But James Watt had now arrived at a suitable age to learn a trade; and his rambles must come to a close. His father had originally intended him to follow his own business; but having sustained some heavy losses about this time--one of his ships having foundered at sea,--and observing the strong bias of his son towards manipulative science and exact mechanics, he at length decided to send him to Glasgow, in the year 1754, when he was eighteen years old, to learn the trade of a mathematical instrument maker. CHAPTER VI. JAMES WATT, MATHEMATICAL INSTRUMENT MAKER. When James Watt, a youth of eighteen, went to Glasgow in 1754 to learn his trade, the place was very different from the Glasgow of to-day. Not a steam-engine was then at work in the town; not a steam-boat disturbed the quiet of the Clyde. There was a rough quay along the Broomielaw, then, as the name implies, partly covered with broom. The quay was furnished with a solitary crane, for which there was very little use, as the river was full of sandbanks, and boats and gabberts of only six tons burden and under could then ascend the Clyde.[57] Often for weeks together not a single masted vessel was to be seen in the river. The principal buildings in the town were the Cathedral and the University. The west port, now in the centre of Glasgow, was then a real barrier between the town and the country. The ground on which Enoch-square stands consisted chiefly of gardens. A thick wood occupied the site of the present Custom-house and of that part of Glasgow situated behind West Clyde-street. Blythswood was grazing-ground. Not a house had yet been erected in Hutchinson-town, Laurieston, Tradeston, or Bridgeton. The land between Jamaica-street on the east, and Stobcross on the west, and south from Anderston-road to the river, now the most densely populated parts of Glasgow, consisted of fields and cabbage-gardens. The town had but two main streets, which intersected each other at the Cross or Market-place, and the only paved part of them was known as “The Plainstanes,” which extended for a few hundred yards in front of the public offices and the Town-hall. The two main streets contained some stately well-built houses--Flemish-looking tenements with crow-stepped gables,--the lower stories standing on Doric columns, under which were the principal booths or shops--small, low-roofed, and dismal. But the bulk of the houses had only wooden fronts and thatched roofs, and were of a very humble character. The traffic along the unpaved streets was so small, that the carts were left standing in them at night. The town was as yet innocent of police;[58] it contained no Irish immigrants, and very few Highlanders. The latter then thought it beneath them to engage in any pursuit connected with commerce; and Rob Roy’s contempt for the wabsters of Glasgow, as described by Sir Walter Scott in the novel, was no exaggeration. No Highland gentleman, however