[RAYMOND] NOVA SCOTIA UNDER ENGLISH RULE 79 
to view the measures they adopted from the standpoint of their day. 
As one who has written forcibly on this phase of the question points 
out, nothing is so easy as to be wise after the event. Could the principal 
actors in the tragic expulsion have foreseen what would happen in the 
course of the next few years, they might have been saved the recollec- 
tion of one of the most painful chapters of Acadian history.' But they 
did not know, and the experience of the past gave them small reason 
to hope that within four years the French strongholds of Louisbourg 
and Quebee would pass permanently into British possession, and the 
influences that had so long emanated from thence would be no longer 
a cause of unrest in Acadia. 
Whether justifiable or not, it is certain that the policy of Lawrence 
and Shirley was adopted in what they considered a serious emergency. 
The situation in America in 1754 had become so critical that the two 
governors were instructed to take joint action for the defence of 
Nova Scotia.? Lawrence informed Shirley that he had received 
information that the French proposed, as soon as they had repaired 
their fortifications at Louisbourg, to attack Chignecto. “Your Ex- 
cellency must undoubtedly be sensible,” he adds, “what an advantage 
we shall gain upon the French by attacking them first, more especially 
as their chief dependence is in the Indians and our deserted* French 
inhabitants, who most probably will leave them when they find they 
are not able to keep their ground, but who would infallibly assist them 
if they should begin with us.” 
In order to carry out the plan of striking the first blow, it was 
determined to raise 2,000 troops in New England for service in Nova 
Scotia, the expense to be paid out of the Imperial grant to the latter 
province. Lawrence claimed that the assistance of New England was 
absolutely needed at this time, for should the enemy be successful in 
their contemplated attack on Chignecto they would certainly attempt 
the reconquest of Acadia. He admits also that he was anxious to 
show ‘‘a proper resentment” against French encroachments upon 
British soil in Nova Scotia and elsewhere.‘ 

! Collections of N.S. Hist. Society, Vol. V, p. 37. 
? The two Governors were congenial spirits. Shirley wrote to Lawrence on 
November 7, 1754, “It gives me a real pleasure that I have the honour of being 
joined in this service for procuring a happy deliverance of His Majesty’s northern 
colonies from the danger of the present neighbourhood of the French in their en- 
croachments within your Honour’s Government, with a gentleman of whose zeal 
and abilities for promoting the service of our King and Country in this instance 
I have so high an opinion.” 
3 The “deserted French” were those of the Acadians who had left their lands 
in the peninsula and retired to the north of the isthmus of Chignecto under the 
protection of Fort Beauséjour. 
* See Nova Scotia published Archives, p. 378. 
