thousand if another
attempt against Fort Duquesne had been set afoot. Shirley, too, whom the
death of Braddock had made commander-in-chief, approved the Governor's
plan of renewing offensive operations, and instructed Dunbar to that
effect; ordering him, however, should they prove impracticable, to march
for Albany in aid of the Niagara expedition.[239] The order found him
safe in Philadelphia. Here he lingered for a while; then marched to join
the northern army, moving at a pace which made it certain that he could
not arrive in time to be of the least use.

[Footnote 239: _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.]

Thus the frontier was left unguarded; and soon, as Dinwiddie had
foreseen, there burst upon it a storm of blood and fire.

Chapter 8

1755-1763

Removal of the Acadians

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 Beausejour.[240]
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.[241]
Those of thei