The sea escape of March 1688 is the best known, but it was not the only one. The files record others, smaller and quieter.
The spy's papers tell of a boy who «went by land with so little to live on, found a muleteer and joined him; the boy, not being used to work, did not get on with it, and went further inland, and he is in France! God has kept him, for he arrived safely without any money». Whoever was telling it did so with admiration.
Others thought of Flanders. One defendant intended to go there to collect more than six thousand pounds, and had written to «other Jewish Merchants» asking them to send him the money. Another, asked why he thought he had been arrested, said it was for trying to sail to Flanders, and denied it was an escape.
And some could only wait. A fourteen-year-old decided he would go and find his brothers in order to be a Jew, but, «because he was very young», he thought it better to wait until he was older. We do not know whether he ever left.
