Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 2.djvu/533

 registers and records. The French village of Picardy, or Little Picardy was not built till 1730.

The Commissioners and Trustees for improving Fisheries and Manufactures in Scotland were incorporated by a Royal Charter, dated 5th July 1727. In 1728 a grant of £6313 sterling was received, and a scheme of expenditure was drawn up, including the following item:—

“That a sum not exceeding £2000 he employed in bringing over to Scotland and setting to work a sufficient number of Protestant families skilled in spinning, working, and weaving cambrics and other fine linen.”

His Majesty also granted a Royal Sign Manual, of date 7th June 1728, for bringing over to Scotland and setting to work a sufficient number of French Protestants skilled in working cambric and fine linen.

The following minute of the Board of Manufactures brings the scheme into shape:—

Edinburgh, 14th March 1729. — There being a probability that Nicholas Dassauville, of St. Quintin, may come over for the cambric trade, upon the proposals signed by the said Dassauville, — one whereof is that each of the ten master-weavers that are to come with him shall be provided with a house and yard, — it was Remitted to the Committee on Linen to pitch upon a spot of ground near to Edinburgh. (Dassauville was promised a premium of £5 per family.)

On 28th October money was voted for their passage viâ Rotterdam, and on the 31st temporary premises were found for them in Candlemaker Row.

A list of the new-comers is then given:—

The above were from abroad. A final list, dated 19th December 1729, gives the names of weavers from the Huguenot colonies in London:—

The men from London, feeling discontented with the French public worship of Edinburgh, have a place in history. Professor Weiss informs us that in the archives of the City of London French Church, there is “a letter from Edinburgh, dated 30th March 1732, signed by Francois Bochar and Claude Paulin, full of orthographical mistakes, and written by illiterate workmen who apologise for their ignorance. They express their wish to rejoin the Church of London, to which they originally belonged, and to adhere to le rite Calviniste.”

With regard to a site for “the French people’s houses and gardens,” the Board’s Committee, after refusing Provost Wightman’s ground at Roseburn, recommended the purchase of Mr Lind’s five acres at Gorgie; this was on 20th February 1730. On 11th March the Board

“Considered Petition from the French people, representing their resolution rather to return to France than go to Gorgie, or to any other place at so great a distance from this citie, and suggested the ground lying to the cast of Broughton Loan.”

Thus although the Huguenots did not squat on the ground where their village was built, they had kept their eyes open and pitched upon the best site. The Board ordered that the secretary make a proposal to the [Town] Council of Edinburgh to feu from the Governors of Heriot’s Hospital the said five acres. The Hospital Treasurer met with the Board and the Town Council. After a warning that “the present tenants would put in their claim for damages for their removal from the ground,” they arranged that the ground should be included within the borough, that the feu should be valued at £10, 18s. 3d. per annum, and that it should be redeemed by a present payment of £273 to Heriot’s Hospital. This was on 3rd April 1730.

In the meantime measures had been taken for setting the French weavers to