[812] It is somewhat remarkable that our present members are descended from those two gentlemen who represented the town so long ago. One of the Walpoles has represented it almost ever since, and a moiety of the representation of Lynn is now considered as almost hereditary in that family. One of our present members is generally on the right and the other on the wrong side in the House: for they are mostly on opposite sides.
[820] A late friend of the present writer assured him that he was once servant to her grandfather, who, if he rightly recollects, was a baker at Downham. His enormous vanity, after he grew rich, caused people often to advert to the meanness of his origin.
[826] The author has a Norwich farthing of 1667, which it a year earlier than any of those of Lynn that have fallen in his way. Very few of these tokens appeared before the restoration. They became then very common for ten years or more.
[832a] 1673 according to our reckoning.
[832b] What follows is somewhat abridged occasionally.
[834] The above trial cost the people of South Lynn 42l. 1s. 1d.—The following are some of the items of their bill of costs—“For six horses hire to Thetford 1l. 16s.—Expences in our way out and home 6s. 6d.—Six men’s diet and horse meat at Thetford, 1l. 11s. 5d.”—A bill of costs or expences on a similar occasion at present, would make a very different appearance.—We cannot dismiss this subject without suggesting a wish, that this had been the very last foolish and disgraceful lawsuit that our corporation have been engaged in.
[837] Of this affair Burnet speaks as follows—
“A bill of indictment was presented to the Grand Jury against Lord Shaftsbury. The Jury was composed of many of the chief citizens of London. The Witnesses were examined in open Court, contrary to the usual custom: they swore many incredible things against him, mixed with other things that looked very like his extravagant way of talking. The draught of the Association was also brought as a proof of his treason, though it was not laid in the indictment, and was proved only by one witness. The Jury returned Ignoramus upon the bill. Upon this the Court did declaim with open mouth against these juries; in which they said the spirit of the party did appear, since men even upon oath shewed they were resolved to find bills true or ignoramus as they pleased, without regarding the evidence. And upon this a new set of addresses went round the kingdom, in which they expressed their abhorrence of that association found in Lord Shaftsbury’s cabinet; and complained that justice was denied the king: which were set off with all the fulsome rhetoric that the penners could varnish them with.” H. O. T. 2. 153
[838] See Burnet H. O. T. 2. 535.
[840] From the preceding extracts it appears that the corporation affected or pretended to have surrendered their old charters voluntarily, or as their own free and spontaneous act and deed: hence they speak of having done it with one assent and content—freely surrendering—as the act and deed of the mayor and burgesses, &c. Whereas it was all the effect of constraint, or imperious and unavoidable necessity. The same was the case with the monks and friers at the reformation, previously to the dissolution of the monasteries: they all solemnly declared, in their instruments of surrender, that they acted freely and without compulsion, though the contrary was well known to have been invariably the fact. Thus it is very clear that the surrendering of the charters as well as of the convents was a scene of hypocrisy and falshood.