[277] Watt, however, continued to adhere to his own views as to the superiority of the plan adopted:--“I am sorry to find,” he observed in his reply to Boulton, “so many things are amiss at Albion Mill, and that you have lost your good opinion of double engines, while my opinion of them is mended. The smoothness of their going depends on the steam regulators being opened a little before the vacuum regulators, and not opened too suddenly, as indeed the others ought not to be. Otherwise the shock comes so violently in the opposite direction that no pins or brasses will stand it. Malcolm has no notion how to make gear work quietly, nor do I think he properly understands it. You must therefore attend to it yourself, and not leave it until it is more perfect.”--Watt to Boulton, 3rd March, 1786. [Illustration: DOUBLE-ACTING ENGINE, ALBION MILL.] “I can by no means leave home at present,” he wrote, “otherwise we shall suffer much greater losses than _can_ come from the Albion Mill. The work for Cornwall which must be planned and put in train is immense, and there will more come from that quarter. Besides, I am pulled to pieces by demands for forwardness from every side. I have lost ten days by William Murdock, Wilson, Wilkinson, and headaches, and I have neither health nor spirits to make the necessary exertions. If I went to London I should be in torment all the while with the thoughts of what was lying behind here.” After pointing out what course should be taken to discover and remedy the faults of the engine, he proceeded:-- “Above all, patience must be exercised and things coolly examined and put to rights, and care be taken not to blame innocent parts. Everything must, as much as possible, be tried separately. Remind those who begin to growl, that in new, complicated, and difficult things, human foresight falls short--that time and money must be given to perfect things and find out their defects, otherwise they cannot be remedied.”[278] [278] Watt to Boulton, 10th March, 1786.--Boulton MSS. Not being able to persuade Watt to come to his help, Boulton sent to Cornwall for Murdock, always ready to lend a hand on an emergency, and in the course of a few weeks he was in town at work upon the engines. The result is best told in Wyatt’s letter to Boulton, who had by this time returned to Birmingham:-- “Mr. Murdock has just set the engine to work. All the rods are altered. I think he has done more good than all the doctors we have had before; and his manner of doing it has been very satisfactory--so different from what we have been used to. He has been through all the flues himself, and really takes uncommon pains. Pray write to him; thank him for his attention. He will not have left town before he gets your letter, and press him to stay as long as he can be essentially serviceable.”