(Proceedings of the Committee for Compounding, pp. 133, 807, 809, 1856.)

It is to be hoped that the absence of any further entries in the Proceedings of the Committee shows that Thomason either received his money or remained content with eight per cent. interest.

In the late autumn of 1647 an incident occurred which Thomason has thus recorded on the fly-leaf of a volume dropped in the mud by King Charles I. It will be observed that the note is written after the Restoration.

"Memorandum that Col. Will. Legg and Mr. Arthur Treavor were imployed by his Mâtie K. Charles to gett for his present use a pamphlet which his Mâtie had then occasion to make use of, and not meeting with it, they both came to me having heard that I did imploy my selfe to take up all such things from the beginning of that Parlement, and finding it with me, tould me it was for the kings owne use. I tould them, all I had were at his Mâtie command and service, and withall tould them if I should part with it and loose it, presuming that when his Mâtie had done with it, that little account would be made of it, and so I should loose by that losse a limbe of my collection, which I should be very loth to do, well knowing it would be impossible to supplie it if it should happen to be lost, with which answer they returned to his Mâtie at Hampton Court (as I take it) and tould him they had found that peece he much desired and withall how loath he that had it was to part with it he much fearing its losse; wheruppon they were both sent to me againe by his Mâtie to tell me that upon the worde of a kinge (to use their own expressions) he would safely returne it, thereuppon immediately by them I sent it to his Mâtie who having done with it and having it with him when he was going towards the Isle of Wight (11-13 Nov. 1647) let it fall in the durt, and then callinge for the two persons before mentioned (who attended him) delivered it to them with a charge, as they should answer it another day, that they should both speedily and safely return it to him, from whom they had received it, and withall to desire the partie to goe on and continue what had begun, which booke together with his Mâtie signification to me by these worthy and faithfull gentl" I received both speedily and safely.

Which volume hath the marke of honor upon it, which noe other volume in my collection hath, and very diligently and carefully I continued the same, until the most hapie restoration & coronation of his most gratious Mâtie Kinge Charles the Second whom God long preserve. Geo. Thomason."

There are fourteen tracts in the volume thus honoured, but of these twelve are sermons, newspapers or satirical pamphlets. It may be assumed that the tract which Charles I. desired to see was either The Reasons of the Lords and Commons why they cannot agree to the Alteration and Addition in the Articles of Cessation offered by His Majesty. With His Majestie's gratious Answer thereunto. April 4, 1643, or A Declaration concerning the present Treaty of Peace between his Majesty and Parliament, April 7, 1643.

There is sufficient evidence in the tracts for the years 1647 and 1648 to show that Thomason served during those years as a member of the Common Council of the City of London. On the 24th June, 1647, an

anonymous pamphlet in the Presbyterian interest is accompanied by a printed letter from the author to George Thomason, begging him to present, or to read it, during a meeting of the Common Council (Vol. I. 523). On the 8th April, 1648, a summons to attend a meeting of the Common Council is addressed "to Mr. Thomason St. Pauls Churchyard"; and on the 20th May an Order of the Committee of the Militia of London is addressed to "Mr. George Thomason, Common Councill Man" (Vol. I. 607, 623).

There is unfortunately no list, printed or in manuscript, of the Members of the Common Council during the Civil War or Commonwealth, so it is impossible to say by what ward he was elected. It is, however, certain that he, with the other Presbyterian members who formed the majority of the Common Council in 1648, was excluded by an Ordinance of Parliament passed on the 20th Dec. 1648 (a fortnight after Pride's Purge) forbidding the election to any office in the City of all those who had subscribed to any engagement or petition for the personal treaty with the King.

