Page:A Letter on the Subject of the Cause (1797).djvu/63

 every twenty or thirty minutes to blow out this accumulated air, &c. as from its reſiſtance to the piſton the Engine could not drive her load any father: nay, I am not only convinced this was the caſe, but I am equally certain it was this defect which cauſed Mr. Watt to abandon the whole buſineſs of Engine-building for many years after he took the patent in queſtion. Ought he not then, as far as he was able, and could he not I ſay again, my Lord, have guarded others from this rock on which he ſo fatally ſplit, by enrolling the beſt Specification ſix years’ practice enabled him to do? I think, indeed, it muſt be obvious to every one, as it has ever been to me, that after theſe ſix years’ heavy labour, he had really invented nothing but what would do more miſchief than good to the publick. And it has ever been my opinion, as I have before ſtated, and the nature of his Specification will bear me our, that Mr. Watt took his patent not for what he had invented, but for what he might invent in future. Thus ſays he, “I will lay an indeterminate foundation, which will enable me to lock up the brains and hands of every other inventive genius; and if any have the hardihood to ſtir in the great field of improvement, to make any ſaving in the expence of fuel (or he might have ſaid in preparing food for theſe