[Illustration: LOUISBOURG, 1745.
From a survey made by Richard Gridley, lieut.-col. of the train of
artillery. A fac-simile of part of the plate in Jeffery’s _French
Dominions in America_, p. 125.]
[Illustration: LOUISBOURG (_Set of Plans, etc._)]
Gridley’s surveys have been the basis of many of the subsequent English
plans. The draught reduced from Gridley in Richard Brown’s _History
of the Island of Cape Breton_ (London, 1869) is herewith given in
fac-simile, and is understood by the following key:—
A. Dauphin bastion and circular battery.
B. King’s bastion and citadel.
C. Queen’s bastion.
D. Princess’ bastion.
E. Bourillon bastion.
F. Maurepas bastion.
G. Batterie de la Gréve.
1, 1, etc. Glacis.
2, 2, etc. Covered way.
3, 3, etc. Traverses.
4, 4, etc. Ditch.
5, 5, etc. Parapet.
6, 6, etc. Ramparts.
7, 7, etc. Slopes of same.
8, 8, etc. Places of arms.
9, 9, etc. Casemates.
10, 10, etc. Guard houses.
11, 11, etc. Wooden bridges.
12. Governor’s apartments.
13. Church.
14. Barracks.
15. Powder magazine.
16. Fortification house.
17. Arsenal and bake-house.
18. Ordnance.
19. General storehouse.
20. West gate.
22. East gate.
23. Gates in quay curtain (_b. b. b._).
24. Parade.
25. Nunnery.
26. Hospital and church.
_a. a._ Palisade, with ramparts for small arms.
_c. c._ Picquet (raised during the siege).
Another plan of an early date is one, likewise annexed, which appeared
in _A set of plans and forts in America, reduced from actual surveys_,
1763, and published in London.[967] The plan which George Bancroft
added to his _History of the United States_, in one of the early
editions, was used again by Parsons in his _Life of Pepperrell_.
[Illustration: FROM BROWN’S CAPE BRETON.]
[Illustration]
[Illustration: VIEW OF LOUISBOURG.
A reduced sketch from a painting owned by Mrs. Anna H. C. Howard
of Brooklyn, N. Y., which came to her by descent from Sir William
Pepperrell. The canvas is very dark and obscure, and the artist may
have missed some of the details, particularly of the walls along the
shore. The point of view seems to be from the northwest side of the
interior harbor, near the bridge (seen in the foreground), which spans
one of the little inlets, as shown in some of the maps. This position
is near what are called “Hale’s Barracks” in the draft of the town and
harbor on the preceding page. The dismantled ships along the opposite
shore are apparently the French fleet, while an English ship is near
the bridge.
The following letter describes the present condition of the ground:—
BOSTON, June 4, 1886.
MY DEAR MR. WINSOR,—It gives me great pleasure to comply with your
request, and to give my recollections of Louisburg as seen in September
last.
The historical town of that name, or rather the ruin of the old
fortress, lies perhaps three miles from the modern town, which is
a small village, situated on the northeasterly side of the bay or
harbor. The inhabitants of the neighborhood live, for the most part,
by fishing and other business connected with that branch of industry,
eking out their livelihood by the cultivation of a rocky and barren
soil. The road from the village to the old fortress runs along the
western shore of the bay, passing at intervals the small houses of
the fishermen and leaving on the left the site of the Royal Battery,
which is still discernible. This was the first outpost of the French
taken at the siege, and its gallant capture proved subsequently to be
of the greatest service to the English. From this point the ruins of
the fortress begin to loom up and show their real character. Soon the
walls are reached, and the remains of the former bastions on the land
side are easily recognized. This land front is more than half a mile
in length, and stretches from the sea on the left to the bay on the
right, forming a line of works that would seem to be impregnable to
any and all assaults. From its crown a good idea can be gained of the
size of the fortifications, which extend in its entire circuit more
than a mile and a half in length, and inclose an area of a hundred and
twenty acres, more or less. The public buildings within the fortress
were of stone, and, with the help of a guide, their sites can easily
be made out. The burying-ground, on the point of land to the eastward,
where hundreds of bodies were buried, is still shown; and the sheep and
cattle graze all unconscious of the great deeds that have been done
in the neighborhood. Taken all in all, the place is full of the most
interesting associations, and speaks of the period when the sceptre
of power in America was balancing between France and England; and
Louisburg forms to-day the grandest ruin in this part of the continent.
Very truly yours,
SAMUEL A. GREEN.]
It follows an English plan procured by Mr. Bancroft in London, and
closely resembles the sketch owned by a descendant of Pepperrell,
and herewith given. Haliburton in his _History of Nova Scotia_ gives
a similar plan, as well as a draught of the harbor. The plan of the
town and the vicinity which is given by Brown in his _Cape Breton_ is
also reproduced herewith. The earliest of the more elaborate charts
of the harbor is that published by Des Barres in Oct., 1781. We find
a rude sketch of the Island battery in _Curwen’s Journal_ as edited
by Ward (Boston, 4th ed. 1864), which was sent by that observer from
Louisbourg, July 25, 1745. A reproduction of this sketch, herewith
given, needs the following key:—
[Illustration: PLAN OF ISLAND BATTERY.]
“The embrasures in the front are not more than three feet above the
ground.
1. Fronting mouth of harbor: 22 embrasures;
21 guns, 36 and 48 pounders.
2. Barracks.
3. Sally-ports.
4. Wall framed of timber, and covered with
plank, and filled with stone and lime,
in which is an embrasure with a 48
pounder.
5. Wall, defended with two small swivels.
6. The place at which whale-boats might
easily land 500 men.
7. One entire rock, perpendicular on the face,
and absolutely impossible to be climbed.
8. Piquet of large timber, fastened by iron
clamps, drilled into the solid rock.
9. Commandant’s apartment, five feet high.
10. The gate under the wall, about four feet
wide, formed like a common sally-port;
not straight, but made an angle of 160
degrees. Ten men can prevent ten hundred
making their way; this wall has but
four guns and two swivels.
“I paced the island, and judged it to be about 56 yards wide and 150
long at the widest part, nearly.”
There is in the _Collections_ of the Maine Hist. Soc. (viii. p. 120) a
life of Lieut.-Col. Arthur Noble, who, by order of Brigadier Waldo, led
on May 23 the unsuccessful attack on this battery.
The _Catalogue of the king’s maps in the British Museum_ (vol. i. 718,
etc.) shows plans of the town and fortifications (1745) in MS. by
Durell and Bastide; others of the town and harbor (1755) by William
Green; with views by Bastide (1749), Admiral Knowles (1756), Ince
(1758, engraved by Canot, 1762), and Thomas Wright (1766).
Jefferys also published in copperplate _A view of the landing of the
New England forces in the expedition against Cape Breton_, 1745.
(Carter-Brown, iii. p. 335.) A copy of this print belongs to Dr. John
C. Warren of Boston.
* * * * *
Three months after the fall of Louisbourg there was another treaty with
the eastern Indians, Sept. 28-Oct. 22, 1745. (_Mass. Archives_, xxix.
386.) The renewed activity of the French is shown in the _N. Y. Col.
Docs_., x. p. 3.
A little later, Dec. 12, 1745, Shirley made his first speech to the
Massachusetts Assembly after his return to Boston, and communicated the
King’s thanks for “setting on foot and executing the late difficult and
expensive enterprise against Cape Breton.”[968]
* * * * *
The next event of importance in the Acadian peninsula was the attack
of the French upon an English post, which is known as the “battle of
Minas.”
The English _accounts (Boston Weekly Post Boy_, March 2 and 9, 1747),
which give the date Jan. 31, old style, and the French (official
report), Feb. 11, new style, are edited by Dr. O’Callaghan with the
articles of capitulation, in the _New Eng. Hist. and Geneal. Reg._,
April, 1855, p. 107. For general references see Haliburton’s _Nova
Scotia_, ii. 132; Williamson’s _Maine_, ii. 250; Hannay (p. 349) and
the other histories of Nova Scotia.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE OF MINES BASIN.
One of Des Barres’ coast views 1779. (In Harvard College library.)]
Douglass (_Summary_, etc., i. 316) says: “Three companies from Rhode
Island were shipwrecked near Martha’s Vineyard; two companies of New
Hampshire went to sea, but for some trifling reason put back and never
proceeded. The want of these five companies was the occasion of our
forces being overpowered by the Canadians at Minas with a considerable
slaughter.”
[Illustration: CAPE BAPTIST.
One of Des Barres’ coast views, marked _A view of Cate Baptist in the
entrance into the basin of Mines, bearing W. by N., two miles distant_.
(In Harvard College library.)]
The French account of these transactions of the command of Ramezay
is in a “Journal de la compagne du détachement de Canada à l’Acadie
et aux Mines en 1746 et 1747” (June, 1746, to March, 1747). It is in
the Parkman MSS. in the Mass. Hist. Society, _New France_, i. pp.
