_NOVA SCOTIA._
Early Colonization--De Monts--Champlain--Sir William Alexander--
Capture of Quebec--The Treaties--The Acadian Evangeline--
Louisbourg--First Capture--Peace of Aix la Chapelle--Boundary
Disputes--The Final Struggle--Deportation of the Acadians--
Nova Scotia constituted a Province.
The first attempt at the colonization of Nova Scotia which was made
from France was singularly unfortunate. In 1598, we read, the Marquis
de la Roche left Saint Malo with a crew, almost entirely composed of
convicts. He landed forty of them at Sable Island until he could select
a place fit for settlement, when a westerly storm drove his ship back
to France. These settlers, if they can be so called, remained unnoticed
for seven years, and when they were found twelve only remained. Had it
not been for De Lery, who placed some live stock here in 1518, which
in the interval had greatly multiplied, they must have starved. Their
houses were built of the timbers of wrecked vessels, and it would
seem no little of the fuel was derived from the same source. There
is a letter from one John Butt to Henry VIII., which states that in
1527, seventy years previously, he met fifteen vessels in the harbour
of Newfoundland, and there is every ground to warrant the belief
that individual enterprise led to constant communication between the
maritime nations of Europe and America from the early days of the
discovery of Newfoundland, and that very many vessels penetrated to
the shores of Nova Scotia and to the St. Lawrence before the days of
Verazzano and Cartier. The object being alone that of trade with the
Indians, and to obtain fish, no settlement followed, and doubtless many
a wreck lay on the dreary shores of the exposed island where these
unfortunate men had been landed.
The first well-considered attempt at European colonization occurred
under the leadership of De Monts in 1604; in which we of Canada feel
the greater interest, as the founder of Canada, the illustrious
Champlain, took part in it. He has himself recorded the voyage,
and Lescarbot, the first chronicler of the northern portion of the
continent has fully related its history. It is mentioned that when De
Monts arrived, he found a free trader in one of the bays whose name
is preserved, Rossignol, a marked proof which I venture to adduce as
showing the frequent intercourse between the two hemispheres at that
date. De Monts entered the Bay of Fundy and passed up St. Mary’s Bay,
whence he proceeded to what is now known as Annapolis. Poutrincourt
was of the party, and he commenced his chequered career by obtaining
a grant of Port Royal from De Monts, founding a settlement there and
giving it the name it bore for upwards of a century. De Monts himself
passed over to Saint John whence he descended to Passamaquoddy Bay,
where he built the Fort of Saint Croix. His crew suffered from scurvy
during the winter. Hence he formed the opinion that the settlement
was unhealthy, and accordingly he went as far south as the Penobscot.
Finding the Indians unfriendly at this place, he returned to Port
Royal. Here he met Pontgravé, known as the friend and associate of
Champlain, who at this date first appears on the scene.
The leaders returned to France where strong influences were exercised
against them. But they reappeared in 1606 and commenced in earnest
to cultivate the land. A mill was constructed, and in the height of
their efforts the following year notice was received from France that
the monopoly of the trade in peltry given to De Monts was revoked. De
Monts’ future scene of labour was the Saint Lawrence, but Poutrincourt
obtained the confirmation of De Monts’ concession to him of Port Royal,
accompanied by the condition that it should maintain a Jesuit Mission.
The influence which sustained this addition was all powerful, so the
two Jesuits, Biard and Masse, arrived at Port Royal.[A] The Jesuits
could not agree with the commander of the settlement and they departed
to found a colony on the Penobscot River. But in 1613, Captain Samuel
Argall, from James River, in Virginia, where a settlement had been
established since 1606, sailed to fish for cod in the more northern
waters. His pretensions were higher than that of a fisherman, for he
carried fourteen guns and a crew of sixty men. Some Indians in perfect
good faith set him on the track of the new settlements, which he at
once attacked and destroyed.
No attempt was made to form a settlement from the Mother Country until
1621, when what in modern language are called the Maritime Provinces
were granted to Sir William Alexander. A vessel with emigrants sailed
in 1622, but owing to storms, was driven to Newfoundland. James I. died
in 1625, and his death led to the complications which followed on this
continent. Charles I. had determined to assist the French Protestants
then besieged in Rochelle, and as a portion of his operations, Kirke’s
celebrated expedition against Canada, took place in 1628. Quebec was
taken. The French settlements still continued with small increments in
what is known as Acadia: at Port Royal, Annapolis, to the country round
Minas Bay, or the Basin of Minas from Chignecto to Cobequid, and south
to Windsor and Cornwallis. There were some small settlements at Cape
Sable, Cape la Have and at Canso. Fifty years after this date the total
population was but little over 800, so settlement could only have taken
place slowly and at intervals.
