COTTON-SPINNING 
625 
Since plenty of raw material was available, the manufacture AD 376 
advanced rapidly’ to meet the enlarging demand for cheap 
cotton cloth. It is to be noticed, however, that the trade 
was liable to serious interruptions; both for the materials ont fe 
. : erruptions 
used, and for access to the markets in which the cloth was of trade 
sold, the Lancashire manufacturers were dependent on foreign grpegtrous 
commerce ; and a breach of mercantile intercourse might dis- 
organise the whole of the industry®. This occurred to some 
extent from the decline of the American demand for Man- 
chester goods during the War of Independence; as a result 
there was considerable distress among the hands employed. 
They were inclined to attribute it to the introduction of 
machinery and there was a good deal of rioting® and destruction 
of spinning-jennies in parts of Lancashire. Apart from these 
periods of distress, however, the trade increased by leaps and 
bounds, and it was alleged in 1806 that a third part in value 
of all our exports was sent abroad in the form of cotton goods. 
! The first phase of development was the extension of the Lancashire cotton 
trade at the expense of woollen and linen : * From the year 1770 to 1788 a complete 
change had gradually been effected in the spinning of yarns—that of wool dis- 
appearing altogether and that of linen was also nearly gone—cotton, cotton, cotton 
was become the almost universal material for employment, the hand-wheels, with 
the exception of one establishment were all thrown into lumber-rooms, the yarn 
was spun on common jeunnies, the carding for all numbers up to 40 hanks in the 
pound, was done on carding engines; but the finer numbers of 60 to 80 were still 
carded by hand, it being a general opinion that machine carding would never 
answer for fine numbers. In weaving no great alteration had taken place during 
these 18 years, save the introduction of the fly-shuttle—a change in the woollen 
looms to fustians and calico, and the linen nearly gone except the few fabrics in 
which there was a mixture of cotton. To the best of my recollection there was no 
increase of looms during this period—but rather a decrease.” Radcliffe, Origin of 
the New System of Manufacture, 61. 
2 For an instance of this in 1653, see S. P. D. Inter. Lxvmr. 4, Mar. 20, 16534. 
The commissioners of customs had seized twelve bags which had been imported 
from Dunkirk contrary to the Navigation Acts and the “trade was in danger fo 
return from whence by industry ‘twas gained.” See also below, pp. 686, 689. 
8 These disturbances called forth the Act 22 Geo. III. c. 40, which complains of 
the “destroying the manufactures of wool, silk, linen and cotton, and the materials, 
tools, tackle and other utensils prepared for or used therein.” There were riots 
at Hunslet in Yorkshire when the military were called out (Cookson’s Evidence, 
Reports, 1806, m1., printed pag. 81), but these were probably directed against 
shearing frames, not against jennies (see below, p. 662). There had also been riots 
on the part of the spinners in 1753, and Kay was forced to leave Bury, as he had 
been driven out of Colchester in 1738 on account of his shuttle, and from Leeds on 
account of his power-loom in 1745. Woodcroft, op. cit. p. 4. See also T., Letters 
on the utility, p. 20, note. On the hostility to machinery in 1824—30 see S. J. 
Chapman. Lancashire Cotton Industry, 78.