59-153. For the attack at Minas in particular see the “Relation d’une
expédition faite sur les Anglois dans les pays de l’Acadie, le 11 Fév.,
1747, par un détachement de Canadiens,” dated at Montreal, 28 Sept.,
1747, and signed Le Chev. de la Corne. (_Ibid._, pp. 155-163.) Cf. also
_N. Y. Col. Docs._, x. 78, 91.
The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, Oct., 1748, was proclaimed in Boston,
May 10, 1749, and a reprint of it issued there.
Shirley (June 3, 1749) writes to Gov. Wentworth that he had agreed with
nine Indian chiefs, then in Boston, to hold a conference at Casco bay,
Sept. 27. (_N. H. Prov. Papers_, v. 127.)
Meanwhile the English government, in pursuance of an effort to
anglicize the peninsula,[969] had planned the transportation to Nova
Scotia of an equipped colony under Edward Cornwallis, which arrived at
Chebucto harbor in the summer of 1749, and founded Halifax. A treaty
with the Indians was held there Aug. 15, 1749. (_Mass. Hist. Coll._,
ix. 220.) There is a full-size fac-simile of the document in Akins’s
_Public Doc. of Nova Scotia_. It was in confirmation of the Boston
treaty of Dec. 15, 1725, which is embodied in the new treaty.
Another treaty with the eastern Indians was made at Falmouth, Oct. 16,
1749. (_Mass. Archives_, xxix. 427; xxxiv.; _Mass. Hist. Coll._, ix.
220; _N. H. Hist. Soc. Coll._, ii. 264; Williamson’s _Maine_, i. 259,
taken from Mass. Council Records, 1734-57, p. 108; Hutchinson, iii. 4.)
This treaty was proclaimed in Boston, Oct. 27. Cf. _Journal of the
proceedings of the commissioners appointed for managing a treaty of
peace at Falmouth, Sept. 27, 1749, between Thomas Hutchinson, John
Choate_ [and others], _commissioned by Gov. Phips, and the eastern
Indians_, Boston [1749]. (Brinley, i. no. 441; Harv. Col. lib.
5325.39.) This tract is reprinted in _Maine Hist. Coll._, iv. 145.
There was another conference with the Penobscots and Norridgewocks,
Aug. 3-8, 1750. (_Mass. Archives_, xxix. 429.)
A tract to encourage emigration to the new colony at Halifax was
printed in London in 1750, and reprinted in Dublin: _A genuine account
of Nova Scotia, to which is added his majesty’s proposals as an
encouragement to those who are willing to settle there_. Cf. the German
tract: _Historische und Geographische Beschreibung von Neu-Schottland_,
Franckfurt, 1750. (Carter-Brown, iii. no. 935.) Counter-statements not
conducive to the colony’s help, appeared in John Wilson’s _Genuine
narrative of the transactions in Nova Scotia since the settlement,
June, 1749, till Aug. 5, 1751 ... with the particular attempts of the
Indians to disturb the colony_, London, 1751. (Carter-Brown, iii. no.
966.)
There are papers relating to the first settlement of Halifax in Akins’s
_Documents_, 495; and a paper on the first council meeting at Halifax,
by T. B. Akins, in the _Nova Scotia Hist. Soc. Coll._, vol. ii. See
also Murdoch’s _Nova Scotia_, ii. ch. 11. Various maps of Halifax and
the harbor were made during the subsequent years. The _Catalogue of the
king’s maps_ (i. 483) in the British Museum shows several manuscript
draughts. A small engraved plan was published in the _Gentleman’s
Magazine_, 1750, p. 295. A large map, dedicated to the Earl of Halifax,
is called: _Carte du havre de Chibucto avec le plan de la ville de
Halifax sur la coste de l’Accadie ou Nova Scotia, publiée par Jean
Rocque, Charing Cross_, 1750.[970]
A smaller _Plan des havens von Chebucto und der stadt Halifax_ was
published at Hamburg, 1751. Jefferys issued a large _Chart of the
Harbor of Halifax_, 1759, which was repeated in his _General Topography
of North America and West Indies_, London, 1768. A “Plan de la Baye de
Chibouctou nommée par les Anglois Halifax,” bears date 1763. Another is
in the _Set of plans and forts_ (No. 7) published in London in 1763. In
the Des Barres series of coast charts of a later period (1781) there is
a large draft of the harbor, with colored marginal views of the coast.
* * * * *
In 1752-54 there were other conferences with the eastern Indians.
_Instructions for treating with the eastern Indians given to the
commissioners appointed for that service by the Hon. Spencer Phips
... in 1752_, Boston, 1865. Fifty copies printed from the original
manuscript, for Samuel G. Drake. (Sabin, xv. 62,579; Brinley, i. no.
443.)
_Journal of the proceedings of Jacob Wendell, Samuel Watts, Thomas
Hubbard, and Chamber Russel, commissioners to treat with the eastern
Indians, held at St. Georges, Oct. 13, 1752, in order to renew and
confirm a general peace_, Boston, 1752. (Sabin, ix. 36,736; Brinley, i.
no. 442.) The original treaty is in the _Mass. Archives_, xxxiv.
_A conference held at St. George’ s on the 20th day of September, 1753,
between commissioners appointed by_ [Gov.] _Shirley and the Indians of
the Penobscot_ [and Norridgewock] _tribes_, Boston, 1753. (Brinley,
i. no. 444; Sabin, no. 15,436; Harv. Coll. lib., 5325.42.) Cf. the
treaty in _Maine Hist. Coll._, iv. 168. The original treaties with the
Penobscots at St. Georges (Sept. 21) and the Norridgewocks at Richmond
(Sept. 29) are in the _Mass. Archives_, xxxiv.
[Illustration]
_A journal of the proceedings at two conferences begun to be held at
Falmouth_, 28_th June_, 1754, _between William Shirley, Governor, etc.,
and the Chiefs of the Norridegwock Indians, and on the 5th of July with
the Chiefs of the Penobscot Indians_, Boston, 1754. (Brinley, i. no.
444; Sabin, ix. 36,730; _N. H. Prov. Papers_, vi. 292.) The original
treaties with the Norridgewocks, July 2, and Penobscots, July 6, 1754,
are in the _Mass. Archives_, xxxiv.
[Illustration: THE NECK OF THE ACADIAN PENINSULA.]
=E.= OLD FRENCH WAR.—This was begun in April, 1755. There was a
declaration of war against the Penobscots, Nov. 3, 1755. (_Mass.
Archives_, xxxii. 690.)
[Illustration]
Meanwhile, towards the end of April, 1755, Cornwallis at Halifax
had sent Lawrence[971] to the neck of the peninsula[972] of Nova
Scotia to fortify himself on English ground, opposite the French
post at Beauséjour. Instigated by the French priest, Le Loutre, the
Micmacs[973] were so threatening and the French were so alarmingly near
that the English, far outnumbered, withdrew; but they returned in the
autumn, better equipped, and began the erection of Fort Lawrence. The
French attempted an “indirect” resistance through the Indians and some
indianized Acadians, and were, in the end, driven off; but not until
the houses and barns of neighboring settlers had been burned, with the
aim of compelling the Acadians to fly to the French for shelter and
sustenance.[974] The French now began a fort on the Beauséjour hill.
A petty warfare and reprisals, not unmixed with treachery, became
chronic, and were well set off with a background of more portentous
rumors.[975] It happened that letters crossed each other, or nearly
so, passing between Lawrence (now governor) and Shirley, suggesting
an attack on Beauséjour. So the conquest was easily planned. Shirley
commissioned Col. John Winslow to raise 2,000 men, and but for delay in
the arrival of muskets from England this force would have cast anchor
near Fort Lawrence on the first of May instead of the first of June.
Monckton, a regular officer, who had been Lawrence’s agent on the
Boston mission, held the general command over Winslow, a provincial
officer. The fort surrendered before the siege trains got fairly to
work. Parkman, who gives a vivid picture of the confusion of the
French, refers for his authorities to the _Mémoires sur le Canada_,
1749-1760; Pichon’s _Cape Breton_, and the journal of Pichon, as cited
by Murdoch in his_ Hist. of Nova Scotia_.[976] The captured fort became
Fort Cumberland; Fort Gaspereau, on the other side of the isthmus,
surrendered without a blow. Rouse, the Boston privateersman, who had
commanded the convoy from Boston, was sent to capture the fort at the
mouth of the St. John, and the Indians, whom the French had deserted on
Rouse’s approach, joyfully welcomed him.
[Illustration: FORT BEAUSÉJOUR AND ADJACENT COUNTRY.
Part of a folding map, “Fort Beauséjour and adjacent country, taken
possession of by Colonel Monckton, in June, 1755;” in Mante’s _Hist. of
the Late War_ (London, 1772), p. 17. Cf. Des Barres’ Environs of Fort
Cumberland, 1781, and various drawn maps in _Catal. King’s Library_
(Brit. Mus.), i. 281.]
Three hundred of the young Acadians, the so-called “neutral French,”
were found among the defenders of Beauséjour.[977] The council at
Halifax had no easy question to solve in determining the next step to
be taken.
