[199] Watt to Boulton, 31st October, 1780. Boulton MSS.
The petition to Parliament, though much talked about, was not, however, presented; and the schemers who envied Boulton and Watt the gains which they had now the prospect of deriving from the use of their engine, shortly after resorted to other means of participating in them, to which we shall hereafter refer. In the mean time Boulton, at the urgent entreaty of Watt, who described himself as “loaded to 12 lbs. on the inch,” returned to Birmingham; though he had scarcely left before urgent entreaties were sent after him that he must come back again to Cornwall.[200]
[200] “Though your long stay, when you were last here,” wrote Henderson, the resident agent, “must have been attended with great inconveniences, yet you are now very much wanted in Wheal Virgin affairs. Different interests have produced a sort of anarchy.... Were Mr. Watt here now, I don’t think his health would allow him to stand the battles with the different people. I have not written to him freely on this subject, as I am afraid it would hurt him.... Your authority here as an adventurer has much greater weight than anything I can propose.”--Henderson to Boulton, 4th February, 1781. Boulton MSS.
While Boulton was in Cornwall, the principal manufacturers of Birmingham, dissatisfied with the bad and dear supply of copper, resolved to form themselves into a company for the purpose of making brass and spelter; and they wrote to Boulton offering to raise the requisite means, provided he would take the lead in the management of the concern. He could not but feel gratified at this best of all proofs of the esteem in which his townsmen held him, and of their confidence in his business qualities. Boulton, however, declined to undertake so large an addition to his labours. He felt that he would soon be an old man, and that it would be necessary for him to contract rather than extend the field of his operations; besides, the engine business was already sufficiently prosperous to induce him to devote to it the chief share of his attention. But he promised to his Birmingham friends that he would always be glad to give them his best advice and assistance. He accordingly furnished them with a plan of operations, and drew up a scheme for their consideration, which was unanimously adopted, and the whole of the share capital was at once subscribed for. He also made arrangements with his Cornish friends for a regular supply of copper direct from the mines on the best terms. On his return to Birmingham, we find him entering upon an elaborate series of experiments, to determine the best constituents of brass; in the course of which he personally visited the principal calamine works in Wales and Derbyshire, for the purpose of testing their different produce. He diligently read all the treatises on the subject, and made inquiries as to the practice adopted in foreign countries. Finding, however, that the continuance of his connexion with the brass company was absorbing more of his time than he could afford to bestow upon it, he shortly withdrew from the concern,--partly also, because he was dissatisfied with what he considered the illiberal manner in which the managing committee were conducting its affairs.