1745-1747.
ACADIAN CONFLICTS.
EFFORTS OF FRANCE.--APATHY OF NEWCASTLE.--DILEMMA OF ACADIANS:
THEIR CHARACTER.--DANGER OF THE PROVINCE.--PLANS OF SHIRLEY.--
ACADIAN PRIESTS.--POLITICAL AGITATORS.--NOBLE’S EXPEDITION.--
RAMESAY AT BEAUBASSIN.--NOBLE AT GRAND PRÉ.--A WINTER MARCH.--
DEFEAT AND DEATH OF NOBLE.--GRAND PRÉ REOCCUPIED BY THE
ENGLISH.--THREATS OF RAMESAY AGAINST THE ACADIANS.--THE BRITISH
MINISTRY WILL NOT PROTECT THEM.
Since the capture of Louisbourg, France had held constantly in view,
as an object of prime importance, the recovery of her lost colony of
Acadia. This was one of the chief aims of D’Anville’s expedition, and
of that of La Jonquière in the next year. And to make assurance still
more sure, a large body of Canadians, under M. de Ramesay, had been
sent to Acadia to co-operate with D’Anville’s force; but the greater
part of them had been recalled to aid in defending Quebec against the
expected attack of the English. They returned when the news came that
D’Anville was at Chibucto, and Ramesay, with a part of his command,
advanced upon Port Royal, or Annapolis, in order to support the fleet
in its promised attack on that place. He encamped at a little distance 170
from the English fort, till he heard of the disasters that had ruined
the fleet,[191] and then fell back to Chignecto, on the neck of the
Acadian peninsula, where he made his quarters, with a force which,
including Micmac, Malicite, and Penobscot Indians, amounted, at one
time, to about sixteen hundred men.
If France was bent on recovering Acadia, Shirley was no less resolved
to keep it, if he could. In his belief, it was the key of the British
American colonies, and again and again he urged the Duke of Newcastle
to protect it. But Newcastle seems scarcely to have known where Acadia
was, being ignorant of most things except the art of managing the
House of Commons, and careless of all things that could not help his
party and himself. Hence Shirley’s hyperboles, though never without a
basis of truth, were lost upon him. Once, it is true, he sent three
hundred men to Annapolis; but one hundred and eighty of them died on
the voyage, or lay helpless in Boston hospitals, and the rest could
better have been spared, some being recruits from English jails, and
others Irish Catholics, several of whom deserted to the French, with
information of the state of the garrison.
The defence of Acadia was left to Shirley and his Assembly, who in
time of need sent companies of militia and rangers to Annapolis, and
thus on several occasions saved it from returning to France. Shirley
was the most watchful and strenuous defender of British interests on 171
the continent; and in the present crisis British and colonial
interests were one. He held that if Acadia were lost, the peace and
safety of all the other colonies would be in peril; and in spite of
the immense efforts made by the French court to recover it, he felt
that the chief danger of the province was not from without, but from
within. “If a thousand French troops should land in Nova Scotia,” he
writes to Newcastle, “all the people would rise to join them, besides
all the Indians.”[192] So, too, thought the French officials in
America. The governor and intendant of Canada wrote to the colonial
minister: “The inhabitants, with few exceptions, wish to return under
the French dominion, and will not hesitate to take up arms as soon as
they see themselves free to do so; that is, as soon as we become
masters of Port Royal, or they have powder and other munitions of war,
and are backed by troops for their protection against the resentment
of the English.”[193] Up to this time, however, though they had aided
Duvivier in his attack on Annapolis so far as was possible without
seeming to do so, they had not openly taken arms, and their refusal to
fight for the besiegers is one among several causes to which Mascarene
ascribes the success of his defence. While the greater part remained
attached to France, some leaned to the English, who bought their
produce and paid them in ready coin. Money was rare with the Acadians, 172
who loved it, and were so addicted to hoarding it that the French
authorities were led to speculate as to what might be the object of
these careful savings.[194]
Though the Acadians loved France, they were not always ready to
sacrifice their interests to her. They would not supply Ramesay’s
force with provisions in exchange for his promissory notes, but
demanded hard cash.[195] This he had not to give, and was near being
compelled to abandon his position in consequence. At the same time, in
consideration of specie payment, the inhabitants brought in fuel for
the English garrison at Louisbourg, and worked at repairing the rotten
_chevaux de frise_ of Annapolis.[196]
Mascarene, commandant at that place, being of French descent, was
disposed at first to sympathize with the Acadians and treat them with
a lenity that to the members of his council seemed neither fitting nor
prudent. He wrote to Shirley: “The French inhabitants are certainly in
a very perilous situation, those who pretend to be their friends and
old masters having let loose a parcel of banditti to plunder them;
whilst, on the other hand, they see themselves threatened with ruin if
they fail in their allegiance to the British Government.”[197]
This unhappy people were in fact between two fires. France claimed 173
them on one side, and England on the other, and each demanded their
adhesion, without regard to their feelings or their welfare. The
banditti of whom Mascarene speaks were the Micmac Indians, who were
completely under the control of their missionary, Le Loutre, and were
used by him to terrify the inhabitants into renouncing their English
allegiance and actively supporting the French cause. By the Treaty of
Utrecht France had transferred Acadia to Great Britain, and the
inhabitants had afterwards taken an oath of fidelity to King George.
