Sir Humphry Davy to John Buddle, Esq., Wallsend, Newcastle.
London, February 8, 1817.
Dear Sir,—Newman appears dilatory and has not yet made the apparatus to my mind; but I hope soon to send it you and to give you your new right. I hope no one will try expts with platinum in explosive atmospheres till my paper is published for if fine wire is used and suffered to hang out of the lamp so as to ignite to whiteness in the external air explosion will follow; but by the most simple precaution security is absolute. Stevenson's Pamphlet has proved to the satisfaction of every person who has looked at it in London, that he endeavoured to steal from what he had heard of my researches, safety tubes and apertures: no one could have established his piracy so effectively as himself.
It is stated in one of these malignant advertisements which are below my contempt that I was in the coal district in the end of September 1815. Whereas I left it two days after I saw you at Wallsend which I think was the 23rd or 24th of August and went to Bishop Auckland where I stayed only three days and I spent the greater part of the month of September with Lord Harewood and was in London working in my Laboratory early in October and had discovered several apertures and tubes in the middle of last month whilst Mr. Stevenson's absurd idea of admitting Hydrogen in undetached portions by a slider was fermenting in his mind. I certainly never thought of employing capilliary [sic] tubes. My tubes were merely safe tubes for I knew perfectly well and have proved by expts that no lamp could be fed on air through real capilliary tubes. To make a lamp that will burn on three capilliary tubes is as impossible as to make it burn in a closed decanter. Stevenson's capilliary tubes are evidently stolen from what Mr. Hodgson communicated early in November of my small safe tubes and made capilliary to suit Mr. Brandlings marvellous discovery that wire gauze is the extremity of capilliary tubes.
I am my dear Sir,
Very sincerely yours,
H. Davy.
A specimen of an advertisement suited to Mr. W. Brandling.
Aladdin should sign his name Assassin for he endeavours to stab in the dark. An assassin is a proper associate for a private purloiner. One may attempt to murder while the other carries off the plunder. Mr. W. J. Brandling must be ashamed of such friends as Aladdin and Fair play, at least he cannot wish to be seen in public with them even though he should love them as dearly as himself.
Truth.
One suited to Stevenson.
Mr. George Stevenson has changed his note from capilliary tubes to small tubes. No one can doubt that he pilfered these from Mr. Hodgson's communication of Sir H. Davy's discoveries. His original principle to admit Hydrogen in small detached portions (detached by a slider) is now kept out of sight. A man who in the face of the whole world and in open day light steals the safety trimmer and a safe top in Killingworth Colliery and in the dark may endeavour to steal safety apertures and tubes. But does he now know what is a safe aperture? Let those people who use his lamp, his capilliary tube lamp, look to themselves.