Mr. BVSHEL'S Mineral Overtures.  
Right Honourable:  
ACcording to your commands, I do here present your Lordships with a brief Narrative of the Lord Chancellor BACON'S directions to myself, for the management of his Mineral experiments, in case his own death should stop his intended progress therein, before he could practically discover the true generation, and spreading qualities of Mines Royal, I being then his Menial Servant.  
King JAMES having already promised to grant his Lordship all his own discoveries of Mines Royal, and also of any drowned Lands, or deserted Works by him to be recovered within the space of 40. years, paying him the fifth according to the usual custom of the King of Spain, in his Mines of the West Indies, and of other Princes, after the expiration of 14. years first granted gratis towards the great charge of his new invention, to facilitate the obtaining the Mineral riches of this Land, occasioned by a learned Speech his Lordship had lately made to his Majesty: Count GUNDAMORE, and divers of the Nobility being present, concerning the rise, and magnificent growth of the China Trade, wherein by a perfect demonstration, he made it appear, that the invention of one man (by his helping the defects of nature, with the materials of Art, and the patience of three ages industry to bring its concoction to perfection) became the great Revenue of that Empire, and hath been for this thousand years the only honour of that people, aswell as the livelihood of their patrimony; in which he seriously protested, that his utmost ambition in the affairs of this world affected no greater glory, then to leave the real fruits of his best service to his Sovereign, honour to his name, his written works to posterity, and by such treasures as his own industry should raise out of his Mineral experiments to accomplish the noble design and fabric of his Solomon's house, described in his Natural History, since the corporation of the Mines Royal, instituted by his Majesty, consisting of Lords and Gentlemen of quality, produced but weak, or very small advantages to his Majesty's Revenue, or the public good, although his Lordship did then really believe it very possible for himself (if qualified thereto by his Majesty's power) to bring it so to pass in one age, that the barrenest mountains in this nation should produce such store of treasure by their beds of mettle that this State should not need to envy the King of Spain's felicity in his POTOSEE, or any other his silver Mines in America; and thereupon by way of similitude added this, that as a State, whose present dimensions were but small, might happily serve as a foundation for an ample Monarchy, if all regard of private propriety were laid aside, and every member thereof would diligently devote his particular care to the public benefit: even so it might happen in the advancement of the discoveries of those Mineral riches supposed to lie hid in the bosoms of the most barren Mountains, when the whole industry of the many several persons employed in that work should be concentric in that service, and act as the united faculties of one man, their hearts being free from all ends and ambitious thoughts, save such as conduced to God's glory and the common good. But so soon as his Lordship had vouchsafed to acquaint me concerning his proceed with his Majesty in this affair, he bade me call to mind the many fatherly favours, which he had conferred upon me as pious motives to retard my unripe years from hazardous travels in foreign parts; I having professed to his Lordship, that I could not with any content resolve to live in my native Country, since I first understood that younger Brothers by the Law of the Land, were but to have little share in their father's inheritance, but that they were by the ways of virtue and industry, by the assistance of the Almighty's bounty, to acquire such fortunes as primogeniture had conferred upon their elder brothers, or otherwise to live in an inferior or servile condition, and then instanced his acceptance of me for his servant at fifteen years of age upon mine own address, his clearing all my debts three several times, with no small sums, his preferring me in marriage to a rich inheritrix, and thereupon allowing me 400 pounds per annum to balance the consent of her Father in the match; saying, that if those real expressions of his love could but find the due retaliation of my gratitude, he might then assure himself of the hoped harvest of two lives in one; inferring, that although fathers are bound to provide for their children, and worse than Infidels if they do not, yet there is no such injunction upon Masters in relation to their servants; and therefore where a Masters pious bounty transcends a Father's natural love, there that so obliged servant must appear most prodigiously ingrateful, which shall not with much zeal and faithfulness discharge the