Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/604

Rh and that the verdict was given on the sole ground of the description of the machinery in the specification being obscure and indistinct. Arkwright admitted that this was partly the case ; adding, however, that the obscurity had been intended only to prevent foreigners from pirating his inventions. On any other principle, indeed, his conduct would be inexplicable ; for, as his inventions were fully known to hundreds of workmen in his own employment, and as he had sold the privilege of using them to many persons in different parts of the country, it is impossible to suppose that he could either have expected or intended to conceal his inventions after the expiration of his patent. In consequence of the result of this trial, Arkwright and his partners prepared a &quot;case,&quot; setting forth the value of the inventions, and the circumstances which had led to the indistinctness complained of in the specification, which they at one time intended to lay before Parliament, as the foundation of an application for an Act for their relief. But this intention was subsequently abandoned ; and in a new trial (Arkwright v. Nightingale), which took place in the Court of Common Pleas on the 17th of February 1785, Lord Loughborough, the presiding judge, having expressed himself favourably with respect to the sufficiency of the specification, a verdict was given for Arkwright. On this, as on the former trial, nothing was stated against the originality of the invention. In consequence of these conflicting verdicts, the whole matter was brought, by a writ of scire facias, before the Court of King s Bench, to have the validity of the patent finally settled. And it was not till this third trial, which took place before Mr Justice Buller and a special jury, on the 25th of June 1785, that Arkwright s claim to the inventions which formed the subject of the patent was disputed. To support this new allegation, Arkwright s opponents brought forward, for the first time, Highs, or Hayes, a reed-maker at Bolton. He stated that he had invented a machine for spinning by rollers previously to 1768; that he had employed the watchmaker Kay to make a model of that machine; and Kay svas produced to prove that he had communicated that model to Ark wright, and that that was the real source of all his pre tended inventions. Having no idea that any attempt was to be made at so late a period to overturn the patent on this new ground, Arkwright s counsel were not prepared with evidence to repel this statement; but it was stated by Mr Sergeant Adair, on a motion for a new trial on the 10th of November of the same year, that he was furnished with affidavits contradicting, in the most pointed manner, the evidence that had been given by Kay and others with respect to the originality of the invention. The court, however, refused to grant a new trial, on the ground that, whatever might be the fact as to the question of originality, the deficiency in the specification was enough to sustain the verdict. But, independently altogether of the state ments made on the motion for a new trial, the improba bility of the story told by Highs and Kay seems glaring and obvious. Highs states in his evidence that he had accused Arkwright of getting possession of his invention by means of Kay so early as 1769, or about that period. Where, then, it may be asked, was this Mr Highs ever since that period, and particularly during the first trial in July 1781, and the second in February 1785 1 Living in Lancashire, associating with manufacturers, and in the habit, as he declares in his evidence, of making machines for them, he could not fail to be speedily informed with respect to the vast importance and value of the inven tion Arkwright had purloined from him. It is impossible but he must have been acquainted with the efforts that were making by the Lancashire manufacturers to set aside the patents ; and is it to be supposed, had he really been the inventor, that he would have remained for sixteen years a passive spectator of what was going forward 1 that he would have allowed Arkwright to accumulate a princely fortune by means of his inventions while he remained in a state of poverty 1 or that he would have withheld his evidence when the manufacturers attempted to wrest from Arkwright what he had so unjustly appropriated 1 A single hint from Highs or Kay would, had their story been well founded, have sufficed to force Arkwright to give them a share of his profits, or would have furnished the manufacturers with the means they were so anxious to obtain, of procuring the immediate dissolution of the patents. But it has never been alleged that Arkwright took any pains to conciliate these persons ; on the contrary, he treated Highs with the most perfect indifference, and not only dismissed Kay from his service, but even threat ened to prosecute him on a charge of felony. The sup position that persons with so many and such overpowering temptations to speak out, and with no inducement of any sort to be silent, should have kept so important a secret for so many years is almost incredible ; and it is infinitely more consistent with probability to suppose that the story of Highs and Kay had been manufactured for the occasion than that it was really true. None of Arkwright s most intimate friends ever had the slightest doubt with respect to the originality of his invention. Some of them, indeed, could speak to the circumstances from their own personal knowledge; and their testimony was uniform and consistent. On their introduction, Arkwright's machines were regarded by the lower classes as even more adverse to their interests than those of Hargraves, and repeated attacks were made on the factories built for them. But however extraordinary it may appear, it was amongst the manufacturers that the greatest animosity existed against Arkwright ; and it required all the prudence for which he was so remarkable to enable him to triumph over the powerful combination that was formed against him. At the outset of the business they unanimously refused to purchase his yarn ; and when his partners, Messrs Strutt and Need, had commenced a manufacture of calicoes, the manufac turers strenuously opposed a bill to exempt calicoes from a discriminating duty of 3d. a yard laid on them over and above the ordinary duty of 3d. by an old Act of Parliament. Luckily, however, the manufacturers failed of their object ; and, in 1774, an Act of Parliament was obtained (14 Geo. III. cap. 72) for the encouragement of the cotton manu facture, in which fabrics made of cotton are declared to have been lately introduced, and are allowed to be used as &quot; a lawful and laudable manufacture ;&quot; the duty of 6d. the square yard on such cottons as are printed or stained being at the same time reduced to 3d. But this disgraceful spirit of animosity, which must, had it been successful, have proved as injurious to the interests of the manufac turers as to those of Arkwright, did not content itself with actions in the courts of law, or a factious opposition to useful measures in Parliament, but displayed itself in a still more striking and unjustifiable manner. A large factory, erected by Arkwright at Birkacre, near Chorlcy, in Lancashire, was destroyed by a mob collected from the adjacent country, in the presence of a powerful body of police and military, without any one of the civil authorities requiring them to interfere to prevent so scandalous an outrage. Fortunately, however, not for himself only, tut for his country and the world, every corner of which has been benefited by his inventions, Arkwright triumphed over every opposition. The same ingenuity, skill, and good sense, which had originally enabled him to invent his machine and get it introduced, enabled him to overcome 