“The Horners,” said he, “continue bragging of what they are to do, and I hear the country in general takes part with them, as even the aversion they have to the Horners does not equal the pleasure they would feel at our undoing.... The Horners say they can make a common engine equal to ours, but that their new engine is one-third better. We must now attend to making use of all the elastic power of the steam, which, unless I am much deceived, will save one-half over our best engines, and at any rate it may easily be applied to work the condenser, which will save about one-eighth. I will not conceal from you that I am rendered very unhappy by one thing and another, but fight with it all I can.” In the mean time Boulton continued to urge Watt to complete the specification and drawings of his rotative engine, informing him of the success of the model which he had now completed at Soho:-- “Though you studied a thousand years,” said he, “I do not think you could make one ten per cent. better than a small model with two cones which Joseph has executed after my drawings. It has little friction, goes sweeter than anything of the kind you have yet touched, and has not the least shake. It is so perfect that I don’t consider it worth while even to think of any other for horizontal motions. I am therefore positively decided in my mind as to the necessity of taking out a patent and including in it all the principles and constructions you please; for if it be not secured soon we may lose it.”[217] [217] Boulton to Watt, 28th June, 1781. On the 3rd July following he writes,--“The great rotative engine is finished, and I expected the union between it and the little engine would have been performed this evening, but it can’t be till to-morrow. Robert set the elliptic out so true that it had no shake and required no alteration. It goes so much better than the little model made by Joseph that I am now ashamed to send the little one. The great model makes a delightful horizontal foot-lathe. I gave it a few strokes with my foot, and it made 30 revolutions after I withdrew it, and that in a quiet and peaceable manner, which shows how steady and frictionless it is.”