CHAPTER V.

HIS

MR. WATT'S EMPLOYMENT BY THE COLLEGE OF GLASGOW -HIS ESTABLISHMENT WITHIN ITS WALLS AS MATHEMATICAL-INSTRUMENT-MAKER TO THE UNIVERSITY PROGRESS IN HIS BUSINESS SHOP-KEEPING CONSTRUCTION OF ORGANS AND OTHER MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS—INSTRUMENTS OF HIS MANUFACTURE STILL IN EXISTENCE-CHANGE OF ABODEHIS MARRIAGE MACHINE FOR DRAWING IN PERSPECTIVE.

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AN occasion soon presented itself for the advantageous employment of that little stock in trade which we have just described, as well as of the newly-acquired skill of its owner. On the 25th of October, 1756, he writes from Glasgow to his father:-"I would have come down [to Greenock] today, but that there are some instruments that are come "from Jamaica that Dr. Dick desired that I would help to unpack, which are expected to-day." The instruments here spoken of formed a valuable collection, which had been completed at great cost by the best makers in London, for. their late proprietor Mr. Alexander Macfarlane, a merchant, long resident in Jamaica, and a cadet of the ancient feudal house of Macfarlane of that Ilk; who seems, amid his mercantile pursuits, not to have forgotten the motto of his family-" Astra castra, Numen lumen;"-" The stars my

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camp, the LORD my light;"-and who, dying in 1755, bequeathed the contents of his observatory to the University in which he had received his education. The great astronomer Oltmanns, the companion of Humboldt, in mentioning, among some observations from which various latitudes and longitudes in the West Indies were accurately determined, those which Mr. Macfarlane had made, at Port Royal, near Kingston, Jamaica,* has said :-" Macfarlane was provided with excellent

* Phil. Trans.' for 1723, p. 235, and for 1750, p. 523.

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English instruments, and very skilful in the theory and practice of astronomy."

The minute of a University meeting on the 26th of October, bears that "Several of the instruments from Jamaica having "suffered by the sea-air, especially those made of iron, Mr. Watt, who is well skilled in what relates to the cleaning "and preserving of them, being accidentally in town, Mr. "Moor and Dr. Dick are appointed to desire him to stay some time in town to clean them, and put them in the best "order for preserving them from being spoiled." On the 2nd of December the same records bear that "a precept was signed "to pay James Watt five pounds sterling for cleaning and "refitting the instruments lately come from Jamaica; "-this being, in all probability, the first money he had earned on his own account since the termination of his brief apprenticeship.

His next object was to endeavour to establish himself in the way of his trade in the city of Glasgow; but here he was met by obstacles of the same sort as those which in London had first well-nigh excluded him from the brief instruction which he sought, and then might have consigned him, without hope of rescue, to the embraces of the pressgang. Neither being the son of a burgess, nor having, as yet, married the daughter of one, nor having served a regular apprenticeship to a craft, he was visited, by tradesmen of more arrogant and far more unfounded pretensions than the modest youth whom they persecuted, with a sort of temporal excommunication; and was forbidden to set up even a humble workshop, himself its solitary tenant, within the limits of the burgh. He now signally found the advantage of that academical support which the University uniformly extended to him. By midsummer, 1757, he had received permission to occupy an apartment and open a shop within the precincts of the College, and to use the designation of "Mathematical-instrument-maker to the "University;" and, though it does not appear that any con

* Recueil d'Observations Astro-Bonpland,' Quatrième Partie, tome 'nomiques, Voyage de Humboldt et ii., p. 589, ed. 1810.

temporaneous record has been preserved in the archives of the University of the date of the workshop having been assigned to him, we find that on the 27th of November, 1759, directions were given for having" the room above Mr. Watt's "workshop" repaired. In the autumn of 1757, the foundation-stone of an astronomical observatory, to receive the collection of instruments which he had refitted and set up, and to be called the Macfarlane Observatory, was laid, he being then twenty-one years of age. At the same time, however,

he had the sorrow and misfortune to lose his able and true friend, Dr. Dick; and the result, in a pecuniary point of view, of this first year of his business, was very far from being a hopeful one.