Thus they were British subjects; but as their oath had been
accompanied by a promise, or at least a clear understanding, that they
should not be required to take arms against Frenchmen or Indians, they
had become known as the “Neutral French.” This name tended to perplex
them, and in their ignorance and simplicity they hardly knew to which
side they owed allegiance. Their illiteracy was extreme. Few of them
could sign their names, and a contemporary well acquainted with them
declares that he knew but a single Acadian who could read and
write.[198] This was probably the notary, Le Blanc, whose compositions
are crude and illiterate. Ignorant of books and isolated in a wild and
remote corner of the world, the Acadians knew nothing of affairs, and
were totally incompetent to meet the crisis that was soon to come upon
them. In activity and enterprise they were far behind the Canadians, 174
who looked on them as inferiors. Their pleasures were those of the
humblest and simplest peasants; they were contented with their lot,
and asked only to be let alone. Their intercourse was unceremonious to
such a point that they never addressed each other, or, it is said,
even strangers, as _monsieur_. They had the social equality which
can exist only in the humblest conditions of society, and presented
the phenomenon of a primitive little democracy, hatched under the wing
of an absolute monarchy. Each was as good as his neighbor; they had no
natural leaders, nor any to advise or guide them, except the
missionary priest, who in every case was expected by his superiors to
influence them in the interest of France, and who, in fact, constantly
did so. While one observer represents them as living in a state of
primeval innocence, another describes both men and women as extremely
foul of speech; from which he draws inferences unfavorable to their
domestic morals,[199] which, nevertheless, were commendable. As is
usual with a well-fed and unambitious peasantry, they were very
prolific, and are said to have doubled their number every sixteen
years. In 1748 they counted in the peninsula of Nova Scotia between
twelve and thirteen thousand souls.[200] The English rule had been of
the lightest,--so light that it could scarcely be felt; and this was
not surprising, since the only instruments for enforcing it over a 175
population wholly French were some two hundred disorderly soldiers in
the crumbling little fort of Annapolis; and the province was left,
perforce, to take care of itself.
The appearance of D’Anville’s fleet caused great excitement among the
Acadians, who thought that they were about to pass again under the
Crown of France. Fifty of them went on board the French ships at
Chibucto to pilot them to the attack of Annapolis, and to their dismay
found that no attack was to be made. When Ramesay, with his Canadians
and Indians, took post at Chignecto and built a fort at Baye Verte, on
the neck of the peninsula of Nova Scotia, the English power in that
part of the colony seemed at an end. The inhabitants cut off all
communication with Annapolis, and detained the officers whom Mascarene
sent for intelligence.
From the first outbreak of the war it was evident that the French
built their hopes of recovering Acadia largely on a rising of the
Acadians against the English rule, and that they spared no efforts to
excite such a rising. Early in 1745 a violent and cruel precaution
against this danger was suggested. William Shirreff, provincial
secretary, gave it as his opinion that the Acadians ought to be
removed, being a standing menace to the colony.[201] This is the first
proposal of such a nature that I find. Some months later, Shirley
writes that, on a false report of the capture of Annapolis by the 176
French, the Acadians sang _Te Deum_, and that every sign
indicates that there will be an attempt in the spring to capture
Annapolis, with their help.[202] Again, Shirley informs Newcastle that
the French will get possession of Acadia unless the most dangerous of
the inhabitants are removed, and English settlers put in their
place.[203] He adds that there are not two hundred and twenty soldiers
at Annapolis to defend the province against the whole body of Acadians
and Indians, and he tells the minister that unless the expedition
against Canada should end in the conquest of that country, the removal
of some of the Acadians will be a necessity. He means those of
Chignecto, who were kept in a threatening attitude by the presence of
Ramesay and his Canadians, and who, as he thinks, had forfeited their
lands by treasonable conduct. Shirley believes that families from New
England might be induced to take their place, and that these, if
settled under suitable regulations, would form a military frontier to
the province of Nova Scotia “strong enough to keep the Canadians out,”
and hold the Acadians to their allegiance.[204] The Duke of Bedford
thinks the plan a good one, but objects to the expense.[205] Commodore
Knowles, then governor of Louisbourg, who, being threatened with
consumption and convinced that the climate was killing him, vented his
feelings in strictures against everything and everybody, was of opinion 177
that the Acadians, having broken their neutrality, ought to be
expelled at once, and expresses the amiable hope that should his
Majesty adopt this plan, he will charge him with executing it.[206]
Shirley’s energetic nature inclined him to trenchant measures, and he
had nothing of modern humanitarianism; but he was not inhuman, and he
shrank from the cruelty of forcing whole communities into exile. While
Knowles and others called for wholesale expatriation, he still held
that it was possible to turn the greater part of the Acadians into
safe subjects of the British Crown;[207] and to this end he advised
the planting of a fortified town where Halifax now stands, and
securing by forts and garrisons the neck of the Acadian peninsula,
where the population was most numerous and most disaffected. The
garrisons, he thought, would not only impose respect, but would
furnish the Acadians with what they wanted most,--ready markets for
their produce,--and thus bind them to the British by strong ties of 178
interest. Newcastle thought the plan good, but wrote that its
execution must be deferred to a future day. Three years later it was
partly carried into effect by the foundation of Halifax; but at that
time the disaffection of the Acadians had so increased, and the hope
of regaining the province for France had risen so high, that this
partial and tardy assertion of British authority only spurred the
French agents to redoubled efforts to draw the inhabitants from the
allegiance they had sworn to the Crown of England.
Shirley had also other plans in view for turning the Acadians into
good British subjects. He proposed, as a measure of prime necessity,
to exclude French priests from the province. The free exercise of
their religion had been insured to the inhabitants by the Treaty of
Utrecht, and on this point the English authorities had given no just
cause of complaint. A priest had occasionally been warned, suspended,
or removed; but without a single exception, so far as appears, this
was in consequence of conduct which tended to excite disaffection, and
which would have incurred equal or greater penalties in the case of a
layman.[208] The sentence was directed, not against the priest, but 179
against the political agitator. Shirley’s plan of excluding French
priests from the province would not have violated the provisions of
the treaty, provided that the inhabitants were supplied with other
priests, not French subjects, and therefore not politically dangerous;
but though such a measure was several times proposed by the provincial
authorities, the exasperating apathy of the Newcastle Government gave
no hope that it could be accomplished.
The influences most dangerous to British rule did not proceed from
love of France or sympathy of race, but from the power of religion
over a simple and ignorant people, trained in profound love and awe of
their Church and its ministers, who were used by the representatives
of Louis XV. as agents to alienate the Acadians from England.
