A Half-Century of Conflict - Volume II

La Jonquière still clung to the hope of a successful stroke at Annapolis, till in October an Acadian brought him the report that the garrison of that place had received a reinforcement of twelve hundred men. The reinforcement consisted in reality of three small companies of militia sent from Boston by Shirley. La Jonquière called a secret council, and the result seems to have been adverse to any further attempt. The journalist reports that only a thousand men were left in fighting condition, and that even of these some were dying every day.

La Jonquière, however, would not yet despair. The troops were re-embarked; five hospital ships were devoted to the sick; the "Parfait," a fifty-gun ship no longer serviceable, was burned, as were several smaller vessels, and on the 4th of October what was left of the fleet sailed out of Chibucto Harbor and steered for Annapolis, piloted by Acadians. The flag of truce from Louisbourg was compelled for a time to bear them company, and Joseph Foster of Beverly, an exchanged prisoner on board of her, deposed that as the fleet held its way, he saw "a great number of dead persons" dropped into the sea every day. Ill-luck still pursued the French. A storm off Cape Sable dispersed the ships, two of which some days later made their way to Annapolis Basin in expectation of finding some of their companions there. They found instead the British fifty-gun ship "Chester" and the Massachusetts frigate "Shirley" anchored before the fort, on which the two Frenchmen retired as they had come; and so ended the last aggressive movement on the part of the great armament.

The journalist reports that on the night of the 27th there was a council of officers on board the "Northumberland," at which it was resolved that no choice was left but to return to France with the ships that still kept together. On the 4th of November there was another storm, and when it subsided, the "Prince d'Orange" found herself with but nine companions, all of which were transports. These had on board eleven companies of soldiers, of whom their senior officer reports that only ninety-one were in health. The pestilence made such ravages among the crews that four or five corpses were thrown into the sea every day, and there was fear that the vessels would be left helpless in mid-ocean for want of sailors to work them. [Footnote: Journal historique.] At last, on the 7th of December, after narrowly escaping an English squadron, they reached Port Louis in Brittany, where several ships of the fleet had arrived before them. Among these was the frigate "La Palme." "Yesterday," says the journalist, "I supped with M. Destrahoudal, who commands this frigate; and he told me things which from anybody else would have been incredible. This is his story, exactly as I had it from him." And he goes on to the following effect.

After the storm of the 14th of September, provisions being almost spent, it was thought that there was no hope for "La Palme" and her crew but in giving up the enterprise and making all sail at once for home, since France now had no port of refuge on the western continent nearer than Quebec. Rations were reduced to three ounces of biscuit and three of salt meat a day; and after a time half of this pittance was cut off. There was diligent hunting for rats in the hold; and when this game failed, the crew, crazed with famine, demanded of their captain that five English prisoners who were on board should be butchered to appease the frenzy of their hunger. The captain consulted his officers, and they were of opinion that if he did not give his consent, the crew would work their will without it. The ship's butcher was accordingly ordered to bind one of the prisoners, carry him to the bottom of the hold, put him to death, and distribute his flesh to the men in portions of three ounces each. The captain, walking the deck in great agitation all night, found a pretext for deferring the deed till morning, when a watchman sent aloft at daylight cried, "A sail!" The providential stranger was a Portuguese ship; and as Portugal was neutral in the war, she let the frigate approach to within hailing distance. The Portuguese captain soon came alongside in a boat, "accompanied," in the words of the narrator, "by five sheep." These were eagerly welcomed by the starving crew as agreeable substitutes for the five Englishmen; and being forthwith slaughtered, were parcelled out among the men, who would not wait till the flesh was cooked, but devoured it raw. Provisions enough were obtained from the Portuguese to keep the frigate's company alive till they reached Port Louis. [Footnote: Relation du Voyage de Retour de M. Destrahoudal après la Tempête du 14 Septembre, in Journal historique.]

There are no sufficient means of judging how far the disasters of D'Anville's fleet were due to a neglect of sanitary precautions or to deficient seamanship. Certain it is that there were many in self-righteous New England who would have held it impious to doubt that God had summoned the pestilence and the storm to fight the battles of his modern Israel.

