Lives of Boulton and Watt. Principally from the Original Soho Mss. Samuel Smiles 1038 downloads.pdf

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Lives of Boulton and Watt.
Principally from the Original Soho Mss.

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: Lives of Boulton and Watt. Principally from the Original Soho
Mss.

Author: Samuel Smiles

Release date: May 15, 2016 [eBook #52069]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/52069

Credits: Produced by Chris Curnow, Rosanna Murphy, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIVES OF
BOULTON AND WATT. PRINCIPALLY FROM THE ORIGINAL SOHO
MSS. ***

Transcriber’s Notes:
Punctuation has been standardised. Spelling has been
retained as it appears in the original publication except as
marked like this in the text. The original text appears when
hovering the cursor over the marked text. A list of
amendments is at the end of the text.
Clicking on an illustration with a blue border will open a
higher resolution version of the image in the current
window.

LIVES

OF

BOULTON and WATT.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

LIVES OF BRITISH ENGINEERS, from the Earliest Times to the
Death of Robert Stephenson; with an Account of their Principal
Works, and a History of Inland Communication in Britain.
With Portraits and 270 Woodcuts. 3 Vols. 8vo. 63s.

SELF-HELP; with Illustrations of Character and Conduct. Post
8vo. 6s.
‘SELF-HELP,’ ou Caractère, Conduite et Persévérance, Illustrés à
l’aide de Biographie. Traduit de l’Anglais par Alfred
Talandier sur le texte revu et corrigé par l’Auteur. Post 8vo.
5s.
INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY: Iron-Workers and Tool-Makers. A
Companion Volume to ‘Self-Help.’ Post 8vo. 6s.
JAMES BRINDLEY AND THE EARLY ENGINEERS. [Abridged
from ‘Lives of the Engineers.’] With Illustrations. Post 8vo. 6s.
STORY OF THE LIFE OF GEORGE STEPHENSON including a
Memoir of his Son Robert Stephenson. [Abridged from ‘Lives
of the Engineers.’] With Illustrations. Post 8vo. 6s.
WORKMEN’S EARNINGS,—SAVINGS,—and STRIKES:
Reprinted from the ‘Quarterly Review.’ Post 8vo. 1s. 6d.

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.

James Watt F.R.S.
Engraved by W. Holl, after the portrait by Sir W.
Beechy, R.A.
Published by John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1865.

LIVES

OF

BOULTON and WATT.

PRINCIPALLY FROM THE ORIGINAL SOHO
MSS.

COMPRISING ALSO
A HISTORY OF THE INVENTION AND
INTRODUCTION OF THE STEAM-
ENGINE.

By SAMUEL SMILES,
AUTHOR OF ‘INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY,’ ETC.

LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.

1865.

The right of Translation is reserved.

LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES
AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET, AND
CHARING CROSS.

PREFACE.
The present volume concludes the author’s ‘Lives of the Engineers.’ Its
preparation was begun many years since. The favourable reception given to
the ‘Life of George Stephenson,’ the principal improver and introducer of
the locomotive engine, encouraged the author to follow it by a Life of
James Watt, the principal inventor and introducer of the condensing engine.
On making inquiries, however, he found that the subject had already been
taken in hand by J. P. Muirhead, Esq., the literary executor of the late Mr.
Watt, of Aston Hall, near Birmingham. As Mr. Muirhead was in all respects
entitled to precedence, and was, moreover, in possession of the best sources
of information, the author’s contemplated Life of Watt was abandoned, and
he satisfied himself with embodying the substance of the materials he had
collected in a review of Mr. Muirhead’s work, which appeared in the
‘Quarterly Review’ for July, 1858.
Having recently, however, through the kindness of M. P. W. Boulton,
Esq., of Tew Park, Oxon, been enabled to examine the extensive collection
of documents brought from Soho, including the original correspondence
between Watt and Small, between Watt and Boulton, and between the latter
and his numerous intimate friends and business correspondents, it has
appeared to the author that, notwithstanding the valuable publications of
Mr. Muirhead, the story of the life of Watt is one that will well bear to be
told again, in connexion with the life and labours of Matthew Boulton of
Soho. The two men were so intimately related during the most important
period of their lives, and their biographies so closely intermingle, that it is
almost impossible to separate them. They are therefore treated conjointly in
the present volume, under the title of ‘Boulton and Watt,’ the name of the
old Soho firm which so long enjoyed a world-wide reputation. But though
the name of Boulton takes priority in the title, that of Watt will be found in
many respects the most prominent in the narrative.
The MS. papers which have been consulted for the purposes of the
present volume are of an unusually complete and varied character. They
consist of several thousand documents selected from the tons of business

books and correspondence which had accumulated at Soho. The most
important were selected and arranged by the late M. Robinson Boulton,
Esq., who entertained the highest regard for his father's memory; and, from
the character of the collection, the author inclines to the opinion that it must
have been made with a view to the preparation and publication of a Life of
Matthew Boulton,—which has not, however, until now been undertaken.
Thus, among sundry papers endorsed “M. Boulton—Biographical
Memoirs,” is found a MS. memoir in the handwriting of James Watt,
entitled “Memorandum concerning Mr. Boulton, commencing with my first
acquaintance with him,” and another of a similar character, by Mr. James
Keir,—both written shortly after Mr. Boulton’s death. Another collection,
endorsed “Familiarum Epistolæ et Selectæ, 1755 to 1808,” contains letters
received from various distinguished personages in the course of Mr.
Boulton’s long and interesting career. The number of original documents is
indeed so large, that, but for a rigid exclusion of non-essential matter, these
Lives must have expanded into several volumes, instead of being
compressed into one. But the author believes labour to be well bestowed in
practising the art of condensation, and that the interest of biography gains
much by judicious rejection. What Watt said to Murdock as to the
production of a machine, holds equally true as to the production of a book,
—“It is a great thing,” said Watt, “to know what to do without.”
Besides the memoirs of Boulton and Watt, which occupy the principal
places in the following volume, it will also be found to contain memoirs of
the other inventors who have at various times laboured at the invention and
application of the steam-engine,—of the Marquis of Worcester, Dionysius
Papin, Thomas Savery, and Thomas Newcomen. The author has also been
enabled to gather from the Boulton papers a memoir of William Murdock,
which probably contains all that is likely to be collected respecting that
excellent and most ingenious mechanic.
In addition to the essential assistance received from M. P. W. Boulton,
Esq., in preparing the present book, without which it would not have been
undertaken, the author desires to record his acknowledgments to J. W.
Gibson Watt, Esq., for information relative to James Watt;—to Charles
Savery, Esq., Clifton, J. T. Savery, Esq., Modbury, Lieutenant-Colonel
Yolland, R.E., and Quartermaster Connolly, R.E., for various facts as to the
family history and professional career of Thomas Savery, inventor of the

“Fire Engine;”—and to Thomas Pemberton, Esq., Heathfield; W. C. Aitkin,
Esq., Coventry; George Williamson, Esq., Greenock; the late J. Murdock,
Esq., Handsworth; and the late Mr. William Buckle, of the Royal Mint,
formerly of Soho,—for various information as to the lives and labours of
Boulton and Watt.
In his treatment of the subject, it will be observed that the author has
endeavoured, as much as possible, to avoid introducing technical details
relating to the steam-engine. Those who desire further information on such
points, are referred to the works of Farey, Tredgold, Bourne, Scott Russell,
Muirhead (‘Mechanical Inventions of James Watt’), and other technical
treatises on the subject, where they will find detailed particulars of the
various inventions which are only incidentally referred to in the following
pages.

London, October, 1865.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

Anecdote of Matthew Boulton and George III.—Roger Bacon
on steam power—Early inventors, their steam machines
and apparatus—Hero of Alexandria, Branca, De Caus—
The Marquis of Worcester—His water-works—His
imprisonment—His difficulties—The water-commanding
engine—His “Century of Inventions”—Obscurity of
descriptions of his steam-engine—Persevering struggles
—His later years and death Page 1–26

CHAPTER II.

Zeal of the Marchioness of Worcester—Sir Samuel Morland—
His pumps and fire-engines—His privations and death—
Dr. Dionysius Papin—His digester—Experiments on the
power of steam—His steam-engine—Proposed steamboat
—Early schemes of paddle-boats—Blasco Garay—
Papin’s model engine and boat—Destroyed by boatmen
—Papin’s death 27–38

CHAPTER III.

Thomas Savery—The Savery family—Savery’s mechanical
experiments and contrivances—His paddle-boat—
Treatise on ‘Navigation Improved’—Cornish mines and
the early pumping machinery—Savery’s “Fire-engine”—
Exhibition of his model—Explanations in the ‘Miner’s
Friend’—The engine tried in Cornwall—Its failure at
Broadwaters, Staffordshire—Savery’s later years—His
death and testament 39–58

CHAPTER IV.

Slow progress in invention of the steam-engine—Thomas
Newcomen of Dartmouth—His study of steam-power—
Correspondence with Dr. Hooke of the Royal Society—
Newcomen’s experiments—Assisted by John Calley—
Newcomen’s atmospheric engine—Newcomen and
Calley erect their first engine—Humphrey Potter the
turn-cock boy’s contrivance—Engines erected at
Newcastle-on-Tyne, Leeds, and Cornwall—Wheal
Fortune engine—Mr. William Lemon—Joseph
Hornblower—Jonathan Hulls and steam propulsion of
ships—His steamboat—Extended use of the Newcomen
engines in Cornwall and northern mining counties—
Payne, Brindley, and Smeaton, improvers of the steam-
engine 59–76

CHAPTER V.

James Watt, his birthplace and lineage—His grandfather the
mathematician—Cartsdyke and Greenock in the last
century—James Watt’s father—His multifarious
occupations—His mother—Watt’s early years—His
fragile constitution—Sent to school—His first visit to
Glasgow—His indulgence in storytelling—His boyish
ingenuity—His home education—The Stuart rebellion—
Watt’s love of scientific pursuits—Sent to Glasgow to
learn the trade of mathematical-instrument maker 77–95

CHAPTER VI.

Glasgow in 1754—The Glasgow tobacco lords—The early 96–116
clubs, and social habits of the merchants—Watt’s master
—Leaves Glasgow, and proceeds to London on
horseback—Is placed with a mathematical-instrument
maker—His progress in learning the trade—Frugal living
in London—Danger from pressgangs—His infirm health

—Returns to Scotland—Refused permission to begin
business in Glasgow—Gains asylum in the College—His
workshop there—Makes musical instruments—His
various reading and studies—Intercourse with the
professors—Intimate relations of Watt with Robison—
Robison’s estimate of Watt

CHAPTER VII.

Robison and Watt’s conferences on the power of steam—Dr.
Black and latent heat—Watt’s experiments on steam—
His apparatus—The college model of the Newcomen
engine arrives from London—Watt’s experiments upon it
—His difficulties and perseverance—His instrument-
making business improves—Takes a partner and opens a
shop in the Salt Market—His marriage—Continued
experiments on steam—His Sunday walk on Glasgow
Green, and his first idea of the condensing engine—His
experiments with the model, and successive difficulties—
Anecdote of Watt and Robison and the new apparatus—
The model engine—Removes to a cellar and erects a
working engine—Mechanical and financial difficulties 118–137

CHAPTER VIII.

Watt’s introduction to Dr. Roebuck—Begins business as 138–158
surveyor—Surveys canals—Partnership with Roebuck in
the engine—Difficulties in constructing the engine—
Watt’s visit to Kinneil—A patent determined on—Watt’s
despondency—Continues his improvements—Learns
German—Correspondence with Dr. Small—Specification
of patent lodged—Watt erects a trial engine—The
washhouse behind Kinneil—The engine completed—Its
defects—Roebuck’s embarrassments—Watt accepts
engagement to superintend canal works—Employed in
various surveys—Designs Hamilton Bridge—Supplies
plans for dock and pier at Port Glasgow and harbour at

Ayr—Illness and death of Mrs. Watt—Dr. Roebuck’s ruin
—Turning point in Watt’s fortunes

CHAPTER IX.

Birmingham in early times—Its industry—Roads—William
Hutton—The Boulton family—Matthew Boulton begins
business—His trade correspondence—His marriage—His
love of business—Snow-hill and Soho—Partnership with
Fothergill—Aims at excellence in his productions—
Emulates Wedgwood—Surpasses French art-
manufacturers—His royal and noble patrons—Employs
the best artists—Visits of foreigners at Soho—Extension
of business—Promotes canals—His vast business—
Commercial panic—Boulton’s scientific pursuits 161–181

CHAPTER X.

Water- and horse-power at Soho—Boulton’s correspondence
with Benjamin Franklin concerning fire-engine—
Boulton’s model—Correspondence with Dr. Darwin and
Dr. Roebuck—Watt visits Soho—First meeting of
Boulton and Watt—Correspondence of Boulton and Watt,
and of Dr. Small and Watt—Dr. Roebuck visits Boulton
—Watt’s anxiety for Boulton to join him—Watt’s
discouragements—His continued experiments and their
failure—Watt engineer for the Monkland Canal—
Commercial panic—Watt loses employment as canal
engineer—Roebuck’s failure—Terms of proposed
partnership between Watt, Small, and Boulton—
Roebuck’s share in Watt’s engine transferred to Boulton
—Watt’s arrival at Birmingham 182–198

CHAPTER XI.

Characteristics of Matthew Boulton—Contrast between him 199–213
and Watt—Boulton’s friends—Watt’s engine at Soho—

Boulton’s views of engine business—The Kinneil engine
re-erected at Soho—Works successfully—Inquiries for
pumping-engines from the mining districts—Proposed
extension of patent by an Act—Watt in London—Death
of Dr. Small—Watt invited to Russia—Application to
Parliament for extension of engine patent—Application
opposed—Watt’s arguments—Act obtained—Watt
returns to Birmingham—The manufacture of engines
begun—The Wilkinsons—First iron vessel

CHAPTER XII.

Watt’s house, Harper’s Hill—First order for engines—
Boulton’s activity—The London engineers prophesy the
failure of Watt’s engine—Watt revisits Glasgow—His
second marriage—Terms of partnership between Boulton
and Watt—Orders from Scotland for engines—Boulton
pressed with work and anxiety—Watt returns to Soho
with his wife—Order for engine for Tingtang and
Chacewater mines, Cornwall—Watt and the Shadwell
Waterworks Committee—Stratford-le-Bow engine—
Difficulties with workmen at Soho, and with unskilled
enginemen—Expansive working 214–229

CHAPTER XIII.

Inefficiency of the Newcomen pumping-engines—More 230–260
orders from Cornwall—Watt in Cornwall—United Mines
district—Mines drowned—Watt and Jonathan
Hornblower—Mrs. Watt’s account of Cornwall—
Chacewater engine finished—Its successful working—
Watt’s embarrassments and financial difficulties—
Boulton’s courage and perseverance, and Fothergill’s
despondency—Fire at Soho—Engine royalty on savings
of fuel—Altercations with adventurers—Watt’s frequent
calls for Boulton’s help—Boulton’s harassments—
Proceeds to Cornwall—Watt’s return to Birmingham—

His despondency—Boulton sustains the firm—Orders for
engines from abroad—William Murdock, his excellencies
of character and ability—First interview with Boulton
and engagement—Sent to Cornwall—His mode of
dealing with the captains—Watt’s altercations with the
Cornishmen—His reliance on Boulton—Altercation with
Trevithick

CHAPTER XIV.

Lieutenant Henderson in Cornwall—Boulton’s financial
embarrassments increase—Boulton and Fothergill—The
“Soho pictures”—Watt’s letter-copying machine—
Boulton pushes the machine—Demand for copying-
presses—More financial difficulties—Watt’s sufferings
and melancholy—More Cornish engines wanted—
Engine-dues—Boulton cheers Watt—Mining
adventurers’ meetings—Boulton and Watt take shares—
The mines—Boulton organises the mining business—
Boulton’s house at Cosgarne, Cornwall—Mrs. Watt
describes her husband’s miseries and weakness—The
engine patent threatened by the Cornish men—Watt on
patent right—The Birmingham Copper Company—
Boulton improves engine-boilers by introducing tubes—
His MSS. and drawings concerning mechanical and
scientific experiments—His indefatigable industry 261–284

CHAPTER XV.

Watt again visits Cornwall—Rotary motion—The crank- 285–316
engine at Soho—Theft of the invention—Matthew
Washborough—Smeaton and steam-power—Rotary-
motion engine—Boulton and Watt’s cares—Evasions of
the engine patent—The Hornblowers’ engine—Watt’s
new inventions—Boulton’s confidence in the engine—
Air-engine—Watt’s fears for the patent—The rotary
engine invented—New improvements introduced—The

equalising beam—Watt’s ill health and humour—Various
expedients for producing circular motion—Murdock’s
sun-and-planet motion—Patent taken for the
reciprocating expansive engine—Troubles with workmen
—Murdock’s efficiency and popularity—Watt’s
despondency—The firm’s London agent’s house burnt—
Gloomy prospects of the mining trade

CHAPTER XVI.

Financial position of the firm—Rotary engines for mills—
Boulton’s battles with the Cornish adventurers—His life
in Cornwall—Murdock and the miners—The
Hornblowers’ engine at Radstoke—Watt at Bristol—
Major Tucker—Steam mills—Rotary motion applied—
The first rotative engines—Pumping-engines for the Fens
—Boulton’s health fails—He visits Scotland, Carron
ironworks, Lord Dundonald—His extensive
correspondence—Grumbling in Cornwall—Concessions
to the miners—Press of work at Soho—Watt’s invention
of the parallel motion and the governor—Murdock’s
model locomotive—Boulton’s praise of Murdock—More
pumping-engines wanted—Boulton’s affection for his
children—Letter to his son—His scientific recreations—
Domestic enjoyment at Cosgarne 317–341

CHAPTER XVII.

Boulton’s action in commercial politics—His interview with 342–366
Pitt—Agitation against Pitt’s commercial policy—The
“Irish resolutions”—Watt on free commerce—Is opposed
to political agitation—Combination against patents—
Fluctuations in the business at Soho—Engine orders from
various quarters—The Cornish copper-miners—The
Copper Company formed, and Boulton’s part in it—Riots
in Cornwall—Boulton’s life threatened—The esteem in
which he was held in Cornwall—His intimacy with the

Quakers—The Albion Mill scheme—The double-acting
engines for the mill—Ill-success of the undertaking—
Albion Mill burnt down—Demand for rotative engines—
Want of skill and misconduct of workmen—Wedgwood’s
advice to Watt—Speculativeness of Boulton—His
embarrassments—Watt’s caution in investing—Boulton’s
health fails—His depressed spirits—Generosity to Watt

CHAPTER XVIII.

Friends of Boulton and Watt—The Lunar Society—Provincial
scientific societies—Distinguished associates of the
Lunar Society—Dr. Darwin—Dr. Priestley, his gifts and
accomplishments—Josiah Wedgwood—Meetings and
discussions of the Lunar Society—Dr. Priestley’s
speculations and experiments—Composition of water,
Watt and Cavendish—Bleaching by chlorine—Sun-
pictures—Saint-Fond at Birmingham, his descriptions of
Watt and Priestley—Decline of the Lunar Society 367–385

CHAPTER XIX.

Increasing debasement of the coinage—Punishments for
counterfeiting—Birmingham coiners—Boulton refuses
orders for base money—Executes a contract for coin for
the East India Company—Applies the steam-engine to
coining—Improves the coining apparatus—Political
action in relation to base coin—Strikes model coins for
inspection of the Privy Council—Opposed by the Mint
authorities—Presents model coins to the king—Executes
coinage orders for foreign governments—His success—
Medalling—Description of the Soho mint—Large
consumption of copper in coining—Threatened attack on
Soho by a mob—Boulton executes the new copper
coinage for Great Britain—Erects the new Government
Mint on Tower Hill, and mints for foreign countries—
Watt’s estimate of Boulton’s improvements in coining 386–399

CHAPTER XX.

Prosperity of Soho—Relaxed strain upon Boulton and Watt—
Watt’s pleasure tours—His interview with the king at
Windsor—Matthew Robinson Boulton, and James Watt,
jun., join their fathers in the business—Their character
and attainments—Boulton and young Watt—Young
Boulton’s return from Paris—The French revolution—
The Birmingham riots—Priestley’s house destroyed—
Unpopularity of the “Philosophers”—Young Watt and the
Jacobins—Watt’s flight from Paris—Denounced by
Burke—Mr. Watt’s fear for his son’s safety—The sons
join their fathers in partnership—Important services of
the young partners—Evasion of engine-dues, resistance
of the Cornish mining companies—Legal proceedings
and favourable judgments—Progress of the engine
business—William Murdock—His valuable services—
His engine improvements—Return to Soho—Invents gas-
lighting—Winsor’s wonderful schemes—Murdock’s
various inventions—Substitute for isinglass, his idea of
power wasted in streets, atmospheric railway, &c.—His
death 400–433

CHAPTER XXI.

First attempts to construct steamboats—All attempts fail until 434–455
Watt’s condensing engine invented—The locomotive of
Watt and Murdock—William Symington—His model
locomotive—Symington at Edinburgh—Steam-engine for
canal-boats proposed by Symington—Miller’s paddle-
boats—Symington, Miller, and Taylor co-operate to
produce a steamboat—Sir John Dalrymple’s inquiries of
Boulton on the same subject—Boulton’s reply—
Symington’s engine finished and fitted in Miller’s boat—
Successful experiment—Symington makes another
engine, further experiments—Miller applies to Boulton
and Watt to join speculation—Watt’s reply—Symington’s

engine for the ‘Charlotte Dundas’—Symington’s success
frustrated—Fulton and Bell inspect the ‘Charlotte
Dundas’—Fulton’s steamboat on the Seine—His
‘Nautilus’—His application to James Watt, jun.—
Boulton’s caution, his letter to Lord Hawkesbury—Fulton
orders an engine from Soho for the ‘Clermont’—Its
success—Henry Bell’s steamboat ‘Comet’—
Development of steam-navigation—First rendered
practicable through Watt’s inventions

CHAPTER XXII.

Watt withdraws from Soho—Boulton continues his interest in
business—His patent for raising water—The burglary at
Soho—Sir Walter Scott and Boulton—Watt in retirement
—Search for investments—Purchases land—Makes a
foreign tour—Death of Mrs. Keir—Painful bereavements
—Death of Dr. Black—Deaths of members of the Lunar
Society—Watt’s family bereavements—Watt’s studies on
the inhalation of gas—Gregory Watt, his brilliant talents
—His friendship with Humphry Davy—His excursions
and tours—His scientific pursuits—His illness and death
—Davy on Gregory’s death—Death of Professor Robison
—Watt’s estimate of Robison—Boulton’s last days, his
death and funeral—His character—Opinions of his
contemporaries, Boswell and others, concerning him—
Attachment of the workmen—His Mutual Assurance
Society for the workmen—His powers of organisation—
His business qualities—His strength, courage, and
perseverance in fighting the battle of the steam-engine—
Watt’s estimate of Boulton—Boulton’s generosity 456–487

CHAPTER XXIII.

Watt’s closing years—His pursuits—His machine for copying 488–514
statuary—Medallions of his friends—His garret
workshop—Mrs. Watt’s rule over her husband—

Tenacious retention of his faculties—Is consulted by the
Glasgow Waterworks Company—His visits to
Cheltenham and other places—Growth and improvement
of Glasgow—Watt’s interview with the brothers Hart—
His conversational powers—Sir Walter Scott’s panegyric
on Watt—His extensive and varied knowledge—His
anecdotal powers—Fondness for novels—Description of
him by visitors at Heathfield—His last improvements in
the sculpture-copying machine—His last illness and
peaceful death—Monumental honours—Lord
Brougham’s inscription—His qualities and genius—His
modesty—His close observation—Facts and theory—
Watt and Smeaton compared—Universal application of
the steam-engine—Conclusion

Index 515

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Portrait of James Watt to face Title-page
„ Matthew Boulton to face page 159
Page
Edward, second Marquis of Worcester 2
Ancient Greek Æolipile 3
Branca’s Machine 7
De Caus’s Steam Apparatus 9
Ruins of Raglan Castle 26
Dionysius Papin 31
Ancient Paddle-Boat 36
Thomas Savery 41
Section of Savery’s Paddle-Boat 43
Savery’s Fire-Engine 52
Huel Vor 55
Newcomen’s House, Dartmouth 60
Newcomen’s Atmospheric Engine 67
Ruins of Wheal Fortune 70
Polgooth 71
Jonathan Hull’s Steam-Boat 73
Dartmouth from the Harbour 76
Greenock and the Clyde, 1865 78
Greenock Harbour, 1768 79
Crawfordsburn House, Greenock 80
James Watt Tavern, Greenock 87
Trongate, Glasgow 97
Inner Quadrangle, Glasgow College 107
Isometric View of Glasgow College, 1693 108

The Broomielaw in 1760 116
Professor Robison 117
Papin’s Digester 120
The Newcomen Model 121
Watt’s House, Delftfield Lane 126
Watt’s first Improved Apparatus 130
Dr. Joseph Black 132
Kinneil House 142
Outhouse behind Kinneil 148
Hamilton Bridge 156
Port Glasgow 158
Birmingham 160
Soho Manufactory 169
Soho House 177
Watt’s House, Harper’s Hill 214
Map of United Mines District 231
Watt’s Pumping-Engine for Mines 236
Redruth, High Street 238
Cardozos Pumping-Engine 260
United Mines District and St. Day 261
Cosgarne House 275
Entrance to ditto 284
The “Waggon and Horses,” Handsworth 285
The Crank as applied in the Foot-Lathe 287
Interior of the “Waggon and Horses” 288
Old Engine-House, Dalcoath 306
Sun-and-Planet Motion 309
“Old Bess” Engine 326
The parallel Motion 334
The Governor 335
Polgooth Engine-House 339
Double Acting Engine, Albion Mill 355

Dr. Priestley 370
Site of Soho Mint 399
Burning of Dr. Priestley’s House 411
William Murdock 422
Murdock’s House, Handsworth 433
Miller’s Triple Vessel 437
Symington’s first Steamboat-Engine 441
Miller’s Experimental Steamboat 442
Machinery of the ‘Charlotte Dundas’ 447
The “Comet” passing Dumbarton 453
Watt’s House, Heathfield 456
Boulton’s Monument in Handsworth Church 478
The Garret at Heathfield 494
Water-Pipe in the Bed of the Clyde 497
Watt’s Chapel and Monument, Handsworth Church 508
Handsworth Church 514

BEGINNINGS OF THE STEAM-
ENGINE:
THE EARLY INVENTORS.

EDWARD, SECOND MARQUIS OF
WORCESTER.
[By T. D. Scott after Vandyck.]

ANCIENT GREEK
ÆOLIPILE.

BEGINNINGS OF THE STEAM-
ENGINE:
THE EARLY INVENTORS.

CHAPTER I.
Dawnings of Steam Power—The Marquis of Worcester.

When Matthew Boulton entered into partnership with James Watt, he gave
up the ormolu business in which he had before been principally engaged.
He had been accustomed to supply George III. with articles of this
manufacture, but ceased to wait upon the King for orders after embarking in
his new enterprise. Some time after, he appeared at the Royal Levee and
was at once recognised by the King. “Ha! Boulton,” said he, “it is long
since we have seen you at Court. Pray, what business are you now engaged
in?” “I am engaged, your Majesty, in the production of a commodity which
is the desire of kings.” “And what is that? what is that?” asked the King.
“Power, your Majesty,” replied Boulton, who proceeded to give a
description of the great uses to which the steam-engine was capable of
being applied.
If the theory of James Mill[1] be true, that government is founded on
the desire which exists among men to secure and enjoy the products of
labour, by whatsoever means produced, probably the answer of Boulton to
George III. was not far from correct. In the infancy of nations this desire
manifested itself in the enforcement of labour by one class upon another, in
the various forms of slavery and serfdom. To evade the more onerous and
exhausting kinds of bodily toil, men were impelled to exercise their
ingenuity in improving old tools and inventing new ones,—while, to
increase production, they called the powers of nature to their aid. They

tamed the horse, and made him their servant; they caught the winds as they
blew, and the waters as they fell, and applied their powers to the driving of
mills and machines of various kinds.
But there was a power greater by far than that of horses, wind, or
water,—a power of which poets and philosophers had long dreamt,—
capable of being applied alike to the turning of mills, the raising of water,
the rowing of ships, the driving of wheel-carriages, and the performance of
labour in its severest forms. As early as the thirteenth century, Roger Bacon
described this great new power in terms which, interpreted by the light of
the present day, could only apply to the power of Steam. He anticipated that
“chariots may be made so as to be moved with incalculable force, without
any beast drawing them,” and that “engines of navigation might be made
without oarsmen, so that the greatest river and sea ships, with only one man
to steer them, may sail swifter than if they were fully manned.” But Bacon
was a seer rather than an expounder, a philosophic poet rather than an
inventor; and it was left to men of future times to find out the practical
methods of applying the wonderful power which he had imagined and
foretold.
The enormous power latent in water exposed to heat had long been
known. Its discovery must have been almost contemporaneous with that of
fire. The expansive force of steam would be obvious on setting the first
partially-closed pipkin upon the fire. If closed, the lid would be blown off;
and even if the vessel were of iron, it would soon burst with appalling force.
Was it possible to render so furious and apparently unmanageable an agent,
docile and tractable? Even in modern times, the explosive force of steam
could only be compared to that of gunpowder; and it is a curious fact, that
both De Hautefeuille and Papin proposed to employ gunpowder in
preference to steam in driving a piston in a cylinder, considering it to be the
more manageable power of the two.
Although it appears from the writings of the Greek physician, Hero,
who flourished at Alexandria more than a century before Christ, that steam
was well known to the ancients, it was employed by them merely as a toy,
or as a means of exciting the wonder of the credulous. In his treatise on
Pneumatics, Hero gives descriptions of various methods of employing
steam or heated air for the purpose of producing apparently magical effects;

from which we infer that the agency of heat was employed by the heathen
priests in the performance of their rites. By one of the devices which he
describes, water was apparently changed into wine; by another, the temple
doors were opened by fire placed on the sacrificial altar; while by a third,
the sacrificial vessel was so contrived as to flow only when the money of
the votary was cast into it. Another ingenious device consisted in the
method employed to pour out libations. Upon the altar-fire being kindled,
the air in the interior became expanded and, pressing upon the surface of
the liquid which it contained, forced it up a connecting-pipe, and so out of
the sacrificial cup. The libation was made, and the people cried, “A
miracle!” But Hero knew the trick, and explained the arrangement by which
it was accomplished: it forms the subject of his eleventh theorem.
The most interesting of the other devices described by Hero is the
whirling Æolipile, or ball of Æolus, which, though but a toy, possessed the
properties of a true steam-engine, and was most probably the first ever
invented. As Hero’s book professes to be, for the most part, but a collection
of the devices handed down by former writers, and as he does not lay claim
to its invention, it is probable the Æolipile may have been known long
before his time. The machine consisted of a hollow globe of metal, moving
on its axis, and communicating with a caldron of water placed underneath.
The globe was provided with one or more tubes projecting from it, closed at
the ends, but open on one side. When a fire was lit under the caldron, and
the steam was raised, it filled the globe, and, projecting itself against the air
through the openings in the tubes, the reactive force thus produced caused
the globe to spin round upon its axis “as if it were animated from within by
a living spirit.”[2]
The mechanical means by which these various objects were
accomplished, as explained by Hero, show that the ancients were
acquainted with the ordinary expedients for communicating motion, such as
the wheel and axle, spur-wheels, toothed pinions and sectors, the lever-
beam, and other well-known expedients; while they also knew of the
cylinder and piston, the three-way cock, slide-valves and valve-clacks,[3]
and many other ingenious mechanical details which have been reinvented in
modern times.

BRANCA’S MACHINE.

Hero’s book lay hidden in manuscript and buried in libraries, until the
revival of learning in Italy in the sixteenth century, when a translation of it
appeared at Bologna in 1547. By that time printing had been invented; and
the multiplication of copies being thereby rendered easy, the book was soon
brought under the notice of inquiring men throughout Europe. The work
must, indeed, have excited an extraordinary degree of interest; in proof of
which it may be mentioned that eight different editions, in different
languages, were published within a century. The minds of the curious and
the scientific were thus directed to the subject of steam as a motive power.
But for a long time they never got beyond the idea of Hero’s Æolipile,
though they endeavoured to apply the rotary motion produced by it in
different ways. Thus, a German writer suggested that it should be used to
turn spits, instead of turnspit dogs; and Branca, the Italian architect, used

the steam jet projected from a brazen head to drive an apparatus contrived
by him for pounding drugs. The jet forced round the vanes of a wheel, so as
to produce a rotary motion, and this, being communicated to other wheels,
set in motion a rod and stamper, after the manner shown in the preceding
cut.
Solomon de Caus was another of the speculative inquirers whose
attention was drawn to the subject of steam by the publication of Hero’s
book. De Caus was a native of Normandy, and for some time studied the
profession of an architect in Italy; from whence he returned to France early
in the seventeenth century. Religious persecution was then raging, and,
being a Protestant, he was glad to take refuge from it in England. He
entered the service of the Prince of Wales, by whom he was for a time
employed in designing grottoes, fountains, and hydraulic ornaments for the
Palace Gardens at Richmond. While occupied in that capacity he gave
lessons in design to the Princess Elizabeth; and on her marriage to the
Elector Palatine he accompanied her to Heidelberg, to take charge of the
Castle gardens there. It was while residing at Heidelberg that De Caus
wrote his well-known book on hydraulics, which was published at Frankfort
in 1615.[4]
One of De Caus’s expedients for raising water consisted of an
apparatus in which he proposed to employ the expansive power of steam for
the purpose. In Hero’s book it is shown how a column of water may be
thrown up by means of compressed air; and De Caus merely proposed to
employ steam instead of air. His apparatus was very simple. It consisted of
a spherical vessel fitted with two pipes, one of them provided with a cock
and funnel; the other, which reached down to near the bottom of the vessel,
being open at the top to the external air. When the vessel was filled with
water and a fire lit underneath, the water was forced up the open tube in a
jet, greater or less in proportion to the elasticity of the steam. When both
tubes were tightly closed, so that neither steam nor water could escape, the
heat, says De Caus, would shortly cause a compression from within so
violent that “the ball will burst in pieces, with a noise like a petard.”

DE CAUS’S STEAM
APPARATUS.

It will be observed that there was little mechanical contrivance, and no
practical use in this apparatus; it merely furnished an illustration of the
extraordinary force of pent-up steam, and that was all. Though De Caus
made many experiments with his steam-vessel, he never succeeded in
making—if, indeed, he ever attempted to make—a working steam-engine of
any kind. It is not improbable that he was dismayed, as others were, by the
apparent violence of the imprisoned monster; and it needed a more
ingenious head than his to contrive a method of rendering him docile, and
making him go quietly in harness.[5]
It is probable that the first contriver of a working steam-engine was
Edward, second Marquis of Worcester, one of the first and most illustrious
of a long line of unfortunate inventors. The career of that nobleman—born
though he was to high rank and great estate—was chequered and sad in no
ordinary degree. Edward Somerset was the eldest son of Henry Lord
Herbert, afterwards Earl of Worcester, and consequently heir to that title. He
was born in London in 1601. His early years were principally spent at
Raglan Castle, his father’s country seat, where his education was carefully
attended to. In the course of his pupilage he made occasional visits to the
continent, accompanied by his tutor, for the purpose of acquiring that

degree of polish and culture considered necessary for a person of his social
position. On the accession of his father to the Earldom of Worcester, in
1627, Edward became Lord Herbert by courtesy; and in the following year
he married, and went to reside at Raglan Castle.
From an early period of his life Lord Herbert took especial pleasure in
mechanical studies, and in the course of his foreign tours he visited and
examined the famous works of construction abroad; for as yet there were
none such in England. On settling down at Raglan, he proceeded to set up a
laboratory, or workshop, wherein to indulge his mechanical tastes, and
perhaps to while away the tedium of a country life. To assist him in his
labours, he engaged a clever foreign mechanic, named Caspar Kaltoff, who
remained in his service for many years, and materially helped him in his
various contrivances. Among the works executed by Lord Herbert and his
assistant at Raglan, was the hydraulic apparatus by means of which the
castle was supplied with water. From an incidental reference to the “water-
works” by a contemporary writer, we learn that they consisted of a series of
engines and wheels, by means of which water was raised through pipes to a
cistern placed on the summit of the central tower.[6] It is probable that the
planning and construction of these works induced Lord Herbert to prosecute
the study of hydraulics, and to enter upon that series of experiments as to
the power of steam which eventually led to the contrivance of his “Water-
commanding Engine.”
In pursuits and studies such as these, Lord Herbert spent about seven
years at Raglan Castle. But his wife dying in 1635, the place became
connected in his mind with too painful associations, and he shortly after left
it to reside in London. On his arrival there, he proceeded to put to the
practical test a plan of perpetual motion which he had long studied, and
now thought he had brought to perfection. He accordingly had his self-
moving wheel[7] set up in the Tower; but though it moved, its motion did not
prove perpetual, and it shortly dropped out of sight, to be no more heard of.
After the lapse of four years, Lord Herbert again married, taking to
wife the Lady Margaret, second daughter of the Earl of Thomond. In the
year after his second marriage, the celebrated Long Parliament began its
sittings. Questions of great public import were agitating the minds of
thinking men, and the nation was gradually becoming divided into two

hostile parties, soon to be arrayed against each other in deadly strife. A
Royalist and a Roman Catholic like his father, Lord Herbert at once ranged
himself on the side of the King. On the outbreak of the Civil War, we find
both father and son actively employed in mustering forces, and preparing to
hold the western counties against the Parliament. Raglan Castle was
strongly garrisoned, and fortifications were thrown up around it, so as to
render it secure against assault. The Earl, now Marquis of Worcester, was
appointed Generalissimo of the Western Forces, while his son, Lord
Herbert, was made General of South Wales. From this office he was shortly
after called by the King, who, creating him Earl of Glamorgan, despatched
him on a mission to Ireland, with the object of stirring up the loyalists of
that kingdom, and inducing them to come to his help. This delicate office he
is said to have performed with more zeal than discretion. Indeed, the
studious habits of his early life must in a measure have unfitted him for the
conduct of so important an affair; and the bungle he made of it was such
that the King felt himself under the necessity of repudiating the acts which
the Earl had done in his name.
It is unnecessary that we should follow the fortunes of the house of
Raglan in the course of the civil war. Suffice it to say that the King’s cause
was utterly lost; that Raglan Castle was besieged, taken, and dismantled;
that the Marquis of Worcester, having advanced to the King at different
times as much as 122,500l., had completely impoverished himself; and that
when the Earl succeeded to his father’s title, and became second Marquis of
Worcester, in 1646, he inherited an exhausted exchequer, a confiscated
estate, and a ruined home. The services he had rendered to the King were
remembered against him; and to escape the vengeance of his political
enemies he took refuge in France. There he lived in poverty and in exile for
a period of about five years. At length, drawn to England by the powerful
attractions of wife and family, and probably also commissioned to perform
a service for the exiled Charles II., the Marquis secretly visited London in
1655, where he was shortly after detected, apprehended, and imprisoned in
the Tower. He sought and found solace, during his confinement, in study
and contemplation, reverting to his early experiments in mechanics; and he
occupied the long and weary hours in committing to paper descriptions of
his many ingenious devices, which he afterwards published in his ‘Century
of Inventions.’ The Marquis’s old and skilled mechanic, Caspar Kaltoff,

continued faithful to him in his adversity, and was permitted to hold free
communication with him; from which we infer that his imprisonment was
not of a very rigid character.
After lying in the Tower for about two years, the Marquis was
liberated on bail, in October, 1654, when he proceeded to take steps to erect
his long-contemplated Water-commanding Engine. Even while a prisoner,
we find him negotiating with the then owner of Vauxhall for its purchase,
with a view to the establishment there of a school of skilled industry; thus
anticipating by nearly two centuries the School of Mines and Manufactures
at South Kensington. In the month preceding his enlargement we find
Hartlib writing to the Hon. Robert Boyle,—“The Earl of Worcester is
buying Fauxhall from Mr. Trenchard, to bestow the use of that house upon
Caspar Calchoff and his son as long as they shall live, for he intends to
make it a College of Artizans.”[8] His main difficulty, however, consisted in
raising the necessary means for carrying his excellent project into effect. He
was, indeed, so reduced in his circumstances as to be under the necessity of
petitioning his political enemies for the bare means of living; and we find
Cromwell, in the course of the year following his liberation from prison,
issuing a warrant for the payment to him of three pounds a week “for his
better maintenance.” The Marquis also tried the experiment of levying
contributions from his friends; but they were, for the most part, as poor as
himself. He next tried the wealthy men of the Parliamentary party, and
succeeded in obtaining several advances of money from Colonel Copley,
who took an active interest in the prosecution of various industrial
undertakings.[9] The following letter from the Marquis to Copley shows the
straits to which he was reduced:—

“Dear Friend,—I knowe not with what face to desire a curtesie from you, since I
have not yet payed you the five powndes, and the mayne businesse soe long protracted,
whereby my reality and kindnesse should with thankfullnesse appeare; for though the least
I intende you is to make up the somme already promised to a thousand powndes yearly, or
a share ammounting to four more, which, to nominate before the perfection of the woorke,
were but an individuum vagum, and, therefore, I deferre it, and upon noe other score. Yet in
this interim, my disappointments are soe great, as that I am forced to begge, if you could
possible, eyther to helpe me with tenne powndes to this bearer, or to make use of the
coache, and to goe to Mr. Clerke, and if he could this day help me to fifty powndes, then to
paye your selfe the five powndes I owe you out of them. The Alderman has taken three
days’ time to consider of it. Pardon the great trouble I give you, which I doubt not but in
time to deserve, by really appearing

“Your most thankfull friend,
“Worcester.
“28th March, 1656.
“To my honoured friend, Collonel Christopher Coppley, these.”

