Thomas Clarkson and Nicholas of Russia: A Chapter of Autobiography

I WAS somewhat precocious in my literary pretensions. My father’s habit, during my early youth, was to move from the country, for the three winter months, into that garden-surrounded cottage in the heart of our village where he and my mother had spent some of their earliest married days; I think he did so that his work-people and he might become better acquainted. One of these removes gave rise to my first effort in authorship. I still remember its pathetic exordium: — “Farewell, Braxfield, — a long farewell to all thy beauties! .No longer shall our jocund footsteps trace thy winding walks, nor our joyous voices sound through thy delightful groves. We now bid adieu to thee'"— And a good deal more in the Araminta-Sophonisba vein.

Neither my father nor my mother was critical in literary matters, and my aunts, who were living with us, were blinded by partiality. The result was to lay the foundation, in the boy of eleven unduly commended for a trivial rhapsody, of a false estimate of his own abilities ; which, similarly fed, grew for years, and required many years more to chasten it.

About this time — the great struggle with Napoleon being then at its height — several French officers, prisoners of war on parole, were quartered in the old town of Lanark. From one of these, Monsieur Levasseur, a handsome young fellow, my brother William and I had our first lessons in French ; and my father, now and then, invited him to our table, with a result, no doubt, little expected. I observed that Monsieur gradually became more spruce and showy in his dress and appointments, carrying a gold (?)-headed cane ; and that from his dark, sleek, carefully brushed and curled hair came the odor of some perfumed oil. On Christmas eve he handed me, with a flourish, a letter addressed to my Aunt Mary. It was not closed, and he told me I might read it, which of course I did. It began by saying that, at this season of fêtes, when cherished friends were invoking blessings on those who were well beloved, the heart had pushed him to imitate that mode, and to offer her his profound congratulations. Then it ran off into various sentimental effusions which were not very intelligible to me, — making no direct offer of marriage, but speaking (in very touching terms, I thought) about “the solace, very soft, of the friendship of heart, and the charms inexpressible of the life domestic.”That seemed to me all right, and I duly delivered the missive. Great was my surprise at the effect it produced !

My Aunt Mary, who is still living, was then about twenty-one years old ; a belle, rather tall and pretty, a good musician and a graceful dancer; stylish, too, having returned a year or two before from a fashionable boardingschool. Her three sisters and herself, all unmarried and considered very good matches, made our house their home.

She and her elder sister, Jane, a little beauty with a charming figure, had both had sundry very eligible offers of marriage, among others from officers of rank in the British Army; and, as they had rejected these, it may be imagined with what feelings the rich belle perused the overtures of an obscure foreigner, of whom nothing was known except that he had held a lieutenant’s commission in an enemy’s ranks.

“Just to think of it ! ” she exclaimed ; “as if I had ever given the man the least little scrap of encouragement! He must be downright crazy.” Then to me : “It was very wrong of you indeed, Robert, to bring me any such letter as that.”

“ Why, how could I tell, Aunt, whether you would like it or not ? It’s very polite.”

“ Like it ! polite ! The most impudent— ” There she checked herself, remembering no doubt that he was my teacher ; then enclosed the tabooed letter in a blank envelope, and bade me return it to the writer the very first opportunity.

“And what shall I say to him, Aunt Mary ? ”

“ That if he ever repeats the offence — no, say nothing, except that I have forbidden you ever to receive such a letter again.”

I was very sorry for poor Monsieur, who wore for a week the air of a martyr, and went to no further expense, I think, for sweet-scented oil.

My father was informed by his sisterin-law of this piece of presumption, for which she wished the Frenchman to be dismissed at once. But taking pity, probably, on the poor fellow, he continued him as our teacher so long as the war lasted. I was glad of this, for he was very good - natured, and I made progress under his tuition, especially during long walks with him, when only French was spoken. But I observed that he did not appear at our dinner-table again, — a concession, I imagine, to the offended dignity of my sensitive aunt.

We had many interesting, visitors at Braxfield, some of whom remained with us for a day or two ; among them one of the Edgeworths, brother of that Maria to whose labors for young people we children were indebted for so much pleasure. He was a bright, cheery youth, who sank considerably in my father’s estimation by preferring, to long disquisitions with him on the formation of character, a good romp with us. Of course, we thought him charming, especially when he propounded sundry games, among them the composition of impromptu verses on some given theme. My verses, unfortunately for my humility, were voted the best. I took to writing ballads, and there is no saying how far the poetic frenzy might have carried me had I not perused soon after The Lay of the Last Minstrel, — the finest poem, I think, Scott ever wrote. At that time, too, were just appearing Byron’s best works: first, Childe Harold, then the Giaour, and the Corsair. I was fascinated by their fiery power, and thoroughly convinced that my vocation was not that of a poet.

