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THE UNIVERSITY
OF ILLINOIS
LIBRARY
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Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2012 with funding from
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
http://www.archive.org/details/earlyeighteenthcOOknit
Portrait of Queen Anne. Courtesy of Pennsylvania-German Society.
Early Eighteenth Century Palatine Emigration
A British Government Redemptioner Project to Manufacture Naval Stores
By Walter Allen Knittle, Ph.D
Department of History College of the City of New York
With a Foreword by Dixon Ryan Fox
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Dorrance & Company Philadelphia
Copyright 1937 Dorrance & Company, Inc.
Manufactured in the United States of America Cayuga Press — Ithaca, New York
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INTRODUCTION
Some forty years ago a country clergyman serving parishes in Schoharie and Saugerties developed an interest in their German backgrounds. There in upstate New York he found German names, German customs and remnants of German speech. The Reverend Sanford H. Cobb had a deep con- cern for backgrounds — witness his Rise of Religious Liberty in America — and he set about to write The Story of the Palatines, which he published in 1897. He made no great pretense to scholarship, as such would be esteemed today, and confined his reading, apparently, to accounts in the English language and, among these, to very little source material. As anyone might infer, his work was sketchy and superficial, however well intentioned, and yet, surprising as it may seem, it has remained from that day to this our only extended general narrative on the Palatine migration from the Rhine Valley through England to America.
In Mr. Cobb's day our colonial history, so far as it pro- ceeded from the universities, concerned itself largely with the slow manufacture of states. The techniques of the historical seminar had not been applied to population and except for some attention to the Dutch, there was comparatively little apprehension of the various stocks outside the English mak- ing up about a third of the nation which declared its inde- pendence in 1776. Had the Germans come earlier, had their records all been written in a language which most American historians readily understood, had they settled in New En- gland near those centers where for a long time most history was written or, particularly, had they founded a whole and separate colony, the story would have been different. Forty years ago, it is true, there were several accounts of one phase or another of the Palatine migration, but they were by
VI INTRODUCTION
Germans and in German, as though the Palatines and their descendants were merely Germans abroad, exiles from the Fatherland. But a century before that it should have been realized that they were as much Americans as those whose ancestors had come from Devonshire or Norfolk. Even their names were becoming naturalized : Werner had become Warner, Benker had become Banker, Schneider Snyder, Leyer Lawyer, etc., to say nothing of straight translations. Today only in Pennsylvania is there any considerable group of the German colonial stock which remains primarily German in speech and culture; most of the old German blood has been intermingled and most of the old culture has been thoroughly merged in what we call American culture. Where could one find more typical American careers than those suggested by the names of Wanamaker and Rockefeller?
Instead of this being a reason for neglecting the peculiarly German elements in our colonial life, it is a reason for study- ing them with increasing thoroughness. If the culture which they represented has lost its clear identity, if it is hidden in the general mass, its contribution has been more essential. If the Germans have become somewhat English in social habit, then the English have become somewhat German. All this is a factor in making the American temper what it is.
Dr. Knittle's book is significant not only as the first thorough study of the first large German immigration. It may possibly be contended that it is the first thorough study of colonial immigration of any kind. This is not to say that the general subject has been neglected; it has had almost constant attention. But much of it has had to be developed by ingenious inference, for in scarcely any case except that of the Palatines has there been at hand a full record of the motives, the process and the experience of the migration. The phrase "at hand" must not be understood, however, as meaning that the record had been accumulated and arranged. The accounts in the invaluable Documents relative to the Colonial History of the State
INTRODUCTION Vll
of New York, of course, have been accessible everywhere, and more recently Todd and Goebels edition of Christoph von Graf 'envied ' s Account of the Founding of New Bern and the British Calendar of State Papers Colonial; Pennsylvania Germans have dug out Rhineland background; and there have been frag- ments published here and there in historical magazines. These which had satisfied others were merely introductory exercises for Dr. Knittle's driving zeal. As will appear in his notes, he went over the German materials again, combed the manu- scripts in the Public Record Office, the British Museum and the private collections in the great houses of England, made his way through a maze of eighteenth-century periodicals and pamphlets, and visited Ireland to discover the remaining influence of Palatine settlement. No such thorough and inten- sive study had previously been made.
As this book is published American political sentiment is divided on the question of planned economy. Can the govern- ment determine what kind of production is desirable? If so, can it wisely organize and direct that production? Should the government produce its own materials? Is government enter- prise likely to face betrayal by the private interests of cooper- ating contractors? Can the government fuse its ancient func- tion of relief with such planned production? The Resettlement Administration, which is now attempting this fusion, may or may not be a success, may or may not be temporary. With all the variable factors involved, historical analogies are treach- erous and there is no desire to force them. But our situation makes especially interesting a study of planned production and charitable resettlement seen in long perspective.
Any writer is tempted to magnify the influence of his sub- ject and in no field has this been more prevalent than in that of the history of social groups. With a scholar's honesty Dr. Knittle has conquered this temptation; however much he may have increased our knowledge of the Palatine immigrants, he has steadfastly avoided extravagant claims for their
Vlll INTRODUCTION
influence. He has even challenged and reduced claims pre- viously thought to be established. For example, it has usually been stated that the Palatines' disgust for the treatment they had received in New York was an important factor in divert- ing subsequent German settlement from that province into Pennsylvania. By cool analysis the present author reveals how untenable is this thesis. He has been ready to throw out the dramatic and the picturesque when clouded with doubt or founded on error. He cites the "interesting legend" set forth by his predecessors which had it that the five Mohawk Indians taken by Peter Schuyler to London were so grieved at the plight of the Palatines, then encamped on Blackheath, that they gave the Schoharie Valley to the Queen on consider- ation that she would bestow it upon the emigrants; then he points out that the Palatines sailed from London before the Indians sailed from Boston, that four of the five Indians were not sachems and had no authority to grant Mohawk lands and that these lands were subsequently ceded at Albany to the province with no reference to the Palatines. Though eschew- ing partisanship he is quick to repel unwarranted aspersions on the group, and disposes of Archdeacon Cunningham's contention that the Palatines' success in Ireland was explained by the unnecessary favor of their subsidy by showing that the subsidy was necessary to establish them but that their in- dividual prosperity came chiefly from their frugality and competence. Three examples out of innumerable such cases may assure the reader that he is in the hands of an alert and thoughtful scholar.
The appendices listing about i2_,ooo names of Palatines who embarked from the homeland might strike some as of slight historical worth. But these lists, carefully compiled for the first time in the Public Record Office and elsewhere, are an event for genealogists. The baffling difficulty at the head of every family history in this country is to establish the exact date when the American progenitors reached these shores.
INTRODUCTION IX
Here is filled for the first time the gap in German immigration lists between that of the Pastorius settlement in 1683 and those covering the years 1717-1818 published recently by Strass- burger and Hinke for the Pennsylvania-German Society.
History is never written finally. New materials are ex- humed; new interpretations spring from new experience and new curiosities. But Dr. Knittle's Early Eighteenth Century Palatine Emigration is not likely to be superseded for many long years. It covers a stirring group adventure, a well-defined and significant experiment in political economy and a con- tribution to the making of a nation; it covers this complex enterprise with thoroughness and sympathy and presents its record with insight, force and clarity.
Dixon Ryan Fox
PREFACE
This monograph is written from the view-point of the British government. This attitude is not only proper be- cause the so-called "American" colonies were then British in name as well as in fact, but also because the Palatine emigra- tion was carried out under the auspices of the British govern- ment. Indeed, the British government itself engaged in the manufacture of naval stores, putting the Palatines to work at its own expense, consonant with the mercantilist aims of the times. The subject therefore may be described as remarkable because in dealing with the Palatines the British government exhibited in practice the mercantilist theories on immigration, naval stores and colonies.
This study would have been impossible without the aid and encouragement of many scholars. Acknowledgment in this brief space can be made only to a few of the many. Impor- tant suggestions and advice were given generously by President Dixon Ryan Fox of Union College, Professor Charles M. Andrews of Yale University, Professor Robert G. Albion of Princeton University, Mr. Victor H. Paltsits of the New York Public Library, Mr. Albert Cook Myers of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and Mr. Henry S. Borneman, Secre- tary of the Pennsylvania-German Society.
I am particularly indebted to Professor William Thomas Morgan of Indiana University, who gave me my first graduate training and who introduced me to my present subject. He has been my most active and interested contributor. To Professor W. T. Root of Iowa University I must express my thanks for an amicable division of this subject with which one of his graduate students was engaged. To Professor Edward P. Cheyney I am grateful for sponsoring this study before the faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Pennsyl-
Xll PREFACE
vania. Professor Henry R. Mueller of Muhlenberg College, whom I am so fortunate to count among my teachers, has given the manuscript the benefit of careful reading. Dr. Dixon Ryan Fox has not only extended to me the advantage of his editorial wisdom, but he has also written the introduction to this book. To him I am deeply grateful.
I must also express my appreciation of the great patience and many courtesies extended to me by the librarians of these institutions: the University of Pennsylvania Library; the Columbia University Library; Library of the College of the City of New York; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; the Holland Society of New York; the Huntington Library of San Marino, California; the Widener Library of Harvard University; the Yale University Library; the Library of Con- gress; the Pennsylvania State Library; the Moravian Library at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; the Morgan Library, New York City; the New York State Library; the English Public Record Office and the British Museum. I wish that I could acknowl- edge the many others who contributed, but the list would seem endless. To them I express my sincere appreciation.
I am also grateful for a grant-in-aid from the Oberlaender Trust Fund of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Dr. Wilbur K. Thomas, Director), which permitted me to conclude satis- factorily my research in Ireland and England. This organi- zation of American citizens also contributed toward the publication of this volume.
The errors, which I hope are few, are necessarily of my
own making. The interpretation must be attributed to me
only.
W. A. K.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Key to Footnote Citations xxi
Chapters.
I. The Causes of the Early "Palatine" Emigrations . i
A. The emigrations studied i
B. Area in Germany affected by the emigrations . i
C. Causes 2.
1. Devastation of war 3
2_. Severe winter of 1708 4
3 . Oppressive taxation 5
4. Religion and land hunger 6
5. Liberal advertising of British colonies . . 12.
6. Favorable attitude of British government . 2.2.
a. The aid given to foreign Protestants . 2.3
b. The naturalization act of 1709 ... 17 II. The Small Palatine Emigration of 1708 ... 31
A. Members of the band 32.
B. The trip down the Rhine River 33
C. Generous treatment in England 35
D. The settlement at Newburgh, New York . . 41
E. Financial difficulties of the colony .... 41 1. Kocherthal's connection with the 1709
emigration 43
III. The 1709 Palatine Emigration 47
A. The emigration toward England .... 47
1 . The preparations in Germany .... 47
2.. The journey down the Rhine River ... 47
3. Subsistence and transportation to England supplied by the British government . . 50
4. The attempts to halt the unexpectedly large migration 58
XIV
CONTENTS
B. The Palatines in England
i. The size of the immigration
z. The care of the Palatines in London
Condition of the Palatines
Relations of Palatines with English populace The difficulties of the government in re- lieving itself of the expense of the Pala- tines in London
a. Attempts to keep lists fail
b. Rio de la Plata proposal. .
c. Employment in Welsh mines .
d. Newfoundland fisheries proposal
e. The proposal to settle in western En gland (Marquis of Kent) . West Indies proposal .... Attempts to settle in England Proposal to settle in Scilly Islands Proposed settlement in Jamaica
Enlistments
The return of the Papists to Holland
C. Reasons for the absence of proposals from
William Penn
IV. The Palatine Settlements in Ireland and North
Carolina
A. Ireland
The invitation to send Palatines to Ireland The Commissioners for Settling the poor distressed Palatines in Ireland .... The government subsidies become objects
of speculation
The desertion of the settlements The attempts to make the settlement suc- cessful
a. Mr. Crockett's mission
b. Subsidies for twenty-one years
f
g h
)
i.
2..
3-
4- 5-
65
66
67 69
72. 74 74 75 75
75 75 75 76
77 78 78
80
82. 82. 82.
81
83 84
86 86 87
CONTENTS
XV
5'
6.
7-
6. The assimilation of the Palatines
B. North Carolina
i. Lords Proprietors' proposal . ■l. Michel and his Swiss emigrants .
3. Graffenried's opportunity
4. Voyage and settlement under adverse con
ditions
Political difficulties in North Carolina
The Indian Massacre
The financial difficulties cause the failure of the settlement
8. The settlers without titles to their lands go
to the frontier
V. The British Naval Stores Problem and the Origin of the New York Settlement Scheme
A. Naval Stores — an English necessity
B. History of the Stockholm (Swedish) Tar
Companies
1. Early companies
2.. The 1689 Company pushes its advantage
3 . The English desire for the carrying trade
4. The unfavorable balance of trade with Sweden
5 . The Northern War makes conditions worse
C. The early interest in colonial production of naval stores
D. The attempts to secure colonial naval stores
up to 1708
1. The request for importation bids
2_. The Navy Board Commissioners investigate New England possibilities
3. Governor Bellomont's interest in the prob- lem
4. The Bounty Act of 1704 . .
91
98
98
99
100
102. 104
107
108
no
in in
in in ill 111.
IJ3 114
IJ5
116
117
118
izo
XVI CONTENTS
5. The fear of woolen manufactures in the northern colonies 12.1
6. Bridger appointed Surveyor of Woods . 12.2.
E. The Origin of the New York settlement scheme 12.3 1. Naval stores mentioned incidentally for
Palatines of 1708 113
"l. The Scotch settlement proposal of 1705 . 12.4
3 . The Society scheme drawn up by Halifax 12.5
4. The proposal to settle Palatines in New York 12-7
F. The decision and plans for a government settlement in New York 118
G. The reasons for selecting New York . . . 132.
VI. A Government Redemptioner System . . . . 135 A. Preparation for settlement in New York . . 135
1. The optimistic expectations 136
z. Lands and conditions of grants suggested 137
3. The covenant requested by Hunter and agreed upon 140
4. War supplies and a minister 142.
5. Transportation 143
B. The voyage 144
1. Time of sailing 144
z. Poor conditions on voyage 146
C. The reception in New York 148
D. The legend of the Indian gift of Schoharie . . 150
E. The search for a suitable site for making naval stores 153
F. The settlements on Livingston Manor . 158
VII. The Government Tar Industry in Operation . . 160
A. The conditions of life in the Hudson River settlements 160
B. The management 162.
1. The organization 161
a. For supervision of the project . . . 162.
CONTENTS
XV11
VIII
b. For maintenance of order 164
2.. The supplies 165
a. Sources of supplies 165
b. System of distribution 166
c. Complaints about bad food .... 167
d. Charges of cupidity 168
3. The finances 169
a. The first year's costs 169
b. The request for further grants — DuPre's return to London 169
c. The non-committal attitude of the Tory Treasury 170
C. The manufacturing of tar 170
1. Bridger's defection 170
2.. The 171 1 expedition against Canada . . 172.
3. Sackett, Bridger's successor, in charge . . 173
4. The Palatine Commission to forward the work 174
5. Signs of progress in the tar-making . . 175
6. Tar manufacturing methods 175
7. Poor results from Palatine efforts . . . 177
D. The reasons for the failure 177
1. Poor instruction and unwilling labor . . 177 2.. Financial difficulties force the end of gov- ernment subsistence 181
3. The effect of the "Ministerial Revolution"
of 1710 upon the venture 181
4. The parliamentary investigation of the Palatine immigration in 171 1 .... 182.
5. Hunter's attempt to collect the debts incurred 184
The Palatine Settlements on the Frontier of the
Old West 188
A. The dispersal 188
XV111 CONTENTS
i. The Palatines receive permission to leave
the government project 188
2_. The suffering of the Germans in the winter
ofiyix 189
3. The Palatine preparations to go to Schoharie 190
4. The method of acquiring land titles . . 192.
B. The Schoharie frontier settlements . . . . 193
1. Journey to Schoharie 193
2.. The seven villages of the Palatines . . . 193
3. Starting life all over in the Schoharie Valley 195
4. Social conditions 198
C. Relations with the provincial government . 199 1. Reasons for Hunter's opposition . . . 199 2.. The Bayard incident zoo
3. The grant of the Palatine lands to the Seven Partners 2.01
4. Pressure on the Germans to accept the terms 2.02.
5 . The Vrooman incidents and the attempt to arrest Weiser zox
6. The Palatine mission to London . . xo4
7. Hunter's return to England and his opposi- tion 2.04
D. The Palatines extend the frontier in the Mohawk Valley and the "Great Valley" of Pennsylvania 2.04
1. Governor Burnet's orders and the first
grants in the Mohawk Valley .... 2,04
2.. The movement to the Tulpehocken section,
around Womelsdorf, Pennsylvania . . 10^
3. More Palatine grants and purchases in the Mohawk Valley 2.07
4. The continuation of Palatine immigration
to Pennsylvania 2.10
5. Reasons for the choice of Pennsylvania rather than New York 2.10
CONTENTS
XIX
XI
E.
6. The New York naturalization act of 171 5 112.
7. The importance of pamphlet advertising in
the Rhineland xi6
The Palatines as frontiersmen 2.18
1.
2..
3-
2.1
The hopes of the Board of Trade
The relations of the Palatines with the
French and Indians
A suggested modification of Frederick Jackson Turner's thesis of the frontier influence IX. Conclusion .... X. Bibliography ....
A. Bibliographical guides
B. Primary Sources 1. Manuscript 2.. Published .
a. Official .
b. Unofficial
C. Secondary sources 1 . General works 2.. Special works . 3 . Periodical and learned society contributions
Appendices — introduction to
A. The Kocherthal Party — the 1708 Emigration The First Board of Trade List of Palatines in
London (May 6, 1709)
The Embarkation Lists from Holland .
The Roman Catholic Palatines Returned to
Holland Z74
E. The New York Subsistence List ....
F. The Simmendinger Register
G. The Pennsylvania Palatine Lists .... H. The Petition List of Palatines in North
Carolina
The Irish Palatine List
B.
C. D.
2.19
2.2.0
2.X9
2.2.9 2.2.9 1x9 2.3 1 2.3 1
2.3 2.
2-34
^34
235 z39
2.42. M3
2.44 2.48
2.82. 2.91 300
I.
301
3 ox
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
TITLE PAGE
Portrait of Queen Anne frontispiece
Map of Rhineland, Germany 2.
A Declaration of the Protestant Consistory in the Palatinate ... 10 Title Page of Simmendinger's Warhaffte und glaubwurdige Ver%eichnuss
(c 1717) *3
Title Page of Kocherthal's Aussfuhrlkh und umstdndlicher Bericht (1709) 16
Title Page of Bohme's Das verlangte nicht erlangte Canaan (171 1) . 17
Portrait of William Penn 2.1
Portrait of Prince George of Denmark, royal consort of Queen Anne . 15 Denization Papers granted to Kocherthal's Party of Palatines . . 3 6—3 7
Portrait of Governor Francis Lovelace 40
Letter of Recommendation of Gerhart Schaeffer 4§_49
Circular Advertising Carolina 61
Contemporary Woodcut, showing Palatines encamped on Blackheath
outside London 69
Map of Southwestern Ireland 89
Two Views of the Commons at Court Matrix, Ireland 96
Map of North Carolina 106
Portrait of Charles Spencer, Earl of Sunderland 1x9
Portrait of Governor Robert Hunter 145
Portrait of Robert Livingston 155
Reproduction of Pitch Pine, pinus rigida 179
View of Schoharie, New York 191
Map of Central New York 194
Palatine Shoes 199
Map of Eastern Pennsylvania 2.06
The Conrad Weiser Homestead, Womelsdorf (Tulpehocken), Penn- sylvania zo8
KEY TO FOOTNOTE CITATIONS
B. M. — British Museum, London.
B. T. Jour. — the printed records of the Board of Trade Journal, published by the British Government.
Jour. B. T. — the transcripts of the Board of Trade Journal made for the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and to be found in its library.
C. C. — Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, America and West Indies. Doc . Hist. — Documentary History of New York.
Hist. Mss. Com. — Historical Manuscripts Commission Reports, published
by the British Government. H. L. — Huntington Library, San Marino, California. H. S. P. — History Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa. L. C. — Library of Congress, Washington, D. C. Liv. Mss. — The manuscripts of Robert Livingston, first Lord of Livingston
Manor, now in the possession of the estate of Johnston Livingston Red-
mont, New York City. N. C. Col. Rec. — Colonial Records of North Carolina.
N. Y. Col. Docs. — Documents Relative to the Colonial History of New York. N. Y. Col. Mss. — Manuscripts in the New York State Archives, Albany,
New York. N. Y. H. S. — New York Historical Society Library, New York City. N. Y. S. L. — New York State Library, Albany, New York. P. R. O — Public Record Office, London. S. P. G. Mss. — Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts,
London. Transcripts are to be found in the Library of Congress and in the
New York Historical Society Library (Hawk's Transcripts).
Citations are given invariably by page rather than by document number, which method is followed occasionally in similar monographs.
CHAPTER I. THE CAUSES OF THE EARLY "PALATINE" EMIGRATIONS
Shiploads of German peoples, variously estimated from two thousand to thirty-two thousand,1 arrived in London be- tween May and November of 1709. A year earlier a small band of fifty had preceded them. As most of the latter and the greater part of the former group came from the Rhenish or Lower Palatinate, the name "Palatine" was applied indis- criminately to the rest of the immigrants, although they came from the neighboring territories as well.2
A contemporary pamphlet lists the home principalities as follows: the Palatinate, the districts of Darmstadt and Hanau, Franconia (including the area around the cities of Nuremburg, Baireuth and Wiirzburg), the Archbishopric of Mayence, and the Archbishopric of Treves. The districts of Spires, Worms, Hesse-Darmstadt, Zweibriicken, Nassau, Alsace and Baden are also mentioned.3 To this list Wurtemberg must be added,
1 John Stow, Survey of the Cities of London and Westminister (17x0), II, 43 estimated the immigration of 1709 at two or three thousand; William Mait- land, History of London (1756), I, 507 has twelve thousand as their number; a contemporary account in Das verlangte nicht erlangte Canaan . . . oder Ausfiihr- liche Beschreibung von der unglucklichen Reise derer jiingsthin aus Teutschland nach dem Engelldndischen in America gele gen Carolina und Pensylvanien. . . . (Franck- furt und Leipzig, 171 1), 113, hereafter cited as Das verlangte nicht erlangte Canaan, gives the total number who went to England as 31,468.
