The Lombes must have had great confidence in their
speculation, as the building and the great engine for making the
organzine silk, together with the other fittings, cost them about
30,000L.
One effect of the working of the mill was greatly to reduce the
price of the thrown-silk, and to bring it below the cost of the
Italian production. The King of Sardinia, having heard of the
success of the Lombe's undertaking, prohibited the exportation of
Piedmontese raw silk, which interrupted the course of their
prosperity, until means were taken to find a renewed supply
elsewhere.
And now comes the tragic part of the story, for which Mr. Hutton,
the author of the 'History of Derby,' is responsible. As he
worked in the silk mill when a boy, from 1730 to 1737, he
doubtless heard it from the mill-hands, and there may be some
truth in it, though mixed with a little romance. It is this:-
Hutton says of John Lombe, that he "had not pursued this
lucrative commerce more than three or four years when the
Italians, who felt the effects from their want of trade,
determined his destruction, and hoped that that of his works
would follow. An artful woman came over in the character of a
friend, associated with the parties, and assisted in the
business. She attempted to gain both the Italian workmen, and
succeeded with one. By these two slow poison was supposed, and
perhaps justly, to have been administered to John Lombe, who
lingered two or three years in agony, and departed.
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