BOOK FIVE:  The Great Upheaval

 

INTRODUCTION

BOOK ONE:        French Acadia

BOOK TWO:        British Nova Scotia

BOOK THREE:     Families, Migration, and the Acadian "Begats"

BOOK FOUR:      The French Maritimes

BOOK SIX:          The Acadian Immigrants of Louisiana

BOOK SEVEN:     French Louisiana

BOOK EIGHT:      A New Acadia

BOOK NINE:        The Bayou State

BOOK TEN:          The Louisiana Acadian "Begats"

BOOK ELEVEN:   The Non-Acadian "Cajun" Families of South Louisiana

BOOK TWELVE:  Acadians in Gray

 

The deportation fleet exits the Gut at Annapolis Royal, October 1755 ...01b

Upheavals Large and Small

The Acadians' Great Upheaval, or Grand Dérangement, is often dated 1755, the year in which the British forcibly removed thousands of Acadians from Nova Scotia and sent them to nine of their other Atlantic colonies.  Historians also consider the year 1758 as part of the Grand Dérangement, when victoriouis British forces in the French Maritime islands deported hundreds of more Acadians to St.-Malo and other French ports.  But one could make a case that the Acadian upheaval began long before the 1750s, that a series of petit dérangements, beginning with the voluntary "removal" of Acadians from Nova Scotia to the French Maritime islands in 1714, shook their Fundy communities for decades.  These petit dérangements continued with the not-so-voluntary "removal" of Acadians from Nova Scotia to the French Maritimes following British victory in King George's War in the late 1740s, and the decidedly involuntary removal of Chignecto Acadians by French Canadian militia and M'kmaq warriors from the British to the French side of Rivière Missaguash in the summer of 1750.  Beginning in October 1750 and continuing for several years, many Chignecto Acadians crossed Mer Rouge to Île St.-Jean and joined their cousins already there.  By 1755, then, Fundy Acadians had endured an almost continuous disruption of their way of life for nearly half a century.  The mass deportations of the 1750s tore their culture from its geographical milieu.  The roots of their culture--their families, their language, their faith, their collective identity--somehow survived being flung out to the world, but the place in which these roots had been set was, for the most part, no longer theirs.  Many more petit dérangements followed the mass deportations, and some, both voluntary and involuntary, were nearly as large as les grand dérangements. The result was the creation of new Acadian cultures in places as far flung as the St. Lawrence valley and the bayous and prairies of South Louisiana.01c

Lawrence Springs the Trap, July 1755

What Shirley, Lawrence, Monckton, and their ilk saw as a coordinated military effort to rid British Nova Scotia of a hostile population, the Acadians saw as nothing less than the attempted destruction of their way of life.  Before the ashes cooled and the buzzards stopped circling, down to the present day, sides have been drawn between apologists for the British and descendants of that "hostile" population.  Anglophile historians, for example, call it the Bay of Fundy Campaign.  Descendants of the Acadians call it ... something else.01a

Lieutenant-Governor Charles Lawrence and his colonial Council began stumbling their way through a policy of removal soon after the fall of Fort Beauséjour.  But before he could impose such a radical measure, Lawrence was compelled to set a series of traps in which to ensnare as many Acadians as he could manage with fine points of British law backed up by British bayonets.  By the end of June 1755, he had informed his superiors in London that he was determined to drive "out of the country" the Acadians of the Chignecto area, who had fought beside the French at Beauséjour, but not until they provided much needed labor in the reconstruction of the battered fort.  At the same time, he directed Captain Alexander Murray at Fort Edward to order the 25 inhabitants from Minas and Pigiguit who had composed a lengthy "Memorial" during the siege of Beauséjour to report to Halifax by July 3, the date for the next Council meeting.  Correctly construing this order as evidence Lawrence was unhappy with them, 44 Acadians from the same Minas communities, perhaps including all or some of the original 25, had penned another memorial addressed to the lieutenant-governor after the Chignecto forts had fallen.  This second petition, much shorter than the first and a model of contrition, did not reach the capital until the eve of the July 3 meeting.02 

Most of the Acadians summoned before the Council appeared at Halifax on the appointed day.  Judging by the apologetic tone of their second memorial, they came to the colonial capital expecting to be dressed down by angry British officials.  While they waited in the street outside the governor's house, Lawrence took his seat inside the Council chamber with the four men who would help determine the fate of these impertinent Frenchmen:  Little is known of William Cotterell other than he tended to be a Lawrence supporter.  Benjamin Green, who also got along well with Lawrence, had known the lieutenant-governor longer than anyone else on the present Council.  A Massachusetts-born merchant-turned-constable from Boston, in March 1745 Green had been appointed as General William Pepperell's secretary on the eve of the expedition against Louisbourg.  Green remained at Louisbourg after Pepperell's victory to serve as treasurer, councilman, and commissary for the occupying forces, and there he would have met Charles Lawrence.  Green came to Halifax in the summer of 1749, "at the same time as Lawrence," and served not only on Governor Edward Cornwallis's original Council, but also as a naval officer and judge on the court of vice-admiralty at Halifax.  In 1750, he was appointed secretary to the Council as well as provincial treasurer and now held four colonial offices.  In 1752, about the time that Cornwallis resigned as governor, Green also resigned, as Council secretary, but retained his positions as naval officer and colonial treasurer, thus keeping his seat on the new governor's Council.  Early the following year, during the governorship of Peregrine Thomas Hopson, Green resigned his position on the vice-admiralty court, again because his several positions took up too much of his time, but he retained his position as a naval officer and provincial treasurer and kept his seat on the colonial Council.  Meanwhile, he engaged in business at Halifax, at one time owning four large warehouses there.  He was married, the father of five children, and about to turn age 42 in July 1755.  Green's fellow councilor, John Collier, age unknown, was a native of England who also had come to Halifax with Cornwallis.  Collier, a retired army captain and purportedly a protégé of the earl of Halifax, was prepared to launch a new career in the new Nova Scotia capital.  Cornwallis was impressed with his fellow officer and appointed him as justice of the peace in July 1749.  In January 1752, during the final weeks of Cornwallis's governorship, he appointed Collier to his colonial Council.  During Hopson's governorship, in April 1753, Collier succeeded fellow councilman Benjamin Green as judge on the court of vice-admiralty.  Before the arrival of a colonial chief justice in 1754, the court of vice-admiralty "played an important part in the administration of justice of the colony."  Collier was presiding judge of the court when Lawrence became lieutenant-governor in November 1753.  It did not take long for Collier's "unequivocal stand on judicial matters" to alienate Lawrence.  Collier also tended to oppose Lawrence's policies from his seat on the colonial Council.  The fourth councilor had only recently come to the colony--Massachusetts native Jonathan Belcher, Jr.  If, by July 1755, the new chief justice was not exactly an ally, he certainly was a kindred spirit of the lieutenant-governor.03

These were the men who would sit in judgment of the colonists waiting patiently outside the chamber.  "None of them had any personal acquaintanceship with the Acadians," Naomi Griffiths reminds us.  They knew these simple farmers "only as French-speaking, Catholic people who claimed to be different from the French but whose behaviour in the face of French intrusions on the borders of the colony, was, at best, unreliable."  The councilors had read, and likely discussed, the two petitions.  "It was clear from the outset," Griffiths goes on, "that the councillors found the Acadians' rhetoric deeply offensive.  Before the Acadians were called into the meeting, Council members had come to the unanimous conclusion that the memorial" of June 10 "was 'highly arrogant and insidious, an insult upon His Majesty's Authority and Government, and deserved the highest Resentment, and that if the Memorialists had not submitted themselves by their subsequent Memorial, they ought to have been severely punished for their Presumption.'"  And then the Acadians were escorted in.  "Once the Acadians were present," Griffiths relates, "it became quickly apparent that the two parties were at complete odds.  The Acadians had composed their petition in the belief that Lawrence and the Council regarded them as people to be accorded consideration."  The names of each signer was read, and each was ordered to answer to his name.  Due to illness, as they claimed, only 15 of the 25 signers were there to answer.  Here stood paragons of a developed culture unique in all the world, men whose ancestors had lived in the region for over a century, fathers of many sons and daughters, grandfathers of extended families that filled the colony's settlements, builders and maintainers of the magnificent dykes with their aboiteaux that ran for dozens of miles along the edge of the Fundy marshes and encompassed thousands of acres of newly-created farmland that they and their families worked with calloused hands.  These men knew who they were, and what they were not.  They had tried to explain in their memorial what it was that burdened them when the lieutenant-governor ordered the confiscation of their guns and canoes. They insisted that their fidelity to his Majesty, King George II, remained unshaken.  "Permit us, if you please, Sir," they had beseeched the lieutenant-governor, "to make known the annoying circumstances in which we are placed, to the prejudice of the tranquility we ought to enjoy."  Here, says Griffiths, were words which showed that, "in their own eyes, they had every right to complain to those governing them."  They expected their past actions to be taken as proof of their loyalty to the British crown.  "We must humbly beg your Excellency to consider our past conduct," their petition read.  "You will see, that, very far from violating the oath we have taken, we have maintained it in its entirety, in spite of the solicitations and the dreadful threats of another power."  "To this," Griffiths writes, "the councillors answered that 'their past Conduct was considered, and that the Government were sorry to have occasion to say that their Conduct had been undutifull and very ungrateful for the Lenity shown to them.'"04 

Decades of resistance to British authority had finally caught up to the Acadians of Nova Scotia. 

The rest of the meeting went badly for the Minas and Pigiguit Acadians.  "From that point on," Griffiths relates, "the minutes show that the councillors were united in demonstrating to the Acadians that the latter had shown a "constant disposition to Assist His Majesty's Enemies, and to distress his subjects.'"  While the Acadians stood, caps respectfully in hand, the June 10 memorial was read to them, after which the councilors "severely reprimanded" them "for their Audacity in Subscribing and Presenting so impertinent a Paper."  However, with "Compassion to their Weaknesses and Ignorance of the Nature of our Constitution, especially in Matters of Government," the councilors went on, "and as the Memorialists had presented a subsequent one, and had shewn an Appearance of Concern for their past behaviour therein, and had then presented themselves before the Council with great Submission and Repentence," the councilors reassured them that "they were still ready to treat them with Lenity, and in order to shew them the falsity as well as Impudence of the Contents of their Memorial," they would review their first memorial, paragraph by paragraph, while the lieutenant-governor noted the councilors' learned responses.  One wonders what these proud Acadians thought of being treated like errant children by men who neither knew nor respected them.  The councilors insisted that the Acadians "had enjoyed more Privileges than English Subjects, and had been indulged in the free Exercise of their Religion."  They added that the British "for many Years permitted [them] to possess their Lands (part of the best Soil of the Province) tho' they had not complied with the Terms, on which the Lands were granted, by Taking the Oath of Allegiance to the Crown."  Reviewing the Acadians' past actions, the councilors accused them of supplying "the Enemy with Provisions and Ammunition," but refusing "to supply the Inhabitants, or Government, with Provisions," and when they did provide these provisions, the councilors insisted, they "exacted three times the Price for which they were sold at other markets."  Warming up to their dismissal of these upstart colonists, the councilors, with straight faces and uncalloused hands, let loose their most ill-informed accusation:  that the Acadians "had been indolent and idle on their Lands, had neglected Husbandry, and the Cultivation of the Soil, and had been of no use to the Province either in Husbandry, Trade or Fishery, but had been rather an Obstruction to the King's Intentions in the Settlement."  One suspects that, upon hearing this, the Acadians realized that these distant officials knew nothing of their world, and so it was best to keep their silence as much as they dared.  The councilors asked them to mention "a single Instance of Service to the Government.  To which," Lawrence noted, "they were incapable of making any Reply."  The councilors dismissed the Acadians' oft-expressed fear of Indian reprisals if the Acadians, while obeying the oath they had taken, refused to take up arms for the French.  The councilors were certain the Acadians "had assisted the King's Enemies, and appeared too ready to Join with another Power, contrary to the Allegiance they were bound by their Oath to yield to, His Majesty."  The councilors were especially irked by a passage in the memorial which read:  "We are now in the same disposition, the purest and sincerest to prove in every Circumstance Fidelity to his Majesty in the same manner as we have done, Provided that His Majesty will leave us the same Liberties which he has granted us."  The councilors reminded them "That it was not the Language of British Subjects to talk of Terms with the Crown, to Capitulate about their Fidelity and Allegiance, and that it was insolent to insert a Proviso, that they would prove their Fidelity Provided, that His Majesty would give them Liberties."  The councilors insisted that "All His Majesty's Subjects are protected in the Enjoyment of every Liberty, while they continue Loyal and faithfull to the Crown, and when they become false and disloyal they forfeit that Protection."  Ominous words indeed.  As to the loss of their canoes, the councilors accused them of using "their Canoes for carrying Provisions to the Enemy" while neglecting "the Fishery."  The councilors reminded them of a law prohibiting the transportation of provisions "from one Port to another, and every Vessel, Canoe or Bark found with Provisions is forfeited, and a Penalty is inflicted on the Owners."  They dismissed the issue of the Acadians' guns with a twisted logic that revealed their ignorance of the world in which the Acadians lived:  Guns were "no part of their Goods," the councilors insisted, and "as Roman Catholics they had no right to carry arms" and were "Subject to Penalties if Arms are found in their Houses."   The councilors reminded them that when they surrendered their arms to Captain Murray before they wrote their memorial, they did not complain to him of wild beasts threatening their animals, yet when they wrote their memorial they registered this complaint, as though the number of wild beasts had suddenly increased, which it assuredly had not.  The councilors were incensed, as no doubt Lawrence had been, by the Acadians' lecturing them on fidelity and sincerity in regards to their arms and their oath.  "They were asked," Lawrence noted, "what Excuse they could make for their Presumption in this Paragraph, and treating the Government with such Indignity and Contempt as to Expound to them the nature of Fidelity, and to prescribe what would be the Security proper to be relied on by the Government for their Sincerity."  Twisting the Acadians' words on them, the councilors insisted "That their Consciences ought indeed to engage them to Fidelity from their Oath of Allegiance to the King, and that if they were sincere in their Duty to the Crown, they would not be so anxious for their Arms, when it was the pleasure of the King's Government to demand them for His Majesty's Service."05 

The councilors then turned to the principal business for which the Acadians had been summoned:  The habitants "were then informed that a very fair Opportunity now presented itself to them to Manifest the reality of their Obedience to the Government by immediately taking the Oath of Allegiance in the Common Form before the Council."  Lawrence had sprung his trap.  The Acadians replied that "they had not come prepared to resolve the Council on that head."  The councilors reminded them that "for these Six Years past," that is, since the founding of Halifax in 1749, "the same thing had been often proposed to them and had been as often evaded under various frivolous pretences, that they had often been informed that sometime or other it would be required of them and must be done"--the taking of an unqualified oath of allegiance to the British crown.  No doubt stunned by this turn of events, the Acadians insisted on returning to their communities, where they would "consult the Body of the People upon this subject as they could not do otherwise than [what] the Generality of the Inhabitants should determine...."  But the lieutenant-governor and his councilors would not be swayed.  They demanded that the Acadians take the oath in its "Common Form" then and there.  The Acadians asked for time to consult among themselves.  The Council granted them an hour's recess to do so.  Back before the Council, the Acadians again insisted that they be allowed to return to consult "the General Body" of their communities.  They themselves, however, were prepared to take the oath "as they had done before...."  Lawrence and the councilors refused to budge.  They informed the Acadians "That His Majesty had disapproved of the manner of their taking the Oath before, That it was not consistent with his Honour to make any conditions, nor could the Council accept their taking the Oath in any other way than as all other [of] His Majesty's Subjects were obliged by Law to do when called upon, and that it was now expected they should do so...."  The Acadians remained unyielding--they would take the oath only as they had done before, with the qualification of not being forced to take up arms.  Exasperated, the Council allowed them to return the following morning "to come to a Resolution."  And the meeting was adjourned.06 

There is no record of the discussions held among the Minas and Pigiguit delegates wherever they may have stayed in Halifax that night; we know only what they had agreed upon by the following morning.  With the same five officials sitting in judgment, the 15 Acadians appeared again before the colonial Council on July 4 and were asked what they had decided "in regard to the Oath."  They all responded that they could not take the oath "in the Form required" without consulting "the Body" of their communities--the same answer they had given the Council the day before.  The jaws of Lawrence's trap tightened securely around their necks.  The councilors "informed them that as they had now for their Own particulars, refused to Take the Oath as directed by Law, and thereby sufficiently evinced the Sincerity of their Inclination towards the Government, the Council could no longer look on them as Subjects to his Brittanick Majesty, but as Subjects of the King of France, and as such they must hereafter be Treated."  The councilors then ordered them out of the chamber.  While the Acadians waited anxiously in the dusty street, the councilors resolved to order Captain Murray to summon a new set of delegates from the Minas settlements to appear before the Council.  They, too, would be pressed to take the oath without qualifications, and if they refused, as the current delegates had just done, they would not be offered a second chance but "effectual Measures ought to be taken to remove all such Recusants out of the Province."  The councilors summoned the 15 recalcitrant deputies and read to them the new resolution.  The word "remove" must have struck the Acadians especially hard.  They "Offered to take the Oath" without reservation, but the councilors informed them "that as there was no reason to hope their proposed Compliance proceeded from an honest Mind, and could be esteemed only the Effect of Compulsion and Force," they no longer had a right to take the oath.  The Council, perhaps in the person of Chief Justice Belcher, recited to them an Act of Parliament, 1 Geo. 2.c.13., "whereby Persons who have once refused to Take the Oath cannot be afterwards permitted to Take them, but are considered as Popish Recusants."  Retaining the metaphorical trap tightly around their necks, Lawrence ordered the 15 delegates "into Confinement."  They were escorted under arms to a waiting vessel and taken across the harbor to Georges Island.  There they were thrown into the one of the prison sheds at Fort Charlotte built for common criminals.07 

But were these Acadian delegates truly "Popish Recusants"?   Had their refusal to take an unqualified oath ended their status as British subjects and transformed them into aliens within the British realm?  One wonders if Lawrence and his Council realized that they were challenging English custom, not to mention British and international law, by treating these errant subjects so cavalierly.  As far back as England's conquest of Wales and Ireland, and certainly by the time of Henry VIII, "English legal tradition," Naomi Griffiths reminds us, held that "those born on territory ruled at the moment of their birth by England were considered as natural-born subjects."  Moreover, in the Treaty of Utrecht, signed in 1713, both Britain and France agreed "that peoples whose territories changed governments through treaties became unequivocally subjects of their new rulers."  These customs and agreements applied especially to the Acadians of Nova Scotia.  The majority of them "by this time, forty-two years after Utrecht," had "been born on British territory."  Chief Justice Belcher, who had served as deputy secretary to the lord chancellor of Ireland and had helped codify English law in that occupied country, was well versed in the laws of the realm as they applied to subjects and aliens.  One wonders, then, what he thought of Lawrence's notion that "refusal to take the oath of allegiance as offered would deprive the Acadians of their status as British subjects."  The Council's decision to imprison and perhaps deport these errant Acadians hung not on their status as aliens but on the question of their loyalty as subjects of a British King.08

No matter, Belcher joined the other three councilors in publishing an address, attached to the minutes of the July 4 meeting, praising Lawrence for the "'Signal success of those wisely concerted measures for chastening the Insolence of the French Arms obtruded into this Province ...."  They reassured him that they, his Council, would "embrace every Opportunity of Contributing our Assistance in all further measures your wisdom and zeal shall suggest for perfecting the Tranquillity of the Province...."  Here was approbation for the harshest penalties against anyone who did not fit Lawrence's definition of a loyal British subject.  Lawrence thanked his colleagues "for their 'wise and timely counsels' and finished by saying that, with their assistance, he was ready 'to effect every measure that has hitherto been planned to render this colony flourishing and Happy.'"09

Lawrence wasted no time in pushing forward whatever he was planning for the Acadians of Nova Scotia.  On July 12, in orders issued through the garrison commanders, the inhabitants of all of the Acadian communities in the province were instructed to elect or, in the case of Minas and Pigiguit, re-elect delegates who must report to Halifax "as soon as possible, prepared to swear the unqualified oath of allegiance."  By then, the imperial conflict in North America had taken a sudden, dramatic turn.  On July 9, three days before Lawrence issued his orders, Major-General Edward Braddock and his advanced force of redcoats and provincials were decisively defeated at a crossing of the Monongahela tantalizingly close to the Forks of the Ohio.  Braddock was mortally wounded in the mêlée and was buried on his army's retreat five days later, but news of it could not reach Halifax for nearly a month.  On the same day as Braddock's defeat, however, the war, now a little over a year in the making and still undeclared, became real and tangible to the people living at Halifax:  on July 9, a dozen or so ships from Vice-Admiral Edward Boscawen's fleet dropped anchor in Halifax harbor.  With them were two French warships, the Alcide and the Lys, filled with hundreds of captured French regulars, who were disembarked on the north shore of Georges Island and escorted under heavy guard to the prison sheds where 15 Acadian delegates still awaited their fate.  Among the throng of spectators cheering from the docks were members of the colonial Council.  Rumor had it that aboard one of the French vessels were "twenty leather cases containing a total of 10,000 scalping knives" which the French intended to issue to the "Natives and Acadians across the province."  Meanwhile, the names of Beausoleil Broussard and Jean-Baptiste Cope were whispered among the townspeople.  Two days later, on July 11, Rear-Admiral Savage Mostyn, Boscawen's second in command, arrived with the rest of the British fleet.10 

Lawrence called another Council meeting for July 14.  He informed his four councilors of the contents of a circular he had just received from Sir Thomas Robinson, secretary of state for the Southern Department, instructing all colonial governors "to cooperate with Admiral Boscawen and provide him with all obtainable intelligence."  The secretary's direction, though written on April 15 and now three months old, could not be ignored.  The circular had been written an ocean away on the same day as Braddock's conference with the five royal governors at the Carlyle House in Alexandria, Virginia.  Strangely, this also was the same day that the Baron de Dieskau's fleet carrying thousands of French troupes de terre left the port of Brest for Québec and Louisbourg.  Most of the the baron's forces reached their destinations; the part of it that failed to reach its destination was languishing on nearby Georges Island.  Braddock was dead, his demoralized regiments retreating back towards Virginia and Philadelphia.  Thanks to the timely arrival of the baron's French regulars and cutthroat competition among the British leaders for limited resources at Albany, the offensives under Governor William Shirley of Massachusetts and Sir William Johnson of upper New York were still short their objectives at Fort Niagara and Crown Point.  Of Braddock's five-pronged grand offensive cobbled together that cool spring day, only Monckton's operation at Chignecto and the admiral's blockade of Louisbourg had in any way succeeded in achieving their objectives.  Governor Shirley, who had been designated Braddock's second in command at the April 15 conference, would return to Manhattan to establish his headquarters there, and Admiral Boscawen was now in Halifax.  Although the secretary of state's circular had been written before the collapse of Braddock's grand offensive, it nevertheless was still relevant to what was, and was not, happening in North America.15 

Since both British admirals were now at Halifax, and the secretary's dictum must be obeyed, Lawrence would invite them to attend a Council meeting to be held the following day.  Here, he certainly must have realized, was another weapon he could use against the Acadians--the necessities of colonial security in another imperial conflict slowly spinning out of control.  The meeting would be held, he told the admirals, "to Consider what Steps it may may be proper to Take for the Security of the Province against any Attempt that may be made to Annoy us from Canada or Louisbourg in Case of Rupture," he informed the admirals.  They also would address "any violent Measures the French may take by way of resenting the Check that has lately been given to their encroachments."  The letters said nothing of what to do with the Acadians, but that could wait until the meeting itself.16

The July 15 meeting was an important step forward in the evolution of Lawrence's removal policy.  In attendance were the same four councilors as had attended the earlier meetings, as well as the two admirals.  According to the minutes, Lawrence wasted no time in addressing the problem of the Acadians.  He "laid before the Admirals the late Proceedings of the Council in regard to the French Inhabitants, and desired their Opinion and Advice thereon."  They reviewed the Council's proceedings against the Acadians and, unsurprisingly, approved of them.  They added that "it was now the properest Time to oblige the said Inhabitants to Take the Oath of Allegiance to His Majesty, or to quit the Country."  Lawrence then read to them a letter from Captain John Rous describing his encounter with the French force on lower Rivière St.-Jean a few weeks before.  Rous was seeking advice from Lawrence and the Council, and, tangentially, from his naval superiors, on what he should do to neutralize the French and Indians in that area.  The councilors, perhaps focusing on the bottom line, were of the opinion that the fort on the lower St.-Jean should be left alone for now.  The discussion then turned to "the Number and State of the Troops in this Province," especially in light of the French reinforcements at Louisbourg and Québec.  Again, looking to the bottom line, the Council pondered the question of whether or not it would "be absolutely necessary for the Good of His Majesty's Service, and the Security of this His Province, to retain in pay the Two Thousand New England Troops now under the Command of Lieutenant Colonel Monckton on the Isthmus of Chignecto."  The Council, as well as the admirals, agreed that the troops "should be retained at least untill the augmentation was compleated," but that the transports who took them from Boston to Annapolis and Chignecto "should be immediately discharged, to avoid any unnecessary Expence."17

Here was an ominous sign for the Acadians of Nova Scotia.  Here also was tacit approval by two senior naval officers of Lawrence's policy of removal.  Boscawen would make Halifax his headquarters until the following October.  "[T]he presence of the fleet in the region," Naomi Griffiths tells us, "obviously encouraged Lawrence" to do what must be done to secure the province against French aggression.  Despite the presence of the admirals and their formidable force, however, Lawrence would remain in charge of Nova Scotia and direct whatever military actions were needed there.18  

Three days after the meeting with the admirals, Lawrence addressed a letter to the Board of Trade.  He had last written Secretary Robinson and the Board of Trade on June 28.  In those letters he had informed his superiors in London that he intended to rid the province of the rebellious inhabitants at Chignecto.  The first part of his letter was an account of Captain Rous's movement against the French on the lower St.-Jean and its result.  He then recounted the early July Council meetings in which the Minas deputies refused to take the unqualified oath.  In reviewing the Council's warning to the delegates of what would befall them if they refused the oath, Lawrence admitted to the Lords that he had informed the Acadians "if they should then refuse, they must expect to be driven out of the country...."  He added that refusal to take the oath without qualification meant "they refused to become English subjects," that if "we could no longer look upon them in that light; that we should send them to France by the first opportunity, and till then" they would be held prisoner on Georges Island.  Lawrence admitted that the deputies "have since earnestly desired to be admitted to take the oath, but have not been admitted, nor will any answer be given them until we see how the rest of the inhabitants are disposed."  He informed the Lords of his order for the election of new Acadian deputies who also must appear before the colonial Council, and of the councillors' determination to "bring the Inhabitants to a compliance, or rid the province of such perfidious subjects."19

There it was, irrevocably expressed to the highest British authority--a policy of removal.  Lawrence's July 18 missive to London could not arrive until the autumn, and the Lords' response could not reach him until the middle of winter.  Though it would cross a letter from Secretary Robinson, dated August 13, that letter could not reach Halifax until the middle of autumn.  Writing in response to Lawrence's missive of June 28, in which the lieutenant governor had announced his determination to relocate the Chignecto Acadians, the secretary "wrote that 'it cannot ... be too much recommended to you, to use the greatest Caution and Prudence in your Conduct, towards these neutrals, and to assure such of Them, as may be trusted, especially upon their taking the Oaths to His Majesty and His Government, That they may remain in quiet Possession of their Settlements under proper Regulation"--hardly a ringing endorsement for "sending the Acadians out of the colony."  But by the time Lawrence would receive this letter--it reached him in late October--even if words could have swayed him, which they likely could not, his removal of all of the Acadians from Nova Scotia was a fait accompli.  Lawrence, with the Council and the admirals behind him, would be having his way with these "perfidious subjects."20 

Was the policy of removal Governor Lawrence's and his alone?  Naomi Griffiths, the most informed scholar on the history of the Acadians, answers in the affirmative.  Although the idea of removal may have, in the beginning, belonged to Governor Shirley, and though Lawrence sought the approval of his Council, the admirals, and his regular officers in his efforts to be rid of these "perfidious subjects," "essentially," Griffiths reminds us, "it was his policy" and no one else's.  Neither in his July 18 dispatch "nor in any other of his letters to London," she adds, "did Lawrence suggest that anyone else was responsible for the evolution of his policy towards the Acadians."  Considering the full context of his place and time and the problems he faced as governor of Nova Scotia, could Lawrence have solved the problem with the Acadians in any other way?  Again, Griffiths answers in the affirmative.  "[T]he administrations of Cornwallis and Hopson," not to mention that Mascarene before them, "had shown that it would have been possible to pursue another course," she contends.  "One of its most important antecedents was Shirley's proposal after the capture of Louisbourg in 1745, but no dispatch from London, whether from the Board of Trade or from any of the secretaries of state, suggested anything similar.  Ever since 1713 the policy of the British government was one of determined refusal to admit that there was any great necessity to resolve the issue, one way or another, of the oath of allegiance.  Further, Britain had consistently argued against sending the Acadians out of the colony...."  Here was the context of Secretary Robinson's letter--the Acadians must remain in the colony.21 

Not only could Lawrence produce no policy emanating from London that encouraged, much less authorized, the deportation of the Acadians, his July 18 missive, according to Naomi Griffiths, misrepresented to his superiors what actually had transpired in the early-July meetings of his colonial Council.  "It is a highly intelligent dispatch," Griffiths admits, "and guilty less of direct lying than of suppressing evidence and suggesting misleading implications.  In relating what had happened in the Council meetings of 4 and 5 July, he omitted to mention that he had not, in fact, informed the Acadians clearly, before the final request to take an unqualified oath of allegiance, that their refusal would see them imprisoned and deported to France at the first opportunity.  Moreover, he concluded the dispatch by saying that he was 'determined to bring the inhabitants to compliance, or rid the province of such perfidious subjects.'  There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that Lawrence was then determined to exile not only the fifteen men from the Minas Basin but also the Acadians who had settled in the Chignecto area, let alone all of the Acadians settled elsewhere.  Indeed, the information in his dispatch concerning the incarceration of the deputies on George's Island, until they could be sent to France, increases the impression that Lawrence was considering only a small group of the population for exile.  It is possible, of course, that Lawrence was convinced that the Acadian population, especially those of the Annapolis region, would not prove obdurate.  The dispatch of 18 July, however, quite plainly ruled out any possibility of negotiation with those who did prove recalcitrant," especially after rumors of Braddock's defeat reached Halifax on July 23.22

By then, other Acadian communities had responded to Lawrence's July 12 dictum by drawing up memorials and selecting their own delegates to appear before the Council at Halifax.  On Sunday, July 13, the Acadians of the Annapolis valley, meeting probably at the church of St.-Jean-Baptiste, "unanimously consented to deliver up" their "fire arms" to the commander of Fort Anne, Major John Handfield, who, unlike the other garrison commanders, was eminently familiar with the Acadians as well as the colony.  In the winter of 1729-30, as a young ensign in the 40th Regiment of Foot, Handfield had witnessed the administering of the oath to the Acadians of Annapolis Royal by then-governor Richard Philipps, colonel of the 40th Foot.  Soon after, Handfield, still stationed at Fort Anne, married Élisabeth, teenage daughter of William Winniett and a great-granddaughter of François Bourg.  As he rose in rank, Handfield served in Armstrong's and Mascarene's Councils from 1736 to 1749.  He, in fact, spent his entire military career in Nova Scotia.  The Annapolis memorial, signed by 270 of the valley's inhabitants, including no doubt some of the commander's in-laws, proclaimed their fidelity to the King, reminded the governor of their previous efforts to assist the British even at the risk of their own lives, and reassured him that they were "ready to continue with the same fidelity."  "We have also selected thirty men to proceed to Halifax, whom we shall recommend to do or say nothing contrary to His Majesty's Council," they added, "but we shall charge them strictly to contract no new oath.  We are resolved to adhere to that which we have taken, and to which we had been faithful as far as circumstances required it; for the enemies of his Majesty have urged us to take up arms against the government, but we have taken care not to do so."  They, too, like the delegates from Minas and Pigiguit, would stand on their neutrality, come what may.22a 

The 30 delegates presented their memorial to the colonial Council on Friday, July 25, in a meeting attended by Lawrence, Green, Collier, Cotterell, Belcher, the two admirals, and also Captain John Rous in his first meeting as a regular councilor.  Like their fellow Acadians three weeks before, the Annapolis delegates were forced to stand before the eight British officials and answer to what they had written to their governor.  They repeated to the Council that they would take no oath without "a Reserve that they should not be obliged to Take up Arms, and that if it was the King's intentions to force them to quit their Lands, they hoped that they should be allowed a convenient Time for their Departure."  Here were delegates from the one Acadian community that Lawrence expected to bend to his will.  Instead, "Polite, unafraid, sure of the righteousness of their position, of the rectitude of their past conduct, the Annapolis deputies stated their policy," no doubt expecting the same treatment as their Minas cousins.23 

They received exactly that, and more.  They, too, were interrogated by Lawrence and the other officials, who noted that, when asked "to mention a single Instance whereby any Advantage" from their individual or collective actions "had accrued to the Government, ... they were unable to do so."  Lawrence accused them not only of inaction in the face of French threats to the former capital, but insisted that "they had always secretly aided the Indians, and many of them had even appeared openly in Arms against His Majesty."  And then they were informed, as their cousins had been, "that they must now resolve either to Take the Oath without any Reserve or else to quit their Lands, for that Affairs were now at such a Crisis in America that no delay could be admitted...."  As had their cousins at Minas, they announced, "One and all," that they would rather "quit their Lands than to Take any other Oath than what they had done before."  The councilors warned them that once they refused the new oath, they would not be allowed to take it, "but would infallibly loose their Possessions."  To give them time to consider the consequences of their actions, the Council gave them until the following Monday, July 28, "to reconsider the matter and form their Resolution."24 

During the three weeks since Lawrence and the Council confronted the 15 delegates from Minas and Pigiguit, one can detect a subtle evolution in the policy of removal.   On July 3, the unqualified oath was offered to the delegates without reference to removal.  The word "remove," in fact, did not appear in Council minutes until the following day, after the 15 delegates refused a second time to take a new oath.  Now, in the meeting of July 25, the threat of removal for not taking a new oath was thrown into the faces of the Annapolis delegates before they were granted an opportunity to reconsider their refusal.  And yet, they, too, informed the Council that they would not submit to a new oath.24a 

Meanwhile, a second set of delegates from "Pisiquid, Menis and the river Canard" arrived at Halifax to appear before the Council on July 28.  With them were two more memorials addressed to the lieutenant-governor.  The Pigiguit memorial, signed on July 22 by 103 inhabitants, recalled to Lawrence "the oath of fidelity to His Britannic Majesty, with all circumstances and reservation granted us, in the name of the King, by Mr. Richard Philipps, Commander in Chief in the said province, which allegiance we have observed as far as possible, for a number of years, enjoying peaceably our rights according to the terms of our oath in all its tenor and reserve."  Now, they continued, they were "resolved, with one consent and voice, to take no other oath."  They beseeched the governor "to set at liberty our people who have been detained at Halifax for some time, not even knowing their situation, which appears to us deplorable."  The second memorial, signed by 203 inhabitants of Grand-Pré and Rivière Canard, also called to mind the previous "oath of fidelity, which has been approved of several times in the name of the King," as well as by "letters and proclamation of his Excellency Governor Shirley," dated 16 September 1746 and 21 October 1747.  These had promised the King's protection if the inhabitants of Nova Scotia "lived faithful and obedient" to their oath, meaning the one submitted to Governor Philipps in 1729.  The delegates added, with rhetorical flourish:  "... we will never prove so fickle as to take an oath which changes, ever so little, the conditions and the privileges obtained for us by our sovereigns and our fathers in the past."  If Lawrence and his colleagues still disdained these Acadians, and all evidence tells us that they did, the next paragraph of the Minas address should have opened their eyes to the political acumen of these simple French farmers:  "And as we are well aware that the king, our master, loves and protects only constant, faithful, and free subjects," they lectured their fellow subjects, "and as it is only by virtue of his kindness, and of the fidelity which we have always preserved towards his majesty, that he has granted to us, and that he still continues to grant to us, the entire possession of our property and the free and public exercise of the Roman Catholic religion, we desire to continue, to the utmost of our power, to be faithful and dutiful in the same manner that we were allowed to be by His Excellency Mr. Richard Philipps."  (Philipps had been in his grave for three and a half years now, but one wonders what the old soldier would have thought of his name being invoked so reverentially, and so forcefully, by the people who had driven him so often to despair.)   They, too, beseeched the governor "to restore to them," their imprisoned cousins, "that liberty which we ask for them, with all possible submission and the most profound respect."  These were the "answers" the two delegations from Pigiguit and Minas were ready to submit at the first opportunity.25 

That opportunity would come on Monday the 28th in a meeting which would seal the fate not only of the delegates from Annapolis and the Minas Basin, but also of every Acadian man, woman, and child residing in the settlements from whence they had come.  Sometime over the fateful weekend between the Friday and Monday meetings, Chief Justice Belcher, probably on the urging of the lieutenant-governor, penned a memorial of his own.  Presented to the Council before the Acadian delegates were ushered in to the governor's house, "It was a mean-minded document, full of historical inaccuracies and of specious arguments," Naomi Griffiths contends.  Its greatest distortion--in truth, an outright lie--was the accusation that, from 1713 until the present time, the Acadians had supported the French outwardly and continuously, at great detriment to the colony.  This implied that British administrators in Nova Scotia had tolerated such perfidy and so "had acted contrary to 'the spirit and letter of His Majesty's Instructions.'"  Such a baseless accusation against Philipps and his lieutenant-governors was essential to Belcher's indictment against them for the imposition and toleration of a qualified oath of allegiance.  Having distorted history, the chief justice then indulged in dubious sociology.  The continued Acadian presence in the colony, he insisted, "'may retard the Progress of Settlement ... since the French at Lunenburgh and the Lunenburghers themselves ... are more disposed to the French than to the English.'"  Belcher then indulged in a fine piece of religious bigotry, revealing his utter ignorance of the Acadian people.  Even if the Acadians agreed to take a new oath, he contended, "'It is well known, that they will not be influenced' by it 'after a (papal) Dispensation'" against an oath to a Protestant monarch--as if their qualified oath had led them to seek such a dispensation during the quarter century since they had taken it.  Belcher's final argument for Acadian removal could have been written by William Shirley himself.  Griffiths continues:  "He concluded by remarking that the presence of Massachusetts forces in the colony had provided an opportunity to remove the Acadians which, 'once the armament is withdrawn,' would be lost.  At that point," Belcher sincerely believed," "the Acadians would 'undoubtedly resume their Perfidy and Treacheries and with more arts and rancour than before.'  Belcher therefore advised" his official colleagues "that 'all the French inhabitants'"--he of course meant all of the Catholic ones--"'may be removed from the Province' from 'the highest necessity which is lex temporis, to the interests of His Majesty in the Province.'"26 

"And so," Naomi Griffiths contends, "when the Acadians were called before the Council on 28 July, their fate had already been decided."  Appearing before the same eight officials who had attended the meeting held three days before, the deputies from Pigiguit and Minas were the first to offer their addresses, the one from Minas being "the most polished ..., the most argued and the most combative," according to Griffiths.  After the pro forma interrogation, these delegates, too, in the words of the Council's secretary recording the minutes, "peremptorily refused to take the oath of allegiance to His Majesty."  The Annapolis delegates were then called in, and they, too, "refused the Oath, Whereupon," the minutes say matter-of-factly, "they were all ordered into Confinement."27 

Lawrence's trap was sprung, locked, and secured; the Acadians of Nova Scotia had reached a turning point in their history that defines them to this day.  "There had been no attempt made, in any of the Council meetings" held that July, Naomi Griffiths reminds us, "to persuade the Acadians that taking the oath would guarantee them the peaceful possession of their lands."  Any compromise of that sort would have ruined Lawrence's evolving policy of removal.  "From the beginning," Griffiths goes on, "Lawrence had treated the Acadian population as a liability and something to control by fear," much as Armstrong had done in the 1730s, but which his successor, Paul Mascarene, had avoided during the following decade, though not always successfully.  Here was a policy akin to Cornwallis's failed attempt to subdue what he considered to be an alien population, a policy much unlike that of Hopson, whose treatment of the Acadians during his brief tenure as governor was closer to Mascarene's.  "Lawrence's policy," Griffiths explains, was "one of accusation and demand.  He had a fundamental disbelief in the possibility of the Acadian population being of any value to Nova Scotia and thus his communications with the various settlements were always threatening:  'this will happen if you do not conform to my orders.'  Such a policy was bound to be less successful, given that the Acadians had heard threats of exile and eviction from British administrators before.  For more than forty years, such threats had been no more than words.  It was unlikely that the Acadians were disposed to take Lawrence seriously at this point, even with the presence of much greater military resources in the colony than they had ever known.  As well, their forced exile would have seemed an almost unimaginable possibility--they could not conceive of a worse fate than transportation to France," a mother country nearly all of them had never seen and could not know.  "Thus, the Acadian delegates unanimously refused the request to take the oath."28

The final paragraphs of the July 28 meeting announced the completion of Lawrence's handiwork.  "As it had been before determined to send all the French Inhabitants out of the Province if they refused to Take the Oaths, nothing now remained to be considered but what measures should be taken to send them away, and where they should be sent to."  But this, too, already had been decided:  "After mature Consideration, it was unanimously Agreed That, to prevent as much as possible their Attempting to return and molest the Settlers that may be set down on their Lands, it would be most proper to send them to be distributed amongst the several Colonies on the Continent, and that a sufficient Number of Vessels should be hired with all possible Expedition for that purpose."29

.

Lawrence then commenced what the Pennsylvania Gazette soon would call "a great and noble Scheme of sending the neutral French out of this Province."  He dusted off a plan for removal submitted to the Council the summer before by provincial surveyor-general Charles Morris, who knew the colony better than any man, at least more than any other Englishman.  Morris, a long-time resident of Halifax, was consulted by Lawrence and the Council during their July deliberations, and they found the surveyor just as determined to see the Acadians gone as he had been when he advised his former mentor, Governor Shirley of Massachusetts, to remove them forcibly from the colony four years earlier.  According to John Mack Faragher, "The long title of Morris's 1754 report told the tale:  'Some Reflections on the Situation of the Inhabitants, commonly called Neutrals, and some methods proposed to prevent their escape out of the Colony, in case upon being acquainted with the design of removing them, they should attempt to desert over to the French neighboring settlements, as their firm attachment to them may be conjectured to raise in them a strong effort to attempt it.'"  Morris's report did not address the political and social ramifications of removal, only on its implementation.  To be sure, Morris was no lover of the people "commonly called Neutrals."  He had come to the colony from his native Boston as an 35-year-old New English militia captain in late 1746 and had been lucky enough to survive the attack at Grand-Pré the following February.  During a survey of the Fundy settlements in the spring and summer of 1748 at the behest of governors Shirley and Mascarene, Morris had spent weeks at Annapolis, Minas, and Chignecto.  He observed Acadian farming, stock raising, and fishing practices, described their architecture, their family structure, the peculiarities of their culture, counted their numbers, and noted their devotion to the Catholic priests and especially to their wives and children.  He doubtlessly disdained everything he saw and heard.  If he reflected on his experience at Grand-Pré the year before, he likely did not believe for a single moment that these people were anything but wolves in sheep's clothing, biding their time until they could turn on the British and prove, once and for all, their devotion to France.  Morris's survey had been conducted in the final months of King George's War to facilitate Shirley's pet scheme of replacing the Acadians in the Fundy settlements with New Englanders just like Morris.  But the diplomats at Aix-la-Chapelle not only failed to grant license to such a scheme, they had returned the captured citadel at Louisbourg to the French, compelling Britain to construct Halifax as a countermeasure.  Morris, now an almost ubiquitous presence in the colony, laid out the streets for Halifax and for the settlement at Lunenburg.  As a resident of Halifax and as the colony's surveyor-general, he had witnessed the aftermath of the bloody raids against the communities around the capital during the petit-guerre with the Mi'kmaq and Acadian partisans.  Like Lawrence, Belcher, and so many other colonial officials, he was determined to do his part in transforming Nova Scotia into a bastion of British culture.31 

Morris advised secrecy in the removal plan, "for once the Acadians knew about them," John Mack Faragher reminds us, "it would be impossible to prevent them from fleeing the province and contributing their capacious skills as sailors and rangers to the French enemy."  Morris's report had been submitted before the fall of the Chignecto forts, but his advise was still relevant.  French forces remained on the St. John River as well as St. John and Cape Breton islands, and the French citadel at Louisbourg, though under blockade, still posed a menace to British interests in the region.  The British, Morris went on, must strike the "Neutral" settlements with stealth and overwhelming force.  Happily for the scheme, hundreds of Winslow's New Englanders were still encamped at Chignecto, alongside Monckton's regulars.  "Morris considered a variety of stratagems by which this might be accomplished," Faragher continues.  "Perhaps the inhabitants could be captured while they were in church on Sunday, or surprised at dead of night while they were in their beds.  But their scattered hamlets," he cautioned, "made this a difficult operation to man and coordinate."32 

"The best alternative," Morris concluded, "was to set a trap they would fall into voluntarily and on their own accord.  The men could be summoned to attend a meeting, then seized and held hostage against the surrender of their families.  It would be critical to encourage them to think they were being sent to join their French brethren, he suggested.  'It will much facilitate their readiness to go if a persuasion could obtain among them that they are to be removed to Canada.'  In that case, others would come in voluntarily to join their captive kindred."  But he was well aware of their independent spirit and their knowledge of the county, and that many of them, as before, would attempt escape.  He, too, knew the country well, and so he "drew up detailed plans for blocking 'the passages by which they may desert the Colony.'"  Faragher concludes:  "In its cold calculation, its weighting of various stratagems, its invention of tricks and lies, Morris's logic was diabolical.  Once the Acadians were in British hands, it would be necessary to disperse them in small groups throughout the empire, as far from their homeland as possible.  Morris"--and Lawrence and Shirley and their ilk--"aimed at nothing less than the complete destruction of the Acadian community."33

Roundup and Resistance, August-September 1755

On July 31, in a lengthy dispatch which did not reach Fort Cumberland until August 2, Lieutenant-Governor Lawrence informed Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Monckton, his senior officer in the field, that Acadian deputies had appeared before the colonial Council and had refusal to submit to the unqualified oath of allegiance.  Insisting that the deputies had "also declared this to be the sentiments of the whole people," the Council had decided "that they shall be removed out of the Country as soon as possible."  Lawrence had not forgotten that a month and half earlier Monckton and his officers had found 300 Chignecto Acadians inside Fort Beauséjour, serving not as unwilling laborers or victualers but as armed insurgents fighting beside the French.  Now was the time for reckoning:  "as to those about the Isthmus who were in arms and therefore entitled to no favour from the government," Lawrence went on, "it is determined to begin with them first; and for this purpose orders are given for a sufficient number of Transports to be sent up the bay with all possible dispatch for taking them on board, by whom you will receive particular instructions as to the manner of their being disposed of, the places of their destination, and every other thing necessary for that purpose."  Following Surveyor-general Morris's recommendations, Lawrence urged secrecy in that matter "to prevent their attempting to escape, as to carry off their cattle &c."  He recommended a stratagem whereby Monckton would "get the men, both young and old (especially the heads of families) into your power and detain them till the transports shall arrive."  To prevent the women and children from driving off the cattle while the men and boys were detained, he recommended the immediate confiscation of "all their Shallops, Boats, Canoes and every other vessel you can lay your hands upon; But also to send out parties to all suspected roads and places from time to time, that they may be thereby intercepted."  Retention of their stock animals and supplies of corn was especially important, as they will be "forfeited to the Crown by their rebellion, and must be secured & apply'd towards a reimbursement of the expense the government will be at in transporting them out of the Country."  Knowing his quarry well, Lawrence advised Monckton that "care must be had that nobody make any bargain for purchasing them under any colour or pretence whatever; if they do the sale will be void, for the inhabitants have now (since the order in Council) no property in them, nor will they be allowed to carry away the least thing but their ready money and household furniture."34

Lawrence informed Monckton that Captain Alexander Murray, commanding at Pigiguit, and Major John Handfield, at Annapolis Royal, "have nearly the same orders in relation to the interior Inhabitants."  Lawrence was concerned, and rightly so, that the Acadians living in the interior settlements "will fall upon ways and means in spite of all our Vigilance to send off their Cattle to the Island of St. John & Louisbourg ... by the way of Tat[a]magouche."  He intimated that, thanks to Boscawen's blockade, Louisbourg "is now in a starving condition," so the French there would be especially eager to secure Acadian cattle.  Lawrence therefore ordered Monckton, "without loss of time," to send to Tatamagouche and the interior "a pretty strong detachment to beat up that quarter and to prevent them" from succoring Louisbourg.  "You cannot want a guide for conducting the party," Lawrence insisted, "as there is not a Frenchman at Chignecto but must perfectly know the road"; however, he offered no suggestion as to how this Chignecto "Frenchman" could be persuaded to do harm to his cousins living in those settlements.35 

Lawrence was especially concerned with the head of the smuggling route running between Cobeguit and Tatamagouche, which lay down the coast from Monckton's fort at Baie-Verte.  Though Louisbourg was being blockaded from the sea, its hinterland was still open to communication with the rest of the French Maritimes colony.  Only Boscawen's vessels patrolling the lower Gulf of St. Lawrence could intercept anything passing from Tatamagouche to Île St.-Jean, where the French maintained a small garrison at Port-La-Joye.  "I would have you give orders to the Detachment you send to Tatmagouche[sic]," Lawrence directed, "to demolish all the Houses &c. they find there, together with all the Shallops, Boats, Canoes or Vessels of any kind which may be lying ready for carrying off the inhabitants & their Cattle."   Lawrence was certain that, "by this means, the pernicious intercourse and intelligence between St. Johns Island & Louisbourg and the inhabitants of the interior part of the Country, will in a great measure be prevented."37 

Lawrence turned his attention to French activities in an even more troubling quarter of the province.  "When Beau Soleil's son arrives," he advised Monckton, "if he brings you no intelligence which you can trust to, of what the French design to do or are doing upon the St. John River, I would have you fall upon some method of procuring the best intelligence by means of some inhabitant you dare venture to put confidence in, whom you may send thither for that purpose."  One wonders which of Joseph Broussard's sons Lawrence was referring to--was it Jean-Grégoire, the oldest, who was married with children and would have been age 29 in the summer of 1755?  Or second son Joseph-Grégoire dit Petit Jos, who also was married and a father and would have been age 28 in 1755.  Or third son Raphaël, age 22, perhaps still single or a newly-wed.  Timothée-Athanase, called Athanase, the next in age, would have been only 14 at the time.  No matter, one suspects that none of the partisan chief's sturdy sons, nor any of his nephews or other kin, would have given Monckton reliable information on the activities of the French "upon the St. John River."  After his confrontation with Rous the month before, Canadian Lieutenant Charles des Champs de Boishébert had retreated to the Acadian settlements around Ste.-Anne-du-Pay-Bas and alerted his superiors up in Québec of the fate of his colleagues at Chignecto.  Boishébert's years on the river had made him intimately familiar with his area of command, which included the north shore of the Bay of Fundy.  With the fall of the Chignecto forts and the blockade of Louisbourg, Boishébert and his ragged troupes de la marine were the only viable French military force remaining in the region.  As soon as his intelligence network alerted him, Boishébert was poised to move his fighters via the Kennebecasis portage to the upper Petitcoudiac, from whence he could block any movement Monckton could make towards the Acadian settlements on the trois-rivières.  The Broussards lived on the upper Petitcoudiac, so it was understandable that Monckton would try to finesse from them anything he could learn about the remaining French force in his front.36

Lawrence also shared with his senior officer in the field the logistics of deportation.  When Monckton had captured Beauséjour, he found substantial provisions in the fort intended not only for the garrison, but also for the local population.  Ironically, those provisions would be used to help send those Acadians away.  "As to the provisions that were found in the stores at Beausejour," Lawrence instructed, "The 832 Barrels of Flour must be applied to victual the whole of the French inhabitants, on their passage to their place of destination."  Lawrence and his staff had carefully calculated how much provender would be needed to transport the Acadians to their destinations:  "It is agreed that the inhabitants shall have put on board with them, one pound of Flour & half a pound of Bread pr. day for each person, and a pound of beef pr. week to each, the Bread and Beef will be sent to you by the Transports from Halifax, the Flour you have already in store."  Lawrence was certain that the captured French stores would be more than enough for the Chignecto deportation.  "[I]f any remain," he instructed Monckton, "it will be sent to Lunenburg for the settlers there."38

Orders in hand, on the morning of August 6, Monckton summoned Lieutenant-Colonel John Winslow, senior commander of the New English forces at Chignecto, to his headquarters at Fort Cumberland; Winslow later wrote in his Journal that this was "the First Conference of a Publick nature I have had with the Colo Since the reduction of Beausejour."  Winslow, in fact, had recently complained to his Journal that "Thus have we Got to the End of July the whole of which was Spent in an Indolent Maner...."  After Rous's encounter with Boishébert on the lower St. John in late June, Winslow had beseeched Monckton to allow his men "to Proceed in Strong Parties Two or Three days March at a time to reconniter the Countrey and make our Selves acquainted with its Scituation...."  It was an intelligent suggestion, but Monckton had ignored him.  Their idleness, however, was about to end.  Monckton acquainted Winslow with Lawrence's instructions, including his decision "to remove all the French Inhabitants out of the Province"; discussed with him how they would deal with the Indians in the area, especially those on the St. John River; and then Monckton issued instructions of his own.  Following Morris's and Lawrence's recommendations, he informed Winslow that he had hit upon a stratagem to lure the Chignecto men and boys into his custody for the purpose of holding them for deportation.  He would "issue a summons calling all the male inhabitants of Chignecto and Chipoudy Bay to a meeting at the fort," John Mack Faragher relates.  "When he had them in his grasp, he would hold them hostage against the eventual surrender of their wives and children after the transport vessels arrived.  Then they would all be deported to points south."  Monckton directed Winslow to observe the stratagem closely, after which he would lead a force of his New Englanders to an as yet undisclosed location, where he would employ the same stratagem.  Other commanders in the region, including Captain Murray at Pigiguit and Major Handfield at Annapolis, would employ similar schemes.  Faragher continues: "Although rumors of the removal of the Acadians had been running through the British encampment for weeks," yet Winslow "seemed genuinely surprised by what Monckton told him."  As a veteran of the fighting in Nova Scotia during King George's War, Winslow also knew, wherever he would be sent, that "he faced a difficult assignment."39 

That afternoon, August 6, Monckton issued, by word of mouth, a summons for all male inhabitants of the Chignecto area, 16 years or older, to report to him at Fort Cumberland on Sunday, August 10, "'to make arrangements concerning the return of their lands.'"  Nothing could have been more clever in gaining the Acadians' attention.  According to Abbé François La Guerne, the priest at Aulac who had served earlier at Beaubassin, the habitants at Chepoudy and other trois-rivières settlements, including the Broussards, "reacted with skepticism" and stayed away.  But the Acadians forced from their lands east of the Missaguash five years before would have been more vulnerable to Monckton's ruse than their trois-rivières cousins, whose habitants had not been torched by Le Loutre and La Corne.  And then there were the surrender terms at Beauséjour a month and a half before.  Had Monckton not pardoned the Acadians who had taken up arms with the French?  (They could not know that Lawrence and his councilors in Halifax "interpreted that pardon to mean only that 'the French inhabitants found in arms in the fort should not be put to death.'")  And then there was this consideration:  within days of the fort's capture, Monckton had pressed on them a new oath of allegiance, but, as always, they had refused it.  Yet nothing had befallen them, and, except for being pressed into repairing the fort, the British did not trouble them ... until now.  They certainly knew of the imprisonment of the Minas and Annapolis delegates at Halifax, but, like their cousins in those settlements, forced exile, separation, and the destruction of their homeland were beyond their collective imagination.40

And so, on the appointed day, 400 Acadian men, most of them refugees from the 1750 dispersal, came to the fort to discuss with Lieutenant-Colonel Monckton the return of their abandoned lands.  The other lieutenant-colonel present, standing as an observer, noted his superior's disappointment:  here were only a third of the adult male inhabitants of the area, "far fewer than Monckton had hoped for."  Knowing the colony as well as he did, Winslow would have understood that a roundup of the Acadians down the Fundy shore, especially at Minas and Annapolis, would be conducted under circumstances different from the roundup at Chignecto.  Here, Acadians could flee in several directions to areas free of British control.  The upper Petitcoudiac and Memramcook, Shediac and Cocagne on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the St. John River, the Island of St. John--all offered places of refuge where Acadians and their families could remain, for a time, out of the reach of Monckton's redcoats.  Not so the Acadians in the Minas Basin and over in the Annapolis valley.  The habitations there lay in geographical cul de sacs easily sealed off from the rest of the world.30 

Monckton was not deterred by the disappointing turn out.  He held the 400 in the crowded fort overnight, promising to address them the following day.  Meanwhile, he ordered several companies of Winslow's New Englanders to march to every hamlet from Aulac to Baie-Verte to bring in more Acadian men.  Unfortunately for Monckton's scheme, the New Englanders brought back only a hand full of stragglers, so the ones who had bothered to report to him would have to do for now.  On the 11th, as promised, Monckton assembled them on the parade ground at the center of the fort, his redcoats, armed and ready, poised above them, and read to them Lawrence's proclamation, which Winslow, likely an eye witness, paraphrased in his Journal:  The governor declared them "rebels" and informed them that "'Their Lands, Goods and Chattels forfitt to the Crown and their Bodys to be Imprisoned.'"  Monckton then ordered the gates of the fort closed, and the 400 Acadians were now his prisoners.  That same day, Monckton issued orders through Winslow directing his New Englanders "to take notice that all oxen, Horses, Cows, Sheep, and all Cattle whatsoever which were the Property of the French Inhabitants are become forfitt to his Majty wherefore no Bargain on any Pretence whatsoever for the Purchase of sd Cattle will be allowed of.  The officers are Desiered to acquaint the men that they are not to Strole from their Camp and that no Cattle are to be Kild or Destroyed as they belong to his Majesty."  Before the day was out, Monckton received reports of Yankees killing sheep, so he ordered the lot of them, including their officers, not to venture beyond "the advance Gaurd without his Perticular Leave."  Since the women and children in the area, as well as all of the animals, had yet to be rounded up, Monckton was not ready to send out his men to burn the habitations, just yet.41a 

On the 12th, as he certainly must have expected, Monckton received a memorial from the imprisoned Acadians, expressing their astonishment at the way they were being treated.  Again, these simple farmers displaced an extraordinary eloquence through the words of the few of them who could read and write.  "They were prepared to accept the sentence of the government," historian John Mack Faragher interprets their lengthy plea.  "'Although born here and settled there for sixty or eighty years,'" they reminded the commander, "'inhabitants cannot dwell in a country against the will of the sovereign, to which as Christians we must submit without argument.'  But what was a Christian to make of their treatment? They had responded to Monckton's summons in good faith, but he had imprisoned them all without warning.  They were shocked by such 'universal detention.'  They had brought no food, no blankets, no change of clothing, and Monckton had made no provision for their care.  They had been crowded into damp quarters, forced to sleep on boards, were being eaten alive by vermin, and threatened with disease.  Why were they being subjected to such things?  It was an unendurable hardship, something a true Christian could not fail to appreciate.  They had to think of the families which it pleased God to grant them.  Terrified, their women and children had fled into the woods, and would perish for the want of a little milk.  They prayed that Monckton inform their wives and mothers of their situation, so they would have no cause for worry.  A 'truly Christian and paternal heart (d'un coeur vrayment Chretien et patneral),' they concluded, could not refuse their prayer."  Monckton's response was to relieve overcrowding at Fort Cumberland by sending 150 of them under guard to nearby Fort Lawrence, where a force of New Englanders under Major Bourn would hold them in confinement.41b 

On the same day the imprisoned Acadians presented their memorial to Monckton, Captain Perry of the New England regiment returned from the Aulac area with 11 more Acadians, and on the 13th Major Jedediah Preble and his New Englanders brought in three more, "all the rest being Fled into the woods," he reported.  The Acadians in the two forts now numbered 420.  Some of them later related that Monckton "told them they were to be transported to Louisbourg."  This was either base treachery on the part of the redcoat commander, or the governor may not yet have informed him of their true destination.  Nowhere in his July 31 letter had Lawrence specified the destination of the isthmian inhabitants, only that the deportations would begin there first and that "particular instructions" would follow.41 

.

Lawrence penned those "particular instructions" on August 11, the same day Monckton shut the gates of Fort Cumberland on the Chignecto Acadians.  In words that, to a large extent, were necessarily redundant, Lawrence revealed to his field commanders the details of his plan for deportation.  Striving for tactical and logistical coordination across a wide swatch of territory, Lawrence's plan was in many ways naive and unworkable.  "That the inhabitants may not have it in their power to return to this Province, nor to join in strengthening the French of Canada or Louisbourg," he informed his commanders, "it is resolved that they shall be dispers'd among his Majesty's Colonies upon the Continent of America."  Transports and warships already were on their way from Halifax to ship off the Acadians at Chignecto.  (Lawrence already had decided that since they had been the ones who took up arms against His Majesty's forces, these Acadians and their families would be sent to the most distant colonies--South Carolina and Georgia.)  The carrying capacity of each transport would be determined by the fixed formula of "two persons to a ton," a rubric already agreed upon between "the Charter Partys," as Lawrence called them--the Boston mercantile firm of Apthorp and Hancock and Lawrence and his Council.  This rubric evidently took into consideration not only each Acadian's person, but also his or her personal effects:  "Thoh the Inhabitants ... are allowed to Carry with them their household Furniture," Lawrence conceded, "yet they Must Not put on Board Quantities of useless Rubbish to Encumber the Vessels; the Inhabitants and their Bedding Must at all Events be Embarked, and if afterwards there is room for other articles Suffer them to Carry what they Conveniently Can."  Upon reaching his assigned destination, Lawrence's instructions continued, the master of each transport will supply the exact tonnage of his vessel to the officer in charge of the embarkation so that he can determine the number of ships he will need to transport the inhabitants in his custody.  If Monckton, using that rubric, could not fill all of the transports sent to him, the surplus would be forwarded to Minas and Pigiguit to supplement the vessels being sent there directly from Boston.  Winslow was cautioned to "Make No Delay in the Embarkation" even if the number of transports at his disposal did not meet the two-persons-to-a-ton calculation; in other words, Winslow, and the others by extension, were authorized to overload the transports in order to send them away in a timely manner.  The "vicutalling of these transports," Lawrence informed them, would be supervised at each embarkation point by his "agent Victualler," Mr. George Saul of Halifax.  No transport could be sent off, Lawrence decreed, until Saul arrived with the necessary provisions.  However, if his arrival was delayed and the inhabitants already had been placed on the transports, the commander at the embarkation point was to allow for each person "5 pounds of flour and one pound of pork for 7 days," which Saul would replace upon his arrival.  The commanders were responsible for making certain that "all their water Cask be Full" before each of the transports departed. 

Lawrence advised Winslow to consult with Captain Murray at Pigiguit, who was "well acquainted with the people and with the country" in that part of the Minas Basin.  "You will use all the means proper and necessary for collecting the people together so as to get them on board," Lawrence instructed each commander.  "If you find that fair means will not do with them" (whatever he meant by that) "you must proceed by the most vigorous measures possible, not only in compelling them to embark, but in depriving those who shall escape of all means of shelter or support, by burning their houses and destroying everything that may afford them the means of subsistence in the Country."  Winslow was ordered to "send a strong Detachment to Annapolis Royal to assist Major Handfield in shipping off those of that River."  On the way to Annapolis, Lawrence directed, Winslow's detachment was to pick up "all the stragglers that may be met with by the way" and carry them on to Annapolis, where they would be "shipped with the rest."

Lawrence then revealed the destinations of the transported Acadians.  From Minas and Pigiguit, 500 inhabitants would go to North Carolina, 1,000 to Virginia, and 500 to Maryland.  If the number from those settlements exceeded 2,000, the commanders there would ship off the extras "in proportion" to the numbers given for each destination.  From the Annapolis valley, 300 inhabitants would go to Philadelphia, 200 to New York, 300 to Connecticut, and 200 to Boston.  If the number actually captured there exceeded 1,000 persons, more would be sent to Boston "in proportion" to those shipped "to the Province of Connecticut."  Nowhere in Lawrence's orders does he advise his commanders to keep Acadian families together.  In fact, the stratagem to be employed for subduing the inhabitants was certain to result in their separation:  the men and older boys would be held in confinement while patrols rushed about to cordon off the villages, filled now with only women and children.  Lawrence's instructions did not address the safety of these women and children while his soldiers went about the business of torching their villages.  The commanders themselves would determine such things.  But, as military officers, both regular and provincial, they did not have to be told that the fate of these people was secondary to the completion of their missions. 

Once the inhabitants had been placed aboard the transports, each commander was to present to the master of each vessel "one of the Letters (of which you will receive a number signed by me) which you will address to the Governor of the Province, or the Commander in Chief for the time being, where they are to be put on shore, and endorse therein the printed form of the Certificate to be granted to the masters of the vessels, to entitle them to their hire as agreed upon by Charter Party."  This would insure proper compensation to the masters and their crewmen who would take these people into exile, but it would not be done until each of the ships had completed the assigned voyage.  Once each ship reached its destination, each master was "to wait upon the Governors or Commanders in Chief of the Provinces to which they are bound, with the said letters" addressed to each of them by Lawrence's officers, "and to make all possible dispatch in debarking these passengers and obtaining Certificates thereof agreeable to the form aforesaid."  Looking to the bottom line of what would be a very expensive operation, Lawrence urged each commander to remember that, since the transports were being "hired by the month, you will use all possible dispatch to save expence to the publick."42 

The most remarkable part of Lawrence's instructions was the missive entitled "Circular Letter from Governor Lawrence to the Governors on the Continent," also dated August 11.  When Lawrence and his Council had decided to send all of the Acadians out of Nova Scotia two weeks before, they had not been granted the luxury of time to consult with Lawrence's fellow governors.  Except for rumors that might reach them during the following weeks, British officials down the coast would not know what was coming until the transports full of "Neutrals" arrived at their door!  Lawrence no doubt expected his lengthy communication to explain it all to them:  "SIR," the circular began, "The success that has attended his Majesty's arms in driving the French from the Encroachments they had made in this province, furnished me with a favorable opportunity of reducing the French inhabitants of this Colony to a proper obedience to his Majesty's Government, or forcing them to quit the country."  Lawrence then assumed the role of historian.  "These inhabitants were permitted to remain in quiet possession of their lands upon condition they should take the Oath of allegiance to the King within one year after the Treaty of Utrecht by which this province was ceded to Great Britain," he related.  "[W]ith this condition they have ever refused to comply," he contended, "without having at the same time from the Governor an assurance in writing that they should not be called upon to bear arms in the defence of the province; and with this General Philipps did comply," Lawrence admitted, "of which step his Majesty disapproved and the inhabitants pretending therefrom to be in a state of Neutrality between his Majesty and his enemies have continually furnished the French & Indians with Intelligence, quarters, provisions and assistance in annoying the Government; and while one part have abetted the French Encroachments by their treachery, the other have countenanced them by open Rebellion."  A practiced polemicist, Lawrence was not above stretching the truth a bit.  Certainly Acadians like Bellaire Gauthier, Le Maigre LeBlanc, Beausoleil Broussard, and Pierre and Paul Surrette had engaged in open rebellion against the British authority, and some of them continued to do so.  But the great majority of them, like Prudent and Louis Robichaud, René LeBlanc, and Honoré Gautrot, were accommodators who clung to a neutrality they refused to break.  Lawrence's hardest indictment against the Acadians concerned a recent incident that he was convinced spoke volumes about their true feelings towards the British.  "[T]hree hundred of them were actually found in arms in the French fort at Beausejour when it surrendered," he informed his fellow governors, though he did not bother to relate the fact that when these Acadians took up arms at Beauséjour many of them insisted that they did so only under threat of death.  Like a trial lawyer addressing a jury, Lawrence suddenly softened his tone.  "Notwithstanding all their former bad behaviour," he went on, "as his Majesty was pleased to allow me to extend still further his Royal grace to such as would return to their Duty, I offered such of them as had not been openly in arms against us, a continuance of the Possession of their lands, if they would take the Oath of Allegiance, unqualified with any Reservation whatsoever; but this they have most audaciously as well as unanimously refused, and if they would presume to do this when there is a large fleet of Ships of War in the harbor, and a considerable land force in the province, what might not we expect from them when the approaching winter deprives us of the former, and when the Troops which are only hired from New England occasionally and for a small time, have returned home."  There he stood, the redoubtable Lawrence, defender of a piece of the British realm menaced by a people both hostile and disloyal.  "As by this behaviour," his indictment continued, "the inhabitants have forfeited all title to their lands and any further favor from the Government, I called together his Majesty's Council, at which the Honble. Vice Adml. Boscawen and Read Adml. Mostyn assisted, to consider by what means we could with the greatest security and effect rid ourselves of a set of people who would forever have been an obstruction to the intention of settling this Colony and that it was now from their refusal of the Oath absolutely incumbent upon us to remove."  His circular finally addressed the reason why he was dragging his fellow governors into Nova Scotia's affairs.  "As their numbers amount to near 7000 persons," Lawrence informed them, "the driving off with leave to go wither they pleased would have doubtless strengthened Canada with so considerable a number of inhabitants; and as they have no cleared land to give them at present, such as are able to bear arms must have been immediately employed in annoying this and the neighbouring Colonies," which likely grabbed the attention not only of the New English governors, but those in New York and Virginia as well.  To prevent such an inconvenience," Lawrence contended, "it was judged a necessary and the only practicable measure to divide them among the Colonies where they may be of some use, as most of them are healthy strong people"--perhaps the only compliment he would ever pay to them.  "[A]nd as they cannot easily collect themselves together again," he reasoned, "it will be out of their power to do any mischief and they may become profitable and it is possible, in time, faithful subjects.  As this step was indispensably necessary to the security of this Colony upon whose preservation from French encroachments the prosperity of North America is esteemed in a great measure dependent," he concluded, "I have not the least reason to doubt of your Excellency's concurrence and that you will receive the inhabitants I now send and dispose of them in such manner as may best answer our design in preventing their reunion."43

It would be months before Lawrence's fellow governors could read these words.  Meanwhile, on August 13, two days after Lawrence wrote the circular, Secretary of State Sir Thomas Robinson, the colonial governors' immediate superior in London, penned a letter to Lawrence which did not comport with much of what the Nova Scotia governor had written to his colleagues.  Robinson's letter reveals that he, as well as the Lords of Trade and Plantations, the King's Privy Council, and King George himself, remained ignorant not only of Lawrence's plans, but also of Lawrence's intent in regards to the future of "the French Inhabitants of the Peninsula."  One wonders what Lawrence would have done if he had received Robinson's letter an instant after it was written, rather than in early November, when he did receive it.  Upon reading the secretary's cautionary words, especially the ones in which King George called the Acadians in Nova Scotia "useful Subjects," would Lawrence have cancelled his deportation plans and fashioned other, less drastic measures to deal with this hostile population?  Or would he have brushed aside London's ignorance of conditions in the colony and pushed ahead with his deportation scheme?  History cannot answer either of these questions; it can only reveal what Lawrence did.44

.

By the middle of August, Lieutenant-Colonel Winslow and his New Englanders were ready to put the Chignecto isthmus behind them.  They had been there for three long months, fighting their way into Fort Beauséjour and accepting the surrender of Fort Gaspereau, which had been rewarding enough, but then came weeks of forced idleness until ordered to round up Acadian men and boys who had ignored Lieutenant-Colonel Monckton's summons to report to him at Fort Cumberland.  Here was a taste of their next mission in Nova Scotia, though only their commander could have known of it.  As early as August 7, Lieutenant-Colonel Winslow had been ordered to prepare four companies to march with "their Bagage and Tent Equipage" to "the Transportes," their destination undisclosed.  Four days later, after hurrying about the countryside searching for Acadians but finding precious few, their morale, and the patience of their commander, was tested when Lieutenant-Colonel Monckton accused some of the New Englanders of killing sheep against his orders.  Winslow protested the libel, but Monckton remained unmoved.  By August 13, however, Winslow received orders to prepare the same four companies that had been ordered to march the week before--his own and those of captains Nathan Adams, Humphrey Hobbs, and Phineas Osgood--to prepare to board transports for Pigiguit.  Three hundred of them, at least, would be putting some distance between themselves and Lieutenant-Colonel Monckton.  After seeing to his accounts, which only frustrated him, and his commissary requirements, which included rations of rum that had been promised to his men but never issued, Winslow, with his Yankees, waited several days more for the transports to be made ready for them.  While they waited, word reached Chignecto via Halifax of General Braddock's defeat the month before.  Winslow also learned via letter from an acquaintance in Boston, William Coffin, Jr., of the failure of the other British offensives, in upper New York.  Coffin related a meeting of the Massachusetts General Court which authorized the recruitment of 800 more New Englanders to be sent to reinforce the Crown Point expedition.  As far as they knew, war still had not been declared in Europe, but things were only heating up on the North American frontier.45 

But their travails with Monckton were not yet behind them.  After a meeting with his young commander on August 14 that only set the proud officers at loggerheads again, Lieutenant-Colonel Winslow ordered his senior captain, Nathan Adams, to march the four companies from their camp near Fort Cumberland to the docks on the lower Missaguash, where their baggage waited.  Adams ordered the drummers to beat cadence while he and his New Englanders, with regimental colors flying, marched past the walls of Monckton's fort.  Soon Monckton's aide-de-camp, T. Moncreiffe, appeared "and Peremptorly Demanded the Colours by the Commanders Orders and actually took them from Mr. Gray my Ensign," Winslow related in his Journal.  "I apprehend [this] is the First Time that Ever a British Commandr in Chiefe Took the Kings Colours from a Marching party that had  always behaved well," Winslow complained.  "This Transaction Causd Great uneassiness to both officers & Soldiers, & raised my Temper Some."  At the docks, Winslow found the transports still not ready, so he ordered his companies to camp on higher ground until they could move on to their new posting.  But the touchy New Englishman could not resist a parting shot at his "Commandr in Chiefe."  On the 15th, while still waiting for the transports, Winslow fired off a letter to Monckton, chiding him for ordering the striking of his colors while his men marched past the walls of Cumberland.  He found it coldly ironic that "the French who were Conquered Should March with their Colours Flying and that we who assisted to Conquer them were not permitted."  He ended his missive with what seemed to be conciliatory words but was likely sarcasm:  "If Sir, you have any Commands [I] shall Gladly receive & Chearfully obey them."  Monckton's response, written the same day, only widened the chasm between himself and the New Englanders and revealed a penchant on his part for playing the martinet.  He reminded Winslow that, since the other seven companies of Governor Shirley's regiment, under Lieutenant-Colonel William Scott, would remain at Fort Cumberland, the regimental colors should remain there as well.  He reminded Winslow that he was being allowed to accompany just a portion of his command to its new post only through the indulgence of Governor Lawrence and himself.  He offered a lukewarm apology for having offended the proud New Englander, who soon would be off "Seeing the Country," Monckton sneered sarcastically.45a  

Lawrence could not have been unaware of the bad blood flowing between these senior officers.  The feud between them had erupted in Boston the previous winter, and the heat of summer seemed only to make it worse.  The dispute, in fact, may have been a reason why Lawrence sent Winslow to Minas with only a portion of his regiment--an embarrassing circumstance of which the touchy New Englander certainly was aware.45b 

Finally, on August 16, Winslow and his 313 New Englanders, with two weeks worth of provisions, sailed down Cumberland Basin and into the Bay of Fundy, their destination the Minas Basin.  The flotilla--the sloop of war HMS York under ship's master Preble, the armed schooner Greyhound under Master Samuel Hodgkins, and the schooner of war HMS Warren under Master Abraham Adams--dropped anchor at "a Place Cald the Jaging (?)" that evening.  The following day, the 17th, they rounded Cape Chignecto, entered the Minas Channel, sailed past capes d'Or, Split, and Blomidon, and anchored in Minas Basin at the mouth of Rivière Pigiguit, before nightfall.  They remained there for the night, and on the morning tide of the 18th ascended the Pigiguit to Fort Edward, which they reached "at Eleven o'Clock in the Forenoon."  Winslow was impressed with what he saw.  Keeping his men on board, he and several of his officers were rowed ashore to consult with the fort's commander.  After the requisite greetings and lunch with Captain Murray and "the Gents the officers," Murray handed Winslow a letter from Lieutenant-Governor Lawrence that detailed the operations for the Minas settlements; Winslow and his New Englanders would not remain at Pigiguit but were going, instead, to Grand-Pré.  The letter contained more detailed suggestions for distracting the area Acadians on the eve of deportation, detailed what the Acadians could and could not carry into exile, cautioned Winslow to prevent his provincials from interacting with the local inhabitants, warned both commanders to keep the news of Braddock's defeat from reaching the Acadians, ordered the immediate arrest of any inhabitant expected "to be an Haranger or an Intreiguer amongst the People," and included an important addition to Lawrence's original instructions that affected the timing of the entire operation:  Murray and Winslow, Lawrence insisted, must wait until the Acadians completed their harvest before setting into motion their deportation schemes.  The grain would help provision the deportation ships, which would not arrive in the basin until after the harvest was in.46 

Winslow and his officers spent the night with the men aboard their transports.  That evening, Winslow addressed a letter to Lieutenant-Governor Lawrence in which he reported meeting with Captain Murray and learning "that it is your Pleasure that I with the Party be posted at Mines."  He would be going not to Pigiguit but to the most populous community in the colony, to the breadbasket of British Nova Scotia.  Ironically, Winslow's first complaint to Lawrence was that his command had "only Provissions for Eight Days & for that time nither Butter no Molasses."  He had expected to pick up those items at Fort Edward, but Murray had not even bread to spare.  Winslow asked for a resupply of rum, instead of molasses, to avoid the trouble of having to distill the essential liquor during a campaign that would require "Mostly Marching" in open country.  He also informed the governor that, when his men reached Pigiguit, they had "nither Powder nor ball but what is in our Cartherage Boxes nor Spare Flints."  Murray, at least, was able to supply them with ammunition--a barrel and a half of power and 3,000 musket balls--though not with spare flints or cartridge paper, so Winslow appealed to Lawrence's "Fatherly Care for our future Supply, which I hope will Come Seasonably."  He asked for his artillery, still at Chignecto, as well as all or part of Joseph Goreham's company of rangers to provide reconnaissance and security until his men could learn the country.  "[W]hen I Can be Spared from this Service," he beseeched the governor, "[I] Should take it as a Great Favor to pay my Duty to your Excellency and think it would be of advantage to the General Cause as the Soldiers from my Countrey Inlisted Immediately under my Command as Lievt Colo the whole of them and Expect that Govenour Shirleys Honr with the Small addi[t]ion of my word Should See Every thing that Concerns them Set right," adding "Some Difficulties there is that Grieve them, and many of them had an Eye to be Settlers & Probably if Incoraged Properly would Embrace an oppertunity to be Such."  The wily old New Englishman doubtlessly was aware that, once the "French Neutrals" were out of the way, nothing could please these two powerful governors more than transforming his New Englanders into contented Nova Scotians.46a

At sunrise the following the morning, August 19, the three ships carrying Winslow and his 313 Yankees slipped back down the Pigiguit on the ebbing tide, rounded the headland at present-day Oak Island, sailed into the mouth of Rivière Gaspereau, and reached Grand-Pré landing a little before noon.  Many of the area inhabitants must have noticed the armed British vessels making their way slowly up and down the Pigiguit.  Only a few years earlier, during the petit-guerre, it would not have been unheard of for these vessels and their occupants to come under musket fire from the riverbanks.  But Le Loutre and the Mi'kmaq were gone now, as were many of the local hotheads.  Thanks to Lawrence's diligence back in early June, Murray and his redcoats had confiscated most, if not all, of the inhabitants' weapons.  No shots rang out, during the day or night, to disturb the tranquility of Winslow's movements.47 

Also gone were three of the four priests who had served the parishes in that part of the colony.  Like every British official before him, Lawrence believed the Acadians obeyed their priests without question, and that most, if not every, French clergyman preached nothing but ill against the British government.  Father Claude-Jean-Baptiste Chauvreulx, a Sulpician, who had come to the colony in the 1730s, had been the only priest serving at Minas since 1749.  An addle-minded colleague, Father Lemaire, recently serving on Île St.-Jean, was his lodger in the priest's house at St.-Charles-des-Mines when the soldiers came for them.  No friend of Le Loutre and his petit-guerre, Father Chauvreulx had urged his parishioners to cling to their neutrality despite threats from his fellow Frenchmen and their Indians allies.  On August 4, despite his spirit of accommodation and Father Lemaire's impaired mental state, Captain Murray, following orders issued by Lieutenant-Governor Lawrence, sent an officer to arrest the two priests and bring them to Fort Edward.  Two days later, the redcoats arrested Father Henri Daudin "while he was saying mass" in the church at Annapolis.  A friend and colleague of fellow Séminarian Jean-Louis Le Loutre, Daudin had served at Pigiguit before being transferred to Annapolis Royal.  He, too, was held at Fort Edward, perhaps forced to share a cell with Father Chauvreulx, his political enemy.  In mid-August, on the eve of Winslow's arrival, Murray sent the priests under heavy guard to Lawrence at Halifax.  There, in the town's market place, Father Chauvreulx's biographer relates, "the missionaries were exposed to the population for three-quarters of an hour" before being forced aboard three of Admiral Boscawen's warships, floating at anchor in the harbor.  In late October or early November, while the Acadians were being sent into exile, the admiral took the priests to Portsmouth, England, which they reached at the beginning of December.  Forced to travel from there at their own expense, they chartered a vessel and arrived at St.-Malo on December 8.  After the deportation of his colleagues, only one priest remained in British Nova Scotia.  Father Jean-Baptiste de Gay Desenclaves, Daudin's predecessor at Annapolis, had been an accommodator like his fellow Sulpician, Father Chauvreulx.  In the spring of 1754, to escape the entreaties of Le Loutre and the intrigues of Daudin, Father Desenclaves had "retired" to the d'Entremont estate at Pobomcoup, where Lawrence let him be, for now.48

As Winslow led his 313 New Englanders ashore, "It must have been profoundly unsettling for the Acadians to watch, ... especially in the climate of fear and certainly that prevailed in August 1755," John Mack Faragher relates.  Within only a month's time, dozens of Minas elders had been imprisoned at Halifax, their priest was arrested, and now, for the first time in years, a substantial number of soldiers, not just a taken force, would occupy their peaceful community.  Winslow established his headquarters in the priest's house at St.-Charles-des-Mines, which lay on higher ground near the center of the sprawling village.  While Winslow's officers set up "a Line of Picquets from the Church to the Church yard," tents went up "beneath a stand of willows on the road leading to the village center," and the church itself became a barracks and a storehouse.49

Winslow posted an order calling on the principal inhabitants to report to him at "Nine of ye Clock" the following morning, August 20.  All of the Minas deputies were gone, still languishing in one of the prison sheds on Georges Island, and the Grand-Pré priest likely was there as well.  Nevertheless, at the appointed time, several of the community's elders appeared at the priest's house, at least two of them acquainted with Winslow from his days at Grand-Pré eight years before.  François Landry of Rivière-des-Habitants west of Grand-Pré was a man in his 60s.  René LeBlanc was the septuagenarian notary of Grand-Pré who had spent two years as Le Loutre's prisoner at trois-rivières a few years earlier.  Both were well-known accommodators who had served over the years as intermediaries between the Minas inhabitants and the provincial government.  Winslow told them that he was there "to take Command of this Place" but that he was "Scanty of Provisions."  It would be necessary, then, for the inhabitants to provision his men until his supply ships arrived.  The elders agreed, offering "to Furnish meat Saterday & Continue to Grant me Supplys til Such time as I was otherways releved," Winslow noted in his Journal.  The elders "expressed concern about the 'sacred things' in the church's sacristy, and Winslow gave them leave to remove the objects and cover the altar" in order "to Prevent there being Defiled by Herriticks," he sarcastically wrote to Lawrence.52 

The desecration of St.-Charles-des-Mines "by Herriticks" had only just begun.

In a letter addressed to Governor Shirley on August 22, Winslow intimated to his powerful benefactor that he expected "to be Joyned with 200 men more Soon."  In the same letter, he revealed, not for the last time, subtle misgivings about the nature of his mission "at Mines."  In describing what he had seen recently at Chignecto, he noted that "The women & Children are Suffered to Lieve in their Housses and the Inhabitants throh out the Provinces it is Suposed will Suffer the Same Fate," he shrugged, "althoh not Equally Guilty of open Violence, as those of Chignecto and Bay of Verte."  He assured the governor that "the Army in General" enjoyed "a Good State of Health, and it is Likely Shall Soon have our Hands full of Disagreable Business to remove People from their Antient Habitations, which, in this part of the Countrey," he assured the governor, "are Verry Valuable."53 

Ever mindful of the devastating surprise attack at Grand-Pré eight years before, Winslow kept his men busy manning a strong line of pickets around his encampment, while others unloaded what supplies were left aboard the three ships still at anchor in the Gaspereau and stow them inside the church under lock and key.  Judging from what Winslow saw and heard, the locals still had no inkling of what was about to befall them.  Winslow told them that he and his men would remain among them at least through the winter.  But security from local hotheads was only one of Winslow's worries.  There was also the matter of subsistence for his men.  Although the elders had agreed to provide him whatever he needed, he naturally preferred a more regular source of supply not dependent on the whims of the local inhabitants.  Much to his relief, soon after his arrival he received a letter from Captain Murray relaying more "Directions" from Lieutenant-Governor Lawrence that may have eased his mind, if not his conscience.  Murray related that Lawrence would be sending Winslow "a months Provissions" but, supplies at Fort Edward being so limited, in the meantime he would have to depend on the locals to supplement whatever provisions he had brought with him.  "In case the Inhabitants refuse or Make any Excuse to Give you the Provissions you have Occation for," Murray related, the governor "Desiers you would Compel them by Millatary Execution."  Moreover, "the Governour Desiers you would not pay any money for the Provisions you order for the use of the Troops as Every thing of that Kinde is the Property of the Government."  Murray informed Winslow that, on orders from Lawrence, he already had "Sent Directions to the Inhabitants of Grand Pre and River Cannard to Send Each thirty Bullocks for the use of the Navy."  The Acadians, at least at Minas, did not yet know they would not be compensated for whatever they supplied the British, nor was Winslow prepared to reveal to them the governor's hard decree.  He would have to employ deception in securing what he needed from them, until he could inform them of their true status in the eyes of their King.54 

On the evening of August 22, Winslow's "Months Provissions for 400 men" reached Grand-Pré from Halifax aboard the 96-ton sloop Endeavor, under Captain James Nichols.  The following day, Winslow's men unloaded the vessel and stored these supplies in the church as well.  Winslow now was able to send two of the vessels on which he had come, the Greyhound and HMS York, back to Chignecto and sent the HMS Warren to Annapolis Royal.  Meanwhile, his men erected obstacles in front of their picket lines, prepared a small dwelling within their lines to house their captains, and cobbled together a guard house from material they could find.  I "Shall put his Majesty to No Exspence in the whole," Winslow quipped in a letter to Murray on the 24th, but he did ask to borrow a thousand nails and a proper lock for his storeroom inside the church.  He had another use in mind for that sturdy edifice, but not until the Acadians completed their harvest.  He informed Murray that Grand-Pré elder Jacques Thériot had reassured him his fellow Acadians at Grand-Pré and Rivière-aux-Canards "readily Comply with the Governours Deman of Cattle and that they Should be of the Best," that they were in fact in the woods collecting the beeves that very day.  Winslow also asked Murray to send him "one mans Provissions for a weak of Each Specia" so that he could issue rations according to regulation.  Murray promptly hurried a thousand "ten penny nails" to Grand-Pré and promised to pay his "Complements" to Winslow as soon as he could get away.55 

In late August, Winslow received two letters that could not have pleased him.  The first, from Lieutenant-Governor Lawrence, though written in conciliatory language, denied him, without explanation, the reinforcements from Chignecto he had hoped to receive by then.  Lawrence assured him that the force he had brought to Minas was "Intirely Sufficient for the Service you are Going Upon."  Nor could Lawrence spare him any rangers "at Present" but assured him that Captain Murray at Fort Edward "has People Enough who Know the Country and Can Conduct Any Party's you may have Occasion to Send Out."  Perhaps included in the same packet with Lawrence's missive was a letter addressed to Winslow from Joseph Goreham, also dated August 26.  The ranger captain offered to exchange some of his men for "the Indians that Are Scattered in your Corps," evidently the only way that Winslow would be able to acquire men with rangering skills.  Lawrence agreed to meet with him at Halifax once his duties at Minas were completed, "when wee Shall Settle all Matters Both with Regard to the Greavances you hint at, and the Business of the Intended Settlers."  Convinced that Winslow and his New Englanders "have no Attack to Fear from the Enemy," he urged Winslow, so as not to alarm the inhabitants, to refrain from fortifying his picket lines.  He reminded Winslow to "take no material Step without First Consulting with" Captain Murray," as," Lawrence again reminded the provincial officer, Murray had "a thorough Knowledge of the People and Country."  Revealing his mastery of every detail, Lawrence insisted that molasses, "Which I think are in Every Respect Preferable to Rum," be sent to Grand-Pré instead.  He reminded Winslow of the efficacy of whaleboats "for Securing the Mouths of the Rivers and the Bason of Mines to Prevent the Inhabitants From escaping and Carrying off their Effects," so he would order Murray to supply him "with one or two as you and he Shall Judge Most Proper."55a

On Friday, August 29, Captain Murray descended to Grand-Pré in one of his whaleboats, but he was there to do more than pay his compliments to Lieutenant-Colonel Winslow.  He brought with him addendums to Lawrence's August 11 instructions that Winslow had not seen.  Writes John Mack Faragher, "... the two men cloistered themselves in Winslow's quarters going over 'methods for removing the whole inhabitants.'  The harvest was nearly completed"--the last one the Acadians of Grand-Pré would ever bring in--"and they agreed to spring the trap on the following Friday," September 5.  "After Murray departed," Faragher continues, "Winslow summoned his three captains--Nathan Adams, Humphrey Hobbs, and Phineas Osgood--and swearing them to an oath of secrecy, informed them for the first time of their mission at Minas.  'Although it is a disagreeable part of duty we are put upon,' he told them, 'I am sensible it is a necessary one.'"56

During the next two days, the first of the deportation transports arrived from Boston--three sloops on the evening of Saturday the 30th, and a schooner on Sunday the 31st.  The vessels included the 83-ton sloop Endeavor, master John Stone (not to be confused with the 96-ton Endeavor under James Nichols, which had arrived from Halifax the week before and likely had already departed Minas); the 86-ton sloop Industry, master George Goodwin (also called Gooding); and the 90 1/2-ton sloop Mary, also styled a schooner, master Andrew Dunning.  Each ship's captain presented their orders--Stone's and Goodwin's dated August 21 and Dunning's dated August 22--each properly endorsed by the ships' contractor, the firm of Charles Anthrop and Son and Thomas Hancock of Boston.  The captains reassured an anxious Winslow that "Divers others were to follow"--"Eleven Sail more coming from Boston," they told him, that "would Sail in a Fue Days."56a 

Although Lawrence's "agent Victualler," George Saul, had not reached Minas by September 1, the governor's plan nevertheless was progressing nicely; another, even more formidable trap, was about to be sprung on these Acadians.  Soon some of them were clamoring aboard the merchant vessels, curious about their purpose.  As John Mack Faragher relates, Winslow had already given "The ships' masters ... instructions to say 'they were come to attend' to needs of the New Englanders.  "It was part of the campaign of lies intended to keep the Acadians in the dark," Faragher adds, though the whole business "must have struck the inhabitants as suspicious."  The vessels lay high in the water, so they obviously carried no more supplies for Winslow and his Yankees, nor were the ships' captains eager to strike bargains with the local inhabitants; Boston merchants were never evasive about the wares they offered to trade.  Some of the locals had observed the unloading of the other Endeavor with its cargo of provisions the week before.  Yet, for most, if not every one, of these Minas "Neutrals," the true purpose of these vessels still lay beyond the bounds of their collective imagination.  Murray soon received word of the transports' arrival.  Deciding "the Sooner we Strike the Stroke the Better," he hurried a message to Winslow, suggesting another meeting as soon as they could manage it, but the meeting would have to wait.  The weather was still fine--"cool, dry, sunny, perfect for threshing wheat" in this final harvest the Acadians would ever enjoy at Minas.  Winslow felt secure enough behind his picket lines to send officers and men, armed and ready, into the countryside to observe the harvest and to count the inhabitants, using maps provided by the colony's surveyor-general, who had located the basin's many hamlets seven summers before.  To make certain that his officers could locate these hamlets, he agreed to exchange troops with Murray so that he could employ redcoats as "Pilotes" for his armed patrols.  On Sunday the 31st, accompanied by two other officers and 50 men, Winslow himself conducted the reconnaissance of sprawling Grand-Pré.  The following day, he ordered Captain Adams, with two junior officers, three sergeants, three corporals, and 60 men, to march to Rivière aux-Canards to count the inhabitants there.  He was determined to secure an accurate count of every man, woman, and child in the area, most of them still working diligently in the fields, to determine the total number of vessels he would need "to Remove the Neighbors About me to a Better Country," as he had described it to Lawrence on August 30.  On the 1st, Winslow sent 32 of his New Englanders under one of his own officers, Lieutenant Buckley, to Fort Edward, and that evening received from the fort a similar-size force of redcoats under Lieutenant Mercer.  In the meantime, Murray and the redcoats remaining at Fort Edward were conducting reconnaissance of their own in the hamlets at Pigiguit.57  

More transports were coming, of that they were certain, and the harvest was almost complete, so it was time to secure the Acadians for deportation.  Early in the morning of Tuesday, September 2, as Captain Adams and his company began their march to Rivière-aux-Canards, Winslow, heading in the opposite direction, "took a whaleboat to Fort Edward for a final planning session with Murray."  Captain Murray had been busy.  He showed Winslow a copy of the summons they would issue for the "meetings" of Friday the 5th, which they agreed would be held at the church in Grand-Pré and at Fort Edward at the same time in the middle of the afternoon so that inhabitants in one community could not alert their cousins in the other.  With Winslow's approval, Murray employed Pigiguit merchant Isaac Deschamps, a Huguenot, to translate the finished text into French.  Wasting no time, "at Eleven a Clock in the Forenoon," Winslow hurried back down to Grand-Pré and employed a local collaborator, Alexandre de Rodohan, "a Flemish surgeon married to an Acadian woman, to read the summons publicly throughout the countryside" on that and the following days.58 

In English, Winslow's September 2 summons read:  "To the Inhabitants of the District of Grand Pre, Mines River, Cannard, &c. as well ancient as young Men & Lades.  Whereas his Excellency the Governour has Instructed us of his Last resolution Respecting the maters Proposed Lately to the Inhabitants and as ordered us to Communicate the same to the Inhabitants in General in Person his Excellency be desierous that each of them Should be fully Satisfyed of his Majesty's Intentions which he has also ordered us to Communicate to you Such as they have Given him.  I therefore order and Strictly Injoyne by these Pressence to all the Inhabitants as well of the above named Districts as of all the other Districts, both old men & young men as well as all the Lads of ten years of age to attend at the Church at Grand Pre on Fryday the 5th Instant at Three of the Clock in the afternoon that We May Impart to them what we are ordered to Communicate to them:  Declaring that no Excuse will be admitted of on any Pretense whatsoever on Pain of Forfitting Goods and Chattels on Default.  Given at Grand Pre the Second of September in the 29th year of his Majesty's reign A.D. 1755."  Murray's summons, but for the names of the affected districts, was worded exactly the same.58a

Winslow, meanwhile, kept his men in camp, cleaning and repairing their weapons, while he polished the proclamation he would read to the Acadians during the appointed meeting in the Grand-Pré church.  Three days before, on the 31st, as per Lawrence's instructions, he had sent Lieutenant Crooker in a whaleboat to Chignecto to retrieve more ammunition and molasses and to deliver dispatches to Lieutenant-Colonel Monckton.  On Tuesday the 2nd, while returning to Grand-Pré, Crooker boarded a transport lying in the Gaspereau that had arrived the previous day.  Here was the 90-ton schooner Neptune, master Jonathan Davis, with orders from Apthorp & Hancock dated August 22.  Five deportation transports now waited in the Gaspereau.  On Wednesday the 3rd, Captain Adams returned from his overnight sojourn to Rivière-aux-Canards "and reported it was a Fine Country and Full of Inhabitants, a Butifull Church & abundance of ye Goods of the world.  Provisions of all Kinds in great Plenty"--likely the same things Winslow had found at Grand-Pré earlier in the week.  Later that day, Winslow ordered Captain Hobbs with a junior officer, two sergeants, two corporals, and 50 men "to Visset the Village Melanson on the River Gaspereau," south of Grand-Pré.  Captain Osgood "with the Like Number of officers and men" was sent to reconnoiter "the Country in the Front or to the Southward of our Incampment."  Both parties returned that evening "and Gave Each accounts that it was a Fine Countrey." 

That evening, the first scare occurred in Winslow's encampment.  Around 9 o'clock, well after dark, two shots rang out at the west end of the picket line.  Winslow ordered an immediate roll call to determine who was missing and inquired as to the nature of the disturbance.  It was soon ascertained that, when someone had approached the sentries at that end of the camp, the New Englanders "Three Times haled & he not answering they Both Fired at him."  The nighttime wandere proved to be Private William Jackson of the 29th Regiment of Foot, one of Murray's redcoats.  Winslow's notation in his Journal does not say if Private Jackson was injured by the sentry fire; probably not.  Jackson, along with Abishai Stetson of Winslow's company of New Englanders, who had been brought up on charges of stealing a fire shovel and a sieve from the local inhabitants, were brought before a court martial the following morning.  Both were found guilty by the board of five officers.  Their sentences:  "Twenty Lashes from the Hands of the Drumer with a Cat" for Jackson, and "thirty Lashes in the Like maner" for the thieving New Englishman.  To prevent anymore such disturbances, Winslow ordered "A Guard of Six Men to be raised and Mounted by the regulars to Keep a Separate Guard at their own Tent to Prevent Disorders &c."  The following day, Saturday the 4th, after sending "for Docter Rodion [de Rodohan] and Delivd him a Citation to the Inhabitants with a Strict Charge to See it Executed which he Promst Should be Faithfully Done," Winslow issued orders for all four of his companies, now back from their reconnaissance, as well as Lieutenant Mercer's regulars, to "be Drawn Up by way of Companys that their arms and amunition be Examind Into as also that an Inquiery be made of what Number of Powder Horns there be among the New England Troops."  He would take no chances with his men's firearms if something went awry the following afternoon.  Later in the day, while "the Inhabitants [were] Very Busy about their Harvest," a sixth deportation transport appeared in the Gaspereau--the 97-ton sloop Elizabeth, master Nathaniel Milbury, with orders from Apthorp & Hancock dated August 21.  (This was the same vessel that had left Chignecto for Boston on August 9 with discharged New Englanders from Winslow's battalion.)  That evening, Winslow received an encouraging note from Captain Murray--all was quiet at Pigiguit, he reported, the Acadians there still gathering up their final harvest.  "'I hope Tomorrow will Crown all our wishes,'" the captain mused.  But the seeming quiet among the inhabitants was deceptive.59

"[T]he announcement of the meeting had created a great deal of concern" among all of the inhabitants," John Mack Faragher relates.  "An assembly of all men of the community, including boys, was highly unusual."  And then yet another "apparently empty sloop had arrived at the landing.  Might the British actually be implementing the removal they had threatened for so many years?  A group of inhabitants, fearing impending arrest, took their concerns directly to Winslow's captains.  'We had the greatest assurance given us,' they later wrote, 'that there was no other design but to make us renew our former oath of fidelity.'"  One wonders what would have happened if the likes of Joseph LeBlanc dit Le Maigre was still living at Grand-Pré.  In early September 1755, Skinny, with his family, gone six long years now, was still languishing at Port-Toulouse on Île Royale.  One suspects that, with a few hard-nosed partisans like Skinny LeBlanc still around, Lawrence and Murray would not so easily have lured so many Acadians to those fateful meetings on September 5.  The Broussards and the Surrettes and many of their fellow partisans were still running around loose, menacing British soldiers, but they were operating on the other side of the Bay of Fundy, out of communication with their cousins at Minas and Annapolis.  And what of the priest at Grand-Pré, Father Chauvreulx.  Yes, he had been an accommodator, a champion of neutrality, but this may have been a clue that he had taken his role as pastor seriously.  He had served the people of Minas for six long years, and he had seen much more of the world than they had.  If he had been at Grand-Pré when Winslow's men appeared instead of in a prison shed on Georges Island, he likely would have warned his parishioners of anything amiss.  But this is speculation, not history.  What is certain is that in the five and a half years since the last fight at Grand-Pré, Cornwallis, Hopson, and now Lawrence had driven from the area anyone who could have posed even the slightest threat to British authority.60 

Still, as Faragher relates, "An unknown number of families fled in the days preceding the meeting."  They included Augustin LeBlanc, 31-year-old cousin of the accommodator, René LeBlanc, the aging notary.  After hearing Winslow's summons, Augustin hurried home and cried until his face was wet with tears.  He then resolved to do more than cry.  Carrying what they could, he and his wife, Françoise Hébert, "took to the woods with their two young sons," Jean, age 2, and Augustin, fils, an infant.  "But the families most inclined to leave had already done so," Faragher notes.  "Most of the Acadians who remained in September 1755 found the prospect of abandoning their homes and homeland almost unthinkable."  Many of the families in the region were in their fourth and fifth generations--Augustin, for example, was a great-grandson of his family's progenitor, Daniel LeBlanc, so young Jean and Abraham, fils were of the fifth generation.  Augustin, in fact, was the eighth child and third son of his parents, Pierre dit Pinou LeBlanc and Françoise Landry, who had 15 children in all, 14 of whom created families of their own!  By taking to the woods to escape the soldiers at Grand-Pré, they were putting behind them more than a home and their earthly possessions.  Behind them were parents, siblings, nieces and nephews and cousins by the score--the things that mattered most to these simple farmers.  (As it turned out, Abraham and Françoise did not get far away; they were later rounded up and deported to Massachusetts.)  On Thursday evening, while Winslow's New Englanders and Murray's redcoats waited behind their picket lines or the walls of Fort Edward, dozens of Acadians "clustered in small groups, anxiously debating what they should do."  More impromptu meetings followed on Friday morning, two of the largest held at midday at the homes of François Landry "in western Minas" and René LeBlanc, the notary, there in Grand-Pré.  "What else could they do, the elders counseled, but assemble as ordered?  The British often appeared harsh," Faragher has them saying, "but cooperation usually softened their demands."61

This time, however, neither clever words nor solid reasoning could have helped them escape the trap the New Englanders were about to spring on them.  On the morning of the 5th, while the Acadian men debated among themselves, Winslow made certain that as many of his New Englanders as possible had not only serviceable flintlocks and cartridge boxes laden with ammunition, but also powder horns filled with dry, fresh powder, "Twelve Balls to Each half Pound of Powder," he advised.  He then ordered them "to Lye upon their arms" for the rest of the day.  Even if the Acadians had possessed the temerity to bring out of hiding what few weapons they may have hidden from Murray's redcoats the previous spring, armed resistance would have done nothing more than send many of them into early graves.61a

Even if they could have, they did not resist.  "That afternoon," at the appointed time, Faragher continues, "418 men and boys found their way to the church of Saint-Charles-des-Mines and filed into the roughhewn pews; four generations of men, bearing the names of more than seventy extended families, three quarters of them from a handful of clans--Leblanc, Landry, Hébert, Boudreau, Granger, Aucoin, Dupuis, Richard, Thériault, Gautreau, Trahan, Daigre, Melanson."  The same solemn procession occurred at nearby Pigiguit, where men bearing many of the same family names appeared before the walls of Fort Edward.  "Waiting until the Acadians had filled the church," Faragher goes on, "Winslow entered with two of his captains, followed by the Flemish interpreter," Dr. de Rodohan.  "The doors were barred and troops surrounded the building.  'I ordered a table to be set in the center of the church,' he wrote in his journal entry, then 'delivered them by interpreter the King's orders.'"62 

"Gentlemen," the proclamation began," I have Received from his Excellency, Governor Lawrence, The King's Commission which I have in my hand and by whose orders you are Convened together to Manifest to you His Majesty's final resolution to the French Inhabitants of this his Province of Nova Scotia, who for almost half a Century have had more Indulgence Granted them, than any of his Subjects in any part of his Dominions."  Those who were amused by the final clause of this rambling sentence were wise enough to keep their feelings to themselves.  Nor could they have known that the genesis of this proclamation lay not with their King in London but rather with Lawrence and his Council in Halifax, who were acting in violation of royal intent--something of which Winslow himself likely was ignorant.  "What you have made of them, you your Self Best Know," the interpreter added, words that no doubt pricked the ears of many of the listeners, who dwelled at the heart of Acadian accommodation, and yet they were forced to endure such insulting words.  "The Part of Duty I am now upon is what, though Necessary, is very Disagreeable to my natural make and Temper, as I Know it Must be Grievous to you who are of the Same Species," the interpreter continued.  Some of the listeners knew Winslow and likely admired him, but had they known that these same words were emanating from the mouth of Captain Murray's interpreter, it would have been difficult for many of them to hold their tongues.  "But it is not my Business to animadvert," the interpreter went on, "but to obey Such orders as I receive.  And therefore, without Hesitation, I Shall Deliver you His Majesty's orders and Instructions."  Next came the words that would shatter their world, that would lead many of them to despair, if not to early graves:  "That your Lands and Tenements, Cattle of all Kinds, and Livestock of all Sorts are Forfeited to the Crown with all other (of) your Effects, Saving your money and Household Goods.  And that yourselves are to be removed from this his Province.  Thus it is Peremptorily His Majesty's orders that the whole French Inhabitants of these Districts, be removed, and I am Through his Majesty's Goodness Directed to allow you Liberty to Carry of your money and Household Goods as Many as you Can without Discommoding the Vessels you Go in."  Stunned, shocked, many brought to tears, one wonders how many of them paid close attention to the rest of Winslow's proclamation:  "I shall do Everything in my Power that all Those Goods be Secured to you," the interpreter droned on, "and that you are Not Molested in Carrying them off, and also that whole Families Shall go in the Same Vessel, and make this remove, which I am Sensible must give you a great Deal of Trouble, as Easy as His Majesty's Service will admit, and hope that in what Ever part of the world you may Fall you may be Faithful Subjects, a Peaceable and happy People.  I must also inform you That it is His Majesty's Pleasure that you remain in Security under the Inspection and Direction of the Troops I have the Honor to Command." 

And then Winslow "Declared them the King's Prisoners."63 

Again, John Mack Faragher says it best:  "These words, translated into French, came as a profound shock to the assembled men and boys.  Winslow recorded only that they were 'greatly struck.'  There is no other evidence of their reaction, no Acadian recollections, no family stories transcribed by genealogists or antiquarians.  It is as if they had been struck dumb, and that may be close to the truth.  It was impossible for most of them to accept what they heard.  Years later, old Acadians who suffered through the expulsion told Reverend Brown of Halifax that 'to the last hour of their confinement, they refused to believe that the government would dare to execute their threatened purpose.'"  Yet there they remained, their beloved church now "their prison while they awaited the arrival of sufficient transports for their deportation."64

After the doors of St.-Charles-des-Mines were locked shut, Winslow and his officers returned to their other duties.  Mindful of the nature of soldiers and sailors, as well as vengeful inhabitants, Winslow issued the following dictum:  "All officers and Soldiers and Sea Men Employed in his Majesty's Service as well as his Subjects of what Denomination Soever, are hereby Notifyed That all Cattle vizt. Horsses, Horne Cattle, Sheep, goats, Hoggs and Poultrey of Every Kinde, that was this Day Soposed to be Vested in the French Inhabitants of this Province are become Forfitted to his Majesty whose Property they now are and Every Person of what Denomination Soever is to take Care not to Hurt Kill or Destroy anything of any Kinde nor to Rob Orchards or Gardens or to make waste of anything Dead or alive in these Districts without Special order."  He ordered his proclamation to be published not only in the camps, but also in all of the villages under his jurisdiction.65 

Winslow could not have been surprised by the Acadian response to their incarceration.  Three weeks earlier, while Winslow was still there, it had taken 24 hours for the 400 Acadians at Chignecto to petition Lieutenant-Colonel Monckton; at Grand-Pré, a response came probably soon after Winslow had returned to his quarters.  The elders locked inside the church, including François Landry and René LeBlanc, chose a delegation to meet with Winslow in person.  Probably expecting the request, he agreed to it.  They expressed to him their "Great Greif ... that they had incurd his Majty's Displeasure."  (One wonders what their reaction would have been had they been aware of the true nature of the King's feelings towards them, men he had called his "useful Subjects.")  What worried them most, of course, was the effect of their incarceration on their wives and children.  They begged the lieutenant colonel to allow them to return to their homes so that they could calm the fears of their families.  Some of them, they informed him, had agreed to "be returned as Hostages for the appearance of the rest," who they would try to bring in to report to the commander.  "Winslow got the impression," Faragher tells us, "that none of them believed they would actually be removed."  A hostage scheme as they proposed, Winslow understood, would be unworkable in the grand scheme of things--his orders, not to mention the success of the deportation plan, called for the enforced detention of the men and boys until it was time to reunite them with their women and children as they boarded the deportation transports.  He intended for them--the men, women, and children--to feel anxious, vulnerable, continually confused.  Nevertheless, he reassured the elders that their women and children would be protected.  He promised to "Consider of their Motion" and then dismissed them to return to their impromptu "prison."   As soon as they had gone, he convened a council of his officers and reviewed what the Acadian elders had proposed.  His officers agreed that a modification of the hostage scheme could be helpful:  10 of the men from Grand-Pré and 10 from aux-Canards and Habitants would be allowed to visit the families in their villages that evening and then return with "an Exact Account of their absent Bretheren & their Circumstances on the Morrow."  Moreover, during their visit, the 20 representatives would inform all of the women in their communities that they would be "responsible for feeding and clothing the prisoners, just as they were provisioning the troops."  This would encourage the women to look after the "King's" animals as well as "his" recently-harvested crops until the New Englanders could secure them.66 

Winslow issued orders to double the camp guards and to march 12-man patrols accompanied by a sergeant around the church continuously.  A courier soon arrived from Fort Edward:  "I have Succeeded Finely," Captain Murray chortled in his dispatch, "and have Got 183 Men into my Possession.  I Belive there are but Very feu Left Excepting ye Sick I am hopefull you have had Equal Good Luck."  He asked for transports to be sent to him as soon as possible "for you Know our Forte is but smal," he reminded Winslow, so the vessels could serve as floating prisons.  He also asked for another officer and 30 more men "as I Shall be Obliged to Send to Some Distant Rivers where they are not all Come yet."  Murray added that "I have Sent Pierre Leblanc's Son to you to Go with his Father as you have Taken him under your Protection"--an interesting way of putting it.  Murray had originally estimated that he would require at least 360 "tun Shipping" to send the Pigiguit Acadians into oblivion, but after consulting with Captain Davis of the Neptune, which evidently had been sent to him, "I belive 400 Tuns will be Better."67 

Winslow answered Murray promptly:  "I have the Favor of yours of this Day," he wrote, "and Rejoyce at your Success and also for the Smiles that has attended ye Party hear.  The Number of Men I have now in Custody I Cant think Falls Much Shorte of 500 Men."  He mentioned the scheme of the 20 representatives and intimated that he had attempted to "take the List" of the men and boys he had lured into the church, "but Night put me off."  But something else was putting him off.  Murray was not the only one in need of reinforcements.  Since Sunday the 31st, Captain Handfield at Annapolis had been beseeching him for more men as well.  But here he was, with 400, perhaps a many as 500, men and boys in a simple church, twice the number of prisoners to guard as the size of his entire command.  Not nearly enough transports had arrived to take these prisoners and their families away, nor had his whaleboat returned, again, from Chignecto with more ammunition and supplies for his men.  And where was Mr. Saul and the victuals for the deportation transports?  Winslow had no idea how many more men in the Minas area had yet to be rounded up.  Even if, upon their return in the morning, the 20 representatives released to their villages gave him an accurate count of who was missing, he would have to "Send partys to the remotest parts of these Districts" to bring them in, willingly or otherwise, and this would weaken the size of his guard at the church even further.  "Things are Now Very heavy on my harte and hands," he intimated to Murray in his rambling reply.  Before sealing the letter and handing it to Murray's courier, he admitted that "the out Commands if not willing to Submit Must be Let alone till a Further Day."  This included the hamlets at Cobeguit, at the northwestern end of the basin.68  

But the lieutenant-colonel's day was not yet over.  He issued orders allowing the prisoners "to repair to their Quarters in the church att Tattoo, and in the Day time not to Exstend their walks to the Eastward of the Commandants Quarters without leave from the officer of the Guard."  While the Acadians were taking their exercise, he added, "one half of the Guard Take Shelter under my Markee."  Learning that the prisoners had not yet received their dinner and were begging "for Bread," he ordered rations to be distributed to them but reminded them "that for the Future they be Supplyd from their respective Familys."  This would mean, of course, a constant coming and going of women and children, but the disturbance could not be helped--there was not enough food in his stores of supply to feed both the prisoners and the men of his command.  "Thus Ended the Memerable fifth of September," he confided to his Journal, "a Day of Great Fatigue & Troble."69 

The men and boys sleeping in the church that night certainly would have agreed.

