As Boulton had anticipated, the Ministry introduced several important measures, calculated to have a highly injurious effect upon English industry, and he immediately bestirred himself, in conjunction with Josiah Wedgwood, of Etruria, to organise a movement in opposition to them. Wedgwood and Boulton met at Birmingham in February, 1785, and arranged to assemble a meeting of delegates from the manufacturing districts, who were to meet and sit in London “all the time the Irish commercial affairs were pending.” A printed statement of the objects of the movement was circulated, and Boulton and Wedgwood wrote to their friends in all quarters to meet and appoint delegates to the central committee in London. Boulton was unanimously appointed the delegate for Birmingham, and he proceeded to London furnished with a bundle of petitions from his neighbourhood. The delegates proceeded to form themselves into a Chamber of Manufacturers, over the deliberations of which Wedgwood, Boulton, or John Wilkinson usually presided. The principal object of these meetings and petitionings was to prevent, if possible, the imposition of the proposed taxes on coal, iron, and raw materials generally, as well as the proposed export duties on manufactured articles. At a time when foreign governments were seeking to exclude English manufactures from their dominions by heavy import duties, it was felt that this double burden was more than English industry could bear. The Irish Parliament were at the same time legislating in a hostile spirit towards English commerce; imposing taxes upon all manufactures imported into Ireland from England, while Irish manufactures were not only sent into England duty free, but their own parliament encouraged them by a bounty on exportation. The committee strongly expostulated against the partial and unjust spirit of this legislation, and petitioned for free interchange on equal terms. So long as such a state of things continued, the petitioners urged that “every idea of reciprocity in the interchange of manufactures between Britain and Ireland was a mere mockery of words.” Although Watt was naturally averse to taking any public part in politics, his services were enlisted in the cause, and he drew up for circulation “An answer to the Treasury Paper on the Iron Trade of England and Ireland.” The object of his statement was to show that the true way of encouraging manufactures in Ireland was, not by bounties, not by prohibitions, but by entire freedom of industry. It was asserted by the supporters of the propositions, that the natives of Ireland were ignorant, indolent, and poor. “If they be so,” said Watt, “the best method of giving them vigour is to have recourse to British manufacturers, possessed of capital, industry, and knowledge of trade.” The old covenanting spirit of his race fairly breaks out in the following passage:--