The struggle of the Camisards can only be said to have ceased when the persecutions were nearly at an end, and France itself was tottering. But what of that great Huguenot contingent which had invaded Britain, and was growing in number year by year as the émigrés, leaving houses and land, shops, warehouses, and factories, fled across the frontier, or got down to the shore, and came over the sea in fishing-boats and other small craft, in which they took passage under various disguises, or were stowed away in the holds, or packed along with bales of merchandise, to escape the vigilance of the emissaries who were set to watch for escaping Protestants? It is a little significant that of these non-combatant Protestants eleven regiments of soldiers were formed in the English army; but the truth is that of the vast number of émigrés who left France, some 30,000 were trained soldiers and sailors, and doubtless a proportion of these came to England, though probably fewer than those of their number who served in the Low Countries. At any rate, in 1687, two years after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, there arrived in England 15,500 refugees, some of whom brought with them very considerable property, and most of them were men of education, or skilled in the knowledge of the arts, or of those manufactures and handicrafts which are the true wealth of a nation. At Norwich and Canterbury they quickly formed communities which became prosperous, and helped the prosperity {14} of the districts, where they set up looms, and dyeworks, and other additions to the local industries. In London they formed two or three remarkable colonies, so that when Chamberlain wrote his "Survey of London," there were about twenty French Protestant churches, the greater number of which stood in Shoreditch, Hoxton, and Spitalfields—in fact, above 13,000 emigrants had settled in or near the metropolis. The one French Protestant church founded by Edward VI. was, of course, inadequate to receive them, and their immediate necessities were so great that a collection was made for their relief, and a sum of 60,000l. was by this means obtained in order to alleviate their distress. Among these émigrés were many noblemen and gentlemen of distinction, who, with their wives, were reduced to extreme poverty by the confiscation of their property. These had learned no trade, but with characteristic courage many of them set themselves to acquire the knowledge of some craft by which they might earn their bread, while some of their number learned of their wives to make pillow-lace, and so continued to support themselves in decent comfort.