WATT AGAIN VISITS CORNWALL--INVENTION OF THE ROTARY MOTION--THE PATENT
RIGHT AGAIN ASSAILED.
Watt’s presence being much wanted in Cornwall, he again proceeded thither,
accompanied by his wife and family, and arrived at Cosgarne towards
the end of June, 1781. He found that many things had gone wrong for
want of the master’s eye, and it was some time before he succeeded in
putting affairs in order. The men had been neglecting their work, “going
a-drinking.” Cartwright had “contracted a fever in his working arm, and
been swallowing ale for a cure,” until he heard Watt had come, when the
fever left him. Mrs. Watt also found occasion to complain of sundry little
grievances, and favoured Boulton with a long catalogue of them. Gregory
and Jessy had caught cold on the journey, and workmen were hammering about
the house making repairs. There was, however, one gleam of brightness in
her letter: “James’s spirits were surprisingly mended since his arrival.”
Watt was a most voluminous correspondent. He wrote Boulton several times
a week great folio sheets, written close, in small hand. The letters must
have occupied much of his time to write, and of Boulton’s to read. The
latter, seeing his partner’s tendency to indulge in “worrit” about petty
troubles, advised him in a kindly spirit not to vex himself so much about
such matters, but to call philosophy to his aid. Why should he not occupy
some of his spare time in writing out a history of all his steam-engine
contrivances, to be dedicated to Sir Joseph Banks, and published in the
‘Transactions of the Royal Society’? But Watt was extremely averse to
writing anything for publication, and the suggestion was not acted on.
Then, knowing Watt’s greatest pleasure to be in inventing, Boulton in a
subsequent letter advised him to take up afresh, and complete a plan which
they had often discussed, of producing rotary motion, by which the engine
might be applied to work mills and drive machinery.
Watt had from the first regarded the employment of the steam-engine in
producing continuous rotary motion as one of its most useful applications,
and with this object he invented his original wheel-engine. No steps were
taken to introduce the invention to practical use; but it occurred to Watt
that the same object might be better effected by employing the ordinary
engine for the purpose, with certain modifications.[202] The subject had
partially occupied his attention during his first visit to Cornwall; for
we find him writing Boulton from Chacewater, in 1779, “As to the circular
motion, I will apply it as soon as I can, but foresee that I shall be
very busy shortly, and much out of doors.” On his subsequent return to
Birmingham, after frequent conferences with his partner on the subject, he
proceeded to prepare a model, in which he made use of a crank connected
with the working beam of the engine to produce the rotary motion. There
was no originality in the employment of the crank, which was an expedient
that Watt had long before made use of.[203] The crank was, indeed, one of
the most common of mechanical appliances. It was in daily use in every
spinning-wheel, in every grindstone turned by hand, in every turner’s
and knife-grinder’s foot-lathe, and in every potter’s wheel. It was one
of the commonest, as it must have been one of the oldest, of mechanical
expedients. “The true inventor of the crank rotative motion,” said Watt,
“was the man who first contrived the common foot-lathe: applying it to
the engine was like taking a knife to cut cheese which had been made to
cut bread.”
[202] In June, 1780, we find Boulton describing to Colonel Watson
the progress of the Soho business, as follows:--“Since I had
the honour of seeing you in England we have erected upwards of
40 of our new steam-engines, and have (from so much experience)
obviated every difficulty, and made it a most practicable
and perfect machine. The steam wheel we have not meddled with
since you were at Soho, as we have been fully employed upon
large beam-engines; besides, we have applied the beam engine
to rotative motions so successfully that the wheel engine seems
almost unnecessary.”
[203] Watt had made use of the crank at a very early period.
Thus we find him writing to Dr. Small on the 20th September,
1769,--“As to the condenser, I laid aside the spiral wheels
because of the noise and thumping, and substituted a crank: in
other respects it performed well enough.”
[Illustration: THE CRANK AS APPLIED IN THE FOOT-LATHE.]
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE “WAGGON AND HORSES.”
[By Percival Skelton.]]
Though Watt had become very reserved, especially to strangers, about
his inventions, he could not altogether keep from the knowledge of his
workmen the contrivances on which his thoughts were occupied. He was
under the necessity of employing them to make patterns after his drawings,
from which any ingenious man might readily apprehend what he was aiming
at. The Soho workmen were naturally curious about the new inventions
and adaptations which Watt was constantly producing, and these usually
formed the subject of conversation at their by-hours. While the model of
the crank engine was under construction at Soho in the summer of 1780,
a number of the workmen met one Saturday evening, according to custom,
to drink together at the “Waggon and Horses,” a little old-fashioned,
low-roofed, roadside public-house, still standing in the village of
Handsworth. The men were seated round the little kitchen-parlour, talking
about their work, and boasting, as men will do over their beer, of the new
and wonderful things which they were carrying forward in the shops. Dick
Cartwright, the pattern maker, was one of the loudest of the party. He was
occupied upon a model for the purpose of producing rotary motion, which
he declared would prove one of the best things Mr. Watt had ever brought
out. The other men were curious to know all about it, and to illustrate
the action of the machine, Cartwright proceeded to make a rude sketch of
the crank upon the wooden table with a bit of chalk. A person who sat in
the kitchen corner in the assumed garb of a workman, drank in greedily all
that the men had been saying; for there were many eavesdroppers constantly
hanging about Soho, some for the purpose of picking up surreptitious
information, and others to decoy away skilled workmen who were in the
secrets of the manufacture. Watt himself had never thought of taking
out a patent for the crank, not believing it to be patentable; but the
stranger aforesaid had no such hesitation, and it is said he posted
straight to London and anticipated Watt by securing a protection for the
contrivance.[204]
[204] The invention was patented by James Pickard, a Birmingham
button-maker, on the 23rd August, 1780 (No. 1263). Matthew
Washborough of Bristol arranged with Pickard for employing it
in the engine invented by him for securing circular motion.
Washborough’s own patent has no reference to the crank, though
he is usually named as the inventor of it.
Watt was exceedingly wroth when he discovered the trick which had been
played him, and he suspected that Matthew Washborough was at the bottom of
it. Washborough was a Bristol mechanic, who carried on several branches of
mechanical trade, amongst others that of clock-making on a large scale.
Watt had employed Washborough to make nozzles for several of the Cornish
engines, but was not satisfied with his work; for we find him writing
to his partner, “If Washborough makes no better engines than he does
eduction-pipes, he will soon be blown: the Wheal Union pipe is the worst
job you ever saw, being worse than Forbes’s, which was very bad; I scarce
know what to do with it.” It would appear from this that Washborough had
begun to make engines, thereby turning to account the knowledge he had
acquired in Cornwall. One of the first he made was for the purpose of
driving the lathes of his own manufactory at Bristol; and it affords a
clear proof of Washborough’s ingenuity that in this engine he employed
both the fly-wheel and the crank. He has been styled the inventor of
the fly-wheel, but he was no more its inventor than he was of the crank;
the Irish Professor Fitzgerald having proposed to employ it as part of
a Papin’s engine as early as the year 1757. Washborough shortly after
erected an engine after the same plan for a manufacturer on Snow Hill,
Birmingham; and then it was that Watt learned that he had been “bolted
out,” as he termed it, from making use of the crank.
