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Black were her eyes as the berry that grows on the thorn by the wayside. Black, yet how softly they gleamed beneath the brown shade of her tresses.

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EmNGELINE

A ROMANCE OF ACADIA

By HENRY ^ADSWORJH LONGF E LLOW

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SCENES FItOM. THE MOVING PICTURE

WILLIAM. FOX

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MILTON BRADLEY COA1PANY

SPR-INOFIELD • MASS

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Copyright, 1922, by MILTON BRADLEY COMPANY

Springfield, Mass.

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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

OCT -7 *■'- ©C1A683584

THE TABLE OF CONTENTS

Michael the Fiddler Speaks ...... 1

Benedict Speaks to His Daughter .... 21

Rene the Notary Writes 34

John Winslow Writes 45

The Torture of Francois 55

Not Inhabitants of Any Town 66

A Quaker Speaks 101

Under Liberty Bell .115

Basil the Blacksmith Speaks . . . . . 123

The Home of the Homeless 143

A Poormaster Writes of Evangeline .... 147

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Facing Page

Black were her eyes as the berry .Frontispiece

"They will crown her with blossoms" 6

Decorating the church for Evangeline's wedding 18

"We sit alone for a while, awaiting the coming of Rene

Leblanc" 30

"Write a proclamation/ ' said the Governor 42

"Benedict, the farmer of Grand Pre, it was who died" 52

Spinning flax for the loom 68

Rene Leblanc wrote with a steady hand 78

Evangeline brought the draught board 90

Meanwhile apart, in the twilight gloom 102

Many a farewell word and sweet good-night 112

Thronged were the streets with people 124

Fairest of all the maids was Evangeline 136

i Long at her father's door Evangeline stood 154

Cheering with looks and words the disconsolate hearts 164

"If we love one another nothing can harm us" 176

" Be of good cheer. We will follow the fugitive lover " 186

Welcome once more to a home 198

She cried — "0 Gabriel! 0 my beloved!" 224

Like a phantom she came and passed away 236

Within this quiet retreat Evangeline found her long- lost lover 244

FOREWORD

After a very long and noble struggle for their inde- pendence against the Spartans, the Messenians, being sub- jugated, were driven without remorse from their blood- stained hearths and away from the honored graves of their ancestors to wander the roads of Greece and attempt to find a home for the houseless exile in the land of the stranger.

There was also Jerusalem:

"Solitary lieth the city, she that was full of people. How is she widowed that was great among the nations, princess among the Provinces! Sorely she weepeth in dark- ness. All her gates are desolate; her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted and she is in bitterness. Is it nothing to all ye that pass by?"

Later there was " Evangeline/ ' a tragedy of the humble which Henry Wadsworth Longfellow made into an American epic whose measures will always sing to us of the faith in affliction of an exiled American peasantry and of their belief that love is the ultimate conqueror.

Because "Evangeline" has become immortal in our literature, there has been built around the poem a high wall of historical inaccuracies. So many critics have stated Mr. Longfellow's plan and authorities in the writing

[vii]

FOREWORD

of the work that these expressions of opinion have become facts in the mind of the general reader, and have been accepted as the poet's statements.

The pages which follow have been written to form a background of historical accuracy for " Evangeline.' ' They show, from a careful study of the manuscript writings of the Acadians themselves, the manuscripts remaining of those men in our history who knew the Acadians, from newspapers of the period, and from state archives, that Mr. Longfellow was completely in command of his facts, although these are in many instances so interwoven with his story as to seem as amazing as a piece of fiction.

The origin of the poem is fairly well known. We may read in Hawthorne's American Note-Book, under the date of October 24th, 1838, this paragraph:

H. L. C. heard from a French Canadian a story of a

young couple in Acadie. On their marriage day, all the men of the province were summoned to assemble in the church to hear a proclamation. When assembled they were all seized and shipped off to be distributed through New England, among them the new bridegroom. His bride set off in search of him, wandering about New England all her life-time and at last, when she was old, she found her bridegroom on his death-bed. The shock was so great that it killed her.

The authenticated notes in connection with "Evan- geline" state that this same "H. L. C." dined with Haw-

FOREWORD ix

thorne at Mr. Longfellow's home in Cambridge at about this time and, although Hawthorne did not see in the in- cident an idea for a novel, Longfellow seized upon it as the theme of an historical poem, an opportunity to preserve in verse a hitherto unsung page of our history. This was the inspiration for " Evangeline/ ' It was written, and received at once the popularity which it deserved. Mr. Longfellow wrote to his long-time friend, Hawthorne, after receiving from him his favorable notice of "Evan- geline" in a Salem newspaper:

My dear Hawthorne, — I have been waiting and waiting in the hope of seeing you in Cambridge ... I have been meditating upon your letter, and pondering with friendly admiration your review of "Evangeline," in connection with the subject of which, that is to say, the Acadians, a literary project arises in my mind for you to execute. Perhaps I can pay you back in part your own generous gift, by giving you a theme for a story in return for a theme for song. It is neither more or less than the history of the Acadians after their expulsion as well as before. Felton has been making some researches in the state archives, and offers to resign the docu- ments into your hands.

Pray come and see me about it without delay. Come so as to pass a night with us, if possible, this week, if not a day and night. Ever sincerely yours,

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

No one, however, wrote that log of the wandering Acadians as they took their weary way from one port to

FOREWORD

another of our country, never welcomed particularly except by their own people at New Orleans, never making a place for themselves any better than did the Messenians or the Children of Israel. And there are certain papers, fast growing illegible, and hidden in the archives of the various states and among the records of historical societies, that do what Mr. Longfellow wished to have done. They make " Evangeline " history. They tell the story of the Acadians, above and beyond the limits of the poem. As a cul- tured Philadelphian said to me in the course of my research, "What a novel Nathaniel Hawthorne would have made of it!"

More than this the records do; they shed light, new light, on certain characters of American history through their touch with Evangeline's people, through what these men said to them and what they wrote about them. The papers show the policies and attitudes of governments at that period. They prove practically every statement made by Mr. Longfellow in the poem to have been based upon a fact.

It would seem that there are things unsaid in the former critical notes made about "Evangeline/' for in the light of the papers in the case the poet must have, himself, consulted them, particularly in relation to the condition of the Acadians in old Philadelphia. It is true that Rene

FOREWORD

Leblanc, the old notary of Grand-Pr£, died in Philadelphia alone and poor. One of his neighbors wrote about it and the paper is in existence. Whether the "Saint Anne" of the Acadians of whom the poormaster of Philadelphia wrote in 1771 as needing help because she gave all her time to the "assistance of them" was Evangeline; whether or not she may have had her counterpart in the wander- ing Marie Theresa of New England, a bill for whose board is to be found in the archives of the State of Massachusetts, matters very little. Where there are records of two Evan- gelines, may there not surely have been one? She lives in the spirit of a kindly, loving people forever seeking for a resting place and finding it in the green meadows of the Philadelphia almshouse.

Characters briefly noted or unmentioned in the poem, in the light of the Acadian manuscripts, stand before us in a clearer light. Colonel John Winslow, writing his diary at Grand-Pre at the table of Father Landry, the "Father Felician" of the poem, in whose house he stayed during the expulsion of the Acadians, is not the villain of the piece he has been represented to be. He is the soldier of New England, doing his duty in obeying a higher command, but thinking of the length of the road from Grand-Pre to the sea and of the crying of the women as they came down it. Francis Bernard, who achieved little fame in his governor-

xii FOREWORD

ship of Massachusetts, must always be remembered as having appealed to the Boston Council in behalf of Evan- geline and her people.

"Industry only waits for property to exert itself upon without which no one can be industrious/' Mr. Bernard said of the Acadians. That was a line worth the saying and worth thought in our relations with alien peoples of to-day.

Benjamin Franklin showed his never-failing sense for the news when his Pennsylvania Gazette published a dispatch from Halifax just previous to the expulsion of the Acadians and stating the real reason for the tragedy. It was not a matter of the French Neutrals taking an oath of allegiance. The Crown states frankly in this dispatch that British farmers were to be put in possession of the Acadian farms that Halifax might be the better provisioned. And Franklin was the only newspaper publisher of the American colonies who printed the petitions of the Acadians themselves.

We meet, through the yellowed writing of these records, a long company of Evangeline's people whom we never knew before. We read the names of the ships on which they voyaged their long way. We discover that it was Joseph Pynchon of Boston, or Anthony Benezet, the Huguenot Quaker of Philadelphia, who went on deck and spoke to them. There was the widow Landry who lived up to

FOREWORD

the time of the Revolution and was always poor and a town charge. "Father Felician" traveled with his people for years, persuaded them to promise to take the oath of allegiance to the British government, signed their petitions, and was always, as Winslow defined him, "their principal speaker." He appears to have been arrested in Philadel- phia for speaking too much! An Acadian blacksmith made a home and a name for himself in Louisiana, as did Basil. We meet the valiant John Baptiste Galerm, who braved the Pennsylvania Council and made a speech in behalf of his Acadian neighbors. We feel that, perhaps, it was a mercy that Bonny Landry voyaged blind. She was spared the loneliness for the green fields and the apple orchards of the home from which she was exiled.

And among the records of Father Farmer, the Acadians' priest in Philadelphia who traveled during the Revolution from the Delaware to the Hudson, braving bullets and carry- ing the sacraments in his saddle bags, we find gleams of happiness. Pelagia, the merry daughter of John Baptiste Galerm, the Acadian, had a wedding in Saint Joseph's, at which Father Farmer officiated. And he baptized wee Mary Le Blanc, who may be recognized as perhaps a great granddaughter of Rene the notary. Landrys, Le Blancs, many of the exiles listed by Winslow as having been sent by him aboard the British transports, are listed

FOREWORD

again by Father Farmer as he married the young folks, christened their babies, and commended their dead to rest in the graves dug by old Jeremy Carpenter.

The whole story, incident by incident, may be checked up from these papers, unpublished, save as they have found a universal appeal in Mr. Longfellow's work. And so it seemed worth while to select the more important ones for a background for " Evangeline/ ' as if there were people in the wings who knew the truth of the play and were given, after a long and patient wait on their parts, an opportunity for speaking.

It has been a painstaking labor to find and consult the manuscripts and other records which follow, and I wish to express my indebtedness to those who have helped in making the story of Acadie possible. Mr. John H. Edmonds, Chief of the Archives Division, the State House, Boston, has made a valuable index of the manu- script records in connection with the French Neutrals in Massachusetts, which he put at my service. Mr. George Maurice Abbot of the Library Company of Philadelphia gave me the only extant photograph of one of the Friends' almhouses, with permission for copying and using it. The Pennsylvania Historical Society kindly allowed me to con- sult its manuscript division. And I was able to consult church records through the courtesy of one of the priest-

FOREWORD

hood of old Saint Joseph's, the Acadians' church in

Philadelphia, who prefers to be known only as a Father

ministering daily to the the poor at the same altar, the

warmth of whose candlelight dried the tear-filled eyes of

Evangeline and her people one hundred and fifty years

ago.

Carolyn Sherwin Bailey.

New York, 1922.

L'ACADIE

Let me essay, 0 Muse! to follow the wanderer's footsteps; Not through each devious path, each changeful year of existence; But as a traveller follows a streamlet's course through the valley: Far from its margin at times, and seeing the gleam of its water Here and there, in some open space, and at intervals only; Then drawing nearer its banks, through sylvan glooms that conceal it, Though he behold it not, he can hear its continuous murmur; Happy at length if he find a spot where it reaches an outlet.

THE STOEY OF EVANGELINE

MICHAEL THE FIDDLER SPEAKS

Wooden shoes and dancing feet, a mottled waistcoat, and ruddy cheeks like the coals of a fire when the embers are brushed away! A merry tune for every village feast and dance! So enters Michael the Fiddler of Grand-Pre.

But I say that I have heard three strange songs from my fiddle, sometimes when I climbed the mountain alone with it under my arm, sometimes when I stood by the sea when the surf rolled against the rocks, but most often as my fiddle strings vibrated with the speech of the mighty pines and hemlocks that murmur to each other from one season to another with no rest. These are songs that no one else has heard, nor could hear unless I chose to repeat them.

I am now an old man, and my hair is of the whiteness of the winter's snow as it lies for so many long months on the crown of our Mount of Blomidon. It may seem to you strange and of a part with an old man's dotage that I should set down certain matters with which my fiddle alone has made me familiar, as I wait here for the summons to play at the betrothal party of one of our

[i]

THE STORY Of EVANGELINE

maidens of Grand-Prd in this part of New France known as Acadie. It is an ancient fiddle, having been the prop- erty of my grandfather, who played at the Court of King Louis, and come to this shore when Acadie was new. It has listened for more than a century to the winds of this forest and to these tides which keep in their hearts Acadie's songs and tears from the beginning. A fiddle has a greater power of speech than a man, and when one has lived as long as I have with one, there grows a com- panionship between the man and the voice of the instru- ment which can scarce be described in words, but it is well known to all musicians.

So I say that my fiddle has heard matters which should be set down in the annals of our history of Acadie as history. I say it in spite of the ridicule of our good notary of Grand-Pre, Rene Leblanc, who scorns any records save those made by his papers and his inkhorn. He reasons and argues in regard to human relationships solely from realities. He sees no far- ther than the point of a goose quill. But my fiddle feels, and with my years it has spoken a language to me through which I am able to translate the experiences of the past into prophecies of what may come.

There is no new harmony or rhythm on earth. That melody which tickles our ears to-day is of a part with the

MICHAEL THE FIDDLER SPEAKS

old chords played on the harps of minstrels, but so com- bined as to sing for us a different and more pleasing melody. And so it is, I have come to think, with all history. It is but a saga, set to a rhythm of major chords or, often, to those of a minor key. History is a symphony made of a people singing or sighing as it happens, with all the notes of Nature for accompaniment, and the instruments of the orchestra are the tools of the farmer and the hammer and anvil of the blacksmith and the heavy looms of women weaving their overtones through all.

Fiddling foolery of an old man, you laugh, Rene? Ask Benedict the farmer, or Basil the blacksmith, if our valley be not a song to them, to each his own song? They may not state it in just my words, but I warrant you they will understand. And I say again that my fiddle knows three old pieces, which it has played for me and which I now take the time to write down. One is the Song of Gluskap, the Spirit of Blomidon. One is a Song of Swords, and the third is the Song of a Maid of Acadie.

Our Mount of Blomidon, whose gigantic head juts so nobly over our Basin of Minas, knew Gluskap before either the Red Man or his White Brother from France came to

THE STORY OF EVANGELINE

the shores of Acadie. He held his court on the summit of the mountain, and anyone looking there to-day at the hour of sunset may see his reflection as the forest did in former days. Deep red, like the red of sandstone, was the color of Gluskap's cloak and it was gorgeously embroid- ered with such jewels as the amethyst, the chalcedony and the crystal. When the light of the sunset had faded and Gluskap's cloak had taken on the tint of deep indigo, his great eye of amethyst could be seen as far as the shore of the sea, making a line of purple brilliancy that glowed on the dull sands.

In those days all the animals of the north paid court to Gluskap, climbing the steep sides of Blomidon to do him honor. Then came the Great Beaver whose home was in the Basin of Minas. He thought, in his strength, that he would be able to overcome Gluskap and take his place as ruler of the mountain. The thunder still repeats the sounds of that battle in which our Five Islands were the missiles which Gluskap threw, tearing open the passage between Blomidon and the west shore of Acadie so that the waters poured in. Then the Great Beaver was routed and took on the small size that is his to-day.

It was at that time also that the Moose, who was so colossal that he covered the hills with his stride and ate the children of the newly come Red Man, met the un-

MICHAEL THE FIDDLER SPEAKS

daunted Gluskap, who fought him and crushed him to the stature of the moose, his brother, as we know him now. And since then the moose has eaten only green branches. Thus the Red Man came and built his village at the feet of this great spirit of the mountain, and Gluskap was of a mind to protect him. They were men of the race of the Micmacs, of which race Gluskap also was sprung. Hunting and fishing and the building of lodges began, and when the braves of the village were called away on a hunting expedition, the spirit of the mountain watched over the old men and the women and children who were left unprotected. The gales of winter that sweep down now from the bleak heights of Blomidon tell, as they crash their way through our pines, of a war party of hostile Red Men from the south which descended on this village of the Micmacs when the warriors were away. Then Gluskap gathered his cloak about him and came to the village, waving his great bow over the green fields of corn and the lodges. It was summer, but the air became frosty in the camp of the enemies, their breath froze, and they were taken suddenly with a strange desire to sleep. Their camp turned white with winter, and these cowardly men vanished in hoar frost, while summer still smiled among the women and children of the unprotected village in the valley of Blomidon. So Gluskap sealed the

THE STORY OF EVANGELINE

sleep of the unjust to an eternal stillness. Who has not felt this stillness of death when the winds of winter pause? But a stranger came to the valley of Blomidon, came by way of the sea, and his face was pale. He came in a ship with wings, very different from the canoes of the Micmacs, and he brought his friends, his tools, his desire for conquest with him. He angered Gluskap with his petty digging and his chipping of the bright veins that embroidered Blomidon like the jeweled tracery of a mon- arch's garments. And this White Man committed a crime. He stole Gluskap's great amethyst eye and sent it back to France to be set in fine gold and hoarded among the crown jewels. It may be seen there to-day, since which time of its coming, the purity of the lily of France has been reddened with blood. And Gluskap, the spirit of Blomidon, now blind, took his stumbling way down from his mountain fastnesses to the shores of Minas. As he went he scattered his bright stones which had been his pride, his mottled agates, his chalcedony, his crystals of white and rose and purple. He left the heritage of a long winter for Acadie to punish his white destroyer, and the crew of his devils, who followed his footsteps, Gluskap turned into huge, black rocks and stones which the White Man would have to lift from his fields before he would be able to plant maize or set out fruit trees.

MICHAEL THE FIDDLER SPEAKS

As Gluskap, blinded, took his way to the waters of our coast, which were to carry him away from Acadie forever, he was heard to sing farewell to his country.

It was near sunset and the wind was still,

And down the yellow shore a thin wave washed Slowly; and Gluskap launched his birch canoe,

And spread his yellow sail, and moved from shore, Though no wind followed, streaming in the sail

And roughening the smooth waters after him. And all the beasts stood by the shore and watched.

Then in the west appeared a long red trail Over the wave; and Gluskap sailed and sang

Till the canoe grew like a little bird, And black, and vanished in a shining trail.

And when the beasts could see his form no more, They still could hear him singing as he sailed,

And still they listened hanging down their heads In long row where the thin wave washed and fled.

But when the sound of singing died, and when They lifted up their voices in their grief,

Lo! in the mouth of every beast a strange New tongue! Then rose they all and fled apart,

Nor met again in council from that day.

II

As I said before, there is a Song of Swords known by my fiddle. From the day of the coming of the Sieur de Champlain to these coasts of Acadie, there has been

THE STORY OF EVANGELINE

naught but a record of the clashing of arms between France and England, each striving for foothold on this coast, because of its great stores of game and fish.

