"I will tell you a tale, of which it may be you may know somewhat; if you do not, take no notice of it from me. When we were in Cornwall, Colonel Smyth (who was Sir Alexander Denton's son-in-law, and taken in that house), having obtained his liberty by J. Ashburnham's friendship upon such an exchange (one of the councillors of Ireland) as would have redeemed the best man, came to us from the king at Hereford. To me he brought a short perfunctory letter from my lord Digby, but from J. A. to my lord Culpeper his dispatch was of weight; his business, to erect a mint at Truro, which should yield the king a vast profit; Mr. Browne, J. A.'s man (who was long a prisoner with him) (_sic_); the king's dues, by a special warrant (which I saw), to be paid to Mr. Ashburnham. "What he did in Cornwall I know not, for you perceive he was to have no relation or reference to me, which, if you had been Chancellor of the Exchequer, you would have taken unkindly. Shortly after the Prince came hither he came to us, having left Cornwall a fortnight before we did. You may imagine my lord Culpeper was forward to help him, and how he promised to set up his mint, and assured us that he had contracted with merchants at St. Malloe to bring in such a quantity of bullion as would make the revenue very considerable to the Prince. We wondered why the merchants of St. Malloe should desire to have English money coined. He gave us an answer that appeared very reasonable: that all the trade they drove with the west country for tin, fish, or wool, was driven with money; and therefore they sent over their pistoles and pieces-of-eight, in which they sustained so great a loss that their merchants had rather have this bullion coined into English money at 20 in the hundred than take the other way. "After several debates, in which (though there seemed no convincing argument to expect great profit from it) there was not the least suggestion of inconvenience, he pretending that he had all officers ready at St. Malloe, and such as belonged to the King's mint, and likewise his commission under the great seal (for he produced only the warrant under the sign-manual), the Prince writ a letter to the Governor, Bailiff, and Jurats to give him countenance, and to assign him some convenient place to reside in. Shortly after the Prince went away, the Colonel proceeds, brings his wife hither (who in truth is a sober woman) and takes a little house remote from neighbours, but pretended that the Prince's remove and other accidents had hindered the advance of the service, but that he hoped hereafter to proceed in it. Here he lived soberly and reservedly; and after two or three months here was found much adulterated money--half-crown pieces which had been put off by people belonging to him. One only officer he hath, an old Catholic, one Vaughan, who is a good graver.