The most strenuous of these clerical agitators was Abbé Le Loutre,
missionary to the Micmacs, and after 1753 vicar-general of Acadia. He
was a fiery and enterprising zealot, inclined by temperament to
methods of violence, detesting the English, and restrained neither by
pity nor scruple from using threats of damnation and the Micmac
tomahawk to frighten the Acadians into doing his bidding. The worst 180
charge against him, that of exciting the Indians of his mission to
murder Captain Howe, an English officer, has not been proved; but it
would not have been brought against him by his own countrymen if his
character and past conduct had gained him their esteem.
The other Acadian priests were far from sharing Le Loutre’s violence;
but their influence was always directed to alienating the inhabitants
from their allegiance to King George. Hence Shirley regarded the
conversion of the Acadians to Protestantism as a political measure of
the first importance, and proposed the establishment of schools in the
province to that end. Thus far his recommendations are perfectly
legitimate; but when he adds that rewards ought to be given to
Acadians who renounce their faith, few will venture to defend him.
Newcastle would trouble himself with none of his schemes, and Acadia
was left to drift with the tide, as before. “I shall finish my
troubleing your Grace upon the affairs of Nova Scotia with this
letter,” writes the persevering Shirley. And he proceeds to ask, “as a
proper Scheme for better securing the Subjection of the French
inhabitants and Indians there,” that the governor and Council at
Annapolis have special authority and direction from the King to arrest
and examine such Acadians as shall be “most obnoxious and dangerous to
his Majesty’s Government;” and if found guilty of treasonable
correspondence with the enemy, to dispose of them and their estates in 181
such manner as his Majesty shall order, at the same time promising
indemnity to the rest for past offences, upon their taking or renewing
the oath of allegiance.[209]
To this it does not appear that Newcastle made any answer except to
direct Shirley, eight or nine months later, to tell the Acadians that,
so long as they were peaceable subjects, they should be protected in
property and religion.[210] Thus left to struggle unaided with a most
difficult problem, entirely outside of his functions as governor of
Massachusetts, Shirley did what he could. The most pressing danger, as
he thought, rose from the presence of Ramesay and his Canadians at
Chignecto; for that officer spared no pains to induce the Acadians to
join him in another attempt against Annapolis, telling them that if
they did not drive out the English, the English would drive them out.
He was now at Mines, trying to raise the inhabitants in arms for
France. Shirley thought it necessary to counteract him, and force him
and his Canadians back to the isthmus whence they had come; but as the
ministry would give no soldiers, he was compelled to draw them from
New England. The defence of Acadia was the business of the home 182
government, and not of the colonies; but as they were deeply
interested in the preservation of the endangered province,
Massachusetts gave five hundred men in response to Shirley’s call, and
Rhode Island and New Hampshire added, between them, as many more. Less
than half of these levies reached Acadia. It was the stormy season.
The Rhode Island vessels were wrecked near Martha’s Vineyard. A New
Hampshire transport sloop was intercepted by a French armed vessel,
and ran back to Portsmouth. Four hundred and seventy men from
Massachusetts, under Colonel Arthur Noble, were all who reached
Annapolis, whence they sailed for Mines, accompanied by a few soldiers
of the garrison. Storms, drifting ice, and the furious tides of the
Bay of Fundy made their progress so difficult and uncertain that Noble
resolved to finish the journey by land; and on the fourth of December
he disembarked near the place now called French Cross, at the foot of
the North Mountain,--a lofty barrier of rock and forest extending
along the southern shore of the Bay of Fundy. Without a path and
without guides, the party climbed the snow-encumbered heights and
toiled towards their destination, each man carrying provisions for
fourteen days in his haversack. After sleeping eight nights without
shelter among the snowdrifts, they reached the Acadian village of
Grand Pré, the chief settlement of the district of Mines. Ramesay and
his Canadians were gone. On learning the approach of an English force, 183
he had tried to persuade the Acadians that they were to be driven from
their homes, and that their only hope was in joining with him to meet
force by force; but they trusted Shirley’s recent assurance of
protection, and replied that they would not break their oath of
fidelity to King George. On this, Ramesay retreated to his old station
at Chignecto, and Noble and his men occupied Grand Pré without
opposition.
The village consisted of small, low wooden houses, scattered at
intervals for the distance of a mile and a half, and therefore ill
fitted for defence. The English had the frame of a blockhouse, or, as
some say, of two blockhouses, ready to be set up on their arrival; but
as the ground was hard frozen, it was difficult to make a foundation,
and the frames were therefore stored in outbuildings of the village,
with the intention of raising them in the spring. The vessels which
had brought them; together with stores, ammunition, five small cannon,
and a good supply of snow-shoes, had just arrived at the
landing-place,--and here, with incredible fatuity, were allowed to
remain, with most of their indispensable contents still on board. The
men, meanwhile, were quartered in the Acadian houses.
Noble’s position was critical, but he was assured that he could not be
reached from Chignecto in such a bitter season; and this he was too
ready to believe, though he himself had just made a march, which, if
not so long, was quite as arduous. Yet he did not neglect every 184
precaution, but kept out scouting-parties to range the surrounding
country, while the rest of his men took their ease in the Acadian
houses, living on the provisions of the villagers, for which payment
was afterwards made. Some of the inhabitants, who had openly favored
Ramesay and his followers, fled to the woods, in fear of the
consequences; but the greater part remained quietly in the village.
At the head of the Bay of Fundy its waters form a fork, consisting of
Chignecto Bay on the one hand, and Mines Basin on the other. At the
head of Chignecto Bay was the Acadian settlement of Chignecto, or
Beaubassin, in the houses of which Ramesay had quartered his
Canadians. Here the neck of the Acadian peninsula is at its narrowest,
the distance across to Baye Verte, where Ramesay had built a fort,
being little more than twelve miles. Thus he controlled the
isthmus,--from which, however, Noble hoped to dislodge him in the
spring.
