ard, without proper tools
and with such workmen as Carless, whom he was glad to get and determined
to keep, drunken and useless as he was.

French agents appeared and tried to bribe some of the men to go to Paris
and communicate Watt's plans to the contractor who had undertaken to
pump water from the Seine for the supply of Paris. The German states
sent emissaries for a similar purpose, and Baron Stein was specially
ordered by his government to master the secret of the Watt engine, to
obtain working plans, and bring away workmen capable of constructing it,
the first step taken being to obtain access to the engine-rooms by
bribing the workmen. All this is so positively stated by Smiles that we
must assume that he quotes from authentic records. It is clear at all
events that the attention of other nations was keenly drawn to the
advent of an agency that promised to revolutionise existing conditions.
Watt himself, at a critical part of his career (1773), as we have seen,
had been tempted to accept an offer to enter the imperial service of
Russia, carrying the then munificent salary of $5,000 per annum. Boulton
wrote him: "Your going to Russia staggers me.... I wish to advise you
for the best without regard to self, but I find I love myself so well
that I should be very sorry to have you go, and I begin to repent
sounding your trumpet at the Ambassador's."

The imperial family of Russia were then much interested in the Soho
works. The empress stayed for some time at Boulton's house, "and a
charming woman she is," writes her host. Here is a glimpse of imperial
activity and wise attention to what was going on in other lands which it
was most desirous to transplant to their own. The emperor, and no less
his wife, evidently kept their eyes open during their travels abroad.
Imperial progresses we fear are seldom devoted to such practical ends,
although the present king of Britain and his nephew the German emperor
would not be blind to such things. It is a strange coincidence that the
successor of this emperor, Tsar Nicholas, when grand duke, should have
been denied admission to Soho works. Not that he was personally objected
to, but that certain people of his suite might not be disinclined to
take advantage of any new processes discovered. So jealously were
improvements guarded in these days.

Another source of care to the troubled Watt lay here. Naturally, only a
few such men had been developed as could be entrusted to go to