as nominated to serve in a
corvette as "volontaire d'honneur." His ship was paid off in 1792, and
he was at Paris during the trial of the King. With the incautiousness
of youth he openly avowed his royalist opinions in the cafe which he
frequented. On the very day that Louis was condemned to death, Brunel
had an angry altercation with some ultra-republicans, after which he
called to his dog, "Viens, citoyen!" Scowling looks were turned upon
him, and he deemed it expedient to take the first opportunity of
escaping from the house, which he did by a back-door, and made the best
of his way to Hacqueville. From thence he went to Rouen, and succeeded
in finding a passage on board an American ship, in which he sailed for
New York, having first pledged his affections to an English girl,
Sophia Kingdom, whom he had accidentally met at the house of Mr.
Carpentier, the American consul at Rouen.

Arrived in America, he succeeded in finding employment as assistant
surveyor of a tract of land along the Black River, near Lake Ontario.
In the intervals of his labours he made occasional visits to New York,
and it was there that the first idea of his block-machinery occurred to
him. He carried his idea back with him into the woods, where it often
mingled with his thoughts of Sophia Kingdom, by this time safe in
England after passing through the horrors of a French prison. "My
first thought of the block-machinery," he once said, "was at a dinner
party at Major-General Hamilton's, in New York; my second under an
American tree, when, one day that I was carving letters on its bark,
the turn of one of them reminded me of it, and I thought, 'Ah! my
block! so it must be.' And what do you think were the letters I was
cutting? Of course none other than S. K." Brunel subsequently
obtained some employment as an architect in New York, and promulgated
various plans for improving the navigation of the principal rivers.
Among the designs of his which were carried out, was that of the Park
Theatre at New York, and a cannon foundry, in which he introduced
improvements in casting and boring big guns. But being badly paid for
his work, and a powerful attraction drawing him constantly towards
England, he determined to take final leave of America, which he did in
1799, and landed at Falmouth in the following March. There he again
met Miss Kingdom, who had remained faithful to him during his six long
years of exile, and the pair were shortly after