446 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
SIR FRANCIS DRAKE AND THE PLYMOUTH 
CORPORATION. 
BY MR. R.,N. WORTH, F.G-8:; 
(Read March 24th, 1881.) 
In the course of some remarks at our last Conversazione upon the 
Corporation portrait of Sir Francis Drake and the presumed portrait 
of Sir John Hawkins, then exhibited, I expressed my regret that 
the Receivers’ Accounts of the borough ot Plymouth for the latter 
part of the sixteenth and the earlier half of the seventeenth 
century were missing. Two days later I learnt casually that an 
ancient MS. volume had just been found among some family 
papers, which contained references to Drake. Enquiry proved that 
this was the missing book, and by the courtesy of Mr. W. H. 
Prance, I was permitted to make a full examination of its contents. 
This lecture and much newspaper correspondence are the results. 
The book is a large folio of over 600 pages, with many thousand 
entries, comprising the entire record of Corporate receipt and 
expenditure from the mayoralty of John Martyn (1569-70) to that 
of William Gefferie (1657-8), both inclusive; and with it the 
Municipal Accounts are practically complete from the year 1486 to 
the present time—a period of just four centuries. The volume 
was found at Widey Court, the seat of the Morshead family, in 
the course of removing the family muniments, and its true character 
was not suspected until it was seen by me. How it found its way 
to Widey it is impossible to say. There is no evidence that it has 
been in the possession of the Corporation since the 17th June, 
1679, when it was shown in evidence—as noted therein—in a suit 
then pending between them and Richard Strode. Probably, how- 
ever, it remained with the Corporation* until one of the two 
* It seems to have been used by Edward Deeble, Mayor 1718-19, 1727-8, 
1739-40, who compiled a local record. 