The original of this letter is endorsed “My Lord of Worcester’s letter
about my share in his engine,” from which it would appear that the Marquis
induced his friends to advance him money on the promise of a certain
proportion of shares in the undertaking. He also pressed his invention upon
the notice of Government, representing that he was in a position to do his
Highness the Protector “more service than any one subject of his three
nations.” But neither the Protector nor his Ministers took any further notice
of the Marquis or his project. It is probable that they regarded him as a bore,
and his water-commanding engine as the mere dream of a projector.
The Marquis himself continued to be as confident as ever of the
ultimate success of his scheme. He believed that it would yet realise him an
immense fortune. Writing of the engine to the Earl of Lotherdale, he
described it as “the greatest invention for profit that I ever yet heard of
vouchsafed to a man, especially so unworthy and ignorant as I am.” But the
Marquis was not so humble as he affected to be, believing in his heart that
he had invented, without exception, the most wonderful machine of the age.
Still it remained a mere project. Without the means of erecting an engine, it
promised to remain such; and all his efforts to raise the necessary funds had
thus far proved unavailing.
The Restoration of Charles II., in 1660, revived his hopes. Now that
the King enjoyed his own again, the Marquis believed that he, too, would
come into possession of the means for carrying out his project. For thirteen
years he had lived in exile, in prison, and in poverty: but brighter days had
dawned at last; and he indulged in the hope that compensation would at
length be made to him for his sufferings in the cause of the Stuarts, and that
he would now bask in the sunshine of Royal favour. He made all haste to
represent his case to the king, and to claim restitution for his heavy losses in
the late war. But there were thousands of like suppliants all over the
kingdom, and redress came slowly. The Marquis was, however, shortly put
in possession of such parts of his estates as had not been sold by the

Protector; but he found them for the most part cleared of their timber, and
comparatively valueless. The castle at Raglan was in ruins. He himself was
heavily burdened with debt, and his creditors were becoming increasingly
importunate for money. It was thus long before he could shake himself clear
of his embarrassments, and devote himself to the great object of his life, the
prosecution of his water-commanding engine.
One of his first cares, on the partial recovery of his property, was to
obtain a legal protection for his inventions; and in the year following the
Restoration we find him taking out a patent for four of his schemes,—a
watch or clock, guns or pistols, an engine to give security to a coach, and a
boat to sail against wind and tide. In the session of Parliament, 1662–3, he
obtained an Act securing to himself the profits of the water-commanding
engine. About the same time he gave to the world his famous ‘Century,’[10]
which contains his own account of his various inventions. In the second
dedication of the book to the members of both Houses of Parliament he
states that he had already expended the large sum of 10,000l. on
experiments; but he professed that he esteemed himself sufficiently
rewarded by the passing of “the Act of the Water-commanding Engine,”
and, his debts once paid, he intended to devote the rest of his life to the
service of his King and country. The ‘Century’ is a mere summary of things
alleged to have been tried and perfected, conveyed in vague and mysterious
language, and calculated rather to excite wonder than to furnish
information. The descriptions were unaccompanied by plans or drawings,
so that we can only surmise the means by which he proposed to carry his
schemes into effect. It is possible that he purposely left the descriptions of
his inventions vague, in order that he might not be anticipated in their
application; for it is certain that at the time the book was written the
Marquis had not taken out his first patent, nor obtained the Act securing to
him the profits of his engine.
There can, however, be no doubt that, vague and mysterious though
the ‘Scantlings’ be, they indicate a knowledge of mechanical principles
considerably in advance of the age, as well as a high degree of mechanical
ingenuity. The hundred Articles into which the book is divided contain
suggestions, in shorthand descriptions, of things so various as ship-
destroying machines, telegraphs, combination and escutcheon locks,[11]
improvements in fire-arms, universal alphabets, seals and watches, various

kinds of cipher, a boat rowing against wind and tide, automata, and
mechanical appliances of different kinds, including the “stupendious and
semi-omnipotent” engine. Some of them read like descriptions of conjuring
tricks, such as the artificial bird, the hour water-ball, the flying man, the
brazen head, the dicing-box, and various automata. Others are full of
prophetic insight, and contain anticipations of mechanical marvels, which,
however wonderful they may at that time have appeared, have since been
fully realised. The style in which the treatise was written, however,
presented so remarkable a contrast to the contemporary writings of Newton,
Boyle, Pascal, Guericke, and others, that it is not improbable it had the
effect of prejudicing the minds of scientific men against the writer, and led
them to regard his schemes as those of a wild projector, and hence to treat
his propositions with neglect, if not with contumely.
So soon as the Marquis had become possessed of the requisite funds,
he proceeded to erect an engine at Vauxhall to illustrate the uses of his
principal invention. He was assisted, as before, by his old workman, Caspar
Kaltoff. It is probable that the engine was erected by the beginning of 1663;
for in the course of that year M. Sorbière paid his visit to England, and
found the Marquis’s “hydraulic machine” at work. He describes it as
capable of raising, by the strength of one man only, within a minute of time,
four large buckets of water to a height of forty feet, through a pipe eight
inches in diameter. He proceeds to compare it with another machine at
Somerset House, worked by one or two horses, which he considers the
more effective machine of the two.[12] This account of the Marquis’s
invention is confirmed by another brief description of it, which occurs in
the narrative of the travels of Cosmo, Grand Duke of Tuscany, in England,
some years later. Count Magalotti, the narrator, says, “It raises water more
than forty geometrical feet, by the power of one man only; and in a very
short space of time will draw up four vessels of water through a tube or
channel not more than a span in width, on which account it is considered to
be of greater service to the public than the other machine at Somerset
House.” It will thus be observed that the Duke’s secretary entertained a
different opinion from that expressed by M. Sorbière as to the comparative
merits of the two engines spoken of.
It is worthy of remark that the incidental accounts of these two
foreigners contain almost the only contemporary information we possess as

to the character of the Marquis’s invention. English writers of the time are
almost entirely silent about it; and when Dr. Hooke, the learned Secretary of
the Royal Society, refers to the contrivance, it is in a tone of ridicule rather
than of praise. Writing to Mr. Boyle, in 1667, he characterises the definition
or description of the water-commanding engine as “so purely romantic that
it would serve one rarely to fill up half a dozen pages in the ‘History of
Fortunatus his Wishing Cap.’” ... “I was,” he adds, “since my return to
London to see this engine, when I found Caltrop [Kaltoff], his chief
engineer, to laugh at it; and as far as I was able to see it, it seemed one of
the perpetual-motion fallacies; of which kind Caltrop himself, and two or
three others that I know, are labouring at this time in vain to make, but after
several ways; and nothing but costly experience will make them desist.”[13]
It is difficult to gather from the statements of Sorbière and Cosmo de
Medici what was the precise nature of the Marquis’s hydraulic apparatus.
There is no mention whatever of steam, either in their accounts or in that of
Dr. Hooke; but the latter does not seem to have been allowed to examine the
details of the machine. From the mention by Sorbière of the “four large
buckets of water,” and by Cosmo’s secretary, of “four vessels of water,” it
might possibly have been only an improved hydraulic apparatus, worked by
a man instead of a horse. In order, therefore, to obtain a clue to the real
nature of the machine we find it necessary to resort to the Marquis’s
‘Scantlings’ for his own account of its action, and we find it in article No.
68, which runs as follows:—

“68. An admirable and most forcible way to drive up water by fire, not by drawing or
sucking it upwards, for that must be as the Philosopher calleth it, Intra sphæram activitatis,
which is but at such a distance. But this way hath no Bounder, if the Vessels be strong
enough; for I have taken a piece of a whole Cannon, whereof the end was burst, and filled
it three-quarters full of water, stopping and scruing up the broken end; as also the Touch-
hole; and making a constant fire under it, within twenty-four hours it burst and made a
great crack: So that having a way to make my Vessels, so that they are strengthened by the
force within them, and the one to fill after the other, I have seen the water run like a
constant Fountaine-stream forty foot high; one Vessel of water rarified by fire driveth up
forty of cold water. And a man that tends the work is but to turn two Cocks, that one Vessel
of water being consumed, another begins to force and refill with cold water, and so
successively, the fire being tended and kept constant, which the self-same Person may
likewise abundantly perform in the interim between the necessity of turning the said
Cocks.”

From this account we gather that the Marquis had contrived a plan for
raising water by the expansive force of steam, after the manner of De Caus,
but with important modifications and improvements. It had obviously
occurred to him, that by generating the steam in a separate vessel, and
conveying it by means of a suitable pipe to a second closed vessel, he could
thereby make it expel the water which the latter contained by pressing upon
its surface, as in De Caus’s apparatus. The admission of the steam could
easily be regulated by the turning of two cocks; one to admit the steam from
the boiler, and the other to allow the exit of the water. On the expulsion of
the water, and the production of a vacuum by the condensation of the
contained steam, the empty vessel would at once be refilled by the action of
the atmospheric pressure on the surface of the water to be raised. It is
probable that this engine was—in the absence of a feed-pump, of which
there is no mention—provided with two boilers as well as with the two
cisterns in which the “forcing and refilling” went on, so as to maintain the
“constant fountain-stream” which the Marquis describes. But the precise
arrangement of parts by which he accomplished this object must ever
remain a matter of mere conjecture.
We have other distinct indications of a steam-engine in the Marquis’s
98th, 99th, and 100th Articles, which ought to be read in connection with
the 68th Article: they run as follows:—

“98. An Engine so contrived, that working the Primum mobile forward or backward,
upward or downward, circularly or cornerwise, to and fro, streight, upright or downright,
yet the pretended Operation continueth, and advanceth none of the motions above-
mentioned, hindering, much less stopping the other; but unanimously, and with harmony
agreeing they all augment and contribute strength unto the intended work and operation:
And therefore I call this A Semi-omnipotent Engine, and do intend that a Model thereof be
buried with me.”
“99. How to make one pound weight to raise an hundred as high as one pound falleth,
and yet the hundred pound descending doth what nothing less than one hundred pound can
effect.”
“100. Upon so potent a help as these two last-mentioned Inventions a Waterwork is by
many years experience and labour so advantageously by me contrived, that a Child’s force
bringeth up an hundred foot high an incredible quantity of water, even two foot Diameter,
so naturally, that the work will not be heard even into the next Room; and with so great
ease and Geometrical Symmetry, that though it work day and night from one end of the
year to the other, it will not require forty shillings reparation to the whole Engine, nor
hinder ones day-work. And I may boldly call it The most stupendious Work in the whole
world: not onely with little charge to drein all sorts of Mines, and furnish Cities with water,

though never so high seated, as well to keep them sweet, running through several streets,
and so performing the work of Scavengers, as well as furnishing the Inhabitants with
sufficient water for their private occasions; but likewise supplying Rivers with sufficient to
maintaine and make them portable from Towne to Towne, and for the bettering of Lands all
the way it runs; with many more advantageous, and yet greater effects of Profit,
Admiration, and Consequence. So that deservedly I deem this Invention to crown my
Labours, to reward my Expences, and make my Thoughts acquiesce in way of further
Inventions: This making up the whole Century, and preventing any further trouble to the
Reader for the present, meaning to leave to Posterity a Book, wherein under each of these
Heads the means to put in execution and visible trial all and every of these Inventions, with
the shape and form of all things belonging to them, shall be Printed by Brass-plates.”

The promised book was never written, and we are accordingly left in
uncertainty as to the precise character of the Marquis’s inventions. That he
had a full conviction of the great powers of steam, as well as of its
manageability and extensive practical uses, is sufficiently clear; but that he
ever erected any engines after the plans thus summarily described is matter
of considerable doubt. It is remarkable that, notwithstanding the number
and variety of his suggested inventions, not a single model or machine
constructed by the Marquis or his skilled workmen has been preserved. Mr.
Dircks, who has collected and published all that is likely to be brought to
light relative to the life and works of the Marquis, and has laboured at his
task with a rare love and enthusiasm for his subject, naturally expresses
surprise that “none of the many cabinets of the curious seem to have
possessed any model or work of his production; not even the indefatigable
Tradescant, although his museum was at Lambeth.”[14] But it is probable, as
we have already observed, that the Marquis’s ‘Scantlings,’ notwithstanding
his statement that he had “tried and perfected” the inventions of which he
speaks, were rather the foreshadowings of things to come than the
descriptions of things that had actually been executed. Thus, no one
pretends that the Marquis ever constructed a steamboat, and yet his
description of a vessel “to work itself against wind and tide, yea, both,
without the help of man or beast,” can apply to nothing else.[15] “This
engine,” said he, “is applicable to any vessel or boat whatsoever, without
being therefore made on purpose, and worketh these effects: it roweth, it
draweth, it driveth, (if need be) to pass London Bridge against the stream at
low-water, and a boat laying at anchor, the engine may be used for loading
or unloading.” But it would not be possible for any one to make an engine
after the description given in the ‘Scantlings;’ and to a generation

unacquainted with the powers of steam, his suggestions would be altogether
without meaning.
The strongest evidence which could be adduced of the ambiguity of
the Marquis’s ‘Articles’ is to be found in the fact that the various ingenious
writers who have given plans of his supposed engine have represented it in
widely different forms. Farey assumes that it worked by the expansive force
of steam; Bourne, that it worked by condensation and atmospheric pressure;
Dircks infers that it included such ingenious expedients as valves and even
a four-way cock, worked by a lever-handle; Stuart, that it contained a
cylinder and piston, and was, in fact, a complete high-pressure lever-engine.
Again, the drawings of the various writers on engineering who have
attempted to reproduce the engine—of Stuart, Galloway, Millington, and
Dircks—differ in essential respects.
When Watt was on one occasion asked for his opinion as to the precise
nature of the Marquis’s contrivance, his answer was, that the descriptions
given were too obscure to enable any definite opinion to be formed on the
subject; but he thought that the expansive power of steam was the principle
on which the engine worked. He added, that no one could possibly erect an
engine after the Marquis’s ‘Scantlings,’ and that any inventor desirous of
constructing a steam-engine would have to begin again at the beginning.
But though the Marquis did not leave the steam-engine in such a state as to
be taken up and adopted as a practicable working power, he at least
advanced it several important steps. In this world, it is not given to man to
finish; to persevere, to improve, and to advance, are all that can be hoped
for; and these are enough for the real philosopher.
Little remains to be told of the unfortunate Marquis’s history. His
water-commanding engine proved of no service to him. It only increased his
embarrassments by involving him in further debts. The Restoration, though
it gave him back his estates, did not mend his fortunes, and he continued to
importune his friends for loans. He sought access to the King by petition;
but it became more and more difficult to approach him. On one occasion he
tried to accomplish his purpose through the influence of his Majesty’s
mistress, Lady Castlemaine. Provided she could persuade the king to grant
his request, he offered to present to her “a thousand pieces to buy her a little
jewel, which she deserves to wear every day of the week. And if it please

God I live but two years,” he added, “I will, out of the profits of my water-
commanding engine, appropriate four hundred pounds yearly, for ever, to
her Grace’s disposal ... all which, as I am a gentleman and a Christian, shall
be faithfully and most thankfully performed; though the benefit I pretend to
by my petition will not amount to what my gratitude obliges, yet the
satisfaction which it will be to my mind, and my credit therein at stake, I
value at ten times as much. And this will enable me to place my Water-
commanding Engine, when I am certained of an hundred pounds a day
profit, without further troubling the king or anybody.”[16]
All his piteous importunity proved of no avail. His friends turned aside
from his petitionings, and the king would give him no help. He came to be
regarded as a crack-brained enthusiast, and a wild projector of
impracticable things. He could not find any one to believe in his water-
commanding engine, though he himself regarded it as of greater worth than
either his titles or his estates. It had been his own creation—the child of his
brain—the product of studies and experiments extending over nearly forty
years. But what signified all this if no one would make use of the invention?
His difficulties and embarrassments grew from day to day; and his
projects met with increased contumely and even contempt. None valued
them, because none understood them. It was even proposed to appropriate
to other purposes the premises at Vauxhall, on which he so much plumed
himself, but which he had been unable to purchase. To prevent this, he
again petitioned the king in 1666, representing that he had expended 9000l.
in building the house he occupied there as “an operatory for engineers and
artists to make public works in,” and “above 50,000l. trying conclusions of
arts in that operatory which may be useful to his Majesty and his kingdom;”
and he concluded by praying that Vauxhall might be granted to him at a fee-
farm rent. The Marchioness, his wife, at the same time petitioned the House
of Lords, representing the state of poverty to which her husband had been
reduced, and that, in consequence of an execution having been put in at
Worcester House, through a debt of 6000l. which the Marquis had incurred
in 1642 to pay the garrison of Monmouth, then in a state of mutiny, he was
actually threatened to be turned out of house and home. It is not known
what came of this petition; but shortly after its presentation the poor
Marquis was beyond all worldly help. Broken in health, harassed,
embarrassed, and disappointed, he died in April, 1667, in the sixty-sixth

year of his age, and his remains were conveyed to Raglan for interment in
the family vault.
It will be remembered that the Marquis concluded the 98th article of
his ‘Century’ with the words, “I call this a semi-omnipotent engine, and do
intend that a model thereof be buried with me.” A diligent search for the
model has recently been made in the vault under Raglan church, under the
direction of Mr. Bennet Woodcroft, whose enthusiasm as a collector of
primitive engines and machines is so well known; but the search proved
unsuccessful, and no traces of the Marquis’s model could be found.

RUINS OF RAGLAN CASTLE.
[By Percival Skelton.]

CHAPTER II.
Sir Samuel Morland—Dr. Dionysius Papin.

After the death of the Marquis of Worcester, the Marchioness, his widow,
made various efforts to turn his inventions to account. Sceptical though the
world was as to their utility, she fully believed in them; and now that he was

gone, it would have been dishonouring to his memory to entertain a doubt
as to his engine being able to do all that he had promised. The Marchioness
had not only to maintain the fame of her dear husband, but to endeavour, if
possible, to pay the debts he had contracted in prosecuting his inventions.
She accordingly sought to interest persons of authority and influence in the
water-commanding engine, and seized every opportunity of bringing it into
notice.
To such an extent did the Marchioness carry her zeal, that her friends
began to fear lest her mind was becoming disordered; and her father-
confessor was requested to expostulate with her as to the impropriety of her
conduct. He accordingly implored her to desist from her vain endeavours to
get “great sums of money from the King to pay her deceased lord’s debts,
enriching herself by the great machine, and the like.” He added that he
feared “the devil, to make his suggestions the more prevalent, doth make
use of some motives that seem plausible, as of paying your lord’s debts, of
founding monasteries, and the like;” pointing out that the end did not justify
the means, and that such undertakings were improper for her ladyship, and
by no means likely to be attended with success. It is not improbable that
these representations had their effect; the more especially as the
Marchioness was no more successful in inducing the public to adopt the
invention than the Marquis himself had been. Accordingly, the water-
commanding engine very shortly dropped out of sight, and in the course of
a few years was almost entirely forgotten.
The steam-engine project, however, did not die; it only slept. It had
been the fruit thus far of noble effort, of persevering self-denial, and
unquestionable skill. What was good in it would yet live, and reappear
perhaps in other forms, to vindicate the sagacity and foresight of its
inventor. Even during the Marquis’s lifetime other minds besides his were
diligently pursuing the same subject. Indeed, his enthusiasm was of a kind
especially calculated to inflame other minds; and the success he had
achieved with his engine, imperfect though it might be, was of so novel and
original a character that it could not fail to excite a warm interest amongst
men of like mechanical genius.
One of the most distinguished of these was Sir Samuel Morland,
appointed Master of Mechanics to Charles II. immediately after the

Restoration. He had been for some time previously in the employment of
the Protectorate. He formed one of the embassy to Sweden, with Whitlocke,
in 1653. Some years later he took an active part in the relief of the
sufferings of the persecuted Protestants of Piedmont—whose history he
afterwards wrote,—having been appointed Commissioner Extraordinary for
the distribution of the collected moneys. For some time he officiated as
assistant to Thurloe, Cromwell’s secretary; and it was while acting in this
capacity that he became cognisant of a plot against the life of Charles II.,
then in exile. Morland divulged the plot to the king’s friends, and thereby
perhaps saved his life. For this service, Charles, on his Restoration,
presented him with a medal, as a badge of his signal loyalty, and also
appointed him Master of Mechanics.
From that time until the close of his life, Morland devoted himself
entirely to mechanical studies. Among his various inventions may be
mentioned the speaking-trumpet;[17] two arithmetical machines, of which he
published an illustrated description; the capstan to heave ships’ anchors; and
various kinds of pumps and water engines. His pumps were of a very
powerful and effective kind. One of them, worked by eight men, forced
water from the Thames at Blackmoor Park, near Winkfield, to the top of
Windsor Castle. He also devoted himself to the improvement of the fire-
engine, in which he employed a cylinder and piston, as well as a stuffing-
box. Towards the later years of his life, he applied himself more particularly
to the study of the powers and uses of steam.[18] In 1677, we find him taking
a lease of Vauxhall, most probably the identical house occupied by the
Marquis of Worcester, where he conducted a series of experiments as to the
power requisite to raise water by cylinders of different dimensions.[19] It is
not, however, known that he ever erected a steam-engine. If he did, no
account of its performances has been preserved.
Morland’s inventions proved of no greater advantage to him than those
of the Marquis of Worcester had done. His later years were spent in poverty
and blindness, and he must have perished but for the charitable kindness of
Archbishop Tenison and a few other friends. Evelyn gives the following
interesting account of a visit to him in October, 1695, two months before
his death:—“The Archbishop and myself went to Hammersmith to visit Sir
Samuel Morland, who was entirely blind; a very mortifying sight. He
showed me his invention of writing, which was very ingenious; also his

wooden calendar, which instructed him all by feeling, and other pretty and
useful inventions of mills, pumps, &c., and the pump he had erected that
serves water to his garden, and to passengers, with an inscription, and
brings from a filthy part of the Thames now near it, a most perfect and pure
water. He had newly buried 200l. worth of music books, being, as he said,
love songs and vanity. He plays himself psalms and religious hymns on the
theorbo.” The inscription to which Evelyn refers was on a stone tablet fixed
on the wall of his house, still preserved, which runs thus:—“Sir Samuel
Morland’s Well, the use of which he freely gives to all persons: hoping
that none who shall come after him, will adventure to incur God’s
displeasure, by denying a cup of cold water (provided at another’s cost and
not their own) to either neighbour, stranger, passenger, or poor thirsty
beggar. July 8, 1695.”

DIONYSIUS PAPIN, M.D., F.R.S.

The next prominent experimenter on the powers of steam was Dr.
Dionysius Papin. He was born at Blois about the middle of the seventeenth
century, and educated to the profession of medicine. After taking his degree
at Paris, he turned his attention more particularly to the study of physics,
which soon occupied his whole attention; and under the celebrated
Huyghens, then resident in that city, he made rapid progress. He would,
doubtless, have risen to great distinction in his own country, but for the
circumstance of his being a Protestant. To escape the persecutions to which
all members of that persuasion were then subject, Papin fled from France in
1681, together with thousands of his countrymen, a few years before the
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He took refuge in London, where he was
welcomed by men of science, and more especially by the celebrated Boyle,
under whose auspices he was introduced to the Royal Society, of which he
was appointed Curator at an annual salary.
It formed part of Papin’s duty, in connection with his new office, to
produce an experiment at each meeting of the Society. He was thus induced
to prosecute the study of physical science; and in order to stimulate the
interest of the members, he sought to introduce new subjects from time to
time to their notice. One of the greatest novelties of his “entertainments”
was the production of his well-known Digester, which excited a
considerable degree of interest; and on one occasion a philosophical supper,
cooked by the Digester, was served up to the Fellows, of which Evelyn
gives an amusing account in his Diary.
He was led to the invention of the Digester by certain experiments
which he made for Boyle. He discovered that if the vapour of boiling water
could be prevented escaping, the temperature of the water would be raised
much above the boiling point; and it occurred to him to employ this
increased heat in more effectually extracting nutritious matter from the
bones of animals, until then thrown away as useless. The great strength
required for his Digester, and the means he was obliged to adopt for the
purpose of securely confining the cover, must have early shown him what a
powerful agent he was experimenting on. To prevent the bursting of the
vessel from the internal pressure, he was led to the invention of the safety-
valve, which consisted of a small moveable plate, or cylinder, fitted into an
opening in the cover of the boiler, and kept shut by a lever loaded with a
weight, capable of sliding along it in the manner of a steel yard. The

pressure of the weight upon the valve could thus be regulated at pleasure.
When the pressure became so great as to endanger the safety of the boiler,
the valve was forced up, and so permitted the steam to escape. Although
Papin was thus the inventor of the safety-valve, it is a curious fact that he
did not apply it to the steam-machine which he subsequently invented, but
adopted another expedient.
The reputation of Papin having extended to Germany, he was, in 1687,
invited to fill the office of Professor of Mathematics in the University of
Marburg, and accepted the appointment. He continued, however, to
maintain a friendly correspondence with his scientific friends in England,
and communicated to the Royal Society the results of the experiments in
physics which he continued to pursue. In the same year in which he settled
at Marburg, he submitted to the Society an important paper, which indicated
the direction in which his thoughts were then running. It had occurred to
him, as it had before done to Hautefeuille, that the explosion of gunpowder
presented a ready means of producing a power to elevate a piston in a tube
or cylinder, and that, when so raised, a vacuum could be formed under the
piston by condensing the vapour, and so ensuring its return by the pressure
of the atmosphere. He thought that he might thus be enabled to secure an
efficient moving force. But it was found in practice, that the proposed
power was too violent as well as uncertain, and it was shortly given up as
impracticable.
Papin next inquired whether his proposed elastic force and subsequent
vacuum might not better be produced by means of steam. He accordingly
entered upon a series of experiments, which gradually led him to the
important conclusions published in his celebrated paper on “A New Method
of Obtaining very Great Moving Powers at Small Cost,” which appeared in
the ‘Acta Eruditorum’ of Leipsic, in 1690. “I felt confident,” he there
observes, “that machines might be constructed wherein water, by means of
no very intense heat, and at small cost, might produce that perfect vacuum
which had failed to be obtained by means of gunpowder.” He accordingly
contrived a machine to illustrate this idea, but it was very imperfect and
slow in its action, as may well be imagined from the circumstance that to
produce the condensation he did not apply cold, but merely took away the
fire! Still he was successfully working out, step by step, the important
problem of steam power. He clearly perceived that a piston might be raised

in a cylinder by the elastic force of steam, and that on the production of a
vacuum by its condensation, the piston might be driven home again by the
pressure of the atmosphere. The question was, how was this idea to be
realised in a practicable working machine? After many experiments, Papin
had the courage to make the attempt to pump water by atmospheric pressure
on a large scale. He was employed to erect machines after his principle, for
the purpose of draining mines in Auvergne and Westphalia; but from the
difficulty he experienced in procuring and preserving a vacuum, and the
tediousness of the process, his enterprise proved abortive.
The truth is, that fertile though Papin was in conception, he laboured
under the greatest possible disadvantage in not being a mechanic. The eyes
and hands of others are not to be relied on in the execution of new and
untried machines. Unless eyes and hands be disciplined by experience in
skilled work, and inspired by intelligence, they are comparatively useless.
The chances of success are vastly greater when mind, eyes, and hands, are
combined in one person. Hence the unquestionable fact that though the
motive power of steam had long been the subject of ingenious speculation
and elaborate experiment amongst scientific men, it failed to be adopted as
a practicable working power until it was taken in hand by mechanics—by
such men as Newcomen, the blacksmith; Potter, the engine-driver; Brindley,
the millwright; and, above all, by James Watt, the mathematical instrument
maker.
The sagacious foresight of Papin as to the extensive applicability of
steam-power as a motive agent, is strikingly shown by the following
passage in the paper above referred to:—“If any one,” says he, “will
consider the magnitude of the forces to be obtained in this way (i. e., by the
atmospheric high-pressure engine he was suggesting), and the trifling
expense at which a sufficient quantity of fuel can be procured, he will
certainly admit that this very method is far preferable to the use of
gunpowder above spoken of, especially as in this way a perfect vacuum is
obtained, and so the inconveniences above recounted are avoided. In what
manner that power can be applied to draw water or ore from mines, to
discharge iron bullets to a great distance, to propel ships against the wind,
and to a multitude of other similar purposes, it would be too long here to
detail; but each individual, according to the particular occasion, must select
the construction of machinery appropriate to his purpose.” This last was,

however, the real difficulty to be overcome. Steam, doubtless, contained a
power to do all these things; but as for the machine that would work quietly,
docilely, and effectively, in pumping water, discharging bullets, or
propelling ships, the mechanic had not yet appeared that was able to make
one.
Papin was, however, a man of great perseverance; and, strong in his
faith as to the power of steam to propel ships, he gradually worked his way
to the contrivance of a model steamboat. When in London, he had seen an
experiment tried by the Prince Palatine Rupert on the Thames, in which a
boat fitted with revolving paddles attached to the two ends of an axle which
received its motion from a trundle working on a wheel turned round by
horses, went with such rapidity as to leave the king’s barge, manned by
sixteen rowers, far behind in the race. The idea which occurred to Papin
was, to apply a steam machine to drive the paddles, and thus ensure a ship’s
motion independent of wind or tide. For this purpose, it was necessary to
convert the alternate motion of the piston-rod into a continuous rotary one;
and this he proposed to effect “by having the rods of the pistons fitted with
teeth, which would force round small wheels, toothed in like manner,
fastened to the axis of the paddles.”

ANCIENT PADDLE-BOAT.

The use of paddle-wheels in propelling boats had long been known.
The Harleian MSS. contain an Italian book of sketches, attributed to the
fifteenth century, in which there appears the annexed sketch of a paddle-

boat. This boat was evidently intended to be worked by two men turning the
crank by which the paddles were made to revolve. There were many other
early schemes of paddle-boats, some of which were proposed to be worked
by horse-power. The name of Blasco Garay has often been mentioned as the
first who applied the power of steam to the driving of paddle-boats; but for
this there is not the slightest foundation. M. Bergenroth informs us that he
has carefully examined all the documents relating to the trials of Blasco
Garay in the archives at Simancas, but has found no reference whatever to
steam as the power employed in causing the paddles to revolve.[20] The
experiments were made at Malaga and Barcelona respectively, in the years
1540 and 1543: in one the vessel was propelled by a paddle-wheel on each
side worked by twenty-five men, and in the other by a paddle-wheel worked
by forty men.
It appears probable that although others before Papin had speculated as
to the possibility of constructing a boat to be driven by the power of steam,
he was the first to test the theory by actual experiment; the first to construct
a model steamboat. His first experiments were doubtless failures. The
engine contrived by himself was found inapplicable to the driving of ships,
as it had been to the pumping of mines; and it was not until he saw the
model of Savery’s engine exhibited to the Royal Society of London, in
1698, and witnessed the trial of the same inventor s paddle-wheel boat on
the Thames in the course of the same year that it occurred to him to
combine the two contrivances in one, and apply Savery’s engine to drive
Savery’s paddle-wheels. Returning to Marburg, he proceeded with his
experiments, and informed Liebnitz that he had employed both suction and
pressure by steam; that he had made a model of a carriage propelled by this
force, which succeeded; and he hoped that the same power would answer
for boats. Papin prosecuted his idea with great zeal, trying many expedients,
encountering many difficulties, and meeting with many disappointments. At
length, after about fifteen years’ labour, he succeeded in constructing a
model engine, fitted in a boat—“une petite machine d’un vaisseau à
roues”—which worked to his satisfaction. His next object was to get his
model transported to London, to exhibit it on the Thames. “It is important,”
he writes to Liebnitz (7th July, 1707), “that my new construction of vessel
should be put to the proof in a seaport like London, where there is depth
enough to apply the new invention, which, by means of fire, will render one

or two men capable of producing more effect than some hundreds of
rowers.” Papin had considerable difficulty in obtaining the requisite
permission from the authorities to enable his model to pass from the Fulda
to the Weser; but at length he succeeded, and the little vessel reached
Münden, when, to Papin’s great grief, it was seized by the boatmen of the
river, and barbarously destroyed.
The year after this calamity befell Papin’s machine he wrote an urgent
letter to his old friends of the Royal Society at London, asking them to
advance him sufficient money to construct another engine “and to fit it so
that it might be applied for the rowing of ships.” The Society, however, did
not see their way to assisting Papin in the manner proposed, most likely
because of the expense as well as uncertainty of the experiment. Two years
later, worn out by work and anxiety, the illustrious exile died; and it was left
for other labourers to realise the great ideas he had formed as to locomotion
by steam-power.
The apparently resultless labours of these men will serve to show what
a long, anxious, and toilsome process the invention of the steam-engine has
been. The early inventors had not the gratification of seeing their toils
rewarded by even the faintest glimmering of practical success. One after
another, they took up the subject, spent days and nights of study over it,
and, laying down their lives, there left it. To many the study brought
nothing but anxiety, toil, distress, and sometimes ruin; while some fairly
broke their hearts over it. But it was never abandoned. Disregarding the fate
of their predecessors, one labourer after another resumed the investigation,
advancing it by further stages, until at length the practicable working steam-
engine was invented, presenting, perhaps, the most remarkable illustration
of the power of human skill and perseverance to be found in the whole
history of civilisation.

CHAPTER III.
Captain Savery—His Fire-engine.

The attempts hitherto made to invent a working steam-engine, it will be
observed, had not been attended with much success. The most that could be
said of them was, that, by demonstrating the impracticable, they were
gradually leading other experimenters in the direction of the practicable.
Although the progress made seemed but slow, the amount of net result was
by no means inconsiderable. Men were becoming better acquainted with the
elastic force of steam. The vacuum produced by its condensation in a closed
vessel, and the consequent atmospheric pressure, had been illustrated by
repeated experiments; and many separate and minor inventions, which
afterwards proved of great value, had been made, such as the four-way
cock, the safety-valve, and the piston moving in a cylinder. The principle of
a true steam-engine had not only been demonstrated, but most of the
separate parts of such an engine had been contrived by various inventors. It
seemed as if all that was now wanting was a genius of more than ordinary
power to combine them in a complete and effective whole.
To Thomas Savery is usually accorded the merit of having constructed
the first actual working steam-engine. Little is known of his early history;
and various surmises have been formed as to his origin and calling. Some
writers have described him as the captain of a tin-mine; others as a naval
captain; while a third says he was an immigrant Frenchman.[21] We are,
however, enabled to state, from information communicated by his
descendants, that he was the scion of a well-known Devonshire family. John
Savery, of Halberton, or Harberton, afterwards of Great Totness, was a
gentleman of considerable property in the reign of Henry VIII. In the
sixteenth century the Saverys became connected by marriage with the
Servingtons of Tavistock, another old county family, one of whom served as
sheriff in the reign of Edward III. In 1588, Christopher Savery, the head of
the family, resided in Totness Castle, of which he was the owner; and for a
period of nearly forty years the town was represented in Parliament by
members of the Savery family. Sir Charles served as Sheriff of Devon in
1619. Though the Saverys took the side of the Parliament, in resisting the
despotic power assumed by Charles I., they nevertheless held a moderate
course; for we find Colonel Savery, in 1643, attaching his name to the
famous “round robin” presented to Parliament. Richard Savery, the
youngest son of the Colonel, was father of Thomas Savery, the inventor of
the “fire-engine.” Other members of the Savery family, besides Thomas,

were distinguished for their prosecution of physical science. Thus we find
from the family MSS., Servington Savery corresponding with Dr. Jurin,
Secretary to the Royal Society, respecting an improvement which he had
made in the barometer, and communicating the results of some magnetic
experiments of a novel kind, which he had recently performed.[22]

THOMAS SAVERY, F.R.S.

Thomas Savery was born at Shilston, near Modbury, in Devon, about
the year 1650. Nothing is known of his early life, beyond that he was
educated to the profession of a military engineer, and in course of time duly
reached the rank of Trench-master. The corps of engineers was not,
however, regarded as an essential part of the military force until the year

1787, when the officers ranked with those of the Royal Artillery. The
pursuit of his profession, as well as his natural disposition, led Savery to the
study of mechanics, and he became well accomplished in the physical
knowledge of his time. He occupied much of his spare time in mechanical
experiments, and in projecting and executing contrivances of various sorts.
One of his early works was a clock, still preserved in the family,[23] which
until lately kept very good time; and when last repaired by a watchmaker of
Modbury was pronounced to be a piece of very good work, of a peculiar
construction, displaying much ingenuity.
Another of Savery’s early contrivances was a machine for polishing
plate-glass, for which he obtained a patent. He was occupied about the same
time with an invention for rowing ships in calms by the mechanical
apparatus subsequently described in his treatise, entitled ‘Navigation
Improved.’ He there relates how it troubled his thoughts and racked his
brains to find out this invention, which he accomplished after many
experiments, conducted “with great charge.” He naturally set much value on
the product of so much study and labour; and he was proportionately vexed
on finding that others regarded it with indifference. He professed to have
had “promises of a great reward from the Court, if the thing would answer
the end for which he proposed it;” but instead of a reward, Savery received
only contumely and scorn. He attributed his want of success to the ill-
humour of the then Surveyor of the Navy, who reported against his engine,
because, said he, “it’s the nature of some men to decry all inventions that
are not the product of their own brains.” He only asked for a fair trial of his
paddle-boat, believing in its efficiency and utility; declaring, that it was not
his “fondness for his own bratt that made him think so,” but the favourable
opinions of several very judicious persons in town, that encouraged him to
urge his invention for public adoption.
The invention in question consisted of a boat mounted with two
paddle-wheels, one on each side, worked by a capstan placed in the centre
of the vessel. The annexed cut will show the nature of the arrangement,
which probably did not differ much from the scheme of Blasco Garay,
above referred to.

SECTION OF SAVERY’S PADDLE-
BOAT.

Savery says he was led to make the invention through the difficulty
which had been experienced in getting ships in motion so as to place them
alongside of the enemy in sea-fights, especially during calm weather. He
thought that if our fighting-ships could be made to move independent of the
winds, we should thereby possess an advantage of essential consequence to
the public service. “The gentlemen,” said he, “that were on the Brest
expedition with my Lord Caermarthen must know how useful this engine
would have been; for had they had them there on board each ship, they
might have moved themselves where they had pleased.” He also urged the
usefulness of the engine for packet-boats, bomb-vessels, and sloops, and
especially for use in sea-fights, in bringing off disabled ships. When he had
completed his invention, he took steps to bring it under the notice of Mr.
Secretary Trenchard. The plan was shown to the King, who thought highly
of it, and referred Savery to the Admiralty. When he went there he was told
that he should have gone to the Navy Board. At the Navy Board he was told
that certain objections to the adoption of his scheme had already been sent
to the Admiralty.
Savery having ascertained that the Surveyor was himself the author of
the objections, proceeded to discuss the matter with him. But the Surveyor
was not a man to be argued out of his views by an inventor; and he shut up

Savery with the remark: “What have interloping people, that have no
concern with us, to do to pretend to contrive or invent things for us?”
Savery was highly indignant at the official snub, and published the
conversation in his Treatise. “Though one has found out,” said he, “an
improvement as great to shipping as turning to windward or the Compass,
unless you can sit round the Green Table in Crutched Friars, your invention
is damned, of course;” and the testy inventor concluded: “All I have now to
add is, that whoever is angry with the Truth for appearing in mean language
may as well be angry with an honest man for his plain habit; for, indeed, it
is as common for Lyes and Nonsense to be disguised by a jingle of words as
for a Blockhead to be hid by abundance of Peruke.”[24]
Notwithstanding his rebuff by the Navy Surveyor, Savery proceeded to
fit up a small yacht with his engine, and tried an experiment with it on the
Thames, in sight of many thousands of spectators. The experiment was, in
his opinion, entirely successful. The yacht, manned by eight sailors working
the capstan, passed a ketch with all its sails spread, as well as other vessels.
“All people,” said Savery, “seemed to like the demonstration of the use of
my engine, the public newspapers speaking very largely of it, yet all to no
purpose.” Savery had already expended 200l. in his experiments on the
paddle-wheel boat, and was not disposed to go any further, now that
Government had decided not to take up the invention. Indeed, its practical
utility was doubtful. The power of the wind was, after all, better than hand-
labour for working large ships; and it continued to maintain its superiority
until the steam-engine was brought to perfection.
It is curious that it should not have occurred to Savery, who invented
both a paddle-wheel boat and a steam-engine, to combine the two in one
machine; but he was probably sick of the former invention, which had given
him so much vexation and annoyance, and gave it up in disgust, leaving it
to Papin, who saw both his inventions at work, to hit upon the grand idea of
combining the two in a steam-vessel,—the only machine capable of
effectually and satisfactorily rowing ships in a calm, or against wind and
tide.
It is probable that Savery was led to enter upon his next and most
important invention by the circumstance of his having been brought up in
the neighbourhood of the mining districts, and being well aware of the great

difficulty experienced by the miners in keeping their pits clear of water, to
enable them to proceed with their underground operations. The early tin-
mining of Cornwall was for the most part what was called “stream-work,”
being confined mainly to washing and collecting the diluvial deposits of the
ore. Mines usually grew out of these stream-works; the ground was laid
open at the back of the lodes, and the ore was dug out as from a quarry.
Some of these old openings, called “coffins,” are still to be met with in
different parts of Cornwall. The miners did not venture much below the
surface, for fear of the water, by which they were constantly liable to be
drowned out. But as the upper strata became exhausted, they were tempted
to go deeper in search of the richer ores. Shafts were sunk to the lodes, and
they were followed underground. Then it was that the difficulty of water
had to be encountered and overcome; for unless it could be got rid of, the
deeper ores of Cornwall were as so much buried treasure. When the mines
were of no great depth, it was possible to bale out the water by hand-
buckets. But this expedient was soon exhausted; and the power of horses
was then employed to draw the buckets. Where the lodes ran along a hill-
side, it was possible, by driving an adit from a lower point, to let off the
water by natural drainage. But this was not often found practicable, and in
most cases it had to be raised directly from the shafts by artificial methods.
As the quantity increased, a whim or gin moving on a perpendicular axis
was employed to draw the water.[25] An improvement on this was the rack
and chain pump, consisting of an endless iron chain mounted with knobs of
cloth stiffened with leather, inclosed in a wooden pump of from six to eight
inches bore, the lower part of which rested in the well of the mine. The
chain was turned round by a wheel two or three feet in diameter, usually
worked by men, and the knobs with which it was mounted brought up a
stream of water according to the dimensions of the pump. Another method,
considered the most effectual of all, was known as “the water-wheel and
bobs,” consisting of a powerful pump, or series of pumps, worked by a
water-wheel. But although there is no want of water underground in
Cornwall, and no want of rain above ground, there are few or no great
water-courses capable of driving machinery; besides, as the mines are for
the most part situated on high ground, it will be obvious that water-power
was available to only a very limited extent for this purpose.

