1710-1754
Conflict for Acadia
While in the West all the signs of the sky foreboded storm, another
tempest was gathering the East, less in extent, but not less in peril.
The conflict in Acadia has a melancholy interest, since it ended in a
castastrophe which prose and verse have joined to commemorate, but of
which the causes have not been understood.
Acadia--that it to say, the peninsula of Nova Scotia, with the addition,
as the English claimed, of the present New Brunswick and some adjacent
country--was conquered by General Nicholson in 1710, and formally
transferred by France to the British Crown, three years later, by the
treaty of Utrecht. By that treaty it was "expressly provided" that such
of the French inhabitants as "are willing to remain there 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 Rome, as far
as the laws of Great Britain do allow the same"; but that any who choose
may remove, with their effects, if they do so within a year. Very few
availed themselves of this right; and after the end of the year those
who remained were required to take an oath of allegiance to King George.
There is no doubt that in a little time they would have complied, had
they been let alone; but the French authorities of Canada and Cape
Breton did their utmost to prevent them, and employed agents to keep
them hostile to England. Of these the most efficient were the French
priests, who, in spite of the treaty, persuaded their flocks that they
were still subjects of King Louis. Hence rose endless perplexity to the
English commanders at Annapolis, who more than suspected that the Indian
attacks with which they were harassed were due mainly to French
instigation.[72] It was not till seventeen years after the treaty that
the Acadians could be brought to take the oath without qualifications
which made it almost useless. The English authorities seem to have shown
throughout an unusual patience and forbearance. At length, about 1730,
nearly all the inhabitants signed by crosses, since few of them could
write, an oath recognizing George II as sovereign of Acadia, and
promising fidelity and obedience to him.[73] This restored comparative
quiet till the war of 1745, when some of the Acadians remained neutral,
while some took arms against the English, and many others aided the
enemy with information and supplies.
[Footnote 72: See the numerous papers in _Selections from the Public
Documents of the Province of Nova Scotia_ (Halifax, 1869), pp. 1-165; a
Government publication of great value.]
[Footnote 73: The oath was _literatim_ as follows: "Je Promets et Jure
Sincerement en Foi de Chrétien que Je serai entierement Fidele, et
Obeierai Vraiment Sa Majesté Le Roy George Second, qui (_sic_) Je
reconnoi pour Le Souvrain Seigneur de l'Accadie ou Nouvelle Ecosse.
Ainsi Dieu me Soit en Aide."]
English power in Acadia, hitherto limited to a feeble garrison at
Annapolis and a feebler one at Canseau, received at this time a great
accession. The fortress of Louisbourg, taken by the English during the
war, had been restored by the treaty; and the French at once prepared to
make it a military and naval station more formidable than ever. Upon
this the British Ministry resolved to establish another station as a
counterpoise; and the harbor of Chebucto, on the south coast of Acadia,
was chosen as the site of it. Thither in June, 1749, came a fleet of
transports loaded with emigrants, tempted by offers of land and a home
in the New World. Some were mechanics, tradesmen, farmers, and laborers;
others were sailors, soldiers, and subaltern officers thrown out of
employment by the peace. Including women and children, they counted in
all about twenty-five hundred. Alone of all the British colonies on the
continent, this new settlement was the offspring, not of private
enterprise, but of royal authority. Yet is was free like the rest, with
the same popular representation and local self-government. Edward
Cornwallis, uncle of Lord Cornwallis of the Revolutionary War, was made
governor and commander-in-chief. Wolfe calls him "a man of approved
courage and fidelity"; and even the caustic Horace Walpole speaks of him
as "a brave, sensible young man, of great temper and good nature."
Before summer was over, the streets were laid out, and the building-lot
of each settler was assigned to him; before winter closed, the whole
were under shelter, the village was fenced with palisades and defended
by redoubts of timber, and the battalions lately in garrison at
Louisbourg manned the wooden ramparts. Succeeding years brought more
emigrants, and in 1752 the population was above four thousand. Thus was
born into the world the city of Halifax. Along with the crumbling old
fort and miserably disciplined garrison at Annapolis, besides six or
seven small detached posts to watch the Indians and Acadians, it
comprised the whole British force on the peninsula; for Canseau had been
destroyed by the French.
The French had never reconciled themselves to the loss of Acadia, and
were resolved, by diplomacy or force, to win it back again; but the
building of Halifax showed that this was to be no easy task, and filled
them at the same time with alarm for the safety of Louisbourg. On one
point, at least, they saw their policy clear. The Acadians, though those
of them who were not above thirty-five had been born under the British
flag, must be kept French at heart, and taught that they were still
French subjects. In 1748 they numbered eighty-eight hundred and fifty
communicants, or from twelve to thirteen thousand souls; but an
emigration, of which the causes will soon appear, had reduced them in
1752 to but little more than nine thousand.[74] These were divided into
six principal parishes, one of the largest being that of Annapolis.
Other centres of population were Grand Pré, on the basin of Mines;
Beaubassin, at the head of Chignecto Bay; Pisiquid, now Windsor; and
Cobequid, now Truro. Their priests, who were missionaries controlled by
the diocese of Quebec, acted also as their magistrates, ruling them for
this world and the next. Bring subject to a French superior, and being,
moreover, wholly French at heart, they formed in this British province a
wheel within a wheel, the inner movement always opposing the outer.
[Footnote 74: _Description de l'Acadie, avec le Nom des Paroisses et le
Nombre des Habitants, 1748. Mémoire à présenter à la Cour sur la
necessité de fixer les Limites de l'Acadie,_ par l'Abbé de l'Isle-Dieu,
1753 (1754?). Compare the estimates in _Censuses of Canada_ (Ottawa,
1876.)]
Although, by the twelfth article of the treaty of Utrecht, France had
solemnly declared the Acadians to be British subjects, the Government of
Louis XV intrigued continually to turn them from subjects into enemies.
Before me is a mass of English documents on Acadian affairs from the
peace of Aix-la-Chapelle to the catastrophe of 1755, and above a
thousand pages of French official papers from the archives of Paris,
memorials, reports, and secret correspondence, relating to the same
matters. With the help of these and some collateral lights, it is not
difficult to make a correct diagnosis of the political disease that
ravaged this miserable country. Of a multitude of proofs, only a few can
be given here; but these will suffice.
