Chapter V: Part 5

In the first stage of his proceedings, Mr. Clarkson, in the course of his application to members of Parliament, called on Mr. Wilberforce, who stated that "the subject had often employed his thoughts and was near his heart." He inquired into the authorities for the statements laid before him, and became not only convinced of, but impressed with, the paramount duty of abolishing so hateful a traffic. Occasional meetings of those who were alike interested were held at his house; and in May, 1787, a committee was formed, of which Wilberforce became the Parliamentary leader. Early in 1788 he gave notice of his intention to bring the subject before the House; but, owing to his severe indisposition, that task was ultimately undertaken by Mr. Pitt, who moved and carried a resolution, pledging the House in the ensuing session to enter on the consideration of the subject. Accordingly, May 12, 1789, Mr. Wilberforce moved a series of resolutions, founded on a report of the Privy Council, exposing the iniquity and cruelty of the traffic in slaves, the mortality which it occasioned among white as well as black men, and the neglect of health and morals by which the natural increase of the race in the West India islands was checked; and concluding with a declaration that if the causes by which that increase was checked were removed, no considerable inconvenience would result from discontinuing the importation of African slaves. Burke, Pitt, and Fox supported the resolutions. Mr. Wilberforce's speech was distinguished by eloquence and earnestness, and by its unanswerable appeals to the first principles of justice and religion. The consideration of the subject was ultimately adjourned to the following session. In that, and in two subsequent sessions, the motions were renewed; and the effect of pressing such a subject upon the attention of the country was to open the eyes of many who would willingly have kept them closed, yet could not deny the existence of the evils so forced on their view. In 1792 Mr. Wilberforce's motion for the abolition of the slave trade was met by a proposal to insert in it the word "gradually;" and, in pursuance of the same policy, Mr. Dundas introduced a bill to provide for its discontinuance in 1800. The date was altered to 1796, and in that state the bill passed the Commons, but was stopped in the Upper House by a proposal to hear evidence upon it. Mr. Wilberforce annually renewed his efforts, and brought every new argument to bear upon the question which new discoveries, or the events of the times, produced. In 1799 the friends of the measure resolved on letting it repose for awhile, and for five years Mr. Wilberforce contented himself with moving for certain papers; but he took an opportunity of assuring the House that he had not grown cool in the cause, and that he would renew the discussion in a future session. On May 30, 1804, he once more moved for leave to bring in his bill for the abolition of the slave trade, in a speech of great eloquence and effect. He took the opportunity of making a powerful appeal to the Irish members, before whom, in consequence of the Union, this question was now for the first time brought, and the greater part of whom supported it. The decision showed a majority of 124 to 49 in his favor; and the bill was carried through the Commons, but was again postponed in the House of Lords. In 1805 he renewed his motion; but on this occasion it was lost in the Commons by over-security among the friends of the measure. But when Mr. Fox and Lord Granville took office in 1806, the abolition was brought forward by the ministers, most of whom supported it, though it was not made a government question in consequence of several members of the cabinet opposing it. The attorney-general (Sir A. Pigott) brought in a bill, which was passed into a law, prohibiting the slave trade in the conquered colonies, and excluding British subjects from engaging in the foreign slave trade; and Mr. Fox at Mr. Wilberforce's special request, introduced a resolution pledging the House to take the earliest measures for effectually abolishing the whole slave trade. This resolution was carried by a majority of 114 to 15; and January 2, 1807, Lord Granville brought forward, in the House of Lords, a bill for the abolition of the slave trade, which passed safely through both Houses of Parliament. As, however, the king was believed to be unfriendly to the measure, some alarm was felt by its friends, lest its fate might still be affected by the dismissal of the ministers, which had been determined upon. Those fears were groundless; for though they received orders to deliver up the seals of their offices on March 25th, the royal assent was given by commission by the Lord Chancellor Erskine on the same day; and thus the last act of the administration was to conclude a contest, maintained by prejudice and interest during twenty years, for the support of what Mr. Pitt denominated "the greatest practical evil that ever afflicted the human race."

Among other testimonies to Mr. Wilberforce's merits, we are not inclined to omit that of Sir James Mackintosh, who in his journal, May 23, 1808, speaks thus of Wilberforce on the "Abolition." This refers to a pamphlet on the slave trade which Mr. Wilberforce had published in 1806: "Almost as much enchanted by Mr. Wilberforce's book as by his conduct. He is the very model of a reformer. Ardent without turbulence, mild without timidity or coolness; neither yielding to difficulties nor disturbed or exasperated by them; patient and meek yet intrepid; persisting for twenty years through good report and evil report; just and charitable even to his most malignant enemies; unwearied in every experiment to disarm the prejudices of his more rational and disinterested opponents, and supporting the zeal, without dangerously exciting the passions of his adherents."

