se patents, and the failure of Ebbw Vale to ensure their full life
under English patent law indicates clearly enough that by 1859 the firm
had realized that their position was not strong enough to warrant a
legal suit for infringement against Bessemer. Their purchase of the
Uchatius process and their final attempt to develop Martien's ideas
through the Parry patents, which exposed them to a very real risk of a
suit by Bessemer, are also indications of the politics in the case.
Mushet seems to have been a willing enough victim of Ebbw Vale's
scheming. His letters show an almost presumptuous assumption of the
mantle of his father; while his sometimes absurd claims to priority of
invention (and demonstration) of practically every new idea in the
manufacturing of iron and steel progressively reduced the respect for
his name. Bessemer claims an impressive array of precedents for the use
of manganese in steel making and, given his attitude to patents and his
reliance on professional advice in this respect, he should perhaps, be
given the benefit of the doubt. A dispassionate judgment would be that
Bessemer owed more to the development work of his Swedish licensees
than to Mushet.

[119] William T. Jeans, _The creators of the age of steel_,
London, 1884.

Kelly's right to be adjudged the joint inventor of what is now often
called the Kelly-Bessemer process is questionable.[120] Admittedly, he
experimented in the treatment of molten metal with air blasts, but it
is by no means clear, on the evidence, that he got beyond the
experimental stage. It is certain that he never had the objective of
making steel, which was Bessemer's primary aim. Nor is there evidence
that his process was taken beyond the experimental stage by the Cambria
Works. The rejection of his "apparatus" by W. F. Durfee must have been
based, to some extent at least, upon the Johnstown trials. There are
strong grounds then, for agreeing with one historian[121] who
concludes:

The fact that Kelly was an American is evidently the principal
reason why certain popular writers have made much of an invention
that, had not Bessemer developed his process, would never have
attracted notice. Kelly's patent proved very useful to industrial
interests in this country as a bargaining weapon in negotiations
with the Bessemer group for the exchange of patent rights.

[120] Bessemer dealt with Kelly's claim to priority in a letter