I fully appreciate your reasons for desiring such a consummation, and, in addition to them, have others peculiar to my own position.

Any one who has a valuable patent can profit by it only by a constant fight with some of the most profligate and, at the same time, most shrewd members of society.

I have found myself not only the agent of yourself and the Messrs.

Vail to sell your patent rights, but the soldier to fight your battles, as well in the country as in the courts of justice.

Almost single-handed, with the deadly enmity of one of the patentees, and the annoying jealousies of another, I have encountered surrounding hosts, and, I trust, been instrumental in saving something for the Proprietors of this great invention, and done something to maintain the rights and vindicate the fame of its true author.