In the afternoon of the eighth of January an Acadian who had been sent
to Mines by the missionary Germain, came to Beaubassin with the news
that two hundred and twenty English were at Grand Pré, and that more
were expected.[211] Ramesay instantly formed a plan of extraordinary
hardihood, and resolved, by a rapid march and a night attack, to
surprise the new-comers. His party was greatly reduced by disease, and 185
to recruit it he wrote to La Corne, Récollet missionary at Miramichi,
to join him with his Indians; writing at the same time to Maillard,
former colleague of Le Loutre at the mission of Shubenacadie, and to
Girard, priest of Cobequid, to muster Indians, collect provisions, and
gather information concerning the English. Meanwhile his Canadians
busied themselves with making snow-shoes and dog-sledges for the
march.
Ramesay could not command the expedition in person, as an accident to
one of his knees had disabled him from marching. This was less to be
regretted, in view of the quality of his officers, for he had with him
the flower of the warlike Canadian _noblesse_,--Coulon de Villiers,
who, seven years later, defeated Washington at Fort Necessity;
Beaujeu, the future hero of the Monongahela, in appearance a carpet
knight, in reality a bold and determined warrior; the Chevalier de la
Corne, a model of bodily and mental hardihood; Saint-Pierre,
Lanaudière, Saint-Ours, Desligneris, Courtemanche, Repentigny,
Boishébert, Gaspé, Colombière, Marin, Lusignan,--all adepts in the
warfare of surprise and sudden onslaught in which the Canadians
excelled.
Coulon de Villiers commanded in Ramesay’s place; and on the
twenty-first of January he and the other officers led their men across
the isthmus from Beaubassin to Baye Verte, where they all encamped in
the woods, and where they were joined by a party of Indians and some
Acadians from Beaubassin and Isle St. Jean.[212] Provisions, 186
ammunition, and other requisites were distributed, and at noon of the
twenty-third they broke up their camp, marched three leagues, and
bivouacked towards evening. On the next morning they marched again at
daybreak. There was sharp cold, with a storm of snow,--not the large,
moist, lazy flakes that fall peacefully and harmlessly, but those
small crystalline particles that drive spitefully before the wind, and
prick the cheek like needles. It was the kind of snow-storm called in
Canada _la poudrerie_. They had hoped to make a long day’s march;
but feet and faces were freezing, and they were forced to stop, at
noon, under such shelter as the thick woods of pine, spruce, and fir
could supply. In the morning they marched again, following the border
of the sea, their dog-teams dragging provisions and baggage over the
broken ice of creeks and inlets, which they sometimes avoided by
hewing paths through the forest. After a day of extreme fatigue they
stopped at the small bay where the town of Wallace now stands. Beaujeu
says: “While we were digging out the snow to make our huts, there came
two Acadians with letters from MM. Maillard and Girard.” The two
priests sent a mixture of good and evil news. On one hand the English
were more numerous than had been reported; on the other, they had not
set up the blockhouses they had brought with them. Some Acadians of
the neighboring settlement joined the party at this camp, as also did
a few Indians.
On the next morning, January 27, the adventurers stopped at the 187
village of Tatmagouche, where they were again joined by a number of
Acadians. After mending their broken sledges they resumed their march,
and at five in the afternoon reached a place called Bacouel, at the
beginning of the portage that led some twenty-five miles across the
country to Cobequid, now Truro, at the head of Mines Basin. Here they
were met by Girard, priest of Cobequid, from whom Coulon exacted a
promise to meet him again at that village in two days. Girard gave the
promise unwillingly, fearing, says Beaujeu, to embroil himself with
the English authorities. He reported that the force at Grand Pré
counted at least four hundred and fifty, or, as some said, more than
five hundred. This startling news ran through the camp; but the men
were not daunted. “The more there are,” they said, “the more we shall
kill.”
The party spent the twenty-eighth in mending their damaged sledges,
and in the afternoon they were joined by more Acadians and Indians.
Thus reinforced, they marched again, and towards evening reached a
village on the outskirts of Cobequid. Here the missionary Maillard
joined them,--to the great satisfaction of Coulon, who relied on him
and his brother priest Girard to procure supplies of provisions.
Maillard promised to go himself to Grand Pré with the Indians of his
mission.
The party rested for a day, and set out again on the first of
February, stopped at Maillard’s house in Cobequid for the provisions 188
he had collected for them, and then pushed on towards the river
Shubenacadie, which runs from the south into Cobequid Bay, the head of
Mines Basin. When they reached the river they found it impassable from
floating ice, which forced them to seek a passage at some distance
above. Coulon was resolved, however, that at any risk a detachment
should cross at once, to stop the roads to Grand Pré, and prevent the
English from being warned of his approach; for though the Acadians
inclined to the French, and were eager to serve them when the risk was
not too great, there were some of them who, from interest or fear,
were ready to make favor with the English by carrying them
intelligence. Boishébert, with ten Canadians, put out from shore in a
canoe, and were near perishing among the drifting ice; but they gained
the farther shore at last, and guarded every path to Grand Pré. The
main body filed on snow-shoes up the east bank of the Shubenacadie,
where the forests were choked with snow and encumbered with fallen
trees, over which the sledges were to be dragged, to their great
detriment. On this day, the third, they made five leagues; on the next
only two, which brought them within half a league of Le Loutre’s
Micmac mission. Not far from this place the river was easily passable
on the ice, and they continued their march westward across the country
to the river Kennetcook by ways so difficult that their Indian guide
lost the path, and for a time led them astray. On the seventh,
Boishébert and his party rejoined them, and brought a reinforcement of 189
sixteen Indians, whom the Acadians had furnished with arms. Provisions
were failing, till on the eighth, as they approached the village of
Pisiquid, now Windsor, the Acadians, with great zeal, brought them a
supply. They told them, too, that the English at Grand Pré were
perfectly secure, suspecting no danger.
