586 
WATT, 
tensive application of which it admitted. He advised Mr. ment of his constitution, which he treated with much me- 
Berthollet to secure the property by an English patent; but dical skill, it improved as he advanced in years ; and with 
that he declined, and left his friend to make such use of it faculties little impaired he reached his 84th year, when, after 
as he thought proper. He, in consequence, communicated a short illness, father of debility than of pain, he expired 
it to his father-in-law, Mr. Macgrigor, and gave directions in the bosom of his family at his house at Heathfield, in the 
for the construction of the proper! vessels and machinery ; county of Stafford, on the 25th August, 1819. 
and soon after himself superintended the first trials at his 
bleach field near Glasgow, which proved eminently successful. 
Mr. Watt did not escape the common lot of eminent men, 
that of meeting with pirates of his inventions, and detractors 
from his merit. The latter, indeed, were but few, and their 
efforts transitory; but the former were numerous, and in pro¬ 
portion to the benefits expected to arise from an evasion of 
the patent dues claimed by Boulton and Watt; though these 
were established upon the liberal footing of receiving only 
one-third of the savings of fuel compared with the best steam- 
engines previously in use. In consequence, the attention 
both of Mr. Watt and of Mr. Boulton was greatly occupied, 
from the year 1792 to the year 1799, in defending their pa¬ 
tent rights against numerous invaders, the principal of whom 
were supported by a portion of the mining interest of Corn¬ 
wall, although the respectable part of it refused to concur in 
their measures. The admission of their respective sons into the 
partnership, in 1794, infused vigour into their proceedings; 
and, after repeated verdicts, establishing the novelty and utility 
of Mr. Watt’s inventions, the validity of his claim was finally 
confirmed in the year 1799 by the unanimous decision of all 
the judges of the Court of King's Bench. 
In 1800, upon the expiration of the act of Parliament 
assed in his favour, he withdrew from business, resigning 
is shares to his two sons; of whom the youngest, Mr. Gre¬ 
gory Watt, died soon after, having given splendid proofs of 
literary and philosophical talents, and left a durable record 
of the latter, in his paper “ On Basalt” in the Philosophical 
Transactions. Mr. Watt continued to the close of life to 
interest himself in the pursuits of his former associates, and 
to maintain an uninterrupted friendship with Mr. Boulton, 
whom he survived several years. 
On two occasions afterwards, in 1811 and 1812, he gave 
proofs of the undiminished powers of his mind in his former 
profession. In the one instance, he was induced, by his 
grateful recollections of his residence in Glasgow, to assist 
the proprietors of the water-works there with a plan for sup¬ 
plying the town with better water, by means of a suction 
pipe, with flexible joints, laid across the bottom of the 
Clyde, accompanied with instructions for insuring the sup¬ 
ply of water on the opposite side; a plan which answered 
completely, and for which the proprietors presented him 
with a handsome memorial of their gratitude. In the other 
instance, he was prevailed upon by the earnest solicitation of 
the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, to attend a depu¬ 
tation of the Navy Board, and to give with his friend Captain 
Huddart, and Mr. J. Jessop, an opinion upon the works then 
carrying on at Sheerness Dock-yard, and the farther ones 
projected by Messrs. Rennie and Whidby; on which occa¬ 
sion, he no less gratified the gentlemen associated with him, 
by the clearness of his general views than by his knowledge 
of the details, and received the thanks of the Admiralty. 
Mr. Watt, also, at a still later period, in 1814, yielded to 
the wishes of his friends in undertaking a revision of Pro¬ 
fessor Robinson’s articles on Steam and Steam-Engines in 
the Encyclopaedia Britannica; and enriched them with 
valuable notes, containing his own experiments upon steam 
and a short history of his principal improvements upon the 
engine itself. 
His originally infirm health had been subjected to severe 
trials by the great exertions of his mind, during the period 
of carrying into execution his improvements on the steam 
engine, and had with difficulty resisted the cares and anxie- 
ties attending upon business, and those created by the subtle¬ 
ties of the law, during the protracted proceedings of seven 
long years. There appears to have been an organic defect 
in his digestion, and its effects were intensely severe sick 
headachs; but, by continual temperance and good manage- 
Mr. Watt was elected a member of the Royal Society 
of Edinburgh in 1784; of the Royal Society of London in 
1785; and a corresponding member of the Batavian Society 
in 1787. In 1806, the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws 
was conferred upon him by the spontaneous and unanimous 
vote of the Senate of the University of Glasgow; and in 1808 
he was elected, first, a corresponding, and afterwards a fo¬ 
reign member of the Institute of France. 
We finish this article with copying from the Edinburgh 
Review the very beautiful account of Watt, which was writ¬ 
ten by his friend, Mr. Jeffreys. 
“ It is with pain that we find ourselves called upon, so 
soon after the loss of Mr. Playfair, to record the decease of 
another of our illustrious countrymen, and one to whom 
mankind has been still more largely indebted—Mr. James 
Watt, the great improver of the steam-engine. 
“ This name fortunately needs no commemoration of 
ours; for he that bore it survived to see it crowned with un¬ 
disputed and unenvied honours; and many generations will 
probably pass away before it shall have ‘ gathered all its 
fame.’ We have said that Mr. Watt was the great improver 
of the steam-engine; but, in truth, as to all that is admir¬ 
able in its structure, or vast in its utility, he should rather be 
described as its inventor. It was by his inventions that its 
action was so regulated as to make it capable of being ap¬ 
plied to the finest and most delicate manufactures, and its 
power so increased as to set weight and solidity at defiance. 
By his admirable contrivances, it has become a thing stu¬ 
pendous alike for its force and its flexibility,-—for the prodi¬ 
gious power which it can exert, and the ease, and precision, 
and ductility, with which it can be varied, distributed, and 
applied. The trunk of an elephant that can pick up a pin 
or rend an oak, is as nothing to it. It can engrave a seal, 
and crush masses of obdurate metal like wax before it,— 
draw out, without breaking, a thread as fine as gossamer, 
and lift a ship of war like a bauble in the air. It can em¬ 
broider muslin and forge anchors,—cut steel into ribbands, 
and impel loaded vessels against the fury of the winds and 
waves. 
“ It would be difficult to estimate the value of the bene¬ 
fits which these inventions have conferred upon the country. 
There is no branch of industry that has not been indebted 
to them ; and in all the most material, they have not only 
widened most magnificently the field of its exertions, but 
multiplied a thousandfold the amount of its productions. It 
is our improved steam-engines that has fought the battles of 
Europe, and exalted and sustained, through the late tremen¬ 
dous contest, the political greatness of our land. It is the 
same great power which now enables us to pay the interest 
of our debt, and to maintain the arduous struggle in which 
we are still engaged, with the skill and capital of countries 
less oppressed with taxation. But these are poor and narrow 
views of its importance. It has increased indefinitely the 
mass of human comforts and enjoyments, and rendered 
cheap and accessible all over the world, the materials of 
wealth and prosperity. It has armed the feeble hand of man, 
in short, with a power to which no limits can be assigned,-— 
completed the dominion of mind over the most refractory 
qualities of matter, and laid a sure foundation for all those 
future miracles of mechanic power which are to aid and re¬ 
ward the labours of after-generations. It is to the genius of 
one man, too r that all this is mainly owing; and certainly 
no man ever before bestowed such a gift on his kind. The 
blessing is not only universal, but unbounded; and the 
fabled inventors of the plough and the loom, who were dei¬ 
fied by the erring gratitude of their rude contemporaries, 
conferred less important benefits on mankind than the inven¬ 
tor of our present steam-engine. 
“ This 