In 1632 all that is now known as British America, which lies beyond
the valley of the St. Lawrence, was given over to the French by
treaty. But Oliver Cromwell became Protector of England, and seized
the forts of St. John and Port Royal, and, what is more, in the treaty
of Westminster of 1655 held Nova Scotia as a possession. In 1658 the
great Englishman died, and the discreditable days of the restoration
followed. In 1662 the French Ambassador received instructions to
demand restitution of the country. The English King, the pensioner
of France, had no resource but compliance, although the people of
Massachusetts, hearing of the proposition, sent a remonstrance against
the proceeding. Its only effect was to lead to delay, for in 1667 a
discreditable surrender was made by the treaty of Breda. The Governor
was ordered to hand over Nova Scotia to French rule. The accession
of William III. led to war, and in 1690 an expedition against Port
Royal ended in its capture. But by the Peace of Ryswick, 1697, Nova
Scotia was again transferred to France. Port Royal was occupied and
placed in a condition of defence, and it was among the grievances
of the New Englanders that it was the resort of pirates who preyed
on Massachusetts commerce. War again broke out in 1702. The early
attempts to capture Port Royal were not successful. Had the Governor,
Subercase, been sustained from France, the conquest might have been
perhaps stayed. But the support he asked was not extended, and in 1710
the place was again taken. The English Government had learned some
terrible lessons on the necessity of holding the territory in this
direction. The massacres at York and Oyster River in 1694 and the
attempt to destroy Wells must have taught her rulers that the English
colonies required some firmly seated support against such attempts. The
effort of France was to connect Canada by a series of outposts with
the Atlantic. A fort was built on the St. John, opposite Fredericton,
Naxouat, and at the Jemseg to the south. The thinly-peopled northern
parts of Maine and Massachusetts were thus constantly exposed to
attack, and it was manifestly necessary to the protection of New
England that a garrison of sufficient strength should be established
in a locality where it would be available to meet an excursion from
Canada, if French encroachments were to be resisted. It was thus
that attention was directed to Port Royal, which had been taken in
the expedition under Nicholson in 1710, and now received the name of
Annapolis, from the reigning Queen. Halifax was then unknown, and the
whole settlement of Nova Scotia consisted in what went under the name
of Acadia, which did not contain 1,000 souls. It was resolved, however,
to hold Nova Scotia permanently, and a garrison was left at Annapolis.
It was not until 1755, forty-five years after this date, that the
deportation of the Acadians took place, and what follows in the history
of Nova Scotia must be remembered in connection with the relentless
policy of Governor Lawrence, which enforced their banishment.
Many have formed their idea of that measure by Mr. Longfellow’s well
known poem of “_Evangeline_,” but it must be judged in a far wider
view than what is suggested by those polished hexameters. Few can
deny that the measure was one bringing much suffering with it, and
that many innocent persons underwent tribulation, and that there is
a hard, unbending purpose running through the proceeding to cause
feelings of horror and pain. This cannot be denied. But what is all
war but an unvarying scene of individual misery and wrong? A private
execution of the most notorious malefactor makes an appeal to one’s
more merciful feelings. The real question to be considered is; was this
step a merciless, treacherous, unnecessary brutality like the massacre
of Glencoe, inflicting uncalled for suffering on a defenceless
people, taken unawares, who had no chance given them to avoid such a
fate; or was it an act of necessary policy entailed by most pressing
circumstances, by consideration for the safety of a community, which
the sufferers could have avoided, without the slightest sacrifice
of principle, feeling or of individual right. The fact must be
clearly stated. The Acadians, as a conquered people, obtained every
consideration and kindness, and for years they were called upon
earnestly to be loyal and to abstain from injury to those who were now
their masters. No one ever received the slightest individual injury.
They were treated with justice, with forbearance, with mercy. They
were assured the practice of their religion, the maintenance of their
property and their personal liberty. All they were asked to do was to
give a solemn assurance, to become in fact and by their lives, subjects
of their conquerors. Not to side with their foes, but to defend the
land on which they held their property, against its enemies, and above
all to abstain from encouragement of the savage Indian, whose theory of
warfare was stealthy assassination. I return to the date 1710.
