Montcalm and Wolfe — Chapter 8, Part 2

[Footnote 253: _Shirley to Robinson, 20 June, 1755. _] At two o'clock on the next morning a party of Acadians from Chipody roused Vergor with the news.

In great alarm, he sent a messenger to Louisbourg to beg for help, and ordered all the fighting men of the neighborhood to repair to the fort.

They counted in all between twelve and fifteen hundred;[254] but they had no appetite for war.

The force of the invaders daunted them; and the hundred and sixty regulars who formed the garrison of Beauséjour were too few to revive their confidence.

Those of them who had crossed from the English side dreaded what might ensue should they be caught in arms; and, to prepare an excuse beforehand, they begged Vergor to threaten them with punishment if they disobeyed his order.

He willingly complied, promised to have them killed if they did not fight, and assured them at the same time that the English could never take the fort.

[255] Three hundred of them thereupon joined the garrison, and the rest, hiding their families in the woods, prepared to wage guerilla war against the invaders.

[Footnote 254: _Mémoires sur le Canada, 1749-1760. _ An English document, _State of the English and French Forts in Nova Scotia_, says 1,200 to 1,400. ] [Footnote 255: _Mémoires sur le Canada, 1749-1760. _] Monckton, with all his force, landed unopposed, and encamped at night on the fields around Fort Lawrence, whence he could contemplate Fort Beauséjour at his ease.

The regulars of the English garrison joined the New England men; and then, on the morning of the fourth, they marched to the attack.

Their course lay along the south bank of the Missaguash to where it was crossed by a bridge called Pont-à-Buot.

This bridge had been destroyed; and on the farther bank there was a large blockhouse and a breastwork of timber defended by four hundred regulars, Acadians, and Indians.

They lay silent and unseen till the head of the column reached the opposite bank; then raised a yell and opened fire, causing some loss.

Three field-pieces were brought up, the defenders were driven out, and a bridge was laid under a spattering fusillade from behind bushes, which continued till the English had crossed the stream.

Without further opposition, they marched along the road to Beauséjour, and, turning to the right, encamped among the woody hills half a league from the fort.

That night there was a grand illumination, for Vergor set fire to the church and all the houses outside the ramparts.

[256] [Footnote 256: Winslow, _Journal and Letter Book.

Mémoires sur le Canada, 1749-1760_.

Letters from officers on the spot in _Boston Evening Post_ and _Boston News Letter.

Journal of Surgeon John Thomas_.

] The English spent some days in preparing their camp and reconnoitring the ground.

Then Scott, with five hundred provincials, seized upon a ridge within easy range of the works.

An officer named Vannes came out to oppose him with a hundred and eighty men, boasting that he would do great things; but on seeing the enemy, quietly returned, to become the laughing-stock of the garrison.

The fort fired furiously, but with little effect.

In the night of the thirteenth, Winslow, with a part of his own battalion, relieved Scott, and planted in the trenches two small mortars, brought to the camp on carts.

On the next day they opened fire.

One of them was disabled by the French cannon, but Captain Hazen brought up two more, of larger size, on ox-wagons; and, in spite of heavy rain, the fire was brisk on both sides.

Captain Rous, on board his ship in the harbor, watched the bombardment with great interest.

Having occasion to write to Winslow, he closed his letter in a facetious strain.

"I often hear of your success in plunder, particularly a coach.

[257] I hope you have some fine horses for it, at least four, to draw it, that it may be said a New England colonel [_rode in_] his coach and four in Nova Scotia.

If you have any good saddle-horses in your stable, I should be obliged to you for one to ride round the ship's deck on for exercise, for I am not likely to have any other."

[Footnote 257: "11 June.

Capt. Adams went with a Company of Raingers, and Returned at 11 Clock with a Coach and Sum other Plunder."

_Journal of John Thomas_.

] Within the fort there was little promise of a strong defence.

Le Loutre, it is true, was to be seen in his shirt-sleeves, with a pipe in his mouth, directing the Acadians in their work of strengthening the fortifications.

[258] They, on their part, thought more of escape than of fighting.

Some of them vainly begged to be allowed to go home; others went off without leave,--which was not difficult, as only one side of the place was attacked.

Even among the officers there were some in whom interest was stronger than honor, and who would rather rob the King than die for him.

The general discouragement was redoubled when, on the fourteenth, a letter came from the commandant of Louisbourg to say that he could send no help, as British ships blocked the way.

