» M 



A. D. 1797. 401 



lypy — The manufaduring intereft of Great Britain fuflained a very- 

 heavy, and (as it has fince turned out) perhaps an irreparable, lofs in 

 the death of Mr. Stephen Dohgnon, tlie ingenious inventor of a highly- 

 improved kind of weaving machinery, adapted to the manufadure of 

 all kinds of fluffs, from the coarfcfh to the fined, and from the nar- 

 roweft to the broadeft. The looms may be wrought by the power of 

 wind, water, fleam, weights, or animal ftrength ; and they differ from 

 all other weaving machinery in poire.'Iing (if I may be allowed the 

 phrafe) an infi:in6tive capacity of knowing when any thread of the 

 warp or weft is broken, in which cafe the loom, wherein fuch an ac- 

 cident has happened, ceafes its motion, while the others, adluated by 

 the fame moving power, proceed in their work, thereby calling upon 

 the perfon attending it to repair the damage, which being done, it im- 

 ■ mediately goes on as before. Six of thefe looms may with eafe be at- 

 tended by a girl of fifteen years of age, or an infirm or aged perfon of 

 either lex. 



This invention poffeffes the important advantage over moft other fpe- 

 cies of machinery for the abridgement of labour, that the general ufe of 

 it can give no alarm to the people engaged in the manual fabrication of the 

 goods which may be made by it, if the art is laid open to the public : for 

 a weaver, who has been accuftomed to work upon one loom, may, as 

 the expenfe of the machinery is moderate, eafily fet up fix looms, to be 

 wrought by weights or any other moving power, and immediately fur- 

 nifli fix tinies as much cloth at half the former price of weaving, and 

 earn three times as much as before. His increafed profits may very 

 foon enable him to fet up fix more, to be attended by his wife or his 

 children ; and fo he may proceed, till he is niafler of a great fa dory. 

 Thus the ufe of this machinery, inftead of threatening them with lofs 

 of employment, may, in the very firfl inflance, be a blefling, and a 

 fund of wealth to the Britifh operative weavers, who need only fuch ai- 

 fiftance to counterad the enormous expenfe of living to enable them to 

 become the manufaB.iirers for the whole zvorld. 



This moft ufeful invention, which crowns and completes what Ark- 

 w^-ight's machinery began, would ere now have enabled the Britifh man- 

 nfadurer to bring cotton from its raw ftate, as it dropt from the gin- 

 ning engine, to a finifned web fit for immediate ufe, all by the agency 

 of quick and cheap-working machinery, had the inventor been fpared 

 to eftablifli his works on a fcale fufficiently extenfive. But it plealed 

 God to take him off (February 7'" 1797) foon after he had brought his 

 machinery to a ftate of perfection latisfadory to himfelf. And this 

 friend of mankind, who, if he had flouriHied in antient times, would 

 have been honoured with ftatues and altars, and been ranked with Mer- 

 curius Trifmegiftus, Minerva, Ceres, Melcartus, and other beneficent 



Vol. IV. 3 E 



