FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES--BOULTON IN CORNWALL--ATTACK AND DEFENCE OF THE
ENGINE PATENT.
Boulton again went to Watt’s help in Cornwall at the end of autumn,
1779. He could not afford to make a long stay, but left so soon as he
had settled several long-pending agreements with the mine proprietors.
The partners then returned to Birmingham together. Before leaving,
they installed Lieutenant Henderson as their representative, to
watch over their interests in their absence. Henderson was a sort of
Jack-of-all-trades and master of none. He had been an officer of marines,
and afterwards a West India sugar-planter. He lost all that he possessed
in Jamaica, but gained some knowledge of levelling, draining, and
machinery. He was also a bit of an inventor, and first introduced himself
to Boulton’s notice by offering to sell him a circular motion by steam
which he alleged he had discovered. This led to a correspondence, which
resulted in his engagement to travel for the firm, and to superintend the
erection of engines when necessary.
Henderson experienced the same difficulty that Watt had done in managing
the adventurers, and during his stay in Cornwall he was never done calling
upon Boulton to hasten to his assistance and help him, as he said, “to
put them in good spirits and good temper.” As the annual meetings drew
near, Henderson anticipated a stormy time of it, and pleaded harder than
ever for Boulton to come to him. It seemed as if it would be necessary
for Boulton to take up his residence in Cornwall; and as the interests at
stake were great, it might be worth his while to do so. By the summer of
1780, Boulton and Watt had made and sold forty pumping-engines, of which
number twenty were erected and at work in different parts of Cornwall;
and it was generally expected that before long there would scarcely be
an engine of the old construction at work in the county. This was, in
fact, the only branch of Boulton’s extensive concerns that promised to be
remunerative.[184] He had become loaded with a burden of debt, from which
the success of the engine-business seemed to offer the only prospect of
relief.
[184] It appears from a statement prepared by Zaccheus Walker,
the accountant of Boulton and Fothergill, that on an invested
capital of about 20,000_l._, the excess of losses over profits
during the eighteen years ending 1780, had been upwards of
11,000_l._; and that but for the capital and credit of Matthew
Boulton, that concern must have broken down.
Boulton’s affairs seemed indeed fast approaching to a crisis. He had
raised money in all directions to carry on his extensive concerns. He
had sold the Patkington estate, which came to him by his wife, to Lord
Donegal, for 15,000_l._; he had sold the greater part of his father’s
property, and raised further sums by mortgaging the remainder; he had
borrowed largely from Day,[185] Wedgwood, and others of his personal
friends, and obtained heavy advances from his bankers; but all this was
found insufficient, and his embarrassments seemed only to increase. Watt
could do nothing to help him with money, though he had consented to the
mortgage of the steam-engine royalties to Mr. Wiss, by which the sum of
7000_l._ had been raised. This liability lay heavy on the mind of Watt,
who could never shake himself free of the horror of having incurred such a
debt; and many were the imploring letters that he addressed to Boulton on
the subject. “I beg of you,” said he, “to attend to these money affairs.
I cannot rest in my bed until they [_i. e._ the mortgage and banker’s
advance] have some determinate form. I beg you will pardon my importunity,
but I cannot bear the uneasiness of my own mind, and it is as much your
interest as mine to have them settled.”[186]
[185] Thomas Day, the eccentric but kindly author of ‘Sandford
and Merton,’ lent Boulton 3000_l._ at 4 per cent. When Boulton
came to pay a higher rate of interest on other loans, he wrote
Day proposing to pay him the same rate; but Day refused to
accept the advance, as he could not make more of his money
elsewhere. Day, however, offered him some good advice. “Give me
leave,” said he, “with the real interest of a sincere friend,
to express my wishes that now at last when a fortune is within
your power, you will contract that wide sphere of business in
which your ingenuity has so long kept you engaged, and which
has prevented you hitherto, if I may believe the words of one
of your sincerest friends, the late Dr. Small, from acquiring
that independence which you ought to have had long ago. I should
think that now, like a good Christian, thoroughly convinced of
the inutility of other works, you ought to attach yourself to
the one thing needful, and determine to be saved ‘even as by
fire.’ You are now, dear Sir, not of an age to sport any longer
with fortune. Forgive the freedom of these sentiments, and
believe me, with the greatest sincerity and regard, Yours, &c.,
“THOMAS DAY.”
[186] Watt to Boulton, 20th January, 1779.
The other partner, Fothergill, was quite as downhearted. He urged that
the firm of Boulton and Fothergill should at once stop payment and wind
up; but as this would have seriously hurt the credit of the engine firm,
Boulton would not listen to the suggestion. They must hold on as they
had done before, until better days came round. Fothergill recommended
that at least the unremunerative branches of the business should be
brought to a close. The heaviest losses had indeed been sustained
through Fothergill himself, whose foreign connexions, instead of being
of advantage to the firm, had proved the reverse; and Mr. Matthews, the
London agent, repeatedly pressed Boulton to decline further transactions
with foreigners.
