The war of Independence—The Loyalists—Condition of the Acadians—Their last disabilities removed.

The forest was still echoing the sighs of these unfortunate Acadians returning from exile, when the first mutterings were heard of the storm that was, in a Few years, to change the face of this continent. Subjects having the same origin and language, and professing Christianity were about to raise the standard of revolt against the Home Government. Noble as may have been the love of liberty that moved them, blameless as may have been their actions from the view-point of conscience, it is none the less certain that their grievances bore on purely material interests; their religious liberty was not threatened, nor were they forced to fight their own flesh and blood. Here a strange contrast presents itself. While the Acadians, who did not even lift a hand in defence of rights that were far higher and more worthy of respect, were despoiled, snatched from their homes, separated from each other, cast on far-off shores and there reviled, those who were the true rebels kept their lands and homes, and their chiefs have become heroes whose names, emblazoned on sumptuous monuments, are ringing in our ears like those of the demigods of fable. I do not pretend to deny that the consequences of the American Revolution, writ large on the achievements of more then a century, have on the whole been greatly beneficial to mankind; but I cannot help noting this extraordinary contradiction. Those who were charged with the guardianship of the so-called Acadian rebels, and who crushed them for supposed misdeeds of which they were guiltless, were, when they themselves became rebels in reality, to remain in peaceful possession of their homes, while loyal subjects had to trudge into exile.

This reference to the war of Independence is necessary, because its consequences were disastrous to a certain number of Acadians. Room had to be made for the Loyalists who chose voluntary exile ; the English authorities were naturally full of solicitude for their comfort, and wished to reward them for their fidelity to their Sovereign and for their self-denial; in some cases this was done at the expense of the Acadians. True, these latter had suffered for twenty-five years; but justice and vested rights they pleaded in vain. Thus it happened that a group of Acadians, who had been quietly living for eighteen years on lands which the}’ were laboriously clearing on the St. John River, had to give up these lands to the newly-arrived Loyalists. Among these were several families of the officers who bad contributed to carry out the deportation, in particular Colonel Winslow’s family. The dislodged Acadians, forced to begin all over again the hard work of colonists, plunged once more into the forest in an almost inaccessible region. This last migration gave birth to the now populous and flourishing settlement of Madawaska.

Through another curious reversal of situations, emissaries from Washington and Lafayette attempted, though in vain, to win the reinstated Acadians from their allegiance to England, while some of the latter offered their services to the British Government, and other Acadians -who had remained on the American side offered theirs to Congress. We have seen that the only reason why the Acadians had formerly objected to an unqualified oath was their dread of having to fight against the French; a similar perplexity was to occur in the war of Independence ; but this time the objection was to come from the American colonists who in 1760 had settled on the lauds of the Acadians. The objection was the same: what had rightly made the gorge of the Acadians rise was to excite the same repugnance in those who had succeeded to their property; but on this occasion the authorities readily realized the force of the sentiment that actuated these men, and unhesitatingly exempted them from military service: “Those of us,” said the petition, “who belong to New England, being invited into this Province by Governor Lawrence’s Proclamation, it must be the greatest piece of cruelty and imposition for us to be subjected to march into different parts in arms against our friends and relations.'”

But the most curious incident of all was that the petitioners requested the same favor for the Acadians, alleging the same reason: “The Acadians among us being also under the same situation; most, if not all, having friends distributed in different parts of America, and that done by order of His Majesty’s Government.” And yet these Acadians were not at all in the same position as they had been twenty years before; at the time of the Revolutionary War there were, at most, in the United States, 250 Acadians able to bear arms; thus, the chances of a meeting on the field of battle were extremely slight; whereas, before the deportation, the only white men they could have met in battle would have been relatives and fellow-countrymen. What a pity it is that people do not take to heart the great Christian maxim, '“As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise,” that they do not cultivate the faculty of entering into the feelings of others before proceeding to act against those others ! This would save the most elementary notions of equity from travesty and violation; this would avert unnumbered crimes.

