"From Costa Rica Captain Trevithick came to England, with a design, among others, of forming a company to work a mine which had been granted him (for a term of years) by the Costa Rica Government. Mr. Gerard came to England with a similar object in view. Both failed in their object. Mr. Gerard was extremely unfortunate with regard to his mine, for he spent a considerable fortune of his own in working his mine to a loss. "The eminence of Captain Trevithick as an engineer is well known. The public are indebted to him for the invention of the high-pressure steam-engine and the first railway steam-carriage. The latter being dependent on the former, Captain Trevithick informed me that the idea of the high-pressure engine occurred to him suddenly one day whilst at breakfast, and that before dinner-time he had the drawing complete, on which the first steam-carriage was constructed. Captain Trevithick informed me that in 1830 the original steam railway-engine constructed by him in 1808[132] at that time was still running in Wales." [Footnote 132: Probably referring to the Welsh locomotive of 1804.] "SIR, "STANWIK, CUMBERLAND, _27th November, 1864_. "I read in the public prints that in a speech made by you in Belle Vue Gardens you referred to the meeting of Robert Stephenson with Trevithick at Carthagena, which, if your speech be correctly reported, you attribute to accident. The meeting was not an accident, although an accident led to it, and that accident nearly cost Mr. Trevithick his life; and he was taken to Carthagena by the gentleman that saved him, that he might be restored. When Mr. Stephenson saw him he was so recovering, and if he looked, as you say, in a sombre and silent mood, it was not surprising, after being, as he said, 'half drowned and half hanged, and the rest devoured by alligators,' which was too near the fact to be pleasant. Mr. Trevithick had been upset at the mouth of the river Magdalena by a black man he had in some way offended, and who capsized the boat in revenge. An officer in the Venezuelan and the Peruvian services was fortunately nigh the banks of the river, shooting wild pigs. He heard Mr. Trevithick's cries for help, and seeing a large alligator approaching him, shot him in the eye, and then, as he had no boat, lassoed Mr. Trevithick, and by his lasso drew him ashore much exhausted and all but dead. After doing all he could to restore him, he took him on to Carthagena, and thus it was he fell in with Mr. Stephenson, who, like most Englishmen, was reserved, and took no notice of Mr. Trevithick, until the officer said to him, meeting Mr. Stephenson at the door, 'I suppose the old proverb of "two of a trade cannot agree" is true, by the way you keep aloof from your brother chip. It is not thus your father would have treated that worthy man, and it is not creditable to your father's son that he and you should be here day after day like two strange cats in a garret; it