has been stated* that the number of spindles, constantly in motion, was about six millions, and the power by which they were moved, equal to that of 10,572 horses. In another statement, however, drawn up by Mr. Kennedy,† it is calculated, that in 1817, (when the importation of raw cotton was not nearly so great as in 1824,) the number of spindles was 6,645,833, and the moving power equal to that of 20,768 horses. Some idea may be formed of the growth of this manufacture, since the year 1769, by contrasting the astonishing number of threads which it would thus appear are spun every day now, with the 50,000 which were all that were produced then.

6

The produce of all this machinery, is, as may be supposed, immense. "In the present improved state of this, (the weaving,) process," says the writer of the article already referred to in the Encyclopedia Britannica,' "one person, generally a girl, attends to two looms, the weekly produce of which is from seven to nine pieces of cloth, of seven-eighths wide, and twenty-eight yards long." "A single factory, in Manchester," says Mr. Guest, writing in 1828, "and that not of first rate magnitude, receives the raw cotton, and turns out a web of cloth varying in width from three quarters of a yard to a yard and a quarter, of forty miles in length, every week." In 1750, it has been calculated, that the whole amount of the cotton manufacture of the kingdom did not exceed the annual value of £200,000; it is now considered, on good grounds, to amount to fully thirty-six millions of pounds sterling, per annum.‡ Sir Richard Arkwright states, in his Case,' published in 1781, that the capital then invested in buildings and machinery, by those engaged in this trade, amounted to £200,000; it is calculated to amount, in Lancashire alone, which possesses about four fifths of the trade, to £8,000,000.§ In the year ending on the 1st of May, 1818, 105,000,000 of yards of cotton cloth,

now,

*

Supp. to Encyc. Brit., art. Cotton Manufacture.

+ Manchester Memoirs, Second Series, vol. iii.

Edin. Review, No. 91.

§ Baines's Lancashire, vol. ii. p. 134.

of all sorts, were manufactured in Glasgow, and the neighborhood, of which the value was about £5,200,000.* Of this, about one half was exported. The value of the cotton cloths, twist, and yarn, exported from Great Britain, for some years past, has been on an average about £16,000,000, leaving, of course, about £20,000,000 worth, for home consumption. The export trade in cotton, is now fully three times that in woollens, the manufacture of which, used to be the great staple of the kingdom.

The extraordinary perfection, to which every part of the cotton manufacture has now been carried, is another result, for which we are entirely indebted to the introduction of machinery. Especially since the invention of the mule, a compound of the jenny and the water-frame, about the year 1790, the muslins manufactured in England have been every year attaining a greater fineness of fabric, and are now rapidly approaching to a rivalry, even in this respect, with the most exquisite productions of the East. As an illustration of the state of advancement, to which the spinning process has been brought, it may be mentioned, that Mr. John Pollard, of Manchester, spun, in 1792, on the mule, no fewer than 278 hanks of yarn, forming a thread of 233,520 yards, or upwards of 132 miles in length, from a single pound of raw cotton."+ The diminution in the price of the manufactured article, which has been produced by the successive improvements in the cotton machinery, is equally extraordinary. Yarn of what is called No. 100, which, even in 1786, after its price had been greatly reduced, by the cancelling of Arkwright's patent, sold for thirty-eight shillings sterling, has fallen in price, every year since that time, and is now to be had for three or four shillings sterling. The raw material is now, indeed, brought from India, and manufactured into cloths in England, which, after being reexported to that country, are actually sold there cheaper ** Encyc. Brit. Supp. vol. iii. p. 404. + Edinburgh Review, No. 91, p.15. Encyc. Brit. Supp. vol. iii. p. 398.

than the produce of the native looms. There can hardly be a more striking proof than this, of the triumph of machinery.

Finally, it has been calculated, that, while the number of persons employed in the cotton manufacture, in 1767, did not probably amount to 30,000, the number of those now engaged in its different departments can hardly be less than a million. Yet, "in some branches of the business," it has been stated, "the spinning, in particular, such is the economy of labor introduced by the use of machinery, that one man and four children will spin as much yarn, as was spun by six hundred women and girls fifty years ago."†

CHAPTER XIV.

