wright, inventor of the power-loom. He was
educated at Newark grammar school and Heath Academy in Yorkshire, and at
the age of eighteen entered the navy. He was present, in his first year
of service, at the capture of Cherbourg, and served in the following
year in the action between Sir Edward Hawke and Admiral Conflans.
Engaged afterwards under Sir Hugh Palliser and Admiral Byron on the
Newfoundland station, he was appointed to act as chief magistrate of the
settlement; and the duties of this post he discharged for five years
(1765-1770). Ill-health necessitated his retirement from active service
for a time in 1771. When the disputes with the American colonies began,
he saw clearly that the colonists had right on their side, and warmly
supported their cause. At the beginning of the war he was offered the
appointment of first lieutenant to the duke of Cumberland, which would
have put him on the path of certain promotion. But he declined to fight
against the cause which he felt to be just. In 1774 he published his
first plea on behalf of the colonists, entitled _American Independence
the Glory and Interest of Great Britain._ In the following year, when
the Nottinghamshire Militia was first raised, he was appointed major,
and in this capacity he served for seventeen years. He was at last
illegally superseded, because of his political opinions. In 1776
appeared his first work on reform in parliament, which, with the
exception of Earl Stanhope's pamphlets (1774), appears to have been the
earliest publication on the subject. It was entitled, _Take your
Choice_--a second edition appearing under the new title of _The
Legislative Rights of the Commonalty vindicated_. The task of his life
was thenceforth chiefly the attainment of universal suffrage and annual
parliaments. In 1778 he conceived the project of a political
association, which took shape in 1780 as the "Society for Constitutional
Information," including among its members some of the most distinguished
men of the day. From this society sprang the more famous "Corresponding
Society." Major Cartwright worked unweariedly for the promotion of
reform. He was one of the witnesses on the trial of his friends, Horne
Tooke, John Thelwall and Thomas Hardy, in 1794, and was himself indicted
for conspiracy in 1819. He was found guilty in the following year, and
was condemned to pay a fine of L100. He died in London on the 23rd of
September 1824. He had married in 1780, but had no ch