There was one branch of the Boulton and Fothergill business which Boulton at once agreed to give up. This was the painting and japanning business; by which, as appears from a statement prepared by Mr. Walker, now before us, the firm were losing at the rate of 500l. a year.
The picture-painting business seems to have been begun in 1777, and was carried on for some years under the direction of Mr. Eginton, who afterwards achieved considerable reputation at Birmingham as a manufacturer of painted glass. A degree of interest has been recently raised on the subject of the Soho pictures, in consequence of the statements hazarded as to the method by which they are supposed to have been produced. It has been surmised that they were taken by some process resembling photography. We have, however, been unable to find anything in the correspondence of the firm calculated to support this view. On the contrary, they are invariably spoken of as “mechanical paintings,” “pictures,” or “prints,” produced by means of “paints” or “colours.” Though the precise process by which they were produced is not now known, there seems reason to believe that they were impressions from plates prepared in a peculiar manner. The impressions were taken “mechanically” on paper; and both oil and water colours[187] were made use of. Some of the pictures were of large size—40 by 50 inches—the subjects being chiefly classical. This branch of the business being found unproductive, was brought to a close in 1780, when the partnership with Eginton was at the same time dissolved.
Another and more fortunate branch of business into which Boulton entered with Watt and Keir, about the same time, was the manufacture of letter-copying machines. Watt made the invention, Boulton found the money for taking out the patent, and Keir conducted the business. Watt was a very voluminous correspondent, and the time occupied by him in copying letters, the contents of which he desired to keep secret from third parties, was such that in order to economise it he invented the method of letter-copying in such common use. The invention consisted in the transfer, by pressure, of the writing made with mucilaginous ink, to damped and unsized transparent copying-paper, by means either of a rolling press or a screw press. Though Watt himself preferred the rollers, the screw press is now generally adopted as the more simple and efficacious process.
This invention was made by Watt in the summer of 1778. In June we find him busy experimenting on copying-papers of different kinds, requesting Boulton to send him specimens of “the most even and whitest unsized paper;” and in the following month he wrote Dr. Black, “I have lately discovered a method of copying writing instantaneously, provided it has been written the same day, or within twenty-four hours. I send you a specimen, and will impart the secret if it will be of any use to you. It enables me to copy all my business letters.”[188] For two years Watt kept his method of copying a secret; but hearing that certain persons were prying into it with the view of turning it to account, he determined to anticipate them by taking out a patent, which was secured in May, 1780. By that time Watt had completed the details of the press and the copying-ink. Sufficient mahogany and lignum-vitæ had been ordered for making 500 machines, and Boulton went up to London to try and get the press introduced in the public offices. He first waited upon several noblemen to interest them in the machine, amongst others on Lord Dartmouth, who proposed to show it to George III. “The King,” said Boulton, in a letter to Watt, “writes a great deal, and takes copies of all he writes with his own hand, so that Lord Dartmouth thinks it will be a very desirable thing for His Majesty.” Several of those to whom the machine was first shown, apprehended that it would lead to increase of forgery—then a great source of terror to commercial men. The bankers concurred in this view, and strongly denounced the invention; and they expostulated with Boulton and Watt’s agent for offering the presses for sale. “Mr. Woodmason,” wrote Boulton, “says the bankers mob him for having anything to do with it; they say that it ought to be suppressed.” Boulton was not dismayed by this opposition, but proceeded to issue circulars to the members of the Houses of Lords and Commons, descriptive of the machine, inviting them to an inspection of it, after which he communicated the results to his partner:—
... “On Tuesday morning last I waited on some particular noblemen, according to promise, at their own houses, with the press, and at one o’clock I took possession of a private room adjoining the Court of Requests, Westminster Hall, where I was visited by several members of both Houses, who in general were well pleased with the invention; but all expressed their fears of forgery, which occasioned and obliged me to exercise my lungs very much. Many of the members tried to copy bank notes, but in vain. I had a full audience till half-past eight o’clock.... I had quite a mob of members next day; some of them mobbed me for introducing such wicked arts; however, upon the whole, I had a greater majority than Lord North hath had this year.
