THE FRENCH NEUTRALS IN PENNSYLVANIA

A Paper rend before the Historical Society, March 2-1, 1856, by William B. Eeed, Esq.

In the notes to the édition of Mr. Longfellow 's Poem of Evangeline, published in London in 1853, I find the following statement. Speaking of the Acadian exiles, the annotator says:

' ' One thousand arrived in Massachusetts Bay, and became a public expense, owing in a great degree to an unchangeable antipathy to their situation, which prompted them to rcject the usual beneficiary but humiliating establishment of paupers for their children. They landed in a most déplorable condition at Philadelphia. The government of the colony, to relieve itself of the charge Fuch Company of misérable wretches would require to maintain them, proposed to sell them with their own consent; but when this expédient for their support was ofifered for their considération, the neutrals refused it with indignation, alleging that they were prisoners, and expected to be maintained as such, and not forced to labor. "

No Pennsylvanian can read this remarkable statement of what is assumed to be an historical fact, without blush deeper than any other imputed misdeed excites, and as certainly will Pennsylvanians feel some solicitude to know if it be true or not. To show that it is utterly without foundation is the object of this little essay, in which, only incidentally do I meaji to speak of that familiar taie of sorrow — the exile of the Acadian neutrals in 1755. On reading the note which I hâve quoted my first désire was to know how far Mr. Longfellow was responsible for it, and a Cambridge friend, of whom I made the inquiry, assured me that the poet disavowed ail knowledge of it, the notes having first appeared

in England. Thia waa cxactly what I expected, for among the tenderest and most beautiful pat^sagcs of Evangeline (and to its exquisite beauty let me hère bear niy testiniony) arc those which describe thc end of her pilgrimage, her lover 's death within thc sound of Christ Church bells, and the tomb of them both iu the little PhiUidelphia church yard. There is no trace in the pocm of Pennsylvania 's cruelty or her proffered sale to slavery.

I had to look elsewhere for the origin of the aspersion. In Judge Haliburton 's Ilistory of Nova Scotia (vol. I, p. 183) I at last found it in the very words used by the English annotator — and herefore no authority or document ia cited — the responsibility must rest.

The best mode of refuting the accusation thus niade agaiust colonial Pennsylvania is to tell, in a simple and perfectly autheutic form, what deed occur hère, and in doing so to revive the meniory — for every day, till Evangeline appeared, the tradition was beeoming feebler — of as sad an épisode as the modem world's great history affords. I know nothing more deeply pathetic; and we niay wonder, with a sentiment kindred to religions awe, at the rétribution on this deed of wrong, when, at the end of a century, we find Poetry stooping to pick up from oblivion the obcure tradition of the Acadian exiles, and writing it in characters of living light to last for ever.

Let any one look through accredited historiés of the day, or even contemporary correspondence more recently published, and he will find no allusion to this Exodus of the Acadians, I hâve curiously examined, but in vain. Neither Lord Chesterfield, nor George Grenville, nor Horace Walpole, who says a good deal about American affairs in his light way, nor any letter writer of the day, alludes to what was doing in the obscure corner of Nova Scotia. It was too humble a tragedy for the courtly gossipera of English society to trouble themselvea about; and, so far as my studies go, there is no trace of it. The most that I find are a few allusions in the Gentlemen 's Magazine of 1756 and 1757. It occurred, let me note in passing, in a dismal and diminutive period of British story; and it is matter of pride to those who révérence (and what American student does not) the grand, heroic character of the elder Pitt, that no part of this pitifui stain rests on his administration. It was far more characteristic of Newcastle and Bubb Doddington.

For my purposes I assume the reader to be familar with the story of the French Neutrals down to the time when they left Acadia, and I therefore turn to Pennsylvania 's welcome of them, whatever it was, merely premising that the number of exiles who left Nova Scotia early in September, 1755, was^ 1923, 483 men, 337 women and 1053 children. Of this number one account say 800 came to Philadelphia, though my impression is, as I hâve said, that it waa mueh less.

It was certainly an unpropitious time for French Eoman Catholics to come to thèse Puritan or Protestant colonies. It as wthe day of natural as well as of unreasonable excitements. It was the time when a Frenchman and an Indian

were looked on with equal horror. It was the day whea the actual association did exist, and when within three hundred miles of Philadelphia and two from New York, French and Indians were advancing in victorious array. General Braddock was defeated in July, 1755, and every English seulement on the seaboard trembled for its existence. The English language and the Eeformed Eeligion, for a time, seemed to be in danger ail over the world, in America and in India. This was the actual state of things, and yet it may well be doubted whether even the hostile Frenchmen of those days had not worse designs attributed to them than they deserved. ' ' May God, ' ' writes a gentleman in Philadelphia after the panie had subsided, "be pleased to give us success against ail our copper-colored cannibals and French savages, equally cruel and perfidious in their natures." (Shippen Papers, page 93).