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The round up of the Acadians in the Annapolis valley was not going so well.  Once the heart and soul of French Acadia, the valley now supported a population a little more than half that of Chignecto and the trois-rivières and less than half of the population of Minas and Pigiguit.  Nevertheless, geographer Andrew Hill Clark places 1,750 inhabitants in the Annapolis River valley at mid-century.  Fort Anne still stood at Annapolis Royal, at the lower end of the valley, but, especially after the British conquest in 1710, the population had shifted more and more away from the so-called banlieu and up into what the Acadians called the haute rivière.69a

The trouble started at the end of August, before Major John Handfield and his hundred or so redcoats at Fort Anne could round up the valley's men and boys.  A transport from Boston, sitting high in the water, slipped through the Gut and into the lower Annapolis basin and anchored near the walls of Fort Anne.  Evidently Acadians in the banlieu had become aware of the Chignecto roundup during the second week of August and the arrival of a large force of Yankees at Minas the following week.  Meanwhile, over a dozen lightly-laden merchant vessels had sailed up the bay towards Chignecto and Minas, and the Acadians at Annapolis had made note of it.  And here was a transport of similar description making its way past Goat Island.71 

The Acadians at Annapolis panicked.  According to John Mack Faragher, "all of the men of the banlieu fled, leaving their wives and children to bring in the harvest."  The panic spread upriver.  Major Handfield, evidently taken by surprise, reacted as swiftly as he could.  He sent a party of men to the haute rivière "to bring in About 100 of the Heads of Families and young Men," but his redcoats, under Ensign Middleton, "Found the Villages up the River Destitute of all the Male heads of Families who are retiered into the woods having Taken their beding &c with them."  On August 31, Handfield hurried a dispatch to Winslow at Minas, asking him to "Send me reinforcement of Men So Soon as you Can Posably Spare them that May Enable me to Bring them to reason."  Winslow's instructions from Lawrence had ordered him to "send a strong Detachment to Annapolis Royal to assist Major Handfield in shipping off those of that River."  On the way to Annapolis, Lawrence had added, Winslow's detachment was to pick up "all the stragglers that may be met with by the way" and carry them on to Annapolis, where they would be "shipped with the rest."  But was Winslow obligated to reinforce Handfield before he staged his own roundup at Minas?  Handfield fired off another dispatch on September 1, beseeching Winslow for more men, but the Yankee lieutenant- colonel had none to spare.  His own roundup had been put off until September 5; his patrols, reporting from every corner of the Minas district, were counting hundreds of men and boys he would have to subdue with a force of barely over 300; so Handfield would have to wait for his reinforcements.72 

Another circumstance, beyond the geography of the place, complicated the roundup at Annapolis.  Fort Anne's commander, Major John Handfield of the 40th Regiment of Foot, had come to Nova Scotia as an ensign in Philipps's regiment in February 1719.  Unusual among officers in the regular British army, he spent his entire military career in one place.  As a lieutenant and then a captain, he served on Armstrong's and Mascarene's colonial Councils from the mid-1730s to the late 1740s.  He helped defend Fort Anne during King George's War, when a number of attacks and sieges threatened the fort but never succeeded in capturing it.  He was commanding at Vieux Logis on the Gaspereau at Minas when a large party of Mi'kmaq, aided by local Acadian hotheads, attacked the new fortification in November 1749, early in Le Loutre's petite guerre.  Several of Handfield's redcoats were killed in the surprise attack and 18 were captured, including his son John, Jr.  Handfield resumed command at Fort Anne in the early 1750s and was promoted major of the 40th Regiment in October 1754.  No Briton at Annapolis Royal had lived longer in the community or was better known there than the redcoat major, in more ways than one.  A decade after coming to Nova Scotia, Handfield, recently promoted to lieutenant, married Élisabeth, teenage daughter of former New Hampshire militia officer William Winniett, a Huguenot merchant at Annapolis Royal and also a member of the colonial Council; few stood as high in the colony's British community than did "Guillaume" Winniett before his death in the early 1740s.  Élisabeth Winniett's mother, Marie-Madeleine, was a daughter of French privateer Pierre Maissonet dit Baptiste and his Acadian wife, Madeleine Bourg.  Madeleine's father, François, had been the eldest son of the family's progenitor, Antoine Bourg, who had come to Acadia in the 1630s.  Few families were more connected throughout the colony than the descendants of Antoine Bourg.  Moreover, François Bourg's wife had been Marguerite, daughter of Michel Boudrot, another early arrival and French Acadia's first lieutenant général civil et criminal, or colonial judge.  Handfield's wife also was a descendant of Acadian pioneer Daniel LeBlanc and was related by marriage to the Robichauds.  Handfield was so well situated in the community that he built "at a Considerable Charge for the Convieniency of his ffamily ...'" "a fine house in the English faubourg of Annapolis Royal, where he and his wife raised a family of seven children."  Their daughter married Lieutenant John Hamilton of the 40th Foot, and all six of the Handfield sons served as army officers (son John, Jr. was a lieutenant in the regular forces when he was captured at Vieux Logis).  So Lawrence's deportation instructions, which reached Fort Anne in mid-August, could only have complicated the major's life; he would know many of "his victims personally."70

Evidently Handfield's family connections with the Acadians of the valley redounded in his favor.  He deceived them unashamedly and got away with it.  On September 4, Handfield sent a letter to Winslow by his son, Lieutenant John Handfield, Jr., with the notation that the young Handfield would share with Winslow the details of his father's success.  Somehow the redcoat major lured "The whole of the French Inhabitants on the River of Annapolis Royal [to] return to their Duty and Houses and Promised to Submit to the Kings Orders," as Winslow put it--an amazing feat.  John Mack Faragher admits that how Handfield "accomplished this is not known.  Lawrence had ordered that in the face of the slightest resistance the commanders were to proceed against the Acadians by 'the most vigorous measures possible... burning their houses and destroying everything" if necessary.  Monckton was employing those very tactics in attempting to subdue the inhabitants of the trois-rivières.  Winslow and Murray were prepared to wield the torch as well, but, so far, such measures were unnecessary at Minas and Pigiguit.  "Handfield at Annapolis," Faragher explains, "seems to have used milder forms of persuasion.  Inhabitants who fled Annapolis and eventually found their way to refugee camps on the North Shore reported that Handfield assured the inhabitants their removal was to be temporary and that they would be allowed to return to their farms at the conclusion of the war.  In exchange for their promise to surrender voluntarily when the vessels arrived, he offered others the choice of being transported to 'whichever of the colonies they pleased.'"  Nothing in Lawrence's instructions had promised any such thing, but that may be the point:  Handfield may have been thinking about what the governor's instructions did say to him when he lied so boldly to his neighbors and kin.  In a letter of reply dated September 7, Winslow thanked Handfield for the intelligence he had received via the major's son and apologized for not having been able to send reinforcements to Annapolis during Handfield's moment of tribulation.  "Have but 287 Privates with me & 423 French men in camp," Winslow explained, and then he insured the major that "My Best Compliments waits your Lady, Family & Frinds."73 

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Lieutenant-Colonel Monckton's August 10 roundup of the Chignecto men and boys was a qualified success, and other triumphs soon followed.  Monckton kept his Yankees busy not only bringing in more men and boys from the surrounding settlements, but also rounding up the women and children and "torching the hamlets of Au Lac, Tantramar, and Baie-Verte, north of Fort Cumberland."  Lawrence had authorized such methods to drive reluctant habitants into the arms of the British forces, so this redcoat commander, unlike his connected colleague in the Annapolis valley, felt no compunction in employing what one historian calls "a campaign of terror."  Despite strict orders against it, Monckton's Yankees plundered Acadian homes before torching them, killed and ate "the King's" livestock, and treated the inhabitants with great brutality before escorting them to concentration areas set up near the walls of forts Cumberland and Lawrence.  An example of New English depredation in the area is related by historian John Mack Faragher:  "At the village of Minudie[sic], located at the water's end on Beaubassin channel" of today's Cumberland Basin, "a company of New Englanders surrounded the houses of sleeping Acadians in the hours before dawn.  Roused at first light by a volley of musket fire, the inhabitants rushed from their homes.  Finding their escape by land cut off, many plunged into the channel and attempted to swim against the surging tide to the other shore, two miles away.  The troops made targets of the struggling people.  'See how I made his forked end turn up!' one Yankee shouted to another.  The brutality at Minudie," Faragher reminds us, "was intended as a lesson to other refugees."80

Moncton's campaign of terror was not confined to the Chignecto area.  To close off an avenue of escape from the Chignecto isthmus, as well as from the interior of the peninsula, Monckton sent a force of 100 New Englanders under Captain Abijah Willard to round up the Acadians at Tatamagouche, on the Mer Rouge shore east of Baie-Verte.  The New Englanders traveled not by water but by land, traversing rugged uplands and tide-churned marshes to get to the coastal village.  When Willard and his exhausted Yankees finally reached the port, the unsuspecting inhabitants welcomed them, but their greeting was instantly rebuffed.  "Willard ordered the dozen male heads of household herded together while his troops searched their homes for weapons," John Mack Faragher relates.  "After confiscating a few muskets, Willard announced his mission:  The men were to be conducted to Fort Cumberland to await deportation from the province, and their village was to be destroyed."  The Acadians were understandably shocked.  An elder stepped forward and demanded to know what they had done to deserve such treatment.  They reminded the captain of the oath they taken under Governor Philipps a quarter of a century before, which prevented them from taking up arms against anyone, especially the British.  They had never violated their oath, the elder insisted.  "His fellow Acadians shouted their agreement," Faragher goes on, "but Willard cut them off.  It is too late for that, he told them.  By order of the government they were declared rebels."  The elder asked if they might take their families to Île St.-Jean to live among their relations there.  "That he could not permit, Willard replied."  He was there, he could have told him, to prevent that very thing!  He informed them that "his orders instructed him to arrest the men only, and he would allow them to choose whether the women and children should accompany them to Fort Cumberland or remain behind."  Recalling the difficulty of the march getting there, Willard would have much preferred to return without added encumbrance.  "After deliberating," Faragher tells us," the Acadians decided the men would go alone."  Here was another instance of the Acadians' inability even to imagine the possibility of forced deportation.  By allowing their women and children to remain, they certainly believed that their incarceration would be a temporary inconvenience.  "On Willard's order the village was torched and the men marched off, leaving the women and children 'to take care of themselves.'  There was 'great lamentation,'" Willard recorded. "'I confess,'" he mused later, "'it seemed to be sumthing shocking.'"77 

Despite success along the Missaguash and at Tatamagouche, Monckton's round up of the Chignecto Acadians began to unravel.  A few weeks into the operation, he complained to Lieutenant-Colonel Winslow at Minas that the operation west of the Missaguash was progressing slower than expected, "it being Very Difficult to Collect the women and children."  And an even more troubling circumstance, not faced by Winslow and the others herding Acadians at Minas and Annapolis, had the potential not only to slow the Chignecto operation, but to bring it to a crashing halt:  French and Acadian armed resistance from the direction of the trois-rivières Monckton, who had commanded at Fort Lawrence for nearly a year after August 1752, had long been familiar with that hotbed of Acadian resistance.  He knew their homesteads had escaped the torch two years earlier and that hundreds of Acadians were living in the three settlements--Chepoudy, Memramcook, and Petitcoudiac--when he first came to the area.  (One reliable estimate places 1,200 Acadians in the trois-rivières area by mid-century.)  Here lived dozens, if not hundreds, of Acadian partisans, including the notorious Beausoleil Broussards of the upper Petitcoudiac, the same devils who, with Le Loutre's Mi'kmaq, had terrorized the Halifax settlements during the recent petit guerre.  They had served Vergor with chilling efficiency during Monckton's siege of Beauséjour, and most of them had gotten clean away.  Within days of the fort's surrender, Joseph dit Beausoleil himself appeared, seeking the same amnesty Monckton had offered the other Acadians in the region.  Monckton saw no choice but to grant it to him as well, especially when Broussard offered to use his influence with the local Indians.  Monckton could see now that this may have been a mistake.  He was certain he would face Broussard and his partisans again.76 

Monckton had good reason to be wary of Broussard and the trois-rivières partisans; he had recognized precious few of them among the 400 men and boys who fell into his trap at Fort Cumberland.  His biggest concern, however, was a Canadian officer only a year younger than himself whose combat, if not his command, experience was nearly as impressive as his own.  Driven upriver by Rous's attack on the lower St.-Jean not long after the fall of Beauséjour, Lieutenant Charles des Champs de Boishébert organized his troupes de la marine and the local Acadians for the continuation of an offensive that did not come.  Rous's failure to pursue Boishébert up to the Acadian settlements left the Canadian with a tactical force still intact.  Most troubling for Monckton and his redcoats, Boishébert still possessed operational flexibility.  His force could be augmented by local Acadian militia as well as Indian allies, whose pact with Rous lasted only as long as the British remained on the river.  Boishébert could not have known that the Nova Scotia Council on July 15, looking to the colony's bottom line, had decided not to send Rous back to the St. John River. 

Nevertheless, Boishébert's strategic options were severely constricted.  The closest French force to him, at Port-La-Joye on Île St.-Jean, likely was insubstantial.  The British blockade of Louisbourg precluded reinforcements from that quarter; he need only recall the fate of the French schooner Marguerite, sent to him from Louisbourg "laden with provisions, guns, and other military stores," at the hands of Boscawen's warships back in April.  Reinforcements from Québec via the St.-Jean portage were not forthcoming.  The previous governor-general, Ange Duquesne de Menneville, had been instructed by the Minister of Marine to "do nothing in Acadia and around Lake Champlain," so he had concentrated his efforts in the Ohio valley and along the southwest Canadian frontier.  Before his efforts could come to fruition, however, Duquesne was recalled to France.  When Beauséjour fell, the ousted governor-general blamed the mishap on Abbé Le Loutre, who Duquesne and his predecessors had relied upon to win back Acadia for France.  Duquesne's successor, Pierre-François de Rigaud, marquis de Vaudreuil de Cavagnial, a native of Québec, was the former governor of Louisiana.  Replaced at New Orleans in early 1753 by Louis Billouart de Karvaségan, chevalier de Kerlérec, Vaudreuil was back in France when he was elevated to the governor-generalship, a cherished post his father had held half a century earlier.  Vaudreuil reached Québec on June 23, a week after Vergor surrendered Beauséjour.  With him were most of the Baron de Dieskau's 3,000 troupes de terre, who had been hurried to New France to counter Braddock's grand offensive.  With Braddock's force creeping towards Fort Duquesne and British forces maneuvering in upper New York and on the south shore of Lake Ontario, Vaudreuil was forced to deal with the Canadian frontier; none of the baron's regulars would be going to the Bay of Fundy.  Québec, as it had been doing for decades, would continue to neglect the Acadian venture; how else could one describe placing the fate of Acadia in the hands of a fanatical priest?  Louisbourg, which Québec could not ignore, though reinforced by a portion of Dieskau's force, had been neutralized by the British blockade.  Moreover, two of the six vessels carrying the regulars there had been nabbed off the coast of Cape Breton Island by one of Boscawen's flotillas.  For all intents and purposes, then, the eastern and southern borders of New France stood outside of Québec's strategic vision.  Boishébert, like Kerlérec in Louisiana, realized he had been left alone at the fringes of empire to face a superior enemy.  Like Kerlérec, he had no choice but to make the most of what little he possessed.78 

Boishébert's first goal was to prevent the deportation of the Acadians, or at least limit the number of them being taken away.  There was little or nothing he could do for the Acadians along the Missaguash--their hamlets lay too close to the captured Beauséjour and its garrison of British and New English troops.  But he could save the Acadians of the trois-rivières from further depredation.  Responding to an appeal from the Acadians at Chepoudy, Boishébert left a token force on Rivière St.-Jean and hurried via Rivière Kennebecasis and the upper Petitcoudiac to Chepoudy, but he arrived too late to save the villages there.  On August 28, a force of nearly 200 New Englanders from Monckton's garrison at Fort Cumberland, one company 90 strong under Captain Thomas Speakman of Winslow's first battalion, and a second company of 94 officers and men under Captain William Britnall of Scott's second battalion, commanded by Major Joseph Frye of the second battalion, had boarded two vessels, Silvanus Cobb's 80-ton sloop HMS York and Abraham Adams's schooner of war HMS Halifax, at the Missaguash landing.  Monckton's orders to Frye were clear:  roundup as many Acadians at Chepoudy and Petitcoudiac as they could manage and then destroy every house and barn there so that any Acadian refugees still remaining in the area had nothing to return to, taking care to keep his companies together in case of armed resistance.  Frye's force sailed down Cumberland Basin, rounded Cap-Maringouin, crossed the mouth of Chepoudy Bay, and struck the hamlets at Chepoudy and "the settlements beyond."  By one account, Frye's roundup of Acadians there was disappointing--only 23 women and children--but the destruction was impressive--181 houses and barns--with no armed resistance to speak of.  Frye then resumed the operation by sailing north into Baie de Chepoudy to the mouth of Rivière Petitcoudiac.  Boishébert, seeing that he could do nothing at Chepoudy, returned to the upper Petitcoudiac, where he hoped to strike the marauders somewhere along that river.  What he found there must have torn at his heart:  hundreds of Acadians, many of them women and children without husbands and fathers, begging to be rescued from the Yankee raiders, who seemed to be striking all around them.  Boishébert learned that more Acadians had fled into the woods west of the Chignecto settlements or to nearby Memramcook.  He hooked up with the local partisans, including the Broussards from upper Petitcoudiac, and cobbled together a force, including local Indians, with which he hoped to inflict damage on the marauding New Englanders.79 

Their opportunity came along a stretch of the upper Petitcoudiac less than a week after the Yankees destroyed Chepoudy.  Cobb and Adams ferried Frye's Yankees two dozen miles up the Petitcoudiac.  The ships accompanied the slowly moving columns up past the confluence with the Memramcook, which lay on the west side of the Petitcoudiac, taking advantage of the swiftly rising tide.  The Acadians still in the area fled before the Yankee marauders, some attempting to drive their livestock, others simply fleeing.  While the ships' helmsmen fought the treacherous currents, Frye's Yankees devoted two days pillaging and burning as many hamlets as they could get to along both banks of the river--253 houses and barns destroyed when the final count was made.  On the afternoon of the 3rd, about 1 o'clock, ignoring Monckton's dictum not to allow his units to become separated, 70 of Frye's men, 60 under Lieutenant John Indicott, and 10 under Lieutenant-Surgeon Jacob March, descended on two hamlets on the west bank of the river near present-day Hillsborough, New Brunswick.  Indicott's and Billings's men marched to the lower hamlet, Village-des-Bertrands, and torched the houses and barns there.  At Village-des-Blanchards, less than a mile upriver, a "Mass house" or chapel stood among the dwellings on higher ground above the dyked-in fields and marshes.  Filled with Puritan fervor, and eager to fulfill their mission, Surgeon March hurried his men up to the chapel to put it to the torch.  Soon Indicott's detachment arrived to help the smaller force destroy the buildings at Blanchards.  "But before they Could Get the Mass House on Fire," a witness recalled, "they were besett by a Party of above 300 French and Indians," striking from ambush.  Boishébert and his party likely numbered far less than that, but the element of surprise more than made up for what they may have lacked in numbers.  Surgeon March, a Lieutenant Billings, and several of the men fell before the first ragged volley.  Boishébert and his men then rushed from the nearby woods, "screaming their war cries and firing their muskets" as they ran.  The Yankees fled across hundreds of yards of open ground, more of them falling as they ran for their lives.  Reaching the dyked-in areas, some of them sought what shelter they could find in the drainage ditches crisscrossing the freshly-mown fields, but most of them hurried on to the sturdy dykes, which offered better protection from enemy fire and from which they could return fire of their own.  Major Frye was still aboard one of the transports, which the ebbing tide, with its powerful current, had carried downriver for nearly a mile.  He unloaded a small detachment of reinforcements at Bertrands and ordered the transports to hurry back upriver however the sailors could manage it.  The firing at Blanchards lasted for several hours, Frye's Yankees doing what they could from their disadvantageous position, while Boishébert and his men maintained the high ground, from which they could inflict more casualties on the cowering Yankees below.  The transports, cannons loaded and ready to fire, finally worked their way back up to Blanchards and took aboard the shaken New Englanders.  "As the sloops headed back downriver," John Mack Faragher relates, "the Acadians stood on the dike gesturing rudely, their 'flag of defiance flying.'"81 

On the way back to Chignecto, Major Frye and his officers tallied their losses.  Their numbers, taken from unit rolls, would have been accurate enough, but, having abandoned the battlefield in such haste, the nature of their casualities was more difficult to determine.  The total reported was 44.  Confirmed dead were Surgeon March, whose body likely remained on the field; and Private William Hutson of Captain Willard's Company, who perhaps had helped molest the Acadians at Tatamagouche a few weeks earlier.  Lieutenant Billings was, according to his captain, shot through the body and through the arm and likely remained on the field; one wonders if his wounds were mortal.  Six other New Englanders were confirmed wounded; they evidently had not remained on the field.  Some historians insist that ranger Captain John Gorham was one of the wounded.  Most troubling of all, 22 of Frye's men were reported missing--either hit by enemy fire during the retreat to the dykes and left where they fell, or rounded up as prisoners of war by Boishébert's men.  Boishébert reported only three of his men wounded, so his victory was complete.82

After the Yankees had gone, Boishébert gathered together the women and children emerging from the woods up and down the river and sent them down into the fields to help the men complete the harvest.  Herding together the animals the Yankees had not killed, the habitants stockpiled provisions for the coming winter.  Knowing that Monckton likely would strike in the area again, Boishébert guided the inhabitants to the relative safety of the upper villages.  On September 12, to lessen the burden on the local food supplies, he returned to Rivière St.-Jean with 30 rescued families, perhaps intending to send them on to Canada.  If so, an order from Vaudreuil would have stopped him short.  The governor-general "directed that Boishébert and the Acadians remain in place and forbade them to come to Quebec.  Vaudreuil wanted to concentrate as many Indians and Acadians as possible on the eastern front to harass and keep the British off guard.  He also was concerned that if the Nova Scotia Acadians fled, the Acadians on Île Royale and Île Saint-Jean also would lose heart and give the Anglo-Americans those places without a fight."  The 30 families from the trois-rivières may have been the Acadian refugees Boishébert allowed to settle on Rivière St.-Jean at Grimross, below and on the opposite bank from Jemseg near present-day Gagetown, New Brunswick.84

Boishébert's attack on the Petitcoudiac was more than a tactical victory; it also affected the region's strategic posture, both French and British.  "The stinging defeat on the Petitcodiac, wrote abbé Le Guerne," the priest at Chignecto, "'made the English tremble more than all the cannons of Beauséjour.'"  After the fight on the Petitcoudiac, Major Frye, whose orders likely called for the destruction of Memramcook, took stock of his ammunition, his supplies, and the condition of his men and hurried back to the safety of Fort Beauséjour.  On September 5, soon after Frye's return, Lieutenant-Colonel Monckton called in his patrols and prepared for an attack that did not come.  Not until mid-November, a month after the deportation ships departed Chignecto, would Monckton send another large force to the trois-rivières.  Meanwhile, on September 7, the news of Frye's defeat reached Winslow at Minas and threw him and his New Englanders into a momentary panic.83 

Despite the setback on the Petitcoudiac, Monckton's operation was progressing as planned.  By August 24, Major Jedediah Preble of the Massachusetts regiment, still stationed at Chignecto, could inform his superior, Lieutenant-Colonel Winslow at Minas:  "Capt Proby & Eight Transportes arived Last wednesday 20th, Capt Taggett[sic] arived this Morng and a Sloop from New yorke with Provissions for the Troops."  The major was referring to Captain Charles Proby, commander of the HMS Syren, a 30-ton sloop of war, and Captain John Taggart commander of the HMS Halifax, an armed snow.  The eight transports at Chignecto likely included the schooner Jolly Phillip, master Jonathan Waite; the ship Prince Frederick, master William Trattles; the schooner Boscawen, master David Bigham; the ship Union, master Jonathan Carthorne; the sloop Dolphin, master William Hancock; the ship Edward Cornwallis, master Andrew Sinclair; the sloop Endeavor, master James Nichols; and the brig Two Brothers, master James Best--most, if not all, of them, hired from the Boston firm of Apthorp and Hancock.  Here were enough vessels for giving Monckton "the means to deport upward of three thousand persons" to the most distant British Atlantic colonies.  On September 10, Monckton relieved the overcrowding at Fort Cumberland by moving 50 of the Acadian prisoners to one of the transports--"the first embarkations for the deportation," one historian describes it.  Lawrence, by then, was complaining about the delays in embarkation.  Even at Chignecto, a full month after securing the men, the rounding up of the wives, children, and old folks and the concentration of families outside the walls of his forts was frustratingly incomplete.  Lawrence scoffed at such sentimentality and ordered Monckton to hurry the plan along, suggesting that he "go ahead with the deportation of the men already in his custody.  'I would have you not wait for the wives and children coming in, but ship off the men without them,'" he urged.  But not even the ambitious young British professional was that cold-hearted.  On September 11, Monckton sent to the transports 160 of the married men from Fort Cumberland whose families evidently had fled the region, but he would go no farther than that.  More men followed on September 13, and now most of them were being held aboard the transports.75 

With Frye's defeat still fresh on his mind, but largely unburdened by sentimentality, Monckton resumed his campaign of terror, which, he believed, was the only way to complete the chaotic roundup.  On September 15, he sent out another raiding party, this one consisting of 300 New Englanders from Scott's second Massachusetts battalion under majors Jedediah Preble and Benjamin Goldthwait.  Their destination, Baie-Verte and Aulac, where they would round up what Acadians might still be there and destroy what was left standing in those communities.  What could have been done by a mere company a few weeks before now "required" an entire battalion.  Baie-Verte, with its 200 buildings, was destroyed on the 16th.  What was left at Aulac--190 buildings--was burned on the 17th, and the following day, despite a heavy storm that struck the area, they torched what the Acadians had rebuilt at Pont-à-Bout and Butte-à-Roger on the Missaguash--70 more buildings.  Back at Fort Cumberland on the 18th, Preble's and Goldthwait's New Englanders, despite the entreaties of their commanders to grant them shelter inside the walls of the fort, had to suffer the humiliation of remaining in their tents "a Floate and many Blown Down" by a fierce storm that struck the area that evening.85 

The New Englanders did not encounter Boishébert and his troupes de la marine during their three-day operation, but they likely were dogged by Acadian partisans, who were organizing an insurgency from the trois-rivières.  Canadian historian Dianne Marshall paints a romanticized picture of the burgeoning resistance:  "In the weeks that followed [the fight on the Petitcoudiac] they [the Broussards] banded together with their Native allies to defend Acadians across the region and to send a clear message to both Frye and Monckton that their assaults on innocents would not be tolerated.  The Surrettes from Missaguash Creek and hundreds of their followers were quick to join in the anti-British offensive being organized out of Village-des-Beausoleils.  Soon hundreds of resistance fighters were spreading out over the region, attacking and killing as many English soldiers as possible, sometimes to help their prisoners to escape, at other times just because they could.  From the cover of trees along the riverbank, small boats launched bloody assaults on passing English boats.  Others watched over the gates of the forts, waiting for soldiers and rangers to step outside and into their clutches."85a 

Monckton's response was predictable:  he sent out the rangers.  Marshall's narrative continues:  "The countless clashes that followed resulted in many deaths and serious injuries on both sides, but in the end dozens of resistance fighters were caught by the rangers and tossed into the prison at Fort Cumberland--among them" Joseph and Alexandre Broussard dit Beausoleil, ages 53 and 56, respectively, and at least one of Alexandre's older, married sons, Victor-Grégoire, age 27--a major coup for Monckton and his officers.  To relieve overcrowding at Fort Cumberland and to keep the dangerous brothers apart, Joseph and other insurgents were transferred under heavy guard to the dungeon at Fort Lawrence.  Victor remained with his father Alexandre at Fort Cumberland.86

.

A few days after the September 5 roundup at Grand-Pré and Fort Edward, the transport Leopard, an 87-ton schooner, master Thomas Church, arrived at Minas with orders from Apthorp and Hancock dated August 28.  Seven transports now rode at anchor in the lower Gaspereau.  On September 7, Winslow received a welcome dispatch from Monckton, addressed to him from Chignecto on September 2.  The redcoat commander promised to send to him via the HMS Warren a reinforcement from the four companies of his Massachusetts battalion.  Monckton also would send powder, ball, cartridge papers, flints, and molasses.  He had no other provisions to spare, but he promised to alert Lieutenant-Governor Lawrence of the supply needs for Minas.  In a moment of candor, Monckton complained of the slowness of the roundup at Chignecto, "it being Very Difficult to Collect the women and children."  He passed on the news from Lieutenant-Governor Phipps that the discharged men from the Massachusetts regiment had reached Boston safely, but he had no news from Governor Shirley or "Mr. Johnston," still maneuvering against the French in upper New York.74a 

Monckton's dispatch also contained an alarming note.  In the margin of his letter, written on September 4 after the news had just been received, Monckton noted that Major Joseph Frye, with a force of New Englanders, during an operation against the Acadians in the trois-rivières area, was attacked on the Petitcoudiac by an overwhelming French force.  Surgeon-Lieutenant March of the second battalion had been killed in the skirmish, Ensign Billings of Winslow's battalion grievously if not mortally wounded, "and about 22 Men kild & Missing"--a disaster for Governor Shirley's Massachusetts Regiment.  Winslow soon received letters from fellow New Englanders Major Jedediah Preble and Captain Thomas Speakman, who provided more details about the mishap on the Petitcoudiac.  The news threw Winslow and his officers into a momentary panic--they had no idea how many Minas Acadians were still at large; or if they were armed; or if, like their cousins on the trois-rivières, they were organizing into partisan bands; or if French forces had crossed the Bay of Fundy to join them in an attack against Winslow's pickets.  When Major Handfield at Annapolis asked for reinforcements, Winslow informed him that he had none to spare.74 

No partisan attack struck Winslow's picket lines, but he nonetheless maintained tight security around Grand-Pré church.  His ad hoc response to the Grand-Pré elders had created a workable routine that allowed him to sustain his hundreds of captives within the church without undue expense to His Majesty's service.  He now "Permitted the Millers to attend their usual Duty and 10 of the river Cannard &c & Ten of Grand Pre at a Time to Provide for the rest."  He also employed his some of his troops--50 men over four days, with the promise of compensation of course--to help the Acadian women and children bring in the harvest, as well as their cattle, now that the men and older boys were being held in confinement.  Moreover, he now had a good idea of how many men and boys his troops were guarding--418 individuals held originally, with "Six French hands Come in" by the 7th.  He planned to send out a party that afternoon under Lieutenant John Handfield, Jr. "to the Uppermost Housses & to Examin Every Individual by the List" he had compiled "& if any Fowle Play is about Shall Make Examples as Instructed."  The young Handfield had just arrived at Grand-Pré from Annapolis via the road from the upper river there and evidently was familiar with the Minas settlements north and west of Grand-Pré.  Winslow had been informed that "Rene Leblancs Son has behaved as well as his Father and the French [he meant Acadians] Say has Prevented ye young men from Going off and belive he May be Trusted."  Nevertheless, Winslow was determined to keep his men on full alert.  "I have Now Just received an account of our Loss at Chignecto," he informed Captain Murray on the 7th, referring to Frye's mishap on the Petitcoudiac, "and as I have Ever been Diffident of these Sortes of People am Glad my Camp is So well Secured and Shall Trust as Little to Chance as Can be."  He nevertheless considered himself "the Most Esxposed of any Party in the Service."  That evening, he directed his guards "to be Very Elert" and ordered "the Pattrole" that circled the church yard every few hours to "Keep them Selves in motion."93 

By September 7, Winslow now had five transports waiting in the lower Gaspereau, having sent two of them up to Fort Edward.  He was convinced "the Government had not Provided Sufficient Vessels," which he hoped to see remedied soon.  Captain Murray informed him on the 8th that his captives at Fort Edward also were behaving themselves.  "[T]hey are more Patient than I Could have Exscpected for People in their Circumstances," Murray intimated, but that surprised him most "is the Indifference of the women who really are or Seem Quite unconcerned"--a clear indication that, despite the roundup of the 5th and the continued imprisonment of the men and boys, the Acadians at Pigiguit, as at Minas, still were refusing to believe that they were about to be deported.  Despite the bloodless roundups at Minas, Pigiguit, and Annapolis and the seeming calmness in those areas in the days that followed, Murray was well aware of the character of the men who made those bloodless roundups possible.  "I am afraid there will be Some Lives Lost before they are Got together," he lamented, because "you Know our Soldiers Hate them and if they Can Find a Pretence to Kill them, they will."  Well aware of the bloodshed at Chignecto, especially the mishap on the Petitcoudiac, Murray commented philosophically:  "I am Exstreamly Sorrey to Hear of our Loss at Chignecto but it is the Fortune of War, the Lads will Stand Fire better another time and I hope will Soon wipe off their Scorest at next Meeting," which was sure to come.  "I Long Much to See the Poor wretches Embarked and our affair a Little Settled and then I will do my Self the Pleasure of Meeting you and Drinking their Good Voyage," Murray promised.  But when that would be, neither he nor Winslow could say.94 

Sure enough, a few days after Murray's letter to Winslow, blood was almost spilled at Minas.  On the morning of September 10, after discerning "Some Uncommon Motions" among the younger prisoners in the Grand-Pré church yard which he "did not Like," Winslow called together his officers.  After a short discussion, in which they agreed that "There were too many prisoners for the troops to handle," Winslow and his officers "Determined ... that it would be best to Divide the Prisoners."  Winslow offered no specifics in any of his recorded dispatches or even in his Journal about the "Uncommon Motions" he had observed that morning.  John Mack Faragher offers a clue, at least, as to what may have disturbed the young Acadians, especially when one keeps in mind Captain Murray's comments about his and Winslow's soldiers a few days earlier.  "Hatred of French Catholics was rampant in New England," Faragher explains. "In a sermon delivered in 1755, Jonathan Edwards quoted a passage from the book of Samuel:  'Then David said to the Philistine ... I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee ... for the battle is the Lord's, and he will you into our hands.'  New England's fightingmen were embarked on a religious crusade, he argued, and 'how happy they are that have God on their side!'"94a 

Such sentiments had been manifesting themselves for weeks now in the Chignecto area, where Monckton's New Englanders were still terrorizing the locals.  Winslow's Yankees evidently were treating the Acadians at Minas with equal brutality.  Faragher goes on:  "It is hardly surprising that the actions of those troops had a pronounced anti-Catholic character.  Shouting epithets and oaths, the Yankees forced the families of the missing men from their homes, plundered their personal property, and threatened their lives.  The soldiers 'wanted to make us give up our religion and take theirs, but did not want to,' an Acadian woman remembered nearly seventy years later.  'They threatened us with death, and we answered that we would prefer to die.  Then they made us line up while they loaded their guns with grapeshot. We were on our knees, our faces prostrate against the ground, offering our lives to God while waiting for the firing of the guns.  I was only nine years old, and I too was prostrate beside my family.  But suddenly the English changed their minds; they took all our goods and effects and left us nothing to cover ourselves.'  The New England troops, writes one historian, 'seem to have regarded the expedition as a religious duty--much the same as an Israelite raid on the uncircumcised Philistines.'"94b

And now such righteous behavior was coming back to haunt them:  "As the prisoners learned of the terror going on outside the church from the women who daily came in with provisions," Faragher relates, "their concern for their families mounted."  Hence the disturbance in the church yard on the morning of the 10th among men who could not bear the thought of remaining apart from their families.  Looking to the five merchant vessels from Boston sitting idly at anchor in the lower Gaspereau, Winslow took counsel of his fears and resolved to transfer at least half of his prisoners to those waiting vessels, which now would serve as prison ships until the deportation.  Beginning with the young men, Winslow would send 50 prisoners to each transport, to be guarded by six non-commissioned officers and privates per vessel.  This would relieve the crowded church of 250 of the 425 or so prisoners being held there.  He requested Captain Abraham Adams of the HMS Warren, a schooner of war still on station at Minas, to maneuver his vessel into position to cover the operation, which likely would consume much of the day.94c 

This having been decided, Winslow summoned François Landry, the Acadians' "Principal Speaker who Talks English[,] and Told Him it must be Done."  The elder "was greatly Surprised," as Winslow doubtlessly hoped he would be.  François and his fellow elder, René LeBlanc, had hoped that all the talk about deportation was only a threat.  But here the Yankee colonel was proposing what until then had been unthinkable--not only deportation from their beloved homeland, but the break up of their families.  Old François, seeing no choice but to comply, relayed Winslow's orders to "his bretherin":  all of the prisoners were to "be Drawn up Six Deep, their young men on the Left, and as the Tide in a Very Little time Favoured" Winslow's "Design," he "Could not Give them above an Houer to Prepare for going on Board" the transports.  Winslow ordered all 300 of his officers and men "to be under Arms" and posted most of them "between the Two Gates & the Church in the rear" of the commander's quarters, which was the priest's house.  When the prisoners were lined up as directed, Winslow ordered Captain Nathan Adams, with a lieutenant and 80 men "to Draw off from the main body" of soldiers and march the young men, who numbered 141, to the ship's boats that would take them out to the waiting transports.  Only then, facing the reality of family separation, did the Minas Acadians finally defy him.  The young men "all answered they would Not go without their Fathers."  "Non, they likely shouted, pas sans nos pères!"  Winslow would have none of this.  "I Told them," he confided to his Journal, "That Was a word I did not understand," his foreign tongue translated by François Landry.  He told them through the aged interpreter "that the Kings Command was to me absolute & Should be absolutely obeyed & That I Did not Love to use Harsh Means but that the time Did not admit of Parlies or Delays."  Winslow "Then ordered the whole Troops to Fix their Bayonets and advance Towards the French."  He next ordered the "4 right hand Files of the Prisoners Consisting of 24 men" to be separated from the rest of the prisoners.  Taking hold of the first young man who had shouted in defiance, he ordered him to march.  "He obeyed," Winslow related, "& the rest followed, thoh Slowly, and went off Praying, Singing & Crying being Met by the women & Children," who followed their sons and brothers, "with Great Lamentations."  Some of the mothers, sisters, and fiancées, crying out the names of their loved ones, fell to their knees, as the young men trudged the mile and a half from the Grand-Pré church to the landing on the Gaspereau.  Back at the church, Winslow ordered the married men to choose 109 of their number and follow their young kinsmen down to the landing.  "They readily Complyed," Winslow insisted.  When Captain Adams returned with his lieutenant and 80 men, Winslow ordered Captain Phineas Osgood with a lieutenant and 80 men to escort these prisoners down to boats.  "But when he Came to put them on board the vessels," Winslow added, Captain Osgood counted only 89 instead of 109.  Winslow shrugged off the miscount, at least for now, evidently satisfied that 230 of his 425 prisoners, over half of them, were safely aboard the transports.  "Thus Ended this Troblesome Jobb, which was [a] Scheen of Sorrow," he confided to his Journal.95 

After the last of the prisoners had been stowed away, Captain Abraham Adams, aboard the HMS Warren, escorted the five transports down the Gaspereau and around to the mouth of Rivière Pigiguit, where they anchored east of present-day Oak Island.  Winslow then turned to the Acadian elders and broached the subject of feeding their kinsmen aboard the transports.  "I would Either Victual their People on Board the Transportes with the Kings Provisions," he proposed, "or Permit Them to have their Familys & Friends Provide for them their Victuals and Dress it and Send it on Board."  The elders chose the latter method, though they may not have anticipated a potential problem with the scheme:  when the wind blew too hard or the tide did not cooperate, it would be difficult, if not impossible, for the Acadian "Familys & Friends" to take the boats full of provisions out to the ships.  Several days of contrary winds, such as would accompany a gale or a hurricane, could bring the prisoners aboard the transports to the point of starvation.  Evidently also unaware of the potential problem, Winslow "ordered all the Boats to attend on the Top of every Tide that Should happen in the Day time to receive Such Provissions as Should be brought by the women & Children for those on Board their respective Vessels, and that a French man Come in Every Boat to Receive and See that the Provisions by Delivered to Each Person to whome it was Sent and to Permit as many French People to go on Board to See their Frinds as their Several Boats would Carry."  The following day, refusing to allow the Acadians to get one on him, Winslow ordered 20 more of the married prisoners to join their kinsmen on the transports.96 

That evening, the elders pressed on Winslow something that he was not authorized to accept:  another "memorial."  The Acadians had dug into their community archive and produced a copy of the qualified oath they had taken under Governor Philipps in April 1730, as well as a certificate, written by the priests at Grand-Pré and Pigiguit at the time, attesting to their having taken an oath that allowed the free practice of their religion and exempted them from bearing arms against the French.  With these documents came a newly-written petition to Lieutenant Colonel Winslow, which he summarized in his Journal:  "Representing that the Evils which Seams to threaten them on all Sides Obliges them to beg your Protection on their behalf and that you will interced with his Majesty to Consider those who have Invioblay Kept the Fidelity and Submition Promised to his sd Majesty"--an appeal based on their belief that they had maintained a strict neutral during this and previous wars.  The petition goes on:  "and as you have Given them to understand that the King has ordered them to be Transported out of this Province they beg at Least if they must Quit their Estates that they may be permitted to Go to Such Places where they will Finde their Kindred & that at their own Exspence, allowing them a Convenient time for that Purpose, more Particularly as that by that Means they will be able to Preserve their Religion which they have Verry much at Harte, and for which they are Content to Sacrafice their Estates, &c."  How surprised they would have been to know that His Majesty George II, the same King to whom they had pledged their fidelity in 1730, had not ordered their removal and that he likely was unaware of its impending execution.  Nor would their governor, who, with the approval of his Council but in contradiction of royal policy, had "ordered them to be Transported out this Province," allowed them to go anywhere than where he planned to send them--North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland, where only in Maryland would they have a chance of practicing their religion openly.  Allowing them to go to Louisbourg or Québec was anathema to Lawrence's plan, which was based on the colony's military needs, not on the needs and desires of a hostile population.97 

Although Lawrence had expressly forbidden him, or any of the other commanders, to accept anymore memorials from the Acadians, Winslow sent the collection of documents to merchant Isaac Deschamps at Pigiguit for a translation.  He then forwarded the translation to Lawrence.  According to John Mack Faragher, Winslow would do nothing more on behalf of the Minas prisoners.  "He refused to intercede on behalf of the Acadians and refused to make any commitment as to their ultimate destination, although he was well aware that Lawrence planned to send them to widely dispersed locations, as far away from their kindred in New France as possible.  Nor would he give the Acadians more time to prepare.  He would ship them off as soon as he had sufficient transports, 'that at length we may get over this troublesome affair, which is more grievous to me than any service I was ever employed in.'"  And who knows how much longer it would be before the rest of the transports arrived.98 

On September 12, Winslow received a note from Captain Murray congratulating him for the successful transfer and wishing that he and his officers at Pigiguit "Could Get rid of ours also."  Winslow also received a long directive from Lawrence, dated the 11th.  Judging by its contents, the lieutenant-governor, at the time that he wrote, was unaware of the Minas memorial.  He congratulated Winslow and Murray on their successful operations.  He reminded Winslow that Cobeguit lay within Winslow's command and offered a company of rangers to help him round up the inhabitants there as well, "which I belive," Lawrence intimated, "will be no easy Task."  He informed Winslow that Admiral Boscawen had sent the 20-gun ship HMS Nightingale, Master Dudley Diggs, to Minas for escort duty.  Evidently unaware of Winslow's recent efforts, Lawrence insisted that "I would have you put the men on board [the transports] as Fast as you Can" and continue his policy of allowing the women "to Provide them Victuals til they are ready to Sail, as it will be a Considerable Saving to the Government."  Lawrence said nothing about keeping the Acadian families together.  He promised more provisions for Minas and Pigiguit, promising that the ship would sail from Halifax "tomorrow or the Day after."  Aboard this vessel, Lawrence informed him, would be the delegates from Minas, Pigiguit, and Annapolis Royal who had been held on Georges Island since July.  Upon their arrival, he instructed, the delegates from Minas and Pigiguit would be thrown in with the others, and the delegates from Annapolis would be marched under guard back to their own community, "that they may Go off with their Families."  Evidently unhappy with the lack of progress in rounding up the Acadians in the Annapolis valley, Lawrence ordered Winslow to direct the commander of the party who would be escorting the Annapolis deputies "to Scour all the Villages on the River as they Go Down, and Carry into Annapolis all the Men they Can Finde, and Order the women to follow with their Children Carrying with them what Provissions they Can For the mens Subsistance til they are all ready for Sailing.  I donte Care how Soon the Party is Sent to Annapolis," Lawrence added, "Provided it Donte Hinder the Cobequid Expedition," which now must be a priority.  The mission at Annapolis, as well as an operation against Cobeguit, would require a substantial number of Winslow's troops.  Lawrence, in fact, sent Winslow an undated memorandum setting the number for the Annapolis detachment at 30 or 40 men, so Winslow had done well to move most of the Minas prisoners from the church to the transports before Lawrence thrust these new missions on him.  In the same memo, Lawrence, ever the micro-manager, but also aware of Acadian crafitness, "Charged" the masters of the transports "Not to Suffer Many Inhabitants on Deck at a time for Fear of their Seasing or running away with their Vessels."  Lawrence was especially concerned about the harvest at Minas and Pigiguit.  He insisted that "All Posable Care must be Taken to Save as Much of the Grain as you can for the Good of the Publick and likewise the Cattle which we Shall want, both for Supplying the Fleet and the Soldiers with Fresh Provissions"  He also planned to use Acadian livestock to provision Halifax and Lunenburg during the swiftly approaching winter.99 

Even after they had gone to their places of exile, the Acadians would be sustaining their Protestant neighbors. 

On September 17, Winslow answered Lawrence with a lengthy letter of his own.  He reviewed for the governor what he had told the Acadians 12 days before, after he had locked them inside the church, adding:  "They were Greatly Struck at this Determination, thoh I belive that they did not then Nor to this Day do Imagine that they are Actually to be removed."  He reviewed his scheme of sending some of the men back to their villages as 24-hour "hostages," 20 at a time, and reported that "this Method I have Continued in to this Day and have found no Ilconveniency in it."  He then detailed the transference of 230 of the Acadians, including all of the young men, to the transports, the week before.  Winslow no doubt was happy to report "that we have been all around the Villages here to ye remotest parts of Cannard by parties and Cant Finde but what we Got the whole in Our Possession Excepting about Thirty Very old & Infirm whome I am Loth to Incumber our Selves with til their Departure.  As to Provissions," he added proudly, "I have Exspended None to the French, but one Day being the First of Their Detention, before a Method was Found for their Subsistence, which is now Settled in this Form vizt that the women & Boys bring Provissions for those in Custoday at this Place."  He then described in detail the scheme he employed for feeding the prisoners on the transports. 

Other than seeing the Acadians gone, nothing could have pleased Lawrence more than a scheme that saved so much of "the Publick Money."

Winslow nonetheless was eager for George Saul and the extra transports to come to Minas.  He was aware of the arrival of the transports at Chignecto nearly a month before, but "what Detains them I Cant tel," he confessed to Lawrence.  He suggested more efficient ways to utilize the Acadian harvest and detailed the supplies he and his men still needed.  He informed the governor that his list "of all the People that were in my Custody, their numbers of men, women, Boys, Girls, Cattle of all Kindes" was ready to be sent to Halifax.  He reported that the Acadian deputies sent from Halifax had reached him and that the names of the ones from Minas would be appended to the master list.  He asked for suggestions on what to do with the fruits of the harvest, as well as the cattle taken from the Acadians, promising always to keep in mind the need to limit the government's expenses.  He detailed the number of men that he and Captain Murray were sending to Cobeguit--100--"which is as many as we Can Spare," he insisted.  He expected them to leave that evening.  He planned to send the Annapolis deputies on to Major Handfield in a day or two.  And he again complained about the small size of his force compared to the number of prisoners they were guarding.100 

Despite his complaints, Winslow could see signs that his mission at Minas was nearing completion.  He and his men had rounded up and secured the great majority of the men and older boys in the colony's largest community.  His men were helping the Acadian women and children bring in the rest of a good harvest, threshing the grain, and securing their animals for government use.  In less than two weeks, his force, which he had always considered to be too small for the task, had rounded up nearly 2,800 people, 5,007 cattle, 8,690 sheep, 4,197 hogs, and 493 horses--an impressive haul for only 300 men.  And, as far as the lieutenant-colonel knew, they had done it with a minimum of violence.  All Winslow needed now were transports enough to hold the Acadians and Saul's victuals for their passage.  He still had only the five transports, but he needed three times that many, and perhaps even more once the inhabitants from Cobeguit arrived.  Murray at Pigiguit also needed transports.  He had only two, which was less than half of what he needed.  On September 19, Winslow addressed a lengthy dispatch to Lieutenant-Colonel Monckton, hoping to speed the process along, but most of his missive was devoted to defending New England's role in securing and preserving Nova Scotia for the British--evidently a reaction to Monckton's shabby treatment of the New Englanders at Fort Cumberland during the recent storm.14 

On the 19th, Winslow sent three detachments from his command--55 under Captain Lewis to Cobeguit, 34 under Lieutenant William Peabody to Annapolis, and 23 under Lieutenant Jonas Fitch to assist in bringing in the cattle at "Rivers Habitant and Cannard"--which, on top of the 33 he had already sent to Fort Edward, cut his force at Grand-Pré nearly in half.  If the prisoners in the church or on the five transports rose up against their Yankee guards, Winslow and his men would be in serious trouble.  The evening before, the weather turned foul, and a late summer storm pummeled the region with heavy wind and rain.  Here was an opportunity for the prisoners in the church at least to overwhelm their guards, but they did not stir.  "Impatiently waite the arrival of Mr. Saul and those [transports] at Chignecto, that once at length we may Get over this Troublesome affaire, which is more Grievous to me than any Service I was Ever Employed in," he lamented to Major Handfield later that day.111

One suspects that Major Handfield could fully relate to his compatriot's sentiment.

On September 20, Winslow addressed a tersely-written letter to Lawrence's subsistence agent, George Saul.  Barely hiding his annoyance, the Yankee lieutenant colonel informed the "agent Victualler" of the several letters he had received from the governor promising provisions for the deportees, which could be delivered only by Saul himself.  Winslow repeated his litany of how few men he possessed to guard so many inhabitants.  He informed the agent of the Cobeguit operation, then underway, which promised only to add to his need for more provisions, and even pointed out the problem of feeding the prisoners aboard the transports "when the wind Blows."  He urged Saul to hurry up the provisions promised to him, as well as the needed transports.  But days turned to weeks, and neither Saul nor the transports appeared at Minas.  On the 23rd, Winslow felt so insecure about his numbers that he beseeched Major Handfield to return "the Party with you"--that is, the 34 men under Lieutenant Peabody he had sent there only a few days before.  The following day, Winslow informed Captain Murray at Pigiguit that "we have Some French Straglers from Chignecto up the old River Habitant, and Places adjatient."  Determined not to weaken any farther his force at Grand-Pré, he would round up these interlopers with the men he had sent to Cobeguit, but he could not have known when they would return to him.112 

Meanwhile, Winslow's son Joshua at Chignecto informed him that "We have not yet Embarked all our French but I Supose it Cant be above a Day or Two Longer before they will be Shipt off."  The son teased the father about his "Fine Parcel of Stock," referring to the cattle the elder Winslow has confiscated at Minas.  "I wish they were Equally Distributed among a number of Good Familys and the Lands well Settled," the young Puritan quipped, "but when that will be God knows."113

Sometime in late September, Winslow received a letter, dated September 4, from General William Pepperell of Kittery Point, Maine, the hero of Louisbourg.  The general congratulated his former subordinate "upon the Success" he had "been Favored with against those that have Invadd his Majestys rights to Lands they had no just pretense to," and wished him more success in the King's service.  Pepperell was writing in favor of a friend and neighbor, Colonel Nathaniel Donnal, "who is Bound to your Government to receive Some Debts formerly Due to him from the Nutral French."  The letter contains no names of Donnal's Acadian debtors, so one wonders who they may have been.  One also wonders what were the chances the Yankee colonel could collect such a debt, especially after Winslow had informed these Acadians that all of their lands and cattle now belonged to the King.  Winslow also received a letter from fellow Yankee Silvanus Cobb, then living at Chignecto, who congratulated the lieutenant-colonel for his "fine Success and Securing So Many of the Bogers," meaning the Acadians.  "I hope you will Continue in Such Success til you have routed all Such Enemys from the Land," Cobb chortled.  "[W]e have been Not So Luckey here in as much as So many Got off before we Could lay hands on them but hope to have them in time."  The Yankee trader then got down to the business for which he was pestering his friend:  "there is among those at Mines or Piziquid one who I paid for a pair of Bullocks & Likewise another pair at the River Canard which I paid one Murp L3 Towards as I Expect ye Cattle will all be Seized for the King.  [I] Should take it as a Favor," he beseeched Winslow, "that you should Contrive Some way to Secure me Cattle before they Go off, one Joseph Landre Car Tel the Name of the man."114 

During the late week of September, Winslow received a long missive from Lawrence, dated September 23, in which the governor thanked him for the list of detainees at Minas.  Lawrence also approved of Winslow's manner of feeding the men and boys on his list.  Having pressed Lieutenant-Colonel Monckton to send away the Acadians he was holding at Chignecto, Lawrence was confident that George Saul and Monckton's extra transports would have reached Minas before Winslow received the letter.  Lawrence, as always, was especially keen on his commanders "Saving of the Publick Money."  He assured Winslow that if did not receive the proper victuals for the deportation vessels from Chignecto, he would receive them from Annapolis Royal or Halifax.  As soon as he embarked his Acadians, Lawrence instructed Winslow, "I would have you Loose No time in sending a Strong Detachment to Major Handfield agreable to your former Instructions as he Seems to want them very much being Suspicious that ye Inhabitants of that River will not Come in Volentarily as they have Promised."  Lawrence next broached a subject that could only have miffed the Yankee colonel.  "We Shall when the Country is Clear of French Inhabitants have much use for the Rangers," Lawrence wrote, "and as that Service Can Never be So well performed by any as by real Indians, I Must desier it as a Perticular Favor that you will Countenance as far as you have it in your Power the Exchange Proposed by Capt [John] Goreham[sic]," which was included in an attached letter penned by Gorham.  Here was a clear admission that, even after the majority of the "French Neutrals" would be sent into exile, enough of them would remain to menace the colony through armed resistance.  The rest of Lawrence's missive concerned the need for a close accounting of the cost to the colony of feeding Winslow's New Englanders wherever they were stationed.  "Donte Know how to Supply with Salt," the governor concluded, "unless you Could Get Some from Annapolis by Horse Carrage."  Gorham's letter, dated September 22, offered the astonishing proposal of exchanging for ranger service not only enlisted men from Massachusetts who belonged to the colony's Indian tribes, but also the officers of the Massachusetts Regiment who were reluctant to part with them.115 

Another letter dated September 22, this one from naval Captain John Rous, lauded not only Rous's recent service in Newfoundland clearing out the French there, but also the fighting prowess of the New-English troops under General Sir William Johnson in upper New York.  Although Rous had been holding his rank of naval captain under a regular commission for nearly a decade, he was still at heart the New English privateer who helped defeat the French at Louisbourg.  After crowing about the New Englanders at Lake George, Rous intimated to his fellow Yankee:  "I hope one Day to hear that Some of those which have asspersed the Character of the New England Troops in this Province, will be Cald to an account for So doing."116 

Winslow also received from Archibal Hinshelwood, a royal official at Halifax, and Joseph Goreham, John Gorham's younger brother, letters dated September 26.  They, too, sought favors from the Minas commander, in the form of "Some Oxen & Milk Cowes & a Couple of Horses," recently taken from the Acadians, "for Stocking their Forces at Lunenburg."  They offered to provide the men to bring in the critters and a proper accounting of what was taken.  They, too, lamented Winslow's "Troublesom Service" and hoped to pay their respects to him soon.  No sooner had Winslow read these letters than he received another missive from John Rous.  The captain, now a member of the colonial Council, hoped to acquire "a good Strong Horse ... to ride or Draw me about the Town, as I recon you have many Able Horses, about you for I have been Sick this Six weeks & the Doctr recommends to me riding to recover my Health."  Rous also requested "a good Milch Cow" confiscated from the Acadians.  When Winslow answered these inquiries, he promised Captain Rous "a Good Horse that Speaks English as also a Cow."  By then, Rous's request for animals increased from a strong horse and a milk cow to "two of the best Horses ... two Milch Cows and a Good ox or two and a few Good Sheep," all to be rounded up by his butcher.  He would gladly allow his friends' underlings to come and take the animals they requested, Winslow responded, but not until after the Acadians had been sent away.  However, Winslow and Murray soon received requests for animals that could not be put off.  Admiral Boscawen hoped to replenish the stores for his naval vessels before they left on their escort missions down the coast.  The plan was to drive an entire herd of cattle from Grand-Pré and Pigiguit overland to Halifax with the aid of German settlers from Lunenburg.  "Pray assist Mr. Maujeirs [Mauger's] people all you Can to Get Cattle for the Navy," Lawrence directed.  "The Germans Fright them all into the woods, you must order them to Desist for Some Time."  In his correspondence, Winslow revealed his true feelings about the former owners of these animals:  "[T]hey Stil Look upon them as their Property," Winslow said of the Acadians, "and make heavy Complaints when Ever we Meddle ... yet it hurts me to hear their weeping & wailing and Nashing of Teeth."  With the arrival of more transports, he assured his correspondents, not only could the Acadians' animals be obtained without complaint, but he also would be "rid of the worst peace of Service yt Ever I was in."118

On September 26, the sloop Ulysses, under Captain Rogers, arrived at Minas with a month's supply of provisions for Winslow's troops but no reinforcement.  Two days later, the armed snow HMS Halifax, under Captain John Taggart, reached Minas.  Aboard was the long-awaited George Saul and food for the deportees at Minas and Pigiguit.  Winslow now had the victuals "for the removal of ye French Inhabitants," but no transports from Boston accompanied the Halifax.  Saul, following the governor's instructions of August 11, already had been to Chignecto, so this was his second delivery; after completing his business at Minas, he would move on to Annapolis Royal.  Saul's instructions called for the following seven-day ration to be issued for each deportee:  "Five Pounds of French Flower, Two Pounds of Bread &c, One Pound of Beaf."  In those instructions, Lawrence had noted:  "This allowance Differs from that Mentioned by me in My Letter to Colo Monckton of the 31st of July Last but it is Equally Sufficient and Less Exspence to the Government."  Lawrence, in fact, had included in his August 11 instructions to the commanders a seven-day ration of "5 pounds of flour and one pound of pork."  Saul's instructions also contained the following dictum from Lawrence:  "you are to Victual Every Person for Thirty Days bound to the Southward of Piladelphia and those that Shall be Debarked at Pihdelpia or to ye Northward thereof Shall be Victualled Each Person for Twenty Days at the before mentioned allowance."  Also to be distributed among "ye French People" would be "29 Hds of Horse Beans and Two Hds of French Beans among the Several Transportes ... over & beside the allowance of Bread Flower & Beaf as Mentioned."  Lawrence detailed the procedure to be followed with the ship's masters to account for the cost of the provisions.  Anticipating delays between embarkation and sailing, Lawrence provided an allowance for the deportees "of Five Pounds of French Flower and One Pound of Porke" per week, which was the ration for the troops who would guard the deportees aboard each vessel.117 

Winslow responded to Lawrence's latest missive on September 29.  He informed the governor of the arrival of George Saul but complained that no more transports seemed forthcoming, either from Boston or Chignecto, that the ones he had were only a fraction of what he needed.  He proposed that the transports waiting idly at Annapolis come to Minas.  With these added vessels, he and Murray could ship off the large number of inhabitants they were holding.  This would free up many of his men to assist Handfield in rounding up the valley Acadians.  Winslow informed the governor of that which Lawrence probably already knew--there would be no inhabitants to ship off from Cobeguit.  He voiced approval of Joseph Goreham's scheme of placing Massachusetts Indians in the ranger service but used the opportunity to remind Lawrence of how small was his force at Minas.  Besides, there were only a hand full of Indians in the entire regiment, and the one or two at Minas did not belong to his battalion.  He promised to forward the details of Goreham's scheme to the New England company commanders who did have Indians in their units.  "I have Certain Intelligence," he informed Lawrence, "that partys of the French Do pass & repas acrose from Shepody Side over to ours & that they hold rendevouzes &c about the River Pero [Pereau].  As Soon as Capt Lewis" and his detachment of rangers and New Englanders returned from Cobeguit, Winslow proposed, "Shall Make a Thoroh Vissit to that part and the Old River Habitant where are Villages I have but Lately heard of and none of their Inhabitants Come in."  This was an astonishing admission on Winslow's part:  he and his New Englanders had been at Minas for nearly a month and a half, and only now was he "hearing" of the villages in the northern areas of Minas Proper.  His report also hinted that the refugees from the trois-rivères, perhaps including armed partisans, may have come to recue their cousins on the south shore of the Bay of Fundy.  He reported the arrival of the escort vessel, HMS Nightingale, master Dudley Diggs, on the 26th and the frustration of Captain Diggs on finding the Minas transports not yet ready for sailing.  Winslow was genuinely embarrassed about forwarding to the governor the Minas Acadians' latest memorial.  He mentioned General Pepperells's intervention on behalf of his friend and neighbor, Colonel Donnal, and threw the matter into Lawrence's lap.  He reported 330 men aboard the transports, but as yet no women and children.  He mentioned "one Jean Dine whose Parents were English and he Borne in New Yorke" and whose wife was a Minas Acadian.  Jean offered to remain at Minas, presumably with his wife, to "be of Service to Settlers that may Come as he has a Perfect Knolledge of the Country."119 

On September 30, in separate letters, Lawrence informed Murray and Winslow of a change in their original orders of August 11 detailing the destinations of the transports from their areas of command.  Captain Diggs of the escort vessel HMS Nightingale would sail "No Further westward" than Philadelphia, so that port, and not North Carolina, would become the destination for some of their Acadians.  Lawrence expressed the hope that more transports from Boston already had arrived and that others would soon reach him from Chignecto.  And, of course, he addressed the need to save money.  "Pray Donte Lett Mr. George Saul Exceed his Instructions with regard to the victualling," Lawrence beseeched them, adding that "we have Incurred a Great Expensce by it, at Chignecto."  He urged Winslow to finish his round up as soon as possible "as the Detention of them is a very Heavy Exspence as well as a Great Hinderance to the Public Service."  On October 2, Winslow was still complaining of not having received any more transports from Chignecto.  The following day, however, in response to Winslow's suggestion, Lawrence ordered the transports intended for Annapolis Royal to proceed to Minas and Pigiguit instead.120 

It was time to be rid of the hundreds of Acadians still lingering in the colony's agricultural heartland.

Embarkation and Deportation, September-December 1755

By late September, Lieutenant-Colonel Monckton had rounded up as many Acadians as his troops could safely get at.  But despite a month and a half of effort, he still was retaining "more transports than he needed, and his orders were to send his extra vessels to Winslow" at Minas, John Mack Faragher reminds us, "yet he was reluctant to release them, thinking his campaign of terror would induce more inhabitants to surrender."  By then, however, Lawrence's patience had snapped.  "'I am much surprised as well as extremely sorry and uneasy that the transports are not sailed,'" the governor complained.  "'You will immediately order all the people on board which you have, whether all the women be come in or not.'"  It was time for the women and children still camped outside the forts to join their men on the transports and finally be gone.102 

Monckton also may have believed he had broken the back of the local resistance before it could get out of hand.  In late September, he felt secure enough to allow the mothers, wives, and daughters of the captured partisans to bring their victuals to them inside the forts, but this indulgence soon ended.  According to Dianne Marshall:  "Near the end of September ..., when the usual group of women was leaving Fort Lawrence after a scheduled visit, a guard noticed one of them limping and as none had been lame on the way in, he became very suspicious.  A closer look revealed the 'woman' to be one of the prisoners disguised in female clothing that had been smuggled in by his wife.  From that moment on, all visits ceased.  But by then it was too late."  The women had been smuggling in other items, baked in loaves of bread or inserted in bundles of fresh clothing.  The Acadians then struck Monckton another blow, this time with spoons instead of musket balls.  During the predawn hours of October 1, "during a fierce thunderstorm," 86 of the prisoners being held in Fort Lawrence, including Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil "and several of his grown sons and nephews," slipped through a muddy tunnel they had been digging with smuggled spoons, knives, and whatever else they had been able to find.  Lieutenant-Colonel Monckton reported that the escape tunnel ran "from the Barrack to the South Curtain above thirty Feet."  "According to Acadian tradition," John Mack Faragher relates, "the men passed out in order of size, from smallest to largest, each successive escapee squeezing through the passage and enlarging it for the next man.  Last out was said to be René Richard dit Le Petit René--'Little René,' the largest of all the prisoners" and a cousin of Beausoleil Broussard.103 

Here, running through the rain back to their homes on the trois-rivières, were reinforcements for the crippled resistance and an experienced leader who could help resurrect the movement.  With winter approaching, the partisans had no choice but to abandon their villages, which were vulnerable to attack.  Beausoleil, his compatriots, and their families filled carts full of food, cooking utensils, bedding, clothing, arms, ammunition, building materials, the infirm, the elderly, small children--whatever of value they could carry--and headed deep into the woods north of the Petitcoudiac.  One of the casualties of the difficult relocation, according to Dianne Marshall, was Alexandre and Joseph Broussard's 92-year-old mother, Catherine Richard.104 

The October 1 escape was certainly an embarrassment, but it hardly slowed Monckton's deportation effort.  The older Broussard brother, Alexandre dit Beausoleil and his second son Victor remained in confinement at Fort Cumberland.  And Monckton had more than enough transports to send these two miscreants, along with the hundreds of other Acadians still in his custody, out of the colony.105 

Embarkation of the rest of the men and the women and children began during the second week of October.  Not surprisingly, John Mack Faragher relates, "Once Monckton commenced the embarkation of the Acadians in his custody, hundreds of women and children began surrendering in order to be transported with their husbands."  Predictably, the local priest was unhappy with this development.  The Abbé La Guerne warned the women "that they would be 'placing themselves in a position to lose their religion,' and advised instead that they flee to Canada, trusting that French authorities 'would reclaim their husbands from whatever places they should be transported.'"  Here, again, fell a hollow promise from the mouth of a French "official."  "It is easy to understand why so few women followed his advice," Faragher continues--these were, after all, Acadian women--but the French priest's lack of empathy with them spoke volumes about his kind.  "'Driven by an excessive attachment to their husbands,'" the abbé lamented, "'and closing their ears to the voice of religion,' they 'threw themselves blindly and as if by despair into the English ships,'" where that which was most dear to them anxiously waited.106

Unfortunately for these women and their fellow Acadians, "the embarkation at Fort Cumberland took place in a headlong rush," and the scene that followed in the next few days added poignancy to the words le grand dérangement.  Whatever order Monckton hoped to impose on the loading procedure was lost in the chaos of the actual embarkation, a result, perhaps, of the two months of toil and terror among his New Englanders, their frustrations now unleashed on the helpless Acadians.  New-English Major Preble observed that "The French are daily driving off the Cattle, Sheep & Hogs in Sight of us, and no Method taken to Prevent it, Nor have our men had one Pound of Fresh Meat Served to them Since you left us but are obliged to take French Pork or None," he informed Lieutenant-Colonel Winslow on October 10.  And then there was the uncooperative weather that wreaked havoc on Monckton's timetable.  A heavy rainstorm on October 6 and 7 did "Terrible work amongst our Transports," Major Preble continued.  "Sume Dealt there Cables & went a Shore, and Some Run into the Creeks, and if they are not Soon Dispatched there will be no Vessels fit to Carry off the Tartars," as he described the inhabitants.  When the embarkation resumed in earnest, "'Families were seized and thrown pell-mell into the transports,'" a young Acadian remembered.  "'No one was granted any grace.  The least resistance meant death.  Terror was everywhere.  They succeeded in filling several vessels full of inhabitants.  Children were separated from their parents, husbands from their wives, brothers from their sisters.'"  One of Monckton's staff officers later admitted:  "'I fear some families were divided and sent to different parts of the globe ... notwithstanding all possible care was taken to prevent it.'"108  

During the chaos at Chignecto, at least one young Acadian managed to elude his captors.  When he was age 16, Pierre dit Pierrot Cormier and his large family had been forced by French soldiers and Mi'kmaq warriors to abandon their home at Riviére-des-Héberts and move to Aulac, west of the Missaguash.  By 1755, Pierrot's father, Pierre dit Palette, had died, so Pierre dit Pierrot, an older son, stood as head of the family.  Pierrot, now age 21, and probably some of his brothers, may have been among the 300 Acadian militia captured at Fort Beauséjour in June 1755.  On August 10, Pierrot, as a family head, was expected to respond to Lieutenant Colonel Monckton's summons to report to Fort Cumberland, but he was one of the hundreds of Acadians who did not bother.  After securing their families from capture, Pierrot and his older brothers, and perhaps his younger brothers, Joseph, age 15, and Michel, age 14, may have joined the local Acadian resistance.  In either September or early October, Pierrot and some of his brothers were captured at Jolicoeur, present-day Jolicure, New Brunswick, near Le Lac, perhaps by New English rangers.  After being held in one of the forts, Pierrot was transferred to a deportation transport resting at anchor in the Cumberland Basin and bound for a distant British colony.  The night before the ship's departure, perhaps during the chaos of embarking the women and children, Pierrot slipped off the vessel and swam to shore.  After creeping through a hayfield along the water's edge, he slipped past British soldiers guarding an aboiteau, waited until the guards' backs were turned, slipped hand-over-hand from one timber head to another, dropped silently onto solid ground, and ran for his life into some nearby woods.  There he eluded more soldiers tracking him with dogs.  He made his way undetected to an Acadian encampment, where he was told that the members of his family who had escaped the British roundup were heading toward Québec.  He hurried off in search of them, following the upper Petitcoudiac and the Kennebecasis to Rivière St.-Jean.  There, at Ste.-Anne-du-Pay-Bas, Pierrot reunited with his wife, Anne dite Nanette, daughter of Augustin Gaudet and Agnès Chiasson; Pierrot and Nanette had married earlier in the year.  He also reunited with his widowed mother, Cécile Thibodeau.  Younger brothers Joseph and Michel probably were not among the siblings Pierrot greeted at Ste.-Anne that day.109 

The great of majority of the Acadians on the transports, however, were not as bold as Pierrot Cormier.  On Monday, October 13, eight transports with nearly 1,800 Acadians aboard and three escort vessels, slipped away from Chignecto and headed down the Bay of Fundy to the Annapolis Basin, which they reached via the Gut that evening.  The schooner Jolly Phillip, 94 tons, held 129 Acadians, well under its complement of 188; its master, Jonathan Waite, carried a letter for the governor of Georgia.  The ship Prince Frederick, 170 tons, held 280 Acadians, well under Lawrence's dictum of two passengers per ton; its master, William Trattles, also held orders to sail to Georgia.  The schooner Boscawen, 95 tons, held 190 Acadians, its exact complement; its master, David Bigham, carried a letter for the governor of Pennsylvania.  The ship Union, 196 tons, held 392 Acadians, its exact complement; its master, Jonathan Carthorne, also carried orders to sail to Philadelphia.  The sloop Dolphin, 90 tons, held only 121 Acadians; its master, William Hancock, carried a letter for the governor of South Carolina.  The ship Edward Cornwallis, 130 tons, held 417 Acadians, substantially more than its complement of 260 passengers, so it was grossly overloaded; its master, Andrew Sinclair, also carried orders to sail to Charles Town.  The sloop Endeavor, 96 tons, held at least 121 Acadians; its master, James Nichols, held orders to sail to Charles Town.  The brig Two Brothers, 161 tons, held only 132 Acadians; its master, James Best, also carried orders to sail to Charles Town.  One of the escort vessels, the HMS Syren, master Charles Proby, carried a special cargo--21 Acadians held in irons, including Alexandre and son Victor Broussard, destined for South Carolina.

The Boscawen and the Union would be lost at sea.109a 

The short voyage to Annapolis basin was not without incident.  Some of the Acadian men aboard the brig Two Brothers attempted to take over the vessel at dusk, but the soldiers aboard assisted the crew in maintaining control of the vessel.  Meanwhile, aboard the schooner Jolly Phillip, the guards robbed some of the Acadians of their money and clothing.  When Captain Proby heard of it, he ordered the soldiers to be severely punished.  The 11 vessels lingered at Annapolis for two more weeks, waiting for the transports from Minas and Pigiguit to join them for the voyage down the coast.110

.

Finally, on October 4, having been informed that transports diverted from Annapolis were on their way to Minas, Lieutenant-Colonel Winslow ordered the Acadian women at Grand-Pré and the other villages "'to hold themselves in readiness to embark with all their household goods.'"  The embarkation would begin in earnest two days later.  On the advice of his company commanders, Winslow decided to place not only immediate families, but also entire villages aboard the same vessels.  He would place as many as he could aboard the transports already waiting and embark more of them aboard the vessels Lawrence had promised were coming to him.  On the appointed day, however, Monday, October 6, Winslow noted that "Even now Could not Perswade the People I was in Earnest."121

And then Winslow's well-laid embarkation plans began to unravel.  On the 6th and 7th, a "cold, hard rain forced a postponement of embarkation."  On the evening of the 7th, while the storm still raged, 24 of the young men aboard two the sloops--the Leopard and the Endeavour, masters Thomas Church and Hohn Stone, respectively--managed to slip away.  The guards aboard the transports, eight per vessel, could not explain how it happened, until someone found discarded men's clothing in the holds of the ships.  Using dresses spirited to them by their mothers and sisters, the young Acadians disguised themselves as women, followed their female kin off the vessels, and disappeared into the countryside.  Winslow's instinct, no doubt, was to set his Yankees after them, but he focused, instead, on his larger mission.  On Wednesday the 8th, with the return of fair weather and "winter already in the air," he ordered as many of his men as he could spare from guard duty "to fan out through the hamlets, driving the women, the children, the sick and infirm into the village of Grand Pré," from whence they would be parceled out to the transports still lying in the lower Gaspereau.  Winslow described the scene in his Journal:  "began to Embarke the Inhabitants who went off Very Solentarily and unwillingly, the women in Great Distress Carrying off Their Children in their arms.  Others Carrying their Decript Parents in their Carts and all their Goods Moving in Great Confussion & appeared a Sceen of woe & Distress."  Their ancestors had come to this place in the early 1680s and had created what some had called an agricultural paradise, but here were their descendants, now numbering in the hundreds, leaving behind them all that they had built there, all that they had known.  After being herded like cattle from the village to the landing, 80 or so families were packed into two of the transports:  the 87-ton Leopard, which eventually held 178 Acadians, 4 over the limit; and the 97-ton sloop Elizabeth, which would hold 242, 48 over the limit, both vessels bound for Maryland.  The same sad scenes were playing out at nearby Pigiguit, where some of the inhabitants were complicating matters by taking the river road down to Minas to join up with relatives there.122  

Meanwhile, Winslow "made the Strickest Enquiery" into the previous evening's escape.  He learned, to his satisfaction at least, that François Hébert, who had been held aboard the Leopard, "was Either the Contriver or abetter" of the escape from that vessel and so must be made an example.  He ordered Hébert bound and brought ashore.  At midday, in front of dozens of Acadians still huddled in the village, including members of the Hébert family, Winslow's men dragged the alleged conspirator to his homestead, where he and his fellow Acadians were "forced to witness the burning of his house, barn, and possessions."  Winslow then "Gave Notice to all the French that in Case these men Did not Surrender them Selves in Two Days, I Should Serve all their Frinds in the Same Maner & not only So would Confisticate their Household Goods and when Ever those men Should Fall Into the English hands they would not be admitted to Quarter."  That is to say, Winslow's Yankees now had orders to shoot the escapees on sight wherever they might find them.  Hébert was hustled back aboard the Leopard, where he was joined by his family later in the day.123 

Oddly, that night, the password among Winslow's Yankees was "Landree."124 

On Thursday the 9th, Winslow ordered the removal of the men from the empty transports waiting in the lower Gaspereau "So as to Commode Each Nighbourhood for their Familys to Joyne them when the other Transportes arived."  He then instructed the masters of the three vessels to drop anchor off Pointe-des-Boudrot, which lay between the mouths of rivières des Habitants and Canards.  There they would take aboard families from the villages northwest of Grand-Pré, where his troops had herded hundreds of more women and children.  Evidently Winslow planned to embark the 600 or 700 Acadians still waiting at Grand-Pré on transports that would soon arrive from Annapolis or Chignecto, but when that would be was anyone's guess.  On Friday the 10th, Dudley Diggs, master of the escort vessel HMS Nightingale, complained that, despite two days of fair winds, the transports from Annapolis had not arrived.  Diggs also complained about his dwindling water supply, as well as his need for "a Little French Meat, for my People," and proposed that "Two Bullocks will be of great Service to them having a Great Many Down with Colds."  By the end of the day, however, seven transports had arrived from Annapolis--the Hannah, a 70-ton sloop under master Richard Adams; the Sarah and Molly, another 70-ton sloop under Master James Purrington; the Mary, a  90 1/2-ton schooner under master Andrew Dunning; the Three Friends, a 69-ton sloop under master Thomas Carlile; and likely the Swan, an 80-ton sloop under master Jonathan Loviette; the Industry, an 86-ton sloop under master George Goodwin; and the Prosperous, a 75-ton sloop under master Daniel Bragdon.  Winslow ordered them to haul alongside the armed snow HMS Halifax one at a time, and, under the supervision of George Saul, take aboard provisions for the deportees before returning to their anchorages.  After loading his victuals, Master Carlile was ordered to move the Three Friends up to Pigiguit to supplement the transport Neptune already there.  The others would remain at Minas to embark the hundreds of inhabitants still waiting at Gaspereau landing and at Pointe-des-Boudrot.125 

Meanwhile, elder François Landry beseeched Winslow to allow him to do what he could to retrieve "the young men Deserted" with the promise "that they Should not be Punished upon their return."  Only then could they be "Induced to Come in," the elder believed.  Winslow answered haughtily that "I had already passed my word of Honr for it, and Now repeated it to him & Should Go no Further, be the Consequences what it would," which was his clumsy way of approving the amnesty.125a

On October 11, Winslow informed Lieutenant-Governor Lawrence that, with seven more transports now available to him, he would resume the embarkation on the 13th and hoped that by "the Coming week will put an End to our Duty here of removing the Inhabitants...."  Winslow complained that the many requests for beeves was taxing his resources.  He also complained about the quality of the cattle he and his men were rounding up for the navy.  "I am Certain the Inhabitants have Drove the Cattle Back into the Countrey," he surmised, "and as Soon as we are rid of the People Make no Question but their Beasts may be Found," but for now the focus of action would be ridding the province of "the People."  Winslow and Murray were determined to keep at least the immediate families together, but, at the landing on the Gaspereau, at Pointe-des-Boudrot, and evidently at Pigiguit as well, chaos reigned.  John Mack Faragher explains the problem with Winslow's scheme:  "... because the men and women had been separated, with the men further divided between those imprisoned on the transports and those in the church, attempting to unite husbands with wives and to keep families together proved terribly complicated, requiring troops and crews to shuttle prisoners from one vessel to another as families were loaded."  The breakdown of the scheme was heartbreaking:  "... according to Acadian tradition," Faragher continues, "the inhabitants were packed randomly onto the transports, despite their desperate pleas to soldiers and sailors who could not understand their language."  One of the Pigiguit Acadians offered insight into the socio-economic impact of what he had witnessed:  "'The hurry and confusion in which we were embarked,' wrote Jean-Baptiste Galerne, 'was an aggravating circumstance attending our misfortunes, for thereby many who had lived in affluence found themselves deprived of every necessary, and many families were separated, parents from children, and children from parents.'  Anguished mothers cried out for missing children," Faragher relates, "frantic wives refused to board without their husbands, angry husbands resisted the orders of angry soldiers."126 

The inhabitants' anguish was compounded by British ignorance of the Acadians' concept of "family."  The so-called nuclear or immediate family, in which a married couple and their children lived apart from their relations, was rare among Acadian couples.  To the typical Acadian of the mid-eighteenth century, separation from grandparents, aunts and uncles, nephews, nieces, and first and second cousins could be as painful an experience as separation from parents and siblings.  Did this sentiment, along with the disarming of the population and the confiscation of water-borne transport during the Fort Beauséjour operation back it June, make it easier for the British to overawe the Acadians at Minas and Pigiguit?  Lawrence and his commanders certainly must have understood that once members of an Acadian family were placed aboard a deportation transport, others were likely to follow, hence the need to keep the families together--a worthy goal not always attained.  John Mack Faragher gives the example of René LeBlanc, the 73-year-old notary from Grand-Pré.  During the chaos of the embarkation at Minas, old René was placed aboard a transport destined for Philadelphia with his two youngest children, Jean-Baptiste-Marie, age 11, and Marie-Jeanne, age 7.  However, his other minor children--Joseph-Marie, age 17; twins Pierre-Benjamin and Esther, age 15; and Paul-Marie, age 13--were placed aboard a different vessel.  "Twelve adult children with their spouses and some 150 grandchildren were put on other transports," Faragher relates, "and the family was scattered in colonies from Massachusetts to Virginia.  This was just the 'immediate' family," Faragher reminds us, "and since Acadians had a highly extended sense of kinship, it was inevitable that nearly all the families were fractured and dispersed."  The fracturing of Acadian families was occurring not only at Minas and Pigiguit, but also at Chignecto, and it would plague the embarkation at Annapolis Royal a few weeks hence.127   

Winslow and his officers lost control of another aspect of the embarkation.  One suspects Charles Lawrence would have shrugged off the Acadians' pain and suffering, but the mad destruction of what they left behind them, now the property of the King, would have triggered the lieutenant-governor's famous temper.  Again, Faragher says it best:  "Once the inhabitants had been driven from their homes, Minas belonged to the vultures," human as well as avian.  "Their abandoned property became the object of pillage and destruction.  Off-duty soldiers and sailors as well as English and German colonists from Halifax, Lunenburg, and other Protestant settlements on the Atlantic coast raided homes, looted storehouses, killed chickens, butchered hogs, and dug through gardens for buried valuables.  For several days, chaos reigned."  Elder François Landry "complained bitterly to Winslow that in addition to plundering Acadian property, troops and colonists were abusing Acadian women in their encampment on the landing."  Winslow responded on the 13th with an order addressed not only to his own troops, but also to ship's masters to keep their crewmen under control so that "an End may be put to Distressing this Distressed People."  Winslow had been warning Lawrence for weeks that he did not have enough troops to fulfill his mission, and here was a terrible manifestation of that fact.  Nevertheless, on October 12, "amid these scenes of ransack and pillage," Winslow managed to send several companies of his New Englanders into outlying hamlets "to sweep up fugitives and stragglers," and his Yankees finally found the opportunity to shoot Acadians.  "One patrol discovered a number of the young escapees hiding in an abandoned hamlet," Faragher relates.  "Ordered to surrender, they instead fled on horseback.  The soldiers fired, killing one young man--reputedly a grandson of Pierre Melanson dit Laverdure, one of the first settlers at Minas ...--and mortally wounding another.  These were the first Acadian fatalities recorded in Winslow's journal," Faragher tells us, "although Acadian tradition claims many others."128 

They may have been the first Minas Acadians to suffer violent deaths, but they would not be the last. 

On Monday the 13th, when the embarkation at Minas resumed in earnest, François Landry coaxed the other young men to return to Grand-Pré, and Winslow allowed them to board the transports with their families.  Chaos reigned not only in the villages, but also out on the water.  Like any maritime venture in the Fundy region, the transfer of victuals from HMS Halifax to the recently arrived transports was complicated by the extremities of tide and wind.  What had commenced on the 11th was still incomplete by the 13th.  The comings and goings of dozens of ships and boats in and out of the lower Gaspereau and up and around to Pointe-des-Boudrot must have been a sight to behold by the hundreds of people still waiting along the shore.129 

Meanwhile, Captain Murray at Pigiguit was having difficulties with one of his ship captains.  The transport Neptune had lost an anchor at Pigiguit.  The ship's master, Jonathan Davis, also complained about the lack of water aboard his vessel and insisted that his 90-ton schooner was no longer seaworthy.  Captain Murray, who described Davis as "Quite indolent and Seems Stupid," would have none of it.  Murray beseeched Lieutenant-Colonel Winslow to find a 600- or 700-pound spare anchor aboard the Halifax or on one of the transports at Minas so that Davis's large vessel would not be lost to his operation.  Murray believed that four transports besides the Neptune would allow him to finish loading all of the "upwards of 920 People ... Children Included" who had gathered in the vicinity of Fort Edward.  Despite the trouble with the New-English sea captain and the rigors of embarkation, Murray maintained a buoyant mood.  On the 12th, he promised Winslow that "So Soon as I have Shipt off my Rascals I will Come Down and Settle maters with you & Enjoye our Selves a Little."  Two of the three transports Winslow sent to Murray sailed up to Pigiguit on the 12th, and on the 15th the other one followed.  Murray now had his five transports:  the Neptune; the Three Friends; the Dolphin, an 87-ton sloop under Master Zebediah Forman; the Seaflower, an 81-ton sloop from Maine under Master Samuel Harris that Winslow had impressed into transport service; and the Ranger, a 90-ton sloop under Master Francis Piercy.130

By the evening of the 13th, John Mack Faragher tells us, "all the Acadians of Grand Pré had been loaded onto five transports anchored in the mouth of rivière Gaspereau.  These vessels ...," Faragher informs us, "had been specially outfitted to carry human cargo, the holds divided into two or three levels about four feet high, much as they were arranged in vessels used for the slave trade."  Since all of the transports had been hired from the Boston firm of Apthorp and Hancock, one can assume that the transports at Chignecto, now making their way down the Bay of Fundy to the Annapolis Basin, were similarly fitted out to accommodate the deportees at two persons per marine ton.  The available transports at Minas now full, Winslow issued orders to each of the ship's masters.  First, he informed them of where they would be going.  The Elizabeth and Leopard, which had loaded at Grand-Pré and would be escorted by HMS Nightingale, were off to Maryland with 420 Acadians aboard.  The Hannah, with its 140 deportees, and the Swan, with 168, eight over the limit--308 Acadians in all, loading at Pointe-des-Boudrot--were going to Pennsylvania.  The Endeavor with its 166 deportees, six over the limit; the Industry with 177; the Mary with 182; the Prosperous with 152, two over the limit; and the Sarah and Molly with 154 deportees, 14 over the limit--831 Acadians in all, also loading at Pointe-des-Boudrot and escorted by HMS Carolina and HMS Halifax--were heading to Virginia.  The nine ships carried a total of 1,559 exiles, 82 over their limit.  Each transport master, Winslow instructed, was to "make all Possible Dispatch in Debarking your Passengers, and Obtaining Certificates according to the Forms Inclosed to sd Govrs."  Each master was to make certain that "no arms or offensive weapons are on Board with your Passengers, and to be as Carefull & Watchful as Possible Dureing the whole Corse of your voyage to Prevent the Passengers from Making an attempt, to Seize your Vessel by allowing only a Small number to be on the Deck at a Time, and using all other Necessary Precautions to Prevent the Bad Consequences of Such an attempt."  As a result of these precautions, Faragher tells us, "There was no provision for light, ventilation, heat, or sanitation."  The locked holds of the ships would be "dark, damp, and suffocating."  Complicating conditions was the fact that "More than half of the people forced into these holds were female, and three out of five were children."  Although Winslow ordered that each master must "See that the Provissions be regularly Issued to the People agreable to Mr. Sauls Instructions," Lawrence's rations would prove to be inadequate for such lengthy voyages, especially if the vessels were delayed in their departures or if they encountered foul weather on the voyage down and were driven farther out to sea.  No doubt relieved that his two-month stay at Minas soon would be over, Winslow washed his hands of the problem by wishing each master "a Succesful voyage."  Nevertheless, his advice to them about keeping a careful eye on their passengers would prove to be prescient--one of the transports from Chignecto sailing down to the Annapolis Basin that very evening barely survived an uprising by its Acadian "passengers"!131 

At Pigiguit, Murray was still embarking his Acadians, so the transports at Minas had to wait for these additional vessels to join them in the basin before moving on to the rendezvous at Annapolis.  During Murray's operation, one can be certain that the Protestant settlers from Halifax and Lunenburg were just as voracious in looting the villages at Pigiguit as they were at Minas.  But Murray had a more pressing problem on his hands:  he still did not have enough transports to meet the two-persons-per-ton passenger limit Lawrence had negotiated with the Boston shippers.  On the 14th, Murray registered a quiet complaint when he informed Winslow that he had collected 920 inhabitants at Fort Edward but had only two sloops of 156 tons besides the 90-ton schooner Neptune on which to load them.  "That can not do," he insisted.  In the same message, he informed Winslow that Master Davis of the Neptune "is Gone away without my Knoledge by which means I Can Do nothing."  Murray had not yet received the third sloop Winslow had promised him, likely the Seaflower, master Samuel Harris, a Maine trader which Winslow had impressed at Minas.  "I am affraid the Govr. will think us Dilertory," Murray fretted about the delay and the overcrowding.  "My People are all ready," he assured Winslow and asked permission to put some of them aboard the Neptune despite the absence of its master.  "Even then with the Three Sloops & his Schooner," he shrugged, the Acadians "will be Stowed in Bulk but if I have no more Vessels I will put them aboard let the Consequences be what it will."  The arrival of two other transports at Fort Edward only slightly alleviated Murray's problem.  Moreover, as the embarkation of their loved ones proceeded in earnest, 146 more Acadians appeared at Fort Edward, adding to the crowded conditions aboard Murray's transports.  Two of the vessels were heading for Maryland:  the Dolphin with 230 Acadians aboard, was 56 passengers over the limit, and the Ranger, with 263 deportees, was even more crowded with 83 passengers above the limit.  The Seaflower, heading to Massachusetts with 206 Acadians, was 44 over the limit.  The Three Friends, heading to Pennsylvania, sailed with 156 deportees, 18 over the limit.  And the Neptune, under a new master, William Ford, was going to Virginia with 206 deportees, 26 over the limit.  (Instead of two persons per marine ton, Murray was packing his Acadians in at two and a half persons per ton--227 passengers over the limit!)  Moreover, his five ships were heading to four separate colonies--a cruel separation of extended families, who would be cast ashore hundreds of miles apart, from Boston down to Hampton Roads.  On the 16th, he informed Winslow that he hoped to be able to send his vessels, filled with 1,061 Acadians, "down to the [Minas] Bason on Sunday" the 19th.132 

By the 20th, Winslow could report to Governor Shirley via an acquaintance in Boston that, even though he had loaded nearly 1,600 Acadians from the various villages at Minas aboard the nine transports available to him, he "apprehended full 500 More in these my Districks" for which he had no vessels.  He already had overloaded several of his transports--one of them, the Elizabeth, heading to Maryland, was 48 passengers over the limit.  Earlier in the month, Lieutenant-Colonel Monckton had promised him three more transports, but they were nowhere to be seen.  Winslow had no choice but to march the inhabitants still waiting at Pointe-des-Boudrots--98 families, "upwards of Six Hundred Souls" from "the ... Villages of Antoine & Landry & Some of Cannard"--down to Grand-Pré, where he placed the women and children in the abandoned houses closest to his camp.  Winslow extracted a promise from the men and older boys to answer to a roll call at sunset each day and allowed them to remain with their families.133 

On Tuesday, October 21, 14 transports--nine from Minas and five from Fort Edward--raised their flukes in the anchorage at lower Gaspereau, at Pointe-des-Boudrot, and in the lower Pigiguit, and slowly made their way on the ebbing tide to their rendezvous in Minas Basin.  Aboard were over 2,600 Acadians--1,559 from Minas and 1,061 from Pigiguit--rounded up from dozens of villages and hamlets, the agricultural heartland of the colony.  Here were hundreds of Acadian men and women who had chosen neutrality over resistance.  They, too, like their belligerent cousins at Chignecto, were being sent away from the land of their fathers to heaven knows where.  John Mack Faragher offers a poignant description of the Acadians' departure from the Bassin-des-Mines:  "As they pulled away from the shore of their homeland for the last time, gleaming streaks of late afternoon sunlight descended from the masses of rolling clouds like so many spotlights, illuminating the red mud of Minas, while in the background the pine forests faded to funereal black."  The transports, under the escort of HMS Nightingale, sailed past imposing Cape Blomidon, rounded the point of Cape Split, the heights of Cape d'Or perhaps visible to the north, and entered the Bay of Fundy, which the Acadians called the Baie Française.  The following morning, each vessel made its way carefully through the Gut and rendezvoused with the eight transports from Chignecto that had been waiting in the basin at Annapolis for nearly a week.  Another five days would pass, however, before these transports and their escort vessels, carrying over 4,400 Acadians, would set their sails for the seaboard colonies and another stage of their disrupted lives.134

.

During the week following the transports' departure for Annapolis Royal, Winslow received a dispatch from Lawrence, dated the 23rd, that anticipated the departure of all of the Minas Acadians and detailed a new mission for Winslow and his men.  Instead of sending "a Strong Detachment" to assist Major Handfield at Annapolis, he and his men would go to Pigiguit, "where you will leave with Capt. Murray such a Number of Men as he and you shall Conclude to be Necessary for the Defence of the Garrison, & for Sending out Parties to Scour the Country & Prevent the Enemy from Carrying off the Cattle or Provissions that may be found in the Villages," left intact by Murray and his men.  Having saved from depredation that which mattered to Lawrence most--the Acadians' crops and animals--the governor planned to remove the New England troops from Nova Scotia by sailing the ones at Chignecto to Fort Edward, where they would rendezvous with Winslow's command before sailing round to Halifax, from whence, it was presumed, the entire regiment would return to Boston.  However, Lawrence gave no specific timetable for what must have been welcome news to Winslow and his Yankees.136

But even as the transports sailed away, Winslow's work at Minas was far from complete.  On the 19th, two days before the transports departed, he had complained to Apthorp and Hancock in Boston, as he had to anyone else who would listen, of how few men he had for the mission at hand, repeating to the wealthy merchants that "I am heartily tired of it."  He praised his officers and men but complained about the effect of his long service at Minas on his personal finances.  He had hundreds more Acadians to guard at Grand-Pré and beeves to cull from the Acadians' herds for the navy and the settlers at Halifax and Lunenburg.  He also would have to explain to Lieutenant-Governor Lawrence his and Murray's violation of their shipping orders, as well as their inability to comply with Lawrence's new directive of the 23rd.  This Winslow did from Fort Edward on the 27th, the day the 22 transports left Annapolis Basin and headed into the storm-tossed Atlantic.  Winslow detailed for the governor the final round up and embarkation at Minas, including the escape of the young Acadians and the killing of one, possibly two, of them, all of which would have been welcome news to Lawrence, but then he had to reveal the bad news.  The hundreds of Acadians he was forced to retain at Grand-Pré, as well as the overcrowded conditions on many of the transports, he attributed to the failure of Lieutenant-Colonel Monckton to send the three vessels promised him earlier in the month.  As a result, Winslow and Murray "Thought it would be for the Good of the Service" to pay the masters of the available transports "for Such as they Carry'd over their Quota after the Same Rate the Owners were Paid Viz Two to a Tun and without which & Taking up a Sloop at Villoge it would have been impossible for his People to have Put to Sea."  Winslow's most passionate complaint, however, was not about Acadians suffering and dying on overcrowded transports; rather, he complained of Massachusetts recruiting officers at Chignecto enlisting men from Governor Shirley's regiment into older New-English regiments and lamented the long service of his men in Nova Scotia and its effect on their morale and their families at home.135 

A few days later, Winslow, still at Fort Edward, received another dispatch from Lawrence, dated the 27th, that modified his orders of the 23rd.  Lawrence specified that Winslow must send to Major Handfield at Annapolis "A Detachment of Eighty Private Men, Two Captains & Four Subaltern officers to Assist him in Transporting the Inhabitants and any other Services he may find necessary."  Aware of the large number of Acadians remaining at Grand-Pré, not to mention the animals and grain still to be protected there and at Pigiguit, Lawrence intended that Winslow and most of his command remain in the area until the work at Minas and Pigiguit was complete.  Only then could he march them from Fort Edward to Halifax via the road through the Pigiguit settlements.  Meanwhile, the baggage which could not fit on the backs of horses, along with that of the New Englanders from Chignecto, would go from Fort Edward to Halifax by sea.137 

During the first week of November, Winslow sent captains Adams and Hobbs with 90 men to the Annapolis valley and then returned to his duties at Minas.  "The destruction of the Acadian villages and hamlets was meant to deprive fugitive inhabitants of any place of refuge," John Mack Faragher reminds us.  So, continuing Monckton's work at Chignecto, Winslow "dispatched his arson squads" to the outlying villages, "and soon the Acadian prisoners still being held at Grand Pré saw clouds of black smoke rising on the southern horizon, followed later in the day by a thick fall of ash.  According to Acadian tradition," Faragher goes on, "the fires burned for six days, and at night the abandoned watchdogs of the exiles could be heard howling over the destruction."  On November 13, "with Minas in ruins," Winslow turned the command at Grand Pré over to Captain Phineas Osgood, who would guard the 732 Acadians languishing there, and departed for Halifax with 55 men.  "His work of destruction was finished."  Sometime that day, Winslow made a careful account in his Journal of the "Buildings Burnt by Lievt Colonel Winslow in Districts of Menis &c":  on November 2 "at Gaspereau" he burned 49 houses, 39 barns, and 19 outbuildings.  On the 5th "at Cannard, Habitant, Pero," his men torched 76 houses, 81 barns, and 33 outbuildings.  On the 6th, still "at Cannard and Habitant," his Yankees set fire to 85 houses, 100 barns, and 75 outbuildings.  The following day, at the same place, they destroyed 45 more houses, 56 more barns, and 28 more outbuildings, a grand total of 255 houses, 276 barns, and 155 outbuildings.  His men also destroyed "on Different Days at the Several Places" 11 mills and a "Mass House," which, added to the houses, barns, and outbuildings, totaled 698 structures put to the torch during the six-day effort.139 

For this righteous old Puritan from Marshfield, Massachusetts, it truly had been "the worst peace of Service yt Ever [he] was in."  For the 1,600 Minas Acadians he had sent away and the 730 still remaining, the six-day orgy of pillage and destruction consumed more than houses, barns, and mills.  Here were their homes, their livelihood, and 75 years of their history.140

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All had been quiet--perhaps too quiet--in the Annapolis valley during the months of September and October.  In the second week of September, word reached Major Handfield at Fort Anne that the delegates who had been held at Halifax since late July would be returned to their families via Minas.  On September 17, Lieutenant-Colonel Winslow at Grand-Pré informed Lieutenant-Governor Lawrence that the imprisoned delegates had reached him, including 27 going to Annapolis.  He planned to send them under guard--a lieutenant, two sergeants, a corporal, and 35 privates--via the road to the upper valley in a day or two.  Winslow had orders from Lawrence to instruct the officer in charge of the guard, which turned out to be Lieutenant William Peabody, "to Scour all the Villages on the [upper Annapolis] River as they Go Down, and Carry into Annapolis all the Men they Can Finde, and Order the women to follow with their Children Carrying with them what Provissions they Can, For the mens Subsistance til they are all ready for Sailing."  Winslow supplemented Lieutenant Peabody's orders by instructing him "to Supply your Self, Party and Prisoners with Provisions of Meat Kinde at the Last Village."  Peabody and his detachment would then remain at Fort Anne to assist the commander there.101 

Major Handfield, then, despite his clever fabrications during the crisis of late August, would be compelled to stage a round up of his own, including some of his kinsmen.  But it did not happen anytime soon.  Within days of Lieutenant Peabody's arrival at Fort Anne with the delegates, Winslow asked for the return of his detachment, and Handfield agreed to send them back, desiring only that "So Soon as you Can Spare the men, you will Send me A Larger Reinforcement til the Arival of which I shall not begin the Embarkation here."  Handfield took the opportunity to express his sincere desire "that we were both of us Got over this most Disagreable and Troublesome part of the Service."  Evidently Handfield complained to Lieutenant-Governor Lawrence of his predicament, for Lawrence instructed Lieutenant-Colonel Winslow on September 23 that as soon as he had embarked the Acadians at Minas, "I would have you Loose No time in sending a Strong Detachment to Major Handfield agreable to your former Instructions as he Seems to want them very much being Suspicious that ye Inhabitants of that River will not Come in Volentarily as they have Promised."  And he was correct.  When Lieutenant Peabody's detachment marched down the Annapolis valley, "all the Men Left their Habitation on his approach," Winslow told Lawrence on September 29, so the valley Acadians had determined not to surrender themselves voluntarily.  In the same letter, Winslow suggested to Lawrence that the lieutenant-governor send the transports lying idle at Annapolis to Minas and Pigiguit, where the round up of Acadians was essentially complete but embarkation could not go forward with the too-few transports available there.  Lawrence agreed.  He ordered Handfield to send his transports to Winslow and Murray and promised that his vessels would be replaced as soon as possible.  Only after the Acadians at Minas and Pigiguit were embarked and sent away could Winslow send enough men to Handfield to facilitate his round up of the valley Acadians.  On the evening of October 13, then, when eight transports filled with Chignecto Acadians sailed through the Gut and into the Annapolis basin to await the transports from Minas and Pigiguit, only a fraction of the valley's Acadians were being held for deportation.  Evidently little had changed by October 22, when the 14 transports from Minas and Pigiguit reached the Annapolis Basin.107 

Five days later, on October 27, the British deportation of the Acadians from Nova Scotia reached a poignant climax:  the 22 transports from Chignecto, Minas, and Pigiguit, along with four escort ships, raised anchor at the ebbing tide.  In single file, they slowly made their way out of the Annapolis Basin, through the Gut, and into the Grand French Bay.  Sailing with them was the 166-ton ship Helena, master Samuel Livingston, with 323 Annapolis Acadians aboard and orders to take them to Boston.107a 

Activity at Annapolis picked up considerably during the first week of November when a detachment of 90 New Englanders from Winslow's command marched down the valley from Minas.  The reinforcement, however, was not an easy one, "the way being So extreemly bad we were obliged to Lodge two Nights in the Woods," Captain Nathan Adams, one of the two company commanders, complained to Winslow on November 10.  When the Yankees reached Annapolis Royal, all of the transports needed to deport the rest of the local inhabitants still had not arrived.  Only a couple of Admiral Boscawen's warships lay at anchor in Annapolis Basin.  At least 300 of the inhabitants on the haute rivière escaped the subsequent roundup, but Handfield's redcoats, with Yankee assistance, secured the rest of the valley's inhabitants by the first week of December.  One suspects that the embarkation at Annapolis, which had begun by December 4 at the anchorage off Goat Island in the lower basin, was no more orderly than those of Winslow and Murray the previous month.  And, according to complaints some of them made after three months at sea reaching their destination, many of these Acadians, until the very moment of embarkation, remained certain that they would not be treated like their militant cousins deported from the other Nova Scotia settlements.  "They affirm," Governor James Glen of South Carolina recorded the following January, "that so far from being in arms against the British or openly joining the French, they never abetted them in any shape, they often run the risk of their lives because they would not, like some other of the Acadians, be compelled to assist them, they always answered they would never act against the Fidelity they owed to the King of England; and they say they can give many instances of their attachment to the Government, particularly that it was their constant custom to give notice to the Commanders of our Troops when they discovered any Party of French or any number of Boats, that our people might be on their guard and might prevent a surprise so that they had no suspicion they were to share the like fate with some others of their Countrymen till the fatal moment came when they were forced on Board, under the pain of military execution, without being (as they say) able to learn the reason of such harsh treatment.  Their Houses were burnt, their cattle killed, their Hay-stacks and Barns, full of corn ... all set in flames before their faces!!!"  Yet here they were, like their militant cousins at Chignecto, being forced aboard vessels hired for the purpose, treated like the cattle they were leaving behind.138a 

At 5 o'clock on the morning of December 8, "with a fair wind," five transports, with close to 1,400 Annapolis Acadians locked in their holds, departed Goat Island under escort of the sloop of war HMS Baltimore, Captain T. Owens commanding.  The masters of the Annapolis transports held orders for four destinations:  the 139-ton snow Edward, master Ephrem Cooke, carrying 278 Acadians; and the 166-ton ship Elizabeth, master Ebenezer Rockwell, with 280 deportees--slightly over 550 Acadians in all--were heading to Connecticut.  The 136-ton brig Experiment, master Benjamin Stoddard, with 250 Acadians aboard, was destined for New York.  The 139-ton snow Pembroke, master Milton ____, with 232 Acadians aboard, was off to North Carolina.  And the 177-ton ship Hobson, master Edward Whitewood, left for South Carolina with 342 Acadians aboard.  Perhaps reflecting Major Handfield's sensibilities towards the area's inhabitants, none of these vessels sailed with more than their allotted numbers.  Only one of them, in fact, the Edward, carried its capacity.  The others sailed with fewer than Lawrence's allotted complement.  Nevertheless, it must have been mortifying for the major and his family to watch many of their relatives sailing away.  But this did not stop the major or his men from doing their duty.  "Years later," John Mack Faragher relates, "an old Acadian who had been deported on one of the transports recalled looking back at Annapolis Royal to see the flames and smoke of the buildings being torched by the troops."138

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During the final days of summer, while thousands of Acadians in the Fundy settlements were being held for deportation, an embarrassing failure marred Lawrence's otherwise successful operation:  all of the inhabitants of a major interior settlement, home to hundreds of these troublesome people, were heading not to a British colony down the coast, but to an island which still belonged to France!51

Following the construction of the new British base at Halifax in the summer of 1749, the recently-appointed governor of Nova Scotia, Colonel Edward Cornwallis, had attempted to project power into the Fundy side of the colony by placing fortified garrisons at Pigiguit, Grand-Pré, and Chignecto, the settlements in which the great majority of "French Neutrals" lived.  These would supplement the old fort at Annapolis Royal, where a substantial number of Acadians also lived.  Only one other important Acadian settlement remained without a garrison.  Cornwallis hoped to replace a blockhouse John Gorham's rangers had built during King George's War with a proper fort at Cobeguit, at the eastern end of the Minas Basin.  By the early 1750s, however, the colony's military resources were spread too thinly to station a garrison there.  Cornwallis's redcoats had to man not only the four existing forts in the Fundy settlements, but also had to protect the communities around Halifax, hit hard by Indians and Acadian partisans during the ongoing petite guerre.  Perhaps Cornwallis would have been wasting resources maintaining a garrison at Cobeguit.  During the petite guerre, Mi'kmaq war parties, moving across the interior of the peninsula from their new base at Chignecto, used Cobeguit as a staging area in their strikes against the settlements around Halifax.  To escape this troubling development, a substantial number of Cobeguit habitants, perhaps the majority of them, left their villages, followed the smuggling route to the North Shore ports, and crossed Mer Rouge to Île St.-Jean, still part of the French colony of Île Royale.  Cornwallis's successor, Peregine Thomas Hopson, by resettling Foreign Protestants at Lunenburg, down the coast from Halifax, only added to the colony's military burden.  Hopson's successor, Charles Lawrence, former commander at Chignecto, was aware, of course, that no garrison sat athwart the smuggling route running through Cobeguit to Tatamagouche, but he, too, was unable to secure enough redcoats to expand the fortified presence in the colony.  Only an occasional ranger patrol troubled the Acadians who remained in the Cobeguit settlements.50a

And then came Lawrence's decision to send the Acadians out of the colony.  In a set of detailed instructions intended for Lieutenant-Colonel Monckton at Chignecto, written on July 31 but not delivered until August 2, Lawrence had expressed his fear that the Acadians living in the interior "will fall upon ways and means in spite of all our Vigilance to send off their Cattle to the Island of St. John & Louisbourg ... by the way of Tat[a]magouche."  Thanks to Admiral Boscawen's blockade, Lawrence intimated to Monckton, Louisbourg "is now in a starving condition," so the French there would be especially eager to secure Acadian cattle.  Lawrence ordered Monckton, "without loss of time," to send to Tatamagouche and the interior "a pretty strong detachment to beat up that quarter and to prevent" the Acadians there from succoring Louisbourg.  "You cannot want a guide for conducting the party," Lawrence quipped, "as there is not a Frenchman at Chignecto but must perfectly know the road."  A week and a half later, on August 11, in supplemental instructions to Captain Murray at Pigiguit, intended also for Lieutenant-Colonel Winslow, soon to occupy Grand-Pré, Lawrence suggested that "... if the Mouth of Chibaaicadie [Shubenacadie] River Could be Visited before Colo Winslows arrival it would be well afterwards there Can be no Difficulty in doing it both by Land & water, it is by that rout (if at all) the Inhabitants Convey away their Cattle and Effects."  Lawrence went on to inform Captain Murray that "I now Send Capt [Joseph] Goreham with one of your officers and Some Men may Make an Excursion with the whale Boats to Chibnaidie [Shubenacadie]...," which would have to be done via the Bay of Fundy.  In his August 11 instructions, Lawrence made it clear to Murray and Winslow that their mission was to round up for deportation "as Many of the Inhabitants of the Districts of Mines, Piziquid, Cobiquid, the River of Canard, &c."  During mid-August, while Monckton was rounding up Acadians at Chignecto and Murray and Winslow were positioning themselves to employ the same stratagem in the Minas region, Monckton sent a company of New Englanders under Captain Abijah Willard "to destroy the port village of Tatamagouche," and Willard did just that.  But neither Murray nor Winslow sent anyone to the villages at Cobeguit.  On September 5, the day of Winslow's and Murray's initial roundup at Minas and Pigiguit, Winslow complained to Murray about the small size of his force relative to the number of Acadians he was guarding and then confided to the redcoat captain:  "... the out Commands if not willing to Submit Must be Let alone till a Further Day."  This included the Acadians at Cobeguit, who Lawrence's instructions clearly had included in Winslow's area of command.50 

And there the matter stood until the second week of September, when Lawrence sent a long directive to Winslow, dated September 11.  The lieutenant-governor congratulated Winslow and Murray on their successful operations at Minas and Pigiguit.   "As the Village of Cobequid are Comprehended under your Instructions," Lawrence reminded the New Englander, he promised to send a force under Captain Thomas Lewis of the rangers "to assist in bringing in those Inhabitants which I belive will be no easy Task."  "Capt Lewis has Lately been there," Lawrence noted, "and being perfectly well acquainted with the Scituation of the Villages will be the Properest Person to Conduct this Enterprise."  He expected Winslow and Murray to consult with Captain Lewis as soon as he reached Pigiguit.  Lawrence concluded his instructions with these words:  "I donte Care how Soon the Party is Sent to Annapolis, Provided it Donte Hinder the Cobequid Expedition for that is most Material and Ought to be Gone about without one moments Delay."87

The Cobeguit operation was now a priority. 

Lawrence did not give an exact date for Lewis's visit to Cobeguit.  The Acadians there likely had learned of the September 5 roundups at Pigiguit and Minas soon after they happened.  One suspects that the news hit them like a thunderbolt.  They would have been aware of the roundup at Chignecto on August 10, and that something similar was going on in the Annapolis valley.  If Lewis visited Cobeguit during the second week of September, he evidently found the inhabitants still at their harvest.  "Eight Invalids that Came fro[m] Cobegate" in a whale boat, in fact, reached Minas by September 11.  But as soon as the Acadians at Cobeguit had learned the fate of their scattered cousins, only a swift operation, such as Lawrence was urging, could have kept them in their villages.87a 

Winslow's and Murray's operation against Cobeguit was anything but swift.  Not until September 16 did Winslow get around to consulting with Captain Murray on the Cobeguit venture, and not until the following day did Winslow "settle" on "The Party for Cobequid."  From Minas, Winslow would furnish a lieutenant (Charles Buckley), two sergeants, two corporals, a drummer, and 40 privates.  Except for an extra drummer, Murray would provide the same size force (his officer would be Lieutenant Mercer).  Captain Lewis's unit, including regulars as well as rangers, would consist of two lieutenants, a sergeant, two corporals, and 20 privates, 117 men in all, to be commanded by Captain Lewis--"which is as many as we Can Spare," Winslow informed Lawrence.  He proposed to embark the force that evening on two deportation vessels that housed no Acadian men:  the 90-ton schooner Neptune, Jonathan Davis, master; and the 90-ton sloop Dolphin, master William Hancock.  Winslow's orders to Captain Lewis reflected the lesson learned from Frye's disaster on the Petitcoudiac.  You "are to bring the Inhabitants of [Cobeguit] off that Place," Winslow directed the ranger captain, "and as you are Lately Come from his Excellency Gov. Lawrance, and Know his Intention as to the People of that Districk I Leave you to your own Judgement, in the Management of this affair, and would only recomend to You not to Divide your Party."  Winslow also left to Captain Lewis's discretion whether to leave that night or wait until the following morning.  Despite the weather turning foul, Lewis managed to get his force aboard the transports safely that evening, but, as he tried to explain to Winslow the following morning, "the Shalloops did not Come down" from Pigiguit "on the last Ebb," so he was compelled to send "the whale boat with a Serjant & Twelve men in order to bring them Down" before he could be ready for his mission.88 

It would have taken the Neptune much of a day to reach the entrance to Cobeguit Bay, where Captain Lewis and his men would have witnessed some of the highest tides on the planet.  Not until the tide began to flow could they sail eastward through the narrowing bay to the mouths of rivières Shubenacadie and Wecobequitk.  This would have placed them at Cobeguit sometime on September 19--if they had left Minas on the morning of the 18th.  Unfortunately for the timeliness of the operation, the storm that struck the region the evening of the 17th lingered into the following day.  Captain Lewis, aboard the transport Dolphin in the Gaspereau, explained to Lieutenant-Colonel Winslow:  "after I had wrote my yesterdays Letter [8 a.m. on the morning of the 18th] the wind blew So Exstreamly Violent that I Could not Send it [the letter] on Shore, but as the weather is now Settled [he was writing on the 19th] I hope the Shallops will Come down time Enough on the Next Ebb to permit us to Sail."  Perhaps trying to add weight to a valid excuse for not having yet sailed, Lewis described the effect of "the Gale" on the other transports in the harbor.  He sought to exchange a corporal who had become ill with one who would be hale enough to endure the rigors of the operation.  He complained that "we have No Provissions on Board Excepting what is Designed for the March, therefore if you think proper a Bullock or two would be Very usefull to us.  I waite for your Orders," he concluded.  Winslow sent him "a Good Fat Ox," a replacement corporal, and "Seven or Nine men" to add to his company.  This of course consumed much of the day, so Captain Lewis did not get away until the evening of the 19th or the morning of the 20th.89 

On the 20th, Winslow addressed a letter to George Saul, Lawrence's commissary, then at Chignecto, and used the past tense to describe the party sent "to Bring in the People" at Cobeguit.  Winslow predicted that "when the Party returns from Cobequid" it would bring in "at least Two or Three Hundred People"--perhaps a figure obtained from Captain Lewis's recent visit there.  Winslow reminded Saul that the Cobeguit inhabitants "will have No Friend to Supply" them at Minas, since they would have been removed from their own food supply, "nor I anything to Give them to Subsist on," Winslow added.  He then requested additional supplies to be sent to him to accommodate the increase in his number of deportees.90

Saul need not have bothered.  On September 25, Winslow received from Captain Lewis the startling news that "the Inhabitants of Cobequid have Entierly Deserted that Country," as the lieutenant-colonel described it to Lieutenant-Governor Lawrence in a dispatch dated the 29th.   Captain Lewis and his force had made this discovery on the 23rd, after which they "began to Burn and lay waste" the villages there, which took them two days to accomplish.  Lewis's only casualty in the expedition was New Englander Nathan Robins of Osgood's Company, "who had the Misfortune to be Shott Throh his Sholders by a Brother Centry when on Post taking him to be an Enemy."91

Despite the destruction of the settlement, the expedition to Cobeguit was a disaster for British arms.  Sometime during the middle of September, before the British could get at them, most of the "Two or Three Hundred People," or however many Acadians had been left at Cobeguit, destroyed what they could not take with them; gathered up their families, household valuables, and the food they could carry or drive before them; and either hid in the hills above the settlement or hurried up the overland tracks to the North Shore ports.  Tatamagouche, the closest one, was only 40 miles away, but it would have been nothing but a ruin by the time they reached it.  Most of the men from Tatamagouche were languishing at Chignecto, and the port's women and children, if they were still in the remains of their homes, would have been in terrible condition.  But there were other North Shore villages the Cobeguit refugees could turn to for help--Pugwash and Remsheg west of Tatamagouche; and Cape John, Pictou, and Caribou to the east--where boats could transport them across Mer Rouge to the southern shore of Île St.-Jean.  There, from early autumn into the following spring and summer, they joined their many kinsmen already there.92

.

