1814
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Europe ends 22 years of war as America's 3-year War of 1812 draws to a close.
The Battle of La Rothière February 1 is a defeat for Napoleon at the hands of General von Blücher, whose various corps Napoleon then defeats at Champaubert, Montmitrail, Château-Thierry, and Vauchamps. Napoleon beats the main Prussian army at Nangis and Montereau, and refuses an Allied offer to restore the French frontier of 1792.
The Battle of Laon March 9 to 10 begins a series of reverses for Napoleon. Bordeaux falls to the duke of Wellington March 12, Napoleon loses the Battle of Arcis-sur-Aube March 20 to 21, the French are beaten March 25 at the Battle of La Fère-Champenoise, Allied troops storm Montmartre March 30, Marshal Marmont deserts Napoleon and surrenders the city, and the triumphant Allies enter Paris March 31.
A false rumor that Napoleon has abdicated turns out to be a scheme to make money on the London Exchange. Thomas Cochrane, Royal Navy, is among those tried on charges of having connived in the speculative fraud (see 1809); found guilty, he is expelled from Parliament, stripped of the order of the Bath that he was awarded in 1809, and given a prison sentence (see Chile, 1818).
Napoleon retreats to Fontainebleau, abdicates unconditionally April 11, and is awarded sovereignty of the 95-square-mile Mediterranean island of Elba with an annual income of 2 million francs to be paid by the French. His wife, Marie-Louise, receives the duchies of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla and retains her imperial title, as Napoleon does his. He arrives at Elba May 4, and the Treaty of Paris signed May 30 ends the war between France and the Sixth Coalition (Austria, Britain, Prussia, Russia, and Sweden). The Treaty enforces the emperor's abdication, restores France's 1792 borders, takes little other punitive action against France, but contains six secret articles stipulating that a congress shall be held at Vienna to decide the fate of the recovered territories. The former empress Josephine has died at Malmaison May 29 at age 50, having devoted her final years to further renovations of the château outside Paris.
France restores her monarchy with support from Marshal Messéna and some former revolutionists (including Bertrand Barère) who have shifted their loyalties to the crown: the 59-year-old comte de Provence, a brother of the late Louis XVI, will reign until 1824 as Louis XVIII (with a 100-day interruption next year). Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, now 60, has been instrumental in restoring the monarchy, Louis names him to the post of foreign minister; Talleyrand's follower Emmerich Joseph Dalberg, 40, has also supported the recall of the Bourbons and Louis names him French plenipotentiary at the Congress of Vienna, which he attends with Talleyrand when it convenes October 1 to work out a European peace settlement. The consensus of the delegates is that Napoleon is to be punished but not the French people, and to avoid future revanchist sentiments they try to restore a new balance of power based on European dynasties of the ante bellum status quo. Lisbon-born Russian diplomat Karl Robert Vasilyevich, Graf Nesselrode, 34, represents Aleksandr I at the Congress and recommends that the czar support France's Bourbon restoration, but the French and Austrians make a secret agreement aimed at Russia, which is also represented by André Prince Rasoumoffski (or Rasumofsky, or Razumvoski), 62. The czar's Corfu-born Greek adviser Ioánnis Antónios, Count Kapodístrias, 38, is also in the Russian delegation and beginning early next year will be given responsibility in foreign affairs equal to that of Graf Nesselrode. Prince Adam Czartoryski represents Polish interests at the Congress (see 1795); now 45, he opposed the czar's campaign against Napoleon in 1805, was dismissed as foreign minister in 1806, but remained in Russian government service and now resumes his efforts to restore Poland (see 1830). Prussia's Friedrich Wilhelm III sends his son's onetime tutor Johann P. F. Ancillon to the Congress, where the Austrians, Prussians, and Russians collaborate to oppose liberalism (also representing Prussia's interests are Prince Karl August von Hardenberg, now 64, and scholar Wilhelm von Humboldt. Austrian diplomat Karl Philipp, Prince von Schwarzenberg, opposes Prussia's demand for all of Saxony, knowing that a Prussian-held Saxony would encircle Austrian-held Bohemia. Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, represents Britain, and many heads of state (the Austrian emperor, the Russian czar, the kings of Prussia, Denmark, Bavaria, and Württemberg, the elector Hesse, the grand duke of Baden, and the dukes of Brunswick, Coburg, and Saxe-Weimar) attend in person, dancing and gourmandizing as they celebrate the end of Napoleon's megalomania (but see 1815).
