with them. It was this obstinate refusal to see and judge for themselves which lost the manufacturers of Sheffield their great monopoly of the steel trade; for, although the steel makers refused to see, it was abundantly clear to the ironmasters that profits could be realised by working the new process; hence it was speedily adopted in all the great iron districts of the country.

Some idea may be formed of the importance of the manufacture, and of how much the people of Sheffield lost by their prejudice and incredulity, when I state the simple fact that, on the expiration of the fourteen years' term of partnership of our Sheffield firm, the works, which had been greatly increased from time to time, entirely out of revenue, were sold by private contract for exactly twenty-four times the amount of the whole subscribed capital of the firm, notwithstanding that we had divided in profits during the partnership a sum equal to fifty-seven times the gross capital. So that, by the mere commercial working of the process, apart from the patent, each of the five partners retired from the Sheffield works after fourteen years, having made eighty-one times the amount of his subscribed capital, or an average of nearly cent. per cent. every two months -- a result probably unprecedented in the annals of commerce.

Remembering the keen interest which the Emperor of the French had taken in my early experiments with rifled projectiles, I naturally made him acquainted with the success I had achieved; while, at the same time, I also kept our own Government fully informed. At that period the Foundry and Ordnance Department at Woolwich was ably presided over by Colonel Eardley Wilmot, R.A., who had taken the deepest interest in the progress of my invention from its earliest date.