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CHAPTER 8
1755-1763
Removal of the Acadians
State of Acadia. Threatened Invasion. Peril
of the English. Their Plans.
French Forts to be attacked. Beauséjour and its
Occupants. French
Treatment of the Acadians. John Winslow.
Siege and Capture of
Beauséjour. Attitude of Acadians. Influence
of their Priests. They
refuse the Oath of Allegiance. Their Condition
and Character. Pretended
Neutrals. Moderation of English Authorities.
The Acadians persist in
their Refusal. Enemies or Subjects? Choice
of the Acadians. The
Consequence. Their Removal determined. Winslow
at Grand Pré. Conference
with Murray. Summons to the Inhabitants.
Their Seizure. Their
Embarkation. Their Fate. Their Treatment
in Canada. Misapprehension
concerning them.
Chapter 8
1755-1763
Removal of the Acadians
By the plan which the Duke of Cumberland
had ordained and Braddock had announced in the Council
at Alexandria, four blows were to be struck at once
to force back the French boundaries, lop off the dependencies
of Canada, and reduce her from a vast territory to
a petty province. The first stroke had failed,
and had shattered the hand of the striker; it remains
to see what fortune awaited the others.
It was long since a project of purging
Acadia of French influence had germinated in the fertile
mind of Shirley. We have seen in a former chapter
the condition of that afflicted province. Several
thousands of its inhabitants, wrought upon by intriguing
agents of the French Government, taught by their priests
that fidelity to King Louis was inseparable from fidelity
to God, and that to swear allegiance to the British
Crown was eternal perdition; threatened with plunder
and death at the hands of the savages whom the ferocious
missionary, Le Loutre, held over them in terror,—had
abandoned, sometimes willingly, but oftener under
constraint, the fields which they and their fathers
had tilled, and crossing the boundary line of the
Missaguash, had placed themselves under the French
flag planted on the hill of Beauséjour.[240] Here,
or in the neighborhood, many of them had remained,
wretched and half starved; while others had been transported
to Cape Breton, Isle St. Jean, or the coasts of the
Gulf,—not so far, however, that they could
not on occasion be used to aid in an invasion of British
Acadia.[241] Those of their countrymen who still lived
under the British flag were chiefly the inhabitants
of the district of Mines and of the valley of the
River Annapolis, who, with other less important settlements,
numbered a little more than nine thousand souls.
We have shown already, by the evidence of the French
themselves, that neither they nor their emigrant countrymen
had been oppressed or molested in matters temporal
or spiritual, but that the English authorities, recognizing
their value as an industrious population, had labored
to reconcile them to a change of rulers which on the
whole was to their advantage. It has been shown
also how, with a heartless perfidy and a reckless disregard
of their welfare and safety, the French Government
and its agents labored to keep them hostile to the
Crown of which it had acknowledged them to be subjects.
The result was, that though they did not, like their
emigrant countrymen, abandon their homes, they remained
in a state of restless disaffection, refused to supply
English garrisons with provisions, except at most
exorbitant rates, smuggled their produce to the French
across the line, gave them aid and intelligence, and
sometimes disguised as Indians, robbed and murdered
English settlers. By the new-fangled construction
of the treaty of Utrecht which the French boundary
commissioners had devised,[242] more than half the
Acadian peninsula, including nearly all the cultivated
land and nearly all the population of French descent,
was claimed as belonging to France, though England
had held possession of it more than forty years.
Hence, according to the political ethics adopted at
the time by both nations, it would be lawful for France
to reclaim it by force. England, on her part,
it will be remembered, claimed vast tracts beyond
the isthmus; and, on the same pretext, held that she
might rightfully seize them and capture Beauséjour,
with the other French garrisons that guarded them.
[Footnote 240: See ante, Chapter 4.]
[Footnote 241: Rameau (La
France aux Colonies, I. 63), estimates the total
emigration from 1748 to 1755 at 8,600 souls,—which
number seems much too large. This writer, though
vehemently anti-English, gives the following passage
from a letter of a high French official: “que
les Acadiens émigrés et en grande misère comptaient
se retirer à Québec et demander des terres, mais il
conviendrait mieux qu’ils restent où ils sont,
afin d’avoir le voisinage de l’Acadie bien
peuplé et défriché, pour approvisionner l’Isle
Royale [Cape Breton] et tomber en cas de guerre
sur l’Acadie.” Rameau, I. 133.]
[Footnote 242: Supra, p. 102.]
On the part of France, an invasion
of the Acadian peninsula seemed more than likely.
Honor demanded of her that, having incited the Acadians
to disaffection, and so brought on them the indignation
of the English authorities, she should intervene to
save them from the consequences. Moreover the
loss of the Acadian peninsula had been gall and wormwood
to her; and in losing it she had lost great material
advantages. Its possession was necessary to connect
Canada with the Island of Cape Breton and the fortress
of Louisbourg. Its fertile fields and agricultural
people would furnish subsistence to the troops and
garrisons in the French maritime provinces, now dependent
on supplies illicitly brought by New England traders,
and liable to be cut off in time of war when they
were needed most. The harbors of Acadia, too,
would be invaluable as naval stations from which to
curb and threaten the northern English colonies.
Hence the intrigues so assiduously practised to keep
the Acadians French at heart, and ready to throw off
British rule at any favorable moment. British
officers believed that should a French squadron with
a sufficient force of troops on board appear in the
Bay of Fundy, the whole population on the Basin of
Mines and along the Annapolis would rise in arms,
and that the emigrants beyond the isthmus, armed and
trained by French officers, would come to their aid.
This emigrant population, famishing in exile, looked
back with regret to the farms they had abandoned;
and, prevented as they were by Le Loutre and his colleagues
from making their peace with the English, they would,
if confident of success, have gladly joined an invading
force to regain their homes by reconquering Acadia
for Louis XV. In other parts of the continent
it was the interest of France to put off hostilities;
if Acadia alone had been in question, it would have
been her interest to precipitate them.
Her chances of success were good.
The French could at any time send troops from Louisbourg
or Quebec to join those maintained upon the isthmus;
and they had on their side of the lines a force of
militia and Indians amounting to about two thousand,
while the Acadians within the peninsula had about
an equal number of fighting men who, while calling
themselves neutrals, might be counted on to join the
invaders. The English were in no condition to
withstand such an attack. Their regular troops
were scattered far and wide through the province, and
were nowhere more than equal to the local requirement;
while of militia, except those of Halifax, they had
few or none whom they dared to trust. Their fort
at Annapolis was weak and dilapidated, and their other
posts were mere stockades. The strongest place
in Acadia was the French fort of Beauséjour, in which
the English saw a continual menace. Their apprehensions
were well grounded. Duquesne, governor of Canada,
wrote to Le Loutre, who virtually shared the control
of Beauséjour with Vergor, its commandant: “I
invite both yourself and M. Vergor to devise a plausible
pretext for attacking them [the English] vigorously."[243]
Three weeks after this letter was written, Lawrence,
governor of Nova Scotia, wrote to Shirley from Halifax:
“Being well informed that the French have designs
of encroaching still farther upon His Majesty’s
rights in this province, and that they propose, the
moment they have repaired the fortifications of Louisbourg,
to attack our fort at Chignecto [Fort Lawrence],
I think it high time to make some effort to drive
them from the north side of the Bay of Fundy."[244]
This letter was brought to Boston by Lieutenant-Colonel
Monckton, who was charged by Lawrence to propose to
Shirley the raising of two thousand men in New England
for the attack of Beauséjour and its dependent forts.
Almost at the moment when Lawrence was writing these
proposals to Shirley, Shirley was writing with the
same object to Lawrence, enclosing a letter from Sir
Thomas Robinson, concerning which he said: “I
construe the contents to be orders to us to act in
concert for taking any advantages to drive
the French of Canada out of Nova Scotia. If that
is your sense of them, and your honor will be pleased
to let me know whether you want any and what assistance
to enable you to execute the orders, I will endeavor
to send you such assistance from this province as you
shall want."[245]
[Footnote 243: Duquesne à
Le Loutre, 15 Oct. 1754; extract in Public
Documents of Nova Scotia, 239.]
[Footnote 244: Lawrence to
Shirley, 5 Nov. 1754. Instructions of Lawrence
to Monckton, 1 Nov. 1754.]
[Footnote 245: Shirley to Lawrence, 7 Nov.
1754.]
