In 1720 they again asked permission to leave, but were prevented from doing so.
In 1730 they took the oath of allegiance, being exempted from taking up arms against French or Indians. From this date they were known as French Neutrals.
As an indication of their feeling in 1744, when other French attempted unsuccessfully to force them into a position antagonistic to the English, they responded in part: “We live under a mild and tranquil government, and we have every reason to be faithful to it.”
In 1749 the Acadians were called on to take the oath without restriction or forfeit all their rights and possessions.
In 1750 they were pleading for permission to leave the country.
“They bore insult and indignity for forty years in a vain hope that a time would come when they would be finally secure on the lands their fathers had taken from the sea and made beautiful and rich beyond any other in America.”
The expulsion was the work of Governor Charles Lawrence, who is characterized as the most infamous of all the governors of Nova Scotia. “It was done without the sanction of the English Government,” whose “orders forbidding this action were received too late to prevent it.”
All their arms had been seized; their priests and archives carried off.
Lawrence concealed his purpose from the English Government until too late for its intervention; he even deceived his own Lords of Trade at Halifax.
The male inhabitants were summoned to meet at the church at Grand-Pré, “to hear the king’s orders.” Four hundred and eighteen men gathered in the church. No suspicion of danger had entered their minds up to the moment when they were notified “That your Lands & Tenements, Cattle of all Kinds and Live Stock of all Sorts are Forfeited to the Crown with all other your Effects Saving your money and Household Goods, and you your Selves to be removed from this his Province.” They were then declared prisoners.