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part, and Thomas Thurland and Daniel Hechstetter on the other, 

 for the discovery and working of minerals.* 



On the 2oth of March, 1565, Ttiomas Thurland is at Keswick, 

 and he writes to Secretary Cecill that he has received letters with 

 report and assay of the copper ore. He says the report made by 

 those who assayed it, is incorrect. 



The following month (April) there is a grant of discharge to 

 Thomas Thurland, Master of the Savoy, Daniel Hechstetter and 

 others, from all fifteenths, and other impositions, during the first 

 beginning of their operations. 



The following month (May 26th), Thurland and Hechstetter 

 wrote to the Secretary of State, Cecill, that they have found ore 

 containing silver in certain places in Cumberland. They request 

 to have warrant from the Queen to bring three hundred or four 

 hundred foreign workmen to work it. 



In July the Queen grants to Thurland and Hechstetter, to fell 

 and appropriate, within Her Majesty's woods, timber sufficient to 

 construct the buildings necessary for smelting all ores of gold, 

 silver, copper, quicksilver, etc., within certain counties. 



This indicates that the Radcliffe's were unfavourable to the 

 miners, because the woods on their property were close at hand, 

 and at that time would be suitable timber for the purpose. 



* Thomas Thurland and Daniel Hechstetter, two Germans experienced in 

 the art of mining, were invited to England by the Queen and Council, and 

 being naturalized, obtained a licence under the Queen's letters patent for them- 

 selves and for their heirs for ever to search for mines of gold, silver, and 

 quicksilver in the royalties of several counties in England and Wales. The 

 profits they were to appropriate to their own use, excepting the tenth of all 

 gold, silver, and quicksilver ore, which was reserved to the Crown, as was the 

 pre-emption of refined gold and silver at a lower rate than the current price of 

 these metals. 



These several patentees, in order to create an adequate capital for prosecuting 

 their extensive undertakings, divided a certain portion of their rights into shares, 

 which they sold to opulent and enterprising individuals. These were afterwards 

 (about the year 1568), conjointly with these new proprietors, incorporated under 

 the designation of "The Governors, Assistants, and Commonality of the Mines 

 Royal." William, Earl of Pembroke, was appointed the first Governor, and 

 the first Court of Assistants comprised several of the nobility, some leading 

 citizens, and most of the foreigners to whom the grants had been originally 

 made. — Beauties of England atid Wales, vol. xviii. p. 409. 



