“98. An Engine so contrived, that working the Primum mobile forward or backward, upward or downward, circularly or cornerwise, to and fro, streight, upright or downright, yet the pretended Operation continueth, and advanceth none of the motions above-mentioned, hindering, much less stopping the other; but unanimously, and with harmony agreeing they all augment and contribute strength unto the intended work and operation: And therefore I call this A Semi-omnipotent Engine, and do intend that a Model thereof be buried with me.”
“99. How to make one pound weight to raise an hundred as high as one pound falleth, and yet the hundred pound descending doth what nothing less than one hundred pound can effect.”
“100. Upon so potent a help as these two last-mentioned Inventions a Waterwork is by many years experience and labour so advantageously by me contrived, that a Child’s force bringeth up an hundred foot high an incredible quantity of water, even two foot Diameter, so naturally, that the work will not be heard even into the next Room; and with so great ease and Geometrical Symmetry, that though it work day and night from one end of the year to the other, it will not require forty shillings reparation to the whole Engine, nor hinder ones day-work. And I may boldly call it The most stupendious Work in the whole world: not onely with little charge to drein all sorts of Mines, and furnish Cities with water, though never so high seated, as well to keep them sweet, running through several streets, and so performing the work of Scavengers, as well as furnishing the Inhabitants with sufficient water for their private occasions; but likewise supplying Rivers with sufficient to maintaine and make them portable from Towne to Towne, and for the bettering of Lands all the way it runs; with many more advantageous, and yet greater effects of Profit, Admiration, and Consequence. So that deservedly I deem this Invention to crown my Labours, to reward my Expences, and make my Thoughts acquiesce in way of further Inventions: This making up the whole Century, and preventing any further trouble to the Reader for the present, meaning to leave to Posterity a Book, wherein under each of these Heads the means to put in execution and visible trial all and every of these Inventions, with the shape and form of all things belonging to them, shall be Printed by Brass-plates.”
The promised book was never written, and we are accordingly left in uncertainty as to the precise character of the Marquis’s inventions. That he had a full conviction of the great powers of steam, as well as of its manageability and extensive practical uses, is sufficiently clear; but that he ever erected any engines after the plans thus summarily described is matter of considerable doubt. It is remarkable that, notwithstanding the number and variety of his suggested inventions, not a single model or machine constructed by the Marquis or his skilled workmen has been preserved. Mr. Dircks, who has collected and published all that is likely to be brought to light relative to the life and works of the Marquis, and has laboured at his task with a rare love and enthusiasm for his subject, naturally expresses surprise that “none of the many cabinets of the curious seem to have possessed any model or work of his production; not even the indefatigable Tradescant, although his museum was at Lambeth.”[14] But it is probable, as we have already observed, that the Marquis’s ‘Scantlings,’ notwithstanding his statement that he had “tried and perfected” the inventions of which he speaks, were rather the foreshadowings of things to come than the descriptions of things that had actually been executed. Thus, no one pretends that the Marquis ever constructed a steamboat, and yet his description of a vessel “to work itself against wind and tide, yea, both, without the help of man or beast,” can apply to nothing else.[15] “This engine,” said he, “is applicable to any vessel or boat whatsoever, without being therefore made on purpose, and worketh these effects: it roweth, it draweth, it driveth, (if need be) to pass London Bridge against the stream at low-water, and a boat laying at anchor, the engine may be used for loading or unloading.” But it would not be possible for any one to make an engine after the description given in the ‘Scantlings;’ and to a generation unacquainted with the powers of steam, his suggestions would be altogether without meaning.
The strongest evidence which could be adduced of the ambiguity of the Marquis’s ‘Articles’ is to be found in the fact that the various ingenious writers who have given plans of his supposed engine have represented it in widely different forms. Farey assumes that it worked by the expansive force of steam; Bourne, that it worked by condensation and atmospheric pressure; Dircks infers that it included such ingenious expedients as valves and even a four-way cock, worked by a lever-handle; Stuart, that it contained a cylinder and piston, and was, in fact, a complete high-pressure lever-engine. Again, the drawings of the various writers on engineering who have attempted to reproduce the engine—of Stuart, Galloway, Millington, and Dircks—differ in essential respects.