It was not that the Acadians had been ill-used by the English; the
reverse was the case. They had been left in free exercise of their
worship, as stipulated by treaty. It is true that, from time to time,
there were loud complaints from French officials that religion was in
danger, because certain priests had been rebuked, arrested, brought
before the Council at Halifax, suspended from their functions, or
required, on pain of banishment, to swear that they would do nothing
against the interests of King George. Yet such action on the part of the
provincial authorities seems, without a single exception, to have been
the consequence of misconduct on the part of the priest, in opposing the
Government and stirring his flock to disaffection. La Jonquière, the
determined adversary of the English, reported to the bishop that they
did not oppose the ecclesiastics in the exercise of their functions, and
an order of Louis XV admits that the Acadians have enjoyed liberty of
religion.[75] In a long document addressed in 1750 to the Colonial
Minister at Versailles, Roma, an officer at Louisbourg, testifies thus
to the mildness of British rule, though he ascribes it to interested
motives. "The fear that the Acadians have of the Indians is the
controlling motive which makes them side with the French. The English,
having in view the conquest of Canada, wished to give the French of that
colony, in their conduct towards the Acadians, a striking example of
the mildness of their government. Without raising the fortune of any of
the inhabitants, they have supplied them for more than thirty-five years
with the necessaries of life, often on credit and with an excess of
confidence, without troubling their debtors, without pressing them,
without wishing to force them to pay. They have left them an appearance
of liberty so excessive that they have not intervened in their disputes
or even punished their crimes. They have allowed them to refuse with
insolence certain moderate rents payable in grain and lawfully due. They
have passed over in silence the contemptuous refusal of the Acadians to
take titles from them for the new lands which they chose to occupy.[76]
[Footnote 75: _La Jonquière à Évêque de Québec, 14 Juin, 1750. Mémoire
du Roy pour servir d'Instruction au Comte de Raymond, commandant pour Sa
Majesté à l'Isle Royale_ [Cape Breton], _24 Avril, 1751_.]
[Footnote 76: See Appendix B.]
"We know very well," pursues Roma, "the fruits of this conduct in the
last war; and the English know it also. Judge then what will be the
wrath and vengeance of this cruel nation." The fruits to which Roma
alludes were the hostilities, open or secret, committed by the Acadians
against the English. He now ventures the prediction that the enraged
conquerors will take their revenge by drafting all the young Acadians on
board their ships of war, and there destroying them by slow starvation.
He proved, however, a false prophet. The English Governor merely
required the inhabitants to renew their oath of allegiance, without
qualification or evasion.
It was twenty years since the Acadians had taken such an oath; and
meanwhile a new generation had grown up. The old oath pledged them to
fidelity and obedience; but they averred that Phillips, then governor of
the province, had given them, at the same time, assurance that they
should not be required to bear arms against either French or Indians. In
fact, such service had not been demanded of them, and they would have
lived in virtual neutrality, had not many of them broken their oaths and
joined the French war-parties. For this reason Cornwallis thought it
necessary that, in renewing the pledge, they should bind themselves to
an allegiance as complete as that required of other British subjects.
This spread general consternation. Deputies from the Acadian
settlements appeared at Halifax, bringing a paper signed with the marks
of a thousand persons. The following passage contains the pith of it.
"The inhabitants in general, sir, over the whole extent of this country
are resolved not to take the oath which your Excellency requires of us;
but if your Excellency will grant us our old oath, with an exemption for
ourselves and our heirs from taking up arms, we will accept it."[77] The
answer of Cornwallis was by no means so stern as it has been
represented.[78] After the formal reception he talked in private with
the deputies; and "they went home in good humor, promising great
things."[79]
[Footnote 77: _Public Documents of Nova Scotia_, 173.]
[Footnote 78: See _Ibid._, 174, where the answer is printed.]
[Footnote 79: _Cornwallis to the Board of Trade, 11 Sept. 1749._]
The refusal of the Acadians to take the required oath was not wholly
spontaneous, but was mainly due to influence from without. The French
officials of Cape Breton and Isle St. Jean, now Prince Edward Island,
exerted themselves to the utmost, chiefly through the agency of the
priests, to excite the people to refuse any oath that should commit them
fully to British allegiance. At the same time means were used to induce
them to migrate to the neighboring islands under French rule, and
efforts were also made to set on the Indians to attack the English. But
the plans of the French will best appear in a despatch sent by La
Jonquière to the Colonial Minister in the autumn of 1749.
"Monsieur Cornwallis issued an order on the tenth of the said month
[_August_], to the effect that if the inhabitants will remain faithful
subjects of the King of Great Britain, he will allow them priests and
public exercise of their religion, with the understanding that no priest
shall officiate without his permission or before taking an oath of
fidelity to the King of Great Britain. Secondly, that the inhabitants
shall not be exempted from defending their houses, their lands, and the
Government. Thirdly, that they shall take an oath of fidelity to the
King of Great Britain, on the twenty-sixth of this month, before
officers sent them for that purpose."
La Jonquière proceeds to say that on hearing these conditions the
Acadians were filled with perplexity and alarm, and that he, the
governor, had directed Boishébert, his chief officer on the Acadian
frontier, to encourage them to leave their homes and seek asylum on
French soil. He thus recounts the steps he has taken to harass the
English of Halifax by means of their Indian neighbors. As peace had been
declared, the operation was delicate; and when three of these Indians
came to him from their missionary, Le Loutre, with letters on the
subject, La Jonquière was discreetly reticent. "I did not care to give
them any advice upon the matter, and confined myself to a promise that I
would on no account abandon them; and I have provided for supplying them
with everything, whether arms, ammunition, food, or other necessaries.
It is to be desired that these savages should succeed in thwarting the
designs of the English, and even their settlement at Halifax. They are
bent on doing so; and if they can carry out their plans, it is certain
that they will give the English great trouble, and so harass them that
they will be a great obstacle in their path. These savages are to act
alone; neither soldier nor French inhabitant is to join them; everything
will be done of their own motion, and without showing that I had any
knowledge of the matter. This is very essential; therefore I have
written to the Sieur de Boishébert to observe great prudence in his
measures, and to act very secretly, in order that the English may not
perceive that we are providing for the needs of the said savages."
"It will be the missionaries who will manage all the negotiation, and
direct the movements of the savages, who are in excellent hands, as the
Reverend Father Germain and Monsieur l'Abbé Le Loutre are very capable
of making the most of them, and using them to the greatest advantage for
our interests. They will manage their intrigue in such a way as not to
appear in it."