At first he was puzzled what to do to overcome the difficulty, but his
prolific mind was rarely at a loss, and before many months were over he
had contrived several other methods for effecting rotary motion. “I dare
not, however,” he wrote to Boulton, “_make_ my new scheme, lest we be
betrayed again; I believe we had best take the patent first.” At the same
time Watt was persuaded that no contrivance could surpass the crank[205]
for directness, simplicity, and efficiency. He was therefore desirous,
if possible, of making use of it in his rotative engine, as originally
proposed; and he wrote to Boulton, then at Redruth, “I think you ought
to call upon Washborough as you return, and let him know that we will
dispute his having an exclusive right to those cranks.”[206] Boulton
called upon Washborough accordingly, and gave him notice to this effect.
But Watt hesitated to use the crank after all. Although the contrivance
was by no means new, its application to the steam-engine was new; and,
notwithstanding the unfair way in which Pickard had anticipated him, Watt
did not like to set the example of assailing a patent, however disputable,
as it might furnish a handle to those who were at the time seeking to
attack his own. The proposal was made to him that he should allow the
Washborough Company to use his steam-engine in exchange for their allowing
him to use the crank; but this he positively refused to agree to, as he
felt confident in yet being able to produce a circular motion without
employing the crank at all.
[205] At a later date we find him writing to his partner thus:--“I
cannot agree with Mr. Palmer’s notion about the crank engine,
as, though a crank is not new, yet that application of it is
new and never was practised except by us. It is by no means our
interest to demolish the crank patent, because then all our own
machines of that kind will be of no use, and I am convinced that
the crank can be made their superior.”--Watt to Boulton, 15th
October, 1781.
[206] Watt to Boulton, 19th November, 1780.
Thus matters stood until the beginning of the year 1781, when Washborough,
having entered into an arrangement with the Commissioners of the Navy to
erect an engine for grinding flour at the Deptford Victualling Yard,[207]
a formal application was made to Boulton and Watt to apply their engine
for the purpose. Watt protested that he could not bring himself to submit
to such an indignity. If the Commissioners thought proper to employ him
to erect the necessary engine, rotative motion, and machinery, he would
exert every faculty which God had given him in doing so, but he “would
never consent to hold the candle to Washborough.”
[207] Boulton and Watt were by this time employing their engine
for a like purpose, as appears from a letter of Boulton to S.
Wyatt, dated 28th February, 1781, in which he says,--“We are now
applying our engines to all kinds of mills, such as corn mills,
rolling iron and copper, winding coals out of the pit, and every
other purpose to which the wind or water mill is applicable. In
such applications, one hundred weight of coals will produce as
much mechanical power as is equal to the work of ten men for ten
hours, and these mills may be made very much more powerful than
any water-mills in England.” To Mr. Henderson he wrote at the
same date:--“I make no scruple to say but that I could readily
build a more powerful and in every respect better copper-rolling
mill by steam than any water-mill now in England. As soon as
the Cornish engines are at work, I intend to turn millwright
and make our steam-mills universally known.”
“Had I esteemed him,” he wrote to Boulton, “a man of ingenuity and
the real inventor of the thing in question, I should not have made
any objection; but, when I know that the contrivance is my own,
and has been stolen from me by the most infamous means, and, to
add to the provocation, a patent been surreptitiously obtained for
it, I think it would be descending below the character of _a man_
to be found in any way aiding or assisting him in his pretended
invention.... I think, therefore, that you should propose to the
Honourable Board to undertake the direction of the whole; and,
provided you can agree with them about the customary premium
for the savings by our engine, you should do the whirligig part
[the rotative motion] for love. If this proposal should not be
accepted, I beg of you to decline having any concern with it, and
leave the field clear to Washborough. We may perhaps gain more
by so doing than we can lose, as I assure you I have a very mean
opinion of the mechanical abilities of our opponents. They have
committed many gross errors in such of their works as I have had
occasion to know about, and we may get honour by rectifying their
mistakes. Perhaps this may seem to you to savour of vanity. If
it does, excuse it on account of the very provoking circumstances
which have extorted the confession. If these engineers had let us
alone, I should not have meddled with them; but, as it is, I think
we should be wanting in common prudence if we suffered a marriage
between our machine and theirs, and if we did not do all we could
to strip them of their borrowed feathers, which I hope there is
justice enough left in England to enable us to do.”[208]
[208] Watt to Boulton, 21st April, 1781. On the following day
(the 22nd April) Watt wrote another long letter to Boulton on
the same subject. His mind could not be at rest, and he thus
unburdened himself of his indignation:--“If you find yourself
so circumstanced, as you say you are, that you _dare_ not refuse
[to erect the proposed engine for the Navy Board], then let them
pay M. Washborough and have done with him, and let the engine be
erected under our direction or Mr. Smeaton’s. With the latter
I will go hand in hand; nay I will do more--I will submit to
him in all mechanical matters; but I will by no means submit to
go on with thieves and puppies, whose knowledge and integrity
I contemn. Though I am not so saucy as many of my countrymen,
I have enough of innate pride to prevent me from doing a mean
action because a servile prudence may dictate it. If a king were
to think Matt Washborough a better engineer than me, I should
scorn to undeceive him. I should leave that to Matthew. The
connexion would be stronger as the evidence would be undeniable.
So much for heroics!... I will never meanly sue a thief to give
me my own again, unless I have nothing left behind. As it now
stands, I have enough left to make their patent tremble, and
shall leave no mechanical stone unturned to aggrieve them. I
will do more. I will publish my inventions, by which means they
will be entirely precluded, because they must be fools indeed
that will pay _them_ for what they can have for nothing. I
am very ill with a headache, therefore can write no more than
passion dictates.”
Boulton acted on his partner’s advice, and declined the proposed
connexion. The Navy Board were placed in a dilemma by this decision.
They then referred the matter to Mr. Smeaton, and requested him to
report to them as to the most suitable plan of a flour-mill, and the
steam-engine best calculated to drive it. To the great surprise of Watt
as well as Washborough, Smeaton reported that both their engines were
alike unsuited for such a purpose. “I apprehend,” he said, “that no
motion communicated from the reciprocating lever of a fire-engine can
ever produce a perfect circular motion, like the regular efflux of water
in turning a water-wheel!” This report relieved the Commissioners. They
abandoned their scheme, and the order for Washborough’s engine was at once
countermanded.[209]
So soon as Watt had got fairly settled at Cosgarne, in the summer of 1781,
he proceeded to work out the plan of a rotary-working engine. Boulton was
making experiments with the same object at Soho, communicating to him the
results from day to day. He was stimulated to prosecute the inquiry by
the applications which he received from many quarters for steam-engines
suitable for driving mills. He therefore urged Watt to complete the
invention, and to prepare the drawings and specification, declaring his
readiness at any time to provide the money requisite for taking out a
patent. “The people in London, Manchester, and Birmingham,” said he,
“are _steam-mill mad_. I don’t mean to hurry you, but I think that in
the course of a month or two we should determine to take out a patent
for certain methods of producing rotative motion from the vibrating or
reciprocating motion of the fire-engine,--remembering that we have four
months in which to describe the particulars of the invention.”[210]
[209] Washborough was much mortified by the decision of the Navy
Board, and alleged that he had been badly used by them. The
anxieties occasioned by his failure, and the pecuniary losses he
had sustained, preyed heavily upon his mind, and he was seized
by a fever which carried him off in October, 1781, when only
in his 28th year. He was unquestionably a young man of much
ingenuity and merit, and had he lived would have achieved high
eminence and distinction as an engineer.
