A. D.I 685. 617 



ber of refugees to be 800,000. A part of the fubtirbs of London, fays 

 Voltaire, in his Age of Louis XIV, (meaning Spitalfields) was peopled 

 entirely with French manufadurers in filk. For other arts, fome thou- 

 fands of them helped to people and increafe the fuburbs of Soho and 

 St. Giles's. Others of them carried to England the art of making cryftal 

 in perfedtion, which for that reafon was about this fame time loft in 

 France. He fays, that only 600,000 fled from the perfecution of Louis, 

 carrying with them their riches, their induftry, and implacable hatred 

 againft their king. And wherever they fettled, they became an addi- 

 tion to the enemies of France, and greatly inflamed thofe powers, al- 

 ready inclined to war. It may feem fomewhat ftrange that more of 

 them did not fettle in England, confidering the general liberty of this 

 free nation ; yet, through the too general and impolitic averfion of the 

 Englifti to all ftrangers, even though fuffering for the proteftant reli- 

 gion, and their monopolizing-corporation cities and towns ; and, on the 

 other hand, the great immunities, &c. allowed them in Holland, Swit- 

 zerland, Germany, and Pruflia, we are not to wonder that not above 

 50,000 of them did adually fettle in England, where, inftead of doing 

 us hurt, they have proved a great and manifelt bleffing, by improving 

 fome of our antient arts and manufadures, and likewife by introducing 

 fundry new ones. Others, however, think, that in all there were fet- 

 tled in Great Britain and Ireland at leaft 70,000 of thofe refugees. 



France, by its profitable commerce with England, &c. having ac- 

 quired great riches in the times preceding this revocation, did not im- 

 mediately feel the bad effeds of driving out fo many induftrious mer- 

 chants, manufacturers, and artificers ; yet in procefs of time fhe found 

 her manufactures and inland trade thereby greatly decayed. The Eng- 

 lifti people, afllfted by thofe refugees, fet on foot fundry French manu- 

 fadures and fabrics, never before made in England, and which we ftiall 

 never more take from France, as we have in moft cafes outdone our 

 teachers therein. But as many of thofe refugees were eminent mer- 

 chants and manufadurers, and did undoubtedly bring along with them 

 much money and effeds, I have feen a computation, at the loweft fup- 

 pofition, of only 50,000 of thofe people coming to Great Britain, and 

 that, one with another, they brought L60 each in money or effeds, 

 whereby they added three millions fterling to the wealth of Britain. 



The author of the Hiftory of the edid of Nantes, (printed at Delft, 

 1695) takes fpecial notice of the great number of civil officers who had 

 been in the French king's fervice, fo confiderable as to fill all the courts 

 of Europe with them. That, moreover, fo many of the young no- 

 blefte, trained up for the army, withdrew at the fame time, as to form 

 whole companies of foldiers in the Dutch and Brandenburgh fervice. 

 In England, even in King James IPs reign, large colledions were made 

 for the refugees, who, at the revolution by King WilHam's acceftion to 



Vol. II. 4 I 