The rest of Mr. Wilberforce's parliamentary conduct was consistent with his behavior on this question. In debates chiefly political he rarely took a forward part; but where religion and morals were directly concerned, points on which few cared to interfere, and where a leader was wanted, he never shrunk from the advocacy of his opinions. He was a supporter of Catholic emancipation and parliamentary reform; he condemned the encouragement of gambling, in the shape of lotteries established by government; he insisted on the cruelty of employing boys of tender age as chimney-sweepers; he attempted to procure a legislative enactment against duelling, after the hostile meeting between Pitt and Tierney; and on the renewal of the East India Company's charter in 1816, he gave his zealous support to the propagation of Christianity in Hindostan, in opposition to those who, as has been more recently done in the West Indies, represented the employment of missionaries to be inconsistent with the preservation of the British empire. It is encouraging to observe that, with the exception of the one levelled against duelling, all these measures, however violently opposed and unfairly censured, have been carried in a more or less perfect form.

As an author, Mr. Wilberforce's claim to notice is chiefly derived from his treatise entitled "A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professing Christians in the Higher and Middle Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity." The object of it was to show that the standard of life generally adopted by those classes not only fell short of, but was inconsistent with, the doctrines of the gospel. It has justly been applauded as a work of no common courage, not from the asperity of its censures, for it breathes throughout a spirit of gentleness and love, but on the joint consideration of the unpopularity of the subject and the writer's position. The Bishop of Calcutta, in his introductory essay, justly observes that "the author, in attempting it, risked everything dear to a public man and a politician as such, consideration, weight, ambition, reputation." And Scott, the divine, one of the most fearless and ardent of men, viewed the matter in the same light; for he wrote: "Taken in all its probable effects, I do sincerely think such a stand for vital Christianity has not been made in my memory. He has come out beyond my expectations." Of a work so generally known we shall not describe the tendency more at large. It is said to have gone through about twenty editions in Britain, since the publication in 1797, and more in America; and to have been translated into most European languages.

In the discharge of his parliamentary duties, Mr. Wilberforce was punctual and active beyond his apparent strength; and those who further recollect his diligent attendance on a vast variety of public meetings and committees connected with religious and charitable purposes, will wonder how a frame naturally weak should so long have endured the wear of such exertion. In 1788, when his illness was a matter of deep concern to the Abolitionists, Dr. Warren said that he had not stamina to last a fortnight. No doubt his bodily powers were greatly aided by the placid and happy frame of mind which he habitually enjoyed; but it is important to relate his own opinion, as delivered by an ear-witness, on the physical benefits which he derived from a strict abstinence from temporal affairs on Sundays: "I have often heard him assert that he never could have sustained the labor and stretch of mind required in his early political life, if it had not been for the rest of his Sabbath; and that he could name several of his contemporaries in the vortex of political cares, whose minds had actually given way under the stress of intellectual labor so as to bring on a premature death or the still more dreadful catastrophe of insanity and suicide, who, humanly speaking, might have been preserved in health, if they would but conscientiously have observed the Sabbath."

In 1797 Mr. Wilberforce married Miss Spooner, daughter of an eminent banker at Birmingham. Four sons survived him. He died, after a gradual decline, July 29, 1833, in Cadogan Place. He directed that his funeral should be conducted without the smallest pomp; but his orders were disregarded, in compliance with a memorial addressed to his relatives by many of the most distinguished men of all parties, and couched in the following terms: "We, the undersigned Members of both Houses of Parliament, being anxious, upon public grounds, to show our respect for the memory of the late William Wilberforce, and being also satisfied that public honors can never be more fitly bestowed than upon such benefactors of mankind, earnestly request that he may be buried in Westminster Abbey, and that we and others who may agree with us in these sentiments may have permission to attend his funeral." The attendance of both Houses was numerous. Mr. Wilberforce was interred within a few yards of his great contemporaries, Pitt, Fox, and Canning.

SIR HUMPHRY DAVY

By JOHN TIMBS, F.S.A.

(1778-1829)

The boyhood of Davy has been sketched in some of the most fascinating pieces of biography ever written: the annals of science do not furnish us with any record that equals the school-days and self-education of the boy, Humphry, in popular interest; and, unlike many bright mornings, this commencement in a few years led to a brilliant meridian, and, by a succession of discoveries, accomplished more in relation to change of theory and extension of science, than in the most ardent and ambitious moments of youth he could either hope to effect or imagine possible.

Humphry Davy was born at Penzance, in 1778; was a healthy, strong, and active child, and could speak fluently before he was two years old; copied engravings before he learned to write, and could recite part of the "Pilgrim's Progress" before he could well read it. At the age of five years, he could gain a good account of the contents of a book while turning over the leaves; and he retained this remarkable faculty through life. He excelled in telling stories to his playmates; loved fishing, and collecting, and painting birds and fishes; he had his own little garden; and recorded his impressions of romantic scenery in verse of no ordinary merit. To his self-education, however, he owed almost everything. He studied with intensity mathematics, metaphysics, and physiology; before he was nineteen he began to study chemistry, and in four months proposed a new hypothesis on heat and light, to which he won over the experienced Dr. Beddoes. With his associate, Gregory Watt (son of the celebrated James Watt) he collected specimens of rocks and minerals. He made considerable progress in medicine; he experimented zealously, especially on the effects of the gases in respiration; at the age of twenty-one he had breathed nitrous oxide, and nearly lost his life from breathing carburetted hydrogen. Next year he commenced the galvanic experiments which led to some of his greatest discoveries. In 1802 he began his brilliant scientific career at the Royal Institution, where he remained till 1812; here he constructed his great voltaic battery of 2,000 double plates of copper and zinc, and commenced the mineralogical collection now in the Museum. His lectures were often attended by one thousand persons: his youth, his simplicity, his natural eloquence, his chemical knowledge, his happy illustrations and well-conducted experiments, and the auspicious state of science, insured Davy great and instant success.

