346 DICKSON ON HIS PATENTS TO 



may be fairly called a " bubble company," was worked 

 forward and all but successfully carried out, with unparalleled 

 injustice and intended ruin towards the patentee. A number 

 of cunning and crafty speculators, consisting of colonels, 

 captains, and agents, joined to purchase the exclusive right 

 to Dickson's patents for India for 2,000 in cash, and 8,000 

 in paid-up shares, in June 1859. He (Dickson) agreed to 

 find them prepared fibres, to be spun on silk and worsted 

 machinery, and the matter being fully understood, a company 

 was formed, with a silk merchant or agent as managing 

 director, styled the "East India Fibre and Oil Company, 

 East India Chambers, Leadenhall Street." Seven directors 

 registered their company as it appeared in the Gazette, as 

 the "exclusive proprietors of Dickson's patents for India," 

 and issued prospectuses which stated the terms; the first 

 instalment of 500 was to be paid on the 29th December, 

 1859, and the next 1,500 on the 29th of January, 1860, 

 but a week before the first 500 became due; the company 

 of agents, colonels, and captains, thought proper to inform the 

 patentee, they would go on and do without his patents 

 altogether, and they issued new prospectuses, in which 

 neither his name or patents appeared, and tried to establish 

 a company with his prepared and spun rheea fibre for which 

 he never received one farthing. They had managed to get 

 solicitors to their aid, one of whom was the son of one of the 

 most wealthy and extensive partners in a firm in Alderman- 

 bury, City, and also managed to get his father on the 

 direction, but as the patentee felt the injustice nothing short 

 of a swindle, he called on the firms, and having explained 

 the facts to the senior partners in the firm, they at once 

 desired their names to be struck out of the prospectuses, and 

 the patentee having succeeded there, had another great house 

 or firm in Fore Street also informed of the intended fraud, 

 and thus put an end to the labours of the company, and their 

 " exclusive right to Dickson's patents for India." 