There was one branch of the Boulton and Fothergill business which Boulton
at once agreed to give up. This was the painting and japanning business;
by which, as appears from a statement prepared by Mr. Walker, now before
us, the firm were losing at the rate of 500_l._ a year.
The picture-painting business seems to have been begun in 1777, and
was carried on for some years under the direction of Mr. Eginton,
who afterwards achieved considerable reputation at Birmingham as a
manufacturer of painted glass. A degree of interest has been recently
raised on the subject of the Soho pictures, in consequence of the
statements hazarded as to the method by which they are supposed to have
been produced. It has been surmised that they were taken by some process
resembling photography. We have, however, been unable to find anything
in the correspondence of the firm calculated to support this view. On
the contrary, they are invariably spoken of as “mechanical paintings,”
“pictures,” or “prints,” produced by means of “paints” or “colours.”
Though the precise process by which they were produced is not now known,
there seems reason to believe that they were impressions from plates
prepared in a peculiar manner. The impressions were taken “mechanically”
on paper; and both oil and water colours[187] were made use of. Some
of the pictures were of large size--40 by 50 inches--the subjects being
chiefly classical. This branch of the business being found unproductive,
was brought to a close in 1780, when the partnership with Eginton was at
the same time dissolved.
[187] Some of the specimens in water colour are to be seen at the
Museum of Patents, South Kensington. When the paper is moistened
with the finger, the colour easily rubs off. The whole subject
of these pictures has recently been thoroughly sifted by M.
P. W. Boulton, Esq., in his ‘Remarks on some Evidence recently
communicated to the Photographic Society’ (Bradbury and Evans,
1864), apropos of the Papers of Mr. W. P. Smith on the same
subject, in which it was surmised that they were the result
of some photographic process. Mr. Boulton clearly shows, from
the original correspondence, that the process was mechanical
colour-printing. He also adds,--“From the brief statements
which I remember to have heard from my father concerning the
polygraphic process, my impression of it was that it copied
colour mechanically, not merely chiaro-scuro. And I agree with
the opinion which has been expressed to other persons, that in
the coloured specimens in the Museum, there are indications that
the colour was laid on _mechanically_,--not by hand or brush.”
As the process of “dead-colouring” the pictures is occasionally
referred to, it is probable that the pictures passed through
more stages than one, as in the case of modern colour-printing.
In one of Eginton’s letters, three plates were spoken of as
necessary for taking impressions of one of the pictures.
Another and more fortunate branch of business into which Boulton
entered with Watt and Keir, about the same time, was the manufacture
of letter-copying machines. Watt made the invention, Boulton found the
money for taking out the patent, and Keir conducted the business. Watt
was a very voluminous correspondent, and the time occupied by him in
copying letters, the contents of which he desired to keep secret from
third parties, was such that in order to economise it he invented the
method of letter-copying in such common use. The invention consisted in
the transfer, by pressure, of the writing made with mucilaginous ink, to
damped and unsized transparent copying-paper, by means either of a rolling
press or a screw press. Though Watt himself preferred the rollers, the
screw press is now generally adopted as the more simple and efficacious
process.
This invention was made by Watt in the summer of 1778. In June we find
him busy experimenting on copying-papers of different kinds, requesting
Boulton to send him specimens of “the most even and whitest unsized
paper;” and in the following month he wrote Dr. Black, “I have lately
discovered a method of copying writing instantaneously, provided it has
been written the same day, or within twenty-four hours. I send you a
specimen, and will impart the secret if it will be of any use to you. It
enables me to copy all my business letters.”[188] For two years Watt kept
his method of copying a secret; but hearing that certain persons were
prying into it with the view of turning it to account, he determined to
anticipate them by taking out a patent, which was secured in May, 1780. By
that time Watt had completed the details of the press and the copying-ink.
Sufficient mahogany and lignum-vitæ had been ordered for making 500
machines, and Boulton went up to London to try and get the press
introduced in the public offices. He first waited upon several noblemen
to interest them in the machine, amongst others on Lord Dartmouth, who
proposed to show it to George III. “The King,” said Boulton, in a letter
to Watt, “writes a great deal, and takes copies of all he writes with
his own hand, so that Lord Dartmouth thinks it will be a very desirable
thing for His Majesty.” Several of those to whom the machine was first
shown, apprehended that it would lead to increase of forgery--then a great
source of terror to commercial men. The bankers concurred in this view,
and strongly denounced the invention; and they expostulated with Boulton
and Watt’s agent for offering the presses for sale. “Mr. Woodmason,”
wrote Boulton, “says the bankers mob him for having anything to do with
it; they say that it ought to be suppressed.” Boulton was not dismayed by
this opposition, but proceeded to issue circulars to the members of the
Houses of Lords and Commons, descriptive of the machine, inviting them
to an inspection of it, after which he communicated the results to his
partner:--
... “On Tuesday morning last I waited on some particular noblemen,
according to promise, at their own houses, with the press, and
at one o’clock I took possession of a private room adjoining
the Court of Requests, Westminster Hall, where I was visited by
several members of both Houses, who in general were well pleased
with the invention; but all expressed their fears of forgery,
which occasioned and obliged me to exercise my lungs very much.
