La Jonquiere, however, would not yet despair. The troops were re-embarked; five hospital ships were devoted to the sick; the "Parfait," a fifty-gun ship no longer serviceable, was burned, as were several smaller vessels, and on the 4th of October what was left of the fleet sailed out of Chibucto Harbor and steered for Annapolis, piloted by Acadians. The flag of truce from Louisbourg was compelled for a time to bear them company, and Joseph Foster of Beverly, an exchanged prisoner on board of her, deposed that as the fleet held its way, he saw "a great number of dead persons" dropped into the sea every day. Ill-luck still pursued the French. A storm off Cape Sable dispersed the ships, two of which some days later made their way to Annapolis Basin in expectation of finding some of their companions there.
They found instead the British fifty-gun ship "Chester" and the Ma.s.sachusetts frigate "Shirley" anch.o.r.ed before the fort, on which the two Frenchmen retired as they had come; and so ended the last aggressive movement on the part of the great armament.
The journalist reports that on the night of the 27th there was a council of officers on board the "Northumberland," at which it was resolved that no choice was left but to return to France with the ships that still kept together. On the 4th of November there was another storm, and when it subsided, the "Prince d"Orange" found herself with but nine companions, all of which were transports. These had on board eleven companies of soldiers, of whom their senior officer reports that only ninety-one were in health.
The pestilence made such ravages among the crews that four or five corpses were thrown into the sea every day, and there was fear that the vessels would be left helpless in mid-ocean for want of sailors to work them.
[Footnote: _Journal historique._] At last, on the 7th of December, after narrowly escaping an English squadron, they reached Port Louis in Brittany, where several ships of the fleet had arrived before them. Among these was the frigate "La Palme." "Yesterday," says the journalist, "I supped with M. Destrahoudal, who commands this frigate; and he told me things which from anybody else would have been incredible. This is his story, exactly as I had it from him." And he goes on to the following effect.
After the storm of the 14th of September, provisions being almost spent, it was thought that there was no hope for "La Palme" and her crew but in giving up the enterprise and making all sail at once for home, since France now had no port of refuge on the western continent nearer than Quebec.
Rations were reduced to three ounces of biscuit and three of salt meat a day; and after a time half of this pittance was cut off. There was diligent hunting for rats in the hold; and when this game failed, the crew, crazed with famine, demanded of their captain that five English prisoners who were on board should be butchered to appease the frenzy of their hunger. The captain consulted his officers, and they were of opinion that if he did not give his consent, the crew would work their will without it. The ship"s butcher was accordingly ordered to bind one of the prisoners, carry him to the bottom of the hold, put him to death, and distribute his flesh to the men in portions of three ounces each. The captain, walking the deck in great agitation all night, found a pretext for deferring the deed till morning, when a watchman sent aloft at daylight cried, "A sail!" The providential stranger was a Portuguese ship; and as Portugal was neutral in the war, she let the frigate approach to within hailing distance. The Portuguese captain soon came alongside in a boat, "accompanied," in the words of the narrator, "by five sheep." These were eagerly welcomed by the starving crew as agreeable subst.i.tutes for the five Englishmen; and being forthwith slaughtered, were parcelled out among the men, who would not wait till the flesh was cooked, but devoured it raw. Provisions enough were obtained from the Portuguese to keep the frigate"s company alive till they reached Port Louis. [Footnote: _Relation du Voyage de Retour de M.
Destrahoudal apres la Tempete du 14 Septembre,_ in _Journal historique._]
There are no sufficient means of judging how far the disasters of D"Anville"s fleet were due to a neglect of sanitary precautions or to deficient seamanship. Certain it is that there were many in self-righteous New England who would have held it impious to doubt that G.o.d had summoned the pestilence and the storm to fight the battles of his modern Israel.
Undaunted by disastrous failure, the French court equipped another fleet, not equal to that of D"Anville, yet still formidable, and placed it under La Jonquiere, for the conquest of Acadia and Louisbourg. La Jonquiere sailed from Roch.e.l.le on the 10th of May, 1747, and on the 14th was met by an English fleet stronger than his own and commanded by Admirals Anson and Warren. A fight ensued, in which, after brave resistance, the French were totally defeated. Six ships-of-war, including the flag-ship, were captured, with a host of prisoners, among whom was La Jonquiere himself. [Footnote: _Relation du Combat rendu le 14 Mai _(new style)_, par l"Escadre du Roy commandee par M. de la Jonquiere, _in_ Le Canada Francais, Supplement de Doc.u.ments inedits, 33. Newcastle to Shirley, 30 May, 1747._]
CHAPTER XXII.
