I9 o NATURAL HISTORY 
unfettled, and what tin was raifed, was engroffed and managed by 
the Jews to the great regret of the barons and their vaflals. The 
tin-farm of Cornwall at this time amounted to no more than one 
hundred marks, according to which valuation the Bifhop of Exeter 
received then in lieu of his tenth part, and Hill receives from the 
Duke of Cornwall annually the fum of fix pounds thirteen fhillings 
and four-pence 1 , fo low were the tin-profits then in Cornwall, 
whereas in Devonfhire the tin was then let to farm for one hundred 
pounds yearly \ Ring John, fenfible of the languifhing flate or 
this manufacture, granted the County of Cornwall fome marks of 
his favour, disforefted what part of it was then fubjeCt to the arbi- 
trary foreft-law, allowing it equal title to the laws of the kingdom 
with the other parts of England, and is faid to have granted a charter 
to the tinners (Carew, page 17), but what it was does not appear. 
In the time of his fon Richard, King of the Romans and Earl 
of Cornwall, the Cornifh mines were immenfely rich, and the Jews 
being farmed out to him by his brother Henry III. what intereft they 
had was at his difpofal : at the fame time the tin-mines in Spain 
were flopped from working by the Moors, and no tin being as yet 
difcovered in Germany, Cornwall had all the trade of Europe for 
tin, and the Earl the almoft foie profit of that trade. This Prince 
is faid to have made feveral tin-laws ; but matters foon declining 
into diforder where the Prince has too much, and the fubjeCls little 
or nothing, and the Jews being banifhed the kingdom in the eigh- 
teenth of Edward I. the mines were again neglected, for want of 
proper encouragement to labour, and fecurity to enjoy and difpofe 
of the produds of that labour ; which the gentlemen of Blackmoor 
(Lords of feven tithings, beft ftored at that time with tin) per- 
ceiving (Carew, page 17), addreffed themfclves to Edmund Earl of 
Cornwall (fon h of Richard King of the Romans, and ob- 
tained from him, confirmed by his own feal c , a charter with more 
explicit grants of the privileges of keeping a court of judicature, 
holding plea of all aCtions, (life, limb, and land excepted) of ma- 
naging and deciding all ftannary caufes, of holding parliaments at 
their difcretion, and of receiving, as their own due and property, 
the toll-tin, that is, one fifteenth of all tin raifed. At this time 
alfo, as it feems to me, the rights of hounding , or dividing tin- 
grounds into feparate portions for the encouragement of fearching 
for tin, were either firft appointed, or at leaf! more regularly ad- 
jufted than before, fo as that the labouring tinner might be encou- 
raged to feek for tin by acquiring a property in the lands where he 
fhould difcover it, and that the farm-tin acquired by the bounder, 
2 Camden, page' 5, * Not the brother, as-in Gibfon’s Camden, p- 4 * 
1 Ibid. c Says Camden, page 4. 
and 
