82 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
be no question, that the Lampen 1 Brothers were the real engi- 
neers of the leat, there was nothing palpable which had been 
alleged in support of the assertion, save and except the occurrence 
of the names some four times in connection with " plans," " work 
at the leat," and " about the water," amounting in all to £3 5s. 10d., 
or £16 9s. of modern value; and this in face of the fact also 
alleged that all that Drake got for the whole work was £200, or 
perhaps £1,000 of our money. So much then for the newly- 
discovered engineers. Their payment cannot be reckoned as a 
percentage on that of Drake. 
There was, however, just as much novelty of assertion as to the 
length, if not as to the track, of the leat. Here they found their 
much-trusted entries in the Black Book or Receiver's Accounts no 
longer followed, at least as to the length of the leat. This, as they 
had seen, was to be six or seven feet in width, and did not exceed 
two feet in depth for the most part. " It was not twenty-five miles 
in length, but seventeen," they were told, and " for half its course 
was simply a utilization of the older leat from the Meavy to War- 
leigh — that was Warleigh Mill leat. The lecturer here, by kind 
consent of Lord Salisbury, exhibited a photograph of a map from 
Hatfield House, of which copies, he said, must have been drawn 
for the Corporation and Privy Council or Lord Bath, by one 
Sprie, a painter, of the Borough, about the time of the completion 
of the leat. The manuscript, in some places ragged with age, bore 
the annotation of Lord Burghley himself as the Secretary of the 
Privy Council, who died in 1598, two years after Drake. The words 
were "Lypson Hyll." The map, which, with the other two from 
Hatfield House, he produced, had on its face two mottoes, whereas 
its supposed copy in the British Museum had only one. The one 
was to this effect : " The river is taken out of the old river and 
carried 448 paces through the mighty rocks, which was thought 
impossible to carry water through." And as regarded the length of 
the new river, the map stated this, because "it is carried everie waie 
to geat the vantage of the hills, is by measure twenty-seven miles" at 
1,000 paces to the mile, and five feet to the pace, which, according to 
their ordinary reckoning, would be twenty-five miles and 982 yards. 
1 So far from the Lampen Brothers being at all connected with the Rev. 
Robert Lampen who delivered the inaugural address at the opening of this 
Institution, his family declare themselves to be Cornish, from St. Neots, 
and say the name is Cornish, and means "the head of the village." 