On the ninth, in spite of a cold, dry storm of snow, they reached the
west branch of the river Avon. It was but seven French leagues to
Grand Pré, which they hoped to reach before night; but fatigue
compelled them to rest till the tenth. At noon of that day, the storm
still continuing, they marched again, though they could hardly see
their way for the driving snow. They soon came to a small stream,
along the frozen surface of which they drew up in order, and, by
command of Coulon, Beaujeu divided them all into ten parties, for
simultaneous attacks on as many houses occupied by the English. Then,
marching slowly, lest they should arrive too soon, they reached the
river Gaspereau, which enters Mines Basin at Grand Pré. They were now
but half a league from their destination. Here they stopped an hour in
the storm, shivering and half frozen, waiting for nightfall. When it
grew dark they moved again, and soon came to a number of houses on the
river-bank. Each of the ten parties took possession of one of these,
making great fires to warm themselves and dry their guns.
It chanced that in the house where Coulon and his band sought shelter, 190
a wedding-feast was going on. The guests were much startled at this
sudden irruption of armed men; but to the Canadians and their chief
the festival was a stroke of amazing good luck, for most of the guests
were inhabitants of Grand Pré, who knew perfectly the houses occupied
by the English, and could tell with precision where the officers were
quartered. This was a point of extreme importance. The English were
distributed among twenty-four houses, scattered, as before mentioned,
for the distance of a mile and a half.[213] The assailants were too
few to attack all these houses at once; but if those where the chief
officers lodged could be surprised and captured with their inmates,
the rest could make little resistance. Hence it was that Coulon had
divided his followers into ten parties, each with one or more chosen
officers; these officers were now called together at the house of the
interrupted festivity, and the late guests having given full
information as to the position of the English quarters and the
military quality of their inmates, a special object of attack was
assigned to the officer of each party, with Acadian guides to conduct
him to it. The principal party, consisting of fifty, or, as another
account says, of seventy-five men, was led by Coulon himself, with
Beaujeu, Desligneris, Mercier, Léry, and Lusignan as his officers. This
party was to attack a stone house near the middle of the village, 191
where the main guard was stationed,--a building somewhat larger than
the rest, and the only one at all suited for defence. The second
party, of forty men, commanded by La Corne, with Rigauville, Lagny,
and Villemont, was to attack a neighboring house, the quarters of
Colonel Noble, his brother, Ensign Noble, and several other officers.
The remaining parties, of twenty-five men each according to Beaujeu,
or twenty-eight according to La Corne, were to make a dash, as nearly
as possible at the same time, at other houses which it was thought
most important to secure. All had Acadian guides, whose services in
that capacity were invaluable; though Beaujeu complains that they were
of no use in the attack. He says that the united force was about three
hundred men, while the English Captain Goldthwait puts it, including
Acadians and Indians, at from five to six hundred. That of the English
was a little above five hundred in all. Every arrangement being made,
and his part assigned to each officer, the whole body was drawn up in
the storm, and the chaplain pronounced a general absolution. Then each
of the ten parties, guided by one or more Acadians, took the path for
its destination, every man on snow-shoes, with the lock of his gun
well sheltered under his capote.
The largest party, under Coulon, was, as we have seen, to attack the
stone house in the middle of the village; but their guide went astray,
and about three in the morning they approached a small wooden house 192
not far from their true object. A guard was posted here, as at all the
English quarters. The night was dark and the snow was still falling,
as it had done without ceasing for the past thirty hours. The English
sentinel descried through the darkness and the storm what seemed the
shadows of an advancing crowd of men. He cried, “Who goes there?” and
then shouted, “To arms!” A door was flung open, and the guard appeared
in the entrance. But at that moment the moving shadows vanished from
before the eyes of the sentinel. The French, one and all, had thrown
themselves flat in the soft, light snow, and nothing was to be seen or
heard. The English thought it a false alarm, and the house was quiet
again. Then Coulon and his men rose and dashed forward. Again, in a
loud and startled voice, the sentinel shouted, “To arms!” A great
light, as of a blazing fire, shone through the open doorway, and men
were seen within in hurried movement. Coulon, who was in the front,
said to Beaujeu, who was close at his side, that the house was not the
one they were to attack. Beaujeu replied that it was no time to
change, and Coulon dashed forward again. Beaujeu aimed at the sentinel
and shot him dead. There was the flash and report of muskets from the
house, and Coulon dropped in the snow, severely wounded. The young
cadet, Lusignan, was hit in the shoulder; but he still pushed on, when
a second shot shattered his thigh. “Friends,” cried the gallant youth, 193
as he fell by the side of his commander, “don’t let two dead men
discourage you.” The Canadians, powdered from head to foot with snow,
burst into the house. Within ten minutes, all resistance was
overpowered. Of twenty-four Englishmen, twenty-one were killed, and
three made prisoners.[214]
Meanwhile, La Corne, with his party of forty men, had attacked the
house where were quartered Colonel Noble and his brother, with Captain
Howe and several other officers. Noble had lately transferred the main
guard to the stone house, but had not yet removed thither himself, and
the guard in the house which he occupied was small. The French burst
the door with axes, and rushed in. Colonel Noble, startled from sleep,
sprang from his bed, receiving two musket-balls in the body as he did
so. He seems to have had pistols, for he returned the fire several
times. His servant, who was in the house, testified that the French
called to the colonel through a window and promised him quarter if he
would surrender; but that he refused, on which they fired again, and a
bullet, striking his forehead, killed him instantly. His brother,
Ensign Noble, was also shot down, fighting in his shirt. Lieutenants
Pickering and Lechmere lay in bed dangerously ill, and were killed
there. Lieutenant Jones, after, as the narrator says, “ridding himself
of some of the enemy,” tried to break through the rest and escape, but
was run through the heart with a bayonet. Captain Howe was 194
severely wounded and made prisoner.
Coulon and Lusignan, disabled by their wounds, were carried back to
the houses on the Gaspereau, where the French surgeon had remained.