Other works, of a very different character, fell into my hands about this time. Sir Charles Grandison, despite its stately formality, did me good. I think its tone of old-fashioned, homely chivalry has a healthy influence on young people. Paradise Lost had great attractions, but tended much to confuse my Biblical lore. As has doubtless happened to others, it was not till many years afterwards that I learned to distinguish between Milton’s apocryphal story and the orthodox Bible narrative. The Pilgrim’s Progress, too, which I read over and over again, further entangled my theological ideas. Christian’s journey and adventures won my belief as fully as those of the Israelites, led by Moses toward the promised land.

These were works which the children of a former century had read and pondered. But my boyhood was at a period when a branch of literature, till then underrated, and indeed little worth, suddenly assumed new character and proportions. One by one, the marvellous productions of the prince of novelists startled and charmed the British public. Guy Mannering, The Antiquary, Rob Roy, Ivanhoe, and all the rest,—what sunny memories, what hours of rapt enjoyment, do the very titles still call up !

But events were approaching that were to leave a deeper impress on my character than books, whether of fancy or of graver tone. I was a strong, hearty boy, fond of all rough sports, a very fair rider, following the fox-hounds on a clever dun pony in a manner that called forth commendation from my companions. The young country gentry of that day, in the heart of Scotland, were a good-natured, rollicking set, given to violation of the Third Commandment and quite willing to risk their necks any day at a five-bar gate.

One instance of profanity, I remember, greatly scandalized me, brought up as I had been to venerate ministers of the Gospel. I was sitting on my impatient pony, one gray morning, next to a jolly, well-mounted curate who had just joined the hunt. The hounds had been turned into a dense copse, and we were in momentary expectation of the signal announcing that Reynard had got away before the dogs, when a horseman, riding up, told us that “ the stupid animal had suffered himself to be killed only a few yards from where he was unearthed.”

“ D—n the creature ! ” broke forth my clerical neighbor ; “ God d—n such a fox ! ” Adding, perhaps in reply to my look of astonishment, “ And that’s a good deal for a clergyman to say.”

After a time we came upon another, more satisfactory specimen of the vulpine race, who got a fair start before the hounds, and we followed him under full cry. Over a field or two, where the fences were low, I kept up with a young officer mounted on a beautiful hunter, nearly thorough-bred. Finally, there presented itself before us an enclosure of a formidable character, flanked by a double ditch ; between the two ditches a mound, on which was a light fence with stakes and rail, — the whole upwards of five feet high, and the stretch, from outside to outside of the ditches, a good fourteen or fifteen feet. They say that a thoroughly trained Irish hunter will light, like a cat, sideways on the summit of such a mound, and then, with a second bound, clear the farther ditch. But I never witnessed such an exploit, and our horses were incapable of performing it. I pulled up, of course; but my military companion, after a good look at what awaited him, patted his horse on the neck with the words, “ O, Jamie, lad, we ’re going to get a deevil of a tumble,” and put him unhesitatingly at the leap. The spirited animal cleared it handsomely with his forefeet ; but one hind foot caught in the top rail, and horse and man rolled into the farther ditch. I held my breath, fearing that the rider was killed; but he was up again in a few seconds smirched, indeed, from head to foot with the contents of the mud-puddle, but evidently unhurt; for he sprang as lightly into the saddle as if nothing had happened, and was off at a gallop before I recovered from my surprise.

I rode ignominiously round by a farm-gate and was completely thrown out, while the young dare-devil came in triumphantly, first at the death.

But for me all such sports were soon to end. When about twelve years old I had the measles ; and, though I recovered easily, I had afterwards, from undue exposure I believe, a terrible relapse, resulting in high and unmanageable fever and some sort of inflammation of the chest. They gave me foxglove and other powerful medicines, and applied, on breast and stomach, a large Spanish-fly blister, which was kept open for a week. Every day during that week, as I was afterwards told, my death was expected ; during a month I continued in great danger, and for six months more I was confined to the house.

By this illness my nervous system was completely unstrung ; indeed, prostrated to such degree that the slightest noise, even an abrupt word or the unexpected opening of a door, caused me to start with terror. Some one had to remain constantly in the room ; for I could not endure to be left alone, even for a moment. So abnormal was the condition of my nerves of touch, that the sheets of my bed seemed to me thicker than sail-cloth, and the blankets like inch-boards. Then, too, I had a constantly repeated sensation of sinking down, down, as to the centre of the earth ; and the slightest unforeseen incident, pleasant or unpleasant, moved me to tears I remember that the doctor ordered my head to be shaved, and that a wig was bought for me ; but the sight of it and the idea of the headshaving threw me into such a paroxysm of grief, that it was abandoned and the matter compounded by having my hair cut short.

