Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew (1st ed. vol 3).djvu/265

 their mother, on board another vessel. [These had a difficulty in escaping, and one of them was obliged to be concealed, when the vessel was searched, in a coil of ropes.] About this time the Jurats of Bordeaux, having had information of his intention to escape with his family out of the kingdom, were about to seize him, when he fled to Paris, thinking it might be more easy from thence to put his intentions into execution. He remained there a month, but to no purpose. He then went into Normandy, and, returning through Paris, went to Brittany, and after visiting several seaports, he went to Rochelle, but the watchfulness of the government was so great that he found no means of getting away. He then came to Bordeaux. But the rigour there was greater than ever, and left him no hope of escape; but he learned that his wife was safe in London, and that his two daughters were with her. He was unable to stay more than two hours in Bordeaux, and from thence he went to St Foy. A friend, whom he found by the way, gave him hopes that it would be possible for him to embark at Bordeaux, and that something might be done if he returned there in a fortnight; but this required money. The travelling, which he had now had for three months, had exhausted his purse. He employed six weeks to raise money; but now M. de Bonfleur, having heard that he did not go to mass, and that he was supposed to encourage others to resist the Roman Catholics, issued orders to seize him. He nevertheless continued for three weeks longer in the useless endeavour to raise some money, and at last escaped the search which was made for him.

[Here there is a digression on the sin of apostacy, and the necessity of taking refuge in a Protestant country, in order to exercise the duties and privileges of true religion.]

“Notwithstanding he had still the tie of a part of his fiimily whom he must leave behind him, he at last determined on trying to get off from France, per Bordeaux, but being too well known to think of venturing to go there himself, he applied to a friend for his assistance in negotiating the business for himself and his son. His friend could not go; but at his house there was a young relation, who was about to set out immediately with a party of recruits (une recreue) for the frontier of Switzerland. Amongst these the young man hoped to escape. M. de Shirac and his son were suffered to join the party, which consisted chiefly of persons who thought with him, and the commander happened to be an acquaintance. This was fortunate, as M. de Shirac could not well have passed for a common soldier; and he was permitted to lead the rest, while his son acted as his servant. In forty-five days they reached Zurich, where they were received with Christian charity by the Swiss, who likewise furnished them with the means of getting to Holland. After remaining at Zurich only five or six days, they set out in the end of June, and in about a month after, they reached England, where M. De Shirac became minister of the French Church at Bristol.”

[“He died in his pulpit at Bristol; he had had a lap-dog with him at the time, which eould not be driven from his corpse. His daughter married M. Triboudet Demainbray, — himself a refugee from France in consequence of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes — and their grand-daughter was my mother. .”]

From Burn, p. 124, we learn that M. De Schirac came to Bristol in 1687, and that the date of his death was June 1703; (the name is misprinted Descairac). The register is attested by the Pasteur Jeremie Tinell, formerly of the Reformed Church of Villeneufve de Puycheyn in Guienne (who died 5th July 1711), and by his colleague, Mr Alexander Descairac (De Schirac?), formerly of the Reformed Church of Bergeral in Guienne.

(2.) The Scots Magazine, vol. lxxi. p. 367, states that the following epitaph is on a tombstone at Green Bay, adjoining the Apostles’ Battery, Port Royal, Jamaica:—

Here lies the body of Lewis Galdy, Esq., who departed this life at Port Royal, the 22d December 1736, aged eighty. He was born at Montpellier in France, but left that country for his religion, and came to settle in this island, where he was swallowed up in the great earthquake in the year 1692, and by the providence of God was by another shock thrown into