A CERTAIN IMPROVEMENT IN SPRINGS, APPLICABLE TO VARIOUS DESCRIPTIONS OF CARRIAGES
Year: 1821

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, we, ROBERT.
PAUL, of Steveston, in the County of Norfolk, Gentleman, and SAMUEL HART,.
of Redenhall with Harleston, in the same County, Painter and Gig Maker,
send greeting.
WHEREAS His present Majesty King George the Fourth, in and by His.
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at West-
minster, the Seventeenth day of May now last past, for Himself, His heirs
and successors, did give and grant unto us, the said Robert Paul and Samuel
Hart, our exors, admors, and assigns, His special licence, full power, sole
privilege and authority, that we, the said Robert Paul and Samuel Hart,
our exors, admors, and assigns, and every of them, by ourselves and them-
selves, or by our and their deputy or deputies, servants or agents, or such
others as we, the said Robert Paul and Samuel Hart, our exors, adñiors, or
assigns, should at any time agree with, and no others, from time to time and
at all times thereafter, during the term of years therein expressed, should and
lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within that part of His said
Majesty's United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland called England, His.
Dominion of Wales, and Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, our Invention of
"A CERTAIN IMPROVEMENT IN SPRINGS, APPLICABLE TO VARIOUS DESCRIPTIONS OF
CARRIAGES;" in which said Letters Patent there is contained a proviso obliging
us, the said Robert Paul and Samuel Hart, by an instrument in writing
under our hands and seals, or under the hand and seal of one of us, parti-.
cularly to describe and ascertain the nature of our said Invention, and in
what manner the same is to be performed, and to cause the same to be
enrolled in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within six calendar
months next and immediately after the date of the said recited Letters
Patent, as in and by the same, reference being thereto had, will more
fully appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, we, the said
Robert Paul and Samuel, Hart, do hereby describe and ascertain the nature
of our said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, by
the Plans or Drawings in the margin of these Presents, and the following
description thereof (that is to say):-
The said Invention consists in several layers or plates of lance or other
elastic wood being applied in the manner herein-after mentioned in the
construction of springs applicable to various descriptions of carriages. The
springs may be constructed with two or more plates, (but usually with four,
five, or six,) according to the length of the spring and the strength required,
each plate in succession from the lowest exceeding the other in length. Stops
are affixed to the lower side of each plate (excepting the under one), which
are made to fit into corresponding stop holes about two inches from the end of
each succeeding or inferior plate. All the plates with the block which
supports them are confined and affixed together by a staple of iron or other
suitable material, through which, as well as through the center of the plates,
a small screw bolt is driven, or they may be confined and affixed together with
two iron clasps near the center, and the screw bolt driven through the center
of the plates between the clasps; but this mode is more adapted for the
crossed or reversed spring herein-after mentioned. Iron caps are fixed on at
each end of the upper plate, in order to fasten the springs to the scroll irons.
The springs may also be reserved, as is usual in the cross spring of what is
called the Dennet gig; but in that case the stop holes are not pierced quite
through the wood, in order that the wet may be excluded. And in order to
harden the surface of the plates, and to preserve the same from wet, as well as
to prevent the effects of friction, a composition of mastic varnish and black
lead is usually applied in the liquid state, with a brush, to each piece where it
comes in contact with any other piece, and when dry the same is rubbed with
a lead weight or some other hard substance, after which another composition
of soap, black lead, and oil is applied with a brush; but any other composition
or substance of a similar nature to the above compositions respectively may
be used in lieu of those compositions or either of them respectively, or the
springs may be used without any such compositions or substances or either
or any of them.
.
In witness whereof, we have hereunto set our hands and seals, the Four-
teenth day of November, in the year of our Lord One thousand eight
hundred and twenty-one.

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Fourteenth day of November,
in the year of our Lord 1821, the aforesaid Robert Paul and Samuel Hart
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 Statute made for that purpose