1712-1749.
LOUISBOURG AND ACADIA.
Peace of Utrecht.--Perilous Questions.--Louisbourg founded.--Annapolis
attacked.--Position of the Acadians.--Weakness of the British
Garrison.--Apathy of the Ministry.--French Intrigue.--Clerical
Politicians.--The Oath of Allegiance.--Acadians refuse it: their
Expulsion proposed; they take the Oath.
The great European war was drawing to an end, and with it the American
war, which was but its echo. An avalanche of defeat and disaster had
fallen upon the old age of Louis XIV., and France was burdened with an
insupportable load of debt. The political changes in England came to her
relief. Fifty years later, when the elder Pitt went out of office and
Bute came in, France had cause to be grateful; for the peace of 1763 was
far more favorable to her than it would have been under the imperious
war minister. It was the same in 1712. The Whigs who had fallen from
power would have wrung every advantage from France; the triumphant
Tories were eager to close with her on any terms not so easy as to
excite popular indignation. The result was the Treaty of Utrecht, which
satisfied none of the allies of England, and gave to France conditions
more favorable than she had herself proposed two years before. The fall
of Godolphin and the disgrace of Marlborough were a godsend to her.
Yet in America Louis XIV. made important concessions. The Five Nations
of the Iroquois were acknowledged to be British subjects; and this
became in future the preposterous foundation for vast territorial claims
of England. Hudson Bay, Newfoundland, and Acadia, "according to its
ancient limits," were also given over by France to her successful rival;
though the King parted from Acadia with a reluctance shown by the great
offers he made for permission to retain it.[185]
But while the Treaty of Utrecht seemed to yield so much, and yielded so
much in fact, it staved off the settlement of questions absolutely
necessary for future peace. The limits of Acadia, the boundary line
between Canada and the British colonies, and the boundary between those
colonies and the great western wilderness claimed by France, were all
left unsettled, since the attempt to settle them would have rekindled
the war. The peace left the embers of war still smouldering, sure, when
the time should come, to burst into flame. The next thirty years were
years of chronic, smothered war, disguised, but never quite at rest.
The standing subjects of dispute were three, very different in
importance. First, the question of Acadia: whether the treaty gave
England a vast country, or only a strip of seacoast. Next, that of
northern New England and the Abenaki Indians, many of whom French policy
still left within the borders of Maine, and whom both powers claimed as
subjects or allies. Last and greatest was the question whether France or
England should hold the valleys of the Mississippi and the Great Lakes,
and with them the virtual control of the continent. This was the triple
problem that tormented the northern English colonies for more than a
generation, till it found a solution at last in the Seven Years' War.
Louis XIV. had deeply at heart the recovery of Acadia. Yet the old and
infirm King, whose sun was setting in clouds after half a century of
unrivalled splendor, felt that peace was a controlling necessity, and he
wrote as follows to his plenipotentiaries at Utrecht: "It is so
important to prevent the breaking off of the negotiations that the King
will give up both Acadia and Cape Breton, if necessary for peace; but
the plenipotentiaries will yield this point only in the last extremity,
for by this double cession Canada will become useless, the access to it
will be closed, the fisheries will come to an end, and the French marine
be utterly destroyed."[186] And he adds that if the English will restore
Acadia, he, the King, will give them, not only St. Christopher, but
also the islands of St. Martin and St. Bartholomew.
The plenipotentiaries replied that the offer was refused, and that the
best they could do without endangering the peace was to bargain that
Cape Breton should belong to France.[187] On this, the King bid higher
still for the coveted province, and promised that if Acadia were
returned to him, the fortifications of Placentia should be given up
untouched, the cannon in the forts of Hudson Bay abandoned to the
English, and the Newfoundland fisheries debarred to Frenchmen,[188]--a
remarkable concession; for France had fished on the banks of
Newfoundland for two centuries, and they were invaluable to her as a
nursery of sailors. Even these offers were rejected, and England would
not resign Acadia.
Cape Breton was left to the French. This large island, henceforth called
by its owners Isle Royale, lies east of Acadia, and is separated from it
only by the narrow Strait of Canseau. From its position, it commands the
chief entrance of the gulf and river of St. Lawrence. Some years before,
the intendant Raudot had sent to the court an able paper, in which he
urged its occupation and settlement, chiefly on commercial and
industrial grounds. The war was then at its height; the plan was not
carried into effect, and Isle Royale was still a wilderness. It was now
proposed to occupy it for military and political reasons. One of its
many harbors, well fortified and garrisoned, would guard the approaches
of Canada, and in the next war furnish a base for attacking New England
and recovering Acadia.