1745-1747.
ACADIAN CONFLICTS.
EFFORTS OF FRANCE.--APATHY OF NEWCASTLE.--DILEMMA OF ACADIANS.--THEIR CHARACTER.--DANGER OF THE PROVINCE.--PLANS OF SHIRLEY.--ACADIAN PRIESTS.--POLITICAL AGITATORS.--n.o.bLE"S EXPEDITION.--RAMESAY AT BEAUBa.s.sIN.--n.o.bLE AT GRAND PRe.--A WINTER MARCH.--DEFEAT AND DEATH OF n.o.bLE.--GRAND PRe RE-OCCUPIED BY THE ENGLISH.--THREATS OF RAMESAY AGAINST THE ACADIANS.--THE BRITISH MINISTRY WILL NOT PROTECT THEM.
Since the capture of Louisbourg, France had held constantly in view, as an object of prime importance, the recovery of her lost colony of Acadia.
This was one of the chief aims of D"Anville"s expedition, and of that of La Jonquiere in the next year. And to make a.s.surance still more sure, a large body of Canadians, under M. de Ramesay, had been sent to Acadia to co-operate with D"Anville"s force; but the greater part of them had been recalled to aid in defending Quebec against the expected attack of the English. They returned when the news came that D"Anville was at Chibucto, and Ramesay, with a part of his command, advanced upon Port Royal, or Annapolis, in order to support the fleet in its promised attack on that place. He encamped at a little distance from the English fort, till he heard of the disasters that had ruined the fleet, [Footnote: _Journal de Beaujeu_, in _Le Canada Franccais, Doc.u.ments_, 53.] and then fell back to Chignecto, on the neck of the Acadian peninsula, where he made his quarters, with a force which, including Micmac, Malecite, and Pen.o.bscot Indians, amounted, at one time, to about sixteen hundred men.
If France was bent on recovering Acadia, Shirley was no less resolved to keep it, if he could. In his belief, it was the key of the British American colonies, and again and again he urged the Duke of Newcastle to protect it. But Newcastle seems scarcely to have known where Acadia was, being ignorant of most things except the art of managing the House of Commons, and careless of all things that could not help his party and himself. Hence Shirley"s hyperboles, though never without a basis of truth, were lost upon him. Once, it is true, he sent three hundred men to Annapolis; but one hundred and eighty of them died on the voyage, or lay helpless in Boston hospitals, and the rest could better have been spared, some being recruits from English jails, and others Irish Catholics, several of whom deserted to the French, with information of the state of the garrison.
The defence of Acadia was left to Shirley and his a.s.sembly, who in time of need sent companies of militia and rangers to Annapolis, and thus on several occasions saved it from returning to France. Shirley was the most watchful and strenuous defender of British interests on the continent; and in the present crisis British and colonial interests were one. He held that if Acadia were lost, the peace and safety of all the other colonies would be in peril; and in spite of the immense efforts made by the French court to recover it, he felt that the chief danger of the province was not from without, but from within. "If a thousand French troops should land in Nova Scotia," he writes to Newcastle, "all the people would rise to join them, besides all the Indians." [Footnote: _Shirley to Newcastle, 29 Oct.
1745._] So, too, thought the French officials in America. The Governor and Intendant of Canada wrote to the colonial minister: "The inhabitants, with few exceptions, wish to return under the French dominion, and will not hesitate to take up arms as soon as they see themselves free to do so; that is, as soon as we become masters of Port Royal, or they have powder and other munitions of war, and are backed by troops for their protection against the resentment of the English." [Footnote: _Beauharnois et Hocquart au Ministre, 12 Sept. 1745._] Up to this time, however, though they had aided Duvivier in his attack on Annapolis so far as was possible without seeming to do so, they had not openly taken arms, and their refusal to fight for the besiegers is one among several causes to which Mascarene ascribes the success of his defence. While the greater part remained attached to France, some leaned to the English, who bought their produce and paid them in ready coin. Money was rare with the Acadians, who loved it, and were so addicted to h.o.a.rding it that the French authorities were led to speculate as to what might be the object of these careful savings.
