Montcalm and Wolfe: The Riveting Story of the Heroes of the French & Indian War (25 page)

1
Gentleman's Magazine,
Aug
. 1755.

2
Writings of Washington,
II. 78. He speaks of the people of Pennsylvania.

3
Braddock to Robinson,
18
March,
19
April,
5
June,
1755,
etc.
On the attitude of Pennsylvania,
Colonial Records of Pa
., VI.,
passim
.

4
Colonial Records of Pa
., VI. 368.

1
Franklin,
Autobiography. Advertisement of B. Franklin for Wagons; Address to the Inhabitants of the Counties of York, Lancaster, and Cumberland,
in
Pennsylvania Archives,
II. 294.

2
Braddock to Robinson,
5
June,
1755. The letters of Braddock here cited are the originals in the Public Record Office.

3
Orme,
Journal.

1
Writings of Washington,
II. 77.

2
Shirley the younger to Morris,
23
May,
1755, in
Colonial Records of Pa
., VI. 404.

3
Printed by Sargent, in his excellent monograph of Braddock's Expedition.

1
Journal of a Naval Officer,
in Sargent.
The Expedition of Major-General Braddock, being Extracts of Letters from an Officer
(London, 1755).

2
Statement of George Croghan,
in Sargent, appendix iii.

3
See several traditional accounts and contemporary letters in
Hazard's Pennsylvania Register,
IV. 389, 390, 416; V. 191.

1
M’Kinney’s Description of Fort Duquesne,
1756, in
Hazard’s Pennsylvania Register,
VIII. 318.
Letters of Robert Stobo, Hostage at Fort Duquesne,
1754, in
Colonial Records of Pa
., VI. 141, 161. Stobo’s
Plan of Fort Duquesne,
1754.
Journal of Thomas Forbes,
1755.
Letter of Captain Haslet,
1758, in
Olden Time,
I. 184.
Plan of Fort Duquesne
in Public Record Office.

2
See
Appendix D
.

1
Account of Remarkable Occurrences in the Life of Colonel James Smith, written by himself
. Perhaps the best of all the numerous narratives of captives among the Indians.

2
Relation de Godefroy,
in Shea,
Bataille du Malangueulé
(Monongahela).

3
Dumas, however, declares that Beaujeu adopted the plan at his suggestion.
Dumas au Ministre,
24
Juillet,
1756.

4
Relation depuis le Départ des Trouppes de Québec jusqu’au
30
du Mois de Septembre,
1755.

1
Liste des Officiers, Cadets, Soldats, Miliciens, et Sauvages qui composaient le Détachement qui a été au devant d’un Corps de
2,000
Anglois à
3
Lieues du Fort Duquesne, le
9
Juillet,
1755;
joint à la Lettre de M. Bigot du
6
Août,
1755.

2
Compare the account of another eye-witness, Dr. Walker, in
Hazard’s Pennsylvania Register,
VI. 104.

3
Relation de Godefroy,
in Shea,
Bataille du Malangueulé
.

1
Journal of the Proceeding of the Detachment of Seamen,
in Sargent.

2
Dumas au Ministre,
24
Juillet,
1756.
Contrecœur à Vaudreuil,
14
Juillet,
1755. See
Appendix D
, where extracts are given.

1
Leslie to a Merchant of Philadelphia,
30
July,
1755, in
Hazard’s Pennsylvania Register,
V. 191. Leslie was a lieutenant of the Forty-fourth.

2
A List of the Officers who were present, and of those killed and wounded, in the Action on the Banks of the Monongahela,
9
July,
1755 (Public Record Office,
America and West Indies,
LXXXII.).

3
Statement of the engineer, Mackellar. By another account, out of a total, officers and men, of 1,460, the number of all ranks who escaped was 583. Braddock’s force, originally 1,200, was increased, a few days before the battle, by detachments from Dunbar.

1
“Nous prîmes le parti de nous retirer en vue de rallier notre petite armée.”
Dumas au Ministre,
24
Juillet,
1756.
On the defeat of Braddock, besides authorities already cited,—
Shirley to Robinson,
5
Nov
. 1755, accompanying the plans of the battle reproduced in this volume (Public Record Office,
America and West Indies,
LXXXII.). The plans were drawn at Shirley’s request by Patrick Mackellar, chief engineer of the expedition, who was with Gage in the advance column when the fight began. They were examined and fully approved by the chief surviving officers, and they closely correspond with another plan made by the aide-de-camp Orme,—which, however, shows only the beginning of the affair.
Report of the Court of Inquiry into the Behavior of the Troops at the Monongahela. Letters of Dinwiddie. Letters of Gage. Burd to Morris,
25
July,
1755.
Sinclair to Robinson,
3
Sept. Rutherford to
———, 12
July. Writings of Washington,
II. 68-93.
Review of Military Operations in North America
. Entick, I. 145.
Gentleman
’
s Magazine
(1755), 378, 426.
Letter to a Friend on the Ohio Defeat
(Boston, 1755).
Contrecœur à Vaudreuil,
14
Juillet,
1755.
Estat de l’Artillerie, etc., qui se sont trouvés sur le Champ de Bataille. Vaudreuil au Ministre,
5
Août,
1755.
Bigot au Ministre,
27
Août. Relation du Combat du
9
Juillet. Relation depuis le Départ des Trouppes de Québec jusqu’au
30
du Mois de Septembre. Lotbinière à d’Argenson,
24
Oct. Relation officielle imprimée au Louvre. Relation de Godefroy
(Shea).
Extraits du Registre du Fort Duquesne (Ibid.). Relation de diverses Mouvements (Ibid.)
. Pouchot, I. 37.