And my grandfather, who came on the ship of De Razzily in the year 1632 to these shores, that company of French gentlemen arriving with a new grant from their monarch, Louis the Thirteenth, related that they set foot on this bleak coast with a high hope of conquest and a desire to plant the lily of France firmly in this soil.

So the prelude of this Song of Swords is tuned to the lapping of waves on the sides of the small ship named L'esperance en Dieu. She was an armed pinnace of one hundred tons, bringing, besides the gentlemen and my grandfather, three Capuchin friars and a number of peas- ants, and such artisans as the Company of New France deemed necessary for the welfare of the Port Royal of Acadie. They found a spacious harbor easy of access, a considerable river and the whole coast from east to west abounding with fish. And a fortification was im- mediately raised, the ruined foundations of which can still be found not far from our village of Grand-Pre. It stood on a little hillock of three or four acres and was built like all the Acadian forts of that day, a palisaded enclosure, with bastions of stone at the four corners. The Indians were friendly at that time, and De Razilly

MICHAEL THE FIDDLER SPEAKS

felt the colony of English to the south at Plymouth too weak to be a menace.

Daily the nets of the Acadian fishers brought in great hauls. They discovered the abundance of cod, sturgeon, halibut, salmon and shad, which we of Grand- Pr6 still enjoy. They hunted the wild cattle, foxes and sea horses, and established themselves as feudal lords of this land, trying to copy the manners and ways of the court of Louis as well as they could in a strange land so many leagues from home.

But that other troupe of wanderers at Plymouth, under the leadership of one Captain Standish, looked with ill feeling on the colony of the Sieur de Razilly. The planting of this French colony was watched at Boston with apprehen- sion, although those Puritans ought to have known that we of France are not a migratory race and have always established indifferent colonies. We are but Frenchmen wherever we be, not pioneers. This matter was spoken of by De Razilly just before he died, three years after arriving at Acadie. He had heard already the echo of clashing swords among our gentlemen. There were La Tour and Charnissay, who sailed with him on L'esperance en Dieu, fellow Frenchmen, but cankerous with hot jealousy and an ambition to rule Acadie.

"Acadie needs not the glitter of arms nor the splendor

10 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE

of titles/' said De Razilly, when he was on his death bed. "The fabric of every nation's prosperity rests on the shoulders of the humble sons of toil. I am leaving my work of strengthening New France unfinished and I see these English colonies growing in might with the years to come, finding a vigor of manhood, while Acadie remains cursed with the weakness of a sickly infancy/'

This prophecy of the Sieur De Razilly was but too true. And the English could not understand, nor can I of to-day, the freebootery of our pirateers. The English had estab- lished for themselves a trading post at Penobscot, on the coast. One of our buccaneering pinnaces, seeing the weakened condition of the bastion at Penobscot, landed there, overpowered with the sword the few men who were trying to protect the position for the English, and loaded the pinnace with its entire stores, consisting of three hundred weight of beaver, besides a good amount of trading stores, such as coats, rugs, blankets, biscuit and the like. It was said to value five hundred pounds sterling of their currency. And at the death of the Sieur De Razilly his relative, this Sieur d'Aulnay Charnissay, a much be-laced and jewelled gentleman of the French court, established himself in charge of the bastion at Penobscot. The English had a meeting in regard to the matter at Boston, and said among themselves that it might

MICHAEL THE FIDDLER SPEAKS 11

be the part of wisdom at some future time to remove the French from Acadie and a coast on which there did not seem to be room for both the friars' beads and the long-faced deacons' longer exhortations.

And into this discord came the gallant young Charles La Tour, but a lad when he came to Acadie with his father on L'esperance en Dieu, and brought up like a savage among the Micmac Indians, from whom he learned to be cautious, to aim an arrow straight, and to hate an enemy until death. But La Tour was also a Frenchman with the polish of a courtier and an amazing suavity of speech. He built for himself a fortification of four bastions, one hundred and fifty feet square, on the river named for Saint John, and here he dwelt in state like a feudal lord, with a great number of soldiers and a welcome for the bands of painted savages coming down the river in their canoes with the pelts which were making La Tour rich in trade and a great man of Acadie. Plenty and a life of careless freedom ruled at the castle of La Tour, and Charles took as his bride a fair young Huguenot girl, whose dark eyes reflected the depths of shallow pools in the forest when the shadows of leaves veil them, and her hair was as softly dark as an Acadian night lighted only by the stars.

Within the fort the Lady La Tour led a quiet life of household duties and in a great love of her lord. She

12 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE

found her happiness in the prideful fruit of her looms, her far-famed butter and cheeses, and the simples and herbs of her garden. If she ever sighed for the spinet and the minuets and the brocades she had left behind her in Paris, Lady La Tour never spoke of these things to her lord. She had donned the homespun of an Acadian woman and her heart was bound to our forests as closely as its roots are bound. And she did not hear the echoes of swords which were beginning to ring in the clash of civil war.

Charles La Tour and this Charnissay held a feud of blood, one with the other. There was not room for their two rival bastions in Acadie, in spite of the mighty sweep of our shores. And the court of France was ripe for bickerings in her colony of New France. Anyone will tell you of the weakness of Louis the Thirteenth, and the power over him which the Cardinal de Richelieu exercised so craftily. And when the Sieur de Charnissay brought influence to bear on Richelieu against Charles La Tour, being jealous of the stronghold he had made for himself up there to the north of the Saint John River, his plan succeeded.

In the year 1641 La Tour received an order from the court to return to France and answer charges of intrigue and dishonesty in his conduct of affairs of trade in Acadie.

MICHAEL THE FIDDLER SPEAKS 13

And this Sieur Charles La Tour, firmly entrenched in his bastion on the River Saint John, although threatened by the forces of Charnissay, refused to obey the royal edict.

Ill

Most composers, trying to translate the voices of women into music, set them to the tempo of a berceuse or that of a pastoral. But listening with the ears of memory to the voice of this Huguenot maid, the Lady La Tour, as it comes to me on the vibrations of my fiddle strings, I hear a more heroic measure whose accompaniment is that of her wandering footsteps as she essayed to follow her lord. Separated by this civil war, in which even the English were drawn on the side of La Tour, from her be- loved, she voyaged our shores and was even seen in France, his welfare in her hands and his safety in her beating heart.

Listen to the pleading words of a long time stranger before the dissolute court of France, for thither did the Lady La Tour sail from Acadie alone in a small ship, to beg supplies and arms for the defense of her lord's bastion. Her plain kirtle and wide lace-trimmed cap must have caused much scorn among the powdered and rouged beauties of Louis' favor. But her voice had the notes of an Acadian springtime when the white-throat first sings

14 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE

of the blooming of the arbutus, and she had no thought, no care for anything save the hope for which she had sailed back to France across a perilous waste of waters.

My grandfather says that, bereft of the council and support of his lady, La Tour became as a lost man, himself wandering as far as the little English settlement at Boston, begging for help and men, having waited wearily for months expecting her return by the shores of the Saint John River. Perplexed by a thousand doubts and fears, he appeared before John Endicott, an Englishman, who was at that time the governor of Massachusetts, and his elders. Scant sympathy did this Papist receive from the psalm-singing men of New England, who looked askance at his ruffles and jewelled sword. But they gave him a few provisions and sent the train bands to guard him as his ship sailed out of Boston Harbor, which was a mercy. An armed ship belonging to Charnissay waited for him near Penob- scot, from which he escaped.

But scarcely had the battered masts and patched sails of La Tour's ship faded on the sky line when another pinnace, still shabbier, touched the harbor. It docked to the tune of Roger Williams' hymns, that stern elder who had come to New England to found the plantation of Providence. Before she passed the weary sails of La Tour, she had escaped the armed ship of de Charnissay

MICHAEL THE FIDDLER SPEAKS 15

farther north on the coast. And hidden in the hold of this same ship as brought the doughty Roger was a noble lady of Acadie, her kirtle worn and her lace-trimmed apron patched, but with the hope of God in her heart. So the Lady La Tour passed her lord and love on the high seas.

Scarce had she made arrangements at Boston to carry a cargo of arms to the bastion of La Tour and reached her despairing husband, than new tribulations came to Acadie. When Charnissay learned that the Lady La Tour had escaped from Boston and reached her husband with sup- plies, he was possessed of a blind rage. He indited a letter to the governor of Massachusetts charging the elders of Boston with being responsible for the escape of a traitor to New France and he threatened them with vengeance from his master, the King of France. It is said that the cheeks of the stern Puritan burned with anger when he read the insult in which his honor as a magistrate was attacked. He, in turn, wrote to Charnissay declaring that the God of New England was stronger than the Papist fools who had brought shame to France's lily. And when the letter was received at the bastion at Penobscot, it further enraged Charnissay, so that he lodged the messenger bearing it in a gunner's house without the gate; this was an insult to Endicott. So the breach between New England and New France widened.

16 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE

There were two friars whom the Lady La Tour had received at her castle and treated with great kindness, but these men, being secretly in the employ of Charnissay, reported back at Penobscot that the bastion of La Tour was in a weakened condition and ripe for attack.

It was an Easter Sunday, a century ago, that the Lady La Tour was at her devotions in the chapel, and outside the air was sweet with the freshness of the wind from the river and the odor of the apple-blossoms. Her lord was again absent, on a mission of trade at Boston, and her garrison was small and in charge of a Swiss whom she greatly trusted. But the singing of the Pentecostal chants drowned the sound of the landing of Charnissay's soldiers that morning at the gates of the La Tour fortifica- tions. And Charnissay bribed the Swiss guard so that his men were well over the walls before the bastion could be roused to arms.

Dressed in white garments and bearing in her arms a spray of lilies, the Lady La Tour led the forces of her husband against the invaders. She so inspired her men that at first Charnissay despaired of taking the bastion. He was repulsed with losses, and under a flag of truce resorted again to base treachery in winning his ends.

The Sieur de Charnissay, her fellow countryman, offered this noble lady freedom and peace to her garrison

MICHAEL THE FIDDLER SPEAKS 17

if she would permit him to enter the fortifications for a day's rest, it being Easter Sunday.

And once inside her walls, he put a rope of execution about the white throat of this lady and compelled her to watch the murder by the sword of her garrison to the last man in the vault of the place, expecting her own death when the others were finished with.

And my grandfather said that her courage was so great that it inspired a fear that she was not of the earth among the band of murderers, so that they allowed her to live.

But her great heart was broken and she felt that her life was done, she not being born for captivity. There she was, you understand, separated from her beloved to whose fortunes she had been so faithful, and she could scarcely expect to see him again, except as the prisoner of his enemy and countryman, the Sieur de Charnissay. So the Lady La Tour took to wandering away from the bas- tion, unpursued by her captors, who saw that she would never again be able to do them any injury. She would cry aloud for her husband on the banks of the river, or go seeking him along the dim lanes of the forest glades. So she wandered and faded away, day by day, until her spirit left its earthly house and they laid her at rest by the banks of the water which she loved so well and beside which she had lived for so long.

18 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE

There she lies, among a wilderness of sweet ferns, and in a little time wild flowers blossomed above her, yet none braver after the winter or fairer than she. In a small while the grass was green again where she had stepped in her wandering and her radiant soul rested on the breast of God, herself forgotten in Acadie. Forgotten, did I say, the Lady La Tour unremembered?

My grandfather knows these things, having gone from house to house with his fiddle in those early days of our Acadie, and he told me that civil war weakens a land, and he also felt that we would yet have trouble with the English who have well entrenched themselves along this coast. He said also that the Lady La Tour's spirit lives again in a brave Acadian maiden each generation, whether she sits in industry at her spinning wheel, or walks beside her beloved.

As I said in the beginning, I am waiting here for the summons to play at the betrothal feast of one of our Acadian maidens, the fairest child of all our village of Grand-Pre. They will crown her with garlands of blos- soms and dance about her on the green, while I fiddle beside that mighty old apple tree of which her father is so justly proud.

We who live in Grand-Prd now are all descendants

<!

MICHAEL THE FIDDLER SPEAKS 19

of those French colonists who were brought out to the Basin of Minas by the Sieur de Razilly and this Charnissay. The desire of the Sieur de Razilly has now been achieved, for we Acadians have become a farming people, finding our peace and prosperity in our flocks, our orchards and our herds. I doubt if any harm in the world can come to Acadie, and I wonder why I hear these century old songs wandering in echoes over the muted strings of my grandfather's fiddle, instead of the marriage song it will give forth in a moment. I suspect that I am giving way to my fancy and if I were to put down my thoughts with goose quill and paper all Grand-Pr^ would laugh at me, and with good reason. A fiddler is not supposed to be a historian. Neither do I claim, of my own heritage, to be such a prophet. But I am an old man and I have lived many years with an ancient fiddle, and it speaks to me.

So there you have three movements of what would be an Acadian symphony if I had but the wit to set them down for the instruments.

The first piece is played with the winds as we listen to the march of blind Gluskap, the spirit of our Mount of Blomidon, driven away from this shore to make place for the white voyageurs. He cries aloud for vengeance. Then comes the clashing of the brasses as they play a

20 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE

piece about conflict among white men, brothers in that they were born of the same Father, but torn with jealousy and thirsting for conquest. Last, the strings play the pastoral movement in which I carry the melody in my own key above the others, the cry of an Acadian woman seeking for something she has lost and for lack of which she finds no comfort.

BENEDICT SPEAKS TO HIS DAUGHTER

Look me straight in the eyes, dear child. A girl has need of her mother on the eve of her wedding day, but I have had to be mother and father both to you for long, the while you have ordered my house like any wife. Yet there are truths unspoken between us, Benedict the most skilled farmer of all the countryside round about Grand- Pre, and you my daughter of seventeen years. I doubt if you have thought at all in regard to your approaching marriage, save of the stores of lavender scented linen of your own spinning and weaving and the good dowry of blooded flocks and herds which I am able to give you, and the new house and barns built for you by the village lads and the love in your heart for the man of your choice.

But there is more to the matter than these and the

music and dancing of the coming day. We sit here alone

for a while awaiting the coming of Rene Leblanc, the

notary of Grand-Pre, who will draw up the marriage

contract. I should like to have had all things made clear

to you by your mother, but I must try to help you to

understand your approaching wifehood in terms of my

[21]

22 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE

vocation. I am a fanner, and through working in the soil one grows to feel and know life as I doubt if it is ever felt by other men.

I have had a part in making the barren waste of Grand-Prd, the Great Prairie, fertile through the letting in of a new stream of life and the deep ploughing of fresh soil. I have watched rich grain sprout from this betrothal of seed and fertile earth. By careful grafting I have turned the wild apple into that mighty tree at our doorway rich with the best King apples in all this village. The herds I am settling on you are as fine as any in France, because I know how to breed cattle. All life processes share themselves with the patience and the faith of the farmer, ploughing, planting, grafting, waiting for the new to spring from the hope with which he unites seed and soil.

Did I ever tell you the adventure it was to build that dike of ours down at the end of the meadow? I am seventy years old this harvest season, and I was only a youth when we began it. Do not look so puzzled, dear child. Listen to a story of the soil.

Where our little thatched cottages and the white church now stand, where the wind sings to us down the street of Grand-Prd as it stirs the branches of our great willows and the Lombardy poplars, once upon a time, when I was young, there were nothing as far as the eye

BENEDICT SPEAKS TO HIS DAUGHTER 23

could see but marshes. For centuries the sea had rolled in and wandered as its tides willed over this point, but there was fine planting soil underneath, if only the sea could be restrained. So we earlier Acadians decided that we would conquer the tides. We attempted the building of a dike.

On one side of us, if you can see in fancy those old Acadian marshes, lay mile upon mile of rippling green swamp, knee deep if one tried to wade it, but with good black ooze underneath. On the side of the Minas Basin were the tides. It seemed as if naught save God could stop their flowing. But we had youth and a fine scorn of danger in our hearts and we went to work.

You would have laughed, my dear, to have seen your father dressed from head to foot in coarse flannel, wearing clumsy spiked boots and emerging with the sun from one of the huts made of straw and rushes, which were our only shelters along the beach. We had pork, potatoes and good ale to sustain us, but little water, for the springs were vile with the poison from the marsh land. From morning until the twilight dropped down upon us, we dug and carted the earth in wheelbarrows along the slippery planks down to the beach, sweating, weary, hoping, but with no surety of success.

You see we had so little to work with. If we had been

24 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE

able to set in iron supports and buttress the dike with masonry, it would have been a different matter. But we must needs stop the sea with nothing but a clumsy aboteaux. We planted five or six rows of large trees in the places where the sea enters the marshes, and between each row we laid down other trees lengthwise on top of each other. Then we filled up the vacant spaces with clay, so well beaten down that the tide could not pass through it. In the middle we set a flood-gate in such a way as to allow the water from the marsh to flow out at low tide without letting the sea water in. We worked together in this, looking for a common share of the harvest, as we still work to-day, which principle, I believe, gives Acadie the sure foundation of peace and prosperity she will always enjoy.

So a vast plain that had been the bottom of what might almost be called a lake was turned into farming soil, sharp strips of red or orange tawny flats, and a straight street lined with poplar trees was laid out. White farm- houses and the smoke from red chimneys began to rise. Basil the blacksmith, the father of your betrothed husband, set up his forge at the crossroads and lighted the fire for beating out our ploughshares. We felt that we had won a mighty triumph.

We are safer to-day, unarmed, in Grand-Pr£, in the

BENEDICT SPEAKS TO HIS DAUGHTER 25

midst of our cornfields and our flocks, within these peaceful dikes besieged by the ocean, than our fathers of New France were in their forts at Louisburg and Port Royal.

We young men of Acadie had driven away forever from the bosom of our adopted country a most dangerous enemy, the sea. We had achieved the means of defending our shores from invasion in time of war. We had conquered the province without tears or blood or the help of generals. Our spades and wheelbarrows had surmounted an obstacle of nature and raised the dike, by means of which Acadie's prosperity was made sure and her place in the glory of New France achieved.

How we had to watch those first dikes! No two of them were alike in the way they had to be built to resist the sea. Here would be one that must be placed in the sea itself; it must reach from the solid earth to the surface of the water, by sinking great rafts of fascines made of our willow osiers, strongly lashed together and making a compact mass. We floated these out over the place they were to occupy and guided them by poles sunk in the bottom, and we loaded them with stones and earth until they sank. Then a second and smaller buttress and a third and sometimes a fourth were made and placed on the first one, and on top the dike was built with two walls, the space between the walls filled in with solid earth.

26 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE

If a dike was exposed to moving water, it must be further protected by wattles placed upon its slope, or by rows of piles, basket work of straw or rushes. And when we learned to make bricks we used them for the walls of our dikes.

I may seem to you, my dear, very full of words and of the science of my trade of farming, which is of slight interest to a maid on the eve of her wedding day. But all this farm, its broad fields, its orchards, the sheep pasture, the barns full of kine, your bees and flowers and dove-cote lie on our side of a dike built and raised by early Acadians in a hope of a harvest from the drained land. Those first two years of the dikes we had to watch them for even the small track of a mole. And not a mole escaped us. The dikes held.

