From Areopagitica: a speech for the liberty of unlicensed printing. To the Parliament of England via
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/44733/44733-0.txt
I have seen and heard in other countries, where this kind of
inquisition tyrannizes; when I have sat among their learned
men, (for that honour I had,) and been counted happy to be
born in such a place of philosophic freedom, as they supposed
England was, while themselves did nothing but bemoan the
servile condition into which learning amongst them was
brought; that this was it which had damped the glory of
Italian wits; that nothing had been there written now these
many years but flattery and fustian. There it was that I found
and visited the famous Galileo, grown old, a prisoner to the
Inquisition, for thinking in astronomy otherwise than the
Franciscan and Dominican licensers thought. And though I knew
that England then was groaning loudest under the prelatical
yoke, nevertheless I took it as a pledge of future happiness,
that other nations were so persuaded of her liberty.
