AND ITS SURROUNDINGS. 77 



till the Act of Uniformity ejected him. He then rented 

 an estate at Batson, in the parish of Malborough. There 

 he stayed five years, and preached in his own house, as 

 long as he was permitted, to great numbers who flocked 

 to hear him, and when his house would not receive them, 

 in his orchard; * * * but one Beer, or Bear, (who 

 had been for some time the head of the informers, and 

 now, for his good service in disturbing conventicles, was 

 advanced to the degree of a justice of the peace), together 

 with another justice, and a crew of informers, who were 

 at their beck, occasioned him much trouble and vexation, 

 unhung his doors, rifled his house, seized and carried away 

 his goods, ripped off the locks of his barn doors, and put 

 others on, and obliged his wife and children to seek 

 shelter among the neighbours. He was also heavily fined. 

 He removed from Batson to Hicks Down, near Bigbury, 

 and finally back to Dartmouth, where he died, August 

 21st, 1693, in the sixty-seventh year of his age." 



* ; The Rev. Edmund Tucker, of Trinity College, Cam- 

 bridge, was born at Milton Abbot, near Tavistock, in 1627. 

 His father had a good estate. He was first settled at 

 Dittisham, and was a man of good natural abilities. He 

 succeeded Mr. Hicks at Kingsbridge, where, for his non- 

 conformity, he suffered much from the barbarity of Justice 

 Beare and his informers, who seized all his household 

 goods, his bed, and even his children's wearing apparel. 

 He died July 5 th, 1702, in the seventy-fifth year of his 

 age, and was succeeded at Kingsbridge by the Rev. John 

 Cox."* 



There is a pamphlet still in existence, which was printed 



* The foregoing accounts arc extracted from the "Nonconformists' 

 Memorial." 