It is also worthy of notice that the early mining of Cornwall was
carried on by men of small capital, principally by working men, who were
unable to expend any large amount of money in forming artificial
reservoirs, or in erecting the powerful pumping machinery necessary for
keeping the deeper mines clear of water. The Cornish miners, like the
Whitstable oyster-dredgers, worked upon the principle of co-operation. This
doctrine, now taught as a modern one, was practised by them almost time
out of mind. The owner of the land gave the use of his land, the adventurers
gave their money, and the miners their labour; all sharing in the proceeds
according to ancient custom. For the use of his land, and for the ore taken
from the mine, the lord usually took a sixth part; but in consideration of
draining the mine, and in order to encourage the adventure, he was often
content with an eighth, or it might be only a tenth part of the produce. The
miners, on their part, agreed to divide in the proportions in which they took
part in the work. Their shares of the ore raised were measured by barrows,
and parcelled into heaps; “and it is surprising,” says Borlase, “to see how
ready and exact the reckoners are in dividing, though oftentimes they can
neither write nor read. The parcels being laid forth, lots are cast, and then
every parcel has a distinct mark laid on it with one, two, or three stones, and
sometimes a bit of stick or turf stuck up in the middle or side of the pile;
and when these marks are laid on, the parcels may continue there half a year
or more unmolested.”[26]
These were, however, the early and primitive days of mining, when the
operations were carried on comparatively near the surface, and the capital
invested in pumping-machinery was comparatively small in amount. As the
miners went deeper and deeper into the ground, and the richer lodes were
struck and followed, the character of mining became considerably changed.
Larger capitals were required to sink the shafts and keep them clear of
water until the ore was reached; and a new class of men, outside the mining
districts, was induced to venture their money in the mines as a speculation.
Yet the system above described, though greatly modified by altered
circumstances, continues to this day; and the mining of Cornwall continues
to be carried on mainly upon the co-operative or joint-stock system.
When the surface lodes became exhausted, the necessity of employing
some more efficient method of pumping the water became more and more
urgent. In one pit after another the miners were being drowned out, and the

operations of an important branch of national industry were in danger of
being brought to a complete standstill. It was under these circumstances that
Captain Savery turned his attention to the contrivance of a more powerful
engine for the raising of water; and after various experiments, he became
persuaded that the most effective agency for the purpose was the power of
steam. It is very probable that he was aware of the attempts that had been
previously made in the same direction, and he may have gathered many
useful and suggestive hints from the Marquis of Worcester’s ‘Century;’ but
as that book contained no plans nor precise definitions of the methods by
which the Marquis had accomplished his objects, it could have helped him
but little towards the contrivance of a practicable working engine.[27]
How Savery was led to the study of the power of steam has been
differently stated. Desaguliers says his own account was this,—that having
drunk a flask of Florence at a tavern, and thrown the empty flask on the fire,
he called for a basin of water to wash his hands, and perceiving that the
little wine left in the flask had changed to steam, he took the vessel by the
neck and plunged its mouth into the water in the basin, when, the steam
being condensed, the water was immediately driven up into the flask by the
pressure of the atmosphere. Desaguliers disbelieved this account, but admits
that Savery made many experiments upon the powers of steam, and
eventually succeeded in making several engines “which raised water very
well.” Switzer, who was on intimate terms with Savery, gives another
account. He says the first hint from which he took the engine was from a
tobacco-pipe, which he immersed in water to wash or cool it; when he
discovered by the rarefaction of the air in the tube by the heat or steam, and
the gravitation or pressure of the exterior air on the condensation of the
latter, that the water was made to spring through the tube of the pipe in a
most surprising manner;[28] and that this phenomenon induced him to search
for the rationale, and to prosecute a series of experiments which issued in
the invention of his fire-engine.
However Savery may have obtained his first idea of the expansion and
condensation of steam, and of atmospheric pressure, it is certain that the
subject occupied his attention for many years. He had the usual difficulties
to encounter in dealing with a wholly new and untried power, in contriving
the novel mechanism through which it was to work, and of getting his
contrivances executed by the hands of mechanics necessarily unaccustomed

to such kind of work. “Though I was obliged,” he says, “to encounter the
oddest and almost insuperable difficulties, I spared neither time, pains, nor
money, till I had absolutely conquered them.”
Having sufficiently matured his design, he had a model of his new
“Fire Engine,” as he termed it, made for exhibition before the King at
Hampton Court in 1698. William III., who was himself of a mechanical
turn, was highly pleased with the ingenuity displayed in Savery’s engine, as
well as with its efficient action, and he permitted the inventor to dedicate to
him ‘The Miner’s Friend,’ containing the first published description of his
invention. The King also promoted Savery’s application for a Patent, which
was secured in July, 1698,[29] and an Act confirming it was passed in the
following year.
Savery’s next step was to bring his invention under the notice of the
Royal Society, whose opinion on all matters of science was listened to with
profound respect. He accordingly exhibited his model at a meeting held on
the 14th of June, 1699, and it is recorded in the minutes of that date, that
“Mr. Savery entertained the Society with showing his engine to raise water
by the force of fire. He was thanked for showing the experiment, which
succeeded according to expectation, and was approved of.” The inventor
presented the Society with a drawing of his engine, accompanied by a
description, which was printed in the ‘Transactions.’[30]
Savery next endeavoured to bring his invention into practical use, but
this was a matter of much greater difficulty. So many schemes with a like
object had been brought out and failed, that the mining interest came to
regard new projects with increasing suspicion. To persuade them that he
was no mere projector, but the inventor of a practicable working engine,
Savery wrote and published his ‘Miner’s Friend.’ “I am not very fond,” he
there said, “of lying under the scandal of a bare projector, and therefore
present you here with a draught of my machine, and lay before you the uses
of it, and leave it to your consideration whether it be worth your while to
make use of it or no.”
Inventors before Savery’s time were wont to make a great mystery of
their inventions; but he proclaimed that there was no mystery whatever
about his machine, and he believed that the more clearly it was understood,

the better it would be appreciated. He acknowledged that there had been
many pretenders to new inventions of the same sort, who had excited hopes
which had never been fulfilled; but this invention which he had made was a
thing the uses of which were capable of actual demonstration. He urged that
the old methods of raising water could not be carried further; and that an
entirely new power was needed to enable the miner to prosecute his
underground labours. “I fear,” said he, “that whoever by the old causes of
motion pretends to improvements within the last century does betray his
knowledge and judgment. For more than a hundred years since, men and
horses would raise by engines then made as much water as they have ever
done since, or I believe ever will, or, according to the law of nature, ever
can do. And, though my thoughts have been long employed about water-
works, I should never have pretended to any invention of that kind, had I
not happily found out this new, but yet a much stronger and cheaper force
or cause of motion than any before made use of.” He proceeded to show
how easy it was to work his engine,—boys of thirteen or fourteen years
being able to attend and work it to perfection after a few days’ teaching,—
and how he had at length, after great difficulty, instructed handicraft
artificers to construct the engine according to his design, so that, after much
experience, said he, “they are become such masters of the thing that they
oblige themselves to deliver what engines they make exactly tight and fit
for service, and as such I dare warrant them to anybody that has occasion
for them.”[31]

Savery’s engine, as described by himself,
consisted of a series of boilers, condensing
vessels, and tubes, the action of which will be
readily understood with the help of the annexed
drawing.[32]
Its principal features were two large
cylindrical vessels, which were alternately filled
with steam from an adjoining boiler and with cold
water from the well or mine out of which the
water had to be raised. When either of the hollow
vessels was filled with steam, and then suddenly
cooled by a dash of cold water, a vacuum was
thereby created, and, the vessel being closed at the
top and open at the bottom, the water was at once
forced up into it from the well by the pressure of
the atmosphere. The steam, being then let into the
vessel from the top, pressed upon the surface of
the water, and forced it out at the bottom by
another pipe (its return into the well being
prevented by a clack), and so up the perpendicular
pipe which opened into the outer air. The second
vessel being treated in the same manner, the same
result followed; and thus, by alternate filling and
forcing, a continuous stream of water was poured
out from the upper opening. The whole of the
labour required to work the engine was capable of
being performed by a single man, or even by a
SAVERY’S ENGINE. boy, after very little teaching.
Although Savery’s plans and descriptions of
the arrangement and working of his engines are
clear and explicit, he does not give any information as to their proportions,
beyond stating that an engine employed in raising a column of water 3½
inches in diameter 60 feet high, requires a fireplace 20 inches deep.
Speaking of their performances, he says, “I have known, in Cornwall, a
work with three lifts of about 18 feet each, lift and carry a 3½-inch bore,

that cost 42s. a day (reckoning 24 a day) for labour, besides the wear and
tear of engines, each pump having four men working eight hours, at 14d. a
man, and the men obliged to rest at least a third part of that time.” He
pointed out that at least one-third part of the then cost of raising water
might be saved by the adoption of his invention, which on many mines
would amount to “a brave estate” in the course of a year. In estimating the
power of his engine, Savery was accustomed to compare it with the quantity
of work that horses could perform, and hence he introduced the term “horse
power,” which is still in use.
Although, in the treatise referred to, Savery describes an engine with
two furnaces, the drawing which he presented to the Royal Society showed
only one; and it appears that in another of his designs he showed only one
cylindrical vessel instead of two. In order to exhibit the working of his
engine on a larger scale than in the model, he proceeded to erect one in a
potter’s house at Lambeth, where, Switzer says, though it was a small
engine, the water struck up the tiles and forced its way through the roof in a
manner that surprised all the spectators. Switzer mentions other engines
erected after Savery’s designs for the raising of water at Camden House and
Sion House, which proved quite successful. The former, he says, was the
plainest and best proportioned engine he had seen: it had only a single
condensing vessel; and “though but a small one in comparison with many
others of the kind that are made for coal-works, it is sufficient for any
reasonable family, and other uses required for it in watering middling
gardens.”[33] Four receivers full of water, or equal to 52 gallons, were raised
every minute, or 3110 gallons in the hour; whilst, in the case of the larger
engines with double receivers, 6240 gallons an hour might easily be raised.
The cost of the smaller engine was about fifty pounds, and the consumption
of coal about a bushel in the twenty-four hours, supposing it was kept
constantly at work during that time.

HUEL VOR, WITH REMAINS OF THE OLD
WORKS.
[By R. P. Leitch.]

The uses to which Savery proposed to apply his engine were various.
One was to pump water into a reservoir, from which, by falling on a water-
wheel, it might produce a continuous rotary motion. Another was to raise
water into cisterns for the supply of gentlemen’s houses, and for use in
fountains and as an extinguisher in case of fire. A third was to raise water
for the supply of towns, and a fourth to drain fens and marsh lands. But the
most important, in the inventor’s estimation, was its employment in clearing
drowned mines and coal-pits of water. He showed how water might be
raised from deep mines by using several engines, placed at different depths,
one over the other. Thus by three lifts, each of 80 feet, water might be raised
from a mine about 240 feet—then considered a very great depth. From
Savery’s own account, it is evident that several of his engines were erected
in Cornwall; and it is said that the first was tried at Huel Vor, or “The Great
Work in Breage,” a few miles from Helstone, then considered the richest tin
mine in the county. The engine was found to be an improvement on the
methods formerly employed for draining the mine, and sent the miners to
considerably greater depths. But the great pressure of steam required to
force up a high column of water was such as to strain to the utmost the
imperfect boilers and receivers of those early days; and the frequent

explosions which attended its use eventually led to its discontinuance in
favour of the superior engine of Newcomen, which was shortly after
invented.
Savery also endeavoured to introduce his engine in the coal-mining
districts, but without success, and for the same reason. The demand for coal
in connection with the iron manufacture having greatly increased in the
county of Stafford, and the coal which lay nearest the surface having been
for the most part “won,” the mining interest became very desirous of
obtaining some more efficient means of clearing the pits of water, in order
to send the miners deeper into the ground. Windlass and buckets, wind-
mills, horse-gins, rack-and-chain pumps, adits, and all sorts of contrivances
had been tried, and the limit of their powers had been reached. The pits
were fast becoming drowned out, and the ironmasters began to fear lest
their manufacture should become lost through want of fuel. Under these
circumstances they were ready to hail the invention of Captain Savery,
which promised to relieve them of their difficulty. He was accordingly
invited to erect one of his engines over a coal-mine at the Broadwaters, near
Wednesbury. The influx of water, however, proved too much for the engine;
the springs were so many and so strong, that all the means which Savery
could employ failed to clear the mine of water. To increase the forcing
power he increased the pressure of steam; but neither boiler nor receiver
could endure it, and the steam “tore the engine to pieces; so that, after much
time, labour, and expense, Mr. Savery gave up the undertaking, and the
engine was laid aside as useless.”[34]
He was no more successful with the engine which he erected at York-
buildings to pump water from the Thames for the supply of the western
parts of London. Bradley says that to increase its power he doubled every
part, but “it was liable to so many disorders, if a single mistake happened in
the working of it, that at length it was looked upon as a useless piece of
work, and rejected.”[35] Savery’s later engines thus lost him much of the
credit which he had gained by those of an earlier and simpler construction.
It became clear that their application was very limited. They involved much
waste of fuel through the condensation of the hot steam pressing upon the
surface of the cold water, previous to the expulsion of the latter from the
vessel; and eventually their use was confined to the pumping of water for
fountains and the supply of gentlemen’s houses, and in some cases to the

raising of water for the purpose of working an overshot water-wheel.
Various attempts were made to improve the engine by Bradley, by Papin, by
Desaguliers, and others; but no great advance was made in its construction
and method of working until it was taken in hand by Newcomen and Calley,
whose conjoint invention marks an important epoch in the history of the
steam-engine.
Not much is known of the later years of Savery’s life. We find him a
Captain of Military Engineers in 1702;[36] and in 1705, with the view of
advancing knowledge in his special branch of military science, he gave to
the world a translation, in folio, of Cohorn’s celebrated work on
fortification. The book was dedicated to Prince George of Denmark, to
whom he was indebted, in the same year, for his appointment to the office
of Treasurer of the Hospital for Sick and Wounded Seamen. Various letters
and documents are still to be found in the Transport Office, Somerset
House, addressed to him in that capacity.[37] In 1714 he was further indebted
to Prince George for the appointment of Surveyor to the Waterworks at
Hampton Court; but he did not live to enjoy it, as he died in the course of
the following year. He is said to have accumulated considerable property,
which he bequeathed to his wife, together with all interest in his inventions.
His will was executed on the day of his death, the 15th of May, 1715, and
was proved four days after in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury. He there
described himself as “of the parish of Saint Margaret, at Westminster,
Esquire.” His widow herself died before all his effects were administered.
There was a considerable amount of unclaimed stock, which the Savery
family were prevented from claiming, as it had passed to the widow; and it
has since been transferred to the credit of the National Debt.

CHAPTER IV.
Thomas Newcomen—The Atmospheric Engine.

The invention of the steam-engine had advanced thus far with halting steps.
A new power had been discovered, but it was so dangerous and
unmanageable that it was still doubtful whether it could be applied to any

useful purpose. What was still wanting was an engine strong enough to
resist the internal pressure of highly-heated steam, and so constructed as to
work safely, continuously, and economically. Many attempts had been made
to contrive such a machine; but, as we have shown, the results were
comparatively barren. Savery’s small engine could raise water in moderate
quantities to limited heights; but the pumping of deep mines was beyond its
power. It could force water to a height of about sixteen fathoms; but as the
depth of mines at that time was from fifty to a hundred yards, it was
obviously incompetent for their drainage. It is true, Savery proposed to
overcome the difficulty by erecting a series of engines, placed one over
another in the shaft of the mine; but the expense of their attendants, the
great consumption of fuel, the cost of wear and tear, the constant danger of
explosion, and the risk of the works being stopped by any one of the
engines becoming temporarily deranged, rendered it clear that the use of his
engine for ordinary mining purposes was altogether impracticable.
Such was the state of affairs when Thomas Newcomen of Dartmouth
took up the subject. Comparatively little is known of the personal history of
this ingenious man. Mechanical inventors excited little notice in those days;
they were looked upon as schemers, and oftener regarded as objects of
suspicion than of respect. Thomas Newcomen was by trade an ironmonger
and a blacksmith. The house in which he lived and worked stood, until quite
recently, in Lower Street, Dartmouth. Like many of the ancient timber
houses of that quaint old town, it was a building of singularly picturesque
appearance. Lower Street is very narrow; the houses in it are tall and
irregular, with overhanging peaked gable-ends. A few years since,
Newcomen’s house began to show indications of decay; the timber supports
were fast failing; and for safety’s sake it was determined to pull it to the
ground.

NEWCOMEN’S HOUSE, DARTMOUTH.
[By R. P. Leitch.][38]

The Newcomen family have long since become extinct in Dartmouth.
They are said to have left the place long ago, and gone northward; but we
have been unable to trace them. The Newcomens appear to have occupied a
respectable position in Dartmouth down to about the middle of the last
century. Their burying-place was in the north-side chapel of the fine old
parish church of the town, where several tablets are erected to their
memory. Amongst others, there is one to William Newcomin, Attorney-at-
Law, who died the 24th of August, 1745, aged 57, supposed to have been a

brother, and another of the same name, who died in 1787, aged 65,
supposed to have been a son of the ironmonger.
Thomas Newcomen was a man of strong religious feelings, and from
an early period of his life occupied his leisure in voluntary religious
teaching. He belonged to the sect of Baptists; and the place was standing
until recently in which he regularly preached. When he afterwards went into
distant parts of the country on engine business, he continued to devote his
Sundays to the same work. How he first came to study the subject of steam
is not known. Mr. Holdsworth says a story was current in Dartmouth in his
younger days, and generally believed, that Newcomen conceived the idea of
the motive power to be obtained from steam by watching the tea-kettle, the
lid of which would frequently rise and fall when boiling; and, reasoning
upon this fact, he contrived, by filling a cylinder with steam, to raise the
piston, and by immediately injecting some cold water, to create a vacuum,
which allowed the weight of the atmosphere to press the piston down, and
so give motion to a pump by means of a beam and rods.[39]
It is probable that Newcomen was well aware of the experiments of
Savery on steam while the latter was living at Modbury, about fifteen miles
distant. It will be remembered that Savery was greatly hampered in his
earlier contrivances by the want of skilled workmen; and as Newcomen had
the reputation of being one of the cleverest blacksmiths in the county, it is
supposed that he was employed to make some of the more intricate parts of
Savery’s engine. At all events, he could scarcely fail to hear from the men
of his trade in the neighbourhood, what his speculative neighbour at
Modbury was trying to compass in the invention of an engine for the
purpose of raising water by fire. He was certainly occupied in studying the
subject about the same time as Savery; and Switzer says he was well
informed that “Mr. Newcomen was as early in his invention as Mr. Savery
was in his, only the latter being nearer the Court, had obtained the patent
before the other knew it; on which account Mr. Newcomen was glad to
come in as a partner to it.”[40]
Another account[41] states that a draft of Savery’s engine having come
under Newcomen’s notice, he proceeded to make a model of it, which he
fixed in his garden, and soon found out its imperfections. He entered into a
correspondence on the subject with the learned and ingenious Dr. Hooke,

then Secretary to the Royal Society, a man of remarkable ingenuity, and of
great mechanical sagacity and insight. Newcomen had heard or read of
Papin’s proposed method of transmitting motive power to a distance by
creating a vacuum under a piston in a cylinder, and transmitting the power
through pipes to a second cylinder near the mine. Dr. Hooke dissuaded
Newcomen from erecting a machine on this principle, as a waste of time
and labour; but he added the pregnant suggestion, “could he (meaning
Papin) make a speedy vacuum under your piston, your work were done.”
The capital idea thus cursorily thrown out—of introducing a moveable
diaphragm between the active power and the vacuum—set Newcomen at
once upon the right track. Though the suggestion was merely that of a
thoughtful bystander, it was a most important step in the history of the
invention, for it contained the very principle of the atmospheric engine.
Savery created his vacuum by the condensation of steam in a closed vessel,
and Papin created his by exhausting the air in a cylinder fitted with a piston,
by means of an air-pump. It remained for Newcomen to combine the two
expedients—to secure a sudden vacuum by the condensation of steam; but,
instead of employing Savery’s closed vessel, he made use of Papin’s
cylinder fitted with a piston. After long scheming and many failures, he at
length succeeded, in the year 1705,[42] in contriving a model that worked
with tolerable precision; after which he sought for an opportunity of
exhibiting its powers in a full-sized working engine. It ought to be
mentioned, that in the long course of experiments conducted by Newcomen
with the object of finding out the new motive power, he was zealously
assisted throughout by one John Calley, a glazier of Dartmouth, of whom
nothing further is known than that he was Newcomen’s intimate friend, of
the same religious persuasion, and afterwards his partner in the steam-
engine enterprise.
Newcomen’s engine may be thus briefly described:—The steam was
generated in a separate boiler, as in Savery’s engine, from which it was
conveyed into a vertical cylinder underneath a piston fitting it closely, but
moveable upwards and downwards through its whole length. The piston
was fixed to a rod, which was attached by a joint or a chain to the end of a
lever vibrating upon an axis, the other end being attached to a rod working a
pump. When the piston in the cylinder was raised, steam was let into the
vacated space through a tube fitted into the top of the boiler, and mounted

with a stopcock. The pump-rod at the further end of the lever being thus
depressed, cold water was applied to the sides of the cylinder, on which the
steam within it was condensed, a vacuum was produced, and the external
air, pressing upon the top of the piston, forced it down into the empty
cylinder. The pump-rod was thereby raised; and the operation of depressing
and raising it being repeated, a power was thus produced which kept the
pump continuously at work. Such, in a few words, was the construction and
action of Newcomen’s first engine.
It will thus be observed that this engine was essentially different in
principle from that of Savery. While the latter raised water partly by the
force of steam and partly by the pressure of the atmosphere, that of
Newcomen worked entirely by the pressure of the atmosphere, steam being
only used as the most expeditious method of producing a vacuum. The
engine was, however, found to be very imperfect. It was exceedingly slow
in its motions; much time was occupied in condensing the contained steam
by throwing cold water on the outside of the cylinder; and as the boiler was
placed immediately under the cylinder, it was not easy to prevent the cold
water from splashing it, and thus leading to a further loss of heat. To
remedy these imperfections, Newcomen and Calley altered the
arrangement; and, instead of throwing cold water on the outside of the
cylinder, they surrounded it with cold water. But this expedient was also
found inconvenient, as the surrounding water shortly became warm, and
ceased to condense until replaced by colder water; but the colder it was the
greater was the loss of heat by condensation, before the steam was enabled
to fill the cylinder again on each ascent of the piston.
Clumsy and comparatively ineffective though the engine was in this
form, it was, nevertheless, found of some use in pumping water from mines.
In 1711 Newcomen and Calley made proposals to the owners of a colliery
at Griff, in Warwickshire, to drain the water from their pits, which until then
had been drained by the labour of horses; but, the owners not believing in
the practicability of the scheme, their offer was declined. In the following
year, however, they succeeded in obtaining a contract with Mr. Back, for
drawing the water from a mine belonging to him near Wolverhampton. The
place where the engine was to be erected being near to Birmingham, the
ironwork, the pump-valves, clacks, and buckets, were for the most part
made there, and removed to the mine, where they were fitted together.

Newcomen had great difficulty at first in making the engine go; but after
many laborious attempts he at last partially succeeded. It was found,
however, that the new method of cooling the cylinder by surrounding it
with cold water did not work so well in practice as had been expected. The
vacuum produced was very imperfect, and the action of the engine was both
very slow and very irregular.
While the engine was still in its trial state, a curious accident occurred
which led to another change in the mode of condensation, and proved of
essential importance in establishing Newcomen’s engine as a practicable
working power. The accident was this: in order to keep the cylinder as free
from air as possible, great pains were taken to prevent it passing down by
the side of the piston, which was carefully wrapped with cloth or leather;
and, still further to keep the cylinder air-tight, a quantity of water was kept
constantly laying on the upper side of the piston. At one of the early trials
the inventors were surprised to see the engine make several strokes in
unusually quick succession; and on searching for the cause, they found it to
consist in a hole in the piston, which had let the cold water in a jet into the
inside of the cylinder, and thereby produced a rapid vacuum by the
condensation of the contained steam. A new light suddenly broke upon
Newcomen. The idea of condensing by injection of cold water directly into
the cylinder, instead of applying it on the outside, at once occurred to him;
and he proceeded to embody the expedient which had thus been
accidentally suggested, as part of his machine. The result was the addition
of the injection-pipe, through which, when the piston was raised and the
cylinder was full of steam, a jet of cold water was thrown in, and the steam
being suddenly condensed, the piston was at once driven down by the
pressure of the atmosphere.
An accident of a different kind shortly after led to the improvement of
Newcomen’s engine in another respect. To keep it at work, one man was
required to attend the fire, and another to turn alternately the two cocks, one
admitting the steam into the cylinder, the other admitting the jet of cold
water to condense it. The turning of these cocks was easy work, usually
performed by a boy. It was, however, a very monotonous duty, though
requiring constant attention. To escape the drudgery and obtain an interval
for rest, or perhaps for play, a boy named Humphrey Potter, who turned the
cocks, set himself to discover some method of evading his task. He must

have been an ingenious boy, as is clear from the arrangement he contrived
with this object. Observing the alternate ascent and descent of the beam
above his head, he bethought him of applying the movement to the alternate
raising and lowering of the levers which governed the cocks. The result was
the contrivance of what he called the scoggan,[43] consisting of a catch
worked by strings from the beam of the engine. This arrangement, when
tried, was found to answer the purpose intended. The action of the engine
was thus made automatic; and the arrangement, though rude, not only
enabled Potter to enjoy his play, but it had the effect of improving the
working power of the engine itself; the number of strokes which it made
being increased from six or eight to fifteen or sixteen in the minute. This
invention was afterwards greatly improved by Mr. Henry Beighton, of
Newcastle-on-Tyne, who added the plug-rod and hand-gear. He did away
with the catches and strings of the boy Potter’s rude apparatus, and
substituted a rod suspended from the beam, which alternately opened and
shut the tappets attached to the steam and injection cocks.

NEWCOMEN’S ENGINE.[44]

Thus, step by step, Newcomen’s engine grew in power and efficiency,
and became more and more complete as a self-acting machine. It will be
observed that, like all other inventions, it was not the product of any one
man’s ingenuity, but of many. One contributed one improvement, and
another another. The essential features of the atmospheric engine were not
new. The piston and cylinder had been known as long ago as the time of
Hero. The expansive force of steam and the creation of a vacuum by its
condensation had been known to the Marquis of Worcester, Savery, Papin,
and many more. Newcomen merely combined in his machine the result of
their varied experience, and, assisted by the persons who worked with him,
down to the engine-boy Potter, he advanced the invention several important
stages; so that the steam-engine was no longer a toy or a scientific curiosity,
but had become a powerful machine capable of doing useful work.
The comparative success which attended the working of Newcomen’s
first engine at the colliery near Wolverhampton, shortly induced other
owners of coal-mines to adopt it. There were great complaints in the north,
of the deeper mines having become unworkable. All the ordinary means of
pumping them clear of water had failed. In their emergency, the colliery-
owners called Newcomen and Calley to their aid. They were invited down
to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in the neighbourhood of which town they erected
their second and third engines. They were next summoned to Leeds, and
erected their fourth engine at Austhorpe, in 1714. It was the sight of this
engine at work which first induced Smeaton, when a boy, to turn his
attention to mechanics, and eventually led him to study the atmospheric-
engine, with a view to its improvement. The cylinder of the engine erected
at Austhorpe, like those which had preceded it, was about 23 inches in
diameter, and made about fifteen strokes a minute. The pumps, which were
in two lifts, and of 9 inches bore, drew the water from a depth of 37 yards.
The patentees had 250l. a year for working and keeping the engine in order.
Calley superintended its erection, and afterwards its working; but he did not
long survive its completion, as he died at Austhorpe in 1717.
The next engines were erected by Newcomen in Cornwall, where there
was as great a demand for increased pumping-power as in any of the
collieries of the north. The first of Newcomen’s construction in Cornwall
was erected in 1720, at the Wheal Fortune tin mine, in the parish of
Ludgvan, a few miles north-east of Penzance. The mine was conducted by

Mr. William Lemon, the founder of the fortunes of the well-known Cornish
family. He was born in a humble station in life, from which he honourably
raised himself by his great industry, ability, and energy. He began his career
as a mining-boy; was at an early age appointed one of the managers of a tin-
smelting house at Chiandower, near Penzance; and after the experience
gained by him in that capacity he engaged in the working of the Wheal
Fortune mine. With the help of Newcomen’s engine, the enterprise proved
completely successful; and after realising a considerable sum he removed to
Truro, and began working the great Gwennap mines on such a scale as had
never before been known in Cornwall.[45]
The Wheal Fortune engine was on a larger scale than any that had yet
been erected, the cylinder being 47 inches in diameter, making about fifteen
strokes a minute. It drew about a hogshead of water at each stroke, from a
pump 30 fathoms deep, through pit-barrels 15 inches in diameter, and its
performances were on the whole regarded as very extraordinary. The
principal objection to its use consisted in the very large quantity of coal that
it consumed and the heavy cost of maintaining it in working order. There
was a great waste, especially in boilers, the making of which was then ill
understood. Smeaton relates that in the course of four years’ working of the
first Austhorpe engine, not fewer than four boilers were burnt out. The
Wheal Fortune engine, however, answered its purpose. It kept down the
water sufficiently to enable Mr. Lemon to draw up his tin, and on leaving
the mine, he took with him to Truro a clear sum of ten thousand pounds.
The engine-house is now in ruins, and presents a highly picturesque
appearance, as seen from the heights of Trewal, reminding one of a Border
Peel rather than of a mining engine-house.

RUINS OF WHEAL FORTUNE.
[By R. P. Leitch.]

Another of Newcomen’s engines was erected about the same time at
the Wheal Rose mine, a few miles north of Redruth. The engineer appointed
to superintend its erection was Joseph Hornblower, who came from
Staffordshire for the purpose about the year 1725. Mr. Cyrus Redding, one
of Hornblower’s descendants, says, “how he became in any way connected
with Newcomen must have arisen from the latter being at Bromsgrove,
when he visited Mr. Potter, who got him to build one of his newly-invented
engines at Wolverhampton in 1712.”[46] Another engine was afterwards
erected by Hornblower at Wheal Busy, or Chacewater, and a third at
Polgooth—all rich and well-known mines in Cornwall.

POLGOOTH.

Though the use of Newcomen’s engine rapidly extended, nothing is
known of the man himself during this time. All over the mining districts his
name was identified with the means employed for pumping the mines clear
of water, and thereby enabling an important branch of the national industry
to be carried on; but of Newcomen’s personal history, beyond what has
been stated above, we can gather nothing. It is not known when or where he
died, whether rich or poor. The probability is that, being a person of a
modest and retiring disposition, without business energy, and having
secured no protection for his invention, it was appropriated and made use of
by others, without any profit to him, whilst he quietly subsided into private
life. It is supposed that he died at Dartmouth about the middle of last
century; but no stone marks the place where he was laid. The only memorial

of Newcomen to be found at his native place is the little steam-boat called
by his name, which plies between Totness and Dartmouth.
During Newcomen’s lifetime the proposal was revived of applying the
steam-engine to the propelling of ships. Since Papin’s time nothing had
been accomplished in this direction. Now that the steam-engine was
actively employed in pumping mines, it was natural enough that the idea
should be revived of applying it to navigation. The most enthusiastic
advocate of the new power was Jonathan Hulls, a native of Campden, in
Gloucestershire, where he was born in 1699. He married a wife in 1719,
before he was out of his teens; an act of indiscretion in which, however, he
had the example of one no less distinguished than Shakspeare. Living as he
did in an inland country place, it seems remarkable that he should have
directed his attention to the subject of steam-navigation. We find him
making experiments with models of boats on the river Avon, at Evesham,
and in course of time he duly matured his ideas and embodied them in his
patent of 1736.[47] He proposed to place a Newcomen engine on board a
tow-boat, and by its means to work a paddle-wheel placed at the stern. His
method of converting the rectilinear motion of his piston into a rotary one
was ingenious, but, like Savery, he missed the crank on the paddle-shaft,
and many years passed before this simple expedient was adopted.[48] “The
work to be done by this machine,” said he, “will be upon particular
occasions, when all other means yet found out are wholly insufficient. How
often does a merchant wish that his ship were on the ocean, when, if she
were there, the wind would serve tolerably well to carry him on his
intended voyage, but does not serve at the same time to carry him out of the
river he happens to be in, which a few hours’ work of the machine would
do. Besides, I know engines that are driven by the same power as this is,
where materials for the purpose are dearer than in any navigable river in
England; therefore experience demonstrates that the expense will be but a
trifle to the value of the work performed by those sort of machines, which
any person that knows the nature of those things may easily calculate.” His
treatise was illustrated by a drawing, of which the following is a copy on a
reduced scale.

JONATHAN HULLS’S STEAM-BOAT.

The inventor, aware of the novelty of his proposal and of the readiness
of the public to ridicule novelties, deprecated rash censure of his project,
and only claimed for it a fair and unprejudiced trial. In order to exhibit the
powers of his steam-boat, he constructed an engine in 1737, and had it fixed
on board a little vessel for trial in the river Avon at Evesham. The trial was
not satisfactory, and the engine was taken on shore again. “A failure! A
failure!” cried the spectators, who stigmatised the projector as an ass. The
prophet had, indeed, no honour whatever in his own country. Long after his
steam-boat experiment had been forgotten, these lines about him were
remembered:—

“Jonathan Hull,
With his paper skull,
Tried hard to make a machine
That should go against wind and tide:
But he, like an ass,
Couldn’t bring it to pass,
So at last was ashamed to be seen.”[49]

Not much more is known of Jonathan Hulls’s history. In 1754 he
published, in conjunction with two others, a treatise on ‘The Art of

Measuring made Easy, by the help of a new Sliding-rule;’ and shortly after
‘The Malt-maker’s Instructor;’ but nothing more was heard of Jonathan
Hulls’s steam-boat.
We return to the Newcomen engine, which became increasingly
employed as a pumping power in all the mining districts. Borlase, writing in
1758, says that “fire-engines” were then in regular use at North Downs near
Redruth, Pitt-louarn, Polgooth, Wheal-rith, Pool, Dolcoath, Herland, and
many other places.[50] Indeed there was scarcely a tin or copper mine of any
importance in Cornwall that had not one or more of Newcomen’s engines at
work. They were also in general use in Staffordshire, Yorkshire, Lancashire,
and Northumberland. In the latter counties, where they were principally
used for pumping water out of the coal mines, fuel was ready at hand, cheap
and abundant. But in Cornwall it was otherwise. The coal had to be brought
thither from a great distance, partly by sea and partly by land, and the cost
of carriage was very heavy. It, therefore, became an object of much
importance to reduce the consumption of fuel, to prevent the profits of the
mines being absorbed by the heavy cost of working the pumps. This,
indeed, was the great objection to Newcomen’s engine, especially in
Cornwall. The consumption of fuel at some mines was so enormous, that it
was doubtful whether the cost of steam did not exceed that of an equal
amount of horse power, and it became more and more difficult to realise
even a bare margin of profit. The two engines at Wheal Rose and Wheal
Busy, near Chacewater, of 66 and 72 inches diameter, consumed each about
thirteen tons of coal daily. To relieve the mining interest, in some measure,
from this charge, government allowed a drawback of five shillings a
chaldron on coal; but in some cases this was found insufficient, and it began
to be complained that the consumption of coal was so great, that the mines
were barely paying.
Invention, however, was constantly at work, and new improvements
were from time to time introduced, with the object of economising fuel and
increasing the efficiency of the engine. Among the ingenious men who
devoted themselves to this work, were Payne, Brindley, and Smeaton. Of
these, the last especially distinguished himself by his improvements of the
Newcomen engine, which he may be said to have carried to the highest
perfection of which it was capable. His famous Chacewater engine was the
finest and most powerful work of the kind which had until then been

constructed, and it remained unrivalled until superseded by the invention of
Watt, to whose life and labours we now proceed to direct the attention of
the reader.

DARTMOUTH, FROM THE HARBOUR.
[By R. P. Leitch.]

JAMES WATT:
HIS BOYHOOD AND EARLY LIFE:
MECHANICAL INSTRUMENT MAKER,
SURVEYOR, AND INVENTOR.

GREENOCK AND THE CLYDE, 1865.
[By R. P. Leitch, after a sketch by J. S. Smiles.]

GREENOCK HARBOUR, 1768.
[Fac-simile of an old print.]

CHAPTER V.
James Watt—Lineage and Birthplace—Boyhood and
Apprenticeship.

James Watt was born at Greenock, on the Clyde, on the 19th of January,
1736. His parents were of the middle class, industrious, intelligent, and
religious people, with a character for probity which had descended to them
from their “forbears,” and was cherished as their proudest inheritance.
James Watt was thus emphatically well-born. His father and grandfather
both held local offices of trust, and honourable mention is made of them in
the records of Greenock. His grandfather, Thomas Watt, was the first of the
family who lived in that neighbourhood. He had migrated thither from the
county of Aberdeen, where his father was a small farmer in the time of
Charles I. It is supposed that he took part with the Covenanters in resisting
the Marquis of Montrose in his sudden descent upon Aberdeen at the head
of his wild Highlanders in the autumn of 1644; and that the Covenanting

farmer was killed in one of the battles that ensued. The district was ravaged
by the victorious Royalists; the crops were destroyed, cattle lifted,
dwellings burnt; and many of the inhabitants fled southwards for refuge in
more peaceful districts. Hence Thomas Watt’s migration to Cartsdyke,
where we find him settled as a teacher of navigation and mathematics,
about the middle of the seventeenth century.

CRAWFORDSBURN HOUSE, NEAR
GREENOCK.

Cartsdyke, or Crawfordsdyke, was then a village situated a little to the
east of Greenock, though now forming part of it. Crawfordsburn House,
still standing, was the residence of the lord of the manor, and is a good
specimen of the old-fashioned country mansion. It is beautifully situated on
the high ground overlooking the Clyde. In former times a green slope
stretched down from it towards the beach, along which lay the village,
consisting of about a hundred cottages, mostly thatched. Cartsdyke was,
however, in early times, a place of greater importance than Greenock. It had
a pier, which Greenock as yet had not; and from this pier the first Clyde
ship which crossed the Atlantic sailed for Darien in 1697. What little
enterprise existed in the neighbourhood was identified with Cartsdyke
rather than with Greenock; and hence Thomas Watt’s preference for it, in
setting up there as a teacher. He, too, like his sire, seems to have been a
sturdy Covenanter; for we find him, in 1683, refusing to take the test in

favour of prelacy, and he was consequently proclaimed to be a “disorderly
schoolmaster officiating contrary to law.” He nevertheless continued the
teaching of the mathematics, in which he seems to have prospered, as,
besides marrying a wife, he shortly after bought the house and garden
which he occupied, and subsequently added to his possessions a tenement
in the neighbouring village of Greenock.
From the nature of his calling, it is obvious that he must have been a
thoughtful and intelligent person;[51] and that he was a man of excellent
character is clear from the confidence he inspired in those who had the best
opportunities of knowing him. When William and Mary were confirmed in
their occupancy of the British throne, shortly after the Revolution of 1688,
one of the first acts of Mr. Crawford, of Crawfordsburn, the feudal superior,
was to appoint Thomas Watt baillie of the barony—a position of local
importance, involving the direction of public affairs within the limits of his
jurisdiction.
A few years later, the Kirk Session of Greenock, having found him
“blameless in life and conversation,” appointed him an Elder of the parish,
when it became part of his duty to overlook not only the religious
observances, but the manners and morals, of the little community. Kirk
Sessions did not then confine themselves to ecclesiastical affairs, but
assumed the function of magistrates, and almost exercised the powers of an
inquisition. One of their most important duties was to provide for the
education of the rising generation, in pursuance of the injunction of John
Knox, “that no father, of what estate or condition that ever he may be, use
his children at his own fantasie, especially in their youthhead; but all must
be compelled to bring up their children in learning and virtue,”—words
which lie at the root of much of Scotland’s mental culture, as well as,
probably, of its material prosperity. In 1696 the Act was passed by the
Scotch Parliament which is usually regarded as the charter of the Scotch
parish-school system; and in the following year the Kirk Session of
Greenock proceeded to make provision for the establishment of their parish
school, which continued until the Town Council superseded it by the
Grammar School, at which James Watt, the future engineer, received the
best part of his school education.

After holding the offices of Presbytery Elder and Kirk Treasurer for
some time, Thomas Watt craved leave to retire into private life. He was
seventy years old, and felt infirmities growing upon him. The plea was
acknowledged, and the request granted; and on his retirement from office
the Kirk Session recorded on their minutes that Thomas Watt had been
found “diligent and faithful in the management of his trust.” He died at the
age of 92, and was buried in the old kirkyard of Greenock, where his
tombstone is still to be seen. He is there described as “Professor of
Mathematics in Crawfordsdyk.” Not far from his grave lie, “mouldering in
silent dust,” the remains of Burns’s Highland Mary, who died while on a
visit to a relative at Greenock.
Two sons survived the “Professor,” John and James, who were well
settled in life when the old man died. John, the elder, was trained by his
father in mathematics and surveying; for some time officiating under him as
clerk to the barony of Cartsdyke, and afterwards removing to Glasgow,
where he began business on his own account. In the year that his father died
(1734) he made the first survey of the river Clyde; but he died shortly after,
and the map was published by his nephew. James, the engineer’s father, was
bound apprentice to a carpenter and shipwright at Cartsdyke, and on the
expiry of his term he set up business for himself in the same line at
Greenock.
About the beginning of the last century, Greenock, now one of the
busiest ports in the kingdom, was but a little fishing-village, consisting of a
single row of thatched cottages lying parallel with the sandy beach of the
Frith of Clyde, in what was then known as “Sir John’s little bay.” Sir John
Shaw was the superior, or lord of the manor, his mansion standing on a
height overlooking the town,[52] and commanding an extensive view of the
Clyde, from Roseneath to Dumbarton. Across the water lay the beautiful
north shore, broken by the long narrow sea-lochs running far away among
the Argyleshire hills. Their waters, now plashed by the paddles of
innumerable Clyde steamers, were then only disturbed by the passing of an
occasional Highland coble; whilst their shores, now fringed with villages,
villas, and mansions, were as lonely as Glencoe.
Greenock was in a great measure isolated from other towns by
impassable roads. The only route to Greenock, on the west, lay along the

beach, and when strong winds raised a high tide the communication was
entirely cut off. Greenock was separated from Cartsdyke, on the east, by the
Ling Burn, which was crossed by a plank, afterwards supplanted by an old
ship’s rudder; and it was about the middle of the century before a bridge
was built across the stream. The other provisions of the place for public
service and convenience were of a like rude and primitive character: thus,
Greenock could not boast of a public clock until about the middle of the last
century, when a town clock was mounted in a wooden steeple. Till then, a
dial, still standing, marked the hours when the sun shone, and a bell hung
upon a triangle summoned the people to kirk and market. Besides the kirk,
however, there was another public building—the Black Hole, or prison,
which, like the other houses in the place, was covered with thatch. Before
the prison were placed the “jougs,” as a terror to evil-doers, as well as a few
old pieces of cannon, taken from one of the ships of the Spanish Armada
wrecked near Pencores Castle. The Black Hole, the jougs, and the cannon
were thought necessary precautions against the occasional visits to which
the place was subject from the hungry Highlandmen on the opposite shores
of the firth.[53]
The prosperity of Greenock dates from the year 1707, shortly after the
Union with England. The British Parliament then granted what the Scottish
Parliament had refused—the privilege of constructing a harbour. Before that
time there was no pier,—only a rude landing-stage which Sir John Shaw
had provided for his barge in the “Little Bay;” but the fishermen’s boats and
other small craft frequenting the place were beached in the usual primitive
way. Vessels of burden requiring to load or unload their cargoes did so at
the pier at Cartsdyke above referred to. When the necessary powers were
granted to make a harbour at Greenock, the inhabitants proceeded to tax
themselves to provide the necessary means, paying a shilling and fourpence
for every sack of malt brewed into ale within the barony; ale, not whisky,
being then the popular drink of Scotland. The devotion of the townspeople
to their “yill caups” must have been considerable, as the harbour was
finished and opened in 1710, and in thirty years the principal debt was paid
off.
In course of time Greenock was made a custom-house port, and its
trade rapidly increased. The first solitary vessel, freighted with Glasgow
merchandise for the American colonies, sailed from the new harbour in

1719; and now the custom-house dues collected there amount to more than
six times the whole revenue of Scotland in the time of the Stuarts.
Here James Watt, son of the Cartsdyke teacher of mathematics, and
father of the engineer, began business about the year 1730. His occupation
was of a very miscellaneous character, and embraced most branches of
carpentry. He was a housewright, shipwright, carpenter, and undertaker, as
well as a builder and contractor, having in the course of his life enlarged the
western front of Sir John Shaw’s mansion-house, and designed and built the
Town-hall and Council-chambers. To these various occupations Mr. Watt
added that of a general merchant. He supplied the ships frequenting the port
with articles of merchandise as well as with ships’ stores. He also engaged
in foreign mercantile ventures, and held shares in several ships.
Three months after the death of his father, to a share of whose property
he succeeded, Mr. Watt purchased a house on the Mid-Quay Head, at the
lower end of William-street, with a piece of ground belonging to it, which
extended to the beach. On this piece of ground stood Watt’s carpenter’s
shop, in which a great deal of miscellaneous work was executed—
household furniture and ships’ fittings, chairs, tables, coffins, and capstans,
as well as the ordinary sorts of joinery; while from his stores he was ready
to supply blocks, pumps, gun-carriages, dead-eyes, and other articles used
on board ship. He was ready to “touch” ships’ compasses, and to adjust and
repair nautical instruments generally; while on an emergency he could make
a crane for harbour uses—the first in Greenock having been executed in his
shops, and erected on the pier for the convenience of the Virginia tobacco-
ships beginning to frequent the harbour. These multifarious occupations
were necessitated by the smallness of the place, the business of a single
calling being as yet too limited to yield a competency to an enterprising
man, or sufficient scope for his powers.
Being a person of substance and respectability, Mr. Watt was elected
by his fellow townsmen to fill various public offices, such as trustee for the
burgh fund, town councillor, treasurer, and afterwards baillie or chief
magistrate. He also added to his comfort as well as to his dignity by
marrying a wife of character, Agnes Muirhead, a woman esteemed by her
neighbours for her graces of person, as well as of mind and heart. She is
said to have been not less distinguished for her sound sense and good

manners than for her cheerful temper and excellent housewifery.[54] Such
was the mother of James Watt. Three of her five children died in childhood;
John, her fifth son, perished at sea when on a voyage to America in one of
his father’s ships; and James, the fourth of the family, remained her only
surviving child. He was born in the house which stood at the corner
between the present Dalrymple-street and William-street, since taken down
and replaced by the building now known as the “James Watt Tavern.”

JAMES WATT TAVERN, GREENOCK.
[By R. P. Leitch.]

