PARTNERSHIP WITH ROEBUCK
Capital was essential to perfect and place the engine upon the market;
it would require several thousand pounds. Had Watt been a rich man, the
path would have been clear and easy, but he was poor, having no means
but those derived from his instrument-making business, which for some
time had necessarily been neglected. Where was the daring optimist who
could be induced to risk so much in an enterprise of this character,
where result was problematical. Here, Watt's best friend, Professor
Black, who had himself from his own resources from time to time relieved
Watt's pressing necessities, proved once more the friend in time of
need. Black thought of Dr. Roebuck, founder of the celebrated Carron
Iron Works near by, which Burns apostrophised in these lines, when
denied admittance:
"We cam na here to view your works
In hopes to be mair wise,
But only lest we gang to hell
It may be nae surprise."
He was approached upon the subject by Dr. Black, and finally, in
September, 1765, he invited Watt to visit him with the Professor at his
country home, and urged him to press forward his invention "whether he
pursued it as a philosopher or as a man of business." In the month of
November Watt sent Roebuck drawings of a covered cylinder and piston to
be cast at his works, but it was so poorly done as to be useless. "My
principal difficulty in making engines," he wrote Roebuck, "is always
the smith-work."
By this time, Watt was seriously embarrassed for money. Experiments cost
much and brought in nothing. His duty to his family required that he
should abandon these for a time and labor for means to support it. He
determined to begin as a surveyor, as he had mastered the art when
making surveying instruments, as was his custom to study and master
wherever he touched. He could never rest until he knew all there was to
know about anything. Of course he succeeded. Everybody knew he would,
and therefore business came to him. Even a public body, the magistrates
of Glasgow, had not the slightest hesitation in obtaining his services
to survey a canal which was to open a new coal field. He was also
commissioned to survey the proposed Forth and Clyde canal. Had he been
content to earn money and become leading surveyor or engineer of
Britain, the world might have waited long for the forthcoming giant
destined to do the world's work; but there was little danger of this.
The world had not a temptation that could draw Watt from his appointed
work. His thoughts were ever with his engine, every spare moment being
devoted to it. Roebuck's speculative and enterprising nature led him
also into the entrancing field of steam. It haunted him until finally,
in 1767, he decided to pay off Watt's debts to the amount of a thousand
pounds, provide means for further experiments, and secure a patent for
the engine. In return, he became owner of two thirds of the invention.
Next year Watt made trial of a new and larger model, with unsatisfactory
results upon the first trial. He wrote Roebuck that "by an unforeseen
misfortune, the mercury found its way into the cylinder and played the
devil with the solder." Only after a month's hard labor was the second
trial made, with very different and indeed astonishing results--"success
to my heart's content," exclaimed Watt. Now he would pay his
long-promised debt to his partner Roebuck, to whom he wrote, "I
sincerely wish you joy of this successful result, and hope it will make
some return for the obligations I owe you." The visit of congratulation
paid to his partner Roebuck, was delightful. Now were all their griefs
"in the deep bosom of the ocean buried" by this recent success. Already
they saw fortunes in their hands, so brightly shone the sun these few
but happy days. But the old song has its lesson:
"I've seen the morning the gay hills adorning,
I've seen it storming before the close of day."
Instead of instant success, trying days and years were still before
them. A patent was decided upon, a matter of course and almost of
formality in our day, but far from this at that time, when it was
considered monopolistic and was highly unpopular on that account. Watt
went to Berwick-on-Tweed to make the required declaration before a
Master in Chancery. In August, 1768, we find him in London about the
patent, where he became so utterly wearied with the delays, and so
provoked with the enormous fees required to protect the invention, that
he wrote his wife in a most despairing mood. She administered the right
medicine in reply, "I beg you will not make yourself uneasy though
things do not succeed as you wish. If the engine will not do, something
else will; never despair." Happy man whose wife is his best doctor. From
the very summit of elation, to which he had been raised by the success
of the model, Watt was suddenly cast down into the valley of despair to
find that only half of his heavy task was done, and the hill of
difficulty still loomed before. Reaction took place, and the fine brain,
so long strained to utmost tension, refused at intervals to work at high
pressure. He became subject to recurring fits of despondency,
aggravated, if not primarily caused by anxiety for his family, who could
not be maintained unless he engaged in work yielding prompt returns.
