272 J. G. BOUEINOT 



ated in the midst of a race speaking an alien tongue. The minority must sooner or later 

 from the necessity of things speak the language and follow the customs of the majority. 

 English is now the prevalent tongue everywhere, save in a few Acadian families where a 

 patois of English and French is still spoken. Even the old French names are dis- 

 appearing, and LeBlanc is now known as White, Le Jeune is Young, and Eoy is King. 

 All of them, however, appear to cling with tenacity to their old faith, though, as a vener- 

 able and well beloved priest of Cape Breton writes me significantly, " in a few years there 

 will not be a trace of French about them but their ill-pronounced and imperfectly under- 

 stood prayers." 



It is in the soïithern and western counties of Richmond and Inverness that we 

 find the largest, most prosperous and best examples of the French Acadian race, for we 

 may leave out of the account altogether the few families that still claim a French descent 

 on the northern and eastern shores of the now purely Scotch county of Victoria, where 

 on the hills of Ports Dauphin, and Orleans once floated the lilies of France. lie Madame 

 and the adjacent coast of Cape Breton, were always from the earliest times of historical 

 record a favourite home of the French. Its many bays, harbours and inlets, are well 

 sheltered from the tumult of ocean and the storms that rage so often on the coast, and are 

 relatively free from the dangers and inconvenience of the great masses of ice that come 

 down the gulf between Cape North and Cape Eay in the springtime, and often choke up 

 the eastern and southeastern ports and bays. Here the facilities for carrying on the 

 fisheries, and engaging in the coasting trade have built up a large and industrious class 

 of population. 



It was on He Madame that enterprising merchants of Jersey ' in the English channel, 

 had for many years establishments for carrying on the fisheries. Nicholas Denys has had 

 many successors since his time, and his countrymen have found a rich harvest in the 

 waters that surround the islaud. Arichat was once the most important commercial town 

 in the island, but nowadays it has sunk into relative insignificance with the disappearance 

 of the old fishing-houses, and the growth of the outlying settlements. The adjoining- 

 village of "West Arichat or Acadiaville, had already outstripped it in importance, when it 

 too suff'ered from the fact that of late years the coal and coasting trade, for a long while a 

 source of lucrative employment to the people, has been for the most part transferred from 

 sailing vessels to steamers. 



In the county of Richmond there are five Acadian parishes of importance ; Arichat, 

 West Arichat, or Acadiaville, and Descousse are on He Madame, and L'Ardoise and River 

 Bourgeois on the mainland. A small settlement also exists on the west side of the basin 

 of the River Inhabitants. Counting these parishes and other places of minor importance 



' The old Jersey houses of Janvrin, DeCarteret, and Hubert that did a large business in the fisheries, giving 

 constant employment to the Acadian French, have disappeared, and the only feigns of their existence are dilapidated 

 warehouses and worm-eaten wharves. The old house of P. C. Robin & Co., which was established over a century 

 a<'0 may be regarded as the legitimate successor of Denys, since it does business still not only on Cape Breton, 

 but in different parts of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Their first establishment was erected in 1705, on Jersey Island, 

 at the south entrance of Aricliat liarbour. They did business there for some years when their premises were 

 burned by Paul Jones while cruising in the gulf, and destroying English property. Shortly after this occurrence they 

 built on the south side of Arichat harbour where they still continue doing a large fish trade. One of the stores 

 built in 1797 is still in a good state of preservation. I am indebted for the facts in this note to Mr. E. P. Flynn, 

 formerly M. P., for Richmond. 



