The Sun.
London, England, 1861-01-26 00:00:00

Lord OVERSTONE, in the absence of the Marquis
of Exeter, responded. He said that one circum-
stance rendered that toast important that evening.
If that great emergency connected with which and
in preparation for which they had assembled toge-
ther and were banding themselves in the garb of
war should ever occur, the solidity and safety of
this country would depend upon their combination.
At the head of each county must necessarily stand
the Lord Lieutenant, and by drinking that toast
they were drinking health to him who would in
that emergency have the whole posse comitatus
under his direction. (Cheers.)
At a later period of the evening,
The CHAIRMAN proposed " The Honorary Mem-
bers of the Corps," coupling with the toast the
name of Lord Overstone, who, he said, was the
decus et tutamen of their corps. (Loud cheers.)
Lord OVERSTONE, in responding to the toast, said
he had to ask them for a large share of their indul-
gence. They had come together in connexion with
two great considerations, both of which struck
deeply into his feelings. In the first place, they
were assembled to pay a well-deserved and a most
gratifying compliment to one in whose welfare,
character, and well-being he must necessarily feel
a deep interest. They were come together in con-
nexion with a great national movement, and for
the purpose of declaring their allegiance, separately
and collectively, to one of the noblest principles
which in his judgment could animate the breast of
man, or rouse him to great deeds, whether of sac-
rifice or exertion. He was. speaking of the love of
their country. (Hoar.) The noble lord then pro-
ceeded to allude to the relation in which he stood
to the gallant colonel, referring to his deeds at Alma
and at Inkerman. After bringing his remarks to a
close on this portion of the subject, the noble lord
spoke of the volunteer movement and the defence
of the country. He said—l should not have satis-
fied my own sense of duty, nor do I think that I
should have realised your reasonable expectations
from me, if before I sat down I did not make a few
remarks upon that other branch of the subject—the
great national movement with which this meeting is
so directly and intimately connected. No doubt,
while sitting at this table I have reflected upon what
topics I could most appropriately address you, and
I confess I feel myself bewildered and overwhelmed
with the variety and magnitude of the subjects that
suggest themselves. 'Would that I could rise to the
grandeur of this subject, or that I could give any-
thing like an adequate expression to the feelings
which animate my breast ! And in addressing you I
feel it to be my duty to occupy your time by alluding
to that great principle which lies at the bottom of
the whole of this subject—the love of our country.
(Cheers.) The rev. gentleman who returned thanks
on behalf of the clergy alluded to the great Roman
people—the greatest nation that has ever existed on
the face of the globe in all that concerns war or go-
vernment. I therefore would allude to the great
Roman orator who, speaking in the midst of the
Roman forum, and supported by the applause of that
great Roman people around him, exclaimed, " Dear
to us are the relations and joys of private life, dear
to us are our wives, dearer to us are our children,
but all these endearments are concentrated and
intensified in one statement—the love of our coun-
try." Again, a historian of our own day, describ-
ing the condition of another country, which was
rapidly sinking into decay, explained it on the
simple principle that the love of country had
vanished, and with it had departed every security
for private happiness, for public prosperity, for
national safety, or for individual mutual respect.
But, gentlemen, I might go on and descant to you
on the intense form in which this noble principle
burns in the breasts of this nation. I might go on to
recount to you the grand, the sufficient, the over-
whelming reasons they have for entertaining
such a feeling. I might speak to you of great
historical associations, of all those deeds of virtue,
of sacrifice, and of energy, by which our ancestors
have piled up that great and noble inheritance
which we have received from them as a sacred
trust to be maintained and to be defended. I
might speak to you of the Constitution of this
country, under which we enjoy so large a share
of well regulated liberty and continual pros-
perity. I might speak to you of that Constitution
of which it has become even a trite saying that it
is the pride of England while it is the envy of the
world. It is a Constitution under which we enjoy
many blessings. It is the noblest work man has
ever effected, but if we are to look upon it in a
more humble but in a more reasonable manner, as a
blessing from Heaven, it is—and it is with reve-
rence 1 say it—the greatest blessing which God has
ly connected
with myself to a body eminent
e(Cvehreerbse.)stoAwnedd
guepnotnlemaenny,
renmateimonbeorifngthtihsatelaratnih.
with agriculture, I would ask you to cast your
over the fair face of that nature which surrounds
you. Look at it teeming with crops, the gifts of
Providence. For what have we co-operated to-
gether, with our capital,
our intelligence, our in-
dustry, and with our h eyes
0,1.4 and persevering labour p
For what do we improve the cultivation of the soil p
For what have wo collected together those large,

