ANCESTORS OF THE AUTHOR.

9

Very shortly after my grandfather had completed hisplans for the improvement of the alum works, the supply ofalum suddenly failed; and to such an unprecedented extent,that for several subsequent yeafs, the produce was scarcely atithe of the rent which he regularly paid to the government.The term of the lease was approaching to its close, when analmost unlooked-for and very great increase in the produceof the mines promised to repay my grandfather for his greatoutlay and long-continued losses. It now became a matterof the utmost importance for him to obtain a renewal of thelease. Sealed offers for a new lease were to be made to thesecretary of state for the finance department. My grand-father delivered his tender, by which he proposed to pay anadditional rent of several thousand crowns.

Monsignor Bancliieri, then treasurer of Home, was relatedto our family, but for some private understanding, hedetermined to favour the views of the Marquis Lepri, like-wise our relation, and a secret candidate for the occupationof these mines. The minister and Lepri, corruptly concertedthe means of insuring the acceptance of the proposals ofthe latter.

The tenders were to be delivered sealed into the officeof the treasurer, previously to being submitted to the inspec-tion of the committee of ministers, aggregately called theCamera , or Chamber. Monsignor Banchieri, whoseadministration was one scene of injustice, fraud, andoppression, through the medium of his private secretary,who ultimately bore testimony against him, procured aseal to be engraved, in imitation of that of my grandfather.He then privately and feloniously opened his letter oftender, and thereby becoming acquainted with his proposal,inserted a somewhat higher offer in the tender of theMarquis Lepri, for which purpose a blank space had beenleft on the paper. By this fraud, the minister gained his