The Acadians at Boston; in Virginia: these latter are not allowed to land: they are sent to England—Frightful mortality—One of the ships destined for Philadelphia is lost at sea; two others are driven by storm on the island of San Domingo: a fourth is saved by the Acadians and stranded near St. John River—Inhabitants of Cape Sable attacked.

Lawrence must have hoped that the population of Boston and Massachusetts, whose interests were on many points identified with those of Nova Scotia and whose sons liad helped to carry out the sentence of expulsion, would be eager to favor his projects; there, however, as elsewhere, the arrival of the exiles provoked serious objections. For several days the fleet remained in the roadstead with its human freight, awaiting the result of official deliberations.

“Here, as in Philadelphia,” says Philip H. Smith, “a Roman Catholic was hel£,as one of the worst of foes to society. There was likelihood, too, that they would become a charge to the public, and it was some time before the authorities could bring themselves to decide on turning a thousand of these creatures loose on society. The suffering of the captives detained on board the vessels, is said to have been dreadful. One Hutchinson (afterwards Governor of Massachusetts), who visited them on board, wrote an account of a case particularly distressing. He found a woman in a dying state from the foul atmosphere and uncomfortable quarters, but the regulations did not admit of her removal. Three small children were with her, requiring a mother’s care To save her life, Hutchinson had her conveyed to a house on shore, contrary to orders, at his own risk, where the poor widow was made comfortable. But distress had wrought too great havoc in her frame to admit of recovery; she wasted away and left her little ones without a protector; but, just before she died, she besought her benefactor ‘to ask the Governor, in the name of their common Saviour, to let her children remain in the place where she died."

Finally the debarkation was authorized; the captives were placed temporarily in barracks erected on the common, and then distributed in the towns and villages of Massachusetts.

“At first,” says again the same author, “they set up the claim that they were prisoners of war, and refused to work, but, subsequently, became an industrious element. There was one great difficulty attending their employment, and that was the prejudice of the people against the admission of a papist into their families. The Neutrals here do not appear to have been received with the considerate kindness their brethren were so fortunate as to experience in Philadelphia. They were not permitted to go from one town to another, and, if taken without a passport from two selectmen, they were to be imprisoned five days, or whipped ten lashes, or perhaps both. By this treatment, as useless as it was cruel, members of families were kept separated from their friends and from each other. The meagre records of those times show that numerous petitions were sent, and advertisements were constantly circulated to find lost relatives; it being a feature peculiar to their case, that they were left in the most distressing doubt as to the fate of those nearest and dearest to them. In the midst of so much distress and fanaticism, the unwelcomed Gallo-Acadians were subjected to the most rigid surveillance; there was no deed so dark but they were believed to be capable of performing; and every species of crime committed in the vicinity, the perpetrators of which were unknown, was attributed with one consent to the papists.

“A petition from one tow n on the coast asks to have the Neutrals removed to the interior, as they have a powder-house there, and were afraid they would blow them up. The student of human nature finds in this another illustration of the power that education and prejudice exert over the judgment of men. The Acadians themselves refer to this view entertained towards them by the English: that of being addicted to pillage and other warlike exploits. In one of their memorials they advance, as a reason that they could not have possessed the belligerent characteristics attributed to them, the fact that it was the absence of these qualities that enabled the English to obtain such unlimited power over them; otherwise, several thousand Acadians never would have submitted to a handful of English soldiers.”

Several cases of abuse and cruelty are cited by Mrs. Williams,* Smith and Hutchinson, the historian of Massachusetts; and these cases were so notorious that the legislature of the State enacted laws to guard against their recurrence. But, of all their sorrows, that which wrung from them the bitterest complaints in their written appeals was the sundering of families.

“It is too evident,” says the historian Hutchinson, “that this unfortunate people had much to suffer from poverty and bad treatment, even after they had been adopted by Massachusetts. The different petitions addressed to Governor Shirley, about this time, are heartrending.” He tried to copy some of them from the archives of the Secretary of State; but he was so blinded by tears, as he tells us, that he had to stop.

