ation of mine. This request must show
the Admiralty my confidence in the correctness of the former trial; for
there is no doubt the Woolwich people would condemn it if they could."
This second and crucial trial took place on the 9th of November, and the
result exceeded alike Lord Dundonald's expectations and those of the
official judges, to whom failure would have been most pleasant. "All
matters as regards my engines," he wrote on the 20th of November, "are
going on well. I hope soon to hear something satisfactory from the
Admiralty on the subject of the boilers, respecting which they have
until now pursued the most profound silence, notwithstanding the
triumphant result, which has surpassed the product of the far-famed
Cornish boilers in evaporative power."

Those extracts from Lord Dundonald's letters to the friend with whom he
corresponded most freely will suffice to show in what temper he watched
the progress of his inventions during 1844. At the close of the year he
hoped that his labours to bring them into general use were now nearly at
an end; but in this he was disappointed. The Woolwich authorities, who
had at the time expressed their approval of the boilers, sent in an
adverse report to the Admiralty, and Lord Dundonald had to wait several
months before he could disprove the statements made against them; and
opposition of the same sort--the common experience of nearly every
inventor--encountered him at every turn, and had again and again to be
overcome. His Portsmouth engine continued to work well; but in
September, 1845, he learnt that a malicious trick had been resorted to,
to prevent its working better. "On a recent examination of the pumps in
the well," wrote Mr. Taplin, the engineer, "to our utter astonishment we
found, in the middle suction pipe, an elm plug, driven in so tight that
we were obliged to bore and cut it out. The plug stopped that suction
pipe effectually, and from its appearance must have been there from the
time the pumps were first put in motion. As proof of this, we never had
such a supply of water as at present." And that is only an illustration
of the obstacles, accidental or designed, that occurred to him.

By them, the _Janus_ was delayed for a whole year. She was to have been
completed in 1844; but this was not done till the end of 1845. "I have
just returned," Lord Dundonald was able to write on the 24th of
December, "from a nine days' trip in the _Janus_, the result of which
has