CERTAIN VEGETABLES GROWING SPONTANEOUSLY IN HIS MAJESTY'S AMERICAN DOMINIONS, AND NEVER, AS I BELIEVE, USED FOR ANY ART, TRADE, OR MANUFACTURE, WITHIN GREAT BRITAIN, EXCEPT BY MYSELF AND THOSE EMPLOYED BY ME, ARE CAPABLE OF DYING, STAINING, PRINTING, PAINTING, OR OTHERWISE COMMUNICATING CERTAIN VALUABLE COLOURS IN, UPON, OR TO WOOL, HAIR FUB, SILK, HEMP, COTTON, LINEN, SKINS, LEATHER, PAPER, AND WOOD, AND TO THE SEVERAL PRODUCTIONS, MANUFACTURES, AND SUBSTANCES COMPOSED OF THE SAME, OR TO ANY ONE OR MORE OF THEM
Year: 1775

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, EDWARD
BANCROFT, of Downing Street, Westminster, Doctor in Physick, and Fellow
of the Royal Society, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third, did, by
His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at
Westminster, the Twenty-third day of October, in the fifteenth year of His
reign, give and grant unto me, the said Edward Bancroft, His especial
licence, full power, sole priviledge and authority, that I, the said Edward
Bancroft, during the term of years therein expressed, should and lawfully
might make, use, exercise, and vend, within that part of the Kingdom of
Great Britain called England, the Dominion of Wales, and Town of Berwick-
upon-Tweed, my discovery and Invention that "CERTAIN VEGETABLES GROWING
SPONTANEOUSLY IN HIS MAJESTY'S AMERICAN DOMINIONS, AND NEVER, AS I BELIEVE,
USED FOR ANY ART, TRADE, OR MANUFACTURE, WITHIN GREAT BRITAIN, EXCEPT BY
MYSELF AND THOSE EMPLOYED BY ME, ARE CAPABLE OF DYING, STAINING, PRINTING,
PAINTING, OR OTHERWISE COMMUNICATING CERTAIN VALUABLE COLOURS IN, UPON, OR TO
WOOL, HAIR, FUB, SILK, HEMP, COTTON, LINEN, SKINS, LEATHER, PAPER, AND WOOD,
AND TO THE SEVERAL PRODUCTIONS, MANUFACTURES, AND SUBSTANCES COMPOSED OF
THE SAME, OR TO ANY ONE OR MORE OF THEM;" in which said Letters Patent there
is contained a proviso, obliging me, the said Edward Bancroft, under my hand
,

page_text: and seal, to describe and. ascertain the nature of my said Invention, and in
what manner the same is to be performed, and to cause the same to be inrolled
in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within four months next after
the date of the said Letters Patent, as in and by the same, relation being
thereunto had, may more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in pursuance of and compliance with the said
proviso, I, the said Edward Bancroft, do hereby declare that the nature of
my said Invention or discovery, and the manner in which the same is to be
used, are therein-after-particularly described and, ascertained, that is to say:-
There are three articles or particulars meant to be included under the
description in the Patent, of "vegetables," viz: First, the bark, fruit, and
excressences of that species (with its several varieties of oak growing in North
America, which, in some of the British Colonies there, is known by the name
of yellow oak, and in others by the name of black oak; this species of oak
may be distinguished from all others the following peculiarities, viz:-The
bark of it, being infused in water with a little allum, affords a fine yellow
colour; and the same bark, infused in water, does not, like the English and
other oaks, strike a black colour upon the addition of iron or of copperas. The
bark of this species of oak, by the help of allum, or of allum and salt of lead,
applied either to the substance to be coloured, or to the infusion of the bark
itself, will give a lasting yellow colour to the several substances above enu-
merated; or, if a blue colour be previously given to these substances, the tingent
particles of this bark will render them green by the help of allum, or of allum
and salt of lead. The same bark infused in water, and saddened by the
addition of the preparations of iron or of copper, will communicate a variety
of browns, dark olive, and other colours.
3.1
of
Secondly, the bark and fruit of the American hiccory, or walnut tree,
which by the help of allom or of allum and verdigris, or of allum and salt
lead, communicates a yellow or a green colour to the substances particularly
mentioned in the Patent.
Thirdly, the bark of a tree growing on the continent and islands of America,
chiefly between the tropicks of Cancer and Capricorn, and in the English
West Indies, commonly called the red mangrove tree. It is described by
naturalists, and particularly by Casterby and Ray, as the mangle pyrifolij cum
siliquis longis ficui Indica affinis." The bark of this tree infused in water
by the addition of allum or other acid salts, or by the addition of alkaline or
of neutral salts, or by the addition of different preparations of iron, or copper,
or lead, will communicate to the different substances aforesaid a very great

page_text: variety of redish redish, brown, brick, light brown, dark brown, and nankeen
colours, with many other diversities of colour.
In witness whereof, I, the said Edward Bancroft, have hereunto set
my hand and seal, this Twenty-third day of February, in the sixteenth
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 seventy-six.
AND BE IT REMEMBRED, that on the same Twenty-third day of
February, in the year abovesaid, the aforesaid Edward Bancroft came before
our said Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Specification of
his Invention 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
the late King and Queen William and Mary, of England, and so forth..
Inrolled the day and year above written.