cl APPENDIX TO THE 



without even considering, in some instances the time she may have 

 continued in her service. 



" Upon St Thomas's day last, the only application made was by the 

 mayor's servant, so useless is it supposed to be to oppose the pretensions 

 of a person claiming the money under such authority. 



"It seems to have been the intention of Mr Walton, that whether the 

 money be given to a servant or poor man's daughter, it should be paid on 

 the day of her marriage ; but admitting that construction of his words to 

 be wrong, to bestow it upon a servant who has not ' dwelt long in one 

 service' is certainly incorrect. That the mayor's servant may sometimes 

 be as well entitled to it as any other person is not to be disputed, but that 

 it should so happen nine years out of ten, is somewhat too improbable to 

 obtain belief ; and such a disposition of this charity must unquestionably 

 create a suspicion as to the motives of the gift which, it is to be presumed, 

 the chief magistrate of a town would be desirous of avoiding." P. 41, 42. 



The author of the pamphlet next proceeds to describe Startin's charity, 

 and Mr Walton's gift in his lifetime. 



" Richard Startin, who was a baker in Stafford, gave 60 to the corpo- 

 ration to be put out at interest, and to be applied and given weekly in bread 

 for ever, in the parish church of St Mary. By the advice, and with the 

 assistance of Mr Isaac Walton, the money was laid out in the year 1672 

 in the purchase of a fee-farm rent of 3, 6s. %d. payable to the crown from 

 the borough. In a deed made in the following year, to which Mr Walton 

 and the corporation were parties, it is stated that by the will of Mr Startin 

 2, I2s. only were to be paid to the poor, and that the corporation had, at 

 Mr Walton's request, agreed to apply the surplus of the fee-farm rent 

 (being 14^.) in the purchase of coals for the poor. By that deed, and, it 

 should seem, in order to induce the corporation to accede to his wishes, 

 Mr Walton granted to them a garden near the gaol (as it then stood), in 

 trust that the rent should be disposed of by the mayor with the alderman 

 and church-wardens of the parish of St Mary's, ' towards the buying of 

 coals for the poor of the borough of Stafford, according to the discretion of 

 the mayor, &c. at two days in the year ; viz. one half of the coals to be 

 given at or before St Thomas's day, and the other half at the Purification 

 of the Blessed Virgin Mary.' It was also provided, that in case the coals 

 were not disposed of as directed, the rent of the garden should be paid to 

 the church-wardens of the parish of St Chad, either to keep in repair the 

 wall of St Chad's church, or to buy coals for the poor of the parish, at 

 their discretion. Mr Walton's suspicions that the trusts, which he had 

 reposed in the corporation, might in after-times be disregarded, appear as 

 well by this deed as by his will, and even the members of that body must 

 admit that they were but too well founded. In the gift of both charities he 

 prudently endeavoured to guard against their abuse; but neither his 

 exhortations to his trustees to a faithful discharge of their duty, nor the 

 condition which he annexed to the non-conformance of it, seem to have 

 had any effect. Of part of the garden, upon which four cottages have been 

 erected, two leases, each for ninety-nine years, have been made, and none 

 of the rent has been laid out in the purchase of coals ; neither has the 

 surplus of the fee-farm rent been applied for that purpose. For the amount 

 of those sums, the corporation will therefore have to account ; of the 

 money appropriated to the purchase of bread, is. is laid out weekly ; and 

 the bread is given away in St Mary's church on a Sunday." 



