'After Plymouth, I Do Not Think There Is Any Locality In New England More
Interesting.
This little band of French families, [343 ] transported from
the shore of the Bay of Biscay to the wilds of our New England interior,
reminds me of the isolated group of Magnolias which we find surrounded by
the ordinary forest trees of our Massachusetts town of Manchester.
It is a
surprise to meet with them, and we wonder how they came there, but they
glorify the scenery with their tropical flowers, and sweeten it with their
fragrance. Such a pleasing surprise is the effect of coming upon this
small and transitory abiding-place of the men and women who left their
beloved and beautiful land for the sake of their religion. The lines of
their fort may become obliterated, 'the perfume of the shrubbery may no
longer be perceived but the ground they hallowed by their footsteps is
sacred and the air around their old Oxford home is sweet with their
memory.'
This exclusiveness in the selection of settlers for Canada, ever since the
days of the DeCaens, to render the population homogeneous and prevent
religious discord, was extended to Frenchmen, whose only disability, was
their faith, and who did not belong to the national Church, and though the
colony, more than once was at its last gasp, for want of soldiers and
colonists to defend it, it was forbidden ground to the 500,000 industrious
Frenchman, whom the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1682, drove to
England, Holland and Germany, and the English and Dutch colonies in
America.
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