d been suffered to remain a public
debtor for a whole year after he was known to be in arrears upwards of
24,000L. During next year 11,000L. more had accrued. It would not
have been fair to have turned too short on an old companion. It would
perhaps, too, have been dangerous, since unpleasant discoveries might
have met the public eye. It looked very much as if, mutually conscious
of criminality, they had agreed to be silent, and keep their own
secrets."

In making these offensive observations Whitbread was manifestly
actuated by political enmity. They were utterly unwarrantable. In the
first place, Melville had been formally acquitted of Jellicoe's
deficiency by a writ of Privy Seal, dated 31st May, 1800; and secondly,
the committee appointed in that very year (1805) to reinvestigate the
naval accounts, had again exonerated him, but intimated that they were
of opinion there was remissness on his part in allowing Jellicoe to
remain in his office after the discovery of his defalcations.

the report made by the commissioners to the Houses of Parliament in
1805,[10] the value of Corts patents was estimated at only 100L.
Referring to the schedule of Jellicoe's alleged assets, they say "Many
of the debts are marked as bad; and we apprehend that the debt from Mr.
Henry Cort, not so marked, of 54,000L. and upwards, is of that
description." As for poor bankrupt Henry Cort, these discussions
availed nothing. On the death of Jellicoe, he left his iron works,
feeling himself a ruined man. He made many appeals to the Government
of the day for restoral of his patents, and offered to find security
for payment of the debt due by his firm to the Crown, but in vain. In
1794, an appeal was made to Mr. Pitt by a number of influential members
of Parliament, on behalf of the inventor and his destitute family of
twelve children, when a pension of 200L. a-year was granted him. This
Mr. Cort enjoyed until the year 1800, when he died, broken in health
and spirit, in his sixtieth year. He was buried in Hampstead
Churchyard, where a stone marking the date of his death is still to be
seen. A few years since it was illegible, but it has recently been
restored by his surviving son.

Though Cort thus died in comparative poverty, he laid the foundations
of many gigantic fortunes. He may be said to have been in a great
measure the author of our modern iron aristocracy, who still
manufacture after the processes which he invented or perfe