Chap. V. service. I have already taken the first step towards it that is proper in Book I, THE COL- THE HAR LEIAN MSS. 4. 1721. Among the same papers,' says the Reviewer quoted on the previous page, there is a letter from Mrs. Oglethorpe to the Pretender (Jan. 17, 1721), containing assurances from Lord Oxford of his eternal respect and good wishes, which from accidental circumstances he had Edin. Rev been unable to convey in the usual manner.' 5. 1722. April 14. THE PRETENDER [to Lord OXFORD ?] as before 'If you have not heard sooner or oftener from me, it hath not, I can assure you, been my fault. Neither do I attribute to your's the long Silence you have kept on your side, but to a chain of disappointments and difficulties which hath been also the only reason of my not finding all this while a method of conveying my thoughts to you, and receiving our advice, which I shall ever value as I ought, because I look upon you not only as an able lawyer but a sincere friend. This will, I hope, come soon to your hands, and the worthy friend by whose canal I send t will accompany it, by my directions, with all the lights and informa- Stuart ion he or I can give, and which it is therefore useless to repeat here.' 6. 1722. April 16. THE PRETENDER to ATTERBURY. 7. 1722. In a report made to the Earl of Mar by George Kelly, one his emissaries employed in England, it is stated that on the delivery, Kelly, of Mar's letter to Atterbury, the prelate asked the messenger e had anything to say, in addition to the contents of the letter, and t he replied (in the jargon of his calling): It is a proposal for ing stocks with the Earl of Oxford, and taking the management of Company's business into their hands.' Atterbury, according to this y, required a day's deliberation, and then told Kelly that he was solved to join both heart and hand with the Earl; and not only so, Papers, 1722. Book I, Chap. V. THE COL but in the management and course of the business he would shew him all the deference and respect that was due to a person who had so justly filled the stations which he had been in.' The Bishop, says Kelly, also added that he was resolved to dedicate the remainder of his days to the LEIAN MSS. King's service, and proposed, by this reunion, to repay some part of the LECTOR OF Ibid. personal debt which he owed to the Earl of Oxford, to whom he would Of the genuineness of the several letters,-of the credit due to the emissaries and their reports, -even of the accurate identification, in some instances, of the 'Mr. Hackets,' 'Houghtons,' and numerous other pseudonyms, under which Lord Oxford' is assumed to be veiled, there are, as yet, no adequate means of judging, CHAPTER VI. THE FOUNDERS OF THE SLOANE MUSEUM. 'He pry'd through Nature's store, Whate'er she in th' ethereal round contains, The vegetable and the mineral reigns. At times, he scaun'd the globe,-those small domains Its seas, its floods, its mountains, and its plains.' THOMSON. lemish Exiles in England.-The Adventures, Mercantile and Colonial Enterprises, and Vicissitudes of the COURTENS.-William COURTEN and his Collections.The Life and Travels of Sir Hans SLOANE-His acquisition of COURTEN'S Museum.-Its growth under the new Possessor.-History of the Sloane Museum and Library, and of their purchase by Parliament. Chap. VI. FOUNDERS OF THE MUSEUM. THE history of the rise and growth of our English trade BOOK I, in a conspicuous degree, a history of the immigration THE her of foreign refugees, and of what was achieved by ir energy and industry, when put forth to the utmost SLOANE der the stimulus and the stern discipline of adversity. her countries, no doubt, have derived much profit from imilar cause, but none, in Europe, to a like extent. By as almost all the chief countries of the Continent have t us bands of exiles, who brought with them either cial skill in manual arts and manufactures, or special BOOK I, Chap. VI. THE FOUNDERS OF THE SLOANE MUSEUM. FLEMISH EXILES IN THE COURTENS; To capabilities for expanding our foreign commerce. Flemish refugees, and more particularly to those of them who were driven hither by Spanish persecution in the sixteenth century, England owes a large debt in both respects. Our historians have given more prominence of late years to this chapter in the national annals than was ever given to it before, but there is no presumption in saying that not a little of what was achieved by exiles towards the industrial greatness of the nation has yet to be told. Nor is it less evident that, over and above the political and public interest of the things done, or initiated, by the new comers in their adopted country, the personal and family annals of the exiles possess, in not a few instances, a remarkable though subsidiary interest of their own. In certain cases, to trace the fortunes of a refugee family, is at once to throw some gleams of light on obscure portions of our commercial history, and to tell a romantic story of real life. One such instance presents itself in the varied fortunes of the COURTENS. That family attained an unusual degree of commercial prosperity, and attained it with unusual rapidity. In the second generation it seemed—for a while —to have struck a deep root in our English soil. It owned lands in half-a-dozen English counties, and its alliance was sought by some of the greatest families in the kingdom. In the next generation its fortunes sank more rapidly than they had risen. In the fourth, the last of the COURTENS was for almost half his life a wanderer, living under a feigned name, and he continued so to live when at length enabled to return to his country. The true name had been preserved only in the records of interminable litigation—in England, Holland, India, and America—about the scattered Chap. VI. THE FOUNDERS OF THE MUSEUM. reck of a magnificent property. But the enterprise of the BOOK 1, mily, in its palmy days, had planted for England a proserous colony. It had opened new paths to commerce in he East Indies, as well as in the West. And its last SLOANE urvivor found a solace for many ruined hopes in the collecon of treasures of science, art and literature, which me to be important enough to form no small conibution towards the eventual foundation of the British [useum. FOUNDER OF THE FAMILY. In 1567 William COURTEN, a thriving dealer in linens THE d silks, living at Menin in Flanders, was together with s wife, Margaret CASIER, accused of heresy. COURTEN as thrown into the prison of the Inquisition, but conived both to make his escape into England, and to enable s wife soon to join him. He established himself in Lonon, in the same business which had thriven with him home. His wife shared in its toils, and by skilfully apting her exertions to those tastes for finery in the milies of rich citizens which were now striving with some Family ccess against the rigour of the old sumptuary laws Records of de the business more prosperous than before. It ex- in Ms. nded until the poor haberdasher of 1567 had become a passim. tability on the London Exchange. In 1571 a son was born to the exiles. This second lliam COURTEN was bred as a merchant rather than as tradesman. He had good parts, and seems to have ted into life with a passion for bold enterprise. His ly training in London was continued at Haerlem, and re he laid a foundation for commercial success by marrythe daughter of Peter CROMMELINCK, a wealthy mernt. First and last, his wife brought him a dowry of ,000, of which sum it was stipulated by the father's the Courtens; Sloane, 3515, (B. M.) |
