202 J. G. BOUEINOT 



part of the French peasantry and middle class, as there was among the English, to seek 

 their fortunes in the new world. The greatest inducements that the French government 

 could offer to immigration to their colonies had placed only some eighty thousand people in 

 the valleys of the St. Lawrence and Louisiana when they passed from the possession of 

 France in 1*760, against nearly a million and a quarter in the English settlements on the 

 Atlantic coast, which had been left to fight their own way, under the influence of that 

 indomitable spirit of colonization which has always distinguished the English race since the 

 commencement of the seventeenth century, when they first entered on the conquest of 

 the continent of America. 



The Indians of Cape Breton belonged to the tribe of Micmacs or Souriquois, who are 

 members of the great Algonquin family, whose representatives were found scattered over 

 half a continent, even at the foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains. The Micmacs frequented 

 the eastern portions of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Gape Breton, and their number 

 probably ranged from three to four thousand while the French occupied those countries. 

 They became converts to the Church of Eame, through the instrumentality of the Recol- 

 lets, and were always afterwards firm allies of France from the beginning to the end of 

 the conflict with England. It does not appear that they ever lived in any number on the 

 southeastern part of the island during the French occui:>ation, but only made their appear- 

 ance at Louisbourg at certain seasons for the i)urpose of trading or communicating with 

 the French governor. Their favourite resorts were the islands and shores of the Bras d'Or 

 lake, and they were accustomed to go to Port Toulouse to sell their furs and obtain sup- 

 plies of provisions and ammunition. They are generally described by the old historians 

 of New England as having been more cruel and vindictive than the majority of the Cana- 

 dian Indians, but in all probability they were no worse in any res^ject than the other 

 savage tribes who were constantly making raids on the English settlements. They had 

 a deep affection for the French, who took every pains to cultivate their alliance, and 

 never treated them as a subject people. The Roman Catholic Church had always the 

 same remarkable influence over them that it has exercised over all the Indians with 

 whom its zealous, self-sacrificing missionaries have come into contact in America. Living 

 with them from year to year, ministering to their spiritual and physical wants, acting as 

 their friends and advisers in all their affairs, suffering the same privations that they did 

 in times of destitution and war, making their very superstitious subservient to the pur- 

 poses of religion, the Roman Catholic missionaries were able to exercise a power and 

 influence among the Indians that a Protestant priest has never possessed. No doubt 

 some of their priests, like Le Loutre in Acadie, and Rasle on the Kennebec, were the 

 persistent enemies of the English settlements, and always led the Indians to believe that 

 the French would eventually triumph in America. 



IV. Origin and History of the New England Expedition against Louisbourg 



IN 1*745. 



During the thirty years that elapsed between the treaty of Utrecht and the breaking 

 out of war again between France and G-reat Britain, the people of New England found 

 that the merely nominal possession of Acadie by the English was of little security to 

 them, while the French still held the island of Cape Breton and had the fealty of the 



