VII 
THE ACADIANS 
IF we have listened with exaltation to the 
Muse of Poetry, let us now turn to a 
graver Muse, that of History, and hear 
what she has to tell us of the Acadians 
and their exile. 
There must be in history excuse for the 
atrocities represented in the story of the poet. 
In order to understand events, it is necessary 
first to make allowance for the theory, now, 
perhaps, beginning to be disbelieved, that a 
king or a government can own and control 
distant lands never seen or in any way im- 
proved by them ; and that those who till the 
soil of these lands and who make their homes 
in them are the creatures of these distant 
powers. 
The story, briefly told, is this. After the 
great continent of North America was discov- 
ered, it was, as all know, eagerly settled by 
colonies from France and England. 
Instead of allowing the new world to belong 
to those who settled it, its resources to be by 