After some hesitation the harbor called Port à l'Anglois was chosen for
the proposed establishment, to which the name of Louisbourg was given,
in honor of the King. It lies near the southeastern point of the island,
where an opening in the ironbound coast, at once easily accessible and
easily defended, gives entrance to a deep and sheltered basin, where a
fleet of war-ships may find good anchorage. The proposed fortress was to
be placed on the tongue of land that lies between this basin and the
sea. The place, well chosen from the point of view of the soldier or the
fisherman, was unfit for an agricultural colony, its surroundings being
barren hills studded with spruce and fir, and broad marshes buried in
moss.
In spite of the losses and humiliations of the war, great expectations
were formed from the new scheme. Several years earlier, when the
proposals of Raudot were before the Marine Council, it was confidently
declared that a strong fortress on Cape Breton would make the King
master of North America. The details of the establishment were settled
in advance. The King was to build the fortifications, supply them with
cannon, send out eight companies of soldiers, besides all the usual
officers of government, establish a well-endowed hospital, conducted by
nuns, as at Quebec, provide Jesuits and Récollets as chaplains, besides
Filles de la Congrégation to teach girls, send families to the spot,
support them for two years, and furnish a good number of young women to
marry the soldiers.[189]
This plan, or something much like it, was carried into effect.
Louisbourg was purely and solely the offspring of the Crown and its
ally, the Church. In time it grew into a compact fishing town of about
four thousand inhabitants, with a strong garrison and a circuit of
formidable ramparts and batteries. It became by far the strongest
fortress on the Atlantic coast, and so famous as a resort of privateers
that it was known as the Dunquerque of America.
What concerns us now is its weak and troubled infancy. It was to be
peopled in good part from the two lost provinces of Acadia and
Newfoundland, whose inhabitants were to be transported to Louisbourg or
other parts of Isle Royale, which would thus be made at once and at the
least possible cost a dangerous neighbor to the newly acquired
possessions of England. The Micmacs of Acadia, and even some of the
Abenakis, were to be included in this scheme of immigration.
In the autumn, the commandant of Plaisance, or Placentia,--the French
stronghold in Newfoundland,--received the following mandate from the
King:--
Monsieur de Costebelle,--I have caused my orders to be given you to
evacuate the town and forts of Plaisance and the other places of
your government of Newfoundland, ceded to my dear sister the Queen
of Great Britain. I have given my orders for the equipment of the
vessels necessary to make the evacuation and transport you, with
the officers, garrison, and inhabitants of Plaisance and other
places of Newfoundland, to my Isle Royale, vulgarly called Cape
Breton; but as the season is so far advanced that this cannot be
done without exposing my troops and my subjects to perishing from
cold and misery, and placing my vessels in evident peril of wreck,
I have judged it proper to defer the transportation till the next
spring.[190]
The inhabitants of Placentia consisted only of twenty-five or thirty
poor fishermen, with their families,[191] and some of them would gladly
have become English subjects and stayed where they were; but no choice
was given them. "Nothing," writes Costebelle, "can cure them of the
error, to which they obstinately cling, that they are free to stay or
go, as best suits their interest."[192] They and their fishing-boats
were in due time transported to Isle Royale, where for a while their
sufferings were extreme.
Attempts were made to induce the Indians of Acadia to move to the new
colony; but they refused, and to compel them was out of the question.
But by far the most desirable accession to the establishment of Isle
Royale would be that of the Acadian French, who were too numerous to be
transported in the summary manner practised in the case of the fishermen
of Placentia. It was necessary to persuade rather than compel them to
migrate, and to this end great reliance was placed on their priests,
especially Fathers Pain and Dominique. Ponchartrain himself wrote to the
former on the subject. The priest declares that he read the letter to
his flock, who answered that they wished to stay in Acadia; and he adds
that the other Acadians were of the same mind, being unwilling to leave
their rich farms and risk starvation on a wild and barren island.[193]
"Nevertheless," he concludes, "we shall fulfil the intentions of his
Majesty by often holding before their eyes that religion for which they
ought to make every sacrifice." He and his brother priests kept their
word. Freedom of worship was pledged on certain conditions to the
Acadians by the Treaty of Utrecht, and no attempt was ever made to
deprive them of it; yet the continual declaration of their missionaries
that their souls were in danger under English rule was the strongest
spur to impel them to migrate.
