INDIANS OF NOVA SCOTIA — GILPIN. 267 



Dartmouth was also assaulted, and murders and robberies com- 

 mitted at Windsor and other parts. The Governors were of late in 

 the habit of taking hostages for their good behaviour, which kept them 

 quiet for some time. One of these poor fellows, who had been a 

 hostage for two years about the fort, was shot and scalped by an 

 order in council, amongst whose members sat that merciful officer, 

 Major Mascarene. This cruel anecdote shows strongly the dread 

 and fear these Mic-Macs must have caused in those times, as well as 

 their power. 



Haliburton says of these times : " The number and ferocity 

 of the Indians, and the predatory habits in which they indulged, 

 rendered them objects of great attention and concern to the local 

 government." 



In seventeen hundred and sixty one a formal treaty of peace 

 with the Indians was signed at Halifax, and the hatchet buried. 

 Quebec having already fallen, the Treaty of Paris (seventeen 

 hundred and sixty -three), crushed for ever these bloody scenes. 



In looking over the manuscript documents relating to the 

 Indians, now in the RecorcJ Office, we find the several treaties at 

 Casco, Maine, at Halifax, and again at Halifax, with one Francis 

 Mius, who held the chieftdom of LaHave, under brevet of Chevalier 

 Duguesnol, Governor of Cape Breton. In these the Indians are 

 treated as powerful bodies, presents are made and hostages exacted. 

 A few years pass, and treaties change to humble petitions. They are 

 beggars now, — wandering families, and the principal papers are 

 certified accounts of powder, shot, tea, tobacco, pipes, blankets and 

 meal, supplied them by government, from time to time. 



In eighteen hundred and one, in reply to a committee of the 

 House of Assembly, a return of their number was sent in as eight 

 hundred and fifty. These returns are incomplete, not including 

 Cape Breton, Yarmouth, and Annapolis. These manuscripts are 



a soldier of fortune and Captain of Grenadiers in a New Hampshire regiment, enter- 

 ing, as he himself says, Port Royal at the breach. His after command of that place 

 shows him a fair match to his enemies, in courtesy, in courage, and craft, and in good 

 French. Now nearly taking off Laloutte's head by a lucky cannon shot : now allow- 

 ing provision to be sent to the starving garrison at Louisbourg, (he had had a butt of 

 claret from old Dugnesnol), and then answering the Archbishop of Quebec in Fiench 

 as fair as his own. 



