M. Arago's Biographical Memoir of James IFatt. 257 



Towards the commencement of the year 1774 (after what 

 we must call the indifference of Watt was overcome), he form- 

 ed a connection with Mr Boulton of Soho, near Birmingham, 

 a gentleman equally distinguished by his knowledge of the 

 arts and his enterprising spirit.* The two friends applied to 

 Parliament for prolongation of the privilege, for Mr "Watt's 

 patent was dated in the year 176*9, and had only a few year.s 

 to run. The introduction of the bill gave rise to an animated 

 discussion. The celebrated mechanist thus writes to his aged 

 father, in a letter, dated London, May 8. 1775. " After 

 a series of violent and various opposition, I have at last 

 got an act of Parliament. The affair has been attended 

 with great expense and anxiety, and without many friends 

 of great interest, I should never have been able to have car- 

 ried it through, as many of the most powerful people in the 



* In the note with which he accompanied the last edition of Professor Eobi- 

 son's Essay on the Steam-engine, Watt expressed himself in the following 

 terms concerning Mr Boultou. " Our friendship continued undiminished to 

 the close of his life. As a memorial due to that friendship, I avail myself of 

 this, probably my last, opportunity of stating, that to his friendly encourage- 

 ment, his partiality for scientific improvements, and his ready application 

 f(f them to the processes of art, to his intimate knowledge of business and 

 manufactures, and to his extended views and liberal spirit of cnte:-prise, 

 must, in great measure, be ascribed whatever success has attended my 

 exertions." 



Mr Boulton's manufactory at Soho had existed for several years previous 

 to the association spoken of in tlic text. This establishment, the first upon 

 so great a scale which spnmg up in England, is still quoted for the elegance 

 of its architecture. There were here manufactured all kinds of first-rate 

 articles in steel, plate-metal, silver, and or-molu, as also astronomical 

 clocks, and painted glass. During the last twenty years of his life, Mr 

 Boulton was occupied with improvements in the fabrication of the coinage. 

 By the combination of some processes, which originated in France, with 

 new presses, and an ingenious application of the steam-engine, he unit- 

 ed an extraordinaiy rapidity with perfection of execution. Hence Mr 

 Boulton, at the order of the English Government, recast all the copper- 

 money of the United Kingdom. The economy and distinctness of this 

 prodigious imdertaking, rendered counterfeits almost impossible. The 

 numerous executions with wliich the towns of London and Birmingham 

 used annually to be distressed, ceased. It was on this occasion that Dr 

 Darwin exclaimed in his " Botanic Garden," " if a civic crown was given in 

 Rome for preserving the life of one citizen, Mr Boulton should be covered 

 with garlands of oak." Mr Boulton died in the year 1000, at the oge of 81. 



