Memoir of James IVatt, Esq. RR.S. 447 



the cranks ; by which means the motion might be rendered 

 nearly equal, and a very light fly only would be requisite. This 

 was only a project, and Mr. Watt's subsequent invention of the 

 sun and planet wheels, and his application of the double engine 

 rendered unnecessary the counter-weight, and produced a regular 

 motion with a light fly. 



While this model was making, a rumour went abroad that a 

 Mr. Rickards was erecting in Birmingham a corn-mill, to be 

 moved by steam, the engine being of the old construction, and 

 not of the sort improved by Mr. Watt. 



Owing to a sort of irregularity that very often attends men 

 of geniu!<, the model of the rotative motion with the cranks, was 

 left for several months in an unfinished state, though the inten- 

 tion of completing it was not given up. In the beginning of the 

 year following, Mr. Wilkinson, the great iron-founder, who cast 

 all the cylinders and large pieces of the engines for Messrs. Boul- 

 ton and Watt, called on Mr. Watt and told him he had contrived 

 to get admission into the corn-mill, that Mr. Rickards had by 

 that time completed. — He described how it was constructed, and 

 Mr. Watt at once found that Rickards had got hold of his plan with 

 the crank. The axis that made two revolutions for each stroke 

 of the engine, and the fly \vith the heavy side — there could be no 

 doubt that it was a copy, and that the plan had by some means 

 or another been stolen. 



Mr. Watt, immediately on the departure of Mr. Wilkinson, 

 told his draughtsman what he had learned, and there remained 

 no doubt of the plan having by some means been obtained. The 

 draughtsman who had directed the making of the model, was 

 anxious for his own bake to get at a knowledge of the manner in 

 which the invention had been stolen ; he therefore in the first 

 place got, by bribing one of the workmen, into the mill, and saw 

 it was :in exact copy of Mr. Watt's model, so that there was no 

 doubt but that the plan was stolen. As only one workman was 

 employed on the model, and that in a shop where there were no 

 others, there could remain no doubt that that workman was the 

 person who had communicated the plan. 



After a great deal of trouble, the man was got to confess that 

 he did give the plan to one of Rickards's workmen. 



A patent, however, was obtained for the producing a rotative 

 motion by means of a crank, in the name of Rickards ; so that 

 Mr. Watt was prevented from employing the means he had him- 

 self invented, and he was under the necessity of finding out an- 

 other method of producing the same effect. In this he succeeded 

 in a most ingenious way, but by a means that it is difficult to 

 describe ; it was called the sun and planet motion, and answered 

 perfectly well. 



Wc 



