Didot, the proprietor of the mill,
who crossed the Channel into England, where, with the aid of a skilled
mechanic, the machine was in a measure perfected, and then sold to Henry
and Sealy Fourdrinier. They, with the further aid of Bryan Donkin, their
employee and expert engineer, made many additional improvements, and
sank in the enterprise some sixty thousand pounds sterling, for which
their only reward was blighted hopes and embittered lives. In 1847 the
London _Times_ made a fruitless appeal on behalf of the surviving
brother, who was eighty years of age and in great poverty. It is seldom
that the world voluntarily makes return to those who have bestowed upon
it great material or moral benefits, though it is ever ready to expend
its treasure for engines of destruction and to magnify and reward those
who have been most successful in destroying human life.
The first "machine" mill was started at Frogmore, Hertz, England, in
1803, which was the year of the great Louisiana Purchase by the United
States, and it is not difficult to say which event has been productive
of the greater and more beneficial results to this nation.
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