Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 3
To the honorable the Council and House of Representatives of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, The Congress at their last session Considering the importance to American Liberty that all necessarys of life & defence should be produced by the inhabitants of the united Colonies, among other things directed an enquiry to be made of the most practicable method of making salt: as I have the honour to be of that Committee I applied some attention to it, and having mett with a learned treatise of Dr. Brownrigg on the subject1 I extracted the practical part of it, & adding a few observations I caused it to be inserted in the Pensylvania Magazine2 195& a number of Copies to be detached, & have sent them to all the Colonies as far as Georgia: and I now do my Self the honour to inclose some of them to your Consideration to be disposed of as in your wisdom may seem best.
I can but think there are many parts of our Colony where these works may be profitably erected, in the southern parts more especially.
It must afford great happiness to every Lover of the American united Colonies to defeat the cruel designs of their Enemies in any respect, & it will gratify me to have attempted it, tho unfortunately it should not succeed.
Hoping success to this & every undertaking to promote the welfare of our Colony I Subscribe my Self your Honours most Obedient Servant,3
William Brownrigg (1711–1800), The Art of Making Common Salt, as Now Practiced in Most Parts of the World: With Several Improvements Proposed in that Art, for the Use of the British Dominions (London, 1748).
Pennsylvania Magazine: or American Monthly Museum, March 1776, p. 128–133.
The following alternative ending to this letter was excised in a draft copy at the MHS: “Hoping the supreme Ruler will ere long establish us in the possession of that Liberty Civil and religious for which our wise and pious forefathers began a new Settlement in this Wilderness I Subscribe with great Respect yr. Honours most Obedient hble. Servt.”
The Massachusetts Council received and read this letter, accompanied by 12 pamphlets, on Apr. 26, 1776. It resolved to encourage the manufacture of salt in the seaport towns as well as to print and send 150 pamphlets to those towns (Journal of the House of Representatives, 51, pt. 3:188–189, 194–195).