Undaunted by disastrous failure, the French court equipped another fleet, not equal to that of D'Anville, yet still formidable, and placed it under La Jonquière, for the conquest of Acadia and Louisbourg. La Jonquière sailed from Rochelle on the 10th of May, 1747, and on the 14th was met by an English fleet stronger than his own and commanded by Admirals Anson and Warren. A fight ensued, in which, after brave resistance, the French were totally defeated. Six ships-of-war, including the flag-ship, were captured, with a host of prisoners, among whom was La Jonquière himself. [Footnote: Relation du Combat rendu le 14 Mai (new style)_, par l'Escadre du Roy commandée par M. de la Jonquiere, in Le Canada Français, Supplément de Documents inédits, 33. Newcastle to Shirley, 30 May, 1747._]

CHAPTER XXII

1745-1747 ACADIAN CONFLICTS

EFFORTS OF FRANCE.—APATHY OF NEWCASTLE.—DILEMMA OF ACADIANS.—THEIR CHARACTER.—DANGER OF THE PROVINCE.—PLANS OF SHIRLEY.—ACADIAN PRIESTS.—POLITICAL AGITATORS.—NOBLE'S EXPEDITION.—RAMESAY AT BEAUBASSIN.—NOBLE AT GRAND PRÉ.—A WINTER MARCH.—DEFEAT AND DEATH OF NOBLE.—GRAND PRÉ RE-OCCUPIED BY THE ENGLISH.—THREATS OF RAMESAY AGAINST THE ACADIANS.—THE BRITISH MINISTRY WILL NOT PROTECT THEM.

Since the capture of Louisbourg, France had held constantly in view, as an object of prime importance, the recovery of her lost colony of Acadia. This was one of the chief aims of D'Anville's expedition, and of that of La Jonquière in the next year. And to make assurance still more sure, a large body of Canadians, under M. de Ramesay, had been sent to Acadia to co-operate with D'Anville's force; but the greater part of them had been recalled to aid in defending Quebec against the expected attack of the English. They returned when the news came that D'Anville was at Chibucto, and Ramesay, with a part of his command, advanced upon Port Royal, or Annapolis, in order to support the fleet in its promised attack on that place. He encamped at a little distance from the English fort, till he heard of the disasters that had ruined the fleet, [Footnote: Journal de Beaujeu, in Le Canada Francçais, Documents, 53.] and then fell back to Chignecto, on the neck of the Acadian peninsula, where he made his quarters, with a force which, including Micmac, Malecite, and Penobscot Indians, amounted, at one time, to about sixteen hundred men.

If France was bent on recovering Acadia, Shirley was no less resolved to keep it, if he could. In his belief, it was the key of the British American colonies, and again and again he urged the Duke of Newcastle to protect it. But Newcastle seems scarcely to have known where Acadia was, being ignorant of most things except the art of managing the House of Commons, and careless of all things that could not help his party and himself. Hence Shirley's hyperboles, though never without a basis of truth, were lost upon him. Once, it is true, he sent three hundred men to Annapolis; but one hundred and eighty of them died on the voyage, or lay helpless in Boston hospitals, and the rest could better have been spared, some being recruits from English jails, and others Irish Catholics, several of whom deserted to the French, with information of the state of the garrison.

The defence of Acadia was left to Shirley and his Assembly, who in time of need sent companies of militia and rangers to Annapolis, and thus on several occasions saved it from returning to France. Shirley was the most watchful and strenuous defender of British interests on the continent; and in the present crisis British and colonial interests were one. He held that if Acadia were lost, the peace and safety of all the other colonies would be in peril; and in spite of the immense efforts made by the French court to recover it, he felt that the chief danger of the province was not from without, but from within. "If a thousand French troops should land in Nova Scotia," he writes to Newcastle, "all the people would rise to join them, besides all the Indians." [Footnote: Shirley to Newcastle, 29 Oct. 1745.] So, too, thought the French officials in America. The Governor and Intendant of Canada wrote to the colonial minister: "The inhabitants, with few exceptions, wish to return under the French dominion, and will not hesitate to take up arms as soon as they see themselves free to do so; that is, as soon as we become masters of Port Royal, or they have powder and other munitions of war, and are backed by troops for their protection against the resentment of the English." [Footnote: Beauharnois et Hocquart au Ministre, 12 Sept. 1745.] Up to this time, however, though they had aided Duvivier in his attack on Annapolis so far as was possible without seeming to do so, they had not openly taken arms, and their refusal to fight for the besiegers is one among several causes to which Mascarene ascribes the success of his defence. While the greater part remained attached to France, some leaned to the English, who bought their produce and paid them in ready coin. Money was rare with the Acadians, who loved it, and were so addicted to hoarding it that the French authorities were led to speculate as to what might be the object of these careful savings. [Footnote: Beauharnois et Hocquart au Ministre, 12 Sept. 1745.]

