FRANCIA, FRANCIS

FRANCIA, FRANCIS (b. 1675), English conspirator. He was the grandson of Domingo Rodrigues Isaac Francia, an ex-Marrano of Vila Real (Portugal) who arrived in London from Bordeaux in 1655 and became a leading member of the London community. Francis himself was born in Bordeaux and dealt in wine. He subsequently went to London where in 1717 he was tried on a charge of treasonable correspondence with adherents of the exiled Old Pretender James. Despite the weighty evidence against him, he was acquitted. He then apparently became a government agent and betrayed his former associates. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Lipton, in: JHSET, 11 (1928), 190–205; L. Wolf, Jews in the Canary Islands (1926), 198–213; Roth, Mag Bibl, 248f. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Katz, England, 215–17. (Cecil Roth)