[Illustration: COLONEL MONCKTON.
After a mezzotint preserved in the Amer. Antiq. Soc. library, in which
he is called “Major-General, and Colonel of the Seventeenth Foot, and
Governor of New York,” as he later was. Cf. other mezzotints noted in
J. C. Smith’s _Brit. Mezzotint Portraits_, ii. 883; iv. 1,525, 1739.
There is a portrait in Entick’s _Hist. of the Late War_, v. 355. See
account of Monckton in Akins’s _Nova Scotia Docs._, 391.]
[Illustration]
With the documentary evidence now in hand, chiefly the records of the
French themselves, we can clearly see the condition which the English
rather suspected than knew in detail.[978] They indeed were aware
that the neutrals of Chignecto in 1750 had been in effect coerced to
crossing the lines at the neck, while the burning of their houses and
barns had been accomplished to prevent their return. They further knew
that this gave an increased force of desperate and misguided men to be
led by priests like Le Loutre, and encouraged by the French commanders,
acting under orders of the central government at Quebec. They had good
reason to suspect, what was indeed the fact, that the emissaries of the
Catholic church and the civil powers in Canada were confident in the
use they could in one way and another make of the mass of Acadians,
though still nominally subjects of the British king.[979] Their loyalty
had always been a qualified one. A reservation of not being obliged
to serve in war against the French had been in the past allowed in
their oath; but such reservation had not been approved by the Crown,
though it had not been practically disallowed. It was a reservation
which in the present conjunction of affairs Governor Lawrence thought
it inexpedient to allow, and he required an unqualified submission
by oath. He had already deprived them of their arms. The oath was
persistently refused and the return of their arms demanded. This act
was in itself ominous. The British plans had by this time miscarried in
New York and Pennsylvania, and under Braddock the forces had suffered
signal defeat. The terms of the New England troops in Acadia were
fast expiring. With these troops withdrawn, and others of the Acadian
garrisons sent to succor the defeated armies farther west, and with
the Canadian government prompted to make the most of the disaffection
toward the English and of the loyalty to the French flag which existed
within the peninsula, there could hardly have been a hope of the
retention of the country under the British flag, unless something
could be done to neutralize the evil of harboring an enemy.[980] “In
fact,” says Parkman, “the Acadians, while calling themselves neutrals,
were an enemy encamped in the heart of the province.”[981] Colonel
Higginson (_Larger History_, etc.) presents the antithesis in a milder
form, when he says, “They were as inconvenient as neighbors as they
are now picturesque in history.” It has been claimed that the cruelty
of deportation might have been avoided by exacting hostages of the
Acadians. That involves confidence in the ability of an abjectly
priest-ridden people to resist the threats of excommunication, should
at any time the emissaries of Quebec find it convenient to sacrifice
the hostages to secure success to the French arms. Under such a plan
the English might too late learn that military execution upon the
hostages was a likely accompaniment of a military disaster which it
would not avert. The alternative of deportation was much surer, and
self-preservation naturally sought the securest means. Simply to drive
the Acadians from the country would have added to the reckless hordes
allured by the French in 1750, which had fraternized with the Micmacs,
and harassed the English settlements. To deport them, and scatter them
among the other provinces, so that they could not combine, was a safer
and, as they thought, the only certain way to destroy the Acadians
as a military danger. It was a terrible conclusion, and must not be
confounded with possible errors in carrying out the plan. The council,
taking aid from the naval commanders, decided upon it.[982]
[Illustration]
The decision and its execution have elicited opinions as diverse as the
characters of those who have the tender and the more rigid passions
mixed in them in different degrees. The question, however, is simply
one of necessity in war to be judged by laws which exclude a gentle
forbearance in regard to smaller for the military advantages of larger
communities.
[Illustration: GEN. JOHN WINSLOW.
After an original formerly in the gallery of the Mass. Hist. Soc., but
now in Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth. Cf. _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, xx. 192,
and _Mem. Hist. Boston_, ii. 123. The sword of General Winslow, shown
in the cut (Vol. III. p. 274), has also been transferred to Plymouth,
as well as the portraits of Governor Edward and Governor Josiah
Winslow. (_Ibid._, pp. 277, 282.) Other engravings of General Winslow
are given in Raikes’ _Hon. Artillery Co. of London_ (1878), i. p. 348,
and in Gay’s _Pop. Hist. U. S._, iii. 276.]
Writers of the compassionate school have naturally sought to heighten
the enormity of the measure by pictures of the guilelessness of the
people, who were the sufferers. It was not long after the event
when the Abbé Raynal played upon such sympathetic responses in his
description[983] of the Acadians, setting forth an ideal simplicity
and content to which Longfellow in his _Evangeline_ has added the
unbounded charms of his verse. That the Acadians were a prolific people
might argue content, but Hannay (_Acadia_, ch. xvi.), who best traces
their mutations and growth, shows evidences that this fruitfulness
had not been without some admixture, at least, with the Micmacs.[984]
Though it is the usual assertion that bastardy was almost unknown among
them, Hannay adduces testimony to their licentiousness which he deems
sufficient.[985] We may pick out the most opposite views regarding the
comforts of their daily life. A French authority describes their houses
as “wretched wooden boxes, without ornament or convenience;”[986]
but George Bancroft[987] and many others tell us, after the Raynal
ideal, that these same houses were “neatly constructed and comfortably
furnished.”
A simple people usually find it easy to vary the monotony of their
existence by bickerings and litigations; and if we may believe the
French authorities whom Hannay quotes, the Acadians were no exception
to the rule, which makes up for the absence of excitements in a
diversified life by a counterbalance of such evils as mix and obscure
the affections of society.
Their religious training prompted them to place their priests in the
same scale of infallibility with their Maker, while the machinations
of Le Loutre[988] ensnared them and became, quite as much as that
“scrupulous sense of the indissoluble nature of their ancient
obligation to their king,”[989] a great cause of their misfortunes.
To glimpses of the character of the Acadians which we get in the
published documents, French and English, of their own day, we can add
but few estimates of observers who were certainly writing for the eye
of the public. There is a rather whimsical, but, as Parkman thinks, a
faithful description of them, earlier in the century, to be found in
the _Relation_ of Diéreville.
Let us now observe some of the mutations of opinion to which
allusion has been made. Gov. Lawrence, in his circular letter to the
other colonies, naturally set forth the necessity of the case in
justification. Edmund Burke, not long after, judged the act a most
inhumane one, and “we did,” he says, “upon pretences not worth a
farthing, root out this poor, innocent, deserving people, whom our
utter inability to govern or to reconcile gave us no sort of right to
extirpate.” But this was in the guise of a running commentary from a
party point of view, and in ignorance of much now known. The French,
English, and American historians nearest the event take divergent
positions. Raynal started the poetic ideal, to which reference has been
made. It must not be forgotten, however, that the Abbé had a purpose
in his picture, aiming as he did to set off by a foil the condition of
the French peasantry at a period preceding the French Revolution.[990]
Entick[991] commends the measure, but not the method of its execution.
A pamphlet published in London in 1765, setting forth the sacrifices
of the province during the French and Indian wars, referring to the
deportation, says: “This was a most wise step,” but the exiles “have
been and still remain a heavy bill of charge to this province.”[992]
Hutchinson[993] simply allows that the authors of the movement
supposed that self-preservation was its sufficient excuse. When
Minot[994] surveyed the subject, he was quite as chary of an opinion.
He probably felt, as indeed was the case, that no one at that time had
access to the documents on which a safe judgment could be based. The
first distinct defence of the English came when Raynal’s views were
printed, in translation, in Nova Scotia in 1791. Secretary Bulkely and
Judge Deschamps now published a vindication of the English government,
but it was necessarily inadequate in the absence of proof. It served
not much purpose, however, in diverting the general opinion from the
channels of compassion. In 1787, the Rev. Andrew Brown, a Scotchman,
was called to settle over a church in Halifax. He remained till 1795,
when he returned to Scotland, where he lived till 1834, a part of the
time occupying the chair of rhetoric in the University of Edinburgh,
which had been previously filled by Dr. Blair. During his sojourn
in Nova Scotia, and down to so late a period as 1815, he collected
materials for a history of the province. His papers, including original
documents, were discovered serving ignoble purposes in a grocer’s shop
in Scotland, and bought for the collections of the British Museum.
Transcripts from the most interesting of them relating to the expulsion
of the Acadians have been made at the instance of the Nova Scotia
Record Commission, and have been printed in the second volume of the
_Collections_ of the Nova Scotia Historical Society. They consist of
letters and statements from people whom Brown had known, and who had
taken part in the expulsion, with other contemporary papers regarding
the condition of the Acadians just previous to their removal. Brown’s
own opinion of the act classed it, for atrocity, with the massacre of
St. Bartholomew.
Robert Walsh, in his _Appeal from the Judgment of Great Britain_ (2d
ed. 1819, p. 86), says: “It has always appeared to me that the reason
of state was never more cheaply urged or more odiously triumphant than
on this occasion.” He follows Minot in his account.
