"As soon as it is convenient to you to arrange the payments I would thank you to inform me, because we find in practice that the best way to make a labouring machine turn quickly on its centres, is to keep them well oiled.
"R. T.
"F. Uville, Esq., Mr. Hooper's, Falmouth.
"N.B.—If you intend to be at Camborne, please to drop me a note by post, and I will be at home."
In all Trevithick's moves there was a scramble for money, in which he invariably came worst off. He could give a good hint that working centres would not turn well without the essential oil; but he failed to apply the principle to himself. Liberal words and golden prospects carried him off at once; and before Uville was strong enough to visit the Cornish mines and to fully explain what he wanted, the machinery was being made, though at that same time the thrashing and ploughing engines, and the locomotive and rock-boring engine, and the great fight with Watt at Dolcoath, were in progress.
[Rough draft.]
"Camborne, June 8th, 1813.
"Mr. Rastrick,
"Sir,—Enclosed I send to you a drawing for a set of pumps for one of the engines for South America, with a drawing for a part of the castings for one of the boilers, for you to make a beginning. The drawings for the engines I will send in a few days. The Spanish gentleman who is now gone to London to arrange his money concerns, will be down again in about ten or twelve days, and then we shall both call at Bridgenorth, and bring with us the engagement for you to sign, for the performance of such quantities of work as you can execute in four months.
"I have made arrangements with the smiths and boiler-builders here, to weigh and pay at the end of every week. The regulation of your payment is left to you to point out in any way you please. As time is of the greatest consequence, I hope you will set to work immediately.