Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 2.djvu/22

 Mr. Cotton was very much affected by the judicious, affectionate piety of a very young man, who proved to be a candidate for the ministry. Overtaking several poor Protestants, who were mourning and lamenting their hard fate, this excellent youth addressed himself to them, condoled with and comforted them, with so much seriousness, prudence, and affection, as to occasion at once the greatest satisfaction and surprise.

Mr. Cotton was present also at the breaking-up of the church at Charenton. The vast assembly which he saw convened there was a most transporting sight. The thought of such numbers being devoted to banishment, slavery, and the most barbarous deaths, to which in some instances he was an actual witness, was more than he could bear. Many things were extremely affecting to him in the faith, courage, and devotion of the sufferers, particularly of some of little note from whom not much was expected, who stood firmly and suffered the loss of all; whilst others, reckoned eminent for religion, lost their courage and integrity, and fell in the day of trial. He had also the pleasure to witness some extraordinary deliverances wrought out for several of these good men, when they were actually appointed to execution. He recorded it with pleasure, and justice requires it to be here mentioned, that there were several of the Roman Catholics themselves who showed great humanity and tenderness towards the Protestants in their sufferings. Some did not scruple to say that they should be undone when the Protestants were gone, and that they were inclined to take their lot with them wherever they went. Mr Cotton was well acquainted with a priest in London, who had been very useful in assisting several Protestants to make their escape from France, which, being known to the French government, he was obliged to remain in this country, although in very narrow circumstances, because he did not dare to return home. [Mr. Cotton was a native of Yorkshire, and M.A. of the University of Edinburgh; he became Presbyterian minister of St. Giles-in-the-Fields. His preaching was founded on the best foreign models. Having been greatly affected by the manner in which psalmody was performed in the Foreign Reformed Churches, he became much attached to that part of divine worship. He died at Hampstead in 1730, aged seventy-seven.]

Under the heading, “Emigration of the Laity,” Smedley’s History of the Reformed Religion in France gives the following statements (on the authority of Benoist):—

“No vigilance could be sufficiently alert, no cordon of gaolers sufficiently numerous, to close every outlet from so extensive a frontier as that which bounded France. . . . The fears of the government were excited by the perilous and rapid depopulation; and force and artifice were equally employed in order to prevent its continuance. Armed peasants scoured the roads and guarded the most obvious passes; and in remoter districts gold was lavishly scattered to corrupt the fidelity of the guides to whom the fugitives entrusted themselves. . . . Scarcely a vessel quitted any port in France without some contraband lading of emigrants. When other places of concealment failed, the miserable exiles secreted themselves under bales of merchandise, in empty casks, or amid heaps of stores; and if securer means of transport were not at hand, an open boat or the skiff of a fisherman was eagerly coveted for the performance of some hazardous voyage. The Count of Marancé and his lady, personages of distinction in Lower Normandy, formed part of a crew of forty souls, among which were several women with children at the breast, who entered a vessel of seven tons burthen, in the very depth of winter, wholly without provisions, and exposed to a stormy sea; their sole refreshment during a long passage to the English coast was a little melted snow, with which, from time to time, they moistened their fevered lips, until after sufferings which appeared to debar hope, this piteous company gained the opposite shore, and found a hospitable reception.”

As to fugitives to North America, I quote the following sentences from Bancroft’s History of the United States, chapter xiii.:—

1685. The Edict of Nantes was formally revoked. . . . The loss of lives cannot be computed. How many thousands of men, how many thousands of children and women perished in the attempt to escape, who can tell? Every wise government was eager to offer a refuge to the upright men who would carry to other countries the arts, the skill in manufactures, and the wealth of France. . . . In our American colonies they were welcome everywhere. The religious sympathies of New England were awakened; did any arrive in poverty, having barely escaped with life? the towns of Massachusetts contributed liberally to their support and provided them with lands. Others repaired to New York; but the warmer climate was more inviting to the exiles of Languedoc, and South Carolina became the chief resort of the Huguenots. What though the attempt to emigrate was, by the law of France, a felony? In spite of every precaution of the police, five hundred thousand souls escaped from their country. The unfortunate were more wakeful to fly, than the ministers of tyranny to restrain. “We quitted home by night, leaving the soldiers in their beds, and