HUGUENOT INFLUENCE 209 



of the seventeeuth century, the desceudants are reckoned 

 by Mi\ Fiske at fifteen millions. To these few thousands 

 of English, the Huguenots, as admitted by Palfrey, made 

 an accession of one hundred and fifty families, — which 

 means nearly a thousand persons, as families went then ; 

 but after this first flood had spent its strength, nearly 

 every ship from London, according to Baird, for many 

 years brought additions to those who had come in the 

 past. The exodus from France continued for full fifty 

 years from 16GG, and within that time at least a million 

 Frenchmen were expatriated, and those the flower of the 

 nation. It is not possible that less than four or five 

 thousand came to dwell in New England. 



The gain for New England is distinctly revealed in the 

 development of Yankee enterprise along those very lines 

 in which it was started by the French colonists. But 

 these were present in the requisite number ; and when the 

 eye is once trained and the ear attuned to detect the 

 names which indicate Huguenot ancestry, it is astonish- 

 ing how frequently they reveal themselves. If New 

 Englanders are closely questioned concerning their an- 

 cestry, there are few who do not confess to some trace of 

 French blood, though it be slight. This is peculiarly • 

 true of the eastern half of Massachusetts. 



lY 



When the Huguenots contributed their genial presence common 

 to om* population, it was like the influx of a gladdening of preedom"^^ 

 river into a thirsty land, carrying joy wherever it goes. 

 At first, like all foreigners, they were reserved, and mar- 

 riages were mostly confined to their own nationality ; but 

 the second or third generation, under American influences 

 which break down race barriers, found alliances that 

 made Americans of them all. How rapidly nationalities 

 merge in this country is seen in the case of a young man 

 whose father was a Frenchman and whose mother was an 

 American of English descent. His wife's mother is an 