In the meantime Basil had tempered a plough in his fire and with it deep furrows were cut in the new land which was mine; mine, I say, by the right of my conquest of it. And I planted seed, in faith and love, in the furrows, and waiting with trust for the day of my earth's productive- ness.

You, my daughter, and I, have watched together the marvel of the tiny hands of the new corn as they reach their way through the earth in the spring and stretch up toward the sky. Deep furrows and fertile soil set deep

BENEDICT SPEAKS TO HIS DAUGHTER 27

with good seed, and then we have the miracle birth of the corn! The soft silk of the ears floating in the breezes of our Acadian summer always reminds me of the softness of your hair in childhood, my dear. And the whispering of the wind among the leaves is as tender as your voice has been since you stood no higher than the corn in the spring.

It has always seemed to me that if men and women, youths and maids, could be brought to think of life as a farmer knows it, a matter of large harvests and wondrously fine stock, if only the planting and breeding be done with faith and patience, we would have a world made new, as the dikes of Acadie have brought about our beauty and plenty of Grand-Pre.

You are the sweet flowering of my farm, my dear, of a part with its fragrant earth, its homely duties of moulding bread and folding linen and lighting candles to glow through our darkness, and yourself our light through all the hours of the day. Your dancing to the merry tunes of Michael's fiddle is like the play of the stippled sunshine on the carpet of the orchard grass, and when I watch you at prayer in our village church, following with young reverence the petitions of Father Felician, I see you as the benediction of my life of toil.

I read from your eyes, my dear, that now I have

28 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE

touched your heart. "Dull tales of muddy dikes!" you say to yourself, "but soon my lover is coming to me. I can fancy I hear his footsteps on the stones of the village street, and when to-morrow dawns he will be made all my own."

I know, my child; I do indeed know all that is in your heart. But I want you to keep in mind this union of iron and earth, the ploughing and planting with good seed which have made this Paradise we call Grand-Pr&

II

And here is our orchard, a small heaven in itself; or as I like to think of it, a symbol of our village of Grand- Pre as it lies in our sun-brimmed vale of the Gaspereau under the sentinel of old Blomidon. A peaceful com- munity is any orchard, and particularly ours, where the bees hum from season to season with the speech of work and courtship and betrothal.

My dike made possible my orchard. When the marshes were drained, we found the richest soil in New France here in this low ridge with its other farms and many wide spreading fruit lands we have harvested this Indian summer. France, or England for that matter, would be proud to raise such fruit as mine. Plums, pears,

BENEDICT SPEAKS TO HIS DAUGHTER 29

but mainly the apples! Those pink and gold Graven- steins, whose blossoms so attract the hives in the springtime, are a fruit to be proud of. But close to them in pride are our crisp yellow Bishop's Pippins and the Golden Russets. Small wonder we have such rich honey from our hives when they hang beneath the penthouse of the sycamore tree so close to the apple blooms!

I have a habit of reading the poets, as you know, between the seasons when the field labor is done and it is the white of the year with a fire to dream by. Among such deep fields and billowy groves as ours, with their unbosomed farmsteads, I like to fancy that Theocritus could have wrought his idylls to the hum of the heavy bees. I want to tell you one more tale of a farm, my dear, the strange miracle of sacrifice that marks the be- trothal of the hive.

You have watched the noble young queen-bee as she lives her sheltered life in the hive, and in sublime uncon- sciousness of the myriad lovers by whom she is surrounded. Longing for her, the hordes of the males still do not know the young queen. Searching the blue in tribes, among which are other thousands of warrior bees from the orchards of our whole valley, their countless wonderful eyes covering their heads like a helmet of gold, the hordes of her lovers return to their hive without knowing that they may have

30 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE

touched her wings, have perhaps shared the same comb with her. Like the be-mailed and plumed knights of our court of old France, one may watch the troupe of these royal bee suitors emerging from their hives each day and piercing the gold of the sunshine in their search for the one lady of their desire. Daily the drones work without ceas- ing, building higher and more stately waxen walls for her palace. Sentinels guard her gate. The workers of the hive spend their lives in supporting her suitors in magnifi- cent idleness as they wander the blue in their unceasing courtship of a queen they have never seen.

And what does this royal princess do with her days? As you, my child, find your happiness when your house- hold tasks are accomplished in wandering among our willow lined groves in a search for the wild rose, she, the fairest, the most sought for of the hive, must journey from birth to the day of her betrothal in search of the honey and pollen that hide in the myriad flowers of our fields and gardens. She must unfold the mazes of the anthers, discover the secret of the nectaries. All sweetness is hers and a divine blindness to everything but honey and love. She rules the hive wisely, but she has no eyes, no ears for the horde of her lovers. She awaits one, and one only.

Not even we, who planted the apple tree and raised the hive, may watch the wonder of the queen-bee's be-

w

BENEDICT SPEAKS TO HIS DAUGHTER 31

trothal. A morning when the dew is heavy with the sweet- ness of the orchard, a noon when the air is full to the sky with the heat of the sun, may mark the moment when she appears on the threshold, surrounded by the delirious savants of the hive and her less fortunate sisters. This is the moment for which she was born. Like some lady of old caught in the arms of a conquering warrior, she aban- dons herself to the worship of her lover as they pass out of sight in the infinite, luminous depths of our Acadian sky.

Then her return from the heights which no mortal has yet been able to fathom, the stuff of Paradise in her veins!

We cannot, even in fancy, khow the hazards the queen-bee has braved in her betrothal flight. There are colder currents in the ether at that far distance from the orchard than she has ever felt before. There are monsters to be met and eluded in the birds. A storm current may pass in the path of the two. But she returns to her former threshold with a strange sequel to her betrothal! The new queen is alone.

She has lost her lover in the prodigal ecstasy of her wedding day. The only comfort she will have for the rest of her life will be that day of her nuptial flight. She brings back a memory, an infinite loneliness, and a knowl- edge of sacrifice which is the symbol of the deepest love.

32 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE

Never again will the. queen-bee see her mate or feel his strength.

Again, why do I speak to you, my child, of these pages of life as a farmer reads them? I do not myself know why this marvel of the betrothal of the hive fills my mind on the eve of your wedding day. I look for a longer life for your love.

We of Grand-Pr£, dwelling at peace in our thatched cottages, among our fertile farm lands, are a little hive with you, my dear, the waiting queen. We have our faith- ful laborers, as the hive has its drones, the sound of humming like that of bees arises from our spinning wheels and spindles, and our young warriors have surrounded you in the hope of a conquest of your heart for a long time. And now you stand on the threshold of your nuptial flight, with no mother's love to go with you, only a farmer's dreaming, which may be a poor substitute.

So I have desired to try and explain to you in terms of dikes and bees, in parables of struggle and sacrifice, what a betrothal may mean to a maid and a youth. I look for your return to me in a very different manner from that of the queen of the hive who must spend the remainder of her life in loneliness. I look for the fruition of your marriage as I look for the growth of the young corn from a rich, well ploughed meadow.

BENEDICT SPEAKS TO HIS DAUGHTER 33

A knock at the door! Answer it, my dear! It may be Basil the blacksmith, or Rene Leblanc with the papers of contract for your wedding!

RENE THE NOTARY WRITES

We have just tried to break down the oaken doors of the church. I had no idea that I could put forth so much strength, that I had the might still in my loins to brave the bayonets in hands of British soldiers, I, the old notary of Grand-Pre, Rend Leblanc. The garlands of flowers that the maidens of the village twined about our benches here in the church have been torn off and trampled by the rude acts of these unbelievers of New England. I tell you I fought them, I had a man on his knees before me, but they used bayonets.

I can't say just how long the cut he gave me kept me giddy. It was a fortunate matter that my spectacles are unbroken, and when the drums of this Colonel Winslow's expedition called us to the church, I had the presence of mind to bring my paper and inkhorn with me. There are the children, my own and my grandchildren of Grand-Prd, who will want to know the truth of this invasion of Acadie if I never see them again. It is said that we are to be loaded like cattle on the sloops of these canting Puritans in the morning, to be carried away from the land of our

[34]

RENE THE NOTARY WRITES 35

adoption and whose riches and plenty will be a fine plunder for the British due to the industry of our Acadian farmers.

Plunder?

Now, I ask myself, is that the proper definition of this matter? It has been my misfortune, due, no doubt, to my training in the procedure of law, to always see both sides of a case. The shield should ever be turned. Anyone in Grand-Pre will tell you that Rene the Notary was imprisoned in irons in the old fortress of Port Royal because he was suspected of sympathizing with the British. Neither is that the right word. I do not sympathize. I see the other side of each argument to my undoing, although my heart will always be buried in an Acadian valley where the sun lights the land like the smile of God.

But I want to put down decently and in order of the case exactly the struggle that was the reason of our trying to batter down the doors of our church just now, the reason why we were taken from the gaiety of the wedding party of the fairest child in all Grand-Pre to be imprisoned here, the beginning and the end of the matter.

I am sitting not far from the altar. In the midst of our fierce attack upon our red-coated jailers and its fiercer repulse, Father Felician, the priest of our village, com- manded that we cease and be at peace in God's house. The British sentinels are dozing by the door. We are all

36 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE

weary, this being the fourth day of our confinement. Father Felician has lighted the candles, and I can write by their light. This thing must be understood from the beginning.

In the year of our Lord, seventeen hundred and thirteen, there was a peace concluded across the ocean between France and England which separated a new land from an old. And by its provisions the land of Acadie, with its boundaries and the inhabitants thereof, was ceded to Great Britain. Then an emissary of the King of England came to our shores with an oath of allegiance which it was wished that all Acadians would forswear. It reads in this wise:

Je Promets et Jure Sincerement en Foi de Chretien qui Je serai entirement Fidele et Obrerai vraiment Sa Majesti Le Roy George le Second, qui Je reconnoi pour Le Souverain Seigneur de L' Acadie ou Nouvelle Ecosse:

Ainsi Dieu me Soit en Aide.

It must be understood that there was an England here at that time, a New England, and if New France was to remain in the hands of Great Britain, those long- faced men of Boston wanted to be sure that their security would not be in danger from the French privateers who, to the disgrace of Acadie, were wont to prey upon the seas along this coast from Port Royal to Boston.

RENE THE NOTARY WRITES 37

Some of us took the oath of allegiance to the King and others refused. We of Grand-Pre, being but peace- loving farmers and having no dealings with pirates, refused to take the oath. Ever since that treaty of Utrecht, now- over forty years since, the Acadian farmers of our valley have lived on our lands without complying with the terms by means of which we were allowed to retain the soil. We of Grand-Pr£ are not yet British subjects, although we hold all sympathy with his gracious Majesty, the King. We term ourselves neutrals and I would not say that we have been badly treated under the English governors at Halifax. I have known of Frenchmen being sent to the galleys by a French king because they swore away their allegiance to the Cardinals. And here, you understand, are we, Papists with a Protestant governor, but for two score years allowed to live unmolested on British soil.

But faster sailing sloops have been built in this time. The English captains have come closer and closer to our game lands and our rich fishing grounds. There have been conflicts all around our valley. You remember how Louisburg, built by us as a military and naval station, was taken by that Massachusetts adventurer, General Pepperell, in the year seventeen hundred and forty-five. It was given by England to France again in ten years or so, but the matter still rankles here in New England.

38 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE

Our fort of Beau S^jour has just been captured by that Colonel Winslow, who dozes in his crimson and gold lace at a table not far from where I am trying to balance my inkhorn. And Port Royal has been disputed land now these many years.

There you have one side of a shield, once silver but now tarnished. I would not say that this present expedi- tion to our Basin of Minas is warranted by God, but it could nevertheless be upheld in a court of law. Now look at the other side.

II

From time to time we of Grand-Pre have been ap- proached and urged to take the oath of allegiance to the Crown. But in council with our two great men, Benedict, the richest farmer of this countryside, and Basil the black- smith, together with various heads of families and the young men, we have always made this reply:

"We prefer our neutrality although wishing to express our faithfulness to the King. Any arms we might carry would be a feeble surety for our allegiance. It is not the gun that an inhabitant possesses that will lead him to revolt, nor the depriving him of that gun that will make him more faithful, but his conscience alone ought to engage him to maintain his oath."

RENE THE NOTARY WRITES 39

So we believed and so we practiced, but these four days back when, as you know, we were all making merry to the tune of Michael's fiddle at the festivities of a be- trothal between our most sought for maid and the son of Basil the blacksmith, we heard the rumble of guns in the harbor and an ominous drumming from the road leading up the beach to the village. Being rather too stiff in my ancient joints to be able to caper with any success or pleasure, I had wandered toward the willow road for a space and I overheard this conversation between two approaching red-coats as I stood behind a tree unobserved by them.

"Nail it up to this tree, then, shall we, for the French- ies' delight?" asked one of them insolently and with a dirty oath.

"So we had the order," replied the other. "I heard Colonel Winslow and the Governor talking about it before we sailed from Halifax. 'Write a proclamation/ said the Governor, 'and post it in the different provinces of these disobedient French requiring them to attend at their respective posts on a certain day, and let us make this proclamation so obscure in its wording that the reason for which they are assembled will not be known to them, but so peremptory in its terms as to command their obedi-

40 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE

Then they nailed a paper to a tree, after which the two sauntered toward the place of our festivities. I waited for them to return.

"Buxom wenches !" said one, with a vile simper. "Rarely shaped and delicately fleshed. I never bethought me to find such passing fairness of form but ill concealed by their gay kirtles among the Frenchies. It's been a long voyage, mate. What say you to a stroll after candle lighting along the village street? What say you to a wench or two as prize, in return for the marauding manners of their privateers along our coast?"

"Aye, mate, it has been a long voyage!" replied the other.

Swine! I clenched my fists, but I had to let them pass that I might come out from my hiding place and read the writing they had posted. Here is it then:

To the inhabitants of the District of Grand-Pr£, as well ancient as young men and lads of ten:

Whereas his Excellency, the Governor, has instructed us of his late resolution respecting the matter proposed to the inhabitants, and has ordered us to communicate the same in person, his Ex- cellency being desirous that each of you should be fully satisfied of his Majesty's intentions, which he has also ordered us to com- municate to you such as they have been given to him. We therefore order and strictly enjoin by these presents all of the above named District, both old men and young men, as well as lads of ten years

RENE THE NOTARY WRITES 41

of age, to attend at the church of Grand-Pre* on Friday, the fifth instant, at three of the clock, that we may impart to them what we are ordered to communicate to them; declaring that no excuse will be admitted on any pretext whatever, on pain of forfeiting goods and chattels, in default of real estate.

Given at Grand-Pre\ 2nd September, 1755, and the 29th year of his Majesty's reign.

John Winslow

III

It was explicitly told to the soldiery that we were in the midst of a nuptial feast. Father Felician was about to lead the procession of the contracting parties, together with the maids in attendance upon the bride, to the church, when she was separated from her lover. We were crowded into the flower trimmed nave, four hundred and eighteen able-bodied men of Grand-Prd, and locked into our church, now become an arsenal.

Immediately this high-handed Colonel Winslow stood up in his gold lace before us, surrounded by his officers and spoke but with, I fancied, a slight touch of pity for us farmers and herders in his stern voice. But there was no mistaking the ominous meaning of his words, which fell upon us with all the deadly force of gun-fire.

"Gentlemen," so he began, as if mocking our plain coats and stain soiled hands. "Gentlemen:

"I have received from His Excellency, Governor

42 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE

Lawrence, the King's Commission which I have in my hand, and by his orders you are convened together that we may manifest to you his Majesty's final resolution to the French inhabitants of this his Province of Acadie, who for almost half a century have had more indulgence granted them than any of his subjects in any part of his dominions. What use you have made of it, you yourselves best know. The part of duty I am now upon, 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. But it is not my business to animadvert, only to obey such orders as I receive, and therefore without hesitation shall deliver you his Majesty's orders and instructions, namely:

"Your lands and tenements, cattle of all kinds and live-stock of all sorts are now forfeited to the Crown; with all your other effects, saving your money and house- hold goods, and you yourselves to be removed from this his Majesty's 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 off your money and household goods, as many as you can without discommoding the vessels in which you will go. I shall do everything in

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RENE THE NOTARY WRITES 43

my power that all these goods be secured to you and that you are not molested in carrying them off; also that whole families shall go in the same vessel, and make this removal, which I am sensible must make you a great deal of trouble, as easy as his Majesty's service will permit, and I hope that in whatever part of the world you 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 remairi in security under the inspection and direction of the troops that I have the honor to command/'

It was then that we tried to force the door. I think it was this Englishman's reference to his troops which gave me unexpected strength.

"Buxom wenches!"

"A long voyage it has been!"

The words had burned themselves into my soul.

IV

The candles on the altar flicker. Or is it that my eyes are weakly moist which makes it difficult for me to write further? We heard a plaintive wailing outside of the church just now and the hands of the village maiden from whom had been torn her promised husband were heard beating at this barred door. The lad himself,

44 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE

strong as the iron bands his father knows how to forge so well, was mad with his longing for her and his hatred of our debasement. He bore down two guards before they silenced him with a blow from a musket barrel. I can hear her crying still, but smaller and farther away through the darkness that surrounds us.

The voice of our village priest, Father Felician, can be heard chanting before the image of the crucified Lord of us all that hangs beside our altar.

" Father, forgive them!" He repeats the petition over and over. "Lighten our darkness, we beseech Thee/' he entreats, as the last of our candles burns out.

Me, I am growing confused in my thinking. I tried in the beginning of this writing to indite a legal record which would set the matter straight for the generations of my children. But I can hear nothing now save the canting words of this Englishman.

"You, who are of the same species — " he said.

So there you are, ending with an utter confusing of the law.

JOHN WINSLOW WRITES

Journal of John Winslow

of the

Provincial Troops

While Engaged in Removing the

Acadian French Inhabitants from Grand-Pr<*

In the Autumn of the Year 1755

From My Camp at Grand-Pre, Nova Scotia, August 22nd, 1755

I embarked on the sixteenth with three hundred and thirteen men, officers included, having with me Captains Adams, Hobbs, and Osgood in three vessels bound for Porte Edward, where we the next day arrived and I found there a memorandum sent by Colonel Lawrence, the Governor of Nova Scotia, which directed me to take up my quarters at the Basin of Minas. Whereupon, on the next tide, I came down the river and entered into the Gaspereau, where we landed.

Have taken up my quarters here in Grand-Prd between the Church and Chapel yard, having the Priest's House for my own accommodation and the Church for a Place of

[45]

46 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE

Arms. Am picketing my Camp to prevent a surprise. Expect to be joined with two hundred more men soon.

As to the Inhabitants, commonly called the Neutrals, the point seems to have been settled in relation to them and they are to be removed. They are as yet in Ignorance of the Reason of my coming here. This is a fine day and they seem to be very busy with their harvesting.

I have the pleasure to inform his Majesty's Govern- ment that the Army in general enjoys a good state of health, although it is likely we shall soon have our hands full of a disagreeable Business to remove a people from their ancient habitations which in this part of the Country are very valuable.

The Orders of the Day: No soldier to Straggle from this Camp down the street of the Village without special permission and leave from me.