On the morning of the sixteenth, a mischance befell, recorded in these words in the diary of Surgeon John Thomas: "One of our large shells fell through what they called their bomb-proof, where a number of their officers were sitting, killed six of them dead, and one Ensign Hay, which the Indians had took prisoner a few days agone and carried to the fort."

The party was at breakfast when the unwelcome visitor burst in.

Just opposite was a second bomb-proof, where was Vergor himself, with Le Loutre, another priest, and several officers, who felt that they might at any time share the same fate.

The effect was immediate.

The English, who had not yet got a single cannon into position, saw to their surprise a white flag raised on the rampart.

Some officers of the garrison protested against surrender; and Le Loutre, who thought that he had everything to fear at the hands of the victors, exclaimed that it was better to be buried under the ruins of the fort than to give it up; but all was in vain, and the valiant Vannes was sent out to propose terms of capitulation.

They were rejected, and others offered, to the following effect: the garrison to march out with the honors of war and to be sent to Louisbourg at the charge of the King of England, but not to bear arms in America for the space of six months.

The Acadians to be pardoned the part they had just borne in the defence, "seeing that they had been compelled to take arms on pain of death."

Confusion reigned all day at Beauséjour.

The Acadians went home loaded with plunder.

The French officers were so busy in drinking and pillaging that they could hardly be got away to sign the capitulation.

At the appointed hour, seven in the evening, Scott marched in with a body of provincials, raised the British flag on the ramparts, and saluted it by a general discharge of the French cannon, while Vergor as a last act of hospitality gave a supper to the officers.

[259] [Footnote 258: _Journal of Pichon_, cited by Beamish Murdoch.

] [Footnote 259: On the capture of Beauséjour, _Mémoires sur le Canada, 1749-1760_; Pichon, _Cape Breton_, 318; _Journal of Pichon_, cited by Murdoch; and the English accounts already mentioned.

] Le Loutre was not to be found; he had escaped in disguise with his box of papers, and fled to Baye Verte to join his brother missionary, Manach.

Thence he made his way to Quebec, where the Bishop received him with reproaches.

He soon embarked for France; but the English captured him on the way, and kept him eight years in Elizabeth Castle, on the Island of Jersey.

Here on one occasion a soldier on guard made a dash at the father, tried to stab him with his bayonet, and was prevented with great difficulty.

He declared that, when he was with his regiment in Acadia, he had fallen into the hands of Le Loutre, and narrowly escaped being scalped alive, the missionary having doomed him to this fate, and with his own hand drawn a knife round his head as a beginning of the operation.

The man swore so fiercely that he would have his revenge, that the officer in command transferred him to another post.

[260] [Footnote 260: Knox, _Campaigns in North America_, I. 114, _note_.

Knox, who was stationed in Nova Scotia, says that Le Loutre left behind him "a most remarkable character for inhumanity."

] Throughout the siege, the Acadians outside the fort, aided by Indians, had constantly attacked the English, but were always beaten off with loss.

There was an affair of this kind on the morning of the surrender, during which a noted Micmac chief was shot, and being brought into the camp, recounted the losses of his tribe; "after which, and taking a dram or two, he quickly died," writes Winslow in his Journal.

Fort Gaspereau, at Baye Verte, twelve miles distant, was summoned by letter to surrender.

Villeray, its commandant, at once complied; and Winslow went with a detachment to take possession.

[261] Nothing remained but to occupy the French post at the mouth of the St. John.

Captain Rous, relieved at last from inactivity, was charged with the task; and on the thirtieth he appeared off the harbor, manned his boats, and rowed for shore.

The French burned their fort, and withdrew beyond his reach.

[262] A hundred and fifty Indians, suddenly converted from enemies to pretended friends, stood on the strand, firing their guns into the air as a salute, and declaring themselves brothers of the English.

All Acadia was now in British hands.

Fort Beausejour became Fort Cumberland,--the second fort in America that bore the name of the royal Duke.

[Footnote 261: Winslow, _Journal.

Villeray au Ministre, 20 Sept.

1755. _] [Footnote 262: _Drucour au Ministre, 1 Déc. 1755. _] The defence had been of the feeblest.

Two years later, on pressing demands from Versailles, Vergor was brought to trial, as was also Villeray.

The Governor, Vaudreuil, and the Intendant, Bigot, who had returned to Canada, were in the interest of the chief defendant.

