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Benjamin Atherton, the first English speaking settler at St. Anns, was born in Lancaster, Massachusetts, December 20, 1746. His acquaintance with Nova Scotia dates back to the time of the Acadian Expulsion, when as a young man of less than twenty years of age he enlisted in Captain Willard's company in Lieut. Colonel Scott's battalion of Massachusetts troops.
Before them spread the boundless meadows of Grand Pré, waving with harvests or alive with grazing cattle; the green slopes behind were dotted with the simple dwellings of the Acadian farmers, and the spire of the village church rose against a background of woody hills. It was a peaceful, rural scene, soon to become one of the most wretched spots on earth.
It is nevertheless certain that the Indians were paid for this or some contemporary murder; for Prévost, writing just four weeks later, says: "Last month the savages took eighteen English scalps, and Monsieur Le Loutre was obliged to pay them eighteen hundred livres, Acadian money, which I have reimbursed him." Prévost was ordonnateur, or intendant, at Louisbourg.
After tarrying at Gloucester two or three days Poutrincourt reached Cape Cod on October 2, and on the 20th he stood off Martha's Vineyard, his farthest point. Champlain's chronicle of this voyage contains more detail regarding the Indians than will be found in any other part of his Acadian narratives. Chief among Poutrincourt's adventures was an encounter with the natives of Cape Cod.
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.
Shirley wrote to Robinson that the expulsion of the French from the forts on the isthmus was a necessary measure of self-defence; that they meant to seize the whole country as far as Mines Basin, and probably as far as Annapolis, to supply their Acadian rebels with land; that of these they had, without reckoning Indians, fourteen hundred fighting men on or near the isthmus, and two hundred and fifty more on the St.
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.
The voices went on Tonie's slow, Acadian drawl, Robert's quick, soft, smooth French. She understood French imperfectly unless directly addressed, and the voices were only part of the other drowsy, muffled sounds lulling her senses. When Edna awoke it was with the conviction that she had slept long and soundly. The voices were hushed under the shed.
Early Nova Scotia was rather a collection of scattered little settlements than a province. To Howe, in great measure, she owed her unity. The first settlements in the Acadian peninsula were made by the French, in the fertile diked lands at the head of the Bay of Fundy.
Samuel Champlain, the most famous man in the history of French Canada, laid the foundation of the present city of Quebec in the month of June, 1608, or three years after the removal of the little Acadian colony from St. Croix Island to the basin of the Annapolis.
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