Parkman mast have found the tears of this writer and the sentimentality of Longfellow, both countrymen of his, most ridiculous. He must have had these two eminent men in his mind's eye, when he wrote: “New England humanitarianism, melting into sentimentality at a tale of woe, has been unjust to its own.” To what acts of injustice this sentimentality may have conduced, it is difficult to see, and Parkman does not explain. Perhaps he means to hint that the harsh treatment of the exiles was just. If so, this hint is merely a fresh specimen of his “silken brutality.” For myself, and many others, this sentimentality which is based on so many reasonable motives, and is so much in keeping with facts, is the most beautiful eulogium that -can be addressed to his fellow-countrymen. On the contrary, I look upon as despicable the man who, to all appearance, has knowingly falsified history in order to prevent others from entertaining sentiments which he himself could not or did not wish to feel. Parkman preferred novelty and audacity to the monotony of beaten paths. The public may like novelty; but in history, truth always ends by ensuring permanence to the labors of those who make themselves its defenders. Sooner or later the clay-footed statue which Parkman raised for himself will crumble never to rise again.

In this fairly harmonious concert, in favor of a people unjustly oppressed, it is easy to forget Parkman’s discordant voice, and to remember only those distinguished men who have made Boston the metropolis of the intellect, the warm-heartedness and the knowledge of this continent.

I have reason to believe, from current tradition, that the cases of ill-treatment of the Acadians became less and less frequent in Massachusetts. Their peaceable and virtuous habits succeeded in entirely dispelling the prejudices aroused by their first arrival. Disdain and cruelty gave way, with the better classes, to a benevolent solicitude which was manifested generally enough to cast into shade the wrongs to which they were still subjected in certain places and in certain classes of society. Their heaviest burdens could be lifted off, and so they were; but nothing could console-them for their separation nor teach them to take kindly to their irremediable misfortunes.

Strange irony of human affairs! This little people had been overwhelmed with woe on the simple pretext of disloyalty; and the last Acadians had no sooner quitted Boston than the standard of revolt was hoisted over this same town. And, stranger still, this same people, who had been the warders of these pretended rebels, eagerly welcomed the soldiers of France, while-those who would not be disloyal to their English sovereign, were going into exile and taking refuge on the lands of these same Acadians.

1 have it on excellent authority, that Haliburton, in his private conversations, stigmatized, much more severely than he does in his history, the-conduct. of Lawrence towards the Acadians. It was he, I am also informed, who inspired Longfellow and suggested to him the idea of writing “Evangeline Stationary Camp at Boston,” says Smith, when he found preparations being made for burning the Pope in effigy. His memorable order of November 5th had the effect of putting an end to the custom of insulting the religion of brethren and co-workers. When the French fleet arrived at Newport, Rhode Island, to aid the cause of the colonists, the Legislature made all haste to repeal a law on her statute book, forbidding a Roman Catholic to put foot upon her soil under pain of death. At Boston, a funeral procession traversed the streets, with a crucifix at its head and priests solemnly chanting, while the selectmen of Puritan Boston joined in the ceremony, giving this public mark of respect to the faith of their allies.”

Virginia opposed a most energetic resistance to the landing of the 1,500 Acadians whom Lawrence cast on the coasts of this Province. Neither disease, which was making frightful havoc among this crowd of human beings huddled together in the holds of dreadfully overladen ships, nor any other consideration, could decide the Virginians to accept the burden which Lawrence imposed on them. They addressed to the authorities such vigorous protests that all these exiles, after having waited several weeks on board their vessels, were told to set sail for England.

We know not how many of these 1,500 died before reaching the ports of England; but, considering that half of those who were transported to Philadelphia succumbed on the way, and that the mortality elsewhere was also very considerable; considering that the sojourn on the boats bound for England was three or four times longer than on those that went only as far as New England, we are justified in supposing the death-list to have been a very long one. Moreover, we have some exact figures tending to show that in 1768, eight years later, in spite of the births, the number of exiled Acadians in England was then reduced one-tliird since their arrival in that country. I think it no exaggeration to say that, at the time of the treaty of peace in 1763, the original 1,500 were reduced to less than 500.

