[15] Mr. Woodcroft is, however, of opinion that the Marquis’s contrivance was but a boat with paddle-wheels, with an axis across it, which axis was turned by the action of the stream on the paddles, and thus wound up a rope and dragged the boat onward to the other end of the rope fixed by an anchor; certainly a more clumsy and less notable contrivance than that of a steamboat. When Watt was on one occasion asked for his opinion as to the precise nature of the Marquis’s contrivance, his answer was, that the descriptions given were too obscure to enable any definite opinion to be formed on the subject; but he thought that the expansive power of steam was the principle on which the engine worked. He added, that no one could possibly erect an engine after the Marquis’s ‘Scantlings,’ and that any inventor desirous of constructing a steam-engine would have to begin again at the beginning. But though the Marquis did not leave the steam-engine in such a state as to be taken up and adopted as a practicable working power, he at least advanced it several important steps. In this world, it is not given to man to finish; to persevere, to improve, and to advance, are all that can be hoped for; and these are enough for the real philosopher. Little remains to be told of the unfortunate Marquis’s history. His water-commanding engine proved of no service to him. It only increased his embarrassments by involving him in further debts. The Restoration, though it gave him back his estates, did not mend his fortunes, and he continued to importune his friends for loans. He sought access to the King by petition; but it became more and more difficult to approach him. On one occasion he tried to accomplish his purpose through the influence of his Majesty’s mistress, Lady Castlemaine. Provided she could persuade the king to grant his request, he offered to present to her “a thousand pieces to buy her a little jewel, which she deserves to wear every day of the week. And if it please God I live but two years,” he added, “I will, out of the profits of my water-commanding engine, appropriate four hundred pounds yearly, for ever, to her Grace’s disposal ... all which, as I am a gentleman and a Christian, shall be faithfully and most thankfully performed; though the benefit I pretend to by my petition will not amount to what my gratitude obliges, yet the satisfaction which it will be to my mind, and my credit therein at stake, I value at ten times as much. And this will enable me to place my Water-commanding Engine, when I am certained of an hundred pounds a day profit, without further troubling the king or anybody.”[16]