<P> In 1689 the Toleration Act was passed . It allowed for freedom of conscience and prevented persecution by making it illegal to disturb anybody else from worship . Thus Quakers became tolerated though still not widely understood or accepted . </P> <P> Quakers first arrived in the Netherlands in 1655 when William Ames and Margaret Fell's nephew, William Caton, took up residence in Amsterdam . The Netherlands were seen by Quakers as a refuge from persecution in England and they perceived themselves to have affinities with the Dutch Collegiants and also with the Mennonites who had sought sanctuary there . However, English Quakers encountered persecution no different from that they had hoped to leave behind . Eventually, however, Dutch converts to Quakerism were made and, from Amsterdam as a base, preaching tours began within the Netherlands and to neighboring states . In 1661, Ames and Caton visited the County Palatine of the Rhine and met with Charles I Louis, Elector Palatine at Heidelberg . </P> <P> William Penn, the Quaker founder of Pennsylvania, who had a Dutch mother, visited the Netherlands in 1671 and saw, firsthand, the persecution of the Emden Quakers . He returned in 1677 with George Fox and Robert Barclay and at Walta Castle, their religious community at Wieuwerd in Friesland, he unsuccessfully tried to convert the similarly - minded Labadists to Quakerism . They also journeyed on the Rhine to Frankfurt, accompanied by the Amsterdam Quaker Jan Claus who translated for them . His brother, Jacob Claus, had Quaker books translated and published in Dutch and he also produced a map of Philadelphia, the capital of Penn's Holy Experiment . </P> <P> The attraction of a life free from persecution in the New World led to a gradual Dutch Quaker migration . English Quakers in Rotterdam were permitted to transport people and cargo by ship to English colonies without restriction and throughout the 18th century many Dutch Quakers immigrated to Pennsylvania . There were an estimated 500 Quaker families in Amsterdam in 1710 but by 1797 there were only seven Quakers left in the city . Isabella Maria Gouda (1745--1832), a granddaughter of Jan Claus, took care of the meeting house on Keizersgracht but when she stopped paying the rent the Yearly Meeting in London had her evicted . The Quaker presence disappeared from Dutch life by the early 1800s until reemerging in the 1920s, with Netherlands Yearly Meeting being established in 1931 . </P>

Who started a colony based on quaker beliefs