This alone should for ever set at rest the common notion that they were illiterate peasants. Poor they were certainly, the victims of persecution that seemed to follow them even from their own land in the lower Palatinate, on the Rhine, across the seas, at first to England and afterwards to America. The statesmen of Qtieen Anne's time anticipated that the labour of the Palatines would at least repay the outlay necessary for their transport and maintenance. The i:)lan was to employ them in getting out timbers for the royal navy, particularly masts and spars; and the j^roduction of pitch, turpentine, resin, etc., or what are known as naval stores. The first years of the settlement were years of hardship and suffering and great discontent. The people believed that the establishment of the camps upon the Hudson was a breach of faith, they having understood that they were to have lands elsewhere. Fortv thousand dollars had been expended in the experiment by the British government, and a hundred and thirty thousand more from Governor Hunter's private pocket; but at length the whole scheme of colonisation was acknowledred to be a failure, and the colonists were

Saugerties and its Neighbours 475

permitted to mcn'e where they pleased or to buy the lands upon which they were settled. The settlement was made in 1 7 1 o-i i . In the French and Indian War which soon followed, the Enghsh found no more ready volunteers than the Palatines, who had old scores to wipe out. This same warlike spirit was again shown, when in sui:)port of the Continental cause,