[ [194] Watt to Boulton, 20th April, 1780.
[ [195] Boulton to Watt, 25th and 30th September, 1780. Boulton MSS.
[ [196] His partner Fothergill would not, however, consent to let Boulton go, and the Soho business was continued until the death of Fothergill (bankrupt) in 1782, after which it was continued for some time longer under the firm of Boulton and Scale.
[ [197] Mrs. Watt to Mr. Boulton, then in London, 15th April, 1781. Boulton MSS.
[ [198] In another letter Watt described himself as “worried by the Wheal Chanceians.... In short,” says he, “I am at this moment so provoked at the undeserved rancour with which we are persecuted in Cornwall, that, were it not on account of the deplorable state of debt I find myself in, I would live on bread and cheese, and suffer the water to run out at their adits, before I would relax the slightest iota of what I thought my right in their favour.”—Watt to Boulton, 17th October, 1780. Boulton MSS.
[ [199] Watt to Boulton, 31st October, 1780. Boulton MSS.
[ [200] “Though your long stay, when you were last here,” wrote Henderson, the resident agent, “must have been attended with great inconveniences, yet you are now very much wanted in Wheal Virgin affairs. Different interests have produced a sort of anarchy.... Were Mr. Watt here now, I don’t think his health would allow him to stand the battles with the different people. I have not written to him freely on this subject, as I am afraid it would hurt him.... Your authority here as an adventurer has much greater weight than anything I can propose.”—Henderson to Boulton, 4th February, 1781. Boulton MSS.
[ [201] Watt to Boulton, 17th October, 1780.
[ [202] In June, 1780, we find Boulton describing to Colonel Watson the progress of the Soho business, as follows:—“Since I had the honour of seeing you in England we have erected upwards of 40 of our new steam-engines, and have (from so much experience) obviated every difficulty, and made it a most practicable and perfect machine. The steam wheel we have not meddled with since you were at Soho, as we have been fully employed upon large beam-engines; besides, we have applied the beam engine to rotative motions so successfully that the wheel engine seems almost unnecessary.”
[ [203] Watt had made use of the crank at a very early period. Thus we find him writing to Dr. Small on the 20th September, 1769,—“As to the condenser, I laid aside the spiral wheels because of the noise and thumping, and substituted a crank: in other respects it performed well enough.”