This fact gives us a glimpse of the woe-begone condition of this ill-fated people, thus driven from all coasts and tossed about on the sea, not knowing where they could go to suffer and die. What a lamentable situation for poor mothers separated from their husbands, for children separated from their parents, or even for heads of families, comfortable and peaceable farmers, who had never quitted their villages, where but lately they dwelt in happiness, now flung into mid-ocean, alone, stripped of everything, torn from their wives and children by order of Lawrence or by death, surrounded by enemies, without future, without hope! If, at least, after eight years of exile they had found peace and what remained of their decimated families; but their whole life was spent in often fruitless researches in the West Indies, in Louisiana, on the coasts of New England, in Canada and in the maritime provinces, etc., etc.

Longfellow, in spite of all his ability to produce a lasting impression and narrate forcibly, has not succeeded in painting the full extent of the blow that struck the most afflicted famines. It is a case of noble poetry falling short of the reality, and by many it is thought that he has failed to render the dramatic force suggested by the tragedy. The fate of Evangeline is far from equalling in sadness and tragic force that of many other young girls, separated, not only from their betrothed, as she was, but also from their parents.

Of the twenty and odd ships, that carried the Acadians away into the ports of New England, four never reached their destination. Of those destined for Philadelphia, one perished at sea with its cargo of captives, two others were tossed about by the winds and driven to San Domingo, where the prisoners were left. Another ship, containing 226 Acadians from Port Royal, among whom were found persons with the names Boudreau, Dugas, Guillebault, Richard, Bourgeois, Doucet, Landry, was captured by the exiles which it bore. They were pursued and attacked by one of the convoys that accompanied the fleet; but after a slight encounter of no consequence they were able to get away and land at St. John River, where they met a considerable band of fugitives, who had escaped the deportation.

Here is how Casgrain relates this moving adventure:

"While the transports were sailing under a fair wind on the Bay of Fundy, an Acadian of Port Royal, named Beaulieu, an old master mariner, having asked the captain of the ship whither he was going to conduct them: was bereft of reason, and her mother, undermined by her died a few years later. Though my great-grandmother was gifted with a gnat mind and was habitually very gay. still the account of these misfortunes had the effect of plundering her into such profound sadness that all allusion to these events was carefully shunned by the family.

“To the first desert island I shall meet,’ replied he insolently, if that’s all that French papists, as you are, deserve.’ .

“Quite beside himself, Beaulieu, who was of much more than ordinary strength, dealt him a blow with his fist that stretched him flat on the deck. This was a signal for the other captives. Though unarmed, they rushed upon the guards, wounded some of them and put the rest hors de combat.

“Beaulieu then assumed the command of the transport and stranded it in the St. John River.”

There still remained a small band of Acadians in the peninsula at Cape Sable, at the southwestern extremity of Nova Scotia. This little colony was comprised in the barony of Pobomcoup, property of the d’Entremonts and partly inhabited by the numerous descendants of this family. Cut off from Halifax and other Acadian settlements, without means of communication except what navigation offered them, they had dwelt in as complete isolation as if they had inhabited a small island in the midst of the ocean. For more than a century they had lived there and managed their affairs as they thought proper, the administration paying no more attention to them than if they had not existed. They hardly knew of Lawrence’s persecutions and of the obligation to which he subjected the Acadians of the other parts of the Province in the matter of the oath. Thus, there assuredly was no motive for expelling these persons; they had not even been able to furnish the pretexts that Lawrence invented against those of Port Royal, Grand Pre and Beausejour. These poor people, after the terrible calamity that had just befallen their "brethren, could but wish to remain unmolested in their retreat, either ignored as they were in the past or left in peaee as insignilicant. Had Lawrence spared this peaceable and isolated colony, this would have afforded a proof, not perhaps quite conclusive, but tending at least to show that his conduct was based on fairly defensible motives and guided by a certain sense of fitness.

It often takes a long time, with its repetition of misdeeds, before we can penetrate and realize all the malice of which those are capable with whom we are in daily contact. Often our penetration is at fault, and we are forced to extend the bounds of their depravity. These poor inhabitants of Cape Sable must have hoped that, being peaceable, never having given cause for ill-treatment, they would certainly be able to remain unmolested in their retreat. However it was not to be; Lawrence’s cruelty had not yet reached its utmost bound. Before the end of the winter that followed the embarkation at Grand Pr6 and other places, he gave Major Prebble, then setting out with his regiment for Boston, the following order, which needs no comment:

“You are hereby required and directed to put into Cape Sable, or some of the adjacent harbors, (in your way to Boston), and, with the troops at your command, to land at the most convenient place ; and to seize as many of the said inhabitants as possible, and carry them with you to Boston, where you will deliver them to His Excellency Governor Shirley, with a letter you will receive with this order. You are, at all events, to bum and destroy the houses of the said inhabitants. and carry off their utensils and cat tie of all kinds, and make a distribution of them to the troops under your command as a reward for the performance of this service, and to destroy such things as cannot conveniently be carried off.