The condition of the English in Acadia since it fell into their hands
had been a critical one. Port Royal, thenceforth called Annapolis Royal,
or simply Annapolis, had been left, as before mentioned, in charge of
Colonel Vetch, with a heterogeneous garrison of four hundred and fifty
men.[194] The Acadians of the _banlieue_--a term defined as covering a
space of three miles round the fort--had been included in the
capitulation, and had taken an oath of allegiance to Queen Anne, binding
so long as they remained in the province. Some of them worked, for the
garrison and helped to repair the fort, which was in a ruinous
condition. Meanwhile the Micmac Indians remained fiercely hostile to the
English; and in June, 1711, aided by a band of Penobscots, they
ambuscaded and killed or captured nearly seventy of them. This
completely changed the attitude of the Acadians. They broke their oath,
rose against their new masters, and with their Indian friends, invested
the fort to the number of five or six hundred. Disease, desertion, and
the ambuscade had reduced the garrison to about two hundred effective
men, and the defences of the place were still in bad condition.[195] The
assailants, on the other hand, had no better leader than the priest,
Gaulin, missionary of the Micmacs and prime mover in the rising. He
presently sailed for Placentia to beg for munitions and a commander; but
his errand failed, the siege came to nought, and the besiegers
dispersed. Vaudreuil, from whom the Acadians had begged help, was about
to send it when news of the approach of Walker's fleet forced him to
keep all his strength for his own defence.
From this time to the end of the war, the chief difficulties of the
governor of Acadia rose, not from the enemy, but from the British
authorities at home. For more than two years he, with his starved and
tattered garrison, were treated with absolute neglect. He received no
orders, instructions, or money.[196] Acadia seemed forgotten by the
ministry, till Vetch heard at last that Nicholson was appointed to
succeed him.
Now followed the Treaty of Utrecht, the cession of Acadia to England,
and the attempt on the part of France to induce the Acadians to remove
to Isle Royale. Some of the English officials had once been of opinion
that this French Catholic population should be transported to Martinique
or some other distant French colony, and its place supplied by
Protestant families sent from England or Ireland.[197] Since the English
Revolution, Protestantism was bound up with the new political order, and
Catholicism with the old. No Catholic could favor the Protestant
succession, and hence politics were inseparable from creed. Vetch, who
came of a race of hot and stubborn Covenanters, had been one of the most
earnest for replacing the Catholic Acadians by Protestants; but after
the peace he and others changed their minds. No Protestant colonists
appeared, nor was there the smallest sign that the government would give
itself the trouble to attract any. It was certain that if the Acadians
removed at all, they would go, not to Martinique or any other distant
colony, but to the new military establishment of Isle Royale, which
would thus become a strong and dangerous neighbor to the feeble British
post of Annapolis. Moreover, the labor of the French inhabitants was
useful and sometimes necessary to the English garrison, which depended
mainly on them for provisions; and if they left the province, they would
leave it a desert, with the prospect of long remaining so.
Hence it happened that the English were for a time almost as anxious to
keep the Acadians in Acadia as they were forty years later to get them
out of it; nor had the Acadians themselves any inclination to leave
their homes. But the French authorities needed them at Isle Royale, and
made every effort to draw them thither. By the fourteenth article of the
Treaty of Utrecht such of them as might choose to leave Acadia were free
to do so within the space of a year, carrying with them their personal
effects; while a letter of Queen Anne, addressed to Nicholson, then
governor of Acadia, permitted the emigrants to sell their lands and
houses.
The missionary Félix Pain had reported, as we have seen, that they were,
in general, disposed to remain where they were; on which Costebelle, who
now commanded at Louisbourg, sent two officers, La Ronde Denys and
Pensens, with instructions to set the priests at work to persuade their
flocks to move.[198] La Ronde Denys and his colleague repaired to
Annapolis, where they promised the inhabitants vessels for their
removal, provisions for a year, and freedom from all taxation for ten
years. Then, having been well prepared in advance, the heads of families
were formed in a circle, and in presence of the English governor, the
two French officers, and the priests Justinien, Bonaventure, and Gaulin,
they all signed, chiefly with crosses, a paper to the effect that they
would live and die subjects of the King of France.[199] A few embarked
at once for Isle Royale in the vessel "Marie-Joseph," and the rest were
to follow within the year.
