ventures indeed were not of the most honourable kind. There was, in the Transatlantic possessions of the crown, a great demand for labour; and this demand was partly supplied by a system of crimping and kidnapping at the principal English seaports. Nowhere was this system found in such active and extensive operation as at Bristol. Even the first magistrates of that city. were not ashamed to enrich themselves by so odious a commerce. The number of houses appears, from the returns of the hearth money, to have been, in the year 1685, just five thousand three hundred. We can hardly suppose the number of persons in a house to have been greater than in the city of London; and in the city of London we learn from the best authority that there were then fifty-five persons to ten houses. The population of Bristol must therefore haye been about twenty-nine thousand souls. [Authorities:] Evelyn's Diary, June 27, 1654; Pepys's Diary, June 13, 1668; Roger North's Lives of Lord Keeper Guildford, and of Sir Dudley North; Petty's Political Arithmetic. I have taken Petty's facts, but, in drawing inferences from them, I have been guided by King and Davenant, who, though not abler men than he, had the advantage of coming after him. As to the kidnapping for which Bristol was infamous, see North's Life of Guildford, 121, 216, and the harangue of Jeffreys on the subject in the Impartial History of his Life and Death, printed with the Bloody Assizes. His style was, as usual, coarse; but I cannot reckon the reprimand which he gave to the magistrates of Bristol among his crimes.-Lord Macaulay's History of England (10th ed.), vol. i., p. 334. 1673.-GLOUCESTERSHIRE HANGMEN IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.-A somewhat amusing illustration of the inefficacy of the Draconian laws of the last century to suppress crime appears in Sarah Farley's Bristol Journal for May 2, 1767. It must be premised that the country was afflicted by a terrible dearth in 1766, when the labouring classes of many districts, exasperated by the misery of their families, and ignorantly believing that the high prices were due to the avarice of the farmers, burst into violent riots and committed great devastation. In Gloucestershire the attacks on persons and property were so serious that the government sent down a special commission for the trial of the criminals, some six or seven of whom were hanged and many transported. The paragraph above referred to will complete the story:-"At the execution of the rioters upon the late special commission at Gloucester, Harris, the common hangman, being at that time in gaol as a party concerned in those outrages, one Evans, of Hampton, was procured to officiate in his stead. This fellow, last week, committed some trifling theft, for which the justices ordered him to be whipped by his brother hangman, Mr. Harris, who told the delinquent that he should severely smart for the reflection he had brought upon the honourable calling to which he had been initiated, and accordingly gave him such a trimming with the cat o' nine tails as must have convinced him that the principles of honour and honesty are essential to that respectable profession." Since the above was written, another paragraph, bearing further evidence on the subject, has been found in Sarah Farley's Bristol Journal for August 20, 1785. It states that ten days previously the execution had taken place at Ilchester, of Thomas Woodham, aged 69, convicted of highway robbery. His arrest must have taken place a very short time before his trial, for, in his capacity as hangman for Gloucestershire, he had executed a man at Gloucester only a few weeks before his own death. It is added that he expressed much regret on his way to the scaffold that he had not been in a position to dispose of the two or three convicts who remained to be executed in his own county. J. L. 1674.