Mr. Uvillé, a Swiss gentleman interested in South American mining, came over from Peru to England in 1811 for the purpose of making inquiries about such an engine, but he received no encouragement. He was about to return to Lima, in despair of accomplishing his object, when, one day, accidentally passing a shop-window in Fitzroy Square, he caught sight of an engine exposed for sale which immediately attracted his attention. It was the engine constructed by Trevithick for his first locomotive, which he had sold some years before, on the sudden abandonment of the exhibition of its performances in London. Mr. Uvillé was so much pleased with its construction and mode of action that he at once purchased it and took it out with him to South America. Arrived there, he had the engine transported across the mountains to the rich mining district of Pasco, about a hundred miles north of Lima, to try its effects on the highest mountain ridges.
The experiment was so satisfactory that an association of influential gentlemen was immediately formed to introduce the engine on a large scale, and enter into contracts with the mine-owners for clearing their shafts of the water which drowned them. The Viceroy of Peru approved the plan, and the association dispatched Mr. Uvillé to England to purchase the requisite engines. He took ship for Falmouth about the end of 1812 for the purpose of finding out Trevithick. He only knew of Trevithick by name, and that he lived in Cornwall, but nothing farther. Being full of his subject, however, he could not refrain from conversing on the subject with the passengers on board the ship by which he sailed, and it so happened that one of them—a Mr. Teague—was a relative of Trevithick, who promised, shortly after their landing, to introduce him to the inventor.
Mr. Teague was as good as his word, and in the course of a few days Uvillé was enabled to discuss the scheme with Trevithick at his own house at Camborne, where he still resided. The result was an order for a number of high-pressure pumping-engines, which were put in hand at once; and on the 1st of September, 1814, nine of them were shipped at Portsmouth for Lima, accompanied by Uvillé and three Cornish engineers, one of whom was William Bull, of Chasewater, Trevithick's first partner.
The engines reached Lima in safety, and were welcomed by a royal salute and with public rejoicings. Such, however, was the difficulty of transporting the materials across the mountains, that it was not until the middle of the year 1816 that the first engine was erected and set to work to pump out the Santa Rosa mine, in the royal mineral territory of Yaüricocha. The association of gentlemen to whom the engines belonged had entered into a contract to drain this among other mines, on condition of sharing in the gross produce of the ores to the extent of about 25 per cent. of the whole amount raised. The result of the first working of the engine was so satisfactory that the projectors were filled with no less astonishment than delight, and they characterized the undertaking as one from which they "anticipated a torrent of silver that would fill surrounding nations with astonishment."
In the mean time Trevithick was proceeding at home with the manufacture of the remaining engines, as well as new coining apparatus for the Peruvian mint, and furnaces for purifying silver ore by fusion; and with these engines and apparatus he set sail for America in October, 1816, reaching Lima in safety in the following February. He was received with almost royal honors. The government "Gazette" officially announced "the arrival of Don Ricardo Trevithick, an eminent professor of mechanics, machinery, and mineralogy, inventor and constructor of the engines of the last patent, and who directed in England the execution of the machinery now at work in Pasco." The lord warden was ordered by the viceroy to escort Trevithick to the mines accompanied by a guard of honor. The news of his expected arrival there occasioned great rejoicings, and the chief men of the district came down the mountains to meet and welcome him. Uvillé wrote to his associates that Trevithick had been sent out "by heaven for the prosperity of the mines, and that the lord warden proposed to erect his statue in solid silver." Trevithick himself wrote home to his friends in Cornwall that he had before him the prospect of almost boundless wealth, having, in addition to his emoluments as patentee, obtained a fifth share in the Lima Company, which, he expected, on a moderate computation, would yield him about £100,000 a year!
But these brilliant prospects were suddenly blasted by the Peruvian revolution which broke out in the following year. While Mr. Boaze was reading his paper[17] before the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall, in which these anticipations of Trevithick's fame and fortune were so glowingly described, Lord Cochrane was on his way to South America to take the command of the Chilian fleet in its attack of the ports of Peru, still in the possession of the Spaniards.
Toward the end of 1818, Lord Cochrane hoisted his flag, and shortly after proceeded to assail the Spanish fleet in Callao Harbor. This proved the signal for a general insurrection, during the continuance of which the commercial and industrial affairs of the province were completely paralyzed. The pumping-engines of Trevithick were now of comparatively little use in pumping water out of mines in which the miners would no longer work. Although Lima was abandoned by the Spaniards toward the end of 1821, the civil war continued to rage for several years longer, until at length the independence of Peru was achieved; but it was long before the population were content to settle down as before, and follow the ordinary pursuits of industry and commerce.
The result to Trevithick was, that he and his partners in the Mining Company were consigned to ruin. It has been said that the engineer joined the patriotic party, and invented for Lord Cochrane an ingenious gun-carriage centred and equally balanced on pivots, and easily worked by machinery; but of this no mention is made by Lord Cochrane in his "Memoirs." The Patriots kept Trevithick on the mountains as a sort of patron and protector of their interests; but for this very reason he became proportionately obnoxious to the Royalists, who, looking upon him as the agent through whom the patriotic party obtained the sinews of war, destroyed his engines, and broke up his machinery wherever they could. At length he determined to escape from Peru, and fled northward across the mountains, accompanied by a single friend, making for the Isthmus of Panamá. In the course of this long, toilsome, and dangerous journey, he encountered great privations; he slept in the forest at night, traveled on foot by day, and crossed the streams by swimming. At length, his clothes torn, worn, and hanging almost in shreds, and his baggage all lost, he succeeded in reaching the port of Cartagena, on the Gulf of Darien, almost destitute.
Here he encountered Robert Stephenson, who was waiting at the one inn of the place until a ship was ready to set sail for England. Stephenson had finished his engagement with the Colombian Mining Company for which he had been working, and was eager to return home. When Trevithick entered the room in which he was sitting, Stephenson at once saw that he was an Englishman. He stood some six feet in height, and, though well proportioned when in ordinary health, he was now gaunt and hollow, the picture of privation and misery.
Stephenson made up to the stranger, and was not a little surprised to find that he was no other than the famous engineer, Trevithick, the builder of the first patent locomotive, and who, when he last heard of him, was accumulating so gigantic a fortune in Peru. Though now penniless, Trevithick was as full of speculation as ever, and related to Stephenson that he was on his way home for the purpose of organizing another gold-mining company, which should make the fortunes of all who took part in it. He was, however, in the mean time, unable to pay for his passage, and Stephenson lent him the requisite money for the purpose of reaching his home in Cornwall.