have nothing to do with the whole affair, they nevertheless immediately passed a secret resolution, that, “as far as concerns our committee, the friends are to be helped as much as possible;” and apparently they took care that there should be furnished from private means what as officials they could not give out of the fund. Among the preachers who were at the head of these colonists, we find principally Hans Burghalter and Benedict Brechtbuhl.
The desire for emigration seemed to be entirely appeased in the Palatinate until 1726, when it broke out again with renewed force. The chief causes were higher burdens imposed upon them by the Elector, the fear of the outburst of war, and perhaps also pressing letters of invitation written by the friends settled in Pennsylvania. Moreover, the committee were guilty of a great imprudence. Though they so repeatedly assured the emigrants that they could not and would not help them, and promised liberal assistance to the needy Palatines who abandoned the journey, still, through pity for a certain Hubert Brouwer of Neuwied, they gave him and his family 300f. passage-money. Either this became known in the Palatinate, or the stream could no longer be stayed. Though some of their elders, together with the committee, tried to dissuade them, and painted horrible pictures of the possibility that, in the war between England and Spain, they might “by Spanish ships be taken to the West Indies where men are sold as slaves,” the Palatines believed not a word of it. On the 12th of April, 1727, there were one hundred and fifty ready to depart, and on the 16th of May, the committee were compelled to write to the Palatinate that they “ought to be informed of the coming of those already on the way, so that they can best provide for them;” and they further inquired “how many would arrive without means, so that the Society might
