190 RETURN OF FRONTENAC. [1689. 



In the next century, some of the people of Acadia 

 were torn from their homes by order of a British 

 commander. The act was harsh and violent, and 

 the innocent were involved with the guilty ; but 

 many of the sufferers had provoked their fate, and 

 deserved it. 



Louis XIY. commanded that eighteen thousand 

 unoffending persons should be stripped of all that 

 they possessed, and cast out to the mercy of the 

 wilderness. The atrocity of the plan is matched 

 by its folly. The king gave explicit orders, but he 

 gave neither ships nor men enough to accomplish 

 them; and the Dutch farmers, goaded to despera- 

 tion, would have cut his sixteen hundred soldiers 

 to pieces. It was the scheme of a man blinded by 

 a long course of success. Though perverted by 

 flattery and hardened by unbridled power, he was 

 not cruel by nature ; and here, as in the burning of 

 the Palatinate and the persecution of the Hugue- 

 nots, he would have stood aghast, if his dull imagi- 

 nation could have pictured to him the miseries he 

 was preparing to inflict. 2 



pourra aussi garder, s'il le juge a propos, des artisans et autres gens de 

 service neeessaires pour la culture des terres ou pour travailler aux forti- 

 fications en qualite de prisonniers. ... II faut retenir en prison les 

 officiers et les principaux habitans desquels on pourra retirer des ran- 

 90ns. A l'esgard de tous les autres estrangers (ceux qui ne sont pas Fran- 

 cais) liommes, femraes, et enfans, sa Majeste trouve a propos qu'ils soient 

 mis hors de la Colonie et envoyez a la Xouvelle Angleterre, a la Pennsyl- 

 vanie, ou en d'autres endroits qu'il jugera a propos, par mer ou parterre, 

 ensemble ou separe'ment, le tout suivant qu'il trouvera plus seur pour les 

 dissiper et empescher qu'en se reunissant ils ne puissent donner occasion 

 a des entreprises de la part des ennemis contre cette Colonie. II envoy- 

 era en France les Francais fugitifs qu'il y pourra trouver, et particnliere- 

 ment ceux de la Religion Pretendue-Reformee (Hiir/uenots)." A transla- 

 tion of the entire document will be found in N. Y. Col. Docs , IX. 422. 

 2 On the details of the projected attack of New York, Le Roy a 



