[ [290] Boulton to Matthews, 22nd December, 1788.
[ [291] Boulton acted with his usual open-handed generosity in his partnership arrangements with Watt. Although the original bargain between them provided that Boulton was to take two-thirds, and Watt one-third profits, Boulton providing the requisite capital and being at the risk and expense of all experiments, he subsequently, at Watt’s request, agreed to the profits being equally divided between them.
[ [292] As early as August, 1768, we find Dr. Small in one of his letters describing Edgeworth to Watt as “a gentleman of fortune, young, mechanical, and indefatigable, who has taken a resolution to move land and water carriages by steam, and has made considerable progress in the short space of time that he has devoted to the study.”
[ [293] Dr. Darwin to Boulton, April 5, 1778. When the Doctor removed to Derby in 1782, he wrote,—“I am here cut off from the milk of science, which flows in such redundant streams from your learned Lunatics, and which, I can assure you, is a very great regret to me.” In another letter he said,—“I hope philosophy and fire-engines continue to go on well. You heard we sent your Society an air-balloon, which was calculated to have fallen in your garden at Soho; but the wicked wind carried it to Sir Edward Littleton’s. Pray give my compliments to your learned Society.” In another letter he wrote,—“I hope Behemoth has strength in his loins. Belial and Ashtaroth are two other devils of consequence, and good names for engines of Fire.” When he heard of the Albion Mill being burnt down, the Doctor wrote,—“The conflagration of the Albion Mill grieved me sincerely, both as it was a grand and successful effort of human art, and also because I fear you were a considerable sufferer by it. I well remember poor old Mr. Seward comparing the Immortality of the Soul (in a devout sermon) to a fire-engine. He might now have made it a type of the mortality of this world, and the conflagration of all things.”
[ [294] In a letter from Priestley to Boulton, dated London, 6th November, 1775, he wrote,—“I shall not quarrel with you on account of our different sentiments in politics. When I tell you what is fact, that the Americans have constructed a cannon on a new principle, by which they can hit a mark at a distance of a mile, you will say their ingenuity has come in aid of their cowardice! I would tell you the principle of it, but that I am afraid it would set your superior ingenuity to improve upon it for the use of their enemies.” From Boulton’s memoranda-books we find that the subject of improved artillery had occupied his attention some ten years before.
[ [295] Mrs. Schimmelpenninck, who had no sympathy for Dr. Priestley’s religious views, nevertheless bears eloquent testimony to the beauty of his character. She speaks of him as “a man of admirable simplicity, gentleness, and kindness of heart, united with great acuteness of intellect. I can never forget,” she says, “the impression produced on me by the serene expression of his countenance. He, indeed, seemed ever present with God by recollection, and with man by cheerfulness.... A sharp and acute intellectual perception, often a pointed, perhaps a playful expression, was combined in him with a most loving heart.... Dr. Priestley always spent part of every day in devotional exercises and contemplation; and unless the railroad has spoilt it, there yet remains at Dawlish a deep and beautiful cavern, since known by the name of “Dr. Priestley’s cavern,” where he was wont to pass an hour every day in solitary retirement.”—‘Life of Mary Ann Schimmelpenninck.’
[ [296] Boulton to Watt, 3rd July, 1781. Dr. Black denominated carbonic acid gas “fixed air” because of his having first discovered it in chalk, marble, &c., wherein it was fixed until the furnace or other means extracted it from its fixture.
[ [297] Boulton to Henderson, 6th September, 1781.
[ [298] Wedgwood to Boulton, Etruria, 10th March, 1781.
[ [299] Boulton to Wedgwood, 30th March, 1781.