[Footnote: _Beauharnois et Hocquart au Ministre_, 12 Sept. 1745.]
Though the Acadians loved France, they were not always ready to sacrifice their interests to her. They would not supply Ramesay"s force with provisions in exchange for his promissory notes, but demanded hard cash.
[Footnote: _Ibid_.] This he had not to give, and was near being compelled to abandon his position in consequence. At the same time, in consideration of specie payment, the inhabitants brought in fuel for the English garrison at Louisbourg, and worked at repairing the rotten _chevaux de frise_ of Annapolis. [Footnote: _Admiral Knowles a ---- 1746._ Mascarene in _Le Canada Francais, Doc.u.ments_, 82]
Mascarene, commandant at that place, being of French descent, was disposed at first to sympathize with the Acadians and treat them with a lenity that to the members of his council seemed neither fitting nor prudent. He wrote to Shirley: "The French inhabitants are certainly in a very perilous situation, those who pretend to be their friends and old masters having let loose a parcel of banditti to plunder them; whilst, on the other hand, they see themselves threatened with ruin if they fail in their allegiance to the British Government." [Footnote: Mascarene, in _Le Canada Francais, Doc.u.ments_, 81.]
This unhappy people were in fact between two fires. France claimed them on one side, and England on the other, and each demanded their adhesion, without regard to their feelings or their wrelfare. The banditti of whom Mascarene speaks were the Micmac Indians, who were completely under the control of their missionary, Le Loutre, and were used by him to terrify the inhabitants into renouncing their English allegiance and actively supporting the French cause. By the Treaty of Utrecht France had transferred Acadia to Great Britain, and the inhabitants had afterwards taken an oath of fidelity to King George. Thus they were British subjects; but as their oath had been accompanied by a promise, or at least a clear understanding, that they should not be required to take arms against Frenchmen or Indians, they had become known as the "Neutral French." This name tended to perplex them, and in their ignorance and simplicity they hardly knew to which side they owed allegiance. Their illiteracy was extreme. Few of them could sign their names, and a contemporary well acquainted with them declares that he knew but a single Acadian who could read and write. [Footnote: Mose des Derniers, in _Le Canada Francais_, I. 118.] This was probably the notary, Le Blanc, whose compositions are crude and illiterate. Ignorant of books and isolated in a wild and remote corner of the world, the Acadians knew nothing of affairs, and were totally incompetent to meet the crisis that was soon to come upon them. In activity and enterprise they were far behind the Canadians, who looked on them as inferiors. Their pleasures were those of the humblest and simplest peasants; they were contented with their lot, and asked only to be let alone. Their intercourse was unceremonious to such a point that they never addressed each other, or, it is said, even strangers, as _monsieur_. They had the social equality which can exist only in the humblest conditions of society, and presented the phenomenon of a primitive little democracy, hatched under the wing of an absolute monarchy. Each was as good as his neighbor; they had no natural leaders, nor any to advise or guide them, except the missionary priest, who in every case was expected by his superiors to influence them in the interest of France, and who, in fact, constantly did so. While one observer represents them as living in a state of primeval innocence, another describes both men and women as extremely foul of speech; from which he draws inferences unfavorable to their domestic morals, [Footnote: _Journal de Franquet_, Part II.]
which, nevertheless, were commendable. As is usual with a well-fed and unambitious peasantry, they were very prolific, and are said to have doubled their number every sixteen years. In 1748 they counted in the peninsula of Nova Scotia between twelve and thirteen thousand souls.
[Footnote: _Description de l"Acadie, avec le Nom des Paroisses et le Nombre des Habitants_, 1748.] The English rule had been of the lightest,--so light that it could scarcely be felt; and this was not surprising, since the only instruments for enforcing it over a population wholly French were some two hundred disorderly soldiers in the crumbling little fort of Annapolis; and the province was left, perforce, to take care of itself.
The appearance of D"Anville"s fleet caused great excitement among the Acadians, who thought that they were about to pa.s.s again under the Crown of France. Fifty of them went on board the French ships at Chibucto to pilot them to the attack of Annapolis, and to their dismay found that no attack was to be made. When Ramesay, with his Canadians and Indians, took post at Chignecto and built a fort at Baye Verte, on the neck of the peninsula of Nova Scotia, the English power in that part of the colony seemed at an end.
The inhabitants cut off all communication with Annapolis, and detained the officers whom Mascarene sent for intelligence.
