Note 208 — Chapter XV · Watt again visits Cornwall—Invention of the Rotary Motion—The Patent Right again assailed.

Watt to Boulton, 21st April, 1781. On the following day (the 22nd April) Watt wrote another long letter to Boulton on the same subject. His mind could not be at rest, and he thus unburdened himself of his indignation:—“If you find yourself so circumstanced, as you say you are, that you dare not refuse [to erect the proposed engine for the Navy Board], then let them pay M. Washborough and have done with him, and let the engine be erected under our direction or Mr. Smeaton’s. With the latter I will go hand in hand; nay I will do more—I will submit to him in all mechanical matters; but I will by no means submit to go on with thieves and puppies, whose knowledge and integrity I contemn. Though I am not so saucy as many of my countrymen, I have enough of innate pride to prevent me from doing a mean action because a servile prudence may dictate it. If a king were to think Matt Washborough a better engineer than me, I should scorn to undeceive him. I should leave that to Matthew. The connexion would be stronger as the evidence would be undeniable. So much for heroics!... I will never meanly sue a thief to give me my own again, unless I have nothing left behind. As it now stands, I have enough left to make their patent tremble, and shall leave no mechanical stone unturned to aggrieve them. I will do more. I will publish my inventions, by which means they will be entirely precluded, because they must be fools indeed that will pay them for what they can have for nothing. I am very ill with a headache, therefore can write no more than passion dictates.”