| Description | London Jany 13th 1775
Dear Sir
By Mr Whitehursts of Last night to Mr Jackson you would hear of my being with him. I was ill with a headach which prevented me from writing myself & I am afraid you would not comprehend the meaning of his as he would write it his own way.
He is quite sick of the adjusting scheme and is, by my desire endeavouring to persuade the Trade to buy their weight of you ready adjusted He has two assisstants and says he can get more they have been working hitherto along with him in the Office, sometimes adjusting & sometimes examining, and the people owners of the weights sitting among them waiting for them, papers of weights pwts Grains &c lying scattered about & mixed together; which cannot fail to create a scene of confusion.
He has come very readily in to my proposals, which are that the two assistants shall examine your weights in a seperate place & that he shall, himself only, attend the Office for the Legal hours, and also that, to avoid temptation, there shall be no files in the Office
What is wanted from you is the prices you will sell your weights at unstamp't to the trade here and the price of stampt weights-I have been stupid enought to forget what you said to me on these heads it will also be proper that there be one or two places established in town where they are to be sold in wholesale Mr Mathews & Mr Jacksons Br: appear to me to be proper people-there are many wholesale orders in town that can be obtained as soon as you can supply them you will therefore with all dispatch send up quantitys to complete setts & I shall do what I can to get them stampt or sold unstampt as may answer best-Your weights are both the most neat & most exact of any that have come to the office only they complain that the 5 dwts are too large and not thick enough The london weights are vile things and of all sizes shapes & weights few of them accurate enough to pass the office without Mr Whitehursts help He says that he has stampt about 1200 sets altogether so that there is not much harm done yett-Lett us have complete setts next week if possible In short he is so infected with peahenishness that without holding close to him he will do nothing-Mr Mathews desires your patterns of plate with all dispatch & thinks he may at least gett you part of the Rusn: order-Elmsley says he sent the books about 6 days ago. Mr Wedderburns answer to Mr Mc abt the patt: was that we might surrender up the pressent patt & that he did not doubt a new one would be granted
Present my best Respects to Mrs Boulton & the Doctor & believe me to be ever
Your's
James Watt
Mr Wedderburn hath appointed . . . to see Mrs W about his order for Plate I am at Mr Mathews's
[On the same sheet are some rough calculations by Boulton, concerning weights.]
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