Welsh Journals

Each shareholder was required to advance £ 10 per share for carrying on the mine, and in addition they were to pay Sir Carbury Price £ 25 per share 'towards the charge which he had been at in the said mine'. There was a further charge of k12 1 os. per share for prosecuting or defending any suits which should concern the interests of the mine, and out of the profits Sir Carbury was to be paid £ 1,500 in four or six years' time. During this term of partnership of twenty-five years Dame Dorothy Pryse, if she lived so long, was to be paid £ 100 annually for her interest in the mine by the holders of the twelve shares. Some of the partners defaulted in their payments, and later, during an action between him and John Oldbury, Thomas Phipps, and others, Sir Humphrey Edwin complained that he had often been prevailed upon to advance money for some of them in carrying out the said partnership and defending the many chargeable law suits which were brought to eject the said partners out of their interest in the mine.1 Sir Carbury Pryse had also borrowed considerable sums of money 'to save his occasions'. It is not surprising therefore that Sir Humphrey should confess that he then lay under 'some discouragements' when some of the partners complained that they had not a sufficient fund to carry on, and therefore proposed that a new agreement should be made whereby they might be at liberty to sell their shares and thus raise more money. As he was more out of purse than any other, Sir Humphrey Edwin was glad to support any expedient which would reimburse him and make the mine a more marketable proposition. In the meantime William Scawen had already sold his shares to Sir Humphrey Edwin, and Sir Stephen Evans had assigned his shares to William Powell. On i July 1693 an agreement was signed between the remaining partners and Sir Francis Lawley of Spoonhill, Salop, Bart., Thomas Done of Lincoln's Inn Fields, Richard Hore, and Robert Fowles, of London, goldsmiths, and Nicholas Baker of London, whereby the original twenty-four shares were divided into four thousand and eight equal shares. Of these Sir Carbury Pryse was to receive two thousand and four shares, the Earl of Danby three hundred and thirty-four, Charles Bickerstaffe three hundred and thirty-four, Sir Humphrey Edwin five hundred and one (in respect of his original shares and what he had bought of William Scawen), Phillip Bickerstaffe three hundred and thirty-four, William Powell three hundred and thirty-four (in respect of his original shares and what he had purchased from Sir Stephen Evans), and Edward Pryse one hundred and sixty-seven shares. By this deed the mine at Esgair Hir was granted to Sir Francis Lawley and his friends for twenty-two and a half years (being the remainder of the original period of twenty-five years) upon trust to dispose of the profits of the mine among the shareholders. It was further agreed that as soon as one thousand two hundred of the four thousand and eight shares had been subscribed and actually transferred there should be a general meeting of the shareholders for the drawing up of rules and orders for the management of the mines. Every person holding ten shares had a right to vote, and the general meeting was to choose twelve assistants from among those having a minimum of twenty shares, to form a private committee of 1P.R.O., E 112/768/3.