The enthusiastic admiration with which he was hailed can hardly be imagined now. Not only men of the highest rank--men of science, men of letters, and men of trade--but women of fashion and blue-stockings, old and young, pressed into the theatre of the Institution to cover him with applause. His greatest labors were his discovery of the decomposition of the fixed alkalies, and the re-establishment of the simple nature of chlorine; his other researches were the investigation of astringent vegetables in connection with the art of tanning; the analysis of rocks and minerals in connection with geology; the comprehensive subject of agricultural chemistry; and galvanism and electro-chemical science. He was also an early, but unsuccessful, experimenter in the photographic art.

Of the lazy conservative spirit and ludicrous indolence in science, which at this time attempted to hoodwink the public, a quaint instance is recorded of a worthy professor of chemistry at Aberdeen. He had allowed some years to pass since Davy's brilliant discovery of potassium and its congeneric metals, without a word about them in his lectures. At length the learned doctor was concussed by his colleagues on the subject, and he condescended to notice it. "Both potash and soda are now said to be metallic oxides," said he; "the oxides, in fact, of two metals, called potassium and sodium by the discoverer of them, one Davy, in London, a verra troublesome person in chemistry."

Turn we, however, to the brightest event in our chemical philosopher's career. By his unrivalled series of practical discoveries, Davy acquired such a reputation for success among his countrymen, that his aid was invoked on every great occasion. The properties of fire-damp, or carburetted hydrogen, in coal-mines had already been ascertained by Dr. Henry. When this gas is mingled in certain proportions with atmospheric air, it forms a mixture which kindles upon the contact of a lighted candle, and often explodes with tremendous violence, killing the men and horses, and projecting much of the contents of the mine through the shafts or apertures like an enormous piece of artillery. At this time, a detonation of fire-damp occurred within a coal-mine in the north of England, so dreadful that it destroyed more than a hundred miners. A committee of the proprietors besought our chemist to provide a method of preparing for such tremendous visitations; and he did it. He tells us that he first turned his attention particularly to the subject in 1815; but he must have been prepared for it by the researches of his early years. Still, there appeared little hope of finding an efficacious remedy. The resources of modern mechanical science had been fully applied in ventilation. The comparative lightness of fire-damp was well understood; every precaution was taken to preserve the communications open; and the currents of air were promoted or occasioned, not only by furnaces, but likewise by air-pumps and steam apparatus. We may here mention that, for giving light to the coal-miner or pitman, where the fire-damp was apprehended, the primitive contrivance was a steel-mill, the light of which was produced by contact of a flint with the edge of a wheel kept in rapid motion. A "safety-lamp" had already, in 1813, been constructed by Dr. Clanny, the principle of which was forcing in air through water by bellows; but the machine was ponderous and complicated, and required a boy to work it. M. Humboldt had previously, in 1796, constructed a lamp for mines upon the same principle as that of Dr. Clanny.

Davy, having conceived that flame and explosion may be regulated and arrested, began a minute chemical examination of fire-damp. He found that carburetted-hydrogen gas, even when mixed with fourteen times its bulk of atmospheric air, was still explosive. He ascertained that explosions of inflammable gases were incapable of being passed through long, narrow metallic tubes; and that this principle of security was still obtained by diminishing their length and diameter at the same time, and likewise diminishing their length and increasing their number, so that a great number of small apertures would not pass explosion when their depth was equal to their diameter. This fact led to trials upon sieves of wire-gauze; he found that if a piece of wire-gauze was held over the flame of a lamp, or coal-gas, it prevented the flame from passing; and he ascertained that a flame confined in a cylinder of very fine wire-gauze did not explode even in a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen, but that the gases burned in it with great vivacity. These experiments served as the basis of the safety-lamp.

Sir Humphry Davy presented his first communication respecting his discovery of the safety-lamp to the Royal Society in 1815. This was followed by a series of papers, crowned by that read on January 11, 1816, when the principle of the safety-lamp was announced, and Sir Humphry presented to the society a model made by his own hands, which is to this day preserved in the collection of the Royal Society at Burlington House.

There have been several modifications of the safety-lamp, and the merit of the discovery has been claimed by others, among whom was Mr. George Stephenson; but the question was set at rest in 1817 by an examination, attested by Sir Joseph Banks, P.R.S., Mr. Brande, Mr. Hatchett, and Dr. Wollaston, and awarding the independent merit to Davy.

It should be explained that Stephenson's lamp was formed on the principle of admitting the fire-damp by narrow tubes, and "in such small detached portions that it would be consumed by combustion." The two lamps were doubtless distinct inventions; though Davy, in all justice, appears to be entitled to precedence, not only in point of date, but as regards the long chain of inductive reasoning concerning the nature of flame by which his result was arrived at.

Meanwhile, the Report by the Parliamentary Committee "cannot admit that the experiments (made with the lamp) have any tendency to detract from the character of Sir Humphry Davy, or to disparage the fair value placed by himself upon his invention. The improvements are probably those which longer life and additional facts would have induced him to contemplate as desirable, and of which, had he not been the inventor, he might have become the patron."

