Wealth flowed in upon him with a full stream from his skilfully managed concern. For several years he fixed the price of cotton twist, all other spinners conforming to his prices.... In 1786 Arkwright was appointed High Sheriff of Derbyshire ... and [later] received the honour of knighthood. CROMPTON’S MULE (Ibid., p. 199) “In regard to the mule, the date of its being first completed was in the year 1799: at the end of the following year I was under the necessity of making it public, or destroying it, as it was not in my power to keep it and work it; and to destroy it was too painful a task, having been four and a half years at least, wherein every moment of time and power of mind as well as expense, which my other employment would permit, were devoted to this one end, the having good yarn to weave; so that to destroy it, I could not.” THE BANKING-HOUSE OF COUTTS & CO. (Sir W. Forbes, _Memoirs of a Banking-House_, Ed., Chambers, 1860) The founder of the Edinburgh house of business ... was Patrick Coutts, the fourth son of Alexander Coutts, provost of Montrose (p. 1) ... he carried on business in Edinburgh as a merchant at least as early as the year 1696. The books are kept in Scots money and very neatly and distinctly written. He appears to have been a general merchant, whose transactions were considerably extended, for in his books there are accounts of mercantile adventures to New York and Pennsylvania, to Amsterdam, to France and to the Canaries.... He left three sons, John, James and Christian ... (John) engaged in mercantile concerns in Edinburgh in the year 1723.... Their business was dealing in corn, buying and selling goods on commissions, and the negotiation of bills of exchange in London, Holland, France, Italy, Spain and Portugal. The negotiation of bills of exchange formed at that period a considerable part of the business of Edinburgh; for there were then no country banks.... I see many notices of the difficulty, at that time, of effecting money transactions of any considerable extent in the country towns of Scotland.... A mercantile business was likewise formed about this time (1750) in London, by the Messrs. Coutts ... as the correspondents of the house in Edinburgh (p. 6).... In England the house had large quantities of corn shipped for them at Yarne and at Stockton in Yorkshire; at Lyme Regis, Fakenham and Yarmouth, all in the rich corn county of Norfolk; at Haverfordwest in South Wales, and by the noted Cooper Thornhill, who at that time kept the Bell inn at Hilton, was one of the most considerable corn factors in England.... Indeed, I have often thought it not a little singular that a banking-house ... should have chosen to embark so largely in the corn-trade, which is, perhaps, that most liable to sudden fluctuation.... Yet in this the Messrs. Coutts were not singular....