[141] Bonds were given for the 1000_l._, but the assignees of Roebuck becoming impatient for the money, Boulton discharged them to get rid of their importunity, long before any profits had been derived from the manufacture of the engines. Watt returned to Birmingham to set about the making of the engines for which orders had already been received. Boulton had been busily occupied during his absence in experimenting on the Soho engine. A new 18-inch cylinder had been cast for it at Bersham by John Wilkinson, the great ironfounder,[142] who had contrived a machine for boring it with accuracy. This cylinder was substituted for the tin one brought from Kinneil, and other improvements having been introduced, the engine was again set to work with very satisfactory results. Watt found his partner in good spirits; not less elated by the performances of the model than by the passing of the Act; and arrangements were at once set on foot for carrying on the manufacture of engines upon an extensive scale. Applications for terms, followed by orders, shortly came in from the mining districts; and before long the works at Soho were resounding with the clang of hammers and machinery employed in manufacturing steam-engines for all parts of the civilised world. [142] John Wilkinson, the “father of the iron-trade” as he styled himself, was a man of extraordinary energy of character. He was strong-headed and strong-tempered and of inflexible determination. His father, Isaac Wilkinson, who originally started the iron trade at Wrexham, was a man possessed of quick discernment and versatile talents, though he wanted that firmness and constancy of purpose which so eminently distinguished his son. Isaac Wilkinson used thus to tell his own history:--“I worked,” said he, “at a forge in the north. My masters gave me 12_s._ a week: I was content. They raised me to 14_s._: I did not ask them for it. They went on to 16_s._, 18_s._: I never asked them for the advances. They gave me a guinea a week! Said I to myself, if I am worth a guinea a week to you, I am worth more to myself! I left them, and began business on my own account--at first in a small way. I prospered. I grew tired of my leathern bellows, and determined to make iron ones. Everybody laughed at me. I did it, and applied the steam-engine to blow them; and they all cried, ‘Who could have thought it!’” His son John carried on the operations connected with the iron manufacture on a far more extensive scale than his father at Bradley, Willey, Snedshill, and Bersham. His castings were the largest until then attempted, and the boring machinery which he invented was the best of its kind. All the castings for Boulton and Watt’s large Cornish engines were manufactured by him, previous to the erection of the Soho foundry.