1
Liste des Officiers, Soldats, Miliciens, et Sauvages de Canada qui ont été tués et blessés le
9
Juillet,
1755.

1
Depositions of Matthew Laird, Michael Hoover, and Jacob Hoover, Wagoners,
in
Colonial Records of Pa
., VI. 482.

2
Bolling to his Son,
13
Aug
. 1755. Bolling was a Virginian gentleman whose son was at school in England.

1
Innes to Dinwiddie,
14
July,
1755.

2
Colonial Records of Pa
., VI. 481.

3
Autobiography of Franklin
.

1
Colonial Records of Pa
., VI. 480.

2
Dinwiddie to Colonel Charles Carter,
18
July,
1755.

1
These extracts are taken from the two letters preserved in the Public Record Office,
America and West Indies,
LXXIV. LXXXII.

1
Dinwiddie’s view of Dunbar’s conduct is fully justified by the letters of Shirley, Governor Morris, and Dunbar himself.

2
Orders for Colonel Thomas Dunbar,
12
Aug
. 1755. These supersede a previous order of August 6, by which Shirley had directed Dunbar to march northward at once.

VIII

1755-1763

R
EMOVAL OF THE
A
CADIANS

State of Acadia · Threatened Invasion · Peril of the English · Their Plans · French Forts to be attacked · Beauséjour and its Occupants · French Treatment of the Acadians · John Winslow · Siege and Capture of Beauséjour · Attitude of Acadians · Influence of their Priests · They refuse the Oath of Allegiance · Their Condition and Character · Pretended Neutrals · Moderation of English Authorities · The Acadians persist in their Refusal · Enemies or Subjects? · Choice of the Acadians · The Consequence · Their Removal determined · Winslow at Grand Pré · Conference with Murray · Summons to the Inhabitants · Their Seizure · Their Embarkation · Their Fate · Their Treatment in Canada · Misapprehension concerning them

By the plan which the Duke of Cumberland had ordained and Braddock had announced in the Council at Alexandria, four blows were to be struck at once to force back the French boundaries, lop off the dependencies of Canada, and reduce her from a vast territory to a petty province. The first stroke had failed, and had shattered the hand of the striker; it remains to see what fortune awaited the others.

It was long since a project of purging Acadia of French influence had germinated in the fertile mind of Shirley. We have seen in a former chapter the condition of that afflicted province. Several thousands of its inhabitants, wrought upon by intriguing agents of the French Government; taught by their priests that fidelity to King Louis was inseparable from fidelity to God, and that to swear allegiance to the British Crown was eternal perdition; threatened with plunder and death at the hands of the savages whom the ferocious missionary, Le Loutre, held over them in terror,—had abandoned, sometimes willingly, but oftener under constraint, the fields which they and their fathers had tilled, and crossing the boundary line of the Missaguash, had placed themselves under the French flag planted on the hill of Beauséjour.
¹
Here, or in the neighborhood, many of them had remained, wretched and half starved; while others had been transported to Cape Breton, Isle St. Jean, or the coasts of the Gulf,—not so far, however, that they could not on occasion be used to aid in an invasion of British Acadia.
²
Those of their countrymen who still lived under the British flag were chiefly the inhabitants of the district of Mines and of the valley of the River Annapolis, who, with other less important settlements, numbered a little more than nine thousand souls. We have shown already, by the evidence of the French themselves, that neither they nor their emigrant countrymen had been oppressed or molested in matters temporal or spiritual, but that the English authorities, recognizing their value as an industrious population, had labored to reconcile them to a change of rulers which on the whole was to their advantage. It has been shown also how, with a heartless perfidy and a reckless disregard of their welfare and safety, the French Government and its agents labored to keep them hostile to the Crown of which it had acknowledged them to be subjects. The result was, that though they did not, like their emigrant countrymen, abandon their homes, they remained in a state of restless disaffection, refused to supply English garrisons with provisions, except at most exorbitant rates, smuggled their produce to the French across the line, gave them aid and intelligence, and sometimes, disguised as Indians, robbed and murdered English settlers. By the new-fangled construction of the treaty of Utrecht which the French boundary commissioners had devised,
¹
more than half the Acadian peninsula, including nearly all the cultivated land and nearly all the population of French descent, was claimed as belonging to France, though England had held possession of it more than forty years. Hence, according to the political ethics adopted at the time by both nations, it would be lawful for France to reclaim it by force. England, on her part, it will be remembered, claimed vast tracts beyond the isthmus; and, on the same pretext, held that she might rightfully seize them and capture Beauséjour, with the other French garrisons that guarded them.

