THE OLDER CHARITIES OF PLYMOUTH. 
69 
receipt under the Charity, in 1658. Moreover, there is still extant 
the deed of purchase by the Mayor and Commonalty, dated 
September 29th, 1657, from Thomas Fownes, for £288, of this 
annuity of £18 fee farm rent, arising out of the Eectory and 
Church of Egg Buckland, which had belonged to the Priory of 
Plympton, and which Fownes had bought in 1637. Nor need 
there be any real doubt as to the personality of the donor. There 
is an entry in the Receiver's Accounts of 1653-54 of £2 10s., 
spent on a banquet for " Mrs. Trosse, daughter of Mrs. Burroughs 
of the city of Exon, and her Company e." This Mrs. Burroughs 
was Rebecca Burroughs, widow of Walter Burroughs (or Borough), 
twice Mayor of Exeter. He was, during his lifetime and by will, 
one of the greatest benefactors the city ever had ; and she followed 
his excellent example. There is no direct evidence that she was 
the founder of the Plymouth Charity ; but the inference that she 
was so can hardly be resisted. This continues. 
Moses Goody eare, merchant, left under his will, in 1663, two 
sums of £50 — one to the Hospital of Poor's Portion, and the 
other to the Old Almshouse, his direction being that these sums 
should be laid out in the purchase of freehold lands for these two 
Charities. Nothing is now to be traced of this bequest. 
John Hill, in 1672, gave £50 to the Mayor and Commonalty in 
consideration of the payment by them of 52s. yearly for ever, to 
be spent in the distribution of twelve penny wheaten loaves every 
Sunday morning at St. Andrew. This payment is still made. 
And next we have the Charity founded by John King (Mayor 
1659-60), concerning which there is a tattered draft indenture 
among the muniments of the Corporation. This was one of the 
Charities that the Commissioners of 1820 gave up as a bad job. 
A tablet in Charles Church recorded that in 1676 King had given 
to the churchwardens and overseers of this parish £100 to be 
kept as a stock, and the interest distributed in bread; and the 
Commissioners discovered that the Mayor and Commonalty had 
acknowledged in 1685 having received the £100 for this purpose, 
while the returns of 1786 stated that it was then vested in the 
parish, and producing £4 a year. The Charity had long ceased to 
operate when the Commissioners visited Plymouth, and they did 
not trouble themselves to carry the matter any further. 