From the first outbreak of the war it was evident that the French built their hopes of recovering Acadia largely on a rising of the Acadians against the English rule, and that they spared no efforts to excite such a rising. Early in 1745 a violent and cruel precaution against this danger was suggested. William Shirreff, provincial secretary, gave it as his opinion that the Acadians ought to be removed, being a standing menace to the colony. [Footnote: _Shirreff to K. Gould, agent of Phillips"s Regiment, March, 1745._] This is the first proposal of such a nature that I find. Some months later, Shirley writes that, on a false report of the capture of Annapolis by the French, the Acadians sang _Te Deum,_ and that every sign indicates that there will be an attempt in the spring to capture Annapolis, with their help. [Footnote: _Shirley to Newcastle, 14 Dec. 1745._] Again, Shirley informs Newcastle that the French will get possession of Acadia unless the most dangerous of the inhabitants are removed, and English settlers put in their place. [Footnote: _Ibid., 10 May, 1746._] He adds that there are not two hundred and twenty soldiers at Annapolis to defend the province against the whole body of Acadians and Indians, and he tells the minister that unless the expedition against Canada should end in the conquest of that country, the removal of some of the Acadians will be a necessity. He means those of Chignecto, who were kept in a threatening att.i.tude by the presence of Ramesay and his Canadians, and who, as he thinks, had forfeited their lands by treasonable conduct. Shirley believes that families from New England might be induced to take their place, and that these, if settled under suitable regulations, would form a military frontier to the province of Nova Scotia "strong enough to keep the Canadians out," and hold the Acadians to their allegiance. [Footnote: _Ibid., 8 July, 1747._] The Duke of Bedford thinks the plan a good one, but objects to the expense. [Footnote: _Bedford to Newcastle, 11 Sept. 1747._] Commodore Knowles, then governor of Louisbourg, who, being threatened with consumption and convinced that the climate was killing him, vented his feelings in strictures against everything and everybody, was of opinion that the Acadians, having broken their neutrality, ought to be expelled at once, and expresses the amiable hope that should his Majesty adopt this plan, he will charge him with executing it. [Footnote: _Knowles to Newcastle, 8 Nov.
1746._]
Shirley"s energetic nature inclined him to trenchant measures, and he had nothing of modern humanitarianism; but he was not inhuman, and he shrank from the cruelty of forcing whole communities into exile. While Knowles and others called for wholesale expatriation, he still held that it was possible to turn the greater part of the Acadians into safe subjects of the British Crown; [Footnote: Shirley says that the indiscriminate removal of the Acadians would be "unjust" and "too rigorous". Knowles had proposed to put Catholic Jacobites from the Scotch Highlands into their place. Shirley thinks this inexpedient, but believes that Protestants from Germany and Ulster might safely be trusted. The best plan of all, in his opinion, is that of "treating the Acadians as subjects, confining their punishment to the most guilty and dangerous among "em, and keeping the rest in the country and endeavoring to make them useful members of society under his Majesty"s Government." _Shirley to Newcastle, 21 Nov. 1746._ If the Newcastle Government had vigorously carried his recommendations into effect, the removal of the Acadians in 1755 would not have taken place.]
and to this end he advised the planting of a fortified town where Halifax now stands, and securing by forts and garrisons the neck of the Acadian peninsula, where the population was most numerous and most disaffected. The garrisons, he thought, would not only impose respect, but would furnish the Acadians with what they wanted most,--ready markets for their produce,--and thus bind them to the British by strong ties of interest. Newcastle thought the plan good, but wrote that its execution must be deferred to a future day. Three years later it was partly carried into effect by the foundation of Halifax; but at that time the disaffection of the Acadians had so increased, and the hope of regaining the province for France had risen so high, that this partial and tardy a.s.sertion of British authority only spurred the French agents to redoubled efforts to draw the inhabitants from the allegiance they had sworn to the Crown of England.