The deportations from Nova Scotia continued into late autumn, but on a much smaller scale:  805 Acadians aboard six transports from Minas and Halifax, compared to the 6,397 aboard 28 transports from Chignecto, Minas, Pigiguit, and Annapolis Royal.145

Meanwhile, in early November, Lawrence was still laboring under the assumption that Lieutenant-Colonel Monckton would send extra transports to Minas to deport the 750 Acadians still waiting there.  "I have Some fears that the Provissions put on Board these Transportes at Chignecto may have been put to Some other use," Lawrence wrote Lieutenant-Colonel Winslow, still at Minas, on November 5.  "If this Should be the Case they must get what more may be wanted at Annapolis to which Place they must be ordered to proceed to be taken under the Convoy of the Kings Ships appointed to Carry away those of that District."  Lawrence urged "Speedy" execution in getting these Acadians away, but Winslow was then occupied with destroying the Minas villages before putting the place behind him.  Before marching off to Halifax, John Mack Faragher relates, Winslow attempted to bring in fugitives who had taken to the woods by posting a notice in French, "addressed to the 'habitants réfugiés.'  They had nothing to fear from the British, it read, if they turned themselves in and submitted to His Majesty's orders, 'which are none other than to embark and be consigned to the colonies of Sa Majesté Trés Chrétienne--His Very Christian Majesty," that is, King Louis XV.  "It is not known whether any of the Acadians fell for this trick," Faragher admitted, "but several dozen more inhabitants either surrendered or were captured before the final contingent was sent off...."  One suspects that they came in not because of the idle British promise, but because of the fast approaching winter, which promised only misery in the frozen woods.  Before leaving Minas on November 14, Winslow instructed Captain Phineas Osgood, left in charge at Grand-Pré, to hurry along the deportation of the remaining Acadians, but this was easier said than done.  Osgood did his best to round up more Acadians with the small force at his command, but most of his efforts were exerted in keeping together the hundreds of inhabitants Winslow had left to him.141 

On November 29, Winslow, still at Halifax, informed Osgood that the New-English venture at Grand-Pré soon would be over.  Governor Lawrence had assured him that "Colo Monckton will be with you before the Receipt of this and Doubless with him the Transports" needed to ship off the remaining Acadians.  Winslow was confident that Osgood would "make no Delay in Putting a Finishing Stroke to the Removal of our Friends the French."  This done, Winslow was anxious that his two detachments at Minas and Annapolis rendezvous at Fort Edward, from whence they would join him at Halifax.  Following Lawrence's directive, Winslow ordered Osgood to "remove the Sick by Water," along with "the King's Stores" that could not be taken on the march from Pigiguit.  Meanwhile, Osgood prepared his men for the winter by building chimneys "in the Mass House," St.-Charles-des-Mines.142 

As Winslow had promised, the deportations at Minas resumed on November 30.  On that day, a sloop whose name and burden has been lost to history, under command of a master named Worster, left Minas Basin for Connecticut with 173 Acadians aboard.  On December 2, four other transports arrived at Minas to take on the remaining inhabitants.  On December 13, the 102-ton brig Swallow, master William Hayes, carried away 236 Acadians--32 over capacity--to Boston; and the 87-ton sloop Dove, master Samuel Forbes, took 114 deportees, well under capacity, to Connecticut.  A few days later, an unnamed schooner from Chignecto, master ____ Newell, ran aground in Rivière Pigiguit and was unable to be refloated in time to take any of the Acadians away.  The schooner Racehorse, master John Banks, a ship belonging to Halifax merchant Joshua Mauger, was pressed into service to replace Newell's transport.  At first Captain Osgood was not certain if Mauger's schooner was fit for sea, but on December 20 the Racehorse left Minas with 120 Acadians aboard, bound for Boston.  On the same day, the 57-ton schooner Ranger, master Nathan Monroe, sailed away with 112 Acadians bound for Virginia.  Here were 755 Minas Acadians to add to the 1,559 deported in October, a total of 2,314 inhabitants from a population of approximately 2,500.143 

By the close of 1755, then, between 6,000 and 7,000 Acadians from British Nova Scotia had been shipped off in three dozen transports to nine of the 13 Atlantic seaboard colonies.  From Maine down to Georgia, only New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Delaware, thanks to their smaller populations, escaped the burden brought to their sister colonies by transports full of "Neutral French."   But Lawrence's grand deportation scheme was only a partial success.   A thousand or more Acadians from Chignecto and the trois-rivières slipped away from Monckton's grasp.  Hundreds more managed to dodge Winslow's and especially Murray's nets at Minas and Pigiguit.  The entire population of Cobeguit--several hundred Acadians who had chosen to remain there--got clean away and found refuge on French-controlled Île St.-Jean.  No British transports entered the lower reaches of Rivière St.-Jean to deport the 200 or so Acadians who had settled there.  Perhaps 300 Acadians from Annapolis's haute rivière escaped Major Handfield's round up and spent a hard winter on the Fundy shore before crossing the bay to Chepoudy the following spring and making their way to the upper Petitcoudiac or the lower St.-Jean.  And no force had yet to be sent to the Cap-Sable area, where a few hundred Acadians still remained in a sort of geographical cul-de-sac; they would be struck by redcoats from Halifax the following spring.  Thousands of Acadians in Nova Scotia, then, had escaped the lieutenant-governor's grasp.  Add to this the thousands of Acadians on the French Maritimes islands, most of them refugees from Nova Scotia and all of them out of Lawrence's reach, and one could make a case that Acadian presence in the region was far from eradicated, that most of them, in fact, at least for now, had escaped deportation.144

Fait Accompli and Promotion, October 1755-May 1756

The eradication of the Acadian presence, of course, had been the purpose of Lawrence's deportation scheme.  How else could he fulfill his ultimate goal of transforming Nova Scotia into a proper New-English colony?  Though Acadians had been completely removed from the colony's interior, where relatively few of them had settled, and no longer lived in any significant numbers on their former lands along the Bay of Fundy, the presence of armed partisans and Mi'kmaq bands on the periphery of the colony prevented resettlement of New-English Protestants until this threat could be eliminated.  Here would be the next phase of Lawrence's operation, the removal of that threat, but first he had to explain to his superiors in London what it was he had accomplished since their last communication. 

Lawrence did not communicate with his superiors until October 18, exactly three months after he had informed them of the Nova Scotia Council's determination "to bring the Inhabitants to a compliance" on the unconditional oath "or rid the province of such perfidious subjects."  During the following months, as his deportation scheme progressed from plan to roundup to embarkation, Lawrence could have sent regular reports to London, but he chose not to do so.  And when he did communicate with his superiors again, the deportation had become a fait accompli.  John Mack Faragher explains:  "The authorities in London had given him very little instruction.  Neither endorsing Acadian removal nor prohibiting it, they had left the matter for Lawrence to resolve.  With the support of Governor William Shirley and Vice-Admiral Edward Boscawen, he had gone ahead and accomplished what others for nearly half a century merely had talked of doing, and it seemed entirely in keeping with the spirit of the arrangement that he did not send regular reports to superiors who gave every indication of wanting to distance themselves from the deed.  When he finally wrote, it was to inform them of a job completed."148  

Lawrence addressed his letter of October 18 "To the Right Hon. the Lords Commrs. of Trade & Plantations."  He reviewed the meeting with "the French deputys of the different districts" and their refusal to take the proper oath, insisting that "nothing would induce them to acquiesce in any measures that were consistent with his Majesty's honor or the security of his Province."  As a result, "the Council came to a resolution to oblige them to quit the Colony, and immediately took into consideration what might be the speediest, cheapest and easiest method of giving this necessary resolution its intended effect.  We easily foresaw that driving them out by force of Arms to Canada or Louisbourg, would be attended with great difficulty, and if it had succeeded would have reinforced those settlements with a very considerable body of men, who were universally the most inveterate enemies to our religion and Government, and now highly enraged at the loss of their possessions."  He said nothing about the failure to subdue the inhabitants at Cobeguit, of which he was by then aware; or of the many Acadians who escaped from Monckton's grasp at Chignecto and formed a resistance movement in the area with the small French force there; or of the defeat of the New Englanders on the Petitcoudiac in early September.  "The only safe means that appeared to us of preventing their return or their collecting themselves again into a large body," Lawrence went on, "was distributing them among the Colonies from Georgia to New England.  Accordingly the Vessels were hired at the cheapest rates," and he could report that the embarkation of the inhabitants "in now in great forwardness, and I am in hopes some of them are already sailed," though none had not.  He was confident "that there will not be one remaining by the end of the next month," that is, November.  He enclosed with the letter copies of the Council records "which contain a very particular account of this whole transaction."  Aware of the financial concerns of the Lords of Trade, he detailed for them all of the measures he had taken "to lessen the expense of the Transportation of the inhabitants."  He insisted that "vessels that have been taken up for that purpose, were most of them bound to the places where the inhabitants were destined, and by that means are hired greatly cheaper than the ordinary price."  He said nothing of the vessels' weeks-long delays at Chignecto, Minas, Pigiguit, and Annapolis, which certainly had driven up the cost of the operation.  He assured the Lords that feeding the deportees "with their own provisions" saved the colony considerable expense.149 

Lawrence then turned his attention to the next phase of his operation--the re-peopling of Nova Scotia with New Englanders and its many benefits to King and country.  Though he was "only" a soldier, not a lawyer like his colleague Jonathan Belcher, Jr., the force, if not the eloquence, of Lawrence's words in defending his deportation scheme could only have pleased the Lords of Trade, as well as King George II, who doubtlessly would be looking for a plausible excuse to justify such a nasty business:  "As soon as the French are gone," the lieutenant-governor explained, "I shall use my best endeavours to encourage People to come from the continent to settle their lands, and if I succeed in this point we shall soon be in a condition of supplying ourselves with provisions, and I hope in time to be able to strike off the great expense of the Victualling the Troops.  This was one of the happy effects I proposed to myself from driving the French off the isthmus and the additional circumstance of the Inhabitants evacuating the Country will I flatter myself greatly hasten this event as it furnishes us with a large quantity of good land ready for immediate cultivation, renders it difficult for the Indians who cannot as formerly be supplied with provisions and intelligence, to make incursions upon our settlers, and I believe the French will not now be so sanguine in their hopes of possessing a province that they have hitherto looked upon as ready peopled for them the moment they would get the better of the English."  But, despite the purported success of his operation, the province was not yet completely secure.  "I think it my duty to acquaint your Lordships that it will be highly necessary for the security of the province to fortify the Isthmus of Chignecto as early in the Spring as possible," Lawrence admitted.  "The French Forts at Beausejour and upon the Bay Verte are put into the best repair that the time would permit, but they are neither strong enough nor will they contain a sufficient number of men to resist any considerable force.  It is also of the highest importance," he added, "that there should be a Fort of some strength at St. John's River to prevent the French resettling there, as well as to awe the Indians of that district"--strange advice considering that neither naval Captain Rous nor army Lieutenant-Colonel Monckton had yet cleared the river of its inhabitants.  "I am very sensible the making these Fortifications will create a very considerable expense and therefore cannot be undertaken without orders, but if your Lordships should think it necessary to be done you may depend upon its being set about with the greatest economy."  He enclosed for the Lords' perusal a copy of the circular letter he had sent via ship's captains "to the Governors of the provinces to which they were destined" and expressed the hope that "the provinces will make no difficulties about receiving them as they may in a short time become useful & beneficial Subjects"--a strange sentiment from the man who had just exiled thousands of those potentially "beneficial Subjects" from the only homeland they had ever known.150 

Three weeks later, in early November, Lawrence finally received a response from Secretary of State Sir Thomas Robinson addressing what Lawrence had written in his dispatch of June 28, in which the governor had informed Whitehall of having issued orders to drive "the deserted French Inhabitants at all Events, out of the Country."  Robinson's letter was dated August 13, two days after Lawrence had penned the circular letter to his fellow governors and set the deportation scheme in motion.  No doubt echoing the concerns of the King's Privy Council at the time, Robinson expressed confusion over Lawrence's remark referring to "the deserted French Inhabitants."  "It does not clearly appear," he admitted, "Whether you meant To drive away, all the French Inhabitants of the Peninsula, which amount to many Thousands, or, such of them, as, you say, ... were settled to the number of 8000 [sic, he meant 800] Families in five or six Villages in the neighborhood of Beausejour, or lastly Whether you mean, only such of the Inhabitants, as were found in Beausejour, when evacuated by the Garrison."  Engaging in wishful thinking, the secretary added:  "The latter seems, rather, to have been your Intention," and then he repeated what Lawrence had told him about Monckton needing "the assistance of the French deserted Inhabitants" to help repair the ruined fort.  Having assumed that Lawrence meant to deport "only such of the Inhabitants, as were found in Beausejour," Robinson commended the governor for having "acted upon a strict Principle of immediate and indispensible Security to your Government, and not without having considered the pernicious Consequences that may arise from any Alarm, which may have been given to the whole body of the French Neutrals and how suddenly an Insurrection may follow from Despair; Or what an additional Number of useful subjects may be given, by their Flight, to the French king"--which is exactly what had happened during the mismanaged roundups at Chignecto, Cobeguit, and Annapolis.  "It cannot, therefore, be too much recommended to you," Robinson insisted, "to use the greatest Caution and Prudence in your conduct towards these Neutrals, and to assure such of them as may be trusted, especially upon their taking the Oaths to His Majesty, and His Government, That they may remain in quiet Possession of their Settlements under proper Regulation...," which must have been a devastating revelation when Lawrence read it.  Robinson then mentioned a proposal made by the French ambassador "in the Month of May last" which would allow "all the French Inhabitants of the Peninsula" three years to evacuate British Nova Scotia "with their Effects."  The French were certain that such a proposal would be favored by the English.  "Whereupon," Robinson continued, "His Majesty was pleased to order an Answer to be given, and which I now send you for your particular information, viz. 'In Regard to the Three Years Transmigration proposed for the French Inhabitants of the Peninsula, it would be depriving Great Britain of a very considerable Number of useful Subjects, if such Transmigration should extend to the French, who were Inhabitants there at the time of the Treaty of Utrecht, and to their descendants."151 

"Lawrence was proud of what he had accomplished," John Mack Faragher reminds us, "So it must have been terribly distressing" to find in Robinson's letter "grave doubts about the wisdom of the entire project."  Lawrence did not answer Robinson until later in the month, and, as in his October 18 missive to the Lords of Trade, he did not stumble in the defense of his questionable actions.  Again, he wrote more like a lawyer than a soldier, and, again, he played havoc with the truth.  He admitted that "'The removal of the French Inhabitants has proved a Work of much more Trouble and Time than could be imagined,'" and he feared that "'a considerable part of so great a Work is yet to be accomplish'd.'"  He referred to the armed resistance at Chignecto but was confident that it soon would be crushed.  "'The Prospect may, I think, be fairly said to be now open that leads to Success, and no Circumstance in my Opinion, my Lord, brightens it more than that happy, tho' expensive one of extirpating those perfidious Wretches, the French Neutrals.'"  He conceded that "he should have kept London better informed," but, in the words of John Mack Faragher, "the complicated operation had required his constant attention."

Lawrence then recounted some recent history, much of which he himself had observed.  "In regard to the word Pardonné, in the fourth article of the capitulation of Beausejour, mentioned in your letter of the 13th of August," he explained, "I apprehend nothing was further understood by it, either on one part or the other, but that the French Inhabitants found in Arms in the Fort, should not be put to Death, for though Lt. Colonel Monckton was told before he set out, that the Deserted French Inhabitants were to be driven out of the Country, in order to prevent his giving them any pretence or hopes, either by Capitulation or otherwise of being reestablished in their possessions, yet it was never intended to precipitate measures so far as to drive them into Despair, or to cause their flight to Canada."  In recounting the perfidy of the Acadians at Chignecto, the ones he referred to as "the Deserted French Inhabitants," he penned one of his darkest lies about the long-suffering people he had just sent into exile.  "When the French Troops first took post at Beausejour (where they soon after built their Fort)," the governor related, "their principal view was to secure to themselves the north side of the Bay of Fundy, to fix the Isthmus of Chignecto for our Boundary, and to cover the retreat of such French Inhabitants, as had an inclination to retire from the English Government and join them.  There were indeed originally, some French inhabitants who lived on that side the Bay, but as the Land is not esteemed very Fertile, and but small quantities of it cleared (in comparison with other French settlements in the Province), they were but few in number.  When the English Troops in the year 1750 went to take possession of that part of Chignecto, the French admitted it to be ours," which would have been quite a revelation to Captain La Corne and Lieutenant Boishébert, who were there projecting French power in the area, and to Governor-General La Jonquière and every other French official with any knowledge whatsoever of French claims in North America.  And then Lawrence let loose the most damning libel against the Acadians:  "The Inhabitants of that part who were numerous, and possessed a fine fertile County," he insisted, "burned all their Houses and went over with their Families, upon the Land that the French claimed, and in conjunction with the original Inhabitants of that side took an oath of allegiance to the French King, and bore arms under the direction of his officers."  Nowhere does Lawrence mention any element of coercion in this remarkable description of what happened at Chignecto five summers earlier. 

He next turned his jaundiced eye to the Acadians in British Nova Scotia who joined their brethren west of the Missaguash:  "These people who were joined by several Families, deserted from their Settlement in the Interior parts of the Province, amounting by the best observation and intelligence, to fourteen hundred Men capable of bearing Arms, were by us commonly called the Deserted French Inhabitants, because they were universally as well as the other Inhabitants, the descendants of those French left in Nova Scotia at the time of the treaty of Utrecht; and had taken the oath of allegiance to His Majesty in the time of General Phillipps's Government, with the reserve of not bearing Arms.  Notwithstanding which, these people quitted their possessions and went voluntarily to live on that side the Bay under French Government, where they had no other means of subsistence but an allowance of salt provisions from the King out of the French Stores.  It was these Inhabitants alone," Lawrence explained, "that Lieutenant Colonel Monckton had anything to do, for we could not easily at that time form any conjecture what turn the Inhabitants who were nearer to us would take upon the surrender of Beausejour, when it was thought they could entertain no further hopes of assistance from the French." 

And then came Lawrence's pièce de résistance in defense of the deportation:  "But when we found the French Inhabitants who had not deserted their lands entertained the same disloyal sentiments with those who had, and positively rejected the Oath of Allegiance, we thought it high time to resolve (as well for His Majesty's Honor as the immediate preservation of the Province) that the whole French Inhabitants, as well those who had not deserted as those who had, should be embarked on board Transports to be sent out of the Province and dispersed among the neighbouring Colonies."  He was writing the secretary on November 30, so he could update him on the status of an operation that had yet to be approved by any British official other than his colonial Councilmen and admirals Boscawen and Mostyn.  "By much of the greater part of them are sailed," Lawrence noted, "and I flatter myself by this time the whole." 

His operation, in other words, was now a fait accompli

"I will not trouble you with any further account of this Measure," Lawrence went on, "having already had the honor to lay it very fully before you in my letter [to the Lords of Trade] of the 18th of October...."  He then thanked the secretary again for "the Ten Thousand pounds" he had received from Whitehall.  "I am highly sensible of the great Honor the Lords Justice have been pleased to do me, in reposing so much confidence in me," Lawrence chortled.  "I shall endeavour to deserve it, by using every means of Economy, and applying it solely to those uses they have been pleased to direct."  No one, it is true, could have made a case against Lawrence of being a spend-thrift or of using public funds for his own enrichment.  He repeated to the secretary his plans for the St. Johns River the following spring and accused the Indians in that area of having violated their treaties with the British.152 

Lawrence's letter to Robinson reached London in February 1756, only two and a half months after it was written.  If the governor had expected a negative response, or even censure for his actions, he need not have worried.  By then, British authorities could see plainly the failure of Braddock's grand offensive in North America, inherited by Governor Shirley after the general's death, and Shirley himself had failed in his efforts against Niagara.  The British could point to a single bright spot in the three-pronged offensive against the French in Pennsylvania and New York--William Johnson's victory over the Baron de Dieskau at Lake George in early September.  The defeat and death of Braddock two months before, however, continued to throw a pall of gloom over the actions in that corner of the continent.  In the grand scheme of things, then, the fall of Beauséjour on June 18 had been a very bright moment for the British in North America.  Thus, in the words of John Mack Faragher, "if the questionable removal of the Acadians was an integral part of that campaign it would have to be accepted.  It was deemed impolitic to raise disturbing questions about the only success Great Britain could claim."  This had been reflected in a letter from Lord Halifax to Lawrence penned in October.  The head of the Board of Trade not only applauded Lawrence's efforts against the French at Beauséjour, but also approved his actions to secure the rest of the colony.  At the time that he wrote, Lord Halifax, like everyone else in Britain, could not have known of the mass deportation of King George's "useful Subjects" in Nova Scotia.  However, when Lawrence's November letter reached Robinson, Halifax, and the other Lords, "the Board of Trade sought to reassure him further with an unequivocal endorsement," Faragher tells us.  "'We look upon a War between us and France to be inevitable,' the members wrote."  They meant, of course, a declared war against the French, not the conflict that had been sputtering off and on in North America for nearly a year.  Anticipating a fourth declared war against their imperial rival, Britain had secured an alliance with Prussia and soon would ally with Austria as well.  In May 1756, the opposing alliances declared war against one another, and what came to be known as the Seven Years War began in earnest.  "'In the present critical situation of our affairs,'" the Lords of Trade assured Lieutenant-Governor Lawrence, "'we doubt not but that your conduct will meet with His Majesty's Approbation,'" as indeed it did.  "Actions that the previous summer had seemed rash and unwarrantable," Faragher continues, "were now considered to be in His Majesty's service."  What better way to reward their man in Nova Scotia than to promote him from lieutenant-governor under Peregine Thomas Hobson to governor of the province in his own right.  "With this letter," and with Lawrence's promotion," Faragher reminds us, "the British government placed its imprimatur on the removal of the Acadians and assumed responsibility for the act."153

Acadian Exiles in the Atlantic Colonies, 1755-1770

John Mack Faragher provides a poignant description of the opening scene of the Acadians' Great Upheaval.  "In the confusion of those final days," the historian relates, "not only did some Acadians surrender, but others found the means to escape.  One woman was able to slip away from her captors and return to her village, which had yet to be torched.  Her memory of the horror she saw chronicled the destruction of a a way of life.  Homes plundered; household furniture and pottery smashed and strewn about the cart paths; cattle grazing in the wheat fields, pigs rooting in the gardens; oxen, still yoked to the carts that the Acadians drove to the landing, bellowing in hunger; droves of horses running madly through the wreckage.  Standing before her abandoned house, she felt delirious from exhaustion and distress.  The family cow came up to her, begging to be milked.  She sat on her doorstep, milked it and drank, and felt refreshed.  And as she sat there a Mickmaw man approached her.  He pointed toward the basin.  'See the smoke rise; they will burn all here tonight.'  He helped her gather a few things that remained.  Come with me, he said.  The Acadians are 'gone, all gone.'"146

In spite of the depth of this good woman's suffering, she was one of the lucky ones.  Though Winslow's, Murray's, and Handfield's operations had been virtually bloodless, Acadians died in the roundup at Chignecto and during the brief resistance that accompanied it.  But whatever the number of those deaths may have been, it was miniscule compared to the number of Acadians who perished on the deportation transports.  

Soon after the 22 transports from Chignecto, Minas, and Pigiguit set sail from the Annapolis Basin and entered the Bay of Fundy, they ran head on into "a powerful early season nor'easter," which churned the bay for days.  "The sea turned completely white," John Mack Faragher relates, "the air filled with foam, and huge waves and hurricane force winds pummeled the vessels."  Captain Abraham Adams of HMS Warren, one of the escort vessels, described the gale as "one of the Severest Storms I ever knew.  I keept Company with the [HMS] Nightingal," another escort vessel,"as far as yet Grand Menan," a large island on the north side of the entrance to the Bay of Fundy, "and then I brought too in hopes not to leave the Bay, but we Sprung a leake which obliged me to Skudd out of the Bay.  I Stood at Helmm 5 Hours and all our People employed in Pumping & Bailing to free the Vessel."  The storm drove him around to Georges Island, where he found refuge in Halifax harbor.  "I am afraid Several of the Fleet was lost in ye Gale," the captain told Lieutenant-Colonel Winslow.  The Warren remained at Halifax for a month, undergoing repairs, and returned to Annapolis Basin by December 1.  Faragher provides a poignant description of what it must have been like for the Acadians enduring these first dreadful hours of exile:  "The less seaworthy transports were not so lucky, and scattered before the winds.  From their dark prisons below deck, men, women, and children cried out in terror, but they could not be heard over the roar of the tempest."  Miraculously, most of the transports and the other escorts also survived the dreadful storm.  However, the schooner Boscawen, with 190 Acadians aboard, and the ship Union, carrying 392 Acadians, both bound for Pennsylvania, "were never heard from again"--582 exiles from Chignecto, a third of the Acadians sent from that settlement, lost at sea.  The snow Two Sisters, with approximately 250 Annapolis Acadians aboard, bound for Connecticut, also may have been lost in the storm.154 

On November 5, after battling the storm for over a week, six of the deportation transports, four filled with Acadians from Pigiguit and two from Minas, took refuge in Boston harbor.  None of their masters had letters for the governor of Massachusetts, but each of the vessels was in serious need of repair and replenishment.  This did not prevent the Massachusetts Assembly from demanding a report from the harbor authorities to a committee of the Assembly on the condition of the "French Neutrals."  What authorities reported could only have sickened the good Puritans.  "'The vessels in general are too much crowded,' read the report.  The exiles on one transport"--the sloop Dolphin, from Pigiguit heading to Maryland--"were described as 'sickly occasioned by being too much crowded, (with) 40 lying on deck,' on another--the sloop Ranger, from Pigiguit on its way to Maryland--as 'sickly and their water very bad.'"  Acadians aboard the Three Friends, also from Pigiguit but heading to Philadelphia, later testified that they "'Were so crowded in the transport vessels, that we had not room even for all our bodies to lay down at once, and consequently were prevented from carrying with us proper necessaries, especially for the support of the aged and weak, many of whom quickly ended their misery with their lives.'"  Despite their harrowing experience, the report to the committee insisted that the 160 Acadians aboard the Three Friends were "'generally well.'"  Mortality on two of the vessels was painfully high.  The Ranger, thanks to the malfeasance of Major, then Captain, Murray, departed Fort Edward with 263 deportees, 83 over its complement; when it stumbled into Boston harbor, only 205 of the Acadians were still alive; the report to the Assembly also noted that some of the passengers aboard the Ranger were "'sick and with water of poor quality.'"  The Endeavor from Minas, carrying orders for Virginia and 166 Acadians, 6 over its limit, arrived at Boston with only 125 passengers.  Two of the transports, though overcrowded, were in remarkably good condition.  The 154 Acadians from Minas aboard the Sarah and Molly, heading to Virginia with 14 passengers over its limit, were reported to be "'in good health but complaining of the lack of water.'"  The Neptune, with 206 deportees from Pigiguit heading to Virginia, now had 209 Acadians aboard, most of them "'in good health, but 40 persons sleeping on the deck.'"157  

The Boston authorities acted quickly.  On November 7, they declared that conditions aboard most of the vessels was intolerable and recommended that 134 passengers be removed from their respective vessels and allowed to disembark at the city docks.  This would allow each vessel to proceed to its intended destination with the required complement of two passengers per ton.  As long as it did not break up anymore families, the Acadians could only have applauded the disembarkation scheme.  "The ships' captains," however--Zebediah Forman of the Dolphin, Francis Piercy of the Ranger, William Ford of the Neptune, James Purrington of the Sarah and Molly, John Stone of the Endeavor, and Thomas Carlile of the Three Friends--"loudly protested any reduction in number, for their contract specified payment on the basis of the number of persons delivered at their ports of destination,"  John Mack Faragher relates.  They sought out Benjamin Green, a member of Lawrence's Nova Scotia Council who was in Boston on government business, "and convinced him to agree that the province would pay for all the inhabitants counted at Boston," not their ultimate destinations, "which cleared the way for the embarkation" of the recommended number of Acadians.  These first arrivals in Massachusetts, soon to be jointed by hundreds of their fellow Acadians, were housed temporarily in the city's poorhouse before the Assembly decided which Bay Colony communities would receive them.161 

Once the excessive number of deportees were removed from their holds, repairs were made, and food and water replenished at government expense, the six transports were allowed to go on their way.  Each of them survived the final leg of their arduous journey.  One reached Hampton Roads, Virginia, on the 13th, followed by two more on the 30th; one reached Philadelphia on the 21st; and two dropped anchor at Annapolis, Maryland, on the last day of the month.162

Virginia

Officials in the other British seaboard colonies were not so accommodating to Lawrence's deportation scheme.  Lieutenant-Governor Robert Dinwiddie of Virginia was especially chagrined to find so many dangerous "French Neutrals" suddenly at his doorstep.  Lawrence's original order of August 11 called for 1,000 of the estimated 2,000 Acadians at Minas and Pigiguit to be sent to Virginia, Britain's oldest, largest, and most populated colony in North America.  When the debarkations at Minas and Pigiguit were completed two months later, 831 Minas exiles, in five transports, were destined for Virginia.  One transport from Pigiguit would carry 206 more Acadians to that colony--1,037 inhabitants from the heart of Nova Scotia.   On December 20, the final transport removing the last of the inhabitants from the Minas Basin headed down to Virginia with 112 more deportees, making at total of 1,149 Acadians placed aboard seven transports heading to the Old Dominion.  Only South Carolina, with 1,167 deportees from Chignecto and Annapolis Royal in five ships, was the destination of more Acadian exiles in 1755, but more transports filled with exiles reached Virginia than any other seaboard colony.163 

Virginia was an especially troubled place during the autumn of 1755.  Two summers before, in early July 1754, the French and Indians had meted out death and humiliation to Virginia forces in western Pennsylvania.  Braddock's defeat on the Monongahela almost exactly a year later had brought death to even more Virginia volunteers, who had followed the young Washington back to Pennsylvania to avenge the defeat at Great Meadows the summer before.  The disaster in the Ohio valley left the Virginia frontier vulnerable to French and Indian depredation:  "With so few soldiers to protect it, the frontier simply collapsed," an historian of the Seven Years War relates.  "Before the end of July, reports had already reached Williamsburg that Indian war parties had killed thirty-five Virginian backwoods settlers.  In August, frontier inhabitants who could afford to abandon their homesteads were streaming back to more heavily settled regions in the east.  By autumn over a hundred Virginians were known to have been slain or lost to captivity, and the flood of refugees had grown so heavy at Winchester that one could hardly cross the Blue Ridge to the west 'for the Crowds of People who were flying, as if every moment was death.'"  The panic on the frontier spread into the Tidewater region, especially to the seat of government at Williamsburg, where Governor Dinwiddie called the Burgesses into special session to deal with the emergency.  Dinwiddie was appalled by the "'really great Destruction among our back Settlers,'" which, to the horror of the unapologetic land speculator, allowed "France's allies to become 'Land Pyrates, watching and taking advantage of the ... innocent People's insecurity, breaking in upon them, robbing some, murdering others, and carrying away the young Women captives.'"  To counter this terrible circumstance, the governor shipped arms to the frontier posts and summoned the militia in three northwestern counties.  The Burgesses provided funds for a thousand-man provincial regiment.  After extracting provisions for more military control and logistical support than the Burgesses had conceded the year before, Dinwiddie offered command of the new regiment to Washington, who accepted.  The Burgesses also "stiffened the penalties that backed the militia law, authorized the payment of bounties on Indian scalps, and provided for the construction of forts as refuges for settlers and bases from which Washington's troops could patrol the frontier."  Virginia, in other words, had gone to war.  Pity the Indian, Frenchman, or Roman Catholic who appeared in the Old Dominion during this autumn of mass hysteria.164 

And suddenly here they were, hundreds of "French Neutrals," Roman Catholics every one.  The first to arrive were 359 exiles aboard the sloops Industry and Mary, escorted by HMS Halifax.  They sailed into Hampton Roads on November 13, the first of Lawrence's deportation transports to reach their destination.  Evidently the two vessels had endured the late October gale with relatively little damage.  That same day, at the colonial capital at Williamsburg, Governor Dinwiddie was handed Lawrence's circular letter, which he promptly read to his Council.  On November 17, in a letter to Secretary of State Sir Thomas Robinson, Dinwiddie complained in a postscript:  "'Sir:  Since writing the above I have, last Night, an Express from Hampton, to acquaint me of the arrival of two sloops and four more daily expected, with Neutrals from Nova Scotia.  It is very disagreeable to the People to have imported, to rest among us, a number of French people, when many of [the same nation] joined with Indians and are now murdering and scalping our frontier Settlers.'"  Not even Lawrence and the members of his colonial Council could have associated these simple farmers with the Canadian and French cutthroats out on the frontier as enthusiastically as this irate Scotsman.  "'I shall call and consult the Council what is to be done with them,'" Dinwiddie reassured the secretary.  One wonders how Dinwiddie and his Council would have reacted to the news that Robinson and the Lords of Trade had never authorized Lawrence to deport these "French Neutrals," much less send hundreds of them to Virginia.165

No matter, Dinwiddie had to address this fait accompli with all of its political and military complications.  His councilors, who included John Blair, Philip Grymes, Philip Ludwell, William Byrd the younger, Thomas Nelson, Peyton Randolph, and the unnamed colonial commissary, were no more happy with the circumstance than he was.  In the November 13 Council meeting (in which all were in attendance except Nelson and Randolph), Dinwiddie read a letter from a Mr. Balfour at Hampton, "advising of the arrival of two vessels with about 390 of the said French, and that four sail more are hourly expected, who, it is presumed, will bring upwards of six hundred more."  Ship's masters Goodwin and Dunning evidently had shared this piece of intelligence with the Hampton official.  It may have been at this meeting that Dinwiddie attempted, with "great difficulty," to persuade the Council to "receive" the French Neutrals until the Assembly met and then put the matter to a vote.  Winning the question by only a single vote, Dinwiddie sought their advice as to "what manner it would be most advisable to dispose of and divide them through the several counties, and how they could defer the consideration of so important an incident till a fuller Council could be assembled."  In attempting to secure their approbation, Dinwiddie had "argued" that the "French Neutrals" had been "'sent from Nova Scotia to weaken the enemy on our Eastermost Frontier; yet they lived on H. M.'y's Land; they refused swearing allegiance to him, and yet I conceived it was for the safety and protection of all our colonies," he insisted.  The Council nonetheless "'argued that no governor had a right to send such numbers to another colony, without your consent to receive them.'"166  

Mr. Balfour at Hampton had not been misled by ship's masters Goodwin and Dunning.  During the following week, three other vessels reached Hampton Roads.  The sloop Sarah and Molly, with its modified complement of 143 exiles, still three over the limit, had hurried from Boston harbor as quickly as she could and arrived at Hampton Roads within days of the Industry and the Mary.  Also from Boston came the sloop Endeavor out of Minas with 166 more Acadians, and the schooner Neptune out of Pigiguit with a reduced complement of 177 Acadians.  Here were 486 more mouths to feed, a total, now, of 845 "French Neutrals" languishing on five vessels in Hampton Roads, with more on the way.167 

The colonial Council's next meeting was on Thursday, November 20, and, again, they addressed the pressing problem of how to deal with the colony's newest "immigrants."  Dinwiddie, the same four councilors, and the colonial commissary were in attendance; Nelson and Randolph, again, were absent.  Dinwiddie re-read Lawrence's circular, informed them of the number of "French Neutrals" now languishing on ships in Hampton Roads, and beseeched the Council "maturely to deliberate on this momentous affair, and advise him what measures it would be most prudent for him to pursue."  Committed now to keeping them in the colony at least until the Burgesses met, the Council advised the governor "to postpone the determination of this affair, till some proper persons were sent down to Enquire particularly into the number of Families thes[e] people consisted of, and into their circumstances, also to learn whether they were willing to take the oath of Allegiance to his Majesty without any Reservation, would conform themselves to the laws of this Country, and not transgress the limits assigned them without the Government's permission."  They proposed that Philip Ludwell and the colonial commissary "visit these French, to make inquiry and put such Proposals to them."  Ludwell and the commissary agreed to do it.168

Two days later, a special Council meeting was held to receive Ludwell's and the commissary's report.  (Thomas Nelson and Peyton Randolph were now in attendance.)  Ludwell made his report, stating that he and "Mr. Commissary" had boarded the "four sloops and one schooner and inquired particularly into the number and circumstances of the Neutral French, and on account whereof he presented at the Board; with a Paper signed by the said French importing their submission and adherence to His Majesty and promising fidelity to him."  These were Acadians from Minas and Pigiguit, some of whom, like Claude Pitre and Honoré LeBlanc, had been friends of the British back in Nova Scotia.  Many more of them had clung to neutrality and still had a mind to do so.  But four months earlier Lawrence had imprisoned their delegates for refusing to take the unqualified oath, and they had been told by Winslow and Murray that exile from their homeland would be a result of that refusal.  And here they were, on crowded, fetid deportation transports, far from their ancestral homes.  Considering the circumstances in which they had been placed and the condition of themselves and their loved ones, who could have blamed them for meekly submitting, which would have marked the end of their neutrality?  But, in spite of what the Council's record implies, the Acadians even now refused to take the oath.  A year later, in explaining to the Lords at Whitehall why he had sent the Acadians to England, Governor Dinwiddie insisted that "it was what I could by no means evade, they refused taking the Oaths to his Majesty."  Governor Lawrence had told them they were no longer British subjects; now they were subjects of the King of France.  As a result, they demanded to be treated like prisoners of war, with all the rights and privileges such prisoners received.  The colonial Council, like the governor, submitted to the fait accompli:  "it was the opinion and advice of the Board that the said People be landed and disposed of and subsisted as follows," the Council minutes recorded, "viz:  That one of the said vessels be ordered to Richmond at the Falls of the James River, that the French on board two be sent to Norfolk.  That Mr. Balfour and Mr. Stewart at Norfolk be appointed and directed to provide House for them; that they be allowed 4 lb. of flour and 2 lb. of beef or pork per week, each person, that the said Mr. Balfour and Mr. Stewart be ordered to supply them regularly with that Allowance and to see that they behave themselves in an orderly fashion."  The record implies that the Acadians from the two remaining vessels were landed at Hampton, the closest community to the anchorage in Hampton Roads.  One suspects that the smallest vessel would have been sent upriver to Richmond:  the 70-ton sloop Sarah and Molly with its 140 passengers.169  

And more were on the way.  Driven by storm to North Carolina, where it quickly refitted, the sloop Prosperous, with its 152 Acadians from Minas, reached Yorktown at the end of November.  Nearly two months later, on 20 January 1756, the schooner Ranger arrived at Hampton Roads with 112 more Acadians--the last of the deportees from Minas shipped off in late December.  By the middle of winter, however, circumstances had changed in the Old Dominion, and not for the better.  The French Neutrals no longer were welcome in Virginia; in truth, they had never been.  Writing to the head of the Board of Trade after the Council had made its decision to disembark some of the Acadians, Governor Dinwiddie assured the Earl of Halifax that he had complied with Lawrence's scheme, "yet he should have given me previous notice, [that] they might be provided for by the Legislature," the Scotsman complained.  "'However, we have received them and maintain them for some time,'" he shrugged, adding that they now numbered 1,140.  He informed Halifax that the Council had agreed to "'2s' H'h'd, till the Assembly meets," but he feared that "I shall not be able to prevail with them to do what I think absolutely necessary, for the Clamour against them is general over all the Country, and I would gladly hope they should be sent Home at the Country's charge, for [the people of Virginia] are full of resentment against the French for the barbarous Murders and Robberies committed on our frontiers to the Westward.'"  Another reason for the "'general discontent among the people," the governor informed the Lords of Trade, was that "we had no Roman Catholics here before, and they are very great Bigots.'"170 

Here were accusations of a general sort to deepen the prejudice that already existed against anything French or Catholic, but then the Acadians themselves were accused of an act of folly unforgivable in the eyes of most Virginians.  Rumors came in from the western country that the Shawnee, a tribe then allied with the French, "took three French Men in your way to Fort Du Quesne.  They prove to be Neutrals y't they were sent to So. Caro."  Here, perhaps, was evidence that relatives of the French Neutrals being held in the colony were stirring up hostiles along the Virginia frontier.  Much closer to home, and even more troubling, was a report from Hampton that probably sealed the fate of the Acadians in Virginia.  "Those sent here," Governor Dinwiddie wrote to one of his provincial officers, "behave ill and have had frequent Cabals with our Negroes."  Virginia, like most of Britain's seaboard colonies, had sanctioned chattel slavery the century before.  At first, the planters had enslaved the local Indians to work their fields of tobacco.  When Native numbers dwindled from disease and warfare, the planters, with the approbation of the royal governors and the colony's House of Burgesses, imported more Africans, at first by the hundreds and then by the thousands, to provide labor for their burgeoning tobacco plantations.  Agricultural slavery, and its attendant fears, had never taken hold in French Acadia or British Nova Scotia.   Most Acadian families were so large and healthy, their communities so tight-knit, there was no shortage of labor in their fields and pastures.  Moreover, the Mi'kmaq were too numerous and powerful to have allowed Europeans to enslave them; and only a few well-to-do merchants, nearly all of them British, living at Annapolis Royal, could have afforded prestige domestics to wait on them and their families.  For most of the Acadians from the deportation transports, the bondsmen in the Virginia communities would have been the first African slaves they encountered.  And who could have been more sympathetic to these slaves than simple Acadian farmers torn from their homes by a brutal English governor?  Given the pervasive suspicion slave holders held over their human property, the Acadians' faux pas may have been nothing more than the product of mass hysteria.  Nevertheless, even the perception of collusion with local slaves would have triggered a hard response.  Add to this the possibility that a few hardy young Acadians slipped away from confinement and headed towards the Indian country, and the damage was done:  prejudice won out over any compassion white Virginians may have felt towards the exiles.  By early spring, the matter had been brought before the opening session of the colony's general assembly.171   

"In the spring of 1756," John Mack Faragher relates, "Dinwiddie made a halfhearted argument that the Acadians be dispersed among the eastern communities of the province on the model of Maryland, but the delegates would have none of it."  As representatives of the colony's planter class, if not its common people, the Burgesses moved instead "to clear the Country of them."  They complained to the governor that the exiles "were biggotted Papists; they were afraid of their corrupting their Negroe Slaves; and they had once concerted to run away with a sloop from Hampton, which obliged me," remonstrated the governor, "to have a guard over them for two months; there were Addresses from many of the Counties praying that the Country should be cleared of them; and some proposed giving them vessels to go where they would [be] agreeable to the conduct of the Southern Colonies; I dreaded that such a Step would defeat the design of the Governor, etc. of Nova Scotia, in dispersing them," Dinwiddie insisted, "I therefore, under the uneasiness of the people, and to prevent any further Clamour, agreed to their being sent to England, at the Charge of this Country."  Reflecting the fear and suspicion brought on by war and the sudden arrival of these alien exiles, the Burgesses also passed "an act for disarming the Papists and reputed Papists refusing to take the oaths of Government" and authorized forty thousand pounds for "the protection of his majesty's subjects on the frontiers of this colony."172 

The legislative process of removal began in early April.  A committee was formed, chaired by Charles Carter, to fashion a bill "to enable certain Persons to contract for the Transportation of the Neutral French to Great Britain."  By the middle of the month, Governor Dinwiddie could report that "The Legislature have determined to pay [their] passage to Britain, [that] we may be rid of these intestine enemies."   By May 10, the exiles had been re-embarked on four hired transports, which sailed out of Hampton Roads, past the Virginia capes, and out into the broad Atlantic.  Each of the vessels was grossly overcrowded, but they completed the crossing to four English ports.  The Fanny Bovey, with 204 Acadians, reached Falmouth on June 18; the Virginia Packet, with 289 Acadians aboard, reached Bristol the following day; the Bobby Goodridge, carrying 296 exiles, reached Portsmouth on June 23; and the Industry, likely the same 86-ton sloop that had transported 177 Acadians from Minas the previous autumn, reached Liverpool with 243 Acadians aboard on June 26.  The total number of passengers on the four vessels was 1,032, compared to 1,149 who had come to Virginia on seven transports the previous November, December, and January.  Here was a mortality rate of at least ten percent, though it likely was higher, for some of the women certainly had given birth during their six-month sojourn in England's Old Dominion.173  

South Carolina and Georgia

Two other southern seaboard colonies also attempted to send their exiles away, though neither of them followed the Virginia model.  On November 15, two days after the first shipment of exiles reached the Old Dominion, HMS Syren, Captain Charles Proby, arrived in Charles Town harbor, South Carolina, after the long voyage from Annapolis Basin, which he had left with two dozen other vessels on October 27.  Aboard the Syren were 21 "special prisoners," all in shackles, including 56-year-old Alexandre Broussard dit Beausoleil and his 27-year-old son Victor.  As soon as he could, Captain Proby informed colonial officials that he was escort for six transports scattered by a storm, four of them intended for South Carolina and expected to arrive momentarily; the other two he would escort to Savannah.  During the next few days, the four transports intended for Charles Town "dropped anchor in Rebellion Road just outside the harbor."  The Two Brothers, which had left Chignecto with 132 Acadians and suffered a failed attempt by its passengers to take over the vessel, reached Charles Town with 123 aboard.  The Dolphin had left Chignecto with 121 Acadians and, miraculously, reached Charles Town with the same number.  The Endeavour departed Chignecto with 125 Acadians and reached Charles Town with 121.  The Edward Cornwallis, a 130-ton ship, had been packed with 417 Acadians, a staggering 157 over Lawrence's limit.  The extreme discomfort below decks from the terrible overcrowding was compounded by an epidemic of smallpox that broke out during the voyage; only 207 Acadians reached Charles Town aboard the vessel, less than half the number of passengers its master had taken aboard at Chignecto the month before.  Here were 593 newly-arrived "French Neutrals," some of them newly born, that the Palmetto colony was expected to house and feed.174 

Their arrival was not completely unexpected.  On November 9, the South Carolina Gazette had reported "shiploads of these people" being distributed among the seaboard colonies.  The Gazette also reported the armed snow HMS Baltimore (actually a sloop of war) was expected to arrive "with a party of them, but not appeared."  But here was the sloop of war Syren with four "parties" in tow:  on the morning of November 17, word reached the colonial Council chamber in Charles Town of the transports' appearance outside of the harbor.  Royal Governor James Glen was informed of the ships' arrival, and he hurried to the capitol, where six of his councilmen had gathered.  Later that morning, "the sergeant-at-arms announced that two ship's captains awaited an audience" with the governor and the Council.  Masters James Best of the Two Brothers and Andrew Sinclair of the Edward Cornwallis were ushered in (Masters Hancock of the Dolphin and Nichols of the Endeavour had arrived with their ships but did not join their fellows at the capitol).  Best, serving as spokesman, handed the governor a copy of Lawrence's circular.  The letter was addressed to William Lyttelton, "who was to succeed Glen, but who had not yet arrived in the province."  Another governor now was informed that the so-called "French Neutrals" were no longer British subjects; they now belonged to France.  Again, a governor was informed that admirals Boscawen and Mostyn had approved Lawrence's plan and was urged to spare unnecessary expense for the government by landing the exiles as quickly as possible and sending the hired transports on their way.  After the reading of Lawrence's letter, Governor Glen turned to the councilmen present--James Kinloch, John Cleland, William Bull, William Wragg, George Saxby, and James Michie--and said, "'Gentlemen ... You have heard the reading of Governor Lawrence's letter.  We cannot permit these people to come ashore without the consent of the Commons House of Assembly, but neither can we let 'em starve to death.  You would greatly oblige me if you would authorize provisions sufficient for one week.'"  And it was done.  The colony's commissary, William Pinckney, received his instructions, and the captains were escorted out of the chamber.  "What His Excellency said after the captains had departed is not a matter of record," historian Chapman J. Milling tells us, "but it is safe to assume that his remarks included one or more round Scotch swear-words."175 

Milling offers this analysis of Governor Glen's dilemma:  "As Frenchmen the Acadians had refused to take an unqualified oath of allegiance to the British Government.  Nevertheless, they were British subjects, the majority of whom, if indeed not all of them, had been born under the British flag.  Since they were British subjects they could hardly be sent, against their will, to foreign territory.  Because they were French they were suspected of being in sympathy with the French cause in the undeclared war going on between the two powers in America, yet the stubborn fact remained that they were entitled to the protection of the British Government. As professed Catholics they could not under the law be given citizenship in South Carolina, whose charter, although expressively providing for liberty of conscience, excepted 'Papists.'"  Meanwhile, on the streets and in the homes of the colonial capital, Carolinians, nearly all of them Protestants of one denomination or another, shook their heads and wondered what could be done with so many French Catholics thrust upon them.176 

Governor Glen wasted no time in confronting the dilemma.  He requested that "two 'of the most sensible and discreet men' from each of the four vessels" appear before him and his councilors.  On November 25, "eight or ten" Acadian leaders appeared in the Council chamber and promptly made a case for mistreatment at the hands of Governor Lawrence and Lieutenant-Colonel Monckton, and presented three documents to the colonial leaders.  The Acadians, Milling reminds us, "regarded" one of them "as the very charter of the desecrated liberties."  This was a copy of Ensign Robert Wroth's report to Lieutenant-Colonel Lawrence Armstrong, then lieutenant-governor of British Nova Scotia, submitted to Armstrong and the colonial Council in November 1727.  Here was proof that the Acadians, since that time known as "French Neutrals," had taken a qualified oath of allegiance that not only acknowledged them as subjects of King George II, but also guaranteed to them the free exercise of their religion and exempted them from fighting in any future colonial wars.  The other documents also attested to the Acadians' staunch neutrality and the price they paid for clinging to it.  "One was a written order signed by the French commander, de Ramesay, dated at Beaubassin, May 25, 1747, ordering them to fight for him on pain of death.  The other ... was a copy of the terms of capitulation of the fort [Beauséjour] which contained the following clause:  'As to the Acadians, as they have been forced to take up arms under pain of death, they shall be forgiven for the part they have been taking.'"177 

"Clearly the will of the Acadians was far from being broken," John Mack Faragher reminds us.  This governor, like his colleague, Dinwiddie of Virginia, soon would learn that he was dealing not with a bunch of peasants unaware of their rights but with men who were certain of where they stood in a world that was treating them so shabbily.  In the end, Governor Glen would evince true sympathy towards the plight of the exiles, but, unfortunately for the governor, and especially the exiles, the South Carolina Commons House of Assembly was still in session.  The Assembly formed a committee to investigate the new arrivals.  The Acadian leaders appeared before the committee and answered the legislators' questions candidly.  The Carolinians did not like what they heard.  The Acadians acknowledged that they had "'borne arms against His Majesty's Subjects, professed an inviolable attachment to the French interest, with a determined resolution to continue in the public exercise of the Roman Catholic Religion, under the conduct of Priests, and obstinately refused to take an Oath of Allegiance to fight against His Majesty's Enemies.'"  Reflecting the fears and prejudices of its powerful constituents--like Virginia's House of Burgesses, South Carolina's Commons represented an influential planter class, not the colony's common people--the committee's negative report to the Assembly bode ill for the Acadians.  "They were dangerous characters who well might conspire with slaves or natives, the committee concluded, and," Faragher goes on, "would surely render assistance to the French enemy in the event of an invasion."  The committee recommended that the exiles "be turned away."178 

But Governor Glen would have none of it.  "'It would be cruelty to keep these people on aboard the vessels till they perish,'" he chided the Assembly.  In early December, perhaps after employing, as a gesture of compromise, the transshipment of 120 exiles to Georgia aboard HMS Syren, the governor persuaded the Assemblymen to approve the disembarkation of the remaining exiles.  "In spite of the committee's unfavorable report," Milling tells us, the Assembly voted to allow the Acadians to "be received on shore, subject to the following conditions:  1. They were to be quarantined on Sullivan's Island," near Rebellion Road, "for five days, 'that they might purify and cleanse themselves' before they be permitted to come to Charles Town.  2. Those of 'turbulent and seditious disposition' were to be confined at the workhouse.  3. They were to be lodged temporarily under guard in or near Charles Town.  Able-bodied men were to be put to work on the fortifications.  All Acadians must be in at sunset.  The men were to be quartered in barracks, under military guard.  A sum not exceeding ten shillings per week was voted for the maintenance of each person.  4. It was suggested that as soon as possible they be separated into [small] groups and the individuals indented, either voluntarily or against their will, to such persons as would take them."  The Assembly agreed that the men working on the fortifications should be paid, "but the proceeds of their hire should go toward the maintenance of the whole body."  The provision for indenturing individuals required an act of the Assembly, which was not forthcoming until the following July.179 

The governor, meanwhile, required the ship's captains, before they could receive their certificates of completion, as stipulated by Lawrence's instructions, to "prepare lists of their passengers, naming the heads of families" and giving the numbers of dependents.  Master Best of the Two Brothers completed the assignment only cursorily, giving no names, only numbers.  Masters Hancock of the Dolphin, Sinclair of the Cornwallis, and Nichols of the Endeavour, however, complied with the governor's wishes and furnished the required details, which the governor then placed into the colonial records.  Lawrence's instructions of August 11, or any of the modifications that followed, did not require the transport masters to create passenger lists for their voyages, nor did any of the other receiving governors create such rolls, so the three detailed lists written at Charles Town are unique.180 

The Dolphin's 121 passengers included Peter Gold, that is, Pierre Doiron, his wife, and three children; Joseph Purye or Poirier, his wife and two children; John or Jean Poirier, his wife and two children; a second Joseph Poirier, his wife and one child; a third Joseph Poirier, his wife and three children; Franceway or François Poirier, his wife and one child; Peter or Pierre Poirier, his wife and seven children; Paul Poirier, his wife and four children; a second Jean Poirier, his wife and no children; Balone Duset, Bénoni Doucet, his wife and three children; Mich'l Durna or Bernard, his wife and three children; John or Jean Bernard, his wife and one child; Paul Duran or Doiron, his wife and three children; another Paul Doiron, his wife and three children; Joseph Doiron, his wife and child; Peter Busher, Pierre Boucher, his wife and child; a second Paul Poirier, his wife and four children; Joseph Duram or Doiron, his wife and six children; Jolour Lundrie, Jolour Landry, his wife and three children; Joseph Abar, Joseph Hébert, his wife and three children; Claude Hébert, his wife and a child; a third Jean Poirier, his wife and no children; Jean Duron or Doiron, his wife and six children; Peter Tebuthu, Pierre Thibodeau, his wife and no children; a second Pierre Poirier, evidently a bachelor; Charles Brown, Charles Brun, his wife and two children; a fourth Joseph Poirier, his wife and child; and Andrew Leblang, André LeBlanc, his wife and two children.181

The Edward Cornwallis's 207 survivors included John Multon, that is, Jean Mouton, his wife and 10 children, some of them perhaps nieces and nephews; John Lewis, or Jean Louis, his wife and child; Joseph Kessey or Quessy, his wife and five children; Peter Dermer, perhaps Pierre Demers, his wife and eight children; Joseph Grangie or Granger, his wife and eight children; Joroton Lavoia or Lavoie, his wife and six children; Francis Purye or Poirier, his wife and 10 children; Mich'l Wair, perhaps Mayer or Douaire, his wife and seven children; John Day, Jean Daigle or Daigre, his wife and four children; Paul Lavoy or Lavoie, his wife and three children; Jarman Carry or Germain Carrier, likely Carret, his wife and two children; Marran Liblang, likely Marin LeBlanc, his wife and five children; Alex'r See Curmie, Alexandre Cormier, his wife and seven children; Joseph Curmie or Cormier, his wife and seven children; Alexandre See Casie, Alexandre Caissie, his wife and six children; Charles Burvoie or Belliveau, his wife and eight children; Jarman Furrie or Fournier, his wife and five children; Abrance Skison, Abraham Chiasson, his wife and five children; John Dupio, Jean Dupuis, his wife and two children; John Furrie, Jean Fournier, his wife and 10 children; John Carrie, Jean Carrier, likely Carret, his wife and eight children; Tako Bonvie, probably Jacques dit Jacquot Bonnevie, his wife and four children; Alex'r See or Cyr, his wife and 10 children; Peter Lambeer, Pierre Lambert, his wife and seven children; and Charles Duzie or Doucet, his wife and nine children.182  

The Endeavour's 121 passengers included Line Ougan, that is, Louis Hugon, his wife and three children; Peter Ougan, Pierre Hugon, his wife and four children; James Ougan, Jacques Hugon, his wife and two children; a second Pierre Hugon, his wife and child; John Corme, Jean Cormier, his wife and child; Mich'l Corme, Michel Cormier, his wife and child; John Multon, Jean Mouton, his wife and three children; John Jenvo, Jean Jeanveau or Juneau, his wife and no children; Glod Toudeau, Claude Trudeau, his wife and three children; Paul Morton or Martin, his wife and five children; Innes Woirt or Ouelette, his wife and four children; Jeremiah Duset, Jérémie Doucet, his wife and five children; Joseph Care or Carrier, probably Carret, his wife and four children; Charles Benn, perhaps Aubin, his wife and two children; John Dupe, Jean Dupuis, his wife and eight children; Francis Lopeore, François Lapierre, his wife and three children; Francis Lablong, François LeBlanc, his wife and no children; Joseph Lablong, LeBlanc, his wife and two children; Simon Leblong, LeBlanc, his wife and two children.  Also aboard the Endeavour were 20 men without wives or children, perhaps part of the contingent of married men from Fort Cumberland whose families evidently had had fled the Chignecto area and whom Monckton had loaded aboard the transport in September, or widowers, or bachelors.  They included Charles Furne or Fournier; Peter Morton, Pierre Martin; John Blonchin, perhaps Jean Blanchet; Mish'l Depe, Michel Dupuis; Joseph Léger; Alexander Commo, Alexandre Comeau; John Balleo, Jean Belliveau; Joseph Peters or Pitre; Michael or Michel Haché; Peter or Pierre Haché; Peter Curme, Pierre Cormier; Francis Duset, François Doucet; John Curme, Jean Cormier; Peter or Pierre Robert; Peter Oben, Pierre Aubin; Michael Lapeire, Michel Lapierre; Michael Pore, Michel Poirier; John Crenon, Jean Grenon; John Shesong, Jean Chiasson; and Peter Burswoy, Pierre Bourgeois.183

While Governor Glen and the House of Assembly debated the fate of the new arrivals, the exiles remained on the four transports still anchored at Rebellion Road.  The governor believed that the Acadians in the harbor "were crowded but healthy, though sure to lose their wellbeing quickly."  With this in mind, he "sent some small supply of fresh provisions to the Acadians aboard the vessels" but could not release them to the quarantine house on Sullivan's Island until the Assembly acted on the question of their landing.  The Assemply's approval came finally on November 27, a week and a half after the exiles' arrival.  But, as historan Victoria L. Musheff explains, the gentlemen legislators "expressed their uncertainty about whether or not they held any governmental authority that they could exercise toward the obedience and submission of the Acadians.  While the record is vague was to what that concern was, it is clear that the Acadians were on the level of slaves."  Not only did the Acadians have to enter the pest house on Sullivan's Island due to concerns over disease, but also like slaves, Carolinians expected them to obey and submit.  "The House reasoned that since their authority was unclear, it was premature to discuss disposal of the group.  The assembly sought guidance from the governor.  They also concluded that the Acadians would ultimately determine their own fate to a degree:  'as the method of treating these People by this Government will in a great measure depend on their own Sentiments; which probably, will be more fully declared when they see all their Hopes defeated of retuning to Nova Scotia, or being sent to any of the Dominions of France.'"  This having been said, "The House sent a message to the governor empowering him to receive the Acadians in the colony."  On December 4, the four ships swung around from Rebellion Roads past the guns of Fort Johnson, on the south side of the harbor, then dropped the exiles ashore on Sullivan's Island, at the northeast end of the harbor.188

The exiles sent on to Georgia, also from Chignecto and escorted by HMS Syren, still under Commander Proby, anchored first at Tybee Island, outside the Savannah River bar, in late November.  Aboard the Jolly Phillip, a 94-ton schooner captained by Jonathan White, were 124 Acadians, mostly women and children, down from the 129 exiles who had left Annapolis Basin a month and a half earlier.  Among the survivors aboard this smaller vessel were four newborns.  The other, larger transport, Prince Frederick, a 170-ton ship captained by William Trattles, held 210 exiles, down from 280.194 

On the eve of his leaving for meetings with Native leaders in the Georgia backcountry, the colony's governor, John Reynolds, "forbade the colony's chief pilot 'at his peril to bring any more people into the Province.'"  Reynolds was at Augusta, a good ways up the Savannah River, waiting for a delegation of Creeks, when the Acadians arrived at Tybee Island.  Luckily for the exiles, Commander Proby ignored the governor's decree.  The Syren and its two consorts crossed the Savannah bar on November 27, anchored off the city in early December, and, as Carl Brasseaux describes it, "nearly 400 exiles were deposited on Georgia's shores."  Their suffering had only begun.  "Because of the circumstances of their arrival," Brasseaux continues, "the destitute Acadians were generally ignored by the colonial government for the first year of their exile in the former penal colony.  In fact, only when they petitioned the colonial government for emergency assistance in January 1756 were they recognized at all, and then only to the extent that those exiles too ill to support themselves were given a week's supply of rice."195

Meanwhile, in neighboring South Carolina, after their short stay in quarantine on Sulllivan's Island, nearly 600 Acadian exiles landed in Charles Town "on or about December 9."  They were then escorted under guard, as the Assembly insisted, to the city work house or to military-style barracks, to be held under close confinement.  The women and children likely were parcelled out "to such persons as would take them."  Victoria Musheff notes:  "...  the government was obliged to provide three distinct Corps of Guard on watch every night, and the inhabitants [of the city] mounted guard as well."  Given the pervasive anxiety among Carolinians in the late autumn of 1755, Musheff states that "it is not surprising that colonists placed the great number of French Roman Catholic Acadians into the category of those who could potentially ally with each other against the British.  Anxieties over the types of damage the Acadians could inflict upon the city of Charlestown acting alone or in combination with slaves," who were quite numerous in the colony, "kept officials defensive and alert.  From their perspective, Nova Scotia's Governor Lawrence had been unfair and had acted unconsciously by exiling Acadians for the security of his own province at the expense of all others.  If Nova Scotia officials perceived this group of Roman Catholics to be dangerous, how could provincial leaders possibly receive the Acadians as a safe addtion to the Anglican colony of South Carolina?"187

Ever since their arrival, Governor Glen and his Council had been wrestling with the question of the legal status of these wayward exiles thrust upon their province, what Victoria Musheff calls "a legal issue of first impression, never before addressed in South Carolina."  The trickiest part of their dilemma was the fact that, "While the French Neutrals had refused the [unqualified] oath" back in Nova Scotia, Glen deemed them "His Majesty's liege subjects, and," moreover, most were "natural-born subjects."  Nevertheless, the governor charged his Council "to consider how the government might legally rid the colony of the Acadians."  The Council "opined that the French Catholics' refusal to take the oath in South Carolina provided legitimate grounds," which echoed Charles Lawrence and his Council's decision several months earlier, to remove them from their lands.  Governor Glen "pondered whether the colony could even legally receive the Acadians and permit them to settle.  Moreover, was it prudent to admit and retain the French Catholics into a thinly settled Protestant province situated so near to the Spaniards and French?  He believed it was illegal to let the Acadians relocate to land under another crown and imprudent to give them the freedom to go wherever they pleased.  Ultimately, he concurred with the assembly's decision to allow them ashore and to meet their basic needs until they agreed upon disposal plans--it was too cruel to let them perish on board the vessels."189

One wonders what the Chignecto Acadians in their closely-guarded barracks would have made of all this agonizing over the detested oath and their status as French Neutrals.  One suspects that their main concern was how to reunite their families and survive the Carolina winter.  And then, in the middle of January 1756, another transport filled with their fellow exiles arrived at Rebellion Road.

The ship Hobson, 177 tons, captained by Edward Whitewood, had left the Annapolis Basin on December 8 with five other, smaller, transports, headed not to South Carolina but to Connecticut (two of them), New York, and North Carolina.  Under escort by the sloop of war HMS Baltimore, the large transport took a little over a month to make the voyage down to Charles Town.  It was one of two transports from the Annaspolis Basin destined for a southern port but the only one to reach its destination.  Aboard the Hobson were 341 exiles: 42 men, 45 women, 120 boys, and 134 girls.  The voyage down was evidently without incident, the transport having left Annapolis Basin with 342 Acadians aboard.190

Its arrival, bringing the total number of exiles in the colony to nearly a thousand since mid-November, caused immediate consternation among the Assembly delegates, as well as the governor and his Council.  According to Victoria Musheff, many of the Assembly members refused to victual the new arrivals and moved to "send them off to another North American port. ... It was incredible, they argued, that Lawrence had forced them to consider how to care for another set of refugees, doubling the number of indigent Acadians in their city."  Luckily for the Acadians "The House motion failed to pass; [Governor] Glen opposed the act as well.  Thus, Charlestown officials continued to struggle over the best resolution to this North American catastrophe with neither guidance nor funding from Great Britain."  After much hemming and hawing by the Carolina officials, as well as ship's Master Whitehood, on February 4 the Acadians aboard the Hobson were authorized by the Assembly to be let ashore at the quarantine station on Sullivan's Island.  However, not until February 18 did the Assembly provide for their housing in the city for "a sum 'not exceeding L100 being appropriated for that purpose.'"  They were still on Sullivan's Island in March, waiting for certification that they finally were "free from 'malignant or infectious distemper'" The certification took longer than usual.  On March 22, Chapman J. Milling notes, "the House was informed that there was sickness among the Acadians on the island 'through the badness of the water ... and the want of proper care.'"  Many of the Acadians "had already perished and others were ill."191

Governor Glen wasted no time taking the measure of the new arrivals.  After interviewing some of them at Sullivan's Island, he concluded that these Acadians were "different from other Acadians," that is, from the rabblerousers at Chignecto and the trois-rivières, who tended to be less "neutral" than their cousins in the other Fundy settlements.  The Annapolis spokemen lamented passionately about their harsh treatment at the hands of Lawrence and his Council despite their loyalty to the British Crown.  Glen also interviewed a widow, with her children, "whose Husband was killed in an engagement by the French, in the service of the Government."  This may have softened the governor's attitude towards Acadians in general, opening his mind to their finer qualities as a people.  Perhaps, despite their religious wrong-headedness and their clever view of defining their status as British subjects, they might make good colonists after all.  He went so far as to discuss "the concept of indenture and terms of such an arrangement with these newest Acadian arrivals."  Back in the city, he shared with the General Assembly "that this second group of refugees had agreed to 'go to the Country & work for their Bread for one year.'"  They even agreed "to do so for low terms," assuring the governor, without exaggeration, "that they were experienced agriculturists."  Typically, though, "Glen had been speaking with ship captains about taking some Acadians away on their vessels when they left Charlestown," but he found few takers.  "Desperate for a humane solution to the Acadian problem," Victoria Musheff informs us, "Glen half-heartedly suggested that the Acadians settle in huts on outer islands with cattle and barrels of rice until a better plan could evolve, but if not feasible, the government should continue to provide for the exiles.  The main concern," he believed, "was to protect the public health of the colony's inhabitants.  Glen reminded the Assembly that while Acadian exile was a misfortune for South Carolina, they themselves did not bring the misfortune upon the province.  He also mentioned that he had considered shipping off all the strong Acadian men to remove any threat, but after consulting His Majesty's Attorney General and Chief Justice in the province, he determined it would be illegal."192

Meanwhile, the Assembly acted by deciding "to pay able-bodied French Acadian men to labor on the city's fortification rebuilding project," which had begun in earnest the previous summer.  In late January, the city's Fortifications Committee "agreed to pay the French Acadians weekly."  Happily, "Though these laborers required interpreters and guards, the commission was still pleased with the arrangement six months later."  Moreover, "The wages earned on the fortifications helped to support those unable to work," a typical Acadian practice.  Still, city residents remained wary of the newcomers, their paranoia made worse when a British naval squadron appeared in the harbor and "dropped more than one hundred French prisoners of war" in the city.  When, in early June 1756, a fire destroyed a major wharf with its valuable cache of stores, "Rumors swirled that an Acadian was the incendiary."  Many assemblymen now believed that indentureship, even involuntary, was the only way to "dispose of the Acadians," but the legislators' efforts, the opposition evidently led by the governor, came to nothing, at least for now.  By late spring, however, "some of the Acadians went about begging and Glen confided to the London board [of trade] that he was afraid a number would starve."193

The Assembly's efforts to employ able-bodied Acadians in local construction projects, and the very mention of indentureship for the hard-pressed exiles, only fueled the intense desire of separated husbands and sons to rejoin their families in far-off Acadia.  The result was a series of dramatic escapes in the late winter and early spring of the new year.  According to Carl Brasseaux, some of the newly-arrived exiles, "unwilling to endure any longer the uncertainty clouding their future, large groups of exiles attempted to escape into the North American interior on at least three occasions within two months of their arrival."  Colonial authorities acted quickly.  "Fearing that" the escapees "would join hostile Indians" in the wilderness, "the South Carolina government mobilized posses to pursue and return the first two bands of fugitives.  Only thirty Acadians managed to escape; their fate is unknown."193c 

Alexandre Broussard dit Beausoleil, older brother of Acadian partisan leader Joseph dit Beausoleil, and Alexandre's son Victor, were considered so dangerous by the lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia that he ordered them to be deported from Chignecto to South Carolina aboard the HMS Syren with other miscreants in chains.  Once they were released from the compound on Sullivan's Island, the Broussards were moved with "some of their friends," to Charles Town's notorious "'Black Hole,' a dungeon 'so small, that they can hardly stand upright in, much less lie down.'"  Carolina officials were wary of Alexandre dit Beausoleil not only for his reputation as a partisan in Acadia, but also for his "Native American connections."  "As everyone knew," Christopher Hodson explains, "the borderlands of South Carolina and Georgia served as an Indian thoroughfare."  Though Alexandre dit Beausoleil had never left his native Acadia, he could, like brother Joseph, speak several Algonquian dialects as well as English.  Chapman J. Milling notes that the people of Charles Town described Alexandre "as 'General of the Indians,'" a clear exaggeration of his influence on the Natives but indicative of the brothers' reputation--a man like this running loose in the Carolina backcountry could mean only trouble for the British.  Despite being held in such close confinement, Alexandre, Victor, and a half dozen or so of their Acadian companions escaped into the countryside.  (One suspects that they had been removed from the Black Hole and returned to a work camp probably on Sullivan's Island, where their escape would have been much easier.)  The elder Broussard's escape was especially noteworthy given that in the spring of 1756 he was age 57--elderly for that time.  Son Victor was age 28.  In contrast, other successful escapees, the Basque brothers, Pierre, fils and Michel, were ages 31 and 26, respectively.  After his amazing feat, Alexandre boasted that he had treked "1,400 leagues 'to recover his native country."  That day's league to a Frenchman was approximately 2.422 English miles, so Alexandre's trek from coastal South Carolina to where he and son Victor reunited with their families (Victor also was married) was a bit over 3,400 miles!  Not bad for an old fellow.  The Broussards and their companions, in the words of Carl Brasseaux, likely were the "small band of undetermined size" who "escaped from its detention camp, made its way to the Santee River Valley where its members stole goods, arms and ammunition from a local plantation and set out for Fort Duquesne, the French stronghold in the Ohio Valley."  While the escapees made their way back home, the South Carolina Gazette reported from Charles Town on February 19 that, after the miscreants scared the wits out of the plantation mistress, Mrs. John Williams, and took her things, including her money, instead of laying "'their bones in the swamp they got into,'" they "'escaped from thence and crossed the river at Maxwell's Bluff on a bark log.'"  Then off they went, up the Santee valley, making their way to the Indian trails running along the face of the mountains.  Despite "a reward offered for their capture," they got clean away.  After reaching Fort Duquesne many weeks later, Alexandre and his party, what was left of it, likely crossed the Great Lakes to the upper St. Lawrence and paddled past Montréal down to Québec.  If so, they did not remain.  They likely continued down the St. Lawrence to Rivière-du-Loup, followed the portage via Lac Pohénégamook to the headwaters of Rivière St.-Jean, and canoed down the river to its lower stretches, which they finally reached in June.  There they would have learned of the Acadian refuge at Cocagne on the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore, where they reunited with their wives and other loved ones, including Alexandre's brother Joseph.  "Only two Acadians are known to have completed the trek" endured by the Broussards, Carl Brasseaux informs us--Alexandre dit Beausoleil and his second son Victor.193a 

Other successful escapees were Michel Bastarache dit Basque of Chignecto and his older brother Pierre, fils, who also had been deported to South Carolina without their wives and children, perhaps aboard the Syren.  In spring 1756, Michel, Pierre, fils, and a dozen or so companions, like the Broussards, escaped their work place and took to the woods.  According to Michel Basque's biographer, "Together they made their way on foot across the colonies of North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York," which means they, too, likely followed the Indian trails running along the eastern face of the Appalachian mountains until they approached the Great Lakes region.  "When they reached the shores of Lake Ontario," the biographer continues, "they fell into the hands of the Iroquois...."   Luckily, they were rescued by an influential fur trader, who paid their ransom.  The fur trader then "took them to Québec," where, accompanied by only two companions, the brothers "arrived in September 1756."  From the Canadian citadel they either found a ship to take them down the St. Lawrence River to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, avoiding British naval patrols that roamed the shores of the Gulf, or, more likely, they also made their way down the St. Lawrence from Québec to the portage that took them overland to the headwaters of Rivière St.-Jean, which they followed to its lower stretches, following another, shorter, portage to the upper Petitcoudiac near present-day Moncton, New Brunswick, where they expected to reunite with their families.  Learning that his wife had taken refuge on Île St.-Jean after his deportation, Michel crossed Mer Rouge to the island, still under French control, found his wife, recrossed Mer Rouge, and moved on with her to the Acadian refuge at Miramichi on the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore.  Pierre, fils's wife was a sister of Michel's wife, so the brothers likely made the final leg of their long trip together.193b

Despite these embarrassing incidents, spring brought an opportunity for South Carolina officials finally to solve the Acadian problem, or so they hoped.  Members of the Assemply resurrected the idea of shipping the Acadians "to another American port or elsewhere, ... including London, even if they were British subjects"; the Virginians, the Carolina Assemblymen may have learned, were about to do just that with all of the exiles who had been foisted on them the previous fall.  Perhaps as a reaction to the recent overland escapes, "Glen had already placed eight or ten Acadians" men (another source says 13) he considered trouble makers, "on ships for proper ports," Victoria Musheff informs us, but Glen "soon stopped the practice out of fear that he lacked authority" to do so.  But his time in office was coming to an end.  As one of his last acts as South Carolina's governor, he threw caution to the wind and helped unleash one of the strangest episodes of the Great Unheaval.  In cooperation with Governor Reynolds of Georgia, Glen announced in early spring that "all those who wished to leave South Carolina by sea were free to go...."  He also hoped "to persuade others who were likely to be unproductive inhabitants to join those wishing to leave."  The result was a mad rush by dozens of eager exiles to take up the governor's offer.  Acadians in Georgia, in fact, had begun their homeward voyages weeks before.  In March 1856, Carl Brasseaux relates, 200 or so of the exiles in Georgia (from half to three-quarters of the Acadians in the colony) "began coasting northward" in 10 or more "small sailing vessels" which they had secured "apparently with Governor Reynold's assistance."  Their goal was to return to Nova Scotia or, if the way was still clear, the lower reaches of Rivière St.-Jean, from which they could reunite with their scattered families on the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore.  This strange odyssey did not commence in South Carolina until late April or early May, when, according to Musheff, "upwards of one hundred and thirty Acadians," a fraction of the number in South Carolina, "left for ... the North in canoes."  Brasseaux notes, with more detail, that "The Acadian desire to leave South Carolina matched that of the native South Carolinians who desperated wanted them to leave."  So desperate, in fact, that "during its April, 1756, session, the colonial assembly, noting the passage of the Georgia Acadians, authorized public subscriptions in the amount of 12,000 pounds with all contributions dedicated to the purchasing and outfitting of two ships which would provide the exiles passage out of the colony.  The local citizenry quickly raised the necessary funds, and two 'ancient' vessels and "a small quantity of bad provisions' were purchased and proferred to the Acadians."  Taking advantage of the eagerness of their hosts to see them go, the South Carolina Acadians, typically, demanded more:  that the Assembly provide them pilots to guide them through the coastal waters.  The Assemblymen summarily refused the request, typically for legal reasons:  "though the South Carolinians fully expected the Acadians to return to the Bay of Fundy," Charles Lawrence's orders be damned, "the hiring of two pilots for this voyage would have constituted an official endorsement of their repatriation and the inevitable wrath of the British administration," who had recently sanctioned the Acadians' expulsion from Nova Scotia by promoting Lawrence to governor!  As soon as they could, "an undetermined, but large number of South Carolina Acadians" boarded the "two proferred ships," which, Brasseaux says, "immediately set sail for Nova Scotia."196

The largest flotilla of refugees from Georgia, numbering 150 or so, was led by Jacques-Maurice Vigneau of Baie-Verte, an experienced fisherman and coaster who spoke English as well as French.  After he and his compatriots fashioned seaworthy craft, Vigneau obtained a passport from Governor Reynolds on March 10, and his flotilla of exiles left Tybee Island a few days later.  With the assistance of a South Carolina scout boat from Port Royal, down the coast from Charles Town, "lest the inhabitants" of coastal Carolina "might be too much alarmed as they pass along," the Georgia exiles reached Charles Town harbor on March 29.  Vigneau presented his passport to Governor Glen, who endorsed it on April 8.  In the following days, as the Vigneau party lingered at Charles Town, Governor Glen issued passports to other voyagers coming up from Georgia, including "a party of twenty-one men and their families and another of four families."  Those who needed it received provisions from the city storehouse.  Colonial records reveal that the leader of one of the Georgia parties receiving provisions was Michel Bourgeois, a great-grandson of the founder of the Chignecto settlement.  The arrival of so many Acadians from their neigboring colony prompted the Carolina Assembly to pursue its own efforts to clear South Carolina of Acadians.  By mid-April, assisted by a South Carolina pilot who took them as far as Cape Fear in North Carolina, Acadians from both colonies continued their northward journey.  Some of the Georgians were still at Charles Town on April 21.  Eager to be rid of them, the local authorites urged them to be on their way or risk confinement on Sullivan's Island, "where they were to be held until further orders."  They hurried on their way.  In May, Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia reported to his superiors in London that "many hundreds" of small boats, coming up from the lower colonies, were spotted off the coast of his colony.  This meant that the South Carolina exiles, trailing behind the flotillas from Georgia, also had successfully rounded Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, the most dangerous stretch of coast on the voyage north.  One leaking vessel ran onto the beach near the village of Hampton, Virginia, inside the mouth of Chesapeake Bay.  Dinwiddie ordered that the locals provide the exiles with another vessel and send them on their way.  According to the Acadians, "'This ship was still less seaworthy than those they had just left...,'" but they moved on.  The ship, in fact, did not make it past the coast of Maryland before it needed extensive repair.  It was about this time, on May 10, that Dinwiddie sent his own Acadians--over a thousand of them--in four full-sized hired transports from Hampton Roads to several ports in England.197

As spring turned to summer, the determined exiles continued on their way, beaching their vessels when necessary to complete what repairs they could manage.  Then word of the approaching flotillas reached Nova Scotia.  In July, a disgruntled Charles Lawrence "was in receipt of reports that hundreds of Acadians were sailing northward, and he drafted an angry letter to his fellow governors."  He pled with them "'to use your utmost endeavors'" to arrest the miscreants and prevent further harm to his province.  Unfortunately for the wayward Acadians, Lawrence's efforts succeeded.  In late July, when Vigneau's main party of seven boats, containing "about one hundred men, women, and children," beached their vessels at Sandwich on Cape Cod, "much in need of repairs and provisions," Massachusetts authorities stopped them from going any farther.  After a few days under guard, they were taken to Boston.  On August 18, the Massachusetts Council "ordered them distributed among several towns," and there they would remain for the rest of the war.  A few days later, a second contingent of Georgia exiles, this one numbering 78 men, women, and children, was arrested by New York authorities on a Long Island beach, where they, too, had stopped for repairs.  Taken before Governor Charles Hardy at nearby Manhattan, he found that the exiles "carried passports from the governors of Georgia and South Carolina."  They, too, declared "their intention 'to get back to Nova Scotia.'"  The governor already knew their intention, revealed to him "a few weeks before" by Jacques Vigneau himself when he and his party had stopped at New York City and "secured Hardy's endorsement of his passport."  This evidently was before the New York governor had received "an angry letter" from fellow governor Lawrence.  This Georgia contingent also was distributed "among several towns," in lower New York colony, where, like their fellows in Massachusetts, they remained for the rest of the war.198

But what of the hundreds of other exiles still making their way up the Atlantic coast?  John Mack Faragher notes:  "The capture and arrest of these two groups left unaccounted the fate of more than four hundred boat people.  There is no way of knowing how many made it back to the Bay of Fundy, but many did.  One group later wrote that they spent two months on a deserted island repairing their leaking vessels before finally succeeding in reaching the mouth of rivière Saint-Jean.  The governor-general of New France, Pierre-François de Rigaud, marquis de Vaudreuil, reported the arrival of several groups."  Once they had reached the Bay of Fundy, these Acadians would have made their way carefully into the lower St.-Jean, where they either followed the series of portages up that river to the lower St. Lawrence, or made their way across country, also via portage, to a refugee camp on the upper Petitcoudiac in the trois-rivières area west of Chignecto or, more likely, to Miramichi on the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore.  Unfortunately for these exiles, in the summer of 1756 the redcoats still occupied forts Cumberland and Lawrence near Beaubassin and still patrolled the lower trois-rivières, so these determined voyagers, if they hoped to remain free, could not have returned to their homes at Chignecto.199

Back in Georgia, the few Acadians who remained in the colony did their best to feed themselves and to keep their families together.  According to historian Christopher Hodson:  "... nearly two hundred Acadians found a clearing west of Savannah, built some rudimentary huts, and began to work.  It was hardly easy, and the exiles were hardly welcome.  In response to their habit of cutting down 'Valuable Timber' that did not belong to them," Governor Reynolds "assented to a bill authorizing justices of the peace to 'bind' Acadians to local landowners as unpaid laborers.  The act might have been put into practice if not for the Board of Trade's decision to remove Reynolds from power late in 1756, a decision motivated in part by his mishandling of the Creek confederation that coincided with the Acadians' arrival."  No matter, Reynold's hard policies drove more Acadians out of the colony, not to make their way back to Acadia but to seek refuge in nearby South Carolina.  On the first of May 1756, as the Georgia and South Carolina voyagers were making their way far up the Atlantic coast, "Mr. [William] Pinckney, who as Commissary General" of South Carolina "had charge of supplying the Acadians, informed the Council that a party of three boats had come from Georgia and landed up the river above Charles Town," Chapman J. Milling relates.  "Three of them were brought into the Council Chamber and asked if they would work if given employment in the country, to which proposition they objected.  They were then ordered back to their boats, a little provisions furnished them, and were told that they might either continue northward or return to Georgia.  The commander of the scout boats were instructed not to allow any more parties from Georgia to pass Port Royal.  Hearing that these exiles possessed firearms, the Council ordered the Commissary General to search them and seize any guns discovered."  Milling says nothing about women and children accompanying these men.  One suspects that they were.202

 Reynold's replacement, Henry Ellis, who arrived at Savannah in early 1757, was "a gentlemanly scientist" who "exhibited a far more creative turn of mind."  Happily for the Acadians, the new governor "expressed sympathy and admiration for the Acadians," who seemed to fit into his philosophical notion that "'every one should contribute according to his ability, that something may arise from the whole, of use in the improvement of our country.'"  This included not only the colony's many slaves, but also the struggling exiles, who, one source says, had "dwindled down to one hundred by March 1757."  Ellis encouraged the Acadians to develop "skills required by the local plantation and shipping industries," and so they did.  Ellis related to his superiors that the exiles had become "'very useful to the Colony as they employ themselves in making Oars hand spikes & other implements for sea Craft.'"  In April 1757, soon after his arrival, he visted the Acadian encampment near Savannah.  He was distressed to see "'such a number of distressed People surrounded with large Families of helpless infants....'"  He suggested that the colonial assembly grant the refugees "'a bit of land'" where they could plant gardens using seeds provided by the governor himself and "'perhaps including some of the exotica (olive and orange trees, rhubarb, Egyption kale)" recently imported into the colony--all "to further his ambitious vision of experimental agriculture..."  Despite these efforts, observes Carl Brasseaux, "Most of the remaining Acadians ... remained mired in dire poverty."204

In South Carolina, the somewhat-reduced population of exiles there also witnessed a change in governors, this time, they soon would learn, not for the better.  William Henry Lyttelton, a 31-year-old bachelor in 1756, had been appointed governor the year before to replace James Glen, who elected to remain in the colony as a planter and merchant.  On his way to Charles Town, soon after the formal declaration of war between Britain and France, the new governor suffered the misfortune of being captured by a French warship and held briefly as a prisoner of war until he was exchanged.  He did not reach Charles Town until the first of June 1756, after the flotillas of exiles had passed up the coast, and did not assume office until June 17.  While awaiting exchange in London, the King's ministers had briefed him on the presence of Acadians in the colony, as well as "'the King's pleasure' concerning them," which was "to stop all further deportation.  No further removals, even voluntary ones were to be permitted after Lyttelton assumed office.  All officers of the ports, and all other officers, civil and military, were put on notice to stop all Acadians attempting to leave."  In other words, the new governor and the people of his colony were stuck with these troublesome "Neutrals."  The question now was what to do with them.203

Unlike Glen, Lyttelton would not have hesitated to suggest to the Assembly that the remaining Acadians be subject to indentureship--that they should be hired out to planters and farmers as laborers or, in the case of boys and younger men, apprenticed to local artisans, and, while this was being achieved, scatter them and their families to every corner of the colony.  Lieutenant-Governor William Bull, Jr., who had served under Glen, agreed with such a policy.  Needless to say, the Acadians resisted it fiercely, but their protests fell on deaf ears. 

Such a policy could not be implemented until colonial authorities knew more about the Acadians who were still in the colony.  In January 1756, while James Glen was still governor, "the House ordered a census of all Acadians on shore and especially desired information regarding the number and ages of the children."  Also documented in that census were "any sick or disable Acadians...," the list of which, unlike the original census, has survived.  For example, there was "John Giroire [Girouard], sick in bed, a wife, two children, eldest two years old."  The census taker added:  "We recommend an allowance to be made of them of 20 Shills per week."  Also "Widow of John Sevoirs [probably Savoie], three children, eldest ten years:  L2."  "Frances Vincent, Widow, 2 Sons, eldest 3 years old.  We recommend L3 per week."   "Chas Ignace Carree [Carret], Lunatic and sick; We recommend 10s."  "Marg. Aucon [Aucoin], 2 small children, her husband left behind:  We recommend L1 10s per week."  "Charles Doucet, a young man, his mother old, and six young Children.  L2."  "Three small children of Jeram Fouryns [...], L1, 1s."  And "Francis Moses [Moïse?], past labor, 10s."  But the January list would not suffice.  A substantial number of exiles had joined the north-bound voyagers, so the question remained:  which of them were still living in the colony, and which were still able to support themselves?  Sometime in late June, Governor Lyttelton ordered the Commissary General, William Pinckney, to "make out a compleat list of all the Familys of the Acadians and distinguishing Sex and ages."  In what Victoria Musheff descibes as "a matter-of-fact vote," the colonial Assembly passed on July 6 "' an act for disposing of the Acadians now in Charles Town, by settling one-fifth part of their number in the Parishes of St. Philip and St. Michael, and the other four parts of them in the several other parishes within this Province.'"  Lyttelton promptly signed the bill.205

The new law approached the question of indentureship indirectly, leaving it up to the individual Acadian to "decide" by his own actions if he would be "bound out" or remain a "free" laborer.  Chapman J. Milling explains:  "The Act provided not only for the distribution of the Acadians according to the proposed arrangement, but placed directly upon the parishes the burden of caring for them for a period of three months.  The Commissary General was directed by the Act to furnish complete lists of each parish."  And then it came:  "It was also provided that any Acadians refusing to work voluntarily for private families should be bound out upon such terms as the vestry and churchwardens should decide, a form being composed for this purpose.  A special record of all such indentures was required to be kept."  The act also banned Acadians from owning and using firearms of any kind.  They also were forbidden to leave their assigned parish without permission.  The Commissary General also "was ordered to hire boats to take all Acadians who could be transported by water to their respective Parishes.  For the women and children, and for the aged and infirm, who could not reach their destination by boat, wagons were ordered, also wagons for what baggage they possessed."  Milling notes that, because of the geography of lower South Carolina, "all went by water except those bound for 'the townships of Orangeburg, Amelia and Saxa Gotha'" in the central piedmont area of the colony.  For each party going by foot, "A guard consisting of two armed men on horseback" made certain they reached their destination.  Before the parties set out, the governor issued a proclamation explaining all of the above, including a reminder that the "Royal Will and Pleasure" of "our most gracious Sovereign" was that the exiles may not leave the province.  Aware, now, of the true nature of these people, Lyttelton assured them that "their Familys shall be as near as may be kept together."  And of course he warned potential troublemakers that if any of them "make any Resistance or refuse to comply," they would be compelled to do so "by force of arms."  Moreover, all Acadian men were required to take an unqualified oath to the British Crown or be "bound out."206

On 11 August 1756, after "the distribution was carried out," Lyttelton provided the Lords of Trade "a rather graphic account" of this latest exodus for these weary exiles, whom he obviously had come to despise and fear:  "'At present indeed it is scarce possible to conceive what an obstinate and refractory spirit in general prevails among them, which," he was certain, "'is principally owing to two causes, the one that they consider themselves as subjects of the Crown of France, the other that they are zealously attached to the Roman Catholic Religion, the exercise of which cannot, by His Majesty's instructions to me and also a particular municipal Law of the Province passed some years ago, he[sic] allowed them here.  I have indeed carried this Act for their dispersion into execution by sending them from hence in such proportions as was thought proper into all the settled parts of  the Province, but I found it necessary to order the Town Guard and a party out of the Independent Companies to be under arms during the time that this was doing, partly in terrorem [as a warning or a threat], and partly because some of them absolutely refused to remove unless compell'd by force, which was accordingly us'd in order to bind some of them with cords and to handcuff and fetter others, without, however, wounding or in any manner hurting any of them[!]  Necessary carriages were provided to transport their baggage and effects, and for such women and children as were unable to march on foot and upon the whole I endeavor'd to exercise as much humanity towards them as the nature of the business would admit of.'"207

If any well-meaning denizen of this southern province hoped that these new "settlers" would choose to remain and become loyal subjects of the British Crown, they now embraced a forelorn hope.  One can be sure that the relatively few Acadians who had come to this colony considering themselves "French Neutrals" no longer thought that way.  Here, on a smaller scale, was a repeat of what had happened to them in Nova Scotia and to their fellow exiles in Virginia.  Many may have envied their fellow exiles who had acted boldly, secured "canoes," and voyaged up the Atlantic shore, though by late summer of 1756 they likely had learned through the Acadian grapevine that many of the canoers had failed to make it home.  Did the Broussards and the Basques make it home?  Probably not; they likely had been swallowed up by the vast American wilderness.  But none of this really mattered now.  For the "the other four parts of them" who had been "distributed" to these far-flung Anglican parishes, it was best to concentrate on adjusting to the realities of their strange new homes. 

"In eighteenth-century Carolina," Victoria Musheff explains in her study of the Acadians in South Carolina, "the established church was the primary institution for social welfare and relief."  That established church, of course, was the Church of England, also called the Anglican Church, today's Episcopal Church, which dated back to Henry VIII and Elizabeth I in the sixteenth century.  In the larger context, Musheff notes that "in colonial America caring for the indigent sick was mainly an issue of poor relief based upon Elizabethan law,"  especially the Elizabethan poor law of 1601, written by Francis Bacon, which "placed responsibility for care for the needy at the local level within each town or parish."  There nevertheless were limitations to a colony's ability to follow these legal mandates.  "Faced with pestilence, famine, and death," Musheff continues, "it proved an epic struggle for many immigrants to gain a foothold in the New World.  This means that the odds of a massive influx of refugees, as happened with the Acadian exile, productively resettling in a colony at once would be close to impossible.  Overseas colonists and refugees came ashore in an unhealthy, diminished state after being aboard overcrowded ships with scarce and sometimes tainted foodstuff.  The exiled Acadians landed in Charlestown in a weakened physical state--fortunate to have survived the journey from" Nova Scotia.  "The colonial city, however, was neither socially nor fiscally prepared to manage a major humanitarian crisis--especially one involving a large group of refugees for which inhabitants felt little sympathy or even less association.  English settlement law and social welfare, under Elizabethan law, worked together in an intricate manner.  Thus, Acadians as Roman Catholics could not enjoy the best avenues of aid."  Also, as French exiles, and some would say French hostiles, the Acadians remained in a precarious position vis-à-vis the laws of this particular colony.  "Obtaining official settlement status," Musheff continues, "opened the door for an impoverished individual or family to receive poor care."  Based on the law of 1601, "a person established permanent abode and the right to public relief with a period of uninterrupted residence, within one parish, from three months to one year.  Whether the person was a native, householder, sojourner, apprentice, or servant, he/she was considered a parish resident once in that parish for three months.  If a stranger had not established settlement, parish leadership might remove that person for fear they[sic] were at risk for becoming dependent or a publich charge."  This policy applied to all outlying parishes, but not to the city of Charles Town.  Aware that there were more, and perhaps better, doctors in Charles Town, a  provincial act of 1712 allowed the parishes there, St. Philip's and St. Michael's, to maintain separate expense accounts for sick travelers who sought better health care in the city.  Seeking to conform to the law of 1601, the act of 1712 also "shifted the primary responsibility for the sick poor from the province government to the local parish vestries."  This compelled the vestries to assess taxes to fund public poor relief in order to supplement what the sufferers' families provided, if anything.  Needless to say, church leaders were often hard put to collect these unpopular taxes.  Combine this quotidian reality with a heavy dose of fear and loathing and "the struggle to collect poor taxes made caring of Acadians more challenging, since each parish received a number of exiles based upon its taxable male residents."208

Here was the hard dilemma that Governor Lyttelton and the colonial Assemply imposed on the Anglican churches.  Based on Lyttelton's initial plan of distribution and in order of their distance from Charles Town, the vestries were:  St. Philip's and St. Michael's parishes in the city, where 129 Acadians would be parcelled out; Christ Church Parish, northeast of the city, 26 Acadians to be received; St. Thomas's and St. Dennis's parishes, 25 Acadians; St. James's Parish Goose Creek (Santee?), 17 Acadians; St. George's Parish Dorchester, north of the city, 18 Acadians; St. John's Parish Berkeley, 16 Acadians; St. Andrew's Parish, northwest of the city, 17 Acadians; Stono East Side Pon Pon, 21 Acadians; St. John's Parish Colleton (James Island), south of the city, 17 Acadians; John's Island, 13 Acadians; Wadmalaw Island, southeast of the city, 10 Acadians; Edisto Island, 14 Acadians; Beach Hill, 12 Acadians; St. Bartolomew Parish, northeast of the city, 32 Acadians; Combee and Chehaw in Do[sic], 13 Acadians; St. James Parish, Santee, northeast of the city, 13 Acadians; St. Stephen's Parish, north of the city,  13 Acadians; Prince George, 36 Acadians; Welch Tract in P Parish, 33 Acadians; Prince Frederick Parish Winyah  (also Winyaw), 31 or 32 Acadians; Southern Townships and Other Parts of Prince Frederick, 47 Acadians; St. Helena Parish, southwest of the city, 35 Acadians; St. Peter's Parish, 5 Acadians; Prince William Parish, 14 Acadians; New Windsor, 10 Acadians; Amelia Township, 6 Acadians; Orangeburg, northwest of the city, 13 Acadians; and Saxa Gotha Parish, 23 Acadians--530 Acadians or so outside of the city, 659 Acadians in all.  According to Victoria Musheff, the July 6 act that sent the Acadians to these parishes "relied upon the solicitation of volunteers to take in the Acadians, and the main providers of assistance were church leaders themselves."  Needless to say, the scheme was absurdly impractical.  "It is hard to understand how the assembly thought that these poor dislodged refugees could quickly assimilate and resettle in a foreign land as despised outsiders without significant support," Victoria Musheff notes.  "Once again, this legislated plan for resettlement and relief stood in stark contrast to the types of accommodations and provisions extended to acceptable groups of Protestant immigrant colonists.  This dispersal act was doomed to failure given the last of realistic support, the ruggedness of South Carolina's countryside, others barriers to acculturation, and the Acadian desire for common Roman Catholic community:  South Carolinians resisted Acadians who in turn resisted resettlement in the countryside."  Needless to say, in the years following Lyttelton's "distribution," a number of exiles, once proud owners of land that they and their fellow Acadians had created with running dykes and aboiteaux, suffered the indignity of indentureship on land they could never own.209

That was among the least of their worries.  "No matter the daily tasks required of Acadians," Victoria Musheff notes, "Carolina was an unhealthy environment and like new immigrants from Europe, many of the Acadians died from lowcountry diseases, including 'Fever and Agues.'"  Moreover, she says, "One-third of the African slaves died within three months of arrival to South Carolina."  Extant vestry records from South Carolina churches reveal the ultimate price some of the exiles paid for the heartless actions of two British governors.  The records of Prince Frederick Parish Winyah, northeast of Charles Town, kept by Reverend Charles Woodmason, are especially revealing.  After the Acadians sent there were "distributed among local families" on August 10, "Eight of the thirty-two were dead within three months," Chapman J. Milling notes, "possibly of malaria, a disease hitherto unknown to this people, perhaps of sheer heartbreak; the cold entries of the record do not inform us of the cause."  Among the dead at Prince Frederick were Acadians named Durong (probably Doiron), Cormier, LeBlanc (seven with that name had been sent to the parish), Olivier, Bourg, Poirier, and Lapierre.  "If the fate of the Acadians in other parishes was as tragic," Milling adds, "it is small wonder that so few records have come down to us...."210

The inevitable result of the Acadians' suffering in, and their discontent with, the Carolina hinterland should not have surprised anyone familiar with their headstrong nature--many of them slipped away from their rural caretakers and made their way back to Charles Town.  Some made it.  Others did not.  In February 1757, Benjamin Warring charged the colonial Assembly "for entertaining 14 Acadians taken upon the Road by the St. George's Troops of Horse, amounting to L8:12:6."  Victoria Musheff notes that "By the end of 1757," a year and a half after Lyttelton's distribution, "the Acadians remained in a state of flux with at least half of those dispersed to the country parishes living in Charlestown again," alarming the Assembly.  The city's St. Philip's Parish was especially affected, colonial authorities noting "the number of 'helpless, naked, and forlorn Acadians in danger of perishing unless they are immediately relieved' who were living in Charlestown."  Lyttelton responded by publishing a proclamation "that both chastised and commanded parish leaders and church wardens--with the exception of St. Philip's--to strictly observe the Acadian disposal act or suffer penalites."  The Assembly responded by awarding St. Philip's Parish funds to purchase clothing "and covering for the infirm Acadian males and Acadian women in Charletown not bound as apprentices."   The Assembly committee in charge of Acadian matters "complained about the failure of individual parishes to dispose of the Acadians in a proper manner and suggested the need for a new dispersal law.  They considered the Acadian problem an unending trouble--a major cost to the colony at a time when leaders and citizens were contributing mightily to the general defense of North America."  This included supporting British redcoats now quartered in South Carolina at colonial expense..211

Despite the seeming seriousness of the Acadian problem by the end of 1757, not until 6 June 1758 were the Overseers of the Poor "ordered to furnish a list of all Acadians in the province, classified as to name, age, sex, and the parish to which assigned," to be "used by the church wardens" to do what they could to take stock of their charges.  And not until 2 April 1759 did the Assembly vote "on an additional bill to the original 1756 Acadian dispersal act..."  But the new bill failed.  Victoria Musheff explains why:  "This addendum had been introduced a month earlier by Gabriel Manigault," an influential Charles Town merchant of French Huguenot extraction "who would provide emergency assistance to the Acadians" during a crisis that would strike the colony in less than a year.  Manigault "had little faith in the Roman Catholics' collective ability or desire to assimilate or to become content in South Carolina.  The colony's system of social welfare," he believed, "was inadequate to provide effective emergency aid let alone meaningful avenues of resettlement for a massive influx of impoverished refugees very different from themselves.  However, the colony's leadership and inhabitants did not seem to acknowledge that failure[,] preferring instead to shift the entire blame onto the Acadians own unwillingness to assimilate and acculturate."  He nevertheless introduced the additional bill, hoping, perhaps, that this time dispersal of the exiles would succeed.212

But it could not, and the Acadian themselves were the reason why it failed.  Had colonial leaders taken the time and the effort to delve into the nature of these curious French Catholic foreigners, they would have discovered the most essential element of their nature--their obsession with maintaining "family."  Acadians did not think of "family" as a nuclear unit--a father, a mother, and their own children.  "Family" to them was a much larger affair, an "extended" family as sociologists call it--a father, a mother, and their children, to be sure, but also their aging parents and their parents' siblings, their uncles and aunts, their own grandchildren and their grandchildren's children, and their cousins' many children and their cousin's children's children, and on and on.  To Acadians, first cousins were the same as brothers or sisters, nephews or nieces like their own children.  Any attempt to disperse them, as had happened in Nova Scotia and here in South Carolina, was tantamount to kicking an anthill--the ants do everything in their power to bring their "family" back together again.  Witness the bold escape of the Broussards and the Basques within weeks of their arrival here and the frenzied voyages up the Atlantic coast back to Nova Scotia.  Historian Chapman J. Milling, a South Carolinian of Acadian descent, explains it well:  "It is easy to condemn them for this movement" from the hinterland back to the colonial center, "as they were condemned at the time.  From their own viewpoint any other course would have been incomprehensible.  Seeking lost parents, brother searching for sister, lover for sweetheart, they preferred the companionship of misery and poverty shared in common to separation among strangers.  Accustomed to toiling cheerfully for themselves and their own families, their independent spirtis rebelled at a state of indenture differing from slavery only in name.  Together, although deprived of their spiritual fathers, they had at least the comfort of a common religion and their mother tongue in which to encourage their chastened souls with its promises."  And so, as 1759 gave way to a new year, more Acadians slipped back to Charles Town, taking up residence with other Acadians "in brick tenements on Trotts Point, a small out-house at Petit Versailes, a house near the New Barracks called the 'Orange Garden 48,' which was the former school house named for its location next to an orange grove on the north side of Tradd Street, and a house neaby the new State House," which had been completed and opened in March 1756, while James Glen was still governor.  According to the colonial authorities, by the dawn of the new year, 340 or so Acadians were packed into these tenements and ramshackle houses in lower Charles Town.213

Then the darkness came. 

 Acadians were noted for something else as remarkable as their obsession with family:  in their northern settlements around the Bay of Fundy, they seldom died of communicable disease.  There was no crowded urban environment there, not even in the old capital of Annapolis Royal, where such diseases could spread more easily.  The mosquitoes that infested the Fundy shores in the warmer days--maringouins, the Acadians called them--carried no dreaded tropical diseases like malaria and yellow fever.  Dysentery, called the bloody flux, caused by contaminated water and food, was largley unknown among them, as was the most dreaded contagious disease of that day--small pox.  Though they enjoyed a splendid geographical  isolation, they were not removed from the human world around them.  Their Mi'kmaq and Maliseet neighbors, rare among North American Natives, were not devastated by the white man's diseases.  Fundy Acadians traded eagerly with New Englanders who made their way up the coast from Boston, which, like other Atlantic ports, suffered an occasional smallpox outbreak.  However, the New England captains, like all good seafarers, were careful about the health of their crews.  This rare "immunity" changed dramatically during the Acadians' Grand Dérangement:  from the summer of 1757 through the spring of 1758, in and around Québec City, more than 300 Acadian refugees died of smallpox.  Sadly for the exiles in South Carolina, the dreadful disease caught up to them in early 1760.214

Charles Town had suffered a major smallpox epidemic in 1738.  The epidemic of 1760 was a result, interestingly enough, of Governor Lyttelton's punitive campaign against the Lower Cherokee towns, out in the Carolina upcountry, in late 1759.  Smallpox evidently had hit the Cherokee towns before the war commenced.  "The Cherokee hostages imprisoned by Lyttelton while under official safe conduct" to Charles Town "died like rats of the disease," Chapman J. Milling recounts.  In the city, beginning in early February, "the infection spread until 'almost every family was in distress for the loss of some of its members.'"  It did not wane until mid-summer, "and the assembly declared the crisis over in November," Victoria Musheff notes.  According to Milling, "the disease accounted for 940 deaths in the city alone."  Musheff gives a smaller but more specific count:  "six hundred and fifty lives, three hundred of whom were white.  One-sixth of its victims were Acadians:  between one hundred fifteen and one hundred and thirty Acadians perished"--less than half of the number who had died at Québec three years earlier, but close to half of the Acadians who had congregated in Charles Town by early 1760.  Before the epidemic broke out, Carolina authorities had noted the large number of exiles who had made their way back from the parishes to the city and had crowded together in the lower town.  While the epidemic raged, the authorities correctily discerned that these crowded conditions and the ill health of many Acadians would become "a source of infection," so "efforts were made to prevent its spread among them."  A committee of the House of Assembly "recommended that the Old Free-School may be fitted up with the utmost Expedition, which, together with part of the New Barracks may be allotted for the reception of as many of the said Acadians as they will conveniently hold which will lessen the number of those which are in the said Houses, give them more room and conveniency and prevent the Dangers arising from such numbers being together."  The committe then recommended the allocation of funds to finance this new aid to the Acadians.  "The Committee's recommendations were, in general, followed by the House," Milling notes, including "a special appropriation for two thousand pounds for their relief," as well as a letter to the governor "asking for approval of the use of the barracks for the Acadians...."  Private individuals also offered assistance to the Acadians during the epidemic, Milling and Musheff add.  In June, as the contagion raged, Lieutenant-Governor William Bull, Jr., now in charge of the colony following the appointment of Lyttelton as governor of Jamaica, reacted to a request for work by able-bodied Acadians and urged the House to find employment for these men.  Bull's response to the Acadians' petition revealed that he was more akin to James Glen than to William Lyttleton in his attitude towards the exiles.  In July, another committee of the Assembly was appointed "'to inquire into the present State of the Acadians in Charles Town.'"  On July 12 it reported:  "'The said Acadians are reduced to the Number of 210, that is to say 42 men, 42 women, 52 boys, and 74 girls."215

This having been said, the committee members could not resist venting their spleen on the hapless Acadians, using words similar to those uttered by Charles Lawrence and his councilors as they prepared to toss Acadians to the winds, as well as other governors and their councilors and legislators who were forced to receive the exiles:  "That notwithstanding the Humanity with which they have been treated and the great Expense the Province has been put to on their account, which exceeds the sum of five and twenty thousand Pounds," the committe members huffed, "they are disaffected and discontented and wholly averse to the living under an English Government:  nor is there any appearance of an alteration in their Sentiments or that they will ever become serviceable to the province."  The committee also noted:  "That the Orphan Children by being bound out to Handicraft Trades, and others of them by engaging in the service of private Families, might get a tolerable subsistence, yet such is the Bigotry and Obstinacy of these People that they choose to live miserably together than to separate and live comfortably."  The committee concluded:  "Upon considering the premises, the Committee are of Opinion that the said Acadians are burdensome and usless to the Province:  And in case of any invastion or insurrection might adhere to His Majesty's Enemies, and therefore recommend it to the House to address his Honor the Lieutenant Governor to order the said Acadians to be transported to Europe, or some French Port in America:  And that the House do provide a Sum sufficient to defray the expense of that Service."  In other words, re-deport the remaining Acadians.  The Assembly promptly informed Lieutenant-Governor Bull of its desire to send the Acadians away, adding a warning that the Acadians, meanwhile, might stir up insurrection among the colony's slaves--the ultimate enslavers' nightmare.  Here was the final word on South Carolina's view of the Acadian exiles still living among them--the sooner they leave, the better.  Here also was a clear message for the struggling exiles:  as soon as they could, they would emulate the Broussards, the Basques, and the coastal voyagers and get themselves the hell out of this colony.216 

They could not know it, but that opportunity would come sooner than later.  In July 1758, when most the Acadians in South Carolina were languishing in the outlying parishes or making their way quieting back to the tenements at Charles Town, the French stronghold at Louisbourg on Île Royale fell to the British.  In September 1759, on the eve of Lyttelton's war against the Cherokee, which came as a surprise to many Carolinians, and his inadvertent introduction of smallpox to Charles Town, the British captured Québec City and seized control of the lower St. Lawrence valley.  A year later, in September 1760, as the smallpox epidemic gradually eased at Charles Town, the British accepted the surrender of Montréal, and French control of Canada ceased to be.  A month later, in October 1760, a British naval force from Québec accepted the surrender of the French garrison, and a thousand Acadian refugees, at Restigouche at the head of the Baie des Chalours--the last French stronghold in North America.  The war lingered two years longer in the Caribbean, until the fall of Spanish Havana after a month-long siege by a British naval force in August 1762.  Soon, negotiations began in Paris between British, French, and Spanish representatives to end what the British called the French and Indian War.  The end came with the signing of a treaty at Paris.217

Lieutenant-Governor Bulls's response to the Assembly's proposal to deport the remaining Acadians was to remind them of His Majesty's insistence to Governor Lyttelton, and now to him, that "no more Acadians be sent to great Britain" or any other place.  And so he could not re-deport them.  Determined to be rid of them, "The Assembly now proposed that if the Acadians could not be deported they be allowed to leave the province of their own accord if they so desired, and that they be financially assisted in so doing," as Governor Glen had done four years earlier.  But Lieutenant-Governor Bull would not budge from his superiors' instuctions.  The smallpox epidemic ended by late 1760.  In the next few years, the Acadians in South Carolina, including exiles from Georgia who had slipped into the colony and remained there, did their best to make a life for themselves in a place where they still felt like unwelcomed strangers.  Then the war against Britain finally ended, bringing to these unwelcome strangers another opportunity to leave this place.218

The Treaty of Paris was signed on 10 February 1763 by representatives of His Britannic Majesty George III of Britain, His Most Christian Majesty Louis XV of France, His Catholic Majesty Carlos III of Spain, and Don Joseph I of Portugal.  It consisted of 27 articles, the most significant of which to the Acadian exiles was Article IV.  Here France surrendered all of "Nova Scotia or Acadia in all its parts," including what the French claimed in present-day New Brunswick west of Chignecto, including the trois-rivières and Rivière St.-Jean and all its tributaries.  All of Canada, also captured by British arms, now belonged to Britain, as well as Cape Breton (formerly French Île Royale) and all other islands, including Île St.-Jean, the îles des Madeleines, and Newfoundland, with the exception of the cod-fishery islands of St.-Pierre and Miquelon off the southern coast of Newfoundland.  "His Britannick Majesty, on his side," the article went on, "agrees to grant the liberty of the Catholic religion to the inhabitants of Canada; he will, in consequence, give the most precise and most effectual orders, that his Roman Catholic subjects may profess the worship of their religion according to the rites of the Romish church, as far as the laws of Great Britain permit."  His Britannick Majesty farther agrees, that the French inhabitants, or others who had been subjects of the Most Christian King in Canada," including the Acadians of Nova Scotia, "may retire with all safety and freedom where they shall think proper, and may sell their estates, provided it be to the subjects of his Britannick Majesty, and bring away their effects as well as their persons, without being restrained in their emigration, under any pretence whatsoever, except that of debts or of ciminal prosecutions:  The term limited for this emigration shall be fixed to the space of eighteen months, to be computed from the day of the exchange of the ratification of the present treaty."  Just as significant for the future of the Acadians, an earlier treaty, negotiated and signed secretly at Fountainbleu near Paris on 3 November 1762 by representatives of France and Spain, tranferred the Île of Orleans with the port of New Orleans, and Louisiana west of the Mississippi River, including Illinois west of the river, from France to Spain; the rest of Louisiana and Illinois east of the Mississippi to be retained by Britain.  France, in fact, surrendered its entire hold on North America, keeping in the New World only the two fishery islands off Newfoundland, and St.-Domingue, Guadaloupe, and Martinique in the French Antilles.219

So here it was, once and for all, the means of escape from their Carolina "prison." 

