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102 HISTORY OF CORN MILLING: VOL. IV..
III.
DEE MILLS,
CHESTER.
20. Public
Benefits,
1608.
Had. MSS.
2003. 37, 47
Ibid.
In view of the forthcoming appeal to the Privy
Council, Sir John Sauvage, mayor, with the aldermen
and commonalty, presented also a breviat and
petition to the King, the Privy Council, and the Lord
Chancellor, praying that the Commissioners of Sewers
might be superseded, and their decree for the destruction
of the causeway nullified. The petition was
directed '*
particularly against
Sir R. Trevor arid other
Welsh gentlemen who fancy themselves damnified."'
It was shown that the verdicts of the inquisitions at
Denbigh and Wrexham were at variance with that
held at Chester ; that persons who had originally been
interested to solicit opposition to the causey had since
been enabled to prosecute it ; that out of fifty-six
commissioners only eighteen of Wales and six of
Chester had agreed to the decree, and many of these
had not been present at the meeting, but their hands
and seals had been obtained afterwards ; while the
commissioners had decreed on matters impertinent to
their charge, tending to maintain the private good of
some citizens and not the public weal and benefit of
the city. The commonalty, it was urged, had many
reasons for wishing the causeway preserved : the
haven was in but the same condition as described by
Geraldus Cambrensis (in the 12th century), while his
than ever :
Majesty's customs at Chester were greater
the causeway, moreover, had been erected six hundred
years, and was never complained of before, and
could not be abated without destruction of the whole
of it and loss to the mills.
The chartered Company of Bakers were equally
zealous in protesting against the decree of the com-
2084. 345. missioners. A petition by them set forth how they
who ground there were sworn to serve the city with
good and sufficient bread ; how the ships of the king
and of merchants were supplied from these mills how
;