Dear Firth, Please pay to the shareholders of the following joint-stock companies dividends as follows:

The Loomworks of Holyfen Village, £1/share

The Society of Adventurers of the Collier Ezekiel, £1/share

The Company of the Unknown Endeavour, £2/share

The Friends of the Tobacconists, 25p/share

The Association of the Great Triangle, 75p/share

The Anglia Rediviva Company, 50p/share

for an aggregate disbursement of £200 75p.

Please pay also to Mr Henry Yale, printer, the sum of £20, please receipt as "for the cost of printing the issue of Anglia Rediviva with the date of July 28 1642."

Please also dispatch to me, Beacon Manor, Ivinghoe, Bucks, the sum of £100, in gold, preferably in guilders but reals will do.

Please pay to Sir George Holyfen, Holyfen, Huntingdonshire, his monthly stipend of £11 and not one penny more.

And please create for me a new account, called The Friends of the Regiment of Greencoats; please seed it with £2000. You'll be receiving soon bills from Mr Lear, the Armaments man, for pikes and muskets; please pay from this account after scrutinizing the bills carefully.

I have, by the way, sent your boy on some important business for the company to Portsmouth and am confident his work will as always be commendable provided he minds himself.

Your brother in Christ,

Sydney Holyfen, Beacon Manor, Ivinghoe, Buckinghamshire

To: Mr Robert Firth, Goldsmith, Lombard Street, London