ABSTRACT
THE early history of Britain informs us that William the Conqueror, after having subdued and laid waste the country north of the river Humber, marched with his army towards Chester, the only district which had not acknowledged his power. It was the depth of winter, and the army, then stationed at York, had to traverse, by roads almost impracticable for their heavy cavalry, the chain of mountains commonly called the back-bone of England, which extends from the north to the south of the island; and, like the Appenines of Italy, divides the rivers of the country between the east and the west.*
This chain of mountains passed, a wild and uneven district presented itself to the view, cut up by numerous torrents, which inundated the valleys, producing marshes and mosses; covered with impenetrable forests, and inhabited by a race of men which had never yielded to the sword of the invader. The Norman soldiers, alarmed at the prospect of an expedition so full of peril, and in which success would yield so little glory, mutinied before their departure. During the march, William was often to be seen on foot, sharing the fatigues of the army, and encouraging the common soldiers by paying them with his own hands.†
This unknown, this inaccessible region, was the southern portion of Lancashire; that portion which is now so studded with roads, canals, and railways. This indomitable people was the same which has since given birth to, and developed with such astonishing hardihood, the mighty energies of the manufacturing system. By an arrangement truly providential, those features of the soil and of the climate, which presented aforetime so many obstacles to the success of the Norman Conqueror, were destined to be, seven centuries later, the handmaids of industry. It was for Labour to overcome, and to bend to its own purposes these natural obstacles; and the sturdy independence of its inhabitants no less than the power of its inanimate prime movers, was an element in the success of their manufactures.
