The Acadian Exiles, Arthur George Doughty [classic english novels txt] 📗

obstinate, he would seek new instructions to force things to a conclusion. [Footnote: Public Archives, Canada. Nova Scotia A, vol. xxxv, p. 48.] The Acadians, used by this time to the lenity of the British government, were probably not surprised to find, at the meeting of the Council held on October 11, no mention of the oath which had to be taken before the 15th of the month.

The winter passed, and still Cornwallis took no steps to enforce his proclamation. He had his troubles; for the French, from Quebec on the one side and from Louisbourg on the other, were fomenting strife; and the Indians were on the war-path. And, in February 1750, the Lords of Trade wrote that as the French were forming new settlements with a view to enticing the Acadians into them, any forcible means of ejecting them should be waived for the present. Cornwallis replied that he was anxious to leave matters in abeyance until he ascertained what could be done in the way of fortifying Chignecto. 'If a fort is once built there,' he explained, 'they [the Indians] will be driven out of the peninsula or submit. He also wished to know what reinforcements he might expect in the spring. Until then he would 'defer making the inhabitants take the oath of allegiance.'

Meanwhile the Acadians were not idle on their own behalf. In October 1749 they addressed a memorial to Des Herbiers, the governor of Ile Royale, to be transmitted to the French king. They complained that the new governor intended to suppress their missionaries, [Footnote: Cornwallis had denied the jurisdiction of the bishop of Quebec, but had intimated that he would grant a licence to any good priest, his objection being to missionaries such as Le Loutre, who stirred up the Indians to commit hostilities.] and to force them to bear arms against the Indians, with whom they had always been on friendly terms. They therefore prayed the king to obtain concessions from Great Britain— the maintenance of the Quebec missionaries, the exemption from bearing arms, or an extension of a year in which they might withdraw with their effects. [Footnote: Canadian Archives Report, 1905, Appendix N, vol. ii, p. 298.] Two months later they sent a petition to the Marquis de la Jonquiere, the governor of Canada, actuated, they said, by the love of their country and their religion. They had refused to take the oath requiring them to bear arms against their fellow-countrymen. They had, it is true, appeared attached to the interests of the English, in consequence of the oath which they had consented to take only when exempted from bearing arms. Now that this exemption was removed, they wished to leave Nova Scotia, and hoped that the king would help them with vessels, as they had been refused permission to build them. Great offers had been made to them, but they preferred to leave. [Footnote: Ibid., p. 301.]

In the spring of 1750, unable to obtain permission from Cornwallis to take a restricted oath, the Acadians almost unanimously decided to emigrate. On April 19 deputies from several settlements in the district of Minas—the river Canard, Grand Pre, and Pisiquid—appeared before the Council at Halifax and asked to be allowed to leave the province with their effects. [Footnote: Public Archives, Canada. Nova Scotia B, vol. iv, p. 130.] According to Cornwallis, they professed that this decision was taken against their inclination, and that the French had threatened them with destruction at the hands of the Indians if they remained. [Footnote: Public Archives, Canada. Nova Scotia A, vol. xxxvii, p. 7.] On May 25 the inhabitants of Annapolis Royal came with a like petition.

In reply to these petitions Cornwallis reminded the inhabitants that the province was the country of their fathers, and that they should enjoy the product of their labours. As soon as there should be tranquillity he would give them permission to depart, if they wished to do so; but in the present circumstances passports could not be granted to any one. They could not be permitted to strengthen the hand of Great Britain's enemy.

But in spite of the prohibition, of the forts that were built to enforce it, and of British cruisers patrolling the coasts to prevent intercourse with the French, there was a considerable emigration. A number of families crossed to Ile St Jean in the summer of 1750. They were aided by the missionaries, and supplied with vessels and arms by the French authorities at Louisbourg. By August 1750 we know that eight hundred Acadians were settled in Ile St Jean.

CHAPTER VI THE 'ANCIENT BOUNDARIES'

By the terms of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle the question of the limits of Acadia had been referred to a commission of arbitration, and each of the powers had agreed to attempt no settlement on the debatable ground until such time as the decision of the commissioners should be made known. Each, however, continued to watch jealously over its own interests. The English persisted in their claim that the ancient boundaries included all the country north of the Bay of Fundy to the St Lawrence, and Cornwallis was directed to see to it that no subjects of the French king settled within these boundaries. The French, on the other hand, steadily asserted their ownership in all land north of a line drawn from Baie Verte to Chignecto Bay. The disputants, though openly at peace, glowered at each other. Hardly had Cornwallis brought his colonists ashore at Halifax, when La Galissoniere, the acting-governor of Canada, sent Boishebert, with a detachment of twenty men, to the river St John, to assert the French claim to that district; and when La Galissoniere went to France as a commissioner in the boundary dispute, his successor, La Jonquiere, dispatched a force under the Chevalier de la Corne to occupy the isthmus of Chignecto.

About the same time the Indians went on the war-path, apparently at the instigation of the French. Des Herbiers, the governor of Ile Royale, when dispatching the Abbe Le Loutre to the savages with the usual presents, had added blankets and a supply of powder and ball, clearly intended to aid them should they be disposed to attack the English settlements. Indians from the river St John joined the Micmacs and opened hostilities by seizing an English vessel at Canso and taking twenty prisoners. The prisoners were liberated by Des Herbiers; but the Micmacs, their blood up, assembled at Chignecto, near La Corne's post, and declared war on the English. The Council at Halifax promptly raised several companies for defence, and offered a reward of 10 pounds for the capture of an Indian, dead or alive. Cornwallis complained bitterly to Louisbourg that Le Loutre was stirring up trouble; but Des Herbiers disingenuously disclaimed all responsibility for the abbe. The Indians, he said, were merely allies, not French subjects, and Le Loutre acted under the direction of the governor of Canada. He promised also that if any Frenchman molested the English, he should be punished, a promise which, as subsequent events showed, he had no intention of keeping.

