WEDGWOOD'S REPLY TO CHAMPION. 243 



which, however, has at length succeeded, and those visionary pro- 

 jects which deceive for ever. Upon the whole, Mr. Champion 

 humbly rests his pretensions to the protection of the legislature 

 upon three grounds that he has been almost from the beginning 

 concerned in the work which has cost so much labour and expense ; 

 that he now allows the inventor a certain and increasing recom- 

 pense, though the carrying that invention to an actual merchantable 

 manufacture was entirely his own work ; that the potteries of china- 

 ware in most other countries in Europe have been at the charge of 

 sovereign princes. It has been immediately so in Prance, Austria, 

 Dresden, and Brandenburgh ; in Italy they have been under the 

 care of great noblemen. In this original work, Mr. Champion 

 claims the principal share of supporting, improving, and carrying 

 into execution a manufacture so much admired in China and Japan, 

 and now first attempted in Britain, in capacity of resisting the 

 greatest heat, equal to the Asiatic and Dresden." 



Josiah Wedgwood answered this " Reply" of Champion's 

 by a paper of Remarks.* In these he said: 



"It would be very unbecoming in Mr. Wedgwood to take up 

 much of the valuable time of the honourable members of the House 

 of Commons, who may be pleased to attend to the subject of his 

 Memorial, in remarking upon several reflections that Mr. Champion 

 has thrown out, which do not at all affect the merit of the question. 

 But it is necessary to observe that Mr. Wedgwood has all his life 

 been concerned in the manufacture and improvement of various 

 branches of pottery and porcelain ; that he has long had an ambi- 

 tion to carry these manufactures to the highest pitch of perfection 

 they will admit of; and that so far from having any personal 

 interest in opposing Mr. Champion, it would evidently have been 

 his interest to have accepted of some of the obliging proposals that 

 have been made to him by Mr. Champion and his friends, and to 

 have said nothing more upon the subject ; but Mr. Wedgwood is so 

 fully convinced of the great injury that would be done to the landed, 

 manufacturing, and commercial interests of this nation by extending 

 the term of Mr. Champion's monopoly of raw materials, of which 

 there are immense quantities in the kingdom, and confining the use 

 of them to one or a few hands, that he thought it a duty of moral 

 obligation to take the sense of his neighbours upon the subject, and 



* " Kemarks upon Mr. Champion's Reply to Mr. Wedgwood's 

 Memorial on behalf of himself and the Potters in Staffordshire." 



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