Spanish guerrilla leader Francisco Espoz y Mina, 32, leads an abortive Liberal coup against the monarchy at Pamplona but is forced to take refuge in France. He has served under the duke of Wellington in Navarre and gained distinction as an organizer and strategist.
The Treaty of Kiel signed January 14 ends hostilities between Sweden and Denmark; the latter cedes Norway to Sweden, thereby ending the union that has existed since 1380 and reducing the power of Denmark, although she retains Greenland, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands. Sweden has lost Finland and the Aland Islands to Russia in 1809, Norwegians take up arms to resist a Swedish takeover and try to elect the Danish prince Christian Frederick as their king, their political leaders assemble at Eidsvold April 10 to frame a declaration of independence and constitution, nationalist Christian Magnus Falsen, 31, draws up a liberal constitution providing for a single-chamber assembly (Storting) and denying the king his former right to dissolve the assembly or exercise absolute veto power, Sweden agrees May 17 to accept the new constitution and a personal union rather than annexation, and the Norwegians accept Sweden's Karl XIII as their king after an invasion by Crown Prince Jean Baptiste Bernadotte; the union of Norway and Sweden will continue until 1905 (see 1815).
The kingdom of the Netherlands is created by a union of the Austrian Netherlands (Belgium) and Holland under terms of the June 21 Protocol of the Eight Articles concluded between the prince of Orange (who becomes King Willem I) and the allied powers (see 1815).
Former British governor general of India Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynmound, 1st earl of Minto, dies at Stevenage, Hertfordshire, June 21 at age 63; former commander in chief of the British Army in North America William Howe, 5th Viscount Howe, at Plymouth, Devonshire, July 12 at age 84; former British governor of New South Wales Admiral Arthur Phillip at Bath August 31 at age 75.
Maria Carolina of Naples dies at Vienna September 8 at age 62 (the British ambassador Lord George Bentinck persuaded her husband, Ferdinand IV, to exile her from Sicily 3 years ago and she has returned to her native Austria).
The Battle of Chippewa July 5 on the west bank of the Niagara River pits 1,500 British regulars against about 1,300 Americans who have invaded Ontario under the command of Pennsylvania-born General Jacob (Jennings) Brown, 37, who has replaced General James Wilkinson after the latter's spectacular failure at Montreal. General Sir Phineas Riall commands the British, who fall back after losing 236 dead, 322 wounded, and 46 taken prisoner (U.S. losses total 61 killed, 255 wounded, 46 captured).
The Battle of Lundy's Lane near Niagara Falls in Canada July 25 ends with both British and U.S. forces claiming victory. The bitterly contested 5-hour battle begins with about 1,000 British troops under General Sir George Gordon fighting an equal number of Americans under General Jacob Brown; the British force grows to 3,000, the American to 2,600, and Brown withdraws by night to Fort Erie, having been wounded in the action and having lost 171 killed, 572 wounded, 110 missing or taken prisoner (the British have lost 84 dead, 559 wounded, 235 missing or captured). Acclaimed as a hero is Virginia-born Brig. Gen. Winfield Scott, 28, who distinguished himself earlier at the Battle of Chippewa and has been wounded twice in the fighting.
British troops from H.M.S. Ramillies land at Stonington, Connecticut, August 10 but townsmen drive them off.
