commanded the English. The defence of New Orleans was intrusted to General Jackson. Jackson had been a soldier from his thirteenth year, and had spent a youth of extraordinary hardship. He was now a strong-willed, experienced, and skilful leader, in whom his soldiers had boundless confidence. Pakenham, fresh from the triumphs of the Peninsula, looked with mistaken contempt upon his formidable enemy.

Jackson's line of defence was something over half a mile in length. The Mississippi covered his right flank, an impassable swamp and jungle secured his left. Along his front ran a deep broad ditch, topped by a massive wall of earth. In this strong position the Americans waited the coming of the enemy.

1815

A. D.

At daybreak on the 8th January the British, six thousand strong, made their attack. The dim morning light revealed to the Americans the swift advance of the redcoated host. A murderous fire of grape and round shot was opened from the guns mounted on the bastion. Brave men fell fast, but the assailants passed on through the storm and reached the American works. It was their design to scale the ramparts, and, once within, to trust to their bayonets, which had never deceived them yet. But at the foot of the ramparts it was found that the fascines and scaling-ladders, which had been prepared for the assault, were now amissing! The men mounted on each other's shoulders, and thus some of them forced their way into the works, only to be shot down by the American riflemen. All was vain. A deadly fire streamed incessant from that fatal parapet upon the defenceless men below. Sir Edward Pakenham fell mortally wounded. The carnage was frightful, and the enterprise visibly hopeless. The troops were withdrawn in great confusion, having sustained a loss of two thousand men. The Americans had seven men killed and the same number wounded.

Thus closed the war. Both countries look with just pride upon the heroic courage so profusely displayed in battle, and

upon the patient endurance with which great sacrifices were submitted to. It is pity these high qualities did not find a more worthy field for their exercise. The war was a gigantic folly and wickedness, such as no future generation, we may venture to hope, will ever repeat.

1803

A. D.

On the Fourth of July 1826 all America kept holiday. On that day, fifty years before, the Declaration of Independence was signed, and America began her great career as a free country. Better occasion for jubilee the world has seldom known. The Americans must needs do honour to the Fathers of their Independence, most of whom have already passed away; two of whom -John Adams and Thomas Jefferson-died on this very day. They must pause and look back upon this amazing half century. The world had never seen growth so rapid. There were three million of Americans who threw off the British yoke; now there were twelve million. The thirteen States had increased to twenty-four. The territory of the Union had been prodigiously enlarged. Louisiana had been sold by France; Florida had been ceded by Spain. Time after 1820 time tribes of vagrant Indians yielded up their lands A. D. and enrolled themselves subjects of the Great Republic. The Gulf of Mexico now bounded the Union on the south, and the lakes which divide her from Canada on the north. From the Atlantic on the east, she already looked out upon the Pacific on the west. Canals had been cut leading from the great lakes to the Hudson, and the grain which grew on the corn-lands of the west, thousands of miles away, was brought easily to New York. Innumerable roads had been made. The debt incurred in the War of Independence had been all paid; and the still heavier debt incurred in the second war with England was being rapidly extinguished. A steady tide of emigration flowed westward. Millions of acres of the fertile wilderness which lay towards the setting sun had been at length made profitable to

mankind. Extensive manufactories had been established, in which cotton and woollen fabrics were produced. The foreign trade of the country amounted to forty million sterling.

The Marquis Lafayette, now an old man, came to see once more before he died the country he had helped to save, and took part with wonder in the national rejoicing. The poor colonists, for whose liberties he had fought, had already become a powerful and wealthy nation. Everywhere there had been expansion. Everywhere there were comfort and abundance. Everywhere there were boundless faith in the future, and a vehement, unresting energy, which would surely compel the fulfilment of any expectations, however vast.

Book hird.

CHAPTER I.

AWA

KING COTTON.

HEN Europeans first visited the southern parts of America, they found in abundant growth there a plant destined to such eminence in the future history of the world as no other member of the vegetable family ever attained. It was an unimportant-looking plant, two or three feet in height, studded with pods somewhat larger than a walnut. In the appropriate season these pods opened, revealing a wealth of soft white fibre, embedded in which lay the seeds of the plant. This was Cotton. It was

not unknown to the Old World, for the Romans used cotton fabrics before the Christian era. India did so from a still remoter period. But the extent to which its use had been carried was trivial. Men clothed themselves as they best might in linen or woollen cloth, or simply in the skins of the beasts which they slew. The time was now at hand when an ampler provision for their wants was to be disclosed to them. Socially and politically, cotton has deeply influenced the course of human affairs. The mightiest conquerors sink into insignificance in presence of King Cotton.

The English began to cultivate a little cotton very soon after their settlement in America. But it was a difficult crop for

them to handle. The plants grew luxuriantly, and when autumn came the opening pods revealed a most satisfying opulence. The quantity of cotton produced excited the wonder of the planters. But the seeds of the plant adhered tenaciously to the fibre. Before the fibre could be used the seeds had to be removed, and this was a slow and therefore a costly process. It was as much as a man could do in a day to separate one pound of cotton from the seeds. Cotton could never be abundant or

cheap while this was the case.

But in course of time things came to pass in England which made it indispensable that cotton should be both abundant and cheap. In 1768 Richard Arkwright invented a machine for spinning cotton vastly superior to anything hitherto in use. Next year a greater than he-James Watt-announced a greater invention his Steam Engine. England was ready now to begin her great work of weaving cotton for the world. But where was the cotton to be found?

Three or four years before Watt patented his Engine, and Arkwright his Spinning-frame, there was born in a New England farm-house a boy whose work was needed to complete theirs. His name was Eli Whitney. Eli was a born mechanic; it was a necessity of his nature to invent and construct. As a mere boy he made nails, pins, and walking-canes by novel processes, and thus earned money to support himself at college. In 1792 he went to Georgia to visit Mrs. Greene, the widow of that General Greene who so troubled Lord Cornwallis in the closing years of the War of Independence. In that primitive society, where few of the comforts of civilized life were yet enjoyed, no visits were so like those of the angels as the visits of a skilful mechanic. Eli constructed marvellous amusements for Mrs. Greene's children. He overcame all household difficulties by some ingenious contrivance. Mrs. Greene learned to wonder at him, and to believe nothing was impossible for him. One day Mrs. Greene entertained a party of her neighbours.