Accordingly the 27th of May was as agreed on by the respective parties to meet and undertake the admeasurement of the said seven miles; but the Yarmouth men being so much disappointed and chagrined at the late decision of the House of Lords in favour of the town of Lowestoft, and also perceiving that all their attempts for carrying into execution their favourite and long-projected scheme of wholly excluding the town of Lowestoft from the herring-fishery, and monopolising it to themselves, totally frustrated, that they had recourse to stratagem, and endeavoured to accomplish by artifice what they were unable to obtain by legal proceedings. In order, therefore, to effect their designs, they endeavoured to evade the order of the House, by attempting to prevent its being carried into execution. For which purpose they not only prevailed upon Sir Richard Bacon, the high sheriff of Norfolk, to be absent at making the admeasurement, but also so far influenced the under sheriff, Mr. Roger Smith, that when the gentlemen appointed to superintend it were assembled at Yarmouth, in order to undertake it, the said under sheriff absolutely refused to concur with them therein, expecting thereby to render every measure that should be then taken, totally void and of none effect. A circumstantial account of the proceedings in this very extraordinary business, as well as the opinion and behaviour of the Lowestoft people concerning the same, will more fully appear from the following narrative of the case, as drawn up soon after by special order and appointment: A NARRATIVE Concerning the proceedings upon an order of the House of Lords, bearing date the 26th of February, 1661–2; wherein the determination of the admeasurement of the seven miles from the crane key in Yarmouth, towards Lowestoft, was referred to the two several and respective sheriffs of Norfolk and Suffolk. WE, whose names are underwritten (whereof seven of us are the next adjacent justices of the peace, and of equal regard to the interests of both towns—Sir John Playters, Sir George Woodhouse, Sir Henry Bacon, Sir John Pettus, Sir William Coke, John Bedingfield, Esq., and Thomas Scrivener, Esq., besides many other gentlemen of quality in both counties), being solicited by the inhabitants of Lowestoft, and also sensible of the great importance the adjusting of the differences, and the admeasurement of the said seven miles is of, not only to the peace and advantage of the respective parties in particular, but to the fishery of this kingdom in general, did, on the 27th of May, at nine o’clock in the morning, attend the arrival of the sheriffs at the foot of the bridge entering the town of Yarmouth, being the place and day appointed by the sheriffs.