Yet, when, in 1756, Washington, then a Provincial colonel, defeated a party of French and Indians and obtained possession of the French commander's Instructions, they were found to contain thèse explicit words: "Le Sieur Douville employera tous ses Talents et tout son crédit a empêcher les Sauvages d'user d'aucune Cruauté, sur ceux qui tombent entre leurs mains. L'Honneur et l'Humanité doivent en cela nous servir de guide:" (Penn'a Archives, p. 600) ; and again, later in 1757, in the instructions found in the pocket of a French Cadet, killed near Fort Cumberland: "Supposé qu'il fasse des Prisonniers il empêchera que les Sauvages de son Détachement n 'exercent à leur Egard Aucune Cruauté de Fait" One pauses pleasantly over thèse dissinterred memorials of kind and merciful feeling so little looked for, softening the hideoua front of savage warfare; but it must be recoUected our terrified and excited ancestors knew nothing of them. What they knew, and were made to know, of Frenchmen and French Papists is very clear from the exaggerated public documents and messages of the Colonial Governors, who found no language strong enough wherewith to stir the sluggish liberality of the assemblies who raised money grudgingly, even when most frightened — or from pulpit oratory, never more acrimonious than then — or from such rumors as this, which I eut from a Philadelphia Paper of September, 1755, a short time before the Roman Catholic exiles arrived, under date of Halifax. "A fey days since three Frenchmen were taken up and imprisoned on suspicion of having poisoned some wells in this neighborhood.

"They are not tried yet, and it's imagined if they are convicted thereof, they will hâve but a few hours to live after they are once condemned." And the first rumor of the intention forcibly to remove the Acadians from their country, was accompanied with the statement that, from among them "three Priests or Jesuits had been taken and sent to Halifax, and put on board the Admiral's ship for security. " (Penna. Gazette, Sept. 4, 1755.) Admirai Boscawen's great armament of ships of the Une and frigates, was employed in awing unarmed peasants and capturing fugitive Jesuits! It was to an atmosphère of public feeling thus excited, that the poor exiles came. Lot us see how

they were heralded, how they arrived, how they were treated hère in Philadelphia.

The first intimation in a popular form, of the intention to drive the Aeadians from their homes, is in a letter from Halifax, dated August 9th, and printed in the Pennsylvania Gazette of the 4th September, 1755, the day before the mémorable 5th of September, Col. Winslow's "day of great fatigue and trouble," when the meeting was held in the church at Grand Pre, and the doom was told. (Haliburton, vol. I, pp. 335, 338). It is as follows, and is very characteristic: —

' ' We are now upon a great and noble scheme of sending the neutral French out of the Province, who hâve always been secret enemies, and hâve encouraged our savages to eut our throats. If we can effeet their expulsion, it will be one of the greatest things that ever did the English in America, for by ail aecounts, that part of he country they possess is as good land as any in the world; in case, therefore, we could get some good English farmers in their room, this Province would abound in ail sorts of provisions."

Between this date and the arrivai of the exiles, I had no précise référence to the subject, though but little intermission of the inflammatory appeals to national and sectarian antipathies. It may be that the public mind was not a little excited by what seemed to be supernatural warning — an earthquake, which, in the early part of November, 1755, went round the world, devastating European cities, and at least starling those in America. The shock of an earthquake, the advent of a ship load of Eoman Catholics, and the news, utterly groundless as it must hâve been, which I find in the newspapers of the very day the exiles came, that the Indians and French had attacked Lancaster, prepared for them a sorry welcome.

