IIAW-SILK. 



81 



Letter from 

 Board of Trade, 



^'o. 2. 



Letter from the Board of Trade to the Vice- 

 President in Coimcil, Bengal, dated the \st May 

 1827. (H.) 

 We have the honour to lay before your Excel- 

 lency in Council, copy of a correspondence which * ^""y ^^^"^ 

 has passed between our Board and Messrs. Alex- 

 ander and Co., agents for Messrs. Heathcoate 

 and Co. in England, patentees of a new reel in- 

 vented by them for the more perfect winding of 

 filature raw-silk. 



The terms originally demanded by Messrs. 

 Alexander and Co. on the part of the patentees, 

 for liberty to use the new reel at the Company's 

 filatures in Bengal, generally, during the space of 

 two years, were so extravagant as to be rejected 

 by us, although (as we informed those gentlemen) 

 the adoption of any new mode of winding filature 

 silk, by which its quality could be considerably 

 improved, and its selling price raised in England, 

 is an object extremely to be desired in times like 

 these, when the value of the article has experienced 

 so great a depression in that market.* 



Messrs. Alexander and Co. have now submitted 

 an amended proposition to the following effect 

 " That fifty reels be prepared on the patent plan 



" at 



* The loss on the June sale of 1826 was £30,850. 



G 



