"If you have not insured my life I would thank you to do it now, if you can on reasonable terms. I do not wish them to take the risk of the seas in the policy, because the voyage here is over, and on my return I hope I shall not want it, therefore it must be for two years in the country. I will get a certificate of my health, if they wish it, from the most respectable inhabitants, and also from the Vice-king, if they wish it. The policy may be drawn accordingly. "Be so good as to write me often, with all the news you can collect. If you wish your dividends in this company to be applied to further advantage in any new mines I may engage in, in preference to having it sent to England, I will, as the dividends are made, do everything in my power to improve the talent. On this subject I must have your answer before I can make any new arrangement under this head. I will thank you to send a copy of Mr. Page's letter to my wife; I mean such parts of it as belong to the business; there may be some things that I have forgotten to mention. "I remain, Sir, "Your humble servant, "RICHD. TREVITHICK. "MR. JAMES SMITH, _Limekiln Lane, Greenwich_." In the early part of 1817 four engines were at work in the mines, two pumping water and two raising the ore; while a fifth engine was coining in the Mint at Lima. Trevithick believed that he could much improve the engines and the mining, and that it would be necessary and practicable to arrange for the construction of engines in Lima; for though death and dissension had caused difficulty, the authorities were still prepared to give him full power. A strange defect in his character is evidenced in this letter. He wished his life to be insured for the benefit of his wife and family, but never thought of paying the yearly insurance premium, leaving it for his wife to pay, whom he had left, as far as he knew, penniless in England. On his sailing from Penzance, he told his wife that he had paid the house-rent for a year in advance, mentioning the sum. At the end of that time a demand was made on Mrs. Trevithick for a year's rent, being a larger sum than her husband had mentioned as the proper rent. It turned out that Trevithick had taken and paid for the house at six-monthly periods, instead of yearly periods. It was in the same street, and but three or four houses from that occupied by the parents of the eminent Sir Humphry Davy.