66 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
the number of the Acadians in the peninsula had increased to more 
than 12,000 souls. 
France continued to regard the recovery of her lost colony as an 
object of prime importance. D’Anville’s expedition and that of La 
Jonquière the next year both had in view the reconquest of Acadia. 
Governor Shirley’s efforts to make Nova Scotia a strong British Colony. 
William Shirley, the Governor of Massachusetts, was by all odds 
the most watchful and strenuous defender of British interests in America. 
If France was bent on recovering Acadia, Shirley was no less resolved 
to keep it. He regarded it as the key of the British American colonies, 
and repeatedly urged the English ministry to strengthen it. If Nova 
Scotia were lost, he contended that there could be neither peace nor 
safety for the other colonies. He assured the Duke of Newcastle that 
if a thousand French troops should land in Nova Scotia all the Acadians 
would rise to join them, besides all the Indians. This, too, was the 
opinion of the French Governor and of the Intendant at Quebec, who 
wrote in September, 1745, to their colonial minister, “The habitants 
(of Acadia), with few exceptions wish to return under the French 
dominion, and will not hesitate to take up arms as soon as they see 
themselves free to do so; that is as soon as we become masters of Port 
Royal or they have powder and other munitions of war and are backed 
by troops for their protection against the resentment of the English.” 
Shirley continued to write most perseveringly to the Duke of 
Newcastle upon the defenceless state of Nova Scotia. In his letter of 
May 10, 1846, he says, “I think it my indispensable duty to suggest 
again to your Grace my Fears that the Enemy will soon find an oppor- 
tunity of snatching Accadie, by some sudden stroke, from his Majesty’s 
Government, unless there be a Removal of the most dangerous of the 
French Inhabitants from thence, and transplanting English Families 
there in their room, which I think very practicable, from hence.” 
Later, he writes that the Province of Nova Scotia will never be 
out of danger whilst the Acadians are suffered to remain upon their 
present foot of subjection. Nevertheless, Shirley’s mature judgment 
did not at this time favour so drastic a procedure as a general expulsion. 
His remarks in this connection are so striking that I venture to quote 
them, in slightly abbreviated form, from his letter to the Duke of New- 
castle of the 21st November, 1746:—“It is indeed now to be wished 
that General Nicholson had upon the first Reduction of the Colony 
removed the french Inhabitants, when they were but a few, out of the 
Country, as was done at Louisbourg; and that during the Interval of 
Peace the Colony had been planted with Protestant subjects: But after 
their having remained so long in the Country upon the foot of British 