Judge Thomas C. Haliburton approached the subject when he might have
known, among the very old people of the province, some whose earliest
recollections went back to the event, or to its train of succeeding
incidents. Haliburton’s sympathy is unmistakably aroused, and failing
to find in the records of the secretary’s office at Halifax any
traces of the deportation, his deduction is that the particulars
were carefully concealed. For such an act he finds no reason, save
that the parties were, “as in truth they well might be,” ashamed of
the transaction. “I have therefore,” he adds, “had much difficulty
in ascertaining the facts.” He seems to have depended almost wholly
upon Hutchinson, Raynal, and Minot, and through the latter he got
track of the journal of Winslow. Haliburton’s _Nova Scotia_ was
published in 1829,[995] and Hutchinson’s third volume had only the
year before (1828) been printed in England from his manuscript. Of
Winslow’s journal he seems to have made but restricted use.[996]
Haliburton’s allegations in respect to the archives of Halifax were
founded on a misconception. The papers which he sought in vain in
fact existed, but were stored away in boxes, and the archive-keepers
of Haliburton’s day apparently had little idea of their importance.
A recent writer (Smith’s _Acadia_, p. 164) hastily infers that this
careless disposition of them was intentional. Parkman says that copies
of the council records were sent at the time to England and are now
in the Public Record Office; but it does not appear that Haliburton
sought them; and had he done so, if we may judge from the printed copy
which we now have of them, he would have discovered no essential help
between July, 1755, and January, 1756. It was not till 1857 that the
legislative assembly of Nova Scotia initiated a movement for completing
and arranging the archives at Halifax, and for securing in addition
copies of documents at London and Quebec,—the latter being in fact
other copies from papers in the archives at Paris.
Between 1857 and 1864, Thomas B. Akins, Esq., acting as record
commissioner of the province, bound and arranged, as appears by his
_Report_ of Feb. 24, 1864, and deposited in the legislative library of
the province, over 200 volumes of historical papers. The most important
of these volumes for other than the local historian, and covering the
period of the present volume appear to be the following:—
Despatches from the Lords of Trade to the governor at
Annapolis, 1714-48; and to the governor at Halifax,
1749-99.
Despatches from the governors of Nova Scotia to the
Lords of Trade, 1718-1781; and to the Secretaries of
State, 1720-1764 (all from the State Paper Office).
Despatches from the governor at Louisbourg to the Sec.
of State, 1745-48 (from State Paper Office).
Despatches from the governor of Mass. to the Sec. of
State, 1748-51 (State Paper Office).
Documents from the files of the legislative council, 1760-1829;
and of the assembly, 1758-1831, with
Miscellaneous papers, 1748-1841.
Acadia under French rule, 1632-1748 (copied from the
transcripts in Canada from the Paris archives[997]).
Tyrell’s (Pichon’s) paper relating to Monckton’s capture
of Fort Cumberland, 1753-1755.
Council minutes at Annapolis, 1720-49.
Crown prosecutions for treason, 1749-88.
Royal instructions to the governors, 1720-1841.
Royal proclamations, 1748-1807.
Orders of the Privy Council, 1753-1827.
Indians, 1751-1848.
But before this arranging of the Halifax Archives was undertaken,
Bancroft in his _United States_[998] had used language which he has
allowed to stand during successive revisions: “I know not if the annals
of the human race keep the records of sorrows so wantonly inflicted,
so bitter and so perennial, as fell upon the French inhabitants of
Acadia.” About the same time the Canadian historian, Garneau,[999]
simply quotes the effusions of Raynal. The publication of the _Neutral
French_, by Catharine R. Williams, in 1841, a story in which the
writer’s interest in the sad tale had grown with her study of the
subject on the spot,[1000] followed by the _Evangeline_ of Longfellow
in 1847, which readily compelled attention, drew many eyes upon the
records which had been the basis of these works of fiction. The most
significant judgment, in consequence, made in America was that of the
late President Felton, of Harvard University, in the _North American
Review_ (Jan., 1848, p. 231), wherein he called the deportation “a most
tyrannical exercise of superior force, resting for its justification
not upon sufficient proofs, but upon an alleged inevitable state
necessity.” This gave direction to current belief.[1001] Barry
(_Massachusetts_, ii. 200) wrote as if Raynal had compassed the truth.
_Chambers’ Journal_ (xxii. 342, or _Living Age_, xliv. 51) called an
article on the subject “The American Glencoe.” In 1862, Mr. Robert
Grant Haliburton, a son of Judge Haliburton, gave token of a new
conception in the outline of a defence for the British government,
which he drew in an address, _The Past and the Future of Nova Scotia_
(Halifax, 1862). A more thorough exposition was at hand. Mr. Akins
had been empowered to prepare for publication a selection of the more
important papers among those which he had been arranging. In 1869 a
volume of _Selections_, etc., appeared. In his preface Mr. Akins says:
“Although much has been written on the subject, yet until lately it has
undergone little actual investigation, and in consequence the necessity
for their removal has not been clearly perceived, and the motives
which led to its enforcement have been often misunderstood.” The views
which he enforces are in accord with this remark. Mr. W. J. Anderson
followed up this judgment in the _Transactions_[1002] of the Literary
and Historical Society of Quebec, and termed the act “a dreadful
necessity.” The old view still lingered. It was enforced by Célestin
Moreau in his _Histoire de l’Acadie Françoise de 1598 à 1755_ (Paris,
1873), and Palfrey, in the _Compendious Hist. of New England_ (1873),
which carried on the story of his larger volumes, leaves his adhesion
to a view adverse to the English to be inferred. As to the character of
the Acadians, while he allows for “a dash of poetry” in the language of
Raynal, he mainly adopts it.[1003]
In 1879 Mr. James Hannay, perceiving the necessity of a well-ordered
history, to embody in more readable shape the vast amount of material
which Beamish Murdoch in his _History of Nova Scotia_[1004] had
thrown into the form of annals, published his _History of Acadia from
its first discovery to its surrender to England by the Treaty of
Paris_ (St. John, N. B., 1879). Hannay embodied in this book the most
elaborate account which had yet been written of the deportation, and
referring to it in his preface he says: “Very few people who follow the
story to the end will be prepared to say that it was not a necessary
measure of self-preservation on the part of the English authorities in
Nova Scotia.”
Still the old sympathies were powerful. Henry Cabot Lodge in his _Short
History of the English Colonies_[1005] (1881) finds the Acadians
“harmless.” Hannay’s investigations were not lost, however, on Dr.
George E. Ellis, who in his _Red Man and White Man in North America_
(Boston, 1882) prefigured the results which two years later were to be
adduced by Parkman.
Meanwhile, Mr. Philip H. Smith published at Pawling, N. Y., a book,
doubly his own, for he inserted in it rude wood-cuts of his own
graving. The book, which was coarsely printed on an old Liberty job
press, was called _Acadia, a lost chapter in American history_,—why
lost is not apparent, in view of the extensive literature of the
subject. He refers vaguely to fifty authorities, but without giving
us the means to track him among them, as he in an uncompromising way
condemns the course of the British government. He is found, however,
to draw largely from Judge Haliburton, and to adopt that writer’s
assertion of the loss or abstraction of records. A few months later
Mr. Parkman published the first volume of his _Montcalm and Wolfe_,
using some material, particularly from the French Archives, which his
predecessors had not possessed.[1006] In referring to the deportation,
he says that its causes have not been understood[1007] by those who
follow or abet the popular belief. Though he does not suggest any
alternative action, he sets forth abundantly the reasons which palliate
and explain a measure “too harsh and indiscriminate to be wholly
justified.”[1008]
[Illustration]
Widely different statements as to the number of those deported have
been made. Lawrence in his circular letter,[1009] addressed (Aug.
11, 1755) to the governors of the English colonies, says that about
7,000 is the number to be distributed, and it is probably upon his
figures that the Lords of Trade in addressing the king, Dec. 20, 1756,
place the number at near 7,000. “Not less than 6,000 at least” is
the language of a contemporary letter.[1010] That these figures were
approximately correct would appear from the English records, which
foot up together for the several centres of the movement—Beaubassin,
Fort Edward, Minas, and Annapolis—a little over 6,000, as Parkman
shows. The Canadian government in making a retrospective census in
1876, figured the number of Acadians within the peninsula in 1755 at
8,200. In giving 18,000 as the number of Acadians in 1755, Haliburton
must have meant to include all of that birth in the maritime provinces,
for he accepts Lawrence’s statement that 7,000 were deported. P. H.
Smith[1011] uses these figures (18,000) so loosely that he seems to
believe that all but a few hundred of them were removed. Rameau, a
recent French authority, makes the number 6,000.[1012] Hannay, a late
New Brunswick writer, allows only 3,000, but this number seems to have
been reached by ignoring some part of the four distinct movements, as
conducted by Monckton, Winslow, Murray, and Handfield. Minot accepts
this same 3,000, and he is followed by Gay in the _Popular Hist. of the
United States_, and by Ellis in his _Red Man and White Man in North
America_.
