380 A. D. 1763. 



appears, that there ftill remained in that country fome obligations in 

 force for debts bearing interefl: at fix per cent ; and the debtors, by § 

 132, were authorifed to withhold payment of one lixth part (or one per 

 cent) of the interefl:. 



Bv § 137, a fum not exceeding two millions, bearing interefl: at four 

 per cent, was directed to be borrowed on the credit of this tax. [4 Geo. 

 Ill, c. 2.] 



The marine fociety, that noble combination of charity and patriot- 

 ifm, was originally projecfted by the benevolent Jonas Hanway, for the 

 purpofe of feeding and clothing poor defl:itute boys, and fitting them 

 out for the fea lervice ; and it was fupported by the liberal contribu- 

 tions of himfclf and other philanthropifl;s, among whom Mr. Hickes, a 

 merchant in Hamburgh, who bequeathed to this mofl: valuable charity 

 his whole fortune, amounting to above /^20,ooo, deferves to be emi- 

 nently noticed. During the war, a very great number of boys had 

 been rendered ufeful to themfelves and to their country by this fociety. 

 And they did not lofe fight of their wards, when they were difcharged 

 from the navy on the return of peace, but invited all thofe, who were 

 under fixteen years of age, to return to them. Some of thefe youths, 

 they placed with watermen, lightermen, fifliermen, and commanders of" 

 merchant veffels ; others they put under the care of officers of the navy, 

 who engaged to keep them for three years ; and about ninety were 

 bound to manufactures and mechanic trades. By thefe means they put 

 about three hundred of their boys a fecond time in a fair way of be- 

 coming ufeful members of fociety, inflead of being a burthen and a 

 nuiiance to it, as niany of them would probably have been, if they had 

 remained in their original and undirected flatc of miferable dereliction. 



The north part of Stafford-fliire, abounding with coal, and, its ufual 

 attendant, ftrong fire-clay, has certainly been the feat of manufadorics 

 of earthen ware for feveral centuries*. When Dr. Plott wrote his Na- 

 tural hiflory of Stafford-fhire in the year 1686, the manufacture was con- 

 fined to coarfe butter pans, and fuch ware, the fale of which extended no 

 farther than they could be carried on the backs of the workmen or 

 hawkers. 



About the beginning of the eighteenth century the difcovery of a 

 fine bed of red earth at Bradwell induced two brothers of the name of 

 Elers to come from Holland and fettle there : and they may be confi- 

 dered as the firfl: improvers of the pottery. They made a fine kind of 

 red porcelain in imitation of the oriental ; and they introduced the 



• Some years ago the vefliges of an antient man origin, whence it has been fiippofed that the 

 potter)' were dil'covereJ at Chellerton, a village Romans may have eftablifhed a manufaftory of 

 near Newcaftle, the uame of which proves its Ro. earthen ware at that place. 



3 



