This statute affirms that “none shall buy, sell, let, or take to farm, the office of under-sheriff, gaoler, bailiff, under pain of £500, half to the king and half to him that shall sue.” Before leaving the subject of the sheriffs’ jurisdiction in regard to Newgate, it may be interesting to refer to a conflict between them and the Corporation as to the right to appoint the gaoler. It is recorded in the State papers, under date March 1, 1638, that Isaac Pennington and John Wollaston were elected and sworn sheriffs for the ensuing year. They went, according to ancient custom, to Newgate, where, having received the keys and the charge of the prisoners from the former sheriffs, they substituted for the actual keeper one James Francklin, who about the 15th of the following October died. Accordingly the sheriffs appointed and settled Henry Wollaston as keeper of the gaol, who peaceably executed the duties of that place for six weeks. The rest of the story is best told in the language of the record. After that time “the Lord Mayor and aldermen, never charging Wollaston with any miscarriage, sent for him to their court at Guildhall, and demanded of him the keys of the said prison, who refusing to deliver them to any without the consent of the sheriffs, was then detained until some officers were sent from the said court, who forcibly brought the officer’s servants intrusted with the said keys and prisoners by the said Wollaston, and, without the knowledge or consent of the said sheriffs, delivered them to Richard Johnson, a young man not free of the city, clerk to the recorder, whom they (the sheriffs, from whom this protest comes) consider to be very unfit for such a trust. For redress, the sheriffs by all fair means have applied themselves divers times to the Lord Mayor and court of aldermen, who refuse to restore the said Wollaston. The sheriffs conceive that the trust and keeping of the said gaol, both by law and reason, ought to be in their disposition, and that it is inseparable, incident to, and of common right belonging to their office, they being liable to punishments for any escapes, and amerciaments for non-appearance of prisoners in Her Majesty’s courts of justice, with many other such like damages and fears.”