Alexandria Gazette & Daily Advertiser

ALEXANDRIA:
MONDAY, JUNE 7, 1819.

It is gratifying to us to perceive that the citizens of some parts of the union, get, every day, more and more into the habit of using coal. There are some places where the increased prices and scarcity of wood must induce the inhabitants to wish that the practice of burning coal had been adopted many years ago. Among the prejudices entertained against the use of this valuable fuel, there is, beside the dislike people have to changing their old habits, one which, if well founded, would, I own be decisive against it, and that is the insalubrity of their vapours, than which nothing can be more obviously groundless. Over-grown and over populous as London is, and replete with every circumstance that can tend to generate disease--such as close, narrow, crowded streets, swarms of paupers laboring under all the evils of disease, dirt and indigence-it scarcely yields to any town for healthfulness, though every creature in it constantly inhales the vapor of pit-coal. At one period of its history it used to be subject to the plague, and the most pestilent diseases, its long exemption from which has been ascribed to the introduction of sea coal. It is pleasing to have such strong grounds for recommending an important national benefit.

It is doubted whether the ancient Britons were acquainted with the properties and uses of this very valuable fossil. For a time, it escaped the knowledge of the Romans, but was afterwards in use among them. For some years immediately following the Norman conquest, a silence prevails concerning it; but in the reign of Henry 3d, the trade in it had a rapid progress. It is a fact worthy of observation, and rendered curious by the contrasted opinions which followed, that in the year 1306, the use of sea coal was, by proclamation, prohibited as a nuisance in London, it being thought to corrupt the air with its stink and smoke. Such a prejudice, however, could not be of long continuance; and this fuel was soon after introduced into the royal palace. It is singular, however, as appears from the household book of the fifth earl of Northumberland, dated in 1512, that in this nobleman's family, they had not yet learned to use it by itself, for this extraordinary reason, 'because colys will not tyrne withowte wodd.' At this time, the best coals were 5 shillings per chalder. Towards the latter end of this reign, an impost of one shilling (instead of two pence, which had been fixed in former times) was granted on every chaldron shipped in the port of Tyne, and to be used within the kingdom. In King James's reign, planting having been much neglected, and wood being very scarce, the burning of coal became general throughout the kingdom. In 1633 the price of a chaldron at Newcastle was nine shillings: and in the next year, Charles the Ist, solely by his own authority, imposed a duty of four shillings per chaldron on all coals exported to foreign ports. On other occasions, it appears that this prince granted exclusive rights to several persons, on the payment of certain customs, on which it may not be amiss here to remark that monopolies contributed very much, among other grievances, to hurt the interest of the unfortunate Charles, with the people of Great Britain. The granting of these in the coal trade appears to have composed no inconsiderable part of that monarch's political sins. Rushworth has preserved a curious letter from the King to the Marquis of Newcastle, written in figure cyphers, from Oxford, and dated 2nd Nov. 1643, concerning the procuring of arms from Holland, in exchange for coals.