The _poor_ of this town must have sustained a most serious loss by the expulsion of the monks and friars and the sequestration of their revenues; which deprived them of their best friends, at whose houses they were entertained, not only with moral and religious instruction, but also with food for their bodies. For it is well known that the monasteries and convents were eminent for their hospitality, and furnished the poor with their chief support in those days. The _friars_ also were very remarkable for the attention which they paid the poor and the rest of the common people, over whom they maintained no small influence, even in seasons of public commotion, distraction and anarchy. It is no wonder therefore that those of the lower orders long regretted their disappearance, and had songs composed to celebrate the superior felicity of the times when the country was honoured with their residence. {684a} We know of but _two_ periods at which Lynn appears to have materially suffered from the circumstance of unoccupied or _empty houses_. One of those periods is the present, when the number of such houses amounts to some scores, owing to the extreme pressure of burdens brought upon the inhabitants by the inexcusable misdoings of some of their own townsmen. {684b} The other period was at the reformation, or after the dissolution of the monasteries, when all the convents in this town with many chapels and other religious houses were shut up, and afterwards demolished; so that the people, for the most part, were left without places where they might attend public worship and receive religious instruction; which must have proved very unfavourable to the public morals, from its obvious and powerful tendency to deprave and barbarize those who were so situated. Previously to the actual dissolution of the monasteries, &c. a formal surrender and resignation, and also a _confession_, generally took place. This was solemnly declared to have been done voluntarily, though the contrary was well known to have been the fact. These deeds of surrender are still in being, with some also of the confessions; but most of them are said to have been destroyed in Mary’s reign: it being then, probably, in contemplation, if circumstances would admit, to restore those places to their former occupants.—The instruments or deeds of surrender from Lynn are supposed to be still extant in the Augmentation Office. But as the present writer has not seen them, he can only guess what their tenor was from such as have fallen in his way, which he has met in Burnet’s History of the Reformation, and Martin’s History of Thetford.