2"A Brief History of the Poor Palatine Refugees Lately Arrived in England" (July 18, 1709), in Ecclesiastical Records of the State of New York (Albany, 1901), III, 1781, hereafter cited as Eccles. Rec. Copies of the 1709 edition are in the British Museum and the National Library of Dublin. A 1710 edition may be examined in the Trinity College Library, Dublin. The name "Palatine" will be used below consistently in referring to all the German immigrants of this period, since it appears most convenient, if not strictly accurate.
3 Das verlangte nicht erlangte Canaan, 99.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
GERMANY
Scale In Miles
r I I
' . — '"
r, .^ HESSE / %. < W CASSEL? ^%, /
/ UPPER?,
' ^spires,! - A\,.'i
( WURXEMBERG/ Reutlmgeni
ansbach/palatinatd"
- : — .tv, , — f
\ — -V ,--> \ r*
I
SWITZERLAN
Map of Rhineland, Germany, showing the sources of the Palatine Emigration. The borders of the Rhenish Palatinate are slightly shaded. Drawn by A. Cefola.
since a number of Palatines are known to have emigrated thence, notably John Conrad Weiser. The area, from which the emigration poured, extended along both sides of the Rhine River and its tributaries, the Main and Neckar Rivers. It extended roughly from the junction of the Moselle and the Rhine south to Basle, Switzerland; and from Zweibriicken, alongside Lorraine, as far west along the Main as Baireuth, bordering the Upper (or Bavarian) Palatinate.4
Many causes were given for the unprecedented size of the emigration. That most frequently mentioned was devastation
4 See Map of Germany.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION 3
by war. The end of the Thirty Years' War left the people of the Palatinate prostrate. True enough a remarkable recovery from this visitation was achieved, due to the fertility of the soil and the co-operation of the ruler, but prosperity was short-lived; in the latter part of the seventeenth century the Palatinate was repeatedly the stamping ground of Louis XIV's armies. Marshal Turenne thoroughly devastated the province in 1674. Moreover, protracted disputes among the neighbor- ing princes, remaining from the religious wars of the early part of the century, gave rise to continuous warfare, in one instance between the Archbishop of Mayence assisted by the Duke of Lorraine, and the Elector Palatine.5 In 1688-9 Partl7 to vent his malice against Protestants, the Grand Monarch had the Palatinate laid waste again. The military necessities following William Ill's "conquest" of England probably made this step necessary. At any rate over two hundred years later the Heidelberg ruins left by this invasion were described as "the most interesting ruins in Europe."6
During the War of the Spanish Succession, Marshal Villars crossed the Rhine unexpectedly in May, 1707, terrorized southwestern Germany, plundering and requisitioning freely on the Palatinate, Wurtemberg, Baden and the Swabian Circle.7 In September of the same year, the French retired across the Rhine, having, in the words of an angry colonel in the English army, "over-run the lazy and sleepy Empire and not only maintained a great army in it all the year, but by contributions, sent money into France to help the King's other affairs. "8 Not only was this invasion unnecessary from
5 Theatrum Europaeum, XI, 344, 497; L. Hauser, Geschichte der Rheinischen Pfalz. (Heidelberg, 1856), II, 62.9; N. M. Pletcher, Some Chapters from the History of the Rhine Country (N. Y., 1907), 94.
6 J. G. Wilson, in American Historical Assoc. Reports (1891), i.Sy.
7 Townshend Mss. (Hist. Mss. Com. nth report, Appendix), IV, 65, mentions "the plunder and the money they took by force from the good families of Strasbourg."
8 C. T. Atkinson, "The War of the Spanish Succession, Campaigns and Negotiations," in Camb. Mod. Hist., V, 418.
4 THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
a military point of view but it was also a political blunder, for it united Germany against Louis.9 But for the people living in the war zone, these invasions wiped out the fruits of many new and promising revivals, and discouraged further struggle for better living conditions.10
To the curse of devastation was added an unkind prank of nature, when at the end of 1708 a winter, cruel beyond the precedent of a century, set in to blight the region. As early as the beginning of October the cold was intense, and by No- vember 1 st, it was said, firewood would not burn in the open air! In January of 1709 wine and spirits froze into solid blocks of ice; birds on the wing fell dead; and, it is said, saliva con- gealed in its fall from the mouth to the ground.11 Most of Western Europe was frozen tight. The Seine and all the other rivers were ice-bound and on the 8th of January, the Rhone, one of the most rapid rivers of Europe, was covered with ice. But what had never been seen before, the sea froze sufficiently all along the coasts to bear carts, even heavily laden.12 Nar- cissus Luttrell, a famous English diarist of that day, wrote of the great violence of the frost in England and in foreign parts, where several men were frozen to death in many countries.13 The Arctic weather lasted well into the fourth month. Perhaps
9 A. Hassal], "The Foreign Policy of Louis XIV," in Camb. Mod. Hist.,
V.57.
10 Abel Boyer, The History of the Reign of Queen Anne digested into Annals ijop (London, 1710), 166; hereafter cited as Boyer, Annals. Professor Julius Goebel, Sr., has performed a valuable service by publishing a collection of letters by a few emigrants of 1709. These letters clearly show that the bad economic conditions were largely responsible for their authors' emigration. " Briefe Deutscher Auswanderer aus dem Jahre 1709," in J ahrbuch der Deutsche Amerikanischen Historischen Gesellschajt von Illinois (Chicago, Illinois, I9i2.)> 1x4-189.
11 R. N. Bain, "Charles XII and the Great Northern War," in Camb. Mod. Hist., V, 600.
12 Memoires . . . du . . . due de Saint-Simon (Paris, 1857), IV, 180; Journal du Marquis de Dangeau (Paris, 1857), XII, 303 et sea.
13 Narcissus Luttrell, Brief Relation of State Affairs (Oxford, 1857), VI, 393' 399 under dates of January 8th and January 15, 1709.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION 5
the period of heaviest frost was from the 6th to the 15 th of January. Then snow fell until February 6th.14 The fruit trees were killed and the vines were destroyed. The calamity of this unusually bitter weather fell heavily on the husbandmen and vine-dressers, who in consequence made up more than half of the emigrants of 1709. 15
Other influences almost as malign, though of a more chronic nature, were disturbing the inhabitants of the Rhine Valley. The splendor of Versailles had dazzled many petty rulers of Germany, who sought to emulate the gorgeous court life surrounding Louis XIV. The expenses of their lavish and arrogant living had to be met by heavy taxes on their subjects, often so exhausting as to leave the peasants themselves with- out bread. Naturally bitter feelings were aroused against the ruling class, who called themselves fathers of the people without exhibiting any traces of fatherly care for their wel- fare. The need for money to carry on war too made the taxes mount higher day by day. A letter from the Palatinate in 1681 mentioned that 'Thousands would gladly leave the Father- land if they had the means to do so,' because of the French devastation and "besides this, we are now suffering the plague of high taxes."16 Conditions did not improve during the next twenty-five years apparently, for an unbiased report from the Palatines waiting in Holland for transportation to England stated they came flying "to shake of the burdens they ly under by the hardshipps of their Princes governments and the contributions they must pay to the Enemy."17 Therefore,
14 Onno Klopp, Der Fall des Hauses Stuart (Wien, 1887), 115.
15 Journal of House of Commons, XVI, 597; hereafter cited as C. J.; Eccles. Rec, III, 1747, 18x4; Public Record Office Mss., Colonial Office, 388/76, 56 ii, 64, 68-70, hereafter cited as P. R. O., C. O.; Friederich Kapp, Die Deutschen in Staate New York (New York, 1884), I, 19; Franz Loher, Geschichte und Zustdnde der Deutschen in Amerika (Cincinnati, 1847), 41; Der Deutsche Pionier (Cincinnati, 1882.), XIV, 195.
16 Letter of Henrich Frey, D. H. Bertolet, The Bertolet Family (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 1914), 173.
17 Public Record Office, State Papers, 84/132., 148, hereafter cited as P. R. O., S. P.
6 THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
oppressive feudal exactions by the petty rulers may be re- garded as one of the underlying reasons for the emigration.18
Another cause suggested, and in general accepted in eight- eenth century England, was religious persecution. Certainly religious conditions were of large importance in the early eighteenth century. To ingratiate themselves with benevo- lently inclined people, emigrants found it convenient to plead religious persecution. Friends of the immigration in England justified their help on religious grounds, while others fiercely attacked the authenticity of the rumored persecutions. The disagreement on this point has been perpetuated by descend- ants of that German stock, who are reluctant to forego a lustrous prestige equal to that of the Pilgrim Fathers.
What was the religious condition of the Germanies in 1709? Cuius regio, eius religio, established at the Peace of Augs- burg (1555) and modified by the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), was still functioning. It recognized three churches: Catholic, Lutheran and Calvinist, and provided that the religion of the ruler should be the religion of the people. Under such con- ditions religious persecution might well exist. The belief that religious persecution was a cause is strengthened at first sight by the fact that the Elector of the Palatinate in 1709 was John William, Duke of Newburg, a Catholic.19 There are no formal charges of persecution, however, about 1709. 20 Of course, this
18 Library of Congress MSS., Archdale MSS. 1694-1706, 57, hereafter cited as L. C, Archdale MSS.; Das verlangte nicht erlangte Canaan, 2.1; "Brief History," in Eccles. Rec, III, ij8j and 1794; W. H. Bruford, Germany in the 18th Century (Cambridge, Eng., 1935), 39, 12.1.
19 The State of the Palatines for Fifty Years Past to This Present Time (London, 17°3)-> 3- A I7I° edition of this pamphlet is published in Eccles. Rec, III, 1810. The copy of the 1709 edition is in the Widener Library of Harvard University.
20 Reports of persecution by the Elector Palatine in 1709 refer to the Bavarian Palatinate and also to Silesia. Luttrell, op. cit., VI, 464, 483. These accounts are not to be attributed to John William, Elector Palatine, of the Rhenish or Lower Palatinate, a different man. Also see Monthly Mercury (July, 1709), XX, z48.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION 7
might be due to the inexpediency of criticizing the Elector Palatine, an English ally in the War of the Spanish Succession then being waged. But by the same token, the Elector should have found it poor policy to affront his Protestant ally (England), by mistreatment of his own Protestant subjects.21 John William had reigned since 1690. While there are reports of persecution in 1 699,22 were religious intolerance at that time the sole cause of the emigration, it should have driven away these German emigrants before 1709.
The disagreement on this point in the past, warrants a close examination of the religious composition of those immigrant groups in London. Of the first forty-one Germans of the 1708 immigration, fifteen were Lutherans and twenty- six Calvinists (or Reformed).23 The fourteen others who joined the group in London were also Protestants. In their petition to the Queen this group, all Protestant, made no mention of religious persecution. They spoke though, of the French ravages in 1707 in the Rhine and Neckar Valleys.24 For the 1709 immigration, four lists compiled in London exist of those who arrived from May 3rd to June 16th. Unfortunately no lists seem to have been made in London after that date, but for the 6500 Palatines then present these lists are informative and
21 The relations between England and the Palatinate were excellent at this time. The Elector Palatine secured the support of the English at the Vienna Court (British Museum Mss., Ad. Mss. 15866, 90, hereafter cited as B. M.) and was supplying his troops for English and Dutch use. The English used eleven battalions of Palatine troops in Catalonia in 1709. P. R. O., S. P. 44/107, 12.1; S. P. 34/n, 154. In fact, on the occasion of the New Year in 1709 the rulers of England and the Palatinate exchanged greetings in their own handwriting, an unusually friendly proceeding. B. M., Add. Mss. 15866, 156.
22 Eccles. Rec, III, 1453 et seq.
23 Journal of the Commissioners of Trade and Plantations 1704-1708, 484; hereafter cited as B. T. Jour. The first Board of Trade report erred in referring to them as "These 41 poor Lutherans," Calendar of State Papers, Colonial America and West Indies 1706-8, 713; hereafter cited as C. C. In all cases the page, not the number of the document, is cited.
24 Ibid., 710.
8 THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
reliable. They were made by two German clergymen at the English court, John Tribbeko, chaplain to the late royal consort, Prince George of Denmark, and George Andrew Ruperti, minister of St. Mary's German Lutheran Church in Savoy. The 1770 families were distributed as follows: Luth- erans, 550; Reformed, 693; Catholics, 512.; Baptists, 12.; Mennonites, 3 . Almost one-third of the Palatines in London on June 16, 1709, were of the Catholic faith.25
Religious persecution by the Catholic Elector might drive out Protestants, but certainly not Catholics. It might still be held that the Protestants had fled from Catholic rulers and the Catholics from Protestant princes. Yet, on August 2., 1709, an English gentleman, Roger Kenyon, wrote to his sister-in- law that he had visited the Palatines on Blackheath, a com- mons seven miles southeast of London. He added that they "came over not on account of religious persecution, for most of them were under Protestant princes .... '26 The real re- ligious difficulties in Germany were those created by the clash of the various sects. Anton Wilhelm Bohme, pastor of the German Court Chapel of St. James and an influential friend of the Palatines at court, so advised a correspondent in Germany on May 2.6, 1710. Bohme mentions the desire of many people to seek a non-sectarian Christianity in Pennsylvania. The question which Bohme answered was whether it was deemed advisable that people, who on account of their conscience could no longer subscribe to any sect and therefore were tolerated almost nowhere, should carry out their desire to emigrate although they had no real certainty of God's will. In a fatherly fashion, Bohme advised them to examine their own conscience for the inner or motivating cause of such an im- portant journey. Significantly, he wrote that many a man, after he had acquired flourishing acres in America, forgot the
25 P. R. O., C. O. 388/76, 5611, 64, 68-70. The first list, that of May 6th, is given in Appendix B, but not all the vital statistics in the list are included for reasons mentioned there.
26 Kenyon MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com., 14th Report, Appendix), IV, 443.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION 9
religious motivation of his pilgrimage. Such people degener- ated so far that they were more concerned with the cultivation of their lands than of their souls. Bohme added that they stood as so many monuments, warning others not to allow greed to move them.27
Although Bohme strongly doubted the religious urge for the new world, he also mentioned disagreement with, and persecutions by, the authorities incited by religious zealots and orthodox Churchmen. These, he held, should be suffered for the sake of truth and the glorious blessing promised by the Lord. The persecutions must not have been severe, for Bohme confessed that he could not see how a Christian could, on account of the oppression suffered up to then, leave his fatherland.28 The German divine dwelt at great length upon the dangerous temptations of religious squabbles.
The theory, that religious persecution was a most impor- tant cause for these emigrations, has been impaired by Bohme's letter. In his argument, he declared that only a very few of these people, when they came to England, had provided them- selves with a prayer-book or similar religious work. Fewer still had a New Testament or Bible, and they would have re- mained without any were it not for the Queen's generosity.29 This fact lends support to other evidence. The Catholic Elector Palatine John William had issued on November 2.1, 1705, a declaration promising liberty of conscience.30 In 1707 a disinterested person testified to the sincere execution of the declaration.31 On the 2.7th of June, 1709, the Council of the
27 Das verlangte nicht erlangte Canaan, 15-30.
28 Ibid., 2.4.
29 Ibid., -LL. One of the few Bibles brought from Germany at that time was that brought by Gerhart Schaeffer. This Lutheran Bible, published in Franckfurt am Mayn in 1701, is still in the possession of descendants of the Palatine Schaeffer, the Kingsley family of "The Rocks," Schoharie, N. Y.
30 Eccles. Rec, III, 1600.
31 John Toland, Declaration lately published by the Elector Palatine in favor of his Protestant Subjects (London, 1714), 4.
IO THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
ATravjlationfrom the High-Dutch, of a Declaration mafa (by Dire&ion from the Elector Palatine) by the Prote/iant Qnfiftory hi the Palatinate. " \T7"Hereas it has been fignify'd to the Re- " W form'd Confiftory in the Palatinate jhzt " feveral of the Families, who are gone down the " Rhine, to proceed to Penjilvaniaj to fettle" them- " felves 'there, commonly pretend they are ob- <c lig'dto retire thither for the Sake oi Religion, ''and the Perfecut ion which they fufter upon that l' Account; and finceit is not known to any of ^ the Confiftory, that thofe with-drawn Subjects " have complainM , that they fuffer'd at that " Time any. Perfecution on Account of Religi- ' on, or that they were fore'd to quit their " Ccuntry for want, of Liberty ot Conference, con- c< trary to his Electoral Highnefss gracious Decla- iC iion of the 2 lit of November, 1705. therefore, as " foon as th^ COnfdtory underftood that a Num- ber of Subjects were. gone out Abroad to the faid " Penjilvania, and that more were like to follow, w they thought it necefTary to acquaint all the ' "refornVd Infpeclors and Minifters with it, to undeceive their Auditors, as alfo thefe with- drawn Peeple, and that they are not like to gain tc their End in all Probability, and to perfwade "them againft their withdrawing any farther' •, 48 as alfo to the Intent to (hew thegroundlefs Pre- tences of fuch Peeple -to go out of the Country en Account of the faid Religious Perfecution. Which we do atteft hereby in favour of Truth. Done at Heidleburg the 27th of June, 1 709. " L. S. The Vice- President and Council of the tonfiftory eonttituted in the Electoral Palatinate. " T. P. Howmullcr, T. Heyles* H. Grout*, J. CloSer.
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A declaration of the Protestant Consistory in the Palatinate, denying any religious persecution by the Elector Palatine, June 17, 1709.
Courtesy of the Pennsylvania-German Society,
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION II
Protestant Consistory in the Palatinate issued a statement de- nying the pretences of emigrants that they were persecuted.32 Indeed, a colonial report of the Evangelical Lutheran Con- gregation in Pennsylvania made this statement, "Some may think that it is unreasonable to care for these people, as the most of them went into this distant part of the globe from their own irregular impulse, and without necessity or calling, because it no longer suited them to comply with good order in their native lands. "33 The plea was made then not to make the children born in America suffer for the error of their parents.
Indeed a dispatch from Holland in June, 1709, reported that the Palatines, Protestants and Catholics, "seem to agree all very well, being several of them mixed together husbands and wives of different religion or united by parentage.' Further, they were "flying not so much for religion" as for other reasons.34 Considering these facts it must be concluded that religious persecution was not an important cause for the 1708-9 Palatine emigrations. Religious disputes and squabbles may have contributed in a minor way. Due to the special conditions existing along the Rhine and in England, it was advantageous to pose as 'poor German Protestants" perse- cuted for their faith. This will be discussed in greater detail below.
To devastation by war, oppression by petty princes imitat- ing the "Sun Monarch," the destructive winter of 1708-9, and religious bickerings, may be added a desire for adventure so usual in the youth of any land. These causes created a dis- satisfaction with their present lot, which only irritated an- other potent cause, that of land hunger. A number of Palatines in New York were overheard to remark, "We came to America to establish our families — to secure lands for our children on
32 "Brief History," in Eccles. Rec, III, 1793.
33 Hallesche Nachrkhten (Oswald Trans., Philadelphia, 1881), II, 2.37.
34 P. R. O., S. P. 84/2.31, 2.49.
12. THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
which they will be able to support themselves after we die."35 But all these causes themselves would perhaps have been in- sufficient to call forth such a great emigration of large families with young children on their hands. How did the attraction of the foreign shore come to them?
To those Germans dissatisfied with their lot, effected by the conditions outlined above, came the enticing advertising of English proprietors of the colonies in America. Pamphlets extolling the climate and life in the New World were dis- seminated throughout the Rhine Valley. Agents for the pro- prietors entered into negotiations with interested parties. Adventurers like Francois Louis Michel and George Ritter engaged to bring companies of colonists.36 Correspondence was carried on between proprietors and prospective settlers. All these activities were in the interests of Carolina or Pennsylvania.
One of the Germans, Ulrich Simmendinger by name, mi- grated with these groups to New York;37 and having lost his two children in England, he and his wife, Anna Margaretta, returned to their fatherland about 1717. Shortly thereafter he published a little booklet,38 giving an account of his experi- ences and containing a list of those people he had left behind in New York. For this reason it is valuable in the study of that emigration. Simmendinger says that assuredly his friends would not think he made this hazardous trip for excitement and adventure, particularly with his wife and children. His resolution was made under the paternal necessity of providing
35 Documentary History of State of New York (Albany, 1850), III, 658, here- after cited as Doc. Hist.
36 Townshend MSS. {Hist. MSS. Com., nth Kept., Appendix), IV, 63; C. C, ijo6-ijo8, 61.
37 Listed as one of the Palatines remaining at New York, 1710, Doc. Hist., Ill, 564.
38 Ulrich Simmendinger, Warhajfte und glaubwurdige V er^eichnus s jeniger . . . Personen welche sich Anno 1709 . . . aus Teutschland in Americam oder Neue Welt begeben . . . (Reuttlingen, ca. 1717). See Appendix F. below for list of families.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION 13
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1 4 THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
for his own wife and children. He says nothing of religious persecution. Simmendinger apparently emigrated then with the intention of enjoying a better competence because of aid expected from the British Queen.39 He further states that in the year 1709, in response to the genuinely golden promises written by the Englishmen, many other families from the Palatinate also set forth to England in order to go from there to Pennsylvania.40
In regard to the "golden promises," it is worth noticing that a British parliamentary committee investigating the causes of the immigration reported: "And upon the examina- tion of several of them [the Palatines] what were the motives which induced them to leave their native country, it appears to the committee that there were books and papers dispersed in the Palatinate with the Queen's picture before the book and the Title Pages in Letters of Gold (which from thence was called the Golden Book), to encourage them to come to England in order to be sent to Carolina or other of her Majesty's Plantations to be settled there. The book is chiefly a recom- mendation of that country."41
This work thus referred to might have been written by Kocherthal, as his book first appeared in 1706. 42 The Reverend
39 Ibid., 1-3. Simmendinger states this frankly. Frank R. Diffenderffer, 'The German Exodus to England in 1709," in Pa. Ger. Soc. Proc. (1897), VII,
2.91, finds as one of the chief reasons for the emigration "the hope of better- ing themselves."
