In the meantime the price of Le Loutre's intrigues and of the outrages of the French and their Indian allies was now to be paid by the unhappy Acadians.During the spring and summer of 1755, the British decided that the question of allegiance should be settled at once, and that the Acadians must take the oath.There was need of urgency.The army at Fort Lawrence which had captured Fort Beausejour was largely composed of men from New England, and these would wish to return to their homes for the winter.If the Acadians remained and were hostile, the country thus occupied at laborious cost might quickly revert to the French.Already many Acadians had fought on the side of the French and some of them, disguised as Indians, had joined in savage outrage.A French fleet and a French army were reported as likely to arrive before the winter.In fact, France's naval power with its base at Louisbourg was still stronger than that of Britain with its base at Halifax.When the Acadians were told in plain terms that they must take the oath of allegiance, they firmly declined to do so without certain limitations involving guarantees that they should not be arrayed against France.The Governor at Halifax, Major Charles Lawrence, was a stern, relentless man, without pity, and his mind was made up.Shirley, Governor of Massachusetts, was in touch with Lawrence.The Acadians should be deported if they would not take the oath.This step, however, the government at London never ordered.On the contrary, as late as on August 13, 1755, Lawrence was counseled to act with caution, prudence, and tact in dealing with the "Neutrals," as the Acadians are called even in this official letter.Meanwhile, without direct warrant from London, Lawrence and his council at Halifax had taken action.His reasoning was that of a direct soldier.The Acadians would not take the full oath of British citizenship.Very well.
Quite obviously they could not be trusted.Already they had acted in a traitorous way.Prolonged war with France was imminent.
Since Acadians who might be allied with the savages could attack British posts, they must be removed.To replace them, British settlers could in time be brought into the country.
The thing was done in the summer and autumn of 1755.Colonel Robert Monckton, a regular officer, son of an Irish peer, who always showed an ineffable superiority to provincial officers serving under him, was placed in charge of the work.He ordered the male inhabitants of the neighborhood of Beausejour to meet him there on the 10th of August.Only about one-third of them came--some four hundred.He told them that the government at Halifax now declared them rebels.Their lands and all other goods were forfeited; they themselves were to be kept in prison.Not yet, however, was made known to them the decision that they were to be treated as traitors of whom the province must be rid.No attempt was made anywhere to distinguish loyal from disloyal Acadians.Lawrence gave orders to the military officers to clear the country of all Acadians, to get them by any necessary means on board the transports which would carry them away, and to burn their houses and crops so that those not caught might perish or be forced to surrender during the coming winter.At the moment, the harvest had just been reaped or was ripening.
When the stern work was done at Grand Pre, at Pisiquid, now Windsor, at Annapolis, there were harrowing scenes.In command of the work at Grand Pre was Colonel Winslow, an officer from Massachusetts--some of whose relatives twenty-five years later were to be driven, because of their loyalty to the British King, from their own homes in Boston to this very land of Acadia.
Winslow issued a summons in French to all the male inhabitants, down to lads of ten, to come to the church at Grand Pre on Friday, the 5th of September, to learn the orders he had to communicate.Those who did not appear were to forfeit their goods.No doubt many Acadians did not understand the summons.Few of them could read and it hardly mattered to them that on one occasion a notice on the church door was posted upside down.Some four hundred anxious peasants appeared.Winslow read to them a proclamation to the effect that their houses and lands were forfeited and that they themselves and their families were to be deported.Five vessels from Boston lay at Grand Pre.In time more ships arrived, but chill October had come before Winslow was finally ready.
By this time the Acadians realized what was to happen.The men were joined by their families.As far as possible the people of the same village were kept together.They were forced to march to the transports, a sorrow-laden company, women carrying babes in their arms, old and decrepit people borne in carts, young and strong men dragging what belongings they could gather.Winslow's task, as he says, lay heavy on his heart and hands: "It hurts me to hear their weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth." By the 1st of November he had embarked fifteen hundred unhappy people.
His last ship-load he sent off on the 13th of December.The suffering from cold must have been terrible.
In all, from Grand Pre and other places, more than six thousand Acadians were deported.They were scattered in the English colonies from Maine to Georgia and in both France and England.
Many died; many, helpless in new surroundings, sank into decrepit pauperism.Some reached people of their own blood in the French colony of Louisiana and in Canada.A good many returned from their exile in the colonies to their former home after the Seven Years' War had ended.Today their descendants form an appreciable part of the population of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island.The cruel act did one thing effectively: it made Nova Scotia safe for the British cause in the attack that was about to be directed against Canada.
