[222] Watt to Boulton, 30th July, 1781. Later he wrote,--“I am tired of making improvements which by some quirk or wresting of the law may be taken from us, as I think has been done in the case of Arkwright, who has been condemned merely because he did not specify quite clearly. This was injustice, because it is plain that he has given this trade a being--has brought his invention into use and made it of great public utility. Wherefore he deserved all the money he has got. In my opinion his patent should not have been invalidated without it had clearly appeared that he did not invent the things in question. I fear we shall be served with the same sauce _for the good of the public_! and in that case I shall certainly do what he threatens. This you may be assured of, that we are as much envied here as he is at Manchester, and all the bells in Cornwall would be rung at our overthrow.”--Watt to Boulton, 13th August, 1781. Watt continued to be alarmed by the rumours of the forthcoming Hornblowers’ engine. “I have heard,” he wrote, “that a female confidant of Jonathan’s has seen the engine, and says that they evaporate half a hogshead of water with _one ounce_ of coals! ... that in a few days they are to publish in print what their invention is, illustrated with a copper-plate. Then we shall see and admire, if God pleaseth; I hope we shall not believe and tremble.” Later he wrote,--“Our cause is good, and yet it has a bad aspect. We are called monopolists, and exactors of money from the people for nothing. Would to God the money and price of the time the engine has cost us were in our pockets again, and the devil might then have the draining of their mines in place of me. Yet all are not alike. Some are just, and I believe do not grudge us, and some are friendly. All this is to no purpose. The law must decide whether we have property in this affair or not, and we must submit to what we cannot help.”[223]