ne or
coal, nor should any of the "labourers" do so unless they had worked
seven years, neither was any young man to carry coal, &c., unless he
was a householder; and that none should sue for mine, &c., but in the
Court of the Mine, under the penalty "of 100 dozen of good sufficient
oare or coale, the one-half to be forfeited to the King, and the
other halfe to the myner that will sue for the same." The originals
of this foregoing, and of the seventeen succeeding "Orders," written
on parchment, are preserved in the office of the Deputy Gaveller at
Coleford. The forty-eight signatures to it are almost effaced, and
about half have "marks" affixed to them, but the whole are written in
the same hand.

The new Act of 1668 was soon brought into operation. Immediately after
it had passed, upwards of 8,487 acres of open land were enclosed and
planted, the remaining 2,513 acres being taken in some time afterwards.
The following statement of Mr. Agar, then surveyor of the woods, shows
that the cost of making the enclosures was raised as the Act directed.
He said that he "received several sums of money by the sale of cordwood
to Mr. Foley and divers others, and of the timber that did happen to
arise out of the old oaks and beeches felled for the cordwood and other
uses, and of wood that I _sold_ to the colliers for their pits, in the
whole amounting to 5 pounds,125 8s. 9.25d., which money was expended in
buying Cannope, &c., of Banistree Maynard, Esq., at 1,500 pounds; in
setting up his Majesty's Enclosures in the said Forest, of 8,400 acres,
with gates, stiles, &c., and some reparations of them; in employing a
sworn surveyor to admeasure them; in building part of the Speech House;
in divers repairs at Saint Briavel's Castle; in the charge of executing
two several commissions, and other services in the said Forest."

In allusion to the item of timber _sold_ to the colliers, the
commissioners, in their report of 1788, remark:--"Immediately after the
passing of the Act of 1668, the colliers, who, it is said, now pretend to
have a right to whatever timber they find necessary for carrying on their
works in the Forest, without paying anything for it, then purchased it
from the Crown." It seems also that "the Speech House" was then
commenced, although it was not finished until 1682.

The _second_ existing Order of the Mine Law Court states that it met in
1674, on the 9th March, at Clower