Sweden has not been more favourable, having at three different times attacked them. A very sharp order for their explusion came out in the year 1662. The diet of 1723 published a second: and that of 1727 repeated the foregoing, with additional severity.
They were excluded from the Netherlands under pain of death, partly by Charles V. and partly afterwards by the United Provinces in 1582.
Finally, the greatest number of sentences of exile have been pronounced against them in Germany. As well imperial decrees, as those of particular princes, have been repeatedly issued, for removing these people. The beginning was made, under Maximilian I. at the Augsburgh diet in 1500; where the following article was drawn up: “Respecting those people who call themselves Gipseys, roving up and down the country—By public edict, to all ranks of the empire, according to the obligations under which they are bound to Us and the Holy Empire, it is strictly ordered, that in future they do not permit the said Gipseys (since there is authentic evidence of their being spies, scouts, and conveyers of intelligence, betraying the Christians to the Turks) to pass or remain within their territories, nor to trade or traffic; neither to grant them protection nor convoy. And that the said Gipseys do withdraw themselves, before Easter next ensuing, from the German dominions, entirely quit them, nor suffer themselves to be found therein: as in case they should transgress after that time, and receive injury from any person, they shall have no redress, nor shall such person be thought to have committed any crime.” The same business occupied the attention of the diet in 1530, 1544–48–51; and was also again enforced in the improved police regulation of Frankfort in 1577.
Several princes were however so little attentive to these orders of the empire, that, instead of endeavouring to drive out the Gipseys, they, on the other hand, furnished them with passports and safe-conducts: others, on the contrary, and by far the greatest number, exerted themselves to the utmost to clear their states of this vermin, and some still continue the same watchfulness.
Hence it appears how universally the opinion was adopted, that banishing the Gipseys was the only method to be secure from their malignity. Perhaps there is not one civilised state, Hungary and Transylvania excepted, where this remedy has not been tried: but whether it be as expedient as it has been hitherto general, is much to be doubted.