The letter of Sir Thomas Robinson,
of which a duplicate had already been sent to Lawrence,
was written in answer to one of Shirley informing the
Minister that the Indians of Nova Scotia, prompted
by the French, were about to make an attack on all
the English settlements east of the Kennebec; whereupon
Robinson wrote: “You will without doubt
have given immediate intelligence thereof to Colonel
Lawrence, and will have concerted the properest measures
with him for taking all possible advantage in Nova
Scotia itself from the absence of those Indians, in
case Mr. Lawrence shall have force enough to attack
the forts erected by the French in those parts, without
exposing the English settlements; and I am particularly
to acquaint you that if you have not already entered
into such a concert with Colonel Lawrence, it is His
Majesty’s pleasure that you should immediately
proceed thereupon."[246]
[Footnote 246: Robinson to Shirley, 5 July,
1754.]
The Indian raid did not take place;
but not the less did Shirley and Lawrence find in
the Minister’s letter their authorization for
the attack of Beauséjour. Shirley wrote to Robinson
that the expulsion of the French from the forts on
the isthmus was a necessary measure of self-defence;
that they meant to seize the whole country as far as
Mines Basin, and probably as far as Annapolis, to
supply their Acadian rebels with land; that of these
they had, without reckoning Indians, fourteen hundred
fighting men on or near the isthmus, and two hundred
and fifty more on the St. John, with whom, aided by
the garrison of Beauséjour, they could easily take
Fort Lawrence; that should they succeed in this, the
whole Acadian population would rise in arms, and the
King would lose Nova Scotia. We should anticipate
them, concludes Shirley, and strike the first blow.[247]
[Footnote 247: Shirley to
Robinson, 8 Dec. 1754. Ibid., 24 Jan. 1755.
The Record Office contains numerous other letters of
Shirley on the subject. “I am obliged to
your Honor for communicating to me the French Mémoire,
which, with other reasons, puts it out of doubt that
the French are determined to begin an offensive war
on the peninsula as soon as ever they shall think
themselves strengthened enough to venture up it, and
that they have thoughts of attempting it in the ensuing
spring. I enclose your Honor extracts from two
letters from Annapolis Royal, which show that the
French inhabitants are in expectation of its being
begun in the spring.” Shirley to Lawrence,
6 Jan. 1755.]
He opened his plans to his Assembly
in secret session, and found them of one mind with
himself. Preparation was nearly complete, and
the men raised for the expedition, before the Council
at Alexandria, recognized it as a part of a plan of
the summer campaign.
The French fort of Beauséjour, mounted
on its hill between the marshes of Missaguash and
Tantemar, was a regular work, pentagonal in form, with
solid earthern ramparts, bomb-proofs, and an armament
of twenty-four cannon and one mortar. The commandant,
Duchambon de Vergor, a captain in the colony regulars,
was a dull man of no education, of stuttering speech,
unpleasing countenance, and doubtful character.
He owed his place to the notorious Intendant, Bigot,
who it is said, was in his debt for disreputable service
in an affair of gallantry, and who had ample means
of enabling his friends to enrich themselves by defrauding
the King. Beauséjour was one of those plague-spots
of official corruption which dotted the whole surface
of New France. Bigot, sailing for Europe in the
summer of 1754, wrote thus to his confederate:
“Profit by your place, my dear Vergor; clip
and cut—you are free to do what you please—so
that you can come soon to join me in France and buy
an estate near me."[248] Vergor did not neglect his
opportunities. Supplies in great quantities were
sent from Quebec for the garrison and the emigrant
Acadians. These last got but a small part of them.
Vergor and his confederates sent the rest back to
Quebec, or else to Louisbourg, and sold them for their
own profit to the King’s agents there, who were
also in collusion with him.
[Footnote 248: Mémoires sur
le Canada, 1749-1760. This letter is also
mentioned in another contemporary document, Mémoire
sur les Fraudes commises dans la Colonie.]
Vergor, however, did not reign alone.
Le Loutre, by force of energy, capacity, and passionate
vehemence, held him in some awe, and divided his authority.
The priest could count on the support of Duquesne,
who had found, says a contemporary, that “he
promised more than he could perform, and that he was
a knave,” but who nevertheless felt compelled
to rely upon him for keeping the Acadians on the side
of France. There was another person in the fort
worthy of notice. This was Thomas Pichon, commissary
of stores, a man of education and intelligence, born
in France of an English mother. He was now acting
the part of a traitor, carrying on a secret correspondence
with the commandant of Fort Lawrence, and acquainting
him with all that passed at Beauséjour. It was
partly from this source that the hostile designs of
the French became known to the authorities of Halifax,
and more especially the proceedings of “Moses,”
by which name Pichon always designated Le Loutre, because
he pretended to have led the Acadians from the land
of bondage.[249]
[Footnote 249: Pichon, called
also Tyrrell from the name of his mother, was author
of Genuine Letters and Memoirs relating to Cape
Breton,—a book of some value.
His papers are preserved at Halifax, and some of them
are printed in the Public Documents of Nova Scotia.]
These exiles, who cannot be called
self-exiled, in view of the outrageous means used
to force most of them from their homes, were in a
deplorable condition. They lived in constant dread
of Le Loutre, backed by Vergor and his soldiers.
The savage missionary, bad as he was, had in him an
ingredient of honest fanaticism, both national and
religious; though hatred of the English held a large
share in it. He would gladly, if he could, have
forced the Acadians into a permanent settlement on
the French side of the line, not out of love for them,
but in the interest of the cause with which he had
identified his own ambition. His efforts had
failed. There was not land enough for their subsistence
and that of the older settlers; and the suffering
emigrants pined more and more for their deserted farms.
Thither he was resolved that they should not return.
“If you go,” he told them, “you will
have neither priests nor sacraments, but will die
like miserable wretches."[250] The assertion was false.
Priests and sacraments had never been denied them.
It is true that Daudin, priest of Pisiquid, had lately
been sent to Halifax for using insolent language to
the commandant, threatening him with an insurrection
of the inhabitants, and exciting them to sedition;
but on his promise to change conduct, he was sent
back to his parishioners.[251] Vergor sustained Le
Loutre, and threatened to put in irons any of the
exiles who talked of going back to the English.
Some of them bethought themselves of an appeal to
Duquesne, and drew up a petition asking leave to return
home. Le Loutre told the signers that if they
did not efface their marks from the paper they should
have neither sacraments in this life nor heaven in
the next. He nevertheless allowed two of them
to go to Quebec as deputies, writing at the same time
to the Governor, that his mind might be duly prepared.
Duquesne replied: “I think that the two
rascals of deputies whom you sent me will not soon
recover from the fright I gave them, notwithstanding
the emollient I administered after my reprimand; and
since I told them that they were indebted to you for
not being allowed to rot in a dungeon, they have promised
me to comply with your wishes."[252]
[Footnote 250: Pichon to Captain
Scott, 14 Oct. 1754, in Public Documents of
Nova Scotia, 229.]
[Footnote 251: Public Documents
of Nova Scotia, 223, 224, 226, 227, 238.]
[Footnote 252: Public Documents of Nova Scotia,
239.]
An entire heartlessness marked the
dealings of the French authorities with the Acadians.
They were treated as mere tools of policy, to be used,
broken, and flung away. Yet, in using them, the
sole condition of their efficiency was neglected.
The French Government, cheated of enormous sums by
its own ravenous agents, grudged the cost of sending
a single regiment to the Acadian border. Thus
unsupported, the Acadians remained in fear and vacillation,
aiding the French but feebly, though a ceaseless annoyance
and menace to the English.
This was the state of affairs at Beauséjour
while Shirley and Lawrence were planning its destruction.
Lawrence had empowered his agent, Monckton, to draw
without limit on two Boston merchants, Apthorp and
Hancock. Shirley, as commander-in-chief of the
province of Massachusetts, commissioned John Winslow
to raise two thousand volunteers. Winslow was
sprung from the early governors of Plymouth colony;
but, though well-born, he was ill-educated, which did
not prevent him from being both popular and influential.
He had strong military inclinations, had led a company
of his own raising in the luckless attack on Carthagena,
had commanded the force sent in the preceding summer
to occupy the Kennebec, and on various other occasions
had left his Marshfield farm to serve his country.
The men enlisted readily at his call, and were formed
into a regiment, of which Shirley made himself the
nominal colonel. It had two battalions, of which
Winslow, as lieutenant-colonel, commanded the first,
and George Scott the second, both under the orders
of Monckton. Country villages far and near, from
the western borders of the Connecticut to uttermost
Cape Cod, lent soldiers to the new regiment.
