448 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
to receive and appraise fresh evidence ; that the search for truth, 
and not adherence to any set of views, should be his motive. 
Having, like others, been led into error by the absence of full 
testimony, but having, unlike others, been fortunate enough to 
light upon the real facts, I had no choice but to place the 
public, so far as possible, in the same bgp hae of advantage as 
myself, * 
In laying before this Institution, in compliance with request, the 
true history of the origin of the Plymouth Water Supply, I intend 
in the first place to let the Accounts of the Corporation tell their 
own tale, quoting every relevant entry, and giving the ipsissima 
verba of every reference ; and then to enquire what is the tenor 
and weight of exterior contemporary witness and of tradition. If 
there is any value in the official records, the conclusion will then 
be clear. If, however, this book, with its 600 pages and 18,000 or 
20,000 entries, is deemed a modern forgery, or if it is held that 
successive corporations made false entries at intervals over half a 
century, with the purpose of defrauding Drake’s fair fame three 
centuries after he had died, matters will of course remain in statu 
guo. Such suggestions have been made. 
There is some indication of the chief sources of the water 
supply of the inhabitants in the early days of Plymouth in yet 
extant names of streets and places: Buckwell, Finewell, Ladywell, 
and Westwell, while there are old entries of Quarrywell, and of a 
hermitage thereat. All these names indicate the locality of wells 
more or less of a public character. Martock’s Well, temp. Henry 
VIIL, possibly may have been private. 
The earliest entry of any Corporate expenditure in reference to 
water with which I am acquainted is under the mayoralty of 
William Nycoll (1495-6). 
Itm p? for mendyng of a Cunditt y™ the tenemente 
some tyme Nicolas Elsworthy y® . : . xvij4 
So in 1502-3 a common conduit was mended in “ Seynt 
Andrewystrete ;” and in 1509-10 we have work done in John 
Paynter’s close “for the conveyance of the wat’ yn to the way.” 
About these and similar entries there may at times be a doubt as to 
the exact sense in which the term conduit is used; but there can 
* For every statement made in this paper the original authority is given. 
