In the United States, he had made his appeal directly to the mass of the farmers. In Europe he could not do this. The vast bulk of the farmers here were tenants or serfs. But it was also true, he observed, that the Kings of Europe, and the members of the nobility, were land-owners. Here was his chance. He would begin at the top. He would sell his Reapers to the kings. He noticed that kings and queens were not the remote and inaccessible personages that he had believed them to be. Prince Albert was plainly more interested in farm machinery than in the Koh-i-noor. The one prize which was awarded to him personally was for a model cottage, in which a workingman's family might live with greater comfort. And one morning, while McCormick was giving attention to his Reaper, the Queen and her ten-year-old son (now the King of England) walked past and had a view of the American Reaping machine that had been so widely ridiculed and praised. McCormick had to hurry back to the United States, on account of a patent suit that was then in full swing; but before he left England he established an agency in London, and started a vigorous campaign among the titled land-owners. He prepared a statement, showing that even at the low rate of wages that were paid on English farms a Reaper would mean a handsome saving to English wheat-growers. But he did not depend upon the argument of economy. He placed his reliance also upon the fact that the Reaper had become the playtoy of kings, and that their fancy would presently make it the fashion. Four years later he went with another Reaper to an Exposition at Paris, won the Gold Medal, and sold his machine to the Emperor. Then, in 1862, with his wife and young son and daughter, he made his headquarters in London, and opened up a two-years' campaign in Great Britain, Germany, and France. Up to this time the foreign trade had grown but slowly. All European countries combined were not buying more than half a million dollars' worth of farm machinery a year from Americans--less than we sell them now in five days. So McCormick exerted himself to the utmost. He held field tests to awaken the farmers. He advertised and organized. There were now several dozen other manufacturers in the field, all making Reapers more or less like McCormick's; and he gave battle to them at London, Lille, and Hamburg. After the Hamburg contest, Joseph A. Wright, the United States Commissioner, cabled to New York: "McCormick has thrashed all nations and walked off with the Gold Medal."