40 "Dann als Anno 1709, auff die lauter guldene versprechendeEngellandr ische Schreiben/viele Familien aus der Pfalz . . . hinab nach Engelland/um von dar nach Pensylvaniam iiber zugehen." Ibid., 2.. Also, Friederich Kapp, Geschichte der Deutscben Einwanderung in Amerika (Leipzig, 1868), 86.
41 C.J., (April 14, 1711), XVI, 597.
42 V. H. Todd and J. Goebel, Christoph von Graff enried' s Account of the Founding of Neiv Bern (N. C. Hist. Com. Pub., Raleigh, N. C, 1910), 14, conclude that the Golden Book is the same as Kocherthal's. This may have been true, but Simmendinger speaks of Pennsylvania. See also Christopher Sauer, Pennsylvania Bericht(i-j^^), quoted in Der deutsche Pionier, XIV, 2.95-6.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION 1 5
Joshua Kochertbal,43 described as a German evangelical min- ister, had not been to America at the time he published his book, but he had been in England to make inquiries about the colonies.44 Did Kocherthal come to some agreement with important members of the ministry? Was he their agent or was he simply in the service of the proprietors of Carolina? No definite promises are made in his book but several pas- sages, coupled with the Queen's picture and the gilded title- page, might give the impression to the poor people into whose hands the book would come, that they might expect help from her, both in crossing the channel and after their arrival in England, in going to the colonies. One passage read, 'Whereupon finally the proposal was made that the Queen be presented with a supplication to whether she herself would not grant the ships . . . But these proposals are too extensive to describe here, and yet it is hoped that through them the effort will not be in vain, although in this matter no one can promise anything certain . . . ,"45 That its effect was great can be judged by its circulation. This handbook for Germans was so much in demand in the year 1709, that at least three more editions were printed.46 In fact, the book continued to
43 This name has been spelled erroneously with a second K, " Kockerthal, ' ' by writers following documentary misspellings, apparently based on its pronunciation. The name appears on his tombstone in the Evangelical Lutheran Church, West Camp, N. Y. and uniformly in the British documents as "Kocherthal."
44 Todd and Goebel, op. cit., 13. Kocherthal may have been in communica- tion with W. Killigrew, a gentleman much interested in Carolina, who in 1706 confidentially suggested to the British government that it buy out the Carolina proprietors through him at a low price, adding "I am in treaty with some thousand of Protestant People from foreign parts, who are de- sirous of to go thither when this affair is settled which naturally will increase the rent of the county and the customs by considerable for England." P. R. O., C. O. 5/306, 3 i; C. C. 1706-1708, 183.
45 Ibid., 15; Kocherthal, Aussfiihrlich und umstandlicher Bericbt von . . . Carolina (4th ed., Franckfurt, 1709), x8, hereafter cited as Kocherthal, Bericht.
46 DiffenderrTer, op. cit., 317; A copy of the 4th impression is in the Library of Congress.
1 6 THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
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THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
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have such an effect, even after Kocherthal had gone to New York in 1708, that Reverend Anton Wilhelm Bohme, a friend of the Palatines at court and previously referred to, felt called upon to contribute several letters for a pamphlet under the title, Das verlangte nicht erlangte Canaan ("The desired, not acquired Canaan"), directed specifically against Kocherthal's roseate description of Carolina.47
An interesting collection of manuscripts now preserved in the Library of Congress throws light on the problem pre-
47 Todd and Goebel, op. cit., 14. A copy is in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania Library in Philadelphia. M. H. Hoen, who wrote the foreword, should be credited with editorship at least.
1 8 THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
sented by Kocherthal's veiled promises. This collection, known as the Archdale Papers, contains correspondence of John Archdale, one of the proprietors of Carolina. As early as 1705, Archdale was arranging for a settlement in Carolina by what was called the High German Company of Thuringia. Polycarpus Michael Pricherbach, the German correspondent, writing from Langensalza in Thuringia, mentioned reading Richard Blome's English America, a description of the English possessions in the western hemisphere. This had been trans- lated into German and published in Leipzig in 1697. Four deputies were sent over to London with the intention of visiting some english province in America. They met and talked with a Mr. Telner, who it seems represented the pro- prietors of Carolina. They then returned to Germany.48 The plans probably miscarried as nothing was heard of the venture later.
However, two proposals, made by the High German Company of Thuringia, suggested to the proprietors of Caro- lina the kind of advertising to use with the greatest appeal in the Germanies. On September 2., 1705, the German Company asked the Carolina proprietors to announce "that all such as shall address themselves to them, After the first Transport (Seing it is needless at the first shiping over) and are not able to pay any monie for their passage, should be transported free by your Lordps without any payment as far as Carolina. ' This was to be repaid finally by years of service for the com- pany in Carolina.
The second proposal was an inducement to be carried out only after the first transport had safely arrived in Carolina, "for what I am now going to say could not possibly be ven- tured sooner. There should be published by us and in our names, a short plain description of the good scituation and Conveniences of the Country, with the advantageous Condi- tions granted to us by the proprietors, there should also cir-
48 L. C, Archdale MSS. 1694-1706, 12.1..
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION 1 9
cumstancially be sett forth the great eveready prorTetts that might be Expected from there, and subjoyned thereunto Expecially this clause, that a Poor Man hath only need to provide himself to come to London and then to pay nothing for his transport thence to Carolina because upon his address to the Lords Proprietors they would maintain and transport him to Carolina whereby nothing which might recomend and make this country should be past by or omitted. Such printed and published description to be authorized by a short preffase by the Lords Proprietors, would then by good friends, left behind be everywhere made known and there being now to God no doubt but that in these hard times in Germany . . .,"49 colonization would be quickened.
In 1706 Kocherthal was not so particular as to require that he be settled in America first. He obliged the proprietors with his Aussjuhrlkh und umstdndlicher Bericht von der beriihmten Landschafft Carolina. . . . The Queen was substituted for the Lords Proprietors as the kindly benefactor and veiled promises were made. The fulfillment of the Thuringian suggestion is apparent. What is not so evident, is Kocherthal' s remunera- tion. Kocherthal never even visited Carolina, much less settled there. On his arrival in England in 1708, he appealed to the Queen for aid in accordance with his pamphlet's hints. It would seem that the author was sincere in writing of the Queen's help, which was anticipated, as quoted above. Kocherthal was well received by the English government but was sent to New York. This will be related below.
Similar advertising concerning Pennsylvania was also pro- ducing air castles for disheartened Germans. William Penn, who later founded Pennsylvania, made several visits to the Rhine country, one in 1677.50 Penn discussed religious matters wit hmany Lutherans and Calvinists of the Rhine Valley. The
49 Ibid., 60 et. seq.
50 Samuel M. Janney, The Life of William Penn (Philadelphia, 1851), 117 et. seq., recounts Penn's journey in that year and especially his friendship with Princess Elizabeth of the Palatinate.
LO THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
royal charter for Pennsylvania was granted in 1681. Shortly thereafter appeared in London a brief description of the new province : Some account of the Province of Pennsylvania in America. 51 Penn offered to sell one hundred acres of land for two English pounds and a low rental. He combined humanitarianism with business, for he advertised popular government, universal suffrage, and equal right's to all regardless of race or religious belief. Murder and treason were the only capital crimes; and reformation, not retaliation, was the object of punishment for their offenses. This book appeared in translation in Amster- dam the same year and its distribution in the upper Rhine country probably affected favorably the movement of Ger- mans to Pennsylvania.52
Pennsylvania was the best advertised province and it was mainly due to the liberal use of printer's ink. No professional promoter or land speculator of the present day could have devised any scheme, which would have proved a greater success than the means taken by William Penn and his coun- sellor, Benjamin Furley, to advertise his province.53 Various books were published for German consumption for over twenty years previous to the emigration of 1709. 54 Among them, Pastorious' Umstdndige geographische Beschreibung (de- tailed geographical description) of 1700 and Daniel Falckner's Curieuse Nachricht von Pennsylvania (curious news from Penn-
51 Julius F. Sachse, The German Pietists of Provincial Pennsylvania 1694-1708 (Philadelphia, 1895), 440; E. E. Proper, Colonial Immigration Laws (Col. U. Studies in History, Economics and Public Law, 1900, XII, no. 2.), 46.
52 Albert B. Faust, The German Element in the United States (New ed., N.Y., 192.7), I, 31 et. seq.; H. L. Osgood, English Colonies in the Eighteenth Century (New York, 192.4), II, 491; Sachse, op. cit., 443 et. seq.
63 J. F. Sachse, Curieuse Nachricht von Pennsylvania (of 1702), (Phila., private ed., 1905), 8. Sachse calls it "The book that stimulated the Great German Emigration to Pennsylvania in the early years of the eighteenth century." Also see Sachse's account of literature used to induce German emigration, Pa. Ger. Soc. Proc, VII, 175-198.
54 See Sachse's list of some fifty reprints of title-pages, Pa. Ger. Soc. Proc, VII, 101-156; Das verlangte nicht erlangte Canaan, 95.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
ZI
Portrait of William Penn. Courtesy of Pennsylvania-German Society.
2.2. THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
sylvania) of 1702. were combined into a single work in 1704 by the Frankfort Company, for whom Falckner became attorney along with Benjamin Furley.55
One writer tells us that English agents were sent through- out the Palatinate to induce immigration, much in the same way as did our western railroad companies of a later date. These companies, having received large bounties in land from the government, sent agents throughout Europe to influence emigration so that their land grants might be settled and revenue-producing.56 These early land agents, "Neulander,"57 or whatever they may be called, must have used to full advan- tage the reputation Penn and his colony had acquired in the Rhineland.58 Simmendinger, quoted above, gave his expected destination as Pennsylvania. Luttrell reported foreign news on April 2.8th and May 12., 1709, of Palatines coming to England bound for Pennsylvania.59 Penn's advertising was productive of good results at last.
Before the kind of help extended to the emigrants and the means employed by the British government can be understood, it is necessary that the position of England as the protector of the Protestant cause in Europe be understood. William of Orange with his wife Mary had taken the English throne from his father-in-law, James II, in 1688 to secure intervention by England and support for the Protestant cause on the continent against the encroachments of Catholic France.60 As Louis XIV aged, he grew more intolerant. Counsels of moderation even by the influential Madame de Maintenon were unavailing. In 1685 the Edict of Nantes, granting religious toleration to
55 Sachse, Falckner s Nachricht, x^-iS.
56 John M. Brown, Brief Sketch of the First Settlement of the County of Schoharie by the Germans (Schoharie, 18x3), 5.
57 Faust, op. cit., I, 61.
58 Kapp calls them "Speculators," and says they associated themselves with the Quakers. Die Deutschen, I, to.
59 Luttrell, op. cit., VI, 434, 440.
60 G. N. Clark, The Later Stuarts 1660-1J14 (Oxford, 1934), 143.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION 2.3
French Protestants, was revoked and persecution followed.61 Many Huguenots, as the French Protestants were called, fled to England, Germany and the New World.62 When William declared war on France in 1689, he published a "Proclamation for the encouraging French Protestants to transport themselves into this Kingdom, ' ' promising that they would not only have his royal protection but that he would also "so aid and assist them in their several trades and ways of livelihood, as that their being in this realm might be comfortable and easy to them."63
Queen Anne on her accession in 1701 continued, under the guidance of the Marlboroughs and their relatives, those policies on which was predicated her right to the throne.64 The Second Hundred Years' War entered its second phase, the War of the Spanish Succession. In diplomatic discussions the English sought to secure religious and civil rights for the Protestants on the continent. They even considered proposing in the negotiations for peace at Geertruidenberg in 1708 that the change in a ruler's religion should not "influence the worship or revenues of his subject (wch is the most reasonable thing in the most), most of the evill effects proceeding from such a change of religion will be avoyded."65 In other ways help was extended to foreign Protestants, such as those of Bergen and Courland, for example. At their petition collec- tions were taken up in England under government auspices for
61 A.J. Grant, "The Government of Louis XIV," in Camb. Mod. Hist., V, 14; Viscount St. Cyres, "The Gallican Church," ibid., V, 89.
62 J. S. Burn, History of the French, Walloon, Dutch and other Foreign Refugees Settled in England from the Reign of Henry VIII to the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (London, 1746), 18. The number of names of French origin among the Palatine emigrants (See Shipping Lists in Appendix) suggest that many were French refugees fleeing a second time.
63 Paul de Rapin-Thoyras, History of England i66i-ij2j, trans, and con- tinued by H. Tindal (London, 1744), XVI, 347.
64 Clark, op. cit., in.
65 B. M., Add. MSS. 18055, 415; P. R. O., S. P. 84/133, 38.
2.4 THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
funds for building of churches.06 When on June 12., 1709, a French Protestant petitioned Queen Anne in behalf of "a million persecuted protestants," she assured her petitioner, "she had already given her ministers abroad instructions concerning the same and will doe for them what else lies in her power."67 There are other indications of a similar nature, which show that the Protestants looked to the English Queen to take care of their interests.68
At this time Queen Anne was especially susceptible to Protestant appeals. Queen Anne's consort, Prince George of Denmark, died on October 2.8, 1708, "to the unspeakable grief of the Queen."69 Prince George was of German Stock,70 a Lutheran, and had brought many of his countrymen and co- religionists to London. The Royal Chapel in St. James Palace (Lutheran) established in 1700, owed its existence to him.71 The funeral sermon which the Reverend John Tribbeko preached in the Royal Chapel on November 2.1st emphasized the Prince's interest in the Protestant cause.72 It probably softened the Queen's grief to act as the gracious benefactress of the oppressed co-religionists of her departed husband.73 At any rate she took a great deal of interest in relieving the Palatines in 1709.
A more important question is how far the English Ministry was aware of the advertising activities and how far it coun-
66 P. R. O., S. P. 44/108, 15 (1708-1709).
67 Luttrell, op. cit., VI, 451.
68 Townshend MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com. nth Report, Appendix), IV, 52..
69 B. M., Add. MSS. 15866, 135; Add. MSS. 6309, t7; Egmont MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com. yth Report, Appendix), II, 131; Agnes Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England (Boston, 1859), XII, 189.
70 L. Katscher, "German Life in London," in Nineteenth Century (May, 1887), XXI, 718.
71 Ibid., 738.
72 John Tribbeko, A Funeral Sermon on the Death of H. R. H. Prince George of Denmark (London, 1709), 17.
73 C. B. Todd, "Robert Hunter and the Settlement of the Palatines," in National Magazine (February, 1893), XVII, 191.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
^5
Prince George of Denmark, royal consort of Queen Anne. Courtesy of
Pennsylvania-German Society.
2.6 THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
tenanced them. The English policies were predicated on the postulates of mercantilism accepted by seventeenth century Europe.74 These mercantilist doctrines attached a high value to a dense population, as an element of national strength. It was even argued that colonies would weaken the parent country by lessening the population.75 In this view of migra- tion, England would benefit by, and the Rhine countries would lose, and perhaps oppose, the movement of peoples. It was said to be "a Fundamental Maxim in Sound Politicks, that the Greatness, Wealth, and Strength of a Country, con- sist in the Number of its Inhabitants."76 The preamble of an English law of 1709 observed that "the increase of people is a means of advancing the wealth and strength of a nation."77 The States General of Holland echoed "that the Grandeur and Prosperity of a Country does in general consist in a Multitude of Inhabitants."78 The Monthly Mercury, a contemporary English publication, discussing Holland's new law, remarked that "The States [were] sensible of the Truth of the Maxim that the number of Inhabitants is the Strength of a nation. . . ,"79 In pursuance of such aims, the English Parliament was bombarded with propaganda favorable to the naturalization of foreign Protestants. Under the heading "Some weighty considerations for Parliament," Archdale, the Carolina pro- prietor referred to before, wrote that 2., 000 white people in Carolina were worth 100,000 at home. He argued that this
74 Clark, op. cit., 43; E. F. Heckscher, Mercantilism (London, 1935), II, 159.
75 Proper, op. cit., 74.
76 [Francis Hare], The Reception of the Palatines Vindicated in a Fifth Letter to a Tory Member (London, 171 1), 4, 37 et. seq. Hare was chaplain to the Duke of Marlborough.
77 7 Anne, c. 5, Statutes of the Realm, IX, 63.
78 The State of the Palatines, 6; Eccles. Rec, II, 1775 and 1830.
79 Monthly Mercury (London, July, 1709), XX, 175; Josiah Child, A New Discourse on Trade, (1693 ecO> J54i Edgar S. Furniss, The Labourer in a System of Nationalism (Boston, 1910), 33.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION IS]
was due to their use of English goods and the products they exchanged so favorably for England.80 He went on, "the body of Europe is under a general fermentation . . . which will more and more persecute an uneasy body of Protestants . . . [who] opprest with taxes, drained of their wealth and lyeing in the jealous sight of popery, are growne so uneasy, as to be willing to transplant themselves under the English Govern- ment.' A petition from a Pennsylvania German asked for a naturalization act for German Protestants, who although inclined to emigrate were under great difficulties from lack of it.81
William Penn was the author of a general naturalization bill for the colonies. In urging its approval to a member of the House of Lords, he pointed out "the interest of England to improve and thicken her colonys with people not her own."82 But early in January, 1709, Penn wrote to James Logan in Pennsylvania, "Tho' we have here a bill for Naturalization in the House, and I think I never writ so correctly, as I did to some members of Parliament, as well and discoursed them on that subject, ... it moves but slowly. . . . "83
Finally, giving way to the pressure, Parliament moved to encourage immigration and on February 5 th, leave was given in the House of Commons to bring in a bill for naturalizing foreign Protestants. On the x8th the bill passed its first test vote on a motion to continue the old provision of the law, which lost 101 to 198. The bill was passed on March 7th by a vote of 103 to 77, but over the protests and opposition of the City of London, whose authorities wanted a clause inserted protecting their own rights to the duties paid by aliens.84 On the 15th the bill was agreed to by the Lords 65 to 10. Royal
80 L. C, Archdale MSS., 1694-1706, 151.
81 Ibid., 70; On naturalization, see A. H. Carpenter, "Naturalization in England and the American Colonies," in Amer. Hist. Review, IX, x88~303.
82 Huntington Library, H. M. MSS. xix85; hereafter cited as H. L.
83 Venn-Logan Corres. (Memoirs of Historical Society of Pa., X), II, 313.
84 Luttrell, op. cit., VI, 404, 408, 415, 417.
2.8 THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
assent made it a law on March 2.3rd.85 This was the first gen- eral naturalization law in England. It provided that the natu- ralized had to take the oath of allegiance, and partake of the sacrament according to the Anglican ritual before witnesses, who signed a certificate to that effect. In addition, all the children of naturalized parents were to be considered natural- born subjects.86 The greatest benefit secured by the act was the right to purchase and hold land, which might be transmitted to one's children. Those naturalized were also permitted to take part in trade and commerce, usually forbidden to foreigners.87
Palatine or German immigrants were not particularly mentioned it appears. But Macpherson states, "This law was said to have been made with a particular view to the Protes- tant Palatines brought this year into England."88 Certain it is that by the time the act was passed, the first wave of the emigration was already well on its way down the Rhine.89 Still the news of the bill's consideration by the English Parlia- ment may have reached prospective immigrants. That this act was a preparation for their coming, or even an added attrac- tion for the immigration itself is highly probable. It would seem then, that the parties who urged and were successful in securing the passage of the naturalization law, were inti- mately connected with colonial projects in America. Men, such as Archdale and Penn, stimulated through agents and
85
C. J., XVI, 93, 108, 113, 113, 131, et. seq.; Eccles. Rec, III, 172.4, 1831; Paul Chamberlen, History of the . . . Reign of Queen Anne (London, 1738), 311.
86 7 Anne, c. 5, Statutes of the Realm, IX, 63.
87 L. C, Archdale MSS. 1694-1706, 70.
88 David Macpherson, Annals of Commerce (London, 1805), III, 6.
89 The first contingent of the Palatines arrived in London about May 3rd (£. T. Jour. 77 08-1 7 14, 2.6). They were over six weeks, a few weeks at least, at Rotterdam awaiting transportation and the time needed to cross the Channel, in addition to the time spent on the way to Rotterdam, would certainly amount to two months. The Kocherthal party in 1708 needed two months to travel from Frankfurt to London. Eccles. Rec, III, 172.9.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION 2.9
advertising a movement of people, who assured themselves that the British government had engaged to provide for them. On the other hand the British authorities do not seem to have prepared for such a large immigration. In fact, the records of the Board of Trade and Privy Council may be searched in vain for evidence that the Palatine immigration was planned or at least expected and prepared for, other than by the general naturalization act just referred to. But this much is clear, the English government under Anne was em- barking upon a mercantilist policy of colonial development, in which its population both at home and in the colonies was to be enlarged by stimulating and even subsidizing immi- gration from foreign shores.
Precedents existed for governmental controlled immigra- tion for English dominions. In 1679, Charles II sent two ship- loads of French Huguenots to South Carolina, in order to introduce the cultivation of grapes, olives and the silk-worm. 90 In 1694, Baron de Luttichaw petitioned for permission to im- port 2.00 Protestant families, some 1,000 persons, from the Germanies to his land in Ireland.91 In 1697, King William offered a grant of 500 pounds to some Jamaica merchants to transplant men to Jamaica.92 In 1706, Governor Dudley of Massachusetts Bay and New Hampshire, proposed that a colony of Scots be settled in Nova Scotia.93 In the same year, Colonel Parke, governor of the Leeward Islands asked for '10,000 Scotch with otemeal enough to keep them for 3 or 4 months" to lead against [French] Martinique. He proposed to settle them there, if successful.94 But reception of the Huguenots in England in Elizabeth's reign seemed to be the most applicable precedent, and it was strongly cited for that
90 Proper, op. cit., 81.
91 Cal. Treas. Papers ijjj-1696, 346.
92 C. C. 1696-1697, 389.
93 C. C. 1706-1708, 31, 134, 439. "Ibid., 356, 358.
30 THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
purpose.95 With the ambitious design of James II to unite all the colonies under one government, the resources of Parlia- ment and the Crown were used to foster immigration.
