Page:Memoirs of a Huguenot Family.djvu/441

 Rh comfortable habitations, left behind them their friends, relations, and country, to all which they were attached by many powerful and endearing ties, we may conclude that weighty have been the reasons, at least these people have thought them such, which have already determined so many to act as these have done, and will determine others to follow their example. But, whether they be weighty in themselves or not, it is certain they are such as reduce the numbers of our inhabitants very fast, to the great detriment and loss of the public.

As I have had an opportunity of conversing with some of them upon the subject, and have thence discovered what considerations have influenced their conduct in this point, I shall take the liberty briefly and candidly to represent them to your Honor; after which, you may judge whether they have any weight or not; that, if they have, the gentlemen whose province it is to direct public affairs, may, if upon inquiry they find this information founded on truth, consider what will be the properest remedies for a timely prevention of the further progress of this consumption in our political constitution.

Although it be natural to suspect that the heavy taxes which the pressing exigencies of our country have rendered necessary, possibly may, and perhaps actually have, determined some to remove, yet, I know none who have been prevailed on to do so, purely and simply from that consideration. But, sir, an unhappy concurrence of various sinister events and untoward circumstances, preventing the Colony from reaping advantages from the sums levied and expended, adequate to those sums, together with a suspicion and dread that their persons and possessions are not sufficiently insured