I was next invited to attend a meeting of a few gentlemen held at the office of the Cambria Company to arrange a slate for the action of the subscribers at a meeting which had been called for organization. This first meeting was full of surprises to me. I went into it expecting the gentlemen to say to me: “Of course, Mr. Porter, you will accept the office of president?” quite unconscious that I had made it impossible for them to think of such a thing, but quite conscious that no amateur in that position could by any possibility make the business successful, unless he should commit the management entirely to my hands and content himself with being a mere figurehead. Mr. Townsend, the president of the Cambria Company and the leading mover in this enterprise, called the meeting to order and announced that the first question to be settled would be the name of the company. I remarked: “There can be but one name for it: the Porter-Allen Steam-engine Manufacturing Company.” Then Mr. William H. Merrick spoke up: “I don’t know about that; of course, no one can imagine that the manufacture of these engines can employ all the resources of these great works; there is a vast amount of work of the character formerly carried on in them which will naturally flow back to them, and I think the door should be left open for its return.” I expressed my amazement at such a view; I had not come there to revive any old business, but to make the Porter-Allen engine and nothing else; that it must be obvious to any observer that my business only required suitable means for carrying it on to grow to great proportions, and the resources of these works, whatever they were, would need to be greatly enlarged for its use, and besides the name ought to describe and advertise the business. When a vote was taken every man voted for the historic Philadelphia name of the “Southwark Foundry,” to which they added “and Machine Company,” and I discovered that my views had no weight at all. I had afterwards the pleasure of being asked by my friends occasionally what good I supposed that name would do my business. The next subject was the selection of a president, and my next discovery was that I was not even thought of. If any one had been asked why he had not thought of me he would, from his point of view, very properly have replied that “to commit the interests of this company to a man who had shown so little ability to look out for his own interests did not impress him favorably.” Every vote was cast for William H. Merrick, and I was selected as vice-president, with charge of the manufacturing.