MAKING SMALL SHOT SOLID THROUGH- OUT, PERFECTLY GLOBULAR IN FORM, AND WITHOUT THE DIMPLES, SCRATCHES,
Year: 1782

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, .I.,
WILLIAM WATTS, of the City of Bristol, Plumber and Shott Maker,
send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third,
by His Royal Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain.
bearing date at Westminster, the Tenth day of December last, upon
the petition of me, the said William Watts, did give and grant unto
me, the said William Watts, my executors, administrators, and assigns,
His especial licence, full power, and sole privilege and authority, that
I, the said William Watts, my executors, administrators, and assigns,
and every of them, by myself and themselves, or by my and their
deputy and deputies, servants or agents, or such others as I, the said
William Watts, my executors, administrators, or assigns, should 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 Kingdom of
Great Britain called England, Dominion of Wales, and Town of Ber-
wick upon Tweed, an Invention of "MAKING SMALL SHOT SOLID THROUGH-
OUT, PERFECTLY GLOBULAR IN FORM, AND WITHOUT THE DIMPLES, SCRATCHES,

page_text: AND IMPERFECTIONS WHICH OTHER SHOT THENTOFORE MANUFACTURED USUALLY
HAD ON THEIR SURFACE," in such manner as to me, the said William
Watts, my executors, administrators, and assigns, or any of them,
should in his or their discretions deem meet, and that 1, the said
William Watts, my exccutors, administrators, and assigns, should
and lawfully might have and enjoy the whole profit, benefit, com-
modity, 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; and it is by the said in part recited
Letters Patent (amongst other provisoes therein) declared and provided,
that if I, the said William Watts, shall 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 of the said in part recited Letters Patent, that then the
said Letters Patent, and all liberties and advantages whatsoever thereby
granted, should utterly cease, letermine, and become void, as in and
by the said Letters Patent (relation being thereunto had) may more
fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the
said William Watts, do hereby declare that my said Invention of
making small shot solid throughout, perfectly globular in form, and
without the dimples, scratches, and imperfections which other shot
heretofore manufactured usually have on their surface, is performed in
the manner following (that is to say):
Take twenty hundred weight of soft pig lead (more or less, according
to the quantity of slag or poisoned lead intended to be made); melt it
in an iron pot; then take about a peck of coal ashes or dirt, strew the
same round the edge of the pot upon the surface of the metal, leaving
the middle of the metal naked; put in upon the metal which is un-
covered with the ashes or dirt about forty pounds weight of white or
yellow arsenic; then cover the pot with an iron cover and close the
edges of the cover all round the pot with mortar, clay, or dirt, to pre-
vent the arsenic from evaporating; keep a good fire under the pot for

page_text: three or four hours, so as to have the lead red hot, that the arsenic
may be mixed with the lead and the lead thereby be fully poisoned; then
take off the cover and skim the metal; then ladle it off into moulds or
sand to cool in bars or ingots, and which, when cool, is called slag or
poisoned lead; then take another twenty hundred weight of soft pig
lead (more or less, according to the quantity of shot intended to be
made); melt the same in an iron pot; then take about three quarters of
an hundred weight of scum from clean pig lead, put it into the pot, and
let the same melt; when melted, put in one of the bars or ingots of
the slag or poisoned lead, and, when melted, with a small ladle take
some of the metal out of the pot and drop it in water from the height
of about two inches; if the shot be not round, put in more of the slag
or poisoned lead till you find it drops round; then skim the metal and
put the scum into an iron or copper frame full of holes, according to
the size of the shot intended to be made; squeeze the scum while soft
in the frame with the ladle with which it was taken out of the pot;
then take the metal out of the pot and pour it into the frame over the
surface of the scum, and let it drop through the frame into water; if
for the smallest shot, the frame must be at least ten feet above the
water, and for the largest shot about one hundred and fifty feet or more
above the water, and so in proportion, according to the size of the shot
intended to be made.
In witness whereof, 1, the said William Watts, have hereunto set
my hand and seal, this Twenty-second day of March, 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, &c., and in the year of
our Lord One thousand seven hundred and eighty-three.
0
W (L.B.) WATTS.
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the same Twenty-second day
of March, in the year above mentioned, the aforesaid William Watts
came before our said Lord the King, in His Chancery, and acknow-
ledged the Specification aforesaid, and all and every thing therein

page_text: contained and specified, in form above written. And also the Speci-
cation aforesaid was stampt according to the tenor of the Statute maile
in the sixth year of the reign of their late Majesties King William and
forth
contained and specified, in form above written. And also the Speci-
cation 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 Twenty-eighth day of the same March, in the year
above mentioned.