History of corn milling .. - Centrostudirpinia.it

SOME FEUDAL MILLS. 151
and their successors for ever in fee-farme.'* The ^^„,^,JXvtt t o
JviJNLr b MlL«Lb,
king, they reported, had referred the petition to the Liverpool.
Lord Treasurer and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. 9. Corporation
On May 24, as ''great sums of money will be required Intrigues,
to expedite this business at London," a list of subscriptions
was opened, the total reaching ;^i62. But
if these great sums had been forthcoming to replenish
the depleted royal coffers it is not quite clear how,
as the king had sold the estate, he was to be expected
to deprive Molyneux — a Royalist, moreover—
of his purchase. However, nothing came of the
scheme, and at about this period the corporation
forsook the Royal cause and became adherents of the
Parliamentarians.
On March 5, 1644, the anti- Royalist town having
been stoutly though ineffectually garrisoned against
Prince Rupert, the corporation met to consider ''the
present
state of the town and the losses and suffer-
^ ^^ ^
ings of the inhabitants by reason of the cruelty of Port Mote,
the prince's army "
; passing on ultimately to a "'* ^
resolution that the Recorder should go to London
and interview the authorities on whose behalf they
had suffered so severely, with a view of procuring
some recompense for the same. No more likely
suggestion offered than the spoliation of the Royalist
Molyneux ; and accordingly their petition included
a request
town
that for the better government of the
" the milnes and ferry boats formerly belong-
ing to the town, and injuriously taken and kept
from them by the Lord Molyneux, might be restored
to the corporation as formerly"; —much the same
prayer to Cromwell's Parliament that, backed up with
"great sums," had been preferred to King Charles
six years before. The mainspring in this action was
undoubtedly " Collenoll John More, governer of this
"
towne of Liverpool
; whose name, following upon
'^'^*