[300] Ibid.
[301] Manchester Mercury, 18th June 1771.
[302] Guest, British Cotton Manufacture, pp. 94, 198.
[303] Guest, British Cotton Manufacture, p. 203.
[304] Ibid., p. 203. It will be noticed that in this reference, as in others of the time, the name of the inventor is given as Hayes. I have used the name Highs in the text as he has become best known to posterity by that name. Guest states that it is written Highs in the parish register (ibid., p. 18).
[305] According to Ogden, who, it will be remembered, published his Description of Manchester in 1783, the aim of Highs’ machine was to produce a yarn suitable for warps. After referring to the introduction of the jenny and the risings against it, which called forth an address from Dorning Rasbotham, a magistrate who lived near Bolton, in which he urged that it would be to the interest of the workpeople to encourage jennies, Ogden proceeds: “This seasonable address produced a general acquiescence in the use of these engines, to a certain number of spindles, but they were soon multiplied to three or four times the quantity; nor did the invention of ingenious mechanics rest here, for the demand for twist for warps was greater as weft grew plenty, therefore engines were soon constructed for this purpose: one in particular was purchased at a price which was a considerable reward for the contriver’s ingenuity, and exposed at the Exchange, where he spun on it, and all that were disposed to see the operation were admitted gratis” (pp. 90-91).
[306] Guest, History of the Cotton Manufacture, pp. 13-14, 53-54. also British Cotton Manufacture.
[307] “Ce que Hargreaves trouva, beaucoup d’autres l’avaient cherché en même temps que lui.... C’est ainsi que Hargreaves put être accusé de n’être pas le premier ou le seul auteur de son invention” (Mantoux, La Révolution au XVIIIe Siècle, p. 210).
[308] Guest, British Cotton Manufacture, p. 195.
[309] Ibid., p. 211.