Reply To: Jamaica puddling

[Ray Powell]

On page 19 of
“Black metallurgists and the making of the industrial revolution” there is a misuse of a reference

The paper says:

“In 1784, as Cort’s second English patent was enrolled, politician and vocal supporter of
enslavement, John Baker Holroyd, declared ‘our knowledge of the Iron trade seems
hitherto to have been in its infancy’. In direct reference to the loss of the American war
and newly founded United States of America, he described the so-called ‘Cort process’ as
being ‘more advantageous to Britain than Thirteen Colonies’.208 Through Cort’s patent,
former colonies were to become markets for British manufactures and America’s revolution
to inaugurate a new paradigm for British extraction.209 Cort made the Holroyd
quotation the first testimonial of his promotional campaign material.210”

—
210. Cort, [1787], A Brief Statement of the Facts relative to the New Method of making Bar Iron
with Raw Pit Coal and Grooved Rollers, Appendix, 13.
—

The text of the referenced document can be found at
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=Mp1AU0YduvYC&pg=GBS.PP14&hl=ne
This is what the appendix says
‘
Extract from Lord SHEFFIELD’S “ Observations on the Commerce of the American States.”

IF Mr. Cort’s very ingenious and meritorious improvements in the art of making and working Iron,
and his invention of making bar Iron from pig Iron, either red short or cold short,
and the great improvements on the steam engines by Messrs. Watt and Bolton of Birmingham,
and Lord Dundonald’s discovery of making coke for the furnace, at half the present expence,—
should all succeed, as there is reason to think they will, the expence may be reduced so greatly,
that British Iron may be afforded as cheap as foreign,
even if the latter should be allowed to enter duty-free, perhaps cheaper,
and of as improved a quality, and in quantity equal to the demand.
It is not asserting too much to say, that event would be more advantageous to Britain than Thirteen Colonies.
It would give the complete command of the Iron trade to this country, with its vast advantages to navigation;
and our knowledge in the Iron trade seems hitherto to have been in its infancy.’

It is the success of all three improvements that “would be more advantageous to Britain than Thirteen Colonies. ” not just Cort’s alone.
John Holroyd became Lord Sheffield.