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whatever house a fire shall have been secretly made the whole 
place instantly makes good the damage through those whom the 
guardians select.” 
A Brief issued by King John, A.D. 1206, for the personal 
protection of the members of the house of S. Thomas of Acon, 
who were collecting money for the redemption of the Christian 
Captives, is the earliest to be found in England, but the Church 
soon regarded Briefs as her special province, and the earliest 
known Church Brief in England is dated A.D. 1247, and solicits 
alms in favour of the Hospital of S. John the Evangelist, 
_ Cambridge. In Ireland the Prior of Holy Trinity, Dublin, A.D. 
1300, issued a Brief for the repairs of that Church. 
Lawyers, however, took as great an interest in these Briefs as 
the Clergy, and the Borough of Southampton paid (A.D. 1337), 
the Chancellor’s Clerks for Briefs 20s. ; Sealing seven Briefs 3s. 6d. 
and the custom of charging for sealing never ceased until Briefs 
were abolished. 
Easter offerings were often devoted to the redemption of 
_ Captives in Turkey and Barbary, and there was one Brief of a 
- somewhat similar character in A.D. 1621, which deserves special 
notice : “To redeem 13 ‘religious’ and to repair an ancient. 
Chapel on Mount Golgotha, where our Saviour had suffered, which 
_was built by S. Helena, a British Princess.” This most impudent 
fraud was discussed in the Genileman’s Magazine Vol. LIX. pp. 524, 
525, but the perpetrator appears to have gathered in some money 
7 before detection. 
_ It may have been to guard against such impostures that Briefs 
were drawn up in a certain form: “For the good of the public ” 
‘we should hope, but “for the needs of an impecunious 
Government” I fear. Charles I., A.D. 1625, asserted the 
prerogative of issuing Briefs, a happy discovery and a prolific 
source of profit, especially when aided by the monopoly of printing 
the same, though this power was disputed, as so many other 
“monopolies were at this time. The Monopoly was granted to 
