Thirteen hundred Quakers were released
from prison in 1686 by James II; and in 1689, when William of
Orange took the throne, toleration was extended to the Quakers
and other Protestant dissenters.
The success of the first Quakers who came to America brought
others even after persecution ceased in England. The most
numerous class of immigrants for the first fifteen or twenty
years were Welsh, most of whom were Quakers with a few Baptists
and Church of England people. They may have come not so much from
a desire to flee from persecution as to build up a little Welsh
community and to revive Welsh nationalism. In their new
surroundings they spoke their own Welsh language and very few of
them had learned English. They had been encouraged in their
national aspirations by an agreement with Penn that they were to
have a tract of 40,000 acres where they could live by themselves.
The land assigned to them lay west of Philadelphia in that high
ridge along the present main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad,
now so noted for its wealthy suburban homes.
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