The muster-rolls preserve their names, vocations,
birthplaces, and abode. Obadiah, Nehemiah, Jedediah,
Jonathan, Ebenezer, Joshua, and the like Old Testament
names abound upon the list. Some are set down
as “farmers,” “yeomen,” or
“husbandmen;” others as “shopkeepers,”
others as “fishermen,” and many as “laborers;”
while a great number were handicraftsmen of various
trades, from blacksmiths to wig-makers. They
mustered at Boston early in April, where clothing,
haversacks, and blankets were served out to them at
the charge of the King; and the crooked streets of
the New England capital were filled with staring young
rustics. On the next Saturday the following mandate
went forth: “The men will behave very orderly
on the Sabbath Day, and either stay on board their
transports, or else go to church, and not stroll up
and down the streets.” The transports, consisting
of about forty sloops and schooners, lay at Long Wharf;
and here on Monday a grand review took place,—to
the gratification, no doubt, of a populace whose amusements
were few. All was ready except the muskets, which
were expected from England, but did not come.
Hence the delay of a month, threatening to ruin the
enterprise. When Shirley returned from Alexandria
he found, to his disgust, that the transports still
lay at the wharf where he had left them on his departure.[253]
The muskets arrived at length, and the fleet sailed
on the twenty-second of May. Three small frigates,
the “Success,” the “Mermaid,”
and the “Siren,” commanded by the ex-privateersman,
Captain Rous, acted as convoy; and on the twenty-sixth
the whole force safely reached Annapolis. Thence
after some delay they sailed up the Bay of Fundy,
and at sunset on the first of June anchored within
five miles of the hill of Beauséjour.
[Footnote 253: Shirley to Robinson, 20 June,
1755.]
At two o’clock on the next morning
a party of Acadians from Chipody roused Vergor with
the news. In great alarm, he sent a messenger
to Louisbourg to beg for help, and ordered all the
fighting men of the neighborhood to repair to the
fort. They counted in all between twelve and
fifteen hundred;[254] but they had no appetite for
war. The force of the invaders daunted them;
and the hundred and sixty regulars who formed the
garrison of Beauséjour were too few to revive their
confidence. Those of them who had crossed from
the English side dreaded what might ensue should they
be caught in arms; and, to prepare an excuse beforehand,
they begged Vergor to threaten them with punishment
if they disobeyed his order. He willingly complied,
promised to have them killed if they did not fight,
and assured them at the same time that the English
could never take the fort.[255] Three hundred of them
thereupon joined the garrison, and the rest, hiding
their families in the woods, prepared to wage guerilla
war against the invaders.
[Footnote 254: Mémoires sur
le Canada, 1749-1760. An English document, State
of the English and French Forts in Nova Scotia,
says 1,200 to 1,400.]
[Footnote 255: Mémoires sur le Canada, 1749-1760.]
Monckton, with all his force, landed
unopposed, and encamped at night on the fields around
Fort Lawrence, whence he could contemplate Fort Beauséjour
at his ease. The regulars of the English garrison
joined the New England men; and then, on the morning
of the fourth, they marched to the attack. Their
course lay along the south bank of the Missaguash to
where it was crossed by a bridge called Pont-à-Buot.
This bridge had been destroyed; and on the farther
bank there was a large blockhouse and a breastwork
of timber defended by four hundred regulars, Acadians,
and Indians. They lay silent and unseen till
the head of the column reached the opposite bank;
then raised a yell and opened fire, causing some loss.
Three field-pieces were brought up, the defenders were
driven out, and a bridge was laid under a spattering
fusillade from behind bushes, which continued till
the English had crossed the stream. Without further
opposition, they marched along the road to Beauséjour,
and, turning to the right, encamped among the woody
hills half a league from the fort. That night
there was a grand illumination, for Vergor set fire
to the church and all the houses outside the ramparts.[256]
[Footnote 256: Winslow, Journal
and Letter Book. Mémoires sur le Canada, 1749-1760.
Letters from officers on the spot in Boston Evening
Post and Boston News Letter. Journal of
Surgeon John Thomas.]
The English spent some days in preparing
their camp and reconnoitring the ground. Then
Scott, with five hundred provincials, seized upon a
ridge within easy range of the works. An officer
named Vannes came out to oppose him with a hundred
and eighty men, boasting that he would do great things;
but on seeing the enemy, quietly returned, to become
the laughing-stock of the garrison. The fort
fired furiously, but with little effect. In the
night of the thirteenth, Winslow, with a part of his
own battalion, relieved Scott, and planted in the trenches
two small mortars, brought to the camp on carts.
On the next day they opened fire. One of them
was disabled by the French cannon, but Captain Hazen
brought up two more, of larger size, on ox-wagons;
and, in spite of heavy rain, the fire was brisk on
both sides.
Captain Rous, on board his ship in
the harbor, watched the bombardment with great interest.
Having occasion to write to Winslow, he closed his
letter in a facetious strain. “I often hear
of your success in plunder, particularly a coach.[257]
I hope you have some fine horses for it, at least
four, to draw it, that it may be said a New England
colonel [rode in] his coach and four in Nova
Scotia. If you have any good saddle-horses in
your stable, I should be obliged to you for one to
ride round the ship’s deck on for exercise,
for I am not likely to have any other.”
[Footnote 257: “11 June.
Capt. Adams went with a Company of Raingers,
and Returned at 11 Clock with a Coach and Sum other
Plunder.” Journal of John Thomas.]
Within the fort there was little promise
of a strong defence. Le Loutre, it is true, was
to be seen in his shirt-sleeves, with a pipe in his
mouth, directing the Acadians in their work of strengthening
the fortifications.[258] They, on their part, thought
more of escape than of fighting. Some of them
vainly begged to be allowed to go home; others went
off without leave,—which was not difficult,
as only one side of the place was attacked. Even
among the officers there were some in whom interest
was stronger than honor, and who would rather rob the
King than die for him. The general discouragement
was redoubled when, on the fourteenth, a letter came
from the commandant of Louisbourg to say that he could
send no help, as British ships blocked the way.
On the morning of the sixteenth, a mischance befell,
recorded in these words in the diary of Surgeon John
Thomas: “One of our large shells fell through
what they called their bomb-proof, where a number
of their officers were sitting, killed six of them
dead, and one Ensign Hay, which the Indians had took
prisoner a few days agone and carried to the fort.”
The party was at breakfast when the unwelcome visitor
burst in. Just opposite was a second bomb-proof,
where was Vergor himself, with Le Loutre, another
priest, and several officers, who felt that they might
at any time share the same fate. The effect was
immediate. The English, who had not yet got a
single cannon into position, saw to their surprise
a white flag raised on the rampart. Some officers
of the garrison protested against surrender; and Le
Loutre, who thought that he had everything to fear
at the hands of the victors, exclaimed that it was
better to be buried under the ruins of the fort than
to give it up; but all was in vain, and the valiant
Vannes was sent out to propose terms of capitulation.
They were rejected, and others offered, to the following
effect: the garrison to march out with the honors
of war and to be sent to Louisbourg at the charge
of the King of England, but not to bear arms in America
for the space of six months. The Acadians to
be pardoned the part they had just borne in the defence,
“seeing that they had been compelled to take
arms on pain of death.” Confusion reigned
all day at Beauséjour. The Acadians went home
loaded with plunder. The French officers were
so busy in drinking and pillaging that they could
hardly be got away to sign the capitulation.
At the appointed hour, seven in the evening, Scott
marched in with a body of provincials, raised the
British flag on the ramparts, and saluted it by a
general discharge of the French cannon, while Vergor
as a last act of hospitality gave a supper to the officers.[259]
[Footnote 258: Journal of
Pichon, cited by Beamish Murdoch.]
[Footnote 259: On the capture
of Beauséjour, Mémoires sur le Canada, 1749-1760;
Pichon, Cape Breton, 318; Journal of Pichon,
cited by Murdoch; and the English accounts already
mentioned.]
Le Loutre was not to be found; he
had escaped in disguise with his box of papers, and
fled to Baye Verte to join his brother missionary,
Manach. Thence he made his way to Quebec, where
the Bishop received him with reproaches. He soon
embarked for France; but the English captured him
on the way, and kept him eight years in Elizabeth Castle,
on the Island of Jersey. Here on one occasion
a soldier on guard made a dash at the father, tried
to stab him with his bayonet, and was prevented with
great difficulty. He declared that, when he was
with his regiment in Acadia, he had fallen into the
hands of Le Loutre, and narrowly escaped being scalped
alive, the missionary having doomed him to this fate,
and with his own hand drawn a knife round his head
as a beginning of the operation. The man swore
so fiercely that he would have his revenge, that the
officer in command transferred him to another post.[260]
[Footnote 260: Knox, Campaigns
in North America, I. 114, note. Knox,
who was stationed in Nova Scotia, says that Le Loutre
left behind him “a most remarkable character
for inhumanity.”]
