METALLUR' 



tip a brass work in Surry, at the expence of six thousand pounds * ; 

 and above eight thousand men are said to have been employed in 

 the brass manufactories which were established in Nottinghamshire, 

 and near London ; yet Sir John Pettus in his account of royal 

 mines, published in 1670, observes that these brass works were 

 then decayed, and the art of making brass almost gone with tho 

 artists +. But though the art was then almost gone, yet it was ne- 

 Ter, after its first establishment, altogether lost ; for about the year 

 1708, we find that there were brass manufacturers in England, and 

 that they presented a memorial to the House of Commons, setting 

 forth several reasons for continuing the brass manufactory in this 

 kingdom, and soliciting for it the protection of parliament |. In 

 this memorial they stated, that England, by reason of the inexhaus. 

 tible plenty of calamine, might become the staple of brass manufacto- 

 ry for itself and foreign parts ; that the continuing the brass works 

 in England would occasion plenty of rough copper to be brought 

 in, and make it the staple (in time) of copper and brass; that the 

 Swedes had endeavoured to subvert the English brass manufactory, 

 by lowering the price of Swedish brass wire, inveigling away 

 workmen, and other means. In compliance with the purport of 

 this memorial, an act of parliament was passed in the same year, 

 by which the former duties payable on the exportation of copper 

 of the produce of Great Britain, and of brass wire, were taken 

 off, and these articles were allowed to be exported free of duty. 

 In 1720 it was remarked, that this nation could supply itself with 

 copper and brass of its own produce, sufficient for all occasions, 

 if such duties were laid on foreign copper and brass, as would dis. 

 courage their importation, and 'at the same time encourage the sale 

 of our own metals. At present the brass manufactory is estab. 

 lishtd among us in a very great extent ; we are so far from being 

 obliged to have recourse to any of our neighbours for this commo- 

 dity, that we annually export large quantities of manufactured 

 brass to Flanders (it was formerly called Flanders metal), France, 

 Germany, Portugal, Spain, Russia, Africa, and most other parts 

 of the world. In 1783, a bill was passed by the House of Com- 

 mons for repealing certain statutes prohibiiing the exportation of 



Essays on Mtl:il. Words Brass. f Fodimc Regal, p. S3. 



$ Oper. Min. Exp. 156. 



\ State of the copper and Brass Manufactures, by W. Wood the same per- 

 ton whom Swift handled so roughly in his Drapicr's Letter*. 



