undertake it, I shall with more joy and readiness serve as a trooper therein, than to have the command thereof. “My second humble offer, disposable by your Lordships, is at my own cost and charges, but under your Lordships’ name and approbation, and out of the accruing profits of my Water-commanding Engine, to cause to be erected a competent ordinary, affording as well wine as meat, for one meal a day, for forty indigent officers, such as the calamity of the late times has brought to so pressing necessities, as none of your Lordships, I am confident, but is very sensible thereof, especially of such persons who (had not their zeal to their King and country transported them) might have lived plentifully of their own; yet if your Lordships’ commiserating eyes look not speedily upon them, may follow the destiny of some others of quality, yea colonels, and never were under my command; yet I never made distinction when his Majesty’s honour or service was interested, or his well-deserving subjects suffered, and were within my power of relief, for whose burials it hath been my good fortune to pay; they not leaving behind them to the value of an angel; and I humbly conceive this act of charity, worthy your Lordships’ owning, since your Lordships’ cheerfully passing the act of my Water-commanding Engine enableth me thereunto; and I most humbly offer this little testimony of gratitude, to be under your name thus employed. And I intend there shall be so good order given therein, within 6 months, as that there shall be a stipend given to a person to read unto them during their meals, either of military affairs or history, the better to avoid frivolous discourse tending to quarrels and quaffing. “Thirdly, in favour and benefit of the commonalty as well as your Lordships, and for the general good and honour of this most famous City of London, I most humbly offer, under your Lordships’ name and protection, to cause a fair causeway to be made, upon which, without disturbance, two carts may pass one by the other for 2 miles together, at 4 of the greatest avenues to the City, as the Lord Mayor and Aldermen shall best advise; and at the end of each of the four causeways, an Hospital and House of Correction to be erected and endowed, with a perpetuity of £500 a year to each house; and this pious work to begin within two years, and to be finished within seven.