Arrival in London. Conditions I found there. Preparations and Start.
I reached London very early next morning, and drove directly to the
lodgings of my friend, Mr. Wellington Lee, the only American resident
in London whom I knew. These were on a short street extending from the
Strand down to the river, a short distance west of Temple Bar, the
ancient city gate, which was then standing. Who was Mr. Lee and what
was he doing in London? These were questions in which I had an interest
of which I was as yet entirely ignorant. The firm of Lee & Larned were
the first successful designers of steam fire-engines in this country.
More than seventy of these steamers had been built from their plans and
under their direction by the Novelty Iron Works in New York, and the
fire department of that city was completely equipped with them. One
of their engines had been sold to the city of Havre, and Mr. Lee had
gone over with it to test it publicly on its guaranteed performance.
Mr. Amos, one of the senior members of the great London engineering
firm of Easton, Amos & Sons, went over to Havre to witness this trial,
with a view to the manufacture of these steam fire-engines in London.
He was so much pleased that he determined to make the fire-engines,
and engaged Mr. Lee to take the direction of their manufacture. So
it came to pass that at this particular time Mr. Lee was in London
superintending the first manufacture of his steam fire-engines by this
firm.
After our salutations Mr. Lee said: “First of all I have something
to tell you.” Before relating this, I must mention something that I
knew before I sailed. About the time when the cargo of United States
exhibits started, the well-known Mason and Slidell incident occurred.
These gentlemen, commissioners sent by the Confederacy to represent
their cause before European governments, had sailed on a British
vessel flying the British flag. This vessel was overhauled on the high
seas by one of our cruisers, and the commissioners were taken off
and brought prisoners to New York. Mr. Lincoln made haste to disavow
this illegal proceeding, so singularly inconsistent with our own
principles of international law, and to make all the reparation in his
power. But a bitter feeling towards England was then growing in the
Northern States, and in a moment of resentment Congress hastily passed
a resolution repealing the law creating the Exhibition Commission and
making an appropriation for its expenses, and Secretary Seward issued
a proclamation dissolving the commission. The vessel carrying the
exhibits had been gone scarcely more than a day when this action of
Congress and Mr. Seward surprised the country.
I now take up Mr. Lee’s narrative. The news of this action, carried
by a mail steamer, had reached London several days before the arrival
of the exhibits. Under the pressure of an urgent demand the Royal
Commission confiscated the space allotted to the United States and
parceled it out to British exhibitors. Mr. Holmes on his arrival found
not a spot in the Exhibition buildings on which to set his foot. But he
was a man of resources. He went before the commission with an eminent
Queen’s counsel, who made the point that they had received no official
notification of any such action by the United States Government, but
had proceeded on a mere newspaper rumor, which they had no right to
do; and there was the United States assistant commissioner with his
credentials and a shipload of exhibits, and they must admit him.
The commissioners yielded most gracefully. They said: “Now, Mr. Holmes,
the American space is gone; we cannot restore that to you, but there
are unoccupied spots all over the Exhibition, and you may take up any
of these, and we will undertake that your whole exhibit shall be well
placed.” Upon this Mr. Holmes had gone to work and had been able to
find locations for every exhibit, except my engine.
[Illustration: WELLINGTON LEE]
“But only yesterday,” said Mr. Lee, “Mr. Holmes learned that an engine
ordered by the commission to drive the British exhibit of looms, of
which there were thirty-three exhibitors, had been condemned by the
superintendent of machinery, Mr. Daniel Kinnear Clark, and ordered
out of the building.” He added that Mr. Holmes went directly to Mr.
Clark and applied for the place for my engine, the bedplate of which,
thanks to my precipitate action, had arrived and was then on a truck,
in England called a lurry, waiting to be unloaded. In answer to Mr.
Clark’s questions, Mr. Holmes had given him his personal assurance that
I would be there, and the rest of the engine would be there in ample
time, and it would be all that he could possibly desire; and on that
assurance he had got the place for me.
I informed Mr. Lee that I also had something to tell _him_. I then gave
him the situation as already related. He looked very grave. When I had
finished he said: “Well, you are in a hole, sure enough; but come, let
us get some breakfast, and then we will see what Easton & Amos can do
for you.” After eating my first English mutton-chop in a chop-house
on the Strand, I accompanied Mr. Lee to their works in the Borough, a
long distance away, on the south or Surrey side of the Thames, to reach
which we crossed the Southwark bridge.
None of the partners had yet reached the office. Very soon Mr. James
Easton arrived. He was a young man about my own age. Mr. Lee introduced
me and told my story. The instant he finished Mr. Easton came across
the room and grasped my hand most cordially. “That’s the kind of pluck
I like,” said he; “we will see you through, Mr. Porter; we will build
this engine for you, whatever else may have to wait.” Directly he
added: “We have a good deal of ‘red tape’ here, but it won’t do in this
case. There will be no time to lose. Come with me.” He then took me
through the shops and introduced me to every foreman, telling them what
he had undertaken to do, and gave each of them the same instruction,
as follows: “Mr. Porter will come directly to you with his orders.
Whatever he wants done, you are to leave everything else so far as may
be necessary, and do his work as rapidly as possible.”
As I listened to these orders, I could hardly believe my senses or
keep back the tears. Coming on top of the devotion of Mr. Holmes they
nearly overcame me. The sudden relief from the pressure of anxiety was
almost too much. It seemed to me to beat all the fairy stories I had
ever heard. This whole-hearted cordiality of the first Englishman I had
met gave me a high idea of the people as a whole, which, I am happy to
say, a residence of over six years in England served only to increase.