The process of their release, as well as the release of all the other Acadian exiles still languishing in the British colonies, began soon after the treaty signing in Paris.  Louis-Jules-Barbon Mancini Mazarini, duc de Nivernois, French minister to the British Court in London, was determined to repatriate to France the Acadians in England, most of whom had been sent there from Virginia in the spring of 1756 and who had suffered terribly there over the following years.  On 18 March 1763, Nivernois penned a secret dispatch, entrusted to his secretary, Monsieur de la Rochette, that promised the exiles in England "the protection of King Louis X" in their efforts to return to French soil.  And so they did, aboard several French transports, in May 1763, landing in northern Brittany at Morlaix and St.-Malo.  "Copies of this communqué," Carl Brasseaux relates, "were subsequently smuggled" by the new arrivals via the Acadian grapevine "to friends and relatives" in the seaboard colonies.  Upon receiving the document, Acadian leaders in the colonies reacted as quickly as they could to the welcomed opportunity.220 

In South Carolina, Balthazard Côme [?]; Marin LeBlanc, who had come to the colony from Chignecto aboard the Edward Cornwallis; and Jacques Hugon, who had arrived aboard the Endeavor "wrote a petition to the duc de Nivernois requesting the intervention of the French king on behalf of Acadian families originally exiled to South Carolina who were still living in the colony."  According to Victoria Musheff, the leaders "wrote cautiously while expressing joy over the fact that their Christian king planned to recall the Acadians refugees back to France.  They assured their sovereign that in the face of advantageous offers made by the English, they had always remained loyal to France," which was true for the vast majority of them.  They were especially eager for the King to plead for them "on behalf of their babies who Carolinians forcibly removed from their homes under the pretext of needing wet nurses."  They "expressed their belief that nothing shore of a royal decree could restore children to their lawful parents.  They asked for resettlement assistance under the French flag to any location that pleased the king.  They claimed that they had sought to go to French colonies before England and France had declared war."  In truth, they had been given no choice whatever as to their destination.220a

Accompanying the South Carolina leaders' petition was a repatriation list of their fellow exiles, headed "Names and Numbers of Families previously living in Acadia who have been transported to South Carolina and who desire to withdraw under the standard of their King his Very Christian Majesty, dated 12 August 1763.  On the list were 57 men, 69 women (including 10 widows), and 138 children (40 of them orphans), 264 exiles in all, a far cry from the thousand or so deportees who had come to the colony in late 1755 and early 1756.  Individuals on the August 12 list bore the surnames Landry, Richard, Dugas, Bernard, Babineau, Derairer, Lord, Comeau, Oliveau, Aucoin, Deveau, LeBlanc, Cormier, Bourgeois, Pitre, Girouard, Comme, Hébert, Simon, Doiron, Babin, LaPierre, Quessy (Caissy), Moreau (actually Marant), Carret, Orillon, Thériot, Dupuy, Boudreau, Arseneau, Poirier, Doucet, Olivier, Granger, Brun, Barnabé (Martin), Breau, Chiasson, Lambert, Boucher, Dugon, Forest/Foret, Pellerin, Maillet, Gauthier, Salete, Hugon, Lanoue, Thibodeau, Savoy, Blanchard, Robichaud, Gauselain (Gonsoulin?), Buchries (?), Gaudet, and Masson, the great majority of them Acadian names.  One of the signers on the August 12 list, Pierre Deraier, obvioulsy a well-educated man, whose wife was Acadian Isabelle Lord, attested at the end of that list:  "I the undersigned certify the true marks and that those who are not signed or have made their ordinary marks are not here in this country or engaged in the dwellings against the will of the fathers and mothers and have refused many times, in confidence of which I have signed at Charleston, South Carolina this 29th of August, 1763."  This may mean that the number of names on this list included Acadians not only in Charles Town, but also others still scattered in the rural parishes who were bound there under indentureship, despite the wishes of their parents.220b 

Also submitted to the duc de Nivernois was another list, headed "State, and List of the Acadians with Their Names and Number of Children that They have in South Carolina this 23rd of August 1763."  (Notice the interesting use of the pronoun "they" in the title.)  This list contained 32 heads of households named Poirier (10 of them, including two widows), Bourg (three), Babin (one), Hébert (six, including a widow), Guilbeau (one), Breau (one), Girouard (one, a widow), Pincer (perhaps Prince, one), Bourgeois (one), Cormier (five), Cir (a widow), and Richard (one)--160 men, women, and children in those households.  Also on the August 23 list were three orphans, two Thériot brothers and a Babin; "one family who lives alone at Port Royale," south of Charles Town, Olivier Landry of Chignecto, his wife, and three children; and the families of André LeBlanc, his wife, and four children; Jean-Baptiste Gagne, his wife, and three children; and Gilbert Masson or Mason, his wife, and one child--a total of 185 persons.  According to Victoria Musheff's research, this second, smaller list was submitted by Acadians living in South Carolina at the time but who had been exiled to Georgia in 1755 and had removed themselves to South Carolina by August 1763.  These Acadians also sent a petition to Nivernois.  The three-page submission began, Musheff observes, "with an apology for their lack of education and poor ability to communicate.  Careful not to bore, these Acadians wrote with enthusiasm, confidence, and affection to their good Christian French king.  Like those exiled directly to South Carolina, this group testified about their constant loyalty to France.  In recommending themselves to his goodness, however, the Georgia Acadians went much further:  they claimed to have taken up weapons in their hands against the English in their support of their country in service to ... the French king."  They were referring, of course, to their participation in the British attack on French Fort Beauséjour back in June 1755.  "This claim of course," Musheff notes, "was exceptional evidence of their fidelity.  It was probably true to a degree, especially since Georgia's Acadians also came from the despised region of Chignecto; even so, the petitioners likely exaggerated to win favor."  They, too, beseeched the King for help "to rescue their children whom colonists had removed and sent to plantations where Englishmen sold them.  That this happened was a disgrace to their French parents who raised them as Catholics and did not want them to practice the religion of England.  They trusted that the king, as their protector and liberator, would help them regain their children and that doing so would garner God's favor."  Here was evidence that "a good number of young children were absorbed into Anglican families."  Sadly, "It is not clear if South Carolinians returned any children to the Acadians at the close of the war," Victoria Musheff notes, and "there is no known evidence that the French government negotiated the rescue of Acadian children in the colony."221

So here they were, 450 or so Acadians lingering in South Carolina, down from the 934 exiles who had come directly to Charles Town aboard five vessels in November 1755 and January 1756, and 434 aboard two ships sent on to Georgia in November 1755--nearly 1,400 Acadians deported to the two southern-most colonies.  Hundreds of them had been allowed to voyage back up the coast towards home, until the new South Carolina governor, on orders from his superiors, closed the door on these sanctioned "escapes."  Many of them, men, women, and children, had died of neglect, abject poverty, and the most dreaded disease of that day.  The question before them now was:  where would these survivors choose to go?  Nearly all of them refused to remain in these British colonies, where the leaders and the people had neglected them, again and again and again, and had refused to understand, even tolerate their nature, not only their faith but their obsession with family.  But where would they go?  Where could they go?  Through their remarkable communication grapevine they doubtless had heard that many of their fellow survivors in New England and New York were going to British Canada, where their French Canadian cousins outnumbered the British oppressors and clung mightily to the One True Church.  They were receiving no offers to resettle in France, which was even farther from South Carolina than Canada.  So they turned their gaze southward, to the French Antilles, especially to the sugar colony of French St.-Domingue.  Later in the year, they likely knew that a few of the remaining Acadians in Georgia had left Savannah for St.-Domingue "without any layover in Charlestown."  Word also was reaching the Acadians in Charles Town that the French had big plans for St.-Domingue.  While the end-of-war treaty was being negotiated, French officials encouraged exiles in the British colonies to resettle in the sugar colony.  Although driven from North America by the Seven Years' War, the French were determined to hang on to what was left of their shrinking empire.  A new naval base at Môle St.-Nicolas on the northwest end of the big island would protect the approaches to their remaining possessions in the Caribbean region and assist in the "war of revenge" to come.  Exiles lured to St.-Domingue would prove a ready source of labor not only for the naval contractors, but also for colony's major planters, who hoped to supplement the work of their slaves.  To sweeten the deal, the French promised the Acadians land of their own in St.-Domingue.  By 18 February 1764, the South Carolina Gazette could report that Acadians had left Charles Town the previous November destined for Cape François in St.-Domingue.  "'Soon after their arrival there,'" the editor of the Gazette relates, '"[they] had land alotted them at Cape Nicola [Môle St.-Nicolas] in the Windward Passage, and are settling at Platform, where most English Vessels passing to and from Jamaica commonly call for water, but are by no means pleased, either with their reception or situation.'"  Unfortunately, this was more than wishful thinking on the part of the Carolina editor if he was typically disdainful of his colony's recent residents--a case, as it turned out, of hundreds of wayward Acadians jumping from the frying pan into the fire.222

Not all of the exiles who left South Carolina ended up in that fire.  Four families from Chignecto that had been deported to Georgia in 1755, voyaged up the coast via Charles Town in 1756, held in New York for the rest of the war, and counted at Charles Town and Port Royal in August 1763--Olivier Landry and his wife Cécile Poirier; Cécile's brother Jean-Baptiste Poirier and his wife Marie-Madeleine Richard; Marie-Madeleine's parents Jean-Baptiste Richard and his wife Marie-Catherine, called Catherine, Cormier; and Catherine's first cousin Jean-Baptiste Cormier and his wife Madeleine Richard, sister of Jean-Baptiste--lingered in South Carolina after the August counting along with most of their fellow exiles.  During this time they likely had received word through the Acadian grapewine that the venture in St.-Domingue, as the Gazette article in February 1764 would hint, was turning out to be a disaster.  One of the family heads, Olivier Landry, may also have received a missive from a distant cousin that gave him and the other family heads an alternative to the fiasco in St.-Domingue.  Landry's paternal grandmother was Marie, daughter of Pierre Thibodeau and Jeanne Thériot.  Marie's younger sister Jeanne had married French official Mathieu de Goutin at Port-Royal, Acadie, in the late 1680s.  The De Goutin's youngest son, Joseph de Goutin de Ville, born at Port-Royal in 1705, like his older brother François-Marie, became an army officer.  Joseph was still a middle-aged bachelor when he was posted to New Orleans in the 1740s.  He was, a far as the records show, the first native of French Acadia to settle in Louisiana.  In July 1747, at age 42, he married a 15-year-old Creole girl at New Orleans and started a family.  After his retirement, Joseph de Ville became a merchant in the city and an officer in the colonial militia.  In the late 1750s or early 1760s, he received a grant of land in the newly-created Attakapas District on the southwest Louisiana prairies.  It may have been about that time that he communicated with his cousin Olivier in the Acadian disaspora and sold him on the qualities of the Gulf Coast region.  In late 1763, perhaps after securing more funds, the families came together at Savannah, where they had been held eight years earlier.  From there, in late December 1763, they took the Savannah Packet to Mobile in eastern Lousiaina, which they likely thought was still a part of New France.  It was not.  They in fact arrived in the Gulf Coast citadel just as the caretaker governor of French Louisiana was transferring jurisdiction of the eastern part of the colony to a British force from Cuba.  Lingering at Mobile in late January, the four families rehabilitated one of their marriages there before moving on to New Orleans.  They reached the Mississippi River port in February 1764--the first documented Acadian exiles to settle in Louisiana..222a

North Carolina

Only one of the five transports that left the Annapolis Basin on 8 December 1755 was destined for North Carolina, and only one other transport had been sent to that colony, a few weeks earlier.  On December 8, the Pembroke, under master Milton ____, carrying 232 Annapolis valley exiles--33 men, 37 women, 70 boys, and 92 girls--was separated from its naval escort and its sister ships by a heavy wind soon after it sailed through the Gut.  This circumstance, combined with the master's decision to allow six passengers at a time on deck "for a few minutes of fresh air," made the 139-ton snow suddenly vulnerable.  Fifty-eight-year-old Charles Belliveau of Annapolis Royal, who, ironically, had fashioned a new mast for this very ship after it had limped into the basin a few weeks earlier, saw an opportunity.  He chose six of the hardiest men and sent them topside to enjoy the fresh air.  After their time on deck had elapsed and the guard opened the hatch to escort them below, Belliveau and his fellow Acadians, armed with only their fists, burst from the hold, overwhelmed the ship's crew, and in only minutes the vessel was theirs!  Belliveau was a pilot as well as a ship's carpenter, so he and his compatriots were able to sail the Pembroke into Baie Ste.-Marie, at northwest end of the peninsula.  An exchange during the passage between the ship's master and Belliveau, as recorded by historian John Mack Faragher, has become "the stuff of Acadian legend."  "The wind was strong," Faragher relates, "the sails filled, and the mainmast groaned.  'Stop! You are going to break it,' cried the captain.  'I made this mast, Belliveau shouted back, 'and I know it will not break!'"  For a month, into the frigid days of early January, Belliveau and his fellow exiles hid aboard the Pembroke in the isolated coastal bay.  Not wishing to press their luck, they sailed out of the bay and across the Bay of Fundy, reaching the mouth of Rivière St.-Jean on January 8.  The British, by then, had been searching for them and had guessed that they would attempt to join their fellow Acadians on Rivière St.-Jean.  A small naval force attacked the Pembroke as it lay in the lower river.  Belliveau and his fellow passengers, always on the alert, burned the vessel, handed over their captives to Canadian Lieutenant Boishébert, and retreated upriver to Ste.-Anne-du-Pay-Bas, where they were joined the following spring by many of their kinsmen who had escaped the British in the Annapolis valley.155  

The first transport sent to North Carolina had been an ad hoc venture.  It also was the only one of the two ships sent there that made it to the Tarheel colony.  Aboard the sloop Providence, master Samuel Barron, when it left Halifax on 15 November 1755, were 50 former residents of Pigiguit who had endured a petit dérangement of their own.  In 1749, soon after the founding of Halifax, they had migrated to Île Royale, where the French settled them on Baie-des-Espagnols, north of Louisbourg, today's North Sydney, Nova Scotia.  Dissatisfied with conditions there--they were farmers, not fishermen--in the early fall of 1754, they made their way by boat to Halifax, where they explained to British authorities that "the Land there" on Île Royale "being so very bad they were utterly incapable of subsisting their Families, and had applied to the Governor of Louisbourg for leave to return to their former Habitations, to which he had consented."  They beseeched Lieutenant-governor Charles Lawrence and his colonial Council to let them return to their former lands.  After hearing their case, the Council agreed to the request only if they "voluntarily" took "the Oath of Allegiance to His Majesty" George II "unqualified by any reservation"--a hard request for self-respecting Acadians.  However, the Council minutes noted, "it appearing that they were in very great distress being intirely destitute of all necessitous," they "very cheerfully" took the hated oath and were issued rations to get them through the winter.  But they were not allowed to return to their homes at Pigiguit. Lawrence sent them, instead, to the old Acadian village of Mirliguèche on the Atlantic shore, across from the Germans at Lunenburg, where some of the supplicants' kin had lived decades earlier.  There, for a year at least, the Acadians lived in peace with their Protestant neighbors.  Despite their having taken the ironclad oath, however, these Acadians, too, were rounded up in September 1755.  Lawrence imprisoned them on Georges Island in Halifax harbor, where the recently-departed Acadian deputies had been held since the previous July.  On October 3, Lawrence informed master Samuel Barron of the sloop Providence that he would "receive on Board" his "Sloop from George's Island a number of French Inhabitants a list whereof you will receive from the Commanding Officer there and you are to proceed therewith to the province of North Carolina."  Barron was further instructed that "upon your arrival you are to deliver the Letter you have herewith as addressed and use your utmost diligence to get the people put on shore and will obtain a certificate of their being so landed."  Lawrence, ever the micro-manager, ordered that Barron must "take care to see the allowance of provisions properly served during the voyage agreeable to the following proportion viz 1 lb. Beef 1 lb. of Bread and five pounds of Flour each person per week, and you are to be accountable for what shall remain of the provisions after the people are landed and for what arms you have received from His Majesty's stores for your defence."  However, the Acadians from Mirliguèche lingered for another month and a half on Georges Island.  Not until November 15 did the Providence set sail from Halifax for North Carolina.200

After the Providence reached North Carolina in January 1756, an evidentiary shroud falls over the story of the Acadians who went there.  Research by historian R. Martin ("Marty") Guidry, a descendant of one of the North Carolina exiles, indicates that, in March, they were deposited likely at Edenton on Albemarle Sound, in the far-northeastern corner of the colony.  Edenton had once served as North Carolina's colonial capital, until it was moved to the lower Cape Fear River, in the far southeastern corner of the colony.  There, in 1756, at Brunswick Town, stood the seat of the colony's governor, Arthur Dobbs, a 67-year-old Irishman, former soldier, and member of Parliament, who had been serving as governor only since November 1754.  One suspects that the sudden arrival of 50 Acadians in a fast-growing colony noted for its ethnic diversity attracted little attention at first, until it was discerned that they were Frenchmen and Roman Catholics besides.  Nevertheless, like in the other British colonies where the Acadians were transported, with the exception of Virginia, the Acadians sent by Governor Lawrence of Nova Scotia were expected to be held until the war was over.  Edenton was an ideal place to hold these exiles.  Located in a corner of what the Tarheels called the Inner Banks, Edenton, unlike Brunswick Town, lay a good distance from easy access to the open Atlantic.  According to Marty Guidry's research, these Acadians, many of them related by blood and marriage, endured their exile on Albemarle Sound for four long years, subsisting on what crops they could grow, what they could catch in the sound and the nearby rivers, as well as what the colonial government deigned to provide them.  In c1760, probably after learning of the fall of Canada, colonial authorities, perhaps tired of the expense of caring for them, allowed the Acadians to join their fellow exiles in Pennsylvania.  If so, they would have had to charter a ship or, more likely, emulate their fellow exiles from Georgia and South Carolina by purchasing their own chaloupe, fixing it up, and coasting up the Atlantic shore to Delaware Bay, a much shorter voyage than their compatriots had endured four years earlier.  In June 1763, they appeared on a repatriation list in Pennsylvania before moving on again--to Maryland in 1764 and then to Spanish Louisiana later in the decade.201

Maryland

Maryland, unlike South Carolina, was one of the oldest of the dozen or so seaboard colonies established by the English.  Only Virginia and Massachusetts were older.  Moreover, Maryland was the first English seaboard colony founded by an individual proprietor, in fact a family of proprietors--Sir George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore, King Charles I's former Secretary of State and a Catholic convert--and, after Sir George's death in 1632 soon after receiving his grant, his son Cecilius, called Cecil, 2nd Baron Baltimore, also a Roman Catholic.  Protestants, who composed the great majority of Englishmen, were welcome to the colony, and religious tolerance was granted to Marylanders by acts of 1649 and 1658.  Beginning in the 1650s, however, successive Protestant revolts overturned the Calverts and their acts of toleration, and Maryland ceased to be a Catholic colony.  By the late 1600s, Maryland's leaders were persecuting Roman Catholics as eagerly as officials in other English colonies did.  In 1704, an "Act to Prevent the Growth of Popery in this Providence" barred Catholics from voting, practicing law, and holding office in the colony, putting an end to Catholic political power and influence.  Despite the religious troubles, Maryland's economy thrived.  Like Virginia, Maryland fronted the magnificent Chesapeake Bay, which gave easy access to its rivers and ports.  Moreover, its climate was mild and its soil conducive to the cultivation of tobacco, which by Maryland's founding had become a valuable cash crop for the English.  The headright system and indentureship provided new settlers from the British Isles, and enslavement of West Africans, tied to the headright system, became essential to tobacco production.  By 1775, ironically, the richest man in Maryland, and perhaps in all of the American colonies, was Charles Carroll of Carrollton, a Catholic whose lands comprised tens of thousands of acres and held 300 slaves. 

Historian Gregory A. Wood describes his native Maryland in 1755:  "When the Neutrals arrived, Maryland's population was somewhere over 150,000, divided into a variety of categories based on sex, color, servitude, taxability, and age.  Much has been said about the province's traditional guarantee of religious freedom--a myth perpetuated in superficial histories!  Political and religious expression were not sacred rights in this rural, plantation-centered society:  tolerance came in degrees; so did freedom.  In 1755, free white males fifteen years and older number 23,386, with the same category of white females equal to a couple of hundred more than that total.  In addition, young white boys and girls provided another 51,000 more inhabitants.  There were also some 26,000 people of lesser status at that time--servants, convicts, and free and enslaved Blacks and mulattoes--who were taxable and fiften years and older.  Children of black slaves added another 22,000, and only 35 clergymen cared for the population."224

As dictated by Nova Scotia's Lieutenant-Governor Charles Lawrence in the summer of 1755, four transports, two full of exiles from Minas Proper and two from nearby Pigiguit, were assigned to the colony of Maryland, these vessels also to be escorted to their destination by a British ship of war.  On the same day, October 27, the four transports sailed through the Gut of the Annapolis Basin and entered the lower Bay of Fundy, exactly two weeks after six transports filled with Chignecto Acadians had left the Basin for South Carolina and Georgia.  The 97-ton sloop Elizabeth, Master Nathaniel Milbury, held 242 passengers from the Minas settlements, 52 more than allocated by Lawrence's calculations, placing an unnecssary strain on the crew and passengers.  The 87-ton schooner Leopard, master Thomas Church, held 178 passengers from Minas, only four overloaded.  The 87-ton sloop Dolphin, master Zebediah Forman, held 230 passengers from the Pigiguit settlements, 56 over capacity.  Finally, the 90-ton sloop Ranger, master Francis Piercy, held 263 passengers from Pigiguit, an astonishing 81 over capacity.  The transports' escort was HMS Nightingale, commanded by Captain Dudley Diggs, with no passengers aboard--913 Minas Basin Acadians headed for another Chesapeake Bay colony.225

The gale that slammed into other transports leaving the Bay of Fundy that day, bound for Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, scattered the Maryland-bound flotilla as well.  The Nightingale, separated from its charges, landed at New York City.  The masters of the four deportation transports chose to press on to their destination, but they were not able to remain together.  Elizabeth, with only 186 exiles still aboard, 56 fewer than it had taken through the Gut, made its way down the Atlantic side of Virginia's Eastern Shore, rounded Cape Charles, entered Chesapeake Bay, and sailed northward to its destination at Annapolis.  It may have been the first of the Maryland-bound transports to reach the colony, on November 20, three weeks after its departure from Nova Scotia.  Next appeared the Leopard, with 174 exiles aboard, on November 24, followed by the Pigiguit transports on November 30, the Dolphin with 180 exiles aboard, the Ranger with 238 or so (another source says only 205).  The Pigiguit transports arrived later than the Minas ships because the storm had driven them to Boston, which they reached on November 5.  Massachusetts authorities, about to receive their own exiles, noted the severe overcrowding on the two transports bound for Maryland, removed 47 Acadians from the Dolphin, 25 from the Ranger, replenished the ships' stores, and sent them on their way.226

Gregory Wood says of the Leopard, one of the smallest of the four transports and which carried the fewest Acadians to Maryland:  "Newly constructed in New England and first registered on 10 April at Cambridge, this schooner was owned and captained by Thomas Church, who alone of the four seemed to be adequately prepared to wait in the Severn for Maryland officials to decide the proper disembarkation of a group practically equal to the population of Annapolis."  The problem was, as in Virginia and South Carolina, colonial authorites were not informed of the exiles' arrival until they ... arrived.  Maryland's governor Horatio Sharpe was attending "a conference of colonial executives in New York," which colony would not receive its two ships-full of Acadians until the following spring.  One wonders if Captain Diggs of the HMS Nightingale, after taking refuge in New York Harbor, informed the conference of Charles Lawrence's deportation scheme, then unfolding up and down the coast.  No matter, the governor was not at Annapolis, so former governor Benjamin Trasker, "president of the Council," had to decide what to do with the new arrivals, whose needs were becoming quite burdensome to the people of Annapolis.  His decision guaranteed more suffering for the hapless exiles.  Refusing to authorize any landings until the governor arrived, during the first week of December, after consulting his fellow councilors, Trasker ordered the masters of three of the vessels to take their passengers to other Maryland ports.  The masters promptly filed "official protests" with "deputy public notary" John Brice, took on what provisions they could, weighed anchor, and went on their way.  The master of the Elizabeth, Nathaniel Milbury, with his 242 exiles, was ordered to take his sloop back down the bay and anchor in the Wicomico River on the Eastern Shore in Somerset County.  Amazingly, "no provisions were made for any compensation for food and supplies."  Francis Piercy, master of the Ranger, was ordered to take his sloop full of "sickly ... exiles from Pisiquid," only 208 of them left, down to the Eastern Shore port of Oxford, in the Choptank estuary near the mouth of the Tred Avon River in Talbot County.  Master Zebediah Forman of the Dolphin, with his severely reduced number of Pigiguit exiles, 180 at last count, was ordered to take his sloop down to the Patuxent River and then up and up and up that stream to the village of Lower Marlborough in Calvert County.  Master Church of the Leopard, with his 178 exiles, was ordered to remain in the Severn at Annapolis, to await, like the others, the arrival of Governor Sharpe.227

The first of the transferred exiles to reach their destination, the 208 aboard the Ranger sent to the Choptank, dropped anchor at Oxford on December 8.  The governor's arrival at Annapolis allowed them finally to disembark, but it did not improve their lot.  The Acadians were placed under the supervision of local merchant Henry Callister, "who represented the Cunliffe commercial firm of Liverpool, England."  According to Gregory Wood, "Callister became quite distrubed with the inaction of the Maryland government in the affair, for the province had not taken any official measures for the welfare of the exiles in their first month in Maryland."  The same neglect affected the other three contingents--they, too, after they left their ships, were forced to rely on the charity and good will of confused and frustrated locals.  On Christmas Day, Callister complained to a friend in England that "'Nobody knows what to do; and few have charity for them.'"  In mid-January, the winter well along, "he begged the governor's help and understanding, and in his letter to Sharpe, he enclosed a list of major expenses that he had assumed upon himself," but nothing changed for the rest of the winter.  Meanwhile, the colonial Council met again to address the Acadian problem, concluding that "'This Governmt. recd. them in that state" of misery "from the Captains that brought them here, and afterwards sent them to several Countys, not under the restraint or confinemt. of any person but let them at large and to their own liberty.  ...They ought not to have been released or suffer'd at large by us, as they were the King's Prisoners, and he alone, I think, is to order their Releasement,'" the president of the Council complained.228

Carl Brasseaux offers the wider view of why these exiles would endure even more misery and neglect, as had their compatriots in the other British colonies to which they had been deported:  "Upon reaching their destinations within Maryland, the Acadians found themselves in rather unenviable circumstances.  As nominal British subjects, they were not entitled to any particular assistance from the provincial or local governments, and as French-speaking Catholics in a region that was at war with French Catholics, they were shunned, feared, and reviled by the region's Anglo-Protestant majority.  Native Catholics were legally enjoined from assisting their co-religionists.  Some assistance was provided by a few philanthropic individuals--often by those who had previously been most vocal in their support of the proposed Acadian expulstion.  Because of the broad range of basic services required by the exiles and the corresponingly heavy financial burden which they entailed, these good samaritans were soon compelled to abandon their wards.  Fully cognizant of the incompatability between their job skills and those required by the Maryland economy," and no doubt noting the many West African slaves and white indentured servants working in the colony's tobacco fields, "the Acadians demanded that the governement recognize their status as prisoners of war and accordingly provide food and shelter for them.  The government, however, rejected this claim, indicating that the Acadians had acquired full British citizenship through 'the conventions of 1730.'  Consequently, at least one group of Acadians on the lower Eastern Shore was literally forced to exist, without shelter, in the frozen, snow-covered countryside, huddling together for warmth, for several days" before a local minister secured for them adequate shelter.  "Forced to make their own way in the world, the Acadians grudgingly accepted the low-paying and often degrading jobs offered by their reluctant hosts and gradually improved their lot, though never rising above the poverty level."229

Brasseaux also reveals the deep hypocracy practiced by the Maryland government in their policy towards the Acadians.  "While unable to provide economic assistance to the Acadians because of their British citizenship," Brasseaux notes, "the provincial government paradoxically treated the exiles as prisoners, adopting regulations to restrict their individual liberties and freedom of movement in early 1756."  In April, Governor Sharpe urged the colonial legislature to pass a law entitled "An Act to Empower the Justice of the Several County Courts, to Make Provision for the Late Inhabitants of Nova Scotia, and for Regulating Their Conduct.'"  The act, "reflecting the prevailing public revulsion, fear and suspicion of the French-Catholic immigrants," Brasseux explains, "required the exiles, which were characterized as indolent and obstinate, to 'rely upon their own Labour and Industry to procure a comfortable subsistence for themselves.'"  Moreover, and even more disturbing to the exiles, "In cases where Acadian parents appeared either unable or unwilling to support adequately their children, the county magistrates were empowered to 'bind out' Acadian children 'upon the best terms they could make' (vis-à-vis the provincial government) with local artisans, planters, or businessmen," with the result, historian John Mack Faragher says, of "a majority" of Acadian children being "forcibly taken away" from their families and "put out to service"--an Acadian parent's worst nightmare.  "All unemployed, but able-bodied Acadians," Brasseaux continues, "were to be deemed vagrants and were to be jailed until they manifested an interest in finding employment.  To ensure that employment was indeed available, the number of Acadians exceeding the local labor demand were to be transferred to neighboring counties where there was less surplus labor."  This resulted in exiles being held during the following years not only at Annapolis, but also at Baltimore farther up the Western Shore; at Oxford in Talbot County on the lower Eastern Shore; at Princess Anne in Somerset County; and at Snow Hill in Worcester County, west of Princess Anne, only six miles from Chincoteauge Bay on the Atlantic; at Newtown (today's Chestertown) in Kent County farther up the Eastern Shore; and even farther up that shore at Georgetown in Kent County and Fredericktown in Cecil County on the opposite banks of the Sassafras River, at the far northeastern corner of the province, near the boundaries with Pennsylvania and Delaware.  They were held also in the interior of the Western Shore not only at Lower Marlborough in Calvert County, but at Upper Marlborough farther up in Prince George's County; and at Port Tobacco in Charles County, at the head of an eponymous tributary five miles above the middle Potomac, near the border with Virginia--nearly a dozen new "homes" away from home for the colony's wayward Acadians.230

Sharpe's April regulations also addressed a major worry of Maryland's leaders and the colony's Protestant majority.  "The act," Brasseaux notes, "also furnished the magistrates with administrative machinery for preventing the exiles from reaching the colony's vulnerable western border, where British troops were under orders to shoot the Acadians on sight.  All Acadians wishing to travel more than ten miles from their residence were required to secure a passport from the local justice of the peace.  Violators were subject to citizens' arrests, five-day imprisonment, and subsequent, forcible removal to the prisoner's abode."  This colony would tolerate no Alexandre Broussards.  Perhaps aware now of the dramatic overland escapes in South Carolina and certainly of the voyagers coming up the coast from that colony and Georgia, a month after the law was passed Horatio Sharpe assured his Nova Scotia counterpart, still Charles Lawrence, that "'None of the French who were imported into this Province have been suffered either by Land or Water to return" to Nova Scotia.  Sharpe also was thrilled to learn that the colony's hereditary proprietor, Lord Baltimore in England, entirely approved of "his handling of the situation."231

So the exiles were boxed in, re-distributed to every corner of the lower province, watched over closely, forced to work alongside slaves and indentured servants, jailed for what they considered to be minor infractions, widows in rags forced to beg door-to-door to feed their starving children, and, worst of all, enduring the agony of seeing those children taken from them.  Yet, as Carl Brasseaux, himself a descendant of Maryland exiles, insists, "Though confined to their host province" for the rest of the war, "and though oppressed by their host government, the Acadian community bent under the pressures brought to bear against it, but it did not break.  Throughout the conflict, the Acadians openly supported the French cause and took no pains to conceal their delight at French military victories.  Such successes, however, became more and more infrequent as the war progressed.  France's ultimate defeat, which also dashed their lingering hopes of repatriation to Nova Scotia, hung like a pall over Maryland's Acadian community" into "the 1760s."232

But not all was bleak for the wayward Acadians in their make-shift communities bordering the Chesapeake.  Merchantile representive and planter Henry Callister of Talbot County was not the only Marylander who appealed to the "principles of humanity" by providing food and shelter for the exiles.  Another local shaker and mover, Colonel Edward Lloyd, a planter on the Wye River in Talbot County, considered the exiles a dangerous menace when they came to Oxford and said so to his fellow members of the governor's Council, yet, "Somewhat begrudingly, he contributed to their well-being while they were in the Choptank River...," Gregory Wood notes. "Fate should have it," Wood relates, "that the planter [Colonel Lloyd] found it necessary to take on the supervision of sixty or so Acadians in the Wye/Oxford area at L12 per week, and another group of thirty at L5 per week," all out of his pocket.  Moreover, "The weather was cold and the river had frozen, thereby compounding the difficulties" the colonel and his charges had to face.  Other local benefactors, also appealing to the "principles of humanity" in helping the new arrivals despite political and religious bias, included, Wood recounts, P. C. Blake, Rev. Thomas Bacon, Thomas Browning, Jacques Tilghman, Michael Hacket, Jean Caile, Charles Brown, Guill Goldsborough, Mrs. Sarah Blake, Pollard Edmondson, David Robinson, Col. Joseph Ennalls, Edward Niel, David Jones, Simon Jones, Mrs. Marguerite Lowe, Thomas Willson, Corneille Daly, Robert Howe, Edward Tilghman, Matthew Tilghman, Philemon Hambleton, and, above and beyond the call of Christian duty, Samuel Chamberlaine, who "allowed exiles to cut firewood on his estate and supplied them with Indian corn...."  A certain Captain Lowes," Wood adds, "assumed much responsibility for the Neutrals in Somerset County," whose seat was the village of Princess Anne, where a hand full of Acadian families had been relocated.233

A list of benefactors who helped sustain the Acadians would not be complete without including the most distinguished Catholic family in Maryland, the Carrolls.  Led by Charles Carroll of Annapolis, son of Charles Carroll "The Settler," who had come to the colony from Ireland in 1688, the family remained staunchly Catholic despite the political roadblocks thrown in their way.  By the time the Acadians appeared in the colony, in fact, Charles Carroll of Annapolis was the richest man in Maryland.  His only son, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, as he came to be called, was age 18 when the Acadians arrived and a student at a Jesuit college in Belgium before moving on to Paris, where he would continue his studies until his return to Annapolis on the eve of the Acadians' repatriation.  Charles Carroll of Annapolis's cousins, Charles and Daniel II, also prominent Maryland planters, and Daniel's younger brother John, a Catholic priest in Europe and future bishop of Baltimore, also helped the Acadians as best they could from their limited centers of influence in Maryland and Europe.   As revealed in a letter written in July 1756, three months after the colonial assembly had passed the "Act to Empower," Charles Carroll of Annapolis lamented to his son in France:  ""Many of them would have met with very humane treatment from the Roman Catholics here, but a real or pretended jealousy inclined this government not to suffer them to live with Roman Catholics.  I offered the government to take and support two families consisting of fourteen souls," wrote the richest man in the colony, "but was not permitted to do it.'"  The planter nevertheless confessed to his son in January 1759 that he had assisted a certain "'Manjan, a poor Accadian here'" and also helped the man's widow and their son, the wishes of the government be damned.  More openly, Carroll  assisted the Acadians at the village of Baltimore by selling for a pittance land on which a local priest could construct a house of worship.  In the late 1750s, tongue in cheek, he wrote to his son "that the whole Acadian issue had 'cheated' the son "out of 2800 livres of his inheritance to that date."  Revealing the family's regard for the exiles, Carroll wrote to his son a nostalgic description of their time in Maryland:  "'... they manufactured all they wore, and their manufactures were good; they raised in great plenty the provisions they consumed; their habitations were warm and comfortable; they were all upon a level, being all husbandmen, and consequently as void of ambition as human nature can be'"--an entirely too rosy view of the reality of their time there but one that nonetheless captured the essence of their character and the admiration they engendered in a fellow Roman Catholic.234

Other benefactors, both spiritual and corporeal, were the dozen or more priests, most of them Jesuits, who ministered to the colony's Catholic minority.  Only a hand full of the English seaboard colonies--Maryland, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Nova Scotia--allowed Catholic priests in their territories, and Nova Scotia was about to remove the last of them there now that the Catholic population was removed.  The Acadians, when they became British subjects in 1713, had been guaranteed practice of their religion by Queen Anne, and that guarantee continued under her successors, George I and George II, so they had not suffered religious persecution in their homeland.  Officials in Annapolis Royal nevertheless were frustrated to note the dependence of the new British subjects on their priests and did what they could to reduce that dependence, to no avail.  The officials saw these troublesome priests as "'priest-agents'" of the French monarch, "fulfilling spiritual as well as political functions."  After observing the exiles at Annapolis and in the other Maryland venues, Charles Carroll "was annoyed that the Neutrals," as they were called, "had little occasion to practice their religion in the province, for their spiritual character had impressed him greatly," Gregory Wood relates.  "'They appear to be very regular and religious,'" one of Carroll's biographers quotes him as saying, "'and that from principle and a perfect knowledge of their duty, which convinces me that they were blessed with exceptional pastors.  But alas, how is their case altered!'"  "It is assumed that the Reverend Lewis or Carroll's personal chaplain provided minor help to Baltimore or Annapolis exiles," Wood notes, "but only in the 1760s can it be verified that spiritual assistance had some consistency."  This was due to the lack of Catholic parishes in the colony (there were none!) and the pitiful number of Catholic missionaries--no more than a dozen--serving "approximately five thousand Catholic communicants (eight thousand in total according to other sources)" in the entire colony when the Acadians arrived.  The only "churches" in the colony in the 1750s were personal chapels attached to the homes of wealthy Catholic planters like the Carrolls.  According to Wood, "Dr. Richard Challoner, an English bishop and eventual Vicar Apostolic of London (1759-1781) oversaw church activities in America since no religious hierarchy existed in the colonies"--not even among the Protestants!  Wood also notes that "Catholics in Maryland owned over 316,000 of the nearly four million acres available, but they were not allowed to vote, and, as of May, 1756," thanks to Sharpe's "Act to Empower, "were subject to double land tax.  Additionally, their dozen priests were always open to official harassment," as the priests had been in Nova Scotia when the Acadians were there.  "By 1764," Wood notes, "there were seventeen Jesuit missions" in Maryland "for over ten thousand souls (a figure as high as sixteen thousand has also been given!), half of which were said to be faithful to religious practices."  About this time, Charles Carroll of Annapolis sold a small piece of land in the village of Baltimore "for a mere L6," later the site of St. Peter's church, "the first Catholic church constructed in the town" that would become the center of Acadian life in Maryland after most of them had left the colony in the late 1760s.235

And then the war between Britain and France finally ended, resulting in the signing of the Treaty of Paris in February 1763.  As had happened in South Carolina, and would happen in Maryland and the other seaboard colonies where the hapless Acadian exiles lingered, a secret dispatch penned by the duc de Nivernois, French minister in London, given to the Acadians being held in England, who, with British approbation, were repatriated to France the following May, quickly made it way across the Atlantic via the Acadian communication grapevine.  As in South Carolina, within weeks the Acadians in Maryland, in all the places they were being held, drew up a repatriation list of their own in early July and sent it, along with the usual petition for assistance, to the duc's secretary.  Like their compatriots in South Carolina, the Acadians in Maryland also expected aid from King Louis XV, including repatriation to France.  Like all of the other Acadians in the seaboard colonies, they got neither.  Individuals on the repatriation list compiled at Annapolis bore the surnames Dupuis, Melanson, Landry, [LeBorgne de] Belhisle (2 families), Manjeant, Célestin [dit Bellemère] (four families), Thurin, Hébert, Sapin, LeBlanc (two families), Braux, Meunier, Gonsault, Paillottet, Chamaux, and Nicolas--a total of 77 persons.  Surnames at Baltimore included LeBlanc (six families), Poirier, Melanson, Babin, Dug (perhaps Dugas), Landry (two families), Aling (Allain), Hébert, Trahan, Blanchard (two families), Thevereaux (Thériot), Richard, Forest, and Doiron--a total of 77 persons.  Surnames at Fredericktown and Georgetown included Hébert (four families), Boudrot, LeBlanc, Granger, Babin, and Brasseux--a total of 68 persons.  Surnames at Lower Marlborough, which included "French Prisoners," were LeRoy (Roy, two families), Brasseu, Lescun (prisoner), Launne (prisoner), Boudreau, L'Alemand (prisoner), and David (prisoner)--a total of 26 persons.  Surnames at Newtown included Boudrot, Daigle (Daigre), Richard (two families), Jeaudain, Gautrot (two families), LeBlanc, and Hébert--no number given, but 57 counted.  Surnames at Oxford included LeBlanc (four families), Landry (13 families), Bigeos (Bujole, two families), Brasseau, Braux, Babin (four families), Doiron, Clemençeau, Simonet (Simoneaux, two families), and Granger--a total of 169 persons.  Surnames at Port Tobacco included Braux (10 families), Lejeune, Comeau (two families), Babin (four families), Trahan, Gaidris (Guédry, two families), Benoit (two families), Latier, Broussard, Boudreau, Dupuis (two families), Landry (two families), Richard (two families), Clouâtre (two families), and Poupard--a total of 157 persons.  Surnames at Princess Anne included Germain, Maffier (Massier), Hébert, Trahan, Thiar, and Babin--a total of 33 persons.  Surnames at Snow Hill included David, Dechamp (Dejean?), Forest, Melanson (five families), Granger, Lucas, LeBlanc, Douliard, and Thibodeau--a total of 68 persons.  Surnames at Upper Marlborough included Babin (two families), Rivet (two families), Landry (three families), Forest (two families), Boudreau, Broussard, Richard, and Brasseu--a total of 58 persons, with a grand total of 790 persons, compared to the 913 exiles who left Nova Scotia seven and a half years earlier.  According to a separate count, in Wood's history of the Acadians in Maryland, the July 1763 count included 42 orphans, seven widowers, and 34 widows.  The great majority of the individuals in the counting were Acadians, but there also were a hand full of non-Acadians with Acadian spouses--Simoneaux, Latier, Hernandez, and Castille--counted at several locations, and several French families, held as prisoners of war, were counted at Lower Marlborough.  Wood notes that, surprisingly, "births, deaths, and removals to other areas did not appreciably change the population [of the Acadians in Maryland] from the 1755 figures."236

Now that the war was over and the Treaty of Paris allowed them resettle in French territory, like their compatriots in South Carolina, the Acadians in Maryland had to decide:  Where should we go?  Where can we go?  Down south, the Acadians of South Carolina and Georgia wasted little time in pooling funds to charter ships to Cap-Français for a new life in French St.-Domingue.  Acadians in New York and New England also made their way to the French Antilles, especially to St.-Domingue.  Trade between Maryland, primarily Baltimore, and French St.-Domingue would become important to the colony in future decades, but it was not the case in 1763.  Maryland exiles largely hesitated in opting for early repatriation, feeling no pressure from the government in Annapolis to quit the colony anytime soon.  As a result, few, if any, of the exiles resettled in St.-Domingue but chose to remain in the Chesapeake colony until sometime better offered.  Wood offers a reason why they stayed.  "Most Acadians continued to struggle with the seemingly endless poverty," he noted, "but little by little provincial attitudes were changing for the better."  Evidently Governor Sharpe, still in power, and Major-General Thomas Gage, recently appointed acting commander-in-chief of British forces in North America, headquartered in New York, felt that the Maryland exiles, after they had been properly dispersed around the colony, "had reasonably behaved themselves during a very trying decade."  This earned them the right to remain in British territory, as good British subjects, the two leaders reasoned.  Sharpe and Gage even "discussed the possibility of resettling Neutrals in the Gaspé peninsula," where the British were about to open up new fisheries.  Gage "wrote to the governors of Canada and Nova Scotia for their advice in the matter, but the royal secretary of state was not in agreement with his countrymen in the colonies and the idea failed to materialize."  (One can only imagine the trepidation of the governor of Nova Scotia, now Jonathan Belcher, Jr., when he heard of Gage's proposal.)   Why not let the Acadians remain in Maryland, then, the major-general suggested to the governor, where they could continue to be well-behaved British subjects?  "'I should think that it would be greatly to the advantage of some of the great Landholders,'" he reasoned, "'to give a tract to these People on very moderate Terms, in order to begin a settlement on some of their unsettled Lands.'"237

So the Acadians remained.  But, like their fellow British subjects, the majority anglophone Protestants, they no longer lived in a colony noted for domestic peace.  In October 1763, eight months after the war had ended, King George III issued a royal proclamation declaring the newly-won British territory west of a line drawn across the top of the Applachian Mountains, from Maine all the way down to Georgia, was now a vast Indian reserve.  Colonists were prohibited from settling west of the line, and those who chose to go there in violation of the King's wishes would not be protected by royal forces.  Maryland's western boundary lay east of the Appalachians, so there was little protest in the province, but colonists in adjacent Pennsylvania and Virginia raised a feckless howl.  In 1764, as Maryland Acadians were learning through the grapevine and local newspapers that their compatriots from other colonies were converging St.-Domingue to work on a huge French project there, Parliament passed the Sugar Act, aimed at ending the smuggling of sugar and molasses from the French and Dutch West Indies into the British colonies.  Only British sugar and molasses could be imported legally, and only after paying a three-penny tax.  Few, if any, Maryland Acadians had entered the merchantile business or could afford to the luxury of West Indian sugar, so, again, the protests of their fellow subjects meant little to them.  And then in March 1765 Parliament passed the notorious Stamp Act, a direct tax, the first of its kind, not an import tariff, to pay down the kingdom's huge war debt as well as the added expense of quartering British redcoats in the colonies.  Here was another matter entirely, so much so that colonial leaders from ... provinces convened a Stamp Act Congress in New York City in hopes of quelling violence and redcoat retribution.  When the act went into effect the following November, colonists, including the Acadians, had to pay a nominal tax on bonds, licences, certificates, playing cards, parchment, and all manner of mundane items, affecting mostly the affluent, but also burdening the poor.  Violent reaction was swift.  The Sons of Liberty, formed that summer, quickly moved from protest to riot, tarring and feathering stamp agents, and sacking homes and warehouses, all the while shouting "No taxation without representation!"  When the Sons of Liberty organized in Baltimore in February 1766, a young Acadian orphan, 14-year-old Cyprien Dupuis, who called himself Wells, signed up and joined the mayhem.  Soon after, the House of Lords repealed the unpopular act but on the same day issued a Declaratory Act, reasserting the Parliament's right of direct taxation anywhere in the empire, "in all cases whatsoever."238

Most of the Acadians had seen enough.  Here was an empire they were determined to quit.  In late 1764 and early 1765, they heard through the grapevine that hundreds of exiles still languishing in prison compounds in Nova Scotia, led by resistance leader Beausoleil Broussard and others, had resolved to leave their home province, where they were forbidden to return to their former lands, and make their way to the French Antilles.  Later in the year and in early 1766, messages from these compatriots were coming in, not from French St.-Domingue, where the Broussards had refused to settle, but from New Orleans and the western part of Louisiana, which for years had officially been a province of Catholic Spain.  Here was an empire where they could be "Frenchmen," could speak their language without bother, and practice their religion in peace.  Typically, they did not notify the French or Spanish officials in charge at New Orleans, headed now by a recently-arrived Spanish governor named Ulloa, of their coming, though they certainly had to inform Governor Horatio Sharpe, still in charge at Annapolis, of their going.  In late June, following riots at Baltimore and Annapolis in reaction to the Stamp Act of 1765, over 200 Acadians from Port Tobacco, Snow Hill, Newtown, Baltimore, and especially Oxford boarded an English sloop, perhaps at Oxford, which, according to Gordon Wood, was then a thriving port on the middle Chesapeake Bay.  Passengers aboard the sloop, its name lost to history, included, from Port Tobacco, Acadians named Breau, Landry, and Broussard; from Newtown, a family named Gautrot; from Baltimore, a family named Landry; from Snow Hill, Acadians named Gautrot (two families), Forest, Granger, LeBlanc (two families), Melanson (two families), Hébert, and Thériot; from Oxford, Acadians named Babin (six families), Landry (11 families), Thériot, Breau, Bujole (two families), Blanchard, Bourg, Godin, LeBlanc (five families), Forest, and Melanson; and a family from Pennsylvania named Melanson.  Also aboard was a Simoneau family out of Oxford, whose head was from Lorraine, France, and whose wife was an Acadian Corporon.  Their destination was New Orleans via Cap-Français, where much of the New Orleans-bound traffic from the seaboard colonies stopped either to exchange ships, pick up more passengers, or take on fresh stores and water.  At La Balize, the entrance port near the mouth of the Mississippi, the passengers and crew would have been checked for signs of disease and would have been officially informed that Louisiana was now a Spanish possession.  The sloop evidently was small enough to make its own way up, with the help of a river pilot, the 105 miles to New Orleans, fighting the river's powerful current all the way.  The sloop, no longer carrying "exiles" but newly-minted Spanish subjects, reached the city on 28 September 1766 with 224 Acadians aboard, including 150 women and children.  Fourteen of the passengers had died during the three-month voyage, and three more died on the journey up from La Balize.  Three of the new arrivals were newborns, but only one of them had survived the rigors of the voyage.  The survivors resettled at Cabahannocer on the river above New Orlean, near where many of the Halifax Acadians had settled--a stretch of the lower Mississippi now being called the Acadian Coast.239

Back in Maryland, an Acadian family at Snow Hill--Étienne-Michel, called Michel, David dit Saint-Michel, his wife Geneviève Hébert, and their eight children--said goodbye to several families from their community--Gautrots, LeBlancs, and especially Melansons--who were on their way to Louisiana aboard the sloop out of Oxford.  David was no ordinary Acadian.  No member of his family had helped build an aboiteaux or repair a running dyke.  His father, Jean-Pierre David dit Saint-Michel, born in the parish of St.-Nazaire, Nantes, France, in c1699 or 1700, probably no kin to the other Davids of greater Acadia, worked as a master blacksmith and emigrated to Canada.  He married Marie-Madeleine, daughter of Jean-Baptiste Monmellian dit Saint-Germain and Hélène Juineau of Haute-Ville, Québec, probably at Québec in c1717, and settled at Louisbourg, Île Royale, where he worked his trade.  There, he was addressed as Sr. David.  Between 1718 and 1743, Marie-Madeleine gave the blacksmith 13 children, nine sons and four daughters, most, if not all of them, born at Louisbourg.  After the British seized the French citadel in June 1745, Jean-Pierre and his family, along with 1,900 other inhabitants of Louisbourg and the surrounding area, were deported to Rochefort, France.  One of his sons, also a blacksmith, having married and settled in peninsula Nova Scotia, was not among the members of the family deported to France but remained in greater Acadia.  Jean-Pierre and his family returned to Louisbourg in 1749 after the French resumed control of Île Royale.  Marie-Madeleine died at the fortress in the spring of 1755, on the eve of the Acadian Grand Dérangement.  After the second fall of Louisbourg, in July 1758, Jean-Pierre and his family were deported to La Rochelle, France, where, in his late 50s, he died at a local hospital soon after reaching the port and was buried in the hospital cemetery.  Jean-Pierre's second son Étienne-Michel, born at Louisbourg in c1720, married Geneviève, 18-year-old daughter of Michel Hébert and Marguerite Gautrot, at Grand-Pré in January 1744.  The recording priest described him as "age ca 20[sic], resident of Louisbourg."  How a young man from the island citadel hooked up with a girl from the Minas Basin is anyone's guess.  Four of their children were born at Grand-Pré:  Anne in November1744; Michel-Luc or -Lin in September1746, who may have died young or remained in the colony; Joseph in November 1748; and Paul in c1754.  In 1755, along with hundreds of other Minas Acadians, Michel and his family were shipped off to Maryland.  When the dispersal in Maryland came the following year, the Davids ended up in Snow Hill.  One suspects that Michel's skills as a blacksmith were welcome there and that at least this Acadian family did not have to endure the stigma of poverty; second son Joseph became a blacksmith, too, further enhancing the status of the family.  Geneviève gave Michel more children in Maryland:  Marie in c1756; Marie-Madeleine in c1757; Jean-Baptiste in c1759; Claude in c1761; and Angélique in c1765.  Heaing of the plans of their fellow exiles, they, too, chose to go to Louisiana.  Though Michel had no David relatives in the colony, wife Geneviève, a member of one of the largest Acadian clans, probably had many kinsmen there, Hébert as well as Gautrot.  Paying their own way, they booked passage for New Orleans sometime in the summer of 1766 and reached the city on October 6, a week behind the others.  While their fellow Marylanders moved upriver to Cabahannocer, where Acadians from Georgia and Halifax had settled since early 1764, the Davids, perhaps because of Michel's and son Joseph's skills, remained in the city until the early 1770s, when they joined their fellow Marylanders at Cabahannocer.240

The word was out now, spreading through the Acadian communities--the Spanish would welcome all of them to their Mississippi River colony.  But a handfull of Baltimore Anglos would have none of it.  In early spring of 1767, 27 Baltimore residents, feeling that they had been duped about the destination of the recent Acadian departures, sent a empassioned letter to Governor Sharpe demanding that these ventures be halted.  The ill-informed Baltimoreans still believed that Louisiana was a French province and railed against handing over potential fifth-columnists to Britain's once and future enemy.  They should be sent to Canada, the Baltimoreans suggested, "where they could be watched and allowed to contribute to the economic welfare and political happiness of Great Britain."  This suggestion revealed that the busy-bodies of Baltimore were not completely ill-informed about the world around them.  They evidently knew that  in New England, north of them, many of the Acadians there, for a year or more, had begun moving on to the St. Lawrence valley to resettle in various river-side communities between Québec and Montréal, all controlled by the British.  Governor Sharpe, Gregory Wood asserts, evidently did not take the complaint "too seriously."  In April, another large contingent of exiles, 213 individuals comprising over 40 families, booked passage aboard the 60-ton English schooner Virgin out of Baltimore, heading for New Orleans via Cap-Français, again without informing French and Spanish authorities.  These Acadians hailed from eight of the 11 Acadian communities, includng another, smaller contingent from Oxford.  Passengers aboard the Virgin included, from Baltimore, Acadians named Allain, Hébert, Blanchard, LeBlanc, Landry, Thériot, Forest, Flan, Trahan, Melanson, Babin, and Richard; from Upper Marlborough, Acadians named Babin (two families), Richard, Forest (two families), Rivet, Landry, Prince, and LeBlanc; from Annapolis, Acadians named Bélisle and Babin; from Georgetown/Fredericktown, Acadians named Brasseaux (two families), Thibodeau, Hébert (six families), Landry, LeBlanc, and Melanson; from Newtown, Acadian named Richard, Babin, Hébert, and Landry; from Port Tobacco, Acadians named Comeau, Richard, Breau, and Boudrot; from Oxford, Acadians named Landry (four more families), Granger, and Hébert; and from Snow Hill, Acadians named LeBlanc.  Also aboard was a Castille family out of Upper Marlborough, whose head was from Menorca, Spain, and whose wife was an Acadian Landry; an Hernandez family whose head did not appear in the July 1763 counting and whose wife was an Acadian Babin; and a Boutin family, Acadians from Pigiguit, the wife a Guédry, recently arrived from Pennsylvania.  Wood notes that on March 24, on the eve of departure, several families from the Fredericktown community--Brasseau, Hébert, and Granger--petitioned the justice of the peace of Cecil County "for a travel subsidy," claiming that "on account of their large number of small children, and long captivity here, find themselves entirely able to pay" the fare for their movement out of the colony.  Wood does not say if they received the funds.  No matter, the Virgin, master Thomas Farrold, weighed anchor a week or so later, set sail down the bay, and headed into the wide Atlantic.  On a voyage that took an astonishing 78 days, the Virgin stopped for 17 days at Cap-Français, where it likely took aboard Acadians from other seaboard colonies who had resettled in St.-Domingue but preferred to move on to Louisiana.  The Virgin reached La Balize on July 12, went through the usual customs hassle and, either by lighters sent down to take them upriver, or by ship, its passengers reached New Orleans on July 23--213 Acadians in over 40 families.  They, too, hoped that Governor Ulloa would send them to Cabahannocer to live with their fellow "Marylanders" or to the Attakapas prairie, where some of them had kinsmen.  But Ulloa had other plans for them.  Tensions with the British on the river at Bayou Manchac, on the north bank of which the British had built a fort, compelled Ulloa not only to fortify the Spanish side of the bayou at a place called San Gabriel d'Iberville, but to man the new fort with provincial militia alongside his Spanish regulars.  These new Acadian arrivals would do just fine in providing that militia for Fort Infante San Gabriel.  Predictably, when hearing of it, the Acadians protested.  Ulloa would not back down--he threatened to send them out of the colony if they did comply with his wishes!  The Acadians submitted.  On August 7, escorted by a coterie of Spanish officers, including Lieutenant José de Orieta, the new commander at San Gabriel, they began the movement from the city up to Manchac, which they reached on the 17th.  On their way up, they noticed that their new home was only 25 miles or so above the settlements at Cabahannocer--an easy trip dowriver to visit their loved ones.241  

In two expeditions, over half of the exiles in Maryland had made their way to the Gulf of Mexico and new homes in Spanish Louisiana.  And more were on the way.  Unfortunately for them, the confrontation between the last group of Acadians and Antonio de Ulloa soured the prickly Spaniard against the new arrivals and Acadians in general.  Still, they had become an essential part not only of the colony's economy, but also of its military preparedness in case the British decided to own all of Louisiana.  In the spring of 1767, as the second contingent of Acadians made their way down to New Orleans, Lieutenant Pedro Joseph Piernas began construction of Fort San Luìs de Natchez "on the west side of the Mississippi about a league from British Natchez," where the West Floridians were finishing a palisade of their own, Fort Panmure.  Piernas, continuing in command at San Luìs de Natchez, informed Governor Ulloa that construction of the fort there was progressing despite illness among the soldiers and workers.  On 26 September 1767, he wrote the governor:  "I am informed of the anticipated arrival of the Acadian families, their number, and their assignment to this fort in order to populate the settlement.  When they are transferred here, they will be distributed according to Your Excellency's instructions...."   One wonders which Acadians the lieutenant was talking about.  The 210 Acadians from Maryland who had arrived in mid-July already were settled with Lieutenant Orieta at San Gabriel.  Had Ulloa decided to send some of those Acadians to Fort San Luìs de Natchez?  Would he even consider uprooting some of the exiles at Cabahannocer and resettling them at the distant outpost?  He had informed the Minister of State in late July that he planned to send to Natchez "The next Acadian immigrants" to come to the colony, but when that would be he could not know.242

Those "next Acadian immigrants" would soon be on their way.  The great majority of them had spent their years in Maryland at Port Tobacco on the middle Potomac.  Others families came from Oxford, Upper Marlborough, Princess Anne, and even Pennsylvania.  From Port Tobacco came Acadians named Babin (three families), Landry (two families), Breau (11 families), Benoit, Boudrot, Trahan, Gautrot, Clouâtre (two families), LeBlanc, Comeau, Dupuis (three families), Guidry, and L'Enfant; from Oxford Acadians named Vincent and Doiron; from Upper Marlborough Acadians named Landry (two more families), Boudrot, and Rivet; from Princess Anne Acadians named Trahan and Thibodeau; and from Pennylvania Acadians named Guidry and Dupuis--150 individual in 29 families led by brothers Alexis and Honoré Breau of Pigiguit and Port Tobacco.  By December 1767, the Breau party had chartered the English vessel Jane, perhaps a brig under a Captain Rider, which, on December 17, loaded with "One hundred and seventy Barrels Flour," as well as the 150 Acadians, headed down the Potomac towards the bay.  The Jane also likely sailed to Cap-Français, where it might have picked up Acadians who had had enough of the sugar colony.  After the usual hassle at La Balize and the slog upriver, they reached the city by 11 February 1768 and were taken across the river to the King's warehouse at present-day Algiers, where they could recuperate from their long winter voyage and wait to be sent to their new homes.  They naturally expected to be settled near their kinsmen at Cabahannocer or San Gabriel or at least along the German Coast below the Acadians.  But, again, Governor Ulloa had other plans for them.  Informed of their arrival, Lieutenant Piernas and his subordinate, Ensign Andrés de Balderamma, hurried down from the fort to the city to escort the Acadians up to Natchez.  "They [the Acadians] were received with kindness," the lieutenant insisted in a report to the governor.  "Those who were ill, and, by the way, there was a large number of them, were given medicines and were treated by the two doctors" at the warehouse.  The lieutenant then gathered together the family heads and told them where they were going.  Realizing how far distant Fort San Luìs de Natchez was from their kinsmen at Cabahannocer, the Breau brothers refused to take their party there.  Ulloa insisted that they go, or, as he had told the Acadians at San Gabriel, he would remove them from the colony!  Giving the hothead Acadians time to think it over, he ordered the brothers and their party back to their ship, which was still docked at New Orleans.  Seeing that the governor would follow through on his threat, the brothers talked the rest of the party into doing what Ulloa ordered, then, with their families--two wives and 10 children--they slipped off the vessel and into the city, outlaws now in their new country.  Moving upriver, eluding Spanish authorities, they stayed in safe houses among the Germans and their fellow Acadians before crossing into British territory probably at the Amite.  Meanwhile, beginning on February 20, in the dead of winter, Lieutenant Piernas, Ensign Balderamma, and a small contingent of Spanish troops escorted the rest of the party in three hired boats far upriver to the distant post.  They stopped at the Germans to replenish their food supply, hurried past Cabahannocer to avoid any trouble, but lingered at San Gabriel, where they had to chase down a family who had attempted to escape downriver.  They reached the Creole enclave at Pointe Coupée on March 8 and did not reach Fort San Luìs until the morning of March 20, having buried a child and a middle-aged woman on the month-long voyage up.243

Most of the Acadians in Maryland were gone now--nearly 600 out of the nearly 800 counted in July 1763 had made up the three Louisiana-bound parties--but there would be one more expedition, also out of Port Tobacco, before the exodus to Spanish Louisiana was finished.  This one, unlike the others, was initiated not by Acadians lingering in Maryland but by a Catholic leader there, Dr. Henry Jerningham, who communicated with Governor Ulloa several times in 1767 on the subject of sending Anglo Catholics from Maryland to Louisiana.  Despite Ulloa's guarded response, in December the good doctor sent fellow Catholic James Walker to Louisiana aboard the Jane "With your Excellencys permission to remain for some months, under your government, to see the produce of the soil, at the different seasons the manner(s) and Customs of the people their Way of living, and how the Laws are executed...."  Walker, "a plebeyan and mechanic," Jerningham assured the governor, carried with him a letter of introduction to Ulloa, who allowed the Marylander to survey the province not only along the river above New Orleans, where he lingered at San Gabriel, but also on the Red River, the Atchafalaya, and out on the Opelousas prairies.  While there, Gregory Wood asserts, Walker could not have missed the drama over the Breaus' clash with the governor and, if he was there long enough, the insurrection that overthrew the unpopular Ulloa in October 1768.  One also wonders if any Anglo Catholics from Maryland, even Walker himself, chose to settle in Louisiana.  One thing is certain:  In January 1769, 27 Acadians in six families, 51 German Catholics in eight families, a Canadian/Anglo family, seven "bachelors," and a dozen "Britishers"--nearly a hundred passengers in all--made their way from Maryland to Spanish Louisiana.  The closely-related Acadian families included Antoine Bellard from Picardie, France, his Acadian wife Marie Trahan, and their son Étienne-Simon; Honoré Trahan of Pigiguit and Port Tobacco, Marie's father, wife Marie Corporon, and son Pierre; Pierre-Olivier Benoit of Pigiguit and Port Tobacco, wife Marie-Geneviève Brasseau, son Jean-Charles, and daughters Madeleine and Marie-Rose; Étienne Rivet of Ste.-Famille, Pigiguit, and Upper Marlborough, a widower, and sons; Louis Latier of Port Tobacco, not an Acadian, wife Anne Trahan, Honoré's sister, sons Antoine and Paul, daughter Élisabeth, and stepdaughters Marguerite, Marie-Anne, and Marie-Rose Benoit from Anne's first husband, Jean-Baptiste Benoit, deceased brother of Pierre-Olivier; and orphans Jean-Baptiste, fils, Blaise, Marguerite, and Nanette Lejeune, nieces and nephew of Honoré Trahan.  The French-Canadian couple were Pierre Primeaux and Susanne Plante, both Catholics.  The German families, all Catholics, who had chosen to leave a colony with many fellow Germans but most of them Protestant, included Nicolas Marcoff (later Malbrough), wife Channe, four sons, and two daughter daughters; Nicolas Ory, wife Christine, two sons, five daughters, and an orphan; Joseph Basbler, wife Susanne, three sons, and two daughters; Adam LaMaur, wife Catherine, a son, and four daughters; Jacob Miller of Alsace, wife Anne Marie Theigen, son Jacob, and daughters Barbe, Catherine, and Anne Marie; André Reser, wife Marie, three sons, and two daughters; Philip Pigleal, wife Marie; and widow Catherine Asuber, a son, and two daughters.  The so-called bachelors included André Meche, Daniel Muin, Henry Thomas, Cristian Pringle, Jean Legeur, and Antoine Murguier, all "established," and Jaques Ruseau, "not established," whatever that meant.  In the middle of winter, they chartered an English schooner, Britannia, master John Steel, which left Port Tobacco on 5 January 1769, bound for New Orleans.  In late February, "due to easterly winds and continuous fog," Captain Steel missed the mouth of the Mississippi, and the hapless schooner was "driven some eighty leagues south and then to the west of the Mississippi," deep into the center of the Gulf of Mexico.  "Finding ourselves without food and water," Steel later testified, "we were obliged to put in at a small bay"--the Bahía del Espíritu Santo, where La Salle and his colonists, under similar circumstances, had landed 84 years earlier.  Nearby stood Presidio Nuestra Senora de la Loreto de la Bahía, commanded by Captain Don Francisco Thobar.  Captain Steel and his passengers came ashore the first week of April.  Evidently alerted by local Indians, Captain Thobar and a small force of Spaniards accosted the stranded seafarers.  "From him we requested a passport and food to get to New Orleans, both of which he refused us," Captain Steel recalled.  Their ordeal only got worse.  Evidently the Spanish officer suspected that the ship's officers, crew, and strange mix of passengers were smugglers or even spies.  Or perhaps he saw an opportunity to enrich himself.  On April 8, Captain Thobar "seized our schooner, with all its sails, tackle, equipment, passengers, crew, and merchandise, and took everything (except the schooner) with him to a fort thirty leagues inland," Steel lamented.  "There he obliged the crew and passengers to work until the 21st of May, when he ordered the captain and pilot placed in stocks, keeping them so twenty-four days on half rations, until an order arrived from the governor of that province to set them at liberty."  Not to be outdone by his larcenous host, the Britannia's supercargo, Philip Ford, representing the owners of the vessel, after complaining about the crews' ill-treatment, made a detailed list of the merchandise the ship had carried and the Spanish now possessed, including the value of each item in Spanish pesos.  Thobar, meanwhile, forced the passengers and crew to work at local haciendas to pay for their upkeep.  Left on the shore of Espiritu Santo Bay, the schooner became a victim of the weather and the local Indians, who removed everything of value that the Spaniards had not already taken.  Finally, on September 11, after the sailors and the passengers from the Britannia had been held captive at La Bahía for five long months, Don Rafael Martínez Pacheco, the newly-restored "commandant of Fort Cokesaw"--the presidio of San Augustín de Ahumada near El Orcoquisac on the lower Trinity River near present-day Liberty, Texas--arrived at La Bahía with orders from his superior, "the governor of that province."  Don Rafael would escort the stranded seafarers to Spanish Louisiana, where they finally could complete their journey.  Before their departure, Don Rafael took the opportunity to purchase from Philip Ford, for 561 pesos, "a lot of cattle" for the benefit of his own presidio.244

The orders to Don Pacheco, passed on to the venal Captain Thobar, came from the new governor and captain-general of Spanish Louisiana, Don Alejandro O'Reilly, who had replaced the ousted Ulloa in July 1769.  Pacheco, as ordered, escorted the hapless officers, sailors, and passengers of the Britannia to Natchitoches on the Red River via El Camino Real de Los Tejan, which, after a 420-mile overland trek, they reached on October 24.  Oddly, one of the Lejeune orphans, Nanette, age 13, elected to remain at El Orcoquisac, for what reason is lost to history.  O'Reilly ordered the Germans, ship's officers and crew to continue to New Orleans, which they reached by water on November 9.  Most of the Germans moved on to San Gabriel or the German Coast.  One family, the Millers, chose to settle on the Opelousas prairies.  The captain-general expected the Acadians and the French-Canadians to remain at Natchitoches, but, typically, they refused, prreferring to settle near their kinsmen on the river or the prairies.  O'Reilly's successor, Luis de Unzaga, released them from Natchitoches in April 1770 and ordered them to San Gabriel.  The Rivets and Benoits remained there, but the Bellards, Trahans, Lejeune orphans, as well as the Canadian Primeaus, moved on to the Opelousas prairies, the Lejeunes, as suggested by Carl Brasseaux, perhaps to be closer to their sister in east Texas.245

After O'Reilly's succession, he decided to abandon the isolated post across from Natchez, essentially freeing the Maryland Acadians still languishing there.  Soon after his decision to abandon the place, in December 1769, he decreed that the Acadians at Fort Fort San Luìs could settle where they wanted--their 21-month ordeal there was over.  In 1770, all of them happily abandoned the place, and most of them chose to go to the Acadian Coast--Cabahannocer; San Gabriel (the fort also abandoned but the settlement still there); and the new district of La Fourche de Chitimachas, also called Ascension, between Cabahannocer and San Gabriel--where most of the other Maryland Acadians still lived.  A few moved on to the western prairies.  And then the river settlements fell silent.  No more mass immigrations occurred in Louisiana for another 15 years, including from Maryland, from whence nearly half of the Acadians now in the Spanish colony had come.246

Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania was one of the youngest of the English colonies, established in 1681 when William Penn the Younger received a royal charter from King Charles II in partial payment for a debt the king owed Penn's father.  The younger Penn was a Quaker, a much-abused Protestant sect in England, so he insisted that the settlers of his new province not only practice religious tolerance, but also maintain good relations with the local Natives.  As a result, Europe's persecuted flocked to Philadelphia, the colony's carefully planned city, which, in October 1682, Penn sited on the Delaware River near its confluence with the Schuykill.  Oddly, Pennsylvania was the only one of England's seaboard colonies that did not lie directly on the Atlantic Ocean.  The Delaware, however, was a substantial river which flowed into a magnificent eponymous bay, 52 miles long, that opened to the ocean at a 15-mile-wide strait between the lower New Jersey and Delaware shores.  So advantageous was this port on the lower Delaware River that, by the 1750s, Philadelphia had become the most important city in the seaboard colonies.  Though the city and the colony thrived economically, its political history was not exemplary.  William Penn the founder died in 1718, and the proprietorship of the colony passed to his sons.  In 1737, Penn's son Thomas Penn, then the colony's governor, foisted a giant land swindle, the Walking Purchase, on the Lenape nation, souring relations with the colony's Natives.  By the early 1750s, the land-hungry Pennsylvanians, along with their fellow colonials from Virginia and Maryland, were clashing not only with the Natives, but also with the French from Canada for control of the headwaters of the Ohio River at the western edge of the colony.  In 1754, the Virginians pushed the conflict with the French into armed conflict on Pennsylvania soil, and the following year the British over-reaction to the Virginians' defeat led to another, even more humiliating defeat, again on Pennsylvania soil.  The western nations took full advantage of the colony's loss, and chaos erupted in the western country.248

Nova Scotia Lieutenant-Governor Charles Lawrence designated five transports full of over a thousand Acadians--582 exiles from Chignecto, 308 from Minas Proper, and 256 from Pigiguit--for war-scarred Pennsylvania.  Two of them--the 95-ton schooner Boscowen, master David Bigham; and the 196-ton ship Union, master Jonathan Carthorne--left the anchorage at Chignecto on 13 October 1755, worked its way down the Bay of Fundy, slipped through the Gut, and anchored in the lower Annapolis Basin, waiting for the other transports.  The two ships waited there for two long weeks, the hundreds of men, women, and children aboard anxioulsy awaiting their fate.  On October 27, accompanying the two Chignecto vessels through the Gut and into the lower Fundy, were the three transports from the Minas Basin headed for Philadelphia:  the 70-ton sloop Hannah, master Richard Adams, with 140 Minas Acadians aboard; the 80-ton sloop Swan, master Jonathan Loviette, with 168 Acadians; and the 69-ton sloop Three Friends, master Thomas Curtis, also called Carlile, with 156 Acadians from Pigiguit, 19 over capacity.  Despite the fierce October gale that hit the 22 transports full of exiles and their four escorts as they debouched into the North Atlantic, the two sloops from Minas Proper reached Philadelphia without incident on November 19.  The  Hannah arrived with 137 of its original 140 exiles, the Swan with 161 of its original 168.  Meanwhile, the sloop from Pigiguit, the Three Friends, was driven by the storm to Boston, which it reached on November 15.  After a quick turn around, it reached Philadelphia on November 21, only two days after the sloops from Minas.  It may have arrived with its original contingent of 156 Acadians--454 exiles in all aboard the three vessels.  Sadly, the schooner Boscowen and the heavily-laden ship Union, with their nearly 600 Chignecto exiles aboard, never reached Philiadelphia, probably lost at sea.249

Relations with the surprised officials at Philadelphia began to unravel as soon as the first of the three transports dropped anchor in the Delaware just below the city, an ironic response to the "great and noble Scheme" the Pennsylvania Gazette had crowed about back in July.  The victims of that "great and noble Scheme," Carl Brasseaux asserts, "became the scapegoats for the colony's raging francophobia, resulting from successful French and Indian raids on the Keystone colony's western borders.  These popular fears were soon translated into action by Pennsylvania Deputy Governor Robert Hunter Morris, who placed the exiles under armed guard aboard the three vessels....  He then detained a large contingent of provincial militia in Philadelphia to protect the colonial capital from the perceived (but non-existant) military threat posed by the unarmed exiles."  What happened next was among the most cruel treatments of Acadian exiles by any colonial leadership.  Morris refused to allow them to disembark and ordered them to be "kept under guard aboard the transports."  As a consequence, "Acadian exiles succumbed to various epidemic diseases," including smallpox, Brasseaux relates. "These diseases posed a real threat to Philadelphia and spurred the provincial government into further negative actions."  Informed by local doctors that the exiles all could die from the dreaded ailment unless they were removed from the transports, in early December Morris ordered the Acadians to be quarantined, "at the public's expense," on Province Island, at the mouth of the Schuykill, the site of the city's "pest-house," a safe distance from the city.  Once "cured," the exiles could then return to the ships, where those who could would look after their loved ones while enduring the brutal Philadelphia winter.  Beyond that, for now, official response was limited; the questions that had confounded leaders in other colony's arose among the leaders of this colony as well:  were these so-called "French Neutrals" still subjects of the king?  Did their refusal to take the unqualified oath make them any less so, and were they therefore ineligible for any more assistance?  Or were they prisoners of war who their captives were obligated to house and feed at government expense?  Morris consulted fellow leaders in other colonies, including Jonathan Belcher, Sr., governor of neighboring New Jersey, whose son Jonathan, Jr. was a member of Charles Lawrence's colonial Council in Halifax.  Belcher, Sr., perhaps because of the influence wielded by this son, had refused to accept any exiles in his colony, and Lawrence sent him none.  Still, the old man had an opinion about these Acadians.  They were not "Neutrals," Belcher, Sr. insisted, but "'rather Traitors & Rebels to the Crown of Great Britain" and should be treated accordingly.  Luckily for the exiles, cooler heads prevailed in the Quaker Colony, and so, for now, as winter came, the matter rested.  "But for the intervention of a number of Quaker philanthropists, among them Anthony Benezet, a descendant of Huguenots" and a noted abolitionist, who visited the exiles on Province Island, "the Acadians would have gone without provisions," notes John Mack Faragher.  "But upon Benezet's appeal, the Pennsylvania Assembly authorized emergency relief."  "Only after the threat of contamination had subsided," Brasseaux observes, did the governor allow Acadians inside the city and "the Pennsylvania legislature seriously consider the long-term disposition of the exiles."250

Not until nearly three and a half months after their arrival, and only after more lobbying by Benezet and a testimony before the Assembly by Acadian Jean-Baptiste Galerne of Pigiguit of his fellow exiles' loyalty to the British Crown, did colonial officials decide what to do with them.  (One can only imagine how the Philadelphia authorites would have handled the extra 582 of them who had died at sea!)  On 6 March 1756, the governor signed a bill into law that "named four prominent Philadelphia Huguenots sympathetic to the plight of the Acadians to a commission to coordinate the dispersal of the Acadians throughout the easternmost Pennsylvania provinces," similar to the "solutions" being pursued by colonial leaders in other colonies, some of whom, along with Belcher, Sr., Governor Morris had consulted.  "These commissioners," Carl Brasseaux explains, "were to place one Acadian [family] per county township, provided that the township wardens of the poor accepted them.  The commissioners would also rent land for Acadian farmers, who were to be given a maximum of ten pounds' worth of agricultural implements to help them support themselves.  Widows, orphans, and other exiles incapable of supporting themselves were to placed on the dole.  All of these expenses were to be supported by the provincial war chest.  The forgoing act was to remain in force for one year, at the expiration of which the Acadian exiles would presumably have been self-sufficient.  The theoretical base upon which it was conceived was sound," Brasseaux asserts, "but the legislation failed miserably in practice."  One could make a case, however, that the "theoretical base" of this elaborate plan was, in the face of Acadian "reality," serioulsy flawed and doomed to failure.  First, the Acadians thought of family not as a nuclear unit but as an extended one, incompassing not just two but often three and four generations and numbering dozens of individuals living in close proximity.  One Acadian family per township would not do for these people if the Pennsylvanians saw their families as only a father, a mother, and their dependant children.  Moreover, though the great majority of the Acadians sent to this colony were farmers, and from the agricultural paradise of the Minas Basin at that, they were not upland farmers, as were most Pennsylvanians.  They were, in fact, the only farmers in North America whose fields, which they themselves had created, lay below sea level, behind their amazing running dykes, which held back the highest tides on the planet.  They could adapt to upland farming, of course, as Acadians who lived or moved outside the Fundy basin had done, but, despite their acumen as farmers, it would take them more than a year to become self-sufficient farmers, even if they wanted to.251

Brasseaux certainly was right about the legislators' plan failing miserably in practice, and this had as much to do with the Pennsylvanians themselves as with the stubborn Acadians.  "Most rural townships, in which the Acadian agriculturists could conceivably have found a new life, refused to accept the exiles who were almost universally viewed as a potential fifth column," Carl Brasseaux explains.  "Meanwhile, the Acadians themselves refused to be dispersed, for they fully understood that such dilution of their numbers would inevitably result in their assimilation by the Anglo-Protestant majority," to them a fate worst than death.  They chose, then, to congregate in the city's "slums," where "they remained on the government dole for the duration of the Acadian dispersal act."  One of the Philadelphia "slums" where the Acadians chose to live was on Chestnut Tree, near Anthony Bezenet's home and "a stone's throw from St. Joseph's Chapel, Philadelphia's lone Catholic church and the focal point of Acadian community in the city."  But remaining in Philadelphia came with a price.  Many of the city's "bigoted" businessmen refused to hire them, the Acadians complained, so they responded "by making wooden shoes and fabricating cloth from discarded rags in an attempt to support themselves, but, as no market existed for these commodities in the colonial capital, they had no means of supporting themselves."  Even worse, "Acting out of frustration and desperation, many Acadians had resorted to petty thievery to support themseves and their families."  The Acadians, always ready for a rhetorical fight, took the offensive against their colonial benefactors when government support ended in September. Turning away from agitators like Jean-Baptiste Galerne, who had blamed the deportations from Nova Scotia on the troublemakers at Chignecto and in the trois-rivières and insisted that the Minas Basin Acadians were staunchly loyal to the British Crown, they turned to leaders like Alexis Thibodeau, also of Pigiguit, who launched a bolt of defiance at the colonial leaders.  He reminded them that he and his fellow Acadians had done nothing to deserve being torn from their homes and then exiled to this province, where they were being treated so badly.  He reminded them that, on the eve of deportation, Govenor Lawrence had told the Acadian delegates in front of his Council "that 'he made us Prisoners even like ... French Prisoners,'" so, Thibodeau reasoned, he and his fellow exiles should be given "'the same Privileges which French Prisoners have enjoyed,' namely 'leave to depart ... to our Nation; or any where; to join our Country People," and not remain here, but when the Acadians petitioned the new deputy governor, William Denny, to grant them "leave to depart," he refused to allow it.  He also refused to consider the Acadians as prisoners of war and no longer '"Subjects of the King of England,'" while at the same time quietly reviewing Lawrence's circular letter to the colonial governors and dusting off "a copy of the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, paying close attention to the 'Articles of the Cession and Surrender of Nova Scotia,'" such was the effect on him of the words of these clever Acadians.  And there were more clever words to come.  In February 1767, Acadians, Quaker-like, invoked God, the Old Testament, and Natural Law in complaining of the attempt by the colonial leaders "to apprentice Acadian children to local mechanics and farmers."  They also echoed Alexis Thibodeau's strident request that they be treated not as British subjects but as French prisoners of war and be sent out of the colony.  In the end, all the complaining did no good; they were roundly rebuked at every turn.  Even the commander-in-chief of British forces in North America, John Campbell, Earl of Loudon, joined the fray against the ungrateful exiles.  He railed against the notion that the Acadians were anything but British subjects and was especially miffed by receiving written complaints from them in French, demanding that they address him only in English.  The Acadians countered by holding a "general meeting," in which they insisted that "'they would give no Memorial but in French.'"  Meanwhile, Loudon accused five Acadian leaders, including the hapless Jean-Baptiste Galerne, of being French agitators.  Ignoring their rights as Englishmen, he ordered them to be arrested and held aboard a British warship in the Delaware River.  Only the intervention of Quaker William Griffith kept the colonial legislature from emulating the commander-in-chief and imposing stricter measures on the other exiles.  Though the colony's Quakers, those notorious peace lovers, also were being systematically repressed by the powerful proponents of war, Anthony Bezenet and his fellow Friends, including William Griffith, refused to give in to intimidation and continued to help their Acadian neighbors as best they could.  Still, as Carl Brasseaux observes, "Many exiles nevertheless lived on an inadequate diet which included 'neither meat nor bread.'  They thus fell victim to various epidemic diseases which decimated their numbers."  Christopher Hodson concludes: "As British arms advanced and Quaker moralizing retreated, Pennsylvania's exiles slipped, seemingly forgotten, into impoverished despair," much as their fellow exiles were doing in the other seaboard colonies.253

The end of the Seven Years' War finally came in February 1763.  Soon after, the Acadians in Pennsylvania, like exiles in the other seaboard colonies, received a copy of the secret dispatch penned by the duc de Nivernois to the Acadians in England.  Like their fellow Acadians, they believed that, after they compiled a list of their own and hurried it to France, King Louis XV would grant them much needed aid and find a place for them in the mother country, which did not happen.  The date of their repatriation list--20 June 1763--hints that the Acadians in Pennsylvania had received their copy of Nivernois's dispatch before the exiles farther down the coast.  Their "List of the Names and Numbers of All the Acadians Who are in Pinsilvenia" included Acadians and a few non-Acadians who bore the surnames Landry (six families), Aucoin (three families), Doiron, Blanchard (two families), LeBlanc (six families), Bisho (Bigeau, two families), Daigle (Daigre), Deschamps, LeCorfis (not Acadian), Giroir, Daili (?), Thibodeau (four families), Poirier, Bro (two families), Benoist (two families), Brasseau, Forain (Forest, two families), Cloutier, Scavoy (Savoy, two families), Emard, Bedard, Labos, Fauron, Bertrand, Migno, Martin, Bourg (two families), Ebourg, Clich (probably not Acadian), Babin (five families), Laudron, Hébert (two families), Doucet, Vincent (two families), Quisse (probably Quessy), Carron, Melançon, Godin, LePrince, Comeau, Mire, David, Boudreau, Langlois, Boutin, Guédry, Trahan, Beauserron, Canadien (not Acadian), Cornay (Cormier?), and Surreau.  At the bottom of the list, an Acadian wrote:  "'As we do not know how to sign, we have all in general made our mark.'"  On the list were a hand full of Acadians--Pierre-Paul, called Paul, Boutin, wife Ursule Guédry, and their six children; Joseph Guédry, Ursule's brother, with his wife and three children; and Pierre Guédry, Ursule and Joseph's brother, described as "boy"--who had not come to Philadelphia in 1755 aboard any of the three transports from Minas and Pigiguit.  They had been deported, instead, from Halifax to North Carolina in December 1755, among the few Acadians who had actually made it to that southern colony, and had been released during the war to move on to Pennsylvania in 1760.  The following year, they would be among the first of the many Acadians in Pennsylvania who would move on to Maryland.254

Unable to return to France, the Acadians in Pennsylvania had 18 months to decide for themselves where they wanted to resettle.  If they returned to their homes in Nova Scotia, they would find their former lands in the Minas Basin occupied by "planters" from New England, who had been urged to go there beginning in the spring of 1760.  If they did resettle in Nova Scotia, they would have available to them only land in the rugged interior, where little could grow, or along the Atlantic, in the Cap-Sable area, or along the Baie St.-Marie, areas previously spurned by the aboiteaux builders because of the lower tides there.  Canada was available to them, if they could stomach living under British rule and mistreatment at the hands of French Canadians.  There was always the French Antilles, especially St.-Domingue.  In 1764, some of them accepted the invitation of Charles-Henri, comte d'Estaing, governor-general of the French Antilles, to go to the sugar colony and work at Môle St.-Nicolas, where, on the northeastern end of the island, they were used as forced labor to clear away the jungle at the sight of a new naval base.  Sadly, and predictably, Carl Brasseaux relates, many of them "died of tropical fevers, while their children perished from malnutrition and scurvy."  Most of the Acadians in Pennsylvania, Brasseaux asserts, "remained in and around Philadelphia until the late 1760s, when they joined their relatives and friends exiled to neighboring Maryland in a massive migration to Louisiana."255

New York

Charles Lawrence, for a solid reason, sent only one transport to New York from the flotilla of transports that sailed out of the Annapolis Basin--the colony lay too close to the fighting along the western frontier, and was also too close to French Canada.  The 136-ton brig Experiment, master Benjamin Stoddard, was loaded with 250 exiles from the Annapolis Royal valley, but not until December 8 was that ship and the other four transports full of Annapolis Acadians ready to sail.  Unfortunately, they, too, ran smack into an autumn gale after they reached the Atlantic Ocean; only two of the transports made it without mishap to their destinations, one to Connecticut, the other to South Carolina.  During the storm, the transport destined for North Carolina was seized by its passengers and ended up abandoned in the lower St.-Jean, where the Acadians escaped to nearby settlements.  The other two transports, one heading to Connecticut, the other the Experiment, were blown far off course and were not able to land until they reached distant Antigua in the British Antilles.  The exiles aboard both transports spent the winter on the sugar island.  Aboard the ship destined for Connecticut, carrying 278 exiles, a hundred or so of the Acadians died of malaria or smallpox.  One suspects that some of the exiles on the Experiment also succumbed to tropical ailments.  According to Carl Brasseaux, while the ships lay at anchor in the island harbor, "several Acadians escaped their captors and made their way to the French Antilles."  Master Stoddard did not bring his vessel to anchor at New York City until early May 1756, with only 40 men, 45 women, 56 boys, and 59 girls, 200 exiles down from 250, still aboard.  Brasseaux notes that upon their arrival the survivors were described as "'poor, naked and destitute of every convenience."256 

Interestingly, the Experiment was not the first transport full of exiles to reach New York City.  While the Annapolis Acadians were enduring their five-month-long adventure, a force of British regulars struck the settlement of Pobomcoup near Cap-Sable in the spring of 1756.  Most of the Acadians escaped, but the redcoats managed to round up nearly 200 of the fisher/habitants, loaded them aboard two transports, and sent them down the coast to North Carolina.  The sloop Vulture, with its 72 exiles, got no farther than Boston.  The other vessel, the 90 1/2-ton sloop, or perhaps a schooner, Mary, master Andrew Dunning, already had taken 182 exiles from Minas to Virginia the previous November and then returned to Nova Scotia.  Now she held approximately 100 more exiles, but she, too, did not take them to North Carolina.  The Mary reached New York harbor in late April 1756 with 94 exiles aboard.  In July, the New York assembly emulated its neighboring colonies, especially Maryland, by adopting its own "Act to Empower the Justices of the Several County Courts," which allowed Governor Charles Hardy to disperse the colony's 300 or so exiles "throughout those New York counties farthest from French Canada--those on Long Island and Staten Island," which included New Rochelle and Rye in Westchester County; Richmond on Staten Island in Ricmond County; Easthampton, Southold, Southampton, Brookhaven, and Flushing on Long Island in Suffolk County; Flatbush on Long Island in King's County; and Jamaica, Bushwick, Hempstead, Oyster Bay, Huntingon, and Newtown on Long Island in Queen's County.  In late August, 78 men, women, and children from Georgia were found stranded on a beach on Long Island, their rickety vessel having sprung a leak as they were heading back up the coast to Nova Scotia.  New York authorities, having been alerted to their coming, promptly arrested them.  They, too, were distributed among several communites in lower New York, including Westchester Town, Phillipsburg, Yonkers, Bedford, Eastchester, North Castle, and Courtland Manor in Westchester County; in Orange County; and in Orange precincts south of the Highlands.257

Unfortunately for the Acadians, the July 1756 "Act to Empower" included a provision to allow New York authorities to indenture exiles who could not support themselves without being forced to labor.  "Most Acadians found low-paying employment as farm laborers," John Mack Faragher notes, but, according to Carl Brasseaux, by late August 1756, "at least 110 of the 344 Acadians (32 percent) known to have lived in exile in New York," many of them children, had been indentured to New York colonists.  The result was predictable.  Not only did the Acadians raise a hue and cry about being separated from their children, but, Brasseaux relates, "A significant, but undetermined number of the Acadians thus indentured rebelled against forcible separation from their famililes by bolting for French Canada in 1757; most of the fugitives, however, were subsequently captured and imprisoned.  The abortive escape attempt seems to have quelled further resistance, and the New York Acadians quietly endured captivity...." until the war finally ended.258

As in the other seaboard colonies, the Acadians in New York received a copy of the secret dispatch penned by the duc de Nivernois to the Acadians in England.  And, like their fellow Acadians, they believed that, after they compiled a list of their own and hurried it to France, King Louis XV would grant them much needed aid and find a place for them in the mother country, which of course did not happen.  An undated repatriation list, which genealogist/historian Stephen A. White says was dated 14 August 1763, lists 249 exiles, including unnamed wives and children, hopefully not all of the Acadians left in the colony!  Those counted bore the following surnames:  Aureillion (Orillion, two families), Garceau (two families), Dion, Lord (two families), Reuille, Sire, Boudreau (two families), deVaux or Devoux (two families), Bourgois (three families), Blanchard (two families), Dousset, Richard (three families), Signe, Mont, Martin (two families), Lanau, Commo (three families), Maillet (two families), Hébert, Gauet (Gaudet, two families), Jean or Medejan, Girouard, Norman, Jacob, Meichau, and Carneau.259 

Interestingly, four families who evidently were among the Georgia voyagers who crashed on a Long Island beach in August 1756 and were sent to communities in the southern part of the colony for the rest of the war--the Cormiers, Landrys, Poiriers, and Richards--were not on the August 14 list.  However, they do appear in a South Carolina repatriation list later in the month, and, by February 1764, were living in a new settlement on the river above New Orleans--the first documented Acadian exiles to settle in Louisiana.  One suspects that these families who left New York before August 14 and headed south to South Carolina were not on their way to Louisiana but were heading to the destination of many of their fellow New York exiles--French St.-Domingue.  If so, one wonders what would have turned them away from the French Antilles and towards the Mississippi valley colony.  In 1764, as did hundreds of their fellow Acadians in Pennsylvania, Georgia, South Carolina, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, many of the New York exiles accepted the invitation of the governor-general of the French Antilles to go to St.-Domingue and work at Môle St.-Nicolas, where the French were constructing a new naval base.  They, too, Carl Brasseaux laments, "shared the fate of their ill-starred confrères from Pennsylvania" as well as the other colonies--overwork, neglect, sickness, and death in a corner of the French empire so very different from their homes along the Fundy basin.260

Connecticut

Even before the first of the five transports destined for Connecticut anchored at New London, "the Connecticut legislature, in November 1755 ... passed a resolution authorizing the colonial governor," Thomas Fitch, "to take all steps necessary to dispose of any French Neutrals sent there for detention."  The first transport, the 166-ton ship Elizabeth, master Ebenezer Rockwell, escaped a devastating late autumn gale and arrived at New London on 21 January 1756, with 277 Annapolis valley Acadians--42 men, 40 women, 95 boys, and 103 girls--aboard, down from the 280 it held when it left the Annapolis Basin the previous December 8.  The following day, a sloop or schooner whose name and burden has been lost to history, master John Worster, landed with 173 more exiles, these from the Minas Basin.  Eight days later, on January 30, the 87-ton sloop Dove, master Samuel Forbes, evidently reached Connecticut with 114 more Minas Acadians--a total of 564 exiles having reached the colony, with two more transports coming.  Sadly, the 140-ton Two Sisters, master T. Ingram, which left the Annapolis Basin on October 13 with approximately 250 Annapolis exiles aboard, never reached Connecticut or any other colony; it probably had perished in the early autumn gale that sunk two other transports filled with Chignecto exiles heading to Pennsylvania.  The fifth transport bound for Connecticut, the 139-ton snow Edward with 278 Annapolis Acadians aboard, had left the Annapolis Basin with the Elizabeth and other transports on December 8, but it did not arrive at New London in January, February, March, or April, and so was presumed to have been lost at sea.  Finally, in late May 1756, the Edward appeared at New London with 180 exiles aboard, down from the 278 she had carried out of the Bay of Fundy.  Like its sister ship in the December convoy--the Experiment, bound for New York--the Edward had been driven off course by the late autumn storm and ended up in faraway Antigua.  There, a hundred or so of the exiles aboard the Edward died of malaria and smallpox, and there it spent the winter and much of the spring recuperating from the voyage.  The Edward's New York-bound companion reached its destination in early May, but the Edward, evidently more heavily damaged by storm and illness, took longer to be ready for its return to the north.  Its arrival drove the total number of exiles to reach Connecticut, between late January and late May, to 744.261

Meanwhile, Connecticut officials acted quickly in dealing with the first Acadian arrivals.  Acting under the mandate of November 1755, Governor Fitch "convoked the legislature into emergency session ... and, under his guidance, bills were enacted to distribute the anticipated influx of exiles among fifty designated towns," which, except in Massachusetts, would have been the largest dispersal in any of the seaboard colonies.  "The legislature also directed the 'selectmen'" or aldermen, "of each town to maintain the integrity of nuclear families in partitioning the anticipated waves of exiled immigrants," Carl Brasseaux goes on, which ignored the Acadian concept of family.  "These local officials," the law decreed, "were also to provide public assistance to indigent and handicapped Acadians and to maintain strict controls over their able-bodied confrères to prevent them from departing their designated host communities and congregating into larger, potentially dangerous groups."  There evidently was nothing in the bills to provide for the indenture of able-bodied Acadian men and women or, more importantly, the removal of Acadian children from their homes.  As in Maryland, the distrubituion of the exiles in Connecticut, as ordered by the colonial Assembly, began almost immediately after the exiles' landing.  "Little is known of their subsequent activities," Brasseaux relates, "other than the fact that their movements were severely restricted."  Needless to say, the exiles, being Acadians, would have complained and cursed and protested vociferously about such treatment, and some may have attempted to move about as they damn well pleased, especially in trying to reunite with members of their extended families.262 

What is known is that after the war finally ended in February 1763, the Acadians in Connecticut also received through their communication grapevine copies of the duc de Nivernois's secret missive to the Acadians in England promising them repatriation to France.  Nivernois was true to his word, and the Virginia Acadians who had been shipped off to England, almost all of them from the Minas Basin like the Acadians in Connecticut, sent copies of Nivernois's dispatch to their kinsmen in North America, implying that they, too, could be repatriated to France.  As in the other seaboard colonies, the Connecticut Acadians compiled a repatriation list of their own and sent it with a petition to King Louis XV beseeching him to bring them also to France.  The list, dated 14 August 1763, the same date as the New York list, and entitled "General List of the Acadian Families Distributed in the Government of Konehtoket Who Desire To Go to France," counted 666 Acadians in the province with the following surnames, divided into several unnamed locations:  Mireau, Bourg (five families), Jeansonne (two families), Amireau (three families), Dupuis (11 families), Doucet (five families), Orillion, Thibaud (two families), Lord (three families), Hébert (12 families), Forest (five families), Brun/LeBrun (four families), Leger, Breau (three families), Comeau (two families), Michel (three families), Miniot, Lanou (four families), Melanson, Blanchard, Granger (three families), Richard (five families), Robichaud (three families), Fontaine, Gaudet (two families), Gautreau, Fournos, Poirier (two families), LeBlanc (four families), Landry (four families), Belliveau (two families), Giroir (two families), Sidne, Babineau, Pitre, Puguau, Bourgeois (two families), Montaigne, Goulle, and Remon.263 

And so they waited, weeks turning into months, but no promise of help came from France.  So, like their confrères up and down the Atlantic seaboard, the Connecticut Acadians had to decide for themselves whether they would remain in this cursed New-English colony or resettle elsewhere.  The great majority of them chose elsewhere.  Carl Brasseaux notes that "When French assistance failed to materialize, some of the disgruntled Connecticut Acadians accepted the invitation of the Saint-Domingue government," specifically the comte d'Estaing, governor-general of the French Antilles.  Though, ironically, the Connecticut authorities discouraged repatriation, in 1764 many of the Acadians slipped away from the colony and joined hundreds of their fellow Acadians at Môle St.-Nicolas at the northwest end of St.-Domingue to help construct a new French naval base.  They, too, along with their families, sickened and died from the rigors of the tropical climate and the harsh working conditions in the jungles at Môle St.-Nicolas.  Some, like Pierre Michel of Annapolis Royal, who had come to Connecticut as a teenager in and married there, escaped the killing conditions at Môle St.-Nicolas and moved inland to Mirebalais, near Port-au-Prince, to work on tobacco, coffee, or indigo plantations.  Some stayed in the sugar colony, finding a place in its slave-based plantation system, while others, like Pierre Michel, now a young widower, looked for every opportunity to quit the place, which he did in 1765 or 1766 by hitching a ride with refugees from Halifax or Maryland passing through Cap-Français on their way to Louisiana.  Brasseaux notes that, in 1767, another large group of Acadians in Connecticut, 240 of them, "led by their erstwhile parish priest," who he does not name, "pooled their resources, chartered the Pitt, a merchantman, and probably sailed for the St. John River Valley in New Brunswick or Quebec."  Many others, emulating their compatriots in Massachusetts, found other ways to get to Canada, where Acadian refugees had settled since 1756 and remained there even after the province fell to the British in 1760.  "Only a handful of Acadians," Brasseaux believes, "appear to have remained permanently in Connecticut."264

Massachusetts

"The Acadian experience in Massachusetts," Carl Brasseaux observes, "has traditionally been viewed as the darkest chapter of the diaspora.  The conditions encountered by the exiles in Masschusetts, however, were generally no worse than those which they endured in other Atlantic seaboard colonies."  And no other seaboard colony received as many Acadians exiles as the second oldest of the English colonies.  In 1755, the formidable William Shirley, who had done so much to encourage Charles Lawrence and his colonial Council to deport the Acadians of Nova Scotia, who provided most of the troops to implement the removal, and who was preparing to send thousands of his New Englanders into the Fundy communities to take over the Acadians' lands, was still governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, as well as Commander-in-Chief of British forces in North America, and would remain so for another year.  He, or more immediately his acting governor Spencer Phips, would soon receive more Acadian exiles than another other colonial governor.  Four transports, two filled with exiles from Minas Proper, one from Pigiguit, and one from Annapolis Royal, were slated for his province.  The first of them was expected to arrive in mid-or late November, after departing the Annapolis Royal Basin in late October.  But then, on November 5, without warning, Boston Harbor was filled with half a dozen transports, five sloops and a schooner, that had left the Annapolis Basin in late October, heading for Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, was struck by a late autumn gale, and forced to seek shelter in Boston Harbor, with "approximately 2,000 Acadians aboard...."  Knowing that their own expected transports were not far behind, Boston authorities hurried along any necessary repairs.  Appalled by the conditions aboard the overloaded transports, on November 7, Massachusetts authorities removed from five of the transports 130 exiles who had been loaded at Minas and Pigiguit--the first Acadian deportees landed in the colony, "who were sheltered temporarily in the poorhouse."  The first transport scheduled to go to Massachusetts, the 81-ton sloop Seaflower with 206 Acadians aboard, 18 over capacity, reached Boston Harbor on November 15, while some of the stranded transports still crowded the harbor.  Four days later, the 166-ton ship Helena, master Samuel Livingston, with 323 Annapolis Royal Acadians aboard, anchored in Boston Harbor.  The two remaining transports, carrying exiles from Minas still to be loaded, were not due to arrive for another month or so.  On December 26, the schooner Racehorse, its burden unrecorded, master John Banks, reached Boston with 120 exiles aboard.  On January 30, the 102-ton brig Swallow, master William Hayes, reached Boston with 236 more exiles--a total of 885 Acadians aboard the four scheduled ships.  Add to that the 130 surprise arrivals in early December, and the grand total was a bit over a thousand.  But there were more.  According to Brasseaux, who offers no names or numbers, "Between December 26 and January 15, four more shiploads of Acadians were cast upon Massachusetts' shores."  In the spring of 1756, a load of 200 Acadians captured near Cap-Sable by Massachusetts militia were deposited at Boston.  In late July, a large party of Acadian voyagers coming up the coast from Georgia and heading home to Nova Scotia, seven boats containing "about one hundred men, women, and children," led by Chignecto waterman Jacques-Maurice Vigneau of Baie-Vert, beached their vessels at Sandwich on Cape Cod, "much in need of repairs and provisions."  Massachusetts authorities stopped them from going any farther.  After a few days under guard, they were taken to Boston.  On August 18, the Massachusetts Council "ordered them distributed among several towns," and there they remained for the rest of the war.  In light of all this coming and going, Brasseaux estimates that "perhaps as many as 1,500" Acadian exiles ended up in the Bay Colony, more than any other British seaboard colony.265

But what was to be done with them, especially the ones who fell early victims to smallpox and other urban ailments, which did not exist in their Fundy communities and for which they had no natural immunity?  It would have been difficult to find a British province in North America filled with more francophobes than Massachusetts.  In a way this was strikingly ironic.  Since at least the 1650s, when the Fundy settlements began to come into their own as incomparable producers of agricultural products, the Acadians traded regularly with the New Englanders for luxuries and even necessities they could not produce for themselves.  Even after war erupted between England and France in 1689 and again in 1702 the erstwhile enemies traded when they could so that the Acadians came to call the seaborne merchants from Boston nos amis les ennemis, "our friends the enemy."  But they were "friends" no longer.  More Massachusetts militia than redcoat regulars had rounded up the Acadians only a few months earlier and shipped them out on dozens of transports Charles Lawrence and his Council had leased from a Boston mercantile firm, Apthorp and Hancock.  Acadians knew that New Englanders had been eyeing their lands along the Bay of Fundy for years, if not decades, now and likely suspected that their removal from those lands would someday benefit the grasping Yankees.  Unlike in some of the other colonies, where the Acadians' arrival was an unhappy surprise, Massachusetts authorities, "informed by Thomas Hancock, who hired the transports," knew that a number of vessels full of Nova Scotia exiles were heading their way.  And yet, John Mack Faragher scoffs, they "had made no provisions for their support."  Carl Brasseaux attributes this neglect to the Bostonians' virulent francophobia, a product of intermittent war as well as cultural and religious differences.  "[O]nly a single Anglo--future Massachusetts governor Thomas Hutchinson--"informed of their coming by Thomas Hancock, "appears to have stepped forward to provide the exiles with a modicum of relief," Brasseaux asserts.  Hutchinson and "a few others opened their homes to some of the aged and infirm," but it was hardly enough.266

Something much more had to be done for them, and by the government, not charitable individuals.  "Fearing contagion," Faragher relates, "port authorities quarantined the exiles for several days on the transports before finally permitting them to land, then placed them in temporary quarters on Boston Common.  Few of them had anything but the clothes on their backs, and those in tatters."  And of course the troublesome question of the exiles' status reared its head.  Were they still subjects of the British Crown but disloyal ones, as Lawrence and his Council, to justify their mass removal, had insisted, or were they prisoners of war to be "locked up and kept at governement expense" wherever they may be?  Burdened with over a thousand "prisoners," the latter notion was not only unappealing to the colony's leaders, but downright impractical.  Lawrence's letter to the colonial governors, however, may have given them an out:  "'As most of them are healthy strong people,' he wrote, 'they may become profitable and it is possible, in time, faithful subjects," just not in Nova Scotia.  Here was an excuse to release colonial authorities "from absolute responsibility for the exiles' care."  Let them take care of themselves!"Yet some policy was still required for their integration in local society."  On November 16, on a day after the Seaflower anchored in Boston Harbor,  the legislative Assembly "passed an act placing the Acadians under the jurisdiction of provincial poor laws."  This meant, John Mack Faragher points out, the exiles would be "treated much the same as other paupers, which is to say with a great deal of indifference and cruelty."  The law dictated that the exiles--only in immedate family groups, not extended families--would be distributed "throughout Boston and the surrounding towns"--a total of 98 towns (or perhaps a slightly higher number), twice as many as in Connecticut, four times as many as in New York, five times as many as in South Carolina, and nearly ten times as many as in Maryland, now the standard plan to control these troublesome French Catholics in the seaboard colonies.  These many towns included Acton, Amesbury, Andover, Bedford, Beverly, Billerica, Billington, Bolton, Boston, Boxford, Bradford, Braintree, Brookfield, Brookline, Cambridge, Charlestown, Charlton, Chelmsford, Chelsey, Coburn, Concord, Danvers, Dedham, Dorchester, Douglas, Dudley, Dunstable, Eastham, Framingham, Gloucester, Grafton, Groton, Hall, Hanover, Hardwicke, Haverhill, Hingham, Holden, Hollister, Hopkinton, Houghton, Huxbridge, Ipswich, Lancaster, Leicester, Leominster, Lexington, Lincoln, Littleton, Lynn, Lunenberg, Malden, Manchester, Marblehead, Marlborough, Marshfield, Medfield, Medford, Medway, Mendon, Methuen, Middleton, Milton, Natick, Needham, New Braintree, Newbury, Newton, Oxbridge, Oxford, Pepperell, Petersham, Reading, Roxbury, Rowley, Rutland, Sandwich, Scituate, Sherbourn, Shrewsbury, Southboro, Spencer, Stoneham, Stow, Sudbury, Sutton, Tewksbury, Topsfield, Townsend, Truro, Upton, Walpole, Waltham, Watertown, Waymouth, Westborough, Westford, Westminster, Weston, Wexford, Wilmington, Woburn, Worcester, and Wrentham. The failure, or refusal, to understand, or care, about the exiles' concept of family, as well as the many places they were sent, "seems to have been a deliberate attempt to break them up, to isolate the Acadians' from their networks of support," Faragher posits.  According to the law, the "[l]ocal authorities were to provide housing and food for the winter, expenses that would be reimbursed by the provincial treasury," which would be reimbursed by the government of Nova Scotia, which should expect to be reinbursed by the British government.  And, as in other colonies, the Boston fathers expected the exiles to "be self-supporting by the spring of 1756," which, of course, was wildly unrealistic.  And, as in other seaboard colonies, the law provided for the "binding out" of any of the exiles who "proved unable or unwilling to work..."--that is, the dreaded indentureship.  The law seemed not to apply to children, but that proved to be illusory.  "Although the practice of putting children out to service was common among colonial Britons," Faragher explains, "it was rare among Acadians."  Neverthess, the vile practice happened in Massachusetts, and, as in the other seaboard colonies, separation of the exiles' children from their families generated the most vociferous complaints.  Faragher cites a number of instances of the practice at Marshfield (the hometown of Colonel, later General, John Winslow of Minas removal fame), Amesbury, Hanover, Watertown, Scituate, and half a dozen other townships that generated protests to Boston authorities.  "The Massachusetts Governor's Council drew up a new set of standards that aimed to keep children with their parents, and announced that towns 'should desist binding any of them out,'" Faragher notes. "Unfortunately, the council's policy did not end the practice," a testimony "to the Acadians' vulnerability to exploitation, and the inability of authorities in Boston to have much direct influence on the leaders of rural towns."267

The authorities' attempts to regulate Acadian movement within the colony also generated protests.  According to Carl Brasseaux, "The first Acadian exiles sent to the 'Country towns' apparently enjoyed virtual freedom of movement, and," à la the Broussards and Bastaraches in distant South Carolina, "many reputedly escaped to the St. John River Valley, from which they apparently made their way to Quebec.  Many Acadian men also appear to have found employment as sailors aboard merchant vessels and fishing boats sailing from Massachusetts ports.  Finally, many other exiles appear to have wandered from town to town for months in search of friends and relatives.  Such freedome of movement by potential fifth columnists greatly disturbed the native population."  The response from Boston was predictable.  In mid-April 1756, the legilative Assembly prohibited ship captains from hiring Acadians.  In May 1757, "a second act prohibited the exiles from leaving the corporate limits of the town to which they had been assigned under pain of a fine for the first offense, flogging for the second offense."  Meanwhile, Acadians, with the help of locals, attempted to make contact with loved ones who had been sent to other colonies by sending English-language notices to newspapers in New York, Philadelphia, and other colonial cities.  They also pestered friendly locals to pore through newspapers from other colonies to find such notices addressed to them.  If a loved one was found, Massachuetts Acadians, like François-Jacques LeBlanc of Grand-Pré and Braintree, were bold enough to petition the governor and his Council for a passport to allow their loved ones, in LeBlanc's case his son Jacques, to come to Massachusetts.  To his great joy, the governor approved LeBlanc's petition, and son Jacques made his way from Maryland, where he had been deported, to Boston via Philadelphia, where he stopped to marry his sweetheart from Grand-Pré before reuniting with his family.  "Numerous famililes were reunited by means of such notices," John Mack Faragher asserts.  During their long stay in the colony, Acadians were befriended by friendly locals, such as Congregatioanlist Reverend Ebenezer Parkman of Westborough, who was fascinated by an elderly Acadian, Jean-Simon, called Simon, LeBlanc of Annapolis Royal, LeBlanc's wife Jeanne Dupuis, and their four children.  Despite these Acadians being devout Roman Catholics and, being so, "doing the work of the devil," Parkman, who "had preached the justice of the war against the French," could see their qualities as human beings.  Moreover, Simon was not only bilingual, but also literate, rare for an Acadian.  In November 1756, the reverend invited Simon and his family to his home for Thanksgiving.  The old man was not well enough to make it, but wife Jeanne and a daughter were happy to join the Parkman family for dinner.  "It was the beginning of a strong friendship between the two families," Faragher noted.  He also noted that "For most New Englanders, the Acadians in their midst were strangers and cheap day laborers."  To be sure, Simon LeBlanc and his family worked for the Parkmans, which was the norm, but the affection between the two families certainly was not.268

The distribution of the exiles to so many towns generated much paperwork for the bureaucrats in Boston, including lists of Acadian families living in a certain township, at a certain time, and in some cases an accounting of the expense of keeping them.  Here can be found many of the exiles deported to Massachusetts.  In April 1757, the town of Braintree, near the coast southeast of Boston, submitted "In Obedience to the Order of the General Court dated Jan. 21, 1757, the Following ... List of the Names [and] Circumstances of the French Inhabitants of Nova Scotia Now Residing in the Town of Braintree Taken by the Selectmen..."  Three families comprised the list.  The first family was that of Pierre Braux, age 87, second son of the family's progenitor, Vincent Breau, "invalid," incapable" of labor.  With him was his second wife Ann LeBlanc, age 77, also "invalid" and "incapable" of work; Joseph Braux, age 51, probably their elderly son, also "invalid" and "incapable"; Joseph Braux, Jr., age 18, "capable"; Aman Braux, age 17, "capable"; John Saml. Braux, age 15, "invalid" and "incapable"; and Margaret Braux, age 19, "invalid, "subject to fitts" and "incapable" of work.  The second family was that of Aman Braux, age 40, Pierre's sixth and youngest son, "capable" of work; wife Magdalen LeBlanc, age 36, "near her time" so "incapable" of work; Mary Braux, age 11 or 12, "weakly" and "incapable"; John, actually Jean-Baptiste, Braux, age 9, too young to work; Joseph Braux, age 7, too young; Magdalen Braux, age 5; and Margaret Braux, age 3.  The third family was that of Francis LeBlond, that is, François LeBlanc, age 75, "invalid" and "incapable"; his wife Jeanne Hébert, age 72, "invalid" and "incapable"; second James, or Jacques, LeBlond, age 51, "weakly" and "capable in part"; Catherine LeBlond, actually Landry, Jacques's wife, age 49, "weakly" and "capable in part"; Mary Magdalen LeBlond, Jacque's daughter, age 14, "capable"; John Baptist LeBlond, age 12, Jacques's son, "capable of his age"; Béloni LeBlond, age 7, Jacques's son, too young forwork.  In January 1758, the town of Marblehead, on the coast northeast of Boston, submitted a "List of Nova Scotia French in Marblehead."  The list contained four families--those of Joseph Degan, probably Dugas, wife Anne, and their seven children; Peter Landra, obviously Pierre Landry, his wife, and seven children; James Dentrimo, likely Jacques D'Entremont, wife Marguerite, five of their children, Aben Dean, and Joseph Masenel; and James Amoro, probably Jacques Amireau, wife Anne, and eight children--all living on "Lot 37."  Also listed were expenses, paid by the town to H. Sanders Dr. in January and May 1756, to John Clarke, Dr. In May and June 1756, and to Samuel Rogers Inholder, Dr. in October 1756, for the maintenance of "the French," as the Acadians were called.269

In July 1760, the colonial Council received "A List of the French Inhabitants in the County of Essex As They Were Settled & Proportioned to the Several Towns, After 16 of Andover & 3 of Haverhill Were Sett Off to the County of Hampshire," which was read and approved by the Council in April 1761.  Essex County lay northeast of Boston, south of the New Hampshire line, and Hampshire County in the far western area of the colony.  The July 1760 list included the following Acadians, their ages, and condition:  At Almsbury, actually Amesbury, at the northern edge of the county, Clode Bausway, actually Bourgeois, age 64, Mary his wife, age 51 and "weakly," Charles Bausway, age 25, Abab Bausway, age 22, Jeremy, age 10, "weakly," Margaret, age 19, and Addla, age 17; at Andover, southwest of Amesbury, Charles Bear, probably Hébert, age 36; Margaret Bear, age 24, Modly, age 4, Charles, age 2, Margaret B, age 1, Jno Landry, age 35, Joseph Landry, age 29, "weakly," Mary Landry, age 26, Amon Dupee, actually Dupuis, age 30, wife Mary, age 29, Mary Joseph, age 5, Margaret Dupee, age 2, Ferman Dupee, age "2/4"; at Beverly, on the coast northeast of Boston, Joseph Bursway, actually Bourgeois, 58, "infirm," Anne Bursway, age 58, Ann Bursway, age 24, Lydia Bursway, age 26?, Simon? Bursway, age 16, Margt. Bursway, 14, ____ Grovely, age 54, Mellisa Grovely, age 50, and ____ Bursway, age 20; at Bradford, between Amesbury and Andover on the Merrimack River, Peter Biossen, age 43, "infirm," wife Elizabeth, age 29, daughter Hannah, age 7, Joseph, age 5, Lydia, age 1, and Joseph Rishard, age 49, Peter Prejean, age 78, "infirm," Ann Prejean, age 30, and Joseph Prejeann, age 24; from Middletown, actually Middleton, between Andover and Beverly, Amon Landry, age 31, his wife, age 31, Joseph Landry, age 8, Mary, age 4, Margaret, age 2, Anna, age 2?; Joseph Meuse, actually Mius, age  16, from Methain (Methuen)? ; Lydia Meuse, age 9?, from Glo[u]cester, on the coast; at Topsfield and Middleton, between Andover and Beverly, Michael Dugoy, probably Dugas, age 44, "a sickly man," wife Eliza, age 44, Ammon Dugoy, age 15, Mary Dugoy, age 12, Joseph Dugoy, age 7, Modesty, age 9, Anna, age 5; at Rowrey, actually Rowley, northeast of Topsfield, near the coast, "being all well," Peter Dupee, age 44, wife Nextazzrbura, age 29, Brizzel LeBlong, age 31, Charlose Oree, perhaps Orillon, age 30?, wife Mary, age 28?, Molly, age 2, Chee, age 1/2?, Joseph LeBlong, 4, Anne LeBlong, 3, Peggy Dupee, age 2? 9?; at Newbury, on the coast north of Rowley, also "being all well," Joseph Broyn, probably Brun, age 48, wife Fanny, age 46, Molly age 16, Margte, age 13, Joseph age 6, and Charles, age 4; at Bexford, perhaps Boxford, north of Middleton, Renee Landry, age 90, "unable," Paul Landry, age 54, Eliza Landry, 28, Maria, age 7; and Margaret, age 2; at Meridien?, Marron Tebedo, Joseph LeBlond, Margaret LeBlond, and Mary Richard, age 13, to Bridgeport? or Bradford; at Danvers, near Middleton, Antne. Tibedo, age 59, wife Mary, age 35, "very sickly," son Jno., age 13, David, age 8, Joseph, age 6, "sickly," Peter, age 4, Joseph Landry, age 24, "sickly," Jno. Bapt? Landry, age 19?, from? Wexford?, and Rapale Landry, age 81?; at Gloucester, on the coast northeast of Boston, Joseph Doucett, Anne Doucett, son Dominique, age 26, Issidore, age 24, Francis, age 20, Molly, age 18, Ann, age 15, John, age 12, Florentias, age 10, Michael, age 6, Peggy, age 7, Peter, age 2, Widow Eliza. Janvire, age 72, "infirm"; at Haverhill, along the New Hampshire line near Bradford, Widow Robishow, age 57, "infirm," Ornum Robishow, age 31, Gregoire Robishow, age 38, Catharine Robishow, age 35, Margaret Barshow, age 7, Joseph Barshow, age 6, John Barshow, age 5, and Titus, age 1; at Ipswich, between Rowley and Gloucester, Francis Landry, age 67, "infirm," Mary Landry, age 65, "infirm," Charles Landry, age 36, "non compos[?]," Ozela Landry, age 24, Jno. Landry, age 39, Margt. Landry, age 30, Molly, age 15, Peggy, age 13, Nancy, age 11, Susan, age 9, Matty, age 7, Francis, age 6, Jno. age 3, Betty Landry, age 1, Paul Breau, age 43, wife Mary, age 41, Joseph, age 17, John, age 15, Nanny?, age 13, Jno. Batits, age 6, Molly, age 10, Elisabeth, age 8, and Peter, age 1; at Lynn, on the coast southwest Marblehead, Ganah? Prejean, age 20; Susan Prejean, age 32, Jno. LeBlanch, age 36, "ptly. lame," wife Mary, age 30, Molly, age 10, "short breath?," Collect, age 7, Sarah, age 3, and Peter, age 2; at Manchester, on the coast between Marblehead and Gloucester, Hath? Grovely, age 23, from Beverly, Margt. ____, ____, age 29, from Oxford in Worcester County in the center of the colony; at Marblehead, on the coast between Gloucester and Boston, near Lynn, Joseph Janvire, age 40, from Manchester, wife Natally, age 32, daughter Mary, age 11, Anna, age 9, Maudly, age 5, Margarette, age 13, Peter Dossett, age 50, Mary Dossett, age 50, Peter, age 27, Margte., age 24, Amicable, age 23, "sick," Joseph, age 21, Elizabeth, age 13, Charles, age 14, Aaron, age 6, Mary, age 9, Edmond, age 76 [probably 6], Alexandr. Richards, age 70, "infirm," Francs. Remong, age 28, wife Eliza., age 36, their child Andrew, age 2, Anna Loweral Doset, age 73, "very infirm," daughte Hannah, age 40, Margaret, age 39, Eliza. Dosett, age 34, and Wido. Rashard?, age 29; at Dansbury, perhaps Danvers, between Middleton and Beverly, Marie Gould, age 78, Joso. Dosset, age 47, Nanny Dosset, age 41, Molly, age 26?, John, age 14, Maudely, age 12, and Eliza. Dosett, age 6; at We_ham, perhaps Wrentham, in Norfolk County, southwest of Boston, Lyeau de__arrit, age 73, "sickly," Maudlin deGarri?, age 40, Maria, age 13, Titus Robishaws, age 24, to Haverhill?; and at Salem, on the coast between Beverly and Marblehead, John Meuse, age 49, wife Mary, age 45, "weakly," Margaret, age 23, Enoch, age 21, Lawrence, age 19, Jno., age 17, Charles, age 11, Maria, age 7, Paul, age 4, Susan Meuse, age 2, Michael Landry, age 20, from Middleton, Felicity Prejean, age 18, from Lynn?, ____ Rishaw, perhaps Richard, age 74, wife Margaret, age 70, and Ann Rishaw, age 8.270

