Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 02.djvu/96

Arkwright to preserve to him the full benefit of his invention for the remainder of the term yet to come in the last patent.’ The one patent would expire in 1783 and the other in 1789. Although the statement was circulated among members of parliament, no further action was taken by him to influence the legislature in the matter. In 1785 he, however, made a new effort to enforce the validity of his second patent, and in the court of Common Pleas an action against its infringement, where the plea of insufficiency of specification was set up, was decided in his favour. This verdict greatly alarmed the cotton-spinners, for, owing to the verdict of 1781, the unauthorised use of the patent had grown so greatly that in 1785 it was calculated that thirty thousand persons were employed in establishments set up in defiance of it, the capital expended on buildings being about 300,000l. Several of the manufacturers, therefore, combined in self-defence, and obtained from the lord chancellor a writ of scire facias for a new trial. The case was tried in the court of King's Bench before Mr. Justice Buller and a special jury, 25 June 1785, when for the first time Arkwright's claim to the invention was disputed. The points on which the jury had to decide were stated by the judge to be three: ‘1. Is the invention new? 2. Is it invented by the defendant? 3. Was it sufficiently described in the specification?’ To answer any of these questions in the negative was of course fatal to the patent. The judge summed up unmistakably for the crown against Arkwright on every point, and the jury without a moment's hesitation brought in their verdict for the crown. On 10 Nov. Arkwright moved for a rule to show cause why there should not be a new trial, alleging that he had new evidence to contradict that adduced against the originality of the invention; but the application was refused, the mere ability to give more evidence not being regarded as a sufficient reason for the rule. On the 14th of the same month judgment was given to cancel the letters patent.

For deficiency in the specification no amount of new evidence could atone, and the judge was persuaded that on this point as well as the others Arkwright ‘had not a leg to stand upon.’ It was proved that Arkwright had given directions that the specification should ‘be as obscure as the nature of the case would admit;’ but besides this he had introduced into it articles intended to render it unintelligible, and some of which, if put into operation, would inevitably have spoiled the cotton. The deficiency of specification he had also in his statement of his ‘Case’ in 1782 practically admitted, though asserting that, so far from intending to perpetrate ‘a fraud upon his country,’ he was ‘anxiously desirous of preserving to his native country the full benefit of his inventions.’ It is to be presumed, however, that he had more reason to dread infringements of his patents at home than abroad; and as this was of itself sufficient reason for his desire to make the specification obscure or misleading, it is not absolutely necessary to suppose either that he wished to utilise to his own special advantage improvements which were not his own invention, or that he designed to preserve to himself the benefits of his patents beyond the legal period of fourteen years.

In regard to the originality of the invention the opponents of Arkwright sought to prove that the whole series of machines included in the patent were stolen by Arkwright from others, his sole title to originality being the combination of them into one machine. This implied the denial of his right to the spinning patent of 1769, which had expired in 1783, but was practically continued to him by the patent of 1775. In support of their allegation in reference to this patent the opponents of Arkwright relied chiefly on two witnesses, Kay, the watchmaker, who had made the models for Arkwright, and Thomas Highs or Hayes, a reedmaker at Leigh, whom Kay asserted to be the original inventor of the models. The evidence of Kay was tainted by the fact that he was confessedly guilty of a fraud in revealing to Arkwright the secret of Highs, that he had fled from Arkwright when threatened with a charge of felony, and that he had in conversation represented himself to be the author of the invention. Further, it does not appear that he was ever treated by Arkwright otherwise than as a mere workman, which may of course have been owing to the superior astuteness and force of character of the latter, although it is scarcely compatible with the supposition that he was indebted to Kay for the whole secret of the invention. The evidence of Kay was confirmed by that of his wife in so far as concerned the assertion that he had made models for Highs. Kay had undoubtedly been employed by Highs to make models, but this does not render it impossible that Arkwright, having some previous acquaintance with Kay at Leigh, employed him at Warrington simply on the ground of this acquaintance, and because, wishing to carry on his experiments secretly, it was easier to do so at a distance from Bolton. The evidence of Highs was on several important points both obscure and