Many of the members tried to copy bank notes, but in vain. I had a
full audience till half-past eight o’clock.... I had quite a mob
of members next day; some of them mobbed me for introducing such
wicked arts; however, upon the whole, I had a greater majority
than Lord North hath had this year.
On Thursday ... at half-past two ... I had a tolerable good
House, even a better than the Speaker, who was often obliged
to send his proper officer to fetch away from me the members to
vote, and sometimes to make a House. As soon as the House formed
into a Committee upon the Malt-tax, the Speaker left the chair
and sent for me and the machine, which was carried through the
gallery in face of the whole House into the Speaker’s Chamber.
I found him full of fears about the dreadful consequences,
which I quieted before I left him, and he with his two friends
subscribed. I attended again on Friday, but, from a very thin
House and curiosity abating, I had very few [subscriptions]. Mr.
Banks came to see the machine on Thursday. I thought it might be
of service to show it to the Royal Society that evening.... After
the business of the Society was over, he announced Mr. Watt’s
invention, and my readiness to show it, and it was accordingly
brought in and afforded much satisfaction to a crowded audience.
I did not show the list of subscribers and the proposals, nor
dishonour philosophy by trade in that room.... I spent Friday
evening with Smeaton and other engineers at a coffee-house, when a
gentleman (not knowing me) exclaimed against the copying-machine,
and wished the inventor was hanged and the machines all burnt,
which brought on a laugh, as I was known to most present.... There
are great names enough already among the subscribers to give a
sanction and authority to it, as well as to make it fashionable,
which has more influence upon the minds of three-fourths of the
Londoners than the intrinsic merit of the thing, and without which
it would have been some years in making its way.”[189]
[188] Watt to Dr. Black, 24th July, 1778.
[189] Boulton to Watt, 14th May, 1780. Boulton MSS.
By the end of the year, the 150 machines first made were sold off, and
more orders were coming in. Thirty were wanted for exportation abroad,
and a still greater number were wanted at home. The letter-copying
machine gradually and steadily made its way, until at length there was
scarcely a house of any extensive business transactions in which it was
not to be found. Watt himself, writing of the invention some thirty years
later, observed that it had proved so useful to himself that it had been
worth all the trouble of inventing it, even had it been attended with no
pecuniary profit whatever.
Boulton’s principal business, however, while in town, was not so much
to push the letter-copying machine, but to set straight the bankers’
account, which had been overdrawn to the amount of 17,000_l._ He was able
to satisfy them to a certain extent by granting mortgages on the engine
royalties payable in Cornwall, besides giving personal bonds for repayment
of the advances within a given time. It was necessary to obtain Watt’s
consent to both these measures; but, though Watt was willing to agree to
the former expedient, he positively refused to be a party to the personal
bonds.[190] Boulton was therefore under the necessity of arranging the
matter himself. He was thereby enabled to meet the more pressing claims
upon the firm, and to make arrangements for pushing on the engine business
with renewed vigour. Watt was, however, by no means so anxious on this
score as Boulton was. He was even desirous of retiring from the concern,
and going abroad in search of health. “Without I can spare time this next
summer,” he wrote, “to go to some more healthy climate to procure a little
health, if climate will do, I must give up business and the world too. My
head is good for nothing.”[191] While Boulton was earnestly pressing the
invention on the mining interest, and pushing for orders, Watt shuddered
at the prospect of one. He saw in increase of business only increase of
headaches. “The care and attention which our business requires,” said
he, “make me at present dread a fresh order with as much horror as other
people with joy receive one. What signifies it to a man though he gain the
whole world, if he lose his health and his life? The first of these losses
has already befallen me, and the second will probably be the consequence
of it, without some favourable circumstances which at present I cannot
foresee should prevent it.”
[190] On the 18th May, 1780, Watt wrote Boulton, then in London,
as follows:--“I am sorry, my dear Sir, to prove in any shape
refractory to what you desire, but my quiet, my peace of mind,
perhaps my very existence, depend on what I have told you. I
am unhappy in not having any person I can advise with on this
subject; and my own knowledge of it is insufficient. Therefore,
if I appear too rigid, do not blame me, but my ignorance and
timidity.” And again, on the 19th, on returning the draft
mortgage, he wrote:--“If my executing this deed cannot be
dispensed with, I will do it, but will not execute any personal
bond for the money. I would rather assign you all Cornwall on
proper conditions than execute this.”
[191] Watt to Boulton, 11th April, 1780.