On the part of France, an invasion of the Acadian peninsula seemed more than likely. Honor demanded of her that, having incited the Acadians to disaffection, and so brought on them the indignation of the English authorities, she should intervene to save them from the consequences. Moreover the loss of the Acadian peninsula had been gall and wormwood to her; and in losing it she had lost great material advantages. Its possession was necessary to connect Canada with the Island of Cape Breton and the fortress of Louisbourg. Its fertile fields and agricultural people would furnish subsistence to the troops and garrisons in the French maritime provinces, now dependent on supplies illicitly brought by New England traders, and liable to be cut off in time of war when they were needed most. The harbors of Acadia, too, would be invaluable as naval stations from which to curb and threaten the northern English colonies. Hence the intrigues so assiduously practised to keep the Acadians French at heart, and ready to throw off British rule at any favorable moment. British officers
believed that should a French squadron with a sufficient force of troops on board appear in the Bay of Fundy, the whole population on the Basin of Mines and along the Annapolis would rise in arms, and that the emigrants beyond the isthmus, armed and trained by French officers, would come to their aid. This emigrant population, famishing in exile, looked back with regret to the farms they had abandoned; and, prevented as they were by Le Loutre and his colleagues from making their peace with the English, they would, if confident of success, have gladly joined an invading force to regain their homes by reconquering Acadia for Louis XV. In other parts of the continent it was the interest of France to put off hostilities; if Acadia alone had been in question, it would have been her interest to precipitate them.

Her chances of success were good. The French could at any time send troops from Louisbourg or Quebec to join those maintained upon the isthmus; and they had on their side of the lines a force of militia and Indians amounting to about two thousand, while the Acadians within the peninsula had about an equal number of fighting men who, while calling themselves neutrals, might be counted on to join the invaders. The English were in no condition to withstand such an attack. Their regular troops were scattered far and wide through the province, and were nowhere more than equal to the local requirement; while of militia, except those of Halifax, they had few or none whom they dared to trust. Their fort at Annapolis was weak and dilapidated, and their other posts were mere stockades. The strongest place in Acadia was the French fort of Beauséjour, in which the English saw a continual menace.

Their apprehensions were well grounded. Duquesne, governor of Canada, wrote to Le Loutre, who virtually shared the control of Beauséjour with Vergor, its commandant: “I invite both yourself and M. Vergor to devise a plausible pretext for attacking them [
the English
] vigorously.”
¹
Three weeks after this letter was written, Lawrence, governor of Nova Scotia, wrote to Shirley from Halifax: “Being well informed that the French have designs of encroaching still farther upon His Majesty’s rights in this province, and that they propose, the moment they have repaired the fortifications of Louisbourg, to attack our fort at Chignecto [
Fort Lawrence
], I think it high time to make some effort to drive them from the north side of the Bay of Fundy.”
²
This letter was brought to Boston by Lieutenant-Colonel Monckton, who was charged by Lawrence to propose to Shirley the raising of two thousand men in New England for the attack of Beauséjour and its dependent forts. Almost at the moment when Lawrence was writing these proposals to Shirley, Shirley was writing with the same object to Lawrence, enclosing a letter from Sir Thomas Robinson, concerning which he said: “I construe the contents to be orders to us to act in concert for taking
any
advantages to drive the French of Canada out of Nova Scotia. If that is your sense of them, and your honor will be pleased to let me
know whether you want any and what assistance to enable you to execute the orders, I will endeavor to send you such assistance from this province as you shall want.”
¹

The letter of Sir Thomas Robinson, of which a duplicate had already been sent to Lawrence, was written in answer to one of Shirley informing the Minister that the Indians of Nova Scotia, prompted by the French, were about to make an attack on all the English settlements east of the Kennebec; whereupon Robinson wrote: “You will without doubt have given immediate intelligence thereof to Colonel Lawrence, and will have concerted the properest measures with him for taking all possible advantage in Nova Scotia itself from the absence of those Indians, in case Mr. Lawrence shall have force enough to attack the forts erected by the French in those parts, without exposing the English settlements; and I am particularly to acquaint you that if you have not already entered into such a concert with Colonel Lawrence, it is His Majesty’s pleasure that you should immediately proceed thereupon.”
²