Although it had been decided, at Wilmot’s suggestion, that the Acadians could settle only by small isolated groups in certain designated places in the interior, nevertheless these regulations were never strictly enforced. Each one was suffered to settle pretty much where he chose; and, as fishing immediately met their most pressing wants in a way that inferior lands far from the sea would have failed to do, most of the Acadians became fishermen. Up to the deportation agriculture had been their sole occupation; by force of circumstances fishing and navigation were henceforth to be their chief resource.

“At last,” says Brown, “the scanty remnant of the ill-fated people was permitted to remain. The Government of Nova Scotia persecuted them with rancour, but this rage was at last restrained, and although the instructions were that they should be located by small groups in the interior, yet the orders were not rigidly enforced or obeyed. Some of the Acadians are dispersed along the shore with proper grants of the lands which they cultivate. It is even whispered that in some cases the lands belong to proprietors who have tacitly seen their progress, that they may be reclaimed at a future day. A flagrant instance of this very kind has happened already; the same may occur again. The Government find it necessary to favor the persecutor. The Acadian sufferings will he lost in the woods. Their voice will not reach the throne; mercy dwells there, and if the voice of history has any Influence there, this matter should be at an end.”

And, as if Brown himself had had the intention of drawing lip a petition to be sent to the Secretary of State, we find this note following the above remarks:

“Sir,—Your Acadian subjects have suffered long enough, issue an order to the Government to confirm all their possessions, to give them full right to their estates, become their patron, announce it openly, and their melodious voices will pray for you in the depths of their woods.”

This was written in 1791, thirty-six years after the first deportation.

For a long time in the whole extent of Nova Scotia only one priest was tolerated; but in 1777, as the Indians of the River St. John, solicited by emissaries of Congress, threatened to rise in support of the rebellious provinces, Governor Arbuthnot begged the Governor of Canada to send a priest who should keep these Indians faithful to the British Government. This was done, and Abbe Bourg, himself an Acadian, addressed himself to this undertaking with success in concert with ex-Governor Franklin, who had become Indian Commissioner. However, general permission to enter the Province was not granted to the Catholic clergy till about 1793, when many priests fled from the French Revolution and several came to Nova Scotia. Henceforth every obstacle to their ministry was removed.

There yet remained one clog to the freedom of the Acadians, and this was continued until 1827. The Test Oath excluded them from all public offices. Haliburton, seconded, by Mr. Uniacke, -undertook to knock off this last fetter. “The speech he pronounced on this occasion,” says Murdoch, “was the most magnificent piece of eloquence I have ever been privileged to hear.” - The Assembly, electrified by this masterly discourse, unanimously voted the law that made the Acadians a free people. Omitting Haliburton’s thrilling recital of their misfortunes and his remarkable eulogy of their morals, I will quote merely the end of his peroration, which is an index to the loftiness of his character.

“Every man who puts his faith on the New Testament and says that, is the book of his faith—be he Catholic or Protestant, Anglican or Presbyterian, Baptist or Methodist—whatever be the extent of the points of doctrine that separate us, he is my brother and I embrace him. We are marching by different roads toward the same God. In the path which I am treading, if 1 meet a Catholic I greet him, [ walk on with him; and when w'e reach unto the goal, unto those hammantia limina mundi, when the time shall come, as come it must, when this tongue, which now is speaking, shall be cold and stiff in my mouth, when this breast, which now breathes the pure air of heaven, shall refuse me its service, when this vesture of clay shall go back to the bosom of the earth whence it came and mingle with the dust of the valleys, then, with this Catholic, I will cast a long and languishing look backwards. I will kneel with him, and instead of saying with the presumptuous Pharisee: ‘Thank God, I am not like this Papist!’ I will pray that, both of us being of the same blood, being bought by the same blood, we may both be pardoned, and that, being brothers, we may both be received into heaven.”