WATT. 43 



years from this time was obtained from Parliament, 

 in consequence of the national importance which all 

 men saw belonged to the invention ; and the partners 

 constructed many engines upon the terms of receiving 

 one-third of the fuel saved by the improvements. It 

 is a convenient mode of illustrating the effect of the 

 invention in saving fuel, to observe what were the 

 gains of the partnership under this stipulation. On 

 one mine, that of Chase water, in Cornwall, the pro- 

 prietors compounded for 2,400 a-year, instead of 

 paying the third of the fuel saved. That saving then 

 must very considerably have exceeded 7,200 a-year. 

 But there seemed some difficulty in carrying bargains 

 of this kind into effect ; and the genius of Watt, fertile 

 in resources, immediately invented a small clock, called 

 the counter, to be moved by the engine, and which 

 accurately recorded every stroke it made. Payment 

 being in proportion to the number of strokes, the clock 

 was enclosed in a box under a double lock, and thus 

 the working could be easily and securely ascertained.* 

 The first consequence of this grand invention, and 

 the great saving of fuel it occasioned, was the renewed 

 working of mines which had become unprofitable under 

 the old plan. The next was the opening mines which 

 Newcomen's engine could not drain at all. The steam- 

 power, too, was no longer confined to draining mines. 

 Various contrivances, for which Watt took out no less 

 than four patents between 1781 and 1785, enabled him 

 to communicate a rotatory motion from the piston, so 

 that the engine could now work any machinery what- 

 ever; could spin cotton, cut iron and brass, stamp 

 cloth, grind corn, print books, coin money, in short, 

 could perform on any scale any kind of work in which 

 human labour was either inefficient or expensive; and 



* Such an engine could not be made and used secretly, and thus piracy 

 was prevented. It is far otherwise with small pieces of mechanism, and 

 still more difficult would be the protection of patent rights in mere methods, 

 though to these the protection of the law should be extended. 