In the reign of Queen Anne this idea took practical shape. Considerable sums of money were expended to assist Protes- tant refugees in making their way to England and the English colonies. For example, early in 1706 Secretary of State Hedges informed Governor Granville of Barbados concerning one Francisco Pavia and his family from Cadiz, whom "H. M. has not only bestowed her royal bounty upon ... to transport them thither, but also recommended them to you, that you will give them all fitting countenance and assistance."96 In the same year the Board of Trade at the behest of Secretary of State Hedges considered a proposal by Francois Louis Michel and George Ritter to settle some "4 or 500 Swiss Protestants . . . on some uninhabited lands in Pennsylvania or on the frontier of Virginia.' The last stipulation called for trans- portation with their effects from Rotterdam at Her Majesty's expense. The Board of Trade approved the proposal, and made practical suggestions for carrying it out. Indeed, the Board did not even find fault with the suggestion that the govern- ment should pay the cost of transportation, which it esti- mated would be eight pounds per head.97 This proposal was carried out under private auspices with a handsome subsidy. These efforts were due largely to political and commercial motives, and partly to the genuine interest which England took in championing the Protestant cause in Europe.98
Still such a program of colonial development99 had to be
95 [Hare], op. cit., 4; "Brief History," in Eccles. Rec, III, 1776.
96 C. C. 1706-1708, 14.
97 Ibid., 6z, 79.
98 Proper, op. cit., 74.
99 An evidence of this program was the negotiation with Penn for the purchase of his government. By the summer of 1711, the terms of the sur- render had been agreed upon, ix,ooo pounds, payable in four years, with certain stipulations. Janney, op. cit., 514.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION 3 I
pursued with caution to avoid diplomatic intervention. Not all governments were ready to rid themselves of an undesirable religious sect by arranging deportation to British America as the Swiss canton of Bern did in 1710.100 Indeed, as a rule, princes were not disposed to permit their subjects to be en- ticed from their obligations to them.101 For this reason open invitations apparently were not issued. It can be concluded that the large German emigration of the second decade of the eighteenth century was due in a general way to these causes : (1) war devastation, (2.) heavy taxation, (3) an extraordinary severe winter, (4) religious quarrels, but not persecutions, (5) land hunger on the part of the elderly and desire for adventure on the part of the young, (6) liberal advertising by colonial proprietors, and finally (7) the benevolent and active co- operation of the British government.102 The background and causes of the Palatine emigration have been described, but the manner in which the British government participated in the actual movement has still to be pointed out. In particular, how did the emigration gather momentum? This will be dis- cussed in Chapter III. Chapter II will describe the small 1708 immigration, which blazed the trail.
100 Indeed the Swiss authorities went so far as to ask the good offices of the British to prevent Dutch interference with the compulsory transporta- tion of the Anabaptists through Holland. Letter from British Envoy Abra- ham Stanyan to Lord Townshend, April 5, 1710. Magg Bros. Cat., No. 511.
101 Todd and Goebel, op. cit., 13. It appears probable that the emigrations under discussion caused the Elector Palatine to treat his subjects better, as the Duchess of Orleans wrote to her half-sister Louisa, Raugravine in the Palati- nate, so that "When those who have gone to Pennsylvania hear about it they will quickly return." Letters to Madam (London, 192.4), II, 15.
102 Professor E. B. Greene is correct in his general conclusion as to the causes of this emigration. Provincial America 1690-1740 (New York, 1905), 2.30.
CHAPTER II. THE SMALL PALATINE EMIGRATION
OF 1708
Since the founding of Germantown in Pennsylvania under the leadership of Francis Daniel Pastorius in 1683, no large groups of Germans had sought homes in the New World. Intermittently, individuals with their families may have made the voyage, but of larger movements there were none. Twenty- five years passed before another band of emigrants made their way down the Rhine on their way to America. The emigration of 1708 was the prelude to the later heavy German emigrations of the eighteenth century.
The leader of the band of emigrants of 1708 was the Reverend Joshua Kocherthal, referred to before as the author of a promising description of Carolina. Kocherthal had visited London two years earlier and canvassed the possibilities at that time. What arrangements were made and with whom is not known but that assurances of aid were given appears certain judged by the experiences of the little band. The group was originally composed of forty-one people; ten men, ten women, and twenty-one children,1 ranging in age from six months to fifteen years. The heads of the families were Lorenz Schwisser, Henry Rennau, Andreas Volck, Michael Weigand, Jacob Weber, Jacob Pletel, Johannes Fischer, Melchior Gulch, and Joshua Kocherthal. One of the ten men was single, a young man of twenty-three, Isaac Tiirck by name. They came from the neighborhood of Landau in the Rhenish Palatinate and represented themselves as refugees of the war there.2
1 P. R. O., C. O. 32.3/6, 56. Also, History Society of Pennsylvania Library Transcripts, B. T., Plantations General, VII, 54, hereafter cited as H. S. P. A fifteen year old girl was considered a woman evidently. B. T. Jour. 1704-1708, 482; C. C. 1706-1708, 722..
2 N. Y. Col. Docs., V, 53; Doc. Hist., Ill, 543.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
33
On February 16, 1708, Kocherthal and his party applied to the English consular representative at Frankfort on the Rhine for passes to England.3 Mr. Davenant, the representa- tive, refused to give them passes, money or recommendations, for fear of displeasing the Elector Palatine. Instead of aiding them immediately, he requested instructions from London. Mr. Boyle, one of the principal Secretaries of State, replied that though the desire of those poor people to settle in the plantations was very acceptable and would be for the public good, the Queen could by no means consent to Mr. Davenant's giving encouragement in any public way, either by money or passes to the Elector Palatine's subjects to leave their country without his consent.4 If the emigrants received any aid in Frankfort, it was secretly given.
Reverend Kocherthal and his party continued on their journey, however. On the way down the Rhine they received many gifts of food, money and even clothing from those charitably disposed. Their progress from town to town must have attracted considerable attention and acted as valuable publicity for the English colonies. Kocherthal's confidence that the English government might provide the passage from Holland to England was well-founded it seems. In a letter, which was written from London, July 31, 1708, and appeared as a third appendix to the 1709 edition of his Bevicht, Kocher- thal stated, "the city council in Rotterdam gave us twenty- five florins [£4.3.4] and had us brought to Hellevotschliuss5 at their own cost in a ship belonging to the city. At the Hague we obtained from the English envoy that a free pass was given us to England and so we were brought from Hellevotschliuss in Holland clear to Harwich in England without a penny's cost."6
3 H. S. P., B. T. Plantations General, VIII, 53. *C./., XVI, 597.
5 Hellevotschliuss is about fifteen miles from Rotterdam on a large island close to the coast.
6 Kocherthal, Bericht (1709), 2.8.
34 THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
Immediately on his arrival in London, Kocherthal peti- tioned the Queen. This petition recited the cause of the emigration as the French ravages upon the Rhine and Neckar Rivers in 1707. In the judgment of the immigrants, so severe was the destruction that they could not possibly attain suffi- cient means of livelihood during the hard times, which still continued. Although Kocherthal requested a dwelling place in the English West Indies7 and aid in establishing the colony, he did not mention royal promises.8 This fact may mean little, however, since he was a man of singular tact, and charity was not to be secured by demands, at least not in the eighteenth century. At any rate, the petition was sent to the Board of Trade for advice as to the most proper place to settle the Palatines, as to transportation and as to the subsistence necessary to provide for them meanwhile.9 The Secretary of State apparently already had decided to settle the Palatines at government expense. Whoever had promised Kocherthal aid, as related in his Bericht already referred to, was moving the authorities as expected. Since matters of importance were decided often by the ministers in informal meetings without record (a practice which was to develop into the cabinet system), it is not surprising that it is difficult to determine how or by whom this early decision to help the Palatines was secured.
Meanwhile the Board of Trade was considering the matter. On the und of April, the Board had Kocherthal before it, to report in more detail the condition of his band. At this time he described their occupations as follows: "One is a joyner, another a smith, the others all versed in gardening, husbandry, planting, and tillage, and the women were versed in and
7 The term "West Indies" appears to have been loosely used in the early eighteenth century to include the British colonies in the New World.
»H. L., H. M. MSS., 1403.
9 C. C. 1706-1708, 710; P. R. O., S. P. 44/107, 14, io.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION 35
understood the same business."10 The Board recommended immediate aid for subsistence.11 At the next session on the Palatines, the Board of Trade was advised by a Mr. Lodwick, who had resided in New York for about fifteen years, that New York was a poor place to send them. He said that all land in the province had already been granted, except land which lay forty or fifty miles from the Hudson River. The three Lutheran ministers, who resided in London, accom- panied Kocherthal before the Board. They told the Board that they had read the testimonials giving a good character to the said minister and others, and they had no reason to doubt their truth. The religious beliefs of the forty-one persons were given as fifteen Lutherans and twenty-six Calvinists.12 On May 10th, two warrants were issued for the distribution of money to the Palatines; one for one hundred pounds,13 the other for forty shillings a day from April 15th past until their transportation to New York.14
On the same day the Queen approved an Order in Council, which was considered the following year as the royal sanction for the government venture into the manufacture of naval stores. The Order recited the condition of the refugees and the Board of Trade's suggestion of settlement in Jamaica or "Antego" (Antigua), where large tracts of land were un- granted and a great need of white people existed. The fear that the hot climate would adversely affect the Palatines led to the proposal that they "should be settled upon the Hudson River, in the province of New York, where they might be
10 B. T. Jour. 1J04-1J08, 481. Among the six other families of Palatines who arrived in London shortly thereafter and joined the group were a stocking maker and a weaver; C. C. 1J06-1708, 783; N. Y. Col. Docs., V, 53. See complete list in Appendix A.
11 C. C. 1706-1708, yhi.
12 B. T. Jour. 1704-1708, 483.
13 P. R. O., C. O. 5/1049, 6; C. C. 1706-1708, 744, 745.
14 P. R. O., C. O. 5, 67; In accordance with this order another 100 pounds was issued on June 10th, P. R. O., C. O. 5/1049, 69; C. C. 1708-1709, 35, St.
36
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
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[First Half] Denization Papers granted to Kocherthal's Party of Palatines in London in May, 1708.
Courtesy of Pennsylvania-German Society.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
37
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[Second Half] Denization Papers granted to Kocherthal's Party of Palatines in London in May, 1708.
Courtesy of Pennsylvania-German Society.
38 THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
useful to this kingdom, particularly in the production of naval stores, and as a frontier against the French and their Indians.' At the same time orders were issued to the proper authorities to provide 655 pounds for clothing, tools, etc., and to make the Palatines free denizens of the kingdom without charge.15
Before the departure for New York, Kocherthal acquainted the Board of Trade with the fact that fourteen more Germans (two from Holstein) had unexpectedly arrived and likewise desired to go to New York.16 On the next day, May 2.8th, he presented a list of the new group.17 The petition was con- sidered favorably. In the meantime preparations went ahead for the settlement. Lists of tools and other necessaries were drawn up and submitted. The cost of the voyage was esti- mated at 333 pounds.18 On the 2.8th of June Kocherthal sub- mitted a complete roster of his company. The late-comers were Peter Rose and his wife, Maria Wemarin, a widow, and her daughter, Isaac Feber with his wife and son, Daniel Fiere with his wife and two children, and Herman Schiineman.19 The other two Germans not listed had entered the services of Lord Lovelace,20 the newly-appointed governor of New York. Their names are supplied from the list of May 2.8th, mentioned above, as Peter Hiibertsen and his son Jacob, a lad of fifteen. On questioning, the Board learned that Kocherthal had made an agreement with the others to clear six acres of land for him the first year, to enable him to settle.
Reverend Kocherthal next petitioned for a salary as clergy-
15 P. R. O., S. P. 44/107, 67; C. C. 1706-1708, -jt-j; Acts of Privy Council Col. 1680-1720, 553.
16 H. S. P., Jour. B. T., XX, 157; Doc. Hist., Ill, 3x8; Eccles. Rec, III, 1703
17 B. T. Jour. 1704-1708, 496; C. C. ijo6-ijo8, 738; N. Y. Col. Docs., V, 44; P. R. O., C. O. 1049/57, 139. Peculiarly only thirteen people are listed, the name of Herman Schiineman being absent. This is supplied from the list of June x8th.
18 C. C. 1706-1708, 744, 757, 783. N. Y. Col. Docs., V, 53. H. S. P., Jour. B. T., XX, -ltl.
19
20
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION 39
man, but the Board of Trade "found no precedent of a salary being settled here upon foreign clergymen in the Plantations, only that at New York the French Minister there has a salary of twenty pounds out of the Revenue." But the Board recommended that Governor Lovelace grant him a reasonable portion of land for a glebe and that twenty pounds be allowed Kocherthal for clothes and books. This was accordingly done. 21 For these favors, Kocherthal thanked the Board of Trade in a letter from New York, dated February 15, 1709. 22
About the middle of October, 1708, the Palatines sailed with Lovelace for New York, leaving behind them the family of Melchior Gulch (also known as Gilles or Hilg). His wife was ill with a "cancer of the breast," which the surgeons were hopeful of curing in three or four months. During this period the family was supported by the government. But Frau Gulch died, and on April 19, 1709, Melchior petitioned for an order to the Navy Board for transportation to New York.23 The voyage of the main party with Governor Lovelace in 1708 occupied over nine weeks. On board the Palatine ship, the Globe, two children were born to German families and were baptized by Kocherthal September 14th and November 2.8th.24 Governor Lovelace landed at Flushing, Long Island. He wrote immediately on December 18th, "Our winter sets in very hard, the Ports and Rivers are full of Ice; I am in pain for the Germans and Recruits on board the Globe they wanting water, and the Weather not permitting us to assist them. This coast is so terrible in the Winter I think no Ship ought to be sent
21 P. R. O., S. P. 44/107, 87; C. C. 1708-1709, 34, 61; N. Y. Col. Docs., V, 63; Doc. Hist., Ill, 543.
22 C. C. 1708-1709, a.!.; B. T. Jour. 1708-1714, 67.
23 Ibid., no, 184, 2.81J B. T. Jour. 1708-1714, 2.3.
24 Kocherthal Records, 4. A MS. record in the possession of St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church at West Camp, N. Y. This has been translated and published in Olde Ulster, a biographical and historical magazine (Kingston, N. Y., 1907), III, 54. Another translation is J. C. Krahmer, The Kocherthal Records (St. Johns ville, N. Y., 193 1).
4°
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
Portrait of Governor Francis Lovelace. Courtesy of Pennsylvania-German Society .
hither from England after August at fartherest . . . ."25 The Palatines spent the winter in New York City. Two more children were baptized there on January 2.3 rd and February i3rd.26
Governor Lovelace gave the Palatines land on the west side of the Hudson River about fifty-five miles north of New York City. The settlement was made at the mouth of Quas- saick Creek.27 Lots of from one hundred to three hundred acres were divided among the settlers, fifty acres per person. In pursuance of Lovelace's instructions, five hundred acres
25 N. Y. Col. Docs., V, 67.
26 Kocherthal Records, 4.
27 Mr. Ralph A. Weed, for years President of the Historical Society of Newburgh Bay and the Highlands, now deceased, collected considerable material on this Palatine settlement, which was "boxed and not available" for this study.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION 41
were granted to Kocherthal for a glebe, and an additional two hundred and fifty acres for his family.28 This settlement was the beginning of Newburgh, New York. The Palatine colony was to have been a frontier settlement, but Newburgh was fully a hundred miles from Albany, beyond which the frontier began. The Palatines, it had been suggested by the Board of Trade and echoed by the Privy Council, were to make naval stores, but no plans or preparations for that work were made.
During the administration of Lovelace, the Palatines at Newburgh were well taken care of. The allowance of nine pence per day for each person supplied them with food and other necessities. But Lovelace's administration was short. He died on May 6, 1709, ' 'having never had a well day in his government." He had contracted a cold on the voyage over, which probably developed more serious complications. Pity the plight of Lady Lovelace, for one son died before his Lord- ship and the young Lord passed away a fortnight later.29 Up to the time of his decease, Lovelace had expended two hundred and two pounds, seventeen shillings and eight pence in behalf of the Palatines, which sum was certified to by Kocherthal and Schuneman.30 At the beginning of 1711, Lady Lovelace had not yet received the money due her on this account.31 But before 171 5 her husband's successor in the governorship, Colonel Robert Hunter, had reimbursed her out of the quit- rent fund of the colony with a sum somewhere between 400 and 500 pounds.32
Soon after the death of Lovelace the Palatines were in actual want of provisions. They petitioned the Council of
28 N. Y. Patent Books, VIII, 333; N. Y. Land Papers, V, 14Z, VI, 39, 57 and 188; N. Y. Council Minutes, XI, 89; Doc. Hist., Ill, 572..
29 N. Y. Col. Docs., V, 81. New York Historical Society, Hawks Tran- scripts of London Society for Propagation of the Gospel Records, T, 154, hereafter cited as N. Y. H. S.
30 C. C. iyo8-ijog, 459.
31 Cal. Treas. Papers 1J08-1J14, 133.
32 C. C. 1714-1715, 307.
42- THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
New York on May 2.6th, to provide for them as the Queen had intended. Colonel Nicholson, a colonial official with influence, who was in the province to take part in the 1709 expedition against Canada, testified to the intentions of the British government subsidy.33 The Council thereupon requested Colonel Thomas Wenham to support the Germans until the expiration of the year as ordered, or until Her Majesty's de- sire became known. This request was made necessary by the lack of revenue in the province and by the colonial govern- ment's great debts.34
At the same time charges were made that nineteen of the forty-seven Germans in the settlement had turned "Pietists" and had withdrawn from communion with the minister and the others. A committee of the Council investigated these charges and was of the opinion on June 2.1st, "that nothing of the aligations suggested against those called 'Pietists' have been proved before them. ..." Accordingly their subsistence allowance, which had been withheld on that account, was restored to them. This religious dispute indicated at least that the members of the settlement were not in complete harmony with each other. Another cause for discord appeared, when Melchior Gulch arrived from London. He brought a variety of joiner's tools and other supplies, including a barrel of lime, and two grindstones. The Germans by a common division took possession of all the tools. On April 2.9, 1710, Gulch asked for an order against them to secure the joiner's sets, which he claimed had been given to him for his own posses- sion, for his son, and for an apprentice.35
Near the end of June, Kocherthal found himself in financial straits. He was dissatisfied with the means afforded for his settlement. He therefore determined to return to England and
33 Colonel Nicholson had been consulted by the Board of Trade in London with reference to the Palatine settlement. B. T. Jour. 1J04-1J08, 496.
3iDoc. Hist., Ill, 545.
35 Ibid., 551.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION 43
personally to plead his cause with the Queen or her govern- ment. On June 2.9th Kocherthal most humbly implored Colonel Ingoldesby, Lieutenant-Governor of the province, then acting governor, to procure free transportation for him on one of Her Majesty's ships.36 Having secured passage, on August 1 8th, he further requested Ingoldesby to give him a testi- monial of the "civil life and behavior" of himself and his group since his arrival, inasmuch as this would very much contribute to the happy success of his mission.37 Kocherthal did not return to London in order to lead the 1710 emigrants, as has been asserted.38 He was unaware of the developments over there. He undertook his journey to secure further help from the Queen, principally for himself.
During his short residence in New York Kocherthal had contracted a debt of thirty pounds, among the items being house-rent, firewood, a table, a bedstead, a chest, three stools, candles and household goods. Other expenses were for teach- ing English to his children, and a physician and nurse for his wife's illness. While he had been assigned seven hundred and fifty acres of land, he had not received the capital to work it, as he desired. He had not found matters as pleasant as he had anticipated in his Bericht. He therefore determined upon the voyage to London, which cost him an additional twenty-five pounds, to be secured from the Queen or her government.39
After Kocherthal' s departure for London, the settlement's benefactor, Colonel Wenham, died and again the German colonists were in dire want. On September 2.3, 1709, they peti- tioned the Lieutenant-Governor and the Council in the hope
36 Ibid., 546.
37 N. Y. Col. MSS., LIII, 108.
38 C. B. Todd, "Robert Hunter and the Settlement of the Palatines," in National Magazine (February, 1893), XVII, 1.92.; Todd, "The Story of the Palatines," in Lippincott Magazine (March, 1883), XXXI, 144; B. M. Brink,
'The Palatine Settlements," in N. Y. State Hist. Assoc. Proc. (Albany, 1911), XI, 139.
39P.R.O., CO. 5/1049, 155.
44 THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
that they might provide a gentleman, willing to support them with their allowance, until it expired on January ist. By October ioth, the Palatines had obtained two men willing to provide the ready payment of the remainder due them, one hundred and ninety-five pounds and three shillings, Colonel Nicholas Bayard and Mr. Octavius Conradus. The arrange- ment was made, however, only after the Germans had entered into a penal bond fully to repay the money, should it not be received from the Royal Treasury within twelve months. The Council, approving of this, agreed to certify the amount to the Lord High Treasurer as they had done for Colonel Wenham.40
At all events, Kocherthal returned to London, and on December 2.7, 1709, he addressed the Board of Trade in a clever fashion. He drew up a paper on the subject of viticulture in America. He wrote that he had corresponded "with all such persons as have had the least experience in that affaire, and have actually undertaken a journey over the whole Conti- nent.' Kocherthal asserted that the planting of vineyards could "be the most profitable labour which the new-comers there could ever desire, and more advantageous to this King- dom than the America sugar or tobacco trade." After raising a series of questions and answering them, he concluded that "It would in a short Time evidently appeare That the English America is full as fit and capable for the said nursery and Wine Trade as any other Part or Place in the Whole Universe."41 To this attractive dissertation, Kocherthal attached an ab- stract of letters, which it appeared were received by him from "friends," concerning his maintenance in New York. In this way he brought to the attention of the authorities what he desired, and even argued for it without appearing to do so.
