It cannot be said, of course, that Highs had not heard of the method, but in his case it was less likely and, as mentioned in connection with the jenny, he was just the type of man in whose mind ideas were likely to originate anew.[353] About Arkwright there was not the same suggestion of originality. He was just the type of man, however, who, having got an inkling of Paul’s method, and then gaining a knowledge of Highs’ experiments through Kay, would carry the roller method to a practicable issue. Whether the idea was his own, or whether he was carrying the work of Paul, or Highs, or both, it is certain that it was with Arkwright that the method of spinning by rollers came into use, and of the carding machinery, for which again, as we have seen, some credit was due to Paul, the same may be said. [Footnote 353: In addition to his relation to the machines mentioned in the text Guest asserts that Highs effected some improvement in the carding-machine (_British Cotton Manufacture_, p. 204).] In certain respects Arkwright was undoubtedly a great man. He became prominent when ideas of invention were fermenting in men’s minds, and even if all that was affirmed at the third trial of the obligations he owed to others were true, somehow, in his hands, their achievements were carried a long step towards perfection, and were collated into a successful system. From the early cotton industry, against great odds, he gained wealth; perhaps that was his supreme aim; even so, what he gained was a trifle compared with the pecuniary value of his achievements. On the whole, perhaps it was just as well that Arkwright’s career as patentee concluded when it did. As we have seen, by 1780 he had several concerns under his control; also, in 1785, he had great schemes on hand in Scotland. Baines informs us that “he contemplated entering into the most extensive mercantile transactions, and buying up all the cotton in the world, in order to make an enormous profit by the monopoly.”[354] Had Arkwright maintained his position for a little longer, his name might have been handed down to posterity, not only in connection with the invention of spinning by rollers, and with the early factory system, but also as the earliest of the great modern Trust magnates. [Footnote 354: _History of the Cotton Manufacture_, p. 196.] CHAPTER V THE MULE AND THE RISE OF A NEW COTTON MANUFACTURE I