These men, as has been truly said, saved their miserable guineas at the expense of their honesty and honour. The treatment to which he was subjected made a lasting impression on his mind. His very integrity increased his mortification at the dishonesty of those he had so generously trusted; his disposition—never a buoyant or cheerful one—was soured, and during the remainder of his life he was moody and mistrustful. While hundreds of manufacturers were accumulating colossal fortunes out of the results of Crompton’s skill and ingenuity, the man himself, while so abundantly enriching them, was not able to gather even the smallest grains of the golden harvest, and, but for his energy and frugality, might have lapsed into absolute poverty, a martyr of mechanical invention and another illustration of the scriptural paradox, “Poor, yet making many rich.”
OLDHAMS.
It was a bitter disappointment to Crompton to find that the promises so pleasant to the ear were broken to the hope, that he had, in fact, been tricked into giving up the invention that had cost him so many years of anxious thought and toil to a host of selfish manufacturers who were making fortunes out of his simple trust. He became moody, suspicious, and distrustful of everything and everybody; but if he doubted the world he never lost heart in himself. Deprived of his just reward, he removed from the Hall-in-the-Wood to Oldhams, a small cottage across the valley near Astley Bridge, in Sharples, and distant about a mile and a half from Bolton. Here he farmed a few acres, kept three or four cows, and, still adhering to the common Lancashire custom, combined the business of a farmer with that of a manufacturer, and in one of the upper chambers of his house erected his newly-constructed machine. Familiar with the principles of his mule, he was naturally more skilful in the working of it than others; his wife, too, was an expert in spinning, and the yarn they spun was the best and finest in the market, and brought the highest prices; it was supposed, therefore, that he must have made some improvements in his machine, and, as a consequence, he was again pestered with inquisitive visitors anxious to discover the secret of his success, when, to protect himself from the unwelcome intrusion, he is said to have contrived a secret fastening to the door in the upper storey where he worked at the mule.
About this time Crompton invented a new carding-engine, and, anxious to extend his operations, he set up as an employer of labour, but the result was not satisfactory, for the people he engaged to spin under him were continually being bribed to enter the service of other masters, who hoped in this way to gain a knowledge of his secrets, so that eventually he was obliged to fall back upon the labours of his own household, and broke up the carding-engine, remarking that “the devils should not have that.” He says:—
I pushed on, intending to have a good share in the spinning line, yet I found there was an evil which I had not foreseen and of much greater magnitude than giving up the machine, viz., that I must be always teaching green hands, employ none, or quit the country; it being believed that if I taught them they knew the business well, so that for years I had no choice but to give up spinning or quit my native land. I cut up my spinning machines for other purposes.
Whilst residing at Oldhams, Crompton received a visit from Sir (then Mr.) Robert Peel, the first baronet, his object being to offer the inventor a lucrative appointment in his own manufactory, with the prospect of a future partnership, but Crompton’s natural infirmity of temper and his quickness to take offence opposed a barrier to his own advancement. He had a prejudice against Peel on account of some imaginary affront,[51] and so the offer that might have led to his lasting comfort and prosperity was declined.