534 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
and pcell of the Poole of Plymouth " — if by the " Poole of Ply- 
mouth " here we are to understand Surpool. The lessees were to 
put up buildings within seven years. If Sutton Pool is meant, 
the point is untouched.* 
Concerning the cost of the erection of the mills, which I have 
put at a few hundreds only, I find that when in 1672 the Corpora- 
tion rebuilt the higher mill (which could not therefore have been a 
very substantial work) their total outlay was £140 18s. 6d. 
Drake's six mills were erected in pairs ; and the higher mills were 
erected iu Drake's Place. If we are to understand that the charge 
for rebuilding referred to one mill of a pair only, then if one mill 
cost £140 18s. 6d. in 1672, six mills cannot have cost more (for 
wages, &c, had advanced considerably in the interim) than £750 
in 1592. If the figures given apply to the "pair," then Drake's 
total mill outlay — if he had found the whole — was certainly not 
more than £400, or in present money some £2000. And this is 
undoubtedly so : one building contained two sets of millstones, 
thence reckoned two mills; for there is a Corporate order of 1653 
which mentions a " house" in which "two new grist mills are 
contained or to be contained." t However, if the higher estimate 
be taken, it is perfectly clear that the sixty-seven years' lease gave 
a magnificent return. 
As to the yearly value of the leat mills my former statement — 
that it was not less than £200 a year — is likewise more than con- 
firmed by the following extract from Deeble's MSS. : — 
" Sir Francis Drake for his great care and diligence in conducting 
the River to Plymouth paid him in cash £352 16s. and afterwards 
gave him a lease for 67 years of the whole profits of the Mills 
Marishes & the Water leading thereunto on reserving a Conven- 
tional Rent of £34 3s. 4d. a year which Sir Francis Drake of 
Buckland Monachorum Bart afterwards sold to the Governor of 
* The reclaimed lands in Surpool were the subject of intended legislation 
in 1664-5, when a bill passed the House of Commons " for settling salt 
marshes gained from or deserted by the sea," with a proviso exempting the 
Mayor and Commonalty of Plymouth from its benefits. The Mayor and 
Commonalty accordingly i>etitioned against this proviso, as " precluding them 
from their just defence at law when their title to any buildings on such 
lands shall be questioned." As the bill was rejected by the Lords the petition 
was not read. 
t See ante for the probable purport of the letter of Payne to Cecil, and the 
proof that the Corporation did really pay part of the mill cost. 
