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XXV 111 SOME NOTICE OF TI1K
communicated to his friend the Rev. H. F. Ellacombe,
rector of Clyst St George, Topsham, Devonshire, tlmt a
German gentleman living in the Duchy of Baden, on the
north side of the same lake, the ancient Suabia, had in his
possession some ancient rolls of the King's Bench of Ireland,
of the reign of Edward III. On receiving this information
from Mr. Ellacombe, Mr. Ferguson at once wrote to the
Lord Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench, and to the Lords
of the Treasury, and as both turned a deaf car to his sugges-
tions, Mr. Ferguson, small as were his means, travelled at
his own cost to Mr. Pearsall at the Lake of Constance, and
accompanied him to the possessor of the records.
This was Joseph von Lassberg, a German antiquary,
dwelling in the old moated Suabian Castle of Meersburgh, 1
who had in 1851 purchased these records of a Jew at Frank-
fort. The old gentleman's cupidity was at once roused, by
the fact of an officer of the Courts (employed by the
Government as he supposed) travelling from Ireland thither
to purchase them ; and he asked such an inordinate price,
so much beyond Ferguson's small means, that Ferguson was
in despair, and with characteristic devotion as he could not
get them, he actually sat up all night making abstracts of
them.
Recovers some But in the morning von Lassberg finding that Ferguson
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