The court-martial was packed; adverse evidence was shuffled out of sight;

and Vergor, acquitted and restored to his rank, lived to inflict on New France another and a greater injury.

[263] [Footnote 263: _Memoire sur les Fraudes commises dans la Colonie_, 1759. _Memoires sur le Canada_, 1749-1760. ] Now began the first act of a deplorable drama.

Monckton, with his small body of regulars, had pitched their tents under the walls of Beauséjour.

Winslow and Scott, with the New England troops, lay not far off.

There was little intercourse between the two camps.

The British officers bore themselves towards those of the provincials with a supercilious coldness common enough on their part throughout the war.

July had passed in what Winslow calls "an indolent manner," with prayers every day in the Puritan camp, when, early in August, Monckton sent for him, and made an ominous declaration.

"The said Monckton was so free as to acquaint me that it was determined to remove all the French inhabitants out of the province, and that he should send for all the adult males from Tantemar, Chipody, Aulac, Beauséjour, and Baye Verte to read the Governor's orders; and when that was done, was determined to retain them all prisoners in the fort.

And this is the first conference of a public nature I have had with the colonel since the reduction of Beauséjour; and I apprehend that no officer of either corps has been made more free with."

Monckton sent accordingly to all the neighboring settlements, commanding the male inhabitants to meet him at Beauséjour.

Scarcely a third part of their number obeyed.

These arrived on the tenth, and were told to stay all night under the guns of the fort.

What then befell them will appear from an entry in the diary of Winslow under date of August eleventh: "This day was one extraordinary to the inhabitants of Tantemar, Oueskak, Aulac, Baye Verte, Beauséjour, and places adjacent; the male inhabitants, or the principal of them, being collected together in Fort Cumberland to hear the sentence, which determined their property, from the Governor and Council of Halifax; which was that they were declared rebels, their lands, goods, and chattels forfeited to the Crown, and their bodies to be imprisoned.

Upon which the gates of the fort were shut, and they all confined, to the amount of four hundred men and upwards."

Parties were sent to gather more, but caught very few, the rest escaping to the woods.

Some of the prisoners were no doubt among those who had joined the garrison at Beauséjour, and had been pardoned for doing so by the terms of the capitulation.

It was held, however, that, though forgiven this special offence, they were not exempted from the doom that had gone forth against the great body of their countrymen.

We must look closely at the motives and execution of this stern sentence.

At any time up to the spring of 1755 the emigrant Acadians were free to return to their homes on taking the ordinary oath of allegiance required of British subjects.

The English authorities of Halifax used every means to persuade them to do so; yet the greater part refused.

This was due not only to Le Loutre and his brother priests, backed by the military power, but also to the Bishop of Quebec, who enjoined the Acadians to demand of the English certain concessions, the chief of which were that the priests should exercise their functions without being required to ask leave of the Governor, and that the inhabitants should not be called upon for military service of any kind.

The Bishop added that the provisions of the treaty of Utrecht were insufficient, and that others ought to be exacted.

[264] The oral declaration of the English authorities, that for the present the Acadians should not be required to bear arms, was not thought enough.

They, or rather their prompters, demanded a written pledge.

[Footnote 264: _L'Evéque de Quebec à Le Loutre, Nov_.

1754, in _Public Documents of Nova Scotia_, 240. ] The refusal to take the oath without reservation was not confined to the emigrants.

Those who remained in the peninsula equally refused it, though most of them were born and had always lived under the British flag.

Far from pledging themselves to complete allegiance, they showed continual signs of hostility.

In May three pretended French deserters were detected among them inciting them to take arms against the English.

[265] [Footnote 265: _Ibid_.

, 242. ] On the capture of Beauséjour the British authorities found themselves in a position of great difficulty.

The New England troops were enlisted for the year only, and could not be kept in Acadia.

It was likely that the French would make a strong effort to recover the province, sure as they were of support from the great body of its people.

The presence of this disaffected population was for the French commanders a continual inducement to invasion; and Lawrence was not strong enough to cope at once with attack from without and insurrection from within.

Shirley had held for some time that there was no safety for Acadia but in ridding it of the Acadians.

He had lately proposed that the lands of the district of Chignecto, abandoned by their emigrant owners, should be given to English settlers, who would act as a check and a counterpoise to the neighboring French population.

This advice had not been acted upon.

