“Forasmuch as nothing in this world ought to be more dear than the liberty of serving God according to the dictates of our consciences and the prescription of His word, therefore the Protestants of the Reformed Churches of France never wished for anything with greater ardour than the enjoyment of that sweet liberty, which has been ravished from them for above twenty-seven years, by the artifice of their enemies, who found means to obtain from the king, in October 1685, the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
“We could have hoped that his Majesty would have been pleased to entertain more moderate thoughts in regard to us, and would, by reinstating us in our ancient privileges, have caused us to feel in our consciences (the seat of the strongest sensations) the sweetness of the so much desired Peace, which his Majesty is now making with the other Princes and Potentates of Europe. But how just soever these hopes were, we have the unhappiness to see them frustrated. Again, therefore, we most humbly supplicate his Majesty to commiserate the great number of families which, from his justice and royal clemency, solicit the most precious favour they ever can receive on earth. We most humbly supplicate his Majesty, even by the bowels of the Divine mercy, to put us in the same condition as we and our fathers were through the whole extent of his kingdom, that we may there, without molestation, exercise our religion, and give evidence to his Majesty of the strictest fidelity and the sincerest zeal.
“We supplicate his Majesty, with ardour and all imaginable respect, to permit us now humbly to protest, that we will never quit either the desire or the hope of obtaining from the equity and bounty of his Majesty, the re-establishment of all the grants for the exercise of our religion, which have been made to us by the kings, his glorious predecessors, and by his Majesty himself, — that those hopes and pretensions, so just and well-grounded, we shall never let go, and shall neither do such injustice to our consciences and to posterity, as to depart from rights confirmed by so many solemn declarations. And as in time past we have presented the necessary petitions and memorials, so with the profoundest possible respect we here solemnly protest to his Majesty, as before God, that any omissions relating to us and to our lawful interests, which have hitherto been made, or may be made use of in the future, ought not ever to be deemed an abandoning of our just demands, and ought not to prejudice in any manner the goodness of our cause and validity of our right, which shall always continue sacred with us.
“No Potentate having undertaken in this Congress the office of a Mediator, we the underwritten do, according to what is practised on such occasions, require the venerable Magistracy of the town of Utrecht to receive the Declaration above written, that it may serve for an Evidence. — Utrecht, May 26, 1713.
“We the Burgo-masters and Councillors of the Town of Utrecht do certify that His Excellency the Marquis de Miremont, in the quality above-mentioned and by virtue of his full power acknowledged and received by the Congress in our city, did put into our hands the declaration, whereof the Deed, carefully compared and found to agree with its duplicate deposited among our archives, is above-written. And whereas the aforesaid Lord desired that the said Deed may be deposited among our archives, to serve for a memorial and perpetual evidence when requisite, We have granted him his demand, and this present Deed under the seal of our town, and signature of our Secretary, Done at Utrecht, May 26th, 1713.”
The Marquis de Rochegude, who had been at Utrecht, returned to England and had an audience of Her Majesty. One day the queen sent for him, and said, “I pray you, Monsieur de Rochegude, send word to the poor galley-slaves that they shall be soon set at liberty.” This was the royal message according to a letter which he dispatched to Marseilles via Geneva, and which one of themselves[1] has recorded. Out of three hundred, whom the order of the King of France seemed to design for liberation, about one hundred and thirty were discharged on the 17th June 1713. Thirty-six of that number went by sea to Villefranche and Nice, and thence by land through Turin and Geneva, to Frankfort. They then sailed to Cologne and Dort, journeyed to Rotterdam, and finally reached Amsterdam in safety. A deputation of twelve, of whom Jean Marteilhe was one, came to London to express the gratitude of the martyrs to the Queen of Great Britain. The Marquises de Miremont and de Rochegude presented them at Court, and the queen permitted them to kiss her hand. The Marquis de Miremont in their name, returned thanks to Her Majesty, who replied that she was rejoiced to see them at liberty, and that she hoped to procure the pardon of the Protestants still labouring in the galleys of France. In 1714 the remainder of the three hundred were set free. The whole of the sufferers were not liberated until the reign of George I., for it was only gradually that the French government could see how those, whom oppression had driven to arms, could be identified with persons arrested as criminals for religious non-conformity. While not refusing to Queen Anne a share of the credit, we must join with Haag in giving
- ↑ Jean Marteilhe, one of the Martyrs in the galley which was at Dunkirk in 1712, and the author of the well-known book, “Mémoires d’un Protestant condamné aux galères de France pour cause de religion, écrits par lui-meme.” He was one of those who were set at liberty in 1713. A translation of his book has been published in London by the Religious Tract Society; with the title, “Autobiography of a French Protestant condemned to the galleys for the sake of his religion.”
