AN IMPROVED METHOD OF MAKING MARINE AND DOMESTIC HARD AND SOFT SOAP
Year: 1815

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I,. BENJAMIN
STEVENS, of Number 42, in Judd. Street, Saint Pancras, in the County of
Middlesex, Gentleman, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third, by His
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at West-
minster, the Third day of June, in the fifty-fifth year of His reign, did, for
Himself, His heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said Benjamin
Stevens, my exors, adñiors, and assigns, His special licence, that I, the said
Benjamin Stevens, my exors, admors, and assigns, or such others as I, the said
Benjamin Stevens, my exors, admors, or assigns, should at any time agree
with, and no others, from time to time and at all times during the term of
years therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and
vend, my Invention of "AN IMPROVED METHOD OF MAKING MARINE AND DOMESTIC
HARD AND SOFT SOAP," within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-.
upon-Tweed, and also in all the Colonies and Plantations of His said Majesty
abroad; in which said Letters Patent there is contained a proviso obliging
me, the said Benjamin Stevens, by an instrument in writing under my hand
and seal, particularly to describe and ascertain the nature of my said Inven-
tion, 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 six calendar
months next and immediately after. the date of the said recited Letters Patent,
as in and by the same, reference being thereunto had, will more fully and at
large appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Benjamin Stevens, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention,
and the manner in which the same is to be performed, is described and
ascertained in the following explanation thereof, that is to say :-
I I prepare soap, in the first instance, in the ordinary manner of soap making;
I then turn over the soap, when perfectly made, into coppers, having
double bottoms and double sides, the intermediate spaces between such
double bottoms and double sides being filled with water, by which means
the heat applied to the soap so turned over into them is more steady, and is
not liable to burn the soap during the boiling of the soap. In the first instance
I prepare a ley from equal parts of potash or pearlash, soda, and alum; that
is to say, taking, to prepare the said ley, one hundredweight of each, and half
a hundredweight of lime made from oyster shells; I then incorporate this ley
by degrees with the soap in the before-mentioned coppers, keeping the said
soap and ley continually stirred until the marine powers are produced by the
perfect amalgamation of the soap and the ley. The quantity of the component
parts of the ley, however, varies so much from the various strengths of the
ingredients of the.ley (which even render it necessary to add to one or two of
them at times), that it is only from experience that the quantity of them
cán be with great exactness ascertained.
In witness whereof, I, the said Benjamin Stevens, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, the First day of December, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and fifteen.