Nevertheless Shirley and his brother Governor of Nova Scotia were kindred spirits, and inclined to similar measures.

Colonel Charles Lawrence had not the good-nature and conciliatory temper which marked his predecessors, Cornwallis and Hopson.

His energetic will was not apt to relent under the softer sentiments, and the behavior of the Acadians was fast exhausting his patience.

More than a year before, the Lords of Trade had instructed him that they had no right to their lands if they persisted in refusing the oath.

[266] Lawrence replied, enlarging on their obstinacy, treachery, and "ingratitude for the favor, indulgence, and protection they have at all times so undeservedly received from His Majesty's Government;" declaring at the same time that, "while they remain without taking the oaths, and have incendiary French priests among them, there are no hopes of their amendment;" and that "it would be much better, if they refuse the oaths, that they were away."

[267] "We were in hopes," again wrote the Lords of Trade, "that the lenity which had been shown to those people by indulging them in the free exercise of their religion and the quiet possession of their lands, would by degrees have gained their friendship and assistance, and weaned their affections from the French; but we are sorry to find that this lenity has had so little effect, and that they still hold the same conduct, furnishing them with labor, provisions, and intelligence, and concealing their designs from us."

In fact, the Acadians, while calling themselves neutrals, were an enemy encamped in the heart of the province.

These are the reasons which explain and palliate a measure too harsh and indiscriminate to be wholly justified.

[Footnote 266: _Lords of Trade to Lawrence, 4 March_, 1754. ] [Footnote 267: _Lawrence to Lords of Trade, 1 Aug_.

1754. ] Abbé Raynal, who never saw the Acadians, has made an ideal picture of them,[268] since copied and improved in prose and verse, till Acadia has become Arcadia.

The plain realities of their condition and fate are touching enough to need no exaggeration.

They were a simple and very ignorant peasantry, industrious and frugal till evil days came to discourage them; living aloof from the world, with little of that spirit of adventure which an easy access to the vast fur-bearing interior had developed in their Canadian kindred; having few wants, and those of the rudest; fishing a little and hunting in the winter, but chiefly employed in cultivating the meadows along the River Annapolis, or rich marshes reclaimed by dikes from the tides of the Bay of Fundy.

The British Government left them entirely free of taxation.

They made clothing of flax and wool of their own raising, hats of similar materials, and shoes or moccasons of moose and seal skin.

They bred cattle, sheep, hogs, and horses in abundance; and the valley of the Annapolis, then as now, was known for the profusion and excellence of its apples.

For drink, they made cider or brewed spruce-beer.

French officials describe their dwellings as wretched wooden boxes, without ornaments or conveniences, and scarcely supplied with the most necessary furniture.

[269] Two or more families often occupied the same house; and their way of life, though simple and virtuous, was by no means remarkable for cleanliness.

Such as it was, contentment reigned among them, undisturbed by what modern America calls progress.

Marriages were early, and population grew apace.

This humble society had its disturbing elements; for the Acadians, like the Canadians, were a litigious race, and neighbors often quarrelled about their boundaries.

Nor were they without a bountiful share of jealousy, gossip, and backbiting, to relieve the monotony of their lives; and every village had its turbulent spirits, sometimes by fits, though rarely long, contumacious even toward the curé, the guide, counsellor, and ruler of his flock.

Enfeebled by hereditary mental subjection, and too long kept in leading-strings to walk alone, they needed him, not for the next world only, but for this; and their submission, compounded of love and fear, was commonly without bounds.

He was their true government; to him they gave a frank and full allegiance, and dared not disobey him if they would.

Of knowledge he gave them nothing; but he taught them to be true to their wives and constant at confession and Mass, to stand fast for the Church and King Louis, and to resist heresy and King George; for, in one degree or another, the Acadian priest was always the agent of a double-headed foreign power,--the Bishop of Quebec allied with the Governor of Canada.

[270] [Footnote 268: _Histoire philosophique et politique_, VI.

242 (ed.

1772).

] [Footnote 269: _Beauharnois et Hocquart au Comte de Maurepas_, 12 Sept.

1745. _] [Footnote 270: Franquet, _Journal_, 1751, says of the Acadians: "Ils aiment l'argent, n'ont dans toute leur conduite que leur intérêt pour objet, sont, indifféremment des deux sexes, d'une inconsidération dans leurs discours qui dénote de la méchanceté."

Another observer, Dieréville, gives a more favorable picture.

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