ct little against
the English troops, they changed their field of action, repaired to the
outskirts of Halifax, murdered about thirty settlers, and carried off
eight or ten prisoners.

[Footnote 114: Maillard, _Les Missions Micmaques_. On the murder of
Howe, _Public Documents of Nova Scotia_, 194, 195, 210; _Memoires sur le
Canada, 1749-1760_, where it is said that Le Loutre was present at the
deed; La Valliere, _Journal_, who says that some Acadians took part in
it; _Depeches de la Jonquiere_, who says "les sauvages de l'Abbe le
Loutre l'ont tue par trahison;" and _Prevost au Ministre, 27 Oct.
1750_.]

Strong reinforcements came from Canada. The French began a fort on the
hill of Beausejour, and the Acadians were required to work at it with no
compensation but rations. They were thinly clad, some had neither shoes
nor stockings, and winter was begun. They became so dejected that it was
found absolutely necessary to give them wages enough to supply their
most pressing needs. In the following season Fort Beausejour was in a
state to receive a garrison. It stood on the crown of the hill, and a
vast panorama stretched below and around it. In front lay the Bay of
Chignecto, winding along the fertile shores of Chipody and Memeramcook.
Far on the right spread the great Tantemar marsh; on the left lay the
marsh of the Missaguash; and on a knoll beyond it, not three miles
distant, the red flag of England waved over the palisades of Fort
Lawrence, while hills wrapped in dark forests bounded the horizon.

How the homeless Acadians from Beaubassin lived through the winter is
not very clear. They probably found shelter at Chipody and its
neighborhood, where there were thriving settlements of their countrymen.
Le Loutre, fearing that they would return to their lands and submit to
the English, sent some of them to Isle St. Jean. "They refused to go,"
says a French writer; "but he compelled them at last, by threatening to
make the Indians pillage them, carry off their wives and children, and
even kill them before their eyes. Nevertheless he kept about him such as
were most submissive to his will."[115] In the spring after the English
occupied Beaubassin, La Jonquiere issued a strange proclamation. It
commanded all Acadians to take forthwith an oath of fidelity to the King
of France, and to enroll themselves in the French militia, on pain of
being treated as rebels.[116] Three years after, Lawrence, who then
governed the province, p