6. The introduction of the cotton machines had, at first, a cruel effect upon the work-people. In the long run, however, it brought them vastly more work; for machine-made things being much cheaper than those made by hand, it usually happens that the demand for the cheapened article becomes so much greater as to give more employment than before in its production. But even if this were not so, it is well known now-a-days that it is useless to fight against the introduction of machines. What, for instance, would be the result, if the shoemakers of Northampton set their faces against the introduction of certain labour-saving machines commonly used in America? Unless such machines were used here, the English masters would be undersold by those in America, and the trade in consequence would fall into American hands; for, of course, people will buy where they can get most for their money. 7. But when the new machines for spinning cotton were first set a-going, the uselessness of fighting against their employment was not understood. The hungry workers only knew that the bread was taken out of their mouths by the new machines, and therefore they regarded the inventors--poor men for the most part like themselves--as the enemies of their fellow-workers. Their anger often blazed forth into open violence; machines were smashed and mills wrecked. Baulked in one place, the inventors set up their machines in another, and it was soon found that the bulk of the trade followed the machines. 8. Whatever may have been the effect that the new machines had upon the happiness and well-being of the old hand-workers, it is certain that the country at large gained immensely in wealth. And it was soon to stand in need of every penny it could get. For in 1793 began "the great French war," which ended only with the victory at Waterloo in 1815, a war lasting, with two short intervals, two and twenty years, and so costly that it left us with a National Debt amounting to £880,000,000. That England was able to raise such a huge sum was due in no small measure to the cotton-mill and steam-engine. England, indeed, might well place the statues of Arkwright and Watt side by side with those of Nelson and Wellington; for had it not been for the wealth which the former created, there would have been no well-equipped fleets and armies for the latter to command. 9. Another great source of wealth, during the war itself, was the immense share which England gained of the carrying trade of the world, owing to the security which her merchantmen enjoyed in consequence of the victories of her fleets. While her mines, her looms, her steam-engines were giving her the principal share in the manufacture of goods, ships flying the British flag spread her own products through the world and carried to every part of it the products of other countries. England, in fact, was at once the workshop of European manufactures and the ocean-carrier of its commerce.