Memorials of the lineage, early life, education and development of the genius of James Watt

JAMES WATT. 1 7
pied, it is said, a piece of land in the county of Aberdeen, but having
engaged (as most men were obliged to do, on one side or the other)
in the wars, was killed in one of Montrose's battles. It is not ascer-
tained on which side he fought, though the probability is that he
espoused the cause of the Covenanters. The period in which he
lived, and which is indicated by that of the birth of his son, was
one of great trouble in Scotland, particularly in the county and city
of Aberdeen. "In September 1644, (according to the Statistical
Account of that city,) during the time of the civil wars, the Marquis
of Montrose, with an army of about 2000 men, having approached the
town, and summoned it to surrender, the magistrates, after advising
with Lord Burley, who then commanded in the place a force nearly
equal in number to the assailants, refused to give it up ; upon which
a battle ensued within half an English mile of the town, at a place
called the Crabstone, near to the Justice Mills, where Montrose pre-
vailed, and many of the principal inhabitants were killed ;" and
according to John Spalding, in his History of the Troubles and
Memorable Transactions in Scotland in the Reign of Charles I., that
country was left " almost manless, moneyless, horseless, and armless,
so pitifully was the same borne down and subdued."
It was about this time, during the civil wars between Charles I.
and the Parliament, that Thomas Watt, the grandfather of the great
mechanician, was born. From the age assigned to him at the time
of his death — and there are two records of that event — he must have
been born between the years 1639 and 1642. One of the records is
to be found in the register of burials in the Old or West Parish of
Greenock, and the other, on the tombstone placed over his remains in
the West Church-yard of this town.
It is not ascertained where Thomas Watt spent the earlier years of
his life, or by whom he was educated. Unfortunately no record
exists from which might be filled up the long, and, as may readily be
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