From his earliest years James Watt was of an extremely fragile
constitution, requiring the tenderest nurture. Struggling as it were for life all
through his childhood, he acquired an almost feminine delicacy and
sensitiveness, which made him shrink from the rough play of robust
children; and hence, during his early years, his education was entirely
conducted at home. His mother taught him reading, and his father a little
writing and arithmetic. His mother, to amuse him, encouraged him to draw
with a pencil on paper, or with chalk upon the floor; and his father supplied
him with a few tools from the carpenter’s shop, which he soon learnt to
handle with expertness. In such occupations he found the best resource
against ennui. He took his toys to pieces, and out of the parts ingeniously
constructed new ones. The mechanical dexterity which he thus cultivated

even as a child was probably in a great measure the foundation upon which
he built the speculations to which he owes his glory; nor, without his early
mechanical training, is there reason to believe that he would afterwards
become the improver and almost the creator of the steam-engine.
The invalid thus passed his early years almost entirely in the society of
his mother, whose gentle nature, strong good sense, and unobtrusive piety,
exercised a most beneficial influence in the formation of his character. Nor
were his parents without their reward; for as the boy grew up to manhood
he repaid their anxious care with obedience, respect, and affection. Mrs.
Watt was in after life accustomed to say that the loss of her only daughter,
which she had felt so severely, had been fully made up to her by the dutiful
attentions of her son.
Spending his life indoors, without exercise, his nervous system became
preternaturally sensitive. He was subject to violent sick headaches, which
confined him to his room for weeks together; and it almost seems a marvel
that, under such circumstances, he should have survived his boyhood. It is
in such cases as his that indications of precocity are generally observed; and
parents would be less gratified at their display if they knew that they are
usually the symptoms of disease. Several remarkable instances of this
precocity are related of Watt. On one occasion, when he was bending over
the hearth with a piece of chalk in his hand, a friend of his father said, “You
ought to send that boy to a public school, and not allow him to trifle away
his time at home.” “Look how my child is occupied,” said the father,
“before you condemn him.” Though only six years old, it is said he was
found trying to solve a problem in geometry.
On another occasion he was reproved by Mrs. Muirhead, his aunt, for
his indolence at the tea-table. “James Watt,” said the worthy lady, “I never
saw such an idle boy as you are: take a book or employ yourself usefully;
for the last hour you have not spoken one word, but taken off the lid of that
kettle and put it on again, holding now a cup and now a silver spoon over
the steam, watching how it rises from the spout, catching and counting the
drops it falls into.” In the view of M. Arago, the little James before the tea-
kettle becomes “the great engineer, preparing the discoveries which were
soon to immortalize him.” In our opinion the judgment of the aunt was the
truest. There is no reason to suppose that the mind of the boy was occupied

with philosophical theories on the condensation of steam, which he
compassed with so much difficulty in his maturer years. This is more
probably an afterthought borrowed from his subsequent discoveries.
Nothing is commoner than for children to be amused with such phenomena,
in the same way that they will form air-bubbles in a cup of tea, and watch
them sailing over the surface till they burst. The probability is that little
James was quite as idle as he seemed.
When he was at length sent to Mr. M‘Adam’s commercial school, the
change caused him many trials and much suffering. He found himself
completely out of place in the midst of the boisterous juvenile republic.
Against the tyranny of the elders he was helpless; their wild play was most
distasteful to him; he could not join in their sports, nor roam with them
along the beach, nor shy stones into the water, nor take part in their
hazardous exploits in the harbour. Accordingly they showered upon him
contemptuous epithets; and the school being composed of both sexes, the
girls joined in the laugh. He shone as little in the class as in the playground.
He did not possess that parrot power of learning and confidence in self
necessary to achieve distinction at school; and he was even considered dull
and backward for his age.[55] His want of progress may, however, in some
measure be accounted for by his almost continual ailments, which
sometimes kept him for weeks together at home. It was not until he reached
the age of about thirteen or fourteen, when he was put into the mathematical
class, that his powers appeared to develop themselves, and from that time
he made rapid progress.
When not quite fourteen, he was taken by his mother for change of air
to Glasgow, then a quiet place without a single long chimney, somewhat
resembling a rural market-town of the present day. He was left in charge of
a relation, and his mother returned to Greenock. But he proved so wakeful
during the visit, and so disposed to indulge in that habit of storytelling,
which even Sir Walter Scott could afterwards admire in him, that Mr. Watt
was very soon written to by his friend, and entreated to return to Glasgow
and take home his son. “I cannot stand the excitement he keeps me in,” said
Mrs. Campbell; “I am worn out for want of sleep. Every evening, before
retiring to rest, he contrives to engage me in conversation, then begins some
striking tale, and whether humorous or pathetic, the interest is so
overpowering, that the family all listen to him with breathless attention, and

hour after hour strikes unheeded.” He was taken back to Greenock
accordingly, and, when well enough, was sent to the Grammar School of the
town, then kept by Mr. Robert Arrol. Under him, Watt made fair progress in
the rudiments of Latin and Greek; but he was still more successful in the
study of mathematics, which he prosecuted under Mr. John Marr. It was
only when he entered on this branch of learning that he discovered his
strength, and he very soon took the lead in his class.
When at home the boy continued to spend much of his time in
drawing, or in cutting or carving with his penknife, or in watching the
carpenters at work in his father’s shop, sometimes trying his own hand at
making little articles with the tools which lay about. In this he displayed a
degree of dexterity which seemed so remarkable that the journeymen were
accustomed to say of him that “little Jamie had gotten a fortune at his
fingers’ ends.” Even when he had grown old he would recall to mind the
pleasure as well as the profit which he had derived from working in his
shirt-sleeves in his father’s shop. He was, in fact, educating himself in the
most effectual manner in his own way; learning to use his hands
dexterously; familiarising himself with the art of handling tools; and
acquiring a degree of expertness in working with them in wood and metal,
which eventually proved of the greatest value to him. At the same time he
was training himself in habits of application, industry, and invention. Most
of his spare time was thus devoted to mechanical adaptations of his own
contrivance. A small forge was erected for him, and a bench fitted up for his
special use; and there he constructed many ingenious little objects, such as
miniature cranes, pulleys, pumps, and capstans. Out of a large silver coin he
fabricated a punch-ladle, which is still preserved. But the kind of work
which most attracted him was the repairing of ships’ compasses, quadrants,
and nautical instruments, in executing which he exhibited so much
neatness, dexterity, and accuracy, that it eventually led to his selection of
the business he determined to follow,—that of a mathematical instrument
maker.
The boy at the same time prosecuted his education at school; his
improving health enabling him to derive more advantage from the
instructions of his masters than in the earlier part of his career. Not the least
influential part of his training, as regarded the formation of his character,
consisted, as already observed, in the example and conversation of his

parents at home. His frequent illnesses brought him more directly and
continuously under their influence than is the case with most boys of his
age; and reading became one of his chief sources of recreation and
enjoyment. His fathers library-shelf contained well-thumbed volumes of
Boston, Bunyan, and ‘The Cloud of Witnesses,’ with Henry the Rymer’s
‘Life of Wallace,’ and other old ballads, tattered by frequent use. These he
devoured greedily, and re-read until he had most of them by heart. His
father would also recount to him the sufferings of the Covenanters,—the
moors and mosses which lay towards the south of Greenock having been
among their retreats during the times of the persecution. Then there were
the local and traditionary stories of the neighbourhood,—such as the
exploits of the Greenock men under Sir John Shaw, at Worcester, in 1651,[56]
—together with much of that unwritten history, heard only around firesides,
which kindles the Scotchman’s nationality, and influences his future life.
We may here mention, in passing, that one of the most vividly-
remembered incidents of James Watt’s boyhood was the Stuart rebellion of
the “Forty-five,” which occurred when he was about ten years old. Watt
himself is so intimately identified with the material progress of the
nineteenth century, that it strikes one almost with surprise that he should
have been a spectator, in however remote a degree, of incidents belonging
to an altogether different age. The Stuart Rebellion may be said to have
been the end of one epoch and the beginning of another; for certain it is that
the progress of Scotland as an integral part of the British empire, and the
growth of its skilled industry—which the inventions of Watt did so much to
develop—appeared as if to spring from the very ashes of the rebellion. Like
other lowland towns, Greenock was greatly alarmed at the startling news
from the Highlands of the threatened descent of the clans. Sir John Shaw
had the trades mustered for drill on the green in front of his mansion, and
held them in readiness for defence of the town, in case of attack. Greenock
was otherwise secure, being protected against the Highlands by the Clyde;
besides, the western clans were either neutral or adhered to the house of
Hanover. The Pretender with his followers passed southward by Stirling,
and only approached Greenock on their return from England,—a half-
starved and ill-clad, though still unbroken army. They halted at Glasgow,
where they levied a heavy contribution on the inhabitants, and sent out
roving parties to try their fortunes in the neighbouring towns. A small

detachment one day approached Greenock, and came as near as the Clune
Brae; but the townspeople were afoot, and on guard; signal was given to the
ships of war moored near the old battery, and a few well-directed shots
speedily sent the Highlanders to the right-about. The alarm was over for the
present; but it was renewed in the following year, when the rumour reached
Edinburgh that Prince Charles, hunted from the Highlands, had landed at
Greenock, and lay concealed there. The consequence was that a strict search
was made throughout the town, and Mr. Watt’s premises were searched like
the others; but the Pretender had contrived to escape in another direction.
Such was one of the most memorable incidents in the boy-life of James
Watt, so strangely in contrast with the later events of his industrial career.
During holiday times, the boy sometimes indulged in rambles along
the Clyde, occasionally crossing to the north shore, and strolling up the
Gare Loch and Holy Loch, and even as far as Ben Lomond. He was of a
solitary disposition, and loved to wander by himself at night amidst the
wooded pleasure-grounds which surrounded the old mansion-house
overlooking the town, watching through the trees the mysterious
movements of the stars. He became fascinated by the wonders of
astronomy, and was stimulated to inquire into the science by the
examination of the nautical instruments which he found amongst his
father’s shop-stores. For it was a peculiarity which characterised him
through life, that he could not look upon any instrument or machine without
being seized with a desire to understand its meaning, to unravel its mystery,
and master the rationale of its uses. Before he was fifteen he had twice gone
through with great attention S’Gravande’s ‘Elements of Natural
Philosophy,’ a book belonging to his father. He performed many little
experiments in chemistry, and even contrived to make an electrical
machine, much to the marvel of those who felt its shocks. Like most
invalids, he read eagerly such books on medicine and surgery as came in his
way. He went so far as to practise dissection; and on one occasion he was
found carrying off for this purpose the head of a child who had died of
some uncommon disease. “He told his son,” says Mr. Muirhead, “that, had
he been able to bear the sight of the sufferings of patients, he would have
been a surgeon.”
In his solitary rambles, his love of wild-flowers and plants lured him
on to the study of botany. Ever observant of the aspects of nature, the

violent upheavings of the mountain-ranges on the north shores of Loch
Lomond directed his attention to geology. He was a great devourer of
books; reading all that came in his way. On a friend once advising him to be
less indiscriminate in his reading, he replied, “I have never yet read a book
without gaining information, instruction, or amusement.” This was no
answer to the admonition of his friend, who merely recommended him to
bestow upon the best books the time he devoted to the worse. But the
appetite for knowledge in inquisitive minds is, during youth, when curiosity
is fresh and unslacked, too insatiable to be fastidious, and the volume which
gets the preference is usually the first which comes in the way.
Watt was not, however, a mere bookworm. In his solitary walks
through the country he would enter the cottages of the peasantry, gather
their local traditions, and impart to them information of a similar kind from
his own ample stores. Fishing, which suited his tranquil nature, was his
single sport. When unable to ramble for the purpose, he could still indulge
the pursuit from his father’s yard, which was open to the sea, and the water
of sufficient depth at high-tide to enable vessels of fifty or sixty tons to lie
alongside.
But James Watt had now arrived at a suitable age to learn a trade; and
his rambles must come to a close. His father had originally intended him to
follow his own business; but having sustained some heavy losses about this
time—one of his ships having foundered at sea,—and observing the strong
bias of his son towards manipulative science and exact mechanics, he at
length decided to send him to Glasgow, in the year 1754, when he was
eighteen years old, to learn the trade of a mathematical instrument maker.

CHAPTER VI.
James Watt, Mathematical Instrument Maker.

When James Watt, a youth of eighteen, went to Glasgow in 1754 to learn
his trade, the place was very different from the Glasgow of to-day. Not a
steam-engine was then at work in the town; not a steam-boat disturbed the

quiet of the Clyde. There was a rough quay along the Broomielaw, then, as
the name implies, partly covered with broom. The quay was furnished with
a solitary crane, for which there was very little use, as the river was full of
sandbanks, and boats and gabberts of only six tons burden and under could
then ascend the Clyde.[57] Often for weeks together not a single masted
vessel was to be seen in the river. The principal buildings in the town were
the Cathedral and the University. The west port, now in the centre of
Glasgow, was then a real barrier between the town and the country. The
ground on which Enoch-square stands consisted chiefly of gardens. A thick
wood occupied the site of the present Custom-house and of that part of
Glasgow situated behind West Clyde-street. Blythswood was grazing-
ground. Not a house had yet been erected in Hutchinson-town, Laurieston,
Tradeston, or Bridgeton. The land between Jamaica-street on the east, and
Stobcross on the west, and south from Anderston-road to the river, now the
most densely populated parts of Glasgow, consisted of fields and cabbage-
gardens. The town had but two main streets, which intersected each other at
the Cross or Market-place, and the only paved part of them was known as
“The Plainstanes,” which extended for a few hundred yards in front of the
public offices and the Town-hall. The two main streets contained some
stately well-built houses—Flemish-looking tenements with crow-stepped
gables,—the lower stories standing on Doric columns, under which were
the principal booths or shops—small, low-roofed, and dismal. But the bulk
of the houses had only wooden fronts and thatched roofs, and were of a
very humble character. The traffic along the unpaved streets was so small,
that the carts were left standing in them at night. The town was as yet
innocent of police;[58] it contained no Irish immigrants, and very few
Highlanders. The latter then thought it beneath them to engage in any
pursuit connected with commerce; and Rob Roy’s contempt for the
wabsters of Glasgow, as described by Sir Walter Scott in the novel, was no
exaggeration. No Highland gentleman, however poor, would dream of
condemning his son to the drudgery of trade; and even the poorest Highland
cottar would shrink with loathing from the life of a weaver or a shopkeeper.
He would be a hunter, a fisher, a cattle-lifter, or a soldier; but trade he
would not touch—that he left to the Lowlanders.[59]

TRONGATE, GLASGOW.

The principal men of business in Glasgow at the time of which we
speak were the tobacco lords—importers of that article from the plantations
in Virginia,[60]—who were often to be seen strutting along the Plainstanes,
dressed in scarlet cloaks, cocked hats, and powdered wigs; the “boddies”
who kept the adjoining shops eying them over their half-closed doors, and
humbly watching for a nod of recognition from the mighty potentates. Yet
even the greatest of the tobacco lords only lived in flats, entering from a
common stair; and the domestic accommodation was so scanty and so
primitive, that visitors were of necessity received in the bedrooms. This
circumstance seems to have had some influence in the formation of the
Clubs,[61] which then formed a curious feature of society in most Scotch
towns. They consisted of knots of men of like tastes and pursuits, who met
in the evenings at public-houses for purposes of gossip and social drinking.
There they made new and cultivated old acquaintanceships, and exchanged
news with each other. The Club combined the uses of the newspaper and the
newsroom, which now accomplish the same objects without the drinking.
But Glasgow had then no newspaper; and a London news-sheet of a week

old was looked upon as a novelty. There was no coffee-room nor public
library in the town; no theatre[62] nor place of resort open, except the
“Change-house;” so that the Club was regarded as a social necessity. The
drinking was sometimes moderate, and sometimes “hard.” The better class
confined themselves to claret and other French wines, which were then
cheap, being free from duty. Those disposed to indulge in more frugal fare
confined themselves to oat-cake and small-beer. It was not until heavy taxes
were laid on foreign wines and malt that the hard whisky-drinking of
Scotland set in. Whisky was introduced from the Highlands shortly after the
“Forty-five;” and it soon became the popular drink. By 1780 the drinking of
raw whisky in Glasgow at midday had become general.[63]
When young Watt arrived in Glasgow he carried with him but a small
quantity of baggage; the articles in his trunk including amongst other things
a quadrant,—probably a specimen of his own handiwork,—a leather apron,
about a score of carpenters’ and other tools, and “a pair of bibels.” On
making inquiry for a proper master, under whom to learn the business of
mathematical instrument making, it was found that there was no such
person in Glasgow. There was, however, a mechanic in the town, who
dignified himself with the name of “optician,” under whom Watt was placed
for a time. He was a sort of Jack-of-all-trades, who sold and mended
spectacles, repaired fiddles, tuned spinets, made and repaired the simpler
instruments used in mechanical drawing, and eked out a slender living by
making and selling fishing-rods and fishing-tackle. Watt was as handy at
dressing trout and salmon flies as at most other things, and his master, no
doubt, found him useful enough; but there was nothing to be learnt in return
for his services. Though his master was an ingenious workman, in a small
way, and could turn his ready hand to anything, it soon became clear to
Watt’s relations, the Muirheads, with whom he lived during his stay, that the
instructions of such an artist were little likely to advance him in
mathematical instrument making. Among the gentlemen to whom Watt was
introduced by his relatives was Dr. Dick, Professor of Natural Philosophy in
Glasgow College, who strongly recommended him to proceed to London,
and there place himself under the instruction of some competent master.
Watt consulted his father on the subject, who readily gave his sanction to
the proposal; and, with a letter of introduction from Dr. Dick in his pocket,
he set out for the great city accordingly.

No stage-coach then ran between Glasgow and London; so it was
determined that young Watt should proceed on horseback, then the most
convenient and speedy mode of travelling. His chest was sent by sea. Old
Mr. Watt’s memorandum-book at Heathfield contains the following entry,
under date the 6th June, 1755:—

“To send James Watt’s chist to the care of Mr. William Oman, Ventener in Leith, to be
shypt for London to ye care of Captain William Watson, at the Hermitage, London.

“Pd. 3s. 6d. for wagon carage to Edenbrough of chist.
Pd. to son James 2l. 2s.
Pd. Plaster and Pomet, 1s. 4d.
Pd. 4 doz. pencels, 1s. 6d.”

The “plaster and pomet” may possibly have been provided in view of
the long journey on horseback and its contingencies. It was arranged that
the youth should travel in the company of a relative, Mr. Marr, a sea-
captain, who was on his way to join his ship, then lying in the Thames.
They set out on the 7th of June, travelling by way of Coldstream and
Newcastle, where they joined the great north road, then comparatively
practicable to the south of Durham. They reached London safely on the
19th, having been about a fortnight on the road.
Mr. Marr immediately proceeded to make inquiries for a mathematical
instrument maker with whom to place his young friend. But it was found
that a serious obstacle presented itself in the rules of the trade, which
prescribed that those employed must either be apprentices serving under a
seven years’ apprenticeship, or, if journeymen, that they should have served
for that term. Watt, however, had no intention of binding himself to serve
for so long a period, and he had no pretensions to rank as a journeyman. His
object was to learn the business in the shortest possible time, and then
return to Glasgow and set up for himself. The two went about from shop to
shop, but only met with rebuffs. “I have not yet got a master,” Watt wrote to
his father about a fortnight after his arrival; “we have tried several, but they
all made some objection or other. I find that, if any of them agree with me
at all, it will not be for less than a year; and even for that time they will be
expecting some money.”

Mr. Marr continued to exert himself on behalf of the youth. Anxious to
be employed in any way rather than not at all, Watt offered his services
gratuitously to a watchmaker named Neale, with whom Mr. Marr did
business, and he was allowed to occupy himself in his shop for a time,
cutting letters and figures in metal. At length a situation of a more
permanent character was obtained for him; and he entered the shop of Mr.
John Morgan, a respectable mathematical instrument maker in Cornhill, on
the terms of receiving a year’s instruction in return for a fee of twenty
guineas and the proceeds of his labour during that time. He soon proved
himself a ready learner and skilful workman. That division of labour, the
result of an extensive trade, which causes the best London carriages to be
superior to any of provincial construction, was even then applied to
mathematical instruments. “Very few here,” wrote Watt, “know any more
than how to make a rule, others a pair of dividers, and such like.” His first
employment was in making brass scales, rules, parallels, and the brass-work
of quadrants; and by the end of a month he was able to finish a Hadley’s
quadrant in better style than any apprentice in the shop. From rule and
quadrant making he proceeded to azimuth compasses, brass sectors,
theodolites, and the more delicate kinds of instruments. At the end of the
year he wrote home to his father that he had made “a brass sector with a
French joint, which is reckoned as nice a piece of framing-work as is in the
trade;” and he expressed the hope that he would soon be able to work for
himself, and earn his bread by his own industry.
Up to this time he had necessarily been maintained by his father, on
whom he drew from time to time. Mr. Watt’s memorandum-books show
that on the 27th of June he remitted him 10l.; on the 24th of August
following he enters: “Sent George Anderson by post 8l. to buy a bill of 7l.
or 8l. to send Wheytbread and Gifferd, and ballance of my son’s bill, 2l. 2s.
3d., for which ame to remite him more;” and on the 11th September
following, the balance was forwarded through the same channel. On the
24th October, 4l. 10s. was in like manner sent to George Anderson “on son
James’s second bill;” and on the 31st December, 10l. was remitted, “to be
put to the credit of son James’s last bill.” To relieve his father as much as
possible for the cost of his maintenance in London, Watt lived in a very
frugal style, avoiding all unnecessary expenses. His living cost him only
eight shillings a week; and he could not reduce it below that, he wrote to his

father, “without pinching his belly.” He also sought for some remunerative
work on his own account; and when he could obtain it he sat up at night to
execute it.
During Watt’s stay in London he was in a great measure prevented
from stirring abroad by the hot press for sailors which was then going on.
As many as forty pressgangs were at work, seizing all able-bodied men they
could lay hands on. In one night they took not fewer than a thousand men.
Nor were the kidnappers idle. These were the agents of the East India
Company, who had crimping-houses in different parts of the city for
receiving the men whom they had seized upon for service in the Indian
army. Even when the demand for soldiers abated, the kidnappers continued
their trade, and sold their unhappy victims to the planters in Pennsylvania
and other North American colonies. Sometimes severe fights took place
between the pressgangs and the kidnappers for possession of those who had
been seized, the law and police being apparently powerless to protect them.
“They now press anybody they can get,” Watt wrote in the spring of 1756,
“landsmen as well as seamen, except it be in the liberties of the city, where
they are obliged to carry them before the Lord Mayor first; and unless one
be either a prentice or a creditable tradesman, there is scarce any getting off
again. And if I was carried before my Lord Mayor, I durst not avow that I
wrought in the city, it being against their laws for any unfreeman to work
even as a journeyman within the liberties.”[64] What a curious glimpse does
this give us into the practice of man-hunting in London in the eighteenth
century!
Watt’s enforced confinement, together with his sedentary habits and
unremitting labour, soon told upon his weak frame. When he hurried to his
lodgings at night, his body was wearied, and his nerves exhausted, so that
his hands shook like those of an old man; yet he persevered with the extra
work which he imposed upon himself, in order to earn a little honest money
to help to pay for his living. His seat in Mr. Morgan’s shop being placed
close to the door, which was often opened and shut in the course of the day,
he caught a severe cold in the course of the winter; and he was afflicted by a
racking cough and severe rheumatic pains, from the effects of which he
long continued to suffer. Distressed by a gnawing pain in his back, and
greatly depressed in spirits, he at length, with his father’s sanction,
determined to return to Greenock, to seek for renewal of health in his native

air. His father made him a further remittance to enable him to purchase
some of the tools required for his trade, together with materials for making
others, and a copy of Bion’s work on the construction and use of
Mathematical Instruments. Having secured these, he set out on his return
journey for Scotland, and reached Greenock in safety in the autumn of
1756. There his health soon became sufficiently restored to enable him to
return to work; and with the concurrence and help of his father, he shortly
after proceeded to Glasgow, in his twentieth year, to begin business on his
own account.
In endeavouring to establish himself in his trade, Watt encountered the
same obstacle which in London had almost prevented his learning it.
Although there were no mathematical instrument makers in Glasgow, and it
must have been a public advantage to have so skilled a mechanic settled in
the place, Watt was opposed by the corporation of hammermen on the
ground that he was neither the son of a burgess nor had served an
apprenticeship within the borough.[65] Failing in his endeavours to open a
place of business, he next tried to prevail on the corporation to allow him to
make use of a small workshop wherein to make experiments; but this also
was peremptorily refused. The hammermen were doubtless acting in a very
narrow spirit, in thus excluding the young mechanic from the privileges of
citizenship; but such was the custom of the times,—those who were within
the favoured circles usually putting their shoulders together to exclude
those who were without. Watt had, however, already been employed by Dr.
Dick, Professor of Natural Philosophy, to repair some mathematical
instruments which had been bequeathed to the University by a gentleman in
the West Indies; and the professors, having an absolute authority within the
area occupied by the college buildings, determined to give him an asylum
there, and thus free him from the incubus of the guilds.

INNER QUADRANGLE, GLASGOW
COLLEGE.

In the heart of old Glasgow city, not far from the cathedral of St.
Mungo, which Knox with difficulty preserved from the fury of the Scotch
iconoclasts, stands the venerable University, a curiously black and sombre
building, more than 400 years old. Inside the entrance, on the right-hand
side, is a stone staircase, guarded by fabulous beasts in stone. The buildings
consist of several quadrangles; but there is not much regularity in their
design, each part seeming to stand towards the other parts, in a state of
independent crookedness and irregularity. There are turrets in the corners of
the quadrangles,—turrets with peaked tops, like witches’ caps. In the inner
quadrangle, entered from the left-hand side of the outer court, a workshop
was found for our mechanician, in which he was securely established by the
midsummer of 1757. The apartment appropriated to Watt by the professors
is still to be seen in nearly the same rude state in which he left it. It is
situated on the first floor of the range of building forming the north-west
side of the inner quadrangle, immediately under the gallery of the Natural
Philosophy class, with which it communicates. It is lighted by three
windows, two of which open into the quadrangle, and the third, at the back,
into the Professors’ court. There is a small closet in the corner of the room,
where some students have cut their names in the plaster,—date “1713.” The
access to the room used to be from the court by a spiral stone staircase; but
that entrance is now closed. The apartment is only about twenty feet square;

but it served Watt, as it has since served others, for high thinking and noble
working.[66]
In addition to his workshop under the Natural Philosophy class, a shop
for the sale of his instruments was also appropriated to Watt by the
Professors. It formed the ground-floor of the house situated next to the
Principal’s Gate, being part of the University Buildings, and was entered
directly from the pavement of the High Street. It has been described to us,
on the authority of Professor Fleming, as an old house, with a sort of arcade
in front, supported on pillars. In making some alterations in the building the
pillars were too much weakened, and the house, excepting the basement,
had to be taken down. The shop occupied by Watt is the little tenement
shown on the right hand of the following engraving; but the lower story of
the building has since been altered and repaired, and is now totally different
from what it was in Watt’s time.

ISOMETRIC VIEW OF GLASGOW
COLLEGE, 1693, FROM SLEYER’S
‘THEATRUM SCOTIÆ.’[67]

Though his wants were few, and he lived on humble fare, Watt found it
very difficult to earn a subsistence by his trade. His father sent him
remittances from time to time; but the old man had suffered serious losses
in his own business, and had become much less able to help his son with
money. After a year’s trial, Watt wrote to his father, that “unless it be the
Hadley’s instruments there is little to be got by it, as at most other jobs I am
obliged to do the most of them myself; and, as it is impossible for one
person to be expert at everything, they often cost me more time than they
should do.” Of the quadrants, he could make three in a week, with the help
of a lad; but the profit upon the three was not more than 40s. The customers
for these were very few in number, as seagoing ships with their captains
could not yet reach Glasgow.[68]
Failing sufficient customers for his instruments, Watt sent those which
he had made to Port Glasgow and Greenock, where his father helped him to
dispose of them. He also bethought him of taking a journey to Liverpool
and London, for the purpose of obtaining orders for instruments; though, for
some reason or other—most probably because he was averse to “pushing,”
and detested the chaffering of trade—his contemplated journey was not
undertaken. He therefore continued to execute only such orders as came to
him, so that his business remained very small. He began to fear that he must
give up the trade that would not keep him, and he wrote to his father: “If
this business does not succeed, I must fall into some other.” To eke out his
income, he took to map and chart selling, and, amongst other things, offered
for sale the Map of the River Clyde,[69] originally surveyed by his uncle
John.
It is well for the world at large that Watt’s maps and quadrants
remained on his hands unsold. The most untoward circumstances in life
have often the happiest results. It is not Fortune that is blind, but man. Had
his instrument-making business prospered, Watt might have become known
as a first-class maker of quadrants, but not as the inventor of the condensing
steam-engine. It was because his own special business failed that he was
driven to betake himself to other pursuits, and eventually to prosecute the
invention on which his fame mainly rests. At first he employed part of his
leisure in making chemical and other experiments; but as these yielded him
no returns in the shape of money, he was under the necessity of making
some sort of article that was in demand, and for which he could find

customers. Although he had no ear for music, and scarcely knew one note
from another, he followed the example of the old spectacle-maker, his first
master, in making fiddles, flutes, and guitars, which met with a readier sale
than his quadrants. These articles were what artists call “pot-boilers,” and
kept him in funds until a maintenance could be earned by higher-class
work. We are informed, through a lady at Glasgow, that her father bought a
flute from Watt, who said to him, in selling it: “Woe be to ye, Tam, if you’re
no guid luck; for this is the first I’ve sold!”
His friend Dr. Black, probably to furnish him with some profitable
employment, asked Watt to make a barrel-organ for him, which he at once
proceeded to construct. Watt was not the man to refuse work of any kind
requiring the exercise of constructive skill. He first carefully studied the
principles of harmony,—making science, in a measure, the substitute for
want of ear,[70] and took for his guide the profound but obscure work on
‘Harmonics,’ published by Dr. R. Smith of Cambridge. He next made a
model of the instrument; after which he constructed the organ, which, when
finished, was considered a great success. About the same time the office-
bearers of a Mason’s Lodge in Glasgow sent to ask him if he would
undertake to build for them a finger-organ. As he had successfully repaired
an instrument of the same kind, besides making the barrel-organ, he readily
accepted the order. Watt was always, as he said, dissatisfied with other
people’s work, as well as his own; and this habit of his mind made him
study to improve upon whatever came before him. Thus, in the process of
building this organ, he devised a number of novel expedients, such as a
sustained monochord, indicators and regulators of the strength of the blast,
means of tuning the instrument according to any system of temperament,
with sundry contrivances for improving the efficiency of the stops. The
qualities of the organ when finished are said to have elicited the surprise
and admiration of musicians.[71]
The leisure time which Watt did not occupy with miscellaneous work
of this sort, he spent in reading. He did not want for books, as the College
library was near at hand; and the professors as well as students were willing
to lend him from their stores. He was not afraid of solid, heavy, dry books,
provided he could learn something from them. All were alike welcome; and
one of his greatest pleasures was in devouring a novel, when it fell in his
way. He is even said to have occupied himself in writing tales and verses

when he had nothing else to do. As none of his attempts have been
preserved, we cannot offer an opinion upon them; but it is doubtful whether
Watt’s poetry and fiction would display the same originality and power of
invention as his steam-engine. The only youthful exercises of his which
have been preserved are anything but poetical. One of them, at Heathfield,
is a ‘Treatise on Practical Megethometry;’ and another is a ‘Compendium of
Definitions,’ in Latin, by Gerard de Vries, both written in a neat round hand.
Like most of the Glasgow citizens of that time, Watt occasionally
visited his club, where he cultivated the society of men of greater culture
and experience than himself.[72] As he afterwards observed to a friend, “Our
conversations then, besides the usual subjects with young men, turned
principally on literary topics, religion, morality, belles-lettres, &c.; and to
those conversations my mind owed its first bias towards such subjects, in
which they were all much my superiors, I never having attended a college,
and being then but a mechanic.”
There was another circumstance connected with his situation at this
time which must have been peculiarly agreeable to a young man of his
character, aspirations, and thirst for knowledge. His shop, being
conveniently situated within the College, was a favourite resort of the
professors and the students. They were attracted by the ingenious
instruments and models which the shop contained, and the pleasure always
felt in witnessing the proceedings of a skilful mechanic at his work, but
more particularly by the easy, unaffected, and original conversation of Watt
himself. Though a comparative youth, the professors were usually glad to
consult him on points of mechanical knowledge and practice; and the
acuteness of his observation, the accuracy of his knowledge, and the
readiness with which he communicated what he knew, soon rendered him a
general favourite. Among his most frequent visitors were Dr. Joseph Black,
the distinguished professor of chemistry, who there contracted a friendship
with Watt which lasted, uninterrupted, for a period of forty years, until the
Doctor’s death; Professor Simson, one of the most eminent men of his day,
whom Lord Brougham has described as the restorer of the science of
geometry; Dr. Dick, the Professor of Natural Philosophy; and Professor
Anderson.[73] Dr. Moor and Dr. Adam Smith were also frequent callers. But
of all Watt’s associates, none is more closely connected with his name and

history than John Robison, then a student at Glasgow College, and
afterwards Professor of Natural Philosophy at Edinburgh.
Robison was nearer Watt’s age than the rest, and stood in the intimate
relation to him of bosom friend, as well as fellow inquirer in science. He
was handsome and prepossessing in appearance, frank and lively, full of
fancy and humour, and a general favourite in the College. He was a capital
talker, an accomplished linguist, and a good musician; yet, with all his
versatility, he was a profound thinker and a diligent student, especially in
mathematical and mechanical science, as he afterwards proved in his
elaborate ‘System of Mechanical Philosophy,’ edited by Sir David Brewster,
and his many able contributions to the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica,’ of which
he was the designer and editor.
Robison’s introduction to Watt has been described by himself. After
feasting his eyes on the beautifully-finished instruments in his shop,
Robison entered into conversation with him. Expecting to find only a
workman, he was surprised to discover a philosopher. “I had the vanity,”
says Robison, “to think myself a pretty good proficient in my favourite
study (mathematical and mechanical philosophy), and was rather mortified
at finding Mr. Watt so much my superior. But his own high relish for these
things made him pleased with the chat of any person who had the same
tastes with himself; and his innate complaisance made him indulge my
curiosity, and even encourage my endeavours to form a more intimate
acquaintance with him. I lounged much about him, and, I doubt not, was
frequently teasing him. Thus our acquaintance began.”
In Watt’s workshop also, Robison first met Dr. Black, and there
initiated a friendship which ended only with death. “My first acquaintance
with him,” Robison afterwards wrote Watt, “began in your rooms when you
were rubbing up Macfarlane’s instruments. He used to come in, and,
standing with his back to us, amuse himself with Bird’s quadrant, whistling
softly to himself, in a manner that thrilled me to the heart.”
In 1757 Robison applied for the office of assistant to Dr. Dick,
Professor of Natural Philosophy, in the place of the son of that gentleman,
who had just died; but though he had already taken the degree of Master of
Arts, he was thought too young to hold so important an office, being only

about nineteen years old. His friends wished him to study for the church;
but, preferring some occupation in which his mechanical tastes might be
indulged, he turned his eyes to London. Furnished with letters from
Professor Dick and Dr. Simson, he obtained an introduction to Admiral
Knowles, who engaged him to take charge of his son’s instruction while at
sea. In that capacity he sailed from Spithead in 1759, with the fleet which
assisted the land forces in the taking of Quebec; he and his pupil being rated
as midshipmen in the Admiral’s ship. Robison was on duty in the boat
which carried Wolfe to the point where the army scaled the heights of
Montcalm the night before the battle; and as the sun was setting in the west,
the General, doubtless from an association of ideas suggested by the
dangers of the coming struggle, recited, in an under tone, Gray’s ‘Elegy on
a Country Churchyard;’ and when he had finished, said, “Now, gentlemen, I
would rather have been the author of that poem than take Quebec.”
When Robison returned from his voyagings in 1763, a travelled man,
—having had the advantage, during his absence, of acting as confidential
assistant of Admiral Knowles in his marine surveys and observations,—he
reckoned himself more than on a par with Watt; but he soon found that,
during the period of his absence from Glasgow, his friend had been even
busier than himself. When they entered into conversation, he found Watt
continually striking into new paths where he was obliged to be his follower.
The extent of the mathematical instrument maker’s investigations was no
less remarkable than the depth to which he had pursued them. Not only had
he mastered the principles of engineering, civil and military, but diverged
into studies in antiquity, natural history, languages, criticism, and art. Every
pursuit became science in his hands, and he made use of his subsidiary
knowledge for the purpose of helping him towards his favourite objects.
Before long, Watt became to be regarded as one of the ablest men
about college. “When to the superiority of knowledge in his own line,” said
Robison, “which every man confessed, there was joined the naïve
simplicity and candour of his character, it is no wonder that the attachment
of his acquaintances was so strong. I have seen something of the world,” he
continued, “and I am obliged to say that I never saw such another instance
of general and cordial attachment to a person whom all acknowledged to be
their superior. But this superiority was concealed under the most amiable
candour, and liberal allowance of merit to every man. Mr. Watt was the first

to ascribe to the ingenuity of a friend things which were very often nothing
but his own surmises followed out and embodied by another. I am well
entitled to say this, and have often experienced it in my own case.”
There are few traits in biography more charming than this generous
recognition of merit mutually attributed by the one friend to the other.
Arago, in quoting the words of Robison, has well observed that it is difficult
to determine whether the honour of having thus recorded them be not as
great as that of having inspired them.

THE BROOMIELAW IN 1760.

PROFESSOR ROBISON, Æt. 60.
[By T. D. Scott, after Raeburn.]

CHAPTER VII.
Watt’s Experiments on Steam—Invents the Separate
Condenser.

It was in the year 1759 that Robison first called the attention of his friend
Watt to the subject of the steam-engine. Robison was then only in his
twentieth, and Watt in his twenty-third year. Robison’s idea was that the
power of steam might be advantageously applied to the driving of wheel-
carriages, and he suggested that it would be the most convenient for the
purpose to place the cylinder with its open end downwards to avoid the
necessity of using a working beam. Watt admits that he was very ignorant
of the steam-engine at the time; nevertheless, he began making a model
with two cylinders of tinplate, intending that the pistons and their
connecting-rods should act alternately on two pinions attached to the axles
of the carriage-wheels. But the model, being slightly and inaccurately made,
did not answer his expectations. Other difficulties presented themselves,
and the scheme was laid aside on Robison leaving Glasgow to go to sea.
Indeed, mechanical science was not yet ripe for the locomotive. Robison’s
idea had, however, dropped silently into the mind of his friend, where it
grew from day to day, slowly and at length fruitfully.
At his intervals of leisure and in the quiet of his evenings, Watt
continued to prosecute his various studies. He was shortly attracted by the
science of chemistry, then in its infancy. Dr. Black was at that time occupied
with the investigations which led to his discovery of the theory of latent
heat, and it is probable that his familiar conversations with Watt on the
subject induced the latter to enter upon a series of experiments with the
view of giving the theory some practical direction. His attention again and
again reverted to the steam-engine, though he had not yet seen even a
model of one. Steam was as yet almost unknown in Scotland as a working
power. The first engine was erected at Elphinstone Colliery, in Stirlingshire,
about the year 1750; and the second more than ten years later, at Govan
Colliery, near Glasgow, where it was known by the startling name of “The
Firework.” This had not, however, been set up at the time Watt began to
inquire into the subject. But he found that the College possessed the model
of a Newcomen engine for the use of the Natural Philosophy class, which
had been sent to London for repair. On hearing of its existence, he
suggested to his friend Dr. Anderson, Professor of Natural Philosophy, the
propriety of getting back the model; and a sum of money was placed by the
Senatus at the Professor’s disposal “to recover the steam-engine from Mr.
Sisson, instrument maker, in London.”

In the mean time Watt sought to learn all that had been written on the
subject of the steam-engine. He ascertained from Desaguliers, from Switzer,
and other writers, what had been accomplished by Savery, Newcomen,
Beighton, and others: and he went on with his own independent
experiments. His first apparatus was of the simplest possible kind. He used
common apothecaries’ phials for his steam reservoirs, and canes hollowed
out for his steam pipes.[74] In 1761 he proceeded to experiment on the force
of steam by means of a small Papin’s digester and a syringe. The syringe
was only the third of an inch in diameter, fitted with a solid piston; and it
was connected with the digester by a pipe furnished with a stopcock, by
which the steam was admitted or shut off at will. It was also itself provided
with a stopcock, enabling a communication to be opened between the
syringe and the outer air to permit the steam in the syringe to escape. The
apparatus, though rude, enabled the experimenter to ascertain some
important facts. When the steam in the digester was raised and the cock
turned, enabling it to rush against the lower side of the piston, he found that
the expansive force of the steam raised a weight of fifteen pounds with
which the piston was loaded. Then, on turning the cock and shutting off the
connexion with the digester at the same time that a passage was opened to
the air, the steam was allowed to escape, when the weight upon the piston,
being no longer counteracted, immediately forced it to descend.

PAPIN’S
DIGESTER.

Watt saw that it would be easy to contrive that the cocks should be
turned by the machinery itself instead of by the hand, and the whole be
made to work by itself with perfect regularity. But there was an objection to
this method. Water is converted into vapour as soon as its elasticity is
sufficient to overcome the weight of the air which keeps it down. Under the
ordinary pressure of the atmosphere water acquires this necessary elasticity
at 212°; but as the steam in the digester was prevented from escaping, it
acquired increased heat, and by consequence increased elasticity. Hence it
was that the steam which issued from the digester was not only able to
support the piston and the air which pressed upon its upper surface, but the
additional load with which the piston was weighted. With the imperfect
mechanical construction, however, of those days, there was a risk lest the
boiler should be burst by the steam, which was apt to force its way through
the ill-made joints of the machine. This, conjoined with the great
expenditure of steam on the high-pressure system, led Watt to abandon the
plan; and the exigencies of his business for a time prevented him pursuing
his experiments. Watt’s own account of his early experiments will be found
appended as notes to Brewster’s edition of the articles ‘Steam and Steam-
engines,’ written by Dr. Robison for the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica,’ and
afterwards published in a separate form.

THE NEWCOMEN MODEL.

At length the Newcomen model arrived from London; and, in 1763,
the little engine, which was destined to become so famous, was put into the
hands of Watt. The boiler was somewhat smaller than an ordinary tea-kettle.
The cylinder of the engine was only of two inches diameter and six inches
stroke. Watt at first regarded it as merely “a fine plaything.” It was,
however, enough to set him upon a track of thinking which led to the most
important results. When he had repaired the model and set it to work, he
found that the boiler, though apparently large enough, could not supply
steam in sufficient quantity, and only a few strokes of the piston could be
obtained, when the engine stopped. The fire was urged by blowing, and
more steam was produced, but still it would not work properly. Exactly at
the point at which another man would have abandoned the task in despair,
the mind of Watt became thoroughly roused. “Everything,” says Professor
Robison, “was to him the beginning of a new and serious study; and I knew
that he would not quit it till he had either discovered its insignificance, or
had made something of it.” Thus it happened with the phenomena presented
by the model of the steam-engine. Watt referred to his books, and

endeavoured to ascertain from them by what means he might remedy the
defects which he found in the model; but they could tell him nothing. He
then proceeded with an independent course of experiments, resolved to
work out the problem for himself. In the course of his inquiries he came
upon a fact which, more than any other, led his mind into the train of
thought which at last conducted him to the invention of which the results
were destined to prove so stupendous. This fact was the existence of Latent
Heat.
In order to follow the track of investigation pursued by Watt, it is
necessary for a moment to revert to the action of the Newcomen pumping-
engine. A beam, moving upon a centre, had affixed to one end of it a chain
attached to the piston of the pump, and at the other a chain attached to a
piston that fitted into the steam cylinder. It was by driving this latter piston
up and down the cylinder that the pump was worked. To communicate the
necessary movement to the piston, the steam generated in a boiler was
admitted to the bottom of the cylinder, forcing out the air through a valve,
when its pressure on the under side of the piston counterbalanced the
pressure of the atmosphere on its upper side. The piston, thus placed
between two equal forces, was drawn up to the top of the cylinder by the
greater weight of the pump-gear at the opposite extremity of the beam. The
steam, so far, only discharged the office which was performed by the air it
displaced; but, if the air had been allowed to remain, the piston once at the
top of the cylinder could not have returned, being pressed as much by the
atmosphere underneath as by the atmosphere above it. The steam, on the
contrary, which was admitted by the exclusion of the air, could be
condensed, and a vacuum created, by injecting cold water through the
bottom of the cylinder. The piston being now unsupported, was forced
down by the pressure of the atmosphere on its upper surface. When the
piston reached the bottom, the steam was again let in, and the process was
repeated. Such was the engine in ordinary use for pumping water at the time
that Watt begun his investigations.
Among his other experiments, he constructed a boiler which showed
by inspection the quantity of water evaporated in any given time, and the
quantity of steam used in every stroke of the engine. He was astonished to
discover that a small quantity of water in the form of steam, heated a large
quantity of cold water injected into the cylinder for the purpose of cooling

it; and upon further examination he ascertained that steam heated six times
its weight of cold water to 212°, which was the temperature of the steam
itself. “Being struck with this remarkable fact,” says Watt, “and not
understanding the reason of it, I mentioned it to my friend Dr. Black, who
then explained to me his doctrine of latent heat, which he had taught for
some time before this period (the summer of 1764); but having myself been
occupied by the pursuits of business, if I had heard of it I had not attended
to it, when I thus stumbled upon one of the material facts by which that
beautiful theory is supported.”[75]
When Watt found that water, in its conversion into vapour, became
such a reservoir of heat, he was more than ever bent on economising it; for
the great waste of heat involving so heavy a consumption of fuel, was felt to
be the principal obstacle to the extended employment of steam as a motive
power. He accordingly endeavoured, with the same quantity of fuel, at once
to increase the production of steam, and to diminish its waste. He increased
the heating surface of the boiler, by making flues through it; he even made
his boiler of wood, as being a worse conductor of heat than the brickwork
which surrounds common furnaces; and he cased the cylinders and all the
conducting-pipes in materials which conducted heat very slowly. But none
of these contrivances were effectual; for it turned out that the chief
expenditure of steam, and consequently of fuel, in the Newcomen engine,
was occasioned by the reheating of the cylinder after the steam had been
condensed, and the cylinder was consequently cooled by the injection into it
of the cold water. Nearly four-fifths of the whole steam employed was
condensed on its first admission, before the surplus could act upon the
piston. Watt therefore came to the conclusion, that to make a perfect steam-
engine, it was necessary that the cylinder should be always as hot as the
steam that entered it; but it was equally necessary that the steam should be
condensed when the piston descended,—nay, that it should be cooled down
below 100°, or a considerable amount of vapour would be given off, which
would resist the descent of the piston, and diminish the power of the engine.
Thus the cylinder was never to be at a less temperature than 212°, and yet at
each descent of the piston it was to be less than 100°; conditions which, on
the very face of them, seemed to be wholly incompatible.
We revert for a moment to the progress of Watt’s instrument-making
business. The shop in the College was not found to answer, being too far

from the principal thoroughfares. If he wanted business he must go nearer
to the public, for it was evident that they would not come to him. But to
remove to a larger shop, in a more central quarter, involved an expenditure
of capital for which he was himself unequal. His father had helped him with
money as long as he could, but could do so no longer. Though he was as
much respected by his neighbours as ever, he had grown poor by his losses;
and, instead of giving help, himself needed it. Watt therefore looked about
him for a partner with means, and succeeded in finding one in a Mr. John
Craig, in conjunction with whom he opened a retail shop in the Salt-market,
nearly opposite St. Andrew’s Street, about the year 1760; removing from
thence to Buchanan’s Land, on the north side of the Trongate, a few years
later.[76] Watt’s partner was not a mechanic, but he supplied the requisite
capital, and attended to the books. The partnership was on the whole
successful, as we infer from the increased number of hands employed. At
first Watt could execute all his orders himself, and afterwards by the help of
a man and a boy; but by the end of 1764, the number of hands employed by
the firm had increased to sixteen.
His improving business brought with it an improving income, and Watt
—always a frugal and thrifty man—began to save a little money. He was
encouraged to economise by another circumstance—his intended marriage
with his cousin, Margaret Miller. In anticipation of this event, he had
removed from his rooms in the College to a house in Delftfield Lane—a
narrow passage then parallel with York Street, but now converted into the
spacious thoroughfare of Watt Street. Having furnished his house in a plain
yet comfortable style, he brought home his young wife, and installed her
there in July, 1764. The step was one of much importance to his personal
wellbeing. Mrs. Watt was of a lively, cheerful temperament; and as Watt
himself was of a meditative disposition, prone to melancholy, and a
frequent sufferer from nervous headache, her presence at his fireside could
not fail to have a beneficial influence upon his health and comfort.

