The agreement with Mr. Sims, or rather with Mr. Michael Williams, late M.P. for Cornwall, who exercised large authority in Cornish mines, was that he should have for 200l. one-half of the patent for the high-pressure pole-engine, as applied to Cornwall and Devon.
Trevithick had desisted from securing a patent for the large high-pressure steam-boilers and expansive working, on a verbal understanding that he should receive one quarter of the saving from the reduced consumption of coal by those two particular inventions, twenty-six millions of pounds of water raised one foot high by a bushel of coal of 84 lbs., being the duty of the best Watt engines, to be taken as a starting-point for the payment. Treskerby and Wheal Chance paid for the pole-engine, but the Trevithick boilers suitable for high steam, and the simple methods of working it expansively, had been made so generally public, that people professed to think they had a right to them, when but a few years before they had thrown the inventor off his guard by saying "everybody knows that the Cornish boiler is your plan, and as it cannot be denied, a patent will be of no service."
Mr. John Williams[40] stated "that whatever other mines might do, he would insist, as long as he was manager for Treskerby and Wheal Chance, the agreement made should be carried into effect." The Williamses paid to Trevithick 300l. for the saving of coal by the pole patent engine, as an "acknowledgment of the benefits received by us in our mines;" but no payment was made for the greater invention of the high-pressure steam-boilers then in general use.
In 1814 the Watt Treskerby engine did seventeen and a half millions. Trevithick's boiler and pole were applied, and the duty was increased to more than forty millions. In 1816 the same changes were made in Wheal Chance, and the duty rose to more than forty-six millions. The consumption of coal was reduced to one-half, amounting in round numbers to a gain of 500l. a month in those two mines alone.
"Trevince, near Truro,
5th January, 1853.
"Dear Sir,
"I am favoured with your letter of the 31st ult., enclosing also one from Mr. F. Trevithick, of the 24th idem, and have much pleasure in complying with your joint request to the best of my ability. I was well acquainted with the late Mr. Rd. Trevithick, having had frequent occasion to meet him on business and to consult him professionally; and I am gratified in having the present opportunity of bearing testimony to his distinguished abilities, and to the high estimation in which the first Cornish engineers of the day then regarded him. I need scarcely say that time has not lessened the desire in this county especially to do him justice. As a man of inventive mechanical genius, few, if any, have surpassed him, and Cornwall may well be proud of so illustrious a son.
"At this distance of time I can scarcely speak with sufficient exactness for your purpose of the numerous ingenious and valuable mechanical contrivances for which we are indebted to him, but in reference to his great improvements in the steam-engine I have a more particular recollection, and can confidently affirm that he was the first to introduce the high-pressure principle of working, thus establishing a way to the present high state of efficiency of the steam-engine, and forming a new era in the history of steam-power. To the use of high-pressure steam, in conjunction with the cylindrical boiler, also invented by Mr. Trevithick, I have no hesitation in saying that the greatly-increased duty of our Cornish pumping engines, since the time of Watt, is mainly owing; and when it is recollected that the working power now attained amounts to double or treble that of the old Boulton and Watt engine, it will be at once seen that it is impossible to over-estimate the benefit conferred, either directly or indirectly, by the late Mr. Trevithick, on the mines of this county. The cylindrical boiler above referred to effected a saving of at least one-third in the quantity of coal previously required; and in the year 1812 I remember our house at Scorrier paying Mr. Trevithick the sum of 300l. as an acknowledgment of the benefits received by us in our mines from this source alone. Mr. Trevithick's subsequent absence from the county, and perhaps a certain degree of laxity on his own part in the legal establishment and prosecution of his claims, deprived him of much of the pecuniary advantage to which his labours and inventions justly entitled him; and I have often expressed my opinion that he was at the same time the greatest and the worst-used man in the county.
"Amongst the minor improvements introduced by him, it occurs to me to notice that he was the first to apply an outer casing to the cylinder, and by this means prevent, still further than Watt had succeeded in doing, the loss of heat by radiation.
"As connected with one of the most interesting of my recollections of Mr. Trevithick, I must mention that I was present by invitation at the first trial of his locomotive engine, intended to run upon common roads, and of course equally applicable to train and railways. This was, I think, about the year 1803, and the locomotive then exhibited was the very first worked by steam-power ever constructed.