Judging by the correspondence of Watt, his sufferings of mind and body at
this time must have been excessive; and the wonder is how he lived through
it. But “the creaking gate hangs long on its hinges,” and he lived to
the age of eighty-three, long surviving his stronger and more courageous
partner. Intense headache seemed to be his normal state, and his only
tolerable moments were those in which the headache was less violent than
usual. His son has since described how he remembered seeing his father
about this time, sitting by the fireside for hours together, with his
head leaning on his elbow, suffering from most acute sick-headaches, and
scarcely able to give utterance to his thoughts. “My headache,” he would
write to Boulton, “keeps its week-aversary to-day.” At another time,
“I am plagued with the blues; my head is too much confused to do any
brain-work.” Once, when he had engaged to accompany his wife to an evening
concert, he wrote, “I am quite eat up with the mulligrubs, and to complete
the matter I am obliged to go to an oratorio, or serenata, or some other
nonsense, to-night.” Mrs. Watt tried her best to draw him out of himself,
but it was not often that she could divert him from his misery. What
relieved him most was sleep, when he could obtain it; and, to recruit
his powers, he was accustomed to take from nine to eleven hours sleep
at night, besides naps during the day. When Boulton had erysipelas, in
Cornwall, and could not stir abroad, he wrote to his partner complaining
of an unusual lowness of spirits, on which Watt undertook to be his
comforter in his own peculiar way. “There is no pitch of low spirits,”
said he, “that I have not a perfect notion of, from hanging melancholy to
peevish melancholy: conquer the devil when he is young.” Watt experienced
all the tortures of confirmed dyspepsia, which cast its dark shadow over
the life of every day. His condition was often most pitiable. It is true,
many of the troubles which beset him were imaginary, but he suffered
from them in idea as much as if they had been real. Small evils fretted
him, and great ones overwhelmed him. He met them all more than halfway,
and usually anticipated the worst. He had few moments of cheerfulness,
hopefulness, or repose. Speaking of one of his violent headaches, he said,
“I believe it was caused by something making my stomach very acid;” and
unhappily, as in the case of most dyspeptics, the acidity communicated
itself to his temper. When these fits came upon him, and the world was
going against him, and ruin seemed about to swallow him up quick, he
would sit down and pen a long gloomy letter to his partner, full of agony
and despair. His mental condition at the time shows at what expense of
suffering in mind and body the triumphs of genius are sometimes achieved.
In the autumn of 1780, Boulton went into Cornwall for a time to look
after the business there. Several new engines had been ordered, and were
either erected or in progress, at Wheal Treasury, Tresavean, Penrydee,
Dalcoath, Wheal Chance, Wheal Crenver, and the United Mines. One of the
principal objects of his visit was to settle the agreements with the
mining companies for the use of these engines.
It had been found difficult to estimate the actual savings of fuel, and
the settlement of the accounts was a constant source of cavil. There was
so much temptation on the one side to evade the payments according to the
tables prepared by Watt, and so much occasion for suspicion on the other
that they had been evaded by unfair means, that it appeared to Boulton
that the only practicable method was to agree to a fixed annual payment
for each engine erected, according to its power and the work it performed.
Watt was very averse to giving up the tables which had cost him so much
labour to prepare; but Boulton more wisely urged the adoption of the
plan that would work most smoothly, and get rid of the heartburnings on
both sides. Boulton accordingly sent down to Watt a draft agreement with
the Wheal Virgin adventurers, who were prepared to pay the large sum of
2500_l._ a year in respect of five new engines erected for their firm;
and urged him to agree to the terms. “You must not be too rigid,” said
he, “in fixing the dates of payment. A hard bargain is a bad bargain.”
Watt replied in a long letter, urging the accuracy of his tables, and
intimating his reluctance to depart from them. To this Boulton responded,
“Now, my dear Sir, the way to do justice to our own characters, and to
trample under our feet envy, hatred, and malice, is to dispel the doubts,
and to clear up the minds of the gentlemanly part of this our best of all
kingdoms; for if they think we do wrong, it operates against us although
we do none, just as much as if we really did the wrong. Patience and
candour should mark all our actions, as well as firmness in being just to
ourselves and others. A fair character and standing with the people is
attended with great advantage as well as satisfaction, of which you are
fully sensible, so I need say no more.”[192]
[192] Boulton, at Plengwarry, to Watt, at Birmingham, 14th
September, 1780. This day was Boulton’s birthday, and alluding
to the circumstance he wrote,--“As sure as there are 1728 inches
in a cubic foot, so sure was I born in that year; and as sure
as there are 52 weeks in the year and 52 cards in the pack, so
surely am I 52 years old this very day. May you and Mrs. Watt
live very long and be very happy.”
Watt did not give up his favourite tables without further expostulation
and argument, but at length he reluctantly gave his assent to the Wheal
Virgin agreement, by which the annual payment of 2500_l._ was secured.
Though this was really an excellent bargain, Watt seemed to regard
it in the light of a calamity. In the letter intimating his reluctant
concurrence, he observed: “These disputes are so very disagreeable to
me, that I am very sorry I ever bestowed so great a part of my time and
money on the steam-engine. I can bear with the artifices of the designing
part of mankind, but having myself no intention to deceive others, I
cannot brook the suspicions of the honest part, which I am conscious
I never merited even in intention, far less by any actual attempt to
deceive;”[193] Two days later Watt again wrote, urging the superiority of
his tables, concluding thus: “I have been so much molested with headaches
this week, that I have perhaps written in a more peevish strain than I
should have done if I had been in better health, which I hope you will
excuse.” Boulton replied, expressing regret at his lowness of spirits and
bad health, advising him to cheer up. “At your leisure,” said he, “you may
amuse yourself with a calculation of what all the engines we shall have
in eighteen months erected in Cornwall will amount to; you will find it
good for low spirits.” “I assure you,” he said at another time, “you have
no cause for apprehension as to anything in this country; all is going on
well.” Boulton seemed to regard his partner in the light of a permanent
invalid, which he was; and on writing to his various correspondents on
matters of business at Soho, he would abjure them not to cross Mr. Watt.
