(_For the Mirror_.)
Coals are found in several parts of the continent of Europe, but the
principal mines are in this country. They have been discovered and
wrought in Newfoundland, Cape Breton, Canada, and in some of the
provinces of New England. China abounds in them, and they are well
known in Tartary, and in the Island of Madagascar.
We find (says Brand) express mention of coals, used as a fuel by
artificers about 2,000 years ago, in the writings of Theophrastus, the
scholar of Aristotle, who, in his book on Stones, gives the substance;
though some writers have not scrupled to affirm, that coal was unknown
to the Ancient Britons, yet others have adduced proofs to the
contrary, which seem, to carry along with them little less than
conviction. The first charter for the license of digging coals, was
granted by King Henry III. in the year 1239; it was there denominated
sea coal; and, in 1281, Newcastle was famous for its great trade in
this article; but in 1306, the use of sea coal was prohibited at
London, by proclamation. Brewers, dyers, and other artificers, who had
occasion for great fires, had found their account in substituting our
fossil for dry wood and charcoal; but so general was the prejudice
against it at that time, that the nobles and commons assembled in
parliament, complained against the use thereof as a public nuisance,
which was thought to corrupt the air with its smoke and stink. Shortly
after this, it was the common fuel at the King's palace in London;
and, in 1325, a trade was opened between France and England, in which
corn was imported, and coal exported. Stowe in his "Annals" says,
"within thirty years last the nice dames of London would not come into
any house or roome where sea coales were burned; nor willingly eat of
the meat that was either sod or roasted with sea coal fire."
Tinmouth Priory had a colliery at Elwick, which in 1330 was let at the
yearly rent of five pounds; in 1530 it was let for twenty pounds a
year, on condition that not more than twenty chaldron should be drawn
in a day; and eight years after, at fifty pounds a year, without
restriction on the quantity to be wrought. In Richard the Second's
time, Newcastle coals were sold at Whitby, at three shillings and
four-pence per chaldron; and in the time of Henry VIII. their price
was twelvepence a chaldron in Newcastle; in London about four
shillings, and in France they sold for thirteen nobles per chaldron.
Queen Elizabeth obtained a lease of the manors and coal mines of
Gateshead and Whickham, which she soon transferred to the Earl of
Leicester. He assigned it to his secretary, Sutton, the founder of the
Charter-house, who also made assignment of it to Sir W. Riddell and
others, for the use of the Mayor and Burgesses of Newcastle. Duties
were laid upon this article to assist in building St. Paul's Church,
and fifty parish churches in London after the great fire; and in 1677,
Charles II. granted to his natural son, Charles Lenox, Duke of
Richmond, and his heirs, a duty of one shilling a chaldron on coals,
which continued in his family till it was purchased by government in
1800. The collieries in the vicinity of Newcastle are perhaps the most
valuable and extensive in Europe, and afford nearly the whole supply
of the metropolis, and of those counties on the eastern coast
deficient in coal strata; thus--
"The grim ore
Here useless, like the miser's brighter hoard,
Is from its prison brought and sent abroad,
The frozen horns to cheer, to minister
To needful sustenance and polished arts--
Hence are the hungry fed, the naked clothed,
The wintry damps dispell'd, and social mirth
Exults and glows before the blazing hearth."
_Iago's Edge Hill_, p. 106.