and of their own

bakers again. This is a fair illustration of the principle on which the

corn laws were moulded. The Corn Law of 1815 was passed in order to

enable the landowners and farmers to recover from the depression caused

by the long era of foreign war. It was "rushed through" Parliament, if

we may use an American expression; petitions of the most urgent nature

poured in against it from all the commercial and manufacturing classes,

and in vain. Popular disturbances broke out in many places. The poor

everywhere saw the bread of their family threatened, saw the food of

their children almost taken out of their mouths, and they naturally

broke into wild extremes of anger. In London there were serious riots,

and the houses of some of the most prominent supporters of the bill were

attacked. The incendiary went to work in many parts of the country. At

that time it was still the way in England, as it is now in Russia and

other countries, for popular indignation to express itself in the

frequent incendiary fire. At one place near London a riot lasted for two

days and nights; the soldiers had to be called out to put it down, and

five men were hanged for taking part in it.

After the passing of the Corn Law of 1815, and when it had worked for

some time, there were sliding-scale acts introduced, which established a

varying system of duty, so that when the price of home-grown grain rose

above a certain figure, the duty on imported wheat was to sink in

proportion. The principle of all these measures was the same. How, it

may be asked, could any sane legislator adopt such measures? As well

might it be asked, How can any civilized nation still, as some still do,

believe in such a principle? The truth is that the principle is one

which has a strong fascination for most persons, the charm of which it

is difficult for any class in its turn wholly to shake off. The idea is

that if our typical baker be paid more than the market price for a loaf,

he will be able in turn to pay more to the butcher than the fair price

for his beef; the butcher thus benefited will be enabled to deal on more

liberal terms with the tailor; the tailor so favored by legislation will

be able in his turn to order a better kind of beer from the publican and

pay a higher price for it. Thus, by some extraordinary process,

everybody pays too much for everything, and nevertheless all are

enriched in turn. The absurdity of this is easily kept out of sight

where the protective duties affect a number of varying and complicated

interests, manufacturing, commercial, and productive.

In the United States, for example, where the manufacturers are benefited

in one place and the producers are benefited in another, and where the

country always produces food abundant to supply its own wants, men are

not brought so directly face to face with the fallacy of the principle

as they were in England at the time of the Anti-Corn Law League. In

America "protection" affects manufacturers for the most part, and there

is no such popular craving for cheap manufactures as to bring the

protective principle into collision with the daily wants of the people.

But in England, during the reign of the Corn Law, the food which the

people put into their mouths was the article mainly taxed, and made

cruelly costly by the working of protection.

Nevertheless, the country put up with this system down to the close of

the year 1836. At that time there was a stagnation of trade and a

general depression of business. Severe poverty prevailed in many

districts. Inevitably, therefore, the question arose in the minds of

most men, in distressed or depressed places, whether it could be a good

thing for the country in general to have the price of bread kept high by

factitious means when wages had sunk and work become scarce. An

Anti-Corn-Law association was formed in London, It began pretentiously

enough, but it brought about no result. London is not a place where

popular agitation finds a fitting centre. In 1838, however, Bolton, in

Lancashire, suffered from a serious commercial crisis. Three-fifths of

its manufacturing activity became paralyzed at once. Many houses of

business were actually closed and abandoned, and thousands of workmen

were left without the means of life. Lancashire suddenly roused itself

into the resolve to agitate against the corn laws, and Manchester became

the headquarters of the movement which afterward accomplished so much.

The Anti-Corn-Law League was formed, and a Free-Trade Hall was built in

Manchester on the scene of that disturbance which was called the

"massacre of Peterloo." The leaders of the Anti-Corn-Law movement were

Richard Cobden, John Bright, and Charles Villiers. Cobden was not a

Manchester man. He was the son of a Sussex farmer. After the death of

his father he was taken by his uncle and employed in his wholesale

warehouse in the city of London. He afterward became a partner in a

Manchester cotton-factory, and sometimes travelled on the commercial

business of the establishment. He became what would then have been

considered a great traveller, distinct, of course, from the class of

explorers; that is, he made himself thoroughly familiar with most or all

of the countries of Europe, with various parts of the East, and with the

United States and Canada. He had had a fair, homely education, and he

improved it wherever he went by experience, by observation, and by

conversation with all manner of men. He became one of the most effective

and persuasive popular speakers ever known in English agitation. He was

not an orator in the highest sense. He had no imagination and little

poetic feeling, nor did genuine passion ever inflame into fervor of

declamation his quiet, argumentative style. But he had humor; he spoke

simple, clear, strong English; he used no unnecessary words. He always

made his meaning plain and intelligible, and he had an admirable faculty

for illustrating every argument by something drawn from reading or from

observation or from experience. He was, in fact, the very perfection of

a common-sense talker, a man fit to deal with men by fair,

straightforward argument, to expose complicated sophistries, and to make

clear the most perplexed parts of an intricate question. He was exactly

the man for that time, for that question, and for the persuasive and

argumentative part of the great controversy which he had undertaken.

Cobden's chief companion in the struggle was John Bright, whose name has

been completely identified with that of Cobden in the repeal of the Corn

Laws. Bright was an orator of the highest order. He had all the

qualifications that make a master of eloquence. His presence was

commanding; his voice was singularly strong and clear, and had peculiar

tones and shades in it which gave indescribable meaning to passages of

anger, of pity, or of contempt. His manner was quiet, composed, serene.

He indulged in little or no gesticulation, he had a rich gift of genuine

Saxon humor. These two men, one belonging to the middle class of the

North, one sprung from the yeomanry of Southern England, had as a

colleague Charles Villiers, a man of high aristocratic family, of marked

ability, and of indomitable loyalty to any cause he undertook. Villiers

for some years represented the free-trade cause in Parliament, and

Bright and Cobden did its work on the platform. Cobden first, and Bright

after him, became members of the House of Commons, and they were further

assisted there by Milner Gibson, a man of position and family, an

effective debater, who had been at first a Conservative, but who passed

over to the ranks of the Free Traders, and through them to the ranks of

the Liberals or Radicals.

Every year Villiers brought on a motion in the House in favor of free

trade. For a long time this motion was only one of the annual

performances which, by an apparently inevitable necessity, have to

prelude for many years the practical movement of any great parliamentary

question. Villiers might have brought on his annual motion all his life,

without getting much nearer to his object, if Manchester, Birmingham,

Sheffield, Leeds, and other great northern towns had not taken the

matter vigorously in hand; if Cobden and Bright had not stirred up the

energies of the whole country, and brought clearly home to the mind of

every man the plain fact that reason, argument, and arithmetic, as well

as freedom and justice, were distinctly on their side.

The Anti-Corn-Law League showered pamphlets, tracts, letters,

newspapers, all over the country. They sent lecturers into every town,

preaching the same doctrine, and proving by scientific facts the justice

of the cause they advocated. These lecturers were enjoined to avoid as

much as possible any appeals to sentiment or to passion. The cause they

had in hand was one which could best be served by the clear statement of

rigorous facts, by the simple explanation of economical truths which no

sophism could darken, and which no opposing eloquence could charm away.

The Melbourne Ministry fell in 1841. It died of inanition: its force was

spent. Sir Robert Peel came into office. Cobden, who then entered the

House of Commons for the first time, seemed to have good hope that even

Peel, strong Conservative though he was, might prove to be a man from

whom the Free Traders could expect substantial assistance. Sir Robert

Peel had, in fact, in those later years expressed again and again his

conviction as to the general truth of the principles of free trade. "All

agree," he said in 1842, "in the general rule that we should buy in the

cheapest and sell in the dearest market." But he contended that while

such was the general rule, yet various economical and social conditions

made it necessary that there should be some distinct exceptions, and he

regarded the corn laws and sugar duties as such exceptions. It may be

mentioned, perhaps, that the corn laws had, in fact, been treated as a

necessary exception by many of the leading exponents of the principles

of free trade. Thus we have to notice the curious fact that while Sir

Robert Peel's own party looked upon his accession to power as a certain

guarantee against any concession to the Free Traders, the Free Traders

themselves were, for the most part, convinced that their cause had

better hope from him than from a Whig Ministry.

The Free Traders went on debating and dividing in the House, agitating

and lecturing all over the country, for some years without any marked

Parliamentary success following their endeavors. An immense and

overwhelming majority always voted against them in the House of Commons.

They were making progress, and very great progress, but it was not that

kind of advance which had yet come to be decided by a Parliamentary

vote. Probably a keen and experienced eye might have noted clearly

enough the progress they were making. The Whig party were coming more

and more round to the principles of free trade. Day after day some Whig

leader was admitting that the theories of the past would not do for the

present, and, as we have said, the Tory leader had himself gone so far

as to admit the justice of the general principles of free trade. At one

point the main difference between Sir Robert Peel, the leader of the

House of Commons, and Lord John Russell, the leader of the opposition,

seems to have been nothing more than this, that Peel still regarded

grain as a necessary exception to the principle of free trade, and Lord

John Russell was not clear that the time had come when it could be

treated otherwise than as an exception.

