POLGOOTH.
[By R. P. Leitch.]
The dues paid yearly in respect of these and other engines previously erected were very considerable; Boulton estimating that, if duly paid, they would amount to about 12,000l. a year. There seemed, therefore, every reasonable prospect of the financial difficulties of the firm at last coming to an end.
Boulton’s visit to Cornwall on this occasion was enlivened by the companionship of his wife, and her friend Miss Mynd. Towards midsummer he looked forward with anticipations of increased pleasure to the visit of his two children—his son Matt and his daughter Nancy—during their school holidays. It was a source of much regret to him, affectionate as his nature was, that the engrossing character of his business prevented him enjoying the society of his family so much as he desired. But he endeavoured to make up for it by maintaining a regular correspondence with them when absent. His letters to his children were full of playfulness, affection, and good advice. To his son at school he wrote telling him of his life in Cornwall, describing to him the house at Cosgarne, the garden and the trees he had planted in it, the pleasant rides in the neighbourhood, and the visit he had just been paying to the top of Pendennis Castle, from which he had seen about a hundred sail of ships at sea, and a boundless prospect of land and water. He proceeded to tell him of the quantity of work he did connected with the engine business, how he had no clerk to assist him, but did all the writing and drawing of plans himself: “When I have time,” said he, “I pick up curiosities in ores for the purpose of assays, for I have a laboratory here. There is nothing would so much add to my pleasure as having your assistance in making solutions, precipitates, evaporations, and crystallisations.” After giving his son some good advice as to the cultivation of his mind, as calculated to render him an intelligent and useful member of society, he proceeded to urge upon him the duty of cultivating polite manners, as a means of making himself agreeable to others, and at the same time of promoting his own comfort. “But remember,” he added, “I do not wish you to be polite at the expense of honour, truth, sincerity, and honesty; for these are the props of a manly character, and without them politeness is mean and deceitful. Therefore, be always tenacious of your honour. Be honest, just, and benevolent, even when it appears difficult to be so. I say, cherish those principles, and guard them as sacred treasures.”
At length his son and daughter joined him and took part in his domestic and out-door enjoyments. They accompanied him in his drives and rides, and Matt took part in his chemical experiments. One of their great delights was the fabrication of an immense paper balloon, and the making of the hydrogen gas to fill it with. After great preparations the balloon was made and filled, and sent up in the field behind the house, to the delight of all concerned. To Mrs. Watt he wrote expressing to her how much pleasanter his residence in Cornwall had become since his son and daughter’s visit. “I shall be happier,” he said, “during the remainder of my residence here than in the former part of it; for I am ill calculated to live alone in an enemy’s country, and to contest lawsuits. Besides, the only source of happiness I look for in my future life is in my children. Matt behaves extremely well, is active and good-humoured; and my daughter, too, has, I think, good dispositions and sentiments, which I shall cherish, and prevent as much as possible from being sullied by narrow and illiberal-minded companions.” After a few months’ pleasant social intercourse with his family at Cosgarne, varied by occasional bickerings with the adventurers out of doors about dues, Boulton returned to Birmingham, to enter upon new duties and undertake new enterprises.
CHAPTER XVII.
Commercial Politics—The Albion Mills—Riots in Cornwall—Prosperity of Boulton and Watt.
When Boulton returned to Birmingham, he was urgently called upon to take part in a movement altogether foreign to his habits. He had heretofore been too much engrossed by business to admit of his taking any active part in political affairs. Being, however, of an active temperament, and mixing with men of all classes, he could not but feel an interest in the public movements of his time. Early in 1784, we find him taking the lead in getting up a loyal address to the King on the resignation of the Portland Administration and the appointment of Mr. Pitt as Prime Minister. It appears, however, that Pitt disappointed his expectations. One of his first projects was a scheme of taxation, which he introduced for the purpose of remedying the disordered state of the finances, but which, in Boulton’s opinion, would, if carried, have the effect of seriously damaging the national industry. The Minister proposed to tax coal, iron, copper, and other raw materials of manufacture, to the amount of about a million a year. Boulton immediately bestirred himself to oppose the adoption of the scheme. He held that for a manufacturing nation to tax the raw materials of wealth was a suicidal measure, calculated, if persevered in, to involve the producers of wealth in ruin. “Let taxes,” he said, “be laid upon luxuries, upon vices, and if you like upon property; tax riches when got, and the expenditure of them, but not the means of getting them; of all things, don’t cut open the hen that lays the golden eggs.”[267]
Petitions and memorials were forthwith got up in the midland counties, and presented against the measure; and Boulton being recognised as the leader of the movement in his district, was summoned by Mr. Pitt to London to an interview with him on the subject. He then took the opportunity of pressing upon the Minister the necessity of taking measures to secure reciprocity of trade with foreign nations, as being of vital importance to the trade of England. Writing to his partner Scale, he said, “Surely our Ministers must be bad politicians, to suffer the gates of nearly every commercial city in the world to be shut against us.” “There is no doubt,” he wrote to his friend Garbett, “but the edicts, prohibitions, and high duties laid upon our manufacturers by foreign powers will be severely felt, unless some new commercial treaties are entered into with such powers. I fear our young Minister is not sufficiently aware of the importance of the subject, and I likewise fear he will pledge himself before Parliament meets to carry other measures in the next session that will be as odious to the country as his late attempts.”