The Monkland Canal was a small concern, and Watt had to undertake a variety of duties. He acted at the same time as surveyor, superintendent, engineer, and treasurer, assisted only by a clerk. But the appointment proved useful to him. The salary he earned placed his family above want, and the out-doors life he was required to lead improved his health and spirits. After a few months he wrote Dr. Small that he found himself more strong, more resolute, less lazy, and less confused, than when he began the occupation. His pecuniary affairs were also more promising. “Supposing the engine to stand good for itself,” he said, “I am able to pay all my debts and some little thing more, so that I hope in time to be on a par with the world.” But there was a dark side to the picture. His occupation exposed him to fatigue, vexation, hunger, wet, and cold. Then, the quiet and secluded habits of his early life did not fit him for the out-door work of the engineer. He was timid and reserved, and had nothing of the navvy in his nature. He had neither the roughness of tongue nor stiffness of back to enable him to deal with rude labour gangs. He was nervously fearful lest his want of practical experience should betray him into scrapes, and lead to impositions on the part of his workmen. He hated higgling, and declared that he would rather “face a loaded cannon than settle an account or make a bargain.” He had been “cheated,” he said, “by undertakers, and was unlucky enough to know it.” Watt continued to act as engineer for the Monkland Canal Company for about a year and a half,[90] during which he was employed in other engineering works. Among these was a survey of the river Clyde, with a view to the improvement of the navigation. Watt sent in his report; but no steps were taken to carry out his suggestions until several years later, when the beginning was made of a series of improvements, which have resulted in the conversion of the Clyde from a pleasant trouting and salmon stream into one of the busiest navigable highways in the world.[91] [90] The Company afterwards came to grief. The original subscription list was not filled up, and the stagnation in trade which took place at the outbreak of the American war, brought the works to a standstill. In 1782 the concern was sold to the Messrs. Stirling, who eventually became the sole proprietors and finished the undertaking.