Perhaps the King in 1833 could not take an active part in advocating a memento of the golden days of reform; but this is no reason why the suggestion should have been so slightly noticed in 1862, to erect it in memory of the good and wise Prince Albert.
Various meetings were held, and after nine months the plan had so far advanced as to be placed before the King.
"Sir Herbert Taylor begs to acknowledge the receipt of Mr. R. Trevithick's letter, with the accompanying design for a national monument, which he has had the honour of submitting to the King.
"St. James's Palace, 1st March, 1833."[220]
Within two months from the date of the design for a gilded column Trevithick had passed away. His family in Cornwall received a note, dated 22nd April, 1833, from Mr. Rowley Potter, of Dartford, stating that Trevithick had died on the morning of that day, after a week's confinement to his bed. He was penniless, and without a relative by him in his last illness, and for the last offices of kindness was indebted to some who were losers by his schemes. The mechanics from the works of Messrs. Hall were the bearers, and mourners at the funeral, and at their expense night watchers remained by the grave to prevent body-snatching, then frequent in that neighbourhood.
A few years after the funeral, the writer was refused permission to go through the works to inquire into the character of the experiments that had been tried, but the working mechanics were glad to see the son of Trevithick, and their wives and children joined in the welcome as he passed through the small town.
Trevithick's grave was among those of the poor buried by the charitable; no stone or mark distinguished it from its neighbours. He is known by his works. His high-pressure steam-engine was the pioneer of locomotion and its wide-spreading civilization. England's mineral and mechanical wealth on land or sea are indebted to its expansive power, its applicability, and durable economy.
His comprehensive and ingenious designs, given to the world seventy years ago,[221] are still instructive guides; and many of his works, dating from the dawn of the present century, remained as active evidences of his skill almost to the present day, with their three-score years,[222] while some few reaching three-score years and ten still remain good servants[223] in the solitude of the Peruvian mountains, where no mechanical hand repairs the errors of human skill or the wear and tear of time.[224]
If these material proofs fail to convince, the reader has but to ponder on the bitterly natural reflections written by himself a few months before his last illness to his friend Davies Gilbert:—
"I have been branded with folly and madness for attempting what the world calls impossibilities, and even from the great engineer, the late Mr. James Watt, who said to an eminent scientific character still living,[225] that I deserved hanging for bringing into use the high-pressure engine. This so far has been my reward from the public; but should this be all, I shall be satisfied by the great secret pleasure and laudable pride that I feel in my own breast from having been the instrument of bringing forward and maturing new principles and new arrangements of boundless value to my country. However much I may be straitened in pecuniary circumstances, the great honour of being a useful subject can never be taken from me, which to me far exceeds riches."