May it please Your Maty Having in obedience to your Matys Commands Signified to us by the Rt Honbie ^r Secretary Boyle considered the Petition of Joshua Kockerthal the Evangelical Minister in behalf of himself and severall poor Lutherans come hither from the Lower Palitinat in Germany praying to be Transported to some of your Matys plantations in America ; We humbly take leave to represent to your Majty that they are in number forty one: Viz* Ten Men, Ten Women and Twenty one Children, That they are very necessitous and in the utmost want not having at present any tiling (but what they get by Charity :) to subsist themselves. That they have been reduced to this miserable Condition by the Ravages Committed by the French in the Low^er Palitinat, where they lost all they had. That they have produced to us severall Testimonials from the Baylififs or Principall Magistrates in the Villages where they dwelt, which by the assistance of the Ministers of the Lutheran Church here we have Examined and find that they give a good character of the said Minister and the others with him. Whereupon We would have offer'd that those People might be settled in Jamaica or Antego there being large Tracts of Land not taken up or Inhabited, and great want of white People but in regard tliat the Climate of tliose Islands is so much hotter then that part of Germany from whence they

542 PAPERS RELATING TO THE PALATINES.

carae It is to be fciired it may not be agreeable to their Constitutions, and tlierefore We humbly propose that they be sent to Settle upon Hudson's River in the Province of New York, where 'they may be usefull to this Kingdom particularly in the production of naval Stores and as a frontier against the ifrench and their Indians : And this Your Ma^y be enabled to do by granting them the Usuall Number of Acres of Land if your Maty S'iiall please to Confirm the Act passed at New York tlie 2'^ of March 1G9| Entituled An act for Vacating Breaking and annulling Severall Extravagant Grants of Land made by Coll Fletcher late Governor of that Province, as we humbly ofifer'd to your Ma'r by our Representation of the 29*'' of July last without which there is no land but what is Engross'd by the patentees of the said Extravagant Grants.