Cosmopolitan Networks in Commerce and Society 1660–1914

Quaker Missionary and Commercial Activities
this estrangement, however, Furly continued in his key position as a
land agent for Pennsylvania, and he was also willing to store and distribute
books for the Quakers. 102 Instances of disciplinary action on
the Continent are too few to permit generalizations, but many disownments
or ad mon itions occurred in connection with business.
Regarding control over members’ choice of residence, the same
restrictions as in England began to apply as soon as the meeting
structure had been set up in the Low Countries and the German territories.
Quakers actively seeking the advice of the community are
repeatedly mentioned in the records. Thus when three converts living
in Emden took refuge from persecution in Delfzijl in 1679, the
Friesland Monthly Meeting decided to support them, without, however,
encouraging them to stay permanently. It arranged ‘that some
yarn be purchased for Harmen Bogarts, with which to knit stockings,
so that in his wandering exile he may have as much opportunity as
possible to eat his own bread’. At the same time, Bogarts agreed to
‘seek no fixed residence outside of Emden, but rather to betake himself
to a suitable lodging in Delfzijl, and watch for some opening for
him in Emden’. 103 In December 1687 Reyner Jansz presented the
Monthly Meeting at Harlingen with his wish to retire as a merchant
and move to the countryside, where he hoped to spend more time
with his family. He proposed Sneek as a new place of residence, but
the Meeting advised him to go to Harlingen instead. 104 Similarly, in
1700 Nicholas Rust decided that despite the support he had received
from London, he could not thrive in Danzig, and along with a group
of other Quakers (the Feyt family among them) temporarily migrated
to the Netherlands. 105 The Dutch Quakers, who had been in -
formed of the plans beforehand and had consulted with the London
Meeting for Sufferings, managed to place two of the refugee families
in Harlingen and one in Amsterdam, and they made efforts to find
employment for them. After consulting with the Meeting for
102 See Juterczenka, Gott und die Welt, 161.
103 SCL, Hull MSS, box 20, TS 300–52, at 339.
104 LSF, Temp MSS 749/2.
105 For the full story of the Danzig group’s flight and return, see my article
‘Von Amsterdam bis Danzig: Kommunikative Netze der europäischen
Quäkermission im 17. und frühen 18. Jahrhundert’, in Claudia Schnurmann
and Hartmut Lehmann (eds.), Atlantic Unterstandings: Essays on European and
American History in Honor of Hermann Wellenreuther (Hamburg, 2006), 139–57.
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