employing the crank at all. [205] At a later date we find him writing to his partner thus:--“I cannot agree with Mr. Palmer’s notion about the crank engine, as, though a crank is not new, yet that application of it is new and never was practised except by us. It is by no means our interest to demolish the crank patent, because then all our own machines of that kind will be of no use, and I am convinced that the crank can be made their superior.”--Watt to Boulton, 15th October, 1781. [206] Watt to Boulton, 19th November, 1780. Thus matters stood until the beginning of the year 1781, when Washborough, having entered into an arrangement with the Commissioners of the Navy to erect an engine for grinding flour at the Deptford Victualling Yard,[207] a formal application was made to Boulton and Watt to apply their engine for the purpose. Watt protested that he could not bring himself to submit to such an indignity. If the Commissioners thought proper to employ him to erect the necessary engine, rotative motion, and machinery, he would exert every faculty which God had given him in doing so, but he “would never consent to hold the candle to Washborough.” [207] Boulton and Watt were by this time employing their engine for a like purpose, as appears from a letter of Boulton to S. Wyatt, dated 28th February, 1781, in which he says,--“We are now applying our engines to all kinds of mills, such as corn mills, rolling iron and copper, winding coals out of the pit, and every other purpose to which the wind or water mill is applicable. In such applications, one hundred weight of coals will produce as much mechanical power as is equal to the work of ten men for ten hours, and these mills may be made very much more powerful than any water-mills in England.” To Mr. Henderson he wrote at the same date:--“I make no scruple to say but that I could readily build a more powerful and in every respect better copper-rolling mill by steam than any water-mill now in England. As soon as the Cornish engines are at work, I intend to turn millwright and make our steam-mills universally known.”