| Description | This is a slim volume in which have been guarded twelve letters from James Watt to James Lind, (1774 to 1799). In addition, the volume contained ten loose letters from James Lind to Watt (1764 to 1787), and three loose letters from James Watt to Lind (1765.)
The loose letters have now been stored separately in two folders with the volume. The letters had not been previously numbered.
The letters from Lind have been listed first (nos 1 to 10); then the loose letters from James Watt to Lind (11 to 13); then there is also a piece of paper on which James Watt jr. has listed these three letters (14); then those in the volume, (15 to 26).
Some of the dockets have been written by James Watt jr. Any summary in square brackets has been provided by the cataloguer.
One of these letters (new no. 18) has been partially transcribed for the 'Extracts from Correspondence' in James P. Muirhead's three volume work The Mechanical Inventions of James Watt, (London, 1854). The number of the published letter is given below at the end of the docket, as, for example, (Muirhead no.6).
In the Monthly Magazine or British Register, L, p.239, were published ‘ Thirteen letters from the late James Watt, Esq. to James Lind,' 1764-1799 [See MS 3219/6/207: MI/ box 8/12]
There is a companion volume to this, [JWP W/1] with letters between James Lind and Alexander and Patrick Wilson (1769 to 1802), about astronomy and printing. This suggests that perhaps the volumes were sent to James Watt after the death of Lind in 1812.
There is a further letter from Lind to James Watt in the bundle of letters from John Roebuck to James Watt, 1765-1775. [MS 3219/4/58: JWP 4/32] |