WATT’S HOUSE, DELFTFIELD LANE.

Watt continued to pursue his studies as before. Though still occupied
with his inquiries and experiments as to steam, he did not neglect his proper
business, but was constantly on the look-out for improvements in
instrument making. A machine which he invented for drawing in
perspective proved a success; and he made a considerable number of them
to order, for customers in London as well as abroad. He was also an
indefatigable reader, and continued to extend his knowledge of chemistry
and mechanics by perusal of the best books on these sciences.
Above all other subjects, however, the improvement of the steam-
engine continued to keep the fastest hold upon his mind. He still brooded
over his experiments with the Newcomen model, but did not seem to make
much way in introducing any practical improvement in its mode of
working. His friend Robison says he struggled long to condense with
sufficient rapidity without injection, trying one expedient after another,
finding out what would do by what would not do, and exhibiting many
beautiful specimens of ingenuity and fertility of resource. He continued, to

use his own words, “to grope in the dark, misled by many an ignis fatuus.”
It was a favourite saying of his, that “Nature has a weak side, if we can only
find it out;” and he went on groping and feeling for it, but as yet in vain. At
length light burst upon him, and all at once the problem over which he had
been brooding was solved.
One Sunday afternoon, in the spring of 1765, he went to take an
afternoon walk on the Green, then a quiet, grassy meadow, used as a
bleaching and grazing-ground. On week-days the Glasgow lasses came
thither with their largest kail-pots, to boil their clothes in; and sturdy queans
might be seen, with coats kilted, tramping blankets in their tubs. On
Sundays the place was comparatively deserted, and hence Watt, who lived
close at hand, went there to take a quiet afternoon stroll. His thoughts were
as usual running on the subject of his unsatisfactory experiments with the
Newcomen engine, when the first idea of the separate condenser suddenly
flashed upon his mind. But the notable discovery is best told in his own
words, as related to Mr. Robert Hart, many years after:—
“I had gone to take a walk on a fine Sabbath afternoon. I had entered
the Green by the gate at the foot of Charlotte Street, and had passed the old
washing-house. I was thinking upon the engine at the time, and had gone as
far as the herd’s house, when the idea came into my mind that as steam was
an elastic body it would rush into a vacuum, and if a communication were
made between the cylinder and an exhausted vessel, it would rush into it,
and might be there condensed without cooling the cylinder. I then saw that I
must get rid of the condensed steam and injection-water if I used a jet, as in
Newcomen’s engine. Two ways of doing this occurred to me. First, the
water might be run off by a descending pipe, if an off-let could be got at the
depth of 35 or 36 feet, and any air might be extracted by a small pump. The
second was to make the pump large enough to extract both water and air.
He continued: I had not walked further than the Golf-house[77] when the
whole thing was arranged in my mind.”[78]
Great and prolific ideas are almost always simple. What seems
impossible at the outset appears so obvious when it is effected that we are
prone to marvel that it did not force itself at once upon the mind. Late in life
Watt, with his accustomed modesty, declared his belief that if he had
excelled, it had been “by chance and the neglect of others.” To Professor

Jardine he said “that when it was analysed the invention would not appear
so great as it seemed to be. In the state,” said he, “in which I found the
steam-engine, it was no great effort of mind to observe that the quantity of
fuel necessary to make it work would for ever prevent its extensive utility.
The next step in my progress was equally easy—to inquire what was the
cause of the great consumption of fuel: this, too, was readily suggested,
viz., the waste of fuel which was necessary to bring the whole cylinder,
piston, and adjacent parts from the coldness of water to the heat of steam,
no fewer than from fifteen to twenty times in a minute.” The question then
occurred, how was this to be avoided or remedied? It was at this stage that
the idea of carrying on the condensation in a separate vessel flashed upon
his mind, and solved the difficulty.[79]
Mankind has been more just to Watt than he was to himself. There was
no accident in the discovery. It had been the result of close and continuous
study; and the idea of the separate condenser was merely the last step of a
long journey—a step which could not have been taken unless the road
which led to it had been traversed. Dr. Black says, “This capital
improvement flashed upon his mind at once, and filled him with rapture;” a
statement which, spite of the unimpassioned nature of Watt, we can readily
believe.
On the morning following his Sunday afternoon’s walk on Glasgow
Green, Watt was up betimes making arrangements for a speedy trial of his
new plan. He borrowed from a college friend a large brass syringe, an inch
and a third in diameter, and ten inches long, of the kind used by anatomists
for injecting arteries with wax previous to dissection. The body of the
syringe served for a cylinder, the piston-rod passing through a collar of
leather in its cover. A pipe connected with the boiler was inserted at both
ends for the admission of steam, and at the upper end was another pipe to
convey the steam to the condenser. The axis of the stem of the piston was
drilled with a hole, fitted with a valve at its lower end, to permit the water
produced by the condensed steam on first filling the cylinder to escape. The
first condenser made use of was an improvised cistern of tinned plate,
provided with a pump to get rid of the water formed by the condensation of
the steam, both the condensing-pipes and the air-pump being placed in a
reservoir of cold water.

“The steam-pipe,” says Watt, “was adjusted to a small boiler. When steam was
produced, it was admitted into the cylinder, and soon issued through the perforation of the
rod, and at the valve of the condenser; when it was judged that the air was expelled, the
steam-cock was shut, and the air-pump piston-rod was drawn up, which leaving the small
pipes of the condenser in a state of vacuum, the steam entered them and was condensed.
The piston of the cylinder immediately rose and lifted a weight of about 18 lbs., which was
hung to the lower end of the piston-rod. The exhaustion-cock was shut, the steam was
readmitted into the cylinder, and the operation was repeated. The quantity of steam
consumed and the weights it could raise were observed, and, excepting the non-application
of the steam-case and external covering, the invention was complete, in so for as regarded
the savings of steam and fuel.”

WATT’S APPARATUS.

But, although the invention was complete in Watt’s mind, it took him
many long and laborious years to work out the details of the engine. His
friend Robison, with whom his intimacy was maintained during these
interesting experiments, has given a graphic account of the difficulties
which he successively encountered and overcame. He relates that on his
return from the country, after the College vacation in 1765, he went to have
a chat with Watt and communicate to him some observations he had made
on Desaguliers’ and Belidor’s account of the steam-engine. He went straight
into the parlour, without ceremony, and found Watt sitting before the fire
looking at a little tin cistern which he had on his knee. Robison immediately
started the conversation about steam, his mind, like Watt’s, being occupied
with the means of avoiding the excessive waste of heat in the Newcomen
engine. Watt, all the while, kept looking into the fire, and after a time laid

down the cistern at the foot of his chair, saying nothing. It seems that Watt
felt rather nettled at Robison having communicated to a mechanic of the
town a contrivance which he had hit upon for turning the cocks of his
engine. When Robison therefore pressed his inquiry, Watt at length looked
at him and said briskly, “You need not fash yourself any more about that,
man; I have now made an engine that shall not waste a particle of steam. It
shall all be boiling hot,—ay, and hot water injected, if I please.” He then
pushed the little tin cistern with his foot under the table.
Robison could learn no more of the new contrivance from Watt at that
time; but on the same evening he accidentally met a mutual acquaintance,
who, supposing he knew as usual the progress of Watt’s experiments,
observed to him, “Well, have you seen Jamie Watt?” “Yes.” “He’ll be in
fine spirits now with his engine?” “Yes,” said Robison, “very fine spirits.”
“Gad!” said the other, “the separate condenser’s the thing: keep it but cold
enough, and you may have a perfect vacuum, whatever be the heat of the
cylinder.” This was Watt’s secret, and the nature of the contrivance was
clear to Robison at once.

DR. JOSEPH BLACK.

It will be observed that Watt had not made a secret of it to his other
friends. Indeed Robison himself admitted that one of Watt’s greatest
delights was to communicate the results of his experiments to others, and
set them upon the same road to knowledge with himself; and that no one
could display less of the small jealousy of the tradesman than he did. To his
intimate friend, Dr. Black, he communicated the progress made by him at
every stage; and the Doctor kindly encouraged him in his struggles, cheered
him in his encounter with difficulty, and, what was of still more practical
value at the time, he helped him with money to enable him to prosecute his
invention. Communicative though Watt was disposed to be, he learnt
reticence when he found himself exposed to the depredations of the smaller
fry of inventors. Robison says that had he lived in Birmingham or London

at the time, the probability is that some one or other of the numerous
harpies who live by sucking other people’s brains, would have secured
patents for his more important inventions, and thereby deprived him of the
benefits of his skill, science, and labour. As yet, however, there were but
few mechanics in Glasgow capable of understanding or appreciating the
steam-engine; and the intimate friends to whom he freely spoke of his
discovery were too honourable-minded to take advantage of his confidence.
Shortly after, Watt fully communicated to Robison the different stages of
his invention, and the results at which he had arrived, much to the delight of
his friend.
It will be remembered that in the Newcomen engine the steam was
only employed for the purpose of producing a vacuum, and that its working
power was in the down stroke, which was effected by the pressure of the air
upon the piston; hence it is now usual to call it the atmospheric engine. Watt
perceived that the air which followed the piston down the cylinder would
cool the latter, and that steam would be wasted in re-heating it. In order,
therefore, to avoid this loss of heat, he resolved to put an air-tight cover
upon the cylinder, with a hole and stuffing-box for the piston-rod to slide
through, and to admit steam above the piston, to act upon it instead of the
atmosphere. When the steam had done its duty in driving down the piston, a
communication was opened between the upper and lower part of the
cylinder, and the same steam, distributing itself equally in both
compartments, sufficed to restore equilibrium. The piston was now drawn
up by the weight of the pump-gear; the steam beneath it was then
condensed in the separate vessel so as to produce a vacuum, and a fresh jet
of steam from the boiler was let in above the piston, which forced it again
to the bottom of the cylinder. From an atmospheric it had thus become a
true steam-engine, and with a much greater economy of steam than when
the air did half the duty. But it was not only important to keep the air from
flowing down the inside of the cylinder: the air which circulated within
cooled the metal and condensed a portion of the steam within; and this Watt
proposed to remedy by a second cylinder, surrounding the first with an
interval between the two which was to be kept full of steam.
One by one these various contrivances were struck out, modified,
settled, and reduced to definite plans; the separate condenser, the air and
water pumps, the use of fat and oil (instead of water as in the Newcomen

engine) to keep the piston working in the cylinder air-tight, and the
enclosing of the cylinder itself within another to prevent the loss of heat.
They were all but emanations from the first idea of inventing an engine
working by a piston, in which the cylinder should be kept continually hot
and perfectly dry. “When once,” says Watt, “the idea of separate
condensation was started, all these improvements followed as corollaries in
quick succession; so that in the course of one or two days the invention was
thus far complete in my mind.”
The next step was to construct a model engine for the purpose of
embodying the invention in a working form. With this object Watt hired an
old cellar, situated in the first wide entry to the north of the beef-market in
King Street, and there proceeded with his model. He found it much easier,
however, to prepare his plan than to execute it. Like most ingenious and
inventive men, Watt was extremely fastidious; and this occasioned
considerable delay in the execution of the work. His very inventiveness to
some extent proved a hinderance; for new expedients were perpetually
occurring to him, which he thought would be improvements, and which he,
by turns, endeavoured to introduce. Some of these expedients he admits
proved fruitless, and all of them occasioned delay. Another of his chief
difficulties was in finding competent workmen to execute his plans. He
himself had been accustomed only to small metal work, with comparatively
delicate tools, and had very little experience “in the practice of mechanics
in great,” as he termed it. He was therefore under the necessity of
depending, in a great measure, upon the handiwork of others. But
mechanics capable of working out Watt’s designs in metal were then with
difficulty to be found. The beautiful self-acting tools and workmanship
which have since been called into being, principally by his own invention,
did not then exist. The only available hands in Glasgow were the
blacksmiths and tinners, little capable of constructing articles out of their
ordinary walks; and even in these they were often found clumsy,
blundering, and incompetent. The result was, that in consequence of the
malconstruction of the larger parts, Watt’s first model was only partially
successful. The experiments made with it, however, served to verify the
expectations he had formed, and to place the advantages of the invention
beyond the reach of doubt. On the exhausting-cock being turned, the piston,
when loaded with 18 lbs., ascended as quick as the blow of a hammer; and

the moment the steam-cock was opened, it descended with like rapidity,
though the steam was weak, and the machine snifted at many openings.
Satisfied that he had laid hold of the right principle of a working
steam-engine, Watt felt impelled to follow it to an issue. He could give his
mind to no other business in peace until this was done. He wrote to a friend
that he was quite barren on every other subject. “My whole thoughts,” said
he, “are bent on this machine. I can think of nothing else.”[80] He proceeded
to make another and bigger, and, he hoped, a more satisfactory engine, in
the following August; and with that object he removed from the old cellar in
King-street to a larger apartment in the then disused pottery or delftwork
near the Broomielaw. There he shut himself up with his assistant, John
Gardiner, for the purpose of erecting his engine. The cylinder was five or
six inches in diameter, with a two-feet stroke. The inner cylinder was
enclosed in a wooden steam-case, and placed inverted, the piston working
through a hole in the bottom of the steam-case. After two months’
continuous application and labour it was finished and set to work; but it
leaked in all directions, and the piston was far from air-tight. The condenser
also was in a bad way, and needed many alterations. Nevertheless, the
engine readily worked with 10½ lbs. pressure on the inch, and the piston
lifted a weight of 14 lbs. The improvement of the cylinder and piston
continued Watt’s chief difficulty, and taxed his ingenuity to the utmost. At
so low an ebb was the art of making cylinders that the one he used was not
bored but hammered, the collective mechanical skill of Glasgow being then
unequal to the boring of a cylinder of the simplest kind; nor, indeed, did the
necessary appliances for the purpose then exist anywhere else. In the
Newcomen engine a little water was poured upon the upper surface of the
piston, and sufficiently filled up the interstices between the piston and the
cylinder. But when Watt employed steam to drive down the piston, he was
deprived of this resource, for the water and the steam could not coexist.
Even if he had retained the agency of the air above, the drip of water from
the crevices into the lower part of the cylinder would have been
incompatible with keeping the surface hot and dry, and, by turning into
vapour as it fell upon the heated metal, it would have impaired the vacuum
during the descent of the piston.
While he was occupied with this difficulty, and striving to overcome it
by the adoption of new expedients, such as leather collars and improved

workmanship, he wrote to a friend, “My old white-iron man is dead;” the
old white-iron man, or tinner, being his leading mechanic. Unhappily, also,
just as he seemed to have got the engine into working order, the beam
broke, and having great difficulty in replacing the damaged part, the
accident threatened, together with the loss of his best workman, to bring the
experiment to an end. But though discouraged by these misadventures, he
was far from defeated, but went on as before, battling down difficulty inch
by inch, and holding good the ground he had won, becoming every day
more strongly convinced that he was in the right track, and that the
important uses of the invention, could he but find time and means to perfect
it, were beyond the reach of doubt.
But how to find the means! Watt himself was a comparatively poor
man; having no money but what he earned by his business of mechanical
instrument making, which he had for some time been neglecting through his
devotion to the construction of his engine. What he wanted was capital, or
the help of a capitalist willing to advance him the necessary funds to perfect
his invention. To give a fair trial to the new apparatus would involve an
expenditure of several thousand pounds; and who on the spot could be
expected to invest so large a sum in trying a machine so entirely new,
depending for its success on physical principles very imperfectly
understood?
There was no such help to be found in Glasgow. The tobacco lords,
though rich, took no interest in steam power, and the manufacturing class,
though growing in importance, had full employment for their little capital in
their own concerns.

CHAPTER VIII.
Watt’s Connexion with Dr. Roebuck—Watt acts as
Surveyor and Engineer.

Dr. Black continued to take a lively interest in Watt’s experiments, and lent
him occasional sums of money from time to time to enable him to prosecute

them to an issue. But the Doctor’s means were too limited to permit him to
do more than supply Watt’s more pressing necessities. Meanwhile, the debts
which the latter had already incurred, small though they were in amount,
hung like a millstone round his neck. Black then bethought him whether it
would not be possible to associate Watt with some person possessed of
sufficient means, and of an active commercial spirit, who should join as a
partner in the risk, and share in the profits of the enterprise. Such a person,
he thought, was Dr. Roebuck, the founder of the Carron Iron Works, an
enterprising man, of undaunted spirit, not scared by difficulties, nor a
niggard of expense when he saw before him any reasonable prospect of
advantage.[81]
Roebuck was at that time engaged in sinking for coal on a large scale
near Boroughstoness, where he experienced considerable difficulty in
keeping the shafts clear of water. The Newcomen engine, which he had
erected, was found comparatively useless, and he was ready to embrace any
other scheme which held out a reasonable prospect of success. Accordingly,
when his friend Dr. Black informed him of an ingenious young mechanic at
Glasgow who had invented a steam-engine, capable of working with
increased power, speed, and economy, Roebuck immediately felt interested,
and entered into correspondence with Watt on the subject. He was at first
somewhat sceptical as to the practicability of the new engine, so different in
its action from that of Newcomen; and he freely stated his doubts to Dr.
Black. He was under the impression that condensation might in some way
be effected in the cylinder without injection; and he urged Watt to try
whether this might not be done. Contrary to his own judgment, Watt tried a
series of experiments with this object, and at last abandoned them, Roebuck
himself admitting his error.
Up to this time Watt and Roebuck had not met, though they carried on
a long correspondence on the subject of the engine. In September, 1765, we
find Roebuck inviting Watt to come over with Dr. Black to Kinneil (where
Roebuck lived), and discuss with him the subject of the engine. Watt wrote
to say that “if his foot allowed him” he would visit Carron on a certain day,
from which we infer that he intended to walk. But the way was long and the
road miry, and Watt could not then leave his instrument shop, so the visit
was postponed. In the mean time Roebuck urged Watt to press forward his

invention with all speed, “whether he pursued it as a philosopher or as a
man of business.”
In the month of November following, Watt forwarded to Roebuck the
detailed drawings of a covered cylinder and piston to be cast at the Carron
Works. Though the cylinder was the best that could be made there, it was
very ill-bored, and was eventually laid aside as useless. The piston-rod was
made at Glasgow, under Watt’s own supervision; and when it was
completed he was afraid to send it on a common cart, lest the workpeople
should see it, which would “occasion speculation.” “I believe,” he wrote in
July, 1766, “it would be best to send it in a box.” These precautions would
seem to have been dictated, in some measure, by fear of piracy; and it is
obvious that the necessity of acting by stealth increased the difficulty of
getting the various parts of the proposed engine constructed. Watt’s greatest
obstacle continued to be the clumsiness and inexpertness of his mechanics.
“My principal hinderance in erecting engines,” he wrote to Roebuck, “is
always the smith-work.”
In the mean time it was necessary for Watt to attend to the maintenance
of his family. He found that the steam-engine experiments brought nothing
in, while they were a constant source of expense. Besides, they diverted him
from his retail business, which needed constant attention. It ought also to be
mentioned that his partner having lately died, the business had been
somewhat neglected and had consequently fallen off. At length he
determined to give it up altogether, and begin the business of a surveyor. He
accordingly removed from the shop in Buchanan’s Land to an office on the
east side of King-street, a little south of Prince’s-street. It would appear that
he succeeded in obtaining a fair share of business in his new vocation. He
already possessed a sufficient knowledge of surveying from the study of the
instruments which it had been his business to make; and application and
industry did the rest. His first jobs were in surveying lands, defining
boundaries, and surveyor’s work of the ordinary sort; from which he
gradually proceeded to surveys of a more important character.
It affords some indication of the local estimation in which Watt was
held, that the magistrates of Glasgow should have selected him as a proper
person to survey a canal for the purpose of opening up a new coal-field in
the neighbourhood, and connecting it with the city, with a view to a cheaper

and more abundant supply of fuel. He also surveyed a ditch-canal for the
purpose of connecting the rivers Forth and Clyde, by what was called the
Loch Lomond passage; though the scheme of Brindley and Smeaton was
eventually preferred as the more direct line. Watt came up to London in
1767, in connexion with the application to Parliament for powers to
construct his canal; and he seems to have been very much disgusted with
the proceedings before “the confounded committee of Parliament,” as he
called it; adding, “I think I shall not long to have anything to do with the
House of Commons again. I never saw so many wrong-headed people on all
sides gathered together.” The fact, however, that they had decided against
him had probably some share in leading him to form this opinion as to the
wrong-headedness of the Parliamentary Committee.
Though interrupted by indispensable business of this sort, Watt
proceeded with the improvement of his steam-engine whenever leisure
permitted. Roebuck’s confidence in its eventual success was such that in
1767 he undertook to pay debts to the amount of 1000l. which Watt had
incurred in prosecuting his project up to that time, and also to provide the
means of prosecuting further experiments, as well as to secure a patent for
the engine. In return for this outlay Roebuck was to have two-thirds of the
property in the invention. Early in 1768 Watt made trial of a new and larger
model, with a cylinder of seven or eight inches diameter. But the result was
not very satisfactory. “By an unforeseen misfortune,” he wrote Roebuck,
“the mercury found its way into the cylinder, and played the devil with the
solder. This throws us back at least three days, and is very vexatious,
especially as it happened in spite of the precautions I had taken to prevent
it.” Roebuck, becoming impatient, urged Watt to meet him to talk the matter
over; and suggested that as Watt could not come as far as Carron, they
should meet at Kilsyth, about fifteen miles from Glasgow. Watt replied,
saying he was too unwell to be able to ride so far, and that his health was
such that the journey would disable him from doing anything for three or
four days after. But he went on with his experiments, patching up his
engine, and endeavouring to get it into working condition. After about a
month’s labour, he at last succeeded to his heart’s content; and he at once
communicated the news to his partner, intimating his intention of at last
paying his long-promised visit to Roebuck at Kinneil. “I sincerely wish you

joy of this successful result,” he said, “and hope it will make some return
for the obligations I owe you.”

KINNEIL HOUSE.

Kinneil House, to which Watt hastened to pay his visit of
congratulation to Dr. Roebuck, is an old-fashioned building, somewhat
resembling an old French château. It was a former country-seat of the
Dukes of Hamilton, and is finely situated on the shores of the Frith of Forth.
The mansion is rich in classical associations, having been inhabited, since
Roebuck’s time, by Dugald Stewart, who wrote in it his ‘Philosophy of the
Human Mind.’[82] There he was visited by Wilkie, the painter, when in
search of subjects for his pictures; and Dugald Stewart found for him, in an
old farmhouse in the neighbourhood, the cradle-chimney introduced in the
“Penny Wedding.” But none of these names can stand by the side of that of
Watt; and the first thought at Kinneil, of every one who is familiar with his
history, would be of the memorable day when he rode over in exultation to
wish Dr. Roebuck joy of the success of the steam-engine. His note of
triumph was, however, premature. He had yet to suffer many sickening
delays and bitter disappointments; for, though he had contrived to get his
model executed with fair precision, the skill was still wanting to
manufacture the parts of their full size with the requisite unity; and his
present elation was consequently doomed to be succeeded by repeated
discomfiture.

The model went so well, however, that it was determined at once to
take out a patent for the engine. The first step was to secure its provisional
protection, and with that object Watt went to Berwick-upon-Tweed, and
made a declaration before a Master in Chancery of the nature of the
invention. In August, 1768, we find him in London on the business of the
patent. He became utterly wearied with the delays interposed by sluggish
officialism, and disgusted with the heavy fees which he was required to pay
in order to protect his invention. He wrote home to his wife at Glasgow in a
very desponding mood. Knowing her husband’s diffidence and modesty, but
having the fullest confidence in his genius, she replied, “I beg that you will
not make yourself uneasy, though things should not succeed to your wish. If
it [the condensing engine] will not do, something else will; never despair.”
Watt must have felt cheered by these brave words of his noble helpmate,
and encouraged to go onward cheerfully in hope.
He could not, however, shake off his recurring fits of despondency, and
on his return to Glasgow, we find him occasionally in very low spirits.
Though his head was full of his engine, his heart ached with anxiety for his
family, who could not be maintained on hope, already so often deferred.
The more sanguine Roebuck was elated with the good working of the
model, and impatient to bring the invention into practice. He wrote Watt in
October, 1768, “You are now letting the most active part of your life
insensibly glide away. A day, a moment, ought not to be lost. And you
should not suffer your thoughts to be diverted by any other object, or even
improvement of this, but only the speediest and most effectual manner of
executing an engine of a proper size, according to your present ideas.”
Watt, however, felt that his invention was capable of many
improvements, and he was never done introducing new expedients. He
proceeded, in the intervals of leisure which he could spare from his
surveying business, to complete the details of the drawings and
specification,—making various trials of pipe-condensers, plate-condensers,
and drum-condensers,—contriving steam-jackets to prevent the waste of
heat and new methods for securing greater tightness of the piston,—
inventing condenser-pumps, oil-pumps, gauge-pumps, exhausting-
cylinders, loading-valves, double cylinders, beams, and cranks. All these
contrivances had to be thought out and tested, elaborately and painfully,
amidst many failures and disappointments; and Dr. Roebuck began to fear

that the fresh expedients which were always starting up in Watt’s brain,
would endlessly protract the consummation of the invention. Watt, on his
part, felt that he could only bring the engine nearer to perfection by never
resting satisfied with imperfect devices, and hence he left no means untried
to overcome the many practical defects in it of which he was so conscious.
Long after, when a noble lord was expressing to him the admiration with
which he regarded his great achievement, Watt replied: “The public only
look at my success, and not at the intermediate failures and uncouth
constructions which have served me as so many steps to climb to the top of
the ladder.”
As to the lethargy from which Roebuck sought to raise Watt, it was
merely the temporary reaction of a mind strained and wearied with long-
continued application to a single subject, and from which it seemed to be
occasionally on the point of breaking down altogether. To his intimate
friends, Watt bemoaned his many failures, his low spirits, his bad health,
and his sleepless nights. He wrote to his friend Dr. Small[83] in January,
1769, “I have many things I could talk to you about—much contrived, and
little executed. How much would good health and spirits be worth to me!”
A month later he wrote, “I am still plagued with headaches, and sometimes
heart-aches.”
It is nevertheless a remarkable proof of Watt’s indefatigable
perseverance in his favourite pursuit, that at this very time, when apparently
sunk in the depths of gloom, he learnt German for the purpose of getting at
the contents of a curious book, the Theatrum Machinarum of Leupold,
which just then fell into his hands, and contained an account of the
machines, furnaces, methods of working, profits, &c., of the mines in the
Upper Hartz. His instructor in the language was a Swiss dyer,[84] settled in
Glasgow. With the like object of gaining access to untranslated books in
French and Italian—then the great depositories of mechanical and
engineering knowledge—Watt had already mastered both those languages.
In preparing his specification, Watt viewed the subject in all its
bearings. The production of power by steam is a very large one, but Watt
grasped it thoroughly. The insight with which he searched, analysed,
arranged, and even provided for future modifications, was the true insight
of genius. He seems with an almost prophetic eye to have seen all that

steam was capable of accomplishing. This is well illustrated by his early
plan of working steam expansively by cutting it off at about half-stroke,
thereby greatly economising its use;[85] as well as by his proposal to employ
high-pressure steam where cold water could not be used for purposes of
condensation.[86] The careful and elaborate manner in which he studied the
specification, and the consideration which he gave to each of its various
details, are clear from his correspondence with Dr. Small, which is
peculiarly interesting, as showing Watt’s mind actively engaged in the very
process of invention. At length the necessary specification and drawings
were completed and lodged early in 1769,—a year also remarkable as that
in which Arkwright took out the patent for his spinning-machine.
In order to master thoroughly the details of the ordinary Newcomen
engine, and to ascertain the extent of its capabilities as well as of its
imperfections, Watt undertook the erection of several engines of this
construction; and during his residence at Kinneil took charge of the
Schoolyard engine near Boroughstoness, in order that he might thereby
acquire a full practical knowledge of its working. Mr. Hart, in his
interesting ‘Reminiscences of James Watt,’ gives the following account:
“My late brother had learned from an old man who had been a workman at
Dr. Roebuck’s coal-works when Mr. Watt was there, that he had erected a
small engine on a pit they called Taylor’s Pit. The workman could not
remember what kind of engine it was, but it was the fastest-going one he
ever saw. From its size, and from its being placed in a small timber-house,
the colliers called it ‘the Box Bed.’ We thought it likely to have been the
first of the patent engines made by Mr. Watt, and took the opportunity of
mentioning this to him at our interview. He said he had erected that engine,
but he did not wish at the time to venture on a patent one until he had a little
more experience.”[87]
At length he proceeded to erect the trial engine after his new patent,
and made arrangements to stay at Kinneil until the work was finished. It
had been originally intended to erect it in the little town of Boroughstoness;
but as prying eyes might have there watched his proceedings, and as he
wished to avoid display, being determined, as he said, “not to puff,” he
fixed upon an outhouse behind Kinneil, close by the burn-side in the glen,
where there was abundance of water and secure privacy. The materials were
brought to the place, partly from Watt’s small works at Glasgow, and partly

from Carron, where the cylinder—of eighteen inches diameter and five feet
stroke—had been cast; and a few workmen were placed at his disposal.
The process of erection was very tedious,
owing to the clumsiness of the mechanics
employed on the job. Watt was occasionally
compelled to be absent on other business, and
on his return he usually found the men at a
standstill, not knowing what to do next. As the
engine neared completion, his “anxiety for his
approaching doom” kept him from sleep; for
his fears, as he said, were at least equal to his
hopes. He was easily cast down by little
obstructions, and especially discouraged by
unforeseen expense. Roebuck, on the contrary,
was hopeful and energetic, and often took
occasion to rally the other on his despondency
under difficulties, and his almost painful want
of confidence in himself. Roebuck was,
doubtless, of much service to Watt in
encouraging him to proceed with his
invention, and also in suggesting some
important modifications in the construction of
the engine. It is probable, indeed, that but for
his help, Watt could not have gone on.
Robison says, “I remember Mrs. Roebuck
remarking one evening, ‘Jamie is a queer lad,
THE OUTHOUSE
and, without the Doctor, his invention would
BEHIND KINNEIL.
have been lost; but Dr. Roebuck won’t let it
perish.’”
The new engine, on which Watt had expended so much labour, anxiety,
and ingenuity, was completed in September, 1759, about six months from
the date of its commencement. But its success was far from decided. Watt
himself declared it to be “a clumsy job.” His new arrangement of the pipe-
condenser did not work well; and the cylinder having been badly cast, was
found almost useless. One of his greatest difficulties consisted in keeping
the piston tight. He wrapped it round with cork, oiled rags, tow, old hat,

paper, horse-dung, and other things, but still there were open spaces left,
sufficient to let the air in and the steam out. Watt was grievously depressed
by his want of success, and he had serious thoughts of giving up the thing
altogether. Before abandoning it, however, the engine was again thoroughly
overhauled, many improvements were introduced in it, and a new trial was
made of its powers. But this proved not more successful than the earlier
ones had been. “You cannot conceive,” he wrote to Small, “how mortified I
am with this disappointment. It is a damned thing for a man to have his all
hanging by a single string. If I had wherewithal to pay the loss, I don’t think
I should so much fear a failure; but I cannot bear the thought of other
people becoming losers by my schemes; and I have the happy disposition of
always painting the worst.”
Watt was therefore bound to prosecute his project by honour not less
than by interest; and summoning up his courage, he went on with it anew.
He continued to have the same confidence as ever in the principles of his
engine: where it broke down was in workmanship. Could mechanics but be
found capable of accurately executing its several parts, he believed that its
success was certain. But there were no such mechanics then at Carron.
By this time Roebuck was becoming embarrassed with debt, and
involved in various difficulties. The pits were drowned with water, which
no existing machinery could pump out, and ruin threatened to overtake him
before Watt’s engine could come to his help. He had sunk in the coal-mine,
not only his own fortune, but much of the property of his relatives; and he
was so straitened for money that he was unable to defray the cost of taking
out the engine patent according to the terms of his engagement, and Watt
had accordingly to borrow the necessary money from his never-failing
friend, Dr. Black. He was thus adding to his own debts, without any clearer
prospect before him of ultimate relief. No wonder that he should, after his
apparently fruitless labour, express to Small his belief that, “of all things in
life, there is nothing more foolish than inventing.” The unhappy state of his
mind may be further inferred from his lamentation expressed to the same
friend on the 31st of January, 1770. “To-day,” said he, “I enter the thirty-
fifth year of my life, and I think I have hardly yet done thirty-five pence
worth of good in the world; but I cannot help it.”

Notwithstanding the failure of his engine thus far, and the repeated
resolution expressed to Small that he would invent no more, leading, as
inventing did, to only vexation, failure, loss, and increase of headache, Watt
could not control his irrepressible instinct to invent; and whether the result
might be profitable or not, his mind went on as before, working, scheming,
and speculating. Thus, at different times in the course of his correspondence
with Small, who was a man of a like ingenious turn of mind, we find him
communicating various new things, “gimcracks,” as he termed them, which
he had contrived. He was equally ready to contrive a cure for smoky
chimneys, a canal sluice for economising water, a method of determining
“the force necessary to dredge up a cubic foot of mud under any given
depth of water,” and a means of “clearing the observed distance of the
moon from any given star of the effects of refraction and parallax;”
illustrating his views by rapid but graphic designs embodied in the text of
his letters to Small and other correspondents. One of his minor inventions
was a new method of readily measuring distances by means of a telescope.
[88]
At the same time he was occupied in making experiments on kaolin, with
the intention of introducing the manufacture of porcelain in the pottery
work on the Broomielaw, in which he was a partner. He was also concerned
with Dr. Black and Dr. Roebuck in pursuing experiments with the view of
decomposing sea-salt by lime, and thereby obtaining alkali for purposes of
commerce. A patent for the process was taken out by Dr. Roebuck, but
eventually proved a failure, like most of his other projects. We also find
Watt inventing a muffling furnace for melting metals, and sending the
drawings to Mr. Boulton at Birmingham for trial. At other times he was
occupied with Chaillet, the Swiss dyer, experimenting on various chemical
substances; corresponding with Dr. Black as to the new fluoric or spar acid;
and at another time making experiments to ascertain the heats at which
water boils at every inch of mercury from vacuo to air. Later we find him
inventing a prismatic micrometer for measuring distances, which he
described in considerable detail in his letters to Small.[89] He was at the
same time busy inventing and constructing a new surveying quadrant by
reflection, and making improvements in barometers and hygrometers. “I
should like to know,” he wrote to Small, “the principles of your barometer:
De Luc’s hygrometer is nonsense. Probavi.” Another of his contrivances
was his dividing-screw, for dividing an inch accurately into 1000 equal
parts. He states that he found this screw exceedingly useful, as it saved him

much needless compass-work, and, moreover, enabled him to divide lines
into the ordinates of any curve whatsoever.
Such were the multifarious pursuits in which this indefatigable student
and inquirer was engaged; all tending to cultivate his mind and advance his
education, but comparatively unproductive, so far as regarded pecuniary
return. So unfortunate, indeed, had Watt’s speculations proved, that his
friend Dr. Hutton, of Edinburgh, addressed to him a New-year’s day letter,
with the object of dissuading him from proceeding further with his
unprofitable brain-distressing work. “A happy new year to you!” said
Hutton; “may it be fertile to you in lucky events, but no new inventions!”
He went on to say that invention was only for those who live by the public,
and those who from pride choose to leave a legacy to the public. It was not
a thing likely to be well paid for under a system where the rule was to be
the best paid for the work that was easiest done. It was of no use, however,
telling Watt that he must not invent. One might as well have told Burns that
he was not to sing because it would not pay, or Wilkie that he was not to
paint, or Hutton himself that he was not to think and speculate as to the
hidden operations of nature. To invent was the natural and habitual
operation of Watt’s intellect, and he could not restrain it.
Watt had already been too long occupied with this profitless work: his
money was all gone; he was in debt; and it behoved him to turn to some
other employment by which he might provide for the indispensable wants
of his family. Having now given up the instrument-making business, he
confined himself almost entirely to surveying. Among his earliest surveys
was one of a coal canal from Monkland to Glasgow, in 1769; and the Act
authorising its construction was obtained in the following year. Watt was
invited to superintend the execution of the works, and he had accordingly to
elect whether he would go on with the engine experiments, the event of
which was doubtful, or embrace an honourable and perhaps profitable
employment, attended with much less risk and uncertainty. His necessities
decided him. “I had,” he said, “a wife and children, and saw myself
growing grey without having any settled way of providing for them.” He
accordingly accepted the appointment offered him by the directors of the
canal, and undertook to superintend the construction of the works at a salary
of 200l. a year. At the same time he determined not to drop the engine, but
to proceed with it at such leisure moments as he could command.

The Monkland Canal was a small concern, and Watt had to undertake a
variety of duties. He acted at the same time as surveyor, superintendent,
engineer, and treasurer, assisted only by a clerk. But the appointment
proved useful to him. The salary he earned placed his family above want,
and the out-doors life he was required to lead improved his health and
spirits. After a few months he wrote Dr. Small that he found himself more
strong, more resolute, less lazy, and less confused, than when he began the
occupation. His pecuniary affairs were also more promising. “Supposing
the engine to stand good for itself,” he said, “I am able to pay all my debts
and some little thing more, so that I hope in time to be on a par with the
world.” But there was a dark side to the picture. His occupation exposed
him to fatigue, vexation, hunger, wet, and cold. Then, the quiet and
secluded habits of his early life did not fit him for the out-door work of the
engineer. He was timid and reserved, and had nothing of the navvy in his
nature. He had neither the roughness of tongue nor stiffness of back to
enable him to deal with rude labour gangs. He was nervously fearful lest his
want of practical experience should betray him into scrapes, and lead to
impositions on the part of his workmen. He hated higgling, and declared
that he would rather “face a loaded cannon than settle an account or make a
bargain.” He had been “cheated,” he said, “by undertakers, and was unlucky
enough to know it.”
Watt continued to act as engineer for the Monkland Canal Company
for about a year and a half,[90] during which he was employed in other
engineering works. Among these was a survey of the river Clyde, with a
view to the improvement of the navigation. Watt sent in his report; but no
steps were taken to carry out his suggestions until several years later, when
the beginning was made of a series of improvements, which have resulted
in the conversion of the Clyde from a pleasant trouting and salmon stream
into one of the busiest navigable highways in the world.[91]
Among Watt’s other labours about the same period may be mentioned
his survey of a canal between Perth and Cupar Angus, through Strathmore;
of the Crinan Canal, afterwards carried out by Rennie; and other projects in
the western highlands. The Strathmore Canal survey was conducted at the
instance of the Commissioners of Forfeited Estates. It was forty miles long,
through a very rough country. Watt set out to make it in September, 1770,
and was accompanied by snowstorms through almost the entire survey. He

suffered severely from the cold: the winds swept down from the Grampians
with fury and chilled him to the bone. The making of this survey occupied
him forty-three days, and the remuneration he received for it was only
eighty pounds, which included expenses. The small pay of engineers at that
time may be further illustrated by the fee paid him in the same year for
supplying the magistrates of Hamilton with a design for the proposed new
bridge over the Clyde at that town. It was originally intended to employ Mr.
Smeaton; but as his charge was ten pounds, which was thought too high,
Watt was employed in his stead. The Burgh minutes record that, after the
Act had been obtained in 1770, Baillie Naismith was appointed to proceed
to Glasgow to see Mr. Watt on the subject of a design, and his charge being
only 7l. 7s., he was requested to supply it accordingly. “I have lately,” wrote
Watt to Small, “made a plan and estimate of a bridge over our river Clyde,
eight miles above this: it is to be of five arches and 220 feet waterway,
founded upon piles on a muddy bottom.”[92] The bridge, after Watt’s plan,
was begun in 1771, but it was not finished until 1780.[93]

HAMILTON BRIDGE.

About the same time Watt prepared plans of docks and piers at Port
Glasgow, and of a new harbour at Ayr. The Port Glasgow works were
carried out, but those at Ayr were postponed. When Rennie came to

examine the design for the improvement of the Ayr navigation, of which the
new harbour formed part, he took objections to it, principally because of the
parallelism of the piers, and another plan was eventually adopted. His
principal engineering job, and the last of the kind on which Watt was
engaged in Scotland, was a survey of the Caledonian Canal, long afterwards
carried out by Telford. The survey was made in the autumn of 1773,
through a country without roads. “An incessant rain,” said he, “kept me for
three days as wet as water could make me; I could hardly preserve my
journal book.”
In the midst of this dreary work, Watt was summoned to Glasgow by
the intelligence which reached him of the illness of his wife; and when he
reached home he found that she had died in childbed.[94] Of all the heavy
blows he had suffered, this he felt to be the worst. His wife had struggled
with him through poverty; she had often cheered his fainting spirit when
borne down by doubt, perplexity, and disappointment; and now she was
gone, without being able to share in his good fortune as she had done in his
adversity. For some time after, when about to enter his humble dwelling, he
would pause on the threshold, unable to summon courage to enter the room
where he was never more to meet “the comfort of his life.” “Yet this
misfortune,” he wrote to Small, “might have fallen upon me when I had less
ability to bear it, and my poor children might have been left suppliants to
the mercy of the wide world.”
Watt tried to forget his sorrow, as was his custom, in increased
application to work, though the recovery of the elasticity of his mind was in
a measure beyond the power of his will. There were, at that time, very few
bright spots in his life. A combination of unfortunate circumstances
threatened to overwhelm him. No further progress had yet been made with
his steam-engine, which he almost cursed as the cause of his misfortunes.
Dr. Roebuck’s embarrassments had reached their climax. He had fought
against the water which drowned his coal until he could fight no more, and
he was at last delivered into the hands of his creditors a ruined man. “My
heart bleeds for him,” said Watt, “but I can do nothing to help him. I have
stuck by him, indeed, till I have hurt myself.”
But the darkest hour is nearest the dawn. Watt had passed through a
long night, and a gleam of sunshine at last beamed upon him. Matthew

Boulton, of Birmingham, was at length persuaded to take up the invention
on which Watt had expended so many of the best years of his life, and the
turning-point in Watt’s fortunes had arrived.

