To the Right Honourable Iohn LORD Churchill, Baron Churchill of Sandridge, Viscount Churchill of Ay­mouth in the Kingdom of Scotland, Earl of Marlbo­rough, and one of their Majesties most Honoura­ble Privy Council.

IT hath been observed by several of our late ingenious Writers, that an eminent Venetian Embassador, af­ter a long residence in England, sayling homeward, did cast his Eye back on this Land, and said in his own language, O [Page ii] Isola felicissima, &c. The happiest Coun­trey on the face of the Earth, did it not want publick Spirits among them: Nor do I think that the pudet haec opprobria nobis, &c. was in any Age so justly ap­plicable to England on this account as in the present one, wherein Men generally depraved by a selfish inhospitable tem­per, do like the Hedge hog, wrap them­selves up in their own warm Down, and shew forth nothing but Bristles to the rest of the World, and cry out [...]! when they have found a Stone to throw at an Inventor of any thing beneficial to Mankind, instead of giving a tender helping Hand to the Inventions them­selves, and which might with Iustiee be expected, since few or none come into the World with all the perfection they are capable of.

But, My LORD, thô this Inventi­on of Mill'd-Lead (how much or little soever I contributed to its first Concep­tion, it matters not, I being at its Birth concerned in a greater share and Interest therein, and the Transactions relating thereto, than any one else, although [...] willingly then admitted the use of other [Page iii] Names more considerable to give Counte­nance and Credit to the Work, and to avoid Envy) hath been accompanyed with tho fate of all Inventions, namely, a peevish [...]ndeavour of some narrow-soul'd Men to run it down, yet accord­ing to the saying, Unus dum tibi pro­pitius est Jupiter, tu hosce mi [...]utos Deos, flocci feceris: Your Lordship with your great Heroical Genius, and your incomparable penetrating Vnder­standing, having surveyed all the circum­stances relating to this Invention, and the past Transactions about it, and your having afterward been pleased to patro­nize the Inventors and Invention, I can easily be unconcerned at the Censures of smaller People who are concerned against it.

My LORD, I have been long since taught by a great Philosopher of the Age, that When Reason is against Men, they will be against Reason, and have sufficiently observed, that the way that most Men take to be cryed up for Masters of Reason, is to make Reas [...]n serve them, that is, to serve their [...]urn.

[Page iv]I am not now to learn, that whoever attempts the settlement of any Question, which would be the unsettlement of any mens Interest, may be suspected to have either an unsettled Fortune, and that like a New [...]comer to the Coast of such a Question, he comes to settle himself there­by, or to have an unsettled Head, and to be one who knows not that against any thing by which Men get their living they would not own to believe any that came from the dead. Thô the Proofs for any thing are as clear as the Meridian light, yet where Men are Antipodes to each other in Interest, at the same time 'tis Noon-day with the one, and Mid­night with the other.

And moreover, Reason as it resembles Gold in being the most valued, so (as one saith) it doth too, in being the most ductile thing in Nature.

We know how much Mechanicks de­pend on the Rule of Rectum est index [...]ui & obliqui; and here it comes into my mind to entertain your Lordship with no unpleasant or vulgar Sp [...]culation in Geometry, that Maximus Angulus est recta linea, & minimus Angulus est [Page v] recta linea, the greatest Angle and the least are both the same with a right line.

But if it were for the general profit or pleasure of Men to deny that there is any right or strait line, or that any Right Line can be made so much as for use, many would be found to deny it strenuously, and who perhaps either would argue, that there is not in Nature any right Line, and that all Lines are Ar­tificially made by the ducture of some point, or the meeting of two superficies, making the edge of any thing, or the Contact of a Cylinder with a Plain, and that neither of these wayes can pro­duce a right Line, because there is no true strait Superficies, but what has in­equality or hollowness in it, and that consequently the motion of any Point up­on any uneven Superficies, or the mu­tual concurrence of two uneven Super­ficies can never produce an even or right Line, or who else would, if not cut off, yet jogg the Hands of those they found making right Lines, or if they found any made, would either oblitterate them, or apply Microscopes to them, whereby [Page vi] some inequality or raggedness in them would be discovered, or they would per­vert Witnesses to swear, or Iudges to decree, that they were not Right Lines, or perhaps they would turn the making of Right Lines into Ridicule, according to the Humour of this Age, or accord­ing to the humour of an old barbarous former one, maliciously call it the Black Art.

We know that according to the Sea-phrase one Ship is said to wrong ano­ther, that excels it in swiftness of sail­ing: And thus the Shipwrights and Plumbers may if they please think the Mill'd-Lead Invention hath wrong'd them in doing so much right to Shipping and Navigation in particular.

Nor is it indeed possible for any New Invention, how profitable soever to Man­kind, to appear in the World, but that such new Illumination must stand in some Mens light, and obstruct their pratique in those Arts of life wherein they were expert. Thus there is no doubt but the Invention of the Sea-Compass was ma­ligned by the old dull Coasters, and that of Printing by the Hackney Writers, [Page vii] and the excellent Notion of the circula­tion of the Blood, by the old Mump [...]i­mus Doctors, who being sufficiently at ease by the Circulation of Money and Trade in the Realm▪ knew how to stuff their hollow Teeth with their Patient's Bread, without studying Anatomy; the knowledge whereof hath been enriched by a full third part at least within this last Century, as the learned Dr. Henshaw tells us, in his very ingenious Book call­ed A Register for the Air, printed An. 1677. and wherein he hath published an excellent Invention of a Domicil or Air Chamber▪ and by means whereof in any part of our Native Soyl we may have the Air as pure as on the top of the Pike of Teneriffe, and made so pure as is not to be found on the face of the ha­bitable Earth.

And thus no doubt but the Gold-smiths and Silver-smiths would think themselves injured by any who could revive the Art of making Glass malle­able, which one in Tiberius's time had found out a way to do, and withall so yielding, and such as would rather bow than break; for he bringing a Glass [Page viii] Vial to the Emperour to shew his Art, he threw the Vessel against the Stone-pavement, with which blow it was not broken but dented, and then taking his Hammer, be again beat out the dent: But he was secretly made away for his pains, as likewise several Inventors have been by the Dullards who only had the Wit to do that, and the Assassinates have thought they might dispatch them as justly as Souldiers think they may deal so with those who come to beat up their Quarters.

Yet however the fate of some Inven­tors hath been to fall at the feet of En­vious Plebeian Mechanicks, others of them have had that reward of their dili­gence in all Ages and Countreys, to stand before Kings; and the Vicege­rents of the God of Nature have with peculiar respect treated such as the King of Kings delighted to honour, by im­parting the secrets of Nature to them.

And such respect hath been shewn to the Memory of useful Inventors by the greatest Princes, that several Histori­ans have mentioned it, that Charles the 5th. with a great Parade of his Atten­dants, [Page ix] went out of his way to see the Tomb of William Buckeld, who (as it was recorded in his Epitaph) was the Inventor of the Dutch way of Pick­ling of Herrings, which is so beneficial to those States, that may make it be said that Amsterdam is founded upon Her­ring bones: His Countrey-men it seems were so just to him, as to perpetuate the fame of the Invention as well as the Name of the Inventor by a grate­ful Inscription.

And thus too was the Memory of Ludovicus a Culen, Professor of Geo­metry at Leyden, honoured by those States, by their taking care that on his Tomb should be engraven his Attempt to find out the proportion between a Dia­meter and a Circle, dividing the Cir­cle into more parts than Sand would constitute the whole Earth, and yet an Uni [...]e was too much, and a Null too little.

I am here minded of mentioning how the Tomb of Peter Pet, Esq the Ma­ster-builder of England (and whose An­cestors for upwards of two hundred Years have been Master-builders and [Page x] principal Officers of the Navy Royal) re­cords his being the first Inventor of our English Frigats, and of which the Con­stant Warwick, built by him in the Year 1646. was the first, and which sort of Shipping is variously the most excellent and useful in the known World.

And it having been the fortune of all the Master builders of that Family gradually to excel each other in their Art, I cannot here omit to take notice how Sir Phineas Pett, the Son of that great Artist, having built fifteen Capi­tal Ships for the Royal Navy, besides many more of the lesser Rate, hath obli­ged his Countrey with a great deal of ad­mirable Invention in the Fabrick of the Kings fisher, a fourth Rate, built by him in the Year 1675.

For whereas all Ships before, since the first use of Navigation, were built by rising Lines, which made not so re­gular a Figure in the Water, he built that by Horizontal ones, and so contri­ved the Port holes therein, that most of her Guns might point to one Center, and thereby cause such breaches in the sides of the Ship she fought with, that could [Page xi] not be stopp'd with Pluggs, and that brought her safe off from her being taken by seven Algerine Men of War, accord­ing to the Relation of it in the Gazets I have been informed of, and which could not have happened but by her Guns so pointing, making such great breaches in their sides as forced them to draw off. And so much hath the New Invention of the building her by such Lines, contributed to the excellency of her sayling, that I have read it in a re­lation of the Engagement between her and the Golden Rose of Algiers, so much famed for her sailing, printed in London in the Year 1681. that the Kings-fisher much out sail'd that Ship, and having taken her, found so much Water in her Hold, occasioned by the great breaches in her sides, which made her to sink down within an hour after her Capture.

What the great effects of such an In­vention may hereafter be throughout the Maritime World, I know not, Capital Ships being now liable to be sunk by Bul­lets which before they were not, by rea­son of the multitude of Pluggs and Hands [Page xii] to apply them, always in readiness, unless a Shot had lighted in the Powder-room, as was supposed to have happened in Ad­miral Opdam's Ship. But he having done so much impartial Iustice to the Invention of the Mill'd-Lead-Sheath­ing, I am very well contented that it comes in my way here to retaliate to him by the just mention of the matters of fact whereby he hath obliged this Age and suc­ceeding ones, to account him a Benefactor to his Countrey.

And, my Lord, I do think my self the more obliged out of my love to my Native Countrey, to present your Lord­ship with this glancing View of these two great Inventions, because they are very likely in a short time to come a­mong Panciroll's Res deperditae, with­out care taken to prevent it; for King Charles the second, who had very great Skill in the Mystery of the Shipwrights Calling, hath been heard to observe it, that the Fabricks of our English Ships did for several Years more and more degenerate from the Friga [...] way in wh [...]ch the Constant Warwick was built, to the way of our sluggish old built [Page xiii] Ships, and not at all adapted for swift­ness of Sailing, and insomuch that the Constant Warwick it self being after the Death of the Inventor repaired by a­nother Artist, was in its repairing spoil­ed of the excellency of its sailing.

Nor have I heard of any other Ship built by the Kings-fisher's Lines, ex­cept the Katherine Yatcht. And there­fore it is of great importance to the Na­tion that the Draughts of those three Vessels particularly should be transmitted with great Care to Posterity.

I must not here forget to mention, that among the many Capital Ships built by Sir Phinehas Pett, the BRITANNIA is by the concordant Voice of all the curious Iudges of Naval Architecture allowed to be the best Ship in the World, and far exceeding in excellency of Building and Strength the great first Rate of France, call'd the St. Lewis, on the which is engraven this proud Inscription, Je [...]uis L'unique de l' Onde, & mon Roy du Monde. An admirable Draught or Sculpture of this Ship BRITANNIA, in four large sheets of Dutch [...]aper, will sh [...]rtly be published, with more mo­dest [Page xiv] but just Encomiastick Verses in La­tine, English, French and Dutch un­der it, which I thinking fit to Copy out on my sight of the Draught, shall here entertain your Lordship with those of them that are in Latine and English, Viz.

I have the rather thought fit to mention the just celebration of this Ship, because some impudent Scrib­lers of the Coffee-House News-Let­ters presumed last Summer to scan­dalize her, as if she were rotten, and [Page xvi] disabled for Sea-service, whereas in truth she was then only put into the Dock for such necessary. Repairs as most of the thirty Capital Ships required, which were built pursuant to the Order of Parliament, but from thence she will be lanched out perfectly good, and as strong as [...]ver.

It was a proverbial saying among the [...]mans, Moenia Sancta: And the pro­fane Vulgar, who write their despicable Lyes for Bread, ought not to be suffered to pollute the Walls of our Nation with their vile Pens; and such Epistolae ob­scurorum Virorum should meddle, with the Gally- [...]oists of my Lord Mayor's Show, and not first Rate Ships: And I believe had any such pauvres Diables in France so belyed the Sh [...]p St. Lewis, they would have been Pillory'd, or Keel-hauled under her.

Our excellent Statesman Sir William Temple (who truly deserves the Name of a publick spirited Man, for the ex­cellent Writings he hath published) in his Su [...]vey of the Constitutions and In-Interests of the Empire and other Coun­tries, with their relation to his Maje­sty [Page xvii] in the Year 1671. mentions the strength of our Shipping, as having for many Ages past (and still for ought we know) made us an over-match for the strongest of our Neighbours at Sea; and speaks of the Dutch having been awed by the strength of our Oak, and the Art of our Shipwrights, &c. It is therefore not without reason, that the Charter of the Corporation of our Ship­wrights hath obliged them not to com­municate their Art to any Forreign Prince or State. But yet when I consider that whereas the Contracts of the Navy-Board for building of Ships did 'till within these few Years past oblige the Builders to build with good substantial English Oaken Timber and Plank, and that such not being now to be had, that word [ English] is left out, and liber­ty given to build with forreign; and fur­ther consider, that application was made to the Ministers of King Charles the se­cond by the Cnrporation of Shipwrights, shortly after his Restoration, with their Proposals in Writing for the preserva­tion and encrease of Oaken Timber (and Copies of which I have seen [Page xviii] under the Hand of Sir Phinehas Pett, and many others of the most eminent of that Corporation, and that those Pro­posals being referred to the then Attor­ney General, he referring their Consi­deration to the Navy-Board, Sir Willi­am Coventry, Mr. Pepys, Sir Willi­am Batten, and the rest of the Com­missioners of the Navy, did with great Iudgment Report in Writing how and where a sufficient number of Oak­en Trees might be planted in his Ma­jesty's Forrests, and that the judicious Report from that Board carryed with it self-evidence of the practicableness of th [...] thing with ease, and that had not so great a Proposition then evaporated, but on the contrary have been vigorously pursued, the Oaken Timber sufficient for the use of the Navy Royal had now been in a forward way to its sufficient growth: For it having been known that Acorns sown, have in the space of thirty Years born a Stemme of a Foot diameter, 'tis obvious how soon they will bear a stemme of a foot and a half diame­ter, and that such Timber so of a foot and a half, will be sufficiently serviceable in the building of Ships. I say, when I consider [Page xix] these things, and fear how few else consider them here, and how many observe and con­sider them abroad, I think there is too much occasion to bewail our Soils not being fertile with men of publick Spirits.