These symptoms subsided very gradually, lingering after the first half-year had past and I had been at last permitted once more to mount Donald — that was my pony’s name — and enjoy a short ride daily. A full year elapsed before I was able to part with any intimate friend, even for a few days, with equanimity, or to read aloud any touching episode in history,—the death of Queen Mary of Scotland, for example.

My father and mother were very considerate, never adverting to this nervous weakness. I was terribly ashamed of it, but it was no more under my control than were the beats of my pulse. I did not regain reasonable command of my sensations till collegelife, with regular gymnastic training, brought hardening influence. Then I gradually got rid of all mere physical nervous debility, so that throughout life my equanimity has not been easily disturbed by sudden danger nor unduly excited by partisan abuse ; and even to this day I can carry a full cup or strike a billiard-ball as steadily as I could fifty years ago. The mental effects, however, of that sickness, carrying me to the verge of death, have never been wholly removed. Since then my emotions seem to lie nearer the surface than formerly ; to be more readily called forth by pity, by admiration, by love. I have continued to be more quickly excited by wrong to indignation, and more easily moved to tears. But though my emotional nature was thus intensified by the ordeal through which it passed, the change did not involve any tendency to nervous anxiety or to undue thought for the morrow, — still less to any dark forebodings as to the future. So little have I been prone to expect that things would turn out ill, that I have to set a constant watch on a disposition to careless incaution.

Many of our friends said, and I think my parents believed, that my chance of attaining manhood was doubtful. But let those who find themselves, in youth, as nigh unto death and as wearied waiters for convalescence as I, take heart. From that time to the present I have not had what might be called a serious illness ; and, at this day, I am free from the infirmities — even from the usual ailments—of age.

Before I finally recovered, however, I was overtaken by a serious affection of the eyes, the balls becoming bloodshot and the lids inflamed. The usual prescriptions by an oculist proving ineffectual, my mother, somewhat alarmed, decided to try the effect of sea-bathing, renting two rooms for my brother William and myself, in Porto Bello, the seaport of Edinburgh, where our windows looked out on the beautiful Frith of Forth. There we were put in charge of a kind, motherly old lady, with whom instructions were left that, so we kept within reasonable bounds, we might order what we pleased for dinner.

The first day, after mature deliberation, we concluded that there was nothing in the way of delicacies superior to mashed potatoes browned before the fire, and apple-pie ; so we decided on that bill of fare. The second day, failing to hit upon anything else as good, and seeing no reason why we should have anything short of the best, we renewed the order ; and so on for several days in succession, much to the amazement of our good hostess. It was not until the sixth day, I think, that it occurred to us that the toujoursperdrix plan did not work quite satisfactorily, and that we should like pie and potatoes better if we tried something else for a few days.

Three or four months of relaxation, most agreeably spent, sufficed to effect a radical cure ; and here, again, it may comfort others similarly afflicted to learn that my eyes have never troubled me since; and that — though now on what is called the wrong side of seventy, but what I think ought to be called the right side, as being nearer home — my sight, at a distance, is nearly as good as it ever was, and spectacles are less necessary than they were twenty years ago ; for I can read fair-sized type by daylight without them.

When I returned to Braxfield, my father, rightly judging that further suspension of regular study and change of scene were needed to confirm my health, took me with him, in the summer of 1815, on a journey throughout England and Scotland, which he made for the purpose of collecting evidence touching the condition of children employed in the cotton, woollen, linen, and silk factories of the kingdom.

At a meeting which he had previously held at the Tontine, Glasgow, he had introduced two resolutions recommending petitions to Parliament, — one for the remission of the duty on imported cotton ; the other for the protection of factory children from labor beyond their strength. The first passed unanimously; the second was lost by an overwhelming majority. Thereupon my father determined to agitate the matter himself.

As a preliminary measure we visited all the chief factories in Great Britain. The facts we collected seemed to me terrible almost beyond belief. Not in exceptional cases, but as a general rule, we found children of ten years old worked regularly fourteen hours a day, with but half an hour’s interval for the midday meal, which was eaten in the factory. In the fine-yarn cotton mills (producing from a hundred and twenty to three hundred hanks to the pound), they were subjected to this labor in a temperature usually exceeding seventyfive degrees ; and in all the cotton factories they breathed an atmosphere more or less injurious to the lungs, because of the dust and minute cotton fibres that pervaded it.

In some cases we found that greed of gain had impelled the mill-owners to still greater extremes of inhumanity, utterly disgraceful, indeed, to a civilized nation. Their mills were run fifteen and, in exceptional cases, sixteen hours a day with a single set of hands ; and they did not scruple to employ children of both sexes from the age of eight. We actually found a considerable number under that age.

