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“To the manufacturers of Birmingham, in answer to an Inhabitant.” (Press-copy of an original in an unidentified hand.)
To the Manufacturers of Birmingham and its Neighbourhood.
Gentlemen
One who signs himself “an Inhabitant of Birmingham” having printed & published some wild Ideas and still wilder falsehoods that will probably create Jealousies and dissensions between the Manufacturers and Owners of Copper: Permit me to state the truth in a few plain facts.
He calls upon you to recollect “What you have suffered from the fluctuation in the price of Copper” and “what you now feel from its present high price.” I will also crave your cool attention to the same objects.
If you will examine the prices of Copper during that state of fluctuation you will need no Assertion of mine to prove that the present price is not so high as the average—for upon referring to the last Thirty Years you will find that average was abot £90 Pr Ton—the price now is £84 Pr Ton.
He afterwards roundly asserts, that you will find English Copper sold in foreign Markets for £14 Pr Ton less than it is sold for in Birmingham.
This bold & ridiculous falsehood, Gentlemen, scarce merits Notice, otherwise than as it may mislead many who have not opportunity or time for enquiry. I therefore directly and unequivocally contradict it—There is no difference of price but what the common chance of Markets will sometimes cause. And allow me to point out to you, that if if were sold in foreign Markets so much under your price, or even at a sixt part of his asserted difference—You might import the same Copper duty free from any Port in Europe at Forty Shillings Pr Ton and thus by one simple and obvious measure defeat the view & overturn the fabric of this tremendous “Combination” as your Addresser calls it.
But Gentlemen, he doth not or will not see the great ends of the wise & salutory System now established in the Copper Trade—It is founded for the express purpose of keeping the Cornish Copper Mines open, & for the permanent supply and establishment of the Copper Manufactures and consequently for the general good.
Consider what would have been the consequence of shutting up the Cornish Mines.
Under the uncertainty which all Mines are subject to there would not in a few years probably be sufficient quantities of Copper raised for your Manufactures. The scarcity would inevitably raise the value and prove fatal to some of the extensive and important concerns of your Country.
On the other hand those Mines being, by the present Measures preserved, There will be Copper “produced within the Kingdom” (to use your Addressers words) not only to “Supply present demands” but for the future use and Support of your Manufactures. And it surely behoves the great and enlightened Body of Birmingham Manufacturers to regard future consequences and transmit the extensive Commerce they have raised to their posterity.
Your addresser has lugged in the respectable Character of Mr P— to add to his misrepresentations.
Mr P— was not only a worthy but a very sensible Man who well knew your interests.
He was one of the first Associates, . . . principal partner in the contracting smelting Companies, gave his Assent, Support, & Name to the present System, & even accepted a responsible Office in the arrangement.
Invidious abuse I leave to the Addresser, tho’ he has thought fit to introduce with most unwarrantable insinuation an Individual who is best intitled to your Esteem for his public Spirit and Manly Conduct in the Copper Trade. I call upon the Birmingham Mel. . . Company to rescue that Gentlemen from the malevolent Attack: and to say—Whether they have not experienced his particular friends[hip,] Whether they do not owe their Success to his support at their outset and for some years afterwards? without which they more than once acknowledged themselves unable to go on. And yet I doubt whether they made him a grateful return.
Other persons being also traduced by your Addresser “as pretended friends to the Town of Birmingham” I cannot conclude without remarking his upon the first Characters among you and whom you know to be above the reach of anonymous malevolence. But these pretended friends cannot wish for better testimony than having their own Sentiments and their very words quoted at large by an Addresser who presumes to rest the Credit of his Ideas upon the judiciousness of their observations as they were recorded in the Chamber of Manufacturers of Great Britain. I am Gentlemen
Your Real Friend
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