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

226 MEMORIALS OF
I propose, and this perhaps is the most prudent measure before a
patent is taken. — I am, &c, yours, Rob t Fulton." 1
Having failed, in the interval of his experiments, in attracting
attention to the feasibility of his views in regard to the Steamboat,
Mr. Bell resolved at length to enter upon the speculation at his own
risk.
Nothing in the history of those wonderful inventions and improve-
ments in machinery, which characterized the latter half of last century,
is so striking as the number of instances in which we are indebted for
these to men of the humblest attainments in point of education, and
who could make little, or rather no pretension, to any preliminary
professional knowledge, or even to any acquaintance with the leading
principles of Mechanics as a Science. To the long list of the Har-
greaves, the Kays, the Arkwrights, the Highs, who claimed more or
less of the merit of inventing and improving the machinery of the
Cotton Manufacture, and who, whatever their ingenuity, belonged
admittedly to this class, — is to be added the name of Henry Bell, in
connection with the first perfectly successful adaptation of the Steam
Engine to Navigation. To an intellect like that of Watt, poised
between lofty scientific speculation, on the one hand, and painstaking,
practical ingenuity on the other, efforts such as those which frequently
marked the progress alluded to, could not fail to present themselves
as exhibitions, in a great measure, of mere blind and groping adven-
ture. Nevertheless, to ascribe to meritorious individuals whose works
have not only enriched the capitalist, but infinitely benefited mankind,
—to attribute to them, in the absence of science in their case, no
higher motive than that of vanity, or no other animating principle
1 The above letter of Mr. Fulton is from an in- value, connected with the history of the American
teresting volume of Fac-similes of Public and Republic — for which I am indebted to the kindness
other Documents, possessing both curiosity and of John Gray, Esq., Secretary of the Watt Club.