and I have at present nobody else here.... I suppose I shall be obliged to send Joseph over, for we must not have a bad engine if it can be helped.... We seem to be getting into our old troubles again.”[285] [283] Watt to Boulton, 23rd September, 1786. [284] He spoke of Goodwyn’s Brewery engine, finished in 1784, as the best that Soho had up to that time turned out--it “performed wonderful well--not the smallest leak and scarce any noise.... The working gear and joints are the best I ever saw.” [285] Watt to Boulton, 24th February, 1786. William Murdock continued, as before, an admirable exception. He was as indefatigable as ever, always ready with an expedient to remedy a defect, and willing to work at all hours. A great clamour had been raised in Cornwall during his stay in London while setting the Albion Mill to rights, as there was no other person there capable of supplying his place, and fulfilling his numerous and responsible duties. Boulton deplored that more men such as Murdock were not to be had;--“He is now flying from mine to mine,” he wrote, “and hath so many calls upon him that he is inclined to grow peevish; and if we take him from North Downs, Chacewater, and Towan (all of which engines he has the care of), they will run into disorder and ruin; they have not a man at North Downs that is better than a stoker.” Towards the end of 1786 the press of orders increased at Soho. A rotative engine of forty-horse power was ordered by the Plate Glass Company to grind glass. A powerful pumping-engine was in hand for the Oxford Canal Company. Two engines, one of twenty and the other of ten horse power, were ordered for Scotch distilleries, and another order was shortly expected from the same quarter. The engine supplied for the Hull paper-mill having been found to answer admirably, more orders for engines for the same purpose were promised. At the same time pumping-engines were in hand for the great French waterworks at Marli. “In short,” said Watt, “I foresee I shall be driven almost mad in finding men for the engines ordered here and coming in.” Watt was necessarily kept very full of work by these orders, and we gather from his letters that he was equally full of headaches. He continued to give his personal attention to the preparation of the drawings of the engines, even to the minutest detail. On an engine being ordered by Mr. Morris, of Bristol, for the purpose of driving a tilt-hammer, Boulton wrote to him,--“Mr. Watt can never be prevailed upon to begin any piece of machinery until the plan of the whole is settled, as it often happens that a change in one thing puts many others wrong. However, he has now settled the whole of yours, but waits answers to certain questions before the drawings for the founder can be issued.”[286] [286] Boulton to Morris, 2nd November, 1786.