Read it through once

With a desire to augment his income, which must have been seriously depleted by the building operations and by the subsequent reckless expenditure on the household, the Doctor now began to indulge in a series of hazardous enterprises, which, with all a gambler’s insistence, he pursued intently the while they dragged him deeper and deeper into the mire. One of these was an extensive speculation in coal in which he engaged with a brother of M. St. Quintin. For this he supplied the whole of the capital in expectation of a return of £1,500 a year, but the whole thing was a failure and, with the exception of about £300, the capital was lost. Another Frenchman, a man of ingenious ideas but no money wherewith to put them to practical use, found a ready supporter in the Doctor, who was induced to advance £5,000 on the strength of a paper scheme. This man was the Marquis J. M. F. B. de Chabannes, and his scheme, a supposed improved method for the lighting and heating of houses, was embodied in a booklet which he published in 1803 with the comprehensive title of _Prospectus d’un Projet pour la Construction de Nouvelles Maisons, Dont tous les calculs de détails procureront une très-grande Economie, et beaucoup de Jouissances_. Unfortunately for its promoters, the scheme did not catch on with the public, the Marquis returned to France and the deluded Doctor continued for years to spend good money in the hope of recovering that which was irrevocably lost by suing the Marquis in the French courts, efforts which were all vain.