“OF INKS. Ink has not only been useful in all ages, but still continues absolutely necessary to the preservation and improvement of every art and science, and for conducting the ordinary transactions of life.
“Daily experience shows that the most common objects generally prove most useful and beneficial to mankind. The constant occasion we have for Ink evinces its convenience and utility. From the important benefits arising to society from its use, and the injuries individuals may suffer from the frauds of designing men in the abuse of this necessary article, it is to be wished that the legislature would frame some regulation to promote its improvement, and prevent knavery and avarice from making it instrumental to the accomplishment of any base purpose.
“Simple as the composition of Ink may be thought, and really is—it is a fact well known, that we have at present none equal in beauty and color to that used by the ancients; as will appear by an inspection of many of the manuscripts above quoted, especially those written in England in the times of the Saxons. What occasions so great a disparity? Does it arise from our ignorance, or from our want of materials? FROM NEITHER, _but from the negligence of the present race_; as very little attention would soon demonstrate that we want neither skill nor ingredients to make Ink as good now as at any former period.
“It is an object of the utmost importance that the Records of Parliament, the Decisions and Adjudications of the Courts of Justice, Conveyances from man to man, Wills, Testaments, and other Instruments which affect property, should be written with Ink of such durable quality as may best resist the destructive powers of time and the elements. The necessity of paying greater attention to this matter may be readily seen by comparing the Rolls and Records that have been written from the fifteenth century to the end of the seventeenth, with the writings we have remaining of various ages from the fifth to the twelfth century. Notwithstanding the superior antiquity of the latter, they are in excellent preservation; but we frequently find the former, though of more modern date, so much defaced that they are scarcely legible.