Shirley had also other plans in view for turning the Acadians into good British subjects. He proposed, as a measure of prime necessity, to exclude French priests from the province. The free exercise of their religion had been insured to the inhabitants by the Treaty of Utrecht, and on this point the English authorities had given no just cause of complaint. A priest had occasionally been warned, suspended, or removed; but without a single exception, so far as appears, this was in consequence of conduct which tended to excite disaffection, and which would have incurred equal or greater penalties in the case of a layman. [Footnote: There was afterwards sharp correspondence between Shirley and the Governor of Canada touching the Acadian priests. Thus, Shirley writes: "I can"t avoid now, Sir, expressing great surprise at the other parts of your letter, whereby you take upon you to call Mr. Mascarene to account for expelling the missionary from Minas for being guilty of such treasonable practices within His Majesty"s government as merited a much severer Punishment." _Shirley a Galissoniere, 9 Mai 1749._ Shirley writes to Newcastle that the Acadians "are greatly under the influence of their priests, who continually receive their directions from the Bishop of Qeubec, and are the instruments by which the Governor of Canada makes all his attempts for the reduction of the province to the French Crown." _Shirley to Newcastle, 20 Oct.
1747._ He proceeds to give facts in proof of his a.s.sertion. Compare _Moncalm and Wolfe_, I. 106, 107, 266, _note_.] The sentence was directed, not against the priest, but against the political agitator.
Shirley"s plan of excluding French priests from the province would not have violated the provisions of the treaty, provided that the inhabitants were supplied with other priests, not French subjects, and therefore not politically dangerous; but though such a measure was several times proposed by the provincial authorities, the exasperating apathy of the Newcastle Government gave no hope that it could be accomplished.
The influences most dangerous to British rule did not proceed from love of France or sympathy of race, but from the power of religion over a simple and ignorant people, trained in profound love and awe of their Church and its ministers, who were used by the representatives of Louis XV. as agents to alienate the Acadians from England.
The most strenuous of these clerical agitators was Abbe Le Loutre, missionary to the Micmacs, and after 1753 vicar-general of Acadia. He was a fiery and enterprising zealot, inclined by temperament to methods of violence, detesting the English, and restrained neither by pity nor scruple from using threats of d.a.m.nation and the Micmac tomahawk to frighten the Acadians into doing his bidding. The worst charge against him, that of exciting the Indians of his mission to murder Captain Howe, an English officer, has not been proved; but it would not have been brought against him by his own countrymen if his character and past conduct had gained him their esteem.
The other Acadian priests were far from sharing Le Loutre"s violence; but their influence was always directed to alienating the inhabitants from their allegiance to King George. Hence Shirley regarded the conversion of the Acadians to Protestantism as a political measure of the first importance, and proposed the establishment of schools in the province to that end. Thus far his recommendations are perfectly legitimate; but when he adds that rewards ought to be given to Acadians who renounce their faith, few will venture to defend him.
Newcastle would trouble himself with none of his schemes, and Acadia was left to drift with the tide, as before. "I shall finish my troubleing your Grace upon the affairs of Nova Scotia with this letter," writes the persevering Shirley. And he proceeds to ask, "as a proper Scheme for better securing the Subjection of the French inhabitants and Indians there," that the Governor and Council at Annapolis have special authority and direction from the King to arrest and examine such Acadians as shall be "most obnoxious and dangerous to his Majesty"s Government;" and if found guilty of treasonable correspondence with the enemy, to dispose of them and their estates in such manner as his Majesty shall order, at the same time promising indemnity to the rest for past offences, upon their taking or renewing the oath of allegiance. [Footnote: _Shirley to Newcastle, 15 Aug. 1746._]
To this it does not appear that Newcastle made any answer except to direct Shirley, eight or nine months later, to tell the Acadians that so long as they were peaceable subjects, they should be protected in property and religion. [Footnote: _Newcastle to Shirley, 30 May, 1747._ Shirley had some time before directed Mascarene to tell the Acadians that while they behave peaceably and do not correspond with the enemy, their property will be safe, but that such as turn traitors will be treated accordingly.