Though the Acadians loved France, they were not always ready to sacrifice their interests to her. They would not supply Ramesay's force with provisions in exchange for his promissory notes, but demanded hard cash. [Footnote: Ibid.] This he had not to give, and was near being compelled to abandon his position in consequence. At the same time, in consideration of specie payment, the inhabitants brought in fuel for the English garrison at Louisbourg, and worked at repairing the rotten chevaux de frise of Annapolis. [Footnote: Admiral Knowles à —— 1746. Mascarene in Le Canada Français, Documents, 82]

Mascarene, commandant at that place, being of French descent, was disposed at first to sympathize with the Acadians and treat them with a lenity that to the members of his council seemed neither fitting nor prudent. He wrote to Shirley: "The French inhabitants are certainly in a very perilous situation, those who pretend to be their friends and old masters having let loose a parcel of banditti to plunder them; whilst, on the other hand, they see themselves threatened with ruin if they fail in their allegiance to the British Government." [Footnote: Mascarene, in Le Canada Français, Documents, 81.]

This unhappy people were in fact between two fires. France claimed them on one side, and England on the other, and each demanded their adhesion, without regard to their feelings or their wrelfare. The banditti of whom Mascarene speaks were the Micmac Indians, who were completely under the control of their missionary, Le Loutre, and were used by him to terrify the inhabitants into renouncing their English allegiance and actively supporting the French cause. By the Treaty of Utrecht France had transferred Acadia to Great Britain, and the inhabitants had afterwards taken an oath of fidelity to King George. Thus they were British subjects; but as their oath had been accompanied by a promise, or at least a clear understanding, that they should not be required to take arms against Frenchmen or Indians, they had become known as the "Neutral French." This name tended to perplex them, and in their ignorance and simplicity they hardly knew to which side they owed allegiance. Their illiteracy was extreme. Few of them could sign their names, and a contemporary well acquainted with them declares that he knew but a single Acadian who could read and write. [Footnote: Moïse des Derniers, in Le Canada Français, I. 118.] This was probably the notary, Le Blanc, whose compositions are crude and illiterate. Ignorant of books and isolated in a wild and remote corner of the world, the Acadians knew nothing of affairs, and were totally incompetent to meet the crisis that was soon to come upon them. In activity and enterprise they were far behind the Canadians, who looked on them as inferiors. Their pleasures were those of the humblest and simplest peasants; they were contented with their lot, and asked only to be let alone. Their intercourse was unceremonious to such a point that they never addressed each other, or, it is said, even strangers, as monsieur. They had the social equality which can exist only in the humblest conditions of society, and presented the phenomenon of a primitive little democracy, hatched under the wing of an absolute monarchy. Each was as good as his neighbor; they had no natural leaders, nor any to advise or guide them, except the missionary priest, who in every case was expected by his superiors to influence them in the interest of France, and who, in fact, constantly did so. While one observer represents them as living in a state of primeval innocence, another describes both men and women as extremely foul of speech; from which he draws inferences unfavorable to their domestic morals, [Footnote: Journal de Franquet, Part II.] which, nevertheless, were commendable. As is usual with a well-fed and unambitious peasantry, they were very prolific, and are said to have doubled their number every sixteen years. In 1748 they counted in the peninsula of Nova Scotia between twelve and thirteen thousand souls. [Footnote: Description de l'Acadie, avec le Nom des Paroisses et le Nombre des Habitants, 1748.] The English rule had been of the lightest,—so light that it could scarcely be felt; and this was not surprising, since the only instruments for enforcing it over a population wholly French were some two hundred disorderly soldiers in the crumbling little fort of Annapolis; and the province was left, perforce, to take care of itself.

