A few more Threads of History—Acadia again lost—The Oath of Allegiance—Settlement of Halifax—The brave Three Hundred—Massacre at Norridgewoack—Le Père Ralle.

During the invasion of Col. Church, the inhabitants of Grand-Pré were exposed to such treatment as may be conceived of. The smoke from the borders of the five rivers, overlooked by Blomidon, rose in the stilly air, and again the sea rolled past the broken dykes, which for nearly a century had kept out its desolating waters between the Cape and the Gasperau. Driven to despair, a few of the younger Acadians took up arms to defend their hearthstones, but the great body of the people submitted without resistance. A brief stand was made at Port Royal, but this last outpost finally capitulated. By the terms of the articles agreed upon, the inhabitants were to have the privilege of remaining upon their estates for two years, upon taking an oath of allegiance to remain faithful to her majesty, Queen Anne, during that period. Upon that consideration, those who lived within[Pg 270] cannon-shot of the fort, were to be protected in their rights and properties. This was but a piece of finesse on the part of the invaders, an entering wedge, as it were, of a novel kind of tyranny, namely, that inasmuch as those within cannon-shot had taken the oath of allegiance, those without the reach of artillery, at Port Royal, also, were bound to do the same. And a strong detachment of New England troops, under Captain Pigeon, was sent upon an expedition to enforce the arbitrary oath. But Captain Pigeon, in the pursuit of his duty, fell in with an enemy of a less gentle nature than the Acadians. A body of Abenaqui came down upon him and his men, and smote them hip and thigh, even as the three hundred warriors of Israel smote the Midianites in the valley of Moreh. Then was there temporary relief in the land until the year 1713, when by a treaty Acadia was formally surrendered to England. The weight of the oath of allegiance now fell heavily upon the innocent colonists. We can scarcely appreciate the abhorrence of a people, so conscientious as this, to take an oath of fidelity to a race that had only been known to them by its rapacity. But partly by persuasion, partly by menace, a majority of the Acadians took the oath, which was as follows:

"Je promets et jure sincèrement, en foi de Chré[Pg 271]tien, que je serai entièrement fidèle et obéirai vraiment sa Majesté le roi George, que je reconnaias pour le Souverain seigneur de l'Acadie, ou Nouvelle Ecosse, ainsi Dieu me soit en aide."

Under the shadow of the protection derived from their acceptance of this oath, the Acadians reposed a few years. It did not oblige them to bear arms against their countrymen, nor did it compromise their religious independence of faith. Again the dykes were built to resist the encroachments of the sea; again village after village arose—at the mouth of the Gasperau, on the shores of the Canard, beside the Strait of Frontenac, at Le Have, and Rossignol, at Port Royal and Pisiquid. During all these years no attempt had been made by the captors of this province, to colonize the places baptized with the waters of Puritan progress. Lunenburgh was settled with King William's Dutchmen; the walls of Louisburgh were rising in one of the harbors of a neighboring island; but in no instance had the filibusters projected a colony on the soil which had been wrested from its rightful owners. The only result of all their bloody visitations upon a non-resisting people, had been to make defenceless Acadia a neutral province. From this time until the close of the drama, in all the wars between the Georges and the Louises, in both hemi[Pg 272]spheres, the people of Acadia went by the name of "The Neutral French."

Meantime the walls of Louisburgh were rising on the island of Cape Breton, which, with Canada, still remained under the sovereign rule of the French. The Acadians were invited to remove within the protection of this formidable fortress, but they preferred remaining intrenched behind their dykes, firmly believing that the only invader they had now to dread was the sea, inasmuch as they had accepted the oath of fidelity, in which, and in their inoffensive pursuits, they imagined themselves secure from farther molestation. Some of their Indian neighbors, however, accepted the invitation of the Cape Breton French, and removed thither. These simple savages, notwithstanding the changes in the government, still regarded the Acadians as friends, and the English as enemies. They could not comprehend the nature of a treaty by which their own lands were ceded to a hostile force; a treaty in which they were neither consulted nor considered.[E] They had their own injuries to remember, which in no wise had been balanced in the compact of the strangers. The rulers in[Pg 273] New France (so says the chronicler) "affected to consider the Indians as an independent people." At Canseau, at Cape Sable, at Annapolis, and Passamaquoddy, English forts, fishing stations, and vessels were attacked and destroyed by the savages with all the circumstances that make up the hideous features of barbaric reprisal. Unhappy Acadia came in for her share of condemnation. Although her innocent people had no part in these transactions, yet her missionaries had converted the Abenaqui to faith in the symbol of the crucifixion, and it was currently reported and credited in New England, that they had taught the savages to believe also the English were the people who had crucified our Saviour. To complicate matters again, the Chevalier de St. George (of whom there is no recollection except that he was anonymous, both as a prince, and as a man) sent his son, the fifth remove in stupidity, of the most stupid line of monarchs (not even excepting the Georges) that ever wore crowns, to stir up an insurr............