_Shirley to Mascarene, 16 Sept. 1746._] Thus left to struggle unaided with a most difficult problem, entirely outside of his functions as governor of Ma.s.sachusetts, Shirley did what he could. The most pressing danger, as he thought, rose from the presence of Ramesay and and his Canadians at Chignecto; for that officer spared no pains to induce the Acadians to join him in another attempt against Annapolis, telling them that if they did not drive out the English, the English would drive them out. He was now at Mines, trying to raise the inhabitants in arms for France. Shirley thought it necessary to counteract him, and force him and his Canadians back to the isthmus whence they had come; but as the ministry would give no soldiers, he was compelled to draw them from New England. The defence of Acadia was the business of the Home Government, and not of the colonies; but as they were deeply interested in the preservation of the endangered province, Ma.s.sachusetts gave five hundred men in response to Shirley"s call, and Rhode Island and New Hampshire added, between them, as many more. Less than half of these levies reached Acadia. It was the stormy season. The Rhode Island vessels were wrecked near Martha"s Vineyard. A New Hampshire transport sloop was intercepted by a French armed vessel, and ran back to Portsmouth. Four hundred and seventy men from Ma.s.sachusetts, under Colonel Arthur n.o.ble, were all who reached Annapolis, whence they sailed for Mines, accompanied by a few soldiers of the garrison. Storms, drifting ice, and the furious tides of the Bay of Fundy made their progress so difficult and uncertain that n.o.ble resolved to finish the journey by land; and on the 4th of December he disembarked near the place now called French Cross, at the foot of the North Mountain,--a lofty barrier of rock and forest extending along the southern sh.o.r.e of the Bay of Fundy. Without a path and without guides, the party climbed the snow-enc.u.mbered heights and toiled towards their destination, each man carrying provisions for fourteen days in his haversack. After sleeping eight nights without shelter among the snowdrifts, they reached the Acadian village of Grand Pre, the chief settlement of the district of Mines.
Ramesay and his Canadians were gone. On learning the approach of an English force, he had tried to persuade the Acadians that they were to be driven from their homes, and that their only hope was in joining with him to meet force by force; but they trusted Shirley"s recent a.s.surance of protection, and replied that they would not break their oath of fidelity to King George. On this, Ramesay retreated to his old station at Chignecto, and n.o.ble and his men occupied Grand Pre without opposition.
The village consisted of small, low wooden houses, scattered at intervals for the distance of a mile and a half, and therefore ill fitted for defence. The English had the frame of a blockhouse, or, as some say, of two blockhouses, ready to be set up on their arrival; but as the ground was hard frozen it was difficult to make a foundation, and the frames were therefore stored in outbuildings of the village, with the intention of raising them in the spring. The vessels which had brought them, together with stores, ammunition, five small cannon, and a good supply of snow-shoes, had just arrived at the landing-place,--and here, with incredible fatuity, were allowed to remain, with most of their indispensable contents still on board. The men, meanwhile, were quartered in the Acadian houses.
n.o.ble"s position was critical, but he was a.s.sured that he could not be reached from Chignecto in such a bitter season; and this he was too ready to believe, though he himself had just made a march, which, if not so long, was quite as arduous. Yet he did not neglect every precaution, but kept out scouting-parties to range the surrounding country, while the rest of his men took their ease in the Acadian houses, living on the provisions of the villagers, for which payment was afterwards made. Some of the inhabitants, who had openly favored Ramesay and his followers, fled to the woods, in fear of the consequences; but the greater part remained quietly in the village.
At the head of the Bay of Fundy its waters form a fork, consisting of Chignecto Bay on the one hand, and Mines Basin on the other. At the head of Chignecto Bay was the Acadian settlement of Chignecto, or Beauba.s.sin, in the houses of which Ramesay had quartered his Canadians. Here the neck of the Acadian peninsula is at its narrowest, the distance across to Baye Verte, where Ramesay had built a fort, being little more than twelve miles.
Thus he controlled the isthmus,--from which, however, n.o.ble hoped to dislodge him in the spring.
In the afternoon of the 8th of January an Acadian who had been sent to Mines by the missionary Germain, came to Beauba.s.sin with the news that two hundred and twenty English were at Grand Pre, and that more were expected.
[Footnote: Beaujeu, _Journal de la Campagne du Detachement de Canada a l"Acadie_, in _Le Canada Francais_, II. _Doc.u.ments_, 16.] Ramesay instantly formed a plan of extraordinary hardihood, and resolved, by a rapid march and a night attack, to surprise the new-comers. His party was greatly reduced by disease, and to recruit it he wrote to La Corne, Recollet missionary at Miramichi, to join him with his Indians; writing at the same time to Maillard, former colleague of Le Loutre at the mission of Shubenacadie, and to Girard, priest of Cobequid, to muster Indians, collect provisions, and gather information concerning the English. Meanwhile his Canadians busied themselves with making snow-shoes and dog-sledges for the march.