An event, however, over which no parties and no leaders had any control,

suddenly intervened to hasten the action and spur the convictions of the

leaders on both sides, and especially of the Prime Minister. This was

the great famine which broke out in Ireland in the autumn of 1845. The

vast majority of the Irish people had long depended for their food on

the potato alone. The summer of 1845 had been a long season of wet and

cold and sunlessness. In the autumn the news went abroad that the whole

potato crop of Ireland was in danger of destruction, if not already

actually destroyed. Before attention had well been awakened to the

crisis, it was officially announced that more than one-third of the

entire potato crop had been swept away by the disease, and that it had

not ceased its ravages, but, on the contrary, was spreading more and

more every day.

The general impression of those who could form an opinion was that the

whole of the crop must perish. The Anti-Corn-Law League cried out for

the opening of the ports and the admission of grain and food from all

places. Sir Robert Peel was decidedly in favor of such a course. The

Duke of Wellington and Lord Stanley opposed the idea, and the

proposition was given up. Only three members of the Cabinet supported

Sir Robert Peel's proposals--Lord Aberdeen, Sir James Graham, Mr. Sidney

Herbert. All the others objected, some because they opposed the

principle of the measure, and were convinced that if the ports were once

opened they would never be closed again, which indeed was probably

Peel's own conviction; and others on the ground that no sufficient proof

had yet been given that such a measure was necessary. Lord John Russell,

almost immediately after, wrote a letter from Edinburgh to his

constituents, the electors of the city of London, in which he declared

that something must immediately be done, that it was "no longer worth

while to contend for a fixed duty," and that an end must be put to the

whole system of protection, as "the blight of commerce, the bane of

agriculture, the source of bitter division among classes, the cause of

penury, fever, and crime among the people." This letter produced a

decisive effect on Peel. He saw that the Whigs were prepared to unite

with the Anti-Corn-Law League in agitating for the total repeal of the

corn laws, and he therefore made up his mind to recommend to the Cabinet

an early meeting of Parliament, with the view to anticipate the

agitation which he saw must succeed in the end, and to bring forward, as

a Government measure, some scheme which should at least prepare the way

for the speedy repeal of the corn laws.

A Cabinet council was held almost immediately after the publication of

Lord John Russell's letter, and Peel recommended the summoning of

Parliament in order to take instant measures to cope with the distress

in Ireland, and also to introduce legislation distinctly intended to

prepare the way for the repeal of the corn laws. Lord Stanley could not

accept the proposition. The Duke of Wellington was himself of opinion

that the corn laws ought to be maintained, but at the same time he

declared that he considered good government for the country more

important than corn laws or any other considerations, and that he was

therefore ready to support Sir Robert Peel's Administration through

thick and thin. Lord Stanley and the Duke of Buccleuch, however,

declared that they could not be parties to any legislation which tended

toward the repeal of the corn-laws. Sir Robert Peel did not feel himself

strong enough to carry out his project in the face of such opposition in

the Cabinet itself, and he tendered his resignation to the Queen. The

Queen sent for Lord John Russell, but Russell's party were not very

strong in the country and they had not a majority in the House of

Commons. Lord John tried, however, to form a ministry without a

Parliamentary majority, and even although Sir Robert Peel would not give

any pledge to support a measure for the immediate and complete repeal of

the corn laws, Lord John Russell was not successful.

Lord Grey, son of the Lord Grey of the Reform Bill, objected to the

foreign policy of Lord Palmerston, and thought a seat in the Cabinet

ought to be offered to Cobden. Lord John Russell had nothing to do but

to announce to the Queen that he found it impossible to form a ministry.

The Queen sent for Sir Robert Peel again and asked him to withdraw his

resignation. Peel complied, and almost immediately resumed the functions

of First Minister of the Crown. The Duke of Buccleuch consented to go on

with him, but Lord Stanley held to his resolution and had no place in

the Ministry. His position as Secretary of State for the Colonies was

taken by William E. Gladstone. Gladstone, however, did not sit in

Parliament during the eventful session when the corn laws were repealed.

He had sat for the borough of Newark, which was under the influence of

the Duke of Newcastle; and as the Duke of Newcastle had withdrawn his

support from the Ministry, Gladstone did not seek re-election for

Newark, and remained without a seat in the House of Commons for some

months.

Parliament met on January 22, 1846. The "speech from the throne,"

delivered by the Queen in person, recommended the legislature to take

into consideration the necessity of still further applying the principle

on which it had formerly acted, when measures were presented "to extend

commerce and to stimulate domestic skill and industry, by the repeal of

prohibitive and the relaxation of protective duties." In the debate on

the "address" Sir Robert Peel rose, after the mover and seconder had

spoken and the question had been put from the Chair, and at once

proceeded to explain the policy which he intended to adopt. His speech

was long and labored, and somewhat wearied the audience by the elaborate

manner in which he explained how his opinions had been brought into

gradual change with regard to free trade and protection. He made it,

however, perfectly clear that he was now a convert to Cobden's opinions,

and that he intended to introduce some measure which should practically

amount to the abolition of protection.

It was in this debate, and immediately after Peel had spoken, that

Benjamin Disraeli made his first great impression on Parliament. He had

been in the House for many years, and had made many attempts, had

sometimes been laughed at, had sometimes been disliked, and occasionally

for a moment admired. But it was when he rose immediately after Sir

Robert Peel, and denounced Peel as one who had betrayed his party and

his principles, that he made the first deep impression on the House of

Commons, and came to be considered as a serious and influential

Parliamentary personage. "I am not one of the converts," Disraeli said,

"I am perhaps a member of a fallen party." A new Protection party was

formed almost immediately under the leadership of George Lord Bentinck,

a man of great energy and tenacity of purpose, who had hitherto spent

his life almost altogether on the turf, who had had almost no previous

preparation for leadership or even for debate, but who certainly, when

he did accept the responsible position offered to him, showed a

considerable capacity for leadership and an unwearying attention to his

duties.

On January 27th Sir Robert Peel explained his financial policy. His

intention was to abandon the sliding scale altogether, to impose for the

present a duty of ten shillings a quarter on corn when the price of it

was under forty-eight shillings a quarter, to reduce that duty by one

shilling for every shilling of rise in price until it reached

fifty-three shillings a quarter, when the duty should fall to four

shillings. This, however, was to be only a temporary arrangement. It was

to last but three years, and at the end of that time protective duties

on grain were to be wholly abandoned. We need not go at any length into

the history of the long debates on Peel's propositions. The discussion

of one amendment, which was in substance a motion to reject the scheme

altogether, lasted for twelve nights. The third reading of the bill

passed the House of Commons on May 15th, by a majority of ninety-eight.

The bill went up at once to the House of Lords, and at the urgent

pressure of the Duke of Wellington was carried through that House

without any serious opposition. The Duke made no secret of his own

opinions. He assured many of his brother peers that he disliked the

measure just as much as anyone could do, but he insisted that they had

all better vote for it nevertheless. Sir Robert Peel had triumphed, but

he found himself deserted by a large and influential section of the

party he once had led. Most of the great landowners and country

gentlemen of the Conservative party abandoned him. Some of them felt the

bitterest resentment toward him. They believed he had betrayed them,

although nothing could be more clear than that for years he had

distinctly been making it known to the House that his principles

inclined him toward free trade, and thereby leaving it to be understood

that, if opportunity or emergency should compel him, he would be glad to

declare himself a Free Trader, even in the matter of grain.

Strange to say, the day when the bill was read in the House of Lords for

the third time saw the fall of Peel's Ministry. The fall was due to the

state of Ireland. The Government had been bringing in a coercion bill

for Ireland. It was introduced while the Corn Bill was yet passing

through the House of Commons. The situation was critical. All the Irish

followers of Daniel O'Connell would be sure to oppose the Coercion Bill.

The Liberal party, at least when out of office, had usually made it

their principle to oppose coercion bills if they were not attended with

some promises of legislative reform. The English Radical members, led by

Cobden and Bright, were certain to oppose coercion. If the

Protectionists should join with these other opponents of the Coercion

Bill the fate of the measure was assured, and with it the fate of the

Government. This was exactly what happened. Eighty Protectionists

followed Lord George Bentinck into the lobby against the bill, in

combination with the Free Traders, the Whigs, and the Irish Catholic and

national members. The division took place on the second reading of the

bill on Thursday, June 25th, and there was a majority of seventy-three

against the Ministry.

The moment after Sir Robert Peel succeeded in passing his great measure

of free trade he himself fell from power. His political epitaph,

perhaps, could not be better written than in the words with which he

closed the speech that just preceded his fall: "It may be that I shall

leave a name sometimes remembered with expressions of good-will in those

places which are the abode of men whose lot it is to labor and to earn

their daily bread by the sweat of their brow--a name remembered with

expressions of good-will when they shall recreate their exhausted

strength with abundant and untaxed food, the sweeter because it is no

longer leavened with a sense of injustice."

