Correspondence of the late James Watt on his discovery of the theory of the composition of water. With a letter from his son / Edited with introductory remarks and an appendix by James Patrick Muirhead.

James Watt

Date:: 1846

Credit: Correspondence of the late James Watt on his discovery of the theory of the composition of water. With a letter from his son / Edited with introductory remarks and an appendix by James Patrick Muirhead. Source: Wellcome Collection.

400/410 page 258

$written to Sir Charles Blagden, and Mi-. Watt never saw the paper until it was printed. Since M. Arago’s learned Eloge was published, with this paper as an Appendix, the Rev. W. Vernon Harcoiirt has entered into controversy with us both, or, I should rather say, with M. Arago, for he has kindly spared me ; and while I acknowledge my ob- ligations for this courtesy of my reverend, learned, and valued friend, I must express my unqualified ad- miration of his boldness in sino-lino- out foi* his anta- o o gonist my illustrious colleague, rather than the far weaker combatant against whom he might so much more safely have done battle. Whatever might have been his fate had he taken the more prudent course, I must fairly say, (even without waiting until my fel- low champion seal our adversary’s doom,) that I have seldom seen any two parties more unequally matched, or any disputation in which the victory was so com- plete. The attack on M. Arago might have passed well enough at a popular meeting at Birmingham, before which it was spoken ; but as a scientific in- quirer, it would be a flattery running the risk of seeming ironical to weigh the reverend author against the most eminent philosopher of the day, although upon a question of evidence, (which this really is, as * The notes of ]\Ir. .James Watt formed part of the manuscript transmitted to me by Lord Brougham ; and it is at the express de- sire of my illustrious fellow-member, that I have printed them, as a useful commentary upon his essay.—[Note by M. Abago.]$