16 



INTRODUCTION 



Truly, the Huguenot emigrants were a selected people — 

 selected for their love of liberty, their love of human 

 rights, their devotion to principle, their unswerving loy- 

 alty to conscience. Free America, Protestant America, 

 owes a vast debt to these Protestants of France. 



Liberty and 

 Protestantism 



Huguenots 

 in England 



II 



Before giving a brief resume of the services which the 

 Huguenots rendered directly, let us consider for a mo- 

 ment the services they rendered indirectly, to the Amer- 

 ican Republic, through England. Guided by Divine 

 Providence, the persecuted Protestants of France proved 

 themselves a power in shaping the larger destinies of the 

 Republic. Reading history in the light of to-day we can 

 see that they helped to lay those foundations upon which 

 the people of the New World have reared their structure 

 of Protestant republicanism. The American Republic 

 had its beginnings under England ; the hardy adolescence 

 of the colonies was passed under the shadow of English 

 political and religious institutions. American liberties 

 grew out of Protestantism, and America was Protestant 

 because England was Protestant. Now the Huguenot 

 refugees helped to make England Protestant, and thus 

 indirectly they helped to make America free. 



In the struggle between William of Orange and James 

 II, when the fate of English Protestantism hung trem- 

 bling in the balance, it was the Huguenot refugees who 

 turned the scales. They formed the backbone of the 

 staunch little army that followed William into England. 

 ''Amid the chilling delays on the part of the English 

 people," wrote Michelet, " the army of William remained 

 firm, and it was the Calvinistic element in it, the Calvin- 

 istic Huguenots, that made it firm." They formed the 

 unflinching nucleus around which the Protestant forces 

 of England finally rallied to drive James out of the king- 

 dom, thus removing the royal power from the grasp of 

 Rome. "But the struggle was not over," says Gregg. 



