As in particular, in an affair he set on foot about the year 1715, and was the sole discoverer of, for which he had a patent; the making of an Oil, as sweet as that from Olives, from the Beech-Nuts:  But this being an undertaking of a great extent, he was obliged to work conjointly with other men’s assistance, and materials; whence arose disputes among them, which terminated in the overthrowing the advantage then arising from it; which otherwise might have been great and lasting.

This, has occasioned that affair to be misunderstood by many; it therefore may not be thought improper, here, to set it in a juster light; and this cannot more exactly be given, than from his own words, called, A fair state of the Account, published in the year 1716.

’An impartial state of the case, between the patentee, annuitants, and sharers, in the Beech-Oil-Company.’—­Some part of which is here recited.

’The disappointments of the Beech-Oil-Company this year have made abundance of sharers peevish; the natural effect of peevishness is clamour, and clamour like a tide will work itself a passage, where it has no right of flowing; some gentlemen, misled by false conceptions both of the affair and its direction, have driven their discontent through a mistaken chanel, and inclined abundance who are strangers to the truth, to accuse the patentee of faults, he is not only absolutely free from, but by which he is, of all concern’d, the greatest sufferer.

’But, he is not angry with the angry; he considers they must take things as they hear them represented; he governs all his actions by this general maxim; never to be moved at a reproach, unless it be a just one.

’In October 1713 the patentee procured a grant for fourteen years, to him and his assigns, for the Beech-Oil invention.

’Anno 1714, he made and published proposals, for taking a subscription of 20,000 l. upon the following conditions;

’That every subscriber should receive, by half yearly payments, at Lady-Day and Michaelmas, during the continuance of the patent from Lady-Day 1715, inclusive, an annuity amounting to fifty-pound per cent, for any sum subscribed, excepting a deduction for the payment of the directors.

’That nine directors should be chosen on midsummer-day, who should receive complaints upon non-payments of annuities; and in such case, upon refusal, any five of the nine directors had power to meet and chuse a governor from among themselves, enrolling that choice in chancery, together with the reasons for it.

’That after such choice and enrollment, the patentee should stand absolutely excluded, the business be carried on, and all the right of the grant be vested (not as a mortgage, but as a sale without redemption) in the governor so chosen, for the joint advantage of the annuitants, in proportion to their several interests.

’As a security for making good the articles, the patentee did, by indenture enrolled in chancery, assign and make over his patent to trustees, in the indenture named, for the uses above-mentioned.