The appearance of D'Anville's fleet caused great excitement among the Acadians, who thought that they were about to pass again under the Crown of France. Fifty of them went on board the French ships at Chibucto to pilot them to the attack of Annapolis, and to their dismay found that no attack was to be made. When Ramesay, with his Canadians and Indians, took post at Chignecto and built a fort at Baye Verte, on the neck of the peninsula of Nova Scotia, the English power in that part of the colony seemed at an end. The inhabitants cut off all communication with Annapolis, and detained the officers whom Mascarene sent for intelligence.

From the first outbreak of the war it was evident that the French built their hopes of recovering Acadia largely on a rising of the Acadians against the English rule, and that they spared no efforts to excite such a rising. Early in 1745 a violent and cruel precaution against this danger was suggested. William Shirreff, provincial secretary, gave it as his opinion that the Acadians ought to be removed, being a standing menace to the colony. [Footnote: Shirreff to K. Gould, agent of Phillips's Regiment, March, 1745.] This is the first proposal of such a nature that I find. Some months later, Shirley writes that, on a false report of the capture of Annapolis by the French, the Acadians sang Te Deum, and that every sign indicates that there will be an attempt in the spring to capture Annapolis, with their help. [Footnote: Shirley to Newcastle, 14 Dec. 1745.] Again, Shirley informs Newcastle that the French will get possession of Acadia unless the most dangerous of the inhabitants are removed, and English settlers put in their place. [Footnote: Ibid., 10 May, 1746.] He adds that there are not two hundred and twenty soldiers at Annapolis to defend the province against the whole body of Acadians and Indians, and he tells the minister that unless the expedition against Canada should end in the conquest of that country, the removal of some of the Acadians will be a necessity. He means those of Chignecto, who were kept in a threatening attitude by the presence of Ramesay and his Canadians, and who, as he thinks, had forfeited their lands by treasonable conduct. Shirley believes that families from New England might be induced to take their place, and that these, if settled under suitable regulations, would form a military frontier to the province of Nova Scotia "strong enough to keep the Canadians out," and hold the Acadians to their allegiance. [Footnote: Ibid., 8 July, 1747.] The Duke of Bedford thinks the plan a good one, but objects to the expense. [Footnote: Bedford to Newcastle, 11 Sept. 1747.] Commodore Knowles, then governor of Louisbourg, who, being threatened with consumption and convinced that the climate was killing him, vented his feelings in strictures against everything and everybody, was of opinion that the Acadians, having broken their neutrality, ought to be expelled at once, and expresses the amiable hope that should his Majesty adopt this plan, he will charge him with executing it. [Footnote: Knowles to Newcastle, 8 Nov. 1746.]

Shirley's energetic nature inclined him to trenchant measures, and he had nothing of modern humanitarianism; but he was not inhuman, and he shrank from the cruelty of forcing whole communities into exile. While Knowles and others called for wholesale expatriation, he still held that it was possible to turn the greater part of the Acadians into safe subjects of the British Crown; [Footnote: Shirley says that the indiscriminate removal of the Acadians would be "unjust" and "too rigorous". Knowles had proposed to put Catholic Jacobites from the Scotch Highlands into their place. Shirley thinks this inexpedient, but believes that Protestants from Germany and Ulster might safely be trusted. The best plan of all, in his opinion, is that of "treating the Acadians as subjects, confining their punishment to the most guilty and dangerous among 'em, and keeping the rest in the country and endeavoring to make them useful members of society under his Majesty's Government." Shirley to Newcastle, 21 Nov. 1746. If the Newcastle Government had vigorously carried his recommendations into effect, the removal of the Acadians in 1755 would not have taken place.] and to this end he advised the planting of a fortified town where Halifax now stands, and securing by forts and garrisons the neck of the Acadian peninsula, where the population was most numerous and most disaffected. The garrisons, he thought, would not only impose respect, but would furnish the Acadians with what they wanted most,—ready markets for their produce,—and thus bind them to the British by strong ties of interest. Newcastle thought the plan good, but wrote that its execution must be deferred to a future day. Three years later it was partly carried into effect by the foundation of Halifax; but at that time the disaffection of the Acadians had so increased, and the hope of regaining the province for France had risen so high, that this partial and tardy assertion of British authority only spurred the French agents to redoubled efforts to draw the inhabitants from the allegiance they had sworn to the Crown of England.

