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 proceedings 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 sides 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 1000l. 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.
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.’[82] There he 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 the “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.”