“This must be the case at present with the Chelsea manufacture, unless the administration will be pleased to interpose, and enjoin, in the proper place, a strict attention to the execution of the laws; for if, while the manufacture is filled with ware, these public sales of, and the several shops furnished with, what is prohibited, are to take off the ready money which should enable the manufacturer to go on, it must come to a stop, to the public detriment, and the ruin of the undertaker, as well as great loss to those who have engaged in his support.” Who the “undertaker” of the works here referred to was, is not stated in the document, which, according to Mr. Franks, bears internal evidence of having been written after 1752 and before 1759. Whether the Customs acceded to his views or not does not appear; but certain it is that, despite the abuse of import privilege enjoyed by cabinet ministers and others, he was, by his own showing, carrying on a very extensive business, selling £3,500 worth of goods in one winter, and employing more than a hundred hands, including a nursery of about thirty lads, who were learning the arts of potting and painting. In 1754 the following advertisement, which is most important as showing the class of goods then made at Chelsea, appeared in the _Public Advertiser_ of December 17th:-- “To be sold by auction, by Mr. Ford, at his Great Room, in St. James’s, Hay-Market, this and four following days. All the entire stock of Chelsea porcelain toys, brought from the proprietor’s warehouse in Pall Mall; consisting of snuff-boxes, smelling-bottles, and trinkets for watches (mounted in gold and unmounted) in various beautiful shapes, of an elegant design, and curiously painted in enamel, a large parcell of knife-hafts, &c. The said stock may be viewed till the time of sale, which will begin each day at half an hour after eleven o’clock. Note.--Most of the above things are in lots suitable for jewellers, goldsmiths, toyshops, china-shops, cutlers, and workmen in those branches of business. Catalogues may be had at Mr. Ford’s, at sixpence each, which will be allowed to those who are purchasers.” In Mr. Franks’s possession, and in other collections, examples of these “toys” are preserved. Mr. Franks has a smelling-bottle in form of a group, being a boy seated and writing a letter, while a girl looks on: the letter is inscribed, “Fe: 1759, This is.” In that year a Mr. Hughes, an ironmonger in Pall Mall, in his advertisement of May 2nd--