‘Lease of the Dock Yard at Plymouth’: Manuscript draft by lawyers Wimburn, Colletts & Dyson, of indenture between Sir John St Aubyn and ‘The Principal Officers and Commissioners of His Majesty’s Navy’.

St Aubyn’s entry in the Oxford DNB makes no mention of Plymouth or the Royal Navy. 9pp, foolscap 8vo, on nine leaves of laid paper with fleur-de-lys watermark. In poor condition: an attempt has been made to burn the document, and the left-hand side of each leaf has been badly damaged, with much of it crumbled away in burnt flakes, and the surviving text badly marked on that side. The description on the outside of the packet states that the draft is ‘For the perusal of Mr. Jones’ (presumably St Aubin’s lawyer). The indenture itself is eight pages long, and begins by stating that it is made ‘Between Sir John St Aubyn of Clowance in the County of Cornwall Baronet of the one part and The Principal Officers & Commissioners of His Majesty’s Navy (for & on behalf of His said Majesty his Heirs & Successors) of the other part’. An agreement by the Navy representatives to pay the sum of £534 4s 6d to St Aubyn, for ‘All those several pieces and parcels or Slips of Ground heretofore part of the Baston or Farm of Mount Wise within & parcel or reputed parcel of the Manor of Stoke Damarel in the County of Devon being in the whole by Estimation 65 a[cres] 2 r[oods] 23 p[erches] or thereabouts and for several years last past converted to the Use of a Dock Yard & Storehouse for Naval Stores as the same lye on the east side of the River or Channel of Hamoaze’.