Throughout the siege, the Acadians
outside the fort, aided by Indians, had constantly
attacked the English, but were always beaten off with
loss. There was an affair of this kind on the
morning of the surrender, during which a noted Micmac
chief was shot, and being brought into the camp, recounted
the losses of his tribe; “after which, and taking
a dram or two, he quickly died,” writes Winslow
in his Journal.
Fort Gaspereau, at Baye Verte, twelve
miles distant, was summoned by letter to surrender.
Villeray, its commandant, at once complied; and Winslow
went with a detachment to take possession.[261] Nothing
remained but to occupy the French post at the mouth
of the St. John. Captain Rous, relieved at last
from inactivity, was charged with the task; and on
the thirtieth he appeared off the harbor, manned his
boats, and rowed for shore. The French burned
their fort, and withdrew beyond his reach.[262] A
hundred and fifty Indians, suddenly converted from
enemies to pretended friends, stood on the strand,
firing their guns into the air as a salute, and declaring
themselves brothers of the English. All Acadia
was now in British hands. Fort Beausejour became
Fort Cumberland,—the second fort in America
that bore the name of the royal Duke.
[Footnote 261: Winslow, Journal.
Villeray au Ministre, 20 Sept. 1755.]
[Footnote 262: Drucour au Ministre, 1 Déc.
1755.]
The defence had been of the feeblest.
Two years later, on pressing demands from Versailles,
Vergor was brought to trial, as was also Villeray.
The Governor, Vaudreuil, and the Intendant, Bigot,
who had returned to Canada, were in the interest of
the chief defendant. The court-martial was packed;
adverse evidence was shuffled out of sight; and Vergor,
acquitted and restored to his rank, lived to inflict
on New France another and a greater injury.[263]
[Footnote 263: Memoire sur
les Fraudes commises dans la Colonie, 1759. Memoires
sur le Canada, 1749-1760.]
Now began the first act of a deplorable
drama. Monckton, with his small body of regulars,
had pitched their tents under the walls of Beauséjour.
Winslow and Scott, with the New England troops, lay
not far off. There was little intercourse between
the two camps. The British officers bore themselves
towards those of the provincials with a supercilious
coldness common enough on their part throughout the
war. July had passed in what Winslow calls “an
indolent manner,” with prayers every day in
the Puritan camp, when, early in August, Monckton sent
for him, and made an ominous declaration. “The
said Monckton was so free as to acquaint me that it
was determined to remove all the French inhabitants
out of the province, and that he should send for all
the adult males from Tantemar, Chipody, Aulac, Beauséjour,
and Baye Verte to read the Governor’s orders;
and when that was done, was determined to retain them
all prisoners in the fort. And this is the first
conference of a public nature I have had with the
colonel since the reduction of Beauséjour; and I apprehend
that no officer of either corps has been made more
free with.”
Monckton sent accordingly to all the
neighboring settlements, commanding the male inhabitants
to meet him at Beauséjour. Scarcely a third part
of their number obeyed. These arrived on the
tenth, and were told to stay all night under the guns
of the fort. What then befell them will appear
from an entry in the diary of Winslow under date of
August eleventh: “This day was one extraordinary
to the inhabitants of Tantemar, Oueskak, Aulac, Baye
Verte, Beauséjour, and places adjacent; the male inhabitants,
or the principal of them, being collected together
in Fort Cumberland to hear the sentence, which determined
their property, from the Governor and Council of Halifax;
which was that they were declared rebels, their lands,
goods, and chattels forfeited to the Crown, and their
bodies to be imprisoned. Upon which the gates
of the fort were shut, and they all confined, to the
amount of four hundred men and upwards.”
Parties were sent to gather more, but caught very few,
the rest escaping to the woods.
Some of the prisoners were no doubt
among those who had joined the garrison at Beauséjour,
and had been pardoned for doing so by the terms of
the capitulation. It was held, however, that,
though forgiven this special offence, they were not
exempted from the doom that had gone forth against
the great body of their countrymen. We must look
closely at the motives and execution of this stern
sentence.
At any time up to the spring of 1755
the emigrant Acadians were free to return to their
homes on taking the ordinary oath of allegiance required
of British subjects. The English authorities of
Halifax used every means to persuade them to do so;
yet the greater part refused. This was due not
only to Le Loutre and his brother priests, backed by
the military power, but also to the Bishop of Quebec,
who enjoined the Acadians to demand of the English
certain concessions, the chief of which were that
the priests should exercise their functions without
being required to ask leave of the Governor, and that
the inhabitants should not be called upon for military
service of any kind. The Bishop added that the
provisions of the treaty of Utrecht were insufficient,
and that others ought to be exacted.[264] The oral
declaration of the English authorities, that for the
present the Acadians should not be required to bear
arms, was not thought enough. They, or rather
their prompters, demanded a written pledge.
[Footnote 264: L’Evéque
de Quebec à Le Loutre, Nov. 1754, in Public
Documents of Nova Scotia, 240.]
The refusal to take the oath without
reservation was not confined to the emigrants.
Those who remained in the peninsula equally refused
it, though most of them were born and had always lived
under the British flag. Far from pledging themselves
to complete allegiance, they showed continual signs
of hostility. In May three pretended French deserters
were detected among them inciting them to take arms
against the English.[265]
[Footnote 265: Ibid., 242.]
On the capture of Beauséjour the British
authorities found themselves in a position of great
difficulty. The New England troops were enlisted
for the year only, and could not be kept in Acadia.
It was likely that the French would make a strong
effort to recover the province, sure as they were
of support from the great body of its people.
The presence of this disaffected population was for
the French commanders a continual inducement to invasion;
and Lawrence was not strong enough to cope at once
with attack from without and insurrection from within.
Shirley had held for some time that
there was no safety for Acadia but in ridding it of
the Acadians. He had lately proposed that the
lands of the district of Chignecto, abandoned by their
emigrant owners, should be given to English settlers,
who would act as a check and a counterpoise to the
neighboring French population. This advice had
not been acted upon. Nevertheless Shirley and
his brother Governor of Nova Scotia were kindred spirits,
and inclined to similar measures. Colonel Charles
Lawrence had not the good-nature and conciliatory temper
which marked his predecessors, Cornwallis and Hopson.
His energetic will was not apt to relent under the
softer sentiments, and the behavior of the Acadians
was fast exhausting his patience. More than a
year before, the Lords of Trade had instructed him
that they had no right to their lands if they persisted
in refusing the oath.[266] Lawrence replied, enlarging
on their obstinacy, treachery, and “ingratitude
for the favor, indulgence, and protection they have
at all times so undeservedly received from His Majesty’s
Government;” declaring at the same time that,
“while they remain without taking the oaths,
and have incendiary French priests among them, there
are no hopes of their amendment;” and that “it
would be much better, if they refuse the oaths, that
they were away."[267] “We were in hopes,”
again wrote the Lords of Trade, “that the lenity
which had been shown to those people by indulging
them in the free exercise of their religion and the
quiet possession of their lands, would by degrees
have gained their friendship and assistance, and weaned
their affections from the French; but we are sorry
to find that this lenity has had so little effect,
and that they still hold the same conduct, furnishing
them with labor, provisions, and intelligence, and
concealing their designs from us.” In fact,
the Acadians, while calling themselves neutrals, were
an enemy encamped in the heart of the province.
These are the reasons which explain and palliate a
measure too harsh and indiscriminate to be wholly
justified.
[Footnote 266: Lords of Trade
to Lawrence, 4 March, 1754.]
[Footnote 267: Lawrence to
Lords of Trade, 1 Aug. 1754.]
Abbé Raynal, who never saw the Acadians,
has made an ideal picture of them,[268] since copied
and improved in prose and verse, till Acadia has become
Arcadia. The plain realities of their condition
and fate are touching enough to need no exaggeration.
