One of these bits of local business related to a patent alleged to have been granted by the Crown to certain persons, authorising them to erect and maintain ballast wharfs in the various ports, and to make charges in respect of them.  This was resented by the members for the ports, and on Marvell’s motion the matter was referred to the Committee of Grievances, before whom the patentees were summoned.  When they came it appeared that the patent warranted none of the exactions that had been demanded, and also that the warrant sent down to Hull naming these charges was nothing more than a draft framed by the patentees themselves, and not authorised in any way.  The patent was at once suspended.  Marvell, like a true member of Parliament, wishes to get any little local credit that may be due for such prompt action, and writes:—­

“In this thing (although I count all things I can do for your service to be mere trifles, and not worth taking notice of in respect of what I owe you) I must do myself that right to let you know that I, and I alone, have had the happiness to do that little which hitherto is effected.”

The matter required delicate handling, for a reason Marvell gives:  “Because, if the King’s right in placing such impositions should be weakened, neither should he have power to make a grant of them to you.”

Another much longer business related to a lighthouse, which some outsiders were anxious to build in the Humber.  The corporation of Hull, acting on Marvell’s advice, had petitioned the Privy Council, and were asked by their business-like member “to send us up a dormant credit for an hundred pound, which we yet indeed have no use of, but if need be must have ready at hand to reward such as will not otherwise befriend your business.”  Some months later Marvell forwards an account, not of the L100, but of the legal expenses about the lighthouse.  He wishes it were less, but hopes that the “vigorous resistance” will discourage the designers from proceeding farther.  This it did not do.  As a member of the bar, I find two or three of the items in this old-world Bill of Costs interesting:—­

To Mr. Scroggs to attend the Council,        L3  6  0
"  "    "  again for the same,               3  6  0
Spent on Mr. Scroggs at dinner,                 18  0
To Mr. Scroggs again,                         3  0  0
Fees of the Council Table,                    1 10  0
Fee to Clerk of the Council,                  2  0  0
For dinner for Mr. Scroggs and wine after,    1  0  0
To Mr. Cresset (the Solicitor),              20  0  0
To Mr. Scroggs for a dinner,                  1  0  0

The barrister who was so frequently “refreshed” by Marvell lived to become “the infamous Lord Chief Justice Scroggs” of all school histories.

A week before the prorogation of Parliament, which happened on the 19th of May 1662, Marvell went to Holland and remained there for nine months, for he did not return until the very end of March 1663, more than a month after the reassembling of the House.