To be sure, the seven boats were not finished at the time called for. That they were all launched within a hundred days of the signing of the contract is amazing enough, but if they had been built after designs of Eads's own, so that he would not have been delayed by sudden changes necessitated when he found weaknesses in the plans furnished him, or when the designer changed the specifications, and if the government, harassed and driven as it then was, had been able to pay him according to its part of the contract, there is little doubt that he would have had the vessels finished in time according to his agreement. Even as it was, it was legally decided later that he was not at fault. When he entered into the contract he was a rich man; and as he was not to receive his first payment from the government for twenty days, probably only a rich man could have had the credit necessary to put so much machinery into motion. As it proved subsequently, the government was so lax in its payment, and demanded work so much more expensive than the specifications called for, that before the work was finished Eads was in a hard way financially. He had been much worried and distracted in obtaining funds: after exhausting his own fortune he had sought the aid of patriotic friends, and it was principally in order to pay them back that he made his appeal to the government. By the terms of his contract he might have delayed the work until his payments were received, and might thus have saved himself great distress and worry, but, as I have said, he realized how much the Union needed the boats. He himself said that it was "of the utmost importance that these boats should be made as effective as possible, without reference to how I was to be affected by delays, ... and that their completion should be pushed with the utmost energy, whether the government failed in its part of the bargain or not." Their rapid completion then was a proof not only of Eads's masterful energy, but of his self-sacrificing patriotism as well. Ultimately he was paid most of the money for the gunboats, and as a result of his patriotism won back the fortune he had risked; but at the time of course it hampered him intolerably to be without funds. He had, besides, other difficulties to contend with. At least one of his sub-contractors or head-workmen was a disappointed bidder for the gunboat contract, and was on a salary which ran till the boats were finished; and while Eads would not mention such a suspicion in public, he suggested in a private letter that this had been an additional cause of delay. After all, the seven boats had been launched and were ready to be put into commission by Flag-Officer Foote, before he had more than one third of the necessary crews ready for them.