duty of a surviving trust, seriously adding this: bushel, I must now use you my intended instrument, in the prosecution of my Mineral designs, as politic Princes do their nearest servants in their Cabinet Counsels, who putting their master's conceptions into act, if they take well with the people, must own no more of them then the approbation thereof, and the admiration of their Prince's wisdom therein; but in case of miscarriage, to salve their Prince's honour, they must sadly acknowledge the matter wholly their own, an Error in their Counsels, and a Crime in themselves; so you if by my Theory you prosper in your practic, must attribute all the honour of the whole work to me; if otherwise, you must gratefully preserve my reputation, by acknowledging your own misfortune in mistaking and misacting my directions, and so you shall be sure to gain the Title and Character of a grateful servant in either event. And upon my serious protestation, that I would faithfully and curiously obey all his Commands concerning his Mineral directions and designs, his Lordship first advised me, not to follow the practice of our Predecessors in their tedious and expensive ways of sinking Ayreshaffes at every forty Fathoms in search of the uncertain Veins, nor to imitate the Ancient Romans byd●gging Ours through deep and open Trenches; but to observe his directions by cutting my Addits' into the Mountains at the lowest Level of all drowned and deserted works, and by supplying the defect of the Air in my far led Addits' by Pipe and bellows, being an Invention utterly unknown to former Ages. And for my first experience, to begin with those five Mountains in Cardiganshire, upon a view thereof by Sir FRANCIS GODOLPHIN, and a Portuguese (men of great experience in Mynes) reported by them to be rich in Silver and Lead. But if I should by my practic part fail in my deeper search either for want of convenient Air, or a sufficient Veyn of Ore, his Lordship commanded me to pursue his directions in that particular no further; yet if my happy success should prove his Theory true in this, as also in the several ways of separating the Mettle from the Dross, and the Silver from the Lead, that then I should not fail to illustrate the innocent Trade of the poor Ours, by making his Lordship the Patron of their profession, and myself one of their society, according to the many obligations of his Lordships forementioned favours, hereby performing the duty of a faithful servant therein: And for my further discoveries of the Treasures of other Mountains, which have the same Symptoms of Rakes, Veins, and Sparres, his Lordship conceived it most necessary for me, to dedicate the whole profit, which Gods providence should reveal in the one to the finding out of the Riches of the other; and as a first help in this work he counsels me to petition my Sovereign: That for the agrandizing his Royal Clemency and Magnificence, he would graciously grant life to such as had offended in petty Felonies, and were willing to expiate their crimes by their diligent and daily labours in his Majesty's Ours, and if possible to obtain a Branch of his Majesty's Mint to encourage all Foreign & Native Miners, with due & certain payment, according to the precedent of other Princes, and not force them to take base Commodities at high rates for their painful service, as hath been enforced by some former undertakers, which I fear hath entailed a Curse upon their fraudulent policies. But above all, that I should take a special care conscientiously to elect such honest Agents for the carrying on this innocently profitable work, whose virtuous ambitions should aim at nothing beyond the public good of their Country, and a competent salary for their modest maintenance: But these Embryos proving abortive by the sudden fall and death of that Lord in the Reign of King James, were the sad motives which persuaded my pensive retirements to my three years unsociable solitude in the desolate Isle called the Calf of Man, where (abhorring the memory of my desol●te exorbitances) in obedience to my dead Lords Philosophical advice: I resolved to make a perfect experiment upon myself for the obtaining a long and healthy life, m●st necessary for such a repentance, as my former debauchedness required by a parsimonious diet of Herbs, Oil, Mustard, and Honey, with water sufficient, most like to that of our long-lived Fathers before the flood (as was conceived by that Lord) which I most strictly observed, as if obliged by a religious vow, till divine providence calling me to a more active life. I discovered and perfected natures ingenious designs upon my rock at Enston in Oxfordshire, by making it such an artificial delightful Grotto, that the fame of it invited the late K. Charles to a voluntary visit. By which opportunity I not only became known to his Majesty, but also found an apt occasion to discourse the above mentioned