This result was due partly to the promises of La Ronde Denys, and still
more to a pastoral letter from the Bishop of Quebec, supporting the
assurances of the missionaries that the heretics would rob them of the
ministrations of the Church. This was not all. The Acadians about
Annapolis had been alienated by the conduct of the English authorities,
which was not conciliating, and on the part of the governor was
sometimes outrageous.[200] Yet those of the _banlieue_ had no right to
complain, since they had made themselves liable to the penalties of
treason by first taking an oath of allegiance to Queen Anne, and then
breaking it by trying to seize her fort.[201]
Governor Nicholson, like his predecessor, was resolved to keep the
Acadians in the province if he could. This personage, able, energetic,
perverse, headstrong, and unscrupulous, conducted himself, even towards
the English officers and soldiers, in a manner that seems unaccountable,
and that kindled their utmost indignation.[202] Towards the Acadians his
behavior was still worse. As Costebelle did not keep his promise to send
vessels to bring them to Isle Royale, they built small ones for
themselves, and the French authorities at Louisbourg sent them the
necessary rigging. Nicholson ordered it back, forbade the sale of their
lands and houses,--a needless stretch of power, as there was nobody to
buy,--and would not let them sell even their personal effects, coolly
setting at nought both the Treaty of Utrecht and the letter of the
Queen.[203]
Nicholson was but a short time at Annapolis, leaving the government,
during most of his term, to his deputies, Caulfield and afterwards
Doucette, both of whom roundly denounce their principal for his general
conduct; while both, in one degree or another, followed his example in
preventing so far as they could the emigration of the Acadians. Some of
them, however, got away, and twelve or fifteen families who settled at
Port Toulouse, on Isle Royale, were near perishing from cold and
hunger.[204]
From Annapolis the French agents, La Ronde Denys and Pensens, proceeded
to the settlements about Chignecto and the Basin of Mines,--the most
populous and prosperous parts of Acadia. Here they were less successful
than before. The people were doubtful and vacillating,--ready enough to
promise, but slow to perform. While declaring with perfect sincerity
their devotion to "our invincible monarch," as they called King Louis,
who had just been compelled to surrender their country, they clung
tenaciously to the abodes of their fathers. If they had wished to
emigrate, the English governor had no power to stop them. From Baye
Verte, on the isthmus, they had frequent and easy communication with
the French at Louisbourg, which the English did not and could not
interrupt. They were armed, and they far outnumbered the English
garrison; while at a word they could bring to their aid the Micmac
warriors, who had been taught to detest the English heretics as foes of
God and man. To say that they wished to leave Acadia, but were prevented
from doing so by a petty garrison at the other end of the province, so
feeble that it could hardly hold Annapolis itself, is an unjust reproach
upon a people who, though ignorant and weak of purpose, were not wanting
in physical courage. The truth is that from this time to their forced
expatriation in 1755, all the Acadians, except those of Annapolis and
its immediate neighborhood, were free to go or stay at will. Those of
the eastern parts of the province especially, who formed the greater
part of the population, were completely their own masters. This was well
known to the French authorities. The governor of Louisbourg complains of
the apathy of the Acadians.[205] Saint-Ovide declares that they do not
want to fulfil the intentions of the King and remove to Isle Royale.
Costebelle makes the same complaint; and again, after three years of
vain attempts to overcome their reluctance, he writes that every effort
has failed to induce them to migrate.
From this time forward the state of affairs in Acadia was a peculiar
one. By the Treaty of Utrecht it was a British province, and the nominal
sovereignty resided at Annapolis, in the keeping of the miserable
little fort and the puny garrison, which as late as 1743 consisted of
but five companies, counting, when the ranks were full, thirty-one men
each.[206] More troops were often asked for, and once or twice were
promised; but they were never sent. "This has been hitherto no more than
a mock government, its authority never yet having extended beyond
cannon-shot of the fort," wrote Governor Philipps in 1720. "It would be
more for the honour of the Crown, and profit also, to give back the
country to the French, than to be contented with the name only of
government."[207] Philipps repaired the fort, which, as the engineer
Mascarene says, "had lain tumbling down" before his arrival; but
Annapolis and the whole province remained totally neglected and almost
forgotten by England till the middle of the century. At one time the
soldiers were in so ragged a plight that Lieutenant-Colonel Armstrong
was forced to clothe them at his own expense.[208]
While this seat of British sovereignty remained in unchanging feebleness
for more than forty years, the French Acadians were multiplying apace.
Before 1749 they were the only white inhabitants of the province,
except ten or twelve English families who, about the year 1720, lived
under the guns of Annapolis. At the time of the cession the French
population seems not to have exceeded two thousand souls, about five
hundred of whom lived within the _banlieue_ of Annapolis, and were
therefore more or less under English control. They were all alike a
simple and ignorant peasantry, prosperous in their humble way, and happy
when rival masters ceased from troubling, though vexed with incessant
quarrels among themselves, arising from the unsettled boundaries of
their lands, which had never been properly surveyed. Their mental
horizon was of the narrowest, their wants were few, no military service
was asked of them by the English authorities, and they paid no taxes to
the government. They could even indulge their strong appetite for
litigation free of cost; for when, as often happened, they brought their
land disputes before the Council at Annapolis, the cases were settled
and the litigants paid no fees. Their communication with the English
officials was carried on through deputies chosen by themselves, and
often as ignorant as their constituents, for a remarkable equality
prevailed through this primitive little society.
Except the standing garrison at Annapolis, Acadia was as completely let
alone by the British government as Rhode Island or Connecticut.
