MAKING OR MANUFACTORING COAT, BREAST, SLEEVE, VEST, AND OTHER BUTTONS, JAPANNED, WITH OR WITHOUT SHANKS OR CATGUTT, OR SET IN CUPS OR SOCKETS OF VARIOUS METALS
Year: 1778

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, HENRY
CLAY, of Birmingham, in the County of Warwick, Japanner, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third, by His
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date the Fifth
day of February, in the eighteenth year of His reign, did give and grant unto
me, the said Henry Clay, His special licence that I, the said Henry Clay,
during the term of years therein expressed, should and lawfully might make,
use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and Town of Berwick-upon-
Tweed, my Invention of "MAKING OR MANUFACTORING COAT, BREAST, SLEEVE,
VEST, AND OTHER BUTTONS, JAPANNED, WITH OR WITHOUT SHANKS OR CATGUTT, OR
SET IN CUPS OR SOCKETS OF VARIOUS METALS;" in which said Letters Patent
there is contained a proviso obliging me, the said Henry Clay, under my
hand and seal, to cause a particular description of the nature of my said
Inventions, and in what manner the same are to be performed, to be inrolled.
in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within four calendar months next
and immediately after the date of the said recited Letters Patent, as in and
by the same, relation being thereunto had, may more fully and at large
annoar

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Henry Clay, do hereby declare that my said Inventions of making paper
buttons, japanned, are by pasting several papers upon boards or plates of
regular thicknesses, on each side the same, to prevent one side counteracting
or drawing with superior force to the other in the state of drying; and when
the same plates are rendered sufficiently strong, for the purpose of buttons,
then the same are planed or cutt off at the edges. Pieces of paper are after-
wards screwed or fastned on boards or plates, and put into a stove sufficiently
hot to deprive them of their flexibility, and-at-the-same time are rubbed over
or dipped in oil or varnish, which so immediately, drenches into them as to
secure them from damps or injury. After the plates of paper are thus made,
they are cut into round, oval, or other bitts with a common piercing press or
other machine. There is then a hole drilled in the center to admit a shank of
metal, which shank is put through the bitt of paper, and returned on the other
side, so that the shank and paper are fyled and levelled together, and another
bitt of the same paper is glewed or fastned on the top side of the button, and
when it is dry it is put into a turning lathe, and brought into the form of
a button by turning it off on both sides, and leaving the shank made fast in
the center of the button; or for some of these paper japanned buttons the
shanks are fixed through one of these bitts of paper the contrary way, leaving
a head to the shank of metal to preserve its sliping through, which said head
of mettal, may be covered with japan or finished in ornament. The buttons
are afterwards coated with -japan till the surface is even, and are then orna-
mented with, painting, gilding, and so forth, or inlarged, with pearl, stones,
mettal; and various other ornaments. If they are intended for setting in mettal.
or other cups, the aforesaid plates or pieces of paper, after being finished, in
the japanning, are, then cut out with a press, or machine in pieces, and then
set in the cups with metal, cattgut, or other shanks.
.
In witness whereof, I, the said Henry Clay, have hereunto set my. hand
and seal, the Thirtieth day of May, One thousand seven hundred and
seventy-eight.

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Thirtieth day of May, in the
year of our Lord 1778, the aforesaid Henry Clay came before our said Lord
the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Specification aforesaid, and
all and every thing therein contained and specified, in form above written.
And also the Specification aforesaid was stampt according to the tenor of the
Statutes made in the sixth year of the reign of the late King and Queen W™
and Mary of England, and so forth, and in the seventeenth year of the reign
of His Majesty King George the Third.
Inrolled the Second day of June, in the year of our Lord One thousand
seven hundred and seventy-eight.