428 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



the Loyalists and the older inhabitants, and their mutual relations 

 were by no means cordial in matters pertaining to social life, religion 

 or politics. 



The statements in the Abbé Casgrain's book to which exception 

 must be taken are chiefly those which follow. They are given in 

 translation. 



Speaking of the period that followed the expulsion Casgrain 

 observes : — 



"The period of evil days, however, was not yet ended for the poor Acadians, 

 another kind of trouble for them had begun. To open persecution there suc- 

 ceeded underhand persecution, prompted by the spite of subordinate officiais 

 in defiance of the express wishes of England and of the Governor. Obstacles 

 accordingly were put in the way of the contiguous settlement of families. Care 

 was taken, for example, that an Acadian should be placed between two protestant 

 proprietors, and also that his land should not be situated along the coast but 

 in the interior. Moreover the manner of conceding land merely by a title 

 of temporary permission to possess it, adopted by Nova Scotia, was not calculated 

 to reassure the distrustful spirit of the Acadians, who had been so frequently 

 deceived. That there was reason to mistrust this temporary permission the 

 subsequent course of events will sufficiently prove. I will only cite one instance. 



In 1784, that is to say after the lapse of thirty years, some of the dispos- 

 sessed in 1755, who had settled on the River Saint John, were again dispossessed 

 in favour of some American loyalists and disbanded soldiers who had merely 

 to seat themselves at their tables and eat of their bread, and become henceforth 

 rulers and masters of the lands that had been bedewed by the sweat of an 

 outlawed people. The unhappy Acadians, helpless against the forces arrayed 

 against them, could do nothing but betake themselves to the woods. They 

 ascended the River St. John thirty leagues from any habitation and axe in hand 

 opened up the intervals of Madawaska, where they have multiplied with the 

 marvellous fecundity for which they are noted." 1 



In the same connection we have the following passage: — 



"Pierre Cormier was considered the most prosperous settler in Chignecto. 

 Having been taken in arms at the fall of Beauséjour he was condemned to be 

 shot, but he escaped from imprisonment through the devotion of one ol his 

 sisters who brought him the garments of a woman. In this disguise he deceived 

 the vigilant sentinel and rejoined his family and brethren who had hid themselves 

 in the forest, from whence they proceeded to Canada. 



Upon the return of peace a number of persons, among them Pierre Cormier, 

 joined a party of their compatriots who had decided to begin life afresh as tillers 

 of the soil in the mission of Sainte Anne on the St. John River. In a few years 

 their active hands had caused the wilderness to blossom; their barns were 

 filled with sheaves and their stalls with cattle. They had begun to forget the 

 storms through which they had passed, when fresh rumours of war fell upon 

 their ears. This proved to be the commencement of the American Revolution." 

 [After stating that the Acadians, following the example of their brethren in 

 1 Un Pèlerinage au Pays D'Evangéline, Deuxième Edition, 1888, pp. 320-322. 