Gov. Lawrence agreed with some Boston merchants, Apthorp and Hancock,
to furnish the transports for conveying the exiles away.[1013] These
contractors furnished the necessary flour, bread, pork, and beef for
the service. The delay of the vessels to arrive seems to have arisen
from Lawrence’s not giving timely notice to the contractors, for fear
that the Acadians might learn of the intention.[1014] Winslow had told
those who came under his supervision, that he would do everything in
his power to transport “whole families in the same vessel.” Parkman
thinks (i. 279) that the failures in this respect were not numerous.
Smith, with little regard for the confusion which the tardy arrival of
the transports occasioned, thinks they indicate that Winslow violated
his word as a soldier. One of the actors in the movement, as reported
in the Brown Papers (_Nova Scotia Hist. Soc. Coll._, ii. 131), says
that “he fears some families were divided, notwithstanding all possible
care was taken to prevent it.”
Hutchinson (iii. 40) says: “Five or six families were brought to
Boston, the wife and children only, without the husbands and fathers,
who by advertisements in the newspapers came from Philadelphia to
Boston, being till then utterly uncertain what had become of their
families.”
Miss Caulkins (_New London_, p. 469) says more were landed at New
London than at any other New England port. The _Connecticut Colony
Records_ (vol. x. pp. 452, 461, 615) show how the Acadians were
distributed throughout the towns, and that some were brought there from
Maryland.
The journals of the House of Representatives in Massachusetts (1755-56)
note the official action which was taken in that province respecting
them. There are two volumes in the _Mass. Archives_ (vols. xxiii.,
xxiv.) marked “French Neutrals,” which explain that for fifteen years
(1755-1769) the charge of their support entered more or less into the
burdens of the towns among which they were then scattered.[1015] A
committee was in charge of benefactions which were bestowed upon them,
and papers relating to their doings make part of the collection of old
documents in the Charity Building in Boston.
Hutchinson (iii. 40), who had personal knowledge of the facts, says
of their sojourn in Massachusetts: “Many of them went through great
hardships; but in general they were treated with humanity.” He also
tells us (iii. 41) that he interested himself in drafting for them a
petition to the English king to be allowed to return to their lands or
to be paid for them; but they refused to sign it, on the ground that
they would thereby be cut off from the sympathy of the French king.
When in the spring of 1756 Major Jedediah Preble returned with some of
the New England troops to Boston, he was directed by Lawrence to stop
at Cape Sable and seize such Acadians as he could find.[1016] Though
Smith (p. 252) says he did not see fit to obey the order, a letter
from him, dated April 24, 1756, printed in the _N. E. Hist. and Geneal.
Reg._, 1876, p. 19, shows that he carried out the order and burnt the
houses. When these newer exiles arrived at Boston, the provincial
authorities declined to receive them. A vessel was hired to convey them
to North Carolina, but the captives refused (May 8, 1756) to reëmbark.
(_Ibid._, p. 18.) In 1762 the work of deportation was still going on,
and five more transports arrived in Boston, but these seem largely to
have been gathered outside the peninsula. They were returned by the
Massachusetts authorities to Halifax, with the approval of the Lords of
Trade and General Amherst, who thought there was no longer occasion to
continue the deportation.[1017]
The _Pennsylvania Gazette_ of Sept. 4, 1755, the day before the action
of Winslow at Minas, informed that province of the intended action in
Nova Scotia. The exiles were hardly welcome when they came. Governor
Morris wrote to Shirley (_Penna. Archives_, ii. 506; _Col. Rec._, vi.
712) that he had no money to devote to their support, and that he
should be obliged to retain, for guarding them, some recruits which
he had raised for the field.[1018] There were kind people, however,
in Philadelphia, of kindred blood, among the descendants of Huguenot
emigrants, and their attention to the distresses of the exiles renders
it possible for Akins to say: “They appear to have received better
treatment at the hands of the government of Philadelphia than was
accorded to them in some of the other provinces.” (_Select. from Pub.
Docs. of Nova Scotia_, p. 278.) Haliburton (i. 183), averred that
the proposition was made in Pennsylvania to sell the neutrals into
slavery. Mr. William B. Reed, in a paper on “The Acadian exiles, or
French neutrals in Pennsylvania (1755-57),” published in Memoirs (vol.
vi. p. 283) of the Penna. Hist. Soc.,[1019] refutes the assertion. The
poor people seem to have had less fear of provoking the ill-will of
France than their brethren in Massachusetts had shown, and a petition
to the king of Great Britain is preserved, apparently indited for
them, as Robert Walsh, Jr., in his _Appeal from the Judgment of Great
Britain respecting the United States_ (Philadelphia, 1829, p. 437),
printed it “from a draft in the handwriting of Benezet,” one of the
Philadelphia Huguenots. It is reprinted in the appendix of Smith’s
_Acadia_ (p. 369). Another document is preserved to us in _A Relation
of the Misfortunes of the French Neutrals as laid before the Assembly
of the Province of Pennsylvania by John Baptist Galerm, one of the
said People_. It constitutes a broadside extra of the Pennsylvania
Gazette of about February, 1756,—the document being dated Feb. 11.
It sets forth the history of their troubles, but did not specifically
ask for assistance, which was, however, granted when the neutrals were
apportioned among the counties. It is reprinted in the _Memoirs_ (vi.
314) of the Penna. Hist. Soc., in Smith’s _Acadia_ (p. 378), and in
_Penna. Archives_; iii. 565. Walsh (p. 90) says that, notwithstanding
charitable attentions, more than half of those in Pennsylvania died in
a short time.
Daniel Dulany, writing of the Acadians arriving in Maryland in 1755,
says that they insist on being treated as prisoners of war,—thereby
claiming to be no subjects. “They have almost eat us up,” he adds; “as
there is no provision for them, they have been supported by private
subscription. Political considerations may make this [the deportation]
a prudent step, for anything I know, and perhaps their behavior
may have deservedly brought their sufferings upon them; but ‘t is
impossible not to compassionate their distress.”[1020]
In Virginia Governor Dinwiddie received them with alarm, at a time when
their countrymen were scalping the settlers on the western frontiers.
He seemed to suppose from Lawrence’s letter that 5,000 were coming,
but only 1,140 actually arrived. He writes that they proved lazy and
contentious, and caballed with the slaves, and tried to run away with
a sloop at Hampton. He managed to maintain them till the assembly met,
when he recommended that provision should be made for their support;
but the clamor against them throughout the colony was so great that the
legislature directed their reshipment to England at a cost of £5,000.
When Governor Glen, of Carolina, sent fifty more of them to Virginia,
Dinwiddie sent them north.[1021]
In the Carolinas and Georgia they were not more welcome. Jones[1022]
says that the 400 received in Georgia went scattering away. Dinwiddie
reports[1023] that in these southern colonies vessels were given them,
and that at one time several hundreds of them were coasting north in
vessels and canoes, so that the shores of the Dominion were opened to
their descents for provision as they voyaged northward. When Dinwiddie
sent a sloop after some who had been heard of near the capes, they
eluded the search. When Lawrence learned of this northern coursing,
he sent another circular letter to the continental governors, begging
them to intercept the exiles and destroy their craft.[1024] Some such
destruction did take place on the Massachusetts coast,[1025] and others
were intercepted on the shores of Long Island.[1026]
In Louisiana many of them ultimately found a permanent home, and 50,000
“Cajeans,” as they are vulgarly called, constitute to-day a separate
community along the “Acadian coast” of the Mississippi, in the western
parts of the State.[1027] After the peace and during the next few years
they wandered thither through different channels: some came direct from
the English colonies,[1028] others from Santo Domingo, and still others
passed down the Mississippi from Canada, where their reception had been
even worse than in the English colonies.[1029]
Until recent years have given better details, the opinions regarding
the ultimate fate of most of the Acadians have remained erroneous. So
little did Hutchinson know of it that he speaks (iii. 42) of their
being in a manner extinct, the few which remained being mixed with
other subjects in different parts of the French dominions. Later New
England writers have not been better informed. Hildreth (_United
States_, ii. 459) says that “the greater part, spiritless, careless,
helpless, died in exile.” Barry (ii. 204) says, “They became extinct,
though a few of their descendants, indeed, still live at the South!”
The later Nova Scotia authorities have come nearer the truth. Murdoch
says very many of them returned within a few years. Rameau, in his _Une
Colonie féodale_, speaks of 150 families from New England wandering
back by land. Some of them, pushing on past their old farms, reached
the bay of St. Mary’s, and founded the villages which their descendants
now occupy. Those which returned, joined to such as had escaped the
hunt of the English, counted 2,500, and in 1871 their numbers had
increased to 87,740 souls. Rameau, in an earlier work, _La France aux
Colonies: Études sur le développement de la race française hors de
l’Europe: Les Français en Amérique, Acadiens et Canadiens_ (Paris,
1859), had reached the same conclusion (p. 93) about the entire number
of Acadians within the peninsula (16,000) as already mentioned, and
held that while 6,000 were deported (p. 144), about 9,000 escaped the
proscription (p. 62). He traces their wanderings and enumerates the
dispersed settlements.
