Note 209 — Chapter XV · Watt again visits Cornwall—Invention of the Rotary Motion—The Patent Right again assailed.

Washborough was much mortified by the decision of the Navy Board, and alleged that he had been badly used by them. The anxieties occasioned by his failure, and the pecuniary losses he had sustained, preyed heavily upon his mind, and he was seized by a fever which carried him off in October, 1781, when only in his 28th year. He was unquestionably a young man of much ingenuity and merit, and had he lived would have achieved high eminence and distinction as an engineer.