have a good thing in view and should like to bring it out this winter, it has to do with ballooning, etc. Much money can be made by it, but there must be two or more in it. Should you know anyone this would be a safe thing as I can show. It must be done in a proper manner so as no misunderstanding can take place, for without confidence nothing can be done, and with this everything must go on prosperous. My new plan is not only scientific and amusing, but must be profitable. It will cost about £200 to get it up and I am ready to back it with £100 myself.4 This, with my present balloon, cannot fail to make a fortune for two men if they act right to each other.
You will see that I ascend in Cork on the 16th and please God the weather is fine I shall I think have a bumper. I have been treated very kind by the Irish people, to know them you must live among them. I do not think any balloon would do here but the Erin Go Bragh. It is called ‘Ireland’s own balloon’. I shall be most happy to hear from you. You shall have a newspaper of my ascent.
To Mr Hampton, Aeronaut, Meanwood Road, Leeds, [Not dated.] July, 1849.
Brown declared his intention of becoming a practical aeronaut, and refers to his unfinished Montgolfier balloon.
I received your letter along with the pamphlet, for which I am extremely obliged. You are right, I think, in your idea as to the motive of Mr Green in purchasing the Albion. As soon as I hear that it had got into his possession it struck me that he had bought it with a view of putting a stop to Mr Hampton’s ballooning. I think the Albion must be worn out now for he never makes use of it, he always uses his Victoria balloon now. He made 14 ascents with it last year and this year he has made four. He ascended from Vauxhall last Friday night with a display of firework. The balloon was previously illuminised on the ground by Pearce’s electric light. Gale made an ←34 | 35→ascent from Birmingham last week. Gypson made his 96th ascent from Wisbeck last Thursday with another person and it was with difficulty he cleared the town. The enclosure was very much crowded, and he also made a collection outside, and the papers state that he would make a good sum by this ascent.
The Mr R. Green whom I mentioned in my last is not a brother of C. Green’s, but a distant relation. He is a young man. A paragraph is at present going the round of the papers stating that he made an ascent from Cardiff on Monday week and has not been seen since. His balloon was found next morning at Glastonbury, in the car where his coat, boots, neckerchief, and four bags which were wet. One person says he saw the balloon in the sea and it suddenly rose with great rapidity. It is thought that he had taken off his boots and part of his clothes and then abandoned the balloon with the intention of swimming to shore, but perished in the effort. Your water car would have saved his life.5 A fete is about being got up in Liverpool and the gas company has undertaken to fill a balloon gratis for this fete, but I do not know who are getting it up. Have you not some friend in that town who would look after it? I do not know anyone there.
I commenced making a Montgolfier balloon last February, large enough to raise about 500 pounds, and have got the upper half of it finished but my money is exhausted and I cannot go on with it at present. It was my intention to have made a private ascent or two this year, but I shall not be able to finish it till next year. You will perhaps be a little surprised when you hear of this, but the balloon would be fireproof and I have also a plan for regulating the fire, lessening, or putting it out at pleasure with ease. I am determined I will be an aeronaut, if possible, if I am obliged to make my balloon of paper.
I should be most happy to join you with the Erin Go Bragh, but I have not the means. I am very poor and have a very small income. I should like to meet with a party who would engage me to make descents with a parachute on my principle, which I think I have not described to you before. It is simply having two parachutes, one fastened above the other so that the air rushing out of the lower one would pass into the upper one with ←35 | 36→great force and by that means cause a very gentle descent. I sent a plan of this parachute to Mr Coxwell a short time before the last number of his magazine appeared and he said he liked my idea. You will see, in the notices to correspondents, what he says with respect to this and also the Montgolfier balloon, a plan of which I sent him also, but as the magazine was discontinued my letter did not appear in it.
I corresponded with Coxwell for some time after the magazine appeared, but have not heard from him lately, he is on the continent, as you will see by the scrap of paper enclosed, he calls his balloon Sylph. It was rather singular that at the time the postman delivered me your letter enclosing the bill a friend of mine was just showing me your advertisement in a Cork paper. I sincerely hope your ascent from that place may have proved a bumper. Nothing will give me greater pleasure, I can assure you, than hearing of your succeeding well in all your undertakings, for ever since I first read the Aerostatic Magazine I have felt a great interest in you and have read the accounts in the papers of your ascents with pleasure. I am quite delighted to think that you should have deceived Green by building another balloon. I do not suppose he would think of your doing this, he wishes to have it all to himself, he is very selfish, and this I have known for a very long time. When he was in Leeds last he behaved rather rudely to Mr Russum, and taunted him sadly about dragging over the roofs of the houses in one of his ascents from Leeds. I heard him ask Russum if he called that an ascent and you would have been amused to have seen Green himself strike the roof of the Cloth Hall the same day. Russum says he never felt so delighted in his life as he did at that moment.
I shall look anxiously for the paper of your ascent from Cork. I scarcely know what return I am to make for your kindness but if I can possibly do anything to serve you, I will with the greatest of pleasure.
From Mr Hampton, Aeronaut, 11 George Street, Cork, July 26, 1849.
You will have seen by this time that I have had two failures. The first was for the want of gas, and the second was owing to two fellows who were mending the neck of the balloon, it being a very windy day. I had got my weights all down to my last meshes of my net and had sent for eight men to stand by the hoop and was about to cast off half the weights, when a ←36 | 37→gust of wind took the loose silk out of the hands of the two men and they, trying to hold it, pulled one against the other and split the balloon from the neck to the valve. There was a large and highly respectable company on the ground and some thousands outside. All were of course much disappointed, it being the second failure, but no one could have felt it more than myself, for I do not like failures, they do an aeronaut much harm, but the most cautious will meet with misfortunes. I must say the public took it in good part it was seen by those on the ground that it was an accident. I at once offered to give up my balloon to any body of gentlemen that would form a committee and that I would not leave Cork till I had made an ascent, and that I would not receive one shilling more till I had done so and given full satisfaction. A committee was at once formed. The Mayor took upon himself to see that all should be done so as to satisfy all. I have got the balloon repaired and I think next Wednesday will be fixed for my ascent, and please God I hope all may go off well, if so, I shall have another on the Queen’s arrival.
I see by your letter and the newspapers that poor Green, the new aeronaut lost his life. I am very sorry. From what I read I think he ought not to have left his balloon. Had he have kept to it like me in 1838, when blown out to the North Sea, he might have met with some vessel that would have picked him up, but he is gone, poor fellow. The balloon has been found and so has his body, I see by the newspapers. I was very sorry to see in the papers the foolish statement that the balloon took 70,000 cubic feet of gas. Had it held half this he could have kept up and got into the upper current. It is in my opinion wrong and foolish to make these false statements.
I would advise you to mind what you are doing respecting the fire balloon, I cannot say much in favour of it, or against it, as I do not know the principle on which you are making it. And as for the parachute, let this stand over till you have seen me. I flatter myself I know as much about parachutes as any man, and if you will take my advice it