When Watt was on one occasion asked for his opinion as to the precise nature of the Marquis’s contrivance, his answer was, that the descriptions given were too obscure to enable any definite opinion to be formed on the subject; but he thought that the expansive power of steam was the principle on which the engine worked. He added, that no one could possibly erect an engine after the Marquis’s ‘Scantlings,’ and that any inventor desirous of constructing a steam-engine would have to begin again at the beginning. But though the Marquis did not leave the steam-engine in such a state as to be taken up and adopted as a practicable working power, he at least advanced it several important steps. In this world, it is not given to man to finish; to persevere, to improve, and to advance, are all that can be hoped for; and these are enough for the real philosopher.
Little remains to be told of the unfortunate Marquis’s history. His water-commanding engine proved of no service to him. It only increased his embarrassments by involving him in further debts. The Restoration, though it gave him back his estates, did not mend his fortunes, and he continued to importune his friends for loans. He sought access to the King by petition; but it became more and more difficult to approach him. On one occasion he tried to accomplish his purpose through the influence of his Majesty’s mistress, Lady Castlemaine. Provided she could persuade the king to grant his request, he offered to present to her “a thousand pieces to buy her a little jewel, which she deserves to wear every day of the week. And if it please God I live but two years,” he added, “I will, out of the profits of my water-commanding engine, appropriate four hundred pounds yearly, for ever, to her Grace’s disposal ... all which, as I am a gentleman and a Christian, shall be faithfully and most thankfully performed; though the benefit I pretend to by my petition will not amount to what my gratitude obliges, yet the satisfaction which it will be to my mind, and my credit therein at stake, I value at ten times as much. And this will enable me to place my Water-commanding Engine, when I am certained of an hundred pounds a day profit, without further troubling the king or anybody.”[16]
All his piteous importunity proved of no avail. His friends turned aside from his petitionings, and the king would give him no help. He came to be regarded as a crack-brained enthusiast, and a wild projector of impracticable things. He could not find any one to believe in his water-commanding engine, though he himself regarded it as of greater worth than either his titles or his estates. It had been his own creation—the child of his brain—the product of studies and experiments extending over nearly forty years. But what signified all this if no one would make use of the invention?
His difficulties and embarrassments grew from day to day; and his projects met with increased contumely and even contempt. None valued them, because none understood them. It was even proposed to appropriate to other purposes the premises at Vauxhall, on which he so much plumed himself, but which he had been unable to purchase. To prevent this, he again petitioned the king in 1666, representing that he had expended 9000l. in building the house he occupied there as “an operatory for engineers and artists to make public works in,” and “above 50,000l. trying conclusions of arts in that operatory which may be useful to his Majesty and his kingdom;” and he concluded by praying that Vauxhall might be granted to him at a fee-farm rent. The Marchioness, his wife, at the same time petitioned the House of Lords, representing the state of poverty to which her husband had been reduced, and that, in consequence of an execution having been put in at Worcester House, through a debt of 6000l. which the Marquis had incurred in 1642 to pay the garrison of Monmouth, then in a state of mutiny, he was actually threatened to be turned out of house and home. It is not known what came of this petition; but shortly after its presentation the poor Marquis was beyond all worldly help. Broken in health, harassed, embarrassed, and disappointed, he died in April, 1667, in the sixty-sixth year of his age, and his remains were conveyed to Raglan for interment in the family vault.
It will be remembered that the Marquis concluded the 98th article of his ‘Century’ with the words, “I call this a semi-omnipotent engine, and do intend that a model thereof be buried with me.” A diligent search for the model has recently been made in the vault under Raglan church, under the direction of Mr. Bennet Woodcroft, whose enthusiasm as a collector of primitive engines and machines is so well known; but the search proved unsuccessful, and no traces of the Marquis’s model could be found.