On the 19th and 20th of November, 1755, three sloops, the Hannah, the Three Eriends, and the Swan, arrived in the Delaware, with the neutrals on board. They had eleared from Halifax. One of them, say the newspapers of the day, came up to town, but was immediately ordered down again. How the authorities at first received them can only be gathered from the Executive records, nothing of the action of the Assembly having survived or being accessible but its meagre journal. The Governor was Robert Hunter Morris, of whom it may at least be said that he had had his fuU share of those déplorable squabbles with the popular représentatives which "William Pen left as a continuing legacy to his family and successors. Governor Morris 's government had had also to encounter the trial of aetual war close at hand. The arrivai of the Neutrals seems to hâve thrown him into a state of terrible alarm; and on the day the first cargo of Neutrals arrived, he thus wrote to Governor Shirley, having previously laid the matter before the Council:

' ' I wrote your Excellency a f ew days ago by Mr. Benzill, who, I hope, will find you safe at New York, since which two vessels are arrived hère with upward of three hundred neutral French from Nova Scotia, who Governor Law-

rence has sent to remain in this Province, and I am at a very great loss to kuow what to do with them. The people hère, as there is no military force of any kind, are very uneasy at the thought of having a number of enemy's Bcattered in the very bowels of the country, who may go off from time to time with intelligence and joyn their countrymen now employed against us, or fonient some intestine commotion in conjunction with the Irish and German Catholics, in this and neighboring province. I, therefore, must beg your particular instructions in what manner I may best dispose of those people, as I am desirous of doing anything that may contribute to his majesty's service. I hâve, in the mean time, put a guard out of the recruting partys now in town, on board of each vessel, and ordered thèse neutrals to be supplied with provisions, which must be at the expense of the crown, as I hâve no Provincial money in my hands; for this service I hâve prevailed on Capt. Morris, who is recruting hère for Col. Dunbar 's Eegiment, to postpone the sending of his rectuits till I could hear from you upon the head, which I hope to do by the return of the post. " — Penn'a. Archives, 506; Col. Record, 712.

We hâve not Shirley's answer, but there is some correspondence accidentally extant which shows that Goveruor Morris f ound at least one response to his anxieties and alarms at the sudden incursions of the poor exiles. The Chief Magistrate of the neighboring province of New Jersey was Jonathan Belcher, the father of him who, as Chief Justice of Nova Scotia, according to Mr. Bancrof t, had by his stern opinion thet they were ' ' rebels ' ', and ' * récusants ' ', fixed the doom of the Acadians. Father and son seem to hâve had harsh sympathies. On the 22d of November, Morris writes to Belcher very much to the same effeet as he had to Shirley ,and the day but one after (25th) Belcher replies: "I am truly surprised how it could ever enter the thoughts of those who had the ordering of the Freneh Neutrals, or rather Traitors and Eebels to the crown of Great Britain, to direct any of them into thèse Provinces, v/here we hâve already too great a number of foreigners for our own good and safety. I think they should hâve been transported directly to old France, and I entirely coïncide with your honor that thèse people would readily join with the Irish Papists, &c., to the ruin and destruction of the King's Colonies, and should any attempt to land hère, I should think, in duty to the King and to his good people under my care, to do ail in my power to crush an attempt." — Pena. Archives, 574.

It is well none of the exiles wandered as far as Elizabethtown. They would hâve been effectually "crushed out" there.

On the 24th November, Gov. Morris made the arrivai of the Neutrals the subject of a spécial message to the Assembly, informing them he did not think it safe to permit them to land; that he had ordered guards to be placed on the vessels below the town, and that in conséquence of an alarm of sickneâs amongst the crowded sufferers, some of them had been landed at Province leland.

It is pleasant now to turn from this record of Proprietary harshnesa — this intolérant synipathy of Deputy Executives, to the action of the représentatives of the people and of the people themselves; and hère my defence of Pennsylvania properly begins.

The student of our colonial history need not be reminded of the dismal continuity of disputes beween the Assembly and the Govemors on the question of Taxation and supplies. It is hard to deduce any political principle from our records, unless it be new confirmation of the truth that ail absenteeism, and ail imitation of fendalism, with its manors, and its quit-rents, and its privileged estâtes, are especially uncongenial to our Pennsylvania habits of thought and action, It is scarcely worth while now to inquire who were right and who wree vyrong, for it is ail swept away as part of the rubbish of our story. The poor Deputy Governors, agents of the Proprietaries, had a hard time. Exactions from the metropolitan authorities — actual invasion and danger on the one hand, and on the other, annoying résistance, and cavilling, and murmura on the part of those who alone could raise revenue to meet their demands and réquisitions. The Neutrals arrived, however, at a propitious moment. There happened to be a lull in the storm of controversy. On the very day that Governor Morris sent to the Assembly his message about the Neutrals, he communicated the soothing news that the Proprietaries, on hearing of Gen. Braddock's defeat, had sent an order on the Receiver General for£5000, to be applied for the common safety. The Assembly was for the time pacified. They voted a new Bill of Supplies and resolved at the same moment to make provision for the sustenance and protection of the Neutrals. (Votes, 519, 523).

