In the year 1770 china-works were in operation in Philadelphia. They were established by Gousse Bonnin and George Anthony Morris. On December 20, 1769, an advertisement was printed in a Philadelphia newspaper, which read thus: “New China Works. Notwithstanding the various difficulties and disadvantages which usually attend the introduction of any important manufacture into a new country, the proprietors of the China Works now erecting in Southwark have the pleasure to acquaint the public that they have proved to a certainty that the clays of America are as productive of good Porcelain as any heretofore manufactured at the famous factory in Bow, near London.” Later Messrs. Bonnin and Morris advertised for “broken flint-glass and whole flint-stone,” and also for “shank-bones” to be delivered at the china factory in Southwark. In April, 1772, they advertised for “several apprentices to the painting branch,” and encouragement was offered to “china painters either in blue or enamel,” which latter notice shows that their china products were decorated. They also offered a reward for the production of _zaffre_, a compound of cobalt. This china venture failed, the real estate of the company was sold, and the proprietors returned to England asking public attention and charity for their poor workmen. Thus forlornly ended the first porcelain factory in America; and thus tamely subsided the rivalry between English and American china materials. When we consider the vast natural resources in America for the china-maker to draw from—the inexhaustible supply of raw materials—the unlimited beds of rich kaolin, the vast stores of pipe, potter’s, ball, and fire clay—the endless mines of quartz and felspar, the tinted earths of Alabama, the colored kaolin of Illinois, the mines of lithomarge in Tennessee—to say nothing of the boundless wealth of supplies in the far West—it seems to us that America was very slow—indeed is still very slow in taking advantage of the hints given by Cookworthy, by Champion, and by Wedgwood in the eighteenth century. This quickly-ended china factory of Bonnin and Morris is the one referred to in the _Edinburgh Weekly Magazine_ of January, 1771, which says: “By a letter from Philadelphia we are informed that a large china manufactory is established there, and that better china cups and saucers are made there than at Bow or Stratford.” Benjamin Franklin, writing to his wife from London in January, 1772, after thanking her for the cranberries and apples and various American home reminders that she had sent to him, adds, “I thank you for the sauce-boats, and am pleased to see so good a progress made in the china manufactory. I wish it success most heartily.” But writing to an English potter in November, 1773, he says, “I understand the china-works in Philadelphia is declined by the first owners; whether any others will take it up and continue it, I know not.”