What little I can do for him 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. I shall be content to hold a very small share in the partnership, 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.
Thus wrote Watt to his friend Small, August 30, 1772. Small's reply pointed out one difficulty which deserves notice and commendation. "It is impossible 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." This is an objection which to stock-exchange standards may seem "not well taken," and far too fantastical for the speculative domain, and yet it is neither surprising nor unusual in the realms of genuine business, in which men are concerned with or creating only intrinsic values.
The result so ardently desired by Watt was reached in this unexpected fashion. It was found that in the ordinary course of business Roebuck owed Boulton a balance of $6,000. Boulton agreed to take the Roebuck interest in the Watt patent for the debt. As the creditors considered the patent interest worthless, they gladly accepted. As Watt said, "it was only paying one bad debt with another."
Boulton asked Watt to act as his attorney in the matter, which he did, writing Boulton that "the thing is now a shadow; 'tis merely ideal, and will cost time and money to realise it." This as late as March 29, 1773, after eight years of constant experimentation, with many failures and disappointments, since the discovery of the separate condenser in 1765, which was then hailed, and rightly so, as the one thing needed. It remained the right and only foundation upon which to develop the steam engine, but many minor obstacles intervened, requiring Watt's inventive and mechanical genius to overcome.
The transfer of Roebuck's two-third interest to Boulton afterward carried with it the formation of the celebrated firm of Boulton and Watt. The latter arranged his affairs as quickly as possible. He had only made $1,000 for a whole year spent in surveying, and part of that he gave to Roebuck in his necessity, "so that I can barely support myself and keep untouched the small sum I have allotted for my visit to you." (Watt to Small, July 25, 1773). This is pitiable indeed—Watt pressed for money to pay his way to Birmingham upon important business.
The trial engine was shipped from Kinneil to Soho and Watt arrived in May, 1774, in Birmingham. Here a new life opened before him, still enveloped in clouds, but we may please ourselves by believing that through these the wearied and harassed inventor did not fail to catch alluring visions of the sun. Let us hope he remembered the words of the beautiful hymn he had no doubt often sung in his youth:
"Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
With blessings on your head."
Partnership requires not duplicates, but opposites—a union of different qualities. He who proves indispensable as a partner to one man might be wholly useless, or even injurious, to another. Generals Grant and Sherman needed very different chiefs of staff. One secret of Napoleon's success arose from his being free to make his own appointments, choosing the men who had the qualities which supplemented his and cured his own shortcomings, for every man has shortcomings. The universal genius who can manage all himself has yet to appear. Only one with the genius to recognise others of different genius and harness them to his own car can approach the "universal." It is a case of different but coöperating abilities, each part of the complicated machine fitting into its right place, and there performing its duty without jarring.
Never were two men more "supplementary" to each other than Boulton and Watt, and hence their success. One possessed in perfection the qualities the other lacked. Smiles sums this up so finely that we must quote him:
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.