Ramesay could not command the expedition in person, as an accident to one of his knees had disabled him from marching. This was less to be regretted, in view of the quality of his officers, for he had with him the flower of the warlike Canadian _n.o.blesse_,--Coulon de Villiers, who, seven years later, defeated Washington at Fort Necessity; Beaujeu, the future hero of the Monongahela, in appearance a carpet knight, in reality a bold and determined warrior; the Chevalier de la Corne, a model of bodily and mental hardihood; Saint-Pierre, Lanaudiere, Saint-Ours, Desligneris, Courtemanche, Repentigny, Boishebert, Gaspe, Colombiere, Marin, Lusignan,--all adepts in the warfare of surprise and sudden onslaught in which the Canadians excelled.
Coulon de Villiers commanded in Ramesay"s place; and on the 21st of January he and the other officers led their men across the isthmus from Beauba.s.sin to Baye Verte, where they all encamped in the woods, and where they were joined by a party of Indians and some Acadians from Beauba.s.sin and Isle St.
Jean. [Footnote: _Mascarene to Shirley, 8 Feb. 1746_ (1747, new style).] Provisions, ammunition, and other requisites were distributed, and at noon of the 23d they broke up their camp, marched three leagues, and bivouacked towards evening. On the next morning they marched again at daybreak. There was sharp cold, with a storm of snow,--not the large, moist, lazy flakes that fall peacefully and harmlessly, but those small crystalline particles that drive spitefully before the wind, and p.r.i.c.k the cheek like needles. It was the kind of snowstorm called in Canada _la poudrerie_. They had hoped to make a long day"s march; but feet and faces were freezing, and they were forced to stop, at noon, under such shelter as the thick woods of pine, spruce, and fir could supply. In the morning they marched again, following the border of the sea, their dog-teams dragging provisions and baggage over the broken ice of creeks and inlets, which they sometimes avoided by hewing paths through the forest.
After a day of extreme fatigue they stopped at the small bay where the town of Wallace now stands. Beaujeu says: "While we were digging out the snow to make our huts, there came two Acadians with letters from MM. Maillard and Girard." The two priests sent a mixture of good and evil news. On one hand the English were more numerous than had been reported; on the other, they had not set up the blockhouses they had brought with them. Some Acadians of the neighboring settlement joined the party at this camp, as also did a few Indians.
On the next morning, January 27th, the adventurers stopped at the village of Tatmagouche, where they were again joined by a number of Acadians. After mending their broken sledges they resumed their march, and at five in the afternoon reached a place called Bacouel, at the beginning of the portage that led some twenty-five miles across the country to Cobequid, now Truro, at the head of Mines Basin. Here they were met by Girard, priest of Cobequid, from whom Coulon exacted a promise to meet him again at that village in two days. Girard gave the promise unwillingly, fearing, says Beaujeu, to embroil himself with the English authorities. He reported that the force at Grand Pre counted at least four hundred and fifty, or, as some said, more than five hundred. This startling news ran through the camp; but the men were not daunted. "The more there are," they said, "the more we shall kill."
The party spent the 28th in mending their damaged sledges, and in the afternoon they were joined by more Acadians and Indians. Thus reinforced, they marched again, and towards evening reached a village on the outskirts of Cobequid. Here the missionary Maillard joined them,--to the great satisfaction of Coulon, who relied on him and his brother priest Girard to procure supplies of provisions. Maillard promised to go himself to Grand Pre with the Indians of his mission.
The party rested for a day, and set out again on the 1st of February, stopped at Maillard"s house in Cobequid for the provisions he had collected for them, and then pushed on towards the river Shubenacadie, which runs from the south into Cobequid Bay, the head of Mines Basin. When they reached the river they found it impa.s.sable from floating ice, which forced them to seek a pa.s.sage at some distance above. Coulon was resolved, however, that at any risk a detachment should cross at once, to stop the roads to Grand Pre, and prevent the English from being warned of his approach; for though the Acadians inclined to the French, and were eager to serve them when the risk was not too great, there were some of them who, from interest or fear, were ready to make favor with the English by carrying them intelligence. Boishebert, with ten Canadians, put out from sh.o.r.e in a canoe, and were near perishing among the drifting ice; but they gained the farther sh.o.r.e at last, and guarded every path to Grand Pre. The main body filed on snowshoes up the east bank of the Shubenacadie, where the forests were choked with snow and enc.u.mbered with fallen trees, over which the sledges were to be dragged, to their great detriment. On this day, the 3d, they made five leagues; on the next only two, which brought them within half a league of Le Loutre"s Micmac mission. Not far from this place the river was easily pa.s.sable on the ice, and they continued their march westward across the country to the river Kennetcook by ways so difficult that their Indian guide lost the path, and for a time led them astray. On the 7th, Boishebert and his party rejoined them, and brought a reinforcement of sixteen Indians, whom the Acadians had furnished with arms. Provisions were failing, till on the 8th, as they approached the village of Pisiquid, now Windsor, the Acadians, with great zeal, brought them a supply. They told them, too, that the English at Grand Pre were perfectly secure, suspecting no danger.
