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To dye silk lilac

For every pound of silk, take one pound and a half of archil, mix it well with the liquor; make it boil a quarter of an hour, dip the silk quickly, then let it cool, and wash it in river water, and a fine half violet, or lilac, more or less full, will be obtained.

To dye thick silks, satins, silk stockings, &c. of a flesh colour. Wash the stockings clean in soap and water, then rinse them in hot water; if they should not then appear perfectly clear, cut half an ounce of white soap into thin slices, and put it into a sauce-pan half full of boiling water; when this soap is dissolved, cool the water in the pan, then put in the stockings, and simmer for twenty minutes; take them out, and rinse in hot water; in the interim pour three table spoonsful of purple archil into a wash-hand basin half full of hot water; put the stockings in this dye water, and when of the shade called half violet or lilac, take them from the dye water, and slightly rinse them in cold; when dry hang them up in a close room in which sulphur is burnt; when they are evenly bleached to the shade required of flesh colour, take them from the sulphuring-room, and finish them by rubbing the right side with a clean flannel. Some persons calender them afterwards. Satins and silks are done the same way.