Coulon’s party, now commanded by Beaujeu, having met and joined the
smaller party under Lotbinière, proceeded to the aid of others who
might need their help; for while they heard a great noise of musketry
from far and near, and could discern bodies of men in motion here and
there, they could not see whether these were friends or foes, or
discern which side fortune favored. They presently met the party of
Marin, composed of twenty-five Indians, who had just been repulsed
with loss from the house which they had attacked. By this time there
was a gleam of daylight, and as they plodded wearily over the
snowdrifts, they no longer groped in darkness. The two parties of
Colombière and Boishébert soon joined them, with the agreeable news
that each had captured a house; and the united force now proceeded to
make a successful attack on two buildings where the English had stored
the frames of their blockhouses. Here the assailants captured ten
prisoners. It was now broad day, but they could not see through the
falling snow whether the enterprise, as a whole, had prospered or
failed. Therefore Beaujeu sent Marin to find La Corne, who, in the
absence of Coulon, held the chief command. Marin was gone two hours.
At length he returned, and reported that the English in the houses
which had not been attacked, together with such others as had not been 195
killed or captured, had drawn together at the stone house in the
middle of the village, that La Corne was blockading them there, and
that he ordered Beaujeu and his party to join him at once. When
Beaujeu reached the place he found La Corne posted at the house where
Noble had been killed, and which was within easy musket-shot of the
stone house occupied by the English, against whom a spattering fire
was kept up by the French from the cover of neighboring buildings.
Those in the stone house returned the fire; but no great harm was done
on either side, till the English, now commanded by Captain Goldthwait,
attempted to recapture the house where La Corne and his party were
posted. Two companies made a sally; but they had among them only
eighteen pairs of snow-shoes, the rest having been left on board the
two vessels which had brought the stores of the detachment from
Annapolis, and which now lay moored hard by, in the power of the
enemy, at or near the mouth of the Gaspereau. Hence the sallying party
floundered helpless among the drifts, plunging so deep in the dry snow
that they could not use their guns and could scarcely move, while
bullets showered upon them from La Corne’s men in the house, and
others hovering about them on snow-shoes. The attempt was hopeless,
and after some loss the two companies fell back. The firing continued,
as before, till noon, or, according to Beaujeu, till three in the
afternoon, when a French officer, carrying a flag of truce, came out 196
of La Corne’s house. The occasion of the overture was this.
Captain Howe, who, as before mentioned, had been badly wounded at the
capture of this house, was still there, a prisoner, without surgical
aid, the French surgeon being at the houses on the Gaspereau, in
charge of Coulon and other wounded men. “Though,” says Beaujeu, “M.
Howe was a firm man, he begged the Chevalier La Corne not to let him
bleed to death for want of aid, but permit him to send for an English
surgeon.” To this La Corne, after consulting with his officers,
consented, and Marin went to the English with a white flag and a note
from Howe explaining the situation. The surgeon was sent, and Howe’s
wound was dressed, Marin remaining as a hostage. A suspension of arms
took place till the surgeon’s return; after which it was prolonged
till nine o’clock of the next morning, at the instance, according to
French accounts, of the English, and, according to English accounts,
of the French. In either case, the truce was welcome to both sides.
The English, who were in the stone house to the number of nearly three
hundred and fifty, crowded to suffocation, had five small cannon, two
of which were four-pounders, and three were swivels; but these were
probably not in position, as it does not appear that any use was made
of them. There was no ammunition except what the men had in their
powder-horns and bullet-pouches, the main stock having been left, 197
with other necessaries, on board the schooner and sloop now in the
hands of the French. It was found, on examination, that they had
ammunition for eight shots each, and provisions for one day. Water was
only to be had by bringing it from a neighboring brook. As there were
snow-shoes for only about one man in twenty, sorties were out of the
question; and the house was commanded by high ground on three sides.
Though their number was still considerable, their position was growing
desperate. Thus it happened that when the truce expired, Goldthwait,
the English commander, with another officer, who seems to have been
Captain Preble, came with a white flag to the house where La Corne was
posted, and proposed terms of capitulation, Howe, who spoke French,
acting as interpreter. La Corne made proposals on his side, and as
neither party was anxious to continue the fray, they soon came to an
understanding.
It was agreed that within forty-eight hours the English should march
for Annapolis with the honors of war; that the prisoners taken by the
French should remain in their hands; that the Indians, who had been
the only plunderers, should keep the plunder they had taken; that the
English sick and wounded should be left, till their recovery, at the
neighboring settlement of Rivière-aux-Canards, protected by a French
guard, and that the English engaged in the affair at Grand Pré should
not bear arms during the next six months within the district about the 198
head of the Bay of Fundy, including Chignecto, Grand Pré, and the
neighboring settlements.
Captain Howe was released on parole, with the condition that he should
send back in exchange one Lacroix, a French prisoner at
Boston,--“which,” says La Corne, “he faithfully did.”
Thus ended one of the most gallant exploits in French-Canadian annals.
As respects the losses on each side, the French and English accounts
are irreconcilable; nor are the statements of either party consistent
with themselves. Mascarene reports to Shirley that seventy English
were killed, and above sixty captured; though he afterwards reduces
these numbers, having, as he says, received farther information. On
the French side he says that four officers and about forty men were
killed, and that many wounded were carried off in carts during the
fight. Beaujeu, on the other hand, sets the English loss at one
hundred and thirty killed, fifteen wounded, and fifty captured; and
the French loss at seven killed and fifteen wounded. As for the
numbers engaged, the statements are scarcely less divergent. It seems
clear, however, that when Coulon began his march from Baye Verte, his
party consisted of about three hundred Canadians and Indians, without
reckoning some Acadians who had joined him from Beaubassin and Isle
St. Jean. Others joined him on the way to Grand Pré, counting a
hundred and fifty according to Shirley,--which appears to be much too
large an estimate. The English, by their own showing, numbered five 199
hundred, or five hundred and twenty-five. Of eleven houses attacked,
ten were surprised and carried, with the help of the darkness and
storm and the skilful management of the assailants.
