BY 1800 BINNY AND RONALDSON WERE DOING rather well for themselves financially. It was
only four years before that James Ronaldson, deciding not to rebuild his fire-gutted
bakery, had become the partner of Archibald Binny, just arrived from Edinburgh equipped
with the skill and tools of type founding. The two men formed an excellent combination:
one the business man, the other the craftsman, and both were canny Scots. After a short
period of partnership they absorbed the New York foundry of Adam Mappa and later
expanded their own shop in Philadelphia. At the turn of the nineteenth century they
owned the only foundry in the United States casting English letters.
But like most of the other manufacturers of this period, they constantly faced the
problem of maintaining an adequate supply of raw materials. Although some of these could
be procured in America, many others had to be imported, so Congress, attempting to
encourage native manufacturing, admitted a number of items duty free. Importation,
however, was a time-consuming process and an expensive one; if, like antimony, the
material did not appear on the free list, the duty to be paid was large. When Binny and
Ronaldson received approximately three tons in 1800, they were charged the sum of
$161.54 as duty. The partners paid the bill, but not without protest. On January
8, 1802, this petition[1] was
read in the House of Representatives:
To the Honourable the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States
The Petition of Binny & Ronaldson Letter Founders in Philadelphia
Respectfully Sheweth
That your Petitioners have established the Manufacture of Printing Types in
Philadelphia, in the prosecution of which they have had many obstacles to encounter,
which by industry, attention, and œconomy, they have hitherto
surmounted—That the high price of the Metals of which their Types are composed,
together with the difficulty of procuring some of them, particularly Regulus of
Antimony, is a considerable bar to the success of their establishment —That
after many unsuccessful endeavours to procure Regulus, or Antimony from which it might
be extracted, in this Country, they have been obliged to send to Europe for it, and
with much difficulty and after long delay they succeeded in procuring a quantity of it
in London at a very high price, which for the sake of greater security they directed
to be shipped in two different vessels, and it was accordingly sent out on board the
Susanna and the Pennsylvania, who both arrived in the Delaware in October
1800—That Regulus of Antimony being a new material, not to be procured in this
Country and imported for the express purpose of being Manufactured here, they did not
expect any duty would have been charged upon its importation, and therefore applied to
the Collector of this Port who informed them that he had no power to remit the
Duties—That they then applied to Oliver Wolcott Esqr.
Secretary of the Treasury who answered them as follows
Treasury Department Novr. 13. 1800
Gentlemen
I have received yours of the 18.th October 1800, and feel every
disposition to oblige you and to encourage the business which you have undertaken as
far as I am authorized by Law, and am sorry that in the present instance it will not
permit a compliance with your request, it not being in my power to remit Duties
expressly imposed by Act of Congress.
I am
with consideration
Gentlemen
Messrs. Binny
&Ronaldson Philadelphia}
Your obt. Sert.
Oliver Wolcott
That your Petitioner feel themselves constrained to apply to Congress for relief in
the present instance, which from your Justice and laudable inclination to encourage
the rising Manufactures of the United States, they have the fullest confidence of
obtaining, when it is recollected that all other articles of a similar nature, as far
as they were understood at the time of enumerating the Duties, have been expressly
exempted, such as Tin, Pewter, Copper, Brass-wire
&
c.—and Regulus of Antimony would doubtless have also been
exempted had it been adverted to, or its uses been known in the Country at that
time—That as Regulus of Antimony may be advantageously used in several other
branches of Manufacture, and is applicable to no other purpose, your Petitioners
submit to this Honourable Body the propriety of remitting the Duties in the present
instance and exempting the articles in future, in which case the loss to the Revenue
would be trifling indeed and the encouragement to several useful branches of
Manufacture very considerable.
The amount of the Duties prayed to be remitted are as follows
| Cwt. qrs. lb. |
| 36 . . 0 . . 0. |
Imported in the Susanna----------------- |
$102.48 |
| 20 . . 1 . .22. |
D°. in the Pennsylvania---------------- |
59.06 |
|
|
------- |
|
|
$161.54 |
May it therefore please your Honours to remit the Duties in the above instance, and
to exempt Regulus of Antimony from Duty in future, or to grant such other relief in
the premises as to your wisdom may seem proper
Archd. Binny
James Ronaldson.
Such a petition was not unusual and the House referred it, along with others, to the
Committee of Commerce and Manufactures. The Committee must have studied these petitions
very carefully for on February 10, 1802, it submitted a detailed report recommending
various changes in the tariff. The Committee stated that
such manufactures as are
obviously capable of affording to the United States an adequate supply of their
several and respective objects, ought to be promoted by the aid of Government. Two
modes of administering this aid have presented themselves to your committee: The one,
to permit, free of duty, the importation of such gross articles as are essential to
those manufactures. The other, to impose higher duties on such articles (on
importation) as can be supplied by our own citizens to advantage.
[2]
And in this vein it
recommended that the duty on regulus of antimony be lifted and that the duty on imported
printing types be twenty per cent
ad valorem—an increase of
seven and a half per cent.
The news might well have remained buried in the list of proposed duties on such items
as fur hats, glue, tarred cordage, pickled fish, and dried fish. But to one journalist,
William Duane, publisher of the Philadelphia Aurora, who was in
Washington hoping to get the government contract for printing and stationery, this was
exciting information. In fact, it is probably true that the duty on type was increased
at his suggestion. In 1800 he had married Margaret Bache, widow of Benjamin Franklin
Bache, the owner of the Aurora as well as of the type founding
materials which Benjamin Franklin had brought from France in 1786. Thus Duane could
appreciate the possibilities of establishing a lucrative type foundry once imported
types were priced prohibitively high. He proceeded immediately to notify the Aurora. Five days later, it printed the following:
From the Editor.
Washington, February 10, 1802.
The duty on Antimony is
taken off.
A duty on foreign types of 20 per cent. laid on.
[3]
This laconic communication set off a chain reaction which was felt in six cities. A
narrative of the effects in chronological order would be confusing even if more
scientific. Instead, they will be described city by city.
