Thus were these two unfortunate widows, whose only misfortune was either the poverty of their circumstances, the deformity of their persons, or the weakness of their understandings, sacrificed to the superstition of the age, the insufficiency of the evidence, and the ignorance and credulity of the jury. Possibly it may be admitted, as some extenuation of the absurdity of this prosecution, to remember that it was undertaken in an age in which the notion of witchcraft was generally received; _that_ not only among the illiterate and vulgar, but even amongst those who were in the highest estimation for rank, piety, and learning. It was in consequence of this ridiculous notion that one Matthew Hopkins, of Manningtree, in Essex, together with some others, were commissioned by Parliament in 1664, and the two following years, to perform a circuit, in order to discover witches. By virtue of this commission they went from town to town through many parts of Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, and Huntingdonshire, for the purpose of detecting them; and caused sixteen to be hanged at Yarmouth, forty at Bury, and also as many more in different parts of the country as amounted in the whole to nearly one hundred persons. It is to this absurd commission that Butler alludes in Hudebras, when he says: Hath not this present Parliament A ledger to the devil sent, Fully empow’d to treat about, Finding revolted witches out? And has he not within a year Hang’d three score of them in a shire? This Hopkins used to call himself Witchfinder General, and had twenty shillings allowed him for every town he visited. He used many arts to extort confession from suspected persons, and when they failed he had recourse to swimming them; which was done by tying their thumbs and toes across one another, and then throwing them into the water. Thus he went on searching and swimming the poor creatures, till some gentleman, out of indignation at the barbarity of it, took him and tied his own thumbs and toes as he used to tie others, and when he was put into the water he himself swam as others had done before him. This method soon cleared the country of him, and it was a great pity the experiment was not thought of sooner. Returning from the digression it may be noted that another religious sect which appeared in Lowestoft is the Methodists. The society first made its appearance here in the year 1761; and was introduced by that great leader of the sect, the Rev. John Wesley, and has continued. In the year 1776 their number was increased to about fifty; they purchased a piece of ground on the north side of Frary lane, and soon after erected a meeting house there, which was opened on the 19th November, 1776, by Mr. John Wesley, who came to Lowestoft for that purpose. SECTION IX. MILITARY AND NAVAL AFFAIRS.