Unfortunately, the traditional British policy of inaction towards her
colonies was not applicable in the case of a newly conquered province
with a disaffected population and active, enterprising, and martial
neighbors bent on recovering what they had lost. Yet it might be
supposed that a neglect so invigorating in other cases might have
developed among the Acadians habits of self-reliance and faculties of
self-care. The reverse took place; for if England neglected Acadia,
France did not; and though she had renounced her title to it, she still
did her best to master it and make it hers again. The chief instrument
of her aggressive policy was the governor of Isle Royale, whose station
was the fortress of Louisbourg, and who was charged with the management
of Acadian affairs. At all the Acadian settlements he had zealous and
efficient agents in the missionary priests, who were sent into the
province by the Bishop of Quebec, or in a few cases by their immediate
ecclesiastical superiors in Isle Royale.
The Treaty of Utrecht secured freedom of worship to the Acadians under
certain conditions. These were that they should accept the sovereignty
of the British Crown, and that they and their pastors should keep within
the limits of British law.[209] Even supposing that by swearing
allegiance to Queen Anne the Acadians had acquired the freedom of
worship which the treaty gave them on condition of their becoming
British subjects, it would have been an abuse of this freedom to use it
for subverting the power that had granted it. Yet this is what the
missionaries did. They were not only priests of the Roman Church, they
were also agents of the King of France; and from first to last they
labored against the British government in the country that France had
ceded to the British Crown. So confident were they, and with so much
reason, of the weakness of their opponents that they openly avowed that
their object was to keep the Acadians faithful to King Louis. When two
of their number, Saint-Poncy and Chevereaux, were summoned before the
Council at Annapolis, they answered, with great contempt, "We are here
on the business of the King of France." They were ordered to leave
Acadia. One of them stopped among the Indians at Cape Sable; the other,
in defiance of the Council, was sent back to Annapolis by the Governor
of Isle Royale.[210] Apparently he was again ordered away; for four
years later the French governor, in expectation of speedy war, sent him
to Chignecto with orders secretly to prepare the Acadians for an attack
on Annapolis.[211]
The political work of the missionaries began with the cession of the
colony, and continued with increasing activity till 1755, kindling the
impotent wrath of the British officials, and drawing forth the bitter
complaints of every successive governor. For this world and the next,
the priests were fathers of their flocks, generally commanding their
attachment, and always their obedience. Except in questions of disputed
boundaries, where the Council alone could settle the title, the
ecclesiastics took the place of judges and courts of justice, enforcing
their decisions by refusal of the sacraments.[212] They often treated
the British officials with open scorn. Governor Armstrong writes to the
Lords of Trade: "Without some particular directions as to the insolent
behavior of those priests, the people will never be brought to
obedience, being by them incited to daily acts of rebellion." Another
governor complains that they tell the Acadians of the destitution of the
soldiers and the ruinous state of the fort, and assure them that the
Pretender will soon be King of England, and that Acadia will then return
to France.[213] "The bearer, Captain Bennett," writes Armstrong, "can
further tell your Grace of the disposition of the French inhabitants of
this province, and of the conduct of their missionary priests, who
instil hatred into both Indians and French against the English."[214] As
to the Indians, Governor Philipps declares that their priests hear a
general confession from them twice a year, and give them absolution on
condition of always being enemies of the English.[215] The condition was
easy, thanks to the neglect of the British government, which took no
pains to conciliate the Micmacs, while the French governor of Isle
Royale corresponded secretly with them and made them yearly presents.
In 1720 Philipps advised the recall of the French priests, and the
sending of others in their place, as the only means of making British
subjects of the Acadians,[216] who at that time, having constantly
refused the oath of allegiance, were not entitled, under the treaty, to
the exercise of their religion. Governor Armstrong wrote sixteen years
after: "By some of the above papers your Grace will be informed how high
the French government carries its pretensions over its priests'
obedience; and how to prevent the evil consequences I know not, unless
we could have missionaries from places independent of that Crown."[217]
He expresses a well-grounded doubt whether the home government will be
at the trouble and expense of such a change, though he adds that there
is not a missionary among either Acadians or Indians who is not in the
pay of France.[218] Gaulin, missionary of the Micmacs, received a
"gratification" of fifteen hundred livres, besides an annual allowance
of five hundred, and is described in the order granting it as a "brave
man, capable even of leading these savages on an expedition."[219] In
1726 he was brought before the Council at Annapolis charged with
incendiary conduct among both Indians and Acadians; but on asking pardon
and promising nevermore to busy himself with affairs of government, he
was allowed to remain in the province, and even to act as curé of the
Mines.[220] No evidence appears that the British authorities ever
molested a priest, except when detected in practices alien to his proper
functions and injurious to the government. On one occasion when two
cures were vacant, one through sedition and the other apparently through
illness or death, Lieutenant-Governor Armstrong requested the governor
of Isle Royale to send two priests "of known probity" to fill them.[221]
Who were answerable for the anomalous state of affairs in the
province,--the _imperium in imperio_ where the inner power waxed and
strengthened every day, and the outer relatively pined and dwindled? It
was not mainly the Crown of France nor its agents, secular or clerical.
