SIR FRANCIS DRAKE REHABILITATED AND MEMORIALISED. 81 
time of need, when they appealed to Cecil, take all the credit to 
themselves, as they had been suspected of doing on other occasions 1 
No, they say ; for it suited the argument of their complaint — " It 
cost 1 themselves and Drake a great sum." In 1589-90, in the 
mayoralty of John Blitheman, the year after the Armada, the 
notable composition was made by the town with Sir F. Drake for 
the bringing of the water of Meavy into the town, for which the 
Elack Book says, "The town have paid him £200 and £100 for 
compounding with the landlords of the ground over which it 
runneth." But was Drake paid that year as the veritable Black 
Book witnesseth 1 The fact was that Drake, instead of being paid 
six weeks after the end of the work in April, 1591, was left unpaid 
for some time after. Nor were the damages of digging the trench 
assessed till a year or more after the completion of the leat, for the 
assessment was made in the summer of 1592. The Black Book in 
1590-1 stated, "That on [blank date], in December, 1590, Sir F. 
Drake began to bring in the river, which he with great care and dili- 
gence performed, and brought it into the town on the 24th of April, 
the next year." But the newly-discovered book stated that in 1591 
Drake was only paid so much, and it was not until 1592-3 that 
they found the entry of the final item of the full payment of the 
£300 which the Mayor and Commonalty were to pay him. If the 
Corporation so recognised Drake's services, how could they be said 
to have made a bad bargain and Drake a good one? The Cor- 
poration, so far from expressing themselves as aggrieved, strongly 
commended Drake's care and diligence, and deservedly so, as 
appeared from the short time taken to execute the work. 
A great deal had been made of the fact that Walter Elford, after 
Drake's death, pressed for payment in 1603, and was not paid till 
1607 "in regard of the inheritance of the weir head of the water 
that cometh hither to Plymouth." But it must be remarked that 
it was not correct to say that " Drake did not compound with all 
the owners of property in connection with the leat," for they had 
the indenture of 1592 referred to by Woollcombe in the manuscript 
history of Plymouth, in which several payments to the Elfords 
occur. 
Turning to the strange attempt which had been made to give the 
credit of the plans of the leat to the Lampen Brothers, the lecturer 
observed that as regarded the fact, of which there was said now to 
1 See Plym. Inst. Trans. 1881, p. 487. 
