It was some years later, in 1794, when Ireland was in a disturbed state, and threatened by a French invasion, that Edgeworth laid his scheme for telegraphs before the Government, and offered to keep open communication between Dublin and Cork if the Government would pay the expense.  He made a trial between two hills fifteen miles apart, and a message was sent and an answer received in five minutes.  The Government paid little attention to his offer, and finally refused it.  Two months later the French were on the Irish coasts, and great confusion and distress was occasioned by the want of accurate news.  ’The troops were harassed with contradictory orders and forced marches for want of intelligence, and from that indecision, which must always be the consequence of insufficient information.  Many days were spent in terror, and in fruitless wishes for an English fleet. ...  At last Ireland was providentially saved by the change of the wind, which prevented the enemy from effecting a landing on her coast.’

Another of Edgeworth’s inventions was a one-wheeled carriage adapted to go over narrow roads; it was made fast by shafts to the horse’s sides, and was furnished with two weights or counterpoises that hung below the shafts.  In this carriage he travelled to Birmingham and astonished the country folk on the way.

I must now give a sketch of Edgeworth’s matrimonial adventures.  They began after a strange fashion, when, at fifteen, he and some young companions had a merry-making at his sister’s marriage, and one of the party putting on a white cloak as a surplice, proposed to marry Richard to a young lady who was his favourite partner.  With the door key as a ring the mock parson gabbled over a few words of the marriage service.  When Richard’s father heard of this mock marriage he was so alarmed that he treated it seriously, and sued and got a divorce for his son in the ecclesiastical court.

It was while visiting Dr. Darwin at Lichfield that Edgeworth made some friendships which influenced his whole life.  At the Bishop’s Palace, where Canon Seward lived, he first met Miss Honora Sneyd, who was brought up as a daughter by Mrs. Seward.  He was much struck by her beauty and by her mental gifts, and says:  ’Now for the first time in my life, I saw a woman that equalled the picture of perfection which existed in my imagination.  I had long suffered much from the want of that cheerfulness in a wife, without which marriage could not be agreeable to a man with such a temper as mine.  I had borne this evil, I believe, with patience; but my not being happy at home exposed me to the danger of being too happy elsewhere.’  He describes in another place his first wife as ’prudent, domestic, and affectionate; but she was not of a cheerful temper.  She lamented about trifles; and the lamenting of a female with whom we live does not render home delightful.’

His friend, Mr. Day,* was also intimate at the Palace, but did not admire Honora at that time (1770) as much as Edgeworth did.  Mr. Day thought ’she danced too well; she had too much an air of fashion in her dress and manners; and her arms were not sufficiently round and white to please him.’