25
P. R. 0., C. 0. 388/76,
56ii, 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.
Page
9: religious motivation of his pilgrimage. Such people degenerated
so far that they were more concerned with the cultivation of their lands
than of their souls. Bohme added that they stood as son many monuments,
warming 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
up 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 important
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 themselves with a prayerbook or similar religious
work. Fewer still had a New Testament or Bible, and they would have remained
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 21, 1705, a declaration promising liberty of conscience.
(30) In 1707 a disinterested person testified to the sincere execution of
the declaration. (31) On the 27th June, 1709, the Council of the declaration.
(31) On the 27th of June, 1709, the Council of the
27 Das verlangte nicht erlangte Canaan, 15-30.
28 Ibid., 24.
29 Ibid., 22. 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.
<--Page
10, Page 11-->: Protestant Consistory in the Palatinate issued a statement
denying the pretenses of emigrants that they were persecuted. (32) Indeed,
a colonial report of the Evangelical Lutheran Congregation 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." (32) 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 exiting along the Rhine and in
England, it was advantageous to pose as "poor German Protestants"
persecuted for their faith. This will be discussed in greater detail below.
To devastation by war, oppression by petty princes imitating 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 dissatisfaction with their present lot, which only irritated
another 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 Nachricchten (Oswald Trans., Philadelphia,
1881), III, 237.
34 P. R. O., S. P... 84/232, 249.
<--Page
13, Page 12-->: which they will be able to support themselves after we
die." (35) But all these causes themselves would perhaps have been
insufficient 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 disseminated throughout the Rhine Valley. Agents for the
proprietors entered into negotiations with interested parties. Adventurers
life Francois Louis Micheland 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, migrated 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 this
experiences 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 no 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, hereafter cited as Doc. Hist.
36 Townshend, MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com., 11th Rept., Appendix),
IV, 63; C.C., 1706-1708, 61.
37 Listed as one of the Palatines remaining at New York,
1710, Doc. Hist., III, 564.
38 Ulrich Simmindinger, Waarhaffte und glaubwwurdige
Verzeichnuss jeniger. . . Persoonen welche sich Anno 1709. . . aus Teutschland
in American oder Neue Welt begben. . . (Reuttlingen, ca. 1717). See
Appendix F. below for list of families.
Page 14: 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 examination 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 recommendation 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., 2-3 Simmendinger states this frankly. Frank
R. Diffenderffer, "The German Exodus to England in 1709," in Pa
ger. Soc. Proc. (1897) VII, 292 finds as one of the chief reasons for
the emigration "the hope of bettering themselves."
40 "Dann als Anno 1709, auff die lauter guldene versperechenda
Engelland=ische Schreiben/viele Familien aus der Pfalz. . . hinab nach Engelland/um
von dar nach Pensylvaniam uber zugehen." Ibid., 2. Also, Friederich
Kapp, Geschichte der Deutschen Einvanderung in Amerika (Leipzig,
1868), 86.
41 C.J., (April 14, 1711), XVI, 597.
42 V.H. Todd and J. Goebel, Christoph van Graffenried's
Account of the Founding of New Bern (N.C. Hist. Com. Pub., Raleigh,
N. C., 1920) 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 (1754), quoted in Der
deutsche Pionier, XIV, 295-6.
Page 15: Joshua Kocherthal, (43) described as a German evangelical minister,
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 imply in the service of the proprietors of Carolina? No definite
promises are made in his book but several passages, 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
to 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 communication 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 desirous 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, 3i; C. C. 1706-1708, 183.
45 Ibid., 15, Kocherthal, Aussfuhrlich und umstandlicher
Bericht von. . . Carolina (4th ed., Franckfurt, 1709), 28, hereafter
cited as Kocherthal, Bericht.
46 Diffenderffer, op. cit., 317; A copy of the 4th
impression is in the Library of Congress.
<--Page
16. Title Page of Kocherthal's Aussfuhrlich und umstandicher Bericht
(4th edition). Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
<--Page
17: 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.
Page 18: 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.
Polycrpus 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 translated 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 proprietors 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 Carolina 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 (Seeing it is needless at
the first shipping over) and are not able to pay any monie for their passage,
should be transported free by your Lords without any payment as far as Carolina."
This was to be repaid finally by years of service the the company 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 ventured 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 Conditions granted
to us by the proprietors, there should also cir-
48 L. C. Archdale MSS. 1694-1706, 122.
Page 19: cumstancially be sett forth the great eveready proffetts 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 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 Aussfuhrlich und
umstandlicher Bericht von der beruhmten 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 remuneration. 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 producing 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 with many Lutherans and Calvinists of the Rhine Valley.
The
49 Ibid, 60 et. seq.
50 Sanuel M. Janney, The Live of William Penn (Philadelphia,
1852), 117 et. seq., recounts Penn's journey in that year and especially
his friendship with Princess Elizabeth of the Palatinate.
Page 20: 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 rights 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 Amsterdam the same year and its distribution in the upper Rhine country
probably affected favorably the movement of Germans 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 counsellor,
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' Unstandige geographische Beschreibung
(detailed 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., 1972) I, 32 et. seq; H.L. Osgood, English
Colonies in the Eighteenth Century (New York, 1924), II 491; Sachse,
op. cit., 443 et. seq.
53 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 Schse'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, 201-256; Das verlangte nicht erlangte
Canaan, 95.
<--Page
21. Portrait of William Penn. Courtesy of Pennsylvania-German
Society.
Page 22: 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 throughout 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
inland 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 advantage 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 28th
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 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 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, 23-28.
