[979] Cf. Bury’s Exodus of the Western Nations, vol. ii. ch. 7.
[980] “They call themselves neutrals, but are rebels and traitors, assisting the French and Indians at all opportunities to murder and cut our throats.” Ames’s Almanac, 1756,—a household authority.
[981] This condition was thoroughly understood by the French authorities. Cf. Vaudreuil’s despatch when he heard of the deportation, Oct. 18, 1755. Doc. Col. Hist. N. Y., x. 358. On Nov. 2, 1756, Lotbinière, addressing the French ministry on a contemplated movement against Nova Scotia, says: “The English have deprived us of a great advantage by removing the French families.”
[982] Winslow’s instructions, dated Halifax, Aug. 11, 1755, are printed in Akins’s Selections, etc., 271. It has sometimes been alleged that a greed to have the Acadian lands to assign to English settlers was a chief motive in this decision. Letters between Lawrence and the Board of Trade (Oct. 18, 1755, etc.) indicate that the hope of such succession to lands was entertained after the event; but it was several years before the hope had fruition.
[983] Guillaume Thomas Raynal’s Histoire philosophique et politique des Etablissemens et du Commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes, Paris, 1770; Geneva, 1780 (in 5 vols. 4to, and 10 vols. 8vo.); revised, Paris, 1820. (Rich, after 1700, p. 290; H. H. Bancroft, Mexico, iii. 648.)
[984] M. Pascal Poirier in the Revue Canadienne (xi. pp. 850, 927; xii. pp. 71, 216, 310, 462, 524) discusses the question of mixed blood, and gives reasons for the mutual attachments of the Acadians and Abenakis, confronting the views of Rameau. He follows the Acadian story down, and traces the migrations of families.
[985] A writer in the Amer. Cath. Q. Rev. (1884), ix. 592, defends the “Acadian confessors of the faith,” and charges Hannay with “monstrous and barefaced perversions of history.” Cf. among the Parkman MSS. (Mass. Hist. Society, New France, i. p. 165) a paper called “Etat présent des missions de l’Acadie. Efforts impuissants des gouverneurs anglois pour détruir la religion catholique dans l’Acadie.”
[986] Doc. Col. Hist. N. Y., x. p. 5.
[987] United States, final revision, ii. 426.
[988] These are set forth in Hannay’s Acadia, ch. xx.; Doc. Col. Hist. N. Y., x. p. 11, etc.; Parkman’s Montcalm and Wolfe, i. 114, 266, etc.; Akins’s Selections from the Pub. Docs. of Nova Scotia (with authorities there cited); Mémoires sur le Canada, 1749-1760 (Quebec, 1838). Le Loutre was a creature of whom it is difficult to say how much of his conduct was due to fanaticism, and how much to a heartless villainy. The French were quite as much inclined as any one to consider him a villain. The Acadians themselves had often found that he could use his Micmacs against them like bloodhounds.