Tower, the board would give directions to have their goodness examined and compared with those of Birmingham."

This answer was sent the 7th of January, 1784, and there the business ended. No foreign swords were ever sent to the Tower for the above purpose, nor was any trial of their comparative goodness ever made; and it was not till the year 1786, that Mr. Gill obtained the object of his pursuit, though he had made repeated and fruitless attempts for that purpose. For, on an order for ten thousand horsemen's swords being issued by the East India Company, which was divided indiscriminately amongst English and German manufacturers, Mr. Gill, being still anxious for the comparative proof, presented a petition to the committee of shipping of the East India Company, requesting that all the swords of the different countries and manufacturers might be proved by a test, so as to ascertain the difference of their qualities. This produced an order for that purpose, and a resolution that none but such as on inspection and proofs stood that test, should be received.

Accordingly, when the swords were sent to the company's warehouse, they underwent an examination by a test or machine, recommended by Matthew Boulton, Esq., of the Soho, for trying the quality or temper of the sword-blades; namely, by forcing the blade into a curved state, and which reduced its length of thirty-six inches to twenty-nine and a half inches only, from the point to the hilt. The result of this trial proved, that Mr. Gill had two thousand six hundred and fifty swords received, and only four rejected.

That of the German swords, fourteen hundred were received, and twenty-eight rejected, being in the proportion of thirteen to one of Mr. Gill's.

And that of the other English swords, only two thousand seven hundred were received, and one thousand and eightyfour rejected!

It was owing to the parsimony of the London retailers of swords, that the English swords fell into disrepute; the fact was, they employed unskilful workmen, and bought

goods of an inferior quality. To corroborate this fact, it may be necessary to relate a case in point:-A London dealer having executed a commission for swords for General Harcourt's regiment of dragoons, prior to its going to North America, in the war of the revolution of that country, was called upon by the General on his return to England, and upbraided by him in the severest language of reproach, for having supplied his troops with swords of so base a quality, that they either broke to pieces, or became useless, in the first onset of an engagement, by which many of his brave soldiers were unworthily slaughtered, and his own person exposed to the most imminent danger. In this distressed predicament, the contractor applied to Mr. Gill, who had never before supplied him with any sword-blades, in consequence of another regiment wanting some at that time, to know at what price he could render swords of such a quality as to bear what he, the contractor, called a severe mode of trial, namely, striking the sword with violence upon a large flat stone. But Mr. Gill, in answer, told him he thought it by no means so severe as it ought to be, to determine properly the real quality of swords; and that he would engage to serve him with such as should stand a much severer test, at an advance of only nine-pence for horsemen's, and six-pence for small swords, more than was given to other makers for those of an inferior quality. In fact, besides subjecting his sword-blades to the test of bending them in the manner above-mentioned, he caused them to be struck flatways upon a slab of cast-iron, and edgeways upon a cylinder of wrought-iron, frequently a piece of a gun-barrel, which they often cut into two parts. Nay, so exceedingly tough were they, although made of cast-steel, that, after cutting a gun-barrel asunder, he would frequently wind one of them around it in the manner of a ribband, without its breaking; and indeed the greater part of the blade would recover its original straightness, the part nearest to the point only remaining in a coiled state.

The result of this great success was, that he was very

frequently applied to for his superior sword-blades, even by German officers, who preferred them to those of the manufacture of their own country. Neither did he content himself with improving the quality of his sword-blades, but he likewise studied their embellishment, both by blueing and gilding them in the most elegant manner, and by embossing them, and in which he employed the talents of the first-rate artists.

Besides his business of a sword- cutler, Mr. Gill was also a large contractor for the supply of ironmongery stores to the office of ordnance, and which also included the supply of tools and materials for the use of the royal military artificers; and, in fact, in one year in particular, he supplied such to the amount of upwards of one hundred thousand pounds sterling! And, indeed, so voluminous were the accounts, that it cost the life of one of his most expert clerks to get through them. In fact, the ordnance granted him imprests to the amount of fifty thousand pounds, in one instance, and thirty thousand pounds in another, to enable him to execute those large supplies.