In April 1651 Thomason was arrested and imprisoned at Whitehall under the charge of being concerned in the affair known as the "Love Plot." Many Presbyterian gentlemen, citizens of London and ministers, were concerned in this conspiracy, the main objects of which were to join the Scotch in the restoration of Charles II. as a Covenanting Monarch and to secure the establishment of Presbyterianism in England. The evidence against Thomason rested on the confession and examination of Thomas Coke of Drayton, a younger son of Sir John Coke, Secretary of State 1625-1638. Coke, who had acted for some years as a Royalist agent, was declared by an Ordinance of the 20th March, 1651, an attained traitor unless he surrendered himself within four days. He evaded arrest for some days, but was taken prisoner on the 29th March. To save his life he gave information to the Council of State and furnished full lists of the leaders of the conspiracy throughout the country and of the London merchants, tradesmen and ministers who had taken part in it. Coke's confessions are printed in the Thirteenth Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission (MSS. at Welbeck, Vol. I. pp. 576–604). According to his evidence, Thomason had taken a leading part in delivering letters written by Charles II. from Breda to the London Presbyterian ministers. Coke asserted, moreover, that he had been told by Alderman Bunce at Rotterdam "that he need not looke after any other persons in the Citie of London, for the management of affaires there, more than Thomazon and Potter (an ex-officer, then an Apothecary in Blackfriars), for that they knew the affections of most of the citizens and allso of the ministers." In a letter of the Council of State to Parliament it is stated that "Mr. Thomas Cooke's information hath been made use of

against Captain Potter and Mr. Thomasin solely discovered and apprehended upon his information."

The following entries from the Proceedings of the Committee for Compounding,' page 2769, and the Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1651, pp. 218, 219, 230, give the history of Thomason's arrest and release.

11 April, 1651. Committee for Compounding. "The County Committee of London ordered to seize, inventory and secure Thomason's estate both real and personal."

27 May. Council of State. "Mr. Thomason to be bailed, one bond of £1,000 with two sureties in £500 each, on the usual terms, after taking his oath as to the truth of the examinations that have been taken."

2 June. Committee for Compounding. "The Council of State having taken security for his appearance and good behaviour request the Committee for Compounding to take off its restraint formerly ordered."

3 June. Committee for Compounding. "The restraint taken off and the bond taken by the County Committee to be delivered to him."

14 June. Council of State. "Declaration that the Council having taken security of Geo. Thomason of London, Stationer, for his appearance and good abearance, think fit that he be in the same condition as he was at the time of their order for securing his estate and that he be permitted to enjoy the same, any letter from hence notwithstanding and that intimation hereof be given to the Commissioners for Sequestration."

Thomason was not included in the indictment against Christopher Love, nor was he called as a witness at his trial, which took place in June and July, 1651. Considering the serious nature of the charges brought against him, he was fortunate in escaping with some weeks of imprisonment and some unpleasant enquiries and researches. The fact was, that so many important and reputable Presbyterians were implicated that the Council probably considered it the wiser course to confine the prosecution to Love and a few of his principal confederates who had, for the most part, made good their escape from England.

Although no certain information can be obtained, I think it highly probable that it was during the course of the Love Conspiracy, perhaps immediately after hearing of Coke's arrest, that Thomason sent the whole of his collection, as far as it then existed, to the care of Dr. Barlow, at the Bodleian, and obtained from him the document described in the Advertisement given below, which could be produced to prove that a sale had actually taken place and might thus prevent the confiscation of his treasure. The fact that he had for some years been in the habit of sending books to Oxford may well have facilitated this method of securing his collection. Presumably he sent the remainder to Oxford at different times.

However this may have been, it is interesting to note that Thomason's imprisonment in no way impeded the progress of his collection. During the months of April, May and June, 1651, there is no diminution in the

number of newspapers or pamphlets, and the latter are regularly dated by Thomason himself.

On the 11th Dec., 1656, Robert Bostock, one of the most important booksellers of the period, died, and his copyrights, fifty-seven in number, were transferred to Thomason.

The notes with which Thomason frequently annotated his books seldom relate to his own person or fortunes. The four which I give here are the only ones which can be said to be autobiographical :

On the 7th Feb., 1657, he writes on the fly-leaf of a pamphlet,

day of my sad accident."

On the 24th March, 1658, he writes on a blank leaf:

"The

"This day I did cease my elaborat collection, because the number was so exceeding few and inconsiderable and not now worth my labour, and the year 1658 beginning to-morrow I did prefer to put an end to my great paynes and charges."

Fortunately Thomason repented of his despairing resolution and continued to collect as carefully, or nearly as carefully as before.