A more recent writer, Hannay (pp. 406, 408), says: “The great bulk of
the Acadians, however, finally succeeded in returning to the land of
their birth.... At least two thirds of the 3,000 (?) removed eventually
returned.”
The guide-books and a chapter in Smith’s _Acadia_ tell of the numerous
settlements now existing along the Madawaska River, partly in New
Brunswick and partly in Maine, which are the villages of the progeny of
such as fled to the St. John, and removed to these upper waters of that
river when, after the close of the American Revolution, they retired
before the influx of the loyalists which settled in the neighborhood of
the present city of St. John.[1030]
[Illustration
After an engraving by Ravenet. Cf. David Ramsay’s _Mil. Memoirs of
Great Britain, or a History of the War_, 1755-1763 (Edinburgh, 1779),
p. 192; and John Entick’s _Hist. of the Late War_, iii. p. 443.]
Lord Loudon’s abortive attempt on Louisbourg has been mentioned in
another place.[1031] Parkman gives the authorities. (_Montcalm and
Wolfe_, i. 473; cf. Barry’s _Massachusetts_, ii. 223.)
* * * * *
An agreement (Sept. 12) for the supply of arms, etc., between sundry
merchants and others of Maine and certain men, “for an intended scout
or cruise for the killing and captivating the Indian enemy to the
eastward,” to be under the command of Joseph Bayley, Jr., for sixty
days from Sept. 20, 1757, is in the _Maine Hist. and Geneal. Recorder_,
i. p. 11.
The journal (1758) of Captain Gorham’s rangers and other forces under
Major Morris, in a marauding expedition to the Bay of Fundy, is given
in the Aspinwall Papers, in Mass. Hist. Coll., xxxix. 222.
* * * * *
Franquet, who a year or two before the war began was sent by the French
to strengthen Louisbourg and inspect the defences of Canada, kept a
journal, which Parkman uses in his _Montcalm and Wolfe_.
Admiral Knowles, in the memorial for back pay which he presented in
1774 to the British government, claimed the credit of having planned
the movements for this second capture of Louisbourg.
The most authoritative contemporary account of the siege of 1758,
on the English side, is contained in the despatches of Amherst and
Boscawen sent to Pitt, extracts from which were published as _A journal
of the landing of his majesty’s forces on the island of Cape Breton,
and of the siege and surrender of Louisbourg_ (22 pp.). What is called
a third edition of this tract was printed in Boston in 1758.[1032] The
so-called journal of Amherst was printed in the _London Magazine_, and
is included in Thomas Mante’s _Hist. of the Late War in North America_
(London, 1772).
Of the contemporary French accounts, Parkman says he had before him
four long and minute diaries of the siege. The first is that of
Drucour, the French commander, containing his correspondence with
Amherst, Boscawen, and Desgouttes, the naval chief of the French.
Tourville, who commanded the “Capricieux,” one of the French fleet,
kept a second of these diaries. A third and fourth are without
the names of their writers. They agree in nearly all essential
particulars.[1033] The _Parkman MSS._, in the Mass. Hist. Society’s
library, contain many letters from participants in the siege, which
were copied from the Paris Archives de la Marine. The manuscript of
Chevalier Johnstone, a Scotch Jacobite serving with the French, gives
an account of the siege, which is described elsewhere (_post_, in
chapter viii.) and has been used by Parkman. The _Documents Collected
in France—Massachussetts Archives_ (vol. ix. p. i.) contains one of
the narratives.
[Illustration: FROM BROWN’S CAPE BRETON.]
[Illustration: VIEW OF LOUISBOURG.
From the northeast. One of Des Barres’ coast views. (In Harvard College
library.) Dr. A. H. Nichols, of Boston, possesses a plan of Louisbourg
made by Geo. Follings, of Boston, a gunner in the service. He has also
a contemporary sketch of the fort at Canso.]
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO LOUISBOURG HARBOR.
One of Des Barres’ coast views, 1779. (In Harvard College library.) A
contemporary view showing the town from a point near the light-house is
given in _Cassell’s United States_, i. 528.]
The printed materials on the French side are not nearly so numerous
as on the English. Of importance is Thomas Pichon’s[1034] _Lettres et
Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire du Cap Breton_ (a la Haye, 1760), of
which there is an English translation, of the same year, purporting to
be copied from the author’s original manuscript.[1035]
[Illustration: WOLFE.
After the print in Entick’s _Gen. Hist. of the Late War_, 3d ed., vol.
iv. p. 90. See the engraving from Knox’s journal, on another page, in
ch. viii.]
Of individual experiences and accounts there are, on the English side,
John Montresor’s journal, in the _Coll. of the N. Y. Hist. Soc._, 1881
(p. 151);[1036] _An Authentic Account of the Reduction of Louisbourg
in June and July, 1758, by a Spectator_ (London, 1758),[1037] which
Parkman calls excellent, and says that Entick, in his _General History
of the Late War_ (London, 1764),[1038] used it without acknowledgment.
The same authority characterizes as admirable the account in John
Knox’s _Historical Journal of the Campaigns in North America_,
1757-1760[1039] (vol. i. p. 144), with its numerous letters and orders
relating to the siege. Wright, in his _Life of Wolfe_, gives various
letters of that active officer. Parkman also uses a diary of a captain
or subaltern in Amherst’s army, found in the garret of an old house
at Windsor, Nova Scotia. Some contemporary letters will be found in
the _Grenville Correspondence_ (vol. i. pp. 240-265);[1040] and other
views of that day respecting the event can be gleaned from Walpole’s
_Memoirs of George the Second_ (2d ed., vol. iii. 134).[1041] Of
the modern accounts, the most considerable are those in Warburton’s
_Conquest of Canada_ (N. Y., 1850, vol. ii. p. 74), Brown’s _History of
Cape Breton_, and the story as recently told with unusual spirit and
acquaintance with the sources in Parkman’s _Montcalm and Wolfe_ (vol.
ii. chap. xix).
Amherst had wished to push up to Quebec immediately upon the fall
of Louisbourg, but the news from Abercrombie and some hesitancy of
Boscawen put an end to the hope. _Chatham Correspondence_, i. 331-333.
The reports of the capture reached London August 18. (_Grenville
Correspondence_, i. p. 258.)
Jenkinson writes (Sept. 7, 1758), “Yesterday the colours that were
taken at Louisbourg were carried in procession to Saint Paul’s; the mob
was immense.” (_Grenville Corresp._, i. 265.)
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
Speaking of Amherst’s success at Louisbourg, Burrows, in his _Life
of Lord Hawke_ (London, 1883, p. 340), says: “So entirely has the
importance of this place receded into the background that it requires
an effort to understand why the success of Boscawen and Amherst should
have been thought worthy of the solemn thanks of Parliament, and why
the captured colors of the enemy should have been paraded through the
streets of London.”
Mr. William S. Appleton, in the _Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc_., vol. xi. pp.
297, 298, describes three medals struck to commemorate the siege of
1758. Cf. also _Trans. Quebec Lit. and Hist. Soc._, 1872-73, p. 79.
_A view of Louisburg in North America, taken from near the light-house,
when that city was besieged in 1758_, is the title of a contemporary
copperplate engraving published by Jefferys. (Carter-Brown, iii. p.
335.) Cf. the view in Cassell’s _United States_, i. 528.
* * * * *
The plan of the siege, here presented, is reproduced from Brown’s
_Hist. of Cape Breton_ (p. 297):—
KEY: The French batteries to oppose the landing were as follows:—
C. One swivel.
D. Two swivels.
E. Two six-pounders.
F. One twenty-pounder and two six-pounders.
G. One seven-inch and one eight-inch mortar.
H. Two swivels.
I. Two six-pounders.
K. Two six-pounders.
N. Two twelve-pounders.
O. Two six-pounders.
P. Two twenty-four pounders.
Q. Two six-pounders.
R. Two twelve-pounders.
* * * * *
The points of attack were as follows:—
A. Landing of the first column.
B. Landing of the second column.
These troops carried the adjacent batteries and pursued their defenders
towards the city. The headquarters of the English were now established
at H Q, while the position of the various regiments is marked by the
figures corresponding to their numbers. Three redoubts (R 1, 2, 3) were
thrown up in advance, and two block-houses (B H 1, 2) were built on
their left flank; and later, to assist communication with Wolfe, who
had been sent to the east side of the harbor, a third block-house (B H
3) was constructed. Then a fourth redoubt was raised at Green Hill (G
H R 4) to cover work in the trenches. Meanwhile the English batteries
at the light-house had destroyed the island battery, and the French had
sunk ships in the channel to impede the entrance of the English fleet.