“No sooner was the capitulation signed,” says Beaujeu, “than we became
in appearance the best of friends.” La Corne directed military honors
to be rendered to the remains of the brothers Noble; and in all points
the Canadians, both officers and men, treated the English with
kindness and courtesy. “The English commandant,” again says Beaujeu,
“invited us all to dine with him and his officers, so that we might
have the pleasure of making acquaintance over a bowl of punch.” The
repast being served after such a fashion as circumstances permitted,
victors and vanquished sat down together; when, says Beaujeu, “we
received on the part of our hosts many compliments on our polite
manners and our skill in making war.” And the compliments were well
deserved.
At eight o’clock on the morning of the fourteenth of February the
English filed out of the stone house, and with arms shouldered, drums
beating, and colors flying, marched between two ranks of the French,
and took the road for Annapolis. The English sick and wounded were
sent to the settlement of Rivière-aux-Canards, where, protected by a
French guard and attended by an English surgeon, they were to remain
till able to reach the British fort.
La Corne called a council of war, and in view of the scarcity of food 200
and other reasons it was resolved to return to Beaubassin. Many of the
French had fallen ill. Some of the sick and wounded were left at Grand
Pré, others at Cobequid, and the Acadians were required to supply
means of carrying the rest. Coulon’s party left Grand Pré on the
twenty-third of February, and on the eighth of March reached
Beaubassin.[215]
Ramesay did not fail to use the success at Grand Pré to influence the
minds of the Acadians. He sent a circular letter to the inhabitants of
the various districts, and especially to those of Mines, in which he 201
told them that their country had been reconquered by the arms of the
King of France, to whom he commanded them to be faithful subjects,
holding no intercourse with the English under any pretence whatever,
on pain of the severest punishment. “If,” he concludes, “we have
withdrawn our soldiers from among you, it is for reasons known to us
alone, and with a view to your advantage.”[216]
Unfortunately for the effect of this message, Shirley had no sooner
heard of the disaster at Grand Pré than he sent a body of
Massachusetts soldiers to reoccupy the place.[217] This they did in
April. The Acadians thus found themselves, as usual, between two
dangers; and unable to see which horn of the dilemma was the worse,
they tried to avoid both by conciliating French and English alike, and
assuring each of their devoted attachment. They sent a pathetic letter
to Ramesay, telling him that their hearts were always French, and
begging him at the same time to remember that they were a poor,
helpless people, burdened with large families, and in danger of
expulsion and ruin if they offended their masters, the English.[218]
They wrote at the same time to Mascarene at Annapolis, sending him, to 202
explain the situation, a copy of Ramesay’s threatening letter to
them;[219] begging him to consider that they could not without danger
dispense with answering it; at the same time they protested their
entire fidelity to King George.[220]
Ramesay, not satisfied with the results of his first letter, wrote
again to the Acadians, ordering them, in the name of the
governor-general of New France, to take up arms against the English,
and enclosing for their instruction an extract from a letter of the
French governor. “These,” says Ramesay, “are his words: ‘We consider
ourself as master of Beaubassin and Mines, since we have driven off
the English. Therefore there is no difficulty in forcing the Acadians
to take arms for us; to which end we declare to them that they are
discharged from the oath that they formerly took to the English, by
which they are bound no longer, as has been decided by the authorities
of Canada and Monseigneur our Bishop.’”[221]
“In view of the above,” continues Ramesay, “we order all the 203
inhabitants of Memeramcook to come to this place [Beaubassin] as soon
as they see the signal-fires lighted, or discover the approach of the
enemy; and this on pain of death, confiscation of all their goods,
burning of their houses, and the punishment due to rebels against the
King.”[222]
The position of the Acadians was deplorable. By the Treaty of Utrecht,
France had transferred them to the British Crown; yet French officers
denounced them as rebels and threatened them with death if they did
not fight at their bidding against England; and English officers
threatened them with expulsion from the country if they broke their
oath of allegiance to King George. It was the duty of the British
ministry to occupy the province with a force sufficient to protect the
inhabitants against French terrorism, and leave no doubt that the King
of England was master of Acadia in fact as well as in name. This alone
could have averted the danger of Acadian revolt, and the harsh
measures to which it afterwards gave rise. The ministry sent no aid, 204
but left to Shirley and Massachusetts the task of keeping the province
for King George. Shirley and Massachusetts did what they could; but
they could not do all that the emergency demanded.
Shirley courageously spoke his mind to the ministry, on whose favor he
was dependent. “The fluctuating state of the inhabitants of Acadia,”
he wrote to Newcastle, “seems, my lord, naturally to arise from their
finding a want of due protection from his Majesty’s Government.”[223]
[191] _Journal de Beaujeu_, in _Le Canada Français,
Documents_, 53
[192] _Shirley to Newcastle, 29 October, 1745._
[193] _Beauharnois et Hocquart au Ministre, 12 Septembre, 1745._
[194] _Beauharnois et Hocquart au Ministre, 12 Septembre, 1745._
[195] _Ibid._
[196] _Admiral Knowles à----1746._ Mascarene in _Le Canada
Français, Documents_, 82.
[197] Mascarene, in _Le Canada Français, Documents, 81_.
[198] Moïse des Derniers, in _Le Canada Français_, i. 118.
[199] _Journal de Franquet_, Part II.
[200] _Description de l’Acadie, avec le Nom des Paroisses
et le Nombre des Habitants, 1748._
[201] _Shirreff to K. Gould, agent of Philips’s Regiment, March,
1745._
[202] _Shirley to Newcastle, 14 December, 1745._
[203] _Ibid., 10 May, 1746._
[204] _Ibid., 8 July, 1747._
[205] _Bedford to Newcastle, 11 September, 1747._
[206] _Knowles to Newcastle, 8 November, 1746._
[207] Shirley says that the indiscriminate removal of the
Acadians would be “unjust” and “too rigorous.” Knowles had
proposed to put Catholic Jacobites from the Scotch Highlands
into their place. Shirley thinks this inexpedient, but
believes that Protestants from Germany and Ulster might
safely be trusted. The best plan of all, in his opinion, is
that of “treating the Acadians as subjects, confining their
punishment to the most guilty and dangerous among ’em, and
keeping the rest in the country and endeavoring to make them
useful members of society under his Majesty’s Government.”