Another long list, in duplicate, came from Boston in 1760 and 1761, entitled "The Committee Appointed to Make a Division of the French People in the County of Suffolk Late Inhabitants of Nova Scotia into the Severall Towns Within sd. County Beg Leave to Report They Mett Aug. 22 1760 & Made the Following Division."  Recognizabe Acadian names on the committee's lists include, from Roxbury, Jacques Morris [actually Jacques Vigneau dit Maurice of Baie-Vert, Chignecto, up from Georgia], his wife Margaret [Bourg], and their large family; from Braintree, a family of Brows, that is, Breaus; from Hingham, Anthony Terry, that is Theriot, his wife, and many children, Eliz. Peacott, and Jos. Brow Senr.; from Milton, Francis Dagel, his wife, and a son, Loving Gallium, his wife, and their children, Peter Landry, his wife, and their children, Franceway Brinway, probably Benoit, and his children, and Simon Landry and his wife; from Brookline, Mary Brinway and her children, Flora Turla, and Saml. Landree; from Medford, Elizabeth Comer, probably Comeau, Renne Binniway, probably Benoit, his wife, and two children;  from Needham, Sibble Libloni, probably LeBlanc; those residing in Boston, Magdalen Pilbrain, probably Pellerin, and her six children, Margaret Doucet, Peter Boucher, German Landry, and Fredrick Reshaue, probably Richard; to the town of Roxbury, Philip Tebodo, his wife, Joseph Lannon, probably Lanoue, his two daughters, Joseph Blancher, Joseph Vassel, his wife, and two children; to the town of Dorchester, Ammond Tobado, Margaret Tobado, Catherin Hit___, Firsull Jannon, Joseph Tobado, and two of his children; to the town of Milton, John Batis Dagle, his wife, and their children;  to the town of Braintree, Francis LeBlond, his wife, son James LeBlond, his wife, Honora Bobbin, his wife, John Baptist LeBlond, Binoni LeBlond, Pierre Bobbin, Margaret LaBlond, Margaret Brow, Joseph Brow Junr.; to the towns of Hingham, Weymouth & Hall, residing in Weymouth, Simon Terrau, his wife, their children, and Simon's mother Magdalen; residing in Hingham, Joseph Brow, his wife, Elixas Brow, his wife, and their six children; from Braintree, Ammon Brow Junr. and Saml. Brow; from Boston, Peter Doucet; to the town of Dedham, Clode, Hannah, Margaret, Ester, Aaron, and John Benoie, and Margarett, John, James, and Mary Mitchell, perhaps Michel; to the town of Medfield, Margaret Binniway, Abel Dion, his wife, Meray ____, Blenny Duenmont, probably D'Entremont, and Joseph Mitchell; to the town of Medway, Joseph Omero, probably Amirault, his wife, and their two daughters; to the town of Needham, Frances LeBlane, his wife, and their two son; to the town of Billingham from Medway, James Omiro, Junr., his wife, and their children; to the town of Houghton from Needham, Charles LeBlane, his wife, and five children; to the town of Walpole, Margaret Dautromont, Paul Dautromont, and Benoni Dautromont; to the town of Wrentham from Medway, Peter Robishow, his wife, and three children, Aioe Omero, Ezedo Omero, and Lucy Omero; to the town of Brookline John Briniway, his wife, and son; to the town of Chelsey, Joseph Dautrimont and Margaret Dautrimont from Walpole, and Paul and Rose Landry from Needham.272

In 1761, the colonial Council received another long list, entitled "Division of the French Neutrals in the Several Towns in the County of Middlesex by the Commee. Appointed by the Great and General Court for That Purpose."  Middlesex County lay in the sprawling countryside northwest of Boston, from the New Hampshire border south to the northern outskirts of the city.  The Middlesex list included the following Acadians with their ages:  at Cambridge, across the Charles River from Boston, Lewis Robishow, age 55, wife Jane, age 51, _____, age 27, Edward, age 24, Oto, age 18, Florence, age 13, Willown?, age 11, Esther, age 20, Mary?, age 16, Hannah, age 6; at Charlestown, also across the river from Boston, Joseph White [LeBlanc], age 30, wife Mary, age 29, daughter Mary, age 4, an unnamed infant, Margt. Richard, widow, age 55, Victor, age 23, Margt., age 18, John, age 14, Merrimack?, age 9, David, age 8; at Watertown, Auge. Hibbert [Hébert], [fils], age 48, wife Margt., age 48, Mary, age 21, Joseph, age 19, Margt., age 11, Maturin, age 8; at Stow, Peter Hibbert, age 17, and Charles Hibbert, age 12, "bound out at Watertown"; at Newton, Peter Hibbert, age 41, wife Mary Joseph, age 37, Peter, age 12, Mary, age 10, Joseph, age 8, Margt., age 6, John Baptist, age 2, Magdalen, age 4 months; at Lexington, August[in] Hibbert, [père], age 68, wife Anna, age 68; at Waltham, Margt. Hibbert, age 25, Margaret Jos. Hibbert, age 23; at Bedford, John Hibbert, age 22, Samuel White, age 20; at Concord, Charles Grawhorn? [Doiron?], age 31, wife Tithorn, age 31, daughter Mary, age 8 1/2, son John, age 4, son Georg Wyrer?, age 5, Simon Landry, age 20, Charles Landry, age 22; at Chelmsford, Jane? Iane? Landry, age 64, wife Madlain, age 62, son Alain?, age 18, Maudlin "daughter to Charly Rawhorn," age 7 1/2; at Belleriva [probably Billerica], Joseph Landry, age 28, wife Maudlin, age 28, son John, age 4, daughter Maudlin, age 2 1/2, son Joseph, age 1; at Acton, Paul Landry, age 24, Margt., "daughter to Charles Rawhorn," age 2 1/2; at Reading, Francis Mius?, age 57, wife Jane, age 42, children Rosella, age 20, Elizth., age 18, John, age 15, Francis, age 13, Mary, age 2; at Stoneham, Priscilla, age 11, Christopher, age 6, and Bazzell, age 4, "children of Frans. Mius?, who lives at Reading"; at Malden, Paul Muis?, "son of Frans. Mius?," age 27, Jeremh. Debido [probably Thibodeau], age 26, wife Magdalen, age 24, children Mary, age 2 1/2, Isaac, age 1, Gregoro, age 7, Catharine Presson [perhaps Prejean], age 30; at Medford, John Debodo, age 36, wife Anne, age 33, children William, age 8, Jossan?, age 6, Anna, age 2 1/2, Eliza., age 12 days; at Woburn, John Lapadores? [perhaps Labrador, a dit for Guédry], age 34, wife Margaret [Pecot], age 27, Hannah, age 11, Maturin, age 7, Izabel, age 5, Charles, no age given, Eliz. Pecot [perhaps Margaret's sister], no age given; at Wilmington, John, age 2, & Joseph, no age given, Lapadore, John of Woburn's sons; at Weston, Bezalid Simmeno, age 34, his wife, age 38, children Mathew, age 12, Paul, age 9, John, age 2; at Natick, Bezabel, age 7, Lydia, age 4, "children to Bezatute Simmeno at Weston"; at Sudbury, ____ Simmeno, age 80, his wife age 75, daughters Mary, age 28, Anne age 26; at Marlborough, Timty Symno, age 40,wife Nanny, age 38, Ta__, age 15, Joseph, age 12, Peter, age 10, Oliver, age 8, Philemn., age 6, Ollex, age 6, Paul, age 6 months; at Lincoln, Joseph Hibert, age 33, wife Nanny, age 27, children Mary, age 6, Madlin, age 4, Margaret, age 5 months; at Westford, Margaret Maud Robinshow, age 44, Eliz. Richaid?, age 17, Mary Richard, age 11; at Littleton, Margt. Maud Robinshow, age 87, Frederick Richard, age 20, Betty Winnett, age 12; at Sherbourn, Joseph Dugau?, age 56, children Mary, age 23, Monique, age 7; at Hollister, Ezedo? Isaac? Gordeau [Gautrot?], age 28, wife Maudlin, age 55, child Joseph, age 7 months; at Hopkinton, Ann Dugau, age 19, Eliz. Dugau, age 12; Margt. Gordeau, age 3; at Framingham, Charles M____, age 61, wife Clara, age 57, children, Margaret, age 26, Maudlin, age 13, Eleanor, age 12, Susannah, age 9; at Dunstable, Peter Land[ry], wife Sarah, son Peter, no ages given; at ____, Mary Landerie, Sarah Landere, Elizabeth Landere, no ages given, "children to Peter Landere at Dunstable; at Tewksburg, Mary Landere, Magdeline Landere, Jane Landere, no ages given, "children to Peter Landere at Dunstable"; at Groton, Rain Bobbin [Babin], age 37, wife Margt., age 39, sons John, age 13, Mathurin, age 11, Joseph, age 9, daughter Eliza., age 5 weeks; at Pepperell, Margt. Marichel [Michel?], age 18, Mary Bobbin, age 3, "daughr. of Rain Bobbin; at Townsend, Paul Oliver Bobbin, age 7, Peter Bobbin, age 5, "sons to Rain Bobbin of Groton."273

In August 1761, the colonial Council received a long list entitled "The Committee Appointed to Make Division of the French People in the County of Worcester, late Inhabitants or Nova Scotia into the Several Towns Within Said County."  Worcester County lay west of Middlesex County, in the middle of the colony.  The Worcester list included the following Acadians:  to Worcester, John Labear [Hébert], his unnamed wife, Nory, Joseph, Stephen, John, and Mary Labear; to Westboro, Simon Bland [LeBlanc?], wife Jane, Peter, Amor, Magdalen, and Mary Bland; to Rutland, Justin White, his unnamed wife, Justin, John, Charles, and Elizabeth White; to Lunenberg, Benony Meloso [Melanson], wife Mary, Bozileel and Cane Moloso; to Hardwicke, Joseph and Simeon Meloso; to Rutland, John Meloso; to Leominster, Mary and Margt. Meloso; to Southboro, Margaret, Marine, and Margaret[sic] Guido [Guédry]; to Brookfield, Stanislaus Guirdo, wife Mary, "his daughter," "A little child of his," Maudlin Gadrick, and Isaac Gourdeau; to Grafton, Glaud Dugast, wife Margaret, John Dugast; to Oxbridge, Charles Dugast, Mary, Margaret, Joseph; to Huxbridge, Gould Dugar, Matton, Felicite; to Charlton, Charles & Joseph Dugar; to Dudley, Elizabeth and Hannah Dugar; to Leicester, Charles Belivo, his unnamed wife, their unnamed "youngest child"; to Spencer, "his [Charles Belliveau's] other child"; to Mendon, Charles Bellivo, Eunice Bellivo, Charles Bellivo, Jr., wife Margaret, Peter, Mary, & Michael "his children"; to Upton, Sarah and Isidore Bellivo; to Douglas, Eunice Bellivo; to Holden, Nattaly Bellivo; to Weston, Joseph and Elizabeth Bellivo; to Sutton, Joseph Leblain, wife Mary, Isabel, Samuel Charles, and Margt. Leblain; to New Braintree, Mary Leblain; to Westminster, John Baptis [Leblain?]; to Petersham, Richard Leblain; to ____bury, Peter Deblanc, wife Frances, and Mary Rose and Peter Deblanc, Jr.; to Lancaster, Jeffrey Benway [Benoit?], Abigail, John, Peter, Joseph, Paul, Mary, "and an infant of same family [Benway]; to ____ anard, ____ Forre [Forest], Jr., Abigail, and Mary Forre; to Bolton, Abigail Forre, Jr., Margaret and Rose [Forre?].  The Worcester County committemen then noted:  "In sd. County we have ordered to be sent into the County of Hampshire," west of Worcester, "viz.:  Joseph Robisho, wife Mary, Mary, Stephen [Robisho?] & his wife, Joseph, Mary, Margaret, Anna, Paul Robisho, wife Eliza, Micah and Felicia; Renny Leblan, wife Mary, Charles, Joseph Ru__d, John, Mary, "and an infant"; Silvine Dupee [Dupuis], wife Frances, Paul, Frances, Jason, John, Margaret, Joseph, and Eliza; Francis Lebland, wife Isabel, Joseph, Mary, Joz-bit, Francis, Peter, "and an infant."  The Worcester committeemen concluded:  "And the said Committee further report that they gave orders to the Select Men of the Several Towns where sd. French People then Resided to Remove them according to the aforegoing Distribution and direct the Selectmen of the Several Towns where they were destined to receive them accordingly.".274

An undated list from the early 1760s was submitted to the colonial Council and entitled "An Account of the French Acadians Now Residing in Boston Belonging to Other Towns."  It concluded the Acadians' names, then a strange category called "Numbers Ratio's at Boston," where they "belonged," the miles distance they traveled, and two miscellaneous categories concerning days traveled and rations owed them "by the Select Men" of their towns.  The Boston list included the following Acadians:  John Tibbedo of Medford; Joseph Alain al: Hibbert of Watertown; John Landrie of Chelmsford; Joseph Landrie of Billerica; Paul Landrie of Acton; Charles Landrie of Concord; John Alain of Worcester; Peter Trahone of Truro; John Trahone of Eastham; Trahone's widow of Sandwich; Augustine White of Rutland; Peter White of Shrewsbury; Alexander Brew of Hingham; Widow Gurdoe, Marion Gurdoe, and Stanislas Gurdoe of Southboro; Isaac Gurdoe of Brookfield; Belona Green of Lancaster; John Alain of Worcester; Joseph Brew of Hingham; Joseph Labadour of Coburn; and the Labadour family of Wilmington.275

Meanwhile, the war was still raging.  Montréal, and Canada along with it, fell to the British in September 1760 and the last French stronghold in North America, Restigouche on the Baie de Chaleurs, surrendered to a British naval force from Québec the following month.  Yet the French refused to give up their fight for control of the northern country.  While the hundreds of Acadians who appeard on these lists did their best to make a life for themselves in the Yankee towns of Massachusetts, fighting once again erupted along the northern frontier.  In the summer of 1762, a French offensive in Newfoundland captured the "strategically insignificant" port of St. John's, which the French were able to hold only for a few weeks before the Royal Navy recaptured it.  The fiasco at St. John's threw the leaders in nearby Nova Scotia into a panic, and the panic affected Masschusetts.  The Acadians' nemesis, Charles Lawrence, had died suddenly of natural causes in October 1760.  He was succeeded by former chief justsice, now lieutenant-governor, Jonathan Belcher, Jr., who hated the Acadians as much as Lawrence had and helped him to deport the "French Neutrals."  Belcher was still in charge of Nova Scotia in July 1762 when word arrived in Halifax of the fall of St. John's.  Encouraged by the recently-created colonial legislature and taking counsel of his fears, Belcher "accepted the advice of his council of war and on 30 July ordered all those Acadian 'prisoners of war' who had earlier been concentrated at Halifax deported to Boston"--five transports filled with 600 men, John Mack Faragher relates,"their wives and children still imprisoned at Annapolis, Minas, and Chignecto"!  But the attempt to rid the colony of these Acadians failed miserably.  According to Belcher's biographer, "the Massachusetts government," led by Governor Sir Francis Bernard, "refused to receive any more Acadians, and Belcher was faced with their return to Halifax" six weeks later.  When word of the fiasco reached London, "The pragmatic Lords of Trade rebuffed Nova Scotian fears as unwarranted," and this latest expulsion "as inexpedient."  They were especially critital of Belcher, who they replaced as lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia the following year.275b

And then the war finally ended.  The Treaty of Paris, signed in February 1763, gave persons displaced by the war 18 months to remove themselves to friendly territory.  This prompted the French ambassador to London, the duc de Nivernois, through intense negotiation, to secure the repatriation to France of the exiles sent from Virginia to England in 1756.  Copies of Nivernois's secret dispatch to those exiles, promising repatriation and help from the King, made their way through the Acadian grapevine to exiles in the seaboard colonies.  Acadians still languishing in the British colonies, including Massachusetts, promptly cobbled together repatriation lists with the names of exiles who wished to return to French soil.  They also wrote petitions to the King and his ministers asking for help, and hurried the petitions and the lists to Nivernois's secretary in London.  Then, as in the other seaboard colonies, the exiles waited for word from France that the King would welcome them, too. 

They waited in vain.275a

One of the Bay Colony's repatriation lists, the smaller one, partially entitled "____ of Lists From All Those Who Wish to Pass to the French Colonies ____," undated, but probably compiled in the summer of 1763, included the following families:  Paul Landry, 5 from his family; Jean Landry, 2 from his family; Alexis Broux, 9 from his family; Jean Melanson, 4 from his family; Jean LeBlanc, 11 from his family; Jean? Thibodot, 7 from his family; Joseph Landry, 6 from his family; Joseph Hebaire?, 4 from his family; Augustin LeBlanc, 6? from his family; Charles Landry, 4 from his family; Pierre Trahant?, 4 from his family; Charles Trahan, 9 from his family; Jean Batis LeBlanc? or Hebaire?, 3 from his family; Charles Thibodot, 3 from his family; Jean Trahant, 10 from his family; Firmin? LeBlanc, 2 from his family; François LeBlanc, 12 from his family; Joseph Vinsent, 6 from his family; Joseph Benoit, 4 from his family; François Benoit, 4 from his family; René Landry, 6 from his family; Godefroid Benoit, 9 from his family; Jean Charles Daigre, 8 from his family; Jean Jacque Maiot?, 6 from his family; Marguerite Pregint, 3 from her family; Jacque ___Mont, 5 from his family; Aman Landry, 7 from his family; Paul Broux, 9 from his family; Joseph Broux, 2 from his family; François Landry, 3 from his family; Germain? Landry, 2 from his family; Charles B____, 8? from his family; Clode Dugat, 7 from his family; Pierre Landry, 7 from his family; Widow Antoine Thibodot, 7 from his family; Chares Lebair, 7 from his family; Jean Baptis Tibodo, 3 from his family; Rene Landry, 4 from his family; Paul Landry, 6 from his family; Joseph LeBlanc, 3 from his family; Jean Landry, 10 from his family; Benonie Douses, 8 from his family; Aman Dupuis, 8 from his family; Jean Landry, 5 from his family; Aman Broux, 11 from his family; Jean Guedrit, 10 from his family; Jean LeBlanc, 12 from his family; Jean Pa___ant, 9 from his family; Dominique Clouoitre, 9 from his family; Charles Boudrot, 7 from his family; Jean Boudrot, 1; Pierre Boudrot, 7 from his family; Françoit Ro____, 9 from his family; Nicolas Bario, 2 from his family; Simon LeBlanc, 6 from his family; and Castain Thibaudau, 4 from his family, a little over 400 exiles, men, women, and children.276

In mid-August, a larger, more detailed list, entitled "General List of the Acadian Families Actually Distributed to New England, Government of Boston, Province of Massachuetts," and, more precisely, "A list of the French Who Desire to go to Old France," included the following Acadians and their families:  Pierre Sire, wife Madeleine, 3 sons, and 3 daughters; Magloire Heber, wife Anne, 3 sons, 2 daughters; Jean Terriau, wife Marie, a son; Joseph Sire, wife Josephe, a son; Paul Sire, wife Josette, 3 sons, 5 daughters; Jean Sire, wife Anne, 2 sons, 2 daughters; Jacques Hebaire, wife Anne, 5 sons, 1 daughter; Benoist Mellanson, wife Marie, 4 daughters, 1 son; Claude Benoist, wife Anne, two sons, 1 daughter; Joseph Vainsant, wife Janne, 2 sons, 2 daughters; Jean Daigre, wife Margueritte, 2 sons, 1 daughter; Françoise Daigre, 1 son; Godefrois Benoist, wife Magdelaine, 4 sons, 2 daughters; François Benoist, wife Françoise, 1 daughter; René Landry, wife Anne, 2 sons, 2 daughters; Jacque Vignos, wife Marguerite, 1 daughter; Pierre Vignos, wife Magdelaine, 2 sons, 3 daughters; Jacque Vignos, wife Mariee, 1 son, 2 daughters; Joseph Vignos, wife Mariee, 2 daughters; Abraham Vignos, wife Mariee, 2 sons, 2 daughters; Jacque Bourgois, wife Mariee, 1 son, 1 daughter; Jean Vignos, wife Mariee, 1 son, 2 daughters; Widow Robichau, 2 sons, 3 daughters; Benoist Dousset, wife Mariee, no children; Jean Gaidry, wife Mariee, 5 sons, 2 daughters; Amon Bodot, wife Isabelle, 2 sons, 3 daughters; Joseph Brox, wife Anne, 1 daughter; Jean Bodot, wife Anne, 2 sons, 3 daughters; Joseph Benoist, wife Blanche, 1 daughter; Jean Tranchant, wife Mariee, 3 sons, 1 daughter; Widow Ane Tranchant, 3 sons, 1 daughter;  René Chilet, wife Marie, no children; Julien Sardrin; Pierre Landry, wife Sesille, 1 son, 5 daughters; Widow Thibaudot, 3 sons, 3 daughters; Jean Landry, wife Magdelaine, 3 sons, 3 daughters; Paul Landry, wife Roze, 1 son, 1 daughter; Claude LeBlanc, no wife, 5 sons, 6 daughters; Antoine Foret, wife Margueritte, 2 sons, 4 daughters, Widow Elizabeth mother-in-law of Foret; Castain Thibaudot, wife Natalie, 2 sons; Jean Baptiste Vigneau, no wife, 3 sons, 4 daughters; Germain Thibaudot, wife Magdelaine, 3 sons, 3 daughters; Charle LeBlanc, wife Mariee, 2 sons, 4 daughters; Jacque LeBlanc, wife Natalie, 2 sons, 2 daughters; François LeBlanc, wife Janne, no children; Honoré LeBlanc, wife Anne Baben, 1 son; Aman Breaux, wife Magdelaine, 3 sons, 4 daughters; Widow LeBlanc, 3 sons, 1 daughter; Simon Foret, wife Margueritte, 6 sons, 1 daughter; Widow Forait, no children; Joseph Broux, no wife, 2 sons; Pierre Pellerin, wife Anne, 2 daughters; Widow Marie Blanchar, 1 daughter; Victor Richard, wife Mariee, 1 daughter; Paul LeBlanc, wife Mariee, 4 sons, 2 daughters; daughter; Simon LeBlanc, wife Margueritte, 3 sons, 1 daughter; Widow LeBlanc, no children; Simon Broux, no wife, 4 sons, 1 daughter; Widow Michel, 5 sons, 6 daughters; Charles Bellivos, wife Anne, 3 sons, 3 daughters; Jean Bellivos, wife Margueritte, 5 sons, 2 daughters; Paul Bellivos, wife Magdelaine, no children; Jean Baptiste Pellerain, wife Mariee, 5 sons, 1 daughter; Dominique Cloistre, wife Françoise, 2 sons, 4 daughters; Charle Boudrot, wife Magdelaine, 2 sons, 2 daughters; Widow Boudrot, 1 son, 1 daughter; Jean Boudrot; René Broux, wife Mariee, 1 daughter; François Roux, wife Nanette, 2 daughters; Pierre  Bourqeque; Jean Ebert, wife Mariee, 1 son, 1 daughter; Paul Ebert; Nicolas Barriot, no wife, 1 daughter; Pierre Boudrot, wife Margueritte, 5 sons, 3 daughters; Jacques Remon, wife Mariee, 1 son, 2 daughters; Widow Magte. Prejean, 1 son, 1 daughter; Widow of François LeBlanc, 1, son, 1 daughter; Michel Forait, Magdelaine, 1 son, 4 daughters; Thimothée Lemaire, wife Anne, 6 sons, 2 daughters; René Thibaudot, wife Anne, 1 son; Jean Lemaire, wife Margueritte, 1 daughter; Aman Lemaire, daughter Anne, no children; Charlot Foret; Widow of Michel Foret, 2 sons, 2 daughters; Allexis Braux, wife Marguerite, 4 sons; Theraize Labove; Widow of Batiste Thibaudot, 3 sons; Joseph Lanous, wife Nanette, 2 sons, 1 daughter; Laurent Galand, wife Marguerite, 4 sons; Philipe Thibaudot, wife Isabelle, 2 daughters; Charle Tranchant, wife Anne, 4 sons, 3 daughters; Joseph Landry, Magdeleine, 2 sons, 2 daughters; Claude Boudrot, daughter Judic, 3 sons, 3 daughters; Pierre LeBlanc, Magdelaine, 2 sons, 5 daughters, Joseph LeBlanc, Magdelaine, 4 sons, 4 daughters; René LeBlanc, Mariee, 5 sons, 1 daughter; Charles Bellivaux, wife Janne, 3 sons, 2 daughters; Charle Bellivaux, wife Margueritte, 1 son, 1 daughter; François LeBlanc, wife Elizabeth, 4 sons, 5 daughters; Augustine LeBlan, wife Elizabeth, 3 sons, 2 daughters; Pierre LeBlanc, wife Françoize, no children; Charle Landry, Mariee, 1 son; Jean Helbert, wife Elizabeth, 1 son; Jean Hebert, wife Elizabeth, 3 sons, 1 daughter; Joseph Robichaud, wife Mariee, 2 sons, 1 daughter; Estienne Robichot, wife Mariee, 2 sons, 2 daughters; Lichain Dupuis, Françoize, 6 sons, 3 daughters; Germain Landry, Sesille, 2 sons, 1 daughter; Jacques Hebert, wife Mariee, 2 sons, 6 daughters; Jean Thibaudot, wife Isabelle, 1 daughter; René Benoist, wife Felicitte, 2 sons, 1 daughter; Marguerite Benoist, Charles Thibaudot, no wife, 5 sons, 1 daughter; Joseph Hibaire, wife Josette, no children; Jean Benoist, wife Margot, 4 sons, 3 daughter; Baptiste Lemaire, Anne Josephe, 4 sons, 2 daughters; Olivier Heber, no wife, 2 sons, 4 daughters; Simon Melanson, wife Mariee, no children; Pierre LeBlanc, Margueritte, 1 son; Charles Miros, his unnamed wife, 3 daughters; Jean Roy, his unnamed wife, 5 sons, 4 daughters; François Dousset, wife Margueritte, 5 sons, 4 daughters; Jean Michelle, wife Nanette, 4 daughters; Joseph Dousset, wife Anne, 7 sons, 3 daughters; Dominique Dousset, wife Magdelaine, 1 son; Widow of Paul LeBlanc, 3 sons, 5 daughters; Josesph D'Andermon, wife Natalis, no children; Widow of Jacque D'Andermon, 2 sons, 1 daughter; Benoise Lionois, wife Anne, 1 son, 2 children; Jacque Tourangeaud, his unnamed wife, 3 sons, 3 daughters; Jacque Tourangeaux, wife Mariee, 1 son, 2 daughters; Augustin Heber, wife Anne, 2 daughters; Pierre Hebert, wife Josephe, 3 sons, 5 daughters; Augustine Hebert, wife Margueritte, 4 sons, 1 daughter; Antoine Perebreux, wife Mariee, no children; Joseph Hebou, wife Anne, 1 son, 2 daughters, Alexis Benoist, wife Hélène, 1 son, 5 daughters; Charle Hebert, wife Margueritte, 1 son, 3 daughters; Jean Landry, wife Mariee, 2 daughters; Aman Dupuis, Blanche, 2 sons, 2 daughters; René Babin, wife Mariee, 6 sons, 2 daughters, François Landry, wife Mariee, 1 son, Jean Landry, wife Margueritte, 2 sons, 6 daughters; Germain Landry, wife Margueritte, 1 daughter; Paul Broux, his unnamed wife, 4 sons, 4 daughters, René Landry, no wife, 3 sons; Amant Landry, wife Magdelaine, 1 son, 4 daughters; Paul Landry, wife Anastazie, 4 children; Widow of Jean Bapte. David, 2 daughters; Widow Paul LeBlanc, 3 sons, 5 daughters; Joseph Bourgois, wife Anne, 2 sons, 2 daughters; Widow Dousset, 1 daughter; Charles Mieux, wife Marie, 2 sons, 2 daughters; Julien Fortin, wife Anne, 2 sons, 1 daughter; Paul Clermont, wife Mariee, 2 sons, 1 daughter; Jean Baptiste Mieus, no wife, 6 sons, 4 daughters; Simon LeBlanc, wife Jeanne, 2 sons, 2 daughters; Claude Dugas, wife Margueritte, 3 sons, 2 daughters; René Richard, wife Margueritte, 1 daughter; Joseph Mieus, daughter Mariee, 3 sons, 2 daughters; Pierre Builbos, wife Theotiste, 1 daughter; Charle Breux, wife Elizabeth, 2 sons; Widow of Antoine Tibaudeau, 5 sons, 1 daughter; Joseph Guiroire, wife Natalis, 1 son, 5 daughters; François Mieux, daughter Anne, 5 sons, 5 daughters; Jean LeBlanc, wife Marie, 2 sons, 5 daughters; .Charle Fevre, Margueritte, no children; Germain Dupuis, no wife, 1 son, 2 daughters; Pierre Broux, no wife, 5 sons, 4 daughters; Germain Dupuis, his unnamed wife, 4 sons, 4 daughters; Vivier Dupuis, daughter Anne, 3 sons, 2 daughters; François Dupuis, wife Françoise, 2 sons, 3 daughters; Jean Dupuis, wife Josette, 1 son; Dominique Thibodeau, wife Anne, 1 daughter; Abel Duont, wife Anne, 1 son, 2 daughters; Jacque Mirat, wife Jeanne, 3 sons, 2 daughters; Jacque Mirat, Mariee, 1 son, 2 daughter; and Lorant Menier--a total of 1,043 Acadian men, women, and children on this list.277

Typically, hundreds of these Acadians, tired of waiting for the French response, took matters into their own hands.  Carl Brasseaux notes that, after the war ended and the colonial authorities relaxed their grip on the exiles, "Acadians, in large numbers, abandoned the towns to which they had been assigned in 1755-56 and began to congregate on the colony's larger urban areas"--mostly Boston and its environs.  When, later in 1763, word came up from the French Antilles that Acadians were welcome to go to St.-Domingue to work on a major project there, "at least 300" of them left the colony for the sugar colony, as hundreds more of their compatriots were doing down the seacoast.  An additional 300 set their sights on British Canada, where at least they could settle among fellow exiles who had taken refuge there soon after escaping the deportations in Nova Scotia.  When the authorities in Boston heard of it, they forbade the Acadians permission to leave the colony.  Needless to say, Brasseaux notes, this did not deter all of them.  Several hundred "secretly left the colony for Quebec by way of Lake Champlain.  Another party of Acadians, numbering 116 persons, sailed from Boston for St. Pierre and Miquelon, barren, wind-swept islands" off the southern coast of Newfoundland, "which were France's sole remaining North American possessions."  They arrived at Miquelon the first of October 1763.  Agriculture on any scale was impossible on the islands, but these rocky piles had been retained by France for the nearby cod fishery.  The former aboiteaux builders from the Fundy shore would try their hand at fishing.  The Acadians who remained in the Bay Colony burdened the colonial authorities with two demands:  "work and improved living conditions" if they remained in the colony, or "British subsidized resettlement in Canada" if they chose to leave.  "The former demand was rejected," Brasseaux relates, "but, having grown weary of the Acadians, the provincial assembly entertained the second request" despite the need for the cheap labor the Acadians had been providing for nearly a decade.  Then, in the summer of 1765, a radical organization, the Sons of Liberty, rioted in Boston against the provisions of a Stamp Act recently passed by the British Parliament.  Acadians could see that whatever peace they may have enjoyed in Boston was about to end.  It was time go.  According to Brasseaux, "Acadian delegates," no doubt with permission from Governor Bernard, "were dispatched to Canada to confer with the Canadian government" about resettling there.278

Acadian efforts paid off when, in early 1766, the military governor of Lower Canada, James Murray, "issued a proclamation offering land there to the Acadians" still languishing in the British seaboard colonies.  Murray reasoning to allow it was sound:  "'I think it will be for the good of the British Empire in General and that of this Province in particular that these people were settled here upon the same footing with His Majesty's new Canadian subjects, and therefore I shall not hesitate to receive them.'"  Among "His Majesty's new Canadian subjects" were "several thousand Acadian refugees" who began arriving at Québec in 1756 after escaping the deportations in Nova Scotia.  Though, from the late summer of 1757 into the summer of 1758, more than 300 of these refugees died in a smallpox epidemic that ravaged Québec and its environs, most of the Acadians survived the scourge and, despite the scorn of the French Canadians, found new homes in the St. Lawrence valley.  Governor Murray did have one demand the new arrivals must meet before they could set foot in Lower Canada:  They must take the oath of allegiance to the British Crown, without reservation.  "His proposal raised considerable excitement among the Acadians in New England," John Mack Faragher relates.  In Massachusetts, Acadian leaders petitioned the governor "for assistance[,] and he sent their request to the Assembly with an endorsement."  Governor Bernard's reasoning also was sound:  "'It was by the exigencies of War rather than any fault of their own that they were removed from a state of ease and affluence and brought into poverty and dependence,'" he reminded the Assembly.  "'You have now an opportunity at no great Expence to dispose of these People, so that instead of being a burthen to the Province and to themselves as they are like to continue whilst they remain here, they may become a fresh accession of wealth and strength to the British Empire in America."  True to form, however, "The House declined to help."  No matter, that summer, after encouragement by Governor Bernard and officials in the towns where the former exiles remained, "Acadian men representing 890 persons voluntarily took the oath of allegiance," without reservation.  With proof of their having taken the once-hated oath, Acadians got to Lower Canada or the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore, as extention of the North Shore, as best they could, "some by vessel, some on foot," some on their own, most with the help of others.  In 1767, former exiles from neighboring Connecticut followed them there.  "By 1770," Faragher notes, "at least four thousand persons were living in predominantly Acadian communities in Canada with another two thousand along the North Shore, which was technically governed from Halifax, but in fact was outside the range of Nova Scotian authority."279

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By 1770, then, only Maryland held a substantial number of former Acadian exiles who chose to remain where they had been deported in 1755.  Most of the Acadians in Maryland, however, had refused to remain there and, following the example of their fellow refugees from Halifax, chose Spanish Louisiana as their new home.  Deportees to Virginia had been shuttled off to England less than a year after they reached Hampton Roads and were now in France, either on the north shore of Brittany, where they had landed after repatriation in 1763, or on Belle-Île-en-Mer, off the southern coast of Brittany, which they settled in 1765.  Many of the exiles from Georgia and South Carolina, followed soon after by compatriots from Pennsylvania, New York, and New England, had hurried off to Cap-Français and Port-au-Prince for a new life on French soil, in St.-Domingue.  Meanwhile, most of the Acadians in Pennsylvania joined their compatriots in neighboring Maryland and followed them to Louisiana, where, by 1770, over 1,300 former exiles had settled.  However, the largest single contribution to the North American diaspora was made by the former exiles from New England, primarily from Massachusetts, who pored into British Canada and present-day New Brunswick in 1766 and 1767, joining hundreds of their Acadian cousins already there.  In the entirety of the Acadian diaspora in 1770, only the Acadians in France approached the number of Canadiens of Acadian heritage, with their Cadien cousins of Louisiana not far behind.  That so many Acadians found their way to these far-flung corners of the North American continent came from a common source:  their refusal to submit to British dominance, to surrender their culture, their language and religion, and become like "them."280

Resistance and Refuge along the Gulf of St. Lawrence, 1755-1759

Acadian armed resistance against the British began, or, more properly, resumed before the first deportation transports left the Bay of Fundy.  From the beginning of this new war with Britain, as it had been during the previous one, the center of Acadian resistance was the trois-rivières region west of Chignecto.  Effective leaders are essential for a successful resistance, but Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Monckton's masterful capture of French forts Beauséjour and Gaspereau in June 1755, followed by a series of roundups of Acadian men from the Chignecto and trois-rivières area, including the Beausoleil Broussard brothers, had crippled, for a time, Acadian resistance in the area.  Moreover, the most dangerous resistance leader of them all had managed to slip away.  While cleverly disguised, the Abbé Jean-Louis Le Loutre, head of the Native bands in the region, slipped away during the chaos of the fort's surrender and made his way back to Québec, never to return.  Still, there was the young French-Canadian officer, Lieutenant Charles des Champs de Boishébert, still in command on the lower Rivière St.-Jean.  After the fall of the Chignecto forts, only Boishébert's small force of 120 men, including Natives, remained to menace British interests in the region.271

It was this young lieutenant who began to threaten the redcoats' hold on the area.  In early September, while the Broussards were still enjoying an amnesty granted to them by Monckton after the fall of Beauséjour, Boishébert, some of his Canadians and troupes de la marine from the lower St.-Jean, the Broussards and other local partisans, and a small force of Indians following Boishébert, ambushed a large New-English raiding party from Fort Cumberland née Beauséjour under New-English Major Joseph Frye.  A number of miles up the tide-churned Petitcoudiac lay the Broussards' settlement at today's Boundary Creek, so, essentially, they and his fellow partisans were defending their own homes when Frye and his Yankees came calling.  The result was an embarrassing running retreat for the New-English marauders, who, up to the moment of the ambush, had, over a two-day period, burned 253 houses and barns in a number of area Acadian hamlets.  Over the following weeks, Boishébert and his hodge podge force struck the redcoats whenever the opportunity arose, including at Baie-Verte and Fort Cumberland itself.  He hoped to stop or slow the deportation of the area Acadians, but his force was too small and the enemy too numerous for him to fulfill such an ambitious mission.281

Without the cooperation of the navy, Monckton could not bag Boishébert and his men, who used the portage between the upper Petitcoudiac and the lower St.-Jean to take advantage of interior lines, but Monckton did have an ace in the hole to bring in the local partisans:  his trusty New-English rangers.  Sometime in September, the rangers brought in the two aging partisan leaders, Alexandre, age 56, and Joseph, age 53, along with Alexandre's second son, the 27-year-old Victor.  Monckton ordered Joseph to be held with other partisans at Fort Lawrence, and Alexandre and son Victor remained with other partisans at Fort Cumberland.  On October 1, two weeks before the transports full of Chignecto-area exiles left the landing at the mouth of the Missaguash and headed for the rendezvous in the Annapolis Basin, Joseph Broussard, several of his grown sons and nephews, and other partisans, 86 in all, escaped during a thunderstorm through a muddy tunnel they had dug from the barracks to the south curtain of Fort Lawrence, "above thiry Feet," Monckton lamented.  The Acadian resistance was on again.  Brother Alexandre and nephew Victor were not so lucky.  When, on October 13, the eight transports with nearly 1,800 Chignecto-area Acadians aboard and three escort vessels left the Missaguash landing, one of the escorts, the HMS Syren, carried a special "cargo" in its hold--21 Acadians held in irons, including Alexandre Broussard dit Beausoleil and son Victor, heading for Charles Town, South Carolina.282  

Other partisan bands operated in the area.  One was led by Pierre Surette II of Chignecto, a friend of the Beausoleil Broussards for many years.  Surette's father, Pierre I, a French-born mariner from La Rochelle, had come to Acadia by 1709, when he married a Pellerin at Port-Royal, a year before it fell to the British.  The couple settled on the haute rivière above Annapolis Royal, where Pierre worked as a mariner-merchant as well as a  farmer.  Fluent in English, though he was no fan of the British, Pierre served as an interlocutor between his maritime customers at Minas and the authorites at Annapolis Royal.  His oldest of three sons, Pierre II, born at Port-Royal in December 1709, married a Breau at Grand-Pré in 1732 and lived there for a time before moving on to Beaubassin, where his hatred of the British could be more fully expressed.  He, too, was a farmer as well as a mariner, like his father.  Pierre II and his brothers operated with the Broussards during King George's War, including the failed attack on Fort Anne at Annapolis Royal in 1746.  Luckily for the Surettes, at war's end, none appeared on Governor William Shirley's list of Acadian outlaws, though, during the war, younger brother Paul had spent time in the dungeon at Fort Anne for running afoul of the British.  Middle brother Joseph, married to a Thériot, did not live to see Le Grand Dérangement; he drowned in the Petitcoudiac near his home in c1750.  When Fort Beauséjour fell five years later, brother Paul was still a bachelor, in his mid-30s, and, after escaping the roundup at Annapolis Royal, may have joined his brother in the Acadian resistance.  When the roundup began at Chignecto, or perhaps before it began, Pierre II and his family most likely headed to the trois-rivières, where wife Catherine and the children would be safe.  Pierre II either joined Joseph Beausoleil and his partisans or organized a band of his own.  The winter of 1755-56 witnessed a number of attacks by the Broussards and Boishébert's men and perhaps by Surette's band as well.  In retaliation, they, too, were struck hard by rangers out of Fort Cumberland, and Pierre II and dozens of others were held there as prisoners.  Pierre II, like his father fluent in English, ingratiated himself with the officers there while he and his fellow partisans prepared an escape.  On the night of 26 February 1756, 80 Acadians, led by Pierre II, tunneled their way out of Fort Cumberland and, à la Joseph Broussard and his men the previous October, escaped into the countryside.186

So the resistance continued.  In the summer of 1756, Joseph Broussard and his men were operating either from their homes on the upper Petitcoudiac or from Cocagne, Boishébert's new headquarters on the Gulf shore, where Joseph welcomed two members of his merry band he may not have expected ever to see again.  Back in February, brother Alexandre and nephew Victor had escaped from a work house at Charles Town, South Carolina, with half a dozen other Acadians, raided a plantation on the lower Santee River, made their way crosscountry to the foothills of the Appalachians, and followed the myriad Indian trails across the face of the mountains to Fort Duquesne at the forks of the Ohio.  From there they pushed on via the lower Great Lakes and the upper St. Lawrence to Montréal and Québec, canoed down to Rivière-du-Loup, followed the portage via Lac Pohénégamook to the headwaters of Rivière St.-Jean, canoed down that river to its lower stretches and, finally, after a few more portages, home.  One can only imagine the joy of Alexandre's wife Marguerite and her other children when they were able to hug their loved ones again.  Sadly, the other Acadians who had joined Alexandre and Victor in their mad escape did not survive the punishing trek.283

Meanwhile, the Mi'kmaq and Maliseet, encouraged by Abbé Pierre Maillard from his mission in the interior of Île Royale and by other missionaries in the region, also continued their resistance against the British.  The petit guerre that Abbé Le Loutre had fomented six years earlier was now, for the Natives, war against their red-coated enemy on a grander scale.339

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From August to October 1755, Robert Monckton and his redcoats and Yankees were able to roundup over 1,800 Acadians from Chignecto and the trois-rivières and pack them aboard eight transports destined for Georgia, South Carolina, and Pennsylvania.  According to historian/geographer Andrew Hill Clark, at the time of the deportation approximately 2,800 Acadians lived at Chignecto and in the trois-rivières.  A more recent counts puts it closer to 2,900 based on censuses taken there in late 1754 and early 1755.  In 1756, Nova Scotia judge Charles Morris estimated that 285 Acadians remained in those communities.  If many hundreds of them escaped the deportation, and less than 300 of them remained the following year, where did the others go to stay clear of the redcoats and Yankees?284 

Assuming that most of these Chignecto-area escapees survived the ordeal (many of them certainly did not), several possible routes were open for them to refuges near and far.  First was the upper Petitcoudiac, where, after the fiasco on the lower Petitcoudiac in September 1755, remained clear of British raids, except, of course, for the New-English rangers, who went wherever they chose to go.  Another refuge not so far away, but a bit more difficult to manage, was Île St.-Jean, north of Baie-Verte, which entire families could reach if they could secure safe passage across Mer Rouge, today's Northumberland Strait; but this refuge was open to them only until July 1758, when Île Royale and Île St.-Jean fell to the British.  According to Abbé François Le Guerne, "close to 500 persons from the Beauséjour and Tintamarre districts made their way directly to Île-Saint-Jean in November 1755" under his guidance.  Also relatively near were the yet-unmolested Acadian villages on lower Rivière St.-Jean above the trading post at Jemseg, which could be reached from the upper Petitcoudiac via a short portage to Rivière Kennebecasis, a tributary of the lower St.-Jean.  Some chose, however, none of these close-in refuges but opted to go all the way up to Canada.  The more direct way to the upper St. Lawrence, of course, was via ship from Cocagne along the eastern shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, round the Gaspé peninsula, and then up and up the mighty St. Lawrence to the walls of Québec.  During and after the deportations, however, the Royal Navy employed many patrols along this ancient route first taken by Jacques Cartier of St.-Malo two centuries earlier.  The more secure route from Chignecto to Canada was the interior one, used for hundreds of years by the region's Natives--up the Petitcoudiac, across to the Kennebecasis, and then up and up Rivière St.-Jean, past the lower villages above and below St.-Anne-du-Pay-Bas, up to and around Grand Falls, past Madawaska, and on to Lac Pohénégamook, Rivière-du-Loup, and Québec.  According to historian Ronnie-Gilles LeBlanc, "some 300 families from the Tintamarre, Memramcook, Petitcodiac, and Shepody River settlements did escape expulsion in the fall of 1755.  Although some left for Île-Saint-Jean, about 250 families remained in the region at the end of autumn," some huddling on the Memramcook.  This refuge was abandoned early, however, after three British raids from Fort Cumberland struck villages along the Memramcook during the fall and early winter of 1755-56.  As he did for the refugees from Beauséjour and Tintamarre, Abbé Le Guerne led 50 families of some 230 persons from Memramcook to Cocagne on the Gulf shore, where they spent a hard winter before crossing to Île St.-Jean. 

These refuges, of course, were available to escapees from the other Fundy settlements as well, just not as easily; a recent estimation of the total number of Acadians in Nova Scotia who escaped expulsion is an astonishing 3,172, most of them from the Chignecto/trois-rivères settlements.  The few Acadians who had escaped the roundups in the Minas Basin--Minas Proper as well as Pigiguit--after their sojourn in the woods, could have made their way by water or land to Cobeguit, at the eastern end of the basin, abandoned by the Acadians during the first phase of the expulsion, then over the highlands to the North Shore settlements still intact, from which they could cross Mer Rouge to Île St.-Jean.  A more direct route from the Minas settlements would have been across the basin to its north shore and then overland to Chignecto, though one would have had to elude the British garrisons at forts Lawrence and Cumberland to get through Chignecto to the trois-rivières and then to the Gulf shore.  A safer route for Minas escapees, but not as ideal as the Cobeguit route, would have been to head toward North Mountain and the south Fundy shore near the headwaters of the Annapolis River.  In late 1755, after the expulsion at Annapolis Royal, Minas escapees may have met refugees coming up from the Annapolis River basin via the haute rivière villages on the old Indian route to Minas.  Those escapees from Annapolis Royal who had not fled southward to the villages near Cap-Sable spent the winter of 1755-56 in the woods along the slopes of North Mountain, overlooking the south Fundy shore, waiting for a chance to cross the tide-churned bay to the other shore.  Doing so would have required sturdy boats, manned by experienced pilots, to navigate the treacherous tides of lower Chignecto Bay, up to the north shore at Chepoudy.  Once at Chepoudy, which the British destroyed before the deportations but where Acadians still hid, they could have made their way up the small eponymous river there to the upper Petitcoudiac, a refuge in itself, but also the gateway to the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore, Île St.-Jean, or the lower Rivière St.-Jean and the inland route to Canada.285

Despite the efforts of Abbé Le Guerne and Boishébert to steer them to Canada or Île St.-Jean, most of the escapees from the Fundy settlements chose to find refuge on the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore north of the trois-rivières, first at Cocagne, then at Miramichi, and finally at Restigouche at the head of the Baie des Chaleurs, the last stronghold of the French in North America.  They could not know it, but these "refuges," especially the ones lower down the shore, would prove to be a hell on earth for the desperate escapees.  "Although French authorities in Québec made an attempt to supply the refugees with provisions," John Mack Faraghter relates, "for the most part they had to fend for themselves.  Conditions in the camps were barely tolerable during summer and fall, when hunting and fishing were possible."  The winters, on the other hand, were unbearable, creating perhaps the most primitive conditions anywhere at any time during the Acadian diaspora.  During the first winter of the expulsion, 1755-56, spent at Cocagne, of the 600 or so Acadians there, "hundreds of refugees died from exposure, hunger, and disease," Faragher notes.  Abbé Le Guerne, who succeeded Abbé Le Loutre as the spiritual leader of the Mi'kmaq, witnessed the first winter of suffering among not only his charges, but also among the Acadian refugees who had fled to the shore.  His description of the Acadians is especially memorable:  "The Acadians and Mikmaq were surviving on a diet of wild game and mangy cattle, and 'in truth, so poor is the meat that even the Indians reject it, carnivorous as they are,'" the abbé quipped.  "Men, women, and children were suffering from malnutrition and dysentery, and had become listless and apathetic," Faragher adds.  "He," the abbé, "recommended their immediate evacuation to Canada," and some did try to get to Canada via the lower St. Lawrence, but the cleric "admitted that most of the Acadians expressed a reluctance to leave, 'for then they must say goodbye to their country, their villages, their homes.'  They feared famine on Ile Saint-Jean and British attack at Louisbourg.  'And they imagine, with some degree of dismay, that once in Canada they will never return from exile.  Such is the way of thinking of these good people who have never yet left their country.'  "Le Guerne offered a clear-headed description of the sentiments of the Acadians as they looked into the abyss," Faragher adds.  "'To hear them talk,'" the abbé goes on, "'people everywhere else are miserable.  L'Acadie, they say, until these last few years, was an earthly paradise.  They still think we will soon have peace, or that l'Acadie will, perhaps, be reclaimed by a French fleet over the course of the following summer, or within two years, at most.  In the meantime, they hide and wait.'"286

The French did not come to rescue them, nor did they soon have peace.  Instead, the redcoats from Fort Cumberland soon appeared in force "to scour the countryside, drive them out of hiding, and bring them in for deportation."  The result was another petite guerre, this one within the larger conflict.  "Joined by the Mikmaq," John Mack Faragher relates, "the refugees resisted in the only way poorly equipped irregular forces can--by using stealth, ambush, and terror.  Soon the British were conducting nothing but search and destroy operations, and the Acadians began to realize that they would never be able to go back to the old life.  'Nothing is left to us,' declared one group, 'but the desire for revenge.'  By the summer of 1756, a full-fledged guerilla war was producing far more violence and far more killing than the province had ever experienced before." This, of course, is what the leaders in Québec and Louisbourg urged the Acadians to do.  "Clearly," Ronnie-Gilles LeBlanc points out, "the Acadians were, first and foremost, meant to serve the interests of France."  Governor-General Vaudreuil in Québec took a dim view of the Acadians' lack of action against the British in the summer of 1756," when they would have been spending most of their time and energy simply trying to feed themselves.  Vaudreuil "intended to urge Boishébert and the missionaries to incite the Acadians and the Natives to make war on the British, for,' the governor-general wrote to his superior in France, 'it would not be right that they be in the King's care unless they prove for certain that they are zealous in his Majesty's service.'"  In other words, the notion of Acadian "neutrality" would not be tolerated while they lived on French soil.  At the center of this petite guerre was Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil, now in his early 50s, who had been tangling with the British for three decades now and who had never for a moment seen himself as "neutral."  A legendary figure among his fellow Acadians, it was said that Beausoleil, "'a skilled hunter, and intrepid warrior without equal," had ""killed not less than one thousand English.'"  Few Acadians were more acquainted with the Mi'kmaq than Joseph and his older brother Alexandre, who were said to be fluent in Mikmawisimk, the language of that nation.  Joseph had held his own during King George's War, so much so that Governor Shirley of Massachusetts declared him an outlaw.  Joseph and his brother also were active in Abbé Le Loutre's petite guerre against the authorities at Halifax between the imperial wars, and they led the Acadian militia against Monckton at Beauséjour in the opening days of the current conflict.  Joseph's recent escape from Fort Lawrence, and his brother's trek from South Carolina, already were the stuff of legend.  Their seven grown sons--Alexandre's Joseph-Grégoire, Victor of the long trek, Jean-Baptiste, and Anselme; and Joseph's Jean-Grégoire, Joseph dit Petit Jos, and Raphaël--acted as their fathers' lieutenants in the brutal resistance that followed.  Pierre Surrette II and his band, once they broke free of confinement, also remained part of the resistance movement on the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore. 

In the next several years, in the interior of Nova Scotia and up and down the Gulf shore, the brutality of the petite guerre took its toll not only on the Acadian partisans, but also on the redcoats and New English militia who were unlucky enough to be stationed on the Fundy shores, not only at the three forts at Chignecto, but also at Fort Anne at Annapolis Royal and Fort Edward at Pigiguit.  There, in April 1757, partisans killed 13 redcoats and, after taking what provisions they could carry away, burned a warehouse, and disappeared into the surrounding woods.  Even British supply vessels on the Bay of Fundy were not exempt from attack.  Not until the summer of 1757 were Yankee militiamen at Fort Cumberland, after two years of hard service, finally relieved by redcoats from Ireland sent to New France for an attack on Louisbourg that had to be postponed.  One of the newly-arrived redcoat officers, Lieutanant John Knox of the 43rd Regiment of Foot, was amazed by the poor morale of the troops at Fort Cumberland, who, in the words of one of them, "'expect every moment to be swallowed up by the French and Indians, and we dare not stray out of our lines for fear of losing our scalps...,'" which some of them did.  Some also were captured by the partisans and held as hostages.  In December 1757, partisans, perhaps led by Guillaume dit Billy Jeanson of Annapolis Royal, along with some Mi'kmaq fighters, ambushed a large patrol of recoats at a bridge over the haute rivière near the old Bloody Creek battlesite, killing an officer and 18 men.  Lieutenant Knox was one of the lucky survivors and wrote in his journal:  "'They knew the country ... and we were strangers to it,' the lament of many an occupying army fighting partisans on their own ground."  The commander at Fort Anne offered to ransom the return of captured redcoats.  In March 1758, Lieutenant Knox was part of the flag-of-truce parlay that discussed the exchange.  He described the Acadian guerillas he encountered  as "'a raw, hardy, active, yet mean set of fellows....'"287

And so they were. 

It was during the second winter of exile, that of 1756-57, spent at Miramichi, up the shore from Cocagne, that the suffering of the Acadian refugees became truly unendurable.  The place had been chosen in the spring of 1756 not by Abbé Le Guerne, who continued to insist on the movement to Canada, but by Boishébert, who looking for a closer place from which to communicate with Québec, and by Le Guerne's fellow missionary Abbé Jean Manach, who ministered to the Mi'kmaq at Miramichi.  Abbé Le Guerne believed that Boishébert also chose the site because of its proximity to the local fur trade.  Boishébert received permission from the governor-general to move the refugees still on Rivière St.-Jean, where they remained vulnerable to a British thrust up the river, to Miramichi, where Boishébert could "put them to work making sheds to store the supplies that Monsieur the Intendant is going to send."  Abbé Le Guerne was appalled by what he saw at the new refuge.  He described the site, present-day Boishébert's or Beaubears Island, as "10 leagues above the Native mission in a frightful location, where no crop has ever been planted, and where there is nothing to hunt and little to fish."  By late summer, the new refuge, called Camp Espérance, "took shape."  The Acadians from Cocagne and Rivière St.-Jean were not alone at Camp Hope.  "There were also Aboriginal families, allies of the French, whose menfolk had been recruited to fight the British in return for sustenance," Ronnie-Gilles LeBlanc relates.  "Like the Acadian refugees, the First Nations people living as the King's dependents were expected to prove themselves useful to him."  They were doing just that, and had become essential to the Acadians' survival as well.  "In the refugee camp at Cocagne, during the winter of 1755-1756," LeBlanc relates, "there were several families of Caniba (Kennebec), Malecite, and Abenaki who had followed Boishébert after his retreat from Fort Ménagouèche at the mouth of the Saint John River.  The men had participated in Boishébert's campaigns on the Petitcodiac River and in the Isthmus of Chignecto region during autumn 1755.  These were the Aboriginal fighters who retrieved from the British the livestock confiscated from the Acadians during the preceding summer and fall.  With these animals, both the Native and the Acadian refugee families were able to feed themselves over that winter."  Abbé Le Guerne estimated that there were "400 to 500 Native families[sic, probably individuals]" at Miramichi who Boishébert "kept for military operations," especially for the relief of Louisbourg, which the French expected the British to attack the following summer.288

Abbé Le Guerne may have been right about the physical unsuitability of the place, but what is certain is that the timing of their being there, so far from their base of supply on the St. Lawrence, was a formula for disaster.  "It happened that Camp Espérance was established at a time of scracity throughout New France and the colonies of Île Royale and Île Saint-Jean," Ronnie-Gilles LeBlanc reminds us.  He tells the story best:  "As early as the beginning of the winter of 1756-1757," the 1,800 or so persons at Camp Espérange--Natives, officers, soldiers, and approximately 1,300 or 1,400 Acadian refugees, twice as many as the number of Acadians had endured the winter at Cocagne the previous year--"ran out of food.  At first, as promised, Intendant François Bigot sent out from Québec a ship loaded with provisions for the Miramichi, even though the whole of Québec itself was low on food.  Unfortunately, contrary winds forced the ship to stop along the way.  Boishébert also looked to Île Saint-Jean for help, but Villejouin," the commandant there, "could do nothing for him, since the colony was down to the last of its own provisions.  As a result, by the beginning of winter, with the fish depleted--and despite the 40 cattled that had arrived from Petitcodiac--the shortage was so severe that Boishébert was forced to reduce rations for the Acadian refugees, the Aboriginal families, and the soldiers.  The bread ran out very quickly.  People resorted to eating the hide of the cattle they had consumed the year before, along with the small remaining supply of seal oil.  Once those items were gone, breast-feeding children died."  One of Boishébert's detractors claimed that "all the children perished, which seems unlikely"; the governor-general later testified that "it was the unweaned children" who died.  Among the many children who died were Jean and Joseph, the three-year-old twin sons of Victor Broussard and his wife Isabelle LeBlanc.  Among the many women who died was Agnès Thibodeau, the wife of Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil, who never remarried.  Governor-General Vaudreuil later reported to the Minister of Marine:  The Acadians at Miramichi "are watching their children die at the breast, unable to sustain them.  Most have to stay in their shelters because they lack even the rags to conceal their nudity.  Many Acadians have died.  A considerable number are ill, and those who are convalescing cannot get back on their feet because of the poor quality of their food.  They are often forced to eat emaciated horses, walrus, and the hides of cattle."  LeBlanc continues: "The desperate Acadians began suspecting that surplus food had been hidden from them.  In January 1757, they rebelled and armed themselves to force the supposed hoarders to share.  Boishébert had to intervene.  He demanded the know what they were doing, to which they responded:  'Prolonger nos jours' (i.e., 'staying alive').  Boishébert was so distressed and moved by the answer that he immediately turned over half of his own food reserves."  He also went into action.  He "recruited anyone with enough remaining strength to build sleds to transport the weakest persons over the snow to the Pokemouch River, about 26 leagues away (some 100 kilometers)" or 62 miles.  The Pokemouche lay northeast of Miramichi, near present-day Inkerman, New Brunwick, at the south end of a peninsula washed by the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the south and the Baie des Chaleurs to the north.  "A group of 500 persons undertook the painful journey, of whom 83 died.  Had it not been for some cattle hides that Abbé Manach gave them as they passed by his mission (10 leagues, about 40 kilometers, from Camp Espérance), the death toll would have been even greater."  Despite every attempt to feed the 1,200 persons left at the refuge, Boishébert "had no food left."  He "suggested that another group follow the earlier migration to the Pokemouche River and bring back a supply of fish for those staying behind.  Of the party who went, three did not make it to the destination, but after 11 days, the others returned to Camp Espérance with the bit of help everyond was waiting for.  This sustenance was enough to enable another wave of the feeblest refugees to set out for the Pokemouche.  By many repeated excursions for fish, the camp was able to get through the winter.  By the end of March, however, the ice had become too thin to allow any more trips to the Pokemouche, and the supplies of fish and eels were quickly depleted.  People had to fall back to eating any leftover beaver skins, and soon had nothing to consume but their deerskin footwear.  And so, Boishébert, 'the officers, soldiers, and Acadians, all completely debilitated, collapsed to the ground,' waiting to die.  Just at that point," LeBlanc relates, "a ship loaded with provisions from Québec made it through the ice to Miramichi."  Starvation was only part of the horror.  According to Abbé Le Guerne, "the Acadians also suffered from a contagious disease."  "'Last winter,'" he recalled, "'these poor people died in great numbers from hunger and want, and those who eluded death (in that season) have failed to escape a horrible contagion,'" which he did not name, but some sources say smallpox, "'and famine has driven them to eat their shoe leather, spoiled animal carcasses, and, in some cases, even animal dung, and propriety forbids me from saying more.'"  According to calculations made by Ronnie-Gilles LeBlanc, approximately 400 Acadian refugees died at Camp Espérance during the terrible winter of 1756-57--one in three of every man, woman, and child, and an even higher percentage of the young children there.289

When spring finally came, 120 Acadians left for Québec, leaving nearly 900 remaining on the Gulf shore.  Not until early May 1757, well into spring, did Intendant Bigot in Québec send another re-supply.  Meanwhile, in late April, a supply boat sent by the governor of Île Royale and under the command of Alexandre, son of Joseph LeBlanc dit Le Maigre of King George's War fame, left Port-Toulouse on the island to succor the Acadians at Miramichi.  After this, "supply ships arrived regularly," Ronnie-Gilles LeBlanc notes, in June, September, and December 1757, and in September, October, and November 1758, "ensuring provisions for Camp Espérance....  As a result," LeBlanc concludes, "the winters of 1757-1758 and 1758-1759 were much less onerous for the refugees of Camp Espérance, who at least had a bite to eat, probably including meat, lard, and salt fish."  But soon after the fall of Louisbourg in July 1758, as part of a large amphibious operation in the Gulf region under Brigadier-General James Wolfe, a separate expedition under the command of future British-Canadian governor Colonel James Murray was sent to the Miramichi and arrived at its estuary in early September.  Ironically, Camp Espérance's location, far up a river with a narrow channel full of treacherous shallows, prevented its destruction.  After torching what he could at the mouth of the river and along the shores of Miramichi Bay, Murray and his ships returned to Louisbourg, the expedition only a partial success. 

More successful were British thrusts into the trois-rivières for the first time since Frye's diaster on the lower Petitcoudiac in September 1755.  Though Frye's expedition out of Fort Cumberland née Beauséjour had destroyed the Acadian communities at Chepoudy, Frye's defeat left the Petitcoudiac, especially its upper reaches, virtually untouched by British action.  Even an attack in November 1755 by Captain George Scott, the new commander of Fort Cumberland, against Acadian settlements on the Memramcook, a tributary of the Petitcoudiac, did not clear out the Acadians from the trois-rivières.  Chepoudy, in fact, was rebuilt by returning settlers by September 1767, destroyed again by a British attack there on September 10, and rebuilt again by March 1758, when Joseph Gorham's rangers found women and children there, the men, fighting as privateers, having circled around to the shore near Fort Cumberland, where they attacked a British schooner.  The remarkable resiliency of the trois-rivières settlements ended in the summer of 1768, before and after the fall of the French fortress at Louisbourg in July.  In June, while the British were besieging the island citadel, a force of 53 New-English rangers led by Benoni Danks headed to the upper Petitcoudiac to drive away any partisans or M'kmaq fighters they might find there.  By July 1, they had reached the site of present-day Moncton, where they ambushed 30 partisans led by Beausoleil Broussard, who was still operating in the area.  Many of the Acadians were driven into the river, including one of Beausoleil Broussard's sons, three of them killed and scalped, others captured, and Beausoleil Broussard himself was seriously wounded.  Back at Fort Cumberland, Danks reportedly insisted the scalps he took on the Petitcoudiac were Mi'kmaq and demanded a bounty for them.  The British appearance aboard four deportation transports at Port-La-Joye on French Île St.-Jean in early August precipitated an exodus from the outlying settlements on the western half of the island.  Dozens of them, in their own boats or with the assistance of Acadian privateers, crossed Mer Rouge to Gulf shore refuges.  In September, Roger's rangers struck the trois-rivières again and burned a settlement there of a hundred buildings.  This time the Acadian partisans captured five redcoats and retreated to the safety of Boishébert's camp at Miramichi.  Danks' rangers, under command of Major George Scott, returned to the Petitcoudiac on November 12, after Monckton's raid on the lower St. John had established for them a new base at the mouth of the big river.  The purpose of this final raid into the trois-rivières was to destroy the Broussard homestead on the upper river at Boundary Creek.  Danks captured only four men and a dozen women and children on the river, but from them he learned the location of the Broussard settlement.  Hurrying upriver in one of Silvanus Cobb's sloops, they found no one there but did take the time to kill the partisans' livestock, burn their fields, and destroy their village.  More skirmishes between rangers and partisans continued up and down the river into November.  Having achieved their mission, Scott and the rangers returned with their prisoners to their new base at the blockhouse at the mouth of the St. John.  Refugees from the upper Petitcoudiac abandoned what was left of the trois-rivières settlements, never to return.  They hurried up to Miramichi, from which some of the men joined Boishébert in a distant raid on the coast of Maine in September.  The following year, in early November 1759, a huge storm devastated the entire Fundy region, including the dykes and fields on the upper Petitcoudiac and along the Memramcook.  Here, historian Ronne-Gilles LeBlanc notes, was "the death knell, so to speak, for the Acadian resisters of the Petitcodiac.  The storm flooded their fields with salt water--fields that had been marshland, which they had dyked and drained with great pain and effort.  There was no hope of reconstructing their lives along the river, once the destructions of the land was added to the previous year's total loss of their homes." 

After a little more than half a century, Acadian presence in the trois-rivières, once the center of Acadian resistance, was over ... for now.  

No matter, with the British in control of the French maritime islands, as well as the trois-rivières, the fate of Boishébert's Camp Espérance "was permanently sealed."  Yet, after Boishébert returned to the camp after conducting an unsuccessful raid on the lower Penobscot River in Maine, he not only did not abandon Beaubear's Island but transformed Camp Espérance into a regular military post, with a "commander's house, barracks, a hospital, a forge, a bakery, the priest's house, warehouses, and even a wharf."  He also constructed fortified positions on the Miramichi below Beaubear's Island, at Caraquet and Baie-des-Oines farther up the shore, "and even a house upriver on the Miramichi at the starting point of the portage to the Saint-Jean."  Here was a solid base for Acadian privateers like Beausoleil Broussard, Pierre Surette II, and Nicolas Gauthier, fils, who had received permission from the governor-general to resort to privateering along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts.  Here also were clear signs that, despite the loss of Louisbourg, the Maritime islands, and the trois-rivières, Boishébert was determined to enhance the French presence on the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore.290

Just not from Miramichi.  In the spring of 1759, after nearly three years of occupation, "Boishébert ... transferred the encampment from the Miramichi to Restigouche, further north," at the head of the Baie des Chaleurs.  "The families from Île Saint-Jean followed, along with the refugee families who had been at Camp Espérance since the summer of 1756," notes Ronnie-Gilles LeBlanc.  However, some of the families who had endured the terrible winter at Camp Hope did not follow Boishébert to Restigouche.  In 1758, they had left the place of horror and dispersed along the Gulf shore from Miramichi Bay up to Caraquet, on the south shore of Baie des Chaleurs, where they fished or joined the local Mi'kmaq in the fur trade.  Meanwhile, Boishébert established a new Acadian refuge, Petite-Rochelle, on the north bank of Rivière Restigouche near its mouth, where refugees from the area began to gather and which became a new base for the Acadian privateers.  At the end of June 1759, after four years of faithful service, Boishébert, still only a lieutenant, turned over command of Petite-Rochelle and his troupes de la marine to Lieutenant Jean-François Bourdon de Dambourg.  Under orders from the governor-general, Boishébert then made his way to Québec, where, with a band of Indians and Acadian volunteers, he fought in the defense of the city and in the climactic battle of September 13.  He returned to Acadie that winter to gather more Acadian reinforcements for the defense of Canada and restore the refugees' flagging morale.  There, he vigorously opposed his former confederates, abbés Manach and Maillard, who had encouraged the Acadians to submit to the British.  After the fall of Canada in September 1760, Boishébert returned to France, where he was accused of being a part of the so-called "Canada Affair" that, among other things, involved mismanagement by former Intendant Bigot of government funds intended for the starving Acadians.  In spite of his gallant service in New France, the young Canadian was arrested and thrown into the Bastille.  He languished there for 15 months before he was acquitted.  No matter, he was never granted another command, even when, in 1763, he proposed the settlement of Acadian exiles at Cayenne, French Guiane, and asked for a military appointment there.  After he sold his seigneury at Rivière-Ouelle in Canada, Boishébert spent the rest of his days--he died at age 70--at another estate, Raffetot in France, which he acquired through marriage.291

Acadian Exiles in French Canada, 1755-1763

While the British were gathering up the Acadians in Nova Scotia during the fall of 1755, Marguerite Mius d'Azy of Port La-Joye, Île St.-Jean, and her new husband, Jean Delâge dit Langlois, left the island for Québec, where Marguerite died in early October 1755, age 36--perhaps the first Acadian to die in Canada during Le Grand Dérangement.  Soon after and in the following years, many more Acadians followed Marguerite and her husband to the St. Lawerence valley, and many more would die there. 

Early in their exile, Acadian refugees from Chignecto, the trois-rivières, and the Annapolis valley chose to put a substantial distance between themselves and their British tormentors.  During late summer of 1755, as soon as Governor-General Vaudreuil was apprised of the roundup at Chignecto, he ordered Lieutenant Boishébert to retain the Acadian refugees there on the north shore of the Bay of Fundy, where they could strengthen the lieutenant's small force of troupes de la marine and help prevent the British from moving against Canada via the St.-Jean portage.  Vaudreuil also feared that if the Acadians on the Maritime islands learned of their kinsmen retreating to Canada, they might lose heart and follow them there, thus weakening the French presence on the islands.  Being Acadians, not all of the refugees heeded official demands.  A few of them moved on to the St. Lawrence valley, come what may, and by early summer of 1756 the trickle of Acadians going to Québec turned into a flood.  As many as 600 Acadians in three expeditions reached the Canadian capital from Île St.-Jean in June, August, and October of that year.159

By then, the number of refugees on Rivière St.-Jean had increased dramatically.  Boishébert reported having fed 600 Acadian refugees on the river during the winter of 1755-56, where only 200 had been living before the deportations.  As a result, food supplies were running low.  It was necessary, then, for the passengers from the Pembroke, the escapees from the haute rivière, as well as the recent arrivals from South Carolina, to move on to other places of refuge so that the river community could sustain its original population.  With the governor-general's approval, and under the prodding of Boishébert, most of the recent arrivals from the Annapolis valley, including the family of Jean-Baptiste Raymond, made their way up the St.-Jean portage to the lower St.-Lawrence, where they settled on the south shore below Québec from Montmagny down past Rivière-du-Loup to Trois-Pistoles.  The Raymonds chose to remain at Kamouraska, between Riviére-du-Loup and Montmagny.  Some of the Pembroke families chose to go to Boishébert's new refugee camp at Miramichi on the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore.  Others crossed the Mer Rouge to join their kinsmen on Île St.-Jean.  These movements tore apart not only communities, but also extended families, a circumstance becoming all too familiar to the weary Acadians.  Charles Belliveau, for instance, took his wife and younger children to Québec.  His 27-year-old daughter Marguerite, however, had recently married 29-year-old Philippe de Saint-Julien Lachaussée of Picardy, France, Ste.-Anne-du-Pay Bas's physician.  Marguerite and Philippe chose to remain at Ste.-Anne for a time, and when they left they went not to Québec but to Miramichi.  Marguerite's younger brother Pierre, who would have been age 22 in 1756, evidently followed his sister to one of the Gulf shore camps.  Alexandre Guilbeau, age 48, chose to take his family to Québec, but his younger brother Joseph, later called L'Officier, age 56, and his family went to Miramichi, where he worked as a blacksmith.  Kinswoman Marguerite Guilbeau also married a local man--Michel Godin dit Beauséjour, a navigator and militia officer--and remained with him on the river.  One of the exiles from the Pembroke making the long trek to Québec was former judge, syndic, and delegate Prudent Robichaud, a long-time friend of the British.  Despite Prudent's advanced age and his record as an accommodator, Major Handfield had deported him with hundreds of other Acadians from the Annapolis banlieu.  Prudent survived the seizure of the Pembroke, the sojourn on Baie Ste.-Marie, and the hard winter at Ste.-Anne-du-Pay-Bas, but his courage and stoutness of spirit could not overcome his 86 years.  He died in the summer heat of 1756 as he and his family made their way north via the St.-Jean portage to refuge in Canada.158  

During the first week of August 1756, as the Annapolis valley refugees began their trek up the St.-Jean portage, 49 families at Miramichi fled the scarcity of food there.  Some crossed Mer Rouge to Île St.-Jean, but others headed north to Québec.  Sometime that year, New-French authorities changed their policy and allowed Acadians from dangerously-overcrowded Île St.-Jean to move on to Québec.  That summer, a British warship patrolling off the Gaspé peninsula intercepted a transport carrying 150 Acadian women and children from Île St.-Jean to Québec via the lower St. Lawrence and brought the vessel to Halifax.  The captives languished on Georges Island "'for several months, sleeping in the open air, most of them with nothing for covers, their bits of rags having been taken from them when they were captured,'" a Louisbourg official informed his superior on December 15.  In October, two small French transports arrived at Miramichi to take 200 more Acadians to Québec, again via the St. Lawrence River, but, again, a British vessel captured one of the transports, this one carrying 80 Acadians, off Gaspé.  On 27 October 1756, Intendant Bigot estimated that 600 Acadians had taken refuge at Québec.  The French continued their efforts to relieve the overcrowding in the Gulf shore camps and on Île St.-Jean, with mixed results.  In June 1757, following a devastating winter at Miramichi, a transport carrying 120 survivors reached Québec.  In July, 200 refugees from Ste.-Anne-du-Pays-Bas on lower Rivière St.-Jean via Miramichi reached Québec.  In August, 160 more refugees from Miramichi, accompanied by Abbé François Le Guerne, reached Québec.  In October, 150 more Acadians arrived from Miramichi, this time accompanied by their commandant, Lieutenant Boishébert.  In early November, 137 more Acadians escaping famine on Île St.-Jean reached the Canadian capital.  So many refugees converged on the capital, one source avers, that "when the St. Lawrence Valley was hit with a serious famine in 1757, some people urged that the borders be closed to Acadians seeking refuge in French lands.  The Acadians were accused of bringing death with them since many were sick and on the verge of starvation."  By February 1758, more than 1,500 Acadians had found refuge at Québec, but, despite Canadian resistance, many more were coming.  When British forces struck the Rivière St.-Jean settlements in September 1758, most of the river Acadians retreated up the St.-Jean portage to the lower St. Lawrence--dozens of more starving refugees for the Canadians to succor.156

Refuge in the crowded Canadian capital came with a terrible price.  Though accustomed to being disdained by people who did not understand them, for the first time in their lives Acadians were exposed to the hazards of an urban environment.  A number of them died at Québec in September 1756:  Anne, daughter of Michel dit Michaud Bourg l'ainé of Chignecto, age 50; Marie-Anne Bourg, wife of François Hébert of Memramcook, and their daughter Marie-Anne, age 15; and Marie-Josèphe Hébert, wife of Antoine-Bénoni Bourg of Chignecto, age 22.  Her father Jacques Hébert of Chignecto, age 80, died at Québec in November.  Anne Bourg's older sister Marie dit Louise-Marie, widow of Charles Bourgeois of Chignecto, died there in February 1757, age 62.  Anne Bernard, wife of Jean-Baptiste Bourgeois of Chignecto, died there the following June, age 40.  Later that summer and in early autumn, Acadian refugees in the Québec area began to die in ever greater numbers.  Smallpox, a disease scarcely known on the Fundy shore, killed more than 300 Acadians in and around the Canadian citadel from the late summer of 1757 into the summer of 1758.  Among the victims was Charles Belliveau of Pembroke fame, who died at Québec in early January 1758 of the dread disease.  The deaths of so many strangers at their doorsteps further alienated the survivors from their Canadian hosts, who saw them more as burdens than as reliable compatriots in their struggle against the British.160 

Despite the dread contagion, Acadian refugees kept making their way to refuge in Canada.  In May 1758, the Marquis de Montcalm, the French commander of forces in New France, reported that some Abenaki from Maine on their way to Québec to join the fight against the British "found nine Acadians who had been deported to Massachusetts" making their way overland to Canada, so they took them along.  In the spring of 1759, Acadians from Rivière St.-Jean who had made their way up to Canada chose to settle not at Québec but at Kamarouska, below the city, where other river Acadians had settled.  In May 1759, Montcalm noted in his journal that "three Acadians and a Frenchman managed to escape to Montreal after a 25-day journey on foot from Boston."  Moreover, they informed the French military leaders that the British were planning to invade Canada.  In July, "21 Acadian women landed safely at the port of Quebec"; one wonders from whence they came.  In April 1759, meanwhile, Governor-General Vaudreuil ordered Acadians from Québec City to move upriver to the stretch of the St. Lawrence between Trois-Rivières and Montréal to get them out of the city.  Some of them settled on the north shore at L'Assomption, just below Montréal; at St.-Jacques de l'Achigan, in the interior northwest of L'Assomption; and at St.-Grégoire-de-Nicolet, on the south side of the river opposite Trois-Rivières.  Here was the third set of Acadian settlements, after the ones settled first at St.-Charles-de-Bellechasse and St.-Gervais across from Québec, and above and below distant Kamarouska, well below the city, that brought Acadians out of the capital city, a trend that would continue.  For instance, in 1764, after the war had ended, "an Acadian refugee family, who had moved to Quebec some years before, established the foundations" of yet another set of Acadian settlements "at Petite-Rivière-de-Montréal, where the municipality of L'Acadie (amalgamated into Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu) now stands," on the middle Rivière Richelieu, southeast of Montréal.292

In summary, between 1755 and 1763, "approximately 1,850 Acadians sought refuge in Quebec.  Between 1756 and 1759, 488 Acadians died in Quebec City, including 335 who succumbed to smallpox and famine during the winter of 1757-1758.  About 200 of the survivors returned to their homeland in 1759.  By the end of the period, the colony was home to approximately 1,162 Acadians."  No more Acadians seemed to have come to Canada between 1760 and 1766, when the far-northern province permanently changed masters.  Then the flood gates were thrown open, making British Canada one of the central destinations of wayward exiles looking for a home.293

The French Maritimes, the Fall of Louisbourg, and the Deportation of the Maritimes Acadians, 1754-1759

In early 1752, three years before the Acadian Grand Dérangement, the governor of Île Royale, Jean-Louis, comte de Raymond, sent Joseph, sieur de La Roque, a young engineer, to survey the colony's physical assets as well as its population.  The result was a model of its kind.  The young sieur's census included not only the names of the residents of the Maritime islands--every man, woman, and child--but also the number of months or years the habitants had been "in the country," the occupation of each head of household, the numbers and kinds of the family's livestock, and the extent and legal status of their land.  On both Île Royale and Île St.-Jean, where peninsula Acadians had concentrated over the decades, De La Roque noted every aspect of the islands' geography, both physical and cultural.  His circuit of Île Royale lasted from the first week of February until the third week of April, and he devoted the entire month of August surveying Île St.-Jean.  From the first week of February into April 1752, De La Roque counted 1,500 to 1,600 settlers on Île Royale living outside of the fortress of Louisbourg, only a fraction of whom were peninsula Acadians.  At Louisbourg, an additional 3,500 officials, merchants, laborers, craftsmen, officers, soldiers, and sailors dwelled, very few of them Acadians.  That August, De La Roque counted 2,223 people on Île St.-Jean, most of them refugees from the chaos in Nova Scotia that had begun there two years earlier.  During his survey, De La Roque carefully documented the growing number of refugees making their way to the island, though he and his superiors could not know that over the next few years this immigration would grow from a steady trickle into a rushing torrent, straining the island's already limited resources.  Like their cousins on neighboring Île Royale, but on an even larger scale, Acadian families on Île St.-Jean, both old and new, found themselves subsisting more on government handouts than on the fruits of their own labor.  "In the fall of 1753," historian Earle Lockerby relates, "Abbé Jacques Girard at Pointe-Prime," on the south shore of the island, "wrote:  'Our refugees do not lose courage and hope by working to be able to live; but the nakedness which is almost universal and extreme affects them sorely.  I assure you they cannot protect themselves from cold, either by day or night.  Most of the children are so naked they cannot cover themselves....  All are not reduced to this extremity, but almost all are in great need.'"

Not all of them remained.  In 1749, soon after the founding of Halifax, dozens of Acadians from Pigiguit migrated to Île Royale, where the French settled them on Baie-des-Espagnols, north of Louisbourg, today's North Sydney, Nova Scotia.  Dissatisfied with conditions there--they were farmers, not fishermen--in the early fall of 1754, they made their way by boat to Halifax, where they explained to British authorities that "the Land there" on Île Royale "being so very bad they were utterly incapable of subsisting their Families, and had applied to the Governor of Louisbourg for leave to return to their former Habitations, to which he had consented."  They beseeched Lieutenant-Governor Charles Lawrence and his colonial Council to let them return to their former lands.  After hearing their case, the Council agreed to the request only if they "voluntarily" took "the Oath of Allegiance to His Majesty" George II "unqualified by any reservation"--a hard request for self-respecting Acadians.  However, the Council minutes noted, "it appearing that they were in very great distress being intirely destitute of all necessitous," they "very cheerfully" took the hated oath and were issued rations to get them through the winter.  But they were not allowed to return to their homes at Pigiguit. Lawrence sent them, instead, to the old Acadian village of Mirliguèche on the Atlantic shore, across from the Germans at Lunenburg, where some of the supplicants' kin had lived decades earlier.  There, for a year at least, the Acadians lived in peace with their Protestant neighbors.

The inevitable came in the summer of 1755, when the war in Nova Scotia and in the Ohio country spread like a storm surge to the rest of North America.  Gabriel Rousseau de Villejoin, fils, now commandant of Île St.-Jean, did what he could to care for the hundreds of additional Acadian refugees who fled to the island in the autumn and winter of 1755 to escape deportation, most of them with little more than the clothes on their backs.  The entire population of Cobeguit, for instance, escaped to Île St.-Jean across Mer Rouge from the late summer of 1755, when they heard the British were rounding up their fellow Acadians north and west of them, into the spring and summer of 1756.  Apprised of these developments, Governor-General Vaudreuil at Québec promised to send relief.  In an August 1756 letter to the Minister of Marine, Vaudreuil painted a dismal picture of conditions on the island:  "Misery is great on Île Saint Jean," he wrote.  "Most of the inhabitants are without bread, M. de Villejoin having fed 1,257 refugees since last autumn."  That same year, the harried commandant informed the governor in Louisbourg that there were now 4,400 Acadians on Île St.-Jean, double what De La Roque had counted four years earlier.185

In 1756, de Villejoin sent island refugees to Québec to relief the overcrowding.  Some crossed Mer Rouge on their own to the Acadian refugee camp at Miramichi on the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore in hopes of finding better living conditions, but what they found there was even worse than what they had left.  One group of refugees de Villejoin sent to Québec did not make it there.  What happened to them next is one of the saddest chapters in the history of the Acadian diaspora.   The year before, a group of women and children from Chignecto, separated from their husbands and fathers during the deportation there, sought refuge in the trois-rivières.  Though their husbands had been sent to the seaboard colonies, probably South Carolina, their priest, Abbé François Le Guerne, advised them to go to Île St.-Jean.  There they suffered along with other islanders when their food supplies gave out, so, in late October, de Villejoin sent to them to Québec by ship, 150 in all.  A British warship seized the vessel off the Gaspé peninsula and took the women and children to Halifax, where, at the beginning of November, they were supposed to have been exchanged for British sailors captured by French privateers.  The exchange fell through, and the women and children were held for several months on Georges Island in the middle of the harbor, "sleeping in the open air, most of them with nothing for covers, their bits of rag having been taken from them when they were captured."  To keep them from freezing during the hard winter, they were finally "exchanged" and shipped off to Louisbourg, from which they would be taken to Canada, but they spent the winter of 1756-57, instead, at Baie-des-Espagnols on the north shore of Île Royale, where "Some of the young Acadian women married Acadian men or French soldiers based there."  During the summer of 1757, the ship that was supposed to transport them to Canada was lost in a British raid at Baie-des-Espagnols.  They did manage to get to Québec that fall, "by which time several had died of smallpox" probably in the epidemic that hit the Canadian capital from the summer of 1757 to the summer of 1758.   

No effort to relieve overcrowding on the island succeeded; it remained, instead, a refuge for Acadians fleeing British oppression in Nova Scotia or the appalling conditions in the refugee camps along the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore.  Two years later, in 1758, on the eve of the island's dérangement, "there were slightly fewer than five thousand inhabitants on Île Saint-Jean, mostly Acadians," Earle Lockerby notes.  "The inhabitants were distributed largely from Malpec in the west to the eastern tip of the Island, in a number of discrete communities comprising five parishes.  The bulk of the population lived on the eastern half of the island," facing Île Royale.294

The Seven Years' War, as the current conflict was called, officially had begun in 1756, but its longer iteration, called in North America the French and Indian War, had begun in the Ohio country in 1754.  In the first three years of fighting, the North American war generally had been fought in favor of French arms.  In 1757, the new commander of British forces in North America, John Campbell, the Earl of Loudoun, who replaced William Shirley, was ordered to attack both Québec and Louisbourg.  Delays, both political and military, in London and New York, postponed both operations.  After Secretary of State for the Southern Department William Pitt the Elder took over military matters in London, he ordered Loudoun to concentrate first against Louisbourg before moving against Québec.  The French learned of the British plan and promptly reinforced Louisbourg.  In August, Loudoun and British Admiral Francis Holburne prudently called off the operation.  In September, a gale shattered Holburn's fleet in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the attack against Louisbourg was postponed indefinitely.  Loudoun, back in New York, amid the constant squabbling with colonial governors and assemblies, turned his attention to Lake Champlain, the door to Montréal.  However, British diasasters in Germany under the King's son, the Duke of Cumberland, led to more power and influence for Pitt.  With the King's approval, Pitt relieved Loudoun of command in December (but Loudoun did not know of it until the following March) and replaced him with his second in command, Major-General James Abercromby.  The new commander-in-chief in North America, however, would not be going to Louisbourg.  In January 1758, soon after Loudoun's removal, Pitt chose newly-promoted Major-General Jeffery Amherst, recently serving in Germany, to command the movement against the French citadel.295

From his base at Halifax, Amherst wasted no timing moving against Louisbourg.  With him were two familiar figures in the expulsion of the Acadians of Nova Scotia three years earlier:  Charles Lawrence, now a brigadier-general and still governor of Nova Scotia; and Vice-Admiral Edward Boscawen, who had given Lawrence and his Council tacit approval for the unauthorized removal of the Acadians.  Also with Amherst were two more brigadiers, James Wolfe and Edward Whitmore, who Amherst would leave as military governor after Louisbourg's surrender.  A year later, Wolfe would win everlasting fame before the walls of Québec in Canada, and it was Wolfe who led the successful British landing at Anse de la Cormorandière (today's Kennington Cove) on Gabarus Bay, "about four miles southwest of the fortress," on June 8, the first day of the nearly two-month-long campaign.  Amherst conducted his siège en forme flawlessly, and the citadel's defenders, under Governor Augustin de Boschenry de Drucour, called Chevalier de Drucour, did what they could to delay the inevitable.  Under cover of a heavy fog on the night of July 25, Boscawen's sailors destroyed and captured the two remaining French ships-of-the-line in the harbor, one of them the flagship of the French squadron.  Amherst then unleashed a merciless 12-hour bombardment of the city, compelling Drucour to ask for terms.  Amherst, despite being new to North American warfare, was nonetheless aware of the legacy of Fort William Henry.  At the head of Lake George, New York, the summer before, after a six-day siege, the fort's garrison was compelled to surrender.  The victor, the Marquis de Montcalm, had accorded British Colonel George Monro and his men the "the honors of war," whereby "the defenders would be allowed to keep their colors, personal property, small arms, and perhaps even a symbolic cannon, and would be allowed to withdraw on parole--that is, having given their word that they would not appear in arms for a stated period--without being made prisoners of war."  However, soon after Monro and his garrison left the fort, on their way back to the nearest British lines, the Indians allied with Montcalm attacked the column and killed and scalped British soldiers and officers and even their wives and children--one of the darkest moments of the French and Indian War.  And so Amherst refused to grant Drucour and his garrison "all honors," such as Montcalm had offered Monro at Fort William Henry.  Instead, historian Fred Anderson explains, Amherst decreed that "[t]he town would not be opened to plunder and the civilians within it would be allowed to retain their personal effects, but all those who had resisted in arms would be made prisoners of war and transported to England.  Louisbourg's civilian population, along with the rest of the inhabitants of Cape Breton and the neighboring island of St.-Jean (today's Prince Edward Island) would be deported to France:  in all, more than eight thousand men, women, and children.  No longer would Britain count only the soldiers of the King of France their enemies; at least in New France, civilians would also be subject to military action"--as the Acadians of Nova Scotia knew very well.296

Earl Lockerby, historian of the Acadian expulsion from Île St.-Jean, notes, contrary to Fred Anderson's statement, above, that "Although the articles of capitulation provided for the removal of the French garrison on Île Saint-Jean, none of the articles addressed the fate of ordinary civilians in either Île Royale or Île Saint-Jean.  However, within days of the capitulation it became clear that British policy was to deport all inhabitants, civilian as well as military, from both places.  The fall of the fortress of Louisbourg marked the end of the French regime in Atlantic Canada and doomed the residents of Île Saint-Jean to deportation and forfeit of their homes and lands."  Only the expulsion of the Acadians from Nova Scotia three years earlier would overshadow this new round of deportations in numbers, if not in misery and death.297

Amherst chose for the Île St.-Jean mission an aging lieutenant-colonel, 58-year-old Andrew Rollo, Fifth Baron Rollo, of Scotland.  Rollo was second in command of the 22nd (Cheshire) Regiment of Foot, commanded by Colonel Edward Whitmore, now one of Amherst's brigadiers and military governor of Louisbourg.  The regiment, as well as Rollo, was recently brought to North America, so Rollo was new to the theatre.  Amherst issued his orders to Rollo on August 8:  he would hurry to Port-La-Joye, the military headquarters of Île St.-Jean, with 500 men, a number appropriate for his rank, in four transports, the King of Prussia, the Dunbar, the Bristol, and the Catherine, from Boscawen flotilla.  Most of the men, 300, would be regular infantry drawn from his own and three other regiments, along with 200 light infantry, also redcoats, and fearsome New-English rangers.  The transports would hold not only the men but also three-months worth of "victuals."  Also aboard the transports were "one thousand palisades, boards, spikes, nails, and tools to be used by 300 men to construct a redoubt, or fort," at Port-La-Joye.  Drucour was instructed to send with Rollo "two or three of his officers from Louisbourg to inform the garrison" at Port-La-Joye "and inhabitants" on the island "of the articles of capitulation."  The HMS Hind, 24 guns, under Master Robert Bond, would escort the flotilla to its destination via the Gut of Canso, the most direct route from Louisbourg to the south shore of Île St.-Jean.  Rollo also was ordered to inform the island's habitants to "surrender themselves and their firearms."  A hundred of his men would build and garrison the new fort at Port-La-Joye, to be named Fort Amherst.  Ambert expected Rollo, once the fort had been built and the inhabitants rounded up, to return the other 400 men, along with the habitants they had just rounded up, on the four transports back to Louisbourg!  If the transports could not hold the remaining men and the hundreds of habitants, they were to send first the habitants to Louisbourg and then return to Port-La-Joye to pick up the men not needed to man the new fort.298 

Orders in hand, Rollo and the flotilla, with the Hind in the lead, "cleared" Louisbourg on August 10, sailed through the Gut of Canso on the 13th, and the Hind arrived at the entrance to the harbor at Port-La-Joye on the early afternoon of August 17.  The French commander at Port-La-Joye, which had served as the "capital" of the island since the 1720s, sent out "a boat bearing a flag of truce."  Captain Bond sent his own cutter out to meet the boat.  An hour later, Bond "fired a gun and," as ordered by Commandant Gabriel Rousseau de Villejoin, fils, "the Fort," along with the island, "surrendered" without firing a shot of its own.  The Hind and its consorts then anchored in the roomy harbor, and Île St.-Jean, like Île Royale, no longer belonged to France.299

De Villejoin was not surprised by the arrival of a British force, having already learned of the fall of Louisbourg and well aware of his inability to defend the island.  The size of the British force was a surprise; he expected the British to send only a packet boat to remove him and his small garrison, not all of the island's habitants!  "It is unlikely however that the population was caught totally unawares," Earl Lockerby believes, "and in all probability they had taken some precautions.  Louisbourg had been under threat for two or three years, and the inhabitants of Île Saint-Jean had known for some time that their situation was precarious.  In the summer of 1756 Villejouin issued arms to some civilians, and had some stores moved up the Rivière-du-Nord Est (later named the Hillsborough River)" from Port-La-Joye.  "He had also advised farmers to conceal their families and livestock in the woods as a drill to enhance their awareness of the need for defensive tactics, and to improve their ability to implement them if required."  Many of the habitants were not only farmers but fishermen and thus in possession of their own boats.  The relative few of them living on the western side of the island, at Malpèque near the northwest shore, and at Bédec, La Traverse, Rivière-des-Blonds, and Rivière-aux-Crapauds on the southwest shore, were in easy distance from the Acadie mainland via Mer Rouge.  Bringing them in would be difficult, if impossible, if they were given enough warning of a roundup on the  rest of the island.  Fisher/habitants on the eastern shore of the island, at Tranchmontagne near Pointe de l'Est and at Havre-de-la-Fortune and Trois- Rivières farther down the eastern shore, likely had boats of their own as well, but escape to the North Shore of mainland Acadie would be more problematic for them.  As for the great majority of the island's habitants settled along Rivière-du-Nord Est and its tributaries, from Port-La-Joye up to Rivière-du-Nord-Est, they lived in a virtual cul-de-sac from which there would be little chance of escape.  Fisher/habitants on the southeast hump of the island, from Grand-Anse down to Anse-à-Pinnet, also were sitting ducks for ship's boats full of sailors could reach them easily from Royal Navy vessels lying off shore.300

While his infantrymen hurriedly built Fort Amherst and the transports discharged their supplies, Rollo launched his roundup.  Not only the French garrison but also any administrative personnel on the island were targeted first.  Rollo reasoned that "The speedy capture and incarceration of French soldiers and officials" would send "a strong signal to the inhabitants that they should surrender without resistance," which revealed his naivité about the nature of these people.  On the first full day of the island's occupation, August 18, taking advantage of 'moderate and fair' weather, a detachment of Bond's men headed up Rivière-du-Nord Est "'to bring down some French prisoners.'"  The following day, the 19th, down they came with "'the French prisoners and three 6 Pounders.'"  One wonders who alerted the sailors to the location of the prisoners and their cannon. Earle Lockerby notes that the small French battery lay "on the north side of the Hillsborough River, slightly downstream of an island known today as Rams Island (formerly known as McNally's Island) near present-day Frenchfort," half way up the river.  French soldiers and officials, along with hundreds of the habitants, were not the only victims of Rollo's roundup.  The Hind," Lockerby relates, "received on-board ten steers and nineteen sheep 'for the use of the Ship's Company.'"  One suspects that the sailors aboard the transports also brought aboard whatever they could steal from the islanders and that the infantrymen built not only sturdy walls for the defense of Fort Amherst, but also sturdy pens for more four-legged contraband the soldiers and the rangers could get their hands on.  On August 24, two schooners, likely taken from fisher/habitants, followed on the 26th by another schooner, came down the river full of "prisoners from the head of the river."  By then the roundup was in full swing and continued unabated until August 31, when the transports reached their limit.  On that day, "the convoy, with 692 passengers," weighed anchor and, once again escorted by the Hind, headed back to Louisbourg the same way it had come.  The ships reached the citadel on September 4, bearing a letter from Lieutenant-Colonel Rollo, who had remained on Île St.-Jean.  In the letter, Rollo boasted that "most of the inhabitants had 'brought in their arms & (would) embark for Europe.'"  Admiral Boscawen, still at Louisbourg, noted that five transport under escort came in, so Rollo likely had sent to Louisbourg one of the confiscated French schooners also loaded with islanders.301

Aboard the flotilla was former commandant de Villejoin and his officers.  On September 8, probably using a cipher, de Villejoin wrote a letter, which he carefully concealed, to the hapless Drucour's superior, the Minister of Marine in France, which detailed what he had observed on Île St.-Jean.  He guessed that habitants in the outlying settlements, especially on the southwest shore, had crossed Mer Rouge in boats of their own and sought refuge at Boishébert's camp at Miramichi, the place of so much misery.  He probably did not know that these escapees, seeing the sad state of the camp, hurried back to the island to submit to deportation.  He may have heard from the gossip of the British officers that Amherst and Boscawen were sending an amphibious expedition to Boishébert's, which arrived at Miramichi Bay on September 15 and spent three fruitless days trying to get to the camp, 10 leagues up the river.  De Villejoin also reported that Rollo allowed two of the island's priests, Pierre Cassiet and Jean Biscarat, to go to Louisbourg "with a petition from the inhabitants of the island, requesting that they be allowed to remain on their lands."  The request of course was refused.  De Villejoin informed the minister "that seven hundred settlers had been made to embark when he had, and," strangely, "that they were still in the harbor of Port-la-Joie."  Since Boscawen did not send additional transports to Port-La-Joye until early October, the 700 habitants held there with de Villejoin on September 8 could have been crowded aboard whatever schooners and other sea-going craft Rollo and his men could confiscate.  Or, more likely, Earle Lockerby asserts, the 700 prisoners at Port-la-Joye described by the former commandant were the ones who had been sent out in the four transports with de Villejoin and his officers on August 31 and the commandant may have finished his letter to the minister at Louisbourg and dated it there September 8.  De Villejoin informed the minister that "four thousand settlers remained to be deported, and expressed doubt that Rollo would succeed in taking them all that year.  He also estimated that there were more than six thousand cattle on the island, the same number reported about a year earlier by Governor[-General] Vaudreuil in Québec."302

Wherever de Villejoin may have been on September 8, his letter to the minister was clear--the roundup on Île St.-Jean was only just begun.  De Villejoin informed the minister that the British plan for removing the people of the colony was now clear--his wife and children, along with other families of Île Royale military personnel, were not, like their husbands, prisoners of war.  They would be sent to France, probably to the naval base at Rochefort.  De Villejoin, his officers and men, and the officers and men of the Louisbourg garrison, were, according to Amherst's articles of surrender, prisoners of war.  They, first the officers and then the men, would be sent to England, where they would be held until the British saw fit to repatriate them to France.  The thousands of habitants on the two islands, who were civilians and thus not prisoners of war, would be as quickly as possible repatriated to France, a place many of them had never seen.303

And so it happened.  The first to depart Louisbourg were Governor Drucour, his family, and 53 of his officers from Île Royale on August 15, exactly four years after Drucour had assumed the governorship there.  After the required stay in England, Drucour and the officers were repatriated at Dunkerque but "were in such wretched condition that they had to be given money to continue their journey home."  Nineteen French officers and 24 other, probably officials, including de Villejoin, departed a few weeks later aboard the HMS York, Captain Hugh Pigot, which left Louisbourg on September 13.  After a difficult passage, the York reached Spithead, near Portsmouth, by October 27.  According to Earle Lockerby, "The French soldiers of the garrison at Port-la-Joie, numbering less than one hundred," also "were shipped from Louisbourg to England, as were roughly three thousand soldiers comprising the garrisons of Louisbourg and other military posts on Île Royale.  While some of the military prisoners may have been detained in England, perhaps until the close of the Seven Years' War in 1763, many were transferred to France during the fall of 1758 and the first half of 1759."

After his repatriation to France in 1759, de Villejoin, who remained in naval service, received a number of promotions that verified his having received the Cross of St.-Louis for valorous service back in 1748.  He was made garrison adjutant at Rochefort in 1759 and succeeded his predecessor on Île St.-Jean, Bonnaventure, as inspector of all colonial troops in May 1760, not long before the fall of Canada.  In January 1763, on the eve of the signing of the Treaty of Paris and after his promotion to lieutenant-colonel, de Villejoin was named governor of Désirade in the French Leeward Islands.  Three of his sons, after receiving commissions, joined him there.  In 1768, when the government of Désirade was subsumed by that of Guadaloupe, de Villejoin returned to France and was promoted to brigadier-general that November.  He retired soon after and ended his days at St.-Jean-de-Angély, near Rochefort, in Saintonge, southwestern France, in November 1781, age 72.304

The York was only one of many September crossings.  For much of the month, through the 27th, at least nine transports, evidently unescorted, left Louisbourg laden with troupes de la marine bound for England and habitants from both islands bound for France.  One, maybe two, of the transports held the bulk of the Acadians rounded up on Île St.-Jean by Rollo and his men.  These vessels included the Duke of Cumberland, master Thomas Hurry, which left Louisbourg on September 4 with 327 "Fr. Prisoners," as Admiral Boscawen described them, bound for La Rochelle, where the vessel would pick up 38 "'English Prisoners in exchange and carry them to Plymouth.'"  On September 10, the Richmond, with 284 aboard, and the Britannia, 312 passengers, left Louisbourg also for La Rochelle, where they would pick up 248 more British prisoners and "convey them to Plymouth."  Also in September, the Antelope, 86 aboard; another, much smaller, Britannia, 89 aboard; the Duc Guillaume, 346 aboard; and the Queen of Spain, 108, aboard, all Louisbourg and Île Royale non-combatants destined for Breton ports.  Aboard the Antelope, one passenger died at sea, 78 disembarked, and seven more died after arrival at St.-Malo on November 1.  The smaller Britannia, headed for Brest at the western tip of Brittany, lost eight at sea, one in hospital after arrival on October 26, and seven died "without notation."  The Duc Guillaume also reached St.-Malo on November 1 but barely.  A mid-ocean mishap, probably an explosion, resulted in 148 of its 347 passengers dead at sea and 37 dying soon after arrival; only 283 of its many passengers survived the crossing.  The Queen of Spain reached St.-Malo on November 17 after a difficult crossing, losing 58 dead at sea, more than half of its passengers.  On September 27, the Sukey and the 600-ton Mary, master Alex Donaldson, the largest transport employed by the British, set off from Louisbourg "with more than 600 prisoners," an amazing 560 aboard the Mary, all Acadians from Île St.-Jean.  Here was the victims of Rollo's first roundup, who had reached Louisbourg on September 4.  The overburdened transport was destined for St.-Malo but got only as far as Spithead, near Portsmouth, which, after a five-week voyage, it had reached at the end of October "in great distress."  In fact, it was reported, the ship's captain had "buried 250 to 260 passengers at sea, mostly children," half of the Mary's passengers, most, it seemed, having died from a contagious "Malignant Distemper."  On November 1, an official at Spithead warned the Admiralty in London that "the Mary was very leaky, that her pumps were constantly going, and she was unable to continue the voyage."  He also informed London that most of the survivors were still aboard the Mary, would remain there, and that those who had left the ship would be rounded up and returned.  The Admiralty ordered that the stricken vessel be removed to nearby Ryde and that, after revictualling, two transports be sent to take aboard those passengers who were not too ill to travel.  The Mary still lay at Ryde on November 12, when the Admiralty was informed that the crews of the two smaller transports had deserted for fear of contracting "Distemper."  The remaining passengers still remained aboard the stricken ship,  pleading to be sent to any port in France.  On that day, a surgeon who had been aboard the Mary reported that "he did not believe the illness aboard the ship was contagious..., that the passengers' 'Disorders seem to proceed more from the want of the Necessaries of Life, than any other thing.'"  Further consultation with the surgeon revealed to an Admiralty official "that the passengers appeared to be starving and were almost naked.'"  In addition, he wrote to London, "'Their having been so much crowded, and breathing consequently foul Air, and lying Dirty, he (the surgeon) thinks to be the occasion of the Loss of such numbers as have already Dyed.'"  Meanwhile, authorities in Spithead informed their superiors in London that Captain Donaldson "had not treated the passengers well on the voyage, and had been negligent toward them after arriving in England."  The Admiralty's reaction was predictable:  the naval bureaucrats were concerned not only with the health of the passengers, but also with their appearance, "some of the women and Children being Naked," which their French counterparts would not appreciate.  To alleviate this embarrassment, it was suggested that the passengers be given fresh clothing, as well as a "larger allowance of Provisions."  On November 12, the fear of contagion having been dissipated, the sickest of the passengers were placed aboard the tender Desire, now with a replacement crew, and the more able placed aboard the tender Bird, also with a replacement crew.  Three days later, the Admiralty ordered that a French surgeon and some medicine be placed aboard both tenders and that the passengers, when they were able to travel, be taken from Portmouth to the nearest French port, which was Cherbourg in Normandy, under a flag of truce.  The "packet boats," as the French called the tenders, reached Cherbourg in late November, the last of the September crossing to reach its destination.  But the suffering of the Mary's survivors was not over.  French authorities reported that the captain of one of the packet boats, the Desire, as soon as he dropped off the passengers at the Cherbourg dock, hurried back to Portsmouth "without unloading chests containing the prisoners' personal effects and some silver."  Moreover, "Items stolen from the prisoners were found on the harbourmaster's premises at Cherbourg, implicating him in the affair."  After an investigation, the Admiralty punished the captain and crew of the Desire for their thievery.  Meawhile, Earle Lockerby notes, on November 17, Captain Donaldson of the Mary was ordered "to proceed with his vessel under convoy to the British port where the Mary would be discharged from Admiralty service.  This appears to have been a routine order, not a censure or a disciplinary action."305

These September voyages cleared out most of the soldiers and civilians on Île Royale, which the British now called, again, Cape Breton Island, but British authorities had seriously underestimated the number of fisher/habitants on Île St.-Jean, now called St. John Island.  Hundreds more of them rounded up by Rollo and his men waited on the island for more transports.  Admiral Boscawen admitted that he and other British officials "had estimated the total population" on the island "was only four or five hundred," but  Rollo took only a few weeks to demonstrate that the number of island fisher/habitants actually was in the thousands, not the hundreds.  On September 8, within days of the Rollo's transports returning to Louisbourg from Île St.-Jean, the admiral "'order'd 13 Transports to be supplied with two months provisions from the Commissary of Stores, for 3450 French Prisoners to received on board them at the Isle St. Johns.'"  The new transports, also of them sustantial vessels, soon appeared as ordered and hurriedly took on commissary stores.  They were, according to Earle Lockerby, the 343-ton Briton, master James Wilson, with eight guns; the 400-ton Duke William (not to be confused with the soon-to-be damaged Duc Guillaume), master William Nichols, 10 guns; the 239-ton John & Samuel, master William Dobson, six guns; the 193-ton Mathias, master Thomas Dobbins, six guns; the 234-ton Neptune, master John Beaton, six guns; the 424-ton Parnassus, also called the Narcissus, master William Johnson, seven guns; the 183-ton Patience, master Daniel Stephens, six guns; 177-ton Restoration, master Stephenson Haxton, six guns; the 380-ton Ruby, master William Kelly, six guns; the 189-ton Supply, master William Wallace, three guns; the 215-ton Tamerlane, master Charles Suttie, six guns; the 247-ton Three Sisters, master Christopher Douson, six guns; the 315-ton Violet, master Benjamin Suggitt, seven guns; and the 375-ton Yarmouth, master Samuel Henry, eight guns.  By September 11, Boscawen "had directed Charles Hay, agent for the transports, to proceed under convoy of the Hind to Île Saint-Jean with fourteen transports to take on board all the prisoners."  Once loaded with their human cargo, their destination would be St.-Malo in northeast Brittany, a major entrepôt for French trade with Britain and the rest of Atlantic Europe.  There, as with the other transports full of Cape Breton prisoners soon to be sent to France, they would swap island "prisoners" for English prisoners and, in this case, convey them to London.306

The second round of deportations was well on its way.  On September 14, the Hind led its convoy of 14 armed transports, plus "a schooner and another vessel," out of Louisbourg harbor, and headed down and around the Cape Breton shore to the Gut of Canso.  Foul weather made it difficult for Captain Bond, still in command of the Hind, to keep the large convoy together, but they made it through to Gut, , where Bond counted several British vessels, cleared Saint Georges Bay, rounded Cape George, and reached Picto Island, between St. John Island and the mainland, on the 26th.  According to Earle Lockerby, the Hind and some of transports stood off the big island's East Point on the 27th, clearly off course.  "There the Yarmouth grounded," Lockerby notes.  Other transports came to the rescue, and the Yarmouth floated free the following day.  Heading back south, by the 29th "squalls had pushed the Hind back into Saint Georges Bay," from whence it had come.  Meanwhile, "authorities in Louisbourg," probably Boscawen, decided "that additional vessels were required at Île Saint-Jean."  On September 18, as the Hind and its charges made their way down the Cape Breton shore, Boscawen added to Bond's flotilla the 252-ton Richard & Mary, master John Moore, five guns; the 95-ton Scarborough, master Jonathon Fellour, no guns; and another transport named Mary, not to be confused with the large transport that soon would leave Louisbourg harbor not for St. John Island but, carrying "prisoners" from that island, heading to St.-Malo, France--17 transports under Bond's command to take away the island habitants.307

By October 3, Captain Bond finally completed his mission--his flotilla of over a dozen transports lay at anchor in Port-La-Joye harbor.  The following day and again on the 6th, Bond sent sloops up Rivière-du-Nord-Est, into the heart of the island, to round up cattle and bring them back down to the port.  Meanwhile, much time and effort was spent loading more provisions onto the transports, as well as "'wooding the ships,'" as the sailors called it, which most likely meant loading each vessel with an adequate supply of firewood.  Bond also put his tars to work brewing spruce beer.  On the 14th, a schooner, perhaps the one that Bond had brought along, appeared with 50 habitants from Pointe-Prime, which lay along the southeastern shore of the island across a small bay from the entrance to the harbor at Port-La-Joye.  Here was evidence that Rollo's roundup had spread beyond the valley of Rivière-du-Nord-Est.  At Port-La-Joye, the Point-Prime Acadians, along with their pastor, Father Jacques Girard, were loaded aboard the Duke William, at 400 tons burden, one of the largest transports.  Father Girard later noted that during the weeks before the roundup reached Pointe-Prime, he conducted many marriages in his parish, "as the deportees believed that single men deported to France would be forced to becomd soldiers, a fate they wished to avoid."  On the 15th, Bond sent ship's boats from the Hind up Rivière-du-Nord-Est to bring down more habitants.  The roundups, under Bond's and Rollo's supervision, continued for the rest of October.308

Meanwhile, hundreds of islanders refused to submit to British orders "to turn themselves in."  They also refused to give up their cattle and provender.  On October 10, Rollo sent a message to Admiral Boscawen back at Louisbourg that fisher/habitants at Malpèque on the north shore of the island had employed four schooners, one of them armed, to carry off not only people but also "great quantities of cattle" "to Canada," which may have meant across Mer Rouge to the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore.  On the 12th, Captain Bond at Port-La-Joye reported the growing difficulty of getting the inhabitants to submit.  Island Acadian defiance likely was a family decision, based on the location of their settlements and the resources they possessed for successful escape.  Most of them, however, lived in settlements along Rivière-du-Nord-Est, which afforded them little opportunity for escape.  Bond's dispatch also "mentioned that a French or Acadian armed schooner mounting six guns was assisting the Acadians to evade the British roundup by fleeing to the mainland."  Unlike at Chignecto and in the trois-rivières three years earlier, there was no organized Acadian resistance on Île St.-Jean to attempt to disrupt the deportations, but Bond's six-gun schooner sounds supiciously like the work of an Acadian partisan, perhaps Beausoleil Broussard or Pierre Surette II or Nicolas Gauthier, fils, son of the richest man in Nova Scotia before King George's War who had sacrificed his wealth for the French cause and was banished to Île Royale for this troubles.  By 1758, each of these enterprising partisans, along with many others, had received permission from Governor-General Vaudreuil in Québec to engage in privateering, and they likely did their best to rescue fellow Acadians from Île St.-Jean after the fall of Louisbourg.309

The new naval commander at Louisbourg, Boscawen's replacement, Rear-Admiral Philip Durell, would have none of this.  Durell believed the armed schooner mentioned by Captain Bond in his dispatch was the same one encountered by the expedition out of Louisbourg under Brigadier James Murray against the Acadian base at Miramichi in September.  Durell ordered Maximillian Jacobs, captain of the HMS Kennington to hurry "'to the Northward of the Island of Saint Johns, and use his utmost endeavor to destroy the said French Ship and Schooners, and after being upon the Station some days, to proceed to the entrance of the River Saint Lawrence.'"  On the 18th, Durell also notified Rollo "of the action he was taking."  After Jacobs secured a pilot who was familiar with the island, he set out on the 20th, but, after he cleared the Gut of Canso, he sailed not to the north shore of St. John Island, where he was supposed to cruise for a week or so, but instead continued northward to the Magdelen Islands, a good ways northeast of "the Island of Saint Johns," which he missed entirely.  He then proceeded to Gaspé, at the far end of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, having encountered no "armed French Ship and Schooners."310

By the end of October, Rollo had secured 1,600 islanders on the waiting transports and informed Governor Whitmore that "600 remaining settlers would have to stay for the winter."  Admiral Durell informed Admiral Boscawen that these remaining settlers were "'sickly and most of them Women and Children.'"  Except for islanders in the Malpèque area at the northwest end of the island, "for which the British soldiers could not spare the time and resources to apprehend, very few inhabitants were left behind," or so Rollo reported.  One suspects that most, of not all, of the Malpèque fisher/habitants, as well as the ones at Bédec across the western end of island, were already gone and living free at Miramichi and other refuges on the mainland.  On November 5, Captain Bond reported that "two thousand inhabitants had been deported on sixteen transports (all that Bond had)."  He noted that the transports had been sent to France as "cartel ships, meaning that they sailed under a flag of truce.  Agents of Britain and France had mutually agreed that such vessels were not to be seized or interfered with while carrying out their mission of prisoner exchange."  On November 6, Governor Whitmore informed Secretary of State Pitt that Rollo "had written that about 2,200 inhabitants" of the island "had been embarked."  Whitmore also noted that Rollo had apologized for leaving "the Inhabitants of a whole Parish behind" because of the remoteness of their location viz. the other settlements on the island.  He was talking, of course, about the Acadians at Malpèque and implying that his and Bond's men had rounded up the inhabitants in all the other island settlements.  More details of the operation emerged in November.  On the 11th, Whitmore provided Amherst with "more precise and up-to-date figures."  Rollo had noted in a letter to the governor dated October 28 that 2,150 of the islanders had been "'ship'd off.'"  Finally, in a letter from Whitmore to Amherst dated November 21, more information on Rollo's operation came to light:  "'By the Returns I have recd from the Island of Saint Johns, Two Thousand four hundred & fifteen"--2,415--"persons were Embark'd for France.'  This number was confirmed by Charles Hay, agent for the transports, upon his subsequent arrival in England," Earle Lockerby adds.  "Presumably this figure also does not include the 692 taken to Louisbourg in September."311

In truth, by November 21 the transports full of islanders had not left North America.  On November 4, "under fair skies and in moderate winds," the HMS Hind and its convoy of transports "unmoored and set sail."  The convoy of 15 transports included Briton, Duke William, John & Samuel, Mathias, Neptune, Parnassas, Patience, Restoration, Richard & Mary, Ruby, Supply, Tamerlane, Three Sisters, Violet, and Yarmouth.  Not all of the transports carried islanders.  The Briton and Richard & Mary carried Rollo's redcoats not needed at Port-La-Joye and Fort Amherst.  They and the Hind were destined for Louisbourg.  The other ships, filled with islanders, were destined for St.-Malo, France.  The convoy reached the western end of the Gut of Canso by the 5th.  As they were maneuvering through the narrow strait on the afternoon of the 6th, "squalls developed," and Tamerlane was driven ashore.  On the 7th, "strong gales also sent the Parnassus ashore," and the Hind's cutter came to its assistance.  Bond's sailors were able to refloat the Tamerlane, but the Parnassus was too broken up to be salvaged.  Its passengers, none of them lost, were divided up among several of the other transports, and the convoy went on its way.  Meanwhile, on the 12th, after clearing the Gut and making its way northeastward towards Louisbourg, the 252-ton  Richard & Mary with its load of redcoats "struck a submerged rock off Île Madame," off the southern coast of Cape Breton Island.  "It displayed a distress signal," Earle Lockerby relates, "and subsequently ran in for the shore of Île Madame.  The Hind attempted to approach the transport in order to to assist it, but failed because of an ebb tide.  The Hind and Briton continued to Louisbourg, arriving there on November 14.  Contrary winds prevented a rescue flotilla of sloops or schooners to leave Louisbourg until the 20th.  Meanwhile, Whitmore sent rangers overland to make contact with the stricken vessel.  He received word on the morning of the 22nd that though the Richard & Mary had sunk, all of its crew and redcoated passengers had gotten off safely.  After an officer from the Richard & Mary had rowed back to the Gut and found transports there that had not cleared the strait, Charles Hay, now in charge of the convoy, moved the passengers aboard the Three Sisters to several other transports heading for France, placed aboard the Three Sisters most of the stranded redcoats, and sent it on to Louisbourg, which it reached on the 22nd.  However, Earle Lockerby notes, everal of the Richard & Mary's crew and its master, John Moore, however, transferred to the Duke William, still destined for France.  Lockerby speculates that the Three Sisters did go on to France, "probably with with deportees from Île Royale taken aboard at Louisbourg."312

Eleven St.-Malo-bound transports remained.  After clearing the Gut of Canso, they sailed into nearby Chédabouctou Bay and regrouped.  Charles Hay, still in charge of the operation, assessed the damages and depletions the convoy had suffered while fighting their way to the bay.  "Because of the delays," Earle Lockerby explains, "provisions aboard the vessels had been depleted more than expected.  Most of the vessels had lost anchors and cables and sustained sail damage because of the fierce weather encountered near the Strait of Canso.  Consequently, Hay instructed the captains of the vessels to head for the nearest port in England to replenish their larders and obtain other critically needed supplies before going to Saint-Malo...."  They then left the Chédabouctou Bay together on November 25, but not all of them made it. 

