Note 269 — Chapter XVII · Commercial Politics—The Albion Mills—Riots in Cornwall—Prosperity of Boulton and Watt.

Watt to Boulton, 21st July, 1785. Writing to Boulton on a later occasion on the subject of these threatened attacks on all patents, he said, “A pursuance of such decisions as have been given lately in several cases must at length drive men of invention to take shelter in countries where their ingenuity will be protected; and the other states of Europe know their interest too well to neglect any opportunity of curbing the insolence and humbling the pride of Britain. If the minister should not think it right to amend and confirm the patent laws, the next best thing would be to make a law totally taking away the king’s power of granting them. I mean, this would be the honest part.”—Watt to Boulton, 19th March, 1786. Boulton himself had equally strong views on the subject of patents, believing that they tended to encourage industrious and ingenious men to labour for the common good. Referring to the decision against Argand’s lamp patent, he wrote De Luc in 1787,—“It was hard, unjust, and impolitic, as it hath (to my knowledge) discouraged a very ingenious French chemist from coming over and establishing in this country an invention of the highest importance to one of our greatest manufactures. Moreover, it tends to destroy the greatest of all stimulants to invention, viz. the idea of enjoying the fruits of one’s own labour. Some late decisions against the validity of certain patents have raised the spirits of the illiberal, sordid, unjust, ungenerous, and inventionless misers, who prey upon the vitals of the ingenious, and make haste to seize upon what their laborious and often costly application has produced. The decisions to which I refer have encouraged a combination in Cornwall to erect engines on Boulton and Watt’s principles, contrary to the Law of Patents and the express provisions of an Act of Parliament; and this they are setting about in order to drive us into a court of law, flattering themselves that it is the present disposition of the judges to set their faces against all patents. Should such a disposition (so contrary to Lord Mansfield’s decisions) continue to prevail, it will produce far greater evils to the manufacturing industry of the kingdom than the gentlemen of the law can have any idea of.”