Below are the excerpts from the pamphlets of Bromwich and Capt. George
Bishop of Bristol (later to become a famous Quaker apologist, see ODNB)
that I've already posted. Bromwich and Bishop clearly wrote their
pamphlets in tandem, neither one mentioning the name of the "libeller."
I would post the whole texts of those documents, but--my!--what a lot
of work that would be. Maybe Nat Taylor would be up for the job, as he
may be a descendant of John Gifford, through Mrs. Margaret Cogswell's
younger daughter Bethany, wife of Samuel Gott. Of course, someone
should probably also check the _circa_ 1670 pamphlet which was
"[e]vidently written in the interests of Sir John Winter": "A True
Narrative Concerning the Woods and Iron Works of the Forrest of Deane
...."
http://books.google.com/books?vid=LCCN0 ... +gentleman
This pamphlet is available in the "Early English Books, 1641-1700"
microfilm series, roll 2258, item 14.
1. Isaac Bromwich, _The spoiles of the forest of Deane: asserted in
answer to a scurrilous libell lately set forth to blast the justice and
proceedings of some commissioners of Parliament in that behalfe_
(London : s.n., 1650) ["Early English Books, 1641-1700," microfilm roll
1565, item 19].
--"late scurrilous libel, the conception and issue whereof bespeaks the
Father, both dictator and scribe to be men of a beggarly and needy
invention, of little breeding or judgement, language or honesty,
otherwise they would not ... like the Panther, cover their heads, and
conceal their names while they seek to swallow up their neighbours ..."
--"But to go along with this libell, we must for their methods sake,
chop it into their own Sections. And in the first place it is by all
meanes desired to consider the persons prosecuted, that is to say like
to be discovered, and there are 1. Collonel Kyrle, who says the
libeller was in arms for the Parliament; and I say he was in armes for
the King, wherein we are neither of us lyars. But the Parliament owes
him and his foure Brothers 3000. pound (I hope Col. Kyrle doth not cut
down the Forrest because the House owes other men mony). But pray lets
see the Bill of Debt, and if it shall be made appear that this noble
Collonell owes the State six thousand, I hope some eminency of merit,
or great disbursments of mony must be produced, else how will he cut
skoares [?] for the other three?"
--"[L]et us look to the Comicall progresse of the libell, and observe,
with what kindnesse it visits the Commissioners of enquiry, who are
said by a Commission _ex parte_, to be in the generall but meere
prosecutors of those just, quiet, and harmlesse people [i.e., probably
Pury, Kyrle, Phillips.]"
--"But if for our acting according to duty, to trust, to our coscience
& country, we shalbe stiled prosecutors, if by lyes and reproaches we
shall be scandaliz'd ..."
--"And now to the persons of the Commissioners, to these the libeller
sayes, Master Bromwich and Master Berrow (nominall Colonels) with some
Citizens of Bristol (good men and true I hope) are the prosecutors, and
procured (as may forsooth be conceived only) themselves to be
Commissioners (the airy figment of the libeller) to their own great
costs and charges and to be believed by none but such a pragmatick
fellow as the scribler, and so fully and substantially answered by that
honest Gentleman Captain Bishop, my fellow labourer and Commissioner,
that I hate to trouble my pen with so improbable a vanity."
--"and for the Election at Cyrencester, I appeale to my Lord Generall
[Fairfax] himselfe, ... whom I professe I have ever honoured. For my
opposition to Coll. Rich, he being a meer stranger to the relations and
severall interests of this Country, ... if Collonel Rich sits in the
house duly return'd and duly chosen, I am satisfied."
--"[I] ... will go neare to prove it, that if all the evil and
wickednes in England concenter'd into one place, it would be found
seminally in intention, or fruitfully in action, in those two men; for
he that shall read that bedrole [?] of their continued and multiplied
exorbitances, and converse with the story of their lives, will find the
wickednesse of their heart and practice, and the principles by which
both are managed, to be as dangerous and investigable as the head of
Nilus, ... the fruitfull mother of strange births and monstrous
productions. Tis nothing for those men to stamp vices and make it
currant by being theirs, to commit such prodigious and exotick
impieties ... [;] who carry with them, not only in their faces, but
their dayly practices such terrour and slavish awe amongst the poor
people, as thinking them supported by some in Parliament ... that it is
the usuall word of Command, do this or that, let me have
such or such a bargain at such or such rates, or take it perforce, and
threaten the owners or refusers with death, they say what need we care
for the whyning of women, so we may gain one hundred pound a week by
the iron works."
