Note 411 — Chapter XXII · Declining Years of Boulton and Watt—Bereavements—Gregory Watt—Death of Boulton.

The MS. memoir is dated Glasgow the 17th September, 1809, at which period Watt was in his 73rd year. It had evidently been written at the request of M. Robinson Boulton, Esq., shortly after his father’s death. We find various testimony to the same effect as the above in the Soho papers. Thus Mr. Peter Ewart, C.E., speaks of Mr. Boulton’s remarkable quickness in selecting objects to which machinery might be applied with advantage, and of his great promptitude and determination in carrying his plans into effect. He also describes the contagiousness of his example, which strengthened the weak and inspired the timid. “He possessed,” says Mr. Ewart, “above all other men I have ever known, the faculty of inspiring others with a portion of that ardent zeal with which he himself pursued every important object he had in view; and it was impossible to be near him without becoming warmly interested in the success of his enterprises. The urbanity of his manners, and his great kindness to young people in particular, never failed to leave the most agreeable impression on the minds of all around him; and most truly may it be said that he reigned in the hearts of those that were in his employment.”—Boulton MSS.