The Main body of the Church to be made clear for the reception of men and provisions. The Troops, with the exception of the Guard and the Sentry, will hereafter lodge in this Camp.

August 24th

Yesterday I received a month's provisions for four hundred men, which I have deposited in the Church. I have pitched my Tents and lodged my men in them;

JOHN WINSLOW WRITES 47

and if my Palisades hold out, shall finish my picketing this day. There is a small House within the pickets which I have made into a Captains' quarters.

One thing I still lack, which is a guard room, and I have a frame up and partly enclosed and there are old boards enough here to cover it. I shall put His Majesty to no expense in the whole but for Nails, of which if the Commissary have any in store I should be glad of one thousand and can not well do without them, as also a Lock of any kind so it be stout for the Church door.

Jock Terreo informs me that the Inhabitants of Grand- Pre are readily complying with our demand of Cattle and that these should be of the best. We this day drive to the Woods to collect the herds together.

I am setting down in this my diary certain of my instructions, issued to me at Halifax on August 11th of the current year:

Instructions for Lieutenant-Colonel John Winslow:

Destinations of the Vessels in the Basin of Minas: North Carolina, Mary Land and Virginia. Each person so embarked is to be allowed 5 pounds of flour and 1 pound of pork for every seven days.

With relation to the means necessary for collecting the people together so as to get them on board. If you find that Fair means will not do with them you must Proceed by the most Vigorous measures possible not only in compelling them to Embark, but in

48 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE

depriving those who shall escape of all means of shelter by Burning their Houses and Destroying everything that will afford them means of subsistence in their Country.

As soon as the Transports have received their people on board and are ready to Sail you are to acquaint the Commander of his Majesty's ship therewith that he may take them under Convoy and put to Sea without loss of Time.

August 30th

As the Corn is now all down, the weather being such as has helped the Inhabitant's housing of it, it is my opinion that the orders be made Public next Friday, on which day we purpose to put these orders into execution.

At My Camp September 1st

Three of the extra Transports have arrived and the Inhabitants have been on Board eager to know their Errand, but as I was early with the Ships' masters, I gave them instructions to say that they were come to attend me and the Troops wherever I pleased. These Transports inform me that there is eleven more Sail coming from Boston and would weigh anchor shortly.

This day, September 2nd, 1755, I posted his Majesty's proclamation in the village of Grand-Pre, giving notice to the People that they assemble in the Church on Friday at three of the Clock*

JOHN WINSLOW WRITES 49

September 3rd

Past nine in the Evening. Whereas there has been just now an Alarm in the Camp, it is positive that the Roll must be called to see who is absent from this Camp whether Regulars or Irregulars, that if there be delinquents they may be treated as such.

September 4th

A Court Martial to be held this morning for the Trial of William Jackson and of Abishai Stetson of the Troops for being out of the Encampment all night and for bringing into the Camp a French Fire Shovel and a Sieve. The sentence of the Court is that the Prisoner Jackson receive Twenty Lashes from the hands of the Drummer with a Cat and that the Prisoner Stetson re- ceive Thirty Lashes in the Like manner, and well Laid on, in addition to making Amends to those Houses whose Inhabitants they had Desecrated.

Confirmed and Ordered to be put into Execution at the Relief of the Guard.

September 5th

I have found it expedient to add this clause to the Proclamation in the village of Grand-Pre:

That all Horned Cattle, Sheep, Goats, Hogs and Poultry of

50 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE

all kinds that were this Day supposed to be Vested in the French Inhabitants of this Province are become forfeited to his Majesty whose Property they now are, and every Person of the French Denomination is to take care not to Hurt, Kill, or Destroy anything of any kind nor to rob Orchards or Gardens or to make Waste of anything whatsoever, Dead or Alive, in these Districts without Orders from me.

The Orders of the Day: The French Inhabitants to repair to their quarters in the Church at Tattoo and in the day not to extend their walks to the Eastward of the Commandant's Quarters without leave from the officers of the Guard. A patrol of a Sergeant and twelve men to walk constantly round the Church. The Sentries every- where to be doubled.

These French people not having any provisions with them in the Church and pleading Hunger, I ordered that for the future they be supplied from their respective families.

Thus ends my Memorable fifth of September, a Day of great Fatigue for me and Trouble.

September 10th

I sent for Father Landry, their principal Speaker who talks English, and I told him the time was come for the Inhabitants to begin Embarking and that we would start with the Young Men and that I desired he would inform his Brethren of it. He was greatly Surprised.

JOHN WINSLOW WRITES 51

I told him that as I Viewed the matter it must be done and that I should order the Prisoners to be drawn up Six Deep, their Young Men on the left, and as the Tide would in a very little time favor my Design I could not give them above an Hour to prepare for going on Board. I then Commanded our whole Party to be under Arms and Post themselves between the two gates and the Church in the rear of my Quarters, which was obeyed and agreeable to my Directions.

The Whole of the French Inhabitants were drawn together in one Body, their Young Men as directed to the left. I then ordered the Prisoners to march, but they all answered that they could not go without their Fathers.

I told them that was a word New England did not understand, for that the King's Command was to me Absolute and should be, on my part, Absolutely obeyed. That I did not love Harsh means but the Time did not permit of parleying. Then I ordered the whole Troops to fix their Bayonets and advance toward the French with the repeated order to march.

The Which they then did, though Slowly, and they went singing and crying and praying, being met by the Women and Children all the way (the road is rough and a mile and a half long) with great lamentations and upon their knees.

52 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE

I began at once to Embark these Inhabitants who went so Sorrowfully and Unwillingly, the Women in great distress carrying their Children in their arms and Others carrying their decrepit Parents in their Wains and all their Goods moving in dire Confusion. It appeared indeed a matter of Woe and Distress.

Thus Proceeds a Troublesome Job, and little to my liking. After this Captain Adams Fell Down from the Gaspereau.

September 11th

I made strict enquiry how those Young Men made their escape yesterday and by every circumstance found one Francois Hubert was either the Contriver or Abettor, who was on Board at the time and his Effects shipped. I ordered him ashore, allowed him to proceed to his own House and then in his presence burned both his House and Barn.

There are certain Instructions which must be given to the Masters of these Transports. Thomas Church of the Leopard, bound for Mary Land, will sail first. I will write him in this wise:

Sir;

You having received on Board your Schooner certain Men, Women and Children, being part of the French Inhabitants of the

JOHN WINSLOW WRITES 53

Province of Acadie in Nova Scotia, you are to Proceed with them when Wind and Weather permit to his Majesty's Governor in Mary Land and upon your arriving there you are to Wait upon the Honorable Horatio Sharp, Lieutenant-Governor and Commander- in-Chief, and make all possible Dispatch in Debarking your Pas- sengers.

You are to take care that no Arms or offensive Weapons of any kind are on Board with your passengers and to be as careful and watchful as possible during the whole course of your Voyage to prevent these. Prisoners from making an attempt to take the Ship. To guard against any attempt to seize your Vessel you will allow only a Small Number to be on Deck at a time.

See that the Provisions be regularly issued to the people and for your greater Security you are to wait on the Commander of his Majesty's Ship Nightingale and desire the Benefit of his Convoy.

Wishing you a successful Voyage, and given under my hand at the Camp of Grand-Pre", Anno Domino, Seventeen hundred and fifty-five.

John Winslow

I have made out a Summary of this Unpleasant Business upon which I, Lieutenant-Colonel John Winslow of the Army of Boston, was Detailed. I caused to be Burned the following in the region round about the Basin of Minas:

Barns 276

Houses 255

Mills 11

Churches 1

Total 543

54 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE

I Shipped one thousand five hundred and ten Inhabit- ants from Grand-Pre on certain Vessels to Strange Parts, where these French will needs find themselves Houses. The Brig Hannah, Captain Adams in command, will take her way to Philadelphia. The Industry and the Leopard, Goodwin and Church being their Masters, are on their Route to Mary Land. I have started the Prosperous, the Mary, and the Sally and Molly to the region of Virginia.

Winter will be coming on Apace in this Camp and the Sea beats desolately against the Shore.

THE TORTURE OF FRANCOIS I

I, Francois Hubert, son of a herdsman of Grand-Pre, have been subjected to torture by the captain of this English brig upon whose deck men, women and children, separated from their own and nigh to being trampled upon by the cattle, are sailing away from our homes forever. I should like to speak of the manner of this torture in- flicted upon me, a youth of Grand-Pre, the like of it I believe being unknown to even our French pirateers.

This is a small, square-rigged vessel manned by sea- men of several different tongues, and as they say is apt to happen in time of an invasion, they are mad with rum. With some two dozen of the other young men of our village, I was driven aboard at the point of the bayonet this morn- ing to be transported none of us knew whither. Mayhap such indignities as we have met with on this brig did not happen to the Acadians on the other sloops carrying the French Neutrals away from our coast. I can relate only what has just been done to me.

As I said, the men left aboard had been filling them- selves with rum all the days of our captivity in the church

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56 THE STORY OP EVANGELINE

of Grand-Pre, and when I was driven aboard with these youths who, like me, were afire with anger, the two flames, that of their bottles and the hate which overflowed our hearts, met. We had a fight with the sailors here on the brig's deck. There was due reason on our part for it. The men were in a nasty temper and one of them poked his pistol in my face, which I wrenched from him, knocking him flat with the butt of it. This so angered his fellow seamen that they went at us with cutlasses left aboard by the troops and kicked and cursed us. We had but our fists, yet we gave them a hard fight before they over- powered us.

Some of us these ruffianly seamen trussed together with ropes, but their drink had made them weak and some few of us escaped to the rigging, where we crawled out upon the bowsprit and the sprit-sail yard far enough to drop and swim back to shore. The shore is crowded with our villagers, their wains bringing household goods, and the packages they are making up to carry on board the ships when their order to embark comes. We thought that we would be able to hide among them.

But the captain of this brig coming out in a small boat with another load of the banished Acadians saw us and gave orders that the ship's guns be turned on us. We were dragged back and under his orders all save me

THE TORTURE OF FRANCOIS 57

were given a taste of the torture well known and in use to-day on the British prison ships. They stood me one side in irons to watch.

The hold of this ship is well equipped with the imple- ments of torture. The screw, hand-cuffs, the leg-shackles, short and long chains, and the cat are here. And these drunken sailors can still throw a cracked rum bottle with good aim. All too soon my friends gave up their desire to go back on shore. They gave promise to accept their banishment without question. They are to help sail this brig on her long voyage south, like so many galley slaves. Then, without warning, the captain ordered that I be sent ashore. I thought it amazing strange, since I had been the ring-leader of this small revolt among our youths. The captain had said himself that he looked upon me as the abettor. But I was summarily rowed back to the land and left there, apparently to take my will about returning to Grand-Pre.

The road to the village is a mile and a half in length. There is no change in it; the smell of the sea blended with the taste of apples on the air as my feet followed first the sandy path and then turned into a willow-shaded road. Beyond I could see the weathered thatch of the roofs through the trees, like the empty nests of last season's rooks, left vacant for the winter. And the barns are like

58 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE

a village in themselves. But the road was very crowded with a cringing huddle of simple village people whose pale faces were set toward the sea, all one way, with some score of men-at-arms urging their lagging footsteps. I was looking for a fair maiden of our Grand-Pre whose sweet nature I have loved for many springs, but who would never look twice at me, being betrothed to another. I had a thought that I might help her and her father, who is Benedict, our richest farmer, carry their household effects. He is an old man. I have loved the girl for many a tedious season. So I hastened along the road toward the village hoping to find them and offer myself as their burden bearer in this hour of our affliction.

I can see in fancy our road from Grand-Pre now, although the shore of Acadie has long since faded and we are a long way out at sea. A wide road edged by rows of scattered cottages, tidy of wall and thatch, a well-trodden road that led away into the cool depths of the forest.

II

Nearly all the distance our women and children kneeled along the roadside to pray, and above the sound of the waves and the wind in the branches came their voices singing our chant:

THE TORTURE OF FRANCOIS 59

Sacred heart of our Saviour! 0 inexhaustible fountain!

Fill our hearts this day with strength and submission and patience!

Above all there was the murmur of the low wailing of voices, pierced now and again by a wild cry that never could come from the lips of a man and would rise above the crying and cease, lost in the louder clamor of voices, the creaking of the wheels of our wains and the pounding of the sea.

The old men met me, the men in their working smocks whose hard hands have made our farms yield good harvests and who have taught us younger men how to plough and plant and tend the orchards. Then the women and chil- dren rose and joined the fleeing crowd, and all the way our road was lined with the troops from Halifax holding their bayonets low, the points turned toward the road. For as long as I can remember we have been unarmed in Grand-Pre, and we have been brought up by our parents to feel a fidelity for our sovereign, King George, although we preferred to hold this in our hearts rather than to swear it before the notary. The vile unfairness of our sudden banishment from our lands filled my heart as I hurried along the road. I had little else in mind, except my search among the crowd for the maiden from whose betrothal to the son of our smith, I was torn away some days

60 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE

since and imprisoned in our church to hear the proclamation in relation to the forfeiture of our lands.

I was weak from that tussle with the drunken sailor. I think now that it was strange I did not question the odd fact that I was being allowed to take my way unmolested back to Grand-Pre while my neighbors were being driven away at the point of British bayonets. But it did not occur to me at the time. I remember, however, that I could not stop computing our exiles as I stumbled along against the tide of the prisoners. All the way to the village I counted as I went.

Farmers and artisans, housewives and the little ones — well over a thousand Acadians going down to the sea that tenth of September of the year seventeen hundred and fifty-five.

Then I heard a sound that was like the call of our mission bell to prayers, save that it was so mighty a chiming that it filled all the air even above the crying of the children, and was like a pealing of the bells of heaven in protest to this crime which was being done to our village. It was the ringing of the cow bells of Grand-Prd as the soldiers drove our herds to the sea and the transports that were waiting for them. I had to step one side or the herds would have trampled upon me. They were like an army, over a thousand of the oxen charging first and followed by

THE TORTURE OF FRANCOIS 61

the patient cows and their young. I counted five thousand of the cattle going down the road from the village to the beach and I shall never forget the eyes of the kine. All the patience and trust of our people seemed to be shining out of them, but dimmed with their blind terror as they felt the sword-pricks in their glossy hides with which the Red Coats drove them on.

Then, before I could get into the road again, I had to watch the flocks coming toward me.

We of Grand-Pre have been justly proud of our wool. There is nothing like it in amount from the individual sheep and in quality for the length of it for the entire sweep of this coast as far as Boston. One reason for this is our fine pasture land, the deep grass in which the flocks graze. And we are particularly careful of the flocks at the time of lambing. We look upon our Acadian shepherds as among the most important men of the community.

Lambs are foolish, hapless little creatures. I saw one go down in this mad driving of our eight thousand sheep to the sea; its wee legs would not hold it up against the push of the frightened ewes and the charging rams. Its mother stopped beside it and a sword thrust laid her in the track for her tender pains.

I remember how this incident wrote itself in blood on my hot brain. So perhaps was our little community of

62 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE

Acadians but a feeble flock in the cruel march of civiliza- tion, and her blood as necessary and as unheeded in the general scheme of things as was that bit of blood-stained flesh on the road from Grand-Prd to the Basin of Minas.

But I struggled on toward the village, hoping against everything that I saw to find Benedict and his daughter and to be able to give them some slight assistance.

It must have been toward night when I came to the edge of the long winding street that takes its way, with the small white houses on either side, through Grand-Pre. Some have translated our name for the village as meaning the Great Prairie, and so it was in the beginning before the dikes of our forefathers changed it to the Great Meadow it now is. We have liked to think of it as that, our Great Meadow, and at night at this season the lights from the hearths shining out from our open doors are like the meadow flowers pointing a way to good pasturage and peace and plenty.

I had this in mind as I came toward the street, although I should have realized that our hearths of Grand-Pre were all cold, we having been turned out of our homes some days since. At first I thought my half -dazed senses were piercing the autumn mist which is apt to rise from the fields at this time of the year. I could scarcely see a rod

THE TORTURE OF FRANCOIS 63

ahead of me, although it seemed a clear night with the stars coming out.

Then I saw columns of shining white smoke arise.

"The soldiers are making merry at our fireplaces/' I said to myself, "warming their toddy at our vacant boards, the marauders !"

But next I saw a great red light to the south.

"The moon climbing red up the harvest road of the sky!" That was how I explained that red light to myself. But only for a second did I so cheat myself. In that second the smoke rose in higher, brighter columns and within it there were flashes of flame, long and pointed like the quivering hands of some old-time martyr upheld in supplication and then withdrawn into the folds of the fire of sacrifice.

I said a while past that I, Francois Hubert, son of a herdsman of Grand-Pre, had been tortured as no youth ever had been before because of my part in an insurrection aboard an English brig in our harbor. Here I was, then, face to face with the evil thing that was being done to me, and into which with the design of fiends they had forced me to walk of my own initiative.

I was present at the burning of Grand-Pre.

64 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE

III

They drove me back to the ship after my own thatched roof was gone in ashes and my childhood's hearthstone had taken its place among the stones of our land again. When I tried to close my eyes to the horror, a sword point made me open them again, for I had been followed along the way at the commanding officer's orders, that all the details of my torture be surely carried out.

They drove me back to the beach between bayonets, a soldier on each side of me, and when I came upon a small group of my neighbors gathered about an old man who had died on the beach at the shock of this burning of Grand- Pre, the soldiers would not let me stop to speak a word of comfort to them. His life had gone out like a lamp that suddenly flickers with one last flame and then darkens because it has been emptied of the precious oil that had kept it glowing.

Benedict the farmer of Grand-Pre it was who died on the sands the night of the burning of the farm which had been like the oil of life to his brave spirit. All his seventy years Benedict had been of the same family as his corn, his herds, and his bees.

She sat beside his body as one in a dream, nor would she turn or look at me, although she has not been able

THE TORTURE OF FRANCOIS 65

to find her lover, the son of Basil the blacksmith. He goes, I know, on this ship. He was among the youths of our insurrection, struggling vainly to reach the shore. I would have told her this if I had been able, but my captors dragged me on to the small boat which put me aboard this brig. But I heard her murmuring again and again to herself as if she were speaking in a dream:

"If we love one another nothing, in truth, can harm us, whatever mischances may happen."

She must by now have been taken aboard one of the other ships. We are out of their course, so I can not say of a positiveness about this, but so I judge. The old man, ready to be taken again to the dust from which we are all come, and the living maiden, so fair in her faith and trust, are my last vision of a lost land.

Mayhap I see a prophecy in it. Benedict, the ashes of the destruction of Grand-Pre, and his daughter, a living, gentle fragrance which rises from the ruins and will make sweet the bitterness of those unknown places whither we wanderers of Acadie are now bound.

NOT INHABITANTS OF ANY TOWN I

Storm-bound ships at anchor in our harbor of Boston! The season being early November of the year of our Lord, 1755, very bleak, and the sailing masters of these transports complaining that they could not risk further cruising, in spite of the orders they had received from our Colonel Winslow, who remains in Nova Scotia to guard the Province of the King.

