Apart from a statement of Highs that Kay’s wife told him of what had passed between her husband and Arkwright, there is only Kay’s testimony, which was not always convincing, to go upon, and clearly under the circumstances he was not likely to err in Arkwright’s favour. On the other hand, it is incredible that the two could have been associated as they were without Highs’ experiments having been mentioned, assuming that he had carried on any experiments. In view of the statements of Highs, this can hardly be doubted: there is nothing to suggest that he was deliberately untruthful. At the same time, this does not prove that Arkwright had not conceived the idea of spinning by rollers before his contact with Kay at Warrington. The difficult point to explain is why Arkwright sought out Kay at all, coupled with the fact that, from this time, he devoted his whole activity to the construction of the spinning-machine. The statement that previously he had been experimenting in mechanics, and that he sought out Kay for some purpose thus connected, does nothing but leave the difficulty unsolved.

The only other scrap of evidence regarding the question as to whether Arkwright did obtain Highs’ invention, was contained in a reference of Highs to a conversation he had with Arkwright at Manchester, when he charged him with having obtained it. Arkwright’s attitude, on this occasion, as described by Highs, was, however, as appropriate to a man with a clear conscience, who had no desire to enter into an unpleasant argument, as to a man who was guilty and wished to evade a charge.[348] One point that may be noticed is that as this conversation was said to have taken place about the time when Highs’ machine was exhibited in the Exchange, the date of the exhibition, as revealed by its advertisement, fixes the conversation one year nearer to the time when Arkwright took out his first patent than has always been supposed. On the side of Highs, the great difficulty is to explain why his claim was allowed to lie so long in abeyance, seeing that he was not without friends in Manchester, men, moreover, who, it may be assumed, would not have been slow to attack Arkwright’s patent had the slightest opportunity been offered.

On the evidence given at the third trial, not only as regards the invention of the rollers, but as regards the other questions at issue, no other decision was possible than one that involved the annulment of Arkwright’s patent, and it was arrived at without hesitation. It does not necessarily follow that the evidence was complete, and on one point, as already noticed, it probably was not. In an application for a new trial, made shortly afterwards, evidence regarding the crank and comb, similar to that obtained by Baines, and from the same source, was mentioned, and also evidence to rebut that given by Kay and Highs. The judges, however, were convinced that there was not sufficient ground for the application and in November, 1785, the patent was cancelled.[349]

After the trial, The Manchester Mercury, in a comment on the evidence, stated that it appeared from it, that the most material engines in Arkwright’s patent for preparing cotton were the cylinder carding-engine and the roving-engine. The first was so old that its origin could not be traced, and improvements had been added to it by Hargreaves, Whittaker, Wood and others, long before Arkwright claimed it. The roving-engine and the spinning-engine were one and the same thing, and the evidence proved that it was invented by Mr. Hayes of Leigh, although Arkwright had enjoyed a monopoly of it for fourteen years, while the real inventor was prevented by poverty from seeking redress.[350]

There is some truth in this view, but certainly not the whole truth. It must be recognised that neither Highs nor Arkwright was the first to conceive the principle of attenuating cotton by the roller-method. That honour undoubtedly belongs to Lewis Paul, and the principle was crudely stated in the specification[351] of the patent he obtained, and embodied in the machinery he constructed, thirty years before either of them had begun to experiment. But how far were these men or either of them indebted to Paul for knowledge of the method? Taking into account the lives and the characters of the two men, Arkwright was more likely to have been acquainted with it than Highs. In his peregrinations about the country he had the opportunity, and with his unbounded push and curiosity it is fairly certain that, if anything could be known of it, Arkwright was the man to know it. Indeed, if Kay’s account of the conversation he had with Arkwright at Warrington may be trusted, he went far to avow the fact.[352]

It cannot be said, of course, that Highs had not heard of the method, but in his case it was less likely and, as mentioned in connection with the jenny, he was just the type of man in whose mind ideas were likely to originate anew.[353] About Arkwright there was not the same suggestion of originality. He was just the type of man, however, who, having got an inkling of Paul’s method, and then gaining a knowledge of Highs’ experiments through Kay, would carry the roller method to a practicable issue. Whether the idea was his own, or whether he was carrying the work of Paul, or Highs, or both, it is certain that it was with Arkwright that the method of spinning by rollers came into use, and of the carding machinery, for which again, as we have seen, some credit was due to Paul, the same may be said.

In certain respects Arkwright was undoubtedly a great man. He became prominent when ideas of invention were fermenting in men’s minds, and even if all that was affirmed at the third trial of the obligations he owed to others were true, somehow, in his hands, their achievements were carried a long step towards perfection, and were collated into a successful system. From the early cotton industry, against great odds, he gained wealth; perhaps that was his supreme aim; even so, what he gained was a trifle compared with the pecuniary value of his achievements. On the whole, perhaps it was just as well that Arkwright’s career as patentee concluded when it did. As we have seen, by 1780 he had several concerns under his control; also, in 1785, he had great schemes on hand in Scotland. Baines informs us that “he contemplated entering into the most extensive mercantile transactions, and buying up all the cotton in the world, in order to make an enormous profit by the monopoly.”[354] Had Arkwright maintained his position for a little longer, his name might have been handed down to posterity, not only in connection with the invention of spinning by rollers, and with the early factory system, but also as the earliest of the great modern Trust magnates.

CHAPTER V
THE MULE AND THE RISE OF A NEW COTTON
MANUFACTURE

I

To combine in a superior spinning-machine, the most important principles of those with which the names of James Hargreaves and Richard Arkwright are associated, is the task accomplished by Samuel Crompton. This machine was the “mule,” and whatever doubt there may be as to the real inventor of the jenny and the rollers, no serious doubt has ever been cast upon the title of Crompton as the inventor of the mule. In the letters printed in the following pages he informs us how, where, why, and when he invented the machine, and some indication is given of its effects upon the development of a new cotton manufacture. In addition, we have a vivid account of his efforts, and of the measures taken, to obtain adequate recompense for his ingenuity as inventor. The letters are so complete in themselves that, in many respects, little needs to be added to them. But after a lapse of one hundred and forty years from the date when Crompton began to invent his machine, it should be possible to place it more adequately in its relations than it was when the letters were written.