With the fall of the principle of the protection in corn may be said to

have practically fallen the principle of protection in that country

altogether. That principle was a little complicated in regard to the

sugar duties and to the navigation laws. The sugar produced in the West

Indian colonies was allowed to enter that country at rates of duty much

lower than those imposed upon the sugar grown in foreign lands. The

abolition of slavery in the colonies had made labor there somewhat

costly and difficult to obtain continuously, and the impression was that

if the duties on foreign sugar were reduced it would tend to enable

those countries which still maintained the slave trade to compete at

great advantage with the sugar grown in the colonies by that free labor

to establish which England had but just paid so large a pecuniary fine.

Therefore the question of free trade became involved with that of free

labor; at least, so it seemed to the eyes of many a man who was not

inclined to support the protective principle in itself. When it was put

to him, whether he was willing to push the free-trade principle so far

as to allow countries growing sugar by slave labor to drive our

free-grown sugar out of the market, he was often inclined to give way

before this mode of putting the question, and to imagine that there

really was a collision between free trade and free labor. Therefore a

certain sentimental plea came in to aid the Protectionists in regard to

the sugar duties.

Many of the old Antislavery party found themselves deceived by this

fallacy, and inclined to join the agitation against the reduction of the

duty on foreign sugar. On the other hand, it was made tolerably clear

that the labor was not so scarce or so dear in the colonies as had been

represented, and that colonial sugar grown by free labor really suffered

from no inconvenience except the fact that it was still manufactured on

the most crude, old-fashioned, and uneconomical methods. Besides, the

time had gone by when the majority of the English people could be

convinced that a lesson on the beauty of freedom was to be conveyed to

foreign sugar-growers and slave-owners by the means of a tax upon the

products of their plantations. Therefore, after a long and somewhat

eager struggle, the principle of free trade was allowed to prevail in

regard to sugar. The duties on sugar were made equal. The growth of the

sugar plantations was admitted on the same terms into that country,

without any reference either to the soil from which it had sprung or to

the conditions under which it was grown.

It had for a long time been stoutly proclaimed that the abolition of

slavery must be the destruction of our West Indian colonies. Years had

elapsed and the West Indian colonies still survived. Now the cry of

alarm was taken up again, and it was prophesied that although they had

got over the abolition of slavery they never could survive the

equalization of the sugar duties. Jamaica certainly had fallen greatly

away from her period of temporary and factitious prosperity. Jamaica was

owned and managed by a class of proprietors who resembled in many ways

some of the planters of the States of America farthest south--of the

States toward the mouth of the Mississippi. They lived in a kind of

careless luxury, mortgaging their estates as deeply as they possibly

could, throwing over to the coming year the superabundant debts of the

last, and only managing to keep their heads above water so long as the

people of England, by favoring them with a highly protective system,

enabled them still to compete against those who grew sugar on better and

more economical plans. The whole island was given over to neglect and

mismanagement. The emancipated negroes took but little trouble to

cultivate the plots of ground they had obtained, and were quite content

if they could scratch enough from the soil to enable them barely to

live. Therefore Jamaica did at a certain time fall far below the level

of her former seeming prosperity.

The other islands had been better managed. Their estates were less

encumbered by debt, and they passed through each successive crisis

without sustaining any noticeable injury. In most of these islands the

product increased steadily after the emancipation of the slaves. The

negroes then began to work earnestly, and education grew not greatly but

distinctly among all classes. Jamaica, the most unfortunate among the

islands, has been constantly the scene of little outbursts of more or

less serious rebellion. As the late Lord Chief Justice of England

observed in a charge on a famous occasion, "The soil of the island might

seem to have been drenched in blood." But these disturbances, or

insurrections, or whatever they may be called, did not increase in

number after the abolition of slavery and after the equalization of the

sugar duties, but, on the contrary, decreased. During our time only one

considerable disturbance has taken place in Jamaica, and in former years

such tumult was of frequent recurrence. In the West Indies we have,

therefore, the most severe test to which the principle of free trade

could well be subjected. It is not too much to say that in the more

fortunate of these islands it has established its claim, and that even

in the least fortunate no evidence whatever has been given that the

people would have been in any way the better off if the old system had

been retained.

The navigation laws had, too, a certain external attraction about them

which induced many men, not actually Protectionists, to believe in their

necessity. The principle of the navigation laws was to impose such

restrictions of tariff and otherwise as to exclude foreign vessels from

taking any considerable part in our carrying trade. The law was first

enacted in Oliver Cromwell's day, at a time when the Dutch were rivals

on the sea, and when it was thought desirable to repress, by protective

legislation, the energy of such experienced seamen and pushing traders.

The navigation law was modified by Mr. Huskisson in 1823, but only so

far as to establish that which we now know so well as the principle of

reciprocity. Any nation which removed restrictions from British merchant

marine was favored with a similar concession. The idea also was that

these navigation laws, keeping foreigners out of England's carrying

trade, enabled her to maintain always a supply of sailors who could at

any time be transferred from the merchant marine to the royal navy, and

thus be made to assist in the defence of the country.

Of course, the ship-owners themselves upheld the navigation laws, on the

plea that, if the trade were thrown open by the withdrawal of

protection, their chances would be gone; that they could not contend

against the foreigners upon equal terms; that their interests must

suffer, and that Great Britain would in the end be a still severer

sufferer, because, from the lack of encouragement given to the native

traders and the sailors, England would one day or another be left at the

mercy of some strong power which, with wiser regulations, would keep up

her protective system and with it her naval strength.

Nevertheless, the ship-owners and the Protectionists and those who

raised the alarm-cry about England's naval defences were unable to

maintain their sophisms in the face of growing education and of the

impulse given by the adoption of free trade. In 1849 the navigation laws

were abolished. We believe there are very few ship-owners who will not

now admit that the prosperity of their trade has grown immensely, in

place of suffering, from the introduction of the free-trade principle in

navigation as well as in com and sugar.

(1846) THE DISCOVERY OF NEPTUNE, Sir Oliver Lodge

Among modern astronomical discoveries none has been regarded as more

important than that of Neptune, the outermost known planet of the solar

system. It was a rich reward to the watchers of the sky when this new

planet swam into their ken. This discovery was hailed by astronomers as

"the most conspicuous triumph of the theory of gravitation." Long after

Copernicus even, the genius of philosophers was slow to grasp the full

conception of a spherical earth and its relations with the heavenly

bodies as presented by him. So it was also with the final acceptance of

Newton's demonstration of the universal law of gravitation (1685),

whereby he showed that "the motions of the solar system were due to the

action of a central force directed to the body at the centre of the

system, and varying inversely with the square of the distance from it."

After making this discovery, Newton himself, with the aid of others,

especially of the French mathematician Picard, labored for years to

verify it, and still further verification was necessary before it could

be fully comprehended and accepted by the scientific world. The

discovery of the asteroids or small planets revolving in orbits between

those of Mars and Jupiter, aided in confirming the Newtonian theory,

which the discovery of Uranus, by Sir William Herschel (1781), had done

much to establish.

From the time of Sir William Herschel the science of stellar astronomy,

revealing the enormous distances of the stars--none of them really

fixed, but all having real or apparent motions--was rapidly developed.

The discovery of stellar planets, at almost incalculable distances,

still further changed the aspect of the heavens as viewed by

astronomers, and when the capital discovery of Neptune was made those

men of science were well prepared for studying its nature and

importance. These matters, as well as the simultaneous calculation of

the place of Neptune by Adams and Leverrier, and its actual discovery by

Galle, are set forth by Sir Oliver Lodge in a manner as charming for

simplicity as it is valuable in its summary of scientific learning.

The explanation by Newton of the observed facts of the motion of the

moon, the way he accounted for precession and nutation and for the

tides; the way in which Laplace explained every detail of the planetary

motions--these achievements may seem to the professional astronomer

equally, if not more, striking and wonderful; but of the facts to be

explained in these cases the general public is necessarily more or less

ignorant, and so no beauty or thoroughness of treatment appeals to it or

excites its imagination. But to predict in the solitude of the study,

with no weapons other than pen, ink, and paper, an unknown and

enormously distant world, to calculate its orbit when as yet it had

never been seen, and to be able to say to a practical astronomer, "Point

your telescope in such a direction at such a time, and you will see a

new planet hitherto unknown to man"--this must always appeal to the

imagination with dramatic intensity, and must awaken some interest in

the dullest.

