"I am certain, from what Dolcoath engine is doing, that I can far exceed the power above stated, and perform the duty with one-half the coal the engine consumed before, and would not hesitate a moment to engage the job on the terms they propose, but I have not money sufficient to carry it into execution, as I must lay out a large sum in erecting the engine on the Gwythian Mine, and unless I can be assisted with 500l., shall not be able to undertake the job.
"If you think it worth your notice to encourage this undertaking by lending me the above sum for six months, I will pay you interest for it, and before drawing any part of it from you would get materials in the mine that should amount to above that sum, and also give you an order on the adventurers to repay you the whole sum before receiving any part myself.
"As I have been a bankrupt, perhaps you may scruple on that account, but that business is finally settled, and I have my certificate; and indeed I never was in debt to any person; not one shilling of debt was proved against me under the commission, nothing more than the private debts of my swindling partner.
"At Wendron we are working an engine lately erected on a copper lode, which has a very promising appearance, and near this spot you have land at Besperson, where there is also a very kindly copper lode, which deserves trial; if you are inclined to grant a sett, I think I can find adventurers to join me to try the mine.
"I have lately read a letter from your hind, that the engine continues to mend; it far exceeds my expectation. I am now building a portable steam-whim, on the same plan, to go itself from shaft to shaft; the whole weight will be about 30 cwt., and the power equal to twenty-six horses in twenty-four hours.
"The only difference in this engine and yours will be the fire in the boiler, and without mason-work, on account of making it portable. I shall pass the rope from the fly-wheel round the cage of the horse-whim.
"If you should fall in with any West India planter that stands in want of an engine, he may see this one at work in a month, which will prove to him the advantage of a portable engine, to travel from one plantation to another. The price, completely finished and set to work, free of all expense, in London, 105l.
"I am, Sir,
"Your very humble servant,
"Richard. Trevithick.
"N.B.—Captain John Stephens informed me, a few days since, that the lead mine at Newlyn was rich."
In Wheal Prosper Mine the first high-pressure expansive steam-condensing pole-engine had been worked, just before the date of the foregoing letter, and that evidence of increased power and economy was immediately followed by the application of the same principles of high-pressure steam and very expansive working to the Watt low-pressure steam vacuum engines at Wheal Alfred, Dolcoath, and other mines, with such satisfactory results as to warrant his offering, on the battle-ground of his first attack on the Watt low-pressure steam vacuum principle at Seal-hole in St. Agnes, fourteen years before,[87] at his own pecuniary risk, to so apply those principles in the Wheal Liberty low-pressure steam-engine, which had failed to drain the mine, lifting only at the rate of 1880 gallons of water one fathom high at each stroke; that it should lift an increased quantity of water, and that, too, from an increased depth, making the load equal to 5525 gallons, and to perform such increase of work with one-half of the quantity of coal before used; in other words, he was willing to engage to make the old low-pressure steam-engine perform by its conversion into a high-pressure steam-engine threefold its original work, and also to increase its duty or economic value sixfold; resting his argument on the similar changes, then to be seen in operation at Wheal Alfred Mine, and especially in the Watt 63-inch double-acting engine at Dolcoath, whose history we have been tracing. Well might Sir Charles Hawkins hesitate to believe what the experience of sixty years has barely sufficed to make plain to us.