280 MINING IN THE CHAP. x. 



asserted, that as all the agents employed by the 

 lady were foreigners, imposition had been prac- 

 tised on the judges and officers of the court, on 

 the Spanish agents, and on the numerous wit- 

 nesses who were present at the examination. 



During two years, whilst a suit thus occasioned 

 was proceeding, the expense of keeping those 

 galleries that had been drained clear of water 

 was too great to be borne, and they became 

 filled again. Lady Mary, however, at length, by 

 her interest at court, obtained a decree in her 

 favour : the mines were adjudged to her and her 

 heirs for a term of thirty years, on condition of 

 working them within two years at her own ex- 

 pense. She never, however, appeared afterwards 

 in the business, though agents said to have been 

 employed by her spared no pains to engage new 

 adventurers to contribute to form a fund for 

 prosecuting the work. 



Mr. Gage, the relation and partner of this 

 lady, then obtained a grant of the mine from the 

 crown in his own name in 1736, and continued 

 to work it during ten years ; and though he 

 procured some rich ores which yielded consi- 

 derable quantities of silver, it never equalled the 

 expenditure besides which the plunder of the 

 agents, after the death of Mr. Richard Westley, 

 the chief of them, augmented the loss and closed 

 the whole operation. 



After that Mr. Thomas Sutton, created Count 