40 Doc. Hist., Ill, 547 et seq.
41 C. C. 1708-1709, 565; P. R. O., C. O. 5/1049, 155. Today the hills border- ing the Hudson River are covered with grape-vines. Not Reverend Kocher- thal, but a prohibition experiment two hundred years later was responsible for the industry.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION 45
These extracts are most interesting, since they present some idea of what was considered necessary to set up a small plantation in 1710.
For such a modest enterprise over five hundred pounds were required. These are some of the items: to clear the ground for the house and barn, ten pounds; building a house, one hundred and eighty pounds; a barn, seventy pounds; two negro slaves to do the work, one hundred and twenty pounds; a wagon, cart, plow and (h)arrow, twenty pounds; three horses, four cows and two hogs, twenty pounds; (as it would take over a year to produce) subsistence for a family of seven, a man, woman, three children and two slaves, eighty pounds. To these items, Kocherthal added twenty pounds for incidentals and the seventy pounds he needed for immediate expenses and debts.42
Another "friend" apparently wrote Kocherthal that this sum of money would not suffice or be paid him in London. This "friend" advised Kocherthal to resign his seven hundred and fifty acres and petition Her Majesty for half of the money, three hundred pounds. This sum could then be used to pay Kocherthal' s debts in New York and the expense of living there for another year. He could in the meantime cast about for another place of living and leave at the end of that time. A third "friend" cautioned Kocherthal to "take care to dis- charge his debts, otherwise his possessions would certainly be seized and his children sold for servants."
One of Kocherthal' s "friends" wrote, "As to the Report Wee have had That there are so many High Germans in London Who are to come hither I doe look upon this to be false, But if the same be True There are 5 Dutch Ministers in the province, and the English Minister in Albania [Albany] the Reverend Mr. Barkley doth Sufficiently understand the
42 A gift of this kind could be expected by Kocherthal only if he felt that in justice something further was due to him for services rendered, perhaps in writing the Bericht, that most favorable description of Carolina, which he never visited.
46 THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
High dutch Tongue. . . . "43 It is difficult to understand how the decision of Secretary of State Sunderland on November 4th, which will be discussed later, to send more Germans to New York, could have reached the colonies and comments returned to England by December 2.7th.
Kocherthal's connection with the 1709 migration is that of a press agent. It was his Bericht of 1706, which encouraged many of his fellow-countrymen to consider the New World. His example in 1708, and especially the reception he and his band received at the hands of the English government, pointed the way for others to follow. An account of the aid, that could be expected by others and was received by Kocherthal, was added as a third Appendix to his Bericht, and disseminated in the Rhine Valley. The four impressions, made in 1709, are indicative of the demand for the pamphlet and of its influence in encouraging emigration.44 But Kocherthal's accidental presence in London, late in 1709, has misled students of this movement to attribute to him a mythical leadership, even asserting that his return to England was for that purpose.
Kocherthal apparently received some aid from funds voted by Parliament in connection with the large Palatine immigra- tion of 1709. At any rate he returned to New York and resumed his labors with his fellow-countrymen. But it does not appear that he was provided with the capital for the plantation he envisioned. His history and that of the Newburgh Palatines merged with that of the large immigration of 1709 and will be discussed later in a chapter on the dispersal of the Germans in New York. Meanwhile the various causes of Palatine emigra- tion treated in Chapter I, were giving pause to many dis- heartened and dissatisfied Germans in the Rhine country. The well-established fact that Kocherthal had followed the course laid out in his Bericht, gave further impetus to a movement of population, which for its brief intensity was incredible in that age. Let us follow the 1709 emigration from the Rhineland to London.
43 P. R. O., C. O. 5/1049, 155.
B. M., Strafford Papers, Add. MSS. 2.2.1.01, 130.
11
CHAPTER III. THE 1709 EMIGRATION IN
ENGLAND
Scarcely had the harsh winter season of 1708-9 begun to relax its hold in February, when various inhabitants of the Rhine Valley hopefully began their preparations to go to England. These consisted mainly of gathering up their few possessions and securing a recommendation from the local authorities.1 One of these documents has survived during these two centuries. Gerhart Schaeffer, preparing to emigrate in 1709, secured the following certificate of good character from the Mayor and the clerks of court of Hilgert Dorf, in Hesse-Nassau: "He has lived with us in Hilgert Dorf with his housewife for ±4. years and has conducted himself well and honestly, so that all his neighbors regarded him as a faithful neighbor and were entirely satisfied with him, and the neigh- bors would have been much pleased if it had been God's will that he should remain longer here.' It was signed by the Mayor, duly sealed and witnessed.2
The passage down the Rhine to Holland took from four to six weeks. This journey was beset with many delays and in- conveniences. Fees and tolls were frequently demanded.3 On the other hand philanthropic assistance was not lacking. Along the river the Palatines were presented with money and food by pious countrymen, many of whom regarded the pilgrims with envious eyes, wishing they too might be seek- ing their fortune in the New World. Bread, meat, butter and cheese and even an occasional gift of clothing brightened the
1 Simmendinger, op. cit., 2..
2 The original remains in the possession of Schaeffer's descendants, the Kingsley family, of The Rocks, Schoharie, N. Y.
3 Gottlieb Mittelberger, Journey to Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1898), 18. This refers to later years, but earlier conditions were worse.
48
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
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Letter of Recommendation of Gerhart Schaeffer, a Palatine emigrant, May 16,
1709. Courtesy of the Kings ley Family, Schoharie, New York.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
49
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Letter of Recommendation of Gerhart Schaeffer, a Palatine emigrant, May i6,
1709. Courtesy of the Kingsley Family, Schoharie, New York.
50 THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
slow journey.4 Ever present too must have been the fear that the authorities would halt them temporarily for some trifling matter, as often occurred, or turn them back definitely, as frequently threatened.
While the pioneer groups were preparing for emigration along the Rhine and its tributaries the Neckar and Main Rivers and beginning to gather in numbers, unidentified in- dividuals approached the British authorities in their behalf late in December, 1708. The first British official reference to the 1709 Palatine immigration came from James Dayrolle, British Resident at the Hague. It was an undated and unsigned document in French entitled, "Memorial relating to the Poor Protestants from the Palatinate." When Dayrolle enclosed it in a dispatch of December 2.4, 1708, he said, "It was brought to me from the German post office. How it came thither and from whence I know not.' The memorial read: 'There ar- rived in this place a number of Protestant families, traveling to England in order to go to the English colonies in America. There are now in the neighborhood of Rotterdam almost eight or nine hundred of them, having difficulty with the packet boat and convoys." After describing these emigrants as com- posed of poor families of vigorous people, fleeing persecution and oppression in the Palatinate, the memorial concluded with an appeal to Dayrolle: "My Lord, you are humbly sup- plicated to procure passage and transportation to England out of the benevolence and charity of the Queen."5 The unknown author of the memorial seems to have anticipated the arrival in Rotterdam of the Palatines by over three months, for it was not until April 19th that Dayrolle reported about nine hun- dred Palatines at Rotterdam.6 Meanwhile nothing appears to have been done in London with the exception of the first general naturalization act as related in Chapter I.
4 Kocherthal, Berkht, 77.
5 P. R. O., S. P. 84/131, 7.
6 P. R. O., S. P. 84/131, 188.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION 5 I
Although Davenant, the English representative at Frank- fort in the Palatinate had been ordered in 1708 not to give any public encouragement, money, or passes to emigrants (as was related in Chapter II), Dayrolle at the Hague in the Nether- lands was under no such restrictions. Beginning on March 2.9, 1709, and at intervals thereafter, he reported to London the granting of passes to sixty or a hundred families at a time.7 On the same date Dayrolle informed London of the general naturalization act under consideration by the Dutch and that undercover moves were being made to have the French recog- nize such naturalization of French refugees. But the result was reported of course to be uncertain.8 Dayrolle apparently feared that the Dutch might induce the emigrants to remain in the Netherlands to the loss of Great Britain and her colonies. How groundless this fear turned out to be will soon be apparent.
But Dayrolle was a zealous official, determined to secure these "strong and laborious people" for his own country. By April 19th, the number of Palatines at Rotterdam was about nine hundred persons and more were expected. Dayrolle sug- gested that the transports bringing troops from England to the Low Countries, to fight against the French in the War of the Spanish Succession, might return to England with the Palatines. He further related to Secretary of State Boyle, "I have acquainted the Duke of Marlborough with it, and his Grace is likewise informed of that poor people's circum- stances, wanting some assistance to get over, and he has prom- ised to move Her Majesty in their behalf."9
Marlborough was the dominant personality in Queen Anne's government, not only as the military genius of his age and the leader of the alliance against France, but also be-
' P. R. O., S. P. 84/131, 157, 184, 188.
8 It should be remembered that the English in the first decade of the 18th century grudgingly admired the economic progress of the Dutch and such references were well calculated to inspire English action of a similar nature. The English naturalization law was adopted on March 13rd. (See Chapter I).
9 P. R. O., S. P. 84/131, 188.
52. THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
cause of his family connections. His brother George had dominated the Admiralty until 1708; his son-in-law, Sunder- land was the leading Secretary of State; his friend, Godolphin, was the head of the Treasury; and his wife was believed to be supreme over the Queen.10 Marlborough as minister pleni- potentiary was present at the Hague with Lord Townshend to negotiate peace terms at Geertruidenberg. Dayrolle wisely consulted the Duke, for the mention of his interest was enough to move Boyle to present the matter to Queen Anne.11 With the Queen's approval, orders were issued to the transport ships as Dayrolle had suggested, that is, to return laden with Palatines.12
Late in April four transports carried 852. Palatines to London, their subsistence on the voyage being supplied by private charity secured in the Low Countries.13 In fact, many contributions had to be made to keep the refugees alive. Among others the United Baptists at Amsterdam solicited funds for the Palatines of their faith, many of whom had started from Switzerland.14 In the same month, the burgo- masters of Rotterdam appropriated 750 gilders (c. 75 pounds) for distribution among the destitute emigrants.15 When some
10 W. T. Morgan, "The Ministerial Revolution of 1710 in England," in Pol. Sci. Quarterly (June, 192.1), XXXVI, 195.
11 Since the calendar of the Marlborough family papers indicated material dealing with the Palatines (Marlborough MSS., Hist. MSS. Com., 8th Report, Appendix, 47), permission was sought of the family for access to the papers. The request was refused, the only instance of unwillingness to co-operate experienced in the course of this research. Fortunately, the public archives contain enough correspondence to make sufficiently clear Marlborough's official connection with the immigration. The family papers might have indicated a financial interest in the Carolina venture as a motive for Marl- borough's co-operation, but this is to be doubted judged from the casual way in which he came to be concerned in transporting the Palatines to England.
12 B. M., Add. MSS. 15866, 166; P. R.O.,S. P. 104/74, 83; S. P. 44/108, 59.
13 P. R. O., S. P. 87/4, z6^. This group is evidently the band of 851 Palatines as noted in the first London Relief Lists of May 6, 1709, compiled by Messrs. Ruperti and Tribbeko; P. R. O., C. O. 38S/76, 56 ii.
11 H. S. P., J. F. Sachse, Dutch Transcripts, April 8, 1709.
15 Resolutions and Dispositions of Burgomasters of Rotterdam, III, 12.1.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION 53
of the Palatines visited Dayrolle on May 6th, he informed them of the order to use the army transports to carry them to England. He was told then that the Elector Palatine had pub- lished an edict forbidding emigrants to leave. Two boats laden with Palatines were seized on the Rhine River and the emigrants were imprisoned. Nevertheless, Palatines arrived daily in Rotterdam after escaping by land.16
But when the convoy arrived on May ioth it was learned that only one ship had been ordered to receive Palatines. As a thousand were now awaiting transportation, there was keen disappointment. Dayrolle went to Marlborough, 'Who will order it possible, that care may be taken to have them all shipp'd."17 Since 900 more Palatines arrived in Rotterdam within one week, Dayrolle had Mr. Cardonnel, Marlbor- ough's secretary, write on May ioth to Secretary Boyle "upon that subject."18 Cardonnel at Marlborough's order suggested that Dayrolle manage the transportation of the Palatines, making the necessary agreement for their trans- portation and subsistence in their passage to England.19
Anticipating the authorization of this plan from London, Dayrolle with the approval of Cardonnel appointed two Dutch merchants, Hendrik van Toren and John Suderman, to supervise the loading and sailing of the emigrants.20 These men advised Cardonnel from Rotterdam on the nth of May that the convoy would sail for England before the orders from London could possibly arrive. They therefore asked him
16 P. R. O., S. P. 84/132., 118.
17 P. R. O., S. P. 84/2.31, 111.
" P. R. O., S. P. 84/131, 119; C. J., XVI, 597.
19 P. R. O., S. P. 84/131, 111.
20 P. R. O., S. P. 44/107, 149. Jan van Gent, another Dutch merchant, replaced Suderman early in June as one of the two Commissioners supervising the embarkation at Rotterdam. Both van Toren and van Gent were men of fine reputation and seem to have been motivated by Christian charity, being members of the Anabaptist Church. They received no remuneration but on the contrary censure from London before they finished their work. P. R. O., S. P. 84/131, 167; S. P. 84/131, 515.
54 THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
to seek Marlborough's21 authorization for transporting and subsisting the Palatines at the government's expense to pre- vent the loss of opportunity for shipping at the next sailing. Their letter concluded with the statement that, "The charity Her Majesty [Queen Anne] shows toward the poor and the inclination which my Lord Marlborough made appear to help those Germans, gives us hopes that his Grace will be pleased to give a favorable answer to our representation."22 The reply came promptly on the same day, "His Grace is willing you should proceed to the Embarkation of the poor Palatines as soon as you are sure the Convoy is ready to sail and supply them with provisions during their passage upon the best terms not exceeding 4 d. a day.' The merchants were also ordered to check carefully the masters of the vessels employed in the service and transmit the names of every person put on board with their age.23 In pursuance of this order 1x83 persons were shipped on May izth.24
On the next day Mr. Cardonnel wrote to the Secretary of the Treasury concerning Marlborough's authorization for the embarkation, "the convoy being ready to saile, his Grace has thought fit, not to loose any time, to give orders for shipping them off so that you may soon expect to hear of them on your side where you will know best what is to be done with them. ' Mr. Tilson, the secretary, was further instructed to communi- cate the matter to the Treasurer so that money would be made available to Dayrolle at the Hague for payment of the mer-
21
It has appeared to be necessary to describe in some detail the connection of Marlborough to the emigration, since earlier writers, considering the report of the Parliamentary Investigating Committee in 171 1, have been quite at a loss to do so.
22 P. R. O., S. P. 87/4, 2.65.
23 Lists of Embarkation were kept but without the notation as to age which was requested. These lists, published for the first time, are in the Appendix C. to this book, where their nature and value are discussed.
P. R. O., T. 1/119, 6; S. P. 84/131, 139.
24
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION 55
chants' claims for transporting the people.25 On May 17th, Cardonnel wrote to Mr. Tilson again on the subject of the Palatines, this time at more length. He began, "you will have seen by my last letter the direction my lord Duke has thought good to give in relation to the poor Palatines. In consequence of them, there are about 1300 embarkt and I believe sail'd by this time."26
From London on that same date Secretary of State Boyle sent the following letter to Mr. Dayrolle authorizing the transportation of the Palatines at government expense. ' 'Upon what you mentioned in yours of the 2.1 Inst. N. S.27 concerning the great number of German Protestants, now lying at Rotter- dam, which want to be transported hither; and upon a repre- sentation from Mr. Cardonnel, by order of the Duke of Marl- borough of the best method for taking care of them, Her Majesty has commanded me, to signify her pleasure to you, that you should take the Transportation of the Said Poor German Protestants into your care, and make an agreement on the best terms you can for providing the necessary Trans- ports there, and subsisting those people in their passage to England. My Lord Treasurer has likewise her Majesty's directions to order Mr. Brydges, the Paymaster, to write Mr. Sweet at Amsterdam, To supply you with such sums of money as the service may require."28 At the Hague, Dayrolle acknowledged the receipt of the order on May 14th, mention- ing that at that time about xooo more Palatines were at
25 P. R. O., S. P. 87/4, 2.67.
26 P. R. O., S. P. 87/4, 158.
27 It should be noted that the Julian calendar was in use in England until 1751, while the Gregorian calendar was generally followed on the continent. There was at this time eleven days difference between the calendars, thus Dayrolle's letter of May list New Style was written on the English date, May 10th Old Style. This letter was later used (in 171 1) by a Parliamentary committee investigating the Palatine immigration, as the basis for charges against Marlborough and his son-in-law Sunderland.
28 P. R. O., S. P. 104/74, 85; S. P. 44/107, xx9; B. M., Add. MSS. 15866, 170.
56 THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
Rotterdam, awaiting the sailing of the convoy some five days later.29
Marlborough's interest in the emigrants and his influence in England were most helpful in securing the English govern- ment's aid. It should be clear furthermore that for the sub- sistence at the government's expense of the second party of Palatines sent on May izth Marlborough was personally responsible, since he issued the order anticipating the approval of London which did not arrive until May 2.4th. But the Brit- ish government with the Queen's approval had authorized the use of the returning army transports as early as April 2.3rd. It is apparent too, that in May the London authorities re- garded the transportation of the Palatines as an extended project, for Secretary Boyle instructed Dayrolle concerning "such further [Palatine] accounts as you shall send me from time to time for that service."30
The Palatines continued to arrive in Rotterdam in increas- ing numbers. Early in June, the arrivals numbered about a thousand a week.31 This rate was maintained until late in July, when strenuous efforts to stop the emigration were be- ginning to take effect. On June 14th, Dayrolle informed London that "upon the continuation of H. M. Bounty or any other encouragement, you may have half Germany if you please, for they are all flying away not only from the Pala- tinate, but from all other countrys in the neighborhood of the Rhine. . . . The expenses may be great but are necessary, if you are in want of these people for the Plantations, as my Lord Townshend seems to be of opinion you are, otherwise they must perish where they come to lye at Briel."32 Most of the Palatines were quite poor. They were encamped outside Rotterdam in a most miserable condition. A number of shacks
29 P. R. O., S. P. 84/132., 139.
3() P. R. O., S. P. 104/74, 88; B. M., Add. MSS. 15866, 171.
31 P. R. O., S. P. 84/131, 159.
32 P. R O., S. P. 84/13I, 168.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION 57
covered with reeds were all the shelter they had from the weather.33 Marlborough and Lord Townshend, his fellow ambassador, each contributed 50 pounds to help care for them.34 All dispatches to England describing the Germans emphasized their need. The great number of children among them was also pointed out.35
In the meantime the shipping of the Palatines was being pushed with all despatch possible. Provisions were given to the Palatines while on board ship, and for six or eight days for the crossing.36 The bargain for subsistence and transporta- tion was made by Mr. Cardonnel with the two Commissioners van Toren and van Gent at 4 stivers a day for each subsisted and 40 stivers for each transported, roughly 4 d. and 3 s. 4 d. respectively.37 As early as May 17th the Dutch Admiralty had been requested to aid in the embarkation. Even the packet boat carrying dispatches between England and the continent was to carry Palatines who presented themselves, bearing a note or pass from Dayrolle.38 A month later, Dayrolle pro- posed that men-of-war be dispatched to convoy ships, as they could be secured at Rotterdam for transport purposes.39
By June 8th, the Commissioners van Toren and van Gent in Rotterdam had shipped over 6,000 Palatines at the expense of the British government.40 As the emigrants continued to arrive in great numbers, Dayrolle began to have qualms con- cerning the expense. On June 1st, he wrote that, 'They tell me the whole Palatinate is ready to follow them poor and rich, so that you will please to let me know what is her Majesty's pleasure in case the numbers augment in that
33 P. R. O., S. P. 87/4, 184.
34 P. R. O., S. P. 84/131, 480.
35 P. R. O., S. P. 87/4, 186; S. P. 84/131, 149.
36 P. R. O., S. P. 44/107, 141; T 1/119, 71.
37 P. R. O., S. P. 84/131, 159.
38 P. R. O., S. P. 87/4, 158, 160.
39 P. R. O., S. P. 84/131, 173.
40 P. R. O., T 1/119, 10, 16, 71.
58 THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
manner."41 On June 7th, after pointing out the number of Palatines reported on the way to Rotterdam, he finished, "you may judge how far the expense may go.' On the 10th, he asked for further instructions.42 Meanwhile in London on June 7th and June 10th, Secretary of State Boyle sent dis- patches to Dayrolle, ordering him "to continue the same methods in taking care of the poor Palatines, as you have hitherto done, till further orders."43 But on June 14th, Dayrolle again emphasized the great expense and asked Boyle for particular directions, "How far to go with money for subsisting them on their passage." A few days later, Dayrolle promised to follow directions, "till new orders" were re- ceived, but he wanted instructions about the extraordinary expenses.44
At last, on June 2.4th, Boyle sent orders to Dayrolle to send over only those Palatines at Rotterdam upon receipt of his letter. The immigrants were coming "over so fast" that it was impossible to care for them and dispose of them, and "the success of the whole matter may happen thereby to be dis- appointed.' A further restriction was then added, "And as there are many papists mix'd among them you are for the future to allow none to come over but such as are Protes- tants."45 Dayrolle had reported the presence of a great many Roman Catholics on June 1st, but Marlborough had told him, "there was no great inconveniency, to let them go with the rest."46 The difficulty in discriminating was great, and the Catholic Palatines were a problem left for the London authorities to handle.