The Battle of Bladensburg four miles from Washington, D.C., August 24 ends in a rout of about 6,500 untrained state militiamen by an advance guard of some 1,500 British regulars, most of whom have served in the Peninsular War. Admiral Sir George Cockburn, Royal Navy, has announced his intention of taking President Madison's wife, Dolley, hostage and parading her through the streets of London. He has sailed into the Chesapeake Bay, but a fleet of barges organized by Commodore Joshua Barney, now 55, has impeded his advance; a landing force of about 4,000 has come ashore without cavalry at Bendict on the Patuxent River under the command of General Robert Ross, the U.S. defenders hastily assembled by Secretary of War John Armstrong, 55, skedaddle when the British fire portable Congreve rockets (they have brought only two small artillery pieces). Commodore Barney has abandoned his barges and marched 500 regular marines and seamen to defend the capital, he mounts a few ships' guns on carriages at the center of General William H. Winder's position, but his men are quickly overrun. Barney is wounded, and the British march into the city after sustaining 64 killed, 185 wounded (26 Americans are killed, 51 wounded, about 100 taken prisoner). The British loot Washington and set fire to most of its public buildings, including the unfinished Capitol building and the 12-year-old executive mansion. With the enemy closing in and her husband away with his troops (he has warned her to be ready to leave at a moment's notice), Dolley Madison orders that the Gilbert Stuart painting of George Washington be removed from its frame and given to some friends for safekeeping; she collects copies of vital state documents, gathers up whatever silver she can, disguises herself as a farm wife, and escapes through Georgetown (by some accounts she took over some of the president's duties when he fell deathly ill last year). British officers find that dinner has been prepared and enjoy a fine meal at the executive mansion before having its mattresses, carpets, costly damask-covered furniture, and draperies piled into the center of its ground-floor rooms, pouring lamp oil over the piles, and ordering lighted lances to be thrown through its broken windows; gutted by fire, the building's interior goes up in smoke, but a rainstorm saves its outer walls and they will be repainted to create the "White House." The glow of the fires can be seen 45 miles away at Baltimore, and the President's House will take 3 years to restore, but the British decamp after 26 hours lest their escape route be cut off. The loss at Bladensburg teaches the government that green state militia cannot be relied upon for the nation's defense; Secretary of War Armstrong resigns under pressure in September, having failed to provide the men and equipment needed to defend Washington, and Congress meets in temporary quarters while repairs are made on the Capitol building.
A U.S. naval force under Lieut. Thomas Macdonough Jr. defeats and captures a British squadron on Lake Champlain September 11 in the Battle of Plattsburgh (see 1813), and 14,000 British troops that have invaded New York from Canada under the command of Sir George Prevost are forced to retire as the War of 1812 winds down. General Alexander Macomb has led the 2,500 state militia who support the 1,500 regulars at Plattsburgh, but it is Macdonough's 14-ship squadron that wins the day. Governor Daniel Tompkins has been obliged to borrow large sums, often on his own personal credit, to field and supply New York's state militia.
Royal Navy ships bombard Baltimore's Fort McHenry September 14; Georgetown, Maryland, lawyer Francis Scott Key, 34, witnesses the bombardment, having been sent on a mission to obtain the exchange of an American held aboard a British ship.
Congress awards more than $4 million to Mississippi Territory landowners with valid claims to property involved in the 1795 Yazoo land fraud (see 1810).
Vice President Elbridge Gerry dies of a pulmonary hemorrhage en route to the Senate Chamber at Washington, D.C., November 23 at age 70.
The Treaty of Ghent December 24 ends the War of 1812. Americans have feared that the defeat of Napoleon would free the British to redirect all their energies to bringing their former colonists to heel, but the duke of Wellington has advised his government not to pursue hostilities in light of developments at the Congress of Vienna. Britain's debts have been mounting at a fearsome rate, her agriculture is in distress, U.S. privateers have taken such a heavy toll on British merchant ships that maritime insurance rates in the Mediterranean have reached 28 percent, and Lieut. Mcdonough's victory on Lake Champlain has dampened any remaining British enthusiasm to continue; former secretary of the treasury Albert Gallatin plays a key role in drafting the peace treaty, whose terms permit hostilities to continue until the treaty is ratified (see Battle of New Orleans, 1815).
Civil war erupts in the Rio de la Plata region shared by Argentina and what will become Uruguay (see 1811). Revolutionist José Gervasio Artigas rules over an area of about 350,000 square miles (see 1820).
Britain gains formal possession of the 83,000-square-mile South American country that will be called British Guiana (later Guayana). It will remain a British colony until 1966.
The rebel Mexican congress at Apatzingán adopts an egalitarian constitution October 22 (see 1813), but the congressmen are hard pressed to stay clear of Spanish royalist forces and must move from place to place under the protection of guerrilla forces fielded by José María Morelos (see 1815).
Spanish authorities in San Salvador suppress an uprising that has even more popular support than the one 3 years ago but is more quickly snuffed out; Manuel Arce is imprisoned, and will remain incarcerated for more than 4 years (see 1823).
Britain and the United States agree to cooperate in suppressing the slave trade under terms of the Treaty of Ghent (see 1807), but the trade will actually expand as U.S. clipper ships built at Baltimore and at Rhode Island ports outsail ponderous British men-of-war to deliver cargoes of slaves.