[210] Boulton to Watt, 21st June, 1781.
Watt proceeded to put his ideas in a definite shape as fast as his bad
health and low spirits would allow. Every now and then a fit of despair
came upon him about his liability to the bankers, and so long as it lasted
he was unmanned, and could do nothing. At the very time that Boulton was
writing the letter last quoted, Watt was thus bewailing his unhappy lot:--
“When I executed the mortgage,” said he, “my sensations were such
as were not to be envied by any man who goes to death in a just
cause; nor has time lessened the acuteness of my feelings....
I thought I was resigning in one hour the fruits of the labour
of my whole life,--and that if any accident befell you or me, I
should have left a wife and children destitute of the means of
subsistence, by throwing away the only jewel Fortune had presented
me with.... These transactions have been such a burden upon my
mind that I have become in a manner indifferent to all other
things, and can take pleasure in nothing until my mind is relieved
from them; and perhaps, from so long a disuse of entertaining
pleasing ideas, never may be capable of receiving them any
more.”[211]
[211] Watt to Boulton, 21st June, 1781.
Boulton made haste to console his partner, and promised to take immediate
steps to relieve his mind of the anxiety that weighed so heavy upon
it; and he was as good as his word. At the same time he told Watt that
he must not suppose he was the only man in the world who had cares and
troubles to endure. Boulton himself had, perhaps, more than his share,
but he tried to bear them as lightly as he could. With his heavy business
engagements to meet, his large concerns to keep going, he was not a man
much to be envied; yet he continued to receive his visitors as usual at
Soho, and to put on a cheerful countenance. “I am obliged,” he wrote, “to
smile, to laugh, to be good-humoured, sometimes to be merry, and even go
to the play! Oh, that I were at the Land’s End!” Such was his playful way
of reminding Watt of the necessity of cheerfulness to enable one to get
through work pleasantly.[212] But Watt’s temperament was wholly different.
His philosophy never rose to the height of taking things easy. He could
not cast his cares behind him, nor lose sight of them; but carried them
about with him by day, and took them to bed with him at night; thus making
life a sort of prolonged vexation--a daily and nightly misery.
[212] While Boulton spoke good humouredly to his partner in
Cornwall with the object of cheering him up, he privately
unbosomed himself to his friend Matthews in London. When
requesting him to call at once on the bankers and get the
account reduced to an advance of 12,000_l._, and thus obtain
Mr. Watt’s release, he complained of the distress which the
communications of the latter had caused him. He thought his
conduct ungenerous, taking all the circumstances into account,
and considering that the firm were within a year of being
tolerably easy in money matters. “When I reflect,” he wrote, “on
his situation in 1772 and my own at that time, and compare them
with his and mine now, I think I owe him little.... I some time
ago gave him a security of all my two-thirds, after paying off
L. V. and W. [the bankers], from which you may judge how little
reason he has to complain. He talks of his duty to his wife
and children; by the same rule I ought not to neglect mine. His
wife’s fortune joined to his own did not amount to sixpence: my
wife brought me in money and land 28,000_l._ I advanced him all
he wanted without a security, but in return he is not content
with an ample security for advancing nothing at all but what he
derived from his connexion with me.”--Boulton to Matthews, 28th
June, 1781. Boulton MSS.
But a new and still more alarming source of anxiety occurred to disturb
the mind of poor Watt, and occasion him many more sleepless nights. The
movement to abolish the patent by repeal of the Act of Parliament having
broken down, attempts were now made in many quarters to evade it by
ingenious imitations, in which the principle of Watt’s engine was adopted
in variously disguised forms. But to do this successfully would have
required an inventive faculty almost as potent as that of Watt himself;
and he had drawn the specification of his patent too carefully to be
easily broken through by the clumsy imitators who made the attempt. It
was, however, only natural that the success of the new engine should draw
the attention of ingenious mechanics to the same subject. Watt had drawn a
great prize, and why should not they? though they little knew the burden
of sorrow which his prize had brought upon him. They only knew of the
large annual dues--probably exaggerated by the tongue of rumour--which
were being paid to the patentees for the use of their engines; and
they not unnaturally sought to share in the good fortune. There might
possibly be other mechanical methods by which the same objects were to
be accomplished, without borrowing from Watt; at all events it was worth
trying. Hence the number of mechanical schemers who made their appearance
almost simultaneously in all parts of the country, and the number of new
methods of various kinds contrived by them for the production of motive
power.
Watt was very soon informed of the schemes which were on foot in his
immediate neighbourhood--much too soon for his peace of mind. He at
once wrote to his partner: “Some Camborne gentlemen (supposed to be
Bonze and Trevithick) have invented a new engine which they say beats
ours two-thirds, and one of the partners has gone to London to procure
a patent for it. A Mr. Vice says he has also invented a new engine,
and that they have stolen his and compounded it with ours; he intends
to take out a caveat against them.”[213] Though Bonze was an excellent
engineer, and elicited the admiration of Watt himself, it turned out that
he had no concern with the new invention. Its projectors proved to be
the Hornblowers, also engineers of considerable local repute. Watt had
befriended the family, and employed them in erecting his engines, by which
means they became perfectly familiar with their construction and mode of
action. Jonathan Hornblower had a large family of sons, of whom Jabez,
Jesse, Jethro, and Jonathan were engineers, like their father. Jabez,
one of the cleverest, had spent some time in Holland, from whence he had
returned with some grand scheme in his head for carrying out an extensive
system of drainage in that country. Like his father and the other sons,
he was employed in erecting Watt’s engines,[214] which had the effect
of directing his attention to the invention of a new power which should
supersede that of his employer.
[213] Watt to Boulton, 24th June, 1781.
[214] Watt befriended Jabez like the other members of his family,
as appears from the following passage in a letter to Boulton
(6th September, 1778):--“Capt. Paul has turned Jabez adrift,
having for some time taken umbrage at him because he would
do his work well and therefore expensively. Jabez has a bad
wife, is poor and unhappy. He is very clever, a good engineer,
and industrious, though he seems not to have the faculty of
conciliating people’s affections. I fear he will go to Holland,
and as he can hurt us [there being no patent for the engine
secured there] I must try to get him bread here.” Later,
Boulton wrote Watt from Redruth (18th November, 1780),--“Old
Hornblower has disobliged Mr. Daniel. I have my fears they will
not employ him; but when our own business is sealed to-morrow,
I will make a push in his favour. That family hath not been
successful in conciliating the affections of the people in this
neighbourhood.”
