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Designd & Engravd for the Political Register

Admiral Rodney before Cartagena

I with thirteen Lail attended
Can this Spanish town affright;
Nothing has its wealth defended.
But my Orders Not to Fight

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Hofier's Ghost.

Political Register,

AND

LIST

O F

NEW PUBLICATIONS,

For M,DCC,LXXII.

VOLUME THE TENTH.

LONDON:

Printed for HENRY BEEVOR, in Little-Britain.
1772.

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THE.

POLITICAL REGISTER.

For JANUARY, 1772.

NUMBER LIX.

To the Printer of the POLITICAL REGISTER.

SIR,

THE

HE Jews having been detected from time to time as the chief receivers of ftolen goods, and therefore juftly prefumed to be encouragers of our lower people to fuch acts of felony; having alfo been lately charged with and fufpected of many burglaries; and fome of them convicted of the fame; and as by thefe mifdeeds they are become a fort of topic of common converfation; I judged it not amifs to inform here your Readers of their History in England, by which no difparagement to them is meant, many honeft, worthy men being found among them, but only to give an idea of the genius and difpofitions of that people, as it ap pears from Hiftorical Evidence.

WE do not read any thing worth mentioning concerning the Jews in England, till the time of King John; except that they were invited into this kingdom by William the Conqueror, and came hither from Rouen in Normandy. So early as the reign of King Stephen, in 1145, they were accused of erucifying a young Chriftian, in contempt of Chrift and bis religion, and were accordingly punished for it. They were again profecuted for the fame atrocious fact at Gloucefter, in the reign of Henry II. 1160; and for a third committed at St. Edmondsbury, in 1181. More of fuch perfecutions may have happened in other places, which Pol. Reg. Vol. X.

B

Matthew

Matthew Paris has not mentioned; and thefe he has accompanied with fome circumftances, which we fhall pass by unnoticed, becaufe more frequent inftances of them occur in the following centuries, than the generality will be inclined to believe; though we shall be obliged to mention the most remarkable of them, as they were always, if not the true caufe, yet at leaft the pretence and forerunners of the most fevere punishments inflicted on that unhappy nation.

We pass on therefore to King John, whofe reign was fo troubled with inteftine feuds, that he was forced to maintain himself by the hardest exactions; the heaviest of which fell of courfe on the Jews in his dominions, whom he caused to be imprifoned, and put to moft violent tortures, when they refused to pay such taxes as he laid on them; and at length, we are told, he confifcated all their effects, and banished them by a public edict. Matthew Paris mentions a taxation on a Jew at Bristol, of whom the king demanded ten thoufand marks; and who fuffered his flesh to be torn off his bones, and seven of his teeth to be drawn out, one each day, till he complied; but paid the fum, rather than lose the eighth.

The Jews did not fare much better under the long reign of Henry III. during which many of them chose to turn Chriftians, to avoid the feverity of his government; but, being afterwards detected, were juftly punished for their diffimulation. This did not difcourage that Prince from endeavouring their converfion; to promote which the more effectually, he caufed a feminary to be founded for the maintenance of Jewish converts, and where they might live without labour or ufury; which foon induced great numbers of them to come into it and that houfes we are told, fubfifted a confiderable time,

The Jews of Norwich were fome time after accused of having ftolen a Chriftian child, and of having kept him one year, in order to circumcife and crucify him on the ensuing paflover; but the fact being timely detected, they underwent a due punishment. They are charged by Matthew Paris, with having repeated the fame crime three times in that city, with very little variation of circumftances. On the first, they were brought to the King's Court at Westminster, and there confeffed the fact; for which they were only confined, and their lives left at the king's difpofal. The fame accufation was laid against them the following year; and four of the wealthieft of them were hanged, and their effects confifcated. Laftly, they were accufed of the fame fact be

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