In a year or two the success of Arkwright's inventions was fairly established. The manufacturers were fully alive to its importance; and Arkwright now reaped the reward of all the toil and danger he had undergone in the shape of a diligent and persistent attempt to rob him of his monopoly, which was carried on for a number of years, and was at length successful. Some of the manufacturers, who were greedy to profit by the new machinery without paying the inventor, got hold of Kay, who had quarrelled with Arkwright some time before, and found him a willing instrument in their hands. It would take too long to go over all the law processes which Arkwright had now to engage in to defend his rights. Kay got up a story that the real inventor was a poor reed maker named Highs, who had once employed him to make a model, the secret of which he had imparted to Arkwright; and this was a capital excuse for using the new machinery in defiance of the patent, although the evidence at the various trials is now held completely to vindicate Arkwright's title as inventor. One law plea was lost to him, on account of some technical omission in the specifications; another restored to him the enjoyment of his monopoly; and a third trial destroyed the patent, which Arkwright never took any steps to recover. Besides trying to defraud Arkwright of his patent-rights, the rival manufacturers, with jealous inconsistency, did their best to discountenance the use of the yarns he made, although much superior in quality to what was then in use. But Arkwright not only surmounted this obstacle, but turned it to good account, for it set him to manufacturing the yarn into stockings and calicoes, the duty on which being soon after lowered, in spite of the strenuous opposition of the manufacturers, turned out a very profitable speculation. For the first five years Arkwright's mills yielded little or no profit; but after that, the adverse tide against which he had struggled so bravely changed, and he followed a prosperous and honourable career till his death, which happened in 1792. He was knighted, not for being, as he was, a benefactor to his country, but because, in his capacity of high sheriff, he chanced to read some trumpery address to the king. He left behind a fortune of about half a million sterling. FOOTNOTES: [A] The founder of the family of Strutt of Belper, afterwards ennobled. III.--SAMUEL CROMPTON. Excellent as was the yarn produced by the spinning-jenny and the water-frame, compared with the old hand-spun stuff, it was coarse and full of knots; and when a demand arose for imitations of the fine India muslins, the weavers found they could produce but a very poor piece of work with such rough materials.