to some extent be seen from the demands of a bookseller in New York, who beside only printed in English, for the publication of the Confession of Faith in that language. He asked so much for it that the community could not by any possibility raise the money, for which reason the whole plan had to be abandoned.[1] The proposition was first considered because of conversations with some people there whose antecedents were entirely unknown, but “who called themselves Mennonites,” descendants perhaps of the Dutch or English colonists who in the first years of the settlement established themselves on the territory of Pennsylvania. That the young community was composed of other people besides Palatines has been shown by the letter just mentioned, bearing the Netherlandish signature of Karsdorp, a name much honored among our forefathers, and which has become discredited through late occurrences at Dordrecht.
It is no wonder that a half year later the “committee on foreign needs” cherished few hopes concerning the colony. They felt, however, for nine or ten families who had come to Rotterdam — according to information from there, under date of April 8th, 1709 — from the neighborhood of Worms and Frankenthal, in order to emigrate, and whom they earnestly sought to dissuade from making the journey. They were, said the letter from Rotterdam, “altogether very poor men, who intended to seek a better place of abode in Pennsylvania. Much has been expended upon them hitherto freely, and these people bring with them scarcely anything that is necessary in the way of raiment and provisions, much less the money that must be spent for fare from here to England, and from there on the great journey, before they can settle in that foreign
- ↑ See note upon page 41.