“Given under my hand and seal this 9th April, 1756.

“By His Excellency’s command, Chas. Lawresce.”

“Wm. Cottekelil? ’

This invitation to plunder, by greatly exciting the cupidity of the soldiery, could not fail to produce the desired effect: “April 23d,” relates l’Abbe Desen-claves, an eye-witness, “a village was invested and taken; everything was burned and the live stock killed or seized. They tore away the scalp of one of the children of Joseph d'Entremont, after having plundered and burnt his house.”

Shortly afterwards, Lawrence effected a new descent upon them, and the same scenes of havoc were repeated. This time they were able to seize a part of the inhabitants, and with them l’Abbe Desenclaves.

Those who had escaped these attacks were reduced to great distress. Their cattle being killed or taken from them, their houses burnt, their parents and brethren dragged into captivity, unable to put to sea in order to procure assistance for their families without running the risk of being taken, having no hope of human succor, they, no doubt, wished they had been carried off with the others.

No longer expecting any pity from Lawrence, and informed of the humane character of Mr. Pownall, the new Governor of Massachusetts, they addressed to him a petition, which clearly depicts the extreme destitution and abject misery in which they were:

“We, your humble, petitioners, have taken this opportunity to write to you these few lines, hoping they will obtain the happy end for which they are designed, and we hope above all things that Your Excellency will have compassion on us, your poor distressed fellow-creatures, and grant to us this humble request that we earnestly implore of you, and that it might please Your Excellency to take us under your Government; And, if it might please yoti to settle us here in this land where we now live, we shall ever hold it our bounden duty to love and honor you with our last breath, and we shall assure you that we are heartily willing to do whatever you require of us as far as we are able to perform. We are also willing to pay to Your Excellency’s Government our yearly taxes ; we are also willing to support and maintain the war against the King of France' as long as we live, and if ever any damage should be done here on our territories by the Savages, it shall be required at our hands. We are in all about forty families, which consist of about one hundred and fifty souls ; the Savages that live between here and Halifax do not exceed twenty men, and they are also willing to come under the same Government with us. . . . And, if we shall be so fortunate as to obtain so much friendship with Tour Excellency as to be received into your Government, we will send in two men with a list of all our names, and the Savages will do likewise, and we will all submit to do whatever you require of us, and if any others should desert from elsewhere, Savages or French, and come to us, we will in no wise receive them unless they get from under Your Excellency’s hand liberty so to do.

“And now to conclude, if we should be so unfortunate as to be denied this, our humble request, we will submit to Your Excellency’s goodness to do with us whatever may seem good in your sight ; only this we beg, that, if we may no longer stay here, that we may be received in New England to live as the other Neutral French do, for we had all rather die here than go to any French dominion to live.

"We beg that Your Excellency will send us word what we shall do as soon as you can, and we will do it as soon as you send. And, if it be our hard fate to go away from here, we will obey Your Excellency and go, though it would be to us like departing out of this world.

“Dear sir, do for us what lays in your power to settle us here, and we will be your devoted subjects till death.”

This petition was drawn up and taken to Boston by one Haskell, who had ventured to Cape Sable with the object of trading with the people there. Wishing to be, of service to these unfortunates, but fearing arrest, he had this petition delivered by some one else. It was nevertheless traced to him ; he was arrested, but escaped conviction.

Pownall, moved at this cry of distress, communicated this petition to General Amherst, who was then at Boston. They consulted together on the best means of coming to their assistance. Amherst advised him to pay the expense of transporting them to Boston; but one thing stopped them: these persons were under the government of Lawrence, and so they themselves had no right to decide their lot without his approbation. Pownall transmitted the petition to Lawrence and accompanied it with these remarks: . . . “As for the case of the poor people at Cape Sable, it seems very distressful and worthy any relief that can be afforded them. If policy could acquiesce in any measure for their relief, humanity loudly calls for it. I send you a copy of their petition, and in it the copy of the Journal of Council which I also enclose; you will see that General Amherst was willing to relieve them, could it have been done here, but by the same you will see the Council could by no means advise me to receive them.”