On the 2.5th of June, Dayrolle wrote that he could not understand the instructions issued by the Treasurer to his
41 P. R. O., S. P. 87/131, 148.
42 P. R. O., S. P. 84/131, 159, 161.
43 P. R. O., S. P. 104/74, 88, 89; B. M., Add. MSS. 15866, 174, 175.
44 P. R. O., S. P. 84/131, 167, 173.
45 P. R. O., S. P. 104/74, 90; B. M., Add. MSS. 15866, 176.
46 P. R. O., S. P. 84/131, 149.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION 59
representative at the Hague to "pay only such as are actually on board ready to come over, and no more than what will be necessary to bring them hither."47 On the 2.9th, he moved to stop several thousand Palatines on their way down the Rhine River. He sent some back to give warning to the rest. He also ordered that an advertisement be inserted in the Gazette of Cologne, notifying the people that no more would be received. In his report to London on July 1st, Dayrolle asserted he would not concern himself any further in the affairs of the Palatines, unless he received further orders to do so. He was impelled to point out though that "if once the warr be fin- ished, very few of this people will abandon their country and you may loose the opportunity of having them." He also en- closed several proposals for settlement which he had re- ceived.48 Nevertheless, on July 5th, when Dayrolle reported the sailing of 1,776 Palatines the day before, he mentioned the presence of 500 more at Rotterdam, "who must shift for themselves, as well as they can, if you don't send me new orders."49 He was informed that his advertisement had caused the several thousand on the Rhine to turn back. But the following week, this information was found to be false. About 1,2.00 Palatines then at Rotterdam sent deputies to Dayrolle, begging his intercession with the British govern- ment in their behalf. Failing to persuade them to return home, he agreed to write but gave them no encouragement.50
While these events were taking place in the Netherlands, Boyle wrote from London, complimenting him on his actions in preventing further immigration. Upon this information, as it appeared, that no more Palatines would be arriving in Rotterdam destined for London, orders were given to ship the 500, 51 referred to in Dayrolle's letter of July 5th. But Dayrolle then found that the Palatines awaiting transporta-
47 P. R. O., S. P. 84/131, 300.
48 P. R. O., S. P. 84/131, 305, 309.
49 P. R. O., S. P. 84/131, 310. 60 P. R. O., S. P. 84/131, 315.
51 P. R. O., S. P. 104/74, 90, 91; B. M., Add. MSS. 15866, 178, 180.
Go THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
tion numbered 2_,ooo.52 At a loss for action, he questioned Boyle on July 15th, "I can not avoid sending all or none at all. My Lord Townshend is of the opinion, Her Majesty will not be displeased, if I provide transports for the whole number not being possible for these people to retire to their own country."53 Boyle replied immediately on the 19th, "if the 2.000 you mention in this letter are not embarked, when mine comes to your hands, you must have nothing to do with any of them."54 But his order was too late, for on July 18th, 1,433 Palatines sailed for London.55 Dayrolle wrote this fact the next day, the very day that Boyle in London was forbidding the embarkation. These immigrants were certainly fortunate that the days of electrical communication had not yet ap- peared. Dayrolle expected trouble, for he excused himself, saying that he had acted by the advice of Lord Townshend.56 Still there were Palatines arriving in Rotterdam. Dayrolle advised Boyle late in July that the good people of that city thought of sending them over at private expense without pass- es and perhaps without convoys, which he could not prevent.57 On August izth, he reported that about 1,000 had sailed under those conditions, Z50 of them having had sufficient funds to pay their own way . 58 On the 2.3rd, Secretary Boyle instructed Lord Townshend to request the Dutch to prevent any further embarkation.59 On the 2.6th, Boyle ordered Dayrolle to inform them, that any more Palatines sent to England would be returned.60 He replied reassuringly that since the summer was over, few of them would come.61
52 P. R. O.
53 P. R. O.
54 P. R. O.
55 P. R. O.
56 P. R. O.
57 P. R. O.
58 P. R. O.
59 P. R. O.
60 P. R. O.
61 P. R. O.
S. P. 84/131, 333.
S. P. 84/131, 337.
S. P. 104/74, 91.
T. T/119, 79, 81.
S. P. 84/131, 343.
S. P. 84/131, 349.
S. P. 84/131, 3S3.
S. P. 104/74, 95; B. M., Add. MSS. 15866,185.
S. P. 104/74, 94; B. M., Add. MSS. 15866, 187.
S. P. 84/131, 41.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION 6 1
The warnings to the Dutch authorities seem to have had little effect however for the immigration was not stopped. Though the Dutch had passed a general naturalization act on July 18, 1709, N.S.,62 they apparently wanted to rid themselves of these poor emigrants, who had become a serious charge against their charitable resources. During August the authori- ties of Rotterdam sent notices up the Rhine, attempting to halt the emigration. For eight days, Messrs. vanToren and van Gent were despatched in two yachts paid for by the town authorities.63 On August 2.4th, the town authorities of Brielle, the seaport for embarkation, asked financial support from Rotterdam for the Palatines, "their poor-purse being ex- hausted.' They even threatened to send the emigrants back to Rotterdam.64 From Rotterdam two days later the burgo- masters replied, reciting their own difficulties and their efforts to extricate themselves. They offered to join Brielle in seeking help from the States General, the national assembly of Holland.65
When Dayrolle formally requested the States General to order their College of Admiralty not to allow any more Palatines to be transported to England, they replied that they could not prevent those already in the Netherlands from cross- ing to England, but that they would order their ministers at Cologne and Frankfort to warn the people not to come for that purpose.66 This was done accordingly, and their ministers acknowledged those orders on September 13th and 15th
62 P. R. O., S. P. 84/131, 338; The State of the Palatines, 7. There was much dissatisfaction with this naturalization law, since it gave the Jews and Roman Catholics the same benefit offered to Protestants, who felt they should be shown preference. P. R. O., S. P. 84/2.31, 360.
63 Resolutions and Dispositions of Burgomasters of Rotterdam, III, 116, 117.
64 Letters to Burgomasters of Rotterdam 1707-1713, XXIII (August 16, 1709).
65 Letter Book of Burgomasters of Rotterdam, X (August 16, 1709).
66 Record of Resolutions of the States General of the United Netherlands, 1709, II, 348; P. R. O., S. P. 84/131, 480.
62. THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
*-
43. -V
Craven$*hamy azft x^July, 1709, *f 44
Proportions von die Hewn PrcprutorestyM.Caralim zst Ernst** ^ ;, ragtru/tg d r Palatinaten ihf* Tr**$*rtath» nub die Pr&vimie
\ von Carolina.
ERftlkh fallen fie haben Ein Hundert Accvn Land jedes Haupt fur Manner, Weiber und Kinder fur Zehcn Jah- »en umblonft ; uad aachgehents , odc»JtoJkijaftip& MmtU. Pfenning Sterlings fur jedeaa Acer jedes Jahr, glcich wie die andern binwohners von felbige Provintie bezahlen.
Zweitens: daswoferne fkfkh wollen in State niederietzeti wan fie ubercommen, oder nachgehents? (q follen fie Land haben, umb darauffzu bauweo, ftr Drei Menfchen*ieben oier fur Meun and Neuntzig'Jahrtn, welches am Ehrften gebuhren mach, far Ei« PfefFer - Cora Rent, mit ihre Liberties zu
Circular Advertising Carolina, distributed to the Palatines aboard the trans- ports in Rotterdam in August, 1709. Courtesy of the British Public Record Office.
respectively. The Dutch authorities were most concerned with the possibility of their being saddled with the care of the stranded emigrants.
In the meantime, Dayrolle was confronted with a provok- ing incident. He had failed early in September to stop the sailing of several transports laden with Palatines, but he learned that someone in England was encouraging the move- ment despite his advertisement against the emigration. Then late in August an unknown gentleman, who had come ac- companied by a servant from Harwick (England) on the packet boat, went aboard the transports laden with Palatines. After distributing some charity funds, he passed out thousands of circulars, which he desired them to send to their friends in Germany.67 These circulars, about 3" by 6" in size, were entitled, "Propositions of the Lords Proprietors of Carolina to encourage the Transporting of Palatines to the Province of Carolina.' The propositions, dated July 15th, offered (1) a hundred acres of land for each man, woman and child, free
67 P. R.O.,S. P. 84/131,415.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION 63
from quit-rent for ten years, and thereafter to pay one penny per acre annually (2.) if they would settle in towns now or later, to lease them land for building and improvement for the term of three lives or ninety-nine years, which should expire first at a pepper-corn rent, with the privilege to renew in case the lives died.68 Dayrolle could not discover who the gentle- man was, but he offered the suggestion, ' Tis probable those tickets came from the Proprietors of Carolina or from some disaffected people."69 Boyle immediately called a meeting of the Lords of the Committee of Council and he wrote, "It is possible orders may be given for sending them back again."70 On September 9th, he acquainted Dayrolle with the results of the Council meeting. Although the landing of more Palatines could not be prevented, they would not be cared for at public expense, until those already in England could be provided for.71 Dayrolle went further than that, for he informed the Palatines embarking at Rotterdam, they would be sent back from England.72 Indeed, 2., 2.5 7 Roman Catholic Palatines were sent back to Rotterdam with a present of 5 gilders each late in September.73
Nevertheless, there were 1,500 more emigrants at Rotter- dam desirous of reaching England.74 They even considered sending deputies to England to petition the Queen for her assistance. On September 2.8th, the Palatines at Rotterdam sent a heartrending petition to Secretary Boyle, in which they related how they had been enticed to leave their homes by what they just learned to be false promises in Queen Anne's name. As they had spent most of what they had to subsist on
68 P. R. O., S. P. 84/13X5 411. These proposals had been made to the Board of Trade in London on August nth to encourage the Palatines there to settle in Carolina. C. C. iyo8-iyop, 445.
69 P. R. O., S. P. 84/131, 413.
70 P. R. O., S. P. 104/74, 95; B. M., Add. MSS. 15866, 189.
71 P. R. O., S. P. 104/74, 96; B. M., Add. MSS. 15866, 190.
72 P. R. O., S. P. 84/131, 444.
« P. R. O., T. 1/119, 93, 98, 136-153; S. P. 84/131, 467, 480. 74 P. R. O., S. P. 84/131,467.
64 THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
their journey, they with their wives and children would perish of hunger unless admitted to England. In their deplorable condition they ate their "bread in tears.' They begged him to relieve them "from a continual agony."75 Nevertheless,' on October nth, Secretary Sunderland refused their petition, although the Queen was touched by their misery. He pointed out "the great clamour that such numbers doe raise in the time of scarcitie, and the great load and expense it is on the government.' The British government also felt certain that should it vary from its resolution to admit no more, there would be no end to the immigration.76 But on the same day, Dayrolle at the Hague wrote to Sunderland that 1,100 Pala- tines had sailed several days earlier, "notwithstanding all my endeavors to prevent it."77
The following week, Sunderland informed Dayrolle of their arrival in the Thames River and ordered an investigation, for inquiry pointed to Mr. Henrick van Toren under Dayrolle 's authority, "forcing the Palatines to sail for England, even though some of them had hired their passage in boats, to return home . " 78 Dayrolle after an investigation found that the officials of Rotterdam, desiring to rid their city of the Pala- tines who would not return home, had Messrs. van Toren and van Gent ship them "with what moneys I know not.' Dayrolle could not prevent it, but he thought that van Toren and van Gent were motivated only by the most charitable considerations.79 Dayrolle was not so innocent though, for in a letter of November 5th to Messrs. van Toren and van Gent, he wrote, "My sending the quantity [of Palatines] you im- barqued lately has been disapproved, tho my intentions were good.' He wished them success, if one of them went to England to make representations as they intended, but "for
75 P. R. O., S. P. 84A32., 449.
76 P. R. O., S. P. 104/74, 97; B. M., Add. MSS. 15866, 192..
77 P. R. 0.,S. P. 84/131,495,517.
78 P. R. O., S. P. 104/74, 97, 98, 99; B. M., Add. MSS. 15866, 193, 194, 195.
79 P. R. O., S. P. 84/132., 515.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
65
my own part, I dare not write anything more on that subject nor meddle in it."80
Late in October, when explaining the sailing of the last party "against" his orders, Dayrolle remarked that there would be no more except a few left behind, but ' 'I am informed that a great many intend to come next summer, if not timely prevented by some notification in Germany made in Her Majesties name, not being possible to dissuade them by any other authority."81 Following his suggestion, a Royal Proc- lamation was drawn up, printed in German and distributed widely in the Rhine Valley. It declared that no more people would be received in England, much less supported. All those Germans, who arrived since the first of October were to be sent back to Germany at the first opportunity. All who intended to emigrate were warned that such attempts would assuredly fail, unless they had means of their own to support themselves.82
Summarizing the numbers of the Palatine immigration of 1709 to England, the records show that
$52. sailed late in April and arrived early in May
about May 19th
June 6th
June 1 6th
July nth
July 24th
August 13th
October 18th
13,146 are mentioned in the official correspondence.83 It is
80 P. R. O., S. P. 84/131, 519.
81 P. R. O., S. P. 84/131, 536.
82 Das verlangte nkht erlangte Canaan, 10, 91; Diffenderffer, op. cit., 15.
83 This table is compiled from the following sources: P. R. O., C. O. 388/76, 56 ii; T. 1/119, 6-10, 17, 65, 71, 81; S. P. 87/4, 165; S. P. 84/131, 139, 310, 383, 495, 517. For information concerning the first six lists of emigrants, see the Appendices B and C. There were no lists kept of the last two groups noted as sailing in August and October, since they were supplied with funds obtained from private charitable sources in Holland.
|
i,z83 |
May i2_th |
|
z,9z6 |
May 31st |
|
J>794 |
June 10th |
|
^,776 |
July 4th |
|
M33 |
July 17th |
|
c. 1,000 |
August 6th |
|
c. 1,082. |
October nth |
66 THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
quite probable however that the number reached 13,500, since quite a few of the Palatines were sent by the packet boat or by regular shipping at their own expense or by charity funds after the official transportation ceased on July 18th. Small groups going in this way may have sailed without mention in the official correspondence.
Of the probable number of 13,500, who were able to reach England, 2., 2.5 7 Roman Catholics were sent back late in Sep- tember, as related before. On January 2.0th, 1710, Boyle notified Dayrolle that about 900 Palatines who desired to return home were to be sent shortly and that they should have his best efforts to speed them on their way.84 So on March 3rd, 1710, he received Dayrolle's report of their safe arrival.85 Late in March of the next year (171 1) 618 Palatines, all Roman Catholics, were returned to the Netherlands. They were given five gilders each as a parting present to speed them on their way home.86 This seems to have been done by the British government for all the Palatines returned to the continent, and it was a gesture much admired in the Netherlands.87 More than 3,000 Roman Catholics were sent back in all, if Simmendinger's estimate is correct.88 With more than 3,500 returned, there were left about 10,000 of the 13,500 estimate, still to be accounted for. What did the British authorities do with them?
In London, the citizens were amazed. In three months more than 11,000 alien people had arrived in their midst. London was not so large a city that many thousands could be poured into it conveniently without notice. The government was hard put to provide shelter and food for them. The squares, the taverns, all the refuges of London were crowded
84 P. R. O., S. P. 104/74, 100; B. M., Add. MSS. 15866, 197.
85 P. R. O., S. P. 104/74, 101; B. M., Add. MSS. 15866, 199.
86 P. R. O., T. 1/13X5 165, 170. This debarkation list of Palatine families is included in Appendix D.
87 P. R. O., S. P. 84/2.31, 480.
88 Simmendinger, op. cit., 3.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION Gj
with Palatines. In addition, 1,600 tents were issued by the Board of Ordnance89 and encampments were formed on Black- heath on the south side of the Thames, at Greenwich, on the Thames, just north of Blackheath, and at Camberwell,90 a suburb of London, about two miles from St. Paul's. Others found quarters near the Tower, in St. Catherine's, Tower Ditch, Wapping, Nightingale Lane, East Smithfield and their neighborhoods. Barns and cheap houses were rented for them at Kensington, Walworth, Stockwell and Bristol Cansey.91 The large rope-houses at Deptford were utilized for shelter for many of the Palatines, while others were disposed of by the care of charitable persons in Aldgate and Lambeth.9'2 About 1,400 were lodged in the large warehouse of Sir Charles Cox, who had offered it gratis.93 The crowded condition of these places of shelter made them unhealthy. The Board of Trade was informed of this and strove to remedy the difficulty; certainly the Board and the English Whigs94 in particular de- serve a great deal of credit for their sympathetic treatment and generosity, in the early stages of the immigration. At any rate, surgeons were sent among the Palatines and efforts were made to lessen their discomfort by securing additional quarters.95 The Germans evidently expected that immediately on arrival in England, they would be dispatched in a body across the sea; but no one stood ready to carry out such a program.
89 P. R. O., S. P. 44/108, 93; B. M., Strafford Papers, Add. MSS. xizox, 105; "Brief History," in Eccles. Rec, III, 1786.
90 Marlborough MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com., 8th Report, Appendix), 47; State of the Palatines, 7; Boyer, op. cit. (1709), 167; B. T. Jour. 1J08-1714, 37.
91 "Brief History," in Eccles. Rec, III, 1786; also 1741.
92 Stow, op. cit., I, 43; Cal. Treas. Papers 1708-1714, 153.
93 Diffenderffer, op. cit., 2.97. Since he allowed them to remain until they were sent to Ireland and elsewhere, thus losing revenue in the seasonal period of the use of the warehouse, he was given as compensation 100 guineas by the government on February 9, 1710.
94 [Hare], Canary Birds Naturalized in Utopia (London, 1709).
95 See Minutes of Palatine Commissioners' Meeting in Eccles. Rec, III, 1740 et seq.; C. C. ijo8-ijoq, 2.96.
68 THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
The Palatines were almost entirely dependent upon the gov- ernment to keep them from starvation. The first 851 were allowed a total of 2.0 pounds per day,96 which amounted to less than six pence each for men, women and children. But the expense was a great burden on the government, particularly in war-time. Godolphin wrote to Marlborough, June 2.4, 1709, "I hope you will not think it necessary to send an express with news, our exchequer being so low at present; as to the extraordinary number of poor Palatines who come over every day, they are a very great burthen upon the Queen."97 In fact, on June 14th, the subsistence of the Palatines was costing the government 80 pounds a day.98
Shortly after June 1st, the Ministry hit upon the expedient of raising money by public subscription. Letters were sent to the leading financial organizations, requesting voluntary contributions, for example to the Bank of England and the East India Company.99 On June 7, 1709, the Justices of the Peace for the County of Middlesex sent a petition to the Queen asking for authority to take up a collection in their county for their Palatines. The Queen not only granted the desired authority, but also extended it to the public generally throughout the kingdom.100
A proclamation was issued June 2.8, 1709, for the collection of alms and a board of commissioners was appointed to handle the funds and "to perform every matter and thing . . . neces- sary and convenient for the better Employment and Settlement of the said poor Palatines.' The commissioners named were nearly a hundred in number and included the great dignitaries of the kingdom.101 The collection was carried out largely
96 B. T. Jour. 1708-1714, 36.
97 Private Corres. Duchess Marlborough (London, 1S38), II, 338.
98 C. C. 1708-1709, 343.
99 P. R. O., S. P. 44/108, 91.
100 Boyer, Annals (1709), 167; Luttrell, op. cit., VI, 453, 454, 474.
101 Ibid., Appendix III, 35 et seq.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
69
19N9QN: Printed for J. fe&r, at the tlaArfy.ti *«»
Contemporary Woodcut, showing the Palatines encamped on Black- heath outside London. Courtesy of the Widener Library, Harvard University.
through the organization of the Established Church. The various bishops wrote letters to the clergy of their dioceses during the first week of July, and advanced all kinds of argu- ments for, and refuted some against, the policy of relieving these "poor German Protestants."102 The letter of the Bishop of Oxford is particularly noteworthy in that he attached a postscript, "I think it would much forward this service if you could prevail with some of the chiefest of your parish- ioners to accompany you when you go to collect the charity of the rest."103 On one impulse or another the Whigs vied with one another to contribute to the fund, the Duke of Newcastle alone donating 500 pounds,104 and the large sum of 19,838 pounds, 11 shillings was collected.105
The Palatine camps were a source of wonder to the London
102 Ibid., Appendix III, 42.. Bishop William Nicolson wrote from Carlisle to Bishop Wake of Lincoln, "The Palatine briefs are not yet arrived in the North. And when they do come thev'l find charity very cold in these parts. I should be thankful for one of your printed letters, since I am wholly in the dark, as to the sum and substance of the affair. Some comfort it is to find, by your information that the numbers of Papists amongst those people are not so great as was said." Christ Church, Oxford, Wake MS., August 2.9, 1709.
103 Ibid., Appendix III, 53. The method suggested is still in vogue today among clergy as the best known method to produce results.
104 Portland MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com., 13th Report, Appendix), II, 107.
105 Eccles. Rec, III, 1753.
7<3 THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
populace.106 Every Sunday crowds would gather and the Pala- tines became the focus of curiosity-seekers. They capitalized this by making toys of small value and selling them to the multitudes who came to see them. One account of the Pala- tines states, 'They are contented with very ordinary food, their bread being brown and their meat of the coarsest and cheapest sort, which, with a few herbs, they eat with much cheerfulness and thankfulness. On the whole, they appear to be an innocent, laborious, peaceable, healthy and ingenuous people, and may be rather reckoned a blessing than a burden to any nation where they shall be settled."107 An interesting incident, which is at the same time illustrative of the hardi- hood of these people, is the one related by a contemporary diarist, Luttrell, September 13, 1709, "A wager of 100 pounds was laid last week, that a German, of 64 years' old, should walk in Hide Park 300 miles in 6 dayes, which he did within the time, and a mile over."108
The conditions among the Palatines were certainly very bad. Bread was never known to have been so dear109 and the government allowance was insufficient to sustain them prop- erly. They were obliged to beg on the streets of London and this begging was done principally by the married women.110 Philanthropists of the day distributed both money and sup- plies among the needy Palatines. One shopkeeper, a Quaker, cut up several wagon-loads of cloth during eight consecutive
106 R. Palmer wrote to Ralph Verney in the country, "The case of the Palatines is all our domestic talk." August 17, 1709, Verney MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com., jth Report, Appendix), 507.
107 The State of the Palatines, 2.7; Eccles. Kec, III, 1831.
108 Luttrell, op. cit., VI, 488.
109 Gilbert Burnet, History of His Own Times (ind ed., Oxford, 1833), VI, 38 says that bread sold at double the ordinary price; Das verlangte nicht erlangte Canaan, 15. A Royal Proclamation was issued on October 14th, put- ting in execution the old laws against forestalling and regrating of corn, Robert Steele, ed., Catalogue of Tudor and Stuart Proclamations 1 485-17 14 (Oxford, 1 910), 530.
