Having progressed thus far in his object, Watt had a difficulty of a very formidable character to surmount; namely, that of bringing his discoveries into public notice, without any considerable means of his own at command. Moreover, he had to contend with the opposition of such persons as conceived their interests to be at stake. However, he had just provided himself with a witty, cheerful, and accomplished wife, and thus furnished an additional spur to exertion. In this emergency he applied to an early friend, Dr. Roebuck, who had just founded the Carron Iron Works, to advance the requisite capital, which was agreed to on condition of the profits being shared. A patent was accordingly obtained, and an engine erected; but Roebuck soon after meeting with reverses in his daring speculations, the sagacious inventor was under the necessity of establishing himself in Glasgow as a civil engineer, and as such obtained high reputation in furnishing surveys and estimates for canals, and other public operations, of which Scotland was then the scene. At length, in the year 1774, he accepted the proposal of Mr. Boulton, a celebrated hardware manufacturer in Birmingham, that he should remove thither, and enter into partnership on equitable terms. An extension of the patent was forthwith obtained for twenty-five years from that date; and Watt’s genius having now a field, entered on its career of public triumph. Though he shared the fate of most inventors in being perpetually involved in lawsuits, he succeeded in realizing an ample fortune. His scientific achievements were duly appreciated by those who were qualified to judge of their merits; and in 1785 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, being subsequently chosen one of the eight Foreign Associates of the French Institute. The University of Glasgow, which had first befriended him, conferred the honorary degree of LL.D. in 1806. Near the end of his life he engaged in the construction of a machine for copying pieces of statuary and sculpture. His friends claim for him the distinction of having discovered the composition of water. This illustrious mechanist passed the last years of his long and memorable life in the society of his family and friends. He died August 25, 1819, in his eighty-fourth year, and was buried in the church of Handsworth, near Heathfield, his residence in Staffordshire. A monument to his memory, graven by the hand of Chantrey, was erected in Westminster Abbey, and on it was placed this inscription by Lord Brougham: