had a small employ in the marine-department, brought over his son here,
a very hopeful youth, who had even some tincture of polite education,
and was not above thirteen years old, and partly from indulgence, partly
from a view of making him useful to the government, by his learning, at
that age, perfectly the savage language, he suffered him to go amongst
the savages. The young _Delorme_ would, indeed, sometimes return home
just on a visit to his family; but always expressed such an impatience,
or rather pining to get back again to them, that, though reluctantly,
the father was obliged to yield to it. No representations in short,
after some years, could ever prevail on him to renounce his connexions,
and residence amongst the _Abenaquis_, where he is almost adored. He has
learned to excel them all, even in their own points of competition. He
out-does them all in their feats of activity, in running, leaping,
climbing mountains, swimming, shooting with the bow and arrow, managing
of canoes, snaring and killing birds and beasts, in patience of fatigue,
and even of hunger; in short, in all they most value themselves upon, or
to which they affix the idea of personal merit, the only merit that
commands consideration amongst them. They are not yet polished enough to
admire any other. By this means, however, he perfectly reigns amongst
them, with a power the greater, for the submission to it not only being
voluntary, but the effect of his acknowledged superiority, in those
points that with them alone constitute it. His personal advantages
likewise may not a little contribute thereto, being perfectly well-made,
finely featured, with a great deal of natural wit, as well as courage.
He dresses, whilst with the savages, exactly in their manner, ties his
hair up like them, wears a tomby-awk, or hatchet, travels with
_rackets_, (or Indian shoes) and, in short, represents to the life the
character of a compleat savage-warrior. When he comes to _Quebec_, or
_Louisbourg_, he resumes his European dress, without the least mark
appearing in his behaviour, of that wildness or rudeness one would
naturally suppose him to have contracted by so long a habit of them with
the savages. Nobody speaks purer French, or acquits himself better in
conversation. He takes up or lays down the savage character with equal
grace and ease. His friends have, at length, given over teazing him to
come and reside for good amongst them; they find it is to so little
purpose. The priests indeed complain bitterly, that he is not overloaded
with religion, from his entering so thoroughly into the spirit of the
savage-life; and his setting an example, by no means edifying, of a
licentious commerce with their women; besides, his giving no signs of
his over-respecting either their doctrine or spiritual authority. This
they pretend hurts them with their actual converts, as well as with
those they labor to make; though, in this conduct, he is not singular,
for the French wood-rangers, in general, follow the like course in a
greater or lesser degree. These representations of the priests would,
however, have greater influence with our government, if the temporal
advantage they derive from these rovers, undisciplined as they are, did
not oblige them to wink at their relaxation in spirituals.
But it is not only men that have taken this passion for a savage life;
there have been, though much rarer, examples of our women going into it.
It is not many years since a very pretty French girl ran away into the
woods with a handsome young savage, who married her after his country
fashion. Her friends found out the village, or rather ambulatory tribe
into which she had got; but no persuasions, or instances, could prevail
on her to return and leave her savage, nor on him to content to it; so
that the government not caring to employ force, for fear of disobliging
the nation of them, even acquiesced in her continuance amongst them,
where she remains to this day, but worshipped like a little divinity,
or, at least, as a being superior to the rest of their women. Possibly
too she is not, in fact, so unhappy, as her choice would make one think
she must be; and if opinion constitutes happiness, she certainly is not
so.
There are not wanting here, who defend this strange attachment of some
of their countrymen to this savage life, on principles independent of
the reason of state, for encouraging its subjects to spread and gain
footing amongst the savage nations, by resorting to their country, of
which they, at the same time, gain a knowledge useful to future
enterprizes, by a winning conformity to their actions, and by
intermarriages with them. They pretend, that even this savage life
itself is not without its peculiar sweets and pleasures; that it is the
most adapted, and the most natural to man. Liberty, they say, is no
where more perfectly enjoyed, than where no subordination is known, but
what is recommended by natural reason, the veneration of old age, or the
respect of personal merit.
The chace is at once their chief employment and diversion; it furnishes
them with means to procure those articles, which enter into the small
number of natural wants. The demands of luxury, they think too dearly
bought with the loss of that liberty and independence they find in the
woods. They despise the magnificence of courts and palaces, in
comparison with the free range and scope of the hills and vales, with
the starry sky for their canopy: they say, we enjoy the Universe only in
miniature, whilst the savage-rovers enjoy it in the great. Thus reason
some of our admirers here of the savage-system of life, and yet I do not
find that these refining advocates for it, are themselves tempted to
embrace it. They are content to commend what themselves do not care to
practise. Those who actually do embrace it, reason very little about it,
though no doubt, the motives above assigned for their preference, are
generally, one may say instinctively, at the bottom of it. Their
greatest want is of wine, especially at first to those who are used to
it; but they are soon weaned from it by the example of others, and
content themselves with the substitution of rum, or brandy, of which
they obtain supplies by their barter of skins and furs. In short, their
hunting procures them all that they want or desire, and their liberty or
independence supplies to them the place of those luxuries of life, that
are not well to be had without the sacrifice in some sort of it.
It is more difficult to find an excuse for the shocking cruelties and
barbarities, exercised by the savages on their unhappy captives in war.
The instances, however, of their inhumanity, are certainly not
exagerated, nor possible to be exagerated, but they are multiplied
beyond the limits of truth. That they put then their prisoners to death
by exquisite tortures, is strictly true; but it is as true too, that
they do not serve so many in that manner as has been said. Numbers they
save, and even incorporate with their own nation, who become as free as,
and on a footing with, the conquerors themselves. And even in that
cruelty of theirs, there is at the bottom a mixture of piety with their
vindictiveness. They imagine themselves bound to revenge the deaths of
their ancestors, their parents, or relations, fallen in war, upon their
enemies, especially of that nation by whom they have fallen. It is in
that apprehension too, they extend their barbarity to young children,
and to women: to the first, because they fear they may grow up to an
age, when they will be sure to pursue that revenge of which the spirit
is early instilled into them; to the second, lest they should produce
children, to whom they would, from the same spirit, be sure to inculcate
it. Thus, in a round natural enough, their fear begets their cruelty,
and their cruelty their fear, and so on, _ad infinitum_. They consider
too these tortures as matter of glory to them in the constancy with
which they are taught to suffer them; they familiarize to themselves the
idea of them, in a manner that redoubles their natural courage and
ferocity, and especially inspires them to fight desperately in battle,
so as to prefer death to a captivity, of which the consequences are, and
may be, so much more cruel to them. Another reason is also assignable
for their carrying things to these extremities: War is considered by
these people as something very sacred, and not lightly to be undertaken;
but when once so, to be pushed with the utmost rigor by way of terror,
joining its aid towards the putting the speediest end to it. The savage
nations imagine such examples necessary for deterring one another from
coming to ruptures, or invading one another upon slight motives,
especially as their habitations or villages used to be so slightly
fortified, that they might easily be surprised. They have lately indeed
learned to make stronger inclosures, or pallisadoes, but still not
sufficient entirely to invalidate this argument for their guarding
against sudden hostilities, by the idea of the most cruel revenge they
annex to the commission of them. It is not then, till after the maturest
deliberation, and the deepest debates, that they commonly come to a
resolution of _taking up the hatchet_, as they call declaring of war;
after which, there are no excesses to which their rage and ferocity do
not incite them. Even their feasting upon the dead bodies of their
enemies, after putting them to death with the most excruciating tortures
they can devise, is rather a point of revenge, than of relish for such a
banquet.
That midst all their savageness they have, however, some glimmering
perception of the _laws of nations_, is evident from the use to which
they put the _calumet_, the rights of which are kept inviolate, thro'
especially the whole northern continent of America. It answers nearest
the idea of the olive-branch amongst the ancients.
As to your question, Sir, about the English being in the right or wrong,
in their treatment of the _Acadians_, or descendants of the Europeans
first settled in Acadia, and in their scheme of dispersing them, the
point is so nice, that I own I dare not pronounce either way: but I will
candidly state to you certain facts and circumstances, which may enable
yourself to form a tolerably clear idea thereon.
But previously I shall give you a succinct description of these people:
They were a mixed breed, that is to say, most of them proceeded from
marriages, or concubinage of the savage women with the first settlers,
who were of various nations, but chiefly French, the others were
English, Scotch, Swiss, Dutch, &c. the Protestants amongst whom, and
especially their children were, in process of time, brought over to a
conformity of faith with ours. They found they could not easily keep
their footing in the country, or live sociably with the great majority
of the French, but by this means of coming over to our religion.
Certain Normans, of which number was Champlein, were the _first_ French
that discovered Port-Royal, now Annapolis, where they found some Scotch
settled, who had built a fort of turf, and planted in the area before it
some plumb-trees, and walnut-trees, which was all the works of
agriculture, and fortification the British nation had made in this
country before the year 1710. This is the chief reason [And a very good
one surely.] too, why they so much insist on calling Acadia,
Nova-Scotia, and pretend to be the first inhabitants and true
proprietors. These Scotch were driven from Port-Royal by the Normans. It
is true, they had discovered the river of Port-Royal _before_ the
Normans, and had built a turf-fort; but it is by no means true, that
they were therefore the true settlers on this river, and less yet in the
whole of Acadia. [Nothing can be more false and pitiful, than what
follows of this Frenchman's reasoning. If a fort is not a settlement,
what can be called one? Is it not one of the most valid, and generally
received marks of taking possession? It supposes always a design to
cultivate and improve; and no doubt but these first settlers would have
done both, if they had not been untimely driven away.] The true
inhabitants are those who cultivate a country, and thereby acquire a
real permanent situation. The property of ground is to them who clear,
plant, and improve it. The English had done nothing in this way to it
till the year 1710. They never came there, but on schemes of incursion
or trade; and in all the wars they had with the French, on being
superior to them, they contented themselves with putting them to ransom;
and though they sometimes took their fortified places, they did not
settle in them. As all their pretension in Acadia was trade, they
sometimes indeed detained such French as they could take prisoners; but
that was only for the greater security of their traffic in the mean
while with the savages. Traders, continually obliged to follow the
savages in their vagabond journeys, could not be supposed to have time
or inclination for agriculture. This title then the French settlers had;
and in short, the whole body of the inhabitants of Acadia, from time
immemorial, may be averred to have been French, since a few families of
English, and other Europeans, cannot be said to form an exception, and
those, as I have before observed, soon became frenchified. Except a few
families from Boston or New-England I could never learn there were above
three of purely British subjects, who also, ultimately conforming both
in the religious and civil institutions to the French, became
incorporated with them. These families were the _Peterses_, the
_Grangers_, the _Cartys_. These last indeed descended from one Roger
John-Baptist Carty, an Irish Roman-Catholic. He had been an indented
servant in New-England, and had obtained at length his discharge from
his master, with permission to remain with the French Acadians for the
freer exercise of his religion. Peters was an iron-smith in England, and
together with Granger, married in Acadia, and was there naturalized a
Frenchman. Granger made his abjuration before M. Petit, secular-priest
of the seminary of Paris, then missionary at Port-Royal (Annapolis).
These and other European families then soon became united with the
French Acadians, and were no longer distinguished from them. Most of
these last were originally from _Rochelle_, _Xaintonge_, and _Poitou_;
but all went under the common name of Acadians; and were once very
numerous. The Parish of _Annapolis-Royal_ alone in 1754, according to
the account of father _Daudin_, contained three hundred habitations, or
about two thousand communicants. The _Mines_, which are about
five-and-thirty leagues from Port-Royal, and the best corn country in
Acadia, were also very populous; nor were there wanting inhabitants in
many commodious parts of this peninsula.
