2 Bailey, Inaugural Address. 



sities was being created. Intellectual and physical liberty- 

 were in the atmosphere. 



Unknown to each other James Watt and William 

 Wilberforce were in partnership, for Science is the true 

 liberator, — the arts of peace are the real arts of war. 



Man's command of the forces of nature, and the 

 genius of English mechanical inventors, were destroying 

 the chief handicraft trades. 



We in England were then inferior to Holland, Spain, 

 the Low Countries, and Northern Europe, in most of our 

 manufacturing operations. We made worse iron than 

 Sweden and Holland. We imported our very fine yarns 

 from India, and we bought much warp and weft from 

 the Continent. We were slowly bringing into use our 

 first great textile invention, the fly-shuttle, which quad- 

 rupled the speed of the weaver, which had been invented 

 by Kay, of Bury, in 1733, and Crompton's mule for 

 spinning was being unwillingly adopted. Nevvcomen's 

 single-acting steam engine had been at work about three- 

 quarters of a century, chiefly for mining and pumping 

 purposes. 



In dyeing, bleaching, and calico printing, we were not 

 superior to the Continent, and in paper-making — thanks 

 to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes — Portal, driven 

 from France, had introduced into England white paper 

 manufacture of a superior character, and we were a good 

 second best compared with the productions of the 

 Continent in printing, paper-making, and bookbinding. 



In clocks and watches we were superior to all com- 

 petitors, for England was the birthplace of the chronometer, 

 and had taught mankind the truth to the hundredth part 

 of a minute. The great round globe had become a clock ; 

 the stars became the real milestones of the mariner, and 

 Greenwich his cosmopolis. 



