In 1733 (April 24th) Ralph Shawe, potter, of Burslem, who, like many other potters of the district, had long adopted the improvements of Mr. Astbury and others, took out a patent for employing “various sorts of mineral, earth, clay, and other earthy substances, which, being mixt and incorporated together, make up a fine body, of which a curious ware may be made, whose outside will be of a true chocolate colour, striped with white, and the inside white, much resembling the brown China ware, and glazed with salt.” The _secret_ was merely _washing_ the inside, and forming broad lines on the outside of the articles with a very thick slip of flint and pipeclay. “To keep his process more secluded and secret, he was accustomed to evaporate his mixed clays on a long trough, in a place locked up under cover, beneath which were flues, for the heat from fire applied on the outside. This also kept the clay free from any kind of dirt; and the idea is supposed to have been gained from the tile-makers’ method of drying their tiles in stoves. A pair of flower-pots, excellent specimens of this person’s manufacture, which had been received as a present from the maker by his wife’s grandfather, were in the author’s possession till very recently. Mr. Shawe became so litigious and overbearing, that many of the manufacturers were extremely uncomfortable, and prevented improving their productions. Not content with the success he experienced, and the prospect of speedily acquiring affluence, his excessive vanity and insatiable avarice incited to proceedings that terminated in his ruin. Unwilling to admit the customary practices of the business, and to brook any appearance of competition, he was constantly objecting to every trifling improvement as an infringement of his patent, and threatening his neighbours with suits in equity to protect his _sole_ rights; till at length self-defence urged them to bear the expenses of a suit he had commenced against J. Mitchell, to try the validity of the patent, at Stafford, in 1736; and very aged persons, whose parents were present, give the general facts of the trial:--All the manufacturers being interested in the decision, those most respectable were in the court. Witnesses proved Astbury’s invention and prior usage of the practice, and a special jury of great intelligence and wealth gave a verdict against Mr. Shawe. The learned judge, after nullifying the patent, thus addressed the audience--“Go home, potters, and make whatever kinds of pots you please.” The hall re-echoed with acclamations, and the strongest ebullitions of satisfaction from the potters, to the indescribable mortification of Mr. Shawe and his family, who afterwards went to France, where he carried forward his manufactory, whence some of his family returned to Burslem about 1750.” This event is thus characteristically spoken of in native tongue, in the “Burslem Dialogue,” by Mr. Ward:--