INTRODUCTION
XV
can nuns then living at Abbey House, which convent, in May, 1808,
removed to their present abode at Taunton . The Register shows how common the punishment of hanging was towards the close of the eighteenth century . At p. 187 are given the names of ten Catholics, most them , from their name, Irishmen , who were hanged at Block House Point . " This was in 1787, and the following year is recorded the execution of two other Catholics , one of whom is declared in the Register to have been the victim of false testimony , and as an innocent man was buried in the cemetery of St James's. In the list of those interred in the Catholicburial ground his name appears with the note, Executed for a crime which he was not guilty of, but there must be some mistake in the date, as from the entry he would seem to have been buried two days before he was executed. Under the date of February 14, 1803, there is an entry of the burial at St James's of a negress called Mary. Of her it is said that after she had served her master faithfully for more than forty years, and for fifteen had set an illustrious example of every virtue to the Catholics " of Winchester, she died and was thus buried . A fervent hope is expressed that she may have had her purgatory in this world , but whether this is meant to be a reflection on the temper of her master or not does not appear. Enough and more than enough has been said to indicate the interesting and valuable contents of this first volume issued by the Catholic Record Society. If its future publications only maintain the high standard reached by this , the Society will have deserved the thanks of Catholics generally , and of the historians and genealogists in particular. The promise could hardly have been greater; and it remains for Catholics who are proud of the sufferings and trials of their forefathers for the sake of religion and in vindication of the rights of conscience , to give the new Society their best wishes and, what is more important, their cordial support .
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F. A. GASQUET.