James Watt

by Andrew Carnegie

Readers will note that no workman had yet been developed who could be trusted to erect the engine. The master inventor had to go himself as the mechanical genius certain to cure all defects and ensure success. This shows how indispensable Watt was.

Orders now flowed in, and Watt was needed to prepare the plans and drawings, no one being capable of relieving him of this. To-day we have draftsmen by the thousand to whom it would be easy routine work, as we have thousands to whom the erection of the Watt engine would be play. Watt was everywhere. At length he had to confess that "a very little more of this hurrying and vexation would knock me up altogether." At this moment he had just been called to return to Cornwall to erect the second engine. He says "I fancy I must be cut in pieces and a portion sent to every tribe in Israel." We may picture him reciting in Falstaffian mood, "Would my name were not so terrible to the enemy (deep-mine water) as it is. There can't a drowned-out mine peep its head out but I'm thrust upon it. Well, well, it always was the trick of my countrymen to make a good thing too common. Better rust to death than be scoured to nothing by this perpetual motion."

Watt had a hard time of it in Cornwall during his next stay there, for he had to go again. He arrives at Redruth to find many troubles.

Forbes' eduction-pipe is a vile job, he writes, 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 pipe instead of Wheal Union, and the gudgeon pipe has not arrived with the nozzles. These repeated disappointments will ruin our credit in the country, and I cannot stay here to bear the shame of such failures of promise.

It is easy for present-day captains of industry to plume themselves upon their ability to select men sure to succeed well with any undertaking, and assume that Watt lacked the indispensable talent for selection, but he had been driven by sad experience to trust none but himself, the skilled workmen needed to co-operate with him not yet having been developed.

We have not touched upon another source of great anxiety to him at this time. The enterprising Boulton would not have been the organiser he was unless blessed with a sanguine disposition and the capacity for shedding troubles. The business was rapidly extending in many branches, all needing capital; the engine business, promising though it was, was no exception. Little money was yet due from sales and much had been spent developing the invention. Boulton's letter to Watt constantly urged cash collections, while mine-owners were not disposed to pay until further tests were made. Boulton suggested loans from Truro bankers on security of the engines, but Watt found this impracticable. The engines were doing astonishingly well to-day, but who could ensure their lasting qualities? Watt shows good judgment in suggesting that Wilkinson, the famous foundryman, should be taken into partnership. He urges his enterprising partner to apply the pruning knife and cut down expenses naively assuring him that "he was practising all the frugality in his power." As Watt's personal expenses then were only ten dollars per week, a smile rises at the prudent Scot's possible contribution to reduction in expenditure. But he was on the right lines, and at least gave Boulton the benefit of example. Watt was never disposed to look on the bright side of things, and to add to Boulton's load, the third partner, Fothergill, was even more desponding than Watt. When Boulton went away to raise means, he was pursued by letters from Fothergill telling him day by day of imperative needs. In one he was of opinion that "the creditors must be called together; better to face the worst than to go on in the neck-and-neck race with ruin." Boulton would hurry back to quiet Fothergill and keep the ship afloat. Here he shines out resplendently. He proved equal to the emergency. His courage and determination rose in proportion to the difficulties to be overcome, borne up by his invariable hope and unshakable belief in the value of Watt's condensing engine, he triumphed at last, pledging, as security for a loan of $70,000, the royalties derivable from the engine patents, and an annuity for a loan of $35,000 more. So small a sum as $105,000 sufficed to keep afloat the big ship laden with all their treasures.

There was a period of great depression in Britain when Boulton and Watt were thus in deep water, and at such times credit is sensitive in the extreme. A small balance on the right side performs wonders. This recalls to the writer how, once in the history of his own firm, credit was kept high during a panic by using the identical sum Boulton raised, $70,000, from a reserve fund that had been laid away and came in very opportunely at the critical time. Every single dollar weighs a hundredfold when credit trembles in the balance. A leading nerve specialist in New York once said that the worst malady he had to treat was the man of affairs whose credit was suspected. His unfailing remedy was: "Call your creditors together, explain all and ask their support. I can then do you some good, but not till then." His patients who did this found themselves restored to vigor. They were supported by creditors and all was bright once more. The wise doctor was sound in his advice. If the firm has neither speculated nor gambled (synonymous terms), nor lived extravagantly, nor endorsed for others, and the business is on a solid foundation, no people have so much at stake in sustaining it as the creditors; they will rally round it and think more of the firm than ever, because they will see behind their money the best of all securities—men at the helm who are not afraid and know how to meet a storm.

Boulton's timid partners no doubt were amazed that he was so blind to the dangers which they with clearer vision saw so clearly. How deluded they were. We may be sure neither of them saw the danger half as vividly as he, but it is not the part of a leader to reveal to his fellows all that he sees or fears. His part is to look dangers steadily in the face and challenge them. It is the great leader who inspires in his followers contempt for the danger which he sees in much truer proportion than they. This Boulton did, for behind all else in his character there lay the indomitable will, the do or die resolve. He had staked his life upon the hazard of a die and he would stand the cost. "But if we fail," often said the timid pair to him, as Macbeth did to his resolute partner, and the same answer came, "We fail." That's all. "One knockdown will not finish this fight. We'll get up again, never fear. We know no such word as fail."[1]

One source of serious trouble arose from Watt and Boulton having been so anxious at first to introduce their engines that they paid small regard to terms. When their success was proved, they offered to settle, taking one-third the value of the fuel saved. This was a liberal offer, for, in addition to the mine-owners saving two-thirds of the former cost of fuel consumed by the previous engines, mines became workable, which without the Watt engine must have been abandoned. These terms however were not accepted, and a long series of disputes arose, ending in some cases only with the patent-right itself. It was resolved that all future engines should be furnished only upon the terms before stated, Watt declaring that otherwise he would not put pen to paper to make new drawings. "Let our terms be moderate," he writes, "and, if possible, consolidated into money a 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." Imprisonment for debt, let it be remembered, had not been abolished. One of the most beneficent forward steps that our time can boast of is the Bankruptcy Court. However hard we may yet be upon offenders against us, society, through humane laws, forgives our debtors in money matters, and gives a clear bill of health after honorable acquittal in bankruptcy, and a fresh start.

The result proved Watt's wisdom. His engines were needed to save the mines. No other could. Applications came in freely upon his terms, and as Watt was a poor hand at bargaining, he insisted that Boulton should come to Cornwall and attend to that part.