those immeasurable stores with which very suc-
ceeding autumn has decorated the face of our land,
filling our hearts with gladness, filling our garners
with plenty, and filling our thoughts with grati-
tude to the great Giver of all Good ? For what
have we effected these great results? Is it that we
may see these fair fields trampled down by hostile
feet, and see these just and legitimate efforts of our,
industry and our exertion wrenched from us by an
invading army ? But there are other considera-
tions which go more directly to our hearts. There
is in this country that visible emblem by which we
recognize oitgb
oniz e
flo
her
eeardl t
cl
op nhe
srets
oblessings
government,
enjoy—that
sits
on
tkh revered
kindled
d ltehdr throne
bi e
iy
the
edr
tghfe r.noi maAl
rl it diffuses
light
eoof
ahser privateo ver
Englishmenh er‘,
virtue
theoupperleeapnad e
domestic
orei
sosteuts
lithat throne rolled in the dust, and that beloved
Queen humbled and degraded by the presence of a
foreign enemy in Buckingham Palace ? (Loud
cheers, and cries of " Never.") Lastly, I might
speak to you of your own homes, of those homes of
purity and bliss, whose guardian angels are your
wives and daughters, and which are consecrated
by their virtue and:sympathy. (Cheers.) I leave
these considerations, however, to every man's
heart. And then I might go on to ask you to con-
sider what it is that the country has done in this
emergency, and in what way has she met the de-
mands upon her ? Slow, no doubt, we were to
recognise the undoubted fact that the protection
which we derived from the prestige and the influ-
ence of our power was owing to the remembrance
of our former great deeds by land and sea, and
which have been weakened by the lapse of time.
Slow were we to recognise the fact that such an
effect had been produced, and that the defences
which Providence bad long thrown around our
island had been materially weakened by the pro-
gress of science. But when once that conviction
pervaded the British mind, what was the result ?
Why, the fable of old was at once reduced to a
practical reality. We read of a hero of old who
possessed the mysterious virtue of stamping upon '
the ground, and armed men sprang up under his
foot. England stamped on the ground, and armed
men have indeed sprung up around her. (Loud
cheers.) Then we are led to consider what are the
true and real ingredients of this great national
enterprise, and what are the real secrets of the
national honour and safety. You may increase
your navy—you may undertake the gigantic task
of reconstructing the British navy, and you are
right in doing so. You may have a large area of
circumvallation, and you may plant batteries on
every weak point of your coast ; you may augment
the artillery; and you may increase the weight of
their metal; but what are these if British hearts
are wanting ? (Loud and prolonged cheering.)
Where is your power without these ? Gentlemen,
without these you would be unprotected. Of what
use would be your fields without light and heat,
without that great beneficence—the sun—to warm
and rouse them to fertility ? Of no more use would
be all your fortifications and appliances, if you
shaayd_ni
no t Bnroi t ish
lan
ghne
aa
gr tes .
of
flattery,
inpermitm
terms
e to
of
exaggeration, allow me to say to you, as the
representatives of the whole Volunteer move-
ment of this country, that in you I see
the two elements of a great State, and ,
the only certain secrets of national safety
and honour. Therefore I congratulate you, and I
congratulate the country, on the position in which
this movement now stands. It has removed a blot
from the character of this country ; it has put an
end to those unmanly and discreditable panics of
which you have heard. It has restored the British
people to a manly sense of self-dignity and of re-
liance for safety upon nothing but the energies of
their own arms. This has produced a profound
sensation throughout the world, and has added to
the dignity of England and her just and useful in-
fluence over all nations of the world. Then there
remains but one remark in conclusion. Persevere
in and consolidate this great movement. Remember
that the evil against which you have to guard is a
permanent and enduring danger. It is a danger
arising from the altered condition and circumstances
of the world in 'general, and the position of this
country in particular. Remember also that the
treasure which you have to guard is the glorious
Constitution of this country, and the moral influ-
ence of this country in upholding all that is valu-
able to man throughout the world. It is, I trust,
enduring, and your efforts will be directed towards
preserving and maintaining it. (Cheers.) But,
gentlemen, it is said that we are now at peace, and
why should we decorate ourselves with the panoply
of war ? We are not at war, undoubtedly, but that
is all you can say. It suits the convenience or
policy of other countries at the present moment to
extend to us a friendly hand, and to do so with ap-
parent cordiality; but there is an old saying,
" Trust not the Greeks even when they bring you
presents." Remember, if you wish to preserve peace
and all the blessings of peace, you can do it by no
other means than by showing at all times that you
are adequately and sufficiently prepared for war.
(Cheers.) This was repeated over and over again
as the very basis of the power, the safety, and the
greatness of the Roman people. I could multiply to
you references without end, but I would rather ex-
press that sentiment to you in the language of our
great writer, Shakspere, a man who seems to have
been imbued by a sort of inspiration from Heaven.
He knew all the secret springs of human con-
duct and the motive machinery of human actions.
It is remarkable that the words which I shall ask
the liberty of reading to you, and with which I
shall conclude my address, were put by that great
man in the mouth of the son of a King of France,
advising that King, his father, and urging and
stimulating the people of France, to take timely
precaution during a period of peaee to protect
themselves against the possibility of invasion by
England. It is a remarkable coincidence. Times
are changed, circumstances are changed, parties are
in different positions, but the principle is engraven
in the nature of the thing, and I address it to
you with the most earnest recomendation that
you attend to it and that you act by it. The pas-
sage is from " King Henry V." :

