med to fishing and fowling in the swamp, without paying any rent,
or having to ask anybody's leave. They had no mind now to settle to the
regular toilsome business of farming,--and to be under a landlord, to
whom they must pay rent. Probably, too, they knew nothing about
farming, and would have failed in it if they had tried. Thus far they
were not to be blamed. But nothing can exceed the malignity with which
they treated the tenants who did settle in the isle, and the spiteful
spirit which they showed towards them, on every occasion.

These tenants were chiefly foreigners. There was a civil war in England
at that time: and the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire people were so much
engaged in fighting for King Charles or for the Parliament, that fewer
persons were at liberty to undertake new farms than there would have
been in a time of peace. When the Dutchman and his companions found
that the English were not disposed to occupy the Levels (as the drained
lands were called), they encouraged some of their own countrymen to come
over. With them arrived some few Frenchmen, who had been driven from
France into Holland, on account of their being Protestants. From first
to last, there were about two hundred families, Dutch and French,
settled in the Levels. Some were collected into a village, and had a
chapel opened, where a pastor of their own performed service for them.
Others were scattered over the district, living just where their
occupations required them to settle.

All these foreigners were subject to bad treatment from their
neighbours; but the stragglers were the worst off; because it was
easiest to tease and injure those who lived alone. The disappointed
fishers and fowlers gave other reasons for their own conduct, besides
that of being nearly deprived of their fishing and fowling. These
reasons were all bad, as reasons for hating always are. One excuse was
that the new settlers were foreigners--as if those who were far from
their own land did not need particular hospitality and kindness.
Another plea was that they were connected with the king, by being
settled on the lands which he had bargained to have drained: so that all
who sided with the parliament ought to injure the new tenants, in order
to annoy the king. If the settlers had tried to serve the king by
injuring his enemies, this last reason might have passed in a time of
war. But it was not so. It is probable that the foreigners did not
understand