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--their 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.  It 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 Joseph-Grégoire dit Petit Jos, who would have been age 28 in the summer of 1755, or Victor-Grégoire, age 27?  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 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 Joseph'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 uncle 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 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 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, one of them carrying 29 prisoners in chains, 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 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

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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," seven transports, with over 1,660 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 140-ton snow Two Sisters, master T. Ingram, holding approximately 250 Acadians; 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 800 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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