It was for some time doubtful what was the precise character of the new
engine. Indeed the Hornblowers themselves long remained undecided about
its actual form, being still in the throes of invention. They knew that
they must copy discreetly, so as not to lay themselves too open to attack;
and though they urged the superiority of their engine so strongly as
to induce several of the mining companies to believe in them, and even
to withhold orders from Boulton and Watt, they refrained as yet from
publishing their invention. Watt wrote to his partner that he understood
the Hornblowers’ engine was on some new principle, and the only novelty
he could think of was a caloric air-engine. He therefore asked Boulton
to make all the inquiries he could as to the respective bulks and prices
per 1000 feet of all possible kinds of air in their most expanded states.
“I am much vexed,” he continued, “by this affair. Jabez does not want
abilities: the rest are fools. If they have really found a prize, it will
ruin us.... Bankruptcy might ensue to both. But I don’t fear getting my
bread independent of engines, though much easier with them.”[215] Watt
was, however, in error as to the nature of the Hornblowers’ engine, which
he discovered three days later, when he wrote Boulton,--
[215] Watt to Boulton, 16th July, 1781.
“The matter is this: Ever since the ungrateful, idle, insolent
Hornblowers knew anything about our engines, they have laboured
to evade our Act, and for that purpose have long been possessed
of a copy of our specification. They made an attempt at Wheal
Maid two years ago, by connecting two cylinders together and
injecting into one of them, which did not succeed, although they
had gathered together numbers of their friends in order to make
a great exhibition. Since that, Jonathan the coppersmith, who,
like Alexander of the like trade, hath done me much evil, has
laboured close at some more successful evasion, which he says
he has now completed and taken a patent for,--concerning which
I hear as follows from public reports, propagated by Jethro’s
confidants:--1st. That Jonathan Hornblower is the inventor and
patentee; that Winwood, Jones and Company, of Bristol, are his
partners and supporters with money (that Winwood was lately in
this country on a sleeveless errand is certain); that they have
made their model work to 14 lbs. on the inch, and expect it will
work to 18 lbs. 2ndly. That they press the piston down by steam,
and maintain they have a right to do so, because, say they, it
can be proved that such was done before my patent. I suppose by
this they allude to Gainsborough’s bauble, which, by-the-by, was
_after_ the patent. If they do not mean this I am at a loss, as
I now declare that I do not know of any one having done it before
the patent except myself. However, it behoves us to inquire into
this, and if the exhibition was not a public one it avails not.
3rdly. That they pretend to condense the steam in the cylinder;
but I have heard that they do it in a separate vessel within the
cylinder, or close to it. 4thly. That they do not use an air or
water pump, from which I conjecture that they let the hot water
down the shaft by a pipe more than 30 feet long, as you know I
proposed but had several objections to. You will remember, and I
dare say Joseph and Peploe also do, that we made the 18-inch Soho
cylinder work by blowing the hot water out of the eduction-pipe
and used no air-pump, but found a waste of steam by so doing.
There is also some confused report about a wheel being employed
on their engine, which makes me suspect that M. Washborough may
be the Bristol man concerned with them.”[216]
[216] Watt to Boulton, 19th July, 1781. Boulton MSS.
Two days later Watt wrote,--“My principal hope is that almighty Nature
will prove Lord Chancellor, and put a negative on their scheme. Amen, so
be it! I abhor lawsuits, and reckon a cause half lost that is litigated.”
On the 23rd of July he returned to the subject:--
“The Horners,” said he, “continue bragging of what they are to
do, and I hear the country in general takes part with them, as
even the aversion they have to the Horners does not equal the
pleasure they would feel at our undoing.... The Horners say they
can make a common engine equal to ours, but that their new engine
is one-third better. We must now attend to making use of all the
elastic power of the steam, which, unless I am much deceived,
will save one-half over our best engines, and at any rate it may
easily be applied to work the condenser, which will save about
one-eighth. I will not conceal from you that I am rendered very
unhappy by one thing and another, but fight with it all I can.”
In the mean time Boulton continued to urge Watt to complete the
specification and drawings of his rotative engine, informing him of the
success of the model which he had now completed at Soho:--
“Though you studied a thousand years,” said he, “I do not think
you could make one ten per cent. better than a small model with
two cones which Joseph has executed after my drawings. It has
little friction, goes sweeter than anything of the kind you have
yet touched, and has not the least shake. It is so perfect that
I don’t consider it worth while even to think of any other for
horizontal motions. I am therefore positively decided in my mind
as to the necessity of taking out a patent and including in it
all the principles and constructions you please; for if it be not
secured soon we may lose it.”[217]
[217] Boulton to Watt, 28th June, 1781. On the 3rd July following
he writes,--“The great rotative engine is finished, and I
expected the union between it and the little engine would have
been performed this evening, but it can’t be till to-morrow.
Robert set the elliptic out so true that it had no shake and
required no alteration. It goes so much better than the little
model made by Joseph that I am now ashamed to send the little
one. The great model makes a delightful horizontal foot-lathe. I
gave it a few strokes with my foot, and it made 30 revolutions
after I withdrew it, and that in a quiet and peaceable manner,
which shows how steady and frictionless it is.”
In the same letter, Boulton communicated to Watt the rumours that had
reached him from Scotland of more inventions of engines that were to beat
Watt’s out of the field. “The cry is still, they come!” said he. “Hatley
from Scotland is going with Lord Dunmore to Virginny; says that he and
somebody else in Scotland have invented an engine that is three times
better than yours.” Boulton recommended that a search should be made at
the Patent-Office, to ascertain what was going on in new engine patents.
Watt entirely approved of this, and urged that the search should be made
at once. “I do not think we are safe a day to an end,” he wrote, “in
this enterprising age. One’s thoughts seem to be stolen before one speaks
them. It looks as if Nature had taken an aversion to monopolies, and put
the same thing into several people’s heads at once to prevent them; and
I begin to fear that she has given over inspiring me, as it is with the
utmost difficulty that I can hatch anything new.”
Notwithstanding this confession on the part of Watt, his inventive
faculties were really never at any period of his life more vigorous than
now; for he was rapidly maturing his rotative engine, with its various
ingenious methods for securing circular motion; and working out the
details of the double-cylinder expansion engine, with its many admirable
contrivances hereafter to be described. Boulton continued to receive
applications at Soho, from various quarters, for engines capable of
working flour-mills and other machinery, and Watt himself was urged by
like inquiries from manufacturers in Cornwall. “Mr. Edwards,” he wrote
Boulton, “waits impatiently the success of our rotative machine. He
wants a power able to lift a hammer of 700 lbs., 2 feet high, 120 times
per minute.... In relation to the circular engine, an experiment should
be made on a large scale, and to work a hammer. I want your ideas on
that head.”[218] A fortnight later, Watt had matured his own ideas, and
made the necessary declaration of his invention before a magistrate,
preliminary to making the usual application for a patent.[219]
[218] Watt to Boulton, 5th July, 1781.
[219] “Yesterday I went to Penryn and swore that I had invented
‘certain new methods of applying the vibrating or reciprocating
motion of steam or fire engines to produce a continued rotation
or circular motion round an axis or centre, and thereby to
give motion to the wheels of mills or other machines,’ which
affidavit and petition I transmit to Mr. Hadley by this post
with directions to get it passed with all due expedition.”--Watt
to Boulton, 26th July, 1781.
