impression was in the north, where the branches of industry which they planted took firm root, and continue to flourish with extraordinary vigour to this day. But in the south it was very different. Though the natural facilities for trade at Cork, Limerick, and Waterford, were much greater than those of the northern towns, the refugees never obtained any firm footing or made any satisfactory progress in that quarter, and their colonies there only maintained a sickly existence, and gradually fell into decay. One has only to look at Belfast and the busy hives of industry in that neighbourhood, and note the condition of the northern province of Ulster-existing under precisely the same laws as govern the south to observe how seriously the social progress of Ireland has been affected by the want of that remunerative employment which the refugees were so instrumental in providing in all the districts in which they settled, wherever they found a population willing to be taught by them, and to follow in the path which they undeviatingly pursued-of peaceful, contented, and honourable industry.

CHAPTER XVII.

DESCENDANTS OF THE REFUGEES.

ALTHOUGH 300 years have passed since the first religious persecutions in Flanders and France compelled so large a number of Protestants to fly from those countries and take refuge in England, and although 180 years have passed since the second great emigration from France took place in the reign of Louis XIV., the descendants of the "gentle and profitable strangers" are still recognisable amongst us. In the course of the generations which have come and gone since the dates of their original settlement, they have laboured diligently and skilfully, greatly to the advantage of British trade, commerce, and manufactures; while there is scarcely a branch of literature, science, and art, in which they have not distinguished themselves.

Three hundred years form a long period in the life of a nation. During that time many of the distinctive characteristics of the original refugees must necessarily have become effaced in the persons of their descendants. Indeed, by far the greater number of them before long became completely Anglicised, and ceased to be traceable except by their names; and

even these have for the most part become converted into names of English sound.

So long as the foreigners continued to cherish the hope of returning to their native country on the possible cessation of the persecutions there, they waited and worked on with that end in view. But as the persecutions only waxed hotter, they at length gradually gave up all hope of return. They claimed and obtained letters of naturalisation; and though many of them continued for several generations to worship in their native language, they were content to live and die English subjects. Their children grew up amidst English associations, and they desired to forget that their fathers had been fugitives and foreigners in the land. They cared not to remember the language or to retain the names which marked them as distinct from the people amongst whom they lived; and hence many of the descendants of the refugees, in the second or third generation, abandoned their foreign names, while they gradually ceased to frequent the distinctive places of worship which their fathers had founded.

Indeed, many of the first Flemings had no sooner settled in England and become naturalised, than they threw off their foreign names and assumed English ones instead. Thus, as we have seen, Hoek, the Flemish brewer in Southwark, assumed the name of Lecke; while Haestricht, the Flemish manufacturer at Bow, took that of James. Mr. Pryme, formerly professor of political economy in the University of Cambridge, and representative of that town in Parlia

ment, whose ancestors were refugees from Ypres in Flanders, has informed us that his grandfather dropped the "de la" originally prefixed to the family name, in consequence of the strong anti-Gallican feeling which prevailed in this country during the Seven Years' War of 1756-63, though his son has since assumed it; and the same circumstance doubtless led many others to change their foreign names to those of English sound.

Nevertheless, a large number of purely Flemish names, though it may be with English modifications, are still to be found in various parts of England and Ireland where the foreigners originally settled. These have been on the whole better preserved in rural districts than in London, where the social friction was greater, and more speedily rubbed off the foreign peculiarities. In the lace towns of the west of England, such names as Raymond, Spiller, Brock, Stocker, Groot, Rochett, and Kettel, are still common; and the same trade has continued in their families for many generations. The Walloon Goupés, who settled in Wiltshire as cloth-makers more than 300 years since, are still known there as the Guppys.

In the account of the early refugee Protestants given in the preceding pages, it has been pointed out that the first settlers in England came principally from Lille, Turcoing, and the towns situated along both sides of the present French frontier-the country of the French Walloons, but then subject to the crown of Spain. Among the first of these refugees was one

Laurent des Bouveryes,* a native of Sainghin near Lille. He first settled at Sandwich as a maker of serges in 1567; after which, in the following year, he removed to Canterbury to join the Walloon settlement there. The Des Bouveryes family prospered greatly. In the third generation, we find Edward, grandson of the refugee, a wealthy Turkey merchant of London. In the fourth generation, the head of the family was created a baronet; in the fifth, a viscount; and in the sixth, an earl; the original Laurent des Bouveryes being at this day represented in the House of Lords by the Earl of Radnor.

About the same time that the Des Bouveryes came into England from Lille, the Hugessens arrived from Dunkirk, and settled at Dover. They afterwards removed to Sandwich, where the family prospered; and in course of a few generations we find them enrolled among the county aristocracy of Kent, and their name borne by the ancient family of the Knatchbulls. It is not the least remarkable circumstance connected with this family, that a member of it now represents the borough of Sandwich,—one of the earliest seats of the refugees in England.

Among other notable Flemish immigrants may be numbered the Houblons, who gave the Bank of England its first governor, and from one of whose daughters

* The Bouveries were men of mark in their native country. Thus in the Histoire de Cambray et du Cambrensis, published in 1664, it is stated, "La

famille de Bouverie est reconnu passer plusiers siecles entre les patricés de Cambray."