Public opinion attacked them through private persecution and violence.

The apathy and vacillation of governments left them without defence; and had governments then represented public opinion completely, and had also controlled all labour and capital, the discovery in question, which was retarded for three generations, would in all probability have never been made at all.
Arkwright's experience with regard to his spinning-frame was similar.
His epoch-making invention was in danger of being altogether lost, because the general opinion of the capitalists of his day was against it; and if all capital had been vested in a representative state, to the exclusion of the far-seeing individuals who eventually came to his assistance, its loss would have been almost certain.

The successful development of the automobile did not take place till yesterday--and why?
A steam-driven vehicle ran in Cornwall before the end of the eighteenth century; but the state and public opinion both condemned it as dangerous; and all further progress in the matter was checked for more than twenty years.

Then again private enterprise asserted itself, but only to suffer precisely the same fate.

Steam-driven omnibuses plied between Paddington and Westminster.