Shirley had also other plans in view for turning the Acadians into good British subjects. He proposed, as a measure of prime necessity, to exclude French priests from the province. The free exercise of their religion had been insured to the inhabitants by the Treaty of Utrecht, and on this point the English authorities had given no just cause of complaint. A priest had occasionally been warned, suspended, or removed; but without a single exception, so far as appears, this was in consequence of conduct which tended to excite disaffection, and which would have incurred equal or greater penalties in the case of a layman. [Footnote: There was afterwards sharp correspondence between Shirley and the Governor of Canada touching the Acadian priests. Thus, Shirley writes: "I can't avoid now, Sir, expressing great surprise at the other parts of your letter, whereby you take upon you to call Mr. Mascarene to account for expelling the missionary from Minas for being guilty of such treasonable practices within His Majesty's government as merited a much severer Punishment." Shirley à Galissonière, 9 Mai 1749. Shirley writes to Newcastle that the Acadians "are greatly under the influence of their priests, who continually receive their directions from the Bishop of Qeubec, and are the instruments by which the Governor of Canada makes all his attempts for the reduction of the province to the French Crown." Shirley to Newcastle, 20 Oct. 1747. He proceeds to give facts in proof of his assertion. Compare Moncalm and Wolfe, I. 106, 107, 266, note.] The sentence was directed, not against the priest, but against the political agitator. Shirley's plan of excluding French priests from the province would not have violated the provisions of the treaty, provided that the inhabitants were supplied with other priests, not French subjects, and therefore not politically dangerous; but though such a measure was several times proposed by the provincial authorities, the exasperating apathy of the Newcastle Government gave no hope that it could be accomplished.

The influences most dangerous to British rule did not proceed from love of France or sympathy of race, but from the power of religion over a simple and ignorant people, trained in profound love and awe of their Church and its ministers, who were used by the representatives of Louis XV. as agents to alienate the Acadians from England.

The most strenuous of these clerical agitators was Abbé Le Loutre, missionary to the Micmacs, and after 1753 vicar-general of Acadia. He was a fiery and enterprising zealot, inclined by temperament to methods of violence, detesting the English, and restrained neither by pity nor scruple from using threats of damnation and the Micmac tomahawk to frighten the Acadians into doing his bidding. The worst charge against him, that of exciting the Indians of his mission to murder Captain Howe, an English officer, has not been proved; but it would not have been brought against him by his own countrymen if his character and past conduct had gained him their esteem.

The other Acadian priests were far from sharing Le Loutre's violence; but their influence was always directed to alienating the inhabitants from their allegiance to King George. Hence Shirley regarded the conversion of the Acadians to Protestantism as a political measure of the first importance, and proposed the establishment of schools in the province to that end. Thus far his recommendations are perfectly legitimate; but when he adds that rewards ought to be given to Acadians who renounce their faith, few will venture to defend him.

Newcastle would trouble himself with none of his schemes, and Acadia was left to drift with the tide, as before. "I shall finish my troubleing your Grace upon the affairs of Nova Scotia with this letter," writes the persevering Shirley. And he proceeds to ask, "as a proper Scheme for better securing the Subjection of the French inhabitants and Indians there," that the Governor and Council at Annapolis have special authority and direction from the King to arrest and examine such Acadians as shall be "most obnoxious and dangerous to his Majesty's Government;" and if found guilty of treasonable correspondence with the enemy, to dispose of them and their estates in such manner as his Majesty shall order, at the same time promising indemnity to the rest for past offences, upon their taking or renewing the oath of allegiance. [Footnote: Shirley to Newcastle, 15 Aug. 1746.]