[152] Boulton to Watt, 3rd November, 1776. In the same letter Boulton informs Watt that Perrins, another fireman, had returned from Bedworth, and had not a stroke to do, the fittings for the second engine not having arrived. The first engine was working twenty-four hours a day, but the pit was so full of water that the owners feared they would before long be drowned out; and if the work was stopped, the loss would be far greater than the whole value of the engine. But the sales of coal, though large, were but “a small consideration in comparison with the starving to death of the poor ribbon-weavers of Coventry and a great part of Oxfordshire.... Coals are 9_d._ and 10_d._ per cwt., and ’tis said they will be a shilling at Birmingham on Monday.” A letter reached Soho from the Shadwell Waterworks Company relative to a pumping-engine, and Boulton asked Watt, while in town, to wait upon them on the subject; but he cautioned Watt that he “never knew a Committee but, in its corporate capacity, was both rogue and fool, and that the Shadwell Committee were rich rogues.” Watt, by his own account, treated them very cavalierly. “Yesterday,” said he, “I went again to Shadwell to meet the deputies of the Committee, and to examine their engines when going. We came to no terms further than what we wrote them before, which I confirmed, and offered moreover to keep the engine in order for one year. They modestly insisted that we should do so for the whole twenty-five years, which I firmly refused. They seemed to doubt the reality of the performances of the Bow engine; so I told them we did not solicit their orders and would wait patiently until they were convinced,--moreover, that while they had any doubts remaining, we would not undertake their business on any terms. I should not have been so sharp with them had they not begun with bullying me, _selon la mode de Londres_. But the course I took was not without its effect, for in proportion as they found I despised their job, they grew more civil. After parting with these heroes I went down to Stratford, where I found that the engine had gone very well. I caused it to be kept going all the afternoon, and this morning I new-heat the piston and kept it going till dinner time at about fifteen strokes per minute, with a steam of one inch or at most two inches strong, and the longer it went the better it grew.... I propose that Joseph should not leave it for a few days, until both his health and that of the engine be confirmed. A relapse of the engine would ruin our reputation here, and indeed elsewhere.”[153] [153] Watt to Boulton, 3rd December, 1776. Boulton MSS.