The first parallel was opened at T, T1, T2, and a rampart was raised,
E P, to protect the men passing to the trenches. Wolfe now erected a
new redoubt at R 5, to drive off a French frigate near the Barachois,
which annoyed the trenches; and another at R 6, which soon successfully
sustained a strong attack. The second (T 3, 4) and third (T 5, 6)
parallels were next established. A boat attack from the English fleet
outside led to the destruction and capture of the two remaining French
ships in the harbor, opening the way for the entrance of the English
fleet. At this juncture the town surrendered.
Cf. also the plans in Jefferys’ _Natural and Civil Hist. of the French
Dominions in North America_ (1760), and in Mante’s _Hist. of the War_
(annexed). Parkman, in his _Montcalm and Wolfe_, ii. 52, gives an
eclectic map. _Father Abraham’s Almanac_, published at Philadelphia and
Boston in 1759, has a map of the siege.
* * * * *
Treaty at Halifax of Governor Lawrence with the St. John and
Passamaquoddy Indians, Feb. 23, 1760. (_Mass. Archives_, xxxiv.;
Williamson, i. 344.)
Conference with the Eastern Indians at Fort Pownall, Mar. 2, 1760.
(_Mass. Archives_, xxix. 478.)
Pownall’s treaty of April 29, 1760. Brigadier Preble’s letter, April
30, 1760, respecting the terms on which he had received the Penobscots
under the protection of the government. (_Mass. Archives_, xxxiii.)
Conference with the Penobscots at the council chamber in Boston, Aug.
22, 1763. (_Mass. Archives_, xxix. 482.) Cf. on the Indian treaties,
_Maine Hist. Soc. Collections_, iii. 341, 359. The treaty of Paris had
been signed Feb. 10, 1763.
THE MAPS AND BOUNDS OF ACADIA.
BY THE EDITOR.
THE cartography of Acadia begins with that coast, “discovered by
the English,” which is made a part of Asia in the map of La Cosa in
1500.[1042] The land is buried beneath the waves, west of the land
of the king of Portugal, in the Cantino map of 1502.[1043] It lies
north of the “Plisacus Sinus,” as a part of Asia, in the Ruysch map
of 1508.[1044] It is a vague coast in the map of the Sylvanus Ptolemy
of 1511.[1045] For a long time the eastern coast of Newfoundland and
neighboring shores stood for about all that the early map-makers
ventured to portray; called at one time Baccalaos, now Corterealis,
again Terra Nova; sometimes completed to an insular form, occasionally
made to face a bit of coast that might pass for Acadia, often doubtless
embracing in its insularity an indefinite extent that might well
include island and main together, vaguely expressed, until in the
end the region became angularly crooked as a part of a continental
coast line. The maps which will show all this variety have been given
in previous volumes. The Homem map of 1558[1046] is the earliest to
give the Bay of Fundy with any definiteness. There was not so much
improvement as might be expected for some years to come, when the
map-makers followed in the main the types of Ruscelli and Ortelius, as
will be seen by sketches and fac-similes in earlier volumes.
In 1592 the Molineaux globe of the Middle Temple[1047] became a little
more definite, but the old type was still mainly followed. In 1609
Lescarbot gave special treatment to the Acadian region[1048] for the
first time, and his drafts were not so helpful as they ought to have
been to the more general maps of Hondius, Michael Mercator, and Oliva,
all of 1613, but Champlain in 1612[1049] and 1613[1050] did better.
The Dutch and English maps which followed began to develop the coasts
of Acadia, like those of Jacobsz (1621),[1051] Sir William Alexander
(1624),[1052] Captain Briggs in Purchas (1625),[1053] Jannson’s of
1626, and the one in Speed’s _Prospect_, of the same year.[1054] The
Dutch De Laet began to establish features that lingered long[1055]
with the Dutch, as shown in the maps of Jannson and Visscher; while
Champlain, in his great map of 1632,[1056] fashioned a type that the
French made as much of as they had opportunity, as, for instance,
Du Val in 1677. Dudley in 1646[1057] gave an eclectic survey of the
coast. After this the maps which pass under the names of Covens and
Mortier,[1058] and that of Visscher with the Dutch, and the Sanson
epochal map of 1656[1059] among the French, marked some, but not much,
progress. The map of Heylin’s _Cosmographie_ in 1663, the missionary
map of the same year,[1060] and the new drafts of Sanson in 1669 show
some variations, while that of Sanson is followed in Blome (1670). The
map in Ogilby,[1061] though reëngraved to take the place of the maps in
Montanus and Dapper,[1062] does not differ much.
[Illustration: ACADIA.]
To complete the two centuries from La Cosa, we may indicate among the
French maps a missionary map of 1680,[1063] that of Hennepin,[1064]
the great map of Franquelin (1684),[1065] the “partie orientale” of
Coronelli’s map of 1688-89,[1066] and the one given by Leclercq in the
_Établissement de la Foy_ (1691). The latest Dutch development was seen
in the great Atlas of Blaeu in 1685.[1067]
With the opening of the eighteenth century, we have by Herman Moll, a
leading English geographer of his day, a _New Map of Newfoundland,
New Scotland, the isles of Breton, Anticoste, St. Johns, together with
the fishing bancks_, which appeared in Oldmixon’s _British Empire in
America_, in 1708,[1068] and by Lahontan’s cartographer the _Carte
générale de Canada_, which appeared in the La Haye edition (1709) of
his travels, repeated in his _Mémoires_ (1741, vol. iii.). A section
showing the southern bounds as understood by the French to run on the
parallel of 43° 30′, is annexed.
From 1714 to 1722 we have the maps of Guillaume Delisle, which embody
the French view of the bounds of Acadia.
In 1718 the Lords of Trade in England recognized the rights of
the original settlers of the debatable region under the Duke of
York,—which during the last twenty years had more than once changed
hands,—and these claimants then petitioned to be set up as a province,
to be called “Georgia.”[1069]
In 1720, Père Anbury wrote a _Mémoire_, which confines Acadia to
the Nova Scotia peninsula, and makes the region from Casco Bay to
Beaubassin a part of Canada.[1070]
In March, 1723, M. Bohé reviewed the historical evidences from 1504
down, but only allowed the southern coast of the peninsula to pass
under the name of Acadia.[1071]
In 1731 the crown took the opinion of the law-officers as to the right
of the English king to the lands of Pemaquid, between the Kennebec and
the St. Croix, because of the conquest of the territory by the French,
and reconquest causing the vacating of chartered rights; and this
document, which is long and reviews the history of the region, is in
Chalmers’ _Opinions of Eminent Lawyers_, i. p. 78, etc.
In 1732 appeared the great map of Henry Popple, _Map of the British
Empire in America and the French and Spanish settlements adjacent
thereto_. It was reproduced at Amsterdam about 1737. Popple’s large
MS. draft, which is preserved in the British Museum,[1072] is dated
1727. When in 1755 some points of Popple told against their claim,
the English commissioners were very ready to call the map inaccurate.
We have the Acadian region on a small scale in Keith’s _Virginia_, in
1738. The Delisle map of North America in 1740 is reproduced in Mills’
_Boundaries of Ontario_ (1873). The _English Pilot_ of 1742, published
at London, gives various charts of the coast, particularly no. 5,
“Newfoundland to Maryland,” and no. 13, “Cape Breton to New York.”
Much better drafts were made when Nicolas Bellin was employed to draw
the maps for Charlevoix’s _Nouvelle France_,[1073] which was published
in 1744. These were the _Carte de la partie orientale de la Nouvelle
France ou du Canada_ (vol. i. 438), a _Carte de l’Accadie dressée sur
les manuscrits du dépost des cartes et plans de la marine_ (vol. i.
12),[1074] and a _Carte de l’Isle Royale_ (vol. ii. p. 385), beside
lesser maps of La Heve, Milford harbor, and Port Dauphin. These are
reproduced in Dr. Shea’s English version of Charlevoix. Bellin’s
drafts were again used as the basis of the map of Acadia and Port
Royal (nos. 26, 27) in _Le petit atlas maritime_, vol. i., _Amérique
Septentrionale, par le S. Bellin_ (1764).
