Beverley writes (p. 228):
'The French refugees sent in thither by the charitable exhibition of his late majesty King William, are naturalized by a particular law for that purpose. In the year 1699 there went over about three hundred of these, and in the year following about two hundred more, and so on, till there arrived in all between seven and eight hundred men, women, and children, who had fled from France on account of their religion.'
Bishop Meade (ii. 75) writes:
'That twelve Protestant German families, consisting of about fifty persons, arrived, April 17th, in Virginia, and were therein settled near the Rappahannock river. That in 1717, seventeen Protestant German families, consisting of about fourscore persons, came and set down near their countrymen. And many more, both German and Swiss families, are likely to come there and settle likewise.'
This report was made in 1720.
These facts show in the clearest manner that a great percentage of the inhabitants of the seceding States are not of English origin. Even the English were not all Cavalier and Episcopalian. The London Magazine, in an 'Account of the British Plantations,' says:
'What contributed much more toward the establishment of the colony, was their granting a plenary indulgence to people of all religions, as by their charter they were empowered to do; for by this great numbers of dissenters were induced to sell their estates in England and transport themselves and families to Carolina; so that by the year 1670 a numerous colony was at once sent out.'
One last consideration, of possible impurity of blood, and I will proceed to examine the antecedents of those colonists who were of English blood.
In 1853, a memoir of James Fontaine was published, accompanied by letters from members of his family. He was a Huguenot, who had settled in Virginia, and his descendants have been among the most distinguished of her citizens.
The letters of his sons to relatives in England are very instructive. I quote from one from Peter Fontaine, dated March 2, 1756, in which he regrets that the English had not intermarried with the Indians: