“Although I have added to the list of my bad habits by joking upon matrimony, yet my disposition and my judgment would lead me to marry again were I in your case. I know you will be happier as a married man than as a single one, and therefore it is wisdom in you to wed; and if that could not be done without my coming to Scotland, I certainly would come if it were as far again; but I am so beset with difficulties, that nothing less than the absolute loss of your life, or wife--which is virtually the same thing--could bring me.” He further explained that a good deal of extra work had fallen upon him, through the absence of some of his most important assistants. Mr. Matthews, his London financial agent, like Watt, was about to be married, and would be absent abroad for a tour on a wedding trip, in which he was to be accompanied by Fothergill, Boulton’s partner in the toy and button trade. Mr. Scale, the manager, was also absent, added to which the button orders were in arrear some 16,000 gross; so that, said Boulton, “I have more real difficulties to grapple with than I hope ever to have in any other year in my life.” There were also constant visitors arriving at Soho: among others the Duke of Buccleuch, who had called to see the works and inquire after Mr. Watt; and Mr. Moor, of the Society of Engineers in the Adelphi, who had come to see with his own eyes whether the reports in circulation against the new engine were true or false. The perfecting of the details of the engine also required constant attention. “Our copper bottom,” said Boulton, “hath plagued us very much by steam leaks, and therefore I have had one cast (with its conducting pipe) all in one piece; since which the engine doth not take more than 10 feet of steam, and I hope to reduce that quantity, as we have just received the new piston, which shall be put in and at work to-morrow. Our Soho engine never was in such good order as at present. Bloomfield and Willey [engines] are both well, and I doubt not but Bow engine will be better than any of ’em.” Boulton was almost as full of speculation as Watt himself as to the means of improving the engine. “I did not sleep last night,” he wrote, “my mind being absorbed by steam.” One of his speculations was as to the means of increasing the heating surface, and with that object he proposed to apply the fire “in copper spheres within the water.” His mind was also running on economising power by working steam expansively, “being clear that the principle is sound.”