On Thursday ... at half-past two ... I had a tolerable good House, even a better than the Speaker, who was often obliged to send his proper officer to fetch away from me the members to vote, and sometimes to make a House. As soon as the House formed into a Committee upon the Malt-tax, the Speaker left the chair and sent for me and the machine, which was carried through the gallery in face of the whole House into the Speaker’s Chamber. I found him full of fears about the dreadful consequences, which I quieted before I left him, and he with his two friends subscribed. I attended again on Friday, but, from a very thin House and curiosity abating, I had very few [subscriptions]. Mr. Banks came to see the machine on Thursday. I thought it might be of service to show it to the Royal Society that evening.... After the business of the Society was over, he announced Mr. Watt’s invention, and my readiness to show it, and it was accordingly brought in and afforded much satisfaction to a crowded audience. I did not show the list of subscribers and the proposals, nor dishonour philosophy by trade in that room.... I spent Friday evening with Smeaton and other engineers at a coffee-house, when a gentleman (not knowing me) exclaimed against the copying-machine, and wished the inventor was hanged and the machines all burnt, which brought on a laugh, as I was known to most present.... There are great names enough already among the subscribers to give a sanction and authority to it, as well as to make it fashionable, which has more influence upon the minds of three-fourths of the Londoners than the intrinsic merit of the thing, and without which it would have been some years in making its way.”[189]
By the end of the year, the 150 machines first made were sold off, and more orders were coming in. Thirty were wanted for exportation abroad, and a still greater number were wanted at home. The letter-copying machine gradually and steadily made its way, until at length there was scarcely a house of any extensive business transactions in which it was not to be found. Watt himself, writing of the invention some thirty years later, observed that it had proved so useful to himself that it had been worth all the trouble of inventing it, even had it been attended with no pecuniary profit whatever.
Boulton’s principal business, however, while in town, was not so much to push the letter-copying machine, but to set straight the bankers’ account, which had been overdrawn to the amount of 17,000l. He was able to satisfy them to a certain extent by granting mortgages on the engine royalties payable in Cornwall, besides giving personal bonds for repayment of the advances within a given time. It was necessary to obtain Watt’s consent to both these measures; but, though Watt was willing to agree to the former expedient, he positively refused to be a party to the personal bonds.[190] Boulton was therefore under the necessity of arranging the matter himself. He was thereby enabled to meet the more pressing claims upon the firm, and to make arrangements for pushing on the engine business with renewed vigour. Watt was, however, by no means so anxious on this score as Boulton was. He was even desirous of retiring from the concern, and going abroad in search of health. “Without I can spare time this next summer,” he wrote, “to go to some more healthy climate to procure a little health, if climate will do, I must give up business and the world too. My head is good for nothing.”[191] While Boulton was earnestly pressing the invention on the mining interest, and pushing for orders, Watt shuddered at the prospect of one. He saw in increase of business only increase of headaches. “The care and attention which our business requires,” said he, “make me at present dread a fresh order with as much horror as other people with joy receive one. What signifies it to a man though he gain the whole world, if he lose his health and his life? The first of these losses has already befallen me, and the second will probably be the consequence of it, without some favourable circumstances which at present I cannot foresee should prevent it.”
Judging by the correspondence of Watt, his sufferings of mind and body at this time must have been excessive; and the wonder is how he lived through it. But “the creaking gate hangs long on its hinges,” and he lived to the age of eighty-three, long surviving his stronger and more courageous partner. Intense headache seemed to be his normal state, and his only tolerable moments were those in which the headache was less violent than usual. His son has since described how he remembered seeing his father about this time, sitting by the fireside for hours together, with his head leaning on his elbow, suffering from most acute sick-headaches, and scarcely able to give utterance to his thoughts. “My headache,” he would write to Boulton, “keeps its week-aversary to-day.” At another time, “I am plagued with the blues; my head is too much confused to do any brain-work.” Once, when he had engaged to accompany his wife to an evening concert, he wrote, “I am quite eat up with the mulligrubs, and to complete the matter I am obliged to go to an oratorio, or serenata, or some other nonsense, to-night.” Mrs. Watt tried her best to draw him out of himself, but it was not often that she could divert him from his misery. What relieved him most was sleep, when he could obtain it; and, to recruit his powers, he was accustomed to take from nine to eleven hours sleep at night, besides naps during the day. When Boulton had erysipelas, in Cornwall, and could not stir abroad, he wrote to his partner complaining of an unusual lowness of spirits, on which Watt undertook to be his comforter in his own peculiar way. “There is no pitch of low spirits,” said he, “that I have not a perfect notion of, from hanging melancholy to peevish melancholy: conquer the devil when he is young.” Watt experienced all the tortures of confirmed dyspepsia, which cast its dark shadow over the life of every day. His condition was often most pitiable. It is true, many of the troubles which beset him were imaginary, but he suffered from them in idea as much as if they had been real. Small evils fretted him, and great ones overwhelmed him. He met them all more than halfway, and usually anticipated the worst. He had few moments of cheerfulness, hopefulness, or repose. Speaking of one of his violent headaches, he said, “I believe it was caused by something making my stomach very acid;” and unhappily, as in the case of most dyspeptics, the acidity communicated itself to his temper. When these fits came upon him, and the world was going against him, and ruin seemed about to swallow him up quick, he would sit down and pen a long gloomy letter to his partner, full of agony and despair. His mental condition at the time shows at what expense of suffering in mind and body the triumphs of genius are sometimes achieved.
In the autumn of 1780, Boulton went into Cornwall for a time to look after the business there. Several new engines had been ordered, and were either erected or in progress, at Wheal Treasury, Tresavean, Penrydee, Dalcoath, Wheal Chance, Wheal Crenver, and the United Mines. One of the principal objects of his visit was to settle the agreements with the mining companies for the use of these engines.