"I value it," Davy used to say, with the kindliest exultation, "more than anything I ever did; it was the result of a great deal of investigation and labor; but if my directions be attended to, it will save the lives of thousands of poor men."

The principle of the invention may be thus summed up: In the safety-lamp, the mixture of the fire-damp and atmospheric air within the cage of wire-gauze explodes upon coming in contact with the flame; but the combustion cannot pass through the wire-gauze; and being there imprisoned, cannot impart to the explosive atmosphere of the mine any of its force. This effect has been attributed to the cooling influence of the metal; but, since the wires may be brought to a degree of heat but little below redness without igniting the fire-damp, this does not appear to be the cause.

Professor Playfair has elegantly characterized the safety-lamp of Davy as a present from philosophy to the arts, a discovery in no degree the effect of accident or chance, but the result of patient and enlightened research, and strongly exemplifying the great use of an immediate and constant appeal to experiment. After characterizing the invention as the _shutting-up in a net of the most slender texture_ of a most violent and irresistible force, and a power that in its tremendous effects seems to emulate the lightning and the earthquake, Professor Playfair thus concludes: "When to this we add the beneficial consequences, and the saving of the lives of men, and consider that the effects are to remain as long as coal continues to be dug from the bowels of the earth, it may be fairly said that there is hardly in the whole compass of art or science a single invention of which one would rather wish to be the author.... This," says Professor Playfair, "is exactly such a case as we should choose to place before Bacon, were he to revisit the earth; in order to give him, in a small compass, an idea of the advancement which philosophy has made since the time when he had pointed out to her the route which she ought to pursue."

Honors were showered upon Davy. He received from the Royal Society the Copley, Royal, and Rumford Medals, and several times delivered the Bakerian Lecture. He also received Napoleon's prize for the advancement of galvanic researches from the French Institute. The invention of the safety-lamp brought him the public gratitude of the united colliers of Whitehaven, of the coal proprietors of the north of England, of the grand jury of Durham, of the Chamber of Commerce at Mons, of the coal-miners of Flanders, and, above all, of the coal-owners of the Wear and the Tyne, who presented him (it was his own choice) with a dinner-service of silver worth £2,500. On the same occasion, Alexander, the Emperor of all the Russias, sent him a vase, with a letter of commendation. In 1817, he was elected to the dignity of an associate of the Institute of France; next year, at the age of forty, he was created a baronet.

Davy's discoveries form a remarkable epoch in the history of the Royal Society during the early part of this century; and from 1821 to 1829 almost every volume of the _Transactions_ contains a communication by him. He was president of the Royal Society from 1820 to 1827.

Fond of travel, geology, and sport, Davy visited, for the purpose of mineralogy and angling, almost every county of England and Wales. He was provided with a portable laboratory, that he might experiment when he chose, as well as fish and shoot. In 1827, upon resigning the presidency of the Royal Society, he retired to the continent; in 1829, at Geneva, his palsy-stricken body returned to the dust. They buried him at Geneva, where a simple monument stands at the head of the hospitable grave. There is a tablet to his memory in Westminster Abbey; there is a monument at Penzance; and his widow founded a memorial chemical prize in the University of Geneva. His public services of plate, his imperial vases, his foreign prizes, his royal medals, shall be handed down with triumph to his collateral posterity as trophies won from the depths of nescience; but his work, designed by his own genius, executed by his own hand, tracery and all, and every single stone signalized by his own private mark, indelible, characteristic, and inimitable--his work is the only record of his name. How deeply are its foundations rooted in space, and how lasting its materials for time!

GENERAL SAN MARTIN[9]

[Footnote 9: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]

By HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH

(1778-1850)

"Seras lo que debes ser,
Y sino, no seras nada."
SAN MARTIN.

San Martin, the ideal liberator of South America from the long and tyrannical rule of Spanish viceroys, was one of the most remarkable men of his own or of any age. From a moral point of view he stands in the first rank of the world's heroes. "He was not a man," said a student of South American history, "he was a mission." Cincinnatus, after serving the state, returned to the plough, and Washington to the retirement of Mt. Vernon; but San Martin for the peace of his country went into voluntary exile. His country crowned him dead and made for his dead body a tomb of Peace, surrounded by the marble angels of the arts of human progress, more beautiful in its meaning than any tomb on the Appian Way, and one of the most wonderful memorials on earth.

The Battle of Maipú, of which San Martin was the victor, completed the emancipation of South America, and made the achievements of Bolivar easy in the Northern Andes. Said the hero of Maipú--and what words of man under the circumstances ever equalled the declaration in moral sublimity!--

"The presence of a fortunate general, however disinterested he may be, is dangerous to a newly founded state. I have achieved the independence of Peru: I have ceased to be a public man!" He died at Boulogne, France, in poverty, after nearly thirty years of exiled and fameless life. His career seems like that of some hero of fiction, such as the imagination of a Plato, a Bacon, or a Sir Thomas More might create for an Utopia. He is the one perfectly unselfish man in history, and his fame has grown steadily in Spanish America, since Argentina built a tomb-palace for his remains, and decreed for him one of the most splendid funerals ever known to the Western World.

