MDDM Ch. 40 Stroud

[Dave Monroe]

"'In a few seasons hence, all your Work must be left
to grow over, never to be redrawn, for in the world
that is to come, all boundaries shall be eras'd.'
   "'You believe Christ's return to be imminent,'
Mason feigning Heartiness, '-- that is surely
wonderful news, brother!  In my own Faith, we believe
the same,--except possibly for the "imminent" part.'
   "'Is this worth explaining to him?' Drogo asks the
Captain.'
   "'Degrees of Slavery, Sir. where in England are you
from?'
   "A Mask-dropping Sigh.
   "'Stroud, G-d help me.'
   "'Then you have known it.'
   "'I have encounter'd Slavery both at the Cape of
good Hope, and in America, and 'tis shallow Sophistry,
to compare it with the condition of a British Weaver.'
   "'You've had the pleasure of Dragoons in your
neighborhood?  They prefer rifle-butts to whips,---
the two hurt differeently,-- what otherwsie is the
difference in the two forms of Regulation?  masters
presume themsleves better than any who, at their
bidding, must contend with the real forces and
distances of the World,-- no matter how good the pay. 
When Weavers try to remedy the inequality by forming
Associations, the Clothiers bring in Infantry ...'"
(M&D, Ch. 40, pp. 406-7)

"'Wolfe preferr'd to settle the pay-list with lead and
steel ...'" (M&D, Ch. 40, p. 407)

   "'Who are they,' inquires the Revd in his Day-Book,
'that wil send violent young troops against their own
people?  Their mouths ever keeping up the same weary
rattle about Freedom, Toleration, and the rest, whilst
their own Land is as occupied as it ever was by
Rome....'" (M&D, Ch. 40, p. 407)


Transition ...

"... in 1740 Vaucanson was appointed inspector general
of silk works, the silk industry being a logical place
for him to put his mechanical talents to good use.
[...] Vaucanson spent the next forty years striving
valiantly, but for the most part vainly, to help it
catch up. He fulfilled his early promise of genius,
inventing the first automatic loom (later perfected by
Jacquard), the first automatic mechanism for weaving
patterns, a new type of silk reeler and a new silk
thrower (two machines involved in spinning silk
thread), and a new calender (a kind of mangle to
smooth finished cloth). But he lacked an attendant
power of persuasion, and for a while the only thing he
succeeded in conveying to either masters or workers in
the French silk industry was that his machines
threatened their livelihoods."

http://escholarship.cdlib.org/ucpress/metzner.xml?part=7&display=standard&style=generic.css


Stroud ...

"Defoe wrote in 1724 'it was no extraordinary thing to
have clothiers in that county worth from ten thousand
to forty thousand pounds a man, and many of the great
families who now pass for gentry in these counties
have been originally raised from and built up by this
truly noble manufacture.'"

http://www.grahamthomas.com/history11.html

"Clothiers during this time were becoming very rich
and expressing this prosperity by building fine large
houses. For example, Church House in Stroud was built
in 1634. It was this disparity of wealth between
spinners, dyers, weavers and clothiers, together with
the evolving industrialisation, that created the
dynamics of non-conformity.

"General Wolfe of Quebec, in the town fame, was sent
post haste in 1750 to quell riots by weavers and again
in 1825 when workers demanded better wages. The
classic treatment by the workers was to hurl the
soldiers into the nearest mill pond."

http://www.stroudtown.com/home/article.asp?Tag=DISTINCT1

 
"the celebrated future Martyr of Quebec" (p. 407)

Wolfe, James 
  
"1727–59, British soldier. After a distinguished
record in European campaigns, he was made (1758)
second in command to Jeffery Amherst in the last of
the French and Indian Wars. Through his skillful siege
operations, he became a hero of the capture of
Louisburg (1758) from the French, and he was rewarded
with the command of an expedition against the French
at Quebec, which he himself had urged. [...] The
British were victorious, but both Wolfe and Montcalm
were killed. The battle was decisive in the fall of
New France to the British. Wolfe is vividly portrayed
in Thackeray’s Virginians."

http://www.bartleby.com/65/wo/Wolfe-Ja.html

And see as well ...

http://www.digitalhistory.org/quebec59.html

http://www.grenadier.f9.co.uk/forduq/wolfe.htm

And see as well ...

http://www.digital-brilliance.com/hyperg/history/sheep.htm

http://www.digital-brilliance.com/hyperg/towns/stroud.htm

http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/plaza/hk67/visitor.htm

http://www.telbin.demon.co.uk/niblett/reuben.htm

Okay, gotta run, but will be back ...


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