It need not be said that such a system could not be maintained without corporal punishment. Most of the overseers openly carried stout leather thongs, and we frequently saw even the youngest children severely beaten.

We sought out the surgeons who were in the habit of attending these children, noting their names and the facts to which they testified. Their stories haunted my dreams. In some large factories from one fourth to one fifth of the children were either cripples or otherwise deformed, or permanently injured by excessive toil, sometimes by brutal abuse. The younger children seldom held out more than three or four years without severe illness, often ending in death.

When we expressed surprise that parents should voluntarily condemn their sons and daughters to slavery so intolerable, the explanation seemed to be that many of the fathers were out of work themselves, and so were, in a measure, driven to the sacrifice for lack of bread ; while others, imbruted by intemperance, saw with indifference an abuse of the infant faculties compared to which the infanticide of China may almost be termed humane.

In London my father laid before several members of Parliament the mass of evidence he had collected, and a bill which he had prepared forbidding the employment in factories of childworkers under twelve years of age, and fixing the hours they might be employed at ten a day. Finally he obtained from the elder Sir Robert Peel (father of the well-known Prime Minister, and then between sixty and seventy years old) a promise to introduce this humane measure into the House of Commons. Sir Robert, then one of the richest cotton-spinners in the kingdom and a member of twenty-five years’ standing, possessed considerable influence. Had he exerted it heartily, I think (and my father thought) that the measure might have been carried the first session. But, in several interviews with him to which I accompanied my father, even my inexperience detected a slackness of purpose and an indisposition to offend his fellow-manufacturers, who were almost all violently opposed to the measure. I think it probable that his hesitation was mainly due to a consciousness that it ill became him to denounce cruelties in causing which he had himself had a prominent share. The bill dragged through the House for four sessions ; and when passed at last, it was in a mutilated and comparatively valueless form.

Pending its discussion I frequently attended with my father the sessions of a committee of the House appointed to collect evidence and report on the condition of factory children. He was a chief witness, and one day had to stand (and did stand unmoved) a bitter cross-examination by Sir George Philips, a “ cotton lord,” as the millionnaires among mill-owners were then popularly called. This oppressor of childhood questioned my father as to his religious opinions,and other personal matters equally irrelevant, in a tone so insolent, that, to my utter shame, I could not repress my tears. They were arrested, however, when Lord Brougham (then plain Henry) called the offender to order, and after commenting, in terms that were caustic to my heart’s content, on the impertinent character of Sir George’s cross-examination, moved that it be expunged from the records of the committee, — a motion which was carried without a dissenting voice.

Throughout the four years during which this reformatory measure was in progress, my father (in truth the soul of the movement) was unremitting in his endeavors to bring the evidence he had obtained before the public. The periodical press aided him in this ; and I remember that one touching story, in particular, had a wide circulation. It came out in evidence given before the committee by an assistant overseer of the poor. He was called upon to relieve a father out of employment, and found his only child, a factory girl quite ill ; and he testifies further as follows : “ Some time after, the father came to me with tears in his eyes. ‘What’s the matter, Thomas?’ I asked. He said, ‘ My little girl is gone; she died in the night; and what breaks my heart is this, — though she was not able to do her work, I had to let her go to the mill yesterday morning. She promised to pay a little boy a half-penny on Saturday, if he would help her so she could rest a little. I told her he should have a penny.’ At night the child could not walk home, fell several times by the way, and had to be carried at last to her father’s house by her companions, She never spoke intelligibly afterwards. She was ten years old.”

Some poet of that day — true poets are the best friends of the Right— versified this incident : —

“THE FACTORY GIRL’S LAST DAY.

While in London I became acquainted with another reformer, as zealous and persevering in his way as my father. It happened thus.

I had a standing invitation from William Allen — the same who refused me a second supply of roast-beef—to dine or sup with him any time I happened to be in the city. Entering Plough Court late one afternoon I met him, equipped for a journey, and he greeted me joyfully.

“ Ah, Robert, thee comes just in time. Friend Thomas Clarkson will be here to take supper and spend the night. I am going into the country and cannot return till to-morrow. So thee must stay here to-night and take my place. Thee knows what a firm friend Thomas has been to the good cause.”

I was overjoyed, and I told him so. Just before leaving Braxfield I had read Clarkson’s History of the Abolition of the Slave-trade, and had there inspected the famous print of the plan and sections of a slave-ship with its four hundred and fifty victims packed in like so many herrings, — a print which the antislavery committee had got up, I think in 1790. No pamphlet or book or speech was ever so eloquent as that mute appeal. I recollect laying down the print and pacing the floor with mingled feelings of horror and of burning indignation. From that day forth I had regarded Clarkson with a sentiment akin to hero-worship.

