ut it is difficult to
believe that he could have been so foolish as to assign an interest in
his patents to Ebbw Vale without in some way insuring his right of
consultation about their disposition. He claims that even in the
drafting of his specifications he was obliged to follow die demands of
Ebbw Vale, which firm, believing, "on the advice of Mr. Hindmarsh, the
most eminent patent counsel of the day,"[49] that Martien's patent
outranked Bessemer's, insisted that Mushet link his process to
Martien's. This, as late as 1861, Mushet believed to be in effective
operation.[50] His later repudiation of the process as an absurd and
impracticable patent process "possessing neither value nor utility"[51]
may more truly represent his opinion, especially as, when he wrote his
1861 comment, he still did not know of the disappearance of his
patents.

[49] _The Engineer_, 1861, vol. 12, p. 189.

[50] _Ibid._, p. 78.

[51] Mushet, _op. cit._ (footnote 46), p. 9.

Mushet's boast[52] that he had never been into an ironworks other than
his own in Coleford is a clue to the interpretation of his behavior in
general and also of his frequent presumptuous claims. When, for
instance, the development of the Uchatius process was publicized, he
gave his opinion[53] that the process was a useless one and had been
patented before Uchatius "understood its nature"; yet later[54] he
could claim that the process was "in fact, my own invention and I had
made and sold the steel thus produced for some years previously to the
date of Captain Uchatius' patent". Moreover, he claims to have
instructed Uchatius' agents in its operation! He may, at this later
date, have recalled his challenge (the first of many such) in which he
offered Uchatius' agent in England to pay a monetary penalty if he
could not show a superior method of producing "sound serviceable cast
steel from British coke pig-iron, _on the stomic plan_ and without any
mixture of clay, oxide of manganese or any of these pot destroying
ingredients."[55]

[52] _Ibid._, p. 25.

[53] _Mining Journal_, 1857, vol. 27, p. 755.

[54] Mushet, _op. cit._ (footnote 46), p. 28. The Uchatius
process became the "You-cheat-us" process to Mushet (_Mining
Journal_, 1858, vol. 28, p. 34).

[55] _Mining Journal_, 1857, vol. 27, p. 755 (italics supplied).

It was David Mushet (or Robert, using his brother's name)[56] who
accused Bessemer, or rather h