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