PORT GLASGOW.
[By R. P. Leitch.]

Mathew Boulton, F.R.S.
Engraved by W. Hall, after the portrait by Sir W.
Beechy, R.A.
Published by John Murray Albemarle Street. 1865.

BOULTON AND WATT,
ENGINEERS, BIRMINGHAM.

BIRMINGHAM.
[By Percival Skelton.]

CHAPTER IX.
Birmingham—Matthew Boulton.

From an early period, Birmingham has been one of the principal centres of
mechanical industry in England. The neighbourhood abounds in coal and
iron, and has long been famous for the skill of its artisans. Swords were
forged there in the time of the Ancient Britons. The first guns made in
England bore the Birmingham mark. In 1538 Leland found “many smiths in
the town that use to make knives and all manner of cutting tools, and many
loriners that make bittes, and a great many nailers.” About a century later
Camden described the place as “full of inhabitants, and resounding with
hammers and anvils, for the most part of them smiths.” As the skill of the
Birmingham artisans increased, they gradually gave up the commoner kinds
of smithery, and devoted themselves to ornamental metal-work, in brass,
steel, and iron. They became celebrated for their manufacture of buckles,
buttons, and various fancy articles; and they turned out such abundance of
toys that towards the close of last century Burke characterised Birmingham
as “the great toy-shop of Europe.”
The ancient industry of Birmingham was of a staid and steady
character, in keeping with the age. Each manufacturer kept within the
warmth of his own forge. He did not go in search of orders, but waited for
the orders to come to him. Ironmongers brought their money in their saddle-
bags, took away the goods in exchange, or saw them packed ready for the
next waggon before they left. Notwithstanding this quiet way of doing
business, many comfortable fortunes were made in the place; the
manufacturers, like their buttons, moving off so soon as they had received
the stamp and the gilt. Hutton, the Birmingham bookseller, says he knew
men who left the town in chariots who had first approached it on foot.
Hutton himself entered the town a poor boy, and lived to write its history,
and make a fortune by his industry.
Until towards the end of last century the town was not very easy of
approach from any direction. The roads leading to it had become worn by
the traffic of many generations. The hoofs of the pack-horses, helped by the
rains, had deepened the tracks in the sandy soil, until in many places they
were twelve or fourteen feet deep, so that it was said of travellers that they

approached the town by sap. One of these old hollow roads, still called
Holloway-head, though now filled up, was so deep that a waggon-load of
hay might pass along it without being seen. There was no direct
communication between Birmingham and London until about the middle of
the century. Before then, the Great Road from London to Chester passed it
four miles off, and the Birmingham manufacturer, when sending wares to
London, had to forward his package to Castle Bromwich, there to await the
approach of the packhorse train or the stage-waggon journeying south. The
Birmingham men, however, began to wake up, and in 1747 a coach was
advertised to run to London in two days “if the roads permit.” Twenty years
later a stage-waggon was put on, and the communication by coach became
gradually improved.
When Hutton entered Birmingham in 1740, he was struck by the
activity of the place and the vivacity of the inhabitants, which expressed
itself in their looks as he passed them in the streets. “I had,” he says, “been
among dreamers, but now I saw men awake. Their very step showed
alacrity. Every man seemed to know and to prosecute his own affairs.” The
Birmingham men were indeed as alert as they looked—steady workers and
clever mechanics—men who struck hard on the anvil. The artisans of the
place had the advantage of a long training in mechanical skill. It had been
bred in their bone, and descended to them from their fathers as an
inheritance.[95] In no town in England were there then to be found so many
mechanics capable of executing entirely new work; nor, indeed, has the
ability yet departed from them, the Birmingham artisans maintaining their
individual superiority in intelligent execution of skilled work to the present
day. We are informed that inventors of new machines, foreign as well as
English, are still in the practice of resorting to them for the purpose of
getting their inventions embodied in the best forms, with greater chances of
success than in any other town in England.
About the middle of last century the two Boultons, father and son,
were recognised as among the most enterprising and prosperous of
Birmingham manufacturers. The father of the elder Matthew Boulton was
John Boulton of Northamptonshire, in which county Boultons or Boltons
have been settled for a long period, and where there are records of many
clergymen of the name. About the end of the seventeenth century, this John
Boulton settled at Lichfield, where he married Elizabeth, heir of Matthew

Dyott of Stitchbrooke, by whom he obtained considerable property. His
means must, however, have become reduced; in consequence of which his
son Matthew was sent to Birmingham to enter upon a career of business,
and make his own way in the world. He became established in the place as
a silver stamper and piecer, to which he added other branches of
manufacture, which his son Matthew afterwards largely extended.
Matthew Boulton the younger was born at Birmingham on the 3rd
September, 1728. Little is known of his early life, beyond that he was a
bright, clever boy, and a general favourite with his companions. He received
his principal education at a private academy at Deritend, kept by the Rev.
Mr. Ansted, under whom he acquired the rudiments of a good ordinary
English education. Though he left school early for the purpose of following
his father’s business, he nevertheless continued the work of self-instruction,
and afterwards acquired considerable knowledge of Latin and French, as
well as of drawing and mathematics. But his chief pleasure was in pursuing
the study of chemistry and mechanics, in which, as we shall shortly find, he
became thoroughly accomplished. Long after he joined his father in
business, he delighted to revert to his classical favourites. From an entry in
his private memorandum-book of expenses at the age of about thirty,
though then very economical in other respects, we find him expending
considerable sums in experiments on electricity, and on one occasion laying
out a guinea on a copy of Virgil, from which it appears that trade had not
spoilt his taste for either science or letters.
Young Boulton appears to have engaged in business with much spirit.
By the time he was seventeen he had introduced several important
improvements in the manufacture of buttons, watch-chains, and other
trinkets; and he had invented the inlaid steel buckles which shortly after
became the fashion. These buckles were exported in large quantities to
France, from whence they were brought back to England and sold as the
most recent productions of French ingenuity. The elder Boulton, having
every confidence in his son’s discretion and judgment, adopted him as a
partner so soon as he came of age, and from that time forward he took
almost the entire management of the concern. Although in his letters he
signed “for father and self,” he always spoke in the first person of matters
connected with the business. Thus, in 1757, we find him writing to Timothy
Holles, London, as to the prices of “coat-link and vest buttons,” intimating

that to lower them would be to beat down price and quality until it became
no business at all; “yet,” said he, “as I have put myself to greater expense
than anybody else in erecting the best conveniences and the completest
tools for the purpose, I am not willing that any interlopers should run away
with it.” We find him at the same time carrying on a correspondence with
Benjamin Huntsman, of Sheffield, the celebrated inventor of cast-steel.[96]
On the 19th January, 1757, he sends Huntsman “a parcel of goods of the
newest patterns,” and at the same time orders a quantity of Huntsman’s
steel. “When thou hast some of a proper size and quality for me, and an
opportunity of sending it, thou may’st, but I should be glad to have it a little
tougher than the last.” He concludes—“I hope thy Philosophic Spirit still
laboureth within thee, and may it soon bring forth Fruit useful to mankind,
but more particularly to thyself, is the sincere wish of Thy Obliged Friend.”
With a view to economy, Boulton in course of time erected a steel-house of
his own for the purpose of making steel; and he frequently used it to
convert the cuttings and scraps of the small iron wares which he
manufactured, into ordinary steel, afterwards melting and converting it into
cast-steel in the usual way.
From the earliest glimpses we can get of Boulton as a man of business,
it would appear to have been his aim to be at the top of whatsoever branch
of manufacture he undertook. He endeavoured to produce the best possible
articles in regard of design, material, and workmanship. Taste was then at a
low ebb, and “Brummagem” had become a byword for everything that was
gaudy, vulgar, and meretricious. Boulton endeavoured to get rid of this
reproach, and aimed at raising the standard of taste in manufacture to the
highest point. With this object, he employed the best artists to design his
articles, and the cleverest artisans to manufacture them. Apart from the
question of elevating the popular taste, there can be no doubt that this was
good policy on his part, for it served to direct public attention to the
superior and honest quality of the articles produced by his firm, and
eventually brought him a large accession of business.
In 1759, Boulton’s father died, bequeathing to him the considerable
property which he had accumulated by his business. The year following,
when thirty-two years of age, Matthew married Anne, the daughter of Luke
Robinson, Esq., of Lichfield. The lady was a distant relation of his own; the
Dyotts of Stitchbrooke, whose heir his grandfather had married, being

nearly related to the Babingtons of Curborough, from whom Miss Robinson
was lineally descended—Luke Robinson having married the daughter and
co-heir of John Babington of Curborough and Patkington. Considerable
opposition was offered to the marriage by the lady’s friends, on account of
Matthew Boulton’s occupation; but he pressed his suit, and with good looks
and a handsome presence to back him, he eventually succeeded in winning
the heart and hand of Anne Robinson. He was now, indeed, in a position to
have retired from business altogether. But a life of inactivity had no charms
for him. He liked to mix with men in the affairs of active life, and to take
his full share in the world’s business. Indeed, he hated ease and idleness,
and found his greatest pleasure in constant occupation.
Instead, therefore, of retiring from trade, he determined to engage in it
more extensively. He entertained the ambition of founding a manufactory
that should be the first of its kind, and serve as a model for the
manufacturers of his neighbourhood. His premises on Snow-hill,[97]
Birmingham, having become too small for his purpose, he looked about him
for a suitable spot on which to erect more commodious workshops; and he
was shortly attracted by the facilities presented by the property afterwards
so extensively known as the famous Soho.
Soho is about two miles north of Birmingham, on the Wolverhampton
road. It is not in the parish of Birmingham, nor in the county of Warwick,
but just over the border, in the county of Stafford. Down to the middle of
last century the ground on which it stands was a barren heath, used only as
a rabbit-warren. The sole dwelling on it was the warrener’s hut, which stood
near the summit of the hill, on the spot afterwards occupied by Soho House;
and the warrener’s well is still to be found in one of the cellars of the
mansion. In 1756, Mr. Edward Ruston took a lease of the ground for ninety-
nine years from Mr. Wyerley, the lord of the manor, with liberty to make a
cut about half a mile in length for the purpose of turning the waters of
Hockley Brook into a pool under the brow of the hill. The head of water
thus formed was used to drive a feeble mill below, which Mr. Ruston had
established for laminating metals. He also built a small dwelling-house
about 150 yards from the mill, and expended upon the place a sum of about
1000l. in all. When Mr. Boulton was satisfied that the place would suit his
purpose, he entered into arrangements with Mr. Ruston for the purchase of
his lease,[98] on the completion of which he proceeded to rebuild the mill on

a large scale, and in course of time removed thither the whole of his tools,
machinery, and workmen. The new manufactory, when finished, consisted
of a series of roomy workshops conveniently connected with each other,
and capable of accommodating upwards of a thousand workmen. The
building and stocking of the premises cost upwards of 20,000l.

SOHO MANUFACTORY.

Before removing to Soho, Mr. Boulton took into partnership Mr. John
Fothergill, with the object of more vigorously extending his business
operations. Mr. Fothergill possessed a very limited capital, but he was a
man of good character and active habits of business, with a considerable
knowledge of foreign markets. On the occasion of his entering the concern,
stock was taken of the warehouse on Snow Hill; and some idea of the extent
of Boulton’s business at the time may be formed from the fact, that his
manager, Mr. Zaccheus Walker, assisted by Farquharson, Nuttall, Frogatt,
and half-a-dozen labourers, were occupied during eight days in weighing
metals, counting goods, and preparing an inventory of the effects and stock
in trade. The partnership commenced at midsummer, 1762, and shortly after
the principal manufactory was removed to Soho.

Steps were immediately taken to open up new connexions and
agencies at home and abroad; and a large business was shortly established
with many of the principal towns and cities of Europe, in filagree and inlaid
work, livery and other buttons, buckles, clasps, watch-chains, and various
kinds of ornamental metal wares. The firm shortly added the manufacture of
silver plate and plated goods to their other branches,[99] and turned out large
quantities of candlesticks, urns, brackets, and various articles in ormolu.
The books of the firm indicate the costly nature of their productions, 500
ounces of silver being given out at a time, besides considerable quantities of
gold and platina for purposes of fabrication. Boulton himself attended to the
organization and management of the works and to the extension of the trade
at home, while Fothergill devoted himself to establishing and
superintending the foreign agencies.
From the first, Boulton aimed at establishing a character for the
excellence of his productions. They must not only be honest in
workmanship, but tasteful in design. He determined, so far as in him lay, to
get rid of the “Brummagem” reproach. Thus we find him writing to his
partner from London:—“The prejudice that Birmingham hath so justly
established against itself makes every fault conspicuous in all articles that
have the least pretensions to taste. How can I expect the public to
countenance rubbish from Soho, while they can procure sound and perfect
work from any other quarter?”
He frequently went to town for the express purpose of reading and
making drawings of rare works in metal in the British Museum, sending the
results down to Soho. When rare objects of art were offered for sale, he
endeavoured to secure them. “I bid five guineas,” he wrote his partner on
one occasion, “for the Duke of Marlborough’s great blue vase, but it sold
for ten.... I bought two bronzed figures, which are sent herewith.” He
borrowed antique candlesticks, vases, and articles in metal from the Queen
and from various members of the nobility. “I wish Mr. Eginton,” he wrote,
“would take good casts from the Hercules and the Hydra, and then let it be
well gilt and returned with the seven vases; for ’tis the Queen’s. I perceive
we shall want many such figures, and therefore we should omit no
opportunity of taking good casts.” The Duke of Northumberland lent
Boulton many of his most highly-prized articles for imitation by his
workmen. Among his other liberal helpers in the same way, we find the

Duke of Richmond, Lord Shelburne, and the Earl of Dartmouth. The Duke
gave him an introduction to Horace Walpole, for the purpose of enabling
him to visit and examine the art treasures of Strawberry Hill. “The vases,”
said he, in writing to Boulton, “are, in my opinion, better worth your seeing
than anything in England, and I wish you would have exact drawings of
them taken, as I may very possibly like to have them copied by you.” Lord
Shelburne’s opinion of Boulton may be gathered from his letter to Mr.
Adams, the architect, in which he said:—“Mr. Boulton is the most
enterprising man in different ways in Birmingham, and is very desirous of
cultivating Mr. Adams’s taste in his productions, and has bought his
Dioclesian by Lord Shelburne’s advice.”
Boulton, however, did not confine himself to England; he searched the
Continent over for the best specimens of handicraft as models for imitation;
and when he found them he strove to equal, if not to excel them in style and
quality. He sent his agent, Mr. Wendler, on a special mission of this sort, to
Venice, Rome, and other Italian cities, to purchase for him the best
specimens of metal-work, and obtain for him designs of various ornaments
—vases, cameos, intaglios, and statuary. On one occasion we find Wendler
sending him 456 prints, Boulton acknowledging that they will prove
exceedingly useful for the purposes of his manufacture. At the same time,
Fothergill was travelling through France and Germany with a like object,
while he was also establishing new connexions with a view to extended
trade.[100]
While Boulton was ambitious of reaching the highest excellence in his
own line of business, he did not confine himself to that, but was feeling his
way in various directions outside of it. Thus to his friend Wedgwood he
wrote on one occasion, that he admired his vases so much that he “almost
wished to be a potter.” At one time, indeed, he had serious thoughts of
beginning the fictile manufacture; but he rested satisfied with mounting in
metal the vases which Wedgwood made. “The mounting of vases,” he
wrote, “is a large field for fancy, in which I shall indulge, as I perceive it
possible to convert even a very ugly vessel into a beautiful vase.”[101]
Another branch of business that he sought to establish was the
manufacture of clocks. It was one of his leading ideas, that articles in
common use might be made much better and cheaper if manufactured on a

large scale with the help of the best machinery; and he thought this might be
successfully done in the making of clocks and timepieces. The necessary
machinery was erected accordingly, and the new branch of business was
started. Some of the timepieces were of an entirely novel arrangement. One
of them, invented by Dr. Small, contained but a single wheel, and was
considered a piece of very ingenious construction. Boulton also sought to
rival the French makers of ornamental timepieces, by whom the English
markets were then almost entirely supplied; and some of the articles of this
sort turned out by him were of great beauty. One of his most ardent
encouragers and admirers, the Hon. Mrs. Montagu, wrote to him,—“I take
greater pleasure in our victories over the French in the contention of arts
than of arms. The achievements of Soho, instead of making widows and
orphans, make marriages and christenings. Your noble industry, while
elevating the public taste, provides new occupations for the poor, and
enables them to bring up their families in comfort. Go on, then, sir, to
triumph over the French in taste, and to embellish your country with useful
inventions and elegant productions.”
Boulton’s efforts to improve the industrial arts did not, however,
always meet with such glowing eulogy as this. Two of his most highly
finished astronomical clocks could not find purchasers at his London sale;
on which he wrote to his wife at Soho, “I find philosophy at a very low ebb
in London, and I have therefore brought back my two fine clocks, which I
will send to a market where common sense is not out of fashion. If I had
made the clocks play jigs upon bells, and a dancing bear keeping time, or if
I had made a horse-race upon their faces, I believe they would have had
better bidders. I shall therefore bring them back to Soho, and some time this
summer will send them to the Empress of Russia, who, I believe, would be
glad of them.”[102] During the same visit to London, he was more successful
with the king and queen, who warmly patronised his productions. “The
king,” he wrote to his wife, “hath bought a pair of cassolets, a Titus, a
Venus clock, and some other things, and inquired this morning how
yesterday’s sale went. I shall see him again, I believe. I was with them, the
queen and all the children, between two and three hours. There were,
likewise, many of the nobility present. Never was man so much
complimented as I have been; but I find that compliments don’t make fat
nor fill the pocket. The queen showed me her last child, which is a beauty,

but none of ’em are equal to the General of Soho or the fair Maid of the
Mill.[103] God bless them both, and kiss them for me.”
In another letter he described a subsequent visit to the palace. “I am to
wait upon their majesties again so soon as our Tripod Tea-kitchen arrives,
and again upon some other business. The queen, I think, is much improved
in her person, and she now speaks English like an English lady. She draws
very finely, is a great musician, and works with her needle better than Mrs.
Betty. However, without joke, she is extremely sensible, very affable, and a
great patroness of English manufactures. Of this she gave me a particular
instance; for, after the king and she had talked to me for nearly three hours,
they withdrew, and then the queen sent for me into her boudoir, showed me
her chimneypiece, and asked me how many vases it would take to furnish
it; ‘for,’ said she, ‘all that china shall be taken away.’ She also desired that I
would fetch her the two finest steel chains I could make. All this she did of
her own accord, without the presence of the king, which I could not help
putting a kind construction upon.”[104]
Thus stimulated by royal and noble patronage, Boulton exerted himself
to the utmost to produce articles of the highest excellence. Like his friend
Wedgwood, he employed Flaxman and other London artists to design his
choicer goods; but he had many foreign designers and skilled workmen,
French and Italian, in his regular employment. He attracted these men by
liberal wages, and kept them attached to him by kind and generous
treatment. On one occasion we find the Duke of Richmond applying to him
to recommend a first-class artist to execute some special work in metal for
him. Boulton replies that he can strongly recommend one of his own men,
an honest, steady workman, an excellent metal turner. “He hath made for
me some exceeding good achromatic telescopes [another branch of
Boulton’s business].... I give him two guineas a week and a house to live in.
He is a Frenchman, and formerly worked with the famous M. Germain; he
afterwards worked for the Academy of Sciences at Berlin, and he hath
worked upwards of two years for me.”[105]
Before many years had passed, Soho was spoken of with pride, as one
of the best schools of skilled industry in England. Its fame extended abroad
as well as at home, and when distinguished foreigners came into England,
they usually visited Soho as one of the national sights. When the

manufactory was complete[106] and in full work, Boulton removed from his
house on Snow-hill to the mansion of Soho, which he had by this time
considerably enlarged and improved. There he continued to live until the
close of his life, maintaining a splendid hospitality. Men of all nations, and
of all classes and opinions, were received there by turns,—princes,
philosophers, artists, authors, merchants, and poets. In August, 1767, while
executing the two chains for the queen, we find him writing to his London
agent as his excuse for a day’s delay in forwarding it: “I had lords and
ladies to wait on yesterday; I have French and Spaniards to-day; and to-
morrow I shall have Germans, Russians, and Norwegians.” For many years
the visitors at Soho House were so numerous and arrived in such constant
succession, that it more resembled an hotel than a private mansion.

SOHO HOUSE.

The rapid extension of the Soho business necessarily led to the
increase of the capital invested in it. Boulton had to find large sums of
money for increased stock, plant, and credits. He raised 3000l. on his wife’s
estate; he borrowed 5000l. from his friend Baumgarten; and he sold
considerable portions of the property left him by his father, by which means
he was enabled considerably to extend his operations. There were envious
busybodies about who circulated rumours to his discredit, and set the report
on foot, that to carry on a business on so large a scale would require a

capital of 80,000l. “Their evil speaking,” said he to a correspondent, “will
avail but little, as our house is founded on so firm a rock that envy and
malice will not be able to shake it; and I am determined to spare neither
pains nor money to establish such a house as will acquire both honour and
wealth.” The rapid strides he was making may be inferred from the
statement made to the same correspondent, which showed that the gross
returns of the firm, which were 7000l. in 1763, had advanced to 30,000l. in
1767, with orders still upon the increase.
Though he had a keen eye for business, Boulton regarded character
more than profit. He would have no connexion with any transaction of a
discreditable kind. Orders were sent to him from France for base money,
but he spurned them with indignation. “I will do anything,” he wrote to M.
Motteaux, his Paris agent, “short of being common informer against
particular persons, to stop the malpractices of the Birmingham coiners.” He
declared he was as ready to do business on reasonable terms as any other
person, but he would not undersell; “for,” said he, “to run down prices
would be to run down quality, which could only have the effect of
undermining confidence, and eventually ruining trade.” His principles were
equally honourable as regarded the workmen of rival employers. “I have
had many offers and opportunities,” he said to one, “of taking your people,
whom I could, with convenience to myself, have employed; but it is a
practice I abhor. Nevertheless, whatever game we play at, I shall always
avail myself of the rules with which ’tis played, or I know I shall make but
a very indifferent figure in it.”[107]
He was frequently asked to take gentlemen apprentices into his works,
but declined to receive them, though hundreds of pounds’ premium were in
many cases offered with them. He preferred employing the humbler class of
boys, whom he could train up as skilled workmen. He was also induced to
prefer the latter for another reason, of a still more creditable kind. “I have,”
said he, in answer to a gentleman applicant, “built and furnished a house for
the reception of one kind of apprentices—fatherless children, parish
apprentices, and hospital boys; and gentlemen’s sons would probably find
themselves out of place in such companionship.”
While occupied with his own affairs, and in conducting what he
described as “the largest hardware manufactory in the world,” Boulton

found time to take an active part in promoting the measures then on foot for
opening up the internal navigation of the country. He was a large subscriber
to the Grand Trunk and Birmingham Canal schemes, the latter of which was
of the greater importance to him personally, as it passed close by Soho, and
thus placed his works in direct communication both with London and the
northern coal and manufacturing districts.[108]
Coming down to a few years later, in 1770, we find his business still
growing, and his works and plant absorbing still more capital, principally
obtained by borrowing. In a letter to Mr. Adams, the celebrated architect,
requesting him to prepare the design of a new sale-room in London, he
described the manufactory at Soho as in full progress, from 700 to 800
persons being employed as metallic artists and workers in tortoiseshell,
stones, glass, and enamel. “I have almost every machine,” said he, “that is
applicable to those arts; I have two water-mills employed in rolling,
polishing, grinding, and turning various sorts of lathes. I have trained up
many, and am training up more plain country lads into good workmen; and
wherever I find indications of skill and ability, I encourage them. I have
likewise established correspondence with almost every mercantile town in
Europe, and am thus regularly supplied with orders for the grosser articles
in common demand, by which I am enabled to employ such a number of
hands as to provide me with an ample choice of artists for the finer
branches of work; and I am thereby encouraged to erect and employ a more
extensive apparatus than it would be prudent to provide for the production
of the finer articles only.”
It is indeed probable—though Boulton was slow to admit it—that he
had been extending his business more rapidly than his capital would
conveniently allow; for we find him becoming more and more pressed for
means to meet the interest on the borrowed money invested in buildings,
tools, and machinery. He had obtained 10,000l. from a Mr. Tonson of
London; and on the death of that gentleman, in 1772, he had considerable
difficulty in raising the means to pay off the debt. His embarrassment was
increased by a serious commercial panic, aggravated by the failure of
Fordyce brothers, by which a considerable sum deposited with them
remained locked up for some time, and he was eventually a loser to the
extent of 2000l. Other failures and losses followed; and trade came almost
to a standstill. Yet he bravely held on. “We have a thousand mouths at Soho

to feed,” he says; “and it has taken so much labour and pains to get so
valuable and well-organised a staff of workmen together, that the operations
of the manufactory must be carried on at whatever risk.” He continued to
receive distinguished visitors at his works. “Last week,” he wrote Mr.
Ebbenhouse, “we had Prince Poniatowski, nephew of the King of Poland,
and the French, Danish, Sardinian, and Dutch Ambassadors; this week we
have had Count Orloff, one of the five celebrated brothers who are such
favourites with the Empress of Russia; and only yesterday I had the Viceroy
of Ireland, who dined with me. Scarcely, a day passes without a visit from
some distinguished personage.”
Besides carrying on the extensive business connected with his
manufactory at Soho, this indefatigable man found time to prosecute the
study of several important branches of practical science. It was scarcely to
be supposed that he had much leisure at his disposal; but in life it often
happens that the busiest men contrive to find the most leisure; and he who
is “up to the ears” in work, can, nevertheless, snatch occasional intervals to
devote to inquiries in which his heart is engaged. Hence we find Boulton
ranging at intervals over a wide field of inquiry; at one time studying
geology, and collecting fossils, minerals, and specimens for his museum; at
another, reading and experimenting on fixed air; and at another studying
Newton’s works with the object of increasing the force of projectiles.[109]
But the subject which perhaps more than all interested him was the
improvement of the Steam Engine, which shortly after led to his
introduction to James Watt.

CHAPTER X.
Boulton and the Steam Engine—Correspondence with Watt.

Want of water-power was one of the great defects of Soho as a
manufacturing establishment, and for a long time Boulton struggled with
the difficulty. The severe summer droughts obliged him to connect a horse-
mill with the water-wheel. From six to ten horses were employed as an
auxiliary power, at an expense of from five to eight guineas a week. But this

expedient, though costly, was found very inconvenient. Boulton next
thought of erecting a pumping-engine after Savery or Newcomen’s
construction, for the purpose of raising the water from the mill-stream and
returning it back into the reservoir—thereby maintaining a head of water
sufficient to supply the water-wheel and keep the mill in regular work. “The
enormous expense of the horse-power,” he wrote to a friend, “put me upon
thinking of turning the mill by fire, and I made many fruitless experiments
on the subject.”
In 1766 we find him engaged in a correspondence with the
distinguished Benjamin Franklin as to steam power. Eight years before,
Franklin had visited Boulton at Birmingham and made his acquaintance.
They were mutually pleased with each other, and continued to correspond
during Franklin’s stay in England, exchanging their views on magnetism,
electricity, and other subjects.[110] When Boulton began to study the fire-
engine with a view to its improvement, Franklin was one of the first whom
he consulted. Writing him on the 22nd February, 1766, he said,—

“My engagements since Christmas have not permitted me to make any further
progress with my fire-engine; but, as the thirsty season is approaching apace, necessity will
oblige me to set about it in good earnest. Query,—Which of the steam-valves do you like
best? Is it better to introduce the jet of cold water at the bottom of the receiver, or at the
top? Each has its advantages and disadvantages. My thoughts about the secondary or
mechanical contrivances of the engine are too numerous to trouble you with in this letter,
and yet I have not been lucky enough to hit upon any that are objectionless. I therefore beg,
if any thought occurs to your fertile genius which you think may be useful, or preserve me
from error in the execution of this engine, you’ll be so kind as to communicate it to me,
and you’ll very greatly oblige me.”

From a subsequent letter it appears that Boulton, like Watt—who was
about the same time occupied with his invention at Glasgow—had a model
constructed for experimental purposes, and that this model was now with
Franklin in London; for we find Boulton requesting the latter to “order a
porter to nail up the model in the box again and take it to the Birmingham
carrier at the Bell Inn, Smithfield.” After a silence of about a month
Franklin replied,—

“You will, I trust, excuse my so long omitting to answer your kind letter, when you
consider the excessive hurry and anxiety I have been engaged in with our American
affairs.... I know not which of the valves to give the preference to, nor whether it is best to

introduce your jet of cold water above or below. Experiments will best decide in such
cases. I would only repeat to you the hint I gave, of fixing your grate in such a manner as
to burn all your smoke. I think a great deal of fuel will then be saved, for two reasons. One,
that smoke is fuel, and is wasted when it escapes uninflamed. The other, that it forms a
sooty crust on the bottom of the boiler, which crust not being a good conductor of heat, and
preventing flame and hot air coming into immediate contact with the vessel, lessens their
effect in giving heat to the water. All that is necessary is, to make the smoke of fresh coals
pass descending through those that are already thoroughly ignited. I sent the model last
week, with your papers in it, which I hope got safe to hand.”[111]

The model duly arrived at Soho, and we find Boulton shortly after
occupied in making experiments with it, the results of which are duly
entered in his note-books. Dr. Erasmus Darwin, with whom he was on very
intimate terms, wrote him from Lichfield, inquiring what Franklin thought
of the model and what suggestions he had made for its improvement. “Your
model of a steam-engine, I am told,” said he, “has gained so much
approbation in London, that I cannot but congratulate you on the
mechanical fame you have acquired by it, which, assure yourself, is as great
a pleasure to me as it could possibly be to yourself.”[112] Another letter of
Darwin to Boulton is preserved, without date, but apparently written earlier
than the preceding, in which the Doctor lays before the mechanical
philosopher the scheme of “a fiery chariot” which he had conceived,—in
other words, of a locomotive steam-carriage. He proposed to apply an
engine with a pair of cylinders working alternately, to drive the proposed
vehicle;[113] and he sent Boulton some rough diagrams illustrative of his
views, which he begged might be kept a profound secret, as it was his
intention, if Boulton approved of his plan and would join him as a partner,
to endeavour to build a model engine, and, if it answered, to take out a joint
patent for it. But Dr. Darwin’s scheme was too crude to be capable of being
embodied in a working model; and nothing more was heard of his fiery
chariot.
Another of Boulton’s numerous correspondents about the same time
was Dr. Roebuck, of Kinneil, then occupied with his enterprise at Carron,
and about to engage in working the Boroughstoness coal mines, of the
results of which he was extremely sanguine. He also wished Boulton to join
him as a partner, offering a tenth share in the concern, and to take back the
share if the result did not answer expectations. But Boulton’s hands were
already full of business nearer home, and he declined the venture. Roebuck

then informed him of the invention made by his ingenious friend Watt, and
of the progress of the model engine. This was a subject calculated to excite
the interest of Boulton, himself occupied in studying the same subject, and
he expressed a desire to see Watt, if he could make it convenient to visit
him at Soho.
It so happened that Watt had occasion to be in London in the summer
of 1767, on the business connected with the Forth and Clyde Canal Bill, and
he determined to take Soho on his way home. When Watt paid his promised
visit, Boulton was absent; but he was shown over the works by his friend
Dr. Small, who had settled in Birmingham as a physician, and already
secured a high place in Boulton’s esteem. Watt was much struck with the
admirable arrangements of the Soho manufactory, and recognised at a
glance the admirable power of organisation which they displayed. Still
plodding wearily with his model, and contending with the “villanous bad
workmanship” of his Glasgow artisans, he could not but envy the precision
of the Soho tools and the dexterity of the Soho workmen. Some
conversation on the subject must have occurred between him and Small, to
whom he explained the nature of his invention; for we find the latter shortly
after writing Watt, urging him to come to Birmingham and join partnership
with Boulton and himself in the manufacture of steam-engines.[114] Although
nothing came of this proposal at the time, it had probably some effect, when
communicated to Dr. Roebuck, in inducing him to close with Watt as a
partner, and thus anticipate his Birmingham correspondents, of whose
sagacity he had the highest opinion.
In the following year Watt visited London on the business connected
with the engine patent. Small wrote to him there, saying, “Get your patent
and come to Birmingham, with as much time to spend as you can.” Watt
accordingly again took Birmingham on his way home. There he saw his
future partner for the first time, and they at once conceived a hearty liking
for each other. They had much conversation about the engine, and it greatly
cheered Watt to find that the sagacious and practical Birmingham
manufacturer should augur so favourably of its success as he did. Shortly
after, when Dr. Robison visited Soho, Boulton told him that although he had
begun the construction of his proposed pumping-engine, he had determined
to proceed no further with it until he saw what came of Watt and Roebuck’s
scheme. “In erecting my proposed engine,” said he, “I would necessarily

avail myself of what I learned from Mr. Watt’s conversation; but this would
not now be right without his consent.” Boulton’s conduct in this proceeding
was thoroughly characteristic of him, and merely affords another illustration
of the general fairness and honesty with which he acted in all his business
transactions.
Watt returned to Glasgow to resume his engine experiments and to
proceed with his canal surveys. He kept up a correspondence with Boulton,
and advised him from time to time of the progress made with his model.
Towards the end of the year we find him sending Boulton a package from
Glasgow containing “one dozen German flutes at 5s., and a copper digester
1l. 10s.” He added, “I have almost finished a most complete model of my
reciprocating-engine: when it is tried, I shall advise the success.” To Dr.
Small he wrote more confidentially, sending him in January, 1769, a copy
of the intended specification of his steam-engine. He also spoke of his
general business: “Our pottery,” said he, “is doing tolerably, though not as I
wish. I am sick of the people I have to do with, though not of the business,
which I expect will turn out a very good one. I have a fine scheme for doing
it all by fire or water mills, but not in this country nor with the present
people.”[115] Later, he wrote: “I have had another three days of fever, from
which I am not quite recovered. This cursed climate and constitution will
undo me.” Watt must have told Small when at Birmingham of the
probability of his being able to apply his steam-engine to locomotion; for
the latter writes him, “I told Dr. Robison and his pupil that I hoped soon to
travel in a fiery chariot of your invention.” Later, Small wrote: “A
linendraper at London, one Moore, has taken out a patent for moving
wheel-carriages by steam. This comes of thy delays. I dare say he has heard
of your inventions.... Do come to England with all possible speed. At this
moment, how I could scold you for negligence! However, if you will come
hither soon, I will promise to be very civil, and buy a steam-chaise of you
and not of Moore. And yet it vexes me abominably to see a man of your
superior genius neglect to avail himself properly of his great talents. These
short fevers will do you good.”[116] Watt replied: “If linendraper Moore does
not use my engines to drive his chaises, he can’t drive them by steam. If he
does, I will stop them. I suppose by the rapidity of his progress and puffing
he is too volatile to be dangerous.... You talk to me about coming to
England, just as if I was an Indian that had nothing to remove but my

person. Why do we encumber ourselves with anything else? I can’t see you
before July at soonest, unless you come here. If you do I can recommend
you to a fine sweet girl, who will be anything you want her to be if you can
make yourself agreeable to her.” Badinage apart, however, there was one
point on which Watt earnestly solicited the kind services of his friend. He
had become more than ever desirous of securing the powerful co-operation
of Matthew Boulton in introducing his invention to public notice:—

“Seriously,” says he, “you will oblige me if you will negotiate the following affair:—I
find that if the engine succeeds my whole time will be taken up in planning and erecting
Reciprocating engines, and the Circulator must stand still unless I do what I have done too
often, neglect certainty for hope. Now, Mr. Boulton wants one or more engines for his own
use. If he will make a model of one of 20 inches diameter at least, I will give him my
advice and as much assistance as I can. He shall have liberty to erect one of any size for his
own use. If he should choose to have more the terms will be easy, and I shall consider
myself much obliged to him. If it should answer, and he should not think himself repaid for
his trouble by the use of it, he shall make and use it until he is repaid. If this be agreeable to
him let me know, and I will propose it to the Doctor [Roebuck], and doubt not of his
consent. I wish Mr. Boulton and you had entered into some negotiation with the Doctor
about coming in as partners. I am afraid it is now too late; for the nearer it approaches to
certainty, he grows the more tenacious of it.[117] For my part, I shall continue to think as I
did, that it would be for our mutual advantage. His expectations are solely from the
Reciprocator. Possibly he may be tempted to part with the half of the Circulator to you.
This I say of myself. Mr. Boulton asked if the Circulator was contrived since our
agreement. It was; but it is a part of the scheme, and virtually included in it.”[118]

From this it will be seen how anxious Watt was to engage Boulton in
taking an interest in his invention. But though the fly was artfully cast over
the nose of the fish, still he would not rise. The times were out of joint,
business was stagnant, and Boulton was of necessity cautious about
venturing upon new enterprises. Small doubtless communicated the views
thus confidentially conveyed to him by Watt; and in his next letter he again
pressed him to come to Birmingham and have a personal interview with
Boulton as to the engine, adding, “bring this pretty girl with you when you
come.” But, instead of Watt, Roebuck himself went to see Boulton on the
subject. During the time of this visit, Watt again communicated to Small his
anxiety that Boulton should join in the partnership. “As for myself,” said
he, “I shall say nothing; but if you three can agree among yourselves, you
may appoint me what share you please, and you will find me willing to do
my best to advance the good of the whole; or, if this [the engine] should not

succeed, to do any other thing I can to make you all amends, only reserving
to myself the liberty of grumbling when I am in an ill humour.”[119]
Small’s reply was discouraging. Both Boulton and he had just engaged
in another scheme, which would require all the ready money at their
command. Possibly the ill-success of the experiment Watt had by this time
made with his new model at Kinneil may have had some influence in
deterring them from engaging in what still looked a very unpromising
speculation. Watt was greatly cast down at this intelligence, though he could
not blame his friend for the caution he displayed in the matter.[120] He
nevertheless again returned to the subject in his letters to Small; and at last
Boulton was persuaded to enter into a conditional arrangement with
Roebuck, which was immediately communicated to Watt, who received the
intelligence with great exultation. “I shake hands,” he wrote to Small, “with
you and Mr. Boulton in our connexion, which I hope will prove agreeable to
us all.” His joy, however, proved premature, as it turned out that the
agreement was only to the effect, that if Boulton thought proper to exercise
the option of becoming a partner in the engine to the extent of one-third, he
was to do so within a period of twelve months, paying Roebuck a sum of
1000l.; but this option Boulton never exercised, and the engine enterprise
seemed to be as far from success as ever.
In the mean time Watt became increasingly anxious about his own
position. He had been spending more money on fruitless experiments, and
getting into more debt. The six months he had been living at Kinneil had
brought him in nothing. He had been neglecting his business, and could not
afford to waste more time in prosecuting an apparently hopeless
speculation. He accordingly returned to his regular work, and proceeded
with the survey of the river Clyde, at the instance of the Glasgow
Corporation. “I would not have meddled with this,” he wrote to Dr. Small,
“had I been certain of being able to bring the engine to bear. But I cannot,
on an uncertainty, refuse every piece of business that offers. I have refused
some common fire-engines, because they must have taken my attention so
up as to hinder my going on with my own. However, if I cannot make it
answer soon, I shall certainly undertake the next that offers, for I cannot
afford to trifle away my whole life, which—God knows—may not be long.
Not that I think myself a proper hand for keeping men to their duty; but I

must use my endeavours to make myself square with the world, though I
much fear I never shall.”[121]
Small lamented this apparent abandonment of the engine to its fate.
But though he had failed in inducing Boulton heartily to join Watt in the
enterprise, he did not yet despair. He continued to urge Watt to complete his
engine, as the fourteen years for which the patent lasted would soon be
gone. At all events he might send drawings of his engine to Soho; and Mr.
Boulton and he would undertake to do their best to have one constructed for
the purpose of exhibiting its powers.[122] To this Watt agreed, and about the
beginning of 1770, the necessary drawings were sent to Soho, and an
engine was immediately put in course of execution. Patterns were made and
sent to Coalbrookdale to be cast; but when the castings were received, they
were found exceedingly imperfect, and were thrown aside as useless. They
were then sent to an ironfounder at Bilston to be executed; but the result
was only another failure.
About the beginning of 1770, another unsuccessful experiment was
made by Watt and Roebuck with the engine at Kinneil. The cylinder had
been repaired and made true by beating, but as the metal of which it was
made was soft, it was feared that the working of the piston might throw it
out of form. To prevent this, two firm parallel planes were fixed, through
which the piston worked, in order to prevent its vibration. “If this should
fail,” Roebuck wrote to Boulton, in giving an account of the intended trial,
“then the cylinder must be made of cast-iron. But I have great confidence
that the present engine will work completely, and by this day se’nnight you
may expect to hear the result of our experiments.”[123] The good news,
however, never went to Birmingham; on the contrary, the trial proved a
failure. There was some more tinkering at the engine, but it would not work
satisfactorily; and Watt went back to Glasgow with a heavy heart.
Small again endeavoured to induce Watt to visit Birmingham, to
superintend the erection of the engine, the materials for which were now
lying at Soho. He also held out to Watt the hope of obtaining some
employment for him in the midland counties as a consulting engineer. But
Watt could not afford to lose more time in erecting trial-engines; and he was
too much occupied at Glasgow to leave it for the proposed uncertainty at
Birmingham. He accordingly declined the visit, but invited Small to

continue the correspondence; “for,” said he, “we have abundance of matters
to discuss, though the damned engine sleep in quiet.” Small wrote back,
professing himself satisfied that Watt was so fully employed in his own
profession at Glasgow. “Let nothing,” he said, “divert you from the
business of engineering. You are sensible that both Boulton and I engaged
in the patent scheme much more from inclination to be in some degree
useful to you than from any other principle; so that if you are prosperous
and happy, we do not care whether you find the scheme worth prosecuting
or not.”[124] Replying to Small’s complaint of himself, that he felt ennuyé
and stupid, taking pleasure in nothing but sleep, Watt said: “You complain
of physic; I find it sufficiently stupifying to be obliged to think on any
subject but one’s hobby; and I really am become monstrously stupid, and
can seldom think at all. I wish to God I could afford to live without it;
though I don’t admire your sleeping scheme. I must fatigue myself,
otherwise I can neither eat nor sleep. In short, I greatly doubt whether the
silent mansion of the grave be not the happiest abode. I am cured of most of
my youthful desires, and if ambition or avarice do not lay hold of me, I
shall be almost as much ennuyé as you say you are.”[125]
Small again recurred to the subject of Watt’s removal to Birmingham,
informing him that he had provided accommodation for him, “having kept a
whole house in my power, in hopes you may come to live here.”
Watt’s prospects were, however, brightening. He was then busily
occupied in superintending the construction of the Monkland Canal. He
wrote Small that he had a hundred men working under him, who had “made
a confounded gash in a hill,” at which they had been working for twelve
months; that by frugal living he had contrived to save money enough to pay
his debts, and that he had plenty of remunerative work before him. He had
also become concerned in a pottery, which, he said, “does very well, though
we make monstrous bad ware.”[126] He had not, indeed, got rid of his
headaches, though he was not so much afflicted by low spirits as he had
been. But he confessed that after all he hated the business of engineering,
and wished himself well rid of it, for the reasons stated in a preceding
chapter.
This comparatively prosperous state of Watt’s affairs did not, however,
last long. The commercial panic of 1772 put a sudden stop to most of the

canal schemes then on foot. The proprietors of the Monkland Canal could
not find the necessary means for carrying on the works, and Watt
consequently lost his employment as their engineer. He was thus again
thrown upon the world, and where was he to look for help? Naturally
enough, he reverted to his engine. But it was in the hands of Dr. Roebuck,
who was overwhelmed with debt, and upon the verge of insolvency. It was
clear that no help was to be looked for in that quarter. Again he bethought
him of Small’s invitations to Birmingham, and of the interest that Boulton
had taken in the engine scheme. Could he be induced at last to become a
partner? He again broached the subject to Small, telling him how business
had failed him; that he was now ready to go to Birmingham and engage in
English surveys, or do anything that would bring him in an honest income.
But, above all, would Boulton and Small, now that Roebuck had failed, join
him as partners in the engine business?
By this time Boulton himself had become involved in difficulties
arising out of the commercial pressure of the time, and was more averse
than ever to enter upon such an enterprise. But having lent Roebuck a
considerable sum of money, it occurred to Watt that the amount might be
taken as part of the price of Boulton’s share in the patent, if he would
consent to enter into the proposed partnership. He represented to Small the
great distress of Roebuck’s situation, which he had done all that he could to
relieve. “What little I can do for him,” he said, “is purchased by denying
myself the conveniences of life my station requires, or by remaining in
debt, which it galls me to the bone to owe.” Reverting to the idea of a
partnership with Boulton, he added, “I shall be content to hold a very small
share in it, or none at all, provided I am to be freed from my pecuniary
obligations to Roebuck, and have any kind of recompense for even a part of
the anxiety and ruin it has involved me in.” And again: “Although I am out
of pocket a much greater sum upon these experiments than my proportion
of the profits of the engine, I do not look upon that money as the price of
my share, but as money spent on my education. I thank God I have now
reason to believe that I can never, while I have health, be at any loss to pay
what I owe, and to live at least in a decent manner; more, I do not violently
desire.”[127]
In a subsequent letter Watt promised Small that he would pay an early
visit to Birmingham, and added, “there is nowhere I so much wish to be.” In

replying, Small pointed out a difficulty in the way of the proposed
partnership: “It is impossible,” he wrote, “for Mr. Boulton and me, or any
other honest man, to purchase, especially from two particular friends, what
has no market price, and at a time when they might be inclined to part with
the commodity at an under value.”[128] He added that the high-pressure
wheel-engine constructing at Soho, after Watt’s plans, was nearly ready, and
that Wilkinson, of Bradley, had promised that the boiler should be sent next
week. “Should the experiment succeed, or seem likely to succeed,” he said,
“you ought to come hither immediately upon receiving the notice, which I
will instantly send. In that case we propose to unite three things under your
direction, which would altogether, we hope, prove tolerably satisfactory to
you, at least until your merit shall be better known.”[129]
But before the experiment with the wheel-engine could be tried at
Soho, the financial ruin of Dr. Roebuck brought matters to a crisis. He was
now in the hands of his creditors, who found his affairs in inextricable
confusion. He owed some 1200l. to Boulton, who, rather than claim against
the estate, offered to take Roebuck’s two-thirds share in the engine patent in
lieu of the debt. The creditors did not value the engine as worth one
farthing, and were but too glad to agree to the proposal. As Watt himself
said, it was only “paying one bad debt with another.” Boulton wrote to Watt
requesting him to act as his attorney in the matter. He confessed that he was
by no means sanguine as to the success of the engine, but, being an assayer,
he was willing “to assay it and try how much gold it contains.” “The thing,”
he added, “is now a shadow; ’tis merely ideal, and will cost time and money
to realise it. We have made no experiment yet that answers my purpose, and
the times are so horrible throughout the mercantile part of Europe, that I
have not had my thoughts sufficiently disengaged to think of new
schemes.”[130]
So soon as the arrangement for the transfer of Roebuck’s share to
Boulton was concluded, Watt ordered the engine in the outhouse at Kinneil
to be taken to pieces, packed up, and sent to Birmingham.[131] Small again
pressed him to come and superintend the work in person. But before he
could leave Scotland it was necessary that he should complete the survey of
the Caledonian Canal, which was still unfinished. This done, he promised at
once to set out for Soho. In any case, he had made up his mind to leave his
own country, of which he declared himself “heart-sick.”[132] He hated its

harsh climate, so trying to his fragile constitution. Moreover, he disliked the
people he had to deal with. He was also badly paid for his work, a whole
year’s surveying having brought him in only about 200l. Out of this he had
paid some portion to Dr. Roebuck to help him in his necessity, “so that,” he
said, “I can barely support myself and keep untouched the small sum I have
allotted for my visit to you.”[133]
Watt’s intention was either to try to find employment as a surveyor or
engineer in England, or obtain a situation of some kind abroad. He was,
however, naturally desirous of ascertaining whether it was yet possible to
do anything with the materials which now lay at Soho; and with the object
of visiting his friends there and superintending the erection of the trial-
engine, he at length made his final arrangements to leave Glasgow. We find
him arrived in Birmingham in May, 1774, where he at once entered on a
new and important phase of his professional career.