To Fothergill he wrote respecting the execution of an order, “the matter
must be managed with some delicacy respecting Mr. Watt, as you know that
when he is low-spirited he is vexed at trifles.”
[193] Watt to Boulton, 10th October, 1780. Boulton MSS.
Another important part of Boulton’s business in Cornwall, besides settling
the engine agreement, was to watch the mining adventures themselves, in
which by this time Boulton and Watt had become largely interested. In the
then depressed state of the mining interest, it was in many cases found
difficult to raise the requisite money to pay for the new engines; and the
engineers must either go without orders or become shareholders to prevent
the undertakings dropping through altogether. Watt’s caution impelled him
at first to decline entering into such speculations. He was already in
despair at what he considered the bad fortunes of the firm, and the load
of debts they had incurred in carrying on the manufacture of engines. But
there seemed to be no alternative, and he at length came to the conclusion
with Boulton, that it was better “not to lose a sheep for a ha’porth of
tar.”[194]
[194] Watt to Boulton, 20th April, 1780.
Rather than lose the orders, therefore, or risk the losses involved by
the closing of the mines worked by their engines, the partners resolved
to incur the risk of joining in the adventures, and in course of time they
became largely interested in them. They also induced friends in the North
to join them, more particularly Josiah Wedgwood and John Wilkinson, who
took shares to a large amount.
Boulton now made it his business to attend the meetings of the
adventurers, in the hope of improving their working arrangements, which
he believed were very imperfect. He was convinced of this after his first
meeting with the adventurers of the Wheal Virgin mine. He found their
proceedings conducted without regard to order. The principal attention was
paid to the dining, and after dinner and drink little real business could
be done. No minutes were made of the proceedings; half the company were
talking at the same time on different subjects; no one took the lead in
conducting the discussions, which were disorderly and anarchical in the
extreme. Boulton immediately addressed himself to the work of introducing
order and despatch. He called upon his brother adventurers to do their
business first, and dine and talk afterwards. He advised them to procure
a minute-book in which to enter the resolutions and proceedings. His
clear-headed suggestions were at once agreed to; and the next meeting, for
which he prepared the agenda, was so entirely different from all that had
preceded it, in respect of order, regularity, and the business transacted,
that his influence with the adventurers was at once established. “The
business,” he wrote to Watt, “was conducted with more regularity, and
more of it was done, than was ever known at any previous meeting.” He
perceived, however, that there was still room for great improvements,
and added, “somebody must be here all next summer ... I shall be here
myself the greater part of it, for there will want more kicking than you
can do.... _Grace au Dieu!_ I neither want health, nor spirits, nor even
flesh, for I grow fat.”[195]
[195] Boulton to Watt, 25th and 30th September, 1780. Boulton MSS.
To increase his influence among the adventurers, and secure the advantages
of a local habitation among them, Boulton deemed it necessary to take
a mansion capable of accommodating his family, and which should serve
the same purpose for his partner when sojourning in the neighbourhood.
Boulton’s first idea was to have a portable wooden house built and fitted
up in the manner of a ship’s cabin, which might readily be taken to
pieces and moved from place to place as business required. This plan was,
however, eventually abandoned in favour of a residence of a more fixed
kind. After much searching, a house was found which promised to answer
the intended purpose,--an old-fashioned, roomy mansion, with a good-sized
garden full of fruit trees, prettily situated at Cosgarne, in the Gwennap
valley. Though the United Mines district was close at hand, and fourteen
of Boulton and Watt’s engines were at work in the immediate neighbourhood,
not an engine chimney was to be seen from the house, which overlooked
Tresamble Common, then an unenclosed moor. Here the partners by turns
spend much of their time for several successive years, travelling about
from thence on horseback from mine to mine to superintend the erection
and working of their engines.
[Illustration: COSGARNE HOUSE.]
By this time the old Newcomen engines had been almost completely
superseded, only one of that construction remaining at work in the whole
county of Cornwall. The prospects of the engine business were, indeed, so
promising, that Boulton even contemplated retiring altogether from his
other branches of business at Soho, and settling himself permanently in
Cornwall.[196]
[196] His partner Fothergill would not, however, consent to let
Boulton go, and the Soho business was continued until the death
of Fothergill (bankrupt) in 1782, after which it was continued
for some time longer under the firm of Boulton and Scale.
