426 Respecting the real Inventor of the Steam-Engine. 



bad grounds on which to found charges of error. Before this 

 dispute be carried further^ it is recommended that the numbers 

 in the Table of 1 S09 be computed anew by just rules : then, if 

 attention be paid to the difference of the elementary quantities 

 and to the degree of accuracy aimed at, greater progress will be 

 made in clearing up this question, than would be dons by whole 

 volumes of loose discussion. J.I. 



LXXVII. Notice respecting the real Inventor of the Steam- 

 Engine. 



A HE following communication by R.N. {i.e. as I conceive, 

 R. Naires) which appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine in the 

 year 1811, deserves to be again brought before the public, that 

 the merit of the invention may, as it ought, be ascribed to its true 

 author. — A. T. 



Julys, 1811. 



Mr. Urban, — The inventors of valuable improvements are 

 generally thought worthy of celebration, and their names are 

 sometimes sought with eagerness for the sake of doing justice to 

 their merits. To such distinction few inventors seem more am- 

 ply entitled than the person to whom we owe the Steam-engine; 

 a contrivance which, assisted by modern improvements, is now 

 performing what, a century ago, would have seemed miraculous 

 or impossible ; yet it appears that he has been hitherto entirely 

 unknown to the world at large. 



In 1699, a Captain Savary obtained a patent for this inven- 

 tion ; and he has consequently occupied all the honour of the 

 discovery. But in that noble assemblage of MSS. the Harleian 

 Collection, now in the British Museum, the strongest testimony 

 appears that the real inventor was Samuel Morland, who was 

 Master of the Works to Charles II. and who 1 fancy was knighted ; 

 for in the MS. he is called Sir Samuel, and ^'' Le Chevalier." 

 That the first hint of the kind was thrown out by the Marquis of 

 Worcester, in hisCentury of Inventions, is allowed; but obscurely, 

 like the rest of his hints. But Morland wrote a book upon the 

 subject ; in which he not only showed the practicability of the 

 plan, but went so far as to calculate the power of different cylin- 

 ders. This book is now extant in manuscript in the above col- 

 lection. It was presented to the French King in 16S3, at which 

 time experiments were actually shown at St. German's. The 

 author dates his invention in 16S2 ; consequently 17 years prior 

 to Savary's patent. As Morland held places under Charles II., 

 we must naturally conclude, that he would not liave gone over 

 to France to offer his invention to Louis XIV. had lie not found 



it 



