A HISTORY OF DORSET 



the loss from the disease. Poole then paid ^(^30, Dorchester ^^45, Wareham 

 >r25, Corfe Castle £^0, Weymouth and Melcombe £2 5^ Lyme £^0, Brid- 

 port ^C^o, and Blandford £2^. This was the sheriffs own assessment, the 

 mayor of Dorchester having declined, with the other mayors of the county, 

 at a meeting held 23 November, 1636, to make any rate towards the ;^5,ooo 

 demanded.^ John Freke, the sheriff, wrote that autumn that the money was 

 paid ' like drops of blood, and some sell their only cow, which should feed 

 their children, and some come to the parish.' ' Next year Richard Rogers, 

 the new sheriff, took forty days ' expediting the agreements of the mayors of 

 the corporate towns, and at the expiration was put to make the assessments 

 himself.'' The assessment of 1637 was heavier on the towns than that of 

 1636. Shaftesbury now paid ^^5, Poole £24., Wareham £2^, Corfe Castle 

 ^40, Weymouth and Melcombe £8^, Lyme jr4o, Bridport ^20, and 

 Dorchester >C45-* Sir Walter Erie was distrained, which with the similar 

 treatment of 'some great ones, reduced the rest to conformity ' for the time 

 being.' By i September only ^^200 of the whole >r^,ooo was wanting. 

 Arrears under the writ of 4 August, 1635, still came in, in driblets, and 

 the official return of the whole arrears of the county, in October, 1637, was 

 ^1,200.^ But the old arrears were never all got in before new writs were 

 issued, and disputes as to rating became more and more common,'' occasioning 

 ' more than ordinary pains and trouble.' Richard Bingham, the new sheriff, 

 who endeavoured to collect under a new writ of December, 1638, found that 

 the corporate towns could not agree upon their rating.' So late as 4 Feb- 

 ruary, 1640, Sir John Croke, sheriff in 1639, had received no money under 

 the writ of 1637, though he had 'sent throughout the whole county the 

 present sheriffs schedules and warrants.' He promised to 'do his best 

 endeavours to collect so much of these arrears as may be had,'' but evidently 

 was not optimistic. The 'present sheriff' of Sir John's letter was William 

 Churchill, who began office evidently meaning to collect all arrears." But in 

 spite of his most active measures, he was as unsuccessful as his predecessors 

 in collecting a tax which the county could not possibly pay, and against 

 which feeling was running very high. Even in 1631 there had been 

 serious rioting, and the Council wrote to the Justices of Assize to use extra- 

 ordinary diligence in finding and punishing ' the offenders and encouragers 

 of certain rebellions rather than riots lately committed on their circuit,' His 

 Majesty charging them to proceed against the delinquents with all severity." 

 Matters had not been improved by further vexatious illegalities, the tax of 

 6(/. per 1 2 lb. on all the hard soap made in the county,^' and the close 

 monopoly of this manufacture, the obligation imposed in 1636 on every 

 alehouse-keeper to become bound in _^2o not to dress any venison, red or 

 fallow, or any hares, pheasants, partridges, or heath pout,^' and the abuses in 

 the collection of the ship-money itself, the common report being that nearly 

 jTijOOO more was collected than was actually required.^* 



' Dorch. Corp. MSS. C. 9. * Ca,. S.P. Dom. 1636-7, p. 151. 



' Ibid. 419. * Ibid. 542. ' Ibid. 1637, p. 400. 



* Ibid. 504. ' Ibid. 150-1, and ibid. 1637-8, p. 169. 



'Ibid. 1639, p. 17. See also Dorch. Corp. MSS. 'Minute Book of Council Meetings,' 

 22 Jan. 1639. 



' Cai.S.P. Dom. 1639-40, p. 426. '" Ibid. 454, 556. " Ibid. 1631-3, p. 107. 



" Ibid. 1637-8, p. 292. " Ibid. 1635-6, p. 247. " Ibid. 1637, p. 419. 



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