The love of _tippling_ appears to have been then in Lynn one of the greatest obstacles to the reformation of the people. The town was full of petty pot-houses, a great many of which were private and unlicensed. Even as late as 1657 we find no less than 40 or 50 of these private and unlawful places of resort heavily fined by the magistrates. This was, at the time, complained of, as a grievous oppression, and is so still represented in some of the existing MS. accounts of that period; which shews how unwilling the people were to forsake their immoralities, tho’ their rulers obliged them to do so outwardly. The restoration followed soon after, and we need not wonder that the profaneness and profligacy, then introduced and _restored_, proved highly acceptable and pleasing to the majority of the Lynn people, who now found themselves pretty well freed from most of the former troublesome checks upon immorality and licentiousness. Of the persevering exertions of our magistrates, during this period, to check the prevailing propensity of the lower orders to tippling, profane swearing, and the like irregularities, many instances occur in our old records. Of several of those instances, in 1644, some notice has been taken already. Others are recorded as having occurred in 1645, {775} but a far greater number in the following year, (1646,) {776} which seems to indicate the uncommon zeal and vigilance of the then chief magistrate, or chief magistrates, for they seem to have occurred partly in the mayoralty of _Edward Robinson_, and partly (but chiefly) in that of _Thomas Toll_, one of the members for the town, who appears to have stood high here then in the public estimation. In some of the succeeding years the attention of our magistrates appears to have been no less engaged in these corrective measures. 1651 was one of those years. _Bartholemew Wormell_ was then mayor; at least for the first nine months of it; and he seems to have trod pretty much in the steps of his brother _Toll_. The offences that came under his cognisance seem to have exceeded in number rather than fallen short of those committed during the mayoralty of the latter. They were of various sorts; such as _swearing_, _tippling_, _excessive drinking_, _keeping unlicensed alehouses_, _travelling on the Lord’s day_, _&c._ By the distance between one and another of the years of remarkable delinquency and coercion, it would seem that the irregularities were checked for a time, but would afterwards break out afresh, with increasing force, like water pent up, or impeded in its course by a dam. At the distance of five or six years the vigorous interference of the magistrates appears always to have become necessary. 1645, 1651, and 1657, were the most remarkable years for the interposition of the municipal power to correct the existing abuses.