Their action under the circumstances, though sometimes inexcusable, was
natural, and might have been foreseen. Nor was it the Council at
Annapolis, who had little power either for good or evil. It was mainly
the neglect and apathy of the British ministers, who seemed careless as
to whether they kept Acadia or lost it, apparently thinking it not worth
their notice.
About the middle of the century they wakened from their lethargy, and
warned by the signs of the times, sent troops and settlers into the
province at the eleventh hour. France and her agents took alarm, and
redoubled their efforts to keep their hold on a country which they had
begun to regard as theirs already. The settlement of the English at
Halifax startled the French into those courses of intrigue and violence
which were the immediate cause of the removal of the Acadians in 1755.
At the earlier period which we are now considering, the storm was still
remote. The English made no attempt either to settle the province or to
secure it by sufficient garrisons; they merely tried to bind the
inhabitants by an oath of allegiance which the weakness of the
government would constantly tempt them to break. When George I. came to
the throne, Deputy-Governor Caulfield tried to induce the inhabitants to
swear allegiance to the new monarch. The Acadians asked advice of
Saint-Ovide, governor at Louisbourg, who sent them elaborate directions
how to answer the English demand and remain at the same time faithful
children of France. Neither Caulfield nor his successor could carry
their point. The Treaty of Utrecht, as we have seen, gave the Acadians a
year in which to choose between remaining in the province and becoming
British subjects, or leaving it as subjects of the King of France. The
year had long ago expired, and most of them were still in Acadia,
unwilling to leave it, yet refusing to own King George. In 1720 General
Richard Philipps, the governor of the province, set himself to the task
of getting the oath taken, while the missionaries and the French
officers at Isle Royale strenuously opposed his efforts. He issued a
proclamation ordering the Acadians to swear allegiance to the King of
England or leave the country, without their property, within four
months. In great alarm, they appealed to their priests, and begged the
Récollet, Père Justinien, curé of Mines, to ask advice and help from
Saint-Ovide, successor of Costebelle at Louisbourg, protesting that they
would abandon all rather than renounce their religion and their
King.[222] At the same time they prepared for a general emigration by
way of the isthmus and Baye Verte, where it would have been impossible
to stop them.[223]
Without the influence of their spiritual and temporal advisers, to whom
they turned in all their troubles, it is clear that the Acadians would
have taken the oath and remained in tranquil enjoyment of their homes;
but it was then thought important to French interests that they should
remove either to Isle Royale or to Isle St. Jean, now Prince Edward's
Island. Hence no means were spared to prevent them from becoming British
subjects, if only in name; even the Micmacs were enlisted in the good
work, and induced to threaten them with their enmity if they should fail
in allegiance to King Louis. Philipps feared that the Acadians would
rise in arms if he insisted on the harsh requirements of his
proclamation; in which case his position would have been difficult, as
they now outnumbered his garrison about five to one. Therefore he
extended indefinitely the term of four months, that he had fixed for
their final choice, and continued to urge and persuade, without gaining
a step towards the desired result. In vain he begged for aid from the
British authorities. They would do nothing for him, but merely observed
that while the French officers and priests had such influence over the
Acadians, they would never be good subjects, and so had better be put
out of the country.[224] This was easier said than done; for at this
very time there were signs that the Acadians and the Micmacs would unite
to put out the English garrison.[225]
Philipps was succeeded by a deputy-governor, Lieutenant-Colonel
Armstrong,--a person of ardent impulses and unstable disposition. He
applied himself with great zeal and apparent confidence to accomplishing
the task in which his principal had failed. In fact, he succeeded in
1726 in persuading the inhabitants about Annapolis to take the oath,
with a proviso that they should not be called upon for military service;
but the main body of the Acadians stiffly refused. In the next year he
sent Ensign Wroth to Mines, Chignecto, and neighboring settlements to
renew the attempt on occasion of the accession of George II. The envoy's
instructions left much to his discretion or his indiscretion, and he
came back with the signatures, or crosses, of the inhabitants attached
to an oath so clogged with conditions that it left them free to return
to their French allegiance whenever they chose.
Philipps now came back to Acadia to resume his difficult task. And here
a surprise meets us. He reported a complete success. The Acadians, as he
declared, swore allegiance without reserve to King George; but he does
not tell us how they were brought to do so. Compulsion was out of the
question. They could have cut to pieces any part of the paltry English
garrison that might venture outside the ditches of Annapolis, or they
might have left Acadia, with all their goods and chattels, with no
possibility of stopping them. The taking of the oath was therefore a
voluntary act.