Whether we shall at this rate come to build with English Oak again before Plato's great Year, I know not: But, my Lord, this that I have said doth speak, (or as I may say) cry it aloud to us, that while we have the Mill'd [...]Lead Sheathing for Ships, without fear of losing it, that he will scarce deserve to be thought a Patriot, who at this time of day, when the Crown hath so little Timber in its Forrests serviceable for Shipping, and hath Lead of our own for Sheathing, would have it unnecessarily send a great deal of Money for Eastland [...]irr for that purpose, of which the arrival here will be so uncertain, and indeed hazardous in time of War.

My Lord, I intend not to entertain your Lordship with Rhetorical flourishes and Harangues of the usefulness of the Invention of the Mill'd-Lead Sheathing: It is of Age in the World to speak for it self, and it hath had the Honour not on­ly [Page xx] to have great unbyass'd Artists for its Encomiasts, but a great Prince, who had a profound Iudgment in the Ship­wrights Mystery, I mean King Charles the second: For as soon as Sir Francis Watson had acquainted him with the Invention of Milling Lead for Sheath­ing, his Majesty was very impatient 'till he had made experiment thereof, where­upon Lead was prepared by a small En­gine, wherewith the Phoenix, a fourth Rate was sheathed by Sir Anthony Dean at Portsmouth, which he saw done with care, the Bolt-heads, &c. being fairly parcelled, as they ought to be in any sheathing; and after divers Voyages to the Straits, Guinea, and the West In­dies, she had her sheathing strip'd at se­ven Years end to repair the Plank, but not for any defect in the Sheathing it self. Nor could those of the Navy-Board, when at their attendance on the Council with their Complaints of Eight Ships in Twenty, make the least Obje­ction (though they were fairly challeng­ed to it) against the Rudder-Irons, Bolts, or other Iron work of the Phoenix; the which made that judicious Peer, the then [Page xxi] Earl of Hallifax declare, That if of twenty Ships they complained of Nine­teen, and had nothing to say against the twentieth, he must conclude it to be the Workmens fault, for if they had done the other nineteen as that twentieth Ship was done, they must have proved all as well as she: The King also at the same time, when they objecting that the Mer­chants did not use it, which they would do if it was so good a sheathing as was pretended, replyed, That the Shipwrights (whose best Friend the Worm was) wanted not Skill to discourage them; yet that their decrying it must soon be discerned to proceed from their inte­rest. And indeed it is obvious how the Shipwrights do influence the Merchants and Owners in the Sheathing and other Repairs of Ships, by their being general­ly Part-Owners in all the new Ships they build.

Nor is it to be wondred at that the King from the beginning gave all the encou­ragement he could to this Invention; for when he considered of the thing upon Sir Francis Wat [...]on's first laying it before him, his Majesty pressed him to make effectual [Page xxii] Preparation for the Work, saying, It would save him at least 40000 l. a Year in his Navy, the which was not improbable, if it had met with that due encouragement, use and application for Sheathing, Scuppers, Bread rooms, and all other purposes it was capable of, with regard had to the charge and damage that a Wood-sheathing brings to the Plank by the great Nail-holes, which they use to spile up at stripping, and other in­conveniences that attend Wood-sheath­ing.

And here it occurrs to my thoughts, that his Majesty being occasionally in Dep [...]ford yard, as the Workmen were bringing on an ordinary Straits-sheathing with Wood upon one of his small Ships, he asked them why they did not sheath her with Mill'd-Lead, and answer was made, she was a weak Ship, and required strengthning. The King thereupon replyed, they had as good have sheathed her with Sar [...]enet, as such a sheathing to streng­then her, and saying, Lord have Mer­cy on the Men who depend on that sheathing, if the Ship be not strong enough her self without it.

[Page xxiii]One would think now, my Lord, that after so great a King, so judicious in all Naval Mechanicks had approved the great usefulness of this Invention, and af­ter all his eminent Master-builders (and who were the only Shiprights disinterest­ed from opposing it, in regard their sub­sistence depended only on their Salaries from the Crown) had done so too, it should be some potent and weighty Obje­ction that should be a Remora to [...]s pro­gress. But according to the idle con­ceit of the Fish Remora, which mens so [...]tishness hath made a vulgar one, name­ly that it can stop the motion of a Ship under sail, (and some vain Authors have essayed in print to give reasons for such energy of that Fish; and other Authors have attributed the cause of that Fish's power to that mighty nothing of occult qualities, whereas the true cause of that vulgar Error was what an old famous Naturalist said of that [...] Fish, Flent ven­ti, saeviant procellae, semper Navem immobiliter tenet; which implies no more, but that notwithstanding [...]ny vio­lent Tempests, it always did stick to the Ship immoveably) a superstitious [Page xxiv] vain imagination of an impossibility, namely, of the Mill'd Lead corroding the Iron-work, through some occult quality, hath been made use of as the Remora that hath hindred the progress of this Invention, when it was so fair­ly under sail, and had made so good a Voyage for the Crown, as to bring it above Cent. per Cent. profit, besides the great advantage in sailing.

But it is no matter of Raillery, to observe that many excellent and most useful Inventions have been run down in the World by superstitious Fancies and Imaginations, and fortifying impossibi­lities with occult qualities; insomuch that our late Act for burying in Flan­nel, that was of such benefit to the pub­lick, was once in danger of being run down by an idle Notion of an impossibi­lity that intoxicated the beliefs of the Mob, namely, that the Air was likely to receive putrefaction by Flannels ma­king the Dead to sweat; and as reaso­nably may the populace here imagine, that the New-River-Water conveyed to dress their Meat through Pipes of Lead, will corrode their entrails, if Lead hath [Page xxv] such an occult quality to corrode Iron: And as well may we be afraid to take the Venice Treacle, because of its be­ing long kept in boxes of Lead.

But your Lordships Iudgment is so excellent, that it cannot be imposed on by a Non Causa pro Causa, or any other fallacy; and that I might total­ly avoid the least suspicion of one who would impose either on your Lordship, or on any of Mankind, while under the shelter of your Lordships Name I write to the World, I have here fairly and candidly set forth the Matters of Fact in the Transactions the Settlement of this Invention hath occasioned on the Stage of the World.

My Lord, I know it is fit for your Lordships entire satisfaction, and that of others, that I should mention what ensued upon the Company's Reply to the Navy-Board before the Lords Com­missioners of the Admiralty. In short, one of those Lords, who was likewise a Member of the Privy Council, was by that Admiralty-Board desired to carry both that Report and Reply to the Coun­cil-Board: And upon reading the Re­port, [Page xxvi] his Majesty in Council was pleas'd to referr the whole matter back again to those Commissioners of the Admiral­ty; and whereupon the Company ad­dressed themselves by the Memorial here­with also published, desiring that for the greater clearness of the matters com­plained of, that what the Navy-Board or the Company had further to say, might be laid down before them in Writing. It is fit I should here acquaint your Lord­ship that the Companys Reply was drawn by the excellent Pen of Mr. Pepys, and whom the Author of that most elaborate Book, The happy future State of Eng­land, doth deservedly call the great Treasurer of Naval and Maritime know­ledge, and of the great variety of the Learning which we call Recondita Eru­ditio. And it is no reflection on the In­tegrity of those Gentlemen of the Navy-Board, who made the complaining Re­port against this Invention, when I shall say that Mr. Pepys his Character justly renders him aequiponderous to them in Moral, and much superiour in Philoso­phical and Political Knowledge, and the universal Knowledge of the Oeconomy of the Navy.

[Page xxvii] But before there was any further pro­ceeding, his Majesty thought fit to su­persede that Commission for executing the Office of the Lord High Admiral: And the King then taking the Admiral­ty into his own hands, and the Compa­ny having thoughts to Petition his Ma­jesty to hear the whole Matter himself, they were by some Persons newly put into the Navy-Board, (who had for several Years shewed their approbation of the Mill'd-Lead Sheathing) advised to offer to that Board a New Proposal to sheath at a rate certain by the yard [...]qu [...]re, and with an intimation that the Navy-Board would take it more kindly, and that they were by this time satisfied that their former Complaint was by misinfor­mation. This Advice was approved, and a new Proposal laid before the Board, the 20th. of December, 1686. which was much approved by Mr. Pepys, say­ing, That he doubted not but they would comply with it; and declaring that on his part when it came into his way, he would promote it, as he had a full Conviction (to use his own words) that it was a great Service to the King; [Page xxviii] and whether for that there was no occa­sion for a good while to sheath any of the Kings Ships, or by reason of a great deal of peremptory business calling for the time of that Board, or by the Company's hap­pening to be slack in their application, I know not; but it seems that after a years time that Board was pleased to referr to two of their own Members, Sir Phine­has Pett and Sir Anthony Dean (who had both of them been Master-builders) the Consideration of the Company's new Proposal. Nor could the Company wish for more equal Iudges of the Mill'd-Lead Sheathing, than those two worthy Persons, who so well understood it, and had formerly done so much right to it up­on all occasions, as judging it so much for the King's service: But the Kings ser­vice calling them from the Navy-Board to a long stay at Chatham, to which place it stood not with the Company's con­venience to repair, and there press them to make their Report; and a long Sick­ness seizing on Sir Phinehas Pett at his return from Chatham, and he being shortly after his recovery, employed in a Iourney about the King's service in some [Page xxix] other of his Majesty's remote Yards; or what else being the true Cause thereof, as your Lordship may judge, so it is that the said Proposal, which is herewith also printed lies still before that Board with­out any further proceedings thereon ever since.

My Lord, I have now let your Lord­ship see how I have been damnatus ad Me­tallum in the progress of this Invention: And considering the course of corrupt and degenerate humane Nature, no Inventers can promise themselves a nobler fate, thô the scene of their Invention lay in a no­bler mettal.

For as Sir William Petty well ob­serves in his Observations on the Bills of Mortality, that if the art of making gold were known to one person, such single adeptus could not, nay durst not enjoy it, but must be either a Prisoner to some Prince, and slave to some voluptuary, or else sculk obscurely up and down for his privacy and concealment.

And so churlish hath the generality of Men been to Inventers, whose discove­ries have only salved the Phoenomena, that they have been unwilling to give [Page xxx] those a good word who have taught the Age great things, yet such where the brightness of their knowledge would not have the operation of the Sun-beams, in putting out any mans Kitchin fire.

And this made the Great Tycho Brahe, as to his famed Discovery con­sole himself, by appealing from the judg­ment of the Age he lived in to that of Posterity.

I shall here divert your Lordship, by entertaining you in his Study which he had in an Island in Denmark by the Munificence of his Patron King Frede­rick, and where (removing the cover of the room) he could as he lay with his face upward in the Night time exercise his speculation with beholding the Stars. And there he had all the famous Astro­nomers painted, and the following Ver­ses were added, each to the Picture to which they belonged.

In the best place Tycho Brahe had set his own Picture with the following Ver­ses,

[Page xxxii]Your Lordship who knows so many things, can be no stranger to the fate of Galilaeus, who after he had placed the Earth among the Heavens, found so much ingratitude on it as to be made a Prisoner in it for so doing, by no meaner a Man than Pope Urban the 8th. Gassendus tells us of this in his Life of Peiresk, and how Peiresk wrote a Letter to him, to condole with him during his confinement, and employ'd his interest in a great Cardinal to pro­cure his enlargement. Pope Urban, it seems, had wrote an idle Comment upon Aristotle de Coelo, and Galilaeus thought fit to confute him, giving him the Name of Simplicius: But the Pope got his Book condemned by the Consistory as hereti­cal; ab arte suâ non recedens, thô ve­ry unnatural.

Thus dangerous a thing is it for a Man to over-oblige the World.

And here it comes in my way to ob­serve how Dr. Robert Wood, a person very famous for all Mathematical know­ledge, lately trying to salve the Credit of this Age from being thought barba­rous on the account of Easter-day being so ill fixt in our Liturgy, hath not been [Page xxxiii] by any Author I have met with, except one, so much as quoted for his illumina­ting us.

The only Person who quotes him for it, is, the Author of The happy future State of England, and he there in p. 241. like a careful observer of the Age, hath these following passages, viz. The great Con­troversie about Easter, that heretofore put all the World in a rattle, and al­most shook it to pieces, what a toy is it self now reputed, insomuch that our latest Ascertainers here of the time of its celebration, seem'd not to think it tanti to awake when they were about it; and thô onr lately having in our Almanacks two Easters in one Year, ea­sily awaken'd the Non-conformists to take notice of it, and to say, that therefore they could not give their un­feigned assent and consent to all and every thing contained in, and prescri­bed by the Book entituled The Book of Common-Prayer, &c. And thô thereup­on a Person of the Royal Society, very profoundly knowing in all the Mathe­matical Sciences, hath publish'd an in­fallible way of fixing Easter for ever, [Page xxxiv] (and that it may be no longer a fugi­tive from the rule of its practice, as it often is at present, nor dance away from it self, as I may say in allusion to the vulgar Error of the Suns dancing on Easter-day) and fixing it so as per­haps none else could have done, nor possibly himself any other way, yet hath this great right done to that great day, been by the generality of People not so much regarded as would an Ad­vice to a Painter, or such like Compo­sure have been.