Notwithstanding the great demand for engines, the firm continued for some
time in serious straits for money, and Boulton was under the necessity of
resorting to all manner of expedients to raise it, sometimes with Watt’s
concurrence, but oftener without. Watt’s inexperience in money matters,
conjoined with his extreme timidity and nervousness, made him apprehend
ruin and bankruptcy from every fresh proposition made to him on the
subject of raising money. He was kept so utterly wretched by his fears as
to be on occasions quite unmanned, and he would brood for days together
on the accumulation of misery and anxiety which his great invention had
brought upon him. His wife was kept almost as miserable as himself, and as
Matthew Boulton was the only person, in her opinion, who could help him
out of his troubles, she privately appealed to him in the most pathetic
terms:--
“I know,” she wrote, “the goodness of your heart will readily
forgive me for this freedom, and your friendship for Mr. Watt
will, I am sure, excuse me for pointing out a few things that
press upon his mind. I am very sorry to tell you that both his
health and spirits have been much worse since you left Soho. It
is all that I can do to keep him from sinking under that fatal
depression. Whether the badness of his health is owing to the
lowness of his spirits, or the lowness of his spirits to his bad
health, I cannot pretend to tell. But this I know, that there
are several things that prey so upon his mind as to render him
perfectly miserable. You know the bond that he is engaged in
to Vere’s house has been the source of great uneasiness to him.
It is still so, and the thought of it bows him down to the very
ground. He thinks that company has used both you and him very ill
in refusing to release him, when you can give them security for a
vast deal more than you are bound for. Forgive me, dear Sir, if I
express myself wrong. It is a subject I am not used to write on.
I know if you can you will set his mind at rest on this affair.
I need not tell you that the seeing him so very unhappy must of
consequence make me so. There is another affair that sits very
heavy on his mind; that is, some old accounts that have remained
unsettled since the commencement of the business. They never
come across his mind but he is rendered unfit for doing anything
for a long time. A thousand times have I begged him to mention
them to you.... I am sure he would suffer every kind of anxiety
rather than ask you to do a thing you seemed not to approve of. I
know the humanity of your nature would make you cheerfully give
relief to any of the human race that was in distress, as far as
was within your power. The knowledge of this makes me happy in
the thought that you will exert every nerve to give ease to the
mind of your friend. Believe me, there is not on earth a person
who is dearer to him than you are. It causes him pain to give
you trouble. The badness of his constitution, and his natural
dislike to business, make him leave many things undone that he
knows ought to be done, and, when it is perhaps too late, to make
himself unhappy at their being neglected.... In his present state
of weakness, every ill, however trifling, appears of a gigantic
size, while on the other hand every good is diminished. Again,
I repeat, that from the certain knowledge I have of his temper,
nothing could contribute more to his happiness and make him go
on cheerfully with business than having everything finished as
he goes along, and have no unsettled scores to look back to and
brood over in his mind.”[197]
[197] Mrs. Watt to Mr. Boulton, then in London, 15th April, 1781.
Boulton MSS.
Mrs. Watt concluded by entreating that no mention would be made to her
husband of her having written this letter, as it would only give him pain,
and explaining that she had adopted the expedient merely in the hope that
something might be done to alleviate his sufferings. This, however, was a
very difficult thing to do. Boulton could remind his hopeless partner of
the orders coming in for engines, and that such orders meant prosperity,
not ruin; but he could not alter the condition of a mind essentially
morbid. Boulton was himself really in far greater straits than Watt. He
had risked his whole fortune on the enterprise; and besides finding money
for buildings, plant, wages, materials, and credits, he was maintaining
Watt until the engine business became productive. We find from the annual
balance-sheets that Watt was regularly paid 330_l._ a year, which was
charged upon the hardware business; and that this continued down to the
year 1785. Till then everything had been out-go; the profits were all to
come. It was estimated that upwards of 40,000_l._ were invested in the
engine business before it began to yield profits; and all this was found
by Boulton. In one of his letters to Matthews he wrote, “I find myself
in the character of P, pay for all,” but so long as his credit held good,
Watt’s maintenance was secure.
So soon, however, as it became clear that the enterprise would be a
success, and that the demand for engines must shortly become national, the
firm was threatened with a danger of another kind, which occasioned almost
as much alarm to Boulton as it did to Watt. This was the movement set on
foot in Cornwall and elsewhere with the object of upsetting their patent.
Had the engine been a useless invention, no one could have questioned
their right of property in it; but, being recognised as of boundless
utility, it began to be urged that the public ought to be free to use it
without paying for it. It was alleged that it had become indispensable
for the proper working of the mines, and that the abolition of the patent
right would be an immense boon to the mining interest, and enable them to
work the ores at a much reduced cost, while the general industry of the
country would also be greatly benefited.
When Boulton wrote Watt from Cornwall, informing him that the Cornishmen
were agitating the repeal of the special Act by which their patent had
been extended, and getting up petitions with that object, Watt replied,
“I suspected some such move as this; and you may depend upon it they will
never be easy while they pay us anything. This is a match of all Cornwall
against Boulton and Watt; and though we may be the better players, yet
they can hold longer out. However, if we do die, let us die hard.”[198]
[198] In another letter Watt described himself as “worried by the
Wheal Chanceians.... In short,” says he, “I am at this moment so
provoked at the undeserved rancour with which we are persecuted
in Cornwall, that, were it not on account of the deplorable
state of debt I find myself in, I would live on bread and
cheese, and suffer the water to run out at their adits, before
I would relax the slightest iota of what I thought my right in
their favour.”--Watt to Boulton, 17th October, 1780. Boulton
MSS.