Owing in part to the more efficient exercise of the laws against unlicensed printing under Cromwell's rule he was justified at the moment in considering the pamphlets issued few and inconsiderable,' but in the years of anarchy and expectation which followed the death of Cromwell the flow of pamphlets increased rapidly, and the years 1659 and 1660 are among the fullest and most interesting periods of the entire collection.

On page 221 of Vol. II. will be found a MS. in Thomason's handwriting entitled, Some things relating to the thirtie Tyrants of Athens, with the addition of the names of some of the chiefe Traytors and Tyrants of England. The MS. consists of extracts from Raleigh's History of the World with a list of the Regicides' and a note reading :-"Which with these aditions of mine, I was very desirous to have published, but noe printer then durst venture upon it. Anno 1658. Geo. Thomason." It will be observed that this note also has been added to the original text after the Restoration.

Among the pamphlets issued in 1659 is a broadside entitled Six New Queries, dated by Thomason 29th Oct., and bearing also a note in his handwriting which reads "N. B. G. T." I think that it may be taken as at least probable that he himself is the author of these queries which tersely express the opinions of a Presbyterian or moderate Royalist keenly desirous of the suppression of the army, and of the free election of a new Parliament. The first query, which may be taken as summing up the contents of the other five, reads "Whether or No, any rational man in England can or may expect any good from a Parliament when an Army is in power at the same time in the Nation."

On the 21st Nov. 1664, Thomason signed his will. His wife Katharine had predeceased him and was buried in the South Aisle of the Church of

St. Dunstan's in the West, 12th Dec. 1646. He had also lost a daughter, Elizabeth, whose funeral sermon, preached by Edward Reynolds, Vicar of St. Lawrence, Jewry, after the Restoration Bishop of Norwich, will be found in the collection under the date 11th April, 1659.

When Thomason made his will he had six surviving children. His eldest son George graduated at Queen's College, Oxford, in 1655, was afterwards ordained, became a Prebendary of Lincoln in 1683, and died in 1712. His eldest daughter Katharine was married to William Stonestreet. To these two, Thomason leaves only small legacies, explaining that they had on their respective marriages "a liberall and plentifull portion" of his property.

To his four younger children, Edward, Grace, Henry (who succeeded his father in his business, and for some years carried it on at the Rose and Crown), and Thomas, he bequeaths the greater part of his estate to be divided equally amongst them. To his daughter Grace, in addition to her share in his estate, he bequeaths the sum of £600 to be paid to her within twelve months after her marriage. He leaves also a number of legacies to servants and to the Stationers' and Haberdashers' Companies, and endowments for sermons at St. Paul's and St. Dunstan's. He appoints as his executors his son Henry and his son-in-law William Stonestreet. Finally he disposes of his collection of pamphlets in these terms :"And whereas I have a collection of Pamphletts and other writeings and papers bounde up with them of severall volumes gathered by me in the tyme of the late warres and beginning the third day of November A.D. 1640 and continued until the happie returne and coronacion of his most gracious Maiestie King Charles the second, upon which I put a very high esteeme in regard that it is soe intire a work and not to be pararelled and also in respect of the long and greete paynes, industry and charge that hath bin taken and expended in and about the collection of them, now I doe give the said collection of Pamphletts unto my honoured friends Thomas Barlowe, Doctor of Divinitie and now Provoste of Queenes Colledg in Oxon,* and Thomas Lockey, Doctor of Divinitie and principall Keeper of the Publicke Library in Oxon,† and John Rushworth of Linconenes upon trust to bee by them sold for the use and benefitt of my three Sonnes Edward, Henry and Thomas to be paid unto them equally and proporconably parte and parte alike."

The whole tone of this will is that of a thriving and prosperous man of business, but the two codicils attached to it show that within a few months after its execution Thomason was suffering from grave and growing anxieties concerning his pecuniary position, especially with regard to the sale of his collection.

In the first of these codicils, dated 20th Jan. 1665, he writes :

"Now not knowing how my estate may fall out after my death according to my Will lately made in case it shall fall short, Then I doe give to my two deare * Bodley's Librarian from April 1652 to Sept. 1660.

From Sept. 1660 to Nov. 1665.

i.e. of Lincoln's Inn.