But his genial manner soon put me at my ease. Alone with him alter tea, I plied him with eager questions. He must have been gratified by the enthusiasm shown by a youth not yet fifteen ; for we sat together from seven or eight until one or two in the morning ; and he gave me, in minute detail, many particulars of the great struggle which had terminated triumphantly eight years before. To me they were of absorbing interest, and I remember to this day much that he said.

Clarkson, then fifty-five years old, had written, thirty years before (when senior bachelor in St. John’s College, Cambridge), a successful essay on the question, “Is involuntary slavery justifiable ? ” That essay determined the entire course of his life. He spent twenty years in gathering, arranging, and disseminating the sickening mass of facts that marked the character of the slave-trade.

He told me that, during the early portion of that period, there were many days during which he collected evidence so replete with horrors and atrocities that he returned home, in the evening, with a burning sensation in his head which rendered sleep impossible, until he had applied for hours bandages soaked in coldest' water to forehead and temples, so as to allay the fever of the brain.

But what chiefly lives in my recollection is the graphic account he gave me of an interview which, after several years thus spent, he obtained, through the influence of Wilberforce, with William Pitt, then Prime Minister.

With the directness of a mastermind that great man plunged into the subject at once. “ I know that you have bestowed much study on this matter, Mr. Clarkson,” he said; “but I want details. Can you give them ? ”

“ Yes, if you will allow your secretary to bring in some books which I left in the antechamber.”

Four or five ponderous folios, labelled respectively Day Book, Journal, and Ledger, were produced. Pitt mentioned the name of some well-known slaver (the ship Brooks, I think it was), and asked, “ Do you know anything about her ? ”

“ Yes ; do you wish to see an account of her last voyage ? ”

Pitt assenting, Clarkson, after referring to the index of one of his journals labelled “ Slave-Voyages,”handed the volume, open at the narrative demanded, to the minister, who read it with the closest attention ; then asked, “Do you know the names of the officers and sailors who were shipped for this voyage ? ”

“ Here they are,” — opening one of the ledgers at a page headed, “ The Ship Brooks.”

“ Ah ! did you take the testimony of any of these sailors ? ”

“I did, of this one,” — pointing to his name; “and here it is,” — opening the ledger at another page, headed with the man’s name.

Pitt read his testimony from the first word to the last. “ Any other ? ” he then asked.

Clarkson gave him three or four more to read, which he perused with the same care, then added, “ The surgeon ; did you examine him ? ”

“ Here is his testimony.”

The minister ran it over, taking notes as he did so. “An important witness that, Mr. Clarkson. Can you tell where he is to be found ? ”

“Just at present he is at sea; but the Brooks will be in during the summer, and then his address will be — ” giving it.

“ Can the sailor witnesses be procured if they are wanted ? ”

“ Next summer they can easily be found.” And Clarkson, having copied from a ledger the names of the boarding-houses in Liverpool which each respectively frequented when on shore, handed them to the minister.

“Any more vessels?” asked Mr. Pitt.

“ Twenty or thirty more, if you have time to examine the testimony regarding them.”

“ I shall make time. It is a very important inquiry.”

This rapid cross-examination, Clarkson told me, lasted three or four hours, during which, he said, Mr. Pitt must have looked over attentively not less than a hundred pages of manuscript. To every question put, Clarkson had a satisfactory answer ready. When the slave-voyages had occurred years before, and some of the sailors could not be produced, it was stated what had become of them, whether by death, discharge, or desertion. Pains had even been taken, in every case, to record the former abode or service of each, together with the time of his entry, copied from the books of the vessel.

The effect produced on the Prime Minister, during this memorable interview, exceeded, Clarkson said, his most sanguine anticipations.

When Pitt had glanced over the last page submitted to him, he closed the book and said : “ That will do. I doubted whether the slave-trade was the iniquitous traffic which many good men have represented it to be. You have removed these doubts, Mr. Clarkson; and I thank you for the wonderful pains you have taken and the facts you have brought before me. You may depend upon whatever I can do, upon all the personal influence I can exert, to further your wishes. I may not be able,” — he hesitated a moment,— “there are circumstances that are likely to prevent this being made a Cabinet question. But nothing shall prevent me from expressing, so far as I can benefit the cause by doing so, my individual opinion on this subject. Come to me whenever you have anything important to communicate, without ceremony or previous appointment. I shall give instructions that, unless I am very specially engaged, you be admitted at once. Any papers you want I will order. Perhaps I may communicate with some of our Continental neighbors on the subject. Can I do anything more for you?”

