February 7, 1853.
I take this opportunity of mentioning again the subject I once wrote or spoke to you about. I want a rifle barrel made octagon shaped inside, the octagon having a twist rather more than usual, and an increasing twist, say twice as much at the mouth of the piece as at the breech. Can you make me such a barrel for an experiment? I will explain to you the object when we meet, as it can only be done viva voce.
III.
[The following letter was written to Mr. Westley Richards in answer to a request that Mr. Brunel would permit him to obtain a license from Mr. (now Sir Joseph) Whitworth to make rifles of a polygonal shape. Mr. Whitworth had obtained a patent for improvements in cannons, guns, and fire-arms, in February 1855, and in his complete specification, dated May 30, 1855, he had for the first time claimed—
Firstly, the several combinations of parts forming, when put together, the barrels of ordnance, or fire-arms, having a polygonal spiral shape. Secondly, the use of the spirally-shaped segments. Thirdly, the adoption of the polygonal spiral for rifled ordnance and fire-arms. Fourthly, the combination of parts forming the breech-loading apparatus.]
November 26, 1858.
I am obliged to you for your communication on the subject of the octagon gun, and in acknowledging your courtesy and gentlemanly feeling I would add that it is only what I always felt I could rely upon from you.
I beg you will not hesitate to take out a license from Mr. Whitworth for octagon guns (if, as a matter of business, you think it convenient to do so) on account of any prior claim which you may know I could set up, and if you get a license for a nominal consideration, as I understand you can, of course as a man of business you should do so. I have no intention of interfering with Mr. Whitworth’s patent, even to indulge the feeling I have against all patents and protective laws, which I consider have become the curse of the day, and the sources of the greatest injury to inventors and manufacturers, and still more to the public; and I should also be very sorry even to annoy my friend Mr. Whitworth merely for the sake of showing that I had previously made the gun (at least you made it for me), and I believe others have preceded me, which he has patented; and I assure you that I shall not consider your taking out a license as in any way a denial of this fact, of which you are cognisant.
I have never seen Whitworth’s patent; what is it exactly that he does patent? It cannot be merely the polygon, because, even if nobody had preceded me, that would have been already a copy of mine, which not only was made before he began his investigation, but was lent by me, at your request, to him, I think before his patent. My rifle is, I am told, doing quite wonders at Woolwich, and I begin to think there must be something in the principle which I intended to introduce into it, and which is totally different from what I understood to be Whitworth’s. I sought to use a comparatively loose ball, but which I thought would centre itself, both in position and direction, to the axis of the barrel by the peculiar action of a polygon within a polygon acted upon by an increasing pitch, and it really seems from the results as if my theory was correct.[184]
Gunnery Experiments.