42 L’ABBE CASGRAIN 
de Braddock à Monongahela. Les alarmes et le surcroit d’animosité qu'avait excités ce 
désastre expliquent en partie la manière barbare dont cet ordre fut préparé et exécuté. 
Mais il faut bien avouer aussi qu'il était difficile de trouver un groupe d'hommes 
mieux faits pour tramer et accomplir une telle entreprise: chefs et soldats étaient animés 
du même esprit. Lawrence, qui en fut le principal organisateur, s’est peint lui-même dans 
une proclamation signée de sa main en 1756. Par cette proclamation, il promettait une 
récompense de trente livres sterling pour chaque prisonnier sauvage, du sexe masculin, 
au-dessus de seize ans, amené vivant; vingt-cinq livres pour chaque scalpe de guerrier 
sauvage et la même somme pour chaque sauvagesse ou enfant amené vivant.’ C'était le 
même Lawrence qui reprochait aux Acadiens de lui enlever l'amitié des sauvages. 
Murray, dont on connaîtra le caractère par la suite de ce récit, écrivait à Winslow en 
lui parlant des troupes: ‘“ Vous savez que nos soldats détestent les Acadiens, et que, s’ils 
peuvent seulement trouver un prétexte pour les tuer, ils les tueront.” * 
Embarqué le 14 août, à Beauséjour, avec un détachement de trois cent treize miliciens 
de la Nouvelle-Angleterre, Winslow descendit la baie de Chignectou, et, profitant de la 
marée, pénétra dans le bassin des Mines, où il vint jeter l’ancre en face de Grand-Pré. 
Le vétéran américain, qui avait accepté cette mission indigne d’un soldat, n’avait pas 
l'âme tranquille, car il avait la conscience du rôle odieux qu'on lui faisait jouer, et de la 
\ 
flétrissure qu’il allait attacher à son nom. Plusieurs passages de son journal laissent 

1 Histoire de la Nouvelle-Ecosse, par B. Murdoch, v. I, p. 308. 
2 Journal de Winslow, p. 107. 
Beamish Murdoch dans son Histoire de la Nouvelle-Ecosse, v. II, p. 47, cite le jugement de l’amiral Knowles 
sur les soldats anglo-américains qui composaient la garnison de Louisbourg où il commandait: He calls the New- 
England soldiers lazy, dirty and obstinate: “Every one I found, here, from the generals down to the corporals, 
were sellers of rum.” 
L’extrait suivant d'une lettre du rév. Hugh Graham au réy. Dr Brown, d’Halifax, datée de 1791, achèvera de 
faire connaître le caractère des soldats américains : 
“ A party of rangers of a regiment chiefly employed in scouring the country of the deluded French who had 
unfortunately fallen under the bann of British policy, came upon four Frenchmen who had all possible caution, 
ventured out rom their skulking retreats to pick some of the strageling cattle or hidden treasure. The solitary 
few, the pitiable four, had just sat down weary and faint on the banks of the desert stream in order to refresh 
themselves with some food and rest, when the party of Rangers surprised and apprehended them, and as there 
was a bounty on Indian scalps, a blot, too, on England’s escutcheon, the soldiers soon made the supplicating signal 
the officer’s turned their backs, and the French were instantly shot and scalped. A party of the Rangers brought 
in one day 25 scalps, pretending that they were Indian’s, and the commanding officer at the fort, then Col. Wilmot, 
afterwords Governor Wilmot (a poor tool) gave orders that the bounty should be paid them. Capt. Huston who had 
at that time the charge of the military chest, objected such proceedings both in the letter and spirit of them. The 
Colonel told him, that according to law the French were all out of the French, that the bounty on Indian scalps 
was according to: “ Law, and that tho’ the law might in some instances be strained a little, yet there was a neces- 
“ sity for winkin: at such things.” Upon account, Huston, in obedience to orders, paid down £260, telling that 
the “curse of God should ever attend such guilty deeds.” A considerable large body of the French were one time 
surprised by a party of the Rangers on Peticoudiac River; upon the first alarm mcst of them threw themselves 
into the river and swam across, and by way the greater part of them made out to elule the clutches of these 
bloody hounds, tho’ some of them were shot by the merciless soldiery in the river. It was observed that these 
Rangers, almost without exception, closed their days in wretchedness, and particularly a Capt. Danks who even 
rode to the extreme of his commission in every barbarous proceeding. In the Cumberland insurrection (late war) 
he was suspected of being “Jack on both sides of the bush,” left that place, Cumberland, in a small jigger bound 
for Windsor, was taken ill on the passage, thrown down into the hold among the ballast, was taken out at 
Windsor, is half dead, and had little better than the burial of the dog, He lived under a general dislike and 
died without any to regret his death.” 