But however, the Doctor having pub­lish'd it but in a quarter of a Sheet of loose Paper, and that may be likely to come among the Res deperditae, I shall here record that his Invention in his own words, that it may the better be trans­mitted to the Judicium posteritatis, the present World being not only a kind of Areopagus that sits in the dark, but is also asleep.

The Author in that Book mentions his having chosen in the conjuncture in which he writ, to build his Fabricks of Num­bers and Calculations on the course soil of Popery and the Papal Usurpations, and that finding that Mens Fancies at that time relished no subject grateful but Popery, he made that the Vehicle of the Notions he meant as Phyfic to cure their Understandings: And he there hits a blot in the Papal Teners that was [Page xxxix] never hit before by any Protestant Writer, namely the rendring it to be one of those Ten [...]ts, That it is lawful to burn a whole City, in which the major part are Hereticks, expecting such a Discovery should be very welcome to the populace in that Conjuncture.

His so much and so often celebrating the Royal Society throughout his Work, was too a stemming of the tide of humour that prevailed with a great part of the Age, who knowing little either of the Old or New Philosophy, or real Learning and Experimental Philosophy, value them­selves on the ridiculing and crying down those who advance the same.

And having thus again referred to this book of the Happy future State of England, and to which I do but common Iustice in representing it full of most useful Inventions and new Discoveries in Politicks, must too refer to the common fate of Discoverers it hath met with, namely, in finding the World an unteachable Animal. I do not account the Author's great Notion in p. 112. new, namely, That the knowledge of the Numbers of the People is the sub­stratum of all Political Measures: For [Page xl] that Thesis those words of the Captain of our Salvation have long since taught the World, namely, What King going to make War against another King, sit­eth not down first and consulteth whe­ther he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand? or else while the other is yet a great way of, he sendeth an Embassage, and desireth Conditions of Peace?

But after so great a Minister of State as Myn Heer Van Beuninghen had (as De Leti hath mention'd it in print) made the People of England and Wales to be but two Millions: And after so illustri­ous a Writer as Dr. Isaac Vossius in his Variarum Observationum liber, dedi­cated to King Charles the 2d. had made the People in England, Scotland and Ireland, to be but two Millions, (thô both of them probably had read the Ob­servations on the Bills of Mortality where­in excellent fine-spun Notions had made the People about six Millions) his so largely instructing us out of Records, (and a­gainst which there is no averment) and particularly out of the Returns of all the [Page xli] Counties of England and Wales upon several late Pole Acts; and out of the Numbers of the Conformists and Non­conformists upon the Bishops Survey made in the Year 1676. that the Peo­ple of England and Wales are above eight Millions (and indeed that we may probably conclude them to be about ten Millions) may be said to be an happy New Discovery for us in Politicks, he being the first who evinced it out of Records, and wherein his Benefactorship to his Countrey in the doing it at his own charge, might in the paying of Fees to Clerks and Registers well be thought to surpass the charge of the impression of that volu­minous Work; without reckoning in the great charge he must have been at in having accounts of various importations taken by Officers of the Custome-house out of their Books, as particularly in p. 254.

The Author gives well-grounded Ac­counts of the Numbers of the People in France, Spain, Flanders and Holland: But if he had took the pains to calculate the Numbers of the People in China, Aethiopia, or Tartaria, it had been as acceptable to many of our continuando-talkers [Page xlii] of Politicks, and to some who would take it ill not to be vogued for first-rate Politicians, though they never spent a thought about reducing Politicks ad firmam, by Number, Weight and Measure, as this Author hath done.

I shall commend to your Lordship a frequent Conversation with this Book, as containing in it more variety of Po­litical Calculations than you will find in all Printed Books in all Languages: And it is the rather worthy your serious per­usal in this Warlike conjuncture of time, because the Author hath in so nervous [...] Manner given our English World so ma­ny New Directions about the Modus of our being furnish'd with the sinews of War, and in apportioning great Taxes with great equality, the want where [...] is in effect the only grievance in publick Supplies. And this your Lordship wil [...] find if you consult what he hath in p. 192 and out of Sir William Petty's Verbu [...] Sapienti, in Manuscript, viz.

[Page xliii]If a Million of Money were to be raised in England, there should be le­vyed on the

There is half as much more paid now [...]y the Land-tax alone than in the Million distributed on the several Fonds [...]s above. And by the Rule of Sir W. P's. [Page xliv] Calculation of a Tax of one Million, above six Millions may be raised, and no Man feel it much, if equally laid▪ And thô it falls heaviest upon Persons▪ yet according to it no Man will pay [...] tenth of his yearly expence.

It is certainly now the Opus diei, and a propos what he had said before in tha [...] Page, viz. That he believed that the suture State of Christendom will necessa [...]rily prompt all Patriots instead of stu [...]dying to make men unwilling to pro­mote publick Supplies, to bend thei [...] Brains in the way of Calculation t [...] shew what the Kingdom is able to con [...] ­tribute to its defence, and how to d [...] it with equality.

Your Lordship will find this Book sol [...] at the Shop of William Rogers, Book [...]seller, at the Sun over against St. Du [...] ­stans Church in Fleetstreet, as I find [...] in an Advertisement thereof in one [...] the New Almanacks for the Yea [...] 1691.

I must frankly own that I should no have repented of my expence in the pur­chase of this Book, had there been [...] Calculation in it but that in p. 188▪ [Page xlv] and 189. where the Author Calculates the number of the now living here, who were born since the Year in which our Civil War ended, or were then Children, viz. of such Years as not to have ex­perienced or been sensible of the Miseries and Inconveniencies of the War, and a Calculation of what Numbers of those who lived in 1641. are now dead, and what proportion of those now living who lived in the time of the War did gain by the War, and of the number [...]f such in Ireland and Scotland. The Au­ [...]hor giveth a very momentous reason [...]or the finding out those things by Calcu­ [...]tion, and the which might well seem [...]mpossible to be perform'd. For that [...]rinces and their Ministers being ratio­ [...]ally to be steer'd in their apprehensions [...] the danger of Civil War by the great [...]ule of Dulce Bellum inexpertis, ought [...]arefully to have their Eye on the Num­ [...]ers of such inexperti in any long time [...] Peace.

So little regard hath been had by our [...]eat Political Writers to Matters of [...]alculations and Accounts of the Re­ [...]enues of Princes, that I have in the [Page xlvi] great Thuanus observ'd but one passage relating to the same, and which by this Author is cited, p. 246. viz. as to the Receipts and Expences of Lewis the 13th. for the Year 1614. (and in p. 250, out of his own Observation he makes the Expences and Receipts of the pre­sent French King more than quadrupled since, as to what they were in the Year 1614.) and in the so much cry'd up Po­litical Treatise call'd Nouveaux Interests des Princes de l'Europe, and commend­ed by the Author of la Republique des Lettres, there is little or nothing of such Political Calculations contained.

But tho at present in the many such curious Calculations presented to the Age by that Author of the Happy future State of England, he doth as to the Rab­ble of Readers, Vinum raris praemini­strare, whereas Water would have serv­ed their turns as well, yet I believe its impression on Men of refined thought and sense will be such as to make the way of writing of Politicks hereafter without Calculations, grow as much out of Fashi­on as the garb of Trunk-breeches.

My Lord, I have herewith for your [Page xlvii] Lordships farther Entertainment thought fit to publish Sir William Petty's rough draught of Naval Philosophy. The filings of Gold are precious, and a Schytz or hasty Piece of Painting done by a great Hand is of great Value. To have drawn so great an historical Picture of that Philosophy, as he had the Idea of in his Mind, would have took up his whole Life: And he therefore considering the little value the Age hath for such Curio­sities, thought it only worth his while to finish this Piece up at one sitting, and to shew Posterity what he could have done. But in this as it is, the Judicious few will find many a Coup de Maitre, and may instruct themselves thereby in some very considerable principles relating to Naval and Maritine knowledge.

My Lord, I know that Providence hath so disposed of the course of your Lordships Life, as to call you to do things that are to be written of, rather than to read things by others already written. Your Lordships great and successful Courage and Conduct, lately so conspi­cuous to the World in the taking of Cork and Kin [...]ale, will employ the Writers of [Page xlviii] the Annals of our Nation, and adde a further lustre to the Name of Marlbo­rough, which was so much ennobled by your Lordships Predecessor, that the great Poets of the Age crown'd him with their just Laurels, when they said, ‘ Marlborough who knew, and durst do more than all.’ There is one noble Invention that was there tributary to your Lordships success, I mean that of Guns: But as great and noble as this Invention is, (and which was found out by a German in the Year 1378. and whereby the Lives of Men, if we reckon by wholesale, are better preserved in the defence of Cities, and by the fate of Victory being sooner decided in Camps, that hinders Armies from so much butchering one another as former­ly) it hath been by snarling Writers of great Name maligned; and because by it some Men were killed by retale, it hath been render'd execrable and dia­bolical; and that not only by Poly­dore Virgil, but by Cardan and Me­lancton.

[Page xlix]Nor need it be told your Lordship how much this Invention hath been improved since its first use. The manner of con­triving and applying them hath not been less improved than the way of preserv­ing light for the Passengers in our streets, since the finding out of Lanthorns hath: The only Author I know, who hath re­corded the Original of Lanthorns is our learned Antiquary Mr. Gregory, in his learned Notes on Ridley's View, &c. He there tells us, p. 286. That the In­ventor of Lanthorns was our King Alu­red, in whose dayes the Churches were of so poor and mean a structure, that when the Candles were set before the Relicks, they were often blown ou [...] by the Wind which got in, not only per Ostia Ecclesiarum, but per frequent [...]s pa­rietum rimulas; insomuch that the in­genious Prince was put to the practice of his dexterity, and by occasion of this Lanternam ex lignis & bovinis cornibus pul [...]herrime construere impera­vit; by an apt composure of thin Horns in Wood, he taught us the Mystery of making Lanthorns.

[Page l]But our New invented Glasses and Lamps, that casting out so powerful and extensive, and withal so durable and chearful an Illumination, as to make Mens passing about their Affairs in the Night not only tolerable but pleasant, have much outdone the Lanthorns invented by our Monarch, in diebus illis.

Yet on the publishing of a Paper con­taining the various uses this Invention might be of to the Nation, and where­in it was mention'd inter alia, that these Lights might for the publick good be employed at the Light-houses, which give directions to Sea-faring People in dark and stormy Nights; and that these Lights being so clear and strong, and continued with so much certainty as might probably save many from Ship­wrack, where the usual Coal-fires or Candles often fail, by either not giving sufficient Light, or by the uncertainty of these Lights, subject to so many ac­ciden [...]s as doth often occasion the great losses both of Men, Merchandize and Vessels: The Patentees of these New Lights being invited to discourse with those that have the Charge, and re­ceive [Page li] the profits of the Light-houses, they said, they thought they came to save their Candles, but since the Oyl necessa­ry to maintain these Lights (though a Pint, which would cost about a Groat, they were told would serve one Lamp burn­ing twelve hours) was dearer than Can­dles, they declined the use of these Lamps; whereupon the Patentees telling them, they thought the saving of Men [...] Lives and Goods to be of more import­ance than the saving a few Candles, de­sisted from further application.

I might here too instance in the In­vention of the Scarlet or Bow-dye, the exportation whereof hath brought us in return so much Treasure, was put to it to make its way into the World through much opposition. And thus is, and was, and always will the birth of every New Art and Science be of difficult parturi­tion, and the Inventors be enforced to cry, Fer opem Lucina, I mean, to crave aid and Patronage from such generous and Heroical and publick spirited men as your Lordship.

[Page lii] My Lord, about eighty Years agoe the Invention of the New-River-Wa­ter was much labour'd, and it was a kind of partus Elephantinus, about ten Years in bringing to perfection by Sir Hugh Mid­dleton; but Stow tells us of the great danger, difficulty, detraction, scorn, envy and malevolent interpositions it first encountered with.

And indeed it may be said, that after the six days Work and Adam's Fall the World was yet a kind of Chaos as to the use and service of Man, till necessity and humane Industry set his Reason to work, and by degrees to invent and contrive how to apply and dispose the things he found therein best for his ease and service; and teeming Nature goes still big with new In­ventions to improve the things we have, and is ready to bring them forth, when­ever Philosophical and Industrious Men lend her their Midwivery: And for this purpose I am thinking, it was a noble and ingenious saying of Seneca, Pusilla res mundus est, nisi in illo quod quaerat om­nis mundus habeat, Senec. Nat. Qu. l. 2. par. 3. i. e. The World were a poor little thing, but for its affording ample mat­ter [Page liii] of research and enquiry to all suc­ceeding Ages.

My Lord, there is another incompa­rable Invention that was found out not many Years since, and which without some such Patriotly Hero as your Lordship awakening the Age about it, is likely to fill up the Number of lost things; and it is the New Engine that so much exceeds all formerly used for the eternal preser­vation of our Royal Rivers, by deep­ening them, and making them every where Navigable, and taking away all Ob­structions and Shelfs in a very short time. Sir Martin Beckman, the chief Engineer of England, and as I am in­formed the ingenious Sir Christopher Wren, their Majesties Surveyor Gene­ral, have given their approbation there­of; and as likewise did King Charles the second, who was highly pleas'd there­with, and declared after he had seen the working of the Engine, which in his Ma­jesty's presence took up about a Tun and an half in little more than a Minutes time, that he was perfectly satisfy'd it would answer the end proposed; and that by means of its working horizontally, it [Page liv] made no holes, but rather fill'd such as lay in the way of its working, and left the bottom of the River level as it wrought, whereby such inconveniencies would be a­voided, as had happened from the com­mon Ballast-Lighters making such great Holes in the River of Thames, and in which several of the Kings as well as Merchants Ships coming to an Anchor, had broke their backs.

