2I 5

sir CHRISTOPHER W R'E N, knt.

Thirdly, There will be in both Copies thus drawn, such an exact Likenessin th§ sime Number, and Order of Lines, and even of Words, Letters andStops, in all Places of both Copies; that being once sever’d, there thall hard-ly be discern’d any Difference between them, except such as is meerly casual,as Spots or Marks in the Parchment.

Fourthly, This Instrument will undoubtedly prevent the mischievous Craftof Corruption, Forgery and Counterfeiting of Hands and Seals, or if anysuch foul Practice be attempted, will effectually and manifestly discover it;for _!what will it avail to counterfeit a Seal, or the Hand that signs, unlessa Duplicate could be made in every Line, Letter and Dot,, like the twinCopy ? Which without the Help of the same Instrument is impossible : soexpedient might it be to all Intents and Uses of the State, in Matters of thegreatest Consequence, that publick Acts be written by this Instrument, forTestimony and Assurance to all Times.

. Three Years after he had brought this Invention to Maturity, it seems,other Persons at London, publickly pretended to be the Authors; whichoblig’U him to assert his Right to it, in a Letter to a certain Friend, who,among others, had been a Judge of the first Experiment. *

SIR,

H E Account you give me in your last Letter, that a Double-WritingInstrument hath of late been at Lortdon, pretended to by several, as aProduction of their own, and so divulged to divers, hath given me Occasionus putting into your Hands (what certainly I have more Right to disposeus, than any late Pretender) that Double-Writing-Instrument, of the Effect°f which, about three Years ago, yourself Sir, as I remember, among othershe Ingenioji were Judges, at the fame Time when accidentally it was com-manded to the View of the then great, now greatest -j- Person in the Na-hon. I confess my Thoughts were then to suffer it to be made publick,and Friends i'pur’d me to it, apprehending it not as a meer Curiosity,but of excellent and very general Use. Moreover, to copy out in every^ unctilio the exuct Rclcnrbluncc, or nitlier tlie very Identity of the two Co-pies, as if one should fancy such a Piece of Magick as ihould make thesistne Thing really two; or with drunken Eyes should fee the fame Thingtfuuble, is what might be thought almost impossible for the Hand of Man.^nt Business drew me suddenly from London, and from the Opportunity ofPublishing it; content that I had at least communicated it to the ingenious*' e w, I willingly left it: And indeed the Thing always appearing to me but°f obvious (tho’ useful) Invention, 1 was easily drawn off to neglect it all*bis while, by the intervening of Studies and Designs that I much moree fteem’d ; amongst which this took up so little a Place, that I am beholdingthe Person who, by vindicating it to be his own, has put me again inyjfid of it. I accuse none of Plagiary, because having shewn it to few, I* sink it would be more Trouble to any knowing Person, to enquire it out of°tliers } than to invent it anew ; and therefore had it been thought on byother, about that Time I stiew’d it, I should have readily imagin’d, (be-j^tsse of the Obviousness of the Experiment) that it might as easily havej! a si a double Father, as have product! a twin Copy: but I am apt to be-le Ve from good Information, that those who now boast of it, had it fromwho having sully seen the Author’s, and examin’d it carefully (as it isto carry away, being of no complicate Composure) deferib’d it justly0 his Friend, and assisted him in the making of it; and the very glorying

in

* Probably /®Dr. John Wel-kins.

•f OliverCromwell.