They brought one Dagney, an Italian glass-maker, from Bristol, to erect a new furnace for them, provided with sundry pots of glass-house clay; but no success attended their efforts.

The partners knowing of Dudley's possession of the grand secret, invited him to visit their works; but all they could draw from him was that they would never succeed in making iron to profit by the methods they were pursuing.

They next proceeded to erect other works at Bristol, but still they failed.

Major Wildman[13] bought Dudley's sequestrated estate, in the hope of being able to extort his secret of making iron with pit-coal; but all their attempts proving abortive, they at length abandoned the enterprise in despair.

In 1656, one Captain Copley obtained from Cromwell a further patent with a similar object; and erected works near Bristol, and also in the Forest of Kingswood.