Watt was exceedingly busy about this time in superintending the erection
of new engines. No fewer than twelve were in progress in different
parts of the county. As he travelled about from one mine to another on
horseback, and spent a good deal of his time in the open air, his mind
was diverted from preying upon itself according to his ordinary habit,
and his health and spirits improved accordingly. Boulton was equally
busy at Soho, where he was erecting a powerful engine for blowing the
furnaces at Walker’s ironworks at Rotherham, and another for Wilkinson’s
forges at Bradley, in which he proposed to employ a double cylinder,
with a double crank[220] and a pair of fly-wheels. At intervals he went
into Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Shropshire, to look after various other
engines in progress; writing Watt cheerful letters as to the improving
prospects of the firm. He found the steam-engine everywhere gaining in
public estimation. “The more it is known,” he wrote, “the more it will be
in demand. As to the scheme of the Hornblowers, they shall sooner press me
down into the earth than they shall press down a piston with steam.” And
again, “Give yourself no uneasiness about the Horners’ engine. Our title
to the invention is as clear as can be; and it is as well secured as an
Act of Parliament can make it--
“Doubt that the sun is fire,
Doubt all the powers of sight,
Doubt truth to be a lyer,
But never doubt our right.”
[220] Watt suggested caution as to making use of the cranks.
“In relation to Wilkinson’s forges, I wish you would execute
them without the double crank. We shall soon have a bad enough
lawsuit on our hands without it.”--Watt to Boulton, 19th July,
1781.
Watt’s first surmise, that the Hornblowers intended to work their engine
by heated air or gas, had set Boulton upon a series of inquiries and
experiments on the subject, in which he was assisted by Dr. Priestley, who
had shortly before settled in Birmingham, and was a willing co-operator
in all investigations of this nature. Their object was to ascertain
whether it was practicable to produce mechanical power by the absorption
and condensation of gas on the one hand, and by its disengagement and
expansion on the other.
“What you propose,” Watt wrote, “is exceeding probable, and akin
to what I have long contemplated--the use of mixed air and steam,
which have a wonderful expansion and contraction. Nevertheless,
I fear that there is in all such cases a proportional assumption
of latent heat; but be it tried though it be beginning a new
series of vexations and expense.... I suspect that a forcible
compression would hinder the gas from separating from the water,
and on the contrary any tolerable degree of vacuum would hinder
the water from attracting it; but perhaps part of both may be
used.... My greatest hope is in the expansive engine with double
or single cylinder, which I consider as proved by many facts,
and shall send you my ideas of the execution of it very soon.
At the same time I am clear to take the air patent, which, as I
have worded the petition, may include some other improvements on
the steam-engine.... I hope my last letters have relieved you, as
the knowledge of the Horners’ being a steam-engine working on our
principle relieved me. I have some trust in the judges, though I
have little in the law; and I think impartial people will regard
us as injured persons, and not suffer the thief of our horse to
escape because he has painted him of another colour.”[221]
[221] Watt to Boulton, 28th July, 1781. A few days later
Boulton wrote Watt that Dr. Priestley had proceeded with the
experiments, and that he had come to the conclusion that “there
is nothing to be feared from any of the tribe of gases, which
cannot be produced nearly so cheap as steam; and as to steam
_you_ know its limits better than any man.”
Watt’s fears for his patent were about this time excited anew by the
great Arkwright trial, in which Arkwright was nonsuited, and compelled
to forego the rights derived from his improvements and combinations of
spinning-machinery. The principal ground on which the patent was set aside
was that the specification was unintelligible. On this, Watt observed,--
“Though I do not love Arkwright, I don’t like the precedent of
setting aside patents through default of specification. I fear
for our own. The specification is not perfect according to the
rules lately laid down by the judges. Nevertheless, it cannot be
said that we have hid our candle under a bushel. We have taught
all men to erect our engines, and are likely to suffer for our
pains.... I begin to have little faith in patents; for, according
to the enterprising genius of the present age, no man can have a
profitable patent but it will be pecked at, and no man can write a
specification of a fire-engine that cannot be evaded, if the words
and not the true intent and meaning be attended to. As kissing
goes by favour, and as, in dubious cases, men are actuated by
their prejudices, so, where a blue is very like a green they may
decide either way.”[222]
[222] Watt to Boulton, 30th July, 1781. Later he wrote,--“I am
tired of making improvements which by some quirk or wresting
of the law may be taken from us, as I think has been done in
the case of Arkwright, who has been condemned merely because
he did not specify quite clearly. This was injustice, because
it is plain that he has given this trade a being--has brought
his invention into use and made it of great public utility.
Wherefore he deserved all the money he has got. In my opinion
his patent should not have been invalidated without it had
clearly appeared that he did not invent the things in question.
I fear we shall be served with the same sauce _for the good
of the public_! and in that case I shall certainly do what
he threatens. This you may be assured of, that we are as
much envied here as he is at Manchester, and all the bells in
Cornwall would be rung at our overthrow.”--Watt to Boulton, 13th
August, 1781.
Watt continued to be alarmed by the rumours of the forthcoming
Hornblowers’ engine. “I have heard,” he wrote, “that a female confidant
of Jonathan’s has seen the engine, and says that they evaporate half a
hogshead of water with _one ounce_ of coals! ... that in a few days they
are to publish in print what their invention is, illustrated with a
copper-plate. Then we shall see and admire, if God pleaseth; I hope we
shall not believe and tremble.” Later he wrote,--“Our cause is good, and
yet it has a bad aspect. We are called monopolists, and exactors of money
from the people for nothing. Would to God the money and price of the time
the engine has cost us were in our pockets again, and the devil might then
have the draining of their mines in place of me. Yet all are not alike.
Some are just, and I believe do not grudge us, and some are friendly. All
this is to no purpose. The law must decide whether we have property in
this affair or not, and we must submit to what we cannot help.”[223]
At length Watt learnt the precise nature of the Hornblowers’ invention.
“It is no less,” he wrote Boulton, “than our double-cylinder engine,
worked upon our principle of expansion.” This was an old idea of Watt’s,
which he had pursued while labouring upon his model at Kinneil. “It is
fourteen years,” he said, “since I thought of the double-cylinder engine,
and I think that I mentioned it to Mr. Smeaton, when I explained the
expansion engine to him in your parlour, some years ago. Wm. Murdock
and Mr. Henderson can testify to my having mentioned it to them; but
this of the Horners seems to be a different thing, being hung on the
same beam.”[224] As early as May, 1769, he had communicated to Dr.
Small a clear and explicit description of his method of working steam
expansively; and he adopted the principle in the Soho engine, in 1778, as
well as in the Shadwell engine erected in the same year. He was, however,
prevented carrying it out extensively in practice by the inexpertness
of the workmen. “Though the effect of the steam,” he explained to a
correspondent, “is thereby increased 50 per cent. (by theory 100 per
cent.), it cannot be done without rendering the machine more complicated
than we wish; and simplicity is a most essential point in mechanics.
There are other contrivances known to us which would increase the effect
in an inferior degree, say from one-fourth to one-sixth, but they are
all attended with peculiar inconveniences which forbid their use until
the illiterate and obstinate people who are intrusted with the care
of the engines become more intelligent and better acquainted with the
machine.”[225]
[223] Watt to Boulton, 13th November, 1781.