General Don Joachim de la Pezuela, the last Spanish ruler of Peru, was the forty-fourth viceroy from Pizarro. "The Indians," he said, "love the memory of the Incas--the country is ready to rise." The banner of Argentina was putting to flight the condors of the Andes, and the last viceroy saw in its advance the end of Spain in the New World.

The Argentine hero who had created the army of the Andes for universal liberty was San Martin. He was born on February 25, 1778, at Yapeyu, in Misiones. His father was a South American officer under the last rule of the viceroys. The family removed to Spain in his boyhood, and he became for two years a pupil in the Seminary of Nobles, at Madrid. At the age of twelve he became a cadet, wearing a uniform of blue and white, which he made in manhood the colors of South American emancipation.

He fought in the war against the Moors, and in the campaign against France, in 1793. In 1800 he took part in the so-called "War of the Oranges against Portugal."

In the early part of the nineteenth century there began to be formed in Spain secret societies for the purpose of advancing the cause of liberty and human progress. One of these associations, called _Caballeros Racionales_, became very influential, and corresponded with the society of the Grand Reunion of America (_Gran Reunion Americana_) of London. This society was pledged "to recognize no government in America as legitimate unless it was elected by the free will of the people." San Martin joined this society. The London society was established by Miranda, the Spanish patriot, a friend of Bolivar, by whose inspirations San Martin became a disciple of liberty, and whose dreams he fulfilled long after the patriot was dead.

San Martin won honors and a medal in the Spanish resistance to the victorious eagles of Napoleon. In that campaign he fought under a banner of the Sun, having this motto in Latin: "We bear this aloft dispersing the clouds." He made this banner the flag of the army of the Andes.

In 1812, San Martin, as a disciple of the principles of the Spanish apostle of liberty, Miranda, returned to South America, and in March went to Buenos Ayres, and offered his sword to the Argentine patriots for the cause of independence. The country was in revolution against the Spanish rule. San Martin was not only an American, but a Creole; he was unselfish, truthful, the soul of honor, and of all men in the world the one that would seem best fitted to lead the cause of the South American patriots. He was destined to become "the greatest of the Creoles of the New World."

Soon after the arrival of San Martin in Buenos Ayres he married Doña Remedios Esculada, and Mercedes, a daughter of this marriage, shared with him his voluntary exile after the conquest of Peru.

Appointed at once to a high military position under the Argentine Government, he conceived the plan of creating an army of the Andes, of crossing the Cordillera, and of driving the Spaniards from Chile.

Mendoza, with which Buenos Ayres is now connected by railroad, lies on an elevation under the snowy Cordilleras. San Martin made his military camp here. On January 17, 1817, he began his march up the Andes, one of the most perilous achievements of modern warfare. The summit of the Uspallata Pass, over which the army was to climb, is 12,500 feet above the level of the sea, or 4,000 feet higher than the Pass of St. Bernard.

The 17th, on which the army set forth, was a high holiday in Mendoza. The plaza was gay with banners, and the streets with patriotic decorations. The ladies of the city presented an embroidered flag to San Martin. The general, above whose head gleamed the snowy heights of the Andes, ascended a platform in the plaza, and waved this flag over his head, and shouted:

"Soldiers, behold the first flag of independence!"

There arose a great shout of "Viva la Patria!"

"Soldiers, swear to sustain it."

"We swear," answered the army, as one man.

Salvos of musketry and artillery followed. Mitre, in his "Life of San Martin," as presented to us in the condensed translation of Pilling, eloquently says that this flag rose "for the redemption of one-half of South America, passed the Cordilleras, waved in triumph along the Pacific coast, floated over the foundations of two new republics, aided in the liberation of another, and after sixty-four years served as a funeral pall to the body of the hero, who thus delivered it to the care of the immortal Army of the Andes."

The mountains rose above the departing army, piercing the sky in the fading day. Up they climbed, putting to flight the condors. The men suffered greatly from the rarefaction of the air. Even many of the animals of the expedition perished. Out of 9,261 mules, only 4,300 ever reached Chile.

"What spoils my sleep," said San Martin, on surveying the Andes at the outset of the expedition, "is not the strength of the enemy, but how to pass those immense mountains." He might well say that, for before him gleamed peaks 21,000 feet high.

The army, with all its sufferings, triumphantly crossed the lower passes of the Cordilleras, and entered Chile. This march decided the fate of South America.

The army encamped upon the Sierra of Chacubuco, from the summit of which the whole of the magnificent country could be seen. Here rose the flag of liberation. The flower of the Spanish army, inferior in numbers, was near. On February 12th a battle was fought, and the royalists were defeated with a loss of 500 men killed, 600 taken prisoners, and all of their artillery.

The way was now open to Santiago, the capital. The army entered the city amid the acclamations of the people. The Chilian assembly met and offered San Martin the office of governor, with dictatorial power. But San Martin was not fighting for power, or honor, but for the liberties of his countrymen, and he nobly declined the office.

The guns of Buenos Ayres roared, and the city was turned into a festival when the news of the triumph of the army of the Andes reached the coast. The Argentine Government offered to bestow on San Martin its highest honors, but the latter declined them, lest his work should be retarded and his motives of life should be misconstrued. It awarded to his daughter a life pension, which he devoted to her education.

