will ever be filled with Protestants, under pretence of their trespassing against the king’s orders, enjoining all his subjects to go to Mass.”
About the month of June 1712, the refugees memorialized Queen Anne to assert herself to be the guarantee of the French Edicts in their favour, as had been done by James I., Charles I., and William III., the two former having had their right of intervention recognized by the French kings. The memorial was so favourably received, that the Queen was graciously pleased to name and appoint the Marquis de Miremont to be a Commissioner at the Congress at Utrecht, “to act in concert with all the Plenipotentiaries of the Protestant Princes without exception, that they all may together consider of expedients to give satisfaction to the Protestants of France in the matter of religion, with all the most appropriate methods of relief, it being the Queen’s most ardent desire that this re-establishment should be made, than which she has nothing more at heart.” This commission was dated the 9th of June 1712.
One of the odious galleys happened to be at Dunkirk, and the treatment of its martyr crew contributed to call renewed attention to the case of all the captives. At the peace, Dunkirk was to be dismantled, and handed over to the Dutch ; but during the negotiations it was to be held by the English. In July 1712 the French garrison marched out, and Brigadier John Hill took possession with several English regiments, and a battalion of Scotch Guards. The French, however, retained the civil government, guarded the churchyards against Protestant burials, kept the harbour with their ships and galleys, and with two or three battalions of their marines — privateers having free egress and ingress, provided they did not bring English prizes. There were eighteen or nineteen martyrs in the convict galley, who naturally expected to be set at liberty under the jurisdiction of Great Britain. But Jack Hill told them that he had no orders concerning them. By his advice they sent a memorial to the British Secretary of State.[1] This was reported to the French court, and they were forthwith loaded with chains, and marched off by land to Marseilles. They contrived to forward a second petition to London ; but the only immediate effect was the liberation of one of them, on the ground that he was a native of Jersey, and that his release was openly pressed for by the Bishop of London.
Another affecting note of recal to the “inexpressible miseries of the Poor Reformed Protestants in France,” was a letter to Queen Anne from the King of Prussia, “signed by order of the King on his death-bed,” urging her to defy all difficulties “at a time” when “she who bears the glorious title of Defender of the Faith, has reason to expect so much from the deference of the Most Christian King.” This letter was signed on the 21st of February 1713, and the king died four days afterwards.
The Marquis de Miremont held frequent consultations with the Protestant Plenipotentiaries — but all that could be done was, before the signing of the several treaties with France, to place a memorial in the hands of the Plenipotentiaries of France, desiring them earnestly “to be pleased to make such representations to the king their master, as that all the French Protestants may have the relief granted them which they have so long sighed for, and that they may be established in their rights and privileges in the matter of religion, and so enjoy entire liberty of conscience, — and those of them who are in prisons and galleys, or otherwise confined, may be set at liberty, so that those distressed people may have a share in the peace which Europe, in all appearance, is going to enjoy.” This memorial was delivered on the nth of April 1713.
The French court felt that some mark of gratitude was due to Queen Anne for her persistent quarrel with Marlborough, and for her personal encouragement of Bolingbroke in his Bourbon Jacobite counsels. The memorial was therefore acknowledged, by giving hopes that those Protestants in the galleys, whose imprisonment was of older date than the Camisard revolt, would be released, on the ground of her Majesty’s intercession on their behalf. As this was, at the best, a most inadequate reply to the memorial, Miremont, on the 26th of May following, lodged a protest, which the magistracy of Utrecht engrossed thus:—
“The Declaration in favour of the Reformed Churches of France, delivered to the venerable magistracy of the town of Utrecht by the most high and mighty lord, Armand de Bourbon, Marquis de Miremont, &c, empowered by a commission from Her Britannic Majesty (dated 9th June 1712) to negotiate what concerns the Reformed Religion in France, and to take care of the interests thereof, at the Congress of Utrecht.
- ↑ This was the official intelligence, published and believed in London. But Marteilhe’s account is that Jack Hill promised to write to Queen Anne, and advised the martyrs to wait quietly for a fortnight. During this time, however, he gave secret permission to the French commandant to convey them to Calais, concealed in the hold of a bark, which would not have got out of Dunkirk harbour, but for this written pass:— “Allow this boat, which is going to fish for my household, to have the harbour.— J. Hill.” [Hill was the brother of Lady Masham, and therefore a prominent ally of the French party in England.!
