A HISTORY OF SURREY 



made of the temper and commixture of 1 8 

 cwt. of double-refined saltpetre to 3 cwt. of 

 brimstone of Naples or of other parts of Italy, 

 ' if it be to be had within the realm,' and 3 

 cwt. of charcoal. 



(13) Any of the gunpowder delivered be- 

 coming defective within seven years and not 

 having been issued for service was to be ex- 

 changed by Evelyn without any payment to 

 be made to him for so doing. 



(14) Should Evelyn foil in his monthly de- 

 livery of 6 lasts 1 6 cwt. from any other cause 

 than the want of the full proportion of salt- 

 petre to be delivered for the making of 120 

 lasts yearly, he was to pay the king ;^200 for 

 every default nomine peena. 



(15) In the event of Evelyn's being unpaid 

 within twelve days of the delivery of his first 

 monthly proportion and being unpaid for both 

 within twelve days of the delivery of the 

 second month's, he could forbear the delivery 

 of any more to the king's stores and sell all 

 such powder forborne to the king's subjects at 

 the rate below fixed, until full payment of 

 arrears was made to him. 



(16) All powder sold to the subject was to 

 be first proved and allowed by the Ordnance 

 officers, and was not to be sold above the rate 

 of 10^. the pound. 



(17) Should neither of the parties to this 

 contract signify disapproval before the expira- 

 tion of the first two years, then at the end of 

 the third year Evelyn was to tender to the 

 Lords for a like contract for a further three 

 years. 



(18) Evelyn was to pay to the Lords or to 

 such person as they should appoint ^^^o yearly 

 by even quarterly payments. 



Such were the general conditions under 

 which, save for the subsequent modifications 

 now to be noticed, a leading Surrey industry 

 was for twenty years to be carried on. It 

 will be gathered from them that the total 

 amount of saltpetre which the saltpetre men 

 were charged to produce every year was es- 

 timated to be sufficient for the making of 

 120 lasts of gunpowder. Two thirds of 

 this total amount were appropriated to the 

 government's stores, the remaining third being 

 the portion assigned for the requirements of 

 merchant seamen and other private subjects. 

 In Evelyn's second contract with the Com- 

 missioners of I July 1624,* the yearly quan- 

 tity to be delivered to the Crown was raised 

 to 240 lasts or 20 lasts a month and the price 



' See the above quoted Ordnance report of 1 637 

 for notes of the principal modifications made in 

 the successive contracts, and how far Evelyn was 

 able to carry out the terms of each. 



to ^\d. per pound. In addition no limit was 

 set to the rate which the contractor might 

 demand for such powder as should not be 

 taken off his hands by the government. In 

 Evelyn's succeeding contracts the same yearly 

 proportion was observed, but in the last, that 

 of 1632, the rate per pound was reduced to 8</. 

 How far Evelyn kept to the terms of his 

 successive contracts is set out in the Ordnance 

 report of 1637. How far the government 

 on its part observed its obligations to him may 

 be gathered here and there from the State 

 Papers. From the report it appears that under 

 the first contract 6 lasts 16 cwt. of powder 

 were duly delivered every month for the first 

 fifteen months, making a total quantity of 

 1 00 lasts of the total value of ;^7,ooo. For 

 the remaining twenty-one months of the term 

 of the contract not a single pound seems to 

 have been delivered. Sir John Coke, com- 

 plaining of this deficiency in March 1624,' 

 states that thereby the king's store was de- 

 ficient and that the king had lost his ratio of 

 3^. in the pound on a large quantity. This 

 would seem to show that it was the practice 

 for the government to retail a considerable 

 amount of the powder in its stores to subjects 

 at 10^. the pound. But the fault of the 

 deficiency was not Evelyn's. Sir Francis 

 Nethersole, writing to Sir Dudley Carleton on 

 18 April 1624,' says that the heaviest charge 

 against the Lord Treasurer was his neglect to 

 pay the gunpowder maker, so that the then 

 supply of powder was very small, and on 26 

 August 1625, during the term of the second 

 contract, Sir John Coke writes to Mr. Secre- 

 tary Conway that the king was in debt to 

 Evelyn ^^2,250, and that the answer of the 

 Treasurer was that there were no moneys for 

 him.* Under the second contract Evelyn 

 delivered his first twenty months' total pro- 

 portion of 400 lasts, but nothing for the re- 

 maining sixteen months. By this second con- 

 tract ;^2,ooo had been imprested to him both 

 for security of the future payments to him 

 and in regard to the new mills which he was 

 then erecting at Godstone. This sum was 

 allowed to continue in his hands by the con- 

 tract of 1627, and in 1628 was released to 

 him altogether by the king." In the latter 

 year Evelyn's affairs seem to have become 

 desperate. He himself in 1627 had com- 

 plained that no payment had been made to 

 him for six months, and that owing to the 

 manufacture of gunpowder by others, a liberty 



2 S. P. Dom. Jas. I. cbti. 13. 

 ' Ibid, clxiii. 3. 

 « Ibid. Chas. I. V. 85. 

 * Ibid, cxxiv. 9. 



316 