The character of the French Acadians was good at the bottom: their
morals far from vitious; their constitution hardy, and yet strongly
turned to indolence and inaction, not caring for work, unless a point of
present necessity pressed them; much attached to the customs of the
country, which have not a little of the savage in them, and to the
opinions of their fore-fathers, which they cherished as a kind of
patrimony; it was hard to inculcate any novelty to them. They had many
parts of character in common with the Canada French. A little matter
surprises, and sets them a staring, without stirring their curiosity to
examine, or exciting their inclination to adopt or embrace it. They are
remarkably fond of rosaries, crucifixes, agnus deis, and all the little
trinkets consecrated by religion, with which they love to adorn their
persons, and of which the priests make no little advantage in disposing
of amongst them: and in truth, it is almost incredible what a power and
influence these have over them, and with which they despotically govern
them. One instance I am sure cannot but make you laugh. In September,
1754, the priest at _Pigigeesh_, had appointed his parishioners to
perform the religious ceremony of a _Recess_, and to make them expiate
some disgust they had given him, obliged them, men, women, and children,
to attend the adoration of the holy-sacrament with a rope about their
necks; and what is more, he not only made them all buy the rope of him,
in which you may be sure he took care to find his account, but exacted
their coming to fetch it bare-footed, from his parsonage house; and this
they quietly submitted to. In short, considering the sweets of power on
whomsoever exercised, our good fathers the missionaries are not so much
to be pitied, as they would have us believe, for their great apostolical
labors, and exposure to fatigue; since it is certain, they live like
little kings in their respective parishes, and enjoy in all senses the
best the land affords; and even our government itself, for its own ends,
is obliged to pay a sort of court to them, and to keep them in good
humour.
The Acadian men were commonly drest in a sort of coarse black stuff made
in the country; and many of the poorer sort go bare-footed in all
weathers. The women are covered with a cloak, and all their head-dress
is generally a handkerchief, which would serve for a veil too, in the
manner they tied it, if it descended low enough.
Their dwellings were almost all built in an uniform manner; the
inhabitants themselves it was who built them, each for himself, there
being but few or no mechanics in the country. The hatchet was their
capital and universal instrument. They had saw-mills for their timber,
and with a plane and a knife, an Acadian would build his house and his
barn, and even make all his wooden domestic furniture. Happy nation!
that could thus be sufficient to itself, which would always be the case,
were the luxury and the vanity of other nations to remain unenvied.
Such in short were the French Acadians, who fell under the dominion of
the king of Great Britain, when the English experienced, from both the
Acadians and savages, a most thorough reluctance to the recognition of
their new sovereign, which has continued to this day.
As to the savages it is certain, that the governors for the English
acted entirely against the interest of their nation, in their procedure
with them. They had been long under the French government, so far as
their nature allows them to be under any government at all; and besides
almost all the Micmakis, and great numbers of the Maricheets, or
Abenaquis, were converted to our faith, and were consequently under the
influence of the priests. It could not then be expected, naturally
speaking, that these people could all of a sudden shake off their
attachment to, and connexions with our nation; so that, even after the
cession of Acadia, they continued, with a savage sulleness, to give
marks of their preference of our government. This could not fail of
giving the English umbrage; and their impatience not brooking either
delays, or soothing them into a temper and opinion more favorable to
them: they let it very early be seen, and penetrated by the savages,
that they intended to clear the country of them. Nor would this
exterminating plan, however not over-humane, have been perhaps wholly an
impolitical one, if they had not had the French for neighbors, who, ever
watchful and alert in concerning themselves with what past in those
parts, took care underhand, by their priests and emissaries, to inflame
them, and to offer them not only the kindest refuge, but to provide them
with all necessaries of life, sure of being doubly repaid by the service
they would do them, if but in the mischief they would do the English, to
whom it was a great point with our government to make Acadia as
uncomfortable, and as untenable as possible. It was no wonder then, that
the savages, ill-used by the English, and still dreading worse from
them, being constantly plied by our caresses, presents, and promises,
should prefer our nation to that. I have before said, that religion has
no great hold of these savages, but it could not be but of some weight
in the scale, where their minds were already so exulcerated against
those of a different one, whom they now considered as their capital
enemies. You may be sure like-wise, our priests did not neglect making
the most of this advantage, which the English themselves furnished them
by their indiscreet management: for certain it is, that a few presents
well placed, proper methods of conciliation, and a very little time,
would have entirely detached the savages from our interest, and have
turned the system of annoyance of the English against the French
themselves. Some English governors indeed grew sensible of this, and
applied themselves to retrieve matters by a gentler treatment, but the
mischief was already done and irretrieveable; and our missionaries took
care to widen the breach, and to keep up their spirit of hatred and
revenge, by instilling into them the notions of jealousy, that such
overtures of friendship, on the part of the English, were no better than
so many snares laid to make them perish, by a false security, since they
could not hope to do it by open violence. One instance may serve to show
you the temper of these people: Some years ago the English officers
being assembled at the _Mines_, in order to take a solemn recognition
from them of the king of Great Britain, when a savage, a new convert,
called _Simon_, in spite of all dissuasion, went himself alone to the
English commander, and told him, that all his endeavours to get the king
of England acknowledged, would be to no purpose; that, for his part, he
should never pay any allegiance but to the king of France, and drawing a
knife, said, "This indeed is all the arms I have, and with this weapon
alone, I will stand by the king of France till death."
