OF LANCASTER COUXTY. 163 



money and houseliold goods excepted, to waste their estates, and burn 

 their dwellings. Their public records and muniments of title were 

 seized, and the elders treacherously made prisoners. In transporting- 

 them to their several destinations, the charities of blood and affinity 

 were wantonly torn asunder; parents Avere separated from their child- 

 ren, and husbands from their Avives: among many instances of this 

 barbarity, was that of Eene La Blanc, who had been imprisoned four 

 years by the French for his English attachments. The family of this 

 venerable man, consisting of twenty children, and about one hundred 

 and fifty grand-children, were scattered in different colonies, and himself 

 with his wife and two children, only, were put on shore at New York. 

 On ship-board, the prisoners were without the necessaries of life, and so 

 crowded, that all could not lie doAvn at once ; and many of the Aveak and 

 aged ended their miseries Avith their lives ; and such Avere the sufferings 

 of others, that of five hundred allotted to Pennsylvania, as her portion 

 of the burthen, more than one-half died soon after their arrival. So far 

 as it was possible, they AA'ere relieved by the kindness of the Pennsyl\''a- 

 nians. The}^ Avere landed at the lazaretto on Province island, and placed 

 in the hospital, under the superintendence of Anthony Benezet, since well 

 known by his humane and ardent efforts against the slave trade. Unjust 

 and severe as these measures were to the neutrals, the consequences did 

 not terminate in their sufferings. Governor Lawrence, Avith great pre- 

 sumption, and a total disregard of the rights of the neighboring provinces, 

 imposed a heavy and durable burthen upon them, in the maintainance of 

 this devoted race, for AA-hich they Avere never requited. In Philadelphia 

 "the neutrals" long remained a separate people. They petitioned the 

 CroAvn in vain for redress, refused for a long time to labor, but, finall}^, 

 settled in Ioav huts, in a quarter of the tOAvn Avhere a vestige continued 

 until the year eighteen hundred."^ 



"In this county the citizens petitioned the Legislature for the passage 

 of an Act to disperse the inhabitants of Nova Scotia, throAvn upon them. 

 An Act was passed March 5, 1756, by Avhich Calvin Cooper, James Webb 

 and Samuel Le Fevre, Avere appointed to carry its several provisions into 

 execution. The Act empowered and required them, or a majority of 

 them, or their survi\'ors, and enjoined it, that Avithin tAventy days after 

 the passage of the Act, to order and appoint the disposition of the inhab- 

 itants of Nova Scotia imported and permitted to be landed, in such 

 manner and proportions as to them appeared most equitable under certain 

 limitations, to have regard to such lands and plantations, or other em- 

 ployment as they might procure for them towards maintaining them- 

 selves and families, and thereby easing the Province of the heaAy charge 

 of supporting them. The Act further provided in these Avords: And 



1 Rupp. 