Prediction is no novelty in science; and in astronomy least of all is it

a novelty. Thousands of years ago Thales, and others whose very names we

have forgotten, could predict eclipses, but not without a certain degree

of inaccuracy. And many other phenomena were capable of prediction by

accumulated experience. A gap between Mars and Jupiter caused a missing

planet to be suspected and looked for, and to be found in a hundred

pieces. The abnormal proper-motion of Sirius suggested to Bessel the

existence of an unseen companion. And these last instances seem to

approach very near the same class of prediction as that of the discovery

of Neptune. Wherein, then, lies the difference? How comes it that some

classes of prediction--such as that if you put your finger in fire it

will be burned--are childishly easy and commonplace, while others excite

in the keenest intellects the highest feelings of admiration? Mainly,

the difference lies, first, in the grounds on which the prediction is

based; second, in the difficulty of the investigation whereby it is

accomplished; third, in the completeness and the accuracy with which it

can be verified. In all these points, the discovery of Neptune stands

out as one among the many verified predictions of science, and the

circumstances surrounding it are of singular interest.

Three distinct observations suffice to determine the orbit of a planet

completely, but it is well to have the three observations as far apart

as possible so as to minimize the effects of minute but necessary errors

of observation. When Uranus was found old records of stellar

observations were ransacked with the object of discovering whether it

had ever been unwittingly seen before. If seen, it had been thought, of

course, to be a star--for it shines like a star of the sixth magnitude,

and can therefore be just seen without a telescope if one knows

precisely where to look for it and if one has good sight--but if it had

been seen and catalogued as a star it would have moved from its place,

and the catalogue would by that entry be wrong. The thing to do,

therefore, was to examine all the catalogues for errors, to see whether

the stars entered there actually existed, or whether any were missing.

If a wrong entry were discovered, it might of course have been due to

some clerical error, though that is hardly probable considering the care

spent in making these records, or it might have been a tailless comet,

or possibly the newly found planet.

The next thing to do was to calculate backward, to see whether by any

possibility the planet could have been in that place at that time.

Examined in this way the tabulated observations of Flamsteed showed that

he had unwittingly observed Uranus five distinct times; the first time

in 1690, nearly a century before Herschel discovered its true nature.

But more remarkable still, Le Monnier, of Paris, had observed it eight

times in one month, cataloguing it each time as a different star. If

only he had reduced and compared his observations, he would have

anticipated Herschel by twelve years. As it was, he missed it. It was

seen once by Bradley also. Altogether it had been seen twenty times.

These old observations of Flamsteed and those of Le Monnier, combined

with those made after Herschel's discovery, were very useful in

determining an exact orbit for the new planet, and its motion was

considered thoroughly known. For a time Uranus seemed to travel

regularly, and as expected, in the orbit which had been calculated for

it; but early in the present century it began to be slightly refractory,

and by 1820 its actual place showed quite a distinct discrepancy from

its position as calculated with the aid of the old observations. It was

thought at first that this discrepancy must be due to inaccuracies in

the older observations, and they were accordingly rejected, and tables

prepared for the planet based on the newer and more accurate

observations only. But by 1830 it became apparent that it did not

coincide with even these. The error amounted to about 20". By 1840 it

was as much as 90", or a minute and a half. This discrepancy is quite

distinct, but still it is very small; and had two objects been in the

heavens at once, the actual Uranus and the theoretical Uranus, no

unaided eye could possibly have distinguished them or detected that they

were other than a single star.

The errors of Uranus, though small, were enormously greater than other

things which had certainly been observed; there was an unmistakable

discrepancy between theory and observation. Some cause was evidently at

work on this distant planet, causing it to disagree with its motion as

calculated according to the law of gravitation. If the law of

gravitation held exactly at so great a distance from the sun, there must

be some perturbing force acting on it besides all the known forces that

had been fully taken into account. Could it be an outer planet? The

question occurred to several, and one or two tried to solve the problem,

but were soon stopped by the tremendous difficulties of calculation.

The ordinary problem of perturbation is difficult enough: Given a

disturbing planet in such and such a position, to find the perturbations

it produces. This was the problem that Laplace worked out in the

_Mécanique Céleste_.

But the inverse problem--given the perturbations, to find the planet

that causes them--such a problem had never yet been attacked, and by

only a few had its possibility been conceived. Friedrich Bessel made

preparations for solving this mystery in 1840, but he was prevented by

fatal illness.

In 1841 the difficulties of the problem presented by these residual

perturbations of Uranus excited the imagination of a young student, an

undergraduate of Cambridge--John Couch Adams by name--and he determined

to make a study of them as soon as he was through his _tripos_. In

January, 1843, he was graduated as senior wrangler, and shortly

afterward he set to work. In less than two years he reached a definite

conclusion; and in October, 1845, he wrote to the astronomer-royal, at

Greenwich, Professor Airy, saying that the perturbations of Uranus could

be explained by assuming the existence of an outer planet, which he

reckoned was now situated in a specified latitude and longitude.

We know now that had the astronomer-royal put sufficient faith in this

result to point his big telescope at the spot indicated and begin

sweeping for a planet, he would have detected it within 1-3/4º of the

place assigned to it by Adams. But anyone in the situation of the

astronomer-royal knows that almost every post brings absurd letters from

ambitious correspondents, some of them having just discovered perpetual

motion, or squared the circle, or proved the earth flat, or discovered

the constitution of the moon or of ether or of electricity; and in this

mass of rubbish it requires great skill and patience to detect such gems

of value as may exist.

Now this letter of Adams's was indeed a jewel of the first water, and no

doubt bore on its face a very different appearance from the chaff of

which I have spoken; but still Adams was unknown: he had been graduated

as senior wrangler, it is true, but somebody must be graduated as senior

wrangler every year, and a first-rate mathematician is not produced

every year. Those behind the scenes--as Professor Airy of course was,

having been a senior wrangler himself--knew perfectly well that the

labeling of a young man on his taking his degree is much more worthless

as a testimony to his genius and ability than the general public is apt

to suppose.

Was it likely that a young and unknown man should have solved so

extremely difficult a problem? It was altogether unlikely. Still, he

should be tested: he should be asked for explanations concerning some of

the perturbations which Professor Airy had noticed, and see whether he

could explain these also by his hypothesis. If he could, there might be

something in his theory. If he failed--well, there was an end of it. The

questions were not difficult. They concerned the error of the radius

vector. Adams could have answered them with perfect ease; but sad to

say, though a brilliant mathematician, he was not a man of business. He

did not answer Professor Airy's letter.

It may seem a pity to many that the Greenwich equatorial was not pointed

at the place, just to see whether any foreign object did happen to be in

that neighborhood; but it is no light matter to derange the work of an

observatory, and alter the plans laid out for the staff, into a sudden

sweep for a new planet on the strength of a mathematical investigation

just received by post. If observatories were conducted on these

unsystematic and spasmodic principles they would not be the calm,

accurate, satisfactory places they are.

Of course, if anyone had known that a new planet was to be found for the

looking, _any_ course would have been justified; but no one could know

this. I do not suppose that Adams himself felt an absolute confidence in

his attempted prediction. So there the matter dropped. Adams's

communication was pigeonholed, and remained in seclusion eight or nine

months.

Meanwhile, and quite independently, something of the same sort was going

on in France. A brilliant young mathematician, Urban Jean Joseph

Leverrier, born in Normandy in 1811, held the post of astronomical

professor at the École Polytechnique, founded by Napoleon. His first

published papers directed attention to his wonderful powers; and the

official head of astronomy in France, the famous Arago, suggested to him

the unexplained perturbations of Uranus as a worthy object for his fresh

and well-armed vigor. At once he set to work in a thorough and

systematic way. He first considered whether the discrepancies could be

due to errors in the tables or errors in the old observations. He

discussed them with minute care, and came to the conclusion that they

were not thus to be explained away. This part of the work he published

in November, 1845.

He then set to work to consider the perturbations produced by Jupiter

and Saturn to see whether they had been accurately allowed for, or

whether some minute improvements could be made sufficient to destroy the

irregularities. He introduced several fresh terms into these

calculations, but none of them of sufficient importance to do more than

partly explain the mysterious perturbations. He next examined the

various hypotheses that had been suggested to account for them. Were

they caused by a failure in the law of gravitation or by the presence of

a resisting medium? Were they due to some large but unseen satellite or

to a collision with some comet?

All these theories he examined and dismissed for various reasons. The

perturbations were due to some continuous cause--for instance, some

unknown planet. Could this planet be inside the orbit of Uranus? No, for

then it would perturb Saturn and Jupiter also, and they were not

perturbed by it. It must, therefore, be some planet outside the orbit of

Uranus, and in all probability, according to Bode's empirical law, at

nearly double the distance from the sun that Uranus is. Finally he

proceeded to determine where this planet was, and what its orbit must be

to produce the observed disturbances.

Not without failures and disheartening complications was this part of

the process completed. This was, after all, the real tug of war. Many

unknown quantities existed: its mass, its distance, its eccentricity,

the obliquity of its orbit, its position--nothing was known, in fact,

about the planet except the microscopic disturbance it caused in Uranus,

several thousand million miles away from it. Without going into further

detail, suffice it to say that in June, 1846, he published his last

paper, and in it announced to the world his theory as to the situation

of the planet.

