The Napoleonic Wars raised both demand and price for linen goods in the 1790s, but at the same time made the Baltic trade in raw materials more difficult. Napoleon's blockade of the Baltic raised the price of a ton of flax from £40 to £170. West House was the production leader around 1814, followed by Little Patrick Mills and Aked High Mill at West End, 1817 - 1821, and finally Bentham Mill 1825 - 1838. The tonnage of shipping from the Baltic via Lancaster to Bentham Mills was falling back in the late 1790s, while from 1808 to 1813 no ships entered at the port at all. Some flax was brought in to Bentham Mills from Liverpool to fill the gap until 1808, when the blockade really began to bite.

 Meanwhile the West House Mill and the West End Mills in North Yorkshire got their raw materials via Hull, and the east coast. and so managed to fare much better. The Mill at Bentham did not recover until the late 1820's and then prospered greatly in 1826, and then peaked in 1829 until the late 1830's.