--"But supposing all you have said to be true, may you because the
Commissioners are faulty, cut down, destroy and ruine! O learned
argument, certainly you have learnt the Mood and figures of your Logick
no farther then [than] Radner."
--"for my own part, as I was courted, and indeed intended a share till
I discovered the falshood and dammage, so I thank God, from the
beginning I have ever opposed it, & observed with some wise men, that
those who roasted their meat by the Forrest fire, were lightly choaked
afterward with the bones."
2. George Bishop, _A modest check to part of a scandalous libel
intituled the case of Col. Kyrle, Capt. Pury Iunior and Captain
Phillips concerning Wood &c.: wherein the false and unworthy aspertions
cast upon the gentlemen of Bristoll and some others, late commissioners
for the enquiring into and preventing the wasts of the forrest of Deane
are wiped off, their integrity vindicated and other things occasionally
touched at_ (s.l. : s.n., 1650?) ["Early English Books, 1641-1700,"
microfilm roll 1197, item 8].
--"The Libeller, having thus far proceeded in the State of the case,
goes on next to the condition of the Commissioners, whom he stiles
Prosecutors, and with unparaleld defamations endeavors to ravish the
chast. Judgements of upright Patriots. into a beliefe of
their owne Innocensy, and to lessen the reputation of the Commissioners
and their service to the Common-wealth."
--"The Prosecutors (sayeth the Libeller) are such persons, and of such
conditions, as are expressed; who as is conceived procured themselves
to be in the Commission."
--"But why, procure themselves in the Commission? will any rationall
man think, that the Gentlemen are so indiscreet, as to leave the
prosecution of their Merchandize, and other necessary employments, to
make many journeys into the Countrey with their servants, there to stay
severall days at a time, have 200. people attending their businesse,
and dieted at their own charge, take the depositions of many hundred
persons, which five and twenty skins of Parchment will hardly containe,
attend a hundred miles distance at London from day to day, for five
weeks together, being at neare 200.l. charge, and proceed upon all
this, without so much as any promise for the reinbursing them
againe..."
--"Its possible that some of those named Gentlemens bloud ranne in
their veines, or else were men spighted by them ..."
Some excerpts from Bromwich and Bishop
Moderator: MOD_nyhetsgrupper
-
John Brandon
Re: Some excerpts from Bromwich and Bishop
Oops, forget this one--
--"Master Libeller, I must tell you, I have converst with those
Gentlemen [the Commissioners of Bristol], and do finde that they do
out-honest and out-wit you, Twas not the cleanly tempering of your
Noune Relatives, could disoblige them from their duty, or the search of
your knavery, They who Commerce with the Princes of Christendom, are
not that sort of Seafish to be Catch't in the net of such a gull as you
are; if it be an offence to you, to go to Sea for Iron, t'will appear a
crime to others, to make it at home of Shipping Timber."
--"Master Libeller, I must tell you, I have converst with those
Gentlemen [the Commissioners of Bristol], and do finde that they do
out-honest and out-wit you, Twas not the cleanly tempering of your
Noune Relatives, could disoblige them from their duty, or the search of
your knavery, They who Commerce with the Princes of Christendom, are
not that sort of Seafish to be Catch't in the net of such a gull as you
are; if it be an offence to you, to go to Sea for Iron, t'will appear a
crime to others, to make it at home of Shipping Timber."
-
John Brandon
Re: Some excerpts from Bromwich and Bishop
The pamphlets of the Dean Forest Preservators ("Certain reasons by way
of reply ...") and of John Gifford ("A modest Vindication ...") are
available here in case anyone is interested:
http://tinyurl.com/ghmwq
of reply ...") and of John Gifford ("A modest Vindication ...") are
available here in case anyone is interested:
http://tinyurl.com/ghmwq
-
John Brandon
Re: Some excerpts from Bromwich and Bishop
--"But supposing all you have said to be true, may you because the
Commissioners are faulty, cut down, destroy and ruine! O learned
argument, certainly you have learnt the Mood and figures of your Logick
no farther then [than] Radner."