T am proud to say that, in their relations to those unfortunate fugitives, I find on the records of the popular représentative body no trace of the malignant animosity and sectarian antipathy which actuated the Executive. PainfuUy impractieable as Penn's principles had shown themselves when applied to periods of war and invasion, and danger from the strong and armed arm without, yet when the homeless fugitive and stranger came and asked a place of refuge, the beautiful feature of the Quaker character, charity, in its highest sensé, and charity, too, which knows no différence of creed, seemed more beautiful than ever. The great principle of liberty of conscience and toleration was put in practice towards thèse exiled "Papists", and it certainly is very hard, with this unquestioned record before is, that the Friends of Pennsylvania Bhould be now-a-days charged with mercenary inhumanity.

But our meagre records show there was another influence in favor of the exile. There were hereditary national sympathies at work aside from ail matters of teohnical religion, which gave the French exiles in Philadelphia welcome that they had no right to expect, Papists or not, they were French nien and women and children — and there were in Quaker garb, living in Philadelphia, men of French descent, who though Hugonota, and sprung from that glorioua race of men, the European Protestants of the sixteenth century, etill felt kindly to

those who were Frenehmen like themselves. The Benezets, and Lefevres, and De Normandies, of Philadelphia, came from the same soil, years ago, as did the Landrys and Galernes, and Le Blancs, and Melansons and Thibodeaus, and aecordingly I find that whilst the Assembly paused in no unreasonable delay of counsel, this minute is made.

"Antony Benezet, attending without, was called in, and informed the House that he had, at the request of some of the members, visited the French Neutrals now on board sundry vessels in the river, near the city, and found that they were in great want of blankets, shirts, stockings and other necessaries; and he then withdrew, (whereupon). Eesolved, That this House will allow reasonable expenses as the said Benezet may be put to in furnishing the Neutral French now in the Province." — (Votes, 524.)

Antony Benezet, the Hugonot Quaker, was the first almoner to thèse poor fugitives, and it was with no reluctant gratitude that one of their number, in the first mémorial to the Assembly, said: — "Blessed be God that it was our lot to be sent to Pennsylvania, where our wants hâve been relieved, and we hâve, in every respect, been treated with Christian benevolence and charity. ' ' — (Votes, 538).

Nothing, however, beyond the gênerai trust in Mr. Benezet and the other citizens connected with him, was done; for early in December the Assembly adjourned till March, 1756. Before they reassembled, it appears from the public accounts that at least £1000 currency had been expended for the relief of the Neutrals. *

The Assembly was convoked specially by the Governor early in February, and on the llth their attention was called to the Neutrals by a pétition from one of their number, .Tan Batiste Galerm, and a list of the names of the individuals and the families of the exiles given. The pétition is preserved in a translated form, but the list is unfortunately lost. The pétition contains a brief and temperate statement of the causes which led to the exile of the Acadians, a strong expression of gratitude for the kindness, with which they had been received, and a protestation of their passive loyalty and more than this no one had a right to expect to the British crown. It contains no prayer for spécifie assistance. A bill for the relief, or, as it is rather ambiguously expressed in its title, for "dispersing" the inhabitants of Nova Scotia into the counties of Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester and Lancaster, was immediately introduced, and on the 5th of March, 1756, became a law by the Executive approval. (Votes, 537, 545).

This law is now before nie, and I can see nothing in it but considerate kindness. The exiles were to be divided, not dispersed, among the counties designated, in order "to give them an opportunity of exercising their own labor and industry, and they were to be supported at the public expense, and among the commissioners named to carry it into exécution were not only those who as Friends, had been active in this and every scheme of benovelence, but those

whose French def^ceut and sympathies may be inferred frora their names. Antony Benezet was not one, but hère were Jacob Duché, and Thomas Say, and Abraham De Normandie, and Samuel Lefevre. There is nothing like a disruption of families hinted at. It was to continue in force twelve months, and no longer.

