ole matter was referred by parliament to the Committee for
Corporations.(998) The inhabitants of Southwark having submitted their
case to the committee, the City were called upon to make reply.(999) They,
in effect, denied that the inconveniences mentioned by the petitioners
were caused by their being under the City's government. As to the alleged
grievance of being subject to concurrent jurisdictions, that was nothing
uncommon. Not that the City itself countenanced variety of jurisdiction
over the borough. Far from it. In fact, the civic authorities had recently
themselves applied to parliament for the removal of the "Court Marshall"
(or Marshalsea) and the abolition of the "Marshall of the Upper Bench"
from the borough. The answer concluded by assuring the Committee for
Corporations that if any inconveniences arose in the borough from any
defect in the City's government the City would be pleased to receive the
assistance of the inhabitants in asking the supreme authority of
parliament to amend it. No defect, however, could justify the separation
of the borough from the City. There was another objection. The
incorporation of Southwark would not only be an invasion of the City's
rights, but would work injury to the several companies and fraternities of
the city which for trade purposes had become incorporated. These exercised
their power of government over, and received support from, their members
who were not exclusively inhabitants of the city, but dwellers in the
suburbs two or three miles away. A conference was proposed between the
parties,(1000) but nothing appears to have come of it, and the matter was
allowed to rest for another hundred years and more.

(M514) (M515)

Cromwell had not been long in Ireland before the country began to assume
at least a semblance of prosperity. The good achieved by the city of
London and the companies in Ulster in the earlier years of the plantation
had well nigh disappeared during the troublous times of the civil war.
Londonderry itself had suffered two sieges at the hands of the royalists,
but the garrison on both occasions had displayed the same indomitable
courage as that which in later years made them famous in the pages of
history, and with like success. Cruel as was Cromwell's policy in Ireland
it accomplished its object. By February, 1650, Bradshaw was able to write
to the mayor of London(1001) informing him of the intention of the Council
of State to "plant" the seaports i