The Indian raid did not take place; but not the less did Shirley and Lawrence find in the Minister’s letter their authorization for the attack of Beauséjour. Shirley wrote to Robinson that the expulsion of the French from the forts on the isthmus was a necessary measure of self-defence; that they meant to seize the whole country as far as Mines Basin, and probably as far as Annapolis, to supply their Acadian rebels with land; that of these they had, without reckoning Indians, fourteen hundred fighting men on or near the isthmus, and two hundred and fifty more on the St. John, with whom, aided by the garrison of Beauséjour, they could easily take Fort Lawrence; that should they succeed in this, the whole Acadian population would rise in arms, and the King would lose Nova Scotia. We should anticipate them, concludes Shirley, and strike the first blow.
³

He opened his plans to his Assembly in secret session, and found them of one mind with himself. Preparation was nearly complete, and the men raised for the expedition, before the Council at Alexandria recognized it as a part of a plan of the summer campaign.

The French fort of Beauséjour, mounted on its hill between the marshes of Missaguash and Tantemar, was a regular work, pentagonal in form, with solid earthern ramparts, bomb-proofs, and an armament of twenty-four cannon and one mortar. The commandant, Duchambon de Vergor, a captain in the colony regulars, was a dull man of no education, of stuttering speech, unpleasing
countenance, and doubtful character. He owed his place to the notorious Intendant, Bigot, who, it is said, was in his debt for disreputable service in an affair of gallantry, and who had ample means of enabling his friends to enrich themselves by defrauding the King. Beauséjour was one of those plague-spots of official corruption which dotted the whole surface of New France. Bigot, sailing for Europe in the summer of 1754, wrote thus to his confederate: “Profit by your place, my dear Vergor; clip and cut—you are free to do what you please—so that you can come soon to join me in France and buy an estate near me.”
¹
Vergor did not neglect his opportunities. Supplies in great quantities were sent from Quebec for the garrison and the emigrant Acadians. These last got but a small part of them. Vergor and his confederates sent the rest back to Quebec, or else to Louisbourg, and sold them for their own profit to the King’s agents there, who were also in collusion with him.

Vergor, however, did not reign alone. Le Loutre, by force of energy, capacity, and passionate vehemence, held him in some awe, and divided his authority. The priest could count on the support of Duquesne, who had found, says a contemporary, that “he promised more than he could perform, and that he was a knave,” but who nevertheless felt compelled to rely upon him for keeping the Acadians on the side of France. There was another person in the fort worthy of notice. This was Thomas Pichon, commissary of stores, a man of education and intelligence, born in France of an English mother. He was now acting the part of a traitor, carrying on a secret correspondence with the commandant of Fort Lawrence, and acquainting him with all that passed at Beauséjour. It was partly from this source that the hostile designs of the French became known to the authorities of Halifax, and more especially the proceedings of “Moses,” by which name Pichon always designated Le Loutre, because he pretended to have led the Acadians from the land of bondage.
²

These exiles, who cannot be called self-exiled, in view of the outrageous means used to force most of them from their homes, were in a deplorable condition. They lived in constant dread of Le Loutre, backed by Vergor and his soldiers. The savage missionary, bad as he was, had in him an ingredient of honest fanaticism, both national and religious; though hatred of the English held a large share in it. He would gladly, if he could, have formed the Acadians into a permanent settlement on the French side of the line, not out of love for them, but in the interest of the cause with which he had identified his own ambition. His efforts had failed. There was not land enough for their subsistence and that of the older settlers; and the suffering emigrants pined more and more for their deserted farms. Thither he was resolved that they should not return. “If you go,” he told them, “you will have neither priests nor sacraments, but will die
like miserable wretches.”
¹
The assertion was false. Priests and sacraments had never been denied them. It is true that Daudin, priest of Pisiquid, had lately been sent to Halifax for using insolent language to the commandant, threatening him with an insurrection of the inhabitants, and exciting them to sedition; but on his promise to change conduct, he was sent back to his parishioners.
²
Vergor sustained Le Loutre, and threatened to put in irons any of the exiles who talked of going back to the English. Some of them bethought themselves of an appeal to Duquesne, and drew up a petition asking leave to return home. Le Loutre told the signers that if they did not efface their marks from the paper they should have neither sacraments in this life nor heaven in the next. He nevertheless allowed two of them to go to Quebec as deputies, writing at the same time to the Governor, that his mind might be duly prepared. Duquesne replied: “I think that the two rascals of deputies whom you sent me will not soon recover from the fright I gave them, notwithstanding the emollient I administered after my reprimand; and since I told them that they were indebted to you for not being allowed to rot in a dungeon, they have promised me to comply with your wishes.”
³