Presley had come to as to the adoption of my perforated stamp; but with my strong conviction of the advantages of my new plan I felt in honour bound not to suppress it, whatever might be the result. Thus it was that I soon found myself again closeted with Sir Charles at Somerset House, discussing the new scheme, which he much preferred, because he said all the old dies, old presses, and old workmen could be employed, and there would be but little change in the Office; so little, in fact, that no new Superintendent of Stamps was required, which the then unknown art of making and using piercing dies would have rendered absolutely necessary. After due consideration my first plan was definitely abandoned by the Office in favour of the dated stamps, with which everyone is now familiar. In six or eight weeks from this time, an Act of Parliament was passed calling in the private stock of stamps dispersed throughout the country, and authorising the issue of the new dated ones.

Thus was inaugurated a system that has been in operation some forty-five years,³ successfully preventing that source of fraud from which the Revenue had so severely suffered. If anything like Sir Charles Presley's estimate of £100,000 per annum was correct, this saving must now amount to some millions sterling; but whatever the varying amount might have been, it is certain that so important and long-established a system as that in use at the Stamp Office would never have been voluntarily broken up by its own officials except under the strongest conviction that their losses were very great, and that the new order of things would prove an effectual barrier to future fraud.

During all the bustle of this great change, no steps had been taken to instal me in the office. Lord Althorp had resigned., and no one seemed to have any authority to do anything for me; all sorts of half promises and excuses followed each other with long delays between, and I gradually saw the whole thing sliding out of my grasp. Instead of holding fast to my first plan, which they could not have executed without my aid and the special knowledge I had acquired, I had in all the trustfulness of youthful inexperience shown them another so simple that they could put it in operation without any assistance from me. I had no patent to fall back upon. I could not go to law, even if I wished to do so, for I was reminded when pressing for mere money out of pocket, that I had done all the work voluntarily and of my own accord. Wearied and disgusted, I at last ceased to waste time in calling at the Stamp Office, for time was precious to me in those days, and I felt that nothing but increased exertions could make up for the loss of some nine months of toil and expenditure. Thus, sad and dispirited, and with a burning sense of injustice overpowering all other feelings, I went my way from the Stamp Office, too proud to ask as a favour that which was indubitably my just right; and up to this hour I have never received one shilling or any kind of acknowledgement from the British Government. Such has been my reward.

I am, Sir, Your obedient Servant, (Signed) HENRY BESSEMER.

Denmark Hill, 29th October, 1878.

In all the early stages of the development of my invention for piercing designs on parchment, I had depended entirely on my own hands; but when I was desired by the Stamp Office authorities to show how I proposed practically to carry out the invention, I designed the form of stamp described in my letter to The Times, and which is faithfully represented by an impression on the fly-leaf at the commencement of this letter; the execution of the somewhat elaborate design in steel, represented by this impression, was entrusted by me to Messrs. Porter and Son, die-sinkers of some eminence, at that time carrying on business in Percival Street, Clerkenwell, and whom I had frequently before employed to re-touch the cast-metal dies used by me for stamping works of art in relief on cardboard.

Now, in order to obtain positive evidence in corroboration of my letter to The Times of November 1st, it was of paramount importance that I should find Mr. Porter, if still alive; I had strong hopes of doing so, as I had both seen and conversed with him twice within the last eight or ten years, but had no knowledge of his present residence; failing to obtain this information, I resorted to an advertisement in the second column of The Times, on November 6th and six following days, which happily resulted in Mr. Porter communicating with me. He knew me well as an old customer of his firm, and reminded me of some of the more important dies re-touched by him; in consequence of the extremely novel character of the