Santiago offered to him 10,000 ounces of gold. He refused the splendid purse which he had so well won, but recommended that the money be used for the cause of popular education in the form of a public library.

Chile and Argentina now formed an alliance in defence of their liberties.

But the royal army was gathering force and unity. On March 31st, it numbered 5,500 men, and was prepared to make a final stand against the army of liberation.

There is a river in Chile which divides the country, named the Maipó, or Maipú. On its banks the royal army encamped on the first days of April, 1818. The patriot army was close at hand, and each army felt that the battle to follow would decide the fate of the movement for the independence of the South American empire.

It is April 5, 1818. The royal army is ready for action, and the patriots occupy the heights of Loma Blanca, overlooking the plains of the Maipú.

"Do not await a charge to-day," ordered San Martin; "_but charge_ always within fifty paces!"

At the beginning of the action he said,

"I take the sun to witness that the day is ours."

Just then the sun, which had been clouded, shone from the heavens.

The royal army was defeated. That night of May 5th covered their flight, and the War of Independence was won.

San Martin began now to plan the liberation of Peru, and to create a navy for the purpose of commanding the ports of the golden mountains and rich plateaus of the incarial realms.

In August, 1820, he had gathered a patriot force of 4,500 men at Valparaiso, and was ready to embark for the conquest by sea. The army was composed of Argentines and Chilians. A former expedition had made the way of victory clear to the patriots. The fleet left Valparaiso August 21, 1820. The army landed in Peru and began operations near Lima.

San Martin began his Chilian campaign by the liberation of the slaves, whom he afterward found trusty soldiers. He began the Peruvian war by issuing a most noble manifesto to his countrymen, in which he said: "Ever since I came back to my native land, the independence of Peru has been present in my mind."

And again he grandly announced his future policy in nearly these words: "From the time that a government is established by the people of Peru, the army of the Andes will obey its orders."

The army of liberation was as successful in Peru as in Chile. The empire of the viceroys crumbled and fell. Amid the roar of cannon, the shouts of the people, and strewing of flowers, the independence of Peru was proclaimed on July 20, 1821, in the great square of Lima. San Martin, as in Chile, was offered the supreme authority under the title of the Protector of Peru. He made use of the office merely for the pacification of the country. He convened the first Congress in Peru, and to the new government he addressed the words, or words like those, that we have quoted at the beginning of this article. He saw that Bolivar was the man to complete the liberation and bring about the unity of South America. The cause was all to him: he was nothing.

To Bolivar he wrote: "My decision is irrevocable. I have convened the first Congress of Peru. The day of its installation I shall leave for Chile, convinced that my presence is the only obstacle that prevents you from coming to Peru."

He sent to Bolivar a parting gift, saying, "Receive this memento from the first of your admirers, and with my desire that you have the glory of finishing the war for the independence of South America."

The history of chivalry has no match for the character of San Martin. Bolivar united patriotism and vanity; San Martin's glory was self-abnegation. At a banquet where the two were present, Bolivar once offered the following toast: "To the two greatest men in South America--San Martin and _myself_."

San Martin followed with his toast. "To the speedy end of the war; to the establishment of the republics, and to the health of the Liberator of Colombia!"

The two toasts were photographs. Time is lifting the character of San Martin into its true place among glorious men. He was a man who fought for peace. His life fulfilled his own motto: "Thou shalt be what thou oughtest to be, or else thou shalt be nothing."

On critical occasions, his magnanimous soul rose to the sublimity of this motto, and to the end of his life of glory and poverty he was always able to say, "I have been what I ought!"

[Signature: Hezekiah Butterworth.]

GEORGE STEPHENSON[10]

[Footnote 10: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]

By Professor C. M. WOODWARD

(1781-1848)

Far in the north of England, near the Scottish border, by the shore of the German Ocean, is the county of brown and barren hills called Northumberland, and its principal city, Newcastle, famous for its coal. There is another Newcastle near the centre of England, so this one is often distinguished by the name "Newcastle-on-Tyne"--Tyne being the blackest and dirtiest of all rivers.

A few miles from Newcastle, up the Tyne, is the little mining village of Wylam, where, a hundred years ago, lived Robert Stephenson and his wife Mabel. There was no style about Wylam, and few evidences of wealth or culture. The houses straggled about near the outlets of the coal-mines, and everything was as uninviting as it well could be. Stephenson's house, or rather "shanty," had but one room, and that had an earthen floor. Robert and Mabel were about as ill-furnished as their house; for neither could read, they had not a book nor a print, and neither knew much more of the world than could be seen, as they stood on the bank of the Tyne and looked about on the neighboring hills and down toward Newcastle. In 1892 I rode down the valley of the Tyne, past Wylam, through Newcastle, and over the high bridge that our fireman's grandson, Robert, built in later days. Few valleys are less attractive, and few seem less likely to be the birthplace of epoch-making men.

Robert Stephenson, the father of our hero, was a fireman, earning two shillings a day. He was sober and industrious, but as would be expected, he never "got on." He was a good story-teller, and transmitted to his children healthy bodies and clear heads. George was the second of six children, and he was born June 9, 1781, during our war for independence. His boyhood was uneventful enough. When the weather was cold he was cooped up in their narrow home; he was out of doors whenever the weather would permit. He played in the street, ran errands, carried his father's dinner, and herded cows, as soon as he was big enough, for four cents per day. At fourteen he was assistant-fireman, earning twenty-five cents a day, and at seventeen he was "plugman." He was thus in contact with much that had been achieved in the way of building engines and transporting materials on cars. But I must describe the engines then in use, and explain what it was to be a "plugman."

