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1702, on the death of William III. The Palatinate was occupied by the imperial armies in 1623, when the magnificent library of Heidelburg was seized and presented to the Pope of Rome. It was restored in 1815. The lower Palatinate was invaded by the French in 1689, many of its towns were burnt and the country devastated, while the defenseless inhabitants, who begged for mercy on their knees, were stripped naked and driven into the fields, then covered with snow, where many of them perished. One historian, in speaking of the cruelties committed by the French on this occasion, states that "the elector beheld from his castle, at Manheim, two cities and twenty-five towns in flames, and where lust and rapine walked hand in hand with fire and sword." Thus for nearly seventy-five years was this fair country, described as one of the most beautiful in Germany, the theater of wars and the scene of rapine, ravages and desolations, until the remnant of its population could no longer find a hiding place in fatherland. The Catholic rulers of France for a time sided with the Protestant league in Germany during the thirty years' war, and soon afterwards cut the throats of their Huguenot subjects at home.

The continental wars of Europe, at the close of the seventeenth and commencement of the eighteenth centuries, seem to have been promoted very much by religious considerations. The see of Rome was determined to "crush out" heresy, and exerted all its spiritual and temporal powers to accomplish it, and well did the Catholic powers and princes of Europe second the papal injunctions, except when great reasons of state intervened to prevent. The majority of Europe adhered to the Romish faith.

From the proximity of the Lower Palatinate to France and the Netherlands, it is very probable that it received accessions of population from both of those countries during the religious wars; and Manheim, a strong and well-built city at that day, was in the year 1576 appointed as the place of retreat for the families of the reformed religion, at that time

driven from the Spanish Netherlands, which considerably enriched this electorate. A historian of the last century describes the people of the Palatinate as "the most civilized and polite of any in Germany; extremely open and hospitable to strangers, and generally well informed."

Although some of the characteristics of these people may have been modified by their intercourse with their southern and more civilized neighbors, commencing nearly fifty years before Julius Cæsar invaded Gaul, it is not supposed that this intercourse was so marked or extensive as to change materially the habits, manners and customs of the inhabitants of the Palatinate from those of their German countrymen, or that they lost any of the primitive High-Dutch tongue.

It is not remarkable that a people so strongly attached to the nomadic life as the early Germans were, and being divided into tribes or septs, should vary in their dialects in the different provinces, all however emanating from the same original language.

This brief outline of the origin and persecutions of a people whose exodus from Europe to America it is designed to notice, will doubtless be excused, if not approved of, in a work so entirely local as the one in hand. A more extended recapitulation of European history in respect to the events to which the writer has aimed to give prominence, seems not to be required or desirable. He has brought forward historical evidence of the facts he presents to the reader's consideration; concurrent historical evidence, and that is the best testimony he can produce after the lapse of more than three hundred years since some of those events happened, and one hundred and fifty years since the latest of those events transpired. The reader who desires to see more on this head, is referred to Kohlrausch's History of Germany.

There is an historical legend connected with German history to this effect, but which is variously related by German

historians. Drusus, the Roman general, had made three campaigns into Germany, and while progressing on the fourth, in the 9th year before the Christian era, he was standing alone on the banks of the Elbe, ruminating no doubt on the events and fortunes of war, when a supernatural figure in the form of a gigantic woman of stern and threatening appearance stood before him and addressed him in the following language: "How much further wilt thou advance, insatiable Drusus? It is not appointed for thee to behold all these countries. Depart hence! the term of thy deeds. and thy life is at hand."

Drusus retired from his position on the Elbe, whether from fright and dismay at hearing words which in that age might be deemed prophetic, is not certain, and in a few weeks fell from his horse and died in consequence. In a superstitious age an ardent imagination might have conjured up spectres quite as appalling as this, but it is probable this was a device of some of the prophetic women of the country.

NOTE-Approved authors assert that the early German tribes navigated from central Asia into Europe.

CHAPTER III.

1709 TO 1722.

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The Immigration of the Palatines - Joshua Kockerthal and his Company Arrive at New York in 1708-9— Naturalized in England -Settle in Ulster County - Second Arrival in 1710 - Sickness and Deaths on the Passage - Governor Hunter - Board of Trade and Plantations-Lands on the Mohaks River and Skohare to be Surveyed — Hunter buys Lands of Livingston -Complaints of the People Their Children taken from them and Bound Out-John Peter Zenger the Printer- They Volunteer to go to Canada under Col. Nicholson in 1711-Refuse to Stay Longer on the Manor and Insist on going to Scohary — Party Migrate to Schoharie Creek in 171213-Reason why placed on Frontiers - Character of Robert Livingston by a Minister of the Crown - Gov. Burnet's arrival - His Instructions- -John Conrad Weiser - Third Arrival of Palatines, 1722 - Burnet to Board of Trade-Indian Deed to Palatines- Their Desire to Remove - Object of the Home Government - Results not foreseen.

The origin or cause of the first immigrations from the Lower Palatinate of the Rhine to America, as we have seen, was religious persecution, and the devastations of the country consequent upon the religious wars of Europe, of which Germany was the battlefield nearly one hundred years. The affinity existing between the sovereigns of England and the Palatinate, and the deep sympathy felt by Protestant Englishmen for their suffering brethren in Germany, produced the application to Queen Anne, in 1708, to send the Palatines to her then colony of New York.

Immigration of the Palatines.

In the first quarter of the eighteenth century, three bodies of these people arrived in New York, having been sent over at the expense of the British government. By an order in council made at Whitehall, England, May 10, 1708, it appears

that Joshua Kockerthal, evangelical minister, and several poor Lutherans, had come to England from the Lower Palatinate in Germany, being forty-one persons, ten men, ten women and twenty-one children. They are described as having been reduced to want by the ravages of the French in their country, and are represented as being of good character. This paper states they would have been sent to Jamaica or Antigua, but it was feared the hot climate of those islands would prove injurious to their constitutions. It was finally concluded to send them to the colony of New York, where they could be employed in obtaining naval stores after being seated on the frontiers as a barrier against the French and their Indians; and on the 10th of August following, the provincial governor was directed to provide subsistence for Joshua Kockerthal and fifty-two German Protestants, and "to grant him 500 acres of land for a glebe with liberty to sell a suitable portion thereof for his better maintenance till he shall be able to live by the produce of the remainder."

An order was made in the provincial council at New York, May 26, 1709, to continue the relief promised by the queen until the expiration of twelve months from the date of their arrival, and this relief was to include clothes, mechanical tools and materials to work with. This was the vanguard which was to be planted in advance of the population then in the province as a barrier against the common enemy. This company probably arrived at New York about the close of the year 1708, and did not month of August of that year. the crown before they started. Lutheran minister, Joshua Kockerthal, settled in Ulster county, and hence it will be inferred that most if not all of the first company which came over, followed their spiritual teacher and remained with him.

leave England before the They were naturalized by In the year 1714, we find a

The second and more numerous company of Palatines arrived at New York, some of them in the ship Lyon, a short

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