Professor Airy received a copy of this paper before the end of the

month, and was astonished to find that Leverrier's theoretical place for

the planet was within 1° of the place Adams had assigned to it eight

months before. So striking a coincidence seemed sufficient to justify a

Herschelian sweep for a week or two. But a sweep for so distant a planet

would be no easy matter. When seen through a large telescope it would

still only look like a star, and it would require considerable labor and

watching to sift it out from the other stars surrounding it. We know

that Uranus had been seen twenty times, and thought to be a star, before

its true nature was discovered by Herschel; and Uranus is only about

half as far away as Neptune.

Neither at Paris nor at Greenwich was any optical search undertaken; but

Professor Airy wrote to ask M. Leverrier the same old question that he

had fruitlessly put to Adams: Did the new theory explain the errors of

the radius vector or not? The reply of Leverrier was both prompt and

satisfactory--these errors were explained, as well as all the others.

The existence of the object was then for the first time officially

believed in. The British Association met that year at Southampton, and

Sir John Herschel was one of its sectional presidents. In his inaugural

address, on September 10, 1846, he called attention to the researches of

Leverrier and Adams in these memorable words:

"The past year has given to us the new [minor] planet Astræa; it has

done more--it has given us the probable prospect of another. We see it

as Columbus saw America from the shores of Spain. Its movements have

been felt trembling along the far-reaching line of our analysis with a

certainty hardly inferior to ocular demonstration."

It was nearly time to begin to look for it. So the astronomer-royal

thought on reading Leverrier's paper. But as the national telescope at

Greenwich was otherwise occupied, he wrote to Professor Challis, at

Cambridge, to know whether he would permit a search to be made for it

with the Northumberland equatorial, the large telescope at Cambridge

University, presented to it by one of the Dukes of Northumberland.

Professor Challis said he would conduct the search himself, and shortly

began a leisurely and dignified series of sweeps around the place

designated by theory, cataloguing all the stars he observed, intending

afterward to sort out his observations, compare one with another, and

find out whether any one star had changed its position; because if it

had it must be the planet. Thus, without giving an excessive time to the

business, he accumulated a host of observations.

Professor Challis thus actually saw the planet twice--on August 4 and

August 12, 1846--without knowing it. If he had had a map of the heavens

containing telescopic stars down to the tenth magnitude, and if he had

compared his observations with this map as they were made, the process

would have been easy and the discovery quick. But he had no such map.

Nevertheless one was in existence. It had just been completed in that

country of enlightened method and industry--Germany. Doctor Bremiker had

not indeed completed his great work--a chart of the whole zodiac down to

stars of the tenth magnitude--but portions of it were completed, and the

special region where the new planet was expected to appear happened to

be among the portions finished. But in England this was not known.

Meanwhile Adams wrote to the astronomer-royal several additional

communications, making improvements in his theory, and giving what he

considered nearer and nearer approximations for the place of the planet.

He also now answered quite satisfactorily, but too late, the question

about the radius vector sent to him months before.

Leverrier was likewise engaged in improving this theory and in

considering how best the optical search could be conducted. Actuated

probably by the knowledge that in such matters as cataloguing and

mapping Germany was then, as now, far ahead of all the other nations, he

wrote in September (the same year that Sir John Herschel delivered his

eloquent address at Southampton) to Berlin. Leverrier wrote to Doctor

Galle, head of the observatory at Berlin, saying to him, clearly and

decidedly, that the new planet was now in or close to such and such a

position, and that if he would point his telescope to that part of the

heavens he would see it; and moreover that he would be able to tell it

from a star by its having a sensible magnitude, or disk, instead of

being a mere point.

Galle got the letter on September 23, 1846. That same evening he pointed

his telescope to the place Leverrier told him, and saw the planet. He

recognized it first by its appearance. To his practised eye it did seem

to have a small disk, and not quite the same aspect as an ordinary star.

He then consulted Bremiker's great star-chart, the part just engraved

and finished, and, sure enough, no such star was there. Undoubtedly it

was the planet.

The news flashed over Europe at the maximum speed with which news could

travel at that date (which was not very fast); and by October 1st

Professor Challis and Mr. Adams heard it at Cambridge, and realized that

in so far as there was competition in such a matter England was out of

the race.

It was an unconscious race to all concerned, however. The French

scientists knew nothing of the search in England. Adams's papers had

never been published; and very annoyed the French were when a claim was

set up in his behalf to a share in this magnificent discovery. As for

Adams himself, we are told that by no word did he show resentment at the

loss of the practical consummation of his discovery. His part in any

controversy that arose was calm and dignified; but for a time his

friends fought a public battle for his fame. It so happened that the

public took a keener interest than it usually takes in scientific

predictions; but the discussion has now settled down. All the world

honors the bright genius and mathematical skill of John Couch Adams, and

recognizes that he first solved the problem by calculation. All the

world, too, perceives clearly the no less eminent mathematical talents

of M. Leverrier, but it recognizes in him something more than the mere

mathematician--the man of energy, decision, and character.

(1846) THE ACQUISITION OF CALIFORNIA, Henry B. Dawson

In the history of the United States, the acquisition of California,

carrying with it that of New Mexico, was a peculiar and unusual event,

and one of immense significance in the expansion and development of the

Republic. Together with the annexation of Texas, it was the most

important result of the Mexican War. The California country, formerly an

indeterminate territory of vast extent, was settled by Spanish

missionaries in the seventeenth century. Their settlements within the

present limits of the State of California date from the first foundation

of San Diego in 1769. In 1822 the entire region called California became

a part of the Mexican Republic, and it remained a possession of Mexico

until the time of the transfer described below.

At the beginning of 1846 the population of California included, with

about two hundred thousand Indians, six thousand Mexicans and perhaps

two hundred Americans. War against Mexico had been declared in May,

1845, and already General Taylor had won the battles of Palo Alto and

Resaca de la Palma, and had compelled the surrender of Monterey. While

these operations were leading the United States forces to the rapid

accomplishment of their work in Mexico proper, other movements were

undertaken, the execution and outcome of which form the subject of Mr.

Dawson's narrative. In 1848 California and New Mexico were ceded to the

United States.

Immediately after the opening of hostilities in the valley of the Rio

Grande (March, 1846), among the expeditions which were organized by the

Federal authorities was one to move against and take possession of

California and New Mexico, two provinces in the northern part of the

enemy's country. The command of this expedition had been vested in

General Stephen W. Kearney, and the force under his command had

rendezvoused at Fort Leavenworth; and the most energetic measures had

been adopted to insure its early departure and its ultimate success.

Having completed all the arrangements, on June 26th the main body of

this expedition had moved from the fort; and after a rapid but

interesting march of eight hundred seventy-three miles, on August 18th

it entered and took possession of Santa Fé, the capital of New Mexico,

the Mexican forces, numbering four thousand, which had been collected to

defend the town, having dispersed, without offering the least

opposition, as it approached.

While these operations in New Mexico and on the western frontier of the

United States were taking place, Brevet-Captain John C. Frémont, who had

been engaged in explorations on the western slope of the Rocky

Mountains, had also revolutionized the Province of California, and, to

some extent at least, had anticipated the movements of the expedition

commanded by General Kearney. The character of his mission being

scientific and peaceful rather than warlike, he had not had an officer

or soldier of the regular army in his company; and his whole force had

consisted of sixty-two men employed by himself for security against the

Indians and for procuring subsistence in the wilderness and desert

country through which he had passed. For the purpose of obtaining game

for his men and grass for his horses, in an uninhabited part of

California, he had, during the winter of 1845-1846, solicited and

obtained permission from the Mexican authorities to winter in the Valley

of San Joaquin; but he had scarcely established himself before he

received advices that the Mexican commander was preparing to attack him

under the pretext that under the cover of a scientific mission he was

exciting the American settlers in that vicinity to revolt.

In view of this threatened attack, and for the purpose of repelling it,

Lieutenant Frémont immediately occupied a mountain which overlooked

Monterey--although it was thirty miles from that city--and having

intrenched it and raised the flag of the United States he waited the

approach of the enemy. After remaining there until March 10, 1846, he

retired to the northward, intending to march, by way of Oregon, to the

United States; but about the middle of May, after he had quietly passed

into Oregon, he had received information through Samuel Neal and Levi

Sigler, two hunters who had been sent after him from Lassen's _rancho_,

that the Mexican Governor of California was pursuing him, while the

Indians, by whom he was surrounded, instigated by the enemy, had shown

signs of hostility, and had killed or wounded five of his men.

