254 LETTERS FROM STEPHENS. 



the better amended by his majesty. I think it is so penned 

 as none can except to it, no, nor imagine any thing of it. 

 For the household-business there was given a fortnight s 

 day: for the pensions, the course which I first pro 

 pounded of abating of a third throughout, and some wholly 

 seemeth well entered into. These be no ill beginnings. 

 But this course of the subcommission thrids all the king s 

 business. God ever preserve and prosper you. 



Your Lordship s true Friend and devoted Servant, 



York House, 27th p R . BACON. C. S. 



Nov. 1617. 



Sir Lyonel Cranfield is now reasonably well recovered. 



To the Marquis of Buckingham. 

 My very good Lord, 



I thought fit by this my private letter to your lordship, 

 to give you an account of such business as your lordship 

 hath recommended unto me, that you may perceive that I 

 have taken that care of them I ought, and ever shall in 

 those things you recommend or remit to me. 



For the suit of the ale-houses which concerneth your 

 brother, Mr. Christopher Villiers, and Mr. Patrick Mawle, 

 I have conferred with my Lord Chief Justice and Mr. Soli- 

 tor thereupon, and there is a scruple in it, that it should be 

 one of the grievances put down in parliament ; which if it 

 be, I may not in my duty and love to you advise you to 

 deal in it ; if it be not, I will mould it in the best manner 

 and help it forward. The stay is upon the search of the 

 clerk of the parliament, who is out of town ; but we have 



resolved. Neither can we but see in this, as in a glass, the like event to follow 

 in the rest upon like reason. For the inferior officers in every kind, who are best 

 able for skill to propound the retrenchments, will, out of interest or fearfulness, 

 make dainty to do service ; and that which is done with an ill-will will never 

 be well done. Again, to make it the act of the whole table, for the particular 

 propositions and reckonings, will be too tedious for you, and will draw the 

 business itself into length ; and to make any particular committees of yourselves, 

 were to impose that upon a few which requireth to be carried indifferently as the 

 act of you all. For since the great officers themselves think it too heavy for 

 them, as our state now is, to deal in it, without bringing it to the table, with 

 much more reason may any particular persons of you be loath to meddle in it, but 

 at the board. In all which respects we have thought fit, (neither do we see any 

 other way) that you send unto us the names of the officers of our Exchequer 

 and our Custom House, and auditors out of which we will make choice of some 

 few, best qualified to be subcommittees, for the better ease and the speeding 

 of the business by their continual travails and meetings : whose part and em 

 ployment we incline to be to attend the principal officers in their several charges, 

 and join themselves to some of the inferior officers, and so take upon them the 

 mechanic and laborious part of every business, thereby to facilitate and prepare 

 it for your consultations, according to the directions and instructions they shall 

 receive from you from time to time. 