Invention of the Power-Loom:-Dr. Cartwright. William Edwards,-Notice of Bridges. Robert Walker.

MACHINERY, in addition to being used in the spinning, is now, as we noticed in our last chapter, extensively applied to the weaving, of cotton; and we now propose to give a short account of the Rev. Dr. CARTWRight, to whose ingenuity this great national manufacture is indebted for the introduction of its crowning improvement. We have been supplied with the materials of the following sketch from a quarter which enables us to supply some original and authentic information.

Edmund Cartwright was born in the year 1743, and was the fourth son of William Cartwright, Esq., of Marnham, in Nottinghamshire. One of his elder brothers was the late Major John Cartwright, so well known for his steady devotion through a long life to what he believed to *Edinburgh Review, No. 91.

Baines's Lancashire, vol. i. p. 119.

be the cause of truth and patriotism, and for many public and private virtues which commanded the respect even of those who differed most widely from him in politics. Being intended for the Church, Edmund, at the usual age, was entered of University College, Oxford, whence he was subsequently elected a Fellow of Magdalen College. He early distinguished himself, by his literary attainments, an evidence of which he gave to the world, while yet a young man, by the publication of a small volume of Poems, which was very favorably received. About the year 1774, also, he became a contributor to the Monthly Review; for which he continued to write, during the following ten years.

For the first forty years of his life, he had never given any attention to the subject of mechanics; although, as was recollected long afterwards, his genius for invention, in that department, had once displayed itself, while at his father's house, during one of his college vacations, in some improvements which he made on an agricultural machine which happened to attract his notice. But this exercise of his ingenuity, being out of the line of his pursuits at that time, led to no other attempts of the kind, nor to any further application of his thoughts to such matters.

The circumstances, which, many years after this, led him to the invention of his weaving machine, or powerloom, as it is commonly called, cannot be better described than they have been by himself in the following statement, -first printed in the Supplement to the Encyclopedia Britannica. "Happening," he says, " to be at Matlock, in the summer of 1784, I fell in company with some gentlemen of Manchester, when the conversation turned on Arkwright's spinning-machinery. One of the company observed, that as soon as Arkwright's patent expired, so many mills would be erected, and so much cotton spun, that hands would never be found to weave it. To this observation, I replied, that Arkwright must then set his wits to work to invent a weaving-mill. This brought on a conversation upon the subject, in which the Manchester gentlemen unanimously agreed that the thing was impracticable; and in defence of their opinion, they ad

duced arguments which I was certainly incompetent to answer, or even to comprehend, being totally ignorant of the subject, having never, at the time, seen a person weave. I controverted, however, the impracticability of the thing by remarking that there had been lately exhibited in London, an automaton figure, which played at chess. Now you will not assert, gentlemen, said I, that it is more difficult to construct a machine that shall weave, than one that shall make all the variety of moves that are required in that complicated game.

Some time afterwards, a particular circumstance recalling this conversation to my mind, it struck me that, as in plain weaving, according to the conception I then had of the business, there could be only three movements, which were to follow each other in succession, there could be little difficulty in producing and repeating them. Full of these ideas, I immediately employed a carpenter and smith to carry them into effect. As soon

as the machine was finished, I got a weaver to put in the warp, which was of such materials as sailcloth is usually made of. To my great delight, a piece of cloth, such as it was, was the produce. As I had never before turned my thoughts to mechanism, either in theory or practice, nor had seen a loom at work, nor knew any thing of its construction, you will readily suppose that my first loom must have been a most rude piece of machinery. The warp was laid perpendicularly; the reed fell with a force of at least half a hundred weight, and the springs which threw the shuttle were strong enough to have thrown a congreve rocket. In short, it required the strength of two powerful men to work the machine, at a slow rate, and only for a short time. Conceiving, in my simplicity, that I had accomplished all that was required, I then secured what I thought a most valuable property, by a patent, 4th of April, 1785. This being done, I then condescended to see how other people wove; and you will guess my astonishment, when I compared their easy modes of operation with mine. Availing myself, however, of what I then saw, I made a loom, in its general principles nearly as they are now made. But it was not