I remember the day when we went down to the water- side to view these ships, the Dolphin, the Endeavor, the Sally and Molly they were, and two other small schooners. Certain other Puritans appointed by the Council went with us to examine the state of the French Papists who crowded them. We have a sense of duty, though we abhor the bigotry of Rome. Also, the affair had to be attended to in order.

I can see the gentlemen now, their long cloaks blowing about them in the gale from the sea, and their stern faces drawn in lines of displeasure at this unexpected cargo of Acadian exiles come into our harbor. There were Mr. Gridley, Mr. Hooper, Cole Otis and that staunch

[66]

NOT INHABITANTS OF ANY TOWN 67

Puritan, Joseph Pynchon, in our party. Mr. Pynchon went out in a small boat to interview the masters of the ships, and although he returned with his cloak tight wrapped about him, as if to keep clean of the touch of the Black Pope, he made a fair and honest report about the matter to the Council, then sitting in the State House. I have his exact words here before me, written with his own quill pen some ten years ago and dated the first week of November of that year:

"There be over a thousand French Inhabitants in our harbor/' remarked Mr. Pynchon. "They were bound for the Province of the Quakers, for Mary Land and the warmer Provinces south of us such as the Carolinas, but their estate is very grievous.

"On the Dolphin we found them sickly, occasioned by being too much crowded, forty lying exposed on the deck. They complain of hunger on the Endeavor. On the Sally and Molly the meat has given out. Their water is very bad. The vessels are in general too much crowded and their allowance of food is short, being but one pound of meat, five pounds of porridge meal and two pounds of bread for each man a week, and too small a quantity to carry them to the ports they were bound for, and especially at this season of the year.

"Your Committee appointed to examine into the

68 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE

state of the French Neutrals in the several Transports now lying in the Harbor of Boston are of the opinion that liberty be given them for landing as many of these strangers as will reduce those left to the number of but two persons to a town in those Provinces for which they are bound."

This was humbly submitted by Joseph Pynchon to his Excellency, Governor Shirley, and the Council, read and sent down.

In the meantime, these Acadians had to be fed. We landed them, and they stumbled in sad procession through the narrow streets and lanes of our town. Any- one in Boston now, the year 1766, will have heard of it, and how we housed so many as we could in the Sugar House near Windmill Point, and certain were cared for privately by the Sheriff and the Overseer of the Poor, while others rode in carts to near-by villages. They came in rags, and weeping, and bearing their sick and the chil- dren who could not yet walk. As I understand it, they were in the main people of estate in Acadie, but here in Boston we cared nothing for having some eight hundred French paupers foisted on us by the orders of that auto- cratic Governor, Lawrence, of Halifax. We felt bound in the fear of God to do our duty by them, but we stomached it not.

I am working late here in the State House, arranging

NOT INHABITANTS OF ANY TOWN 69

the records of the Council and the Legislature in our books of archives of this Province of Massachusetts Bay, being, as perhaps I should have said at first, the present Secretary of the Commonwealth.

It is likely that these papers about the Acadians we harbored, since they were nothing to us but waifs of the tide, will be swamped in the more timely ones in relation to our recent affair of the Stamp Act. Mayhap they are not of sufficient importance to be entered at all amidst our records of New England. Already, though but ten years old, the ink is paler and the paper is yellowing. And the Acadians are gone. They never had a permanent abiding place in any town among us, whether through our fault or theirs, which matter history must decide. My candle burns low, and I hear the footsteps of the watchman on the stones of Beacon Hill outside. I would go home. Shall we enter the Acadians in our august archives?

Ah well! why not? These papers show how Puritans kept truce with duty and at the same time counted pence for the Commonwealth. Here be certain of them:

In the House of Representatives, December, 1755

Voted that his Honor the Governor be desired to write to Governor Lawrence to acquaint him that the Government have admitted the French Inhabitants of Nova Scotia which he had sent from Acadie, and that they expect to be reimbursed all charges

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which have already or may arise by means thereof to the govern- ment. And also to acquaint him that if hereafter any more of these inhabitants shall be sent here they shall not be admitted within the Government till they have the promise of the Governor of Nova Scotia to indemnify this Province from all charges that may arise on their being brought hither.

In the House of Representatives

Ordered that a Committee be appointed for the support of such Inhabitants of Nova Scotia until advices concerning them be obtained from Governor Lawrence, and the Committee are to dispose of them in the mean time in such towns within the Province as they shall judge least inconvenient to the public, and the Select- men and the Overseers of the Poor of the several towns to which they may be sent are authorized and required to receive them and employ or support them in such manner as shall incur the least charge.

And the said Inhabitants of Nova Scotia being so received into New England and so entertained in any town shall not be construed or understood to be an admission of them as Town Inhabitants, the Court relying upon it that some other Provision will be made for them.

In the Council 1755, Read and Concurred, and Samuel Watts and William Brattle are enjoined in the Affair. Silvanus Bourne, Joseph Pynchon, Thomas Dutchinson and Benjamin Lincoln are added to the Committee.

An Act making provision for the Inhabitants of Nova Scotia and sent Hither from that Government and Lately Arrived in this Province:

Whereas divers of the Inhabitants and families of Nova Scotia have been sent by the Government and Council of that Province

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to this Government; and to prevent their suffering sickness and famine have been permitted to land and have hitherto been sup- ported here, it being impracticable for them to support themselves:

Be it enacted by the Governor, Council, and the House of Representatives that the Court of General Sessions of the Peace, the Justices of the Peace and the Overseers of the Poor, or the Selectmen of the several Towns where said inhabitants and families may be, are hereby directed, authorized and empowered in every respect to deal with them as by law they would have been em- powered to were they the Inhabitants of this Province, and that the Binding Out of them by the Overseer of the Poor or the Select- men of such towns shall to all intents and purposes whatsoever be as valid without the assent of two Justices of the Peace as if the same had been obtained.

And be it further enacted that the Selectmen or Overseers of the Poor in the several towns where they have been placed for their relief shall keep an exact account of the charges they have been or may be put to for their support and shall transmit them to the Secretary's office in Boston for payment for the reimbursement of this Province by the government of Nova Scotia.

Read and Concurred, December, 1755.

(From the Council Notes)

The receiving among us of so great a number of Persons whose great bigotry to the Romans is well known, is an affair very dis- agreeable to us, but as there seems to be a necessity for it we shall be ready to come into any reasonable acts or orders to enable them and encourage them to provide for their own maintenance, but we humbly conceive that it will never be expected in the mean- time the charge and board of their support should lie upon the Government.

The livestock, the husbandry, the tools and most of the house-

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hold effects of these People were left in the province of Nova Scotia. Very few have brought with them any goods or effects of any kind. In the Southern colonies where the winters are more mild employ- ment may be found so as to prevent any great expense to the Gov- ernment, but they are a Dead Weight for us here.

II

The soil of New England and of New France are alike. Also the cottages in which we boarded out these Acadians could not have been so foreign to their own which, I understand, were burned by order of the Governor of Nova Scotia. Our maidens sit beside their spinning wheels, our women mix meal, and bake, and stitch fine linen, and we make boast of our shining brass and pewter and china. The fields of New England are fair with plenty, and our orchards hang thick with the same fruit which is ever the boast of these Frenchmen from the north. But from the first they were a restless people. And we, on our part, were vexed by their desire to sail in ships or find another Province. We had trouble to harbor them long in any one town.

And no sooner had spring of the next year come, and the violets bloomed on our Common here in Boston, than did the post riders bring the first petitions of these Acadians to the State House. I have a packet of them here on my desk, written in their mother tongue, but put

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into the King's plain English by my own hand. I have also our Council records attached when we disposed of the same.

Here writes Joseph Michel, the Acadian. It would seem to show that our plan of having these French exiles bound out brought sadness to a father.

Province of the Massachusetts Bay

To His Majesty's Government in New England

William Shirley, Captain-General of the Army

Humbly presented by Joseph Michel, one of the Neutral French Inhabitants late belonging to Nova Scotia now residing in the county of Plymouth.

Your Petitioner was a Dweller near the Garrison at Port Royal and had a good Farm there and above thirty head of cattle and always lived in a friendly manner with the English and used to supply the garrison with wood and a considerable quantity of provisions which he had to spare annually. But by reason of the late misconduct of the French who lived near Minas your Petitioner was a great sharer in their Misfortunes, though not in their Crimes, and thereby lost his whole Estate both real and personal and in this distressed condition was brought to Mansfield afores with his family of children the last Fall.

His eldest son, Francis, being twenty-three years old, labored this spring with one Caleb Tilden, a near neighbor to your Petitioner, to whom he hired himself out for a pistarena a day till the first of May next, after which he was to have more, and both he and his were well contented.

But the last week two of the Selectmen of the village of Mans-

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field came and by force, utterly against the will of your Petitioner and his said son, took away your Petitioner's son from him and put him out to Anthony Winslow.

At the same time the Selectmen bound out another of your Petitioner's sons named Paul, about fifteen years of age, to Nathaniel Clift of Mansfield, Mariner, whom by force they dragged away and sent to sea notwithstanding diverse persons would gladly have taken the boy to work at the farming Business to which he was used-, and though at the time he begged that he might work on shore because that the Sea did not agree with him. In short all your Petitioner's and his wife's pleas were in Vain; the said Paul was taken from him by force and sent to sea. And the Selectmen took Security for thirty pounds as the price of the Lad.

I am a Stranger in a Strange land with nowhere to go for Relief but to your Excellency. Though I have lost all my estate I do not desire that my Children be chargeable to anybody while they are able to work, but that such Places may be found for those under age as may be agreeable to them, and that those who are of full age may provide for themselves at such places as they like best.

Wherefore your Petitioner prays that the Indemnitures of his said sons be declared void and that they may be allowed to main- tain themselves and that this Relief be granted as your Excellency shall see fit.

Joseph Michel

In the House of Representatives, April 2nd, 1756

The Committee appointed to take under consideration the Petition of Joseph Michel are unable to make inquiry into the truth of the facts mentioned before the disposition of the Court by reason of the distance of the place where they are alleged to have taken place and therefore they are of the opinion that the disposition of the petition be deferred until some later convening of the Court.

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It can scarce be expected that the Province should have been able to prevent an occurrence of this sort, unhappy though it was. Being State papers I must enter them in the Archives, willy-nilly: There be but two of the papers.

To the Honorable His Majesty's Council of the Province

of the Massachusetts Bay: May it please Your Honors:

Claude Bourgeois, your Petitioner, one of the late French Inhabitants of Acadie, was sent with his family to Amesbury by order of the General Court where he has resided constantly with his wife and six children. And he begs leave to represent to your Honor that about four weeks ago ten or twelve men came and took from him two of his daughters, that were at that time employed in spinning for the family, one of these daughters being but eighteen years of age. They were at that time spinning the poor remains of the flax and wool which they had saved from Acadie.

Your Petitioner having fetched his daughters home again the next morning, the Town has refused his family subsistency, so that for fourteen days past he has received nothing to prevent them from starving and the Owner of the house where he lives threatens that he shall pay the rent of it by his children's labor. Your Peti- tioner prays your Honor to relieve him under these circumstances, and he will forever pray for him.

(The Mark of Claude Bourgeois)

Boston, May fourth, 1756

Read and ordered that the Selectmen of the town of Amesbury be served with a copy of this action and that they forthwith make

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strict inquiry into the matter of this complaint and make report of the true state of this affair to this Board.

There is a great number of accounts in amongst these other French papers. I am of a mind to sympathize with these gentlemen of Pembroke who, so the records say, had a large family brought to their door-step with no warning and there left. They sent in their bill to our Council and we reimbursed them as we did in sundry cases. We never did collect from Nova Scotia.

An Account of what the Selectmen of Pembroke have done for the French family committed to their care who were seven in number: Peter Lebrune, his wife and four children, and an old woman that lived three weeks and then died.

114 Pounds of Pork without any

Bones in it Two pounds and nine farthings.

House Rent for five months .... Thirteen shillings and four pence.

Half a Cord of Wood Two shillings and eight farthings.

A Coffin for the Old Woman .... Eight shillings.

Bread Corn of both sorts Three pounds and two shillings.

Beans and Potatoes One pound and three shillings.

Two dozen and a half Mackerel . Three shillings and four pence.

Milk Four shillings.

Keeping Mr Jackson that brought

them to Town and his Horse

one night Five shillings and four pence.

Getting a House and Putting them

in it Eight shillings.

The Trouble in Providing the

Abovesaid Six shillings and nine pence.

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There were too many children amongst the Acadians for us to give them the proper schooling. Their great number was one reason for our feeling it expedient for a time to bind them out. For our justification in this I would enter the Troubles of the good gentlemen, the Selectmen of Billersea, in our archives:

The Petition of the Selectmen of Billersea in Behalf of the Town Humbly Herewith:

That in the year 1755 in the month of January the Court appointed to Distribute the Late French Inhabitants of Nova Scotia in the several Towns in this Province was pleased to send to Billersea John King and his wife and six children, all small excepting one, and one Ann King, a kinswoman to the John and who had a Child not long after they came to Town, And is since married to one John Michel, one of the late French who was carried to London-Derry and since come into this Province, by whom the Ann has had another Child.

That the King is an old man of seventy-three years, unable to labor much, his wife a young woman by whom he has had two children since they came to Town.

That the oldest daughter of this King is married to a French- man taken in the last war and has had one child so that there is now ten children, the oldest but thirteen years old, making in all fourteen. That the family came to town poor and naked, unable to do anything toward finding themselves.

That they have been very chargeable to the town which has brought on a heavy burden of Tax upon our people, which burden the poorer sort of people amongst us are not able to bear, and what makes it most difficult the term for which we hired a house in which

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these French have lived expires this month and the Owner thereof will not let it any longer; will Pull it down he says rather than have it used for Tenants who are not Suitable. Your Petitioners were obliged to hire two rooms out of town for the two young women who are married, there being none in which they would be taken in the town upon any Terms.

That there is no building in town but what is made use of. Neither can we at this season of the year Build a louse suitable for so large a family, and as some Towns have not been as burdened as we have been and have Buildings in which they may be Comfort- able for the winter season —

Therefore your Petitioners most Humbly Pray your Excellency and the Council that you will be pleased to remove this Family as soon as Possible for the Reason mentioned, or Relieve your Petitioners in some way as in your wisdom you shall Judge best as in Duty Bound shall ever pray.

The Selectmen of Billersea

We settled this matter comfortably by removing the said family from Billersea to Dunstable, at the charge of the Town of Billersea, which paid the charge readily.

An Acadian named Le Blanc, separated from his family in our disposal of these people, speaks:

I, a poor French Inhabitant of Acadie, humbly show that I am placed at Point Shirley and that I have the greatest difficulty in supporting myself since the provisions allowed by the Province of the Massachusetts Bay have ceased, and I cannot find work, and there is a winter before me. I have relatives placed in the town of York and have traded there and I think I could support myself, though now sixty-three years old, with the help of my sons. As

w

w

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there are but eight French in that town I hope there will be no exception and humbly pray to be placed with my family.

Certain Acadian fishermen write to the Council:

Boston, May, 1756. To His Honor, the Governor:

That your Petitioners were Inhabitants of a place far distant in Acadie where they employed themselves wholly in fishing and depended upon the sea for their livelihood. That their situation was such as to give them frequent opportunity of relieving the English Fishermen and others of that nation for which they always retained the friendliest sentiments, saving the shipwrecked from misery, helping all that were in distress and entertaining all that came to their shores with the most cheerful hospitality, as the English who are concerned in fishing voyages will abundantly testify.

That your Petitioners now in this Port are apprehensive they are to be transported to North Carolina, a Country in which they will be quite excluded from these means of subsisting to which they have always been accustomed and bringing forward new ways of living with which they are wholly unacquainted, so that they must find themselves reduced to the greatest misery.

They humbly therefore and earnestly beseech your Honor to take their unhappy Case into your Consideration and receive them into this Province where they can be employed in their old way of Business and where the change will not seem so great, as in all the fishing towns they shall find persons with whom they have been acquainted and between whom and themselves offices of friend- ship have often passed.

(The Marks of Jacques Mirau and Joseph D'Entrement)

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There was a matter for merriment among the gentle- men in regard to the petition of these fishermen. It seems that Mr. Thomas Hancock, having an interest in them and at the same time in certain ships, conceived the idea of transporting them to North Carolina at that season, the spring of the year, 1756, for which place they had originally sailed. So this charitably disposed member of the Council prepared a vessel for the transportation of the French families last imported into this Province, but after embarking they all came ashore by force, nor would they reimbark having had, methinks, enough of this cruising from port to port.

So Mr. Hancock appeared before the Council to ask for troops to drive the fishermen aboard his vessel, to which the august Council replied:

"That the French families be allowed to remain in the Province for the space of fourteen days provided that Mr. Hancock will take care of their support during that time. Provided also that in case it shall be the Will of the Government that they should be sent out of the Prov- ince that he will provide for their Transportation without charge to the Government/'

The which was complied with by Mr. Hancock, and his French fishermen and their families, to the number of about seventy-five men, women, and children, ate herrings

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in the town of Boston at this gentleman's hospitality, at the end of the fourteen days persisting in their unreason about embarking on his ship. After which the Court distributed them along our New England coast.

So, through the years as I read them in my papers, these strangers pleaded to us. Through it all they journeyed from one town to another, from one state of poverty to one that was worse.

January 21st, 1765

Please your Excellency to know that we are in great con- sternation and solicitude how to get our living. We are four families. This is the complaint of Peter Landry, a man of sixty-one years of age, reduced by hard labor which he has been obliged to do in the country in order to supply the necessities of his family, having no assistance from the Selectmen of the town where they were placed. I except Monsieur the Cure, who has enabled me to get my living and charitably found me one house room. We belong to three towns, Dunstable, Dracut and Tewksbury who have given us nothing for our support for five years past.

The Complaint of the Widow Libadau under affliction in the loss of her husband and being obliged to leave the town where she was placed through the Council, Danvers, it not being willing to allow her more than twelve pence a week which obliged her to move. At present she is in the town of Salem obliged to hire a house at an extravagant rate. I entreat you Gentlemen to have compassion on one of my children by your charitable care, and I pray God to be your recompense. It is about four years since my husband died.

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This, Gentlemen, is the complaint of Claude Dugan, an old man, sick with the misfortune of being incapable of labor ever since the beginning of last summer. I have been placed in the town of Greater Northbridge. We are seven in our family. I left the town imagining I should be able to get my living more easily else- where, I expecting to embark for Santo Domingo. At present I am stopped, and with no way of getting my living.

Charles Broux, belonging to Hanover, my wife belonging to Ipswich. We are five in family. It is now five years' time since we have had any relief of any kind and we removed in order to go away to Santo Domingo, but are detained by order of the Government.

This, Gentlemen, is the situation we are in. We hope you will have compassion on us and not turn your face from us. Thus you may obtain favor from the Lord and He will reward you in time and through eternity.

If we Puritans depended alone upon our Affair of the Acadians for necessary favors through eternity, I wonder would the Lord feel as much pride in us as we do in our- selves?

