[275] The Albion Mill engine was set to work in 1786. The first rotative with a parallel motion in Scotland, was erected for Mr. Stein, of Kennet Pans near Alloa, in the following year. [276] In a letter to Mr. Matthews (30th April, 1784) Boulton wrote,--“It seems the millers are determined to be masters of us and the public. Putting a stop to fire-engine mills because they come into competition with water-mills, is as absurd as stopping navigable canals would be because they interfere with farmers and waggoners. The argument also applies to wind and tide mills or any other means whereby corn can be ground. So all machines should be stopped whereby men’s labour is saved, because it might be argued that men were thereby deprived of a livelihood. Carry out the argument, and we must annihilate water-mills themselves, and thus go back again to the grinding of corn by hand labour!” By the end of the year the Albion Mill engines, carefully designed by Watt, were put in hand at Soho; the building was in course of erection, after the designs of Mr. Wyatt, the architect; while John Rennie, the young Scotch engineer, was engaged to design and fit up the flour-grinding and dressing machinery. “I am glad,” wrote Boulton to Watt, “you have agreed with Rennie. Mills are a great field. Think of the crank--of Wolf, Trumpeter, Wasp, and all the ghosts we are haunted by.” The whole of the following year was occupied in the erection of the buildings and machinery; and it was not until the spring of 1786 that the mill was ready to start. Being the first enterprise of the kind, on an unprecedented scale, and comprising many novel combinations of machinery, there were many “hitches” before it could be got to work satisfactorily. After the first trial, at which Boulton was present, he wrote his partner expressing his dissatisfaction with the working of the double-acting engine, expressing the opinion that it would have been better if they had held by the single-acting one.[277] Watt was urged to run up to town himself and set matters to rights; but he was up to the ears in work at Soho, and could not leave for a day.