What exactly was doue, or attempted under this act, there is no means of kuowiug. Dowu to July of this year, when Governor Denny arrived, upwards of £1200 had been spent in their support, and this too, although there were difiiculties created by the exiles themselves, who, though willing to be supported as objects of chariy, evidently thought— for this is the fair construction of their recorded conduct— that by refusing to work they would force a récognition of their rights as prisoners of war, and as sueh be entitled to be eichanged or sent back to France. One cannot blâme them for this sort of contumacy, and yet it made the duty of kindness and protection not an easy one. Governor Morris, who seems to hâve been an especial victim of he Gallophobia of his time, took his farewell of his function by letters to Lord Loudoun, the uew Governor General, and to Sir Charles Hardy, fiUed with alarms as to French spies and Papal influence. If any one now a days, afflieted with a fear of Romanistic or Foreign influences, will look back to the terrors of a century ago, he may, if capable of any ratioual proeess, learn a salutary lesson. "By means", writes Governor Morris, on 5th July, 1756, "of the Eoman Catholicks who are allowed in this and the neighboring Province of Maryland, the free exercises of their Religion, and therein the other privilèges of English Freemen, the French may be made aequainted with the steps taken against them, as from the head of Shesapeak Bay the roads thro' this Province to Potomic are open and much travelled, especially by Germans, who hâve a alarge settlement at Frederick town in Maryland, a frontier place near Kittochttny Hills; none are examined who pass that way." To which Sir Charles, the Governor of New York, promptly replies:—"! am inclined to think the Treasonable correspondence must hâve been carried on by some Rom.an Catholicks, and I hâve heard you hâve an Ingénions Jesuit in Philadelphia!" (Archives, 690, 694.) Let me hère pause and ask which, now a days, seems most preposterous— Frederick town, in Maryland, being a frontier town, or an American Governor being afraid of a Jesuit! And yet both were so one lîundred years ago.

On the 27th of August, and on the 2d of September, the Neutrals addressed, in person, earnest and pathetic memorials both to the Assembly and the Executive Concil. A candid examination of thèse papers, written with great éloquence and précision, satisfies me that they were meant not merely to tell their taie of actual sorrow, but to use, as I havô already hinted, their sufferings as an argument for restoration to liberty, or their return to Europe. The two ideas are always closely interwoven. "We humbly pray," they say to the Assembly, "that you would extend your goodness so far as to give us leave to

départ from hence, or be pleased to seud us to our nation, or any where to join our country people; but if you cannot graut us thèse favors, we désire that provision may bee made for our subsisteuce so long as we are detaiued liere. If this, our humble request, should be refused, and our wives and children be suflfercd to perish before our eycs, how grievous will this be; had we not better hâve died in our native land. ' ' They admit thy hâve refused cows, and gardens and modes of industry, because, say they, "we will never consent to settle hère." To the Governor they spoke the same language of supplication and remonstrance, though one may almost suspect satire, in their affectiouate loyalty, when they beg to be suffered to join their own nation "in the same manuer which it has pleased his majesty, King George (whom may God préserve), to cause us to be transported hère contrary to our will." — (7 colonial Record, p. 239.) The remonstrance, be its object what it may hâve been, had no effect, for, while the Assembly paused, the Governor sternly repelled the supplicants, with the décision that they could not and should not be treated as prisoners of war, and hinted to the Assembly that it was expédient the Neutrals should be more generally dispersed. (Id. p. 241.)

On the meeting of the Assembly in October, 1756, there is a sad révélation on its records of the sufferings of those j)oor people; made, too, not by them, but by one of the kindest of the voluntary almsgivers. It is the pétition of William Griffitts, one of the Commissioners. Disease and death had been busy among the exiles. Many had died of the small pox, and but for the care that had been bestowed on them, many more would hâve perished miserably. The overseers of the rural townships refused to receive them. The préjudice against the foreigners prevented the employment of those who were willing to work, "and many of them", says this paper, "hâve had neither méat nor bread for many weeks together, and been necessitated to pilfer and steal for the support of life. " (Votes, p. 645).

The simple Acadian farmers, who, in their once happy and secluded homes, a short year ago

"Dwelt in the love of God and of man",

had become, or were becoming, mendicant pilferers in the streets of Philadelphia! It is piteous to think of the contrast.

This appeal again moved the Assembly, and in as short a time as the dilatory forms of législation of the times permitted, a new bill was enacted, entitled an Act for binding out and settling such of the Inhabitants of Nova Scotia as are under âge, and for maintaining the aged, sick and maimed at the charge of the Province. {Votes, p. 677, 685).

It was of this measure — the compulsory binding out to learn trades of the children of those who could not support them — that the exiles most loudly complained; and the most elaborated remonstrance that is to be found on our records, was induced by it. It is a document of impassioned, and, to my mind,

rather artificial rhetoric, of which, as before the keynote was a prayer for (leliverance; but let it be observed, no one word from first to last, of complaint of Personal or harsh treament. "From this Province," they say, "we hâve expcrienced nothing but good, for whieh ourselves, our wives, and our children, shall uot cease to supplicate the Alniighty that he will heep upon you ail blessiugs, spiritual and temporal." {Votes, p. 685).

