242 THE WEDGWOODS. 



' But Mr. Champion, as a further answer to Mr. Wedgwood's 

 implication of want of skill, begs leave to observe that the Dresden 

 manufacture (like this, a native clay), which has been established so 

 great a number of years, was long Before it attained perfection, and 

 even now it has not that exact proportion of shape which the 

 Chinese manufacture possesses. The Austrian manufacture (also a 

 native clay) was twenty-five years before it attained any degree of 

 perfection, and then only by accidental aid of the Dresden workmen 

 who were dispersed during the late war. The work in Brandenburgli 

 is nothing more than the Dresden materials, wrought by workmen 

 removed hither from that city, the Brandenburgh work having no 

 clay of its own territory. Mr. Champion is surprised that Mr. 

 Wedgwood can find no cause but one, which he chooses to blame, 

 why a new manufacture, upon a principle never before tried in 

 England, should not have attained perfection in a shorter space 

 than the very short space of seven years. 



"As to Mr. Wedgwood's calculation of the profits sufficient to 

 recompense the ingenuity, and repay the trouble and expense of 

 others, Mr. Champion submits it to a discerning and encouraging 

 legislature, whether a seven years' sale is likely to repay a seven 

 years' unproductive, experimental, and chargeable labour, as well as 

 the future improvement to grow from new endeavours ? Until Mr. 

 Champion was able to make this porcelain in quantities to supply a 

 market, it was rather an object of curiosity than a manufacture for 

 national benefit. 



"There is one branch of the manufacture, the Hue and white, 

 upon which he has just entered this branch is likely to be the 

 most generally useful of any : but the giving a blue colour under 

 the glaze, on so hard a material as he uses, has been found full of 

 difficulty. This object he has pursued at a great expense by means 

 of a foreign artificer ; and he can now venture to assert that he shall 

 bring that to perfection which has been found so difficult in Europe 

 in native clay. 



"If the various difficulties which have attended his work from 

 its beginning could have been foreseen, this patent ought not to 

 have been applied for at so early a period. The time in which 

 profit was to be expected has necessarily been laid out in ex- 

 periment. It was thought that when the principle was found the 

 work was done ; but the perfecting a chemical discovery into a 

 merchantable commodity has been found a troublesome and a tedious 

 work. It is therefore presumed that the legislature will distinguish 

 between the over-sanguine hopes, in point of time, of an invention 