The coal-mines were so deep that, in spite of the valleys, they could be drained only by pumps, and it was often more difficult to keep the water out than it was to lift the coal out. The steam-engine was then in a very incomplete condition, and both pumping-and lifting-engines were crude and clumsy affairs. To be sure Watt, the mathematical instrument-maker, had invented the double-acting steam-engine, but few had been manufactured, and those in common use were "atmospheric" engines, known as "Newcomen's" engines. A pumping-engine had a long, vertical cylinder, with arrangements for admitting steam at the top. The weight of the piston, piston-rod, and pump-rod, which ran down a shaft to the lowest point in the mine, being balanced by a counter-weight on a sort of well-sweep, the steam, admitted by hand, forced the piston to the bottom of the cylinder. The steam was then shut off, and a spray of water was turned on within the cylinder. This water condensed the steam and reduced the pressure within to almost nothing, so that the air pressure on the exterior face of the piston (which amounted to over a ton for every square foot of surface) drove the piston to the top of the cylinder, and lifted the full length of the stroke a large quantity of water.

It is evident that the office of engineer was not an easy one. It was all he could do to take care of the steam end of the pump; another man was needed to look after the lower end, where the pump-valve worked in another vertical cylinder. The water entered this cylinder through holes in the sides, some higher, some lower, according to the stage of water in the mine. The pumps did not run continuously, but they lowered the water to the bottom as often as it was necessary. As the level of the water in the mine fell, it was necessary to plug the upper holes in the pump cylinder; the man who watched the lower end and plugged those holes was known as the "plugman." It is difficult to conceive of a less inspiring occupation than that to which George Stephenson was promoted at the age of seventeen. Alone in the dark, chilled by the damp air, and wet by the black water, he was forced, by lack of other occupation, to note every mechanical detail of the machinery, and to study methods of improving it.

At the age of eighteen he heard of some wonderful engines made by Watt & Boulton, at their new factory, and was told that the engines were fully described and illustrated in books. So he determined to learn to read. He was encouraged in this resolve by stories that a French soldier, by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte, was sweeping everything before him on the continent of Europe, and that he was planning the subjugation of Great Britain. Information about Napoleon could be gained from printed newspapers if one could only read.

But where should he learn? There was no public school in Wylam; none of our hero's companions went to school; none of the people he associated with could read or write. However, he found a teacher in a young man by the name of Robert Cowens, of whom he took three lessons per week in the evening. He earned money for books and instruction by mending shoes and repairing clocks. He was handy with tools, and quick at seeing the relations of things. As soon as he could read and write he learned to cipher, taking a slateful of "sums," set by his teacher, to his work in the morning, to be "done" during odd moments while watching his pump or engine, for he was soon advanced to the care of the steam end of the machine.

While young Stephenson, now grown a man, is thus busy with his primer, his copy-book, and "four rules," let us reflect upon the uncanny circumstances of his early life. He had no luxuries, few real comforts. The people around him lived half the time underground in mines that were dark, damp, and dangerous--in constant war with water and a poisonous, explosive, natural gas, known as "fire-damp." Above ground there was little that was attractive or educative. The young men had their games, at which George was fairly successful, for he was strong and active. The ale-house stood near by, and it absorbed most of the spare time and scant earnings of the miners; but it is said that young Stephenson avoided the saloon, and was never known to leave his work for a drink of liquor. On off days he took his engine to pieces, examined its parts and the functions of each, and remedied small defects and devised improvements. Naturally clear-headed and ingenious, every circumstance tended to develop his executive powers. He soon was known in the Tyne valley as a good engine-doctor.

An incident, when he was about twenty years of age, did much to shape his career. He heard that a neighboring mine had been flooded on account of the inability of the engine to pump fast enough. No engineer could make the engine efficient. One Sunday he went down and looked at it. After a thorough examination he said he could make it work in a week's time if he could have authority to make changes as he saw fit. Authority was given him. In four days the engine was repaired and set to work. In spite of jeers from old engine-men, who were jealous of a mere boy, the pump worked well and the mine was soon dry. George's reputation was made, and he soon received appointment as engineer at a large mine at Killingworth, an important place near by.

Meanwhile Stephenson added exact instrumental drawing to his three R's. He found, as every artisan finds, that exact drawing is necessary not only to the study of existing mechanical devices, but particularly to the successful design of new parts. The successful inventor generally invents at his drawing-board.

When twenty-one years of age Stephenson married Fanny Henderson, a respectable country girl living at Ballast Hill. He brought the bride home behind him on a pillion, a wedding journey of fifteen miles. Robert Stephenson, who became his father's partner, and one of the first of England's civil engineers, was born in 1803. In 1812, when Stephenson was thirty-one years old, he was made engine-wright of a large colliery at Killingworth, at a salary of $500. The position was one of profit and fine opportunity. All the engines and machinery were in his hands, and all the repair-and construction-shops were available for such new designs as he saw fit to make. He at once set about making his first locomotive.

