"In July, 1755, a memorial was sent to Lieutenant-Governor Lawrence, signed by twenty-five leading Acadians, on the subject of the oath, and requesting the return of their guns that the Government had obliged them to give up on account of their sympathy with the French. When Governor Lawrence sent for the signers to come to Halifax, fifteen appeared before them. He pointed out the insincerity of their memorial, and when he desired them to sign the oath they flatly refused. Finally, on the twenty-eighth of July, these deputies and others from Annapolis appeared before the Governor and Council, and although warned that the consequences would be serious, they declined to take any oath differing from that taken under Governor Phillips; that is, they were unwilling to bear arms for the English against the French."
"That, I must say, seems noble to me, since they knew what risks they were running," cried Martine.
"That is to an extent a matter of opinion. But their refusal decided Governor Lawrence what to do. He immediately wrote to Colonel Monckton that enough transports had been ordered up the Bay for the Acadians, and that he must remove them. He was told that all the property of the Acadians was now forfeited to the Crown, and that they would be allowed to take on board ship only their money and their household goods."
"It is a wonder he left them anything," said Martine, sarcastically.
"He wasn't absolutely heartless, and he gave careful directions for provisioning the transports for their long journey."
"I am sorry that it was a New Englander who had to carry out these cruel orders," said Priscilla.
"Yes, it fell on Lieutenant-Colonel Winslow, and a detachment of those New England troops that had fought at Beauséjour to attend to the deportation at Grand Pré. It was Tuesday, the second of September, when he ordered all the male inhabitants from ten years upwards to assemble on the following Friday in the church at Grand Pré, to hear what his Majesty had to say to them. Then—but really I think one gets the story better from Longfellow. It is from this point that we have our sympathies so deeply touched, and we are willing to forget that the simple-minded Acadians had brought much of their trouble on themselves."
"It doesn't make their sufferings less, even if they were to blame," interposed Martine.
"That is true. They may have been less peaceable and amiable than they have been represented by the poet, and their homes and their ways of living may have been less—less—"
"Æsthetic," suggested Priscilla, with a smile.