Far different was the lot of the Acadians who were sent to Maryland. [Footnote: The Maryland Gazette, Annapolis, December 4, 1755, said: 'Sunday last [November 30] arrived here the last of the vessels from Nova Scotia with French Neutrals for this place, which makes four within this fortnight bringing upwards of nine hundred of them. As the poor people have been deprived of their settlements in Nova Scotia, and sent here for some political reason bare and destitute, Christian charity, nay, common humanity, calls on every one according to his ability to lend assistance and to help these objects of compassion.'] There they were kindly received and found, no doubt, a happier lot than in any of the other colonies. Those landed at Baltimore were at first lodged in private houses and in a building belonging to a Mr Fotherall, where they had a little chapel. And it was not long before the frugal and industrious exiles were able to construct small but comfortable houses of their own on South Charles Street, giving to that quarter of the city the name of French Town. Many of them found employment on the waterside and in navigation. The old and infirm picked oakum.
Massachusetts at one time counted in the colony a thousand and forty of the exiles, but all these had not come direct on the ships from Nova Scotia. Many of them had wandered in from other colonies. The people of Massachusetts loved not Catholics and Frenchmen; nevertheless, in some instances they received the refugees with especial kindness. At Worcester a small tract of land was set aside for the Acadians to cultivate, with permission to hunt deer at all seasons. The able-bodied men and women toiled in the fields as reapers, and added to their income in the evening by making wooden implements. The Acadians were truly primitive in their methods. 'Although,' says a writer of the time, 'they tilled the soil they kept no animals for labour. The young men drew their material for fencing with thongs of sinew, and they turned the earth with a spade. The slightest allusion to their native land drew forth tears and many of the aged died of a broken heart.'
As French Neutrals began to come into Boston from other towns, the selectmen of that city protested vigorously and passed the people on to outlying parishes, promising, however, to be responsible for their maintenance should they become a public charge. Several instances are recorded of children being sent to join their parents. A certain number were confined in the workhouse and in the provincial hospital. But on December 6, 1760, the authorities gave instructions for the hospital to be cleared to make room for the colonial troops who were returning home, many of them suffering from contagious diseases; and the Acadians were forthwith turned out.
Although none of the Acadians appear to have been sent direct to Louisiana, large numbers of them found their way thither from various places, especially from Virginia, where they were not allowed to remain. Finding in Louisiana men speaking their own tongue, they felt a sense of security, and gradually settled down with a degree of contentment. There are to-day in various parishes of the state of Louisiana many thousand Acadian-Americans.
Of the Acadians who succeeded in escaping deportation and went into voluntary exile, many sought shelter in New Brunswick, on the rivers Petitcodiac, Memramcook, Buctouche, Richibucto, and Miramichi, and along Chaleur Bay. The largest of the settlements so formed was the one on the Miramichi, at Pierre Beaubair's seigneury, where the village of Nelson now stands. For several years these refugees in New Brunswick bravely struggled against hardship, disease, and starvation; but in the late autumn of 1759 the several settlements sent deputies to Colonel Frye at Fort Cumberland, asking on what terms they would be received back to Nova Scotia. Frye took a number of them into the fort for the winter, and presented their case to Lawrence. It was decided to accept their submission and supply them with provisions. But when the people returned they were held as vassals; and many of them afterwards were either sent out of the province to France or England, or left it voluntarily for St Pierre and Miquelon or the West Indies.
Other fugitives of 1755, fifteen hundred, according to one authority, [Footnote: Placide Gaudet, 'Acadian Genealogy and Notes,' Canadian Archives Report, 1905. vol. ii, part iii, Appendix A, p. xv.] succeeded in reaching Quebec. Here their lot was a hard one. Bigot and his myrmidons plundered everybody, and the starving Acadians did not escape. They had managed to bring with them a little money and a few household treasures, of which they were soon robbed. For a time they were each allowed but four ounces of bread a day, and were reduced, it is said, to searching the gutters for food. To add to their miseries smallpox broke out among them and many perished from the disease. After Quebec surrendered and the victorious British army entered the gates, some two hundred of them, under the leadership of a priest, Father Coquart, who apparently had a passport from General Murray, marched through the wilderness to the headwaters of the St John and went down to Fort Frederick at the mouth of that river. Colonel Arbuthnot, the British commandant there, treated them generously. In 1761, however, many Acadians at the St John were seized and deported to Halifax, where they were held as prisoners of war, but were provided with rations and given 'good wages for road-making.' [Footnote: MacMechan in Canada and its Provinces, vol. xiii, p. 115.] Of those who escaped this deportation, some established themselves on the Kennebecasis river and some went up the St John to St Anne's, now Fredericton. But even here the Acadians were not to have a permanent home. Twenty years later, when the war of the Revolution ended and land was needed for the king's disbanded soldiers, the lands of the Acadians were seized. Once more the unfortunate people sought new homes, and found them at last along the banks of Chaleur Bay and of the Madawaska, where thousands of their descendants now rudely cultivate the fields and live happy, contented lives.