As the convoy, now scattered by mid-Atlantic storms, approached the southwest coast of England, a late autumn gale struck them hard and destroyed three of the transports, two of them sunk, the other dashed to pieces.  The Violet, with 400 or so islanders aboard, went down with no survivors on December 12.  The Duke William, with 364 passengers, also taking on water, sank a few days later.  The family of Noël Doiron of Cobiguit and Pointe-Prime suffered especially hard aboard the latter transport--perhaps the greatest loss of a single family during the entire Grand Dérangement.  Now in his 70s, Noël, wife Marie Henry, five of their children, over 30 of their grandchildren, and "many of their great-grandchildren," had been loaded aboard the same vessel at Port-La-Joye.  This included the families of oldest son Louis-Mathieu, his wife Madeleine Pitre, their oldest son Charles, his wife Anne-Gertrude Benoit, and their children; Noël's second son Paul, his wife Marguerite Benoit, and their children; Noël's fourth son François, his wife Madeleine Tillard and their children; Noël's youngest son Joseph, his wife Marguerite Tillard and their children; and Noël's oldest daughter Marie-Madeleine, her husband Michel Pitre, and their children.  When all efforts had failed to save the Duke William and no other ship had come to its rescue, Noël Doiron embraced the captain, William Nicholls, and insisted that he and his crew take to the boats and save themselves.  The Pointe-Prime priest, Father Jacques Girard, the ship's officers and crew, four passengers from the Richard & Mary, and four young Acadians, escaped in the ship's cutter, its longboat, and its jolly boat, but there was no room for the hundreds of other passengers, who, at 4:00 pm on December 14, went down with the ship.  The three boats survived the storm and landed on the Cornwall coast a few days later, the longboat at Penzance, the cutter near Land's End, and the jolly boat with the four young Acadians managed to make it safety to Falmouth.  The Ruby, with 310 passengers, was pushed by the gale to the Portuguese Azores, where it was driven on the rocks of Pico Island.  Only 120 passengers were saved; 190 passengers died aboard this ship, either by illness on the voyage over or by drowning during the mishap on Pico Island.  The Portuguese schooner Santa Catherina took 87 of the survivors to Portsmouth, England, which it reached on 4 February 1759.  On February 10, these survivors left for France aboard the English tender Bird, the same vessel that had transported the survivors of the transport Mary back in late November, and reached Le Havre in Normandy on February 15. 

Eight of the other transports did make it to French ports, seven to St.-Malo.  The Neptune, with 179 passengers, reached Portsmouth on December 23 "in great distress," including being in "want of fresh Provisions and very Sickly."   After being quickly refitted and revictualled, and taking on a French physician to treat the sick, the Neptune, battered by another storm, reached Boulogne-sur-Mer in northwestern France on December 26.  Earle Lockerby says, "About a dozen passengers had died en route."  The Supply, 163 passengers, reached Bideford, Devon, England, on December 20, 25 passengers having died at sea.  One source says a few of the passengers, no longer willing to take a chance with an unforgiving ocean, went on to Bristol, but most of the survivors, 140 or so, remained with the Supply. After a lengthy refitting and revictualling, despite orders from Admiralty officials to speed the ship along, the Supply finally reached St.-Malo on 9 March 1759, the last of the eight remaining transports to get to the Breton port.  Earle Lockerby says, "Evidently the majority of those who died [25?] succumbed between the time the Supply reached England and the time of its arrival at Saint-Malo" and says nothing about any of its passengers going to Bristol.  Another source says that 19 of the 140 survivors died in local hospitals after they reached St.-Malo.  The Tamerlane, with 56 passengers, including Charles Hay, when it departed Chédabouctour Bay, lost six at sea, spent some time at Plymouth, England, replacing or repairing its cable, anchors, and sails, and reached St.-Malo on 16 January 1759, the first of the convoy to get there.  Then there were the Five Ships--the John & Samuel, the Mathias, the Patience, the Restoration, and the Yarmouth--with 1,033 Acadians aboard.  Somehow, despite the December gale, they managed to remain together; one wonders in which port in England they revictualled.  They reached St.-Malo on January 23 and unloaded between 665 and 690 passengers.  The death toll on the Five Ships was horrific:  339 died at sea and 156 in hospitals soon after arrival, for a death toll of 495, or 48 percent. 

In possession of some of the Five Ships survivors was a precious burden:  the three registers for the parish of St.-Pierre-du-Nord, on the north side of Île St.-Jean; here were the records of the baptisms, marriages, and burials of many of their families from June 1724, when the parish was created, to August 1758; in contrast, Father Girard, who survived the sinking of the Duke William, lost the register for the parish of Pointe-Prime, which he was empowered to save.  Two of the Five Ships, the Mathias and Yarmouth, sailed on to Downs, Kent, on the English Channel, without any exchanged British prisoners aboard.  The French had refused to acknowledge the uprooted islanders as prisoners of war and so refused to accept them for purposes of prisoner exchange.  Earle Lockerby suspects that none of these eight transports that reached French ports returned to England with exchanged prisoners.  One suspects that the hundreds of islanders aboard these transport could have cared less if their arrival failed to free a single redcoat like the ones who had driven them from their homes.  Stuck now in another corner of a growing Acadian disaspora, they would have to do their best to create a life for themselves in the scattered ports of coastal France.313 

The End of Resistance, the New England "Planters," Mass Incarceration, and Self-Deportation, 1758-1765

From the beginning, Governor Lawrence and his colleague, Governor Shirley of Massachusetts, had envisioned a Nova Scotia free of "French Neutrals" and filled with Anglo Protestants.  The coming of a new war and the systematic removals of the 1750s did much to make their imperialist dream come true.  By the end of the second round of removals, in early 1759, the "Neutrals" were gone from the Fundy settlements--the trois-rivières, Chignecto, Minas, Pigiguit, Cobeguit, and the Annapolis valley, where the Acadians had been building their running dykes and aboiteaux since the late 1640s.  Also cleaned out recently were the smaller settlements near Cap-Sable, on lower Rivière St.-Jean, and in distant Gaspésie, all now also open to whoever wished to resettle there.147

The first clearing-out offensive after the capture of Louisbourg occurred at the western end of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, not only along its western shore around Miramichi Bay, but also along the southern shore of the Gaspé peninsula.  Major-General Jeffrey Amherst's star brigadier-general, James Wolfe, was tasked with effort, and he performed it with the usual thoroughness.  Three full regular redcoat regiments--the 15th, 28th, and 57th regiments of Foot--and seven Royal Navy ships under Captain Sir Charles Hardy, recently governor of New York colony, left Louisbourg on August 29 and made for Gaspésie, the southern coast of the Gaspé peninsula, on the other end of the Gulf.  On September 4, Hardy's squadron anchored off Grand-Grave in Gaspé Bay, at the eastern end of the peninsula.  According to an aide-de-camp on Wolfe's staff, when the big ships appeared, most of the fisher/habitants took to the woods.  Some, however, were captured, and British officers attempted to use them to negotiate with the others, without success.  Wolfe then revealed his real reason for his being there; he sent redcoats and blue jackets in detachments of boats to destroy all of the scattered settlements along the shore, down and around to the entrance of the Baie des Chaleurs.  Nothing of value--no houses, churches, fishing sheds, fishing boats were spared.  Another detachment of redcoats marched overland to Mont-Louis on the north shore of the peninsula and destroyed that settlement as well.  Meanwhile, another detachment under Colonel James Murray was sent south in one of the warships to destroy the large Acadian refuge at Miramichi, along with other settlements they could get at.  Murray's force destroyed all of the houses and boats they could find along Miramichi Bay, along with a stone church--still called Burnt Church today--but he could not get at the refuge itself.  It was located too far up an unnavigable river on an island not even his longboats could reach.  He then returned to Louisbourg.  At Gaspésie, Wolfe's forces returned to the flotilla on September 25 and 25, and Wolfe returned to Louisbourg on the 30th.  There Wolfe reported to Amherst that "'We have done a great deal of mischief,--spread the terror of His Majesty's arms through the whole gulf; but have added nothing to the reputation of them.'"  He proposed that Hardy, with Wolfe and his redcoats, return to the Gulf and destroy the settlements in the lower St. Lawrence up to Québec and take the city if they could manage it, but Amherst refused to countenance the plan  The fisher/habitants Wolfe captured at Gaspésie were sent to Halifax then, with captives from Cap-Sable, deported to Le Havre, France, in January 1759.147a

The fall of Louisbourg in July 1758 not only cleared the way for removing fisher/habitants from Île Royale, Île St.-Jean, and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, but also the habitants and descendants of seigneurs from two of the oldest, but also the smallest, of Acadian settlements.  There had been a settlement near Cap-Sable and Pobomcoup, today's Pubnico, north of Cap-Sable, since the mid-1600s.  The soil was generally poor there, so the upland forests had to be cleared for cultivation.  However, at Bas-de-Tousket, below today's Tusket, west of Pobomcoup, dykable marshes lined the wide estuary and were put to use by the hand full of Acadians there.  In this region, since July 1653, lay the seigneurie of Philippe Mius d'Entremont and his descendants, which encompassed the littoral and its hinterland from Pobomcoup down to Cap-Sable and around to Cap-Nèigre, including Port-La Tour.  In September 1714, Denis and Bernard Gaudet of haute-rivière in the Annapolis valley reported three habitants at "the Passage de Baccareau," today's Barrington Passage, on the mainland north of Cap-Sable Island, but the Gaudets said these settlers had moved on to Île Royale.  By 1750, Acadians had established a small settlement at Ministigueshe on the north side of Cap-Sable Island, though this may have been the same settlement the Gaudets had mentioned.  Despite efforts by the descendants of Mius d'Entremont and Charles La Tour to lure Acadian farmers to their seigneurie, the Pobomcoup/Cap-Sable area remained lightly settled:  14 individuals in 1671; 15 in 1686; 22 in 1687/88; 24 in 1689; 32 in 1693, 40 in 1702, 53 in 1708; and only 15 to 20 Acadian families, as well as a few Indian families, by the 1750s.  These were enough Acadians, however, to irk Charles Lawrence and his councilmen and to justify another strike with redcoats and rangers, but it did not come until the spring of 1756, when the transports full of Fundy habitants were well away.314

As they had done in the Fundy settlements during the summer and fall of 1755, the British struck the Acadians in the Cap-Sable area, determined to deport them to the seaboard colonies.  In the spring of 1756, Massachusetts militia at Halifax, on their way home after a year of duty in the Fundy settlements, were given one last mission.  They swooped down on Cap-Sable and nearby Pobomcoup and rounded up many of the habitants and fishermen there, loaded them aboard two sloops, the Mary and the Vulture, and sent them on to North Carolina, which they did not reach.  The sloop Mary, master Andrew Dunning, with 94 Acadians, got no farther than New York City, which it reached at the end of April, and there they stayed.  The Vulture, master Jonathan Scaife, with 72 exiles aboard, reached Boston during the second week of May.  The Massachusetts authorities ordered the Cap-Sable refugees to be placed aboard the Leopard and sent on to North Carolina.  The Acadians refused, and they were allowed to stay.  Many of the Cap-Sable Acadians escaped the roundup, but their respite from British oppression was short-lived.  After the fall of Louisbourg in July 1758, under the overall command of Colonel Robert Monckton of Fort Beauséjour fame, 400 redcoats led by Major Henry Fletcher of the 35th Regiment of Foot and Joseph Gorham's rangers, disembarked at Cap-Sable in late September to search for Acadians still in the area.  Two sailboats manned by redcoats sailed along the shore above and below the cape "to prevent the vermin from escaping in canoes," one British officer commented.  Luck had now run out for many of the Acadians still at Pobomcoup.  The British burned all of the houses and other buildings in the area to deny the habitants shelter and sustenance.  Rangers were sent out to roundup those who had eluded the redcoats, but many of the refugees--21 families comprised of 130 individual, "and 6 or 7 Indians"--got away.  In late October, 68 Acadians who surrendered at Pobomcoup, plus their aging priest, Father Jean-Baptiste de Gai Desenclaves, were loaded aboard the transport Alexander II, which sailed from Cap-Sable to Halifax, arriving there the first week of November.  They were held on Georges Island in the harbor.  In December, the British sent them to France, along with the hundreds of Acadians they were deporting from Gaspésie and the Maritime islands.  Cap-Sable and Gaspésie captives landed at Le Havre, Normandy, in January 1759.  Meanwhile, several Acadian families who had escaped the rangers at Pobomcoup in October 1758 sought refuge in the woods near the village, but, after a hard winter, surrendered to British authorities the following June.  They, too, were held as prisoners on Georges Island until November 1759, during which time eight of them died.  Following the great storm of November 3-4, the British deported them to England and then sent them on to Cherbourg in Normandy, which they reached in January 1760.315

The British attack on lower Rivière St.-Jean also did not commence until after the fall of Louisbourg.  Lieutenant Charles des Champs de Boishébert had commanded a force of troupes de la marine, Canadian militia, and Maliseet allies at the mouth of the river since the governor-general of New France had sent him there in 1749.  The young Canadian--he was only age 22--ordered his men to construct a fortification at the mouth of the river, across from Charles La Tour's old Fort St.-Jean.   Boishébert dubbed the new structure Fort Ménagouèche.  In July of that year, British Captain John Rous and his 14-gun sloop Albany paid the site a visit, but all the potential antagonists exchanged was bluster over which imperial power controlled the big river and its tributaries.  Boishébert informed his visitors that "he would remain until the boundaries were settled."  One of the ship's officers retorted to the young Canadian that "'if he maintained the land," the blue jackets "would the sea.'"  After the Britons departed, Boishébert wisely determined that the settlements up the river would be better served by a defense in depth.  He left only a small force of militia at Ménagouèche and pulled his troupes de la marine back upriver to the most strategic point he could find.  There, above Île Kennebecasis at the confluence of the St.-Jean and Rivière Nerepis, he constructed another fort, which he named after the Nerepis, at an important junction on the portage route between Québec and Chignecto.  When Lawrence and his Council launched the deportation of the Acadians, Boishébert did what he could from the lower St.-Jean to block the removal of the Acadians from the trois-rivières and Chignecto, with little success.  The best he could do was to steer the refugees from those areas and the Minas Basin to the lower St.-Jean via the portage from the upper Petitcoudiac and then on to Canada via the long portage up to the lower St. Lawrence.  Most refused to go there, however, choosing to remain as close as they could to their devastated settlements.  During the next few years, he spent more time overseeing refuge camps at Cocagne and Miramichi, but he could not turn his back on the lower St.-Jean.  In 1756, he reported having fed 600 Acadian refugees on the river during the previous winter, where only 200 had been living before the deportations.  With dozens of refugees from the seizure of the Pembroke and more dozens of exiles from the Fundy settlements choosing to find refuge on the lower St.-Jean, the resources there became steadily depleted, forcing Boishébert to send many of them, whether they wanted to or not, up the long portage to Québec.  He also sent many of them to his Gulf-shore refugee camps at Cocagne and Miramichi.  This substantially eased the pressure on the St.-Jean settlements, especially the largest one, Ste.-Anne-du-Pay-Bas at present-day Frederickton.  Then came the fall of Louisbourg in July 1758, freeing thousands of redcoats, rangers, and blue jackets to menace French and Acadian forces in the region.316

While his successor in command of Fort Cumberland, Major George Scott, with his redcoats and rangers, was preparing to clear away what was left of Acadian resistance in the trois-rivières settlements, especially on the upper Petitcoudiac, Colonel Monckton and the main force struck what was left of French and Acadian resistance on the lower St. John.  According to Carl Brasseaux, Monckton's force was an astonishing 2,000 regulars and rangers and that "Lacking the resources to assist them, Boishébert's much smaller force withdrew to Quebec, leaving the hapless Acadians to fend for themselves."  In truth, on August 13, having returned from a failed effort to give assistance to Drucour at Louisbourg, Boishébert left Miramichi with 400 fighters for Fort George (present-day Thomaston, Maine) to attack a force of New Englanders there.  "His detachment reached there on 9 September," his biographer informs us, "but was caught in an ambush and had to withdraw."  By the time he returned to Miramichi, the British had done their business on the lower St. John.  Only in the following spring, after he had abandoned the camp at Miramichi and established a new one at Restigouche, did he withdraw up the St. John portage to Québec, where, on 13 September 1759, he and a force of Acadians would fight on the Plains of Abraham under the Marquis de Montcalm, who cared little for the young lieutenant and his Acadian militia. 

Meanwhile, under orders from Major-General Jeffery Amherst, Colonel Monckton, serving as a temporary brigadier-general, sailed from the citadel on September 13 for the lower St. John, which he reached a week later.  With him were 900 or so "combat-effective regulars":  the entire 35th Regiment of Foot, some of whom were with Major Fletcher at Pobomcoup, and the second battalion of the 60th (Royal American) Regiment of Foot, along with the usual light infantry and several companies of rangers.  He sent a small force of light infantry, with an Acadian guide, to secure a landing place near Boishébert's Fort Ménagouèche.  The fort had been abandoned.  The turncoat guide informed Monckton about the treacheous reversing rapids at the mouth of the river and the location of other French emplacements farther up, including Boishébert's Fort Nerepis.  Monckton left 300 men at the mouth of the river to build a new fortification, Fort Frederick, which, when "completed," was little more than a blockhouse.  By the first of October, Monckton's redcoats and rangers, in the smaller boats as well as the larger transports, had cleared the reversing rapids.  Confident that there were no large French vessels on the lower stretch of the river and that Nerepis also was abandoned, Monckton's force made its way upriver as quickly as they could, the Americans and New-English rangers in the lead.  On October 3, the Americans reached the Acadian settlement of Grimrose, sometimes called Grimross, where refugees from the Fundy deportations had built a village for 40 or 50 families three years earlier.  "Anglo-Americans again forced them to abandon their homes," historian John Grenier quips.  In typical British fashion, "Moncton's troops burned every building in the village, torched the fields, and killed all the livestock."  On the 5th, the van of his force reached "the island of Métis."  The Acadian guide refused to go any farther, "claiming that the river at that point was too shallow for the Anglo-American vessels," who must have been traveling in one of the transports.  Monckton nevertheless ordered his men on.  At Jemseg, on the east bank of the river, a unit of rangers burned the ancient hamlet to the ground.  "His appetite for destruction satiated," and realizing that winter was fast approaching, "Monckton then returned to the mouth of the river" and his new fort there.317

By now, of course, the larger Acadian settlements above Jemseg, including Ste.-Anne-du-Pays-Bas, had been fully alerted to the British raid on the river below.  An Acadian prisoner informed the British that "other Acadians were fleeing west to Canada," but not all of them had gone.  "'As for the Indians,' Monckton cheerfully reported, 'they are disposed to get terms from the English.'"  The key to Maliseet compliance was the fort Monckton's men had just built at the mouth of the river.  "The Indians could see that the blockhouse could just as easily become a trade house, and opposition to the Anglo-Americans guaranteed that their 'fishing and hunting would be cut off.'"  In the years ahead, the Maliseet, along with their Algonquian brethren the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy, would prove willing to parlay with the new conquerors and declare themselves "Brethren of King George."318

Back at Fort Frederick, Monckton stationed five companies there, a substantial force, he sent five to Fort Anne at Annapolis Royal to protect it from the partisans and the Mi'kmaq, who were not yet "disposed to get terms," and two companies to Fort Edward at Pigiguit for the same purpose.  All of the irregulars were assigned to Scott's command for the move against the upper Petitcoudiac, which followed in November with stunning success.  But British depredations were not over on the St. John River.  Monckton sailed with his river prisoners back to Halifax and left Major Robert Morris in charge of the fort.  Back at Fort Frederick in February, Monckton sent a company of rangers under Captain John McCurdy to approach Ste.-Anne-du-Pay-Bas on snowshoes.  McCurdy died in an accident on the way, and command fell to Lieutenant Moses Hazen.  When the Acadians at Ste.-Anne saw the rangers approaching, most of them retreated upriver to the Maliseet village of Ecoupag.  Others did not, including the seigneurial family, the Godin dit Bellefontaines, whose ancestor Gabriel dit Châtillon, sieur de Bellefontaine, had founded Ste.-Anne in the late 1680s.  The senior member of the family now, Gabriel's second son Joseph dit Bellefontaine dit Beauséjour, age 63 in 1758, served as the local militia leader with the rank of major.  Two years earlier, in 1756, Joseph's oldest son Michel dit Beauséjour, a navigator and militia officer, at age 23, married Marguerite Guilbeau, a native of the Annapolis valley who had escaped the roundup there and found refuge with her family on the lower St.-Jean.  The couple settled among Michel's many kinsmen at St.-Anne-du-Pays-Bas.  When Monckton and his men raided up the lower river, some of the Godins fled north to Canada or east to the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore, while others remained at Ste.-Anne.  As the rangers under Hazen approached the village, Major Godin and his militiamen ambushed them.  The rangers quickly recovered, and then struck back.  In the mélée that followed the destruction of the village, including two mass houses and 147 houses, the rangers fell upon a house that lay apart from the others, where they captured the elder Godin.  Hazen and his rangers killed and scalped six Acadians hiding there, and captured six others.  Five of the other Acadians hiding in the house got away.  Though the British insisted that the dead habitants were all men, eyewitness depositions made to French authorities in Québec and France determined that the six Acadians who the rangers killed actually were two women and their four children, who Hazen tortured and then killed while trying to force Godin to sign an oath of allegiance.  Instead, the old fighter escaped into the woods with two of his grandchildren but was later captured.  One of the murdered women was Anastasie, Godin's daughter and the wife of Eustache Part.  Three of the dead children belonged to this couple.  The other murdered woman was Marguerite Guilbeau, son Michel's wife, and the other murdered child was the couple's infant son.  The British transported the captured habitants, including the tough old major and the grieving husbands and their remaining children to the prison compound on Georges Island, Halifax.  In November, Governor Lawrence shipped them off to England with other captives from the river, and the English sent them on to Cherbourg, France, which they reached in January 1760.  Meanwhile, for the rest of 1759, the rangers clashed with Acadians and Maliseet up and down the lower river.  Only after the fall of Québec later that year did the Acadians and Maliseet surrender, at forts Frederick and Cumberland.319

One more incident on the river, this one bloodless, revealed the completeness of the British victory on the lower St. John and the character of Charles Lawrence in his final days.  Many of the refugees from the river had retreated not to the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore, to either Miramichi or Restigouche, but took the long portage up to the lower St. Lawrence, where they hoped to find asylum in Québec.  Their timing was unfortunate:  British General James Wolfe and his amphibious force soon besieged the Canadian capital.  After the citadel's surrender in September 1759, "many of the fugitives decided to return to their adopted home" on the lower St. John "and reach an accommodation with the local British authorities."  In October, "two Acadians representing 200 of their now demoralized countrymen visited British military installations along the lower St. John River and requested permission to remain on their lands if they took an unconditional oath of allegiance to Britain."  The request was referred to Governor Lawrence, who refused it.  Moreover, he sent ships to the St. John "'for having them immediately transported to Halifax as prisoners of war, until they could be sent to England."  In early January, area Acadians who had recently surrendered with their families at Fort Frederick also were placed aboard the transport.  The Acadians arrived at Halifax in February 1760 and followed other river refugees to England and France.  When word of it reached the Gulf shore, Lawrence's treachery "had a chilling effect on the refugee Acadians at Bouctouche, Richibucto, and Miramichi, who cancelled their promise to surrender at Fort Cumberland--to the chagrin of the British authorities, who could not rest until they had brought all Acadian rebels under total submission."320

There remained the Mi'kmaq and the Acadian partisans, roaming the countryside at will, ambushing small parties of redcoats when they could, and, in the case of the partisans, even engaging local British maritime commerce as fast-hitting privateers.  By 1759, however, only Boishébert's new post at Restigouche, at the head of the Baie des Chaleurs, offered the partisans a reliable base of operations ... from a veritable cul-de-sac!  Nevertheless, on Christmas Day of 1758, Commander-in-Chief Amherst wrote to Colonel Monckton at Fort Frederick "that Nova Scotia finally appeared to have been cleared of Acadians and Indians and their only potential safe haven was along the Penobscot River" in Maine, which two British forces "were prepared to sweep" early in the New Year.  "Affairs in Nova Scotia seemed so settled that Amherst ordered Monckton to send Gorham's and Dank's Rangers to Wolfe at Louisbourg," where he was preparing an expedition against Canada when the season permitted.  Québec fell to Wolfe's forces on in September 1759 after a set-piece battle on the nearby Plains of Abraham that killed Wolfe and mortally wounded the French commander-in-chief, the Marquis de Montcalm.  Word did not reach Nova Scotia of Québec's fall until October 20.  At Louisbourg, Governor Edward Whitmore took advanage of the news by issuing "a proclamation offering the Acadian refugees an 'olive branch.'  If they surrendered peaceably, he was 'ordered by His Majesty to assure you that you will continue in the enjoyment of all your goods, the freedom of your property, with the free exercise of your religion.'  If they refused, however, he would 'replace the white flag of peace with a red flag of war.'  Guerre mortelle--'fighting under the red flag'--was war without mercy; no quarter, no prisoners, no ransom.'"  Whitmore's offer would be implemented on the Gulf shore by Colonel Joseph Frye, commander at Fort Cumberland, the same officer who had been defeated by these same fighters on the lower Petitcoudiac back in September 1755.   

Less than a week after word reached the area about the fall of Québec, the Gulf shore surrenders began in earnest.  Abbé Manach made his way to the Baie de Miramichi, where a British gunship, the Diana, under Captain Alexander Schomberg, had taken up station, and offered to surrender.  A month later, on 16 November 1759, with another northern winter coming on, "several Acadians appeared outside the walls of Fort Cumberland."  The Acadians, who represented "their remaining population of 190 persons," swore that "had had enough of fighting and privation."  Two days later, another Acadian appeared and "claimed that he represented 120 Acadians at Miramichi who wanted 'to come in for they hant much Provision to carry them through the winter.'"  He also represented refugees at Bouctouche and Richibucto.  Among the partisans who accepted the offer were the Beausoleil Broussards.  To insure the family's compliance, Alexandre Broussard offered to stand as hostage till his brother and the rest of the family came in the following spring.  A "'great many more'" came in over the following days, Frye reported, but word of the treachery on Rivière St.-Jean prevented some of the refugees, including Joseph Broussard, from coming in the following spring.  However, so many refugees did come in to Fort Cumberland during the late fall and winter 1759-60 that, by the following summer, Frye sent most of them to Fort Edward, and the commander there made them walk to Halifax, where they were held on Georges Island until prison barracks could be built for them in the city.  Meanwhile, Lawrence and his Council debated ignoring Whitmore's amnesty and deporting all the refugees at Halifax to England.  Whitmore himself gave some thought to the treachery, but then calmer heads prevailed.  The refugees, at least the ones brought in from Fort Cumberland, remained at Halifax. 

The Mi'kmaq were even more willing to parlay with their old enemy.  on 26 November 1759, Abbé Maillard, having encouraged the Acadians and Mi'kmaq to surrender, along with Abbé Joseph-Charles Germain, gave themselves up to Captain Schomberg at Miramichi.  The Mi'kmaq, "who had already broken into their winter hunting," did not come in until the following January, the first of them on the 11th.  Frye "fed them and directed them to return to their families and friends to tell them that the Yankees would not harm them."  To Frye's chagrin, the surrender of the Mi'kmaq proved to be a long affair.  On 29 January 1760, Abbé Manach came in with two Mi'kmaq chiefs, Paul Laurence and Augustine Michael.  "The Indians agreed to lay down their arms, then formalized the 'Treaty of Peace and Friendship'" with Governor Lawrence in March.  However, treaties would have to be negotiated with 14 other chiefs named on a list the abbé submitted.  The effort took the colonel over a year to complete the task.  Still, by early 1760, John Grenier notes, "after five years of struggle for Joseph Frye and fifty years for the empire, it finally looked as if Anglo-American had a tabula rasa on which to draw Nova Scotia in their image."321

.

But then there was the privateer base at Restigouche that still had not surrendered despite the fall of Québec.  Until this refuge, now under command of Lieutenant Jean-François Bourdon de Dombourg, Boishébert's successor, could be cleared out, the French would not have been completely removed from the Gulf of St. Lawrence region.  Bourdon did not command only militia; he commanded gray-clad troupes de marine, regular naval troops, as well.  Moreover, by early 1760, dozens of Acadian militia, along with loyal Mi'kmaq fighters, augmented his force, so that 1,500 fighters made up the garrison at Restigouche.  Also available to him were "25 to 30 Acadian sloops and schooners from the Miramichi and elsewhere...," some of them privateers.  So, along with Montréal and other enclaves in lower Canada, Bourdon's garrison was one the last of the French "strongholds" in North America and the last significant Acadian refuge on the Gulf. 

And then, in a case of too little, too late following their bludgeoning in the Battle of Quiberon Bay off the south coast of Brittany in November 1759, the French knew that the only hope of saving New France was to send a fleet of warships, filled with troupes de la marine and tons of supplies, to recapture Québec--but only if they could get there ahead of the British resupply, which would be escorted by a Royal Navy flotilla.  Captain François-Gabriel d'Angeac of Plaisance, Newfoundland, a chevalier of the Order of St. Louis, was given command of the naval troops, only 400, including some who had seen previous service in greater Acadia, instead of the 4,000 requested by Governor-General Vaudreuil.  On 10 April 1760, a fleet of six warships, commanded by Lieutenant de Fregate François Chenard de la Giraudais, escorting a number of merchant vessels filled with provender, left Bordeaux, heading for the St. Lawrence.  Once they debouched into the Bay of Biscay, Giraudais's ships and their escorts attempted to elude British Admiral Boscawen's blockade of the French coast and clear Cape Finisterre, at the northwest tip of the Iberian peninsula, past which they could cross the Atlantic Ocean and make for the Gulf of St. Lawrence.  Unfortunately, on the second day out, two of Boscawen's blockaders spotted the fleet and gave chase.  To allow the rest of the fleet to escape capture, Giraudais, in his flagship, the frigate Machault, 500 tons burden, 32 guns, broke from the fleet and led the British ships on a 10 1/2 hour chase to allow the rest of the convoy to escape.  When the fleet reunited, only two of the other vessels, the armed merchant ships Marquis de Malauze, 354 tons and 18 guns, and Bienfaisant, 320 tons and 22 guns, appeared, the former on April 12, the latter on April 17.  Two of the other ships, the Soleil, 350 tons, and the Aurore, 450 tons, had been captured by the Royal Navy.  The sixth warship, Fidélité, 450 tons, separated from the others, suffered a worse fate.  It had been capsized by a wave on the twentieth day of the voyage; only the captain, 11 of the crew, the four officers of the troupes, and two soldiers, made their way safely to the Azores in an open boat; others on the vessel perished.  The rest of the voyage was uneventful, and Giraudais's three ships made it to the mouth of the St. Lawrence by May 15.  Here, on the 17th, off the Île-aux-Oiseaux on the mainland north of Anticosti Island, the French captured eight British supply transports, with 60 men and seven women aboard, heading up to Québec.  From prisoners, Giraudais learned that a British fleet had preceded them up the river, and so their chance of recapturing Québec was lost.  Giraudais and D'Angeac, ignoring the lieutenant's secret orders to move on to St.-Domingue or Louisiana if blocked from going to Québec, agreed to make for the nearest refuge, the Baie des Chaleurs, where he would await orders from the governor-general of New France.  On May 18, rounding the eastern end of the Gaspé peninsula, Giraudais moved his flotilla carefully through the Warm Waters Bay towards the estuary of Rivière Restigouche.  At first opportunity, Giraudais opened up communications with Montréal via a trustworthy troupe named St. Simon, who carried official dispatches from France to Governor-General Vaudreuil and the New-French commander-in-chief François-Gaston, Chevalier de Lévis.  Walking overland through the mountains of the Gaspé peninsula and then along the south bank of the lower St. Lawrence, St. Simon reached Montréal in 25 days.  Meanwhile, on May 19, the flotilla anchored on the north shore of the estuary at what the French would later call Pointe à la Batterie, today's Battery Point.  Hundreds of Acadians would now be given another chance to prove their loyalty to France.322

Historians Judith Beattie and Bernard Pothier speculate that Giraudais ignored his orders to proceed to the Caribbean or the Gulf of Mexico for several reasons:  first, that some of D'Angeac's troupes de la marine had not only served on Île Royale, but also were familiar with this corner of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, including the Baie des Chaleurs; and second, and probably more compelling, that much of their rations had rotted on the Atlantic crossing and so they were in dire need of fresh food.  Both commanders certainly were aware of Bourdon's force at Restigouche and that the Acadians there likely had provided food for themselves as well as the troupes there.  The flotilla also was short on fresh water, which could be replenished at Restigouche.  Unfortunately, as Bourdon could have told them, food was not a surplus item at this or any other Acadian refuge.  Though the Acadians there had not suffered as much as they had at Miramichi a few winters earlier, Bourdon could write in April 1760 that "'The scarcity is so great that, after eating the domestic animals, we were obliged to eat the skins of cattle and beavers to survive.'"  Shades of Camp Espérance!  Soon after he could examine the nearby Acadian refuges, D'Angeac described what he saw in similar terms:  "'In this place of misery, I found more than 1,500 souls, worn down by their tribulations and dying of hunger, having had to eat beaver skins all winter long.  I had my crew supply them with half a pound of flour each day and a ration of beef, while waiting orders from Monsieur the Marquis de Vaudreuil.  This small assistance pulled them back from the threshold of death, and I have been continuing this allocation up to the present."323

At Pointe à la Batterie, D'Angeac ordered his troops to set up camp.  Some constructed ovens to bake bread, some built a battery, and others unloaded one of the prize ships, the Augustus, which would serve as a scout boat.  It did not take long for the hungry Acadians in a recently constructed village nearby to get word of the flotilla's cargo of food, and soon many were standing around the camp waiting to be fed.  Meanwhile, on June 12, Giraudais sent out the scout boat under the Machault's first lieutenant, Lavary le Roy.  On June 17, in faraway Montréal, after officials there were alerted to the failed rescue mission from France, the governor-general composed a lengthy set of instructions comprising 24 "articles" for D'Angeac and handed it to the messenger, St. Simon, who retraced his route back to Restigouche.  Many of Vaudreuil's instructions concerned the Acadians and the Mi'kmaq, who D'Angeac--Vaudreuil called him Danjac-- now commanded.  He designated D'Angeac "commander in chief of all French posts and possessions in Acadia, the frontier of Canada," with headquarters at Restigouche.  Vaudreuil directed that D'Angeac send "Monsieur de Niverville," in command of what was left of the French presence on Rivière St.-Jean, to Miramichi.  He insisted that D'Angeac and his officers count all of the Acadians in his command, assemble them, and "omit nothing to recall those who are at Beauséjour [Fort Cumberland]" who had recently surrendered to Colonel Frye.  Vaudreuil was especially keen on gathering as much evidence as possible on the missionaries who encouraged the Acadians and the Mi'kmaq to surrender.  Proving himself a master of micro-management, Vaudreuil specified how D'Angeac would distribute the supplies aboard Giraudais ships and even detailed the exact rations to be given to his men, the Acadians, and the Indians, distinguishing between the fighters and those who were not.  He directed that the Acadians be given no new clothes, regardless of their current raggedness, until the winter, and then only on orders from Montréal.  He encouraged D'Angeac to issue the "six blank Admiralty commissions" given to Bourdon the previous winter to "those Acadians who were best able to engage" in privateering, especially to "Gautier and Beausoleil," the latter still recuperating from his wound, who he recommended "in consideration of their zeal and their services."  He ordered D'Angeac to prepare a sea-going vessel chosen by Giraudais, fully armed and properly provisioned, to carry dispatches to France that Vaudreuil was about to send to him from Montréal.  And he expected D'Angeac to share with Montréal any news from "papers or journals that may be found on the vessels that the Acadian corsairs shall take."  According to Beattie and Pothier, "Several things are evident from this lengthy and detailed document.  Vaudreuil expressed little concern that the fleet would be attacked"--it was, after all, anchored near the mouth of a river that was almost unnavigable, and the British probably were unfamiliar with the river as well as its estuary.  Vaudreuil also believed predictions "that peace would be concluded shortly."  Most significantly, he "also had no intentions of sending the fleet on to Louisiana or St. Domingue.  His aim was to provide the basis of a French claim to Acadia by maintaining posts there and to guarantee a link between himself and the minister of colonies by the ships in the Restigouche."  Moreover, " He decided to unload the ships 'and there establish a magazine for the King,'" something Giraudais and D'Angeac were already doing without instruction.324

In the end, however, all was moot.  D'Angeac would not receive Vaudreuil's June 17 instructions for weeks to come--St. Simon did not leave Montréal with them until July 9.  Meanwhile, the British had been alerted to the enhanced French presence at Restigouche and its threat to their interests in the region.  They had been expecting the arrival of a French fleet to retake the Canadian capital, so they remained on high alert both at Québec and Louisbourg.  After hearing of the presence of French vessels in the lower St. Lawrence and the Gulf, Commodore Alexander Lord Colvill, commander of British naval forces in North America, headquartered now in Québec, dispatched a squadron of three frigates and smaller vessels under Captain Samuel Wallis to search the lower river and the Gulf.  Hearing of it, Vaudreuil at Montréal "gave little credit to the intelligence, saying "'I hardly think the English will send their largest vessels to attack ours which have arrived at Restigouche...."  He did promise to warn the officers at Restigouche, but they would learn of British intentions soon enough.  On June 17, the day Vaudreuil wrote his instructions for D'Angeac, Govenror Whitmore at Louisbourg had been warned by friendly Indians that the French had landed a substantial fleet at Restigouche.  Royal Navy Captain John "Foulweather Jack" Byron, stationed at Louisbourg, was preparing to convoy troops to Britain.  Whitmore cancelled the convoy and ordered Byron to destroy the French force "in Chaleur Bay" as soon as he was able, which was as soon as the wind allowed.  Byron cobbled together three ships of the line--his flagship HMS Fame, 74 guns; HMS Achilles, 60 guns, under Captain Samuel Barrinton; and HMS Dorsetshire, 70 guns, Captain Campbell--along with two frigates--the HMS Scarborough, 20 guns, Captain Scot; and the HMS Repulse, 32 guns, Captain John Carter Allen--three smaller gunboats, more than enough for the mission, and sailed from Louisbourg in record time.325 

Byron's flagship reached his destination, Miguasha Point on the north side of western end of the Baie des Chaleurs, across from present-day Dalhousie, on June 22.  The rest of his fleet, however, true to his nickname, had been scattered by fog and foul weather.  While waiting for the others, Byron sent out his longboats, which promptly captured the French scout boat Augustus, which originally had been a British schooner.  Hearing of the arrival of the British ship-of-the-line and suspecting that more Royal Navy vessels soon would appear, Giraudais took it upon himself--"albeit reluctantly"--to defend his fleet, and the post at Restigouche, as best he could.  Despite his reluctance, he was confident that he was defending "a position in which he unequivocally held strategic and tactical advantages."  Besides his three French vessels and seven captured British transports, there were dozens of Acadian sloops and schooners, including armed privateers, "whose crews had joined the French when they learned of the fleet's arrival in the Restigouche."  Nor was Giraudais wanting for ground troops.  There were 200 or so troupes de la marine under D'Angeac's command; 300 Acadians under arms, "'all capable, but lazy and independent if they are not governed,'" lieutenant believed; and 250 Mi'kmaq fighters.  "Nevertheless," Beattie and Pothier quip, "the capture of the reconnaissance schooner marked the inauspicious beginning of a particularly inept military effort by the French."326

On the morning of June 23, Byron weighed anchor and set out up the bay "in search of the enemy."  His unfamiliarity with the channel, and the size of the Fame, compelled him to leave his flagship in the wider bay and resume the movement into its narrower, shallower reaches in his trusty longboats.  He soon "'saw sevl ships & vessels at anchor above them about 2 leag near a point of land (on the Northern shore) ... a frigate ... 2 others seemed to be Merchant or Storeships the others sloops and shooners in all 10 or 12 sail...."  What he had found was Giraudais's three French vessels and a flotilla of Acadian privateers anchored off Pointe à la Batterie.  He proceeded no farther that day, but at dawn on the 24th he sent two boats farther up to make more soundings.  The boats returned a few hours later with several Acadian ships in pursuit.  Giraudais, meanwhile, at the point, "set his men to the rapid completion of the battery, being built en barbette" and facing the north channel of the bay.  He ordered his sailors to move four 12-pounders and a 6-pounder from the Machault to the battery, and placed his second-in-command, Donat de la Garde, in the command of the fortification.  Expecting action soon, Giraudais placed the Machault broadside in the middle of the channel, "close behind a chain of small sloops and schooners which he scuttled one-half cannon shot below the battery.  He then, "for security reasons," moved the English captives--60 men and seven women--taken in mid-May in the lower St. Lawrence, from the Machault to the hold of a schooner, which he placed "under the cannon of the battery."  This only increased the captives' suffering.  He then ordered the armed merchant vessels, with their precious cargoes, to anchor at the mouth of the Restigouche out of harm's way, which was completed on the 27th.  Meanwhile, on the morning of the 25th, Byron ordered the Fame to weigh anchor and move closer to the head of the bay, but around noon, at lowering tide, the big ship ran aground "'on a patch of mud....'"  Amazingly, Giraudais did not take advantage of Byron's dilemma--"'... I thought we never should have got off again,'" the captain wrote later--and the big ship, with the help of the captured scout boat, the Augustus, along with a rising tide, was freed from the muck "after nine or ten hours of arduous effort and jettisoning one of her anchors."  Evidently the size of the Fame--"a fully armed two-decker" ship of the line with a large crew and "formidable firepower"--compelled the young lieutenant to change his mind about sending a boarding party to seize the stricken vessel.327

Beattie and Pothier's evaluation of Giraudais's decision is appropriately nuanced:  "The Fame's admittedly formidable firepower notwithstanding, the French held enough of the classic advantages of a war situation to virtually guarantee their success:  they enjoyed adquate manpower, the advantages of a secure defensive position, mobility both on land and on water, surprise, and for at least two hours before the Fame was released from the shoals, darkness.  Their only serious disadvantage, albeit an essential one, was the low morale of both officers and men.  Disheartened by the events in both Europe and North America in the previous two years which undermined France's position, neither Giraudais nor D'Angeac, any more than their subalterns, possessed the energy or bold offensive spirit which, combined with their physical advantages, might have led to a decisive French victory on the Restigouche in 1760."328

After four days of battling wind and sea, the rest of Byron's squadron finally appeared off Miguasha Point on June 26.  They at first provided little assistance to their patient commander.  The captains of Achilles and Dorsetshire, also ships of the line, understand that they faced an unknown channel and wisely anchored off the point.  The captains of the frigates Scarborough and Repulse "at first took the Fame to be French and endeavoured to get up to it."  Fully ignorant of the vagaries of the channel, they both ran aground.  The Scarborough was soon released with the help of the Fame, but the Repulse "was forced to spend the night on the shoals."  On the 27th, Byron sent his longboats and the schooner Augustus to mark the channel.  The two frigates and the Fame cautiously followed.  Byron soon realized that the channel being marked "ran very close to the north shore and was therefore exposed to the French guns and musketry" in the fortification ahead.  "It was also, as Byron put it, so narrow there was 'no room for a ship to swing.'"  On the 28th, the Augustus ran aground in less than a fathom of water.  The frigates also ran aground, within range of the French battery on the north shore.  Giraudais ordered his men to open fire, "but the French action was limited to a rather passive and half-hearted effort and their fire caused little real damage to the English," who realized they had wandered into a watery cul-de-sac.  A detachment of D'Angeac's troupes de la marine, along with Acadians and Mi'kmaq "hidden in the surrounding woods," made it difficult for the British to free the vessels, forcing Byron to bring the guns aboard the Fame "to bear on the French position as a cover for the grounded frigates and by evening the French musketry was effectively dispersed."  Out of caution, Giraudais ordered the armed merchant ships, the Marquis de Malauze and the Bienfaisant, which had just taken up positions in the mouth of the Restigouche, to move as far up the river as they could manage to protect their cargoes. He moved the Machault to the mouth of the river where the transports had been, "slightly beyond the range of the English guns."  He then transferred the English prisoners from the crowded schooner back to the hold of the Machault, where, one of the prisoners later claimed, the French sailors answered their complaints by threatening to hand them over to the Indians.  Meanwhile, Byron observed the unimpeded movements of the Machault and its consorts and was determined to discover the secrets of the elusive channel.  The soundings continued as surreptiously as possible and that night, the 28th and 29th, Byron's efforts paid off--his tars discovered "a new and promising channel ... close to the south shore of the Restigouche.".329

At daylight of the 29th, now a week into the operation, Byron ordered the captains of the Repulse and the Scarborough "to swing back and attempt the new passage, but further sounding soon belied his premature optimism."  The passage--Giraudais called it "the false South channel"--led to another watery cul-de-sac, "which from an impressive seven fathoms had quickly fallen to nine feet before running into mud flats at low water."  This south channel, however, before it petered out into the cul-de-sac, placed the British frigates well out of range of Giraudais's north channel battery, while the formidable Fame, going as far up the south channel as it could, could reach the French battery with big guns with no difficulty.  Moreover, the big ship could fire at the unprotected flank of Giraudais's battery.  "Although the French at first returned the Fame's fire, they were overwhelmed within a few days."330

By noon of July 2, the French battery was smashed to pieces.  Giraudais ordered the battery abandoned and the remaining four guns spiked, split, and burst.  Byron put ashore a landing party, which found no Frenchmen left to capture.  The blue jackets took out their frustrations on a nearby refugee village, burning "between 150 and 200 buildings" there.  The Acadians and Indians who lived there, of course, had abandoned the village during the four-day long bombardment of Giraudais's battery and moved upriver to the main refugee camp at Petite-Rochelle.  Byron chose not to occupy Pointe à la Batterie but to push ahead with finding a navigable north-bank channel that would allow him to get closer to the French vessels and complete "the essential task of destroying the French squadron." After abandoning Pointe à la Batterie, Giraudais designated Pointe à Bourdon, also called Pointe à Bourdeau, well inside the estuary of the Restigouche, and site of Petit-Rochelle, as the unloading point for his "storeships."  To prevent the British from reaching this point, Giraudais ordered the construction of two new batteries on both sides of the the estuary at Pointe de la Mission on the north bank, at today's Listuguj, Québec, and on the south side at Pointe aux Sauvages, today's Campbellton, New Brunswick, where the Restigouche estuary was at it most narrow.  Giraudais's three ships now lay in the channel above the new batteries, the Machaut fartherest down stream at Pointe de la Mission, the Bienfaisant next in line, and the Marquis die Malauze farthest up and closest to Pointe à Bourdeau.331

On July 3, Captain Allen "dejectedly withdrew" the Repulse from its position in the south channel.  That night, while he and Byron aboard the Fame were discussing alternative approaches to the French vessels, word arrived that "a new passage had been found close to the north shore where soundings had resumed the night prior to the French withdrawal from Pointe à Batterie."  Byron promptly ordered the frigates Repulse and Scarborough, and the schooner Augusta, now sporting four 6-pounders and a crew of 50 men, to the newly-discovered channel.  That night, the 3rd and 4th, the small squadron began moving towards the estuary of the Restigouche but had to wait two days, the 4th and 5th, "before a passage could be cleared through the chain of hulks the French had sunk below Pointe à la Batterie."  On July 5, as soon as the English squadron had cleared the Acadian hulks, Byron ordered the Augustus to head across the estuary to fire on the "workmen he saw at the site of the new battery at Pointe aux Sauvages 'to annoy them all he could...."  Unfortunately, Lieutenant Cummings, in command of the Augustus, "anchored too close to the shore, well within range of the deadly musketry which suddenly began to rain from the barely completed breastwork and the surrounding woods and was forced to draw back to safety.  Cummings himself was seriously wounded, barely escapng with his life."  Byron surely noted that this musketry did not come from the north shore this time but from the south shore, attesting to the number of troupes de la marine, Acadians, and Mi'kmaq in the area, who could fight him from either shore.332

On the night of the 6th and 7th, while construction of the new batteries were well along or finished, Giraudais ordered the sinking of more Acadian vessels, this time in the channel between Pointe aux Sauvages and Pointe à la Croix.  On the 7th, Giraudais noted that the British "remained undaunted and showed every sign of continuing hard after the French."  He ordered the transfer of the English prisoners once again, this time from the Machault to the Marquis de Malauze, which was farthest from the reach of the British guns.  Meanwhile, the Augustus, under a new commander, made another run at the south shore battery.  Two days earlier the battery at Pointe aux Sauvages had been incomplete, but now it sported three 4-pounders to blast away at the schooner, along with its cover of concealed musketry.  Again, the Augustus was driven off.  On the afternoon of the 7th, Giraudais's battery on the north shore at Pointe de la Mission, complete with barbette, was ready to open fire.  Behind its earthen barbette stood three 12-pounders and two 6-pounders, a much stronger battery than its cohort on the south shore.  Also behind the north shore barbette was a detachment of 30 sharpshooters, probably some of D'Angeac's troupes de la marine, along with the usual Acadians and Mi'kmaq fighters hidden in the nearby woods.333

During the night of the 7th and 8th, however, Byron's three-ship advanced squadron, using the cover of darkness, scored a major coup.  With Augustus in the lead, the frigates, towed by long boats, "continued their advance and their survey of the channel.  Although it is not clear how," Beattie and Pothier relate, despite desultory fire from the French guns and musketry all night, "the English managed to skirt the second chain of hulks" and place themselves upstream from the French obstructions "and face to face with the Machault."  Dawn of the 8th revealed to Giraudais from the bridge of his flagship that the English frigates and the armed schooner "stood at anchor only one-half cannon-shot" down from Machault!  "The engagement which the French had ardently hoped to avoid was inevitable and imminent."  The advantage in firepower lay heavily with the British--the 32 guns of the Repulse, the 20 guns of the Scarborough, and the four six-pounders aboard the more maneuverable Augustus faced the Machault, still anchored across the channel, with only 10 12-pounders in its starboard battery, along with the smaller cannon and the musketry of the two shore batteries.  Unfortunately for the French, the unloading of the two store ships was still underway, the completion of which was now a priority.  All personnel not needed to man the battery guns or not guarding English prisoners were hurried to the store ships.  Sharpshooters on both banks of the river prepared to do their deadly business.334

Shortly after 5 a.m., the Repulse, having manuevered in range of the south shore battery, "quickly drove the defenders from their positions," with only concealed sharpshooters able to return fire.  As the frigates moved slowly upstream, they faced steady fire from the north shore battery and the Machault.  "The French fire was so brisk that the Repulse, in the lead, was driven 'aground in a very bad position with her head on to the shoals.'"  Giraudais, assessing the damage to the frigate through the smoke, was certain he had sunk it.  There was no time for celebration--the lieutenant was informed that, despite the short duration of their firing, the flagship "was almost out of powder and cartridges."  This was the result of Giraudais, "as a safety precaution," having transferred "part of his war stores to a small vessel..."  He sent out one of this boats to find the vessel, but "the terror of the moment affected its crew," who abandoned the vessel with all of its precious munitions and "were never heard from again..."  As a result of this amazing mismanagement, the Machault's fire "became more sporatic until it ceased at nine o'clock."  By then, the flagship has taken on seven feet of water, so Giraudais chose to abandon his ship, which struck its colors at 11 a.m.  Repulse, in the mean time, "managed to get off the shoals and, with Scarborough, resumed fire on the menacing north shore battery.  Fire from the battery became desultory after the Machault struck its colors.  The frigates, meanwhile, had proceeded up the channel as far as they could safely go.  Captain Allen of the Repulse, certain that the French soon would blow up the stricken vessel rather than surrender its cargo to the enemy, refrained from sending his boats out filled with sailors and Royal Marines to storm the Machault and take it as a prize.  As noon approached, Giraudais and D'Angeac, still aboard the Machault, made certain they fulfilled the honor of being the last aboard the vessel, "descended into a boat and made for the French camp at Pointe à Bourdeau," a good ways upstream and out of reach of the determined British.  Around noon, the Machault "blew up with a 'very great explostion.'"  Evidently "the charge had gone off prematurely," wounding several French sailors aboard.  "Fifteen minutes later the Bienfaisant similary blew up, its entire cargo still in its hold."  The Marquis de Malauze would undoubtedly have suffered a similar fate," Beattie and Pothier speculate, "had the prisoners not been within its hold."  There were only 62 of the English prisoners left of the original 67.  After hearing the two great explosions, their guards brought them "up on the deck and ordered" them "into an inadequate makeshift raft 'which would have sunk with one half of our number,'" one of them later related.  Worst of all, however, was the spectre of being placed "into the hands of the Mi'kmaq on shore...."  Half-crazed by the prospect, they "refused to move and finally prevailed upon their captors to admit that to force them to leave would amount to sacrificing them to the Indians.  The French therefore left them to their fate, but not before marching them back into the hold where they were fettered and handcuffed anew and the hatches again secured above them."  Their terror can only be imagined.  They remained in the hold, fearing not only the prospect of being blown to bits but, still more frightening to them, being boarded that night and set upon by the Mi'kmaq.  Determined to leave the hold, they knocked down a bulkhead near the ladder up to the hatches, forced open the hatches, and hurried back on deck.  Though it was still early afternoon, the heavy smoke from the burning French hulks drifting down to them and the north shore line with Indian and Acadian sharpshooters firing down on them nearly drove them back into the bowels of the ship.  Then a young fellow among them stepped foward and volunteered to swim to the Repulse, "a full league downstream," to warn the captain of their presence.  "Passing under the guns of the Pointe de la Mission battery, he arrived safely at the English frigate.  Captain Allen immediately dispatched" one of his officer, Lord Rutherford,"with nine boats escorted by" the Augustus "to the Marquis de Malauze to the relief of the prisoners.  Notwithstanding brisk fire from the one remaining French position, the English prisoners were all released and brought to the Repulse" by mid-afteroon.335

Once the prisoners were rescued, Rutherford promptly set fire to the Marquis de Malauze, destroying all of its precious cargo, which included "'wine and brandy, bales of goods and warlike stores."  Six of the British sailors, however, "tarried too long with the liquor and went down with the flaming hulk."  As the first of the French north shore battery slackened, Rutherford and his men destroyed every French vessel they could get at, 22 or 23, most of them Acadian sloops and schooners, not counting the ten hulks sunk in the channel or the many Acadian vessels the French had destroyed that morning.  Rutherford reported that when his men were done, "only one schooner and two sloops remained by nightfall."  The hundreds of Acadians still at Restigouche were now essentially stranded.336

After nightfall, the three British vessels "swung around at 11 o'clock" that evening "and withdrew downstream" and out of range of the Pointe à la Mission battery.  They then made their way back to Captain Byron and the Fame, waiting in the north channel above Pointe à la Batterie and near the remains of the burned out village.  Satisfied that he had completed his mission, Byron anchored his ships off Pointe à la Batterie while, in keeping with Royal Navy tradition, he issued rum to the men.  The following morning, Byron and his flotilla sailed back down the Baie des Chaleurs, following the north shore to Paspébiac, where, on July 14, he rendezvoused with Samuel Wallis' squadron from Québec City, "which had been searching the lower St. Lawrence and the gulf for the French ships..." on orders from Commodore Lord Colvill.  Byron then took his three ships of the line and the Scarborough back to Louisbourg and sent the Repulse to Halifax for extensive repairs. Meanwhile, at Restigouche, Giraudais finally received his long list of instructions from Governor-General Vaudreuil, dated June 17, from the hands of the trusy courier St. Simon.  By then, it was too late for Giraudais to implement any of them.  But he refused to remain idle.  He "fitted out some ships," probably the two Acadian sloops and the remaining schooner, "and plundered the trade in the area, captured several more prizes and even managed to send safely to France at least two ships," including "one under Giraudais which arrived in Santander," on the northern coast of Spain, "on 27 October," only days before the surrender of Restigouche.337

The surrender of Restigouche came after the fall of Montréal and Vaudreuil's surrender of Canada in September.  Jeffrey Amherst did not contemplate another attack on the last remaining French stronghold in New France, but he was concerned about the number of French troops still there.  Vaudreuil claimed to have information that the troops there had been returned to France, but Amherst did not buy it.  He pressured the marquis to send an officer to Restigouche to urge the troops there "to lay down their arms according to the capitulation."  Vaudreuil chose to send an officer named de Catalogne, who Amherst fretted was too low in rank.  Vaudreuil issued his orders to de Catalogne on September 15, and he set sail from Québec City on the 23rd.  With Catalogne were a British contingent consisting of  "a field officer two Captains, four Subalterns, and one hundred and fifty men" under a Major Elliott aboard the Repulse, now refitted and still commanded by Captain Allen, the Racehorse, the transport Good Intent, and some schooners, under command of Captain Macartney of the Racehorse:  "a sufficient force to meet a depleted and discouraged group of soldiers now in alien territory."  The flotilla reached Restigouche on October 23, and Macartney "met with the Indians and the troops."  It probably was then that he conducted with the Mi'kmaq the burying of "the Scalping Knife and Tomahawk" ceremony to seal the peace with the British.  On the 29th, Macartney noted, "the French decided to surrender quietly."  They included "one hundred and ninety six Regulars [troupes de la marine] under the Command of Monsr Don Jacque Captain," probably Jean-François Bourdon, still a lieutenant, "with Eighty Seamen Capt. Gramont Commr," who also yielded themselves up prisoners according to the articles of Capitulaton, and were put on board Good Intent Transport to be conveyed to France, agreeable to the notification in my orders."  The following day, October 30, the French clerk Bazagier conducted a survey of the Acadians still at Petite-Rochelle, counting 1,003 men, women, and children.  "The Number of Indians we could get no just account of but appears to consist of 3 or 400," Macartney reported.  He counted nearly two dozen English civilian prisoners, "12 Men, 7 Women, and 4 children," captured by the privateers, and then oversaw the inventory of the fortifications, ordnance, munitions, and vessels, including two New English prizes taken by the privateers.  Major Elliott specified the large quantity of ordnance "stores" his men loaded aboard the schooners and the Racehorse, bound for England.338

The Good Intent, heading to France with the surrendered troupes de la marine, left Restigouche on November 5.  The rest of Macartney's flotilla did not return to Québec either but, after clearing the Baie des Chaleurs, moved southward down the Gulf shore through Mer Rouge and St. Georges Bay and into the Gut of Canso.  "The little British fleet had more trouble in leaving than in coming,"  Beattie and Pothier relate, "for a severe storm arose immediately after their passage through Canso Narrow and the ships were scattered."  The schooner Swan, with Elliott aboard, was driven by the storm onto Sable Island.  "The passengers and crew reached shore, but all the equipment and supplies were lost."  Two more ships, probably schooners, under a Captain Carter and a Lieutenant Shaw, moved on to New York, headquarters of the British army in North America.  Captain Allen took the redoubtable Repulse back to Halifax without incident.  The Racehorse made a successful crossing to England, as did the Good Intent to France.340

The Mi'kmaq at Restigouche, having "buried the hatchet," either lingered in the area or returned to their villages.  Many, if not most, of the Acadians at Petite-Rochelle remained until the British authorities decided what to do with them.  Tired of waiting, some families left Petite-Rochelle and made their way down the south shore of the Baie des Chaleurs to Nepisiguit and Caraquet, or followed the north shore to Gaspésie, where they attempted to establish new communities destroyed by Wolfe two years before.  They, along with the Acadians on the bay, did their best to resume privateering with what resources they could muster.  Others headed down the Gulf shore to Néguac, Miramichi, Richibucto, and Bouctouche.  Some of those who could acquire a boat resumed privateering.  Meanwhile, Indians and Acadians still at Restigouche "petitioned the British for attention," mostly in the form of sustenance.  What little attention they received at first consisted of "administrative and commercial expeditions" in 1761, including a search party looking for British deserters.  In mid-July, Pierre du Calvet, representing the British authorities in Québec, set out for the Baie des Chaleurs "in a large sloop, Ste.-Anne, commanded by Captain Joanis with an eight-man crew."  Du Calvet's mission was "to take a census of the Acadians in the area for the Quebec government.  This he carried out all along the Restigouche River and Chaleur Bay for by this time many Acadians had left Old Mission and Pointe à Boudeau and moved to sites along Chaleur Bay."  Du Calvet finished his work in October and returned to Quebec.  By then, in spite of the war, trade had resumed between New-English merchants and bay- and Gulf-shore Acadians, including an "expedition" by Gamaliel Smethurst "in a trading vessel fitted out in Marblehead, Massachusetts, seeking to trade with the Acadians and Mi'kmaq in the summer of 1761.  Just as the Yankee trader was about to sail out of Nepisiguit in late October, "his vessel loaded with about 120 tons of dry fish and oil, he encountered an expedition from Fort Cumberland that ruined, for a time, the budding commerce in the area by removing many of the local customers.341

.

The Acadians' old nemesis, Jonathan Belcher, Jr., was now governor of Nova Scotia, which now included today's New Brunswick.  He received reports that, despite the defeat of the French at Restigouche and their surrender there in October 1760, hundreds of Acadians many former resistance fighters and privateers, remained in the Baie de Chaleurs area and down the Gulf coast, where they "continued to equip and crew privateers that prowled Chaleur Bay and the Gulf of St. Lawrence."  It was time to clear them out once and for all and hold them close to hand.  In October 1761, on orders from Belcher, Captain Roderick Mackenzie of Montgomery's Highlanders, commander of Fort Cumberland, "having armed two Vessels at Bay Vert," the Boston Newsletter later reported, "proceeded as far to Northward as the Bay Challeurs, in order to break up a nest of French Vermin on the Coast, who have done so much Mischief these two or three Years past, in intercepting our Vessels bound to Halifax, Louisbourg, and the River St. Lawrence, which he happily affected; And having taken about 240 Men, Women and Children Prisoners, brought them to Bay Vert; together with 8 or 10 small Vessels loaded with their effects.  All the other Craft upon the Coast be destroyed, so that there need be no Apprehension of any Interruption in going up the River next year, as all the Ringleaders of the Mischief hitherto done with their families, are now Prisoners."  According to Dianne Marshall, one of the captured privateers was Joseph-Nicolas Gauthier II, who along with the Broussards and Surettes, had long menaced the Gulf coast region.  Four years later, a census taken of the area revealed only 145 men, women and children remaining, attesting to Mackenzie's thoroughness.  However, historian John Grenier asserts, "that accomplished little to lesson Anglo-American anxieties over the holdouts."342

Mackenzie's expedition was the last of the many forays made by British officers to corral the region's Acadians as close to the British authories in Halifax as possible.   According to Ronne-Gilles LeBlanc, there were "more than 700 Acadian refugees" still in the Baie des Chaleurs/Gulf shore area when Mackenzie struck, that he "brought back to Fort Cumberland 187 men, women, and children, and another 63 came on 8 November to be put up there for the winter.  Apart from the latter 63, the others were told to return in the spring of 1762, of whom a certain number were to be transferred to Fort Edward, likely as workers for repairing dykes and aboiteaux.  These Acadians were the last to surrender," he notes, "and thus were undoubtedly the most battle-hardened members of the Acadian resistance.  The captains and owners of boats--some of them still armed because they had been operating as privateers, preying on British shipping--went directly from Baie Verte to Halifax to turn themselves in.  They were there on 17 May 1762 when Belcher and his council resolved to seize the ships of these Acadian partisans, and to disarm and imprison the men.  With these additions to the 600 or earlier prisoner[s]," held at Halifax, "the number of Acadian captives exceeded 900."  As a result, prison compounds, some in the form of open barracks, to hold these hundreds of exiles, arose at forts Cumberland, Edward, and Anne on the Fundy shore, and at Halifax and Chédabouctou on the Atlantic.  Many of these prisoners were kin to one another by blood or marriage, which to the Acadian way of thinking formed a great extended family.  Most of them, especially the resistance fighters and their families, were held in close confinement, but some were granted permission to leave the compounds to help fulfill a decades-old dream of their British overlords.  The result was one of the strangest ironies of the Acadian experience.343

By the spring 1760, during the last year of his life, one of Governor Charles Lawrence's most cherished schemes, inherited from Governor William Shirley of Massachusetts, was coming to fruition at Chignecto, Minas, and in the Annapolis valley:  New-English "planters" began to occupy the Acadian lands in the vicinity of these settlements.  Although the idea of filling Nova Scotia, including the Fundy shores, with Protestant Anglos was not a new one, its fulfillment would have been impossible with so many actual Acadians in the way.  One could view Lawrence's expulsion of 1755, then, as a colossal land grab that largely succeeded, but it did not take the British long to see that clearing them out would not be enough.  Though the Fundy Acadians were cleaned out and kept out by redcoats and Yankees stationed at forts Cumberland, Edward, and Anne, a determined Acadian resistance from the trois-rivières and the lower Gulf shore made Anglo occupation of the Fundy communities impossible.  Only Halifax and its surrounding communities were safe enough for Protestant settlers, but even these were sometimes hit by partisans and Mi'kmaq fighters led by the likes of Beausoleil Broussard.  This resistance lasted for years.  Only the fall of the French citadel at Louisbourg gave any hope of success.  On October 1758, three months after Louisbourg fell, Governor Lawrence, "anticipating an end to the guerilla resistance, ... published a proclamation in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia announcing that the former lands of the Acadians would soon become available for resettlement"--a virtual admission that the deportations of three years earlier were nothing less than a colossal land grab.  He essentially declared that the Acadian resistance had been defeated, that "'the Enemy--who have formerly disturbed and harassed the Province of Nova Scotia and much obstructed its Progress--have been compelled to retire and take Refuge in Canada."  Here was an opportunity, he proclaimed, "for the peopling and cultivating (of) the Lands vacated by the French...."  Lawrence hinted in his proclamation that his government was now ready to create something he had long opposed--the creation of civil government, including an elected colonial assembly, to replace his military government that had been ruling Nova Scotia since its creation.  Unlike the other 13 seaboard British colonies, which, since the creation of Virginia's House of Burgesses in 1619, had colonial assemblies of their own, Nova Scotia had no such entity for the simple reason that when the British took over the reins of the colony in 1713, its population was overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, every one of them disenfranchised by Britain's anti-Catholic laws.  The creation of Halifax in 1749 and the establishment of other Protestant settlements nearby in the following years, increased the number of Protestants in the colony, but Lawrence, despite pressure from the Board of Trade, Governor Shirley, and Halifax residents, refused to give up the powers and privileges offered him by military rule.  If he hoped to entice New Englanders to his province, the creation of a colonial assembly was essential. 

And so, on orders from the Colonial Office in London, in May 1758 the Governor's Council in Halifax "passed an enabling act and issed a call for elections."  The new assembly's first session, the following October, "passed a series of laws intended to institutionalize Acadian dispossession," which of course would now be pro forma measures.  The "'Act for the quieting of Possessions to Protestant grantees of the Lands formerly occupied by the French Inhabitants,' declared ex post facto that from the time of the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 until their dispossession in 1755, the Acadians had possessed no legal title to the lands they occupied, and that any rights they had supposedly acquired by prescription, transfer, or concession had been extinguished by the council's decision to remove them."  Moreover, "'The Act for the establishment of religious public Worship' proclaimed the Church of England as the 'fixed form of worship," and while providing rights for dissenting Protestants, it excluded Catholics from the franchise or public office and banned all Catholic clergy from the province.  Another act prohibited Catholics from owning land, and empowered authorities to seize any and all 'papist' property for the benefit of the crown."  "These laws--," John Mack Faragher notes, "--passed by a popular assembly, not enacted by military fiat--laid the foundation for the migration of the Protestant settlers Lawrence hoped to encourage with his 1758 proclamation."344

Despite the legal set up and the "considerable interest in New England" generated by Lawrence's October proclamation, he felt compelled to issue a second proclamation, this one issued in January 1759 and more specific about what was available to the land-hungry Yankees.  He proclaimed that the former Acadian "districts" of Annapolis, Minas, and Chignecto offered "100,000 acres of plowed land and another 100,000 acres of pasture, orchard, and garden lands," to be divided in townships near the major forts and garrisons, enhancing protection as well as opportunities "for traded and exchange."  The land in these townships would be "granted in plots varying in size according to the ability of grantees to enclose and cultivate the land.  Heads of families were entitled to receive up to 1,000 acres free of quitrents for the first ten years."  After that, quitrents would be due at an annual rate of only one shilling for each 50 acres owned.  To keep the land in perpetuity, the owners must "improve" one-third of it within 10 years, the second third within 20 years, and the final third within 30 years.  "Moreover, Lawrence added, 'no Taxes have hitherto been laid upon His Majesty's subjects within the Province, nor are there any fees of office taken upon issuing Grants of Land.'"  To tax-burdened New Englanders, these were sweet words, indeed.  He reminded future land owners in his province that the Nova Scotia Assembly, as in the New-English provinces, "had passed legislation providing religious freedom for all Protestants, who could build their own meetinghouses and choose their own ministers, and had created governmental institutions 'constituted like those of the neighboring colonies.'"345

Not all historians agree that the Yankees soon to be pouring into Nova Scotia would be getting much of a bargain.  According to Andrew Hill Clark, if these New Englanders hoped to find their agricultural paradise in Nova Scotia, they would have been sorely disappointed.  "The expansion of Acadian agriculture was confined chiefly to the marshland areas," he reminds us.  "Repeatedly their governors [had] urged them [the Acadians] to clear and farm the wooded areas, but with little effect.  The great fertility of their dyked fields gave Acadian soils a reputation for richness which they were far from deserving and which led to continual disappointment as the post-Acadian colonists cleared the forests and made their farms," as they had done in New England.  "Even had they made full use of the Acadian dyked lands, as they did not, those lands would have accommodated only a fraction of Nova Scotia's immigrants of the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries."  None of this could happen in earnest, of course, regardless of the land's limitations, until the Acadian resistance and Mi'kmaq attacks were so thoroughly suppressed that it held no promise of resurrection.  This had not yet happened by 1758 or even 1759, when Mother Nature reminded everyone in the Bay of Fundy region that she was still in firm control.  The Fundy Acadians were gone, to be sure, "scattered to the wind," as Carl Brasseaux says, but their handiwork, their aboiteaux and running dykes, still waited to be repaired, rebuilt, or extended by the only agriculturists in North America who farmed below sea level.  And then came the great storm of  3-4 November 1759, which, with its massive surge on top of the bay's prodigious tides, finished much of what four years of neglect had not already ruined.11 

Nevertheless, succumbing to the reputation of Nova Scotia's richness, the first transplanted Yankees, who began arriving in early 1759 and continued to come for the next several decades, saw the Acadians' former lands as the key to reviving agriculture in the region.  The great storm of early November 1759 destroyed many of the dykes that had kept the fertile fields from becoming tidal marsh again, but the British and the Yankees refused to give up.  Responding to the crisis, beginning in the summer of 1761, Halifax authorities, after vetting for participation in partisan activities, enticed 130 Acadians being held in the province to rebuild and maintain the dykes and aboiteaux that they and their fathers had constructed in the Fundy marshes.  At Pigiguit, Minas, and Annapolis, the Acadians worked diligently for their New-English "masters," who paid them in Canadian currency.  One suspects that many of the Acadians, naively, tragically, expected to reclaim their homesteads once the war was over.  But this was not to be.  As far as the current rulers of the province were concerned, these Acadians and their fathers had never held legal title to the lands they had literally created the entire time Britain had controlled the colony.  Moreover, Ronnie-Gilles LeBlanc demonstrates, authorities in Halifax were employing Acadian prisoners not only to rebuild the storm-damaged dykes and drainage conduits, but also to repair and enhance local military and naval infrastructure, using them as cheap, hired labor, again to be paid with inflated Canadian currency.  Here, one might say, was another example of what the Anglo-Nova Scotians expected from this "captured" labor.346

The hated Lawrence died suddenly in October 1760, and his successor, former chief justice and now lieutenant-governor Jonathan Belcher, Jr., "like most Nova Scotians, continued to regard the Acadians as a threat to the province, despite assurances to the contrary from Major-General Sir Jeffery Amherst, commander-in-chief in North America."  In July 1762, during the final months of the war, Charles-Henri-Louis d'Arsac de Ternay raided Newfoundland, renewing fears of a French attack on Nova Scotia.  A rumor circulating through the western country that "a Gallic fleet was on its way" to rescue the French from the reverses of the previous three years likely reached official ears in Halifax.  Belcher, encouraged by the colonial legislature and taking counsel of his own fears, "accepted the advice of his council of war and on 30 July ordered all those Acadian 'prisoners of war' who had earlier been concentrated at Halifax deported to Boston"--795 men, women, and children from the open barracks at Halifax, as well as 130 workers, 80 from Fort Edward, the rest from Annapolis Royal, without their families, who were promptly marched off to the Halifax barracks.  The prisoners remained there until August 18, while authorities nursed their fears of arson and insurrection, then were placed aboard seven ships "bound for Boston," which they reached on August 25.  Remaining aboard ship, they waited for further orders from General Amherst, who had opposed the move but offered to pay for the upkeep of the 925 deportees after they were landed at Boston.  "The Massachusetts government refused, however, to receive further Acadians, and," after the Acadians spent weeks aboard the crowded transports waiting for the British leaders to decide their fate, "Belcher was faced with their return to Halifax," which did not occur until early October.  On hearing of it, "The pragmatic Lords of Trade rebuffed Nova Scotian fears as unwarranted" and this latest expulsion "as inexpedient."  The incident likely shortened Belcher's career as Nova Scotia's governor, but he still remained in power as chief justice and member of the Council.  It also earned him a rebuke from General Amherst, who, the following November, not only refused to pay for the colony's botched deportation, but chided Belcher for his abuse of the Acadians.  "These People ought not, in my opinion, to be considered as Prisoners of War," the general informed the govneror,"but as subjects to the King & if they Behave contrary thereto are to be punished as Rebels," but he had discerned no rebellious action on their part.01

Amid the rumors of French resurgence, the war finally ended with the Treaty of Paris of February 1763.  Article IV of the treaty gave all persons dispersed by the conflict 18 months to return to their respective territories.  In the case of the Acadians, this meant they could return only to French soil.  The Acadian settlements in peninsula Nova Scotia had not been French territory for half a century; and the western half of the Chignecto isthmus, the trois-rivières, and the former French Maritimes islands now were part of British Nova Scotia as well.  Colonial authorities refused, of course, to allow any of the Acadian prisoners to return to their farmsteads, now either occupied or intended for New-English "planters."  If Acadians chose to remain in, or return to, Nova Scotia, they could live only in small family groups in previously unsettled areas, away from their fertile lands along the Bay of Fundy, or they could continue to work as wage laborers on their former lands, but not as proprietors.  If they stayed, they must also take the hated oath of allegiance, without reservation, to the new British king, George III, nor could they vote in the colonial assembly or hold office of any kind, and they would have to practice their religion without priests, who, by decree of the colonial assembly, were banned from the province.  

There was much to decide, but one thing was certain:  They would not, could not, remain in Nova Scotia, despite enticements to do so.  They must find a new home on "French soil."  Like their fellow exiles in the seaboard colonies from Massachusetts down to South Carolina, the Acadians in Nova Scotia also received a copy of the duc de Nivernois's secret missive to the Acadians in England, offering to repatriate them to France.  The copy of Nivernos's letter to the exiles in England that was meant for the exiles in Nova Scotia came from Philadelphia to Joseph LeBlanc dit Le Maigre, being held in Halifax, and a copy of that copy ended up in the hands of Joseph Broussard, then being held at Pigiguit.  Broussard was "arrested on the spot" and hurried to Halifax, where, along with Le Maigre, he was brought before the colonial Council to explain himself.  Nothing was done to Beausoleil and Le Maigre other than some hard time spent in the prison shed on Georges Island, since the papers taken from them were being widely distributed throughout the British colonies, though one suspects that Halifax officials watched the two old partisans even closer after they released them from Georges Island.  Soon the Acadians at Halifax, as others had done in other colonies, prepared a detailed repatrition list--this one dated 12 August 1763 and containing "161 families covering 711 individuals, out of 232 families encompassing 1,056 persons present in Halifax and vicinity"--which, along with a petition pleading for the French to come and take them away, were hurried to the duc de Nivernois's secretary.  Another repatriation list, containing 374 names, dated August 24, also was forwarded to the duc's secretary, this one via the governor of îles St.-Pierre and Miquelon.  But, as with the plaintive requests of the French in the other colonies, nothing came of it.01d 

As far as the French were concerned, the hard-pressed exiles in Nova Scotia were on their own ... again. 

Most of the Acadians held in Nova Scotia were still there in the autumn of 1764, a bit past the 18 months the Paris treaty had given them to find other homes on friendly soil.  In the summer of 1764, the province's new governor, Montague Wilmot, who had replaced Belcher in November 1763, responded to a royal decree of 11 July 1764 and "tender'd" to the Acadians "the oath of allegiance" as well as "offers of a settlement in this Country."  Most of the Acadians rebuffed the oath as well as the offer.  British leaders in Halifax, led by former governor and current colonial chief justice Jonathan Belcher, Jr., still felt threatened by the Acadian presence in Nova Scotia.  They were especially fearful of the Beausoleil Broussards and other resistance leaders.  Belcher encouraged Governor Wilmot to remove the Acadians from the province despite his July offer, orders from London to keep them there, and entreaties from the New-English "planters" to retain them as cheap but highly skilled labor.  Wilmot resisted Belcher at first, so the chief justice hatched a scheme to send the Acadians from Halifax to Baskenridge, New Jersey, to work as indentured servants on an English nobleman's land; Belcher's father just happened to be the governor of New Jersey, and the nobleman was one of his father's political allies.  Wilmot also received a proposal to send 30 Acadian families to New York colony to work as indentured servants there.  Luckily for the Acadians, neither scheme came to fruition.  Infected, finally, by Belcher's fear of Acadian treachery, Wilmot proposed to his uncle, the powerful Earl of Halifax, the deportation of the Acadian "prisoners" in Nova Scotia to the British West Indies, but the earl rejected his nephew's scheme, adding that "the king of England considered the Acadians as having the same status as his other Catholic subjects in North America, and thus they needed only to swear the appropriate oath of allegiance in order to settle in the colony and enjoy the same privileges and rights as other British subjects[!].  As British subjects, they could not be forbidden from leaving the colony or any British territory, if they so wished."  But these words, no matter how short-sighted they were, fell on deaf ears.  Determined to be rid of the Acadians, and in contradiction of recent royal decrees, Wilmot conceived a plan that he was certain would discourage them from remaining in Nova Scotia.  First, he and his Council crafted a new ironclad oath for them that insulted their Roman Catholic faith.  Most compellingly, and against every directive from his superiors in London, he gave the resistance leaders and their families a hard choice:  either submit to deportation to the British West Indies or remain imprisoned in Nova Scotia. 

Nova Scotia was no longer a welcome place for the descendants of its original settlers.  Too proud to work for wages, unwilling to work as indentured servants in colonies where they could lose their religion as well as their culture, unable to return to their precious farms in the upper Fundy basins, and determined not to take the hated oath, the Broussards and their kinsmen had to find a suitable place to put down new roots.  The St. Lawrence valley seemed to be a poor choice; they were hearing stories of how the French Canadians treated with contempt Acadian refugees who had settled among them as early as 1756.  Besides, Canada was as much a British possession now as Nova Scotia, and settling on the St. Lawrence would require them to take the unqualified oath.  Nor was it likely that Wilmot would allow the troublesome Broussards and their partisan compatriots to settle as close as Québec to their former lands in greater Acadia.  The Illinois country on the upper Mississippi was a viable option, but the British would not let them take the shortest route there via Canada, and France had just ceded the eastern part of Illinois to Britain.  Moreover, Indian uprisings, including one led by the Ottawa chief Pontiac, were ravaging the western frontier, and the fighting there could last for years.  But there were other regions of North America still controlled by France, such as the west bank of the Illinois country in today's Missouri, which they would have to reach via New Orleans.  The French cession of western Louisiana to Spain, secured in a secret agreement between the allies at Fontainebleu, France, in November 1762, was still a well-kept secret in the early fall of 1764, but the Acadians in Nova Scotia would have been aware that French authorities controlled New Orleans and the west bank of the lower Mississippi in what was left of French Louisiana.  France still controlled Martinique, Guadaloupe, and St.-Domingue in the French Antilles, where hundreds of Acadian exiles from the seaboard colonies recently had gone to escape British rule and live among fellow Catholics.  However, letters from Acadians in St.-Domingue detailed the horrors of the climate and maltreatment there at the hands of French officials.  There was always the mother country itself, where the British had deported hundreds of Acadians from the French Maritime islands during the war and to where the Acadians held in England had been recently repatriated.  But even with permission from the French crown to go to the mother country, which they had not received, a cross-Atlantic voyage would be difficult and expensive, as would a voyage from Halifax to the French Antilles.  There was much for the Broussards and their kinsmen to consider, and time was running out.  

In May 1764, 76 family heads at Halifax "addressed a request to Wilmot ... reiterating the wish they had stated two weeks earlier, on 12 April, saying that they recognized no other sovereign but the king of France, and asking that they be furnished with provisions and vessels that would take them to France or French territory.  They pointed out that, with the war ended, they were no longer prisoners of war and thus should enjoy the freedom to move to the country of their choice, following the model of the Acadians who had been kept prisoner in England and who had gone to France, or those held in Canada who had emigrated to Cap-Français in Saint-Domingue (Haiti)."  Meanwhile, "during the summer of 1764, an invitation was circulating in the Halifax region, where the governor of the Caribbean Leeward Islands asked Acadians to transfer there." 

After much deliberation, the old resistance fighters and their kin chose to accept the French governor's invitation and go to St.-Domingue.  No higher authority planned their move from Halifax to the Caribbean Basin.  Wilmot and the Council refused, of course, to pay for transports, though Wilmot was happy to provide them with rations for the long voyage down the coast.  Pooling the money their sons had saved from months of labor on their former lands, the Broussard party left Halifax in late November 1764 aboard an English schooner--slightly over 200 men, women, and children crowding the chartered vessel, with 400 more Halifax exiles on their own leased vessels to follow in the weeks ahead.  But some chose to stay.  "When these families departed in the fall of 1764," Ronnie-Gilles LeBlanc informs us, "several other families stayed in the Halifax region before dispersing to other parts of Nova Scotia and what would later," in 1784, "become the separate province of New Brunswick and even to French-held Miquelon off the southern coast of Newfoundland.  Their descendants are still found in these places today." 

The Broussard party reached Cap-Français, St.-Domingue, in January and could see even in that winter month that the island's climate was unsuitable for them.  They had hoped to reunite with relatives there, but many of the St.-Domingue Acadians were either dead or dying from tropical diseases, starvation, and overwork.  Others refused to endure another voyage, even a relatively short one.  Just as disturbing, there was little chance of acquiring productive farm land in the island's plantation-slave economy.  They could see no future for their children in St.-Domingue, despite its being a French colony.  So, before resuming their voyage, the Broussard party welcomed aboard the few St.-Domingue relatives willing to join them.  They then sailed west through the Florida Strait into the Gulf of Mexico and on to the lower Mississippi River, gateway to the Illinois country.  They reached Louisiana in early or mid-February 1765, their arrival at La Balize at the mouth of the great river a complete surprise to the French caretaker government still in control of the colony.  By the third week of February, they had completed the 100-mile upriver voyage to New Orleans, where they sanctified marriages and baptized children who had been born in the Nova Scotia prisons and on the months-long voyage from Halifax via Cap-Français.  During the following months, more exiles from the prison compounds in Nova Scotia joined the Broussards in Louisiana, so that by the end of 1765 nearly 600 of them had found new, permanent, homes in the Mississippi valley colony.347  

Acadian Exiles in England and France, 1756-1785

Of the nine seaboard colonies to which Charles Lawrence sent Acadian exiles in 1755, Virginia was the only one that turned them all away.  The Acadians, from Minas Proper and Pigiguit, six transports full of them, arrived there in November, December, and January, and were gone by the following May, about the time that Britain and France declared war on one another.  The Fanny Bovey, with 204 Acadians, reached Falmouth, in Cornwall on England's extreme southwest coast, on 19 June 1756, and some ended up at nearby Penryn; the Virginia Packet, with 289 Acadians aboard, reached Bristol, also on the southwest coast, facing the estuary of the Severn River, the following day; the Bobby Goodridge, carrying 296 exiles, reached Portsmouth, on the south coast, on June 23; and the Industry, likely the same 86-ton sloop that had transported 177 Acadians from Minas the previous autumn, reached Liverpool, far up on the west coast, with 243 Acadians aboard on June 26.  Acadians from Virginia also lived in Exeter, in Devon, between Plymouth and Southampton in the south of England.  The total number of passengers on the four vessels was 1,032, compared to 1,149 who had come to Virginia on seven transports the previous autumn and winter.  Here was a mortality rate of at least ten percent, though it likely was higher, for some of the women certainly had given birth during their five-month sojourn in England's Old Dominion. 

English authorities were surprised by the arrival of these "French Neutrals" to their shores, expressing "much 'Displeasure and Disapprobation' as the transports suddenly appeared over a week's time.  Before they left, Virginia Governor Dinwiddie handed a letter to the master of the Virginia Packet, the first transport to leave Hampton Roads (but the second one to reach an English port), in which the governor informed his superiors:  "'The Danger we apprehended from such a number of Neutral French Roman Catholics being suffered to continue amonst us,' they resolved, made it imperative that they ' be immediately shipped to Great Britain to be disposed of as His Majesty shall think proper.... I hope this step will meet with your approbation ... as I could not shun consenting thereto from the general clamour of the whole Country.'"  Their treatment upon their arrival in England resembled that of Acadian exiles who had been sent to the other seaboard colonies in North America, and their subsequent treatment at the hands of the English was far worse.  "At Bristol," John Mack Faragher relates, "they were disembarked and left on the wharves for three days and nights before finally being put up in an old warehouse.  At Liverpool, they were quartered in a cluster of abandoned workshops; at Southampton, in a dilapidated old barracks."  Official reaction in London was predictable.  "After sending a blistering letter of criticism to Dinwiddie, the government gave orders that the exiles be maintained by the Sick and Hurt Board of the Admiralty.  In practice, they were maintained hardly at all, each family allocated only a few pence per week for food and shelter."  Some of the exiles wasted no time in doing what they could to support their families, with limited success.  "At Falmouth and Southampton some of the men found irregular employment," working odd jobs, "but," Christopher Hodson adds, "most were 'restrained' from doing so 'to prevent the Clamour of the laboring People."  "[A]ll those at Liverpool and Bristol were kept in virtual imprisonment in conditions far worse than in any of the colonies."  And of course the inevitable happened.  "Almost as soon as they arrived," Faragher continues, "they were struck with epidemics of smallpox.  At Falmouth, sixty-one Acadians were buried in a common grave in the Protestant cemetery at nearby St.-Gluvias Parish.  Reports of the exiles' treatment reached the French, and in the fall of 1756 they filed a formal protest, charging that the Acadians were being inhumanely neglected.  Admiralty officials responded that the accusation was 'false, indecent, and absurd,' as well as 'very dishonourable to the Nation,' and attributed Acadian mortality to 'their long voyage, their change of climate, their habits of body, their other disorders, and their irregularity and obstinancy.'  The British government, the Admiralty maintained, had strictly observed 'the laws of nations and the principles of justice.'"  The next seven years in the land of their enemies would reveal the true nature of these British claims.348

British historian Richard Holledge gives an idea of English society at the time the Acadians arrived in these four cities:  "Considerable unrest was to be found" there, "which would come to characterize life in Britain for the duration of the war.  Bread riots were a testament to the plight of the starving populace.  The imposition of the Enclosre Acts drove country folk off their traditional command lands, which were to be given to new landlords.  Millions of acres of land were swallowed up by the rich, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee to the cities, where they lived in poverty."349

Christopher Hodson offers insight into how these exiles coped in a land so foreign and hostile to them:  "Repeatedly and earnestly, Acadians sent from Virginia to Great Britain used their status as subjects of the British Empire to barter for rights, privileges, and connection to the power of the imperial state.  Indeed, exiles projected themselves as a community of aggrieve subjects, separated by good political judgment from their rebellious neighbors."  These were, in fact, Minas Basin Acadians, who, with the exception of resistance fighters like Joseph LeBlanc dit Le Maigre of Grand-Pré, tended to be less anti-British than their cousins in Chignecto and the trois-rivières.  Hoping British authorities would realize this and grant them relief, some wrote letters to officials in London detailing their personal history of political passivity and even instances of their helping the British back in Nova Scotia.  Two Daigre brothers at Falmouth, representing the Acadian community there, beseeched the authorities to allow them to practice their Catholic faith, including the sacraments, as did British subjects of the same faith, even if it meant being sent to another place.350

By 1763, according to one count, only 786 Acadian exiles remained in England, down from 1,032 who had arrived in June 1756.  According to Carl Brasseaux, "these Acadians had watched helplessly as half their fellow exiles died from epidemic diseases, particulary smallpox," so many more exiles must have come to England during the Acadians' seven years there.  Then the war finally ended with the Treaty of Paris, signed in February 1763.  After the English failed to coax them into becoming willing subjects of the British king, a French prisoner named Duplessis from Le Havre offered to help Acadians in Liverpool to address the French authorities in London about going to France.  Having seen the plight of the Acadian exiles being held in England, the French ambassador to Great Britain, Louis-Jules-Barbon Mancini Marazini, duc de Nivernois, sprang into action.  On March 18, Nivernois penned a secret dispatch, entrusted to his emissary, Monsieur de la Rochette, that promised the exiles in England "the protection of King Louis X" in their efforts to return to French soil.  In the letter, the duc "urged the exiles to cooperate with French diplomatic efforts to liberate them, stating 'your treatment in France will be still more advantageous than you expect.'"  La Rochette met with groups of Acadians in some of their various communities.  Some, like the Acadians in Liverpoor, welcomed him.  Others, especially in Southampton, remained non-committal.  Some expected, naively, to return to Nova Scotia and their former lands, others to go to France, where so many of their kind had gone, and resume their lives as farmers there, as evidently promised by Nivernois.  In the end, most, if not all, of them chose to go to France.  In late May, Nivernois employed two French transports, the sloop L'Ambition from Southampton with 219 passenters, and the frigate La Dorothée from Bristol with 175, to send repatriated Acadians to St.-Malo in northern Brittany.  About the same time, the French transport La Fauvette, with 159 exiles, sailed from Falmouth and Penryn to Morlaix, also in northern Brittany, along with another transport, L'Esturgeon, from Liverpool to Morlaix, with 200 or so passengers--759 exiles in all.  La Rochette complained about the Acadians at Penryn that "the embarkation of the group was not made without some difficulty, by reason of the relative 'integration' of the Acadians in the surrounding community:  'They are the wealthiest and most civilized of the whole band,'" La Rochette insisted.  "'[T]hey are also the most stubborn and the least candid; they have given more trouble than I thought (they would).  In addition, the town was in the middle of celebrating Pentecost Sunday, and the entire honorable corporation of Penyrn did not cease for three days to be drunk on cider and liquor from Nantes.'"  Le Rochette also noted that "at the instant" LEsturgeon set sail from Liverpool, "five or six young men jumped from the boat," another example of "integration" by the Acadians into the local population.  Families from England who went to St.-Malo settled in the Rance valley villages where their cousins had bee living since early 1759.  Families who went to Morlaix chose to live at Ploujean, St.-Pol-de-Léon, Guerlesquin, and Tréguier near the city and in the parishes of St.-Martin des Champs, St.-Mathieu, and St.-Mélaine in the city.  In France, Brasseaux notes, they "expected special treatment, particularly resettlement upon fertile land and reestablishment of their pre-dispersal lifestye," but, Brasseaux tells us, "these dreams were shattered immediately upon arrival in France."  It took the French authorites two and a half years to find land in the mother country for these Minas Basin farmers who had spent so many years away from the plow.13

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The exiles from England were not the first Acadians who "returned" to France.  They were, in fact, among the last large group of them to come to the mother country from greater Acadia, in their case indirectly.  The first documented exiles from greater Acadia arrived from Louisbourg, Île Royale, at La Rochelle in September 1758, only two months after the fall of the French citadel.  Hundreds more followed later that month, arriving from Louisbourg not only at La Rochelle, but also at St.-Malo, Brest, and Rochefort.  Not all of them, however, were Acadians.  Then came the tidal wave of deportations from Île St.-Jean, the great majority of whom were Acadians.  All of the trans-Atlantic transports from that island--11 of them--were destined for St.-Malo, which seven of them reached between December 1758 and March 1759, but one of them landed at Boulogne-sur-Mer in December, and survivors from another one finally reached Le Havre in February.  Two of the transports were lost at sea.  The few islanders who landed accidentally at Boulogne-sur-Mer, a good distance from their fellow islanders, tended to move on to St.-Malo, Morlaix, La Rochelle, and Rochefort, but the ones who lingered in the northern fishing center lived in St.-Nicolas and St. Joseph parishes in the city or at nearby Baincthun in Artois.  Needless to say, the Ministry of Marine did not anticipate "these scattered arrivals, having given orders to the various ships' captains out of Louisbourg to land only at La Rochelle and St.-Malo.  But here they were, scattered all along the French coast, from Picardie down to Aunis.  The great majority of islanders who went directly or indirectly to St.-Malo, 850 of them at first, did not live in the walled port city, but, as ordered by the intendant of Brittany, were parcelled out to the suburbs and villages that lined Rivière Rance southward to the fortified city of Dinan, as well as villages in the sprawling countryside east and west of the Rance.  These suburbs and villages included, on the east side of the river, heading upriver or southward, from St.-Malo:  St.-Servan-sur-Mer, St.-Jouan-des-Guérets, St.-Suliac, Meillac, Châteauneuf, Pleudihen-sur-Rance, Mordreuc, Paramé in the countryside north of St.-Malo, Bonnaban, St.-Coulomb, Château Malo, St.-Méloire-des-Ondes, and La Gouesnière; on the west side of river, across from St.-Malo and heading southward:  St.-Énogat (today's Dinard), St.-Lunaire, St.-Briac, St.-Cast, Lamballe, St.-Thual, Ploubalay, Pleurtuit, Tréméreuc, Langrolay-sur-Rance, Pleslin, Trigavou, Plouër-sur-Rance, Hirel, Taden, Dinan, and Corseul in the countryside west of Dinan.  The refugees resisted this disbursement at first, perhaps fearing the consequences to their extended families of being so widely scattered.  After seeing Rivière Rance and its lovely valley for themselves, they realized that "they would still remain in the environs of Saint-Malo, sufficiently close to communicate with one another and to occasionally re-assemble without too much difficulty."  Besides, here they could be farmers again, or work in the villages at whatever trade they had acquired back in Acadie.  According to Jean-François Mouhot, by the early 1770s "About 1,700 to 1,800 Acadians were close to the banks of the Rance, especially the former inhabitants of Île Saint-Jean, or around 70 percent of the Acadians pensioned by the government."  They became especially numerous in the suburbs of St.-Servan and St.-Énogat, on both sides of the Rance estuary and close to St.-Malo, and at St.-Suliac on the river not far above St.-Servan.  Meanwhile, other Acadians transported to France were not islanders but captured denizens of the outlying Acadian communities of the Cap-Sable area and the lower Rivière St.-Jean valley, who were held at Halifax after their capture and then transported to France via England, about the same time the islanders went to the mother country.  These Acadians landed at the Norman ports of Le Havre and Cherbourg in January 1759 and January 1760, and some made their way to their loved ones near St.-Malo. 

Jean-François Mouhot points out that, upon their arrival in late 1758, French authorities said of the Acadians, in the words of Nicolas-René Berryer, comte de La Ferrière, then Minister of Marine:  "'Their stay is only momentary; they are destined to return to America.'"  "This opinion persisted for many years," Mouhot continues, "and was even reinforced with the signing of the peace of 1763," which brought more Acadians to France.  In October 1761, soon after the Acadians' arrival, Étienne-François, duc de Choiseul-Stainville, Minister of State, had replaced Berryer as Minister of Marine (while retaining other ministries).  "The principal concern of Choiseul at that time," Mouthot explains, "was to divert attention from the French decline," such as in Canada, "by developing a new empire, and the Acadians were always the first to be considered as participating in populating the colonies envisaged."  So here they were, in substantial numbers, to be used as Choiseul, and the King, desired.351

According to Carl Brasseaux, these transplanted island exiles, along with their fellow Acadians who came to France from Halifax and from England, "found themselves literally dumped in coastal cities, where, except for a small welfare subsidy (insufficient to pay either rent or food), they were abandoned by the crown.  Indeed after being temporarily housed in makeshift reception centers (sometimes abandoned military barracks), many Acadians found themselves literally forced to live in the streets, with no prospect of improving their lot.  The economics of the French coastal cities were devastated by the war and British blockade and this offered few job opportunities; the Acadians, on the other hand, generally lacked the job skills demanded by urban job markets and thus could not find employment where jobs existed..  Fully cognizant of the Acadians' plight, many unscrupulous French businessmen and landowners attempted to exploit the exiles ruthlessly.  One landowner suggested that the government institute "workfare" and send the Acadians to work in his mines, while other 'land sharks and swindlers' attempted to have the Acadians reduced to the status of peasants and employed as workers on French estates."  This compelled French officials in Paris and at Versailles to intervene in the exiles' behalf, resulting in emergency assistance, especially in the form of a daily dole, as well as several resettlement schemes not only in other parts of France, but also, as Choiseul envisioned, in remaining French colonies. 

Meanwhile, as the records abundantly show, French authorities allowed individual Acadians and families to move about from port to port, wherever they chose, as long as they acquired a passport, to reunite with loved ones--spouses, parents, children, even their extended families--what Jean-François Mouhot calls "spontaneous regroupings."  French officials, noticing this trend, approved.  "[I]t would seem that ... there was a certain convergence between the spontaneous assembly of the Acadians and the intentions of the government," Mouhot notices, "since, to facilitate sending the refugees overseas at the time of the peace, it was better that they remained relatively grouped together."  Also worth noting is that, "for the ministry, the regroupings facilitated the distribution of aid, taking of censuses, and general supervision.  The government did authorize the inhabitants to move from one town to another and ordered that their payment be distrubuted to them wherever they might go.  The Secretary of State," Choiseul, "only recommended that they not take on 'the habit of a wandering life' and that they not receive doubt payments," which showed how well he knew these people.  "The government did not have to worry too much about this," Mouhot notes, "because the refugees themselves were convinced that they would soon leave France and, at that time, did not consider separating."352

The idea that they would soon be sent to "the colonies" comported with the administration's opposition to the Acadians' assimilation "into the local communities" at this time.  This included employment.  "Now and again the government was concerned with the economic integration of the Acadians in wanting them to find ... work, but the plans for their departure negated this effort by preventing them from making long term plans," Mouhot explains.  Another consequence of planning to send the Acadians back to the colonies was the government's encouragement of young Acadians to marry their own kind--that is, to prefer endogamous marriages.  That the Acadians overwhelming favored such marriages, for one reason or another, during their time in France, can be found in the three volumes of Albert J. Robichaux, Jr.'s study of the Acadian exiles in St.-Malo, as well as his single-volume studies of the Acadians in Poitou and at Nantes.  Mouhot's study of this phenomenon also offers an interesting explanation for preferment of endogamous marriage:  the majority of Acadian men prefered Acadians brides for, among other reasons, the likelihood that marrying a French woman might limit the amount of his unique compensation granted by the King's government.358

The bureaucratic organizations that provided assistance to the Acadians in France, especially the daily subsidy, were amazingly elaborate.  First was the bureaucracy answering to the Secretary of State of the Navy, also called the Minister of Marine, who answered to the King and who, since the time of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, oversaw the French colonies as well as the French ports, eight bureaux in all in the Navy Department.  The Bureau of Colonies, created in 1710, in the final days of Louis XIV, included "commissioners of divisions" for every port who answered to the general commissioners and intendants of each region.  It was the commissioners of divisions, such as "one Isarn" at St.-Malo or Quétier at Morlaix and Cherbourg, or their designees, who engaged in direct contact with the Acadians near those ports and distributed assistance directly to them.  The general commissioner for these ports was a nobleman named Guillot, who communicated directly with his superiors in Paris but not with individual Acadians, who, in his eyes, were people of "lower status."  The individuals in the Bureau of the Colonies charged with "coordinating the administration of the Acadians," were Accaron, "counselor and first agent of the Navy," who held the office in 1763-64, and Le Roque, "also first agent, specifically charged with Acadian affairs" in July 1772.  Also concerned with the Acadians of St.-Malo and Morlaix was "the States of Brittany," which also oversaw the Acadians on Belle-Île-en-Mer.  On the local level, municipal councils also played a role in Acadian affairs.  On a wider level, influential individuals, including nobles and members of clergy, also were granted supervistory roles over the Acadians.  Abbé de l'Isle-Dieu, vicar general of the Bishop of Québec, was given a supervisory role over the Acadians in 1760, and then Abbé Jean-Louis Le Loutre, of Acadian resistance fame, took over the role after Abbé de l'Isle-Dieu's retirement in 1763.  One suspects that Le Loutre, who had caused so much pain and suffering for the Acadians in pre-dispersal Nova Scotia, became the guardian angel of the exiles in France as some sort of spiritual atonement.  He even took under his wing a number of Acadian youths who studied for the priesthood under his guidance at Nantes.  The abbé, in fact, continued in this supervistory role until his death at Nantes in September 1772.  Unfortunately, Le Loutre, who became popular among the Acadians, was not replaced by another abbé (the one asked to be his replacement, the archdeacon of St.-Malo, refused) but by a commissioner of the navy Antoine-Philippe Lemoyne, who, beginning in 1773, gave way to various bureaucrats in the Contrôle Général, so that the personal touch provided by Le Loutre was lost to the Acadians.  Nevertheless, the Acadians, never a shy people, did not hesitate to petition, often in person, ministers, members of the royal family, and even the king himself.  One 1782 document claims, probably with exaggeration, that "'Every three months two of three fathers of families arrive who come in the name of all of them to seek the justice and goodness of the King.  All of the individuals of the royal family have received and recommended their reports.'"  Moreover, Jean-François Mouhot attests, "One finds in the texts many references to people who interfered in favor of the Acadians.  These individuals sometimes interfered with the official orders, soliciting privileges or exemptions for the Acadians."356

Perhaps the most frustrating Acadian interaction with the French bureaucracy concerned the timely payment of the "pension" authorized by the Minister of Marine and the King himself--the six-sous or sols daily subsidy or solde meant only for them.  According to Jean-François Mouhot:  "The administration knew how to demonstrate remarkable organization in cases of need, despite the difficulties of the period, but the Acadian question was, from all evidence, not a priority for the successive governments.  This is the main reason for the delays in distribution of assistance, which weighed heavily on the Acadians."357

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As for the resettlement schemes created for the Acadians in France, the first involved the new French colony of Guiane, Guiana, or Guyana on the northeast coast of South America, solicitation for which began in early 1763.  About the same time, solicitation began for the settlement of the Malouines, today's Falkland Islands, in the far South Atlantic.  Expeditions to those colonies left France with Acadians aboard beginning in the late summer of 1763 for the Malouines, and in the spring of 1764 for Guiane.  For various reasons, these colonies failed, the one for the Malouines utterly.  However, a third attempt to resettle Acadians in French territory, more or less in France, was more successful than the earlier ventures, in part because of their own efforts.  "With deep traditions of political petitioning in Nova Scota in their heads, eight years of exile under their belt, and a bewildering hodgepodge of colonial schemes in the air, the Acadians had no choice but to become savvy managers of their reputation."  Begun in late 1765, the new settlement was created for the exiles recently arrived from England, most, if not all, of whom were farmers from the Minas Basin still lingering in the urban and suburban centers at Morlaix and St.-Malo who hoped to become productive farmers again.353

The Acadian settlement on Belle-Île-en-Mer, also called Belle-Île, "a rocky, wind-swept island" off the southern coast of Brittany, was, says Carl Brasseaux, the brainchild of French minister of state Choiseul, "an individual not generally known for his compassion."  The duc, as much as anyone, shaped French policy before and after the Treaty of Paris, especially concerning the fate of what was left of the French empire.  The failed attempt to settle Guiane was his, and the Falkland Crisis of 1770, for which he would be largely responsible, would result in his unwelcome retirement.  Nevertheless, after his failure to lure many Acadians to the Malouines and Guiane, finding a place to resettle the Acadians became a priority for the minister of state.  He employed the Controller-General, Henri-Léonard-Jean-Baptiste Bertin, to solicit intendants throughout the kingdom, especially in Normandy, for a suitable place to send them.  As early as July 1763, only two months after the Acadians from England reached Morlaix and St.-Malo, the "States of Brittany" broached the possibility of sending these Acadians to Belle-Île-en-Mer to repopulate the island.  At first the plan called for "the displacement of the islanders and the redistribution of lands," but then the plan was changed to assimilate the Acadians into the local population.  This was when Abbé Jean-Louis Le Loutre, the designated champion of the Acadians, stepped in.  In a series of letters to Baron Richard de Warren, the new governor of the island, in early 1764, the abbé insisted that the Acadians be settled on the island together and that the government cover all the expenses of transportation, housing, and setting up the farms.  The Controller-General of Finances agreed to paying expenses--56,000 livres to the States of Brittany "for supplies of material for the settlement and payment of the price of transportation of the Acadians"--but placing them in only one part of the island, favored not only by Le Loutre but also by the distant Choiseul, was another matter.  "Le Loutre maintained that the Acadians wanted to be 'placed all together' and wanted to live 'as they lived, still neighbors and within a proximity of one another, and to not be mingled with the Belle-Île residents.'"  He admitted that he had a "personal interest in this reassembly:  'I cannot hide from you, Monsieur, that I would prefer the Acadians (to be together) so that I could be amidst them, animate them, and encourage them to work...'"  He also was well into his 50s and did not look forward to hours on horseback visiting far-flung communities.  On hearing of the possibility of the Acadians settling on the island, a local government official stepped in, declaring that "most of the then-residents of the island were ... 'extremely lazy'" and would be benefitted by intermixing with the hardworking Acadians.  Moreover, Le Loutre's plan to keep his Acadians together would have resulted in a reshuffling of land holdings on the island, against which the locals protested vigorously, despite an offer by the States of Brittany to give them "a general reimbursement."  A further complication was that the islanders "were not owners of their lands" and never had been; they held a "fee-farm," what the French called afféagement, a kind of lease which required them to pay rents to representatives of the Crown to remain on their piece of island.  This made them vulnerable to "expropriation," which the government of Brittany was now proposing.  Moreover, the Acadians and the locals did not speak the same language!  The Acadians spoke a dialect akin to seventeenth-century French, and the locals spoke a dialect of the Breton language, two very different tongues.  Significantly, it was also agreed that in the distribution of land, the locals would have first choice, the newcormers second choice, and, of course, the Acadians also would hold their lands as "fee-farms."  So even before the Acadians set foot on the island, the nature of their relationship with many of the locals, and the island itself, was already determined, and not always for the good.354

Belle-Île, called Vindilis by the Romans, for much of its modern history had been privately held, but in 1718, as a belated wish of Louis XIV, the island was ceded to the Crown.  Peace had reigned on the island for decades, when mainland French mariners crossed to the island to take advantage of its location athwart an important trade route.  Others did their best to bring life to the island's rocky soil, and many failed miserably.  Then another war came.  The decisive naval battle of Quiberon Bay, called the Trafalgar of the Seven Years' War, was fought within sight of Belle-Île-en-Mer on 20 November 1759, during Britain's so-called annus mirabilis.  In 1761, the British seized the island as a base for future operations against the French coast.  As a result, "half the population" of 5,000 or so "moved back to the mainland," creating many abandoned lands on the island.  Belle-Île was returned to France in exchange for the island of Minorca in the treaty of 1763.  After much effort on the part of Choiseul, Le Loutre, and others, by late 1765 Acadians from Morlaix, who had gone there from England two and a half years earlier, were resettled on the island.  Carl Brasseaux notes that the venture "endured seven years and collapsed, the result of crop failure, drought, livestock epidemics, and the opposition of native Frenchmen."  Other historians are not so harsh in their evaluation of French efforts there.  The fact that "Much of the island's current population is descended from repatriated Acadian colonists" is a testament, at least, to a cultural success on the part of the Acadians who went to the island and refused to leave.355

The first Acadians to visit the island were a delegation of three from Morlaix in July 1764.  "They declared that nearly eighty Acadian families might settle on the island, leaving room for the original bellilois inhabitants."  But these farmers from the Minas Basin "were not impressed" with everything they saw.  "The climate was harsh, the soil inferior, and they feared that settling there would expose them to danger," especially to another British invasion.  The government turned to Le Loutre for help, and the abbé performed his magic on the officials as well as the Acadians.  As related by John Mack Faragher, Le Loutre "agreed to act as recruiting agent for the Belle-Île-en-Mer project, and persuaded a number of Acadians that on the island they might reestablish their traditional way of life.  He also persuaded the government to sweeten its subsidy, giving to each family not only a concession of land" but also animals, "a sum of 400 livres, and an exemption from all taxes for five years," among other benefits.  Acadian families from Morlaix, 78 of them numbering 363 individuals, reached Le Palais via Vannes in southern Brittany in late September 1765, their island homes not yet ready for them.  According to the contracts their families heads signed at Le Palais, each family was promised "a house composed of two rooms and a loft, totaling about twenty-seven square meters.  In addition, each family was to receive two oxen, a cow, and a horse, along with carts, spare axles, hoes, spades, and sickles."  They should not have been surprised that, "Like peasants across the kingdom, Belle-Île's settlers owed corvée labor for the repair of roads, mills, bridge, and other structures, facing fines if they did not comply.  Small dues and tithes to compensate royal officials and local clergy also were in the contract.  One of the more palatable features of the contract was "If the new colonists managed to clear, till, and farm the land successfully, it became their private, inheritable, incontestable property."  However, "Belle-Île's settlers could not sell their land until January 1, 1776," a decade hence, "nor could they leave it uncultivated.  The penalty for both offenses was expulsion from the island.  Perks notwithstanding," Christopher Hodson quips, "the Acadians had signed up for a decade-long hitch as glorified serfs."  