[224] Watt to Boulton, 19th November, 1781.
[225] Watt to Samuel Ewer, jun., 9th July, 1781. Boulton MSS.
Though suffering much from his usual headaches, which frequently disabled
him from thinking, Watt finished the drawings of the rotary engine in a
week, and forwarded them to Boulton at Soho. “I believe,” he said in a
later letter, “a well-regulated expansive-engine is the _ne plus ultra_
of our art.” But he intimated that a new trouble had come upon him in the
shape of another inventor of a steam-engine in which all the distinctive
principles of his own invention were embodied. “If he be engine mad,”
said Watt, “and if it be agreeable to you, he shall have my share of
them, provided he will come to my price. I wish to retire, and eat my
cake in peace, but will not go without the cake. All mankind seem to have
resolved to rob us. Right or wrong, they _will_ pluck the meal from our
mouths.”[226] Boulton, on his next journey to London, called upon the
alleged inventor, a Mr. Ewer, and declared to Watt that the invention, so
far as it was new, was not worth a farthing, and that all that was good in
it was borrowed from their engine. “Though the white marks on your cow or
your horse,” said he, “may be changed to black, the cow and horse are not
the less your property.” He therefore counselled Watt to relieve himself
of all anxiety on this account. Watt replied, “Ewer seems to have a genius
more capable of inventing than of prudently examining the merits of his
invention. Poets lose half the praise they would otherwise get did they
but tell us what they discreetly blot. We must publish a book of blots.”
[226] Watt to Boulton, 30th August, 1781.
[Illustration: OLD ENGINE-HOUSE AT DALCOATH.
[By R. P. Leitch.]]
Meanwhile Watt went on inventing, even while he was complaining of his
inability to invent, and of the uselessness of inventing. Invention had
grown into a habit with him, which he could not restrain. In the very
letter in which he wrote “It is of no use inventing--everybody is seizing
upon our schemes,” he communicated to Boulton that he had contrived a
machine, then erecting at Dalcoath, for the purpose of stopping the engine
when at full speed, when any accident happened to the rods or outside
chains,--first taking away the power, and then holding the bob fast
whenever it might be at the turn.[227] A few days later he communicated
that he had contrived a new way of opening the regulators. He was also
finishing his plan of the new equalising beam, and the double expansion
engine, which he requested might be proceeded with at once. “I have shown
the equalising beam,” said he, “to no person whatever. Please push it
on. It is our _dernier ressort_, and may perhaps be all that villany will
leave us, and that not long.”[228] Boulton wrote back, bidding his partner
to be of good heart. “If our spirits don’t fail us,” said he, “I think
our engine won’t.”
[227] Watt to Boulton, 30th August, 1781. In a subsequent letter
he explained the invention as follows:--“The method I propose
to stop an engine when the pump rods break is by means of an
air bellows or forcing pump of a good large diameter fixed in
the shaft and having a solid piston in it which is wrought
constantly by the engine and quite easily while it goes at
its ordinary speed, because there is a large valve open in
its bottom or rather top, which suffers the air to pass and
repass easily; but whenever the engine attempts to move quick,
that valve shuts and all exit from the air is cut off, and
it becomes a feather-bed to save the blow of the engine. This
is exemplified by turning the valve-hole of a common bellows
upwards and stopping the nozzle, then working the bellows
first slowly and then quickly. I think this contrivance will
be of great use and may prevent damage, especially those bangs
which occur in setting on an engine.”--Watt to Boulton, 27th
September, 1781.
[228] Boulton to Watt, 10th September, 1781. Boulton immediately
proceeded with the erection of the new engine as secretly as
possible. “The principles of the expansion engine,” said he
to Watt, “you had invented before Dr. Small died, as Mr. Keir
can testify as well as others. However, it is highly proper to
execute every kind of beam that can be devised for the purpose
of equalising the power. I have removed the little portions
into the wooden house next the smith’s shop, and have blinded
the window and barred the door. There is a convenient well
that can be filled from the back brook, and the engine may be
applied to the raising of water, which is the best sort of load
to calculate from.”
At the same time Watt was inventing his new jointed top-working gear,
which he reported answered exceedingly well with the Dalcoath engine; and,
in pursuance of an idea thrown out by Boulton, he perfected the model
of a horizontal-axled elliptical with one pulley, which he described
as performing _à merveille_, being free from all untoward frictions. He
was also busy inventing a new method of an equalising beam, by causing
the gudgeon to change its place; and another by means of a roller acting
upon a curve in the nature of the working gear. Besides his experiments
in mechanics, he was prosecuting investigations as to the properties of
nutgalls in combination with various chemical substances, for the purpose
of obtaining the best kind of ink for use with his copying machines; and
at another time we find him contriving various iron cements for joints,
confessing that he had “lost all faith in putty;” the result of which was
his discovery of the well-known metallic cement.
In the correspondence between the partners on these various topics, we
seem to see the ideas out of which so many inventions grew, in their
various stages of birth, growth and development. They concealed nothing
from each other, but wrote with the most perfect unreserve. Each improved
on the other’s ideas,--Watt upon Boulton’s, and Boulton upon Watt’s; both
experimenting on the same subject at the same time, and communicating
the results in the most elaborate detail. The phrase often occurs in
their letters: “I write thus fully _that you may see exactly what is
passing in my mind_.” The letters were sometimes of extraordinary length,
one of Boulton’s (dated 25th September, 1781) extending to eight pages
folio, closely written, containing upwards of 4000 words. Scarcely a day
passed without their spending several hours in writing to each other.
Boulton also kept up a correspondence with Mrs. Watt, in addition to his
elaborate letters to her husband. The lady entered into various matters
of personal interest, describing her occupations and domestic pursuits,
and communicating the state of her husband’s health, which was a matter
of no less interest to Boulton than to herself.
As the autumn set in with its fogs and rains, Watt’s headaches returned
with increased severity, and he repeatedly complained to Boulton of being
“stupid and ill, and scarcely able to think.” “I tremble,” said he, “at
the thought of making a complete set of drawings. I wish you could find me
out a draughtsman of abilities; as I cannot stand it much longer.”[229]
Watt’s temper was also affected by the state of his health; and he
confessed that he felt himself not at all cut out for the work he had
to do, so far as related to business: “I am not philosopher enough,” he
said, “to despise the ills of life; and when I suffer myself to get into
a passion, I observe it hurts me more than it does anybody else. I never
was cut out for business, and wish nothing so much as not to be obliged
to do any; which perhaps will never fall to my lot; therefore I must drag
on a miserable existence the best way I can.”[230]
[229] Watt to Boulton, 20th September, 1781.
[230] Watt to Boulton, 18th October, 1781.