La Jonquière then recounts the good results which he expects from these
measures: first, the English will be prevented from making any new
settlements; secondly, we shall gradually get the Acadians out of their
hands; and lastly, they will be so discouraged by constant Indian
attacks that they will renounce their pretensions to the parts of the
country belonging to the King of France. "I feel, Monseigneur,"--thus
the Governor concludes his despatch,--"all the delicacy of this
negotiation; be assured that I will conduct it with such precaution that
the English will not be able to say that my orders had any part in
it."[80]
[Footnote 80: _La Jonquière au Ministre, 9 Oct. 1749_. See Appendix B.]
He kept his word, and so did the missionaries. The Indians gave great
trouble on the outskirts of Halifax, and murdered many harmless
settlers; yet the English authorities did not at first suspect that they
were hounded on by their priests, under the direction of the Governor
of Canada, and with the privity of the Minister at Versailles. More than
this; for, looking across the sea, we find royalty itself lending its
august countenance to the machination. Among the letters read before the
King in his cabinet in May, 1750, was one from Desherbiers, then
commanding at Louisbourg, saying that he was advising the Acadians not
to take the oath of allegiance to the King of England; another from Le
Loutre, declaring that he and Father Germain were consulting together
how to disgust the English with their enterprise of Halifax; and a third
from the Intendant, Bigot, announcing that Le Loutre was using the
Indians to harass the new settlement, and that he himself was sending
them powder, lead, and merchandise, "to confirm them in their good
designs."[81]
[Footnote 81: _Resumé des Lettres lues au Travail du Roy, Mai, 1750_.]
To this the Minister replies in a letter to Desherbiers: "His Majesty is
well satisfied with all you have done to thwart the English in their new
establishment. If the dispositions of the savages are such as they seem,
there is reason to hope that in the course of the winter they will
succeed in so harassing the settlers that some of them will become
disheartened." Desherbiers is then told that His Majesty desires him to
aid English deserters in escaping from Halifax.[82] Supplies for the
Indians are also promised; and he is informed that twelve medals are
sent him by the frigate "La Mutine," to be given to the chiefs who shall
most distinguish themselves. In another letter Desherbiers is enjoined
to treat the English authorities with great politeness.[83]
[Footnote 82: In 1750 nine captured deserters from Phillips's regiment
declared on their trial that the French had aided them and supplied them
all with money. _Public Documents of Nova Scotia_, 193.]
[Footnote 83: _Le Ministre à Desherbiers, 23 Mai, 1750; Ibid., 31 Mai,
1750_.]
When Count Raymond took command at Louisbourg, he was instructed, under
the royal hand, to give particular attention to the affairs of Acadia,
especially in two points,--the management of the Indians, and the
encouraging of Acadian emigration to countries under French rule. "His
Majesty," says the document, "has already remarked that the savages have
been most favorably disposed. It is of the utmost importance that no
means be neglected to keep them so. The missionaries among them are in a
better position than anybody to contribute to this end, and His Majesty
has reason to be satisfied with the pains they take therein. The Sieur
de Raymond will excite these missionaries not to slacken their efforts;
but he will warn them at the same time so to contain their zeal as not
to compromise themselves with the English, and give just occasion of
complaint."[84] That is, the King orders his representative to encourage
the missionaries in instigating their flocks to butcher English
settlers, but to see that they take care not to be found out. The
injunction was hardly needed. "Monsieur Desherbiers," says a letter of
earlier date, "has engaged Abbé Le Loutre to distribute the usual
presents among the savages, and Monsieur Bigot has placed in his hands
an additional gift of cloth, blankets, powder, and ball, to be given
them in case they harass the English at Halifax. This missionary is to
induce them to do so."[85] In spite of these efforts, the Indians began
to relent in their hostilities; and when Longueuil became provisional
governor of Canada, he complained to the Minister that it was very
difficult to prevent them from making peace with the English, though
Father Germain was doing his best to keep them on the war-path.[86]
La Jonquière, too, had done his best, even to the point of departing
from his original policy of allowing no soldier or Acadian to take part
with them. He had sent a body of troops under La Corne, an able partisan
officer, to watch the English frontier; and in the same vessel was sent
a supply of "merchandise, guns, and munitions for the savages and the
Acadians who may take up arms with them; and the whole is sent under
pretext of trading in furs with the savages."[87] On another occasion
La Jonquière wrote: "In order that the savages may do their part
courageously, a few Acadians, dressed and painted in their way, could
join them to strike the English. I cannot help consenting to what these
savages do, because we have our hands tied [_by the peace_],
and so can do nothing ourselves. Besides, I do not think that any
inconvenience will come of letting the Acadians mingle among them,
because if they [_the Acadians_] are captured, we shall say that they
acted of their own accord."[88] In other words, he will encourage them
to break the peace; and then, by means of a falsehood, have them
punished as felons. Many disguised Acadians did in fact join the Indian
war-parties; and their doing so was no secret to the English. "What we
call here an Indian war," wrote Hopson, successor of Cornwallis, "is no
other than a pretence for the French to commit hostilities on His
Majesty's subjects."
[Footnote 84: _Mémoire du Roy pour servir d'Instruction au Comte de
Raymond, 24 Avril, 1751_.]
[Footnote 85: _Lettre commune de Desherbiers et Bigot au Ministre, 15
Août, 1749_.]
[Footnote 86: _Longueuil au Ministre, 26 Avril, 1752_.]
[Footnote 87: _Bigot au Ministre, 1749_.]
[Footnote 88: _Dépêches de la Jonquière, 1 Mai, 1751_. See Appendix B.]
At length the Indians made peace, or pretended to do so. The chief of Le
Loutre's mission, who called himself Major Jean-Baptiste Cope, came to
Halifax with a deputation of his tribe, and they all affixed their
totems to a solemn treaty. In the next summer they returned with ninety
or a hundred warriors, were well entertained, presented with gifts, and
sent homeward in a schooner. On the way they seized the vessel and
murdered the crew. This is told by Prévost, intendant at Louisbourg, who
does not say that French instigation had any part in the treachery.[89]
It is nevertheless certain that the Indians were paid for this or some
contemporary murder; for Prévost, writing just four weeks later, says:
"Last month the savages took eighteen English scalps, and Monsieur Le
Loutre was obliged to pay them eighteen hundred livres, Acadian money,
which I have reimbursed him."[90]
[Footnote 89: _Prévost au Ministre, 12 Mars, 1753; Ibid., 17 July_,
1753. Prévost was _ordonnateur_, or intendant, at Louisbourg. The treaty
will be found in full in _Public Documents of Nova Scotia_, 683.]
[Footnote 90: _Prévost au Ministre, 16 Août_, 1753.]
From the first, the services of this zealous missionary had been beyond
price. Prévost testifies that, though Cornwallis does his best to induce
the Acadians to swear fidelity to King George, Le Loutre keeps them in
allegiance to King Louis, and threatens to set his Indians upon them
unless they declare against the English. "I have already," adds Prévost,
"paid him 11,183 livres for his daily expenses; and I never cease
advising him to be as economical as possible, and always to take care
not to compromise himself with the English Government."[91] In
consequence of "good service to religion and the state," Le Loutre
received a pension of eight hundred livres, as did also Maillard, his
brother missionary on Cape Breton. "The fear is," writes the Colonial
Minister to the Governor of Louisbourg, "that their zeal may carry them
too far. Excite them to keep the Indians in our interests, but do not
let them compromise us. Act always so as to make the English appear as
aggressors."[92]
[Footnote 91: _Ibid., 22 Juillet_, 1750.]
[Footnote 92: _Le Ministre au Comte de Raymond, 21 Juillet_, 1752. It is
curious to compare these secret instructions, given by the Minister to
the colonial officials, with a letter which the same Minister, Rouillé,
wrote ostensibly to La Jonquière, but which was really meant for the eye
of the British Minister at Versailles, Lord Albemarle, to whom it was
shown in proof of French good faith. It was afterwards printed, long
with other papers, in a small volume called _Précis des Faits, avec
Pièces justificatives_ which was sent by the French Government to all
the courts of Europe to show that the English alone were answerable for
the war. The letter, it is needless to say, breathes the highest
sentiments of international honor.]
All the Acadian clergy, in one degree or another, seem to have used
their influence to prevent the inhabitants from taking the oath, and to
persuade them that they were still French subjects. Some were noisy,
turbulent, and defiant; others were too tranquil to please the officers
of the Crown. A missionary at Annapolis is mentioned as old, and
therefore inefficient; while the curé at Grand Pré, also an elderly man,
was too much inclined to confine himself to his spiritual functions. It
is everywhere apparent that those who chose these priests, and sent them
as missionaries into a British province, expected them to act as enemies
of the British Crown. The maxim is often repeated that duty to religion
is inseparable from the duty to the King of France. The Bishop of Quebec
desired the Abbé de l'Isle-Dieu to represent to the court the need of
more missionaries to keep the Acadians Catholic and French; but, he
adds, there is danger that they (the missionaries) will be required to
take an oath to do nothing contrary to the interests of the King of
Great Britain.[93] It is a wonder that such a pledge was not always
demanded. It was exacted in a few cases, notably in that of Girard,
priest at Cobequid, who, on charges of instigating his flock to
disaffection, had been sent prisoner to Halifax, but released on taking
an oath in the above terms. Thereupon he wrote to Longueuil at Quebec
that his parishioners wanted to submit to the English, and that he,
having sworn to be true to the British King, could not prevent them.
"Though I don't pretend to be a casuist," writes Longueuil, "I could not
help answering him that he is not obliged to keep such an oath, and that
he ought to labor in all zeal to preserve and increase the number of the
faithful." Girard, to his credit, preferred to leave the colony, and
retired to Isle St. Jean.[94]
[Footnote 93: L'Isle-Dieu, _Mémoire sur l'État actuel des Missions,
1753_ (1754?).]
[Footnote 94: _Longueuil au Ministre, 27 Avril, 1752_.]
Cornwallis soon discovered to what extent the clergy stirred their
flocks to revolt; and he wrote angrily to the Bishop of Quebec: "Was it
you who sent Le Loutre as a missionary to the Micmacs? and is it for
their good that he excites these wretches to practise their cruelties
against those who have shown them every kindness? The conduct of the
priests of Acadia has been such that by command of his Majesty I have
published an Order declaring that if any one of them presumes to
exercise his functions without my express permission he shall be dealt
with according to the laws of England."[95]
[Footnote 95: _Cornwallis to the Bishop of Quebec, 1 Dec. 1749_.]
The English, bound by treaty to allow the Acadians the exercise of their
religion, at length conceived the idea of replacing the French priests
by others to be named by the Pope at the request of the British
Government. This, becoming known to the French, greatly alarmed them,
and the Intendant at Louisbourg wrote to the Minister that the matter
required serious attention.[96] It threatened, in fact, to rob them of
their chief agents of intrigue; but their alarm proved needless, as the
plan was not carried into execution.
[Footnote 96: _Daudin, prêtre, à Prévost, 23 Oct. 1753. Prévost au
Ministre, 24 Nov. 1753_.]
The French officials would have been better pleased had the conduct of
Cornwallis been such as to aid their efforts to alienate the Acadians;
and one writer, while confessing the "favorable treatment" of the
English towards the inhabitants, denounces it as a snare.[97] If so, it
was a snare intended simply to reconcile them to English rule. Nor was
it without effect. "We must give up altogether the idea of an
insurrection in Acadia," writes an officer of Cape Breton. "The Acadians
cannot be trusted; they are controlled by fear of the Indians, which
leads them to breathe French sentiments, even when their inclinations
are English. They will yield to their interests; and the English will
make it impossible that they should either hurt them or serve us, unless
we take measures different from those we have hitherto pursued."[98]
[Footnote 97: _Mémoire à présenter à la Cour, 1753_.]
[Footnote 98: _Roma au Ministre, 11 Mars, 1750_.]
During all this time, constant efforts were made to stimulate Acadian
emigration to French territory, and thus to strengthen the French
frontier. In this work the chief agent was Le Loutre. "This priest,"
says a French writer of the time, "urged the people of Les Mines, Port
Royal [_Annapolis_], and other places, to come and join the French, and
promised to all, in the name of the Governor, to settle and support them
for three years, and even indemnify them for any losses they might
incur; threatening if they did not do as he advised, to abandon them,
deprive them of their priests, have their wives and children carried
off, and their property laid waste by the Indians."[99] Some passed over
the isthmus to the shores of the gulf, and others made their way to the
Strait of Canseau. Vessels were provided to convey them, in the one case
to Isle St. Jean, now Prince Edward Island, and in the other to Isle
Royale, called by the English, Cape Breton. Some were eager to go; some
went with reluctance; some would scarcely be persuaded to go at all.
"They leave their homes with great regret," reports the Governor of Isle
St. Jean, speaking of the people of Cobequid, "and they began to move
their luggage only when the savages compelled them."[100] These savages
were the flock of Abbé Le Loutre, who was on the spot to direct the
emigration. Two thousand Acadians are reported to have left the
peninsula before the end of 1751, and many more followed within the next
two years. Nothing could exceed the misery of a great part of these
emigrants, who had left perforce most of their effects behind. They
became disheartened and apathetic. The Intendant at Louisbourg says that
they will not take the trouble to clear the land, and that some of them
live, like Indians, under huts of spruce-branches.[101] The Governor of
Isle St. Jean declares that they are dying of hunger.[102] Girard, the
priest who had withdrawn to this island rather than break his oath to
the English, writes: "Many of them cannot protect themselves day or
night from the severity of the cold. Most of the children are entirely
naked; and when I go into a house they are all crouched in the ashes,
close to the fire. They run off and hide themselves, without shoes,
stockings, or shirts. They are not all reduced to this extremity but
nearly all are in want."[103] Mortality among them was great, and would
have been greater but for rations supplied by the French Government.
[Footnote 99: _Mémoires sur le Canada, 1749-1760_.]
[Footnote 100: _Bonaventure à Desherbiers, 26 Juin, 1751_.]
[Footnote 101: _Prévost au Ministre, 25 Nov. 1750_.]
[Footnote 102: _Bonaventure, ut supra_.]
[Footnote 103: _Girard à (Bonaventure?), 27 Oct. 1753_.]
During these proceedings, the English Governor, Cornwallis, seems to
have justified the character of good temper given him by Horace Walpole.
His attitude towards the Acadians remained on the whole patient and
conciliatory. "My friends," he replied to a deputation of them asking a
general permission to leave the province, "I am not ignorant of the fact
that every means has been used to alienate the hearts of the French
subjects of His Britannic Majesty. Great advantages have been promised
you elsewhere, and you have been made to imagine that your religion was
in danger. Threats even have been resorted to in order to induce you to
remove to French territory. The savages are made use of to molest you;
they are to cut the throats of all who remain in their native country,
attached to their own interests and faithful to the Government. You know
that certain officers and missionaries, who came from Canada last
autumn, have been the cause of all our trouble during the winter. Their
conduct has been horrible, without honor, probity, or conscience. Their
aim is to embroil you with the Government. I will not believe that they
are authorized to do so by the Court of France, that being contrary to
good faith and the friendship established between the two Crowns."
What foundation there was for this amiable confidence in the Court of
Versailles has been seen already. "When you declared your desire to
submit yourselves to another Government," pursues Cornwallis, "our
determination was to hinder nobody from following what he imagined to be
his interest. We know that a forced service is worth nothing, and that a
subject compelled to be so against his will is not far from being an
enemy. We confess, however, that your determination to go gives us pain.
We are aware of your industry and temperance, and that you are not
addicted to any vice or debauchery. This province is your country. You
and your fathers have cultivated it; naturally you ought yourselves to
enjoy the fruits of your labor. Such was the design of the King, our
master. You know that we have followed his orders. You know that we have
done everything to secure to you not only the occupation of your lands,
but the ownership of them forever. We have given you also every possible
assurance of the free and public exercise of the Roman Catholic
religion. But I declare to you frankly that, according to our laws,
nobody can possess lands or houses in the province who shall refuse to
take the oath of allegiance to his King when required to do so. You know
very well that there are ill-disposed and mischievous persons among you
who corrupt the others. Your inexperience, your ignorance of the affairs
of government, and your habit of following the counsels of those who
have not your real interests at heart, make it an easy matter to seduce
you. In your petitions you ask for a general leave to quit the province.
The only manner in which you can do so is to follow the regulations
already established, and provide yourselves with our passport. And we
declare that nothing shall prevent us from giving such passports to all
who ask for them, the moment peace and tranquillity are
re-established."[104] He declares as his reason for not giving them at
once, that on crossing the frontier "you will have to pass the French
detachments and savages assembled there, and that they compel all the
inhabitants who go there to take up arms" against the English. How well
this reason was founded will soon appear.
[Footnote 104: The above passages are from two address of Cornwallis,
read to the Acadian deputies in April and May, 1750. The combined
extracts here given convey the spirit of the whole. See _Public
Documents of Nova Scotia_, 185-190.]
Hopson, the next governor, described by the French themselves as a "mild
and peaceable officer," was no less considerate in his treatment of the
Acadians; and at the end of 1752 he issued the following order to his
military subordinates: "You are to look on the French inhabitants in the
same light as the rest of His Majesty's subjects, as to the protection
of the laws and government; for which reason nothing is to be taken from
them by force, or any price set upon their goods but what they
themselves agree to. And if at any time the inhabitants should
obstinately refuse to comply with what His Majesty's service may require
of them, you are not to redress yourself by military force or in any
unlawful manner, but to lay the case before the Governor and wait his
orders thereon."[105] Unfortunately, the mild rule of Cornwallis and
Hopson was not always maintained under their successor, Lawrence.
[Footnote 105: _Public Documents of Nova Scotia_, 197.]
Louis Joseph Le Loutre, vicar-general of Acadia and missionary to the
Micmacs, was the most conspicuous person in the province, and more than
any other man was answerable for the miseries that overwhelmed it. The
sheep of which he was the shepherd dwelt, at a day's journey from
Halifax, by the banks of the River Shubenacadie, in small cabins of
logs, mixed with wigwams of birch-bark. They were not a docile flock;
and to manage them needed address, energy, and money,--with all of which
the missionary was provided. He fed their traditional dislike of the
English, and fanned their fanaticism, born of the villanous counterfeit
of Christianity which he and his predecessors had imposed on them. Thus
he contrived to use them on the one hand to murder the English, and on
the other to terrify the Acadians; yet not without cost to the French
Government; for they had learned the value of money, and, except when
their blood was up, were slow to take scalps without pay. Le Loutre was
a man of boundless egotism, a violent spirit of domination, an intense
hatred of the English, and a fanaticism that stopped at nothing. Towards
the Acadians he was a despot; and this simple and superstitious people,
extremely susceptible to the influence of their priests, trembled before
him. He was scarcely less masterful in his dealings with the Acadian
clergy; and, aided by his quality of the Bishop's vicar-general, he
dragooned even the unwilling into aiding his schemes. Three successive
governors of New France thought him invaluable, yet feared the
impetuosity of his zeal, and vainly tried to restrain it within safe
bounds. The bishop, while approving his objects, thought his medicines
too violent, and asked in a tone of reproof: "Is it right for you to
refuse the Acadians the sacraments, to threaten that they shall be
deprived of the services of a priest, and that the savages shall treat
them as enemies?"[106] "Nobody," says a French Catholic contemporary,
"was more fit than he to carry discord and desolation into a
country."[107] Cornwallis called him "a good-for-nothing scoundrel," and
offered a hundred pounds for his head.[108]
[Footnote 106: _L'Évêque de Québec à Le Loutre_; translation in _Public
Documents of Nova Scotia_, 240.]
[Footnote 107: _Mémoires sur le Canada, 1749-1760_.]
[Footnote 108: On Le Loutre, compare _Public Documents of Nova Scotia_,
178-180, _note_, with authorities there cited; _N.Y. Col. Docs._, X. 11;
_Mémoires sur le Canada, 1749-1760_ (Quebec, 1838).]
The authorities at Halifax, while exasperated by the perfidy practised
on them, were themselves not always models of international virtue. They
seized a French vessel in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, on the
charge--probably true--that she was carrying arms and ammunition to the
Acadians and Indians. A less defensible act was the capture of the armed
brig "St. François," laden with supplies for a fort lately
re-established by the French, at the mouth of the River St. John, on
ground claimed by both nations. Captain Rous, a New England officer
commanding a frigate in the Royal Navy, opened fire on the "St.
François," took her after a short cannonade, and carried her into
Halifax, where she was condemned by the court. Several captures of small
craft, accused of illegal acts, were also made by the English. These
proceedings, being all of an overt nature, gave the officers of Louis
XV. precisely what they wanted,--an occasion for uttering loud
complaints, and denouncing the English as breakers of the peace.
But the movement most alarming to the French was the English occupation
of Beaubassin,--an act perfectly lawful in itself, since, without
reasonable doubt, the place was within the limits of Acadia, and
therefore on English ground.[109] Beaubassin was a considerable
settlement on the isthmus that joins the Acadian peninsula to the
mainland. Northwest of the settlement lay a wide marsh, through which
ran a stream called the Missaguash, some two miles beyond which rose a
hill called Beauséjour. On and near this hill were stationed the troops
and Canadians sent under Boishébert and La Corne to watch the English
frontier. This French force excited disaffection among the Acadians
through all the neighboring districts, and constantly helped them to
emigrate. Cornwallis therefore resolved to send an English force to the
spot; and accordingly, towards the end of April, 1750, Major Lawrence
landed at Beaubassin with four hundred men. News of their approach had
come before them, and Le Loutre was here with his Micmacs, mixed with
some Acadians whom he had persuaded or bullied to join him. Resolved
that the people of Beaubassin should not live under English influence,
he now with his own hand set fire to the parish church, while his white
and red adherents burned the houses of the inhabitants, and thus
compelled them to cross to the French side of the river.[110] This was
the first forcible removal of the Acadians. It was as premature as it
was violent; since Lawrence, being threatened by La Corne, whose force
was several times greater than his own, presently reimbarked. In the
following September he returned with seventeen small vessels and about
seven hundred men, and again attempted to land on the strand of
Beaubassin. La Jonquière says that he could only be resisted indirectly,
because he was on the English side of the river. This indirect
resistance was undertaken by Le Loutre, who had thrown up a breastwork
along the shore and manned it with his Indians and his painted and
be-feathered Acadians. Nevertheless the English landed, and, with some
loss, drove out the defenders. Le Loutre himself seems not to have been
among them; but they kept up for a time a helter-skelter fight,
encouraged by two other missionaries, Germain and Lalerne, who were near
being caught by the English.[111] Lawrence quickly routed them, took
possession of the cemetery, and prepared to fortify himself. The village
of Beaubassin, consisting, it is said, of a hundred and forty houses,
had been burned in the spring; but there were still in the neighborhood,
on the English side, many hamlets and farms, with barns full of grain
and hay. Le Loutre's Indians now threatened to plunder and kill the
inhabitants if they did not take arms against the English. Few complied,
and the greater part fled to the woods.[112] On this the Indians and
their Acadian allies set the houses and barns on fire, and laid waste
the whole district, leaving the inhabitants no choice but to seek food
and shelter with the French.[113]
[Footnote 109: La Jonquière himself admits that he thought so. "Cette
partie là étant, à ce que je crois, dépendante de l'Acadie." _La
Jonquière au Ministre, 3 Oct. 1750_.]
[Footnote 110: It has been erroneously stated that Beaubassin was burned
by its own inhabitants. "Laloutre, ayant vu que les Acadiens ne
paroissoient pas fort pressés d'abandonner leurs biens, avoit lui-même
mis le feu á l'Église, et l'avoit fait mettre aux maisons des habitants
par quelques-uns de ceux qu'il avoit gagnés," etc. _Mémoires sur le
Canada, 1749-1760_. "Les sauvages y mirent le feu." _Précis des Faits_,
85. "Les sauvages mirent le feu aux maisons." _Prévost au Ministre, 22
Juillet, 1750_.]
[Footnote 111: La Vallière, _Journal de ce qui s'est passé à Chenitou_
[Chignecto] _et autres parties des Frontières de l'Acadie, 1750-1751_.
La Vallière was an officer on the spot.]
[Footnote 112: _Prévost au Ministre, 27 Sept. 1750_.]
[Footnote 113: "Les sauvages et Accadiens mirent le feu dans toutes les
maisons et granges, pleines de bled et de fourrages, ce qui a causé une
grande disette." La Vallière, _ut supra_.]
The English fortified themselves on a low hill by the edge of the marsh,
planted palisades, built barracks, and named the new work Fort Lawrence.
Slight skirmishes between them and the French were frequent. Neither
party respected the dividing line of the Missaguash, and a petty warfare
of aggression and reprisal began, and became chronic. Before the end of
the autumn there was an atrocious act of treachery. Among the English
officers was Captain Edward Howe, an intelligent and agreeable person,
who spoke French fluently, and had been long stationed in the province.
Le Loutre detested him; dreading his influence over the Acadians, by
many of whom he was known and liked. One morning, at about eight
o'clock, the inmates of Fort Lawrence saw what seemed an officer from
Beauséjour, carrying a flag, and followed by several men in uniform,
wading through the sea of grass that stretched beyond the Missaguash.
When the tide was out, this river was but an ugly trench of reddish mud
gashed across the face of the marsh, with a thread of half-fluid slime
lazily crawling along the bottom; but at high tide it was filled to the
brim with an opaque torrent that would have overflowed, but for the
dikes thrown up to confine it. Behind the dike on the farther bank stood
the seeming officer, waving his flag in sign that he desired a parley.
He was in reality no officer, but one of Le Loutre's Indians in
disguise, Etienne Le Bâtard, or, as others say, the great chief,
Jean-Baptiste Cope. Howe, carrying a white flag, and accompanied by a
few officers and men, went towards the river to hear what he had to say.
As they drew near, his looks and language excited their suspicion. But
it was too late; for a number of Indians, who had hidden behind the dike
during the night, fired upon Howe across the stream, and mortally
wounded him. They continued their fire on his companions, but could not
prevent them from carrying the dying man to the fort. The French
officers, indignant at this villany, did not hesitate to charge it upon
Le Loutre; "for," says one of them, "what is not a wicked priest capable
of doing?" But Le Loutre's brother missionary, Maillard, declares that
it was purely an effect of religious zeal on the part of the Micmacs,
who, according to him, bore a deadly grudge against Howe because,
fourteen years before, he had spoken words disrespectful to the Holy
Virgin.[114] Maillard adds that the Indians were much pleased with what
they had done. Finding, however, that they could effect little against
the English troops, they changed their field of action, repaired to the
outskirts of Halifax, murdered about thirty settlers, and carried off
eight or ten prisoners.
[Footnote 114: Maillard, _Les Missions Micmaques_. On the murder of
Howe, _Public Documents of Nova Scotia_, 194, 195, 210; _Mémoires sur le
Canada, 1749-1760_, where it is said that Le Loutre was present at the
deed; La Vallière, _Journal_, who says that some Acadians took part in
it; _Dépêches de la Jonquière_, who says "les sauvages de l'Abbé le
Loutre l'ont tué par trahison;" and _Prévost au Ministre, 27 Oct.
1750_.]
Strong reinforcements came from Canada. The French began a fort on the
hill of Beauséjour, and the Acadians were required to work at it with no
compensation but rations. They were thinly clad, some had neither shoes
nor stockings, and winter was begun. They became so dejected that it was
found absolutely necessary to give them wages enough to supply their
most pressing needs. In the following season Fort Beauséjour was in a
state to receive a garrison. It stood on the crown of the hill, and a
vast panorama stretched below and around it. In front lay the Bay of
Chignecto, winding along the fertile shores of Chipody and Memeramcook.
Far on the right spread the great Tantemar marsh; on the left lay the
marsh of the Missaguash; and on a knoll beyond it, not three miles
distant, the red flag of England waved over the palisades of Fort
Lawrence, while hills wrapped in dark forests bounded the horizon.
How the homeless Acadians from Beaubassin lived through the winter is
not very clear. They probably found shelter at Chipody and its
neighborhood, where there were thriving settlements of their countrymen.
Le Loutre, fearing that they would return to their lands and submit to
the English, sent some of them to Isle St. Jean. "They refused to go,"
says a French writer; "but he compelled them at last, by threatening to
make the Indians pillage them, carry off their wives and children, and
even kill them before their eyes. Nevertheless he kept about him such as
were most submissive to his will."[115] In the spring after the English
occupied Beaubassin, La Jonquière issued a strange proclamation. It
commanded all Acadians to take forthwith an oath of fidelity to the King
of France, and to enroll themselves in the French militia, on pain of
being treated as rebels.[116] Three years after, Lawrence, who then
governed the province, proclaimed in his turn that all Acadians who had
at any time sworn fidelity to the King of England, and who should be
found in arms against him, would be treated as criminals.[117] Thus were
these unfortunates ground between the upper and nether millstones. Le
Loutre replied to this proclamation of Lawrence by a letter in which he
outdid himself. He declared that any of the inhabitants who had crossed
to the French side of the line, and who should presume to return to the
English, would be treated as enemies by his Micmacs; and in the name of
these, his Indian adherents, he demanded that the entire eastern half of
the Acadian peninsula, including the ground on which Fort Lawrence
stood, should be at once made over to their sole use and sovereign
ownership,[118]--"which being read and considered," says the record of
the Halifax Council, "the contents appeared too insolent and absurd to
be answered."
[Footnote 115: _Mémoires sur le Canada, 1749-1760_.]
[Footnote 116: _Ordonnance du 12 Avril, 1751_.]
[Footnote 117: _Écrit donné aux Habitants réfugiés à Beauséjour, 10
Août, 1754_.]
[Footnote 118: _Copie de la Lettre de M. l'Abbé Le Loutre, Prêtre
Missionnaire des Sauvages de l'Accadie, à M. Lawrence à Halifax, 26
Août, 1754_. There is a translation in _Public Documents of Nova
Scotia_.]
The number of Acadians who had crossed the line and were collected about
Beauséjour was now large. Their countrymen of Chipody began to find them
a burden, and they lived chiefly on Government rations. Le Loutre had
obtained fifty thousand livres from the Court in order to dike in, for
their use, the fertile marshes of Memeramcook; but the relief was
distant, and the misery pressing. They complained that they had been
lured over the line by false assurances, and they applied secretly to
the English authorities to learn if they would be allowed to return to
their homes. The answer was that they might do so with full enjoyment of
religion and property, if they would take a simple oath of fidelity and
loyalty to the King of Great Britain, qualified by an oral intimation
that they would not be required for the present to bear arms.[119] When
Le Loutre heard this, he mounted the pulpit, broke into fierce
invectives, threatened the terrified people with excommunication, and
preached himself into a state of exhaustion.[120] The military
commandant at Beauséjour used gentler means of prevention; and the
Acadians, unused for generations to think or act for themselves,
remained restless, but indecisive, waiting till fate should settle for
them the question, under which king?
[Footnote 119: _Public Documents of Nova Scotia_, 205, 209.]
[Footnote 120: Compare _Mémoires, 1749-1760_, and _Public Documents of
Nova Scotia_, 229, 230.]
Meanwhile, for the past three years, the commissioners appointed under
the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle to settle the question of boundaries
between France and England in America had been in session at Paris,
waging interminable war on paper; La Galissonière and Silhouette for
France, Shirley and Mildmay for England. By the treaty of Utrecht,
Acadia belonged to England; but what was Acadia? According to the
English commissioners, it comprised not only the peninsula now called
Nova Scotia, but all the immense tract of land between the River St.