CHAPTER XI.
Boulton and Watt—Their Partnership.

Watt had now been occupied for about nine years in working out the
details of his invention. Five of these had passed since he had taken out his
patent, and he was still struggling with difficulty. Several thousand pounds
had been expended on the engine, besides much study, labour, and
ingenuity; yet it was still, as Boulton expressed it, “a shadow, as regarded
its practical utility and value.” So long as Watt’s connexion with Roebuck
continued, there was indeed very little chance of getting it favourably
introduced to public notice. What it was yet to become as a working power
depended in no small degree upon the business ability, the strength of
purpose, and the length of purse of his new partner.
Had Watt searched Europe through, probably he could not have found
a man better fitted than Matthew Boulton for bringing his invention fairly
before the world. Many would have thought it rash on the part of the latter,
burdened as he was with heavy liabilities, to engage in a new undertaking

of so speculative a character. Feasible though the scheme might be, it was
an admitted fact that nearly all the experiments with the models heretofore
made had proved failures. It is true Watt firmly believed that he had hit
upon the right principle, and he was as sanguine as ever of the eventual
success of his engine. But though inventors are usually sanguine, men of
capital do not take up their schemes on that account. Capitalists are rather
disposed to regard sanguine inventors as visionaries, full of theories of what
is possible rather than of well-defined plans of what is practicable and
useful.
Boulton, however, amongst his many other gifts possessed an
admirable knowledge of character. His judgment of men was almost
unerring. In Watt he had recognised at his first visit to Soho, not only a man
of original inventive genius, but a plodding, earnest, intent, and withal an
exceedingly modest man; not given to puff, but on the contrary rather
disposed to underrate the merit of his inventions. Different though their
characters were in most respects, Boulton at once conceived a hearty liking
for him. The one displayed in perfection precisely those qualities which the
other wanted. Boulton was a man of ardent and generous temperament, bold
and enterprising, undaunted by difficulty, and possessing an almost
boundless capacity for work. He was a man of great tact, clear perception,
and sound judgment. Moreover, he possessed that indispensable quality of
perseverance, without which the best talents are of comparatively little avail
in the conduct of important affairs. While Watt hated business, Boulton
loved it. He had, indeed, a genius for business,—a gift almost as rare as that
for poetry, for art, or for war. He possessed a marvellous power of
organisation. With a keen eye for details he combined a comprehensive
grasp of intellect. While his senses were so acute, that when sitting in his
office at Soho he could detect the slightest stoppage or derangement in the
machinery of that vast establishment, and send his message direct to the
spot where it had occurred, his power of imagination was such as enabled
him to look clearly along extensive lines of possible action in Europe,
America, and the East. For there is a poetic as well as a commonplace side
to business; and the man of business genius lights up the humdrum routine
of daily life by exploring the boundless region of possibility wherever it
may lie open before him.

Boulton had already won his way to the very front rank in his calling,
honestly and honourably; and he was proud of it. He had created many new
branches of industry, which gave regular employment to hundreds of
families. He had erected and organised a manufactory which was looked
upon as one of the most complete of its kind in England, and was resorted
to by visitors from all parts of the world. But Boulton was more than a man
of business: he was a man of culture, and the friend of cultivated men. His
hospitable mansion at Soho was the resort of persons eminent in art, in
literature, and in science; and the love and admiration with which he
inspired such men affords one of the best proofs of his own elevation of
character. Among the most intimate of his friends and associates were
Richard Lovell Edgeworth,[134] a gentleman of fortune, enthusiastically
devoted to his long-conceived design of moving land-carriages by steam;
Captain Keir, an excellent practical chemist, a wit and a man of learning;
Dr. Small, the accomplished physician, chemist, and mechanist; Josiah
Wedgwood, the practical philosopher and manufacturer, founder of a new
and important branch of skilled industry; Thomas Day, the ingenious author
of ‘Sandford and Merton;’ Dr. Darwin, the poet-physician; Dr. Withering,
the botanist; besides others who afterwards joined the Soho circle,—not the
least distinguished of whom were Joseph Priestley and James Watt.[135]
Boulton could not have been very sanguine at first as to the success of
Watt’s engine. There were a thousand difficulties in the way of getting it
introduced to general use. The principal one was the difficulty of finding
workmen capable of making it. Watt had been constantly worried by
“villanous bad workmen,” who failed to make any model that would go
properly. It mattered not that the principle of the engine was right; if its
construction was beyond the skill of ordinary handicraftsmen, the invention
was practically worthless. The great Smeaton was of this opinion. When he
saw the first model working at Soho, he admitted the excellence of the
contrivance, but predicted its failure, on the ground that it was too
complicated, and that workmen were not to be found capable of
manufacturing it on any large scale for general uses.
Watt himself felt that, if the engine was ever to have a fair chance, it
was now; and that if Boulton, with his staff of skilled workmen at
command, could not make it go, the scheme must be abandoned
henceforward as impracticable. Boulton must, however, have seen the

elements of success in the invention, otherwise he would not have taken up
with it. He knew the difficulties Watt had encountered in designing it, and
he could well appreciate the skill with which he had overcome them; for
Boulton himself, as we have seen, had for some time been occupied with
the study of the subject. But the views of Boulton on entering into his new
branch of business, cannot be better expressed than in his own words, as
stated in a letter written by him to Watt in 1769, when then invited to join
the Roebuck partnership:—

“The plan proposed to me,”[136] said he, “is so very different from that which I had
conceived at the time I talked with you upon the subject, that I cannot think it a proper one
for me to meddle with, as I do not intend turning engineer. I was excited by two motives to
offer you my assistance—which were, love of you, and love of a money-getting ingenious
project. I presumed that your engine would require money, very accurate workmanship,
and extensive correspondence, to make it turn out to the best advantage; and that the best
means of keeping up our reputation and doing the invention justice, would be to keep the
executive part out of the hands of the multitude of empirical engineers, who, from
ignorance, want of experience, and want of necessary convenience, would be very liable to
produce bad and inaccurate workmanship; all which deficiencies would affect the
reputation of the invention. To remedy which, and to produce the most profit, my idea was
to settle a manufactory near my own, by the side of our canal, where I would erect all the
conveniences necessary for the completion of engines, and from which manufactory we
would serve the world with engines of all sizes. By these means and your assistance we
could engage and instruct some excellent workmen, who (with more excellent tools than
would be worth any man’s while to procure for one single engine) could execute the
invention 20 per cent. cheaper than it would be otherwise executed, and with as great a
difference of accuracy as there is between the blacksmith and the mathematical instrument
maker.”

He went on to state that he was willing to enter upon the speculation
with these views, considering it well worth his while “to make engines for
all the world,” though it would not be worth his while “to make for three
counties only;” besides, he declared himself averse to embark in any trade
that he had not the inspection of himself. He concluded by saying, “
Although there seem to be some obstructions to our partnership in the
engine trade, yet I live in hopes that you or I may hit upon some scheme or
other that may associate us in this part of the world, which would render it
still more agreeable to me than it is, by the acquisition of such a
neighbour.”[137]
Five years had passed since this letter was written, during which the
engine had made no way in the world. The partnership of Roebuck and Watt

had yielded nothing but vexation and debt; until at last, fortunately for Watt
—though at the time he regarded it as a terrible calamity—Roebuck broke
down, and the obstruction was removed which had prevented Watt and
Boulton from coming together. The latter at once reverted to the plan of
action which he had with so much sagacity laid down in 1769; and he
invited Watt to take up his abode at Soho until the necessary preliminary
arrangements could be made. He thought it desirable, in the first place, to
erect the engine, of which the several parts had been sent to Soho from
Kinneil, in order, if possible, to exhibit a specimen of the invention in actual
work. Boulton undertook to defray all the necessary expenses, and to find
competent workmen to carry out the instructions of Watt, whom Boulton
was also to maintain until the engine business had become productive.[138]
The materials brought from Kinneil were accordingly put together with
as little delay as possible; and, thanks to the greater skill of the workmen
who assisted in its erection, the engine, when finished, worked in a more
satisfactory manner than it had ever done before. In November, 1774, Watt
wrote Dr. Roebuck, informing him of the success of his trials; on which the
Dr. expressed his surprise that the engine should have worked at all,
“considering the slightness of the materials and its long exposure to the
injuries of the weather.” Watt also wrote to his father at Greenock. “The
business I am here about has turned out rather successful; that is to say, the
fire-engine I have invented is now going, and answers much better than any
other that has yet been made; and I expect that the invention will be very
beneficial to me.”[139] Such was Watt’s modest announcement of the
successful working of the engine on which such great results depended.
Much, however, remained to be done before either Watt or Boulton
could reap any benefit from the invention. Six years out of the fourteen for
which the patent was originally taken had already expired; and all that had
been accomplished was the erection of this experimental engine at Soho.
What further period might elapse before capitalists could be brought to
recognise the practical uses of the invention could only be guessed at; but
the probability was that the patent right would expire long before such a
demand for the engines arose as should remunerate Boulton and Watt for
their investment of time, labour, and capital. And the patent once expired,
the world at large would be free to make the engines, though Watt himself
had not recovered one farthing towards repaying him for the long years of

experiment, study, and ingenuity bestowed by him in bringing his invention
to perfection. These considerations made Boulton hesitate before launching
out the money necessary to provide the tools, machinery, and buildings, for
carrying on the intended manufacture on a large scale and in the best style.
When it became known that Boulton had taken an interest in a new
engine for pumping water, he had many inquiries about it from the mining
districts. The need of a more effective engine than any then in use was
every year becoming more urgent. The powers of Newcomen’s engine had
been tried to the utmost. So long as the surface-lodes were worked, its
power was sufficient to clear the mines of water; but as they were carried
deeper, it was found totally inadequate for the work, and many mines were
consequently becoming gradually drowned out and abandoned. The
excessive consumption of coals by the Newcomen engines was another
serious objection to their use, especially in districts such as Cornwall, where
coal was very dear. When Small was urging Watt to come to Birmingham
and make engines, he wrote: “A friend of Boulton’s, in Cornwall, sent us
word a few days ago that four or five copper-mines are just going to be
abandoned because of the high price of coals, and begs us to apply to them
instantly. The York Buildings Company delay rebuilding their engine, with
great inconvenience to themselves, waiting for yours. Yesterday application
was made to me by a Mining Company in Derbyshire to know when you
are to be in England about the engines, because they must quit their mine if
you cannot relieve them.” The necessity for an improved pumping power
had set many inventors to work besides Watt, and some of the less
scrupulous of them were already trying to adopt his principle in such a way
as to evade his patent. Moore, the London linendraper, and Hatley, one of
Watt’s Carron workmen, had brought out and were pushing engines similar
to Watt’s; the latter having stolen and sold for a considerable sum working
drawings of the Kinneil engine.
From these signs Boulton saw that, in the event of the engine proving
successful, he and his partner would have to defend the invention against a
host of pirates; and he became persuaded that he would not be justified in
risking his capital in the establishment of a steam-engine manufactory
unless a considerable extension of the patent-right could be secured. To
ascertain whether this was practicable, Watt proceeded to London in the
beginning of 1775, to confer with his patent agent and take the opinion of

counsel on the subject. Mr. Wedderburn, who was advised with,
recommended that the existing patent should be surrendered, and in that
case he did not doubt that a new one would be granted. While in London,
Watt looked out for possible orders for his engine: “I have,” he wrote
Boulton, “a prospect of two orders for fire-engines here, one to water
Piccadilly, and the other to serve the south end of Blackfriars Bridge with
water. I have taken advice of several people whom I could trust about the
patent. They all agree that an Act would be much better and cheaper, a
patent being now 130l., the Act, if obtainable, 110l. The present patent has
eight years still to run, bearing date January, 1769. I understand there will
be an almost unlimited sale for wheel-engines to the West Indies, at the rate
of 100l. for each horse’s power.”[140]
Watt also occupied some of his time in London in superintending the
adjustment of weights manufactured by Boulton and Fothergill, then sold in
considerable quantities through their London agent. That he continued to
take an interest in his old business of mathematical instrument making is
apparent from the visits which he made to several well-known shops. One
of the articles which he examined with most interest was Short’s Gregorian
telescope. At other times, by Boulton’s request, he went to see the few
steam-engines then at work in London and the neighbourhood, and make
inquiries as to their performances. With that object he examined the engines
at the New River, Hungerford, and Chelsea. At the latter place, he said, “it
was impossible to try the quantity of injection, and the fellow told me lies
about the height of the column of water.” But Watt soon grew tired of
London, “running from street to street all day about gilding,” inquiring after
metal-rollers, silver-platers, and button-makers. He did his best, however, to
execute the commissions which Boulton from time to time sent him; and
when these were executed, he returned to Birmingham to confer with his
friends as to the steps to be taken with respect to the patent. The result of
his conferences with Boulton and Small was, that it was determined to take
steps to apply for an Act for its extension in the ensuing session of
Parliament.
Watt went up to London a second time for the purpose of having the
Bill drawn. He had scarcely arrived there when the sad intelligence reached
him of the death of Dr. Small. He had long been ailing, yet the event was a
shock alike to himself and Boulton. The latter wrote Watt in the bitterness

of his grief, “If there were not a few other objects yet remaining for me to
settle my affections upon, I should wish also to take up my abode in the
mansions of the dead.” Watt replied, reminding him of the sentiments of
their departed friend, as to the impropriety of indulging in unavailing
sorrow, the best refuge from which was the more sedulous performance of
duty. “Come, my dear sir,” said he, “and immerse yourself in this sea of
business as soon as possible. Pay a proper respect to your friend by obeying
his precepts. I wait for you with impatience, and assure yourself no
endeavour of mine shall be wanting to render life agreeable to you.”
It had been intended to include Small in the steam-engine partnership
on the renewal of the patent. He had been consulted in all the stages of the
proceedings, and one of the last things he did was to draw up Watt’s petition
for the Bill. No settled arrangement had yet been made—not even between
Boulton and Watt. Everything depended upon the success of the application
for the extension of the patent.
Meanwhile, through the recommendation of his old friend Dr.
Robison, then in Russia officiating as Mathematical Professor at the
Government Naval School at Cronstadt, Watt was offered an appointment
under the Russian Government, at a salary of about 1000l. a year. He was
thus presented with a means of escape from his dependence upon Boulton,
and for the first time in his life had the prospect before him of an income
that to him would have been affluence. But he entertained strong objections
to settling in Russia: he objected to its climate, its comparative barbarism,
and, notwithstanding the society of his friend Robison, to the limited social
resources of St. Petersburg. Besides, Boulton’s favours were so gracefully
conferred, that the dependence on him was not felt; for he made the
recipient of his favours feel as if the obligation were entirely on the side of
the giver. “Your going to Russia staggers me,” he wrote to Watt; “the
precariousness of your health, the dangers of so long a journey or voyage,
and my own deprivation of consolation, render me a little uncomfortable;
but I wish to assist and advise you for the best, without regard to self.” The
result was, that Watt determined to wait the issue of the application for the
extension of his patent.
The Bill was introduced to Parliament on the 28th of February, 1775,
and it was obvious from the first that it would have considerable opposition

to encounter. The mining interest had looked forward to Watt’s invention as
a means of helping them out of their difficulties and giving a new value to
their property by clearing the drowned mines of water. They therefore
desired to have the free use of the engine at the earliest possible period; and
when it was proposed to extend the patent by Act of Parliament, they set up
with one accord the cry of “No monopoly.” Up to the present time, as we
have seen, the invention had been productive to Watt of nothing but loss,
labour, anxiety, and headaches; and it was only just that a reasonable period
should be allowed to enable him to derive some advantage from the results
of his application and ingenuity. But the mining interest took a different
view of the matter. They did not see the necessity of recognising the rights
of the inventor beyond the term of his existing patent, and they held that the
public interests would suffer if the proposed “monopoly” were granted. Nor
were they without supporters in Parliament, for among the most strenuous
we find the name of Edmund Burke,—influenced, it is supposed, by certain
mining interests in the neighbourhood of Bristol, which city he then
represented.
There is no doubt that the public would have benefited by Watt’s
invention having been made free to all. But it was not for the public merely
that Watt had been working at his engine for fifteen long years. He was a
man of comparatively small means, and had been buoyed up and stimulated
to renewed exertion during that time by the hope of ultimate reward in the
event of its success. If labour could give a man a title to property in his
invention, Watt’s claim was clear. The condensing-engine had been the
product of his own skill, contrivance, and brain-work. But there has always
been a difficulty in getting the claims of mere brain-work recognised. Had
he expended his labour in building a house instead of in contriving a
machine, his right of property would at once have been acknowledged. As it
was, he had to contend for justice and persuade the legislature of the
reasonableness of granting his application for an extension of the patent. In
the “Case” which he drew up for distribution amongst the members of the
Lower House, on the motion being carried for the recommittal of the Bill,
he set forth that having, after great labour and expense extending over many
years, succeeded in completing working engines of each of the two kinds he
had invented, he found that they could not be carried into profitable
execution without the further expenditure of large sums of money in

erecting mills, and purchasing the various materials and utensils necessary
for making them; and from the reluctance with which the public generally
adopt new inventions, he was afraid that the whole term granted by his
patent would expire before the engines should have come into general use
and any portion of his expenses be repaid:—

“The inventor of these new engines,” said he, “is sorry that gentlemen of knowledge,
and avowed admirers of his invention, should oppose the Bill by putting it in the light of a
monopoly. He never had any intention of circumscribing or claiming the inventions of
others; and the Bill is now drawn up in such a manner as sufficiently guards those rights,
and must oblige him to prove his own right to every part of his invention which may at any
time be disputed.... If the invention be valuable, it has been made so by his industry, and at
his expense; he has struggled with bad health, and many other inconveniences, to bring it
to perfection, and all he wishes is to be secured in the profits which he may reasonably
expect from it,—profits which he cannot obtain without an exertion of his abilities to bring
it into practice, by which the public must be the greatest gainers, and which are limited by
the performance of the common engines; for he cannot expect that any person will make
use of his contrivance, unless he can prove to them that savings will take place, and that his
demand for the privilege of using the invention will amount only to a reasonable part of
them. No man will lay aside a known engine, and stop his work to erect one of a new
contrivance, unless he is certain to be a very great gainer by the exchange; and if any
contrivance shall so far excel others as to enforce the use of it, it is reasonable that the
author of such a contrivance should be rewarded.”

These weighty arguments could not fail to produce an impression on
the minds of all reasonable men, and the result was, that Parliament passed
an Act extending Watt’s patent right for the further term of twenty-four
years. Watt wrote Boulton on the 27th May,—“I hope to be clear to come
away by Wednesday or Thursday. I am heartily sick of this town and fort
ennuyée since you left it. Dr. Roebuck is likely to get an order, out of
Smeaton’s hands, for an engine in Yorkshire that, according to Smeaton’s
calculation, will burn 1200l. per annum in coals. But this has had one bad
effect. It has made the Doctor repent of his bargain and wish again to be
upon the 1-10th [profits]; but we must see to keep him right if possible, so
don’t vex yourself about it.” Dr. Roebuck had been finally settled with
before the passing of the Act. It had been arranged that Boulton should pay
him 1000l. out of the first profits arising from his share in the engine,
making about 2200l. in all paid by Boulton to Roebuck for his two-thirds of
the patent.[141]

Watt returned to Birmingham to set about the making of the engines
for which orders had already been received. Boulton had been busily
occupied during his absence in experimenting on the Soho engine. A new
18-inch cylinder had been cast for it at Bersham by John Wilkinson, the
great ironfounder,[142] who had contrived a machine for boring it with
accuracy. This cylinder was substituted for the tin one brought from
Kinneil, and other improvements having been introduced, the engine was
again set to work with very satisfactory results. Watt found his partner in
good spirits; not less elated by the performances of the model than by the
passing of the Act; and arrangements were at once set on foot for carrying
on the manufacture of engines upon an extensive scale. Applications for
terms, followed by orders, shortly came in from the mining districts; and
before long the works at Soho were resounding with the clang of hammers
and machinery employed in manufacturing steam-engines for all parts of
the civilised world.

WATT’S HOUSE, HARPER’S HILL, BIRMINGHAM.

CHAPTER XII.
Boulton and Watt begin the Manufacture of Steam-engines.

Watt now arranged to take up his residence in Birmingham until the issue
of the steam-engine enterprise could be ascertained, and he went down to
Glasgow to bring up his two children, whom he had left in charge of their
relatives. Boulton had taken a house on Harper’s Hill, which was in
readiness for the reception of the family on their arrival about the end of
August, 1775. Regent’s-place, Harper’s Hill, was then the nearest house to
Soho on that side of Birmingham. It was a double house, substantially built
in brick, with stone facings, standing on the outskirts of the town,
surrounded by fields and gardens. St. Paul’s, the nearest church, was not
built until four years after Watt took up his abode there. But the house at
Harper’s Hill is in the country no longer: it is now surrounded in all
directions by dense masses of buildings, and is itself inhabited by working
people.
The first engine made at Soho was one ordered by John Wilkinson to
blow the bellows of his ironworks at Broseley. Great interest was, of course,
felt in the success of this engine. Watt took great pains with the drawings;
the workmen did their best to execute the several parts accurately, for it was
understood that many orders depended upon whether it worked
satisfactorily or not. Wilkinson’s iron-manufacturing neighbours, who were
contemplating the erection of Newcomen engines, suspended their
operations until they had an opportunity of seeing what Boulton and Watt’s
engine could do; and all looked forward to its completion with the most
eager interest. When all was ready at Soho, the materials were packed up
and sent to Broseley, Watt accompanying them to superintend the erection.
He had as yet no assistant to whom he could intrust such a piece of work,
on which so much depended. The engine was erected and ready for use
about the beginning of 1776. As it approached completion Watt became
increasingly anxious to make a trial of its powers. But Boulton wrote to him
not to hurry—not to let the engine make a stroke until every possible
hinderance to its successful action had been removed; “and then,” said he,
“in the name of God, fall to and do your best.” The result of the extreme
care taken with the construction and erection of the engine was entirely

satisfactory. It worked to the admiration of all who saw it, and the fame of
Boulton and Watt became great in the midland counties.
While Watt was thus occupied, Boulton was pushing on the new
buildings at Soho. He kept his partner fully advised of all that was going on.
“The new forging-shop,” he wrote, “looks very formidable: the roof is
nearly put on, and the hearths are both built.” Tools and machinery were
being prepared, and all looked hopeful for the future. Orders were coming
in for engines. One in hand for Bloomfield Colliery was well advanced.
Many inquiries had come from Cornwall. Mr. Papps, of Truro, was anxious
to introduce the engine in that county. Out of forty engines there, only
eighteen were in work; so that there was a fine field for future operations.
“Pray tell Mr. Wilkinson,” Boulton added, “to get a dozen cylinders cast
and bored, from 12 to 50 inches diameter, and as many condensers of
suitable sizes. The latter must be sent here, as we will keep them ready
fitted up, and then an engine can be turned out of hand in two or three
weeks. I have fixed my mind upon making from twelve to fifteen
reciprocating and fifty rotative engines per annum. I assure you that of all
the toys and trinkets which we manufacture at Soho, none shall take the
place of fire-engines in respect of my attention.”[143]
Boulton was not, however, exclusively engrossed by engine affairs.
Among other things he informed Watt that he had put his little boy Jamie to
a good school, and that he was very much occupied, as usual, in
entertaining visitors. “The Empress of Russia,” he wrote, “is now at my
house, and a charming woman she is.” The Empress afterwards sent
Boulton her portrait, and it was long one of the ornaments of Soho. Amidst
his various occupations he contrived to find leisure for experiments on
minerals, having received from a correspondent in Wales a large assortment
of iron-ores to assay. He was also trying experiments on the model engine,
the results of which were duly communicated to his partner.[144]
On Watt’s return to Soho, Boulton proceeded to London on financial
affairs, as well as to look after engine orders. He there found reports in
circulation among the engineering class that the new engine had proved a
failure. The Society of Engineers in Holborn, of which Smeaton was the
great luminary, had settled it that neither the tools nor the workmen existed
that could manufacture so complex a machine with sufficient precision, and

it was asserted that all the ingenuity and skill of Soho had been unable to
conquer the defects of the piston. “So said Holmes, the clockmaker,” wrote
Boulton,—Holmes being the intimate friend of Smeaton; “but no language
will be sufficiently persuasive on that head except the good performance of
the engines themselves.”[145] Boulton, therefore, urged the completion of the
engine then in hand for Cooke and Company’s distillery at Stratford-le-
Bow, near London. “Wilby,” [the managing partner,] said he, “seems very
impatient, and so am I, both for the sake of reputation as well as to begin to
turn the tide of money,”—the current of which had as yet been all outwards.
Boulton went to see the York Buildings engine, which had been
reconstructed by Smeaton, and was then reckoned one of the best on the
Newcomen plan. The old man who tended it lauded the engine to the skies,
and notwithstanding Boulton’s description of the new engines at work in
Staffordshire, he would not believe that any engine in existence could excel
his own.
In the course of the summer Watt again visited Glasgow,—this time for
the purpose of bringing back a wife. The lady he proposed to marry was
Miss Anne Macgregor, daughter of a respectable dyer. The young lady’s
consent was obtained, as well as her father’s, to the proposed union; but the
latter, before making any settlement on his daughter, intimated to Watt that
he desired to see the partnership agreement between him and Boulton. Now,
although the terms of partnership had been generally arranged, they had not
yet been put into legal form, and Watt asked that this should be done for the
cautious old gentleman’s satisfaction without delay.[146] About his love affair
Watt wrote,—

“Whether a man of the world, such as you, look upon my present love as the folly of
youth or the dotage of age [Watt was then in his fortieth year], I find myself in no humour
to lay it aside, or to look upon it in either of these lights, but consider it as one of the wisest
of my actions, and should look upon a disappointment in it as one of the greatest of my
misfortunes.... I have had better health since I left you than has been my lot for years, and
my spirits have borne me through my vexations wonderfully. I have lost all dread of any
future connexion with Monsieur la Verole, and, if I carry my point in this matter, I hope to
be very much more useful to you than has hitherto been in my power. The spur will be
greater.”[147]

While in Scotland Watt obtained orders for several engines; amongst
others, he undertook to supply one for the Torryburn Colliery, in Fife, on

the terms of receiving one-third of the savings effected by it compared with
the engine then at work, with such further sum as might be judged fair.
Another was ordered by Sir Archibald Hope for his colliery near Edinburgh,
on similar terms. At the same time Watt proceeded with the collection of his
old outstanding debts, though these did not amount to much. “I believe,” he
wrote to Boulton, “I shall have no occasion to draw on you for any money,
having got in some of my old scraps, which will serve, or nearly serve, my
occasions here.”
The deed of partnership not arriving, Watt wrote again, pressing
Boulton for some communication from him to satisfy the old gentleman as
to his situation.

“Don’t let me be detected in a falsehood,” said he, “or accused of imprudence. The
thing which sticks most in his [Mr. Macgregor’s] stomach is, that somehow or other, in
case of the failure of success, I may be brought into a load of debt which may totally ruin
me. I hope you will excuse his caution in this matter, as I do, when you consider that he is
disposing of a favourite child, and consequently must expect all the security possible for
her wellbeing. I must also do him the justice to say that he has behaved to me in a very
open and friendly manner; and, when he found that his daughter’s affections were engaged
beyond recall, gave his consent with a good grace.... I have nothing to write you in the way
of news. I am bandied about like a football, and perfectly impatient to leave this country,
but do not care to come away without my errand. I long vastly to hear from you, how you
all are, and how matters go on. I hope Jemmy is minding his school and is well: you need
not tell him nor anybody else that I am going to bring him home a mamma.”[148]

Boulton’s reply was perfectly satisfactory. He confirmed the heads of
the agreement, as sketched out by Watt himself, adopting his own words.
He warmly congratulated him on his approaching marriage, being
convinced that it was the goddess of wisdom that had led him to the altar of
love. But he thought Watt might be over delicate as to money matters.

“You certainly,” said he, “have a right to expect from the lady’s father a child’s share,
both present and reversionary; and you certainly have a right to expect some ready money,
as a small sum may be of more importance to you in the meridian of life than a large one at
the close of it. I have always heard you speak of the old gentleman as a man of exceeding
good sound sense, and therefore I should think you will have the less difficulty in settling
matters with him. No doubt he will expect some settlement to be made upon his daughter,
and all that I advise is, that you do not undervalue (according to your custom) your own
abilities or your property. It may be difficult to say what is the value of your property in
partnership with me. However, I will give it a name, and I do say that I would willingly
give you two or perhaps three thousand pounds for the assignment of your third part of the

Act of Parliament; but I should be sorry to make you so bad a bargain, or to make any
bargain at all that tended to deprive me of your friendship, acquaintance, and assistance,—
hoping, as I do, that we shall harmoniously live to wear out the twenty-five years together,
which I had rather do than gain a Nabob’s fortune by being the sole proprietor.... I wish I
had more time to tell you all the circumstances that have occurred in the engine trade; but
that shall be the subject of my next. All is well, and when you return you’ll be quite
charmed at the simplicity and quietness of the Soho engine.”[149]

With his usual want of confidence in himself, Watt urged Boulton to
come down to Glasgow and assist him in concluding matters with the old
gentleman.

“I am afraid,” he wrote, “that I shall otherwise make a very bad bargain in money
matters, which wise men like you esteem the most essential part, and I myself, although I
be an enamoured swain, do not altogether despise. You may perhaps think it odd that in the
midst of my friends here I should call for your help; but the fact is, that from several
reasons I do not choose to place that confidence in any of my friends here that would be
necessary in such a case, and I do not know any of them that have more to say with the
gentleman in question than I have myself. Besides, you are the only person who can give
him satisfactory information concerning my situation.”

But Boulton was too busy at the time to go down to Glasgow to the
help of his partner. He was full of work, full of orders, full of Soho. He
replied,—

“Although I have added to the list of my bad habits by joking upon matrimony, yet my
disposition and my judgment would lead me to marry again were I in your case. I know
you will be happier as a married man than as a single one, and therefore it is wisdom in
you to wed; and if that could not be done without my coming to Scotland, I certainly would
come if it were as far again; but I am so beset with difficulties, that nothing less than the
absolute loss of your life, or wife—which is virtually the same thing—could bring me.”

He further explained that a good deal of extra work had fallen upon
him, through the absence of some of his most important assistants. Mr.
Matthews, his London financial agent, like Watt, was about to be married,
and would be absent abroad for a tour on a wedding trip, in which he was to
be accompanied by Fothergill, Boulton’s partner in the toy and button trade.
Mr. Scale, the manager, was also absent, added to which the button orders
were in arrear some 16,000 gross; so that, said Boulton, “I have more real
difficulties to grapple with than I hope ever to have in any other year in my
life.”

There were also constant visitors arriving at Soho: among others the
Duke of Buccleuch, who had called to see the works and inquire after Mr.
Watt; and Mr. Moor, of the Society of Engineers in the Adelphi, who had
come to see with his own eyes whether the reports in circulation against the
new engine were true or false. The perfecting of the details of the engine
also required constant attention.

“Our copper bottom,” said Boulton, “hath plagued us very much by steam leaks, and
therefore I have had one cast (with its conducting pipe) all in one piece; since which the
engine doth not take more than 10 feet of steam, and I hope to reduce that quantity, as we
have just received the new piston, which shall be put in and at work to-morrow. Our Soho
engine never was in such good order as at present. Bloomfield and Willey [engines] are
both well, and I doubt not but Bow engine will be better than any of ’em.”

Boulton was almost as full of speculation as Watt himself as to the
means of improving the engine. “I did not sleep last night,” he wrote, “my
mind being absorbed by steam.” One of his speculations was as to the
means of increasing the heating surface, and with that object he proposed to
apply the fire “in copper spheres within the water.” His mind was also
running on economising power by working steam expansively, “being clear
that the principle is sound.”
Later, he wrote Watt that he had an application from a distiller at
Bristol for an engine to raise 15,000 gallons of ale per hour 15 feet high;
another for a coal mine in Wales, and two others for London distilleries. To
add to his anxieties, one Humphry Gainsborough, a dissenting minister at
Henley-on-Thames, had instituted proceedings against Watt for an alleged
piracy of his invention! On this Boulton wrote to his partner,—“I have just
received a summons to attend the Solicitor-General next week in opposition
to Gainsborough, otherwise the solicitor will make his report. This is a
disagreeable circumstance, particularly at this season, when you are absent.
Joseph [Harrison] is in London, and idleness is in our engine-shop.” There
was therefore every reason why Watt should make haste to get married, and
return to Soho as speedily as possible. On the 28th July, 1776, Watt wrote to
apologise for his long absence, and to say that the event was to come off on
the following Monday, after which he would set out immediately for
Liverpool, where he proposed to meet Boulton, unless countermanded. He
also intimated that he had got another order for an engine at Leadhills.[150]

Arrived at Liverpool, a letter from Boulton met him, saying he had been
under the necessity of proceeding to London.

“Gainsborough,” said he, “hath appointed to meet me at Holt’s, his attorney, on
Monday, when I shall say little besides learning his principles and invention. If we had a
hundred wheels [wheel-engines] ready made, and a hundred small engines, like Bow
engine, and twenty large ones executed, we could readily dispose of them. Therefore let us
make hay while the sun shines, and gather our barns full before the dark cloud of age
lowers upon us, and before any more Tubal Cains, Watts, Dr. Faustuses, or Gainsboroughs,
arise with serpents like Moses’s to devour all others.... As to your absence, say nothing
about it. I will forgive it this time, provided you promise me never to marry again.”[151]

Watt hastened back to Birmingham, and after settling his wife in her
new home, proceeded with the execution of the orders for engines which
had come in during his two months’ absence. Mr. Wilby was impatient for
the delivery of the Bow engine, and as soon as it was ready, which was
early in September, the materials were forwarded to London with Joseph
Harrison, to be fitted and set to work. Besides careful verbal instructions,
Watt supplied Joseph with full particulars in writing of the measures he was
to adopt in putting the engine together. Not a point in detail was neglected,
and if any difficulty arose, Joseph was directed at once to communicate
with him by letter. When the engine was set to work, it was found that the
steam could not be kept up, on which Watt suggested that as it had been
calculated to make only ten strokes per minute—that being enough to raise
the quantity of water desired—the reason of the defect must be that, as it
was going at fourteen or fifteen strokes the minute, it must be going too
fast. He also pointed out that probably the piston was not quite good, and
perhaps there was some steam-leak into the inner cylinder, or by the
regulators into the condenser; or it was possible that the injection might
spout too far up the horizontal steam-pipe and throw water into the inner
nozzle. All these points Joseph must carefully look to. On further trials the
engine improved; still its performances did not come up to Watt’s
expectations, and there were consequently more directions from him as to
the packing of the pistons and measures for the prevention of leaks. But to
see that his suggestions were properly carried out, Watt himself went up to
town in November, and had the machine put in complete working trim. His
partner, however, could not spare him long, as other orders were coming in.
“We have a positive order,” wrote Boulton, “for an engine for Tingtang
mine, and, from what I heard this day from Mr. Glover, we may soon expect
other orders from Cornwall. Our plot begins to thicken apace, and if Mr.

Wilkinson don’t bustle a little, as well as ourselves, we shall not gather our
harvest before sunset.” ... “I hope to hear,” he added, “that Joseph hath
made a finish, for he is much wanted here.... I perceive we shall be hard
pushed in engine-work; but I have no fears of being distanced when once
the exact course or best track is determined on.”[152] Joseph Harrison got
quite knocked up and ill through his anxiety about the Bow engine, on
which Boulton wrote Watt to send at once for Dr. Fordyce to attend him,
“let the expense be what it will, until you think him safe landed.”
A letter reached Soho from the Shadwell Waterworks Company
relative to a pumping-engine, and Boulton asked Watt, while in town, to
wait upon them on the subject; but he cautioned Watt that he “never knew a
Committee but, in its corporate capacity, was both rogue and fool, and that
the Shadwell Committee were rich rogues.” Watt, by his own account,
treated them very cavalierly. “Yesterday,” said he, “I went again to
Shadwell to meet the deputies of the Committee, and to examine their
engines when going. We came to no terms further than what we wrote them
before, which I confirmed, and offered moreover to keep the engine in order
for one year. They modestly insisted that we should do so for the whole
twenty-five years, which I firmly refused. They seemed to doubt the reality
of the performances of the Bow engine; so I told them we did not solicit
their orders and would wait patiently until they were convinced,—
moreover, that while they had any doubts remaining, we would not
undertake their business on any terms. I should not have been so sharp with
them had they not begun with bullying me, selon la mode de Londres. But
the course I took was not without its effect, for in proportion as they found I
despised their job, they grew more civil. After parting with these heroes I
went down to Stratford, where I found that the engine had gone very well. I
caused it to be kept going all the afternoon, and this morning I new-heat the
piston and kept it going till dinner time at about fifteen strokes per minute,
with a steam of one inch or at most two inches strong, and the longer it
went the better it grew.... I propose that Joseph should not leave it for a few
days, until both his health and that of the engine be confirmed. A relapse of
the engine would ruin our reputation here, and indeed elsewhere.”[153]
The Bow engine had, however, a serious relapse in the following
spring, and it happened in this way:—Mr. Smeaton, the engineer, having
heard of its success, which he doubted, requested Hadley, Boulton’s agent,

to go down with him to Stratford-le-Bow to witness its performances. He
carefully examined the engine, and watched it while at work, and the
conclusion he arrived at was, that it was a pretty engine, but much too
complex for practical uses. On leaving the place Smeaton gave the
engineman some money to drink, and he drank so much that next day he let
the engine run quite wild, and it was thrown completely out of order. Mr.
Wilby, the manager, was very wroth at the circumstance. He discharged the
engineman and called upon Hadley to replace the valves, which had been
broken, and make good the other damage that had been done to the engine.
When the repairs were made, everything went satisfactorily as before.
Watt had many annoyances of this sort to encounter, and one of his
greatest difficulties was the incapacity and unsteadiness of his workmen.
Although the original Soho men were among the best of their kind, the
increasing business of the firm necessarily led to the introduction of a large
number of new hands, who represented merely the average workmen of the
day. They were for the most part poor mechanics, very inexpert at working
in metal, and greatly given to drink.[154]
In organising the works at Soho, Boulton and Watt found it necessary
to carry division of labour to the farthest practicable point. There were no
slide-lathes, planing-machines, or boring-tools, such as now render
mechanical accuracy of construction almost a matter of certainty.
Everything depended upon the individual mechanic’s accuracy of hand and
eye; and yet mechanics generally were then much less skilled than they are
now. The way in which Boulton and Watt contrived partially to get over the
difficulty was, to confine their workmen to special classes of work, and
make them as expert in them as possible. By continued practice in handling
the same tools and fabricating the same articles, they thus acquired great
individual proficiency. “Without our tools and our workmen,” said Watt,
“very little could be done.”
But when the men got well trained, the difficulty was to keep them.
Foreign tempters were constantly trying to pick up Boulton and Watt’s men,
and induce them by offers of larger wages to take service abroad. The two
fitters sent up to London to erect the Bow engine were strongly pressed to
go out to Russia.[155] There were also French agents in England at the same
time, who tried to induce certain of Boulton and Watt’s men to go over to

Paris and communicate the secret of making the new engines to M. Perrier,
who had undertaken to pump water from the Seine for the supply of Paris.
The German States also sent over emissaries with a like object, Baron Stein
having been specially commissioned by his Government to master the
secret of Watt’s engine—to obtain working plans of it and bring away
workmen capable of making it,—the first step taken being to obtain access
to the engine-rooms by bribing the workmen.
Besides the difficulties Boulton and Watt had to encounter in training
and disciplining their own workmen, they had also to deal with the want of
skill on the part of those to whom the working of their engines was
intrusted after they had been delivered and fixed complete. They
occasionally supplied trustworthy men of their own; but they could not
educate mechanics fast enough, and needed all the best men for their own
work. They were therefore compelled to rely on the average mechanics of
the day, the greater part of whom were comparatively unskilled and knew
nothing of the steam-engine. Hence such mishaps as those which befell the
Bow engine, through the engineman getting drunk and reckless, as above
described. To provide for this contingency Watt endeavoured to simplify the
engine as much as possible, so as to bring its working and repair within the
capacity of the average workman.
At a very early period, while experimenting at Kinneil, he had formed
the idea of working steam expansively, and altered his model from time to
time with that object. Boulton had taken up and continued the experiments
at Soho, believing the principle to be sound and that great economy would
attend its adoption. The early engines were accordingly made so that the
steam might be cut off before the piston had made its full stroke, and
expand within the cylinder, the heat outside it being maintained by the
expedient of the steam-case. But it was shortly found that this method of
working was beyond the capacity of the average engineman of that day, and
it was consequently given up for a time.

