le part of Fort
Frederick was washed away by the storm and Lieutenant Winckworth
Tonge, of the Engineers, was sent with a party of men to repair it and
put it in the most defensible state the situation would allow, taking
such tools and materials from Fort Cumberland as were needed. He found
the condition of the fort even worse than he had anticipated. Governor
Lawrence consulted General Amherst as to what should be done, and in
answer the general wrote: "By Lt. Tonge's report to you of the state
of the works at Fort Frederick, it must doubtless undergo great
alterations to put it in a proper state of defence, but as this will
require many more hands than you can provide at present, we must for
the time being rest satisfied with the work you have ordered,
especially as the line of strong Pallisadoes you mention will secure
it against any insult for the present."

Colonel Arbuthnot's anxieties were not confined to tidal waves and the
discontents of his garrison. About the end of October a party of some
two hundred Acadians came down the river to Fort Frederick and
presented to him a certificate of their having taken the oath of
allegiance to the English sovereign before Judge Cramahe, at Quebec;
also an order signed by General Monckton giving them permission to
return to their former habitations. Whether these Acadians were old
inhabitants of the river, or fugitives who had taken refuge there at
the time of the Expulsion is not very clear. Lawrence surmised that
the certificates had been obtained from Judge Cramahe on the
supposition that the people belonged to some river or place in Canada
known as St. Johns, and not to the River St. John in Nova Scotia, and
that they never could have had any sort of permission from Monckton to
settle in Acadia.

The Abbe Casgrain comments severely on the course pursued by Governor
Lawrence on this occasion: "Not being able," he says, "to dispute the
genuineness of the letters of Monckton and Cramahe, Lawrence claimed
that the Acadians could only have obtained them by fraud, and he
decided with his council, always ready to do his bidding, that they
should be regarded as prisoners of war and transported as soon as
possible to England. He took care not to disclose this resolution in
order to keep them securely at the fort, and to have them ready to his
hand when ships should arrive to transport them. This precaution was
almost superfluous for the Acadians, having exhausted their last
r