Clarkson begged to be allowed to lay before him some African productions ; and they were brought from the next room. They included native manufactures of cotton, leather, gold, and iron. Pitt examined them with interest, and spoke with emotion.

“ I fear that we have underrated these people, Mr. Clarkson. We owe them a debt for the miseries we have aided to bring upon them. It would be worthy of England to bestir herself for the civilization of Africa.”

Then, after sitting silent for some time, — much moved, Clarkson thought, — he dismissed him with a few brief words of kindness and encouragement.

Doubts have been cast on Pitt’s sincerity in this matter. I know that Lord Brougham was incredulous as to his earnest desire for abolition. But Clarkson told me that he regarded him as a firm friend of the African to the last. The above interview took place in 1788 ; and before the close of that year Pitt caused to be made to the French government a communication in which he urged a union of the two countries to abolish the slave-trade. But the answer from France was unfavorable ; and as the correspondence was not made public at the time, few persons knew that it had taken place. Pitt kept his word, also, to Mr. Clarkson,— giving him access at all times, and furnishing him with many important documents which could only be had by a government order.

“ He was true to the cause,” Clarkson said to me, “ from the early years of our great struggle till his death in 1806. He did not live to see the Abolition Bill passed ; yet had it not been for his assistance at critical moments, we might not have succeeded in passing it even to this day. Fox, when that bill was on its passage, did him full justice on that score.”

The circumstances alluded to by Pitt as likely to cramp his action were, Clarkson informed me, the course taken by three of the most influential members of his Cabinet, — Lord Chancellor Thurlow, Lord Liverpool, and Mr. Dundas, — who remained persistent in resisting abolition.

As late as 1799, during a debate in the Lords on a bill to terminate the trade, Thurlow declared that slavery was sanctioned by Scripture, adding, “ The bill is altogether miserable and contemptible.” ¹ With such comrades and with his powers taxed to the uttermost in that terrible struggle with Napoleon during which England herself was threatened with invasion, it is little wonder that Pitt scrupled to adopt an extreme policy which might have broken up the Cabinet.

Perhaps that evening with Clarkson was the most important I ever passed. Its lesson, never forgotten, influenced my action during a long public life. I bore in mind that declamation, eloquence even, avails little in a practical way, without a basis of fact carefully prepared and consolidated ; for what amount of empty brilliancy would have converted Pitt ? I never brought forward a measure of any importance, either in the Indiana Legislature or in Congress, without first seeking out and systematizing, not only the facts which I proposed to use in opening debate, but all others which, in the course of the discussion, my opponents were likely to employ. It is chiefly, I think, to this habit that I owe what success I may have had as a member of deliberative bodies. As an author, also, my rule has been the same. I owe a great debt to Thomas Clarkson.

On my return, soon afterwards, to Braxfield, my time, aside from private lessons in the languages, was chiefly spent in our day and evening schools, where I gave occasional lectures to the older classes. Nor was the instruction afforded to these factory children restricted to the school-house. I remember taking several classes of the more advanced scholars to see a large collection of wild animals in a menagerie which was exhibited, for a few days, in the old town of Lanark. This incident is stamped on my recollection the more because of what might easily have proved a fatal accident which occurred on that occasion. Among the beasts were two lions, a male and a female, and a lion’s cub a few months old. This cub, which was already heavier and stronger than the largest Newfoundland dog, was in a separate cage ; and one of the keepers, entering with a whip, ordered it about like a dog, and chastised it when it disobeyed. The children, of course, were delighted, and crowded close up, “ to see the fun.” But their cheer was soon changed. A blow struck by the keeper caused the young brute to back against the front bars of his cage. These, being insecurely fastened, gave way, and the whelp was precipitated into the midst of the children. At first he seemed almost as much frightened as they ; but, recovering himself, he turned and sprang upon a little girl ten years old, named Mary Morrison, his teeth just grazing the back of her head. Meanwhile, however, the “ lion-tamer,” as he was called in the bills, sprang from the cage after the fugitive and struck him sharply with his whip, causing him to relinquish his hold of the terrified girl ; while another secured the animal by throwing a noose over his neck. Luckily they were both brave and powerful men ; and they picked up the creature, threw him back into his cage, and secured the bars, without further accident.

My father sought to make education as practical as possible. The girls were taught sewing and knitting, and both sexes, in the upper classes, besides geography and natural history, had simple lessons in drawing. Yet it was not the graver studies that chiefly interested and pleased our numerous visitors : the dancing and music lessons formed the chief attraction. The juvenile performers were dressed alike, all in tartan, the boys wearing the Highland kilt and hose. Carefully instructed in the dances then in vogue, as a lesson, not as a performance, they went through their reels and quadrilles with an ease and grace that would not have shamed a fashionable ball-room, coupled with a simplicity and unconsciousness natural to children when they are not spoiled, but which in higher circles is often sadly lacking.

