Note 277 — Chapter XVII · Commercial Politics—The Albion Mills—Riots in Cornwall—Prosperity of Boulton and Watt.

Watt, however, continued to adhere to his own views as to the superiority of the plan adopted:—“I am sorry to find,” he observed in his reply to Boulton, “so many things are amiss at Albion Mill, and that you have lost your good opinion of double engines, while my opinion of them is mended. The smoothness of their going depends on the steam regulators being opened a little before the vacuum regulators, and not opened too suddenly, as indeed the others ought not to be. Otherwise the shock comes so violently in the opposite direction that no pins or brasses will stand it. Malcolm has no notion how to make gear work quietly, nor do I think he properly understands it. You must therefore attend to it yourself, and not leave it until it is more perfect.”—Watt to Boulton, 3rd March, 1786.