But what was the oath? The words reported by Philipps were as follows:
"I promise and swear sincerely, on the faith of a Christian, that I will
be entirely faithful, and will truly obey his Majesty King George the
Second, whom I recognize as sovereign lord of Acadia or Nova Scotia. So
help me God." To this the Acadians affixed their crosses, or, in
exceptional cases, their names. Recently, however, evidence has appeared
that, so far at least as regards the Acadians on and near Mines Basin,
the effect of the oath was qualified by a promise on the part of
Philipps that they should not be required to take up arms against either
French or Indians,--they on their part promising never to take up arms
against the English. This statement is made by Gaudalie, curé of the
parish of Mines, and Noiville, priest at Pigiquid, or Pisiquid, now
Windsor.[226] In fact, the English never had the folly to call on the
Acadians to fight for them; and the greater part of this peace-loving
people were true to their promise not to take arms against the English,
though a considerable number of them did so, especially at the
beginning of the Seven Years' War. It was to this promise, whether kept
or broken, that they owed their name of Neutral French.
From first to last, the Acadians remained in a child-like dependence on
their spiritual and temporal guides. Not one of their number stands out
prominently from among the rest. They seem to have been totally devoid
of natural leaders, and, unhappily for themselves, left their fate in
the hands of others. Yet they were fully aware of their numerical
strength, and had repeatedly declared, in a manner that the English
officers called insolent, that they would neither leave the country nor
swear allegiance to King George. The truth probably is that those who
governed them had become convinced that this simple population, which
increased rapidly, and could always be kept French at heart, might be
made more useful to France in Acadia than out of it, and that it was
needless further to oppose the taking of an oath which would leave them
in quiet possession of their farms without making any change in their
feelings, and probably none in their actions. By force of natural
increase Acadia would in time become the seat of a large population
ardently French and ardently Catholic; and while officials in France
sometimes complained of the reluctance of the Acadians to move to Isle
Royale, those who directed them in their own country seem to have become
willing that they should stay where they were, and place themselves in
such relations with the English as should leave them free to increase
and multiply undisturbed. Deceived by the long apathy of the British
government, French officials did not foresee that a time would come when
it would bestir itself to make Acadia English in fact as well as in
name.[227]
FOOTNOTES:
[185] _Offres de la France; Demandes de l'Angleterre et Réponses de la
France, in Memorials of the English and French Commissaries concerning
the Limits of Acadia._
[186] _Mémoire du Roy à ses Plénipotentiaires, 20 Mars, 1712._
[187] _Précis de ce qui s'est passé pendant la Négotiation de la Paix
d'Utrecht au Sujet de l'Acadie; Juillet, 1711-Mai, 1712._
[188] _Mémoire du Roy, 20 Avril, 1712._
[189] _Mémoire sur l'Isle du Cap Breton_, 1709.
[190] _Le Roy à Costebelle, 29 Septembre, 1713._
[191] _Recensement des Habitans de Plaisance et Iles de St. Pierre,
rendus à Louisbourg avec leurs Femmes et Enfans, 5 Novembre, 1714._
[192] _Costebelle au Ministre, 19 Juillet, 1713._
[193] _Félix Pain à Costebelle, 23 Septembre, 1713._
[194] Vetch was styled "General and Commander-in-chief of all his
Majesty's troops in these parts, and Governor of the fort of Annapolis
Royal, country of l'Accady and Nova Scotia." Hence he was the first
English governor of Nova Scotia after its conquest in 1710. He was
appointed a second time in 1715, Nicholson having served in the interim.
[195] _Narrative of Paul Mascarene_, addressed to Nicholson. According
to French accounts, a pestilence at Annapolis had carried off three
fourths of the garrison. _Gaulin à ----, 5 Septembre, 1711_; _Cahouet au
Ministre, 20 Juillet, 1711_. In reality a little more than one hundred
had died.
[196] Passages from Vetch's letters, in Patterson, _Memoir of Vetch_.
[197] _Vetch to the Earl of Dartmouth, 22 January, 1711_; _Memorial of
Council of War at Annapolis, 14 October, 1710_.
[198] Costebelle, _Instruction au Capitaine de la Ronde_, 1714.
[199] _Écrit des Habitants d'Annapolis Royale, 25 Aoust, 1714_; _Mémoire
de La Ronde Denys, 30 Aoust, 1714_.
[200] In 1711, however, the missionary Félix Pain says, "The English
have treated the Acadians with much humanity."--_Père Félix à ----, 8
Septembre, 1711._
[201] This was the oath taken after the capitulation, which bound those
who took it to allegiance so long as they remained in the province.
