[120] “I am really very sorry on my own account,” he wrote, “that your engagements hinder you from entering into our scheme, for that ought to be the result of your deliberation. Though there are few things I have wished more for than being connected with you on many accounts, yet I should be very loath to purchase that pleasure at the expense of your quiet, which might be the case if you involved yourself in more business than you could easily manage, or, what is worse, find money for. Besides, this is not a trade, but a project; and no man should risk more money on a project than he can afford to lose.”--Watt to Small, 21st October, 1769. Boulton MSS. In the mean time Watt became increasingly anxious about his own position. He had been spending more money on fruitless experiments, and getting into more debt. The six months he had been living at Kinneil had brought him in nothing. He had been neglecting his business, and could not afford to waste more time in prosecuting an apparently hopeless speculation. He accordingly returned to his regular work, and proceeded with the survey of the river Clyde, at the instance of the Glasgow Corporation. “I would not have meddled with this,” he wrote to Dr. Small, “had I been certain of being able to bring the engine to bear. But I cannot, on an uncertainty, refuse every piece of business that offers. I have refused some common fire-engines, because they must have taken my attention so up as to hinder my going on with my own. However, if I cannot make it answer soon, I shall certainly undertake the next that offers, for I cannot afford to trifle away my whole life, which--God knows--may not be long. Not that I think myself a proper hand for keeping men to their duty; but I must use my endeavours to make myself square with the world, though I much fear I never shall.”[121] [121] Watt to Small, 20th September, 1769. Small lamented this apparent abandonment of the engine to its fate. But though he had failed in inducing Boulton heartily to join Watt in the enterprise, he did not yet despair. He continued to urge Watt to complete his engine, as the fourteen years for which the patent lasted would soon be gone. At all events he might send drawings of his engine to Soho; and Mr. Boulton and he would undertake to do their best to have one constructed for the purpose of exhibiting its powers.[122] To this Watt agreed, and about the beginning of 1770, the necessary drawings were sent to Soho, and an engine was immediately put in course of execution. Patterns were made and sent to Coalbrookdale to be cast; but when the castings were received, they were found exceedingly imperfect, and were thrown aside as useless. They were then sent to an ironfounder at Bilston to be executed; but the result was only another failure.