“Sir William Petty,” he writes, “Mr. Molyneux, and I have spent this day in making experiments with a new invented calesh, along with the inventor thereof; ’tis he that was in London when I was there, but he never made any of these caleshes there, for his invention is much improv’d since he came from thence: it is in all points different from any machine I have ever seen: it goes on two wheels, carries one person, and is light enough. As for its performance, though it hangs not on braces, yet it is easier than the common coach, both in the highway, in ploughed fields, cross the ridges, directly and obliquely. A common coach will overturn, if one wheel go on a superficies a foot and a half higher than that of the other; but this will admit of the difference of three feet and a half in height of the superficies, without danger of overturning. We chose all the irregular banks, the sides of ditches to run over; and I have this day seen it, at five several times, turn over and over; that is, the wheels so overturned as that their spokes laid parallel to the horizon, so that one wheel laid flat over the head of him that rode in the Calesh, and the other wheel flat under him; so much I all but once overturned. But what I have mentioned was another turn more, so that the wheels were again _in statu quo_, and the horse not in the least disordered: if it should be unruly, with the help of one pin, you disengage him from the Calesh without any inconvenience. I myself was once overturned, and knew it not, till I looked up, and saw the wheel flat over my head; and, if a man went with his eyes shut, he would imagine himself in the most smooth way, though, at the same time, there were three feet difference in the heights of the ground of each wheel. In fine, we have made so many, and so various experiments, and are so well satisfied of the usefulness of the invention, that we each of us have bespoke one; they are not (plain) above six or eight pounds a-piece.” [Illustration: _Early Italian Gig at the South Kensington Museum_] Why the nobility, gentry, and worthy burgesses of England, Scotland, and Ireland did not go and do likewise, history hides from us. There is no further mention of Sir Richard’s truly remarkable carriage, and one is left to imagine that some of the Irish roads were too bad even for its freakish agility.