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Rh of the North American community, they had to struggle with adversity, and were compelled, ten years later, to call for the charity of their Netherland brethren. Nineteen families of them had settled in Virginia, “but because of the cruel and barbarous Indians, who had already killed and carried away as prisoners so many of our people,” they fled back to Pennsylvania. All of one family were murdered, and the rest had lost all their possessions. Even in Pennsylvania two hundred families, through recent incursions of the savages in May and June, lost everything, and their dead numbered fifty. In this dreadful deprivation they asked for help, and they sent two of their number, Johannes Schneyder and Martin Funck, to Holland, giving them a letter dated September 7th, 1758, signed by Michael Kaufman, Jacob Borner, Samuel Bohm, and Daniel Stauffer. The two envoys, who had themselves sorely suffered from the devastations of the war, acquitted themselves well of their mission on the 18th of the following December, when they secured an interview with the committee at Amsterdam. They made the impression of being “plain and honest people,” gave all the explanations that were wanted, and received an answer to the letter they brought, in which was inclosed a bill of exchange upon Philadelphia for £50 sterling, equal to £78 11s. 5d. Pennsylvania currency, or 550f. The newly chosen secretary of the committee, J. S. Centen, adds: “We then paid their expenses here, and supplied them with victuals and travelling money, and they departed December 17th, 1758, in the Hague packet boat.”

After this event all intercourse between the North American Mennonites and those in the Netherlands ceased, except that the publisher of the well-known “Name List of the Mennonite Preachers” endeavored,