On the 9th, in spite of a cold, dry storm of snow, they reached the west branch of the river Avon. It was but seven French leagues to Grand Pre, which they hoped to reach before night; but fatigue compelled them to rest till the 10th. At noon of that day, the storm still continuing, they marched again, though they could hardly see their way for the driving snow.
They soon came to a small stream, along the frozen surface of which they drew up in order, and, by command of Coulon, Beaujen divided them all into ten parties, for simultaneous attacks on as many houses occupied by the English. Then, marching slowly, lest they should arrive too soon, they reached the river Gaspereau, which enters Mines Basin at Grand Pre. They were now but half a league from their destination. Here they stopped an hour in the storm, shivering and half frozen, waiting for nightfall. When it grew dark they moved again, and soon came to a number of houses on the river-bank. Each of the ten parties took possession of one of these, making great fires to warm themselves and dry their guns.
It chanced that in the house where Coulon and his band sought shelter, a wedding-feast was going on. The guests were much startled at this sudden irruption of armed men; but to the Canadians and their chief the festival was a stroke of amazing good luck, for most of the guests were inhabitants of Grand Pre, who knew perfectly the houses occupied by the English, and could tell with precision where the officers were quartered. This was a point of extreme importance. The English were distributed among twenty-four houses, scattered, as before mentioned, for the distance of a mile and a half. [Footnote: _Goldthwait to Shirley, 2 March, 1746 (1747)_.
Captain Benjamin Goldthwait was second in command of the English detachment.] The a.s.sailants were too few to attack all these houses at once; but if those where the chief officers lodged could be surprised and captured with their inmates, the rest could make little resistance. Hence it was that Coulon had divided his followers into ten parties, each with one or more chosen officers; these officers were now called together at the house of the interrupted festivity, and the late guests having given full information as to the position of the English quarters and the military quality of their inmates, a special object of attack was a.s.signed to the officer of each party, with Acadian guides to conduct him to it. The princ.i.p.al party, consisting of fifty, or, as another account says, of seventy-five men, was led by Coulon himself, with Beaujeu, Desligneris, Mercier, Lery, and Lusignan as his officers. This party was to attack a stone house near the middle of the village, where the main guard was stationed,--a building somewhat larger than the rest, and the only one at all suited for defence. The second party, of forty men, commanded by La Corne, with Riganville, Lagny, and Villemont, was to attack a neighboring house, the quarters of Colonel n.o.ble, his brother, Ensign n.o.ble, and several other officers. The remaining parties, of twenty-five men each according to Beaujeu, or twenty-eight according to La Corne, were to make a dash, as nearly as possible at the same time, at other houses which it was thought most important to secure. All had Acadian guides, whose services in that capacity were invaluable; though Beaujeu complains that they were of no use in the attack. He says that the united force was about three hundred men, while the English Captain Goldthwait puts it, including Acadians and Indians, at from five to six hundred. That of the English was a little above five hundred in all. Every arrangement being made, and his part a.s.signed to each officer, the whole body was drawn up in the storm, and the chaplain p.r.o.nounced a general absolution. Then each of the ten parties, guided by one or more Acadians, took the path for its destination, every man on snow-shoes, with the lock of his gun well sheltered under his capote.
The largest party, under Coulon, was, as we have seen, to attack the stone house in the middle of the village; but their guide went astray, and about three in the morning they approached a small wooden house not far from their true object. A guard was posted here, as at all the English quarters. The night was dark and the snow was still falling, as it had done without ceasing for the past thirty hours. The English sentinel descried through the darkness and the storm what seemed the shadows of an advancing crowd of men. He cried, "Who goes there?" and then shouted, "To arms!" A door was flung open, and the guard appeared in the entrance. But at that moment the moving shadows vanished from before the eyes of the sentinel.