The only answer Lawrence gave was to dispatch a ship to Cape Sable. All the population that remained there was transported to Halifax, and, four months later, to England. New cruelties must have been committed there, since we find the proof thereof in a letter of General Amherst himself to Lawrence, signifying his disapprobation of such conduct. He pointed out a certain Captain Hazen as the principal guilty person, and added: “1 shall always disapprove of killing women and helpless children.”

As soon as hostilities opened between France and England, Lawrence in a proclamation dated May 14tlij 1756, declared: “We do hereby promise a reward of thirty pounds for every male Indian prisoner above the age of sixteen years brought in alive; for a seal of such male Indian twenty-five pounds, and twenty-five pounds for every Indiau woman or child brought in alive.”

However great might have been the exasperation provoked by the conduct of the Indians in time of war, this proclamation, which opened the campaign, was little calculated to soften the horrors of the coining war. It was not by surpassing these barbarians in their cruel customs that their manners would be chastened and the beneficent influence of Christianity extended to them. As to Lawrence, however, nothing can astonish us; under a civilized exterior he was still more barbarous than any savage, and, had he dared, he would have included iii his enticing rewards the Acadians found armed. In point of fact the proclamation had tlie effect of making Acadian pass for Indian scalps. The greed of gain was going to give rise to frauds upon which Lawrence would complacently close his eyes. The following extract of a letter from Rev. Hugh Graham to Rev. Andrew Brown, dated 1791, gives the practical result of the proclamation:

“A party of Hangers of a regiment chiefly employed in scouring the country of the deluded Acadians who had unfortunately fallen under the ban of British policy, came upon four Acadians who had, with all possible caution, ventured out from their skulking retreats to pick some of the straggling cattle or hidden treasure. The solitary few, the pitiable four, had just sat down weary and faint on the banks of the desert stream in order to refresh themselves with some food and rest, when a party of Rangers surprised anti apprehended them, and, as there was a bounty on Indian scalps, a blot, too, on England’s escutcheon, the soldiers soon made the supplicating signal, the officers turned their backs, and the Arcadians were instantly shot and scalped. A party of the Rangers brought in one day 25 scalps, pretending that they were Indians', and the commanding officer at the fort, then Colonel Wilmot, afterwards Governor Wilmot (a poor tool), gave orders that the bounty should be paid them. Captain Huston, who had at that time the charge of the military chest, objected to such proceedings, both in the letter and spirit of them. The Colonel told him, that according to law the French were all out of the country, that the bounty on Indian scalps was according to law, and that though the law might in some instances be strained a little, yet there was a necessity for winking at such things.

“Upon account. Huston, iu obedience to orders, paid down £2r>0, telling: that the curse of God should ever attend such guilty deeds.

“A considerable large body of the French Neutrals were onetime surprised by a pa rty of Rangers on Petitcodiac river; upon the. first alarm, most of them threw themselves into the river and swa n across, and by this way the greater part of them made out to elude the clutches of these bloody hounds, though some of them were shot by the merciless soldiery in the river. It was observed that these Rangers, almost without exception, closed their days in wretchedness, and, particularly, a Captain Danks, who rode to the extreme of his commission in every barbarous proceeding. . . . He lived under a general dislike and died without any to regret his death.”

This Rev. Hugh Graham was, like Dr. Brown, a contemporary of the events he describes. He was living in Nova Scotia at the very time, I think, of the des portation, and this was the reason why Brown applied to him for information. He seems to have been actuated by tlie same spirit as Brown, and, like him, he also judged severely the acts and authors of this tragedy, as have also done all his contemporaries that were in a position to pass an enlightened and impartial judgment thereon, or whose character was sufficiently elevated to be above religious or national prejudices.

I have furnished the reader with the means of judging Lawrence’s character by the opinion that the citizens of Halifax entertained of him; we also have, in the foregoing, material for a sound estimate of that Colonel Wiimot who, a few years later, as Governor of the Province, was in his turn to oppress the Acadians.