Port Royal was conquered, and its conquerors clearly shewed that they
intended to retain it as a possession. The inhabitants never ceased
from hostility in all its forms. Parties sent out to cut wood were
assassinated. Travelling beyond the fort was dangerous; for the
individual it was death. The enmity of the people was kept up by the
missionaries with the assurance that the fort would be attacked and
retaken at the first opportunity, and that British continued possession
was an impossibility. War was closed by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713,
when Nova Scotia remained a British possession. The French retained
the sovereignty of the Island of Cape Breton,[B] which with the Port
of Louisbourg, remained an eternal threat to Nova Scotia. The Acadians
were pressed by the French governor, to remove to Cape Breton. By the
14th Article of the Treaty, they had one year in which they could
leave Nova Scotia. But they would not do so. At the same time, they
declared to the French of Cape Breton their intention of remaining
subjects of France, and that they never would take the oath of
allegiance to England under any circumstances.
In 1714 Nicholson was appointed Governor of Nova Scotia, then a
recognized Province. No steps appear to have been taken for some years
with regard to the Acadians. The oath had been tendered and refused. It
was not enforced, and they remained in this unsatisfactory condition
for thirty years, when war broke out again in 1743. It was well known
that, in the event of war, every Acadian would be an enemy to British
rule. Mascarene was then Governor. Descended from Huguenot French,
he was a man of rare ability and power. A French force attacked the
fort. The attack was to have been made in connection with a French
squadron. The latter not arriving, the force retired, having shewn
little enterprise. The Acadians did not join the attacking army. There
was a body of Indians from the main land, friendly to the English, who
were sufficient to counterbalance the Nova Scotian Micmacs, and the
determined defence was a guarantee against any pronounced aid from
within.
If Nova Scotia was to be retained with a population ever ready to rise
at the first gleam of success of the enemies of Great Britain and its
religion, Louisbourg, it was evident could not be allowed to continue,
a constant omen of danger and loss. Whoever first proposed the attack,
and I think it must have been a necessity everywhere understood, it was
Shirley, then Governor of Massachusetts, who prepared the organization
by which the first taking of Louisbourg was effected, and whose
energy and ability led to the expedition of 1745. William Pepperel
was appointed its commander. Few such expeditions have been marked
by such signal organization and completeness, a striking contrast to
the contemptible result of Phipp’s expedition against Quebec in 1690,
and Walker’s miserable failure in 1711. Admiral Warren commanded the
naval forces. Louisbourg fell. The booty was immense, and to increase
it the French flag was kept flying so that vessels from France entered
the harbour to become the spoil of the conqueror. A lesson not
forgotten when Boston was evacuated by the British in 1776, by the
incompetent General Gage and his equally inefficient lieutenants. For
the British flag, still flying on the fort, invited the English vessels
unhesitatingly to sail in, if combatants, to become prisoners of war
and for the stores and merchandise to be sequestrated. It is said that
at Louisbourg the share of a seaman before the mast was eight hundred
guineas. The efforts on the part of France to revenge this reverse were
futile. The design was even to destroy Boston, but the expedition was
one of the most impotent on record.
Port Royal, Annapolis seemed more easy of attainment. The commandant
knowing the weakness of his garrison applied for reinforcements. On the
arrival of 420 men, they were sent to Minas. A French fort was then at
Chignecto. An attack was at once determined. The English troops took
no precaution, as if they were in full security. Led by Acadian guides
to the exact locality where the men were quartered, the French arrived
at 2 o’clock in the morning on 23rd January, 1747. Snow was falling
so the advance was not seen until close on the sentries. The troops,
attacked in bed, made a desperate resistance, but they were defeated
and capitulated. Such a result would have been impossible without the
assistance of the Acadians, who led the troops precisely to the points
to be attacked and withheld all knowledge of the expedition.
The disgraceful peace of Aix-la-Chapelle was made in 1748. It is hard
to believe that Louisbourg and Cape Breton were given back to the
French under the vague clause that no conquest since the commencement
of the war should be held. England, therefore, retained Nova Scotia
and France Cape Breton, for the tragedy of Louisbourg to be repeated
ten years later. We all recollect the toast of Blucher that the
diplomatist may not lose by the pen what the soldier has gained by the
sword. On this continent we have much to remind us how a few words in a
treaty, indistinct and indefinite in their purport, have ignored many
years of national effort, courage and determination, at the same time
sacrificing remorselessly a multiplicity of private interests.
But the time had come when the quarrel between France and England
should be fought out, and both powers felt that this chronic condition
of war could no longer continue. In ten years the struggle had ceased.