The class for vocal music numbered, at one time, a hundred and fifty ; and under a well-qualified teacher they made wonderful progress. I selected, and had printed for them, on a succession of pasteboard sheets, a collection of simple airs, chiefly national Scottish melodies, which they rendered with a homely pathos scarcely attainable, perhaps, except by those who are “ to the manner born.”

Another feature in our schools which proved very popular with visitors was the military training of the older children. Drilled by a superannuated soldier whom my father had hired for the purpose, and preceded by a boy-band of a drum or two and four or five fifes, they made a very creditable appearance.

All this, unprecedented then in any spinning village, or indeed in any free public school throughout the kingdom, gradually drew crowds of travellers as witnesses. I have seen as many as seventy persons in the building at one time. The number of names recorded in our Visitors’ Book, from the year 1815 to 1825, the year in which my father bought the village and lands of New Harmony, and sold out of the New Lanark concern, was nearly twenty thousand.

There came, not only nobility and gentry from every part of Great Britain, but also many foreigners of rank from the Continent. Among these last the most notable was a nobleman who, nine years afterwards, became the most powerful emperor in the world.

It was in 1816 that Nicholas, Grand Duke of Russia, then on a tour through Great Britain, visited Glasgow. There he received and accepted an invitation from my father ; and he and the officers of his suite, to the number of eight or ten, spent two days with us at Braxfield. He was then twenty years old ; fully six feet high ; and, in face and figure, I thought him the handsomest man I had ever seen. His manner, in those days, was simple and courteous ; and the dignity which marked it at times had not yet degenerated, as it is said afterwards to have done, into haughtiness.

My French tutor, in anticipation of this visit, had been drilling me in matters of etiquette. “Your Imperial Highness,” he bade me bear in mind, was the only proper mode of address. I must be sure not to say you, and the “Imperial” was imperative, — de rigueur, as he phrased it, not to be replaced by milord or any other common title. He would have me try it, in conversation with himself ; but it did not come “ trippingly on the tongue,” as Hamlet required, and Monsieur Levasseur prophesied a failure.

My father, I could see, waited his guest’s arrival with a little touch of nervousness. Somewhat inconsiderately, I think, he had instructed the village band to meet the Duke’s carriage and escort it the last mile or two. I judged from some remarks made by a member of his suite, and not intended for my ear, that the delay and the indifferent music annoyed the Duke ; but he was too well-bred to show it, causing fifty dollars to be handed to the band-leader.

The Duke’s physician, a Scotchman named Sir Alexander Creighton, interpreted between his royal patient and my father, who spoke English only. A great relief it was to me, who had feared to be called upon in a similar capacity. And, as a listener, I was soon set at ease on another point. I observed that the officers of the Duke’s suite, in addressing their master, ignored the “ Imperial ” ; said you, as to other people, and used no title except Monseigneur. Greatly relieved in mind, I concluded that Monsieur Levasseur was not au fait in regard to court etiquette ; and when the Duke addressed me in French, I replied without embarrassment.

I think, however, that I must have shared my father’s feeling as to the importance of this visit; for I can still recall some of the exact words of a conversation which I had with the Duke during a walk from Braxfield to the Mills. Among other questions touching our business, he asked me what was our daily produce. It so happened that some weeks before I had calculated that we spun, on the average, three hundred and sixty thousand miles of thread per week. So I was able to reply that we manufactured daily “ autant de fil de coton qu'il faut pour entourer deux fois et demi le monde.”

In my turn, I asked him if he had ever been in England before ; to which he answered, “ Je la visite pour la première et pour la dernière fois,”—a mistake of his, however ; for twenty-eight years afterwards he crossed to London on a visit to Queen Victoria.

He next inquired if I would like to know by what name he was known in his own country; and, on my assenting, said he was there called Nicolas, Veliki Kneis Rouski, — wrongly spelt, probably, and perhaps bad Russian ; but he repeated it several times, laughing at my pronunciation, till I got it by heart; and thus it comes to me now.

The Duke seemed to take a special fancy to a younger brother of mine, named David Dale, after his grandfather, and then nine or ten years old. He was a remarkable-looking boy, with handsome features, light yellow curling hair, and dark eyes, eyebrows, and eyelashes. The Duke had him on his knee, playing with him, during a considerable portion of the evening ; and the child, flattered by such notice, took so cordially to our visitor that it appeared to win his heart. At all events, next day he caused it to be intimated to my father that, if he would give up the boy, he (Nicholas) would charge himself with his future. Whether my mother objected, or whether my father himself thought a court life an undesirable career, I know not; but the offer was gratefully declined.

