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 A HISTORY OF RUTLAND of 1647-8, which were maintained by the restored monarchy. In 1665 he was made a baronet.'" Rutland is also included amongst the counties named in instructions issued in August 1667 by Treasurer Southampton for the recovery of ' taxes in arrear ' from ' any persons employed by any pre- tended authority as receivers or collectors ' of moneys for the miHtia, &c., or raised by ' decimations 'or by ' any pretended ordinance of Parha- ment''" — a term which included the £^,2^ raised upon the county, as already mentioned,'^^ by assessments by the Parliament for military purposes during 1644-6. In the following year a Treasury warrant was issued on 19 March to strike tallies, infer a/ia, for £2^ on Thomas Marston, receiver of taxes ' under the late usurpers in county Rutland,' for three months from 25 March 1649.^" By a warrant of 29 September 1660 commissioners were appointed in Rutland, as in other counties, for ' the better answering and preserving the Crown revenues,' and were for this purpose empowered to examine on oath all sheriffs, bailiffs, and other persons accountable for fines, heriots, amerce- ments, waifs, strays, and other casual profits, and persons able to give infor- mation of frauds ; and also to hold inquiries with respect to the decrease of rent, the custody of ledgers, surveys, and accounts relating to rentals, and arrears of rents and taxes or assignments.'^' This inquiry was presumably undertaken on account of the surrender of the feudal rights of the Crown at the Restoration,'^' and the grant in lieu of them of a moiety of the excise — which had been first imposed by the Long Parliament in 1643"° — and the assignment of the other half for an increase of the royal revenue.'^ The office of collector of excise seems to have been a profitable one under the Commonwealth, when the tax yielded over ^(^300, 000 a year;'" and a memorial to the Treasury of 9 July 1661 from Andrew Noel, Francis Orme, and John Boteler complained that though they had been certified by the justices of the peace of Rutland and Northamptonshire as fit to be collectors of excise in the said counties, two strangers had been appointed in their place.'" Owing, however, to the failure of the due payment of the tax and complaints against the sub-commissioners, a circular letter was issued by Treasurer Southampton and Lord Ashley on 26 June 1662 to the justices of the peace of Rutland and other counties directing that the excise should be let to farm to such persons as they should recommend at Quarter Sessions, and that failing a return of such persons by them the lord lieutenant should let the farm to the best advantage of the king's revenue.''* The obligation im- posed upon the farmer under this new system of advancing ' from time to time ... a quarter's pay beforehand ' seems to have rendered his office one of great risk ; '" and in April 1663 Samuel Gibson, who in the previous year had been appointed farmer of the excise in Rutland for ,^1,000 per annum, 'the gentlemen returned by the justices of the peace in the said county having refused to come up to the rate fixed,' '^° was discharged at his own request from the said farm because he ' cannot possibly take it without being ruined.''" The "^ Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. v, App. 387, 396. '" Cal. Treas. Bks. 1660-7, PP- 274-5- '" See sapra, p. 193. '" Cai. Treas. Bks. 1660-7, p. 508. "* Ibid. 69. Cf. as to Receivers of Crown Lands in Rut., ibid. 1677-8, pp. 172, 279, 312, 607. '" Stat. 12 Chas. II, cap. 24. ''" Taswell-Langmead, Const. Hist. (3rd ed. 622. '" Cal. Treas. Bks. 1660-7, p. 402. '^' Ibid. '" Ibid. 150, 154. "* Ibid. 402. '■' Ibid. '" Ibid. 433. '" Ibid. 517. 202