440 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



of these settlements has been made by a number of Acadian families who, 

 having sold the small tracts on which they had formerly resided in several 

 parts of the province, petitioned for allotments on the River Saint John, about 

 thirty miles above the Great Falls and a little below the entrance of the 

 River Madawaska, where a tract of 16,000 acres has accordingly been surveyed 

 and laid out for them, and the greater part of it has already been granted in lots 

 of 200 acres each to no less than fifty persons, mostly heads of families, who are 

 actually settled on their lands and have made considerable progress in culti- 

 vation and improvement. 



These Acadians, finding the district wherein they are settled had been lately 

 supposed to fall within the limits of the province of Quebec, have applied to 

 me by memorial expressing their concern at this suggestion and praying to be 

 continued within the jurisdiction and under the protection of this government. 

 On this occasion therefore I beg to say that I think it would be highly in- 

 expedient to break the chain of settlements now forming on the River Saint John 

 by placing them under different jurisdictions, especially as their local situation 

 gives them all a much greater facility of communication with the seat of Govern- 

 ment here than they would have with Quebec." 



One more bit of documentary evidence may be added to show 

 the mutual relations existing between the Lieutenant Governor and 

 the Acadians. This is a petition submitted by Pierre Duperré in 

 behalf of the Madawaska people in a time of great dearth : — 



"May it please your Excellency and Council: 



Your Petitioner humbly sheweth: That your Excellency's French settlers 

 at Madawaska are at present in a most distressed and lamentable situation, 

 upwards of thirty families having not a morsel of provisions of any kind to put 

 in their mouths, their children and wives starving, and so impoverished as not 

 to be capable of assisting themselves even in doing the lightest work, one sup- 

 posing he may have bread till the first another till the tenth, and but very few 

 until the fifteenth of May. 



The above number of families have hitherto been supported by their 

 neighbours, who have given them all they can spare. And this great distress 

 is not owing to much so their own fault as to the severe frosts the last season 

 in the settlement. Meat or fish they have had none this long time, and what 

 they will do God only knows. 



However, relying on your Excellency's goodness, prays your Excellency 

 (and Council) will be pleased to take their miserable condition under considera- 

 tion, to whom they look up as their Father and Protector, and send them such 

 relief as you in your wisdom and goodness may judge best to relieve their 

 immediate necessities. 



And your petitioner as in duty bound will pray, &c, &c. 



(Signed) P. DUPERRÉ. 

 Fredericton, 1st May, 1797." 



We have now to discuss the statement of the Abbé Casgrain 

 that the American Loyalists and disbanded soldiers were permitted 

 to "sit down at the tables of the Acadians, to eat of their bread and 

 become from henceforth rulers and masters of the lands that had been 