We may here mention one of his lifelong traits, which revealed itself at
times. Watt was no man of affairs. Business was distasteful to him. As
he once wrote his partner, Boulton, he "would rather face a loaded
cannon than settle a disputed account or make a bargain." Monetary
matters were his special aversion. For any other form of annoyance,
danger or responsibility, he had the lion heart. Pecuniary
responsibility was his bogey of the dark closet. He writes that,
"Solomon said that in the increase of knowledge there is increase of
sorrow: if he had substituted _business_ for knowledge it would have
been perfectly true."
Roebuck shines out brilliantly in this emergency. He was always
sanguine, and encouraged Watt to go forward. October, 1768, he writes:
You are now letting the most active part of your life insensibly
glide away. A day, a moment, ought not to be lost. And you
should not suffer your thoughts to be diverted by any other
object, or even improvement of this [model], but only the
speediest and most effectual manner of executing an engine of a
proper size, according to your present ideas.
Watt wrote Dr. Small in January, 1769, "I have much contrived and little
executed. How much would good health and spirits be worth to me!" and a
month later, "I am still plagued with headaches and sometimes
heartaches." Sleepless nights now came upon him. All this time, however,
he was absorbed in his one engrossing task. Leupold's "Theatrim
Machinarum," which fell into his hands, gave an account of the
machinery, furnaces and methods of mine-working in the upper Hartz.
Alas! the book was in German, and he could not understand it. He
promptly resolved to master the language, sought out a Swiss-German dyer
then settled in Glasgow whom he engaged to give him lessons. So German
and the German book were both mastered. Not bad work this from one in
the depths of despair. It has been before noted that for the same end he
had successfully mastered French and Italian. So in sickness as in
health his demon steam pursued him, giving him no rest.
Watt had a hard piece of work in preparing his first
patent-specification, which was all-important in those early days of
patent "monopolies" as these were considered. Their validity often
turned upon a word or two too much or too little. It was as dangerous to
omit as to admit. Professionals agree in opinion that Watt here
displayed extraordinary ability.
In nothing has public opinion more completely changed than in its
attitude toward patents. In Watt's day, the inventor who applied for a
patent was a would-be monopolist. The courts shared the popular belief.
Lord Brougham vehemently remonstrated against this, declaring that the
inventor was entitled to remuneration. Every point was construed against
the unfortunate benefactor, as if he were a public enemy attempting to
rob his fellows. To-day the inventor is hailed as the foremost of
benefactors.
Notable indeed is it that on the very day Watt obtained his first
patent, January 5th, 1769, Arkwright got his spinning-frame patent. Only
the year before Hargreaves obtained his patent for the spinning-jenny.
These are the two inventors, with Whitney, the American inventor of the
cotton-gin, from whose brains came the development of the textile
industry in which Britain still stands foremost. Fifty-six millions of
spindles turn to-day in the little island--more than all the rest of the
civilised world can boast. Much later came Stephenson with his
locomotive. Here is a record for a quartette of manual laborers in the
truest sense, actual wage-earners as mechanics--Watt, Stephenson,
Arkwright, and Hargreaves! Where is that quartette to be equalled?
Workingmen of our day should ponder over this, and take to heart the
truth that manual mechanical labor is the likeliest career to develop
mechanical inventors and lead them to such distinction as these
benefactors of man achieved. If disposed to mourn the lack of
opportunity, they should think of these working-men, whose advantages
were small compared to those of our day.