By the time of their arrival, it had been agreed that the new habitants, for practical and humanitarian reasons, would not be clumped together but would be dispersed throughout the four island districts:  Sauzon in the north, Le Palais in the east, Locmaria in the south, and Bangor in the west, each of which had a church of its own.  It, in fact, was one of the rectors on the island who led a revolt of the locals against Le Loutre and the Acadians over the question of consolidation or dispersal, and so the "lazy" locals, and the "emulationists," won.  Besides, measuring only 10 1/2 miles by 5 1/2 miles, any part of the island was easily accessible by foot, horse, or cart, so the Acadians would have had no problem visiting their loved ones even at the far end of another district.  Each of the districts contained dozens of small villages, all of them surrounded by pastures and fields, now to be rearranged for the benefit of all.  "Using new surveys," Christopher Hodson explains, "planners divided Belle-Île into 551 separate plots of roughly twenty journaux (plural of journée, a variable old-régime unit that referred to the area one man could plow or harvest in a day) each."  The bellilois received 375 plots, the gourdiecs (a "Breton-language slur" that "referred to agricultural workers, fishermen, and artisans imported from the mainland to speed the rebuilding of the island") 108 plots, and the Acadians 78, one for each of their families.  Although these aboiteaux builders of the Minas Basin had no high tides to contend with here, the island was a farming community nonetheless that also offered fishing at least as a pastime.  Moreover, the island's climate was warm-summer Mediterranean, or oceanic, with less rain and milder winters than on the mainland, but, being an island, the wind was ubiquitous.  Despite the Acadians' tendency to avoid assimilation into surrounding communities wherever they settled, island authorities "strongly encouraged intermingling of the populations" despite the differences in culture and language.  Inevitably, it happened, though not without difficulty, especially in the early days of the venture.359

In January 1767, "the States of Brittany ordered an oral inquiry among the Acadians of the island to establish the genealogies and parental ties among all the refugees.  The verifying of these genealogies had, as its aim, a return to normal life, the verification of marriages, and rendering legally 'vouchable' these people who until then could be considered as, in effect, vagrants."  That is, it determined who among them was eligible for the King's largesse based on their special identity as Acadians.  Beginning in February, each family head was to go to his parish church and make a "declaration of genealogy" recorded by a government clerk, "'that will contain all the details relative to the condition of the declarer, that of his wife and children, with the most exact and clear genealogy possible of the father and mother, of the place of their births and marriages, and the place of the births of their children."  Abbé Le Loutre was directed to be there as well to add whatever knowledge he possessed of these families.  Among the first "declarers" were Honoré LeBlanc, Joseph-Simon Granger, Jean-Baptiste Granger, and Joseph LeBlanc dit Le Maigre, the famous Acadian partisan leader and privateer, now in his final days.  One can imagine his audience--his fellow declarers, the government clerk, the pastor of the church at Le Palais, and Abbé Le Loutre, himself a witness to many of Le Maigre's exploits--listening to the story of this remarkable man who sacrificed so much for family, church, and king.  "This procedure," Jean-François Mouhot explains, "certainly implied a desire to insert the Acadians into the civil society of Belle-Île," as well as France.  He adds that "No similar procedure was undertaken anywhere else in France" at the time, making the 1767 Belle-Île-en-Mer (BiM) declarations among the most precious of Acadian documents.  But there was a more immediate benefit from this exercise in "vouchability."  "For their part," Christopher Hodson explains, "the Acadians had gained a valuable bargaining chip--a corporate identity"--during their stay on the beautiful island.  "And when the French crown tried one last time to colonize the patrie, a few among them would deploy that chip to surprising, devastating, effect."360

The Acadians did tolerably well on Belle-Île-en-Mer until 1769, when a three-year string of bad harvests, as well as poor fishing, hit all of the islanders hard.  On top of that, French officials refused to loan seeds for the coming season when the Acadians needed it.  The officials also were not averse to increasing rents, driving some Acadians to leave the island, either returning to Morlaix or St.-Malo or moving to the Breton mainland.  Moreover, from the beginning of their time on the island, many Acadians found much to complain about.  They "found their plots of land disappointingly small.  Raised amidst American abundance, they thought in terms of large tracts, rich soils, and abundant woodlots.  They were unhappy as well with the limits the governor placed on hunting, fishing, and movement about the island.  For these independent people, who had lived a relatively unrestricted life in pre-removal l'Acadie, it was difficult to adjust to the normal rules and regulations of rural France."  As Carl Brasseaux has stated, the Belle-Île experiment lasted seven years before it "collapsed."  When a new settlement scheme, much larger in number of participants and geographical extent, was offered to the Acadians still in France in the early 1770s, exiles on Belle-Île were given the choice of remaining on their holdings there or joining their fellow Acadians in the new venture in Poitou.  Some left; some remained.  Again, in the early 1780s, when an even grander resettlement scheme was proposed to them, this one emigration to Spanish Louisiana, some islanders remained, but 125 of them chose to put not only Belle-Île-en-Mer but also France behind them.  Many years later, in September 1901, the mayor of Sauzon was asked by a fellow Frenchman about the Acadians still living on his island:  They "were from the beginning mixed with the indigenous population," the mayor explained.  "No memory of the latter's hostility remains.  The Acadians were nicknamed crabs or sea spiders--perhaps in Breton--because of the length of their arms and legs.  They were taller than the indigenous people; their descendants maintain this characteristic as well as their bronze skin....  Father Gallen," a noted author, "believed that it was they who introduced apples to the island.  The Acadians took up the language and customs of the Belle-Île residents," the mayor added.  So, at least for some, this long-ago island venture was a qualified success.361

.

Even while the Acadians from England were trying their best to bring life to their newly-acquired lands on Belle-Île-en-Mer, Choiseul, Le Loutre, and the like were looking for other regions of France in which to settle the remaining Acadians.  These were in fact the majority of them, languishing in the suburbs and villages of the Rance valley or in scattered ports up and down the French Atlantic coast.  Le Loutre had convinced the minister and other officials that, if such a scheme came to fruition, it would be best to keep the Acadians as close together as possiblie within the confines of the new settlement.  The question was:  where could Le Loutre and the others find available land with sufficient potential to create new settlement for the Acadians?  Suggestions and even plans were legion:  the forests of Brix and Valognes near Cherbourg in Normandy, brainchild of Choiseul's influential older cousin, César-Gabriel de Choiseul, duc de Praslin, who replaced Étienne-François as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in 1761 and France's chief negotiator for the Treaty of Paris, an idea favored by the King; Combourg in northeastern Brittany near St.-Malo, offered by a nobleman named Chateaubriand; the Fôret de la Rocquette in lower Brittany; Blaye on the Gironde below Bordeaux; Compiègne; the island of Beauté; and, of course, Corsica in the Mediterranean, introduced in 1768, when the Acadians on Belle-Île were still struggling to make a go of it there.  Upon hearing the Corsican plan's details, Le Loutre dismissed it outright, but then the Corsica idea progressed so far in higher circles that Le Loutre and five Acadians visited the island to see for themselves.  "Again," Jean-François Mouhot explains, "the question of legalities involving the ownership of the land reemerged, as did the problem of placing the Acadians all together...."  The island's intendant reported in 1769 that "'The Acadians request placing four hundred families on the east coast, ... and, lacking the possibility to settle them all in his region, they request (other lands on the west coast)."  Overwhelmed by these impracticalities, the plan was abandoned. The Corsican idea reemerged among the Acadians at St.-Malo in 1772 but again was rejected, and would be reintroduced and rejected again and again.  In 1772, a marquis in Limousin proposed settling a hundred Acadian families at the rocky hamlet of Ussel, which a delegation of Acadians also visited and also rejected.  The comte de Closnard proposed to settle a hundred Acadians on his estate near Bordeaux; it, too, was rejected.  These failures only strengthened the notion of Choiseul and Praslin that, if they left the matter alone long enough the Acadians would disperse"spontaneously" from their Rance villages or the slums in the scattered ports, finding work wherever they chose "or at least ceasing to trouble the ministry."362

And then reality set in.  In the summer of 1772, Jean-François Mouhot relates, "A change occurred in the attitude of the government ... when the settling of the Acadians became the subject of a discussion before the Council of the King."  Evidently the discussion was sparked by a letter intercepted by the naval commissioner at St.-Malo from the Bailiwick of Jersey "urging the Acadians to desert France and return to the English colonies of North America."  The ministers then "became preoccupied by the fear of a massive flight of the Acadians outside of France, which would amount to a shameful failure of French diplomacy and a consequent loss for the kingdom."  There may have been another spark that rekindled the flame of government interest in Acadian "internal" resettlement.  In March of that year, soon after the interception of the letter from Jersey, Jean-Jacques LeBlanc of Grand-Pré, while serving as "one of the Acadian representatives of the Saint-Malo department" and claiming to represent 300 families, had submitted a petition to the French government to pay for the emigration of these Acadian families to Spanish Louisiana.  Like an earlier, similar, but less elaborate entreaty by other Acadians in 1766, LeBlanc's petition also was rejected, but, unlike the earlier missive, this one had been directed to the Minister of Marine himself, Pierre-Étienne Bourgeois de Boynes, and evidently influenced what was discussed in Council.  The councilors, in fact, agreed to discuss the Louisiana idea at a later gathering.  When they did, the King's response was predictable--the Acadians should not be surrendered to another nation but "attached to the soil" of France.  The result was the settling of Acadians on marginal land belonging to an influential French nobleman--Louis-Nicolas, marquis de Pérusse d'Escars, whose estate lay near Châtellerault in the interior of Poitou.363 

Pérusse was the beau ideal of a French nobleman turned warrior.  Born in 1724 into a noble family of Limousin, he went into the army at an early age, dstinguished himself in a number of campaigns, and was a brigadier-general by the Seven Years' War.  He also married well.  His wife's dowry included "a château near Châtellerault, a great deal of land in Poitou, two houses in Paris, and a sum of money."  Seriously wounded in 1760 in Germany, "he went to Châtellerault to heal in a home he had scarcely seen."  With time now to inspect his vast estates in the countryside outside of the city, "What he saw disgusted him.  His wife's vast inheritance consisted not of handsome fields tilled by plump peasants but of  '15,000 arpents ... uncultivated, vacant, and held in common,' a scene of 'devastation ... caused by the want of inhabitants.'  For a man still in his thirties, broken in body but alive in spirit, the conditions were appalling," Christopher Hodson relates.  "Pérusse therefore vowed to foster better farming and 'repeople his land.'"  A devotee of agromomy as well as the ideas of the influential physiocrats, who encouraged the reformation of French peasantry by "internal colonization" if necessary, Pérusse, who beheld the vastness of his empty estates before him, became a champion of rural repopulation and massive land clearance.  In 1762, after corresponding at length with fellow army officer and agronomist Louis-François-Henri Menon, marquis de Turbilly, Pérusse hit upon the idea of importing Bavarians, whose qualities as farmers he had seen with his own eyes during the war, to transform his estate into an agronomists dream.  He managed to recruit four families and, after exempting them from seigneurial dues and the corvée, he granted each of them 25-arpent farms, and they promptly set to work.  When the locals inevitably got in the way, Pérusse hired "'a number of valets'" to protect his hard-working Germans.  According to Hodson, Pérusse's "little settlement became a lodestar for a French government eager to cultivate innovation."  Pérusse promptly took advantage of the good press and beseeched the government for "a massive subvention," or grant, "of 450,000 livres" so that he could import more Germans to "allow him to 'lead (agriculture) to its perfection.'"  But "France's war debt" spoiled the plan.  In 1766, Henri Bertin, former Controller General of Finance and expert on all things agricultural, praised the Germans of Poitou and "retained a positive image" of the marquis's bold settlement.  Pérusse, of course, was well aware of the Acadians' reputation for possessing the same qualities as his beloved Bavarians, but, for now, he remained focused on the welfare of his Germans and acquiring more of them.364 

In the summer or fall of 1772, soon after the rejection of his earlier petition to the Minister of Marine, the indefatigible Jean-Jacques LeBlanc evidently led a delegation of Acadians from St.-Malo, this time claiming to represent 600 families, to the King's summer retreat in Compiègne.  The story goes that he informed Louis XV that Carlos III of Spain "had offered to settle them in Sierra Morena," in the mountains of southern Spain,"a scenario they preferred to more time wasted in France."  Instead of turning the upstart Acadians away, we are asked to believe, Louis XV evidently "ordered his ministers to devise a French colony for the Acadians that would satisfy justice and 'discharge the state of the cost' of their upkeep."  However, the King stipulated, "'Truly Acadian families' alone would merit the king's 'kindnesses.'"  If this exchange actually happened, LeBlanc and his San Moreno-or-Louisiana cohorts would have been stymied by their clever monarch.  As with the Belle-Île-en-Mer venture, "The promise of internal colonization, coupled with the guarantee of the Acadians' corporate privileges, seemed certain to attach them solidly to metropolitan France," to "attach them to the soil," as the King expressed it.  Henri Bertin, now "the king's adviser on agricultural affairs," communicated with Pérusse "about the Acadians."  Predictably, "The marquis leapt at the chance to receive them."  He drew up detailed plans for the proposed settlement.  Being familiar with navy commissioner Antoine-Philippe Lemoynes's recent census of the "true" Acadians in the kingdom, the marquis proposed that "the 1,347 Acadians who had self-identified as 'farmers' on Lemoyne's census, along with '153 others ... whose type of industry [was] most analogous to agriculture," be recruited for the settlement.  The colonists would be divided into five villages of 30 households apiece; 10 habitants would live in each of the colony's 150 stone houses, "which included 'two rooms, one of which has a chimney, a cellar, a tool closet, and a barn.'  Each household would receive four oxen, two cows, two plows, a cart, and animal feed for the first year.  In addition to 6 sols per day until at least 1776, perks included full ownership of their cleared lands, tithes 'reduced to the fortieth' for fifteen years, total exemption from royal taxes and the corvée for at least a decade, free salt, and tobacco 'at the prices given to the troops.'"  Meanwhile, between 1774 and 1776, "the king would defray these expenses with 600,000 livres in eight payments, after which the colony would sustain itself."  Pérusse invited noted agronomist Sarcey de Sutières to inspect the soil of his estate and to grade it for quality.  When only one part of his domain received a "mark of 'first quality,'" he convinced the bishop of Poitou and a convent of nuns near Poitiers to "donate" some of their land for his habitants.  Meanwhile, officials circulated the details of his plan among the Acadians in the St.-Malo villages, but, to the marquis's dismay, recruitment "went nowhere."  Pérusse also was acquainted with Abbé Le Loutre, champion of the Acadians, and invited him and a delegation of Acadians--Alexandre Trahan, Pierre Henry, and Alexandre Bourg--to tour his estate.  Unfortunately, Le Loutre died suddenly at Nantes at the end of September on his way to Poitou, but the Acadian delegates continued on.  Unfortunately for Pérusse, at least two of the refugees were not impressed, one of them scoffing that "This is not worth Acadia ... or the settlements proposed ... by the Spanish,'" another describing what he had seen near Archigny and Monthoiron as "'heaths'" that "'seemed very barren' to them , if not unhealthy because of stagnant water."  Pérusse fretted that "the men then headed back 'to convince their brethren ... that the lands they had seen were a kind of marsh ... and that there was not a tree within twenty leagues.'"  One of them confessed that their rejection of the land sought "'to avoid the just reproaches that our colleauges would make to us in that case, which would then pass down from one generation to another." 

This would not do.  The Minister of Finance accepted the Poitou plan in May 1773; Pérusse's venture now was official policy.  Jean-François Mouhot points out that "If it seems that the marquis' plan was adopted by default, we should note that the opinion of the Acadians concerning the quality of the lands, though quite clearly expressed, was absolutely not taken into account."  That summer, while the Acadians who had not left Belle-Île-en-Mer were struggling with their three-year-long string of bad harvests, Versailles sent Antoine-Philippe Lemoyne "to pitch Pérusse's project to refugees in northern seaports," who were nowhere near in numbers to the Acadians in the St.-Malo region.  Despite the navy commissioner's half-hearted approval of the plan (he preferred to place the Acadians on lands belonging to his relatives or friends, or on public lands, like on Belle-Île-en-Mer) Lemoyne managed to convince Acadians in Le Havre and Cherbourg to sign up for the venture.  In July, he went to St.-Malo to take on Jean-Jacques LeBlanc--"their confidence man, their orator," Lemoyne scoffed--along with the other doubters. The two headstrong men did not get along.  LeBlanc referred to himself and his fellow delegates as "the heads of the nation," to which Lemoyne replied that he knew the "'Acadians only as French, as subjects of the king committed to obey him ... not as a foreign nation.'"  "It was a rash statement," Christopher Hodson notes, "and it elicited a harsh response."  He had touched upon a sore subject--the question of whether the Acadians should be settled together or dispersed throughout the kingdom, where they could assimilate more readily.  Only one refugee signed up for the venture.  "Fifteen hundred others said no."  Lemoyne's continued efforts in the St.-Malo villages failed utterly.  But he did notice one thing of value that would be useful for those who favored the project:  "Beneath the veneer of Acadian consensus," Hodson explains, "he detected 'serious intrigues,' propaganda, and arm-twisting meant to 'force the government's hand' and drive the refugees toward 'the Mississippi.'  So Lemoyne decided to fight chicanery with chicanery."  In July, Lemoyne sent another delegation of Acadian leaders from St.-Malo to inspect Pérusse's lands and then return to their villages to coax their fellow Acadians to join the venture.  Among them was not only syndic Augustin dit Justice Doucet, but also two of the leading nay-sayers, Jean-Jacques LeBlanc and Simon Aucoin, who Lemoyne made certain were kept in separate groups.  Justice, as Lemoyne expected, reported favorably on what he saw.  Depite his dit, he likely had been paid to exaggerate the quality of the soil on the marquis's estate.  The tour of of the proposed settlement site was a tour-de-force of chicanery:  "A secretary to the comte de Blossac, the province's royal intendant, guided the Acadians around Pérusse's estate in a fine carriage, while two locals ... were paid to testify to the Acadians of the land's fertility.  At various points along the way, the group descended from the carriage to probe the dirt with sticks and grind clods into powder, discussing the soil's composition, color, and depth in meticulous detail.  At the end of the day, the Acadians and their hosts drafted and signed a long document at Pérusse's château.  It confirmed that the land they had seen featured 'six or seven thumbs of topsoil, dewy and light, and underneath a graying-yellow soil ... that seems to have both salts and substance; cold, but liable to be reheated by work and running water."  Back at St.-Malo, Lemoyne circulated the report of the Poitou tour and its results, including the signatures of the Acadians who had gone there.  A letter from Abbé de l'Isle-Dieu and sermons by parish priests in the Rance villages pushed the Acadians toward a resolution on the Poitou question.  Meanwhile, Lemoyne did what he could to persuade them to go, threatening those who "'refused the king's graces' for 'reprehensible, even criminal motives,'" with the loss of their "prized allowance."  He even revoked the privileges of a chief nay-sayer, Acadian Alexis Trahan of Morlaix, as an example of what could happen to those who refused the King's offer.  Jean-Jacques LeBlanc and Simon Aucoin refused to give in, claiming that "the assessment of Poitou's soil had been forged, and that the government's warnings about the allowance were 'only threats.'"  But their warnings convinced fewer and fewer of the compatriots.  "Within a month of Lemoyne's visit," Hodson notes, "most of Saint-Malo's Acadians had agreed to settle on Pérusse's lands."  Even LeBlanc himself, "sensing a shift toward Pérusse's colony" following testimony by Justice Doucet in favor of the settlement, and not willing to break up his Acadian "nation," signed on to the dubious venture and prepared his family for the trek to Poitou.365

In October and November 1773, "great, disorderly caravans," as described by Christopher Hodson, "rolled into Châtellerault," filled with Acadians from the Rance valley above St.-Malo.  Later, even more would come from St.-Malo, Belle-Île, Morlaix, Rochefort, La Rochelle, Cherbourg, Le Havre, Boulogne-sur-Mer, and other Atlantic ports where they had been languishing for a decade or more but now yearned to be productive farmers again.  The arrival of the first caravans caught Pérusse and his people by surprise.  Few of the 150 stone houses he had promised were ready for the habitants, who had to be quartered with local families and wherever else room could be found for them in and around Châtellerault.  By December, more Acadians had arrived than Pérusse had planned for, and more were coming in the spring.  By June 1774, 1,461 of them had come to Poitou.  Pérusse was pleased with what he saw:  "'big, robust, hardworking, and very fecund,'" he exulted, "'almost all of the women arrived pregnant.'"  He did notice that some of the new arrivals were "not Acadians at all" but "had sneaked into the mix.  He labeled them 'very different' from the rest and thanked his stars their numbers were few."  He also noticed among the Acadians sometimes not so subtle differences in attitudes based on where they had spent the past few years.  He nevertheless, unlike Lemoyne, saw the Acadians as a united people and wanted them to remain together, implying that assimilation for these good people would not be an improvement.  He even advocated giving them their own church "to thereby avoid a division of the population."  Pérusse and his new tenants wasted no time in getting the colony in order.  "Construction moved forward in the spring and summer," and more and more Acadian families "moved from Châtellerault out into the countryside, taking up residence in the six angular villages laid out by Pérusse the previous year."  The villages lay south and east of the city, in a number of rural parishes, including St.-Sauveur, Cenon-sur-Vienne, Senillé, Leigné-les-Bois, Monthoiron, Bonneuil-Matours, and Archigny, known collectively as the Grand Ligne or Ligne Acadienne.  As Pérusse had promised, the Acadian villages were close to one another "not ... separated by rivers or streams."  The locals of course "grew envious of the benefits lavished on the newcomers," but word spread throughout physiocratic circles of the wonderful things happening in the once-neglected fields of Poitou.  The agronomist Sarcey de Sutières created a model farm near Archigny he called Champfleury to instruct the locals as well as the newcomers in the wonders of scientific farming.366 

And then, in May 1774, King Louis XV died and was succeeded by his 19-year-old grandson, Louis XVI.  The biggest change as far as the Poitou venture was concerned, were the changes in ministers under the new king, especially the new Controller-General of Finance, Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, who "had hated Pérusse's project from the start."  "From Versailles," Christopher Hodson notes, "the Acadian colony of Poitou--a 600,000 livres holdover from a previous, poorly-run administration--looked like a bad investment for a kingdom on the fiscal brink."  Turgot also was an enemy of "privileges and exemptions," such as the ones granted to the Acadians by the previous monarch.  Evidently a close observer of the refugees, he considered them ingrates and busybodies and viewed their latest efforts "less as a colonial innovation than as a costly eyesore populated by serial whiners."  He wasted no time "overhauling the Acadians settlement to ensure either its transformation or its demise."  He insisted that Pérusse impose on his new tenants various tasks the completion of which would determine if they remained in the colony or retained their privileges.  As expected, "Acadian reaction to Turgot's assault was swift," including an appeal over Turgot's head to Queen Marie-Antoinette, who agreed to be their patroness!  Turgot, aware of the cracks in Acadian unity, was not above using one of them to stir up trouble among the colonists.  In November 1774, the smooth-talking Jean-Jacques LeBlanc managed to slip away from his Poitou farm and meet with Turgot at Versailles.  One suspects that LeBlanc discussed with the controller general not only the problems plaguing his countrymen in Poitou, but also Acadian emigration.  Despite his having gone to Poitou, Jean-François Mouhot reminds us, "LeBlanc constantly argued in favor of an emigration to Louisiana, an option that for him seemed as being the most politically acceptable for the government and thus the most likely to succeed."  Turgot likely welcomed the Acadian's insights as well as his willingness to wreck the Poitou venture.367

Pérusse struck back.  He pointed out to Turgot that LeBlanc had traveled from Poitou to Versailles without permission and the proper passport and had extorted funds from other Acadians to finance his travel.  He even suggested that the errant Acadian spend a short stint in the local jail.  "The order never came."  After Pérusse warned Turgot that LeBlanc's visit to Versailles was "a plot against reform," Turgot revealed his true feelings about the subject by firing Sarcey de Sutières and threatening to ship him off to Spain "to direct farming in the Sierra Morena colonies."  Pérusse, enraged, appealed directly to Louis XVI to save the services of the noted agronomist.  Turgot then directed a crippling blow to the colony.  He "suddenly ordered the colony reduced from fifteen hundred inhabitants to six hundred 'satisfied with their lot.'  For the rest, a difficult choise awaited.  'His majesty is disposed to establish the others either on Corsica or on Île de France,'" today's Madagascar, "Turgot declared, demanding that Acadians decide promptly between the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean islands.  Those who waited until January 1, 1776, would, in Turgot's words, 'cease to enjoy the allowance that has been granted them ... and will not be able to aspire to any of the government's graces'"368

 Back in Poitou, LeBlanc led a campaign to turn his fellow Acadians against their noble benefactor, the Marquis de Pérusse, and abandon the colony for the port city of Nantes, from where it would be more likely that the Acadians could quit the kingdom and emigrate to Louisiana.  LeBlanc and his fellow detractors knew that Turgot's dictum gave them a golden opportunity to finish off the Poitou venture.  The Corsica idea had already been rejected, and the failure of the Guiane venture a decade earlier poisoned tropical ventures in the mind of Acadians.  "Forcing Acadians to choose between two frightening destinations or the loss of their privileges, Turgot looked to trim his budget and encourage free markets," Christopher Hodson explains.  "For Leblanc, the scheme promised to destroy the Acadians' status as a corps, leaving them no choice but to follow him toward the Atlantic."  Pérusse noticed over the winter of 1774-75 and into the following spring that something akin to gang warfare had infested his colony.  He suspected that Jean-Jacques LeBlanc and his "clique" were doing what they could to slow down or even stop essential farm work among the habitants.  Turgot's mysterious agent, M. Dubuisson of Flanders, appeared in the colony in July 1775 and sowed more discord among the colonists, accusing Pérusse of having "falsified reports about his soil."  Pérusse responded with a barrage of accusations, protests, and demands, but his status at Versailles was no match for the power the controller-general could wield.  None of the colonists having agreed to resettle in Corsica or Île de France "and the situation in Poitou growing ever more chaotic," on 18 July 1775, Turgot offered to pay the Acadians' "way to the port of Nantes, even hinting at a continuation of the allowance for the departed."  Pérusse did what he could to placate those Acadians who wished to remain, but, by late August, violence broke out in the Poitou settlements, one incident involving the ruffian Simon Aucoin accosting several fellow Acadians at a local church.  Jean-Jacques LeBlanc's campaign of intimidation had succeeded.  "By late fall, Pérusse admitted, 'only nine families dared work the soil.  The colony disintegrated that winter."369

Beginning in late October 1775, with official permission, and perhaps even encouragement, more than 900 Acadians in Poitou retreated from Châtellerault down the Vienne and the Loire in four convoys to the port of Nantes.  Although Pérusse had insisted that Jean-Jacques LeBlanc be the first colonist to leave, Jean-Jacques, wife Nathalie, and their children took the fourth and final convoy out of Châtellerault during the first week of March 1776.  By May, only 497 Acadians remained in the settlement, and more were preparing to go.  When the exodus finally ended, "Pérusse was left with three hundred tenants and no promise of funds to support them."  Those who did resist the temptation to join their brethren in Nantes, ironically, enjoyed the full benefits of Pérusse's venture.  There were so few of them left that they had a choice of which of the sturdy stone houses they wanted for themselves, as well as the choicest fields and pastures that they or others had cleared.  Their assistance payments continued until the amount Pérusse and the government had promised them was exhausted, but by them they were able to subsist on their own.  Some who had settled near Archigny had not come from the Rance villages, where they might have been "communitized," as Jean-François Mouhot calls it, but had been together with their families in one of the French seaports before going to Poitou and were determined to remain close to their families there.  And, of course, as Mouhot reminds us, "Nearly all of the Acadian women who married young Frenchmen at the start of the colony of Poitou remained on site and started families."  As with the Acadians of Belle-Île-en-Mer who chose to remain, descendants of Acadians who remained in Poitou can still be found in the Ligne Acadienne.370 

The Acadians who congregated in Nantes settled in a number of church parishes in and around the city on both sides of the Loire:  St.-Similien, St.-Nicolas, St.-Jacques, Ste.-Croix, St.-Donatien, and St.-Leonard on the north bank, St.-Martin de Chantenay in the western suburbs, and St.-Pierre de Rezé south of the Loire.  Acadians were especially numerous at Chantenay, its parish dedicated to St.-Martin of Tours, in the hamlet of Hermitage, named after the hermitage of the "Little Capuchin" order of monks, which in the eighteenth century was "a quarter apart, outside of Nantes, in the vicinity of the quarries of Misery."  They also could be found in substantial numbers in the parishes of St.-Similien and St.-Nicolas in the city.  Nantes, with a population of over 80,000 when the Acadians arrived, dated back to pre-Roman times.  Its location on the lower Loire, one of France's great rivers, guaranteed that it would remain an important port.  According to historian Gérard-Marc Braud, Nantes was "at its apogee" in the 1770s "thanks notably to slave trading--also called the triangle trade or the ebony-wood trade--but also to merchant shipping...."  According to Braud, "In 1780, the fleet of Nantes counted 259 long-voyage vessels, 271 merchant ships, and 775 other ships.  Like New Orleans, where many hoped to resettle, Nanes was an upriver port, lying well above the Loire's estuary as New Orleans lay above the bird-foot delta of the Mississippi, but not nearly as far upriver as New Orleans from its river-mouth port at La Balize.  At the head of the Loire estuary below Nantes, where Acadians from Poitou and Belle-Île also lived, was the small south-bank port of Paimboeuf, where ships too large for the upriver slog could find room to maneuver.  Though the great majority of the Acadians who would live at Nantes did not get there until the first convoy from Châtellerault arrived in late 1775, Acadian families began to appear in Nantes parish registers as early as the mid-1760s.  Gérard-Marc Braud says a ship full of Acadians from Îles St.-Pierre and Miquelon, Les Deux Amis, came to Nantes in December 1765, perhaps to avoid overcrowding on the fishery islands.  Among the passengers were René Poirier and his wife Anne Gaudet.  René died in St.-Nicolas Parish, Nantes, in March 1766, age 47.  Widow Anne and their children returned to Miquelon soon after his passing.  René's nephew Joseph-Isidore Poirier, whose family had come from the Maritimes to Cherbourg in 1758, chose to move on to Nantes, where he married local woman Jeanne-Françoise Daudet in 1772.  Meanwhile, Charles Boudrot of Minas died in the Hotel-Dieu at Nantes, age 30, in July 1767.  Members of an Hébert family, that of Charles, a carpenter, appeared in the burial register at St.-Martin de Chantenay in late December 1769 and January 1770, victims perhaps of an urban epidemic.  Louis Gaudet and wife Marie Hébert of Miquelon came to La Rochelle from the fishery island in 1767 and remained in France.  They did not follow Louis's brother Pierre to Poitou in 1773 but moved to Nantes instead.  Pierre joined them there two years later, when the second convoy from Châtellerault reached Nantes in November 1775.  Unlike the other two great gatherings of the Acadians in France, near St.-Malo and in Poitou, where families were scattered in rural villages up and down the Rance or in rural compounds east and south of Châtellerault, at Nantes there were no rural settlements for them.  All of the Acadians there, for nearly a decade, were clustered into an intense urban environment, with its "insufficiency of hygiene" and its endemic ills, such as smallpox, typhoid fever, dysentery, and cholera--something experienced only by those who had lived in Atlantic ports before going to Poitou or had remained in Châtellerault during their short time there.371

Now that most of the Acadians in France again occupied a single place, the question arose anew among government officials, especially Louis XVI's new Director-General of Finance, Jacques Necker:  should the Acadians be allowed to remain together, or should they be dispersed throughout the kingdom, where they could assimilate more readily?  But there also was the nagging question among the Acadians themselves:  should they remain in the mother country, to be dispersed at will by the new administration and become assimilated into French society; or should they emigrate together to Louisiana or Île St.-Pierre and Miquelon or, if the Americans could retake it from the British, Nova Scotia, where they had a better chance of maintaining their Acadian identity?  Jean-Jacques LeBlanc's "victory" in Poitou must have motivated him to try even harder to gain approval to take his family to Spanish Louisiana.  His name appears on another petition for emigration to the colony in 1777, but this petition also was rejected.  After he died at Chantenay in November 1781, "the Louisiana destination gathered even less support among the Acadians than in his lifetime, as he had been the main promoter of this emigration."  But the idea did not die with the silver-tongued Acadian.  By 1783, after years of pondering the fate of the hundreds of Acadians still living in the kingdom, Necker and other crown officials came to the conclusion that the best solution for them was what Jean-Jacques LeBlanc had been advocating all along.  When Spanish officials in France learned of the new French "policy," they promptly secured the approval of Spanish authorities for the massive venture.  On 22 October 1783, King Carlos III issued a royal decree, called a sedula, approving a scheme suggested to Spain by Frenchman and former resident of Louisiana Henri-Marie Peyroux de la Coudrenière, who may or may not have been aware of LeBlanc's efforts--the transportation of the Acadians in France to Spanish Louisiana at the expense of the Spanish crown.  This was especially attractive not only to the debt-ridden government of Louis XVI, but also to the many Acadians in Nantes and St.-Malo who had fallen deep in debt.  Both the Spanish ambassador to France, Don Pedro Pablo Abarca de Bolea, Count de Aranda, and the Spanish consul at St.-Malo, Manuel d'Asprès, sent copies of the royal decree to the interim governor of Spanish Louisiana, Estevan Miró, ordering him to prepare for the new arrivals.  Peyroux de la Coudrenière, former apothecary in Nantes and erstwhile resident of French Louisiana, recruited Acadian Olivier Térrio, a shoemaker living in Nantes, to be his Acadian spokesman.  Térrio, a native of Île St.-Jean, had been taken by his family to St.-Malo in January 1759 at age 3 and lived with them at Pleudihen-sur-Rance.  In 1770, while in his teens, he began his studies for the priesthood, along with other young Acadians, at Nantes under the tutelage of Abbé Le Loutre until the abbé's death two years later.  Térrio returned to his family and likely followed them to Poitou and Nantes, where he apprenticed as a shoemaker in St.-Sébastien Parish.  He married an Aucoin from Minas at St.-Martin de Chantenay in July 1777 and led a mundane life in St.-Jacques Parish until Peyroux de la Coudrenière recruited him for the Louisiana venture.  Their task was to compile a list of Acadians in France who wanted "to go to Louisiana to establish themselves at the expense of His Catholic Majesty."  After much pleading, cajoling, and even the exchange of fisticuffs, the list was submitted to Aranda in September 1784, but the cajoling continued.  By the spring of 1785, the scheming apothecary and the affable cobbler had succeeded in coaxing hundreds of Térrio's fellow Acadians--70 percent of the exiles in France by one count, only half by another--into going to Louisiana.  Among them were Nathalie Pitre, Jean-Jacques LeBlanc's widow, and two of his teenage children.12 

They were transported aboard seven hired French vessels of varying sizes--one more than the six that were originally planned for the venture.  Though they sailed from three separate French ports, each ship was destined for a single port--New Orleans, the capital of Spanish Louisiana.  Le Bon Papa, a 280-ton frigate, left Paimboeuf on 10 May 1785 with 156 passengers aboard and reached New Orleans on July 29 after 81 days at sea.  Le Bergère, a 300-ton frigate, left Paimboeuf on May 14 with 273 passengers, including Nathalie Pitre and her two LeBlanc children, and reached New Orleans on August 15 after 93 days at sea.  Le Beaumont, a 180-ton frigate, left Paimboeuf on June 11 with 176 passengers and reached New Orleans on August 19 after 69 days at sea.  Le St.-Rémi, a 400-ton frigate, left St.-Malo on June 17 with 341 passengers, including 16 stowaways, and reached New Orleans on September 10 after 75 days at sea.  L'Amitié, a 400-ton frigate, left Paimboeuf on August 20 with 270 passengers, including 12 stowaways, and reached New Orleans on November after 80 days at sea.  La Ville Archangel, a 600-ton frigate, left St.-Malo on August 12 with 309 passengers and reached New Orleans on December 3 after 113 days at sea, and La Caroline, a 200-ton brig, left Nantes on October 19 with 77 passengers and reached New Orleans on December 17 after 64 days at sea.252

After a quarter century of living in a mother country that was never quite certain what to do with its wayward children, nearly 1,600 Acadian exiles in France sailed away to an exotic place to begin a new life for themselves.  They knew that Louisiana had long been a colony of France but now was a part of the Spanish realm.  They knew from letters they received from relations there that most Louisianans, not just their fellow Acadians, still spoke French and likely still considered themselves to be "French."  Just as importantly, Roman Catholicism was still the official religion of Louisiana, perhaps even more so under the Spanish regime, so there would be priests aplenty to minister to their spiritual needs.  They also were aware from letters they had received that many of their relatives from the American colonies had been living in Louisiana for decades.  But before they left, they still had many questions about going to such an exotic place, descriptions of which were not always flattering.  There was slavery there, and tropical diseases (some remembered all too well the disaster in French Guiane a generation earlier).  They wondered how different was the lower Mississippi valley from France or even old Acadia.  How well had their Acadian cousins adjusted to the place?  Would the Spanish really welcome them when they got to New Orleans?  Peyroux de la Coudrenière and Olivier Térrio had promised them life would be better there, but only Peyroux had seen the place, and only briefly.  Still, the majority of the Acadians still in France in 1785 chose to take a chance on Peyroux's promises.  They packed up their children and their few belongings and boarded the transports assigned to them.  They would see for themselves if the distant colony was worth another ocean crossing.184

Acadian Exiles in the Maritimes and on Îles St.-Pierre and Miquelon, 1759-1800s

Acadian Exiles in the Caribbean Basin, the South Atlantic, and South America, 1764-1800s

Acadian Exiles in the Atlantic Colonies and the Eastern United States, 1763-1800s

The story of the Acadians in South Carolina would not be complete without recounting the fate of two of their orphans who chose to remain at Charles Town.  Some of the Lanoues captured at Annapolis Royal in the fall of 1755 ended up in one of the southernmost colonies, with tragic consequences for one family.  The British deported Élisabeth Lanoue and husband Tranquille Comeau; Rose Lanoue and husband Jean Poirier; and Marguerite Richard, widow of René Lanoue, and four of her younger sons--Jean-Baptiste, age 17, Grégoire, age 14, Basile, age 9, and François, age 5--to South Carolina aboard the British transport Hobson, the only vessel from Annapolis Royal to go to that distant colony.  Marguerite and youngest son François died "of stranger's fever," probably smallpox, "at the plantation of a Mr. Vanderhorst" soon after they reached the colony, but the other three boys survived.  Henry Laurens, the future hero of the American Revolution, became young Basile's patron and helped him become a tanner at Charles Town.  Basile taught the trade to his older brother Jean-Baptiste.  (One wonders what became of brother Grégoire.)  Under the influence of the Laurens and other wealthy Carolinians, and remembering the faith of their Huguenot ancestors, the Lanoue orphans converted to Protestantism:  Basile became a Huguenot, and Jean-Baptiste an Anglican/Episcopalian.  Basile, in fact, became an elder in his Huguenot congregation and later became a member of the Circular Congregational Church, also called the Old White Meeting House.  In South Carolina, their name evolved from Lanoue to Lanneau--Basile became Bazile Lanneau, and Jean Baptiste John Lanneau.  They were among the relatively few Acadian exiles who remained in the British colonies after 1763.  John died at Charles Town in 1781, in his early 40s.  He did not marry.  Basil became a man of substance in the new home he had chosen.  He built a fine house on Elliot Street.  A descendant, South Carolina historian Chapman J. Milling, notes that Bazile "became a wealthy and prominent citizen of Charleston.  He served three terms in the Legislature of South Carolina, 1796, 1798, and 1802."  Victoria Musheff also notes that Bazile displayed "the truest sign of colonial assimilation in Carolina"--by 1790, he owned 40 slaves.  Bazile's first wife and their five children perished in a yellow fever epidemic and were all buried in the Huguenot churchyard.  From his second marriage, Bazile created "an extensive progeny, the most distinguished of whom was his grandson, Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve, doubtless the greatest classical scholar America has produced."  Milling continues:  "In 1793, after the loss of his first family, Basil Lanneau made the tedious journey to his childhood home [Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia] in the hope of finding one of his elder brothers.  He had nearly given up when he accidentally discovered his long-lost brother Amand, who had returned from exile" and settled on nearby Baie Ste.-Marie.  "Through Amand he located the widow of his brother, Pierre IV , and after much persuasion she allowed her son, Pierre V, and her daughter, Sarah, to return with him to Charleston.  From this Pierre, the fifth of the name, is descended the second branch of the family in South Carolina.  Known in Charleston as Peter Lanneau, he was the father of Fleetwood Lanneau, the latter a prominent merchant, banker, member of the legislature, officer of Governor Gist's staff and Captain of the Palmetto Guard."  One wonders if, in the years that followed, the Lanneaus of Charleston were even aware of the existence of Cadien kinsmen in South Louisiana.223

In Maryland in 1769, the remaining 200 or so Acadians still there, the largest number of former exiles still remaining in any seaboard colony, did their best to make a life for themselves in a colony where most of the people still roundly disdained them.  The ones who remained tended to concentrate in Annapolis and especially at Baltimore, still only a village.  It was here that Acadians, some having come down from Pennsylvania, createdin the early 1770s  "French Town," which came to be incompassed by Baltimore, or Market, Street to the north, Hanover Street to the west, Light Street to the east, and Euler's, later Frenchman's, Alley to the south, with Charles Street running north to south down the middle of the neighborhood.  Acadian families who settled there were named White (originally LeBlanc) and Poirrier (later Porrie), living in Baltimore in 1763; Gold (formerly Doiron), Bijeau, Wedge (originally Aucoin), and Douilard from Pennsylvania; Mongeant, Célestin, Dupuis (later Wells), and Chameau from Annapolis; Guttros (originally Gautrot) and Lockerman (also originally Gautrot) from Newtown; Deschamps (later D'Shield and Deshield) and Lucas from Snow Hill.  The first to settle there, in 1773, were Paul Gold and Lewis D'Shield, soon joined by Samuel Mongeant, Joseph and John Guttro, Oliver White, Joseph and John Wells, Peter Porrie, Paul Bijeau, mariner Simon Joseph White, Joseph Budrow (Boudrot), John Babine (Babin), Peter Deliar, John German, Joseph Grangeir, John Lockerman (whose wife was Marie Godreau), John Lashaway, Joseph Murphey, Simon Wedge (Aucoin), Olivier Gold (Doiron), Joseph White (Olivier's son), Joseph Babine, Peter Sollertine (Célestin), Daniel Granger, John Grangers, Francis Lucas, Francis Dashiel (Deschamps), Daniel Landrone (probably Landry), Anthony Celestine (a soldier), Paul Gold, Sixte Chameau, Joseph Paillotter, Cyprian Wells (Dupuis), Joseph Jandine, Mary Bouton (Boutin?), and Magdalin Monmillant.  Most, if not all, of these "French Town" residents remained not only French speakers but staunchly Roman Catholic.  Maintaining the language with so many family members and friends was easy enough, but practicing their religion was another matter.  The church constructed on a piece of land bought from Charles Carroll of Annapolis in 1764, St. Peter's, the first and only Catholic church in the colony, "had to shut its doors temporarily:  money was scrarce, its builders were in debt," and not even the pope in Rome would help them.  A major blow was the suppression of the Jesuit order in North America in 1773, leaving the dozen or more Catholic missions in the colony without priests.  Wood notes that "many Acadians were compelled to seek sacramental assistance of the Anglican Church for marriages."  Meanwhile, the political conflict that had shaken the British seaboard colonies since 1765 caught up to Maryland in earnest in 1774, when, in mid-October, in protest against the Tea Act, Baltimore held a "Tea Party" of its own.  Under pressure from the "patriots" in the burgeoning port, the brigantine Peggy Stewart was burned "by its very owner" and along with it a cargo of 2,300 pounds of tea.   Another war came in 1775 and lasted even longer than the last one.  Luckily for the "French Town" Acadians, this war--generally called the American Revolution and, more accurately, the American War for Independence-- did not touch Maryland directly.  Unlike in the last war, the remaining Acadians in Maryland were not uprooted from their homes, and Acadians who chose to go off to war--bricklayer Francis Deshield; Lewis D'Shield; Martin Gutro and Anthony Selister, laborers; Joseph Bear (Hébert); and Peter Richards--did so voluntarily, even eagerly, though not all of them served honorably.  In 1778, the legislature in Annapolis decreed that all citizens--no more "subjects," no more king, no more "colony"--take an Oath of Fidelity to the sovereign state of Maryland, in which "Supporters pledged to hold no allegiance to the English king, to defend the principles of independence, and to report all treasonous acts to the proper authorities."  Most of the former "Neutrals" took the oath, but a few of them--"Moses Barbin, Simon Wedge, and several Grangers," Gregory Wood notes, "did not accept the terms."  That same year, these reluctant Americans' ancestral country became a staunch ally of the revolutionary cause.  In September 1781, French General Rochambeau's troops reached Maryland on their way down to fight the redcoats at Yorktown, Virginia.  French officers took note of "the humble dwellings of French Town."  One of them, an officer named Clermont-Crévacour, wrote of the Acadians in Baltmore:  "There is a French quarter where some Canadians[sic] live, but they have not propered and look quite poor.  They associate very little with the English[sic].  These are good folk who deeply regret not being under French rule any longer and who are so much attached to our nation that they would give their lives to come back."  But these Acadians had spurned the chance to live in French territory.  They were Americans now, for good or for ill.  They could not know it, of course, but in 22 years their cousins in Louisiana, now under Spanish rule, also would become reluctant Americans by the flourish of a pen.247

Acadian Exiles in British Canada, 1763-1800s

Between 1755 and 1763, "approximately 1,850 Acadians sought refuge in Quebec.  Between 1756 and 1759, 488 Acadians died in Quebec City, including 335 who succumbed to smallpox and famine during the winter of 1757-1758.  About 200 of the survivors returned to their homeland in 1759.  By the end of the period, the colony was home to approximately 1,162 Acadians."  No more Acadians seemed to have come to Canada between 1760 and 1766, when the far-northern province permanently changed masters.  Then the flood gates were thrown open, making British Canada one of the central destinations of wayward exiles looking for a home. ...293

Fate of the Mi'kmaq and Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) in Post-Dispersal Acadia, 1763-1800s

The Acadian Diaspora by the early 1800s

This was the newly-made world the Acadians inhabited at the end of their Grand Dérangement.  ...

Was the Acadian Grand Dérangement Genocide?

 

INTRODUCTION

BOOK ONE:        French Acadia

BOOK TWO:        British Nova Scotia

BOOK THREE:     Families, Migration, and the Acadian "Begats"

BOOK FOUR:      The French Maritimes

BOOK SIX:          The Acadian Immigrants of Louisiana

BOOK SEVEN:     French Louisiana

BOOK EIGHT:      A New Acadia

BOOK NINE:        The Bayou State

BOOK TEN:          The Louisiana Acadian "Begats"

BOOK ELEVEN:  The Non-Acadian "Cajun" Families of South Louisiana

BOOK TWELVE:  Acadians in Gray

SOURCE NOTES - BOOK FIVE

01.  Quotations from Buggey, "Belcher," in DCB, online; Richter, Facing East from Indian Country," 191; LeBlanc, R.-G., "Acadians in Halifax & on Georges Island," 17, 20n76, 27.  See also Graham, "Lawrence," in DCB, 3:365; LeBlanc, R.-G., 16, 18-19; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 187; note 275b, below.

R.-G. LeBlanc, 19-20, explains that Belcher was replaced as governor in Nov 1763 not only for his midhandling of the botched deportation of 1762, but also because of his conflicts with important merchants, in both Halifax and London, during his time in office. 

01a.  See Grenier, J., Far Reaches of Empire; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 431; Hébert, D., Acadians in Exile, 647; Lockerby, Deportation of the PEI Acadians, xiii; Oubre, Vacherie, 53-54; Book Two. 

J. Grenier is especially anglophilic in his view of the Acadian Expulsion. 

01b.  See note 107a, below. 

01c.  See Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 534-35n4; Perrin et al., eds., Acadie Then & Now; online Wikipedia, "Placide Gaudet"; Books Two, Three, Four, Six, Eight, & Ten. 

According to Fr. Donald J. Hébert, writing in the 1970s, the term Le Grand Dérangement--in English, the Great Upheaval--is "an expression relatively recent[,] being credited to the historian and genealogist Placide Gaudet (1850-1939)."  Placide P. Gaudet, born at Cap-Pelé, NB, on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, 19 Nov 1850, died actually in 1930.  After receiving an education at St. Joseph's College in nearby Memramcook, he studied for the priesthood at Montréal, but poor health compelled his return to his native NB, where he became an educator, archivist, & journalist.  Choosing to create a family of his own, Placide married fellow Acadian Marie-Rose Arsenault.  His first publication was in 1905, after which he became a recognized authority on the history & genealogy of his people.  His book Le Grand Dérangement was published in 1922.  He died at a hospice in Shediac near his birthplace on 9 Nov 1930, age 79.  See online Wikipedia, "Placide Gaudet." 

 Faragher, says however, that "the earliest use of the phrase le grand dérangement to refer to Acadian removal is in a publication of 1877:  'Peu d'évènements ont causé des aventures aussi romaneques, aussi curieuses, que le grand dérangement; c'est aussi que les Acadiens ont nommé leur expulsion de la terre le leurs pères--Few events produced romantic adventures as curious as le grand dérangement, as the Acadians called the dispossession of their fathers,'" found in Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Ferland, La Gaspésie (Québec, 1877): 196-97.  This predates Placide Gaudet's publication by 45 years. 

For a solid survey of these disparate "cultures" in the Acadian disapora, see Perrin et al. 

01d.  Quotation from LeBlanc, R.-G., "Acadians in Halifax & on Georges Island," 21, 23.  See also Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 243-52, 269-70; R.-G. LeBlanc, 22, 27; note 344, below. 

The prisoners in the compound at Halifax in Aug 1763 included families named Arseneau, Babineau, Bergeron, Bernard, Boudrot, Bourg, Bourgeois, Breau, Broussard, Brun, Caissie dit Roger, Comeaux, Cormier, Darois, Doucet, Dugas, Gautrot, Girouard, Godin, Guénard, Guidry, Guilbeau, Hébert, Hugon, Landry, LeBlanc, Léger, Martin, Michel, Pellerin, Pitre, Poirier, Prejean, Richard, Robichaux, Roy, Saulnier, Savoie, Semer, Surette, ThibodeauTrahan, & Vincent

Joseph dit Beausoleil, unlike his older brother Alexandre, does not appear on the Aug 12 repatriation list, so he may have been still on Georges Island at the time the was circulated in the Halifax prison barracks.  See Jehn.  Interestingly, a Joseph LeBlanc does appear on the Aug 12 list.  See Jehn, 252; White, DGFA-1, 990.  Was the Le Maigre? 

Some of Le Maigre's children were among the Minas Acadians held in England from 1756 to 1763.  See Book Six. 

R.-G. LeBlanc, 22-23, calls the repatriation lists "subscription lists" & adds that these lists "virtually constitute a census of the Acadian families dispersed in North America in 1763.  Obviously, not all the families responded to the call, but we daresay that the great majority of them did so." 

02.  See Akins, ed., Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 247-50; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 453-54, 458; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 126, 129; Book Two. 

Akins, ed., gives the full texts of both petitions, dated Jun 10 & Jun 24. 

Marshall, 126, would have us believe that the Minas & Pigiguit deputies went to Halifax to seek "permission to address the Governor's Council" & brought their petitions with them.  In truth, they were summoned to appear before the Council, & their petitions, or memorials, had been forwarded to Lawrence via Captain Murray at Fort Edward. 

03.  Quotations from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 455; William B. Hamilton, "Collier, John," in DCB, 3:130-31, & onlineSee also Akins, ed., Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 250, 255-56; S[susan]. Buggey, "Belcher, Jonathan," in DCB, online; Donald F. Chard, "Green, Benjamin," in DCB, online; Dominick Graham, "Lawrence, Charles," in DCB, 3:361-66, & online; Griffiths, 454; Book Two. 

For biographies of Lawrence & Belcher, see Buggey, "Belcher, Jonathan," in DCB, online; Graham; Book Two. 

04.  Quotations from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 455-56; Akins, ed., Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 247-48, 250.  See also Akins, ed., 251; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 126-27. 

This researcher has failed to locate a primary or secondary source that reveals the names of the Minas & Pigiguit settlers who signed the 2 memorials to Lawrence & who appeared before his Council. 

05.  Quotations from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 456; Akins, ed., Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 250-54

06.  Quotations from Akins, ed., Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 254-55.  See also Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 456; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 126-27. 

07.  Quotations from Akins, ed., Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 256.  See also Anderson, Crucible of War, 113; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 456-57; LeBlanc, R.-G., "Acadians in Halifax & on Georges Island," 5-6; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 127

Anderson says the Acadians viewed the proffered oath as "an oath of submission that would revoke their religious privileges and make them ordinary subjects of the British Crown.  Thinking that this was just one more attempt to deprive them of their treaty rights by trickery--a tactic the English had tried before--the Acadians refused." 

Marshall says the delegates were "placed in irons and taken to one of two prison sheds on Georges Island, 'a place of most security.'"  This implies that the island was being used as a colonial prison for some time.  LeBlanc, R.-G., 5, says the island had been used as a prison compound & adds, on 6, "It remains to be established where it [the site of the Acadian delegates' incarceration] was in the storehouse built during the summer of 1749." 

08.  Quotations from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 457.  See also Buggey, "Belcher," in DCB, online; Book Two. 

09.  Quotations from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 457-58.  Italics added. 

10.  Quotation from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 458; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 126.  See also LeBlanc, R.-G., "Acadians in Halifax & on Georges Island," 5; Marshall, 125; Book Two. 

Marshall, 125, says Boscawen's ships appeared at Halifax with its cache of scalping knives "On a warm summer morning in July," & adds on p. 126 that the delegates from Minas & Pigiguit delegates arrived for the Jul 3 Council meeting "A day or so later."  Griffiths's dates & chronology are followed here. 

11.  Quotations from Clark, A. H., Acadia, 54.  See also Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 28; Erskine, Nova Scotia, 30; LeBlanc, R.-G., "Acadians in Halifax & on Georges Island," 13; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 178.   

Erskine says Beaubassin was "the first settlement to be expelled and destroyed, and was the first to be reinhabited by the English," but he gives no date.  He then offers a brief description of the few archaeological remains at Chignecto, including botanical evidence of Acadian settlement there.  R.-G. LeBlanc, a more recent source, says the first dykes repaired by Acadians when the New-English "planters" arrived were at Pigiguit, Minas, & Annapolis.  Brasseaux says that the upper Petitcoudiac valley was not occupied by the New-English "planters." 

12.  Quotations from Mouhot, "Emigration of the Acadians from France to LA," 167; Voorhies, J., Some Late Eighteenth-Century Louisianians, 489.  See also Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 38; De La Roque, "Tour of Inspection," Canadian Archives 1905, 2A:98; Carl J. Ekberg, "Peyroux de La Coudreniere, Henri," in DLB, 646-47; Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 194-95; Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 41, 80-83, 203-05; Robichaux, Acadians in St.-Malo, 567-69, 734-35; Robichaux, Acadians in Nantes, 115-16, 157-58; Thomas, L. I., "Fractured Foundation," 213; J. Voorhies, 490-517; Winzerling, Acadian Odyssey, 158-59; Books Six, Eight, & Ten; Theriot family page. 

The 70% is from Brasseaux, & Hodson, 195.  Mouhot, "Emigration of the Acadians from France to LA," 134, says it was closer to half. 

13.  Quotations from Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 35; Braud, From Nantes to LA, 17-18.  See also Brasseaux, 8; Braud, 14, 16; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 422-23, 432; Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 6, 25-29, 33, 258n20, 268nn34 & 44, 270n15, 276n32; Robichaux, Acadians in St.-Malo, 1:xxxvi; White, DGFA-1 English, 172. 

Brasseaux, 8, as does Mouhot, 276n32, say there were 866 exiles counted by La Rochette in England in 1763, & Brasseaux, 35, says that 753 Acadians were sent from England to France in 1763.  Faragher, 422-23, says 1,225 Acadians had arrived in England in 1756 & that 778 were sent from England to France in 1763.  Albert J. Robichaux, Jr. says 375 sailed aboard the the Ambition & the Dorothée; Braud, 17, says 394.  Only Braud, 17-18, mentions the La Fauvette with its 159 passengers & L'Esturgeon, no number of passengers given, but it must have been 200 or so to reach the total of nearly 800.  Braud, 18, says of that total, 150 were children "of young age born in England." 

14.   See Clark, A. H., Acadia, 235-36; Winslow's 1755 List; Winslow, "French Inhabitants," 43; "Winslow's Journal 2," 108, 122, 131-33; note 85, below.   

One of the horses taken from the Acadians at Minas ended up in the hands of Lieutenant-Governor Lawrence.  See "Winslow's Journal 2, 108. 

15.  Quotation from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 458.  See also Akins, ed., Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 256-57; Book Two

16.  Quotations from Akins, ed., Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 257.  See also Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 458. 

17.  Quotations from Akins, ed., Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 258-59.  See also Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 458; Book Two. 

18.  Quotation from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 459.  See also Griffiths, 458. 

19.  Quotations from Akins, ed., Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 259-60.  See also Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 459; Book Two. 

20.  Quotations from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 459.  See also Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 137; note 148, below. 

21.  Quotations from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 459.  See also Anderson, Crucible of War, 114

Anderson discusses Shirley's contribution to the policy of removal & concludes in an endnote that Shirley's role in "a final solution to the Acadian problem" was a peripheral one.  See Anderson, 761n11.  Blakeley, "Morris," in DCB, online, notes, however, that Shirley's protegé, the surveyor Charles Morris, did have a direct part in determining the fate of the Acadians, though he was not yet a member of Lawrence's Council.  "Morris was appointed to the Council on 30 Dec. 1755; he was therefore not a member when it was decided in July of that year to expel the Acadians," Blakeley writes.  "In 1751, however, he had already made the significant suggestion that the Acadians be rooted out of the Chignecto region in his 'Representation of the relative state of French and English in Nova Scotia,' which he transmitted to Shirley, then leaving for England as one of the British commissioners empowered to settle the Anglo-French dispute over the boundaries of Acadia. Morris believed that the presence of the Indians and French on the north shore of the Bay of Fundy and at Chignecto made effective British settlement of the province impossible, and he recommended that the Acadians be removed 'by some stratagem . . . the most effectual way is to destroy all these settlements by burning down all the houses, cutting the dykes, and destroys All the Grain now growing.' As the official most knowledgeable about the Acadians Morris was consulted by the Council during its deliberations on their fate. His opinions had not changed...."  See also Book Two. 

22.  Quotation from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 459-60.  See also Akins, ed., Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 269; "Winslow's Journal 1," 231.

Lawrence did not receive "official" word of Braddock's defeat & death until Aug 7, via a ship from New York, nearly a month after the event.  See Lawrence to Monckton, 8 Aug 1755, in Akins, ed., 269.  "Winslow's Journal 1" relates on Aug 13:  "Capt Goreham arrived here [Chignecto] from Halifax & from Pizaquid in Two whale boats, being one Day and half in his water Passage brought us the Malloncolly News of General Braddocks Defeat."  Winslow reported that on the following day he "reced a Perticular account from Mr. Coffin of that unhappy affair, and althoh it has no connection with our operations in this part of the Continent [Winslow & 400 of his New Englanders were about to sail from Chignecto to Minas to Pigiguit & Minas to round up the Acadians there for deportation], yet being of so Exstrodenary a nature and humanly accounting Seames to be Occasioned by Setting Two Great a Value on our own Troops.  I have inserted it, that others into whose hands this book may Fall (Espeacally Those of my own Family Should they be Soldiers) may beware of Falling into the Same Mistake."  He then copied to his Journal Coffins's letter, dated Aug 8. 

22a.  Quotations from Akins, ed., Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 261.  See also William G. Godfrey, "Handfield, John," in DCB, 3:277, & online; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 461; White, DGFA-1, 1588; Book Two. 

23.  Quotations from Akins, ed., Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 262; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 460.  See also Akins, ed., 260. 

24.  Quotations from Akins, ed., Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 262.  See also Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 460. 

Sadly, we do not have the names of these delegates either. 

24a.  See note 07, above. 

25.  Quotations from Akins, ed., Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 263-66.  See also Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 460-61; Maxwell Sutherland, "Philipps, Richard," in DCB, 3:514, 518, & online; Book Two. 

Again, the names of the Pigiguit & Minas delegates do not appear in the record. 

26.  Quotations from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 461. 

Lex temporis, or, more fully, lex necessitatis est lex temporis, literally "the law of necessity & limitation," according to one definition, is a concept in law that "dispenses with things which otherwise are not lawful to be done."  See Manby v. Scott (1672). 

27.  Quotations from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 461; Akins, ed., Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 266.  See also Akins, ed., 267; LeBlanc, R.-G., "Acadians in Halifax & on Georges Island," 6; "Winslow's Journal 2," 124. 

Griffiths implies that all 203 signers from Minas attended the meeting.  If so, the Council chamber in the governor's house would have been crowded indeed. 

John Duport was the Council secretary at the time.  See Akins, ed., 267. 

For the fate of the delegates from Minas, Pigiguit, & Annapolis Royal held at Georges Island, see R. G. LeBlanc; "Winslow's Journal 2"; note 99, below. 

28.  Quotations from Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 461-62.  See also Book Two. 

29.  Quotations from Akins, ed., Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 266-67.  See also Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 462. 

For Chief Justice Belcher's lengthy letter to his superiors in London, dated 28 Jul 1755, explaining the decision to expel all of the Acadians of Nova Scotia, see "Enclosure in Letter of 14th April 1756--Lords of Trade to Fox," Canadian Archives 1905, 2B:63-65.

The Queen & July 28 ...

30.  Quotation from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 338.  See also "Winslow's Journal 1," 225.

"Winslow's Journal 1," dated 10 Aug 1755, notes:  "This Day the Inhabitants of the Neghbouring Villages Mustered in Considerable but Not So Many as was Exspected, upon which they were ordered to Tarry all Night under the Guns of the Garrison and others Notifyed &c."   

31.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, ix, 289.  See also Phyllis B. Blakeley, "Morris, Charles," in DCB, online; Book Two. 

Blakeley points out that "Morris was appointed to the" Nova Scotia colonial "Council on 30 Dec. 1755; he was therefore not a member when it was decided in July of that year to expel the Indians.  In 1751, however, he had already made the significant suggestion that the Acadians be rooted out of the Chignecto region in his 'Representation of the relative state of French and English in Nova Scotia,'" for Shirley.  Blakeley goes on:  "Morris believed that the presence of the Indians and French on the north shore of the Bay of Fundy and at Chignecto made effective British settlement of the province impossible, and he recommended that the Acadians be removed 'by some stratagem ... the most effectual way is to destroy all these settlements by burning down all the houses, cutting the dykes, and destroys[sic] All the Grain now growing.'  As the official most knowledgeable about the Acadians Morris was consulted by the Council during the deliberations on their fate.  His opinions had not changed, and the Reverend Andrew Brown found his report 'little honourable to his heart ... cruel advice and barbarous Counsel.'"   See also Book Two. 

32.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 289.

33.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 290.  See also Milling, Exile Without End, 6. 

34.  Quotations from Akins, ed., Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 267-68.  See also Akins, ed., 269; Book Two. 

35.  Quotations from Akins, ed., Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 268-69.  See also note 50, below. 

36.  Quotation from Akins, ed., Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 269.  See also Phyllis E. LeBlanc, "Deschamps de Boishébert et de Raffetot, Charles," in DCB, online; Books Three & Ten; Broussard family page.   

37.  Quotation from Akins, ed., Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 269.

38.  Quotation from Akins, ed., Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 269.

39.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 1," pp. 215, 222; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 336-37.  See also Faragher, 335, 338; "Winslow's Journal 1," 221, 243, 245; Book Two.

"Winslow's Journal 1," 243, copy of a letter from Winslow to Lawrence, dated 18 Aug 1755 & addressed at Fort Edward, Pigiguit, hints that Winslow did not know his command's final destination until informed by Murray at Fort Edward.  A letter of Aug 19 to Handfield at Annapolis Royal, addressed at Grand-Pré, makes it clear that Winslow believed he & his men were destined for Pigiguit, not Minas Proper.  See "Winslow's Journal 1," 245.  

Faragher, 337-38, offers insight into Winslow's famous Journal, "the single most significant document of the Acadian removal," which Winslow kept "for the edification of his descendants" during his entire time in Nova Scotia in 1755. 

40.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 338.  See also note 28, above; Book Two. 

41.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 339; "Winslow's Journal, 1," 230.  See also note 34, above. 

41a.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 338-39; "Winslow's Journal 1," 227.  See also Akins, ed., Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 267-69; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 129; "Winslow's Journal 1," 225-26, 228; "Winslow's Journal 2," 72

Marshall insists that "As soon as they [the Chignecto Acadians] stepped foot inside the fort ... each man was seized, charged with rebellious practices and tossed into the dungeon."  The primary sources cited above say otherwise. 

On Aug 11, Monckton ordered Winslow to prepare "A Capt Lievt and Ensign with 100 Private of the Iregulars to Get ready to March at a Minnets warning Three Sarjents & Three Corporals for this Party.  Majr. Preble with one Captain, Two Lievts, Two Ensigns, 4 Serjants 4 Corporals 2 Drums & 200 Private Men to Get ready to March at a Minnets warning also."  Later in the day, Monckton ordered Winslow to take this force to "O'Lake [Aulac] and Search all the Houses there and between the Lake and this Place [Fort Cumberland] and bring off all the Males above the age of Sixteen."  A comment in Winslow's Journal, penned on Aug 11, notes that "This Day was one Exstrodenary to the Inhabitants of Tantamar[,] Wescoat, olake, Bay of Verte[,] Beausejour & Places adjatent the Male inhabitants or the Principal of them being Colected togather in Forte Cumberland To hear the Sentence which Determined their Property from The Govr & Council of Hallifax, which was that they were Declared rebels.  There Lands Goods & Chattels Forfitt to the Crown and their Bodys to be Imprisoned upon which the Gates of the Forte was Shut & they all Confined to the amount of Four Hundred men & upwards.  Winslow adds that "Majr Preble Capt Speakman & the Party with them ordered to Wescoat, Tantemar, &c to Secure all makes in those Places upwards of [age] sixteen."  Winslow's New Englanders, then, were used to help round up Chignecto Acadians before they could move on to Minas to accomplish the same task.  See "Winslow's Journal 1," 225-27. 

41b.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 339.  See also "Winslow's Journal 1," 228. 

42.  Quotations from Akins, ed., Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 271-76.  See also Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 361, 383; James C. Hippen, "Saul, Thomas," in DCB, 3:585-86, & online; Melanson, Melanson-Melançon, 29; "Winslow's Journal 2," 78-81, 87, 148-50. 

Lawrence's detailed instructions reveal that as early as Aug 11 he intended for Winslow & a part of the MA regiment to go to Grand-Pré, though Winslow himself would not learn of it until his conference with Murray at Fort Edward a week later.  See note 46, below.  Not until after Winslow conferred with Murray again, at Grand-Pré on Aug 29, did he inform his company commanders of their mission at Minas.  See note 56, below.  That Murray, a regular army captain, knew of Winslow's destination at least a week before Winslow himself knew of it, may reveal Lawrence's attitude towards provincial troops, as well as his obsession with security.  Certainly Lawrence was doing his best to keep details of the deportation scheme from falling into the hands of the French & especially the Acadians, hence the limited number of officers he made aware of them, but Winslow was not only a former regular captain, he was the senior provincial officer in NS!  One suspects that Monckton, a regular lieutenant colonel & Winslow's superior at Chignecto, also had known of Winslow's destination by Aug 11. 

A maritime ton at that time was 100 cubic feet of capacity, so each passenger would "occupy" only 50 cubic feet of the ship's interior.  According to Faragher, 361, this meant that every 2 people would share a space "four feet high, a little over four feet wide, and six feet long," a very small space indeed. 

Apthorp & Hancock, owned by Charles Apthorp & son & Thomas Hancock, was the Boston firm that had provided loans to Lawrence & the NS Council during the winter of 1754-55, while Monckton was organizing the expedition to Chignecto in Boston.  See Book Two. 

George Saul evidently was a kinsman of Thomas Saul, long-time supply agent, commissary, & financier at Halifax & a close friend of Lt. Gov. Lawrence.  See Hippen.  For George Saul's directions from Lawrence, also dated Aug 11, see "Winslow's Journal 2," 148-50; note 117, below. 

43.  Quotation from Akins, ed., Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 277-78.  See also Akins, ed., 282; Milling, Exile Without End, 1-2; "Winslow's Journal 2," 81-83; Book Two. 

"Winslow's Journal 2," 82-83, contains individual greetings from Lt. Col. Winslow to each of the British governors who would receive exiles from Minas:  Arthur Dobbs of NC, Robert Dinwiddie of VA, & Horatio Sharp of MD.  These greetings likely accompanied copies of Lawrence's circular, which was identical for each of the governors. 

44.  Quotation from Akins, ed., Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 279-80.  See also Akins, ed., 283-85; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 365-66; notes 148 & 151, below; Book Two. 

Faragher says that Robinson's Aug 13 letter took longer than usual to reach Halifax, that it arrived 3 weeks after Lawrence wrote a letter to the Lords of Trade on Oct 18.  Not until around Nov 9, then, weeks after most of the deportation transports had sailed, did Lawrence hear from Robinson, & he did not answer the letter until Nov 30.  So by the time he bothered to write his superiors, in Oct & Nov, Lawrence's deportation "operation was a fait accompli."  See Akins, ed., 283-85; Faragher, 365.

45.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 1," 223.  See also Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 340; "Winslow's Journal 1," 223, 227-37;  "Winslow's Journal, 2," 72-73; notes 22 & 41a, above; Book Two. 

Winslow's Journal 1," 223, also shows him ordering 4 companies of his battalion, the companies designated by their commanders' names, to prepare "their Arms and Close" on Aug 7--9 days before the actual movement. 

A muster report dated Aug 14 shows 313 officers & men, including an adjutant & a physician, from Winslow's command going to Minas.  Amazingly, Winslow's Journal includes the names of every man, by company, down to the lowliest Yankee private, slated for the expedition.  See 1:232-36. 

Coffin may have served in NS, likely with Winslow, perhaps as a militia officer.  In a letter to "Mr. William Coffin, Junr., Merchant in Boston," dated Aug 22 & sent from "Camp at Grand Pre Mines," Winslow described Grand-Pré as "your old Ground at Mines."  In the letter, Winslow again discussed Braddock's defeat & the role of New Englanders in the Crown Point campaign.  See "Winslow's Journal, 2," 72-73 (quotation from 72).  Was Winslow's friend William, Jr. the "Billy" who was eldest son of William Coffin, the affluent Boston tavern keeper & co-founder of that city's Trinity Church?  If so, Billy was born in Boston on 11 Apr 1723, married Mary Aston, & was "an Addresser of General Gage," whatever that means.  Along with many of his family members, Billy remained a Loyalist during the American Revolution.  He died at Boston, MA, on 2 Dec 1803, age 80.  See <http://www.geni.com/people/William-Billy-Coffin/6000000002354589950>.  He & his family (except his older daughters, whose husbands were Whigs) likely were among the Tories of Boston evacuated by Gen. William Gage to Halifax, NS, in March 1776.  Did he & his family remain in NS?  When, & why, did he return to Boston?

45a.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 1," 238-39.  See also "Winslow's Journal 1," 237. 

Moncreiffe's name is from "Winslow's Journal 1." 

45b.  After recording his exchange with Monckton, Winslow "proved" in his Journal, at least to his own satisfaction, that "I actually Marchd off with more men than I Left in Camp," meaning his unit colors belonged with the 4 companies going to Minas, not with the unit's remnants remaining at Fort Cumberland.  Winslow also claimed "that it was Colo Lawrance order that I Should [go to Minas] and that I was to have 400 or 500 Man which I Exspected til the orders Came [that] cut for my Numbers," implying that Monckton, not Lawrence, did the cutting.  See "Winslow's Journal 1," 239-40. 

46.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 1," 241-42.  See also Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 340; "Winslow's Journal 1," 230, 237, 243-45; "Winslow's Journal 2," 71, 75. 

The list of provisions for 14 days, recorded on Aug 14, can be found in "Winslow's Journal 1," p. 237.  For Winslow's exact numbers at the time of his departure, see "Winslow's Journal 2," 71. 

A letter of Aug 19 to Capt. Handfield at Annapolis Royal & a letter to Gov. Shirley dated Aug 22 make it clear that Winslow believed he & his companies were going to Pigiguit to stay, not to Minas Proper.  See "Winslow's Journal 1," 245; "Winslow's Journal 2," 71.  

Lawrence's letter in "Winslow's Journal 1," 242, reveals, again, the lieutenant governor's fiscal conservatism, as well as his tendency to micro-manage his officers.  "If you have Ocation to Confine any of the Inhabitants within your Forte," he instructed Capt. Murray, "Keep a watchful Eye over them and order their Familys or Neighbours to Feed them During their Confinement otherwise they will be Exspensive to the Publick which as it is unnecessary I can by no Means allow of."  Can we assume that when Murray held the 3 priests at Fort Edward before sending them on to Halifax, the local inhabitants provided the sustenance for their pastors?  See note 48, below. 

46a.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 1," 243-44.  See also "Winslow's Journal 2," 71, 75. 

47.  See Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 340; "Winslow's Journal 1," 242, 245; "Winslow's Journal 2," 71, 75; Book Two. 

Lawrence's letter in "Winslow's Journal 1," 242, includes these words to Capt. Murray at Fort Edward:  "... take an oppertunity of Acquainting the Inhabitants that if any attempt by Indians or others to Destroye or otherwise Molest his Majestys Troops, you have my orders to take an Eye for an Eye, a Tooth for a Tooth and in Shorte Life for Life from the nearest Nighbours where Such Mischiefe is Performed," so it was a good thing that the locals did not challenge Winslow's movements. 

48.  Quotations from Micheline D. Johnson, "Daudin (d'Audin, Dandin, Daudier), Henri," in DCB, 3:166, & online See also Akins, ed., Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 282; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 340; Micheline D. Johnson, "Chauvreulx (Chauvieux, Chavenaux, Chauvreuil, Le Chaureulx), Claude-Jean-Baptiste," in DCB, 3:120-21, & online; Micheline D. Johnson, "Gay Desenclaves, Jean-Baptiste de," in DCB, 3:257, & online; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 127; "Winslow's Journal 1," p. 242; Book Two. 

According to Johnson, "Chauvreulx," 3:120, Abbé Lemaire was a missionary from Île St.-Jean "whose mind had become deranged and whose conduct was embarrassing his confrères," hence his lodging with Fr. Chauvreulx when they were arrested

Lawrence, writing to the Lords of Trade on 18 Oct 1755, notes:  "As the Three French Priests, Messrs. Chauvreulx, Daudin & Le Marie were of no further use in this Province after the removal of the French Inhabitants, Admiral Boscawen has been so good as to take them on board his fleet & is to give them a passage to England."  See Akins, ed.

49.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 340; "Winslow's Journal 1," 245.  See also "Winslow's Journal 1," 242; "Winslow's Journal 2," 71, 75.

Vieux Logis, built on Rivière Gaspereau a few months after the founding of Halifax in 1749, was never a proper fortification like Fort Edward at nearby Pigiguit.  After the devastating Indian & partisan attack on Vieux Logis in Nov 1749, Cornwallis & his successors, Hopson & Lawrence, left only a token force at Minas Proper & marshaled most of their forces in the Minas region at Fort Edward.  At the time of Winslow's arrival Grand-Pré, only a detachment of redcoats under a Capt. Croxton was stationed there.  See "Winslow's Journal 1," 242; Book Two. 

Lawrence's letter, given to Winslow by Murray on the 18th, instructed Winslow to use the Grand-Pré church for his headquarters.  See "Winslow's Journal 1," 242. 

Winslow's letter to Monckton, dated Aug 23, described in brief his movements from the time he left Chignecto until his arrival at Grand-Pré & included what could only have been a dig at his former commander over the flag incident back at Fort Cumberland:  "... and on Tuseday Landed & Incampt, between the Church & Church yard, and Hoisted the King's Colours which are now Flying...."  Does this imply that Monckton returned the regimental colors to Winslow before he left Beaubassin landing on Aug 16, or did Winslow somehow acquire another stand of colors?  See "Winslow's Journal 2," 75. 

50.  Quotations from Akins, ed., Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 268; "Winslow's Journal 1," 242-43; "Winslow's Journal 2," 79 (italics added), 97, 123; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 348.  See also Faragher, 349; note 35, above; Book Two. 

50a.  Delaney, "Chronology of the Deportations," says:  "By 1750, most of the inhabitants of Cobequit and almost half the families of the neighboring village, Pigiguit, had abandoned their houses and their lands and crossed 'the Red Sea' [Mer-Rouge] (Northumberland Strait) to settle on Ile-Saint-Jean. Others went to Ile-Royale."  See also books Two & Four. 

51.  Clark, A. H., Acadia, 211, counts 900 Acadians at Cobeguit at mid-century, before the first of the Acadian migrations began during the petite guerre of the early 1750s.  See also Book Two. 

52.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 340-41; "Winslow's Journal 1," 245-46.  See also Book Two.

53.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 71-72.  See also Book Two.

54.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 73.  See also Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 341; "Winslow's Journal 2," 74-75, 85. 

55.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 75-77.  See also Hippen, "Saul," in DCB, 3:585-86; Robichaux, Acadians in Nantes, 155-56; Robichaux, Acadians in St.-Malo, 744-45, 749-50; White, DGFA-1, 1504-06; Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 74; "Winslow's Journal 2," 76-77, 85; Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 74

The Endeavor's invoice of supplies for Winslow was endorsed by Thomas Saul, Lawrence's supply-agent friend at Halifax, & dated Aug 13.  See Hippen; "Winslow's Journal 2," 76. 

Murray's weekly ration, as conveyed to Winslow, was, per man, "7 lb. Bread, Flower 1 lb. or half pinte Rice, Pork 4 lb. or 7 lb Beef, pease 3 pintes, butter 6 ounces, if no Flower or Rice 8 lbs. Bread," all of which could be found in abundance at Minas.  See "Winslow's Journal 2," 77. 

Jacques Thériot & his second wife Marie Robichaud soon would be exiled to VA.  There is no evidence that Jacques, who would have been 64 in 1755, survived Le Grand Dérangement.  He may have died during the family's brief stay in VA or, more likely, during its 7-year stay in a disease-infested prison compound at Southampton, England.  Son Jean-Jacques, who turned 27 in Mar 1755, survived the ordeal in VA & Southampton, where he remarried to fellow Acadian Marguerite-Josèphe Richard in c1762, was repatriated to France aboard L'Ambition in May 1763, lived at St.-Malo, where he fathered at least 9 children, including 2 sons, both of whom died young, &, as a widower with 5 daughters, emigrated to LA in 1785.  He did not remarry again.  He settled at Bayou des Écores above Baton Rouge & then below Baton Rouge on the Upper Acadian Coast, where he died at Manchac in Aug 1790, age 62.  Jacques Thériot's daughter Anne, from his first wife, Marie-Marguerite LeBlanc, would have been 34 in 1755.  Anne ended up in MD with her husband Joseph Babin & their children.  A widow, she emigrated to LA in 1766 & settled at St.-Jacques & Ascension on the Lower Acadian Coast.  She died at Ascension in Apr 1780, age 57, so she did not live long enough to reunite with her younger half-brother Jean-Jacques.  Jacques Thériots other children, the youngest only age 22 in 1755, also were "scattered to the winds."  Oldest daughter Marie, with husband René Landry of Pigiguit, also went to MD, where she died before the census of the Acadians there in Jul 1763; René and their children emigrated to LA in 1766, where he remarried to a fellow Landry probably at St.-Jacques.  Jacques Thériot's oldest surviving son Étienne, 3 times married, was not at Grand-Pré in 1755.  He & his first wife, a Landry, had emigrated to Île Royale in either the late 1740s or early 1750s, & were deported to St.-Malo in late 1758.  Étienne remarried twice there, to a Bourgeois & then to a Vallois, participated with his second wife in the failed Acadian settlement in Poitou during the 1770s, & he died at Nantes in Nov 1781, age 56.  Jacques Thériot's youngest son Olivier, who was 25 in 1755, & his bride, Marguerite LeBlanc, were exiled with his parents to VA & then deported to Southampton.  Olivier survived the ordeal in England & was repatriated to St.-Malo aboard L'Ambition in May 1763.  He remarried to cousin Marie-Madeleine, called Madeleine, Thériot, & widow of Simon Comeau, at St.-Servan, near St.-Malo, in Jul 1765.  Their only child, daughter Natalie-Marie, died at St.-Servan in Nov 1772, age 7; her birth in late Apr 1766 likely shortened the life of her mother, who died on 13 May 1766, age only 28.  Olivier died at Hotel-Dieu, St.-Malo, in Jun 1773; he was only 43 years old & had not remarried again.  See Robichaux, Acadians in Nantes; Robichaux, Acadians in St.-Malo; White; Wood; Landry & Thériot family pages. 

55a.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 83-84.

56.  Quotation from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 341.  See also "Winslow's Journal 2," 85-86. 

The last quotation actually is found in Winslow's letter to Lawrence, dated Aug 30, & addressed to the governor, not to Winslow's captains.  See "Winslow's Journal 2." 

One can be certain that Winslow's captains said nothing of the true nature of their mission to any of their men.  Even the rumor of deportation would have sent many of the Acadians flying. 

56a.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 88-89.  See also Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 342; Appendix

57.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 342; "Winslow's Journal 2," 85, 88, 90.  See also Clark, A. H., Acadia, 209; "Winslow's Journal 2," 86, 89, 91. 

At the conclusion of a letter addressed to Lawrence on Aug 30, Winslow, after promising the governor that he would do everything in his power to affect the deportation, added:  "as to Poor Father Le-blond, I shall with your Excellency's Permition Send him to my Own Place."  See "Winslow's Journal 2," 85.  Who was "Father Le-blond"? 

Despite the strength of his picket lines, Winslow was so concerned for the safety of his men that he issued an order requiring them to acquire whatever water they needed only during the daytime.  See "Winslow's Journal 2," 89-90. 

In his Journal, Winslow reports that "Capt Adams and party had Marchd according to the orders of yesterday [Sep 1] to Visette the Villages of the River of Canard and Habbertong."  The latter location could be either Rivière-des-Habitants, west of Grand-Pré, or Vieux Habitants, today's Habitant Creek, north of aux-Canards.  See "Winslow's Journal 2," 91; A. H. Clark. 

58.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 342-43; "Winslow's Journal 2," 90.  See also "Winslow's Journal 2," 88-89, 91. 

Who was surgeon de Rodohan's wife? 

Winslow's Journal for Sep 3 contains the strange notation:  "This Day had a Consultation with the Captains the Result of which was that I should Give out my Citation to the Inhabitants tomorrow Morning."  See "Winslow's Journal 2," 91.  Was he referring only to the inhabitants at Grand-Pré?  This would have given them only a single day's notice of the meeting to be held on Sep 5.  How quickly could the summons have been read in all of the many scattered Minas communities beginning in the p.m. of Sep 2? 

58a.  Quotation from "Winslow's Journal 2," 90.  See also Fortier, Louisiana, 1:156. 

Fortier says the gathering was to be held on a Sunday, but Winslow's Journal is clear--it was Friday, Sep 5. 

Note the lie about "his Majesty's Intentions."  See note 44, above.  One wonders why Winslow & Murray chose the age of 10, instead of emulating Monckton's age 16, in setting the age limit of who was compelled to attend the Sep 5 meeting. 

59.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 343; "Winslow's Journal 2," 91-94.  See also Wendy Cameron, "Hopson, Peregrine Thomas," in DCB, 3:294, & online; Clark, A. H., Acadia, 209; Faragher, 342; "Winslow's Journal 2," 89; Appendix

Crooker perhaps was a member of Winslow's staff. 

In his Journal, Winslow placed Pvt. Jackson in "Colo Hopsons Regt.," which would have been the 29th.  Hopson, governor of NS until his resignation later in the year, was still in England, & Lawrence was serving as his lieutenant-governor.  See Cameron; Book Two. 

"Docter Rodion" was Alexandre de Rodohan, & the "Citation" he delivered to the inhabitants likely was Winslow's summons of Sep 2.  Did Dr. de Rodohan read the summons in the outlying communities before he was ordered to read it to the residents of Grand-Pré?  See Faragher, 342; "Winslow's Journal 2," 94. 

60.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 343.  See also Bernard Pother, "LeBlanc, dit Le Maigre, Joseph," in DCB, 3:367, & online; note 48, above; Book Two. 

The fight at Minas was in Nov 1749, early in Le Loutre's petit-guerre, when a force of Mi'kmaq, aided by local Acadians, attacked Cpt. John Handfield's redcoat garrison at Vieux Logis, near the mouth of Rivière Gaspereau.  See Book Two. 

61.  Quotation from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 343.  See also Arsenault, Généalogie, 1240, 1256; White, DGFA-1, 1013.

61a.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 94.  See also Fortier, Louisiana, 1:156. 

Fortier says Winslow had 290 men "fully armed." 

62.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 343-44.  See also Fortier, Louisiana, 1:156; Books Three & Ten. 

Winslow did not complete his count of the Minas prisoners until a few days later.  He had hoped to bag at least 500 of them but fell dozens short of that number.  See "Winslow's Journal 2," 97, 114-22; Winslow's 1755 List; Winslow, "French Inhabitants."   

63.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 344-45; "Winslow's Journal 2," 94-95.  See also Melanson, Melanson-Melançon, 28-29; "Winslow's Journal 2," 126.

I maintain here Winslow's quirky capitalization but defer to Faragher's spelling & grammar. 

64.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 345. 

65.  Quotation from "Winslow's Journal 2," 95. 

66.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 95-96; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 345-46.  See also Faragher, 346; notes 41b & 44, above. 

67.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 96-97.  See also Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 346. 

On Sep 5, Murray recited the same proclamation to the 183 men he rounded up at Fort Edward, which no doubt elicited the same response as the Acadians at Grand-Pré. 

68.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 97.  See also Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 346; "Winslow's Journal 2," 96. 

69.  Quotation from "Winslow's Journal 2," 98.  See also Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 346. 

69a.  See Clark, A. H., Acadia, 211.

70.  Quotations from Godfrey, "Handfield," in DCB, 3:277; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 347.  See also Faragher, 346, 348; Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 30; White, DGFA-1, 221-23, 1588; note 22a, above; Books One, Two, & Three. 

Faragher, 347, contributes much of Handfield's rise from ensign to major, as well as his membership on the colonial Council, to his Winniett connections.  Handfield's biographer mentions the connection but attributes Handfield's rise to his leadership qualities.  See Godfrey. 

71.  See Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 346, 348.

Faragher, 348, says Handfield, "it seems, was unable to keep his orders secret, not surprising in a community as porous as Annapolis Royal."  Giving the major his due, it is unlikely that he revealed his orders to anyone but his hand full officers.  He certainly would not have informed his wife or any of her relatives.  True, Annapolis Royal did not lie directly on the Bay of Fundy, but it nevertheless was a busy port, at least by NS standards.  There is no evidence that Handfield confiscated the valley Acadians' boats & canoes on the eve of Monckton's offensive at Chignecto, as Murray had done in the Minas Basin.  Annapolis Acadians, then, likely were aware not only of the ships coming thru the Gut, but also of the sail traffic on the nearby Bay of Fundy.  Moreover, there was a road/portage connection between the upper reaches of the haute rivière & the major settlements of the Minas Basin.  This gave the Annapolis Acadians an advantage over their Minas cousins when it came to knowing what was happening in the region.

72.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 346; "Winslow's Journal 2," 96.  See also Faragher, 347; notes 42 & 68, above. 

73.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 103; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 347.  See also note 42, above. 

74.  Quotation from "Winslow's Journal 2," 99.  See also "Winslow's Journal 2," 100-03; note 73, above.

74a.  Quotation from "Winslow's Journal 2," 99.  See also "Winslow's Journal 2," 98, 127.

75.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 99; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 348, 355; Delaney, "Chronology of the Deportations."  See also Faragher, 383; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 130, 132; "Winslow's Journal 2," 127; Appendix

Marshall, 130, says "several British transports dropped anchor in Chignecto Bay" on Aug 31, but Winslow's Journal reveals that most of them had arrived days earlier. 

Winslow at Minas, on an even larger scale, also moved some of his prisoners to deportation transports on Sep 10.  See note 95, below

76.  Quotation from "Winslow's Journal 2," 99.  See also Clark, A. H., Acadia, 211; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 349, 355; note 36, above; Book Two. 

77.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 348-49. 

The men of Tatamagouche, held in the same forts as the men of Chignecto and the trois-rivières, were deported with them to GA & SC on the same vessels--without their wives and children.  The families at Tatamagouche, realizing, or having been told, that their men would not return, crossed Mer Rouge to Île St.-Jean perhaps with the exiles from Cobeguit who passed through the port from Sep 1755 into the spring of 1756 on their way to the island refuge.  See LeBlanc, R.-G., "Miramichi," 5n15, 7n23; note 92, below.  One wonders if any of the Tatamagouche families reunited after 1763. 

78.  Quotations from Phyllis S. Blakeley, "Cobb, Silvanus," in DCB, 3:129, & online; W. J. Eccles, "Rigaud de Vaudreuil de Cavagnial, Pierre de, Marquis de Vaudreuil," in DCB, online.  See also Anderson, Crucible of War, 114-15, 124; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 351; I. K. Steele, "Monckton, Robert," in DCB, online; note 17, above, & 79, below; Books Two & Four. 

Monckton was only age 29 in August 1755.  See Steele

To emphasize the out-of-the-picture position of Boishébert in 1755, he & even the St. John River cannot be found in Fred Anderson's magisterial history of the Seven Years' War, cited above. 

79.  Quotation from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 350.  See also Blakeley, "Cobb," in DCB, 3:129; Clark, A. H., Acadia, 345, Fig. 8.3, entitled "Chignecto Settlements:  Population as of 1750"; Faragher, 350; P. E. LeBlanc, "Deschamps de Boishébert," in DCB, online; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 130; Parkman, France & England, 2:1034; Shoebottom, "The Battle of the Petitcodiac," 4-5; "Winslow's Journal 2," 100-01

Marshall would have us believe that "Since the destruction of Fort La Tour [actually Ménagouèche] several months earlier [it happened in late Jun], Chipoudy had been the base of operations for ... Boishébert, along with his band of soldiers, Acadian rebels and Mi'kmaq warriors."  If this was so, would not Boishébert have resisted Frye's Yankees when they appeared at Chepoudy?  Faragher implies that when Boishébert reached Chepoudy, the villages there had not yet been attacked, but LeBlanc says that, as soon as the Boishébert learned of the threat to "the villages of Chipoudy (Shepody), Petitcodiac (near Hillsborough), and Memramcook[,] he immediately left for Chipoudy but arrived too late to prevent the village from being destroyed."  LeBlanc does not give the date of Boishébert's appearance at Chepoudy, but if he got there after the settlement lay in ruin the date of his arrival is easy to determine.  Blakeley says "On 28 August [Silvanis] Cobb was sent with some of the soldiers of Major Joseph Frye to expell the Acadians from Chipoudy (Shepody, N.B.) and burn their houses."  Blakeley goes on:  "At Petitcodiac (near Hillsborough, N.B.), a party of Canadian troops and Indians attacked the New England soldiers, whose armed vessels operated with difficulty because of strong currents caused by the high Fundy tides."  The attack on the Petitcoudiac occurred on Sep 3, so one wonders if the Petitcoudiac offensive was a separate operation from the raid against Chepoudy in late Aug. 

According to Blakeley, Cobb, a New Englander, came to the colony in 1744 & was, after 1749, an officer in naval Cpt. John Rous's NS "sea militia" with a vessel of his own.  Cobb was instrumental in the capture of the Marguerite at Cap-Sable, on its way to the St.-Jean, in Apr 1755.  By then, he had settled at Chignecto with his wife & 2 daughters.  Winslow, Preble, & other fellow New Englanders enjoyed Cobb's hospitality, & his fine claret, during the siege of Beauséjour.  Cobb had 2 vessels by then, the York & the Halifax, both 80 tons, which he used to bring supplies to Monckton's forces, & these likely were the "two armed sloops" that Faragher, 350, mentions. 

Marshall says Frye's Yankees struck "Petitcodiac" on Sep 1 before moving on to "Chipody."  Blakeley's timeline is followed here.  Marshall asserts:  "At each farm or village, they [Frye's New Englanders] first killed the livestock, then set houses and barns ablaze, before taking Acadians (mostly women and children) into custody."  One suspects that some of the livestock were spared & loaded aboard Cobbs's transports. 

Jedediah Preble, a MA major still at Fort Cumberland, in a letter to MA Lieutenant Colonel Winslow, dated 5 Sep 1755, reported "Only Twenty Three" Acadians were nabbed at Chepoudy.  See "Winslow's Journal 2, " 100.  Parkman says the buildings destroyed at Chepoudy numbered 253, but a participant says Frye's Yankees burned "181 Buildings at Chepodi."  See Cpt. Thomas Speakman to Lt. Col. John Winslow, dated 5 Sep 1755, in "Winslow's Journal 2," 101. 

80.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 349-50.  See also Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 130.

Marshall calls the concentration points for the Acadian women & children at forts Cumberland & Lawrence "prison camps."  They were what they were--concentration camps.  One also could view these camps as Monckton's attempt to keep Acadian families together before placing them aboard the deportation transports. 

81.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 101; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 350-51.  See also Delaney, "Chronology of the Deportations"; Fortier, Louisiana, 1:157; P. E. LeBlanc, "Deschamps de Boishébert," in DCB, online; LeBlanc, R.-G., "Miramichi," 10; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 130-31; Parkman, France & England, 2:1034; Shoebottom, "The Battle of the Petitcodiac," 5; "Winslow's Journal 2," 99-100, 102. 

Faragher, 350, says Frye's Yankees came upon an abandoned village just below the point where the river bends to the west," which could have been the outskirts of present-day Moncton, NB.  Shoebottom places the scene of action at present-day Hillsborough, NB.  One of Shoebottom's sources, Acadian historian Paul Surette, "asserts that the landed force was actually split in two, with Dr. March and his 10 men burning the church at Village-des-Blanchards while Lt's Indicott and Billings and their men were over a kilometre south to Village-des-Bertrand burning another group of houses." 

Faragher places the action in the p.m. of Sep 2 on the Petitcoudiac & describes the battle site in detail.  Shoebottom says the fight occurred on Sep 2 at 4:30 p.m.  Delaney says Sep 2.  On line Wikipedia, "Battle of Petitcodiac," places it on Sep 4.  Marshall says Boishébert's armed force numbered 100.  Marshall seems to be placing the attack at Chepoudy, but all other sources place it on the Petitcoudiac.  Cpt. Thomas Speakman's letter to Lt. Col. John Winslow, dated 5 Sep 1755, in "Winslow's Journal 2," 101, written by a participant in the fight, says it occurred "up Piquitjac River," that is the Petitcoudiac, "about one a Clock" on "the 3rd Instant" & that the force of "French and Indians" numbered "above 300," which may have been an exaggeration, but Parkman & Faragher use that figure.  

Both Maj. Preble & Cpt. Speakman called the surgeon "Doctr. March."  See "Winslow's Journal 2," 100-01.  Shoebottom intimates that the doctor's surname may have been Marsh. 

82.  See Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 351; Shoebottom, "The Battle of the Petitcodiac," 6, 8n17; "Winslow's Journal 2," 100-01. 

Boishébert reported 2 New Englanders killed & 45 wounded, which was only 3 more than the British reported.  See Shoebottom, 6.  Does this imply that all of the New English missing were wounded & not killed? 

83.  Quotation from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 351.  See also Shoebottom, "The Battle of the Petitcodiac," 6-7. 

84.  Quotation from Grenier, J., Far Reaches of Empire, 181.  See also Delaney, "Chronology of the Deportations"; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 351; Shoebottom, "The Battle of the Petitcodiac," 6; Stephen A. White, "Acadians on the St. John River 1755-1760," <acadian-home.org>

White, a detailed essay, says nothing of the Acadians at Grimross. 

85.  Quotation from "Winslow's Journal 2," 151.  See also Delaney, "Chronology of the Deportations"; Grenier, J., Far Reaches of Empire, 183; Shoebottom, "The Battle of the Petitcodiac," 7;  "Winslow's Journal 2," 131-32. 

Maj. Preble, one of the commanders who beseeched Lt. Col. Monckton to allow his men to shelter inside the fort during the storm, warned the redcoat commander that "if we were to be Treated in this maner these were the Last Troops that it would be Possible to raise in New England, and that I thought there ought to be no Differance made."  Lt. Col. Scott, commander of the second battalion of MA troops, was so incensed at Monckton's behavior that he refused to attend his mess, which, Preble would have us believe, changed Monckton's mind.  See Preble to Lt. Col. Winslow, 24 Sep 1755, in "Winslow's Journal 2," 151. 

Evidently word of the incident spread fast among the Yankees.  Lt. Col. Winslow at Minas, in a letter to Monckton dated Sep 19, echoes Maj. Preble's comments on the importance of New England in the preservation of Nova Scotia:  "... the acquisition of this Province to the British Interest in Queen Anns time, was as much owing to the New England troops as the reduction of Beausejour was this year and without assistance of men from thence this Country Must Inevitably Fell into the Hands of the French Last War, and there is No other Seorse in time of Difficulty to be Depended on for Soldiers but in the Same Channel and I Doubt [not] if the present Set of Men are Slighted it will be impossible on a Future Occation to raise men to assist Nova Scotia from New England, as one Great Principal with out People is Honr and Good usage and the Consequence of the reverse and what may happen next year I Cant be answerable for."  Winslow repeats the lengthy comment in a letter to Maj. Preble addressed the same day.  See "Winslow's Journal 2," 131-32. 

85a.  Quotation from Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 131. 

86.  Quotation from Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 132-33.  See also Marshall, 134. 

87.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 123-24. 

87a.  Quotation from Winslow's Journal 2," 110. 

88.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 128-30.  See also "Winslow's Journal 2," 133-34.

89.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 135-36.  See also Books One & Two. 

90.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 136-37. 

91.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 155. 

92.  See Delaney, "Chronology of the Deportations"; LeBlanc, R.-G., "Miramichi," 9; Winslow's Journal 2," 139, 158-59, 161, 166; notes 50a ,77, & 91, above; Books Two & Four.

LeBlanc, R.-G., "Miramichi," 7n23, citing Vaudreuil to the minister [of Marine], 19 Apr. 1757, series C11A vol. 102, f7r, AC, notes that "It is estimated that 225 refugees were still present in the Cobequid area in the spring of 1756."  See Prévost to the minister, 6 Apr. 1756, series C11B vol. 36, f5v, AC.  So if the New-Engish officers insisted that the entire settlement at Cobeguit had been abandoned by Sep 23, & an unnamed source reported to Gov.-General Vaudreuil that there were still over 200 refugees "in the Cobequid" area the following spring, then a substantial fraction of the Cobeguit exiles did not cross to Île St.-Jean in the late summer or fall of 1755 but escaped there later.  A. H. Clark, 211, counts 1,000 habitants at "Cobequid and the Gulf Shrore" at mid-century.  The dozens of Acadians living in the North Shore settlements at mid-century must be subtracted from that number, as well as the dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Cobeguit Acadians who emigrated to Île St.-Jean to escape the chaos in British NS between 1750 and the summer of 1755.  See Books Two, Three, & Four.  If these 225 Cobeguit Acadians did linger near their destroyed homesteads over the winter of 1755-56, it must have been a terrible ordeal for them.  Perhaps the unnamed informant included the North Shore ports as part of "the Cobequid area" when he made his count for the governor-general.  Corroborating the governor-general's unnamed source, Table 6.3 in Clark, A. H., Acadia, 211, entitled "Judge Charles Morris' estimate of the number of French families in the Bay settlements in 1756," counts 120 habitants at "Rive Cobeguet Cheganois Shubnacadie & round Cobequet Bason," a count made perhaps after the spring of that year, though Clarks says, inexplicably, that Morris's count was made "for the period before deportation...."  See A. H. Clark, 210, italics added.  Note also that Morris's count does not include the North Shore settlements, only those "round the Cobequet Bason."  See Book Two for details of those settlement locations.   

British correspondence makes it clear how ineffectual was the effort at Cobeguit.  On Sep 26, Capt. Murray at Pigiguit reported the force sent to Cobeguit as "not yet returned."  As late as Sep 29, Lt.-Col. Winslow at Minas was seeking a competent "French" pilot who could assist one of his transports in navigating the tide-ridden approach to Cobeguit in order to supply Cpt. Lewis's men, who were still there.  On Oct 2 one of Winslow's officers reported that "the Party from Cobequid, all Returnd well Except Nathan Robins of Capt Osgoods Company who was Shott by accident and David Avery of Capt Hobbs Left Sick on Board of Capt Milbereys [Milbury's] Sloop [the Elizabeth]."  The same day, Winslow reported to Murray that Cpt. Lewis's mission had been compromised by their having "Lost all their Shallops and Cannoos," presumably to the tides, hence their being stranded at Cobeguit for days after they finished destroying the place.  This implies that the fleeing Acadians had left no vessels behind for the British to use.  On Oct 9, Murray informed Winslow that "The Party from Cobequid arrived all Safe Here Last night with the Loss only of the Great whale Boat & the other a Good Deal Shattered," such was the ferocity of the tides in the area & the lack of skill among the Yankees in dealing with them.  See "Winslow's Journal 2." 

For the families who had emigrated from Cobeguit to Île St.-Jean since the late 1740s, see De La Roque "Tour of Inspection," Canadian Archives 1905, 2A:76-164; Book Four. 

93.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 104, 106.  See also White, DGFA-1, 1009-11; "Winslow's Journal 2," 127. 

One wonders which of the notary's sons Winslow's was referring to.  Was it Désiré by René LeBlanc's first wife, who would have been age 38 in 1755, or twins René, fils or Simon by his second wife, who would have been age 24 in 1755?  It probably was Désiré.  See White.

94.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 104, 107-08. 

94a.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 108; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 352-53.  

Faragher, 352, speculates that the a.m. incident may have been "An attempt to overwhelm the guard perhaps, or a try at escape." 

94b.  Quotation from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 352.  See also "Winslow's Journal 2," 113, 123. 

94c.  Quotation from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 352.  See also Delaney, "Chronology of the Deportations"; "Winslow's Journal 2," 109. 

Faragher places the embarkation on Sep 11, but Delaney says it happened on Sep 10.  Winslow's Journal is so slapped together in places that the exact date of the initial embarkation & the confrontation with the young men is not easy to determine.  This author supports the Sep 10 date. 

95.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 109; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 352.  See also Faragher, 353-54; Fortier, Louisiana, 1:157; "Winslow's Journal 2," 126. 

Fortier says there were 4 transports, but Winslow's Journal says otherwise. 

The young men's actual words are from Faragher, who has them & the women singing:  "Let us bear the cross / Without choice, without regret, without complaint, / Let us bear the cross, / However bitter and hard." 

Interestingly, Monckton at Chignecto, on a smaller scale, also had moved some of his prisoners to transports on Sep 10.  See note 75, above.

96.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 110.  See also "Winslow Journal 2," 126-27, 136. 

For Winslow's ultimate awareness of the food transfer problem, see Winslow to Saul, 20 Sep 1755, in "Winslow's Journal 2," 136, in which the lieutenant colonel informs the commissary agent:  "... when the wind Blows, which Sometimes is the Case as well as at Chignecto the People on Board are Starving." 

97.  Quotation from "Winslow's Journal 2," 112.  See also Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 354-55; Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," 24-25; Book Two. 

98.  Quotation from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 355.  See also Faragher, 354; "Winslow's Journal 2," 111. 

99.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 111, 124-25.  See also LeBlanc, R.-G., "Acadians in Halifax & on Georges Island," 6, 25n99; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 128-29; Milling, Exile Without End, 6, 34n5; "Winslow's Journal 2," 123; note 87, above; Appendix.

Marshall tells the tale, undocumented, of the deputies' families walking to Halifax as soon as they had learned the fate of their loved ones.  They set up camp on the Dartmouth shore opposite Georges Island & appealed to Lawrence for compassion.  "Lawrence, however," Marshall relates, "had no sympathy for their position and said as much."  The families then begged to be deported with their loved ones, but Lawrence refused this also.  And then the tale becomes even more fantastic:  "During the night before their scheduled departure, several of the deputies managed to break out of the shed and headed under cover of darkness to the beach, where they found a small boat.  Just as they were pulling away from the island, however, they were spotted by a corporal's guard and another boat--this time filled with redcoats--went out after them.  In the excitement of seeing their families again, the men were taken off guard by the arrival of the redcoats, and in the scuffle that followed several unarmed Acadians were shot and killed."  Marshall does not provide the names of the "dead."  She says only that the redcoats escorted the entire group of Acadians--men, women, & children--back to island & its prison sheds.  The following morning--she gives no date--"the Providence, which had been moored just off the north shore of Georges Island, set sail with the deputies in its hold, while their distraught families watched anxiously from behind barred windows."  Marshall goes on:  "As soon as ships could be hired, they [the families of the deported deputies] faced their own deportation and very likely never saw their loved ones again."  The problem with this wonderful tale is that it does not comport with what actually happened to the imprisoned deputies--a rare instance, to be sure, of sensitivity on Lawrence's part.  LeBlanc, R.-G., p. 6n14, insists:  "Contrary to what several authors have concluded, the deputies imprisoned on Georges Island were reunited with their families before the deportation of their home communities."  One of those "several authors" undoubtedly is Marshall. 

Milling, 34n5, writing in the early 1940s & evidently unaware of Winslow's Journal, speculates:  "The special prisoners aboard the Syren may have belonged to this group [the dozens of imprisoned Acadian delegates], naturally considered the leaders, since the deputations were confined on a small island until the end of October, by which time the transportation was well under way."  Milling, 6, further states, again citing Édouard Richard:  "Fifty of the imprisoned delegates at Halifax were transported, aboard the ship Providence, to North Carolina."  The 50 deportees aboard the Providence, which left Halifax on Dec 30, were not the Acadian delegates but rather Acadians from Mirliguèche who had been rounded up & imprisoned on Georges Island.  See note 145, below.  Winslow's Journal reveals that the deputies likely were removed from Georges Island not at the end of Oct but in Sep, about the time that the Mirliguèche Acadians were sent there.  LeBlanc, R.-G., 6, says:  "On 11 September 1755, these deputies left their island prison and were escorted home to their respective districts of Pisiquid, Minas, and Port Royal."  See also note 101, below.  For the arrival of HMS Syren at Charles Town, SC, with its special passengers, see note 174, below. 

100.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 126-28.  See also "Winslow's Journal 2," 132-33; note 96, above.

101.  Quotation from "Winslow's Journal 2," 124, 135.  See also "Winslow's Journal 2," 128, 133-34, 136; note 99, above. 

The original number of Annapolis delegates held on Georges Island was 30.  See note 22a, above.  What happened to the other 3? 

102.  Quotation from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 356. 

103.  Quotations from Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 134-35; "Winslow's Journal 2," 177; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 356.  See also <museeacadien.ca/english/archives/articles/71.htm>; White, DGFA-1, 1373, 1389-90.

Petit René was son of René Richard dit Beaupré & Marguerite Thériot & had married Perpétué, daughter of Joseph Bourgeois & Anne LeBlanc, at Annapolis Royal in Feb 1749.  Petit René, who was age 29 at the time of his escape, died at Memramcook in Feb 1811, age 87, so he did not go to LA with his cousin Beausoleil.  Petit René's paternal grandfather was Beauseoleil Broussard's mother's older brother.  See White.  Acadian descendants in LA today--the Cajuns--are still fond of ironic nicknames like "Tee" to describe large men. 

Monckton, in an Oct 7 letter to Lt. Col. Winslow at Minas in which he gave the number 86 & described the escape tunnel, added:  "It is the worse as they are all People whose Wives were not come in & of Chipoudi Pitcoudiack & Memeramkook," which hints that many of them, like Beausoleil, were recently captured partisans. 

104.  See Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 356; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 135-36; White, DGFA-1, 284, 1373. 

Marshall, 135, says Catherine Richard was age 90, but she would have been 92.  See White, 1373.  Marshall, 136, adds:  "Her sons carried out her last request by taking her body back to the cemetery at Chipoudy and burying her next to their father."  The problem with this is François Brossard/Broussard died at the end of Dec 1716 not at Chepoudy but on the haute rivière near Port-Royal.  Moreover, Stephen White, a careful scholar whose work is documented, gives no death date or place for Catherine.  See White, 284, 1373. 

For evidence of whose son Victor was, see books Three & Ten; Broussard family page

105.  See Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 357; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 136-37. 

106.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 356-57. 

107.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 142, 146, 155.  See also Delaney, "Chronology of the Deportations"; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 357, 363; "Winslow's Journal 2," 137, 162-63, 186; notes 110 & 134, below. 

Dr. Don Landry, in Appendix, insists the snow Two Sisters departed the Annapolis Basin on Oct 13, heading for CN, & that a storm drove her to RI or that she was lost at sea.  The same source, along with Delaney, says the ship Helena left Annapolis for Boston on Oct 27, when the 22 transports from Chignecto, Minas, & Pigiguit would have sailed.  Faragher, 363, says 7 transports left Annapolis at dawn on Dec 8 with 1,664 Acadians aboard.  Does this include the Two Sisters or the Helena Cpt. Abraham Adams of HMS Warren, in a letter dated Dec 8 from Annapolis Royal to Lt.-Col. Winslow at Halifax, says that "ever Since I arrived here in Embarking the Inhabitants of this River, we have Embarked 1664 on board of 2 Ships, 3 Snows, & one Brigantine [6 transports] who Sailed from Goat Island and the Baltimore Sloop of War was their Convoy.  It is generally judged about 300 of the Inhabitants of the Head of this River are Gone into the Woods and the Remainder is Sent off to the great Mortification of Some of our Friends," a reference, no doubt, to Maj. Handfield & his family.  See "Winslow's Journal 2," 186.  The 3 snows Cpt. Adams mentioned must have been the Edward, the Pembroke, & ... the Two Sisters.  The brigantine, or brig, was the Experiment.  And the 2 ships were either the Elizabeth & the Helena, or, more likely, the Elizabeth & the Hobson.  See note 138, below; Appendix.

107a.  The total number of transports sailing thru the Gut on Oct 27 was 23.  From Chignecto:  the Boscawen, heading to PA; the Union to PA; the Dolphin to SC; the Edward Cornwallis to SC; the Endeavor to SC; the Two Brothers to SC; the Jolly Phillip to GA; & the Prince Frederick to GA, 8 in all.  From Minas Proper:  the Hannah heading to PA; the Swan to PA; the Elizabeth to MD; the Leopard to MD; the Endeavor, also called the Enchéree, to VA; the Industry to VA; the Mary to VA; the Prosperous to VA; the Sarah and Molly to VA, 9 in all.  From Pigiguit:  the Seaflower heading to MA; the Three Friends to PA; the Dolphin to MD; the Ranger to MD; & the Neptune to VA, 5 in all.  From Annapolis Royal:  the Helena, heading to MA.  See Appendix, which also offers more details on each vessel; Melanson, Melanson-Melançon, 29. 

Melanson gives the weekly food allocation for passengers aboard the Helena:  "... 5 pounds of flour and one pound of pork (or 1 lb. of beef, 2lbs. of bread, and 5 lbs. of flour) for (each) 7 days for each person so embarked."  Italics in the original.  This was the standard ration--"5 pounds of four and one pound of pork for 7 days" per passenger--determined by Lawrence & his Council by Aug 11.  See also Milling, Exile Without End, 9; note 42, above. 

108.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 357; "Winslow's Journal 2," 187.  See also Fortier, Louisiana, 1:157; "Winslow's Journal 2," 159. 

The storm of Oct 6-7 also delayed the embarkation at Minas.  See note 122, below. 

109.  See Stephen A. White, "Cormier, Pierre," in DCB, online; Books Two & Six; Cormier family page

The author, along with most of the Cormiers of LA, is a direct descendant of Pierrot's brother Michel, who, with older brother Joseph, somehow became separated from the rest of their immediate family, perhaps before their brother Pierrot's escape. 

109a.  See Delaney, "Chronology of the Deportations," Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 357; notes 75 & 86, above; Appendix

Faragher says the 8 transports held 1,782 Acadians.  Delaney has 6 transports & 2 escorts leaving Chignecto for their respective destinations on Oct 13--that is to say, 8 ships, not 8 transports--& adds:  "Two other ships, the Boscawen, which was to transport 190 Acadians to South Carolina[sic, probably PA], and the Union, which was to transport 392 to Pennsylvania, did not get underway because the number of Acadians arrested at Chignectou was smaller than expected."  If these 2 ships were held up at Chignecto to take on their complement of deportees, they would have had plenty of time to join their fellow vessels from Chignecto, which had to wait in Annapolis Basin for the transports from Minas & Pigiguit & did not sail until Oct 27.  Also, the Boscawen & the Union, bound for PA, were 2 of the perhaps 3 transport vessels that were lost in the nor'easter gale of late Oct.  See notes 134 & 154, below; Appendix  

110.  See Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 357-58. 

111.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 134-35.  See also "Winslow's Journal 2," 136. 

112.  Quotation from "Winslow's Journal 2," 136, 138.  See also "Winslow's Journal 2," 137, 142; note 96, above. 

113.  Quotation from "Winslow's Journal 2," 139. 

114.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 141, 152.  See also "Winslow's Journal 2," 178. 

Cobb was the miscreant whom Lt. Col. Monckton complained about to Winslow in a letter dated Oct 7.  "At Gaspereau they have lost Several & Many ill, Since that Violent Storm" at the beginning of the month, Monckton informed the New Englander.  "They attribute it to the Storm & the Badness of the Water," Monckton went on, "But by the accts I have I am afraid owing to Capt. Cobb, Who I am informed has been Dealing in Rum, Which he got from the French Houses."  Monckton went on to say that he planned to relieve the ship's captain from his duties.  See "Winslow's Journal 2," 178. 

115.  Quotation from "Winslow's Journal 2," 145.  See also "Winslow's Journal 2," 146. 

116.  See Anderson, Crucible of War, 118-23; "Winslow's Journal 2," 147-48; Book Two. 

The battle Rous referred to was fought near present-day Lake George, NY, on Sep 8.  The French-Saxon baron who commanded the French forces, in fact, was wounded & captured in the action.  See Anderson. 

117.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 148-50.  See also note 42, above. 

118.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 153-54, 157-58, 163.  See also "Winslow's Journal 2," 164-65.

119.  Quotation from "Winslow's Journal 2," 155-56.  See also Clark, A. H., Acadia, 209, Fig. 6.2; "Winslow's Journal 2," 154, 157-58; note 97, above. 

Winslow told Captain Rous in a letter dated Sep 29 that he had only "one Third part" of the transports he needed.  See "Winslow's Journal 2," 158. 

Was "Jean Dine's" actual name John Dean?  One wonders what was the name of his Acadian wife & what she thought of remaining at Minas while the members of her family were sent to God knows where. 

120.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 159.  See also "Winslow's Journal 2," 160-64; note 42, above. 

121.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 358; "Winslow's Journal 2," 164.  See also note 120, above. 

122.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 358.  See also Faragher, 359; Fortier, Louisiana, 1:157; Melanson, Melanson-Melançon, 29; "Winslow's Journal 2," 165-66, 168-69, 172.

Winslow does not name the vessels from which the young Acadians escaped, but he does mention the ships' captains, Church & Stone.  See "Winslow's Journal 2," 165; Appendix.

123.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 166; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 359.  See also Faragher, 358; Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 150; Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 116, 128-29. 

