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174 HISTORY OF CORN MILLING: VOL. IV.
IV. tenants and the
KING'S MILLS,
political laxity of the times— is
LIVERPOOL. revealed in the following extract :—
18. Townsend
Windmill.
Tenants'
Leases.
Rental, 50.
Rental, 87.
Early Mayors
of Liverpool :
Elton. Trans.
Lane, and
Chesh. Hist.
Soc., 1902.
Know who are they that grind at your mill that are none of your
tenants, in order that if there fall an occasion in your power you
may show them a kindness. Know who are they of any fashion
that doth not grind at your mill: and (unless they be obliged by
some special obligation to them that owns the mill where they grind,
as by kindred or the like) I charge you never trust them : neither do
them a courtesy if it be in your power. Where you find a great brewer
that is none of your tenant, and that doth not grind with you, try if
they will be your tenant for one or more lands in the field and for
;
the same, oblige them to grind with you. Observe the rule above said
exactly, and if ever you be mayor and a justice of the peace
in the
country you may very easily make this mill [the horse-mill] worth
20 measures a week, which at a crown a measure is j[^^ a week, many
of your tenants brewing 30 measures a week. . . . My grandfather, his
continual allowance in the house [for consumption] was 16 measures
a week in malt and t6 measures of bread corn : and he got it all for
toll. But it was because he was the only man in these parts in all
the great offices, so that all for fear or love grinded with him ; and
he observed exactly the rate above said. I find at Bootle Mill his
usual get was 16, 18, or 20 measures a week. Therefore serve God
and follow his : example so you may make your mills worth some
hundreds a year, according as corn bears a price.
**
If ever you be mayor!" Painful and, in this con-
nection, degrading words were these for Moore to
write—an honour once frequently enjoyed by his
wealthy ancestors now sought in sordid hope of
profit. From the very dawn of mayoral life in
Liverpool no family had so often provided occupants
of the civic chair as had the Moores ; from the
middle of the fourteenth to the middle of the
seventeenth century their constantly recurring names
had held the
showing that members of the family
honour fully forty times.* But Sir Edward's father
* Of this rare distinction Moore did not fail, elsewhere, to remind his son :—
" This you may boldly and truly say, the corporation and you have lived together
this four hundred and odd years, and in all that time have been in great affection
one to another ; and not one generation of so many hundred years but your
ancestors have been mayors; many of them, in man's memory, two or three
times apiece ; and one, Thomas de la More, in Ric. ii., was in his life twelve
times mayor, as you may see by your Deeds. And this you may further say of
truth, which few, if any, in England of your quality can say
been a Parliament in 250 years but one of your ancestors hath been [representative]
burgess for this town." [According to the deeds, Thomas del More was
mayor no fewer than sixteen times.]
: that there hath not