In this proposed address to the House of Peers, the Marquis of Worcester offers some introductory remarks bearing on his parentage, education, and travels; but the burden of his speech is a detailed account of the severe losses himself and his family sustained, consequent on the Civil War, combined with his father’s and his own liberality to Charles the First personally. His proposed plan of laying his case before the House is prefaced with a singular offer on his own part, under four different heads:-- 1st. He proposes to raise an auxiliary troop for his Majesty’s Life-guard. 2nd. To cause to be erected a complete ordinary for forty indigent officers. 3rd. To cause a fair causeway to be made, for two miles together, at four of the greatest avenues to the city. And 4th, to cause £1,000 a year, for ten years, to be allowed towards the building of St. Paul’s. Then follow items of the various and vast sums expended in the Royalist cause. His allusion to the Act obtained for his Engine, in 1663, fixes the date of this document at or soon after that period. The amount expended in the Royal cause by his father and himself was so enormous, that it is difficult to understand on what ground he considered he bettered his claim to some compensation, by burdening his statement with four separate offers, calculated to absorb far more than he could ever expect to obtain through a monarch so needy, extravagant, and dissolute as Charles the Second. Whatever may have been the Marquis of Worcester’s previous private engagements, there is every reason to believe that from the time he was protected by Act of Parliament, he vigorously put forth all his energies to promote the works at Vauxhall, where, aided by Caspar Kaltoff, he soon had one of his “stupendous” engines in operation. James Rollock, an “ancient servant of his Lordship’s” (as he styles himself), who made some pretence to being a poet, wrote “a Latin Elogium and an English Panegirick, both of them composed through duty and gratitude.” He informs us that, he “hath for forty years been an eye-witness of his great ingenuity:” adding, “I think it not amiss to give further notice in his Lordship’s behalf, that he intends within a moneth or two to erect an Office, and to intrust some very responsible and honourable persons with power to Treat and Conclude with such as desire at a reasonable rate to reap the benefit of the same Water-commanding Engine.”[K] About the same time would also appear to have been issued large posting bills, one rare and curious specimen of which may be seen in the Library of the British Museum,[L] setting forth a short address to the King, followed with the usual “definition” of “A stupendous or a Water-Commanding Engine, boundless for height or quantity.” We have thus very clear evidence that he was employing every possible means at command to impress his claim on public notice.