d
pour it into the moulds of fine sand in like manner as they do cast brass
and softer mettals; but this sort of iron is so very brittle, that, being
heated with one blow of the hammer, it breaks all to pieces."

No. VI.
Being Minutes, &c., of the Court of Mine Law.

"Forest of Deane to witt.Att a Court of Mine and Miners of Our Sovereign
Lord the King, held att the Speech-ouse, in and for the Forest of Deane,
on Tuesday the 13th day of December, in the year of Our Lord one thousand
seven hundred and forty-eight, before Christopher Bond, Esqr, and Thomas
James, gentleman, deputyes to the Right Honourable Augustus, Earl of
Berkeley, Constable of the Castle of St Briavels, in the County of
Gloucester, Christopher Bond, Esqr, gaveller of the said mines, and
Phillip Elly, deputy gaveller of the said mines.

"_The names of the Jury_.--Richard Powell, Simon Bannister, George
Thomas, Frances Dutheridge, William Kerr, Richard Hawkins, Joseph Cooper,
Samuel Kerr, Henry Roberts, William Meeke, Richard Tingle, James Teague.

"William Gagg otherwise Smith, and his Vearns, _against_ James Bennett
and his Vearns.

"I complaine against William Gagge and his Vearns for hindering our
levell and doing of us willfull trespas, whereby we have sustained great
damage, att a stone (lime) coale worke called Churchway, otherwise
Turnbrooke, in the Hundred of Saint Briavels, (as this,) they hindered
the levell, and deepwall they would not bring forward to our new pit that
was then just downe. We leave this to the best proof & the order.I asked
them the reason, and they told me it was to make coale scarce and men
plenty; they went back sixteen or eighteen weeks into their scale,
contrary to the rule and custom of all free miners beneath the wood with
us; and likewise before, they hindered the levell in their new deepit.
And wilfully more they cut up to their land gutter, and tooke in the
water by a single sticken gutter in their backer deep pit, and turned it
across the bottom of our deep pit into our air gutter, which we prepared
for ourselves and them, whereby our lamping the charks was swelled downe,
and have destroyed the air, and filled our gateway with water and sludge,
and very likely to destroy the levells, and put us by getting a scale of
coale there. And by their so doing, I and my vearnes are dampnified
thirty pounds. All this I will prove myself and by evidence in the
King's mine."

Another suit, dated 20th January, 17