Here, on the
higher level, people were comparatively out of harm's way, but it is
impossible to imagine the distress and agony that there must have
been in other parts of the county not twenty miles from where we are
this evening.
After that dreadful year I think there was a change for the better,
but it must have been a long time before the county recovered from
the "agricultural distress;" and I strongly suspect that the cruel
and wicked persecution of the Jews, and the cancelling of all debts
due to them by the landlords and the farmers, was in some measure
owing to the general bankruptcy which the succession of bad seasons
had brought about. Men found themselves hopelessly insolvent, and
there was no other way of cancelling their obligations than by
getting rid of their creditors. So when the king announced that all
the Jews should be transported out of the realm, you may be sure that
there were very few Christians who were sorry for them. There had
been a time when the children of Israel had spoiled the Egyptians--
was it not fitting that another time should have come when the
children of Israel should themselves be spoiled?
The year of the great flood was the frequent talk, of course, of all
your forefathers who overlived it, and here in this neighbourhood it
must have acquired an additional interest from the fact that Bishop
Middleton died the year after it, and his brothers then parted with
their Rougham property.
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