110 C.J., XVI, 596.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION 71
days. Another gave shoes, while a third distributed shirts.111 But the novelty of the presence of the Palatines soon wore off for the London populace and an uglier attitude, due to the tight economic conditions, set in.112 The poorer classes of the English people said the Palatines came to eat the bread of Englishmen, and reduce the scale of wages. The latter, it was alleged, had already fallen from 18 pence to 15 pence per day, where the Palatines were encamped. 113 Even the native beggars felt that the Queen's bounty should belong to them.114 The shopkeepers were also opposed to the newcomers for fear that their trade might be harmed by the competition of unen- franchised foreigners.115
The Palatine encampments were occasionally attacked by London mobs. Upon one occasion about 2., 000 infuriated Englishmen, armed with axes, scythes, and smith hammers, were said to have made an attack upon the Palatine camp and struck down all who did not flee.116 When settlements of Palatines were attempted, riots occured in some localities. Juries were prejudiced. Nothing "that was said upon oath by the witnesses [was] sufficient to gain any verdict at Sundrich but in Justification of the Rioters."117 Many times were the Palatines threatened and mobbed, much to the Queen's chagrin.118
This feeling against the Palatines was exhibited even among the "better" people of England. It seems to have been rooted in a fear of contamination by prevalent contagious
111 Das verlangte nicht erlangte Canaan, 108; The Piety and Bounty of Great Britain, with the Charitable Benevolences of her Loving Subjects toward the Support and Settlement of the Distressed Protestant Palatines (London, 1709).
112 Ibid., 8.
113 Burnet, op. cit., V, 439; Das verlangte nicht erlangte Canaan, in.
114 A Song in Praise of Begging or the Beggars Rival' d (1710); Burnet, op. cit., VI, 38.
115 [Hare], Reception, 30.
116 Das verlangte nicht erlangte Canaan, 108.
117 P. R. O., S. P. 34/11, October 13, 1709.
118 P. R. O., S. P. 44/108, passim.
72. THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
diseases. On July 15, 1710, Lady Pye wrote to Mrs. Abigail Harley of someone's fine daughter having died of smallpox. She added, ' 'The notion with some people is that the Palatines brought in this very ill kind [of smallpox]."119 On August 2.3, 1709, Mr. John Floyer wrote to Lady Dartmouth at Black- heath, "I wish you the recovery of your health, and a better neighbor than the Palatines, who I fear have infected your pure air. Our country has loads of them and call them gypsies not knowing the language and seeing their poor clothes."120 One writer says that the English hatred of the Palatines shows only their great dislike for aliens, which was proverbial.121 On the other hand, the Palatines were not a people of little spirit. They soon came to resent this attitude of the English and met it in kind. Hearne's Collections (August 2.6, 1709) con- tains an account of 40 Palatines in the neighborhood when three or four Englishmen, drinking a pot or two of ale, ' 'made some Reflections upon the Receiving of these People into the Kingdom; which, being heard by one of the Palatines, he gave a hint to his Companions, and they all immediately came into the Room and beat the persons in a very rude and inhuman manner."122
Meanwhile the Palatines had little employment, and the pressing problem was what to do with them. The efforts to settle the Palatines began with the first official letter after their arrival. In this letter, the Earl of Sunderland, writing to the Board of Trade, on May 3, 1709, indicated the govern- ment's desire according to the prevailing mercantilist views to encourage immigration. The Queen had been informed of the arrival of some hundreds of German Protestants and expected more from the Palatinate with the intention of settling in the
119 Portland MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com., ijth Report, Appendix), IV, 549.
120 Dartmouth MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com. ijth Report, Appendix), III, 147.
121 C. B. A. Kent, Early History of the Tories (London, 1908), 434.
122 C. E. Doble, ed., Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne (Oxford Hist. Soc, 1885-1906), II, 139.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION 73
English plantations in America. "Her Majesty was convinced however, that it would be much more advantageous to Her Kingdom, if these people could be settled comfortably here instead of sending them to the West Indies.' Such a result would be a great encouragement to others to follow their example. The addition to the number of her subjects would in all probability produce a proportionable increase of their trade and manufactures. The Board of Trade was ordered to take the matter under consideration and report as soon as possible the proper method and the part of England most feasible for it.123
Two days later, Sunderland had ordered the Board of Trade to inquire into their numbers and condition, and to report what was needed for their support, until they were either settled in England or sent to the plantations.124 Pursu- ant to this request the Board of Trade asked two German min- isters resident in London to carry on the inquiry. These men were John Tribbeko, chaplain of his late R. H. Prince George of Denmark, and George Andrew Ruperti, minister of the German Lutheran Church in the Savoy.125 They reported to the Board on May 9th, that the Palatines were in dire straits. A number of them were ill for want of necessary sustenance. Many were almost naked. They were "pakt up in such great numbers, we have found very often 2.0 to 30 men and women together with their children in one room."126 Tribbeko and Ruperti drew up from time to time the four Palatine lists, which are a valuable source of information today.127 But
123 Sunderland added that since most of the immigrants were "husband- men and labouring people," it should be easier to dispose of them to the advantage of the public. P. R. O., S. P. 44/108, 66; B. T. Jour. 1708-1714, 2.6; Eccles. Rec, III, 1733; C C. 1708-1709, 190.
124 P. R. O., S. P. 44/108, 67; C. C. 1708-1709, 195; Eccles. Rec, III, 1734.
125 Eccles. Rec, III, 1736.
126 P. R. O., S. P. 44/108, 7z; C. C. 1708-1709, 2.96.
127 P. R. O., C. O. 388/76, 56 ii, 64, 68-70. For a discussion of these lists see Appendix B.
74 THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
the crowds of people were soon beyond their best efforts, and they had to ask for help.128
Most of the Palatines were farmers and vine-dressers, that is, over half of the first four groups to arrive in London as noted by Messrs. Tribbeko and Ruperti. The rest were dis- tributed in some 35 other trades, the next highest number of occupations being about 90 carpenters and about 75 textile workers. The lists included about 12. schoolmasters and three surgeons.129 Some of the Palatine vine-dressers, "encourag'd by their friends abroad in Pensilvania," brought vine plants with them for a new start in the plantations. 13° The last group to leave Rotterdam for England was described as ' 'for the most part tradesmen."131
The continued arrival of many Palatines and their inability to support themselves began to worry the Ministry deeply. On the 15 th of May, Sunderland commanded the Board of Trade to "make what dispatch you can to report. . . . "132 By August 6th, the Lord Treasurer had written to the Board "to make a proposal for the speedy disposing of them, in such manner as may soonest lessen the expense the Government is now at for their subsistence."133 At the same time, he com- mented on the "slow steps that are made towards [the] settling of them."
One of the schemes projected was to settle 10,000 Palatines on the Rio de la Plata, in South America. A regiment would have been necessary to protect them, however, and the calcu- lated expense of over 2.00,000 pounds was prohibitive. Another project called for a settlement in the Canary Islands. The proposer did not mention that the Spaniards were to be driven out, but as they were an obstacle, this project was not given consideration.134
128
C. C. iyo8-iyo(), 370.
129 P. R. O., C. O. 388/76, 56 ii, 64, 68, 69.
130 P. R. O., S. P. 87/4, 158. 131 P. R. O., C. O. 84/131, 480. 132 Ibid., 300; Eccles. Rec, III, 1738. 133 Ibid., 444.
"Brief History," in Eccles. Rec, III, 1789.
134
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION 75
The Board of Trade received a proposal from the Society of London for Mines Royal to employ the strongest of the Palatines in the silver and copper mines of Penlyn and Merion- ethshire, Wales.135 The merchants of Bedford and Barnstable, concerned in the Newfoundland fishery, offered to employ 500 Palatines in their industry.136 A project for settling some of them in Herefordshire and Gloucestershire, proposed by the Marquis of Kent, Lord Chamberlain, was also considered by the Board of Trade. The last project, it was found, would entail a cost of 150,000 pounds, if all were settled at the pro- posed rate; hence it was abandoned.137 A proposal was also made for repeopling with Palatines the islands of Nevis and St. Christopher in the West Indies, which had recently been attacked by the French.138 Colonel Daniel Parke, Governor of the Leeward Islands, who made the suggestion, was sorely provoked with Sunderland because it was not accepted.139
An attempt was then made to settle the Palatines through- out England by offering three pounds per head to the parishes which would be willing to receive them, the government to pay the expense of sending them to the respective places.140 The bounty was taken in some instances and the immigrants, finding themselves uncared for, returned to London again. Some of their experiences are interesting. One Palatine, who had been a hunter, was, to his great disgust, required to take care of swine. Sixteen families were sent to the town of Sun- derland, near Newcastle in Yorkshire. They expected grants of land, but were made day laborers. Another group was given a half pound of bread a day per person, a pound of salt a week,
135 B. T. Jour. 1708-1714, 41, 41, 47; C. C. 1708-1709, 307, 312., 370.
136 Luttrell, op. cit., VI, 496.
137 H. S. P., Jour. B. T., XXI, 138; B. T. Jour. 1708-1704, 44, 47; C. C. 1708-1709, 343, 360.
138 Luttrell, op. cit., VI, 42.0, 4x1, 454.
139 C. C. 1710-1711, 96.
140 B. T. Jour. 1708-1714, 60; Verney MSS. (Hist. MSS. Cow., 7th Report, Appendix), 507.
jG THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
but no meat or vegetables.141 Many of the Palatines, too poor to return or for other reasons, probably stayed. The plan to locate the Palatines in England was earnestly attempted. Sunderland wrote a letter, among many others, to the Mayor of Canterbury, asking him to receive and permanently locate some of them. This letter, referred to the town magistrates, was answered by the observation that they could not comply with the request, as their own poor were a heavy burden.142 Liverpool received 130 but they drifted away as soon as the government support had been exhausted.143 The Justices of Peace of East Riding, Yorkshire, agreed to accept Palatines, but the authorities of Nottinghamshire regretted that they could do nothing to assist them.144 Some Palatines were also settled in Chester.145
Captain Thomas Ekines of the English Navy came forward with a proposal that 600 of the Palatines, about 150 families, should be settled in the Scilly Islands,146 a small group off the southwest coast of England. Sunderland thought well of the project, and on September 2.1st and October 2., 1709, two trans- ports were sent down the Thames with 450 Palatines on board, well provisioned and supplied. 147 The inhabitants of the Island of Scilly, learning of the venture, protested that they could not earn a living themselves on that meager haven, and so these people were never sent to their destination, but after remaining on shipboard three entire months, were again set on shore on December 30th of the same year. They eventually
141 Das verlangte nicht erlangte Canaan, 111.
142 P. R. O., S. P. 44/108, 87; S. P. 34/13, June 17, 1709; B. T. Jour. i7oS- 1714, 3X4-
143 P. R. O., S. P. 44/108, 155; Das verlangte nicht erlangte Canaan, no.
144 P. R. O., S. P. D. 34/11, 47, 60.
145 Corporation of City of Chester MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com., 8th Report, Appendix), 395.
146 Portland MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com., 13th Report, Appendix), II, 107.
147 P. R. O., S. P. 44/108, 151, 161, 168, 188.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION 77
found their way back to Blackheath. The cost of this miser- able failure was some 1,500 pounds.148
A merchant was reported to have made a contract to send 500 families to Barbados.149 It does not seem to have been carried out, but 500 Palatines were settled in the Bahama Islands in 1717.150 It is not clear however that they were part of the 1709 immigration. In 172.2., Charles Carrington, of New Providence, describing Nassau to the Board of Trade, wrote, "about 14 miles west of Nassau is Palatyne town, in- habited by Palatines, an indolent, laizy tribe and good for little."151 On the other hand, when Governor Phemey wrote to Lord Cartaret in 172.3, he said, 'The remaining Palatines are now by my assistance in a very flourishing condition. . . . They are a very industrious people and I could wish for a great many more of them."152 Several proposals were made to the Board of Trade to settle some Palatines in Jamaica. These were very seriously considered,153 but the ambitious plans drawn up proved to be too costly, and the climate was adjudged too warm for the emigrants. It does not appear that any settlement of importance was made,154 although a few Palatines may have been sent there. Luttrell noted, August 3, 1710, that, "Letters from Jamacia tell us that the Palatines designed for that place are safely arrived there, and disposed of to the advantage of that island."155 A contemporary ac- count reads that those of 16 families sent to Sunderland, who
1Hc.;., xvi, 598.
149 The State of the Palatines, 8.
150 C. C. 1717-1718, 19.
151 P. R. O., C. O. 2.3 /z, 75; C. C. 1722-172^ 60.
152 P. R. O., C. O. 2.3/13, 147.
153 P. R. O., C. O. 137/8, 451; C. O. 5/908, 76; C. C. i7o8~i7q9, 657-872. ■passim; C. C. 1710-1711, 53, 58.
154 C. C. 1710-1711, 144; C. C. 1716-1717, 337.
155 Luttrell, op. cit., VI, 613; also see 4xx, 454, 455. Luttrell may be con- fusing Jamaica with New York as even the continental colonies were often loosely referred to as the West Indies.
78 THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
had tried to run away in the night, were sent finally to Jamaica as slaves.156
Disappointed and disillusioned, 150 of the able-bodied young men enlisted in the British army and were sent to serve in Lord Galloway's regiment then on duty in Portugal,157 and some 18 or more apparently enlisted in Lord Hay's regiment, according to Luttrell.158 We are told that 32.2. entered the military service and that 141 children were "purchased by the English," which means most probably that they were ap- prenticed perhaps for a price.159 At least 56 of the young people became domestic servants.160
The large number of Catholics in the Palatine immigration has been mentioned before, but it will be remembered that the Queen was saving only 'poor German Protestants.' The Catholic Palatines in London, and in Rotterdam, awaiting transportation, were given their choice of becoming 'poor Protestants" to be saved by the Queen, or of returning to their homes along the Rhine.161 Many of the Germans were devout people, as the contemporary accounts indicate, yet some found it convenient to change their religion.162 Those who refused were ordered to return to Germany.163 About September 6, 1714, several thousand Catholic Palatines, preparing to go
156 Das verlangte nicht erlangte Canaan, no.
157 Eccles. Rec, III, 183 1.
158 Luttrell, op. cit., VI, 494.
159 Das verlangte nicht erlangte Canaan, nx.
160 Ibid.
161 Simmendinger Qop. cit., 3) stated "Catholischer Religion/ehe sie auf der Konigen Anmuthen ihren Glauben changiren woken/ wieder nach Hauss umgekehret. Dieser Catholischen Ruck=Reise aber/offnete uns in Roterdam iiber 5. wochen lang still gelegenen Reisenden/den Passnach Engelland . . .;" Boyer, Annals (1709), 168.
162 ' ' Several of the poor Palatines who came lately over, and were papists, have renounced that religion, and more of them 'tis expected will doe the like." (August 6, 1709), Luttrell, op. cit., VI, 473.
163 "The Papish Palatines who came hither are ordered to goe home, having passports for the same." (September 15, 1709), Luttrell, op. cit., VI, 489.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION 79
home again, petitioned the Queen. They said they had been encouraged to leave their homes, having a promise for the free exercise of religion, which was now denied them. Accord- ingly, they requested the Queen out of her goodness and justice to pay their expenses home.164 Their request was granted. Records show that more than 2.,ooo were returned, and the costs were paid by the government.165
A sad commentary must be made upon an incident which occurred on August 17, 1709. Secretary of State Boyle wrote to the Secretary of War, Sir Robert Walpole, that the resolutions of the commissioners for returning the Palatines to Germany had been laid before the Queen. She ordered that "you do take care, that some commission officer do go among the Palatines and try whether any of the Papists will enter into Her Majesty's service in Portugal."166 Although the Papists were not welcome to stay in England, they were quite acceptable in Her Majesty's armed forces. In the midst of all the flurry and confusion attendant on the distribution and settlement of the Palatines, Secretary Sunderland learned to his disgust that the Board of Trade could not meet, since a majority of its members were out of town. So, on October 5, 1709, orders were issued commanding their immediate return to consider "matters of moment which require despatch.' Two weeks later, on the 19th, a standing order was sent to the Board of Trade, requiring them to have a quorum of members in con- stant attendance.167 To say the least, this is an interesting example of the inefficiency of British colonial officialdom in the eighteenth century.
164 Doble, op. cit., II, 446.
165 "Mr. Doben and Sir Thomas Janssen, concerning Palatines shipped off to Holland, some 1.000 and upwards, desire Mr. Dayrolle who is to prepare a list and may have orders to take care of supervising, and allowing 5 guilders a head, and deducting for such as do not appear." P. R. O., S. P. 11/36 (Sep- tember 16, 1709).
166 P. R. O., S. P. 44/107, x67.
167 P. R. O., S. P. 44/108, 156, 157.
80 THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
In the crowded quarters and with meager sustenance, the Palatines had fallen prey to fevers and plagues. Death wrought havoc in their ranks in spite of their hardiness . It is not known how many died in their encampment at Blackheath and else- where in London, but the number must have been nearly a thousand.168 With all reasonable calculations and deductions made, it seems probable that the descendants of several thou- sands of the Palatines are among the English population today.
Now when the fruits of Penn's advertising campaign were finally ripening, where was Penn's proposal to take the Pala- tines off the hands of the government? Unfortunately, Penn was in no financial position to send the Palatines to his colony in 1709. He had suffered a nine months' imprisonment in 1708 for a 10,500 pound debt dishonestly claimed by former friends. 169 Penn was finally released from his debt to the Fords, but his expenses were heavy and his province was under mortgage to friends, who had aided him. Indeed for some years he had been negotiating with the British Ministry for the sale of his proprietorship.170 This undoubtedly accounted for the small part taken by Penn in disposing of the Palatines in London in 1709.
From the difficulties described in this chapter it should be evident that the British government did not plan for this large Palatine immigration in 1709. It prayed for immigration as a general blessing, but this avalanche of people was like a flood instead of rain. The government's strenuous efforts to stop the movement and the generous attitude it maintained stood in sharp contrast to the conduct of the proprietors of English
168 Das verlangte nicht erlangte Canaan, 113; Goebel, "Briefe" in op. cit., 187.
169 Janney, op. cit., 508. The Board of Trade's efforts to settle in 1708 the Pennsylvania-Maryland boundary dispute were delayed by Penn "being under restraint." C. C. iyo6-iyo8, 711.
170 Ibid., 509, 52.2., 5x5. The colony was mortgaged for 6,600 pounds in 1708. Penn asked xo,ooo pounds of the British government for the surrender of his rights. P. R. O., C. O. 5/1x65, 108; C. C. 1720-1721. 108.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION 8 1
colonies, who were largely responsible for the emigration. The proposals to settle the Palatines discussed so far were for the most part discarded in favor of more promising ventures. Proposals to send Palatines to Ireland, Carolina and New York were in the latter category, and the large bands of emigrants transported there justify special attention to their adventures.
CHAPTER IV. THE IRELAND AND NORTH CAROLINA SETTLEMENTS
Hard pressed by the problem of disposing of so many immigrants, the Ministry turned in all directions for suggestions. On July 7, 1709, the Council of Ireland, with Joseph Addison among them, proposed to the Queen that a number of Palatines be sent to Ireland to strengthen the Protestant cause there,1 and late in August, 794 families were sent there. They were taken in wagons to Chester, where they embarked for Ireland.2 The first groups landed between the 4th and the 7th of September, others came during October. In January, 1710, the total number of Palatines in Ireland was 3,073, of whom 1,898 were adults, and 1,175 were under fourteen years of age.3 The transportation charges amounted to 3,498 pounds, 16 shillings and 6 pence.4
A committee of ten Irish gentlemen, supporters of the Protestant cause, were organized as the Commissioners for Settling the Poor Distressed Palatines in Ireland.5 On their arrival, the Palatines were temporarily lodged in Dublin and received for subsistence 18 pence a week for each person above fourteen years of age and 12. pence for each under that age.6
1 Marlborough MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com., 8th Report, Appendix), 47; B. M., Add. MSS. 35933, 15.
2 Luttrell, op. cit., VI, 474; The State of the Palatines, 7; P. R. O., S. P. 44/107, 164, 2.65.
3 B. M., Add. MSS. 35933, 18, 2.7- Add. MSS. 17677 DDD, 141; Add. MSS. iiioz, 130; P. R. O., T. 1/119, 91; S. P. 44/107, Z97.
4 C. J., XVI, 596. The Commons Journal report is misleading in that it gives 3,800 as the total number of Palatines in Ireland. Greene, op. cit., 131, went to the other extreme in his statement that "a few Palatines were sent to Ireland but the great majority were sent to America."
5 B. M., Strafford Papers, Add. MSS. 2.2.2.01, 130.
6 B. M., Add. MSS. 35933, 18; P. R. O., T 1/119, 100, 104, 113.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION 83
To finance the arrangements, the Crown appropriated 15,000 pounds of its revenues in Ireland to be paid in three years at 5,000 pounds a year. Early in 1710, an additional 9,000 pounds were set aside under similar arrangements.7 Charitable collec- tions secured 409 pounds, 18 shillings and 6J4 pence more for the fund.8 The appropriation of such sums of money by the government aroused the speculative interest of the Irish land- lords. Their Irish tenants did not possess a capital of 2.4 pounds per family of four,9 neither did the Irish tenants have the financial backing of the Crown. As a result, the Palatines were distributed in lots varying in size from one family to 56 fami- lies. The 43 gentlemen, who became their landlords by a draw, were to settle the Palatines on their lands.
The Commissioners wrote to them shortly thereafter to learn how they proposed to settle the families assigned to them and at what rates. As to the financial arrangements, the landlords were expected to give "a cheaper Bargain" than they gave others. The Commissioners suggested that the land- lords might agree to receive the customary proportion of corn towards the plowing and seed, which they were to furnish. For the other necessaries such as horse, cart and cows, the landlords were expected to be satisfied with one-third of the subsistence allowance, until the allowances could be secured in larger advances.10 The Irish landlords were urged to con- sider the satisfaction in doing a generous Christian act, the security for themselves in settling so many Protestant families on their estates, and the contribution they would be making towards strengthening the Protestant interest and safety of
7 C. J. XVI, 596; Thomas Somerville, History of Great Britain during the Reign of Queen Anne (London, 1798), 5x7.
8 B. M., Add. MSS. 35933, 18; Stair MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com., 2nd Report, Appendix), 131.