The cabinet of London, which, as we have seen, had been thrown into great alarm at the discovery of the poorly-disguised projects of Lawrence, saw itself obliged to accept the accomplished fact, and let him finish his work of proscription. The following extract of a letter from the Lords of Trade to Lawrence, dated March 10th, 3757, seems to be a condemnation of his conduct, both as to the non-justification and odiousness of so barbarous measure, and as to the fatal consequences that might issue therefrom: “There is no attempt, however desperate and cruel, which might not be expected from persons exasperated as they must be by the treatment they have met with.”

In fact it could not have been otherwise. The meekest, the most peaceful man, when he sees himself unjustly driven to bay; when all his happiness has vanished; when his country, his goods have been taken from him; when his wife and children have been snatched from his hearth and whelmed with woe, if not separated from him and from one another; when he has no longer any hope of pity from an enemy bent on them in pieces as they would pig’s flesh and scattering upon the ground these ghastly remains, ( Vaadreuil aa Ministre, Oct. IWi, 1755.) destruction of all that makes him cling to life; this man may become a raging lion whose thirst for vengeance nothing can quench. Yes, I hesitate not to say so, after so unjust and extraordinary a persecution, there was sufficient provocation to turn the head of the most peaceful man, to make him a highwayman or a pirate, lying in ambush in the thickets of a forest as a hunter of men. That is what I would have done, that is what most of my readers would have done; yet, that is what the Acadians, except a very small number, did not do.

Tradition has preserved the remembrance of the terrible deeds of vengeance wr ought by some of these men, and more particularly by Jean Le Blanc, Nicholas Gauthier and Noel Brassard du Beausoleil.

This last-named person dwelt with all his family in the cantons of Chipody and Petiteodiac, on the north of the Bay of Fundy. This colony had been founded in 1699 by the miller Thibaudeau and Jean Francois Brassard. Thibaudeau had become seignior of Chipody and a large concession had been granted to his friend Brassard. Ties of relationship soon still more closely united the two families. Brassard, whose wife, Catherine Richard, was the eldest daughter of Michel Richard, first of that name in Acadia, my ancestor, gave his daughter in marriage to the son of the elder Thibaudeau, and the two families soon formed an important and prosperous group.

We have seen that, at the time of the deportation, a detachment of troops had been sent from Beausejour (Cumberland) to burn the houses of Chipodyand Petit-codiac and carry away the inhabitants; we have seen that the population, forewarned of this attack, lay in ambush on the edge of the forest, and that, just as a squad of this detachment were preparing to set fire to the church, the Acadians made such an onslaught on the soldiers as to force them to withdraw.

He who had directed this attack was Noel Brassard Du Beausoleil, son of Jean Francois Brassard and Catherine Richard. Casgrain, in his "Pelerinage an pavs d’Evangcline,” thus relates the succession of events inasmuch as they concern Noel Brassard; events which are still deeply rooted in the memory of the Acadians of the maritime provinces:—

“No inhabitant of the place had more interest than Noel Brassard in defending his home. He was the father of ten children, the last of whom was hardly eight days old; he had with him his own mother, a nonagenarian. His father, one of the first colonists of Petitcodiac, had bequeathed him, with the paternal residence, a large and beautiful tract of land under full cultivation, which gave him comfort and plenty. So Noel Brassard could not resign himself to the thought of quitting Chipody to go and wander in the woods with his family at the approach of our terrible winters. He knew that the weakest would find there certain death.

“In the assembly of the inhabitants in which the departure was decided, Noel Brassard voted for a struggle to the death, and it was only after the whole parish had been abandoned that he decided to join the fugitives.

"While his wife, who could hardly drag herself along, was going towards the edge of the forest, carrying her last born in her arms, he was loading a cart with the few effects he could take away and waiting for his aged mother, whom the anguish of these last days had brought to the brink of the grave. He had soon overtaken his family on the top of the hill, whence could be seen the half-burnt village and the entrance to the river.