They were a simple and very ignorant peasantry, industrious
and frugal till evil days came to discourage them;
living aloof from the world, with little of that spirit
of adventure which an easy access to the vast fur-bearing
interior had developed in their Canadian kindred;
having few wants, and those of the rudest; fishing
a little and hunting in the winter, but chiefly employed
in cultivating the meadows along the River Annapolis,
or rich marshes reclaimed by dikes from the tides
of the Bay of Fundy. The British Government left
them entirely free of taxation. They made clothing
of flax and wool of their own raising, hats of similar
materials, and shoes or moccasons of moose and seal
skin. They bred cattle, sheep, hogs, and horses
in abundance; and the valley of the Annapolis, then
as now, was known for the profusion and excellence
of its apples. For drink, they made cider or
brewed spruce-beer. French officials describe
their dwellings as wretched wooden boxes, without
ornaments or conveniences, and scarcely supplied with
the most necessary furniture.[269] Two or more families
often occupied the same house; and their way of life,
though simple and virtuous, was by no means remarkable
for cleanliness. Such as it was, contentment
reigned among them, undisturbed by what modern America
calls progress. Marriages were early, and population
grew apace. This humble society had its disturbing
elements; for the Acadians, like the Canadians, were
a litigious race, and neighbors often quarrelled about
their boundaries. Nor were they without a bountiful
share of jealousy, gossip, and backbiting, to relieve
the monotony of their lives; and every village had
its turbulent spirits, sometimes by fits, though rarely
long, contumacious even toward the curé, the guide,
counsellor, and ruler of his flock. Enfeebled
by hereditary mental subjection, and too long kept
in leading-strings to walk alone, they needed him,
not for the next world only, but for this; and their
submission, compounded of love and fear, was commonly
without bounds. He was their true government;
to him they gave a frank and full allegiance, and
dared not disobey him if they would. Of knowledge
he gave them nothing; but he taught them to be true
to their wives and constant at confession and Mass,
to stand fast for the Church and King Louis, and to
resist heresy and King George; for, in one degree or
another, the Acadian priest was always the agent of
a double-headed foreign power,—the Bishop
of Quebec allied with the Governor of Canada.[270]
[Footnote 268: Histoire philosophique
et politique, VI. 242 (ed. 1772).]
[Footnote 269: Beauharnois
et Hocquart au Comte de Maurepas, 12 Sept. 1745._]
[Footnote 270: Franquet, Journal,
1751, says of the Acadians: “Ils aiment
l’argent, n’ont dans toute leur conduite
que leur intérêt pour objet, sont, indifféremment
des deux sexes, d’une inconsidération dans leurs
discours qui dénote de la méchanceté.” Another
observer, Dieréville, gives a more favorable picture.]
When Monckton and the Massachusetts
men laid siege to Beauséjour, Governor Lawrence thought
the moment favorable for exacting an unqualified oath
of allegiance from the Acadians. The presence
of a superior and victorious force would help, he
thought, to bring them to reason; and there were some
indications that this would be the result. A
number of Acadian families, who at the promptings of
Le Loutre had emigrated to Cape Breton, had lately
returned to Halifax, promising to be true subjects
of King George if they could be allowed to repossess
their lands. They cheerfully took the oath; on
which they were reinstated in their old homes, and
supplied with food for the winter.[271] Their example
unfortunately found few imitators.
[Footnote 271: Public Documents of Nova Scotia,
228.]
Early in June the principal inhabitants
of Grand Pré and other settlements about the Basin
of Mines brought a memorial, signed with their crosses,
to Captain Murray, the military commandant in their
district, and desired him to send it to Governor Lawrence,
to whom it was addressed. Murray reported that
when they brought it to him they behaved with the
greatest insolence, though just before they had been
unusually submissive. He thought that this change
of demeanor was caused by a report which had lately
got among them of a French fleet in the Bay of Fundy;
for it had been observed that any rumor of an approaching
French force always had a similar effect. The
deputies who brought the memorial were sent with it
to Halifax, where they laid it before the Governor
and Council. It declared that the signers had
kept the qualified oath they had taken, “in
spite of the solicitations and dreadful threats of
another power,” and that they would continue
to prove “an unshaken fidelity to His Majesty,
provided that His Majesty shall allow us the same
liberty that he has [hitherto] granted us.”
Their memorial then demanded, in terms highly offensive
to the Council, that the guns, pistols, and other
weapons, which they had lately been required to give
up, should be returned to them. They were told
in reply that they had been protected for many years
in the enjoyment of their lands, though they had not
complied with the terms on which the lands were granted;
“that they had always been treated by the Government
with the greatest lenity and tenderness, had enjoyed
more privileges than other English subjects, and had
been indulged in the free exercise of their religion;”
all which they acknowledged to be true. The Governor
then told them that their conduct had been undutiful
and ungrateful; “that they had discovered a
constant disposition to assist His Majesty’s
enemies and to distress his subjects; that they had
not only furnished the enemy with provisions and ammunition,
but had refused to supply the [English] inhabitants
or Government, and when they did supply them, had
exacted three times the price for which they were sold
at other markets.” The hope was then expressed
that they would no longer obstruct the settlement
of the province by aiding the Indians to molest and
kill English settlers; and they were rebuked for saying
in their memorial that they would be faithful to the
King only on certain conditions. The Governor
added that they had some secret reason for demanding
their weapons, and flattered themselves that
French troops were at hand to support their insolence.
In conclusion, they were told that now was a good
opportunity to prove their sincerity by taking the
oath of allegiance, in the usual form, before the
Council. They replied that they had not made
up their minds on that point, and could do nothing
till they had consulted their constituents. Being
reminded that the oath was personal to themselves,
and that six years had already been given them to
think about it, they asked leave to retire and confer
together. This was granted, and at the end of
an hour they came back with the same answer as before;
whereupon they were allowed till ten o’clock
on the next morning for a final decision.[272]
[Footnote 272: Minutes of
Council at Halifax, 3 July, 1755, in Public
Documents of Nova Scotia, 247-255.]
At the appointed time the Council
again met, and the deputies were brought in.
They persisted stubbornly in the same refusal.
“They were then informed,” says the record,
“that the Council could no longer look on them
as subjects to His Britannic Majesty, but as subjects
to the King of France, and as such they must hereafter
be treated; and they were ordered to withdraw.”
A discussion followed in the Council. It was
determined that the Acadians should be ordered to send
new deputies to Halifax, who should answer for them,
once for all, whether they would accept the oath or
not; that such as refused it should not thereafter
be permitted to take it; and “that effectual
measures ought to be taken to remove all such recusants
out of the province.”
The deputies, being then called in
and told this decision, became alarmed, and offered
to swear allegiance in the terms required. The
answer was that it was too late; that as they had refused
the oath under persuasion, they could not be trusted
when they took it under compulsion. It remained
to see whether the people at large would profit by
their example.
“I am determined,” wrote
Lawrence to the Lords of Trade, “to bring the
inhabitants to a compliance, or rid the province of
such perfidious subjects."[273] First, in answer to
the summons of the Council, the deputies from Annapolis
appeared, declaring that they had always been faithful
to the British Crown, but flatly refusing the oath.
They were told that, far from having been faithful
subjects, they had always secretly aided the Indians,
and that many of them had been in arms against the
English; that the French were threatening the province;
and that its affairs had reached a crisis when its
inhabitants must either pledge themselves without
equivocation to be true to the British Crown, or else
must leave the country. They all declared that
they would lose their lands rather than take the oath.
The Council urged them to consider the matter seriously,
warning them that, if they now persisted in refusal,
no farther choice would be allowed them; and they were
given till ten o’clock on the following Monday
to make their final answer.
[Footnote 273: Lawrence to
Lords of Trade, 18 July, 1755.]
When that day came, another body of
deputies had arrived from Grand Pré and the other
settlements of the Basin of Mines; and being called
before the Council, both they and the former deputation
absolutely refused to take the oath of allegiance.
These two bodies represented nine tenths of the Acadian
population within the peninsula. “Nothing,”
pursues the record of the Council, “now remained
to be considered but what measures should be taken
to send the inhabitants away, and where they should
be sent to.” If they were sent to Canada,
Cape Breton, or the neighboring islands, they would
strengthen the enemy, and still threaten the province.
It was therefore resolved to distribute them among
the various English colonies, and to hire vessels
for the purpose with all despatch.[274]
[Footnote 274: Minutes of
Council, 4 July—28 July, in Public
Documents of Nova Scotia, 255-267. Copies
of these and other parts of the record were sent at
the time to England, and are now in the Public Record
Office, along with the letters of Lawrence.]
The oath, the refusal of which had
brought such consequences, was a simple pledge of
fidelity and allegiance to King George II. and his
successors. Many of the Acadians had already taken
an oath of fidelity, though with the omission of the
word “allegiance,” and, as they insisted,
with a saving clause exempting them from bearing arms.
The effect of this was that they did not regard themselves
as British subjects, and claimed, falsely as regards
most of them, the character of neutrals. It was
to put an end to this anomalous state of things that
the oath without reserve had been demanded of them.
Their rejection of it, reiterated in full view of
the consequences, is to be ascribed partly to a fixed
belief that the English would not execute their threats,
partly to ties of race and kin, but mainly to superstition.
They feared to take part with heretics against the
King of France, whose cause, as already stated, they
had been taught to regard as one with the cause of
God; they were constrained by the dread of perdition.