" In cases of defence, 't is best to weigh
The enemy more mighty than he seems.
It is most meet we arm us 'gainst the foe ;
For peace should not so dull a kingdom
(Though war nor no known quarrel were in question)
But that defences, musters, preparations,
Should be maintained, assembled, and collected,
As were a war in expectation."

The noble lord resumed his seat amid loud and
long prolonged cheering from all parts of the room.
Several local toasts followed.

Mrs. Osborne, the wife of a publican, wtarsoTiecse:
w-
terday fined 20s. by Mr. Henry, qt Bo-
court, for creating a disturbance in tno Strand Theatre on
the previous evening.
During the first years of life, the fluids abound
over the solids and the elements which. go to expand the
frame are received and appropriated very plentifully, while
a much smaller amount is exhaled. The stage of maturity
is that in which the balance is equal : and this period is
supposed to include, at the outside, twenty years of human
life. Then begins the process of dying, as the philosophers
say ; or, as less learned persons express it, we turn our
faces
towards old age; or, according to the common figure
of speech, we begin to go down the hill. The age ;of
forty-five is assigned for this change. How long is
that stage of declins, speaking accurately I' It
is so long that giddy readers may laugh at the mention of
it. To be tending towards death from five-and-forty seems
to them ridiculous. So it would be as a matter of senti-
ment, among people who think about death in such aneexre-
aggerated way as we, of this age, do. But I am h
speaking of the natural facts which bear upon the condition
of old age ; and that is my concern with ferty•fivo. In a
rough way, the physiological distribution of our life is set
down as including five-and-twenty of deeline;and:twonty of
maturity between them. This makes up the three-score
years and ten which the Psalmist speaks of as the natural
duration of human lifc,-4148.4(010iCaU in" Ono a Wick."

John Heathcot was the son of a small farmer at
Long Whatton, in Leicestershire, where he was
horn in 1784. Ho was apprenticed at an early age
to a frame-smith, named Samuel Caldwell, at
Hathern, a neighbouring village. During his
apprenticeship he acquired a complete practical
knowledge of the business, and of all the mechanism
of the stocking frame, and warp machines. Some
part of the latter he improved by his own inven-
tion, when yet a boy. And it was by the applica-
tion of a clever apparatus to one of those machines,
whereby " mitts of a lacelike appearance were
produced, that his attention was first turned to
mechanical lace making. "Point net" lace had
been extensively wrought by machinery: This was
a looped mesh, and therefore slight and frail ; but
the attention of very ingenious mechanics had been
turned for some years to the question of making a
mesh or lace of threads twisted round each other in
the formation of the mesh. Hitherto the problem had
baffled all their endeavours, reducing all who 'made
them to poverty, and driving some to insanity. Mr.
Heathcoat after having served his term of appren-
ticeship, settled in Nottingham, and commenced
business on his own account, as a " setter up" of
hosiery and warp frames, in the machine shop of
Mr. Leonard Elliott, in Broad-street. Elliott was
a man of superior mind and skill, and through him
young Heathcoat became acquinted with the san-
guine ideas then afloat in the proverbially ingeni-
ous mind of Nottingham mechanics. Among those
was how Buckingham or French lace could be me-
chanically produced, and to this he gave undivided
attention. Elliott described him to have had a
thorough practical knowledge of mechanical powers
and contrivances; as inventive, persevering, un-
daunted by difficulty or mistakes, and consequent
temporary want of success; patient, self-denying,
and very taciturn, but having surprising confidence
that his application of mechanical principles would
be crowned • eventually with success. His great
object was to construct a machine that should do
the work of the pillow, the multitude of pins, the
threads and bobbins, and the fingers, and to super-
sede them in the production of lace, as the stocking
loom had superseded the knitting needle. He first
ascertained by observation what pillow lace was,
and how it was made. Then, analysing the com-
ponent threads, and how they were each used in
forming the resulting tissue, he slowly arrived at
classification into longitudinal and diagonal. The
mass thus disentangled, he placed those used
lengthwise on a beam as warp. The remainder he
reserved as weft, each thread to be working sepa-
rately, and to be caused to twist round a warp
thread, and then to cross diagonally its appropriate
neighbour thread, and thus close the upper and
lower sides of the mesh. Then followed the me-
chanical arrangements to effect these operations
with certainty and speed. The bobbins to distri-
bute the thread, the carriages and grooves in
which they must run, their mode of twisting
round the warp and travelling from side to side of
the machine, and a view of the whole machine, as
invented by Mr. Heathcoat, caused the late M. I.
Brunel to declare that "it appears to me one of
the most complete mechanicial combinations, in
which the author displays uncommon powers of
invention. I cannot withhold the tribute due to
hkm for originality and ingehuity through all the
various combinations he has brought into action
for the purpose of accomplishing a texture which
had been attempted before, but to my knowledge
with no success." A patent taken out in 1808 by
Mr. Heathcoat for producing twist lace was on a
horizontal plan, and was well described as a hori-
zontal pillow; but the experience gained in the
construction led to the machine patented in 1809,
to which the above remarks principally refer. That
of 1808 was at once thrown aside ; and with his
usual tact he adhered only to the sound principle
of the first patent, while he effectually rectified the
modes of operation by his second. The principle
of both remains embodied in the bobbin net ma-
chines of the present day, though with vast im-
provements—some effected by himself, and more
by others, to whom he was ever anxious to accord
their due meed of praise for the employment of
talents only second to those by which the original
machine was designed and executed.

