On the 8th of February, 1756, an English schooner entered the harbor of St. John, under French colors, having on board a party of Rangers disguised as French soldiers. Governor Lawrence writes to Shirley: “I had hopes by such a deceit, not only to discover what was doing there but to bring off some of the St. John’s Indians. The officer found there an English ship, one of our transports that sailed from Annapolis Royal with French Inhabitants aboard bound for the continent (America), but the inhabitants had risen upon the master and crew and carried the ship into that harbor; our people would have brought her off, but by an accident they discovered themselves too soon, upon which the French set fire to the ship.”
We learn from French sources that on this occasion the captain of the English vessel made some French signals and sent his shallop on shore with four French deserters, who announced that they had come from Louisbourg with supplies and that other ships were on their way with the design of re-establishing the fort at the mouth of the river and so frustrating a similar design on the part of the English. The story seemed so plausible that an unlucky Acadian went on board 120 the ship to pilot her to her anchorage, but no sooner was he on board than the captain hoisted his own proper flag and discharged his artillery upon the people collected on shore. Belliveau and the people who had lately escaped transportation to South Carolina were living in huts on shore and perceiving that the English were approaching with the design of carrying off the vessel in which they had escaped, they succeeded in landing some swivel guns and having placed them in a good position made so lively a fire upon the enemy that they soon abandoned the idea of a descent and returned to Annapolis Royal.
The sole result, of this bit of strategy seems to have been the capture of one poor Frenchman from whom the English learned that the Indians had gone, some to Passamaquoddy and others with Boishebert to Cocagne, also that there was “a French officer and about 20 men twenty-three miles up the River at a place called St. Anns.”
The Indians who had gone to Passamaquoddy managed to surprise at night a large schooner lying at anchor in Harbor L’Elang, bound from Boston to Annapolis Royal with provisions for the garrison. The schooner carried six guns and had on board a crew of ten men besides her captain and an artillery officer of the Annapolis garrison. The vessel was carried to St. John and hidden on the lower part of the river. The savages pillaged her so completely that on her arrival there remained only a small quantity of bacon and a little rum. The prisoners were sent by Boishebert to Canada along with others captured on various occasions.
The Acadian refugees continued to come to the River St. John in increasing numbers, and Boishebert and the missionaries soon found themselves reduced to sore straits in their endeavors to supply them with the necessaries of life. The Marquis de Vaudreuil was determined to hold the St. John river country as long as possible. He wrote the French minister, June 1, 1756: “I shall not recall M. de Boishebert nor the missionaries, nor withdraw the Acadians into the heart of the colony until the last extremity, and when it shall be morally impossible to do better.” It was his intention to send provisions and munitions of war to the Acadians and Indians.
Boishebert was endeavoring at this time, with the approval of the Marquis de Vaudreuil, to draw as many of the Acadians as possible to the River St. John and to induce them to oppose any advance on the part of the English. The French commander, however, soon found his position an exceedingly difficult one. After sending many families to Quebec and to the Island of St. John he had still six hundred people, besides the Indians, to provide for during the winter, and many refugees from Port Royal and elsewhere desired to come to the River St. John. The number of Acadians dependent on him received additions from time to time by the arrival of exiles returning from the south. In the month of June five families numbering fifty persons, arrived from Carolina and told Boishebert that eighty others were yet to arrive.
The difficulties surmounted by these poor people in the pathetic endeavor to return to their old firesides seem almost incredible. A small party of Acadians of the district of Beaubassin, at the head of the Bay of Fundy, were transported 121 to South Carolina. They traveled thence on foot to Fort Du Quesne (now Pittsburg) from which place they were transported to Quebec. One might have thought they would have been well satisfied to have remained there, but no, so great was their attachment to their beloved Acadia that they would not rest content until they had arrived at the River St. John.
The idea that dominated the Marquis de Vaudreuil in providing these unfortunates with the necessaries of life seems to have been to utilize their services for the defence of Canada. “It would not be proper,” he says, “that they should be at the charges of the King without giving tangible proof of their zeal for the service of his majesty.” The governor not being able to provide for all the refugees at the River St. John, on account of the difficulty of transporting supplies by way of Temiscouata, gave directions to the Sieur de Boishebert to send to Miramichi the families he could not subsist on the St. John. The number of Acadians at Miramichi soon amounted to 3,500 persons.
The ensuing winter proved most trying to the destitute Acadians. The harvest had been extremely poor. In some cases the old inhabitants had nothing to live upon but the grain needed for seeding in the spring time. The conditions at Miramichi were probably not more wretched than on the River St. John. Of the former the Marquis de Vaudreuil writes in the following plaintive terms:——
“This part of Acadia holds out for the King although reduced to the most wretched state. Although ourselves in want, M. Bigot has sent a vessel with provisions to Miramichi, but she has unfortunately been delayed on the way by head winds. The misery of the Acadians there is so great that Boishebert has been compelled to reduce their allowance to ten pounds of peas and twelve pounds of meat per month, and it would have been further reduced had not forty bullocks been brought from Petitcodiac. This was the allowance for the month of January and, the fishery being exhausted, he could not hope to have the same resource the months following. In a word the Acadian mothers see their babes die at the breast not having wherewith to nourish them. The majority of the people cannot appear abroad for want of clothes to cover their nakedness. Many have died. The number of the sick is considerable, and those convalescent cannot regain their strength on account of the wretched quality of their food, being often under the necessity of eating horse meat extremely lean, sea-cow, and skins of oxen. Such is the state of the Acadians.