Proposals of the Lord BACON to his own attentive ear, who so well approved of my Engine upon that place, and his Lordship's Mineral model, that he presently promised me the assistance of his Mint when I should in those mountains of Cardigan, find silver worth the Coining; and likewise the accommodation of my own Lead so discovered, Custom free for 21. years, as also my choice of renting the whole Custom of that Commodity at the rate of the Farmer's Books, calculated by the Account of 7. year's Audit, whensoever I should procure to myself the Assignment of Sir HUGH MIDDLETON'S Lease of the Mines Royal in the County of Cardigan, to put the speculations of my dear deceased Master into practice. These high favours of the late King conferred on myself, in memory of that Lords eminent abilities, and this his admonition (before the Earl of Dorset) to me at York. That (if in the war then like to ensue) I should not prove real, and active in his service, and cordial in the trust reposed in me by my quondam Lord, I should justly merit the title and reputation of a Knave; which did then provoke me forwards in my undertake, with a most zealous observation of my obliged fidelity to both, till his Majesty (at CAUSAM) disengaged me in the first, that he might enable me, as much as in him lay, to perform the latter, by his gracious Letter of per●●ssion 〈◊〉 ●●der Lundy, at my own charge fortified and maintained, without ●njury or violence to any, upon such Articles as m●ght take o●● 〈◊〉 delinquency, and restore me to my estate, and the Grants of my Mines, Mints, and Customs, rather than the forementioned design so well digested by my Honourable Lord, for the general good, should be made frustrate by my incapacity to prosecute it; I being the only man intimately made privy to all those his Mineral speculations, and some other of his Philosophical Lucubrations, not yet to be promulged, until my proficiency and success in the Mines shall enable me thereunto: which makes me now become an humble and earnest Petitioner to this State, for their pious assistance in this hopeful work, for the good of this Common Wealth, and their own Honours: since I have taken the Engagement, and given security for my future integrity, desiring no greater riches or honour in this world, then to gratify the late Civilities of those my friends which gave me credit, and by my utmost industry to manifest the great debt of love and honour I owe to the worthy memory of that unparallelled Lord, by redeeming myself in the service and opinion of my Country. For I protest, as in the presence of God, that if I could now command as much wealth as ever the Lydian CROESUS did possess, I would gladly adventure it all in perforating the barren Mountains to discover the vast Treasures which lie hid in their Rocky entrails, for the good of this Common Wealth, and to leave to after Ages a Magnificent Monument in pious Memory of my most deserving Master, by finishing his salomon's house in all its dimensions, and with all the accommodations and endowments thereof, according to his Lordships own Heroic Idea. And to that end I humbly tender these my proposals. First, to advance the Mineral Trade of this Common Wealth, to 1000ls. per week, if the Parliament shall be pleased to ratify to me the same Latitude of Power to effect it, which King JAMES granted to the Lord Chancellor BACON, and was since conferred by King CHARLES on myself, for the encouragement of me and mine assistants in the work; but if any unsatisfied concerned person shall object against the tedious Proposition of a 14. year's period before my Mountains must bring forth this vast birth, and then peradventure expect but a ridiculous silver Mouse after this Timpany of promises. To beget more candour in such, and a better confidence in all, as a hopeful symptom of a lively Embryo, promising a larger offspring, I shall in the interim give Marts to all such responsive persons that shall be diffident of the success, and also duly pay all such Rent as is now received by the State f●om the Farmers of the Mines and Customs of Lead; and likewise engage my Life and Fortune, that the clear fifth part shall be worth to this State 500l. the week; and in the same process of 14. years more, it shall be worth 1000ls. the week. I having many noble friends that will adventure their money gratis for 14. years, to manifest their love to their Country; and to see the perfection of those Experiments in the L. BACON'S Philosophy, I having already by his direction cut through five of the 28. Mountains at the lowest Level, which his Lordship and Sir FRANCIS GODOLPHIN, did mark out as the most pregnant Hills for discovering the Beds, and spreading Branches of this Nation's Mineral Treasure; so that no man of known judgement but must conclude the rest to be of the same species, or of richer natures, in their deeper search both for quantity and quality.