1294 M. Arago's Biographical Memoir of James Watt. 



than one hundred thousand horses ; and that the saving result- 

 ing from the substitution of these machines for animal la- 

 bour, amounted annually to more than L.3,000,000 Sterling. 

 Throughout England and Scotland at the same date, the 

 number of these machines exceeded ten thousand. They ef- 

 fected the work of 500,000 horses, or of three or four mil- 

 lions of men, with an annual saving of from L. 12,000,000 to 

 L. 16,000,000 Sterling. These results must by this time be 

 more than doubled. 



See here, then, in a scanty abridgment, what was said of 

 Watt by statesmen, philosophers, and manufactm"ers, the most 

 capable of appreciating his merits. Gentlemen, this creator 

 of six or eight millions of laboiu'ers, — of assiduous and inde- 

 fatigable labourers, among whom authority is never required 

 to repress either coalition or commotion, and who labom* for 

 a halfpenny a-day ; — ^this man, who, by his brilhant disco- 

 veries, afifbrded England the means of supporting a most 

 furious struggle, during which her very nationality was at 

 stake ; — this second Archimedes, the benefactor of his race, 

 whose memory future generations will for ever bless, — what, 

 I inquire, was done for him during his life-time ? 



The peerage is in England the first of dignities, the highest 

 of rewards ; and you will naturally suppose that Watt was 

 created a Peer. So far was this from being the case, that it 

 was never even thought of ! Were we to speak the truth, we 

 should say, so much the worse for the Peerage. Such a ne- 

 glect, however, in a nation so justly proud of its illustrious 

 men, could not but greatly astonish me. When I inquired 

 into the cause of this neglect, what think you was the re- 

 sponse .? Those dignities of which you speak, I was told, 

 are reserved for naval and military ofl&cers, for influential 

 members of the House of Commons, and for members of 

 the aristocracy. " It is not the custom" it was said, and 

 I quote the very phrase, " to grant these honovu-s to scien- 

 tific and literary men, to artists or engineers !" I well 

 knew it was not the custom in the reign of Queen Anne, 

 because Newton was never a Peer of England. But after a 

 centm-y and a half of progress in science and philosophy, 

 when all of us, within the short span of life, have seen mo- 