And his Majesty having been made ac­quainted that this Engine being sent down below Bridge to Berking-shelfe, where is nothing but hard Shingle, and that after half an hours breaking ground, it took up at 19 Foot deep, about two Tuns in a Minute and a half, during the whole time it wrought, he said thereupon, That he thought there was no way practica­ble for the deepening the River of Thames, and removing Shelfes therein, but by this Engine.

This Engine was invented by Mr. Bay­ly, an excellent Engineer, and much cul­tivated and improved to its perfection by the great Expence of Mr. Joseph Co­tinge.

King Charles the 2d. so often going [Page lv] down that River in his Barges and Yachts, took occasion thereby often to con­sider the State thereof, insomuch that up­on a publick Hearing in Council, that the Lord Mayor and Aldermen had up­on their Complaint against Patents that straiten'd the River, and licenced En­croachments on it, he took occasion to speak it openly, that the River was shal­lower before his Yard at Deptford by three Foot since his Restauration, and that if it should be but a Foot shallow­er there, his Ships that did ride at An­chor there would be spoiled.

But I have heard Mr. Shishe, the Master-builder there, and likewise Sir Phinehas Pett, who was formerly Ma­ster-builder there, and afterward at Chat­ham, averr, that the River is there ve­ry near four Foot, if not altogether, shal­lower than it was at that King's Restau­ration; insomuch that their Majesties Ships there (as likewise in the River of Medway at Chatham) do ground about four Foot before they have Water enough to wind up with the Tide of flood, the which doth very much strain and wring them to their great prejudice, and that if [Page lvi] there be not a speedy course taken to remove some Encroachments, and pre­vent all future ones, and the farther stopping up those Rivers with sullage, those two Royal Rivers will be spoiled, and in a short time useless for Capital Ships riding therein, and the Crown be put to immense Charge in purchasing of ground for other Ship-yards, and in making of Docks and Store houses, and building new Dwelling-houses for the Officers of the Yards.

I remember, visiting my worthy Friend Mr. Brisband, who was Secretary to the former Lords Commissioners for the Admiralty, he entertain'd me with the fight of many Papers in his Office that related to the Applications that had been made by the City of London to that Board, for the preservation of the River of Thames, and one of them was a Pa­per of the City's Reasons against the Pa­tents for Licensing Encroachments, and straitning that River, and which seem'd to me very weighty, and drawn with such great care and pains, that what Councellor soever drew them, I am sure he deserved a very large Fee from the [Page lvii] City; and out of which I noted down this Passage, namely, That if that River were spoiled, the great Trade of Eng­land would be transplanted, not to other Sea-port-Towns in England, but to Forreign Parts. Those Reasons men­tioning Patents of the Soil to the low-water-mark on both sides the River, in­ferr, That without speedy care taken, the River will be so straiten'd as to be­come thereby not only useless, but even hurtful to Shipping, by a violent and ra­pid course of the Tide that will then necessarily ensue: And the City there­in Complains of a Lease made of a great part of the Soil of the River, and that the right of the disposal of the Shoar of the River, or the Conservatorship there­of, may by survivorship accrue to a Colour-man in the Strand.

Mr. Brisband informed me, that those Commissioners of the Admiralty as well as the Lord Mayor had taken a great deal of pains in the preserving of the Ri­ver, and that it was incumbent on both their Offices so to do; for which purpose he shew'd me a most judicious and learn­ed Report made by the Judge of the Ad­miralty, [Page lviii] wherein it was said, That the Admiral is by his Office and Patent not only Custos Maritimarum partium, but Custos portuum & Conservator Flu­minum infra fluxum & refluuum ma­ris; and that he is by his Patent em­powered to make Sub-conservators, and hath by the Statute of primo Eli­zabethae a concurrency with the Lord Mayor of London in the Conservator­ship of the River of Thames, and that the Shoar of the River is a part of the River, and ought not to be held by private Persons, as of their own right, but by those Conservators in trust for the Government.

And in fine, that Secretary acquaint­ed me, that there was to be a Survey of the River and the Encroachments on it, to be made by Trinity-house and Navy-Board, with the assistance of Captain Collins the King's Hydrographer: And I have since seen a Copy of that Sur­vey made accordingly, and great pains was therein taken. The great pleasure I have taken in going down that River in Boats and Barges, made me always wish well to the State of it; but the sight [Page lix] of the Papers before mention'd, inclined me to account it a Patriotly thing to pro­mote its preservation by all the means I could, and gave me occasion to reflect on the great Wisdom and Care of the Pub­lick that appear'd in our Ancestors, when they made the Admiral and Lord Mayor the Conservators of it; after the exam­ple of the old Romans, as Gryphiander in his learned Book de Insulis, p. 430. quotes several places out of the Civil Law, to shew, that they appointed their Hydrophylacas, or Conservators of their great Rivers, and deliverers of them from being choaked up with Annoyances and Shelfes; and he there p. 441. cites A. Gellius for the ratio retandi flumina, id est, purgandi à Virgultis, arboribus­que in alveo Natis, ne impedimento sint navibus, practised by them: And he saith, that simili verbo returandi usus est Nonius quod est obturando contra­rium, Turneb. l. 28. advers. 12. And then speaking of the Engines they used to that end, he saith, In quem usum In­strumenta hydrautica deducendis, hau­riendisque aquis inventa sunt, de qui­bus Vitruvius, l. 10. quem explicat [Page lx] Turnebus, l. 2. advers. 22. Gothof. in l. 4. c de Excus. Mun. l. 10. Dala­camp. ad Plin. l. 7. c. 37.

Those Engines are long since gone a­mong lost things: Nor do I think we need wish any other Engine for the purg­ing the River of Thames from Obstructi­ons, than this I have referred to: And according to the common Observation of Providence taking care to send both new Diseases and Remedies into the World in the same Conjuncture, and often from the same place, (as for example the Lues Venerea and Guacum, and Sassafras from the West Indies) it was worthy of its care for England, that at this time, when this our River, on which de­pends the Fate of our Nation is labour­ing under the most critical state it ever kn [...]w, and is ready to be destroy'd, to offer us such an Engine for its being re­stored to such a good Condition of being Navigable, as its Conservators can wish.

My Lord, There is one thing that hath caused most horrible ill effects to this River, and which I have met with no Man who hath observ'd, and therefore [Page lxi] it is fit it should be known; and that is the Fire of London: For every five Yards of Pavement a load of Gravel is used, and a great part of this Gravel lyes so loose, that by the force of the Rain it is frequently driven into the Sewers and the Thames: And every Pavement raiseth the Street paved two Inches at least; but the burn'd part of London is at a Medium four Foot higher: And so I account that by the Fire and Re­building of London, more Gravel and Soyl hath gone into the Thames than perhaps will again in the next three hun­dred Years.

Some who are interested in this En­gine, have said, that by it the Bar of Dublin might be taken away; but I have heard that that is a rocky Barr; and if so, such effect of the Engine is not to be expected: But that such Shelfes ari­sing in our River from the Gravel and Sullage that are wash'd into it, may with ease be removed by it, is not to be doubt­ed.

This River glides along with a much more clear and gentle stream than the River of Severn; and the Cause of the [Page lxii] clearness of its Water, is its running in a Gravelly Valley, and over a clear Ground: And the great winding of the River, which locks in the Water that it cannot make that haste down to the Sea that it would, and the low-lying of the Head-springs of it, from whence there is but an easie descent to the Sea, are the two chief Causes of the gentleness of its Current: It may be here remark'd, that this easie descent of the Waters to the Sea-ward, is another reason why the Tide flows up so high into the heart of this River; for the more steep the Ri­ver is, the less able is the Tide to force its way up into it. Swift Rivers have always their Heads lying high, or their Course direct, or both.

Since I have been (as I may say) a Student of this River, I have took oc­casion to pitty those who look on the strange shifting of Tides in this River as a great Prodigy, because happening seldom: But I think the Cause of the shifting of the Tides, is only the over-bearing of their Course, when they are at their slackest, by a Northwest Wind, which is the most powerful adversary they can have on our [Page lxiii] Coasts: For if a slow Ebb be encoun­ter'd full in the teeth with a hard Storm, what can follow but a return of the Tide back again? And if the Northwest Wind either abate its fierceness, or shift into some other quarters, as the South-west or North-east for some short time, and then either return to its former place, or resume its former force, and do this once, twice, and again (which we know is not inconsistent with the Nature and Custom of the Wind off at Sea, thô at Land its wanderings are not altogether so sensible) we may easily believe (see­ing so plain a reason for it) that there will be a playing of the Tide too and fro, and several Floods and Ebbs suc­ceeding one another in a few hours space. My Sentiments in this place are those of the Author of Britannia Baconica. It was the Praediction of Campanella, that Venice should at last be destroy'd by Obli­mation, that is, by the Sullage of its Waters that should spoil their being Na­vigable. And Gryphiander in his Book before mention'd, hath a great deal of cu­rious Learning, to shew what famous Ri­vers in the World had been destroy'd by [Page lxiv] Obstructions: He in p. 448. cites Ovid for his— Vidi factas ex aequore [...]erras. He in p. 177. making the three constituent Parts of a River to be Wa­ter, the Banks and Channel, considers the Mutations incident to them all, and in p. 460. saith, Ravenna Italiae urbs ab Augusto Caesare portu manufacto aucta, nunc pro flumine spaciosissimos hortos ostendit, malis plena, sed de quibus non pendeant vela sed poma. Ita Patavij, Aquileiae, & alibi latissima nunc jugera sunt, ubi olim classium stationes fuerunt, &c. Leowerdia, Boss­werdia, aliaeque Frisiae urbes olim ma­ritimae, nunc integro milliari a Mari recesserunt: And then speaks of other excellent Harbours there destroy'd by Oblimation or Sullage. And in p. 177. he hath a great deal of excellent Learn­ing much to this purpose, and saith, Quod si perpetua sit fluminum mutatio, viderur ipse Deus imperij & provinciae terminos mutaros velle, qui ob hanc cau [...]am Moabitis minatur, fluvium ip­sorum Nimrim exsiccatum iri, Ierem. 48. v. 34. Psal. 107. v. 33. Atque hoc experientia confirmat. De qu [...] Lucian [Page lxv] in Charon. Atque urbes tanquam ho­mines, & quod magis est admirabile, etiam universi Fluvii evanescunt. Inachi enim nullum Argis extat vestigium. Se­neca in Hercul. Oetheo.

Inde factum cum ex fluminum insoli­tis mutationibus praesagia sumerentur de mutationibus imperiorum, ut flumina ipsa ab Ethnicis pro diis colerentur. v. Natal. Comit. lib. 1. Mythol. 11. Ita Nilus in Aegypto pro Deo cultus. De cujus presagiis, Seneca l. 4. Nat. quest. 2. And there afterward speaks of the chan­ges of the Channel in the Rhine.

He doth often inculcate that Notion, That the administration of the Banks of Rivers is a part of the Regalia; and he in p. 436. quotes a great Writer of the Re­galia, to shew that the Work of the Inspe­ction and Conservacy of them is among the Regalia: Sicuti etiam jus retardandi fl [...]mina, ripas muniendi, alveumque purgandi: And there saith, Hinc sem­per potestas statuendi de aggeribus ad [...]uperiores pertinuit. Ita Romae reme­dium [Page lxvi] coercendo Tyberi ex Senatus con­sulto Ate [...]o Capitoni & L. Aruntio Man­datum, Tacit. 1. Annal. & Constitutus est in eum usum certus Magistratus ab Augusto Caesare, Sueton. cap. 37. Nem­pe curator Riparum, & alvei Tyberis ut inscriptiones veteres habent, Lips. in Comment. ad Annal. Tacit. Tyberi­us etiam quinqueviros constituit, Dio Cass. lib. 37. Quos titulos usurpare ne principes quidem puduit.

This great part of the Regalia, name­ly, the Conservation of all the Royal Rivers of England, hath been always by our Kings deposited in the hands of the Lord High Admiral of England and Ireland; and the trust thereof is both granted to our Admirals in all their Pat­tents, and is inherent in their Office; and in all the Patents of the Viceadmi­rals of the maritime Countyes in both Realms, the Viceadmirals are expresly constituted Conservators of all the Royal Rivers and Ports belonging to those Coun­ties, as Mr. Brisband inform'd me upon his having perused the draughts of many Vice­admirals Patents; I thereupon asking him whether those Viceadmirals did put their [Page lxvii] power of being Conservators of the Royal Rivers in execution; he told me that upon his having consulted some of the Offices and Officers in the high Court of Admiral­ty about this very thing, he could find no foot-steps of their having minded the Power of such Conservacy: That he ob­serv'd them diligent enough in that part of their Office that enabled them to re­ceive several Admiralty Perquisites and Droits, of the which they were Col­lectors for the use of the Admiral, and to whom they often gave their accounts about the same; but that he never found in the Accounts of their Disbursments any thing inserted of a Penny charge they ever were at in the demolishing any Nusances, or removing any Shelfs in the Royal Rivers; and that the do­ing this being a thing of great charge, and they having no allowance of any Sallary to support their Office, this Work was never expected from them.

Thus then have Eneroachers took what liberty they pleas'd, to make Purprestures on the Royal Rivers in the Countrey, and to build Houses thereon as seem'd good in their own eyes; and it hath there been, [Page lxviii] as Gryphiander saith, p. 522. In Cor­cyraeos propter impunitatem malefici­orum jocus est apud Eustat. in Dionys. [...]. i. e. Li­bera Corcyra, caca ubi velis.

