INDIANS OF NOVA SCOTIA — GILPIN. 265 



the Jesuits vied with each other in teaching the doctrine of the 

 Roman Catholic Church. On St. John's Day, June 24, 1610, 

 twenty-four or five of the Indians were baptized at Port Royal, 

 among whom was Membertou, then one hundred years old, — his 

 great namesake, Henry of Navarre, having fallen but a few weeks 

 before under the assassin's blow. To the present day they have 

 been faithful to that church whose simple dogmatic teaching and 

 splendid exterior so well supplies their religious wants. Of such 

 importance was this event considered, that a special messenger was 

 sent to France to announce it ; and again we meet with a royal 

 letter of the great Louis XIV.'s, enjoining upon the governor, 

 their religious care. 



Baron de la Honton, 1G96, says (Murdock) : " The French 

 neglect nothing to secure the Indians, giving some notable men 

 pay as a lieutenant or ensign, and giving them rewards for mischief 

 to the English, or to the Indians in the English interest, paying 

 them for scalps, sending the Canadian youth with them, or giving 

 them commissions, — taking Indians to Europe to show them the 

 glories of the French Court and armies. There are now at Ver- 

 sailles six Sagamos from Canada, Hudson's Bay, and Nova 

 Scotia." 



Thus, kindly and gently the French held our Mic-Macs for one 

 hundred years. In seventeen hundred and ten, Soubercase, the 

 French Governor at Port Royal, now Annapolis, surrendered it and 

 all Acadie to the English. From that date French government 

 ceased, as regards our Mic-Macs, from amongst them. The cruel 

 Indian wars that had been raging for more than fifty years so near 

 them, and so cruel, that it has been said that there was no man of 

 forty but had seen twenty years service on the borders of New 

 England, was now to set in upon Nova Scotia. 



After the conquest of Nova Scotia, the English Governors held 

 but feeble sway at Annapolis, and their out-ports at LaHave, 

 Horton, and Canseau. The neutral French played into the hands 

 of the openly hostile Indian, and they were both influenced by the 

 French Governor of Quebec. The lives of the English governors 

 seem to have been perpetually harrassed by the Indians, who were 



