NOTES 3 O 3 P. 



hundred pounds principal, and I having the last term confessed the action, and 

 by his full and direct consent, respited the satisfaction till the beginning of this 

 term to come, without ever giving me warning, either by letter or message, 

 served an execution upon me, having trained me at such time as I came from 

 the Tower, where Mr. Waad can witness, we attended a service of no mean im 

 portance ; neither would he so much as vouchsafe to come and speak with me to 

 take any order in it, though I sent for him divers times, and his house is just 

 by ; handling it as upon a despite, being a man I never provoked with a cross 

 word, no nor with many delays. He would have urged it to have had me in 

 prison ; which he had done, had not Sheriff More, to whom I sent, gently re 

 commended me to a handsome house in Coleman Street, where I am. Now 

 because he will not treat with me, I am inforced humbly to desire your lordship 

 to send for him according to your place, to bring him to some reason ; and this 

 forthwith, because I continue here to my farther discredit and inconvenience, 

 and the trouble of the gentleman with whom I am. I have a hundred pounds 

 laying by me, which he may have, and the rest upon some reasonable time and 

 security, or if need be, the whole ; but with my more trouble. As for the con 

 tempt he hath offered, in regard her majesty s service to my understanding, car- 

 rieth a privilege eundo et redeundo in meaner causes, much more in matters of 

 this nature, especially in persons known to be qualified with that place and em 

 ployment, which, though unworthy, I am vouchsafed, I inforce nothing, think 

 ing I have done my part when I have made it known, and so leave it to your 

 lordship s honourable consideration. And so with signification of my humble 

 duty, &c. 



To Sir Robert Cecil, Secretary of State. 



It may please your Honour,---! humbly pray you to understand how badly I 

 have been used by the inclosed, being a copy of a letter of complaint thereof, 

 which I have written to the lord keeper. How sensitive you are of wrongs 

 offered to your blood in my particular I have had not long since experience. 

 But herein I think your honour will be doubly sensitive, in tenderness also of 

 the indignity to her majesty s service ; for as for me, Mr. Sympson might have 

 had me every day in London ; and therefore to belay me while he knew I came 

 from the Tower about her majesty s special service was to my understanding 

 very bold. And two days before he brags he forebore me, because I dined with 

 Sheriff More : so as with Mr. Sympson, examinations at the Tower are not so 

 great a privilege, eundo et redeundo, as Sheriff More s dinner. But this com 

 plaint I make in duty ; and to that end have also informed my lord of Essex 

 thereof; for otherwise his punishment will do me no good. 



So with signification of my humble duty, I commend your honour to the 

 divine preservation. At your honourable command particularly, FR. BACON. 



3 P. Life, p. xlii. 



The following is the title of the work : An Account of the lately erected Ser 

 vice, called the Office of Compositions for Alienations. Written [about the close 

 of 1598] by Mr. Francis Bacon, and published from a MS. in the Inner Temple 

 Library. There is a MS. of it in the Harleian MSS. 4888-5. 



The biographer of Bacon, in the Biographia Britannica, thus speaks of this 

 work. How far this eulogium is correct I leave the reader to discover. &quot; This 

 curious and highly finished tract, which has been but lately published from a 

 MS. in the Inner Temple Library, is one of the most laboured pieces penned 

 by our most learned author, containing his resolutions of a very perplexed question, 

 whether it was most for the Queen s benefit, that the profits arising from this 

 office for Alienations, should be let out to farm or not ? In handling this he 

 has shewn such diversity of learning, and so clear a conception of all the 

 different points of law, history, antiquities, and policy, as is really amazing ; 

 for I think it may be truly said, that there is not any treatise of the same com 

 pass extant in our language, which manifests so comprehensive a genius, and so 

 accurate a knowledge, both with respect to theory and practice as this, and 



