434 JAMES WATT. 
Blagden’s own style, would not be all the truth. About 
the same time decides nothing: questions of priority 
might depend on weeks, on days, on hours, on minutes. 
To be clear and precise, as had been promised, he should 
have said whether the verbal communication made by 
Cavendish, to several members of the Royal Society, 
preceded or followed the arrival in London of the news 
of Watt’s experiments. Can it be supposed that Blag- 
den would not have explained himself on a fact of this 
importance, if he could have quoted an authentic date in 
favour of his friend. 
To render the complication complete, the correctors of 
the press, the compositors, the printers, of the Philosoph- 
teal Transactions, all took part in this affair. Several 
dates are incorrectly given. On the separate copies of 
his memoir which Cavendish distributed among various 
learned men, I perceive an error of a whole year.* By 
a sad fatality, for it is a real misfortune unwillingly to 
give rise to painful and undeserved suspicions, not one 
of these numerous errors of the type was favourable to 
Watt! God forbid that I should mean, by these re- 
marks, to criminate the literary probity of the illustrious 
philosophers whose names I have cited: they only prove 
that in matters of discovery, strict justice is all that ought 
* Our author must have been excited here, for he thinks that not 
only the high-minded Cavendish and Blagden, but even the printers 
of the papers, were in a conspiracy against Watt; and, though he 
calls God to witness that he means nothing against their probity, he 
makes a very bold insinuation that they were leagued against truth. 
The separate copies of Cavendish’s paper, pulled off for private dis- 
tribution, were dated 1783 instead of 1784; as soon as the error was 
discovered, means were taken to correct it. Such an accidental error 
occurs in Watt’s own communication in the seventy-fourth volume of 
Transactions; it being there said to have been read in April, 1784, 
though stated to have been written in November, 1784.— Translator. 