But the Secretary shewed me how that in the Finalis Concordia of the 18th. of February, 1632. before the King in Council, between the Common-Law Iudges and the Iudge of the Admiralty concerning Prohibitions, one Article a­greed to, was, That the Admiral may enquire of and redress all Annoyances and Obstructions in all Navigable Ri­vers beneath the first Bridges, that are any impediments to Navigation, or Passage to or from the Sea, &c. and no Prohibition to be granted in such Case: And from the foremen [...]ion'd Re­port of the Judge of the Admiralty to the late Commissioners of the Admiral­ty, it is plain that the Lord high Admi­ral in his high Court of Admiralty here, under the eye of the Government, hath va­riously acted in the Conservacy of the River of Thames; for thence I noted down what follows, viz. It can be made appear by Records in the Court of [Page lxix] Admiralty, that Licenses have been gi­ven by the Lord Admiral for the en­largement of Wharfs, and that the said Court hath punish'd Persons for not keeping them in repair, and Orders have been made from time to time for the regular lying of Ships, by appoint­ing how many shall ride a breast, &c. and the Report mentions, that one was treated with by Persons concern'd in a late Patent, that he might be permit­ted to take in some part of the Shoar to the Low water-mark, and that ano­ther had de Facto agreed with them for the summe of 20 l. for taking in 80 Foot deep, and 100 Foot long of the Shoar. I have been by my Council at Law inform'd, that he hath seen various late Patents for granting away the Soil of the Shoar to private Persons, not on­ly in Middlesex and Surrey, but in the Counties of Kent, and Southampton, and Norfolk; and that he saw a Deed under the Hand and Seal of the Colour-man be­for [...] named in the City's Reasons, the which Deed was dated the 22d. of Ja­nuary, in the second Year of the late King James; and in which he Covenants [Page lxx] with some Sea-faring People, inhabitants by the Thames-side in Wapping, that neither he nor his Heirs and Assigns will build any House or Wharf on the Soil between their Houses and Ground and the Low-water-mark; which ne­cessarily shews that he claim'd a Power of so doing if he would.

But at the Admirals granting Licen­ses for the Enlargement of Wharfs I do not wonder, tho' yet there is no doubt but that both the Admiral and Lord Mayor as Conservators of the River of Thames, have administred that branch of the Regalia candidè & castè, and with great precaution, with reports after references to sworn Surveyors, that the River would not be damnify'd by such enlargement of Wharfs, causing any Jet­tys to obstruct the course of the Tide in carrying away the Sullage; a thing that generally happens by the Encroachments that private Persons have presumed to make on the River.

And here I shall take occasion to ob­serve, that it is not only possible in some Cases to take in some part of the River without prejudice to it, but it is also pro­bable [Page lxxi] that the taking in some places of the River would tend to the good of it. The general Rule is, that we may with safety to the River gain upon the hollow shore, but not on the Convex Shore, or where there are Head-lands; for then it would change the Channel and turn the stream into Eddys; as for example, If the Custome-House-Key should be car­ry'd further, which is already brought to the Channel, it would be fatally mischievous.

It hath been by several skilful Survey­ors told me, that after the Fire of Lon­don, they upon the digging the foundati­on of the present Custome-house, found that it was all such as we call made Earth, and had been gain'd out of the Thames, and therefore it was (I ac­count) with great Prudence, that the Conservators of the River consented, that 'till they came to deep Water, it should be gain'd in for the better Convenience of Navigation, that Ves­sels might float at ebb as they now do at the Custome-house.

The same Surveyors assured me that under St. Magnus Church they after the Fire met with an old Campshot and [Page lxxii] Wharfing, gain'd from the Thames, and that at the same time they were inform'd that there were found Campshots much further from the Thames in digging of Cellars; and whence it may be inferr'd probably, that all Thames-street from Queenhithe downward to the Custome-house, was gain'd out of the Thames.

I give no hint of this, that any Pro­jector may take occasion from hence to begg Thames-street. God be thanked, the illegality of granting Forfeitures before Conviction is now out of fashion. All vexatious or prolling Patents are now in the State of damnati antequam Na­ti: And it must be acknowledged to the immortal praise of that true English-man, Sir George Treby, the Attorney Ge­neral, that he finding their Majesties Names surreptitiously used in the Prose­cution of such a Patent, did that great Iustiee to the Honour of the Government, and to his own Character, as to cause a Cesset Processus to be enter'd in the Case.

When I consider the many Patents, both illegal and vexatious that passed in the Reign of King Charles the second, [Page lxxiii] I call to mind that Maxime, that the King can do no wrong; that is, he can in no Grant cum effectu, injure his Peo­ple, but by some of his Ministers in the Law passing it, and who in so doing may be said, Violare Sacramentum Domini Regis. I believe that that excellent Prince did in his Nature wish well to the Ease of his People as well as his own, while by the fault of some of his Ministers so many Grants surreptitiously did pass of the Same conceal'd Lands, and of Purpre­stures, and of Lands derelicted, &c. and when after Composition paid by the People to one Court-beggar, he sent another to their doors; and when the suffering Populace, whose pretended Forfeitures were granted before Conviction, were so often tempted to cry out, Quem das [...]inem Rex mag­ne laborum.

It was in that Reign excellently well said by the Earl of Shaftsbury, in his Speech in the Exchequer, at Serjeant Thurland' s being sworn a Baron there, viz. Let me recommend to you, so to manage the King's Justice and Reve­nue, as the King may have most pro­fit, and the Subject least Vexation: [Page lxxiv] Raking for old Debts, the number of Informations, Projects upon conceal­ments, I could not find in the eleven Years experience I have had in this Court, ever to advantage the Crown: But such Proceedings have for the most part deliver'd up the Kings good Sub­jects into the hands of the worst of Men. And Sir William Petty in a Manuscript I have seen of his, of the Trade of Ireland, for this purpose, taking Notice of the seve­ral Trades by which People there subsist, speaks of many there driving the Trade of Projectors, and of such who make use of the King' s Name, and the Process of the Ex­chequer, about concealed Lands, to spunge Composition out of such as are willing to buy their Peace; and he having shew'd how much the King is damnified by those Traders, he saith very judiciously in the end, That this Trade doth not add any thing more to the Common-wealth than Gamesters, and even such of them as play with fal [...]e Dice, do to the common stock of the whole Number.

It is here therefore but just to take no­tice of the Prudence of the Trinity-house, in that after they had on the [Page lxxv] 18 th. of August, in the 15th. Year of that King's Reign, pass [...]d Letters Patents, not only of the Ballast of the River of Thames, but also of all the Wast ground, Purprestures and Encroachments, and Soil to it belonging; they soon found that it would engage them in Controver­sies with the City of London, and Sea­men and Sea-saring People, and there­fore surrender'd it, and the Surrender was enroll'd in Chancery the 9 th. of De­cember, in the 16th. Year of that King; and on the 24th. of June, in the follow­ing Year, they took out Letters Patents for the Ballast alone. But there were Patents passed of the same Encroach­ments Prior to the Patent of Trinity-house as well as after it; and it may be said, that on those after it, the Paten­tees came a gleaning, not only after the Reapers, but after the Beggars, since whatever Trinity-house receives, is only for the use of the Poor: However, the Trinity-house in taking out that Patent for Encroachments on the Thames, was made use of afterward as an Example or President in that Reign, for other C [...]ur­tiers Petitioning for a Grant of the En­croachments [Page lxxvi] on the Rivers Royal in the Out [...]ports through all England; and the Petition referr'd found a favourable Re­port from one of the King's Council at Law, but was stopp'd on the Letters from all the Sea-port Towns in England to oppose it, as likely to be troublesome and vexatious to the People, and of which Letters I have seen the Abstracts.

I thank God for his inclining me to▪ value that habit of [...]ind, namely, of not giving any man the least Offence to get the greatest profit to my self, equal with my Life; and as those divine words of Tully shew he did with his, viz. Non enim mihi est vita mea utilior, quam animi mei talis affectio, neminem ut violem commodi mei gratiâ, lib. 3. Offic. And were I commanded to write the History of the Reign of any Prince, and therein in proper Colours to delineate any of the Ministers at Law to him who violated the ease of his fellow Subjects, by the illegal passing of Grants of Forfei­tures before Conviction, I should trans­mit his Character to Posterity, in the words of Vir natus ad corruptissimum [Page lxxvii] istius saeculi Genium: But the Genius of the Age is now for the making it self easie by its spewing up such Patents: And the benefit the People find thereby, doth in a modest Computation outweigh all the Taxes they pay to the Govern­ment.

The Magistrates of our Metropolis are now eased from the labour of going in their Formalities, and with a Parade of City-officers attending them to Whitehall, to seek relief as formerly in the Reign of that Prince.

And I may for the Edification of the Citizens of our Metropolis in Loyalty, fairly take occasion here to mind them, that when (as the Story is in Howel's Londinopolis, p. 19.) King James the first, being displeas'd with the City of London for their refusing to lend him Money, told the Mayor and Aldermen attending him, that he would remove his Court, and the Tower Records, and Courts of Westminster-Hall to some other remote place; and an Alderman then ask'd him, if he would remove the Ri­ver of Thames? that if the Alderman thought that an impossibility, he was cer­tainly [Page lxxviii] [...]ar gone in Capon [...]brot [...].

For upon a discourse I had with a most sk [...]lful Surveyor, on the occasion of my [...]ell­ing h [...]m that I thought whoever b [...]rgain'd away that part of the Shoar that was be­fore mention'd, viz. 80 Foot deep, and 100 Foot long, for 20 l. sold Robin Hood's Penny worths of it, his Measures agreeing with mine therein, and that ma­ny a Man would have given 500 l. for the same; I found on the Result of our Confe­rence how the Crown might grant away but a Moity of the River of Thames, name­ly, the Shore to the Low-water-mark on both sides, (and which would in effect de­stroy the whole River as aforesaid) and gain the value of four Aldermens Estates by it.

For thus his Calculation was, viz. to sh [...]w that whoever gave 500 l. for it, would gain 200 l. by the bargain. To go into the Thames 100 Foot long be­low Bridge, will cost a Man 300 l. with the slighter sort of Wharfing. If he goes 80 Foot deep, he hath it fill'd for nothing with rubbish; so then he gives 500 l. and giveth 300 l. more for the charge of his Whar [...]: And he may gain [Page lxxix] 200 l. by the bargain by the ground [...]rents, thus, viz. He may build forward and backward on the Premises, and may compute the ground rent by 6 or 7 s. the front Houses per Foot, and 2 s. 6 d. per Foot the back Houses; so then there being in a Mile above 5000 Foot, he will gain in one Mile 50 times 200, that is, 10000 l. and the like on the other side; and so proportionably for another Mile on both sides; Quod erat demonstrandum.

There were by the appointment of King Charles the second two Surveys made of the River of Thames, the one of the se­veral depths of the River in its parts be­low Bridge, perform'd with great Care and Skill by that excellent Mathematical Person, Sir Jonas Moor, and a Copy of which I can direct the Conservators of the River where to obtain for an in­considerable Charge.

The other was a Survey of the En­croachments I before referred to, per­form'd by the Navy-Board and Trini­ty-house, with the assistance of Captain Collins, his Majesties Hydrographer, and wherein I said great pains was taken; [Page lxxx] and a Copy whereof is herewith publish'd for the use of the Conservators of the Ri­ver, and I can direct them to Captain Collins his most accurate Draught of the River, and most necessary to be had by them: And he in my judgment deserves to be well rewarded with some acknow­ledgment by the City for the great Pains taken, and Skill by him shewn in that Draught, tending to the preservation of their River: For he hath thereby laid an everlasting Foundation for the easie and certain Prevention of all future Encroach­ments on the Thames, and which may be this way, and I believe cannot possibly be effected by any other; namely, if the Lords Commissioners for executing the Office of the Lord High Admiral shall ap­point the Marshal of the Admiralty, or some other Person, and the Lord Mayor appoint his Water-Bailiff at the mend­ing or repairing of any Wharf upon the Thames, to see a Stake stuck down, be­yond which the Repairers of the Wharf shall not proceed; and both of these Offi­cers shall be order'd to demolish immedi­ately whatever shall be added beyond such Stake. Captain Collins his Draught doth [Page lxxxi] sufficiently set forth how far the Encroach­ments went that were made before the Month of October, 1684. the Month in or about which he gave in his Draught, and to which this printed Survey re­ferrs.

Vpon my consulting the Authors that write of the Regalia, to know their sense of the Office of a Conservator, I found this definition of it there, viz. Conser­vator est qui sine judiciali examine jus aliquod publicum tuetur. Nor is there any moot-point in our Law that need divert our Conservators of the Royal Ri­vers from the immediate demolishing of Nusances, sine judiciali examine.

For as little as I have convers'd with Law-Books, I find 1 Crook▪ 184. James and Hay­wards Case. Coke 5th. report. that a Nusance once erected may be abated by any Body, and that before prejudice receiv'd, and that it cannot be granted by the King, nor continued by the King's Grant or Pardon.

And therefore when any one buyes a Nusance, 101. Penruddock's Case; and 9th. Report. 53. Bettons Case, cum­multis aliis. say I, Caveat Emptor: I wish that all Mercy may be shewn to those who have formerly encroached, and even to their old Encroachments, as may be [Page lxxxii] without Cruelty to the River. But I am inform'd that that merciful Prince, King Charles the 2d. gave Order to the Lord Mayor for the demolishing some particular New Encroachments that were very prejudicial to the River of Thames. He w [...]ll kn [...]w that two parts of three of the Customs come to the Crown from the Port of London: And no doubt but the con­sideration of that, as well as the National concern of his Subjects, inclined him to endeavour th [...] preservation of that River by the most effectual means; and he being so of [...]en upon the River, knew well that it would bear no more En [...]roachments, it [...] in the Pool so full of [...] in of the [...] that a B [...]ar can hardly pass. He [...] that the great strai [...]ness of the [...] the Con­serva [...]o [...]s [...] more Ships to [...] been former­ly [...] might produce [...]he danger of [...].

