I went on to Chicago, arriving on a Saturday afternoon. I went to the house of an uncle, the Rev. Jeremiah Porter, who was a man of some local prominence, having been the first missionary sent by the American Home Missionary Society to Fort Dearborn, which stood where Chicago is before Chicago was. I expected to set out Monday morning to look for customers, but I changed my mind, for that morning the telegraph brought the news of the battle of Bull Run, which had been fought the day before, while I was in church hearing my uncle preach. I did not think any one would have much heart for business for some time to come, so hurried back home as fast as steam could take me, not stopping in Buffalo. Some years afterwards I had an amusing experience in attempting to introduce my governor into the British navy. I called upon Mr. John Penn, to whom I had sold one of my stationary governors for his own works and who had become very much interested in the Richards indicator, and I thought he would surely adopt my marine governor. He told me, however, that he must set his face against it like a flint, and explained as follows: “I do business entirely with governments, principally the English government, and I come in contact with the official mind, and I have to adapt myself to it. Should I put one of your governors on an engine, my competitors would say: ‘Mr. Penn is afraid to send his engines to sea without a governor, they are made so delicately. _Our_ engines, gentlemen, do not require any governor,’ and they would take all the orders.” Marine-engine builders generally did not seem to appreciate this governor. While in Manchester I had an inquiry from Caird & Co. of Greenock, the builders of the engines for the “New York,” and indeed of the entire ship. They asked the price of my smallest marine governor. I inquired the size of the vessel for which it was wanted. Their reply was brief. “None of your business. We would like an answer to our question.” Some months after I received a letter from my foreman in New York: “Mr. Porter, what in the name of common sense did you put such a little governor on the ‘America’ for?” Caird & Co. had performed their contract to supply a Porter governor, and had left a suitable one to be ordered from my shop in New York.