--"VIEWS OF BERKELEY CASTLE," 1840. I have a large-sized folio, entitled Views of Berkeley Castle, "taken on the spot, and drawn on stone, by Mr. H. Marklove;" and "dedicated, with permission, to the Right Hon. Lord Segrave, December, 1840." The printer of the letter-press was William Partridge, of Nailsworth, who subsequently removed to Stroud, where, as I understand, he died; and a list of more than two hundred subscribers is prefixed. "Price to Subscribers, £1 1s.; to NonSubscribers, £1 5s." The ten plates are in the following order: 1. North East View; 2. North West View; 3. Entrance, First Gate; 4. The Inner Gate; 5. Entrance to the Keep; 6. The Hall; 7. The Chapel; 8. Entrance to the Room in which Edward II. was murdered; 9. View from the Leads; and 10. The Chalice, or Godwin Cup. A notice to this effect has been inserted :-"As an accompaniment to this work, Mr. Marklove intends to publish two tinted lithographic views of the fine old Church of Berkeley, and two of the Mausoleum of the Berkeley Family. As they are subjects so well worthy the attention both of the antiquarian and artist,, Mr. M. hopes to be honoured with the names of those persons who have subscribed to the Berkeley Castle Views. Price 158. [changed in manuscript to £1 18.]" I shall be glad to know whether these four plates were published. BIBLIOGRAPHER. 1675.-THE DIOCESE OF GLOUCESTER AND BRISTOL, 1588.— The following is an extract from Arber's Transcript of Stationers' Registers, vol. ii., p. 485: "1587-88. Die mercurij. 28. februarij. John Charle woode. Receaued of him for his lycence to prynte, vjd " At p. 466 of the same volume the same word in the singular ("dioces") is used with reference to Winchester. Has the extract any bearing on the history of the union of Gloucester and Bristol as a diocese? L. MATTHEWS GRIFFITHS. The explanation of this union of dioceses is, that John Bullingham, D.D., was consecrated for the bishopric of Gloucester, September 3, 1581; and that he held in commendam the bishopric of Bristol from the same year until 1589, when Richard Fletcher, D.D., was consecrated thereto. Bullingham held Gloucester to the day of his death, May 20, 1598. Soe ante, vol. ii., p. 33. EDITOR. 1676.-A SLYMBRIDGE CURIOSITY.-In an old account of rarities of this county I find the following:-"At Slymbridge, a little village on the banks of the Severn, about ten miles south of Gloucester, there is a family of the sirname of Knight, which has been distinguished for many generations by having five fingers and a thumb on each hand."* Can any of your correspondents give any further information with reference to this peculiarity, and whether it still exists? JOHN MILLS. Gloucester. 1677.-WILLIAM PHELPS, OF TEWKESBURY, 1592.-In the Dictionary of National Biography, vol. vii., p. 239, in an article on John Bull, Mus. Doc., this passage appears : "On 29 May, 1592, some curious entries in the Chapel [Royal] cheque-book record the appointment, as a gentleman-extraordinary, of Mr. William Phelps, of Tewkesbury, the reason being that 'he dyd show a moste rare kyndnes to Mr. Doctor Bull in his great distresse, beinge robbed in those parts."" I shall feel much obliged to anyone who can favour me with a copy of these "curious entries." Who was Mr. Phelps? No mention of the matter by Bennett in either his History of Tewkesbury (1830) or The Tewkesbury Register and Magazine (1840-50). G. A. W. 1678.-SIR STEPHEN NAISH, KNT.-Is anything known of the family to which belonged Sir Stephen Naish, Knt., of Bristol, and of Leweston, Dorset, sheriff of Bristol in 1785, and of Dorset, in 31 Geo. III On what occasion was he knighted? when did he die and where was he buried? The Leweston estate is said to have been purchased by his father, a Bristol merchant, of Lord Brooke. Sir Stephen left a sister and sole heiress, Anne, or Anna, who married 1st, William Gordon, who died at Bristol, 1802; and 2ndly, John Berkeley Burland. C. H. MAYO. Long Burton Vicarage, Sherborne, Dorset. This statement is made, but not exactly in the same words, in Curiosities, Natural and Artificial, of the Island of Great Britain, vol. ii., p. 293, London, n.d.-ED. 1679.-PORTRAITS OF EDWARD COLSTON.-The latest writer on the life of Colston, the Rev. William Hunt, in the Dictionary of National Biography, vol. xi., p. 406, has made this statement:"Four protraits of him exist: one belongs to the school he founded on St. Augustine's Back, [Bristol]; another, painted by Richardson, and engraved by Vertue, was executed by order of the corporation in 1702, at the cost of 177. 11s., and is still in the council house; a third is in the Merchants' Hall; and the fourth, painted by Kneller in 1693, is in St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London. The effigy on his tomb [in All Saints' Church] was executed by Rysbrach from Richardson's portrait." I shall be glad to know whether there are any other portraits of this Bristol worthy, and if so, by whom painted and engraved. G, A. W. 1680.-BALL FAMILY, OF STONEHOUSE.