The greatest invention of all, the condenser, is fully covered by the
first patent of 1769. The best engine up to this time was the Newcomen,
exclusively used for pumping water. As we have seen, it was an
atmospheric engine, in no sense a steam engine. Steam was only used to
force the heavy piston upward, no other work being done by it. All the
pumping was done on the downward stroke. The condensation of the spent
steam below the piston created a vacuum, which only facilitated the fall
of the piston. This caused the cylinder to be cooled between each stroke
and led to the wastage of about four-fifths of all the steam used. It
was to save this that the condenser was invented, in obedience to Watt's
law, as stated in his patent, that "the cylinder should be kept always
as hot as the steam that entered it"; but it must be kept clearly in
mind that Watt's "modified machines," under his first patent, only used
steam to do work upon the upward stroke, where Newcomen used it only to
force up the piston. The double-acting engine--doing work up and
down--came later, and was protected in the second patent of 1780.
Watt knew better than any that although his model had been successful
and was far beyond the Newcomen engine, it was obvious that it could be
improved in many respects--not the least of his reasons for confidence
in its final and more complete triumph.
To these possible improvements, he devoted himself for years. The
records once again remind us that it was not one invention, but many,
that his task involved. Smiles gives the following epitome of some of
those pressing at this stage:
Various trials of pipe-condensers, plate-condensers and
drum-condensers, steam-jackets to prevent waste of heat, many
trials of new methods to tighten the piston band, condenser
pumps, oil pumps, gauge pumps, exhausting cylinders,
loading-valves, double cylinders, beams and cranks--all these
contrivances and others had to be thought out and tested
elaborately amidst many failures and disappointments.
There were many others.
All unaided, this supreme toiler thus slowly and painfully evolved the
steam engine after long years of constant labor and anxiety, bringing to
the task a union of qualities and of powers of head and hand which no
other man of his time--may we not venture to say of all time--was ever
known to possess or ever exhibited.
When a noble lord confessed to him admiration for his noble
achievements, Watt replied, "The public only look at my success and not
at the intermediate failures and uncouth constructions which have served
me as so many steps to climb to the top of the ladder."
Quite true, but also quite right. The public have no time to linger over
a man's mistakes. What concerns is his triumphs. We "rise upon our dead
selves (failures) to higher things," and mistakes, recognised as such
in after days, make for victory. The man who never makes mistakes never
makes anything. The only point the wise man guards is not to make the
same mistake twice; the first time never counts with the successful man.
He both forgives and forgets that. One difference between the wise man
and the foolish one!
It has been truly said that Watt seemed to have divined all the
possibilities of steam. We have a notable instance of this in a letter
of this period (March, 1769) to his friend, Professor Small, in which he
anticipated Trevithick's use of high-pressure steam in the locomotive.
Watt said:
I intend in many cases to employ the expansive force of steam to
press on the piston, or whatever is used instead of one, in the
same manner as the weight of the atmosphere is now employed in
common fire engines. In some cases I intend to use both the
condenser and this force of steam, so that the powers of these
engines will as much exceed those pressed only by the air, as
the expansive power of the steam is greater than the weight of
the atmosphere. In other cases, when plenty of cold water cannot
be had, I intend to work the engines by the force of steam only,
and to discharge it into the air by proper outlets after it has
done its office.
In these days patents could be very easily blocked, as Watt experienced
with his improved crank motion. He proceeded therefore in great secrecy
to erect the first large engine under his patent, after he had
successfully made a very small one for trial. An outhouse near one of
Dr. Roebuck's pits was selected as away from prying eyes. The parts for
the new engine were partly supplied from Watt's own works in Glasgow and
partly from the Carron works. Here the old trouble, lack of competent
mechanics, was again met with. On his return from necessary absences,
the men were usually found in face of the unexpected and wondering what
to do next. As the engine neared completion, Watt's anxiety "for his
approaching doom," he writes, kept him from sleep, his fears being equal
to his hopes. He was especially sensitive and discouraged by unforeseen
expenditure, while his sanguine partner, Roebuck, on the contrary,
continued hopeful and energetic, and often rallied his pessimistic
partner on his propensity to look upon the dark side. He was one of
those who adhered to the axiom, "Never bid the devil good-morning till
you meet him." Smiles believes that it is probable that without
Roebuck's support Watt could never have gone on, but that may well be
doubted. His anxieties probably found a needed vent in their expression,
and left the indomitable do-or-die spirit in all its power. Watt's
brain, working at high pressure, needed a safety valve. Mrs. Roebuck,
wife-like, very properly entertained the usual opinion of devoted wives,
that her husband was really the essential man upon whom the work
devolved, and, that without him nothing could have been accomplished.
