Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 2.djvu/521

 

The Marquis de la Forêt, a French refugee from Poitou, commanded the Danish Auxiliaries under King William III., but did not settle in Britain. The pedigree of the Laforey family states that his brother, Louis de la Forêt, was a refugee in England in 1688, and was the father of Colonel John Laforey, Governor of Pendennis Castle, who died in 1753. The latter, who married Mary, daughter of Lieut-General Jasper Clayton, had an only son, born in 1729, of whom Beatson says:— “Admiral Sir John Laforey, Bart., greatly distinguished himself at the siege of Louisburg, in 1758, by boarding and taking the French ship the Prudent of seventy-four guns; in 1779 he was appointed one of the Commissioners of the Navy, resigning which, in 1789, he was promoted to the rank of Vice-Admiral of the White, and created a Baronet of Great Britain.” In his patent he is styled “of the Island of Antigua and of Stock-Dammerel in Devonshire.” Lady Laforey was Elinor, daughter of Francis Farley, Esq., one of the Judges of the Island of Antigua. Sir John died on the 14th June 1796, and was succeeded by his only surviving son, Admiral Sir Francis Laforey, Bart, K.C.B. (born 1767, died 1835), at whose death the title became extinct.  

Joseph Francis Lautour of Devonshire Place, Marylebone, late of Fort George in the East Indies, Free Merchant, descended from a respectable family of the city of Strasburg in Alsace, was living in 1807. Maria Frances Gcslip, his second daughter, was married, in 1809, to Robert Townsend Farquhar, Esq., created a baronet in 1821, and was the mother of the second and third baronets. Georgiana, his third daughter, was married, in 1808, to Edward Marjoribanks, Esq., and was the mother of Sir Dudley Coutts Marjoribanks, Lord Tweedmouth. There died at Cheltenham, on 26th November 1862, Edward de Lautour, Esq., of the Bengal Civil Service, late a judge in the High Court of Calcutta. Major Edward Joseph de Lautour (born 10th March 1842) is a distinguished officer of artillery, and wears two medals with clasps for active services in India.  

The family of Le Quesne, in Jersey, is said to be of pre-reformation descent, the Channel Islands being ours as a remnant of the Norman dominions of William the Conqueror; and this family, like most of the neighbouring gentlemen, claims to be old Norman, and does not wish to be thought a refugee family. This I do not dispute; but I do dispute their claim to two persons whom I am about to name. John Le Quesne and David Le Quesne were naturalised in 1700 (see List xxiv.); if they had been Jersey-men, naturalisation would not have been requisite. There died in London, in 1741, Sir John Le Quesne, and in 1753 David Le Quesne, Esq., brother of the late Sir John (see Gentleman’s Magazine). Sir John, who was an Alderman in 1735, was knighted in 1737; in 1738 he married Miss Knight, of Hampshire, with £20,000; he was Sheriff of London and Middlesex in 1739-40; he was a subscriber to Laval’s “History of the Reformed Church of France,” and a Director of the French Hospital. In 1676 there resided at Rouen Jacques Lequesne, avocat, whose daughter (Catherine), by Elisabeth Delavoye, his wife, was married in that year. (See my volume i., book i., chapter xv.)  

The longevity of many of the refugees and their descendants (as my readers must have remarked) was remarkable. With regard to families originally planted in Barnstaple, Mr. Burn mentions the surnames Servantes and Roche. With regard to the former, he says, two ladies of this family now (1846) reside in Exeter, the one is upwards of ninety, and the other upwards of eighty. Monnier Roche used to say. “My grandfather was drowned when he was one hundred and eleven, and if he had not been drowned, he might have been alive now.” In the Scots Magazine there are two announcements — 13th December 1770, died at Rumsey, in Hampshire, aged one hundred and ten, Mr. Cordelon, a native of France; and in the number for January 1772, the death is announced, as having occurred at Rumsey in the previous month, of “Mr. Cordelon, a French refugee, aged one hundred and seven.” In the Dublin Freeman’s Journal for 15th October 1765, there was this announcement:— “Died a few days ago, Captain Lolamong, aged one hundred and twelve years; he was an