Perhaps this means the Giffords were Welsh. See _Memoirs of Prince
Rupert_, p. 108:
"About noon [Feb. 2, 1642] a very hot fight began in Barton-farm yard,
not far from the town [of Cirencester]. Some hundred of our
musketeers, who lay under shelter of a garden wall, played furiously,
point blank, on the whole body of the enemy. Here the Welshmen were
seen to drop down apace; but still the horsemen behind them cried, "On,
on," and drove them forward to the wall, where our men lay ...
http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC0 ... ster+welsh
-
John Brandon
Re: Some excerpts from Bromwich and Bishop
Kennett J. Beecham, _History of Cirencester_, p. 289-90:
And in the Market-place they mounted an iron six pounder; which five
were all their ordnance. The Barton House, ***then called
Giffard's,*** and a square high wall lined with musketry, was another
strong part ... at the north west end of the town ... [p. 290] A
forlorn hope of thirty musketeers, drawn out of Col. Kirk's men, and
headed by Lieut. St. John, were marched along by Lieut.-Gen. Wilmot,
who was to direct them where to attack, between the Barton house and
the great manor house belonging to the Poole family, and being come
almost to the hedge of a close ground, which stood between the gardens
of these houses, the general sent a messenger to the prince, to desire
that the cannon might be advanced, saying that 'they were already
almost in the hedge.' At that hedge and the low wall beyond it the
skirmish began. Here Lieut. St. John was shot in the leg, and rendered
incapable of advancing any farther, but his men maintained a good fire
against the enemy, and, soon after, sixty men of the same corps coming
to the assistance of the first thirty, and these being again followed
by another reinforcement, under Lieut.-Colonel Layton, after a few hot
vollies, the townsmen were beaten from the hedge to the Barton garden
wall, and were pursued by the king's troops, who running close under
the wall flung stones upon the enemy. Whilst this was doing,
Lieut-Gen. Wilmot led Kirk's whole regiment down the hill to the Barton
house and garden wall, and Col. Usser, with 400 men besides his own
regiment, was sent by the prince to second him, who together attacked
the house on every side, the pike-men marching forwards to the lane,
cleared the avenue, which was obstructed by aheap of bushes, and so
entered the yard; whilst Colonel Usser, perceiving the garden wall
(within which the enemy's musketry stood) too high to be climbed on the
front, found means to enter the garden on the back side, where, and
from the windows of the house the enemy were still firing on Kirk's
men. At their entrance, the king's men killed about fourteen--the rest
ran away. Thus, got to the house, the colonel, with a fire-pike in his
hand, set fire to it, and the soldiers fired the stacks of hay and corn
that stood about it, which made the place too hot and smoky to be
tenable. The townsmen, beaten out of the house, garden, and works,
retired, with more haste than order ..."
p. 298: The Barton farme with very much buildings in it, and all the
corne, hay, and other goods and cattle of one gentleman's, which
amounted to three thousand pounds and upwards, was burnt to the
ground."
The amount mentioned, £3,000, agrees with the following statements:
1. _Calendar of the Proceedings of the Committee for Compounding,
....1643-1660_, 3: 2142-43:
"COL. EDW. MASSEY.
25 Dec. 1649. Order in Parliament that Massey's estate by sequestered.
1 Jan. 1650. Like order that the Council of State take care that all
the ironworks in Dean Forest are demolished.
28 Jan. Like order that the Committee of the Public Revenue
consider--the petition of Capt. John Gifford, of Bream, co. Gloucester,
to whom Massey has leased the ironworks--how to secure the Commonwealth
against further consumption of the woods in the said forest, by reason
of his ironworks, and report. The order for their demolition is
meanwhile suspended.
21 Feb. 1650. The Revenue Committee request Mr. Love to report to
Parliament their opinion that Gifford should enter into bond with 2
others, that neither he nor his agents shall cut down any timber in
Dean Forest, on any pretence whatever, and that he should have a year
to work out his stocks.
4 March. Massey's estate ordered by the Committee for Compounding to be
sequestered. Hearing ordered of Gifford's case.
25 April. Gifford complains that the County Committee have required his
workmen to forbear sale of his stock, iron ore, cinders, coal, &c.
Raised a troop of horse for the Parliament, whom he served many years,
being plundered by the Cavaliers of goods value 3,000l., for which he
was never compensated. Begs a hearing, and a copy of the charge against
him. Granted.
