tion through the
secret influence of her emissaries, chiefly missionaries, and
accordingly established a town on the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia,
ever since known as Halifax, in honour of a prominent statesman of those
times. The French settlers, who by the middle of the eighteenth century
numbered 12,000, a thrifty, industrious and simple-minded people, easily
influenced by French agents, called themselves "Neutrals," and could not
be forced to take the unqualified oath of allegiance which was demanded
of them by the authorities of Halifax. The English Government was now
determined to act with firmness in a province where British interests
had been so long neglected, and where the French inhabitants had in the
course of forty years shown no disposition to consider themselves
British subjects and discharge their obligations to the British Crown.
France had raised the contention that the Acadia ceded to England by the
treaty of Utrecht comprised only the present province of Nova Scotia,
and indeed only a portion of that peninsula according to some French
authorities. Commissioners were appointed by the two Powers to settle
the question of boundaries--of the meaning of "Acadie, with its ancient
boundaries"--but their negotiations came to naught and the issue was
only settled by the arbitrament of war. The French built the forts of
Beausejour and Gaspereau--the latter a mere palisade--on the Isthmus of
Chignecto, which became the rendezvous of the French Acadians, whom the
former persuaded by promises or threats to join their fortunes. In 1755
a force of English and Colonial troops, under the command of Colonels
Moncton, Winslow and Scott, captured these forts, and this success was
followed by the banishment of the Acadian French. This cruel act of
Governor Lawrence and the English authorities at Halifax was no doubt
largely influenced by the sentiment of leading men in New England, who
were apprehensive of the neighbourhood of so large a number of an alien
people, who could not be induced to prove their loyalty to Great
Britain, and might, in case of continued French successes in America,
become open and dangerous foes. But while there are writers who defend
this sad incident of American history on the ground of stern national
necessity at a critical period in the affairs of the continent, all
humanity that listens to the dictates of the heart and tender feeling
will ever deplore the exile of those hapless people.

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