On the 15th September, 1758, (the year in which his old master, Morgan, died), he thus writes from Glasgow to his father:-" As I have now had a year's trial here, I am able "to form a judgment of what may be made of this business, " and find that unless it be the Hadley's instruments, there is "little to be got by it, as at most other jobs I am obliged to "do the most of them myself; and as it is impossible for one

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person to be expert at everything, they very often cost me "more time than they should do. However, if there could "be a ready sale procured for Hadley's quadrants, I could do very well, as I and one lad can finish three in a week easily; "and selling them at 288. 6d., which is vastly below what 'they were ever sold at before, I have 408. clear on the "three. So it will be absolutely necessary that I take a trip "to Liverpool to look for customers, and hope that upon the "profits of what I shall be able to sell there, I can go to "London in the spring, when I make no doubt of selling "more than I can get made; all which I want your advice "on. And if that does not succeed, I must fall into some "other way of business, as this will not do in its present "situation." The sale, however, of the profitable Hadley's instruments at home appears to have increased so much, as

to have rendered the proposed speculative trading voyage to Liverpool unnecessary.

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From the advertisement already referred to, dated October 22, 1759, of the engraved map of the river Clyde, as "to "be sold by James Watt, at his shop in the College of "Glasgow," as well as from the entry in the College records of the repairs to be done in "the room above Mr. Watt's workshop," we know that, up to that time at least, he continued to use the shelter of the academic walls for the purposes of his trade. By the 7th of October in that year, he appears to have entered into a sort of partnership with a Mr. John Craig, to carry on and extend the business in which he was engaged, continuing to occupy his rooms and workshop in the College till 1763.

A Journal of the partnership concern, kept from October, 1759, till April, 1765, commences with the following entry:"An Inventory of Tools, Goods, &c., belonging to us, James "Watt and John Craig, each one-half. Taken Oct. 7th, 1759, "at Glasgow ;" and then enumerates a variety of mechanical tools, from a turning-lathe to a flatting-mill; with philosophical instruments, chiefly mathematical and optical, from the familiar “Hadley's quadrants" to microscopes and seacompasses; the whole to the value of . £91 19 3 Which, with "cash on hand,"

108 0 81

£200 0 0

Made the little stock in trade amount to £200

A small but steadily increasing traffic brought the "readymoney sales," towards the end of the period over which the Journal extends, up to about 50l. per month, or 6007. per annum; a large portion of which, however, must have gone to pay for materials and the wages of workmen. James Watt is throughout credited with a salary of 351. per annum ; Craig appearing to have taken no share in the manufacturing part of the business, but only (as is shown by a memorandum in the Journal), to have been book-keeper to the concern, and to have advanced the greater portion of the requisite funds. One journeyman throughout the year, and three or four

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others, from time to time, as occasion required, were all that Mr. Watt at first found it necessary to employ; but before the end of 1764 their number had increased to sixteen "of "all arms." Among their names we find those of three Gardiners,-Alexander, David, and John,-of whom the last at least was long afterwards known in Glasgow as a wellinstructed and reputable philosophical-instrument-maker. The termination of the partnership is explained by the accounts of the business coming to a close in 1765, and by Mr. Watt having said in a letter to Mr. Boulton in 1768, "about three years ago, a gentleman who was concerned with me died." In the retired course of life which, from choice as well as necessity, James Watt appears to have followed in his early manhood, manual labour and mental study were blended in pretty equal proportions; but idleness or mere amusement had certainly no share. He ardently seized every opportunity of extending his acquaintance with the various branches of physical philosophy, and of investigating the principles of its phenomena; endeavouring,-to use an expression of his own,-"to find out the weak side of Nature, and to van"quish her,"-" for Nature," he again says, "has a weak side, if we can only find it out!" Beyond the necessity for some daily labour in order to earn his daily bread, and his hope,—often, as will be seen, very uncertain,—of future independence, he had little else than the pleasure he found in philosophical pursuits to stimulate or reward his zeal: the toils of his business were severe, and the profitable returns but small; while of those whose society was open to him, there were few indeed,―the learned Professors of the College excepted,-who possessed a community of tastes with himself. But in his endeavours to subjugate, by the resources of practical art, those natural difficulties which presented themselves to his hand or eye, nothing seemed to deter his zeal or baffle his penetration; a very curious proof of which was afforded by his frequent construction, about the period at which we have now arrived, of musical instruments of perfect compass and tone, although he had himself, by nature, an absolute deficiency of all musical ear.

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