Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 37.djvu/448

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the Society of Antiquaries, 11 Jan. 1781, on their Removal to Somerset House,’ 1781. He also contributed numerous papers to the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ and the ‘Archæologia.’

Milles's library was sold by Leigh Sotheby on 10 April 1843 and four following days, when several of his manuscripts were acquired for the British Museum (cf. Bibl. Corn. and Boase, Collectanea Cornub.) Milles was the medium, on 9 May 1766, of the presentation of Pococke's Irish collections to the British Museum. His ‘Topographical Notes on Bath, Wells,’ &c. were printed from the original manuscript by J. G. Bell in 1851, in a series of tracts on British topography. In early life he made large collections for a history of Devonshire, and for illustrating the Domesday survey and the Danish coinage. Letters to and from him are in Nichols's ‘Literary Anecdotes,’ iii. 295, vi. 297–9, viii. 10, and in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ 1823, pt. ii. pp. 327–8; he is frequently mentioned with keen dislike in Walpole's ‘Correspondence,’ and he was lashed, with his brother antiquaries, by Foote in the comedy of the ‘Nabob.’

A bust portrait of him, life size, with face seen in three quarters, is in the possession of the Society of Antiquaries. It was copied by Miss Black, by direction of the Earl of Leicester, from the original belonging to the family. A comical sketch by George Steevens of his wig is in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ 1782, p. 288.

[Gent. Mag. 1745 p. 276, 1784 pt. i. pp. 153, 234, 1786 pt. i. p. 480, 1823 pt. i. pp. 516–17; Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Fowler's Corpus Christi Coll. (Oxford Hist. Soc.), pp. 282–3; Scharf's Cat. of Pictures of Soc. of Antiquaries, p. 41; Polwhele's Biog. Sketches, ii. 6–13; Le Neve's Fasti, i. 388, 413, 429, 431; Cotton's Fasti Eccl. Hib. i. 23, 56; Boase and Courtney's Bibl. Cornub. vols. i. and iii.; Hasted's Kent, iii. 410; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. ii. 657, iv. 471–3, v. 334, vi. 620–626; Nichols's Illustr. of Lit. i. 707–8, vii. 460; Oliver's Bishops of Exeter, pp. 263–4; Manning and Bray's Surrey, ii. 261–4; Biog. of Bishop Richard Pococke in Tours in Scotland (Scottish Hist. Soc.), pp. xxxvi, lx–lxvi; information from Mr. Arthur Burch, Diocesan Registry, Exeter.]

W. P. C.

MILLES, THOMAS (d. 1627?), customer of Sandwich, son of Richard Milles of Ashford, by his first wife Joan, daughter of Thomas Glover of Ashford, and sister of Robert Glover, Somerset herald, was born in Kent about 1550. Educated at a 'free school' (Customers Alphabet, MS. Bodl. 913, manuscript note by Milles), he entered the public service about 1570, and during the next sixteen years he was frequently employed in France, Flanders, and Scotland. He is said to have received a chapeau winged as an augmentation to his armorial bearings for his 'great fidelity and incredible celerity 'on a mission to Henry IV of France (Noble, College of Arms, p. 181). In 1579 he was appointed bailiff of Sandwich. He was employed by Walsingham as an agent between England and Scotland in 1585, and in the following year he accompanied Randolph to Edinburgh, where he rendered great service during the negotiations on the treaty of Berwick. On the conclusion of the treaty, 'desirous to betake himself to some staid course of life,' he obtained the lucrative post of customer of Sandwich. This position gave him great facilities for the interception of foreign agents and correspondence, and the government employed him in unravelling the numerous plots of the period. In 1591 he was recommended to be sent to Brittany to view and report on the forces there, and after the expedition to Cadiz (1596) he was appointed a prize commissioner at Plymouth. In 1598 he acted as secretary to Lord Cobham, lord warden of the Cinque ports, and in the same year (15 June) he obtained, in reversion after Sir Ralph Bourchier, the keepership of Rochester Castle. On the death of George Gilpin in 1602 he applied, without success, for the post of councillor to the council of estate in the Low Countries. He devoted the rest of his life to the defence of the staple system. On his resignation in 1623 of the post of bailiff of Sandwich, he was succeeded (10 July) by John Philipot. His will was proved in 1627.

Milles married, about 1614, Anne, daughter of John Polhill of Otford, Kent, and widow of William Nutt of Canterbury, counsellor-at-law, by whom he had two daughters: Anne, born in 1615; and a daughter born in 1618, who died young. His wife died in 1624 at Davington Hall, and was buried by the side of her younger daughter in St. George's Church, Canterbury, where a monument was erected to her memory. His daughter Anne inherited Norton, purchased by him in the reign of Elizabeth, and Davington, purchased early in the reign of James I, and married in 1627 John Milles, afterwards knighted.

Milles's economical works show the relation of the doctrines of the mercantilist writers to those of the later canonists. An uncompromising advocate of the staple system on the ground that, while it made possible exchange without usury, it was favourable to freedom of enterprise and the development of commerce, he denounced the usurious practices of the new school, and argued that