(73.)

It was in the beginning of the year 1765, Watt being then in the twenty-ninth year of his age, that he arrived at these great discoveries. The experimental models just described, by which his invention was first reduced to a rude practical test, were fitted up at a place called Delft House, in Glasgow. It will doubtless, at the first view, be a matter of surprise that improvements of such obvious importance in the economy of steam power, and capable of being verified by tests so simple, were not immediately adopted wherever atmospheric engines were used. At the time, however, referred to, Watt was an obscure artisan, in a provincial town, not then arrived at the celebrity to which it has since attained, and the facilities by which inventions and improvements became public were much less than they have since become. It should also be considered that all great and sudden advances in the useful arts are necessarily opposed by the existing interests with which their effects are in conflict. From these causes of opposition, accompanied with the usual influence of prejudice and envy, Watt was not exempt, and was not therefore likely suddenly to revolutionise the arts and manufactures of the country by displacing the moving powers employed in them, and substituting an engine, the efficacy and power of which depended mainly on physical principles, then altogether new and but imperfectly understood.

Not having the command of capital, and finding it impracticable to inspire those who had, with the same confidence in the advantages of his invention which he himself felt, he was [Pg129] unable to take any step towards the construction of engines on a large scale. Soon after this, he gave up his shop in Glasgow, and devoted himself to the business of a Civil Engineer. In this capacity he was engaged to make a survey of the river Clyde, and furnished an elaborate and valuable Report upon its projected improvements. He was also engaged in making a plan of the canal, by which the produce of the Monkland Colliery was intended to be carried to Glasgow, and in superintending the execution of that work. Besides these, several other engineering enterprises occupied his attention, among which may be mentioned, the navigable canal across the isthmus of Crinan, afterwards completed by Rennie; improvements proposed in the ports of Ayr, Glasgow, and Greenock; the construction of the bridges at Hamilton, and at Rutherglen; and the survey of the country through which the celebrated Caledonian canal was intended to be carried.

"If, forgetful of my duties as the organ of this academy," says M. Arago (whose eloquent observations on the delays of this great invention, addressed to the assembled members of the National Institute of France, we cannot forbear to quote), "I could think of making you smile, rather than expressing useful truths, I would find here matter for a ludicrous contrast. I would call to your recollection the authors, who at our weekly sittings demand with all their might and main (à cor et à cris) an opportunity to communicate some little remark—some small reflection—some trifling note, conceived and written the night before; I would represent them to you cursing their fate, when according to your rules, the reading of their communication is postponed to the next meeting, although during this cruel week, they are assured that their important communication is deposited in our archives in a sealed packet. On the other hand, I would point out to you the creator of a machine, destined to form an epoch in the annals of the world, undergoing patiently and without murmur, the stupid contempt of capitalists,—conscious of his exalted genius, yet stooping for eight years to the common labour of laying down plans, taking levels, and all the tedious calculations connected with the routine of common engineering. While in this conduct you cannot fail to recognise the serenity, [Pg130] the moderation, and the true modesty of his character, yet such indifference, however noble may have been its causes, has something in it not altogether blameless. It is not without reason that society visits with severe reprobation those who withdraw gold from circulation and hoard it in their coffers. Is he less culpable who deprives his country, his fellow citizens, his age, of treasures a thousand times more precious than the produce of the mine; who keeps to himself his immortal inventions, sources of the most noble and purest enjoyment of the mind, who abstains from conferring upon labour those powers, by which would be multiplied in an infinite proportion the products of industry, and by which, with advantage to civilisation and human nature, he would smooth away the inequalities of the conditions of man."[19]