194 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



prudence. The French missioners found them in their simple- 

 minded naturahiess and though their spiritual labors were slow of 

 fruitage, ^ the hardship was intensely magnified by the incursions 

 of the English. One who would realize this may well read the 

 account given by LeClercq of the burning of his churches and 

 missions by the '' Bastonnais " (Phips). So through the early 

 history of Acadia they were friendly neighbors to the French, and 

 with the English conquest they submitted, not without some hesi- 

 tation, to the changed regime, and made their allegiance to the new 

 sovereign. When the American war came on efforts were made 

 through the King of France to induce them to revolt against the 

 English, but the advances of Count d'Estaing and Commander 

 Preble were sternly rejected in forcible terms. ^ 

 Today they are loyal and the most ancient of all Canadians. 



1 LeClercq in Gaspe more than once speaks of the discouragements of his 

 task and finally begged of his superior to be relieved of further efforts to 

 convert the Gaspesians. 



2 Chief Jerome of Ristigouclie exhibited on the occasion of the tercen- 

 tenary a copy of a " Declaration au nom du roi, a tous les anciens Francais 

 de I'Amerique Septentrionale " printed on board the Languedoc in Boston 

 harbor October i8, 1778. At the bottom of the first page is written by 

 hand : " A mon cher Frere Joseph Claude et autres sauvages Mickmacks. 

 De la part de Monsieur le Comte d'Estaing, Vice-Amiral de France, Holker, 

 agent general de la marine et consul de la Nation francaise." 



With the rest of the settlers of the St Lawrence coasts, the Micmacs 

 had learned to dread the repeated invasions throughout the old regime, 

 which took their start from Boston. The " Bastonnais " were well hated 

 and not a little feared, so that in time the term became of common applica- 

 tion to all the English. I think the term is not quite extinct — at any rate 

 I have heard a French fisherman call a rather disagreeable American 

 tourist in Gaspe a Bastonnais, with all the old feeling that the epithet must 

 once have carried. Even yet, to the Micmac, the States is the country of 

 the Bastonnais, and on his map of the world the whole area of the United 

 States is called " Poston." Thus the evil that men do lives after them 

 and Boston is by merit raised to this eminence. 



The ancient traditionary fears of the gentle-minded Micmac had a curious 

 illustration on the occasion of the tercentenary. While the Indians were 

 gathered in the church for the opening ceremony on the morning of the 

 first of the three days, some mischievous miscreant circulated the story 

 that their old enemies the Iroquois, having heard of this assemblage, were 

 lying in the woods outside ready to take advantage of their helpless state 

 and fall upon them. After the mass and the sermon by the missionary, 

 there appeared a growing restiveness among some of the Indians, whispers 

 and awed looks spread through the pews, and these were not wholly dis- 

 pelled till the wise and patriarchal Grand Chief had assured his people that 

 such a story could only be the invention of the father of lies. 



