8/18.1686. It was transcribed for Mr. Fox from the French archives, during the peace of Amiens, and, with the other materials brought together by that great man, was entrusted to me by the kindness of the late Lady Holland, and of the present Lord Holland. I ought to add that, even in the midst of the troubles which have lately agitated Paris, I found no difficulty in obtaining, from the liberality of the functionaries there, extracts supplying some chasms in Mr. Fox's collection. (1848.)48 My information respecting the condition of the navy, at this time, is chiefly derived from Pepys. His report, presented to Charles the Second in May, 1684, has never, I believe, been printed. The manuscript is at Magdalene College Cambridge. At Magdalene College is also a valuable manuscript containing a detailed account of the maritime establishments of the country in December 1684. Pepys's "Memoirs relating to the State of the Royal Navy for Ten Years determined December, 1688," and his diary and correspondence during his mission to Tangier, are in print. I have made large use of them. See also Sheffield's Memoirs, Teonge's Diary, Aubrey's Life of Monk, the Life of Sir Cloudesley Shovel, 1708, Commons' Journals, March 1 and March 20.
1688-9.
49 Chamberlayne's State of England, 1684; Commons' Journals, March 1, and March 20, 1688-9. In 1833, it was determined, after full enquiry, that a hundred and seventy thousand barrels of gunpowder should constantly be kept in store.
50 It appears from the records of the Admiralty, that Flag officers were allowed half pay in 1668, Captains of first and second rates not till 1674.
51 Warrant in the War Office Records; dated March 26, 1678.
52 Evelyn's Diary. Jan. 27, 1682. I have seen a privy seal, dated May 17. 1683, which confirms Evelyn's testimony.
53 James the Second sent Envoys to Spain, Sweden, and Denmark;yet in his reign the diplomatic expenditure was little more than 30,000? a year. See the Commons' Journals, March 20, 1688-9.
Chamberlayne's State of England, 1684.
54 Carte's Life of Ormond.
55 Pepys's Diary, Feb. 14, 1668-9.
56 See the Report of the Bath and Montague case, which was decided by Lord Keeper Somers, in December, 1693.
57 During three quarters of a year, beginning from Christmas, 1689, the revenues of the see of Canterbury were received by an officer appointed by the crown. That officer's accounts are now in the British Museum. (Lansdowne MSS. 885.) The gross revenue for the three quarters was not quite four thousand pounds; and the difference between the gross and the net revenue was evidently something considerable.
58 King's Natural and Political Conclusions. Davenant on the Balance of Trade. Sir W. Temple says, "The revenues of a House of Commons have seldom exceeded four hundred thousand pounds."Memoirs, Third Part.
59 Langton's Conversations with Chief Justice Hale, 1672.
60 Commons' Journals, April 27,1689; Chamberlayne's State of England, 1684.
61 See the Travels of the Grand Duke Cosmo.
62 King's Natural and Political Conclusions. Davenant on the Balance of Trade.
63 See the Itinerarium Angliae, 1675, by John Ogilby, Cosmographer Royal. He describes great part of the land as wood, fen, heath on both sides, marsh on both sides. In some of his maps the roads through enclosed country are marked by lines, and the roads through unenclosed country by dots. The proportion of unenclosed country, which, if cultivated, must have been wretchedly cultivated, seems to have been very great. From Abingdon to Gloucester, for example, a distance of forty or fifty miles, there was not a single enclosure, and scarcely one enclosure between Biggleswade and Lincoln.
64 Large copies of these highly interesting drawings are in the noble collection bequeathed by Mr. Grenville to the British Museum. See particularly the drawings of Exeter and Northampton.
65 Evelyn's Diary, June 2, 1675.
66 See White's Selborne; Bell's History of British Quadrupeds, Gentleman's Recreation, 1686; Aubrey's Natural History of Wiltshire, 1685; Morton's History of Northamptonshire, 1712;Willoughby's Ornithology, by Ray, 1678; Latham's General Synopsis of Birds; and Sir Thomas Browne's Account of Birds found in Norfolk.
67 King's Natural and Political Conclusions. Davenant on the Balance of Trade.
68 See the Almanacks of 1684 and 1685.
69 See Mr. M'Culloch's Statistical Account of the British Empire, Part III. chap. i. sec. 6.
70 King and Davenant as before The Duke of Newcastle on Horsemanship; Gentleman's Recreation, 1686. The "dappled Flanders mares" were marks of greatness in the time of Pope, and even later.
The vulgar proverb, that the grey mare is the better horse, originated, I suspect, in the preference generally given to the grey mares of Flanders over the finest coach horses of England.
71 See a curious note by Tonkin, in Lord De Dunstanville's edition of Carew's Survey of Cornwall.
72 Borlase's Natural History of Cornwall, 1758. The quantity of copper now produced, I have taken from parliamentary returns.
Davenant, in 1700, estimated the annual produce of all the mines of England at between seven and eight hundred thousand pounds 73 Philosophical Transactions, No. 53. Nov. 1669, No. 66. Dec.
1670, No. 103. May 1674, No 156. Feb. 1683-474 Yarranton, England's Improvement by Sea and Land, 1677;Porter's Progress of the Nation. See also a remarkably perspicnous history, in small compass of the English iron works, in Mr. M'Culloch's Statistical Account of the British Empire.
75 See Chamberlayne's State of England, 1684, 1687, Angliae, Metropolis, 1691; M'Culloch's Statistical Account of the British Empire Part III. chap. ii. (edition of 1847). In 1845 the quantity of coal brought into London appeared, by the Parliamentary returns, to be 3,460,000 tons. (1848.) In 1854 the quantity of coal brought into London amounted to 4,378,000 tons.
(1857.)