His Majesty and a [...]l his People, both representative and diffusive, had been long sufficiently acquainted with the Do­ctrine of Nusa [...]ces, since the passing of [Page lxxxiii] the Act against Irish Cattel, and that a Patent for a Nusance was not worth its weight in burnt Silk: And he hath been often heard to say, that he would damn all Patents that damned the River; and that the granting of things to the Low-water-mark must needs be vexatious; for that the Neap tides and Spring-tides be­ing so various at different times of the Month, and different times of the Year, beside all variety of Wind and Weather from abroad, the great uncertainty of such Grants must make perpetual disturb­ances among his Subjects; and that if any presumed to take in the River to what may seem the Low-water-mark, that then Ships lying by the Walls would en­crease the Mudd there, and add to the dirt thrown in, and that that might be built on too, and so the River be anni­hilated. And he being inform'd that the Person who had made that Encroachment so prejudicial to the River, and which he purchased for 20 l. was only Fined by my Lord Mayor's Court of Conservacy 5 l. for it, was resolved to have it demo­lish'd, b [...]th for the good of the River, and to terrifie Encroachers for the future; [Page lxxxiv] for that he well knew the demolishing of that one Encroachment would spoil the Market of selling Nusances for ever.

Nor is it to be wonder'd at, that his Majesty was so thoughtful and resolv'd about the preservation of his River of the Thames, since the Care of some Royal Rivers, not so considerable as that, hath been known to take up so much of the time of the Council-Board, when they were much endanger'd by Obstructions and An­noyances. I shall here take occasion to mention what I find in Sir Julius Caesar 's Manuscript Collections of Matters of State, that after King James had grant­ed the Conservacy of the River of Tyne to the Mayor and Burgesses of New-Castle, Complaints were brought to the Council-Board, of the great Decay of that River; whereupon on the 29th. of January, An. 1613. certain Articles were order'd to be put in execution for the remedying the Abuses complained of: And it appearing that that River was in such eminent danger of being destroy'd, if a very speedy course were not taken concerning it, the Council order'd that Sir Iulius Caesar, and Sir [Page lxxxv] Daniel Denne, one of the Judges of the Admiralty, with the assistance of the Trinity-Masters of London, should draw up additional Articles to be joyn'd with the former, for the effectual Conserva­tion of that River: And one of them was, That some truly trusty substantial Men, Burgesses of New-Castle, be ap­pointed to View the River every Week, and to make Oath of the abuses done to the same; two of them to be Masters of the Trinity-House of New-Castle, and they to have no Coles, nor Mines, nor Ballast-shores, and who might be thought not concern'd for their own profit in casting Sullage into that Ri­ver.

The Government then thought not fit to make any Men Guardians of the Soil of that River, who had a pretence by Pa­tents to inherit it.

In short, when the Sun is just come in­to its Winter- Tropic, the dayes begin to lengthen, and not 'till then; and when things were at the worst with the River of Tyne, they did then begin to mend: And the Wisdom of the Government shew'd its Dominion over all the Starrs, [Page lxxxvi] whose influences threatned that Royal Ri­ver: Dictum, factum; and that Ri­ver is preserv'd to this day, and so I hope with Gods help will the River of Thames, and all our Royal Rivers be for ever.

It was the saying of Maximilian the first, Deus aeterne nisi vigilares quam male esset mundo, quem regimus ego miser Venator & ebriosus ille Julius. The Viceadmiral of the County, and the Mayor of Newcastle were in that Con­juncture drowsie Conservators of that River; but Divine Providence was then awake to preserve that great useful Ri­ver, and to awaken the Government to take those Measures for its preservation that were necessary, and suitably to which a fac simile might easily be taken on oc­casion for any other of our Royal Ri­vers.

There is another of the Royal Rivers where the great Concern of Navigation did so wo [...]thily employ the time of the Council-Board in the Reign of King Charles the first: For one Morgan ha­ving built a House at Crockyern [...]ill, in the Port of Bristol, (and in which place Posts had formerly b [...]n er [...]ct [...]d, [Page lxxxvii] for Ships and Barks being fasten'd to them) the Lords of his Majesties Coun­cil upon a Complaint of that hindrance to Navigation, made an Order that Mor­gan should demolish and pull down that House, that so Posts might remain there as formerly, for the fastening of Ships; as may appear by two several Orders made at Council-Board, the one bearing date the 11 th. of June, An. 1670. and the other the 29th. of October.

And if any private Person may abate a Nusance, even before prejudice re­ceiv'd, none need make it a Question whe­ther the King or his Privy Council may, or Persons by them Commission'd so to do.

Because (as we say) that which is eve­ry body's work is no body's, for that rea­son the Law hath entrusted that power of abating Nusances in the Royal Rivers to the Lord High Admiral, as their Con­servator, ex Officio; and here for the doing that in the River of Thames, the Lord Mayor hath been admitted to that trust; and it is vested in both of their Offices, both by Grant and Prescription, according to that distinction so often used [Page lxxxviii] among the Writers of the Regalia, cu­mulativè but not privativè; that is to say, by the accumulating the power of Conservacy both to the Lord Admiral and the Lord Mayor, neither of them is deprived of it. Neither would either be deprived of the exercise of their Power of demolishing Nusances, if the King should grant a Commission to many other particular Persons so to do: Nor yet would the Commissionating of many other such Persons deprive the rest of their fel­low Subjects of their right so to do.

And here it is obvious to be said by the way, that thô a Patent that pretends to grant Encroachments or Nusances is void, yet a Patent or Commission to throw them down is most certainly very legal. But yet if any Man were so publick-spirited as without a Patent to attempt a thing so beneficial to his Countrey, he would be able to effect it with as much readiness as that honourable Person, who hath on ma­ny Accounts deserv'd so well from his Coun­trey, the Earl of Craven, without Patent or Commission, or a Parade of Officers and gilded Maces going before him, hath been long obey'd in the quenching of Fires.

[Page lxxxix] My Lord, I believe the English Na­tion is doubled in populousness, since the ancient Methods were first used of trust­ing the Care of Conservacy of the Roy­al Rivers in the Countrey to our Vice­admirals, whose so long Non-user of their power relating to the Encroachments on them, hath sufficiently appear'd by the ma­ny Patents of those Encroachments in the several Countreys granted in the Reign of King Charles the second, and the which hath beside the inconvenience of the strait­ning those Rivers, produced another to our Navigation, namely, the Creating much trouble by innumerable Law-suits to our Navigators, who generally inhabit by the sides of those Rivers, and where their Ships use to lye: And it is pitty but that some Clauses should have been insert­ed in those Patents, to direct a different way of Prosecution in their Case from that of other Subjects, and that unless ve­ry enormous prejudice had come by their Encroachments to the Royal Rivers, the Seamen might not have been put to it to give Compositson-money for the licensing their Nusances. It hath been truly ob­serv'd [Page xc] by a late Writer, That Seamen are easily tempted to seek good Enter­tainment in other Countreys, if they find it not in their own, and that they are apt to change their own Quarters, and embarque in Forreign Service, some­times upon a Capricio of their reputing themselves disobliged at home, and at other times on their expectance of be­ing better used abroad. And in a Re­monstrance from Trinity-house to the Earl of Nottingham, Lord high Admi­ral, it was certify'd by them to his Lordship, that in a little more than 12 Years after 1588. the Shipping and Number of our Seamen were decay'd about a third part.

It seems by the wise Conduct of the Government then, our Sea-men and their numbers were carefully enroll'd.

But so indulgent was Queen Elizabeth to the Seamen in her Reign, that we find in the Act of Parliament, 35 Eliz. c. 6. An Act for restraining of New Build­ings, a particular tender regard is had to the Seamen; for there it is said, Pro­vided also notwithstanding any thing in this Act, it shall and may be lawful for [Page xci] every such Mariner, Sailor, &c. as shall be allow'd by the Lord Admiral, a [...]d the Masters and Company of the Trinity-House for the time being, in writing under their Hands and Seals to continue in his habitation in any House that hath been built sithence the said Proclamation, near to the Thames-side, serving only for the habitation of such Mariner, and not to be used for any Victualling-house, nor for any House for any Merchandize, &c. and likewise that any Mariner may hereafter build any House for such purpose, and for no other, on or near the Thames-side, so as it may be distant from the very Wharf or Bank thirty Foot, so as Peo­ple may pass between the said Houses, and the said Bank and the Thames, &c.

I speak not this as if I would have any Mariners make any new Encroachments on any of our Royal Rivers, especially on the Thames, which is already so much straiten'd: But I urge it to shew how the Wisdom of the Government then did make it (as I may say) a fundamental Rule for the Preservation of the River of Thames, that even while encourage­ment [Page xcii] was providing for the Sea-men, (the Walls of the Kingdom) yet Houses by the Thames should not be permitted, but by the Allowance of the Admiral, the great Conservator of all the Royal Rivers, and the Trinity-house, first had under their Hands and Seals. Several of the Mem­bers of the Trinity-House dwelling by the Thames-side below Bridge, cannot but as they go up and down by Water, take no­tice of the Encroachments as they are ma­king, and which of them will eminently prejudice the River, and which not, and so are the more proper to be consulted in the Case.

And from hence we may Collect this great Document, and so necessary to be thought of again and again, by the Con­servators of our publick Rivers, namely, That whatever alteration is made in them, by building on them, thô never so little, ought to be with great Care, and with the use of the Consilium peri­torum, and not by the arbitrage of pri­vate Patentees and their Executors, but by the Publick Conservators, to whose personal Circumspection and Skill that great trust was always committed by [Page xciii] the Government; the Office of the Ad­miral having never been granted by In­heritance, as some great Offices, viz. the Earl Marshal and Lord Great Cham­berlain have been.

And there is another instance of the ancient Care of the Government over the River of Thames, that is very memo­rable, namely, the excellent Institution of the Wardmote Inquest, the which thing hath worthily made the Govern­ment of the City of London so famous all over the World.

I have read the Articles of the Charge of the Wardmote Inquest, that were in print in Queen Elizabeth 's time, where­of the 4th. Article is, Ye shall swear that ye shall enquire and truly present all the Offences and Defaults done by any Person or Persons in the River of Thames, according to the intent and purport of an Act made by our late So­vereign Lord King Edward the 6 th. in his High Court of Parliament, and also of divers other things, ordain'd by Act of Common Council of this City, for the redress and amendment of the said Ri­ver, which as now is in great decay [Page xciv] and ruine, and will be in short time past all remedy, if high and substantial Pro­vision and Help be not had with all speed and diligence possible, as more plainly appeareth in the said Act of Par­liament, and the said Act of Common-Council of this City.

Here the most grave and substantial Citizens, are put to it by a promissory Oath to stake their Eternities, and in effect to invocate God, both as Witness and Revenger, about their doing right to that River in their Presentments; and I am sure the present State of it being conformable to the Words, in that Arti­cle relating to its great decay and ru­ine, &c. is what they may safely swear in an Oath assertory.

Howel in his Londinopolis, p. 392. speaks of this Article still continuing in Presentments in the Wardmote In­quest.

When the Government did anciently order the Lord High Admiral and the Lord Mayor to espouse the Interest of this River, our Monarchs did not pre­sent to them, as one did who told a Ro­man Emperor, he offer'd him a Lady, [Page xcv] who was Vidua & indotata. As much as it hath been (as I may say) widdow­ed, and bereaved of that Care it should have found, while many now living re­member at least a fifth part of it to have been taken in by Encroachers, it brings in still a very fair and plentiful Dow­er to the Lord Admiral and Lord May­or. The Lord Admiral hath been by it enabled to support the Trinity-House by the Ballast-Office; and I in my Conscience think it well bestow'd on them, that is to say, on the poor Seamen whom that excellent Corporation relieves thereby.

The Chainage of Ships belongs to the Admiral, and the right of the Ferriage over all Rivers between the first Bridges and the Sea is a Perquisite of Admiralty, and the right thereof is inherent in the Office of the Admiral; and 'tis notori­ous that the Right of the Ballastage in all the other Royal Rivers of England belongs to the Admiral, as well as in the River of Thames. There is the Perqui­site of Anchorage in the Thames, as well as elsewhere, belonging to the Ad­miral, as are likewise many other Per­quisites, and that are enumerated in the Admiral's Patent.

[Page xcvi]Nor can any Right belonging to the Admiral be pass'd by the Crown under the Great Seal to any one but by the Admi­ral's Warrant to the Attorney or Soli­citor general.

To the Lord Mayor as Water-bay­ly and Conservator of the River of Thames, several Fees and Profits be­long: And to that Office of Conservator belongs the Office of Measuring Coals, Grain, Fruit, in the Port of London, with the Fees belonging to it; and the Fines imposed in his Court of Conserva­cy, or by the Commissioners of Sewers for Misdemeanors that concern the Ri­ver; and other Perquisites, and in the which the Admirals have long ceased to intermeddle; and not without cause, be­cause of the great Charge incident to the Lord Mayor's Conservacy of the River, and particularly in matters relating to the Fishery, and the charge that attends the traversing Indictments, and removing them to the Kings-Bench, as likewise the Charge of suing out Scire Facias 'es to va­cate the Grants of particular Persons that entrench on the rights of the Lord May­or's Conservacy, and which Charge they [Page xcvii] have often supported without being there­in assisted by the Lord Admirals.

I might instance in many passages in the reigns of our Kings long ago, concern­ing the Lord Mayor's applying to the Go­vernment, when private Courtiers had surreptitiously obtain'd Patents that in­terloped in the Conservacy of the Ri­ver; as for example, Edward the 4 th. having made a Grant to the Earl of Pem­broke for setting up a Weare in the River of Thames, and the Lord Mayor applying to the King about it, obtain'd a Scire Facias to vacate that Grant, and vigorously prosecuted the vacating there­of to effect.

