Like many another benefactor of his country, Cort got little good out of his invention for himself. He took out a patent for his process, and arranged with the leading iron-masters to accept a royalty of ten shillings a ton for the use of them. With a large fortune in prospect, his purse was just then exhausted by the expenses he had incurred in experiments and researches; and he had to look out for a capitalist to aid him in working the patent on his own account. As ill luck would have it, he entered into partnership with a certain Adam Jellicoe, then deputy-paymaster of the navy. Jellicoe was considered a man of substance, and a "thoroughly respectable" character. He was to advance the ready money, and to receive in return half of the profits of the trade, Cort assigning to him, by way of collateral security, his patent rights. For a year or two all went well. The patent was everywhere adopted, and Cort's own iron works drove a lucrative and growing trade. He seemed in a fair way of getting back the fortune he had spent in bringing out the inventions, doubled or trebled, as he well deserved. The respectable Jellicoe was seized with a mortal sickness: at his death his desk was filled by another, his books were examined, and it turned out that he had been robbing the government for many a year back, and was a large defaulter. Cort, of course, had nothing to do with this villany, but he had to pay the penalty of it. As Jellicoe's partner he was responsible, in those days of unlimited liability, for all Jellicoe's debts; but that was not the worst of it. The treasurer of the navy was not content to exact only the payment of Jellicoe's defalcations, as he had no doubt a right to do, but confiscated the whole of Cort's patent rights, business, and property, which would have paid the debt seven or eight times over, had it been fairly valued. This incident has never been properly cleared up, but what glimpses of its secret passages have been obtained, seem to indicate clearly enough that poor Cort was the victim, not of one, but of two or more swindlers. To the day of his death he never could obtain a distinct account of the proceedings; and when, after his death, a Royal Commission was appointed to inquire into the matter, the treasurer of the navy and his deputy took care, a week or two before the Commission met, to indemnify each other by a joint release, and to burn their accounts for upwards of a million and a half of public money, for the application of which they were responsible, as well as all papers relating to Cort's case. When the Commission met, and the treasurer and his deputy were called before it, they refused to answer questions which would criminate themselves.