IV. It disregards that strong implication of a lawful possession—so far as Sir Robert COTTON, individually, is concerned—which necessarily arises out of the fact that at two several periods the Cottonian Library was under the sole control and custody of Crown officials; [Sidenote: _Registers of Privy Council_, 1616; 1629; 1630; _passim_ (C. O.)] that it remained under such control for an aggregate period of more than two years; that COTTON’S bitter enemies were then at the head of affairs; that in 1630 a Royal Commission was actually issued [Sidenote: _Signs Manual_, Charles I, vol. xii, § 15 (R. H.).] ‘to search what Records or other Papers of State in the custody of Sir Robert COTTON properly belong to His Majesty, and thereof to certify;’ and that the existing Cottonian MSS., together with those burned in 1732, were, one year after the issue of that Commission, restored by the Crown to Sir Robert COTTON’S heirs; [Sidenote: _e. g._ MS. Harl., 7002, ff. 120, 122, &c., MS. Cott. Julius ciii, _passim_ (B. M.).] V. It overlooks the circumstance, vital to the issue now raised, that amongst the MSS. which most indubitably were once Crown property many can still be minutely traced from possessor to possessor, prior to their reception into the Cottonian Library; And VI. It disregards the fact, hardly less important, that a patriotic statesman conversant both with the arcana of government at large, and with the special arcana of the State Paper Office and Secretary’s offices, under King JAMES THE FIRST and King CHARLES THE FIRST, might have cogent reasons for believing that some important classes of State Papers would be likely to remain much more truly and enduringly the property of the English nation if stored up at Cotton House—even had no ‘British Museum’ ever been created—than if stored up at Whitehall. Inferences and implications such as these are far from amounting to conclusive proof. But most readers, I think, will assent to the assertion that, cumulatively, they amount to a very strong presumption indeed that the stigma which has been impressed on Sir Robert COTTON’S memory is both precipitate and unjust. Precipitate it plainly is, for a confident verdict has virtually been pronounced—upon a grave issue,—before hearing any evidence for the accused. Unjust I, for one, cannot but think it, inasmuch as circumstances which at most are but grounds of mere suspicion of the greater offence charged, have been so huddled up with proofs of a minor and (comparatively) venial offence, that readers giving but ordinary attention to the allegations and their respective evidence are almost certain to be misled.