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1755 Frontenac, were Frenchmen who knew all the English plans. If Shirley should advance from Oswego toward Niagara, the enemy would advance from Fort Frontenac to Oswego. On the twenty-seventh, at another council, it was decided that it would be unwise to trust the river boats upon the lake in the stormy season then at hand, and the campaign was abandoned for that year. Toward the end of October, Shirley left Lieutenant-colonel

Gour much oblig
& most obdt Helle Sevi
James

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Mercer

Autograph of James F. Mercer

James F. Mercer, of Pepperrell's regiment, with seven hundred men at Oswego and returned with the rest of his army to Albany, where he received his new commission. In a few weeks, Mercer's garrison numbered only three hundred and thirty men and, before spring, only one hundred and forty were fit for duty.

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I

N 1745, Louisburg had been taken by English coloni- Colonizing als under Pepperrell as related in the third volume Nova Scotia of this work. In 1748, the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle restored the town and island to France. As provided by the twelfth article of the treaty of Utrecht, Great March 31= Britain still held Nova Scotia with its ill-defined bound- April 11, aries and a people that by race and religion were bound to New France rather than to New England. Realizing the menace of French power at Louisburg and with

1713

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a view to strengthening its hold on Nova Scotia, the English government advertised in the London Gazette March, 1749

I 7 4 9 "that proper encouragement will be given to such of the officers and private men, lately dismissed his Majesty's land and sea service, as are willing to accept of grants of land, and to settle with or without families in Nova Scotia." Similar inducements were offered to "carpenters, shipwrights, smiths, masons, joiners, brickmakers, bricklayers, and all other artificers necessary in building or husbandry, not being private soldiers or seamen.' Larger grants were offered to military and naval officers. Many persons promptly accepted these offers. The advent of peace had thrown men out of employment, and offers of homes and lands in the New World were

Halifax
Begun

Ed: Cornwallis

Autograph of Edward Cornwallis

attractive. In the following May, Edward Cornwallis, uncle of the Yorktown Cornwallis and then a member of

parliament, was appointed governor and captain-general. He at once set out for Nova Scotia with some of the new settlers. By the twenty-first of June, they were in

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FORT HALIFAX

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Plan of Fort Halifax

Plan of the Town of Halifax

the magnificent harbor
of Chebucto, the
shores of which were
wooded to the water's
edge. Early in July, other immigrants arrived, soldiers
and sailors, mechanics, tradesmen, farmers and laborers,
women and children, about twenty-five hundred in all.
The town of Halifax was quickly laid out and, by the

end of October, three hundred houses had been finished. 1 7 1 0 In 1752, Halifax had a population of more than four 1 7 5 5 thousand. The governor and council assumed legislative authority; a provincial assembly was not held until October, 1758. "Alone of all the British colonies on the continent, this new settlement was the offspring, not of private enterprise, but of royal authority.”

In

The province continued, however, a source of danger Truth versus to the other English colonies. The causes of this lay Poetry chiefly in the character of the population and in the influences that were brought to bear upon them. spite of the immigration just described, the mass of the people were of French blood and still spoke the French. language. To them, Nova Scotia was still Acadie. But Acadia was not Arcadia and its French peasants were not the ideal creations of pastoral poets. There were doubtless many worthy maids and matrons but we have no proof that there were many "Evangelines."

Freedom of religion had been guaranteed by the Priest and treaty of Utrecht; almost without exception the Acadians Peasant remained adherents of the church of Rome. France was Catholic; England was Protestant. France had never been reconciled to the loss of the peninsula and was resolved to win it back by force or by diplomacy. The Acadian priests were subordinate to the bishop of Quebec, a French ecclesiastic. Many of them became the active agents of France in keeping the peasants from taking the oath of allegiance to King George, in encouraging them to seek new homes on French soil, in teaching them that they were still French subjects, and in stirring them up to revolt against English authority.

The five articles of the capitulation of Port Royal to Acadian General Nicholson in 1710 declared that "the inhabitants Allegiance within a cannon-shot of Port Royal should remain upon their estates, with their corn, cattle, and furniture, during two years, in case they should not be desirous to go before they taking the oaths of allegiance and fidelity to her sacred Majesty of Great Britain." Nicholson fixed the range of the cannon-shot at a line three English

June 23, 1713

17 13 miles around the fort. A few days after the signing of 1 7 5 5 the treaty of Utrecht, Queen Anne extended the right to all the inhabitants of Acadia and removed the two years' limitation. This she did in token of her appreciation of the compliance of "our good brother, the most christian King" of France, in releasing "from imprisonment on board his galleys such of his subjects as were detained there on account of their professing the Protestant religion." But the Acadians were not willing to take an unreserved oath of allegiance to the British crown. The Nova Scotia archives show that for the next twoscore years, the refusal of the people was persistent and their threats to migrate from the province were oft-repeated.

The Needle
Under the
Glove

The Hand

In June, 1727, Lieutenant-governor Armstrong wrote to the deputies from Minas, "up the Bay to be published to ye other Inhabitants," "to shew you that it is not only Your Duty and Interest to pay that due Obedience to His Majesty, who for so many Years hath been so Graciously Pleas'd to grant you the Enjoyment not Only of your Éstates but Religion, and even upon so Easy Termes, after so long a Disobedience, to Pardon all, and Confirme the same unto you: But also to Signify to you All, that I am so farr from doing You any Prejudice, that I hereby in His Majesty's Name, Invite you Seriously to Consider not only your present but future Happiness; and Desire that you the Deputees of the people and others the Principal Masters of Familys Amongst You, with Monsr. Gaulin Your Missionary Priest, may come here as Soon as possible, with full Power from the Other Inhabitants, that I may fully Discourse & Reason with You on this Subject before the Council, Before I Represent any part of your Behaviour to His Majesty. This I friendly Advise You to, That in Case You do not Comply, You may have none to Blame but yourselves for what may be the Consequence of so much Disrespect and Disobedience to so Great & Gracious a Sovereign."

At a meeting held a few weeks later, having "taken Grows Heavy into consideration the insolent behaviour of the inhabit

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