532 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
being continued directly to it ; the line of the stream is apparently 
carried on through what is now Old Town Street. Moreover, the 
old mills in Millbay are shown with the words, " Plymouth myll 
and the fair inference therefore would seem to be that the water 
was at first allowed to flow through the channels to Sutton Pool. 
In the Cottonian collection at the British Museum there is a map 
of Plymouth by an Italian, which shows a line of fortifications 
that we know never existed, in continuation of the genuine ramparts, 
from Coxside to Teat's Hill on the east of Sutton Pool. There is 
another map of similar character in the Cecil collection — possibly 
in this case also a duplicate. They are at least of the same date — 
the end of the 16th or early in the 17th century. It is some dozen 
years since I examined this map in the Museum, with many others, 
and my memory will not serve me for every minute detail; but 
the Cecil map, if not its companion, is connected with the water 
question by the entry thereon : — 
" This was plimmouth milpoole before the Eiuer was brought 
there by Sir Praunses Drake and vi milles builded by him, and 
this poole made drie for a medow." 
These words are written in over Surpool, the outlines of which 
are still given ; and if we are to accept the map as correct in this 
particular — and I know of no reason why we should not — the leat 
when it was drawn must have been taken to Millbay.* 
So far as this entry is concerned we still stop short at the un- 
questioned statement that Sir Prancis Drake "brought in" the 
river and built the mills. The language concerning the making 
"drie" of Surpool is ambiguous, and may or may not be intended 
to apply to him. The point indeed is of very little importance 
except in its connection with the diversion of the waste leat from 
its legitimate purpose of scouring Sutton Pool. Whoever is re- 
sponsible for this, whether Drake or the Corporation, to that extent 
* The evidence is conclusive that so far as the fortifications are concerned 
the map does not represent any state of things that ever existed at Plymouth. 
The Elizabethan fortifications were designed by one Robert Adams, who was 
sent down from London for the purpose in 1592, and was helped in his survey 
by Lampen, as the Corporation Records and the State Papers shoAv ; and 
Adams expressly states that he left out the east side of the town, because 
Sutton Pool formed a defence there. Hollar's siege map (1645) shows further 
that fifty years later Adams's plan of interior defence had not been departed 
from. The Cottonian and Cecil maps are nothing more than suggested plans 
of extension never carried out. 
