"The sum required is small, and the risk is less; but the prospect is great, beyond anything I ever knew offered on such easy terms. Waiting your reply,
"I remain, Sir,
"Your very humble servant,
"Richard. Trevithick.
"Eastbourne, December 26th, 1831.
"Dear Trevithick,
"I am sorry to find that you have not any prospect of assistance from Government. I have not any copy or memorandum of my letter to Mr. Spring Rice; but it was to the effect of first bearing testimony to the large share that you have had in almost all the improvements on Mr. Watt's engine, which have altogether about trebled its power; to your having made a travelling engine twenty-eight years ago; of your having invented the iron-tanks for carrying water on board ships, &c.
"I then went on to state that the great defect in all steam-engines seemed to be the loss, by condensation, of all the heat rendered latent in the conversion of water into steam; that high-pressure engines owed their advantages mainly to a reduction of the relative temperatures of this latent heat; that I had long wished to see the plan of a differential engine tried, in which the temperatures and consequently elasticities of the fluid might be varied on the opposite sides of the piston, without condensation; that the engine you have now constructed promised to effect that object; and that, in the event of its succeeding at all, although it might not be applicable to the drawing water out of mines, yet that for steam-vessels and for steam-carriages its obvious advantages would be of the greatest importance; and I ended by saying that although it was clearly impossible for me to ensure the success of any plan till it had been actually proved by experiment, yet judging theoretically, and also from the imperfect trial exhibited on the Thames, I thought it well worthy of being pursued. Your plan unquestionably must be to associate some one with you (as Mr. Watt did Mr. Boulton), and I certainly think it a very fair speculation for any such person as Mr. Boulton to undertake.
"It is impossible for me to point out any individual, as never having had the slightest connection with trade or with manufacture in any part of my life, I am entirely unacquainted with mercantile concerns. I cannot, however, but conjecture that you should make a fair and full estimate of what would be the expense of making a decisive experiment on a scale sufficiently large to remove all doubt; and that your proposal should be, that anyone willing to incur that expense should, in the event of success, be entitled to a certain share of your patent. On such conditions some man of property may perhaps be found who would undertake the risk; and if the experiment proves successful, he will be sure to use every exertion afterwards for his own sake. With every wish for your success,
"Believe me,
"Yours very sincerely and faithfully,
"Davies Gilbert.
The petition to Parliament for a national payment for national gains, so hopefully taken up on his return from America, when experience had proved the value of his inventions, after four weary years of deferred expectation, was consigned to the tomb of forgetfulness.
Compare the petition of 1828 with a modern report.