272 COSTA RICA. 



SlR, " STANWIK, CUMBERLAND, 21th November, 1864. 



" I read in the public prints that in a speech made by 

 you in Belle Vue Gardens you referred to the meeting of 

 Robert Stephenson with Trevithick at Carthagena, which, if 

 your speech be correctly reported, you attribute to accident. 

 The meeting was not an accident, although an accident led to 

 it, and that accident nearly cost Mr. Trevithick his life ; and he 

 was taken to Carthagena by the gentleman that saved him, 

 that he might be restored. When Mr. Stephenson saw him he 

 was so recovering, and if he looked, as you say, in a sombre 

 and silent mood, it was not surprising, after being, as he said, 

 'half drowned and half hanged, and the rest devoured by 

 alligators/ which was too near the fact to be pleasant. Mr. 

 Trevithick had been upset at the mouth of the river Magdalena 

 by a black man he had in some way offended, and who capsized 

 the boat in revenge. An officer in the Venezuelan and the 

 Peruvian services was fortunately nigh the banks of the river, 

 shooting wild pigs. He heard Mr. Trevithick's cries for help, 

 and seeing a large alligator approaching him, shot him in the 

 eye, and then, as he had no boat, lassoed Mr. Trevithick, and 

 by his lasso drew him ashore much exhausted and all but dead. 

 After doing all he could to restore him, he took him on to 

 Carthagena, and thus it was he fell in with Mr. Stephenson, 

 who, like most Englishmen, was reserved, and took no notice of 

 Mr. Trevithick, until the officer said to him, meeting Mr. 

 Stephenson at the door, ' I suppose the old proverb of " two of 

 a trade cannot agree " is true, by the way you keep aloof from 

 your brother chip. It is not thus your father would have treated 

 that worthy man, and it is not creditable to your father's son 

 that he and you should be here day after day like two strange 

 cats in a garret ; it would not sound well at home.' ' Who is 

 it '? ' said Mr. Stephenson. ' The inventor of the locomotive, 

 your father's friend and fellow-worker ; his name is Trevithick, 

 you may have heard it,' the officer said ; and then Mr. Stephenson 

 went up to Trevithick. That Mr. Trevithick felt the previous 

 neglect was clear. He had sat with Robert on his knee many a 

 night while talking to his father, and it was through him Robert 

 was made an engineer. My informant states that there was not 