“ They stopped there in silence ; the children pressed around their mother gulping down their sobs; as to Noel Brassard, he wept not, but he was pale as a ghost, and his lips trembled when he looked upon his wife sighinu and drying her tears. The sun set behind them on the tops of the trees, a beautiful clear autumn sun that gladdened all the landscape. Its oblique rays lit up as with tire the windows of the houses, and threw their lengthened shadows down the valley.

"Mother Brassard, whose strength was ebbing fast, appeared almost insensible while the cart was moving; but then she opened her eyes, and, as if the splendor of the scene gave her new animation, she began to look at each of the houses of the village one after another; she threw a long farewell look on the roof where she had so long lived; then her eyes remained fixed 011 the cemetery, where the graves and white crosses, brilliantly illuminated, stood out in relief on the grass.

“I shall go no further," she sighed to her son, ‘I feel myself dying. You shall bury me there near your father.’

“The cart moved on; but it had not made half a mile on the rough and badly-traced road that plunged into the forest, when Noel Brassard perceived that his mother’s face was becoming whiter than wax; beads of cold sweat appeared on her cheeks.

“His wife and he did all they could to revive her, but in vain. She was dead.

“On the evening of the morrow two men were busy digging a grave in the cemetery. Beside them was waiting the missionary, Mr. Le Guerne, whom they had had time to go and warn. Noel Brassard and his brother-in-law hastened to finish their work, for the moon, then full, was quickly rising on the horizon and might have easily betrayed their presence.

“When the grave was finished, the missionary put on his surplice, with his black stole, and recited in a low tone the prayers of the burial service. He then helped the two men to fill up the grave.

“'A moment afterwards the gate of the cemetery creaked on its hinges, and silence again reigned.

‘‘Noel Brassard was as yet only at the beginning' of his troubles. In spite of his sinister presentiments, had he been able to foresee all the misfortunes that awaited him, he would have shrunk back terrified.

“In the course of this frightful winter he lost his wife and all his children except two, a girl and a boy. From Petitoodiac to Hestigouche, where he arrived in the first days of spring, one might have followed his steps by the graves he had left behind him.

“In his despair he could not hear the name of an Englishman pronounced without being seized with a kind of frenzy. He confided the two remaining children to his sister Marguerite l’Entremont, who herself had lost all her own, and he resumed his old profession of hunter ; but this time it was to hunt down men, to hunt all that bore the name of English. At the head of some partisans, skilled marksmen like himself, and exasperated as he was by the excess of their misfortunes, he spared no pains to do his enemies all the harm he had suffered from them. During the five following years he put himself at the disposal of French officers, who employed him to rouse the Indian tribes and accompany them on their bloody expeditions. Each time he slew an enemy lie made a notch on the butt-end of his gun. This gun has been preserved by his descendants and it bears no less than twenty-eight notches.

“In the spring of 1760 Noel Brassard was back at Restigouche. When the marquis D’Anjac took refuge there with his four vessels, he claimed the privilege of serving one of the cannons that were landed on Battery Point to defend the mouth of the river. The gunners were killed at their guns, and Noel Brassard, who had fought like a lion, was pointing the last cannon that remained on its carriage, when he was cut in two by a cannon ball.”

Lawrence alluded to the exploits of Brassard, Gauthier and Le Blanc when he wrote: “These land ruffians, turned pirates, have had the hardiness to fit out shallops to cruise on our coast, and sixteen or seventeen vessels, some of them very valuable, have already fallen into their hands.”

As far as we can judge from the meagre documents we possess, it does not appear that the Acadian population, who took refuge on the coasts of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, were engaged in active guerilla warfare against the English troops. Circumstances imposed on the men the duty of remaining with their families so as to provide for the daily needs of an existence continually threatened with hunger, cold, privations, sickness, and the danger of being surprised. They kept themselves, for the most part, on the shore of the sea, because it offered in summer a surer means of procuring nourishment, but at the least danger they made for the woods.

This Jean Le Blanc was a son of Joan Le Blanc and Marguerite Richard, sister of one of my ancestors, Ren6 Richard, who died at St. Mgoire, in the district of Three Rivers, in 1776.

There still remained on the coasts of the gulf, on St. John River, and in Prince Edward Island, about 10,000 Acadians, who were able to maintain themselves in their retreats till 1758 and 1760. But even they, as we shall see further on, were for the most part obliged at last to endure the fate of those who were cast on the coasts of New England.