Lives of Boulton and Watt by Samuel Smiles: Chapter 8

Kinneil House

The Outhouse behind Kinneil

Hamilton Bridge

Port Glasgow

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.

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 be 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 proceeding's 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 skies 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 £1,000 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, 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.' There be 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 "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 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 head-aches, 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, etc., of the mines in the Upper Hartz. His instructor in the language was a Swiss dyer, 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; as well as by his proposal to employ high-pressure steam where cold water could not be used for purposes of condensation. 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 be had erected that engine, but he did not wish at the time to venture on a patent one until he bad a little more experience."

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 be 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 be 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, and, without the Doctor, his invention would 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! 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 vacuum to air. Later we find him inventing a prismatic micrometer for measuring distances, which he described in considerable detail in his letters to Small. 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. Pro-bavi." Another of his contrivances was his dividing-screw, for dividing an inch accurately into 1,000 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 £200 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, 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.

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 £7-7s. 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." The bridge, after Watt's plan, was begun in 1771, but it was not finished until 1780.

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. 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 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.

See Also

• Lives of Boulton and Watt by Samuel Smiles
• Lives of Boulton and Watt by Samuel Smiles: Chapter 7
• Lives of Boulton and Watt by Samuel Smiles: Chapter 9