Watt was very busy at this time in preparing the specification and
drawings of the circular motion, which he said he found an extremely
difficult job owing to the distracted state of his head. The letters
patent for the invention had been secured on the 25th October, 1781,
and he had four months allowed him in which to prepare and lodge the
full description. He laboured at his work late and early, his mind being
for months in the throes of invention. In the beginning of November we
find him writing to Boulton, sending him the “first three yards of the
specification,” written out on folio sheets joined together. Watt’s
letters to his partner at this time contain numerous rough sketches of
his proposed methods for securing circular motion without using the crank,
from which he conceived himself to be in a measure precluded by Pickard’s
patent. He devised no fewer than five distinct methods by which this
object might be accomplished, by means of wheels of various sorts rotating
round an axis. The method eventually preferred was the one invented by
Wm. Murdock, and commonly known as the sun and planet motion.[231] “It has
the singular property,” said Watt, “of going twice round for each stroke
of the engine, and may be made to go oftener round if required without
additional machinery.”
[231] Watt, in a letter to Boulton, dated the 3rd July, 1782,
speaks of it as an old plan of his own “revived and executed
by William Murdock;” but we were informed by the late Mr.
Josiah Parkes, that at an interview which he had with Mr. Watt
at Heathfield, at which Murdock was present, Murdock spoke of
the Sun and Planet motion as his invention, which Watt did not
contradict. Boulton also attributed the invention to Murdock, as
appears from his letter to Henderson, dated 22nd January, 1782;
in which he says,--“Mr. Watt’s packet is not ready. I am to wait
till his drawings [of the rotatory motion] are completed, which
he is executing himself. There was some informality in those
sent from Soho. Besides, he has another rotative scheme to add,
which I could have told him of long ago, when first invented
by William Murdock, but I did not think it a matter of much
consequence.”
[Illustration: SUN AND PLANET MOTION.]
Rough sketches of these various methods were forwarded to Soho in order
that the requisite careful drawings of them might be prepared in time to
be lodged with the specification; but when they reached Watt in Cornwall,
he declared them to be so clumsily executed that he could not for very
shame send them in; and though greatly pressed by mining business, and
suffering from “backache, headache, and lowness of spirits,” he set to
work to copy them with his own hands. He worked up his spare time so
diligently, that in ten days he had the plans finished and returned to
Boulton, whom he wrote saying that he had improved the construction of
several of the machines, and “got one copy of the specification drawing
finished in an elegant manner upon vellum, being the neatest drawing he
had ever made.”[232] The necessary measures being then taken to perfect
the patent, it was duly enrolled on the 23rd February, 1782.
During the time that Watt was busy completing the above specification
and drawings, his mind was full of other projects, one of which was the
perfecting of his new expansive engine.[233] It is curious to find him, in
his letters to Boulton, anticipating the plan of superheating the steam
before entering the cylinders, which has since been carried into effect
with so much success.
[232] Watt to Boulton, 26th Jan., 1782.
[233] “I have some time ago thought,” wrote Watt, “of a new
expansive engine--a reciprocating engine with a heavy circular
fly moved by a pinion from the end of the beam, so as to
make three turns per down-stroke and as many contrariwise per
return; so that in the first half of the stroke it may acquire
a momentum which will carry it through the last half; and if a
weight equal to half the load be put upon the inner end of the
beam, and the engine be made to lift it during the return, by
making a vacuum above the piston and using a rack instead of
a chain, a cylinder of the present size may work to the same
depth by half the steam; and I believe the engine will work very
sweetly.”--Watt to Boulton, 16th January, 1782.
By the middle of March he had sufficiently matured his ideas of a
reciprocating expansive engine to enable him to take out letters patent,
and the invention was enrolled on the 4th of July in the same year. It
included the double engine and double-acting engine (steam pressing
the piston upwards as well as downwards), the employment of steam on
the expansive principle, various methods of equalising the power of
the engine, the toothed rack and sector for guiding the piston-rod,
and a rotative engine or steam-wheel. While perfecting these beautiful
adaptations, Watt was often plunged in the depths of distress through
many causes,--by sickness, headaches, and low spirits; by the pecuniary
difficulties of the firm; by the repeated attempts of the Cornish miners
to lower their dues; and by threatened invasions of his patent from all
quarters. Another of his worries was the unsteadiness of his workmen.
His letters to Boulton were full of complaints on this score. Excepting
Wm. Murdock, who was in constant demand, there was scarcely one of them
on whom he could place reliance. “We have very little credit, indeed,”
said he, “in our Soho workmen. James Taylor has taken to dram-drinking
at a most violent rate,--is obstinate, self-willed, and dissatisfied.”
And again, “Cartwright’s engine has been a continued scene of botching
and blunders. J. Smith and the rest are ignorant, and all of them must
be looked at daily, or worse follows. Had I had any one man of common
prudence and experience, who would have attended from morning till night,
these things might have been avoided, and my life would have been more
comfortable. As things are, it is much otherwise.”[234] Three months
later, matters had not mended. J. Smith is pronounced “a very slow
hand,” and “J. Taylor is sometimes three days together at the alehouse,
except when he judged I should be going my rounds.... Dick Cartwright
also continues too much devoted to beer.... I have read all our men
lectures upon industry and good hours, though I fear it will not be to
much purpose; idleness is ingrained in their constitution.”[235] Boulton
wrote to him to “send home the most rascally of the Sohoites;” but this
was impracticable, as better men to replace them were not at that time
to be had. Things were quite as bad at Soho itself; for early in 1782 we
find Boulton writing thus: “The forging-shop wants a total reformation;
Peploe and others constantly drunk; spoke mildly to them at first,
then threatened, and am now looking out for good hands, which are very
scarce.”[236]
[234] Watt to Boulton, 20th September, 1781.
[235] Watt to Boulton, 20th December, 1781.
[236] Boulton to Watt, 26th March, 1782. The following was
Boulton’s method of dealing with a refractory and drunken
workman:--“I told you in my former letters how Jim Taylor had
gone on,--that I had talked to him in a friendly way but all
to no purpose. He came last Monday evening to the smith’s shop,
drank more ale, was sent for, and he became abusive to the men,
saying we had nobody could work well but himself, and that we
could not do without him. The next morning I went into the
shop predetermined to part with him. I stopped the noise of
bellows and hammers, and appealed to the jury of the shop for
the justice of my determination, and made the best use I could
of the example. I sent Taylor off with deserved contempt, and
to convince him that we really could do without him. However we
are very much behind hand in nozzles.”--Boulton to Watt, 19th
April, 1782.
William Murdock was by far the ablest and most efficient of the Soho
men, and won golden opinions in all quarters; so much so, that he was in
constant request. We find him described as “flying from mine to mine,”
putting the engines to rights. If anything went wrong, Murdock was
immediately sent for. He was active, quick-sighted, shrewd, indefatigable,
and an excellent workman. His wages, down to 1780, were only 20_s._ a
week, and, thinking himself worth more, he asked for an advance to two
guineas. Boulton, instead of refusing, adroitly managed to obtain a
present of ten guineas from the owners of the United Mines, to which he
added other ten, in acknowledgment of the admirable manner in which he
had erected their new engine; Mr. Beauchamp, the Chairman of the Company,
having publicly declared that “he regarded William as the most obliging
and industrious workman he had ever known.” Though Murdock’s wages were
not then raised, and though Bonze, the Cornish engineer--a man of means
as well as of skill and experience--invited him to join in an engineering
partnership, William remained loyal to the Boulton and Watt firm, and in
due time he had his reward.