But I have further of the papers to arrange.

Ill

They felt always the call of the Tides. We thought that a year or so of teaching these Acadians the value of New England's manner of government would check their desire to return to their own People, but indeed it seemed to grow stronger with the seasons.

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In the year of our Lord 1756, Captain James Otis, arriving in Boston Harbor, told a tale of some shipwrecked French Inhabitants he had passed and noted on the coast at Sandwich. Seven two-masted vessels had borne them from the Southern Colonies, and they had made the attempt in these frail barks to voyage the entire way back to Grand- Pr£. They had coasted as it were from one harbor to another, never finding the one for which they were sailing.

The Council was apprehensive lest they might pass through and return to Nova Scotia. Not but that we would be glad to be rid of them, but here is a letter from Governor Lawrence at Halifax which we had to abide by:

Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1756

I am well informed that many of the French Inhabitants transported last year from this Province and distributed among the different Colonies upon the Continent have procured small vessels and embarked on board in order to return by coasting from Colony to Colony, and that several are actually now on their way. And as their success in this enterprise would not only frustrate the design of this Government in sending them away at so pro- digious an expense, but would also greatly endanger the security of the Province, especially at this juncture, I think it my indis- pensable duty to entreat your Excellency the Governor to use your utmost endeavor to prevent the accomplishment of so pernicious an endeavor by destroying such vessels as those in your Colony have prepared for such a purpose and all that may attempt to pass through any part of your Government either by land or water in

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their way hither. I would by no means have given your Excellency this trouble were I not perfectly well assured how fatal the return of these people is likely to prove to his Majesty's Interest in this part of the World. I am, Sir,

Your Excellency's most obedient and humble Servant,

Lawrence

So the Legislature ordered the detention of these French wanderers at Plymouth and Barnstable with the suggestion that they support themselves as best they could and the Leaders of the Affair we had brought to Boston for examination. And we were harboring so many of the Papists then that the Council prepared an act and concurred it as follows. Stern, but we thought it would keep the Acadians within bounds:

The House of Representatives, April 20th, 1756

Whereas many inconveniences and mischiefs may arise to this Government by the liberty at present given to the late In- habitants of Nova Scotia and their being employed in the fishery or coasting vessels of this Province, wherefore be it enacted by the Governor in our Council that from and after the first day of this May all the late Inhabitants of Nova Scotia shall confine themselves within the boundaries of the Town where this government has placed them, unless they shall have liberty given them under the hand of one at least of the Selectmen of the Town who has the care of them under the Hand of the Matter under whom such person or persons shall be bound, and whenever such Inhabitants shall be found out of the borders of such Town he or she shall be liable

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and immediately taken before and carried before one of his Majes- ty's Justices of the Peace who, on conviction of such offence, shall commit such person until they can be sent to the Town from which they are Strayed.

Whenever such Inhabitants shall offend the second time he or she shall forfeit and pay a fine not exceeding ten shillings or be Publicly Whipped.

And So as often as he or she shall so offend against this Act.

Constables and other officers of the Government are hereby directed and empowered to arrest such persons and restrain them from traveling the country by carrying them before the Justice of the Peace wheresoever they may be found contrary to this Act. No person within this Province shall hire out any of the late In- habitants of Nova Scotia on board any fishing or coasting vessel whatever and if any person shall be convicted thereof he shall forfeit and pay the sum of ten pounds, one half of this to be for the use of the Province and half to him or them that shall detect 'and perform the Capture.

In Council April 20th Resolved.

But neither the whippings nor the price set on their heads restrained the Acadians. They trailed our woods in their flight to the sea. They built boats in secret and attempted to launch them. Then we were put to great inconvenience here in Boston by the arrival from Cape Francois of one sailing master, Martin, who brought a number of negroes which were offered for sale, some coffee for us, but also this notice which he caused to be posted in a conspicuous place in the Haymarket:

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Be it known to all the Acadians residing in New England that all such of them, whether Men, Women or Children, as are willing to go to the French Colonies in Saint Domingo may apply to Mr. John Hanson, Merchant, at Boston, who will furnish them with necessary provisions and procure them passages to the aforesaid Colonies where they shall be kindly received. They shall have Grants of Land made to them and they shall be maintained by the King during the first months of their abode and until they shall be able to maintain themselves.

At Cape Francois in the Island of Saint Domingo,

By Order,

Martin.

I find the first papers relating to this offer dated the year of our Lord 1764.

How the news of Captain Martin's notice posted in the Boston Haymarket found its way to the villages we know not. We do know that we took all care that it should not be printed in the Post Boy or the Gazette. But these people got Wind of it. They sold what poor Utensils and Goods they then had. They Evaded the Selectmen and the Sheriffs who pursued them, and they walked to Boston where we were at that season, the winter, in the grip of the Small-pox Plague, and they begged us to allow them to go on this brig to their own People at Saint Do- mingo. Their pleading at that time caused more feeling among the gentlemen of the Council than it had heretofore, mixed mayhap with a desire to be rid of them.

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But there we were held to our orders from the Crown to keep the Acadians within our Provinces, an irksome order as were other commands we were receiving from the King's government. Yet a command it was. Here is the petition of these wanderers as it was read in the Council:

At Boston, the first of January, 1765

We Acadians have a great desire to go to the French Colonies. We take the liberty to present a serious Petition to your Excellency, the Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Massachusetts, to you and to your Country, wishing you a good year and great prosperity, flattering ourselves, Sir, that your Honorable Person will do us perfect Justice in respect to what we pray for.

You are well acquainted, Sir, with the offer which has been made us from the French Colonies. For nine years past we have lived in homes adjoining our countrymen and it seems to us that you have caused a door which was open to be closed upon us. We have always understood that in times of peace and in all countries the prison doors are open to prisoners. It is therefore affecting to us, Sir, to be detained here. We are told that we are allowed the liberty of our religion, which is contrary to what we believe to be the case, for it seems to us that when you detain us here you take away from us the free exercise of religion. This is very hard upon us. It is as hard to reflect upon our present situation, to see our- selves by our sudden blow rendered incapable of affording ourselves relief. Sir, if you do not take compassion on us, we believe we shall perish with cold and hunger.

Sir, as we present our petition to you we have received 94 pounds of mutton, two cords of wood, two bushels of peas, four hushels of potatoes. This for seventy-two of us.

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There are some of you people that think we are rich. This has never been the case with us yet since we have been in this country, but less so at present than ever, for all the riches left to us are those of Poverty and Misery.

Thus, Sir, we entreat you to be so good as to have compassion on us poor Acadians the remaining time we are to tarry here.

Signed by,

John Hibbert Charles Landry Alexis Breau

There is also a letter the Which was writ to our new Governor, Mr. Francis Bernard:

To Francis Bernard, Lieutenant-General and Governor, Boston:

We, the French of Acadie who they call Neutrals, being in the Government of Boston and scattered through the Country Towns by order of Council and having remained here several years without troubling the Government but our families being greatly increased, we have been obliged to quit the country and come to Boston in order to go away. But we were stopped by an order which obliged us to remain in Boston and to endeavor to support ourselves and our poor families. Some follow the fishery, some work as laborers in the Town when they are able to find work. Those that go a-fishing are obliged to take up so much in necessaries that when they come home and what has been advanced is deduced, nothing remains. Therefore we poor Frenchmen pray the Gentlemen of the Council to have pity and compassion upon us, the widows and

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children, and help us this winter so as to support life. We are willing to labor but are not able to find employ in this Town.

John Hibbert Augustin Le Blanc Martin Goudard

And also this paper:

Boston, December 1st, 1764

To His Excellency the Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Massachusetts:

We take the liberty, all of us in General, of presenting to your Excellency a few words presuming to interest your Honor to grant us a general passport for all of us who shall incline to go to this Peninsula. We entreat your honorable Person to comply with our request if your Honor thinks fit, and consent to our request. Signed by the Chief of the Acadian frontier.

Paul Landry

There you have the Acadian Affair with us at Boston recently, a horde of French Papists waiting upon Boston with no means of supporting themselves. Amongst them there were one hundred and fifty children. A large number of them had left the Towns where they were placed to come to Boston in order that they might remove to the West Indies and these had disposed of their Provisions and necessary implements and had lost much of the working

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time of the year in preparing for the Removal. It was decided that the Overseer of the Boston Poor be asked to investigate the situation of these Acadians who were camped at our thresholds and the winter upon us. Mr. Bernard writ to Mr. Barrett, our Overseer of the Poor, to which he replied:

The Overseers of the Poor of the Town of Boston beg leave to acquaint your Excellency and Honours that immediately upon the receipt of your recommendation they were called together, set themselves about the Business therein pointed out and make the following report:

That most of these People are again in the Sugar House near Windmill Point, which House the Overseer hired of the Heirs of Benjamin Clark for those Acadians which were under their im- mediate care at the rate of sixteen pounds per annum, at which rate the said Heirs expect to be paid during the continuance of these People in said House.

Many of these poor Acadians we found very sick and others are daily taken down, which we apprehend is chiefly owing to the distressing circumstances these people were under before any relief was found for them. Those of them who are in health and are able to work the Season of the Year is such that but little labor is to be done; it appears to us they are Solicitously careful to find employ- ment, yet they cannot obtain sufficient support of themselves much less all these Children.

As to putting an immediate end to this Charge, Prosecution would be most effectual, but when we consider the Season of the Year and reflect on their present condition, that in some cases the families are aged and infirm, and in others those who are sick, and

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in all Women and Children, we cannot think it Eligible to say the least so much as to attempt at present to Prosecute them.

We beg leave to mention to your Excellency as one means of putting an end to the present method of their support: That the Selectmen of the several Towns to which they were assigned be made particularly acquainted with their Circumstance that they themselves make such further Care as to them as may seem Fit.

We are with Great Esteem.

Isaac Barrett and Others

They do say that Mr. Bernard has his carpet bag always packed ready for his- flitting from Boston. Also, they remark that he is a very ready letter writer, but looking at this Affair of the exiles of Acadie from the point of view of these letters I am placing in our archives, I would say that he and Mr. Joseph Pynchon of a former Council showed them more Heart than any of the rest of us. He read their petitions with due thought and investi- gation, and he writ kindly to the Council. Here lies the paper in Francis Bernard's graceful penmanship, fair nourishes with his quill, but plain withal:

Gentlemen of the House of Representatives:

I hereby lay before you a translation of a petition delivered to me by the Acadians called French Neutrals now residing in Boston. The case of these people is truly deplorable. They have none of them had the Small Pox and they depend upon their daily labors for their bread. If they don't go about the Town to work they must starve; if they do go about they must contract the

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Distemper, and as they are crowded in small quarters and wanting the neccessities of life they won't have a common chance of avoiding" perishing. I have in Council advised with the Selectmen who have consulted with the Overseers of the Poor, and they are of the opinion that they have not the power to relieve them. I am therefore obliged to apply to you to help to save these people. If you will furnish them with provisions I will take them into the barracks of the Castle, and as soon as they have been there long enough to appear to be free of the Distemper they will get admission into other Towns and find work which at present it will be seen is im- practicable.

Fra. Bernard

In the House of Representatives, January, 1765

Read and resolved that the Acadians now residing in Boston be removed to the barracks at the Castle and that they be there subsisted until the fifteenth day of February next and the charge thereof be borne by this court.

February here in Boston is Drear and Chill. I pre- sume that the food in the barracks is not over-rich or fattening. There would be also the suspense of the French in quarantine there as to whither their feet must turn when they were released. The stage-coaches going in and out of the town are not for snowy roads, or for the Poor at any season of the year no matter how clement.

But there is only one way of reading Duty for a Puritan. When the appointed day came for the doors of the Castle to be opened and some disposal of the Acadians who had

NOT INHABITANTS OP ANY TOWN 93

been confined there made, their only warmth, one surmises, the flame of hope that burned in their hearts as they looked toward the harbor for the masts of ships that might bear them Away, it seemed advisable for the Council to take action in this wise:

In the House of Representatives, February 15th, 1765

Resolved that the Acadians now in this town, That by a former order of the Court are Inhabitants of other Towns within the Province and are now subsisting at the public charge, be further allowed four days' provisions more here in order to prepare them- selves for their removal as also necessary provisions to support them on their return to the several towns to which they must return, being allowed eight miles for a day's travel, and after the expiration of the four days all such Acadians immediately Depart to the Towns to which they belong.

Read and Concurred.

IV

A. Oliver, Secretary

I have near finished with these papers relating to the Acadians in New England. The entire Affair as we saw it hinged upon their Stubbornness in not being of a mind to swear their fealty to the King of England.

But we on our part, although the Crown has rescinded the irksome Stamp Act, are beginning to feel our distance from England. We be American Colonists, destined may- hap to be citizens of a Country that will take oath to no

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other Land. I wonder if we should not have known how these French had the same feeling, the same love of the soil in which they had dug their furrows and sowed their grain, as we.

But our Mr. Bernard was always of a Sympathy with them.

He writ at last to Nova Scotia asking the new Gov- ernor, Mr. Murray, if the Acadians might not go back to the lands from which they had been driven some ten years past. This was at the pleading of the Acadians in our several towns, worded this wise:

Resolved that His Excellency, the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Province, be desired to write to the Governor of Nova Scotia to acquaint him of the Desire of the French Acadians in this Province to go hither, and to know of him whether he is willing to receive them as Settlers in that Government.

And our Mr. Bernard sent two of these French, one of them, as I remember it, being a Father among them, a shepherd of the flock, as the Papists view their priests, to Nova Scotia. Months passed in the long voyage to Halifax, but when it was June and our roads were lined with the young corn and gay with wild roses, the messengers returned with a letter and our Governor spoke of the matter in the Boston Council.

NOT INHABITANTS OP ANY TOWN 95

Gentlemen of the House of Representatives:

According to the desire of the House last session I sent two Acadians in February last with letters to this Canadian Gentleman, Governor Murray. One of them is since returned and has brought letters from Governor Murray expressing his readiness to receive the Acadians if they shall be transported thither, but signifying his inability for want of a proper fund to make any provision for them on their arrival. The Acadians are willing to go and have given in lists of those who are ready to the amount of 890 persons. They have also given in another petition praying some provision be made for supporting them for a short time after their arrival. All which I lay before you that you may do therein as you shall think most proper.

In the beginning of this session I sent a message to you recom- mending a petition of some French Acadians to which I have re- ceived no answer. I now recommend to you another petition of the Acadians in general which I desire you would immediately take under consideration.

Ever since I have been governor of this Province I have had great compassion for this People, as every one must who has con- sidered that it was by the exigencies of war rather than any fault of their own that they were removed from a state of ease and affluence and brought into poverty and dependence from which in their present situation they can see no hope of being delivered. I have heretofore made several attempts to get them settled in some manner that might make them useful subjects of Great Britain and comfortable to themselves, but I have failed for want of ability.

You have now an opportunity at no great expense to dispose of this People that instead of being a burden to this Province and to themselves as they are like to continue while they remain here, they may become a fresh accession to the British Empire in America, as it is certain that their industry only waits for property to exert

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itself upon, without which no one can be industrious. I therefore hope you will improve this occasion, and in doing so you will unite Public Spirit with Charity.

Francis Bernard Council Chamber, June 9th, 1766

A Petition Read in the House of Representatives at Boston:

We all, the Acadians in general, thank your Excellency for writing in our behalf to his Excellency James Murray, the Governor of Quebec, and having received an answer from his Excellency for our going back to settle in Canada. But his Excellency cannot assist in any manner with provisions upon our arrival there.

We pray your Excellency and the gentlemen of the Counsel to have the goodness to regard us with the Eye of Pity, to assist us with something to enable us to live for a short time after our arrival there.

Our situation being extremely poor and miserable, and there being many poor widows encumbered with young children as well as persons advanced in years who are not able to work for their support, is the reason of our flinging ourselves upon your protection, you having been always ready to assist us and there being no one but you Gentlemen who can draw us out of the Abyss of Misery in which we are.

We are in general resolved to take the Oath of Fidelity, and therefore pray you would give orders to transport us to Canada as soon as shall be possible.

Your most Humble, most Obedient, Submissive and Faithful subjects,

Father Jean Landry, "their principal Speaker," and others. Boston, June 2nd, 1766

890 persons ready to go.

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The Journal of the Honourable House of Representatives of His Majesty's Province of the Massachusetts-Bay in New England.

Message to His Excellency the Governor:

May it please your Excellency, The House have duly attended to your Excellency's Message relative to the French Acadians, and by Governor Murray's Letter accompanying the same we find he is ready to receive them; but your Excellency is pleased to inform us that Governor Murray has signified to you his inability for want of a proper fund to make any provision for them upon their arrival there.

As this Province has been at great Expense in supporting them, and has taken other Measures to render them comfortable, the House can't think it prudent that this Government should be at further Expense concerning them.

June 26th, 1766

So end the Archives of New England and Acadie in the Province of the Massachusetts Bay. One last petition there is, and one last act of our Council at the State House here refusing the food and the brigs they asked. And I can't help noting, as I put the papers in their proper place in our volumes of records, that these People never failed to address us of the Council as Gentlemen.

Last summer, this year of our Lord 1766, eight hun- dred or so of them, about the entire number of the Acadians round here, started home to Grand-Pre and the other villages from which they had been driven, walking north through the woods of Maine.

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Poor Wayfarers from our Towns went they. Lexing- ton, Concord, Charlestown, Marblehead, Medway, Wal- pole, Sherbourne, Holliston, Dunstable, Natick, South- borough, Dudley, Medfield, Dracut, all fair New England towns whose white church steeples point the way to faith and charity, gave up these Inhabitants who had been sheltered but never welcomed amongst us these last ten years. So went they, following a narrow path that wound between the slow stirring pines and hemlocks on one side and the rocks on the other, whose ragged crags loomed high and threatening beside them.

Eight hundred Acadians walking home through the forest and many of them children, and many others old and ailing!

Mayhap we would never have known the finish of their last pilgrimage had not one of their Fathers passed through Boston recently, having come into our harbor with other French on their course to the southern Savannas. This Father told us that many of those who tried to walk home had fallen by the way, and the most of them, on reaching Nova Scotia, found their old lands had been apportioned by the Crown to English planters who were in possession of the former Acadian farms. And, being looked upon as offenders against the law, having come from New England without the permission of our Council,,

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they were thrown into prison at Halifax together with two shiploads of Acadians who had coasted up last summer from the Carolinas and had made a rendezvous at the mouth of the river of Saint John.

This Father said that when the Acadians had served their term in prison they would be apportioned certain wild and arid lands on the coast. He also said that there were not many of them, so many having died on the way home and others being shipwrecked. A few he had seen working at their old trade of building dikes at this river, for they had a dream of a fair city they would raise there which they would call Saint John.

" Prison I" I exclaimed to him.

But this Father smiled as if he saw a vision. "What though Acadie suffer even the grievous terror of a dungeon? " he answered me. "It is in the dark that we shall find God."

Wait!

