ENGLISH INJUSTICE.
A STORY of flagrant injustice perpetrated by the English Govern- ment on an unoffending citizen, when George the Third was King," has been brought before the public, not for the first time, though it is new to our day. Various reasons have contributed to call it forth now ; among them, perhaps most urgently, the fact that those who suffer are indigent and aged. The Times conspicuously reproduced the tale, in a leading article, on the 29th of July • and it has been brought under our own attention by a copy of the documents on which that article was founded. Henry Cort, of Gosport in the county of Southampton, was an iron-manufacturer, who was actively engaged in business about seventy years ago. He invented two processes which materially affected the whole manufacture of iron. He introduced the pro- cess called "puddling," by which iron is freed from its carbonace- ous particles, and rendered malleable, without the expensive ma- terials formerly employed. At that dine we were mainly depend- ent upon Sweden for the raw material of wrought iron ; now, though Swedish iron maintains its superiority for the very highest kinds of make, the import of it has decreased rather than otherwise, notwithstanding the enormous increase in the iron-manufactures of this country, and it has declined in price. The other process was the application of grooved rollers, which by pressure on four sides elongate a piece of iron into a bar, enabling a manufac- turer to produce twenty tons of bar-iron in the same time and with the same labour as were previously required to produce, one ton of inferior quality by the operation of hammer-forging. The value of these two processes is attested by the most distinguished iron-manufacturers, several engineers, and men of practical science, in this country. A general meeting of the iron trade of Great Britain, in 1811, unanimously passed a resolution of thanks to
i
Cost for his inventions : and in a petition to the Commons, the leading men of our own day acknowledge that "these unexampled improvements " had saved enormous sums of money formerly paid to foreign countries for bar-iron, while more was received from them for British puddle and rolled wrought-iron ; and meanwhile " the wants of the population were supplied out of materials previously useless," at "a saving of two hundred per cent" in the price. There is no need to enlarge upon the value of such improve- ments. Abstract the assistance given by Henry Cort, and it would be impossible to say that our iron trade, or the gigantic improvements which have depended upon the iron trade—our railways, our steam-navigation, our military machinery—could have been developed into the condition which they now present. It is impossible to estimate the millions saved and gained to the people of this country, or the numbers supported, or the wealth thus created, by the help of these. particular improvements.
In the intelligent and meritorious prosecution of his business, Henry Cort took out two patents for his two improvements, in the years 1783 and 1784. He effected contracts with the leading ironmasters of the kingdom, who stipulated to pay him ten shil- lings per ton for the use of his process. In the development of this business, as we gather from the documents, after he had ex- pended a private fortune of 20,0001., he found that he still re- quired some capital or some aid in prosecuting a large under- taking ; and he admitted a partner. The exact date of this part- nership does not appear, but the agreement on which it was based seems to be dated on the 1st of January 1781, when Adam Jelli- coe agreed to repay to Henry Cort half of the money invested, with some further sums ; receiving in return one moiety of the stock in trade andequal division of the profits.
This Mr. Adam Jellicoe was " chief clerk in the Pay branch of the office of the Treasurer of his Majesty's Navy." In the exe- eution of his duties in that office, he had received a number of Navy bills. During the first two years of his engagement with Mr. Cost, he appears to have furnished the means of his admission to theership . out of the Navy-chest. " Ever since I have bad pu ltagnmoney in my hands," he says, "it has been a constant rule with me to have the value of it in Navy bills in the iron
chest, that in case of my death the balance might be immedi- ately ately aid in • and have always had much more than my ba- lance me, till my engagement about two years ago with Mr. Cork w 'eh by degrees has so reduced me, and employed so much more of my money than I expected, that I have been obliged to turn most of my Navy bills into cash, and at the same time, to my great concern, am very deficient in my balance."
