Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 2.djvu/242

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french protestant exiles.

our language, it was thought improper to place him in the greatest preferment in this city. However, it was then fixed that he should have the next deanery that fell, which happened to be that of Killaloo, which was given him with one or two little things to make him amends for its falling short of the other deanery, and with those helps he had but about half the value of what had been designed him. At first he made about £240 per ann. of his preferment, but afterwards, upon a great scarcity of money here, was obliged to let his preferments during his incumbency for about £120 per ann., which I find was a pretty common case at that time with a great many other clergymen. He had afterwards repeated promises of having somewhat farther done for him, but nothing beyond promises. As this is but a small income, and now he grows old, he finds he wants an amanuensis to assist him in his studies, he would gladly have somewhat better either here or in England. He has firmly adhered to His Majesty’s interest here in the day of trial, and is every way a worthy man. I shall do my endeavour to serve him here, but as opportunities may not offer here so soon, he desired I would recommend him to your lordship, in hopes somewhat might be done for him in England.

“He would hope (if that consideration may be of service to him) that as his preferments are all in the gift of the government, they might easily be obtained for some friend of your lordship’s, if the dean had somewhat given him in England.

“I take the liberty to recommend him to your lordship’s favour and countenance, and if it shall lie in your way to help him to somewhat in England that may be a honourable subsistence to him the small remainder of life he is likely to live, you will do a kindness to a person of merit, and very much oblige, &c,

Hu. Armach.

The Dean’s visit to England was his adieu to Ireland. In 1727 he issued a prospectus for publishing all his writings in four volumes 4to, containing a complete collection of his printed works, with the addition of several others prepared for the press. “But before he could bring his design to bear he was taken away by death.” He died at Marylebone on the 25th of September 1727, aged seventy-three. “He had,” says Dr. Kippis, “great natural abilities, improved by a large stock of solid and useful learning, was a most zealous Protestant, and, without flattery, one of the most eloquent men in the age in which he lived.”

Among the refugees of Portarlington lived Cornet Daniel D’Abbadie, half-pay of the Earl of Galway’s Horse; his annual pension in 1719 was £27, 7s. 6d.; and in 1723, £36, 10s.

II. The Pasteurs Bertheau, Father and Son.

A refugee family is thus enumerated in one of the lists of naturalisations, René Bertheau (clerk), Martha his wife, Charles their son, and Martha their daughter. The father had been a minister at Montpellier. The date of naturalisation was 15th April 1687 (List xiii.); but they probably came to England sooner, as the venerable refugee was made a Doctor of Divinity in Oxford in 1686. The following is Anthony Wood’s memorandum:— “November 18th, 1686. René Bertheau, late minister of the Reformed Church in the University of Montpellier, in France, was created D.D. by virtue of the letters of the Chancellor of the University, who had a little before received letters of recommendation in his behalf from the Lord High Treasurer of England (Laurence Hyde, Earl of Rochester), as “a man of great reputation in his own country, and very eminent both for learning and piety,” &c.

The daughter Martha was married in 1691 to Lieutenant Claude Mercier, a cavalry officer, and their son became the representative of the family. The high reputation of the son, the Rev. Charles Bertheau, may be inferred from his receiving a place in the Biographia Britannica. I copy the article:—

“Charles Bertheau, an eminent and ingenious French Protestant divine, long resident in the city of London, was born in the year 1660 at Montpellier, where his father was minister. He studied philosophy and divinity partly in France, and partly in Holland, and was admitted a minister in the Synod held in Vigan in 1681, being then only twenty-one years of age. He was, the next year, chosen pastor to the church at Montpellier; but he did not make any long stay in that city; for he was soon after promoted to be one of the ministers of the church of Paris which met at Charenton. He continued in that station about two years; and though he was yet in very early life, he discharged the pastoral duties, to which he was called, in a manner greatly to his reputation. But when Louis XIV. thought proper, by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, to drive his Protestant subjects out of France — an act equally repugnant to justice, humanity, and the dictates of sound policy — Mr. Bertheau found himself obliged to quit his native country. He accordingly came to England in 1685, and the following year was chosen one of the ministers of the Walloon Church, in Threadneedle Street, in the city of London, where he discharged the duties of the pastoral office for about forty-four years, in such a manner as procured very general applause. He died on the 25th December 1732, in the seventy-third year of his age, exceedingly regretted by his congrega-