“If the Acadians are miserable, remember that
the priests are the cause of it,” writes the
French officer Boishébert to the missionary Manach.[275]
[Footnote 275: On the oath and
his history, compare a long note by Mr. Akin in Public
Documents of Nova Scotia, 263-267. Winslow
in his Journal gives an abstract of a memorial sent
him by the Acadians, in which they say that they had
refused the oath, and so forfeited their lands, from
motives of religion. I have shown in a former
chapter that the priests had been the chief instruments
in preventing them from accepting the English government.
Add the following:—
“Les malheurs des Accadiens
sont beaucoup moins leur ouvrage que le fruit des
sollicitations et des démarches des missionnaires.”
Vaudreuil au Ministre, 6 Mai, 1760.
“Si nous avons la guerre, et
si les Accadiens sont misérables, souvenez vous que
ce sont les prêtres qui en sont la cause.” Boishébert
á Manach, 21 Fév. 1760. Both these writers
had encouraged the priests in their intrigues so long
as there were likely to profit the French Government,
and only blamed them after they failed to accomplished
what was expected of them.
“Nous avons six missionnaires
dont l’occupation perpetuelle est de porter
les esprits au fanatisme et à la vengeance....
Je ne puis supporter dans nos prêtres ces odieuses
déclamations qu’ils font tous les jours aux
sauvages: ’Les Anglois sont les ennemis
de Dieu, les compagnons du Diable.’” Pichon,
Lettres et Mémoires pour servir à l’Histoire
du Cap-Breton, 160, 161. (La Haye, 1760.)]
The Council having come to a decision,
Lawrence acquainted Monckton with the result, and
ordered him to seize all the adult males in the neighborhood
of Beauséjour; and this, as we have seen, he promptly
did. It remains to observe how the rest of the
sentence was carried into effect.
Instructions were sent to Winslow
to secure the inhabitants on or near the Basin of
Mines and place them on board transports, which, he
was told, would soon arrive from Boston. His
orders were stringent: “If you find that
fair means will not do with them, you must proceed
by the most vigorous measures possible, not only in
compelling them to embark, but in depriving those
who shall escape of all means of shelter or support,
by burning their houses and by destroying everything
that may afford them the means of subsistence in the
country.” Similar orders were given to
Major Handfield, the regular officer in command at
Annapolis.
On the fourteenth of August Winslow
set out from his camp at Fort Beauséjour, or Cumberland,
on his unenviable errand. He had with him but
two hundred and ninety-seven men. His mood of
mind was not serene. He was chafed because the
regulars had charged his men with stealing sheep;
and he was doubly vexed by an untoward incident that
happened on the morning of his departure. He
had sent forward his detachment under Adams, the senior
captain, and they were marching by the fort with drums
beating and colors flying, when Monckton sent out his
aide-de-camp with a curt demand that the colors should
be given up, on the ground that they ought to remain
with the regiment. Whatever the soundness of the
reason, there was no courtesy in the manner of enforcing
it. “This transaction raised my temper
some,” writes Winslow in his Diary; and he proceeds
to record his opinion that “it is the most ungenteel,
ill-natured thing that ever I saw.” He sent
Monckton a quaintly indignant note, in which he observed
that the affair “looks odd, and will appear
so in future history;” but his commander, reckless
of the judgments of posterity, gave him little satisfaction.
Thus ruffled in spirit, he embarked
with his men and sailed down Chignecto Channel to
the Bay of Fundy. Here, while they waited the
turn of the tide to enter the Basin of Mines, the
shores of Cumberland lay before them dim in the hot
and hazy air, and the promontory of Cape Split, like
some misshapen monster of primeval chaos, stretched
its portentous length along the glimmering sea, with
head of yawning rock, and ridgy back bristled with
forests. Borne on the rushing flood, they soon
drifted through the inlet, glided under the rival promontory
of Cape Blomedon, passed the red sandstone cliffs
of Lyon’s Cove, and descried the mouths of the
rivers Canard and Des Habitants, where fertile marshes,
diked against the tide, sustained a numerous and thriving
population. Before them spread the boundless meadows
of Grand Pré, waving with harvests or alive with grazing
cattle; the green slopes behind were dotted with the
simple dwellings of the Acadian farmers, and the spire
of the village church rose against a background of
woody hills. It was a peaceful, rural scene,
soon to become one of the most wretched spots on earth.
Winslow did not land for the present, but held his
course to the estuary of the River Pisiquid, since
called the Avon. Here, where the town of Windsor
now stands, there was a stockade called Fort Edward,
where a garrison of regulars under Captain Alexander
Murray kept watch over the surrounding settlements.
The New England men pitched their tents on shore,
while the sloops that had brought them slept on the
soft bed of tawny mud left by the fallen tide.
Winslow found a warm reception, for
Murray and his officers had been reduced too long
to their own society not to welcome the coming of
strangers. The two commanders conferred together.
Both had been ordered by Lawrence to “clear
the whole country of such bad subjects;” and
the methods of doing so had been outlined for their
guidance. Having come to some understanding with
his brother officer concerning the duties imposed
on both, and begun an acquaintance which soon grew
cordial on both sides, Winslow embarked again and
retraced his course to Grand Pré, the station which
the Governor had assigned him. “Am pleased,”
he wrote to Lawrence, “with the place proposed
by your Excellency for our reception [the village
church]. I have sent for the elders to remove
all sacred things, to prevent their being defiled by
heretics.” The church was used as a storehouse
and place of arms; the men pitched their tents between
it and the graveyard; while Winslow took up his quarters
in the house of the priest, where he could look from
his window on a tranquil scene. Beyond the vast
tract of grassland to which Grand Pré owed its name,
spread the blue glistening breast of the Basin of Mines;
beyond this again, the distant mountains of Cobequid
basked in the summer sun; and nearer, on the left,
Cape Blomedon reared its bluff head of rock and forest
above the sleeping waves.
As the men of the settlement greatly
outnumbered his own, Winslow set his followers to
surrounding the camp with a stockade. Card-playing
was forbidden, because it encouraged idleness, and
pitching quoits in camp, because it spoiled the grass.
Presently there came a letter from Lawrence expressing
a fear that the fortifying of the camp might alarm
the inhabitants. To which Winslow replied that
the making of the stockade had not alarmed them in
the least, since they took it as a proof that the
detachment was to spend the winter with them; and he
added, that as the harvest was not yet got in, he and
Murray had agreed not to publish the Governor’s
commands till the next Friday. He concludes:
“Although it is a disagreeable part of duty we
are put upon, I am sensible it is a necessary one,
and shall endeavor strictly to obey your Excellency’s
orders.”
On the thirtieth, Murray, whose post
was not many miles distant, made him a visit.
They agreed that Winslow should summon all the male
inhabitants about Grand Pré to meet him at the church
and hear the King’s orders, and that Murray
should do the same for those around Fort Edward.
Winslow then called in his three captains,—Adams,
Hobbs, and Osgood,—made them swear secrecy,
and laid before them his instructions and plans; which
latter they approved. Murray then returned to
his post, and on the next day sent Winslow a note
containing the following: “I think the
sooner we strike the stroke the better, therefore will
be glad to see you here as soon as conveniently you
can. I shall have the orders for assembling ready
written for your approbation, only the day blank,
and am hopeful everything will succeed according to
our wishes. The gentlemen join me in our best
compliments to you and the Doctor.”
On the next day, Sunday, Winslow and
the Doctor, whose name was Whitworth, made the tour
of the neighborhood, with an escort of fifty men,
and found a great quantity of wheat still on the fields.
On Tuesday Winslow “set out in a whale-boat
with Dr. Whitworth and Adjutant Kennedy, to consult
with Captain Murray in this critical conjuncture.”
They agreed that three in the afternoon of Friday should
be the time of assembling; then between them they
drew up a summons to the inhabitants, and got one
Beauchamp, a merchant, to “put it into French.”
It ran as follows:—
By John Winslow, Esquire,
Lieutenant-Colonel and Commander of His
Majesty’s troops
at Grand Pré, Mines, River Canard, and places
adjacent.
To the inhabitants of
the districts above named, as well ancients
as young men and lads.
Whereas His Excellency the Governor
has instructed us of his last resolution respecting
the matters proposed lately to the inhabitants,
and has ordered us to communicate the same to the
inhabitants in general in person, His Excellency
being desirous that each of them should be fully
satisfied of His Majesty’s intentions,
which he has also ordered us to communicate to you,
such as they have been given him.
We therefore order and strictly enjoin
by these presents to all the inhabitants, as
well of the above-named districts as of all the other
districts, both old men and young men, as well as all
the lads of ten years of age, to attend at the
church in Grand Pré on Friday, the fifth instant,
at three of the clock in the afternoon, that
we may impart what we are ordered to communicate to
them; declaring that no excuse will be admitted
on any pretence whatsoever, on pain of forfeiting
goods and chattels in default.
