what is with the F's (or what appears to be the letter F) that are replaced with S's?
It was an old style of writing in the Latin alphabet used in Europe. The letter S had two forms, one familiar (s) and one which looked similar to a lower-case f. The long s (f) was used mostly in the middle of words, but sometimes in the beginning, too. The normal (to us) s was used at the end of words. Gradually this changed at the end of the 18th century and disappeared in the beginnning of the 19th. In earlier times there were other such letters, for example the letters v and u were interchangeable, its use depended upon the position in a word. Same thing with j and i and y; those three symbols were just one letter. However, the long s (f) disappeared, unlike those other ones which became independent letters.
So, it it true? How would one find out?
This explanation would seem incomplete. By the same token, France and Spain should have become major centers of Christian Hebrew scholarship after the Jews were expelled from those countries. If it is true that "immenfe ftores of Hebrew manufcripts" suddenly became available to the English "ecclefiaftics," this event must have been accompanied by some special interest in the subject matter on their part.
Of course it's incomplete. However, it would seem undoubtedly true that the many medieval Hebrew manuscripts which were from prior to the expulsion were utilized by Christian Hebraists in England. Furthermore, some of the earliest Hebraists were English, like Roger Bacon. Of course, he died only a couple of years after the expulsion and his Hebrew scholarship obviously did not begin at the end of his life or had anything to do with confiscated manuscripts.
As for France and Spain, of course there was a certain amount of Hebrew scholarship in both those countries. For that matter, Germany also expelled its Jews.
In any case, I think the point of this little excerpt is that great stores of Hebrew manuscripts wound up in British libraries and were there for the perusal when Brits got involved in Hebrew studies, as they did in great numbers in the 16th century.
The Puritans, who broke off for religious reasons and left England for America, were intensively interested in Hebrew. They often had Hebrew names, they studied Hebrew in order to understand the Bible better, and so on. So they ecclesiastics who inherited these Hebrew manuscripts and books may have been Puritans as well - i.e. people who were interested in hebrew beforehand.
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