460 JAMES WATT. 
ties of political opinions, from the most violent radicals 
to the most obstinate conservatives. The answer was 
always the same; every one placed the services of our 
academician above all comparison; each man quoted, | 
besides, the discourses pronounced at the meeting in 
which the Westminster statue was voted, as the faithful 
and unanimous expression of the sentiments of the Eng- 
lish nation. What did these discourses say ? 
Lord Liverpool, Prime Minister of the Crown, calls 
Watt, “one of the most extraordinary men that England 
ever produced, one of the greatest benefactors to the 
human race.” He declared that “his inventions have 
augmented the resources of his country and of the whole 
world, to an incalculable degree.” Then, considering 
the question in a political point of view, he added,—* I 
have lived at a time, when the success of a war depended. 
on the possibility of pushing our fleets out of port with- 
out loss of time; contrary winds prevailed during whole 
months, and would have entirely upset the intentions of 
government. Thanks to the steam-engine, such difficul- 
ties have disappeared for ever.” * 
“Direct your attention,’ Sir Humphry Davy ex- 
claimed, “to the metropolis of this powerful empire, to 
our towns, to our villages, to our arsenals, to our manu- 
factories; examine our subterranean cavities, and the 
works accomplished on the surface of the globe; con- 
template our rivers, our canals, the seas which bathe our 
shores; you will everywhere find proofs of the eternal 
benefits conferred by that great man.” 
The illustrious President of the Royal Society also 
* It should be observed that during the wars of which Lord Liver- 
pool had any cognizance, steam had not been applied to this purpose. 
— Translator. 