If my impressions, such as they were at fifteen, are trustworthy, there was nothing, at that early age, in the future Emperor to indicate the arbitrary and cruel spirit which, in later years, marked his subjugation of Poland and his armed intervention against the Hungarian patriots ; nothing, in the appearance of the youth of twenty, to prefigure the stern autocrat who was by and by to revive, against his own subjects, that capital punishment which had been humanely abolished by the Empress Elizabeth. There have been many Hazaels who, while yet unhardened by the habit of irresponsible power, might exclaim, from the heart, “ What ! is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing ? ”

At all events the young Duke’s manner seemed to me unaffected, earnest, and cordial. He listened with marked attention for two hours or more to an exposition, by my father, of his peculiar views for the improvement of mankind, and showed a lively interest in all he saw, whether in school or factory, at New Lanark. Count Gurowski, who knew Russia well and with whom Nicholas was no favorite, speaking of him as he was in youth, admits : “ His primitive tendency was to be a reformer. . . . . He believed that his mission was to be the conductor of his people into light and civilization ; that he was to lay a corner-stone for their moral and social amelioration. This was more than a dream ; it was a reality of several years’ duration.” ²

At the time of his visit to us, he was engaged to the Princess Charlotte, eldest daughter of the King of Prussia ; and he purchased at the company’s store, and had sent to her, sundry specimens of goods manufactured from our yarns.

My father states in his Autobiography that his guest, alluding to Malthus’s theory that Great Britain was overpeopled, expressed his willingness to receive and promote the advantageous settlement in Russia of as many British manufacturers and their operatives, including my father and the villagers of New Lanark, as might see fit to emigrate thither. But if I heard this at the time, I have since forgotten it. My father, successful and satisfied in his position, declined the offer.

Nicholas, as I remember, was frugal to abstemiousness in his mode of living, eating sparingly of the plainest food only, and scarcely touching wine. In some of his appointments he was homely — so it occurs to me now — to the point of affectation. He caused to be set up, in the handsome chamber which had been provided for him, a small iron camp-bed, with leathern mattress and pillow stuffed with hay, and spread with the rudest covering. An officer of his suite told us that such was his constant habit.

One of his attendants slept on the floor across his chamber-door, outside, —a measure of precautionary suspicion, probably of Oriental origin, and adopted, I believe, by all Russian princes of the blood.

A trifling incident connected with the Duke’s visit to us occurs to me now, as characteristic of a weakness into which my good father, prosperous and generous, was occasionally betrayed. The crest of our family, two eagles’ heads, had been, as is customary, engraved on our service of plate. At supper, one of the Duke’s suite, handing a silver fork to him, called his attention to the engraving as being almost an exact copy of the double-eagle, part of the blazon of the Russian coat-of-arms. Some jest as to right of property having passed, in connection with the matter, and attracted my father’s attention, it suggested a gift to his guest. Accordingly, next morning he had a silver dessert-set packed up, and handed, just as the party were starting off, to one of the attendants, together with a letter begging the Duke’s acceptance of it as a memento of his visit to New Lanark.

My mother, good, sensible matron, took exception to any such proceeding. In the case of a friend to whom we owed kindness or gratitude, or to any one who would value the offering for the donor’s sake, she would not have grudged her nice forks and spoons ; but to the possessor of thousands, a two days’ acquaintance who was not likely to bestow a second thought on the things! — in all which I cordially agreed with her, especially when I found William Sheddon, our butler, lamenting over his empty cases, the glittering contents of which had often excited my childish admiration. But I think the worthy man was somewhat comforted when he estimated his lion’s share of a ten-pound note which the Duke’s purser had put into his hands for distribution among the servants.

My recollections of William Sheddon extend over more than twenty years. Careful, punctiliously respectful, orderloving even to fanaticism, a piece of animated clock-work in all his daily duties, how well I recollect the staid face, with a nervous twitching of the chin when at all excited ! The best men have their failings, and I think Sheddon, after he had decanted, with infinite care, the old port and pale sherry, was wont to taste them, to assure himself that they had not lost their flavor. But, to atone, I have seen him spend full ten minutes over the dinnertable, after it had been all set, to give it a finishing touch ; adjusting each cover, and every knife, fork, glass, and salt-cellar so scrupulously to its allotted spot, that a mathematician, with his compasses, might have found it difficult to detect an error of a quarter of an inch in their respective distances each from the other.

Peace to his shade ! I wonder how many of his life-long peculiarities he carried with him to the next world.

But all these familiar scenes were soon to become, for me, things of the past. I was about to quit our quiet home, and to find, in a distant country, a new and more stirring life.

Robert Dale Owen.