"N.B.—If your friend goes to Bridgenorth, let him show this letter to the founders."
The engine, intended for the West Indies, so pleased Mr. Uville, that he begged to have it made over to him for South America, where it worked the machinery for rolling gold and silver in the Mint at Lima.
"About 1815, while erecting a high-pressure pole-engine at Legassack for Mr. Trevithick, and doing some repairs to Mr. Kendal's thrashing engine, a Creole, I think called Nash, brought a note from Captain Trevithick, stating that the bearer was anxious to be taught to erect and work the portable engines for Jamaica.
"Sir Rose Price, who had property in the West Indies, had sent him to Mr. Trevithick for that purpose."[16]
It is therefore probable that some of Trevithick's engines reached Jamaica. Sir Rose Price was well known to Lord Dedunstanville and Sir Charles Hawkins, and living near them, saw the engines at work and their fitness for his property in Jamaica.
Lord Dedunstanville's engine of 1812 was sold as old iron to Messrs. Harvey and Co. not long before 1843. Having remained for some time on the old-scrap heap, it was in that year again worked to drive machinery. Instead of the original rope-driver on the fly-wheel, a chain was used, the links of which caught on projecting pins on the driving wheel. In that form it continued to work until 1853, before which it was frequently seen by the writer prior to its removal to make room for a more powerful engine.
What greater proof could be given of the fitness of design of this early engine, than its long life of forty years under such rough treatment, and the facility with which it was applied to different uses. Mr. Bickle, who, from recollection, had made a sketch of this engine before the writer had found Trevithick's sketch, says that after the engine had ceased to work, the boiler was turned to account in heating tar in the ship-builder's yard.
"In 1854 I saw working in a shed at Carnsew, in the ship-building yard of Harvey and Co., of Hayle, an engine working a stamps for pounding up the slag and furnace bottoms from the brass-casting foundry.
"I was then the foreman hammerman in Harvey and Co.'s smiths' shop and hammer-mill, and frequently noticed this old engine and inquired about it. It had been brought from Lord Dedunstanville's, at Tehidy Park, where it at one time worked a thrashing machine. The boiler was of wrought iron, built in brickwork, and looked like a big kitchen-boiler. A flattish cover was bolted on to the top of the boiler, and the cylinder was let down into this top.
"The cylinder had no cover; it was about 8 or 10 inches in diameter and 2 or 3 feet stroke. The piston was a very deep one, with a joint for the connecting rod which went direct to the crank, which was supported on two upright stands from the cover on the boiler. The fly-wheel had a balance-weight for the down-stroke. A pitch-chain for driving passed over the wheel, which had pins in it, or projections, to catch into the square links of the driving chain; it was worked by a four-way cock."[17]