The poor hapless sufferer had probably fled to England and made choice of Lynn as a place of refuge from the persecution which then raged in his own country. He might be induced to take this step from the favourable reports he had heard at home of the generosity and hospitality of our nation towards strangers, and particularly the oppressed and friendless. If such was actually the case, he found himself at last miserably disappointed, and learnt by dear bought and bitter experience, that however abundant the liberality and tender mercies of England and of Lynn might be towards some descriptions of oppressed or distressed people, yet that they by no means extended to those called _heretics_:—an appellation which has too often meant no more than that those branded with it differed from the ruling or predominant party, and were consigned by them to the ill opinion and detestation of the public. The deplorable fate of this friendless stranger must stamp indelible disgrace on the memory of his brutal murderers? and it shews what little reason Lynn then had to congratulate itself on its change from popery to protestantism. We have no account what the dreadful heresy was, with which this unpitied victim to protestant bigotry and persecution was charged, and for which he suffered. Whatever it was, it could not be very dangerous or alarming; for as he was a foreigner there could be no danger of his disseminating it here among a people of whose language he can be supposed to have little or no knowledge. In short, every feeling heart must be shocked at the aggravated atrocity of this diabolical deed. It is sad and mortifying enough to think how much this town has been under the influence of religious bigotry and intolerance, and the most pitiful narrowmindedness almost ever since. The harmless _Quakers_ were here imprisoned and cruelly treated, and the _Baptists_ were harassed in the most unjust and shameful manner even after the revolution. Poor creatures, most wrongfully branded with the odious name of _witches_, were here also for no short period since the reformation, subjected to rigorous prosecutions and capital punishments. These facts are now just glanced at, but shall be more fully related hereafter in the course of the work.