MARCHANTS WATER-WORKS.  
KING William and Queen Mary, by their Letters Patents, bearing Date the eighth Day of March in the sixth Year of their Reign; did Grant to Craven Howard and John Harington, Gent Deceased: and to Hugh merchant and Huntley bog, Gent. for the Term of ninety nine Years, under the yearly Rent of five Marks, thereby Reserved the Use of all such Waters as run down the Common-Sewers within the Bills of Mortality,( Except those within the City and Liberties of London, and those Invested in the City of London by Act of Parliament) for the driving Mills then to be Erected for the more Convenient serving of several Places of the Town with Thames and other Water. And by their Letters Patents, bearing Date the twenty second Day of May, in the Eighth Year of their Reign, for Promoting so public and Good a Work, did give and grant to them for the same Term licence and Liberty, to erect overshoot Mills lay Pipes, &c. in the River of Thames, and to take the Thames-Water for supplying the Places aforesaid with Water at usual and reasonable Rates.  
The Patentees have been at near twenty Thousand Pounds expense in these Works, and have as yet received very little or no Profit thereby.  
And the same being a public Good, The Proprietors humbly desire that these Grants may be by a saving Clause or otherwise, as the Honourable House of Commons shall think fit, excepted out of the Bill for Resuming the Grants of Lands and other revenues, since the sixth of February, 1684. &c.   

MARCHANTS WATER-WORKS.