Note 205 — Chapter XV · Watt again visits Cornwall—Invention of the Rotary Motion—The Patent Right again assailed.

At a later date we find him writing to his partner thus:—“I cannot agree with Mr. Palmer’s notion about the crank engine, as, though a crank is not new, yet that application of it is new and never was practised except by us. It is by no means our interest to demolish the crank patent, because then all our own machines of that kind will be of no use, and I am convinced that the crank can be made their superior.”—Watt to Boulton, 15th October, 1781.