Rau, A collection of upwards of thirty thousand - German ...

APPENDIX. 455
tion from taxes for thirty years. After some time the elector,
who seems to have believed that promises made to heretics should
not be observed, begau to persecute his Protestant subjects. The
French army having again crossed the Rhine, the distressed
Palatines, persecuted by their prince and plundered by a foreign
enemy, fled to England, about six thousand of them, for protection,
in consequence of encouragement they had received from
Queen Anne, by proclamation, 1708.
Having pitched their tents at a small distance from London,
they were supported at public expense, until they could be
shipped oflF for Ireland or the colonies. Christopher de Graffenried
and Lcivis Michell were attempting about this time, to
mend their fortunes by purchasing lands in some of the British
colonies. Michell had been several years in America,* and had
obtained some knowledge of the country.
Note.—Michell was originally employed by the Canton of Bern iu
Switzerland, to search for a large tract of vacant land on the frontiers
of Pennsylvania, Virginia or Carolina, to which they might send a
colony. He spent some years in exploring the country. There was no
scarcity of mountainous land, such as those people are accustomed
to ; but they desisted from the project.
The lords proprietors of Carolina had agreed with those gentlemen,
April, 1706, that ten thousand acres of land should be
laid off for them in one body, between Neuse and Cape Fear,
they paying twenty shillings for every hundred acres, and sispence
the yearly quit-rent. The Surveyor General was also instructed
to lay off an additional tract of one hundred thousand
acres, which was to be reserved twelve years. One of them was
to be gratified by a title, when he should pay the usual price
for five thousand acres of land. De Graffenried made the purchase
and was created a baron. This company, having secured
the lands, wished to make them productive by settling them
with tenants; and the poor Palatines presented themselves as
an object of speculation. Commissioners had been appointed by
the Queen to collect and receive muney for the use of the Palatines,
and to provide them with settlements. Graffenried and
Michell covenanted with those commissioners, that they would
transport to North Carolina six hundred and fifty of the Pala-
tines (about one hundred families) ; that they would lay off for
* Rupp's History of Lancaster County, pp. 70, 71.