Lawrence on the north, the Gulf of the same name on the east, the
Atlantic on the south, and New England on the west.[121] The French
commissioners, on their part, maintained that the name Acadia belonged
of right only to about a twentieth part of this territory, and that it
did not even cover the whole of the Acadian peninsula, but only its
southern coast, with an adjoining belt of barren wilderness. When the
French owned Acadia, they gave it boundaries as comprehensive as those
claimed for it by the English commissioners; now that it belonged to a
rival, they cut it down to a paring of its former self. The denial that
Acadia included the whole peninsula was dictated by the need of a winter
communication between Quebec and Cape Breton, which was possible only
with the eastern portions in French hands. So new was this denial that
even La Galissonière himself, the foremost in making it, had declared
without reservation two years before that Acadia was the entire
peninsula.[122] "If," says a writer on the question, "we had to do with
a nation more tractable, less grasping, and more conciliatory, it would
be well to insist also that Halifax should be given up to us." He thinks
that, on the whole, it would be well to make the demand in any case, in
order to gain some other point by yielding this one.[123] It is curious
that while denying that the country was Acadia, the French invariably
called the inhabitants Acadians. Innumerable public documents,
commissions, grants, treaties, edicts, signed by French kings and
ministers, had recognized Acadia as extending over New Brunswick and a
part of Maine. Four censuses of Acadia while it belonged to the French
had recognized the mainland as included in it; and so do also the early
French maps. Its prodigious shrinkage was simply the consequence of its
possession by an alien.
[Footnote 121: The commission of De Monts, in 1603, defines Acadia as
extending from the fortieth to the forty-sixth degrees of
latitude,--that is, from central New Brunswick to southern Pennsylvania.
Neither party cared to produce the document.]
[Footnote 122: "L'Acadie suivant ses anciennes limites est la presquisle
bornée par son isthme." _La Galissonière au Ministre, 25 Juillet, 1749_.
The English commissioners were, of course, ignorant of this admission.]
[Footnote 123: _Mémoire de l'Abbée de l'Isle-Dieu, 1753_ (1754?).]
Other questions of limits, more important and equally perilous, called
loudly for solution. What line should separate Canada and her western
dependencies from the British colonies? Various principles of
demarcation were suggested, of which the most prominent on the French
side was a geographical one. All countries watered by streams falling
into the St. Lawrence, the Great Lakes, and the Mississippi were to
belong to her. This would have planted her in the heart of New York and
along the crests of the Alleghanies, giving her all the interior of the
continent, and leaving nothing to England but a strip of sea-coast. Yet
in view of what France had achieved; of the patient gallantry of her
explorers, the zeal of her missionaries, the adventurous hardihood of
her bushrangers, revealing to civilized mankind the existence of this
wilderness world, while her rivals plodded at their workshops, their
farms, or their fisheries,--in view of all this, her pretensions were
moderate and reasonable compared with those of England. The treaty of
Utrecht had declared the Iroquois, or Five Nations, to be British
subjects; therefore it was insisted that all countries conquered by them
belonged to the British Crown. But what was an Iroquois conquest? The
Iroquois rarely occupied the countries they overran. Their military
expeditions were mere raids, great or small. Sometimes, as in the case
of the Hurons, they made a solitude and called it peace; again, as in
the case of the Illinois, they drove off the occupants of the soil, who
returned after the invaders were gone. But the range of their
war-parties was prodigious; and the English laid claim to every
mountain, forest, or prairie where an Iroquois had taken a scalp. This
would give them not only the country between the Alleghanies and the
Mississippi, but also that between Lake Huron and the Ottawa, thus
reducing Canada to the patch on the American map now represented by the
province of Quebec,--or rather, by a part of it, since the extension of
Acadia to the St. Lawrence would cut off the present counties of Gaspé,
Rimouski, and Bonaventure. Indeed among the advocates of British claims
there were those who denied that France had any rights whatever on the
south side of the St. Lawrence.[124] Such being the attitude of the two
contestants, it was plain that there was no resort but the last argument
of kings. Peace must be won with the sword.
[Footnote 124: The extent of British claims is best shown on two maps of
the time, Mitchell's _Map of the British and French Dominions in North
America_ and Huske's _New and Accurate Map of North America_; both are
in the British Museum. Dr. John Mitchell, in his _Contest in America_
(London, 1757) pushes the English claim to its utmost extreme, and
denies that the French were rightful owners of anything in North
America except the town of Quebec and the trading-post of Tadoussac.
Besides the claim founded on the subjection of the Iroquois to the
British Crown, the English somewhat inconsistently advanced others
founded on titles obtained by treaty from these same tribes, and others
still, founded on the original grants of some of the colonies, which ran
indefinitely westward across the continent.]
The commissioners at Paris broke up their sessions, leaving as the
monument of their toils four quarto volumes of allegations, arguments,
and documentary proofs.[125] Out of the discussion rose also a swarm of
fugitive publications in French, English, and Spanish; for the question
of American boundaries had become European. There was one among them
worth notice from its amusing absurdity. It is an elaborate
disquisition, under the title of _Roman politique_, by an author
faithful to the traditions of European diplomacy, and inspired at the
same time by the new philosophy of the school of Rousseau. He insists
that the balance of power must be preserved in America as well as in
Europe, because "Nature," "the aggrandizement of the human soul," and
the "felicity of man" are unanimous in demanding it. The English
colonies are more populous and wealthy than the French; therefore the
French should have more land, to keep the balance. Nature, the human
soul, and the felicity of man require that France should own all the
country beyond the Alleghanies and all Acadia but a strip of the south
coast, according to the "sublime negotiations" of the French
commissioners, of which the writer declares himself a "religious
admirer."[126]
[Footnote 125: _Mémoires des Commissaires de Sa Majesté Très Chrétienne
et de ceux de Sa Majesté Brittanique_. Paris, 1755. Several editions
appeared.]
[Footnote 126: _Roman politique sur l'État présent des Affaires de
l'Amérique_ (Amsterdam, 1756). For extracts from French Documents, see
Appendix B.]
We know already that France had used means sharper than negotiation to
vindicate her claim to the interior of the continent; had marched to the
sources of the Ohio to entrench herself there, and hold the passes of
the West against all comers. It remains to see how she fared in her bold
enterprise.