SIR HANS SI.OANE. ‘23 
his life. Soon after he came of age, he returned 
to London for the purpose of recovering the 
remainder of his father’s and grandfather’s fortunes 
from the hands of a Mr Carew, who had obtained 
letters of administration to the estates of the 
Courten family ; but, after some time, he com- 
promised the case, and, “ by a bond, surrendered 
all claims to the administration, for valuable 
considerations not specified ; adding, that what- 
ever he had received from the wrecks of the 
fortune of his father, was ex dono et gratia , and 
not ex jure. He even relinquished his family 
name of Courten, and assumed that of William 
Charlton, and publicly announced his intention 
of quitting England, and living in a strange 
land.”* 
He is supposed to have remained abroad many 
years, and it must have been during this interval 
that he became acquainted with Sloane. In 1669, he 
began to collect coins and medals. To what extent 
his curiosities increased may be 6een from the 
following notices of his museum, gleaned from the 
contemporary Diaries of Evelyn and Thoresby. 
“December 16, 1686, I carried the Countesse of 
Sunderland to see the rarities of one Mr Charlton, 
in the Middle Temple, who shew’d us such a 
collection as I had never seen in all my travels 
Chalmers’ Biographical Dictionary, art. Courten. 