“We used to send out,” said Watt to Robert Hart, “a cylinder of double the size
wanted, and cut off the steam at half stroke. This was a great saving of steam so long as the
valves remained as at first; but when our men left her to the charge of the person who was
to keep her, he began to make or try to make improvements, often by giving more steam.
The engine did more work while the steam lasted, but the boiler could not keep up the
demand. Then complaints came of want of steam, and we had to send a man down to see

what was wrong. This was so expensive that we resolved to give up the expansion of the
steam until we could get men that could work it, as a few tons of coal per year was less
expensive than having the work stopped. In some of the mines a few hours’ stoppage was a
serious matter, as it would cost the proprietor as much as 70l. per hour.”[156]

The principle was not, however, abandoned. It was of great value and
importance in an economical point of view, and was again taken up by Watt
and embodied in a more complete form in a subsequent invention. Since his
time, indeed, expansive working has been carried to a much farther extent
than he probably ever dreamt of, and has more than realised the beneficial
results which his sagacious insight so early anticipated.

CHAPTER XIII.
Watt in Cornwall—Introduction of his Pumping-engines.

The Cornish miners continued baffled by their attempts to get rid of the
water which hindered the working of their mines. The Newcomen engines
had been taxed to the utmost, but were unable to send them deeper into the
ground, and they were accordingly ready to welcome any invention that
promised to relieve them of their difficulty. Among the various new
contrivances for pumping water, that of Watt seemed to offer the greatest
advantages; and if what was alleged of it proved true—that it was of greater
power than the Newcomen engine, while its consumption of fuel was much
less,—then it could not fail to prove of the greatest advantage to Cornish
industry.
Long before Watt’s arrival in Birmingham, the Cornishmen had been
in correspondence with Boulton, making inquiries about the new Scotch
invention, of which they had heard; and Dr. Small, in his letters to Watt,
repeatedly urged him to perfect his engine, with a view to its being
employed in the drainage of the Cornish mines. Now that the engine was at
work in several places, Boulton invited his correspondents in Cornwall to
inquire as to its performances, at Soho, or Bedworth, or Bow, or any other
place where it had been erected. The result of the inquiry and inspection

was satisfactory, and several orders for engines for Cornwall were received
at Soho by the end of 1776. The two first that were ready for erection were
those ordered for Wheal Busy, near Chacewater, and for Tingtang, near
Redruth. The materials for the former were shipped by the middle of 1777;
and, as much would necessarily depend upon the successful working of the
first engines put up in Cornwall, Watt himself went to superintend their
erection in person.

MAP OF UNITED MINES DISTRICT.

Watt reached his destination after a long and tedious journey over bad
roads. He rode by stage as far as Exeter, and posted the rest of the way. At
Chacewater he found himself in the midst of perhaps the richest mining
district in the world. From thence to Camborne, which lies to the west, and
Gwennap to the south, is a constant succession of mines. The earth has been
burrowed in all directions for many miles in search of ore, principally
copper—the surface presenting an unnaturally blasted and scarified
appearance by reason of the “deads” or refuse run out in heaps from the
mine-heads. Engine-houses and chimneys are the most prominent features
in the landscape, and dot the horizon as far as the eye can reach.

When Watt arrived at Chacewater he found the materials for the Wheal
Busy engine had come to hand, and that some progress had been made with
its erection. The materials for the Tingtang engine, however, had not yet
been received from Soho, and the owners of the mine were becoming very
impatient for it. Watt wrote to his partner urging despatch, otherwise the
engine might be thrown on their hands, especially if the Chacewater engine,
now nearly ready for work, did not give satisfaction. From Watt’s account,
it would appear that the Cornish mines were in a very bad way. “The
Tingtang people,” he said, “are now fairly put out by water, and the works
are quite at a stand.” The other mines in the neighbourhood were in no
better plight. The pumping-engines could not keep down the water. “Poldice
has grown worse than Wheal Virgin was: they have sunk 400l. a month for
some months past, and 700l. the last month; they will probably soon give
up. North Downs seems to be our next card.”[157] The owners of the Wheal
Virgin mine, though drowned out, like many others, could not bring their
minds to try Watt’s engine. They had no faith in it, and stuck by the old
atmospheric of Newcomen. They accordingly erected an additional engine
of this kind to enable them to go about eight fathoms deeper, “and they have
bought,” wrote Watt, “an old boiler of monstrous size at the Briggin, which
they have offered 50l. to get carried to its place.”
At Chacewater Watt first met Jonathan Hornblower, son of the Joseph
Hornblower who had come into Cornwall from Staffordshire, some fifty
years before, to erect one of the early Newcomen engines. The son had
followed in his father’s steps, and become celebrated in the Chacewater
district as an engineer. It was natural that he should regard with jealousy the
patentees of the new engine; for if it proved a success, his vocation as a
maker of atmospheric engines would be at an end. Watt thus referred to him
in a letter to Boulton: “Hornblower seems a very pleasant sort of old
Presbyterian: he carries himself very fair, though I hear that he is an
unbelieving Thomas.” His unbelief strongly showed itself on the starting of
the Wheal Busy engine shortly after, when he exclaimed, “Pshaw! it’s but a
bauble: I wouldn’t give twopence halfpenny for her.” There were others
beside Hornblower who disliked and resented what they regarded as the
intrusion of Boulton and Watt in their district, and indeed never became
wholly reconciled to the new engine, though they were compelled to admit
the inefficiency of the old one. Among these was old Bonze, the engineer, a

very clever mechanic, who positively refused to undertake the erection of
the proposed new engine at Wheal Union if Boulton and Watt were to be in
any way concerned with it. But the mine-owners had to study their own
interest rather than the humour of their former engineers, and Watt secured
the order for the Wheal Union engine. Several other orders were promised,
conditional on the performances of the Wheal Busy engine proving
satisfactory. “Ale and Cakes,”[158] wrote Watt, “must wait the result of
Chacewater: several new engines will be erected next year, for almost all
the old mines are exhausted, or have got to the full power of the present
engines, which are clumsy and nasty, the houses cracked, and everything
dropping with water from their cisterns.”[159]
Watt liked the people as little as he did their engines. He thought them
ungenerous, jealous, and treacherous. “Certainly,” said he, “they have the
most ungracious manners of any people I have ever yet been amongst.” At
the first monthly meeting of the Wheal Virgin adventurers, which he
attended, he found a few gentlemen, but “the bulk of them would not be
disgraced by being classed with Wednesbury colliers.” What annoyed him
most was, that the miners invented and propagated all sorts of rumours to
his prejudice. “We have been accused,” said he, “of working without leather
upon our buckets, and making holes in the clacks in order to deceive
strangers.... I choose to keep out of their company, as every word spoken by
me would be bandied about and misrepresented. I have already been
accused of making several speeches at Wheal Virgin, where, to the best of
my memory, I have only talked about eating, drinking, and the weather. The
greater part of the adventurers at Wheal Virgin are a mean dirty pack,
preying upon one another, and striving who shall impose most upon the
mine.”[160] Watt was of too sensitive and shrinking a nature to feel himself at
home amongst such people. Besides, he was disposed to be peevish and
irritable, easily cast down, and ready to anticipate the worst. It had been the
same with him when employed amongst the rough labourers on the
Monkland Canal, where he had declared himself as ready to face a loaded
cannon as to encounter the altercations of bargain-making. But Watt must
needs reconcile himself to his post as he best could; for none but himself
could see to the proper erection of the Wheal Busy engine and get it set to
work with any chance of success. Meanwhile, the native engineers were
stimulated by his presence, and by the reputed power of the new engine, to

exert themselves in improving the old one. Bonze was especially active in
contriving new boilers and new arrangements, by which he promised to
outstrip all that Watt could possibly accomplish.[161]
A letter from Mrs. Watt to Mrs. Boulton, dated Chacewater, September
1st, 1777, throws a little light on Watt’s private life during his stay in
Cornwall. She describes the difficulty they had in obtaining accommodation
on their arrival, “no such thing as a house or lodging to be had for any
money within some miles of the place where the engine was to be erected;”
hence they had been glad to accept of the hospitality of Mr. Wilson, the
superintendent of the mine.

“I scarcely know what to say to you of the country. The spot we are at is the most
disagreeable in the whole county. The face of the earth is broken up in ten thousand heaps
of rubbish, and there is scarce a tree to be seen. But don’t think that all Cornwall is like
Chacewater. I have been at some places that are very pleasant, nay beautiful. The sea-coast
to me is charming, but not easy to be got at. In some cases my poor husband has been
obliged to mount me behind him to go to some of the places we have been at. I assure you I
was not a little perplexed at first to be set on a great tall horse with a high pillion. At one of
our jaunts we were only charged twopence a piece for our dinner. You may guess what our
fare would be from the cost of it; but I assure you I never ate a dinner with more relish in
my life, nor was I ever happier at a feast, than I was that day at Portreath.... One thing I
must tell you of is, to take care Mr. Boulton’s principles are well fixed before you trust him
here. Poor Mr. Watt is turned Anabaptist, and duly attends their meeting; he is, indeed, and
goes to chapel most devoutly.”

At last the Chacewater engine was finished and ready for work. Great
curiosity was felt about its performances, and mining men and engineers
came from all quarters to see it start. “All the world are agape,” said Watt,
“to see what it can do.” It would not have displeased some of the spectators
if it had failed. But to their astonishment it succeeded. At starting, it made
eleven eight-feet strokes per minute; and it worked with greater power,
went more steadily, and “forked” more water than any of the ordinary
engines, with only about one-third the consumption of coal. “We have had
many spectators,” wrote Watt, “and several have already become converts. I
understand all the west-country captains are to be here to-morrow to see the
prodigy.”[162] Even Bonze, his rival, called to see it, and promised not only
to read his recantation as soon as convinced, but never to touch a common
engine again. “The velocity, violence, magnitude, and horrible noise of the
engine,” Watt added, “give universal satisfaction to all beholders, believers

or not. I have once or twice trimmed the engine to end its stroke gently, and
to make less noise; but Mr. Wilson cannot sleep without it seems quite
furious, so I have left it to the engine-men; and, by the by, the noise seems
to convey great ideas of its power to the ignorant, who seem to be no more
taken with modest merit in an engine than in a man.” In a later letter he
wrote, “The voice of the country seems to be at present in our favour; and I
hope will be much more so when the engine gets on its whole load, which
will be by Tuesday next. So soon as that is done, I shall set out for home.”

WATT’S SINGLE-ACTING
PUMPING-ENGINE FOR MINES.

A number of orders for engines had come in at Soho during Watt’s
absence; and it became necessary for him to return there as speedily as
possible, to prepare the plans and drawings, and put the work in hand. There
was no person yet attached to the concern who was capable of relieving him

of this part of his duties; while Boulton was fully occupied with conducting
the commercial part of the business. By the end of autumn he was again at
home; and for a week after his return he kept so close to his desk in his
house on Harper’s Hill, that he could not even find time enough to go out to
Soho and see what had been doing in his absence. At length he felt so
exhausted by the brain-work and confinement that he wrote to his partner,
“a very little more of this hurrying and vexation will knock me up
altogether.” To add to his troubles, letters arrived from Tingtang, urging his
return to Cornwall, to erect the engine, the materials for which had at last
arrived. “I fancy,” said Watt, “that I must be cut in pieces, and a portion sent
to every tribe in Israel.”
After four month’s labour of this sort, during which seven out of the
ten engines then in hand were finished and erected, and the others well
advanced, Watt again set out for Cornwall, which he reached by the
beginning of June, 1778. He took up his residence at Redruth, as being
more convenient for Tingtang than Chacewater, hiring a house at
Plengwarry, a hamlet on the outskirts of the town. Redruth is the capital of
the mining districts of Camborne, Redruth, and Gwennap. It is an ancient
town, consisting for the most part of a long street, which runs down one hill
and up another.
All round it the country seems to have been disembowelled; and heaps
of scoriæ, “deads,” rubbish, and granite blocks cover the surface. The view
from the lofty eminence of Carn Brea, a little to the south of Redruth,
strikingly shows the scarified and apparently blasted character of the
district, and affords a prospect the like of which is rarely to be seen.

REDRUTH HIGH STREET.
[By R. P. Leitch.]

On making inquiry as to the materials which had arrived during his
absence, Watt was much mortified to find that the Soho workmen had made
many mistakes. “Forbes’s eduction-pipe,” he wrote, “is a most vile job, and
full of holes. The cylinder they have cast for Chacewater is still worse, for it
will hardly do at all. The Soho people have sent here Chacewater eduction-
pipe instead of Wheal Union; and the gudgeon pipe has not arrived with the
nozzles. These repeated disappointments,” said he, “will undoubtedly ruin
our credit in the country; and I cannot stay here to bear the shame of such
failures of promise.”

Watt had a hard time of it while in Cornwall, what with riding and
walking from mine to mine, listening to complaints of delay in the arrival of
the engines from Soho, and detecting and remedying the blunders and bad
workmanship of his mechanics. Added to which, everybody was low-
spirited and almost in despair at the bad times,—ores falling in price, mines
filled with water, engine-men standing idle, and adventurers bemoaning
their losses. Another source of anxiety was the serious pecuniary
embarrassments in which the Soho firm had become involved. Boulton had
so many concerns going that a vast capital was required for the purpose of
meeting current engagements; and the engine business, instead of relieving
him, had hitherto only proved a source of additional outlay, and increased
his difficulties at a time of general commercial depression. He wrote Watt,
urging him to send remittances for the Cornish engines; but the materials,
though partly delivered, were not erected; and the miners demurred to
paying on account until they were fixed complete and at work. Boulton then
suggested to Watt that he should try to obtain an advance from the Truro
bankers, on security of the engine materials. “No,” replied Watt, “that
cannot be done, as the knowledge of our difficulties would damage our
position in Cornwall, and hurt our credit. Besides,” said he, “no one can be
more cautious than a Cornish banker; and the principal of the firm you
name is himself exceedingly distressed for money.”[163] Nor was there the
least chance, in Watt’s opinion, even if they had the money to advance, of
their accepting any security that Boulton and Watt had to offer. “Such is the
nature of the people here,” said he, “and so little faith have they in our
engine, that very few of them believe it to be materially better than the
ordinary one, and so far as I can judge, no one I have conversed with would
advance us 500l. on a mortgage of it.”[164]
All that Watt could do was to recommend that the evil day should be
staved off as long as possible, or at all events until the large engines he was
then erecting were at work, when he believed their performances would
effect a complete change in the views of the adventurers. The only
suggestion he could offer was to invite John Wilkinson, or some other
moneyed man, to join them as partner and relieve them of their difficulties;
for “rather than founder at sea,” said he, “we had better run ashore.”[165]
Meanwhile, he urged Boulton to apply the pruning-knife and cut down
expenses, assuring him that he himself was practising all the frugality in his

power. But as Watt’s personal expenses at the time did not amount to 2l. a
week, it is clear that any savings he could effect, however justifiable and
laudable, were but a drop in the ocean compared with the liabilities to be
met, and which must be provided without delay to avoid insolvency and
ruin.
Fothergill, Boulton’s other partner, was even more desponding than
Watt. When Boulton left Soho on his journeys to raise ways and means,
Fothergill pursued him with dolorous letters, telling him of mails that had
arrived without remittances, of bills that must be met, of wages that must be
paid on Saturday night, and of the impending bankruptcy of the firm, which
he again and again declared to be “inevitable.” “Better stop payment at
once,” said he, “call our creditors together, and face the worst, than go on in
this neck-and-neck race with ruin.” Boulton would hurry back to Soho, to
quiet Fothergill, and keep the concern going; on which another series of
letters would pour in upon him from Mr. Matthews, the London financial
agent, pressing for remittances, and reporting the increasingly gloomy and
desperate state of affairs.
Boulton himself was, as usual, equal to the occasion. His courage and
determination rose in proportion to the difficulties to be overcome. He was
borne up by his invincible hope, by his unswerving purpose, and above all
by his unshaken belief in the commercial value of the condensing engine. If
they could only weather the storm until its working powers could be fully
demonstrated, all would yet be well.
In illustration of his hopefulness, we may mention that in the midst of
his troubles a fire took place in the engine-room at Soho, which was happily
extinguished, but not before it had destroyed the roof and done serious
damage to the engine, which was brought to a standstill. Boulton had long
been desirous of rebuilding the engine-house in a proper manner, but had
been hindered by Watt, who was satisfied with alterations merely sufficient
to accommodate the place to the changes made from time to time in the
engine which he called “Beelzebub.”[166] On hearing of the damage done by
the fire, Boulton, instead of lamenting over it, exclaimed, “Now I shall be
able at last to have the engine-house built as it should be.”

After many negotiations, Boulton at length succeeded in raising a sum
of 7000l. by granting a Mr. Wiss security for the payment of an annuity,
while the London bankers, Lowe, Vere, and Williams, allowed an advance
of 14,000l. on security of a mortgage granted by Boulton and Watt on the
royalties derived from the engine patent, and of all their rights and
privileges therein. Though the credit of the house was thus saved, the
liabilities of Boulton and his partners continued to press heavily upon them
for a long time to come. Meanwhile, however, a gleam of light came from
Cornwall. Watt sent the good news to Soho that “both Chacewater and
Tingtang engines go on exceedingly well, and give great satisfaction.
Chacewater goes 14 strokes of 9 foot long per minute, and burns about 128
bushels per 24 hours. The water has sunk 12 fathoms in the mine, and the
engine will fork [i. e. pump out] the first lift this night. No cross nor
accident of any note has happened, except the bursting of a pump at
Tingtang, which was soon repaired.” Four days later Watt wrote, “The
engines are both going very well, and Chacewater has got the water down
18½ fathoms; but after this depth it must make slower progress, as a very
large house of water begins there, and the feeders grow stronger as we go
deeper.”[167]
Watt looked upon the Chacewater trial as the experimentum crucis, and
continued to keep his partner duly informed of every circumstance
connected with it. “They say,” he wrote, “that if the new engine can fork the
water from Chacewater, it can fork anything, as that is the heaviest to fork
in the whole county.” On the 15th of August he wrote, “Chacewater is now
down to 10 fathoms of the second lift, and works steady and well; it sinks 9
feet per day. Chacewater people in high spirits: Captain Mayor furiously in
love with the engine.” On the 29th he wrote again, “Chacewater engine is
our capital card, for should it succeed in forking this mine all doubts will
then be removed.” The adventurers of the great Poldice mine watched the
operations at Chacewater with much interest. Two common engines,
pumping night and day for months, had failed to clear their mine of water;
and now they thought of ordering one of the new engines to take their
place; “but all this,” said Watt, “depends on the success of Chacewater,
which God protect: it is now down 31½ fathoms, and will be in fork of this
lift to-morrow, when it is to be put down three fathoms lower, and fixed
there.” On the 17th he wrote, “I have been at Chacewater to-day, where they

are in fork of the second lift 34½ fathoms. The great connexion-rod still
unbalanced. The engine went yesterday 14 strokes per minute. To-morrow I
go to Wheal Union, and on Saturday to Truro, to meet Poldice
adventurers.... By attending to the business of this county alone,” said he,
“we may at least live comfortably; for I cannot suppose that less than
twelve engines will be wanted in two or three years, but after that very few
more, as these will be sufficient to get ore enough; though you cannot
reckon the average profits to us at above 200l. per engine.”
When Boulton and Watt first started the manufacture of steam-engines,
they were mainly concerned to get orders, and were not very particular as to
the terms on which they were obtained. But when the orders increased, and
the merits of the invention gradually became recognised, they found it
necessary to require preliminary agreements to be entered into as to the
terms on which the patent was to be used. It occurred to them, that as one of
its principal merits consisted in the saving of fuel, it would be a fair
arrangement to take one-third of the value of such saving by way of royalty,
leaving the owners of the engines to take the benefit of the remaining two-
thirds. Nothing could be fairer than the spirit of this arrangement, which, it
will be seen, was of even more advantage to the owners of the engines than
to the patentees themselves. The first Cornish engines were, however,
erected without any condition as to terms; and it was only after they had
proved their power by “forking” the water, and sending the miners twenty
fathoms deeper into the ground, that the question of terms was raised. Watt
proposed that agreements should be entered into on the basis above
indicated. But the Cornish men did not see the use of agreements. They had
paid for the engines, which were theirs, and Boulton and Watt could not
take them away. Here was the beginning of a long series of altercations,
which ended only with the patent right itself. The miners could not do
without the engine. It was admitted to be of immense value to them,
rendering many of their mines workable that would otherwise have been
valueless. But why should they have to pay for the use of such an
invention? This was what they never could clearly understand.
To prevent misunderstandings in future, Watt wrote to Boulton,
recommending that no further orders for engines should be taken unless the
terms for using them were definitely settled beforehand. “You must excuse
me,” he added, “when I tell you that, for my part, I will not put pen to paper

[i. e. make the requisite drawings] on a new subject until that is done. Until
an engine is ordered, our power is greater than that of the Lord Chancellor;
as I believe even he cannot compel us to make it unless we choose. Let our
terms be moderate, and, if possible, consolidated into money à priori, and it
is certain we shall get some money, enough to keep us out of jail, in
continual apprehension of which I live at present.”[168]
To meet the case, a form of agreement was drawn up and required to
be executed before any future engine was commenced. It usually provided
that an engine of certain given dimensions and power was to be erected at
the expense of the owners of the mine; and that the patentees were to take
as their recompense for the use of their invention, one-third of the value of
the fuel saved by it compared with the consumption of the ordinary engine.
It came to be understood that the saving of fuel was to be estimated
according to the number of strokes made. To ascertain this, Watt contrived
an ingenious piece of clockwork, termed the Counter, which, being attached
to the main beam, accurately marked and registered, under lock and key, the
number of its vibrations. Thus the work done was calculated, and the
comparative saving of fuel was ascertained.
Though the Cornish miners had been full of doubts as to the successful
working of Watt’s engine, they could not dispute the evidence of their
senses after it had been erected and was fairly at work. There it was,
“forking water” as never engine before had been known to “fork.” It had
completely mastered the water at Wheal Busy; and if it could send the
workmen down that mine, it could in like manner send them down
elsewhere. Wheal Virgin was on the point of stopping work, in which case
some two thousand persons would be thrown out of bread. Bonze’s new
atmospheric engine had proved a failure, and the mine continued flooded. It
had also failed at Poldice, which was drowned out. “Notwithstanding the
violence and prejudice against us,” wrote Watt, “nothing can save the mines
but our engines.... Even the infidels of Dalcoath are now obliquely inquiring
after our terms! Cook’s Kitchen, which communicates with it, has been
drowned out some time.” Watt, accordingly, had many applications about
engines; and on that account he entreated his partner to come to his help. He
continued to hate all negotiating about terms, and it did not seem as if he
would ever learn to like it. He had neither the patience to endure, nor the
business tact to conduct a negotiation. He wanted confidence in himself,

and did not feel equal to make a bargain. He would almost as soon have
wrestled with the Cornish miners as higgled with them. They were shrewd,
practical men, rough in manner and speech, yet honest withal;[169] but Watt
would not encounter them when he could avoid it. Hence his repeated calls
to Boulton to come and help him. Writing to him about the proposed Wheal
Virgin engine, he said, “Before I make any bargain with these people, I
must have you here.” A few days after, when communicating the probability
of obtaining an order for the Poldice engine, he wrote,—“I wish you would
dispose yourself for a journey here, and strike while this iron is hot.” A
fortnight later he said, “Poldice people are now welding hot, and must not
be suffered to cool. They are exceedingly impatient, as they lose 150l. a
month until our engine is going.... I hope this will find you ready to come
away. At Redruth, inquire for Plengwarry Green, where you will find me.”
Boulton must have been greatly harassed by the woes of his partners.
Fothergill was still uttering lamentable prophecies of impending ruin; his
only prospect of relief being in the success of the engine. He urged Boulton
to endeavour to raise money by the sale of engine contracts or annuities, in
order to avert a crash. Matthews, the London agent, also continued to
represent the still urgent danger of the house, and pressed Boulton to go to
Cornwall and try to raise money there upon his engine contracts. Indeed, it
was clear that the firm of Boulton and Fothergill had been losing money by
their business for several years past; and that, unless the engine succeeded,
they must, ere long, go to the wall. But when Boulton turned to Cornwall,
he found little comfort. Though the engines there were successful, Watt
could not raise money upon them. The adventurers were poor,—were for
the most part losing by their ventures, in consequence of the low price of
the ore; and they almost invariably put off payment by excuses. Thus, while
Boulton was in London trying to obtain accommodation from his bankers,
the groans of his partner in Birmingham were more than re-echoed by the
lamentations of his other partner in Cornwall, who rang the changes of
misery through all the notes of the gamut.
At length, about the beginning of October, 1778, Boulton contrived to
make his long-promised journey into Cornwall.[170] He went round among
the mines, and had many friendly conferences with the managers. He found
the engine had grown in public favour, and that the impression prevailed
throughout the mining districts that it would before long become generally

adopted. Encouraged by his London financial agent, he took steps to turn
this favourable impression to account.[171] Before he left Cornwall, where he
remained until the end of the year, he succeeded in borrowing a sum of
2000l. from Elliot and Praed, the Truro bankers, on security of the engines
erected in the county; and the money was at once forwarded to the London
agents for the relief of the Birmingham firm. He also succeeded in getting
the terms definitely arranged for the use of several of the more important
engines erected and at work. It was agreed that 700l. a year should be paid
as royalty in respect of the Chacewater engine,—an arrangement even more
advantageous to the owners of the mine than to the patentees, as it was
understood that the saving of coals amounted to upwards of 2400l. a year.
Other agreements were entered into for the use of the engines erected at
Wheal Union and Tingtang, which brought in about 400l. per annum more,
so that the harvest of profits seemed at length fairly begun.
Watt remained at Cornwall for another month, plodding at Poldice and
Wheal Virgin engines, and returned to Birmingham early in January, 1779.
Though the pumping-engine had thus far proved remarkably successful, and
accomplished all that Watt had promised, he was in no better spirits than
before. “Though we have, in general, succeeded in our undertakings,” he
wrote Dr. Black, “yet that success has, from various unavoidable
circumstances, produced small profits to us; the struggles we have had with
natural difficulties, and with the ignorance, prejudices, and villanies of
mankind, have been very great, but I hope are now nearly come to an end,
or vanquished.”[172] His difficulties were not, however, nearly at an end, as
the heavy liabilities of the firm had still to be met. More money had to be
borrowed; and Watt continued to groan under his intolerable burden. “The
thought of the debt to Lowe, Vere, and Co.,” he wrote to his partner, “lies
too heavy on my mind to leave me the proper employment of my faculties
in the prosecution of our business; and, besides, common honesty will
prevent me from loading the scheme with debts which might be more than
it could pay.”[173]
A more hopeful man would have borne up under these difficulties; for
the reputation of the engine was increasing, and orders were coming in from
various quarters. Soho was full of work; and, provided their credit could be
maintained, it was clear that the undertaking on which the firm had entered
could not fail to prove remunerative. Watt could not see this, but his partner

did; and Boulton accordingly strained every nerve to keep up the character
of the concern. While Watt was urging upon him to curtail the business,
Boulton sought in all ways to extend it. He sent accounts of his marvellous
engines abroad, and orders for them came in from France[174] and Holland.
Watt was more alarmed than gratified by the foreign orders, fearing that the
engine would be copied and extensively manufactured abroad, where
patents had not yet been secured. He did not see that the best protection of
all was in the superiority of his tools and mechanics, enabling first-class
work to be turned out,—important advantages, in which the Soho firm had
the start of the world. It is true his mechanics were liable to be bribed, and
foreigners were constantly haunting Soho for the purpose of worming out
the secrets of the manufacture, and decoying away the best men. Against
this every precaution was taken, though sometimes in vain. Two Prussian
engineers came over from Berlin in 1779, to whom Watt showed every
attention; after which, in his absence, they got into the engine-room, and
carefully examined all the details of “Old Bess,” making notes. When Watt
returned, he was in high dudgeon, and wrote to his partner that he “could
not help it unless by discountenancing every foreigner who does not come
avowedly to have an engine.”[175]
Their principal reliance, however, was necessarily on home orders, and
these came in satisfactorily. Eight more engines were wanted for Cornwall,
those already at work continuing to give satisfaction. Inquiries were also
made about pumping engines for collieries in different parts of England.
But where coals were cheap, and the saving of fuel was of less
consequence, the patentees were not solicitous for orders unless the
purchasers would fix a fair sum for the patent right, or rate the coals used at
a price that would be remunerative in proportion to the savings effected.
The orders were, indeed, becoming so numerous, that the firm, beginning to
feel their power, themselves fixed the annual royalty, though it was not
always so easy to get it paid.
The working power of Watt himself was but limited. He still continued
to suffer from intense headaches; and, as all the drawings of new engines
were made by his own hands, it was necessary in some measure to limit the
amount of work undertaken. “I beg,” he wrote to his partner in May, 1779,
relative to proposals made for two new engines, “that you will not
undertake to do anything for them before Christmas. It is, in fact,

impossible, at least on my part; I am quite crushed.” But he was not always
so dispirited, for in the following month we find him writing Boulton an
exultant letter, announcing orders for three new engines from Cornwall.[176]
Watt continued for some time longer to suffer great annoyance from
the shortcomings of his workmen. He was himself most particular in giving
his instructions, verbally, in writing, and in drawings. When he sent a
workman to erect an engine, he sent with him a carefully drawn up detail of
the step by step proceedings he was to adopt in fitting the parts together.
Where there was a difficulty, and likely to be a hitch, he added a pen and
ink drawing, rapid but graphic, and pointed out how the difficulty was to be
avoided. It was not so easy, however, to find workmen capable of
intelligently fitting together the parts of a machine so complicated and of so
novel a construction. Moreover, the first engines were in a great measure
experimental, and to have erected them perfectly, and provided by
anticipation for their various defects, would have argued a knowledge of the
principles of their construction almost as complete as that of Watt himself.
He was not sufficiently disposed to make allowances for the workmen’s
want of knowledge and want of experience, and his letters were accordingly
full of complaints of their shortcomings. He was especially annoyed with
the mistakes of a foreman, named Hall, who had sent the wrong articles to
Cornwall, and he urged Boulton to dismiss him at once. But Boulton knew
better. Though Watt understood engines, he did not so well understand men.
Had Boulton dismissed such as Hall because they made mistakes, the shop
would soon have been empty. The men were as yet but at school, learning
experience, and Boulton knew that in course of time they would acquire
dexterity. He was ready to make allowance for their imperfections, but at
the same time he did not abate in his endeavours to find out and engage the
best hands, wherever they were to be found—in Wales, in Cornwall, or in
Scotland. He therefore kept on Hall, notwithstanding Watt’s protest, and the
latter submitted.[177]
Watt was equally wroth with the enginemen at Bedworth. “I beg and
expect,” he wrote Boulton, “that so soon as everything is done to that
engine, you will instantly proceed to trial before creditable witnesses, and if
possible have the whole brood of these enginemen displaced, if any others
can be procured; for nothing but slovenliness, if not malice, is to be
expected of them.” It must, however, be acknowledged that the Bedworth

engine was at first very imperfect, having been made of bad iron, in
consequence of which it frequently broke down. In Cornwall the men were
no better. Dudley, Watt’s erector at Wheal Chance and Hallamanin, was
pronounced incapable and a blunderer. “If something be not very bad in
London, I wish you would employ Hadley to finish those engines, and send
Joseph here to receive his instructions and proceed to Cornwall, otherwise
Dudley will ruin us.”[178]
The trusty “Joseph” was accordingly despatched to Cornwall to look
after Dudley, and remedy the defects in Wheal Chance and Hallamanin
engines; but when Watt arrived at Chacewater shortly after, he found that
Joseph, too, had proved faithless. He wrote to Boulton, “Joseph has pursued
his old practice of drinking in the neighbourhood in a scandalous manner,
until the very enginemen turned him into ridicule.... I have not heard how
he behaved in the west; but that he gave the ale there a bad character.”[179]
Notwithstanding, however, his love of strong potations, Joseph was a first-
rate workman. Two days later, Watt wrote, “Though Joseph has attended to
his drinking, he has done much good at his leisure hours, and has certainly
prevented much mischief at Hallamanin and some at Wheal Union. He has
had some hard and long jobs, and consequently merits some indulgence for
his foibles.” By the end of the month “Joseph had conquered Hallamanin
engine, all but the boiler,” but Watt added, “His indulgence has brought on a
slight fit of the jaundice, and as soon as the engine is finished, he must be
sent home.”[180]
By this time Watt had called to his aid two other skilled workmen, Law
and Murdock, who arrived in Cornwall in the beginning of September,
1779. In Watt’s letters we find frequent allusions to Murdock. Wherever any
work had to be done requiring more than ordinary attention, Watt specially
directed that “William” should be put to it. “Let William be sent for from
Bedworth,” he wrote from Cornwall in 1778, “to set the patterns for nozzles
quite right for Poldice.” Boulton wished to send him into Scotland to erect
the engine at Wenlockhead, but Watt would not hear of it. “William” was
the only man he could trust with the nozzles. Then William was sent to
London to take the charge of Chelsea engine; next to Bedworth, to see to
the completion of the repairs previous to the final trial; then to Birmingham
again to attend to some further special instructions of Watt; and now we
find him in Cornwall, to take charge of the principal engines erecting there.

William Murdock was not only a most excellent and steady workman,
but a man of eminent mechanical genius. He was the first maker of a model
locomotive in this country; he was the introducer of lighting by gas, and the
inventor of many valuable parts of the working steam-engine, hereafter to
be described. His father was a millwright and miller, at Bellow Mill, near
Old Cumnock, in Ayrshire, and was much esteemed for his probity and
industry, as well as for his mechanical skill. He was the inventor of bevelled
cast-iron gear for mills, and his son was proud to exhibit, on the lawn in
front of his house at Sycamore Hill, Handsworth, a piece of the first work
of the kind executed in Britain. It was cast for him at Carron Ironworks,
after the pattern furnished by him, in 1766. William was born in 1754, and
brought up to his father’s trade. On arriving at manhood, he became
desirous of obtaining a larger experience of mill-work and mechanics than
he could acquire in his father’s little mill. Hearing of the fame of Boulton
and Watt, and the success of their new engine, he determined to travel
south, and seek for a job at Soho. Many Scotchmen were accustomed to call
there on the same errand, probably relying on the known clanship of their
countrymen, and thinking that they would find a friend and advocate in
Watt. But strange to say, Watt did not think Scotchmen capable of becoming
first-class mechanics.[181]
When Murdock called at Soho, in the year 1777, to ask for a job, Watt
was from home, but he saw Boulton, who was usually accessible to callers
of every rank. In answer to Murdock’s inquiry whether he could have a job,
Boulton replied that work was rather slack with them then, and that every
place was filled up. During the brief conversation that ensued, the blate
young Scotchman, like most country lads in the presence of strangers, had
some difficulty in knowing what to do with his hands, and unconsciously
kept twirling his hat with them. Boulton’s attention was directed to the
twirling hat, which seemed to be of a peculiar make. It was not a felt hat,
nor a cloth hat, nor a glazed hat; but it seemed to be painted, and composed
of some unusual material. “That seems to be a curious sort of hat,” said
Boulton, looking at it more closely; “why, what is it made of?” “Timmer,
sir,” said Murdock, modestly. “Timmer! Do you mean to say that it is made
of wood?” “Yes, sir.” “Pray, how was it made?” “I turned it mysel’, sir, in a
bit lathey of my own making.” Boulton looked at the young man again. He
had risen a hundred degrees in his estimation. He was tall, good-looking,

and of open and ingenuous countenance; and that he had been able to turn a
wooden hat for himself in a lathe of his own making was proof enough that
he was a mechanic of no mean skill. “You may call again, my man,” said
Boulton. “Thank you, sir,” said Murdock, giving his hat a final twirl.
When Murdock called again, he was at once put upon a trial job, after
which he was entered as a regular hand. We learn from Boulton’s
memorandum-book that he was engaged for two years, at 15s. a week when
at home, 17s. when from home, and 18s. when in London. Boulton’s
engagement of Murdock was amply justified by the result. Beginning as a
common mechanic, he applied himself diligently and conscientiously to his
work, and became trusted. More responsible duties were confided to him,
and he strove to perform them to the best of his power. His industry and his
skilfulness soon marked him for promotion, and he rose from grade to grade
until he became Boulton and Watt’s most trusted co-worker and adviser in
all their mechanical undertakings of importance.
When Murdock went into Cornwall to take charge of the engines, he
gave himself no rest until he had conquered their defects and put them in
thorough working order. He devoted himself to his duties with a zeal and
ability that completely won Watt’s heart. He was so filled with his work,
that when he had an important job in hand, he could scarcely sleep at nights
for thinking of it. When the engine at Wheal Union was ready for starting,
the people of the house at Redruth, in which Murdock lodged, were greatly
disturbed one night by a strange noise in his room. Several heavy blows on
the floor made them start from their beds, thinking the house was coming
down. They rushed to Murdock’s room, and there was he in his shirt,
heaving away at the bedpost in his sleep, calling out, “Now she goes, lads!
now she goes.”
Murdock was not less successful in making his way with the
Cornishmen with whom he was brought into daily contact; indeed, he
fought his way to their affections. One day at Chacewater, some half-dozen
of the mining captains came into the engine-room and began bullying him.
This he could not stand, and adopted a bold expedient. He locked the door,
and said, “Now, then, you shall not leave this place until I have it fairly out
with you.” He selected the biggest, and put himself in a fighting attitude.
The Cornishmen love fair play, and while the two engaged in battle, the

others, without interfering, looked on. The contest was soon over; for
Murdock was a tall, powerful fellow, and speedily vanquished his opponent.
The others, seeing the kind of man they had to deal with, made overtures of
reconciliation; and they shook hands all round, and parted the best of
friends.[182]
Watt continued to have his differences and altercations with the
Cornishmen, but he had no such way of settling them. Indeed, he was
almost helpless when he came in contact with rough men of business. Most
of the mines were then paying very badly, and the adventurers raised all
sorts of objections to making the stipulated payment of the engine dues.
Under such circumstances, altercations with them took place for which Watt
was altogether unprepared. He was under the apprehension that they were
constantly laying their heads together for the purpose of taking advantage of
him and his partner. He never looked on the bright side of things, but
always on the darkest. “The rascality of mankind,” said he to Dr. Black, “is
almost beyond belief.” Though his views of science were large, his views of
men were narrow. Much of this may have been the result of his recluse
habits and closet life, as well as of his constant ill-health. With his racking
headaches, it was indeed difficult for him to be cheerful. But no one could
be more conscious of his own defects—of his want of tact, his want of
business qualities, and his want of temper—than he was himself. He knew
his besetting infirmities, from which even the best and wisest are not
exempt. His greatness was mingled with imperfections, and his strength
with weakness, else had he been more than human. It is not in the order of
Providence that the gifts and graces of life should be concentrated in any
one perfectly adjusted character. Even when we inquire into the “Admirable
Crichton” of biography, and seek to trace his life, it vanishes almost into a
myth.
In the midst of his many troubles and difficulties, Watt’s invariable
practice was to call upon Boulton for help. Boulton was satisfied to take
men as he found them, and try to make the best of them. Watt was a man of
the study; Boulton a man of the world. Watt was a master of machines; but
Boulton, of men. Though Watt might be the brain, Boulton was the heart of
the concern. “If you had been here,” wrote Watt to Boulton, after one of his
disagreeable meetings with the adventurers, “If you had been here, and
gone to that meeting with your cheerful countenance and brave heart,

perhaps they would not have been so obstinate.” The scene referred to by
Watt occurred at a meeting of the Wheal Union Adventurers, at which the
savings effected by the new engine were to be calculated and settled. Here
is Watt’s own description of the affair, and his feelings on the occasion,
which will give a good idea of the irksomeness of his position, and the
disagreeable people he had occasionally to encounter:—

“At Wheal Union account our savings were ordered to be charged to the interest of
Messrs. Edwards and Phillips; but when to be paid, God knows! Bevan said in a month.
After all this was settled, in came Capt. Trevithick, I believe on purpose, as he came late
and might have heard that I was gone there. He immediately fell foul of our account, in a
manner peculiar to himself ... laboured to demonstrate that Dalcoath engines not only
surpassed the table, but even did more work with the coals than Wheal Union did, and
concluded with saying that we had taken or got the advantage of the adventurers. I think he
first said the former and then hedged off by the latter statement. Mr. Phillips defended, and
Mr. Edwards, I thought, seemed staggered, though candid. Mr. Phillips desired the data that
he might calculate it over in his way. Mr. Edwards slipped away, but I found afterwards
that he was in another room with Capt. Gundry (who, and Hodge also, behaved
exceedingly well—I believe Gundry to be a very sincere, honest man). I went out to speak
to Joseph, and on my return found only Trevithick, Bevan, Hodge, and some others. Soon
after, Mr. Edwards called out Trevithick to him and Gundry. I heard them very loud, and
waited their return for an hour; but they not seeming ready to return, night coming on, and
feeling myself very uncomfortable, I came away—so know not what passed further.
During all this time, I was so confounded with the impudence, ignorance, and overbearing
manner of the man that I could make no adequate defence, and indeed could scarcely keep
my temper; which however I did, perhaps to a fault; for nothing can be more grievous to an
ingenuous mind than the being suspected or accused of deceit. To mend the matter, it had
been an exceedingly rainy morning, and I had got a little wet going thither, which had
rather hurt my spirits. Yesterday I had a violent headache and could do nothing.... Some
means must be taken to satisfy the country, otherwise this malicious man will hurt us
exceedingly. The point on which Mr. Edwards seemed to lay the most stress was the
comparing with a 77 1⁄10 cylinder, as he alleged they would not have put in so large an
engine; and in this there is some reason, as I do not think they believed that the engine
would be so powerful as it is. Add to this, that the mine barely pays its way. Trevithick
made a great noise about short strokes at setting on, &c. The Captains seemed to laugh at
that; and I can demonstrate that, were it allowed for, it would not come to 2s. 6d. per
month. I believe they can be brought to allow that they would have put in a 70-inch. Now,
query if we ought to allow this to be calculated from a 70 (at which it will come to near
400l. a year), and on making this concession insist on our having a good paymaster to pay
regularly once a month, and not be obliged to go like beggars to their accounts to seek our
due and be insulted by such scoundrels into the bargain. As to Hallamanin, they have not
met yet, and when they do meet, I shall not go to them. I cannot bear such treatment, but it
is not prudent to resent it too warmly just now. I believe you must come here. I think
fourteen days would settle matters. Besides my inability to battle such people, I really have
not time to bestow on them.”[183]

In subsequent letters Watt continued to urge Boulton to come to him.
His headaches were constant, unfitting him for work. Besides, he could
scarcely stir out of doors for the rain. “It rains here,” said he, “prodigiously.
When you come, bring with you a waxed linen cloak for yourself, and
another for me, as there is no going out now for a few miles without getting
wet to the skin. When it rains in Cornwall, and it rains often, it rains solid.”

CARDOZOS PUMPING-ENGINE,
UNITED MINES.

UNITED MINES DISTRICT—ST. DAY IN THE
MIDDLE DISTANCE.
[By R. P. Leitch.]

CHAPTER XIV.
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.
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 15,000l.; 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 7000l. 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]

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 500l. 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.
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]

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 17,000l. 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.”
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 2500l. 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]
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 2500l. 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.”
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]
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]
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.

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]
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]

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 330l. 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 40,000l. 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]
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 7000l., 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]

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]
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.
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.

ENTRANCE TO COSGARNE HOUSE.

THE ‘WAGGON AND HORSES,’ HANDSWORTH.

CHAPTER XV.
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.”

THE CRANK AS APPLIED
IN THE FOOT-LATHE.

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]
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.
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.”

“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]

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]
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]

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.
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.
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,—

“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]

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]

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