Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 by Various
page 129 of 313 (41%)
page 129 of 313 (41%)
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of Soubise, in Saintonge, reached that city. This refugee, sailing
afterwards in his own merchant vessel for the island of Jamaica, was captured by a privateer, carried back to France, confined in the galleys, and only restored to his liberty through the intercession of Lord Portland. One of the first acts of the Boston Huguenots was to settle a minister, giving him forty pounds a year, and increasing his salary afterwards. Surrounded by the savages on every side, they erected a fort, the traces of which, it is said, can still be seen, and now overgrown with roses, currant bushes, and other shrubbery. Mrs. Sigourney, herself the wife of a Huguenot descendant, during a visit to this time-honored spot, wrote the beautiful lines,-- 'Green vine, that mantlest in thy fresh embrace Yon old gray rock, I hear that thou with them Didst brave the ocean surge. Say, drank thus from The dews of Languedoc? or slow uncoiled An infant fibre 'mid the faithful mold Of smiling Roussillon? Didst thou shrink From the fierce footsteps of fighting unto death At fair Rochelle? Hast thou no tale for me?' Their fort did not render the French settlers safe from the murderous assaults of savage enemies. A.W. Johnson, with his three children, were massacred here by them; his wife was a sister of Mr. Andrew Sigourney, one of the earliest Huguenots. After this murderous attack the French Protestants deserted their forest home, repairing to Boston in 1696, |
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