Good afternoon friends To set the record straight about the Palatine patron, having set out a few Transcripts relating to his activities during the first 5 years following the arrival of the immigrants, I would like to cite a telling tribute taken from Patrick O'Connor's seminal book (pp 31-32). As a casual observer, I fully endorse this wholly favourable assessment from a writer whose opinions I have come to trust. It reads as follows: "In 1714 we find him outlining the steps taken to secure the settlement and petitioning the Lord Lieutenant for a repayment of his outlay from government ..... Southwell expressed himself as reluctant to seize the possessions of the Palatines, but he would be obliged to do so if not recompensed by the Crown. Still it took more than two years before the Lord Lieutenant successfully supported the Southwell claim to the British Treasury for a Palatine debt which had grown to £558. All the while Sir Thomas stood by his German tenants who he reported were well settled and pursued the raising of hemp and flax as well as tending to good stock.... Through into better times therefore, this tenacious landlord had shepherded by far the largest of the Palatine settlements in Ireland, and almost as if in belated recognition of his achievement, the Crown awarded Lord Southwell (as he became in 1717) the sum of £1452 just two weeks before he died on August 4, 1720. To mark his passing there was an obituary, an epitaph and an elegy, none of which referred to his role as shaper of an Irish Palatine identity. It has been his major contribution and the one that would abide." There is nothing to add, I think. Terry (Lincs UK)