Coming down to a few years later, in 1770, we find his business still growing, and his works and plant absorbing still more capital, principally obtained by borrowing. In a letter to Mr. Adams, the celebrated architect, requesting him to prepare the design of a new sale-room in London, he described the manufactory at Soho as in full progress, from 700 to 800 persons being employed as metallic artists and workers in tortoiseshell, stones, glass, and enamel. “I have almost every machine,” said he, “that is applicable to those arts; I have two water-mills employed in rolling, polishing, grinding, and turning various sorts of lathes. I have trained up many, and am training up more plain country lads into good workmen; and wherever I find indications of skill and ability, I encourage them. I have likewise established correspondence with almost every mercantile town in Europe, and am thus regularly supplied with orders for the grosser articles in common demand, by which I am enabled to employ such a number of hands as to provide me with an ample choice of artists for the finer branches of work; and I am thereby encouraged to erect and employ a more extensive apparatus than it would be prudent to provide for the production of the finer articles only.”
It is indeed probable--though Boulton was slow to admit it--that he had been extending his business more rapidly than his capital would conveniently allow; for we find him becoming more and more pressed for means to meet the interest on the borrowed money invested in buildings, tools, and machinery. He had obtained 10,000_l._ from a Mr. Tonson of London; and on the death of that gentleman, in 1772, he had considerable difficulty in raising the means to pay off the debt. His embarrassment was increased by a serious commercial panic, aggravated by the failure of Fordyce brothers, by which a considerable sum deposited with them remained locked up for some time, and he was eventually a loser to the extent of 2000_l._ Other failures and losses followed; and trade came almost to a standstill. Yet he bravely held on. “We have a thousand mouths at Soho to feed,” he says; “and it has taken so much labour and pains to get so valuable and well-organised a staff of workmen together, that the operations of the manufactory must be carried on at whatever risk.” He continued to receive distinguished visitors at his works. “Last week,” he wrote Mr. Ebbenhouse, “we had Prince Poniatowski, nephew of the King of Poland, and the French, Danish, Sardinian, and Dutch Ambassadors; this week we have had Count Orloff, one of the five celebrated brothers who are such favourites with the Empress of Russia; and only yesterday I had the Viceroy of Ireland, who dined with me. Scarcely, a day passes without a visit from some distinguished personage.”