356 LETTERS FROM BIRCH. 



To the Lord Chancellor. 

 Most honourable Lord, 



Herewithal I presumed to send a note inclosed, both of 

 my business in Chancery, and with my Lord Roos, which 

 it pleased your lordship to demand of me, that so you 

 might better do me good in utroque genere. It may please 

 your lordship, after having perused it, to commend it over 

 to the care of Mr. Meautys for better custody. 



At my parting last from your lordship, the grief I had 

 to leave your lordship s presence, though but for a little 

 time, was such, as that being accompanied with some small 

 corporal indisposition that I was in, made me forgetful to 

 say that, which now for his majesty s service I thought 

 myself bound not to silence. I was credibly informed and 

 assured, when the Spanish ambassador went away, that 

 howsoever Ralegh and the prentices * should fall out to be 

 proceeded withal, no more instances would be made here 

 after on the part of Spain for justice to be done ever in 

 these particulars : but that if slackness were used here, 

 they would be laid up in the deck, and would serve for 

 materials (this was the very word) of future and final dis 

 contentments. Now as the humour and design of some 

 may carry them towards troubling of the waters, so I know 

 your lordship s both nature and great place require an 

 appeasing them at your hands. And I have not presumed 

 to say this little out of any mind at all, that I may have, to 

 meddle with matters so far above me, but out of a thought 

 I had, that I was tied in duty to lay thus much under your 

 lordship s eye ; because I know and consider of whom I 

 heard that speech, and with how grave circumstances it 

 was delivered. 



I beseech Jesus to give continuance and increase to your 

 lordship s happiness; and that, if it may stand with his 

 will, myself may one day have the honour of casting some 

 small mite into that rich treasury. So I humbly do your 

 lordship reverence, and continue 



The most obliged of your Lordship s 



Nottingham, this 21st man Y fait ful Servants, 



of August, 1618. TOBIE MATTHEW. 



* Who on the 12th of July, 1618, had insulted Gondomar, the Spanish am 

 bassador, on account of a boy s being hurt by him as he was riding. [Camdeni 

 Annalea Regis Jacobi I. p. 33.] They were proceeded against by commissioners 

 at Guildhall on Wednesday the 12th of August following ; seven being found 

 guilty, and adjudged to six months imprisonment, and to pay five hundred pounds 

 apiece. Two others were acquitted. MS. letter of Mr. Chamberlain to Sir 

 Dudley Carleton, London, August 15, 1618. 