Murdock’s popularity with the Cornishmen increased so much that Watt
seems to have grown somewhat jealous of him, for when William was to
be had, they preferred him to Watt himself.[237] At Wheal Virgin, the
adventurers insisted upon having him all to themselves; but this was not
practicable, as there were other engines in progress requiring constant
attention,--Wheal Crenver, which Watt described as “in the enemy’s
country, Pool hardly completed yet, and Dalcoath in its childhood.”
[237] “To-day was account day at Wheal Virgin, when there was
nothing remarkable, only that Mr. Phillips insisted upon William
Murdock being wholly at Wheal Virgin, which I told him could
not possibly be complied with, unless I went to Crenver in his
place, as I had nobody else to send thither; nevertheless, that
William should be here as much as possible. This did not satisfy
him, and I know not what to do, as Crenver will be ready to work
in three weeks and must not be delayed.... I think my personal
attendance should satisfy Wheal Virgin adventurers, but as they
seem to have more confidence in William, I will for peace’s sake
yield to their will, being satisfied that William will do the
business well.”--Watt to Boulton, 15th November, 1781.
“I cannot now leave Wheal Virgin a single day,” wrote Watt,
“without running the risk of some vile blunder, particularly as
the boilers are now setting. Wm. Murdock was at Wheal Virgin one
day this week, and that day was taken up with Mr. Wedgwood,[238]
so that it was partly lost. Yesterday he was taken away by Crenver
people and is not returned. I fear I cannot get much of his help,
and I assure you I need it much, for there cannot be a greater
plague than to have five engines making by ignorant men and no
helpmate to look after them. I have been tolerably well these few
days, but cannot get up my spirits, from having too much to think
upon.”
[238] One of the pleasantest events that occurred to Watt in the
course of his stay in Cornwall, was the visit of Wedgwood, who
had come to inspect some of the mines in which, on Boulton’s
recommendation, he had taken an interest, and at the same time
to search for clays for use in his earthenware and porcelain
manufacture at Etruria. “Mr. Wedgwood,” he wrote Boulton, “has
been in this country some days hunting clays and soap rocks,
cobalts, &c. I have had two visits of him at the expense of a
day and a half. Nevertheless I don’t grudge that, as I am glad
to see a Christian. He has just left me.”--Watt to Boulton, 18th
October, 1781.
Combined with the troubles arising out of the perversities, blunderings,
and bad conduct of his workmen, Watt had also to struggle against torment
of mind and body, aggravated by bad news from home. Boulton was in the
crisis of his troubles with his partner Fothergill, from which he was
desperately struggling to shake himself free.[239]
[239] Fothergill died insolvent in 1782. Notwithstanding what
he had suffered by the connexion, Boulton acted with great
generosity towards Fothergill’s family, providing for his
widow and orphan children. “Whatever the conduct of any part
of that family towards me may have been,” said he, “their
present distresses turn every passion into tender pity. I waited
upon Mrs. Fothergill this morning, and administered all the
consolation that words could give, but I must do more, or their
distresses will be great indeed. I never wished for life and
health so fervently as at present; for I consider it my duty
to act as a father to that family to the best of my power, and
the addition of a widow and seven children is no small one.”
Boulton was as good as his promises; and he not only helped the
Fothergill family through their difficulties, but he undertook
to pay an annual sum (though under no obligation to do so)
to a Mrs. Swellingrebel--a widowed lady from whom Fothergill
had obtained money which he lost; and who, but for Boulton’s
generous help, must have been left destitute.
Watt was made additionally miserable by the state of the bankers’ account,
which was still overdrawn to a very large amount. The bankers were urgent
for repayment, but neither of the partners saw where the money was to come
from. Watt again thought of giving up altogether, and selling his share
of the business as the only means of relief which presented itself.
“I am almost moved,” he wrote, “if Lowe, Vere, and Williams
will free me from any demands on my future industry, to give
up my present property altogether, and trust to Providence for
my support. I cannot live as I am with any degree of comfort.
The want of the superfluities of life is a trifle compared
with continual anxiety. I do not see how you can pay L. V. &
W. 1000_l._ per quarter; I am sure it cannot be from the engine
business, unless we can reduce the amount of our general expenses
to 0 and live upon air ourselves.... Though you and I should
entirely lose this business and all its profits, you will get
quit of a burdensome debt; and as both of us lived before it had
a being, so we may do afterwards. Therefore consider what can be
done, and do it without reluctance, or with as little as you can;
and depend upon it that I am sincerely your friend, and shall push
you to nothing that I do not think to be for your advantage.”[240]
Two days later, while still in a heavily desponding humour, he wrote
thus:--
“If matters were to come to the worst, many methods may be fallen
upon whereby we may preserve some consequence in the world. A
hundred hours of melancholy will not pay one farthing of debt.
Summon up your fortitude and try to turn your attention to
business, and to correct the abuses at Soho.... All the idlers
should be told that in case they persevere in want of attention,
then dismission must ensue.... The Soho part of the business has
been somehow a perpetual drain to us, and if it cannot be put on
a better footing, must be cut off altogether by giving out the
work to be done by others.”[241]
[240] Watt to Boulton, 16th March, 1782.
[241] Watt to Boulton, 18th March, 1782.
To add to their troubles, a fire broke out in the house of Boulton and
Watt’s London agent for the sale of their copying machines, and the
building, with its contents, was burnt to the ground, thereby causing a
loss to the firm of above a thousand pounds. The mining trade was also
wretchedly bad in Cornwall, several of the more important mines being
unproductive, while ore was selling at low prices. The adventurers were
accordingly urging Watt to abate the agreed dues for the use of their
engines, and in several cases threatened to close the mines unless he
did so. The United Mines asked to be reduced 50_l._ a month. Watt having
refused to make the abatement, the mine was ordered to be stopped, on
which he consented to give up the dues altogether for a period of six
months. “There seemed,” he wrote to Boulton, “to be no other course, if
we would maintain our right, and at the same time do justice to the poor
people, who must otherwise absolutely starve, and are already riotously
disposed through the stopping of Wheal Virgin.”[242] “In short,” said he,
“almost the whole county is against us, and look upon us as oppressors
and tyrants, from whose power they believe the horned imps of Satan are
to relieve them.” Watt was indeed thoroughly sick of Cornwall, and longed
to get back to Birmingham. He confessed he did not see how, under the
present state of things, he could be of any more use there. The weather
was very tempestuous, and he felt the fatigue of travelling from mine
to mine too much for him to endure. On the 4th of April he wrote,--“I
returned from the coast to Cosgarne last night with an aching head, after
a peregrination of two days in very stormy weather.” “Upon the whole,”
he wrote to Boulton, “I look upon our present Cornish prospects as very
bad, and would not have you build too much upon them nor upon the engine
business, without some material change. I shall think it prudent to
look out for some other way of livelihood, as I expect that this will
be swallowed up in merely paying its burdens.”[243] Watt, accordingly,
finding that he could do no more good in Cornwall, left it about the
middle of April, and returned with an aching head and heavy heart to
Birmingham.
[242] Watt to Boulton, 27th March, 1782.
[243] Watt to Boulton, 30th March, 1782.