PREFIXED to Tonkin’s MS. of the Parochial History of Cornwall (with
additions in notes by J. Whitaker) are the following notes:
Mem. Mr. Hawkins tells me that there is a camp near Trutheun, in
Bishop’s Wood, not large.
Carew (Edition 1769) fol. 30. The Cornish “pay in most places onely
_fee Morton_ releeses, which is after five markes the whole knight’s
fee (so called of John, Earle first of Morton, then of Cornwall, and
lastly King of this land); whereas, that of _fee Gloucester_ is five
pounds.”
The MS. is in the possession of the Rev. Mr. Pye, Rector of Truro, and
had been recovered by him from imminent destruction, as he told me, at
a house formerly belonging to Mr. Tonkin, and then inhabited by Mr.
Fortescue. A MS. in folio, and another in quarto, had been left in a
cupboard of the kitchen, and applied to culinary purposes. Mr. Pye’s
attention was arrested by seeing part of the quarto wrapping round
some plumb cake; he therefore begged the rest. And he found the Folio
had been used entirely, and the quarto up to the letter P. and page
406. With this account he made me (as I thought) a present of the MS.
I therefore wrote some additions of my own upon the blank places of
it. He afterwards desired me (as I thought) to lend it him awhile. But
when I sent for it back again, he denied he had ever meant to give it
me; and I thought myself obliged in honour to waive all claim to the
property, and to borrow it for transcription. But I then erased my
own remarks from the whole, and have here added many, very many
others. October 26th 1790. J. W.