Note 60 — Chapter IV

There is a remarkable absence of information in Sir Joseph Williamson’s papers of this date, preserved in the Record Office. Several letters, written at this time by the informer Bowen, of Yarmouth, upon local matters, contain no allusion to the Nonconformists there. The Histories of Nonconformists silently bear witness to this fact. Neal, Crosby, and Sewel, under these years, say little or nothing of persecution. It must not, however, be inferred that it was then unknown, for it is stated in the Church Book of Guildhall-street Chapel, Canterbury, that Mr. Durant, the pastor, and some of his congregation, in 1679, “fled for refuge to Holland, and some forsook the Church and fell off—Timpson’s Church Hist. of Kent, 307.