[9] See farther, "Lives of the Engineers," vol. iv., Boulton and Watt, p. 182-4.
[10] Soho MSS.
[11] Soho MSS.
[12] Ibid.
[13] "Portfeuille du Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers," Livraison 1, p. 3.
[14] This statement is made in "The Life of John Fitch," by Thompson Westcott, Philadelphia, 1857. Mr. Thompson there states that the idea of employing a steam-engine to propel carriages on land occurred to John Fitch at a time when, he avers, "he was altogether ignorant that a steam-engine had ever been invented!" (p. 120). Such a statement is calculated to damage the credibility of the entire book, in which the invention of the steam-boat, as well as of the screw propeller, is unhesitatingly claimed for John Fitch.
[15] Horne's "Memoirs of the Most Eminent American Mechanics," New York, 1858, p. 76.
[16] Weale's "Papers on Engineering," vol. i., "On the Dredging Machine," p. 7.
[17] Paper read by Henry Boaze, Esq., "On Captain Trevithick's Adventures," at the Anniversary Meeting of September, 1817.—"Transactions of Royal Geological Society of Cornwall," vol. i., p. 212.
[18] On the 12th of August, 1831, by which time the Liverpool and Manchester line was in full work, Trevithick appeared as a witness before the select committee of the House of Commons on the employment of steam-carriages on common roads. He said "he had been abroad a good many years, and had had nothing to do with steam-carriages until very lately. He had it now, however, in contemplation to do a great deal on common roads, and, with that view, had taken out a patent for an entirely new engine, the arrangements in which were calculated to obviate all the difficulties which had hitherto stood in the way of traveling on common roads."