But when the men got well trained, the difficulty was to keep them. Foreign tempters were constantly trying to pick up Boulton and Watt’s men, and induce them by offers of larger wages to take service abroad. The two fitters sent up to London to erect the Bow engine were strongly pressed to go out to Russia.[155] There were also French agents in England at the same time, who tried to induce certain of Boulton and Watt’s men to go over to Paris and communicate the secret of making the new engines to M. Perrier, who had undertaken to pump water from the Seine for the supply of Paris. The German States also sent over emissaries with a like object, Baron Stein having been specially commissioned by his Government to master the secret of Watt’s engine--to obtain working plans of it and bring away workmen capable of making it,--the first step taken being to obtain access to the engine-rooms by bribing the workmen. [155] “Mr. White told me this morning as a great secret,” wrote Boulton’s London agent, “that he has reason to believe that Carless and Webb were going beyond sea, for Carless had told him he had 1000_l._ offered for six years, and he overheard Webb say that he was ready at an hour’s warning.” Carless and Webb were immediately ordered back to Soho, and the firm obtained warrants for the apprehension of the men as well as of the person who had bribed them, if they attempted to abscond “even though,” said Watt to Boulton, “Carless be a drunken and comparatively useless fellow.” Later he wrote, “I think there is no risk of Webb’s leaving us soon, and he offers to re-engage. Carless has been working very diligently this week, and is well on with his nozzle patterns. I mentioned to William the story of Sir John Fielding’s warrant, to show him that we are determined to act with spirit in case of interlopers.”--Watt to Boulton, May 3, 1777. Besides the difficulties Boulton and Watt had to encounter in training and disciplining their own workmen, they had also to deal with the want of skill on the part of those to whom the working of their engines was intrusted after they had been delivered and fixed complete. They occasionally supplied trustworthy men of their own; but they could not educate mechanics fast enough, and needed all the best men for their own work. They were therefore compelled to rely on the average mechanics of the day, the greater part of whom were comparatively unskilled and knew nothing of the steam-engine. Hence such mishaps as those which befell the Bow engine, through the engineman getting drunk and reckless, as above described. To provide for this contingency Watt endeavoured to simplify the engine as much as possible, so as to bring its working and repair within the capacity of the average workman.