He was also the first gunmaker in this country who set up, as it is termed, or put together, musquets, carbines, and pistols, for government use, out of London. During the French revolutionary war, however, the ordnance finding the supply from the London gunmakers to be insufficient for the extensive demand for fire-arms, determined that they should likewise be set up in Birmingham, from whence indeed the locks, barrels, brass-work, &c., had always been procured; but the arms were set up under the inspection of viewers, in the Tower of London. And accordingly he wrote to the Editor at Birmingham, whilst he himself was in London, desiring him to wait upon the Birmingham gunmakers, and to apprise them of the wishes of government on this head, and likewise to inform them that he was determined government should not be disappointed, and that unless they would undertake the task, he would himself become a gunmaker. They, however, were so much

alarmed at the thoughts of setting up fire-arms under the rigid inspection of the view-masters, having merely been makers of musquets for the African trade, and the merchants, and of ordinary pistols and fowling-pieces, that although their workmen were out of employment, owing to the war putting a stop to their trade, yet not one of them would venture to embark in the undertaking. On this, Mr. Gill brought down into the country with him an inspector and view-masters from the Tower; a proof-house and view-rooms were constructed in the vicinity of Birmingham, upon the borders of a navigable canal, and he commenced the important object, in which indeed he was greatly assisted by the care and diligence of the inspector, and proof and view masters, his task being chiefly confined to the financial department; and after having thus readily fallen into this important pursuit, and succeeded for several years in affording complete satisfaction to the inspector and his officers, and consequently to the board of ordnance itself, the Birmingham gunmakers at length began to rouze themselves, and endeavour to share in the work; and with this intent, to endeavour to get back their workmen from Mr. Gill; this, however, government would not permit, and they were therefore under the necessity of procuring others. About this period also, the lease of a powerful forge and water-mills, situated in the midst of the gunbarrel welders, having expired, Mr. Gill took a lease of them, and thus completely established himself as a manufacturer of gun-barrels also. However, in process of time, the other Birmingham gunmakers entered into the business of setting up fire-arms, and, during the late wars, have rendered the most essential services to government.

The forge and mills above-mentioned were constructed upon the usual plan, of the water-wheels running as fast as the water could drive them, and, consequently, to the great waste of their power. They were, likewise, at the end of a long lease, in such a state of dilapidation, that they required nearly an entire renovation, and, accordingly, were taken upon a repairing lease for the long period of ninety-nine

VOL. VI.

years. The Editor then prevailed upon his father to adopt, in the construction of the new water-wheels, the scientific principles established by the experiments of the celebrated Smeaton; namely, that in overshot water-wheels, the peripheries should not move with a greater speed than three feet per second. This slow motion being however so very different from the usual speed of such water-wheels, it was determined that the novel experiment should be first tried by the removal of a small water-wheel, of only twelve feet in diameter, and over which, when the mill-pond was full and the head and fall was twenty feet, the greater part of the water was thrown, without much of it entering the buckets; in short, it was the most wasteful water-wheel in the works. In place of this, another water-wheel, of sixteen feet in diameter, was substituted; and instead of being an over-shot, it was what is termed in this country a backshut, and in the United States, a pitch-back, water-wheel, the water being laid upon it behind, near to its top, and its motion being in the same direction with that of the water flowing from it, so that, in time of floods, it was less obWhen this structed by the back-water, or tail-water. wheel was completed, it was found that all the water it required would have passed through a hole an inch square only, and that instead of moving at the rate of three turns per minute, as intended, it made two and a half revolutions only, and yet it performed its work, that of actuating two pairs of large forge-bellows, most perfectly. The success attendant upon this first experiment, led Mr. Gill to construet two other water-wheels, the one of sixteen feet in diameter, and five feet in breadth, with deeper buckets than usual; and another of the same diameter, and ten feet broad; and by dividing the work of boring and grinding gun-barrels, and grinding and polishing sword-blades, between these two water-wheels, the expenditure of the water was very greatly economised, and the mills also ren dered much more powerful.

(To be continued.)