Smiles probably founded his remark upon her words to Robison: "Jamie
(Watt) is a queer lad, and, without the Doctor (her husband), his
invention would have been lost. He won't let it perish." The writer
knows of a business organisation in which fond wives of the partners
were all full of dear Mrs. Roebuck's opinion. At one time, according to
them, the sole responsibility rested upon three of four of these
marvellous husbands, and never did any of the confiding consorts ever
have reason to feel that their friend did not share to the fullest
extent the highly praiseworthy opinion formed of his partners by their
loving wives. The rising smile was charitably suppressed. In extreme
cases a suggested excursion to Europe at the company's expense, to
relieve Chester from the cruel strain, and enable him to receive the
benefit of a wife's care and ever needful advice, was remarkably
effective, the wife's fears that Chester's absence would prove ruinous
to the business being overcome at last, though with difficulty.
Due allowance must be made for Mrs. Roebuck's view of the situation.
There can be no doubt whatever, that Mr. Roebuck's influence,
hopefulness and courage were of inestimable value at this period to the
over-wrought and anxious inventor. Watt was not made of malleable stuff,
and, besides, he was tied to his mission. He was bound to obey his
genius.
The monster new engine, upon which so much depended, was ready for trial
at last in September, 1769. About six months had been spent in its
construction. Its success was indifferent. Watt had declared it to be a
"clumsy job." The new pipe-condenser did not work well, the cylinder was
almost useless, having been badly cast, and the old difficulty in
keeping the piston-packing tight remained. Many things were tried for
packing--cork, oiled rags, old hats (felt probably), paper, horse dung,
etc., etc. Still the steam escaped, even after a thorough overhauling.
The second experiment also failed. So great is the gap between the small
toy model and the practical work-performing giant, a rock upon which
many sanguine theoretical inventors have been wrecked! Had Watt been one
of that class, he could never have succeeded. Here we have another proof
of the soundness of the contention that Watt, the mechanic, was almost
as important as Watt the inventor.
Watt remained as certain as ever of the soundness of his inventions.
Nothing could shake his belief that he had discovered the true
scientific mode of utilising steam. His failures lay in the
impossibility of finding mechanics capable of accurate workmanship.
There were none such at Carron, nor did he then know of any elsewhere.
Watt's letter to his friend, Dr. Small, at this juncture, is
interesting. He writes:
You cannot conceive how mortified I am with this disappointment.
It is a damned thing for a man to have his all hanging by a
single string. If I had wherewithal to pay the loss, I don't
think I should so much fear a failure; but I cannot bear the
thought of other people becoming losers by my schemes; and I
have the happy disposition of always painting the worst.
Watt's timidity and fear of money matters generally have been already
noted. He had the Scotch peasant's horror of debt--anything but that.
This probably arises from the fact that the trifling sums owing by the
poor to their poor neighbors who have kindly helped them in distress are
actually needed by these generous friends for comfortable existence. The
loss is serious, and this cuts deeply into grateful hearts. The
millionaire's downfall, with large sums owing to banks, rich
money-lenders, and wealthy manufacturers, really amounts to little. No
one actually suffers, since imprisonment for debt no longer exists;
hence "debt" means little to the great operator, who neither suffers
want himself by failure nor entails it upon others.
To Watt, pressing pecuniary cares were never absent, and debt added to
these made him the most afflicted of men. Besides this, he says, he had
been cheated and was "unlucky enough to know." Wise man! ignorance in
such cases is indeed bliss. We should almost be content to be cheated as
long as we do not find it out.