56 John M. Brown, Brief Sketch of the First Settlement
of the County of Schoharie by the Germans (Schoharie, 1823), 5.
57 Faust, op. cit., I, 61.
58 Kapp calls them "Speculators," and says they
associated themselves with the Quakers. Die Deutschen, I, 20.
59 Luttrell, op. cit., VI, 434, 440.
60 G. N. Clark, The Later Stuarts 1660-1714 (Oxford,
1934), 143.
Page 23: 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 an easy to them." (63)
Queen Anne on her accession in 1702 continued, under the guidance of the
Marlboroughs and their relatives, those policies on which was predicted
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 Geertridenberg 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 collections were taken up in England under
government auspices for
61 A. J. Grant, "The Governement of Louis XIV,"
in Camb. Mod. Hist., V, 24; 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 1661-1725,
trans. and continued by H. Tindal (London, 1744), XVI, 347.
64 Clark, op. cit., 212.
65 B. M., Add. MSS 28055, 425; P. R. O., S. P. 84/233, 38.
Page 24: funds for building of churches. (66) 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 28, 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, owned its existence to him. (71) The funeral sermon
which the Reverend Joh Tribbeko preached in the Royal Chapel on November
21st 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 con-
66 P. R. O., S. P. 44/108, 25 (1708-1709).
67 Luttrell, op. cit., VI, 452.
68 Townsend MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com. 11th Report, Appendix),
IV, 52.
69 B. M. Add. MSS 15866, 135; Add. Mss. 6309, 27; Egmont
MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com. 7th Report, Appendix), II, 232; 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, 728.
71 Ibid., 738.
72 John Tribbeko, An Funeral Sermon on the Death of H.
R. H. Prince George of Denmark (London, 1709), 27.
73 C. B. Todd, "Robert Hunter and the Settlement of
the Palatines," in National Magazine (February, 1893, XVII,
292.
<--Page
25. Prince George of Denmark, royal consort of Queen Anne. Courtesy of
Pennsylvania-German Society.
Page 26: 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 migration, 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, consist 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 proprietor 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, 1711), 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.,
III, 1775 and 1830.
79 Monthly Mercury (London, July, 1709), XX, 275;
Josiah Child, A New Discourse on Trade, (1693 ed.), 154; Edgar S.
Furniss, The Labourer in a System of Nationalism (Boston, 1920),
33.
Page 27: 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 Government." 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 5th, leave was given in the House of Commons to bring in
a bill for naturalizing foreign Protestants. On the 28th 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 203
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 bill was agreed to by the Lords
65 to 20. 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, 288-303.
82 Huntington Library, H. S. MSS. 22285; hereafter cited
as H. L.
83 Penn-Logan Corres. (Memoirs of Historical Society
of Pa., X), II, 323.
84 Luttrell, op. cit., VI, 404, 408, 415, 417.
Page 28: assent made it a law on March 23rd. (85) This was the first general
naturalization law in England. It provided that the naturalized 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. (68) 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 Protestant 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 Parliament may have reached
prospective immigrants. That this act was a preparation for their coming,
or even an added attraction 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 intimately connected with colonial
projects in America. Men, such as Archdale and Penn, stimulated through
agents and
85 C. J., XVI, 93, 108, 113, 123, 131, et. seq.; Eccles.
Rec., III, 1724, 1832; Paul Chamberlen, History of the . . . Reign
of Queen Anne (London, 1738), 312.
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 (B.T. Jour. 1708-1714, 26). They were over six weeks,
a few weeks at least, at Rotterdam awaiting transportation and the time
needed to cross the Channel, in addition tot he time spent on the way to
Rotterdam, would certainly amount to two months. The Kocherthal party in
1708 needed tow months to travel from Frankfurt to London. Eccles. Rec.,
III, 1729.
Page 29: 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 embarking 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 immigration
from foreign shores.
Precedents existed for governmental controlled immigration for English
dominions. In 1679, Charles II sent two shiploads to French Huguenots to
South Carolina, in order ti introduce the cultivation of grapes, olives
and the silkworm. (90) In 1694 Baron de Luttichaw petitioned for permission
to import 200 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 1557-1696, 396.
92 C. C. 1696-1697, 389.
93 C. C. 1706-1708, 31, 234, 439.
94 Ibid., 356, 358.
Page 30: purpose. (95) With the ambitious design of James II to unite all
the colonies under one government, the resources of Parliament 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 Protestant 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 transportation 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 government should pay the cost of transportation, which
it estimated 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 development (99) had to be
95 [Hare], op. cit., 4; "Brief History,"
in Eccles, Rec., III, 1776.
96 C. C. 1706-1708, 14.
97 Ibid., 62, 79.
98 An evidence of this program was the negotiation with
Penn for the purchase of his government. By the summer of 1712, the terms
of the surrender had been agreed upon, 12,000 pounds, payable in four years,
with certain stipulations. Janney. op. cit., 524.
Page 31: 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 enticed 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 cause: (1) war devastion, (2)
heavy taxation, (3) an exraordinary 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 cooperation 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 discussed 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
transportation of the Anabaptists through Holland. Letter from British Envoy
Abraham Stanyan to Lord Townshend, April 5, 1710. Magg Bros. Cat., No.
522.
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 Palatinate, so that "When those who have
gone to Pennsylvania hear about it they will quickly return." Letters
to Madam (London, 1924), II, 25.
102 Professor E. B. Greene is correct in this general conclusion
as to the causes of this emigration. Provincial America 1690-1740 (New
York, 1905, 230.
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MAP
OF RHINELAND, Germany,
showing the sources of the Palatine Emigration.