On the Old Navigation between Manchester and Liverpool 21 vessels were engaged. On the New Navigation between Manchester and Warrington 9 vessels were engaged, also a number of open vessels called Tuns, and between Warrington and Liverpool 11 vessels were engaged. A 40 Tun Boat sailed between Manchester and Altrincham three days a week, and coal boats arrived in Manchester from Worsley every day. CHAPTER III THE COMING OF MACHINERY: KAY TO ARKWRIGHT I The statement made at the close of the last chapter, that a new cotton manufacture arose in Lancashire in the latter years of the eighteenth century is justified, notwithstanding the fact that goods made entirely of cotton had undoubtedly been manufactured in the county before, possibly to a larger extent than there is positive evidence to show. From 1770 the cotton industry, as it is now known, began its growth, and this event must always be attributed in large measure to the inventions associated with the names of James Hargreaves, Richard Arkwright, and Samuel Crompton. Their inventions represent a culmination of a series of endeavours to improve the processes of cotton manufacture which reach back to the thirties of the eighteenth century--the time, it may be noticed, when the “Manchester Act” was secured. Generally these endeavours had reference to spinning and the processes preparatory to it, but it was in weaving that the first invention appeared which attained much success. At this time, in the Manchester district, there were two types of loom in use, the “Dutch” loom and the ordinary hand-loom. The first was introduced, apparently about the beginning of the century, for narrow fabrics of which it could weave several at once.[233] In this loom the shuttle was sent through the warp by the action of cog-wheels, which was a slow and cumbrous process, and unsuitable for the weaving of wider fabrics.[234] In the ordinary hand-loom, the shuttle was sent to and fro through the warp by hand. The invention referred to was that of the “flying shuttle” by Kay, of Bury, for which he took out a patent in 1733.[235] This invention, which was for use in the ordinary hand-loom, consisted mainly of a “picking-peg” contrivance, by means of which the weaver could jerk the shuttle through the warp, using only one hand.[236] [Footnote 233: _Ante_, p. 40.] [Footnote 234: Chapman, _ibid._, p. 21.] [Footnote 235: John Kay was born near Bury in 1704, but lived at Colchester at the time of the invention. He returned to Bury some time after 1745, and lived there apparently until about 1753 (Espinasse, _Lancashire Worthies_ (1874), pp. 310-318).] [Footnote 236: Ogden, _ibid._ (1783), p. 89, states that “the fly shuttle” is “in such estimation here (in Manchester) as to be used generally even on narrow goods.”]