Religion had widened out her views, and now denominations heretofore unheard of had arisen, and churches and chapels were multiplying in every community. Some feeble attempts were being made for popular education; but the press was almost the only means then at command, and that, whilst so many of the poorer classes could neither read nor write, was at best but of small avail. But there was a future opening out when much of the intellectual darkness--which had so long prevailed, not only in Lancashire, but all over the land--should become a thing of the past, and the workman should cease from being a mere machine and become an educated and enlightened citizen. Nothing but the utter want of knowledge of the simplest elements of political economy could justify or account for the manner in which each of the great inventions which were to bring about such gigantic results were received; there was scarcely one of the great improvements of the age which was not, on its introduction, opposed by disorder and riot by the very people who were in the long-run to be most benefited by its adoption. Nevertheless, the close of this century witnessed a tremendous progress in the direction which led to the results which placed the trade of Lancashire in the position which it ultimately attained. [Footnote 223: "Through England on a Side-saddle," by Celia Fiennes; London, 1888. The date ascribed to this journey is the time of William and Mary. This, strictly speaking, is in the last decade of the seventeenth century, but it is near enough to the eighteenth century to serve as an illustration.] [Footnote 224: See article by Mr. W. Harrison in the _Lanc. and Ches. Hist. Soc._, vol. iv.] [Footnote 225: These roads were not cart-roads, but intended for horse and foot passengers, and in Lancashire were paved with narrow blocks of millstone grit, which are still in places to be seen, the centre deeply worn by the tread of the horses.] [Footnote 226: Another, A.D. 1766.] [Footnote 227: See Mr. Harrison's List of Turnpike Roads (_Lanc. and Ches. Ant. Soc._, x.).] [Footnote 228: This invention is by some attributed to John Wyatt, of Birmingham, but recent research gives the credit to Lewis Paul. (See Espinasse's "Lancashire Worthies.")] [Footnote 229: Some authorities assert that Arkwright's mill in Nottingham was built prior to Hargreaves'.] [Footnote 230: He did not, as has been frequently stated, die in poverty. He left property worth £4,000.] [Footnote 231: See Guest's "Compendious History"; Baines's "History of Cotton Manufacture"; Espinasse's "Lancashire Worthies," etc.] [Footnote 232: _Quarterly Review_, No. 213, p. 64.] [Footnote 233: Kennedy's "Brief Memoir of Crompton"; see also French's "The Life and Times of Samuel Crompton," and Espinasse's "Lancashire Worthies."] [Footnote 234: Article by Mr. W. E. A. Axon, _Lanc. and Ches. Ant. Soc._, vol. iv.] [Illustration] CHAPTER XII. THE DAWN OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.