[202] "As he used to curse and Damm Governor Vetch and all his friends,
he is now served himself in the same manner."--_Adams to Steele, 24
January, 1715._
[203] For a great number of extracts from documents on this subject see
a paper by Abbé Casgrain in _Canada Français_, i. 411-414; also the
documentary supplement of the same publication.
[204] _La Ronde Denys au Ministre, 3 Décembre, 1715._
[205] _Costebelle au Ministre, 15 Janvier, 1715._
[206] _Governor Mascarene to the Secretary of State, 1 December, 1743._
At this time there was also a blockhouse at Canseau, where a few
soldiers were stationed. These were then the only British posts in the
province. In May, 1727, Philipps wrote to the Lords of Trade:
"Everything there [at Annapolis] is wearing the face of ruin and decay,"
and the ramparts are "lying level with the ground in breaches
sufficiently wide for fifty men to enter abreast."
[207] _Philipps to Secretary Craggs, 26 September, 1720._
[208] _Selections from the Public Documents of Nova Scotia, 18, note._
[209] "Those who are willing to remain there [in Acadia] and to be
subject to the kingdom of Great Britain, are to enjoy the free exercise
of their religion according to the usage of the Church of Home, as far
as the laws of Great Britain do allow the same."--_Treaty of Utrecht,
14th article._
[210] _Minutes of Council, 18 May, 1736._ _Governor Armstrong to the
Secretary of State, 22 November, 1736._
[211] _Minutes of Council, 18 September, 1740_, in _Nova Scotia
Archives_.
[212] _Governor Mascarene to Père des Enclaves, 29 June, 1741._
[213] _Deputy-Governor Doucette to the Secretary of State, 5 November,
1717._
[214] _Governor Armstrong to the Secretary of State, 30 April, 1727._
[215] _Governor Philipps to Secretary Craggs, 26 September, 1720._
[216] _Ibid., 26 May, 1720._
[217] _Armstrong to the Secretary of State, 22 November, 1736._ The
dismissal of French priests and the substitution of others was again
recommended some time after.
[218] The motives for paying priests for instructing the people of a
province ceded to England are given in a report of the French Marine
Council. The Acadians "ne pourront jamais conserver un véritable
attachement à la religion et _à leur légitime souverain_ sans le secours
d'un missionnaire" (_Délibérations du Conseil de Marine, 23 Mai, 1719_,
in _Le Canada-Français_). The Intendant Bégon highly commends the
efforts of the missionaries to keep the Acadians in the French interest
(_Bégon au Ministre, 25 Septembre, 1715_), and Vaudreuil praises their
zeal in the same cause (_Vaudreuil au Ministre, 31 Octobre, 1717_).
[219] _Délibérations du Conseil de Marine, 3 Mai, 1718._
[220] _Record of Council at Annapolis, 11 and 24 October, 1726._
[221] _Armstrong to Saint-Ovide, 17 June, 1732._
[222] _The Acadians to Saint-Ovide, 6 May, 1720_, in _Public Documents
of Nova Scotia_, 25. This letter was evidently written for them,--no
doubt by a missionary.
[223] "They can march off at their leisure, by way of the Baye Verte,
with their effects, without danger of being molested by this garrison,
which scarce suffices to secure the Fort."--_Philipps to Secretary
Craggs, 26 May, 1720._
[224] _The Board of Trade to Philipps, 28 December, 1720._
[225] _Délibérations du Conseil de Marine, Aoust, 1720._ The attempt
against the garrison was probably opposed by the priests, who must have
seen the danger that it would rouse the ministry into sending troops to
the province, which would have been disastrous to their plans.
[226] _Certificat de Charles de la Gaudalie, prêtre, curé missionnaire
de la paroisse des Mines, et Noël-Alexandre Noiville, ... curé de
l'Assomption et de la Sainte Famille de Pigiguit_; printed in Rameau,
_Une Colonie Féodale en Amérique_ (ed. 1889), ii. 53.
[227] The preceding chapter is based largely on two collections of
documents relating to Acadia,--the _Nova Scotia Archives_, or
_Selections from the Public Documents of Nova Scotia_, printed in 1869
by the government of that province, and the mass of papers collected by
Rev. H. R. Casgrain and printed in the documentary department of _Le
Canada-Français_, a review published under direction of Laval University
at Quebec. Abbé Casgrain, with passionate industry, has labored to
gather everything in Europe or America that could tell in favor of the
French and against the English. Mr. Akins, the editor of the _Nova
Scotia Archives_, leans to the other side, so that the two collections
supplement each other. Both are copious and valuable. Besides these, I
have made use of various documents from the archives of Paris not to be
found in either of the above-named collections.