David Carnegie Andrew Agnew

“ They are not allowed to erect Free Schools for the education of their own children, nor hospitals for the maintenance of their own poor, nor can they have the benefit of any already erected, without turning to the Popish religion. The Lords of Manors among them, who formerly had right to keep ministers and set up the Reformed Worship in their own houses, and call their neighbours and tenants into it by the sound of a bell, are now in the most arbitrary manner deprived of that privilege. ”

“ But it is the custom of all languages to speak of the lesser evil as of a good. And so flight is, if it be compared with death, slavery, or bodily torments, which are more emphatically called sufferings; though really in itself it is also a great degree of suffering, for which the person so flying from persecution shall be rewarded with everlasting life. ”

“ The Huguenots are in daily expectation of a very severe edict against them, by which any of their children shall be capable of choosing their religion at seven years old; how this will correct the chastisement of their parents, and how it will expose them to the temptations of the seducers is enough apparent. ”

“ The Archbishop of Paris and the Pere de la Chaise do all they can to prevail with this king to make him revenge the quarrel of the English Catholics upon the French Protestants, who tremble for fear of some violent persecution, and are ready to go into England in such vast numbers as would be a great advantage to the nation, if you would, by easy naturalization, make it the least easy to them. ”

“ And the providence of God hath cast many of them, like shipwrecked men on our coasts, and expects that we should show them no little kindness, but receive them courteously, and do good unto them in an especial manner, as unto them that are of the household of faith. ”

“ If their children upon this liberty happen to change their religion (as many will do rather than endure wholesome discipline) , their parents are bound to maintain them as they do their other children, or else to allow them a pension for their maintenance. ”

“ But now all Papists are forbidden to turn Protestants, under pain of death, or the penalty called l’amende honorable, in which the recanting person, only in his shirt, with a torch in his hand, and a rope about his neck, and the hangman standing behind him, begs pardon of God and man for having renounced the Catholic (as they miscall the Romish) religion, and is afterwards punished with banishment, if not with confiscation of goods.
“On the contrary, Protestants have all imaginable encouragement to turn Papists — pensions, honours, offices, and preferments ”

“ And if either hopes of reward, or a delirious condition, or impatience, or any other cause, make them speak anything in favour of the Romish religion, then they presently take witness that they turned Papists; after which, if the sick persons die, they are to be buried as Papists, and if they left children behind them, they also are to be bred Papists. But if they recover, they are obnoxious to the law against a relapse.
“Their ministers cannot, without great danger and difficulty, visit Protestants who lie sick in Popish houses ”

“ And though these tyrannical and arbitrary outrages be not done by open order, yet it may be presumed they are done upon connivance, and according to the secret will of the supreme authority; since those that do them are neither punished nor restrained, notwithstanding the complaints which the sufferers daily make at court. ”

“ And in the cities where they are most numerous, Colleges of Jesuits or Houses of Mission for propagating the faith are erected, into which undutiful children or servants, under a pretence of turning Catholics, may retreat when they please. ”

“ At the latter end of March and beginning of this month, was a collection in every college and hall, as also in every parish of Oxford, for succour and relief of poor Protestants that were lately come into England on a persecution from France; people gave liberally. ”

“ And when their women are in travail, like the Hebrew women in the time of hardened Pharaoh, they must have Popish Egyptian midwives, which is a far greater terror to many of them than the pains of childbed itself. ”

“ All Protestants are turned out of all places except just the gens de robe, but all in the finances and all the common soldiers in the guards are cashiered, which would be no disadvantage to you in a dispute with this crown, for you would have them all if you pleased. ”

“ And if, to prevent the mischief that may follow upon this, they send their children away, they must forfeit a year’s revenue of their estates if they do not produce them within a year, but if they do not produce them within two years, then they must forfeit the whole. ”

“ And for the further relief and encouragement of the said necessitous Protestants, His Majesty hath been pleased to give order for a general Brief through his Kingdom of England, Dominion of Wales, and Town of Berwick, for collecting the charity of all well-disposed persons, for the relief of the said Protestants who may stand in need thereof. ”

“ As for their ministers, they upon any pretended crimes are banished, fined, or imprisoned on purpose to make them forsake their flocks, and to discourage the people from putting their children to the study of Divinity. ”

“ But all these matters may be recovered again by a hearty declaration, by some sort of commission established for strangers to address to upon their first arrival, and by a Bank in the city on purpose for this use that men may convey their estates with great privacy. ”