9 Palatine Pamphlet, no title, printed in Dublin by Andrew Crooke, 1710, 3, Harvard Library, gift of J. P. Morgan, hereafter cited as Crooke' s Pamphlet. This pamphlet is a general letter written by the Commissioners for Settling the Palatines to prospective landlords.
10 Ibid., 2..
84 THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
the country.11 In concluding their letter to the Irish gentle- men, the Commissioners promised that should any Palatines refuse the contracts offered, they would be stricken off the list of those receiving Her Majesty's bounty. A declaration in "High Dutch" was to be distributed to this effect among the Palatines.12
Arrangements were made and 533 families, composed of 2_, 098 men, women and children, were dispersed over the countryside. The Commissioners for Settling the Palatines assured the Lords Justices of Ireland early in 1710 that all care had been exercised in their settlement. Many of the landlords were said to have been at great charge to themselves in pro- viding habitations, firing and other conveniences for the Pala- tines. The lands set apart for the Palatines were assigned to them at easy rates, often a third less in rent than similar lands were let to other tenants.13
Notwithstanding the kind entertainment the Palatines met with, to the professed surprise of the Commissioners many of the Palatines left their settlements, returned to Dublin, and took ship for England. In fact, 2.32. families had returned from Ireland to England by November 2.5, 1710, and in the next two months, 52. more families sailed for England in spite of attempts to stop them.14 On February 15, 1711, only 188 of the 533 families distributed over the countryside were still on the lands allotted them. Over 300 of the families were in Dublin, where a great many of the men had been employed in the building of a government arsenal nearby. When the arsenal was completed, they lived on the royal allowance without apparently troubling to find employment.15
11 Nicholas Tindal, Continuation of Mr. Rapin's History of England (5 th ed., London, 1763), XVII, i.i^\ Somerville, op. cit., 52.7.
12 Crooke's Pamphlet, 4.
13 B. M., Add. MSS. 35933, 11, 17.
11 A proposal was made to send those Palatines back to Holland, who returned from Ireland. P. R. O., S. P. 34/13, 14. 15 B. M., Add. MSS. 35933, 13, 18.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION 85
Of those Palatines who left their settlements, many stole away without giving their landlords any notice. The Com- missioners reported, according to the best information they could get, the Palatines thought that the lands in Ireland were to be rent free. Many of them could not be persuaded to the contrary. The more turbulent Germans stirred up the others with stories of better treatment accorded to those Palatines still in England. A worthless fellow-countryman, who had lived in Ireland several years before, victimized the Palatines by pretending to act as an agent for them in London. Many of the Palatines, it appeared, intended to live on Her Majesty's allowance in Ireland till peace was made and then go back to Germany.16
The Commissioners for Settling the Palatines in Ireland were not unprejudiced in their account of the Palatine in- gratitude. Over half of them had become landlords of the Palatines. They were interested parties in informing the Lords Justices that the Palatines had been well treated and gener- ously provided for. Three of the returning Palatines examined in London said that they left because of the hard usage they received from Commissary Hinch, Mr. Sweet (one of the landlords], and others. They charged that they had not re- ceived their subsistence. They claimed that after application to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, they received subsistence, but for one week only. They had even paid their own passage to England, although Mr. Hinch had offered them ten shil- lings each to leave Ireland. They corresponded with each other and met at Dublin for the return voyage.17
It seems probable that a number of the Irish landlords were not above taking advantage of their Palatine tenants, who spoke another tongue and were in a somewhat hostile country. The native Irish tenants, Catholic in faith, were not inclined to welcome Protestants, who might secure their lands on more favorable terms and they seized every oppor-
™Ibid.y 19. 17C./., XVI, 596.
86 THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
tunity to abuse the Palatines. As no other arrangement seems to have been made, it appears probable that the Palatine allowances were turned over to the Irish gentlemen to dis- tribute to their tenants, and under such arrangements the Palatine tenants might receive very little of the allowance granted them. After all, it would be too much to expect a people such as these, with eyes on the New World and its golden promises, to be satisfied with even favorable terms among the meager opportunities of Ireland. It was none too prosperous for most Irishmen themselves.
However that may be, the return of increasing numbers of the Palatines to England soon caused apprehension there in 1710. On the 10th of May, the Commissioners for the Palatines in England sent a representative, one Mr. Crockett, to Ireland to persuade the Palatines to remain while they drew their comfortable maintenance, but notwithstanding Mr. Crockett's good intentions and excellent abilities, he had little success.18 The attempts to hold them in Ireland failed, because as Chief Justice Broderick said, neither the officials nor the landlords had power to stop the Palatines, who were a free people.19 On one occasion, having boarded a ship to persuade a number of the Palatines not to return to England, Mr. Crockett was threatened and narrowly escaped being thrown into the sea. The Irish Commissioners even offered to transport to Hamburg those Palatines who desired to leave. They had no accep- tances. The Germans seized their first opportunity to steal away to England, still with the hope of settling in the English colonies in America.
Consequently, the Irish Commissioners, having discussed the situation with Mr. Crockett, drew up a memorial on July 2.5th. This representation addressed to Thomas, Earl of Wharton, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, reviewed the futile attempts at settlement of the Palatines to that date, and recom-
18 B. M., Add. MSS. 35933, ix; C. J. XVI, 596. »> C. J. XVI, 596.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION 87
mended that the Crown allow 40 shillings a year to each Palatine family for twenty-one years. This was to be offered as an encouragement for them to stay in Ireland. The money remaining from the original appropriations would be neces- sary to provide cattle, household stuff, tools and subsistence until the Palatines should provide for themselves.20
There the matter rested. On October 14, 1710, the Irish Commissioners requested the Lords Justices of that country to obtain Her Majesty's answer, since no reply to their proposal had been received. This inaction was due to the Ministerial Revolution, then taking place in England. Harley and his associates through intrigue were engaged in ousting the Whigs from office, and government affairs had to await the outcome of their machinations. Many officials were removed from office after the change of Ministry. The Earl of Wharton was re- placed by the Duke of Ormond as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.21 "Perfectly a stranger to the whole transaction,' Ormond requested from the Irish authorities a full report and opinion on the matter.22 On December nth, the new Secretary of State, Dartmouth, issued an order to stop the continued return of Palatines from Ireland to England. The Commissioners for Settling the Palatines in Ireland drew up on February 15, 171 1, at the request of the Lords Justices, a detailed report of the Palatine affairs. On that day, 1,051 Palatines remained in Ireland. Of the original appropriation of 2.4,000 pounds for their support and settlement, 10,319 pounds was left but this sum, the Commissioners reckoned, would be exhausted by July 2., 1712.. They then repeated their proposal for the annual allowance of 40 shillings for twenty-one years, "which is intended towards the payment of the Rents they shall set under. . . . "23
20 B. M., Add. MSS. 35933, 15.
21 Morgan, "The Ministerial Revolution of 1710," in loc. cit., XXXVI, 109.
22 B. M., Add. MSS. 35933, 16.
23 Ibid.* 2.0.
88 THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
The Irish Commissioners further requested that the Palatines be obliged to declare whether they would accept the arrangement or not. Those who would accept were im- mediately to enter into covenants as other tenants did with their landlords. Those who refused were to be sent to their own country or elsewhere at the first opportunity. Finally, the Commissioners had reports from the gentlemen who had retained several of the Palatines on their lands, that they would be obliged to return the Palatines to Dublin by March 15th, unless the 40 shillings per annum allowance were made. On the 2.8th of March, 1711, the English government approved the grant to each family of 40 shillings annually for seven years. It was estimated that 2.63 Palatine families of 978 per- sons still remained in Ireland then, but by the time the Irish Commissioners heard of the grant (August 11, 1712.) > nine more families had departed. With this additional support, the 2.54 families were all settled in the country.
Near the close of September, 171 2., Sir Thomas Southwell sent 130 Palatine families down to his estate in the County of Limerick,24 where ten other families had remained. Southwell rented them land at almost half of what it could bring, and supplied them with cash and other necessaries. It was stated in June, 171 4, when Southwell petitioned the king for 2.00 pounds due him, that had he not advanced the money, "the last ninety Families wou'd have left the Kingdom."25 South- well expressed himself as reluctant to seize the possessions of the Palatines, but he would be compelled to do so unless the Crown reimbursed him. However, on September 1, 171 6, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland successfully supported Southwell's claims to the British Treasury for a Palatine debt, which had grown to 557 pounds.
26
24 They settled principally at Court Matrix, Killiheen, Ballingarrane and Pallaskenry, and then spread out to the locations given in Appendix I.
25 B. M., Add. MSS. 35933, 14.
26 Ibid., 15.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
89
Map of Southwestern Ireland, showing the Palatine Settlements in Limer- ick County. The borders of Limerick County are slightly shaded.
Drawn by A. Cefola.
The Palatines were reported as having employed them- selves very industriously in raising flax and hemp. At that time the Commissioners recommended that a minister be secured to read to them the liturgy of the Anglican Church, to which the Palatines readily conformed. The Commissioners further suggested that an agent who understood the German language be appointed to see that the Palatines were not mis- used by their landlords or by their Irish neighbors.27 Since a number of the Germans received the sacrament within the time set, looking toward naturalization (under the law which had been repealed in 171 1), without taking through igno- rance the oath of allegiance required, the Commissioners recommended their case be presented to Parliament for remedy.
27 Ibid., 2.7.
90 THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
The Palatines were favored by fortune with the accession of the Hanoverian George I to the British throne in 1714. Since his accession was a continuation of the precious Protes- tant succession to the throne, the government naturally was even more disposed to support the Protestant cause, especially in Catholic Ireland. Indeed, the "poor German Protestants" were likely to receive special favors from a king who was so German that he could not speak English. On June 15, 171 5, an order was issued to continue the 40-shilling grant to each Palatine family for the remainder of the seven-year term, ex- piring March 2.8, 1719. In addition, on August 12., 1718, the general annual allowance of 62.4 pounds was ordered to be continued for 14 more years on the expiration of the former grant.28
Incidentally, this settlement of Palatines in Ireland was made against a background of distrust of the Irish Catholic population. Fear, that Ireland would be the base for an attempt on the part of the Stuart pretender James III to win back the throne of England, swayed the authorities. In Limerick, where the Palatines remaining in Ireland were eventually established, there had been a serious scare in 1702.. The Roman Catholics were rumored to be forming an army. As a result in the next year an act was passed by the Parliament of Ireland, expelling all Roman Catholic residents of Galway and Limer- ick, unless they gave sufficient assurance of allegiance to the Queen and her successors.29 Similar rumors continued to haunt the authorities in the next ten years. Consequently, the introduction of Protestant settlers in Limerick County was particularly fortunate from the view-point of those in power. All those able to bear arms were enrolled in the Free Yeo- manry of the country and were known as 'The German Fusiliers" or 'True Blues.' Each man was supplied with a musket called a "Queen Anne" with which to protect him-
28 Ibid., xcj.
29 P. Fitzgerald and J. J. McGregor, The History of Limerick (Dublin, 1817),
n> 455-
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION 91
self and his family.30 At the same time an educational and religious program for conversion of the Irish Roman Catholics was seriously considered.31
As late as 1758, the Palatines still had their separate settlements in Ireland. On the afternoon of February 2.3rd of that year, John Wesley "rode over to Court Mattress [Court Matrix], a colony of Germans, whose parents came out of the Palatinate fifty years ago. Twenty families settled here, twenty more at Killiheen, a mile off; fifty at Balligarane, about two miles eastward; and twenty at Pallas [Pallaskenry], four miles further."32 In 1745 Wesley found the Palatines without pastors and completely demoralized but he soon remedied that condition. The Germans became staunch Methodists, which many of them still remain. In 1760, five or six families, including Philip Embury and his cousin Barbara Heck, came to New York. It was here in 1766 that Barbara helped found the Methodist Church of this country by in- sisting that cousin Philip preach against worldliness.33 Arthur Young, in his Tour of Ireland, nearly 70 years after the settlement, found three villages of about 70 Palatine families. "For sometime after they settled they fed upon sour crout, but by degrees left it off, and took to potatoes. . . . Their industry goes so far, that jocular reports of its excess are spread: in a very pinching season, one of them yoked his wife against a horse, and went in that manner to work and finished a journey at plough. The industry of the women is a perfect contrast to the Irish ladies in the cabins, who cannot be per- suaded on any consideration, even to make hay, it not being the custom of the country. . . ,"34
30 William Crook, The Palatines in Ireland (London, 1866), 2.51.
31 B. M., Add. MSS. 35933, 2.1.
32 John Wesley, Works (1st Amer. ed., New York, 1831), IV, 3.
33 W. W. Sweet, Methodism in American History (New York, 1913), 54.
34 He was nevertheless of the opinion that the Palatines had done far less than the Irish peasant would have done if they had received half the en- couragement. Arthur Young, Tour in Ireland (Dublin, 1780), 76.
<^1_ THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
As late as 1830, another traveler wrote that "The elders of the family preserve, in a great degree, the language, customs, and religion of their old country, but the younger mingle and marry with their Irish neighbors . . . they are at present, as regards both their customs and traditions, only a relic of the past; and yet one so strongly marked and so peculiar, that it will take a long time before all trace of the Fatherland is obliterated."35 Johann Kohl in his Travels in Ireland in 184.x did not visit the settlements personally, but was informed in the neighborhood, that they could still be distinguished from the rest by the names of "Palatines."36 But when William Beidelman, once Lieutenant-Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, visited Ireland in the closing years of the nineteenth century, he found no trace of any German dialect in the Palatine neighborhoods in Limerick. The language had died out, only German names remained. Some of these had so changed as to make their origin scarcely recognizable. Mr. Beidelman found that the descendants of the Palatines had so intermarried with the Irish population, that their descendants were more Irish than German.37
A visit to the area of Palatine settlements in Limerick County in 1934 confirmed much of this. Some Palatine de- scendants have forgotten their origin. One prominent descen- dant in replying to a question about German customs, countered with the query, 'Were the Palatines Germans?" It is esti- mated by various individuals of these so-called Palatines that about 700 of them are still living in Limerick County.38 These
35
Robert Montgomery Martin, Ireland Before and After the Union ivith Great Britain (xnd. ed., London, 1848), 191.
36 Johann Georg Kohl, Travels in Ireland (London, 1844), 76.
37 William Beidelman, The Story of the Pennsylvania Germans (Easton, Pennsylvania, 1898), 73.
38 See the list of families in Appendix I. For much of this information I am particularly indebted to Mr. Julius Sheppard, a prominent Palatine of Ballingarrane with a particularly keen mind. I also must express my appreci- ation of the fine courtesy and help extended to me by the Methodist minister Reverend A. Reilly, of Adare, Limerick County, Irish Free State.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION 93
estimates made independent of one another are remarkable for their general agreement. But it should be noted that many of the Palatines remaining are descendants of mixed unions, that is, with Irish and English in the last generation or two. The adult generation today is largely the ninth in Ireland. Still some are pure Palatine stock and their heavy cast Ger- man countenances can be distinguished from the population generally. Careful inquiry has established the complete loss of the German tongue as far back as the seventh generation in the country, that is, about i860. One Palatine nearly eighty years of age claims that his grandparents knew German, but this was rare. The same individual asserts that his grand- father died at the age of no. In fact, another Palatine's aunt, still alive (1935), counted 102. years of existence.
Today there is no bad feeling or prejudice between the Irish and the Palatines, other than the general lack of sym- pathy between Catholic and Protestant. But the Palatines consider themselves Irish and the conclusion is evident that they have been assimilated thoroughly. However, this seems to have been accomplished only in the last three generations. Before that mixed marriages with the Irish were rare and Ger- man was probably still their language. In fact, one Palatine's parents were double first cousins, and this was considered rather common. Were there any truth in the prejudice against close marriages, these Palatine descendants should show degeneracy, but the healthy ruddy stock left with marked signs of longevity goes far to show otherwise, when the stock is good to begin with. On the other hand, there are at least two families showing marked feeble-mindedness. In more recent times, the prosperous Palatines are held in high regard in the county and many a native Irishman will ask his Pala- tine neighbor for his opinion of the price to be asked for his cattle at the county fair.
It may be recalled that Arthur Young estimated the num- ber of the Palatines at 700 in 1776. It would seem that the
94 THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
Palatine population has not increased, but this is not true. As the native Irish generally have contributed to the population of the world, old and new, so have the 'Irish Palatines.' Many of the Palatines recall members of their families who emigrated 50 years ago or even more recently to Australia, Canada, United States (Boston, Chicago, New York, and even as far west as Oregon), and various parts of Ireland. This is particularly true of the Switzers, who may be found in various parts of Ireland, in Queens County and Dublin as well as in Limerick County. Here is a typical case. Alexander Jordon, Sr., a French Huguenot, married Mary Smith of Palatine descent. Of the eleven children which blessed that union, one is in New York, U. S. A., one in Reading, England, one in Brighton, England, three in Belfast, Ireland, one in West Africa, two in Limerick and two are dead.
But the natural increase in population has been adversely affected, it is apparent, within the last two generations. Most of the Palatines can recall large families of a dozen or more children, one in fact of two dozen, 17 of whom lived to adult- hood. But small families are the rule today. One Palatine, of the ninth generation had two children himself; he was one of four children but his grandparents on his father's side had 13. Of course, inquiries were out of order, but the inference was obvious from certain remarks that the small families were a matter of choice, rather than due to any decline in the fertility of the stock. It should be remembered in this connection that it has been in these last few generations that mixed marriages with the Irish and other stock have become common rather than exceptional. These small families are probably not to be attributed to close in-breeding.
Of German customs there are none. Sourcrout is unheard of and other Pennsylvania German customs have no foothold in Limerick County. That great quencher of German thirst, beer, is not popular and even the cider for which the district was noted some years ago has lost its popularity. I did notice
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION 95
an old home-made cider press now resting after more than a century of use. John Wesley and his successors have done a thorough job. The Palatines are today a monument to the good influence of a strict but honest discipline. It must also be noted that some of the Palatines have become Catholic, and this is attributed by the Protestant clergy to the influence of the mixed marriages. I sought in vain for the remnant of a German custom. This failure to find one and the assimilation are to be explained largely by the fact that no further immi- gration of Germans took place. Here under adverse conditions, national antipathy in the beginning, religious hostility, and economic bitterness, assimilation was delayed for about a century and a half. But then it came fast and with surprising completeness. However, it is well to keep in mind that the Irish themselves have been fairly Anglicized too, at least, to adopting the English language.
What is left, surprising as it may be, is a remnant of the manorial system set up by these Palatines. Early travelers have not commented upon this institution, and hence one is unprepared for a common with grazing rights and arable land rotating annually m use among the shareholders. These are not found among the Irish and are a survival of the first settlement of great interest. In both Court Matrix and Killi- heen, a town-land near it, is to be found a meadow for a field held in common. About thirteen families still hold rights in Court Matrix and about twelve in Killiheen. The number of cattle one can graze on the common depends upon the amount of land held in the arable land, and originally each share was eight acres and carried with it one or two "collop." A "collop" was grazing for one cow or two yearlings. Today over these commons there are ninety to a hundred cattle grazing. The arable land is rotated every year, the holders re- ceiving different lands until the whole parcel has passed com- pletely through their hands when they begin to repeat the order all over again.
96
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
•: ■ . .
-, , ■ '■ " .
Two Views of the Commons at Court Matrix, Ireland, showing the balks (in the right foreground) still used to separate the plots of land.
THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION 97
One custom was still recalled. That was the custom of the Palatines of having their own Burgomaster, who judged their disputes. In later years he was known as "the King of the Palatines.' The last really to hold that title was James Teskey and that was over 60 years ago. Several have been re- ferred to since then by that title but apparently only in a facetious manner. Here again is proof that assimilation oc- curred about the middle of the nineteenth century, for only then would the Palatine descendants be ready to allow the natives to settle their affairs, that is, when they felt them- selves to be natives too.
The Palatine woman is still the typical hard-working German frau, although she would not recognize the word. As one of my companions remarked somewhat derisively, "They would not think of having a maid, and do all the work them- selves.' Hard-working, whether in the household or in the field, they are helpmates to the core. They still pickle and preserve large quantities of fruits and vegetables, and in this they are the marvel of their neighbors.
Their prosperity too is well recognized in the country. Frugality has concealed much of their wealth, but that which is evident is sufficient to excite the friendly envy of the Irish neighbors. One of them exclaimed, "I can't understand these Palatines. I work as hard as they do, but I can't keep up with them" financially. In the early days the Palatines planted their potatoes in plowed drills and plowed them out. They were thus able to use only one-third the dung used by the Irish, who planted their potatoes in four-row ridges with spades. The Palatine farmers appear to be the first to build silos in Ireland. These practices would seem to indicate that there was a sound personal basis for their prosperity aside from the government aid, though Arthur Young thought that these improvements were solely due to the fact that the Palatines were given long leases.39
39 Young, op. cit., I, 178.
98 THE EARLY PALATINE EMIGRATION
Professor Cunningham was too severe when he quoted with apparent approval a parliamentary speech of 1748, "The poor Palatines . . . were found to have neither industry nor ingenuity."40 When Professor Cunningham held that the Palatines were successful almost as much because of the terms on which "the land was leased as to any special character- istics among the settlers,"41 he was stating one view of the case. Not only were the government subsidies of great help, but they were also quite necessary under the uniformly un- friendly conditions. That important factor may be recognized without derogatory conclusions to the people of any nation- ality. What is now evident, is that the Palatine descendants have continued their prosperity and have won through even under adverse conditions so apparent in the Ireland of today. What is even more convincing, is the general approbrium and approval of the Palatine people held throughout Limerick County by other elements of the population.
Turning to another large settlement of Palatines, we find that a party of Palatines was sent to North Carolina. The efforts of the Carolina Proprietors to populate their colony, culminating in the advertising pamphlet by Kocherthal, have been described, and it has been noticed that Kocherthal's account of Carolina was an important cause of the 1709 emi- gration. The Lords Proprietors of Carolina were, it seems, among the first to make proposals to the Board of Trade. As