Further holograph draft of MINT00786 (Mint 19/3/260)

<263r>

To the Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners of his Majesties Treasury.

May it please your Lordships

For diminishing the expences occasioned by Sir Ereskines Mine & making the greater dispatch in that busines, I most humbly offer to your Lordships consideration whether it may not be advisable that Dr Iustus Brandshagen & the two Hamiltons who are sent down to Scotland, be ordered to smelt the Ore which lyes buried in Casks by Sir John Ereskins house, so soon as they have dispatched the Report which by the Warrant of his Royal Highness they are already ordered to make: provided they find the silver produced out of that Ore to be more then sufficient to pay all the charges of smelting it. All three understand the smelting of Ores & can instruct one another & therefore may each of them work apart in several furnaces for making the greater dispatch. And while they are smelting this Ore their Report may be considered in relation to the Mine, I make this propoal upon a presumption that the Ore is worth smelting because it was buried in Casks for that reason & that they can find a convenient place for setting up one or more furnaces. As the Cakes of silver come from the Test, they may be marked with the Roman numbers I, II, III, IV, V, &c stampt on them with a Chissel; & a list of the number & weight of every Cake may from time to time be sent up to your Lordships or your Order that the number weight & value of the Cakes of silver extracted out of the Ore may be ascertained & made known for preventing imbezzelments. And when these Cakes are melted into large Ingots, the Ingots may be numbred & weighed in the same manner. And the number & weight of every Regulus or lump of coarse silver got out of a pott of Ore may be entred in books