3. JOHN COUSTOS.--Mr. Coustos having escaped from the Inquisition, published the narrative of his sufferings, shortly after his return to England in 1744. From his account the following is abridged:-- “I am a native of Berne in Switzerland, and a lapidary. In 1716, my father came and settled in London; and after living twenty-two years in that city, I went to Paris, to work in the galleries of the Louvre. Five years after I removed to Lisbon, in hopes of going to Brazil, to make my fortune; but the king of Portugal being informed of the skill I might have in diamonds, refused my petition, as improper for a foreign lapidary to be allowed in a country abounding with immense treasures. “I got acquainted with several jewellers and other persons of credit in Lisbon, whose generous offers I accepted, having a prospect of supporting my family and of a competency, could I but have escaped the cruel inquisitors. They have assumed so formidable a power in Spain and Portugal, as to encroach on the privilege of kings, and stop, at the post-office, the letters of all whom they suspect. In this manner I was served a year before the inquisitors ordered me to be seized, in order to discover the secrets of freemasonry. They did not find that it struck at the Romish religion, or tended to disturb the government--still they concluded to seize one of the chief freemasons of Lisbon; and I was pitched upon as master of a lodge, and Mr. A. J. Mouton, a diamond cutter, born at Paris, and a Romanist. He had been six years at Lisbon, a housekeeper in the city, where his integrity gained him the approbation of all. “We did not know that our art was forbidden in Portugal, and we were discovered by the barbarous zeal of a lady at confession. The officers of the Inquisition engaged a jeweller, a familiar of the Holy Office, to send for Mr. Mouton on pretence of mending a diamond weighing four carats. This was a mere pretence to know the person of Mouton. I happened to be with him, which gave the jeweller the highest joy. He made his report to the inquisitors; and, two days after, Mr. Mouton went alone to fetch the diamond, computed to be worth a hundred moidores. This familiar had five subalterns of the Inquisition with him; and having led him into the back shop, they seized him as a prisoner in the king’s name. “Being sensible that he had not committed any crime, so as to incur his Portuguese majesty’s displeasure, he gave up his sword, when several familiars fell upon him, and declared that they arrested him in the name of the Inquisition. Forbidding him to murmur, they dragged him to a small chaise at the back-door, and conveyed him to prison in the Inquisition, and spread a report that he was gone off with the diamond. His friends, shocked at the slander, went and offered full payment to the jeweller, who declined the amount, pretending that the owner was very wealthy.