The Story of Our Country / Every Child Can Read

by Unknown

This may have been wrong, but it was natural. Every one feels like helping his friends against his enemies. But you may be sure that it made the British very angry, and in the end they took a cruel resolution. This was to send all the Acadians away from their native land to far-off, foreign countries. It was not easy to tell who were acting as spies, so the English government ordered them all to be removed. They were told they might stay if they would swear to be true subjects of the king of England, but this the most of them would not do, for they were French at heart, and looked on King Louis of France as their true and rightful ruler.

Was not this very cruel? There were hundreds of boys and girls like yourselves among these poor Acadians, who had happy homes, and loved to work and play in their pretty gardens and green fields, and whose fathers and mothers did no harm to any one. But because a few busy men gave news to the French, all of these were to be torn from their comfortable homes and sent far away to wander in strange lands, where many of them would have to beg for bread. It was a heartless act, and the world has ever since said so, and among all the cruel things the British have done, the removal of the Acadians from their homes is looked upon as one of the worst.

When soldiers are sent to do a cruel thing they are very apt to do it in the most brutal fashion. The Acadians did not know what was to be done. It was kept secret for fear they might run away and hide. A large number of soldiers were sent out, and they spread like a net over a wide stretch of country. Then they marched together and drove the people before them. The poor farmers might be at their dinners or working in their fields, but they were told that they must stop everything and leave their homes at once, for they were to be sent out of the country. Just think of it! What a grief and terror they must have been in!

They were hardly given time to gather the few things they could carry with them, and on all sides they were driven like so many sheep to the seaside town of Annapolis, to which ships had been brought to carry them away. More than six thousand of these unhappy people, old and young, men, women and little ones, were gathered there; many of them weeping bitterly, many more with looks of despair on their faces, all of them sad at heart and very likely wishing they were dead.

Around them were soldiers to keep them from running away. They were made to get on the ships in such haste that families were often separated, husband and wife, or children and their mothers, being put on different ships and sent to different places. And for fear that some of them might come back again their houses were burned and their farms laid waste. Many of them went to the French settlements in Louisiana, and others to other parts of America. Poor exiles! they were scattered widely over the earth. Some of them in time came back to their loved Acadia, but the most of them never saw it again. It was this dreadful act about which Longfellow wrote in his poem of Evangeline.

Now I must tell you how the French and Indian War ended. The French had two important cities in Canada, Montreal and Quebec. Quebec was built on a high and steep hill and was surrounded by strong walls, behind which were more than eight thousand soldiers. It was not an easy city to capture.

A large British fleet was sent against it, and also an army of eight thousand men, under General Wolfe. For two or three months they fired at the city from the river below, but the French scorned them from their steep hill-top. At length General Wolfe was told of a narrow path by which he might climb the hill. One dark night he tried it, and by daybreak a large body of men had reached the hill-top, and had dragged up a number of cannon with them.

When the French saw this they were frightened. They hurried out of the city, thinking they could drive the English over the precipice before any more of them got up. They were mistaken in this. The English met them boldly, and in the battle that followed they gained the victory and Quebec fell into their hands.

General Wolfe was mortally wounded, but when he was told that the French were in flight, he said: "God be praised! I die happy."

Montcalm, the French general, also fell wounded. When he knew that he must die he said: "So much the better; I shall not live to see the surrender of Quebec."