Holland abandons the slave trade (see Denmark, 1803; Sweden, 1813).
The "Battle" of Horseshoe Bend in Alabama Territory March 27 pits 3,000 militiamen under the command of General Andrew Jackson against about 1,000 Creek warriors (see 1813); Jackson's men use their cannon and rifles to slaughter more than 800 men and imprison 500 women and children, ending Creek resistance in the territory. Some of the Creek have fought as Jackson's allies, but the Treaty of Fort Jackson signed August 9 requires the tribe (which numbers about 20,000) to cede 23 million acres that constitute more than half of Alabama and part of Georgia.
Lancashire mill owner Robert Owen joins with Quaker philanthropist William Allen and utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham in a program to ameliorate living conditions of all millhands (see 1809). Bentham is famous for his 1789 Principles of Morals and Legislation; Owen stated last year in A New View of Society that human character is determined entirely by environment (see 1824; 1828).
London banker Alexander Baring, 40, takes the position in a Parliamentary debate that the working classes have no interest at stake in the question of British wheat exports and that it is "altogether ridiculous" to argue otherwise: "Whether wheat is 130s. or 80s., the labourer [can] only expect dry bread in the one case and dry bread in the other" (Parliament has allowed free export of wheat and protests have come from manufacturing districts as food prices have risen) (see Corn Law, 1815).
Fire destroys the sawmills of engineer-inventor Marc Isambard Brunel, whose Battersea plant has been sawing and bending timber while his other plants have been turning out army boots, knitting stockings, and printing (see 1799). The conflagration comes on top of financial mismanagement by his partners and drives Brunel into bankruptcy. The government will refuse to accept the output of his factories after the end of the war next year, and he will be sent to debtors' prison in 1821, although his friends will obtain a £5,000 government grant for his release after a few months (see tunneling shield, 1818).
Ohio land developer John Cleves Symmes dies at Cincinnati February 26 at age 71, leaving an estate that is almost insolvent. He has been the defendant in frequent lawsuits brought by people who were obliged to pay twice for land he had sold them but turned out not to be part of the 1794 Symmes Purchase, and his legal expenses have drained him financially.
The War of 1812 leaves Americans with the realization that they must improve their roads, strengthen their national government, and support their toddling domestic industry. The war has increased the national debt to $123 million, making it impossible to retire the debt by 1817 as Albert Gallatin had optimistically forecast when he took office as secretary of the treasury in 1801 (see 1812).
Massachusetts becomes a cotton cloth producer to meet the pent-up demand for the cloth that came from England before the war. Francis Cabot Lowell raises $100,000 for the company that he started with Patrick T. Jackson in 1812, uses the Charles River to power machines that he installs in an old papermill at Waltham, employs farm girls to run the machines, and houses them six to a room while they earn their dowry money. Helped by inventor Paul Moody to devise an efficient power loom and spinning apparatus, Lowell and Jackson card and spin cotton thread and weave cotton cloth, performing all the functions involved in converting raw cotton to finished cloth in an enterprise that is soon producing some 30 miles of cloth per day and paying dividends of 10 to 20 percent.
The end of the War of 1812 leaves E. I. du Pont de Nemours in a strengthened position (see 1803); the company has become the U.S. Government's chief supplier of gunpowder, having supplied land and naval forces with 750,000 pounds of powder, but although its workers' shoes have wooden pegs in place of nails its Eleutherian Mills will have their first fatal explosion next year, with nine men killed and $20,000 in property losses (see 1833).
John Jacob Astor loses his Astoria outpost on the Pacific to the British but makes large and profitable loans to the U.S. Government (see 1811; 1817).
Salem shipowner Joseph Peabody pays $5,250 for the newly-built 328-ton barque George, whose unusually fast lines have caught his eye (see 1791). Now 56, Peabody has helped frame Salem's petition against the war with Britain but has lent full support to the government; he will use a vessel that was built as a privateer to make 20 voyages to Calcutta and one to Gibraltar. the ship will bring in more than half the 1.5 million tons of indigo that he will import from India by 1840, and the duties levied on her cargoes will amount to $651,743.32, an amount close to the profit that she will return (Peabody will pay taxes of roughly $200,000 per year and have plenty left over).
