sentences:  By 1775, he was acting as Anthony Bacon's agent for supplying iron cannon to the Board of Ordnance and was from 1777 a partner in that business (casting cannon at Cyfarthfa Ironworks at Merthyr Tydfil).This continued until Bacon had to give up government contracts in 1782, because he was a member of Parliament.In 1786, following the death of Anthony Bacon, he took over the whole Cyfarthfa Ironworks, in partnership with William Stevens (a London merchant) and James Cockshutt, who had previously managed the forge and boring mill for David Tanner.