hirty-one; the special exemption of the
patent from the operation of the statute affording a sufficient
indication of the importance already attached to the invention. After
that time Dudley "went on with his invention cheerfully, and made
annually great store of iron, good and merchantable, and sold it unto
diverse men at twelve pounds per ton." "I also," said he, "made all
sorts of cast-iron wares, as brewing cisterns, pots, mortars, &c.,
better and cheaper than any yet made in these nations with charcoal,
some of which are yet to be seen by any man (at the author's house in
the city of Worcester) that desires to be satisfied of the truth of the
invention."

Notwithstanding this decided success, Dudley encountered nothing but
trouble and misfortune. The ironmasters combined to resist his
invention; they fastened lawsuit's upon him, and succeeded in getting
him ousted from his works at Cradley. From thence he removed to Himley
in the county of Stafford, where he set up a pit-coal furnace; but
being without the means of forging the iron into bars, he was
constrained to sell the pig-iron to the charcoal-ironmasters, "who did
him much prejudice, not only by detaining his stock, but also by
disparaging his iron." He next proceeded to erect a large new furnace
at Hasco Bridge, near Sedgeley, in the same county, for the purpose of
carrying out the manufacture on the most improved principles. This
furnace was of stone, twenty-seven feet square, provided with unusually
large bellows; and when in full work he says he was enabled to turn out
seven tons of iron per week, "the greatest quantity of pit-coal iron
ever yet made in Great Britain." At the same place he discovered and
opened out new workings of coal ten feet thick, lying immediately over
the ironstone, and he prepared to carry on his operations on a large
scale; but the new works were scarcely finished when a mob of rioters,
instigated by the charcoal-ironmasters, broke in upon them, cut in
pieces the new bellows, destroyed the machinery, and laid the results
of all his deep-laid ingenuity and persevering industry in ruins. From
that time forward Dudley was allowed no rest nor peace: he was
attacked by mobs, worried by lawsuits, and eventually overwhelmed by
debts. He was then seized by his creditors and sent up to London,
where he was held a prisoner in the Comptoir for several thousand
pounds. The charcoal-iron men thus for a time remained masters of the
fi