37 



to work, wishing to avoid a further rate, and ease the inhabitants, 

 who now murmured at the weekly tax. This request he considered 

 reasonable, but the Mayor and Masters were " cold therein" and 

 refused it. He found that great sums of money were given to the 

 burgesses, some of which were rightly employed, some detained 

 in private hands and not employed, and some " misemployed." 

 A sum of five hundred and sixty pounds, to be lent without 

 interest, was in the hands of the " Masters" of the city and not 

 employed for the support of the poor burgesses in their trades. 

 Weak excuses were urged to justify these doings, but he con- 

 sidered it should not be spent in superfluous feasts or privately 

 *' eloyned," and he intended to take a Commission of Charitable 

 uses to effectively rectify it. About Michaelmas he had sent to 

 Mr. Cox for a note of the various sums given and how they were 

 employed, but got no information in reply ; only under the 

 new orders and directions, and then with great difficulty, could 

 any knowledge be obtained. Strict proceedings against forestallers 

 and others had freed the city from trouble with them ; the 

 magistrates personally inspected the markets, being very 

 careful to see all corn brought into it and not retained in 

 private places.* 



From Tickenham, under the same date, Rice Davis and Richard 

 Cole reported that in the hundreds of Portbury and Hartcliffe 

 cum Bedminster, corn had fallen twelvepence in the bushel, and 

 there was enough to serve until the next harvest. They had 

 used every means to suppress badgers, bakers, millers, and carriers 

 of corn, that the markets at Bristol and Wrington might be well 

 supplied, t 



Sir Edward Rodney, Kt., and Wm. Capell for Winterstock, 

 Brent and Bempstone, gave the prices at Wrington, wheat 7s. 6d. 

 to 6s., rye 58., beans and barley 4s. 8d., oats 2s. 6d.| 



• State Papers, 1631, Vol. cxciv., fol. 19, 16th June. 



t State Papers, 1631, Vol. cxciv., fol 20. 

 t State Papers, 1631, Vol. cxciv., fol. 26, 17th June. 



