At last Ireland was providentially saved by the change of the wind, which prevented the enemy from effecting a landing on her coast.' Another of Edgeworth's inventions was a one-wheeled carriage adapted to go over narrow roads; it was made fast by shafts to the horse's sides, and was furnished with two weights or counterpoises that hung below the shafts.

In this carriage he travelled to Birmingham and astonished the country folk on the way.
I must now give a sketch of Edgeworth's matrimonial adventures.

They began after a strange fashion, when, at fifteen, he and some young companions had a merry-making at his sister's marriage, and one of the party putting on a white cloak as a surplice, proposed to marry Richard to a young lady who was his favourite partner.

With the door key as a ring the mock parson gabbled over a few words of the marriage service.

When Richard's father heard of this mock marriage he was so alarmed that he treated it seriously, and sued and got a divorce for his son in the ecclesiastical court.
It was while visiting Dr.Darwin at Lichfield that Edgeworth made some friendships which influenced his whole life.