280 J. G. BOURTNOT 



at Chignecto, known as Fort Lawrence in honour of the English officer who built it — 

 afterwards governor oWTova Scotia and one of the commanders at Louisbourg in 1758 — 

 and intended to be a protection to the province, constantly threatened by the French and 

 Indians, who were always numerous at the French posts and settlements on the isthmus. 

 The French constructed on the northern bank of the Missiquash a fort of five bastions 

 known as Beausejour, and a smaller one at Bay Yerte, with the object, as previously 

 stated, of keeping up communications with Louisbourg, which they were strengthening 

 in some measure. At Fort Beausejour the treacherous Le Loutre continued to pursue his 

 insidious designs of creating dissatisfaction among the French Acadiaus and pressing on 

 them the necessity of driving the English from the former possessions of France. In the 

 spring of 1V55 an English force of regular and colonial troops, chiefly the latter, under the 

 command of Colonel Mouckton,who has given his name to a prosperous city on the isthmus, 

 and of Colonels Winslow and Scott, captured the two French forts, and took a good many 

 prisoners, among whom were a considerable number of French Acadians, induced by the 

 French to assist in the defence of Beausejour. Le Loutre succeeded, during the confusion 

 on the surrender of the fort, in evading capture, but only to find himself eventually taken 

 prisoner by an English ship while on his way to France, and sent to the island of Jersey, 

 where he was kept in confinement until the end of the war, and from that time disap- 

 pears from colonial history.' Dvxring this same year General Braddock met with his 

 terrible disaster in the forests west of the Alleghanies, and the Ohio valley was, for the 

 time being, secured to the French. An expedition, led by Shirley against Fort Niagara, 

 never reached its destination thi-ough various misadventures, and another force under 

 Johnson and Lyman defeated Dieskau, but was unable to achieve the object for which it 

 was formed, the reduction of Crown Point. But the most memorable event of the year, 

 which has been the subject of warm controversy between French and English historians 

 and the theme of one of the most affecting poems in the English language, was the expul- 

 sion of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia. When Halifax was founded it wa.s decided, 

 as a matter of necessity, to bring the Acadians more entirely under the control of the 

 English authorities. They had probably increased since the treaty of Utrecht to at least 

 ten thousand souls, living for the most part in the Annapolis valley, on the G-aspereaux 

 and Avon rivers, at Grand Pré, at Mines, and at Chignecto. When they were asked to 

 take the oath of allegiance by Governor Lawrence, they refused to do so unless it was 

 qualified by the condition that they should not be obliged at any time to take up arms. 

 It will be remembered that many years before a considerable number, if not the majority, 

 of the same people had taken this qualified oath, although no one had legal authority to 

 make such a condition with them." The feeling of uneasiness that the presence of so 



' Dr. Akins in one of his notes to liis " Selections from Kova Scotia Public Documents " (p. 178) gives a resume 

 of the leading facts in the life of this inveterate foe of England, who made use of the Acadiaus most unscrupulously 

 to carry out his insidious designs of driving the English from Acadia. Parkman in describing his character 

 (Montcalm and Wolfe, i. IIM, 114) says he " was a man of boundless egotism, a violent spirit of domination, an 

 intense hatred of the English, and a fanaticism that stopped at nothing." He appears to have been a treacherous 

 soldier in the guise of a priest. His ecclesiastical superiors rebuked him in vain— he cared little for their approval, 

 and looked only to the support of the military chiefs like Galissonière, who encouraged him in his schemes against 

 England. 



' " In a single instance— in 1729 — Governor Philips .secvired from the French inhabitants of tlio Annapolis 

 river an unconditional sul)mission ; but with this exception the French would never take tlie oath of allegiance 

 without an express exemption from all lialiility to bear arms. It is certain, however, that this conce.ssiou was 