Locomotives and railroads of certain sorts and fashions were already in existence, but they were rough and clumsy affairs.

The rails were at first angle-irons, then flat bars of wrought iron, then cast-iron bars. In 1800 Benjamin Outram used stones for sleepers, and improved rails--hence "tramways." Over these tramways cars were drawn by horses, or by ropes from stationary engines. Murduck made a locomotive in 1784, and by 1812 several types of engines were used for hauling coal-cars. Stephenson saw one of Blenkinsop's engines. Gear-wheels connected the crank-shaft with the axles, and the driving-wheels were geared with the track, while of course, the coal-cars ran on different rails.

This Blenkinsop's engine was a fearful machine. All the teeth rattled, and as there were no springs and the road was very uneven, the shocks were heavy and frequent, even though its speed was only four miles an hour.

Stephenson's first engine, "My Lord," in honor of his patron, Lord Ravensworth, was finished in 1814. Some experiments on the friction of smooth wheels on iron rails led him to omit the teeth on the drivers, though everyone laughed at him, declaring that the engine would not run an "up grade," much less draw a load. His faith, however, resisted all arguments; it was based on experiments and careful calculations. Stephenson _knew_ that his engine would run up hill and draw a load, and it did so triumphantly.

But the engine lacked steam. The boiler was small, and the fire was applied only on the exterior of the shell, and the draft was very poor, for the chimney was of necessity short. Only very low steam-pressure was possible, and little or no expansion was practicable. Consequently the exhaust was noisy and forcible. Stephenson turned it into the chimney and found that it increased the draft considerably; he at once thought that a steady jet of steam could be so directed as to make a strong draft even when the engine was not in motion. Thus the "blast" was invented, which about doubled the capacity of the machine.

Stephenson's second locomotive, built in 1815, had no noisy gears, but instead, chain-belts to the driving-axles. It had, however, no springs, and the shocks were so great that only a low speed was possible. In 1816 he built locomotives with springs, some of which were in use for hauling coals for forty years.

Meanwhile Robert was growing into a manly, useful lad. Knowing something of the value of education, both of the head and of the hand, his father determined that Robert should have the best of both. He was sent to Edinburgh for scientific culture, and when at home his father taught him drawing, mechanical processes, and the theory of machines as far as he was able--and his ability was considerable, for George Stephenson was more of a student than many whose early advantages were far better than his. The broad dual training given Robert appears to have been fully successful. Even before he became a man he was of great value to his father. Together they worked out plans for modifying and improving the locomotive and the road it was to run upon. He could soon draw and calculate better than his father, but he never excelled him in the solution of practical problems which depended upon a knowledge of materials and the simple laws of physics and mechanics.

Thus far all railroads had been short, leading from mines to piers for shipping by water. The success of Stephenson's locomotive, the best working locomotive ever built at that time, led the proprietors of the Hetton Colliery, a few miles south of the Tyne valley, to propose a road, some eight miles long, over high hills and on steep grades. Stephenson planned and superintended the construction of the road as their engineer. There were several steep inclines where loaded cars going down drew empty cars up. There were two heavy stationary engines drawing cars by a rope, and five of Stephenson's locomotives for the easy grades. Each locomotive drew seventeen wagons, weighing about sixty-four tons, at the rate of four miles per hour. This was the best done as yet, and was considered a great success. It thoroughly established the reputation of George Stephenson as an engineer. This road was opened in 1822.

Before the Hetton Railway was opened Stephenson was busy on a larger work. Parliament had given a franchise for a railway in Durham County, some twenty miles long, through Darlington to Stockton. The function of the road was to carry coal to a shipping pier, and it was not at all settled that horses would not be used to draw the cars. While not much was known about railways, and very little about locomotives, there was a growing conviction that there was great economy in the use of tramways and the steam-engine, and the prospect brightened for building the road.

The charming biographer, Smiles, tells how George Stephenson called on Mr. Edward Pease, the president of the proposed railway, and offered his services in building and equipping the road. Mr. Pease was at once pleased with the man. "There was," said he later, "such an honest, sensible look about him, and he seemed so modest and unpretending. He spoke in the strong Northumbrian dialect, and described himself as 'only the engine-wright at Killingworth.'"

Stephenson urged at once that the road be built for locomotives. Mr. Pease had never seen a locomotive at work, and had taken it for granted that horses would be used; but he went up to Killingworth and rode on the "Blucher" with Stephenson, while it hauled a train of loaded cars. Seeing was believing, and Mr. Pease was in favor of both Stephenson and his locomotive.

So Stephenson was made chief engineer. He and his son Robert surveyed the line, changed the location, avoiding certain territory where people were hostile to a road of any sort, and built new and improved locomotives for the line. What we now call good tools were not to be had, and skilled workmen were not easy to find, but Stephenson made a great advance in the quality of the workmanship.

The amended Act of Parliament gave the Stockton and Darlington line the right to carry passengers in cars drawn by locomotives. This was the first instance of such a grant. Stephenson met Mr. Pease in 1821; the road was opened to the public in 1825. People came in crowds to see the locomotives and to ride on the _first public railway_. There had been bitter opposition to the road and a vast amount of incredulity as to the ability of the locomotives to do practical work.