[12]. There is another MS. of this speech, in Sir John Eliot’s hand, in the library at Port Eliot. See Forster’s Life of Eliot, Vol. I, p. 413.
[13]. It has been printed by Howell in the Cottoni Posthuma of 1651, pp. 283–294; and is followed by The Answer of the Committees appointed by Your Lordships to the Propositions delivered by some Officers of the Mint for inhauncing His Majesties monies of gold and silver. The ‘Answer’ as well as the speech, appears to be from Sir Robert’s pen.
[14]. Registers of the Privy Council, James I, vol. v, pp. 484, 485, 489; Nov. 3–5, 1629. (C. O.) Domestic Correspondence, James I, vol. cli, § 24, § 69, seqq., and vol. clii, § 78, seqq. In this last-named document the following passage occurs. The writer is Richard James, who for very many years was Librarian to Sir Robert Cotton, and he is writing to Secretary Lord Dorchester.—‘About July last, I was willed by Sir Robert Cotton to carry him [Mr. Oliver Saint John] into the Upper Study and there let him make search among some bundles of papers for business of the Sewers.... If he (St. John) did make any mention of a projecting pamphlet there pretended to be found, so God save me as I entered into no further conversation of it. Neither can I believe that any such as this now questioned was ever in keeping with us, or ever seen by Sir R. Cotton until, of late, he received it from my Lord of Clare. For myself, let not God be merciful unto me if, before that time, I ever saw, heard, or thought of it’ (R. James to Dorchester, vol. 152, § 78). (R. H.) There is also some further information on the subject in MS. Harl. 7000, ff. 267, seqq. (B. M.) A considerable number of the letters of Richard James to Sir Robert Cotton, his friend and benefactor, are preserved in MS. Harl. 7002. But these throw no satisfactory light on the incident of 1629. I believe, however, that to an observant reader they will be likely to suggest the idea that Richard James knew more than he was willing that Sir Robert should know. The letters are without dates, after the fashion of the times, and this adds to their obscurity. But one thing is plain. The writer ran away from London, either when he knew that the first inquiry was imminent or thought it probable that a renewed inquiry would be set on foot. In one of these letters, after many professions of attachment, he writes thus: ‘From you, at this time, I should not have parted, if the exigence and penurie of my life had not forc’d a silent retreat into myself, and my owne home at Corpus Christi College;’ and then, a fit of poesy—such as it was—coming over him, he ends his letter metrically, as thus:
‘The poore young Russian youth, that slave
Was to the Prince, and trustie knave
To my deere Harrie Wilde, when wee
Forsooke that Northern Barbarie,
Loe bending at my feete did saye
Thancks for my love, and kindely praye,
His evills that I would not beare