About this time occurred those money irregularities in the Naval administration which led to Parliamentary inquiry—gigan- tic irregularities, in the course of which accounts for millions sterling appear to have been destroyed. Adam Jellicoe seems to have fallen into the official laxity of the day. We see here his own statement how he procured the money for the partnership with Henry Cert. The letter from which our quotation is taken was found in his iron chest by an official accountant employed some years later to schedule Jellicoe's effects ; and it expresses great uneasiness of mind. The partnership of Cort and Jellicoe turned out to involve a participation which the iron-manufactuier certainly did not contemplate. Adam Jellicoe's default must have been known to his superiors before 1788; but in that year the Treasurer of the Navy called upon him to make good his de- fault. He appears ultimately to have sought refuge in suicide ; but before he resorted to that extremity, he surrendered, as securities for the money due to Government, " the bonds and assignments of Mr. Cost's patents," the value of which had al- ready been recognized by the Navy Office. Mr. Alexander Trotter, the person who stood most conspicuously accused in the transac- tions afterwards investigated by Parliament, made an affidavit in September 1789, stating that 27,500/. and upwards "of his Majesty's moneys, paid by the deponent as Paymaster of his Majesty's Navy unto Adam jellicoe," for the use of the Navy, had been " by the said Adam Jellicoe at different times lent and advanced unto the said Henry Cort, from whom the same now re- mains justly due and owing' : and, "inasmuch as the said Henry Cost was much decayed in his credit and in very embarrassed circumstances," " this deponent" pointed out that the amount " was in great danger of being lost if some more speedy,means be not taken for the recovery than by the ordinary process of the Exchequer Court. On this affidavit an extent in aid was issued for the recovery of the amount; and the Crown took possession of Mr. Cost's freeholds in Hampshire, of his manufactory, and in short of his whole property, already, having the bonds and as- signments of his patents. The sequel is even more extraordinary. In his melancholy letter, Adam. Jellicoe says of his son Samuel, parenthetically, ' who I hope is in a way to make a comfortable provision for his brothers and sisters." It is an astounding fact, that the manufactory was not sold by the Crown, but that Samuel Jellieoe, this son of the defaulter, was put into possession under the extent, and continued to hold possession, apparently with the enjoyment of the proceeds, down to the year 1803 !
This, however, was not the whole of the wrong. The patents appear to have been practically confiscated or annulled, and the iron trade generally discontinued the stipulated payment to Remy Cost for the use of his invention. Thus, for the offence of has partner in an official capacity, Cort in his mercantile capacity had to pay with confiscation and ruin. The tangible property ac- tually lost is estimated at 39,4521. ; but the prospective Lass nu- clei the patents is guessed at sums far more considerable-250,0001. at the least.
Some attempts were made to procure justice for the wronged inventor. At a general meeting of the iron trade, in 1811, a sub- scription was raised for his wife, and 8711. was mustered by that very imperfect process. A Committee of the House of Commons was appointed in 1812: all the witnesses except one confirmed the value of Cost's process ; the solitary dissentient appears to have had an interest adverse to the claim, inasmuch as he was a rival manufacturer, who would have had to pay 20,0001. patent- dues ; and the Committee reported in general terms, faintly re- cognizing Cost's " share " in a useful improvement, but only recommending that his family should be spared the expense of prosecuting the petition—about 250/. The Chairman of the Committee neglected to make a motion in the House following out this proposal of the Committee, and the oppressed family had to pay that sum in addition to the previous losses ! What has ever been done to compensate this atrocious injury? Just enough to recognize the claim, without satisfying it. After long urging his suit, Henry Cort at last obtained a trifling pen- sion; at his death, his widow was allowed a portion of that niggard bounty ; and at her death the allowance, 501., was con- tinued for two of her daughters !
But the representatives of Henry Cort still survive, still prose- cute the appeal for justice ; and having carried it to the Crown and to the Parliament, hitherto without avail, now come before the British public. It is a plain story of enormous wrong perpetrated by the country through its servants. The practical question now is, whether the English public is too much hardened by ha- bitually neglecting the claim of justice, or whether it will make an exception in this case, .and give some fragmentary compensation for the robbery of which the English Government was guilty towards Henry Cort. The papers sent to us comprise a second petition to the House ef Commons, praying for inquiry into the grounds of the claim to compensation now revived. A public sub- scription has been opened to defray the expense of the new move- ment ; and to the collection for that purpose has been applied a sum of 50/, granted by Lord Palmerston out of the Royal Bounty Fund.
Previous page