I said that I had arranged all the Writings relating to the Acadians whom we harbored in New England, but here is one which near escaped me. A small scrap of bill paper dated the year 1764:

To cash paid Peter Labearfor Boarding for a few months an unknown Acadian, Alias Marie Theresa Lahore, name and

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destination unknown, A Poor French Woman, not an Inhab- itant of any Town. She being Omitted, in the general appor- tionment of the French.

This young French woman pleaded to be allowed to go South as I find her name signed to a petition the Acadians drew up in 1762, but we did not give her transportation.

A wanderer she seems, from our archives, to have been. We know Naught else about Marie Therese, except that she was never an Inhabitant of Any Town.

A QUAKER SPEAKS I

"Has thee seen my pair of best blankets, Anthony ?" Joyce but now asked me, coming from her kitchen to my study, where I sat looking over my piles of old newspapers. Benjamin Franklin is overseas, but his Pennsylvania Gazette comes to us regularly by the post boy and it is still the one news sheet of the Colonies that preaches our pride of Philadelphia, brotherly love.

Joyce spoke timidly, but her eyes had a gleam of mischief in them. She knew that I was but just come from my school-room and a-weary from my daily task of teaching the classics without the rod, an innovation in the School-master's art. She usually lets me be until she spreads the supper on the table by our window, through which we can see the trees outside and get a glimpse of a coach now and then as the horses trot by on our paving stones between the fair white posts that mark the streets of Philadelphia.

But Joyce persisted. "Anthony," said she, "thee must remember them, two well woven woolen blankets for our new carved bedstead, and they had a stylish border

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of blue. These blankets are gone from the chest of drawers in our chamber where I had them laid in lavender flowers/' And with that, my wife, Joyce, still of as girlish a figure as when I took her to my heart at eighteen and I but an exiled Huguenot lad of twenty odd here in the land of the Quakers, put her arms about me and made me confess about those blankets of ours.

"Well then, Joyce/' I said, "I must tell thee. I gave thy new blankets some time since to the Acadians. They had greater need of coverings than we, my dear; think thee not so?"

And with that Joyce's dear eyes filled with tears and she kneeled down beside me there on the rag carpeting of my study and looked up into my face with more pride in me than I ever deserve. "Ah, Anthony!" she cried. "An exile thyself, and with thy fair estate in France taken away from thee for the sake of the faith — Saint Anthony of the Acadians — thee knew how these exiled French folk felt! Do I not remember how thee nursed them with thy own hands, persuaded Samuel Emlen to give thee the lots on Pine street for building them some small wood cottages, read the prayers over those who died; in fine, adopted them as thy own children? What matter be my blankets, dear? I am glad that thee took them."

So I sat a moment in silence stroking Joyce's soft

o

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hair and looking across the garden and as far as the street. Philadelphia is the finest town and the richest of the Colonies. I have always felt that we should be the preachers of friendship and charity.

We are a large, plain, spread-out, shady village. Lately we have had a narrow flagging, which the house- wives keep well scrubbed, laid in the middle of the side- walks of our principal highways between the trees. And we have built our shops like our houses for the sake of beauty, save for a projecting window over the door and a neat sign; a bee-hive of wood, a Bible, a ship, a basket, or a crown as the merchandise needs. Our Philadelphia lies a mile along the Delaware and a half mile Lancaster way, and nearly all our houses are of brick and stone with fair orchards and gardens. We must needs beg any who pass by to come to our gates and pick the peaches and pears. Otherwise they would rot on the grass.

We appear as fine as Londoners in our dress. Only look at Joyce's stiff silken skirt beneath her white apron. And I have horn buttons for my coat, a newly bought three-cornered hat, a wig from one of the best peruke makers in the Colonies and a wide cloak of drab stiffened with the best buckram. My ruffles for waistcoat and wrists are the distraction of Joyce, so particular is she of them.

We load ships for foreign parts with rich cargoes,

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flour, cidar, soap, waxen candles, myrtle, starch, hair powder, beeswax, all sort of lumber, and cheeses. We be the capital city of Pennsylvania and her chiefest market town.

But why am I wasting words thus about my village when the matter in hand has to do with some strange ships which weighed anchor at our dock about ten years ago, and also my wife's blankets which it seems I pilfered, having a wholesome fear of her in spite of her gentleness. I am now an elder of the church, but Joyce still treats me like a boy.

Certain of the exiles on those ships that voyaged the long way here from Grand-Pre in Acadie bore women who had lost their reason, having been torn from their men folks and their children in the haste of the embarking. There were also many blind on board.

"Take thee to thy kitchen, my dear/' I bade Joyce, "and thy cookery. I will be ready when thee rings the supper bell, but now I would go over these newspapers. I am saving them, for they tell the truth of the matter of the Acadians in Pennsylvania/'

These be my valued copies of Benjamin Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette, the best news sheet in the Colonies, as I said before, and his preacher of our doctrine of brotherly affection. The first intimation I had of that affair of

A QUAKER SPEAKS 105

the Crown against the farmers of Grand-Pre is here before me in the Gazette, and the date is September fourth of the year 1755.

An interesting issue it was! I am apt to turn first to the last pages to go over the advertisements. I remem- ber that I noted this one, for that Joyce was boiling her preserves and I knew she would be glad of the news:

TO BE SOLD

Choice good Pickling Vinegar, at the Boar's Head in Pewter Platter Alley.

Then this attracted my eyes:

TO BE SOLD

By John Welcocks. Below the Drawbridge. West-India rum, sugar, and choice Saint Christopher's Molasses. Likewise two young, likely Negro men. One has been at sea some time.

I stayed my glance at this note for a moment. I like not this bargaining in human flesh, and I could fancy this man shipped to sea without his will in the matter most likely and mayhap lonely for his own people on shore. But in that instant I turned back to the first page of the Gazette and read the dispatches from Halifax. Mr. Franklin has made it his rule always of printing as much foreign

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news as he can in the Gazette. It broadens our point of view. Here is what I read in the same paper:

The Pennsylvania Gazette, September Uth, 1755 Containing the Freshest Advices, Foreign and Domestic \ From Halifax, August 9th

A few days since three Frenchmen were taken up and imprisoned on Suspicion of having poisoned some of the Wells in this Neighbor- hood. They are not tried as yet; but it's imagined if they are convicted thereof, they will have but a few hours to live once they are Condemned.

We are now upon a great and noble scheme of sending the Neu- tral French, who have always been our secret enemies and have encouraged our savages to cut our throats, out of the Province. If we can effect their expulsion, it will be one of the greatest things that ever did the English in America. For, by all accounts, that part of the country they possess is as good land as anywhere in the world.

In case, therefore, we could get some good English farmers in their Room, this Province would abound in all sorts of provisions.

I remember that I thought over this plan of the Crown. I, myself, had been driven, a lad of thirteen, from my lands and exiled to a strange country. I thought also of the French living here in our village of Philadelphia. I know the Abb6 Raynal well and he had told me of the peaceful character of these Acadian farmers. Among our neighbors are Joseph Duche, Thomas Say, Abraham de

A QUAKER SPEAKS 107

Normandie, Samuel Le Fevre and other Huguenot Quakers of the same ancestry as the Acadians. So I was at once drawn to the Neutral French of whom the Gazette spoke.

That same year, but the month of November and the 19th and 20th days, we of Philadelphia were startled by having news from certain masters of ships that three strange sloops, by name The Hannah, The Three Friends, and The Swan, had arrived in the Delaware. Our Governor at that time, Robert Hunter Morris, spoke of the matter with great irritation, his vexation being noted in the papers. For these ships bore the poor remnants of that Halifax scheme of getting rid of the Acadians. Here were three shiploads of them lying in our harbor of the Delaware!

I put on my hat and cloak at once and hurried down to the dock to see these strangers. I remember it was a chill day, and the sky had a look of snow. The village of Philadelphia was in a terror over the arrivals.

"French Papists at our doors!" the men in the street cried. "They will join the Irish and the Germans and destroy our Colony!"

That fall we happened to have a recruiting party from New York here and Governor Morris sent these Continental soldiers first on board the sloops of the Acadians to guard us against them.

To guard us, I repeat it! Less than five hundred of

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them and of these the most of them women and little ones, hungry, cold and sick! During the years when we housed them in the huts on Pine Street over half died of the small-pox. And they were in a sad state that November day when I first saw them.

I made myself acquainted with as many as I could. There was one old man, Jean Baptiste Galerm by name, who had a boy who was weak minded, almost a man grown, but with the thoughts and impulses of a child. In those days we looked upon such weaklings as witch-creatures, fit only to be tortured and scoffed at, and in some cases burned. I have had such a child under my care for years, a deaf and dumb girl; she it is who I have taught to speak, and at the greatest difficulty with the school board, who think her a witch.

This Jean Baptiste loved his foolish son like a babe and was in a terror lest he be taken away from him and be tortured. There were other sorrows I noted, particularly on board the sloop Hannah. I wrote a petition citing the poor case of these Acadians and caused it to be circulated among our wealthy Quakers who subscribed liberally for their support. Here is a copy of my notes of their state as it was set down in the papers:

A QUAKER SPEAKS 109

A List of Acadian Sick on the Vessels lying in the Delaware, Novem- ber, 1755.

The Widow Landry Blind and Ailing.

Her daughter, Bonny Who is Blind.

The Widow Coprit She has a Cancer in her Breast.

The Widow Le Blanc Made Foolish by the voyage,

and Sickly.

Ann Le Blanc Very Sickly.

Two Orphan Children of Paul Bujaurd The elder sick.

Joseph Vincent In a Consumption.

Joseph Benoit Old and Sickly.

Peter Vincent and his wife The wife is ailing, and of their

three children one is Blind and one is very Young.

Jean Baptiste Galerm And his Foolish Son.

II

I am sure that these exiles looked upon me as their friend. We were a little London then in our Colonial Assembly of Pennsylvania, but the Quakers of our village of Philadelphia gave some five thousand pounds during the ten years when we had the most of these French among us to help them and I did what I could for them. Here in the Gazette of February, the year 1756, is the speech I persuaded this Acadian, Jean Baptiste Galerm, to make before the Assembly and plead the cause of the exiles. It seems to me that he stated the case well.

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A Relation of the Misfortunes of the French Neutrals, As Laid before the Assembly of the Province of Pennsylvania

By John Baptiste Galerm, One of the Said People,

About the year 1713, when Port Royal was taken from the French, our Fathers being then settled on the Bay of Fundi, upon the Surrender of that Country to the English, had, by virtue of the Treaty of Utrecht, a Year granted them to remove with their effects; but not being willing to lose the Fruit of Many Years' labor, they chose rather to remain there and become Subjects of Great Britain, on Condition that they be exempted from bearing Arms against France (most of them having near Relations and Friends amongst the French, which they might have destroyed with their own Hands had they Consented to bear Arms against them).

This Request they always understood to be granted on their taking the Oath of Fidelity to her late Majesty, Queen Anne; which Oath of Fidelity was by us, about 27 Years ago, renewed to his Majesty, King George, by General Philipse, who then allowed us an exemption of bearing Arms against France; which Exemption, till lately (when we were told to the contrary), we always thought was approved of by the King.

Our Oath of Fidelity, we that are now brought into this Prov- ince, as well as those of our Community that were carried into the neighboring Provinces, have always inviolably observed and have on all Occasions, been willing to afford all the Assistance in our Power to his Majesty's Governors in erecting Forts, making Roads and Bridges, and providing Provisions for his Majesty's Service, as can be testified by the several Governors and Officers that have commanded in His Majesty's Province of Nova Scotia; and this,.

A QUAKER SPEAKS 111

notwithstanding the repeated Solicitations, Threats, and Abuses which we have continually, more or less, suffered from the French and French Indians of Canada on that Account, particularly about ten years ago, when 500 French and Indians came to our Settlements intending to attack Annapolis Royal which, had their Intention succeeded, would have made them Masters of Nova Scotia, it being the only Place of Strength then in that Province, they earnestly Solicited us to join with and aid them therein; but we persisting in our Resolution to abide true to our Oath of Fidelity, and abso- lutely refusing to give them any Assistance, they gave over their Intention and returned to Canada.

And about 7 years past, at the settling of Halifax, a Body of 150 Indians came amongst us, forced some of us from our Habita- tions, and by Threats and Blows would have compelled us to assist them in Waylaying and destroying the English then employed in erecting Forts in different parts of the Country; but we positively refusing, they left us, after having abused us, and made great Havoc of our Cattle.

I myself was 6 Weeks before I wholly recovered of the Blows I received from them at that Time.

Almost numberless are the Instances which might be given of the Abuses and Losses we have undergone from the French Indians on Account of our steady Adherence to our Oath of Fidelity; and yet, notwithstanding, we have not been able to prevent the grievous Calamity which is now come upon us, which we apprehend to be in a Great Measure owing to the unhappy Situation and Conduct of some of our People settled on the Bottom of the Bay of Fundi, where the French, about 4 Years ago erected a Fort.

Those of our People who were settled near it, after having had many of their Settlements burnt by the French, being too far from Halifax to expect Assistance from the English, were Compelled by Fear to join with and assist the French.

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We were then summoned to appear before the Governor and Council at Halifax, where we were required to take the Oath of Allegiance, without any exception, which we could not comply with; because, as that Government is at present situated, we appre- hend we should have been obliged to take up Arms; but were still willing to take the Oath of Fidelity, and give the strongest Assur- ances of continuing peaceable and faithful to his Britannic Majesty, with that exception.

But .this, in the present Situation of Affairs not being Satis- factory, we were made Prisoners, and our Estates, both real and personal, forfeited for the King's Use; and Vessels being provided, we were some time after sent off, with most of our Families, and dispersed among the English Colonies. The Hurry and Confusion in which we were Embarked 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.

Yet blessed be God that it was our Lot to be sent to Pennsyl- vania, where our Wants have been relieved and we have in every Respect been received with Benevolence and Charity.

And let me add, that notwithstanding the Suspicions aud Fears which many here are possessed of on our Account, as though we were a dangerous People, Time will manifest that we are not such a People.

We shall, as we have hitherto done, submit to what, in the present Situation of Affairs, may seem necessary and with Patience and Resignation bear whatever God, in the Course of His Providence, shall suffer to come to us. We shall also think it our Duty to seek and promote the Peace of the Country into which we are transported.

And may the Almighty abundantly bless the good People of Philadelphia whose Sympathy, Benevolence and Charity have

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been, and still are, greatly manifested and extended towards us,

a poor, distressed and afflicted People, is the Sincere and earnest

Prayer of

John Baptiste Galerm.

hi ^

It seemed wise to our Governor and the Gentlemen of the Assembly of Pennsylvania, as the years went on, to take away the Acadian children from their mothers — there being very few of their men here — and put them out to service among our farmers and merchants and sailing masters. The sadness of these partings can be readily seen, but we had to act in concert with the Crown. Our Acadians were never happy amongst us, a poor, spiritless, burdensome people living in those little two-story houses on Pine Street which I was instrumental in obtaining for them. And indeed they were naught but shelters for their heads and fell down after they left, being empty save for poor, mean plays such as Mr. Punch exhibits and which were shown in them. One hut, indeed, was overturned by a pair of timber wheels not long since.

In time the remnant of our Philadelphia Acadians went off in a body to the banks of the Mississippi, building their own boats in which they cruised away, and there, I am told, they still live, an easy, gentle, happy people, but very quiet and lowly.

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Theirs has been too humble a tragedy for our Lord Chesterfield or any of our other notables to write of. It is graven on our Philadelphia tombstones, and writ in our Council records, but mainly in my heart, who had the most to do with these French wanderers. Mr. Franklin's Gazette was the only news sheet of their day to my knowl- edge to take pity on them.

"Anthony! Anthony Benezet! Thy tea is drawn and the biscuits wait thee on the table !"

That is Joyce's dear voice, and she must have been calling me for some time. I must needs lay by my old newspapers and go in to tea. Suppose I had been borne away from her as certain of these Acadian wanderers were borne away from those who were to them the most beloved on earth!

UNDER LIBERTY BELL

The Bell: "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof !"

Governor Morris: "I am at a loss to know what to do with these Acadians. I have put a guard out of the recruiting parties now in town on board of each vessel and ordered these Neutrals to be supplied with provisions which must be at the expense of the Crown, as I have no Provincial money in my hands."

A Chief Justice: "I. am truly surprised how it could ever enter the thoughts of those who had the ordering of the French Neutrals, or rather Traitors and Rebels to the Crown of Great Britain, to direct any of them into these Provinces, where we have already too great a number of foreigners for our own good and safety.

"I think they should have been transported to old France. I feel that these people will readily join with the Irish Papists to the ruin and destruction of the King's Colonies and should any of them attempt to land here, I should think, in duty to the King and to his people under my care, I ought to do all in my power to crush the attempt."

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The Secretary of the Philadelphia Assembly, November, 1755: "Anthony Benezet, attending without, was called in and informed the House that he had, at the request of some of the members, visited the French Neutrals now on board sundry vessels in the river near the town, and had found that they were in great want of blankets, shirts, stockings and other necessities. He then withdrew.

Resolved: That this House will help with such reason- able expenses as the said Benezet may be put to in furnishing the Neutral French now in the Province/'

The Secretary of the Philadelphia Assembly, October, 1756: "There is great suffering among the Acadians in Philadelphia and in the surrounding villages. They are being supported at the public expense and certain of them refuse to work, hoping by this means to retain their rights as prisoners of war and so be sent home to their former lands. They are ill with the small-pox and the overseers of the towns in Lancaster, Chester and Buck Counties refuse to receive them. Many have neither meat nor bread for many weeks together. Some have become mendicants in the streets of Philadelphia.

"The Assembly moves to bind out the children of these Acadians, the boys until they are twenty-one, and the girls until they are eighteen, to learn trades."

A Sheriff: "This year, 1757, I have issued a warrant

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for the arrest of certain Acadians at the request of Lord Loudon and the approval of the Governor for speaking menacingly against the Crown. Charles Le Blanc, Jean Baptiste Galerm, who wishes to retain his foolish boy, are to be arrested. Also Jean Landry, one of their principal speakers/'

Anthony Benezet, for the Acadians, to the King of Great Britain: "We, our aged parents and grandparents (men of great integrity and approved fidelity to your Majesty) and our innocent wives and children, became the unhappy victims of groundless English fears. We are transported into the English Colonies: and this in so much haste, and with so little regard to our necessities and the tenderest ties of nature, that from the most social enjoyments and affluent circumstances, we find ourselves destitute of the necessaries of life — parents separated from children, and husbands from wives, some of whom to this day have not met again.

"We were so crowded in the transport vessels that we had not even room for all to lay down at once, and subsequently were prevented from carrying with us proper necessities especially for the comfort and support of the aged and weak, many of whom quickly ended their misery with their lives.

"And even those amongst us who had suffered deeply

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for your Majesty, on account of their attachment to your Majesty, were equally involved in the common calamity, of which Ren£ Le Blanc, the notary public, is a remarkable instance.

"He was seized, confined, and brought away among the rest of the people. And his family, consisting of twenty children, and about one hundred and fifty grand- children, were scattered in different colonies. He was put on shore at York in an infirm state of health with only his wife and two youngest children. He joined three more of his children at Philadelphia, where he died, without any more notice being taken of him than any of us, notwith- standing his many years' labor and deep suffering for your Majesty's service.

