Colonel Montague Wilmot’s administration, 1764-1766—The Lords of Trade’s earnest endeavor to procure a settlement for the Acadians in the Province or neighboring colonies thwarted by Wilmot— He is afraid they will come back, and wants them to be sent to tropical climates—He forces them to that course through persecutions and disgust—His object made clear by his own letters—His death at Halifax.

It would be natural to suppose that the blame from the Home authorities and Belcher’s dismissal would put an end to the persecutions the Acadians had been unceasingly subjected to since 1755. In spite of his many entreaties, Belcher had no motive that could be understood and accepted by Amherst and the Lords of Trade, for they knew full well that no possible danger could be apprehended from people situated as they were, had they been so disposed, since Cape Breton, Prince Edward Island and Canada had long ago been conquered and the French driven out from the continent. But the end was not yet. Wilmot was, if anything, worse than Belcher.

In his instructions to Wilmot, at the opening of his administration, Lord Halifax enjoined on him to prevent by every lawful means the departure of the Acadians, and to let them settle wherever they pleased -n the British dominions. It would seem that such a positive order, following closely on Belcher's dismissal for disobedience, would effectually put an end to further persecutions and deportations; but, wherever private interest and greed are powerfully stimulated, and wherever the controlling authority is distant, soulless men in Wilmot’s position will always find a way to baffle that authority.

Taught by experience, he applied himself to finding some means whereby he might realize the same purpose without, however, seeming to oppose so directly the clearly expressed views of the Lords of Trade. He had been too much mixed up with these intrigues not to have many interests in common with Belcher and his Council. He appears to have had his share of the Acadians’ lauds; at any rate the path of spoliation was plainly trodden for him by his former governor and his friends, and now his own high position gave him his opportunity. In fact we know that, soon after his installation, a large grant of land was made to Sir Robert Wilmot and another to Lady Ann Wilmot, doubtless relatives of his. Very likely, Wilmot surpassed both Lawrence and Belcher in the art of annexing landed property. “In closing the outline of the year 1765,” says Murdoch in the memorable words already quoted, “and reflecting on the very large land grants, sanctioned by Governor Wilmot .... I cannot help thinking it an ugly year.”

Wilmot was becoming more and more imbued with the motives that actuated Belcher and his Council. Like them, he feared that the Acadians, as he said, "would always seek to repossess their lands.” In an address he says: “That these people, seeing the English daily in possession and enjoyment of the lands formerly occupied by them, will forever regret their loss; and consequently will lay hold of every opportunity for regaining them”

For a man in his position it was an easy matter to reach liis end without incurring reproach or giving an inkling of his motives. He alone controlled all correspondence with the Lords of Trade or the Secretary of State. He could easily put off that settlement of the Acadians which the former seemed to desire. By dint of procrastination and by representing this ultimate settlement as uncertain, he could disgust the Acadians, make them loathe the country and thus provoke their voluntary exile. And this is precisely what he succeeded in doing.

“One shudders,” says an historian, “at the thought of the fate of these unfortunate people. Eight years had elapsed since they had been snatched from their rich and peaceful homes; and, after enduring so much suffering and fatigue in returning thither, they find themselves carried off again, dragged from prison to prison, deported a second time, and finally brought back to be reduced to the condition of outcasts among their oppressors.”

The war had now been virtually over for four years, France had lost her American colonies, a definitive treaty of peace had been signed; all intercourse between the French and the Acadians, if indeed there ever had been reason to dread such intercourse, had become impossible ; the Acadians had been decimated by grief, want, and disease, they formed in all a wretched group of some 1,800 persons, five-sixths of whom were women and children; most of them were at Halifax itself, prisoners or under surveillance; they had no money, no arms, no means of getting any had they so wished. Under such circumstances their only object could have been to live in peace in order to escape fresh misfortunes. Can any person in his senses believe that those who pretended to fear for the peace of the country because of these outcasts were in good faith? The question answers itself. To insist upon so obvious a reply were an insult to the reader. But, if the alarmists were not honest, then they had some hidden motive, as I have attempted to prove.

In truth, the Acadians were discontented, and very much so. They could see no reason for this relentless persecution clinging to them as vultures to carrion. Yes; they were daily growing desperate. For a long time they bore their trials bravely, hoping that circumstances would gradually bring their persecutors to relent ; but, when they found themselves deported anew, when they saw a general peace concluded and yet nothing coming to ensure them a standing in the country and an end to their misfortunes, they protested with energy, declaring that they would not take the oath of allegiance, that they wanted to quit the Province and become French subjects. They, who had been so anxious to return to their dear Acadia, had now no other desire than to get out of it as soon as possible; Wilmot had gained his point in a roundabout way.