The world's first steam locomotive goes into service on the Killingworth colliery railway as English inventor George Stephenson, 34, applies Richard Trevithick's 1804 steam engine to railroad locomotion and replaces horses and mules for hauling coal. A former coal-mine mechanic, Stephenson was illiterate until age 18 (see Trevithick, 1808; Stockton-Darlington line, 1825).
Scotland's Craigellachie Bridge spans the River Spey with a 150-foot metal arch; designed by engineer Thomas Telford, its roadway is supported by thin diagonal members that carry loads to the arch, and it will survive into the 21st century.
Engineer-inventor Joseph Bramah dies at London December 9 at age 66, having invented not only precisely engineered machine tools, a hydraulic press, a wood-planing machine, and a machine for numbering bank notes but also an improved water closet.
Chemist and physicist Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac presents a paper August 1 giving a complete study of the new chemical element iodine discovered by Bernard Courtois 3 years ago (see Gay-Lussac, 1808). Having worked in close collaboration with Louis Jacques Thénard, he also formulates the concept of isomers—different compounds composed of the same elements in identical qualities but arranged differently.
Scientist Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, dies at his home in Auteil, outside Paris, August 21 at age 61.
Bavarian optician-physicist Joseph von Fraunhofer discovers the lines of the solar spectrum and pioneers the science of spectroscopy (see Wollaston, 1802). Now 24, he has helped produce improved telescopes using the method pioneered by Pierre Louis Guinand in 1798. Fraunhofer will plot more than 500 of the lines and designate the brightest of them by the letters A through G. It will develop that the dark (absorption) lines are caused by selective absorption of the sun's (or a star's) radiation at specific wavelengths by the various elements existing as gases in its atmosphere.
The Welsh founder of Calvinistic Methodism Thomas Charles dies at Bala, Merionethshire, October 5 at age 58.
The Times of London installs the first steam-driven, stop-cylinder printing press (see 1811). An improvement on the Koenig-Bauer press that was tried 3 years ago, it has two cylinders, which revolve one after the other according to the back-and-forth movement of the bed, permitting the Times to print 1,100 sheets per hour (see 1818).
The Times of India begins publication at Bombay (Mumbai). Publication will move to New Delhi in the 1950s.
The first U.S. patent for a "composition pencil" is issued to Salem, Massachusetts, inventor Charles Osgood (see 1795). A Massachusetts schoolgirl hollowed out twigs at least 12 years ago and stuffed them with graphite salvaged from used English pencils, but she never applied for a patent (see Dixon, 1827).
Nonfiction: An Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States by Virginia agrarian philosopher (and former legislator) John Taylor, now 60.
Philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte dies at Berlin January 27 at age 51.
Fire destroys most of the Library of Congress as British troops burn the Capitol (see 1800). Only the most valuable records and papers are saved, but former president Thomas Jefferson at Monticello offers his private library of 6,487 volumes at cost (it is twice as large as the collection that was lost), opponents protest buying so much "finery and philosophical nonsense" (many of the works are in French), but Congress by a margin of four votes appropriates $23,700 to acquire Jefferson's collection as the nucleus of a new library (see 1851). Jefferson, although bankrupt, says, "I cannot live without books," and he uses the money to acquire more books and scientific instruments.
Fiction: Mansfield Park by Jane Austen; Waverley by Walter Scott, who publishes a 19-volume Life and Works of Swift but turns his full energies to fiction.
The marquis de Sade dies in prison at Charenton December 2 at age 74.
Poetry: The Excursion by William Wordsworth; "Lara" and "She Walks in Beauty" by Lord Byron, whose latter poem has been inspired by the sight of his second cousin, Mrs. John Wilmot: "She walks in Beauty, like the night/ Of cloudless climes and starry skies;/ And all that's best of dark and bright/ Meet in her aspect and her eyes;/ Thus mellowed to that tender light/ Which Heaven to gaudy day denies."
Poet-playwright Mercy Otis Warren dies at Plymouth, Massachusetts, October 19 at age 86.
Painting: The Wounded Cuirassier by Théodore Géricault; 2 May 1808, 3 May 1808, General Palafox on Horseback, The Charge of the Mamelukes, The Execution of the Defenders of Madrid, and Ferdinand VII in an Encampment by Francisco de Goya. Japanese ukiyoe painter Toyoharu Utagawa dies at age 79 after a career in which he has founded a new style by using Western perspective techniques.
