THE geographical position of Britain has, from the earliest times, rendered it a country of refuge. Fronting Europe, yet separated from it by a deep sea-moat, the proscribed of other lands have by turns sought the protection of the island fortress, and made it their home. To the country of the Britons the Saxons brought their industry, the Northmen their energy, and the Flemings and French their skill and spirit of liberty; and out of the whole has come the English nation.

MICHELET, the French historian — though his observations in regard to Fngland are usually conceived in a hostile spirit — has nevertheless acknowledged the free Asylum which this country has in all times afforded to foreigners flying from persecution abroad. “Hateful as England is,” says he, “she appears grand indeed, as she faces Europe, — as she faces Dunkirk and Antwerp in ruins. All other countries — Russia, Austria, Italy, Spain, and France — have their capitals on the west, opposite the setting sun: the great European vessel seems to float with her sails bellied by the wind, which erst blew from Asia. England alone has hers pointed to the east, as if in defiance of that world — unum omnia contra . This last country of the Old World is the heroical land; the constant refuge of the exiled and the energetic. All who have ever fled servitude, — Druids pursued by Rome, Gallo-Romans chased by the barbarians, Saxons proscribed by Charlemagne, famished Danes grasping Normans, the persecuted Flemish manufacturers, the vanquished French Calvinlsts, — all have crossed the sea, and made the great island their country: arva, beata petamus arva, divites et insulas ... Thus England has thriven on misfortunes and grown great out of ruins.” The early industry of England was almost entirely pastoral. Down to a comparatively recent period, it was a great grazing country, and its principal staple was Wool. The English people being as yet unskilled in the arts of manufacture, the wool was bought up by foreign merchants, and exported abroad in large quantities, principally to Flanders and France, there to be manufactured into cloth, and partly returned in that form for sale in the English markets.

The English kings, desirous of encouraging home industry, held out repeated inducements to foreign artizans to come over and settle in this country for the purpose of instructing their subjects in the industrial arts.

This policy was pursued during many successive reigns, more particularly in that of Edward III.; and, by the middle of the fourteenth century, large numbers of Flemish artizans, driven out of the Low Countries by the tyranny of the trades-unions as well as by civil wars, embraced the offers held out to them, settled in various parts of England, and laid the foundations of English skilled industry.

But by far the most important emigrations of skilled foreigners from Europe, were occasioned by the religious persecutions which prevailed in Flanders and France for a considerable period after the Reformation. Two great waves of foreign population then flowed over from the Continent into England, — probably the largest in point of numbers which have occurred since the date of the Saxon settlement. The first took place in the latter half of the sixteenth century, and consisted partly of French, but principally of Flemish Protestants; the second, towards i he end of the seventeenth century, consisted almost entirely of French Huguenots.

The second of these emigrations, consequent on the religious persecutions which followed the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV., was of extraordinary magnitude. According to Sismondi, the loss which it occasioned to France was not far short of a million of persons, and these were her best and most industrious subjects. Although the circumstances connected with this remarkable exodus, as well as the events which flowed from them, exercised an important influence on the political, reli~ous, and industrial history of Northern Europe, they have as yet, viewed in this connection, received but slight notice at the hands of the historian.