[177] Watt wrote Boulton, 2nd July, 1778,--“On the subject of Mr. Hall I should not have been so earnest had I not been urged on by the prospect of impending ruin, which may be much accelerated by a wicked or careless servant in his place.” Later, on the 6th August, Watt wrote, “I look upon Hall as a very great blunderer, and very inattentive to everything that has hitherto been committed to his care; but I think that our present necessities will oblige us to employ him.”--Boulton MSS. Watt was equally wroth with the enginemen at Bedworth. “I beg and expect,” he wrote Boulton, “that so soon as everything is done to that engine, you will instantly proceed to trial before creditable witnesses, and if possible have the whole brood of these enginemen displaced, if any others can be procured; for nothing but slovenliness, if not malice, is to be expected of them.” It must, however, be acknowledged that the Bedworth engine was at first very imperfect, having been made of bad iron, in consequence of which it frequently broke down. In Cornwall the men were no better. Dudley, Watt’s erector at Wheal Chance and Hallamanin, was pronounced incapable and a blunderer. “If something be not very bad in London, I wish you would employ Hadley to finish those engines, and send Joseph here to receive his instructions and proceed to Cornwall, otherwise Dudley will ruin us.”[178] The trusty “Joseph” was accordingly despatched to Cornwall to look after Dudley, and remedy the defects in Wheal Chance and Hallamanin engines; but when Watt arrived at Chacewater shortly after, he found that Joseph, too, had proved faithless. He wrote to Boulton, “Joseph has pursued his old practice of drinking in the neighbourhood in a scandalous manner, until the very enginemen turned him into ridicule.... I have not heard how he behaved in the west; but that he gave the ale there a bad character.”[179] Notwithstanding, however, his love of strong potations, Joseph was a first-rate workman. Two days later, Watt wrote, “Though Joseph has attended to his drinking, he has done much good at his leisure hours, and has certainly prevented much mischief at Hallamanin and some at Wheal Union. He has had some hard and long jobs, and consequently merits some indulgence for his foibles.” By the end of the month “Joseph had conquered Hallamanin engine, all but the boiler,” but Watt added, “His indulgence has brought on a slight fit of the jaundice, and as soon as the engine is finished, he must be sent home.”[180] [178] Watt to Boulton, 11th August, 1779. [179] Watt to Boulton, 4th October, 1779. [180] Watt to Boulton, 28th October, 1779.