JOHN GALAS. 
403 
ance, was reniavlcably agile, and possessed uncommon strength ; he 
could with the greatest ease spring from the ground into a chair of 
ordinary height. He was rather of a morose temper, and extremely 
vain of himself, and, while discoursing in broken English, was ex- 
tremely (as he imagined) dignified. He continued in England but 
one season, and, through the help of a good benefit, returned to his 
native country with his pockets better furnished than when he left it. 
John Galas. 
This was a most unfortunate French Protestant at Thoulouse, 
inhumanly butchered under form of law, cruelly sacrificed to gratify 
the sanguine impulse of ignorant Popish zeal. He had lived forty 
years at Thoulouse. His wife was an English woman of French 
extraction ; they had five sons, one of them, Lewis, had turned Catho- 
lic, through the persuasion of a Catholic maid, who had lived thirty 
years in the family. In October, 1761, the family consisted of Galas 
his wife, Mark Anthony their son, Peter their second son, and this 
maid. Anthony was educated for the bar, but, being of a melan- 
colly turn, was continually dwelling on passages from authors on the 
subject of suicide, and one night in that month hanged himself on a 
bar laid across two folding doors in their shop. The crowd collected, 
from the confusion of the house on so shocking a discovery, took 
it into their heads that he had been strangled by the family to pre- 
vent his changing his religion, and that this was a common practice 
among Protestants. 
The officers of justice adopted the popular tale, and were supplied 
by the mob with what they accepted as evidence of the fact. The 
fraternity of White Penitents got the body, buried it with great cere- 
mony, and performed a solemn service for him as a martyr; the 
Franciscans did the same ; and after these formalities no one doubted 
the guilt of the devoted heretical family. They were all condemned 
to the torture, to bring them to a confession ; they appealed to the 
parliament, who, as weak and as wicked as the subordinate magis- 
trates, sentenced the father to the torture, ordinary and extraordinary, 
to be broken upon the wheel, and then to be burnt to ashes. A dia- 
bolical decree ! which, to the disgrace of humanity, was actually 
carried into execution. Peter Galas, the other son, was banished for 
life ; and the rest were acquitted. The distracted widow found some 
friends; among the rest M. Voltaire, who laid her case before the 
oouricil of state at Versailles, and the parliament of Thoulouse were 
ordered to transmit the proceedings. These the king and council 
unanimously agreed to annul : the capetoul, or chief magistrate, of 
Toulouse was degraded and fined ; old Galas was declared to have 
been innocent; and every imputation of guijt was removed from the 
family, who also received from the king and clergy considerable 
gratuities. 
Pltlr Willi abison. 
This person was born at a village a few miles from Aberdeen, in 
Scotland. He afterwards w'as sent to reside with an aunt at Aberdeen. 
