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[Page 3]
the subject seeming to me at this time of considerable importance, I have taken some pains to have the matter ascertaind by experiment carefully made, & with such able assistance as puts this question I think out of all doubt.
Inclosd I send your Lordship the result of this investigation, from which it appears that at the present Market price of these Commodities, the Salt Petre made by this process from the Pot Ash & common Aqua Fortis or Nitrous Acid of the shops will not exceed the ordinary price of Salt Petre above 3 pence pr. pound or about twenty five Shillings pr. hundred wt. at a time when the French are actually paying from 10 to 15 pounds for Salt Petre: & by accounts from France are said to have greatly exhausted their resources for the fabrick of it. Your Lordship will also observe that the Pot ash usd in this experiment was very foul as in the proportion specified in the Report inclosd & the Nitrous Acid employd had 1/5 water:
How far the prohibiting the Exprt of Aqua fortis or the Nitrous Acid under these circumstances may be thought advisable, your Lordship & his M's Ministers will best judge; but seeming an article of such interest in the present Moment, I thought it of consequence to have the State of it rightly understood; & from that Motive flatter myself you will think me pardonable in the trouble I have given you.
I am my Lord with the greatest esteem
Your Lord.ps most humble
& obed.t Servant
H. S. Conway.
R.H. Ld Hawkesbury