Note 43 — JOURNAL OF OUR VOYAGE TO NEW NETHERLAND

No doubt the allusion is to Antoinette Bourignon and her conventicles. Mlle. Bourignon (1616-1680), born in Lille, France, was a mystical enthusiast of tendencies not dissimilar from those of Labadie. Like him she wrote much, had temporarily a great vogue, and removed with her followers from place to place—Amsterdam, Schleswig, Holstein, Hamburg, East Friesland, Friesland. Their congregation was at Hamburg when the Labadists were at Altona, close by, and was now at Franeker, not far from Wieuwerd. Efforts had at first been made toward union, but by this time there was open opposition between the two sects. The "assembly of Mr. B." means the conventicle maintained at Amsterdam by a merchant named Bardowitz or Bardewisch. He had been one of the foremost followers of Labadie, had interpreted his discourses into Dutch for those who did not understand French, and when Labadie retired to Herford in 1670 had been left in charge of that portion of the congregation which remained in Amsterdam. There he for many years, without pretending to be a minister, held a conventicle of separatists in his own house.