the militia warrant-officers were
still searching for him, he became uneasy and determined to take refuge
in London.

He trudged all the way on foot to that great hiding-place, and first
tried Holtzapffel's, the famous tool-maker's, but failing in his
application he next went to Maudslay's and succeeded in getting
employment. He worked there for some time, acquiring much valuable
practical knowledge in the use of tools, cultivating his skill by
contact with first-class workmen, and benefiting by the spirit of
active contrivance which pervaded the Maudslay shops. His manual
dexterity greatly increased, and his inventive ingenuity fully
stimulated, he determined on making his way back to Manchester, which,
even more than London itself, at that time presented abundant openings
for men of mechanical skill. Hence we find so many of the best
mechanics trained at Maudslay's and Clement's--Nasmyth, Lewis, Muir,
Roberts, Whitworth, and others--shortly rising into distinction there
as leading mechanicians and tool-makers.

The mere enumeration of the various results of Mr. Roberts's inventive
skill during the period of his settlement at Manchester as a mechanical
engineer, would occupy more space than we can well spare. But we may
briefly mention a few of the more important. In 1816, while carrying
on business on his own account in Deansgate, he invented his improved
sector for correctly sizing wheels in blank previously to their being
cut, which is still extensively used. In the same year he invented his
improved screw-lathe; and in the following year, at the request of the
boroughreeve and constables of Manchester, he contrived an oscillating
and rotating wet gas meter of a new kind, which enabled them to sell
gas by measure. This was the first meter in which a water lute was
applied to prevent the escape of gas by the index shaft, the want of
which, as well as its great complexity, had prevented the only other
gas meter then in existence from working satisfactorily. The water
lute was immediately adopted by the patentee of that meter. The
planing machine, though claimed, as we have seen, by many inventors,
was constructed by Mr. Roberts after an original plan of his own in
1817, and became the tool most generally employed in mechanical
workshops--acting by means of a chain and rack--though it has since
been superseded to some extent by the planing machine of Whitworth,
which works both ways upon an endless screw. I