I. AND MILLWRIGHT. 325 



we speak, the people of the country were comparatively 

 poor manufacturers as well as landowners. In Maccles- 

 lield and the neighbourhood, where the inventions of 

 men sucli as Brindley have issued in so extraordinary 

 a development of wealth, the operations of trade were 

 as yet in their infancy, and had numerous obstructions 

 and difficulties to contend against. Perhaps the greatest 

 difficulty of all was the absence of those facilities for 

 communicating between one district and another, without 

 which the existence of trade is simply impossible ; but we 

 shall shortly find Brindley also entering upon this great 

 work of opening up the internal communications of the 

 country, with an extraordinary degree of ability and 

 success. 



By the middle of last century, Macclesfield and the 

 neighbouring towns were gradually rising out of the 

 small button-trade, and aiming at greater things in the 

 \\av of manufacture. In 1755 Mr. N. Pattison of Lon- 

 don, Mr. John Clayton, and a few other gentlemen, 

 entered into a partnership to build a new silk-mill at 

 Congleton, in Cheshire, on a larger scale than had yet 

 been attempted in that neighbourhood. Brindley was 

 employed to execute the water-wheel and the com- 

 moner sort of mill- work about the building ; but the 

 smaller wheels and the more complex parts of the ma- 

 chinery, with which it was not supposed Brindley could 

 he acquainted, were entrusted to a master joiner and 

 millwright, named Johnson, who also superintended the 

 progress of the whole work. The superintendent re- 

 quired I >r 5 1 idley to work after his mere verbal directions, 

 without 1 1 1 e a i d of any plan ; and Brindley was not even 

 allowed to inspect the models of the machinery required 

 for the proposed mill. He thus worked at a great disad- 

 vantage, and the operations connected with the construc- 

 tion of the intended machinery were very shortly found in 

 a state of great confusion. The proprietors had reason 

 to suspect that their superintendent was not equal to the 



