He traveled much through South Lancashire and Cheshire, and there he came in daily contact with the cotton-spinners. A weaver of great ingenuity and tireless purpose, James Hargreaves, had invented what was known as a spinning-jenny, an arrangement by which many spindles, fastened in a wooden frame, would work together by the turning of a fly-wheel. This machine could do the work of many spinners, and in a much shorter time. The rovings of cotton went under a bar-clasp that took the place of the spinner’s finger and thumb. This bar-clasp could be moved backward and forward on a rod as the spinner’s hand would do when stretching the thread and winding it on. It had a precision of action that resulted in a much greater regularity in the spun thread than by the earlier process. It was a very ingenious device, and Hargreaves deserved the greatest credit for the skill with which he solved the problem. But the spinners did not take kindly to this improvement. When they discovered that Hargreaves could do more spinning with less work with his machine, and could supply his own loom with all the woof that was needed instead of keeping three or four spinners employed, they grew highly indignant. They did not realize that the demand for cotton cloth was far greater than the supply, and that they could all be profitably employed operating the spinning-jenny. That panic which has so often come over people when they learn of a new device entering their field of action struck the cotton-spinners, and Hargreaves was regarded as a foe rather than a friend. Hargreaves was driven from Lancashire to Nottingham, and many of his larger jennies were broken by mobs. A few of the smaller machines were saved, but the people’s mind was very evident. Hargreaves’ improvement on the old-fashioned spinning-wheel dates from 1767, though he himself, it is said, had first used such a machine in 1764. Two men, Wyatt and Paul, of Birmingham, had earlier built a machine to spin stronger yarn than that usually used, but their machine had shown many defects, and they had abandoned its use. Arkwright knew of Hargreaves’ jenny, but not of the other machine, and as he came upon none in use in his travels he cannot be held to have been under any obligations to this earlier device.