70 HISTORY OF 



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

 second time, into ashes, in 1693. The inliabitants, men, 

 women and children, about 1500, stripped of all, were 

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

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

 former inhabitants prevailed upon to rebuild the city, 

 unconscious, 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 heretics should not be r^ 

 deeined,^^ harrassed his duped subjects, with relentless 

 persecution. The French army having crossed the 

 Rhine, the distressed Palatines persecuted by their heart- 

 less Prince — plmidered 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 proclamr.- 

 tion, in 1 70S. Among these was a number to be meiv 

 tioned in the sequel of om* 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 Christo- 

 pher 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 a 



*Col. Rec. II. 420.— WUliams, His. N. C. 