-Mr. C. E. GildersomeDickinson has written in Notes and Queries (7th S. vi. 367), November 10, 1888" Sir Alexander John Ball, Bart., a distinguished admiral and the friend of Nelson, died at Malta (of which island he was first British governor) in 1809. I am desirous of obtaining any information with regard to the family— which was of Stonehouse, co. Gloucester-beyond the somewhat crude and inaccurate pedigree which appears in Betham, and is subsequently inserted by Burke until the baronetcy became extinct in 1874. What connexion had Sir Alexander with Blofield? where and when was his mother buried? what became of his brothers and sisters? and who is the present representative of the family I have reason to think the family was connected with Cape Breton Isle." Mr. Dickinson may be glad to be referred to vol. i. of our Notes and Queries, pp. 13, 128, 129, 377, where (with one or two inaccuracies) he will find sundry particulars of Sir Alexander John Ball, Bart., and the Ball family of Stonehouse. He is probably aware of the article on Sir Alexander in the Dictionary of National Biography, vol. iii., p. 70. The Rev. William Ball Wright has published an 8vo, entitled Records of the Anglo-Irish Families of Ball (Dublin, 1887), but has not included the Stonehouse family. EDITOR. 1681.-MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT FOR CIRENCESTER, 1547-1552. -A MS. list of the members of the first parliament of Edward VI. (from the Hatfield collection) names John Eston and George Ferrrers, Esqrs., as representing Cirencester. This statement that Cirencester returned to parliament so early as 1547 is opposed to the heretofore and (it was thought) fairly substantiated belief that the borough was enfranchised for the first time in 13 Eliz., 1571, making its first returns at the general election in that year. In the parliamentary returns of 1545 no mention is made of Cirencester, nor does any trace exist of after members for the borough prior to 1571. That the return made in the latter year was a new departure would seem by the resolution of the House passed on 6 April, immediately after the meeting of parliament, which enjoins that an inquiry be made in the case of Cirencester and certain other boroughs, they having "returned no burgesses in the last parliament." It is singular that if Cirencester received the right to elect representatives in 1547, the privilege should not have been continued without a break of twenty years. I do not know much of the abovenamed members said to have been returned in 1547, and shall be glad to have some particulars. John Eston appears as member for Southwark from 1553 to 1559; and George Ferrers for Brackley in 1555, and for St. Albans in 1571. Leigh, Lancashire. W. D. PINK. " Mr. K. J. Beecham, the latest historian of Cirencester, in his History of Cirencester and the Roman City Corinium (1886), p. 171, begins his chapter on the "representation of the borough with these words :-"Cirencester is stated to have sent representatives to a great council as early as 1338, but did not acquire the right of permanently electing two members until 1571." We leave the matter for further investigation. EDITOR. 1682.-SIR NICHOLAS ARNOLD, LORD DEPUTY OF IRELAND.— In Notes and Queries (7th S. vi. 287), October 13, 1888, Mr. F. J. Furnivall has inquired: -"William Harrison, in bk. iii. ch. i. of his celebrated Description of England (p. 5, part ii. of my edition for the new Shakspere Society), says: 'Sir Nicholas Arnold of late hath bred the best horses in England, and written of the maner of their production.' Lowndes and Hazlitt have no entry of any book of his, nor has the British Museum any in its catalogue. Nicholas Arnold's name is not in the Dictionary of National Biography. His arms are given in Metcalfe's Book of Knights, A.D. 1548-53, p. 102, ed. 1885. Can anyone tell me anything about him?” Sir In the same volume, p. 394, Mr. W. D. Pink has replied :—“He was of Highnam Court, co. Gloucester, and third son of John Arnold, Esq., of Monmouth (vide Burke's Landed Gentry). He was M.P. for Gloucestershire in 1552-3 and 1555; Gloucester city in 1559 and 1563-67; Cricklade, 1571; Gloucestershire again, 1572-83 [1]. Knighted by Edward VI., [and] Lord Deputy of Ireland, 1564-5. I have not the date of his decease, but it seems to have been after 1583." The manors of Highnam and Over, and divers messuages and lands, with the tithes thereof, lying in the parish of Churcham, near Gloucester, and all formerly belonging to the abbey of Gloucester, were granted to John Arnold, of Monmouthshire, Esq., 33 Hen. VIII., at whose death livery of the manor of Highnam was granted to his son, Sir Nicholas Arnold, 37 Hen. |