eenth Century"; but compare O'Connor Morris's work on
"Ireland, from 1798 to 1898," p.58.

563. "The Industrial Revolution" of the Eighteenth Century; Material
Progress; Canals; the Steam Engine, 1785.

The reign of George III was in several directions one of marked
progress, especially in England. Just after the King's accession the
Duke of Bridgewater constructed a canal from his coal mine in Worsley
to Manchester, a distance of seven miles. Later, he extended it to
Liverpool; eventually it was widened and deepened and became the
"Manchester and Liverpool Ship Canal." The Duke of Bridgewater's work
was practically the commencement of a system which has since developed
to such a degree that the canals of England now extend nearly 5000
miles, and exceed in length its navigable rivers. The two form such a
complete network of water communication that it is said no place in
the realm is more than fifteen miles distant from this means of
transportation, which connects all the large towns with each other and
with the chief ports.

In the last half of the eighteenth century James Watt obtained the
first patent (1769) for his improved steam engine (S521), but did not
succeed in making it a business success until 1785. The story is
told[1] that he took a working model of it to show to the King. His
Majesty patronizingly asked him, "Well, my man, what have you to
sell?" The inventor promptly answered, "What kings covet, may it
please your Majesty,--POWER!" The story is perhaps too good to be
true, but the fact of the "power" could not be denied,--power, too,
not simply mechanical, but, in its results, moral and political as
well.

[1] This story is told also of Boulton, Watt's partner. See Smile's
"Lives of Boulton and Watt," p.1. Newcomen had invented a rude steam
engine in 1705, which in 1712 came into use to some extent for pumping
water out of coal mines. But his engine was too clumsy and too
wasteful of fuel to be used by manufacturers. Boulton and Watt built
the first steam-engine works in England at Soho, a suburb of
Birmingham, in 1775; but it was not until 1785 that they began to do
sufficient business to make it evident that they were on their way to
success.

Such was the increase of machinery driven by steam, and such were the
improvements made by Hargreaves, Arkwright, and Crompton in machinery
for spinning and weaving cotton, that much distress arose among the
hand spinners and hand weavers. T