Under these circumstances, on June 6, 1846, Lieutenant Frémont had

resolved to turn on his pursuers with the little party under his

command, and to seek safety, not merely in the overthrow of his

pursuers, but in that of the entire Government of Mexico in the Province

of California. Accordingly, on June 11th, Lieutenant Frémont, assisted

by Captain Merritt and fourteen of the settlers, had attacked and

captured an escort of horses destined for General Castro's

troops--Lieutenant Arce, fourteen men, and two hundred horses remaining

in his hands as the trophies of his victory. On the 15th the military

post of Sonoma was surprised, and General Vallejo, Captain Vallejo,

Colonel Greuxdon and several other officers, nine pieces of brass

cannon, two hundred fifty stands of muskets, and other stores and arms

were taken; and on the 25th the military commandant of the Province, who

had moved toward the post with a heavy force to retake it, was attacked

by Lieutenant Frémont and twenty men, and completely routed. Having thus

cleared that part of the Province north of the Bay of San Francisco of

the enemy, it is said that on July 5th Captain Frémont had assembled the

American settlers at Sonoma, addressed them upon the dangers of their

situation, and recommended a declaration of independence and war on

Mexico as the only remedy; and that the hardy frontiersmen promptly

accepted the proposal and raised the flag of independent California--a

bear and a star on a red ground.

While these revolutionary movements were destroying the power of Mexico

in the interior of the Province of California, and the expedition under

General Kearney--ignorant of the fact that the work had been done

already--was approaching its eastern borders for the same purpose, the

naval force of the United States in the Pacific, under Commodore Sloat,

had been assisting in the work of conquest. Having heard of the opening

of hostilities on the Rio Grande, the Commodore--then at

Mazatlan--hastened with the Savannah to Monterey in California, where he

arrived on July 2d, and on the 7th he took possession of the town

without opposition; the custom-house was seized, the American flag

raised, and California declared to be "henceforward a part of the United

States."

Within a few days intelligence of the action of Commodore Sloat was

received by the revolutionary leaders at Sonoma; and a battalion of

mounted riflemen which had been organized among them was immediately

moved to Monterey, the flag of the United States was substituted for the

"bear and star," and the authority of the Commodore was immediately

recognized. This battalion of mounted riflemen on its arrival at

Monterey, July 23, 1846, was mustered into the service of the United

States by Commodore Stockton, who had succeeded Commodore Sloat in

command of the squadron--Captain Frémont being appointed its commandant,

and Lieutenant A. H. Gillespie, of the Marines, its second officer--and

it was immediately despatched on the sloop-of-war Cyane to San Diego for

the purpose of cutting off the retreat of General Castro, of the Mexican

service, who had encamped and fortified his position near Ciudad de los

Angeles, while the Commodore with his sailors--who landed from the

Congress at San Pedro--moved against him in front. The expedition was

eminently successful, as the Mexicans on the approach of the Commodore

immediately evacuated their camp and fled in the greatest

confusion--although most of the principal officers were subsequently

captured--and, on August 13th, the Ciudad de los Angeles was occupied,

again without opposition, by the American troops and seamen, and the

conquest of California was apparently completed.

A short time afterward Commodore Stockton appointed Captain Frémont

Governor of the Territory into which, by the proclamation of Commodore

Sloat, the Province had been transformed; while Captain Gillespie was

left, with nineteen men, in possession of Los Angeles; Lieutenant

Talbot, of the Topographical Engineers, with nine men, was left at Santa

Barbara; and, with his squadron, Commodore Stockton proceeded to San

Francisco; while Governor Frémont, on September 8th, also moved to

Monterey.

The main body had no sooner left Los Angeles than the Californians--who

before the departure of the Commodore and the Governor had held secret

meetings for the purpose--rose in arms for the expulsion of the invaders

of their country. Indeed an attempt appears to have been intended before

the Governor left the city; but, by timely precautions, it had been

prevented; although the purpose and determination still continued and

were called into requisition at a more convenient season. The necessary

preparations having been made for that purpose under the directions of

José Antonio Carrillo, a professed conspirator of that vicinity, at an

early hour on the morning of September 23d, the quarters of Captain

Gillespie were attacked by Cerbulo Varela--a metamorphosed captain under

Governor Frémont--at the head of sixty-five men, under cover of a thick

fog. The morning was auspicious for such purposes, yet the Captain was

not surprised; and the twenty-one rifles which he controlled were

quickly brought to bear on the assailants, who retired soon afterward

with three of their number killed and several wounded; and at daylight

the remainder were driven from the town, with the loss of several taken

prisoners, by a few men under Lieutenant Hensley, and Doctor Gilchrist,

of the navy.

The insurgents who were thus expelled from the city formed a nucleus

around which the disaffected gathered; and as the party gained strength

day by day, it harassed the little garrison and killed one of its

number. There was but little concert of action in its ranks, however;

and as the rival aspirants to power struggled for authority, while the

numbers rapidly increased, the efficiency of the insurgents was but

slightly increased. At length, in a spirit of compromise, Captain

Antonio Flores was urged to take the command of the party, and

reluctantly accepted it; and he soon found himself at the head of six

hundred men armed with lances, _escopetas_, and a brass six-pounder,

light and well mounted.

In the mean time the little garrison had found an old honeycombed iron

six-pounder, and had drilled out the spike, cleaned and mounted it, and

by melting the lead pipes of a distillery had provided--unknown to the

insurgents--thirty rounds of ball and grape for it. Two other pieces

having been added to this, on the following day, the little garrison and

its gallant commander resolved to die rather than surrender,

notwithstanding the extreme efforts which had been made to strengthen

its position, and the great fatigue which was incident thereto. To

render his little party still more secure, however, on September 27th

Captain Gillespie withdrew his command from his quarters in the city and

occupied a height which commanded it, when he strengthened his position

and prepared for an obstinate defence.

No sooner had this movement been effected than Captain Flores sent Don

Eulogeo Celis to inquire "on what terms Captain Gillespie would

surrender the city"; and that officer, after consulting with his

subordinates, answered that if the enemy would consent that he should

march out of the city with the honors of war, colors flying and drums

beating; that he should take everything with him; that he should be

furnished with means for transporting his baggage and provisions, at his

own expense; and that the enemy should not come within a league of his

party while on its line of march to San Pedro, he would accept those

terms, and no others would be considered; and Captain Flores should be

held responsible for any damage which might ensue, in case they were

rejected. After some negotiations these terms were offered by Captain

Flores and accepted by Captain Gillespie; and, on September 29th, the

garrison began its march; reached San Pedro on the same evening, and on

October 4th embarked on the Vandalia, after spiking its three old

guns--an exploit which, when the circumstances under which Captain

Gillespie's force, the strength of his opponent, and the temper of the

people among whom he moved are taken into consideration, may well be

ranked as one of the most brilliant feats of that remarkable campaign.

While these difficulties were surrounding Captain Gillespie at Los

Angeles, Lieutenant Talbot, at Santa Barbara with his nine men, was not

less dangerously situated; and when the former had made terms with the

insurgents, Manuel Garpio with two hundred men moved against Lieutenant

Talbot, surrounded the town, and demanded his surrender, offering two

hours for his deliberation. As the men had resolved that they would not

give up their arms, and as the barracks were untenable with so small a

force, the Lieutenant resolved to abandon the town and push for the

hills; and, strange to say, he marshalled his men and marched out of the

town without opposition--"those who lay on the road retreated to the

main force, which was on the lower side of the town."

Having reached the hills, he encamped, and remained there eight days,

when the Californians endeavored to rout him out, but were repulsed with

the loss of a horse. The insurgents then offered him his arms and

freedom if he would engage to remain neutral in the anticipated

hostilities, but "he sent word back that he preferred to fight." They

next built fires about him and burned him out; but in doing so they did

not capture or injure him, and he pushed through the mountains for

Monterey; and after a month's travel, in which he endured unheard-of

hardships and suffering, he reached that place in safety.

Intelligence of the insurrection having reached Commodore Stockton at

San Francisco and Lieutenant-Colonel Frémont at Sacramento, both took

immediate steps to check its progress and to punish the offenders. In

conformity with the Commodore's orders Lieutenant-Colonel Fremont

hastened to San Francisco, whence he embarked, with one hundred sixty

men, on the ship Sterling, for Santa Barbara, to which port the frigate

Savannah (Captain Mervine) had previously been ordered; while, on the

same day, the Commodore in person sailed for the same port in the

Congress.

The latter vessel reached San Pedro on October 6th, and at sunrise on

the 7th Captain Mervine landed with his seamen and marines; and after

being joined by Captain Gillespie and his brave-hearted little party, he

found himself at the head of three hundred ten men, "as brave and as

valiant as ever were led to battle upon any field." At eight o'clock the

party commenced its march toward Los Angeles, Captain Gillespie being in

advance, and when the column reached the hills of Palo Verde the

insurgents showed themselves and opened a fire with their _escopetas_.

The march was rapid; and the jolly tars, unused to such extended

journeys, appear to have suffered from its effects; in consequence of

which, although the enemy gradually fell back before the advancing

column, between one and two o'clock, when near the Rancho de los

Domingos, fourteen miles from San Pedro, it became necessary to halt and

encamp for the night.