Two François Héberts from Grand-Pré ended up in MD:  a father & a son.  The father was 45 in 1755, the son only 17, so one suspects that it was the father whom Winslow accused of organizing the escape.  François, père was son of Jacques Hébert & Marguerite Landry & had been born at Grand-Pré in Apr 1710.  He married Marie-Josèphe, daughter of Jean Melanson & Marguerite Dugas, at Grand-Pré in Nov 1732, & they took 9 children with them to MD, 8 sons & a daughter.  François, fils married Marie LeBlanc in MD in c1762.  François, père & his family were counted by colonial officials at Georgetown & Fredericktown, on the Eastern Shore, in Jul 1763; François, fils & his wife were counted at Baltimore.  When François, père reached LA in Jul 1767, he was a widower.  François, fils also came to LA at that time & settled near his father at St.-Gabriel above New Orleans on what came to be called the Upper Acadian Coast.  See Jehn; Wood; Book Six; Hébert family page. 

124.  See "Winslow's Journal 2," 166. 

125.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 166-67.  See also Clark, A. H., Acadia, 209, Fig. 6.2; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 360; "Winslow's Journal 2," 168-69, 182-83; Appendix

"Winslow's Journal 2," 182, a letter from Winslow to Monckton, dated 3 Nov 1755, refers to Pointe-des-Boudrot as "Budros Bank on the Fork between the Rivers Cannard & Habitant."  Rivière-des-Habitants was originally called Rivière St.-Antoine & is today's Cornwallis River, on which today's Boudreau Landing can be found.  See Bleakney, Sods, Soil, & Spades, frontispiece, xvii (Figure 3.4); Book Two. 

125a.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 166-67.  See also "Winslow's Journal 2," 169, which makes it clear that Winslow agreed to forgive the miscreants if they promptly returned. 

126.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 169; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 359. 

127.  Quotation from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 360.  See also Faragher, 359; Fortier, Louisiana, 1:157; White, DGFA-1, 1009, 1010-12; Book Two. 

Faragher, 359-60, says old René was deported with his wife as well as his 2 youngest children.  One of White's sources, "Pétition des Acadiens déporté à Philadelphie," in É. Richard, Acadia: Missing Links of a Lost Chapter in American History, 2:380, published in 1895, claims:  "... René LeBlanc, the Notary Public ... was seized, confined, and brought away among the rest of the people, and his family consisting of twenty children, and about one hundred and fifty grandchildren, were scattered in different colonies, so that he was put on shore at New York, with only his wife and two youngest children, in an infirm state of health, from whence he joined three more of his children at Philadelphia...."  See White, 1012.  There are several problems with this narrative:  First, old René would have been a widower in Oct 1755; his second wife, Marguerite Thébeau, had died in c1750, a victim de chagrin, as White, 1009, describes it, while René was being held as a prisoner at Petitcoudiac during Abbé Le Loutre's petit guerre.  Second, old René's being "seized" and "confined" would have been no different from the treatment of the other Grand-Pré men being held in the church there.  In fact, his status as a village elder & his history of accommodation with the British would have made him a kind of privileged character among the Acadian detainees.  Third, no vessel from either Minas or Pigiguit went to NY.  René likely was shipped directly to Philadelphia on either the Hannah or the Swan, both of which were sent away from Pointe-des-Boudrot.  On the other hand, since old René was a resident of Grand-Pré, Point-des-Boudrot would have been an odd place for him & his 2 children to embark.  See White; Book Two; Appendix

Fortier notes:  "The families were not always on the same ship; the father and mother, in some instances, were separated from their children; and many Evangelines never met their Gabriels." 

128.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 360-61; "Winslow's Journal 2," 171.  See also Martin, F.-X., Louisiana, 1:328; "Winslow's Journal 2," 173; Books One, Two, & Three. 

"Winslow's Journal 2," 171, says his men encountered a "French Deserter" on horseback, fired over his head to warn him, & when he refused to halt, 1 of his men shot to kill.  The Yankee patrol then encountered "a Party of the Same People[,] Fired upon them, but they made their Escape into the woods."  "Winslow's Journal 2," 173, adds, however, that "This Evening [Oct 13] Came in and Privately Got on Board the Transportes the remains of Twenty Two of the 24 Deserters and of whome I Took notice, the Other one accordg [to] the Best accts from the French Suffered yesterday with his Comrade."  That is, he died.  So he evidently was among the party fired upon who fled into the woods.  One wonders what were the names of these dead Acadian "deserters."

129.  See Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 361; "Winslow's Journal 2," 170, 173. 

130.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 171, 173.  See also Delaney, "Chronology of the Deportations"; "Winslow's Journal 2," 172.

131.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 361; "Winslow's Journal 2," 172.  See also "Winslow's Journal 2," 176, 178, 182-83; notes 42, 110, & 122, above; Appendix

"Winslow's Journal 2," 178, calls the Endeavor the Encheere

132.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 173-74.  See also Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 361-62; "Winslow's Journal 2," 177, 181-83; note 130, above; Appendix

Faragher, 362, says Murray filled the 5 transports "at the rate of three persons per ton."  Italics in the original. 

In a society ruled by justice, of course, Murray would have been pilloried for his actions at Pigiguit.  Instead, sometime in late Oct he was promoted to major in the King's service.  See "Winslow's Journal 2," 181, in which Lawrence, in a letter to Winslow, dated Oct 27, refers to Capt. Murray, & "Winslow's Journal 2," 182, in which Winslow, answering Lawrence from Fort Edward on Oct 31, calls the fort's commander "Majr. Murray."   

133.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 175, 179.  See also Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 362-63; "Winslow's Journal 2," 176-77, 180, 182, 183, 190.

Monckton did not send the 3 transports, at least not before Winslow shipped off his 2,600+ Acadians on Oct 21.  See "Winslow's Journal 2," 182. 

Judging by the number of Acadians aboard the 5 transports that carried Minas Acadians to CN, MA, & VA from 30 Nov to 20 Dec 1755, the number of Acadians Winslow left at Grand-Pré when the 14 transports departed for Annapolis was closer to 755, not 500 or even 600.  See Appendix.

134.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 362.  See also Clark, A. H., Acadia, 140, 209, Fig. 5.9, a map entitled "Northern and Eastern Acadian Settlements as of the Early Eighteenth Century, Modern Place Names," & Fig. 6.2, a map entitled "Mines and Pisiqud:  Population, 1714"; "Winslow's Journal 2," 179; note 110, above; Books One & Two. 

The colonies of destination for the Chignecto & Minas/Pigiguit transports leaving Annapolis in late Oct were, from north to south, MA, PA, MD, VA, SC, & GA.  In subsequent, smaller deportations, from Annapolis, Minas, Halifax, & Cap-Sable, which ran from Nov 1755 thru Apr 1756, Acadian exiles also would go to CN, NY, & NC.  None would be sent to NH, RI, NJ, or DE, likely because of the small populations of those colonies.  One suspects that NY was spared a large influx of "French Neutrals" during the fall of 1755 because of the military campaigning there under Johnson & Shirley in the upper region of the colony.  See Book Two; Appendix.

135.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 177, 179-80.  See also "Winslow's Journal 2," 176, 182-83. 

Lawrence responded to Winslow's letters of Oct 27 & 31 on Nov 5 with the words:  "I approve of the Measures you have taken to get clear of the Inhabitants and am in hopes that you have had an Oppertunity of Shipping off the remainder in the Transports from Chignecto as they must undoubtedly have arrived before this."  See "Winslow's Journal 2," 183.  But Monckton never sent the 3 transports from Chignecto.  See note 133, above. 

136.  Quotation from "Winslow's Journal 2," 180.  See also "Winslow's Journal 2," 181-82.

137.  Quotation from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 363.  See also "Winslow's Journal 2," 181-82; Faragher, 362. 

Faragher, 363, says Winslow sent Adams & Hobbs to Annapolis on Oct 31, but "Winslow's Journal 2," 182, includes an order from Winslow to Adams, dated Nov 3, ordering him to Handfield. 

138.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 187; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 363.  See also Delaney, "Chronology of the Deportations"; notes 107, above, & 190, below. 

The Pembroke famously did not reach its destination, NC, & the Edward & the Experiment reached CN & NY, respectively, in May 1756, only after being blown off course to Antigua in the British West Indies.  The other 2 transports who left Annapolis Basin on Dec 8-- the Elizabeth & the Hobson--reached their destinations--CN & SC--in mid- & late Jan without incident.  See Appendix

138a.  Quotations from Winslow's Journal 2," 184; Milling, Exile Without End, 11.  See also Delaney, "Chronology of the Deportations." 

The 2 New-English companies that arrived in early Nov were commanded by captains Nathan Adams & Humphrey Hobbs.  See note 139, below.

Delaney says the Pembroke, bound for NC, began embarking its passengers on Dec 4 at Île-aux-Chèvres, that is, Goat Island.  The other vessels may have begun embarkation before that date & were certainly finished by Dec 7.  Citing Winslow's Journal, Delaney says that 1,664 Acadians were deported from the Annapolis valley. 

139.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 363; "Winslow's Journal 2," 185.  See also Faragher, 362; Melanson, Melanson-Melançon, 29; "Winslow's Journal 2," 182-84, 190-91. 

Faragher, 362, says that Winslow sent Adams's & Hobbs's companies to Handfield on Oct 31, but "Winslow's Journal 2," 182-83, containing letters from Winslow to Cpt. Adams & Winslow to Monckton, both dated Nov 3, show that he sent the force on that date, not the 31st.  See also "Winslow's Journal 2," 190, Winslow to Gov. Shirley, dated Dec 19, which says he sent Adams & Hobbs "to Assist Majr Handfield" on Nov 3.  Winslow instructed the 2 company commanders to remain with Handfield as long as they were needed, "And if it Should happen that you Should return here before the French Inhabitants are Embarked, to remain at this Camp [Grand-Pré] till Further orders.  If otherwise to Proceed with your Party to Halifax," where they would join up with the rest of Winslow's command.

"Winslow's Journal 2," 182, a letter from Winslow to Lawrence, dated Oct 31, says "after Confering with Majr Murray it is agreed that the out Villages in our different districks be destroyed immediately, and the Grand Pre when the inhabitants are removed, Excepting Such the Germans Occupy as we Judge it unsafe to leave a Small Party there."  Italics added.  This implies that Murray destroyed the villages & mills at Pigiguit while Winslow was laying waste to the Minas settlements. 

The "Mass House" Winslow's men destroyed in early Nov likely was the church of St.-Joseph-des-Mines at Rivière-aux-Canards, the only church other than St.-Charles-des-Mines (Grand-Pré) in that part of the Minas region.  See Books One & Two; Appendix

On Nov 12, before he left Pigiguit, Winslow received orders to garrison Fort Sackville at Bedford, near Halifax, with 59 men.  See "Winslow's Journal 2," 184.  In a letter to Gov. Shirley, dated Dec 19, Winslow says he left Minas on Nov 13 "with an Officer and 54 Non Comission Officers and Private Men," reached Halifax on the 19th, & "the Next Day my Party were Posted at Dartmouth [across the harbor from Halifax] in Good Quarters."  He says nothing of their going to Fort Sackville.  On Dec 9, Preble, now promoted to Lt. Col., reached Halifax from Chignecto "with a Detached Party."  See "Winslow's Journal 2," 190-91; note 142, below.

140.  See note 118, above; Books One & Two. 

141.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 183; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 363-64.  See also Clark, A.H., Acadia, 211; Appendix

One can imagine the chaos that would have ensued if Boishébert & even a part of his force of troupes de la marine & Acadian partisans could have crossed the Bay of Fundy in Nov & attacked Osgood's small force at Grand-Pré or Handfield's garrison at Annapolis Royal.  But then how would Boishébert have spirited so many Acadian exiles across the formidable bay?   

142.  Quotations from "Winslow's Journal 2," 185-86, 188. 

143.  See Donald F. Chard, "Mauger, Joshua," in DCB, online; Clark, A. H., Acadia, 211; Delaney, "Chronology of the Deportations"; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 364; Fortier, Louisiana, 1:157; "Winslow's Journal 2," 188, 192; Book Two.   

Faragher, 372, says the Dove, bound for CN, was lost at sea.  Dr. Don Landry's work in Appendix, followed here, says that ship reached CN on 30 Jan 1756.  See also note 261, below.  

Mauger, a native of the isle of Jersey, was victualler to the navy at Louisbourg & Halifax, a rum distiller at Halifax, & a prominent land holder in the colony.  He also owned sawmills near Lunenburg.  Beside the Racehorse, he owned 26 other vessels.  He was, in fact, the largest ship owner in NS.  See Chard.

Osgood to Winslow, written from Grand-Pré on Dec 20, details the embarkation of the last 2 transports at Minas & adds that "There is a Considerable Quantity of Provissions left of Pork[,] Beef, Mutton & Bread."  And although there were still a substantial number of cattle at Minas, there was not enough fodder keep them there over the winter.  Many of the cattle, Osgood reported, were not "fit for humane Creatures to Eat."  See "Winslow's Journal 2," 192. 

Faragher says Osgood shipped 732 Acadians from Minas, but Appendix, which details the 5 transports used, shows a higher figure. 

Fortier says that when "Winslow completed his work in December," he had "shipped twenty-five hundred and ten persons," which seems a bit high. 

Table 6.3 in A. H. Clark, entitled "Judge Charles Morris' estimate of the number of French families in the Bay settlements in 1756," counts 150 habitants at "River Canar & its dependencys" & 200 still at "Grand Pré, Gasparo, & its dependencys" sometime in the year following mass deporation.  One wonders what became of them.

144.  See Clark, A. H., Acadia, 211; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 364, 366; Fortier, Louisiana, 1:157; LeBlanc, R.-G., "Miramichi," 6-7; Melanson, Melanson-Melançon, 29; "Winslow's Journal 2," 190-91, 193-96; notes 134, above, & 314, below; Appendix; Book Two. 

Fortier, writing in 1904, says "more than six thousand persons were violently expelled from the colony."  He then adds:  "A few managed to escape, although they were tracked like wild beasts." 

Faragher, 366, states that "five or six thousand [Acadians] had escaped the nets cast at Chignecto, Minas, and Annapolis Royal."  He also insists that "some five thousand refugees and inhabitants were living" on Île St.-Jean "by late 1755."  This implies that there were as many as 17,000 Acadians in the region on the eve of Le Grand Dérangement According to Canadian scholar Ronnie-Giles LeBlanc, citing Acadian genealogist Stephen A. White, the most accurate figure for the total Acadian population in greater Acadia--Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the Maritime islands--on the eve of Le Grand Dérangement was 14,100.  See LeBlanc, R.-G., "Miramichi," 5n10; Book Two.  The same source says "around 6,070 were expelled to the Anglo-American colonies in the autumn of 1755."

The activities of Winslow's New Englanders during their final months in NS can be traced in his Journal.  Winslow to Gov. Shirley, dated 19 Dec 1755 at Halifax, is a long-winded plea to halt the enlistment of Winslow's Yankees into other MA regiments at Chignecto & Halifax & includes a critique of Lawrence's role in the matter.  Winslow was so wrought up over the enlistment business, in fact, that he asked Lawrence for leave to return to Boston to consult with Gov. Shirley, but Lawrence insisted that, in Winslow's words, "so good a Man Could not be Spared."  Winslow beseeched Gov. Shirley to recall him to Boston, "Unless your Excellency thinks proper to withdraw This Battallion from this Part of the Goverment.  Really I Cant See that we are of any Consequence here," Winslow added & offered to resign his commission.  The same letter details Winslow's movements from Nov 13 to early Dec & says that "Capts Adams, Hobbs & Osgood are yet a Menis But expected here every Day."  So, by Dec 19, Winslow's detachments had reunited at Grand-Pré after Adams & Hobbs had helped round up the Annapolis Acadians, & the 3 companies, except for the sick who were unable to march, soon would be on their way to Halifax, where most of Winslow's battalion, at least, would be reunited.  A letter from Lawrence to Winslow, dated 6 Jan 1756, in which the governor complained about the failure of New English troops at Dartmouth to cut firewood for the British garrisons in the area, as Lawrence had ordered, reveals that Winslow & the governor were still not getting along.  On Jan 6, Capt. Nicholas Cox, evidently Murray's successor in command at Fort Edward who was looking after the sick New Englanders still at Minas, informed Winslow that medicine Winslow had sent to Minas "by Lt. Fitch were lost with Five of your Men in Crossing the Piziquid River."  A letter from Cox to Winslow, dated Jan 8, detailing the drowning, casts blame on the delinquent behavior of a Lt. Crooker, who survived the incident "When the Tide Overtook them & Carried them with it."  Evidently the Yankees were attempting to cross the Pigiguit in a boat.  A letter dated Jan 16 from Winslow to Cox, reveals that not all of Winslow's men had been reunited at Halifax.  The letter mentions the incident "of our Men in Passing your River" & refers to "the Poor Fellows [who] were Drownd."  Cox tells Winslow on Jan 20 that "The Sick are all Sailed from Mines for Halifax, your Baggage is likewise gone which I hope will get Safe round."  Cox also mentions Winslow's recent illness.  For evidence that Winslow's Yankees were garrisoning Fort Sackville at Bedford, see Winslow to Mr. Henry Dobson, dated Jan 28.  This letter also reveals that some of Winslow's men were still at Fort Edward.  In an unfinished letter from Winslow to Gov. Shirley, dated Jan 22 at Halifax, Winslow reminds the governor that the MA regiment's year-long term of enlistment would end in Feb, by which time the officers & men expected to be transported to Boston, where they would receive their pay before returning to their homes.  See "Winslow's Journal 2"; Book Two. 

145.  See note 200, below; Appendix

146.  Quotation from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 364. 

147.  See Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 365-66; Book Two. 

147a.  Quotation from militaryheritage.com/wolfe.htm.  See also Grenier, J., Far Reaches of Empire, 201; Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 257n18; notes 290 & 315, below. 

148.  Quotation from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 365.  See also Faragher, 366-68; notes 17, 19, & 44, above. 

149.  Quotations from Akins, ed., Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 281, 283.  See also Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 365. 

150.  Quotations from Akins, ed., Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 282-83.  See also Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 366. 

151.  Quotations from Akins, ed., Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 278-80.  See also Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 366; Griffiths, From Migrant to Acadian, 459, 463; notes 44 & 144, above.

The italics in the first quotation are contained in Robinson's letter in Akins, ed. 

152.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 366-67; Akins, ed., Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 283-85.  Italics added.  See also Faragher, 367; Book Two. 

153.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 367-68.  See also Perrin, W. A., Acadian Redemption; note 151, above; Book Two. 

Hence the Queen's symbolic apology of 9 Dec 2003 to the Acadian people.  See W. A. Perrin. 

154.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 370; "Winslow's Journal 2," 186-87.  See also note 107, above. 

Faragher says that Cpt. Adams "fought his way back to the safety of Annapolis Basin," but the captain's own testimony, recorded in Winslow's Journal, says clearly that he was driven to Georges Island & that he did not return to Annapolis Basin until Dec 1. 

155.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 372-73.  See also Delaney, "Chronology of the Deportations"; White, "Acadians on the St. John River 1755-60"; White, DGFA-1, 99; Book Three; Appendix; Belliveau family page

Faragher, 372, says the Pembroke carried 226 Acadians.  Delaney says there were 232 & provides the specific numbers by age & gender but says there were 225 of them when the ship reached the lower St.-Jean.  This implies that half a dozen or so of the passengers did not survive the wintry sojourn in Baie Ste.-Marie. 

Two other transports full of exiles were destined to NC, from Cap-Sable in the spring of 1756, but did not make it.  See note 257, below. 

156.  Quotations from LeBlanc, R.-G., "Acadians in Halifax & on Georges Island," 7; Lacoursière & Philpot, People's History of Quebec, 51See also Delaney, "Chronology of the Deportations"; LeBlanc, R.-G., 6, 13; Lockerby, Deportation of the PEI Acadians, 7; Milling, Exile Without End, 6; Vachon, "Acadians to Quebec," 291-92; Stephen A. White, "Acadians on the St. John River 1755-1760," <acadian-home.org>

Vachon says Rivière St.-Jean refugees, in spring 1759, settled at Kamarouska below Québec. 

157.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 370-71; Delaney, "Chronology of the Deportations."  See also notes 131 & 132, above; Appendix

158.  See Arsenault, Généalogie, 410, 597, 1638, 1660, 2119, 2520; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 372; Lockerby, Deportation of the PEI Acadians, 6; Plank, Unsettled Conquest, 1-2; White, DGFA-1, 1407-09; Vachon, "Acadians to Quebec," 292; White, "Acadians on the St. John River 1755-60"; White, DGFA-1, 99; Book Two; Belliveau, Godin/Gaudin, Guilbeau, & Lachaussée family pages.

For Charles Belliveau's exploits the previous Dec, see note 155, above.  

Pierre Belliveau's going to Miramichi, not to Québec, is hinted at by his standing as godfather for sister Marguerite's son Pierre-Philippe Lachaussée at Restigouche, at the head of the Baie des Chaleurs, on 18 Mar 1761.  See Arsenault, 1660. 

159.  Delaney, "Chronology of the Deportations," suggests that Acadians from Chignecto were moving up to Québec as early as Sep 1755.  See also note 84, above; Mius d'Entremont family page

Vachon, "Acadians to Quebec," 291, says, "Starting in the fall of 1755, a few months after the deportations began ... exiles landed in the port of Quebec City," implying that they had come there via the St. Lawrence.  "The first refugees were from Île Saint-Jean ....  Were they Acadians?  Actually, no; there was only one Acadian, Catherine Doiron, wife of François Turcot, a Frenchman from Anjou, as well as her niece, Marguerite Nogues, wife of Jean Nogues and daughter of Magdelaine Doiron (an Acadian).  The other refugees had been born in France and in Switzerland."  For Turcot, also called François Tureaud, described by a French official in Aug 1752 at Anse aux Sanglier, on the south shore of the island, as a "poor, nailer, not having means of buying the requisites to work at his trade native of the parish of Saint Pierre de Doy, in Enjou, aged 24 years, he has been two years in the country.  Married to Catherine Douaron, native of l'Acadie, age 35 years.  They have four children, three sons and one daughter," see De La Roque, "Tour of Inspection," Canadian Archives 1905, 2A:165; Book Four.  For Nogues, "native of the parish of Piriac, bishopric of Nantes," & wife Magdelaine Douaron, at nearby Anse-du-Nord-Ouest, see De La Roque, 2A:164.  Vachon says "In April 1756, this first group of refugees moved to the first petit Cadie ("Little Cadie") settlement, located in south of Saint-Charles-de-Bellechasse, where the town of Saint-Gervais would later be located," across the river from Québec.  

Vachon, 292, adds:  "Three groups of Acadians arrived in the port of Quebec in 1756, on the approximate dates of June 22, August 17, and October 18.  They were all from Île Saint-Jean.  Each group consisted of about 200 Acadians.  Fr. Jean-Baptiste de La Brosse, a missionary working in Acadie, accompanied the last group.  On October 26, some families of the Lejeune clan were sent on to the Île d'Orléans." 

160.  See Arsenault, Généalogie, 989, 993, 1543; Delaney, "Chronology of the Deportations"; LeBlanc, R.-G., "Miramichi," 21; Vachon, "Acadians to Quebec," 292; White, DGFA-1, 66, 128, 232-33, 448, 697, 820-21, 1238-39, 1391, 1544; Book Two.

Vachon says "From November 1, 1757, to March 1, 1758, no fewer than 335 Acadians were buried in Notre-Dame-de-Québec.  Between 1756 and 1759, 488 Acadians in Quebec City losts their lives, dying of malnutrition, exhaustion, exposure to the cold, or smallpox.  Acadians caught smallpox through contact either with the passengers, (who were French military men), sailors travelling on the Léopard (1756), or British soldiers from Halifax, the location of an epidemic in 1757." 

Only the horrible winter of 1756-57 at Miramichi on the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore killed more Acadians at one place in such a short period of time during the Acadian Great Upheaval.  See note 289, below. 

Delaney places Anne Mouton's death on 5 Nov 1755, 2 years too early.  White, 1239, followed here, says she died on 4 Nov 1757, which fits her into the smallpox epidemic of 1757-58.  Anne, a younger daughter of Surgeon Jean Mouton of Chignecto, was Joseph Richard's second wife.  Joseph was a son of Michel Richard dit Beaupré of Annapolis Royal &, had he lived, would have been age 52 at the time of his wife's death. 

Victims of the epidemic may have included:  2 sons of Paul Arseneau of Chignecto, who died at Québec in 1757; 6 children of Jean Breau of Chepoudy at Québec in 1757; 3 daughters of Pierre Saulnier of Petitcoudiac--Anne & Marie-Madeleine, perhaps twins, age 18; and Marie, age 15--at Québec in 1757; Amand Comeau of Minas, age 27, and his wife Marie-Claire Thibodeau, at Québec in 1757; Grégoire Comeau of Chepoudy, age 34, and his wife Marie Thibodeau, at Québec in 1757; Flavien Pitre of Chepoudy, age 11, at Québec on 25 Jul 1757; Jean dit Varouel Gaudet, age 67, at Québec on 28 Jul 1757; Ambroise Melanson of Annapolis Royal, age 72, at Québec on 7 Aug 1757; Marguerite Comeau of Annapolis Royal, age 58, widow of Ambroise Melanson, at Québec on 29 Aug 1757; Charles Melanson, fils of Annapolis Royal, age 20 months, at Québec on 1 Sep 1757; Marie-Josèphe Martin dit Barnabé of Annapolis Royal, age 40, wife of Paul Blanchard, at Québec on 10 Sep 1757; Pierre-Jérôme Darois of Peticoudiac, age 56, at Hôtel-Dieu, Québec, on 12 Sep 1757; François Richard of Annapolis Royal, age 30, at Québec on 15 Sep 1757; Charles Melanson, fils, age 84, of Annapolis Royal, at Québec on 19 Sep 1757; Joseph Melanson of Annapolis Royal, age 40, bachelor son of Charles, fils who had died on 19 Sep 1757, at Québec on 1 Oct 1757; Jean-Pierre Dupuis of Annapolis Royal, age 60, at Québec on 15 Oct 1757; Anne-Marie Aucoin of Annapolis Royal, age 70, widow of Pierre Thibodeau le jeune, at Québec on 16 Oct 1757; Alexandre Forest of Chignecto, age 56, at St.-Michel de Bellechasse on 27 Oct 1757; Françoise Haché dit Gallant, age 29, of Chignecto, wife of Jean Doucet, at Québec in Nov or Dec; Marie-Josèphe Brun, age 52, widow of Michel Poirier of Annapolis Royal, at Québec on 3 Nov 1757; Anne Mouton, age 30, widow of Joseph Richard of Annapolis Royal, 4 Nov 1757, at Québec; André Savary of Annapolis Royal & Petit-Ascension, Île St.-Jean, age 67, at St.-Jean, Île d'Orléans, on 8 Nov 1757; elderly sisters Marie & Marguerite Babineau, wives of Claude Landry, fils & Claude Melanson of Annapolis Royal, at Québec on 20 Nov & 12 Dec 1757, respectively; Marguerite Doucet, age 40, of Chignecto, at Québec, 21 Nov 1757; Marie-Rose Thibodeau of Annapolis Royal, age 47, wife of Pierre Blanchard & daughter of Anne-Marie Aucoin, at Québec on 21 Nov 1757; Madeleine-Hedwige Blanchard, age 22, at Québec in 23 Nov 1757; Louis-René Daigre of Minas at St.-Michel de Bellechasse on 23 Nov 1757; Guillaume Girouard, age 72, of Annapolis Royal at Québec on 23 Nov 1757; François dit Lami Boudrot, age 47, at Québec on 24 Nov 1757; Marie-Madeleine Girouard of Chignecto, age 45, wife of Claude Gaudet, at Québec on 24 Nov 1757; Madeleine Gaudet, age 75, widow of Michel Caissie of Chignecto, at Québec on 25 Nov 1757; brothers René dit Renochet & Jean-Baptiste Bernard of Chignecto at Québec on 26 Nov & 19 Dec 1757, & Renochet Bernard's wife Anne Blou at Québec on 4 Dec 1757; Renochet's daughter Madeleine Bernard, wife of Jean-Baptiste Richard, at Québec on 28 Nov 1757; Marie Richard of Chignecto, age 34, wife of Pierre Bourgeois, at Québec on 28 Nov 1757; Françoise Blanchard of Annapolis Royal, age 25, Madeleine-Hedwige's sister, at Québec on 30 Nov 1757; David Mire of Pigiguit, age 14, at Québec in Dec; Félix Boudrot, age 35, at Québec on 1 Dec 1757; Anne-Marie Comeau, age 39, wife of Honoré Savoie, at Québec on 1 Dec 1757; Jean Comeau of Chepoudy, age 60, Anne-Marie Comeau's uncle, at Québec on 2 Dec 1757; Marie-Josèphe Pitre, age 45, wife of Jean-Joseph Forest of Chepoudy, at Québec on 2 Dec 1757; Joseph Daigre of Minas & Île St.-Jean, age 61, Louis-René's older brother, at St.-Charles de Bellechasse on 7 Dec 1757; Anne Gaudet, age 35, wife of Pierre Richard, at Québec on 6 Dec 1757; Marguerite Richard dit Boutin of Annapolis Royal, age 36, wife of Jean dit Jean-François Breau, at Québec on 8 Dec 1757; Marguerite Babineau of Annapolis Royal, age 63, widow of Claude Melanson, at Québec on 12 Dec 1757; Anne Comeau of Chepoudy & Petitcoudiac, wife of Pierre Crisac & widow of Joseph Levron, at Québec on 12 Dec 1757; Joseph dit Canadien Richard of Annapolis Royal, age 39, at Québec on 13 Dec 1757; Simon Richard of Annapolis Royal, age 36, unmarried, at Québec on 13 Dec 1757; Marie-Josèphe Trahan of Minas, age 60, widow of René Saulnier, at Québec on 13 Dec 1757; François dit François Magdelaine Richard of Annapolis Royal, age 30, Simon's younger brother, at Québec on 14 Dec 1757; Madeleine Gaudet, age 45, wife of Pierre dit Perroche Hébert, at Québec on 14 Dec 1757; Jean Darois of Petitcoudiac, age 57, brother of Pierre-Jérôme who died at Hôtel-Dieu, Québec, in Sep, at Québec on either 16 or 17 Dec 1757; Charles Bourg, age 37, at Québec on 17 Dec 1757; brothers Étienne le jeune, age 40, and Guillaume Comeau, age 34, of Annapolis Royal, at Québec on 17 Dec 1757; Simon dit Nantois Levron, age 37, of Minas, at Québec in 17 Dec 1757; Isabelle Guilbeau of Annapolis Royal, age 26, wife of Jean-Baptiste Richard, at Québec on 18 Dec 1757; François Doucet, age 66, of Chignecto, brother of Marguerite who died on Nov 21, probably at Québec on 20 Dec 1757; Marie-Josèphe dite Josette Gaudet, age 22, younger sister of Anne & wife of Abraham Poirier, at Québec on 20 Dec 1757; Ursule Gautrot, age 40, widow of Nicolas Barrieau, fils, at Québec on 20 Dec 1757; Jean Bertrand l'aîné at Québec on 20 Dec 1757; Élisabeth Melanson, age 40, of Chignecto and Chepoudy, wife of Olivier Thibodeau & daughter of Ambroise Melanson who died on 7 Aug 1757, at Québec on 20 Dec 1757; Olivier Thibodeau, age 45, husband of Élisabeth Melanson who died the day before, and brother of Marie-Rose who died on Nov 21, at Québec on 21 Dec 1757; Charles Blanchard of Annapolis Royal, age 60, at Québec on 21 Dec 1757; Joseph Saulnier of Minas, age 37, died on 21 Dec 1757; Joseph Thibodeau of Annapolis Royal, age 46, widower, at Québec on 21 Dec 1757; Jean Bastarache of Annapolis Royal, age 59, at Québec on 22 Dec 1757; Jean-Joseph Forest of Chepoudy, age 54, borther of Alexandre who died on Oct 27, at Québec on 22 Dec 1757; Brigitte Landry of Annapolis Royal, age 36, at Québec on 23 Dec 1757; Jean-Baptiste dit Toc Landry of Annapolis Royal, age 64, at Québec on 24 Dec 1757; Anne Melanson, age 45, of Annapolis Royal, wife of Joseph Landry, daughter of Charles, fils who had died on 19 Sep 1757, & sister of Joseph who had died on 1 Oct 1757, at Québec on 24 Dec 1757; Joseph-Grégoire Richard of Annapolis Royal, age 33, at Québec on 24 Dec 1757; Marguerite Girouard of Annapolis Royal, age 44, wife of Alexandre Guilbeau, at Québec on 25 Dec 1757; Anne-Hélène Blanchard of Annapolis Royal, age 33, widow of Étienne Comeau le jeune who had died on Dec 17 & sister of Françoise who had died on Nov 30, at Québec on 27 Dec 1757; Marie-Josèphe Savoie of Annapolis Royal, age 51, widow of Jean-Baptiste Poirier, at Québec on 30 Dec 1757; Claude Landry III of Annapolis Royal, age 43, at Québec on 31 Dec 1757; Charles Melanson of Annapolis Royal, age 35, father of Charles, fils who died at Québec on 1 Sep 1757 & son of Marguerite Babineau who died at Québec on 12 Dec 1757, at St.-Charles de Bellechasse on 31 Dec 1757; Marie-Josèphe Lanoue of Annapolis Royal, age 40, at Québec on 1 Jan 1758; Marguerite Thériot of Minas, age 46, widow of Joseph Surette of Peticoudiac, at Québec on 2 Jan 1758; Pierre Leprince of Annapolis Royal, age 36, at Québec on 4 Jan 1758; Charles Belliveau of Annapolis Royale, age 60, hero of the Pembroke affair, at Québec on 5 Jan 1758; Marie-Jeanne Bourgeois of Chignecto, age 64, at Québec on 7 Jan 1758; Charles Doiron III of Minas & Île Madame, age 42, at Québec on 7 Jan 1758; André Simon dit Boucher, fils of Annapolis Royal, age 46, at St.-Michel de Bellechasse on 7 Jan 1758; Angélique Richard of Annapolis Royal, age 60, wife of Jean Bastarache who had died on Dec 22, at Québec on 9 Jan 1758; Joseph Savary of Minas and Anse-à-Dubuisson, Île St.-Jean, age 36, son of André who died on Nov 8, at St.-Charles de Bellechasse on 9 Jan 1758; Claude Landry, fils of Annapolis Royal, age 68, at Québec on 11 Jan 1758; Marie-Françoise Roy of Minas, age 54, wife of Étienne Trahan, at St.-Pierre-du-Sud on 12 Jan 1758; Guillaume-Gaspard, infant son of Jacques Levron of Chepoudy, buried at Québec on 13 Jan 1758; René Blanchard, fils, age 33, at Québec on 13 Jan 1758; Antoine Barrieau, fils & his father Antoine, père of Minas & Anse-à-Dubuisson at St.-Charles de Bellechasse on 17 Jan & 22 Jan 1758; René Roy dit Renaud dit Potvin of Annapolis Royal and Île St.-Jean, age 49, son-in-law of Joseph Daigre who died on Dec 7 & younger brother of Marie-Françoise Roy who died on Jan 12, at St.-François-du-Sud on 18 Jan 1758; Étienne Trahan of Minas & Île St.-Jean, age 68, widower of Marie-Françoise Roy, who died a week earlier, at St.-Pierre-du-Sud on 19 Jan 1758; Jeanne Pellerin of Annapolis Royal, age 70, widow of Pierre Surette, at Québec on 27 Jan 1758; Marguerite Doiron of Minas & Île Madame, age 29, sister of Charles III, at Québec on 29 Jan 1758; Pierre Richard, fils of Chignecto, age 30, at Québec on 29 Jan 1758; Marie-Josèphe Landry, age 40, wife of Joseph Raymond of Annapolis Royal, at Québec on 5 Feb 1758; Madeleine Gautrot of Minas & Île St.-Jean, age 58, widow of Joseph Daigre who had died on Dec 7 & mother-in-law of René Roy who died on Jan 18, at St.-Charles de Bellechasse on 10 Feb 1758; Marguerite Melanson of Annapolis Royal, age 74, widow of Jean-Baptiste dit Toc Landry who died on Dec 24 and mother of Marie-Josèphe Landry who died on Feb 5, at Québec on 12 Feb 1758; Jean-Baptiste Trahan of Minas & Île St.-Jean, age 53, brother of Étienne who died on Jan 19, at St.-Charles de Bellechasse, on 14 Feb 1758; Brigitte Landry of Annapolis Royal, age 28, daughter of Marguerite Melanson, at Québec on 15 Feb 1758; Marie Boudrot of Minas & Anse-au-Matelot, age unrecorded, wife of Paul Trahan, brother of Étienne & Jean-Baptiste, at St.-Charles de Bellechasse on 21 Feb 1758; Marie-Madeleine Thibodeau of Annapolis Royal & Île Madame, age 40, widow of Charles Doiron III who died on Jan 7, at Québec on 27 Feb 1758; Marie Girouard & husband Jean Trahan of Minas & Baie-des-Espagnols, brother of Étienne & Jean-Baptiste, at St.-Charles de Bellechasse on 13 & 24 Mar 1758; Cécile-Marguerite Benoit, age 30, of Minas, wife of Joseph LeBlanc, at Québec on 17 Mar 1758; Madeleine Forest of Annapolis Royal, age 48, & wife of Pierre Guilbeau, at St.-Charles de Bellechasse on 27 Mar 1758; Pierre Guilbeau of Annapolis Royal, age 54, at St.-Charles-de-Bellechasse on 3 Apr 1758; Paul Martin of Petitcoudiac or Annapolis Royal, age 40, at St.-Charles de Bellechasse on 6 April 1758; Charles Landry of Annapolis Royal, age 25, son of Marguerite Melanson, at Québec on 8 Apr 1758; François Comeau of Chepoudy, age 58, Jean's brother, at Québec on 28 Apr 1758; Jean Melanson, age 46, of Annapolis Royal, at Québec on 13 May 1758, son of Charles, fils who had died on 19 Sep 1757, brother of Joseph who had died on 1 Oct 1757, & of Anne on 24 Dec 1757, & father of Marguerite & Madeleine, who had died on 11 Dec 1757 & 11 Jan 1758; Pierre le Cadet Prejean of Annapolis Royal on 22 May 1758; Jean-Baptiste Brun of Annapolis Royal, age 42, at Québec on 23 May 1758; Jean-Baptiste Pitre of Annapolis Royal, age 57, at Québec on 8 Jun 1758; & Jean-Baptiste Melanson of Annapolis Royal, age 5, son of Jean Melanson, at Québec on 1 Jul 1758, perhaps among the last of the epidemic's many victims.  See Arsenault, 153, 492, 740, 760, 762, 830, 1033, 1138, 1420, 1444, 1543, 1565, 1567; White, DGFA-1, 66, 81, 116, 126, 128, 207, 210, 257, 292, 295, 373, 376, 385-86, 390, 448-49, 470, 523-24, 535-56, 601, 636, 638, 671, 673, 677, 683-84, 697, 700, 720, 723-24, 735-36, 781, 795, 940, 952, 959, 1094, 1131, 1138, 1155, 1158-59, 1164, 1239, 1279, 1320, 1323-25, 1352, 1379, 1386, 1388-89, 1391, 1393, 1425-26, 1455, 1458, 1469, 1476, 1500, 1516, 1518, 1520, 1538-39, 1541, 1544; Melanson, Melanson-Melançon, 43, 50-53, 68-69; White, DGFA-1 English, 235; Books Three & Six.  132

161.  Quotation from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 371.  See also Delaney, "Chronology of the Deportations"; note 03, above ; Appendix.

162.  See Appendix

163.  See Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 8, 11; Millard, "The Acadians in Virginia," 243; notes 42, 131, 132, & 143, above; Appendix

Brasseaux says 1,500 exiles were sent to VA but does not explain the origin of this grossly inflated number.  Although SC was the destination of more transported exiles--1,167--the terrible death toll aboard the ship Edward Cornwallis on its way to Charleston--210 of the 417 aboard!--placed fewer in that colony than came to VA, where most of the exiles sent there arrived alive if not in good health.  See note 174, below. 

164.  Quotations from Anderson, Crucible of War, 108-09; Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 61-62.  See also Anderson, 761n3; McDonnell, Masters of Empire, 169; Millard, "The Acadians in Virginia," 245-46; Villiers du Terrage, Last Years of French LA, 83; Book Two.

Anderson, 761n3, says:  The Burgesses' bounty on Indians scalps was L10 & "only served to encourage the murder of neutral, Christianized, and friendly Indians and was repealed as having not 'answer(ed) the purposes ... intended,' in 1758." 

165.  Quotation from Millard, "The Acadians in Virginia," 245.  See also Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 381; Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 62; Millard, 256n7; Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 9; notes 43 & 151, above; Appendix

Hodson's quotation from Dinwiddie's letter to Robinson differs a bit from Millard's rendition.  Hodson has the governor protesting how "disagreeable" it is "to have 1000 French imported, when many of the same Nation are committing the most cruel Barbarities on our Fellow Subjects in the back Country."

Wood points out that the 4 deportation transports sent from Minas & Pigiguit to MD arrived about the same time as 5 more transports from Minas reached VA.  He also notes that parcelling out of the exiles to Hampton, Norfolk, & Richmond, but gives no dates. 

166.  Quotations from Millard, "The Acadians in Virginia," 246, 257n7.  See also Millard, 248. 

167.  See note 157, above; Appendix

168.  Quotations from Millard, "The Acadians in Virginia," 257n7. 

169.  Quotations from Millard, "The Acadians in Virginia," 250, 257-58n7.  See also Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 381-82; Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 63; Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 9; note 07, above; Book Two; Appendix

Faragher, 381, says:  "When he [Gov. Dinwiddie] suggested to a number of Acadian leaders the possibility of their settling down as peaceable subjects according to the laws of the colony, they responded that it would not be possible for them to swear allegiance to the British king.  They had been declared French subjects, and insisted on their rights as prisoners of war."  The colonial Council records of Nov 20 & Nov 22 are clear that it was Councilman Ludwell & the colony's commissary, not Gov. Dinwiddie, who addressed the Acadians leaders aboard the vessels, but they refused the oath nonetheless. 

Faragher, 382, also says that "Although the government kept most of the exiles aboard the transports for the winter, apparently some were placed in quarters on land...."  The Council report of Nov 22 hints that most of the exiles were "placed in quarters" at 3 locations & only some of them remained aboard the transports. 

170.  Quotations from Millard, "The Acadians in Virginia," 246.  See also Appendix

171.  Quotations from Millard, "The Acadians in Virginia," 246.  See also Deans, The River Where America Began; Millard, 247; Taylor, A., Internal Enemy, chap. 1; "Winslow's Journal 2," 192; online Wikipedia, "Shawnee"; Book Two.

The small party of "Neutrals ... sent to So. Caro." & taken by the Shawnee to Fort Duquesne likely included Alexandre Broussard dit Beausoleil and his son Victor, who had escaped confinement in SC in the late winter of 1756 & made their way overland to the St. John River valley.  Continuing on to the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore, they reunited with their family & joined the Acadian resistance led by Alexandre's younger brother, Joseph dit Beausoleil.  Or it may have been the Bastarache dit Basque brothers, Michel & Pierre, fils, who also made a successful escape overland from SC about that time.  See notes 193a & 193b, below.  Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 382, in the context of the Acadian sojourn in VA, notes that "Years later, Acadian storytellers told of a small number of young men who managed to escape, trekking overland through forests and across mountains until they found their way to Québec."  One wonders if this is a confusion with the actual escapes overland from SC in early 1756, especially that of the Basque brothers, who indeed were "young men"?  However, a hint that Acadians may have escaped from the VA communities during the exiles' months-long stay there can be found in a 24 May 1756 letter from Dinwiddie to Secretary Robinson, in which the VA governor notes:  "... I hope it will appear more eligible than their remaining here, as it's more than probably they would have found means to have joined the French on the Ohio."  See Millard, 247.   

Acadians would have known blacks & mulattoes among the crews of New-English merchantmen with whom they traded for nearly a century; the rare traveling Acadian merchant would have encountered not only Africans, but also black slaves, in any of the major Anglo-American ports where he would have conducted business; & there were free blacks & mulattoes among the New-English troops that helped round up the Acadians a few months earlier.  See "Winslow's Journal 2"; Books One & Two. 

172.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 382; Millard, "The Acadians in Virginia," 250-51, 254n5, 256n7.  

Perhaps in late winter Dinwiddie was aware that the governors of SC & GA were preparing to allow the Acadians sent to their colonies the previous fall to return to NS via water. 

173.  Quotations from Millard, "The Acadians in Virginia," 246, 255n5.  See also Delaney, "Chronology of the Deportations"; Dodson, Acadian Diaspora, 62; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 382; Millard, 254n5, 256n5. 

Delaney provides the names of the ships & the number of passengers used here.  Faragher gives different, higher numbers, as well as different destinations, for the Acadians going to England:  299 to Bristol, 250 to Falmouth, 340 to Southampton, & 336 to Liverpool, 1,225 in all.  Does this higher number imply that few, if any, Acadians died in VA & that a substantial number of them were born there? 

Dodson states that "By the summer of 1756, none of the eleven hundred refugees sent to Virginia remained.  Nearly a quarter had died of disease and malnutrition."  He must be referring to the large number of deaths in England. 

The first of the Acadians from VA reached Falmouth only a month after Britain declared war on France on 17 May 1756. 

174.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 183; Milling, Exile Without End, 1.  See also Delaney, "Chronology of the Deportations"; Faragher, 371, 383-84; Dodson, Acadian Diaspora, 53-54; Milling, 8, 10; Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," vii, 43-44, 49; notes 107a; 109a, 110, 154, 163, above; Appendix.

Faragher, 383, says the Syren reached SC on Nov 14.  Delaney says the warship reached Charles Town with 4 transports between Nov 15-19.  Dr. Don Landry says the Two Brothers reached Charles Town on Nov 11, but Delaney says it arrived between Nov 15-19 with 3 other transports.  See Appendix Milling says the 4 transports arrived on Nov 17.  Comme çi, comme ça

Rebellion Road is located just outside Charleston Harbor between present-day Fort Sumter & Mount Pleasant, off the northwestern tip of Sullivan's Island.

Milling, 8, says the 4 transports carried "nearly six hundred French people" & "that several children had been born on each ship during the passage." 

Faragher, 384, says Victor Broussard was Joseph dit Beausoleil's son.  See Books Three, Ten, & the Broussard family page for Victor's actual relationship with the resistance leaders.  Strangely, Victoria Musheff places not only Alexandre dit Beausoleil, but also his younger brother Joseph, "in chains to Charlestown."  The only other Broussard sent to SC "in chains" was Alexandre's son Victor.  Back in June, brother Joseph had escaped capture at Chignecto after the fall of Fort Beauséjour & remained in the area leading a stiff resistance.  See Musheff, 61n; Book Two. 

Milling, 10, says that when the master of Two Brothers reported sickness on his vessel, Dr. David Oliphant "was directed to go aboard the transports and make an inspection.  The following day, Dec 3, he reported that only a few appeared sickly and they 'all were free of any contagious or malignant distemper.'"

175.  Quotations from Milling, Exile Without End, 1-2.  See also Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 383-84; Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," vii, 44; note 43, above. 

The Baltimore, under Captain T. Owen, did not leave Annapolis Basin until Dec 8 with 7 transports bound for CN, NY, NC, & SC.  The Baltimore went to NY before going to SC.  See note 138, above; Appendix

Faragher, 383, says Gov. Glen "had little or no warning of their coming." 

Milling, 16, says the Assembly's "emergency appropriation" for the exiles was not approved until Nov 22.  Milling adds:  "Subsequent appropriatons were made, but never without argument." 

176.  Quotation from Milling, Exile Without End, 8.  See also Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," viii-x, xx, 38-42, 45. 

It was true that the great majority of the exiles who had come to SC "had been born under the British flag," that these "Frenchmen" were sympathetic to "the French cause" & would cling with all their might to the Roman Catholic faith.  Musheff is especially detailed in describing the anti-Catholic feelings of the people of SC. 

177.  Quotations from Milling, Exile Without End, 8; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 384.  See also Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," 45-46; note 169, above; Book Two.

178.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 384; Milling, Exile Without End, 9.  See also Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," 45-46. 

179.  Quotations from Milling, Exile Without End, 9.  See also Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 384-85; Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 57; Milling, 14; Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," 44-47; Appendix.

According to Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 13, the Acadians stayed aboard the transports at Rebellion Road "for nearly one month."  They were still there on Dec 3 & "were soon expected to be allowed on shore," which they did on Dec 4.  See Milling, 10; note 174, above. 

180.  Quotation from Milling, Exile Without End, 9.  See also Milling, 40-42; notes 42 & 174, above. 

181.  See Milling, Exile Without End, 40; White, DGFA-1, 513-26. 

Milling first provides the given & family names of the heads of household as recorded by the ship's clerk, followed by his rendition of the names, some of which also are in error & are corrected here. 

Milling translates Duram/Duran to Durand, but it likely was Doiron, a prominent family at Chignecto whose members possessed the given names listed here.  Peter Gold was not a Gourde but another Doiron--Pierre dit Pitre dit Gould.  See White, especially 518; Books Two & Three.   

182.  See Milling, Exile Without End, 41; Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," 49. 

Was Louis a surname or a given name for Jean?  Quessy is Caissie, followed here.  Who were the progenitors of the Demers, Fournier, and Mayer or Douaire families at Chignecto, or are these misspellings? 

Milling, 10, says the master of the Cornwallis "reported three fatalities" on the voyage, but the difference in numbers between the number who left the Annapolis Basin--417--& the number counted at Rebellion Road--207--hinted at many more deaths on that vessel during the voyage.  See Appendix

183.  See Milling, Exile Without End, 42; note 75, above. 

Who were the progenitors of the Aubin, Blanchet, Grenon, Jeanveau or Juneau, Ouellette, & Trudeau families at Chignecto, or are these misspellings?  They sound more like Canadian than Acadian surnames. 

184.  See Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 38; Ekberg, "Peyroux de La Coudreniere," in DLB, 647; Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 204; Mouhot, "Emigration of the Acadians from France to LA," 134n5; note 12, above; Book Six. 

185.  Quotations from Lockerby, Deportation of the PEI Acadians, 6-7; Akins, ed., Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 280.  See also Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 8; "Census for Ile Royale by Sr de la Rocque," <acadian-home.org>; Delaney, "Chronology of the Deportations"; De La Roque "Tour of Inspection," Canadian Archives 1905, 2A:5-165; <islandregister.com/1752.html.>; Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 219; LeBlanc, R.-G., "Acadians in Halifax & on Georges Island," 6; Rodger, "Rousseau de Villejouin (Villejoin, Villejoint), Gabriel," DCB, online; note 156, above; Books Two, Four, & Ten; Villejoin family page.   

186.  See Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 11-12, 37, 136-37, 144-46, 170; <museeacadien.ca/english/archives/articles/72.htm>; Book Two; Surette family page.

Until Canadian historian Ronnie-Gilles LeBlanc finishes his book on the Acadian resistance in the Gulf of St. Lawrence region, which will include much on Beausoleil Broussard, we must depend on Dianne Marshall's work, which, as said before, contains no citations for her narrative. 

187.  Quotations from Milling, Exile Without End, 9-10; Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," 38.  See also Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 57-58; Milling, 17; Musheff, 35, 43-47; note 179, above.

Milling, 10, 17, names the commanders of the guard units who escorted the exiles thru the city & who guarded them later--LT Moses Haskell of COL Shirley's Regiment of the Independent Companies was the escort, & detachments under William Wilkins, John Raven Bedon, & Joseph Lloyd provided the barracks guards. 

188.  Quotations from Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," 44, 47.  See also Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 57; Musheff, 46; note 179, above. 

189.  Quotations from Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," 47-48.  See also Milling, Exile Without End, 10, 12, 15. 

Milling,  10, places Captain Proby of the HMS Syren in the debate over the status of the exiles. 

190.  See Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 58; Milling, Exile Without End, 10, 12; Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," 48-49; note 138, above; Appendix

One source, Dr. Don Landry, says the Hobson began its voyage from Halifax.  Other sources are followed here.  The Hobson's late arrival, compared to its 4 sister transports from Chignecto, was due to the slower pace of rounding up Acadians in the Annapolis River valley & placing them aboard ship.  See, for example, note 138a, above.  Like the master of the Two Brothers, the master of the Hobson provided no passenger list for SC authorities.  Musheff, following Milling, Exile Without End, 11, calls the Hobson the Hopson.  Hodson also uses that spelling.  See a Appendix, Dr. Landry's work, for the spelling followed here. 

191.  Quotations from Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," 49; Milling, Exile Without End, 12.  See also Milling 10-11, 16; Musheff, 48. 

Milling, 12, says that the Hobson's master, Edward Whitewood, upon learning of the relunctance of the SC Assembly to accept the Acadians aboard his vessel, threatened to land them "whether authorized to do so or not ..." and "protest against his employer [the Boston mercantile firm of Apthorp & Hancock] and also against the South Carolina government and set out immediately for England" once his Acadians were landed.  "This threatening attitude did no good," Milling notes, but the Acadians were soon landed. 

It was ironic that so few of the Hobson exiles died on the voyage down from Annapolis but "many of them" lost their lives in the quarantine camp. 

192.  Quotations from Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," 52-53; Milling Exile Without End, 11-12.  See also Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 57-58; note 196, below. 

193.  Quotations from Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," 53-54.  See also Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 57; Milling, Exile Without End, 17; Musheff, 67

Milling, 11, details a verbal confrontation between a Charles Town baker named St. Martin & an unnamed Acadian who had protested about the exiles' treatment at the hands of local officials, an incident serious enough to come to the governor's and the Assembly's attention.  Milling's recounting reveals Glen's sympathy for the suffering exiles.  "'These poor people,'" Glen told the legislators, "'are in the depth of distress; some of them cannot work, and no doubt it ought to be a great addition to their miseries to receive such a message from the Commissary .... but this little man thinks it criminal in them to breathe a sigh upon the occasion.  I am apt to think if Monsieur St. Martin had been in that Person's place, his groans would have been a little louder....  Upon my word it is the moaning of a Dove to what, I am convinced this fierce little Barber would have bellowed forth upon such provocation.  Gentlemen," the governor urged the Assembly, "something must be done for this people, and that speedily." 

193a.  Quotations from Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 55, 57; Milling, Exile Without End, 12; Brasseaux,"Scattered to the Wind," 13; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 385, 388.  See also Faragher, 383-84; Milling, 10, 13; note 174, above; Books One, Three, Six, & Ten. 

Milling, 10, speculates that the 21 exiles held on the Syren, "'deemed more guilty in their conduct towards his Majesty's Subjects in Nova Scotia than any of the other Acadians who had been sent from thence,'" likely "were possibly some of the delegates who had been imprisoned for petitioning Governor Lawrence, or they may have been among those who had fought with the French under compulsion at Beauséjour."  For the actual fate of the Acadian delegates impressed at Halifax, who were returned to their families before Lawrence's transports left NS, see note 99, above.  Around 300 Acadians are said to have fought with the French at Beauséjour, so that was a fairly large group of miscreants from which to choose.  See Book Two. 

Milling 12, identifies the plantation on the Santee River near Maxwell's Bluff pillaged by the Broussard escapees.  One wonders who the Broussards' fellow escapees might have been.  Milling adds that Alexandre & son Victor were "doubtless kinsmen of the intrepid Michel Brossard who, hiding in the woods of Acadia, vowed vengeance against the English and slew twenty-eight of them before he was himself killed."  However, the extended family of François Brossard/Broussard & Catherine Richard, the Beausoleil brothers' parents, contains no son or grandson or great-grandson named Michel.  Moreover, François & his progeny were the only Broussards who settled in greater Acadia.  See White, DGFA-1, 284-88; Book Three. 

The author is proud to say that he is a direct descendant of both of the Beausoleil Broussard brothers. 

193b.  Quotations from Corinne LaPlante, "Michel Bastarache dit LeBasque," in DCB, online.  See also Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 388; Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 49; Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," 61; note 174, above; Books Three, Six, & Ten. 

Unlike the Broussards, neither of the Basque brothers or any member of their immediate family settled in LA.  After the war, the brothers remained in greater Acadia, in NS & NB.  Three of their female cousins, however, did go to LA, with their Mouton husbands from Chignecto.  See Books Three, Six, Eight, & Ten.  

193c.  Quotations from Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 13.  See also Milling, Exile Without End, 12-13, 27. 

194.  See Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 11; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 385; Appendix

195.  Quotations from Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 11-12; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 385.  See also Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 58.

196.  Quotations from Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," 55; Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 13-14.  See also Brasseaux, 12; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 386; Milling, Exile Without End, 15, 17; Musheff, 56-58; notes 153 & 173, above; Book One. 

Glen's replacement as governor was appointed in 1755, a dozen years after Glen's arrival in the colony, but the replacement did not reach the colony until Jun 1756.  See note 203, below. 

Glen's most controversial act of Acadian "re-deportation" was sending a number of Acadians to London as "criminals," only 2 of them named in colonial records:  Bernard Goudier, perhaps Gaudet, & Joseph LeBlanc, "of Beaubassin," perhaps the "Joseph Lablong" on the Endeavor.  Musheff in her narrative does not detail the charges against these men.  See pp. 57-58; note 183, above.  Milling, 15, 17, says that Glen sent 13 "dangerous" Acadians to England, though he gives no dates for their departure.  Two of them were indeed Bernard Gontier/Gaudet, & Joseph LeBlanc, a common name among the exiles, so one wonders which of them was re-deported.  "Both were natives of Beaubassin," Milling adds on p. 15, which means they had arrived in the first contingent of exiles from Chignecto, not aboard the Hobson.  Milling, 15, notes that, according to "the Honorable Henry Fox, Esquire," probably Britain's current Southern Secretary, sending these men to England was a violation of British policy.  Milling, 17, adds that all of the "dangerous" Acadians sent to England "were single men selected from among the special prisoners aboard the Syren."  Again, he gives no dates for the re-deportation. 

One suspects that the vessels the SC exiles built or rebuilt were not "canoes," as Musheff say, but rather "small sailing vessels" similar to the boats their GA compatriots' resurrected, perhaps aging fishing trawlers or coasting vessels the French called chaloupes and the English shallops.  Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 59-60, however, in describing the GA venture, also calls the coasting vessels "canoes." 

197.  Quotations from Milling, Exile Without End, 14; Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 12; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 386.  See also Brasseaux, 14; Faragher, 385, 387; Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 59-60; note 173, above; Books One, Three, Six, & Ten. 

Milling called Vigneau Jacques Maurice or Morris.  Jacques-Maurice's family also is called Vigneau dit Maurice, after his father.  See Book Three. 

Milling, 14, mentions passports given by Gov. Glen at Charlestown not only to the Vigneau & Bourgeois parties, but also to "four families" from GA.  Was this the Cormier-Landry-Poirier-Richard party?  See note 198, below. 

Milling, 27, says that, in addition to the GA voyagers, "two other parties, one of fifty and another of eighty left early in May, 1756," implying that these were SC exiles. 

198.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 387.  See also Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 60. 

Among the Acadians in the GA contingent who landed at Long Island & were held in NY were the party led by Michel Bourgeois, as well as 4 Chignecto families--Cormiers, Landrys, Poiriers, & Richards--who would become the first documented Acadian exiles to resettle in LA, in 1764.  See note 197, above, & 222a, below; Books Three, Six, Eight, & Ten. 

199.  Quotation from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 387-88.  See also Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Winds," 14

200.  Quotation from Akins, ed., Papers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia, 280.  See also Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 8; Delaney, "Chronology of the Deportations"; Guidry, "Guédrys Exiled to North Carolina" in The Guédry-Labine Family website [no longer accessible]; Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 219; LeBlanc, R.-G., "Acadians in Halifax & on Georges Island," 6; note 99, above; Appendix; Books Two & Ten. 

LeBlanc, R.-G., 6n17, notes:  "Information provided by Stephen White, that these 50 Acadian women and men were counted in the victualing list of the settlers at Lunenburg in 1755...." 

LeBlanc, R.-G., 6, has Lawrence instructing Samuel Barron of the Providence on Oct 3 to provide "each passenger ... a pound of beef, two pounds of bread, and five pounds of flour per week."  This also follows the copy of Lawrence's Oct 3 letter in Jehn, cited above.  Delaney, without documentation, says the Providence left Halifax on Dec 30.   LeBlanc, R.-G., 6n17, citing a primary source, says the Providence sailed from Halifax on Nov 15 & reached NC on 13 Jan 1756. 

This author is proud to say that some of his direct ancestors were among the Acadians who were sent to NC aboard the Providence.

201.  See Guidry, "Guédrys Exiled to North Carolina" in The Guédry-Labine Family website [no longer accessible]; notes 241, 243 & 254, below

202.  Quotations from Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 60; Milling, Exile Without End, 14-15. 

203.  Quotations from Milling, Exile Without End, 17.  See also Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Winds," 15; Alexander Moore, "Lyttelton, William Henry," in online South Carolina Encyclopedia, www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/lyttelton-william-henry/; Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," 54-55, 66-67. 

Note the true spelling of Lyttelton's name, which Musheff renders as "Lyttleton." 

204.  Quotations from Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 61; Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," 91; Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 12.  See also Hodson, 63. 

205.  Quotations from Milling, Exile Without End, 16-18; Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," 61.  See also Musheff, 68; Books Three & Six. 

For the complete list of Acadians "Incapable of Labor on January 29, 1756," see Table Two, Musheff, 95-96.  Musheff, 76, notes that "By January 29, 1756, legislators avowed only to support those types of persons [infirm, elderly, and not employable] on the public dole.  Of the approximately 1,027 Acadians exiled to the colony, by that date, 134 men, women and children--thirteen percent--fell into [the] technical definition of public dependents who were unable to work. ...  Of the 134 Acadians deemed incapable of supporting themselves, three were widows and two were women whose status clerks did not clearly define in the record.  In total, 31 men, 17 wives, and 81 children were listsed."   

Musheff, 72, found evidence from the extant records of Prince Frederick Winyah parish "It appears that at least in the very beginning, Carolinians made every effort to keep families together," & that "St. Stephen's Vestry Minues confirm this impression."  See Musheff, 97, & note 209, below, for the location of these parishes. 

207.  Quotation from Milling, Exile Without End, 19.  See also Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 15. 

208.  Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," chap. 3, offers a detailed analysis of the SC colony's "primary institution for social welfare and relief" into which the Acadians were thrown.  Quotations from pp. 62-64. 

209.  See Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," chap. 3.  Quotations from Musheff, 68-69.  See Musheff, 70, for an example of an unnamed Acadian being reduced to servitude. 

For the SC church parishes to which Acadians were sent, see the list of "South Carolina's Acadian Disposal Act by Parish" in Table Three, Musheff, 96-97, & the "Map of South Carolina Parishes," Musheff, 97; Milling, Exile Without End, 20.  Musheff, 68, says that "According to assembly minutes, leaders dispersed approximately 645 Acadians with 129 of that number assigned to the Charlestown parishes."  So, close enough.  Milling, 22, shows 137 Acadians--32 men, 33 women, 40 boys, & 32 boys--intended for St. Philip's Parish, Charles Town; they were housed "at the Old School House.." 

210.  Quotations from Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," 70-71; Milling, Exile Without End, 21.  See also Books Three, Six, & Ten. 

Musheff, 72, says "Six of the thirty Acadians," not 8, "sent to Prince Frederick Winyah in the summer of 1756 were dead within a few months of arrival."  See Musheff, 72-74, for examples of the care, including medical care, of Acadians in the records of several SC vestries, including those in Charles Town.

211.  Quotations by Musheff,  "Exile: Acadians in SC," 78-79.  See also Milling, Exile Without End, 22-24, 27; Musheff, 77. 

212.  Quotations from Milling, Exile Without End, 23; Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," 79.  See also Milling, 24. 

213.  Quotations from Milling, Exile Without End, 24; Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," 82.  See also Books Two, Three, & Ten. 

Milling, 24, in detailing where the Acadians lived in 1760, says the brick tenement was at "Froth Point," not Trotts Point. 

214.  See Milling, Exile Without End, 24; Musheff,  "Exile: Acadians in SC," 81; note 160, above.

215.  Quotations from Milling, Exile Without End, 24-26; Musheff,  "Exile: Acadians in SC," 81.  See also Milling, 26; Musheff, 83-85.   www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/lyttelton-william-henry/

Musheff, 84, notes:  "Like Governor Glen before him, [Lt.-Gov.] Bull had come to consider the French Catholics as objects of compassion rather than a public danger to be contained during war against France."  

216.  Quotation from Milling, Exile Without End, 26.  See also Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," 83-88. 

Musheff, 86-88, details the care of orphans in SC & the fate of Acadian orphans Paul Chiasson of Chignecto, who had come to the colony with his parents aboard the Edward Cornwallis in 1755, & siblings Joseph & Marguerite Orillon, all of whom ended up in LA in 1765 via French St.-Domingue.  See also Books Three, Six, Eight, & Ten. 

217.  See Anderson, Crucible of War, Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," 85, 88-89. 

218.  Quotations from Milling, Exile Without End, 26.  See also Milling, 27; Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," 85, 89n406; note 197, above. 

219.  See www.battefields.org/learn/primary-sources/treaty-parish-1763 for a full copy of the treaty; Books Seven. 

220.  Quotations from Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," 88; Brasseaux, Founding of New Acadia, 45.  See also Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 423-24; Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 96; Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 28

220a.  Quotations from Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," 88-89. 

220b.  See Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 223-28, for facsimiles of the Aug 12 list, & 232-36, for typed copies of that list, including, on p. 236, Beraier's certification.  

Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC, 89, gives the "tally of two hundred and eight individuals including children--many orphans," in the Aug 12 counting. 

221.  Quotations from Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," 90-91, 93. 

Jehn, Acadians Exiles in the Colonies, 229-30, provides a facsimile copy of the Aug 23 list, & pp. 232-32, is a typed copy of that list.  Musheff, 89, especially 89n406, explains her reasoning for the true nature of the Aug 23 list.  In an Appendix, pp. 107-09, she included a facsimile of the GA Acadians' long letter to Nivernois, in its original French, that accompanied the Aug 23 list. 

For the fate of Olivier Landry & his family "at Port Royale" & 3 related families counted at Charles Town--that of Jean-[Baptiste] Cormier, his wife & 5 children; Jean-[Baptiste] Richard, his wife, & 4 children; & Jean Poirier, his wife, & 3 children--23 in all--see note 222a, below. 

222.  Quotations from Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," 91; Milling, Exile Without End, 27.  See also Musheff, 90, 94; Wood, Frenchified Maryland, chap. 4; notes 174, 194, & 196, above.

222a.  See Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 198; Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 229-32; Milling, Exile Without End, 14; note 197, above; Books Three, Six, Seven, Eight, & Ten.

By the time the 4 families reached New Orleans in Feb 1764, French LA, officially, was no more.  Nearly a year & a half earlier, in the Treaty of Fontainbleu in Nov 1762, outside of Paris, Franch had given LA colony west of the Mississippi to its wartime ally Spain.  The first Spanish governor did not reach New Orleans until Mar 1766, 2 years after the 4 families had settled on the river above the city.  See Book Eight. 

223.  Quotations from Milling, Exile Without End, 31; Musheff, "Exile: Acadians in SC," 93.  See also Milling, 1011, 30, 48; Musheff, 92, 94; Books Three, Six, Eight, & Ten; Lanoux family page.

Musheff, 91, calls Basile's mother Mary.  Arsenault's genealogy is followed here.

Milling, 48, includes Bazile Lanneau's fulsome epitaph at the Circular Congregational Church--the Old White Meeting House--in Charleston, SC. 

224.  Quotation from Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 11.  See also Wood, Frenchified Maryland, 1: 124-26; online Wikipedia, "History of Maryland"; online Wikipedia, "Charles Carroll of Carrollton.   

225.  See Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 8; notes 122 & 130, above; Appendix

226.  See Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 15; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 370-71; Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 8-9; Appendix.   

Brasseaux gives the arrival dates of the 4 transports as Sep 20 & 30, which would not have been possible.  See Appendix, Dr. Don Landry's work, for the dates used here.  Landry says Elizabeth arrived at Wicomico River (but doesn't say which one) on Nov 20, implying that the ship went there first.  Wood, 9, says the Leopard reached Annapolis first, on Nov 24.  Landry has the Pigiguit ships arriving together on Nov 30, but Wood, 9, has Dolphin arriving on that date with Elizabeth, which, considering its sojourn in Boston, is unlikely.  Wood does not give the date for the Ranger's arrival but, on p. 9, calls it "the second boat in the harbor at Annapolis," which would put it behind the Leopard, also unlikely. 

227.  Quotations from Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 9.  See also Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 15-16; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 371; Wood, 10. 

Wood calls the master of the Dolphin Farnam, not Forman, the latter used here from Dr. Landry's work. 

228.  Quotations from Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 10-11.  See also Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 375, 446-47; Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 63; Wood, 12-13.

229.  Quotation from Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 16 See also Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 375, 446-48; Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 22.  

230.  Quotations from Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 16-17; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 376.  See also Faragher, 375; Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 150-58; Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 14-16, 19-22. 

Wood, 19-22, includes the entire "Act to Empower...."

For a map of the 11 "Areas of Acadian Exile, 1763," see Wood, 16. 

231.  Quotations from Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 17-18; Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 24.  See also Wood, 22. 

232.  Quotations from Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 18.  See also Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 23-24, which offers a scathing rebuke of the Acadians in Talbot County (around Oxford) in Feb 1757, including Acadians' celebration of French victories, which were frequent at the time. 

Élisabeth, daughter of Pierre Thibodeau and Ann-Marie Aucoin of Annapolis Royal, married, at age 21, Cosme, son of Mathieu Brasseur dit Brasseaux and Jeanne Célestin dit Bellemère, at Grand Pré in January 1738.  She gave him at least 7 children, 2 sons & five daughters, between 1742 & 1755.  Her husband died either at Grand-Pré on the eve of deportation, during the voyage to MD, or, more likely, soon after reaching that colony.  Older son Pierre married a Richard in MD.  Élisabeth & her children, including her married son & his wife, were parcelled out to Georgetown, far up the Eastern Shore, near the PA border, where they appeared on a repatriation list in July 1763.  Family legend says that Élisabeth was one of the poor Acadian widows forced to beg door-to-door.  The entire family came to LA from Baltimore in 1767 & settled at San Gabriel on the river above New Orleans.  Élisabeth died "sometime before 1773," in her 50s.  After her death, her younger son Blaise resettled on the Opelousas prairies, where he married a Prejean.  Older son Pierre remained on the river.  See Books Three, Six, Eight, & Ten; Brasseaux family page. 

233.  Quotations from Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 11-13.  See also Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 151-51a; Wood, 10, 14; note 228, above. 

234.  Quotations from Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 22, 25.  See also Wood, 6, 24, 26, 28; online Wikitree, "Charles Carroll (1702-1782)," "Charles Carroll (1737-1832)"; online Wikipedia, "Charles Carroll of Carollton"; online Wikipedia, "John Carroll (archbishop).

235.  Quotations from Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 26-27.  See also Wood, 29-30; Books One & Two. 

In French Acadia & British NS, Catholics & their priests were subject to the supervision of the Bishop of Québec, the first of whom, François de Laval, had taken his seat in 1659, nearly a century before the Acadians' Great Upheaval.  See Book One. 

236.  Quotation from Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 27.  See also Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 18; Jehn, Acadians Exiles in the Colonies, 130-58; Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 28; Wood, 28.  See also note 220, above. 

The count in Wood, 27-28, which breaks down orphans, widowers, and widows, gives 798 total persons in the July 1763 count. 

Wood, 70-186, is a detailed analysis of the MD repatriation list of 7 Jul 1763 with Acadian families listed alphabetically. 

Brasseaux insists that, "Victims of malnutrition and epidemic diseases, Maryland's Acadian community had actually declined by twenty-seven percent (913 to 667) between 1755 and 1763."  Using the number 790 from the repatriation list, the decline from 1755 would have been ... 13 and a half percent.  Where did he get the figure of 667 for 1763? 

237.  Quotations from Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 28-29.  See also Wood, Frenchified Maryland, chap. 4; note 222, above. 

238.  See Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 30-31. 

239.  See Bourgeois, Cabanocey, 14; Brasseaux, ed., Quest for the Promised Land, 77-78; Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 18; <thecajuns.com>, "Arrival of the Acadians in Louisiana"; Fortier, Louisiana, 1:153; Usner, Lower Miss. Valley Before 1783, 119-20; Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 14-15, 31; Appendix.  See also Brasseaux, ed., 79-80; Appendix; Books Six & Eight. 

Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," insists that "by the mid-1760s, the surviving Acadians desperately longed for an opportunity to leave the site of their captivity, while the native Marylanders were equally anxious to see them leave."  He adds that "Those burdened with large families, particularly widows, often joined the exodus by virtue of subsidied granted by local government bodies," implying that the exiles had become recognized members of their community, but perhaps also affirming the eagerness of the locals to see them gone. 

Usner hints that the Acadians from MD may have been assisted in their passage to LA by the Spanish.  He states, on 119-20:  "Reporting on the arrival of some two hundred Acadians in September 1766, Louisiana's first Spanish governor [Ulloa] minimized the returns that one should expect from the money spent to assist their passage:  'They are not able to cultivate indigo nor tobacco without having first a competent number of negroes to do the work and they will be reduced to owning a few animals and to cultivating grains and roots for their own consumption, with which they will be rich as far as they are personally concerned but will not enrich the colony nor contribute to the growth of its commerce, because it will never get beyond producing wood, indigo of very poor quality, and tobacco in small quantities and of ordinary quality.'"  Nowhere in Ulloa's statement does it say that the Spanish paid for the passage of the MD Acadians to LA, so this may have been Usner's assumption. 

240.  See Voorhies, J., Some Late Eighteenth-Century Louisianians, 426; Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 31, 111-12; Appendix; Books Three, Six, Eight, & Ten; David family page. 

241.  Quotations from Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 31-33.  See also Appendix; Appendix; Books Six & Eight. 

Wood, 31-33, contains the entire complaint of the Baltimoreans to Gov. Sharpe in spring 1767, as well as the petition of the Acadians from Frederickton in Cecil County in Mar 1767. 

For the vessel taken by the Jul 1767 arrivals from Baltimore, see Wood, 33.   The Virgin, like earlier expeditions from Halifax & MD to LA, did not sail directly to New Orleans but went to "Guárico," the older, Indian/Spanish name for Cap-Français, French St.-Domingue, where the Acadians lingered for 17 days, before they sailed on to New Orleans.  The voyage from Baltimore to New Orleans lasted a very long 78 days.  See Voorhies, J., Some Late Eighteenth-Century Louisianians, 430, quoting a Spanish official, who notes:  "That during the 78 days of navigation (including the 17 days at Guárico) from the harbor of Baltimore, Province of Maryland till here [New Orleans], Armand Hébert, head of a family and Maria Landry, a child, died and Oliver Babin and Margarita Hernandez were born."  It is entirely possible that Acadians wanting to leave St.-Domingue came to LA with this group as well.  See online Wikipedia, "Cap-Haïtian"; Appendix.

242.  Quotations from Kinnaird, "The Revolutionary Period, 1765-81, xvii; Brasseaux, ed., Quest for the Promised Land, 93.  See also Book Eight.

243.  Quotations from Brasseaux, ed., Quest for the Promised Land, 110; Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 34.  See also Wood, 35; Appendix; Appendix; Book Eight. 

Stanley LeBlanc's <thecajuns.com>, "Arrival of the Acadians in Louisiana," does not name their ship, nor does he mention who their leaders were, but he does cite a Pennsylvania Gazette article of 8 Apr 1768, which says the ship carrying the "neutrals from Maryland" was a brig under Captain Rider.  Brasseaux, Founding of New Acadia, 82, says the party led by Alexis & Honoré Breau reached New Orleans in Feb aboard the Guinea.  Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 34, concludes that it was the Jane.  Voorhies, J., Some Late Eighteenth-Century Louisianians, 200, offers a copy of "a consular certificate granted at N. Potomack, Maryland to the vessel Jane sailing to the Mississippi with 'one hundred and fifty French neutrals with baggages,' December 17, 1767."  The ship reached New Orleans the following Feb.  In a letter to his superior, the Marqués de Grimaldi, dated 11 Feb 1768, Gov. Ulloa mentions "the recently arrived Acadians."  See Kinnaird, "The Revolutionary Period, 1765-81," 40.

Also accompanying the Breau party from MD was James Walker, who came to LA to scout out possible settlements for English Catholics.  A letter from MD Catholic leader Henry Jerningham , M.D., dated 14 Dec 1767, introducing Walker to LA Gov. Ulloa, indicates that the ship carrying Walker, & probably also the Breau party, left MD soon after that date.  See Kinnaird, "The Revolutionary Period, 1765-81," 39; note 244, below.

244.  Quotations from Kinnaird, "The Revolutionary Period, 1765-81," 39, 137-38; Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 34.  See also Brasseaux, Founding of New Acadia, 104; De Quesada, Spanish Colonial Fortifications in North America, 46-47; Kinnaird, 135, 139; Oubre, Vacherie, 76; Wood, 35-36; Appendix; Appendix; note 243, above. 

Wood, 36, cites a letter from O'Reilly to his superior, in which he recounts the distribution of the Germans & Acadians, & also says:  "'The English families have returned to Pensacola.  They were mere vagrants."  This does not sound like Anglos from Maryland but rather Anglos from "next door" in British West Florida who evidently tried to settle in Spanish LA. 

245.  See Brasseaux, Founding of New Acadia, 104, 105n22; Brasseaux, "Grand Texas," 274; Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 67; Burton & Smith, Colonial Natchitoches, 147; Kinnaird, "The Revolutionary Period, 1765-81," 129, 132, 135, 140, 142. 

246.  See Brasseaux, Founding of New Acadia, 89, 104; Kinnaird, "The Revolutionary Period, 1765-81," 146-47; Appendix; Book Eight. 

247.  Quotations from Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 40-42.  See also Wood, 37-39, 43-59; note 235, above. 

For individual names from the 1 Jul 1763 repatriation list, see Wood, 70-186.  See also Wood, chaps. 3-6, for more information on Acadians individuals in MD from 1756 to the early 1800s.

248.  See Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 19; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 376; online Wikipedia, "History of Pennsyvlania"; Book Two. 

249.  See Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 370; Appendix; notes 107a & 109a, above. 

250.  Quotations from Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 19; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 376; Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 64. See also Hodson, 66-67; notes 31 & 189, above. 

Province Island is the location of today's Philadelphia International Airport. 

For details on abolitionist Anthony Benezet & his affinity with the Acadians, see Hodson, 67. 

251.  Quotations from Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 19-20.  See also Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 376-77; Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 64; Books One & Two.

Galerne had been a delegate from Pigiguit to the colonial Council in Halifax before the deportation.  For his exploits there, see Hodson, 64-66; Book Two. 

Faragher, 376, says the act came in Feb, but Brasseaux, 19, gives the exact date of 5 Mar 1756. 

252.  See Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 38; Mouhot, "Emigration of the Acadians from France to LA," 133-67; Winzerling, Acadian Odyssey; note 184, above; Appendix; Books Six & Eight.  

253.  Quotations from Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 20-21; Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 67-69.  See also Brasseaux, 22; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 376-77, 380-81, 444; Hodson, 64, 70.

The Alexis Thibodeau who tussled with the Pennsylania leadership in 1757 may have been the father of Henry Schuyler Thibodaux of LA political fame.  See Books Three, Eight, Ten; Thibodeaux family page. 

The 5 Acadian leaders arrested by the commander-in-chief were Galerne, Charles LeBlanc, Philippe Melançon, Paul Bugeaud, & Jean Landry.  See Brasseaux, 73n41; Faragher, 381.  Brasseaux, 21, notes:  "Though these Acadian prisoners were subsequently acquitted, released, and returned to Philadelphia, their absence deprived the exiles of their spokesmen." 

254.  See Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Winds," 22; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 423, 425-26; Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 213-18; Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 28; note 201, above. 

255.  Quotations from Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 22.  See also Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 431-32. 

256.  Quotations from Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 22.  See also Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 371-72; Appendix; note 138, above. 

Faragher calls the Experiment the Experience.  Dr. Don Landry's work in Appendix is followed here. 

257.  Quotation from Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 23.  See also Brasseaux, 22; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 387; Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 60; Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 25-26; Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 82; note 198, above. 

258.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 375-76; Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 23.  See also Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 82. 

259.  See Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 191-93; Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 28; White, DGFA-1, lix. 

260.  Quotaton from Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 23.  See also Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 430-31; Books Six & Eight; notes 197 & 255, above. 

Faragher, 430, says the 4 families spent 7 years in GA, which means he does not buy their being among the GA voyagers who landed at NY in 1756.  See note 198, above

261.  Quotation from Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 23.  See also Brasseaux, 24; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 370-72; Appendix; note 256, above

Faragher, 372, says the Dove, "one of the vessels assigned to pick up the last contingent of inhabitants from Minas in December 1755, "was apparently lost at sea--at least there is no record of its arrival in Connecticut," so, on p. 375, he gives the total number of Acadians who reached the colony as 630.  Dr. Don Landry's work in Appendix says otherwise about the fate of the Dove & is followed here.  See also note 143, above.  Brasseaux, 24, in saying that the 666 Acadians on the repatriation list compiled in CN in 1763 were "91 percent of the Acadians known to have been sent to that colony," seems to agree with the addition of the Dove's complement to the total number of exiles who went to CN. 

262.   Quotations from Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 23-24. See also Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 375. 

263.  See Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 24; Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 199-206; White, DGFA-1, lix. 

264.  Quotations from Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 24.  See also Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 28; Appendix; Books Three, Six, Eight, & Ten. 

265.  Quotations from Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 25; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 371.  See also Faragher, 370, 373, 387; LeBlanc, R.-G., "Miramichi," 7; Lockerby, Deportation of the PEI Acadians, xiii; Book Two; note 198, above, & note 315, below. 

Amazingly, the masters of the 5 transports from which exiles were removed at Boston protested the removal, reminding the colonial authorities that they would be paid for how many exiles were delivered at their ports of destination.  It took Benjamin Green, a visiting member of the NS colonial Council, to agree that the NS Council would compensate the masters for all of the exiles removed from the overloaded transports at Boston.  Only then did the masters allow the removal.  See Faragher, 71; note 03, above. 

266.  Quotations from Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 25; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 373.  See also Faragher, 360; Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 4, 29-30, 70; note 42, above; Books One & Two. 

267.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 373-75, 378-80.  See also Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 25-26; Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 71-72; notes 209, 230, & 262, above. 

Hodson, 71, gives the number 98.  Lists found in Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 35-118, & included here, provide 104 separate, identifiable towns, including Boston, where Acadians could be found.  See below. 

268.  Quotations from Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 26-27; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 388-90.  See also Faragher, 391; Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 72-78. 

Hodson is especially good at showing the darker side of Yankee-Acadian relations, as well as the nuances of the Parkman-LeBlanc friendship.  Faragher, 391, calls Simon LeBlanc's wife Jeanne Dupuis.  Hodson, 74, calls her Magdeleine.  See Book Three for Simon LeBlanc's wife's actual name, Jeanne Dupuis.  Magdeleine was the name of one of their daughters. 

269.   See Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 35-40, 45-47; Book Three. 

270.  See Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 73-82; Book Three. 

271.  See notes 36, 43, 74, 76, 81, 83, 85a, 86, 104, 148, & 149, above; Book Two. 

272. See Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 51-69; Book Three. 

273.  See Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 87-98; Book Three. 

274.  See Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 103-10; Book Three. 

275.  See Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 113-18; Book Three.

275a.  See Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Winds," 27; Braud, From Nantes to LA, 18; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 422-23; Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 28

275b.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 420-21; Buggey, "Belcher," in DCB, online.  See also Faragher, 422; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 189-91; note 01, above. 

Marshall, 191, without citing her source, says the 5 transports from Halifax carried "1,200 Acadian prisoners in their holds" but does not say if they included women & children.  Faragher, 421, followed here, does cite sources for his assertions--many of them. 

In 1761, between the fall of Montréal & Restigouche in the fall of 1760 & the French attack on St. John's, Newfoundland, in the summer of 1762, while the war was still on, Col. Richard Gridley, having been granted a concession to the Magdalen Islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, secured 17 Acadian exiles from Boston & took them to the islands to establish a fishery.  These were the first, & certainly not the last, Acadians to settle on the remote archipelago.  See Vachon, "Acadians to Quebec," 293. 

276.  See Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 119-20; Book Three. 

277.  See Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 161-78; White, DGFA-1, lix; Book Three. 

278.  Quotations from Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 27. 

279.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 436-37.  See also Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Winds," 27-28; Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 261-68; note 264, above; Book Two. 

280.  See above; Braud, From Nantes to LA, 18; Appendix.

281.  See Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 350-51; P. E. LeBlanc, "Deschamps de Boishébert," in DCB, online; LeBlanc, R.-G., "Miramichi," 10, 15; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 142-45; note 81, above. 

282.  See Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 350; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 132-35, 137; note 86, above. 

283.  See note 193b, above. 

284.  See Clark, A. H., Acadia, 210-11; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 393; LeBlanc, R.-G., "Miramichi," 5-7; Appendix; Book 2.   

R.-G. LeBlanc, 5 says, after listing the number of exiles from other Acadian communities, "Another 1,014 individuals were taken from Beaubassin [Chignecto] and the Three Rivers (Shepody, Petitcodiac, and Memramcook)."  On p. 7, he says that "In the region of Beaubassin and the Three Rivers, close to two-thirds of the population eluded expulsion, that is, 1,883 of the 2,897 persons tallied in the census of autumn 1754 and winter 1755, just before the fall of Beauséjour," which, as he stated earlier, would have left only a little over a thousand exiles from that area to pack into the transports at Chignecto in the fall of 1755.  Dr. Don Landry's work in Appendix, followed here, is based on the number of exiles actually shipped out on the 8 transports from that area--1,807, nearly 800 more then R.-G. LeBlanc's number of exiles available for transport.  Which is correct?  R.-G. LeBlanc, 5-6, gives the number 3,172 "who were not caught and expelled by the colonial authorities of Nova Scotia in this first phase of the Acadian Expulsion."  His pp. 5-6n15 includes in that figure the 228 passengers from Annapolis Royal aboard the Pembroke, heading to NC, who took over the ship & escaped up Rivière St.-Jean to Québec.  This amazing number--3,172 escapees--gives an idea of how many refugees could have filled the camps on the upper Petitcoudiac & the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore. 

The 2 transports headed for PA--the Boscawen & Union, with 582 exiles aboard--were lost at sea in an Oct gale.  The other 6, with 1,225 exiles aboard, made it to SC & GA. 

285.  Quotation from LeBlanc, R.-G., "Miramichi," 7-8.  See also Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 29; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 350-51; LeBlanc, R.-G., 6, 14; Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 269n49; note 284, above; Books One & Two. 

For these routes, see any good map of the Bay of Fundy region that contains all of the rivers, harbors, & bays. 

Le Guerne's 500 persons that he led to Île St.-Jean in Nov 1755 included women & children whose husbands had been deported without them.  See Mouhot. 

R.-G. LeBlanc, 7n17, citing Abbé Le Guerne, says that in Mar 1756, the prelate "had just been informed that only 10 or 11 families remained at Minas, hiding in the woods and just waiting for a chance to get away."  And so they did, finding their way to the upper Petitcoudiac.  See LeBlanc, R.-G., 7. 

286.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 393-94.  See also Anderson, Crucible of War, 236-37; LeBlanc, R.-G., "Miramichi," 11-14, 19; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 147; note 156, above; Books Two & Six. 

287.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 395, 399-401; LeBlanc, R.-G., "Miramichi," 13n57.  See also Faragher, 394, 396-98; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 143-44; Books Two, Three, & Ten; Broussard family page. 

288.  Quotations from LeBlanc, R.-G., "Miramichi," 15-16.  See also R. G. LeBlanc, 2, 4, 14, 27. 

289.  Quotations from LeBlanc, R.-G., "Miramichi," 16-18, including 16n78, 17-18n82.  See also Anderson, Crucible of War, 236-37; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 398; R.-G. LeBlanc, 19-24, 32; Books Three & Ten; Broussard family page.   

290.  Quotations from LeBlanc, R.-G., "Miramichi," 18, 25, 28; LeBlanc, R.-G., "Acadians in Halifax & on Georges Island," 10.  See also Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 402-03, 405; Grenier, J., Far Reaches of Empire, 197-98, 200-02; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 147-48; R.-G. LeBlanc, 26-27; "Petitcodiac River campaign," online Wikipedia; notes 83 & 147a, above, & 300, below; Books One & Two. 

R.-G. LeBlanc, "Acadians in Halifax & on Georges Island," 10, says Joseph Broussard lost one of his sons in the Jul 1758 encounter.  This would have been his oldest son, Jean-Grégoire.  See Books Three & Ten.  Stephen A. White, citing Acadian historian Placide Gaudet, says Jean-Grégoire "drowned in the Petitcodiac River, trying to save his servant.  This would have taken place during what is called the Battle of the Cran, on July 1, 1758."

291.  Quotations from  LeBlanc, R.-G., "Miramichi," 28.  See also Anderson, Crucible of War, 237-38; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 413; Grenier, J., Far Reaches of Empire, 204; Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 151; P. E. LeBlanc, "Deschamps de Boishébert," in DCB, online; R.-G. LeBlanc, 25, 29; Andrew Rodger, "Bourdon de Dombourg, Jean-François[fils]," in DCB, online

Bigot spent 2 years in the Bastille, from 1761-63, &, upon his release, was sentenced to life-long banishment.  He promptly escaped to Switzerland, where he finished his days.  See J. F. Bosher & J.-C. Dubé, "Bigot, François," in DCB, online; "François Bigot," in online Wikipedia. 

292.  Quotations from Vachon, "Acadians to Quebec," 292-93.  See also note 158, above. 

293.  Quotaton from Vachon, "Acadians to Quebec," 293. 

294.  Quotations from LeBlanc, R.-G., "Acadians in Halifax & on Georges Island," 7-8; Lockerby, Deportation of the PEI Acadians, 7-8.  See also R.-G. LeBlanc, 6; Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 269n49; see notes 160 & 288, above; Book Four. 

295.  See Anderson, Crucible of War, chaps. 21-23, 25; Lockerby, Deportation of the PEI Acadians, 9-10; "Jeffery Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst," in online Wikipedia; Book Two. 

296.  Quotations from Anderson, Crucible of War, 250, 253, 255.  See also Anderson, chap. 25; Fortier, John, "Boschenry de Drucour (Drucourt), Augustin de," in DCB, online; Lockerby, Deportation of the PEI Acadians, 9-11; note 18, above. 

Anderson, 255, goes on:  "Such harsh measures had been in a sense foretold by the expulsion of the Acadians in 1755; yet that was arguably the act not of professional soldiers but of politicians interested in land speculation"--an evaluation that certainly would apply to the likes of William Shirley & Jonathan Belcher, Jr., but not to then Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Lawrence, a professional soldier like his predecessors in NS who served as the province's lieutenant-governor and who, in fact, was serving with Amhert at Louisbourg as a brigadier of troops!  Anderson, 55-56, adds:  "No officer in the British army was a more thoroughgoing regular than Jeffery Amherst, however, and his refusal to play the magnanimous victor imparted a kind of totality to this war in the New World that was alien to the presumptions and standards of the old.  Amherst's policy henceforth would be the one that Montcalm, in the aftermath of the Fort William Henry debacle, had feared most.  No matter how gallant the conduct of a defending force, Amherst would never again accord any defeated enemy the honors of war."  As to the "totality" of this war, the Acadians of NS also knew it well. 

The most dramatic depiction of the horror at Fort William Henry in Aug 1767, this author believes, can be found in the movie "Last of the Mohicans," directed by Michael Mann, based on James Fenimore Cooper's 1826 novel, & starring Daniel Day-Lewis, released in 1992. 

297.  Quotation from Lockerby, Deportation of the PEI Acadians, 11. 

298.  Quotations from Lockerby, Deportation of the PEI Acadians, 12.  See also Lockerby, 11, 13; John Humphreys, "Rollo, Andrew, 5th Baron Rollo," DCB, online

299.  Quotation from Lockerby, Deportation of the PEI Acadians, 13.  See also Lockerby, 16; Rodger, "Rousseau de Villejouin (Villejoin, Villejoint), Gabriel,", DCB, online

Lockerby calls the Gut of Canso the Strait of Canso, a more commonly used term, except here. 

300.  Quotations from Lockerby, Deportation of the PEI Acadians, 13-14.  See the map entitled Île Saint-Jean 1752" by Georges Arsenault & Samuel Arsenault printed in 2008. 

301.  Quotations from Lockerby, Deportation of the PEI Acadians, 15-16. 

302.  Quotations from Lockerby, Deportation of the PEI Acadians, 17.  See also LeBlanc, R.-G., "Miramichi," 25-27; Rodger, "Rousseau de Villejouin (Villejoin, Villejoint), Gabriel," DCB, online; note 290, above.   

303.  See Lockerby, Deportation of the PEI Acadians, 18, 51.

304.  Quotations from Lockerby, Deportation of the PEI Acadians, 18; Fortier, "Boschenry de Drucour, Augustin de" DCB, online.  See also Rodger, "Rousseau de Villejouin (Villejoin, Villejoint), Gabriel,", DCB, online; Book Four; Villejoin family page.

305.  Quotations from Lockerby, Deportation of the PEI Acadians, 19, 45-48; Appendix.  See also Lockerby, 18, 44.

306.  Quotation from Lockerby, Deportation of the PEI Acadians, 20.  See also Lockerby, 21-22; Appendix

Neither Lockerby nor Dr. Landry say from which maritime company or companies Boscawen secured these large transports so quickly, & at what cost. 

307.  Quotation from Lockerby, Deportation of the PEI Acadians, 22.  See also Lockerby, 23; note 305, above.   

308.  Quotation from  Lockerby, Deportation of the PEI Acadians, 24, 26.  See aso Lockerby, 23. 

309.  Quotations from Lockerby, Deportation of the PEI Acadians, 24.  See also notes 290 & 300, above; Books Two & Three. 

310.  Quotations from Lockerby, Deportation of the PEI Acadians, 24-25.  See also Lockerby, 26; note 290, above. 

311.  Quotations from Lockerby, Deportation of the PEI Acadians, 26-28.  See also Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 29; Grenier, J., Far Reaches of Empire, 201; notes 301 & 305, above; Appendix

According to figures compiled by Louis-Xavier Perez based on documents found at the Archives de la Marine, Brest, France, 1,785 Acadians sailed aboard the ships that reached St.-Malo from the French Maritime islands in late 1758 & early 1759.

312.  Quotations from Lockerby, Deportation of the PEI Acadians, 30-32. 

313.  Quotations from Lockerby, Deportation of the PEI Acadians, 32, 36.  See also Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 29, 34-35; Lockerby 33-35, 37-43; note 305, above; Appendix

Dr. Landry's list of transports that left Chédabuoctou Bay on Nov 25 included a 12th vessel, the Nautiles, but givens no more specifics about it. 

These scattered French ports were St.-Malo and Brest in Brittany, La Rochelle and Rochefort on the Bay of Biscay, Cherbourg and Le Havre in Normandy, & Boulonge-sur-Mer in Picardie, the great majority at St.-Malo.  

314.  See  Clark, A. H., Acadia, 151-53, 223 including n83, 230; Erskine, Nova Scotia, 45-47; Historical Atlas of Canada, 1: plate 30; Books One & Two. 

315.  Quotations from Grenier, J., Far Reaches of Empire, 198.  See also Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 22, 25; Delaney, "Chronology of the Deportations"; Grenier, 199; Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 46; LeBlanc, R.-G., "Acadians in Halifax & on Georges Island," 8-9; LeBlanc, R.-G., "Miramichi," 7; "Robert Monckton," online Wikipedia; notes 147a, 257, & 265, above; Appendix; Books One & Six.   

The Mary, under Dunning, was on its second mission when it took the Cap-Sable Acadians to New York in Apr 1756, having carried 182 Minas Acadians to VA the previous November. 

316.  See Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 30; "Robert Monckton," online Wikipedia; "St. John River campaign," online Wikipedia; notes 155 & 158, above; Books One, Two, & Six. 

Brasseaux, 30, cites a source that says "approximately 1,000 Acadians had congregated along the St. John River by early 1756, which is likely an exaggeration. 

317.  Quotations from P. E. LeBlanc, "Deschamps de Boishébert," in DCB, online; Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 30; Grenier, J., Far Reaches of Empire, 199-200.  See also Brasseaux, 31; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 405; Book One.

Faragher agrees with Brasseaux's number in Monckton's force in Sep 1758, but Grenier's numbers are followed here. 

318.  Quotations from Grenier, J., Far Reaches of Empire, 200.  See also Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 30. 

319.  See Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 31; Grenier, J., Far Reaches of Empire, 202; note 290, above; Book Six. 

320.  Quotations from Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 3; LeBlanc, R.-G., "Acadians in Halifax & on Georges Island," 11.  See also note 321, below.

R.-G. LeBlanc says the river refugees numbered 300. 

321.  Quotations from Grenier, J., Far Reaches of Empire, 202, 205; LeBlanc, R.-G., "Acadians in Halifax & on Georges Island," 10; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 411.  See also Faragher, 412-14; J. Grenier, 203-04, 206; R.-G., LeBlanc, 11-12, 14; note 291, above; Book Six. 

J. Grenier says the trois-rivières Acadians sent representatives to Fort Cumberland on Nov 13.  R.-G. LeBlanc, 10, is followed here. 

Faragher, 412, says Joseph Broussard appeared at Fort Cumberland on Nov 16 with his brother & other Acadian leaders. 

322.  Quotation from Beattie & Pothier, Battle of Restigouche, 23.  See also Anderson, Crucible of War, 395; "Battle of Restigouche," online Wikipedia; "François-Gabriel d'Angeac," online Wikipedia; "French frigate Machault (1757)," online Wikipedia. 

The Machault, built in 1757 at Bayonne, France, was not a regular French naval frigate but a privateer owned by Joseph Cadet, arms supplier for New France, who had organized the venture to reclaim Québec. 

323.  Quotations from Beattie & Pothier, Battle of Restigouche, 13-14; LeBlanc, R.-G., "Miramichi," 30 .  See also R.-G. LeBlanc, 29; "Battle of Restigouche," online Wikipedia. 

324.  Quotations from Beattie & Pothier, Battle of Restigouche, 15, 19-20.  See also Beattie & Pothier, 14; LeBlanc, R.-G., "Miramichi," 29n146

325.  Quotations from Beattie & Pothier, Battle of Restigouche, 20-21.  See also "Battle of Restigouche," online Wikipedia. 

326.  Quotations from Beattie & Pothier, Battle of Restigouche, 21, 23.  See also "Battle of Restigouche," online Wikipedia.

327.  Quotations from Beattie & Pothier, Battle of Restigouche, 23-24.  See also "Battle of Restigouche," online Wikipedia.

328.  Quotation from Beattie & Pothier, Battle of Restigouche, 24.

329.  Quotations from Beattie & Pothier, Battle of Restigouche, 25, 28.  See also "Battle of Restigouche," online Wikipedia; note 327, above.

330.   Quotations from Beattie & Pothier, Battle of Restigouche, 28-29.  See also "Battle of Restigouche," online Wikipedia. 

331.  Quotations from Beattie & Pothier, Battle of Restigouche, 31.  See also Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 414-15; "Battle of Restigouche," online Wikipedia; LeBlanc, R.-G., "Miramichi," 29n146; Marshall, Acadian Resistance

Beattie & Pothier imply that the village near Pointe à la Batterie was Petite-Rochelle, but R.-G. LeBlanc says, "This new camp of Petite-Rochelle was located close to the present-day National Historic Site of the Battle of the Restigouche, in a place also known at the time as the 'pointe à Bourdon,' now called Pointe-à-la-Croix, on the north (Québec) shore of the river, just where the Restigouche opens into its estuary.  The British did not manage to attack this position, but they did assault and destroy a village downriver.  The village had, by all estimates, anywhere from several to 150 or 200 houses, and a British officer mistakenly called it 'Petite-Rochelle.'  It was apparently a refuge established in the spring of 1760, mainly by families from Miramichi, Richibucto, and other havens to the south of the Bay of Chaleurs.  Actually, these families had flocked to the place in June 1760 when news came that French vessels had arrived...."

Faragher, 415, citing NS Council Minutes of 5 Aug 1760, says that in the attack at Restigouche, "the British destroyed the French vessels as well as the Canadian post of Petit-Rochelle[sic]," & that "Several hundred Acadian refugees were captured--Joseph Broussard and him men among them--and sent to Fort Cumberland."  No other source, including Beattie & Pothier, R.-G. LeBlanc, & Marshall, notes the capture of this important resistance fighter, or "hundreds of Acadian refugees," in the entire encounter at Restigouche.  Is Faragher confusing Byron's attack of Jun-Jul 1760, in which no Acadians were captured, with the surrender of the French garrison & the Acadian refuge there to Captain Macartney & Major Elliott from Québec the following Oct?  Bazagier's survey of the Acadians at Restigouche at the time of the Oct surrender reveal no Broussards among them, but that doesn't mean they were captured by Byron; they could simply have moved elsewhere after Byron left in Jul or not been there at all. 

332.  Quotations from Beattie & Pothier, Battle of Restigouche, 31-32.  See also "Battle of Restigouche," online Wikipedia. 

333.  Quotations from Beattie & Pothier, Battle of Restigouche, 32.  See also Beattie & Pothier, 33; "Battle of Restigouche," online Wikipedia. 

334.  Quotations from Beattie & Pothier, Battle of Restigouche, 33.  See also Anderson, Crucible of War, 395; Beattie & Pothier, 33; "Battle of Restigouche," online Wikipedia.

Anderson calls the line of sunken Acadian vessels "a chain boom." 

335.  Quotations from Beattie & Pothier, Battle of Restigouche, 33-35.  See also Anderson, Crucible of War, 395; "Battle of Restigouche," online Wikipedia; note 322, above. 

336  Quotations from Beattie & Pothier, Battle of Restigouche, 35-36.  See also "Battle of Restigouche," online Wikipedia.

337.  Quotations from Beattie & Pothier, Battle of Restigouche, 36.  See also "Battle of Restigouche," online Wikipedia; note 324, above.

338.  Quotations from Beattie & Pothier, Battle of Restigouche, 37, 40.  See also "Battle of Restigouche," online Wikipedia; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 415.

Faragher says that among the "Several hundred Acadians refugees" captured at Restigouche was "Joseph Broussard and his men," but Beausoleil does not appear in the Oct 30 census there. 

339.  See Micheline D. Johnson, "Maillard (Maillart, Mayard, Mayar), Pierre (sometimes called Pierre-Antoine-Simon)," in DCB, 3:415-16, & online; note 288, above.  

340.  Quotations from Beattie & Pothier, Battle of Restigouche, 40.  See also "Battle of Restigouche," online Wikipedia. 

341.  Quotations from Beattie & Pothier, Battle of Restigouche, 40-41.  See also Grenier, J., Far Reaches of Empire, 211; note 147a, above. 

342.  Quotations from Beattie & Pothier, Battle of Restigouche, 41-42; Grenier, J., Far Reaches of Empire, 211.  See also LeBlanc, R.-G., "Acadians in Halifax & on Georges Island," 15-16; LeBlanc, R.-G., "Miramichi," 31; Marshall,  Acadian Resistance, 188

J. Grenier says Mackenzie captured 330 Acadians in his 1761 raid. 

343.  Quotation from LeBlanc, R.-G., "Acadians in Halifax & on Georges Island," 16.  See also R.-G. LeBlanc, R.-G., 14; notes 321, above, & 346, below; Books Three, Six, Eight, & Ten. 

344.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 406-07.  See also Grenier, J., Far Reaches of Empire, 207-08; note 296, above; Book Two. 

345.  Quotations from Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 407-08; Grenier, J., Far Reaches of Empire, 208.  See also J. Grenier, 207. 

346.  See Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 408; Grenier, J., Far Reaches of Empire, 208; LeBlanc, R.-G., "Acadians in Halifax & on Georges Island," 12-14. 

R.-G. LeBlanc, 13, says, "Work began in 1760 [on the "planter's land], but it was primarily in the subsequent two years that 120 Acadian men worked at mending the breaks that seawater had made in the levees, and at rebuilding the aboiteaux that had been damaged or destroyed by the especially high storm tides of 3-4 November 1759." 

R.-G. LeBlanc, 14, notes that "While these men were busy on such tasks [repairing the dykes and aboiteaux] in the area of Pisiquid, Minas, and Port Royal, some 150 Acadian men were assigned to construction of buildings and docks, forest clearance, and excavation tasks, on behalf of the engineering branch of the British armed forces in Halifax.  The chief engineer, John Henry Bastide, was well acquainted with the Acadians, since he had spent at least two assignments at Annapolis Royal, first in 1744, and then between 1749 and 1751.  Undoubtedly he had drawn upon their services during the fortification projects that he was in charge of carrying out there.  In any case, he considered the Acadians very adept at wielding an axe, and expected they would easily manage the tasks he wanted done." 

347.  Quotations from LeBlanc, R.-G., "Acadians in Halifax & on Georges Island," 22, 24-25.  See also R.-G. LeBlanc, 21, 23; Marshall, Acadian Resistance, 194-98; Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 28; note 01, above; Books Six & Eight. 

348.  Quotations from Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 62, 84; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 383.  See also Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 35; Braud, From Nantes to LA, 13-16; Faragher, 382, 423; Hodson, 83; Holledge, "Acadian Exiles in England," 254; Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 4, 6, 8, 25-29, 267n33; note 173, above. 

Hodson,  says "Nearly a quarter had died of disease and malnutrition" aboard the transports in VA.  Braud, 13, says the Race Horse was one of the transports that took Acadians from VA to England & that 2 of the transports were lost at sea.  No other source agrees.  Brasseaux says the Acadians in England lived "in virtual imprisonment, under conditions far worse than any experienced by their relatives in the eastern seaboard colonies...."  Faragher, 423, says, "The English imprisonment must have cost the lives of seven or eight hundred persons."  Braud, 15, says the Acadians at Bristol were held at present-day Stapleton, "five kilometers north of the city, near the Frome River." 

349.  Quotation from Holledge, "Acadian Exiles in England," 254. 

350.  Quotation from Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 62.  See also Hodson, 63. 

351.  Quotations from Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 44, 47, 272n50.  See also Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 35-36; Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 12; Mouhot, 29-30, 38-39 (map 3), 48, 276n30; Robichaux, Acadians in St.-Malo; "Nicolas René Berryer," online Wikipedia; "Étienne François de Choiseul, Duke of Choiseul," online Wikipedia; notes 305, 307, & 313, above; Appendix; Book Six.

Mouhot, 272n52, gives the Acadian population counts in the St.-Malo area as:  1,064 in 1759; 1,126 in 1762; 1,712 in 1773; nearly 1,800 in Aug 1773; 1,727 in 1774; "some Acadians then left to go to Poitou." 

Hodson calls Boulogne-sur-Mer "a minor smuggling and pilgrimage center on the English Channel." 

352.  Quotation from Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 36; Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 48.  See also Mouhot, 38, 45, 55, 272nn53, 54, 55; Books Three & Six. 

Mouhot, 272n55, compares the Acadian "regroupings" in France to the Acadian exiles in GA & SC who came together in 1756 for their voyage back up to NS.  See note 196, above.  This regrouping "instinct," based on their desire to reunite with family, also was demontrated in other Atlantic seaboard colonies, but colonial restrictions tried to restrict their movements.  See, e.g., note 213, above. 

353.  Quotation from Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 160.  See also Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 47-54; Hodson, 161; Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 44-45; Book Six. 

Hodson, 161, notes that 3 Acadians at Morlaix--Joseph-Simon Granger, Honoré Daigre, & Jean Hébert--petitioned the Breton government in Oct 1763, demanding an extension of the 6-sols daily solde the King had granted them, along with other benefits, if they agreed to go to Belle-Île. 

354.  Quotations from Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 36; Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 58-62.  See also Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 150-55, 160-62; Mouhot, 32, 57, 280n13, 281n40; "Belle Île," online Wikipedia; "Étienne François de Choiseul, Duke of Choiseul," online Wikipedia; Book Six.

Hodson, 150-55, makes much of the French obsession with "emulation" in the context of repopulation & improved masculine vigor, &, pp. 152-53, highlights the Acadians' legendary fecundity before segueing into the French need for reclaiming idle land.  See Books Two, Three, & Ten. 

Le Loutre had been captured by the Royal Navy in Sep 1755 on his way back to France, held under close confinement at Elizabeth Castle on the Île of Jersey for 8 years, & released in Aug 1763.  After taking care of personal business in Paris, he headed to Morlaix, his native city, where many of the Acadians welcomed him as their interlocutor with the French government.  See Gérard Finn, "Le Loutre, Jean-Louis," in DCB, online; Hodson, 161.  Finn's dates are followed here. 

355.  Quotations from Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 36; "Belle Île," online Wikipedia.  See also Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 148, 156-60; Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 32; note 354, above. 

Hodson, 157-78, paints an especially grim picture of life on Belle-Île before the arrival of the Acadians, &, on pp. 159-60, details the siege of Belle-Île in Apr-May 1761 & the fate of the bellilois, as the natives are called, after the British took over the island & then returned it. 

Mouhot's evaluation of the Belle-Île settlement is more judicious than Brasseaux's; he admits to "The relative success of the settlement of Belle-Île-en-Mer," attributing much of it to the efforts of the Abbé Le Loutre. 

356.  Quotations from Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 31-32.  See also Mouhot, 33, 270n19; Books Two, Three, Six, & Ten. 

For names of many of the Navy & Controle General bureaucrats charged with caring for the Acadians beginning in 1773, see Mouhot, 32-33, 270n14.  See Mouhot, 34-35, for organizational charts of the administration responsible for the Acadians before 1773 (fig. 1) & after 1773 (fig. 2). 

357.  Quotation from Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 37-38.  See also Mouhot, 35-36. 

358.  Quotations from Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 48-49.  See also Mouhot, 50-55; Robichaux, Acadians in St.-Malo; Books Three, Six, & Ten. 

359.  Quotations from Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 160-64; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 433-34; Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 61.  See also Faragher, 435; Hodson, 165-72; Mouhot, 59-60; "Belle Île," online Wikipedia; Book Six. 

Hodson, 158, says Belle-Île has "under 85 square miles of surface area."  "Belle Île," online Wikipedia, says 32 1/2. 

Hodson, 166, details the confrontations between Acadian Laurent Babin & locals despite, or perhaps because of, Babin having married a local girl soon after he came to the island.  See also Mouhot, 61, 281n37, for Babin's troubles. 

360.  Quotations from Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 61; Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 169, 172.  See also Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 434; Hodson, 148, 168, 170-71; Mouhot, 69. 

Hodson, 168, details some of the Acadian parish registers that were lost in the deportations, especially those for Île St.-Jean churches. 

Hodson, 171, links the 1767 BiM declarations to the compilation of a "general roll" of Acadians in the kingdom, to be compiled by naval commissioner Antoine-Philippe Lemoine in 1772, on the eve of the settlement venture in Poitou.  The purpose of the "general roll" would not be genealogical, however, but would instead be a massive cost-saving effort by Crown officials to eliminate from the rolls of the daily subsidy those who were not actually "Acadian."

361.  Quotation from Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 62.  See also Mouhot, 61, 282n47; note 355, above. 

362.  Quotations from Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 64-65.  See also Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 38; Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 162, 180, 183, 191; Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 63, 66-67, 70-71, 79-82, 285nn32, 37; Mouhot, "Emigration of the Acadians from France to LA," 143. 

363.  Quotations from Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 67; Mouhot, "Emigration of the Acadians from France to LA," 141-42.  See also De La Roque, "Tour of Inspection," Canadian Archives 1905, 2A:97-98; Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 174, 183-84; Robichaux, Acadians in St.-Malo, 567-69.   

Hodson states, erroneously, that Jean-Jacques LeBlanc was deported to France from Île St.-Jean in 1758.  It is true that Jean-Jacques's parents, Jacques dit Petit Jacques LeBlanc & Cécile Dupuis of Minas, & 6 of Jean-Jacques's younger siblings, were counted at Rivière-de-Peugiguit in the interior of the island in August 1752, having gone there 4 years earlier.  See De La Roque.  Jean-Jacques, however, only recently married, was still at Minas with first wife Ursule Aucoin & their infant son Crespin; she was, in fact, pregnant for their second child Claire, born at Minas in c1753.  The British deported them to VA in the fall of 1755, sent them on to England in the spring of 1756, and they were repatriated to France in May 1763 aboard L'Ambition.  See Robichaux; Books Three & Six; LeBlanc family page.     

364.  Quotations from Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 178, 181.  See also Hodson, 179-80, 182-84; Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 68-69. 

Hodson, 178-80, details the ideas of the physiocrats in regard to agricultural reform. 

365.  Quotations from Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 184-86; Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 68, 70-71.  See also Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind," 36; Finn, "Le Loutre," in DCB, online; Hodson, 183; Mouhot, 40-41, 67, 69, 72-73, 82-83, 274n72, 283n8; Book Six. 

Mouhot, 68, 283n8, doubts that an Acadian delegation bearded the king at Compiègne in 1772.  He also says the meeting at Compiègne happened in Sep 1772, not Jul, hence my use of cautionary language here. 

366.  Quotatons from Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 186-87; Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 74.  See also Braud, From Nantes to LA, 37-38; Mouhot, 70, 73, 75. 

See Book Six for the specific families & individuals who went to Poitou. 

Caravans rolling into Châtellerault, as Hodson describes it, implies that the Acadians from the St.-Malo region & the other seaports went to the Poitou city not via the Loire & its tributary the Vienne (Châtellerault is on the Vienne above Chinon) but by overland conveyance, or maybe a combination of river & road, though they would have had to travel against the current on both the Loire & the Vienne to get to the interior of Poitou.  As will be seen later, they did not leave Châtellerault in late 1775 & early 1776 in overland caravans but in riverine "convoys" down the rivers to Nantes.  Braud, 37, says the first of settlers, from St.-Malo, took the ships St. Claude & Sénac from there to La Rochelle & "then by land, in small stages.  There were only 154 in mid-October, but they were soon joined by the families from Le Havre and then by those from Cherbourg."  Braud says the Nov arrivals were housed "in the old apartment buildings of Châtellerault, at the abbey of l'Etoile, and at the chateau of Marsujeau."  Braud goes on to say that "The winter of 1773 passed while other convoys began their journeys, but this time by way of Nantes and the river route of the Loire and the Vienne," which means they traveled upstream the entire way. 

367.  Quotations from Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 187; Mouhot, "Emigration of the Acadians from France to LA," 141.  See also Hodson, 190-91. 

368.  Quotations from Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 191.  See also Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 75. 

Mouhot says little about Turgot's opposition to the Poitou venture, claiming that it was Pérusse who "finally convinced" Turgot "that the surplus of people incapable of doing the agricultural work on the sites was ruining the advancement of the project...."  Mouhot also adds that "while Turgot thought six hundred people would remain in the settlement, nearly all of the Acadians then went to Nantes."  Hodson's details of Turgot's influence on the colony are followed here. 

369.  Quotations from Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 191.  See also Hodson, 192-93; Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 75-76, 78-79, 287n80; note 362, above. 

Mouhot, 287n80, identifies the victims of Simon Aucoin's threats at the church as Joseph Doucet, Jacques Bunel, Jean-Baptiste Hébert, Marin Daigle, & Jean Doucet, "who are part of nine families remaining at the settlement...."  Aucoin emigrated to LA in 1785.  So did Joseph Doucet.  See Book Eight. 

370.  Quotations from Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, 193; Mouhot, Acadian Refugees in France, 287n86.  See also Braud, From Nantes to LA, 39; Hodson, 194-95; Mouhot, 75-77, 286n68; Robichaux, Acadians in Nantes, 116

Braud verifies that the convoys from Châtellerault to Nantes traveled "by boat on the Vienne River to the Loire" & via that river on to Nantes. 

371.  Quotations from Braud, From Nantes to LA, 41, 45, 47-48.  See also Braud, iv; Robichaux, Acadians in Châtellerault, 41; Book Six. 

372. 

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