Given at Grand Pré,
the second of September, in the twenty-ninth
year of His Majesty’s
reign, A.D. 1755.
A similar summons was drawn up in
the name of Murray for the inhabitants of the district
of Fort Edward.
Captain Adams made a reconnoissance
of the rivers Canard and Des Habitants, and reported
“a fine country and full of inhabitants, a beautiful
church, and abundance of the goods of the world.”
Another reconnoissance by Captains Hobbs and Osgood
among the settlements behind Grand Pré brought reports
equally favorable. On the fourth, another letter
came from Murray: “All the people quiet,
and very busy at their harvest; if this day keeps
fair, all will be in here in their barns. I hope
to-morrow will crown all our wishes.” The
Acadians, like the bees, were to gather a harvest
for others to enjoy. The summons was sent out
that afternoon. Powder and ball were served to
the men, and all were ordered to keep within the lines.
On the next day the inhabitants appeared
at the hour appointed, to the number of four hundred
and eighteen men. Winslow ordered a table to be
set in the middle of the church, and placed on it his
instructions and the address he had prepared.
Here he took his stand in his laced uniform, with
one or two subalterns from the regulars at Fort Edward,
and such of the Massachusetts officers as were not
on guard duty; strong, sinewy figures, bearing, no
doubt, more or less distinctly, the peculiar stamp
with which toil, trade, and Puritanism had imprinted
the features of New England. Their commander
was not of the prevailing type. He was fifty-three
years of age, with double chin, smooth forehead, arched
eyebrows, close powdered wig, and round, rubicund face,
from which the weight of an odious duty had probably
banished the smirk of self-satisfaction that dwelt
there at other times.[276] Nevertheless, he had manly
and estimable qualities. The congregation of peasants,
clad in rough homespun, turned their sunburned faces
upon him, anxious and intent; and Winslow “delivered
them by interpreters the King’s orders in the
following words,” which, retouched in orthography
and syntax, ran thus:—
GENTLEMEN,—I have received
from His Excellency, Governor Lawrence, the King’s
instructions, which I have in my hand. By his
orders you are called together to hear His Majesty’s
final resolution concerning the French inhabitants
of this his province of Nova Scotia, who for
almost half a century have had more indulgence granted
them than any of his subjects in any part of his dominions.
What use you have made of it you yourselves best
know.
The duty I am now upon, though necessary,
is very disagreeable to my natural make and temper,
as I know it must be grievous to you, who are
of the same species. But it is not my business
to animadvert on the orders I have received,
but to obey them; and therefore without hesitation
I shall deliver to you His Majesty’s instructions
and commands, which are that your lands and tenements
and cattle and live-stock of all kinds are forfeited
to the Crown, with all your other effects, except
money and household goods, and that you yourselves
are to be removed from this his province.
The peremptory orders of His Majesty
are that all the French inhabitants of these
districts be removed; and through His Majesty’s
goodness I am directed to allow you the liberty of
carrying with you your money and as many of your
household goods as you can take without overloading
the vessels you go in. I shall do everything
in my power that all these goods be secured to you,
and that you be not molested in carrying them
away, and also that whole families shall go in
the same vessel; so that this removal, which I am
sensible must give you a great deal of trouble, may
be made as easy as His Majesty’s service
will admit; and I hope that in whatever part
of the world your lot may fall, you may be faithful
subjects, and a peaceable and happy people.
I must also inform you
that it is His Majesty’s pleasure that you
remain in security under
the inspection and direction of the troops
that I have the honor
to command.
[Footnote 276: See his portrait,
at the rooms of the Massachusetts Historical Society.]
He then declared them prisoners of
the King. “They were greatly struck,”
he says, “at this determination, though I believe
they did not imagine that they were actually to be
removed.” After delivering the address,
he returned to his quarters at the priest’s
house, whither he was followed by some of the elder
prisoners, who begged leave to tell their families
what had happened, “since they were fearful that
the surprise of their detention would quite overcome
them.” Winslow consulted with his officers,
and it was arranged that the Acadians should choose
twenty of their number each day to revisit their homes,
the rest being held answerable for their return.
A letter, dated some days before,
now came from Major Handfield at Annapolis, saying
that he had tried to secure the men of that neighborhood,
but that many of them had escaped to the woods.
Murray’s report from Fort Edward came soon after,
and was more favorable: “I have succeeded
finely, and have got a hundred and eighty-three men
into my possession.” To which Winslow replies:
“I have the favor of yours of this day, and
rejoice at your success, and also for the smiles that
have attended the party here.” But he adds
mournfully: “Things are now very heavy
on my heart and hands.” The prisoners were
lodged in the church, and notice was sent to their
families to bring them food. “Thus,”
says the Diary of the commander, “ended the
memorable fifth of September, a day of great fatigue
and trouble.”
There was one quarter where fortune
did not always smile. Major Jedediah Preble,
of Winslow’s battalion, wrote to him that Major
Frye had just returned from Chipody, whither he had
gone with a party of men to destroy the settlements
and bring off the women and children. After burning
two hundred and fifty-three buildings he had reimbarked,
leaving fifty men on shore at a place called Peticodiac
to give a finishing stroke to the work by burning
the “Mass House,” or church. While
thus engaged, they were set upon by three hundred
Indians and Acadians, led by the partisan officer
Boishébert. More than half their number were
killed, wounded, or taken. The rest ensconced
themselves behind the neighboring dikes, and Frye,
hastily landing with the rest of his men, engaged
the assailants for three hours, but was forced at last
to reimbark.[277] Captain Speakman, who took part
in the affair, also sent Winslow an account of it,
and added: “The people here are much concerned
for fear your party should meet with the same fate
(being in the heart of a numerous devilish crew),
which I pray God avert.”
[Footnote 277: Also Boishébert
à Drucourt, 10 Oct. 1755, an exaggerated account.
Vaudreuil au Ministre, 18 Oct. 1755, sets Boishébert’s
force at one hundred and twenty-five men.]
Winslow had indeed some cause for
anxiety. He had captured more Acadians since
the fifth; and had now in charge nearly five hundred
able-bodied men, with scarcely three hundred to guard
them. As they were allowed daily exercise in
the open air, they might by a sudden rush get possession
of arms and make serious trouble. On the Wednesday
after the scene in the church some unusual movements
were observed among them, and Winslow and his officers
became convinced that they could not safely be kept
in one body. Five vessels, lately arrived from
Boston, were lying within the mouth of the neighboring
river. It was resolved to place fifty of the
prisoners on board each of these, and keep them anchored
in the Basin. The soldiers were all ordered under
arms, and posted on an open space beside the church
and behind the priest’s house. The prisoners
were then drawn up before them, ranked six deep,—the
young unmarried men, as the most dangerous, being
told off and placed on the left, to the number of
a hundred and forty-one. Captain Adams, with
eighty men, was then ordered to guard them to the vessels.
Though the object of the movement had been explained
to them, they were possessed with the idea that they
were to be torn from their families and sent away
at once; and they all, in great excitement, refused
to go. Winslow told them that there must be no
parley or delay; and as they still refused, a squad
of soldiers advanced towards them with fixed bayonets;
while he himself, laying hold of the foremost young
man, commanded him to move forward. “He
obeyed; and the rest followed, though slowly, and
went off praying, singing, and crying, being met by
the women and children all the way (which is a mile
and a half) with great lamentation, upon their knees,
praying.” When the escort returned, about
a hundred of the married men were ordered to follow
the first party; and, “the ice being broken,”
they readily complied. The vessels were anchored
at a little distance from shore, and six soldiers were
placed on board each of them as a guard. The
prisoners were offered the King’s rations, but
preferred to be supplied by their families, who, it
was arranged, should go in boats to visit them every
day; “and thus,” says Winslow, “ended
this troublesome job.” He was not given
to effusions of feeling, but he wrote to Major Handfield:
“This affair is more grievous to me than any
service I was ever employed in."[278]
[Footnote 278: Haliburton, who
knew Winslow’s Journal only by imperfect extracts,
erroneously states that the men put on board the vessels
were sent away immediately. They remained at
Grand Pré several weeks, and were then sent off at
intervals with their families.]
Murray sent him a note of congratulation:
“I am extremely pleased that things are so clever
at Grand Pré, and that the poor devils are so resigned.
Here they are more patient than I could have expected
for people in their circumstances; and what surprises
me still more is the indifference of the women, who
really are, or seem, quite unconcerned. I long
much to see the poor wretches embarked and our affair
a little settled; and then I will do myself the pleasure
of meeting you and drinking their good voyage.”
This agreeable consummation was still
distant. There was a long and painful delay.