And how in the two last Reigns seve­ral Lord Mayors with great Industry and Charge prosecuted the vacating of Patents that they judged entrenching on the Con­servacy, that both by Charter and Pre­scription belong'd to them, is known to every one: Nor will the unwearied dili­gence of those Patriotly Lord Mayors, Sir William Pritchard, Sir Henry Tulse, Sir James Smith, Sir Robert Jefferys, Sir John Peak, in thus shewing their Zeal for the Conservacy of the River, [Page xcviii] be ever forgot, while that City keeps Re­cords.

And they are strangers to the Chara­cter of the present Lord Mayor, both for integrity and prudence in Political Con­duct, and his Zeal for maintaining the known Rights of the City, who shall think that if he had been at the Helm of them Government of the City when they were, he would not have steer'd the same Course as the most active of them did, and that with such a Courage as is worthy the high Sphere of Magistracy he moves in. A Coward (saith one) cannot be a good Christian, much less a good Magistrate. Solomon 's Throne of Ivory was support­ed by Lyons. Innocency and Integrity cannot be preserved in Magistracy with­out Courage. Magistrates are great Blessings, Modo audeant, quae sentiunt, if they dare do their Conscience. ‘Me quae te peperi ne Cesses Thorna tueri,’ was the ancient Inscription of the Bridge-house Seal, and which may give an oc­casional hint to any Citizen of London, advanced to Authority and Opulency [Page xcix] therein, to wish well to the defence of that River that hath so long bred and preserv'd the Riches of that City.

I am here led to observe, how that Ri­ver being pester'd by various Annoyances in the Reign of Henry the 8 th. and the Lord Mayor's Offices being made unea­sie, and hinder'd in the Conservacy of the River; the City apply'd to the King for a Proclamation, who accordingly issu­ed out one in the 34th. Year of his Reign, strictly requiring, That none should pre­sume to resist, or deny, or impugne the Lord Mayor or his Deputies, in doing or executing any thing that might conduce to the Conservacy of the Ri­ver, &c.

And methinks the Customary yearly Solemnity of the New Lord Mayor's at­tended with all the City Companies in their Barges on the Thames, and there on that River above Bridge having their first Scene of Triumph, as they are go­ing to Westminster-Hall to be sworn, should give them occasion to think often of that Rivers preservation in the fol­lowing part of the Year.

[Page c]I am here led to call to mind a fatal danger that that River above Bridge escaped in the Reign of the late King, when some were so hardy as to offer him a Proposition, and in the way of a Project to enlarge his Revenue by straitning the River, and by building another Street, between the high and low-water-mark, from the Bridge to White-Hall. But thô so great a straitning of the River there would not have been so prejudicial to the publick as lesser straitnings of it below bridge, where the great Scene of Navi­gation lyes, yet his Majesty with great judgment gave a peremptory denyal to the Proposition, for this particular reason, namely, that such an alteration in the River might perhaps produce an alterati­on in the Tide of Flood, and be the cause of its not flowing so many hours as it doth, and which effect too he thought the build­ing of a Bridge at Lambeth (a Project that some offer'd to his Consideration) might produce, it being obvious that the Obstacle the course of the Tide meets with by London bridge, doth much oc­casion the Tide of Flood being the short­er.

[Page ci]And if great Care had not been taken by the Trinity-house, in the government of their Ballast-Lighters, and ordering them not to draw up Ballast too near the Banks of the River, there would have been great danger of another accident that might have curtail'd the Tide of Flood; I mean by their coming nearer to the shoar than the safety of the great Level by Limehouse will admit. In the same time that they can draw up one Tun of Ballast in deep Water, they may draw up three near the shoar. A breach in that Level did within these few Years cost the Pro­prietors 25000 l. a third part of the va­lue of the Land: And if a new greater breach came, perhaps it would not be re­pairable, and possibly cause the Thames not to flow up so far as it did, and yet doth. But any thing of this Nature we may well hope will be prevented by the ex­cellent Management of the Ballast-Office, by the industry of that Virtuous and Pru­dent Lady, the Lady Brooks, who hath the Lease thereof from the Trinity-house, and hath taken much more Care of its be­ing managed for the good of the River, than was took formerly.

[Page cii]I forgot when I was just now consider­ing the Affair of the Annoyances and Streightning of the River above Bridge, to mention it, that a Gentleman of the Temple, who has not been many Years a Barrester, told me, He remembers that since he was of that Society, the River at low-water came up so far as to touch the Garden-wall; and every one knows at what great distance it is now from the Wall at low-water.

My Lord, I have here given your great active thoughts the best entertain­ment I could upon our Royal Rivers, and particularly on the Thames. Great men are like the heavenly bodies that find much veneration but no rest, unless we find a Salvo for their having the latter, by saying what the Philosophers do of the Heavens, that Movendo quiescunt. And whoever will be just to your Lord­ship, must acknowledge that you have esteem'd your self most at your ease and rest, while in the high Orb Fate hath placed you in, you have been most active and busie in blessing the World with your i [...]fluences. Your Lordship need not be di­rected [Page ciii] to that Moral remark, that your private good is included in the publick, Tanquam Trigonum in Tetragono. And as in Nature we see that all bodies do by their own proper Center tend to the Center of the Universe, so they that know your Lordship, know it is natural to you by your tendency to your own Welfare and Happiness to endeavour to promote the bliss of your Countrey in all the wayes you can.

Your Lordship is no stranger to what the Roman Poet saith of Caesar,

And therefore if his great mind could in the heat of Battel find leisure to em­ploy it self about the imaginary Circles in the Heavens, and which only salve the appearances, I believe if presently after you had charged in a Battel, I had hint­ed to you some of the great matters before mentioned, that are as real as th [...]se three great Foundations of real Learning can make any thing, I mean, number, weight, [Page civ] and local motion, and matters on which the Salus Populi doth absolutely depend, your Lordship would have given me the hearing. And having said this, I shall not doubt but that now you are by Pro­vidence brought to support the Crown and your Countrey, by the great Figure you make in the Council and Parliament, and in the peaceable administration of the Ci­vil Government, your Lordship will there­in be as vigilant for the publick as ever you were in War.

Nor to a Soul so refined as your Lord­ships could any War but what is in order to Peace seem eligible; and when in the Case of any degenerate stupid Members of Mankind, who are deaf to all Reasons for their being happy, or suffering others to be so, you are call'd to awaken the World out of its Lethargy with the sound of Drums and Trumpets. But it is an easier and gentler way of awakening any of our Magistrates, whom you may judge to be sometimes drousie in the Admini­stration of those great trusts reposed in them by the Government, that I here most humbly offer to your Lordships thoughts, and particularly as to the publick concern [Page cv] in the Con [...]ervacy of the publick Rivers, and the Care of which in this growth of the populousness of our Countrey, and overgrowth of the abuses done to those Ri­vers, may well call for the Supervisor­ship of some particular Person or Persons, who either being Commission'd for their Conservacy under the Crown, or the Commissioners of the Admiralty may really Conserve them.

Nor need the Vice-admirals Commissi­ons on this occasion be alter'd. Let them be nominal Conservators still, and real ones too as far as they please. Nor need any the least deduction be made from, or intrenchment on any Fees taken by the Lord Mayor's deputy Water-bayly or Sub-Conservators for the River of Thames, as I find him styled in that Book of How­el, where he p. 35. treating of the State of the Lord Mayor, saith, He hath a Sword-bearer, Common-hunt, and Common Cryer, and four Water-Bay­liffs, Esquires by their Places; whether he there makes three too many, I know not, I have formerly heard of one too many. But thô neither Mayor nor Ad­miral can erect a New Court of Justice [Page cvi] without an Act of Parliament, or Let­ters Patents from the Crown, yet com­mon reason tells us they may make as ma­ny Sub-Conservators or Deputies for the Ministerial work in the Conservacy of the River as they please. And if any one publick spirited Man were either by the Crown or Admiral entrusted with the Conservacy of the other Royal Rivers, he might for each of them employ what hands he pleas'd. Quod quis per alium facit per se facere videtur.

According to the vigilance and pru­dence of the former Commissioners of Admiralty, in effecting the before men­tion'd Survey of the Encroachments on the River of Thames, and likewise the Draught of the River by Captain Col­lins, the like Surveys and Draughts of all the other publick Rivers beneath the first Bridges, may in a Years time or thereabout be prepared, the which draughts of the respective Rivers being fairly set out in Frames, may usefully be hung up as Ornaments in a Galle­ry in the House of such general Con­servator for the time being, and be left to his Successors to have the Cu­stody [Page cvii] of. And to such Draughts recourse may easily be had by any of their Maje­sties Ministers of State, or Officers in the Admiralty Court or Navy, or by the Tri­nity house, upon occasion. Such Surveys and Draughts being skilfully and accu­rately prepared, and some Elbows of Wharfs and Jettys being taken away, whereby the sides of the Rivers may as much as is needful come toward the shape of a right Line, the Course of the Ri­vers themselves will begin to Cure them of their Sullage; and such Eddys as caus'd the Water to settle with the mud formerly be prevented: And these Draughts of the Rivers serving as the Standards by which all future Enlarge­ments or Diminutions of Wharfs or Banks may be guided, will make it appear as ab­surd for Encroachers to break in upon them thus reform'd and regulated, as it doth to Clippers to incroach on our cu­rious new Mill'd Moneys and the Letters about their Edges, and as absurd for any to begg Patents from the Crown to take in the Lines of our publick Rivers, as the Letters of our Coyn.

[Page cviii]And thus after a little diligence and resolution employ'd in the first set­ling of this work, the constant Con­servacy of all our Royal Rivers, would be comparatively easie, the populace see­ing that the Government was in earnest in the thing, and as it appear'd to be in the Conjuncture before mention'd, when the Magistracy did rouze it self for the preservatio [...] of the River of Tyne.

Who would have thought that after the Survey of the Encroachments on the Ri­ver of Thames, and the Draught of that River by Captain Collins, they should be no more minded than if such a Survey had been made of the Annoyances of the Rhine or Texel?

Would any one think that after the vast pains taken by the Trinity-House in go­ing down the River to perfect its Survey so many times, in the extremity of Win­ter-weather, and many of them being Ve­teran Seamen, thereby contracting dan­gerous Colds, Coughs and Catarrhs, be­cause the Government required the Sur­vey to be made with all expedition; and after that excellent Seaman and Hydro­grapher, Captain Collins, had in order [Page cix] to the making his Draught of the River exact, made so many weary steps in the mud of the shore, yet many Summers af­ter Summers should pass without any thing brought to effect for the good of the River, or the abatement of one Causway or other Nusance, and both Survey and Draught be no more regarded than an old Alma­nack calculated for the Meridian of Paris or Madrid? Nay, which is more, can it be imagin'd that Captain Collins, a Per­son of great integrity, should relate it to another such Person, That he within this Year or thereabouts, going to see the sides of the River formerly survey'd, and to find what effects the Survey and his Draught had there produced, that he there found Stone-wharfs built into the Thames for three or four hundred Foot in length, and from ten to thirty Foot in breadth; and that he found a great many other smaller Encroach­ments on both sides of the Water, and several new Causeways, which in time would raise the Mud equal to the su­perficies of the Causways; and that he acquainting the City-Officer entrusted with the Care of the Concerns of the [Page cx] River therewith, had from him instead of thanks a ruffianly Answer? yet these very words of the Captains speaking were Noted down from his Mouth by the Per­son to whom he spake them. Thus is the Case of the Rivers Survey and Abate­ments of its Nusances, like that in the Epigrammatist,

His dilatory Shaving occasion'd a New Beards forth coming.

But that the Watermen may have no cause to complain that they cannot Land nor take in their Fare, if they may not have that use of the Causways that the Survey mentions as prejudicial, I shall here say, that both their Fare and they may be accomodated as well below Bridge as above, by the Vse of a Truck or Board with Wheels at the end next the Wa­ter, to move too and fro as the Tide comes in or goes out, which may answer their purpose.

And if those to whose Care the Con­servacies of the Rivers are entrusted as [Page cxi] Depositories, may happen to tell your Lordship that they are not at leisure to mind the vigorous discharge of this trust, a Reply may be had from the trite pas­sage of King Philip's telling a Complain­ing Woman that he had no leisure to do her Justice, and on which occasion she said, that then he should have no lei­sure to be King. Most certainly he who receives a Depositum, obligeth himself to be at leisure to preserve it: And I never knew any Iudge but who would find leisure to ampliate and enlarge his Iu­risdiction, especially when he saw any Men find leisure to try to diminish it.

There was one thing that seem'd to be of some moment for the discouraging any one from a belief of the likelyhood of any of the Encroachments on the Royal Ri­vers being shortly removed, or of the event of any Person of Honour or Qua­lity's being likely to undertake to serve his Countrey therein; namely, the want of any Fonds to support the Charge of such Office. But as to which, it is obvious to consider that the Law is open to compel Encroachers to be at the Charge of abat­ing their own Encroachments, if able to [Page cxii] do it, and wherein such especially who af­ter the Survey made Encroachments on the Thames, will deserve little Fa­vour.

And in the Case of Insolvents, the Encroachments of solvent Persons that shall by the Conservators be permitted to continue, as consistent with the safety of the Rivers, may easily be made to bear that charge.

I remember a Person employ'd by some of the late Kings Ministers to discourse Sir Robert Jefferys, when Lord May­or, about this Matter, acquainted me that Sir Robert then moved it to the Court of Aldermen, That a Committee thereof might be appointed to meet at his House with that Person, and he there offering it to their Coasideration, as the sense of those Ministers, that Com­missioners should be appointed by his Majesty to make moderate Composi­tions with the Owners of such En­croachments as were not very prejudi­cial to the River, and were to be con­tinued, and the Charge of the demo­lishing the prejudicial ones might be defray'd out of such Composition, and [Page cxiii] that he desired to know whether they had any thing to object against it. The Lord Mayor and the rest of the Com­mittee unanimously declared that they were very well pleas'd with the Pro­position, and did thankfully embrace it.

