The Salzburgers, referred to by name in the proposals of the Georgia Trustees, were, at this time, very much upon the mind and heart of Protestant Europe. They were Germans, belonging to the Archbishopric of Salzburg, then the most eastern district of Bavaria, but now a province of Austria. “Their ancestors, the Vallenges of Piedmont, had been compelled by the barbarities of the Dukes of Savoy to find a shelter from the storms of persecution in the Alpine passes and vales of Salzburg and the Tyrol, before the Reformation; and frequently since, they had been hunted out by the hirelings and soldiery of the Church of Rome, and condemned for their faith to tortures of the most cruel and revolting kind. In 1684-6, they were again threatened with an exterminating persecution; but were saved in part by the intervention of the Protestant States of Saxony and Brandenburg, though more than a thousand emigrated on account of the dangers to which they were exposed. “But the quietness which they then enjoyed for nearly half a century was rudely broken in upon by Leopold, Count of Firmian and Archbishop of Salzburg, who determined to reduce them to the Papal faith and power. He began in the year 1729, and ere he ended in 1732 not far from thirty thousand had been driven from their homes, to seek among the Protestant States of Europe that charity and peace which were denied them in the glens and fastnesses of their native Alps. “The march of these Salzburgers constitutes an epoch in the history of Germany. * * * Arriving at Augsburg, the magistrates closed the gates against them, refusing them entrance to that city which, two hundred years before, through Luther and Melancthon and in the presence of Charles V and the assembled Princes of Germany, had given birth to the celebrated Augsburg Confession, for clinging to which the Salzburgers were now driven from their homes; but overawed by the Protestants, the officers reluctantly admitted the emigrants, who were kindly entertained by the Lutherans. “The sympathies of Reformed Christendom were awakened on their behalf, and the most hospitable entertainment and assistance were everywhere given them.” Only a few months after the signing of the Georgia Colony Charter, the “Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge” requested the Trustees to include the Salzburgers in their plans. The Trustees expressed their willingness to grant lands, and to manage any money given toward their expenses, but stated that they then held no funds which were available for that purpose.