We have now to try to find out if it was only in a few counties that work was found for the unemployed, or if it was all over England. We have already noted that in the counties north of the Humber, and in the three western counties of Devonshire, Cornwall, and Wiltshire the poor law was apparently less well administered than in other parts of the country. In these counties with the exception of Yorkshire therefore there are few instances in which stocks are found for providing work for the unemployed. We hear however that in Ashton-under-Line there existed a "small stocke of money which is disposed on for the setting of poore to worke[618]". Moreover, in two Yorkshire reports of 1635 it is stated that the justices have been "verie carefull to raise stockes for setting ou^r poore on worke[619]." There are other Yorkshire returns containing information of the same kind, but still the plan of finding work for the unemployed of the North seems to be comparatively unusual.[620] [618] _D. S. P._, Chas. I., Vol. 395, 106. In the same report it is stated that Oldham could not afford to raise a stock. [619] _Ib._, Vol. 293, 122 and 129. The quotation is from a report from Ryedale signed by Lord Fairfax; the other document, in which almost exactly the same words occur is from Buckrose in the East Riding. [620] Although the fact that the poor were employed in Devon and Wilts is not recorded in any of the justices' reports which have been preserved, we hear from other sources that work was found for the poor in some places in those counties. Thus the following memorandum refers to an attempt to establish a workhouse in Plymouth; it is to be found among the municipal records in that town. "In the name of god the 28th of September an^o 1610 A note of provisio^{ns} delivred into y^e Castle for the pore to thende they maye be there placed & sett on work, w^ch is but abeginninge for a fewe & a tryall thereof the w^ch I praie god continewe and augment to his glorye & their comfort. Imprimis 2 bedsteads * * * * * 5 twines 2 paire of wollen cards" &c. Two years later £20 was bequeathed by W. Lawrence "to the stocke to sett y^e poor to worke," and early in the reign of Charles I. a "workehowse for the setting of the poore on worke" has been lately built and the overseers paid the corporation £9. 12_s._ for the rent of the three tenements which formerly had existed on the site. R. N. Worth, _Plymouth Municipal Records_, pp. 156 and 257, and _Hist. of Plymouth_, p. 273.