2. Preservators of the Forest of Dean, "Certain reasons (by way of
reply to some objections generally urged and in more particular to a
paper styled the case of John Gifford gentleman, presented to the
members of Parlaiment) why those iron-works in the Forrest of Deane
should be ... speedily demolisht": "[t]hat Mr. Gifford might lose
three thousand pounds at Cyrencester would be controverted, though not
denyed ..."
And in the Market-place they mounted an iron six pounder; which five
were all their ordnance. The Barton House, ***then called
Giffard's,*** and a square high wall lined with musketry, was another
strong part ... at the north west end of the town ... [p. 290] A
forlorn hope of thirty musketeers, drawn out of Col. Kirk's men, and
headed by Lieut. St. John, were marched along by Lieut.-Gen. Wilmot,
who was to direct them where to attack, between the Barton house and
the great manor house belonging to the Poole family, and being come
almost to the hedge of a close ground, which stood between the gardens
of these houses, the general sent a messenger to the prince, to desire
that the cannon might be advanced, saying that 'they were already
almost in the hedge.' At that hedge and the low wall beyond it the
skirmish began. Here Lieut. St. John was shot in the leg, and rendered
incapable of advancing any farther, but his men maintained a good fire
against the enemy, and, soon after, sixty men of the same corps coming
to the assistance of the first thirty, and these being again followed
by another reinforcement, under Lieut.-Colonel Layton, after a few hot
vollies, the townsmen were beaten from the hedge to the Barton garden
wall, and were pursued by the king's troops, who running close under
the wall flung stones upon the enemy. Whilst this was doing,
Lieut-Gen. Wilmot led Kirk's whole regiment down the hill to the Barton
house and garden wall, and Col. Usser, with 400 men besides his own
regiment, was sent by the prince to second him, who together attacked
the house on every side, the pike-men marching forwards to the lane,
cleared the avenue, which was obstructed by aheap of bushes, and so
entered the yard; whilst Colonel Usser, perceiving the garden wall
(within which the enemy's musketry stood) too high to be climbed on the
front, found means to enter the garden on the back side, where, and
from the windows of the house the enemy were still firing on Kirk's
men. At their entrance, the king's men killed about fourteen--the rest
ran away. Thus, got to the house, the colonel, with a fire-pike in his
hand, set fire to it, and the soldiers fired the stacks of hay and corn
that stood about it, which made the place too hot and smoky to be
tenable. The townsmen, beaten out of the house, garden, and works,
retired, with more haste than order ..."
p. 298: The Barton farme with very much buildings in it, and all the
corne, hay, and other goods and cattle of one gentleman's, which
amounted to three thousand pounds and upwards, was burnt to the
ground."
The amount mentioned, £3,000, agrees with the following statements:
1. _Calendar of the Proceedings of the Committee for Compounding,
....1643-1660_, 3: 2142-43:
"COL. EDW. MASSEY.
25 Dec. 1649. Order in Parliament that Massey's estate by sequestered.
1 Jan. 1650. Like order that the Council of State take care that all
the ironworks in Dean Forest are demolished.
28 Jan. Like order that the Committee of the Public Revenue
consider--the petition of Capt. John Gifford, of Bream, co. Gloucester,
to whom Massey has leased the ironworks--how to secure the Commonwealth
against further consumption of the woods in the said forest, by reason
of his ironworks, and report. The order for their demolition is
meanwhile suspended.
21 Feb. 1650. The Revenue Committee request Mr. Love to report to
Parliament their opinion that Gifford should enter into bond with 2
others, that neither he nor his agents shall cut down any timber in
Dean Forest, on any pretence whatever, and that he should have a year
to work out his stocks.
4 March. Massey's estate ordered by the Committee for Compounding to be
sequestered. Hearing ordered of Gifford's case.
25 April. Gifford complains that the County Committee have required his
workmen to forbear sale of his stock, iron ore, cinders, coal, &c.
Raised a troop of horse for the Parliament, whom he served many years,
being plundered by the Cavaliers of goods value 3,000l., for which he
was never compensated. Begs a hearing, and a copy of the charge against
him. Granted.
2. Preservators of the Forest of Dean, "Certain reasons (by way of
reply to some objections generally urged and in more particular to a
paper styled the case of John Gifford gentleman, presented to the
members of Parlaiment) why those iron-works in the Forrest of Deane
should be ... speedily demolisht": "[t]hat Mr. Gifford might lose
three thousand pounds at Cyrencester would be controverted, though not
denyed ..."