271 COSTA RICA. 



u I know not the cause, but they were not so cordial as I 

 could have wished. It might have been their difference of 

 opinion about the construction of the proposed engine, or it 

 might have been from another cause, which I should not like to 

 refer to at present ; indeed, there is not time. 



" Pray address me as before. I hold no rank in the British 

 service, #nd in England never assume any. 



*' I have the honour to be, dear Sir, 



" Faithfully yours, 



" BRUCE NAPIER HALL. 

 "EDWARD W. WATKIN, Esq., M.P., &c., 

 " Current Calamo" 



These notes from Mr. Hall and Mr. Fairbairn to Mr. 

 (now Sir Edward) Watkin 1 arose from the latter re- 

 peating what Mr. Robert Stephenson had related of his 

 meeting with Trevithick and Gerard at the inn at 

 Carthagena. Stephenson said, " on his way home from 

 Colombo, and in the public room at the inn, he was 

 much struck by the appearance and manner of two 

 tall persons speaking English ; the taller of them, wear- 

 ing a large-brimmed straw or whitish hat, paced rest- 

 lessly from end to end of the room." Gerard and 

 Stephenson entered into conversation, and Trevithick 

 joined them. Stephenson said that he had a hundred 

 pounds in his pocket, of which he gave fifty to Trevi- 

 thick to enable him to reach England. It seems that 

 had it not been for Mr. Hall's quick eye and steady 

 hand rescuing Trevithick from the jaws of the blind 

 alligator, he never would have returned to his native 

 country. 



Here was the inventor of the locomotive a beggar 

 in a strange land, helped by the man whom he had 

 nursed in baby-boyhood, then returning to England to 



1 Sir Edward Watkin contemplated writing a life of Trevithick. 



