At that time Bavaria was its own country. Parts of the Rhineland Palentate had been acquired by Bavaria via war.
The village of Schnelldorf is in what is now the state of Bavaria. It is about 18 miles west, south west, from the city of Ansbach. There are about 4,500 people in Schnelldorf the last time I drove through there a few years ago. There is a small river nearby called the Wörnitz. It drains into the Danube River. So products from that area could be moved into much of southern Europe.
The Palatinate or PFALZ, was the land of the Count Palatine, a title held by a leading secular prince of the Holy Roman Empire. Geographically, the Palatinate was divided between two small territorial clusters: the Rhenish, or Lower Palatinate, and the Upper Palatinate. The Rhenish Palatinate included lands on both sides of the Middle Rhine River between its Main and Neckar tributaries. Its capital until the 18th century was Heidelberg. The Upper Palatinate was located in northern Bavaria, on both sides of the Naab River as it flows south toward the Danube and extended eastward to the Bohemian Forest. The boundaries of the Palatinate varied with the political and dynastic fortunes of the Counts Palatine.
The 1600s in Europe was a period of constant war as Louis XIV of France sought to expand his kingdom. The War of the Palatinate or The War of The League of Augsburg, began in 1688 when Louis claimed the Palatinate. Every large city on the Rhine above Cologne was attacked. The War ended in 1697 with the Treaty of Ryswick. The Palatinate farmland was wrecked by numerous battles and lotting Armies, but it was still not under French control. The 1702 War of the Spanish Succession began in Europe and lasted until 1713, causing a great deal of economic ruin for various Geran states ( Germany was not a united country yet)
Queen Anne of Great Britain who was really a German, as were all the British monarchy proposed a mass migration of German speaking people from the Rhineland Palintate to areas controlled by Great Britain. In the spring of 1709, about 7, 000 to 9,000 Palatines sailed down the Rhine to Holland. From there, about 3000 were dispatched to America, either directly or via England, under the auspices of William Penn. The remaining 4 000 were sent via England to Ireland to strengthen the protestant interest. Most of the Germanic Palintines were protestant or claimed to be in order to gain assistance from Queen Anne.
