How he achieved his next step we are not informed; but we find him, in July, 1784, engaged in superintending the erection of a house, after a design by Mr. Samuel Wyatt, intended for the residence of the Commissioner (now occupied by the Port Admiral) at Portsmouth Dockyard, together with a new chapel, and several buildings connected with the Yard. Telford took care to keep his eyes open to all the other works going forward in the neighbourhood, and he states that he had frequent opportunities of observing the various operations necessary in the foundation and construction of graving-docks, wharf-walls, and such like, which were among the principal occupations of his after-life. The letters written by him from Portsmouth to his Eskdale correspondents about this time were cheerful and hopeful, like those he had sent from London. His principal grievance was that he received so few from home, but he supposed that opportunities for forwarding them by hand had not occurred, postage being so dear as scarcely then to be thought of. To tempt them to correspondence he sent copies of the poems which he still continued to compose in the leisure of his evenings: one of these was a 'Poem on Portsdown Hill.' As for himself, he was doing very well. The buildings were advancing satisfactorily; but, "above all," said he, "my proceedings are entirely approved by the Commissioners and officers here-- so much so that they would sooner go by my advice than my master's, which is a dangerous point, being difficult to keep their good graces as well as his. However, I will contrive to manage it"*[5]