70 HISTORY OF 



again it was taken by a French army, who laid it, a 

 second time, mto ashes, in 1693. The inhabitants, men, 

 women and children, about 1 500, stripped of all, were 

 forced to flee, m consternation, to the fields by night. — 

 Once more, on the retreat of the French army, were tlie 

 former inhabitants prevailed upon to rebuild the city, 

 miconscious, however, of the treachery of a perfidious 

 Elector, who had sacredly promised them liberty of con- 

 science — Heaven's choicest boon — ^and exemption from 

 taxes for thirty years. After some time, the Elector, 

 whose creed, it appears, embraced the essential ingre- 

 dient, ^^ Promises made to herpetics should not be ra- 

 dcemedy^ harrassed his duped subjects, with relentle3s 

 persecution. The French army havmg crossed the 

 Rhine, the distressed Palatines persecuted by their heart- 

 less Prinee — plundered by a foreign enemy, fled to 

 escape from death, and about six thousand of them, for 

 protection, to England, in consequence of encourage- 

 ment, they had received from Queen Anne, by proclama- 

 tion, in 1708, Among these was a number to be men- 

 tioned in the sequel of our narrative. 



Many also had, prior to the issuing of Anne's procla- 

 mation, determined to seek refuge in America. Tlie 

 Canton of Bern, in Switzerland, had employed Cluisto- 

 plier de Graffenried and Lewis Mitchel or Michelle, as 

 pioneers, with instructions to search for vacant lands in 

 Pennsylvania, Virginia or Carolina. One of these, 

 Michelle, a Swiss miner, had been in America, prior to 

 1704 or 1705, traversing the country to seek out "a con- 

 venient tract to settle a colony of their people on." He 

 was among the Indians in and about Conestogo during 

 1706 and 1707, "in search of some mineral or ore 

 and, "it is believed, he and his associates built 



'"Col. Rec. 11. 420,— Williams, His, N. C. 



.5>* 