One by one the strongholds of France passed from her hands, and in ten
years her flag had ceased to be a type of power on the continent. Both
countries accordingly put forth their whole strength in this period: a
fact of importance when the question of the treatment of the Acadians
is judged. One of the first steps was the foundation of Halifax in 1749
under Cornwallis. It was done with rare organization, with perfect
success. Without delay Cornwallis called upon the Acadians to take
the oath of allegiance. They declined. For six years was this request
avoided with ill-concealed hostility. “In fact,” said Governor Hopson
in July, 1753, “what we call an Indian war is no other than a pretence
for the French to commit hostilities upon His Majesty’s subjects.” The
French, moreover, while recognizing the provisions of the Treaty of
Aix-la-Chapelle, drew an arbitrary boundary of Nova Scotia: that of
Missiquash River, now the boundary of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia;
and La Jonquière, then Governor of Canada, sent a force under La Corne
to erect a chain of forts from the Bay of Fundy to Bay Verte. They
constructed Fort Beauséjour. The Governor of Nova Scotia established
Fort Lawrence, near the settlement of Beauséjour. In 1755 it was
resolved to drive the French from their position. As was looked for,
the Acadians were there on the French side, but the fort was taken and
called Fort Cumberland. It was these very encroachments of the French
against Nova Scotia which led to the declaration of war in May of 1756.
What followed I need but cursorily mention. Louisbourg again fell in
1758; Quebec in 1759. In 1760 Louisbourg was demolished, for no other
port than Halifax was needed. In six months this monument of French
power, which it had taken twenty-five years to raise, was levelled
to the ground. All of value was transported to Halifax, many of the
boucharded stones, even, having been taken there. In this year Montreal
capitulated, and De Vaudreuil signed the capitulation which gave the
continent to British rule.
All these facts require to be stated when the deportation of the
Acadians has to be considered. What else could be done with them in
this crisis? From the period when Cornwallis first arrived, in 1749,
it was the one question: how to act with a body of men disloyal to the
country as it was governed. Too weak to obtain a national standing,
but constantly intriguing to injure the authority they lived under
but would not recognize; refusing all efforts of conciliation; and,
with the guarantee of possessing personal liberty, the free practice of
their religion, the enjoyment of their property, they still declined
to give the slightest assurance of good behaviour or fidelity. They
refused even to furnish supplies to the British garrison, and they
ranged themselves actually on the side of the French expeditions. They
encouraged the savage to rob, and to plunder, and to murder. They
complacently looked on while a vessel was looted under their eyes,
and at the same time they were subject to no direct tax and had every
privilege a loyal subject could ask. European writers who have alluded
to this proceeding have dwelt much on the peaceful lives and the quiet,
primitive habits of most of those who suffered. That fact has never
been disputed. But poetry has endeavoured to sublimate their virtues
to a height they never reached. The Acadians lived in rude plenty,
unmarked by the least culture. Their prejudices were only developed
among themselves. They were litigious and grasping, and French writers
of that date complain that the specie which they received never left
their possession, for they held it back for the hour of difficulty,
which would have been in no way unwelcome if it ended in driving from
their midst those who, with all the exaggeration on the subject, could
not be called their oppressors. In September, 1755, a considerable
number of the most troublesome were seized, arbitrarily, undoubtedly,
and banished from the country. What the number was which were thus
scattered and shipped in transports it is hard to state. Many were left
behind, as the despatches of subsequent Governors clearly establish.
In Grand Pré 1,925 were collected. At Annapolis and Cumberland many
took to the woods. I cannot form any other opinion than that the number
5,000 is an exaggeration. Among the papers at the Colonial Office or
at Halifax the true state of the case may be found. I am quite unable,
from what I can learn, to give any estimate, but the evidence leads me
to think that probably less than 3,000 were so deported. A melancholy
fate of suffering, sorrow and privation; for these poor creatures
were sent, homeless and destitute, to other States; but there was no
unnecessary hardship and cruelty shown, and their condition was not
worse than that of the immigrant who in old days sought our shores.
Undoubtedly it is a chapter of human misery, this enforced exodus, but
those who suffered by it could have avoided it by a line of conduct
marked by no one act in any way unworthy or humiliating. All that was
called for was the acceptance of an unavoidable condition of events,
beyond their control, irremediable. They refused to become friends
of those who made the offer of peace and conciliation in the hour of
danger and difficulty. They showed themselves to be avowed enemies.
For upwards of forty years they destroyed the peace of the colony, and
had at length to pay the penalty their conduct exacted, which was only
with reluctance adopted as a necessity which self-preservation demanded.
It is not until 1714 that Nova Scotia ranks as a British Province.
There were many mutations before it took this definite form, and in
connection with its history there is the record common to most of the
communities of this continent: that of misapprehension and a failure to
understand its importance as an American possession.
For the hundred and seventy years which Nova Scotia has continued
under British rule its population has steadily increased from various
sources, and as a maritime people they have placed themselves in the
highest rank. Nova Scotia thus possesses the distinction of being the
oldest British Province of the Dominion.