already aware, forcibly taken up a thousand young girls in Ireland, and sent them to Jamaica; in 1656, while Sagredo was in London, he ordered all females of disorderly lives to be arrested and shipped for Barbadoes for the like purpose.  Twelve hundred were sent in three ships.  Ho veduto prima del mio partire piu squadre di soldati andar per Londra cercando donne di allegra vita, imbarcandone 1,200 sopre tre vascelli per tragittarle all’ isola, a fine di far propagazione.—­Sagredro, MS.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1654.  August 31.]

into the valleys of Piedmont, where they were cherished in obscurity till the time of the Reformation, and were then exchanged in a great measure, first for Lutheranism, and then for the creed publicly taught at Geneva.  The duke of Savoy by successive grants confirmed to the natives the free exercise of their religion, on condition that they should confine themselves within their ancient limits;[1] but complaints were made that several among the men of Angrogna had abused their privileges to form settlements and establish their worship in the plains; and the court of Turin, wearied with the conflicting statements of the opposite parties, referred[a] the decision of the dispute to the civilian Andrea Gastaldo.[2] After a long and patient hearing, he pronounced a definitive judgment, that Lucerna and some other places lay without the original boundaries, and that the intruders should withdraw under the penalties of forfeiture and death.  At the same time, however, permission was given to them to sell for their own profit the lands which they had planted, though by law these lands had become the property of the sovereign.[3]

The Vaudois were a race of hardy, stubborn, half-civilized mountaineers, whose passions were readily kindled, and whose resolves were as violent as they were sudden.  At first they submitted sullenly to the

[Footnote 1:  These were the four districts of Angrogna, Villaro, Bobbio, and Rorata.—­Siri, del Mercurio, overo Historia de’ Correnti Tempi Firenze, 1682, tom. xv. p. 827.]

[Footnote 2:  Gilles, Pastore de la Terre, p. 72, Geneve, 1644; and Rorengo, Memorie Historiche, p. 8, 1649.]

[Footnote 3:  The decree of Gastaldo is in Morland, History of the Evangelical Churches in the valleys of Piedmont, p. 303.  The grounds of that decree are at p. 408, the objections to it at p. 423.  See also Siri, xv. 827, 830; Chiesa, Corona Reale di Savoia, i. 150; Denina, iii. 324; Guichenon, iii. 139.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1655 June 19.]

judgment of Gastaldo, but sent deputies to Turin, to remonstrate; in a few days a solemn fast was proclaimed; the ministers excommunicated every individual who should sell his lands in the disputed territory; the natives of the valleys under the dominion of the king of France met those of the valleys belonging to the duke of Savoy; both bound themselves by oath to stand by each other in their common defence; and messengers