The provisions for the vessels which were to carry
the prisoners did not come; nor did the vessels themselves,
excepting the five already at Grand Pré. In vain
Winslow wrote urgent letters to George Saul, the commissary,
to bring the supplies at once. Murray, at Fort
Edward, though with less feeling than his brother officer,
was quite as impatient of the burden of suffering
humanity on his hands. “I am amazed what
can keep the transports and Saul. Surely our friend
at Chignecto is willing to give us as much of our
neighbors’ company as he well can."[279] Saul
came at last with a shipload of provisions; but the
lagging transports did not appear. Winslow grew
heart-sick at the daily sight of miseries which he
himself had occasioned, and wrote to a friend at Halifax:
“I know they deserve all and more than they feel;
yet it hurts me to hear their weeping and wailing
and gnashing of teeth. I am in hopes our affairs
will soon put on another face, and we get transports,
and I rid of the worst piece of service that ever I
was in.”
[Footnote 279: Murray to Winslow, 26 Sept.
1755.]
After weeks of delay, seven transports
came from Annapolis; and Winslow sent three of them
to Murray, who joyfully responded: “Thank
God, the transports are come at last. So soon
as I have shipped off my rascals, I will come down
and settle matters with you, and enjoy ourselves a
little.”
Winslow prepared for the embarkation.
The Acadian prisoners and their families were divided
into groups answering to their several villages, in
order that those of the same village might, as far
as possible, go in the same vessel. It was also
provided that the members of each family should remain
together; and notice was given them to hold themselves
in readiness. “But even now,” he
writes, “I could not persuade the people I was
in earnest.” Their doubts were soon ended.
The first embarkation took place on the eighth of
October, under which date the Diary contains this
entry: “Began to embark the inhabitants
who went off very solentarily [sic] and unwillingly,
the women in great distress, carrying off their children
in their arms; others carrying their decrepit parents
in their carts, with all their goods; moving in great
confusion, and appeared a scene of woe and distress."[280]
[Footnote 280: In spite of Winslow’s
care, some cases of separation of families occurred;
but they were not numerous.]
Though a large number were embarked
on this occasion, still more remained; and as the
transports slowly arrived, the dismal scene was repeated
at intervals, with more order than at first, as the
Acadians had learned to accept their fate as a certainty.
So far as Winslow was concerned, their treatment seems
to have been as humane as was possible under the circumstances;
but they complained of the men, who disliked and despised
them. One soldier received thirty lashes for stealing
fowls from them; and an order was issued forbidding
soldiers or sailors, on pain of summary punishment,
to leave their quarters without permission, “that
an end may be put to distressing this distressed people.”
Two of the prisoners, however, while trying to escape,
were shot by a reconnoitring party.
At the beginning of November Winslow
reported that he had sent off fifteen hundred and
ten persons, in nine vessels, and that more than six
hundred still remained in his district.[281] The last
of these were not embarked till late in December.
Murray finished his part of the work at the end of
October, having sent from the district of Fort Edward
eleven hundred persons in four frightfully crowded
transports.[282] At the close of that month sixteen
hundred and sixty-four had been sent from the district
of Annapolis, where many others escaped to the woods.[283]
A detachment which was ordered to seize the inhabitants
of the district of Cobequid failed entirely, finding
the settlements abandoned. In the country about
Fort Cumberland, Monckton, who directed the operation
in person, had very indifferent success, catching
in all but little more than a thousand.[284] Le Guerne,
missionary priest in this neighborhood, gives a characteristic
and affecting incident of the embarkation. “Many
unhappy women, carried away by excessive attachment
to their husbands, whom they had been allowed to see
too often, and closing their ears to the voice of
religion and their missionary, threw themselves blindly
and despairingly into the English vessels. And
now was seen the saddest of spectacles; for some of
these women, solely from a religious motive, refused
to take with them their grown-up sons and daughters."[285]
They would expose their own souls to perdition among
heretics, but not those of their children.
[Footnote 281: Winslow to Monckton, 3 Nov.
1755.]
[Footnote 282: Ibid.]
[Footnote 283: Captain Adams
to Winslow, 29 Nov. 1755; see also Knox, I. 85,
who exactly confirms Adams’s figures.]
[Footnote 284: Monckton to Winslow, 7 Oct.
1755.]
[Footnote 285: Le Guerne à Prévost, 10 Mars,
1756.]
When all, or nearly all, had been
sent off from the various points of departure, such
of the houses and barns as remained standing were
burned, in obedience to the orders of Lawrence, that
those who had escaped might be forced to come in and
surrender themselves. The whole number removed
from the province, men, women, and children, was a
little above six thousand. Many remained behind;
and while some of these withdrew to Canada, Isle St.
Jean, and other distant retreats, the rest lurked
in the woods or returned to their old haunts, whence
they waged, for several years a guerilla warfare against
the English. Yet their strength was broken, and
they were no longer a danger to the province.
Of their exiled countrymen, one party
overpowered the crew of the vessel that carried them,
ran her ashore at the mouth of the St. John, and escaped.[286]
The rest were distributed among the colonies from
Massachusetts to Georgia, the master of each transport
having been provided with a letter from Lawrence addressed
to the Governor of the province to which he was bound,
and desiring him to receive the unwelcome strangers.
The provincials were vexed at the burden imposed upon
them; and though the Acadians were not in general ill-treated,
their lot was a hard one. Still more so was that
of those among them who escaped to Canada. The
chronicle of the Ursulines of Quebec, speaking of
these last, says that their misery was indescribable,
and attributes it to the poverty of the colony.
But there were other causes. The exiles found
less pity from kindred and fellow Catholics than from
the heretics of the English colonies. Some of
them who had made their way to Canada from Boston,
whither they had been transported, sent word to a gentleman
of that place who had befriended them, that they wished
to return.[287] Bougainville, the celebrated navigator,
then aide-de-camp to Montcalm, says concerning them:
“They are dying by wholesale. Their past
and present misery, joined to the rapacity of the
Canadians, who seek only to squeeze out of them all
the money they can, and then refuse them the help
so dearly bought, are the cause of this mortality.”
“A citizen of Quebec,” he says farther
on, “was in debt to one of the partners of the
Great Company [Government officials leagued for
plunder]. He had no means of paying.
They gave him a great number of Acadians to board and
lodge. He starved them with hunger and cold, got
out of them what money they had, and paid the extortioner.
Quel pays! Quels moeurs!"[288]
[Footnote 286: Lettre commune
de Drucour et Prévost au Ministre, 6 Avril, 1756.
Vaudreuil au Ministre, 1 Juin, 1756.]
[Footnote 287: Hutchinson, Hist.
Mass., III. 42, note.]
[Footnote 288: Bougainville,
Journal, 1756-1758. His statements are
sustained by Mémoires sur le Canada, 1749-1760.]
Many of the exiles eventually reached
Louisiana, where their descendants now form a numerous
and distinct population. Some, after incredible
hardship, made their way back to Acadia, where, after
the peace, they remained unmolested, and, with those
who had escaped seizure, became the progenitors of
the present Acadians, now settled in various parts
of the British maritime provinces, notably at Madawaska,
on the upper St. John, and at Clare, in Nova Scotia.
Others were sent from Virginia to England; and others
again, after the complete conquest of the country,
found refuge in France.
In one particular the authors of the
deportation were disappointed in its results.
They had hoped to substitute a loyal population for
a disaffected one; but they failed for some time to
find settlers for the vacated lands. The Massachusetts
soldiers, to whom they were offered, would not stay
in the province; and it was not till five years later
that families of British stock began to occupy the
waste fields of the Acadians. This goes far to
show that a longing to become their heirs had not,
as has been alleged, any considerable part in the motives
for their removal.
New England humanitarianism, melting
into sentimentality at a tale of woe, has been unjust
to its own. Whatever judgment may be passed on
the cruel measure of wholesale expatriation, it was
not put in execution till every resource of patience
and persuasion had been tried in vain. The agents
of the French Court, civil, military, and ecclesiastical,
had made some act of force a necessity. We have
seen by what vile practices they produced in Acadia
a state of things intolerable, and impossible of continuance.
They conjured up the tempest; and when it burst on
the heads of the unhappy people, they gave no help.
The Government of Louis XV. began with making the
Acadians its tools, and ended with making them its
victims.[289]
[Footnote 289: It may not be
remembered that the predecessor of Louis XV., without
the slightest provocation or the pretence of any, gave
orders that the whole Protestant population of the
colony of New York, amounting to about eighteen thousand,
should be seized, despoiled of their property, placed
on board his ships and dispersed among the other British
colonies in such a way that they could not reunite.
Want of power alone prevented the execution of the
order.]
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