Here let us go back a little and see how he acted on the Lords of Trade so as to get rid of the Acadians. I do not intend to go minutely into the means he used to frustrate the Home Government’s kindly wishes with regard to the Acadians; this is a study I would recommend to those who would like to get an idea of all the Machiavelism brought to bear upon this design. The authorities in London sincerely desired that persecution should stop, that the Acadians should settle in the Province; nay, they wished that all legitimate means he used to prevent their departure. This opposition between their views and Wilmot’s is a further proof that the British Government had no part in the various deportations. During all Wilmot’s administration, i. e., during almost three years, we find, on the one hand, continual reiteration of these good intentions, and, on the other, constant attempts to baffle them and to provoke the departure of the Acadians. Once more, fairly complete success crowned the efforts of the local government. Lawrence had succeeded by audacity, Wilmot succeeded by astuteness.

Directly after the treaty of peace, the Acadians, seeing that this had brought them no relief and that they were still refused any settlement in the Province, wrote to Monsieur de la Rochette, secretary of the Due de Nivernois, to obtain by his intervention either some improvement in their position in the Province, or some chance of settling in France or in the French colonies. Informed of these negotiations, Lord Halifax, remonstrated with the French Government and instructed Wilmot “to take every lawful means of preventing any of the Arcadians from being clandestinely withdrawn from Eis Majesty's Government.” Then he added: “But, necessary as it is, on the one hand, to put a stop to the seduction and secret removal of these His Majesty’s subjects, it seems but just and reasonable, on the other, that (“are should be taken to provide proper settlements for them, as much to their own satisfaction as may be consistent with the public safety."

This shows how painful was the situation in which they were placed. On one side the authorities of Nova Scotia would not allow them to settle, would not tolerate them at all; on the other, they were prevented from taking refuge on French territory. But Lord Halifax, at least, wisely understood that, though their departure for French colonies must be opposed, yet common justice required that they be allowed to settle wherever they chose in the British colonies, “consistently with the public safety.”

Wilmot took advantage of this last phrase to continue thwarting their attempts at settlement, hoping that, weary of the long delay and despairing of redress from him, they would go away of their own accord, and that Acadia would thus become hateful to all those who might have entertained the notion of returning thither.

His first step in this direction was to inform the Lords of Trade that a certain James Robins, then in London, had invited the Acadians to go to Miramichi, where he was about to inaugurate a large establishment for trade and fishery, and that this Robins pretended he had the King’s promise of a grant of lands, on which he offered homesteads to the Acadians. Wilmot begged the Lords of Trade to observe that, once settled in that district, the Acadians could open up communications with France to the advantage of that country and to the injury of the interests of His Britannic Majesty.

To any one who remembers that the war had been over for a year, and that France owned nothing in America except two wretched little islands off the coast of Newfoundland, this pretext must appear frivolous. However, Wilmot’s motives are most clearly expressed in his letter of March 22d, 1764:

“It has always been the opinion of this Government, and is at this time, that the settlement of them in the Province, is inconsistent with the safety of it. . . . If settled in any other Province, it should not be those of the neighboring Colonies of New England, for, I conceive, my Lord, that their vicinity to Nova Scotia, would, on all occasions, strongly induce them to be active in disturbing this Province, from the facility of returning into it, and the hopes that their assistance might be successful in regaining them the possession of it. . . . As to Canada, they would not be well treated nr happy. . . . And, as Canada borders on this Province, I don’t apprehend that it would be either safe for us, or satisfactory to them.”

He ends by advising the Government to authorize him to deport them to the West Indies:

“It is on account of all these considerations, that I have, in my two former letters, offered to Your Lordships the measure of transporting them to some of the West India islands. There, cut off from the continent, and from, all hopes of returning, they would content themselves with a settlement.”

Lord Halifax, in his answer of June 9th, 1764, reiterates his wish to see the Acadians settle in Nova Scotia, “ in such parts of your Government as may he agreeable to themselves consistent with the public peace and security.”

The good intentions of the Lords of Trade were to be frustrated once more by Wilmot. To attain his end,

Le tendered the Acadians an oath that was an insult to their religion, and offered them for settlement barren lands scattered here and there in the interior of the Province. He would not allow more than ten or fifteen families at most to settle in the same place, and moreover these settlements were far apart from each other. This isolation and ostracism paved the way to their complete extinction; it was contrary to the injunctions of Lord Halifax, who wished to let them settle “in such parts of your Government as may be agreeable to themselves.” Scattered as they would be in widely distant groups, they could not get priests for their spiritual needs; they would lose their language, and perhaps their religion. The offer was unacceptable for another reason. Could they, in their present state of destitution, bury themselves in the forest and begin life anew without any such means of support as the neighborhood of the sea would have afforded them ?