But would Parliament really take away that right of property in the
invention which they had granted, and deprive Watt and his partner of
the fruits of their long labour and anxiety, and their heavy outlay,
now that the superiority of the engine had become established? Would
the legislature consign them to certain ruin because it would be for the
advantage of the Cornish miners to have the use of the invention without
paying for it? Watt would not for a moment believe this, and both he and
Boulton felt strong in the conviction that their patent right would be
maintained.
Time was, when Watt would have gladly parted with his invention for a very
small sum, and made the engine free to all, so far as he was concerned.
Even after it had been perfected at Soho, after repeated and costly
experiments, he declared his willingness to sell all his interest in it
for 7000_l._, which would have barely remunerated him for the time and
labour he had bestowed upon it, then extending over nearly twenty years of
the best period of his life. And now, after six years of the partnership
had run, and the heavy expenditure incurred by Boulton in introducing
the engine was still unproductive, he regarded it as cruel in the extreme
to attempt to deprive him of his just reward. To Boulton he disburdened
himself fully, in strong and sometimes bitter terms. “They charge us,”
he said, “with establishing a monopoly, but if a monopoly, it is one
by means of which their mines are made more productive than ever they
were before. Have we not given over to them two-thirds of the advantages
derivable from its use in the saving of fuel, and reserved only one-third
to ourselves, though even that has been still further reduced to meet
the pressure of the times? They say it is inconvenient for the mining
interest to be burdened with the payment of engine dues; just as it is
inconvenient for the person who wishes to get at my purse that I should
keep my breeches-pocket buttoned. It is doubtless also very inconvenient
for the man who wishes to get a slice of the squire’s land, that there
should be a law tying it up by an entail. Yet the squire’s land has not
been of his own making, as the condensing engine has been of mine. He has
only passively inherited his property, while this invention has been the
product of my own labour, and of God knows how much anguish of mind and
body;”--
“Why don’t they,” he asked, “petition Parliament to take Sir
Francis Bassett’s mines from him? He acknowledges that he has
derived great profits from using our engines, which is more than
we can say of our invention; for it appears by our books that
Cornwall has hitherto eaten up all the profits we have drawn
from it, as well as all that we have got from other places, and
a good sum of our own money into the bargain. We have no power to
compel anybody to erect our engines. What, then, will Parliament
say to any man who comes there to complain of a grievance he can
avoid, and which does not exist but in his own imagination? Will
Parliament give away our property without an equivalent? Will they
not collect that equivalent from the county of Cornwall? Will they
adjudge them to pay us any less sum than it has cost ourselves?
Will they not further add some reward for the quantity of life
that has been devoted to the pursuit of what is evidently for
the advantage of others, but hitherto has not been for our own?
Lastly, will Parliament compel us to work for anybody without a
remuneration adequate to our experience, or will they oblige us
to labour for any one without our consent? We are in the state of
the old Roman who was found guilty of raising better crops than
his neighbours, and was therefore ordered to bring before the
assembly of the people his instruments of husbandry, and to tell
them of his art. He complied, and when he had done said, ‘These
O Romans, are the instruments of our art; but I cannot bring into
the forum the labours, the sweats, the watchings, the anxieties,
the cares, which produced these crops.’ So, every one sees the
reward which we may yet probably receive from _our_ labours; but
few consider the price we have paid for that reward, which is by
no means a certain annuity, but a return of the most precarious
sort. To put an end, as far as lies in my power, to all disputes
with the people of Cornwall, let them pay my debts and give me a
reasonable sum for the time I have lost, and I will resign my part
in their favour, and think myself well off by the bargain. Or,
if you can find any man who is agreeable to yourself, I’ll sell
him my share on reasonable terms, and, like the sailor, I will
promise to contrive no more fire-engines. In short, my dear Sir,
with a good cause in hand, I do not fear going before Parliament
or anywhere. I am sure that if they did anything they would put
us in a better position than we are in now.”[199]
[199] Watt to Boulton, 31st October, 1780. Boulton MSS.
The petition to Parliament, though much talked about, was not, however,
presented; and the schemers who envied Boulton and Watt the gains which
they had now the prospect of deriving from the use of their engine,
shortly after resorted to other means of participating in them, to
which we shall hereafter refer. In the mean time Boulton, at the urgent
entreaty of Watt, who described himself as “loaded to 12 lbs. on the
inch,” returned to Birmingham; though he had scarcely left before
urgent entreaties were sent after him that he must come back again to
Cornwall.[200]
[200] “Though your long stay, when you were last here,” wrote
Henderson, the resident agent, “must have been attended with
great inconveniences, yet you are now very much wanted in Wheal
Virgin affairs. Different interests have produced a sort of
anarchy.... Were Mr. Watt here now, I don’t think his health
would allow him to stand the battles with the different people.
