Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. Causes Of The German Immigration Into Virginia During The Eighteenth Century. 'N the early part of the eighteenth century a large number of Germans immigrated as well into Virginia as into Pennsylvania and were the instrument by which the immense natural resources of the colony were developed and a regular and sound state of affairs was created. In the numerous petty States of the German empire, at the end of the seventeenth and in the beginning of the eighteenth century, most deplorable conditions prevailed and the suffering of the people was nigh unbearable. The cruelty of the despotic rulers had already driven thousands of peaceable citizens from their homes and across the ocean, ? to Virginia also Germans had come and the number of the fugitives from the German Fatherland increased yearly. Particularly southern Germany ? and there especially the once flourishing Palatinate, sighed under the hardships and devastations of repeated wars, the tyranny of extravagant princes, and the hateful struggle for supremacy of the various Christian confessions. In the seventeenth century the despotism of the Elector of the Palatinate had forced his people to change its creed three times, first to the Lutheran, then to the Calvinist, again to the Lutheran and finally a second time to the Calvinist faith. This occurrence is certainly abhorrible as the most unwarranted oppression of the liberty of thought and conscience. Louis XIV of France, invaded the German country and destroyed its last resources. The French marshal de Turenne devastated this beautiful section of Germany from 1673 to 1676 ? and in 1689 Durat ordered the population of nearly half a million people to leave their homes within three days. In the midst of winter,without'shelter or food, many died. The cities of ...