PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION
REVERE, Paul (1735-1818), Boston patriot. Manuscript document signed ("Paul Revere," with flourish) and by his son Joseph Warren Revere ("Joseph W. Revere"), a petition to the Committee of Commerce & Manufactures, Boston, 10 December 1810. 3 full pages, 4to, page 4 with extensive endorsements. Fine condition.
Details
REVERE, Paul (1735-1818), Boston patriot. Manuscript document signed ("Paul Revere," with flourish) and by his son Joseph Warren Revere ("Joseph W. Revere"), a petition to the Committee of Commerce & Manufactures, Boston, 10 December 1810. 3 full pages, 4to, page 4 with extensive endorsements. Fine condition.
REVERE AND SON PETITION FOR PROTECTIVE TARIFFS,contending that "when the revenue laws regulating the duty on Copper was made, no vessels was sic] fastened or their bottoms sheathed with Copper neither was it then known that copper could be manufactured into a suitable state to fashion ships. That is has since become an article of immense amount in our imports." But the law ambiguously specifies "copper in plates, pigs & bars" carry no duty, while "copper manufactures" are assessed a duty of 17½ per cent. Both, Revere explains, "are fully manufactured and should be subject to the duty...."
The petitioners "having visited the copper mines in England, Wales & Sweden...have attained the knowledge of smelting copper ores," and "refining and manufacturing" of copper; at the request of the government, they have "erected Furnaces, Mills and other works" to produce "bolts, spikes, nails and sheathing." They assert that they "have manufactured in one year nearly 200,000 lbs of bolts." To protect them from imports, they urge that the government "cause the same duty to be collected from copper bolts and sheathing copper as from other copper manufactures."
Initially trained as a silversmith, Revere established the first successful copper rolling-mill in the U.S.: "In their first three years of operation, Paul Revere and Son manufactured...copper sheathing for the dome of the Bulfinch State House, produced all the copper for the overhaul of the U.S.S. Constitution, and provided copper nails, bolts, spikes and sheet copper for the United States Navy, shipbuilders and merchants" (Triber, A True Republican, p.183).
REVERE AND SON PETITION FOR PROTECTIVE TARIFFS,contending that "when the revenue laws regulating the duty on Copper was made, no vessels was sic] fastened or their bottoms sheathed with Copper neither was it then known that copper could be manufactured into a suitable state to fashion ships. That is has since become an article of immense amount in our imports." But the law ambiguously specifies "copper in plates, pigs & bars" carry no duty, while "copper manufactures" are assessed a duty of 17½ per cent. Both, Revere explains, "are fully manufactured and should be subject to the duty...."
The petitioners "having visited the copper mines in England, Wales & Sweden...have attained the knowledge of smelting copper ores," and "refining and manufacturing" of copper; at the request of the government, they have "erected Furnaces, Mills and other works" to produce "bolts, spikes, nails and sheathing." They assert that they "have manufactured in one year nearly 200,000 lbs of bolts." To protect them from imports, they urge that the government "cause the same duty to be collected from copper bolts and sheathing copper as from other copper manufactures."
Initially trained as a silversmith, Revere established the first successful copper rolling-mill in the U.S.: "In their first three years of operation, Paul Revere and Son manufactured...copper sheathing for the dome of the Bulfinch State House, produced all the copper for the overhaul of the U.S.S. Constitution, and provided copper nails, bolts, spikes and sheet copper for the United States Navy, shipbuilders and merchants" (Triber, A True Republican, p.183).