The deportation did not bring peace to Nova Scotia. Acadians of New Brunswick and of those who had sought refuge in the forest fastnesses of the peninsula and Cape Breton joined with the Indians in guerilla warfare against the British; and there was more killing of settlers and more destruction of property from Indian raids than ever before. Early in the month of January 1756 British rangers rounded up over two hundred Acadian prisoners at Annapolis, and put them on board a vessel bound for South Carolina. The prisoners, however, made themselves masters of the ship and sailed into the St John river in February. French privateers, manned by Acadians, haunted the Bay of Fundy and the Gulf of St Lawrence and carried off as prizes twelve British vessels. But in 1761 the British raided a settlement of the marauders on Chaleur Bay, and took three hundred and fifty prisoners to Halifax.
We have seen in a preceding chapter that from time to time numbers of Acadians voluntarily left their homes in Nova Scotia and went over to French soil. Many of these took up their abode in Ile St Jean at Port La Joie (Charlottetown), where they soon formed a prosperous settlement and were able to supply not only the fortress but the town of Louisbourg with provisions. Those who were not engaged in agricultural pursuits found profitable employment in the fisheries. There were also thriving settlements at Point Prince, St Peter, and Malpeque. It is computed that in 1755 there were at least four thousand Acadians in Ile St Jean. A much larger estimate is given by some historians. Now, on the fall of Louisbourg in 1758, some of the British transports which had brought out troops from Cork to Halifax were ordered to Ile St Jean to carry the Acadians and French to France. The largest of these transports was the Duke William; another was named the Violet. Some of the Acadians made good their escape, but many were dragged on board the vessels. On the Duke William was a missionary priest, and before the vessels sailed he was called upon to perform numerous marriages, for the single men had learned that if they landed unmarried in France they would be forced to perform military service, for which they had no inclination. Nine transports sailed in consort, but were soon caught in a violent tempest and scattered. On December 10 the Duke William came upon the Violet in a sinking condition; and notwithstanding all efforts at rescue, the Violet went down with nearly four hundred souls. Meanwhile the Duke William herself had sprung a leak. For a time she was kept afloat by empty casks in the hold, but presently it became evident that the ship was doomed. The long-boat was put out and filled to capacity. And scarcely had the boat cleared when an explosion occurred and the Duke William went down, taking three hundred persons to a watery grave. The longboat finally reached Penzance with twenty-seven of the castaways. The other vessels probably found some French port. [Footnote In 1763 there were 2,370 Acadians in the maritime towns of France and 866 at various English ports. Many of these returned later to the land of their birth. See Canadian Archives Report, 1905, vol. ii, Appendix G, pp. 148 and 157.]
In Nova Scotia the Acadians were sorely needed. Even their bitter enemy, Jonathan Belcher, now lieutenant- governor, [Footnote: He succeeded Lawrence, who died in October 1760. Two documents in the Colonial Office Records raise more than a suspicion that Lawrence had been by no means an exemplary public servant. The first is a complaint made by Robert Sanderson, speaker of the first legislature of Nova Scotia, elected in 1758, respecting the grave misconduct of Lawrence in many stated particulars, including the release from gaol before trial of prisoners charged with burglary and other grave offences as well as the misapplication of public funds. The second is a letter from the Lords of Trade to Belcher laying down rules for his conduct as lieutenant-governor and referring to the many serious charges against his predecessor, some of which they regard as having substantial foundation, and none of which they express themselves as altogether rejecting. Consult, in the Public Archives, Canada, Nova Scotia A, vol. lxv.] wrote on June 18, 1761: 'By representations made to me from the new settlements in this province, it appears extremely necessary that the inhabitants should be assisted by the Acadians in repairing the dykes for the preservation and recovery of the marsh lands, particularly as on the progress of this work, in which the Acadians are the most skilful people in the country, the support and subsistence of several hundred of the inhabitants will depend.' [Footnote: Nova Scotia Documents, p. 319.] It seemed almost impossible to induce settlers to come to the province; and those who did come seem to have been unable to follow the example of the former owners of the soil, for much of the land which had been reclaimed from the sea by the labour and ingenuity of the Acadian farmers was once more being swept by the ocean tides.
Yet, when the Acadians began to return to Nova Scotia in ever-increasing numbers, Belcher and the Halifax Council decided to banish them again. In 1762 five transports loaded with prisoners were sent to Massachusetts, but that colony wanted no more Acadians and sent them back. Belcher had some difficulty in explaining his action to the home government. And the Lords of Trade did not scruple to censure him.