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MAY

1, 1681 --Netherlands. Free asylum and full citizenship is offered by Friesland to all driven from their homes by religious persecution, and grants them freedom from taxation for a period of twelve years. Holland and Amsterdam will soon follow this example. The emigrants will find refuge at the Cape of Good Hope, in Switzerland, in New York, in Massachusetts, in Maryland, in Virginia, in Pennsylvania, and in North and South Carolina. The largest number will settle in South Carolina. One colony will settle in Dutch Guiana in South America and will carry on work among the Indians.

1, 1689 --Rhode Island. This is the usual day of election. Representatives of the people, the inhabitants and freemen pour into Newport. The “democracy” will publish their gratitude “to the good Providence of God, which has wonderfully supported their predecessors and themselves through more than ordinary difficulties and hardships.” Once more its free government is organized: its seal is renewed; its symbol, an anchor; its motto, “Hope.”

1, 1691 --South Carolina. Today Huguenots are fully enfranchised by the state of South Carolina, as though they had been free-born citizens.

1, 1703 --Italy. Pope Clement XI issues a bull proclaiming a crusade against the Camisard “heretics.”

1, 1745 --Nova Scotia. In May last year, before news reached New England of the declaration of war against France, a body of Frenchmen surprised the small English fort at Canso, destroyed the fishing, the fort and took its eighty defenders as prisoners of war to Louisburg. When the officers and their men spent the summer in the fortress, they were released and sent to Boston on “parole;” and they brought with them accounts of the condition of the bastion. Fishermen being interrupted in their livelihood by the war have disdained a summer of indolence and have designed a plan for the reduction of Louisburg.
     New York has sent a small supply of artillery, and Pennsylvania has provided other provisions. New England alone has furnished men. To the troops raised by New Hampshire, George Whitefield has given encouragement—“Nothing,” he has said, “is to be despaired of with Christ for the leader.” It is the same motto Charles Wesley has given to General Oglethorpe.
William Shirley, Governor of Massachusetts has given instructions for a fleet of one hundred vessels to arrive together at the same hour despite the surf, the night, and the rocky shore, and to march through thickets and bogs to the city and there to surprise the battery before daybreak. The force is comprised of fishermen unable to fish on the Grand Bank in time of war, mechanics taught from childhood the use of the gun, lumberjacks disciplined to fatigue and lodging in forests, farmers accustomed since youth to the use of arms and taught to pursue game—all are volunteers.
     On April 7th, this year, “the very great company of people” came together to hear a sermon on enlisting as volunteers in the service of the Great Captain of our Salvation! But they were detained many days at Canso on account of ice drifts so large and numerous, a vessel could not enter its harbor.
     On April 31st, one hour after sunrise, the fleet of one hundred vessels entered the Bay and came in sight of Louisburg—a fortress whose walls are forty feet thick at the base and twenty to thirty feet high, and surrounded by a ditch eighty feet wide. It is furnished with one hundred and one cannon, seventy-six swivels, and six mortars, and defended its harbor by an island battery of thirty, twenty-two pounders as well as a shore battery of thirty large cannon and a moat. The invaders, however, brought but eighteen cannon, and three mortars, but letting down their whaleboats, “they flew to shore like eagles to the quarry.” The French who came down to prevent the landing were driven into the woods.
     Today, four hundred volunteers lead by Mr. William Vaughan march by the city and greet it by three cheers before they took the post near the north east harbor. The French holding the battery are struck with panic; they spike their guns and abandon it at night. Tomorrow, boats will arrive from the city to recover it, but will be kept at bay by Mr. Vaughan and thirteen men until reenforcements arrive.
 

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