Note 152 — Chapter XII · Boulton and Watt begin the Manufacture of Steam-engines.

Boulton to Watt, 3rd November, 1776. In the same letter Boulton informs Watt that Perrins, another fireman, had returned from Bedworth, and had not a stroke to do, the fittings for the second engine not having arrived. The first engine was working twenty-four hours a day, but the pit was so full of water that the owners feared they would before long be drowned out; and if the work was stopped, the loss would be far greater than the whole value of the engine. But the sales of coal, though large, were but “a small consideration in comparison with the starving to death of the poor ribbon-weavers of Coventry and a great part of Oxfordshire.... Coals are 9d. and 10d. per cwt., and ’tis said they will be a shilling at Birmingham on Monday.”