The Dulwich College Picture Gallery opens to the public in the London borough of Southwark (see education [Dulwich College], 1619); designed by architect John Soane, it is the world's first public art gallery.
Theater: English actor Edmund Kean, 26, appears 1/26 at London's Drury Lane Theatre in the role of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, wins great acclaim, and begins a 19-year career as England's greatest Shakespearean actor; The Dog of Montargis, or The Forest of Bundy (Le chien de Montargis, ou La forêt de Bundy) by Guilbert de Pixérécourt, now 41, 6/18 at the Théâtre de la Gaité, Paris.
Playwright Louis-Sébastien Mercier dies at his native Paris April 25 at age 73, having written some 60 plays.
Opera: Fidelio, oder Die eheliche Liebe 5/26 at Vienna's Kartnertor-Theater, with music (including a new overture) by Ludwig van Beethoven (see 1805); The Turk in Italy (Turco in Italia) 8/14 at Milan's Teatro alla Scala, with music by Gioacchino Rossini.
Composer-actor-theatrical manager Charles Dibdin dies at London July 25 at age 69, having written some 100 stage works and about 1,400 songs, many of them sea songs to his own lyrics.
First performances: Symphony No. 8 in F major by Ludwig van Beethoven 2/27 at Vienna.
Anthem: "The Star Spangled Banner" by Francis Scott Key is published in the Baltimore American 1 week after the bombardment of Fort McHenry. The words are soon being sung to the tune of "The Anacreontic Song" by London composer John Stafford Smith, now 64, who wrote it for the 48-year-old Anacreontic Society, but Smith used the key of B flat and a range so large that most people will have a struggle trying to sing it (see 1931).
The Carabinieri is founded by the reinstated king of Piedmont Victor Emmanuel I to restore law and order; it will grow to become an 83,000-member elite paramilitary police force with plumed cocked hats.
President Madison and his wife, Dolley, move into the 14-year-old Octagon house at Washington, D.C., pending restoration of the 14-year-old executive mansion, which architect James Hoban works to rebuild, painting it white to conceal the marks of fire set by the British troops (see south portico, 1825).
George Granville Leveson-Gower, 56, duke of Sutherland, destroys the homes of Highlanders on his Scottish estates to make way for sheep. The duke is married to the countess of Sutherlandshire, and by 1822 he will have driven 8,000 to 10,000 people off her lands, which comprise two-thirds of the county.
Hortus Jamaicensis by English botanist John Lunan uses the word grapefruit for the first time. The fact that the citrus fruit grows in grapelike clusters has evidently suggested the name (see Shaddock, 1696; 1751; Don Philippe, 1840).
England's Donkin-Hall factory introduces the first foods to be sold commercially in tins (see 1810; Dagett and Kensett, 1819).
Colman's Mustard has its beginnings as English flour miller Jeremiah Colman of Norwich takes over a mustard and flour mill at Stoke Holy Cross, four miles south of the city (see Keen's, 1742). Having bought a windmill at Magdalen Gate, Norwich, 10 years ago and started a flour business, Colman decides to mill mustard in addition to flour, using fine brown and white mustard seed. He will establish himself in the mustard business in 1823, and by 1856 the concern will be so large that Colman will have to buy new premises just outside Norwich at Carrow on the Wensum River (Norwich will grow to envelop Carrow). Grocers throughout Britain will carry yellow-labeled red tins of Colman's Mustard, and it will be supplied to the army and Royal Navy (see 1866).
French beet sugar production declines sharply as imports of cane sugar resume and undercut prices.
Parliament outlaws Scottish Highland stills with capacities below 500 gallons (see 1798). Its objective is to concentrate distilling in fewer hands, thus facilitating collection of taxes on Scotch whisky, but illicit stills continue to operate (see 1823).
France prohibits abortion under a new law that will remain in force for more than 162 years. The law permits abortion only "when it is required to preserve the life of the mother when that is gravely threatened" (see 1810).
China's population reaches nearly 375 million by some accounts, while India's has remained constant at about 150 million. Japan has a system of primogeniture that makes too many sons a problem and controls her population with infanticide, but in China, where infanticide has been used in the past and where methods of abortion are well known, there is less concern about having too many mouths to feed. China's high infant mortality rates keep the population from outgrowing the nation's food supply and families are encouraged to have many sons.
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