See A. T. Mahan, Sea-Power in its Relation to the War of 1812 (2 vols., Boston, 1905); and William Kingsford, The History of Canada, vol. viii. (Toronto, 1895).
SACKING AND SACK MANUFACTURE. Sacking is a heavy
closely-woven fabric, originally made of flax, but now almost
exclusively made of jute or of hemp. The more expensive
kinds, such as are used for coal sacks for government and other
vessels, are made of hemp, but the jute fibre is extensively used
for the same purpose, and almost entirely for coal sacks for
local house supplies. The same type of fabric is used for wool
sacks, cement bags, ore bags, pea sacks and for any heavy
substance; it is also made up into a special form of bag for
packing cops and rolls of jute and flax yarns for delivery from
spinners to manufacturers. Proper sacking is essentially a
twilled fabric, in which the number of warp threads per inch
greatly exceeds the number per inch of weft. The illustration
shows a typical kind of three-leaf twill, double warp sacking.
All three-leaf twill sackings are
double in the warp, but four-leaf
sackings are single. They are
usually 27 in. wide, but other
widths are made.
The lower part of the illustration shows four repeats of the three-leaf twill, while the lines drawn to the plan of the fabric show that each line of the design is reproduced in the cloth by two warp threads. The weft is single, but each one is usually about four times the weight of the warp for the same length (about 8 ℔ warp and 32 ℔ weft). Large quantities of cotton sacks are made for flour, sugar and similar produce: these sacks are usually plain cloth, some woven circular in the loom, others made from the piece.
Large quantities of seamless bags or sacks for light substances are woven in the loom, but these are almost invariably made with what is termed the double plain weave, i.e. the cloth, although circular except at the end, is perfectly plain on both sides. Circular bags have been made both with three-leaf and four-leaf twills, but it is found much more convenient and economical to make the cloth for these kinds, and in most cases for all other types, in the piece, and then to make it up into sacks by one or other of the many types of sewing machines. The pieces are first cut up into definite lengths by special machinery, which may be perfectly automatic, or semiautomatic-usually the latter, as many thicknesses may be cut at the same time, each of the exact length. The lengths of cloth are then separately doubled up, the sides sewn by special sewing machines of the Laing or Union make (of which there are seven or eight different kinds for different types of bags), and the ends hemmed. It will thus be seen that the length required is twice the length of the sack plus the amount for hemming the mouth.
The sack is now ready for delivery, unless the name of the owner, some trade mark, or other particulars are required to appear on it. These particulars are printed on in one or more colours by the Kinmond and Kidd patent multicolour sack-printing machine.
The chief centres for these goods are Dundee and Calcutta, all varieties of sacks and bags being made in and around the former city. (T. Wo.)
SACKVILLE, GEORGE, 1st Viscount (1716–1785), generally remembered as Lord George Sackville or Lord George Germain, third son of Lionel Cranfield Sackville, 1st duke of Dorset, was born on the 26th of January 1716. Educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Dublin, he was gazetted captain in the 7th Cathcart’s Horse (now 6th Dragoon Guards) in 1737,
and three years later was transferred to Bragg’s regiment of foot (Gloucestershire Regiment) as lieutenant-colonel; immediately
afterwards the regiment sailed for active service on the
Rhine, and although it was not present at the battle of Dettingen,
its lieutenant-colonel was made brevet colonel and aide-de-camp
to the king. It was not until two years later that Sackville took
part in his first battle, Fontenoy. Wounded in the charge of
Cumberland’s infantry column, he was taken to the tent of King
Louis XV. to have his wound dressed. Released, by what means
does not appear, he was sent home to serve against the Pretender
in Scotland. He was given the colonelcy of the 20th (Lancashire
Fusiliers), but was too late to take part in the battle of Culloden.
In 1747–1748 he was again with the duke of Cumberland in the
Low Countries, and in 1749 was transferred to the cavalry,
receiving the colonelcy of the 7th (3rd) Irish Horse (Carabineers).
With this office he combined those of first secretary to his father,
the lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and Irish secretary of war, and a
seat in each of the two Houses of Commons at Westminster and
Dublin, winning at the same time the repute of being “the
gayest man in Ireland except his father.” In 1755 he was promoted
major-general, took an English command, and vacated
his Irish offices. In 1757 he was made lieutenant-general of the
ordnance, and transferred to a fourth colonelcy. In 1758, under
the duke of Marlborough, he shared in the ineffective raid on
Cancale Bay, and the troops, after a short sojourn in the Isle of
Wight, were sent to join the allied army of Duke Ferdinand of
Brunswick in Germany. Marlborough died shortly after they
landed, and Sackville succeeded him as commander-in-chief
of the British contingent. But no sooner had he taken over the
command than his haughty and domineering temper estranged
him both from his second-in-command, Lord Granby, and the
commander-in-chief, Prince Ferdinand. This culminated on the
day of Minden (August 1, 1758). The British infantry, aided
by some of the Hanoverians, had won a brilliant success, and
every man in the army looked to the British cavalry to charge
and to make it a decisive victory. But Sackville, in spite of
repeated orders from Prince Ferdinand, sullenly refused to allow
Granby’s squadrons to advance. The crisis passed, and the
victory remained an indecisive success. Popular indignation was
unbounded, and Sackville was dismissed from his offices. But
his courage, though impugned, was sufficient to make him press
for a court-martial, and a court at last assembled in 1760. This
pronounced him guilty of disobedience, and adjudged him “unfit
to serve his Majesty in any military capacity whatsoever.”
The sentence was executed with gratuitous harshness. It was
read out on parade to every regiment in the service, with a
homily attached, and placed on record in every regimental order
book. Further, it was announced in the Gazette that his Majesty
had expunged Sackville’s name from the roll of the Privy Council.
This, and Sackville’s own dogged perseverance, turned the scale
in his favour. No reverses to the British arms occurred to keep
alive the memory of his lost opportunity, and in 1763 his name
was restored to the list of the Privy Council. Hitherto without
party ties in parliament, in 1769 he allied himself with Lord
North. To this period belong the famous Junius Letters, with
the authorship of which Sackville was erroneously credited. In
1770, under the terms of a will, he assumed the name of Germain.
In the same year his coolness and courage in a duel with Captain
George Johnstone, M.P., assisted to rehabilitate him, and in
1775, having meantime taken an active part in politics, he became
secretary of state for the colonies in the North cabinet. Thus,
though still standing condemned as unfit for any military employment,
he exercised a powerful and unfortunate influence on the
military affairs of the nation. Some of the business of the war
department in those days fell to the colonial office, and Germain
was practically the director of the war for the suppression of the
revolt in the American colonies. What hopes of success there
were in such a struggle Germain and the North cabinet dissipated
by their misunderstanding of the situation and their friction
with the generals and the army in the theatre of war. But this
failure was not on the same footing as that of Minden, and in
spite of virulent party attacks, King George III., on the resignation of the North ministry, offered him a peerage. Sackville, in characteristic fashion, stipulated for a viscount, as otherwise he would be junior to his secretary, his lawyer and to Amherst, who had been page to his father. There was some opposition to his taking his seat in the House of Lords. But his health was failing and he withdrew from politics, spending his last years as a benevolent and autocratic country magnate. He died at
