Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 2.djvu/512

 His son and grandson both bore the name of John, and were honourably employed in the Foreign Office. The latter was the father of Francis Seymour Larpent (Judge Advocate-General under the Duke of Wellington, in Spain) and of John James, Baron De Hochepied Larpent, in the kingdom of Hungary, and of Sir George Gerard De Hochepied Larpent, Baronet (so created in 1 841), whose Huguenot blood was recognised in his election as a Director of the French Protestant Hospital of London on 3rd July 1847. Sir George, who died in 1855, aged sixty-nine, was the father of Sir Albert John (born 1816, died 1861), and grandfather of the present Baronet, Sir George Albert Larpent.  , Baronet. — The refugee family of De Pechels had existed during a long series of generations at Montauban in Languedoc. Antiquaries have found the name Despesels thrice among the consuls of Montauban in the thirteenth century. That this may have been Des Pechels is rendered probable by the circumstance that Theodore Beza speaks of a notable inhabitant of Montauban whose name, translated into Latin, was Thomas de Piscatoribus. However, this excellent family is content to date from the sixteenth century. Pierre de Pechels, Baron of Boissonade and St. Cran Barré, flourished in 1547. By his wife, Louise de Fumel, he was father of Jean Horace de Pechels, who married, in 1575, Isabeau de Prevost. From father to son the succession went on thus:— Samuel married, in 1614, Rachel de Valette; Jean Horace married, in 1643, Jeanne de la Lauze; and Samuel married La Marquise Thierry de Sabonnieres, and was forty-one years of age in 1685. The latter noble couple were persecuted with the most lamentable and odious extremes of cruelty, of which he himself wrote a graphic narrative, still extant.

Dragoons were quartered on him at Montauban on 26th August 1685. “My house (he writes) was plundered with so much fury, that in a few days I was stripped of all the fortune which it had pleased God to bestow upon me.” The entire gutting of his house was finished on 21st September. “These soldiers went afterwards to plunder my farms; they carried off my cattle, which they sold in the market with as much liberty as if they had been the right owners of them, and often threatened to pull down my house and sell the materials, boasting of the authority given them by those in power.” “The Chevalier Duc and the Intendant and the Bishop vied with each other in forwarding these cruelties.” On the very first day, “I was turned out of doors with my wife, who was ready to lie in, and four little children, without being able to take anything with us but a cradle and some linen for the child that would soon be born. The street being crowded with people who rejoiced to see us thus plundered, we were not able to get beyond the door for some time, whilst the troops diverted themselves by throwing pitchers of water upon us out of the windows.” “On the 14th January 1686, Monsieur Mubasson, the consul, attended by several archers and sergeants, came to the house where our family had taken refuge, and forcibly carried off my youngest sister with great violence, and shut her up in the convent of St. Clair at Montauban, by order of the Intendant. My dear mother was dragged there at the same time. On the next day an exempt and four of his officers came into the room early in the morning to inform me, that they had orders from the Intcndcnt to take me to prison unless I would abjure my religion. I answered concisely, that, by the help of God, I would not change my religion; that I was ready to go wherever my merciful Saviour was pleased to conduct me. I was permitted to pray to God with my wife and five small children, to implore the Divine blessing and assistance for them and for me. I embraced my wife and poor children, and with tears we took a farewell of each other for ever, with a reciprocal resolution never to forsake our faith in Jesus Christ, who made choice of us to suffer for His name’s sake.”

He suffered rigorous imprisonment in various places for eighteen months. On 27th August 1687, being sentenced to transportation, he was shipped off en route for America. Through breaks in the voyage and tempestuous weather, the ship did not reach St. Christopher till 1st February 1688. Monsieur De Pechels’ compagnons de voyage were, besides the officers, crew, and military guards, seventy invalid galley-slaves sent from France to be sold, and fifty-nine prisoners. Of the latter gang he was one. He says, “Our room was under the cook-room of the ship, and so small, that twenty persons would have been straitened for room; and yet we were fifty-nine in it, not being able to stand upright on account of the place being so low, nor to lie down at full length but upon one another. This vile hole was, besides, very dark, having no light except what came in through the hatches, which were sometimes closed. The want of room, by being so much crowded, the ardent heat of the sun, and the continual fire of the cook-room almost stifled us, so that at times we could scarcely breathe, and were often obliged to strip off our shirts, to such an extent did we sweat. A most terrible stench, &c. . . . . This suffocating heat, and the