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 246 try; but if there be, it is certain they do not put them in execution. And what is to be admired amongst these bigoted people is, that they do not punish murderers, but will rather protect them. If any man is murdered, it is commonly near a church; the murderer runs there at once, and then it is sacrilege to lay hands on him. He is protected from the law and the party offended, and also maintained, and furnished with a friar's habit, the better to hide his villainy; and passports are provided from convent to convent, until he is in a safe place."

"The country," he says, "seems to be very fruitful, but there are not people to cultivate the lands. All along the sea-shore, where there is the best land, places are not settled, because the Moors very often make descents, and carry away with them all they can get; and they make slaves of the people which they catch."

John appears to have been a very observing young traveller, his journal containing minute descriptions of what he saw in Barcelona, Terragona, Majorca, and Minorca, which I have not thought it worth while to give in this volume.

"The latter end of November, 1712, we had orders to embark; and as we were leaving Barcelona, the poor Spaniards, seeing they were left in the lurch, they called us traitors, and all the most vile names they could invent; and the common people threw stones at us, saying we had betrayed them into the hands of King Philip. It was with a great deal of difficulty we embarked."

The troops remained some time in the islands of Majorca and Minorca, and returned to England in the year 1713, without ever having had any engagement with the enemy. John went from Bristol to London by the stage-coach, which