As may have been expected, the sailors and marines were ashore, and the

strict discipline which "the deck" had inculcated appears to have been

left on board the frigate. As a necessary consequence the camp displayed

but little of the order which such a locality should have insured; and

many and marvellous were the adventures of that night; while, on the

other hand, the enemy profited by the delay, by the moral effect of the

disorder with which the march had been conducted, and by the entire

absence of any artillery.

On the following morning at daylight the column was again put in motion;

and with Captain Gillespie's men in front, in still greater disorder

than on the preceding day, it moved toward Los Angeles, twelve miles

distant. It had marched only three miles, when, posted behind a small

stream which intersected the line of march, the advance of the

insurgents--seventy-six men, with a small fieldpiece, under José Antonio

Carrillo--was discovered in front; and, as the column approached, a fire

was opened on it, which was answered with a characteristic shout. The

volunteers--Captain Gillespie's command--pressed forward; and by taking

advantage of the neighboring shelter they drove the enemy and compelled

him to abandon his fieldpiece; but before it could be reached and taken

possession of, Captain Mervine gave orders to withdraw. With great

indignation, therefore, the volunteers discontinued the action, and

after picking up his killed and wounded--harassed by the enemy who

pressed after the column, and covered by the volunteers and sixteen

marines, under Captain Gillespie--Captain Mervine slowly and sadly fell

back to San Pedro, where he arrived about dark on the same day,

"Thirteen noble tars were buried on the island in front of San Pedro,"

the victims of this badly managed expedition.

On October 23d the Commodore reached San Pedro--Lieutenant-Colonel

Frémont meanwhile having returned to Monterey--and on the 31st he sailed

for San Diego, which had been invested by the insurgents and needed

assistance. He reached that port a few days afterward; and, with the

assistance of Captain Gillespie's command, the besiegers were repelled,

and a fort was erected to protect the town from similar troubles in

future.

Strenuous efforts were made to obtain horses for the use of the troops,

with some degree of success; and Commodore Stockton sailed toward San

Pedro again. During this temporary absence of the Commodore the

insurgents appear (on November 18, 1846) to have moved against San Diego

a second time, and were again driven back by Captain Gillespie and the

volunteers and marines under his command; and on December 3d a messenger

came into the town bearing a letter from General Kearney, apprising the

Commodore of his approach, and expressing a wish that a communication

might be opened with him that he might be informed of the state of

affairs in California.

It appeared that after the General had taken Santa Fé (on October 1st)

he had moved from that city with the regular cavalry which he had

brought there. Soon afterward (October 7th) he had reduced his force to

one hundred men--sending the remainder back to Santa Fé--and after an

interesting march overland, on December 3, 1846, he had reached Warner's

_rancheria_, the outpost of civilization in California. From there a

letter had been despatched to San Diego by Mr. Stokes, an Englishman who

lived in a neighboring _rancheria_; and on the 4th the command had moved

fifteen miles nearer to the city.

On the receipt of General Kearney's letter, Commodore Stockton

despatched Captain Gillespie to meet him, with a letter of welcome. The

Captain was accompanied by Lieutenant Beale, Midshipman Duncan, ten

seamen, Captain Gibson's company of riflemen (twenty-five men), and a

fieldpiece; and on the 5th he reached the General's camp; when, having

learned on his way that the insurgents were encamped at San Pasqual,

nine miles from the camp, Lieutenant Hammond was sent out by General

Kearney to reconnoitre the enemy's position.

At a very early hour on the 6th the troops were put in motion, Captain

Johnston, with twelve dragoons, forming the advance-guard; the main body

of the General's party, under Captain Moore, following next; after which

moved Captain Gillespie, with Captain Gibson and his small company; and

Lieutenant Davidson, with the General's howitzers brought up the rear.

When the column had reached a hill which overlooked the valley of the

San Pasqual, the insurgents' encampment, it was halted, and the General

gave the final orders to his command: "One thrust of the sabre is worth

a dozen cuts; and depend upon them more than upon the carbines and

rifles." Without further delay the column advanced down the hill; and as

soon as Captain Johnston had struck the plain with his twelve dragoons,

having mistaken the purport of an order from the General, he uttered a

yell, and, without waiting for the support of the main body, dashed on

the heavy ranks of the enemy, falling a victim of his own indiscretion.

The main body hastened, by a flank movement down the hill, to support

the charge of the advance, and received the enemy's fire from an Indian

village on its right flank; but the enemy waited to do no further

mischief, and fled from the charge of the advance before the line could

be formed. Perceiving the defection of the enemy, Captain Moore, with a

portion of his command, pursued the fugitives down the right of the

valley, while Captain Gillespie, with his volunteers, did the same on

the left side--the latter taking prisoner Pablo Beja, the insurgents'

second officer. In this pursuit, however, the ranks of the Americans

were greatly broken; and as the Mexicans far outnumbered them, they soon

afterward made a stand, using their lances with good effect. Captain

Moore fell, pierced in the breast by nine lances; the General was

severely wounded, and his life was saved, from an attack on his rear, by

a ball from Lieutenant Emory. Captain Gillespie was attacked by seven

Californians, received three wounds, and saved himself with great

difficulty; Captain Gibson received two wounds; Lieutenant Hammond

received nine lance wounds in the breast, and many others were severely

injured. For five minutes the enemy held the ground; when, the main body

of the Americans having come up, he again turned and fled.

In this spirited affair about eighty Americans were engaged; while of

the Californians there is said to have been one hundred sixty, under

Andreas Pico. Of the former, Captains Moore and Johnston, Lieutenant

Hammond, and sixteen men were killed; and General Kearney, Captains

Gillespie and Gibson, Lieutenant Warner, and eleven men were wounded;

while of the latter it is said twenty-eight were killed and wounded.

The dead were buried as soon as night closed in; the wounded were

properly attended to by the single surgeon who was with the party; and

ambulances were prepared for their conveyance to San Diego, thirty-nine

miles distant; and on the morning of the 7th the order to march was

given--the column taking the right-hand road over the hills, and leaving

the River San Bernardo to the left--the enemy retiring as it advanced. A

proper regard for the comfort of the wounded compelled the column to

move slowly, and it was afternoon before it reached the San Bernardo

_rancheria_ (Mr. Snook's). After a short halt at that place the column

moved down into the valley; and immediately afterward the hills on the

rear of the column (around the _rancheria_) were covered with

Californian horsemen, a portion of whom dashed at full speed past the

Americans to occupy a hill which commanded the route of the latter,

while the remainder of the party threatened the rear of the column.

Thirty or forty of the enemy quickly occupied the hill referred to; and

as the column came up six or eight Americans filed off to the left, and,

under Lieutenant Emory, charged up the hill, when the Californians

delivered their fire and fled, five of their number having been killed

or wounded by the rifles of the assailants.

The wounded having been removed with great difficulty, the cattle having

been lost, and the danger of losing the sick and the packs being great,

the General determined to halt at that place and await the arrival of

reinforcements, for which messengers had been sent to San Diego on the

morning of the 6th. Accordingly the Americans occupied the high ground

on which the action had been fought, bored holes for water, killed their

fattest mules for meat, and awaited the arrival of their friends, until

the morning of the 11th, when they were joined by one hundred seamen and

eighty marines, under Lieutenant Gray, who had been sent out to meet

them by Commodore Stockton; and, on the afternoon of the 12th, the

combined parties entered the town in safety.

At this time commenced that memorable conflict between the two

commanders--General Kearney and Commodore Stockton--respecting the chief

command, which subsequently created so much trouble in the American

ranks and throughout the country. Commodore Stockton appears, however,

to have retained the authority; and, having organized a force

sufficiently strong to warrant the undertaking, and General Kearney

having accepted an invitation to accompany the expedition, on December

29th he marched from San Diego, with two officers and fifty-five

privates (dragoons, two officers and forty-five seamen acting as

artillerymen; eighteen officers and three hundred seventy-nine seamen

and marines acting as infantry; six officers, and fifty-four privates),

volunteers, and six pieces of artillery, against the main body of the

insurgents, near Los Angeles. The command appears to have been given, at

his own request, to General Kearney; and as the wagon train was heavily

laden, the progress of the column was very slow--the expedition reaching

the Rio San Gabriel on January 8, 1847--although the enemy had offered

no opposition to its progress even in passes where a small force could

have effectively kept it back. At this place, however, he had made a

stand to dispute the passage of the river; and here the second action

was fought between the Americans and the Californians.

The Rio San Gabriel, at the spot where this action was fought, is about

one hundred yards wide, the current about knee-deep, flowing over a

quicksand bottom. The left bank, by which the Americans approached, is

level; that on the right is also level for a short distance back, but

beyond this narrow plain a bank fifty feet in height commands the ford

and the intervening flat, while both banks are fringed with a thick

undergrowth. On this bank, directly in front of the ford, four pieces of

artillery were posted, supported on either flank by strong bodies of

cavalry, while on the slope of the hill and the flat in front were

posted the sharpshooters.

