On one occasion, when an engine superintended by Murdock stopped through some accident occurring to it, the water rose in the mine, and the miners were drowned out. Upon this occurring, they came “roaring at him” for having thrown them out of work, and threatened to tear him to pieces. Nothing daunted, he went through the midst of the men, and proceeded to the invalided engine, which he succeeded in very shortly repairing and setting to work again. The miners were so rejoiced that they were carried by their feelings into the opposite extreme; and when he came out of the engine-house they cheered him vociferously, and insisted upon carrying him home on their shoulders in triumph!
About this time, Boulton became increasingly anxious to ascertain what the Hornblowers were doing. They continued to brag of the extraordinary powers of the engine erected by them at Radstoke, near Bristol, whither he proposed to go, to ascertain its construction and qualities, as well as to warn the persons who were employing them as to the consequences of their infringing the existing patent. But he was tied to Cornwall by urgent business, and could not leave his post for a day. “During the forking of these two great mines,” said he, “I dare not stir two miles from the spot, and it will yet be six weeks before I regain my liberty.”[250] He determined, therefore, to send over James Law, a Soho man on whom he could rely, to ascertain, if possible, the character of the new engine, and he also asked his partner Watt to wait upon the proprietors of Radstoke so soon as he could make it convenient to do so. Law accordingly proceeded to Radstoke, and soon found out where the engine was; but as the Horners were all in the neighbourhood, keeping watch and ward over it turn and turn about, he was unable to see it except through the engine-house window, when it was not working. He learnt, however, that there was something seriously wrong with it, and that the engineers were considerably crestfallen about its performances.
Watt proceeded to Bristol, as recommended by his partner, for the purpose of having a personal interview with Hornblower’s employers. On his arrival, he found that Major Tucker, the principal partner, was absent; and though he succeeded in seeing Mr. Hill, another of the partners, he could get no satisfactory reply from him as to the intentions of the firm with respect to the new engine. Having travelled a hundred miles on his special errand, Watt determined not to return to Birmingham until he had seen the principal partner. On inquiry he found that Major Tucker had gone to Bath, and thither Watt followed him. At Bath he found that the Major had gone to Melcompton. Watt took a chaise and followed him. The Major was out hunting; and Watt waited impatiently at a little alehouse in the village till three o’clock, when the Major returned—“a potato-faced, chuckle-headed fellow, with a scar on the pupil of one eye. In short,” said Watt, “I did not like his physiog.” After shortly informing the Major of the object of his visit, who promised to bring the subject under the notice of his partners at a meeting to be held in about three weeks’ time, Watt, finding that he could do no more, took his leave; but, before he left Bristol, he inserted in the local papers an advertisement, prepared by Boulton, cautioning the public against using the Hornblowers’ engine, as being a direct infringement of their patent. For the present, indeed, there seemed but little reason to apprehend danger from the Hornblowers, whose engine was still undergoing alterations in detail, if not in principle; and it appeared doubtful, from the trials which had been made of it, whether it would ever prove an economical working engine.
Watt then returned to Birmingham, to proceed with the completion of his rotary motion. Boulton kept urging that the field for pumping-engines was limited, that their Cornish prospects were still gloomy, and that they must very soon look out for new fields. One of his schemes was the applying of the steam-engine to the winding of coals. “A hundred engines at 100l. a year each,” he said, “would be a better thing than all Cornwall.” But the best field of all, he still held, was mills. “Let us remember,” said he, “the Birmingham motto, to ‘strike while the iron is hot.’”
Watt, as usual, was not so sanguine as his partner, and rather doubtful of the profit to be derived from this source. From a correspondence between him and Mr. William Wyatt, of London, on the subject, we find him discouraging the scheme of applying steam-engines to drive corn-mills; on which Boulton wrote to Wyatt,—
“You have had a correspondence with my friend Watt, but I know not the particulars.... You must make allowance in what Mr. Watt says ... he under values the merits of his own works.... I will take all risks in erecting an engine for a corn-mill.... I think I can safely say our engine will grind four times the quantity of corn per bushel of coal compared with any engine hitherto erected.”[251]
About the same time we find Boulton writing to Watt,—
“You seem to be fearful that mills will not answer, and that you cannot make Reynolds’s amount to more than 20l. a year. For my part, I think that mills, though trifles in comparison with Cornish engines, present a field that is boundless, and that will be more permanent than these transient mines, and more satisfactory than these inveterate, ungenerous, and envious miners and mine lords. As to the trouble of small engines, I would curtail it by making a pattern card of them (which may be done in the course of next year), and confine ourselves to those sorts and sizes until our convenience admits of more.”[252]
In the mean time Watt, notwithstanding his doubts, had been proceeding with the completion of his rotative machine, and by the end of the year applied it with success to a tilt-hammer, as well as to a corn-mill at Soho. Some difficulties presented themselves at first, but they were speedily surmounted. The number of strokes made by the hammer was increased from 18 per minute in the first experiment, to 25 in the second; and Watt contemplated increasing the speed to even 250 or 300 strokes a minute, by diminishing the height to which the hammer rose before making its descending blow. “There is now no doubt,” said he, “that fire-engines will drive mills; but I entertain some doubts whether anything is to be got by them, as by any computation I have yet made of the mill for Reynolds [recently ordered] I cannot make it come to more than 20l. per annum, which will do little more than pay trouble. Perhaps some others may do better.”[253]