Returning to the office, we found Mr. Lee, who said, “Now, Mr. Porter,
I think Mr. Holmes would like to see you.” Getting the necessary
directions, in due time I found myself in the Exhibition building
on Cromwell Road and in the presence of Mr. Holmes, who received me
joyfully and led me at once to Mr. Clark’s office. As he opened the
door, Mr. Clark looked up from his desk and exclaimed, “Good morning,
Mr. Holmes; where is that engine?” “Well,” replied Mr. Holmes, “here
is Mr. Porter, and the engine is here or on the way.” Mr. Clark
asked me a number of questions about the engine, and finally how
many revolutions per minute it was intended to make. I replied, “One
hundred and fifty.” I thought it would take his breath away. With an
expression of the greatest amazement he exclaimed: “What! a hundred
and fifty! B--b--b--but, Mr. _Porter_, have you had any experience
with such a speed as that?” I told him my experience with the little
engine, which did not seem to satisfy him at all. Finally he closed the
matter, or supposed he had done so, by saying: “I cannot allow such a
speed here; I consider it dangerous.” I decided instantly in my own
mind not to throw away all that I had come for; but I made no sign, but
humbly asked what speed I might employ. After a little consideration
Mr. Clark replied: “One hundred and twenty revolutions; that must not
be exceeded.” This he considered a great concession, the usual speed
of stationary engines being from fifty to sixty revolutions. I meekly
acquiesced, then made my plans for one hundred and fifty revolutions,
and said nothing to anybody. I had no idea of the gravity of my
offence. It was the first time since I was a child that I had been
ordered to do or not to do anything, and I had no conception of orders
except as given by myself. If there was any risk, I assumed it gaily,
quite unconscious how such a daredevil defiance of authority would
appear to an Englishman. Mr. Clark showed me my location, and gave
me an order for my engine-bed to be brought in immediately, and also
other parts of the engine as soon as they arrived. Trucks generally, I
was told, had to wait in the crowd about ten days for their turn to be
unloaded.
[Illustration: CHARLES T. PORTER
A.D. 1862]
I hurry over the time of erection. Everything arrived promptly and the
whole came together without a hitch, as I knew it would. The fly-wheel
and pulley and cylinder lagging I had left to be made in England. I
was at the works of Easton, Amos & Sons every morning at 6 o’clock,
and laid out the work for the day. I made the gauges for boring the
fly-wheel and pulley, which I had now learned how to do, and adjusted
everything about the engine myself, and knew it was right.
I had a talk with the foreman of the pattern-shop about the best
thickness of felt on the cylinder to be covered by the mahogany
lagging, in the course of which I remarked, “It is the air that is
the real non-conductor.” “Yes,” he replied, “and felt, you know, _is_
‘air’.”
I learned several things I did not know before, among others how
the English made a steam-pipe joint, using parallel threads and a
backing-up nut, packed with long hemp which was filled with a putty
made of red and white lead rubbed together dry.
I had great luck in the way of a driving-belt. An American exhibitor
of india-rubber belting asked the privilege of exhibiting a belt in
use on my engine, which I was glad enough to have him do. Otherwise
I hardly know what I should have done. The widest English belts were
12 inches wide, double, and sewn together from end to end with five
rows of sheepskin lacing. The belt ran on the knobs of this lacing.
English machinists then knew nothing of the hold of belts by excluding
the air. The ends of all belts were united by lapping them about two
feet and sewing them through and through with this same lacing. Fine
pounding these joints would have made on the pulleys. I got a governor
belt from him also. Both belts were united by butt-joints laced in the
American fashion. I did this job myself, and, indeed, I put the whole
engine together mostly with my own hands, although Easton, Amos & Sons
sent two of their best fitters to help me. I learned afterwards that I
should have had a sorry time driving my governor by a belt laced in the
English way.
In spite of all efforts and all our good luck, we were not ready to
start until a week after the opening day, May 1, and the exhibitors
were in despair, for none of them believed that this new-fangled
American trap would work when it did start at the frightful speed of
a hundred and twenty revolutions per minute, which they had learned
from Mr. Clark it was to make. Finally one day after our noon dinner I
turned on the steam, and the governor rose at the speed of one hundred
and fifty revolutions precisely. It was immediately surrounded by a
dense crowd, every man of whom looked as if he expected the engine to
fly in pieces any instant.
It was not more than two minutes after it started when I saw Mr. Clark
coming with his watch in his hand. Some one had rushed to his office
and told him the Yankee engine was running away. The crowd opened for
him, and he came up to the engine and watched it for some time, walking
leisurely around it and observing everything carefully from all points
of view. He then counted it through a full minute. At its close he
turned to me and exclaimed, “Ah, Porter--but,” slapping me cordially on
the shoulder, “it’s all right. If you will run as smoothly as this you
may run at any speed you like.”
And so the high-speed engine was born, but neither Mr. Clark, nor I,
nor any human being then knew what it was that made it run so smoothly.
I have since realized more and more what a grand man Mr. Clark then
showed himself to be. A small souled man might have regarded the matter
entirely from a personal point of view, and been furious at my defiance
of his authority. There are such men. I will show one to the reader by
and by. Officialism is liable to produce them. I was quite unconscious
of the risk in this respect that I was running. I have always felt that
I could not be too thankful that at this critical point I fell into the
hands of so noble a man as Daniel Kinnear Clark.
[Illustration: Mr. Porter’s Exhibit at the London International
Exhibition, 1862]