In this situation they finally understood that departure was a necessity, and they undertook it with a rush that was irresistible. One hundred and fifty of them near Canso applied to the local magistrate for permission to leave the country. In spite of his refusal they departed for the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon; and soon afterwards 600 others sailed for the West Indies. Wilmot winked at their preparations for departure ; it was just what he wanted and had purposely provoked. Listen to him relating these incidents to Lord Halifax:

“I had the honor in my letter of the 9th of last month, to lay before Your Lordship some further particulars of the disposition of the Acadians, after the oath of allegiance had been tendered to them, and offers of a settlement in this country.

“Since that time, no reasonable proposals being able to overcome their zeal for the French, and aversion to tlie English Government, many of them soon resolved to leave this 1’rovince ; and having hired vessels at their own expense, six hundred persons, including women and children, departed within these three weeks for the French West [ndies. And, although they had certain accounts, that that climate had been fatal to the lives of several of their countrymen, who had gone there lately from Georgia and Carolina, their resolution was not to be shaken, and, the remainder of them, amounting to as many more, in different parts of the Province, have the same destination in view."

After enumerating various reasons which make him consider this exodus an advantage for the Province, h& adds:

“All these reasons induced the Council, at which Lord Colville, His Majesty's Rear Admiral assisted, to be unanimously of opinion that they should be at full liberty to depart. . . . Their settlement in the West Indies removes them far from us, and, ym that climate is mortal to the natives of Northern countries, the-French will not be likely to gain any considerable advantage from them.”

The measure of iniquity must have been lull to overflowing, when it so exasperated the Acadians as to impel them to forsake their country, the home of their forefathers during five or six generations, in order to brave once more the dangers of the sea and seek an asylum in some far-off island, where the climate, they knew, had already killed their relatives and would, no doubt, again decimate their families. Of this Wilmot was well aware; three different times he had advised that they be deported to those fatal islands, and, having, by his remonstrances, prevented theii migration to Miramichi, to Canada, or even to New England, in fact to any place whence it seemed to him possible they might return, he had prepared the present issue. We have seen how they hypocritically told the Lords of Trade “that in Canada the Acadians would not be well treated nor happy.” And yet do we not now see, from tlie letter just quoted, Low Le cannot hide from the Lords of Trade the experiences at the thought that the West India climate will be mortal to them?

The Home authorities earnestly desired to offer the Acadians all the various alternatives they might wish except that of settling on French territory; Wilmot offered them none. Neither Nova Scotia, the New England provinces, nor Canada suited him. In all these places they would or could come back and, possibly, by pressing their claims, endanger for him and his accomplices the quiet enjoyment of their spoils. To make the Acadians and himself happy, they Lad to go and die in the West Indies. This was the only course left to them. So much perversity is hardly credible, and I would have hesitated to believe and record it, had it not been clearly and unmistakably stated in Wilmot’s own letters.

Surmising that this exodus would not be relished by the Lords of Trade, Le imitated Lawrence, who sheltered himself under Boscawen’s name. Wilmot invoked the opinion of Lord Colville. But the noble lord was interested in the departure of the Acadians, since, as we Lave seen in a preceding chapter, Le also had a grant of their lands. Thus we have ever the same underhand methods with the same result.

This was the last act of that comedy which Lawrence, Belcher and Wilmot Lad been playing before the Lords of Trade for almost ten years. To prove conclusively that it was a comedy, with no evidence other than the garbled correspondence of the parties most interested in concealing their motives from the Lords of Trade, might seem an astonishing achievement, were it not that facts have an eloquence of their own and that the most cunning tricksters occasionally betray their secret thoughts. As to the Lords of Trade themselves, taken up as they were with a multitude of other knotty questions, they may have failed to discern the plot of this comedy. Very likely they were not aware, at the time, of the way the lands of the Acadians had been divided up among the chief actors. The very sources of all their available information were poisoned. The Acadians were continually depicted to them as dangerous creatures, ever plotting against the security of the State. Not being informed of the schemes and real purposes of their representatives, could they refuse to believe that the statements of tlie latter were made in the interest of the public? And yet, despite the constant affirmations and subterfuges of the Governors, did not the Lords of Trade ever show a leaning to opposite measures more conformable to humanity and justice? Xo doubt it does seem as if no great sagacity was needed to detect premeditated deceit and ill-disguised cruelty in Wilmot; but perhaps Lord Halifax was too high-minded and conscientious himself to suspect him of such infamous projects.

By a strange coincidence of fate, Wilmot, who chuckled over the idea that the climate of the West Indies would kill the Acadians, requested leave of absence, a year after their departure, to restore his own health endangered by the climate. “The cold winters of time Northern parts of America,'' he wrote, “have so much increased the, gout which afflicts me that my friends and the physicians assure me that I cannot survive another winter in this country.” Like Lawrence and Boscawen he was not long allowed to enjoy the fruit of his iniquity; seventeen days after the date of this letter he expired, even before he could leave the climate that was killing him.