A NEW OR IMPROVED METHOD OF FIXING THE STRAPS OF AND TO SADDLES TO WHICH THE GIRTHS ARE USCALLY MADE FAST OR BUCKLE
Year: 1802

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, ROBERT
DICKINSON, of Long Acre, in the Parish of Saint Martin in the Fields, in the
County of Middlesex (proprietor of Gowland's Lotion), send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third did, by
His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Sixth day of February,
in the forty-second year of His reign, give and grant unto me, the said
Robert Dickinson, His especial licence that I, the said Robert Dickinson,
during the term of years therein mentioned, should and lawfully might make,
use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-
upon-Tweed, my Invention of "A NEW OR IMPROVED METHOD OF FIXING THE
STRAPS OF AND TO SADDLES TO WHICH THE GIRTHS ARE USCALLY MADE FAST OR
BUCKLE;" in which said Letters Patent there is contained a proviso obliging
me, the said Robert Dickinson, by an instrument in writing under my hand
and seal, to cause a particular description of the nature of my said Invention,
and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be inrolled in His
Majesty's High Court of Chancery within one calendar month after the date
of the said recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same (relation being
thereunto had) may more fully and at large appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Robert Dickinson, do hereby declare that my said Invention is described in
manner following (that is to say) :-
In the Drawings hereunto annexed the letters A, B, Figure 1, denote a
spring attached firmly by screws or rivets, or in any other sufficient and work-
manlike manner, to a plate of metal, which said plate is fixed to the bar of the
saddle-tree F, G, either on the upper or the under side, but the upper side is the
best. The letters C, D, represent a lever, moveable on a pin or centre H, fixed
in the same metallic plate, and the tail or extremity C of the said lever bears
against and compresses the said spring whenever the other extremity D is
drawn towards E by the strap D, E, which is fixed or attached thereto. The
small letters a, b, c, h, d, represent another spring of the same kind with its
lever and strap, and at e is seen one of the buckles of the girth. The other
buckle is fastened in the same manner at E, and there are two springs in
correspondent situations upon the opposite bar of the saddle tree to which the
straps are fixed or attached, for the purpose of fastening the other end of the
girth thereto. At M and m the plate is bended up, and presents an obstacle
to prevent the lever from being overdrawn; or otherwise the same purpose
may be answered by a pin or stud duly placed.
Figure 2 represents at m, n, another form and application of the spring
acting within the pin or fulcrum H, on the other side towards D. The letters
A, B, and a, b, represent the application of two springs to the same lever;
and it is obvious that the said springs may be varied in their figure and
position with regard to the lever in several other ways; and in case the
preference should be given by the manufacturer or consumer of saddles with
my said new Invention to a greater number than two of the said springs on
a side, the same must be fixed accordingly, as the purposes of utility or
convenience shall obviously require. And moreover, instead of separate plates,
I sometimes fix all the said springs and levers which belong to one side of
the saddle to one plate of sufficient size, in order that the whole sett of springs s
and levers on that side may be fixed together, and not separately or independant
of each other; and the said springs and levers may be boxed up or included
and covered so as to defend the same from external injury. And lastly, altho
the good and beneficial effects of the said method of fixing the straps of and to
saddles as aforesaid are in truth so evident as scarcely to require enumeration. 3.
I do nevertheless think proper to observe that by drawing the buckles of the
girth at E and e, with more or less force, the reaction of the said springs upon
the levers, and consequently upon the said straps, causes the girth to be applied
with any desired firmness or tension, at the same time that the elasticity of

page_text: the said springs affords a degree of ease and liberty for the horse to breathe
and perform his various movements with much less constraint and a greater
degree of comfort and ease than can be had when the girth is applied and
fixed in the usual manner.