When it became known that Boulton had taken an interest in a new engine for pumping water, he had many inquiries about it from the mining districts. The need of a more effective engine than any then in use was every year becoming more urgent. The powers of Newcomen’s engine had been tried to the utmost. So long as the surface-lodes were worked, its power was sufficient to clear the mines of water; but as they were carried deeper, it was found totally inadequate for the work, and many mines were consequently becoming gradually drowned out and abandoned. The excessive consumption of coals by the Newcomen engines was another serious objection to their use, especially in districts such as Cornwall, where coal was very dear. When Small was urging Watt to come to Birmingham and make engines, he wrote: “A friend of Boulton’s, in Cornwall, sent us word a few days ago that four or five copper-mines are just going to be abandoned because of the high price of coals, and begs us to apply to them instantly. The York Buildings Company delay rebuilding their engine, with great inconvenience to themselves, waiting for yours. Yesterday application was made to me by a Mining Company in Derbyshire to know when you are to be in England about the engines, because they must quit their mine if you cannot relieve them.” The necessity for an improved pumping power had set many inventors to work besides Watt, and some of the less scrupulous of them were already trying to adopt his principle in such a way as to evade his patent. Moore, the London linendraper, and Hatley, one of Watt’s Carron workmen, had brought out and were pushing engines similar to Watt’s; the latter having stolen and sold for a considerable sum working drawings of the Kinneil engine.
From these signs Boulton saw that, in the event of the engine proving successful, he and his partner would have to defend the invention against a host of pirates; and he became persuaded that he would not be justified in risking his capital in the establishment of a steam-engine manufactory unless a considerable extension of the patent-right could be secured. To ascertain whether this was practicable, Watt proceeded to London in the beginning of 1775, to confer with his patent agent and take the opinion of counsel on the subject. Mr. Wedderburn, who was advised with, recommended that the existing patent should be surrendered, and in that case he did not doubt that a new one would be granted. While in London, Watt looked out for possible orders for his engine: “I have,” he wrote Boulton, “a prospect of two orders for fire-engines here, one to water Piccadilly, and the other to serve the south end of Blackfriars Bridge with water. I have taken advice of several people whom I could trust about the patent. They all agree that an Act would be much better and cheaper, a patent being now 130l., the Act, if obtainable, 110l. The present patent has eight years still to run, bearing date January, 1769. I understand there will be an almost unlimited sale for wheel-engines to the West Indies, at the rate of 100l. for each horse’s power.”[140]
Watt also occupied some of his time in London in superintending the adjustment of weights manufactured by Boulton and Fothergill, then sold in considerable quantities through their London agent. That he continued to take an interest in his old business of mathematical instrument making is apparent from the visits which he made to several well-known shops. One of the articles which he examined with most interest was Short’s Gregorian telescope. At other times, by Boulton’s request, he went to see the few steam-engines then at work in London and the neighbourhood, and make inquiries as to their performances. With that object he examined the engines at the New River, Hungerford, and Chelsea. At the latter place, he said, “it was impossible to try the quantity of injection, and the fellow told me lies about the height of the column of water.” But Watt soon grew tired of London, “running from street to street all day about gilding,” inquiring after metal-rollers, silver-platers, and button-makers. He did his best, however, to execute the commissions which Boulton from time to time sent him; and when these were executed, he returned to Birmingham to confer with his friends as to the steps to be taken with respect to the patent. The result of his conferences with Boulton and Small was, that it was determined to take steps to apply for an Act for its extension in the ensuing session of Parliament.
Watt went up to London a second time for the purpose of having the Bill drawn. He had scarcely arrived there when the sad intelligence reached him of the death of Dr. Small. He had long been ailing, yet the event was a shock alike to himself and Boulton. The latter wrote Watt in the bitterness of his grief, “If there were not a few other objects yet remaining for me to settle my affections upon, I should wish also to take up my abode in the mansions of the dead.” Watt replied, reminding him of the sentiments of their departed friend, as to the impropriety of indulging in unavailing sorrow, the best refuge from which was the more sedulous performance of duty. “Come, my dear sir,” said he, “and immerse yourself in this sea of business as soon as possible. Pay a proper respect to your friend by obeying his precepts. I wait for you with impatience, and assure yourself no endeavour of mine shall be wanting to render life agreeable to you.”
It had been intended to include Small in the steam-engine partnership on the renewal of the patent. He had been consulted in all the stages of the proceedings, and one of the last things he did was to draw up Watt’s petition for the Bill. No settled arrangement had yet been made—not even between Boulton and Watt. Everything depended upon the success of the application for the extension of the patent.