Hard as is the lot of the poor and incapable parents to be deprived temporalily of his children — especially hard is it where there are différence of language and religion, it is idle to deny the right and the duty of the législature w'iien the necessity arises, to make such compulsory provision. I confess I am uuable to see what less or what else the Assembly could hâve done; and also, iu their perplexity, they seemed to think; for, after a vain attempt to confer further with the Governor and his Concil, and to ascertain what they thought best to be done, the whole subject was dropped. The act of January, 1757, with a short supplément remedying some matter of détail, was the last législative act, with the exception of constant and libéral appropriations of money, amounting in six years, from November, 1755 to 1761, to the not incousiderable sum of upwards of £7000; to which neither the Crown nor the Proprietaries, as far as I can discover, contributed a farthing — the first having its hands fuU with a European war and schemes, to use Thomas Penn 's phrase in a watching their estâtes an devising schemes, to use Thomas Penn 's phrase in a letter to Mr. Hamilton, of "getting the better of the Assemblies". (Hamiltou MS. Letter, 25 February, 1755).

On or about the 7th of March, Penusylvauia and its capital were honored by the présence of the new Commander-in-Chief — a Peer of the Realm, John, Earl of Loudoun. He was the first coronet that had ever shone on this distant and simple land. There was feasting and rejoicing when he came, and around him no doubt clustered the loyal worshippers of rank and authority — but ail the while, so say the législative records, the poor Neutrals were pining away in misery, not the less intense because, in some measure, self inflicted. On the 3d of March, 1757, the authorities were instructed by the Assembly to act for their relief, so as to prevent them (thèse are the words of the resolution) from perishing from want. " — (Votes p. 700, 715).

Lord Loudoun remained but a few days in Philadelphia, but quite long enough to inflict, by the exercise of his high powers, a new pang and a new indignity on the poor neutrals. He, or rather, Seeretary Peters for him, found it necessary to ascertain the exact number of Eoman Catholics in the Province, so that this terrible danger might be guarded against, and in the colonial records I find the following modest letter from the Priest, which one would think might hâve fulled to rest the anti-papal éléments of the time!

"Honored Sir: — I send you the number of Roman Catholics in this town, and of those whom I visit in the country. Mr. Sneider is not in town to give an accouût of the Germans, but I hâve heard him often say, that the whole

number of Eoman Catholies, English, Irish and Germana, including men, women and childreu, does not exceed two thousand. I remain,

EoBERT Hardy."

The poor remnant of French Neutrals did not seem worth counting!

The Earl of Loudoun was a fit représentative of the ministry of that day — ■ for he was utterly incapable, and perversely tyrannical. He was considered "a man of judgment and ability" by the Duke of Newcastle (Cliatham Correspondence. Vol. 1, p. 237). He was superseded promptly and contemptuously by Mr. Pitt, on his accession to ofSce a few months later, who sent to America manly men to do his work of beueficent energy. It was Lord Loudoun of whom Dr. Franklin has preserved the traditionary jest, that he was like St. George on the signs, always on horseback and never advancing. He distrusted and disregarded Washington. He fretted Franklin. He was just the man for a little persécution of thèse poor exiled Neutrals. He was in Philadelphia, as I hâve said, but a few days, but long enough for his work of small despotisra.

In the Colonial Eecords of 1757 (p. 446) is a Sheriff's warrant, issued by the Governor, at the request of Lord Loudoun, directing the appréhension of Charles Le Blanc and Jean Baptiste Galerm, now in Philadelphia city; Philip Melanson, at Frankford ; Paul Bajauld, at Chester, and Jean Landry, at Darby, as suspicions and evil minded persons, who hâve uttered menacing speeches against his Majesty and his liège subjects. They are to be arrested and committed to jail.

To this warrant the Sheriff made no return that has been preserved, but the following curions and charaeteristic letter from Lord Loudoun, for which I am indebted, within the last few days, to Mr. Baucroft, and whieh has never before been made public, explains the act of wrong. There is in it something much more like delivery of thèse poor people to slavery than anything that Pennsylvania annals afford. The indignity of petitioning in French sounds strangely to us of a century later. The letter, however, speaks for itself :

[Earl of Loudun to William Pitt.]