The laws therefore forbade the export of English machinery or drawings and specifications by which machines might be constructed in other countries.

Some men saw a vast prosperity for Great Britain, if only the mystery might be preserved.
Meanwhile the stories of what these machines could do excited envy in other countries, where men desired to share in the industrial gains.
And, even before Eli Whitney's cotton gin came to provide an abundant supply of raw material, some Americans were struggling to improve the old hand loom, found in every house, and to make some sort of a spinning machine to replace the spinning wheel by which one thread at a time was laboriously spun.
East Bridgewater, Massachusetts, was the scene of one of the earliest of these experiments.

There in 1786 two Scotchmen, who claimed to understand Arkwright's mechanism, were employed to make spinning machines, and about the same time another attempt was made at Beverly.
In both instances the experiments were encouraged by the State and assisted with grants of money.

The machines, operated by horse power, were crude, and the product was irregular and unsatisfactory.

Then three men at Providence, Rhode Island, using drawings of the Beverly machinery, made machines having thirty-two spindles which worked indifferently.