Against this position the American column moved; the second division in

front, with the first and third divisions on the right and left flanks;

the cattle and the wagon train moved next; the volunteer riflemen and

the fourth division brought up the rear. As the head of the column

approached the bank of the river the enemy's sharpshooters opened a

scattering fire; and the second division was ordered to deploy as

skirmishers, cross the river, and drive the former from the thicket;

while the first and third divisions covered the flanks of the train,

and, with it, followed in the rear. When this line of skirmishers had

reached the middle of the stream and was pressing forward toward the

opposite bank, the enemy brought his artillery to bear, "and made the

water fly with grape and round shot"; and the American fieldpieces were

immediately dragged across the river and placed in counter-battery on

the right bank in opposition to those of the enemy. The fire of the

Americans appears to have caused considerable confusion in the ranks of

the insurgents; and under its cover the wagon train and cattle, with

their guard, passed the river, during which time the enemy attacked its

rear and was repelled.

Having safely crossed the river the American column appears to have

deployed under cover of the high ground--the Californian grape and round

shot rattling over the heads of the men--and the enemy immediately

charged on both its flanks simultaneously, dashing down the slope with

great spirit. With great coolness the second division was thrown into

squares, and after a round or two drove off the enemy from the left

flank; the first division received a similar order, but as the

assailants on the right hesitated and did not come down as far as their

associates on the opposite flank, the order was countermanded, and the

division was ordered to charge up the hill, where the enemy's main body

was supposed to be posted. With great coolness this movement was

executed and the heights were gained, but there was no enemy in sight.

He had abandoned his position, and although he pitched his camp on the

hills in view of the Americans, when morning came he had moved still

farther back.

The strength of the Americans in this action (the action of the Rio San

Gabriel) had been shown already; that of the Californians was about six

hundred, with four pieces of artillery. The loss of the former was one

man killed and nine men wounded; that of the enemy is not known.

On the following morning (January 9, 1847) the American column resumed

its march over the Mesa--a wide plain which extends from the Rio San

Gabriel to the Rio San Fernando--surrounded by reconnoitring parties

from the enemy; and when about four miles from Los Angeles the enemy was

discovered on the right of the line of march, awaiting its approach.

When the column had come abreast of the enemy the latter opened fire

from his artillery on its right flank, and soon afterward deployed his

force, making a horseshoe in front of the American column, and opening

with two pieces of artillery on its front while two nine-pounders

continued their fire on the right.

After stopping about fifteen minutes to silence the enemy's

nine-pounders the column again moved forward; when, by a movement

similar to that employed on the Rio San Gabriel the day before, two

charges were made simultaneously on its left flank and on its right and

rear. Contrary to the positive instructions of the officers, in the

former of these charges the enemy was met with a fire at long distance;

yet, although he had not come within a hundred yards of the column,

several of his men were knocked out of their saddles, and a round of

grape, which was immediately sent after him, completely scattered his

right wing. The charge on the right and the rear of the column fared

little better; and the entire force of the insurgents was withdrawn.

The strength of both parties was probably as on the preceding day at the

Rio San Gabriel; the loss of the Californians is not known; that of the

Americans was Captain Gillespie, Lieutenant Rowan, and three men

wounded. The troops encamped near the field of battle; and on the

following morning (January 10, 1847), the enemy surrendered, when the

city of Los Angeles was occupied by the Americans without further

opposition.

"This was the last exertion made by the sons of California for the

liberty and independence of their country," say the Mexican historians,

"and its defence will always do them honor; since, without supplies,

without means or instructions, they rushed into an unequal contest, in

which they more than once taught the invaders what a people can do who

fight in defence of their rights. The city of Los Angeles was occupied

by the American forces on January 10th, and the loss of that rich, vast,

and precious part of the Mexican territory was consummated."

(1847) THE FALL OF ABD-EL-KADER, Edgar Sanderson

This great Mahometan was an Arab chief whose heroic conduct as leader of

the Arabs in their wars against the French in Algeria (1832-1847) gave

him a place among the eminent patriot-soldiers and statesmen of the

nineteenth century. In 1843 Marshal Soult declared that Abd-el-Kader was

one of the three great men then living; the two others also being

Mahometans. The final course and fall of this man, whose name means

"Servant of the Mighty God," is itself an important concern of history,

without regard to its effect upon the relations of empire. After the

French, provoked by the conduct of Hasan, Dey of Algeria, had occupied

Algiers, his capital, in 1830, a new government was set up in France,

Louis Philippe ascending the throne in place of the expelled Charles X.

At the time of this revolution in France the soldiers of Charles had

already overrun a great part of Algeria; but they had not subdued the

country, and their absolute dominion extended only a little beyond the

capital itself. The French commander fortified his territory, but had to

recruit his garrisons from among the natives. In 1833 Abd-el-Kader

raised the standard of the Prophet, the Arabs rallied to his call, and

for several years he carried on a stubborn war against the French, whom

in 1835 he signally defeated.

In 1836 the Arab leader, now Sultan, again fought the invaders in

several severe engagements on the Tafna River. In these affairs the

advantage lay with the Arab. In June, 1836, General Bugeaud was sent to

command the French forces, and he proved to be the strongest opponent

that Abd-el-Kader had met. There was more fighting on the Tafna; it was

indecisive, and in May, 1837, a treaty, known as the Treaty of the

Tafna, was concluded, General Bugeaud having received instructions

either to make peace with Abd-el-Kader or to subdue him.

The story of the Arab hero from this point in his career is told by

Sanderson, the faithful commemorator of great nineteenth-century

patriots, a high authority on modern Africa.

The famous Treaty of the Tafna, concluded between Abd-el-Kader and

Bugeaud, was a triumph for the Arab Sultan. With the consent of all the

great sheiks, the leaders of cavalry contingents, the venerable

Marabouts, and the most distinguished warriors of the Province of Oran,

the Sultan, not acknowledging the sovereignty of France, but ceding to

her a limited portion of the Provinces of Oran and Algiers, reserved the

free exercise of their religion for all Arabs dwelling on French

territory. He undertook to supply the French army with a large quantity

of corn and oxen and to confine the commerce of the Regency to French

ports. In return he received the administration of the larger part of

the Provinces of Oran and Algiers, and the whole of Tittery; the

important right of buying powder, sulphur, and weapons in France; and

freedom of trade between the Arabs and the French. In ceding the

Province of Tittery, Bugeaud had violated the strict orders of the

French Government, alleging in excuse to the Minister of War that any

other arrangement was "impossible." The treaty, in fact, confined the

French to a few towns on the seacoast, with small adjacent territories.

All the fortresses and strongholds in the interior were left in the

hands of Abd-el-Kader. He was the possessor of two-thirds of Algeria,

and he appeared before the world as the friend and ally of France.

The treaty was held by the French Government to be a high stroke of

policy, converting an enemy into an ally. The French people regarded it

as a humiliating surrender of French territory to a rival power. It was

the culminating point of Abd-el-Kader's career.

During the year 1839 the Sultan was engaged in the work of a statesman,

legislator, administrator, and reformer, displaying wonderful activity,

enterprise, vigor, and intellectual power as the founder of an empire

which, for the happiness of Algeria, was to be too short-lived. After

the Tafna Treaty he had received a magnificent present of arms from

Louis Philippe, King of the French, and, as a man who had subdued,

either by arms or by persuasive eloquence, the hardy, high-spirited

Kabyles he stood high in the estimation of his Moslem fellow-rulers in

Morocco and Egypt, Tripoli and Tunis, and of the _ulemas_, or bodies of

learned doctors in divinity and law, at Alexandria and Mecca, who

watched with joy, and with ardent expectation of yet higher things, the

career of one who seemed destined to revive the pristine glories of

Islam. The great Sultan, in order to consolidate his power both against

the French and over the Arabs, constructed a number of forts on the

limits of the Tell at Sebdou, on the west; at Saida, south of Tlemsen;

at Tekedemt, south of Mascara; at Boghar, south of Miliana; to the south

of Medea, and to the southeast of Algiers. Tekedemt, an old Roman town

about sixty miles southeast of Oran, was designed to be the capital, as

a great centre of commerce between the Tell and the Sahara.

The first stone of the new city and fortress had been laid by the Sultan

in May, 1836; and as the place grew, a population of settlers from

Mascara, Mostaganem, and other towns poured in. Large stores of warlike

munitions were formed, and a factory, worked by mechanics from Paris on

liberal wages, turned out eight new muskets a day. A mint of silver and

copper coins was established. The defences carried twelve cannon and six

mortars. A French observer, who was a prisoner at the time when the

Sultan was personally directing the works at Tekedemt, describes his

simple costume, like that of a laborer; his large tall hat, plaited with

palm-leaves; his "incomparable grace" and "fascinating smile" as he

saluted the man who was rather a guest than a captive.