The cotton manufacture was established in the town by Sir Richard Arkwright.
The prohibition of the exportation from England of machinery, models or drawings retarded mechanical improvement, but in 1790 an industrial company was formed at Providence to carry on cotton spinning, and in December of that year there was established at Pawtucket a factory equipped with Arkwright machines constructed by Samuel Slater.
The thread spun by the jenny could not, however, be used except as weft, being destitute of the firmness or hardness required in the longitudinal threads or warp. Arkwright supplied this deficiency by the invention of the spinning-frame, which spins a vast number of threads of any degree of fineness and hardness.
In consequence of these conflicting verdicts, the whole matter was brought, by a writ of scire facias, before the court of King's Bench, to have the validity of the patent finally settled, and it was not till this third trial, which took place in June 1785, that Arkwright's claim to the inventions which formed the subject of the patent was disputed.
Kay himself was produced to prove that he had communicated that model to Arkwright, and that this was the real source of all his pretended inventions.