(Vol. vii., p. 377.)
Your correspondent J. O. asks for information to No. 4. of his notes
respecting the "salt-peter-man," so quaintly described by Lord Coke as a
troublesome person. Before the discovery and importation of rough nitre
from the East Indies, the supply of that very important ingredient in the
manufactory of gunpowder was very inadequate to the quantity required; and
this country having in the early part of the seventeenth century to depend
almost entirely upon its own resources. Charles I. issued a proclamation in
1627, which set forth that the saltpetre makers were never able to furnish
the realm with a third part of the saltpetre required, especially in time
of war. The proclamation had reference to a patent that had been granted in
1625 to Sir John Brooke and Thomas Russel, for making saltpetre by a new
invention, which gave them power to collect the animal fluids (ordered by
the same proclamation to be preserved by families for this purpose), once
in twenty-four hours in summer, and in forty-eight hours in winter. This
royal proclamation was very obnoxious and inconvenient to the good people
of England, increased as it was by the power granted to the saltpetre
makers to dig up the floors of all dove-houses, stables, cellars, &c., for
the purpose of carrying away the earth, the proprietors being at the same
time prohibited from laying such floors with anything but "mellow earth,"
that greater facility might be given them. This power, in the hands of men
likely to be appointed to fulfil such duties, was no doubt subject to much
abuse for the purposes of extortion, making, as Lord Coke states, "simple
people believe that Lee (the salt-peter-man) will, without their leave,
breake up the floore of their dwelling-house, unless they will compound
with him to the contrary." The new and uncertain process for obtaining the
constituents of nitre having failed to answer the purpose for which the
patent was granted, an act was passed in 1656, forbidding the saltpetre
makers to dig in houses or lands without leave of the owner: and this is
the point to which the learned commentator of the law, in his _Discouerie
of the Abuses and Corruption of Officers_, alludes, when "any such fellowe
if you can meete with all, let his misdemenor be presented, that he may be
taught better to understand his office." In England, up to about the period
when these curious acts of parliament were passed, the right of all soil
impregnated with animal matter was claimed by the crown for this peculiar
purpose; and in France the rubbish of old houses, earth from stables,
slaughter-houses, and all refuse places, was considered to belong to the
Government, till 1778, when a similar edict, to relieve the people from the
annoyances of the saltpetre makers, was made.