Page:Historical and biographical sketches.djvu/195

Rh consider whether it would be possible for them to arrange for the many and great expenses of the passage.” Some did not need help, and could supply from their own means what was required; but on the 20th the committee learned that forty-five more needy ones had started from the Palatinate. These with eight others cost the Society 3271f. 15st. Before the end of July twenty-one more came to Rotterdam, and so it continued. No wonder that the committee, concerned about such an outpouring, requested the community in Pennsylvania “to announce emphatically to all the people from the pulpit that they must no more advise their needy friends and acquaintances to come out of the Palatinate, and should encourage them with the promise that, if they only remained a c cross the sea, they would be liberally provided for in everything.” If, however, they added, the Pennsylvanians wanted to pay for the passage of the poor Palatines, it would then of course be their own affair. This the Pennsylvanians were not ready nor in a condition to do. The committee also sent forbidding letter after letter to the Palatinate, but every year they had to be repeated, and sometimes, as, for instance, May 6th, 1733, they drew frightful pictures: “We learn from New York that a ship from Rotterdam going to Pennsylvania with one hundred and fifty Palatines wandered twenty-four weeks at sea. When they finally arrived at port nearly all the people were deal. The rest, through the want of vivres, were forced to subsist upon rats and vermin, and are all sick and weak. The danger of such an occurrence is always so great that the most heedless do not run the risk except through extreme want.” Nevertheless the stream of emigrants did not cease. When finally over three thousand of different sects came to Rotterdam, the committee, June 15th, 1732, adopted the strong