invested about two thousand dollars
which seemed gone forever, and he could not, or would not, invest more.
Howe returned temporarily to his father's farm, hoping for better times.

Meanwhile Howe had sent one of his brothers to London with a machine to
see if a foothold could be found there, and in due time an encouraging
report came to the destitute inventor. A corsetmaker named Thomas
had paid two hundred and fifty pounds for the English rights and
had promised to pay a royalty of three pounds on each machine sold.
Moreover, Thomas invited the inventor to London to construct a machine
especially for making corsets. Howe went to London and later sent for
his family. But after working eight months on small wages, he was as
badly off as ever, for, though he had produced the desired machine, he
quarrelled with Thomas and their relations came to an end.

An acquaintance, Charles Inglis, advanced Howe a little money while he
worked on another model. This enabled Howe to send his family home to
America, and then, by selling his last model and pawning his patent
rights, he raised enough money to take passage himself in the steerage
in 1848, accompanied by Inglis, who came to try his fortune in the
United States.

Howe landed in New York with a few cents in his pocket and immediately
found work. But his wife was dying from the hardships she had suffered,
due to stark poverty. At her funeral, Howe wore borrowed clothes, for
his only suit was the one he wore in the shop.

Then, soon after his wife had died, Howe's invention came into its own.
It transpired presently that sewing machines were being made and sold
and that these machines were using the principles covered by Howe's
patent. Howe found an ally in George W. Bliss, a man of means, who had
faith in the machine and who bought out Fisher's interest and proceeded
to prosecute infringers. Meanwhile Howe went on making machines--he
produced fourteen in New York during 1850--and never lost an opportunity
to show the merits of the invention which was being advertised
and brought to notice by the activities of some of the infringers,
particularly by Isaac M. Singer, the best business man of them all.
Singer had joined hands with Walter Hunt and Hunt had tried to patent
the machine which he had abandoned nearly twenty years before.

The suits dragged on until 1854, when the case was decisively settled
in Howe's favor. His patent was declared basic, and all the makers of
sew