them with the promises of lands and settlements there. This being printed and spread through these parts, they came to Holland in great bodies: the Anabaptists there were particularly helpful to them, both in subsisting those in Holland, and in transporting them to England. Great numbers were sent to Ireland, but most of them to the plantations in North America, where it is believed their industry will quickly turn to a good account."—Burnet, vi. 33. 34. Oxford edition.
To facilitate arrangements of this kind, An Act passed in this session," observes Bishop Burnet, under the year 1709, "that was much desired, and had been often attempted, but had been laid aside in so many former parliaments, that there were scarcely any hopes left to encourage a new attempt: it was for naturalizing all foreign Protestants, upon their taking the oaths to the government, and their receiving the sacrament in any Protestant church. The bill passed with very little opposition."—Burnet, v. 399.
Nearly a century after, President Jefferson, then Secretary of State for the United States of America, under the presidency of General Washington, proposes the following question to one of his correspondents: Do you not think it would be expedient to take measures for importing a number of Germans and Highlanders?"—'Memoirs and Correspondence of President Jefferson.'