Yet, with all this obstinacy of sentiments, once more I dare aver, the
savages would have been easily won over and attached to the English
party, had these gone the right way about it: and I well know that the
French, who knew best the nature of the savages, much dreaded it; and
were not a little pleased to see the English take measures so contrary
to their own interest, and play the game so effectually into our hands.
In short, we took, as was natural, all the advantage of their
indiscretion and over-sight.
I come now to the Acadians, or what may more properly be called the
French Acadians. These would undoubtedly have proved very valuable
subjects to the English, and extreamly useful to them in improving a
dominion so susceptible of all manner of improvement as _Acadia_,
(Nova-Scotia) if they could have been, prevailed on to break their
former ties of allegiance to the king of France, and to have remained
quietly under the new government to which they were now transferred. But
from this they were constantly dissuaded, and withheld by the influence
of our French priests, cantoned, amongst them [The letter-writer might
have here added the infamous arts and falsities by which these
emissaries of the French imposed on those bigotted deluded people, and
to that end made religion a vile tool of state. They represented to
these Acadians, that it was an inexpiable crime against their faith, to
hold any commerce with heretics, and much more so to enter into their
interests;--that there would be no pardon for them, either in the other
world, or even in this, when the French should regain, as they certainly
would, possession of a country ceded so much against the grain. In
short, they succeeded but too well in keeping up the spirit of rebellion
amongst those infatuated devotees of theirs, who remained sullen and
refractory to all the advances the English made to gain them.], who kept
them steady to our party. You may be sure our government did not fail of
constantly inculcating the expediency of this conduct to our priests;
who not only very punctually and successfully conformed to their
instructions on this head, but very often in the heat of their zeal so
much exceeded them, as to draw on themselves the animadversion of the
English government. This answered a double end, of hindering that nation
from finding those advantages in this country, by the prospect of which
it had been tempted to settle in it, and of engaging it to consider
Acadia itself, as something not material enough to think worth its
keeping, at the expence which it must occasion, and consequently induce
the English to be the readier to part with it again, on any future
treaty of peace. This too is certain, that the French themselves knew
neither the extent, nor the value of this country, till they were
sensible of the improvements the English were projecting; and the use
now so easy to discover might be made of so fine an establishment. But
to return to the Acadians: It must be confest the English had, with
respect to them, a difficult game to play. To force such a number of
families, of which too such great use might have been made, to evacuate
the country, seems at first both impolitic and inhuman. But then it must
be considered, that these people were absolutely untractable as to the
English, and thoroughly under the direction of priests in an interest
quite opposite to theirs. To have taken those priests entirely from
them, would have exasperated them yet more, and was, in fact, a measure
repugnant to that spirit of toleration in religious matters, of which
they boast, and to which it must be owned they constantly adhered, as to
these people, both in speculation and practice.
[Might not this dilemma have been removed, by procuring for them
priests, since priests they must have, from neutral nations, such as the
Flemings, the Roman Swiss Cantons, &c. whom a very small matter of
reward and encouragement would, it is probable, have fixed in the
English interest? At least, they could not have the same motives for
fomenting rebellious principles, as the French priests, who were set on
by that government.]
None of the Acadians were ever molested purely for their religion; and
even the priests of our nation were always civilly treated by them,
whenever they had not reason to think they meddled in temporal matters,
or stirred up their parishioners to rebellion. I have seen many of their
own letters that acknowledge as much; so that upon the whole, I do not
see that the English could do otherwise than they did, in expelling
their bounds a people, who were constitutionally, and invincibly, a
perpetual thorn in their side, whom they could at best look on as secret
domestic enemies, who wanted nothing but an occasion to do them all the
mischief in their power, and of whom, consequently, there could not, for
their interest and safety, remain too few in the land.