The leading English and French general maps showing Acadia at this
time are that of America in Bowen’s _Complete System of Geography_
(1747)[1075] and D’Anville’s _Amérique Septentrionale_ (Paris), which
was reëngraved, with changes, at Nuremberg in 1756, and at Boston
(reprinted, London) 1755, in Douglass’s _Summary of the British
Settlements in North America_. It is here called “improved with the
back settlements of Virginia.”[1076]
The varying territorial claims of the French and English were
illustrated in a _Geographical History of Nova Scotia_, published at
London in 1749; a French version of which, as _Histoire géographique
de la Nouvelle Écosse_, made by Étienne de Lafargue, and issued
anonymously, was published at Paris in 1755, but its authorship was
acknowledged when it was later included in Lafargue’s _Œuvres_.[1077]
The _Mémoire_ which Galissonière wrote in December, 1750, claimed for
France westward to the Kennebec, and thence he bounded New France on
the water-shed of the St. Lawrence and Mississippi.[1078] In 1750-51
Joseph Bernard Chabert was sent by the French king to rectify the
charts of the coasts of Acadia, and his _Voyage fait par ordre du
Roi en 1750 et 1751 dans l’Amérique Septentrionale pour rectifier
les cartes des côtes de l’Acadie, de l’îsle Royale, et de l’îsle de
Terre Neuve_, Paris, 1753, has maps of Acadia and of the coast of Cape
Breton.[1079]
In 1753 the futile sessions of the commissioners of England and France
began at Paris. Their aim was to define by agreement the bounds of
Acadia as ceded to England by the treaty of Utrecht (1713),[1080] under
the indefinite designation of its “ancient limits.” What were these
ancient limits? On this question the French had constantly shifted
their grounds. The commission of De Monts in 1603 made Acadia stretch
from Central New Brunswick to Southern Pennsylvania, or between the
40th and 46th degrees of latitude; but, as Parkman says, neither side
cared to produce the document. When the French held without dispute
the adjacent continent, they never hesitated to confine Acadia to the
peninsula.[1081] Equally, as interest prompted, they could extend it to
the Kennebec, or limit it to the southern half of the peninsula. Cf.
the _Mémoire sur les limites de l’Acadie_ (joint à la lettre de Begon,
Nov. 9, 1713), in the Parkman MSS. in Mass. Hist. Soc., _New France_,
i. p. 9.
In July, 1749, La Galissonière, in writing to his own ministry, had
declared that Acadia embraced the entire peninsula; but, as the English
knew nothing of this admission, he could later maintain that it was
confined to the southern shore only. Cf. again _Fixation des limites de
l’Acadie, etc._, 1753, among the Parkman MSS. in Mass. Hist. Soc., _New
France_, i. pp. 203-269.
On this question of the “ancient limits,” the English commissioners
had of course their way of answering, and the New England claims were
well sustained in the arguing of the case by Governor Shirley, of
Massachusetts,[1082] who with William Mildmay was an accredited agent
of the English monarch. The views of the opposing representatives were
irreconcilable,[1083] and in 1755 the French court appealed to the
world by presenting the two sides of the case, as shown in the counter
memoirs of the commissioners, in a printed work, which was sent to
all the foreign courts. It appeared in two editions, quarto (1755)
and duodecimo (1756), in three and six volumes respectively, and was
entitled _Mémoires des Commissaires du Roi et de ceux de sa Majesté
Britannique_. Both editions have a preliminary note saying that the
final reply of the English commissioners was not ready for the press,
and so was not included.[1084] This omission gave occasion to the
English, when, the same year (1755), they published at London their
_Memorials of the English and French commissaries concerning the limits
of Nova Scotia or Acadia_, to claim that, by including this final
response of the English commissioners, their record of the conference
was more complete. This London quarto volume[1085] contained various
documents.[1086]
In 1757 a fourth volume was added to the quarto Paris edition,
containing the final reply of the English commissioners, and completing
the record of the two years’ conference. The four volumes are a very
valuable repository of historical material; and, from printing at
length the documents offered in evidence, it is a much more useful
gathering than the single English volume, which we have already
described. The points of difference between the two works are these:—
The memorial of Shirley and Mildmay (Jan. 11, 1751), given in French
only in the Paris edition, and accompanied by observations of the
French commissioners in foot-notes, is here given in French and
English, but without the foot-notes. The English memorial of Jan.
23, 1753, lacks the observations of the French commissioners which
accompany it in their vol. iv.[1087]
Among the “pièces justificatives” in the London edition, various papers
are omitted which are given in the Paris edition. The reason of the
omission is that they already existed in print. Such are the texts of
various treaties, and extracts from printed books.
The London edition prints, however, the MS. sources among these proofs,
but does not give the observations of the French commissioners which
accompany them in the Paris edition. Among the papers thus omitted in
the London edition are the provincial charter of Massachusetts Bay and
Gen. John Hill’s manifesto, printed at Boston from Charlevoix.
Vol. iv. of the Paris edition has various additional “pièces produites
par les commissaires du Roi,” including extracts from Hakluyt, Peter
Martyr, Ramusio, Gomara, Fabian, Wytfliet, as well as the English
charters of Carolina (1662-63, 1665) and of Georgia (1732).
The Paris edition was also reprinted at Copenhagen, with a somewhat
different arrangement, under the title _Mémoires des commissaires de
sa Majesté très chrétienne et de ceux de sa Majesté Britannique. À
Coppenhague, 1755._
[Illustration: THE FRENCH CLAIM, 1755.
KEY OF THE FRENCH MAP: Limits proposed by English commissaries, Sept.
21, 1750, and Jan. 11, 1751 (exclusive of Cape Breton),------
By the treaty of Utrecht, ++++++
Port Royal district, by the same treaty,——————
Grant to Sir William Alexander, Sept. 10, 1621, ...........
Cromwell’s grant to La Tour, Crown, and Temple, Aug. 9, 1656, ══════
What was restored to France by the treaty of Breda includes Cromwell’s
grant and the country from Mirlegash to Canseau.
Denys’ government (1654), _shaded horizontally_.
Charnesay’s government (1638), _shaded obliquely_.
La Tour’s government (1638), _shaded perpendicularly_.]
[Illustration: THE ENGLISH CLAIM, 1755.
KEY OF THE ENGLISH MAP: Claim of the English under the treaty of
Utrecht (1713), marked ———
Grant to Sir William Alexander (1621), and divided by him into
Alexandria and Caledonia, being all east of line marked ·─·─·─·─
According to Champlain (1603-1629), all, excepting Cape Breton, east of
this line, ......
Grants of Louis XIII. and XIV. (1632-1710), the same as the claim of
the English for Nova Scotia or Acadia.
Nova Scotia, enlarged westward to the Kennebec, as granted to the Earl
of Sterling (Alexander).
Acadia proper, as defined by Charlevoix in accordance with the
tripartite division, _shaded perpendicularly_.
Charnesay’s government (1638), ══════
La Tour’s government (1638), +++++++
Cromwell’s grant to La Tour, Crown, and Temple, being the same ceded to
France by the treaty of Breda (1667), ———
Norembega, according to Montanus, Dapper, and Ogilby, is the country
between the Kennebec and Penobscot.
The Etechemin region, as defined by Champlain and Denys, _shaded
obliquely_.]
[Illustration: JEFFERYS’ NOVA SCOTIA.]
All three of the editions in French have a map, marking off the limits
of Acadia under different grants, and defining the claims of France. It
is engraved on different scales, however, in the two Paris editions,
and shows a larger extent of the continent westerly in the Copenhagen
edition. The fourth volume of the quarto Paris edition has also a map,
in which the bounds respectively of the charters of 1620, 1662, 1665,
and 1732 (Virginia, Carolina, and Georgia), claimed by the English to
run through to the Pacific, are drawn.[1088]
Thomas Jefferys, the English cartographer, published at London in 1754
his _Conduct of the French with regard to Nova Scotia from its first
settlement to the present time. In which are exposed the falsehood and
absurdity of their arguments made use of to elude the force of the
treaty of Utrecht, and support their unjust proceedings. In a letter to
a member of Parliament._[1089]
The map of the French claims and another of the English claims are
copied herewith from Jefferys’ reproduction of the former and from his
engraving of the latter, both made to accompany his later _Remarks
on the French Memorials concerning the limits of Acadia, printed at
the Royal Printing-House at Paris, and distributed by the French
ministers at all the foreign courts of Europe, with two maps exhibiting
the limits: one according to the system of the French, the other
conformable to the English rights. To which is added An Answer to the
Summary Discussion_,[1090] _etc._ London, T. Jefferys, 1756.[1091]
Both of these Jefferys maps were included by that geographer in his
_General Topography of North America and the West Indies_, London,
1768, and one of them will also be found in the _Atlas Amériquain_,
1778, entitled “Nouvelle Écosse ou partie orientale du Canada,
traduitte de l’Anglais de la Carte de Jefferys publiée à Londres en
May, 1755. A Paris par Le Rouge.” Jefferys also included in the London
edition of the _Memorials_ (1755) a _New map of Nova Scotia and Cape
Britain, with the adjacent parts of New England and Canada_,[1092]
which is also found in his _History of the French Dominion in
North and South America_, London, 1760, and also in his _General
Topography_, etc. A section of this map, showing Acadia, is reproduced
herewith.[1093]
* * * * *
The great map of D’Anville in 1755[1094] enforced the extreme French
claim, carrying the boundary line along the height of land from the
Connecticut to Norridgewock, thence down the Kennebec to the sea. The
secret instructions to Vaudreuil this same year (1755) allow that the
French claim may be moved easterly from the Sagadahock to the St.
Georges, and even to the Penobscot, if the English show a conciliatory
disposition, but direct him not to waver if the water-shed is called in
question at the north.[1095]
A German examination of the question appeared at Leipzig in 1756,
in _Das Brittische Reich in Amerika ... nebst nachricht von den
Gränzstreitigkeiten und Kriege mit den Franzossen_. It is elucidated
with maps by John Georg Schrübers.[1096]