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To the most noble Thomas Duke of New Castle Secretry of State &c:

May it please your Grace—

In my Memorial of the 15th of June last I took leave to inform your Grace of our Governour Sir Richard Everards orders to one Mr John Lovick acting as Secretary respecting the Disposition of no more of the soil of this Province, until his Majestys Royal Pleasure were therein known. The occasion as I allways conceived of those orders was (as Sir Richard wrote your Grace himselfe) from a Discovery he had made of the fraudalent practice of the above John Lovick and Mr Edward Moseley our Surveyor General of Lands, and notwithstanding all such convincing proofs of the same and the many resolutions Sir Richard had made of signing no more Warrants or Pattents.

Yet so it is may it please your Grace, thō he knows this Country is now under the Crown, he has since broke through such his Intentions, and now every day signs both Warrants and Pattents. And what is worse was induced some time ago by the uncommon art and cunning of this Lovick and his two confederates Moseley and Willm Little the

Receiver General to the Lords Proprietors to sign many Pattents wherein the number of acres are left Blank and on the same Pattents there is the Receiver General Littles receipt likewise in blank for the purchas money, so that the possessors of such Pattents have it in their own power to put in as much land as by our Charter might make them Landgraves or Cassicks; whereas I believe the true Intent of Sr Richard was that every pattent he so signed should contain what is by the late Lords Proprietors orders and by our own Laws distinguished to be a Tract containing six hundred and forty acres. Instead of which some people who are let into the Secrit, and that has procured such pattents has filled up the blanks with what quantity of land they pleased; one Laine of the Country of Bath put into his pattent 5000 acres others more and some less, by which means before his Majesty's commissions can take place amongst us most of the Land will be disposed of under a sham proprieterry title and the money arrising therefrom put into the pocketts of those three Messinarys Lovick, Moseley, and Little, how far such a proceedure will deserve notice, I shall submit it to your Graces opinion. As I once mentioned before if there was an officer suddenly appointed as Receiver General with a power of inspecting into such former conduct it might possibly be many thousands pounds advantage to the Crown; and if your Grace should be pleased to think me deserving of so great a trust (as I am well acquainted with the circumstance of things) no man shall more justly and faithfully discharge it, than

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