274 RKXNTE'S LAST WOKKS PART VII. 



Road, from which lie afterwards removed to Stamford 

 Street, not far from his works. 



His close and often unremitting application early 

 began to tell upon his health. In 1812, when arrived 

 at the age of fifty-one, he was occasionally laid up 

 by illness. While occupied one day in inspecting the 

 works of Waterloo Bridge, he accidentally set his foot 

 upon a loose plank, which tilted up, and he fell into 

 the water, but happily escaped with only a damaged 

 knee. Though unable for some time to stir abroad, lie 

 seized the opportunity of proceeding with the preparation 

 of numerous reports, and of working up a long lee-way 

 of correspondence. In the following year he was fre- 

 quently confined to the house by a supposed liver- 

 complaint ; but his correspondence never flagged. He 

 tried the effects of change of air at Cheltenham ; but 

 he had no time for repose, and after the lapse of only a 

 week he was again in harness, giving evidence before 

 a Committee of the House of Commons on Lough Erne 

 drainage. He made another hurried visit to Chelten- 

 ham, but evidently took no rest; his absence from 

 active business only affording him an opportunity for 

 writing numerous letters to influential persons at the 

 Admiralty on the subject of his grand scheme of the 

 Northfleet Docks. To one of his correspondents we find 

 him saying he was "better, though only half a man 

 yet." In course of time, however, he partially reco- 

 vered, and was forthwith immersed in business engaged 

 upon his docks, bridges, and breakwaters. 



He very rarely "took play." In 1815 his venerable 

 friend James Watt, of Birmingham, urged him to pay a 

 visit with him to Paris, shortly after the battle of AVaterloo. 

 But Mr. Rennie was too full of work at the time to 

 accept the invitation, and the visit was postponed until 

 the following year, when he was accompanied by James 

 Watt, jun., then of Aston Hall, near Birmingham. This 

 journey was the first relaxation he had taken for a period 



