did not exceed 260,000 souls altogether, it is evident that a large portion of that population must have been of Huguenot origin, and that Huguenot blood must be extensively diffused among the American people of the present day. Many of the first families of New York, Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina, trace their origin to this honourable source, of which, indeed, their names still exhibit satisfactory evidence. In many cases, however, as in the central parts of Pennsylvania, where there was a numerous French Protestant settlement, this evidence no longer remains; the American descendants of the Huguenots having been obliged to vary the spelling of their names, and to give them an English aspect, to prevent their being perpetually mangled by American pronunciation. And in proof of the fact that these descendants of an illustrious stock have not degenerated in later times, but are still mindful of those principles of civil and religious liberty which their forefathers so ardently cherished, and for which they preferred "suffering affliction with the people of God," to all the riches and the pleasures of France, it is worthy of remark, that of the seven Presidents of the Congress of the United States of America, during the war of independence, not fewer than three were of French Huguenot descent. I am indebted for this information to M. du Ponceau; the names of the three Presidents referred to were John Jaye, Elias Boudinot, and Henry Laurens.

The French Protestants never formed a separate ecclesiastical organization in America, like the Dutch in New York, and the Germans in Pennsylvania. In a few localities, in which the Episcopal Church was established and predominant, as in the cities of New York and Charleston, their descendants, on coming to use the English language, passed over into that communion,

*Holmes' Annals.

to which, indeed, they had many inducements previous to the Revolution; but in all other cases, they gradually fell into the communion of the American Presbyterian Church. In the roll of communicants in the Presbyterian churches in Charleston, I observed the following Huguenot names :-Dupré, Du Bosc, Quillin, Lanneau, Legaré, Rosamond, Dana, Cousar, Lequeux, Boies, Hammet, Rechon, Bizé, Benoist, Berbant, Ruberry, Vardell, Marchant, Keckeley, Mallard, Chapin, Belville, Molyneux, Fabrigue, Lagow, Chevalier, Bayard, Sayre, De Saint Croix, Boudinot, Le Roy, Bonnell, Ogier, Janvier, Gillet, Purviance, Guiteau, Boyer, Carrell, Simon, &c.

About the middle of the seventeenth century, and probably before the Dutch colony of New York had fallen into the hands of the English-for I have only learned the circumstance from the Dutch traditions of the neighbourhood, and have never met with any account of it in the English histories of the American colonies-there was an emigration of about two hundred Protestants from the kingdom of Poland to the territory of New Jersey. It was headed by a Polish nobleman, of the illustrious and royal house of Sobieski, a lineal descendant of the celebrated Pole of that name, who, with a mere handful of troops, in the depth of winter, attacked and routed a Turkish army of sixty thousand men, under the walls of Vienna; thereby compelling the Turks to raise the siege of that important city, and arresting their victorious march into the heart of Christendom. The Reformation, it is well known, had, at an early period, made considerable progress in Poland; and, like Henry the Fourth of France, John Casimir, king of Poland, had granted great immunities to his Protestant subjects, by a royal charter, like the edict of Nantes; which, however, certain of his less liberal successors, at the instance of the Romish princes and prelates refused to carry into effect. It was during the

troubles and persecutions arising from this source, that Count Sobieski, and certain of his Protestant retainers, emigrated in a body to America; where his descendants are still numerous and respectable, in the state of New Jersey, although their name has shared the fate of so many other continental names in that country, in being corrupted into Zabrisky. It may not be irrelevant to remark, especially as the fact is not generally known, that the troubles of Poland for a century past, the dismemberment of that unfortunate kingdom, and its having ultimately become a mere province of Russia, are all distinctly traceable to the obstinate refusal of the Popish party in Poland to give effect to the charter of John Casimir, granting liberty of conscience to his Protestant subjects. It may also be regarded as a further instance of the retributive justice of Divine Providence, that the emperor Nicholas should now be compelling those very Poles, whose forefathers so long refused liberty of worship to their Protestant brethren, to renounce the Romish and to enter the Greek Church.

The troubles of the Palatinate, towards the close of the seventeenth century, were also productive of a numerous emigration from that part of Germany to the American colonies, chiefly during the reign of Queen Anne. About 2700 Palatines, as they were then called, were sent out by the British Government to New York, along with Colonel Hunter, the Governor of that colony, in the year 1710; while many others, who had been sent in the same way to Virginia, settled above the falls of the river Rappahannock, on what was then the Indian frontier of the colony. When the Whig ministry of Queen Anne, by whom these measures had been promoted, were superseded by a Tory administration, one of the charges which was brought against them by their successors, was that of "squandering away great sums upon the Palatines, who were a useless people, a mixture of all religions, and dangerous to the constitution;"

D

and it was actually resolved, by a vote of the Imperial Legislature," That those who advised the bringing them over were enemies to the queen and kingdom." It is somewhat instructive to observe how very differently the emigration of these peaceful and industrious Germans was regarded in the colonies; for so advantageous was their settlement on the frontier considered by the General Assembly of Virginia, that an act passed the legislature of that colony, in the year 1712, exempting them from all levies or assessments for the period of seven years.* From this period there was a regular influx of Germans into the American colonies, which continued with little interruption till the war of independence, and which has since been increasing rapidly till the present day. One half of the whole population of Pennsylvania is of German origin; and as a proof of their influence in the Commonwealth, I was informed, that for twenty years before the accession of the last Governor, the Germans had uniformly elected one of their own countrymen as Governor of the State. Nearly a similar proportion of the population of Ohio, and a large amount of that of Maryland, are also of German origin. The German Protestants, who constitute the great majority of the whole German population of the United States, are divided into Lutherans and Calvinists, or Reformed; each of which denominations is under the superintendence of a General Synod-the Lutherans having a thousand congregations, and the German Reformed about half that number.

The origin of the Quaker colony of Pennsylvania is well known. It was founded at the instance and through the exertions of the benevolent individual whose name it bears; chiefly, I believe, in consequence of the persecutions to which the members of the Society of Friends had long been subjected, not only in the mother coun

*Holmes' Annals, passim.

For,

try, but even in the other American colonies. incredible as it may seem, it is nevertheless the fact, that in the year 1656, twelve Quakers were banished from the colony of Massachusetts, by order of the General Court of that colony, for no other crime than their inoffensive opinions; and two of their number who had returned to it some time thereafter, were actually executed in the year 1659! In that year, also, an act was passed by the legislature of Virginia, by which it was enacted, that " 'any commander of any shipp or vessell bringing into the collonie any person or persons called Quakers, is to be fined £100.; and all Quakers apprehended in the collonie, are to be imprisoned till they abjure this countrie, or give securitie to depart from it forthwith. If they return a third time, they are to be punished as felons."*

Quakers are, of course, still numerous in the state of Pennsylvania, although it is long since they ceased to be a majority of the population. They are unequally divided into orthodox and Hicksites, or Unitarians ; each of which denominations has two separate meetinghouses in the city of Philadelphia. That city is built

on an oblong piece of level ground, lying between the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers, which, in that neighbourhood, pursue a parallel course for some distance, about two miles apart. The streets that run perpendicularly to the course of the rivers are named from the trees of the country-Chestnut, Walnut, Mulberry, Filbert, Cherry, Pine, &c. &c.-while those that run parallel to their course are regularly numbered from the Delaware, Front-street, Second-street, Third-street, up to Thirteenth-street. It is an admirable device for a stranger, who thus gets familiar with the geography of the place at a glance, and it affords a good practical commentary on the Quaker doctrine of utility.

* Hemmings' Collection of the Laws of Virginia.