Coarse cotton cloth was what the poor wore; anyone could tell at a glance. Fine cotton cloth, meanwhile, was worn by fashionable women in Paris. Before the French Revolution, the aristocracy had indulged in extravagance and wore silk. Though fine cotton cloth brought enormous profits, its finished price was far lower than silk's. Besides, it felt better against the skin—soft and comfortable to wear—and even men's shirts required fine cotton cloth.
Printing machines were not, as Georgiana had imagined, simply dipped into dyed water. They were made of numerous rollers, with the number depending on the complexity of the pattern. Each roller carried one color, much like a newspaper press. After one color had been printed, the next had to be aligned with the pattern. The rollers had to meet very high standards, and calibrating the equipment took a long time. Yet once it was running, it required little human intervention. Once prepared, provided the designs on the rollers did not become blurred through wear, it could theoretically be used indefinitely. Printing several million yards of fabric posed no problem at all.
Dieppe could produce beautiful ivory carvings, so carving exquisite rollers was no difficulty. But as Chaptal had discovered during the earlier inspection in Yvetot, the silk skeins had to be even for the yarn to dye evenly. Cotton absorbed water far better than wool, and complicated patterns could easily ruin an entire piece of cloth through uneven dyeing. Thus, even with its advantage in plate-making, Dieppe still could not print and dye fabrics with excessively intricate patterns.
Britain's patent law protected patents for only fourteen years. When John Bell's patent expired, Parliament would not allow him to extend it further. Instead, textile manufacturers donated more than ten thousand pound sterling to compensate him.
Samuel Crompton could not patent