40 DRAINAGE OF HATFIELD CHASE TAUT I. 



to have granted to them one entire third of the lands 

 so recovered from the waters. 



Yeramyden was a bold and enterprising man, full of 

 energy and resources. He also seems to have possessed 

 the confidence of capitalists in his own country, for we 

 find him shortly after proceeding to Amsterdam to raise 

 the money, of which England was then so deficient; and 

 a company was formed, composed almost entirely of 

 Dutchmen, for the purpose of carrying out the neces- 

 sary works of reclamation. Amongst those early specu- 

 lators in English drainage we find the names of the 

 Yalkenhurgh family, the Yan Peenens, the Yernatti, 

 Andrew Boccard, and John Corsellis. Of the whole 

 number of shareholders amongst whom the lands were 

 ultimately divided, the only names of English sound are 

 those of Sir James Cambell, Knight, and Sir John Ogle, 

 Knight, who were amongst the smallest of the parti- 

 cipants. 



Many of the Dutch capitalists came over to look 

 after their own interest, and Yermuyden collected from 

 different parts the skilled labour of a large number of 

 Dutch and Flemish workmen. It so happened that 

 there were then scattered up and down over England 

 numerous foreign labourers Dutchmen who had been 

 brought from Holland to embank the lands at Dagenham 

 and Canvey Island on the Thames, and others who 

 had been driven from their own countries by religious 

 persecution - - French Protestants from Picardy, and 

 Walloons from Flanders. The countries in which 

 those people had been born and bred resembled in 

 many respects the marsh and fen districts of England, 

 and they were practically familiar with the reclamation 

 of such lands, the digging of drains, the raising of 

 embankments, and the cultivation of marshy ground. 

 Those immigrants had already settled down in large 

 numbers in the eastern counties, and along the borders 

 of the Fens, at Wisbeach, Whittlesea, Thorney, Spaldino-. 



