How strange it seems to us, writing in our own Protestant land, that cruel authority should ever have intervened with matters of faith!  What can be more plain or truthful than that there should be liberty of conscience; and that God alone has the power and the right to direct it, and that it is an abuse and a sacrilege to come between God and conscience?  After the revocation of the edict of Nantes and the death of Louis XIV., his royal successor sometimes vaguely asked himself why he persecuted his Protestant subjects? when his marshal replied, that his majesty was only the executor of former edicts.  He seemed to have consoled himself that he had found the system already established, and he only carried out the errors of his predecessor.  Forty years of remorseless persecutions against his best subjects, without asking himself why!  Of all the weaknesses of his reign, this was the most odious and the most guilty; his hand was most literally weary of signing cruel edicts against the Protestants of his kingdom, without even reading them, and which obedience to his mandates had to transcribe in letters of fire and blood, on the remotest parts of his realm.

Let us return to the Frenchmen of Ulster, who for some time after their emigration used their own language, until a consultation was held to determine whether this, or the English or Dutch, should be adopted in the families.  As the latter was generally spoken in the neighboring places,—­Kingston, Poughkeepsie and Newburgh,—­and also at the schools and churches, it was decided to speak Dutch only to their children and servants.  Having for a while, however, continued the use of their native tongue, some of the Huguenot descendants in the Paltz still write their names as their French ancestors wrote them more than two centuries ago.  Dubois, Bevier, Deyeau, Le Fevre, Hasbroque, are well-known instances.

Petronella was once an admired name among the Huguenot ladies, and became almost extinct in Ulster at one time.  The last was said to have been Petronella Hasbroque, a lady distinguished for remarkable traits of character.  Judge Hasbroque, of Kingston, the father of the former President of Rutger’s College, was very anxious that his son would give this name to one of his daughters.  In case of compliance, a handsome marriage portion was also promised; but the parents declined the generous offer, whether from a dislike to the name, or a belief that the property would be theirs, at any rate, some day, is not known.  A granddaughter, however, of a second generation, named her first-born Petronella, and thus gratifying the desire of her near kinsman, secured a marriage portion for the heir, and preserved the much-admired name from oblivion—­certainly three important results.