Altogether he was an unpopular man, even before he took the last step of employing shears, instead of hands, to dress his wool.

He was quite aware of his unpopularity, and of the probable consequences.

He had his mill prepared for an assault.

He took up his lodgings in it; and the doors were strongly barricaded at night.
On every step of the stairs there was placed a roller, spiked with barbed points all round, so as to impede the ascent of the rioters, if they succeeded in forcing the doors.
On the night of Saturday the 11th of April, 1812, the assault was made.
Some hundreds of starving cloth-dressers assembled in the very field near Kirklees that sloped down from the house which Miss W--- afterwards inhabited, and were armed by their leaders with pistols, hatchets, and bludgeons, many of which had been extorted by the nightly bands that prowled about the country, from such inhabitants of lonely houses as had provided themselves with these means of self-defence.

The silent sullen multitude marched in the dead of that spring-night to Rawfolds, and giving tongue with a great shout, roused Mr.Cartwright up to the knowledge that the long-expected attack was come.