Inside the office of Chatham Shipyard in eastern London, Superintendent Sir Hope slapped the desk and roared at the procurement officer standing before him, "Send those damned French people gold coins, women—send them as much as they want! This is what you do best. Just buy back the fucking Steam Engines for me!"
The procurement officer lowered his head and said quietly:
"We've tried all those methods, Superintendent, but they have always refused to sell..."
Hope furiously kicked over the coat rack and shouted at the procurement officer:
"Don't just stand there. Go think of another way!"
He had originally thought that if he could buy a batch of French Steam Engines and install them in the steam paddle wheel ships meant to fulfill orders that were about to default, he could resolve the immediate crisis. Although the French Steam Engines would require considerable adaptation, most customers who had ordered ships would likely be willing to wait rather than cancel their deposits. Yet he had never expected the French to reject a massive order for seventy Steam Engines, even at a price 35 percent above market value. Hope looked out toward the mouth of the Thames River, where a great number of steam paddle wheel ships with completed hulls floated on the water, and felt a sharp stab in his heart. The shipbuilding industry was extremely costly. Those sixty-odd ships had consumed nearly seventy percent of the shipyard's funds. Now not only could they not recover the payments for the ships, they would also have to pay a huge sum in breach-of-contract penalties.
"Those cursed French!" Hope cursed loudly, utterly unable to understand why the United Steam Engine Company of France would refuse to make money. Of course, if he had known that the major shareholders behind the United Steam