Meanwhile, through the recommendation of his old friend Dr. Robison, then in Russia officiating as Mathematical Professor at the Government Naval School at Cronstadt, Watt was offered an appointment under the Russian Government, at a salary of about 1000l. a year. He was thus presented with a means of escape from his dependence upon Boulton, and for the first time in his life had the prospect before him of an income that to him would have been affluence. But he entertained strong objections to settling in Russia: he objected to its climate, its comparative barbarism, and, notwithstanding the society of his friend Robison, to the limited social resources of St. Petersburg. Besides, Boulton’s favours were so gracefully conferred, that the dependence on him was not felt; for he made the recipient of his favours feel as if the obligation were entirely on the side of the giver. “Your going to Russia staggers me,” he wrote to Watt; “the precariousness of your health, the dangers of so long a journey or voyage, and my own deprivation of consolation, render me a little uncomfortable; but I wish to assist and advise you for the best, without regard to self.” The result was, that Watt determined to wait the issue of the application for the extension of his patent.
The Bill was introduced to Parliament on the 28th of February, 1775, and it was obvious from the first that it would have considerable opposition to encounter. The mining interest had looked forward to Watt’s invention as a means of helping them out of their difficulties and giving a new value to their property by clearing the drowned mines of water. They therefore desired to have the free use of the engine at the earliest possible period; and when it was proposed to extend the patent by Act of Parliament, they set up with one accord the cry of “No monopoly.” Up to the present time, as we have seen, the invention had been productive to Watt of nothing but loss, labour, anxiety, and headaches; and it was only just that a reasonable period should be allowed to enable him to derive some advantage from the results of his application and ingenuity. But the mining interest took a different view of the matter. They did not see the necessity of recognising the rights of the inventor beyond the term of his existing patent, and they held that the public interests would suffer if the proposed “monopoly” were granted. Nor were they without supporters in Parliament, for among the most strenuous we find the name of Edmund Burke,—influenced, it is supposed, by certain mining interests in the neighbourhood of Bristol, which city he then represented.
There is no doubt that the public would have benefited by Watt’s invention having been made free to all. But it was not for the public merely that Watt had been working at his engine for fifteen long years. He was a man of comparatively small means, and had been buoyed up and stimulated to renewed exertion during that time by the hope of ultimate reward in the event of its success. If labour could give a man a title to property in his invention, Watt’s claim was clear. The condensing-engine had been the product of his own skill, contrivance, and brain-work. But there has always been a difficulty in getting the claims of mere brain-work recognised. Had he expended his labour in building a house instead of in contriving a machine, his right of property would at once have been acknowledged. As it was, he had to contend for justice and persuade the legislature of the reasonableness of granting his application for an extension of the patent. In the “Case” which he drew up for distribution amongst the members of the Lower House, on the motion being carried for the recommittal of the Bill, he set forth that having, after great labour and expense extending over many years, succeeded in completing working engines of each of the two kinds he had invented, he found that they could not be carried into profitable execution without the further expenditure of large sums of money in erecting mills, and purchasing the various materials and utensils necessary for making them; and from the reluctance with which the public generally adopt new inventions, he was afraid that the whole term granted by his patent would expire before the engines should have come into general use and any portion of his expenses be repaid:—
“The inventor of these new engines,” said he, “is sorry that gentlemen of knowledge, and avowed admirers of his invention, should oppose the Bill by putting it in the light of a monopoly. He never had any intention of circumscribing or claiming the inventions of others; and the Bill is now drawn up in such a manner as sufficiently guards those rights, and must oblige him to prove his own right to every part of his invention which may at any time be disputed.... If the invention be valuable, it has been made so by his industry, and at his expense; he has struggled with bad health, and many other inconveniences, to bring it to perfection, and all he wishes is to be secured in the profits which he may reasonably expect from it,—profits which he cannot obtain without an exertion of his abilities to bring it into practice, by which the public must be the greatest gainers, and which are limited by the performance of the common engines; for he cannot expect that any person will make use of his contrivance, unless he can prove to them that savings will take place, and that his demand for the privilege of using the invention will amount only to a reasonable part of them. No man will lay aside a known engine, and stop his work to erect one of a new contrivance, unless he is certain to be a very great gainer by the exchange; and if any contrivance shall so far excel others as to enforce the use of it, it is reasonable that the author of such a contrivance should be rewarded.”
These weighty arguments could not fail to produce an impression on the minds of all reasonable men, and the result was, that Parliament passed an Act extending Watt’s patent right for the further term of twenty-four years. Watt wrote Boulton on the 27th May,—“I hope to be clear to come away by Wednesday or Thursday. I am heartily sick of this town and fort ennuyée since you left it. Dr. Roebuck is likely to get an order, out of Smeaton’s hands, for an engine in Yorkshire that, according to Smeaton’s calculation, will burn 1200l. per annum in coals. But this has had one bad effect. It has made the Doctor repent of his bargain and wish again to be upon the 1-10th [profits]; but we must see to keep him right if possible, so don’t vex yourself about it.” Dr. Roebuck had been finally settled with before the passing of the Act. It had been arranged that Boulton should pay him 1000l. out of the first profits arising from his share in the engine, making about 2200l. in all paid by Boulton to Roebuck for his two-thirds of the patent.[141]