improper since you are his Majesty's provident stewards, into whose hands I commit myself, with all properties fit to obey you; that is to say, with a heart harbouring no ambition, but an endless aim to serve my King and country. And if my endeavours prove effectual, as I am confident they will, his Majesty shall not only become rich, but his people likewise, as treasurers unto him; and his peerless Majesty, our King, shall become both beloved at home, and feared abroad; deeming the riches of a King to consist in the plenty enjoyed by his people. And the way, to render him to be feared abroad, is to content his people at home, who then, with heart and hand, are ready to assist him; and whatsoever God blesseth me with to contribute towards the increase of his revenues in any considerable way, I desire it may be employed to the use of his people; that is, for the taking off such taxes or burthens from them, as they chiefly groan under, and by a temporary necessity only imposed on them; which being thus supplied, will certainly best content the King, and satisfy his people; which, I dare say, is the continual tendency of all your indefatigable pains, and the perfect demonstrations of your zeal to his Majesty, and an evidence that the kingdom's trust is justly and deservedly reposed in you. And if ever parliament acquitted themselves thereof, it is this of yours, composed of most deserving and qualified persons; qualified, I say, with your affection to your prince, and with a tenderness to his people; with a bountiful heart towards him, yet a frugality in their behalfs. Go on therefore chearfully, my Lords and gentlemen, and not only our gracious King, but the King of Kings, will reward you, the prayers of the people will attend you, and his Majesty will with thankful arms embrace you. And be pleased to make use of me and my endeavours to inrich them, not myself; such being my only request unto you, spare me not in what your wisdoms shall find me useful, who do esteem myself not only by the act of the water-commanding engine, which so chearfully you have past, sufficiently rewarded, but likewise with courage enabled to do ten times more for the future; and my debts being paid, and a competency to live according to my birth and quality settled, the rest shall I dedicate to the service of our King and country by your disposals; and esteem me not the more, or rather any more, by what is past, but by what is to come; professing really from my heart, that my intentions are to out-go the six or seven-hundred-thousand pounds already sacrificed, if countenanced and encouraged by you, ingenuously confessing that the melancholy, which hath lately seized upon me, the cause whereof none of you but may easily guess, hath, I dare say, retarded more advantages to the publick service than modesty will permit me to utter. And now, revived by your promising favours, I shall infallibly be enabled thereunto in the experiments extant, and comprised under these heads, practicable with my directions by the unpa ralleled workman both for trust and skill, Casper Kaltoff's hand, who hath been these thirty-five years, as in a school under me employed, and still at my disposal, in a place by my great expences made fit for publick service, yet lately like to be taken from me, and consequently from the service of King and kingdom, without the least regard of above ten-thousand pounds expended by me, and through my zeal to the common good; my zeal, I say, a field large enough for you, my Lords and gentlemen, to work upon. The treasures buried under these heads, both for war, peace, and pleasure, being inexhaustible; I beseech you, pardon me if I say so; it seems a vanity, but comprehends a truth; since no good spring but becomes the more plentiful, by how much more it is drawn; and the spinner, to weave his web, is never stinted, but further inforced. The more then that you shall be pleased to make use of my inventions, the more inventive shall you ever find me, one invention begetting still another, and more and more improving my ability to serve my King and you; and as to my heartiness therein there needs no addition, nor to my readiness a spur. And therefore, my lords and gentlemen, be pleased to begin, and desist not from commanding me till I flag in my obedience and endeavours to serve my King and country. For certainly you'll find me breathless first t'expire, Yet abstracting from any interest of my own, but as a fellow-subject and compatriot, will I ever labour in the vineyard, most heartily and readily obeying the least summous from you, by putting faithfully in execution, what your judgments shall think fit to pitch upon, among this century of experiences, perhaps, dearly purchased by me, but not frankly and gratis offered to you. Since my heart, methinks, cannot be satisfied in serving my King and country, if it should cost them any thing; as I confess when I had the honour to be near so obliging a master as his late Majesty of happy memory, who never refused me his