I entered into a great swoon, in which I seemed to be a young man again,—a stout and hearty man, a high liver, a proud swearer. I had on my uniform; there was a sword in my hand. I trod the deck of my stout ship, the Confidence. I heard the plash of waves against the sides, and I lifted my haughty eyes to heaven; I was afraid of none, no not the ruler of the universe.
Down under the planks that my foot pressed were prisoners, to wit, the Acadiens, that we were carrying to the port of Boston. What mattered their sufferings to me? I did not think of them. I called for a bottle of wine, and looked again over the sea, and wished for a fair wind so that we might the sooner enter our prisoners at the port of Boston, and make merry with our friends.
My son, as I, in my swoon, contemplated my former self, it is not in the power of mortal man to convey to you my awful scorn of what I then was,—my gross desires, my carnal wishes. I was no better than the beasts of the fields.
After a time, as I trod the deck, a young Acadien was brought before me. My officers said that he had been endeavouring to stir up a mutiny among the prisoners, and had urged them to make themselves masters of the ship and to cast us into the sea.
I called him a Papist dog. I asked him whether he wished to be thrown to the fishes. I could speak no French, but he knew somewhat of English, and he answered me proudly. He stretched out his hand to the smoking village of Grand Pré that we were leaving. He called to heaven for a judgment to be sent down on the English for their cruelty.
I struck him to the deck. He could not rise. I thought he would not; but in a brief space of time he was dead, the last words on his lips a curse on me and my children, and a wish that in our dying moments we might suffer some of the torments he was then enduring. I had his body rolled into the sea, and I forgot him, my son. In the unrighteous work to which I had put my hand in the persecution of the French, a death more or less was a circumstance to be forgotten.
I was then a young man, and in all the years that have intervened I have been oblivious of him. The hand of the Lord has been laid upon me; I have been despoiled of my goods; nothing that I have done has prospered; and yet I give you my solemn word I never, until now, in these days of dying, have reflected that a curse has been upon me and will descend to you, my son, and to your sons after you.
Therefore, I leave this solemn request. Methinks I shall not lie easy in my narrow bed until that some of my descendants have made restitution to the seed of the Frenchman. I bethink me that he was one Le Noir, called the Fiery Frenchman of Grand Pré, from a birthmark on his face, but of his baptismal name I am ignorant. That he was a married man I well know, for one cause of his complaint was that he had been separated from his wife and child, which thing was not of my doing, but by the orders of Governor Lawrence, who commanded the men and the women to be embarked apart. But seek them not in the city of Boston, my son, nor in that of Philadelphia, where his young wife was carried, but come back to this old Acadien land, whither the refugees are now tending. Ah me! it seems that I am yet a young man, that he is still alive,—the man whom I killed. Alas! I am old and about to die, but, my son, by the love and compassion of God, let me entreat you to carry out the wishes of your father. Seek the family of the Frenchman; make restitution, even to the half of your goods, or you will have no prosperity in this world nor any happiness in the world to come. If you are unable to carry out this, my last wish, let this letter be handed to your children. Eschew riotous living, and fold in your heart my saying, that the forcible dispossession of the Acadien people from their land and properties was an unrighteous and unholy act, brought about chiefly by the lust of hatred and greed on the part of that iniquitous man, Governor Lawrence, of this province, and his counsellors.
May God have mercy on my soul. Your father, soon to be a clod of clay,
John Matthew Nimmo.