In November 1749 a party of one hundred and fifty Indians captured a company of engineers at Grand Pre, where the English had just built a fort. Le Loutre, however, ransomed the prisoners and sent them to Louisbourg. The Indians, emboldened by their success, then issued a proclamation in the name of the king of France and their Indian allies calling upon the Acadians to arm, under pain of death for disobedience. On learning that eleven Acadians obeyed this summons, Cornwallis sent Captain Goreham of the Rangers to arrest them. The rebels, however, made good their escape, thanks to the Indians; and Goreham could only make prisoners of some of their children, whom he brought before the governor. The children declared that their parents had not been free agents, and produced in evidence one of the threatening orders of the Indians. In any case, of course, the children were in no way responsible, and were therefore sent home; and the governor described Goreham as 'no officer at all.'

When spring came Cornwallis took steps to stop the incursions of the savages and at the same time to check the emigration of the Acadians. He sent detachments to build and occupy fortified posts at Grand Pre, at Pisiquid, and at other places. He ordered Major Lawrence to sail up the Bay of Fundy with four hundred settlers for Beaubassin, the Acadian village at the head of Chignecto Bay. For the time being, however, this undertaking did not prosper. On arriving, Lawrence encountered a band of Micmacs, which Le Loutre had posted at the dikes to resist the disembarkation. Some fighting ensued before Lawrence succeeded in leading ashore a body of troops. The motive of the turbulent abbe was to preserve the Acadians from the contaminating presence of heretics and enemies of his master, the French king. And, when he saw that he could not prevent the English from making a lodgment in the village, he went forward with his Micmacs and set it on fire, thus forcing the Acadian inhabitants to cross to the French camp at Beausejour, some two miles off. Here La Corne had set up his standard to mark the boundary of New France, beyond which he dared the British to advance at their peril. At a conference which was arranged between Lawrence and La Corne, La Corne said that the governor of Canada, La Jonquiere, had directed him to take possession of the country to the north, 'or at least he was to keep it and must defend it till the boundaries between the two Crowns should be settled.' [Footnote: Canadian Archives Report, 1906, Appendix N, vol. ii, p. 321.] Moreover, if Lawrence should try to effect a settlement, La Corne would oppose it to the last. And as Lawrence's forces were quite inadequate to cope with La Corne's, it only remained for Lawrence to return to Halifax with his troops and settlers.

Meanwhile Boishebert stood guard for the governor of Quebec at the mouth of the river St John. In the previous year, when he had arrived there, Cornwallis had sent an officer to protest against what he considered an encroachment; but Boishebert had answered simply that he was commissioned to hold the place for his royal master without attempting a settlement until the boundary dispute should be adjusted. Now, in July 1750, Captain Cobb of the York, cruising in the Bay of Fundy, sighted a French sloop near the mouth of the St John, and opened fire. The French captain immediately lowered his boats and landed a party of sailors, apparently with the intention of coming to a conference. Cobb followed his example. Presently Boishebert came forward under a flag of truce and demanded Cobb's authority for the act of war in territory claimed by the French. Cobb produced his commission and handed it to Boishebert. Keeping the document in his possession, Boishebert ordered Cobb to bring his vessel under the stern of the French sloop, and sent French officers to board Cobb's ship and see the order carried out. The sailors on the York, however, held the Frenchmen as hostages for the safe return of their captain. After some parleying Cobb was allowed to return to his vessel, and the Frenchmen were released. Boishebert, however, refused to return the captain's commission. Cobb thereupon boarded the French sloop, seized five of the crew, and sailed away.

So the game went on. A month later the British sloop Trial, at Baie Verte, captured a French sloop of seventy tons which was engaged in carrying arms and supplies to Le Loutre's Indians. On board were four deserters from the British and a number of Acadians. Among the papers found on the Acadians were letters addressed to their friends in Quebec and others from Le Loutre and officers of Fort St John and of Port La Joie in Ile St Jean. From one of these letters we obtain a glimpse of the conditions of the Acadians:

  I shall tell you that I was settled in Acadia. I have
  four small children. I lived contented on my land. But
  that did not last long, for we were compelled to leave
  all our property and flee from under the domination of
  the English. The King undertakes to transport us and
  support us under the expectation of news from France.
  If Acadia is not restored to France I hope to take my
  little family and bring it to Canada. I beg you to let
  me know the state of things in that country. I assure
  you that we are in poor condition, for we are like the
  Indians in the woods.
  [Footnote: A. Doucet to Mde Langedo of Quebec,
  August 5, 1750.]

By other documents taken it was shown that supplies from Quebec were frequently passing to the Indians, and that the dispatches addressed to Cornwallis were intercepted and forwarded to the governor of Quebec. [Footnote: Cornwallis to Bedford, August 19, 1750.]

These papers revealed to Cornwallis the peril which menaced him. But, having been reinforced by the arrival from Newfoundland of three hundred men of Lascelles's regiment, he resolved to occupy Chignecto, which Lawrence had been forced to abandon in April. Accordingly Lawrence again set