Leconfield

The collection was compiled by purchase between 1931 and 1939 and consists of nine early seventeenth-century manuscript volumes. These include 'A Treatise of Sea Causes, containing a yearly observation of English and Spanish fleets that were set forth one to annoy the other, from the year 1585...until the year 1602', 1624, by Sir William Monson (1569-1643) (printed by the Navy Records Society, ed. N. Oppenheim, 2 vols, 1902); 'Observations and overtures for a sea fight upon our coasts', with orders and directions to be given by an Admiral and rules for the men on board the ships, ca.1607; instructions issued by the Earl of Nottingham (1536-1624), ca.1607, and by the Duke of Buckingham (1592-1628), ca.1618, for the government of the Navy; a copy of 'The Sovereignty of the Seas of England', ca.1615, by Sir John Borough (d.1643); a copy of 'The Seaman's Dictionary', ca.1623, by Sir Henry Mainwaring (1587-1653), (printed by the Navy Records Society, ed. G.E. Mainwaring and W.G. Perrin, 1921); the reports of the Commissioners appointed in 1618 to remedy abuses in the Navy and to examine the accounts, ca.1618; instructions issued by the Earl of Northumberland (1602-1668) for the management of fleets under his command in 1636 and 1637, with journals of the voyages, May to October 1636 and April to September 1637; and 'A Brief Discourse of the Navy', 1638, by John Hollond (fl.1624-1659), (printed by the Navy Records Society, ed. J.R. Tanner, 1896).