METHOD OF CONSTRUCTING AND MAKING SPECTACLES, WHICH I CONCEIVED WOULD BE OF GREAT PUBLICK UTILITY AND BENEFIT
Year: 1783

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, ADDISON
SMITH, of Richmond, in the County of Surry, Gentleman, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third, by His
Letters Patent under His Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at West-
minster, the Thirteenth day of March, in the twenty-third year of His reign,
did grant unto me, the said Addison Smith, my executors, administrators,
and assigns, His said Majesty's especial licence, full power, sole priviledge
and authority, that I, the said Addison Smith, my executors, administra-
tors, and assigns, and every of them, by myself and themselves, or by mine
and their deputy or deputies, servants or agents, or such others as I, the said
Addison Smith, my executors, administrators, 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 use,
exercise, and vend my new-invented "METHOD OF CONSTRUCTING AND MAKING
SPECTACLES, WHICH I CONCEIVED WOULD BE OF GREAT PUBLICK UTILITY AND BENEFIT,"
within that part of His Majesty's Kingdom of Great Britain called England,
His Dominion of Wales, and Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, in such manner
as to me, the said Addison Smith, my executors, administrators, and assigns, or
any of them, should in their discretion seem meet, and that I, the said
Addison Smith, my executors, administrators, and assigns, should and lawfully
might have and enjoy the whole profit, benefit, commodity, and advantage
from time to time coming, growing, accruing, and arising by reason of the
said Invention, for and during the term of years therein mentioned; in which

page_text: said Letters Patent is contained a proviso that if I, the said Addison
Smith, should not particularly describe and ascertain the nature of my
said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, by an
instrument in writing under my hand and seal, and cause the same to be
inrolled in His Majesty's. High Court of Chancery within four calendar
months next and immediately after the date thereof, that then the said
recited Letters Patent, and all advantages thereby granted, should utterly
cease, letermine, and become void.
NOW KNOW YE, that I,. the said Addison Smith, do hereby declare
that my said Invention is to be performed in mannner following, that is
to say:
What I understand or comprehend by the name and use of spectacles is,
an optical instrument of one or two sights made in various formed frames
fitted to the head or to the nose, or to hold in the hand, for the conveniency
of sight, and in general constructed in such a manner that, when applied to
the eyes, by means of the spherical figure of the glasses contained in the
frame of the instrument, is intended to give relief to the sight as an aid or
assistant for the decay, defficiency, or defect of vision in those eyes that are
in want of such assistance. Under such description I have constructed a mode
of spectacles by grinding, applying the glasses of them, which spectacles, in lieu
of applying and using a single spherical glass fitted to each cyc, as is now
practised in the present method of making spectacles, they are to be made by
applying and using two or more glasses fitted to each eye, formed concave and
convex figure or figures upon their different relative or respective surfaces,
and the glasses of such spectacles to be of the same or of different refractive
densities, and when applied, as spectacles to relieve the sight the glasses to act
either in contract or separate from each other, by which means, spectacles so
varied in construction, their utility as a public benefit may be rendred more
extensive by enabling me to give different sights as well as better relief to
defective vision in the same spectacles, properties that will be found peculiarly
advantageous by this mode of construction.
In witness whereof, I, the said Addison Smith, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Seventh day of July, in the twenty-third year of
the reign of our Sovereign Lord George the Third, by the grace of
God of Great Britain, France, and Ireland King, Defender of the
Faith, and so forth, and in the year of our Lord One thousand seven
hundred and eighty-three.

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBRED, that on the same Seventh day of July,
in the year above mentioned, the aforesaid Addison Smith 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 in the sixth year of the reign of their late
Majesties King William and Queen Mary of England, and so forth.
Inrolled the Seventh day of the same July, in the year above mentioned.