Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 2.djvu/186

 of war. This was actually done; French officers in Kingsale were put in irons, and also the French prisoners at Plymouth. In the meantime the captain landed the ensign (not yet sober) and all the captives, except Fontaine. He opened up a communication with Madame Fontaine on Dursey Island, and fixed her husband’s ransom at £100. She paid £30, which she contrived to borrow; whereupon Fontaine was liberated and his son Peter was carried off as a hostage, to guarantee the remaining £70. This balance was never claimed. The French government, convinced by international law, and by the groans articulated from Kingsale and Plymouth, sent the youth home to his now celebrated parents.

Fontaine had recently made the acquaintance of the Commander of the Forces, General Ingoldsby, who proved a friend in need. He procured for him an immediate grant of £100. His pension was continued; and the general undertook to obtain for Peter and John the position and rights of half-pay officers.

Bear Haven, having been completely desolated, was abandoned. The county of Cork paid Fontaine £800 as damages, it having been proved that Irishmen had been concerned in the attack and robbery. This money enabled him to begin a school at Dublin for instruction in Latin, Greek, and French, geography, mathemathics, and fortification. There were very suitable premises in St Stephen’s Green, with a yard and garden 300 feet in length and 40 feet in breadth. But the house was supposed to be haunted. No one having for several years offered to tenant it, Fontaine easily obtained a lease of 99 years for an amiual rent of £10. The spectres proved to be a gang of Irish vagrants, whose nocturnal howlings did not alarm the brave refugees, and who were ejected without delay. The school was most successful, and Fontaine passed the remainder of his days with serenity. His noble wife died on the 29th of January 1721, and his unmarried daughter, Elizabeth, presided over his housekeeping afterwards. His married daughter and three of his sons had emigrated to Virginia. It was to them that he addressed his autobiography; and he wrote out a verbatim copy of it for his other two sons who lived in London. All this he accomplished in less than three months, namely, between 26th March and 21st June 1722.

Having had no space for more than a very small portion of those memoirs, I have omitted the many pious and unaffected comments and ejaculations which the work contains. The following sentences present a specimen and summary of them all:— “My dear children, I would fain hope that the pious examples of those from whom we are descended may warm your hearts. You cannot fail to notice in the course of their lives the watchful hand of God’s providence. I hope you will resolve to dedicate yourselves wholly and unreservedly to the service of that God whom they worshipped at the risk of their lives; and that you and those who come after you will be steadfast in the profession of that pure reformed religion, for which they endured with unshaken constancy the most severe trials. When I look back upon the numberless uncommon and unmerited mercies bestowed upon myself, may my gratitude towards my Almighty Benefactor be increased, and my confidence in him so strengthened, that I may be enabled for the future to cast all my care upon him. The frailties and sins of the different periods of my life are brought to my mind. Great as is my debt of gratitude for the things of this life, how incalculably greater is it for the mercy to my immortal soul, in God having shed the blood of his only begotten Son to redeem it! O my God! I entreat thee to continue thy fatherly protection to me during the few days I have yet to live, and at last to receive my soul into thy everlasting arms. Amen.”

My readers will be pleased if I give the names of other Huguenot refugees preserved in this exile’s memoirs. The first is Mr. Maureau, an advocate of Saintes, who managed Fontaine’s case before the French courts, and who knew that the successful appeal to parliament had set at liberty twenty of Fontaine’s poor and pious neighbours, for whose sake he had voluntarily surrendered himself for trial. This gentleman, becoming a refugee, was appointed secretary to the Committee in London for administering relief to the necessitous refugees. When the Committee refused Fontaine’s claim, on account of non-conformity to the sacramental test, Mr. Maureau, with much warmth, pled his cause, saying:—

“You will not, I trust, suffer so worthy a man to be reduced to extreme want, without affording him any assistance, — a man who has shown that he counted his life as nothing when the glory of God was in question, and who voluntarily and generously exposed himself to uphold the faith of a number of poor country people. Perhaps there are not four ministers who have received the charity of the Committee, who have done so much for the cause of true religion as he has done.” 