Williamite Wars _http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/timelines/ni/emigration.shtml_ (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/timelines/ni/emigration.shtml) Emigration 1718 - 1740 Small numbers of Ulster Presbyterians had emigrated to America in the late seventeenth century, mainly from the Laggan in north-east Donegal, but it was not until 1718 that the exodus began in earnest. In that year eleven Presbyterian ministers and nearly three hundred members of their congregations petitioned the governor of New England, Samuel Shute, for a grant of land. Shute gave every encouragement and in the summer of the same year five ships left Derry quay for Boston. James McGregor, minister of the Aghadowey congregation and leader of the expedition, got a grant of land on the frontier north of the Merrimac river in what is now New Hampshire, which he named Londonderry in honour, he said, of Ulster Protestants' 'finest hour'. Another ship, the Maccullum, followed soon after from Derry; its passengers settled at Casco Bay in Maine, where they were soon locked in conflict with local native Americans. From the outset the Ulster Presbyterians were to prove themselves pugnacious frontiersmen. _http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/timelines/ni/emigration.shtml_ (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/timelines/ni/emigration.shtml)