David Carnegie Andrew Agnew

“ And now in France when methods are taken to make those of the Reformed Religion either to die of famine and in misery, or to force them to commit idolatry, it is made capital to fly, and those that endeavour it are to be condemned to the gallies. ”

“ Considering what we owe to the refugees, and that the effect of the methods of manufacture introduced by them, and which for us were new creations, inaugurated those gradually advancing processes by which the descendants of the Huguenots have been left behind in poverty, we should rejoice to see their poverty relieved by some plan which would elevate the children of such ancestry above common paupers. ”

“ And especially should we be bountiful unto, and encourage to our utmost, such amongst them who are come hither on purpose that they may be put into a capacity to help forward the deliverance of those distressed and besieged people they have left behind them, and who are willing to resist the most outrageous assaults of the common enemies of their religion and country with their last blood, and to prevent the Romish and French Party from making this land as very a field of blood as they have made, or would make, that country. ”

“ Let us take care that we be not at this time stingy, niggardly, and penurious, lest by our overmuch concern for a small particle we sacrifice all, and betray ourselves into their hands who will prophane the whole, pretending that every part is sacred. ”

“ The distressed French exiles upon account of religion, having lost their best support by the death of Queen Mary, and having solicited the court to little purpose, did on the 9th April 1695, present a petition to the House of Commons, humbly praying that their deplorable condition might be taken into consideration. The Commons, out of a generous and Christian tenderness, presented an address to the king, that his majesty would be pleased to take the poor French refugees into his princely consideration, and vouchsafe them some relief. ”

“ Being a sermon preached at Steeple, in Dorsetshire, upon occasion of the Collection for relief of the Poor Protestants in this kingdom lately fled from Ireland. By Samuel Bolde, Rector there. London, printed for Awnsham Churchill, at the Black Swan, in Amen Corner, 1689.” As the preacher was evidently thinking of the French refugees, as much as of the Irish, I quote some of his sentences:—
Page 22. — “You who suffer for the Protestant Religion— whether in Ireland, France, or anywhere else — take heart, be not discouraged, be not dismayed, but labour to possess your souls with patience.” ”

“ The Royal Bounty for the French Protestant Refugees consisted of moneys raised throughout the United Kingdom for distribution among the necessitous exiles. The Huguenots were always celebrated for their industry and self-reliance, and many of them for inventive genius or skill. ”

“ Our adversaries’ designs are evidently to deprive us of our religion and of all that we can properly call our own, and to reduce us under that vile — that ignominious — that unsupportable oppression under which tlie Protestants of France have long groaned. ”

“ The work of a parochial clergyman among the descendants of the Huguenots is a sad but most interesting duty. They have none of the servility, none of the brutality which is found among other classes of the London poor. ”

“ The French Protestants were named first, probably because the great sympathy felt for their sufferings would make the collection popular among the Presbyterians of Scotland. On account of the vicinity of Ireland and the actual presence of so many refugees from Ulster, the first practical claim was possessed by the Irish. ”

“ The sums of money that have been collected have always been deposited in the hands of four or five noblemen, who have referred the division and administration thereof to a chosen set of men picked out from among the refugees themselves. ”

“ They were known to support the poor of their own congregations, who were also remembered generously in their wills. In the vestry of the City of London French Church, there is exhibited on painted boards on the wall, a list of donations and legacies to the poor of the congregation which we admire, though amused by the curious simplicity of the French words, dons and legs. ”

“ There is in the Lambeth Palace Library a MS. “Royal Warrant for the payment of the sum of £8591 to poor French Protestants. 11 Dec. 1727”" The prosperity of so many of the descendants of the refugees, and their amalgamation with the native population, as well as the occasionally successful applications of impostors for relief, contributed arguments for increasing economy and diminishing grants. During the great French Revolution many Roman Catholics fled for refuge from France to England, and, as our fellow-creatures, were hospitably treated. ”

“ Then they lost a whole year’s income by the death of King William III., the warrant issued for that year having never been met by the government. During the best years of the reign of Queen Anne the money was regularly paid; but on the fall of Marlborough and Godolphin, with whom the vast majority of the refugees could not cease to sympathize, the enraged ministry of Harley and Bolingbroke stopped payment. ”

“ The Dean’s reply was short and significant, “Doctor, doctor, charity is above rubrics.” (Birch’s Life of Tillotson, p. 130.)
The celebrated collection, for which a Brief was promised in the autumn of1 685, was not actually ordered until the spring of 1686. The promise was made in the eagerness of British hospitality; the French and English kings, along with Chancellor Jeffries, concerted the delay. The irritation and anxiety of the public mind during this interval is evident from Evelyn’s Diary. ”

“ The collection over the whole kingdom was £52,000. A second collection is mentioned by Evelyn:— “1688, April 15th. The persecution still raging in France, multitudes of Protestants and many very considerable and great persons flying hither produced a second general contribution, — the Papists (by God’s providence) as yet making small progress amongst us.” Bishop Ken addressed a circular letter, under the King’s letters patent, to his clergy, “to ask and receive alms and charitable contributions in behalf of French Protestant refugees,” beginning, “All glory to God. ”

“ Estats de la Distribution de la somme de douze mille livres sterlings. . . . receue par le Comité françois le 18 de Decembre 1706. . . ." The preface called this the second statement of accounts. The Committee had been enlarged, and now consisted of eighteen Englishmen and twenty-nine Frenchmen. Their statement divided the refugees into ten classes:— (1.) Gentlemen; (2.) Burgesses; (3 ) Extraordinary cases; (4.) Ecclesiastical proselytes; (5.) Refugees in the provinces; (6.) Patients in the Pest-House ”

“ School-teachers; (9.) The common people; (10.) Medical men employed by the Committee. The gcntilhommes represented 145 families, of whom 205 persons were relieved.
It remains that we should enquire regarding the votes and proceedings of the House of Commons, relative to the Royal Bounty. The statements as to this fund, handed down to us as history, are questionable, at least as to the source from which the income was raised, and as to the right of parliament to withhold, either in whole or in part, the annual sum of £15,000, which appears to have been first voted in 1696. ”