NaCl
- Common SALT... made the world go round....
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Such was the importance of salt that its supply could not be left to the vagaries of 'supply and demand". In particular the supply of saltpeter had to be controlled, and more importantly, kept as secret as possible. Formed from saline earth and a flower-like efflorescence, Saltpeter has been known for centuries in India, and by the Nabateans in Petra . Besides saltworks, many hundreds of village communities were occupied in making saltpetre using primitive clay lined filters, matting, vats and bamboos. In the hot sun from April to June the Nuniah caste families would 'boil merrily away and eliminate saltpetre and salt from this apparently useless soil.' Not only were the climatic conditions perfect, but the Indian saltpetre had the additional advantage that it contained nitrate and potassium both essential for gunpowder.
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MONOPOLIES 1
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Monopoly - The Near East India Co.
THE BRITISH IN INDIA - When the English arrived to trade in India they found they were not the only customers. The English, Dutch, Portuguese and later, the French were in constant bitter rivalry to exploit successfully the great opportunities open to traders sufficiently determined, adaptable, diplomatic and independent. One such Englishman, Peter Mundy, writes of his predicament in charge of a caravan carrying indigo and saltpetre from Agra to Surat: 'I am thrust out alone with little language, having nobody that I can trust or cares to take any pains to ease me to look after the company's goods, to help to compound the unreasonable demands of the carters and camelers, to decide their quarrels and differences.'
The Company employees - 'servants' - lived and competed at close quarters in India, often disputing petty domestic arrangements, and criticising business methods; 'the Dutch are insolent and feare not to break all contracts..' and again, They doe stamp quoines (coins) at their pleasures to their profits ..' A stream of complaints flowed between the trading stations and the parent company about bribery, corruption and the lack of money and equipment .. 'We are so poore that wee shame to thinke of yt..' There was a hint of jealousy too - 'the Dutch manage things better.' In one respect they certainly did, for they used saltpetre to ballast their ships instead of the traditional useless stones. However, after the first order for saltpetre was received in 1624 the Company was then able to report that they too, 'have enough to ballast.'
COMPANY TRADING IN INDIA India proved to be an excellent source of saltpetre for the British. Formed from saline earth and a flower-like efflorescence, it has been known for centuries in Bihar, the United Provinces, the Punjab and Madras areas mainly. Besides saltworks, many hundreds of village communities were occupied in making saltpetre using primitive clay lined filters, matting, vats and bamboos. In the hot sun from April to June the Nuniah caste families would 'boil merrily away and eliminate saltpetre and salt from this apparently useless soil.' Not only were the climatic conditions perfect, but the Indian saltpetre had the additional advantage that it contained nitrate and potassium both essential for gunpowder.
The difficulties of coordinating such a part cottage,part works, industry and win the confidence and cooperationof the powerful men who controlled it were innumerable, frustrating and some-times bizarre. One grave and ever- present dilemma was transport, from 'camels falling into a well and breaking their necks' to the mortality and 'poverty of cattel for want of food'; or from robbers who 'lurked in the hills' and attacked the caravans. There were long delivery delays by princes and native monopolists who 'disallowed distaks' - permits - and refused to release consignments 'without bribery.' And there were labour problems, 'the peetermen beinge growne very villans' as well as increased sales competition everywhere by 'interplopers' or private traders.
Nor was saltpetre a popular cargo on the ships. It was 'expensive to buy and troublesome to bring home .. a bad neighbour to better goods' like the more lucrative cottons, muslins and spices. Nevertheless, while the demand for saltpetre was increasing, and the Company, making efforts to extend business acknowledged that 'at least half their business should be invested in this commodity. Should the factors (agents) run into debt, it should only be for saltpetre..' with the warning that 'it would be well to avoid this without sanction from Fort St. George, interest being so high..'
In England, the privilege of manufacturing explosives had been in the hands of the family of John Evelyn the celebrated diarist as a Crown monopoly since before the Armada. They operated in certain specified areas while the East India Company also had their own powder mills in Surrey and elsewhere. Partly as a result, the saltpetre trade in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was seldom especially profitable for... 'though a considerable branch of the Company's Indian investments, it is imported (into England) under special restrictions ... which are calculated to prevent it becoming a beneficial article of commerce..' It was also to a certain extent regulated by the course of political events in Europe and in India itself. As a commercial venture, the Conmpany found it particularly galling that in addition to fulfilling their covenant to supply 500 tons to the government it had to be kept until the King (Charles 1) was pleased to buy it...at his owne price.. and at an undervalue .. the payment also deferred.' before 'being permitted to sell the same to best advantage.'
