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Rawley's
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to clear him, since nature teaches every man to defend his life as long as he may; and whether, in case there were a doubt herein, the judges should not rather incline to that side wherein all probability lies: but if judges will needs trust better the bare negative of an infamous delinquent, without expressing what other end he could probably have, than all the probabilities, or rather infallible consequences upon the other part, caring more for the safety of such a monster, than the preservation of a crown, in all ages following, whereupon depend the lives of many millions: happy then are all desperate and seditious knaves, but the fortune of this crown is more than miserable. Quod Deus avertat.

CXX. To the KING, touching matter of his majesty's revenue and profit.

It may please your Majesty,

I MAY remember what Tacitus saith, by occasion that Tiberius was often and long absent from Rome. In urbe, et parva et magna negotia imperatorem simul premunt: but, saith he, In recessu, dimissis rebus minoris momenti, summæ rerum magnarum magis agi tantur. This maketh me think it shall be no incivility to trouble your majesty with business, during your abode from London; knowing that your majesty's meditations are the principal wheel of your estate; and being warranted from a former commandment which I received from you.

I do now only send your majesty these papers inclosed, because I do greatly desire so far forth to preserve my credit with you, as thus, that whereas lately, perhaps out of too much desire, which induceth too much belief, I was bold to say, that I thought it as easy for your majesty to come out of want, as to go forth of your gallery; your majesty would not take me for a dreamer, or a projector; I send your majesty therefore some grounds of my hopes. And for that paper, which I have gathered of increasements sperate, I beseech you to give me leave to think, that if any of the particulars do fail, it will be rather for want of workman

ship in those that shall deal in them, than want of materials in the things themselves. The other paper hath many discarding cards; and I send it chiefly, that your majesty may be the less surprised by projectors; who pretend sometimes great discoveries and inventions in things, that have been propounded, and, perhaps, after a better fashion, long since. God Almighty preserve your majesty.

Your majesty's most humble

and devoted subject and servant,
FR. BACON.

25 April, 1615.

CXXI. To the KING.

It may please your excellent Majesty,

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Rawley's
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MR. ST. JOHN his day is past, and well past. I hold it to be Janus Bifrons; it hath a good aspect to that which is past, and to the future; and doth both satisfy and prepare. All did well; my lord chief justice delivered the law for the benevolence strongly; I would he had done it timely. Mr. chancellor of the exchequer spake finely, somewhat after the manner of my late lord privy seal; not all out so sharp-> Late earl ly, but as elegantly. Sir Thomas Lake, who is also of Northnew in that court, did very well, familiarly and counsellor-like. My lord of Pembroke, who is likewise a stranger there, did extraordinarily well, and became

6 The chancellor of the exchequer here meant was Sir Fulke Greville, who being early initiated into the court of queen Elizabeth, became a polite and fine gentleman; and in the 18th of king James was created lord Brooke. He erected a noble monument for himself on the north side of Warwick church, which hath escaped the late desolation, with this well-known inscription, "Fulke Greville, servant to queen Elizabeth, counsellor to king "James, and friend to Sir Philip Sidney." Nor is he less remembered by the monument he has left in his writings and poems, chiefly composed in his youth, and in familiar exercises with the gentleman I have before mentioned. Stephens.

7 Sir Thomas Lake was about this time made one of the principal secretaries of state, as he had been formerly Latin secretary to queen Elizabeth, and before that time bred under Sir Francis Walsingham. But in the year 1618, falling into the

ampton.

himself well, and had an evident applause. I meant well also; and because my information was the ground; having spoken out of a few heads which I had gathered, for I seldom do more, I set down, as soon as I came home, cursorily, a frame of that I had said; though I persuade myself I spake it with more life. I have sent it to Mr. Murray sealed; if your majesty have so much idle time to look upon it, it may give some light of the day's work: but I most humbly pray your majesty to pardon the errors. preserve you ever.

Your majesty's most humble subject
and devoted servant,

April 29, 1615.

God

FR. BACON.

king's displeasure, and being engaged in the quarrels of his wife and daughter the lady Roos, with the countess of Exeter; he was at first suspended from the execution of his place, and afterwards removed, and deeply censured and fined in the star-chamber; although it is said the king then gave him in open court this public eulogy, that he was a minister of state fit to serve the greatest prince in Europe. Whilst this storm was hanging over his head, he writ many letters to the king and the marquis of Buckingham, which I have seen, complaining of his misfortune, that his ruin was likely to proceed from the assistance he gave to his nearest relations. Stephens.

