All About Engines

James Watt: The Man and his Work 47 atmospheric engine was so great, that the Adven- turers, as the proprietors of the mines were called, were on the brink of ruin. Moreover, the influx of water was becoming greater with increasing depth, and the engines erected by Newcomen, and later, on the same principle, by Jonathan Hornblower, were unequal to the task. Some of the mines had closed down and others were on the point of doing so when Watt’s engine appeared in the field. The fact that for a given power it consumed 60 per cent, less coal than the atmospheric engine was its special recom- mendation, and orders soon began to flow in to the Soho factory. Watt himself lived almost entirely in Cornwall for some years, superintending the erection of his engines. But he was a better man in the laboratory and workshop than he was in the committee room, and the terms upon which the engine was sold necessitated frequent dealings with the purchasers. Boulton’s and Watt’s remuneration for putting down the engines and keeping them in order was fixed at one-third of the saving in the cost of fuel. This sum was so large that, though the Adventurers gained greatly by the change, they soon began to resent handing over even this proportion, and to bargain for better terms. Watt was no hand at bargaining. His health was still poor, he was peevish and irrit- able, and his upright mind rebelled against people who, having made an agreement, and not lost by it, were anxious to break it. Time after time did Matthew Boulton have to journey to Cornwall to