Among the English, who formerly had a monopoly of the tin trade, and who still possess the best and richest tin mines, the introduction of this art of employing their native production did not at first succeed; and this circumstance afforded Becher a subject for raillery[546]. But about the year 1670, a company sent to Saxony, at their expense, an ingenious man named Andrew Yarranton, in order to learn the process of tinning. Having acquired there the necessary knowledge, he returned to England with some German workmen, and manufactured tin-plate, which met with general approbation. Before the company, however, could carry on business on an extensive scale, a man of some distinction, having made himself acquainted with Yarranton’s process, obtained a patent for this art; and the first undertakers were obliged to give up their enterprise, which had cost them a great deal of money, and yet no use was made of the patent which had been obtained[547]. About the year 1720, which, on account of the many new schemes and the deceptive trade carried on in consequence of them, will ever be memorable in the history of English folly, among the many _bubbles_, as they were then called, was an establishment for making tin-plate; and this was one of the few speculations of that period which were attended with advantage. The first manufactory of this kind was established in Monmouthshire, perhaps at the village of Pontypool, where tin-plate was at any rate made so early as 1730[548]. In France, the first experiment to introduce this branch of manufacture was made under Colbert, who procured workmen, some of whom were established at Chenesey, in Franche-Comté, and others at Beaumont-la-Ferriere in the Nivernois. But the want of skill and proper support rendered this expensive undertaking fruitless. Some manufactories, however, were brought to be productive in the last century; the oldest of which was established at Mansvaux in Alsace, in the year 1726. This was followed, in 1733, by another at Bain in Lorraine, which obtained its privilege from Duke Francis III., and this was confirmed by Stanislaus in 1745[549]. That tin, in modern times, has been brought from the East Indies to Europe is well-known; but I have never been so fortunate as to discover when this trade began. It is, however, known, that at the commencement of the sixteenth century a good deal of information had been obtained in Europe in regard to East Indian tin. Louis Barthema, who was then in India, speaks of Malacca tin[550], as does also F. Mendez Pinto, who was there in 1537, and Odoard Barbosa mentions that which was carried from Caranguor to Malacca. Barbosa wrote in 1516[551]. Munster, Mercator, and other old geographers relate, that before the establishment of the Portuguese dominion in India, large tin coins were in circulation in the island of Sumatra.