8 William earl of Pembroke, son to Henry Herbert earl of Pembroke, lord president of the council in the marches of Wales, by Mary his wife, a lady in whom the Muses and Graces seemed to meet; whose very letters, in the judgment of one who saw many of them, declared her to be mistress of a pen not inferior to that of her brother, the admirable Sir Philip Sidney, and to whom he addressed his Arcadia. Nor did this gentleman degenerate from their wit and spirit, as his own poems, his great pa tronage of learned men, and resolute opposition to the Spanish match, did, among ot herinstances, fully prove. In the year 1616, he was made lord chamberlain, and chosen chancellor of the university of Oxford. He died suddenly on the 10th of April, 1630, having just completed fifty years. But his only son de ceasing a child before him, his estate and honours descended upon his younger brother, Philip earl of Montgomery, the lineal ancestor of the present noble and learned earl. Stephens.

CXXII. To the KING, concerning the new Rawley's company.

It may please your most excellent Majesty,

YOUR majesty shall shortly receive the bill for the incorporation of the new company, together with a bill for the privy-seal, being a dependency thereof: for this morning I subscribed and docketted them both. I think it therefore now time to represent to your majesty's high wisdom that which I conceive, and have had long in my mind, concerning your majesty's service, and honourable profit in this business.

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Among other projects for supplying his majesty with money, after his abrupt dissolution of the parliament, there was one proposed through the lord treasurer's means by Sir William Cockayne, an alderman of London. For the society or fellowship of Merchant Adventurers, having enjoyed by licence from the crown a power of exporting yearly several thousands of English cloths undyed; it was imagined that the king would not only receive an increase in his customs by the importation of materials necessary for dying, but the nation a considerable advantage in employing the subject, and improving the manufacture to its utmost before it was exported. This proposition being besides attended with the offer of an immediate profit to his majesty, was soon embraced; the charter granted to the Merchant Adventurers recalled, and Sir William Cockayne and several other traders incorporated upon certain conditions, as appears in part from this letter; though some other letters in the same and the following year inform us what difficulties the king and council, and indeed the whole kingdom, sustained thereby. For the trading towns in the LowCountries and in Germany, which were the great mart and staple of these commodities, perceiving themselves in danger of losing the profit, which they had long reaped by dying and dressing great quantities of English cloth, the Dutch prohibited the whole commodity; and the materials being either dearer here, or the manufacturers less skilled in fixing of the colours, the vent of cloth was soon at a stand; upon which the clamour of the countries extended itself to the court. So that, after several attempts to carry on the design, Sir Fr. Bacon finding the new company variable in themselves, and not able to comply with their proposals, but making new and springing demands, and that the whole matter was more and more perplexed, sent, on the 14th of October, 1616, a letter to the lord Villiers, inclosing his reasons why the new company was no longer to be trusted, but the old company to be treated with and revived. Accordingly, pursuant to a power of revocation, contained in the new charter, it was recalled, and a proclamation published for restoring the old company, dated August 12, 1617; and soon after another charter granted them upon their payment of 50,0001. Stephens's Introduct. p. 38, 39.

This profit, which hath proceeded from a worthy service of the lord treasurer, I have from the beginning constantly affected; as may well appear by my sundry labours from time to time in the same: for I hold it a worthy character of your majesty's reign and times; insomuch, as though your majesty might have at this time, as is spoken, a great annual benefit for the quitting of it; yet I shall never be the man that should wish for your majesty to deprive yourself of that beatitude, Beatius est dare quam accipere, in this cause; but to sacrifice your profit, though as your majesty's state is, it be precious to you, to so great a good of your kingdom; although this project is not without a profit immediate unto you, by the increasing of customs upon the materials of dyes.

But here is the case: the new company by this patent and privy seal are to have two things, wholly diverse from the first intention, or rather ex diametro opposite unto the same; which nevertheless they must of necessity have, or else the work is overthrown: so as I may call them mala necessaria, but yet withal temporary. For as men make war to have peace; so these merchants must have licence for whites, to the end to banish whites; and they must have licence to use tenters, to the end to banish tenters.

This is therefore that I say; your majesty, upon these two points, may justly, and with honour, and with preservation of your first intention inviolate, demand profit in the interim, as long as these unnatural points continue, and then to cease. For your majesty may be pleased to observe, that they are to have all the old company's profit by the trade of whites; they are again to have, upon the proportion of cloths which they shall vend dyed and dressed, the Flemings profit upon the tenter. Now then, I say, as it had been too good husbandry for a king to have taken profit of them, if the project could have been effected at once, as was voiced, so on the other side it might be, perchance, too little husbandry and providence to take nothing of them, for that which is merely lucrative to them in the mean time. Nay, I say farther, this will greatly conduce, and be a

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