_Shirley to Newcastle, 21 November, 1746._ If the Newcastle
Government had vigorously carried his recommendations into
effect, the removal of the Acadians in 1755 would not have
taken place.
[208] There was afterwards sharp correspondence between Shirley
and the governor of Canada touching the Acadian priests.
Thus, Shirley writes: “I can’t avoid now, Sir, expressing
great surprise at the other parts of your letter, whereby
you take upon you to call Mr. Mascarene to account for
expelling the missionary from Minas for being guilty of such
treasonable practices within His Majesty’s government as
merited a much severer Punishment.” _Shirley à Galissonière,
9 Mai, 1749._
Shirley writes to Newcastle that the Acadians “are greatly
under the influence of their priests, who continually
receive their directions from the Bishop of Quebec, and are
the instruments by which the governor of Canada makes all
his attempts for the reduction of the province to the French
Crown.” _Shirley to Newcastle, 20 October, 1747._ He
proceeds to give facts in proof of his assertion. Compare
“Montcalm and Wolfe,” i. 110, 111, 275, _note_.
[209] _Shirley to Newcastle, 15 August, 1746._
[210] _Newcastle to Shirley, 30 May, 1747._ Shirley had some
time before directed Mascarene to tell the Acadians that
while they behave peaceably and do not correspond with the
enemy, their property will be safe, but that such as turn
traitors will be treated accordingly. _Shirley to Mascarene,
16 September, 1746._
[211] Beaujeu, _Journal de la Campagne du Détachement de Canada
à l’Acadie_, in _Le Canada Français_, ii. _Documents_, 16.
[212] _Mascarene to Shirley, 8 February, 1746_ (1747, new
style).
[213] _Goldthwait to Shirley, 2 March, 1746 (1747_). Captain
Benjamin Goldthwait was second in command of the English
detachment.
[214] Beaujeu, _Journal_.
[215] The dates are of the new style, which the French had
adopted, while the English still clung to the old style.
By far the best account of this French victory at Mines is
that of Beaujeu, in his _Journal de la Campagne du
Détachement de Canada à l’Acadie et aux Mines en 1746-47_.
It is preserved in the Archives de la Marine et des
Colonies, and is printed in the documentary supplement of
_Le Canada Français_, Vol. II. It supplies the means of
correcting many errors and much confusion in some recent
accounts of the affair. The report of Chevalier de la Corne,
also printed in _Le Canada Français_, though much shorter,
is necessary to a clear understanding of the matter. Letters
of Lusignan fils to the minister Maurepas, 10 October, 1747,
of Bishop Pontbriand (to Maurepas?), 10 July, 1747, and of
Lusignan père to Maurepas, 10 October, 1747, give some
additional incidents. The principal document on the English
side is the report of Captain Benjamin Goldthwait, who
succeeded Noble in command. A copy of the original, in the
Public Record Office, is before me. The substance of it is
correctly given in _The Boston Post Boy_ of 2 March, 1747,
and in _N. E. Hist. Gen. Reg._ x. 108. Various letters from
Mascarene and Shirley (Public Record Office) contain
accounts derived from returned officers and soldiers. The
_Notice of Colonel Arthur Noble_, by William Goold
(_Collections Maine Historical Soc._, 1881), may also be
consulted.
[216] _Ramesay aux Députés et Habitants des Mines, 31 Mars,
1747._ At the end is written “A true copy, with the
misspellings: signed W. Shirley.”
[217] _Shirley to Newcastle, 24 August, 1747._
[218] “Ainsis Monsieur nous vous prions de regarder notre
bon Cœur et en même Temps notre Impuissance pauvre Peuple
chargez la plus part de familles nombreuse point de Recours
sil falois evacuer a quoy nous sommes menacez tous les jours
qui nous tien dans une Crainte perpetuelle en nous voyant a
la proximitet de nos maitre depuis un sy grand nombre
dannes” (printed _literatim_).--_Deputés des Mines à
Ramesay, 24 Mai, 1747._
[219] This probably explains the bad spelling of the letter,
the copy before me having been made from the Acadian
transcript sent to Mascarene, and now in the Public Record
Office.
[220] _Les Habitants à l’honorable gouverneur au for
d’anapolisse royal_ [sic], _Mai (?), 1747_.
On the 27th of June the inhabitants of Cobequid wrote again
to Mascarene: “Monsieur nous prenons la Liberte de vous
recrire celle icy pour vous assurer de nos tres humble
Respect et d’un entiere Sou-mission a vos Ordres”
(_literatim_).
[221] “Nous nous regardons aujourdhuy Maistre de Beaubassin
et des Mines puisque nous en avons Chassé les Anglois; ainsi
il ny a aucune difficulté de forcer les Accadiens à prendre
les armes pour nous, et de les y Contraindre; leur declarons
à cet effêt qu’ils sont dechargé [_sic_] du Serment preté,
cy devant, à l’Anglois, auquel ils ne sont plus obligé
[_sic_] comme il y a été decidé par nos puissances
de Canada et de Monseigneur notre Evesque” (_literatim_).
[222] _Ramesay aux Habitants de Chignecto, etc., 25 Mai, 1747._
A few months later, the deputies of Rivière-aux-Canards
wrote to Shirley, thanking him for kindness which they said
was undeserved, promising to do their duty thenceforth, but
begging him to excuse them from giving up persons who had
acted “contraire aux Interests de leur devoire,” representing
the difficulty of their position, and protesting “une
Soumission parfaite et en touts Respects.” The letter is
signed by four deputies, of whom one writes his name, and
three sign with crosses.
[223] _Shirley to Newcastle, 29 April, 1747._ On Shirley’s
relations with the Acadians, _see_ Appendix C.