In England, William Smith, "the father of English geology," died. Born in 1769, Smith, like many another English scientist, was self-taught and Death of William Smith perhaps all the more independent for that. He discovered that the fossils in rocks, instead of being scattered haphazard, are arranged in regular systems, so that any given stratum of rock is labelled by its fossil population; that the order of succession of such groups of fossils is always the same in any vertical series of strata in which they occur, and The new geology that a fossil, having once disappeared, never reappears in a later stratum. The facts which he unearthed were as iconoclastic in their field as the discoveries of Copernicus and Galileo.
In Spain, a signal defeat of the Carlists at Pennecerrada during the previous year had caused a decisive turn in the civil war. Don Carlos' attempted march on Madrid had to be abandoned, and was followed by the Spanish civil war retreat of his forces to the Ebro. General Espartero forced back the Carlist forces step by step, and carried the fight into the Basque provinces. There the struggle degenerated into a war of extermination. The Carlist leaders turned against one another. The priests excommunicated the Carlist reverses generals, and the generals in turn shot the priests. At last, by the middle of September, so many of the insurgents had surrendered to Espartero that Don Carlos found himself almost without followers. He gave up the struggle Flight of Don Carlos and fled into France. This ended the civil war. It had lasted six weary years, and had proved almost as disastrous for Spain as the great Peninsular War. Robbed of her former colonial resources, excepting only those from Cuba and the Philippines, Spain's finances were all but ruined. Decline of Spain Of industrial progress there was next to none. The country relapsed into semi-barbarism.
In the United States, prominent Northern abolitionists met at Warsaw, New American Whig Convention York, and resolved to form an independent political party. A Whig Convention, the first of such gatherings, was held at Harrisburg, fifteen months before the next Presidential election. Harrison was nominated for President and John Tyler for Vice-President. In the West, Henry Clay, Henry Clay's candidacy. popularly known as "Harry of the West," was the ideal of a strong minority. His repeated failures to attain the Presidency led to the remark: "He is too good a man to be President." The first session of the Twenty-sixth Congress opened in December. An organization of the House was at last effected by John Quincy Adams, who put a question to vote which the Speaker had refused to present. The Representatives indulged for the first time in the practice of "pairing off." Adams opposed this, declaring that it was a violation of the Constitution, of an express rule of the House which the Representatives owed to their constituents. Another event of the year in America was the failure of the United States Bank at Philadelphia, Financial failures in consequence of speculations in cotton, as the result of which the government lost $2,000,000 of its deposits. Other bank failures followed. Mississippi repudiated $5,000,000 of its State bonds. The first power loom for making carpets was set up at Lowell, Massachusetts. Charles Goodyear obtained his first patent for making vulcanized rubber. The express business was organized by Harndon, who sent his first pack from New York to Boston by the public messenger. Longfellow published his romance Longfellow's poems "Hyperion," and "Voices of the Night," a collection of verses embracing some of his most widely known poems. In the same year appeared Willis's "Letters from Under a Bridge" and Cooper's "History of the Navy."
Toward the close of the year, Queen Victoria held a Privy Council at Buckingham Palace, at which she announced her intention to marry her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
Greville wrote in his diary that "about eighty Privy Councillors were present, the folding-doors were thrown open, and the Queen came in, attired Queen Victoria's betrothal in a plain morning gown, but wearing a necklace containing Prince Albert's portrait. She read the declaration in a clear, sonorous, sweet tone of voice, but her hand trembled so excessively that I wonder she was able to read the paper which she held."
All this time the agitation for the People's Charter in England went on unabated. In the autumn, St. Paul's Cathedral in London was temporarily taken possession of by a large body of Chartists. Churches were likewise entered in Manchester.
At Newport, in Monmouthshire, an organized attempt was made, under the Popular riots in England leadership of John Frost and Zephaniah Williams, to rescue Henry Vincent from prison. Armed with guns, crowbars and pick-axes the mob poured into the town twenty thousand strong. They were met by a small body of soldiery, and after a sharp conflict were scattered with a loss of ten killed and fifty wounded. The leaders were arrested and condemned in court. A vast periodical literature kept alive the agitation. Among the new Chartist The Charter propaganda newspapers were the "Northern Star," the property and the organ of Feargus O'Connor; the London "Despatch"; the Edinburgh "New Scotsman"; the Newcastle "Northern Liberator"; the Birmingham "Journal," and many others.
1840
THE Chinese edict prohibiting all trade and intercourse with England was put in force on January 5. The English missionaries in China fled to Hong England declares war on China Kong, which port was put in readiness for defence against the Chinese. Great Britain declared war, and sent out an expedition consisting of 4,000 troops on board twenty-five transports, with a convoy of fifteen men-of-war.