I had thoughts formerly, and made preparation to give many more instances, where many amongst us have been mistaken in those two particulars; but since it is a hard thing to convince men of old errors, and a harder to make a question against any concerning their gentelicions and the old forms thereof, though intended more for their honour, I shall forbear the further prosecution thereof; but in this, however, I shall do them right, that they, i. e. their ancestors, in this way thus trodden, have walked generally as antiently as any other gentry of this nation, and to my seeming, it had been better if they had stood still _super vias antiquas avorum suorum_, since most of those ancient families who have strayed abroad as aforesaid, have yet some of them, and many more had, lands and places of their own names in their possession long enjoyed; and a nearer passage it had been to their journey’s end, viz. their honour, if they had not adventured abroad: a testimony whereof we have in that great contention which happened in the time of King Edward III. between Carminow of this county (a family to which most of the ancient gentry here have relation) and a great person[41] of the nation, for bearing of one and the same coat armour, Azure, a bend Or. After many heats about it, a reference was made of it by the king to the most eminent Knights of that time, of which John of Gaunt, King of Castille, was one, before whom Carminow proved his right by the continual bearing thereof, and that before the Conquest, which was not disapproved nor disallowed, but applauded: yet, because the other contendant was a baron of the realm, Carminow was adjudged to bear the same coat still, but a file in chief for distinction sake. The decision was no way dishonourable, and the remembrance of the contention continued to the glory of his posterity, to which his motto in Cornish seems to have an allusion――in English, “A Straw for Whifflers or Dissemblers;” or as some have said to be, “A Fig Cala Rag Whetlow;” but we may take the same better, I think, from the very name of Carminow being in Cornish a rock immoveable, as a sign of his resolution, from thence, or formerly taken up. Having gone through this passage, which I know not how it may be taken by my countrymen, let me make this observation, that since the gentry here have thought fit, or endeavoured by mistake, to forsake the antiquity of their Cornish names, and thereby their greatest interest, might perhaps prognosticate that their language, which was their ancient glory, should in revenge forsake them, as now it hath almost done; and I shall proceed to assign some other causes of the decay thereof.