en." He then described the history of
his own efforts to import the manufacture of tin-plates into England
some sixteen years before, in which he had been thwarted by
Chamberlaine's patent, as above described,--and offered sundry queries
as to the utility of patents generally, which, says he, "have the
tendency to drive trade out of the kingdom." Appended to the chapter on
Tin is an exceedingly amusing dialogue between a tin-miner of Cornwall,
an iron-miner of Dean Forest, and a traveller (himself). From this we
gather that Yarranton's business continued to be that of an
iron-manufacturer at his works at Ashley near Bewdley. Thus the
iron-miner says, "About 28 years since Mr. Yarranton found out a vast
quantity of Roman cinders, near the walls of the city of Worcester,
from whence he and others carried away many thousand tons or loads up
the river Severn, unto their iron-furnaces, to be melted down into
iron, with a mixture of the Forest of Dean iron-stone; and within 100
yards of the walls of the city of Worcester there was dug up one of the
hearths of the Roman foot-blasts, it being then firm and in order, and
was 7 foot deep in the earth; and by the side of the work there was
found a pot of Roman coin to the quantity of a peck, some of which was
presented to Sir [Wm.] Dugdale, and part thereof is now in the King's
Closet." [21]

In the same year (1681) in which the second part of 'England's
Improvement' appeared, Yarranton proceeded to Dunkirk for the purpose
of making a personal survey of that port, then belonging to England;
and on his return he published a map of the town, harbour, and castle
on the sea, with accompanying letterpress, in which he recommended, for
the safety of British trade, the demolition of the fortifications of
Dunkirk before they were completed, which he held would only be for the
purpose of their being garrisoned by the French king. His 'Full
Discovery of the First Presbyterian Sham Plot' was published in the
same year; and from that time nothing further is known of Andrew
Yarranton. His name and his writings have been alike nearly forgotten;
and, though Bishop Watson declared of him that he deserved to have a
statue erected to his memory as a great public benefactor, we do not
know that he was so much as honoured with a tombstone; for we have been
unable, after careful inquiry, to discover when and where he died.

Yarranton was a man whose views were far in advance of his age. The
ge