300 THE STANNAPaES OF CORNWALL. 



One cannot read througli tliese constitutions and not he 

 struck b}' the good sense and the ec^uitahle spirit with pervades 

 them. The lien on the adventurer's ore and right of adventure 

 and the purser's suit which enforced it afforded a simple 

 remedy which the law of England until comparatively recent 

 legislation denied to adventurers suing each other, whilst the 

 lien" of the merchant and the labourers for goods or labour 

 supplied, enforced by the creditor's petition, was equally simple 

 and efficacious and further relieved the plaintiff from the annoy- 

 ance of dilatory pleas to which he inight have been exposed if 

 suing at Common Law. 



Happening to be at Oxford, at the suggestion of Mr. Enys, 

 I took the opportunity of visiting the Bodleian Library 

 in the hope that I might find something new and possibly of 

 importance to report. As the very small result I will close this 

 dry paper by a short account of two anonymous pamphlets 

 which I found there, which are not important but are at all 

 events comparatively amusing. The first is entitled " Aggravii 

 Venetiani or the Venetian and other grievances. Together with a 

 proposal for raising the price of Tin in the Counties of Cornwall 

 and Devon, according to the policy of the Venetians wdien they 

 had regained the Western Trade wdaich they had almost lost. — 

 London, 1697." The writer had been a resident in Venice and 

 Zante. The chief wealth of the latter is its currants. He quotes 

 Sir Greorge Wheeler, who in his Travels says "The most serene 

 Eepublick of Venice (as it is stiled) is the most ancient Free 

 State that now flourishes in the world, and notwithstanding the 

 great losses they have sustained from the innumerable armies of 

 the Turks, have yet such large and fruitful territories as rhake 

 them the object of envy and jealousie not only of the grand Signior 

 but also of most Christian Princes. Zant is but a little Island, but 

 to make amends it is one of the most fruitful and pleasant places 

 I ever saw. Boterus called it the Golden Island, which it well 

 deserves because of its fruitfidness and pleasantness of its soil, &c. 

 But it now truly merits the name from the Venetians who draw 

 so much geld from the Curran (sic) Trade as bears the ordinary 



17. It is however singular that whilst the lien of adventurers upon the interest 

 of a defaulting co-adventurer is clearly affirmed in the Constitutions there is no 

 allusion to this well established lien of the mining creditor upon the effects cu the 

 mine. One may suppose that it was assumed, or was considered irrelevant. 