And no doubt but if the like way of Compositions were order'd for such En­croachments as are to continue in the Royal Rivers in the Countrey, the charge of the demolishing some there, and of the regulation of those Rivers, might not only be thence defray'd, but a conside­rable summe of Money might be thence brought in to support the Charge of the Government, and that without any gain­saying or reluctance from the People, pro­vided that they might be deliver'd from the vexatious Prosecutions of the many Patents to private Persons for such En­croachments; to whom they have been in a manner forced to give Money to re­deem their Vexation, rather than out of hopes that they could buy a good Title for the continuance of their Nusances. And certainly the Condition of the French Subjects being so ill on the ac­count [Page cxiv] of their being forced to buy Salt' any Mens being harrass'd into the buy­ing such ins [...]pid things (or as I may ra­ther say noxious) as Nusances, is a more compassionable Case. This is humbly offer'd to the Consideration of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, in order to their offering it to the Conside­rations of their Majesties, or of the House of Commons, (who are the grand Inquest of the Kingdom) or of the House of Lords, as they shall see occasion. And perhaps if by their Application, a Clause may be inserted in some new Act of Par­liament, for the continuance of Peoples Enchroachments that shall be compound­ed for by Commissioners in the respe­ctive Counties named in the Act, or by their Majesties, they being by the Le­gislative power secured in their Titles to such Encroachments, will no doubt be chearfully ready to pay near the full Va­lue thereof.

The common Observation, that Pre­rogative in the Hand of the Prince is a Scepter of Gold, but in the Hand of the Subject a Rod of Iron, is appa­rently applicable to the Case of the Jubile [Page cxv] such People will have, when freed from the Vexations by Colour of Law given them by the Proling litigious Instruments employ'd under such Patents, who are usu­ally the Faex Populi, and may well bring to our minds the saying of Solomon, A poor Man that oppresseth the poor, is like a sweeping Rain which leaveth no Food.

I have been inform'd from Mr. L. J. a worthy Bencher of the Temple, that the poor People were so miserably harras'd by the Agents employ'd in the Lady S—ll's Patent for derelict Lands, about twenty Years since, that the Court of Ex­chequer, burden'd with Complaints about it, Order'd, that no Process of the Court should be further issued out [...]pon it.

I do studiously avoid the naming of other Patents or the Patentees, or any of their Instruments or Agents, and do not desire to give our Admirals any trou­ble with reflections on such, however yet in the course of my little reading in Par­liament-Records, I find that many Per­sons have been censured in Parliament for taking out and procuring illegal and vexatious Letters Patents from the Crown. The Case of Sir Francis Mitchel [Page cxvi] for his pro [...]uring a Patent of forfeited Recognizances before Conviction, is fresh in Memory.

Nor shall I here mention the Names of those Patentees particularly, who gave multitudes of the Seamen so much trou­ble at Law by their Patents for Encroach­ments, while they knew there were Prior Patents in being for the same Encroach­ments, and that therefore no Action was then maintainable by the latter Paten­tees, and that they could have no de­sign by bringing their innumerable Acti­ons against the Seamen, but to get Com­position out of them.

Nor shall I mention the Name of a Waterbailiff, who was reflected on in Council in the two last Reigns, for having the Encroachers on the Thames for his Tenants, and whom a late Lord Mayor reproved very worthily on that account. Nor shall I name a later Lord Mayor, who instead of being a Conservator of the River, appear'd as a Patron of En­croachers, by effecting it that a Ring-leader of the Encroachers should be fined only a Noble for an Encroachment, that in the Survey of the Navy-Board and [Page cxvii] Trinity-house is particularly branded with its dimensions as prejudicial to the Thames, and his being suffer'd to con­tinue that Encroachment; and the which Favour his Lordship was known to shew him at the request of a Person who was by Name reflected on in The City Rea­sons before mention'd, as an Encroach­er of their Conservacy. The words of the wise are heard in quietness; and I therefore desire not to ruffle the Cares of any of our Magistrates, from whom the redress of these evils may be hoped, by the noise of the Names of Persons. I de­sire that they may please to look forward, not backward, and that at things rather than Persons, & nequid detrimenti capi­at publicorum fluminum Conservatio.

And here it falls in my way to ob­serve, that supposing the Conservators should not think it necessary in hast to abate any Nusances, or to effect the raising of any Revenue for the Crown, or Fond for this Office on the Encroachments, yet may the charge of the Office before men­tion'd be competently supported out of Ad­miralty Perquisites, either as they are already vacant, or as they shall be; and [Page cxviii] such Perquisites as to common reason may seem most proper to be apply'd to a publick use, and as I before mention'd how the Ballast was. The truth is, con­sidering how little the standing Fees of the Judge and other Officers of the High Court of Admiralty are proportion'd to the great pains by them taken, and trust in them reposed, and for how much a greater income than yet belongs to Tri­nity-house, that is so useful a receptacle as to the Charities to be bestow'd on de­cay'd Seamen, and their Widdows and Orphans, and where they are to such with so much exact Care apply'd, I have been much troubled when I have heard of Ad­miralty Perquisites bestow'd formerly on Courtiers and Voluptuaries, by whom the Admiralty Office and Jurisdiction, and the moral Offices incumbent on the same, have not been promoted one jot.

But since the Nature of things doth Call so loud for the speedy Settlement of this Office, by which means only the Trust in the Admiral's Office can be discharg­ed for the prevention of future Encroach­ments on the Royal Rivers, and for that frustra differtur remedium quod est [Page cxix] unicum, it may be worthy the Care of those honourable Persons who administer that Office, to see some support provided for that Office as soon as may be, and to apply to the Crown or the Legislative Power, as they shall find occasion, for any thing to be done, necessary to the settle­ment and support thereof.

Both because the River of Thames is the most principal of the Royal Rivers, and for that the Countrey is naturally in all things influenced by the Example of London, the effectual Conservacy of its River may well seem to require the Priority of their Care. And here af­ter the example of the Government, that as was before mention'd provided A. 1613. for the preservation of the River of Tyne, that the Persons who were ap­pointed to View that River, should every Week make Oath of its State, and the Abuses done to it, perhaps it may appear necessary, both to the Com­missioners of the Admiralty and the Lord Mayor, to apply to the Parliament that a New Form of Oaths may be enjoyn'd to all Persons ministerially concern'd in the Care of the River of Thames, and the [Page cxx] which kind of Oaths may likewise be en­joyn'd to Persons employ'd in the Conser­vacy of the Royal Rivers in the Coun­trey. This is here mention'd, because 'tis conceiv'd, that a New Oath cannot be imposed but by Authority of Parlia­ment.

I suppose the Lord Mayor's Deputy Water-Bailiff was never upon his Oath not to connive at Encroachments on the River: But the very common Fame a­bout the Water-Bailiff's Tenants, may make either a promissory Oath to that effect necessary in the beginning of every Mayor's Year, or at the end of it an assertory one that he hath not done it.

I know a Gentleman, who charging a late Water-Bailiff with taking of Mo­ney from Encroachers, was answer'd, That he did no such thing, but would not deny but that some of his fol­lowers might do so. Good God! what unsafe anchoring do all our great Trusts in this World find, while we trust our Bodies to Apothecaries Boyes, our E­states to Lawyers Clarks or the Appren­tices of Scriveners, our Souls to poor Cu­rates, [Page cxxi] and our principal Royal River to a Water-baily's Followers!

When I consider that mighty spirit of Industry that appear'd in France with success, for joyning the two Seas, a work that heretofore abash'd the Roman Empire, and was attempted and given over in foregoing Reigns, and yet not­withstanding the remoteness of the two Seas, the Mountains, the Boggy-Lands, the scarcity of Water in a Countrey where there was hardly enough to sup­ply the Gardens, and many other diffi­culties, that it was in a few Years brought to its perfection, while the Crown there was in War against the most powerful States of Europe united together, I shall wonder much if we have not a stock of Brains and In­dustry enough going to keep our River of Thames.

What great Pains and Charge the work of meliorating that River cost our Ancestors, the Chronicles tell us, and how useful for the preservations of it the pains taken in a late Conjuncture, (when the Cities Charter was in its low estate) by the former Commissioners [Page cxxii] of the Admiralty, proved, is obvious; and therefore the Wisdom of our An­cestors in Complicating the Office of the Lord Admiral with the Lord Mayors in its Conservacy, was very profound; for the Admiral's Office being during plea­sure, we are sure that whoever have that Office, are the actual Favourites of the Government; and by being so, they have with the better success signalized their di­ligence in the preserving that River.

It must here in Iustice be acknowledg­ed, that the late King James, while the Admiralty was in his Hands, was not by all the Cares and Business incumbent on the Crown, diverted from the Conser­vacy of the River. And if all the par­ticulars of the vast pains taken by Mr. Pepys therein, while he was Secretary of the Admiralty, were enumerated, they would fill a much larger Volume than what I here send your Lordship. His concerning himself so much and so often in the behalf of Petitioning Seamen who conceiv'd themselves injured by the Agents of Patentees requiring Money of them for their Ships lying on the Shoar, and his Frank interceding with the King [Page cxxiii] as Admiral for them, and effecting their being speedily righted, and that with­out any Fee of Office expected or paid, are things fresh in the Memories of those who live by the Thames-side below Bridge.

And the truth is, to a Person so know­ing in the Office of the Admiral, it must needs be known, that Seamen being more than other Subjects compell'd to serve the Crown in times of Peace and War, and at the Crowns own Rates both at home and abroad, are entituled to a more tender Protection from the Crown than other Subjects are: And that the Seamen being call'd to such Service by the Admiral's Warrant, will in the Case of any general pressure happening to them wherein the King's Name is used, ex­pect that the Admiral shall apply to the Crown in their behalf, as knowing that no Admiral ever refused or delay'd in such Case to take the trouble of patroni­zing them.

My Lord, I have now almost done troubling you for the present; and yet according to a Jewish Proverb, that Mo­lestus [Page cxxiv] ubi se molestum agnoscit, no [...] est molestus, shall hope I have not done it at all. But I shall chiefly fortifie my hopes of my not having so done, by the Consideration of its being no trouble to you, but an Obligation for any One to furnish your great thoughts with any use­ful Materials for the promoting the ser­vice of your Prince and Countrey, in such a critical season as this, that calls so loud for that Old heathenish Virtue of the Pietas in Patriam to awaken it self among English Christians.

We may well believe our Chronicles, that tell us of a Porter who slept fourteen dayes and nights together, when we have seen so great a part of a whole Nation asleep four or five Years, and much longer.

The last Reign save one was a time wherein men made pleasure their business, and when the Nation suffer'd more by Lethargy than the Plague. But as Nature doth now call upon us to make Business our Pleasure, and to build Work-houses as well as Play-houses, so it may be supposed that our World is as weary of sleeping as ever it was of waking, and that Reasons for Mens [Page cxxv] being publick spirited and nobly active in all the publick Spheres in Magistra­cy to which they are call'd, may be patiently heard, and that it may seem a reasonable Request, since we see in things natural, some inanimate things to serve the Nature of the Universe do sometimes forgo and quit their par­ticular Nature (and as for example, water to prevent a Vacuum which Na­ture abhorrs, doth ascend,) that Magi­strates would go on in their own natural Course to what lyes in the plain way of their Duty, and what is incumbent on them by moral Obligations. Faxit: And that he may neither be a shame to, nor ashamed of his Countrey, who hath the Honour of being

To the Right Honourable, The LORDS COMMISSONERS For executing the Office of Lord High Admiral of England.
The humble Reply of Sir Philip How­ard, Sir Francis Watson, K ^ts. and Comp. interested in the Ma­nufacture and Invention of Milled-Lead, Octob. 28. 1682. to the late Report to your Lordships from the Officers of the Navy, touching the Method of Lead-sheathing, used upon his Ma­jesties Ships: Wherein they shew to your Lordships,

THat from every Ship of his Majesties that has been so sheathed, they have had complaints of the extraordina­ry Eating and Corroding of their Rudder-Irons and Bolts, beyond whatever was found upon any Ship not so sheathed, and an­nexed a Transcript of several Complaints by them received from several Commanders and o­thers to that effect: And that therefore upon due [Page 2] sideration had thereof, and of the many Expe­riences had of the great damages arising from this sort of Sheathing; They give it as their Opinion, that it will not be for his Maje­sties Service, that the same be longer used upon his Ships: but that the Ships so Sheath­ed, may have their sheathing stripped off, and new Iron-work supplied where defective, as well to prevent any further damage from the lon­ger Continuance of the said Sheahing upon them, as that they may be in a condition of ser­vice whenever on a sudden occasion, the same may be called for.

To which Report, and the Matters of Complaint wheron the same is grounded, importing a vehement sug­gestion of ruine likely to attend the Ships and Service of his Majesty, in Case this Method of Lead-sheath­ing should be continued: The said Sir Ph. Howard and Comp ^a. do make this plain Return, viz.

THat as their first interesting themselves in this undertaking, was wholly founded upon the hopes they had of being enabled to contribute somewhat thereby to the Service of the Royal Navy, and those hopes confirm­ed by as ample Instances of Publick approba­tion as were ever given to any precedent In­vention; so do they still give his Majesties [Page 3] Service the same entire preference to all con­siderations of private advantage that either has or can arise to them from the same un­dertaking; And therefore are not only con­tented, but desirous, that in case your Lord­ships shall (after perusal of this Paper) hold the reasonableness of the said Officers Advice, for suppressing the further use of Lead-Sheath­ing, sufficiently demonstrated by what they have offered as the grounds thereof in that col­lection of Complaints: No Considerations re­lating to the Interest or Right of this Com­pany, may stand in the way of whatever his Majesty and your Lordships shall think most for his Service to determine concerning it.