I have not written to him freely on this subject, as I am afraid
it would hurt him.... Your authority here as an adventurer has
much greater weight than anything I can propose.”--Henderson to
Boulton, 4th February, 1781. Boulton MSS.
While Boulton was in Cornwall, the principal manufacturers of Birmingham,
dissatisfied with the bad and dear supply of copper, resolved to form
themselves into a company for the purpose of making brass and spelter;
and they wrote to Boulton offering to raise the requisite means,
provided he would take the lead in the management of the concern. He
could not but feel gratified at this best of all proofs of the esteem
in which his townsmen held him, and of their confidence in his business
qualities. Boulton, however, declined to undertake so large an addition
to his labours. He felt that he would soon be an old man, and that it
would be necessary for him to contract rather than extend the field of
his operations; besides, the engine business was already sufficiently
prosperous to induce him to devote to it the chief share of his attention.
But he promised to his Birmingham friends that he would always be glad to
give them his best advice and assistance. He accordingly furnished them
with a plan of operations, and drew up a scheme for their consideration,
which was unanimously adopted, and the whole of the share capital was at
once subscribed for. He also made arrangements with his Cornish friends
for a regular supply of copper direct from the mines on the best terms. On
his return to Birmingham, we find him entering upon an elaborate series of
experiments, to determine the best constituents of brass; in the course
of which he personally visited the principal calamine works in Wales
and Derbyshire, for the purpose of testing their different produce. He
diligently read all the treatises on the subject, and made inquiries as
to the practice adopted in foreign countries. Finding, however, that the
continuance of his connexion with the brass company was absorbing more
of his time than he could afford to bestow upon it, he shortly withdrew
from the concern,--partly also, because he was dissatisfied with what
he considered the illiberal manner in which the managing committee were
conducting its affairs.
Another subject which occupied much of Boulton’s attention about the
same time, was the improvement of engine boilers. At an early period he
introduced tubes in them, through which the heated air of the furnace
passed, thereby greatly increasing the heating surface and enabling steam
to be raised more easily and rapidly. We find him in correspondence with
Watt on the subject, while residing at Redruth in the autumn of 1780. He
first suggested iron tubes; but Watt wrote, “I cannot advise iron for the
tubes of boilers, but they may be thought of.”[201] Next Boulton suggested
the employment of copper tubes; to which Watt replied, “I approve of what
you observe about making copper flanches to the boiler pipes in future,
and Ale and Cakes can easily be converted to that way whenever they put up
a second boiler.” We find Boulton introducing four copper tubes 20 inches
in diameter into the Wheal Busy boiler, which was 26 feet in length,--the
fire passing through two of the tubes, and returning through the other
two. Here, therefore, we have Boulton anticipating the invention of the
tubular boiler, and clearly adopting it in practice, before the existence
of the locomotive, for which it was afterwards re-invented. In fact,
the multitubular boiler is but a modification and extension of Boulton’s
principle, as applied by him at so early a period in the Cornish boilers.
[201] Watt to Boulton, 17th October, 1780.
The numerous MS. books left by Boulton show the care with which he
made his experiments, and the scrupulousness with which he recorded
the results. Copies of his observations and experiments on boilers
were sent to Watt, to be entered by him in “the calculation book,” in
which was recorded the tabulated experience of the firm. Boulton was
also an excellent mechanical draughtsman, as appears from his tablets,
which contain a number of beautifully executed drawings of engines
and machinery, with very copious and minutely-written instructions for
erecting them. Some of the drawings of sugar-mills are especially well
executed, and delicately coloured. A rough sketch is given in one of
the books, with a written explanation in Boulton’s hand, of a mode of
applying power in taking canal-boats through tunnels. It consists of
an engine-boat, with toothed claws attached to it for the purpose of
catching metal racks fastened along the sides of the tunnel, such being
his design for working boats upon canals. While in Cornwall, he occupied
his evenings in drawing sections of various mines, showing the adits, and
the method of applying the pumping machinery, to which were also added
numerous elaborate calculations of the results of engine working. He
also continued to devise improvements in the construction and working of
the steam-engine, on which subject he exchanged his views with Watt at
great length. In one of his letters he says: “I like your plan of making
all the principal wearing parts of tempered steel, and the racks of best
Swedish iron, with the teeth cut out. Query: Would it not be worth while
to make _a machine_ for dividing and cutting the teeth in good form out
of sectors? The iron would be less strained by that mode of cutting.” At
other times, when the steam-engine subject seemed exhausted, he proceeded
with the designing of road-carriages, in which he was an adept, filling
a quarto drawing-book, entitled ‘Thoughts on Carriages,’ with sketches of
different kinds of vehicles, some in pencil and Indian ink, and others in
colours, beautifully finished. Such were the leisure employments of this
indefatigably industrious man.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO COSGARNE HOUSE.]
[Illustration: THE ‘WAGGON AND HORSES,’ HANDSWORTH.]