A good deal of Puritanism seems to have come into England by way of Yarmouth. In Queen Elizabeth’s time, 300 Flemings settled there, who had fled from Popery and Spain in their native land. In Norwich the Dutch Church remains to this day. Some of them seem to have been the friends and teachers of the far-famed, and I believe unjustly maligned, Robert Browne. In Norfolk the seed fell upon good soil. While sacerdotalism was more or less being developed in the State Church, the Norfolk men boldly protested against Papal abominations, as they deemed them, and swore to maintain the gospel of Geneva and Knox. One of the men imprisoned when Bancroft was Archbishop of Canterbury, for attending a conventicle, was Thomas Ladd, ‘a merchant of Yarmouth.’ The writ ran: ‘Because that, on the Sabbath days, after the sermons ended, sojourning in the house of Mr. Jachler, in Yarmouth, who was late preacher in Yarmouth, joined with him in repeating the substance and heads of the sermons that day made in the church, at which Thomas Ladd was usually present.’ In 1624 the penal laws for suppressing Separatists were strictly enforced in Yarmouth, and one of the teachers of a small society of Anabaptists was cast into prison, and the Bishop of Norwich wrote a letter of thanks to the bailiffs for their activity in this matter, which is preserved to this day. But, nevertheless, people still continued to worship God according to the dictates of conscience; we find the Earl of Dorset in his reply to the town of Yarmouth, as to the way in which the town should be governed, adds: ‘I should want in my care of you if I should not let you know that his Majesty is not only informed, but incensed against you for conniving at and tolerating a company of Brownists among you. I pray you remember there was no seam in the Saviour’s garment.’ Bridge was the founder of the Yarmouth Congregational Church, somewhere about the time of the commencement of the Civil War. The people declared for the Parliament. Colonel Goffe was one of its representatives in the House of Commons. All along, the town seems to have been puritanically inclined, and to have been in this matter more independent than neighbouring towns. At one time they were so tolerant that the Independents seem to have worshipped in one end of the church while the regular clergyman performed the service in the other; but that did not last long, and when the Independents had a place of worship of their own, they were not a little troubled by Friends and Papists claiming for themselves the liberty the Independents had sought and won. In 1655 the peace of the Church was disturbed by Quaker doctrines. It appears two females, members of the Church, had joined them, and refused to return. We read: ‘The messenger appointed to visit May Rouse, brought in an account of her disowning and despising the Church; she would not come at all unless she had a message from the