It was at such a crisis as this that another cloud, and a dark one,
came. The sanguine, enterprising, kindly Roebuck was in financial
straits. His pits had been much troubled by water, which no existing
machinery could pump out. He had hoped that the new engine would prove
successful and sufficiently powerful in time to avert the drowning of
the pits, but this hope had failed. His embarrassments were so pressing
that he was unable to pay the cost of the engine patent, according to
agreement, and Watt had to borrow the money for this from that
never-failing friend, Professor Black. Long may his memory be gratefully
remembered. Watt had the delightful qualities which attracted friends,
and those of the highest and best character, but among them all, though
more than one might have been willing, none were both able and willing
to sustain him in days of trouble except the famous discoverer of latent
heat. When we think of Watt, we picture him holding Black by the one
hand and Small by the other, repeating to them
"I think myself in nothing else so happy
As in a soul remembering my dear friends."
The patent was secured--so much to the good--but Watt had already spent
too much time upon profitless work, at least more time than he could
afford. His duty to provide for the frugal wants of his family became
imperative. "I had," he said, "a wife and children, and I saw myself
growing gray without having any settled way of providing for them." He
turned again to surveying and prospered, for few such men as Watt were
to be found in those days, or in any day. With a record of Watt's work
as surveyor, engineer, councillor, etc., our readers need not be
troubled in detail. It should, however, be recorded that the chief canal
schemes in Scotland in this, the day of canals for internal commerce,
preceding the day of railroads that was to come, were entrusted to Watt,
who continued to act as engineer for the Monkland Canal. While Watt was
acting as engineer for this (1770-72), Dr. Small wrote him that he and
Boulton had been talking of moving canal boats by the steam engine on
the high-pressure principle. In his reply, September 30, 1770, Watt
asks, "Have you ever considered a spiral oar for that purpose, or are
you for two wheels?" To make his meaning quite plain, he gives a rough
sketch of the screw propeller, with four turns as used to-day.
Thus the idea of the screw propeller to be worked by his own improved
engine was propounded by Watt one hundred and thirty-five years ago.
This is a remarkable letter, and a still more remarkable sketch, and
adds another to the many true forecasts of future development made by
this teeming brain.
Watt also made a survey of the Clyde, and reported upon its proposed
deepening. His suggestions remained unacted upon for several years, when
the work was begun, and is not ended even in our day, of making a trout
and salmon stream into one of the busiest, navigable highways of the
world. This year further improvements have been decided upon, so that
the monsters of our day, with 16,000-horse-power turbine engines, may be
built near Glasgow. Watt also made surveys for a canal between Perth and
Coupar Angus, for the well-known Crinan Canal and other projects in the
Western Highlands, as also for the great Caledonian and the Forth and
Clyde Canals.
The Perth Canal was forty miles long through a rough country, and took
forty-three days, for which Watt's fee, including expenses, was $400.
Labor, even of the highest kind, was cheap in those times. We note his
getting thirty-seven dollars for plans of a bridge over the Clyde. Watt
prepared plans for docks and piers at Port Glasgow and for a new harbor
at Ayr. His last and most important engineering work in Scotland was the
survey of the Caledonian Canal, made in the autumn of 1773, through a
district then without roads. "An incessant rain kept me," he writes,
"for three days as wet as water could make me. I could scarcely preserve
my journal book."
Suffice it to note that he saved enough money to be able to write,
"Supposing the engine to stand good for itself, I am able to pay all my
debts and some little thing more, so that I hope in time to be on a par
with the world."
* * * * *
We are now to make one of the saddest announcements saving dishonor that
it falls to man to make. Watt's wife died in childbed in his absence. He
was called home from surveying the Caledonian Canal. Upon arrival, he
stands paralysed for a time at the door, unable to summon strength to
enter the ruined home. At last the door opens and closes and we close
our eyes upon the scene--no words here that would not be an offence. The
rest is silence.
Watt tried to play the man, but he would have been less than man if the
ruin of his home had not made him a changed man. The recovery of mental
equipoise proved for a time quite beyond his power. He could do all that
man could do, "who could do more is none." The light of his life had
gone out.
* * * * *