A HISTORY OF SURREY 



pany to export fifty tons of saltpetre brought 

 from India together with a thousand barrels 

 of gunpowder, as the king's stores and Mr. 

 Evelyn's were suflSciently supplied. But before 

 long there was again a want of saltpetre. For 

 the eight months preceding 20 March 1632-3 

 the account of saltpetre brought into the store 

 records a deficiency or 297 cwt.,^ and follow- 

 ing accounts show a similar state of affairs. 



The price which the gunpowder maker was 

 to pay for saltpetre had been fixed by the terms 

 of his contract at £1 31. /^d. the hundredweight 

 of 112 lb.' This also we learn in Novem- 

 ber 1635 was the price which the government 

 had contracted to pay for a certain quantity to 

 be imported by the East India Company.' 

 But in the following year it is stated that the 

 Barbary merchants supplied saltpetre at 45J. 

 the hundredweight, whereas the making of the 

 same quantity cost an Englishman £1 15X.* 

 In 1637 the Admiralty agreed to pay the East 

 India Company at the rate of ^"^ 10s. the 

 hundredweight for all saltpetre they should 

 bring over.* Cordwell, the Chilworth powder 

 maker, had petitioned that he might be allowed 

 to have all that the Company had imported, 

 as otherwise his mills must stand still.' His 

 petition was granted, and he was authorized 

 to charge £^ \\s. Sd. per hundredweight for 

 so much of his saltpetre as he should refine. 

 At the end of the same year we find Cordwell 

 still complaining of a want of saltpetre to keep 

 his mills in work, and in consequence that the 

 Ordnance officers were directed to have a price 

 set on 20 tons of the same which had been 

 bought in Barbary by a Dutch merchant of 

 English factors, contrary to the terms of the 

 king's contract with these factors to have all 

 that should be made there. This saltpetre had 

 been brought to London and there put into 

 the Custom House.'' 



Against Cordwell's complaints of the in- 

 sufficiency of the saltpetre supplied we must 

 put the fact that in an undated petition, which 

 has been assigned to this same year (1637), 

 the saltpetre men complained that he refused 

 to take their saltpetre off their hands.^ If 

 the grievance was well founded it would 

 seem to prove that the artificial product of 

 this country did not compare favourably with 

 the naturally produced one from the Indies. 



On 9 February 1638-9 the clerk in 

 charge of the saltpetre storehouse was 

 ordered to keep a distinct register of the 



' S. P. Dom. Chas. I. ccxxxiv. 28. 



' Ibid. Jas. I. cxx. 102. 



> Ibid. Chas. I. cccii. 119. * Ibid, cccxli. 70. 



» Ibid, ccxcii. 48. • Ibid, ccclvii. 38. 



' Ibid, cccliii. fo. 75. ' Ibid, ccckxvi. 155. 



product of each parcel of foreign saltpetre 

 delivered to the gunpowder maker.* A little 

 more than a year previous to this order he 

 had begun to state separately in his periodical 

 returns the quantity brought in by the salt- 

 petre men and that received from merchants. 

 Thus from May to November 1637 out of a 

 total supply of 128 lasts i qr. and 13 lb., 35 

 lasts 15 cwt, had been brought in by the 

 latter.'" 



In the same order of February 1638-9 it 

 is stated that all the saltpetre made in the 

 kingdom was not enough by above 40 lasts 

 to make the proportion of powder which the 

 powder maker was obliged by his contract to 

 supply every year. In November 1641 the 

 total deficiency is returned as 89 lasts, 

 and this in spite of the fact that some salt- 

 petre had been supplied by three saltpetre 

 men not by virtue of the royal commission, 

 but as a commodity sold by way of merchan- 

 dise." 



With the abolition of monopolies on the 

 meeting of the Long Parliament the author- 

 ized manufacture of gunpowder in the king- 

 dom ceased to be exclusively a Surrey indus- 

 try, consequently we are no longer concerned 

 with the general conditions which regulated 

 its production. But having now endeavoured 

 to ascertain the circumstances under which 

 the gunpowder makers obtained their supplies 

 of the chief article of consumption in their 

 trade we are in a better position to under- 

 stand the history of the successive contracts 

 into which the government entered with 

 these makers from the reign of Elizabeth 

 until the outbreak of the great Civil War, 



The earliest notice we can quote of a gun- 

 powder mill in Surrey occurs in February 

 J5S4-5> when Henry Reve is said to have 

 erected such a mill upon a parcel of pasture 

 ground called ' the Crenge ' in Rotherhithe, 

 which had formerly belonged to the abbey 

 of Bermondsey, and to which Reve was 

 alleged to have no just title. He was accused 

 too of having weakened the banks against 

 the mill by reason of the great abundance of 

 water which came in at the flood-gates and 

 sluices made for it, so that the ground of the 

 Crown's tenants thereabouts was surrounded 

 and drowned with water. Moreover by 

 enclosing the ground with ditches he had 

 stopped up a common highway there and 

 forced the inhabitants of those parts ' to go 

 far about ' to their great loss and hindrance." 



' Ibid, ccxcii. 97. >» Ibid, ccdxxi. 3. 



•' Ibid, cccclxxxv. 45. 



" Ct. of Requests Proc. Phil, and Mary, vol. 24, 

 No. 1 19. 



310 



