THE ARCANE SCHOOLS - Fort Myers Beach Masonic Lodge No. 362

other of the name of John Coustos published an account of the sufferings he
had undergone by the Roman Inquisition for the crime of Freemasonry, and
expressing his grateful thanks to the British Government for claiming his release
from his abominable torturers. Complaints of irregular meetings reappear in
1749, and again in 1752. In 1754-5 there are proceedings against the members
of a Lodge held at the Ben Johnson's Head in Spitalfields as "Ancient" Masons
and the Lodge was ordered to be erased; Dermott says that some of its members
had been abroad, where they received much favour from the fact of their
following the traditional rites of the "Ancients," and therefore they resolved to
practise "Ancient" Masonry every third Lodge night, to which meetings the
ordinary Craft Mason was not admitted. The matter was not mended by Brother
Spenser, who replied to a letter from an Irish petitioner for his relief that their
Grand Lodge was "neither Royal Arch nor Ancient," and Dermott prints his letter
in 1764. The progress of the "Ancients" has been attributed to the general
mismanagement of the affairs of Grand Lodge and to the absence from England
of Lord Byron the Grand Master, 1747-52, and a proposal was on foot to
supersede him in 1751, but Brother Thomas Manningham interposed so
judiciously that the proposal fell through, and he himself was promoted to the
office of Deputy {511} Grand Master in 1752; various Lectures and Sermons,
given between 1735-52, are printed by Oliver in his "Remains," and Brother
Thomas Dunckerley delivered a Lecture "On Masonic Truth and Charity" at
Plymouth in 1757.
A new edition of the "Book of Constitutions," edited by Brother John Entick, was
published in 1756. In 1757 a list of 14 irregular Masons meeting at the Marlboro's
Head in Pelham Street, Spitalfields, was ordered to be sent to each Lodge; and
Brother Henry Sadler points out that they were working independently of any
Grand Lodge. In 1760 J. Burd published a translation of
"Les Ordre des Franc Macons Trahi" under the title of "'A Master Key to
Freemasonry;" by which all the Secrets of the Society are laid open, and their
pretended Mysteries exposed to the Publick."