"The miseries we have since endured are scarcely to be expressed, being reduced for a livelihood to toil and hard labor in a southern clime, so disagreeable to our constitutions that most of us have been prevented by sickness from procuring the necessary subsistence for our families, and are therefore threatened with that which we consider the greatest aggravation to our sufferings, having our children forced from us and bound out to strangers, and exposed to contagious distempers unknown in our native country.

"This, compared with the affluence and ease we

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enjoyed, shows our condition to be extremely wretched. We have already seen in this province 250 of our people, half the number that were landed here, perish through misery and various diseases/'

Some Quakers of the Assembly, February 9th, 1761: "We, the Committee appointed to examine into the state of the French Neutrals, and to report our opinion of the best method of lessening their expense to this Province, have in pursuance of the said appointment, made inquiry, and thereupon do report:

"That the late extraordinary expenses charged by the overseers of the poor, have been occasioned by the general sickness which prevailed amongst them, in common with the other inhabitants, during the last fall and part of the winter. This, added to the extra expense of sup- porting the indigent widows, orphans, aged and decrepit persons, has greatly enlarged the accounts of this year. They have likewise a number of children, who, by the late acts of the Assembly, ought to have been bound out to service, but their parents have always opposed the execu- tion of these laws on account of religion. Many of these children, when in health, require no assistance from the public, but in time of sickness, from the poverty of their parents, become objects of charity and must perish with- out it.

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"Your Committee called together a number of their chief men and acquainted them with the dissatisfaction of the House on finding the public expense so much in- creased by their opposition of the laws, which were framed with a compassionate regard to them, and assured them that, unless they could propose a method more agreeable to themselves for lightening the public burden, their chil- dren would be taken away from them and placed in such families as could maintain them.

"They answered, with appearance of great concern, that they were very sorry to find themselves so expensive to the good people of this Province; reminded us of the general sickness as the principal cause of it, and said that they had petitioned the King to be so gracious as to grant a part of their home country, sufficient for their families to resettle on, where they flatter themselves they shall enjoy more health, and be free of the apprehensions of their children being educated in families whose religious senti- ments are different from theirs.

"In the meantime they pray the indulgence of the Governor in suffering them to retain their children. They beg to be sent to old France, or anywhere rather than part with their children and they promise to excite and encourage all their young people to be industrious in acquiring a competency for their own and their parents^

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subsistence that they may not give cause for complaint hereafter.

" How far they may succeed in this, or their application to the Crown, is very uncertain. We are of opinion that nothing short of putting in execution the law which directs the Overseers of the Poor to bind out their children, will effectually lessen this expense.

"Nevertheless, your Committee, being moved by compassion for these unhappy people, do recommend them to the consideration of the House, as we hope that no great inconvenience can arise from the continuance of public charity towards them for a few months longer.

"Submitted to the House."

A Certain Joiner of Philadelphia: "My name is John Hill. I am a Joiner of the town of Philadelphia, and I would state that I, the petitioner, have been employed from time to time to make coffins for the French Neutrals who have died in and about this town and I have had my accounts regularly paid by the Government until lately. But I am now informed by the Gentlemen commissioners who used to pay me that they have no public money in their hands for the payment of such debts.

"I would state that I have made sixteen coffins since the last settlement, as will appear from this account. I therefore pray the House to make such provisions for

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my materials and labor in the premises as to them shall seem fit."

The Secretary, in the Journal of the Assembly: "January fourth, 1766, a petition from one John Hill, Joiner, was read in the House.

"It was ordered to lie on the table. We have no further record of the Acadians in our archives."

The Bell: "Proclaim liberty throughout the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof."

BASIL THE BLACKSMITH SPEAKS I

Our arms had been taken from us. I had nothing with which to fight save my sledge which had helped me to strengthen many a wain wheel and shape a horse's shoe on my old anvil at Grand-Pre. I was ever a fighter, a hairy man of wide girth, with muscles swelled from my smith's work until they rippled on my arms and breast and back.

I would not give up without a fight, but the soldiers were too many for us. One thing I did before we were put aboard the transports. I went alone to my smithy at the cross roads, and there I raised my sledge high above my head and beat down the low roof of it and broke in the walls. Thereafter I threw my tools in the Gaspereau, save only my axe, which I carried aboard with me.

After that — how can I tell it, who bore the voyaging, helped build the boats in which we coasted by night from port to port and from one river to another, exiled, starving, fearful for our lives if we were discovered? But I, Basil the blacksmith of Grand-Pre, had been a mighty man in our village and of honorable repute and I was of a mind

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to make a place for Acadie somewhere in the course of our wandering, though I saw no way of doing it save the way of iron, with my axe.

Ten years of voyaging, separated from our villagers, destitute, often hiding in the woods, then rowing slowly in our flat boats through the inland waterways I could relate to you. Often, resting on a beach or spending the night in hiding in some marsh, we were passed by our old neighbors unwitting our closeness. The country changed. We must needs use all the strength of our arms in paddling the boats through the muddy lengths of a strange region the Indians told us was called the Attakapas land. Tall fields of sugar cane stood on either side of the marshy river bed of the Atchafalaya river down which we floated. We saw yellow corn and golden rice; we who were so hungry! We made our way through the mazes of the T§che whose banks are covered with great moss-hung live- oak trees. We seemed to be lost in a place of peace and plenty, but we pushed on, a few boatloads of ragged, spent habitants, ever seeking home and waking each morning with a new hope in our bosoms. When I remember the weary miles of our boating, the smallness of the numbers of our people who penetrated to the southern savannas in the year 1765, my mind is not clear as to how we had the strength to accomplish it. Let it pass. We came at

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last, in the late spring of the year, with the sun like wine to us, to a village partly on the sea and partly on a river. We were fearful of approaching in the broad light of the daytime lest we be seized and put in barracks, so we waited in the boats until the cover of the twilight. Then we pulled through the mud and marsh to the levee. The town was called New Orleans.

I am minded how I rubbed my eyes to make sure I was awake. It was like nothing we had ever seen before in our lives.

Naught save dimness at first as we stepped ashore, dragging ourselves wearily and climbing through the oozy mud of the banks. I do remember how we were near naked and all destitute that year, and how we ended by making a place for ourselves in the country second to none. The sons of Acadie were destined to be the pride of the state of Louisiana, but I am over-reaching my tale. Here we were, then, on shore in the town of New Orleans, and in the midst of a gay night on the levee!

I blinked my eyes at the glimmering candle thrust in my face by a sturdy black wench, with a scarlet kerchief wrapped round her head and dangling hoops of gold in her ears. She had lights for sale, there being none in the streets then; ill-smelling, smoky candles they were, made of the green wax myrtle, but welcome at that. Seeing our

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penniless state, some of the French along the levee provided us with candles. How kind they were to us from the first moment of our drawing ashore in this gay, careless, bounti- ful village of mud and blacks and palmettos and crinoline!

The Place d'Armes it was that had welcomed us, and where everything was crowded together, the cathedral of Saint Louis, the convent of the Capuchins, the Govern- ment house, the Prison and the log houses with their fragrant gardens from which issued such gay ladies of France in their silks and curls and powder as we of Acadie had only dreamed. Around this Place were small eating places and the market, where the next morning we saw dis- played wild beef and venison, ducks, partridges, pheasants, geese, pineapples, watermelons, rice, wild peas, figs and and bananas. At the restaurants we could see through the small glazed windows lazy noblemen, perhaps banished here for their too great activity at the court of Castile, partaking of a dish of hominy cooked with rich grease and pieces of meat and fish, washed down with fragrant wine.

You remember we were hungry — I, Basil of Grand-Prd, and the ragged men I had brought with me.

"Nine o'clock, and the weather is fair!" That was the hourly call of the guardsman who walked the levee, very grand in his cocked hat, his deep blue frock coat, his breast straps of black leather supporting a cartridge

BASIL THE BLACKSMITH SPEAKS 127

box. He had a bayonet in its scabbard, a flint-lock musket, and a short sword which was the terror of the slaves out after hours in the town. We feared he would challenge us vagabond Acadians, but he passed us by with a friendly nod.

We met other boatmen, their pirogues drawn up to the levee beside ours and they themselves as unkempt as we. Three months they had spent coming the same way we had, through the bayous, and now they were lordly drunk, spending their gold like kings, and why not? Had they not earned the right? I remember the loneliness of the bayous, and they would be going back the same way soon. I

They called this levee the King's Road. They had planted it with a few sparse willows, and although there were no paving stones we saw a painted coach and horse dash along it that night by the light of our candles. What else we saw, wandering the whole night unmolested, nay, welcomed as we were, seemed a bright dream to us.

Now we passed a group of fiery Creoles, nowhere else to be found but here in Louisiana, their rapiers shining at their sides. We met, here, a yellow siren from San Domingo speaking to us in her soft, bastard French, although we but chucked her under her pretty chin and went on. We saw certain staid and haughty men with flaxen hair and

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white faces, but speaking pure French. The German planters these were, come on horseback through the marshes to buy supplies. Blacks of all shades there were, clad only in the braquet and their dirty shirts. Ex-galley slaves, adventurers and pirates from the islands roundabout, the milk and coffee women bearing great cans on their shoulders, the peddlers of cakes wheeling their little carts along the road. They fed us, God bless them, not asking for a single piesto!

Shop-keepers, Spaniards in their Castilian capes and with their great black hats pulled low over their foreheads, Kentucky herdsmen, the Italian fishermen in yellow caps and very quick with their knives if one did not speak civilly to them. All of these we met, and it was a wonderful night for us. In spite of the strangeness of it, in spite of our memory of exile and lost neighbors and burned farms, we yet felt that we were come home.

So we wandered all the soft, candle-lit dark through the lanes and along the levee of New Orleans. And when morning dawned came our great surprise.

I was standing in my ragged garb of a voyageur, my axe in my belt in front of the market, when a man strangely familiar to me in his sturdy, stalwart bearing, his high cheek bones, his bronzed cheeks, stopped there to buy some fodder. He rode an odd little mustang, the kind

BASIL THE BLACKSMITH SPEAKS 129

of horse I had seen here, and his dress was also familiar, with a blue shirt of the same home-spun cotton as we used to spin and weave in Acadie. With him were others of his like.

"Les habitants! From Acadie !" I heard some one say to these herders with respect. Then he glimpsed me. He stretched out his hand. He was an Acadian!

We were home, if home be the place where kindness and consideration find their place beside the hearthstone! This man told me that my friends and neighbors to the number of many hundreds had voyaged, as I had, this year to the savannas. They were welcomed by the govern- ment, both the citizens and the gentlemen of the Council. He said we would be given herds and lands for beginning life anew. He asked us to settle in Saint Martin on the Teche River, where he was living in peace and raising cane and tending his cows. All through the country of Atta- kapas and on the wide prairies of Opelousas this habitant told me we would be welcome. It was a new Acadie, the same turbulent waters to subdue as we had in the north, the same fertile earth waiting for my ploughshares to cut its deep furrows.

This man took me to the Government house in New Orleans and had me shown a certain paper, the finest piece of writing, to my mind, of any that the Acadians of to-day

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can boast of. We keep it among the archives in a cedar wood box, and it escaped the burning of our papers by the Spaniards. Here it is then:

April Fourth, Seventeen Hundred and Sixty-five

A Contract between Antoine Bernard Dauterive, former Cap- tain of the Infantry of New Orleans, and Joseph Broussard, Alexander Broussard, Joseph Guilliban, Jean Duga, Oliver Tibadau, Jean Baptiste Broussard, Pierre Arcenaud and Victor Broussard, Chiefs of the Acadians.

Captain Dauterive promises to furnish each Acadian family with five cows with their calves and one bull for each six consec- utive years, and he will run the risk of the cattle the first year. As soon as he shall be notified of a loss he will immediately replace the animal by another of the same kind, without holding the Acadians responsible for losses by death during the first year. He reserves the right to rescind the contract after three years and to take back his cattle, all increase being equally divided between him and them.

The Acadians may sell some of the cattle before the expiration of the contract provided they give him one-half percentage of the; sale. At the end of six years they must give back to Monsieur Dauterive the same number of cattle that they received from him and of the same age and kind as when received. All increases and profits to be equally divided between him and the Acadians.

The contract signed before Garis, Notary, in the presence of Aubry, acting Governor of the Colony, Foucault, Ordinateur, and. La Freniere.

Was there ever greater kindness than that of the Colony of Louisiana to a band of exiled voyageurs and

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coureurs-des-bois such as we had become! Homes, property, a new chance at life were ours for the asking! They gave us rations, tools! And no question that we swear any sort of oath to the government. We were fair trusted by the Colony and this gallant Captain of the Infantry.

So we drove our cattle toward the prairies, and reaching our lands we cut the cedars and builded us houses. We laid out gardens and once more heard the tuning of a fiddle. I grew to be a man of some importance in the region, but that is of a later portion of this tale.

II

Fine timber was the cedar, red stick, as we called it, and for which was named the town of Baton Rouge! We sang as we raised the posts and plastered our walls with mud and moss. We found it an adventure to follow our new herds through the dark mazes of the bayous, sometimes lost from us in the deep places where the live-oaks made small islands in the midst of seas of waving rushes and reeds.

Soon we began riding back to New Orleans on our Creole ponies for supplies. There never was a horse like mine, taking the marshes with a springy gait that lifted me clear of the ooze every time. We were piercing the swamp lands one fall, a good number of us, with some of

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the Teuton farmers who had settled the Acadian coast along the Teche before us, on our way to trade at the New Orleans Halles, when I met with that other man of iron. An Acadian like us, was he. The Spanish gentlemen in the town spoke of him with much scorn as the "man with the axe." He had come, as I had, his hatchet in his belt, from the north, to cut his way through the marsh forests and make a settlement for his people in the savannas. But I noted that this neighbor of mine, Joseph de Villere, was looked upon as a great man with the majority of the inhabitants hereabout. I liked him from the first.

I would have you see this de Viller£ riding beside me through the mud to New Orleans. None could have been braver than this Canadian. He had everything a man needs, valor, fortitude and a freedom of mind. He was violent and fiery, but frank withal and loyal to our king, Louis the fifteenth, weak though he was for a monarch. And this de Villerd was of a good size, his step firm, his expression bold and martial, his love of the soil that was of France more than that of a patriot; almost a frenzy was it with him. He was the chief of us Acadians in the savannas.

"Can you fight?" asked Joseph de Villere of me as we approached the King's Road of New Orleans this

BASIL THE BLACKSMITH SPEAKS 133

October of the year 1768, and we carried fowling pieces with us in case we came upon any game in the forest.

"I was ever a fighter/' I told him, wondering what his meaning was.

"Then you may have need of your musket/ ' he told me. "You have been busy these three years with your herds and your building, but certain of the Acadians of this coast could tell of the danger in which we live. We are to see new ships along the levee to-day. After many warnings the Spanish governor, Antonio Ulloa, is in poses- sion of New Orleans. His soldiers are at our banks t@ enforce his rule/'

"A Spanish governor!" I asked, unbelieving.

"Aye/' said de Villerd. "I could show you the papers in the Government house by authority of which he came, a canting scholar, a sharp-featured hypocrite, who has already bargained for the sale of our men of the Acadian coast into slavery/ '

Then de Villere, as we neared the levee, told me the whole of it, how our Louis, in one of his mad moments, had given this colony of Louisiana by a secret treaty to Spain.

"The French King cedes to his cousin of Spain, and to his successors forever, in full ownership and without any exception or reservation whatever, from the pure

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impulse of his generous heart and from the affection and friendship existing between these two royal persons, all the country known under the name of Louisiana." So Louis had secretly written it.

And there, at the banks of our city waited the soldiers of the Spanish inquisition to help take away from our hands the precious freedom we had as we held in them the lily of our ancient country, France.

This thing had been seething for some years, although until now they had not dared the effrontery of establishing Ulloa to rule New Orleans. It seems that the French of Louisiana had petitioned Louis concerning his cession of our colony to Spain.

"We would describe the barbarity with which the Acadians have been treated," they had writ to the Court at Fontainbleau but lately. "These people, the sport of fortune, had determined, under the impulse of a patriotic spirit, to forsake all that they might possess in the English territories in order to go and live under the happy laws of their ancient master. They arrived in this colony at a great sacrifice, and scarce had they cleared out a place sufficient for a poor thatched hut to stand upon, when, in consequence of some representations which they happened to make to the Spanish representative, it was threatened to drive them out of the colony. Mr. Ulloa would sell

BASIL THE BLACKSMITH SPEAKS 135

them as slaves in order to pay for the rations which have been given them.

'Those who complain are threatened with imprison- ment, banished to the Balise, and sent to the mines.

"Such oppressions are not dictated by the hearts of kings; they agree but ill with that humanity which con- stitutes their character, and directs their actions/'

And now we saw the answer of our king, armed Spanish ships lying at anchor off New Orleans. We rode along the levee to better sight them.

I remember how the Place d'Armes looked that day, so clear is it all stamped on my mind. There was a new fence of unpainted wood posts around it, a frail protection against the guns in the river, and the road was strangely quiet for our gay town. The Cathedral door was open, as had been our church door so many seasons past when the English ships came up the Gaspereau towards Grand- Pre. The stunted grass, of a somber brown, was growing in odd and scattered patches, giving the square the look of an old wives' shabby quilt. No one sang in the streets. The shutters were closed.

In front of me, fastened to the levee by a ponderous drawbridge of wood, I saw floating a tall, three-decked galleon, her poop rising high into the air and adorned with many carvings in addition to being too fancifully painted

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for a ship. From her masts and the ropes amid-ships a hundred cursing, ruffianly sailors gathered and jeered at our coarse clothes, waving a strange flag, the gold and red of Spain, flying to proclaim the savagery and cruelty of the inquisition. It was emblazoned with golden castles and a flaming scarlet lion and out in the stream, behind the galleon, were the brothers to it, flaunting their flags and like it in every respect.

As we looked at the Spanish ships a crowd of the Creoles of the town who had welcomed us wanderers to New Orleans three years before gathered round us. Father Dagobert, the merry curate of the village, fat and rubicund in his fine apparel and usually readier to enjoy a wedding and a full cup than a funeral, looked with us toward the levee. A rosy cheek to pinch, a good game of cards, the mixing of joy with piety as we mix water with wine, these were our Father's delights, and I mind they interfered not a bit with his religion, which was a matter of daily kindness. But Father Dagobert smiled not now.

Dainty ladies, pale beneath their rouge, their brocaded gowns and hoop petticoats dragging in the slime of the street, had come, holding tight to the arms of their lords lest they be parted. Our pretty Acadian girls, as fair as our lost daughters of Grand-Prd, a company of blacks who had armed themselves with pikes and sticks and knives

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although their uniform was but half a shirt apiece; La Freniere, our Tribune, so young he was scarce bearded yet, my de Villerd, his eyes flashing like two coals and his hand gripping his carbine — there we were, facing the Spaniards.

In the second we