ear to any reasonable motion. And as for unreasonable ones, or such as were not fitting for him to grant, I would rather to have died a thousand deaths, than ever have made any one unto him. Yet whatever I was so happy as to obtain for any deserving person, my pains, breath, and interest employed therein satisfied me not, unless I likewise satisfied the fees; but that was in my golden age. And even now, though my ability and means are shortened, the world knows why my heart remains still the same, and be you pleased, my lords and gentlemen, to rest most assured, that the very complacency, that I shall take in the executing your commands, shall be unto me a sufficient and an abundantly satisfactory reward. Vouchsafe, therefore, to dispose freely of me, and whatever lieth in my power to perform; First, in order to his Majesty's service; Secondly, for the good and advantage of the kingdom; Thirdly, to all your satisfactions for particular profit and pleasure to your individual selves, professing, that in all, and each of the three respects, I will ever demean myself as it best becomes, My Lords and Gentlemen, Your most passionately bent fellow subject in his Majesty's service, compatriot for the publick good and advantage, and a most humble servant to all and every of you, WORCESTER. A Table referring to the figures of this treatise. SEALS abundantly significant .... Private and particular to each owner An one-line cypher...... Reduced to a point .... Varied significantly to all the twenty-four letters To level cannons by night A ship-destroying engine.. .... How to be fastened from a-loof and under water An unsinkable ship.... False destroying decks.... Multiplied strength in little room A boat driving against wind and tide A sea-sailing fort... A pleasant floating garden A coach-saving engine An ebbing and flowing river An ebbing and flowing castle-clock A double drawing engine for weights A most easy level draught A portable bridge A moveable fortification A rising bulwark. An approaching blind. A needle-alphabet A knotted string-alphabet A bracelet-alphabet A pinked glove-alphabet A sieve-alphabet... 1 234567∞ 8 A most conceited tinder-box 45 46 47 48 A most admirable way to raise weights .... A stupendious water-work 99 • 100 A century of the names and scantlings of inventions by me already prac tised. 1. SEVERAL sorts of seals, some shewing by scrues, others by gages, fastening or unfastening all the marks at once; others by additional points and imaginary places, proportionable to ordinary escutcheons and seals at arms, each way palpably and punctually setting down, yet private from all others, but the owner, and by his assent, the day of the month, the day of the week, the month of the year, the year of our Lord, the names of the witnesses, and the individual place where any thing was sealed, though in ten-thousand several places, together with the very number of lines contained in a contract, whereby falsification may be discovered, and manifestly proved, being upon good grounds suspected. Upon any of these seals a man may keep accounts of receipts and disbursements from one farthing to an hundred millions, punctually shewing each pound, shilling, penny, or farthing. By these seals likewise any letter, though written but in English, may be read and understood in eight several languages, and in English itself to a clean contrary and different sense, unknown to any but the correspondent, and not to be read or understood by him neither, if opened before it arrive unto him; so that neither threats, nor hopes of reward, can make him reveal the secret, the letter having been intercepted, and first opened by the enemy. 2. How ten-thousand persons may use these seals to all and every of the purposes aforesaid, and yet keep their secrets from any but whom they please. 3. A cypher and character so contrived, that one line, without returns and circumflexes, stands for each and every of the twenty-four letters; and as ready to be made for the one letter as the other. 4. This invention refined, and so abbreviated, that a point only sheweth distinctly and significantly any of the twenty-four letters; and these very points to be made with two pens, so that no time will be lost, but as one finger riseth the other may make the following letter, never clogging the memory with several figures for words, and combination of letters; which with ease, and void of confusion, are thus speedily and punctually, letter for letter, set down by naked, and not multiplied points. And nothing can be less than a point, the mathematical definition of it being cujus pars nulla. And of a motion no swifter imagi nable than semiquavers or releshes, yet applicable to this manner of writing. 5. A way by a circular motion, either along a rule or ring-wise, to vary any alphabet, even this of points, so that the self-same point individually placed, without the least additional mark or variation of place, shall stand for all the twenty-four letters, and not for the same letter |