The response to the complaints was a threat that unless the Company sent back 'a good quantity' of saltpetre they would be made to pay duty on all silver exported from England and never again enjoy His Majesty's favour', an intimidating move with serious consequences because silver was the currency in which trade was conducted. Silver bullion exported between 1698 and 1703 was #3.171.405 compared with gold at #128.229. over the same period.
Frustration and discontent over the conditions of trading, storage and sales of saltpetre built up until it was clear that matters must be eased.
Sir John Banks, a businessman from Kent who negotiated an agreement between the King and the Company began his career in a syndicate arranging contracts for victualling the navy, an interest he kept up for most of his life. He knew Pepys and John Evelyn and and founded a substantial fortune from the Levant and Indian trades. He also became a Director and later, as Governor of the East Indian Company in 1672, he was able to arrange a contract which included a loan of #20,000 and #30,000 worth of saltpetre for the King 'at the price it shall sell by the candle' - that is by auction - where an inch of candle burned and as long as it was alight bidding could continue. The agreement also included with the price 'an allowance of interest which is to be expressed in tallies.' This was something of a breakthrough in Royal prerogative because previous requests for the King to buy at the Company's auctions had been turned down as 'not honourable or decent.' Outstanding debts were also agreed and the Company permitted to export 250 tons of saltpetre. Again in 1673 Banks successfully negotiated another contract for 700 tons of saltpetre at #37,000 between the King and the Company So urgent was the need to supply the armed forces in the United Kingdom, America and elsewhere that the authorities sometimes turned a blind eye on the untaxed sales. One Governor of the Company was even reported as saying in 1864 that he would rather have the saltpetre made than the tax on salt.
Some idea of the rapid rise in wartime saltpetre consumption is given by the following figures: 2,000 per annum in the War of Spanish Succession at the begining of the eighteenth century; 20,000 tons during the Napoleonic Wars a hundred years later; 3,000,000 tons a year by the First World War.. After 1918 the saltpetre industry declined rapidly from an export total of 35,000 tons in 1860 to 8,862 tons in 1934-35 in spite of revival measures during the 1920s.
THE TRANSITION FROM BIOLOGICAL TO INORGANIC ENGINEERING. Not all the uses of potassium nitrate or other alkaline salts have been inflammatory or explosive. The oldest salt industries, although small in today's terms, were essential and even substantial in relation to the populations of the time. They helped bridge the off-seasons when food was scarce through their preserving qualities; to heal disease, make soap, glass, fertilizers and textiles were also among their other ancient capabilites. Their undertakings operated with consistent success until the transition from organic to inorganic processes. Saltpetre as the main ingredient in gunpowder was a decisive factor in the power politics of the sixteenth century. The technology of making and refining it was secret and the sources, diminishing at the local level, had to be pursued further afield mainly in India, North Africa and China - countries which had warm climates and large herds of cattle producing urine. For wood-ash, the European buyers went to the cooler regions - the Baltic and the forests of North America. Nations which relied on fireaarms to protect their interests invaded or infiltrated these areas, often having to fight the natives and competing administrations to maintain a foothold. This aggressive manoevering between the European powers cont-inued until the beginning of the nineteenth century when abundant supplies of nitrates were discovered in Chile which became a world supplier, most of the working plants being owned and operated by British companies The real upsurge in alkali-salt consumption came during the industrial revolution in the 19th century when alternative methods were found for separating alkali ions from chlorine ions through electrolysis and the soda processes of Le Blanc and Solvay.
In the 1880s potash salts were discovered in the German salt mines and about the same time Swiss and French scientists replaced saltpetre by cotton soaked in explosives. As a result, Canadian and Russian woodash lost their value as war material, while Chile and Indian saltpetre became obsolete because nitrate could be made from the air more cheaply by the Haber-Bosch method. Potassium and sodium carbonate and the nitrates, first isolated by biotechnological methods for thousands of years, were finally manufactured without the help of living organisms.
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MRBLOCH ARCHIVE, is researching the significance, of SALT [NaCl] through the period 1000 BC . up to the Industrial Revolution.
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