368 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



private use, or to gentlemen who may like to form clubs, and have private 

 club carriages that will carry them with superior comfort and speed to 

 their residences within twenty miles of the city. 



There is a financial difficulty, which, although aggravated by the political 

 difficulty, is distinct from it, and increases with the expiration of every 

 steam carriage patent. It is the want of protection against the competi- 

 tion of all the plans that are free to be built at mere n)anufacturers' 

 prices, and will be built as soon as the labor and outlays of inventors and 

 their cooperators shall have convinced common carriers that steam can 

 work cheaper than horses. In England, in 1832 to 1840, there w%i-e six 

 or more different plans of steam carriages, nearly equal in efficiency and 

 economy-, which were rivals to each other, and threatened competition that 

 would preclude profits commensurate with the risks incident to a new 

 enterprise of this kind. These plans are all now free; therefore, they are 

 more discouraging than when they were all patented. I have added to the 

 invention a new element, which I deem indispensable to the most efficient 

 and economical results on uneven roads. A first class engineering estab- 

 ment in Philadelphia fully indorses my claims, and would have, engaged 

 in manufacturing on my plan, — making special tools for the work, had not 

 their business suddenly become pressing in consequence of government 

 work. But capitalists do not foresee mechanical results; to satisfy them 

 I must first build a carriage, and run it effectually. That I have done; six 

 carriages on my plan have been built and run satisfactorily, attaining 

 speed of 18 and 22| miles per hour. Then arose a question — which I 

 foresaw, though capitalists did not — it was this: Will not Gurney's, or Han- 

 cock's, or Ogle's, or Maceroni's, or Russell's, or Hill's, or Anderson's, or 

 Moudslay's, or Field's, or Roberts', or Rickett's, or some of the untried 

 plans, now free to compete, rival yours, or surpass it ? To answer this 

 question satisfactorily, I must build a carriage on every one of these plans, 

 and beat every one of them, in a race, and in a year's wear, and show by 

 attested books that mine is the most economical as well as the most pow- 

 erful. Then another question will arise: Have you done justice to these 

 rival plans ? Have you not puposely vitiated proportions, or jockeyed 

 them so as to beat them? Will you give us a bond of indemnity, so 

 that if we are hereafter beaten by these plans when they are built and 

 improved by the Rogers' Locomotive Works, and all the other locomotive 

 builders, we shall be reimbursed ? There is no end to such caviling. If 

 you indulge men in such illiberal fears, they will never cease to imagine 

 difficulties. All we can say is, if you insist on assurance of profit, you 

 must be content with current rates of profit — eight or nine per cent.; but 

 if you will liberally hazard your capital and labor, you may honestly desire 

 great profits. Your best security is, if you are diffident of your own 

 engineering judgment, to consult engineers, and pay them for their 

 opinions, and act upon them. 



I have agreed with a majority of the present steam carriage builders 

 and projectors in this country, to assign their patents and inventions to a 

 company, if it can be formed with sufficient capital, so that we ma}' not 

 oppose and hinder each other, as the English did thirty years ago, and are 

 doing now, I do ijot deem it expedient now to explain my plan publicly, 



