Charles Varlo or Varley (c.1725–c.1795) was an English agriculturist. He held papers pertaining to the failed colony of New Albion. Life He was born in Yorkshire about 1725. He visited Ireland in his twenty-first year, spending some time with Edward Synge, bishop of Elphin. He was instrumental in the introduction there of the farming of flax. He is said to have received from the linen board a premium of £100 for the quality of flax raised under his management. In 1748 he would seem to have been farming on his own account in the county of Leitrim, and to have been also an early experimenter in turnip husbandry, then becoming prominent. Aged 26 he married, and began as a farmer and grazier in Ireland on a large scale. He introduced the Rotherham plough, patented in 1730, by Stanyforth & Foljambe of Rotherham. In 1760 the prohibition on the export of Irish cattle to England was removed. Varlo accordingly sold his land in Ireland, and brought his cattle over to England. The step was, however, very unpopular. Varlo's cattle were slaughtered by the mob in the streets of Dublin, and he himself had a very narrow escape. A small compensation was given to him by the government at the instance of the Duke of Bedford, then lord lieutenant, and he appears to have begun grazing in England, probably in Yorkshire. In 1764 he finished a machine that harrowed, sowed, and rolled at the same time, for which he received a premium from the Dublin Society. Another invention was a winnowing machine which he perfected in 1772. A third invention was ‘a machine for taking off friction.’ In 1784 he was living in Sloane Square. At this date occurred a strange incident. He had got possession of certain papers and charters purporting to have been granted by Charles I to Sir Edmund Plowden, and entitling him to colonise New Albion (i.e. New Jersey). This attempt at colonisation proved abortive, and in Charles II's reign the charter was superseded by a new grant to James, Duke of York. Armed with his papers (which were probably forgeries), Varlo went out to the American colonies (the independence of which had just been recognised by Britain), expecting apparently to be acknowledged as governor of the province of New Jersey and as lessee of one-third of the territory. The case was tried before the colonial courts, and