James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (english reading book TXT) 📕

Many a famous Scot has the fair South in recent times called to her—Stephenson, Ruskin, Carlyle, Mill, Gladstone and others—but never before or since, one whose work was the transformation of the world.

At last we have Watt permanently settled alongside the great works to which he was hereafter to devote his rare abilities until his retirement at the expiration of the partnership in 1800. His labors at Soho soon began to tell. The works increased their celebrity beyond all others then known, for materials, workmanship and invention.

The mines of Cornwall promised to become unworkable; indeed, many already had became so. The Newcomen engines could no longer drain the deepened mines. Several orders for Watt engines had been received, and as much depended upon the success of the first, Watt resolved to superintend its erection himself. Mrs. Watt and he started over the terrible road into Cornwall, and had to take up their abode with the superintendent of the mine, there being no other house for miles around. Naturally the builders and attendants of the Newcomen engine viewed Watt's invasion of their district with no kindly feelings. Great jealousy arose and Watt's sensitive nature was sorely tried. Many attempts to thwart him were met with, and, taken altogether, his life in Cornwall was far from agreeable.

The engine was erected, the day of trial came, mining men, engineers, mining proprietors and others assembled from all quarters to see the start. Many of the spectators interested in other engines would not have shed tears had it failed, but it started splendidly making eleven eight-foot strokes per minute, which broke the record. Three cheers for the Scotch engineer! It soon worked with greater power and more steadily, and "forked" more water than the ordinary engines with only about one-third the consumption of coal. Watt wrote:

I understand all the west country captains are to be here tomorrow to see the prodigy. The velocity, violence, magnitude, and horrible noise of the engine give universal satisfaction to all beholders, believers or not. I have once or twice trimmed the engine to end the stroke gracefully and to make less noise, but Mr. Wilson cannot sleep without it seems quite furious, so I have left it to the enginemen; and, by the by, the noise seems to convey great ideas of its power to the ignorant, who seem to be no more taken with modest merit in an engine than in a man.

Well said, modest, reserved philosopher with vast horse-power in that big head of yours, working in the closet noiselessly, driving deep but silently into the bosom of nature's secrets, pumping her deepest mines, discovering and bringing to the surface the genius which lay in steam to do your bidding and revolutionise life on earth! In this, the first triumph, there was recompense for all the trials Watt and his wife had endured in Cornwall.

Readers will note that no workman had yet been developed who could be trusted to erect the engine. The master inventor had to go himself as the mechanical genius certain to cure all defects and ensure success. This shows how indispensable Watt was.

Orders now flowed in, and Watt was needed to prepare the plans and drawings, no one being capable of relieving him of this. To-day we have draftsmen by the thousand to whom it would be easy routine work, as we have thousands to whom the erection of the Watt engine would be play. Watt was everywhere. At length he had to confess that "a very little more of this hurrying and vexation would knock me up altogether." At this moment he had just been called to return to Cornwall to erect the second engine. He says "I fancy I must be cut in pieces and a portion sent to every tribe in Israel." We may picture him reciting in Falstaffian mood, "Would my name were not so terrible to the enemy (deep-mine water) as it is. There can't a drowned-out mine peep its head out but I'm thrust upon it. Well, well, it always was the trick of my countrymen to make a good thing too common. Better rust to death than be scoured to nothing by this perpetual motion."

Watt had a hard time of it in Cornwall during his next stay there, for he had to go again. He arrives at Redruth to find many troubles.

Forbes' eduction-pipe is a vile job, he writes, and full of holes. The cylinder they have cast for Chacewater is still worse, for it will hardly do at all. The Soho people have sent here Chacewater pipe instead of Wheal Union, and the gudgeon pipe has not arrived with the nozzles. These repeated disappointments will ruin our credit in the country, and I cannot stay here to bear the shame of such failures of promise.

It is easy for present-day captains of industry to plume themselves upon their ability to select men sure to succeed well with any undertaking, and assume that Watt lacked the indispensable talent for selection, but he had been driven by sad experience to trust none but himself, the skilled workmen needed to co-operate with him not yet having been developed.

We have not touched upon another source of great anxiety to him at this time. The enterprising Boulton would not have been the organiser he was unless blessed with a sanguine disposition and the capacity for shedding troubles. The business was rapidly extending in many branches, all needing capital; the engine business, promising though it was, was no exception. Little money was yet due from sales and much had been spent developing the invention. Boulton's letter to Watt constantly urged cash collections, while mine-owners were not disposed to pay until further tests were made. Boulton suggested loans from Truro bankers on security of the engines, but Watt found this impracticable. The engines were doing astonishingly well to-day, but who could ensure their lasting qualities? Watt shows good judgment in suggesting that Wilkinson, the famous foundryman, should be taken into partnership. He urges his enterprising partner to apply the pruning knife and cut down expenses naively assuring him that "he was practising all the frugality in his power." As Watt's personal expenses then were only ten dollars per week, a smile rises at the prudent Scot's possible contribution to reduction in expenditure. But he was on the right lines, and at least gave Boulton the benefit of example. Watt was never disposed to look on the bright side of things, and to add to Boulton's load, the third partner, Fothergill, was even more desponding than Watt. When Boulton went away to raise means, he was pursued by letters from Fothergill telling him day by day of imperative needs. In one he was of opinion that "the creditors must be called together; better to face the worst than to go on in the neck-and-neck race with ruin." Boulton would hurry back to quiet Fothergill and keep the ship afloat. Here he shines out resplendently. He proved equal to the emergency. His courage and determination rose in proportion to the difficulties to be overcome, borne up by his invariable hope and unshakable belief in the value of Watt's condensing engine, he triumphed at last, pledging, as security for a loan of $70,000, the royalties derivable from the engine patents, and an annuity for a loan of $35,000 more. So small a sum as $105,000 sufficed to keep afloat the big ship laden with all their treasures.

There was a period of great depression in Britain when Boulton and Watt were thus in deep water, and at such times credit is sensitive in the extreme. A small balance on the right side performs wonders. This recalls to the writer how, once in the history of his own firm, credit was kept high during a panic by using the identical sum Boulton raised, $70,000, from a reserve fund that had been laid away and came in very opportunely at the critical time. Every single dollar weighs a hundredfold when credit trembles in the balance. A leading nerve specialist in New York once said that the worst malady he had to treat was the man of affairs whose credit was suspected. His unfailing remedy was: "Call your creditors together, explain all and ask their support. I can then do you some good, but not till then." His patients who did this found themselves restored to vigor. They were supported by creditors and all was bright once more. The wise doctor was sound in his advice. If the firm has neither speculated nor gambled (synonymous terms), nor lived extravagantly, nor endorsed for others, and the business is on a