This success was not without its cost, It was
gained by the employment of self-directed talents,
during hours of bodily and mental toil, added to the
necessary labours of the day, without external aid
or encouragement, and in the face of mechanical
difficulties in the progress of the work so great that
Mr. Heathcoat said, when describing in 1836 his
whole procedure in the affair, " the single difficulty
of getting the diagonal threads to twist in the allot-
ted space was so great that if now to be done I
should probably not attempt its accomplishment."
Moreover, domestic 'straits and no ordinary personal.
and relative self-denial were cheerfully encountered
during this long outlay of time and money. But at
24 years of age Mr. Heathcoat stood the conscious
inventor of one of the most intricate pieces of ma-
chinery ever produced. And the solid reward of his
work followed quickly on his success. The first
square yard of plain net was chaply sold from his
machine at £5; for 25 years the average price has
been sd. During the like period the average annual
returns of the trade have been at least £4,000,000
sterling, giving employment at fair wages to pro'
bably 150,000 workpeople.

In 1816 the factory at Loughborough
Mr. Heathcoat's business was carried on was
attacked by the Luddites and the lace frames de-
stroyed. This caused the removal of the manufacture
to Tiverton, where it restored the prosperity that
had been lost by the
idne
acadyditoifon h
to the great ad..
vantage of pro
The establishment of Mr. Lreathcoat and his part-
ner, Mr. Boden, employe about 2,00 e
the benefit of this population schools have been
established, a church built, and their welfare pro-
fitable employment.
Mr. neethcoat has left no son—his only son died
in youth. Miss Heathcoat and Mrs. Brewin have
moted in many ways,
long employed their large property and influence
t
in carrying out their father's benevolent views and
wishes. Mr. Heathcoat's grandson, Mr.
.Heathcoat
Amory, has had for some years the responsibilitys affairs of managing the extensive busines
rs of his late
grandfather, of whom he is the sole male repre-
sentative. Owpoeorlsleoinanstw.rahFflicoehr.

THE SOUTHERN STATES OF AMERICA.—The for-
tifications on the southern coast are described as follows:
" There are along the coast of the Slave States, from Balti-
more to Barrataria Bay, Louisiana, 29 fortifications that
cost the Government 15,000,000 dollars. They contain
more than 3,000 cannon. This is a good out-
fit for the Southern Revolutionists, added to
their ample supply of small arms at the arsenals and
armories, which had an increase of 325,000 within 12
months. In addition there are incomplete works at Ship
Island, Mississippi River; Georgetown, South Carolina;
Typee Islands, Port Royal Roads, South Carolina; Types
Island, Savannah ; Galveston, Brazos, Santiago, and Mata,
gorda bay, Texas. The guns which were lately stepped. nt
Pittsburg were designed for those at Galveston and Ship
Island. Hampton Roads is the great naval depot station
and rendezvous of the Southern coasts, and the only good
roadstead on the:Atlantic south of the Delaware. Pensacola
is very strong, and the only good harbour for vessels of wars
and the only naval depot on the Gulf. The. fortresses
Key West and Tortugas, on the sounthern.p point
ever};
yes
of :
are among the most powerful in the world , and
aeth erF
sel that crosses the gulf passes withal sight 0