(having Mr.
Need of Nottingham and Mr. Strutt of Derby as partners,) for spinning with
rollers.

Arkwright was born in the humblest class of life at Preston in Lancashire. At
"Proud Preston" he first followed the business of a barber, then became a
dealer in hair, travelling the country to collect it, and selling it prepared
to the wigmakers. Having accumulated a little money, he set about
endeavouring to invent perpetual motion, and, in the search, invented, or
sufficiently adapted and improved, a cotton spinning apparatus to induce two
practical men like the Messrs. Need and Strutt to join him. His claim to
original invention has been disputed. That he was not the first inventor is
clear, and it is equally clear that he must have been a man of very
considerable and original mechanical genius.

With Arkwright's patent, the rise of the cotton trade began.

In 1786, Mr. Samuel Crompton's invention came into use, called the mule
jenny, because partaking of the movements of both Hargreaves' and Arkwright's
inventions, by which, for the first time, yarn fine enough for muslins could
be spun. Crompton did not, probably could not, afford to take out a patent,
but worked his mule jenny with his own hands in an attic at Bolton, where he
carried on a small spinning and weaving business. Already, in 1812, there
were between four and five million spindles on this principle, but the
inventor continued poor and almost unknown. Mr. Kennedy (author of a brief
memoir of Crompton), and Mr. Lee, raised 500 pounds for him by subscription,
and he afterwards received a grant of 8000 pounds from Parliament, which his
sons lost in business. Mr. Kennedy again exerted himself and raised an
annuity of 63 pounds, which the unfortunate inventor only lived two years to
enjoy.

The spinning machines threatened to out-travel the weaving powers of the
country, when, in 1785, Dr. Cartwright, a clergyman of Kent, with no previous
knowledge of weaving, after an expenditure of 40,000 pounds, invented the
power-loom, for which he afterwards received a grant of 10,000 pounds from
Parliament. To supply our cotton manufactures, there were imported in 1849
1,900,000 bales of 330lbs. each. Of this quantity, 1,400,000 bales came from
the United States.

The Manchester manufacturers have lately raised a small fund by subscription,
and sent out Mr. Mackay, a barrister, author of The Western World, to examine
and report on the prospects of obtaining c