In 1862 I thought I had reason to fear the advent of a rival process brought forward by Mr. George Parry, of the Ebbw Vale Iron Works, whose name figures in a patent for the manufacture of iron and steel, bearings date November 18th, 1861.

Before making any further reference to this patent, I would remind those of my readers who are not practically acquainted with the details of my steel process, that it consists in decarburising iron which contains too much carbon to constitute steel, and in some cases this process of decarburisation is carried through every grade of steel until the carbon element is wholly removed, and soft malleable iron is the material arrived at. Now, in describing this operation in my patent, I made use of the well-known and ordinary terms by which iron in its various states of combination with carbon is commercially known; thus, I claimed to force air into and beneath the surface of molten crude iron (that is, molten iron as it leaves the blast furnace), or re-melted pig or cast iron (that is, re-melted, broken or useless castings). If, instead of using these trade terms, I had said that I claimed forcing air beneath the surface of carburet of iron, this would, in scientific language, not only have included these three ordinary qualities of iron, but it would have embraced any and every compound of iron and carbon from which I desired to eliminate the latter, and which was, in fact, the real object, meaning, and intention of my invention.

It must be remembered that my royalty of two pounds per ton on all ingots of iron or steel made by my process was holding out a great premium for the production of a carburet of iron for conversion into steel, which, from the nature of its manufacture, might so far differ from ordinary crude or pig iron as to remove it from the actual trade class of iron which I claimed to convert; such iron, even if it cost £1 per ton more than commercial pig iron, would avoid my royalty of £2, and save the patentee £1 per ton. The ostensible object of this patent of Mr. George Parry for the manufacture of iron and steel was to produce a superior quality of steel by the employment of malleable scrap iron in lieu of pig, or crude iron; for this purpose the scrap iron was melted with coke in a small blast furnace, from which it was run into a converter similar to mine, and blown with air forced upward through it by tuyères, the orifices of which were beneath the surface of the metal; all this was a pure and simple copy of my decarburising process. But the malleable iron scrap could not be fused when distributed and mixed up with lumps of coke in the blast furnace, without its absorbing about two per cent. of carbon, and thus producing white iron or forge pig; it would also absorb some sulphur from the coke, and would contain that amount of phosphorus which is always present in ordinary British bar-iron, and which is an inadmissible quantity in cast steel. The metal thus produced would, in fact, be crude iron, although the various impurities present might differ in proportion from those in ordinary blast furnace iron. Such iron would, further, be deficient in that necessary heat-producing element, silicon, which is always present in considerable quantity in all pig-iron suitable for the converting process; and this, combined with the deficiency of carbon, would form an absolute barrier to its conversion into fluid mild steel, as the necessary heat could not be produced from such a quality of carburet of iron. This process, as might have been expected, proved unsuccessful.

One more incident referring to my relations with Mr. Mushet remains to be chronicled before I close this Chapter. In December, 1866, one of my clerks announced the visit of a young lady, who did not send in her name, but wished to see me personally. She was asked into my private office, and, on my going to her, she gave the name of Mushet. She told me that the gravest misfortune had overtaken her father, and that without immediate pecuniary help their home would be taken from them. She said: "They tell me you use my father's invention, and are indebted to him for your success." I said: "I use what your father had no right to claim; and if he had the legal position you seem to suppose, he could stop my business by an injunction to-morrow, and get many thousands of pounds' compensation for my infringement of his rights. The only result which followed from your father taking out his patents was that they pointed out to me some rights which I already possessed, but of which I was not availing myself. Thus he did me some service, and even for this unintentional service I cannot live in a state of indebtedness; so please let me know what sum will render your home secure, and I will give it you." She then handed me a paper setting forth the legal claim against him; I at once took out my cheque-book and drew for the amount, viz., £377 14s. 10d., and handed it to her. She thanked me in a faltering voice as I bade her good afternoon.